Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 2/6/17
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Hearing On EPA's Use Of Science
Feb 7, 2017 | House Committee On Science, Space and Technology
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 11:00 AM -
Hearing On Improving Federal Agencies
Feb 8, 2017 | Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Location: 253 Russell /10:00 AM -
Hearing On Infrastructure
Feb 8, 2017 | Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Scott Pruitt Is Seen Cutting the E.P.A. With a Scalpel, Not a Cleaver
Feb 5, 2017 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, is drawing up plans to move forward on the president’s campaign promise to “get rid of” the agency he hopes to head. He has a blueprint to repeal climate change rules, cut staffing levels, close regional offices and permanently weaken the agency’s regulatory authority. -
Guidance Helps Explain One-In, Two-Out Regulatory Order
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs quickly issued interim guidance for agencies grappling with President Donald Trump's new executive order requiring two regulations to be eliminated for every one issued. -
White House Releases Guidance On Trump Order
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
The White House today released interim guidance for implementing President Trump's recent executive order requiring federal agencies to trash two regulations for every new one. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Predicts $3.7 Million For Each Chemical Review Under Revised TSCA
Feb 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA in a recent report to Congress is predicting that it will cost roughly $3.7 million to assess each existing chemical that the agency prioritizes for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and is also indicating that EPA is trying to increase staffing in order to meet the demands of the updated toxics law. -
Trump's Early Regulatory Actions Raise Questions Over Impacts For TSCA
Feb 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
President Donald Trump's early regulatory actions -- including an executive order (EO) on identifying two rules to withdraw for every new rule -- are raising questions over the implications for EPA's implementation of the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), including how it might affect the stringency of implementation. -
N.Y. Gets Good News From Drinking Water Tests
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
Businesses cheered early tests results from New York that suggest perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) contamination in drinking water may not be pervasive statewide, but environmental groups said further testing is necessary to protect the public. -
EPA To Consider Perchlorate Risks From Degradation Of Hypochlorite Bleach
Feb 3, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Virtually all types of food contain measurable amounts of perchlorate. Young children are the most highly exposed, and they consume levels that may be unsafe. Reducing exposure to perchlorate is of public health importance because it presents a risk to children’s brain development -
(ACC Mentioned) Senate Blocks Energy Transparency Rule; GOP Eyes More Resolutions
Feb 3, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Jack Fitzpatrick
The Senate voted Friday to block a Securities and Exchange Commission requirement that energy companies disclose payments to foreign governments, as conservatives expand their efforts to rescind last-minute Obama administration regulations. -
Waiting For Clean Power Plan Action? Don't Hold Your Breath
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess and Emily Holden
Reality may be sinking in on Capitol Hill and around Washington that action to thwart the Clean Power Plan could take longer than opponents hoped. -
Congress Moves to Rescind Two Obama-Era Energy Regulations
Feb 3, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder and Dave Michaels
Legislation to eliminate two energy-related regulations is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk, paving the way for the first successful use since 2001 of a rarely employed law that allows Congress to kill agency regulations. -
Trump Transition Team Didn't Count On Congress
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Robin Bravender
President Trump's transition team for U.S. EPA didn't plan for big energy and environmental legislation over the next four years. -
Williams's $3 Billion Atlantic Sunrise Gas Project Gets U.S. Nod
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan N. Crawford and Catherine Traywick
Williams Cos. won U.S. approval to build its $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline expansion in the Northeast, ending a review that ran almost two years and forced delays in the project. -
Dakota Access Likely to Get Built, But It's Still Unclear When
Feb 3, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Based on a supportive memo from the Trump administration last month, the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is expected to receive an easement from the U.S. Corps of Engineers (USACE) needed to complete the $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile oil transportation project. -
Transport Week Ahead: NTSB Weighs Cause of Oil Train Wreck
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Hendrie
The National Transportation Safety Board will meet Feb. 7 to determine the probable cause of a fiery train derailment in December 2013 that spilled 476,000 gallons of burning crude oil near Casselton, N.D. -
Bills Aim To Beef Up Oil Transportation Safety
Feb 5, 2017 | AP (In The Daily Mail)
With more crude oil expected to move through Washington state, Democratic lawmakers want to toughen rules around oil transportation and raise more money for spill prevention and response efforts. -
(ACC Mentioned) Republicans Say They Want To Make The Agency Great Again
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will be back on familiar turf tomorrow as it takes another look at how U.S. EPA uses science in the process of crafting regulations. But the session will play out in a charged political environment that has changed dramatically since the panel last revisited the subject in June (E&E Daily, June 23, 2016). -
(ACC Mentioned) Republicans Are Using Big Tobacco’s Secret Science Playbook To Gut Health Rules
Feb 5, 2017 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
MUCH OF THE COUNTRY has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. -
Congress: Lawmakers Back Measures To Kill Obama Environment Rules
Feb 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
The GOP Congress is moving ahead with its pledges to eliminate Obama-era environmental rules using the rarely used expedited procedures provided by the Congressional Review Act (CRA), though so far no EPA rules are among those being targeted.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News
Environment News
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Hearing On EPA's Use Of Science
Feb 7, 2017 | House Committee On Science, Space and Technology
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Hearing On Improving Federal Agencies
Feb 8, 2017 | Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
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Feb 8, 2017 | Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
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Scott Pruitt Is Seen Cutting the E.P.A. With a Scalpel, Not a Cleaver
Feb 5, 2017 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, is drawing up plans to move forward on the president’s campaign promise to “get rid of” the agency he hopes to head. He has a blueprint to repeal climate change rules, cut staffing levels, close regional offices and permanently weaken the agency’s regulatory authority.
But Mr. Pruitt, a lawyer who made a career suing the E.P.A., is not likely to start with the kind of shock and awe that Mr. Trump has used to disorient Washington. Instead, he will use the legal tools at his disposal to pare back the agency’s reach and power, and trim its budget selectively.
“Here’s my impression about Pruitt: I don’t think he’s going in there to blow up the agency,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a senior E.P.A. official during the George W. Bush administration who has been mentioned as a possible deputy to Mr. Pruitt, and who has joined forces with him on lawsuits against the agency. “I think he’ll be very careful to make sure they’ve done everything legally to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.”
With a zeal that has shocked or thrilled much of the country, Mr. Trump has been making good on campaign promises that once seemed outlandish, and those pledges included a vow to dismantle the agency charged with protecting the nation’s air, water and public health “in almost every form.”Continue reading the main storyThe Trump White HouseStories about President Trump’s administration.Donald Trump Says Negative Polls Are ‘Fake News’FEB 6‘The Daily’: It All Comes Back to Goldman SachsFEB 6What to Watch in Congress: Confirmation Votes, Regulation RollbacksFEB 6Trump Says Health Law Replacement May Not Be Ready Until Next YearFEB 5Jim Mattis Seeks to Soothe Tensions in Japan and South KoreaFEB 5
See More »RELATED COVERAGEScott Pruitt, Testifying to Lead E.P.A., Criticizes Environmental Rules JAN. 18, 2017Scott Pruitt, Trump’s E.P.A. Pick, Backed Industry Donors Over Regulators JAN. 14, 2017Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead E.P.A. DEC. 7, 2016
Myron Ebell, an internationally prominent climate-change denier who led Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. transition team, has recommended that the new administration slash the E.P.A.’s staff by two-thirds, to 5,000 from about 15,000. And the president has promised to “eliminate” former President Barack Obama’s major environmental regulations, including a global warming rule that was one of Mr. Obama’s proudest achievements and another major regulation to curb pollution in lakes, streams and rivers.
