Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 1/4/2017
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House GOP Sets Stage For Transferring Tracts To States
Jan 3, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Emily Yehle
House Republicans plan to consider federal land transfers cost-free, laying the groundwork for efforts to convey tracts to states. -
Pruitt Shows No Interest in Courting Bipartisan Support: Democrats
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
The likely nominee for Environmental Protection Agency chief, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, isn't showing signs he intends to sell his policy record to Senate Democrats, those lawmakers told Bloomberg BNA as the 115th Congress launched Jan. 3. -
Key Nominees May Not Be Confirmed By Inauguration
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
With just over two weeks until President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office, committees have yet to set hearings for his nominees to lead key federal energy and environmental agencies, suggesting they may fail to win confirmation by Inauguration Day as President Obama's picks did eight years ago. -
Bisphenol-A Linked to Endocrine Disorders in Pets, Humans
Jan 3, 2017 | CBS St. Louis
A widely used industrial chemical found in many household items, including canned foods, reveal potential negative health consequences for humans and pets. -
Robust Energy Economy Yields Windfall For Dozens Of Freshmen
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
As he prepares to take over the White House later this month, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to create "vast new wealth" in the nation via his plans to boost domestic fossil fuel production — and financial records show some of that predicted windfall could line the pockets of many of the newest members of Congress. -
Outlook 2017: Trump Administration Expected to Curtail Energy Regulations
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski, Rebecca Kern and Stephen Lee
The Trump administration will not have an entirely free hand to increase fossil fuel development, but it will have a wealth of options—so many that a first task may be simply to prioritize the preferred ones. -
House GOP Renews Push For EPA 'Secret Science,' SAB Reform Bills
Jan 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the science committee, is pledging to advance controversial legislative provisions to reform EPA's scientific activities following the agency's release of a long-awaited hydraulic fracturing report, with sources saying the effort could gain traction with the incoming Trump administration. -
States Brawl Over EPA Rule's Future
Jan 3, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Emily Holden
States divided over U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan are sparring about how easy it will be for President-elect Donald Trump to rescind the power-sector climate regulation. -
No Surprises Among Senate Environment, Energy Chairmanships
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Senate Republicans offered no surprises in announcing leadership of two key energy and environment panels for the 115th Congress—the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources panel. -
EPA Floats Stricter Haze Plan For Texas Despite Possible Lawsuit Defeat
Jan 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is proposing stricter regional haze emissions control requirements for Texas that would impose tighter sulfur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matter (PM) limits on power plants in the state, even as the agency appears headed for a possible defeat in a pending lawsuit over an earlier haze plan it imposed on Texas for the same facilities. -
Outlook 2017: Advocates Sue to Preserve Climate Gains
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Rachel Leven
Environmental advocates will wage rearguard actions through the courts and regulatory process in the coming year to preserve the greenhouse gas regulations established by the Obama administration from President-elect Donald Trump, who once called climate change a Chinese hoax. -
The Great Garbage Fire Debate: Should We Be Burning Our Trash Into Energy?
Jan 2, 2017 | Salon
By Diane Stopyra
Earlier this year, a video explaining Sweden’s efficient trash burning system made the Facebook rounds, touting a shocking statistic: less than one percent of this country’s household waste ends up in a landfill -
Dzombak: Civil Discourse Is Possible, Even About Fracking
Jan 3, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By David A. Dzombak
With the high level of partisanship in national politics and subsequent lowering of civil dialogue in the recent presidential campaign and the media, it's easy for anyone to become cynical about the state of discourse in America on topics of public interest. -
Md. Legislative Panel Places Temporary Hold On Proposed Fracking Regulations
Jan 3, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks
A Maryland legislative panel has placed a temporary hold on the state’s proposed fracking regulations amid sharp disagreements over whether the controversial gas-extraction method should be allowed at all. -
If Pipeline Is Built, Some Members Could Profit
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
When President-elect Donald Trump takes over the White House later this month, he could give the Dakota Access pipeline a second look following the Obama administration's rejection of the project last month -
Children Aged 7 To 17 Killed In Texas Home By Toxic Chemical Gas
Jan 3, 2017 | Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz
Four children aged 7 to 17 died after a toxic gas leak from a pest control product at their home in Amarillo, Texas, fire officials said on Tuesday. -
Pending Railroad Industry Concerns for 2017
Jan 3, 2017 | Zacks
Class 1 Railroads have been facing several challenges, such as declining oil prices and consumption, slow economic growth, low freight volumes and unfavorable weather conditions. Apart from the macroeconomic concerns, the industry is threatened by proposed regulations. -
Companies Should Report Possible Climate Costs, Say Global Executives
Jan 3, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Jason Douglas
Companies should publish an assessment of the losses they could suffer through climate change as part of their routine financial statements, according to a panel of financial and business executives chaired by Michael Bloomberg. -
Committees May Target Environment Under Floor Package
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott and Rachel Leven
House Republicans prevailed Jan. 3 on a rules package that directs committees to highlight specific environmental and other federal regulations—and in some cases, entire agencies—that they think should be scrapped. -
Outlook 2017: Trump Readies U.S. Climate Retreat, Despite Conflicting Signals
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Aside from occasional flickers of hope that his mind isn't made up, President-elect Donald Trump is readying a 2017 rollback of his Democratic predecessor's climate change agenda—up to and including withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate pact. -
Air Pollution Outlook 2017: Air Rules May Get Caught Up in Trump's Rollback Plans
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Obama-era regulations on ground-level ozone and utility sector emissions are potential targets for a rollback under President-elect Donald Trump, but environmental advocacy organizations are planning a vigorous defense of those regulations in the courts and in the U.S. Senate.
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
Environment News
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House GOP Sets Stage For Transferring Tracts To States
Jan 3, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Emily Yehle
House Republicans plan to consider federal land transfers cost-free, laying the groundwork for efforts to convey tracts to states.
The change is part of the House rules package expected to pass the chamber today. It would mean that lawmakers would no longer have to find spending offsets for bills that transfer federal land to state or tribal entities.
The new rule dictates that any bill provision, amendment or conference report that conveys federal land "shall not be considered as providing new budget authority, decreasing revenues, increasing mandatory spending, or increasing outlays." The Congressional Budget Office currently estimates the cost of federal land conveyances by calculating the loss of revenue from activities like drilling, logging and grazing.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the change "fiscally irresponsible." CBO's cost estimates, he said, are already too low; in the past, he has pressed for CBO to also include the lost value of recreational and ecosystem services (E&E Daily, Jan. 20, 2016).
"The House Republican plan to give away America's public lands for free is outrageous and absurd," he said. "This proposed rule change would make it easier to implement this plan by allowing the Congress to give away every single piece of property we own, for free, and pretend we have lost nothing of any value."
The divestment of federal land was part of the Republican Party's 2016 platform, and some conservative lawmakers favor handing some federal land to states and local entities. The debate is particularly active in Nevada and Utah, where the federal government manages large areas.
Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) has urged President-elect Donald Trump to roll back President Obama's monument designations — including the new Bears Ears National Monument in his home state (Greenwire, Dec. 28, 2016).
It's unclear whether Trump has the legal authority to undo such protections, but Congress can pass legislation to do so.
Parish Braden, the majority spokesman for the Natural Resources Committee, said federal lands can create a "significant burden" for surrounding communities because they can't be taxed and are sometimes in disrepair. Bishop, he said, sees the rule change as constructive.
"Allowing communities to actually manage and use these lands will generate not only state and local income tax, but also federal income tax revenues, as well as reduce the need for other taxpayer-funded federal support, either through Payments in Lieu of Taxes or other programs like Secure Rural Schools," he said in an email. "Unfortunately, current budget practices do not fully recognize these benefits, making it very difficult for non-controversial land transfers between governmental entities for public use and other reasons to happen."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/01/03/stories/1060047765
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Pruitt Shows No Interest in Courting Bipartisan Support: Democrats
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
The likely nominee for Environmental Protection Agency chief, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, isn't showing signs he intends to sell his policy record to Senate Democrats, those lawmakers told Bloomberg BNA as the 115th Congress launched Jan. 3.
Pruitt hasn't responded to a request, issued by Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Democrats Dec. 27, for more information on his connections with the energy industry and the nonprofit Rule of Law Defense Fund, Democrats said.
The backers of the request and a member of the Democratic leadership team said Pruitt hadn't communicated with their offices to set up a meeting either. Pruitt is in Washington this week courting support for his nomination.
Still, Republicans are digging in behind the likely nominee.
Republican Applause
Pruitt met with Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the EPW Committee chairman, and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the outgoing chairman, Jan. 3, but neither Pruitt nor the lawmakers answered questions from reporters. Inhofe, who has a close personal relationship with Pruitt, continues to cheer on the nominee.
A number of other Senate Republicans, including EPW member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), said Pruitt has been in touch with them to flesh out his vision for the agency. Moran told Bloomberg BNA Pruitt will fight “over-regulation.”
Republicans have regularly said Pruitt will stamp out EPA overreach and restore state rights.
FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group, echoed that support in a letter to Senators Jan. 3. “The executive branch has grown far too powerful, frequently circumventing Congress to enact rules and regulations that reach far beyond legislative intent,” said President Adam Brandon, according to a release from the group. “Under his leadership at the EPA, Americans can have safe air and water and protection from government overreach through rules and regulations.”
Full Disclosure
A response to the Dec. 27 Democratic letter isn't required by any stretch, but Democrats also said Pruitt hasn't submitted all standard nomination paperwork, which includes a financial disclosure and other documents. Barrasso's staff didn't respond to Bloomberg BNA's request for comment on the paperwork.
Pruitt's nomination will have to pass through the EPW Committee before reaching a full chamber vote on the Senate floor.
Democrats have modestly beefed up their numbers on the committee this Congress. Now, with the departure of ranking member Barbara Boxer, a Democratic senator from California, and the addition of newly elected Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Democrats will have 10 seats in the EPW compared to 11 Republican seats.
That means only one Republican defection, coupled with lock-step Democratic opposition, could stop the Pruitt nomination before it reached the floor.
A wide range of Democrats, including new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), are calling for a vigorous nomination process for Pruitt, arguing the official's widely-publicized climate change skepticism render him unfit to lead the agency. Pruitt is still involved in active lawsuits against the EPA over the Clean Water Rule, Clean Power Plan and methane limits for the oil and natural gas industry.
Meanwhile, his silence on the Senate EPW Democrat request, which asked for information on donors and expenditures for the Rule of Law Defense Fund, doesn't bode well for Democratic support. “This guy does have a pretty bad record to begin with and this will certainly make it worse,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Conn.), who led the five additional signatories to the letter, told Bloomberg BNA.
The fund is a private group that has challenged a range of federal regulations, including the Clean Power Plan. Internal Revenue Service filings show that Pruitt is a director of the organization, as are other state Republican attorneys general. The letter said Freedom Partners, another conservative advocacy group, has contributed $175,000 to the fund during the past three years.
Counsel for the fund told Pruitt to dismiss the letter, saying the organization's 501(c)(4) IRS status means it doesn't have to disclose donors.
Nomination Questioning Looms
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) did not sign that letter, but a spokesman for her office suggested she intends to fight the nomination. “Senator Gillibrand has very serious concerns about Scott Pruitt's record, particularly on climate change, and she will be asking him to address those concerns during the upcoming confirmation hearings,” spokesman Marc Brumer said.
Newly anointed EPW Committee ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) didn't join the letter either, choosing to send his own, more broad inquiry Dec. 28.
“It should come as no surprise that we are deeply troubled by some of your past actions and comments,” Carper said in a letter released to Bloomberg BNA. The memo includes more than five full pages of questions, touching on personal leadership qualities and financial relationships, among a wide range of other inquiries.
The memo requests answers by Jan. 9, but Pruitt has not yet replied, a Carper spokeswoman said. Many Democrats, however, continue to seek communication with the likely nominee. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said they would like to meet with Pruitt.
“I've always been deferential to an executive who wants to put a team together,” Manchin told Bloomberg BNA.
Barrasso has not yet outlined a schedule for the nomination process.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857707&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857707&jd=102857707
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Key Nominees May Not Be Confirmed By Inauguration
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
With just over two weeks until President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office, committees have yet to set hearings for his nominees to lead key federal energy and environmental agencies, suggesting they may fail to win confirmation by Inauguration Day as President Obama's picks did eight years ago.
The office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) yesterday noted that seven of Obama's Cabinet nominees were confirmed on his first day in office in 2009, including Steven Chu as Energy secretary and Ken Salazar as Interior secretary.
Five more top officials were confirmed before the end of Obama's first week as president, including Lisa Jackson as U.S. EPA administrator. Like Chu and Salazar, the Senate confirmed her by voice vote.
By contrast, committees have yet to schedule hearings on Trump's picks to lead EPA, Interior and the Department of Energy. Those nominees are Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), respectively.
Asked about a hearing for Pruitt, incoming Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said yesterday only that "we're working on one."
Nominees are making the rounds on Capitol Hill. But Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who is replacing Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as the top Democrat on the EPW Committee, had not yet met with Pruitt, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
She said Carper "looks forward" to reviewing Pruitt's answers to seven pages of questions the senator sent late last month. Carper asked for explanations for a host of controversies associated with the nominee, who frequently sued EPA under Obama.
"My Democratic EPW colleagues and I are committed to a full and fair confirmation process," Carper wrote in the Dec. 28 letter. "However, it should come as no surprise that we are deeply troubled by some of your past actions and comments."
Carper wants more information from Pruitt on his views on the definition of "sound science." The senator also asked Pruitt for a full list of events he attended as attorney general that were sponsored by energy companies. And he pressed the nominee for "all public speeches or presentations you have made that included references to any issue related to energy or the environment since 1998."Murkowski, Zinke to meet
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said yesterday that she plans to meet with staff today to map out a timeline for two of the 33 or so nominees that fall within her jurisdiction — Zinke and Perry.
Murkowski reiterated that she would like to hold confirmation hearings for both of them before the inauguration but was unsure about how much of the required paperwork the president-elect's transition team had submitted.
"We need to have that available for the other committee members and committee staff," she told E&E News. "I'm hoping we'll be able to do it in relatively good order."
Murkowski said she spoke with Zinke over the phone during the holidays and plans to meet with him in person tomorrow.
Their earlier conversation happened before reports came out that suggested Zinke may have defrauded the federal government on travel costs while serving as a Navy SEAL (Greenwire, Dec. 21, 2016). Murkowski said she plans to broach the topic and "a whole bunch of things" during their meeting.
