Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 1/27/2017
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Inhofe Ally Expected to be Agency's Next Chief of Staff
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
A longtime aide to Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe is expected to become the next chief of staff at U.S. EPA, according to sources close to the administration. -
Murkowski Prepared to Make FERC Nominees ‘Top Priority’
Jan 27, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski is prepared to fast track the confirmation of FERC nominees, after Norman Bay announced his plans to leave the agency in a week. -
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families on the EPA’s Requirements for Toxic Chemical Disclosure
Jan 27, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
The EPA issued a Federal Register notice this morning regarding requirements for Confidential Business Information claims under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In response, Liz Hitchcock, Legislative Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families... -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Launches Campaign Against IARC Decision-Making on Carcinogens
Jan 27, 2017 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
The American Chemistry Council is launching a public campaign that aims to change how the International Agency for Research on Cancer makes decisions about the carcinogenicity of chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Seeks Overhaul of WHO Carcinogen Research
Jan 27, 2017 | Chem.Info
By Andy Szal
A prominent U.S. chemical industry group is taking aim at the World Health Organization's cancer research arm amid disagreements about numerous findings in recent years. -
EPA Nominee Again a Know-Nothing on the Dangers of Lead
Jan 27, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
In 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a phaseout of lead in gasoline. Since then, lead levels in the blood of American children have dropped dramatically, making the ban on leaded gasoline one of the agency's greatest achievements for public health. -
California Fights Monsanto on Labels for Popular Weed Killer
Jan 27, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Scott Smith
A battle over the main ingredient in Roundup, a popular weed killer sprayed by farmers and home gardeners worldwide, is coming to a head in California, where officials want to be the first to label the chemical with warnings that it could cause cancer. -
Keystone XL Revived in More Costly, Less Certain Environment
Jan 27, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Only two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order inviting the revival, TransCanada Corp. submitted a fresh application late Thursday to construct the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline for Alberta oil sands exports. -
Trump-Mexico Feud Puts Oil and Gas Industry on High Alert
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold and Jenny Mandel
President Trump's border wall and tariff proposals are sounding alarms in Texas and across the nation, as the oil and gas industry that Trump says he wants to help worries it may end up getting hurt by his actions instead. -
U.S. Gas May Be One Trade That Survives Trump’s Mexico Showdown
Jan 27, 2017 | Bloomberg (In Real Clear Energy)
By Naureen Malik
It could take more than a political standoff between President Donald Trump and Mexico to keep U.S. shale gas from flowing south. -
House Republicans Ready Bill to Overturn Methane Rule
Jan 27, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By James Osborne
Congressional Republicans are not wasting any time going after former president Barack Obama’s climate change legacy. -
Permian Returns are Producing All of the Oil Drilling Drama
Jan 27, 2017 | Platts
By Matt Andre
In the last year, commodity prices have improved considerably. While oil prices were sub-$40/b in early 2016, producers were cutting back on new drilling and focusing on efficiencies — by cutting costs and concentrating drilling in the highest initial production (IP)... -
New Congress on Track to Block Long-Sought Workplace and Public Health Protections
Jan 27, 2017 | In These Times
By Elizabeth Grossman
An estimated 10,000 Americans die from asbestos-caused diseases each year, a figure that’s considered conservative. Asbestos is no longer mined in the United States but it still exists in products here, perpetuating exposure... -
Walden to Focus on Grid, Cybersecurity
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By George Cahlink
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden plans to focus attention in the new Congress on shoring up the nation's electric grid. -
What's on the Chopping Block in Trump's 1st Budget Request?
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump and congressional Republicans are expected to take a hatchet to the federal budget — with major cuts likely coming soon for some of the Obama administration's top environmental and energy initiatives. -
Trump Sparks Fears of War on Science
Jan 27, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Scientists fear President Trump's first week could preview an aggressive approach toward federal research, citing early orders on climate science and a clampdown on agencies' public communications. -
New Trump EPA Adviser Aggressively Downplays Climate Change Threat
Jan 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
David Kreutzer, an aggressive opponent of climate change policy formerly with the Heritage Foundation, is now working as a special adviser for the Trump EPA and is expressing major doubts that climate change poses a threat to humans, calling the prospect of mild global warming... -
Climate Change Raises the Stakes for Affordable Health Care Coverage
Jan 27, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Dr. Richard Allen Williams and Dr. Elena Rios
Today, more than 100 million Americans depend on healthcare safety-net programs: Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). -
EPA Defends Revised Utility MACT Cost Finding From Industry’s Criticisms
Jan 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA in a new legal brief is defending its revised cost assessment for its contested utility air toxics rule from the power sector’s attacks, defending its freedom under the Clean Air Act to determine whether the costs are reasonable from industry criticisms... -
Trump's First Foreign Visitor Unlikely to Bring Up Climate
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Trump will have his first one-on-one meeting with a foreign head of state today when U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, a Conservative leader who supports the Paris climate deal, visits the White House.
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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Inhofe Ally Expected to be Agency's Next Chief of Staff
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
A longtime aide to Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe is expected to become the next chief of staff at U.S. EPA, according to sources close to the administration.
Ryan Jackson, who has climbed the ranks in Inhofe's office for more than a decade and was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is likely to become Scott Pruitt's chief of staff if he wins confirmation as EPA's next administrator, the sources said, although it's unclear whether Jackson has formally been offered or accepted the position.
Jackson has been working on the team helping to guide Pruitt through the thorny Senate confirmation process. Senate Democrats and outside groups are fiercely opposed to Pruitt's nomination, although he's expected to ultimately win confirmation largely along partisan lines.
"Ryan's focus is on assisting with Mr. Pruitt's confirmation
process and on his duties at the U.S. Senate," said John Konkus, a member of Pruitt's confirmation team, when asked about the chief of staff role.
Jackson is an Oklahoma native who has spent much of his career working for Inhofe, who has been pushing to get Pruitt confirmed.
Jackson worked in Inhofe's Senate office in 1999 as a case worker, according to the LegiStorm congressional database. He also has been counsel and chief counsel to the Environment and Public Works Committee under Inhofe, and was legislative director and chief of staff in Inhofe's personal office.
Jackson also spent stints away from Capitol Hill as an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma and as associate director for the Oklahoma Farm Bureau. He hails from Oklahoma City and studied political science at the University of Oklahoma before getting a law degree from Oklahoma City University.
"Ryan brings with him significant management experience and policy expertise and an impressive network of contacts across the business community," said a source close to the administration. "People like him," that person added. "I believe that he'll be well liked by EPA staff."
Scott Segal, an industry attorney at Bracewell LLP, said he couldn't confirm that Jackson had taken the job, but said, "He'd make a damn good chief of staff."
If he's ultimately hired as Pruitt's chief of staff, Jackson would be central to guiding the Washington newcomer as he navigates the federal bureaucracy and Capitol Hill.
Another former Inhofe staffer, George Sugiyama, has also landed at EPA. Sugiyama, Republican chief counsel on the EPW committee under Inhofe and an EPA alumnus, was on Trump's EPA transition team and is now working on the so-called beachhead team of political staffers at the agency.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/01/27/stories/1060049128
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Murkowski Prepared to Make FERC Nominees ‘Top Priority’
Jan 27, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski is prepared to fast track the confirmation of FERC nominees, after Norman Bay announced his plans to leave the agency in a week.
“After next week, FERC will need a full complement of commissioners as soon as possible so that it can tackle the important work on its busy docket,” the Alaska Republican said in a statement this morning. “The Senate’s challenge will be to promptly consider, without undue delay, FERC nominations once they are received. I will make it a top priority to work with President Trump and my colleagues to move nominees rapidly and to re-establish a working quorum on the Commission.”
President Donald Trump demoted Norman Bay from the FERC chairmanship this week and made Cheryl LaFleur acting chair. Bay said Thursday that he intends to resign Feb. 3.
Murkowski’s panel is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Trump's Interior and Energy secretary nominees and will have several other Senate-confirmed nominees to process for those departments over the next few months.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families on the EPA’s Requirements for Toxic Chemical Disclosure
Jan 27, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
The EPA issued a Federal Register notice this morning regarding requirements for Confidential Business Information claims under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In response, Liz Hitchcock, Legislative Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families issued the following statement:
“EPA’s notice today marks an important victory for the public’s right to know about toxic chemicals.
“The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) allowed chemical companies to hide too much of the limited information that was available about chemicals from the public eye. Because of overly broad and often-abused provisions, manufacturers were allowed to claim information about a chemical, even its name, as ‘confidential business information.’ The 2016 reform of TSCA, the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, requires that manufacturers provide a compelling reason for keeping information about a chemical hidden.
