Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 2/6/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Jheadeaux Johnson: Cherish Facts
Feb 6, 2017 | Daily Camera - Letters to the Editor
By Jheadeaux Johnson
As a young resident and active community member in the Denver metro area, I am concerned about my health and my exposure to chemicals. -
Hundreds of Former EPA Employees Oppose Pruitt
Feb 6, 2017 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
More than 400 former EPA employees today signed a letter to Congress urging senators to vote down the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be the agency’s administrator. -
Former EPA Employees Urge Senate to Oppose Pruitt
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
More than 400 former employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are urging senators to oppose President Trump’s pick to lead the department. -
Former Employees Blast Pruitt in Letter to Senate
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Former U.S. EPA employees are urging senators to vote down Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt's nomination to be agency administrator. -
Senator Presses Pruitt to Focus on PFOA Drinking Water Contamination
Feb 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is pressing the Trump administration's nominee to lead EPA to commit to addressing the perfluorinated chemical (PFC) perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and aid communities impacted by the chemical in their drinking water. -
Perspectives: Championing Chemistry
Feb 6, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Stephen A. Matlin, Goverdhan Mehta, Henning Hopf, Alain Krief, International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development
An editorial in Nature Chemistry in 2010 asked chemists a simple question: “Where are the champions?” The opinion piece highlighted long-held misconceptions and negative perceptions about chemistry and observed that “chemistry lacks the easily articulated grand challenges associated with physics or biology, and it generally gets a rough ride in the mainstream media. -
US FDA to Research Ovarian Cancer, Talc Link
Feb 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun a research study exploring the potential link between ovarian cancer and talc in cosmetics. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Urges Senate to Follow House Lead on BLM Rule Repeal
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Oil and gas industry advocates Friday applauded House passage of a resolution to quash an Obama-era regulation over methane emissions on public lands and urged the Senate to follow suit this week. -
Wasting Energy is Not Conservative: Keep the BLM Wasted Gas Rule
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By David Jenkins
Very soon, the U.S. Senate will decide whether to use a seldom-used mechanism known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to revoke important rules meant to increase industry accountability, protect taxpayers, and reduce harmful air pollution. -
With Glitz and Color, API Launches Push to Soften Oil's Image
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
"This ain't your daddy's oil." The phrase was the centerpiece of the American Petroleum Institute's first-ever, glitzy Super Bowl ad, which reached more than 100 million people last night — half the nation's households — as the New England Patriots took on the Atlanta Falcons in downtown Houston. -
Oil Lobby Targets Consumers in New Campaign
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The oil and natural gas lobby is looking to talk directly to American consumers with a new advertising campaign on the wide-ranging uses for the industry’s products. -
U.S. Republicans Ax Disclosure, Emissions Rules on Energy
Feb 6, 2017 | The New York Times
By Reuters
U.S. Republicans on Friday repealed a securities disclosure rule aimed at curbing corruption at energy and mining companies and voted to ax emissions limits on drilling operations, part of a push to remove Obama-era regulations on extractive industries. -
US Congress Approves Repeal of Oil, Natural Gas Transparency Rule
Feb 6, 2017 | Platts
By Brian Scheid
The US Senate voted early Friday to repeal a federal transparency rule for US-traded oil and natural gas companies, part of an unprecedented congressional bid this week to roll back some of the Obama administration's key energy policy efforts. -
FERC Pushes Through Pipeline Approvals, Awaits New Chair
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
And then there were two. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday issued a flurry of orders, including approval of Transco's Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline project, winding up its ability to act with a three-member quorum on the last day of Chairman Norman Bay's tenure. -
Pipeline Decision Possible This Week
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A decision on whether to grant final federal approval for the Dakota Access pipeline could come by the end of the week. -
More Funding on Deck for Some State Oil and Gas Agencies
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Energy regulators in the biggest oil-producing states are seeing an uneven recovery as the economic pain of the price bust lingers into its third year. -
Alaska Advances LNG Project Against Long Odds
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
In early March, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. plans to act as tour guide for a lineup of potential customers, financiers and investors in the state's proposed multibillion-dollar natural gas export operation, known as the Alaska LNG Project. -
Shh, Scientists Hope Trump Overlooks Major Climate Report
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Erika Bolstad
Its acronym is just obscure enough to be benign, so little-known that even people in the know stumble over the name of the federal program that guides much of the country's climate research. -
IG Warns of Possible Inaccuracies in Ozone Monitoring Data
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Two Southern states failed to follow U.S. EPA guidelines for processing air quality monitoring data, a lapse that could affect attainment designations for the new federal ozone standards, according to a report released today by the agency's inspector general. -
LA Delays Vote on Major Cleanup Plan
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Debra Kahn
Los Angeles air regulators are set to vote next month on a plan to address the region's chronically poor air quality, after postponing a decision last week.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Jheadeaux Johnson: Cherish Facts
Feb 6, 2017 | Daily Camera - Letters to the Editor
By Jheadeaux Johnson
As a young resident and active community member in the Denver metro area, I am concerned about my health and my exposure to chemicals. So I am concerned about recent attacks on the World Health Organization by the American Chemistry Council (which represents Monsanto and Dow).
Last year, the WHO determined that Roundup is a carcinogen, and then Monsanto began undermining the WHO and any other organization that makes an effort to force the company to label its product with a warning label, as they claim that will harm the company's profitability.
The American Chemistry Council claims that there's need to reform the WHO cancer agency in order to provide the "best assessment of the best available science" in order to aid an effective solution. I'm skeptical. The ACC is backtracking any effort for a solution to undermine what has been accepted as fact. The WHO is a renowned organization, and as the ACC is working to essentially discredit it, they are actively placing efforts towards stigmatize research and findings of science that have real implications regardless of its initial source.
As a CU Boulder student, I have learned the importance of cherishing facts and science through the world of academia. Today's political climate is attacking science and refuting evidence that many of these foundations have been built upon, and I cannot accept that.
If you care about the health of our community, present and future, please take action. Write a letter to the ACC and explain to them that we cannot undermine a fact by discrediting the science behind it.
http://www.dailycamera.com/letters/ci_30777161/jheadeaux-johnson-cherish-facts
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Hundreds of Former EPA Employees Oppose Pruitt
Feb 6, 2017 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
More than 400 former EPA employees today signed a letter to Congress urging senators to vote down the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be the agency’s administrator.
The letter says the employees' perspective is "not partisan," and notes that many of the 447 signatories, some of whom date back to EPA’s founding in 1970, served under Republican and Democratic presidents and accept changes in policy.
"However, every EPA Administrator has a fundamental obligation to act in the public’s interest based on current law and the best available science,” they wrote. “Mr. Pruitt’s record raises serious questions about whose interests he has served to date and whether he agrees with the longstanding tenets of U.S. environmental law."
The letter argues that Pruitt, as Oklahoma's attorney general, championed his lawsuits battling EPA regulations but never acted to enforce environmental laws in his own state — a charge Pruitt has previously defended by saying that environmental enforcement in Oklahoma was primarily the responsibility of Department of Environmental Quality. It also criticizes Pruitt's close ties to the oil and gas industry and his "reluctance to accept and act on the strong scientific consensus on climate change."
The letter was organized by the Environmental Integrity Project, which was founded 15 years ago by Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA director of civil enforcement.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Former EPA Employees Urge Senate to Oppose Pruitt
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
More than 400 former employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are urging senators to oppose President Trump’s pick to lead the department.
In a letter to the Senate on Monday, 447 former EPA employees said that Scott Pruitt’s history of suing the agency as Oklahoma’s Attorney General “strongly suggest that he does not share the vision or agree with the underlying principles of our environmental laws.”
The employees also said they are concerned about his views on the federal government’s role in environmental regulation and his opinion of the science behind climate change.
“Different administrators have come to different conclusions about how best to apply the law in view of the science, and many of their decisions have been challenged in court, sometimes successfully, for either going too far or not far enough,” the group wrote in the letter.
“But in the large majority of cases it was evident to us that they put the public’s welfare ahead of private interests. Scott Pruitt has not demonstrated this same commitment.”
Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday cleared Pruitt’s nomination to lead the EPA.
His supporters — a list that includes industry groups and most Republicans — expect Pruitt to use a potential position at the EPA to pull back Obama-era regulations they consider too broad and potentially against the law.
Most Democrats, though, oppose his nomination, and every one of the Democrats on the Environment and Public Works panel boycotted the committee's vote last week.
Senate leadership has yet to scheduled a confirmation vote on Pruitt’s nomination.
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/318081-former-epa-employees-urge-senate-to-oppose-pruitt
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Former Employees Blast Pruitt in Letter to Senate
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Former U.S. EPA employees are urging senators to vote down Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt's nomination to be agency administrator.
In a letter today to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other lawmakers, more than 400 EPA employees raised concerns over Pruitt's qualifications for the job.
"Mr. Pruitt's record and public statements strongly suggest that he does not share the vision or agree with the underlying principles of our environmental laws. Mr. Pruitt has shown no interest in enforcing environmental laws, a critically important function for EPA," said the letter.
Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, worked with EPA alumni to craft the letter and organize outreach to find more signatories.
Schaeffer was a career EPA employee under three presidents and resigned in protest in 2002 over the George W. Bush administration's backing away from power plant environmental enforcement cases.
Schaeffer told E&E News that Pruitt's nomination was "an in-your-face appointment" by President Trump, considering the Oklahoma attorney general's language regarding EPA has been "incendiary."
Pruitt has criticized EPA and has sued the agency numerous times over its regulations, including the Clean Power Plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.
"You don't see in his public statements any respect for EPA's mission, the law and/or science," Schaeffer said. "His shtick is cutting EPA and diminishing its responsibility and rolling back environmental standards."
In response to the letter, John Konkus, a spokesman for Pruitt's confirmation team, said: "I'm certain the letter does not reflect the opinions of all former EPA employees."
He said that, "if confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Pruitt looks forward to working with all 15,000 current EPA employees to better serve the American people."
Some political appointees were among those who signed the letter, including Judith Enck, EPA's former Region 2 administrator.
But most signatories were civil servants who worked through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Schaeffer said the outreach for the letter "was all word of mouth."
"We are getting a lot of 'how can we help?'" Schaeffer said regarding emails from EPA alumni on the incoming Trump administration.
"They see this as something very new and dangerous coming from Pruitt and Trump," Schaeffer said. "There is a lot of concern."
Separately, a group of Chicago-based EPA employees are planning to rally against the nomination and the new administration (see related story).
Democrats boycotted two Senate Environment and Public Works Committee votes on Pruitt last week. In response, Republicans suspended committee rules to approve the pick.
Democrats are delaying several Trump administration nominees, so the timing of a vote on Pruitt is uncertain. He will most likely win confirmation.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049606
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Senator Presses Pruitt to Focus on PFOA Drinking Water Contamination
Feb 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is pressing the Trump administration's nominee to lead EPA to commit to addressing the perfluorinated chemical (PFC) perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and aid communities impacted by the chemical in their drinking water.
In written and oral responses to Gillibrand, nominee Oklahoma Attorney General (AG) Scott Pruitt (R) said if he is confirmed EPA will evaluate PFOA's health effects under both TSCA and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). But he did not provide specifics on how he would do that other than to say that he would work collaboratively with state and local governments on the issue and suggested small communities apply for a newly authorized grant program that could enable them to test water systems for emerging contaminants.
But some outside observers do not see the commitment as providing anything of substance in part because PFOA already has been heavily tested and its health effects are well known. For instance, an independent scientific panel convened in response to litigation over chemical manufacturer DuPont's release of PFOA in West Virginia issued findings several years ago on several adverse health impacts from the chemical, including kidney and testicular cancers.
During Pruitt's Jan. 18 confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, Gillibrand pointed to PFOA that has been found in the drinking water of Hoosick Falls, NY. The chemical was identified through tests commissioned by the residents and village in the absence of a response from government agencies.
Lawmakers previously criticized the state and, to some degree, EPA for their responses to the crisis, which in 2016 ignited heavy pressure on EPA to issue long-awaited, updated final health advisory levels for PFOA. The level EPA set of 70 parts per trillion as a health advisory in drinking water is more stringent than the previous short-term exposure advisory, but is not enforceable as a standard.
"PFOA is an example of a chemical that needs to be tested," Gillibrand told Pruitt during the hearing. "I need you to put it number one on your list to test it, and if it is a carcinogen, that many scientists have said it is, it needs to be banned," she said.
In response, Pruitt referenced TSCA authority, and said that the chemical "needs to be addressed quickly," adding that it should also be addressed under SDWA. In a written response to a similar follow-up question from Gillibrand, he said he would "look to continue evaluating the health effects of PFOA through TSCA and the Safe Drinking Water Act."
PFOA, a persistent, toxic non-stick chemical, was used in a slew of consumer and industrial applications.
But legal experts are skeptical that a ban under TSCA would accomplish anything. Under an agreement with EPA, eight perfluorinated chemical manufacturers agreed to eliminate PFOA from emissions and products by 2015.
One private practice attorney questions, "What is this doing to help her constituents?" The chemical needs to be cleaned up, but "TSCA isn't the cleanup statute," the source adds. Further, the attorney says Pruitt's agreement to "address" the chemical lacks meaning, and says his oral statement is not a commitment to anything as PFOA is already being "addressed" by EPA.
PFOA Releases
An environmental consultant notes in an email response that while PFOA is not listed as a hazardous substance under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA), the agency already has the authority to respond to PFOA releases under CERCLA. The source says that under the cleanup law, EPA has the authority to respond to releases of "hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants," and adds that the agency uses that authority to respond to PFOA sites when needed.
The agency is also using the drinking water advisory for PFOA "to help inform appropriate screening levels and site-specific cleanup levels at CERCLA sites," the source says. Some states, such as New York, also have laws that provide the authority to remediate such sites, the source adds.
Another private practice attorney says in an email response that despite the lack of clarity on the effectiveness of banning the chemical under TSCA, "Gillibrand is doing her job of encouraging regulatory and Congressional focus on PFOA contamination and exposure issues. This is one way of doing that."
An environmentalist says Pruitt's commitment to test PFOA lacks meaning as tests on the chemical have already been done, with findings on its dangers. There is no longer any more debate that it is damaging at low levels, the source says. The source says, "for the time being, we'll take [Pruitt] at his word," but adds that based on Pruitt's record as Oklahoma's AG, "we have no reason to believe he's going to light a fire under" the agency's risk assessment program or SDWA and establish an enforceable drinking water standard.
Both the environmentalist and first private practice attorney say they would like to instead see an approach in which EPA examines a broad range of PFCs. The environmentalist would like to see EPA looking at these as a class of chemicals. And the first attorney says Gillibrand should push for testing the chemicals that companies are using as replacements to long-chain PFCs. These -- which generally contain shorter-chains of carbon in their formula -- should be subject to TSCA scrutiny, the source says.
As part of a host of written questions Democratic senators asked Pruitt following the hearing, Gillibrand also asked the nominee how he would ensure that drinking water sources are monitored for PFOA and a related chemical, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), particularly in communities that number 10,000 or fewer people.
Pruitt in response suggested use of a grant program recently authorized by Congress to assist small and disadvantaged communities in providing safe drinking water. "Testing of unregulated contaminants is eligible for assistance under this authority," he said. "If funding is provided by Congress, I will carry out that program."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/senator-presses-pruitt-focus-pfoa-drinking-water-contamination
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Perspectives: Championing Chemistry
Feb 6, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Stephen A. Matlin, Goverdhan Mehta, Henning Hopf, Alain Krief, International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development
An editorial in Nature Chemistry in 2010 asked chemists a simple question: “Where are the champions?” The opinion piece highlighted long-held misconceptions and negative perceptions about chemistry and observed that “chemistry lacks the easily articulated grand challenges associated with physics or biology, and it generally gets a rough ride in the mainstream media. All the more reason that it needs effective advocates and champions.”
The International Year of Chemistry held the following year does not appear to have achieved the hoped-for change in chemistry’s standing in the public’s eye, to have raised the profile of the subject, or, with a few exceptions, to have inspired champions of chemistry to step forward. Moreover, a Royal Society of Chemistry study in 2015 revealed that chemists’ image of how society views the subject was worse than the reality. These results seem to us indicative of a profession afflicted with low self-esteem rather than one confident to undertake effective advocacy on its own behalf.
Against this backdrop, chemists need to ponder ways to reenergize and refresh their profession in a form that will be suited to meeting oncoming challenges. We should reflect on the question, where are the champions? It is inextricably linked to the equally important question, how do we champion chemistry? And both of those questions raise the further question, what is the nature of the chemistry that should be championed?
It has become evident to us that chemistry must create a fresh idea of its position and purpose and develop around this idea a coherent, collective effort to encourage, promote, and project new messages in the field and outward to society at large. Our intent is to stimulate a debate to address emergent concerns and to suggest a nuanced “agenda for rejuvenation” for the chemistry community and other stakeholders, particularly policy-makers, to consider. The aim of this effort is the promotion and advancement of the discipline to ensure that its creative power and reach are fully harnessed for the well-being of our planet and people.
The canvas of chemistry being unlimited, it fulfills several essential roles: as a science contributing fundamental knowledge of the properties, behaviors, and transformations of atoms and molecules; as an underpinning for adjacent sciences that depend on understanding molecular structures and interactions; and as a source of a vast range of useful products and applications. But this very breadth and diversity of capacities make it hard to encapsulate—for the big picture to emerge and for the human angle to be appreciated.
Our concept and approach, which we call One-World Chemistry, has been put forward as one framework for accomplishing these goals. One-World Chemistry incorporates three basic principles. This first is that in pursuing the chemical sciences, it is essential to develop awareness of how chemical systems interact with many other systems, including the physical, biological, and ecological systems of the planet. It aims to position chemistry as a science pivoted on the human activity-ecosystem interface.
