Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 2/9/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Expected to Name Two Veteran Lobbyists to Advise on Energy Issues
Feb 8, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder and James V. Grimaldi
President Donald Trump is likely to tap two veteran lobbyists to advise on energy and environmental issues in the White House, according to multiple people close to the new administration, filling key roles with longtime Washington experts. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Renews EPA Inquiry
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jessica Morrison
Legislation targeting “secret science” at the Environmental Protection Agency could be forthcoming, members of the House of Representatives Science, Space & Technology Committee hinted during a Feb. 7 hearing. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Science Committee holds hearing on “Making EPA Great Again”
Feb 9, 2017 | Ars Technica
By Scott K. Johnson
With a title like "Making EPA Great Again," there should be little surprise that a lot of Tuesday's House Science Committee hearing was focused on criticism of the US Environmental Protection Agency. -
How Will One-In, Two-Out Regulatory Order Actually Work?
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
Federal agencies may not only be able to implement an executive order requiring them to offset the costs of new regulations, but it might not be as bad as everyone thinks, a former British government official told Bloomberg BNA. -
EDF Files Broad FOIA Request To Assess Trump Transition Plans For EPA
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Amanda Palleschi
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking a broad swath of data about the Trump transition team's advice for overhauling EPA, including the transition team's “action plan” which calls for “major changes” in staff levels and organizational structure, as well as policies and regulatory decisions, especially the team's plans to roll back the agency's climate and air programs. -
Transition: Democrats Seek Pruitt Vote Delay, Citing ACLU Records Suit
Feb 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other open records supporters are filing a lawsuit charging that Oklahoma Attorney General (AG) Scott Pruitt (R), President Donald Trump's pick for EPA administrator, violated the state's open records laws -- and Senate Democrats are calling to delay a vote on Pruitt while the suit is pending. -
Group Asks DOJ To Investigate Whether Pruitt Lied In Hearing
Feb 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg
The Environmental Working Group is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether President Trump's nominee to lead U.S. EPA made false or misleading statements during his confirmation hearing. -
US State Legislatures Look To Fill TSCA Gaps
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By David Stegon
At least 21 US states are expected to introduce policies this year to reduce exposures to chemicals of concern in consumer products, with many bills focused on areas the states believe are not adequately covered in TSCA. -
EPA Worker Safety Measures Could Be Model For Future TSCA Risk Rules
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Worker safety measures that EPA is seeking input on as part of its draft Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules to limit certain uses of three chemicals could become a model for use in other TSCA risk rules given the revised toxics law's mandate to consider risks to susceptible subpopulations such as workers, industry sources say. -
(ACC Mentioned) EU Citizens’ Campaign Has Glyphosate In Its Sights
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A coalition of environmental groups Feb. 8 sought to put pressure on European Union decision-makers over the pesticide glyphosate by starting a campaign to collect 1 million signatures objecting to the continued authorization of the substance in the 28-country bloc. -
(ACC Mentioned) New Zealand To Ban Plastic Microbeads In 2018
Feb 8, 2017 | WasteDive
By Cole Rosengren
Personal care products with plastic microbeads will be banned in New Zealand starting on July 1, 2018. This includes items such as deodorants, hair products, skin care products and makeup, as reported by Plastics News. -
Strong Demand Drives Chemical Management Workloads, Says CW Survey
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Global demand for chemical management and control activities shows no sign of abating. REACH, US and Asia regulations, and the UN globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling are all driving the workload of in-house teams and external service providers, according to preliminary results from this year’s Chemical Watch annual Service Providers Guide survey. -
Study: Dramatic Rise in Flame Retardant Levels in Kids and Adults
Feb 8, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Monica Amarelo
Levels of a cancer-causing flame retardant are increasing dramatically in the bodies of American adults and children, according to a new study led by Duke University scientists, in collaboration with researchers at EWG and other universities. -
Commission Must Take Action Against Endocrine Disruptors
Feb 9, 2017 | EurActiv
By EurActiv
Reducing exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals will benefit healthcare systems and economies as a whole, writes Christian Zahn. -
Brexit Transition Period Could Prevent Chemicals ‘Market Freeze’
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
A transitional period is needed from the day the UK leaves the EU in order to prevent a chemicals ‘market freeze’, Elizabeth Shepherd, from law firm Eversheds, says -
Hatch Wants States To Be Primary Regulators Of Fracking
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
Oil- and gas-producing states would become the primary authority for regulating hydraulic fracturing — and could circumvent federal regulations — under a bill authored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) this week. -
Trump's Infrastructure Push 'Could Be Positive' — Pallone
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
President Trump's interest in pushing a major infrastructure bill through Congress could bring House Democrats back to the table on bipartisan energy legislation, a key House Democrat said yesterday. -
Dakota Access Receives Final Approval
Feb 8, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Eric Wolff
The Trump administration today gave its final sign-off to the embattled Dakota Access pipeline, although environmentalists and Native Americans who have spent months protesting the project say they will continue to fight it in court. -
Dakota Access Opposition Still Formidable Despite Final Easement
Feb 8, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Given fresh life on Tuesday, the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) may be in service before mid-year with the capacity to transport more than half of current Bakken Shale oil production in North Dakota, but opposition to the project is still loud and determined to block the 1,200-mile pipeline route from the finish line. -
Senior Republican Statesmen Propose Replacing Obama’s Climate Policies With A Carbon Tax
Feb 8, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
Representatives from a coalition of veteran Republican officials — including five who have either served as treasury secretary or as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers — met Wednesday with White House officials to discuss the idea of imposing a national carbon tax, rather than using federal regulations, to address climate change. -
Prominent Republicans Push Carbon Tax in White House Meeting
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Margaret Talev
A group of prominent Republicans and business leaders, including former Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and James Baker, met with some of President Donald Trump's top advisers at the White House Feb. 8 to push a plan to tax carbon dioxide in exchange for lifting a slew of environmental regulations. -
'Safe To Say' Carbon Levy Won't Make GOP's Tax Reform Agenda
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The efforts by Republican elder statesmen to promote a carbon tax yesterday did little to sway House GOP leadership. -
Good Luck Killing The EPA
Feb 8, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Eric Roston
Dismembering the agency requires changing 45 years worth of laws, warns one Republican who ran it. -
Trump Critics' Suit Over 'Two For One' Rule Order Claims Air Law Violation
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Environmentalists, labor unions and other pro-regulation advocates are suing over President Donald Trump's executive order (EO) that requires agencies to balance each new rule they issue by identifying two existing rules for repeal, saying the mandate violates Clean Air Act requirements for EPA to issue air and climate regulations. -
Air: Industry Coalitions Sue Over EPA Refrigerant Leak Rule
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
Coalitions representing a host of industrial sectors are suing EPA over the agency's recent revisions to emissions rules governing refrigerants, in suits that will likely test the agency's authority to impose tougher emission leak prevention measures for some chemicals because of their global warming properties.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Expected to Name Two Veteran Lobbyists to Advise on Energy Issues
Feb 8, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder and James V. Grimaldi
President Donald Trump is likely to tap two veteran lobbyists to advise on energy and environmental issues in the White House, according to multiple people close to the new administration, filling key roles with longtime Washington experts.
Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist at CGCN Group, is likely to be tapped to cover domestic energy issues, and George David Banks, executive vice president at conservative nonprofit American Council for Capital Formation who was an early supporter of Mr. Trump, is expected to lead global energy and environmental issues.
The appointments, which haven't been officially announced, would mark the first formal positions in Mr. Trump’s White House on energy and environmental issues. A spokeswoman for the White House declined to comment. Requests for comment to Messrs. Catanzaro and Banks weren't returned.
As well-established Washington insiders, Messrs. Catanzaro and Banks offer resumes of the kind Mr. Trump has at times criticized. Both worked for Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) when he chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and they each held senior positions in the George W. Bush administration.
Because Mr. Banks has been active in global discussions on reducing global greenhouse emissions, his appointment could suggest a greater openness by the Trump administration to remaining part of an international climate change accord reached in Paris in 2015.
If they join the White House, Messrs. Catanzaro and Banks would help lead an expansive effort to repeal energy and environmental policies pursued by President Barack Obama over the past eight years. In the first few weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the White House has already started that process by reviving and expediting approvals of two contentious pipelines Mr. Obama rejected, the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.
Both experts had stints at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality and at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Bush administration. Mr. Banks, whose focus in the Bush administration was on global climate change issues and diplomacy, won an award from the Obama administration in 2009 for his work on reducing global emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, potent greenhouse gases.
Mr. Banks would have a pivotal role in helping shape the White House’s decision to stay in, withdraw or attempt to renegotiate the Paris global climate deal, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions world-wide. Mr. Trump, who has said he thinks climate change is hoax, promised on the campaign trail to withdraw from the Paris accord, but he hasn’t commented publicly on the matter in recent weeks.
Mr. Banks lobbied on behalf of the American Council for Capital Formation in 2015-16 on tax, environment, and regulatory issues, congressional disclosure reports show.
In 2010-2011, Mr. Banks worked for C. Boyden Gray, another former top official in the Bush administration, and he was hired by FirstEnergy Corp. to lobby the EPA regarding its energy regulatory agenda and the White House regarding the promotion of nuclear energy, filings state.
In 2009-2010, Mr. Banks lobbied on climate change issues on behalf of Constellation Energy Group and the Nuclear Energy Institute, filings show.
As a registered lobbyist for CGCN Group, Mr. Catanzaro has represented a potpourri of oil-and-gas companies, including Devon Energy Corp., Koch Industries Inc., Halliburton Co., Hess Corp., NextEra Energy Inc. and Noble Energy Inc., according to lobbying disclosure forms.