“With today’s notice, the EPA has made clear that the law now requires justification for all such claims when the information is submitted to EPA with limited exceptions.”
http://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/safer-chemicals-healthy-families-on-the-epas-requirements-for-toxic-chemical-disclosure/
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Launches Campaign Against IARC Decision-Making on Carcinogens
Jan 27, 2017 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
The American Chemistry Council is launching a public campaign that aims to change how the International Agency for Research on Cancer makes decisions about the carcinogenicity of chemicals.
The campaign could have implications for the plastics industry. ACC said IARC decisions have a “significant impact” on public policy and product deselection in the United States, including decisions made by California under its Proposition 65 chemical labeling law.
Various plastic monomers and components have been subjects of California’s Proposition 65 rulings, and one plastics trade group in 2015 launched a Prop 65 insurance program to help companies defend against lawsuits and violation notices.
IARC said the ACC was trying to discredit it through “misrepresentations and inaccuracies” and said it was similar to strategies used by the tobacco industry.
ACC launched the campaign Jan. 25 with a website and a new twitter handle, and said IARC’s decision-making on the cancer-causing potential of chemicals “suffers from persistent scientific and process deficiencies that result in public confusion and misinformed policy-making.”
“Public policy must be based on a transparent, thorough assessment of the best available science,” said Cal Dooley, president and CEO of Washington-based ACC, in a statement. “Currently, IARC’s monographs do not meet this standard though U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for over two-thirds of the international program’s budget.”
ACC is calling its public effort the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research.
IARC, based in Lyon, France, is part of the World Health Organization.
In a statement to Plastics News, IARC defended its work.
“The American Chemistry Council campaign against IARC is the latest in a series of attacks aimed at discrediting the WHO Cancer Agency and its Monographs’ evaluation program, through misrepresentations and inaccuracies,” IARC said.
“This is reminiscent of the strategies used by big tobacco to spread doubt about scientific conclusions,” it said. “Unsurprisingly, the ACC as a chemical industry trade association, whose members include Monsanto, is defending its vested interests through this action.”
IARC said its science is transparent, independent and rigorous.
'Responsible for countless misleading headlines'
ACC, however, said IARC’s decisions do not use realistic exposure scenarios when informing the public.
“The IARC Monographs Program has been responsible for countless misleading headlines about the safety of the food we eat, the jobs we do and the products we use in our daily lives,” Dooley said.
“By offering specific proposals for reform, the CAPHR hopes to play a constructive role in improving the IARC Monographs Program to ensure consumers, public health officials and regulators benefit from more credible and relevant information,” he said.
IARC also is coming under pressure in Congress over its labeling of glyphosate, which is used in the herbicide Roundup from Monsanto, as “probably carcinogenic.”
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170127/NEWS/170129902/acc-launches-campaign-against-iarc-decision-making-on-carcinogens
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Seeks Overhaul of WHO Carcinogen Research
Jan 27, 2017 | Chem.Info
By Andy Szal
A prominent U.S. chemical industry group is taking aim at the World Health Organization's cancer research arm amid disagreements about numerous findings in recent years.
The American Chemistry Council this week announced the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research, which primarily seeks to reform the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s Monographs Program.
The group alleged that the program, which evaluates substances' risks as carcinogens, is plagued by scientific deficiencies, a lack of transparency and communication issues.
"The IARC Monographs Program has been responsible for countless misleading headlines about the safety of the food we eat, the jobs we do and the products we use in our daily lives,” ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley said in a statement.
The agency particularly came under fire after it declared glyphosate — the most heavily used herbicide in history — a probable human carcinogen in 2015. The agrichemical industry that the European Food Safety Authority and other oversight bodies found no such links.
ACC officials also suggested that IARC findings led to unnecessarily strict labeling requirements under California's Proposition 65.
The group vowed to offer specific reform proposals in an effort to "play a constructive role" in overhauling IARC processes.
“Public policy must be based on a transparent, thorough assessment of the best available science,” Dooley said. “Currently, IARC’s monographs do not meet this standard though U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for over two-thirds of the international program’s budget.”
The IARC, Reuters reported, defended its research and said that its analyses are "widely respected for their scientific rigor, standardized and transparent process and ... freedom from conflicts of interest."
http://www.chem.info/news/2017/01/acc-seeks-overhaul-who-carcinogen-research
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EPA Nominee Again a Know-Nothing on the Dangers of Lead
Jan 27, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
In 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a phaseout of lead in gasoline. Since then, lead levels in the blood of American children have dropped dramatically, making the ban on leaded gasoline one of the agency's greatest achievements for public health.
But Scott Pruitt, President Trump's nominee to head the EPA, says he doesn't know if the ban was a good idea.
In written questions from members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland asked if Pruitt agreed that "removing lead from gasoline was an important and successful EPA rulemaking? Why or why not?”
“I have not evaluated this issue,” said Pruitt – the same answer he gave to many other written questions from members of the committee.
It was the second time Pruitt, currently the attorney general of Oklahoma, indicated he is unaware that among scientists and public health officials, there is no debate that there is no safe level of lead exposure. Any exposure can harm children’s brains and development.
At his confirmation hearing last week, Cardin asked Pruitt, “Do you believe there is any safe level of lead that can be taken into the human body, particularly [for] a young person?”
“Senator,” Pruitt replied, “that is something that I have not reviewed, nor know about.”
By definition, the EPA administrator is the nation’s top cop when it comes to protecting children from exposure to lead and many other highly hazardous chemicals. These two statements clearly show that Pruitt is unqualified to head the EPA. If the Senate installs him, children’s health could be at serious risk.
http://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/01/epa-nominee-again-know-nothing-dangers-lead
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California Fights Monsanto on Labels for Popular Weed Killer
Jan 27, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Scott Smith
A battle over the main ingredient in Roundup, a popular weed killer sprayed by farmers and home gardeners worldwide, is coming to a head in California, where officials want to be the first to label the chemical with warnings that it could cause cancer.
Monsanto rejects any health risk of its top-selling herbicide. The chemical giant sued the nation’s leading agricultural producer to block the labels, arguing that the state unconstitutionally stakes its claims on an international health organization based in France.
California will ask a Fresno judge on Friday to dismiss the case so it can move forward with the warnings, drawing support from heavyweights including environmental attorney Robert Kennedy Jr. and the United Farmworkers.
Teri McCall says her husband toted a backpack of Roundup for more than 30 years to spray weeds on their 20-acre avocado and apple farm. Jack McCall died of cancer in late 2015, and his widow believes a warning would have saved his life.
“I just don’t think my husband would have taken that risk if he had known,” said Teri McCall, one of dozens nationwide who are suing Monsanto, claiming the chemical gave them or a loved one cancer.
Critics take issue with Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, which has no color or smell. Monsanto introduced it in 1974 as an effective way of killing weeds while leaving crops and plants intact.
It’s sold in more than 160 countries, and farmers in California use it on 250 types of crops.
The chemical is not restricted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says it has “low toxicity” and recommends people avoid entering a field for 12 hours after it has been applied.
But the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a Lyon, France-based branch of the U.N. World Health Organization, classified the chemical as a “probable human carcinogen.”
Shortly afterward, the most populated state took its first step in 2015 to require the warning labels.
St. Louis-based Monsanto contends in court papers that California is delegating its authority to an unelected foreign body with no accountability to officials in the U.S. or state in violation of the California Constitution.
Attorneys for California consider the International Agency for Research on Cancer the “gold standard” for identifying carcinogens, and they rely on its findings along with several states, the federal government and other countries, court papers say.
Monsanto also says placing the labels on Roundup would lead to consumers’ unfounded fears and drive them to less safe and effective alternatives. Spokeswoman Charla Lord said she could not estimate the potential financial harm to the company.
“Glyphosate is a vital tool,” Lord said in a statement. “Our goal is to minimize any disruption to farmers in the state.”
California regulators are waiting for the lawsuit to be resolved before deciding whether to require warnings, said Sam Delson, a spokesman for the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
Kennedy, who represents McCall’s widow, questions Monsanto’s staunch objection to the labels because the state is not trying to ban the weed killer.
“People have a right to know what the risks are when they use Roundup,” said Kennedy, a longtime adversary of Monsanto and son of Robert F. Kennedy. “It’s almost strange that a corporation would be fighting so hard.”
Farmer Paul Betancourt has been using Roundup for more than three decades on his almonds and cotton crops and says he does not know anyone who has gotten sick from it.
Still, he provides his crew with gloves and respirators and trains them how to correctly handle it. Betancourt said he doesn’t know of an alternative that would work better.
“You’ve got to treat it with a level of respect, like anything else,” he said. “Gasoline will cause cancer if you bathe in the stuff.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/california-fights-monsanto-on-labels-for-popular-weed-killer/2017/01/26/9e55ff9a-e427-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_story.html?utm_term=.f5bc61d5bc49
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Keystone XL Revived in More Costly, Less Certain Environment
Jan 27, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Only two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order inviting the revival, TransCanada Corp. submitted a fresh application late Thursday to construct the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline for Alberta oil sands exports.