The senator said she had yet to discuss either nominee with ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). A Cantwell spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on whether the senator had spoken or met with Zinke or Perry.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said yesterday he expects Democrats to drag out the confirmation process for some nominees as long as possible, but he predicted the stalling would be fruitless in the end.
"They don't want to make it easy," he told E&E News. "They want to consume as much time as possible in the nomination process, and I think that what we'll have to do is be diligent and keep pushing forward."
The new Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, has reportedly included Pruitt on a list of nominees he says deserve close scrutiny by the minority (E&E Daily, Jan. 3).
During his first floor speech as Democratic leader yesterday, Schumer said Trump's Cabinet "is stacked with billionaires, corporate executives, titans of Wall Street and those deeply embedded in Washington's corridors of power."Tillerson hearing
One of the more contentious of Trump's picks — Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of State — is likely to get a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, according to a tweet by Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) yesterday.
Senators on the panel have been at odds over Tillerson's tax returns, but a GOP committee spokeswoman yesterday said the panel had received the nominee's financial disclosure and a certification letter from the Office of Government Ethics (Greenwire, Dec. 21, 2016).
An aide to Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) did not respond to a request for comment.
Tillerson has picked up the support of Murkowski, who yesterday said she has known him for years, given Exxon's role in producing oil and gas in her state.
"From the perspective of having a secretary of State that is knowledgeable about an industry that is important to my state and the country, is going to be helpful," she said.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/04/stories/1060047791
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Bisphenol-A Linked to Endocrine Disorders in Pets, Humans
Jan 3, 2017 | CBS St. Louis
ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A widely used industrial chemical found in many household items, including canned foods, reveal potential negative health consequences for humans and pets.
The University of Missouri Bond Life Sciences Center conducted a study on animals who consumed pet food from cans, the area of concern is Bisphenol-A or BPA.
Bio-Medical Sciences Associate Professor Cheryl Rosenfeld calls it a an endocrine disrupting chemical. Other studies have been conducted on humans, but not dogs.
“There’s 62.5-billion-dollar industry in the pet foods, includes canned and other storage items,” Rosendfeld says. “But nonetheless, we wanted to see how, if we gave the dogs pet food, contained within cans, how that would that would affect their BPA concentrations.
Rosenfeld says our dogs live in the same internal and external environments that we do, ‘and what we see in the dogs is likely to translate to humans as well.’
Rosenfeld noted that BPA can be very disruptive to the endocrine system.
“Just after 2 weeks of consuming food, contained within the cans, we were able to increase internal BPA concentrations by three-fold, I mean that’s significant,” Rosendfeld says. “More importantly, we found, associated with the increase in BPA concentrations, that is, we altered their gut microbiome, that’s these bacteria that live in our gut. In fact, there’s many out there, just today alone, that the gut microbiome can play an important role in maintaining normal health status.”
Rosenfeld says besides the microbiome changes, there were metabolic changes. Those changes affect obesity, diabetes and neurological disorders.
Rosenfeld’s recommendations, eliminating use of canned food for humans and our pets.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2017/01/03/bisphenol-a-linked-to-endocrine-disorders-in-pets-and-humans/
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Robust Energy Economy Yields Windfall For Dozens Of Freshmen
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
As he prepares to take over the White House later this month, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to create "vast new wealth" in the nation via his plans to boost domestic fossil fuel production — and financial records show some of that predicted windfall could line the pockets of many of the newest members of Congress.
Investments in the energy industry — from stock holdings in major corporations like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Schlumberger Ltd. to individual oil and mineral rights — are not unusual among congressional lawmakers, and the newest 60-member class of House members and senators is no different (E&E Daily, July 17, 2015).
An E&E News review of personal financial disclosures filed by candidates in the 2016 election cycle found that more than one-third reported owning oil-, gas- or mining-related stocks, as well as individual mineral or oil rights, or serving on boards overseeing various energy companies.
Much like incumbent members of Congress, candidates are required to broadly detail their personal holdings in public financial reports — disclosing assets like stocks, bonds, savings accounts, rental homes and other income properties, along with liabilities like mortgages and student loan debt.
But candidate disclosures offer a unique look into a future lawmaker's finances, since they give a more up-to-date view of the assets and liabilities a candidate holds.
Incumbent members of Congress are required to file a financial report each spring detailing their personal holdings for the previous calendar year. Candidate forms require information on the preceding calendar year, as well as any information for the year to date, typically about halfway through the current election year.
While members of Congress are required to file reports when they sell, purchase or exchange a stock, bond or other security if the transaction is valued at more than $1,000, there is no requirement for lawmakers to forfeit their investments upon assuming office.Striking gold in the oil industry
Among E&E News' findings were a number of freshman lawmakers who hold stakes ranging from a $1,000 to as much as $1 million in various energy companies.
Francis Rooney, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and a Republican who succeeds retiring Rep. Curt Clawson (R) in Florida's 19th District, enters Congress with the largest stake in the energy industry among freshman lawmakers, according to his June report.
A former member of the board of directors of Helmerich & Payne Inc., a Tulsa, Okla.-based petroleum contract drilling company, Rooney reported between $500,000 and $1 million in deferred compensation for his service, as well as five separate stock options valued between a combined $31,000 and $115,000.
Lawmakers and candidates are required only to report their holdings in ranges — categories start at zero and then go from $1 to $1,000 to more than $50 million — and few opt to provide specific data.
Rooney also listed between $250,000 and $500,000 in Helmerich & Payne stock held via Rooney Family Investments Ltd. The stocks earned dividends of up to $15,000 last year and as much as $50,000 in 2015. Rooney spent three years on Helmerich & Payne's board, beginning in 2014.
Rooney also reported owning between $500,000 and $1 million in Laredo Petroleum Inc. stock but noted he had not earned income from the tax-deferred investment. He likewise served on Laredo Petroleum's board of directors for a three-year period, starting in 2014.
During the same time, Rooney also served as director of Manhattan Pipeline, a Tulsa-based construction firm in the oil and gas industry.
The Florida Republican listed two dozen other investments in various energy firms, including holdings of up to $15,000 each in Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Rose Rock Midstream, and smaller investments of $1,000 or less in Kinder Morgan, Canacol Energy Ltd., Spectra Energy Corp. and Targa Resources, as well as partnerships with Antero Midstream and Energy Transfer Partners.
He also reported between $50,000 and $100,000 in oil and gas well investments in a company listed as Energy Holdings LLC in Naples, Fla.; and another $15,000 to $50,000 held in a promissory note from a firm identified as Veira Energia in Colombia.
Following his election in November, Rooney told E&E News that he would make both the restoration of the Everglades and cleaning up the water in South Florida priorities in his first term (E&E Daily, Nov. 17, 2016).Democrats dipped in oil
Republicans aren't alone in stashing their investment dollars in the energy industry.
New Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D), who succeeds Gov.-elect John Carney (D) in the state's at-large seat, reported a trust with between $100,000 and $250,000 in Chevron Corp. stock that earned as much as $2,500 in income in 2016.
In an amended version of her financial disclosure filed in December, Rochester also reported the trust holds as much as $100,000 each in the Murphy Oil Corp. and the Valero Energy Corp. Both investments earned as much as $2,500 in dividends in both 2016 and 2015.
Rochester's other investments include between $15,000 and $50,000 each in Hess Corp., Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, Marathon Oil Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp.
Similarly, new Nevada Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) reported numerous energy investments held via a "Larry and Jacklyn Rosen Family Trust" when she filed her financial disclosure report in February.
The trust includes as much as $100,000 in Pepco Holdings, as well as up to $50,000 each in both the American Electric Power Co. Inc. and Valero Energy Corp.
Rosen also lists a trio of bonds under the trust, with investments in Alabama Power, Georgia Power and PECO Energy each valued at up to $50,000.
The trust also includes smaller investments of up to $15,000 each in the Southern Copper Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Apache Corp. and Spectra Energy Corp.
Rosen's spouse also owns up to $15,000 in Great Plains Energy Inc., via investments in a separate IRA account.
Freshman New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D), who defeated former Republican Rep. Scott Garrett, is also a heavy investor in the oil and gas industry, reporting stakes in a dozen different firms.
Gottheimer's financial report, filed in May, shows investments of up to $50,000 each in both Schlumberger and Exxon Mobil. He owns both stocks jointly with his spouse.
Other investments, also jointly owned, included up to $15,000 each staked in Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Schlumberger, Forum Energy Technologies, Dril-Quip Inc., Fuchs Petroleum, Imperial Oil Ltd., Chevron, Duke Energy and Marathon Oil. Gottheimer also reported an investment of up to $15,000 in Tesla Motors Inc.
Florida Rep. Charlie Crist (D), who previously served as the state's Republican governor before losing a bid for Senate as an independent in 2010, boasts a major investment in his home state's energy industry, with as much as $250,000 in TECO Energy Inc. stock.
Crist reported capital gains of up to $50,000 in 2016 from his investment, according to his August financial disclosure report.
In addition, Crist's spouse, who owns a wholesale costume business, reported her own investment of up to $15,000 in TECO Energy, as well as up to $15,000 in Southern Co. and up to $15,000 in Tesla.Rights and royalties
New Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington (R), who succeeds former Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R), is one of a trio of incoming freshmen to report ownership of oil rights, royalties or mineral rights in his November financial report.
Arrington, who previously served as both vice chancellor of Texas Tech University and president of the National Institute for Renewable Energy, reported oil rights on leased property in Plaquemines Parish, La., adjacent to the Mississippi River. The oil rights are valued at up to $15,000 and produced royalties of $1,000 or less in both 2016 and 2015.
Arrington previously reported ownership of Murphy Oil stock along with his spouse but appeared to have sold that asset in 2015, when he reported capital gains of up to $15,000.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy (R) — the only one of six new senators to report energy investments — likewise lists mineral royalty interests in the Pelican State.
Kennedy reported a mineral royalty interest in Livingston Parish, La., valued at between $1,000 and $15,000, although the stake produced no income in 2016.
He also reported mineral rights with the same value in Amite County, Miss., which has produced no income in recent years.
In addition, Kennedy reports his spouse invests in energy firms including Exxon Mobil, where she has between $15,000 and $50,000; and Alcoa Inc. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., where she has between $1,500 and $15,000 each.
Kennedy also reported previously investing in Canadian Solar Inc., although he appears to have sold that stake for capital gains of $201 to $1,000
Freshman Kansas Rep. Roger Marshall (R) does not personally own any oil royalties, but he reported that his spouse and an unidentified dependent child do.
In his May financial disclosure, Marshall revealed his spouse owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in oil royalty interests via a holding entity named "Quivira Ranch Inc."
The investment earned between $15,000 and $50,000 in royalties in both 2016 and 2015.
Marshall's spouse also owns a working and equipment interest with the same description, valued at between $1,000 and $15,000. The lawmaker's wife additionally claims a working interest in a Fort Worth, Texas-based drilling partnership, but the asset is listed as having no value.
In addition, Marshall's spouse invests between $100,000 and $250,000 in the Canadian Energy Services & Technology Corp. That investment earned as much as $50,000 in 2016 and between $100,000 and $1 million in 2015.
The Kansas lawmaker also reports two identical oil royalties held via an LVMC Inc. holding company for an unidentified dependent child or children.
Each investment is valued at $15,000 to $50,000 and earned up to $5,000 in 2016. The investments earned up to $15,000 each in 2015.'North American pipeline universe'
Other new members who reported investments owned individually or by a spouse in energy stocks or bonds include Indiana Rep. Jim Banks (R), Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin (D), Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider (D), Florida Rep. Brian Mast (R), Michigan Rep. Paul Mitchell (R), Tennessee Rep. David Kustoff (R) and Pennsylvania Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R).
Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D) reported that both he and his wife own stakes in a mutual fund that describes itself as focused "on the large and diverse North American pipeline universe."
Krishnamoorthi listed a nearly $15,000 investment in the Tortoise MLP & Pipeline Fund via a retirement account, while his spouse reported a nearly $2,000 investment in the same fund.
Freshman Arizona Rep. Tom O'Halleran (D), who represents a sprawling rural district with numerous mining deposits, reported a trio of stakes in mining companies, with each valued at between $1,000 and $15,000.
California Rep. Ro Khanna (D) does not claim any investments in the energy industry himself but does report more than a dozen entries under his spouse's ownership.
Among the items held in a series of trusts for Ritu Ahuja are listings for companies including ConocoPhillips, Nucor Corp. and Marathon Oil, although many of the stocks appear to have been sold and are listed with values of zero.
But Ahuja did report as much as $500,000 in Entergy Corp.; up to $250,000 each in Genesis Energy LP, Phillips 66 Partners LP and Western Gas Partners LP; and up to $100,000 each in Antero Midstream Partners LP, Valero Energy Partners LP and Devon Energy Corp. as of mid-2016. At that time, she also listed smaller investments in American Electric Power Co., Chevron Corp., Kinder Morgan and Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
Khanna's financial disclosure shows Ahuja holds investments of between $250,000 and $500,000 in both Danish Energy Investors and West Street Energy Partners.
Ahuja also reported a stake of $15,000 to $50,000 in SolarCity Corp., which produced capital gains of up to $100,000 in 2016.
Freshman New York Rep. John Faso (R) reported investments in Exxon Mobil, as well as legal and consulting work for the Houston-based Constitution Pipeline Co. in 2015.
Hawaii Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D), who returns to Congress this year after a failed bid for Senate in 2014, does not own any energy stock but did serve as director of Hawaii Gas, receiving $31,000 in fees in 2015 and $16,000 in fees in 2016, according to her July report.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/04/stories/1060047793
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Outlook 2017: Trump Administration Expected to Curtail Energy Regulations
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski, Rebecca Kern and Stephen Lee
The Trump administration will not have an entirely free hand to increase fossil fuel development, but it will have a wealth of options—so many that a first task may be simply to prioritize the preferred ones.
When he becomes president, Donald Trump can reverse executive orders immediately, back out of court fights over regulations, start rewriting energy and environmental regulations and—possibly the most substantial move—work with Congress to amend laws.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), an early energy adviser to Trump, told Bloomberg BNA that House Republicans will act quickly to introduce legislation under the Congressional Review Act to repeal rules finalized by the Obama administration since May. The first rule he said they would go after would be the stream protection rule, intended to minimize stream impacts from coal-mining waste.
“That is just the most arbitrary rule,” Cramer told Bloomberg BNA. “I don't know that it makes sense in Appalachia, but it dang sure doesn't make sense for the prairies of North Dakota. We'll be able to do that with legislation that [Trump will] no doubt sign.”
Cramer said the House Republicans will also go after repealing the Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule, which he said has just as significant consequences to agriculture as it does to energy.