Mr. Catanzaro also represented industry trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, for which he lobbied the EPA over its greenhouse gas regulations and renewable fuel standard, reports show. His portfolio focused on regulatory reform and increased drilling on public lands, reports show.
For Devon, Mr. Catanzaro lobbied the EPA and Bureau of Land Management on regulations regarding methane emissions from oil and gas production, a report states. For Encana Oil and Gas Inc., he pushed for “oil and gas exploration and extraction” on public lands, according to filings.
The next big items on the Trump administration’s energy and environmental agenda include beginning the process of unraveling EPA regulations cutting carbon emissions and a water rule at that agency, though people close to the administration say action on those issues will probably not come until Mr. Trump’s EPA nominee, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is confirmed. That may not come for a couple of weeks.
Other top posts in the White House on energy and environment issues still to be filled include the chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, a position expected to help coordinate governmentwide efforts to expedite infrastructure project reviews.
Corrections & Amplifications
Michael Catanzaro is a lobbyist at CGCN Group. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the name of his firm in a headline.https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-expected-to-name-fossil-fuel-lobbyist-to-advise-on-energy-issues-1486559510
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(ACC Mentioned) House Renews EPA Inquiry
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jessica Morrison
Legislation targeting “secret science” at the Environmental Protection Agency could be forthcoming, members of the House of Representatives Science, Space & Technology Committee hinted during a Feb. 7 hearing.
The hearing, dubbed “Making EPA Great Again,” focused on the agency’s use of science that is not publicly available in regulatory decision-making. There were no witnesses from EPA or its independent Scientific Advisory Board.
“EPA has proposed some of the most expensive and expansive and ineffective regulations in history,” says Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chair of the committee. “With the transition to a new administration, there is now an opportunity to right the ship at EPA and steer the agency in the right direction.”
In recent years, Smith and other committee members sponsored legislation that environmental advocates say would have stymied EPA’s pollution regulations.
The Secret Science Reform Act (H.R. 1030) would have required EPA to base its regulatory actions on publicly available scientific data. Critics say the action would inhibit the use of peer-reviewed medical studies that commonly protect confidential patient information. The American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry trade association, supported earlier versions of the “secret science” legislation.
A second bill, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act (H.R. 1029), was aimed at changing the way EPA selects external experts. The House approved both bills in 2015, but neither gained traction in the Senate.
Smith’s history of heavy-handed tactics, such as issuing subpoenas to federal science agencies and state attorneys general to investigate purported fraud, have been viewed as chilling by some members of the scientific community. Others question whether the moves are an attack on the scientific process.
“Scientists—whether in industry, academia, or the government—must have confidence that they can conduct their work in an atmosphere free of intimidation or undue influence,” Rush D. Holt Jr., chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former Democratic congressman, said at the hearing.
Some scientists “find it uncomfortable and unattractive to work in fields where they feel they are constantly second-guessed by politicians,” Holt added, saying that policy-makers should not seek to reform the scientific process.
In addition to Holt, witnesses included Jeffrey R. Holmstead, assistant administrator for air and radiation at EPA during the George W. Bush Administration; Kimberly W. White, senior director of chemical products and technology at the American Chemistry Council; and Richard B. Belzer, an independent consultant.
White called for rigorous peer review and increased transparency at EPA as the agency begins to implement the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which was enacted last year.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i7/House-renews-EPA-inquiry.html
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(ACC Mentioned) House Science Committee holds hearing on “Making EPA Great Again”
Feb 9, 2017 | Ars Technica
By Scott K. Johnson
With a title like "Making EPA Great Again," there should be little surprise that a lot of Tuesday's House Science Committee hearing was focused on criticism of the US Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has been a favorite target of the committee's chairman, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). But the EPA ended up sharing the spotlight with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A recent news story combined with Smith's lingering displeasure over a 2015 NOAA climate study meant that it became two hearings for the price of one.NOAA in the crosshairs
In an ongoing saga, Smith accused a group of NOAA climate scientists of fudging data in a 2015 study published in Science on the global temperature record. Smith provided no evidence for this claim other than his own rejection of the observed warming trend affirmed by the study. He then attempted to subpoena the researchers’ e-mails—a move that NOAA has (so far) resisted. Last weekend, a story in the UK Mail on Sundayquoted a former NOAA scientist who criticized the 2015 study, primarily alleging that NOAA data archiving procedures were not followed and the study was rushed—claims the researchers reject.
In addition to a series of tweets promoting the story, the House Science Committee promptly put out a press release repeating accusations that NOAA has manipulated its data—even though the results have been duplicated in a recent study and also with every other major dataset available. In his opening statement for Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. Smith said that NOAA “deceived the American people by falsifying data to justify a partisan agenda,” called on Science to retract the peer-reviewed 2015 study, and promised to continue pressuring NOAA to turn over scientists’ e-mails.
Awkwardly, Smith did not seem aware that the “whistleblower” from the Mail on Sunday article, John Bates, gave an interview to E&E News in which he disavowed those allegations. “The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was," Bates said. (In a later Associated Press story, Bates clarified that he believed there was “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious.”)
That is, while the Mail on Sunday article centered on the idea that the researchers had deliberately fudged data to exaggerate global warming, its primary source (Bates) now claims nothing of the sort. In a news article on the Science website Wednesday, Bates explains that he wouldn’t have a problem with the 2015 study if it had simply noted that it was using research data rather than official “operational” NOAA data for land temperatures.
Rush Holt, a former congressman and the current CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes the journal Science), was invited to testify at the hearing by Democrats on the committee. When Rep. Smith asked Holt if Science would investigate the 2015 study led by NOAA’s Tom Karl, Holt brought up the new E&E News interview, explaining, “There’s nothing in the Karl paper that, at our current analysis, suggests retraction.”
Smith stuck to his guns, saying, “Everything that I have read about what [Bates] has said about the Karl report suggests to me that NOAA cheated and got caught, and they did falsify data to exaggerate global warming.”Remember the EPA?
Two themes related to the EPA dominated much of the rest of the hearing. The first was the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, an independent body meant to review the science underlying agency regulations; the second was the way the agency assesses the health risks of chemicals in order to set pollution standards.
The other witnesses at the hearing included a representative of the American Chemical Council (an industry trade group) and a pair of former federal agency staffers testifying as experts on regulatory process.
Echoing comments made during EPA Administrator appointee Scott Pruitt’s confirmation hearing, there were many complaints that the EPA’s Science Advisory Board lacks “balance.” The board is intended to be composed of relevant experts, but critics argue that it hasn’t been critical enough—accusations aired at the hearing included that the board has been “stacked” and is “an echo chamber.” Remedies suggested at the hearing included adding more board members from industry, as well as from state and local governments. It was also suggested that anyone receiving EPA funding for research be disqualified from serving on the grounds that this constitutes a conflict of interest.
When asked his opinion, Rush Holt responded, “That is a science advisory board—it will not function better by having fewer scientists on it. It is supposed to look at science. But in the name of balance and diversity, there’s an effort to make it, well… less scientific.”
Witnesses and committee members also said the EPA’s process of assessing health risks from chemicals frequently exaggerates those risks, and that cost-benefit analyses of regulations exaggerated the benefits of reducing pollutants.
This all comes back to building support for a bill Rep. Smith has proposed, dubbed the “Secret Science Reform Act.” It would restrict the scientific evidence the EPA would be allowed to consider by requiring the agency to make all the underlying data publicly available. It would also be limited to studies that can be directly replicated.
Opponents of the bill point out that this would prevent the EPA from using any research based on personal medical information, which cannot be released publicly. The replication requirement could also rule out broad swaths of research—how do you replicate a long-term epidemiological study of a cohort of people or a study of the impacts of a one-time event? The requirement treats all research as laboratory experiments that can simply be re-run.
“The Secret Science Act, as it has previously been introduced,” Rush Holt testified, “has been based on a misunderstanding of how science works. The gold standard is to find other approaches to come up with the same conclusions. Rarely can you repeat an experiment in exactly the same way.”
Some committee members are focused on less abstract concerns, however. Congressman Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), for example, used his turn at the microphone to question the link between asthma and air pollution. “I really do think, where we’re trying to go with this committee, to be able to validate the science, to get the politics out of it, is the place we need to be,” he concluded.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/house-science-committee-holds-hearing-on-making-epa-great-again/
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How Will One-In, Two-Out Regulatory Order Actually Work?
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
Federal agencies may not only be able to implement an executive order requiring them to offset the costs of new regulations, but it might not be as bad as everyone thinks, a former British government official told Bloomberg BNA.
“Agencies need to start by thinking about ways in which they can streamline the costs of regulations whilst maintaining protections,” Jitinder Kohli, a director in Deloitte Consulting LLP's public sector practice, said.
Kohli previously was the chief executive of the U.K. Better Regulation Executive, an office established in 2005 to monitor the measurement of regulatory burdens and coordinate their reduction. The stated goal of the office is to ensure the regulation that remains is smarter, better targeted and less costly to business.
Still, this is a brand-new policy in the U.S. and has been established differently than what now exists in the U.K. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office within the White House Office of Management and Budget, issued interim guidance on the order, but questions remain.
What It Does
There are three requirements in the executive order, Kohli said. The first requirement is, for every dollar of regulatory cost an agency brings in, it has to take a dollar of regulatory cost out, he said.
The secondary requirement can be called the “net zero” requirement, Kohli said. This is provision 2(b) in the order for fiscal year 2017, directing that the total incremental cost of new regulations, including repealed regulations, shall be no greater than zero, he said.