“Environmental protection, what they do is a disgrace,” Mr. Trump said after the election. “Every week they come out with new regulations.”
But in Mr. Pruitt, who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this week, the president has tapped a surgeon, not a butcher, to fulfill those pledges. As much as anyone, Mr. Pruitt knows the legal intricacies of environmental regulation — and deregulation. As Oklahoma’s attorney general for the last six years, he has led or taken part in 14 lawsuits against the E.P.A.
His changes may not have the dramatic flair favored by Mr. Trump, but they could weaken the agency’s authority even long after Mr. Trump has left office.
“The point here will be, more than in any prior administration, to reduce the agency’s effectiveness so much that it can’t recover even when the political winds change,” said David Doniger, an E.P.A. lawyer in the Clinton administration who now works for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.
The problem with many of Mr. Trump’s promises for the environmental agency is that they cannot be met quickly without violating the law.
Mr. Trump is expected to sign an executive action announcing the repeal of Mr. Obama’s ambitious but contentious regulations on planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution soon after Mr. Pruitt is confirmed. But legally, it will be impossible for Mr. Trump, or Mr. Pruitt, to do that with the stroke of a pen. A completed regulation must go through the same arduous process to be reversed.
Even if he could kill the Obama-era Clean Power Plan outright, he would not eliminate a legal requirement for the E.P.A. to continue regulating greenhouse gas emissions. A repeal would simply force the Trump administration to write its own climate rule.
Mr. Pruitt’s allies and advisers say that he is aware of the gap between Mr. Trump’s demands and the requirements of the law, and that he is carefully plotting out a course to go after the E.P.A. with a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver.
Mr. Pruitt has not spoken to the news media since Mr. Trump nominated him in December. However, in his answers to senators during a January confirmation hearing, and in his written answers to over 1,000 follow-up questions, Mr. Pruitt made clear that while he is no fan of federal environmental regulations, he does intend to hew to the laws that require them.
“If confirmed, I will implement the laws that E.P.A. is charged to administer,” he wrote to Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Among those laws, Mr. Pruitt said in his answers, is the Clean Air Act provision requiring that the E.P.A. regulate the carbon dioxide pollution that warms the planet.
“I believe the administrator has an important role when it comes to the regulation of carbon dioxide,” he wrote.
That indicates that if Mr. Trump repeals the Obama climate change rule, Mr. Pruitt is prepared to write a new Trump climate rule — but one that is far less environmentally aggressive and far friendlier to industry.
In 2014, as he prepared to sue the Obama administration over the climate change rules, Mr. Pruitt wrote a draft of what such a rule might look like, noting, “An anti-carbon agenda should not be forced upon the public through executive or administrative fiat.”
The Obama climate plan is aimed at transforming the nation’s electric power system, driving it away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. It would most likely close most of the nation’s approximately 600 coal-fired power plants and replace them with wind and solar facilities, aiming to cut 2005 levels of greenhouse gas pollution nearly a third by 2030.
Mr. Pruitt’s draft climate rule is designed to leave most coal-fired power plants open, but require them to install energy-efficient technology to slightly lower their emissions.
“A rule like that might satisfy the letter of the law,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard, “and would probably cut emissions less than a quarter of the Obama rule.”
If the Pruitt-authored climate change rule withstood legal challenges, it could stand for decades, allowing the fossil fuel industry to thrive and planet-warming emissions to increase.
That approach would most likely be carried out throughout the E.P.A. under Mr. Pruitt’s guidance. For example, Mr. Trump wants to repeal the Obama water regulation, known as the Waters of the United States rule, which would make it a federal crime to pollute in most rivers, streams and wetlands across the country. Simply repealing that rule would create a thicket of new legal challenges, but Mr. Pruitt could replace it with water regulations that were more limited in scope.
Mr. Trump’s campaign calls to “get rid of” the E.P.A. in almost every form will probably run up against its own legal challenges, as will Mr. Ebell’s call to slash the E.P.A.’s staff. Experts say Mr. Pruitt is unlikely to follow through with such draconian cuts, since the E.P.A. is required to execute and enforce many laws, rules and programs, which requires staff members.
“You have to have enough people there to carry out the obligations that are required by law,” Mr. Holmstead said. “If you get an order from a judge and you violate it, then someone’s going to jail.”
Mr. Holmstead noted that if Mr. Pruitt successfully wrote his own new, more industry-friendly regulations, he would need a full staff of lawyers as well.
Congress will also have a say. For years, House Republicans sought to weaken and dismantle Mr. Obama’s environmental rules, by proposing major budget cuts to the E.P.A. Some of those bills, which went nowhere, envisioned cuts to the E.P.A. of nearly 30 percent.
And those past bills offer a road map for the current Congress, said Representative Ken Calvert, the California Republican who is the chairman of the House spending panel that controls the E.P.A.’s budget. Last year, that panel proposed funding the E.P.A. at $8 billion, cutting just $291 million from Mr. Obama’s request. And it froze staffing at the current levels of about 15,000, far from the 5,000 proposed by Mr. Ebell.
Mr. Calvert said he did not anticipate cutting the E.P.A.’s popular state grant programs, which fund projects like converting abandoned brownfields into sports stadiums and other public facilities.
While keeping those programs and the many E.P.A. offices required by law, Mr. Calvert’s budget would trim the E.P.A.’s resources for regulatory enforcement by about 6 percent.
Many of those cuts are likely to come from the E.P.A.’s state and regional offices, where employees are charged with overseeing and enforcing federal rules. Such cuts would line up with Mr. Pruitt’s preferred approach of regulation as well — getting federal officials off the backs of states.
“Most states already have their own environmental programs,” Mr. Calvert said. “We’re going to have to take a look at that, and start running things more efficiently.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/us/politics/scott-pruitt-is-seen-cutting-the-epa-with-a-scalpel-not-a-cleaver.html
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Guidance Helps Explain One-In, Two-Out Regulatory Order
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs quickly issued interim guidance for agencies grappling with President Donald Trump's new executive order requiring two regulations to be eliminated for every one issued.
All regulatory activity was frozen on Jan. 20 by a memorandum issued by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Once the freeze is lifted, the new order's requirements will apply to all significant regulatory actions by agencies between noon on Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
In general, executive departments and agencies may comply with the order's requirements by issuing two “deregulatory” actions for each new significant regulatory action that imposes costs, said the guidance document signed by Dominic Mancini, acting administrator of OIRA.
OIRA requested public comment on the guidance, which should be sent to reducingregulation@omb.eop.gov by Feb. 10. It is likely the guidance, which was presented in a question-and-answer format, will be updated following the comment period.
It is also possible that the guidance could change once the new director of the Office of Management and Budget is confirmed. Trump's nominee to head the OMB, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), is currently awaiting Senate confirmation.
Fleshing Out Details
Susan Dudley, director of the Regulatory Studies Center at the George Washington University, who served as OIRA administrator from April 2007 through the end of the George W. Bush administration, said the guidance appeared thorough.
One of the big questions left open from the executive order was the definition of “regulation,” which seemed to be quite sweeping, Dudley told Bloomberg BNA. OIRA's guidance narrowed the scope of the order to “significant” regulations, which was a smart move, she said.
Another big question in the order was how to measure costs, Dudley said. OIRA's guidance determined that it would be the standard that it has always used, which is “opportunity costs,” she said.
