Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 1/23/2017
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Panels to Formally Organize, Discuss Agenda
Jan 24, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Energy and Commerce
1:00 PM, 2167 Rayburn -
(ACC Mentioned) Dow Corning Greatly Expands LED Packaging Design Options. With Launch of Three New Highly Reflective Silicone Coatings.
Jan 19, 2017 | LED Inside
By Delilah Lin
Dow Corning, a global leader in silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation, significantly expanded the design flexibilities for LED packaging manufacturers today with the addition of three new highly reflective silicone coatings to its fast-growing portfolio of advanced LED solutions. -
Two Chemical Makers Ready Stock Offerings
Jan 23, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
Chemical stock offerings are off to a strong start in 2017. The German specialty chemical firm AlzChem plans an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in the first half. Huntsman Corp., meanwhile, is pushing ahead with the IPO of its titanium dioxide business—now without a textile chemicals component. -
No Honeymoon for Trump EPA as Court Dates, Deadlines Loom
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency will not enjoy an extended honeymoon period as President-elect Donald Trump assumes the presidency, with a slew of court dates and regulatory deadlines facing the incoming administration in its first six months. -
Zinke, Perry to Wait for Confirmation
Jan 20, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss and Hannah Hess
President Trump's nominees to head the Interior and Energy departments appear unlikely to win Senate confirmation this afternoon, when the chamber is expected to vote on at least two members of the new administration's national security team. -
Corker Aims to Move Tillerson Vote 'Very Quickly'
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote today on one of President Trump's most controversial Cabinet appointments. -
(ACC Mentioned) INSIGHT: Chems Eye New Policies Under Trump Presidency
Jan 20, 2017 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
The inauguration of Donald Trump as US president will give the country its first unified government since 2009-2011, opening up possibilities for new policies that could benefit the chemical industry. -
Latest EPA Chemical Assessment Shows Hurdles for Novel Skin Risk Value
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's final Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) omits a first-time dermal cancer risk estimate that was included in draft versions of the assessment, and explains the methodology to start including such estimates remains under development but could be addressed later in a separate analysis. -
P&G Launches Preservatives Tracker for Consumers
Jan 23, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Consumer products conglomerate, Procter & Gamble (P&G), has launched a website that allows consumers to see what preservatives are in its products. -
The EPA is Being Pressured to Prohibit the Addition of Fluoride into Public Drinking Water
Jan 21, 2017 | Collective Evolution
By Alexa Erickson
Long ago fluoride was thought to promote good oral health, and so it made its way into our drinking water and toothpastes. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ethane Production is Still Climbing
Jan 22, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
U.S. ethane production is growing so fast that federal officials can barely keep track of it, as last year’s projection of 1.4 million barrels per day by 2017 is now trumped by new prognostications of 1.7 million daily barrels by 2018. -
LyondellBasell Completes Ethylene Expansion
Jan 19, 2017 | Caller Times
By Chris Ramirez
LyondellBasell, one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies, has wrapped up its ethylene expansion project in Corpus Christi. -
Trump Orders Sweeping Freeze, Pledges Energy Reforms
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
President Trump ordered a mandatory freeze on a wide range of pending Obama administration rules over the weekend, taking the first steps toward what he has promised will be a sweeping assault on the former president's regulatory agenda. -
What Could Be a Clean Power Plan Replacement?
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Emily Holden
President Trump officially entered office Friday, erasing mentions of climate change from the White House website and replacing them with vows to increase fossil fuel development. -
EPA Defends Utility Emissions Rule from Pruitt's Legal Challenge
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Obama administration offered its final defense of its power plant mercury standards on the same day a Senate committee considered the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a legal opponent of the regulation, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1127, brief filed 1/18/17). -
EPA Delays Another Utility Emissions Decision Until August
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
The incoming Trump administration is scheduled to make decisions on six different state requests to further control power section emissions by August after the Environmental Protection Agency extended its period for reviewing a petition from Delaware. -
Flaring-Emissions Math Error Fixed by EPA
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
A tool used to estimate emissions from flares at refineries and chemical plants was updated to correct a mathematical error, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. -
As Trump Vows to Kill Climate Plan, California Pushes Back
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Joe Ryan
California plans to reduce oil-refinery emissions 20 percent by 2030, providing more details about its effort to impose the nation’s strictest air-quality rules just as President Donald Trump takes office vowing to roll back federal climate policies. -
Gas Pipeline Opponents Shut Out of Energy Commission Meeting
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Jonathan N. Crawford
Environmental groups were shut out of the Jan. 19 meeting of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency they say has ignored potential harm to air and water resources when it approved a string of new natural gas pipelines. -
Texas City Latest Site for Potential LNG Project
Jan 21, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The Woodlands-based NextDecade is homing in on a Texas City location near Galveston for its latest effort to build a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas export facility. -
Trump’s Vow to Break from OPEC Oil Imports Echoes Old Refrain
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Bailey Lipschultz and Mark Shenk
President Donald Trump’s pledge to make America independent from OPEC isn’t a new refrain in Washington. -
Natural Gas Industry Critiques New Pipeline Safety Rules
Jan 23, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
The U.S. features nearly 200,000 miles of pipelines transporting hazardous materials, such as the ATEX Express that blew up two years ago to allow 24,000 barrels of Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane to scorch five acres of Brooke County woodlands amid a snowstorm. -
Perry: DOE Has ‘Massive Role’ in Stopping Cyber Attacks
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Rebecca Kern
Energy Secretary nominee Rick Perry said the Energy Department has a “massive role” to play in preventing cyber attacks on the U.S. electric grid, and that it should be one of the agency's top priorities. -
Railroads Present a Bipartisan Case for Regulatory Reform
Jan 21, 2017 | Forbes
By Edward R. Hamberger
Policymakers across the political spectrum, from President Obama to President Trump, have advocated for reforming antiquated and draconian federal rules that stifle innovation and growth. -
Trump’s Regulatory Freeze Halts Four Obama Rules Aimed at Promoting Greater Energy Efficiency
Jan 21, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Nearly simultaneously with President Trump’s oath of office Friday, the White House website shifted to remove climate change related content from the Obama administration and supplant it with a new statement of Trump’s energy policy — one focused, it said, reducing “burdensome regulations on our energy industry.” -
As Rule Freeze Takes Effect, Trump Readies EPA Deregulatory 'Action Plan'
Jan 22, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Trump administration has begun implementing its promised deregulatory agenda, blocking promulgation and implementation of recent Obama administration rules and preparing to begin implementing a deregulatory “action plan” at EPA and other agencies beginning as soon as Jan. 23. -
Trump, Pruitt Ready Dramatic Reversal of EPA's Climate Change Mission
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
President Donald Trump and his pick for EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, are planning to dramatically scale back EPA's climate change mission in favor of more conventional pollutants, underscoring a significant shift in how the federal government would approach global warming. -
Trump Erases Climate, CEQ from Website
Jan 20, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Trump administration has scrubbed references to climate change and the Council on Environmental Quality from its website. -
Transition: In Final Act, McCarthy Defends Obama EPA Air Act Rules
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
In one of her final acts as EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy pushed backed against agency critics who have charged that the Obama administration's air and climate rules overstepped the agency's Clean Air Act authority, releasing a memo from her general counsel that found the agency won the vast majority of cases challenging the rules.. -
Ozone: Six States Seek to Defend EPA's Cross-State Air Rule
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
Six Eastern states are asking a federal court to allow them to intervene in a suit over EPA's updated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) power plant emissions trading rule in order to defend the regulation in case the Trump administration decides to drop the agency's defense of the CSAPR update. -
California: Court Arguments May Determine Fate of GHG Auctions
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
California appellate court judges are slated to hear arguments next week in a case that could determine the fate of the state's greenhouse gas allowance auctions under cap-and-trade, during an eagerly awaited hearing for an industry lawsuit challenging the program.
Congressional Hearings
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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Panels to Formally Organize, Discuss Agenda
Jan 24, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Energy and Commerce
Several House committees are having organizational hearings and votes this week to formally select leaders and begin work for the 115th Congress.
Republican and Democratic leaders have been releasing committee and subcommittee rosters over the past several weeks (E&E Daily, Jan. 12). This week's action will ratify many of those picks.
Some committee leaders also use the routine organizational meetings to outline their panel's agenda for the new session. Planned meetings are as follows:
Schedule: The Budget organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 10 a.m. in 210 Cannon.
Schedule: The Judiciary organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 11 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.
Schedule: The Education and Workforce organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 11:15 a.m. in 2175 Rayburn.
Schedule: The Appropriations organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 11:30 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.
Schedule: The Oversight and Government Reform organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 1 p.m. in 2154 Rayburn.
Schedule: The Energy and Commerce organization is Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 1 p.m. in 2167 Rayburn.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/stories/1060048764
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Jan 19, 2017 | LED Inside
By Delilah Lin
Dow Corning, a global leader in silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation, significantly expanded the design flexibilities for LED packaging manufacturers today with the addition of three new highly reflective silicone coatings to its fast-growing portfolio of advanced LED solutions. Offering targeted solutions for cutting-edge LED designs – such as chip scale (CSP) and chip on-board (COB) packaging – the three new products also deliver versatile processing options ranging from conventional dispensing to emerging printing methods.
All introduced under the Dow Corning® label, the three new products include WR-3001 Die Edge Coat, WR-3100 Die Edge Coat and WR-3120 Reflective Coating. In the future, products are planned to be added to match customer required processes.
“Manufacturers are aggressively seeking to design smaller, more efficient and cost-effective LED packages, which is driving demand for advanced new reflective materials that enable evolving application processes such as printing, and withstand increasingly stringent operating conditions,” said Takuhiro Tsuchiya, global marketing manager at Dow Corning. “These three cutting-edge coatings are only the first of a range of new products that we have in store for the industry. A proactive and collaborative innovator, Dow Corning formulated these three reflective silicone coatings specifically to help customers overcome today’s greatest design challenges and deliver highly reliable and differentiated products in the fiercely competitive LED market.”
As with all of Dow Corning reflective materials, the three new grades maintain high reflectivity at low thicknesses and retain their performance at sustained temperatures of 150°C – a temperature at which many organic coatings crack and yellow. Listed in order of increasing hardness, the new products include:
· WR-3001 Die Edge Coat targets high-power CSP applications that demand LED materials with high thermal- and photostability. It is compatible with conventional dispensing processes.
· WR-3100 Die Edge Coat is formulated for CSP applications and low- to middle-power LED package designs. Compatible with conventional dispensing equipment, it delivers comparatively high hardness of Shore D 65 after cure, making it suitable with chip dicing processes.· WR-3120 Reflective Coating also provides high thermal- and photostability suitable for high-power LED packaging applications, as well as the highest hardness of Dow Corning’s three new products. Suitable for printing processes, this advanced silicone further offers the highest reflectivity for enhanced LED performance.
A market leader in materials, expertise and collaborative innovation for LED lighting concepts, Dow Corning offers solutions that span the entire LED value chain, adding reliability and efficiency for sealing, protecting, adhering, cooling and shaping light across all lighting applications.
