Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 1/31/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) PP Prices Start 2017 with a Big Increase
Jan 30, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene buyers have received a rude awakening in 2017, with prices for that material jumping 10 cents per pound since Jan. 1. That’s a sharp reversal from a combined 11.5 cents in price drops that market had seen in the last three months of 2016. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Industry Reactions Mixed over Trump's Executive Orders
Jan 31, 2017 | ICIS
By David Haydon
Although petrochemical industry reaction is still developing over President Donald Trump's executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim nations, groups have favoured another move Monday to revise regulatory laws. -
Congress: EPW Schedules Feb. 1 Vote on Pruitt's Nomination
Jan 31, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Senate environment committee is slated to vote Feb. 1 on Scott Pruitt's nomination to lead EPA, a vote that will almost certainly affirm President Donald Trump's nominee. -
Scientists Speak Out Against U.S. President Trump’s Immigration Ban
Jan 30, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener, Linda Wang, and Lisa Jarvis
President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 27 barring travel to the U.S. from residents of seven Muslim-majority countries sent ripples through the chemistry enterprise. -
Fewer Chemicals May Get Regulatory Reprieve Under Amended TSCA
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Fewer chemicals may get a regulatory reprieve under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act than chemical manufacturers hoped for, according to an attorney specializing in TSCA. -
TSCA Reset to Affect Nearly All Manufacturers, Importers and Processors
Jan 31, 2017 | Lexology
By James G. Votaw
Companies that have manufactured or imported chemical products in the U.S. in the past ten years (alone or formulated in products and mixtures) should plan now to comply with new rules requiring them to identify and report each of those substances... -
(ACC Mentioned) Corporations are Regulating the Chemicals That Federal Agencies Won't
Jan 30, 2017 | Consumer Affairs
By Amy Martyn
Several years ago, Walmart executives invited a group of scientists to its offices is Bentonville, Arkansas to discuss the prevalence of potentially toxic, synthetic chemicals in consumer products. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Manufacturers Call for WHO Cancer Agency Reform
Jan 31, 2017 | Environmental Leader
By Jessica Lyons Hardcastle
Chemical manufacturers say the World Health Organization’s “sensationalist studies” about chemical safety are misleading policy makers and consumers, hurting farmers and manufacturers, and resulting in retailers unnecessarily phasing out certain substances. -
Target Tightens Grip Over Chemicals to Make Goods Safer
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner and Andrew Martin
Target Corp. introduced a sweeping new policy governing chemicals in products, a move that will push hundreds of suppliers to list ingredients in everything from fragrances to floor cleaner. -
Echa's Updated Guidance on SVHCs in Articles Faces Delay
Jan 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The project to update Echa's guidance on SVHCs in articles is taking longer than initially foreseen and a final version will not be published until July or August 2017, the agency says. -
The time is Now for Real Energy Reform
Jan 30, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Greg Walden
This Congress, things will be different. For the first time since 2007, Republicans maintain majorities in both the House and Senate and now control the White House. This rare opportunity increases the prospects for enacting reforms that build on our nation’s energy abundance... -
States Seek to Intervene in Suits over EPA's ESPS Reconsideration Denials
Jan 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
A coalition of states is seeking to intervene in consolidated litigation brought by a separate coalition of states and industry groups over EPA's denial of administrative petitions to reconsider various aspects of its greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants... -
GOP Drive to Deregulate Risks Turning Gas Sniffers to Roadkill
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
House Republicans are poised to give oil companies a big win by repealing a Bureau of Land Management regulation that requires them to keep a lid on methane, but it comes at the expense of a burgeoning industry that sells the tools to find and plug leaks. -
Ohio's Kasich Continues Push for Unconventional Oil/Gas Severance Tax Increase
Jan 31, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday recycled a failed budget proposal to increase the state's severance tax on unconventional oil and natural gas production to 6.5%. -
Drilling and Dirty Air in Los Angeles
Jan 30, 2017 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The air in much of Wilmington, at the southern tip of Los Angeles, has a fetid, tarry scent, but Giselle Cabrera can’t smell it anymore. -
White House Delays Intermodal Performance Metrics
Jan 31, 2017 | Journal of Commerce
By Reynolds Hutchins
The new effective date for the rollout will be March 21, with the first reports to be filed by Class I railroads on March 29. -
POLITICO Pro New York: Environmental Groups Plan Lawsuit over Albany Oil Terminal
Jan 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Marie J. French
A coalition of environmental and community groups plan to file a new lawsuit against Global Partners over the continued operation of the company's oil terminal in Albany. -
Trump Team to Staff: 'Changes Will Likely Come'
Jan 31, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender and Ellen M. Gilmer
The leader of the Trump administration's political team at U.S. EPA advised staff today to expect some alterations. -
Congress Can Now Start Erasing Some of Obama’s Environmental Rules. Here’s What They’re Targeting.
Jan 30, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
This week, Republicans in Congress may finally have the opportunity to begin dismantling a series of environmental rules finalized by the Obama administration. -
Trump Administration Lifts Temporary Freeze on EPA Grants
Jan 31, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
The Trump administration has lifted a temporary freeze on billions of dollars of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the programs will continue as planned. -
Cross-State Rule Challengers Fault EPA Modeling, Conditions
Jan 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA allegedly used bad data, failed to conduct accurate air quality modeling and went overboard in setting state-by-state budgets intended to curb power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), according to court filings from states and industrie -
Fighting Trump, Enviros Look to Bush Strategy and to States
Jan 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Nick Bowlin
Oxford Dictionaries named "post-truth" the official word of 2016. Facts, it seems, can be obsolete in the current political discourse.
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(ACC Mentioned) PP Prices Start 2017 with a Big Increase
Jan 30, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene buyers have received a rude awakening in 2017, with prices for that material jumping 10 cents per pound since Jan. 1. That’s a sharp reversal from a combined 11.5 cents in price drops that market had seen in the last three months of 2016.
The January hike was the result of tight supplies of polymer-grade propylene feedstock. The PetroChem Wire consulting firm in Houston said that propylene prices in December didn’t reflect a tight market, but that situation was masked by year-end destocking. When demand resurfaced in January, propylene buyers found they had to pay dramatically higher prices.
PetroChem Wire added that the run-up in propylene costs has caught PP buyers off guard and caused some to lower their order volumes for January. But not all run-ups in PP prices are alike, according to Phil Karig, managing director of the Mathelin Bay Associates LLC consulting firm in St. Louis.
“The last big increases in PP prices a few years back were driven largely by resin producers looking to increase their long-term margins in an environment of static polymer production capacity as well as pinched propylene monomer availability,” Karig said in an email.
“The current situation is more similar to a ‘short squeeze’ in the stock market where expectations about the future are suddenly upended by quick moving events,” he added. “Demand for PP is suddenly stronger than expected, including for exports, and propylene availability is suddenly pinched. Put the two together and a big increase is not surprising.”
Unlike the previous two years where increases were margin driven, the current PP price increase “is all cost-push,” according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. “It’s very reminiscent of the pre-2015 period where monomer was always short and [PP] prices were high and volatile,” he said.
PP makers are keeping stable margins when feedstock gets tighter, and are keeping 1-3 cents per pound in savings when feedstock is long in order to justify reinvestment in polypropylene, added Ashish Chitalia, a market analyst with the Wood Mackenzie consulting firm in Houston.
He said that relief in propylene prices is expected soon, due in part to Enterprise Petrochemicals completing a new PDH propylene unit in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Price relief “will present an opportunity to regain some of the lost margins to PP producers,” Chitalia explained. “However, producers and consumers are likely to be more cautious going forward, as high prices and margins will lead to more overseas imports, repeating the similar cycle seen in 2016.”
Through November, North American PP sales for 2016 were flat vs. 2015, according to the American Chemistry Council. A drop of almost 2 percent in domestic sales was negated by a jump of almost 74 percent for sales into the export market.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170130/NEWS/170139979/pp-prices-start-2017-with-a-big-increase
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(ACC Mentioned) US Industry Reactions Mixed over Trump's Executive Orders
Jan 31, 2017 | ICIS
By David Haydon
Although petrochemical industry reaction is still developing over President Donald Trump's executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim nations, groups have favoured another move Monday to revise regulatory laws.
Trump signed an executive order Monday requiring that for every one new business regulation proposed, two existing rules must be revoked.
“Regulatory reform would be a tremendous boost to our economy,” American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) CEO Chet Thompson told ICIS on Monday. “Although we don’t know the details of this executive order and how it will be carried out, America’s energy producers have been stifled for far too long with a large regulatory burden, and today’s action demonstrates that President Trump understands that change is needed.”
The latest executive order followed Friday’s action on "protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry" which bans nationals of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the US for at least the next 90 days, excluding foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas. The order also suspended the entry of refugees into the US.
Though industry reaction is muted for the entry ban, the action on deregulation has been seen as favourable.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and other industry groups did not issue public statements on the most recent orders as of Monday, though most have supported Trump's first week of executive actions. The American Petroleum Institute (API) could not be reached for immediate comment.
The US National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) showed support earlier in January for Trump’s executive orders on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects, as did American Petroleum Institute (API) CEO Jack Gerard.
Among world leaders, representatives of the barred Middle East countries unanimously criticised Trump for the decision, while European and other world leaders voiced similar disapproval.
US automaker Ford sent an email to its employees Monday also criticising the immigration ban.
Industry respondents of the most recent National Association of Business Economics (NABE) survey revealed mixed sentiment towards Trump's proposals.
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2017/01/30/10074272/us-industry-reactions-mixed-over-trump-s-executive-orders/
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Congress: EPW Schedules Feb. 1 Vote on Pruitt's Nomination
Jan 31, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Senate environment committee is slated to vote Feb. 1 on Scott Pruitt's nomination to lead EPA, a vote that will almost certainly affirm President Donald Trump's nominee.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, announced the schedule late last week, ending Democrats' efforts to block the nomination of the Oklahoma attorney general.
“After a very thorough vetting process, it is time that we vote on Attorney General Pruitt’s nomination to lead the EPA,” said Barrasso. “The committee has done its due diligence, and we should move his nomination forward. Mr. Pruitt has the right experience for the job and will make an excellent administrator of the EPA.”