Trump has said he wants to open up more federal lands for oil and natural gas exploration, though he has not specified areas. Federal leasing sites can range from the relatively uncontroversial—in the Gulf of Mexico and established onshore production areas—to the extraordinary, such as the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, if Congress were to allow it.Trump also has stressed the need for infrastructure investments and has mentioned the proposed Keystone XL pipeline as something he would approve and the Dakota Access pipeline as something that should be allowed to go ahead. That leaves a host of other possibilities—other oil pipelines, electric transmission lines, liquefied natural gas export facilities, coal export facilities and more.
From the perspective of oil and gas producers, it is helpful that Trump has advisers such as Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources Inc., who understand the issues and can explain them to Trump in a clear and convincing manner, said Lee Fuller, executive vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Congress to Review Rules
Before Trump takes office, the Obama administration will have opportunities to issue more regulations in its final days. Fuller said there is not much left that the outgoing administration can do to frustrate oil and gas companies that has not already been done.
“They've largely kind of cleared the decks on most of our stuff,” Fuller said.
The Congressional Review Act will give Congress about 60 days—not counting days when either chamber is adjourned for more than three days—to review and strike down regulations completed roughly since late May. The reviews could apply to regulations and some other administrative actions issued since about the end of May.
It will not necessarily be a quick and easy process, given that each resolution of disapproval can apply to only one regulation and must allow for up to 10 hours of debate in the Senate. It will occupy time while Congress is trying to tackle other big issues, notably changes to the health-care law and a final appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017.
“So they'll have to figure out how they're going to prioritize these,” said Bill Cooper, staff director of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. Everyone will have ideas of what should be on the priority list, he said.
Among the candidates may be the Bureau of Land Management final rule in November on venting, flaring and leaking of natural gas from oil and gas operations (RIN:2060–AS30) and the Environmental Protection Agency final rule in June on emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds from new and modified oil and gas operations (RIN:1004-AE14).
Offshore Plans, Onshore Permitting
The BLM in November issued a five-year leasing plan for the years 2017-2022 that eliminated any leasing in the Arctic offshore as well as the Atlantic. The proposed version of the plan had included leasing in the Beaufort Sea in 2020 and in the Chukchi Sea in 2022, and the earlier draft proposed version had included leasing in the Atlantic in 2021.
A new five-year plan could be completed in as little as a year and a half following the steps required by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. If Trump wanted, he could have a plan completed in late 2018 with leasing in the Beaufort, Chukchi and Atlantic areas in the same years initially proposed by the Obama administration.
A potentially enormous discovery of oil in Smith Bay, Alaska, was announced in October by Caelus Energy LLC. The oil reservoir is in state waters off the state's northern coast and could benefit from pipeline permitting by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get the oil to the start of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
The Corps of Engineers has a much more immediate challenge—the impending expiration, in March, of nationwide permits that avoid the need for lengthy project-specific environmental reviews under the Clean Water Act. The permits have to be renewed every five years, and much state regulatory action also can be stalled if the corps is slow to act.
Nationwide Permit 12 is especially important for construction, replacement, maintenance, repair and removal of all pipelines carrying liquids or gases and any electrical wires or cables. Nationwide Permit 3 is important to an array of repair, rehabilitation or replacement activities for any “currently serviceable structure,” including energy infrastructure.
Solar Industry Optimistic on Credits
The solar industry is gearing up to defend its hard-earned five-year extension of the investment tax credits for solar projects.
The tax credits were part of the year-end spending bill in December 2015. The industry wants to ensure that the credits remain in place as a Republican-controlled Congress and Republican president discuss embarking on broad tax reform legislation in 2017.
The 2015 spending bill extended the investment tax credits in a phased-down fashion for solar projects. Projects get a 30 percent tax credit for 2017, 2018 and 2019, and then it ramps down to 26 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in 2021. In 2022, the credits become a permanent 10 percent for commercial solar projects but end for residential projects.
“Our contention to people who are interested in tax reform is that the investment tax credit has already been tax reformed and we should be allowed to maintain that kind of ramp down as a transition to whatever new tax code is enacted over the next couple of years,” Christopher Mansour, the vice president of federal affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association, the trade association that represents the solar industry, told Bloomberg BNA.
Mansour says he is optimistic that the solar investment tax credit will be safe this year due to general political will to retain it.
“A lot of members of Congress, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, don't like to change the rules in mid-stream on businesses,” he said. “Our companies are making billions of dollars of investment decisions now, based on the structure that the Congress enacted last year.”
“So we feel pretty good that we should be able to defend our current ramp down of the ITC,” he said.
The American Wind Energy Association said it is optimistic members of Congress will work to ensure investments in wind power continue. It is also hopeful that a renewed focus on improving infrastructure will benefit the wind industry.
“We're confident that wind's champions in Congress will want to maintain stable investment policy to keep growing American wind jobs,” Aaron Severn, AWEA's senior director of federal legislative affairs, told Bloomberg BNA. “We also want to work with Congress and the new administration to grow and strengthen our nation's transmission infrastructure which the president-elect has outlined as major priority.”
Litigation on Fracking and Birds
The Obama administration is in federal court defending the BLM regulations on gas venting, flaring and leaking and regulations to tighten controls of oil and gas development where hydraulic fracturing is involved (RIN:1004-AE26). Attorneys say the administration could ask for remands, then revise the regulations in ways more amenable to allowing states to continue taking the leading role on such regulations.
Attorneys said a remand strategy would prevent environmental activist intervenors from continuing to defend the challenged rulemakings. The attorneys are saying something similar about legal challenges by states, local government and industry to federal land-use plans to protect the greater sage grouse across much of the West, including in regions with oil, gas and coal resources.
“I think they've got good grounds to do that,” said James Banks, a partner at Hogan Lovells US LLP in Washington, D.C. The amendments to the land-use plans by the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service were overwhelmingly devoted to protecting wildlife habitat rather than adhering to the “multiple use” mandates of federal land laws, Banks said.
Parker Moore, environmental lawyer at Beveridge & Diamond PC in Washington, D.C., agreed that a new administration could seek remands, but he said he expected more than that, especially given the economic sectors potentially affected by the sage grouse protections.
“I honestly think what you'll see with the sage grouse is some form of legislation,” Moore said. He noted that attempts already had been made to use legislation, including proposals to delay an Endangered Species Act listing decision until conservation efforts have had time to produce results.
Tough Laws to Change
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is once again considering whether it should list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species. The Trump administration could insist the service take seriously and evaluate fairly the state and private efforts to protect the bird, something the service failed to do the first time around, Banks said.
Banks helped the Permian Basin Petroleum Association win a 2015 court order overturning the listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. Like the sage grouse, the prairie chicken is often found in areas with oil and gas development and potential for power transmission lines and wind farms, as well as non-energy activity such as ranching and farming.
Some members of Congress would like to amend the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, but Moore expressed skepticism that much more could be accomplished than tweaks to make the statutes work better, such as improving the petition process to reduce the burden placed on the overworked Fish and Wildlife Service.
“Honestly, I don't see any wholesale changes to those statutes,” Moore said. “It's much too difficult to do.”
Mining Regulations in Doubt
Two coal regulations are likely to be withdrawn by the Trump administration, including the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement's stream protection rule (RIN:1029-AC63). The rule, which would limit the placement of waste in or near streams, has long faced opposition from congressional Republicans and the mining sector. The agency issued its final rule in December.
“We are advocating that the Trump administration initiate a timeout on these rules and policies and re-evaluate them before moving forward,” said Gregory Conrad, executive director of the Interstate Mining Compact Commission.
The day the stream protection rule was released, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would use the Congressional Review Act to overturn it. House Republicans have said the same thing, and Trump said on the campaign trail that he wanted to kill it.
The Office of Surface Mining's self-bonding rule (RIN:1029-AC73), which would close loopholes in the way mining companies finance their future cleanup obligations, is also likely to be scrubbed. Mine companies chafe at additional limitations on how they fund their operations.
Another likely target is the Bureau of Land Management's coal leasing moratorium on federal lands, which the Obama administration put in place as a prelude to broad changes. Because the moratorium is an executive-level action only, it can be eliminated with the stroke of a pen.
“I think every coal rule is going to be on the table for review,” said Christian Palich, president of the Ohio Coal Association. “Trump has said throughout the campaign that he wants to support coal. We believe they're going to look at every regulation and look at what's necessary.”
Rockies Oil, Gas, Solar, Wind
In the Rocky Mountain states, regulators are anticipating a slight increase in rig counts in areas such as Utah's Uintah Basin and the northern part of the Denver-Julesburg Basin.
“We're continuing to look at what the market's going to do and how we can reinforce a resurgence in the oil and gas space,” Jeff Ackermann, director of the Colorado Energy Office, told Bloomberg BNA. “We're making sure there are not impediments to getting rig counts back up and production going again.”
In Utah, which is sixth in the nation for electric vehicle adoption, the state is expanding its EV infrastructure, Laura Nelson, the governor's energy adviser, told Bloomberg BNA. The state is experiencing a solar boom and expects to see continued expansion in the state, both through utility-based development and also distributed solar opportunities, she said.
Proposed legislation to limit rooftop solar incentives and a proposed change in the net-metering rate could temper that expansion, however, she said.
In Colorado, Xcel Energy plans to speed up the development in 2017 of a new 600-megawatt wind project and the construction of a 125-mile transmission line connecting the cities of the urban Front Range region with the windy Eastern Plains. The Rush Creek Wind Project will boost wind generation by 20 percent.
“We're looking forward to an administration that will be less openly hostile to our industry,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an industry group in Denver.
Pennsylvania to Act on Permitting
Pennsylvania is looking forward to a busy year of litigation over fracking regulations, the development of new permitting requirements and potentially a legislative battle over energy and environmental protection.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection told Bloomberg BNA that its energy-related regulatory priorities in 2017 include:
• Reducing methane emissions from natural gas drilling and transport by revising permits for compressor stations and creating a general permit for unconventional gas well sites;
• Reducing smog from existing oil and gas operations by drafting rules under guidelines that the federal EPA issued Oct. 20;
• Beginning to issue new regulations for conventional oil and gas drilling; and
• Creating a statewide plan to increase the deployment of solar electricity.
Litigation, Legislation in Pennsylvania
A Commonwealth Court is expected to rule on a challenge to Pennsylvania's new Chapter 78a regulations, which focus on hydraulic fracturing regulations and natural gas development (Marcellus Shale Coalition v. Pa. Dep't Envtl. Protection, Pa. Commw. Ct., No. 573 MD 2016, 11/8/16).
In an order Nov. 8, Judge Kevin Brobson temporarily stayed provisions that restrict drilling near school playgrounds, require developers to monitor and remediate inactive wells, impose new impoundment construction standards and set new requirements for site restoration.
In its decision, “the Court expressed some skepticism over other aspects of the regulations, and we should see that litigation resolve in 2017,” Elizabeth Witmer, energy chair at Saul Ewing LLP in Philadelphia, told Bloomberg BNA.
The year also could see a number of legislative challenges to energy and environmental regulations. In October, the state Senate adopted Senate Resolution 385, which directs the Joint State Government Commission “to conduct a study to analyze and identify which environmental laws and regulations of this Commonwealth have more stringent standards than Federal law requires.”
“The intent is to develop a hit list of state laws and regulations that they want to roll back,” David Hess, director of policy and communications at Crisci Associates in Harrisburg, Pa., and a former secretary of environmental protection, told Bloomberg BNA. Crisci lobbies on behalf of environmental groups and alternative energy companies, among others.
California Deals With Gas Storage
California regulators in early 2017 are expected to wrap up their safety review of natural gas wells at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in the Los Angeles area. A four-month-long leak, which began in October 2015, forced closure of the storage field operated by Sempra Energy's Southern California Gas Co. Only 29 of the 114 wells have been deemed safe for new injections of gas. SoCalGas has a year to make the other 85 wells safe or permanently seal them.
Newly enacted legislation, S.B. 380, requires the California Public Utilities Commission to open a proceeding by July to determine whether the Aliso Canyon facility can be permanently closed without jeopardizing the region's energy and electricity needs.
Also in early 2017, the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources plans to complete a rulemaking to make permanent emergency regulations adopted in the wake of the Aliso Canyon leak. The regulations will apply to 14 underground natural gas facilities in the state. The proposed rules update construction and operating standards for gas storage wells, impose additional data and monitoring requirements and ensure all facilities have adequate risk management and emergency response plans.
The California Air Resources Board will consider adopting rules this spring to slash methane emissions from oil and gas facilities 40 percent to 45 percent by 2025. If adopted, the rules would be phased in between Jan. 1, 2018, and Jan. 1, 2020.
— With assistance from Tripp Baltz, Carolyn Whetzel and Leslie A. Pappas
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857706&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857706&jd=102857706
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House GOP Renews Push For EPA 'Secret Science,' SAB Reform Bills
Jan 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the science committee, is pledging to advance controversial legislative provisions to reform EPA's scientific activities following the agency's release of a long-awaited hydraulic fracturing report, with sources saying the effort could gain traction with the incoming Trump administration.
"It is clear that the agency needs to enact reforms of its entire scientific review process," Smith said in a recent statement in response to EPA's final report on impacts from hydraulic fracturing on drinking water sources. "I look forward to working with the next administration to enact critical reforms to put EPA back on course in pursuing transparency and sound science."
EPA's report concludes that fracking "can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances and identifies factors that influence these impacts," according to a recent statement from the agency, a finding that Smith appears to consider politically motivated, based on the timing of its release.
Smith's "critical reforms" are references to the "secret science" and Science Advisory Board (SAB) reform bills that he and other Republicans moved through the House last year, a committee spokeswoman tells Inside EPA. Both efforts were stymied by vociferous outcry from the scientific community and White House veto threats. The spokeswoman declined to detail when and how Smith plans to move the efforts through Congress.
But his statements are prompting pushback from committee Democrats, who charge the legislation is an industry effort to reduce the stringency of EPA regulations.
"EPA does not use 'secret science' to conduct its business. The EPA uses high-quality peer reviewed research from trusted scientific sources," the science committee's ranking member, Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), tells Inside EPA.
"So-called 'secret science' legislation is an insidious attack on the EPA's ability to use the best science to protect public health. Judging from the groups that have endorsed 'secret science' legislation in the past, it might be more accurate to state that this legislation is the polluting industries' attempt to hurt the EPA's rulemaking ability. Limiting, or prohibiting, the peer-reviewed science EPA uses as part of its rulemaking should not be the aim of any legislation passed by Congress,” she said.
Pending Legislation
As introduced in 2015, the secret science bill's intent was to require EPA to use the "best available" science in developing rules and make all data for its rules publicly available -- a mandate that can be challenging with some of the data that EPA relies on, such as epidemiological data and medical records.