There is also a third, separate requirement, which is provision 2(c) in the order, Kohli said. That can be called the “one-in, two-out” requirement, Kohli said. This provision directs that, for any new costs associated with new regulations, they should be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with two prior regulations, he said.
“My read of 2(c) and the OMB guidance is it doesn't require you to get rid of an old regulation, it requires you to find savings in two places,” he said.
The OMB guidance states that, in general, executive departments and agencies may comply with the requirements by issuing two “deregulatory” actions for each new significant regulatory action that imposes costs.
“Any existing regulatory action that imposes costs and the repeal or revision of which will produce verifiable savings may qualify,” the guidance said.
Differences with U.K
Unlike the U.S., the U.K. started with a simple 25 percent reduction target, Kohli said. The U.K. took a subset of regulatory costs and pledged to reduce them by 25 percent over five years, he said.
That policy evolved to cover the overall cost of regulation and a requirement that, for every pound brought in, agencies had to take a pound out, which then turned into two pounds out, and now three pounds, he said.
“The U.S. system—this new regime has two layers in it, and the two layers are complementary, but don't always fit very well together,” Kohli said.
Still a question is what counts in terms of the trigger for the order's requirements, Kohli said. The OMB guidance appears to say the order's requirements are triggered only for “significant” regulations, which are often defined as those with an economic impact of $100 million or more annually.
“The system doesn't appear to apply to smaller regulatory costs,” Kohli said. “That is a difference between the U.S. and the U.K., because in the U.K. it did apply broadly,” he said.
Finding Savings
What the U.K. and other countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands have found is their systems are most effective when they incentivize regulators to look for ways to reduce the costs associated with existing regulations.
Often that streamlining is achieved through administrative changes, like redesigning a form so it's easier to fill in or issuing better guidance to small businesses so it's easier for them to know how to comply, Kohli said.
“Part of your agency culture, you need to constantly look for ways to tidy up the existing stock of regulations and to reduce costs associated with the existing stock of regulations, and you need to do both of those things at the same time,” Kohli said.
There will need to be a new function within agencies to do that, Kohli said. Agencies will need to start coming up with regulatory simplification ideas, banking the costs of those, building credit and then drawing that credit down in order to bring in new regulatory proposals, he said.
Reducing Ongoing Costs
A long-standing complaint by business is the first-year, up-front costs of complying with a regulation, which become minimal over time. Thus, eliminating old regulations often does not produce much in the way of savings.
“There is some truth to that statement,” Kohli said, adding that it's a more complicated calculation than that. There are some costs associated with just understanding what the new requirements are or buying a new piece of equipment, he said.
Then there are ongoing costs associated with the regulation that are normally related to time, or the time spent by employees complying with that regulation and any distorting effect in the way the business operates, Kohli said.
“There's an ongoing cost, which is annualized,” Kohli said. “If you can get rid of a regulation, or if you make a significant change to the way a regulation operates, then in many cases the ongoing costs will reduce significantly,” he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105264414&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105264414&jd=105264414
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EDF Files Broad FOIA Request To Assess Trump Transition Plans For EPA
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Amanda Palleschi
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking a broad swath of data about the Trump transition team's advice for overhauling EPA, including the transition team's “action plan” which calls for “major changes” in staff levels and organizational structure, as well as policies and regulatory decisions, especially the team's plans to roll back the agency's climate and air programs.
The group's Feb. 3 FOIA request to EPA's National Freedom of Information Center underscores environmentalists' concerns over the Trump administration's plans to rollback EPA.
“Multiple media reports suggest that major staffing and organizational changes are under consideration for the Agency. The public’s ability to influence any such changes, including by expressing their views to the Agency or their elected representatives, will be severely diminished once the finalization or execution of those changes has commenced,” the letter says.
EDF also notes that President Donald Trump has signed memoranda about environmental issues since his Jan. 20 inauguration “that have major implications for federal agencies that were issued with very little warning.”
The group's request appears to be broader than similar FOIA requests filed by groups like the Sierra Club, which have sought to preserve the Obama EPA's climate data, rather than marking an assessment of the new administration's plans for overhauling the agency.
An EDF source says the request is intended to "shed as much light as we can" on the administration's decisions for the public.
Specifically, EDF asks for “all records” that relate to “staffing levels of the Agency overall or of divisions, departments, offices, or other organizational units or subunits thereof,” as well as all records that relate to “the organization, leadership, or management of Agency research and policy departments related to climate change or air pollution.”
It also asks for any action plan and/or advisory document, “including any draft or final version thereof, developed by or for the Trump Administration's transition team,” a document whose existence former members of the transition team have confirmed.
EDF, in its FOIA request, suggests it is particularly concerned about media reports suggesting that the administration will seek to significantly cut EPA staff and make other “organizational changes.” For example, Myron Ebell, the former head of the Trump transition at EPA, said he personally favors cutting the agency's staffing levels from 15,000 employees to about 5,000.
His advice, as well as other early steps from the Trump administration, has drawn broad fears from current and former agency personnel that the new regime will work to “maim” the agency and roll back its mandate.
But top career and administration officials have sought to quell such fears, though they did not rule out future cuts on the order that Ebell suggested.
Don Benton, senior White House advisor on Trump's EPA transition team, in a Jan. 30 email to staff, said such reports were not necessarily accurate and said no final decisions have been made.
Climate Programs
EDF also seeks documents related to the transition team's advice for rolling back EPA's climate programs, given President Trump's pledges to eliminate the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan.
Among other things, it raises concerns with media reports suggesting EPA “may rescind, revise, or reassess the [Greenhouse Gas] Endangerment Finding,” the basis for the agency's GHG rules, and may “minimize or disregard” the social cost of carbon, a measure of the benefits of GHG limits, when developing regulations.
They note in their request that, under FOIA, EPA may have made “significant change” to its staffing prior to the standard 20-day deadline for responding to such requests, and that the executive orders were signed within the first six working days of the new administration.
“Depriving the public of responsive records for 20 working days could drastically curtail the public's ability to engaged on environmental matters of great national importance,” they write. They request an expedited process to their request.
Asked whether the group is concerned that transition officials are not subject to FOIA, the EDF source says the agency's FOIA office “will determine what exemptions apply and we will deal with that when it arises."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/edf-files-broad-foia-request-assess-trump-transition-plans-epa
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Transition: Democrats Seek Pruitt Vote Delay, Citing ACLU Records Suit
Feb 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other open records supporters are filing a lawsuit charging that Oklahoma Attorney General (AG) Scott Pruitt (R), President Donald Trump's pick for EPA administrator, violated the state's open records laws -- and Senate Democrats are calling to delay a vote on Pruitt while the suit is pending.
ACLU and the Center for Media and Democracy charge in the Feb. 7 compliant in state court that they filed a series of public records requests with the AG's office starting in January 2015, and that it has not produced any relevant documents.
Senate Democrats are citing the lawsuit as part of their effort to delay a confirmation vote for Pruitt, which could occur on the Senate floor as soon as next week.
In a Feb. 7 release, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) argue that until 3,000 emails that are the subject of the lawsuit are released, “the Senate should not vote on Mr. Pruitt’s nomination.”
The Senate environment committee Feb. 2 advanced Pruitt's nomination on an 11-0 vote after suspending the committee's rules to allow a vote to proceed with only GOP members present. Democratic committee members boycotted the meeting, arguing Pruitt had not adequately answered a series of written questions.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on Attorney General-nominee Jeff Sessions late Feb. 8, and is next set to consider Trump's picks to lead the Treasury and Health and Human Services departments.
Votes have not been scheduled for Pruitt or other energy-related Cabinet posts, and it is not clear whether senators would proceed to those nominations next week, or whether they will have to wait until after Congress' week-long President's Day break.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/transition-democrats-seek-pruitt-vote-delay-citing-aclu-records-suit
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Group Asks DOJ To Investigate Whether Pruitt Lied In Hearing
Feb 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg
The Environmental Working Group is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether President Trump's nominee to lead U.S. EPA made false or misleading statements during his confirmation hearing.
Making a "materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement" during spoken or written testimony to Congress violates U.S. law.
In its letter to DOJ, EWG highlights eight statements Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt (R) made during in-person and written testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the group says are not factual.
Those statements include Pruitt's description of his role in a 2013 agreement with Arkansas regarding phosphorus pollution in the Illinois River.
During the hearing, Pruitt said the deal to study phosphorus in the river was the "first time in history" that Oklahoma phosphorus standards could be enforced in both states.
In fact, that agreement circumvented a deal struck 10 years earlier, delaying the reduction of phosphorus pollution in the river (E&E Daily, Feb. 1).
EWG also notes that Pruitt told lawmakers he "filed briefs in support of the court making a decision" in litigation his predecessor launched against 14 poultry producers dumping chicken waste into the Illinois River.
Court records show that Pruitt did not take any action to prod the judge to resolve the case, which has remained undecided since arguments ended on Feb. 18, 2010 (Climatewire, Jan. 3).
"We urge the Department of Justice to carefully review the testimony and response provided by Mr. Pruitt to the Committee to determine whether he knowingly and willfully made false or misleading statements or representations," EWG President Ken Cook wrote in the letter.
Pruitt spokesman John Konkus did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But he previously called EWG criticism of Pruitt's work on the Illinois River a "desperate attempt to distort AG Pruitt's record."
The letter also suggests that Pruitt's testimony misled senators about statements the attorney general made about EPA's authority to regulate mercury, his familiarity with lead and copper regulations, and whether he initiated environment-related legal actions.