Pruitt enjoys the support of the committee's 11 Republicans, providing him enough votes to easily clear the panel. Once his nomination clears the committee and heads to the floor for a final vote, Pruitt is likely to face even stronger odds of winning confirmation given the almost certain unified support from Republicans, as well as several Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
While the committee's 10 Democrats lack the votes to block the nomination, they have strongly criticized the nominee and his record. Most recently, they warned late last week that Pruitt's responses to their queries were evasive and inadequate.
“If Mr. Pruitt is willing to sidestep the Senators performing their role of providing advice and consent on his nomination, I can hardly imagine how contemptuous he will be when Congress asks for information about changes he makes to the Renewable Fuel Standard, clean air and water protections, or toxics regulations,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said in a Jan. 26 statement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/congress-epw-schedules-feb-1-vote-pruitts-nomination
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Scientists Speak Out Against U.S. President Trump’s Immigration Ban
Jan 30, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener, Linda Wang, and Lisa Jarvis
President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 27 barring travel to the U.S. from residents of seven Muslim-majority countries sent ripples through the chemistry enterprise.
Chaos reigned as visitors from the seven countries—Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—were being detained at airports or prevented from leaving on trips that had already been approved. Permanent residents who have lived in the U.S. for years were also affected. Universities, companies, and individuals all wrestled with what the ban would mean for them, their employees, or their students.
The ban was designed to help prevent terrorist attacks, Trump said. And it is temporary in most cases—entry to the U.S. is suspended for 90 days for most of those affected. Syrian refugee programs were halted altogether.
But that didn’t prevent scientists from speaking out as stories of detained travelers, including researchers, started to circulate. By Jan. 30, more than 15,000 scientists, including chemistry Nobel Prize winners, had signed a petition opposing the order as discriminatory and against U.S. interests. Airports became home to dozens of spontaneous immigration protests nationwide.
C&EN did not uncover reports of chemists who were caught up in the immediate detentions at airports. But the normally-cautious American Chemical Society reacted strongly.
“The order itself is overly broad in its reach, unfairly targets individuals from a handful of nations, ignores established mechanisms designed to achieve the ends sought by the order, and sets potential precedent for future executive orders,” the society said in a Jan. 30 statement. ACS, which publishes C&EN, has 109 members from Iraq, 41 from Iran, 2 from Libya, and 1 from Sudan.
Universities scrambled to help international students and scholars who were held in airports or turned back.
“The order is stranding students who have been approved to study here and are trying to get back to campus and threatens to disrupt the education and research of many others,” says Mary Sue Coleman, president of the Association of American Universities, a coalition of the top research universities. She urged the administration to make it clear that the U.S. “continues to welcome the most talented individuals from all countries to study, teach, and carry out research and scholarship at our universities.”
The largest number of affected scientists likely comes from Iran. More than 12,000 students came from Iran to the U.S. last year, according to data from the Institute of International Education. That’s far more than the other countries covered by the ban.
David Rahni, an Iranian-American chemistry professor at Pace University and cofounder of the ACS Iranian Chemists Association, worries about the lasting psychological ramifications the restrictions could have on the chemistry community and on the nation as a whole. Foreign students will increasingly look to other countries to continue their education, and foreign-born faculty will lower their expectations of what they can accomplish scientifically, he says.
“If you’re humiliated and subject to a barrage of such bellicose orders, even if you’re a naturalized American citizen, your stamina will be shattered,” he says.
The ban is already affecting the personal and professional life of many scientists, including Arsalan Mirjafari, an assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Mirjafari is a chemist who came to the U.S. from Iran in 2010 and secured his green card two years ago. He worries he cannot travel to key conferences, meet with collaborators, or expose his students—primarily underrepresented minorities with ambitions to go to graduate school—to senior scientists in his field of ionic liquids.
For example, Mirjafari had secured a grant from the state of Florida to bring an undergraduate student to the 7th International Congress on Ionic Liquids, to be held in Canada in June. But he now believes the trip is out of reach for both him and his students.
Meanwhile, he is anxious about his ability to maintain partnerships with other academics, who provide him with essential access to funding and to instrumentation that his school lacks. “I’m from a smaller school, and I need collaboration to survive,” he says.
Likewise, collaborators from other countries will be reluctant to work with scientists in the U.S. if they are unsure whether they can come to the country, or return home once they are here, says Zafra Lerman, president of the Malta Conferences Foundation. The organization promotes peace and scientific diplomacy by fostering international scientific and technical collaborations.
“We are losing the opportunity to lead by example that was ours for so many years, and we are impacting the progress of science,” Lerman says. “Science diplomacy succeeds where other kinds of diplomacy fail, and by putting obstacles on science diplomacy, we will just torpedo its purpose of security and safety.”
Although many companies were speaking out, the life sciences industry has been largely silent on the ban. Neither of the main industry groups—the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Industry Organization—commented on the executive order and its potential impact on research innovation and collaboration.
Although several biotech CEOs took to Twitter to renounce the ban, few big pharma firms have made a substantive statement. Allergan CEO Brent Saunders was the notable exception, tweeting on Jan. 29 that his company “is strong & bold [because] of diversity. Oppose any policy that puts limitations on our ability to attract the best & diverse talent.”
Novartis said in a statement, “The care and support of our associates is paramount. Upholding our steadfast commitment to associates of all nationalities and religions is core to our values as we work to address society’s most pressing health care challenges.” The company added that, so far, none of its employees have experienced a disruption to business travel because of Trump’s order.
C&EN reached out to major U.S. chemical companies, including Dow Chemical, about the travel restrictions. Dow chief executive Andrew N. Liveris has been advising Trump on manufacturing issues. As of C&EN’s deadline for this article, none of the chemical companies have commented on the executive order.
Other than Iran, most of the countries with large chemical industries, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, have been excluded from Trump’s executive order.
Jason Kelly, founder of the small but rapidly growing start-up Ginkgo Bioworks, is concerned about the action having a lasting impact on U.S. science.
“Many of my cofounders and colleagues are immigrants or first-generation Americans from countries all over the world,” he says. “That immigrants to the U.S. play a key role in science and technology is plainly obvious—all American winners of scientific Nobel prizes last year were immigrants—but immigrants don’t have to be scientists or engineers to be deserving of respect and rights.”
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/01/Scientists-speak-against-US-President.html
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Fewer Chemicals May Get Regulatory Reprieve Under Amended TSCA
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Fewer chemicals may get a regulatory reprieve under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act than chemical manufacturers hoped for, according to an attorney specializing in TSCA.
Mark Duvall, a principal with the Washington office of Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. told Bloomberg BNA he recently realized the TSCA amendments require the Environmental Protection Agency to designate only 20 chemicals as low priorities for risk evaluation.
The possibility that the agency could designate only 20 low-priority chemicals became apparent as he analyzed a rule the EPA proposed Jan. 17, Duvall said (RIN: 2070-AK23; 82 Fed. Reg. 4825).
The proposed rule describes the procedures the EPA would use to determine whether a chemical is a high or low priority for risk evaluation.
High-priority-chemical designation means the EPA must begin to evaluate the health or ecological risks the chemical poses. That risk evaluation could lead to regulatory controls such as labeling, supply chain communications or even bans.
Low-priority designation offers chemical manufacturers and processors at least a temporary regulatory reprieve. It means the EPA will have determined that a chemical is unlikely to pose an unreasonable health or ecological risk and therefore would not currently warrant a risk evaluation. The low-priority designation could change if new information arises that suggests the chemical may present a greater health or environmental risk than the agency previously thought.
The EPA has not yet designated any chemical as a high or low priority for risk evaluation by the EPA since TSCA was amended in June 2016.
The amended law requires the agency, however, to be evaluating the risks of at least 20 high-priority chemicals within three and a half years of the statute's enactment. The EPA also must designate at least 20 chemicals as low priorities by that time.
Combo May Diminish Chance
The absence of a mandate for the EPA to increase the number of chemicals on its low-priority list beyond 20 combined with at least two provisions in the proposed rule could make it harder than anticipated for a chemical manufacturer to get its chemical designated as a low priority, Duvall told Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 30 e-mail.
First, the EPA acknowledged its proposed rule would set a low bar for a chemical to be deemed a high priority and a high bar for making chemicals low priorities, he said.
Second, the proposed rule said the EPA would use its Safer Chemicals Ingredient List as a starting point to identify potential low-priority chemicals.
That list the names of more than 400 chemicals that meet specific criteria making them among the least toxic for the specific function they provide. Sunflower oil and cocoa butter, for example, are among the emollients registered on the Safer Chemicals Ingredient List.
The result of the law and the proposed rule, Duvall said, would be:
• a large number of potential low-priority chemicals before the EPA even begins its prioritization process,
• a high bar for low priority chemicals and
• a potential limit of only 20 low priority chemicals.
More than 20 Chemicals Said Likely
Dimitrios Karakitsos, a partner with Holland & Knight LLP's Washington office, said the chemical evaluation procedures envisioned by the law are likely to result in more than 20 chemicals being found to be low priorities. Karakitsos previously served as counsel to the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In that role, he served as a principal drafter and negotiator of the amended chemicals law.
The prioritization and risk-evaluation process will provide all parties plenty of opportunities to provide give the EPA toxicity and exposure data, he said.
Some of that data will show the chemical can be set aside because it's unlikely to pose a health or environmental risk, Karakitsos said.
Meanwhile, the law requires the EPA to have gone through a transparent process where interested parties can see the information on which the EPA's final decisions are based and how it reached its conclusions, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=104832704&vname=dennotallissues&fn=104832704&jd=104832704
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TSCA Reset to Affect Nearly All Manufacturers, Importers and Processors
Jan 31, 2017 | Lexology
By James G. Votaw
Companies that have manufactured or imported chemical products in the U.S. in the past ten years (alone or formulated in products and mixtures) should plan now to comply with new rules requiring them to identify and report each of those substances to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the third and fourth quarter of 2017. The EPA will use this information to identify chemicals on the current Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory of chemicals in commerce (the TSCA Inventory) that are no longer in active commercial use. Chemicals not reported as being made or imported during the look-back period will be designated "inactive" and it will be illegal thereafter to manufacture, import, process or use those chemicals in the U.S. until they are 'reactivated' by prior notice to EPA. EPA's proposed reporting rules were issued on January 13, 2017 and are open for public comment until March 14. Final rules are expected by June 22. This deadline is established by statute and is not expected to be affected by the Trump administration's January 30 executive order on reducing regulation.