“Which is a hard thing to do,” Dudley said. “It would have been much easier if they had said it was administrative costs, like they do in Canada.”
Determining Opportunity Costs
To understand how to measure opportunity costs, it is helpful to compare what OIRA is requesting with what is being done in Canada and the U.K., Dudley said.
Canada counts “administrative burdens” in measuring costs, which includes only direct costs such as the number of hours filling out forms, but not indirect costs such as the time spent installing or maintaining equipment, Dudley said.
The U.K. counts compliance costs to business, which would include costs such as time spent operating equipment, Dudley said. “In practice, the compliance costs, the way the U.K. does it, is a good proxy for most types of regulations for opportunity costs,” she said.
Still, there are other types of regulations, such as proving whether a product is safe, where the compliance cost is small but the opportunity cost could be huge, Dudley said. This is where the OIRA guidance diverges from the U.K., she said.
‘Steep Learning Curve.’
“That's hard [to determine], but that is what agencies are supposed to do when they write a new regulation,” Dudley said. “And so OIRA is saying we want you to use the same metric when you decide which regulations you want to remove.”
The order effectively directs agencies to reallocate their internal resources away from developing new regulations and toward evaluating existing ones, she said.
This is going to be a “steep learning curve” for agencies, similar to when agencies were first required to conduct regulatory impact analyses before issuing a regulation, Dudley said.
Over time, agencies have gotten more and more sophisticated at those analyses, Dudley said. But they have not had much incentive to look back at regulations issued years ago to see what impact they are having now in terms of costs and benefits, she said.
“It's something that I think they should do,” Dudley said. “I think everybody agrees that, from a good government perspective, we should always be looking back as well as forward, just to see what worked.”
Some Exemptions
The order and the guidance apply to all regulations, even those required by statute.
“All regulations are required by statute at some point,” Dudley said, adding that the executive branch under the Constitution can't write laws without authority delegated by Congress.
Still, some statutes are broad and agencies have a lot of flexibility in how they regulate, Dudley said. Other statutes can be quite specific and include prescriptive dates, which may be more difficult for agencies to handle, she said.
The guidance appears to exempt regulations under a statutory or judicial deadline from immediately identifying two regulations for elimination.
According to the guidance, agencies may proceed with significant regulatory actions that need to be finalized in order to comply with an imminent statutory or judicial deadline even if they are not able to identify offsetting regulatory actions by the time of issuance.
Also exempted are regulations that affect only other federal agencies; that are issued with respect to a military, national security, or foreign affairs function; or that are related to agency organization, management, or personnel.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105067005&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105067005&jd=105067005
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White House Releases Guidance On Trump Order
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
The White House today released interim guidance for implementing President Trump's recent executive order requiring federal agencies to trash two regulations for every new one.
The order also established a regulatory budget, by which the president determines how much agencies can spend on new rules each year. The budget for 2017 is zero dollars. All new rules must be offset by repealing old ones.
The guidance, issued by Dominic Mancini, acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, clarifies that the order applies only to significant rules.
Federal spending rules, such as those associated with Pell grants and Medicare, are considered "transfer rules" and are not included in the order.
However, in cases where transfer rules direct nonfederal entities, such as reporting or record keeping, agencies would need to account for these costs, according to the guidance.
The guidance also clarifies that the order applies only to agencies that are required to submit major rules to OIRA for reviews. Independent agencies are exempt from this requirement and, therefore, the executive order.
"Nevertheless, we encourage independent regulatory agencies to identify existing regulations that, if repealed or revised, would achieve cost savings that would fully offset the costs of new significant regulatory actions," the guidance states.
Guidances and interpretive documents that pertain to rules and could incur costs, but are not regulations themselves, will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Additionally, the guidance specifies that costs should be measured as the opportunity cost to society. This concept is defined by an existing document known as OMB Circular A-4.
The guidance stipulates that agencies are not allowed to calculate costs from existing regulatory impact analyses when determining which rules to eliminate.
Agencies are permitted to bundle a new regulatory action with two deregulatory actions in some cases.
"In this case, the agency must clearly identify the specific provisions that are counted within the regulatory and deregulatory portion of the rules, and the costs and cost savings associated with each," the guidance states.
The notice also clarifies the intent of the executive order. The "one in, two out" portion is intended to provide an incentive for agencies to conduct retrospective reviews and identify "outdated, ineffective or unnecessary" rules.
The regulatory budget, much like a fiscal cap, is intended to establish "prudent management" of the regulatory system and its enforcers, who aim to achieve benefits for society.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/02/03/stories/1060049552
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Predicts $3.7 Million For Each Chemical Review Under Revised TSCA
Feb 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA in a recent report to Congress is predicting that it will cost roughly $3.7 million to assess each existing chemical that the agency prioritizes for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and is also indicating that EPA is trying to increase staffing in order to meet the demands of the updated toxics law.
The report responds to a mandate in section 26(m)(1) of the TSCA law, signed last June, which required the report's submission to Congress within six months of enactment. The law said the report should describe EPA's capacity to perform risk evaluations of existing chemicals under TSCA section 6(b), what resources would be required to conduct these evaluations, estimates of demand, and an anticipated schedule for performing the reviews.
The report indicates that EPA anticipates its first year costs at $12.3 million for beginning the evaluations of the 10 chemicals EPA announced last December would be the first reviewed in the new program. In 2018, EPA plans to be evaluating 15 chemicals, with costs for that calendar year rising to $28.4 million. EPA indicates that in 2019, as directed by the statute, it will be conducting 20 chemical evaluations, at a total cost of $38.3 million.
The agency anticipates that the program will cost $35.8 million annually after 2021, in a “generic future year when the EPA’s implementation of all provisions of the statute have reached specified minimum levels.”
EPA explains that it arrives at these estimates of total cost by “dividing the average lifecycle costs of the actions (estimated $3.7 million per evaluation) by the number of years the statute provides for the agency to complete those actions (without the extension options provided in the statute), and then multiplying the result by the numbers of actions required/anticipated to be underway each year.”
The tables and costs also include estimates for the number of evaluations that EPA expects to undertake annually at the request of chemical companies, which are allowed by section 6(b)(4)(C)(ii) to request that EPA undertake evaluation of a chemical. EPA already has two nominations, the report indicates, for two chemicals used in fragrance mixtures identified in the Obama EPA's TSCA work plan program. EPA's chart indicates that it will begin reviews of these chemicals in calendar year 2018.
EPA debuted the work plan program in 2012, as an effort to both more strictly enforce TSCA on existing chemicals -- those on the market when TSCA was first enacted in 1976 -- and to prepare staff for actions they might be expected to undertake should Congress reform TSCA. As of its last update in 2014, the work plan program identified some 94 chemicals that it considered a priority for risk assessment.
Chemical Evaluations
The new TSCA, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, requires that industry-requested chemical evaluations make up 25 to 50 percent of the number of EPA's selected chemical evaluations underway, assuming that the agency receives that number of industry requests. For industry requests of chemical evaluations identified on the work plan list, TSCA requires that the chemical manufacturers cover 50 percent of the cost of the evaluations. Companies are to pay all costs of evaluations they request that are not on the work plan list.
EPA in the “Initial Report to Congress on the EPA’s Capacity to Implement Certain Provisions of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,” indicates that it anticipates as many as 12 industry-requested evaluations per year.