"Scott Pruitt is interviewing for one of the most important positions in the federal government, so it is imperative the full Senate knows whether or not he purposely misled them before they're asked to vote to install him as EPA administrator," Cook said.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/02/08/stories/1060049758
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US State Legislatures Look To Fill TSCA Gaps
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By David Stegon
At least 21 US states are expected to introduce policies this year to reduce exposures to chemicals of concern in consumer products, with many bills focused on areas the states believe are not adequately covered in TSCA.
According to Safer States, a network of environmental health coalitions, at least 15 states will consider bills that address flame retardants in children’s products, furniture, mattresses and electronics. Another 14 are expected to introduce measures on the identification and disclosure of toxic chemicals. This is a subject industry groups also predicted would be further debated this year.
Many in industry had looked to the reform of TSCA to stem the volume of state-level chemicals laws. But Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, told Chemical Watch "we can expect states to continue to lead the way, even as they cooperate with and inform federal processes."
Ms Doll said the expected state legislation will aim to address chemical regulations not covered under TSCA, or parts of TSCA that are not expected to be implemented for several years.
"States are continuing to move the conversation forward," she said. "These bills will create information to better understand the challenges and opportunities that will not come from the feds any time soon."
Safer States expects to see actions designed to:act quickly to regulate substances where the pace of federal evaluation is deemed to be moving too slowly;generate information about where, when, and in what quantity toxic chemicals are used, an area where states such as Washington and Maine have taken the lead in requiring disclosure and creating an inventory of chemicals in children's products; andaddress chemical hazards not covered under the new EPA authority, namely in products regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Ms Doll said she expects to see the introduction of a number of policies around the use of perflourinated compounds in food packaging materials – an area the FDA regulates. She said at least six states are considering such legislation in this year.
Another six states will consider addressing lead in kids' products, packaging, "crumb rubber" (recycled tyre infill), electronics and other products.
The ingredient disclosure debate may end up having the largest impact. Ms Doll said such measures send signals to the market. Consumers will end up demanding these types of disclosures from retailers pressuring companies like Walmart and Target to put increased demands on their supply chain.
Ms Doll also pointed to Unilever, the multinational consumer product manufacturer, which recently announced a new policy to increase ingredient disclosure for fragrances.
"The tide has shifted on toxic chemicals," she said. "It's no longer a question of whether or not to move into the future with safer alternatives; it's a matter of how and where to start."
https://chemicalwatch.com/53470/us-state-legislatures-look-to-fill-tsca-gaps
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EPA Worker Safety Measures Could Be Model For Future TSCA Risk Rules
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Worker safety measures that EPA is seeking input on as part of its draft Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules to limit certain uses of three chemicals could become a model for use in other TSCA risk rules given the revised toxics law's mandate to consider risks to susceptible subpopulations such as workers, industry sources say.
EPA recently released four proposed rules under the revised TSCA section 6(a) to prohibit or restrict trichloroethylene (TCE) for vapor degreasing, aerosol degreasing and spot cleaning in dry cleaning facilities and for two paint-stripping chemicals: methylene chloride (MC) and n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).
The proposed rules mark the first proposed section 6 risk management actions under TSCA that EPA has issued in decades following its failed attempt in 1991 to ban the known carcinogen asbestos, and the first section 6 proposed rules issued under the reform law which took effect in June.
The proposed rules fall under a special provision of the new TSCA law, section 26(l)(4), which says that for those chemicals included in EPA's 2014 TSCA work plan with completed assessments -- as with NMP, TCE and MC -- EPA may publish proposed and final rules under Section 6(a) that are "consistent with the scope of the completed risk assessment for the chemical substance and consistent with other applicable requirements of section 6."
But the law also requires EPA to prioritize and review chemicals for section 6 regulation in a way that ensures a substance does present an unreasonable risk to potentially exposed and susceptible subpopulations.
EPA in the proposed rules is taking steps to protect workers as part of the mandate, despite industry concerns that such approaches may violate section 9(a) of TSCA, which outlines the requirements of the toxics law with respect to other statutes. Section 9 states that if EPA finds unreasonable risk from a substance that is in the purview of another federal agency, EPA should submit to that agency a report that describes the risk and request that the other agency determine if the risk may be prevented or reduced to a sufficient extent by action taken under that law, and if so, to issue an order declaring whether or not the activities present such risk.
"The WP [worker protection] regs are not a real surprise given that workers are potentially exposed and susceptible subpopulations under Lautenberg," one industry source says, referring to the revised TSCA law named for the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
Judah Prero, counsel at Sidley Austin, noted that given that the agency has not developed many section 6(a) rules, "EPA definitely tried to be creative at the outset," and that part of the rulemaking will be discussing the worker safety issues during inter agency review. "Clearly [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)] has jurisdiction" over worker safety standards, but may be able to work collaboratively with the agency on the rules, Prero said, adding that "it's definitely a learning curve for EPA, now that the statute has changed."
Worker Exposure
Former EPA toxics chief Jim Jones told Inside EPA in a late December interview that even in the risk evaluations that EPA conducted under TSCA before the new law passed, the agency was "seeing that workers were often the most highly exposed groups and that's not surprising. I think that will be the case going forward" because "when you're assessing a chemical for risk, workers tend to be most highly exposed subgroup."
On the NMP proposal, EPA is proposing to prohibit the manufacture, including import, processing, and distribution in commerce of NMP for all consumer and commercial paint and coating removal. But EPA is also seeking comment on an alternative plan that would establish a worker protection program for dermal and respiratory protections that would prohibit use of paint and coating removal products that contain greater than 35 percent NMP by weight, although with similar protections for processors.
On MC, EPA is also proposing one regulatory option that would seek to establish an occupational exposure protection program, which would include air monitoring, medical monitoring, and respiratory protection through use of a supplied-air respirator, depending on the methods used for paint and coating removal with methylene chloride and other workplace characteristics, with a performance-based alternative of meeting an air concentration level of 1 part per million (ppm), which a second industry source notes is significantly tighter than OSHA's limit of 25 ppm.
In its Jan. 11 press release accompanying the proposed TCE vapor degreasing rule, EPA says the proposal along with the Dec. 7 TCE proposal for aerosol degreasers and spot removers in dry cleaning will help protect workers and consumers from cancer and other serious health risks that can result from exposure to TCE.
"We don't think EPA has the authority to regulate workplace safety," because of the section 9 language, that source adds, saying that EPA has not taken any of the steps laid out in section 9(a) for addressing risks that fall within other agencies' purview. Industry has also argued that the proposed MC ban which restricts sale in volumes of less than 55-gallon containers also oversteps EPA's TSCA section 9 authority because the Consumer Product Safety Commission would normally be the agency to impose those types of restrictions.
The proposed rules are expected to face industry challenges, and manufacturers are expected to lobby the Trump administration against finalizing the proposals. "Hopefully the proposals won't be adopted," the industry source says, noting that if the rules are finalized absent major changes, a legal challenge would likely follow based on the language in section 9.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-worker-safety-measures-could-be-model-future-tsca-risk-rules
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(ACC Mentioned) EU Citizens’ Campaign Has Glyphosate In Its Sights
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A coalition of environmental groups Feb. 8 sought to put pressure on European Union decision-makers over the pesticide glyphosate by starting a campaign to collect 1 million signatures objecting to the continued authorization of the substance in the 28-country bloc.
Under a mechanism known as the European Citizens’ Initiative, public campaigns on issues over which the EU has decision-making powers can be formally registered by the European Commission, the EU's executive. Collection of a million validated signatures triggers a requirement for the commission to discuss and possibly make a legislative proposal on the subject of the initiative.
The groups behind the glyphosate initiative, including Greenpeace, the Pesticide Action Network Europe, and the Health and Environment Alliance, said that use of glyphosate in the EU should be banned. They are also urging that the commission should propose reforms to the EU system for pesticide approvals and should set a target to reduce pesticide use in the bloc.
The commission agreed to register the glyphosate citizens’ initiative Jan. 10, and said the organizers had one year in which to collect at least 1 million signatures from a minimum of seven EU countries.
Conflicting Carcinogenicity Claims
Glyphosate is the world's most widely-used herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co.'s Roundup weed killer brand. The substance is authorized for use in the EU through the end of 2017.
Reauthorization of glyphosate in the EU after 2017 will depend on an assessment of its classification being done by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
Previous studies have led to conflicting findings over whether glyphosate is carcinogenic. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said in 2015 that it probably was, but the European Food Safety Authority, also in 2015, said it probably wasn't.
The American Chemistry Council launched a campaign last month to encourage lawmakers to “seek reform” of the IARC. The agency's assessments of cancer hazards, particularly on glyphosate, has rankled Monsanto.
ECHA said Feb. 8 that its Risk Assessment Committee would issue by the end of 2017 an “independent scientific opinion on classification of the substance,” but the European Commission would make the final decision on the classification of glyphosate.
Pesticide Reduction Target
Moves to phase out or restrict glyphosate are backed by some European Parliament lawmakers. The parliament's environment committee in March 2016 voted for a moratorium on use of the substance, though this was subsequently overturned in a plenary vote.
Génon K. Jensen, director of the Health and Environment Alliance, said Feb. 8 that “we should not be using any weed killer linked to cancer,” and “governments must step in to ban the most toxic pesticides and reduce the overall amount that is used.”
Franziska Achterberg, EU food policy director of Greenpeace, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 8 that she was confident the million-signature threshold for glyphosate would be reached.
She said the campaign groups’ demand that a target should be set to reduce pesticide use could lead the European Commission to revise the EU Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (2009/128/EC), which contains provisions requiring EU countries to minimize pesticide use and to consider alternative pest control approaches.