This new, broadly applicable reporting obligation will affect many companies often exempt from other kinds of EPA reporting, including importing retailers. Reporting is required regardless of the size of the business, the amount of chemical manufactured or imported, or the industry sector of the reporting company. It also introduces a new product compliance obligation for companies. Currently before making or importing a product, companies must confirm that each chemical in it is listed on the TSCA Inventory or exempt. Under the new rules, they also will need to confirm that each listed chemical is designated "active."
Given the ten-year look-back period to be investigated, the interdisciplinary nature of necessary investigations, the potential for discovering past or ongoing chemical reporting violations, the potential consequences if a chemical is overlooked and the relatively short time to report, companies should plan and act now to timely meet these requirements in the fall of 2017. Most immediately, companies have the opportunity now to review the details of EPA's proposed reporting rules in light of their individual circumstances (e.g., nature and extent of current and historic operations, relative knowledge of supply chain details, nature of substances produced) and identify with their internal subject matter teams the practical difficulties they may have in reporting as EPA has proposed. Where warranted, companies should submit comments to EPA requesting changes to clarify ambiguities, avoid unintended consequences and otherwise make reporting less burdensome and more practical.
TSCA Inventory "Reset" and Schedule
Often referred to as a "reset" of the TSCA Inventory, this one-time retrospective reporting program is required by the June 2016 amendments to TSCA (the Lautenberg Amendments). These amendments direct EPA to prioritize and review the health and safety of all chemicals on the TSCA Inventory—currently more than 85,000. The TSCA reset will cull "inactive" chemicals from the TSCA Inventory and allow EPA to focus its oversight efforts on those chemicals actually in use. The new law requires EPA to have the rules implementing the "reset" in place by June 22, 2017, and requires companies to complete mandatory reporting within six months thereafter (i.e., no later than December 22, 2017).
Reporting Applicability
Subject to certain exemptions, each person who imported or manufactured a chemical substance in any amount at any time between June 21, 2006 to June 21, 2016 will be required to report that substance to EPA. The EPA has proposed giving chemical processors the option to report, including giving them an additional 180 days to submit their information. This allows processors to wait and see which substances manufactures and importers have reported, and to submit their own reports for chemicals important to their business that manufacturers or importers have overlooked, in order to be sure that those overlooked substances are designated "active" and remain available for use. As proposed, each individual corporation or legal entity with reportable chemicals would have to report separately on its own activities with a substance, even if affiliated or unaffiliated companies had already reported on that substance. Special procedures apply for toll manufacturing or co-importing circumstances.
Exempt Substances
Reporting generally is required for any substance produced in or imported into the U.S., but there are a number of important exemptions. Reporting is not required for pesticide products, food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and quantities of substances imported or manufactured solely for research and development. Also exempt are substances that have been incorporated into articles (items with a design important to their function), and substances made or imported only as impurities, or produced as byproducts and later disposed (and not used). Naturally occurring substances are exempt if they are substantially unprocessed (e.g., ores, raw agricultural products, crude oil). But oils, fats and gums extracted from agricultural products, and commercial biological products that otherwise occur naturally (yeasts, bacteria, enzymes), are not exempt unless they qualify for another exemption (e.g., as R&D materials, or as food or drug components). Also exempt from reporting are all substances reported to EPA in the 2012 or 2016 quadrennial chemical data reporting (CDR) events (generally individually regulated chemicals, and those made or imported in quantities greater than 25,000 lbs./year). While this provides relief from reporting, it does not significantly limit the scope of necessary investigations. It also does not apply to any CDR substance whose identity was claimed as confidential.
Covered Substances
Almost all other materials and substances are subject to mandatory reporting. This includes typical bulk chemicals and chemical mixtures, but also includes other kinds of bulk items and materials that are not articles, such as metal ingots. Chemicals contained in imported commercial products in the form of liquids, gels or particles—such as imported bottles of cleaning compounds, or ink contained in imported pens—are reportable. Where the material is a solid or liquid mixture, the mixture itself is exempt, but each of the individual components of the mixture must be identified and reported. Manufacturing covers the intentional production of chemicals, but also includes extracting component chemicals from existing substances, and the unintentional or coincidental production of materials through secondary processes, such as the formation of new metal compounds during metals recovery from etching baths or other measures that result in chemical reactions forming new compounds.
Investigation and Reporting Procedures
Reporting is required for all non-exempt chemicals manufactured or imported by a company during the ten-year look-back period. The information to be reported is limited to the correct chemical name of the substance as listed on the TSCA Inventory, and the period of production or import, but companies must exercise sufficient diligence in identifying this information. The EPA has proposed that a company must use all information that is known or reasonably ascertainable, including all information that a reasonable person similarly situated might be expected to possess, control or know. This would include not only information in a company's own records, but also, apparently, information obtainable from a supplier. Indeed, where a supplier holds the information but won't share it (e.g., identity of proprietary reactants, or components of a mixture), the rules require a formal request for the information to the supplier through EPA's electronic reporting system.
Confidential Business Information Claims Must Be Substantiated
Another purpose of the reporting rule is to cull obsolete confidentiality claims for the specific identity of particular chemicals listed on the TSCA Inventory. Currently, each substance whose identity is claimed to be confidential is listed on a separate, confidential portion of the TSCA Inventory. The EPA has proposed to keep those identities confidential for all reported ("active") substances for which at least one company re-asserts a confidentiality claim. If no company asserts a confidentiality claim for the chemical, EPA would move its listing from the confidential portion of the Inventory to the public side. Companies claiming the identity of a substance as confidential will be required eventually to show that the identity is in fact confidential, and that disclosure would likely cause it competitive harm ("substantiation"). Substantiation of those claims can be deferred, but claims to keep other submitted information confidential (e.g., identity of the submitter) would have to be substantiated with the report.
"Reactivating" Inactive Substances
For companies that wish to start making or importing a substance that was not reported and has been designated "inactive" (and therefore is illegal to manufacture, import, process or use for non-exempt purposes), EPA has proposed a very simple notice process for "re-activating" the chemical. Inactive substances could be reactivated by notifying EPA through its electronic reporting system no more than 30 days prior to active commercial use. As proposed, the notice would require only the name of the submitter, specific identity of the chemical, the type of activity (import or domestic manufacture) and the actual commencement date for the new activity. Claims to maintain the confidentiality of the chemical identity would have to be substantiated within 30 days.
How to Prepare for the TSCA Inventory Reset
Once the TSCA Inventory reset rule becomes effective—expected by late June, 2017—companies will have a relatively short time to investigate ten years of past chemical activities and prepare and submit reports. Because the deadlines are fixed by statute, EPA has little ability to extend the reporting period. Companies should begin to assess now what it will require for them as a practical matter to comply, and begin to investigate and catalog materials to be reported. The process may be relatively simple for companies with only a few static operations, but firms that work with a more dynamic range of products, a diverse set of production and recovery operations, or import a significant volume of products manufactured by others may need to conduct a very significant investigation involving subject matter experts from various parts of the company. This may be complicated by past corporate ownership changes and changes in product lines and/or operating locations. Importers in particular may need to start early to obtain information on chemical identities for products from suppliers. All companies will need a system to manage the investigations of individual products (including documenting source information to meet recordkeeping requirements). Companies should also be aware of the chemical substances that are important to their business, but which they only process, and consider taking steps to assure that their suppliers will timely report these chemicals to EPA to keep them "active" and available, or determining to confirm this for themselves after the initial uprooting period, and submitting their own reports during the processor reporting period.
Companies need good investigations and complete reports, not only to assure that they do not inadvertently manufacture, import or sell "inactive" products in the future (each representing a potential violation with a fine of $37,500/day), but also because each overlooked chemical that should have been reported but was not (if any) represents a separate violation of the same potential magnitude.
Retrospective reviews of this nature also often lead to the discovery of unrelated past or ongoing regulatory violations of TSCA or other statutes—such as past failure to recognize and provide EPA with pre-manufacture notifications for new chemicals being made or imported, failure to provide and keep records for required TSCA import compliance certifications, or to maintain R&D or export-only exemptions, noncompliance with applicable significant use rules, failure to report chemicals subject to CDR reporting, inaccurate safety data sheets, non-compliance with required product disclosure labeling (e.g., Prop 65), or failure to report (or inaccurate reports) for substances subject to Toxic Release Inventory reporting. Companies would be advised to consider how compliance of issues will be addressed if they are encountered. Viewed more positively, some companies may seek to leverage the investigations that they are otherwise required to make and treat the obligation as an opportunity to conduct a compliance review and actively seek out any such issues so that they may be corrected. Coupling the required inquiry with a voluntary chemical compliance audit would give a company the opportunity—using EPA's audit policy—to promptly disclose and correct any violations discovered without incurring gravity-based penalties.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f75c2617-af71-4f7f-8640-10864fde4e5c
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(ACC Mentioned) Corporations are Regulating the Chemicals That Federal Agencies Won't
Jan 30, 2017 | Consumer Affairs
By Amy Martyn
Several years ago, Walmart executives invited a group of scientists to its offices is Bentonville, Arkansas to discuss the prevalence of potentially toxic, synthetic chemicals in consumer products. “They were really serious about saying, 'We want to be on the leading edge of doing something,'” recalls University of Missouri biologist Dr. Frederick vom Saal, one of the scientists invited to the meeting.
In 2014, Walmart sent a letter to its many suppliers, explaining that they would be phasing out a long list of potentially toxic chemicals in the products they sell. Such a move has earned Walmart favorable ratings from groups like Safer Chemicals Healthy Families.
“The comprehensive initiative is by far the largest and most ambitious of its kind,” the Environmental Defense Fund wrote in another post praising the retail giant’s decision. “It reflects a growing trend in which consumer and wholesale purchasing power are combining to change the chemical makeup of the products we see on store shelves and bring into our homes.”
Walmart's competitor Target Corp. is now following suit, as we recently reported. The retail giant announced last week that it would demand transparency from all of its suppliers, asking them to list the ingredients in their products and phase out certain chemicals, including flame retardants and phthalates by 2022.
The push for suppliers to remove such chemicals voluntarily comes even as federal regulators continue to drag their feet on regulating those same chemicals. Instead, consumer demand appears to be driving the change. The research firm Mintel has similarly reported that the majority of consumers they survey favor cleaning products that are “eco-friendly” and safe to use.
Chemical lobby frets over "market deselection"
Corporations that produce or work with synthetic chemicals have noticed the change in consumer habits too, and they are clearly not happy. Last week, the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing corporations like Monsanto and ExxonMobil, launched a public relations campaign against the World Health Organization’s chemical and cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC.