About Dow Corning
Dow Corning (dowcorning.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, provides performance-enhancing solutions to serve the diverse needs of more than 25,000 customers worldwide. A global leader in silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation, Dow Corning offers more than 7,000 products and services via the company’s Dow Corning® and XIAMETER® brands. More than half of Dow Corning’s annual sales are outside the United States. Dow Corning’s global operations adhere to the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care® initiative, a stringent set of standards designed to advance the safe and secure management of chemical products and processes.About Dow
Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from material, polymer, chemical and biological science to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2015, Dow had annual sales of nearly $49 billion and employed approximately 49,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 179 sites in 35 countries across the globe. On June 1, 2016, Dow became the 100 percent owner of Dow Corning Corporation’s silicones business, a global company with sales of greater than $4.5 billion in 2015, 25 manufacturing sites in 9 countries and approximately 10,000 employees worldwide. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.
http://www.ledinside.com/node/26989
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Two Chemical Makers Ready Stock Offerings
Jan 23, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
Chemical stock offerings are off to a strong start in 2017. The German specialty chemical firm AlzChem plans an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in the first half. Huntsman Corp., meanwhile, is pushing ahead with the IPO of its titanium dioxide business—now without a textile chemicals component.
AlzChem was formed in 2009 when Evonik Industries sold a business in chemicals with nitrogen-carbon-nitrogen bonding to a private equity firm. Now in the hands of three family-owned companies, Alzchem had sales in the first nine months of 2016 of about $265 million.
AlzChem plans to raise up to $50 million that it will spend on a new plant for guanidinoacetic acid, a feed additive that animals convert into the amino acid creatine.
Huntsman says the spin-off of its $2 billion-per-year business in the white pigment titanium dioxide and other additives is on track for the second quarter of 2017. It has chosen Venator Materials—venator is the Latin word for hunter—as the name for the new firm.
However, in a change from previous plans, Huntsman now says its textile chemicals business won’t be part of the new company. CEO Peter R. Huntsman says improved pricing for titanium dioxide plus cash from business improvement opportunities will more than offset the cash flow Venator would have received from the textile chemicals business.
“We expect Venator will be a premier pigments company unencumbered by excessive debt or other unrelated liabilities,” Peter Huntsman says. In 2009, an earlier TiO2 spin off, Tronox, went bankrupt because of unrelated liabilities.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i4/Two-chemical-makers-ready-stock.html
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No Honeymoon for Trump EPA as Court Dates, Deadlines Loom
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency will not enjoy an extended honeymoon period as President-elect Donald Trump assumes the presidency, with a slew of court dates and regulatory deadlines facing the incoming administration in its first six months.
Though key administration appointees are not yet in place, the EPA must still make decisions required by the amended toxic substances law, respond to disputes between states over air pollution crossing borders and gear up for lawsuits challenging Obama administration regulations that are still pending before the courts.
The clock starts ticking in the new administration's first week, as the EPA faces a Jan. 25 deadline to make a decision on whether to grant a petition from Connecticut seeking new air pollution limits at a Pennsylvania power plant that the northeastern state claims impedes its ability to meet federal air quality requirements, one of several similar petitions pending before the agency.
Arrayed against the new administration will be an army of environmental advocates ready to sue the Trump team should it fail to meet its obligations on time.
“The thing I would tell everybody coming in is to look at your inbox. You think it will be empty; it's not,” John Cruden, the outgoing head of the Justice Department's environmental division, said at a recent D.C. Bar event. “Last year we had 878 new filings in my division, three-fourths of that were defensive. Every business day, including Jan. 23, will have three new cases suing us. Some of these cases will be filed intentionally because it's a new administration.”
Mr. Trump Heads to Court
Trump has vowed to roll back several of the Obama administration's top environmental efforts, particularly regulations determining which waters are subject to Clean Water Act jurisdiction or setting carbon dioxide limits on power plants, and his administration now takes ownership of ongoing challenges to those rules.
Richard Stoll, a partner in the Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., offices of Foley & Lardner LLP, said the deadlines to submit various briefs to courts are “almost always extendable” as long as a party has a good reason. “And a change in administration is usually recognized as a pretty good reason,” Stoll said.
While it is likely the Trump administration will ask the courts to halt various lawsuits or even send some challenged regulations back to the EPA for reconsideration, the agency must rapidly prepare for argument dates that have already been scheduled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to hear argument Feb. 10 on the EPA's contention that it has met its Clean Air Act obligation to regulate emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from various industries, which is being challenged by environmental groups. Then, on Feb. 17, the court will hear industry challenges to an EPA rule phasing down use of hydrofluorocarbons, refrigerants that are also extremely potent greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide limits for new power plants will face similar scrutiny at argument scheduled for April 17.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to head the agency, has been a leading figure in many of the challenges to EPA regulations, including the Clean Water Rule, power plant carbon dioxide standards and new ozone air quality standards. Pruitt during his Jan. 18 confirmation hearing did not commit to sitting out participation in the lawsuits as administrator, instead saying he would defer to advice from the EPA's ethics officials.
Supreme Court Briefing Looms
The agency also faces a U.S. Supreme Court deadline after the high court agreed to review which court should have jurisdiction in challenges to the Clean Water Rule. The EPA's brief in that case is due March 29.
Ellen Steen, general counsel for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said she doesn't expect the EPA's position, which favors review in an appellate court, to change under the new administration.
“EPA has consistently argued for a broad interpretation of the appellate courts’ jurisdiction to review its [Clean Water Act] rules, because that is a more efficient process for the government,” Steen said.
Continuity Predicted on Chemicals
The EPA also faces significant decisions in the coming months on implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was amended in 2016. By June, the agency must develop a process to identify chemicals that are low or high priorities for risk evaluations, identify the risk evaluation process and publish the scope of its first 10 risk evaluations.
“I think we can expect uniformity between administrations,” said Daniel Newton, senior government relations manager at Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates.
Pruitt told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Jan. 18 that he understands meeting the statutory deadlines of TSCA is a priority. He also highlighted provisions of the law that gave the EPA authority to order chemical manufacturers and processors to provide toxicity and exposure information about the chemicals they make or use.
Newton said he expects the Trump administration will work to meet the June 2017 statutory deadlines for the core regulations required by the amended chemicals law.
Newton said he hopes the Trump administration also will make it a priority to boost the speed of the EPA's new chemical reviews. Those reviews, which under amended TSCA determine whether a new chemical can be made or sold in the U.S., have dragged on for months since June, when the TSCA amendments became law.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876477&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876477&jd=103876477
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Zinke, Perry to Wait for Confirmation
Jan 20, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss and Hannah Hess
President Trump's nominees to head the Interior and Energy departments appear unlikely to win Senate confirmation this afternoon, when the chamber is expected to vote on at least two members of the new administration's national security team.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had been angling to see Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) confirmed as Interior secretary today, along with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) installed as Energy secretary.
But in a brief interview after Trump was sworn in, Murkowski said the Senate would likely vote only on national security picks. Murkowski said Zinke and Perry will "hopefully" get votes Tuesday. "We'll see," she said.
Still, Senate GOP aides refused to rule out the possibility that Zinke and Perry could be confirmed this afternoon.
Two retired Marine generals, James Mattis and John Kelly, Trump's choices to lead the Defense and Homeland Security departments, respectively, will see nomination votes when the Senate convenes at 4 p.m.
Republicans are pressing for a vote on Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to be CIA director, although several Senate Democrats are objecting to voting on him today.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced shortly after the inauguration that it would vote Monday afternoon on former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson's nomination for secretary of State.
Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) scheduled a business meeting of the panel. Corker previously said the nomination of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations could also be up for a vote, though it was not on the agenda this afternoon. Republicans hold a one-seat majority on the panel, and the vote is expected to be tight.
A spokesman for Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the committee, said the senator was still reviewing Tillerson's answers to many questions that only came in yesterday. Tillerson has been making his rounds on Capitol Hill this week in an attempt to win over skeptics.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/01/20/stories/1060048746
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Corker Aims to Move Tillerson Vote 'Very Quickly'
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote today on one of President Trump's most controversial Cabinet appointments.
Rex Tillerson, the retired Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO who has faced scrutiny over conflicts of interest, could be on the fast track to confirmation as secretary of State this week as the chamber looks to fill out Trump's policy team.
Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the full Senate vote on Tillerson's nomination could come "very quickly, if there's cooperation."
Several Republicans have offered support for Tillerson, while Democrats object to putting a career oilman in charge of diplomacy.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Democrats not to "play politics" on the nomination, which he wanted to see included in a round of Inauguration Day votes.
Other GOP senators, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a Russia hawk who sits on the panel, have expressed concerns about Tillerson's relationships with oil-rich nations.
Over the weekend Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), two top Russia hawks, said they would support Tillerson.
Corker said he still thinks Tillerson and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), tapped for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, could be confirmed within the week.
He brushed aside complaints from both sides of the aisle about timing while chatting with reporters Friday evening.
"Let's just keep trudging through the process," Corker said.
The schedule allowed senators to pose written questions to Tillerson and sit down for one-on-one meetings.
After a nearly nine-hour grilling of Tillerson, Democratic senators who prioritize climate policy, including ranking member Ben Cardin of Maryland, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tim Kaine of Virginia, said they were still struggling to discern what Tillerson thinks the United States should do to combat the effects of global temperature rise.
Cardin announced this morning that he will not support Tillerson's nomination, citing problems with his answers on human rights abuses, sanctions against Russia and more.
"While I was pleased that Mr. Tillerson said that he would support the laws I have written to hold accountable human rights abusers globally and in Russia specifically, and that America should have a seat at the table when discussing climate change with the international community, merely being willing to uphold the law or being willing to participate in global diplomacy are simply the necessary prerequisites for the job, not sufficient cause for confirmation," Cardin said.
Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) have each pressed Tillerson to disclose his tax returns.
Udall told E&E News on Friday that he thinks there will be "an awful lot of Democrats" opposing the nomination.
While Democrats cannot filibuster Trump's Cabinet, they could put the nomination in peril if they unite in opposition. Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority in the chamber.
"We want President Trump to have a full team in place," Cardin said, but concerns linger. "I think we've scheduled [the vote] as quickly as we can possibly schedule these actions."
Schedule: The business meeting is Monday, Jan. 23, at 4:30 p.m. in 419 Dirksen.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/23/stories/1060048770
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(ACC Mentioned) INSIGHT: Chems Eye New Policies Under Trump Presidency
Jan 20, 2017 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
The inauguration of Donald Trump as US president will give the country its first unified government since 2009-2011, opening up possibilities for new policies that could benefit the chemical industry.
Following the midterm elections in 2010, the US has had a divided government. Republicans controlled at least one of the US legislative chambers, and the Democrat Barack Obama controlled the presidency. The divide led to legislative gridlock.
Trump's election marks the end of that gridlock, opening the possibility of various policies becoming law in the US.
One such opportunity already arose with the passage of the REINS Act, also known as the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act”, HR-21.
If it becomes law, the REINS Act would require Congress to approve major rules before they can take effect. Rules that would fall under the REINS Act would affect the economy by at least $100m/year.
The act has been proposed in the past and has failed to become law.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) welcomed the bill as well as another one, the "Midnight Rules Relief Act", HR 21. This would allow Congress to reject blocks of regulations that were introduced near the end of a president's term.
Right now, Congress can reject such regulations only one at a time.