The agency adds, however, that it could also receive requests for chemical evaluations through citizens' petitions allowed under Section 21. The report states that estimates for any such requests are not included in its estimates “as the number, nature and complexity of these petitions are unknown. However, it should be noted, the agency does expect to receive petitions under the new law which may result in additional risk evaluations.”
The report does not include cost estimates for EPA's development of risk management rules, for those evaluations that result in a finding that the chemical may present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.
The report reminds Congress that the new statute section 26(b) authorizes EPA to set industry fees to cover the costs of operating the program generally, to total 25 percent of EPA's implementing costs, up to a total of $25 million. After three years, the fees and cap are adjusted based on inflation to remain 25 percent of EPA's costs.
EPA did not publish its proposed rule on industry fees to support the program before President Barack Obama left office, a deadline which had been a wish of former EPA toxics chief Jim Jones.
Written comments on the issue and discussions at stakeholder meetings that EPA held last summer and fall indicate a series of thorny issues that EPA must address. That rule's proposal, however, did not have a statutory deadline, unlike other rules EPA proposed in December, outlining its chemical evaluation approach, and how it will prioritize among the tens of thousands of industrial chemicals for assessing as part of the program.
Staffing Needs
The report does not provide estimates on staffing numbers anticipated to do the work, but it does indicate the agency has been bringing more staff on board. Whether and how this will continue in the face of the federal hiring freeze that President Donald Trump put in place is not addressed.
Agency sources have noted that if the toxics office is not allowed to staff up the new TSCA program, it will hamper the agency's ability to implement the program and meet the strict deadlines set in the statute.
Chemical industry trade associations like the American Chemistry Council and Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) have indicated in recent interviews and a letter that implementation of the new TSCA is a top priority for their members in 2017. CSPA in a recent letter urges Trump to provide “adequate EPA resources for implementation.”
CSPA President and CEO Steve Caldeira tells Inside EPA that while the letter does not address staffing specifically, “How this [hiring] freeze will potentially impact these efforts is something we will discuss with the new Administration as soon as we possibly can.”
The report says, “The new law calls for a more comprehensive review of each chemical and its uses, accelerates the EPA’s pace in undertaking assessments, mandates completion time frames and requires immediate commencement of work to develop section 6 rules where risks are identified. The substantially increased requirements and tight deadlines under the new law require increased staffing levels and contractor resources dedicated to conducting and publishing risk evaluations and promulgating rules based on the risk evaluations.
“The agency has developed much of the needed experience to address these requirements and has begun bringing on the additional staff and contractor support needed,” the report continues. “The agency is considering and expanding options to reduce the long lead times to bring on the highly skilled staff and specialized contractors needed for these scientifically demanding, technically complex tasks.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-predicts-37-million-each-chemical-review-under-revised-tsca
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Trump's Early Regulatory Actions Raise Questions Over Impacts For TSCA
Feb 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
President Donald Trump's early regulatory actions -- including an executive order (EO) on identifying two rules to withdraw for every new rule -- are raising questions over the implications for EPA's implementation of the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), including how it might affect the stringency of implementation.
The TSCA reform law that took effect in June imposes mandatory deadlines for issuing rules and policies under several provisions of the law. Observers previously suggested that the prescriptive nature of the law could mean relatively smooth implementation, as environmentalists could sue over any missed regulatory deadlines.
Some observers also previously said that the chemical industry could make a case for easing implementation by forcing EPA to write the implementing rules in such a way that satisfies companies' concerns about early steps the Obama EPA took on TSCA -- though this might prompt opposition from environmentalists.
But in light of the early regulatory actions taken by the Trump administration, one industry source says they could see potential implications for TSCA, in particular from the "zero-based cost budgeting component" of the EO, saying it could have impacts on the ultimate shape of final rules and how aggressive the agency might be in determining how to restrict chemicals under section 6 risk management actions for existing substances.
The order, signed by Trump on Jan. 30, says that, "Unless prohibited by law, whenever an executive department or [agency] publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed."
Along with the "one in, two out" mandate, the EO also creates a the "zero-based cost" budget that limits the total new compliance costs agencies can impose through regulation each year, with a 2017 limit of $0. That means new EPA rules found to increase costs would have to be balanced by eliminating existing rules with equal or greater compliance burdens.
TSCA Implementation
The source says that EO has potential implications for EPA's implementation of various TSCA provisions. "Part of the process will be how EPA assesses and manages risk," under section 6, which details the agency's authority for regulating existing chemicals.
The source notes that EPA may, as a result of the EO, be likely to structure any section 6(a) rules "even narrower than the current" set of four proposals EPA issued recently under section 6(a) which narrowly focus on specific uses, such as methylene chloride in paint-stripping.
A second industry source says, "this EO is as ill-conceived as all other Trump EO measures have shown themselves to be."
A third industry source, however, says that they do not see major impact of the EO, given that it includes language that the order applies "unless prohibited by law," which observers have said will likely be construed to allow mandatory rulemakings to go forward unimpeded -- either because the White House will interpret it that way, or because courts will hold that an EO cannot set new hurdles for a legally required rule.
Moreover, EPA's nominee to head the agency, Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, was a public supporter of the Senate bill that later formed the basis of the TSCA law.
Statutory Deadlines
Further, to the extent that stakeholders are raising concerns about individual chemical reviews under Trump, that source adds, the majority of those would not be final until the next administration given the timelines built into the review process.
The Obama EPA took several steps to implement the TSCA law, including Jan. 13 issuing proposed rules establish systems under section 6 for prioritizing and reviewing existing chemicals, immediately implementing the new chemicals provisions under section 5, and in December issuing its list of the first 10 high-priority chemicals it will review under section 6.
But finalizing those rules will be left up to the new administration, with the final risk review and prioritization rules and the scope of the first 10 chemical reviews all due by mid-June, 2017.
Additionally, EPA must finalize its TSCA section 8 proposal to require industry reporting of chemicals manufactured or processed in the previous 10 years, finalize its science advisory committee on chemicals, issue a final determination on whether to revise its "small business" definition for TSCA reporting rules, and other actions.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trumps-early-regulatory-actions-raise-questions-over-impacts-tsca
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N.Y. Gets Good News From Drinking Water Tests
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
Businesses cheered early tests results from New York that suggest perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) contamination in drinking water may not be pervasive statewide, but environmental groups said further testing is necessary to protect the public.
“PFOA and PFOS may not be as pervasive as people thought it would be,” Darren Suarez, director of government affairs for the Business Council of New York State, told Bloomberg BNA. “The state should continue its sampling.”
The tests found that PFOA and PFOS were either not detected at all or detected at concentrations below the 20 parts-per-trillion level set by Environmental Protection Agency's Unregulated Contaminant Rule, the state announced Jan. 31. The state took 88 samples from 38 regulated drinking water systems in 13 counties.
Despite those initial findings, Liz Moran, water and natural resources associate at Environmental Advocates of New York, said the results “can give New Yorkers the dangerously false impression that there is nothing to worry about, anywhere.”
“The state's survey appears to have been limited to just a couple dozen communities and relied on possible polluters to self-report the contamination they may have caused,” she told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail.
The state did find PFOA levels of 135 parts per trillion and PFOS levels of 22.6 parts per trillion at a well at the Sullivan County International Airport, about midway between New York City and Albany. The well, which was used for maintenance purposes only, has been discontinued, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Additional Sampling Planned
The sampling program is a response to the discovery over the past year of PFOA or PFOS in four areas of the state. New York has sent surveys to 2,500 companies, fire departments and Department of Defense sites to determine the extent of contamination.