The IARC has stated that certain commonly-used chemicals, such as glyphosate, are probable carcinogens. Though the agency does not have the authority to ban such chemicals from consumer products, the American Chemistry Council put out a release last week essentially complaining that IARC’s research was causing consumers to avoid those controversial chemicals on their own.
“IARC’s decisions have a significant impact on US. public policy and marketplace deselection,” the American Chemistry Council wrote. “IARC classifications have also been used by retailers as justification to phase out certain substances.”
Biologist vom Saal laughs as he discusses the American Chemistry Council’s campaign “to promote credible, unbiased and transparent science,” as it describes it.
“Nobody in science takes anything put out by the American Chemistry Council as science,” vom Saal tells ConsumerAffairs. “It is public relations and it is lobbying and it is all for litigation. It is the antithesis of unbiased transparent process."
American Chemistry Council spokesperson Anastasia Swearingen responds to ConsumerAffairs in an email: “We certainly disagree with Dr. vom Saal's statement. We all benefit when credible, unbiased and transparent science is used as the basis of public health policy.”
Local bodies, not feds, drove past changes
Vom Saal compares the recent decisions of corporations to voluntarily phase out potentially dangerous chemicals to the measures that local governments and businesses have previously taken to limit exposure to asbestos and cigarettes.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not implemented a complete ban on asbestos, even as the agency warns Americans that exposure to asbestos “increases your risk of developing lung disease.” The EPA did try to ban asbestos from most consumer products back in 1989, but in 1991 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the EPA’s decision.
“It was really the public and litigation that led people to say, ‘Hey, this is very bad stuff,'” vom Saal says. Local governments and businesses have also taken the lead in banning the smoking of cigarettes from their towns, bars, or stores.
Now a similar scenario is at play regarding glyphosate, the key ingredient of Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup. The state of California is planning to put a label on Roundup, warning people that the product contains a possible carcinogen. Monsanto had sued to stop California from doing so, but a recent court decision on January 27 fell in California’s favor.
At the federal level, however, glyphosate is not considered a carcinogen. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for instance, does not include glyphosate as part of its national health screening program. "You would think the highest use pesticide in the world would be part of their national health screening program,” but if the CDC tries asking Congress for permission to include glyphosate, “they'd probably be disbanded along with the EPA,” vom Saal jokes. (The EPA has not been disbanded, though President Trump has indicated that he would certainly like to do so).
Target’s recent move to address controversial substances follows a 2015 decision the retailer made to introduce a “Sustainable Product Index,” or a scoring system encouraging suppliers to identify “chemicals of concern.” Target noted at the time that it had created such a list in response to stakeholder comments. Target’s latest, more ambitious policy "will be one of the most comprehensive in the US. retail industry,” the corporation proudly writes on its website.
Public health advocacy groups meanwhile continue to pressure other retailers to follow suit. On January 26 the group Safer Chemicals Healthy Families announced that a collection of investors and consumers were pressuring Costco to develop its own policy in regards to toxic chemicals.
“The group will deliver over 35,000 signed petitions from Costco members and consumers across the country who are concerned about the company’s lack of a comprehensive safer chemicals policy,” Safer Chemicals wrote.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/corporations-are-regulating-the-chemicals-that-federal-agencies-wont-013117.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Manufacturers Call for WHO Cancer Agency Reform
Jan 31, 2017 | Environmental Leader
By Jessica Lyons Hardcastle
Chemical manufacturers say the World Health Organization’s “sensationalist studies” about chemical safety are misleading policy makers and consumers, hurting farmers and manufacturers, and resulting in retailers unnecessarily phasing out certain substances.
To counter this, the American Chemistry Council has launched the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research (CAPHR), which the trade group says will seek reform of the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) monographs program, which evaluates the carcinogenic hazard of substances and behaviors.
The IARC is the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization. According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), its monographs program “suffers from persistent scientific and process deficiencies that result in public confusion and misinformed policy-making.”
The ACC says IARC doesn’t use realistic exposure scenarios when it comes to informing consumers about a substance’s cancer risk. Instead, it uses exposure levels “far beyond what is typical.”
“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,” said Cal Dooley, ACC president and CEO. “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.”
This program has also led to “marketplace deselection,” the ACC says, pointing to California’s chemical labeling law, Proposition 65, as an example. The ACC and other Prop. 65 opponents have long argued that many of the products and storefronts required to carry Prop. 65 warning labels only pose an “infinitesimal risk” or cancer, birth defects, or reproductive problems as a result of products’ proper use.
Retailers have also used IARC classifications to phase out certain substances, the ACC says.
The EPA and the US Food and Drug Administration, on the other hand, have often sided with industry leaders in debates over controversial chemicals, ConsumerAffairs.com reports.
Despite the California EPA’s decision to label glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and a widely used herbicide as “known to cause cancer,” The EPA has repeatedly ruled that the chemical does not cause cancer.
The FDA, meanwhile, has long maintained Bisphenol-A in food packaging is safe to use in food packaging, despite petitions from some food safety groups.
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2017/01/chemical-manufacturers-call-cancer-agency-reform/
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Target Tightens Grip Over Chemicals to Make Goods Safer
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner and Andrew Martin
Target Corp. introduced a sweeping new policy governing chemicals in products, a move that will push hundreds of suppliers to list ingredients in everything from fragrances to floor cleaner.
The guidelines include removing perfluorinated chemicals and flame retardants from textiles in the next five years, as well as eventually disclosing ingredients in all products.
Target's new rules come amid growing consumer demand for green goods—whether it's organic food, natural cosmetics or cleaning products—that have fewer controversial ingredients.
Sales of the retailer's Made to Matter line, which touts “cleaner” ingredients, rose 30 percent last fiscal year. The move follows a similar effort by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in July, when the world's largest retailer moved toward banning eight chemical groups, including formaldehyde and triclosan.
Customers “are increasingly concerned about those chemicals in the products that they use,” said Jennifer Silberman, Target's chief sustainability officer. That's prompted them to demand greater transparency and access to greener products, she said.
In 2015, Target began encouraging manufacturers to list ingredients and remove hundreds of what it calls “unwanted chemicals,” such as bisphenol A.
The company is relying on a sustainable product index, which awards points to greener items, to judge vendors’ wares. The new policy sets a goal of full ingredient disclosure by 2020 in categories consumers encounter most closely: beauty, baby, personal care and cleaning goods. The ultimate aim is disclosure of all ingredients in all products.
Protecting Employees
The retailer also vowed to reformulate products by 2020 without certain chemicals, such as formaldehyde and phthalates. The plan encompasses substances used in the manufacturing process and in and around stores—like landscaping materials—to protect workers as well, Silberman said.
Yet, finding safer ingredients isn't always easy or cheap. In some cases, there may be no alternative, forcing the industry to invent new ingredients. Target plans to invest as much as $5 million to develop products through green chemistry.
Retailers have plenty of reason to change. In a June report, research firm Mintel found that 66 percent of consumers it surveyed said it was important to use environmentally friendly cleaning products, and 63 percent believed ingredients in many cleaning products are unhealthy.
“Target's new chemical policy commitment and goals will go a long way in driving harmful chemicals out of consumer products,” Mike Schade, of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said in an e-mail.
Schade, who runs the group's retail campaign, co-wrote a November report ranking the 11 largest U.S. retailers on their chemical-disclosure policies. Target ranked second-highest, just behind Wal-Mart. Schade said his group will update its ranking later this year.
Veena Singla, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Target's plan is a move in the right direction.
“Transparency is a key element of the Target policy because you can't address what you don't know,” Singla said. “Identifying and removing harmful chemicals is just the first step.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=104832686&vname=dennotallissues&fn=104832686&jd=104832686
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Echa's Updated Guidance on SVHCs in Articles Faces Delay
Jan 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The project to update Echa's guidance on SVHCs in articles is taking longer than initially foreseen and a final version will not be published until July or August 2017, the agency says.
The guidance was due in the early part of the year, but Echa received nearly 700 comments from the Partner Expert Group (PEG) meeting in October and needs more time to go through them.
The guidance aims to align the requirements for SVHCs in articles with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in 2015. This said the 0.1% threshold for notifying SVHCs in articles applies to "each of the articles incorporated as a component of a complex product" rather than to the entire article.
The existing guidance, last updated in 2011, reflects the European Commission's previous view that the obligations only applied to entire articles.
A spokesman for Echa said that while the practical implementation of the ruling would be a key element for the 2017 guidance update, it will also "restructure and reword the guidance in general, for improved readability".
Following suggestions from PEG members, it will contain simpler and more focused examples compared with the version sent to them in July 2016, the spokesman said. This will "streamline and simplify" the core text of the guidance to make it more accessible.
He added that the revised guidance aims to support the widest possible audience. And for topics that are very specific to a sector, other ways to support companies may be needed, such as by developing more specific guidance or examples for different industrial sectors.
The next consultation steps with the Forum for Enforcement and the competent authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal) are now scheduled for February and for April or May, respectively.
Article 33
While the updated guidance may help clarify the interpretation of the term 'article', it is not clear to what extent the changes will allay industry concerns over the functioning of REACH Article 33.
This requires companies to reply within 45 days if asked by consumers or customers about the presence – above 0.1% concentration – of SVHCs in their products.
In a letter to Echa and the European Commission last October, Peter Faross, secretary general of SME trade body Ueapme, said the ECJ had not taken into account the necessary practical efforts to be able to state whether a substance is present in an article or not. And therefore, he said, "Article 33 cannot be implemented and it seems its enforcement is not possible to a sufficient extent".
Ueapme has asked the European Commission to reassess Article 33 in its next REACH Review. The consultation period for this closed on 28 January.
Echa says it is fully aware of Ueapme's concerns. However it says its current task is to "concentrate on developing guidance to support duty holders to implement the current legal provisions, taking into account the ECJ ruling".
In June last year, Cefic's head of REACH Erwin Annys said industry organisations should do more to encourage their overseas suppliers to provide more information on the presence of dangerous chemicals in articles.
https://chemicalwatch.com/52575/echas-updated-guidance-on-svhcs-in-articles-faces-delay
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The time is Now for Real Energy Reform
Jan 30, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Greg Walden
This Congress, things will be different. For the first time since 2007, Republicans maintain majorities in both the House and Senate and now control the White House. This rare opportunity increases the prospects for enacting reforms that build on our nation’s energy abundance, modernize our energy infrastructure, and promote domestic manufacturing and job growth — reforms that truly make a difference at the local level.