The second principle follows from the first and recognizes that the solutions to many fundamental and applied problems traverse geographic and disciplinary boundaries and mandate cross-disciplinary approaches. The third and overarching principle is that chemistry must at all times be practiced in an ethical manner, taking account of the short- and long-term impacts both of how it is conducted and of the uses, potential uses, and fates of its products and by-products.
These principles have consequences for the teaching and practice of chemistry, which need to adopt systems thinking as a core perspective and reinforce ethical behavior and skills in cross-disciplinary approaches from an early stage.
This framework makes it inevitable that chemistry will seek—and project itself as being concerned with—links to major global concerns, such as finding environmentally benign ways to generate energy, creating new materials while conserving natural resources, devising processes with a minimal carbon footprint, developing new drugs for neglected and emerging diseases, and overcoming challenges of drug resistance. It also presents opportunities for creating and publicizing “grand challenges” that frame chemistry as a positive and proactive contributor to meeting oncoming societal needs instead of just waiting for disasters to make news headlines that present chemistry as the culprit rather than the solution.
Clarity about the position and purpose of chemistry is an essential prerequisite for determining who can be the champions of this inclusive, ethical, and sustainable new world. Our conclusion is that everyone must become champions: individual chemists, academic departments in colleges and universities, chemistry societies, environmental advocacy groups, government agencies, and industry. They must act both individually and collectively through coordinated initiatives.
Within this overall shared responsibility, championing can be given leadership and afforded stronger public appeal and greater impact by encouraging the emergence of role models and skilled advocates. Chemistry lacks well-recognized voices such as those of Craig Venter for genomics research and Stephen Hawking for cosmology. Statesmanlike celebrity chemists can and should contribute significantly by capturing broad attention in the media, galvanizing societal esteem, and igniting young minds to project the dimensions of chemistry in all its diverse roles. Of course, the champions may be important and busy people devoting their time to doing great science. But it is incumbent on them to give attention to and communicate about the field that sustains their creative urges and provides the basis for their visibility and careers.
Such advocacy can be supported and encouraged by everyone associated with the chemistry enterprise. In particular, champions from industry need to be able to overcome challenges in how companies are perceived by a skeptical public. Many people recognize that the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are major drivers of the global economy, but they also know these manufacturers are major consumers of raw materials and sources of pollution that cause environmental damage.
The adoption of green chemistry approaches by sections of the chemical industry has been a step in the right direction—and one that can actually be cost-effective rather than a cost accelerator. Embracing the principles and practice of One-World Chemistry offers industry the opportunity to radically reform its image and operations and to position itself in a new light as the champion for sustainable development and the source of solutions to global challenges.
It is crucially important that chemistry is projected both as an exciting fundamental science and as an ethical science for the benefit of society, one whose central goal is human well-being and the well-being of our planet. All who are associated with the chemistry world—that means all of us—should take up the challenge of championing this view.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i6/Perspectives-Championing-chemistry.html
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US FDA to Research Ovarian Cancer, Talc Link
Feb 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun a research study exploring the potential link between ovarian cancer and talc in cosmetics.
The agency's Office of Color and Cosmetics is also updating its review of epidemiological publications on the use of talcum powder and ovarian cancer, an FDA spokesperson told Chemical Watch.
The lab research is a new project funded by the Office of Women's Health. It seeks to investigate talc's effects on female genital system tissues, which "have not been adequately investigated," according to the research summary.
"This proposed research," it says, "will help to fill some of the existing data gaps in the molecular and genetic events associated with early ovarian oncogenesis, as these are largely unknown.
"Specifically, the association of such oncogenesis, with respect to exposure to [talc], is of particular interest to women's health, and our studies could prove to be useful as possible experimental models for further mechanistic studies in ovarian carcinogenesis."
Results aren't expected for a few years.
The agency action comes amid a surge in class-action lawsuits against personal care products conglomerate Johnson & Johnson. The company has been found liable for punitive damages from ovarian cancer linked to the use of its talc-containing products in three high-profile cases in Missouri. And it faces thousands of additional complaints in several states.
Johnson & Johnson has stood by the safety of its products. It is appealing the three suits, each of which awarded damages between $55m and $72m. The most recent ruling also held supplier Imerys Talc liable.
The verdicts helped catapult Missouri’s City of St Louis court to the top of the American Tort Reform Foundation’s (ATRF) list of 'Judicial Hellholes' this year. The annual report from the industry-backed nonprofit ranks jurisdictions where judges "systematically apply laws and court procedures in an unfair and unbalanced manner, generally to the disadvantage of defendants."
Due to this environment, and as most of the plaintiffs with pending claims are not Missouri residents, Johnson & Johnson and Imerys Talc sought to move the majority of the lawsuits to plaintiffs' home jurisdictions. But last month, the Missouri Supreme Court denied the requests.
The fourth Missouri trial is set to begin today.
Meanwhile, an early July trial date has been set in California to hear the first case in a similar class-action suit involving hundreds of plaintiffs.
And in New Jersey, where two cases against Johnson & Johnson were dismissed last year, plaintiffs' lawyers have argued that the trial judge erred when he excluded expert testimony linking talcum powder and ovarian cancer. The attorneys are appealing the dismissals to the state's Superior Court.
Johnson & Johnson declined to provide a comment on the FDA's new investigations or the status of ongoing appeals in Missouri.
https://chemicalwatch.com/53351/us-fda-to-research-ovarian-cancer-talc-link
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Urges Senate to Follow House Lead on BLM Rule Repeal
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Oil and gas industry advocates Friday applauded House passage of a resolution to quash an Obama-era regulation over methane emissions on public lands and urged the Senate to follow suit this week.
Leaning on authority granted under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), House lawmakers voted 221-191 Friday to scrap a Bureau of Land Management regulation that seeks to limit natural gas flaring, venting and leakage on public and tribal lands (Greenwire, Feb. 3). Other targets for repeal include an Interior Department rule protecting waterways from coal mining pollution and a Securities and Exchange Commission requirement for disclosure of oil and gas industry payouts to governments.
"The United States leads the world in the production and refining of oil and natural gas, as well as in the reduction of carbon emissions," American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a Friday statement. "BLM's rule is technically flawed and redundant, and it could impede the technological innovations that have led to increased domestic use of cleaner-burning natural gas."
BLM's rule would shut in currently producing wells, slash federal revenues and lower affordable energy supplies — all while overstepping the agency's purview, Gerard said.
"Given the broad impacts to U.S. oil and natural gas production on Indian and federal lands, the lack of authority by BLM to regulate air quality and the fact that U.S. producers already are highly incented to capture methane for delivery to American consumers, it is appropriate for the Congress to use the CRA to disapprove this redundant and unnecessary regulation," he said.
API is committed to helping Congress and the Trump administration craft a "smarter, science-based regulatory approach" to energy development, Gerard said, without offering details on what that strategy would look like. Some industry groups have proposed a narrower BLM regulation, although the legality of that option remains unclear, since the CRA prohibits release of "substantially similar" regulations (Energywire, Feb. 1).
Advancements in technology and horizontal drilling have pushed the U.S. oil and gas industry to reduce methane emissions without federal oversight, said Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Energy firms will continue to improve methane capture — if the path is paved for a more comprehensive midstream infrastructure network, he said.
"Companies have every incentive to capture and sell as much of their product as possible to American consumers, rather than letting it escape into the atmosphere," Russell said in a statement. "However, this new BLM rule is aimed more at shutting down production than creating a workable solution for industry. A current lack of infrastructure and gathering lines to collect gas at the wellhead coupled with an extremely slow process to permit pipeline right-of-ways by the BLM make it exceedingly difficult for producers to safely transport their product to market."
The American Chemistry Council, whose membership includes downstream users of natural gas, said revoking the BLM methane rule will help keep one of its critical feedstocks affordable.
"Natural gas production on federal lands is in a downward spiral, falling 35 percent between 2009 and 2014, even as output on state and private lands rose 43 percent," the council wrote in a statement. "The government should take steps to reverse this trend and boost natural gas production on BLM lands. The chemistry industry is using new natural gas resources to expand and invest in the U.S., but federal lands aren't doing their part. We urge swift consideration of the resolution by the Senate."
Enviros ask Senate to block rollback
Using the CRA to dismantle BLM's methane regulation is a short-sighted move that disregards the concerns of residents who live near the flares the rule is designed to extinguish, said Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce (Energywire, Feb. 3).
"Undoing the methane standard will do nothing but benefit House Republicans' dear friends, the fossil fuel industry," she said in a statement. "It's time [Speaker Paul] Ryan and House Republicans did their job and managed our public lands with the public's interest in mind and protect the health of communities that live nearby."
Environmental Defense Action Fund President Elizabeth Thompson asked the Senate to block the methane rule's repeal, an outcome that seems unlikely since CRA measures can pass with the support of a simple majority.