In a statement, Basil Seggos, the state environmental conservation commissioner, said “we will continue our proactive actions and aggressive investigation of potential sites of perfluorinated chemical contamination to hold polluters accountable for their actions.”
The key findings of the state's tests include:
• 17 of the 38 systems tested had no detectable levels of PFOA or PFOS;
• the highest level of PFOA was detected at 13.5 parts per trillion in a system in Dutchess County; and
• the highest level of PFOS was detected at a level of 20.5 parts per trillion in a system in Rockland County.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105066996&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105066996&jd=105066996
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EPA To Consider Perchlorate Risks From Degradation Of Hypochlorite Bleach
Feb 3, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Tom Neltner, J.D., is Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Ph.D., Consultant
Virtually all types of food contain measurable amounts of perchlorate. Young children are the most highly exposed, and they consume levels that may be unsafe. Reducing exposure to perchlorate is of public health importance because it presents a risk to children’s brain development
One potentially significant source of the toxic chemical in food is hypochlorite bleach that, when not well managed, degrades to perchlorate. Bleach is used to sanitize food manufacturing equipment or to wash or peel fruits and vegetables. Thanks to a recent decision by Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs, we will better understand the risk posed by perchlorate-contaminated bleach and whether standards are needed to improve the management of bleach.
Reduce perchlorate exposure by improving bleach management
In 2011, an excellent report by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and the Water Research Foundation documented that hypochlorite bleach degrades into perchlorate. The report also included guidelines on better management of hypochlorite to preserve its effectiveness for drinking water utilities using it to disinfect water.
Most of AWWA’s recommendations are equally relevant to food manufacturers and anyone using bleach to disinfect food contact surfaces. The key recommendations are:Dilute hypochlorite solutions on delivery. Cutting the concentration in half decreases the degradation rate by a factor of 7.Store hypochlorite solutions at lower temperatures. Reducing temperature by 5oC decreases degradation rate by a factor of 2.Keep pH between 11 and 13 even after dilution.Avoid extended storage times, and use fresh hypochlorite solutions when possible.
The objective is not to reduce the use of bleach. Rather it is to preserve its effectiveness by preventing degradation to perchlorate through careful management.
Bleach: a food additive and a pesticide
Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EPA regulate uses of bleach. When hypochlorite bleach is used to wash or peel fruits and vegetables, it is a food additive regulated solely by FDA. When it is used to sanitize (e.g., water, surfaces or equipment in contact with food), it is a pesticide that must be registered with EPA. Calcium and sodium hypochlorite are both FDA-approved food additives and EPA-registered pesticides. Unlike food additives, the safety of pesticides used in food must be reassessed periodically through what is called registration review. EPA’s review must consider exposures from all uses.
In 2013, EPA was completing a periodic reregistration review of sodium and calcium hypochlorite bleaches when the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) asked EPA’s Office of Pesticide Program to consider the degradation of the products into perchlorate – something that the agency had not considered previously. In 2016, EDF and NRDC reminded EPA of the request. On January 19, 2017, EPA expressed an intention to “take an in-depth look at the requests in your letter, including whether any action is appropriate under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), and to consider, among other things, possible labeling language to optimize storage of hypochlorite products in order to minimize perchlorate and chlorate formation during storage.”
With perchlorate in food increasing to levels that may cause irreversible harm to brain development in young children, EPA’s review is a welcome opportunity to reduce exposure. But the process will likely take years to complete. In the meantime, food manufacturers using hypochlorite bleach should take action now using the available common sense recommendations to preserve the effectiveness of the bleach and prevent its degradation into perchlorate.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/02/03/perchlorate-risks-from-bleach/
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate Blocks Energy Transparency Rule; GOP Eyes More Resolutions
Feb 3, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Jack Fitzpatrick
The Senate voted Friday to block a Securities and Exchange Commission requirement that energy companies disclose payments to foreign governments, as conservatives expand their efforts to rescind last-minute Obama administration regulations.
The measure passed 52-47, along party lines, in a 6:30 a.m. vote, with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) not voting. It blocks an SEC rule that required companies that extract natural resources to file public reports detailing payments to foreign governments.
The Senate resolution does not, however, change the section of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that calls on the SEC to create such a rule, meaning the SEC could still draft another rule imposing similar requirements. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that starts to roll back Dodd-Frank on Friday, though the text of the executive order was still not available as of 3 p.m.
The resolution’s sponsors, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), argued the SEC rule put American companies at a disadvantage by forcing them to release information that their foreign competitors did not have to disclose.
The resolution’s passage comes amid a push for more energy-related resolutions to block Obama-era regulations under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely-utilized law that allows Congress to block executive actions within 60 working days after they’re passed. Because the resolutions must be signed into law, Trump’s victory in the November election gives Republicans a narrow window in which they can block late regulations by the Obama administration.
Republican lawmakers seem to have grown more comfortable using the Congressional Review Act since they first realized they could use it after the election, said Christopher Guith, senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Lawmakers have quickly become more familiar with which regulations can be rolled back using the law, Guith said in an interview. They have also been less reluctant to block Obama’s regulations after Democrats slowed the Senate’s progress in approving Trump administration Cabinet picks, and some of the usual “niceties” have been thrown out, he said.
“The comfort level has matured within Congress,” Guith said. “It grows more by the day, especially looking at the Senate and how things have gone off the rails on nominations.”
Republicans initially pointed to two energy-related rules as prime targets: a rule aiming to protect streams from pollution related to coal mining, and a rule limiting venting and flaring of methane from natural gas systems. The House and Senate have already moved to block the stream-protection rule, and the House has passed the resolution to rescind the venting and flaring rule.
Republicans have also introduced resolutions to block an Environmental Protection Agency rule that requires companies handling potentially dangerous chemicals to update a risk-management plan every five years. And a second such resolution would repeal the Bureau of Land Management’s update to how it integrates environmental protections into land-management decisions.
The American Chemistry Council urged Congress to repeal the EPA’s chemical rule, saying in a statement the requirement to publicly post information “would allow sensitive information to fall into the wrong hands and endanger chemical facilities and communities across America.”
Some conservative groups have pushed for even more aggressive use of the Congressional Review Act to roll back the Obama administration’s rulemaking. Fifty-five conservative organizations, led by Americans for Prosperity, signed a letter to lawmakers on Tuesday calling the law “a powerful way for Congress to reassert its lawmaking authority” after “the regulatory avalanche of the last eight years.”
https://morningconsult.com/2017/02/03/senate-votes-block-energy-transparency-rule-gop-eyes-resolutions/
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Waiting For Clean Power Plan Action? Don't Hold Your Breath
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess and Emily Holden
Reality may be sinking in on Capitol Hill and around Washington that action to thwart the Clean Power Plan could take longer than opponents hoped.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told E&E News last week that U.S. EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt is enthusiastic to ax the rule, but it may take some time (E&E Daily, Feb. 3).
Other GOP senators said the White House needs time to gets its Cabinet and deputy administrators in place and working.
A spokesman for EPA explained last week that the agency isn't waiting for executive action on the rule to come any day (Climatewire, Feb. 2). On Friday, he reiterated that any plan or time frame is "up to the White House."
Challengers of the regulation had hoped President Trump would take swift action against the rule by issuing an executive order. Any order would be mostly symbolic because in order to rescind the rule, EPA must present its reasoning and start a whole new regulatory process.