At the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we will ensure our reform efforts focus on the issues that matter most to consumers. We will pursue policies that will help increase the affordability, quality, and supply of the goods and services people use in their daily lives. This effort begins with energy, which fuels the great productive power of American enterprise.
Under President Obama’s tenure, we saw a barrage of red-tape regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy. These regulations impeded energy development, prematurely shuttered coal plants, delayed or blocked job-creating new projects, crippled innovation and stifled economic growth. Businesses and American ingenuity took a back seat to the Obama administration’s regulatory onslaught, and the American people suffered.
Though the cards were stacked against us, we still achieved bipartisan success last Congress. We were able to lift the nearly 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, successfully lowering prices at the pump, increasing jobs, and strengthening our national security and geopolitical influence abroad. We overhauled our chemical safety laws for the first time in decades when Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act into law, marking the most meaningful update to issues involving environment and economy in decades. We also updated our pipeline safety laws in June 2016, providing greater regulatory certainty in the transportation of energy commodities. In 2015, the Fixing America’s Surfance Transportation Act was signed into law, which included provisions authored by the Energy and Commerce Committee that provided new authorities to address grid security emergencies.
Despite these successes, we always knew we could accomplish more with a like-minded administration. This Congress, we beat to a different drum. I’m excited to work with a president and administration that truly understands the importance of achieving energy independence and security. It’s past time for the federal government to stop picking winners and losers, putting the reliability of our energy supplies at risk and driving up costs for consumers.
We’re already seeing the benefits of having a Republican in the White House. President Trump just last week signed an executive order to expedite regulatory reviews and approvals for infrastructure projects and issued memoranda relating to the construction of the job-creating Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, as well as streamlining permitting and reducing regulatory burdens for domestic manufacturing. Actions speak louder than words, and it’s clear we’ve entered a new era.
With former Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) taking up the gavel at the energy subcommittee and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) leading the environment subcommittee, the Energy and Commerce Committee is primed to lead when it comes to ushering in a new era of American ingenuity that capitalizes on our energy abundance. I know they’ll effectively guide meaningful legislation through our committee.
We’ve already had several bipartisan bills aimed at improving energy efficiency pass the House this Congress, and we are working to get several more across the finish line.
Under this leadership, we will focus our early efforts on energy infrastructure improvement, expansion, and regulatory reforms to energy and environmental statutes. We should recognize that it is through technological development, market-driven efficiencies and economic expansion that we can ensure conscientious stewardship of the environment while protecting consumer interests — and our regulations should reflect that. We will consider eliminating regulatory barriers to empower consumers to value low cost and transformative energy solutions.
For too long, the promises of modernized energy infrastructure were held back by the Obama administration’s Washington-centric regulatory and environmental agenda. It’s time we think bigger. It’s time we put consumers first. It’s time we bring greater transparency, accountability and predictability to our energy and environmental laws to meet the needs of consumers in the 21st century. This Congress, things will be different.
Walden is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/316960-the-time-is-now-for-real-energy-reform
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States Seek to Intervene in Suits over EPA's ESPS Reconsideration Denials
Jan 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
A coalition of states is seeking to intervene in consolidated litigation brought by a separate coalition of states and industry groups over EPA's denial of administrative petitions to reconsider various aspects of its greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants, litigation that could allow the Trump administration to overturn key parts of the rule should it be upheld.
New York, 16 other states and several local jurisdictions filed an unopposed Jan. 27 motion to intervene in the litigation, North Dakota, et al. v. EPA, et al.
North Dakota, a separate coalition led by West Virginia and various coal and utility sector groups filed the underlying litigation last week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit consolidated the suits Jan. 25, ordering parties to submit initial filings Feb. 24.
In their Jan. 23 petition, West Virginia and 18 other states charge that the agency's Jan. 12 denials were “in excess of the agency's statutory authority and otherwise [are] arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law.”
Similar D.C. Circuit petitions were filed by coal mining firm Murray Energy, the Utility Air Regulatory Group, LG&E and KU Energy, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the National Association of Home Builders.
The ultimate effect of the new litigation is not clear, though it could serve as an alternate venue for opponents of the power plant existing source performance standards (ESPS) to challenge the rule should courts uphold it in separate litigation pending at the D.C. Circuit.
Additionally, ESPS opponents earlier floated the notion that the agency's petition denials could require additional briefing in the high-profile challenge to the underlying rule, even though the appellate court heard arguments more than four months ago and could soon issue a ruling.
Such a move could delay any D.C. Circuit ruling to give the Trump administration time to consider its next steps regarding the ESPS, a rule the White House has vowed to repeal.
The D.C. Circuit on its own motion consolidated seven suits over the reconsideration petition denials, issuing a Jan. 25 order requiring parties to submit initial filings Feb. 24 and dispositive motions March 13.
ESPS opponents have not requested the court to combine the new litigation with the pending suit. Such a step would likely be required to spur any additional briefing in that case.
Interests Do Not 'Align'
Hinting at the possibility that the Trump administration might decline to defend EPA's petition denials, the states say their “interests may not be adequately represented by the other parties to these consolidated cases. . . . These interests do not always align with those of EPA, as shown by historical efforts of many State and Municipal Proposed Intervenors to compel EPA to address climate change.”
That refers to the landmark Supreme Court case Massachusetts v. EPA -- in which a group of states successfully challenged a Bush administration decision not to list carbon dioxide as a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act -- as well as a subsequent court settlement requiring EPA to establish GHG standards for power plants.
The coalition adds that overturning EPA's reconsideration denials “could potentially result in the weakening and/or delay in the Clean Power Plan's implementation.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-seek-intervene-suits-over-epas-esps-reconsideration-denials
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GOP Drive to Deregulate Risks Turning Gas Sniffers to Roadkill
Jan 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
House Republicans are poised to give oil companies a big win by repealing a Bureau of Land Management regulation that requires them to keep a lid on methane, but it comes at the expense of a burgeoning industry that sells the tools to find and plug leaks.
“These sorts of federal rollbacks could stunt the growth of an emerging, heavily small-business industry at exactly the wrong time,” said Ben Ratner, director of EDF+Business, a program of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Regulatory rollbacks would pull the rug out from under the feet of American workers in this space.“
The rule being targeted for repeal requires energy companies to capture 98 percent of the gas that flows out of wells on federal and tribal land by 2026. The businesses also are forced to hunt down gas leaks.
The move by Congress is part of a broader deregulation agenda, with the Republican-led House of Representatives planning to invoke a little-used procedure to begin the process of repealing five Obama-era mandates this week.
The lawmakers are relying on the Congressional Review Act, a law passed 21 years ago that provides an expedited procedure for canceling rules issued in the final months of an administration. It's been used successfully only once, but top GOP lawmakers are pledging to put it to work in coming months. President Donald Trump says he wants to eliminate as many as 75 percent of regulations affecting businesses.
Stream Protection, Disclosure Rules
Other House targets this week include an Interior Department rule designed to protect streams from coal-mining pollution and a regulation originally compelled by the Dodd-Frank financial law that forces oil companies to disclose what they pay foreign nations in exchange for mineral rights.
But the rush to deregulate is not an unqualified victory for all companies, as illustrated by the methane mitigation industry that could see sales vanish along with the rules mandating its technology.
More than 70 companies headquartered in the U.S. provide either services or equipment to identify natural gas and methane leaking from pipelines, processing equipment and wells. Their products include detectors that can pinpoint leaks 100 feet away, monitors that can sniff out methane and laser beams to precisely locate rogue gas.
The technology has come into greater demand as state and federal regulations compel energy companies to keep an estimated $2 billion worth of methane from escaping into the atmosphere or being burned as a less-profitable byproduct of crude from oil wells.
Patrick Von Bargen, executive director of the Center for Methane Emissions Solutions, an industry group that was created after Obama announced a nationwide plan to slash releases of the potent greenhouse gas, said the repeal will inject uncertainty into the marketplace.
Optical Imaging
“This is a new industry—it has great potential for growth,” Von Bargen said.
The technology can save time and money, said Craig O'Neill, business development manager for optical gas imaging at FLIR Systems Inc., a $4.83 billion company that sells hand-held cameras to detect gas invisible to the naked eye.
“Using optical gas imaging is allowing you to go out to a site and look for failures and look for environmental issues without blindfolds on,” O'Neill said.
Other companies in the field include Crane Engineering, Ametek Inc.,Emerson Electric Co. and Dover Corp.
State Regulations
The requirements mirror existing state policies in Colorado and Wyoming, and dovetail with an earlier EPA rule unveiled in May that imposes limits on methane emissions from new wells drilled on private land. That one is not subject to the Congressional Review Act because it was finalized too long ago, though the Trump administration is expected to undertake a new rulemaking to change it—a process that could take several years.
Supporters say the mandates are essential to encouraging companies to spend more to detect and repair leaks because those investments may not immediately pay off amid low gas prices. Methane is also an especially pernicious greenhouse gas, capable of warming the atmosphere 84 times more than carbon dioxide when measured over two decades.
But oil industry critics of the rule say the bureau overstepped its authority to impose unnecessary requirements that carry a government-estimated price tag of at least $279 million per year over the next decade.
“We're reducing emissions, and we're doing it with technological innovation—not with red tape that's extremely costly, inefficient, counterproductive to the goal of reducing waste of natural gas and will actually lead to waste of oil and natural gas resources as wells are shut in,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who is sponsoring the regulation to roll back the BLM rule, called the regulation an example of “abusive executive overreach” that must be checked.
“There's consensus that federal bureaucracy has been hijacked for the purpose of ideological aims rather than responsible regulation,” Bishop told reporters on a conference call.
The Congressional Review Act is more like a sledgehammer than a scalpel, allowing Congress to kill off a regulation in one fell swoop, but not allowing lawmakers to pick and choose provisions. In the case of the methane rule, Congress would also be obliterating a provision that gives the government authority to boost royalty rates to make sure taxpayers are getting fair market value for oil and gas extracted on public lands.
Because the Congressional Review Act bars agencies from rewriting a “substantially similar” rule, it's unclear whether the bureau could revisit the royalty issue.
“It's an undefined term and no one's ever tested it,” said Adam Finkel, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania Program on Regulation. But, he said, if agencies were able to devise a regulation that achieved the same objectives with a lower price tag, that might be considered permissible, without violating the “substantially similar” prohibition.