The ACC described both acts as "important parts of a broader effort to modernise federal rulemaking, where greater transparency and accountability is sorely needed".
Another bill getting a second visit is the “Regulatory Accountability Act", HR-5.
For the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD), one of the biggest opportunities is regulatory reform, said Eric Byer, president of the group. Recently, there has been a disturbing trend in the US, in which the use of guidance documents has become almost regulatory in nature. This has come at the expense of proper rulemaking.
With the reform bills recently passed by Congress, Byer said, "there will be true legitimate regulatory reform, where guidance is kept at bay and the number of rulemaking is limited".
Under the reforms, the main focus will be assessing whether proposed regulations meet business and safety needs, Byer said.
Stemming the pace of new regulations is important because the US already has many that are not being enforced, he said. "There's no need to issue new rules at a rapid pace when you can enforce what is already on the books."
Byer would like Congress to go a step further and propose bills that would start reviewing regulations that are already in existence and that are no longer applicable. Technology has made many of these regulations non-applicable, he said.
For the enforcement of existing regulations, Byer also expects the outlook will improve for NACD members.
"We have always maintained safety first," he said. "But what we don't want to see is agencies going out there on fishing expeditions, whether it is a revenue generating opportunity or something else."
He added, "That's not what the agency should be doing, but we've seen something like that going on for the last few years."
Going forward, Byer expects government agencies to be more mindful about enforcing the intent of the nation's safety regulations without burdening companies with excessive costs.
Similar thoughts were shared by Jennifer Abril, president of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA).
"We have found that regulatory burdens (both individual and cumulative) can have a disproportionate impact on small and medium-sized enterprises," Abril said in a statement. Such businesses make up about 80% of SOCMA's membership, so they are particularly sensitive about this.
"We are hopeful the regulatory climate under the Trump Administration will be favourable. SOCMA supports regulations that are sensible and don't impede our members’ ability to be innovative," Abril said.
Byer shares a similar sentiment for the infrastructure programme that Trump had stressed during his campaign.
Improved infrastructure would have a large, beneficial effect on NACD members, since they rely on trucks to move material. "We'd certainly love to see the roads improved, especially for safety purposes," Byer said.
However, any infrastructure programme needs to improve the nation's roads and bridges without imposing excessive costs on the country, Byer said.
Tariffs, another important topic for NACD members, are more uncertain, Byer said.
Trump had discussed tariffs during his campaign, but it is too difficult to see what he could actually accomplish on this front, Byer said. "To be honest with you, I don't know what they are going to do."
Those details could emerge as the year progresses, he said.
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2017/01/20/10071914/insight-chems-eye-new-policies-under-trump-presidency/
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Latest EPA Chemical Assessment Shows Hurdles for Novel Skin Risk Value
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's final Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) omits a first-time dermal cancer risk estimate that was included in draft versions of the assessment, and explains the methodology to start including such estimates remains under development but could be addressed later in a separate analysis.
Prior to the 2013 and 2104 BaP draft assessments, EPA had never included a dermal risk value in an IRIS analysis, and the value quickly became the most scrutinized aspect of the documents.
Several industry groups protested EPA's dermal cancer calculation, arguing that the estimate of 0.006 per micrograms per day (ug/day) was unrealistically strict and could lead to major, expensive changes in how the agency's Superfund office assesses cleanup sites and reaches decisions on remediation requirements. They urged EPA to create a methodology for crafting dermal risk values rather than trying to create an approach in the midst of an IRIS assessment.
At a workshop last summer that IRIS hosted to try to gather ideas to improve the dermal risk value, EPA's chemical manager explained the agency's interest in creating such a risk estimate. Kathleen Newhouse, EPA's chemical manager for BaP, referenced EPA's risk assessment guidelines for Superfund site cleanups, which she said "note the lack of dermal toxicity values may significantly underestimate" the risks polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil pose. BaP is one of the better-known PAHs.
EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) panel, which met in the spring of 2015 to begin peer reviewing the draft document, did not necessarily consider the conclusion overly strict. One of the panelists, American Cancer Society Managing Director Kenneth Portier, noted that skin cancer is extremely common, and that removals of small malignant patches of skin are generally not reported to cancer registries. As a result, Portier suggested, EPA's draft BaP potency estimate may not be overly large.
Still, science advisors struggled with the recommendations on how to best calculate the dermal cancer risk, noting both its novelty and scientific uncertainties in various approaches. The final report, released last April, suggests that there are multiple dose-metric approaches for beginning to estimate the dose, and little information to guide which method EPA should choose.
Following SAB's recommendations, the IRIS program hosted the workshop in June 2016 to discuss the approach and how they might strengthen it.
Index Chemical
But these efforts apparently came to naught. The final assessment does not contain a dermal risk value. “A quantitative estimate of skin cancer risk from dermal exposure is not included in this assessment, as methodology for interspecies extrapolation of dermal toxicokinetics and carcinogenicity are still under development,” the document explains.
In a response to the SAB's review, released Jan. 19 with the new assessment, EPA adds that staff “is reviewing the SAB panel’s specific advice and is initiating further scientific discussions to gather a broad range of scientific perspectives in order to further refine EPA’s approach for deriving a [BaP] dermal slope factor. In the interest of timeliness and in consideration of the support for the cancer characterization and the other toxicity values within the [BaP] assessment, the continuing efforts to refine the dermal slope factor methodology will be addressed in a separate assessment.”
EPA's assessment of BaP is important not just because the compound is a common environmental contaminant but also because EPA has proposed using it as the index chemical in a relative potency factor approach for PAHs. The chemicals are carcinogenic and stem from a wide range of natural and industrial sources, including crude oil, asphalt and vehicle emissions.
The assessment follows the 2010 peer review of an EPA approach to assess the risks of multiple PAHs. EPA proposed using BaP as a reference chemical, similar to a common approach for risk analyses of dioxin mixtures. The peer reviewers urged EPA in the long term to adopt a whole mixtures approach to assessing PAHs' risks, but called on the agency in the interim to update the BaP IRIS assessment before implementing the reference chemical approach. They argued that the earlier IRIS assessment that was the basis for the approach was outdated.
The IRIS assessment does not appear to address the reference chemical approach, which was questioned during the interagency review process. A second interagency review, conducted last fall, and the last step before EPA finalizes an IRIS assessment, included comments from NASA questioning EPA’s decision to consider BaP as an 'index chemical' for the entire group of [PAHs]. EPA does not provide a documented, sound case for this choice. NASA notes that BaP, with its very conservative approach, results in a potentially over restrictive approach to address the large number of PAHs in the environment without a defensible justification. NASA requests EPA reconsider this approach and target BaP as one chemical,” that agency's Dec. 15 comments state.
Human Carcinogen
EPA, in a January 2017 response to comments replied, “This assessment is the IRIS toxicological review of BaP as one chemical. Regarding using BaP as an index chemical for assessing the carcinogenicity of PAHs, justification of suitable index chemicals is more pertinent in PAH assessment support documents.”
The 1984 IRIS assessment that is posted on the IRIS website as an archived document characterizes BaP as a probable human carcinogen, and set a cancer slope factor, or estimate of oral cancer potency, of 11.53 per milligram per kilogram body weight per day (mg/kg-day)^-1. Similarly, the document included an inhalation risk factor, of 6.11 (mg/kg-day)^-1.
The new assessment upgrades BaP to a human carcinogen, and determines that it is mutagenic, resulting in its use of the age-dependent adjustment factor, intended to make assessments more protective of children in assessments of chemicals to which they are expected to be more susceptible.
EPA calculates a weaker cancer slope factor, or estimate of cancer potency when ingested, than before of 1 per mg/kg-day. The agency also provides an inhalation unit risk, or an estimate of cancer potency when inhaled, of 6x10^-4 per microgram per cubic meter of air (ug/m^3).
The document includes first-time non-cancer risk values, a reference dose (RfD), or the maximum amount EPA estimates can be ingested daily over a lifetime without anticipating an associated non-cancer health effect, and the reference concentration (RfC). The RfC is analogous to the RfD by inhalation exposure. The 1984 assessment did not include non-cancer risk values.
EPA sets the final RfD at 3x10^-4 milligrams per kilogram bodyweight per day, based on data indicating developmental toxicity. The final RfC is 2x10^-6 milligrams per cubic meter of air, also based on developmental toxicity. These values did not change from those EPA proposed in its 2014 draft.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/latest-epa-chemical-assessment-shows-hurdles-novel-skin-risk-value
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P&G Launches Preservatives Tracker for Consumers
Jan 23, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Consumer products conglomerate, Procter & Gamble (P&G), has launched a website that allows consumers to see what preservatives are in its products.
Users can search either by ingredient or product type. Preservatives are used in its baby wipes, skin care products, laundry and household cleaners, air fresheners and health and oral care products.
The website, the company says, also gives information on the preservatives it receives the most questions about from consumers. These are:
formaldehyde-releasing preservatives;
isothiazolinones;
parabens;
triclosan; and
triclocarban.
P&G says it has stopped using triclosan in its products and plans to phase out the use of triclocarban by the end of 2017. The P&G website also features a list of more than 140 fragrance ingredients not used in its products.
Scott Heid, associate director of P&G communications, told Chemical Watch, the company's goal is to "provide people with ingredient information that helps them make informed choices about our products.
"We will continue to update ingredient information regularly, and follow up with those who may have specific questions about our products."
Step in the right direction
The consumer group, United States Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) says that although this is "a step in the right direction," more needs to be done to ensure "everyday personal care products are toxic-free".
And it calls for the company to put information about preservatives on its product boxes and to promote its new preservative policy website, to ensure that consumers are aware of it.
US PIRG also says P&G should remove chemicals of concern from all product categories, and disclose fragrance ingredients. In particular, it calls for P&G to phase out parabens and phenoxyethanol, which it says are linked to "negative health effects like cancer and reproductive problems."
On its website, P&G says decades of research have shown parabens are safe, but because consumers have raised questions it continues to research new preservative options for its products. However, it adds, "for now we have found parabens to be the best choice for the products where we continue to use them."
Push for transparency
Product ingredients disclosure has become a priority issue for many US states. Last year, a bill requiring full ingredient disclosure in a variety of cleaning products was introduced in the US House of Representatives. The Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2016 would require disclosure of the individual ingredients in dyes, fragrances and preservatives.
More companies are starting to increase their disclosure efforts, such as SC Johnson, which introduced a product line that discloses all of its fragrance ingredients, down to the substance level. The company had previously increased fragrance disclosure in its Glade products by publishing higher-concentration fragrance ingredients on a specific website.
https://chemicalwatch.com/52259/pg-launches-preservatives-tracker-for-consumers
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The EPA is Being Pressured to Prohibit the Addition of Fluoride into Public Drinking Water
Jan 21, 2017 | Collective Evolution
By Alexa Erickson
Long ago fluoride was thought to promote good oral health, and so it made its way into our drinking water and toothpastes. Today, it seems it’s everywhere, and yet, it’s not even known to actually prevent the buildup of harmful oral bacteria. However, it is known to be toxic, with long-term ingestion linked to brain, heart, and bone issues, among other things.
A few years a go, a ground breaking publication in one of the top main-stream medical journals added six fluoride into its classification of neurotoxicants. You can read more about that here.