But a brief announcement of the filing for a presidential permit by TransCanada President Russ Girling made no attempt to answer the cloud of questions hanging over the nine-year-old project, which former President Barack Obama rejected in November 2015.
Keystone XL remains a plan for 830,000 b/d to travel in pipeline 36 inches in diameter across 523 kilometers (327 miles) of Western Canada and 1,400 kilometers (875 miles) of the United States, from a central Alberta storage and shipping hub at Hardisty to a southern Nebraska counterpart at Steele City. Established lines would take the oil to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Girling’s statement repeated the vintage case for Keystone XL as a prop for North American energy security, construction job creator and future state and federal taxpayer. But he gave no hint of how TransCanada plans to comply with Trump’s request for a new, improved deal on U.S. citizen employment and other economic benefits.
Nor did the Calgary pipeline firm provide an updated cost forecast, a target date for finishing construction, or any hint about the fate of a US$15 billion free trade complaint and lawsuit filed over Obama’s decision a year ago.
Canadian industry analysts viewed the revived application as the opening move on unpredictable negotiations with the new Trump administration. The new project package that emerges from Washington is in turn expected to require fresh work on transportation service contracts with oil shippers.
TransCanada has predicted that delays and regulatory expenses to date alone could double Keystone XL’s price tag into the US$10 billion area from the original US$5.4 billion construction budget. Steep oil price declines since the project entered the regulatory arena in 2008 are expected to sharpen shippers’ focus on costs. The plan calls for deliveries of 730,000 b/d from Alberta and 100,000 b/d from the Bakken Shale region in North Dakota and Montana.
At the political level in Canada, federal and Alberta provincial leaders voiced support for reviving Keystone XL yet also urged the industry to give top priority to newer projects proposed to diversify its markets via tanker terminals on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
Girling insisted that Keystone XL deserves to rank high on the U.S. economic agenda. “The project is an important new piece of modern U.S. infrastructure that secures access to an abundant energy resource produced by a neighbor that shares a commitment to a clean and healthy environment.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109197-keystone-xl-revived-in-more-costly-less-certain-environment
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Trump-Mexico Feud Puts Oil and Gas Industry on High Alert
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold and Jenny Mandel
President Trump's border wall and tariff proposals are sounding alarms in Texas and across the nation, as the oil and gas industry that Trump says he wants to help worries it may end up getting hurt by his actions instead.
Trump's showdown with Mexico over his intention to build a wall, the decision yesterday by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a meeting in Washington planned for next week, and Trump's comments yesterday that he had "no choice" but to "go a different route" on bilateral relations have intensified pressure on a long-friendly international relationship that became strained during last year's election season.
As Trump picks a fight with Mexico over immigration, one question stands out for the energy industry: What happens to us?
Mexico is a top U.S. trading partner and a major center of growing demand for U.S. natural gas, while it continually ranks as one of the largest sources of U.S. crude oil imports. And massive reforms of Mexico's oil and gas and electric systems in the last few years promise major opportunities for U.S. producers, refiners and distributors.
For months, industry insiders have nervously quipped that a border wall would be no problem, so long as pipes can run under it. Exports of U.S. natural gas to Mexico have ballooned in recent years, tripling from 333 billion cubic feet in 2010 to just over a trillion cubic feet in 2015, the latest year covered by Energy Department data.
The expansion reflects extensive investment to retool the power grid in northern Mexico, shifting from a reliance on oil and coal for electricity toward cleaner-burning gas (Energywire, Feb. 23, 2016).
Along with the electric sector reform, the Mexican government, under Peña Nieto's leadership, has also carried out an extensive overhaul of its oil, gas and refined products sector. The government removed restrictions on foreign involvement that dated to the 1938 nationalization of the oil industry, brushing past a deep popular pride in the country's oil industry as a source of national strength, and in 2013, the government welcomed foreign investment back to an industry that needed cash and technical expertise.
Trump's executive actions this week aimed at stepping up deportations of illegal immigrants and building a border wall that he has said Mexico would be forced to pay for ratchet up the tensions between the two countries, shifting the issue from incendiary election talk to national policy.
Yesterday in a brief talk with reporters, Trump claimed that the cancellation of next week's meeting was a joint decision by himself and Peña Nieto. "Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. We have no choice," Trump said.
Later, White House spokesman Sean Spicer provided additional details to reporters about the president's plans to squeeze payment from Mexico, in an outline that he first described as part of a larger tax reform strategy and later said was just one example of a way the United States could recoup its costs for the president's proposal.
"When you look at the plan that's taking shape now, [it's] using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico," Spicer said. "If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports — which is, by the way, a practice that 160 other countries do — right now our country's policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it that [way], we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone," he continued.
During the election, Trump's tough talk on Mexico led much of the Texas energy industry to keep its distance. Now, as that talk turns to action, anxiety is rising (Energywire, June 27, 2016).
U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R) of Texas, who represents a district spanning more than 800 miles of the border that includes new pipeline construction, issued a statement yesterday in Spanish and English opposing Trump's plan.
"Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border," Hurd said, calling instead for "a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the agents on the ground with the resources they need."
Energy pulled in?
Experts on the Mexican energy industry disagree over how the country might respond if the president follows through on his threats to tax its exports by 20 percent or more.
One Mexico City-based policy analyst, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he doubted officials would use the energy sector to retaliate against a U.S. tariff on exports. If anything, he argued, Trump's posturing makes it more important for Mexican leaders to take the high road, showing a steady hand to reassure investors and draw new projects to replace those canceled by American companies that might pull out.
Others disagree. Thomas Osang, a professor of economics at Southern Methodist University, doesn't see U.S. energy exporters emerging from a trade battle unscathed.
"I think all trade, including gas, can be affected by a trade war scenario," Osang said in an email. "If Mexico feels that it needs to retaliate in response to a U.S. border tariff, it would certainly hurt Mexican consumers and businesses. But the money the Mexican counter-tariff would generate could be used to support [or] subsidize those Mexican firms hurt by the U.S. tariff."
Even if Mexico does not curtail its U.S. energy trade, Trump's rhetoric could hurt U.S. natural gas producers if U.S. policy hinders its neighbor's rise as a major manufacturing hub.
A recent report by the Center for Automotive Research noted that Mexico's automotive manufacturing is on a growth path, expected to more than double between 2010 to 2020, with further expansion beyond that. Those auto manufacturing hubs and other new factories are behind much of Mexico's growing demand for electricity, which in turn fuels demand for U.S. natural gas.
Osang sees risk that a border shutdown would hurt U.S. energy workers. "The issue that comes to mind is the liberalization efforts that have been made with regard to cross-border trade in electricity, with much of that still to come," he said. "Such efforts would likely come to an end in a trade war scenario."
'America first'?
On the flip side, some observers worry that an acrimonious U.S.-Mexican relationship could spur the Trump administration to take out other problems on the energy industry.
Natural gas prices have been low in the United States for several years as the shale gas boom has kept supply ahead of demand, leading to record-high storage levels. But prices are widely expected to turn upward in the coming years as pipeline build-out supports new markets and an uptick in industrial demand for natural gas comes online, driven by the past several years of ultra-low prices.
Add in new demand from the completion of five liquefied natural gas export terminals that are currently under construction, and an eventual recovery in world oil prices that will likely tug natural gas prices up, too, and a price increase looks nearly inevitable.
At a talk on global natural gas markets yesterday at the Atlantic Council, Agnia Grigas, a consultant on energy and post-Soviet policy, questioned how the Trump administration might respond if a domestic natural gas price spike hurt the manufacturing base that he has appealed to so aggressively, and if he might seek to throttle back the commodity's flow to Mexico in an effort to stabilize domestic prices.
"I wish I could unpack the 'America first' energy policy," she said, asking if Trump's stated commitment to LNG exports would change "if prices rise, if there are considerations for American industry, if there are domestic economic considerations?"
Suedeen Kelly, a former Democratic-appointed commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who now leads the energy regulation, markets and enforcement practice at law firm Akin Gump, noted that the key LNG export permits issued by the Energy Department over the past few years have included provisions that would allow exports to be blocked if the administration determined that they were no longer in the national interest. Exercising that clause could offer a mechanism for the administration to seek control over export levels, Kelly said.
Fred Hutchison, who leads LNG Allies, a group that advocates for expanding U.S. LNG exports, said it would be unheard of for a president to use a contract exit clause like that to alter committed trade flows. Arguing that the president has similar powers to curtail other exports in the case of a national emergency, he said that in the unlikely event that the clause was invoked, U.S. industry would aggressively litigate the issue.
Tim Boersma, who studies natural gas trade with Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, pointed to the contradictions in the administration's positions on energy and trade. On the one hand, you have an energy-friendly administration in which "you have to assume a lot of support for energy trade," Boersma said. But at the same time, the president says he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a wall between the United States and one of its key energy allies. Even before taking formal policy steps, Boersma noted, Trump's actions hurt Mexico each time the peso plunges in response to a presidential tweet.