"The bill puts the special interests of the oil and gas industry squarely ahead of the interests of the American people," Thompson said in a statement. "This is not what the citizens of either party voted for last November. The rollback gives companies permission to waste $330 million ... of public assets a year, and generate huge amounts of avoidable pollution that contaminates our air and has a devastating effect on public health. We call on the U.S. Senate to protect the interests of the American people, and not cast a vote for business as usual for the oil and gas industry."
Lawmakers in the upper chamber are expected to vote on the resolution this week.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049553
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Wasting Energy is Not Conservative: Keep the BLM Wasted Gas Rule
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By David Jenkins
Very soon, the U.S. Senate will decide whether to use a seldom-used mechanism known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to revoke important rules meant to increase industry accountability, protect taxpayers, and reduce harmful air pollution.
On the chopping block is the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Methane Waste and Prevent Rule that prevents private energy companies from wasting energy resources that belong to the American people.
The BLM standards require oil and gas companies operating on public lands to reduce the amount of methane – the primary component of natural gas – that is burned, flared, or leaked into the air.
Analyses have shown that negligent drilling practices waste more than $1 million of natural gas every day. In fact, enough American energy is wasted every year to power a city the size of Chicago.
That also translates to more pollution in the air and less royalty revenues for taxpayers. One recent study estimates that rolling back these protections will cost Americans $800 million over the next decade.
Those public tax dollars are split between the federal government and energy-producing states to fund education, roads and bridges, conservation efforts, and other projects.
But without the methane waste rule, those tax dollars will literally go up in smoke.
There is nothing even remotely conservative about waste, which is why the push to overturn this prudent rule is so misguided.
Claims by the oil and gas industry, which its pals in Congress parrot, that the methane rule represents costly, job killing, bureaucratic overreach are ridiculous. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Earlier, Congress pressed the President of the American Petroleum Institute for hard data about job loss associated with BLM’s methane policies – but API delivered nothing.
That is because by requiring companies to adopt affordable technologies to capture lost gas, the industry can actually save up to $188 million each year. The rule is also a boon to the dozens of companies—located across 46 states—that develop technologies in methane mitigation.
Rolling back these sensible standards now would erase all of these economic benefits – and would actually run in direct opposition with the President’s own energy plan, which promises to maximize, not waste, the public’s energy resources.
Genuine conservatives that are not in the pockets of special interests should be appalled. There is simply no excuse for wasting American energy and tax dollars.
This fiscally foolish rollback attempt comes after a conservative Wyoming judge recently denied a motion by industry to block the rule.
In 2014 Colorado became the first state in the nation to adopt rules to cut methane waste and pollution. Three years later, oil and gas production has increased, and leaks have dropped by 75 percent in the state’s most developed oil and gas field. The dire hair-on-fire predictions of the oil and gas lobby have never materialized.
Other conservative, energy-producing states have smartly followed Colorado’s lead and adopted rules to curb methane waste and pollution. Wyoming’s regional strategy for the Upper Green River Basin is one example.
The BLM’s methane rule enjoys overwhelming support among westerners, especially in the states the rule would affect, and benefit, most. An overwhelming 81 percent of westerners believe that the Trump administration should implement and uphold the BLM methane waste rule.
Equally telling, a recent Center for Methane Emissions Solutions survey found that seven out of ten companies believe the benefits of the rule outweigh the cost.
The American conservation ethic is rooted is sound, conservative principles. The responsible stewardship of our natural resources is a core American value that Republicans and Democrats have long agreed are essential to America’s prosperity.
The decision to use the CRA, an archaic legal loophole, to abolish a fiscally responsible, pro energy, pro conservation, and publicly supported rule represents special interest politics at its worse. It is a far cry from promises to drain the swamp, and senators who vote to overturn this rule will show that they reside deep in the muck.
David Jenkins is the president of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, a national nonprofit organization.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/318063-wasting-energy-is-not-conservative-keep-the-blm-wasted
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With Glitz and Color, API Launches Push to Soften Oil's Image
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
"This ain't your daddy's oil."
The phrase was the centerpiece of the American Petroleum Institute's first-ever, glitzy Super Bowl ad, which reached more than 100 million people last night — half the nation's households — as the New England Patriots took on the Atlanta Falcons in downtown Houston.
The 30-second spot, featuring graffiti artists, a ballerina, robots and supermodels using oil-based products, is part of API's "Power Past Impossible" national campaign, aimed at touting the multifaceted uses of oil and gas in everyday life while reducing emissions.
API wouldn't say how much the digital, TV, radio and print campaign is costing, but expect the slogan — and the splashy new visuals — to be around for the next decade.
The oil and gas industry is angling to soften its public perception and further capitalize on expected gains under a Trump White House and Republican Congress. API's "Vote4Energy" campaign was ubiquitous during the elections.
Central to the group's message is an attempt to paint the oil and natural gas industry green by highlighting the nation's drop in greenhouse gas emissions.
"No one would have predicted we'd be at 25-year lows today in carbon emissions as a result of natural gas playing a bigger role in the generation of our electricity in this country," CEO Jack Gerard told reporters on a call today.
The media blitz is occurring alongside API's behind-the-scenes effort to shape Republican plans for a broad tax overhaul, including a "border adjustment fee," while cheering congressional efforts to roll back an Obama-era regulation for methane emissions on public lands.
The ad drew blistering criticism from environmental groups, former aides to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and rogue federal agency accounts on Twitter for attempting to cast fossil fuels as environmentally friendly to younger crowds.
"Fun fact: The oil commercial we just saw? American Petroleum Institute (API) doesn't believe in addressing climate change. #SuperBowl," wrote Jack Miller, a former press assistant for Hillary for America.
From a rogue Twitter account for the Interior Department, someone anonymously wrote, "Hey @AltBLM next time @API_News claims oil co's can't afford env regs, let's remind them of the $5m they spent on a Superbowl commercial."
API appears to have taken a page out of President Trump's playbook and is attempting, as part of its campaign, to reach consumers through a Twitter account, PowerPastImpossible (@powerimpossible). The account has more than 25,000 followers.
"We have an opportunity to have a direct conversation with the American people," Gerard said on the call today, "and that's what this campaign does."
Separately, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the INGAA Foundation have ratcheted up their nationwide campaign, "America’s Energy Link," with the release of infographics, statistics and messaging around the benefits of natural gas and the need for new pipelines.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049600
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Oil Lobby Targets Consumers in New Campaign
Feb 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The oil and natural gas lobby is looking to talk directly to American consumers with a new advertising campaign on the wide-ranging uses for the industry’s products.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) launched its campaign, dubbed Power Past Impossible, with a Super Bowl commercial Sunday that the group estimates reached 110 million people.
API expects the campaign to run for years in multiple different media, and it’s not tied to the new Trump administration or other specific policy or political changes.
Its goal is to show how deeply modern life and major industries are tied to and depend on oil and natural gas.
“Power Past Impossible is the next step in API’s long-running effort to create energy awareness," API president Jack Gerard told reporters Monday.
“The Power Past Impossible campaign features a few of the countless products and technological advances made possible from natural gas and oil, from life-saving medical devices to cosmetics to drug stores, from plastics in our toys to cell phones to 3D printers,” Gerard said.
The ad shown during the Super Bowl featured paint, medical devices, space technology, sports equipment and more, all of which rely on oil or natural gas. API also launched a website as a centerpiece of the new campaign.
The message isn’t new to the oil lobby, but this is the first time that it has been featured so prominently.
The campaign comes as President Trump has already started to unwind major environmental policies that dogged the oil industry over former President Obama’s eight years, like moving toward approving major oil pipelines and an executive order pushing agencies to roll back regulations.
The industry has been very bullish on Trump and expects to find new prominence with him in office and the GOP controlling both chambers of Congress.
Gerard said that although policy and deregulation is not a major focus of the new campaign, it ties in nicely.
“Those regulatory burdens, when they’re unnecessary or duplicative, add costs that make us less competitive,” he said.
“We support appropriate regulation. We believe regulation has a role. What we need to do is fix it so it’s smart, commonsense regulation.”
Gerard repeatedly stressed the importance of speaking directly to consumers on the “awareness” of the role of oil and gas.
“While our previous campaigns focused on policymakers and elected officials, our new campaign opens a broader conversation with all Americans about the reach and magnitude of natural gas and oil, the products that come from them and their contributions to consumers’ everyday lives,” he said.
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/318065-oil-lobby-aims-for-consumers-in-new-campaign
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U.S. Republicans Ax Disclosure, Emissions Rules on Energy
Feb 6, 2017 | The New York Times
By Reuters
U.S. Republicans on Friday repealed a securities disclosure rule aimed at curbing corruption at energy and mining companies and voted to ax emissions limits on drilling operations, part of a push to remove Obama-era regulations on extractive industries.
In a 52-47 vote, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a resolution to eradicate a rule requiring companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp to publicly state taxes and other fees paid to foreign governments like Russia.
The House of Representatives already passed the measure. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it within days. On Thursday, the Senate repealed a rule that would have limited coal companies from dumping waste into streams.