But if the facts are all there, why in the world is fluoride still so present? Fluoride Action Network (FAN) is among a coalition of environmental, medical, and health groups who think we deserve better, and are now urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the addition of fluoride to public drinking water supplies.
The petition presented to the EPA includes over 2,500 pages of scientific documentation that show the detriments of water fluoridation to human health. It explains that “the amount of fluoride now regularly consumed by millions of Americans in fluoridated areas exceeds the doses repeatedly linked to IQ loss and other neurotoxic effects; with certain subpopulations standing at elevated risk of harm, including infants, young children, elderly populations and those with dietary deficiencies, renal impairment and/or genetic predispositions.”
Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the EPA is allowed to forbid the use of a chemical that may possess risks to the general public, as well as vulnerable populations. The petition takes notes of this, urging the EPA to use their authority on this matter to put water fluoridation to a halt once and for all. The documents reveal their own Guidelines for Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment, which shows that neurotoxicity is a hazard of fluoride exposure, and the reference dose needed to protect against such a neurotoxicity is “incompatible with the doses now ingested by millions of Americans in fluoridated areas.”
“Since there is little benefit in swallowing fluoride, there is little justification in exposing the public to any risk of fluoride neurotoxicity, particularly via a source as essential to human sustenance as the public drinking water and the many processed foods and beverages made therefrom,” the petition goes on to say. advertisement - learn more
The EPA requested that the evidence be reviewed by the National Research Council, and even they concluded in 2006 that fluoride can interfere with brain function. There has been an overwhelming amount of research revealing the dangers of fluoride on human exposure, including research published in Lancet Neurologyclassifying fluoride as one of 12 chemicals known to cause developmental neurotoxicity in humans. Harvard researchers also revealed in 2012 that children exposed to fluoride in drinking water had lower IQs.
All of this makes the decision to remove it from our drinking water a no-brainer.
“The existence of so many human studies on fluoride neurotoxicity highlights the urgent need for a diligent risk assessment, per EPA’s Guidelines, to ensure that the general public, and sensitive subpopulations, are not ingesting neurotoxic levels,” the petition says. And I know I’m not the only one to agree.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/01/21/the-epa-is-being-pressured-to-prohibit-the-addition-of-fluoride-into-public-drinking-water/
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(ACC Mentioned) Ethane Production is Still Climbing
Jan 22, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
U.S. ethane production is growing so fast that federal officials can barely keep track of it, as last year’s projection of 1.4 million barrels per day by 2017 is now trumped by new prognostications of 1.7 million daily barrels by 2018.
As the new U.S. Energy Information Administration numbers indicate, the need for drillers to disperse this liquid continues to climb, which leads Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based American Chemistry Council, to believe this creates an environment in which the need for ethane crackers grows.
Dooley acknowledged that Royal Dutch Shell cleared its final permit hurdle to begin construction on the Beaver County, Pa. petrochemical complex last week. Also, he and other industry leaders continue awaiting final word on whether Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical will proceed with the firm’s multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker along the Ohio River in Belmont County, which would incorporate the former R.E. Burger plant and adjacent acreage. The company’s decision is expected within about two months.
“We applaud local Pennsylvania officials for their vote of confidence in Shell’s project, which has exciting potential to help make the region a hub of manufacturing activity and job creation,” Dooley said. “Shell’s pioneering project — the first of its kind outside the Gulf Coast — could be the cornerstone for regional economic growth for decades to come.”
According to Dooley, Shell’s complex will use ethane to produce polyethylene, which is used in a variety of products, from food packaging and containers to automotive components.
Meanwhile, Paul Wojciechowski, project director for PTT, has said preliminary plans call for having infrastructure onsite that would “crack” the ethane into ethylene. He said additional infrastructure at the Dilles Bottom site would then transform some of this material into ethylene glycol for antifreeze, while even more onsite machinery would turn the rest of the ethylene into polyethylene.
“Thanks to abundant supplies of natural gas, the U.S. chemical industry is investing in new facilities and expanded production capacity, which tends to attract downstream industries that rely on petrochemical products,” Dooley added.
Along with propane, butane and pentane, ethane is one of the liquids prevalent in Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas streams. A certain amount of the substance can be blended into natural gas streams for utility usage, but most companies working in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania now place the product in pipelines to ship it to petrochemical complexes across the globe for cracking.
Pipelines already sending ethane out of the region include the Sunoco Logistics Mariner East and Mariner West operations, as well as the ATEX Express. Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan is also working on the $500 million Utopia Pipeline, which would send the ethane from Ohio to Michigan for export to Canada.
Some of the domestic ethane even leaves North America via sea vessel from the terminals at Marcus Hook, Pa. and at Morgan’s Point, Texas.
Meanwhile, the Upper Ohio Valley continues waiting PTT’s final decision for Dilles Bottom. In July, FirstEnergy Corp. officials blew up the 854-foot-tall smoke stack at the former R.E. Burger plant along the Ohio River to make room for the giant ethane cracker, which would also incorporate the adjacent Ohio-West Virginia Excavating Co. property to the south and west.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2017/01/ethane-production-is-still-climbing/
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LyondellBasell Completes Ethylene Expansion
Jan 19, 2017 | Caller Times
By Chris Ramirez
LyondellBasell, one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies, has wrapped up its ethylene expansion project in Corpus Christi.
The project increases ethylene capacity at the facility in northwest Corpus Christi by 50 percent, to 2.5 billion pounds per year from 1.7 billion.
"This large, complex project has been a win-win for our company and the community,” said Randal Tatum, LyondellBasell Corpus Christi Site Manager. “While the project is an important part of the long-term strategy for our company, we also take great pride in the ongoing economic contribution we are making to the local community. I want to thank our neighbors and community leaders for their support.”
Ethylene is a basic chemical building block used in consumer products, such as housewares, construction materials, automotive parts, food packaging and personal care products. Global demand for ethylene has consistently grown at a rate of 4 percent annually, according to IHS Markit, a global information and analytics company.
The Corpus Christi expansion comes on the heels of other capacity increases at LyondellBasell plants in Illinois, Iowa and Germany since 2012. The company also completed expansions at Texas sites in Channelview, La Porte and Matagorda during that period.
The expansion required about 1,700 tons of structural steel, 36 miles of pipe, 620 truckloads of concrete and more than 1 million linear feet of cable. It also took roughly 800,000 engineering work hours and more than 8 million construction work hours to complete.
The project was applauded by local officials, including the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. The agency estimated local and state taxing districts will receive more than $10 million each year.
“The expansion of this facility is a significant capital investment in our community,” Precinct 1 Nueces County Commissioner Mike Pusley said. “All of this culminates into millions of dollars of economic benefit to our local economy.”Other LyondellBasell milestones To date, the company has completed the following expansion projects at its manufacturing sites globally:2016 800 million pounds-per-year ethylene increase, Corpus Christi
2015 250 million pounds-per-year ethylene increase, Channelview
2014 800 million pounds-per-year ethylene increase, La Porte; 220 million pounds-per-year polyethylene increase, Matagorda
2013 155 million pounds-per-year butadiene increase, Wesseling, Germany; 250 million gallons-per-year methanol increase, Channelview
2012 120 million pounds-per-year combined ethylene/polyethylene increase, Clinton, Iowa, and Morris, Illinois.
http://www.caller.com/story/money/business/local/2017/01/19/lyondellbasell-completes-ethylene-expansion/96736534/
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Trump Orders Sweeping Freeze, Pledges Energy Reforms
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
President Trump ordered a mandatory freeze on a wide range of pending Obama administration rules over the weekend, taking the first steps toward what he has promised will be a sweeping assault on the former president's regulatory agenda.
In a memorandum, released Friday, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus called for most pending rules to be halted "in order to ensure that the President's appointees or designees have the opportunity to review any new or pending regulations," he wrote.
The freeze could have an immediate effect on a number of non-final rules from agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, U.S. EPA, the Department of Transportation, among others, according to federal records.
The order calls for all regulations that have been sent to the Office of Federal Register but not published to be immediately withdrawn. For regulations that have been published in the Federal Register but have not yet taken effect, the order calls for their postponement for at least 60 days. The memo makes exceptions for rules regarding emergency situations relating to health, safety, finance or national security matters.
Trump may reveal some of his plans for regulatory reform today at 10:30 a.m., when he is scheduled to issue executive orders.
Trump has also relaunched the White House website, clarifying his mission to rollback Obama rules (Greenwire, Jan. 20). Pages on climate change, civil rights, health care and LGBT issues have been replaced with pages on "America First Energy Plan," "Bringing Back Jobs and Growth," "Making Our Military Strong Again" and "Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community."
In the "America First Energy Plan," the administration lays out goals to reverse Obama actions geared towards combating climate change, while bolstering the oil, gas and coal industries.
"President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule," the website now reads.
"The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own."
The revenue from energy production will be used for major infrastructure projects, according to the website.
While the current freeze will have no impact on existing regulations, like the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule, it could effectively halt a final rule from DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that boosts pipeline safety by improving notification-response time after a spill.
The rule was released Friday and was slated for publication today (Greenwire, Jan. 20).
Another recent PHMSA rule that could be affected is a proposed regulation to shore up restrictions on shipments of crude oil by rail.
The order could also affect a rule EPA is drafting on greenhouse gas pollution from aircraft, a court-ordered rule for hardrock miners to find a way to pay for environmental cleanups and a Fish and Wildlife Service effort to add bumblebees to the endangered species list.
Several new DOE efficiency standards that were part of Obama's effort to cut greenhouse-gas emissions could also be frozen. Standards affecting portable air conditioners, commercial boilers and power supplies were issued Dec. 28, 2016, but have not yet been published in the Federal Register.
DOE also released new standards for pool pumps, ceiling fans, residential air conditioners and heat pumps that are published but are not due to take effect until later this year. Some of these rules were negotiated with industry and so have a better chance of eventually taking effect.
It is not uncommon for new presidents to halt the outgoing administration's regulatory activity. In anticipation of such a freeze, President Obama took pains to push through as many rules as possible in the waning days of his administration.
While some of these rules, such as the Interior Department's Stream Protection Rule and the Bureau of Land Management's methane rule, are not vulnerable to the new freeze, they could be thwarted by the Congressional Review Act.
The CRA is a little-used, highly effective tool that allows Congress to review and possibly nix new agency rules within 60 legislative days. Renewable fuel standard obligations, vehicle emissions standards and EPA's aircraft emissions endangerment finding could be halted by the CRA.
But older rules like the EPA Clean Water Rule and the Clean Power Plan will be more difficult to repeal and could take years to complete.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/23/stories/1060048765
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What Could Be a Clean Power Plan Replacement?
Jan 23, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Emily Holden
President Trump officially entered office Friday, erasing mentions of climate change from the White House website and replacing them with vows to increase fossil fuel development.
But Trump has yet to take the immediate action he promised on the campaign trail to reverse the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
The rule — which is on hold under a Supreme Court stay — could take years to unravel, although Trump could soon issue an executive order directing U.S. EPA to consider the Clean Power Plan illegal and stop any work related to the regulation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could also determine whether the Clean Power Plan is legal any day now. Then a Supreme Court review could keep the plan in limbo even longer.
Meanwhile, Trump's pick to head EPA, Scott Pruitt, in a congressional hearing last week may have given some insight into how he could replace the regulation.