"That seems to cloud what would be, in other ways, a very logical business cooperation," Boersma said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/01/27/stories/1060049099
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U.S. Gas May Be One Trade That Survives Trump’s Mexico Showdown
Jan 27, 2017 | Bloomberg (In Real Clear Energy)
By Naureen Malik
It could take more than a political standoff between President Donald Trump and Mexico to keep U.S. shale gas from flowing south.
While Mexico works to reverse declining oil and gas production, the nation’s burning record amounts of natural gas pulled from tight-rock formations north of the border. Pipeline deliveries of the fuel from the U.S. have more than doubled in the past two years, and Mexico’s now tied with Chile as the biggest buyer of tanker shipments of U.S. liquefied natural gas leaving Louisiana’s coast.
The gas exports stand in sharp contrast to the showdown threatening one of the world’s biggest bilateral trading relationships. Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a meeting with Trump Thursday after the U.S. leader blasted him on Twitter for refusing to pay for a wall along the countries’ border -- and now Trump’s considering a 20 percent tax on Mexico imports to pay for it. Gas exports, seen as supporting jobs in the U.S. while handing Mexico cheap fuel, could end up being one trade that bucks the political maelstrom, according to ING Groep NV and Pira Energy Group.
"This all boils down to exactly how protectionist Trump decides to be,” Rob Carnell, chief international economist at ING in London, said by e-mail this week. “My guess is this will be targeted, not blanket, and any retaliation is then down to Mexico, and I imagine they would rather have the gas at a decent price than deter it by putting up tariffs.”
Gas piped to Mexico climbed to a record last year, averaging more than 4 billion cubic feet per day in August through October, U.S. government data show. That supply, equal to roughly a fifth of Texas’s total gas output, displaced LNG cargoes from Peru, according to Madeline Jowdy, senior director of global gas and LNG at Pira in New York. Exports climbed even higher after Petroleos Mexicanos’s Los Ramones Phase II pipeline began operations in May."
Trump himself owned as much as $1 million worth of shares in a U.S. pipeline giant, Energy Transfer Partners LP, that’s helping build a line that’ll move more gas to Mexico, according to his federal candidate disclosures in 2015. He still had as much as $50,000 worth of shares in the Dallas-based company as recently as May, according to his most recent disclosure.
LNG imports to Mexico’s Manzanillo terminal from the U.S. have also jumped. Ten tankers have unloaded super-chilled gas at the facility on Mexico’s western coast since the beginning of August, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. U.S. gas delivered to Manzanillo has gone for as much as $5.53 per million British thermal units, including transportation costs, based on data in an Energy Department report.
Mexico’s increasing reliance on U.S. natural gas isn’t without risk, according to Bank of America. Protectionist moves by the Trump administration could curtail exports of the fuel, Francisco Blanch, head of commodity markets research for the bank in New York, said by e-mail Wednesday.
The impact may hinge on Mexico’s response to Trump considering a 20 percent tax on imports from the country -- to pay for the wall along the southern U.S. border that Trump pledged to build during his presidential campaign. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday, “By doing that, we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone.”
The gas shipments have helped U.S. energy drillers eliminate a supply glut that had sent prices of the fuel plunging to the lowest level in almost two decades. But in one twist of irony, the exports have also cut costs for Mexico’s manufacturers, helping them compete against American plants.
Policy changes such as renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and constructing a border wall “risk hurting export demand for U.S. natural gas,” Blanch said. “We remain concerned about large-scale disruptions” to trade.
ING head of commodities strategy Hamza Khan said by e-mail Wednesday that gas could keep moving to Mexico through underground pipelines even if Trump succeeds in building a wall along the almost 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border.
“From the political side anything’s possible,” he said, “but as a commodity analyst, I don’t see why either party would want or benefit from reduced flows.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/trump-s-mexico-showdown-hasn-t-stopped-gas-from-heading-south
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House Republicans Ready Bill to Overturn Methane Rule
Jan 27, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By James Osborne
Congressional Republicans are not wasting any time going after former president Barack Obama’s climate change legacy.
House Republicans are putting the final touches on legislation to overturn an Obama executive order limiting the amount of methane that can be vented and flared from oil and gas drilling sites on federal lands. The bill, along with another piece of legislation overturning an order protecting streams and wildlife around coal mines, is set to be introduced Monday,
“These are abusive, last minute regulations that are grossly inconsistent with congressional intent,” Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a conference call Friday. “They will impose a real an unnecessary cost on American people and communities.”
A day after a Republican retreat in Philadelphia headlined by President Donald Trump, party leaders are gearing up to roll back federal regulation at-large. At a meeting in the White House earlier this week Trump told congressmen and senators he wants to see federal rules reduced by three quarters.
Most immediately, the plan it to used a little used law signed into law by former president Bill Clinton in the 1990s giving Congress the authority to overturn any regulation within 60 days of publication – a measure designed to keep presidential administration’s from tacking on regulations on their way out of the White House.
Known as the Congressional Review Act, it has only been used once in the past two decades. But now Republicans want to use it to tackle rules on everything from overtime pay to in this case greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists are already stepping up campaigns to try and block the legislation in the Senate, where Republicans maintain a thin 52-48 majority.
“The math is hard, but it’s not settled,” said Chase Huntley, a senior government relations director at The Wilderness Society, a conservation group.
Their argument is limiting the amount of methane that oil and gas companies can flare or vent into the atmosphere is simply putting into code what are already considered standard practices at many companies. At the same time, they say, the rule has helped develop a small but burgeoning industry of methane sensor manufacturers and firms armed with infrared goggles that inspect drilling sites for leaks that stand to be hurt if the rule is rolled back.
But Bishop expressed confidence Friday he had the votes in the Senate to get his legislation passed.
The Bureau of Land Management’s venting and flaring rule is one in a series of methane emissions rules ordered by the Obama administration.
Bishop said he planned to “address” two similar methane rules at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency but had not yet decided on how. A rule relating to emissions from new wells is too old to be addressed by the Congressional Review Act and would likely require an executive order by Trump to be overturned. The other rule, for existing wells, is still in development at the agency and is not expected to be published.
“We’re a little ahead of how many of those I want to do administratively and how many I want to do legislatively,” Bishop said. “The method I’m going to use in the future is not quite clear.”
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2017/01/27/house-republicans-ready-bill-to-overturn-methane-rule/
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Permian Returns are Producing All of the Oil Drilling Drama
Jan 27, 2017 | Platts
By Matt Andre
In the last year, commodity prices have improved considerably. While oil prices were sub-$40/b in early 2016, producers were cutting back on new drilling and focusing on efficiencies — by cutting costs and concentrating drilling in the highest initial production (IP) rate counties — to get the most bang for their buck.
So when prices finally rallied in the second half of the year (bouncing off $50/b), producers were able to ramp up new drilling activity rather quickly. New drilling grew 71% across the US to 774 rigs in early January 2017 from an average of 452 rigs in June 2016.
To give more color on the price rally, WTI cash prices have risen 68% to $53/b in January this year from an average of $32/b in January 2016. Over the same time frame, Henry Hub cash prices rose 52% to $3.45/MMBtu from $2.27/MMBtu.
Meanwhile, average returns for a typical new well drilled in the US increased about 14 percentage points over the year according to Platts Analytics’ Well Economic Analyzer (WEA). In West Texas, the oil-rich Permian basin has benefited from a combination of the price rally and drilling efficiencies causing internal rates of return (IRRs) to grow an impressive 30 percentage points to almost 40% in January 2017, up from 10% in January 2016.
Oil prices flirted with $50/b midway through the year, but only in the past two months have they shown that they can sustain above that threshold, causing average returns in the top five oil-rich basins to soar above 30%. For January 2017, the average 12-month forward curve for WTI is up to $56/b, incentivizing new drilling, and producers have responded adding another 55 rigs in the past month. The basin with the largest month-over-month rig increase is the Permian, which is up 29 rigs from the month prior, bringing the total for the basin to 278 rigs.
The Eagle Ford is up 11 rigs from last month with January returns (for a typical well) in the basin averaging 26%, marking a high that hasn’t been achieved since August 2015 when the IRR reached 27%. Rigs in the Eagle Ford have been on the rise since early October, increasing by 24 rigs from early-October’s 35 rigs to early-January’s 59 rigs.
On the gas side, the average 12-month forward curve for Henry Hub fell to $3.30/MMBtu, a decrease of $0.18/MMBtu from the prior month. As a result, returns in the gas-rich plays across North America are down close to three percentage points on average.