After a number of legal battles, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2016 completed the regulation, which supporters said could help expose questionable financial ties U.S. companies may have with foreign governments.
Senate Democrats raised concerns that Exxon's chief executive during those legal fights was Rex Tillerson, who was recently confirmed as U.S. secretary of state and has worked extensively in Russia.
"It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our secretary of state, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years," Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland said, referring to the oil industry's trade group.
Exxon and other major energy corporations fought for years to block the rule, required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.
Cardin, the senior Democrat on the foreign relations committee, wrote the Dodd-Frank section on the payments to foreign governments with Richard Lugar, a former Republican senator.
Critics of the rule said it duplicated existing regulations, was too costly and burdensome for companies to implement and that it put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage with state-owned companies in other countries that do not have to divulge such information.
The change could give American companies an edge over Canadian and European companies that face some of the toughest transparency rules in the world.
RARELY USED LAW PREVENTS OPPOSITION
Republicans have taken advantage of a seldom-used law known as the Congressional Review Act to overturn recently enacted rules with simple majorities in both chambers, denying senators the opportunity to filibuster and stall a vote.
Democrats said Republicans were using the review act to help companies not the public.
"When it comes to giving public resources to private interests and gutting our nation's health, environmental and financial standards, the Republicans can’t seem to act fast enough," said Representative Raul Grijalva. "Whoever they’re doing this for, it isn't the American public."
The Congressional Review Act also bars agencies from revisiting overturned rules, which could pose a legal conundrum for the SEC, which is required by law to enact a payments regulation.
The Senate will next consider repealing a rule limiting venting and leaking of the powerful greenhouse gas methane by oil and gas drillers on federal and tribal lands, mostly in the U.S. West. The repeal was passed by the Republican-controlled House on Friday.
The Interior Department finalized the methane rule in November. The oil industry has argued that it would add to costs for new and existing wells. Environmentalists have said the rule would protect human health and return more than $800 million in royalties to taxpayers over 10 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/02/05/business/05reuters-usa-congress-regulations.html?_r=0
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US Congress Approves Repeal of Oil, Natural Gas Transparency Rule
Feb 6, 2017 | Platts
By Brian Scheid
The US Senate voted early Friday to repeal a federal transparency rule for US-traded oil and natural gas companies, part of an unprecedented congressional bid this week to roll back some of the Obama administration's key energy policy efforts.
The repeal of the transparency rule and the repeal of a coal mining rule the Senate approved Thursday are expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump as soon as Friday.
In addition, the House of Representatives Friday morning approved a repeal of an Obama administration rule aimed at curbing methane emissions from oil and gas operations with the Senate expected to approved it early next week.
Congress is using the Congressional Review Act to repeal these regulations. The CRA, a 20-year-old law that has been used only one time successfully, allows Congress to review and cancel by majority vote federal regulations brought in within the last 60 days of a previous congressional session.
The transparency rule, which the Senate voted to overturn Friday by a 52-48 vote and the House approved by a 235-187 vote Wednesday, requires all companies traded on US exchanges and involved in the commercial development of oil, gas or minerals to disclose payments made to any government and file annual reports with the agency.
Payments to be disclosed would have included any taxes, royalties, licensing fees, production entitlements, bonuses, dividends and more.
The anti-bribery measure, included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, was opposed by numerous companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, and industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute.
These companies argued that it would put US-exchange traded companies at a competitive disadvantage and would force them to disclose proprietary information.
The rule, which was finalized by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June, was actually the second version after the US District Court for the District of Columbia vacated an earlier rule finalized in 2012.
In a statement Friday, Senator Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who introduced the Senate measure to repeal the rule, said the SEC's transparency rule put US companies "at a disadvantage relative to their international competitors."
"By repealing this harmful rule US companies will save millions of dollars annually and won't have to choose whether to comply with US laws or foreign laws," Inhofe said.
But Jana Morgan, director of Publish What You Pay-US, an anti-corruption coalition, said by agreeing to repeal the rule, Congress and the Trump administration "have gutted an important anti-graft measure that helps keep Americans safer and more informed."
"Today, Congress has given a gift to Big Oil and kleptocratic governments around the world," Morgan said in a statement Friday.
On Thursday, the Senate passed by a 54-45 vote a CRA measure to repeal the Interior Department's Stream Protection Rule, a coal mining regulation. The House passed the measure by a 228-194 vote Wednesday night.
Friday morning the House, by a 221-191 vote, passed the third energy-related CRA measure, this one to overturn Interior's rule aimed at curbing venting, flaring and leaking from oil and gas operations on federal lands. Interior's Bureau of Land Management finalized the rule, known as the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule, on November 15.
The rule was a frequent target of industry and Republican opposition, which had argued that the rule would shut in oil and gas production on federal lands. The rule was the subject of a lawsuit by industry groups and North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana aimed at overturning it.
"Requiring operators to meet yet another set of rules in addition to state permits results in a substantial increases in both time and cost without additional benefit to the public or the environment," North Dakota Representative Kevin Cramer, a Republican, said on the House floor. "It also subjects operators to conflicting rules which may end up causing more emissions."
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/washington/us-congress-approves-repeal-of-oil-natural-gas-26655377
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FERC Pushes Through Pipeline Approvals, Awaits New Chair
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
And then there were two.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday issued a flurry of orders, including approval of Transco's Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline project, winding up its ability to act with a three-member quorum on the last day of Chairman Norman Bay's tenure.
Bay resigned from the commission after President Trump replaced him as chairman with acting Chairwoman Cheryl LaFleur.
With the absence of a quorum, FERC on Friday also issued an order delegating additional authority to agency staff to continue certain agency operations in the absence of a quorum, which comprises three commissioners under FERC rules.
"The Commission anticipates not having a quorum for an indeterminate period, but has a continuing responsibility to carry out its regulatory obligations under the Federal Power Act (FPA), Natural Gas Act (NGA), and Interstate Commerce Act (ICA), among other statutes," the agency said in a statement.
The FERC delegation order is intended to ensure that commission staff has authority to prevent certain rate filings under the NGA and FPA from taking effect by operation of law during the no-quorum period.
The order does not allow FERC staff to issue certificates, issue new policies or propose rulemakings.
FERC staff will be able to act on tariffs, rate filings, waiver requests, extensions of time and uncontested settlements.
Is help coming from Texas?
Normally a five-member commission, FERC now has just two members, LaFleur and Commissioner Colette Honorable. Both are Democrats.
Trump will be able to name three members of his own party.
To lead the commission, Trump may look no further than to Barry Smitherman, a close ally of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Trump's pick to be secretary of Energy, according to several sources. He has met with the president.
Smitherman, 59, has a broad background as both an electricity sector and oil and gas regulator, which means he could hit the ground running at FERC.
Perry appointed Smitherman to the Public Utility Commission of Texas in 2004, and he became the chairman in 2007. Smitherman left the PUCT in 2011 when Perry named him to the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, where he became chairman in 2012 and served into 2015.
On Inauguration Day, Smitherman was in Washington, and that day he resigned his partnership at Vinson & Elkins' Austin, Texas, office to "pursue other career opportunities and interests," according to a statement from the firm.
In December, Smitherman penned an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News touting Perry as the right selection to run the Department of Energy.
Smitherman commended Perry for his support of Texas' competitive electricity market, a buildout of 2,300 miles of transmission to access wind and increased domestic oil and gas production and infrastructure made possible by hydraulic fracturing drilling techniques.
Smitherman heading up FERC would not be a first for a Texas regulator. In 2001, President George W. Bush picked Pat Wood, at the time the chairman of the PUCT, to become chairman at FERC.
Others names that have been circulating for a seat on FERC are Shannon Bañaga, a lobbyist for Tampa, Fla.-based TECO Energy Inc.; Neil Chatterjee, a longtime energy aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Janet Sena, a former electric utility executive; Kenneth Minesinger, a shareholder and co-chairman of Greenberg Traurig LLP's global energy and infrastructure practice; Richard Lehfeldt, an energy lawyer at the firm Crowell & Moring and former counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power; and Bill Marsan, executive vice president and general counsel of American Transmission Co. (E&E News PM, Nov. 28, 2016).
Atlantic Sunrise
Among its Friday orders, FERC gave the go-ahead to the 183-mile Atlantic Sunrise Project, a $3 billion venture by Transco, a subsidiary of Williams Cos.
Originating in Pennsylvania, the pipeline would move Marcellus Shale gas through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Some gas would be diverted to the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal in Maryland for export.
The approval was slammed by environmental groups.
"FERC's decision to rush this dirty and dangerous project through is nothing short of reckless — particularly given the inadequate reviews of this project, leaving substantial outstanding questions about its full impact," said Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign.
The commission's approval contains 56 environmental conditions in the project's final environmental impact statement, which said the pipeline poses "some adverse environmental impacts" but that they could be managed.
FERC also approved National Fuel Gas Co.'s plan for the $455 million Northern Access Project that would bring more gas into markets in New York, New England, the Midwest and Canada.