Despite the directive, minimization of pesticide use was “not really happening,” meaning “we need something at European level to reduce pesticides gradually,” Achterberg said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105264397&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105264397&jd=105264397
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(ACC Mentioned) New Zealand To Ban Plastic Microbeads In 2018
Feb 8, 2017 | WasteDive
By Cole Rosengren
Dive Brief:
Personal care products with plastic microbeads will be banned in New Zealand starting on July 1, 2018. This includes items such as deodorants, hair products, skin care products and makeup, as reported by Plastics News.
The penalty for any company that sells these products will be a maximum of approximately $73,000 USD.
The policy has been supported by environmental groups, but Greenpeace New Zealand said it doesn't go far enough and also needs to include microplastics that are present in products such as laundry detergent.
Dive Insight:
While New Zealand may be small, the country sees this as a symbolic way to reemphasize its support for reducing marine plastic pollution. Last year, the U.K. announced plans to ban the use of microbeads in many consumer products in 2017, though that may run up against E.U. trade laws. Australia has also considered a similar policy.
President Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act into law in 2016 with broad support from plastic industry groups such as the American Chemistry Council. This preempts any existing state laws and requires manufacturers to stop using microbeads smaller than 5 millimeters in their products by July 2017. The law will take full effect in July 2019.
The environmental effect of these small plastic pieces on marine life is one of the main drivers behind policies to get rid of them. This fits into an oft-cited statistic from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that oceans will contain more plastic than fish (by weight) by 2050. Efforts to ban or regulate other plastic products such as bags, straws or polystyrene foam containers for the same reason have often been met with more resistance.
http://www.wastedive.com/news/new-zealand-to-ban-plastic-microbeads-in-2018/435661/
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Strong Demand Drives Chemical Management Workloads, Says CW Survey
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Average salary increase of 2.3%, bonus levels similar to previous year
Global demand for chemical management and control activities shows no sign of abating. REACH, US and Asia regulations, and the UN globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling are all driving the workload of in-house teams and external service providers, according to preliminary results from this year’s Chemical Watch annual Service Providers Guide survey.
The survey was launched after the US presidential election. Although the new administration is likely to follow a deregulatory agenda, first results indicate respondents believe US TSCA reform will continue to drive demand.
Overall, half of respondents plan to increase the number of staff working on chemical compliance in the next 12 months. And two thirds will do so over the next five years. Similar numbers will increase their use of external service providers over the two time frames.
The survey – for which Chemical Watch is seeking more responses in order to provide a more accurate and granular analysis – is due to close on 12 February. Individuals participating will be entitled to a free copy of the results, a printed copy of the Chemical Watch Service Providers Guide 2017 when it comes out in late spring, and free entry into a draw for a 'golden free ticket' to a Chemical Watch event.
<<<<< Take the 2017 Chemicals Management & Control Survey >>>>>
Some 800 participants, representing all regions of the world, and all industry sectors, have completed the survey. Preliminary findings include:Regulatory drivers and sector trends:
· REACH – and particularly 2018 registration activities – remains the main global driver of chemical regulation (84% cited REACH as a driver for their work);
· within REACH, apart from 2018 registration activities (cited by 69% of respondents), other important areas include managing SVHC obligations (46%) and evaluation of related activities and dossier updates (41%);
· 49% of the sample mention at least one US-based regulation. The US EPA Work Plan on Chemicals tops the list, with 35% of respondents citing it, and 21% cite the California Safer Consumer Products regulation;
· the EU CLP Regulation and regulations using the GHS are also a significant driver of demand, with 40% saying the EU's CLP regulation and 28% selecting GHS at national levels elsewhere; and
· in Asia, China and South Korea remain the focus of activities, with 35% and 26% citing regulations in these countries as main drivers. A further 16% tick Japan and 14% specify regulations from Taiwan.
Careers and salary:
· the average salary increase, at participants' last pay review, is 2.3% (excluding promotions). In Europe, the average is 2.0%, in North America 1.9% and in the rest of world, 4.4%;
· perception of job security is similar to last year with 21% saying their role is more secure than last year. Most say their role is similarly secure, with a small minority (10%) saying it is less secure;
· in an improvement on last year, 38% say the numbers of chemicals management and control professional staff will increase over the next 12 months compared with 6% who say the numbers will decrease; and
· the proportion of respondents who say they are satisfied with their job has stayed stable at 60% this year. Thirty Eight per cent also feel opportunities to progress are good in their current role, up on the 35% in last year's survey. And 61% believe there are good opportunities to progress in the wider market.
The average salary for a chemical management control professional is €46,700, down marginally on the previous year. For those that receive a bonus, the average is 11.8%, similar to the previous year.Service provider usage:
· overall, 67% of participants are satisfied with their experience of service providers, down slightly on last year;
· users are most satisfied with technical knowledge (66%), meeting the brief (63%) and their personal relationship (57%), and least satisfied with the price of the service (30%) and adding value on top of agreed deliverables (39%);
· over half of respondents (54%) say the demand for external services will increase over the next 12 months, while for 50% the use of in-house staff will increase. Only 6% say the demand for in-house staff or external services will decrease; and
· 59% claim they may possibly change suppliers in 2017, a similar level as last year's survey.
Emma Chynoweth, Chemical Watch managing editor, says: "Despite some uncertainty in the world at present, it appears that those working in the field of sound chemicals management see there is a job to be done, and that job needs proper resources and skills. While the upcoming EU REACH deadline is at the forefront of activity, the survey results show just how global chemicals management is becoming, and how activities are spreading down the supply chain."https://chemicalwatch.com/53479/strong-demand-drives-chemical-management-workloads-says-cw-survey
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Study: Dramatic Rise in Flame Retardant Levels in Kids and Adults
Feb 8, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Monica Amarelo
WASHINGTON – Levels of a cancer-causing flame retardant are increasing dramatically in the bodies of American adults and children, according to a new study led by Duke University scientists, in collaboration with researchers at EWG and other universities.
The study, published today in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found that levels of chlorinated Tris, or TDCIPP, in adults rose fifteenfold from 2002 to 2015, and increased in children by a factor of four from 2010 to 2015. The study aggregated data from 14 earlier studies and found that levels of another flame retardant, triphenyl phosphate, or TPHP, also rose in adults.
California state regulators and independent researchers have concluded that adding flame retardants to foam in furniture and other products does very little, if anything, to protect us from fire risks. Given the significant increases of flame retardants’ presence in people’s bodies, more research is urgently needed to determine whether the levels of exposure are linked to adverse health effects.
“Our results suggest that exposure to TDCIPP has increased dramatically over the last decade and highlight a pressing need to understand how exposure might impact human health,” said Kate Hoffman, a professor of environmental science at Duke University and lead author of the study. “This is particularly true for children, whom our past research suggests may have higher levels of exposure than adults.”
Flame retardant chemicals can build up more in children than adults because they breathe in more air and are exposed to more dust particles relative to their body weight. Flame retardants, widely added to foam furniture and cushioning in baby products, can escape and accumulate in household air and in dust on floors where toddlers and babies play. Children frequently put their hands and other items in their mouths, which increases their exposures to chemicals.
In 2003, an EWG study found polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, in mothers’ milk. The study raised concerns about PBDEs’ harm to children, which was instrumental in getting the chemicals taken off the market in 2005. When the chemical industry looked for a substitute to meet flammability standards, manufacturers turned to other chemicals that were already known to be toxic, such as chlorinated Tris.
“We simply can’t keep replacing one toxic chemical with another poorly studied substance,” said Sonya Lunder, EWG senior analyst. “In the 1970s, my mother sent letters to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to get Tris out of kids’ pajamas. But now my kids are exposed to more Tris than I was, because there are no safeguards to keep cancer-causing chemicals off the market.”
It’s an ongoing problem known as regrettable substitution – the replacement of one problem chemical with another than may be just as harmful.
For example, some products are now labeled “BPA-free” to allay concerns about bisphenol A, a plasticizing ingredient that has been found to disrupt hormones. But in many products BPA has been replaced bisphenol S, or BPS, which also disrupts hormones. In addition to being used as a flame retardant, TPHP is also used in nail polish as a replacement for the hormone disrupter dibutyl phthalate.
“The extraordinary increase in this cancer-causing chemical in our bodies should set off alarm bells for government agencies and the private sector,” said Erika Schreder, science director of the nonprofit Toxic-Free Future. “Companies need to move to safer materials, and government agencies can help by restricting the use of toxic flame retardants.”
http://www.ewg.org/release/study-dramatic-rise-flame-retardant-levels-kids-and-adults
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Commission Must Take Action Against Endocrine Disruptors
Feb 9, 2017 | EurActiv
By EurActiv
Reducing exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals will benefit healthcare systems and economies as a whole, writes Christian Zahn.
Christian Zahn is president of the International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM), which represents health mutuals and insurance funds in Europe and worldwide.
On 28 February, the EU Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF) is expected to vote on the Commission’s latest proposed scientific criteria for the identification of these chemicals.
Will those criteria be the right ones?
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are everywhere nowadays. They are probably linked to many diseases whose incidence is rising. That trend can no longer be ignored – it involves reduced fertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, obesity and type 2 diabetes, childhood leukemia.
Worse still, global rates of endocrine-related cancers have dramatically increased over the past decades. While such non-communicable diseases do indeed have both genetic and environmental components, the WHO itself recognises that increases in their rising incidence cannot solely be explained by genetics. Identifying the causative environmental factors is thus key to improving human health.
Reducing exposure to EDCs will have positive effects on public health and will benefit healthcare systems and economies as a whole. European policy must effectively address preventable causes of disease, including the reduction of exposure to endocrine disruptors. Population-wide health systems must be defended from the ever-rising costs of the chronic diseases EDCs can cause.