The agency's critics argued the legislation, H.R. 1030, would resolve their long-running claims that the agency withholds important data that it uses to justify potentially expensive rules, such as its 2015 decision to tighten the ozone national ambient air quality standard from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb.
The SAB reform bill, H.R. 1029, sought to overhaul the membership of SAB panels, which advise the agency on scientific analyses that underlie EPA's rules. Backers of the legislation say it would help to ensure the independence of the SAB's members.
The House approved both bills in March 2015 despite veto threats from the White House, but they failed to advance in the Senate.
With regard to the secret science bill, the White House statement of administration policy said it "could be used to prevent EPA from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating any 'covered action' until legal challenges about the legitimate withholding of certain scientific and technical information are resolved. Provisions of the bill could be interpreted to prevent EPA from taking important, and possibly legally required, actions, where supporting data is not publicly available, and legal challenges could delay important environmental and health protections."
The SAB reform bill "would negatively affect the appointment of experts and would weaken the scientific independence and integrity of the SAB," the White House said. "For example, the bill would impose a hiring quota for SAB members based on employment by a State, local, or tribal government as opposed to scientific expertise."
Democrats were joined in their opposition to the bills by the American Chemical Society, the League of Conservation Voters and the Union of Concerned Scientists, among others.
'Secret Science'
But the ideas in the bills are not new, one congressional staffer tells Inside EPA, suggesting that the ideas behind the secret science bill have been around since the 1990s in various forms -- "once proposed, they don't go away." The source says such ideas often come up again when there is a new opportunity for their passage.
Ray Keating, chief economist with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council and a supporter of the secret science legislation, suggests that the bill could be a priority for the Trump administration. "If you look at this election as a backlash to D.C. . . . when you look at the last eight years, clearly EPA was a big part of that," he said in an interview with Inside EPA. "What you've heard from members of the House and Senate, and from President-elect Trump on regulatory matters, these types of things are likely to move forward."
Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the head of President-elect Donald Trump's EPA transition team, is also a supporter of the bill.
"EPA has based regulations costing tens of billions of dollars on secret studies," Ebell is quoted as saying in a November 2014 article about the secret science bill on the Heartland Institute's website. "EPA's conduct is truly outrageous, and it is high time the Congress forced the EPA to base its regulatory decisions on science that is open for analysis and replication by scientists who aren't bought and paid for by the EPA."
But the congressional source says that even with Republican control of the White House and Congress, getting the bills passed will be challenging.
"It's harder to move stuff like this through the Senate as a standalone bill, regardless of a veto threat, if it's controversial," the source says. And in the House, the bills "would have to get through a lot of jurisdictions, at least three committees. The question is, 'Is that a leadership priority?'"
The source notes that Republicans have described "a lot of stuff" as priorities, but questions what are the top issues. "When the Republicans took over in '95, [with] their 100-day Contract for America, they got a lot done, but it exhausted people. I don't think they got much else done. If it's not on the short list" it may not happen.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-gop-renews-push-epa-secret-science-sab-reform-bills
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States Brawl Over EPA Rule's Future
Jan 3, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Emily Holden
States divided over U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan are sparring about how easy it will be for President-elect Donald Trump to rescind the power-sector climate regulation.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia wrote to Trump last week urging him not to fight the rule, saying it "builds on successful strategies that states, local governments and the power sector have used to cost effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants."
Responding to a Dec. 14, 2016, letter from 24 of the state attorneys general challenging the regulation, the EPA-supporting states said it won't be so simple to unravel the Clean Power Plan.
The suing states had asked Trump to pursue several strategies to nix the rule, including withdrawing it from court consideration and issuing an executive order prohibiting EPA from enforcing state carbon standards (E&E News PM, Dec. 15, 2016).
"To be plain, disagreements over the legality of the Clean Power Plan (or any similar rule) will have to be resolved by the judiciary one way or another," the supporting states said.
They contend that any executive order against the rule will not stand up in court.
Congress will soon begin high-profile confirmation hearings for Trump's Cabinet picks, who could have a hand in undoing regulations and determining U.S. international dealings on climate change. Democrats have promised to put up a fight against both Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson and EPA choice Scott Pruitt, according to The Washington Post. They have little hope of stopping the nominations but may be able to draw out the process and garner public attention.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a two-part hearing with Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s chief executive, on Jan. 11. Democrats will press him on his business dealings with Russia and demand that he release his tax returns, the Post reported.
Read more about Tillerson and Pruitt here and here.
In case you missed it
· Last year's climate progress may not survive 2017 (Climatewire, Dec. 23, 2016).
· Trump could be in a position to reshape U.S. environmental law (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2016).
· Power companies see no change in their trajectory under Trump (Energywire, Dec. 19, 2016).
· Opponents of EPA's standards for new power plants are seeking a court delay while they wait to see what Trump does (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2016).
· Californians distressed by Trump's win want the state's climate leadership to be an avenue to assert independence from the federal government (Climatewire, Dec. 19, 2016).
· The Republican governor of Massachusetts released a proposal to curb greenhouse gases (Climatewire, Dec. 21, 2016).
· EPA stopped working on its carbon trading guidance for the Clean Power Plan but released the draft so far (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2016).
· Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump's pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget, could slash the federal workforce (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2016).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060047716
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No Surprises Among Senate Environment, Energy Chairmanships
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Senate Republicans offered no surprises in announcing leadership of two key energy and environment panels for the 115th Congress—the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources panel.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso (R), one of the Senate's leading opponents of the Obama administration's climate change agenda and international climate aid, will succeed Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in heading the environment and public works panel. Alaska's Lisa Murkowski (R) returns to head the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Subcommittee chairmanships for the two committees have yet to be formally announced.
Ten other Republicans will join Barrasso on the Senate environment committee, including Inhofe and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.); John Boozman (Ark.); Roger Wicker (Miss.); Deb Fischer (Neb.); Jeff Sessions (Ala.); Jerry Moran (Kan.); Mike Rounds (S.D.); Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska).
Sessions is President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general. If confirmed, his spots on various committee positions would have to be filled in the months ahead.
Gone from the EPW committee are Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who is retiring; and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who has gone on to other assignments including chairing the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
Republicans serving on Murkowski's Energy and Natural Resources panel are Wyoming's Barrasso and Sens. Jim Risch (Idaho); Mike Lee (Utah); Jeff Flake (Ariz.); Steve Daines (Mont.); Cory Gardner (Colo.); Jeff Sessions (Ala.); Lamar Alexander (Tenn.); John Hoeven (N.D.); Bill Cassidy (La.) and Rob Portman (Ohio).
Departing from the Senate energy committee is West Virginia's Capito; besides remaining on the EPW committee she'll also serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee; the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; and the Committee on Rules and Administration.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857711&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857711&jd=102857711
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EPA Floats Stricter Haze Plan For Texas Despite Possible Lawsuit Defeat
Jan 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is proposing stricter regional haze emissions control requirements for Texas that would impose tighter sulfur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matter (PM) limits on power plants in the state, even as the agency appears headed for a possible defeat in a pending lawsuit over an earlier haze plan it imposed on Texas for the same facilities.
The agency's new proposal, slated for publication in the Jan. 4 Federal Register would impose the standards on the utilities through a federal implementation plan (FIP), replacing parts of Texas' haze state implementation plan (SIP) that EPA considers deficient. The Clean Air Act gives the agency authority to apply FIPs in states where it rejects all or parts of a SIP, though several states have pursued legal action over FIPs they say are unfair.
The new FIP would require new or upgraded technology to control SO2, and also sets standards for PM pollution in line with those established in the agency's landmark rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) to limit air toxics from power plants. EPA in the MACT rule used PM emissions as a proxy for toxics, and the rule is almost fully implemented already despite years of litigation over the regulation.
For nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, however, the agency in its FIP says Texas can rely on the state's participation in the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) power plant air emissions trading program, as updated by EPA in October, to satisfy best available retrofit technology (BART) air control requirements. BART is a one-time control requirement for eligible sources, mostly power plants.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has remanded the state emissions caps for SO2 set under the original CSAPR, and EPA has yet to complete its response that remand.
Because of this regulatory uncertainty on the SO2 caps, EPA concludes that Texas cannot rely on CSAPR to satisfy haze requirements for SO2. The agency instead sets source-specific SO2 controls for 29 electrical generating units at 14 power plants, requiring modern scrubbers for coal-fired units.
The BART emissions limits differ by source, but the rule imposes controls on several power plants that have been at the center of unsuccessful efforts by both EPA and environmentalists to force installation of controls, including such coal plants as the Luminant Big Brown, Martin Lake and Monticello facilities.
But finalization of the proposal will fall to the incoming Trump administration, which has vowed to follow a deregulatory approach and is expected to show more deference to states on environmental policy.
EPA will take public comment on the proposal until March 4, with a public hearing schedule for Jan. 10 at the University of Texas in Austin, TX.
Ongoing Litigation
Texas is challenging the earlier FIP in the case State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al., now in briefing in the 5th Circuit, which focuses on the reasonable further progress (RFP) portion of the state's haze program.
That FIP also disapproved Oklahoma's haze plan, which EPA said was inadequate because of excess pollution from Texas sources. However, the result of that FIP, should it withstand the legal challenge, would be similar, requiring significant pollution control upgrades and installations on a group of power plants including some of the same sources.
Both BART and RFP are features of state plans required under the first planning period, from 2008 to 2018, for implementation of EPA's regional haze rule, which aims to restore visibility to natural conditions by 2064 in “Class I” national parks and wilderness areas.
In State of Texas, the court has already in a preliminary ruling refused EPA's arguments that the case over Texas' haze plan is of nationwide effect and should be heard in the D.C. Circuit, retaining jurisdiction over the case and staying the plan pending the conclusion of litigation.
The court in its July 15 opinion said a stay is warranted because industry and state petitioners “have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, because they are likely to suffer irreparable injury in the absence of a stay while EPA has not shown similar injury from the issuance of a stay, and because the public interest weighs in favor of a stay.” The court further raised concerns about electric grid reliability and compliance costs.
In response, EPA is now asking the court for a voluntary remand of the plan, while industry continues to push for the court to scrap the FIP entirely.
Proposed Plan
EPA in its new proposed FIP says it analyzed the court's concerns when developing the plan, but found that no change was necessary to its proposed control requirements.
EPA says the “BART factor for energy impacts of compliance does not call for the examination of grid reliability considerations from alleged plans to shut down or retire a unit rather than comply with a more stringent emission limit or limits. The language instead calls for consideration of energy impacts from complying by installing retrofit controls on a source that continues in operation.”
Further, “the statutory text regarding 'energy impacts' of compliance with BART is not confined to the power generating industry and does not dictate that we study grid reliability issues.” EPA recognizes that it can take “severe impacts” to a source's viability into account when setting BART -- but says no such impacts will result from its proposal.
Assertions made by industry in the State of Texas suit over reliability issues that could result from compliance problems with the haze program are too vague to sway EPA's BART determinations, EPA says.
“In sum, unless we are able to substantiate an 'affordability of controls' problem for any particular unit and substantiate that a particular unit retirement would not be happening anyway at about the same time, alleged grid reliability impacts are speculative and are not able to inform these required BART determinations,” the agency says. --
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-floats-stricter-haze-plan-texas-despite-possible-lawsuit-defeat
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Outlook 2017: Advocates Sue to Preserve Climate Gains
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Rachel Leven
Environmental advocates will wage rearguard actions through the courts and regulatory process in the coming year to preserve the greenhouse gas regulations established by the Obama administration from President-elect Donald Trump, who once called climate change a Chinese hoax.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to undo the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration's carbon dioxide limits on power plants, and his calls to remove impediments to fossil fuel development could jeopardize the first suite of methane limits on new oil and gas wells.
Environmental advocates are gearing up to preserve the gains of the Obama era through lawsuits and petitions to the Environmental Protection Agency to spur additional rulemaking or defend the regulations already in place. Those preparations come in the wake of recent Trump statements that suggest human activities contribute to climate change and that he may pull the U.S. out of the first global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
“We've seen this in past administrations,” Joanne Spalding, a managing attorney at the Sierra Club, told Bloomberg BNA. “That's why we spent years litigating the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the first place. I anticipate that will become a part of our strategy. If the administration says ‘We're not going to adopt rules for various source categories,’ we'll probably litigate those.”
Environmental advocates say the election of Trump puts them on similar footing to the last Republican president, George W. Bush. Advocates for addressing climate change repeatedly had to petition and sue the Bush administration to prod it toward action, resulting in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases as an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
Despite the experience, the Trump administration may present a new array of challenges for environmental advocates.
“The big overarching question is are we looking at a challenge to environmental protections that will look similar to what we've seen before in the second Bush administration and the Reagan years or are we looking at something that is really unpredictable, something that is different from what we've seen before,” Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School, told Bloomberg BNA.
Major Rules Vulnerable
Though the Obama EPA established the first regulatory regime to curb greenhouse gas emissions, many of the major pieces remain vulnerable as a skeptical Trump administration takes over. Trump has already vowed to pull back the Clean Power Plan (RIN:2060-AR33), the centerpiece of Obama's efforts to address climate change domestically and the backbone of the U.S. commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions under the international Paris Agreement.
In September, a 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard a full day of argument on the Clean Power Plan, and a decision is expected early this year (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir. en banc, No. 15-1363, 9/27/16).
If the court were to uphold the Clean Power Plan, the Trump administration could appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, which currently has a vacancy that Trump will fill, retaining the court's current conservative tilt. If it's remanded to the EPA for correction, a Trump administration could significantly undercut the rule's emissions requirements or even attempt to repeal it, though both options would spur more litigation from environmental groups.
“All roads do lead to rulemaking even if they are able to get a voluntary remand from D.C. Circuit,” Megan Berge, a partner at Baker Botts LLP's Washington, D.C. office, who represents industry groups, told Bloomberg BNA.
The D.C. Circuit is also reviewing briefs on similar carbon dioxide standards for new and modified power plants (RIN:2060-AQ91), which are a prerequisite for the EPA regulating the existing fleet under the Clean Power Plan. Briefing in that case is currently due to conclude in February (North Dakota v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1381, briefs filed 10/13/16).
In both cases, the incoming Trump administration could seek a stay of the lawsuits while it reconsiders the regulations, said Burger, who represented cities supporting the EPA in litigation over the Clean Power Plan. However, the court could wait for the administration to take concrete steps under its review before granting such a stay.