One day earlier, FERC ruled in favor of Energy Transfer Partners LP's Rover natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to Ontario, a project estimated to cost $4.2 billion.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049578
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Pipeline Decision Possible This Week
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A decision on whether to grant final federal approval for the Dakota Access pipeline could come by the end of the week.
In proceedings today before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, attorneys for the government said a decision could come by Friday. According to Justice Department lawyer Matthew Marinelli, the Army Corps of Engineers has completed a review of its December decision to withhold a final easement and instead complete a new, in-depth environmental study.
The Army Corps' review of that decision is now pending at the Department of the Army, Marinelli said. President Trump ordered the reconsideration two weeks ago (Energywire, Jan. 25), and acting Army Secretary Robert Speer last week sent a memo instructing the Army Corps to "take all actions necessary and appropriate to fully and unequivocally comply with the specific directives."
Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman, representing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the pipeline, asked the district court to order the Army Corps to give the tribe notice before an easement is issued. If the corps grants the easement, the tribe anticipates filing emergency motions in court to try to either block construction or block the line from delivering oil.
Lawyers for Dakota Access LLC noted that it will likely take 60 days after an easement is granted for oil to start flowing through the pipeline and 83 days for the line to fully come into service.
The parties will meet again in court next Monday to discuss the status of the case.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049604
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More Funding on Deck for Some State Oil and Gas Agencies
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Energy regulators in the biggest oil-producing states are seeing an uneven recovery as the economic pain of the price bust lingers into its third year.
Five states — Texas, North Dakota, Alaska, California and Oklahoma — produce about two-thirds of the U.S. daily crude output, according to the Energy Department. That makes their oil and gas agencies important, since they do the bulk of the safety and environmental enforcement in the oil patch.
With the exception of California, the states have been struggling with drops in tax revenue and other economic angst caused by the worldwide crash in oil prices. Oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel in 2014 and dropped below $30 a barrel last year, sending U.S. output falling.
This year, though, the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil, gas and pipeline industries, has a chance to get the money it's been requesting for years to modernize its operations. North Dakota and Alaska are asking their state legislatures to at least keep their budgets flat over the next year. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has asked for about 11 percent more funding, and California's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has seen its budget grow in response to the Aliso Canyon gas leak and other issues in the energy business.
Texas
The state House of Representatives has proposed a roughly 20 percent increase in funding for the Railroad Commission, from $176.4 million in the current two-year budget cycle to $211.4 million in the 2017-2019 cycle, according to the state Legislative Budget Board. The money would come from diverting a tax on natural gas utilities and dedicating it to the commission's operations.
The commission has been squeezed because it relies on fees and other revenue from the oil industry for most of its budget, and those sources have dried up as drilling declined. If it's approved, the new funding will allow the commission to automate some of its permitting and other paperwork and beef up its enforcement staff, something the commission and environmentalists have been asking for (Energywire, Aug. 25, 2016).
"Starving the agency and not allowing them to collect enough fees to do their business is ultimately going to hurt the oil and gas industry," said Cyrus Reed, conservation director at the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
North Dakota
State revenue has fallen by almost a fourth in North Dakota over the last two years. Newly elected Gov. Doug Burgum (R), who has asked for an austere budget in his first term, originally proposed cutting the state Department of Mineral Resources budget from $25 million in the current two-year budget cycle two to $21.8 million in the 2017-2019 biennium (Energywire, Jan. 4).
The state Senate overrode that suggestion, and the department staff is asking legislators to provide it with flat funding for the next two years, Alison Ritter, a department spokeswoman, said in an interview. Crucially, the department would hold on to its current staffing level of about 104 full-time employees, she said.
That would allow the department's field staff to continue inspecting oil and gas wells, and handle new duties that the Legislature has approved, like overseeing pipeline safety, Ritter said.
"We're going to advocate to stay whole," she said.
Alaska
The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission would see its funding rise slightly under Gov. Bill Walker's (I) proposed budget, from $7.7 million to $7.8 million.
That's a sharp contrast to most areas of Alaska's state government, which is confronting what Walker called "the gravest fiscal crisis in state history." Alaska relies on oil taxes for the bulk of its state budget, but its production has been falling, and the drop in prices has led to a string of budget deficits.
Walker has cut unrestricted state spending by $1.7 billion since taking office in 2015, and the state has cut its workforce by 3,000 (Energywire, Jan. 20).
California
The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has seen its budget grow steadily as the state reacted to complaints about its oversight of hydraulic fracturing, underground waste injection and other aspects of oil production. Since last year, DOGGR has been beefing up its regulations on underground gas storage in response to the massive leak at the Aliso Canyon site (Climatewire, June 1, 2016).
The agency's budget grew from $49.2 million in fiscal 2014-15 to $71 million in the current year. Its workforce grew from 148 to 269 during the same years.
For the upcoming fiscal year, DOGGR is asking for an $11 million increase and about 16 additional positions. Some of it is in response to a state law requiring DOGGR to increase its monitoring and cleanup of abandoned wells, a spokesman said in an email. The agency is also asking for extra staff to do more training, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Oklahoma
The Corporation Commission is asking for an 11 percent budget increase to help it cope with the ongoing rash of earthquakes linked to oil and gas activity.
The agency's elected commissioners asked state legislators for $6.4 million in additional funding in fiscal 2018, on top of this year's budget of $56.4 million, The Oklahoman reported. The commission gets about 18 percent of its funding from state taxes; the rest comes from fees on the oil and gas industry.
Oklahoma had record-setting numbers of earthquakes for the last three years, and researchers have linked them to injection wells used to dispose of oil and gas wastewater. After a slow start, the Corporation Commission issued a string of orders limiting waste injection. But it has had to rely on emergency funding from the governor's office to hire the staff it needs for the effort (Energywire, April 1, 2016).
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049560
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Alaska Advances LNG Project Against Long Odds
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
In early March, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. plans to act as tour guide for a lineup of potential customers, financiers and investors in the state's proposed multibillion-dollar natural gas export operation, known as the Alaska LNG Project.
AGDC, a state-owned corporation, anticipates flying the energy executives to Prudhoe Bay, the heart of the state's North Slope oil industry and doorway to the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). The tour would also feature stops on the scenic Kenai Peninsula, where the state hopes to build a gas liquefaction plant and LNG export facility to ship the gas to Asian ports.
However, because of Alaska's multibillion-dollar budget deficit, the invited guests will be asked to pay some of their expenses, with state officials recruiting local contractors to help offset the rest of the costs.
The excursion is part of a state campaign to convince the energy world that Alaska has the technical savvy and workforce needed to build and operate the $45 billion LNG export business, which is billed as one of the largest energy projects in the nation's history.
"We really want to show that we've been in the business for many years and we have the capability of getting this work done," explained Rosetta Alcantra, AGDC's vice president for communications.
AGDC took the lead on the ambitious venture last year when Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Alaska and ConocoPhillips Co. backed away due to low gas prices and a glut of LNG supply on the world market. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I), who has long favored a state-run gas export operation, directed the state corporation to move forward with the project on its own.
At the end of December, AGDC officially took responsibility for completing the technical plans, acquiring the financing and securing the federal regulatory approval to commercialize 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves on Alaska's North Slope.
But the state corporation faces daunting odds in moving the project forward.
Thus far, the state has negotiated only two of the four legal agreements critical to securing full control of the project from its former oil company partners.
In addition, a recent economic analysis written for the Alaska Legislature concluded that the odds are low that the state will successfully finance and build the complex megaproject.
"The state has taken over a difficult project, it has proposed a series of steps that could in theory advance the project, but which are in practice unlikely," the Alaska consulting firm Enalytica said in the report. "[A]nd it has offered little by way of evidence to explain why its proposed path will succeed."
Enalytica described the state's to-do list for completing the project as "at best, far fetched."
Despite those uncertainties, the state of Alaska is stubbornly pushing forward. Walker and other top state officials have been making frequent trips to Japan, Korea and Singapore in hopes of wooing LNG customers and investors. AGDC is also seeking to raise its profile by opening offices in Houston and Tokyo.
Walker is lobbying the Trump administration to support the Alaska LNG Project, which was included last week on a preliminary list of high-priority infrastructure projects being circulated by the states (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
The most practical help for the Alaska LNG venture, however, is coming from BP, a former equity partner in the project. Late last month, the British petroleum company made a yearlong commitment to collaborate with the state in navigating the project's turbulent financial and regulatory waters.
At a recent state Senate hearing, Damian Bilbao, vice president of commercial ventures for BP Alaska, said his company is ready to commit staff and resources to help AGDC clarify "what would it take to deliver a competitive project and how would it be financed. And [how do you] make sure the regulatory stays on track while you answer these questions."
BP's participation has been praised as a ray of sunshine for the troubled state LNG project. "The state really does need some expertise from an international oil company," observed Larry Persily, former head of the Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects.
But Persily, now special assistant to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor's Office, noted that BP will have limited input into the LNG project. "I don't think anyone should take BP offering help as evidence that we'll get to groundbreaking and construction in the next two years," he said.