In June 2016 – three years later than legally required, the European Commission published a proposal for a set of scientific criteria to identify chemicals with endocrine disrupting properties. These criteria are required by, and will be used in, the implementation of the EU laws on Pesticides and Biocides. They will be central to other EU laws covering industrial chemicals (which end up in daily consumer items), personal care products (such as cosmetics), water quality, and others.
Unfortunately, the Commission’s original identification proposal and the subsequent revisions would fail to protect the public properly from chemicals which constitute a threat to human health. By setting an overly rigid and high level of proof required to ban EDCs, with wording that risks abandoning the usual ‘precautionary principle’, it damages the very purpose of the regulations.
On 21 December 2016, the European Commission proposed a major amendment to its criteria that would exempt identification for a whole set of endocrine disruptors. This amendment, said to be the fruit of the pesticide manufacturers’ lobby, luckily encountered opposition in the PAFF Committee and their vote was postponed.
On 28 February, the Commission gets another chance to propose a more appropriate set of criteria.
To control and enable proper prevention of exposure to harmful EDCs, these criteria need to enable the use of all existing evidence to identify EDCs, so that each chemical permitted for use in pesticides is harmless to humans, thereby respecting the precautionary principle. Very few epidemiological studies cover the area. Of the over 1300 chemicals known or suspected to be capable of interfering with endocrine systems, only a small fraction has been properly investigated and the great majority of the chemicals which are currently commercially used have not been tested at all for endocrine disruption effects.
It is therefore time for the Commission to come forward with a set of criteria that is based on sound scientific evidence and which establishes clear categories to enable ranking the substances according to the different weights of evidence.
Given that about 75% of all carcinogens identified so far under the EU legal framework are “presumed” to cause adverse effects, a better protection of public health from EDCs can only be achieved by applying the ‘precautionary principle’ and by including in the definition both those substances ‘known to’ and those ‘presumed to’ cause an adverse effect.
Neither should the application of the ‘precautionary principle’ be affected by trade agreements. Trade incentives should never be prioritised at the expense of public health priorities, nor rule out the EU’s commitment to high standards of healthcare and environmental protection.
Knowing that “zero” exposure is impossible, it is vital to limit hazards by empowering citizens to make healthier choices and to avoid unhealthy ones. It is also the Commission’s role to inform EU citizens and to raise public awareness of the issue. The publication of a series of evidence-based recommendations to populations and more particularly to vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and young children is another measure which would greatly contribute to public health.
The 28 February vote on the identification criteria is a defining opportunity in the process of reducing exposure to EDCs. The Commission must grab this chance to protect European citizens’ health and show that EU legislation is in the service of its people.
http://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/opinion/commission-must-take-action-against-endocrine-disruptors/
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Brexit Transition Period Could Prevent Chemicals ‘Market Freeze’
Feb 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
A transitional period is needed from the day the UK leaves the EU in order to prevent a chemicals ‘market freeze’, Elizabeth Shepherd, from law firm Eversheds, says.
“Unless we have some sort of transitional arrangement that will kick in when we leave the EU, I think there is a very real risk of a market freeze on product supply,” Ms Shepherd says.
And if the UK does not have its own chemicals regulation system in place then, she said, it could find that there is no system that is ready to take national registrations or administer them.
Her perspectives were offered when speaking yesterday as a witness at the first oral evidence session for the House of Commons committee inquiry into the future of the UK's chemical regulations.
She gave the example of a company, which has applied for an authorisation under EU REACH that has not been finalised at the time the UK leaves the EU. “Is that [application then] in limbo? Can that company not supply? And if we’re not ready [...] at the moment we leave the EU, how can UK companies who find their existing REACH registrations invalid supply into the EU?”
She would welcome “some sort of transition arrangement, albeit at a cost”, which would give the UK access to the European institutions, she said.Mutual recognition
Such a transitional arrangement could include ‘mutual recognition’, Ms Shepherd said. This relies on the idea that the regulation applied by trade partners offers a similar protection to one’s own.
But Michael Warhurst, executive director of NGO CHEM Trust, told the committee that this “isn’t going to work” for REACH registration.
Ms Shepherd said she agreed, but that a practical arrangement could be made going forward which means “the status quo is almost preserved – you’re minimising disruption to business [and minimising] cost until the point where we’ve built up our UK REACH.”
A mutual recognition arrangement could be in place for existing REACH registrants from the UK, Ms Shepherd said, such that, on the day the UK leaves, the registrant in the 'new EU' could be treated as a downstream user and not as a new importer, which would have to make a new registration in the EU. This would allow that company to continue to supply its product into Europe.
And the same could apply for an EU manufacturer exporting its product to the UK, she said. Under the agreement, a new registration would not be needed in the UK, which could avoid the double compliance cost and the worry about market freeze when the UK leaves.
Dr Apolline Roger, from the University of Sheffield Law School, said the “tricky part” with mutual recognition and registration is that it means the information that the UK authorities require from registrants has to be exactly the same as that demanded by the EU.
If the same information would be required for each regime, it could be “some kind of redundancy, which maybe should be avoided", she said. Perhaps it would be preferable for the UK to negotiate continuation of substance registration under EU REACH, she added.
“We will need to have some exchange agreement between Echa and the UK authorities, which is not a problem - it is allowed by REACH.”
Mr Warhurst said that the EU would not “break away from the idea” that there is only one REACH database, and “there would not be a situation where you could say ‘we’ve just registered [a substance] over here in the UK’ - you would have to register it in the EU in the same way.”
A date is yet to be set for the inquiry's next Environmental Audit Committee oral evidence session, but it is expected to take place later this month, inquiry chair Mary Creagh said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/53469/brexit-transition-period-could-prevent-chemicals-market-freeze
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Hatch Wants States To Be Primary Regulators Of Fracking
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
Oil- and gas-producing states would become the primary authority for regulating hydraulic fracturing — and could circumvent federal regulations — under a bill authored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) this week.
Hatch, along with Wyoming Republican Sens. John Barrasso and Mike Enzi, introduced S. 316, the "Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act," to amend the Mineral Leasing Act to give states primacy over energy development within their borders.
The legislation would not prohibit the federal government from issuing rules governing hydraulic fracturing but would prevent those rules from taking precedence over pre-existing state law.
"Many states, such as Utah, are doing the right thing and listening to stakeholders and communities around where hydraulic fracturing is taking place and regulating this activity responsibly," Hatch said in a statement. "The last thing we need is costly and duplicative regulation from Washington on top of what's already in place in Utah — especially when the existing framework has more than proven itself to be effective."
The senators also pointed to a pending case in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over whether the Bureau of Land Management has the authority to craft environmental and safety regulations related to hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands.
"Wyoming and other states who are already listening to the concerns of local stakeholders and communities shouldn't see their efforts superseded by some redundant Washington power grab," Enzi said in a statement. "This bill would ensure it is the states who continue to lead in these efforts to properly regulate hydraulic fracturing."
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, likewise reintroduced a pair of bills this week aimed at giving individual states the sole decisionmaking authority over energy resources within their boundaries (E&E Daily, Feb. 8).
He is seeking action on both S. 335, the "Federal Land Freedom Act," and S. 334, the "Fracturing Regulations Are Effective in State Hands Act."
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and House conservatives also introduced measures to give states broader authority over fracking regulations this week.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/09/stories/1060049791
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Trump's Infrastructure Push 'Could Be Positive' — Pallone
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
BALTIMORE — President Trump's interest in pushing a major infrastructure bill through Congress could bring House Democrats back to the table on bipartisan energy legislation, a key House Democrat said yesterday.
Speaking on the sidelines of House Democrats' three-day retreat here, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Trump's infrastructure push "could be positive" for discussions on energy legislation, which collapsed in December after nearly two years of talks after House Republicans rebuffed Senate negotiators trying to close a deal.
"Trump keeps talking about infrastructure, so if we could get some major infrastructure initiative that would be part of the bill, that might change things," said Pallone, the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pallone and then-Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) spent the first half of 2015 negotiating a bipartisan energy bill that aimed to update the United States' aging energy infrastructure. In doing so, Republicans set aside more contentious issues and cobbled together a package that also addressed energy efficiency programs, natural gas exports, hydropower and some workforce provisions favored by Democrats.
Democrats ended up walking away from the table during a committee markup, prompting Republicans to move their own bill with limited Democratic support. Pallone said Republicans on the committee had agreed to spend "several billion" dollars on upgrading the electric grid and pipeline systems, but House GOP leaders squashed the spending that was a priority for Democrats.
"I think the entire leadership on the committee was OK with it," he said yesterday of the infrastructure spending. "It was the House leadership that put the stop to it."
When bipartisan talks in committee collapsed, Pallone said Republicans pushed a "partisan bill that we could not support," saying it would have encouraged fossil fuels over renewables and eliminated regulations.
"We're not obviously going to go for that," he said. "But I think if there was a major infrastructure component, we could go back to the negotiating table and come up with something that might be bipartisan."
While there appeared to be little progress on the energy side of the House and Senate talks, negotiators made enough progress on natural resource issues that conferees had a final conference report drafted for signatures. However, a handful of outstanding issues that were kicked up to the leadership level were never resolved, and the House adjourned without acting.
Both Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) last month said they hope to resurrect parts of the bill in the coming months (E&E Daily, Jan. 12).
'Kicking a little ass for the working class'
Democrats yesterday opened their retreat on a defiant tone, vowing to remind voters of a host of Trump's campaign promises. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats will continue to emphasize the everyday impacts of Trump's policies.
"We have to make sure they know on a day-to-day basis how this affects their daily lives," said Pelosi, speaking at a podium emblazoned with the retreat theme: "Fighting for All."