Allison Sawyer, CEO of Rebellion Photonics, which supplies hyperspectral video cameras to oil companies to hunt down fugitive emissions, said the repeal campaign conflicts with Trump's push to revive the U.S. manufacturing sector.
“If you're trying to create good, blue-collar manufacturing jobs that can never be exported this seems like a home run,” Sawyer said. “I'm extremely confused why it would be repealed.“
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=104832681&vname=dennotallissues&fn=104832681&jd=104832681
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Ohio's Kasich Continues Push for Unconventional Oil/Gas Severance Tax Increase
Jan 31, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday recycled a failed budget proposal to increase the state's severance tax on unconventional oil and natural gas production to 6.5%.
Kasich rolled out his last biennial budget as governor on Monday, once again seeking revenue to fund a steep cut in the state's personal income tax rates. Kasich's 2018-2019 $66.9 billion budget proposes a 17% income tax cut and asks for more education funding. Money from the severance tax and proposed increases for other consumption taxes, such as the state sales tax and those on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages would primarily be used to cover the $3.1 billion needed to cut income taxes.
Kasich, a Republican, has consistently pushed an increase in the severance tax, equating it to a give-away for producers that pay far more in other states. He has proposed several rates since he took office in 2011, ranging from 1.5% to 6.5%. His latest proposal would also tax natural gas liquids at a rate of 4.5%, mirroring a failed 2015 proposal. Republican lawmakers, which bolstered their majorities in both chambers during the general election in November, have rejected the proposals every time, something Kasich acknowledged Monday is likely to happen again.
The industry has also railed against the proposals over the years. "Once again, the administration's severance tax proposal is not in tune with the current market realities surrounding oil and gas production in Ohio," said Shawn Bennett, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. "While this industry continues to struggle from a market downturn, an increase of any kind would stifle development even further. For the Ohioans working in every facet of this industry including those who were laid off during the downturn, the last thing this industry needs is an added barrier to impede them from providing for their families."
The Utica Shale has been among one of the U.S. onshore's most ascendant plays in recent years. Production is expected to be about 3.9 Bcf/d this month, according to the Energy Information Administration. Since the first commercial Utica wells came online about six years ago, the state has permitted 2,359 horizontal wells and operators have drilled 1,889 of them. The industry does, however, enjoy one of the nation's lowest severance tax rates, paying 3 cents/Mcf for natural gas and 20 cents/bbl for oil.
Kasich has been a proponent of increasing consumption taxes versus income taxes over the years to help spur the state's economy. He said taxes have been cut by about $5 billion during his time in office. "This budget builds on the ideas we have shown are working: spending restraint, tax cuts and reform, and helping Ohioans prepare for in-demand jobs," the governor said in a letter included with his budget.
He proposed in 2015 a 23% income tax cut, but lawmakers passed a 6.3% cut instead. That year, an Ohio legislative task force, charged with exploring the possibility of increasing the state's severance tax on shale production, issued a 56-page report that failed to recommend a new rate and cautioned that any hikes should be slowly phased in.
State House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger said this month that lawmakers were not going to consider a change to the state's severance tax. Kasich, however, said his proposal to increase it would generate $448 million over the next two year budget cycle, which begins in July.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109226-ohios-kasich-continues-push-for-unconventional-oilgas-severance-tax-increase
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Drilling and Dirty Air in Los Angeles
Jan 30, 2017 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The air in much of Wilmington, at the southern tip of Los Angeles, has a fetid, tarry scent, but Giselle Cabrera can’t smell it anymore. Sixteen years old, she’s lived in the neighborhood her whole life, and she no longer notices the stench of pollutants from hundreds of oil wells.
She does, however, notice the persistent cough she’s been fighting for five months; the asthma that affects her, her mother and her sister; and the cancer rate in her neighborhood, one of the highest in Southern California.
Even in Los Angeles, a place with over 1,000 oil wells, Wilmington, a working-class neighborhood where a majority of residents are Latino, stands out for the proximity of wells to homes, playgrounds and schools. One large rig stands next to a field where Little League teams play. Pumpjacks operate on residential streets, next door to homes. Ms. Cabrera lives a block away from a drilling site.
Wells on the city’s wealthier west side tend to be farther away from homes and are more likely to be enclosed to reduce pollution. Health risks like asthma, cancer and other ailments tend to rise with proximity to drilling sites.
In 2015, Youth for Environmental Justice, of which Ms. Cabrera is a member, and other groups, sued Los Angeles. The suit said the city had permitted drilling without performing required environmental reviews, not only in Wilmington but also South Los Angeles, a low-income area where most residents are black or Latino.
Last year, the city settled after adopting new procedures for reviewing drilling applications. The California Independent Petroleum Association, which represents oil companies, countersued to block the settlement in a clear attempt to avoid stricter environmental requirements.
Under the proposed reforms, the city would hold a public hearing and conduct an evaluation of potential health and environmental consequences for each new drilling project, and require oil companies to mitigate any health hazards.
These are useful ideas but they fall short of the specific steps other cities and states have taken. Pennsylvania, for instance, bans drilling within 200 feet of a building, and unconventional gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, within 500 feet. In 2013, Dallas passed an ordinance banning drilling within 1,500 feet of homes. Scientists believe most air pollutants dissipate within about half a mile, or 2640 feet, from a drilling site.
Ultimately, a switch to renewable sources of energy is the only way to eliminate the effects of drilling on human health and the global climate. Last year, the Los Angeles City Council directed the Department of Water and Power to study how the city might make such a switch.
In the meantime, a buffer zone law would give people like Ms. Cabrera a measure of protection. “I don’t think it’s fair that our communities are suffering through this just because of our income and our ethnicity,” said Ms. Cabrera. “We deserve to have healthy communities too.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/drilling-and-dirty-air-in-los-angeles.html
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White House Delays Intermodal Performance Metrics
Jan 31, 2017 | Journal of Commerce
By Reynolds Hutchins
The Trump administration has delayed the rollout of a federal database of Class I railroad weekly performance metrics aimed at giving intermodal shippers a closer look at just how efficient their freight is being moved.
The Trump move raises questions about whether other rules, including controversial new regulations governing reciprocal switching, might also be delayed or entirely derailed.
The database delay is a direct response to a memo issued Jan. 20 by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, instructing “heads of executive departments and agencies to postpone regulatory initiatives to allow time for further review,” according to the US Surface Transportation Bureau.
The new effective date for the rollout will be March 21, with the first reports to be filed by Class I railroads on March 29.
The data expected to be collected for the database will include systemwide average train speeds for services, weekly average terminal dwell times, the total number of loaded and empty cars that haven't moved in more than 120 hours, the weekly number of trains delayed by more than six hours, state-by-state running totals of new and canceled orders, among other metrics.
Rail interests actively lobbied against the database rule, arguing the reporting process would be too burdensome as railroads collect data differently, and later indicating that service metrics — at least indicated by average train speeds — have already improved to pre-2013 levels.
Shippers, however, complained that railroads for years have been able to maintain limited visibility of their service metrics, and speculated that the railroads have been prioritizing domestic energy shipments, such as oil and frac sand, over other commodities. The rail industry has vehemently denied such accusations, saying all freight is handled equally.
The STB finalized the rule on Nov. 30, after months of public hearings and just three weeks after the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45 US president.
In the wake of the election, the Association of American Railroads, the largest US rail lobby, called on the agency to put a pause on all major rulemakings until Trump and his incoming administration were installed. That pause was never granted, but the Trump administration has, in effect, granted rail interests a grace period for at least the database rule.
The question now is whether that grace period will impact other STB rulemakings.
Edward R. Hamberger, AAR president and CEO, has specifically taken aim at a rule proposed by the STB last July that would enable freight shippers without access to other transportation modes to request their freight be moved to a competing rail line. That proposal — much like database rule — followed years of shipper-rail regulatory battles.
Shippers refer to the concept as “reciprocal” or “competitive switching,” but Hamberger and the AAR call it “forced access.”
“Our industry has made it clear that rules should protect a true free market, and that no agency can spur ‘competition’ through regulation,” Hamberger said shortly after the president’s election. Officials with the agency did not immediately respond to a JOC.com request for comment Monday.
The Trump administration will also have a hand crafting the makeup of the STB for future generations.
When Congress reauthorized the STB in 2015 for the first time since its creation, it expanded the board from three members to five. Trump is expected to nominate three new members this year, who will then be subject to Senate confirmation.
On Wednesday, Trump tapped STB Member Ann Begeman to serve as acting chairman of the board, replacing Daniel Elliott. Begeman is serving her second year of a five-year term. Her current term expires Dec. 31, 2020.
http://www.joc.com/rail-intermodal/trump-administration-delays-intermodal-performance-metrics_20170130.html
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POLITICO Pro New York: Environmental Groups Plan Lawsuit over Albany Oil Terminal
Jan 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Marie J. French
A coalition of environmental and community groups plan to file a new lawsuit against Global Partners over the continued operation of the company's oil terminal in Albany.
Global's terminal transfers crude oil shipped from the Bakken in North Dakota by rail to barges to continue down the Hudson River. The facility has been the subject of concern by residents in Albany's South End concerned about harmful emissions.
The coalition includes Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association, the County of Albany, Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, the Natural Resources Defense Counsel and Catskill Mountainkeeper. Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato is representing the groups.
In a notice of intent, Amato alleged that Global is in violation of the Clean Air Act and state regulations because it has continued to operate its terminal after its permit expired. The state Department of Environmental Conservation in September decided to require a new application for an air permit subject to more stringent requirements for Global's facility.
A federal lawsuit over the terminal's 2012 expansion is also pending.
The DEC has not rescinded or suspended Global's 2012 permit.
Read the notice of intent here.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro New York on Jan. 20, 2017
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Trump Team to Staff: 'Changes Will Likely Come'
Jan 31, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender and Ellen M. Gilmer
The leader of the Trump administration's political team at U.S. EPA advised staff today to expect some alterations.
"Changes will likely come, and when they do, we will work together to implement them," said Don Benton, a senior White House adviser on EPA's transition team.
Benton, a former Washington state senator, also rebutted the accuracy of recent reporting on EPA, saying that "no final decisions have yet been made."
His email to EPA employees marks the first agencywide communication from the so-called beachhead team of political aides.
President Trump and his nominee to lead EPA — Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) — have both called for major overhauls at the agency whose regulations have long been top targets of Republicans, some industries and others.