Methane Rules May Survive
Rolling back Obama regulations on methane, a short-lived but extremely potent greenhouse gas, may prove more difficult for a Trump administration that has vowed to remove impediments to fossil fuel production, said Mark Brownstein, vice president in the Environmental Defense Fund's climate and energy program in New York.
Two Obama administration methane regulations—one issued by the EPA for new and modified oil and gas wells under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act (RIN:2060-AS30), and the other issued by the Interior Department that limits venting and flaring from oil and gas wells (RIN:1004-AE14)—are being challenged in court.
But even if the Trump administration chose not to defend the regulations, there are other parties to those lawsuits that would step in and defend them, Brownstein said.
“We don't know how those court cases will turn out, but we think both rules are on strong footing,” Brownstein said.
Another route for rolling back these particular regulations could be under the Congressional Review Act. Nixing the rules under the review act technically means the rule wouldn't take effect and no similar rule to that could be issued, Brownstein said.
However, this route is largely untested. The review act has only been used once to repeal a set of Labor Department ergonomic standards and those stakes were small enough that the constitutionality of that action wasn't challenged, Brownstein said. That wouldn't be the case with these rules, he said.
“If this becomes a major path to shredding administrative action for environmental purposes or otherwise, then you can be certain that there would be a constitutional challenge here on separation of powers,” Brownstein said.
Like the power plant standards, the Trump EPA could attempt to rescind the methane standards through the regulatory process, but that would again be challenged by environmental groups.
The EPA could not “make a decent case that suddenly this was a big mistake,” especially when states such as Wyoming are adopting the federal standards for new and modified oil and gas wells by reference into their rules, Brownstein said.
Deregulation Not a Panacea
Though observers expect the Trump administration to slow the pace and stringency of new regulations and possibly roll back existing rules, deregulation may not be in industry's best interest, attorneys said.
“If you just focus on deregulating, you create a vacuum, and that vacuum gets filled with litigation and uncertainty,” Berge said.
Rather than whole rollbacks of EPA regulations, targeted fixes may be more beneficial and provide more certainty to industry groups, she said.
“We don't need someone to come in with a bulldozer and try to clear the field. We need a surgeon not a sledgehammer,” she said.
Many industries are already making independent efforts to address climate change as part of their business practices, Jon Sohn, counsel at Dentons in Washington, D.C., who has represented clients on climate issues before the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality, told Bloomberg BNA.
“A number of them are already planning for this across all sectors,” he said. “It's not as if every natural gas power plant producer out there is against the Clean Power Plan for instance. The challenge is to move past the politicization of climate change and take a hard a look at the science.”Refrigeration Industry Defends Phaseout
While there are many areas where industry is pushing for rollbacks, there is at least one issue area where industry is fearing one instead.
Air conditioning and other refrigeration companies are worried ratification of an international agreement that would cut 80 percent of super-polluting hydrofluorocarbons could come under scrutiny in the new Republican-led regime, said Stephen Yurek, president of the Air- Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute in Arlington, Va.
“We are concerned [about] this getting wrapped up in the broader discussion of the Paris accord and climate change,” Yurek told Bloomberg BNA.
The Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer that would phase down use of HFCs globally, reached in October, should be ratified because it is implementable and feasible and industry is on board, Yurek said.
“They're quite comfortable with the changes that are coming and they won't want their investments to be disrupted by the U.S. changing courses,” Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.
The industry is also largely on board with domestic regulations phasing out hydrofluorcarbons, including those under the EPA's Significant New Alternatives Policy program, although the industry had pushed for a later compliance deadline, Yurek and Zaelke said.
While Zaelke said industry might want more flexibility in complying with those rules, he added that he didn't see those rules changing “radically.”
Encouraging in States, Fighting in Congress
With Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, environmental advocates said they will turn their attention to states and businesses interested in acting on climate change while fending off legislation to roll back programs already in place.
“The posture will be one most immediately of defense,” Burger said. “I fully expect to see an onslaught of legislation. Regardless of where Trump settles, the Republicans in Congress, we know where they stand. I expect to see an onslaught of activity to roll back climate regulations and environmental protections more generally.”
Without the prospect of federal action, states may be the drivers of continued emissions reductions, advocates said.
“We'll probably be focusing on states and trying to get states to go further on reg actions,” the Sierra Club's Spalding said. “It's unlikely we'll be seeing any federal regulation in some areas in the next four years.”
Though environmental groups are gearing up for a more combative relationship than they enjoyed with the Obama administration, they have not ruled out working with Trump where possible.
“We are prepared to engage where there's possibilities for constructive engagement,” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857691&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857691&jd=102857691
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The Great Garbage Fire Debate: Should We Be Burning Our Trash Into Energy?
Jan 2, 2017 | Salon
By Diane Stopyra
Other countries convert incinerated waste into electricity and heat. Could this help our trash crisis?Earlier this year, a video explaining Sweden’s efficient trash burning system made the Facebook rounds, touting a shocking statistic: less than one percent of this country’s household waste ends up in a landfill. Instead, much of it is incinerated and converted into usable electricity and heat via waste-to-energy plants. In the U.S., the clip left the social media community scratching its collective head, and asking: Why aren’t Americans burning more of our own garbage?
Considering we’re in the midst of a trash crisis, it’s a good question. Every year, humans generate more than a billion tons of solid waste, and that number will be closer to 4 billion by 2100. In America, each of us throws away more than seven pounds of garbage a day. In other words: we’re surrounded by rubbish, and because our population is on the rise, the problem is set to get worse.
Today, most of our garbage makes its way into one of America’s 3,500 landfills, but this isn’t a sustainable solution. The trash here doesn’t biodegrade as quickly as experts predicted back in the ’30s when the first underground garbage heap was given a test run in California. In fact, much of it mummifies. In 1992, the New York Times reported on a portion of in-tact guacamole retrieved from a landfill 25 years after being thrown out. In the meantime, the landfill trash that does disintegrate leeches toxins like arsenic and lead into groundwater supplies, while greenhouse gases (primarily methane) are released into the atmosphere, expediting the climate change that’s set to displace hundreds of millions of people. At the same time, for their role in driving this climate change, fossil fuels are increasingly becoming fuel source non-grata. We need a new way to power the planet.
Citing these reasons, countries around the globe are increasingly turning to waste-to-energy (WTE) technology, in which the heat from burning trash converts water into steam that’s used to power a turbine generator for producing electricity. China plans on building 300 WTE plants over the next three years, including the largest facility of its kind in the world. It will be capable of burning 5,000 tons of trash a day and it will turn at least one-third of that into usable electricity. And Europe has historically been the largest market for waste-to-energy technology on the planet.
Proponents point to an allegedly subtle (relatively) environmental footprint. While waste-to-energy plants do release greenhouse gasses — just like landfills — these facilities have “much lower carbon equivalent emissions,” according to Columbia University’s Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council. Also, “WTE plants conserve fossil fuels by generating electricity. One ton of municipal solid waste combusted reduces oil use by one barrel (ie, 35 gallons).” In fact, according to the industry’s main lobbying group, the Energy Recovery Council, 24 states recognize waste-to-energy power as renewable since the fuel source — rubbish — won’t ever run out. And contrary to popular belief, research shows that adopting WTE technology does not reduce recycling rates. Furthermore, certain valuable metals can be recovered from post-combustion ash.
Yet, while the U.S. has sipped on it, we haven’t yet drunk the WTE koolaid. In America, 77 waste-to-energy plants operate in 29 states (they burn about 12 percent of our trash yearly), and hundreds more have been proposed in recent decades. But due to cost, regulatory hurdles and grassroots resistance, only one such facility has been built in the last 20 years, a $672 million project in Palm Beach County that was brought online last year.
So why haven’t we embraced the technology?
For one thing, it’s a lot pricier to build and operate a WTE facility than a landfill. There are success stories — the energy generation of one plant in Uruguay (380 GWh of electricity annually) translates to about $35 million in revenue per year. For context, the facility requires $10 million less than that per year to operate. But there are also many stories of fantastic economic failure. In 2011, the city of Harrisburg declared bankruptcy largely due to the $310 million worth of debt accrued by the city’s WTE plant, the Harrisburg Resource Recovery Facility.
But for many activists, the real costs of this technology are environmental — to call trash incineration renewable is laughable, they say, since much of the energy content comes from oil-based plastics, and most of our discarded products require way more energy to make than they could ever provide as fuel. Furthermore, misinformation abounds surrounding the technology’s carbon footprint. According to EPA data, trash incineration releases 5,511 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour of energy produced – 2.5 times more than the 2,186 pounds you get making the same amount of energy from coal. However, EPA argues that trash burning only releases 1,016 pounds, after ignoring nearly half of the emissions as “carbon neutral” and subtracting emissions that would have occurred if the trash were landfilled. But as Mike Ewall, founder and director of the Energy Justice Network, told Salon: “They’re clever in their accounting tricks. Carbon neutrality claims have been scientifically debunked. We also wouldn’t stand for a wind farm trying to argue that their zero carbon emissions were actually negative 2,000 because they want to compare themselves to coal. Incineration needs to be compared to true zero waste solutions, not just landfills. Incineration is the most expensive and polluting way to manage waste or make energy.”
Additionally, while these WTE facilities may meet emission guidelines individually, only three states have any official metric evaluating the cumulative impacts of multiple emission sources in one area. “This is problematic, since sites chosen for these projects are often overburdened already with toxic exposure,” Chloe Ahmann, doctoral candidate at George Washington University, told Salon. Her research focuses on the grassroots effort to stop incinerators in South Baltimore, where the Fairfield Renewable Energy Project recently met a slow death. “This reality isn’t accounted for in our regulatory system.”
Some argue that America simply isn’t implementing the technology in the right way — rather than trying to open huge, ugly, scary facilities no one wants to be near in areas already struggling with social justice issues, we should take a cue from energy-independent Denmark, which has opted instead for small-scale plants that contribute to a sense of neighborhood pride. In Copenhagen, one beautifully-designed WTE plant doubles as a ski slope and blows an awareness-raising steam ring for every ton of CO2 burned. The more people recycle, the fewer rings there are. In this way, the plant plays a key role in Denmark’s goal of becoming more eco-friendly.
As the WTE debate intensifies, experts on either side of the aisle can at least agree on one thing: it’s this mindfulness that’s missing from our trash strategy.
“We roll our garbage to the curb and poof it’s gone,” Edward Humes, author of “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash,” told Salon. “So we don’t think about it. But if our products are destined to be fuel, we need to start designing them with this in mind. If we’re serious about recycling, we need to engineer materials better suited for this. Instead, we’re all about bolting solutions onto the end of a process. Think about the moon mission — there was a strategy in place to reach a goal incrementally, right? First we designed a spacecraft that could leave the atmosphere, then one that could orbit the earth, then rendezvous with other spacecraft. That’s how we went from nothing, to landing on the moon within ten years. There isn’t anything like that in the trash sphere. Could WTE facilities be part of a larger plan rather than an end in themselves? Maybe. But right now, there’s no 30,000-foot view, no larger plan to design waste out of our daily lives. The missing piece is the most important one.”
https://www.salon.com/2017/01/02/the-great-garbage-fire-debate-should-we-be-burning-our-trash-into-energy/
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Dzombak: Civil Discourse Is Possible, Even About Fracking
Jan 3, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By David A. Dzombak
With the high level of partisanship in national politics and subsequent lowering of civil dialogue in the recent presidential campaign and the media, it's easy for anyone to become cynical about the state of discourse in America on topics of public interest.
Throughout our history, however, American political dialogue has often been mean-spirited, yet the nation has made progress. How? Because of the commitment of individual Americans to move forward in a civil and collaborative way. The same is true today. I saw this first-hand through experience I've had over the past six years on the challenging topic of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking").
In 2009, Congress asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources - a request driven by the rapid expansion of horizontal fracturing for oil and natural gas production. The proliferation of horizontal fracturing has raised many questions about impacts on air, land, water, and communities.
The EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB), an independent body chartered by Congress in 1978, was engaged by the EPA to provide peer review of the hydraulic fracturing study.
As an SAB member, I chaired three panels from 2010-2016, each to review different phases of the project. Texas was well-represented on the panels. The EPA released a draft report of its findings in June 2015, and the SAB conducted a year-long review of that document with a panel of 30 people representing diverse scientific and engineering expertise and professional backgrounds.
All SAB panel meetings were open to the public, all draft documents prepared by the panels were posted on the SAB website for public review, and written and oral public comments were invited for all meetings and documents prepared by the SAB. Almost 109,000 written comments were submitted, and hundreds of oral comments were presented.
Those six years saw a very high level of public interest in the work of the SAB panels. We heard from many individuals and organizations who spent a great deal of effort preparing detailed, thoughtful and informative written comments. Also, there were oral commenters at every meeting, sometimes 40 or more. The written and oral comments typically conveyed strong positions on hydraulic fracturing and the potential for impacts. There were many conflicting perspectives. Some individuals reported substantial impacts to their homes, families and quality of life, and claimed hydraulic fracturing as the cause of the problems. Oral comments were often presented with much passion - and anger, in some cases. Yet, throughout the many oral presentations speakers unfailingly adhered to time limits and demonstrated respect for the forum and one another.
Equally impressive was the collegial, constructive spirit of the SAB panels. Each member was selected by the SAB staff office for individual expertise, and not to represent a particular organization or perspective. Panel members were charged to work as a team toward developing a consensus scientific peer review. All panel members took this responsibility seriously, and worked diligently and collegially.
The engagement of the public informed the SAB panel and contributed to a high quality peer review that helped to strengthen the recently finalized EPA report. The public's extensive input to the EPA research, and the work of a diverse group of committed science and engineering citizens, will help move our nation forward in advancing new energy technology in a manner that protects human health and the environment.
As an American, I was inspired by the serious, substantive engagement of the public with the peer-review process - which they clearly respected - and the diligent collaboration by the SAB panel members. The dedicated and civil efforts of all who participated in the SAB review of a challenging topic speaks well of continued societal interest in advancing the common good.
My experience with part of the national discussion on hydraulic fracturing is just one example of how civil discourse is alive and well, even amid a divisive national conversation. No doubt you will find many more in your own community. They just may be in unexpected places.
Dzombak is a Hamerschlag University professor and head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Departmentat Carnegie Mellon University.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Dzombak-Civil-discourse-is-possible-even-about-10833166.php
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Md. Legislative Panel Places Temporary Hold On Proposed Fracking Regulations
Jan 3, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks
A Maryland legislative panel has placed a temporary hold on the state’s proposed fracking regulations amid sharp disagreements over whether the controversial gas-extraction method should be allowed at all.