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), the vice chairwoman of the Democratic conference, offered her own theme for the retreat: "Kicking a little ass for the working class."
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) will lead a morning breakout session on "winning the debate on clean air and water," said in an interview yesterday that environmental protection "is a big part of fighting for everyone."
Topics up for discussion include polling taken since the elections that "makes very clear that the American people did not vote to roll back" environmental protections, Huffman said. "People did not vote for Trump" to put Scott Pruitt at the head of EPA or former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson as America's top diplomat — nominations he called "abominations."
Huffman said he plans to discuss two recent town halls he led in his Northern California district focused on the environment and climate change. He expected Tonko to talk about his experiences with similar events focused on water infrastructure.
"There's still very deep public support" for clean air and clean water, he said, conceding that there needs to be the "right messaging" in fighting back against Trump's administration.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/09/stories/1060049783
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Dakota Access Receives Final Approval
Feb 8, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Eric Wolff
The Trump administration today gave its final sign-off to the embattled Dakota Access pipeline, although environmentalists and Native Americans who have spent months protesting the project say they will continue to fight it in court.
With the Army Corps of Engineers easement in hand, developer Energy Transfer Partners can begin building the final segment of the pipeline under the Missouri River, although the company has not said when construction will begin.
The pipeline will run a half mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and members of the tribe say they worry that a potential spill would pollute their water supply. The river-crossing became the focal point of occasionally violent protests last year. The tribe and numerous green groups promised to sue over the decision.
President Donald Trump signed a memo last month directing his administration to quickly review and approve Dakota Access. The Army notified Congress and a federal judge Thursday that it would issue the easement as soon as today in compliance with that memo.
The oil industry and its allies praised the decision as a return to the rule of law.
The move undoes a late effort by President Barack Obama to delay the process by calling for a full environmental review of alternative routes.
Congressional Democrats blasted the plan to release the easement last night, calling it a "blatant disregard for federal law."
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Dakota Access Opposition Still Formidable Despite Final Easement
Feb 8, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Given fresh life on Tuesday, the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) may be in service before mid-year with the capacity to transport more than half of current Bakken Shale oil production in North Dakota, but opposition to the project is still loud and determined to block the 1,200-mile pipeline route from the finish line.
Since last August, when the Obama administration intervened in the project, which already had completed a two-year regulatory process, DAPL has been in and out of court amid attempts to re-start the environmental review for the route, which winds through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) on Tuesday granted a final easement on a last water crossing, which has been turned into a national cause for Native American and environmental interests. Despite the level and duration of the opposition, none of the regulatory or court vetting has determined that Native American or environmental protections are at risk.
The project doesn't cross Native American lands, but the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in south-central North Dakota has led the opposition. Standing Rock Sioux and leaders of other Indigenous nations have pledged a long fight in the courts and protest encampments for the project. Backer Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and others in the industry had at one time considered the pipeline’s approval would face an easier path, as the Bakken, which currently produces 1 million b/d, needs more takeaway capacity.
Noting that the nation needs more energy infrastructure, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) urged people "to work together to ensure people and communities rebuild trust and peacefully resolve their differences." However, opposition leaders sounded determined to carry on their fight.
"The drinking water of millions of Americans is now at risk," said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II. "We are a sovereign nation, and we will fight to protect our water and sacred places from brazen private interests trying to push this pipeline through; Americans have come together in support of the Tribe asking for a fair, balanced and lawful pipeline process."
Attorneys for the tribe argue that the easement cannot be legally granted with the previous full EIS order outstanding. They claim the Obama administration recognized the Sioux's treaty rights, but the Trump administration is ignoring them.
In addition to a national Native Americans' march on Washington, DC, March 10, attorneys for the Sioux said on Tuesday that they plan to:Seek to shut down pipeline operations if DAPL is successful in building the final link in the pipeline and begins to move crude oil;Ask a federal court to order ETP and other operators of DAPL to disclose their record of past spills; andChallenge the Corps easement on the grounds that it violates its Dec. 4 action ordering that the pipeline undergo a full environmental impact statement (EIS) review.
Supporters of the pipeline argue that the approval ignores the two years of state and federal scrutiny, which culminated last July last when the Corps district office in Omaha, NE, granted the easement, noting its staff review found DAPL would not be "injurious to the public interest" and would not "impair the usefulness of work built by the United States."
Late last summer, with a protest encampment near the construction and the stalled water crossing, the Obama administration began to pause the project and reverse previous Corps actions, which led to industry critics claiming political interference with a regulatory process.
The Obama administration in early December punted the decision to the next White House occupant, denying a final easement to cross under Lake Oahe, choosing instead to seek alternative routes to satisfy concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux. A few days after being sworn into office, President Trump signed two presidential memorandums to advance construction of DAPL and the long-controversial Canadian-based Keystone XL oil pipelines.
It is somewhat ironic that in the end the federal government -- elected officials, regulators and the courts -- has played the pivotal role in DAPL. In its long-planned approach to the major project, ETP's Dakota Access Pipeline LLC unit greatly minimized the project's passage over federal lands in the four states. Last May at an industry conference in North Dakota, the ETP executive in charge of building the 30-inch diameter pipeline, Joey Mahmoud, engineering senior vice president, told his audience the project was on track for a year-end 2016 start up.
At the time, Mahmoud emphasized that the pipeline would provide a "safer, cleaner and cheaper" means of moving Bakken supplies to markets throughout the nation, focused on the Gulf and East coasts. "It is a pretty important project for the Bakken as a whole," he said.
"One of the little recognized successes of this project is that out of 1,172-mile route, we literally cross federal land for less than five miles of the entire length,” Mahmoud said at the time. “That is less than 0.5% of the project in which you have to deal with the federal government." Overall, including various river crossings from a jurisdictional standpoint, the amount of the project falling under federal oversight is less than 3.5%,.
DAPL's size has both heightened opposition and buoyed supporters. As planned, the project would have 100,000 b/d of capacity for its initial segment to the Stanley and Ramberg tank terminals in North Dakota, from which takeaway capacity would be expanded to carry up to 600,000 b/d between Watford City's tank terminal and the South Dakota border.
Construction began last spring after Iowa regulators became the fourth and final state to give their approval to the project. When construction began, not all the rights-of-way had been acquired, but 88% had been secured in the four states collectively in a project in which ETP needed to cross nearly 3,700 separate properties along its complete route.
Separately on Tuesday, the Seattle city council voted to cut its ties to Wells Fargo Bank because of the bank's role in helping finance DAPL.
Still unfolding is the disbursement and clean up of protest encampment in North Dakota, which still includes several hundred people, even though both the Corps and Standing Rock Sioux's Archambault have directed them to leave. Meanwhile, local authorities in North Dakota report the camp site now includes massive amounts of garbage. News reports indicated cleanup crews have so far hauled away 23 truckloads of trash, and estimate it may take another 250 truckloads to fully clean the camp.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109350-dakota-access-opposition-still-formidable-despite-final-easement
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Senior Republican Statesmen Propose Replacing Obama’s Climate Policies With A Carbon Tax
Feb 8, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
Representatives from a coalition of veteran Republican officials — including five who have either served as treasury secretary or as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers — met Wednesday with White House officials to discuss the idea of imposing a national carbon tax, rather than using federal regulations, to address climate change.
The newly formed Climate Leadership Council — which includes James A. Baker, Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz, Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw — is proposing elimination of nearly all of the Obama administration’s climate policies in exchange for a rising carbon tax that starts at $40 per ton, and is returned in the form of a quarterly check from the Social Security Administration to every American.
“I really don’t know the extent to which it is man-made, and I don’t think anybody can tell you with certainty that it’s all man-made,” Baker said in an interview with The Washington Post. However, he also said, “the risk is sufficiently strong that we need an insurance policy and this is a damn good insurance policy.”
Despite the group’s impeccable Republican credentials — Baker, Paulson and Schultz served as treasury secretaries and Feldstein and Mankiw served as CEA chairs under GOP presidents — the proposal faces long odds. Many congressional Republicans are adamantly against a tax increase of any kind, and President Trump repeatedly emphasized that he is far more interested in promoting the extraction of fossil fuels in the United States than curbing the nation’s carbon emissions.
A proposed carbon tax also failed recently in a ballot initiative in Washington state, in part because it divided the left — with some liberals wanting to use any revenue to invest in clean energy and other social causes rather than to return it to the public.
Baker and his colleagues met Wednesday with Gary Cohn, head of Trump’s National Economic Council, and spoke more briefly with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway.
Asked about the proposal and Wednesday’s meeting, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, “We have nothing to announce on that.”
Another White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said that it would be premature to conclude that the administration was embracing the idea of a carbon tax. “Secretary Baker is obviously a distinguished public servant with a wealth of experience,” the official said. “This morning is one of many listening meetings the administration is having with experts on a variety of issues and does not represent any eventual policy decision one way or the other.”
Vice President Pence’s spokesman, Marc Lotter, said that Baker had requested the meeting over the weekend when he and Pence ran into each other at the Super Bowl on Sunday. “The Secretary mentioned going to the White House, and the vice president asked him to pop by his office while he is here,” Lotter said. (The two ultimately did not meet due to a “scheduling conflict,” Lotter said.)
As for how the idea would be received politically, Baker told The Post: “I have no idea, but it is a good proposal, it’s simple, it’s conservative, it’s free market, it’s limited government.”
Supporters of the group’s proposal include Ted Halstead, who founded the Climate Leadership Council and the New America Foundation; Rob Walton, former chairman of the board of Walmart; and Thomas Stevenson, a U.S. ambassador to Portugal under George W. Bush.