Returns in the Marcellus Dry decreased six percentage points, dropping the IRR for a typical well to 15.7%. The decrease is a combination of the Henry Hub price slipping along with Dominion South basis widening, causing the total price to drop to $2.20/MMBtu for January, down about $0.25/MMBtu from $2.45/MMBtu. Even with the minor setback to Northeast gas prices, we still saw an increase in new drilling as the region climbed back to 60 active rigs — levels that haven’t been observed since November 2015. As a point of reference, back in October 2010 drilling activity within the Northeast region reached an all-time high with 184 rigs. During that time, Northeast Pennsylvania was operating 71 rigs, a stark contrast compared to the 10 rigs currently being operated.
Over the past two years producers have struggled with debt concerns and suppressed prices. Our thought is, if oil prices can remain above the $50/b threshold, it will provide some relief and allow rig counts to continue increasing across the US in 2017. One of the risks involved is that as prices rise we anticipate service costs (drilling and completing labor costs) to rise as well, which could put downward pressure on returns for plays across the US.
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/01/27/permian-returns-oil-drilling/
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New Congress on Track to Block Long-Sought Workplace and Public Health Protections
Jan 27, 2017 | In These Times
By Elizabeth Grossman
An estimated 10,000 Americans die from asbestos-caused diseases each year, a figure that’s considered conservative. Asbestos is no longer mined in the United States but it still exists in products here, perpetuating exposure, especially for workers in construction and other heavy industries. In June 2016, after years of debate, the country’s major chemical regulation law was updated for the first time in 40 years, removing a major obstacle to banning asbestos.
Exposure to beryllium, a metal used in aerospace, defense, and communications industry manufacturing, to which about 62,000 U.S. workers are exposed annually, can cause a severe, chronic lung disease. On January 6, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued a rule—more than 15 years in the making—that dramatically lowers allowable workplace exposure to beryllium. OSHA says this will prevent 94 premature deaths and prevent 46 new cases of beryllium-related disease per year.
On April 17, 2013, an explosion and fire at the West Fertilizer Company plant in West, Texas, killed 15 people and injured hundreds. In late December—after a four-year process involving public, business, governments and non-profit input—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule designed to prevent such accidents, improve community response to and preparedness for such disasters.
Those three examples are among the occupational and public health protective policies finalized by the Obama administration now jeopardized by antiregulatory legislation already passed by the 115th Congress. It remains to be seen if this legislation will become law and actually used. But, says University of Texas School of Law professor Thomas McGarity, the likely outcome is “that this will make people sick and unsafe.”
“Landscape is grim as it is”
In addition to having the ability to pass antiregulatory legislation, Congress has at its disposal the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Passed in 1996 by the Newt Gingrich-led House, it allows Congress to overturn a regulation passed during the last 60 legislative working days of an outgoing administration. What’s more, it prevents the creation of a substantially similar regulation. It’s only been used once, in 2001, to overturn the ergonomics regulation passed by OSHA under President Bill Clinton.
Add to this the Midnight Rules Relief Act, passed by the House on January 4. It amends the CRA, allowing Congress to overturn multiple regulations promulgated during the previous administration’s last six months, rather than individually as the CRA requires. “This allows the House to pick and choose rules that industry doesn’t like and do it all at once,” McGarity explains.
Also already passed by the House is the Regulatory Accountability Act. It includes a provision that could threaten the change made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) eliminating the provision that prevented the EPA from banning asbestos. As Natural Resources Defense Council director of government affairs, David Goldston explains, “This bill has a provision that says notwithstanding any other provision of law, costs and benefits have to be considered when writing a rule.” Goldston calls this phrase “dangerous,” as it means putting economic costs to industry ahead of costs to human health as TSCA previously required—a requirement the revised bill eliminated.
And, as if these laws weren’t enough to threaten existing regulations, there’s the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act), also already passed by the House. This law essentially says that an agency rule can’t go into effect unless Congress approves it. Or, as University of Maryland Carey School of Law professor Rena Steinzor explained in the American Prospect, “In a drastic power grab, the House has approved a measure that would strip executive agencies of the authority to issue significant new regulations.”
“If the REINS Act becomes law, then Congressional inaction will supersede previous Congressional action on fundamental bedrock popular health, safety and environmental protection laws,” says Public Citizen regulatory policy advocate Amit Narang.
He also points out that if the administration of Donald Trump declines to defend regulations now under legal challenge, they could also be undone. Among the rules now being challenged is OSHA’s long sought updated restriction on occupational silica exposure.
“The landscape is grim as it is,” says Emily Gardner, worker health and safety advocate at the non-profit citizens’ rights advocacy group Public Citizen, referring to OSHA’s limited resources. “There are nearly 5,000 workers dying on the job every year and OSHA’s not able to respond to threats as they’re happening.” Now, she says, “I’m looking at a Congress that would nearly paralyze rulemaking.”
“Designed to smash the system not reform it”
These laws effectively knock the foundation out from under how agencies like OSHA, the Department of Labor and EPA go about creating the network of regulations needed to implement the intent of laws that protect workplace and public health.
“This is designed to smash the system not reform it,” says Goldston of this antiregulatory legislation.
Not surprisingly, the historically pro-big business U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports antiregulatory legislation, as does the American Chemistry Council and National Association of Manufacturers. On the other hand, it’s opposed by American Sustainable Business Council, which represents more than 250,000 business owners and says the regulations these laws aim to undo are needed to support healthy, thriving workplaces and the economy.
Apart from the CRA, all of this legislation still needs to pass the Senate and be signed by the president to become law. But with a Republicans in the majority and Trump in the White House, vetoes seem highly unlikely.
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19849/new_congress_on_track_to_block_workplace_and_public_health_protections
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Walden to Focus on Grid, Cybersecurity
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By George Cahlink
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden plans to focus attention in the new Congress on shoring up the nation's electric grid.
"We are going to focus on the electric grid itself, both security and capacity, and resiliency," Walden said in a brief interview yesterday as Republicans huddled here for their annual three-day legislative retreat.
While Walden did not offer any specifics, the Oregon Republican in the past has been supportive of industry taking the lead in setting grid security standards and carrying them out rather than relying on federal regulators.
In a 2013 address at an industry event sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute, Walden said it's "nearly impossible" for regulators to write security standards that keep up with constantly evolving threats.
"Your resources are better spent investing in the protection of your systems, not wasting those limited resources on paperwork and compliance checklists," he added.
An Energy and Commerce subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing next week about potential threats to the electric grid.
Walden said "you'll hear us talk more" about energy and environmental policy in the months ahead. The panel is now busy helping rewrite the Affordable Care Act.
Indeed, energy or environmental issues were not dominant during the retreat, where Republicans held policy sessions devoted to health care, taxes and national security.
GOP congressional leaders said an Obamacare replacement, a comprehensive tax overhaul and spending legislation would be their top items for the first 200 days of the new Congress.
Walden did praise President Trump for issuing an executive order in the first week to move ahead with permitting for both the Keystone KL and Dakota Access pipelines.
"Clearly, the president is firmly committed to a robust energy program; you saw that with the executive orders on the pipeline," he said.
Republicans emphasized this week that their initial thrust on energy and environmental policies will be aimed at undoing Obama administration rules under the Congressional Review Act.
"Working with Congress, utilizing the Congressional Review Act, we will roll back the recent avalanche of regulations stifling American growth starting next week," said Vice President Mike Pence in remarks delivered here yesterday.
The House next week will begin moving disapproval resolutions to strike several Obama administration rules, including new methane emissions standards, the Stream Protection Rule, and financial disclosure requirements for drilling and mining companies. Senate GOP leaders have said they will take them up soon, too.
Pence added that the Trump administration would press for regulatory reform beyond the CRA "to prevent unelected bureaucrats from crushing the economy and the American people's dreams from the comfort of taxpayer-funded offices in Washington, D.C."
His remarks conform with House GOP leaders, who have already moved a bill to block the executive branch from promulgating any federal rules having more than a $100 million economic impact. It's unlikely that the measure will overcome Democratic opposition in the Senate.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/01/27/stories/1060049116
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What's on the Chopping Block in Trump's 1st Budget Request?
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump and congressional Republicans are expected to take a hatchet to the federal budget — with major cuts likely coming soon for some of the Obama administration's top environmental and energy initiatives.
Programs that could be in the crosshairs: U.S. EPA climate offices, the renewable energy shop at the Energy Department and efforts to increase federal land ownership.
During the presidential campaign, Trump made it clear that environmental programs would be targeted. "Environmental protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations," Trump told Fox News during the campaign, referring to EPA. He added, "We'll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses."
Now that he's moved into the White House, questions abound over precisely which programs will be purged.
"I've always looked on the budget as being the policy document that says where your focus really is, what you're going to do," said Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA administrator during the George W. Bush administration.
For clues, sources close to the Trump administration point to the sweeping budget outlines laid out by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, Republican Study Committee and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Those groups have offered up an array of programs at agencies like EPA and the Energy Department that could soon be on the chopping block.