"You can't just do that quickly and with the stroke of a pen," said Mark Muro, a senior fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. The process would likely take several years, Muro predicted.
Muro cautioned against reading the lack of executive action as a change in the Trump administration's orientation toward the rule.
"No action thus far doesn't mean that there's any softening in the approach," Muro said last week.
The House Science panel meets tomorrow for a hearing on "Making EPA Great Again" (E&E Daily, Feb. 6)
On Wednesday:
· The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee convenes for a hearing on infrastructure modernization.
· The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation panel hears from inspectors general on recommendations for improving agencies.
· The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative holds a rescheduled webinar on its program review.
Starting Sunday, state electric regulators descend on Washington for their winter meetings. A discussion of what could replace the Clean Power Plan is on the agenda.
In case you missed it:
· Democrats boycotted a committee vote sending Pruitt's nomination to the Senate floor, arguing he hadn't adequately responded to their questions (Greenwire, Feb. 2).
· Will EPA "repeal and replace" the Clean Power Plan, or just repeal it? (Climatewire, Feb. 1).
· Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy explained why killing the rule won't be easy (E&E News PM, Feb. 1).
· Former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson was sworn in as America's top diplomat (Climatewire, Feb. 2).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060049575
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Congress Moves to Rescind Two Obama-Era Energy Regulations
Feb 3, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder and Dave Michaels
WASHINGTON—Legislation to eliminate two energy-related regulations is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk, paving the way for the first successful use since 2001 of a rarely employed law that allows Congress to kill agency regulations.
One measure repeals a Securities and Exchange Commission rule, completed in June, which requires energy companies to report payments to foreign governments for the right to develop oil, natural gas and mineral assets.
The other measure repeals an Interior Department rule, finished in December, which requires tougher standards for coal mining near streams.
Both regulations were approved in the final months of former President Barack Obama’s administration. After House action earlier this week, the Senate, largely along party lines, voted to kill one rule on Thursday and the other on Friday morning.
They now go to Mr. Trump, who has promised a broad rollback of federal regulations that he and his GOP allies say place undue burdens on business.
To eliminate the Obama regulations, Congress acted under a law, called the Congressional Review Act, that lets lawmakers overturn recent agency rules. The law has been used successfully just once—in 2001—since Congress passed it in 1996.
Republicans are looking at a broad set of other regulations for elimination under the law, many of which focus on energy and the environment. The law limits the amount of time Congress has to act, so House Republicans have said they are now looking at rules approved by the Obama administration since June.
Other regulations some are working to repeal include an Interior Department rule cutting emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, from oil and natural gas wells on federal lands, and a regulation banning certain Social Security disability recipients with mental illnesses from obtaining firearms.
The law’s historically low success rate is due to the fact that the House, Senate and White House are rarely controlled by the same political party, the most likely conditions for reaching agreement to kill a prior administration’s rules. Mr. Obama vetoed some rule-killing measures sent to him by a Republican-led Congress.
The SEC rule, first issued in late 2010, spawned a four-year legal battle after the American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., sued to block it. Among other arguments, opponents said the regulation was unfair because it only compelled U.S.-listed companies to report payments to foreign governments, while overseas energy companies could keep payments hidden.
Republicans have been sympathetic to those arguments, even though many firms already comply with similar disclosure requirements in Europe and Canada. GOP lawmakers also argued the information didn’t belong in corporate filings overseen by the SEC, which requires public companies to share material information with shareholders. The SEC generally defines material information as something that would probably influence investors’ decisions to buy or sell a stock.
Supporters of the regulation championed it as an anticorruption initiative that would shine a light on the wealth generated by other countries’ natural resources.
Former Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Bill Gates was among those who backed the measure, writing once to the SEC that it was “in the most secretive jurisdictions that corruption, poverty, and instability flourish and the risk to investors is greatest.”
The Interior Department rule on coal mining, meanwhile, has become a talking point in the Republicans’ repeated claim that Mr. Obama had waged a war on the coal industry. It set tougher standards for water quality and requires companies to restore streams more comprehensively after mining activities. It most acutely affects coal-producing states in Appalachia, such as Kentucky and West Virginia, making it a personal target of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.).
—Bradley Olson and Sarah Kent contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
A Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would have required energy companies to report payments to foreign governments for the right to develop oil, gas and mineral assets was first issued in December 2010. An earlier version of this story in one instance incorrectly said 2011. (Feb. 3, 2017)https://www.wsj.com/articles/congress-moves-to-rescind-rule-requiring-big-oil-to-reveal-foreign-government-payments-1486145824
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Trump Transition Team Didn't Count On Congress
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Robin Bravender
President Trump's transition team for U.S. EPA didn't plan for big energy and environmental legislation over the next four years.
Myron Ebell, the former head of the Trump EPA transition team, said Saturday that he expects the president to come through on the energy promises he made on the campaign trail, citing the flurry of actions Trump has taken so far.
But Ebell suggested Trump's environmental policies will be set largely by executive action due to gridlock on Capitol Hill, even now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress.
"We didn't spend a lot of time looking at how the administration could approach Congress and ask for legislation," Ebell said of his work on the EPA team.
"If you want to have inaction in recent years, particularly on energy and enviro policy, you go to Congress, because they have proven that everything is frozen up there, you can't move legislation, you can't get it enacted. So we didn't spend a lot of time proposing new legislation," added Ebell, who spoke at an event in Washington hosted by the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Ebell, who's director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, stressed that he wasn't speaking for the Trump administration. He declined to offer specifics about that team's blueprint for EPA but spoke broadly about how he expects Trump to tackle energy policy.
He noted that Congress has been reluctant in recent years to legislate broadly when it comes to climate and energy policy. He pointed to the last major energy bill passing back in 2007.
For clues about where Trump is going on energy policy, look to his speeches as a candidate, Ebell said.
"He made a long list of promises," Ebell said. "I think the initial two weeks of the Trump administration signal that he's intent on keeping as many promises as quickly as he can."
Ebell said the work of the transition team he led was designed as a blueprint to helping Trump follow through on those commitments.
"Our plan was, how do you get these things done very quickly? ... It seems to me the first things to achieve the Trump promises during the campaign are mostly to undo things that have been done in the past, and primarily by the Obama administration," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/06/stories/1060049568
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Williams's $3 Billion Atlantic Sunrise Gas Project Gets U.S. Nod
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan N. Crawford and Catherine Traywick
Williams Cos. won U.S. approval to build its $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline expansion in the Northeast, ending a review that ran almost two years and forced delays in the project.
The 200-mile (322-kilometer) pipeline will expand shipments from shale formations by enough to serve 7 million homes, according to Williams. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved it just hours before the scheduled resignation of commissioner Norman Bay, whose departure will leave the agency without the quorum needed for major decisions.
The decision spares Williams further delays after already waiting for more than 670 days for clearance. Last year, the stocks of both Williams and a would-be shipper on the project, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., plunged on speculation that the expansion would face more regulatory setbacks. The time it takes to approve such pipelines has jumped to 429 days from 359 days just in the past three years as environmental opposition grows, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Williams said in a statement Feb. 3 that it was pleased the agency had approved “this much-needed energy infrastructure project.” The company said it plans to start construction on the main portion of the project in mid-2017, establishing a path for more gas to flow to markets along the Eastern Seaboard in time for the 2017-2018 winter heating season.