The rare action by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review prevents the state’s environmental department from implementing the guidelines until Feb. 27, giving the General Assembly time to consider prohibiting the drilling practice, technically known as hydraulic fracturing.
Sen. Roger Manno (D-Montgomery) and Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore), who chair the panel, informed Environment Secretary Benjamin H. Grumbles of the hold in a Dec. 29 letter, saying the committee “wishes to ensure that concerns raised by stakeholders about the regulations are addressed.”
Fracking is shaping up to be one of the most hotly debated topics of the upcoming legislative session, with several lawmakers promising bills this year to ban the practice outright.
Other members of the legislature have discussed introducing measures to either extend a moratorium that is set to expire in October or establish stricter rules than those proposed by the state’s environmental officials.
Advocates say hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting sand and chemicals deep into the ground to break up rock and release natural gas, could provide economic benefits for Western Maryland, where the practice is most likely to occur.
Opponents have raised concerns about groundwater contamination, air pollution and earthquakes, saying no safeguards can adequately protect the public and the environment.
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has said he supports fracking with strict safeguards in place.
The environmental department, which proposed the regulations in November at the direction of the General Assembly, defended its draft rules but also promised to provide any additional information requested by the committee.
Agency spokesman Jay Apperson said the proposed regulations are “the most protective and comprehensive in the country.”
The guidelines would ban drilling in three watersheds in Western Maryland and require four layers of steel casing and cement around fracking wells to prevent water, gas and other fluids from migrating to other areas. But they would also allow fracking closer to homes and private wells than what former governor Martin O’Malley (D) had proposed.
Manno said the joint committee wanted to give lawmakers time to weigh in on the rules before allowing them to move forward.
“There was absolutely no consensus that these regulations were ready for prime time,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-legislative-panel-places-hold-on-proposed-fracking-regulations/2017/01/03/09ac297a-d1ec-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html?utm_term=.ffb2d517cda5
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If Pipeline Is Built, Some Members Could Profit
Jan 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
When President-elect Donald Trump takes over the White House later this month, he could give the Dakota Access pipeline a second look following the Obama administration's rejection of the project last month. But while the former reality TV star has sold his own stake in the firm building the 1,172-mile project, that decision could still stand to benefit the bank accounts of a handful of House and Senate lawmakers.
According to financial disclosure documents filed by members of Congress, in 2015 — the most recent data available — fewer than a dozen lawmakers held stakes — ranging from as little as $1,000 to as much as $550,000 in the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP or its sister partnership, Energy Transfer Equity.
Trump likewise reported owning between $15,000 and $50,000 in ETP stock in 2016, but his campaign announced in early December that he had since sold the asset.
When he is sworn in as the 45th president, Trump could opt to review the Obama administration's decision to withhold a key permit needed to complete the Dakota Access pipeline. He has likewise stated that he would like to see TransCanada Corp. reapply for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
To do so, Trump will have to overrule the objections from members of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota — who have said the pipeline would disturb burial grounds and potentially pollute the Missouri River.
But success of the pipeline could give a boost to company shareholders, who include Georgia Sen. David Perdue (R), New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur (R), Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell (D) and Ohio Rep. Bob Gibbs (R), among others.
Members disclosed those holdings in their annual financial disclosure reports, which require lawmakers to detail their assets, including stocks, bonds and savings accounts, as well as debts like student loans and mortgages.
But the reports, which are filed by members each spring, are dated because they cover only the previous calendar year. New reports detailing lawmakers' 2016 finances will not be available until mid-2017.Some lawmakers divest
According to data tracked by the Center for Responsible Politics, as well as an E&E News review of disclosure documents filed by House and Senate lawmakers, a handful of lawmakers have recently disposed of their investments in Energy Transfer Partners or Energy Transfer Equity.
According to a periodic transaction report — required whenever a lawmaker sells or purchases an investment valued at more than $1,000 — North Carolina Rep. David Price (D) recently sold his investment in ETP.
Price reported owning between $15,000 and $50,000 in ETP stock at the end of 2015 and then selling between $15,000 and $50,000 of the stock in November 2016.
Similarly, California Rep. Adam Schiff (D) reported owning between $1,000 and $15,000 in ETE stock in 2014 and selling between $1,000 and $15,000 in that stock in December of the following year.
His most recent financial disclosure report showed the value of his ETE stock at zero, suggesting he has disposed of it in its entirety.
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven (R) also previously held a significant investment in ETP stock but reported dispensing with the investment at the end of 2015.
Hoeven reported owning $100,000 and $250,000 in ETP stock at the end of 2014, which produced about $7,500 in income. Hoeven goes beyond the reporting requirements and provides exact figures for income from his various investments.
At the end of 2015, Hoeven reported selling between $50,000 and $100,000 in stock — which he noted was the entirety of his investment in ETP — and earning about $8,700 that year.John Dingell is an investor
E&E News' review of documents filed with the Clerk of the House indicate other lawmakers with stakes in ETE have not sold their stock since reporting its ownership in their most recent personal financial disclosures.
Earlier this year, Gibbs reported that he owned between $1,000 and $15,000 in the company at the end of 2015, while Dingell reported that her spouse, former longtime Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), owned $15,000 to $50,000 in ETE stock at that time.
MacArthur also reported various investments owned jointly with his spouse, including $100,000 to $250,000 in ETP that earned master limited partnership distribution of between $5,000 and $15,000 in 2015.
MacArthur reported acquiring the stock in May 2015 in exchange for an investment in Regency Energy Partners LP, which merged with ETP in the same year.
The New Jersey lawmaker also reported $100,000 to $250,000 invested in Energy Transfer Equity that likewise earned an MLP distribution of between $5,000 and $15,000.
The MacArthurs also own an ETP corporate bond worth between $15,000 and $50,000 that earned between $2,500 and $5,000 in both capital gains and interest in 2015.
Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder (R) similarly reported exchanging his Regency Energy Partners stock into ETP stock, reporting less than $1,000 in the company. He also listed $1,000 to $15,000 invested in ETE and has not filed any reports to indicate he has sold the stock.
Michigan Rep. Dave Trott (R) also invests in ETE, reporting a stake between $100,000 and $250,000 in 2015 that earned between $100,000 and $1 million in capital gains and other income.
Trott sold a portion of his investment in ETE in 2015, reporting more than a dozen transactions including one sale valued between $100,000 and $250,000. In his 2014 report, Trott said he owned between $500,000 and $1 million in ETE.
Texas Rep. Brian Babin (R) reported a stake of $1,000 to $15,000 in ETE in his most recent personal financial report. The investment is held in an IRA fund.Senators, too
Sen. Perdue is also an investor in ETE, reporting between $15,000 to $50,000 he holds jointly with his spouse. The investment earned between $15,000 and $50,000 in capital gains in 2015. The senator listed more than a dozen partial sales of his stake in the business.
Perdue added to his investments in 2016 when he reported purchasing stock in ETP, first in February in a pair of transactions valued at $15,000 to $50,000 and $1,000 to $15,000, and then in July in a transaction valued between $50,000 and $100,000. The senator reported selling a portion of his ETP stock in September in a transaction valued at $15,000 to $50,000.
Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran (R) also recently invested in ETP, reporting a November purchase of between $15,000 and $50,000 in the firm's stock.
In his most recently financial report, Cochran had previously disclosed a stake in ETE valued at between $15,000 and $50,000 that earned up to $2,500 in dividends in 2015. He subsequently sold that investment in January 2016 in a transaction valued at $15,000 to $50,000.
Among the 60 new lawmakers who won election to the 115th Congress, only Florida Rep. Francis Rooney (R) reported a stake in ETP, with $1 to $1,000 invested (see related story).
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/04/stories/1060047792
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Children Aged 7 To 17 Killed In Texas Home By Toxic Chemical Gas
Jan 3, 2017 | Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz
Four children aged 7 to 17 died after a toxic gas leak from a pest control product at their home in Amarillo, Texas, fire officials said on Tuesday.
Six others survived the incident, with Martha Balderas, the mother of the children, in critical condition at a hospital in the nearby Texas Panhandle city of Lubbock, hospital officials said.
"It has really shocked our community," Amarillo Fire Department Captain Larry Davis said in a telephone interview.
Those killed were Balderas siblings Yasmeen, 17; Josue, 11; Johnnie, 9, and Felipe, 7, the department said.
The Amarillo Fire Department reported the deaths on Monday but did not identify the victims.
A GoFundMe.com page seeking to raise $25,000 has been set up to help the family pay for the funerals.
"We are so sorry for your loss. Family is everything," contributor Nancy Spring-Epley wrote on the page.
The gas leak was caused when water was added on Sunday to the restricted fumigant, which contained aluminum phosphide. That created toxic phosphine gas, the fire department said, adding it was viewing the gas leak as an accident.
The department was called in on Monday to find the sickened family. The home has been cordoned off and local and state officials are working on a strategy to make the scene safe, Davis said.
"The site of the incident is secured and does not pose any known health hazards to the surrounding community," the city of Amarillo said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-poisoning-idUSKBN14N1XS
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Pending Railroad Industry Concerns for 2017
Jan 3, 2017 | Zacks
Class 1 Railroads have been facing several challenges, such as declining oil prices and consumption, slow economic growth, low freight volumes and unfavorable weather conditions. Apart from the macroeconomic concerns, the industry is threatened by proposed regulations. However, Railroads have been lobbying against these regulations and the decision on its actual implementation has yet to be taken.
Proposed Regulations
The main threat to Railroads is State Transportation Board’s (STB) proposal of reciprocal switching, which is also referred to as forced access by the Association of American Railroads (“AAR”). Per this proposal, shippers who do not have access to other modes of transportation will be allowed to use a competing rail line without any additional pricing and possibly at below market rates.
Per AAR, this regulation might disrupt railroad operations, cause revenue losses and overall increase costs for Railroads. Notably, the proposed regulation might cost Railroads almost $8 billion a year. Investments in development of railways are usually undertaken by the companies that own the respective networks. Reciprocal switching would result in these companies spending on infrastructural developments that can be used by competitors without paying sufficient returns in exchange.
Other proposals, such as reregulation of certain commodities and introducing a price cap for the amount charged by Railroads to shippers, are also major concerns for the industry. Railroads strongly believe that the operational complexity of railroads is bound to increase and revenues will suffer if such regulations are implemented. It would add to the woes of the industry, which is already struggling to restore bottom-line growth.
Low Intermodal Volumes and Pricing
An article published by the Journal of Commerce (“JOC”), mentioned that rail companies do not expect a rebound in intermodal volumes or pricing at least up to the second half of 2017. Per the Intermodal Association of North America (“IANA”) intermodal volumes declined 4.6% year over year in the third quarter of 2016, marking the second consecutive quarterly decline. Prior to the second quarter of 2016, intermodal volume growth had been inching up for the past 25 quarters.
Energy Commodities
Coal makes up for the bulk of revenues for Railroads. However, we note that this segment has been underperforming with the shift in focus to renewable energy, low industrial demand and cheaper natural gas. Most leading Railroads such as Kansas City Southern (KSU - Free Report) , Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC - Free Report) , Canadian National Railways (CNI - Free Report) , Union Pacific Corp. (UNP - Free Report) and CSX Corp. (CSX - Free Report) have seen revenues decline as a result.
There are chances, however, of coal being revived under President-elect Donald Trump. A strong supporter of clean coal, Trump is committed to increasing jobs and easing regulations for the industry, in turn, boosting coal volumes.
Despite the aforesaid positives, the cost of making coal clean is a huge setback. The technology, currently in use, significantly cuts emissions from coal into the environment but it is expensive. Thus, its economic feasibility and availability is something which would need to be addressed to see the desired increases in coal volumes.
Another energy commodity in the limelight is crude oil. Prices of this commodity are expected to improve significantly in 2017 as a result of OPEC members agreeing to cut production. However, the price movement will depend on the extent to which OPEC members actually cut output. Additionally, non-OPEC nations like Russia – a major producer – will also need to ensure that production is lowered, which could be a challenge for its government.
U.S. shale producers, on the other hand, might enter the markets again if crude oil prices increase. We note that these threats could result in lower-than-expected fuel surcharges and revenues for Railroads.
Conclusion
Railroads definitely have potential to grow in 2017. The companies probably faced their toughest few quarters in 2016. However, the major reason for concern is the uncertainty overshadowing each positive aspect that can drive growth. Agrarian products are expected to perform much better than prior years but adverse weather conditions remain a threat.
Trump’s tenure can result in better days for the industry, but that depends on his proposed changes being implemented. Most significantly, if proposed regulations like reciprocal switching are indeed put into effect, the industry will be exposed to a major overhaul and in the short-term results would be impacted. Overall, it remains to be seen the direction U.S. economy and government decisions take and how it ultimately shapes the next few quarters for Railroads.
Check out our latest Railroads Industry Outlook for more news on the current state of affairs in this market from an earnings perspective, and how the trend looks ahead for this important sector at the moment.
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https://www.zacks.com/commentary/100012/pending-railroad-industry-concerns-for-2017
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Companies Should Report Possible Climate Costs, Say Global Executives
Jan 3, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Jason Douglas
LONDON—Companies should publish an assessment of the losses they could suffer through climate change as part of their routine financial statements, according to a panel of financial and business executives chaired by Michael Bloomberg.
The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, headed by the former New York City Mayor, in a report Wednesday said that greenhouse gas emissions pose a serious risk to the global economy and investors need better information to assess which firms are most vulnerable to shifting weather patterns and related threats.
“What gets measured better gets managed better,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a letter to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England and chairman of the Financial Stability Board, a group of global regulators, which commissioned the 73-page report.
The call for greater transparency over climate-related risks is part of a wider push to prod companies to disclose more climate-related information, a contentious effort that implies such issues are material to a company’s performance.
It also comes amid heightened uncertainty over the future of efforts to cut carbon emissions following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election in November. Mr. Trump has pledged to dismantle the Obama administration’s climate agenda and chose a global-warming skeptic to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The panel’s recommendations, which include broad suggestions applicable to all companies’ financial statements and specific proposals aimed at banks, insurers and the financial sector, will be presented to leaders of the Group of 20 leading economies in July.
The recommendations are voluntary but members of Mr. Bloomberg’s panel included senior executives from companies including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Indian conglomerate Tata Sons Ltd. and mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd.
The task force described how climate change could affect companies in myriad ways, whether through physical losses through bad weather or changing government policies on issues such as energy supply and pollution. It noted climate change also presents companies and their investors with potential opportunities, as new technologies could hurt demand for fossil fuels.
It recommended companies publish estimates of how rising temperatures or policy changes could affect their bottom line. Banks, for example, should consider disclosing how much of their loan book is tied up in the energy and utilities sectors, while insurers should model potential losses under a range of future climate scenarios.