The Trump administration's first major budget proposal — its request for fiscal 2018 — could come as soon as next month. The White House faces a deadline to send its annual budget request to Congress by the first Monday in February, although those requests often arrive late. Trump may submit a rough outline, with a beefed-up blueprint coming in the spring.
During President Obama's first year in office, he submitted an outline in February, followed by a fleshed-out proposal in May.
Trump's critics and supporters alike will be watching closely.
Myron Ebell, who led Trump's EPA transition team, said yesterday in an interview that he sees big opportunities for cuts in that agency's programs and workforce. He said he'd like to see the staff cut from about 15,000 to about 5,000 people (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
He pointed to CEI's budget plan, which calls for repudiating the Paris climate accord, overturning or defunding EPA's climate rules for power plants and telling EPA that it has no authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases.
Ebell and others say they are expecting to soon see cuts in line with what some conservative groups have long been advocating.
The heavy influence of conservative think tanks in the new administration can be seen in the fleet of staffers Trump has already brought on. Ebell and another CEI scholar helped staff EPA's transition. And Heritage Foundation staffers were deployed throughout federal agencies to help with the administration handover. One of the political staffers now working at EPA, David Kreutzer, is a Heritage veteran.
Of course, conservative think tanks aren't the only ones who will be influencing the federal budgets during the Trump administration. Members of Congress, administration officials with competing views, outside stakeholders and others will have strong opinions about which programs are cut, and there will be no shortage of lobbying to keep various environmental and energy initiatives intact.
"The think tank community is a good barometer of where the small government conservatives are," said Scott Segal, an industry lobbyist at Bracewell LLP.
But it's only "a piece of the puzzle," he added. "The Trump administration has no shortage of incoming ideas from various quarters of the Republican and conservative establishment," as well as from stakeholders in the investment and infrastructure communities.
Conservative insiders also point to the Republican Study Committee's 2017 budget blueprint as a guidepost for what may be coming.
Broadly, the RSC outline calls for opening up new areas of the outer continental shelf for energy production, approving the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking EPA's climate rules for power plants and reforming the renewable fuel standard.
EPA
If they gain traction, the Heritage Foundation's proposals could mean a very different EPA.
For starters, the think tank calls to "eliminate climate-related programs" and calls for cutting funds for rules to curtail greenhouse gases from vehicles and power plants, two marquee Obama administration regulations. The blueprint also suggests eliminating the greenhouse gas reporting program and climate research funding.
The Heritage Foundation says that Congress — not EPA — should decide whether carbon dioxide should be regulated or considered in permit reviews. The budget blueprint also disputes the scientific consensus that humans are the driving force behind climate change.
"While carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions may have contributed in some capacity to climate variations, the available climate data do not indicate that the earth is heading toward catastrophic warming with dire consequences for human health and public welfare, nor do the data indicate that the dominant driving force behind climate change is human-induced greenhouse gas emissions," the outline says.
Enforcement programs could also see cuts at Trump's EPA. The Heritage Foundation outline would slash the civil enforcement budget by 30 percent. "EPA engages in unnecessary and excessive legal actions," it says.
EPA's civil rights programs would also be scaled back under the Heritage proposal, and EPA's environmental justice programs would be eliminated entirely. "The EPA often applies the law to prevent job-creating businesses from developing in low-income communities, thus blocking the very economic opportunity that the communities need," the Heritage Foundation said.
DOE
Several DOE offices would be eliminated entirely under the Heritage blueprint.
Those include energy efficiency and renewable programs, a nascent-technology investment shop, and other efforts some conservatives say inappropriately promote certain energy sources over others.
The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is among those slashed in the Heritage proposal.
Funding research and development for technologies like wind, energy and biofuels "is not an investment in basic research, but outright commercialization," according to the Heritage Foundation.
Efforts to cut that program or any DOE offices are sure to run up against opposition from agency staff and outside stakeholders with an interest in keeping those initiatives churning.
During his confirmation hearing this month, Trump's DOE nominee Rick Perry said he couldn't confirm reports that transition aides sought to slash DOE research funding and eliminate offices tied to renewable and fossil energy research (Greenwire, Jan. 19).
Also on the chopping block in the Heritage outline are DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) office, DOE's energy innovation hubs and the DOE Office of Fossil Energy.Public lands
The Heritage budget would prevent the net addition of new public lands to the federal portfolio and would rev up energy production on existing federal properties.
"Congress should open all federal waters and all non-wilderness, non-federal-monument lands to exploration and production of America's natural resources," the outline says.
The Heritage Foundation would prohibit a net increase in public lands, noting that the "federal estate is massive," and "federal ownership and federal regulation of public lands restrict economic activity, and, in many instances, have created environmental problems due to mismanaged lands and lack of a proper incentive structure to maintain the properties."
Another potential target for cuts: the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That fund, which uses royalties from offshore energy development to purchase land for parks and recreation areas, has come under fire from conservative Republicans. The Heritage Foundation says it should expire permanently. "Rather than placing more decisions under Washington's control, Congress should empower the states and local communities to protect their environments, maximize the value of the land, and create new opportunities for economic development," the budget outline says.
An effort to target the LWCF could see opposition from Interior Secretary-designee Ryan Zinke, whose support for the program has won him accolades from Democrats and environmentalists.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/01/27/stories/1060049127
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Trump Sparks Fears of War on Science
Jan 27, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Scientists fear President Trump's first week could preview an aggressive approach toward federal research, citing early orders on climate science and a clampdown on agencies' public communications. Alarmed by his denial of the scientific consensus on man-made climate change, scientists and researchers are now bracing for more clashes as Trump looks to make his mark on the federal government. “We asked some environmental employees and one said, 'We're in the clown car to crazy town,'" said Jeff Ruch, the executive director of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
“We view this as sort of the opening act of what’s going to be a long and bloody drama," he added. The Trump team says they're doing nothing out of the ordinary for a new administration and that many of the groups representing the science community who are complaining appear to lean left. Still, plans are already in the works for a "Science March on Washington" for this spring, following the model of the Women's March that drew some 500,000 demonstrators to the nation's capital last weekend. A Facebook page for the organizing group, which has about 150,000 followers, says the march will be “by scientists and science enthusiasts in protest of the policies of the United States Congress" and Trump. Trump's administration drew scorn from scientists on the day of his inauguration as the new official White House website debuted without a page on climate change. Greens pointed out it was missing other critical environmental pages, too, including the whole website for the Council on Environmental Quality.
Concerns only grew for scientists as agencies under the Trump team's command limited their communications and were forced to backtrack on earlier orders dealing with the publication of government science. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was put on a communications freeze while the agency overhauled its public relations strategy, and Trump officials were reportedly considering deleting the agency’s whole climate change website.
Officials backed down from that proposal, though the site is missing critical climate change articles, including a lengthy FAQ page on the science behind climate change that concluded: “All major scientific agencies of the United States … agree that climate change is occurring and that humans are contributing to it.”
Trump’s EPA transition team was also forced to deny reports that the agency would require its scientific findings be vetted by career staff. An agency spokesman told The Hill this week that instead, “everything is up for review” and the website work is focused on “scrubbing it up a bit, putting a little freshener on it, and getting it back up to the public.”
A pause in agency operations between administrations is common, officials say. But they contend Trump's team has gone further in its policy review than past administrations in their first days.
Rush Holt, a former Democratic congressman and the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said efforts at the EPA this week raised concerns about “stifling communications of scientists among themselves or with other scientists outside of the agency.” “We’re trying to stand up to it because I can’t be sure this isn’t a trial balloon, and if it’s a trial balloon, I don’t want to exaggerate it right now and say that this is the worst thing that ever happened,” Holt said during an event on Thursday. “But I don’t want a trial balloon to go uncommented upon and become permanent policy. “
Liz Purchia, an EPA communications director during the Obama administration, said that early Trump actions within the agency — the communications freeze, website review, a hiring pause under a government-wide order from Trump and a soon-to-be completed review of agency grants — sets a bad tone.
“The combination of all those things is really dramatic and drastic and pretty much achieving what Donald Trump set out to do, which is completely hinder this federal agency, and it’s just incredibly disturbing,” she said.
Concerns aren’t limited to the EPA. Trump’s transition team for the Agriculture Department this week instituted — then reversed — an internal policy preventing science from its Agricultural Research Service from going public. Trump’s team hasn’t had the chance to set the policy direction for federal science agencies yet, and the White House has insisted it’s not clamping down on communications for any reason other than to review internal policies.
“There's nothing that has come from the White House. Absolutely not,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Wednesday. "There are a couple of these agencies that have had problems adhering to their own policies.”
“They haven’t been directed by us to do anything,” he said.
Observers say the next action to watch is Trump’s budget proposal.