Economic swings hit project
Alaskans have been waiting for a natural gas pipeline since the 1950s, when the Navy discovered a small field of gas just north of Fairbanks. Workers on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s were told that their next job would be building a separate gasline.
Over the decades, Alaska's governors and the oil companies have worked together on a variety of ventures to commercialize the state's LNG reserves. Each time, however, the plans fell apart and the producers continued to reinject the gas into their wells to boost crude production.
The current Alaska LNG plan has made more progress than any of the previous natural gas proposals. Launched in 2014, the plan was devised by the oil companies as an equity partnership, with the state acquiring a 25 percent interest by taking its taxes and royalty payments in the form of gas.
For the last two years, the Alaska LNG team, led by Exxon Mobil, has been conducting preliminary engineering and environmental field work — known as pre-feed — for construction of a North Slope gas treatment plant, an 800-mile natural gas pipeline, a liquefaction plant and an LNG export terminal along the state's southern shores.
The project would include a 42-inch pipeline that would carry 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Prudhoe Bay and Point Thomson fields on the North Slope. A small percentage of the gas would be routed to Alaska residents through off-take points along the gas line. But most would be exported to Asian markets.
When the oil producers first proposed the massive venture, they estimated the total price tag at $45 billion to $65 billion. By streamlining the plan, the Alaska LNG team has brought the cost closer to $45 billion.
Despite those projected cost savings, however, the economics of the project have changed dramatically since 2015, when the companies and the state signed a joint venture agreement. While the scientists and engineers were doing field work across the Alaska landscape, the price of natural gas was steadily dropping.
As a consequence, the equity partnership project has become "one of the least competitive" LNG projects in the world, according to an August report by the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. The analysts noted, however, that Alaska alone might be able to commercialize its North Slope gas if the state took over the project and adopted alternative ownership and funding plans to further cut costs.
With that report in hand, the three oil producers declined to invest another $2 billion on advanced engineering studies. They advocated slowing down the project until LNG demand and prices look more favorable.
But Alaska Gov. Walker embraced Wood Mackenzie's suggestion that the state go it alone and develop a new financing plan to build the LNG project.
Now the state is pursuing a tolling model, which would require the North Slope producers to pay a fee to transport their gas from Prudhoe Bay to the proposed Cook Inlet export terminal. "That would underpin the financing and move the project forward," Fritz Krusen, AGDC's vice president for the Alaska LNG project, said last month.
The state is also taking a hard look at cutting costs by adopting a third-party financing structure and seeking federal tax exempt status for the project. Thus far, however, those proposals are in the early stages of development.
Alaska plows ahead
Alaska state officials are holding firm to their ultimate goal of shipping natural gas to market within a 2023 to 2025 time frame. By then, they argue, world demand for LNG is likely to outgrow the current oversupply.
To meet that window, AGDC recently set a June 30 target date for submitting its construction and operation application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
AGDC and the oil producers are currently taking legal steps to break up their alliance. The former partners have signed an agreement giving the state access to the volumes of technical data gathered during the last two years of pre-feed studies. That data provided the background for a stack of environmental and engineering reports that were submitted to FERC.
The industry partners also officially notified federal regulators that the state is taking control of the gas export project. For AGDC, that means answering the 420 pages of questions that FERC has raised about those reports.
But the state must still negotiate an agreement with Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips to add the state's name to the LNG export license that the Energy Department granted to the oil companies in 2015.
AGDC also needs to hammer out an option to buy 650 acres of land along the Cook Inlet in Nikiski, real estate that's now owned or optioned by the oil companies. If the LNG project goes forward, that property would likely become the site of the proposed liquefaction plant and marine export terminal.
At the same time, AGDC is shopping for top industry experts to advise state officials on the project's most difficult technical and financial decisions.
AGDC's Krusen said the state hopes to sign a "lump-sum, turnkey contract" with a national contractor that's willing to take on some of the risk for the engineering and development of the $45 billion project, as well as securing federal approval for the venture.
AGDC hasn't been clear on how much that "strategic partnership" is likely to cost. But the workload would be immense, Persily noted.
"They're saying that they need somebody who's going to do it all, do it right, and do it within the next 150 days," he explained. "There's a lot of work to be done."
Even if the state is able to complete its application to FERC, the project's fate ultimately lies in the unpredictable hands of the world natural gas market.
"I don't think we're any closer to the main question, which is: Is this project really economically viable in today's market?" Persily said. "Just because you apply to FERC doesn't make it a project that you should invest in."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049547
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Shh, Scientists Hope Trump Overlooks Major Climate Report
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Erika Bolstad
Its acronym is just obscure enough to be benign, so little-known that even people in the know stumble over the name of the federal program that guides much of the country's climate research.
That's exactly what the U.S. Global Change Research Program appears to want right now, as Congress and the Trump administration go on the prowl for places to cut federal money for climate research.
No one with the program itself will discuss its status. Many former employees also declined to speak on the record about the USGCRP, saying they fear that bringing attention to the agency would threaten its existence and its main work product, the National Climate Assessment.
Their fears aren't without merit. President Trump on his first day in office released policy directives that pledged to eliminate the Obama administration's 2013 Climate Action Plan. The National Climate Assessment released in 2014 was a supporting document for that agenda.
Those who have worked on the most recent National Climate Assessment worry about what they've seen from the Trump administration. They say the impact of the assessment is invaluable. And those who would talk on the record warn that scaling back climate research would be short-sighted.
"We've already seen the Trump administration starting to walk down the path of muzzling scientists, removing peer-reviewed science from agency websites or at least ordering that," said Cathleen Kelly, who in her time in the Obama administration worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and sat on the federal advisory committee that oversees the national assessment process.
"This is a path of propaganda; this is a path of 'alternative facts' or withholding the latest peer-reviewed science from the public," said Kelly, now a senior fellow on the energy and environment team at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
"I think there's a political purpose at play here," she added. "If the American people don't have information about climate change threats, then it removes the sense of urgency around the need to curb change."
The assessments, the first of which was released in 2000, are required by Congress every four years. They convey the current state of climate science. Adaptation was a significant focus in the third and most recent iteration.
The USGCRP program got its start in the late 1980s, when top officials at multiple federal agencies began looking for a way to collaborate on the emerging science of global warming. Congress in 1990 passed a law establishing the Global Change program, and President George H.W. Bush signed it into law.
That year, the president's budget called for spending more than $1 billion on climate research. The White House science adviser at the time, Allan Bromley, said then that global change "may well represent the most significant societal, environmental and economic challenges" facing the United States and the world, a statement that would prove prescient more than 25 years later.
One of its requirements is "to submit to the president and the Congress an assessment regarding the findings of the program and associated uncertainties, the effects of global change, and current and major long-term trends in global change."
The program itself doesn't conduct the research, which one former employee valued at between $6 billion and $7 billion a year. Rather, it relies on 13 separate federal agencies to conduct research, as well as fund its administrative budget.
If science is 'settled,' you don't need funding
The newest version of the National Climate Assessment is underway, set to be released in 2018. In December, the USGCRP released a draft containing much of the science that the next assessment will be based on. Then, days before President Obama left office, it quietly submitted a strategic plan outlining its goals through 2021.
David Reidmiller, who directs the National Climate Assessment, said in a statement shortly after his appointment in October that the program will continue to build its capacity for conducting climate assessments on an ongoing basis, rather than every four years. That will allow new information and insights to be synthesized and communicated as they emerge, he said. Program officials have been doing that already, with interim reports issued on climate change and food security, and on the health impacts of warming, he said.
Documenting change is not enough, though, he said. The goal is to provide a platform where community resilience successes can be shared and adopted by others.
"The agencies of the U.S. government have been working tirelessly over the past few years to produce some really innovative tools and products to help the American public better understand and address the impacts of climate change on the things they care about," Reidmiller said in an October statement announcing his appointment.
Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, also wouldn't answer a question about the future of the next assessment, even though her institution has a major role in its development. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine includes the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, a standing committee that provides advice to the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
So far, the USGCRP doesn't appear to be directly on the chopping block, although that could change when Trump releases his first spending plan this winter. No one in Congress has singled it out specifically, although Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) warned that it was at risk last week during a confirmation hearing for Energy secretary nominee Rick Perry, the Republican former Texas governor.
"I do not understand why President Trump appears to be so hostile to these programs," Cantwell said. "The Energy Department's energy efficiency programs and standards are expected to save American consumers and businesses $2 trillion on their utility bills by 2030, while reducing carbon pollution by at least 3 million metric tons. This is not a partisan issue. I worked with the last Bush administration on getting the U.S. and China, the two biggest emitters of pollution, to work together on clean energy solutions."
Many of the people who have worked on it say they take some heart that the USGCRP and the National Climate Assessment are congressionally mandated. The only way to completely gut it would be to starve the research budgets of the agencies that pay for the science.