Pruitt said he accepts that EPA has a legal obligation to regulate CO2 emissions. He disagrees with how the agency has decided to limit carbon from power plants, though (Climatewire, Jan. 18).
Legal arguments Pruitt and other states have highlighted to challenge the Clean Power Plan outline what he thinks might be more in line with how he interprets the law (Climatewire, Sept. 28, 2016).
EPA set state carbon standards by examining how power companies could use less coal and more natural gas and renewable power. Pruitt's team has argued the agency should have looked only at efficiency improvements that individual power plants could achieve.
Replacing the rule might be a sounder legal strategy than just eliminating it, but it could take years. Coal plant efficiency improvements also would have a limited impact on emissions, and environmental advocates would challenge any laxer version of the regulation.
The nation's electric utilities aren't waiting around for the Trump administration to move ahead with the various steps it may take to undo the carbon rule.
Since 2005, carbon emissions from the power sector are down 21 percent, according to the Edison Electric Institute, the lobby for investor-owned utilities.
And the industry has announced the retirement of 82 gigawatts of coal plants between 2010 and 2024, an EEI spokesman said.
"It's clear that the courts have given the EPA the right to deal with carbon in a certain way," said Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning, who is also chairman of EEI, in an interview after the election.
He said his industry would have no problem accepting a revised rule that limits CO2 reduction to "inside the fence line" of a generating unit.
The market prices of alternative fuels, chiefly natural gas, are "absolutely" resulting in lower emissions from the electric utility sector, Fanning said.
In any case, the Clean Power Plan as it is written now is unlikely to ever take effect.
This week
The Senate continues to consider Trump's Cabinet nominees this week. Over the weekend, two of the Republican senators who had been considering opposing Rex Tillerson to run the State Department voiced their support. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said they will vote to confirm Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp.
That leaves Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whose vote is needed to advance Tillerson from committee consideration. Rubio tweeted Thursday that he still had "serious concerns" about the nomination but would decide soon.
On Thursday, the American Enterprise Institute holds a discussion about "the policy analytics of a carbon tax."
In case you missed it:
Trump took the reins, painting a grim portrait of the United States in his inaugural speech and laying out a basic direction for energy policy on the White House website (Greenwire, Jan. 20).
The Trump administration scrubbed references to climate change and the Council on Environmental Quality from its website (E&E News PM, Jan. 20).
Reporters Evan Lehmann and Jean Chemnick dig into former President Obama's true climate legacy (Climatewire, Jan. 20).
Unpredictable energy markets and politics could be obstacles for Trump's plans (Energywire, Jan. 20).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060048781
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EPA Defends Utility Emissions Rule from Pruitt's Legal Challenge
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Obama administration offered its final defense of its power plant mercury standards on the same day a Senate committee considered the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a legal opponent of the regulation, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1127, brief filed 1/18/17).
The power plant standards, commonly known as the MATS rule, were issued in late 2011 and have been the subject of litigation ever since. The regulation, which the EPA estimated to cost $9.6 billion per year to implement, remains in place even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the EPA made a mistake in the rulemaking process by failing to consider cost in its decision that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate power plant emissions (Michigan v. EPA, 135 S. Ct. 2699, 2015 BL 207163, 80 ERC 1577 (2015)).
Industry organizations and states, including Oklahoma, are now challenging the EPA's 2016 supplemental finding that Clean Air Act regulation of utility sector mercury emissions is still appropriate, even with cost factored into the decision. The agency, in a brief filed late Jan. 18 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argued its approaches to cost consideration are reasonable and fully satisfy the obligations identified by the Supreme Court in the Michigan ruling.
“EPA promulgated a robust response to the Supreme Court's decision in Michigan, fully satisfying its obligation to consider cost for purposes of [Clean Air Act] section 112(n)(1)(A) under two independently valid approaches,” the EPA said. “Petitioners’ arguments against these approaches and arguments that EPA should have considered other alternatives and costs are without merit.”
Several attorneys told Bloomberg BNA in the wake of the 2016 election that the Trump administration will have numerous avenues to address the standards, including requesting a voluntary remand of the ongoing D.C. Circuit litigation to allow for reconsideration by the new EPA leadership. Any changes to the rule are likely to have a limited practical effect on industry because most power plants have either made the up-front capital investments to come into compliance or already opted to shut down.
Pruitt Criticizes EPA Process
The EPA filed its brief with the court as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wrapped up a confirmation hearing for Pruitt that frequently touched upon his decision to engage in litigation against the agency he has been selected to lead. Several Democrats on the committee, including ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.), questioned Pruitt's decision to challenge EPA's mercury standards.
Pruitt characterized his legal opposition to the MATS rule as a challenge to the agency's rulemaking process, while acknowledging that mercury is a “very dangerous” environmental threat that should be regulated at the federal level.
“Our challenge was with regard to the process that was used in that case and how it was not complicit with the statutes as defined by Congress,” Pruitt said. “I believe that mercury should be dealt with and dealt with in a meaningful way, but subject to the processes this body has outlined.”
The state coalition that Pruitt's office is a part of argued in a November court filing that the EPA's supplemental “appropriate and necessary” finding is unlawful because the agency's primary approach to considering cost fails to directly weigh costs against benefits. The agency's secondary approach, a cost-benefit analysis, illegally relies on “co-benefits” linked to cuts in emissions particulate matter and other pollutants not directly regulated by the standards, according to the joint state-industry brief.
Briefing in the ongoing MATS litigation is currently scheduled to run through March 24. The next briefs, which will be filed by environmental advocates and states that support the regulation, are due Feb. 10.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876481&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876481&jd=103876481
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EPA Delays Another Utility Emissions Decision Until August
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
The incoming Trump administration is scheduled to make decisions on six different state requests to further control power section emissions by August after the Environmental Protection Agency extended its period for reviewing a petition from Delaware.
The EPA, in a notice scheduled for publication Jan. 23, announced it is extending its deadline until Aug. 3 to respond to Delaware's request on emissions from the Conemaugh Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant located east of Pittsburgh. Delaware wants the EPA to make a finding that emissions from the plant are interfering with the state's ability to meet the 2008 and 2015 national ozone standards, which would trigger an obligation that the plant meet agency-set emissions limits.
The petition on Conemaugh is one of four pending petitions filed by Delaware under Section 126 of the Clean Air Act, to which states in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast have turned in an attempt to address emissions of ozone precursors from power plants in other states. The EPA also has yet to respond from Section 126 petitions filed by Connecticut and Maryland.
The decision to delay a decision on Delaware's petition came one day after the EPA proposed to reject a request from several states to impose additional pollution control and planning requirements on nine more states by expanding the Ozone Transport Region, which currently runs down the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to Washington. The EPA's proposal cited the availability of more effective tools, including Section 126 petitions, to address ozone precursor emissions that cross state lines.
Ali Mirzakhalili, director of the Air Quality Division at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, criticized the EPA's decision to point to Section 126 as a tool for states to address transport while also delaying action on state requests under that section of the Clean Air Act.
“Pointing out to that provision as a solution is awfully disingenuous,” Mirzakhalili told Bloomberg BNA Jan. 18.
The EPA said it needs more time to complete an in-depth review of the technical information on emissions from the Conemaugh plant and Delaware's air quality, develop a proposal and provide adequate time for public comment before issuing a final decision.
Schedule for EPA Action
The Obama EPA has now set the following schedule for the Trump administration to decide on state requests:
• Jan. 25 — a Connecticut petition on Talen Energy's Brunner Island Steam Electric Station in Pennsylvania's York County;
• March 5 — a Delaware petition on Brunner Island;
• April 7 — a Delaware petition on Harrison Power Station, a West Virginia coal-fired plant owned by FirstEnergy Corp.;
• July 9 — a Delaware petition on Homer City Generating Station, a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant operated by NRG Energy Services;
• July 15 — a Maryland petition on 36 power plants in five upwind states; and
• Aug. 3 — Delaware's petition on the Conemaugh power plant.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876461&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876461&jd=103876461
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Flaring-Emissions Math Error Fixed by EPA
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Patrick Ambrosio
A tool used to estimate emissions from flares at refineries and chemical plants was updated to correct a mathematical error, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The agency, in a notice scheduled for publication Jan. 23, announced an update to its emissions factor for refinery emissions of volatile organic compounds, a precursor to the formation of ground-level ozone. Emissions factors are used to estimate pollution released from flaring operations at industrial facilities.
The last update to the emissions factor for flaring at refineries and petrochemical facilities, completed in 2015, included an error in calculating how much pollution is released by flares. Air Alliance Houston and other environmental advocacy organizations sued the EPA soon after and eventually settled the litigation after the agency agreed to again update the emissions factor to correct the error (Air Alliance Houston v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1210, 7/10/15).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876467&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876467&jd=103876467
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As Trump Vows to Kill Climate Plan, California Pushes Back
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Joe Ryan
California plans to reduce oil-refinery emissions 20 percent by 2030, providing more details about its effort to impose the nation’s strictest air-quality rules just as President Donald Trump takes office vowing to roll back federal climate policies.
The refinery rules announced by the California Air Resources Board Jan. 20 are part of its previously announced plan to cut overall emissions in California by 40 percent from 1990 levels. The agency also proposed continuing the state’s cap-and-trade program beyond 2020.
The initiative is the latest state-level push to bolster environmental policies moves since Trump was elected, and comes as efforts to curb global warming wane in Washington. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York this month called for wind farms off the coast of Long Island. And Ohio, Illinois and Michigan have enacted laws to expand clean energy development.
“Climate change is impacting California now, and we need to continue to take bold and effective action,” Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols said in a statement.
Trump, who once called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, announced his “America First Energy Plan” after his inauguration. It called for reviving the coal industry and eliminating “harmful and unnecessary” policies, including outgoing President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan.
California plans to release a final version of its climate plan in late March, and the board will vote whether to approve it in late April.
http://news.bna.com/deln/lpages/lpages.adp?pg=breaking_news&bn_product=deln#urn:bna:00000159bdb3d0bfadffbdbb4bdb0000
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Gas Pipeline Opponents Shut Out of Energy Commission Meeting
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Jonathan N. Crawford
Environmental groups were shut out of the Jan. 19 meeting of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency they say has ignored potential harm to air and water resources when it approved a string of new natural gas pipelines.
Commissioners voted Jan. 18 to deny members of the public access to their monthly meeting in Washington, according to a notice. It was only the second time in the agency's history that direct public participation in a meeting was denied. A free webcast of the session was available through the commission's website.
The move shows the intensity of public pushback as the agency oversees a vast expansion of the nation's pipeline network to accommodate booming oil and gas production from shale reserves. Pipeline developers say opposition from landowners and environmental groups has become more sophisticated and has led to delays in permit approvals that have allowed bottlenecks to persist, depressing prices.
“People from all over the eastern seaboard will be represented, inside and outside, protesting a myriad of pipeline projects they say have been approved,” Melinda Tuhus, a member of the environmental group Beyond Extreme Energy, said in an e-mail before commissioners voted to close the meeting. Pipelines have been approved “while ignoring scientific data about actual and potential harms to air, water, land and climate, as well as the use of eminent domain to claim people's property for private gain.“
Among the projects opponents say shouldn't have been approved are Spectra Energy Corp.’s Algonquin Incremental Project and Williams Partners LP's Constitution pipeline, both in the Northeast.