The administration is reportedly considering slashing several research offices at the Department of Energy as part of a plan to reduce government spending by trillions of dollars, and transition advisers for the EPA have reportedly proposed Trump cut up to $800 million from the agency's budget and end grant programming and regulatory efforts. The Associated Press reported Thursday that advisers have eyed a two-thirds reduction in the agency’s staffing, a possibility that would upset the EPA’s mission and one that has unnerved federal employees.
Those moves come in contrast to the strategy employed by the George W. Bush administration, which used appropriations to pump funding into federal science programs, according to Matt Owens, the vice president for federal relations and administration at the Association of American Universities. Bush oversaw a doubling of the National Institutes of Health budget, an expansion of interagency research activities and a bump up in budgets at the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department, Owens noted. “We assume that agencies like EPA are going to take a whack, a double-digit whack,” Ruch said.
“When we talk to people in EPA, while there may be concerns about restrictions on speech, the biggest concern is if they’re going to have a job. That’s quite naturally a paramount concern.”http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/316407-trump-sparks-fears-of-war-on-science
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New Trump EPA Adviser Aggressively Downplays Climate Change Threat
Jan 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
David Kreutzer, an aggressive opponent of climate change policy formerly with the Heritage Foundation, is now working as a special adviser for the Trump EPA and is expressing major doubts that climate change poses a threat to humans, calling the prospect of mild global warming “not hysterically worrisome.”
Kreutzer, part of the Trump transition for the agency, made the remarks at a Jan. 26 carbon tax forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. He underscored that his remarks should not be construed as agency policy and that he participated in the forum due to a pre-election commitment.
“I want to make it very clear, I am not speaking on behalf of the EPA,” he said, noting that he has been working at the agency for only six days.
However, the remarks on climate science -- as well as arguments that carbon dioxide damage estimates are “meaningless” for carbon regulation -- underscore the sharp break that the Trump EPA policies will likely make from the Obama administration.
Kreutzer's climate science remarks are sure to spark renewed concerns that a climate change “denier” is implementing policy at the agency, even as Kreutzer vigorously disputes that characterization.
“I am not a science denier,” Kreutzer said at the forum, adding that “it is a slam dunk” that greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere, but “we don't know how much” and “there is no 97 percent consensus,” on the rate of such warming.
In subsequent remarks to reporters, Kreutzer called himself a “special adviser to the administrator,” while suggesting they direct additional queries to the agency. He brushed aside multiple queries from reporters on how long he expects to stay at the agency and whether his position is permanent.
His remarks on climate uncertainty track very closely with comments by EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt, who at his confirmation hearing said warming it not in question, but the degree of warming and its impacts are in doubt. Those remarks were widely interpreted as downplaying the need for GHG cuts.
But Kreutzer subsequently went further than Pruitt's hearing remarks -- criticizing what he called “this phenomenal bias towards finding negative [impacts] from” CO2 and advancing several arguments as to why the dangers of climate change are exaggerated.
“Yes, there are negative externalities in an all sorts of things, but we don't have a comprehensive look at what the overall impact is of slight warming . . . and there are benefits from higher carbon dioxide,” he said.
Kreutzer's remarks were just one part of a spirited debate on the merits of a carbon tax that produced frequent digressions among several of the participants -- none of whom was a climate scientist -- on the merits of conclusions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or other entities about the risks of global warming.
Human Risk
The event also included a remarkable exchange involving Kreutzer over whether climate change was a threat to humans, or just the Earth.
It started when carbon tax backer and billionaire philanthropist Roger Sant asked if there is agreement that “we ought to cap the experiment” on the Earth's climate given GHG emissions are on track to exceed levels that human society has ever experienced.
“The planet has seen a lot higher levels of CO2 and life thrives,” Kreutzer said, referring to the distant past.
“And no humans,” Sant responded.
“Well, humans went back more than a couple hundred [years]. . . . But yes, no humans. So what?” Kreutzer said.
“That is what I care about,” Sant said, in an apparent attempt to move the discussion toward the policy implications of climate change for both human health and human societal systems.
“What you care about is, in fact, about the Earth and what we have seen -- ” Kreutzer replied.
“No, we care about humans,” said a progressively incredulous Sant, prompting wide audience laughter.
“You are laughing because you are ignorant,” Kreutzer said, repeating the phrase several times.
Kreutzer then moved to a narrower issue of direct health impacts on human respiration from CO2 -- which is not an issue that typically surfaces in policy discussions of the most worrisome climate damages.
“The direct impact of CO2 on humans of these levels is negligible. It is not hard to breathe” when CO2 concentrations rise from 400 to 500 parts per million, he said.
Kreutzer also delivered a defense of a 7 percent discount rate for computing climate damages as part of the Obama administration's social cost of carbon (SCC) metric. The use of such a rate has the effect of sharply reducing the projected current benefits of reducing CO2 and climate damages in the future, but it has encountered criticism for failing to account for intergenerational climate impacts.
Other discussion of the SCC included Kreutzer's comment to reporters summarizing his prior views that the tool makes sense conceptually, but that current estimates are useless for regulatory purposes.
“I don’t think . . . that they have the inputs that are anywhere good enough to actually get reliable outputs,” he said, calling the use of the SCC “at this stage of development . . . regulatorily meaningless.”
He added: “We would need something better before we commit to trillions of dollars worth of regulation with impacts on the economy.”
Even SCC backers agree that its estimates of climate damages vary across a large range, but Kreutzer's arguments are markedly different in tone from participants in the most recent National Academy of Sciences report on the SCC, where participants in that effort called for changes to how the SCC is updated but characterized the effort as one of “continuous improvement.”
NAS also in an interim report issued in 2016 declined to recommend an update to the SCC to take into account revised estimates of climate sensitivity -- a frequent talking point of SCC critics -- suggesting that a quick update to the SCC was unlikely to produce significant changes.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/new-trump-epa-adviser-aggressively-downplays-climate-change-threat
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Climate Change Raises the Stakes for Affordable Health Care Coverage
Jan 27, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Dr. Richard Allen Williams and Dr. Elena Rios
Today, more than 100 million Americans depend on healthcare safety-net programs: Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But that safety net could be shredded if Dr. Tom Price—Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services—has his way. Dr. Price has already introduced plans to dismantle the ACA and roll back Medicaid, which would take health insurance coverage away from 22 million Americans, 14 million of whom are low income.
There are many reasons to oppose these plans, but one of the most important is also the most overlooked: climate change.
As physicians, we see our patients suffering as the planet warms. A 2014 survey by the National Medical Association found that a majority of African-American physicians—who often serve low-income communities and communities of color—report that their patients are already impacted by climate change. Those impacts include injury from severe weather, respiratory issues from heat-related ozone air pollution, longer and stronger allergy seasons, insect-borne diseases such as the Zika virus, and mental health problems associated with dislocation and property loss from extreme weather events.
Hispanics are especially likely to experience the negative health effects of climate change. Many of the country’s 56 million Hispanics live in coastal areas where sea-level rise and hurricane-driven floods threaten wellbeing through injury, property loss, and waterborne illness. Both African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher air pollution levels, which are made worse by climate change. As a result, those communities endure higher rates of asthma, lung cancer and premature death.
The leading cause of weather-related death—heat stroke and heat exhaustion—is on the rise as climate change shatters heat records year after year. Increased heat also exacerbates illness in patients with preexisting heart and lung disease, necessitating more hospital admissions, more visits to the emergency room, and more premature death. The elderly are particularly vulnerable to illness from extreme heat, which leads to rising demand for rehabilitative and nursing home care. These health impacts are not confined to individuals; their harmful social and economic effects ripple outward to families and communities.
The health burdens of climate change are disproportionately borne by low-income communities and communities of color, the same groups that often depend on healthcare safety net programs. As those burdens grow, safety-net programs are more important than ever. Moreover, repealing the Affordable Care Act would wipe out the Prevention and Public Health fund, a critical support for communities to promote health, prevent illness and keep people out of the hospital.
As doctors, and as representatives of the African-American and Hispanic medical communities, we remain committed to healthcare as a human right. We will vigorously reject any legislation to repeal or dismantle the ACA, Medicare or Medicaid. We call on our fellow physicians, healthcare providers and patients to speak up as well, and to defend hard-fought access to quality healthcare for vulnerable elderly and low-income people. We look forward to working with Dr. Price, as the HHS nominee, to keep Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA strong to protect the health of the most vulnerable. With increasing health hazards from climate change, we need these services now more than ever.
Dr. Richard Allen Williams is President of the National Medical Association (NMA), which represents African-American physicians. Over the course of its 117-year history, the NMA has fought for the right of all Americans to have access to high quality, affordable medical care. Dr. Elena Rios is President of the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA).