But that, too, is a worry, said Kei Koizumi, a budget expert who served as senior adviser to the director for the National Science and Technology Council at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
"My primary concern is that the overall investment in climate research by the federal government is likely to decline," Koizumi said.
That concern is not unfounded, said Sterling Burnett, an environmental researcher at the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based organization that holds annual conferences to challenge the idea that people are causing climate change. Heartland also claims that rising levels of carbon dioxide can be economically beneficial.
"My suspicion is it will see a budget reduction. I don't think it will be zeroed out, by any means," Burnett said. "I don't see it as an assault on science. I see it as a shift in where he's going to invest dollars for the U.S."
Researchers who focus on areas like near-term weather forecasts, crop yield or fisheries might fare better, he said.
"To the extent that the global change program focuses on near-term regional science that will impact commerce, that will impact various insurance programs, like flood insurance programs, hurricane insurance programs, to the extent that it's doing that, then I don't think there will be a big shift," he said. "But to the extent it says climate change in 150 years is going to cause a hurricane shift pattern, I think that research is going to be reduced."
Every time the president hears "the science is settled," it means there will be less money for that area of research, he said.
"If I was a Trump appointee, then my response would be, 'Good, good, then you don't need our money anymore because you understand everything,'" Burnett said. "They're going to have to quit saying, 'We know.' And they're going to have to start saying, 'What do we need to know; what do we need to understand?'"
Trump properties at risk
Koizumi and many others say what they fear is far more likely to happen is that the upcoming assessment could be less robust, or that it could be released quietly rather than be promoted. The webpage for the 2014 version, used to support Obama's climate agenda, saw more than 1 million visits from its debut in 2014 through the summer of 2016.
The second National Climate Assessment, released in 2009 under President George W. Bush, was somewhat "skinny," Koizumi said.
The USGCRP appears to be anticipating that possibility.
Last week, the program released an outline of what it will be doing in the coming year. The next National Climate Assessment will for the first time feature chapters on air quality; international effects; and the interplay of impacts across sectors like agriculture, water resources, human health, energy and transportation.
It will also include separate sections on the Northern and Southern Great Plains and a section on the U.S. Caribbean. The assessment will feature a response section that focuses on adaptation and the reduction in risk that can be realized by curtailing carbon emissions.
Local governments in particular rely on regional information in the assessment, Kelly said.
"The risk is if the assessment is dumbed down or weakened or even canceled, it would really undermine smart city and state planning, disaster preparedness, and policymaking for years to come," she said. "Users and decisionmakers just wouldn't have access to that up-to-date, cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science."
Kathy Jacobs, who served in the Obama administration as the assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and oversaw the most recent assessment, said the strength of the National Climate Assessment is not necessarily in the finished product. Its power comes from the process of the submissions and collaborations of 300 authors and more than 1,000 contributors. Their work provided support for nonscientists by taking what she called "geeky" language and translating it into something that "people find accessible and useful."
"Much more important than getting the report done was our whole vision and approach for doing the work," Jacobs said. "It was very powerful to bring voices from all over the country together, and to try to build what we hope was a sustained process. Really, the idea of co-creating knowledge is very powerful."
Susanne Moser, a California-based scientist who worked on the coastal chapter of the last assessment, has studied the policy effects of the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment. The assessment, and the consortium of experts who worked on it, allowed people to create a hub of information that continues to be of use.
Moser, who studies ways of helping people understand the challenges and risks of climate change, has advocated for the next assessment to be as practical and useful as possible to an audience outside the scientific community.
She also urged the assessment's leaders to incorporate the wisdom of regional scientists, not just those in federal agencies. That was a strength of the 2014 assessment, she said. It created networks of scientists who could carry on climate research outside the assessment framework.
"We were hellbent on building a community around us, not just a report that comes out of Washington and that's it," she said. "To share the work on it and engage a lot of people around it, and have them all feel like they're working on this national goal and also something really meaningful for them regionally.
"Then, when you have someone like a Bush or a Trump come into office, that community still stands," she added.
That having been said, Moser won't be working on the assessment this time around. Her role was uncompensated, and as an independent researcher, she said, she can't justify the time spent away from paid research. The time spent on the assessment was the equivalent of about one-third of her income, she said.
Jacobs, now the director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona, said it's her hope that the Trump administration will see the value of the assessment, as well as the process it takes to produce it.
"Honestly, if I were a person with a business or running a corporation, I would absolutely want this information, and I would want it to be of the absolute highest quality," Jacobs said.
Trump and his family, after all, have multiple business interests at stake, from his golf courses in Scotland to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
"He has properties that are likely at risk," she said. "It's in his best interest to be prepared."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049561
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IG Warns of Possible Inaccuracies in Ozone Monitoring Data
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Two Southern states failed to follow U.S. EPA guidelines for processing air quality monitoring data, a lapse that could affect attainment designations for the new federal ozone standards, according to a report released today by the agency's inspector general.
The report found that Georgia and South Carolina were not implementing critical criteria in EPA's quality assurance handbook that establishes three "checks" to ensure the monitoring information is accurate.
While Georgia used all three, its acceptance criteria are less stringent that what EPA recommends, the report said. South Carolina employed just two of the three checks and did not fully follow federal guidelines for either, according to the inspector general.
While the IG specifically looked at quality assurance practices in only those two states, auditors uncovered evidence that problems may be more widespread.
After analyzing ozone monitoring data from around the country from 2012 to 2014, they determined that 26 percent of the hourly data reported in real time differed from what ended up in the Air Quality System that EPA uses to decide whether a particular area meets limits on ozone and other pollutants.
"While not all of the differences are indicative of data adjustment practices, there is a risk that other air-monitoring agencies are improperly adjusting their data before reporting it" to the Air Quality System, the report said.
That could pose problems to EPA's efforts on compliance with the 70-parts-per-billion ozone standard adopted in October 2015.
States submitted their nonattainment recommendations last fall; EPA plans to make the final designations by this October.
While IG auditors are continuing to study the issue, they've also warned EPA of potential pitfalls in using the hourly data to make the attainment designations. As a result, "the agency has started to take actions to assess the risk," the report said.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049607
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LA Delays Vote on Major Cleanup Plan
Feb 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Debra Kahn
Los Angeles air regulators are set to vote next month on a plan to address the region's chronically poor air quality, after postponing a decision last week.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in the 17-million-person Los Angeles Basin, is considering a plan that would subject some of the largest sources of pollution — rail yards, ports and warehouses — to voluntary controls.
The agency's board voted 9-3 on Friday to postpone the vote until next month, due to the unexpected absence of one of the 13 board members, who had to attend a relative's funeral.
The air quality management plan, four years in the making, is aimed at meeting 2023 and 2031 deadlines for reducing ozone under the Clean Air Act, as well as a series of earlier deadlines for reducing particulate matter and ozone stretching back to 1979.
The region suffers from some of the worst smog in the country. Friday's hearing saw hours of testimony from area residents who complained of asthma, cancer and other health problems and criticized the proposed plan for not going far enough to limit emissions.
The plan steers clear of mandatory reductions for rail yards and other transportation hubs because they could be interpreted as limits on mobile sources, which are under the state and federal governments' jurisdiction. The plan also envisions continuing the trading program for nitrogen oxides known as RECLAIM, which environmentalists and residents say has not produced sufficient improvements in air quality. The region must reduce nitrogen oxides 45 percent by 2023 and 55 percent by 2031 to meet federal standards.
"This bad air quality issue is our Standing Rock," local resident Jason Martinez told the board, referring to recent protests against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North and South Dakota. "It's a life and death issue for all of us."
The vote is seen as the first litmus test of the agency under new management, as well as under the Trump administration. The agency's board voted last year to oust its long-serving executive director, replacing him with a former U.S. EPA regional official who served under former President George W. Bush (Greenwire, March 10, 2016). The plan also requires approval by the state Air Resources Board, as well as EPA.
The board has tipped back to an even partisan split since last year, with the removal of Michael Antonovich, a Republican, from his post representing Los Angeles County. There are now six Republicans, six Democrats and one who declines stating a party affiliation.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who replaced Antonovich, cited Trump's pledge to cut regulations as a reason to strengthen local rules.
"We have the largest public health system in the country," she said. Health problems like respiratory disease and cancer "devolve onto the county, really, to take care of, in great part, and could devolve on the county even more if the Affordable Care Act were to be thrown out or the subsidies, at least, go away."
Kuehl proposed a series of amendments that would impose mandatory controls on ports, warehouses and rail yards if they fail to meet their voluntary targets within two years. She said regulating so-called indirect sources was essential.
"Trying simply to do stationary sources ... is like trying to put out a fire with a squirt gun," she said. "It's not enough."
Republican members, as well as industry representatives, pushed back against adjusting the plan at the last minute. "This is an appropriate plan," said board member Shawn Nelson. "It doesn't solve every problem; it's not supposed to."
Environmentalists are hoping members will approve the amendments at their March 3 meeting.
"Whether they've come back towards the center is something I think we'll find out next month," said Bill Magavern, policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/06/stories/1060049601
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