Meanwhile, developers say the protests are having an impact. The average time to approve a pipeline permit has grown to 429 days from 359 days at the end of 2013, according to Brandon Barnes, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
An e-mailed request for comment from the commission was not immediately returned.
The commission approved TransCanada Corp.’s Leach XPress pipeline and its Rayne XPress project, which consists of two compressor stations. Leach XPress will ship gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to consumers.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876486&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876486&jd=103876486
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Texas City Latest Site for Potential LNG Project
Jan 21, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The Woodlands-based NextDecade is homing in on a Texas City location near Galveston for its latest effort to build a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas export facility.
NextDecade, which has focused on an LNG export project in Brownsville, said it signed lease agreements for a nearly 1,000-acre site at Texas City's Shoal Point. The location offers port access, proximity to natural gas pipelines and the potential to expand, the company said.
The move comes after the Point Isabel school board in Brownsville rejected tax incentives for NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG project there, as well as for the competing Annova LNG project owned by Chicago-based Exelon Corp. Residents and environmental activists teamed up to oppose the projects. NextDecade and Annova have vowed to proceed in Brownsville without the tax breaks.
Still, NextDecade also has plans for Texas City to export the cheap and abundant natural gas supplies produced from Texas shale. The company is working to attract additional financing for both projects.
The projects are part of a growing number of LNG projects under development along the Gulf Coast and other regions as the U.S. increasingly shifts from importer to exporter of energy, another example of how hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling and other technologies that sparked the shale revolution have changed the global energy equation.
Last February, Houston-based Cheniere Energy became the first U.S. LNG exporter, shipping liquefied natural gas from its Sabine Pass terminal near the Texas-Louisiana border. In November, Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. of Houston and Perth, Australia, received final U.S. regulatory approval to export LNG and begin building a $4.3 billion LNG project, called Magnolia, south of Lake Charles, La.BUSINESSTrump's vow to repeal health law revives talk of high-risk poolsSamsung cites two battery issues for Note 7 recallHouston ranchers ready horses for rodeo trail ridesQ&A: Fort Bend Academy of Arts owner dances the dreamPeople in BusinessSchool board to weigh effects of huge chemical plant
Five other LNG export projects, including two in Texas, also are under construction in the U.S., including Houston-based Kinder Morgan's Elba Island LNG project in Georgia, which began construction in early November.
"Now more than ever, the U.S. has the potential to benefit from the incredible natural gas resources we have right here in Texas," NextDecade CEO Kathleen Eisbrenner said in announcing its Texas City plans. "The U.S. is the most competitive source of LNG in the world, and NextDecade is looking forward to bringing new supply to the global marketplace from the heart of the global energy industry."
But the issue facing NextDecade and other LNG developers is timing. The world is experiencing a glut of LNG as supplies grow and demand temporarily wanes, according to analysts. The question is when demand will again outstrip supply. Most analysts don't expect that to happen until the next decade.
The projects, however, can take years to develop, and many of the companies are betting that they can bring their projects online just as global demand picks up.
French energy giant Total is among those making that bet. Total recently said it will invest more than $200 million to buy a 23 percent stake in the liquefied natural gas company founded by Charif Souki, the former Cheniere CEO and a pioneer of U.S. LNG exports. Souki's Tellurian Investments is developing the $12 billion Driftwood LNG project south of Lake Charles, with the goal of beginning operations in 2022 and the expectation that growing global demand by then will have wiped out the glut of LNG.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Texas-City-latest-site-for-potential-LNG-project-10873495.php
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Trump’s Vow to Break from OPEC Oil Imports Echoes Old Refrain
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Bailey Lipschultz and Mark Shenk
President Donald Trump’s pledge to make America independent from OPEC isn’t a new refrain in Washington.
His “America First Energy Plan” posted on the White House website Jan. 20 doesn’t just echo his own campaign pledges but also President George W. Bush’s vow to cut imports from the Middle East when he famously said the nation was “addicted to oil.” Shipments from OPEC rose 10 percent during Bush’s time in office.
It’s not an easy task. It would mean replacing about 3 million barrels a day of imports. That’s about three times as much as East Coast refineries consume.
Saudi Arabia and Venezuela lead the pack of OPEC suppliers to the U.S. They account for more than half of U.S. imports from the 13-nation group.
Bush said he would put the country on course to reduce oil imports from the Middle East by more than 75 percent by 2025. His bold statement evoked a reaction from leaders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“We do believe that energy issues cannot be handled in a unilateral way,” said Edmund Daukoru, then-Nigerian minister of energy and secretary general of OPEC. “We all have to work together towards global energy security.”
President Trump’s goal may not be completely unobtainable as U.S. oil production has been on the rise and signs point toward possible energy independence. To achieve that, though, the country may need to reconsider a push for exports that was supported by Republicans. Since scrapping restriction on sales to countries other than Canada at the end of 2015, U.S. crude exports have risen to more than 700,000 barrels a day.
“He will take steps to increase energy output,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, said by phone. “Regardless of what he does, we are getting closer to energy independence.“
Trump and Bush aren’t alone.
“Every president since Richard Nixon has promised to work for energy independence but most have done nothing,” Lynch said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/lpages/lpages.adp?pg=breaking_news&bn_product=deln#urn:bna:00000159bdfed0bfadffbdfe176d0000
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Natural Gas Industry Critiques New Pipeline Safety Rules
Jan 23, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
The U.S. features nearly 200,000 miles of pipelines transporting hazardous materials, such as the ATEX Express that blew up two years ago to allow 24,000 barrels of Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane to scorch five acres of Brooke County woodlands amid a snowstorm.
The federal agency responsible for regulating pipelines such as these — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — announced new guidelines intended to improve standards, but industry leaders claim these measures will actually make the public less safe.
The PHMSA operates as a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The administration is responsible for regulating the pipelines, while the independent National Transportation Safety Board evaluates the pipeline agency’s findings.
Conversely, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is responsible for the location of interstate pipelines and the rates their owners charge for transportation. Pipelines that do not cross state boundaries are overseen mainly by officials in the individual states.
“As the use of hazardous liquid pipelines to transport the nation’s energy supply grows, communities around the country have demanded regulatory certainty around the safe operation of these lines and facilities,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said regarding the PHMSA standards.
“This rule gives operators clear direction on the design, construction, and operation of hazardous liquid pipelines lines and holds them accountable for the safety of the communities they serve-its full implementation will be a vital step in driving our pipeline safety mission.”
As written, the PHMSA rule will require pipeline operators to:
∫ increase focus on a data, including information on the operating environment, pipeline condition, and known manufacturing and construction defects;
∫ have a system for detecting leaks and to establish a timeline for inspections after an extreme weather event or natural disaster; and
∫ annually evaluate the protective measures in place to defend against human and environmental damage; and
∫ improve the quality and frequency of tests used to assess threats to pipelines.
In January 2015, the 20-inch diameter ATEX line ruptured in Brooke County, creating a fireball that could be seen for several miles.
Law enforcement officials reported fielding more than 100 calls regarding an emergency, while responding fire and emergency vehicles got stuck on the snow-covered roads leading from Follansbee to the impact site.
“The changing energy environment in the U.S. requires that we all become increasingly anticipatory, predictive, and prepared for emerging risks,” PHMSA Administrator Marie Therese Dominguez said. “This is a forward looking rule. It pushes operators to invest in increased data capabilities, to continuously improve their processes to assess and mitigate risk, and strengthens our framework for strong prescriptive regulations.”
However, American Petroleum Institute Midstream Group Director Robin Rorick said these new regulations will not help keep the public safe.
“We share the same objective of safe pipeline operations with PHMSA. However, we are concerned that this rule has the potential to decrease pipeline safety rather than improve it,”Rorick said.
“Pipeline operators work diligently and spend billions of dollars every year to construct, operate and maintain their facilities in a safe and reliable manner.
” It makes little sense to issue a rule that at times inhibits or weakens an operator’s ability to do that,” Rorick added.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2017/01/natural-gas-industry-critiques-new-pipeline-safety-rules/
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Perry: DOE Has ‘Massive Role’ in Stopping Cyber Attacks
Jan 23, 2017 | BNA Daily
By Rebecca Kern
Energy Secretary nominee Rick Perry said the Energy Department has a “massive role” to play in preventing cyber attacks on the U.S. electric grid, and that it should be one of the agency's top priorities.
The agency “will allow me to go to a new level of engagement” to find the ways to protect our country, Perry said at his Jan. 19 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing in response to questions from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member.
“Whether it's a formal state or a group that is loosely associated, if they are trying to penetrate into Americans’ lives ... you will see me engaged in activities at the Department of Energy,” he said.
Perry said he would work across agencies to address cyber attacks, including with the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
Cantwell said that in light of the Russian cyber attacks in the 2016 election cycle, “the next secretary of Energy needs to take very seriously the threats to our nation's electricity grid.”
Beefing Up DOE's Cyber Authority
Cantwell referred to the second installment of the Energy Department's Quadrennial Energy Review, released Jan. 6, which stated that the U.S. “faces imminent danger” from cyber attacks to the electric grid. Cantwell said she plans to introduce legislation based on the report's recommendation to expand the Energy Department's authority over emergencies resulting from cyber attacks.
“I want to make sure that you understand that the past Energy secretary is leaving you with a road map for cybersecurity,” she said.
Perry said, “I feel very confident that we have within our scientific laboratories and our private sector operations, and in the fertile minds of the Department of Energy, the technology and the ability to stop the cyber snooping or, for that matter, the intentions to do harm to Americans by penetrating into our electric grid.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=103876470&vname=dennotallissues&fn=103876470&jd=103876470
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Railroads Present a Bipartisan Case for Regulatory Reform
Jan 21, 2017 | Forbes
By Edward R. Hamberger
Policymakers across the political spectrum, from President Obama to President Trump, have advocated for reforming antiquated and draconian federal rules that stifle innovation and growth. But to truly unleash the economic potential of American industries, we need to reform the rulemaking process itself.
Too often, for instance, regulators propose new rules in response to news events without thoroughly examining their effectiveness or how they add to the cumulative burden of existing red tape. Regulators also seek to sidestep legal challenges to rules unsupported by data or evidence by issuing “guidance” which typically has the same effect as regulations.
Of course, federal regulations are critical for such purposes as keeping our drinking water clean and our food safe. But rules that are unsupported by facts, however well-intentioned, only serve to tie up industries in red tape without any public benefits.
Our industry–private freight rail–for instance, still faces a proposed mandate from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that would require railroads to run every train with at least a two-person crew unless special permission is granted based on unspecified criteria. When issuing the rule, the FRA acknowledged that it lacks any data to support the assertion that two-person crews are safer than one-person crews. In fact, the FRA noted that “it is possible that one-person crews have contributed to the improving safety record” of the rail industry.
Meanwhile the Surface Transportation Board (STB), the economic regulator of the sector, is still mulling a mandate for railroads to use their private infrastructure and equipment for the benefit of competitors. Most accurately referred to as “forced access,” this is a radical change in economic regulation whereby Railroad One gets access to Railroad Two’s customer because the government forces Railroad Two to provide that access using its own lines–not because it is the optimal route. But perhaps most importantly, the proposed regulation does not require re-regulatory proponents to prove anticompetitive conduct.