In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission has spent the past three years re-examining its disclosure rules for public companies and in April sought public comment on whether to require firms to disclose more about how global warming could affect their businesses. The SEC isn’t expected to take a position on the matter soon, but there are signs the agency is taking the issue seriously: it is probing how Exxon Mobil Corp. calculates the impact on its business from the world’s mounting response to climate change, The Wall Street Journal reported this fall.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-should-report-possible-climate-costs-say-global-executives-1481716801
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Committees May Target Environment Under Floor Package
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott and Rachel Leven
House Republicans prevailed Jan. 3 on a rules package that directs committees to highlight specific environmental and other federal regulations—and in some cases, entire agencies—that they think should be scrapped.
The House passed the rules package (H. Res. 5) by a vote of 234-193 after House Republicans voted to keep Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in his post as House speaker for the 115th Congress. Introduced by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the rules package sets out how legislation will be handled over the next two years of assured Republican rule in the chamber.
Under the rules package, most committees—with the exception of House rules, appropriations and ethics committees—are to include regulations and agencies they would target in an authorization and oversight plan. The committees are to finish those plans no later than Feb. 15. Included in the plan: recommendations for “consolidation or termination” of any programs or agencies deemed “duplicative, unnecessary, or inconsistent with the appropriate roles and responsibilities” of the federal government.
For environmental regulation, the change presumably could embolden Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency, to recommend ending certain programs or fuel calls for combining the agency with the Energy Department.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), an early supporter of President-elect Donald Trump who has emerged as a top energy adviser, has argued for doing just that, telling Bloomberg BNA Dec. 28 that consolidating the two agencies would be more efficient.
The changes also would provide a platform for Republicans seeking to rein in what they consider regulatory overreach, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's oversight of the Clean Air Act. The report would include recommended changes “to existing law related to Federal rules, regulations, statutes, and court decisions affecting such programs and agencies that are inconsistent with the authorities of the Congress” under the Constitution.
Federal Workers, Compensation in Crosshairs
The procedural package mirrors past rules changes the Republican-led chamber pushed through in 2011, 2013, and 2015, all designed to curtail regulatory burdens in any new legislation. But targeting programs and even entire agencies is new and reflects an emboldened Republican Party that now controls the House, Senate and in just over two weeks, the White House.
In a move that McCarthy, the GOP leader, sought to minimize as an experimental “pilot” program, the approved rules revive a long-dormant “Holman Rule” to allow members to offer floor amendments to appropriations bills that target federal personnel within a federal agency or department or even cutting federal employee compensation.
McCarthy told reporters just hours before the vote on the rules package that bringing back the Holman Rule, which emerged in the 19th century but was abandoned in the early 1980s, would apply for just one year on an experimental basis.
McCarthy told reporters Jan. 3 that reviving the Holman rule “actually empowers individuals”—congressional representatives—in providing greater accountability in the federal government. It was his suggestion, he said, to “only put it in for one year” in the rules package, which would mean it would expire in January 2018.
The majority leader declined to specify which federal agencies might be targeted. “I think all agencies should be held accountable and tested … and this is an avenue to allow them to do it,” McCarthy said.
Obama Agenda Rejected?
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said voters had rejected the pro-regulatory path pursued by President Barack Obama and that Republicans planned to make good on their pledge to roll back environmental and other regulations they argue impede job growth.
“We see things differently,” Sessions told colleagues on the floor, and “that's why you're going to see, not only in the rules package … but by the way that we do business here in the House of Representatives, that we look at regulations differently.” House Republicans will be pushing to rein in agencies to follow “the intent of the law, not the intent of a regulator,” Sessions said.
“For the first time in a long time, we will have a president-elect, yes, Donald Trump, who will, I believe, work with the United States Congress,” Sessions said.
House Democrats, who had little hope of beating back the procedural changes, said reverting to the Holman Rule allows congressional members to unfairly target civil service employees. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the change was meant “to make it easier for the majority to circumvent the current legislative process in order to fire or cut the pay of federal employees.”
“It undermines civil service protections. It goes back to the 19th century,” when such authority was misused to target specific federal workers, Hoyer said. “Republicans have consistently made our hardworking federal employees scapegoats, in my opinion, for lack of performance of the federal government itself.”
James Goodwin, senior policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform, said he remains skeptical that a Republican-led effort to consolidate agencies or departments can succeed. “This is kind of like clothing fashion, the idea of combining and streamlining and putting agencies together to get at the bureaucracy goes in and out of fashion,” he said.
“This is one of those things that sounds good in a half-hearted press release, but it's not going to happen. It took something like 9/11 to re-jigger agencies—you need a real shock” or event such as the 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S., he said, for such a large-scale change to be made.
Budgetary Change for Land Transfer
The rules package also includes a section that would allow public lands to be conveyed back to the states, local governments, or tribes without having to account for the budgetary impact of such a conveyance. Under the new House procedures, that move wouldn't be seen as “providing new budget authority, decreasing revenues, increasing mandatory spending, or increasing outlays.”
House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told Bloomberg BNA that eliminating any consideration of cost for such land transfers would mean the federal government would “be giving away land [and] you could be getting no return on the land.”
“I think that [was] put in there specifically to expedite what has been a movement” by Republicans “to try to return as much federal land to the states and the counties,” he said, a move generally opposed by many Democrats and environmental groups.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857712&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857712&jd=102857712
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Outlook 2017: Trump Readies U.S. Climate Retreat, Despite Conflicting Signals
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Aside from occasional flickers of hope that his mind isn't made up, President-elect Donald Trump is readying a 2017 rollback of his Democratic predecessor's climate change agenda—up to and including withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate pact.
While the enormity of that change will not be clear until key positions in his Cabinet are confirmed, his nominees for the Environmental Protection Agency, State Department and Energy Department indicate a skepticism of climate actions and science, and all signs point to a retreat from an era of international climate engagement under President Barack Obama.
Even the most ardent supporters of the 2015 climate accord—reached after more than 20 years of talks aimed at committing developed and developing nations alike to address greenhouse gas emissions—expect a monumental change under Trump.
In the end, Trump could reverse his campaign pledge to “cancel” U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement and steer clear of an even more drastic move: complete U.S. withdrawal of the world's No. 2 emitter from climate talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty to the Paris accord. But right now, those actions remain on the table.
It is “a time of profound uncertainty,” acknowledged Christo Artusio, whose work on U.S. climate negotiations at the State Department dates to the beginning of the George W. Bush administration. “I would find it unlikely that a future administration would intend to roll back” some policies that enjoy broad support from affected industries, he said, such as production tax credits for wind and solar energy.
But “there are others where it's just a completely open question,” said Artusio, who directs the State Department Office of Global Change.
Next Move Hard to Predict
For some, it has been difficult to distinguish between the array of actions being contemplated and the degree to which the incoming administration is leaning toward a Paris withdrawal, which is a lengthier process that could drag on for four years, or a UNFCCC withdrawal, which would take only a year. But either action would signal a reversal of eight years of U.S. engagement on the climate issue.
The president-elect has at times given climate advocates reason for cautious optimism—meeting with former Vice President Al Gore for an early December climate talk, for example—but Trump's comments continue to suggest he sees the deal as fundamentally flawed. “You'll have a decision pretty quickly” on the Paris pact, Trump said in a lengthy Fox News Sunday interview Dec. 11, 2016, adding that he was “studying” the issue closely.
“I do say this: I don't want that agreement to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries,” Trump said, adding he is wary of “different time limits” in the deal that could give China or other nations a competitive advantage over the U.S. Trump has expressed concerns that China, the world's top emitter, took on a relatively modest pledge as its contribution to the Paris Agreement.
China is to peak its carbon emissions by around 2030 and cut carbon intensity 60 percent to 65 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels; the U.S., by contrast, vowed to make actual cuts in its emissions of 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, also from 2005 levels. But neither country's pledges, which all countries are to strengthen over time, are binding emissions targets as set out in the Kyoto Protocol.
The Paris deal, which entered into force Nov. 4, 2016, also includes a goal set by nearly 200 nations to keep average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the pre-industrial era and pursue efforts to hold the line at a 1.5 degree Celsius increase (2.7 F).
‘Nothing Off the Table’
For Heather Zichal, who advised Obama on his climate and energy agenda, targeting the Paris deal or the UN parent treaty would have deep repercussions, perhaps none more troubling to her than a collapse of cooperation on the climate issue between the U.S. and the world's top emitter, China.
“At this point it's as if they're throwing darts at a dartboard,” Zichal told Bloomberg BNA. “Nothing is off the table for this administration. I suspect they will wind up in a position of saying, ‘We're not engaging on climate change, we're not going to these [UN] meetings, and we're not living up to our commitments on finance,’ ” including the Green Climate Fund, Zichal said.
Obama pledged $3 billion over four years to the Green Climate Fund in 2014 to prod developing nations to the table to negotiate a global deal, but the U.S. has yet to put up $2.5 billion of that pledge. Future international climate funding will face an uphill battle with Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Chairman Staunch Opponent of Funding
The incoming chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has been perhaps the most vocal congressional opponent of such climate aid, typically used to help developing nations adapt to climate impacts and transition to a low-carbon economy.
“I'll do everything I can to stop it,” Barrasso told Bloomberg BNA.
Trump's opponents and supporters agree on one thing: International climate funding may be the single most endangered aspect of Obama's climate legacy.
Congressional Republicans up until now have tried but failed to block Obama from making good on his Green Climate Fund pledge. The U.S. is just one of the 43 nations or subnational governments that vowed to contribute more than $10 billion to the green fund as of December 2016. That number includes pledges from nine developing nations.Alden Meyer, who tracks UN climate talks as the Union of Concerned Scientists’ director of strategy and policy, worries that international climate funding, from the Green Climate Fund to money the U.S. Agency for International Development funnels to developing nations already being hit by climate impacts, could be on the chopping block.
“What Trump will do with USAID, World Bank and the [Green Climate Fund]—those are pretty high-profile targets,” Meyer told Bloomberg BNA.
“We will have to see environmental, religious and civil society groups go into overtime to make the case that these are in the U.S. interest” in the years ahead, he said.
Climate Funding a Bull's-Eye?
International funding is one clear area where Congress could have a broad role in rolling back climate policy, according to a Republican aide to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Given that many of Obama's climate regulations and policies were executed by the president through regulatory actions or administrative policies, reversing them will primarily rest with the Trump administration, said Mandy Gunasekara, majority counsel for the committee. That includes U.S. acceptance of the Paris deal, which was done by Obama using his executive authority to negotiate international agreements.
“Broadly, it would primarily be administrative action” to roll back much of that climate agenda “since the original action was 100 percent from [ the previous] administration,” the Senate aide told Bloomberg BNA.
“It will be up to the Trump administration from day one to make clear what the path forward is—our role is to remind them of the path the current administration took and say, ‘Don't be swayed by the consequences to the environmental community.’ “
Instead, Republicans should stick to their guns in arguing that the climate rules are costly to the economy, hurt job growth and that U.S. actions amount to too little to put a dent in global emissions, she said. “The consequences to the country” for reversing climate policies will be to remove regulatory barriers to economic growth, “and that will be a good thing,” Gunasekara said.
Negotiating Strategy Fueled Resentment
Republicans will likely turn a deaf ear to pleas from Democrats and environmental groups to leave Obama's international climate legacy untouched, she said, largely because of Republican resentment of what they view as a go-it-alone strategy by the outgoing president. Obama negotiated and signed the U.S. on to the Paris Agreement using his executive authority, skirting a ratification battle with Republicans in the Senate that would have doomed the effort.
The idea of going beyond withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris accord to driving a stake through the heart of the 1992 UN climate convention, first floated last November as nearly 200 nations resumed talks in Morocco to implement the Paris deal, was seen by some as a trial balloon. The prospect of complete U.S. withdrawal from the climate treaty—meaning the U.S. wouldn't even be at the table for negotiations, as it was even during the George W. Bush administration—may have had the effect, intended or not, of making a withdrawal from the Paris pact look like the more moderate choice.
Gunasekara acknowledged that the idea of targeting the entire UN parent treaty, one that was ratified unanimously by the Senate and signed by President George H.W. Bush, is seen by some as a bridge too far. “That is certainly a prevalent narrative,” she said. But Republicans are apt to have little sympathy for those arguments given that Republican senators encountered what she said was resistance from the Obama administration and top officials from the EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to testify on the Paris deal.
Soft Tone for Obama Administration
For their part, top Obama officials who pushed for getting a deal in Paris and speedily getting it entered into force, including Secretary of State John Kerry and the lead U.S. climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, tried to cajole Trump to preserve the Paris deal. And they tried to do so without unnecessarily provoking the new administration.
“No one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States who know climate change is happening and who are determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris,” Kerry said Nov. 16 in a speech during the final days of the Marrakech UN climate summit, formally the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Kerry said he has faith that increasing wind, solar and other renewable energy development is a revolution that will continue unabated regardless of the whims of a new administration; the public, he said, also has largely accepted that something must be done to address global temperatures that seem to hit new records each year.
“The last time that Morocco hosted the COP was in 2001, and the intervening 15 years have been among the 16 hottest years in recorded history,” Kerry said, adding that 2016 is likely to be “the warmest year of all. “
“At some point, even the strongest skeptic has to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening,” he said.
Paris Flexibility Highlighted
Pershing, the U.S. negotiator, has largely resisted engaging in a war of words with the incoming administration, instead emphasizing that the next president has far more flexibility to maneuver within the climate pact than is generally understood. The actions each nation has pledged to the Paris Agreement are not prescribed in the deal itself, which gives successive administrations room to make wholesale changes to policies as they see fit, he argued.
“What's flexible is what any individual country might do under the system,” Pershing said in an interview with Bloomberg BNA as negotiators neared the end of the Nov. 7–19 climate talks in Morocco.
The agreement does not require any nation to adopt a carbon reduction or any other specific energy policy, he said. That is why the deal doesn't require nations to agree, for example, to triple their use of renewable energy or hit a minimum level of energy efficiency.
“We did not do that. What we did was set a global goal, 2 degrees [Celsius] is the place we're shooting for, and if we can get to 1.5, we'd like that,” Pershing said. “And within that [context] we said each country should do exactly as much as they can deliver and go beyond that if they can, and then we will assess and evaluate every few years” whether the combined global effort is making a significant dent in the global temperature increase.
“Supposing we currently have, as we do, the Clean Power Plan [and] suppose the next administration decides it wants to do something different,” Pershing added. “It has [the] recourse within this deal to make the changes” it wants, he said, suggesting Trump could substitute other policies more amenable to his administration.