Benton's message comes as many employees are expressing concerns about the new administration. Last week, moves to halt social media at EPA and temporarily freeze grant funding spooked staffers. Employees were also told to "scrub" EPA's climate change page, although they were later told to hold off (Greenwire, Jan. 25).
"Due to the important nature of the work that is done here at EPA, we are falling under a greater media microscope than most agencies," Benton said today.
"I, like many of you, am surprised each morning by what I read in the newspaper and see on TV news shows, because much of what we see is just not accurate," he added.
Benton said he cannot validate statements coming from individuals who no longer serve on the EPA transition team — an apparent reference to recent comments from former team leader Myron Ebell, the director of international environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Ebell told E&E News last week he'd like to see EPA's 15,000-person staff axed to about 5,000 employees (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
He also told Reuters in a story published today that the United States will pull out of the Paris climate accord, prompting swift criticism from environmentalists. Trump pledged on the campaign trail to pull out of that agreement, but after his election said he'd keep an "open mind" on the pact (E&E News PM, Nov. 22, 2016).
"I cannot tell you today what the final decisions from the White House, from our new Administrator, and from the Congress will be," Benton said in today's email. "I can tell you that despite what you read and see on TV, no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA."
Benton thanked EPA's career professionals, calling them "among the best I have ever had the opportunity to work with."
He added: "One thing I am certain of is that the transition team is committed to working with you to carry out the core mission of the EPA — To Protect Human Health and the Environment."
Enforcement concerns
John O'Grady, president of a national council of EPA employee unions, said he doubts the memo will assuage concerned agency staff.
"You have to see where these people are going, what they actually do and take it from there," O'Grady said today. "I have a wait-and-see attitude."
O'Grady raised concerns with managers last week that EPA hadn't been executing enforcement orders, asking officials if there was a moratorium on enforcement actions.
"Recently I heard from sources that the Agency is not executing any enforcement orders such as Consent Decrees. Is that an accurate representation of the facts?" O'Grady wrote to Susan Shinkman, director of EPA's civil enforcement office.
He heard back from Larry Starfield, EPA's acting enforcement chief, that "there is not a moratorium or hold on enforcement actions."
"Work continues on on-going enforcement matters, and we have authorized enforcement actions running the full range of the enforcement docket from small infractions to large agreements," Starfield wrote Friday in an email that was forwarded to O'Grady.
Starfield also wrote, "Presidential transitions are times of a lot of change and uncertainty, and so we encourage employees to ask their managers or any member of the [Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance] senior leadership team if they have questions."
Acting EPA Administrator Catherine McCabe told employees in an email Friday that the review of agency grants had been completed and that "all grants are proceeding normally, and nothing has been delayed."
She added that a review of EPA contracts was "nearly complete, with very few contracts still under review" (E&E Daily, Jan. 30).
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/01/30/stories/1060049223
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Congress Can Now Start Erasing Some of Obama’s Environmental Rules. Here’s What They’re Targeting.
Jan 30, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
This week, Republicans in Congress may finally have the opportunity to begin dismantling a series of environmental rules finalized by the Obama administration. And they’re likely to initially target two controversial environmental regulations released in the closing months of 2016, which place greater restrictions on both the coal and the oil and gas industries.
The first is a regulation finalized in mid-November that seeks to curb fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas drilling operations on public lands. And the second, a last-minute rule adopted in December, prohibits coal-mining companies from engaging in any activities that could permanently pollute streams and other sources of drinking water.
The key to undoing the regulations comes in the form of a rarely used federal law known as the Congressional Review Act. The law allows Congress 60 legislative days (that means working days in session) from the time a federal regulation is finalized to pass a “joint resolution of disapproval” on the rule. If the president signs the resolution, the rule is nullified — and, furthermore, the law stipulates that “substantially” similar regulations may not ever be passed again unless specifically authorized by Congress.
When it comes to the 60-day countdown period, though, things can get a little complicated. If a congressional session ends before the period is up — and because Congress meets sporadically, that period can sometimes drag out for months — then the law requires that the countdown begin again on the 15th day of the new session.
In this case, the previous Congress adjourned before the 60-day deadline period ended for multiple Obama-era regulations passed in the latter half of 2016. The countdown is just now starting over again this week, as Monday marks the 15th day of session for the new Congress. So now is the first time they may begin formally introducing resolutions affecting late-term Obama regulations that will be valid under the Congressional Review Act — and do so with a sympathetic president in office who is likely to sign them.
Resolutions to disapprove of the two Obama actions are already scheduled to be taken up by Congress this week. Both were hailed by environmentalists but garnered quick backlash from Republicans, who decried them as attacks on the nation’s energy. In fact, immediately upon its announcement in December, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denounced the stream protection rule and vowed to overturn it using the Congressional Review Act when the new Congress convened.
Once a joint resolution of disapproval has been introduced, it has the potential to move fairly quickly from the House to the Senate to the president. In fact, the only other time the law has been successfully used to repeal a regulation — an ergonomics rule adopted by the Clinton administration and repealed early on in the subsequent Bush administration — it moved through Congress in less than a week. This is because the law allows only up to 10 hours of debate in the House and does not permit joint resolutions to be subject to filibuster in the Senate.
Environmental groups have already begun to speak out. One recent letter to the House, signed by dozens of environmental organizations, called on representatives to oppose any measures that would weaken or undo the stream protection rule.
“Legislation undermining the Stream Protection rule would be a direct attack on ensuring that every community has access to clean, safe water,” it states. “Furthermore, permanently blocking the rule under the Congressional Review Act and any future ‘substantially the same’ effort by the Department of the Interior is extreme and blocks the agency from doing its basic job of managing and protecting our natural resources.”
And environmental groups have also rallied behind the methane rule, which experts have pinned as a likely target for the chopping block for weeks now. In a recent blog post, energy campaign manager Josh Mantell of the Wilderness Society called the methane rule a “smart, common-sense way to ensure that the American people see a fair return on the development of their shared resources” and called for Congress to abandon its plans for repeal.
However, Republicans in Congress have continued to stand by their plans. In a statement on Monday, McConnell reiterated his intention to see the stream rule repealed under the Congressional Review Act, calling it a “harmful regulation that unfairly targets coal jobs.”
“I would encourage the House to act quickly so that we can send this resolution to the president’s desk as soon as possible,” he added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/30/congress-can-now-start-erasing-some-of-obamas-environmental-rules-heres-what-theyre-targeting/?utm_term=.647fb80713dd
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Trump Administration Lifts Temporary Freeze on EPA Grants
Jan 31, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
The Trump administration has lifted a temporary freeze on billions of dollars of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the programs will continue as planned.
An email sent late Friday from the EPA’s acting administrator, career official Catherine McCabe, informed staffers that officials had completed a review of the agency’s extensive list of grants and that all “are proceeding normally, and nothing has been delayed,” including revolving grants to states and Native American tribes.
McCabe also said that as officials keep reviewing outside contracts, the EPA will continue to employ contractors involved in maintaining agency infrastructure, implementing core environmental programs and supporting scientific research.
[Trump administration tells EPA to freeze all grants, contracts]
The news came more than a week after EPA employees were informed following President Trump’s inauguration that, “effective immediately,” all agency contracts and grants would temporarily be frozen.
According to its website, the EPA annually awards more than $4 billion in funding for grants and other assistance agreements. The temporary hold cast a cloud of uncertainty over those and caused widespread fears among scientists, state and local officials, universities and Native American tribes that often benefit from the grants.
In her email, McCabe described the temporary halt — as well as other measures such as a crackdown on outside communications and a pause in publishing new and pending regulations — as “standard practice for a transition.”
“I realize that you may be feeling anxious about the uncertainty of these changes and that many of you have questions,” McCabe wrote, even as she assured employees that “senior EPA career officials, including myself, have been educating the President’s new transition team about many aspects of the Agency’s programs and operations.”
In a separate email to employees, Don Benton — a top Trump adviser to the EPA and one of two congressional Republicans whom the president tapped to help with the agency’s transition — insisted that media reports of crackdowns on public speech and scientific autonomy at the EPA were “just not accurate.” He said he could not validate statements by former transition officials, such as longtime EPA critic Myron Ebell, who has expressed a desire to see the agency’s staffing slashed substantially alongside a massive rollback in environmental regulations.
“I cannot tell you today what the final decisions from the White House, from our new Administrator, and from the Congress will be,” Benton said in his email. “I can tell you that despite what you read and see on TV, no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA. Changes will likely come, and when they do, we will work together to implement them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/30/trump-administration-lifts-temporary-freeze-on-epa-grants/?utm_term=.c49124563b69
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Cross-State Rule Challengers Fault EPA Modeling, Conditions
Jan 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA allegedly used bad data, failed to conduct accurate air quality modeling and went overboard in setting state-by-state budgets intended to curb power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), according to court filings from states and industries challenging the agency's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule update.
Texas, for example, accused EPA of impermissibly relying "on a model that is flawed with inappropriate assumptions and conditions," according to the submission last week from state attorneys outlining the issues they plan to raise in the litigation.
In a similar filing, Mississippi Power Co. charged that federal regulators established emissions budgets that "failed to account for actual emission rates and available reductions in Mississippi."
The city of Ames, Iowa, which owns a municipal power plant, objected that EPA hadn't given enough notice for the public to comment on the technical foundations underlying the final rule.
A total of 17 petitions for review have been filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since the cross-state update was published in October.
The regulations are intended to cut NOx releases from coal-fired power plants in 22 states that make it harder for downwind states to meet the 2008 ozone air quality standard of 75 parts per billion.
Two environmental groups are also challenging the update on the grounds that it is too lax; in their statement of issues, also submitted last week, the Sierra Club and Appalachian Mountain Club alleged that EPA has impermissibly allowed the use of "substantial" NOx allowances from an earlier version of the rule.
The regulations are among an array of air quality rules that could come under fresh scrutiny in the Trump administration. Trump has nominated Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), a steadfast critic of federal environmental regulations, to head EPA.
Oklahoma, while covered by the update, is not among the states suing to overturn it.
Asked recently by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) about how he would go about implementing the rule if confirmed as EPA administrator, Pruitt described it as currently binding.
"So long as that rule remains in force, I will faithfully execute the law and enforce obligations under it," Pruitt said in written answers released last week to questions from Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
New York and five other Northeastern states are nonetheless seeking to intervene in the litigation. With Trump signaling his desire to roll back federal safeguards, "defending this sensible, fair and crucial rule is so important," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) said earlier this month in announcing the unopposed motion (E&E News PM, Jan. 19).