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/316471-climate-change-raises-the-stakes-for-affordable-health-care
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EPA Defends Revised Utility MACT Cost Finding From Industry’s Criticisms
Jan 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA in a new legal brief is defending its revised cost assessment for its contested utility air toxics rule from the power sector’s attacks, defending its freedom under the Clean Air Act to determine whether the costs are reasonable from industry criticisms that the assessment has major flaws, including relying on “co-benefit” emissions cuts.
The counter-arguments, detailed in a Jan. 18 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA’s behalf, mark just the latest step in long-running litigation over the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) rule that the agency originally issued in 2011. Another suit is pending over EPA’s rejection of petitions for reconsideration of certain provisions of the rule.
In the cost review case, known as Murray Energy Corp., et al. v. EPA, coal firm Murray and others are challenging the agency’s April 14 assessment that said the rule was still reasonable even after considering costs.
The assessment was the result of earlier litigation in which industry faulted EPA for not weighing costs in its initial finding that the rule was “appropriate and necessary” under the air law. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling forced EPA to issue a cost review, remanding litigation over the utility MACT to the D.C. Circuit. The appellate court kept the MACT in place while the agency worked on the cost review, on which it took notice and comment.
The final cost review hewed closely to the proposed version by finding the rule was still justifiable, and industry groups then filed suit over the assessment in the D.C. Circuit, saying it is based on flawed logic, including by relying in part on the value of co-benefits achieved by emissions cuts from pollutants not regulated by the rule. Critics say that these errors undermine the overall cost review and therefore also the MACT.
But DOJ counters in the new brief that EPA permissibly interpreted the Clean Air Act’s “ambiguous language as allowing the Administrator to exercise her discretion and expert judgment in weighing factors relevant to the appropriate and necessary determination, and to consider cost as one relevant factor to be weighed with important public health and environmental factors.”
Broad Discretion
EPA’s interpretation is supported by the findings in the Supreme Court utility MACT case Michigan v. EPA “and black letter administrative law, which confer broad discretion on an agency to weigh relevant statutory factors when, as here, the statutory language does not specify how the agency is to weigh such factors,” DOJ says.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia, in his opinion for the high court in Michigan, wrote that, “[w]e need not and do not hold that the law unambiguously required the Agency, when making this preliminary estimate, to conduct a formal cost-benefit analysis in which each advantage and disadvantage is assigned a monetary value.”
Scalia found that, “Read naturally in the present context, the phrase ‘appropriate and necessary’ requires at least some attention to cost.” The high court “explicitly left it to ‘the Agency to decide (as always, within the limits of reasonable interpretation) how to account for cost,’” DOJ notes.
“Indeed, the statute is utterly silent with respect to how EPA must consider cost when making the appropriate and necessary determination,” DOJ says.
In such a situation, and given the high court’s ruling, EPA is due deference under the Chevron doctrine for its reasonable construction of the statute, DOJ says.
Chevron holds that where statutes are ambiguous, federal agencies’ interpretations of the law are due deference, provided they are a reasonable interpretation of the statute in question. DOJ in the brief also defends the use of “co-benefits” in EPA’s original cost-benefit analysis developed to support the MACT rule itself.
EPA in its revised cost finding offered two approaches to justify its conclusion -- a preferred method based on estimating what costs are reasonable for the power sector to bear, and a second method that relies on the original cost-benefit analysis.
The agency’s cost-benefit work took into account the “co-benefits” of limiting particulate matter (PM) in addition to the air toxics such as mercury that are the explicit targets of MACT regulation. The vast majority of the monetized benefits are provided by PM reductions, prompting industry criticism that EPA cannot justify the MACT based on non-target pollutants such as PM regulated by other programs. EPA also argued that some of the benefits of the MACT, though real, cannot be quantified.
EPA’s approach to co-benefits is “supported by the statute and legislative history,” DOJ says, and further cites a recent 2016 ruling by the D.C. Circuit over MACT standards for industrial boilers to support its case. DOJ says, in “United States Sugar Corporation v. EPA, this Court recently upheld EPA’s consideration of co-benefits under a similarly ambiguous provision” in the air law’s air toxics provisions.
The court in that case held that the air law “does not foreclose the Agency from considering co-benefits and doing so is consistent with the [law’s] purpose -- to reduce the health and environmental impacts of hazardous air pollutants.”
Reconsideration Rule
Meanwhile, in a Jan. 18 filing in the related D.C. Circuit case ARIPPA, et al. v. EPA, et al., DOJ defends a reconsideration rule EPA finalized April 30, 2015, on certain aspects of the MACT rule.
EPA in the rule rejected petitions for reconsideration by the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), representing power generators, the Pennsylvania coal waste-burning ARIPPA, and environmental groups including Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project.
All petitioners are raising different issues in the pending suit. For example, UARG alleges that data underlying the MACT rule was contaminated and inaccurate. DOJ replies in the brief that UARG’s claims have already been litigated and rejected by the court in 2014 in White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA, the original case against the MACT rule where the court upheld the rule in its entirety prior to high court review.
DOJ adds that there is “no real evidence” of UARG’s hypothesis of contaminated test results, and doubts the value of uncertified data the group provided to EPA to make its case after the MACT rule was already issued in final form.
DOJ says that ARIPPA’s claims, based on EPA’s refusal to grant special treatment regarding certain emissions limits for coal waste-burning utilities operated by the group in Pennsylvania, are also unfounded.
DOJ again says ARIPPA litigated this issue, and the court rejected it, in White Stallion. DOJ says ARIPPA’s “petition does not present any new information that would support a change in EPA’s determination that subcategorization for purposes of the hydrogen chloride standard is not appropriate.”
Environmentalists’ petition fares no better, according to DOJ’s brief. In the case, environmental petitioners argue that EPA erred in refusing to set standards “beyond the MACT floor,” or tougher than the minimum emission limit required under MACT regulation, for hazardous metals other than mercury.
“EPA reasonably denied the Environmental Petitioners’ petition for reconsideration because they had ample opportunity to comment on EPA’s determination that no beyond-the-floor standard was appropriate for non-mercury hazardous metals, and the petition does not provide substantial support for EPA to revisit that determination,” DOJ says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-defends-revised-utility-mact-cost-finding-industry%E2%80%99s-criticisms
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Trump's First Foreign Visitor Unlikely to Bring Up Climate
Jan 27, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Trump will have his first one-on-one meeting with a foreign head of state today when U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, a Conservative leader who supports the Paris climate deal, visits the White House.
May participated yesterday in a Republican forum in Philadelphia before today's Washington visit. She and Trump are expected to discuss security issues and an eventual bilateral trade deal that would be effective when Britain leaves the European Union late in this decade.
In Philadelphia, May talked about the common ground between post-Brexit Britain and the nationalist mood in America that helped propel Trump into the White House.
"So as we rediscover our confidence together — as you renew your nation just as we renew ours — we have the opportunity — indeed the responsibility — to renew the special relationship for this new age," she said. "We have the opportunity to lead, together, again."
U.K. scientists and Labour Party members have clamored for the prime minister to raise the climate issue with Trump and to urge him to preserve the United States' membership in the landmark 2015 agreement.
During Prime Minister's Questions this week, former Labour Leader Ed Miliband implored May to help convince Trump that climate change is real and the United States should remain active in the Paris Agreement.
She answered him elliptically, noting that both nations are now members of the deal. "I would hope that all parties would continue to ensure that that climate change agreement is put into practice," she said.
The exchange followed a letter from U.K. scientists last week urging May to persuade Trump to let federal climate research go forward (Climatewire, Jan. 17). Since then, the new administration has moved to restrict communication between agency scientists and the press.
Still, it's not clear that this afternoon's tête-à-tête will allow time for a climate discussion. The two leaders have already had awkward moments, as when then-President-elect Trump made the unusual move of proposing a candidate for Britain's ambassador — nationalist Brexit champion Nigel Farage.
"I think they really have to figure out how to deal with the new administration," said Michelle Egan of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "That's probably her goal."
Within May's long-term strategy is the eventual negotiation of a U.S.-U.K. trade deal, which could not begin in earnest until after her country leaves the European Union. It's possible the final agreement might not be reached until after Trump's first term.
Egan said May would be unlikely to muddy the waters today by bringing up an issue that divides her from Trump.
Lord Martin Callanan, a Conservative member of Parliament in the United Kingdom and a former member of the European Parliament, agreed in an email. "I think the U.K. would prefer the U.S. to remain within Paris, but I don't think it would be a priority, with issues such as trade and NATO viewed as much more important," he said.
May's left-leaning opposition hopes her government won't accept a deal that violates British values, including on the environment.
Barry Gardiner, who until October was the Labour Party's shadow energy and climate minister and now handles its trade portfolio, released a pair of letters to May and Trump asking that the coming deal honor U.K. food and agricultural standards, including when it comes to the environment.
"Trade agreements must work for both parties and Theresa May needs to be careful that the rush to a quick deal is not one that undermines British jobs and British social and environmental protections," he said in a statement.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/01/27/stories/1060049086
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