Looking Ahead From Morocco
The Marrakech summit, which opened only days after the Paris Agreement went into effect, was never expected to deliver significant progress on the global climate effort beyond the first steps toward implementing the pact, which will continue to be the focus at this year's UN summit in Bonn. Negotiators got about as much progress as expected in Morocco; they outlined how they will craft a rule book in the coming years to implement the deal and reaffirmed the importance of a 2018 “stocktaking” that will be the first chance to review whether nations are taking ambitious enough action to combat global warming.
But Trump's election also spurred what Jo Tyndall, New Zealand's former climate ambassador, called a strong vote of confidence in the Paris pact by the nearly 200 nations at the Morocco summit. They rallied around a Marrakech Action Proclamation with the world's nations warning that the Earth's climate “is warming at an alarming and unprecedented rate and we have an urgent duty to respond” to the challenge.
That represented “a collective will” to move forward even as the U.S. considers retrenchment and to “demonstrate clearly that all [countries] were strongly committed to the Paris Agreement,” Tyndall, who now co-chairs the ad hoc working group helping to implement the Paris pact, told Bloomberg BNA.
On implementation issues, “I was particularly pleased that we got a clear and substantial work plan” heading into the 2018 high-level UN summit to be held in Bonn, Tyndall said, which “was a tangible demonstration of the shared desire to get on with the job” of implementing the Paris deal.
Resistance to Trump Retreat Grows
Many environmental groups are searching for the right tone in confronting Trump over a possible U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the array of international climate efforts that could be targeted after Trump takes office in January.
But several of Trump's early picks—Myron Ebell, who is heading Environmental Protection Agency transition matters and is a longtime climate skeptic, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to head EPA who sued to block its power plant carbon pollution limits—have angered environmental groups.
Trump's pick for secretary of state, ExxonMobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson, is seen as a moderate voice on the Paris pact. But environmental groups say ExxonMobil spent decades undermining climate researchers even as its own internal research acknowledged links between human activity and climate change as early as 1981.
Pruitt is “by far the worst” EPA nominee ever put forth for the job, League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski told reporters.
And Senate Democrats, who control just 48 seats in the Senate, not enough on their own to reject a Trump nominee without Republican defections, are worried. “This is a full-fledged environmental emergency,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102857713&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102857713&jd=102857713
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Air Pollution Outlook 2017: Air Rules May Get Caught Up in Trump's Rollback Plans
Jan 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Obama-era regulations on ground-level ozone and utility sector emissions are potential targets for a rollback under President-elect Donald Trump, but environmental advocacy organizations are planning a vigorous defense of those regulations in the courts and in the U.S. Senate.
At the same time, the transition of power from President Barack Obama to Trump inserts uncertainty into the status of ongoing Clean Air Act litigation and rulemaking at the Environmental Protection Agency, though the agency will still face several looming deadlines to take action on implementing the 2015 ozone standards, reviewing national air toxics standards and making decisions on state pollution plans.
Outside of the regulatory sphere, 2017 also will see continued implementation of the $14.7 billion Volkswagen diesel settlement, with planned activities including continued buyback of non-compliant cars, the first round of funding under a mitigation account intended to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions and VW working on a plan to invest in zero emissions vehicle infrastructure and market development.
Air Regulation Rollback Efforts
During the campaign, Trump pledged to rescind environmental regulations including the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the U.S. Rule. However, he offered few specifics on his plans for Clean Air Act rules that don't target greenhouse gases beyond statements that he will “ensure clean air and clean water” while reducing the number of federal regulations on the books and promoting domestic energy production.
There are some indications those Clean Air Act rules could be on Trump's agenda. His transition website promises a “top-down” review of all regulations on the coal industry, which could include several Clean Air Act rules targeting emissions from coal-fired power plants. In addition, Trump selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R)—who brought lawsuits against the 2015 ozone standards, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants and other air rules—for nomination as EPA administrator, further signaling a likely change in the direction of the agency's air program.
Conservative, free-market and business organizations are lining up with recommendations for the Trump administration to take steps to alter the EPA's regulatory course. For example, the National Association of Manufacturers suggested in a white paper that the new administration work with Congress to allow the EPA to conduct less frequent reviews of its national ambient air quality standards for ozone and other pollutants, while the Manhattan Institute called on the Trump administration to suspend the EPA's new source performance standards and instead subject new industrial facilities to the same emissions standards that apply to existing pollution sources.
The Trump transition did not respond to a request for an interview to discuss the new administration's environmental policy priorities in 2017 and beyond. However, observers told Bloomberg BNA that they expect to see the incoming administration make changes to the EPA's air program, including a likely push to cut back some of the key regulations and policies implemented during Obama's two terms in power.
“I would be shocked if rollback were not a component of their agenda,” William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA. “There is any number of ways to skin that cat.”
Yeatman has no involvement with the Trump transition, though two of his colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell and Christopher Horner, are serving on the transition's EPA review team.
The Trump administration would have several potential avenues to try to alter some of the Obama EPA's air pollution rules, including:
• using the administrative rulemaking process to either rescind or substantially change rules;
• working with Congress to halt implementation of rules, revise the Clean Air Act and use expedited floor procedures under the Congressional Review Act to scrap EPA regulations issued since June 13;
• abandoning the legal defense of rules that are subject to ongoing litigation; and
• slowing down implementation and easing enforcement of established regulations.
Advocates Plan Defense in Courts
Janet McCabe, acting assistant EPA administrator for air and radiation, told Bloomberg BNA in an interview that during the Obama administration, the agency made “a lot of progress” on reducing hazardous air pollution and oversaw an 18 percent reduction in levels of criteria pollutants like ozone, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter between 2009 and 2015.
McCabe said that during her time at the EPA she had the opportunity to work on programs that will “affect millions of people for years to come,” including more stringent national ambient air quality standards, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants and rules limiting power plant emissions that cross state lines.
Environmental advocacy organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council are planning to play defense in an attempt to preserve those Obama-era air rules during the Trump administration.
“We will fight any attempt to roll back Clean Air safeguards and health protections,” John Walke, clean air director at the NRDC, told Bloomberg BNA. “It's that simple.”
Any attempt by the Trump administration to weaken or rollback clean air regulations will be “met with lawsuits and opposition” from environmental advocates, Walke said. In addition to lawsuits, the strategy for environmental advocates will be to try and block any legislation that would weaken the Clean Air Act from getting enough votes to pass the Senate.
Process Must Be Followed
In order for the Trump EPA to rescind or change a rule that is already on the books, the agency will have to follow an administrative process that requires an appropriate record to support its decision-making. That process must be “rational and reasonable and in accordance with the law,” according to Ignacia Moreno, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. Moreno, during remarks at a November conference hosted by New York University Law School's Institute for Policy Integrity, said there would be no “short cut” available for the Trump administration if it seeks to rollback environmental rules.
Undoing established regulations is sometimes a “time-consuming and difficult process” with no guarantee of success, according to Jonathan Adler, director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Adler teaches courses in environmental, administrative and constitutional law.
Adler told Bloomberg BNA that some EPA initiatives during the George W. Bush administration “foundered” due to mistakes in the rulemaking process, which resulted in successful legal challenges by environmental advocates and states.
Adler highlighted the Clean Air Mercury Rule, a 2005 rule that established an emissions trading system to reduce utility sector mercury emissions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2008 vacated the rule after determining the EPA did not make the specific findings required under the Clean Air Act to remove power plants from a list of hazardous air pollutant sources that must be subject to strict emissions limits (New Jersey v. EPA, 517 F.3d 574, 65 ERC 1993, 2008 BL 24283 (D.C. Cir., 2008)).
An EPA under the leadership of Pruitt, who has shown a “real commitment to federalism” during his time as Oklahoma attorney general, would likely take steps to undo some Obama-era regulatory initiatives and move ahead with action that is more deferential to states, Adler said. However, he acknowledged that it is difficult to make a regulatory agency change course.
“We've seen AG Pruitt be a very aggressive and very effective critic of EPA,” Adler said. “We'll have to see how that translates into trying to alter EPA's trajectory.”
Likely Regulatory Freeze, but Deadlines Loom
Trump has pledged in speeches that his administration will protect clean air and clean water for Americans, but the outlook for any new regulatory activity past Trump's inauguration is unclear. Trump has pledged to issue a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations and implement a new requirement for his administration that every new regulation issued be accompanied by the elimination of two existing rules.
While the Trump transition hasn't offered any more information on how the “one in, two out” policy would be implemented, Trump's pledge to issue a freeze on new regulations would be consistent with recent history.
One of the first actions of the Obama administration was to send a memorandum to regulatory agencies instructing them to withdraw any rules that were not yet published in the Federal Register, consider extending the effective date of rules that were already published but not yet in effect and not transmit any additional proposals or final rules to the Office of the Federal Register unless they had been approved by an Obama appointee. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton took similar steps to freeze new regulations early in their terms.
In the past, beginning-of-administration regulatory freezes have not applied to regulations subject to statutory or judicial guidelines. If the Trump administration follows suit, that would mean the EPA would be expected to issue various Clean Air Act regulations, statutory freeze or not. The agency's air program is subject to statutory and judicially-enforceable deadlines in 2017 for a variety of actions, both before and after Trump's inauguration. Those actions include:
• Jan. 19 — action against more than a dozen states that missed statutory deadlines to submit plans concerning implementation of national ozone standards (proposed settlement deadline);
• Feb. 13 — a decision on whether to approve a revised Nevada plan for addressing emissions that cross state lines under the 2008 ozone standards (settlement deadline);
• Oct. 1 — designations of areas that do and don't meet the 2015 ozone standards of 70 parts per billion (statutory deadline);
• Oct. 1 — a review of national hazardous air pollution standards covering pulp and paper facilities (judicial deadline);
• Oct. 27 — a response to a 2013 petition that seeks the addition of nine states to the Ozone Transport Region, which would subject them to additional pollution control and planning requirements (settlement deadline); and
• Dec. 31 — designations under the 2010 primary sulfur dioxide standard for areas that haven't installed a new sulfur dioxide monitoring network (settlement deadline).
Statutory deadlines, along with judicially-enforceable deadlines resulting from citizen lawsuits challenging missed deadlines, are being looked at by environmental advocates as a tool against Trump's EPA, according to Pat Gallagher, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg L.P., parent of Bloomberg BNA.Environmental advocacy organizations like Sierra Club have routinely sued the Obama administration for missing Clean Air Act deadlines, a trend Gallagher expects to continue during the Trump administration.
“The environmental community will hold the Trump administration to those deadlines...we will go to court,” Gallagher told Bloomberg BNA. “I think that area of work will only grow, potentially exponentially, under the Trump administration.”
What Happens to Pending Litigation?
In addition to a slate of regulatory deadlines, the Trump administration also will inherit a variety of ongoing lawsuits in which the Justice Department is defending Obama-era air rules. That includes challenges to the 2015 ozone standards and an EPA finding on regulating power plants that underpins the agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
At the beginning of an administration, the Justice Department can ask courts to halt progress on pending litigation, according to Thomas Lorenzen, a partner with Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington D.C. Lorenzen, who formerly worked in the Justice Department's Environmental Defense Section, told Bloomberg BNA that those cases can be held in abeyance for a “relatively short period” if the new administration wants to continue defense of those rules or a longer freeze if the agency decides they want to repropose or withdraw the regulation in question.
“I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of that” when Trump takes office, Lorenzen said.
Walke of the NRDC said early in past administrations there have been situations where the incoming government leadership has decided to abandon the government's opposition to lawsuits, settle lawsuits or even join the side of the parties challenging the decisions of the previous administration. However, Walke said environmental advocates involved in litigation, either as petitioners or intervenors, will “vigorously protest” any efforts by incoming EPA leadership to reverse course on regulations that are subject to litigation.
“They remain parties to the lawsuit, even if the government switches sides,” Walke said. “So those cases don't automatically roll away.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has jurisdiction over nationally applicable Clean Air Act rules, has scheduled oral arguments in three different air pollution lawsuits during the first half of 2017. Those are:
• Feb. 10 — a lawsuit brought by environmental advocates against an EPA finding that the agency fulfilled its legal obligations to control industrial emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants (Sierra Club v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1246, 12/12/16)
• April 19 — challenges to the EPA's 2015 ozone standards (Murray Energy v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1385, 11/7/16)
• May 8 — state challenges to the EPA's “startup, shutdown, malfunction SIP Call,” which requires 36 states to make changes to plans for addressing excess air pollution emissions (Walter Coke Inc. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1166, 12/2/16)
Lorenzen said it's unclear what will happen to those cases, but acknowledged it is “certainly a possibility” that the incoming Trump administration could ask the court to postpone those arguments. The D.C. Circuit in December opted to reschedule arguments in the ozone litigation from February until April, though the court did not explain its decision.Volkswagen Money to Flow
While there is some uncertainty over the EPA's regulatory agenda for 2017, at the state and local level, environmental regulators are working on plans to improve air quality using funding under the $14.7 billion diesel emissions settlement between Volkswagen AG, the federal government and consumers. The settlement requires the automaker to place $2.7 billion into a trust fund that will be used on air quality improvement projects intended to mitigate the excess pollution caused by VW diesels equipped with illegal defeat devices that allowed the vehicles to pass emissions tests despite emitting more nitrogen oxides than allowed during normal driving conditions.
The conditions of the trust fund allow money to be spent on projects to upgrade older, higher-emitting diesel technology with cleaner options, including the newer diesel or vehicles powered by alternative fuels. McCabe told Bloomberg BNA that the mitigation trust fund is “an incredible opportunity for states” to fund supplementary air quality improvement projects.
Money won't be awarded under the trust fund until a trustee is appointed to oversee disbursement of the funds, which will be followed by a process wherein states and tribes will need to formally file for “beneficiary status” in order to be eligible for money. Neither Volkswagen of America nor the EPA could offer a projection on when the trustee will be named, but state agencies are already planning how they will spend their share of the trust fund money, according to S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. NACAA represents air pollution agencies from 40 states, the District of Columbia and many metropolitan areas.
“Every state in the country will be receiving a significant amount of money as part of the mitigation fund,” Becker told Bloomberg BNA. “There's enough need among the states on [nitrogen oxides] and diesel controls in a variety of sources where this will make a demonstrable and important improvement to air quality.”
States could be in line to receive even more funding from Volkswagen: the U.S. Justice Department Dec. 20 announced a separate $1 billion settlement over a different class of Volkswagen diesels that, if approved by the court, would make another $225 million in environmental remediation funds available to states.
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