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/01/30/stories/1060049225
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Fighting Trump, Enviros Look to Bush Strategy and to States
Jan 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Nick Bowlin
Oxford Dictionaries named "post-truth" the official word of 2016. Facts, it seems, can be obsolete in the current political discourse.
But some inescapable realities endure — or that's what environmentalists hope. Climate, conservation and clean energy advocates around the country are planning their way forward under President Trump, setting strategy and adjusting their message.
Broadly, these plans involve a "doubling down" — a phrase used by multiple strategists — on two claims they consider undeniable: The planet is warming, and the renewable energy industry is here to stay.
"The climate and sea levels don't care who's in the White House, and 2016 was the hottest year on record," said Anna Aurilio, director of Environment America's Washington, D.C., office.
These messages will be used in a variety of efforts in the months ahead: from local organizing and state campaigns, to the 2018 midterm elections and resistance to what environmentalists believe will be a hostile administration.
This seems a safe assumption. Trump has pledged to back out of international climate agreements; U.S. EPA nominee Scott Pruitt is a longtime opponent of the agency he will likely lead; and soon after the inauguration, the White House's climate change page was replaced with an "America First Energy Plan," describing environmental regulation cuts to enhance oil, gas and coal production (Greenwire, Jan. 17).
"We're preparing for the fight of our lives," said Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club.
Given this harsh political terrain, environmental strategy has begun to take shape. Advocacy organizations plan to use what they see as the extreme stances of Trump and his nominees to stress the dangers of global warming and the importance of environmental protection.
They will also emphasize the explosive growth of the clean energy sector, framing any federal opposition to the industry as anti-growth and job-killing. And given federal GOP control, the next four years will see a renewed focus on state races and grass-roots efforts.
"The main point in all of this is to get out a sense of just how radical and outside the mainstream a lot of these proposals coming both from the Congress and that we expect from the Trump administration are," said David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"You don't have to agree with us even on most issues, you don't have share our assumptions, to find these proposals extraordinarily damaging," he said.
Contrast is key
While environmentalists fear the Trump administration's impact on the planet, they also see an opportunity to spread their message, playing off the anti-regulatory, pro-fossil-fuel decisions they expect over the next four years. Contrast, they believe, will help their cause.
This is not a new tactic. Strategists, though, think the actions of the new administration and GOP-controlled Congress will give their message particular force.
"It intensifies rather than changes" the messaging, said Goldston. "These efforts will be helped by the nature of the kinds of proposals we'll be opposing."
For this reason, most strategists spoke of reinforcing rather than retooling their messages despite Trump's victory and the absence of climate and environmental issues in the 2016 elections.
Already, the Sierra Club and the Moms Clean Air Force (a branch of EDF Action) have ongoing ad campaigns condemning Pruitt and describing his anti-regulatory stance as a danger to public health and particularly to children (Greenwire, Jan. 3). And both groups, along with 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Climate Hawks and Earthjustice reported donation and membership spikes after Trump's victory.
Trump's nominees "are radical. They are dangerous. They are fundamentally opposed to the missions of the departments they are nominated to head," said Tom Steyer, the billionaire founder of NextGen Climate.
Goldston expects a tough first few months under the Trump administration but predicts strong opposition and a subsequent public backlash.
"The extraordinary breadth of the Republican attacks is one of the things that will help make our arguments for us," he said.
This assumes the environmental views of Trump's administration and the GOP-controlled Congress diverge from those of most Americans. Steyer, Goldston and others believe this to be true, despite the 2016 election results.
To them, the challenge lies in conveying the dangers of the new administration to the public and then facilitating the public's response to their representatives via letters, emails, phone calls and demonstrations.
"It's important that people recognize the extent of the threat and respond accordingly," Goldston said.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted shortly after the election, between Nov. 30 and Dec. 5, supports this view: 59 percent of U.S. adults said environmental regulations are worth the cost, while 34 percent responded that such restrictions cost too many jobs.
While starkly divided along party lines, broad public backing encourages environmentalists that they can cut Trump's support — already the lowest in history for a new president.
As a model, some strategists mentioned the successful campaign to drive down former President George W. Bush's poll numbers early in his first term.
A Washington Post article on June 5, 2001, titled "Poll Finds Support for Bush Declining; Energy, Environment Doubts Feed Drop" describes "widespread worries about Bush's energy and environmental policies" contributing to an approval rating tumble. (Bush's poll numbers bounced back dramatically following the 9/11 terrorist strikes.)
Strategists see a parallel: a new Republican president, a contested election and what they see as disconnect between the new administration's policies and popular opinion.
"In no way does the Trump administration or Congress have a mandate to launch an attack on the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the land that we cherish," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters.
"The public is with us," Goldston added.
It's the economy, stupid
While somewhat obvious, creating contrast seems a good strategy, given the first weeks of the Trump administration. From freezing all EPA grants and contracts and placing a gag on Agriculture Department scientists, to calling fuel economy standards "out of control" while meeting with auto executives and reviving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, Trump has given environmentalists plenty of material to work with already.
Still, the strategy remains largely reactive, responding to executive action and congressional policy rather than shaping them.
But environmental groups have other plans to push their narrative during Trump's tenure. These tactics center on the explosive growth of the clean energy sector in the past decade — what environmentalists call the "clean energy revolution" — and aim to hit Trump on one of his bedrock campaign promises: economic growth.
"The major focus by advocates is going to be that we've begun to make incredible progress that not only has environmental and climate benefits, but huge economic benefits," said Paul Bledsoe, a Clinton White House administration climate change adviser.
"Is the U.S. going to turn its back on this huge economic sector that's burgeoning around the world?" he asked.
For environmentalists, the economic logic of non-fossil-fuel sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric is undeniable. "Clean energy," broadly defined, is the fastest growing energy sector in the world.
In 2016, renewables accounted for more than half of new energy capacity added to the U.S. power grid, according to recent findings from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and generated 14 percent of all new jobs in the United States in 2016, according to the most recent Energy Department report (E&E News PM, Jan. 13).
The Trump administration's "America First Energy Plan" did not mention wind, solar or other alternative options, despite calling for affordable, job-producing and domestically sourced energy.
The success of renewables has a dual benefit for environmentalists: They can use the new administration's language to argue against emission cuts and for funding alternative energy sources, while broadening their appeal beyond their traditional base, including voters who may have supported Trump in 2016.
Environmental strategists were emphatic on this point: While the new administration could impede the recent renewable energy progress, the clean energy sector isn't going anywhere.
"[The new administration] doesn't change all the fundamentals," Goldston said.
"It doesn't change the market forces that are moving towards less carbon pollution and cleaner energy. It doesn't alter all of the changed international dynamic that were moving in that direction, it hasn't changed public opinion, it hasn't dampened interest in states that want to move forward," he said.
Studies overwhelmingly suggest alternative energy sources are popular across party lines. A March 2016 Gallup poll found that 89 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans favor alternative energy over oil and gas.
This dynamic has emerged in the business community. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) killed a bill late last year passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature that would have halted renewables and energy efficiency standards.
Explaining his veto, which effectively implemented the standards in 2017, Kasich noted several major companies were considering commerce in Ohio but wanted to do business with states that supported alternative energies (Greenwire, Dec. 1, 2016).
"I think that now [corporations] are very skeptical of Trump's fossil-fuel-only agenda," Bledsoe said. "It just doesn't seem economically logical."
Pivot to the states
Kasich's decision exemplifies another environmental strategy for Trump's tenure: increased focus on state politics.
"We need to bring home the importance of protecting our environment to people's health and well-being," said Aurilio. Her organization, Environment America, consists of 29 state-based organizations.
State-level environmental efforts are effective, Aurilio added, because citizens experience the benefits firsthand, as evidenced by the 2016 elections.
While climate issues barely cracked the presidential campaign, environmental and renewable energy ballot initiatives did well at the state level.
Florida citizens voted down a measure that would have strengthened utilities at the expense of solar power; Nevada voted to open the state's retail electricity market to cheaper, cleaner competition; and dozens of transit measures passed, including a $54 billion expansion of Seattle's rail and bus system — though, the biggest proposal, a carbon tax in Washington state, was soundly defeated.
Evidence also suggests that regional environmental issues can swing races. Energy issues likely helped decide the tight race for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's seat in Nevada.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) beat former Rep. Joe Heck (R) by about 2 points, and postelection surveys point to Heck's opposition to solar energy and apparent ties to the Koch brothers as particularly distasteful to Nevada voters (E&E News PM, Nov. 21, 2016).
"There are many states, including red states, where on, say, renewable energy and reducing carbon pollution, are popular with the public and state officials are open to them," said Goldston. "That doesn't change given the outcome of the federal election."
This shift accompanies a similar pivot among Democrats as the party confronts a deficit in state control. The GOP controls 68 of 98 partisan state legislative chambers and has full control of 25, compared with just six for the Democratic Party. Democrats and environmentalists alike see the 2020 elections, followed by redistricting of House districts, as critical to the U.S.'s political future.
This year, strategists expect the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races to receive attention from advocacy groups. Virginia matters in particular for environmentalists: Outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has been an ally and likely GOP nominee Ed Gillespie has ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Some environmental groups like Climate Hawks are looking to establish a more powerful local presence. Others, like NextGen Climate and the Sierra Club, have existing local organizing structures. Pierce, Sierra Club's legislative director, noted that they can activate members for issues at the lowest levels of government and have lobbyists in nearly all state capitals.
County and municipal government is "where decisions that affect people's lives are being made," she said.
NextGen presents another model for grass-roots organizing. The group registered over 800,000 Californians to vote ahead of the 2016 elections, according to Steyer, and hopes to expand the scope of its focused local organizing.
"From our standpoint, we really believe strongly in the broadest, the most engaged democracy. We believe in the power of the will of the people of the United States," he said.
Going forward
Environmental advocacy plans are still in flux. Trump's shocking victory forced many to adjust; Pierce said "all of [the Sierra Club's] best laid plans" were disrupted. Others said they are consumed with opposing Trump's nominees and recent executive actions and have not had time to set tangible long-term strategy.
But for all the uncertainty surrounding Trump's tenure, there is one thing environmental advocates know.
"Sleep," Goldston said, "is off the table."
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/01/31/stories/1060049254
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