Construction on another part of the project known as the Central Penn Line is scheduled to begin in the third quarter, allowing Williams to bring the entire capacity of the expansion into service in mid-2018.
Pipeline Overhaul
Williams is among the U.S. pipeline developers proposing massive expansions of America's gas pipeline system to accommodate supplies flowing out of the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in the eastern U.S. Production there has outpaced the capacity to deliver the fuel to markets.
If the review of Atlantic Sunrise had dragged on after Bay's departure, Williams would have faced months of delays, according to David Wochner, a partner at the Washington-based law firm K&L Gates. It could take as long as 60 days for President Donald Trump's administration to fill the vacancy on the energy commission and restore a quorum, he said.
Cabot and Seneca Resources Corp. are among the largest gas producers with contracts for space on Atlantic Sunrise.
—With assistance from Tim Loh.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105067006&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105067006&jd=105067006
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Dakota Access Likely to Get Built, But It's Still Unclear When
Feb 3, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Based on a supportive memo from the Trump administration last month, the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is expected to receive an easement from the U.S. Corps of Engineers (USACE) needed to complete the $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile oil transportation project.
How and when that will happen is less certain.
Here is what is known: North Dakota's congressional delegation thinks it is a done deal and has said so publicly, but the USACE as of Wednesday had not taken any definite action to grant the easement.
In the meantime, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other on-site protesters have not given up their demand that the nearly completed project be stopped, and U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) indicated Tuesday that more federal law enforcement personnel are needed in south-central North Dakota, where the protesters' encampment is still active, albeit with a smaller total number of "water protectors," as they describe themselves.
It has been estimated that state and local law enforcement agencies have spent more than $22 million to monitor the protests over the last four months.
An estimated 595 protesters had been arrested as of Wednesday, according to supporters of DAPL, the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN). Some 94% of the protesters arrested were from other states.
On Wednesday, protesters in San Francisco went to the downtown headquarters of Wells Fargo Bank, delivering a petition with 500,000 signatures of people opposed to the project and demanding the bank pull back its financing for the oil pipeline. The protesters said they were part of a "global movement" opposed to new fossil fuel projects.
A spokesperson for the Standing Rock Sioux said the protesters are not reassured by the USACE's recent clarification that it hasn't issued an easement yet. "Speeding up the review of this toxic pipeline is not possible -- and the Trump administration has so far taken no steps to engage or consult indigenous people or tribes on this project despite his aggressive directives to force this project through," the spokesperson said.
Legal analysts have pointed out that Trump's action on DAPL and Keystone XL, two entirely separate projects, carefully used presidential "memoranda," as opposed to "executive orders." That is supposedly because different federal agencies have authority over the two projects, according to Scott Marrs, a regional managing director in the Akerman law firm's Texas offices.
The Acting Secretary of the Army articulated the presidential memo's intent in directing the assistant secretary for Army Civil Works "to take all actions necessary and appropriate to fully and unequivocally comply with the specific directives" in the Trump memorandum. Subsequently, USACE clarified that the assistant secretary ultimately will decide on the easement "once a full review and analysis is completed."
Presumably, decision-makers would want to plan their actions to avoid a repeat of the Waco, TX debacle in 1993 when 76 people died in a siege, gun battle and fire that resulted when federal and state law enforcement and the U.S. military forcibly shut down a religious community, the Branch Davidians.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109304-dakota-access-likely-to-get-built-but-its-still-unclear-when
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Transport Week Ahead: NTSB Weighs Cause of Oil Train Wreck
Feb 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Hendrie
The National Transportation Safety Board will meet Feb. 7 to determine the probable cause of a fiery train derailment in December 2013 that spilled 476,000 gallons of burning crude oil near Casselton, N.D.
The accident forced the evacuation of more than 1,400 residents, the board said. The oil train operated by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s BNSF Railway Co. collided with a rail car that had derailed from another BNSF train. The accident was one of several high-profile accidents in recent years involving trains hauling crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region, including one that exploded earlier in 2013, killing 47 people in Quebec.
The board will convene at 9:30 a.m. at NTSB headquarters in Washington to consider the accident. The hearing will be webcast.
Also scheduled during the Feb. 6 week are two Senate hearings dealing with transportation matters.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee—which has jurisdiction over highway construction, public works, bridges and dams—will hold an oversight hearing on “Modernizing our Nation's Infrastructure” on Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. Witnesses have not been announced.
And the Transportation Department's inspector general is scheduled to testify before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee also at 10 a.m. on Feb. 8 on recommendations for improving the operations of federal agencies. The inspectors general of other agencies within the panel's jurisdiction will also testify.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105067001&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105067001&jd=105067001
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Bills Aim To Beef Up Oil Transportation Safety
Feb 5, 2017 | AP (In The Daily Mail)
SEATTLE (AP) — With more crude oil expected to move through Washington state, Democratic lawmakers want to toughen rules around oil transportation and raise more money for spill prevention and response efforts.
Companion bills in the House and Senate aim to reduce the risk of oil spills with provisions that target oil carried by vessels, pipelines and trains. Supporters say the legislation is needed to address the growing risks of oil shipped through state waters.
In November, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, which will increase from five to 34 the monthly number of oil tankers and barges plying the shared waters of Washington state and Canada.
The pipeline will carry oil from Alberta to the Vancouver area where it will be loaded on to barges and tankers for Asian and U.S. markets. Indigenous leaders and environmentalists object to the project over environmental, health and other risks.
"We're really trying to stay on top of the changing landscape of oil transportation," said Rep. Jessyn Farrell, D-Seattle, sponsor of House Bill 1611, which is scheduled to be heard Monday in the environment committee. The companion Senate Bill 5462 is sponsored by Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle.
Both measures would require the Department of Ecology to write rules that may require tug escorts and other safety measures for certain vessels such as barges and articulated tug barges through the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound.
Tug escorts are currently required for oil tank ships that transit parts of northern Puget Sound. But vessels such as barges and articulated tug and barges — ships where the tug and barge are combined — aren't subject to those requirements.
The use of tug escorts for oil-carrying vessels such as articulated tug and barges was identified as the top priority during a recent Salish Sea spills risk workshop hosted by Ecology.
Cliff Webster with The American Waterways Operators testified against SB 5462 at a hearing Thursday. The state has one of the best oil spill prevention and response programs in the country and there has not been a major cargo spill in waters for years, he said.
But "it only takes one incident to deal a major blow to Puget Sound," said Rebecca Ponzio with the Washington Environmental Council. She said it's a critical year to act, because of the Trans Mountain project and the federal government has lifted a 40-year ban on crude exports, opening the way for oil to be exported through the state's refineries.
Under the bills, oil refineries proposing to handle crude oil for export update their spill response and prevention plans. Railroads would have to show they have the ability to pay for cleanup and damage caused in the event of a major oil spill — something vessels and pipelines are required to do.
Johan Hellman with BNSF Railway told lawmakers the provision was redundant, unnecessary and conflicts with federal government rules governing railroads. He said the state law passed in 2015 required railroads to submit financial reports to state regulators to demonstrate fiscal solvency. Supporters say it's needed to ensure that railroads can pay the costs of a major spill.
The state currently levies two taxes for a total of 5 cents on every barrel of oil received by train or vessels to pay for spill response and prevention measures. The bills would extend that tax to pipelines. It would also eliminate a cap on the 4-cent tax that currently takes effect when the account balance hits a certain amount.