Both rules typify regulations without facts or defensible analysis.
More broadly, numerous regulatory agencies can also create a labyrinth of ineffective rules that carry high compliance costs and headaches for businesses. For instance, freight railroads must answer to rules from industry-specific regulators including the STB and FRA, as well as others such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications Commission.
Taken together, old and poorly designed regulations threaten to lock freight rail into outdated practices while making it more difficult for railroads to privately invest in new technology that can improve rail infrastructure, safety, efficiency and costs for shippers.
Worse, by stifling the growth of freight rail and other major American industries, these rules stunt the nation’s economic growth while jeopardizing jobs and raising costs on consumers. There is, however, a series of common-sense steps regulators can take to reform a federal rulemaking process that experts on both sides of the aisle agree must be updated.
Most importantly, new regulations should be based on a demonstrated need reflected by real evidence, current and complete data and sound science. Implementing rules as “guidance” should be limited, rather than sporadically applied when no data justification exists.
Regulators should also consider the cumulative impact of new rules—specifically their long-term effects when combined with existing regulations—to ensure that the benefits of new regulations will outweigh their costs while avoiding unintended consequences down the road.
Regulatory tools such as performance-based rules that stress outcomes rather than processes should be implemented when possible, which will align the needs of regulators and industries by sparking innovation and smarter approaches to achieve well-defined policy goals.
Finally, the entire rulemaking process should be transparent and subject to meaningful public comment to ensure the concerns of regulators, businesses and the public are thoroughly examined and reflected in all new regulations.
Both Republican and Democratic leaders have acknowledged that outdated regulations are holding back the nation’s economy and that our rulemaking process should be re-examined. Taken together, these reforms would simplify a byzantine process, generate economic growth and jobs, and prevent businesses from being burdened in unnecessary and costly red tape.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/01/21/railroads-present-a-bipartisan-case-for-regulatory-reform/#73585c42cd75
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Trump’s Regulatory Freeze Halts Four Obama Rules Aimed at Promoting Greater Energy Efficiency
Jan 21, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Nearly simultaneously with President Trump’s oath of office Friday, the White House website shifted to remove climate change related content from the Obama administration and supplant it with a new statement of Trump’s energy policy — one focused, it said, reducing “burdensome regulations on our energy industry.”
Those are just words — but an action hours later by White House chief of staff Reince Priebus had more teeth. Priebus’s memorandum, issuing a governmentwide freeze on new or pending regulations, would appear to have the effect of sweeping up four very nearly finished Energy Department energy efficiency standards, affecting an array of products, including portable air conditioners and commercial boilers. The standards are designed to reduce energy use, and, in the process, consumer bills and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Priebus memo states that federal agencies cannot send new regulations to the Office of the Federal Register — a key step in the finalization of new rules — until Trump’s administration has leaders in place to approve what these agencies are doing. Moreover, it also states that regulations that have been sent to the office but have not yet made it into the published register need to be withdrawn. The Obama administration issued a similar memorandum right after the president took office in 2009.
In this case, the language would appear to snag four energy efficiency regulations released very late in the Obama administration that, because of recently issued departmental rules designed to prevent errors, could not be published to the Federal Register for 45 days after their posting by the agency — a timeline that pushed their finalization past the end of the Obama administration.
The Obama administration, in part driven by ambitions to fight climate change, had been issuing a slew of energy efficiency standards, or regulations, each of which took a small bite out of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by requiring a line of products to use less energy.
The regulations that would go into limbo affect portable air conditioners, walk-in coolers and freezers, commercial boilers and uninterruptible power supplies. According to analyses by Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which tracks these standards, over the long term these regulations would save consumers billions of dollars in energy costs by requiring manufacturers to make these products more efficient.
The Priebus memorandum does not necessarily ensure the regulations’ ultimate demise — it merely halts them for further review. “These four new standards assure consumers of these products a basic level of energy efficiency performance, so we hope that Secretary-designate Perry, once confirmed, will swiftly approve them for publication,” said Andrew deLaski, director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.
“These standards should not be controversial,” he added.
But even if some of the standards do ultimately go into effect, others may not — or at least, not in the same form. That’s especially likely if they’re controversial or contested by industry, as at least one of them is.
The memo “is good news in the case of the commercial boiler rule, which we have many concerns about and which was not done through the negotiated rulemaking process,” said Francis Dietz, vice president for public affairs at the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute.
“We would be seeking significant changes if and when that rule is redeveloped,” he said.
Dietz and deLaski both agreed that the Priebus memorandum seems to put a hold on the four aforementioned energy efficiency rules, even though they are substantially finished and were merely held back so that interested parties could scan their texts for possible mistakes, including typos.
These four regulations are among the most vulnerable Obama administration offerings, precisely because of the 45-day waiting period they were subject to before finalization. Other Trump rollback targets in the energy and environment space, like of Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, will be harder to take apart.
But this wrinkle, however technocratic, nonetheless shows clearly that a new government has arrived.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/21/this-is-how-change-comes-to-washington-detail-by-bureaucratic-detail/?utm_term=.8468ed450578
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As Rule Freeze Takes Effect, Trump Readies EPA Deregulatory 'Action Plan'
Jan 22, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Trump administration has begun implementing its promised deregulatory agenda, blocking promulgation and implementation of recent Obama administration rules and preparing to begin implementing a deregulatory “action plan” at EPA and other agencies beginning as soon as Jan. 23.
While it is not clear what EPA rules and regulations will be caught up in the new deregulatory steps the administration is taking, the White House Jan. 20 reiterated President Donald Trump's long-standing commitments to roll back the Obama administration's climate action plan, which encompasses a host of EPA rules, as well as the agency's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule.
Chris Horner, a member of the Trump transition team at EPA, posted on his Facebook page Jan. 20 that “there's a good EPA (and related) action plan waiting for, let's hope, prompt and full execution beginning [Jan. 23].”
Which EPA rules will be covered by the action plan remains unclear but shortly after Trump was sworn in Jan. 20, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus issued a memorandum to the heads of EPA and other agencies detailing a series of regulatory prohibitions and requirements for already- issued rules.
Priebus’ memo opens the door to blocking at least some of the rules EPA issued in the final weeks of the Obama administration, including revisions to the Risk Management Program (RMP) facility safety rule that industry groups have sought to undo.
Generally, the memo bars agency officials from sending any regulations to the Federal Register for publication until they have been approved by a Trump administration official.
Regulations that have already been sent to the Federal Register but not yet published, should immediately be withdrawn for review and approval, the memo says.
The Washington Post reports that the directive would likely capture a set of five Energy Department energy efficiency rules, issued Dec. 28, governing commercial boilers, portable air conditioners, pool pumps, uninterruptible power supplies and commercial walk-in coolers and freezers.
The rules were not slated for publication until 45 days after their issuance to allow time for technical corrections. They would not take effect for three years.
But the administration's plan to block them is likely to disappoint environmentalists, who noted at the time of their issuance that they are expected to reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
The boiler standard, for example, was expected to “reduce the energy use of commercial packaged boilers by between 2 and 6 percent compared to the current standard and will avoid roughly 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years. This is as much carbon pollution as is emitted by more than 3 million cars driven for a year,” Natural Resources Defense Council’s Lauren Urbanek said in a blog post reacting to the final rule’s release by the Obama administration.
And for rules that have already been published but are not yet effective, Priebus requires agencies to postpone their effective dates for 60 days “for the purpose of reviewing questions of fact, law, and policy they raise.” He also says agencies should consider “further notice-and-comment rulemaking,” though he does not specify the goal of such steps – for instance, to further delay the rules' implementation or revise their terms or to begin the process of repeal, among other options.
“Where appropriate and as permitted by applicable law, you should consider proposing for notice and comment a rule to delay the effective date for regulations beyond that 60-day period. In cases where the effective date has been delayed in order to review questions of fact, law, or policy, you should consider potentially proposing further notice-and-comment rulemaking,” the memo says.
Priebus' final requirement could apply to several EPA measures, including the RMP rule update. Industry groups that represent facilities subject to RMP mandates have already weighed possible avenues to roll back the update, but focused on legislative action or a court challenge rather than administrative review.
Other rules potentially subject to the memo include the agency's final CWA general permit for stormwater runoff from construction sites and its Toxic Substances Control Act policies on confidential information, both of which appeared in the Jan. 19 Federal Register.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/rule-freeze-takes-effect-trump-readies-epa-deregulatory-action-plan
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Trump, Pruitt Ready Dramatic Reversal of EPA's Climate Change Mission
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
President Donald Trump and his pick for EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, are planning to dramatically scale back EPA's climate change mission in favor of more conventional pollutants, underscoring a significant shift in how the federal government would approach global warming.
Moments after Trump was sworn in, the White House replaced Obama administration websites touting the Climate Action Plan and other efforts to fight climate change with a new page that promised to “refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water,” while eliminating the action plan and EPA's waters of the U.S. rule.
Press reports indicate that the incoming administration also has a short list of executive actions that Trump plans to quickly repeal, including the Obama administration's guidance for estimating climate impacts of federal decisions under the National Environmental Policy Act and a Johnson-era order that gave the State Department authority to permit cross-border energy projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.
Under President Barack Obama's Climate Action Plan, EPA has made addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions a significant part of its core work under the Clean Air Act, and has promulgated a host of rules to limit GHGs from power plants, passenger cars and trucks, commercial trucks and the oil and gas drilling sector.
Underlying all of those rules is the agency's 2009 finding that GHGs endanger public health and welfare, a finding spurred by the Supreme Court's landmark 2007 holding in Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide is a regulated pollutant under the air law.
Many of those rules are now under threat of being scaled back or repealed by the Trump administration. And Pruitt, Trump's pick for EPA chief, has a reputation of challenging EPA climate rules and also a host of other regulations addressing clean water, regional haze, criteria pollutants and air toxics during his tenure as Oklahoma attorney general.
One former top EPA official says it has become clear that despite some signals from Trump that he is open minded on climate change -- including a December meeting with climate advocate and former Vice President Al Gore -- that he “has pretty much thrown down the gauntlet here with his appointments.” In addition to Pruitt, they include former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) as energy secretary, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) as interior secretary and former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of State.
“I think he's declaring open season on the Obama regulations and pretty much giving his team, once they are in place, a green light to walk back as much as they can. I n the case of EPA not only shutting them down on climate change but I think more broadly put the agency under a very tight leash and perhaps try to restructure it more fundamentally to weaken its influence on environmental policy nationally,” the source says.
“So that is where this is going. And I think we would be foolish to think otherwise. The real question is how long will it take them to wield the ax, and will they be able to prevail?” The source adds that nobody can “just snap their fingers” and make the host of Obama climate rules go away. “Each will require a heavy lift and a lot of legal and technical work, and of course there will be push back every single step of the way.”
For example, unless Trump's EPA successfully revokes the endangerment finding or Congress amends the Clean Air Act to say GHGs cannot be regulated as pollutants, then some level of GHG regulation will be required at the agency. Trump could seek a bare minimum level of regulation, though that approach would face certain legal challenge from environmentalists and some states.