Jessica Spiegel, a spokeswoman with the Western States Petroleum Association, said state figures show that only 3 percent of spills are related to the petroleum industry, such as pipelines, trains or fuel barges.
"We believe it's time to identify the sources of actual spills and place a share of the funding burden on those who are causing the problems," she said.
Separately, another bill sponsored by Farrell and requested by Ecology, seeks to raise the oil spill administration tax from by 2.5 cents a barrel, from 4 cents to 6.5 cents. Ecology says it is facing a $4 million shortfall in the next biennium because it only received a one-time transfer of money for work related to the oil transportation law passed in 2015.
"We've been successful in the state because we've taken a proactive approach," Farrell said. "We can't rest on our laurels."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-4193934/Bills-aim-beef-oil-transportation-safety.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Republicans Say They Want To Make The Agency Great Again
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will be back on familiar turf tomorrow as it takes another look at how U.S. EPA uses science in the process of crafting regulations. But the session will play out in a charged political environment that has changed dramatically since the panel last revisited the subject in June (E&E Daily, June 23, 2016).
The hearing, titled "Making EPA Great Again," is billed as an examination of the agency's process "for evaluating and using science during its regulatory decision making activities," according to a committee summary. While a spokeswoman for Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said that no bill introduction is planned, critics suspect that he will use the hearing to lay the groundwork for reviving the "Secret Science Reform Act," a piece of legislation that could get a lift in the Trump administration (Climatewire, Feb. 1).
As introduced in the past, the measure would require EPA to base new regulations on "transparent or reproducible" science, with the underlying research data posted online.
"EPA has long been on a path of regulatory overreach, and the committee will use the tools necessary to put EPA back on track," Smith said in a news release last week putting the legislation atop the committee's to-do list in the 115th Congress.
Detractors, however, view the measure as a Trojan horse aimed at undercutting EPA's ability to issue needed regulations, both by opening the door to more legal challenges and because large-scale scientific studies may be difficult to reproduce.
The bill would "undermine" EPA's ability to protect public health and potentially expose the government to "substantial litigation costs," the Obama administration said two years ago in threatening to veto H.R. 1030, the version of the bill introduced in the 114th Congress.
After passing the House, the measure died in the Senate. A similar fate befell H.R. 1029 the "EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act," introduced by Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and co-sponsored by Smith, that would have revamped membership requirements for a key agency advisory panel.
Of the four witnesses scheduled to appear tomorrow, at least two have questioned whether factors besides science shape agency decisionmaking. Jeff Holmstead, a former EPA air chief in the George W. Bush administration, has charged that the agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards seemed geared more toward shutting down coal-fired power plants than regulating them effectively. Richard Belzer, a consultant, argued that EPA advisory committees "are susceptible to politicizing science," according to his prepared testimony for a House Science subcommittee hearing in 2011.
Other witnesses include a senior official with the American Chemistry Council, who could discuss science's role in implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act changes signed into law by President Obama last summer, and Rush Holt, a former Democratic congressman from New Jersey who now heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Holt, who is testifying at the request of committee Democrats, will also be ready to address questions about "protecting science and scientific integrity" in the Trump administration, according to Kristin Kopshever, a spokeswoman for committee ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas).
The new administration's attitude toward climate science has been a particular concern after transition team officials last month sought the names of any Energy Department employees who had attended climate-related meetings. The officials backed off once their inquiry became public; Rick Perry, the former Texas governor now poised to lead the agency, later disavowed the effort during a Senate confirmation hearing (Greenwire, Jan. 19).
Schedule:: The hearing will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow, Feb. 7, in 2318 Rayburn.
Witnesses:: Jeff Holmstead, partner, Bracewell LLP; Kimberly White, senior director, chemical products and technology, the American Chemistry Council; Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and Richard Belzer, independent consultant.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/06/stories/1060049567
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(ACC Mentioned) Republicans Are Using Big Tobacco’s Secret Science Playbook To Gut Health Rules
Feb 5, 2017 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
MUCH OF THE COUNTRY has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. But even those keeping their eyes on the EPA may have missed a quieter attack on environmental protections now being launched in Congress.
On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss “The Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”
The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.
The top-billed witness scheduled to provide testimony at the House hearing on Tuesday is a lawyer named Jeffrey Holmstead, who has has worked to block the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury pollution while representing coal companies including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and Southern Company. Meanwhile, Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican chair of the House Science Committee who has been zealously promoting the secret science bill, is also in the pocket of the energy companies. Though he’s also received funding from Koch Industries and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Smith’s biggest contributors are oil and gas companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Also testifying on Tuesday will be Kimberly Smith of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.
This bald industry bid to subvert public health-based regulations that can cut into profit isn’t new. What’s new is that this upside-down environmental attack, in which those who benefit directly from polluting industries are policing the independent scientists who can show the harms of their products, could now succeed. Although the House passed the “secret science” bill in 2014 and 2015, it never made it to the Senate floor. After it passed the House in 2015, Barbara Boxer called the bill “insane,” Bernie Sanders called it “laughable,” and President Obama promised to veto it. This time, it’s not a joke. With a Republican majority in both houses and Trump in the White House, the Secret Science act could easily become law.
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/05/republicans-want-to-make-the-epa-great-again-by-gutting-health-regulations/
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Congress: Lawmakers Back Measures To Kill Obama Environment Rules
Feb 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
The GOP Congress is moving ahead with its pledges to eliminate Obama-era environmental rules using the rarely used expedited procedures provided by the Congressional Review Act (CRA), though so far no EPA rules are among those being targeted.
The Senate Feb. 2 voted 54-45 to approve H.J. Res. 38, a resolution that repeals the Interior Department's (DOI) stream buffer rule, which limits coal mining waste disposal near streams.
Four Democrats -- Sens. Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV) and Clair McCaskill (MO) -- voted with Republicans to approve the measure. Only one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins (ME), voted against the measure though Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), President Trump's nominee for attorney general, did not vote.
The vote sends the disapproval resolution on to the president, who is expected to sign it.
The Senate is also expected to approve next week a separate measure, H.J. Res. 36, that would repeal DOI's rule limiting venting and flaring of methane and other greenhouse gases on federal lands. The disapproval resolution cleared the House on a largely party-line 221-191 vote Feb. 3.
The two resolutions are among five that GOP leaders are advancing early in the 115th Congress to repeal recent Obama-era rules under the CRA. While none of the rules slated for disapproval are EPA measures, Inside EPA's Dave Reynolds reported earlier this week that industry groups are lobbying lawmakers to advance a recently introduced disapproval resolution that would eliminate EPA's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety update.
Enacted during the Clinton administration, the law allows Congress to pass disapproval resolutions on simple majority votes in the House and Senate to reverse discretionary rules promulgated within 60 legislative days of their actions. This is significant because it allows lawmakers to bypass the Senate filibuster.
For the rules to be repealed, the disapproval resolutions must be signed by the president.
The law has only been used successfully once, in 2001, to repeal a workplace safety rule promulgated at the end of the Clinton administration.
But Trump is expected to sign the five disapproval resolutions Republicans are expected to push through in the coming days.
Now the question is whether lawmakers and the president will agree to calls from industry groups to kill additional regulations, such as EPA's RMP rule. As Inside EPA's Dawn Reeves reported, some deregulatory proponents are even urging lawmakers to use the law to target rules promulgated years ago, though a source close to the Trump administration says that is not likely.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/congress-lawmakers-back-measures-kill-obama-environment-rules
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