Pruitt Confirmation
At his Jan. 18 confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, Pruitt moved to blunt Democrats' concerns over his prior opposition to greenhouse gas controls -- declaring climate change is not a hoax and acknowledging the agency's landmark GHG risk finding as the “law of the land” -- but his vague statements on the issue preserve possible new limits on the agency's GHG activities.
“I do not believe that climate change is a hoax,” Pruitt said in response to one of many queries from Democrats on whether he agreed with Trump's oft-quoted prior statement.
Pruitt separately acknowledged EPA's endangerment finding for GHGs as “the law of the land,” a comment that appeared to push back against calls by some conservatives to scrap it. “The endangerment finding is there and needs to be enforced and respected,” he said.
But he nevertheless signaled the agency will not be as aggressive in addressing climate change as his predecessor. For example, he declined to provide assurances to Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) that the agency would allow California and other states to continue adopting strict limits on mobile source emissions.
Despite most Democrats' opposition, Pruitt is likely to be confirmed in the coming days. He is likely to win support from all Republicans and his earlier support from at least one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), will likely provide cover for a handful of other Red State Democrats, such as Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN), to support him too.
While Pruitt has not indicated how he plans to address climate change, other Trump supporters have offered a range of options.
Kathleen Hartnett White, a former Texas Council on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) chief and possible candidate for a job in the Trump administration, said just after the election that the Department of Energy could assume the administration's primary GHG role, rather than EPA.
A Trump EPA, she said, would focus strictly on “genuine pollutants” that pose harm to public health, not carbon emissions. “He's very much for clean air and clean water,” she said at the time.“But the better home for considering this discussion about carbon dioxide and climate is in the Department of Energy.”
White also promised that EPA's power plant GHG rule would be pulled back and said the air law “was never designed to control a pollutant that ubiquitous and has no adverse environmental impacts on people.”
White, like Pruitt, questions the science underlying climate change and has called the current state of the United Nations science “politically corrupt.”
The agency's climate staff -- and staffing overall -- are expected to be reduced under Trump. Specifics have not yet been announced, but a hiring freeze is expected. It is unclear how many EPA employees currently work on climate, but the agency had 15,376 total staff and an $8.1 billion budget in fiscal year 2016.
It had more than 17,000 staff -- and in most years close to 18,000 -- during all but one of the George W. Bush administration's eight years. Its highest budget was just over $10 billion in FY10, according to the agency's website.
Minimal Level
Some conservatives have also urged EPA to maintain a minimal level of GHG regulation to preempt pending state common law claims against emitters and avoid having to justify a complete rollback, arguing that the endangerment finding and Massachusetts do not require any particular level of regulation.
They say this strategy would avoid major congressional and legal fights while effectively accomplishing the same outcome.
The former top official says that once Pruitt wins confirmation, he would be expected to lay out a clear vision of his plans in a memo to staff that will include changes to priorities and to the agency's climate-focused mission.
“I guess my view is it's an open question on how much of this Pruitt can pull off, and at the end of the day get the courts to accept, and I think ultimately it may turn out to be very little. A lot will depend on the quality of the people he has, and if the EPA transition team is any indication of the people that will be working at the agency, I don't know that they have the experience to get much done,” the source says.
Another source says that no matter what happens on climate at EPA, states, companies and shareholders will remain active on many fronts and that clean energy will continue to be a strong political and economic opportunity. But this source believes that Trump and Pruitt could erect some significant roadblocks through research funding and other budget decisions.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trump-pruitt-ready-dramatic-reversal-epas-climate-change-mission
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Trump Erases Climate, CEQ from Website
Jan 20, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Trump administration has scrubbed references to climate change and the Council on Environmental Quality from its website.
Just minutes after President Trump was sworn in today, his team overhauled the White House website, replacing a photo of President Obama and the line "Yes, we did. Yes, we can" with a new home page featuring a photo of Trump. The site now says, "Let's Make America Great Again, Together."
Also gone are the references to the Obama administration's work on climate change that were there earlier today.
Instead, the Trump team inserted the new administration's "top issues," including the "America First Energy Plan." That plan pledges to eliminate policies like Obama's Climate Action Plan and the so-called Waters of the United States rule.
The website for the White House CEQ has been eliminated.
At U.S. EPA and the Interior and Energy departments, climate change pages on their websites were still in place as of press time. Those websites will likely be overhauled, too, as Trump administration staffers get to work in the coming weeks.
Also today, the National Park Service's Twitter account retweeted a story about how climate change and civil rights issues had been scrubbed from the White House website.
The NPS account also retweeted images showing bigger crowds at Obama's inauguration in 2009 compared with Trump's inauguration today.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/01/20/stories/1060048754
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Transition: In Final Act, McCarthy Defends Obama EPA Air Act Rules
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
In one of her final acts as EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy pushed backed against agency critics who have charged that the Obama administration's air and climate rules overstepped the agency's Clean Air Act authority, releasing a memo from her general counsel that found the agency won the vast majority of cases challenging the rules..
In a Jan. 19 blog post, McCarthy released a Jan. 18 memo from her general counsel, Avi Garbow, that found that “Overall, EPA won or mostly won 81” percent of decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- the court that most often reviews national regulations -- and lost or mostly lost “only 10” percent of the cases, with the rest resulting in “mixed rulings,” McCarthy wrote .
During the Obama administration's final two years, EPA won 90 percent of the cases. “[I]n short, the record clearly shows that EPA followed the law and science,” McCarthy said.
The purpose of the legal analysis was to determine whether EPA followed the rule of law and scientific integrity, she said. And while the agency is concerned about any losses, “we recognize that our rulemakings necessarily involve making judgments about matters on which the law is not settled, and as a result, some court losses are inevitable.”
McCarthy calls the agency's eight-year record under the Obama administration “excellent . . . on its face,” with several other considerations that make it “even more impressive.” This includes that one-quarter of the losses resulted in remands without vacatur, so the rule remained in effect while the agency fixed the problem. And the record includes the fact that “Republican-appointed judges upheld EPA's actions as often as Democratic-appointed judges.”
McCarthy says the Garbow memo should fill agency staff with pride, and she notes it shows that EPA “identified reasonable, common sense steps forward that not only make our world cleaner and safer, but to support the amazing economic turn around and job growth that has taken place during this Administration.”
She adds she also hopes that the analysis “provides added comfort to the vast majority of Americans who support the work of the EPA and want to know that the actions we have taken . . . will be sustained.”
However, at the same time, McCarthy said there is “nervousness” among EPA staff that Trump will sideline science and reverse climate action, according to a Jan. 19 report by the Guardian. But she also pledged that the new administration will face resistance from multiple fronts if it rejects climate science, curbs renewables and bolsters fossil fuels.
“People at the EPA will be respectful of the new administration but they will continue to do their jobs,” she said. “I would not be telling the truth if I said there was no sense of nervousness. There is a sense of nervousness that the new administration will take decisions not in line with the science” and that would mean “we will be back to where we were before the last president.”
McCarthy added: “We've done everything we can to not only reduce greenhouse gases but also send the world a message about the seriousness of the issue.”
https://insideepa.com/the-daily-feed
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Ozone: Six States Seek to Defend EPA's Cross-State Air Rule
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
Six Eastern states are asking a federal court to allow them to intervene in a suit over EPA's updated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) power plant emissions trading rule in order to defend the regulation in case the Trump administration decides to drop the agency's defense of the CSAPR update.
The states -- Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont -- ask for the right to intervene in a Jan. 19 motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the CSAPR update litigation consolidated as State of Wisconsin, et al. v. EPA, et al.
The Oct. 26 update rule, applicable to 22 eastern states, aims to curb interstate ozone pollution and help states meet EPA's 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb). EPA has since tightened its ozone NAAQS again to 70 ppb, but has no cross-state rule in place to meet that standard.
“Smog pollution blowing in from other states threatens the health of millions of New Yorkers, particularly seniors and children,” said Attorney General (AG) Eric Schneiderman (D) in a Jan. 19 statement.
“New York has already put in place some of the most effective air quality protections in the country, but we have no control over dirty air that pours in from other states. The Trump administration has signaled its desire to roll back federal environmental protections, including those that protect states from out-of-state polluters. This is why defending this sensible, fair, and crucial rule is so important.”
Frequent EPA critic Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt (R) is set to become Trump EPA administrator if confirmed by the Senate, and Schneiderman in his statement fault's Pruitt record suing the Obama EPA over its air rules.
Schneiderman says Pruitt has tried through his various lawsuits against EPA to “tear apart” the notion of cooperative federalism, “where national, state, and local governments act collectively to solve common problems.” The concept is “critical to avoiding a situation where states with inadequate pollution control measures pass this pollution and its public health and environmental impacts to neighboring states,” Schneiderman says.
Meanwhile, researchers in a new study on air pollution have identified a trend toward major sources of air pollution, and of air toxics in particular, to locate close the borders of downwind states.
The study, “Gone with the Wind: Federalism and the Strategic Location of Air Polluters,” was published in its latest form Nov. 9 in the American Journal of Political Science by researchers James Monogan III, David Konisky and Neal Woods of the University of Georgia, Indiana University and University of South Carolina, respectively.
In a Jan. 19 statement, Indiana University says the study “reveals a pattern of companies strategically locating facilities where wind will carry pollution across state lines. Locating factories and power plants near downwind borders can allow states to reap the benefits of jobs and tax revenue but share the negative effects -- air pollution -- with neighbors.”
“Findings show the tendency toward free riding is more pronounced in states with less stringent environmental policy and those with aggressive economic development programs that pursue 'smokestack' industries, suggesting state decisions are a factor. But it's also stronger in states with a high density of environmental organizations, suggesting businesses may make location decisions to avoid local opposition,” the university says.
https://insideepa.com/the-daily-feed
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California: Court Arguments May Determine Fate of GHG Auctions
Jan 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
California appellate court judges are slated to hear arguments next week in a case that could determine the fate of the state's greenhouse gas allowance auctions under cap-and-trade, during an eagerly awaited hearing for an industry lawsuit challenging the program.
As Inside Cal/EPA's Curt Barry reports, attorneys following the case believe the court could find that the auctions violate the state's Proposition 13 law, which requires new taxes to be approved by a two-thirds vote of state lawmakers.
But state regulators and advocates of the program maintain that the auctions represent legitimate fees on polluters, a position supported by a state superior court ruling in 2013.
A three-judge panel of California's Third District Court of Appeal will hold the oral argument hearing Jan. 24 in the case California Chamber of Commerce, et al., v. California Air Resources Board (CARB), et al. and Morning Star Packing Co., et al. v. CARB.
The judges are expected to focus heavily on recent arguments from parties' supplemental briefs in response to a series of questions from the court delving into tax and fee definitions, how the state could or should spend auction revenue, and potential remedies if illegalities are determined.
The court's ruling -- which sources expect to be appealed to the California Supreme Court -- could help determine the fate of the state's cap-and-trade program, including the generation of billions of dollars in annual revenue for the state to spend on a variety of GHG-reduction projects and programs.
"Issues to watch for are how the court grapples with the fact that there isn't necessarily clear precedent or direction for them on how to decide this issue, and the central debate is which analytical framework to apply," says one environmentalist closely following the case.
Check back for Curt's report from the court following the Jan. 24 arguments.
https://insideepa.com/the-daily-feed
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