The revenue-neutral “carbon fee and dividend” tax, as it is sometimes called, has been popular among economists for years. It has also been strongly embraced by some leading climate scientists, such as former NASA researcher James Hansen, and such advocacy groups as Citizens’ Climate Lobby. But never before have major Republican statesmen from past administrations aligned behind it as publicly as they’re doing now.
Baker and his colleagues estimate that the average family of four would receive $2,000 annually in dividends from the fee if it starts at $40 per ton, and as the tax rises, so would their dividends. This would naturally create a constituency for ever-tougher climate change action. They also assert that the proposal would be fundamentally progressive because everyone would receive the same amount of revenue from the tax regardless of their income level, meaning the new source of income would make a bigger difference for poorer people than for wealthier ones.
Finally, they suggest it’s a needed compromise. “We have a regulatory left and a deregulatory right that are far, far apart,” said Mankiw. “Both should acknowledge they’re not going to have control forever.”
As soon as the plan was hatched, it got a tweet endorsement from Mitt Romney:
Thought-provoking plan from highly respected conservatives to both strengthen the economy & confront climate risks: http://www.clcouncil.org
Trump Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also supports a carbon tax, which he championed when he was chief executive of ExxonMobil.
In general, however, Trump’s Cabinet appointees have been largely noncommittal about the issue of climate change and its human causation. And at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, Trump transition teams have brimmed with conservative think tank personas who have a history of questioning the science of climate change and standing up for fossil fuels.
There are also questions about how a carbon tax would affect the carbon-intensive coal industry, which Trump voiced support for during his campaign. Halstead acknowledged that coal would fare poorly under the plan, although he noted that as the carbon tax rises over time it would eventually benefit the economics of carbon capture and storage technology.
A carbon tax is quintessentially conservative, Baker’s group argues, because it would not increase the size of government but would reduce it by canceling out President Barack Obama’s climate regulatory moves. Revenue from the carbon tax would go directly to taxpayers instead of toward new government programs.
“This ticks every one of their boxes,” said Halstead. “It is pro growth, pro competition, pro jobs, deregulatory, and it will help the working-class voters that Trump promised to help.”
But the prospect of dismantling the Obama administration’s climate rules did not sit well with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group. The council said Wednesday that it would not support a regulatory rollback in exchange for a carbon tax, underscoring the difficult politics behind the idea.
“Putting a price on carbon could be an important part of a comprehensive program,” Rhea Suh, the group’s president, said in a statement. “It can’t do the job alone, though, and is not a replacement for carbon limits under our current laws.”
There’s also the question of whether the current White House is up for big, wonky crossover ideas — especially when recent polling suggests that only a small fraction of Trump voters even believe in human-caused climate change.
Still, Baker said, the idea “gives Republicans a seat at the table on an important issue and does so in keeping with Republican principles.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/07/senior-republican-leaders-propose-replacing-obamas-climate-plans-with-a-carbon-tax/?utm_term=.3ce92a4ccad7
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Prominent Republicans Push Carbon Tax in White House Meeting
Feb 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Margaret Talev
A group of prominent Republicans and business leaders, including former Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and James Baker, met with some of President Donald Trump's top advisers at the White House Feb. 8 to push a plan to tax carbon dioxide in exchange for lifting a slew of environmental regulations.
“Unlike the current cumbersome regulatory approach, a levy on emissions would free companies to find the most efficient way to reduce their carbon footprint,” Baker and former Secretary of State George Shultz wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion article posted online late Feb. 7. “A sensibly priced, gradually rising tax would send a powerful market signal to businesses that want certainty when planning for the future.”
The proponents are set to formally announce their proposal Wednesday at the National Press Club, lending their stature to an approach for addressing climate change that mirrors an idea already advanced by Exxon Mobil Corp. The self-dubbed Climate Leadership Council pushing the framework says a carbon tax is necessary to respond to “mounting evidence of climate change” that is “growing too strong to ignore.“
The plan faces strong political headwinds; both Trump and a majority of the House of Representatives have come out against a carbon tax in the past year. Trump also has pledged to do away with environmental regulations limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that exacerbate climate change.
But the idea of a carbon tax, long favored by economists as the most straightforward way to address climate change, could gain traction as part of a broad tax overhaul on Capitol Hill.
The blueprint involves a $40 tax on every metric ton of carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels, with the price climbing over time. To avoid an undue burden on the poor from the higher energy bills that would result, the projected $200 billion to $300 billion in annual revenue would be redistributed to households in the form of quarterly checks from the Social Security Administration. Families of four would see an average annual payout of $2,000 under the plan.
The proposal also calls for border adjustments that would act to hike the costs of products imported from countries that do not put a price on carbon.
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney described the proposal in a tweet as a “thought-provoking plan from highly respected conservatives to both strengthen the economy and confront climate risks.“
Paulson, who served as Treasury secretary under President George W. Bush, previously has advocated a carbon tax through his eponymous think tank, the Paulson Institute. Baker, who served as secretary of state and Treasury secretary under two Republican administrations, as well as former Secretary of State George Shultz, Rob Walton, former chairman of the board of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sequoia Capital Operations LLC partner Thomas Stephenson, among others. Economic advisers to former presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan also are involved in the effort.
The group envisions the carbon tax taking the place of an array of Obama-era environmental regulations that raise the cost of fossil fuels. The centerpiece of President Barack Obama's climate agenda, the Clean Power Plan slashing emissions from electricity, would be immediately repealed, while others would be phased out over time. U.S. companies emitting carbon dioxide also could win liability protections under the deal.
Integrated Companies
The idea dovetails with an approach advocated by some large integrated oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, which has promoted a revenue-neutral carbon tax instead of a patchwork of environmental regulations.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Exxon's former chief executive, previously acknowledged the climate is changing and described a carbon tax as the most efficient means of embedding its cost in economic decisions stretching from oil companies to consumers.
BP Plc has said a well-constructed carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would encourage energy producers and consumers to pare emissions, while Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chairman Charles Holliday has called a carbon tax the most effective and practical way of driving that change.
It is unclear how the new plan will be received by Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
The Republican-led House of Representatives last June approved a non-binding resolution condemning the idea of a carbon tax as “detrimental to American families and businesses.” The measure, which passed 237-163, was designed to lock in lawmakers’ positions, making it harder for those who lodged a vote opposing a tax to support one later on.
Trump himself has come out against the idea, rejecting a carbon tax in responses to a survey by the American Energy Alliance last March. Many of the conservative advocates guiding Trump's energy and environment policy also eschew the idea.
The approach also runs counter to Trump's campaign promise to help bring back coal mining jobs. Because it generates more carbon dioxide emissions than natural gas and oil, coal would be the fossil fuel hardest hit by a tax on carbon.
But a carbon tax has gained traction in some circles. Republican Bob Inglis, a former representative from South Carolina, has pitched the tax as a free-market solution to climate change. Tesla Motors Inc. founder Elon Musk also has pressed the Trump administration on the issue. It could benefit his electric vehicle business by driving more consumers away from gasoline-fueled automobiles.
The issue divides the oil industry; though Exxon Mobil is just one of several large integrated companies that favor a carbon tax, the idea is opposed by many independent producers that do not own pipeline and refining operations.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=105264411&vname=dennotallissues&fn=105264411&jd=105264411
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'Safe To Say' Carbon Levy Won't Make GOP's Tax Reform Agenda
Feb 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The efforts by Republican elder statesmen to promote a carbon tax yesterday did little to sway House GOP leadership.
Last Congress, the Republican caucus unanimously backed a resolution by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) that said a carbon levy would be "detrimental" to the American economy and disproportionately affect the poor.
And those lawmakers would be needed to enact the $40-per-ton, revenue-neutral carbon tax and dividend model proposed yesterday by former Secretary of State James Baker and other former Cabinet members and White House economists (Greenwire, Feb. 8).
"The Whip has a lot of respect for Secretary Baker, but he disagrees strongly with a carbon tax," a Scalise spokesman said in an email to E&E News.
"The House expects to act on pro-growth tax reform this year," he added, "and it's safe to say a carbon tax is not at all likely to be part of that package."
Even in the small bloc of GOP lawmakers who have come out in support of climate action, none would endorse a carbon tax.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who scored a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee this Congress, avoided saying "carbon tax" during a brief interview last month.
"I do believe that we need a more market-based approach to regulating carbon emissions," said Curbelo, who co-founded a bipartisan caucus that works on climate solutions.
"I think almost anything is better than the arbitrary, heavy-handed regulations that come out of the [U.S. EPA] and other agencies, but again, it's very premature to have a specific discussion on what we are going to propose because that's going to be an organic process," Curbelo continued.
Curbelo's office did not comment yesterday on the proposal floated at the White House by Baker's group, the Climate Leadership Council. At the White House, the group met with Gary Cohn, head of President Trump's National Economic Council, and four of Cohn's colleagues. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway also stopped by to say hello, according to organizers.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer played down the significance of the meetings yesterday in his daily press briefing (E&E News PM, Feb. 8).
Advocates for a revenue-neutral carbon tax and dividend model say Republicans are more interested in the approach than many give them credit for.
The nonprofit Citizens' Climate Lobby reports that it's seen increased engagement on the issue since 2014 based on data from hundreds of visits to lawmakers' offices (E&E Daily, Nov. 14, 2016).
In the Senate, Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who have co-sponsored carbon tax legislation, lauded the latest GOP proposal.
"I hope my Republican colleagues in the Senate will build off of this proposal and work with us on finding bipartisan solutions to the greatest challenge facing our planet," Schatz said.
Whitehouse wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last month that Republicans are "trapped" on climate by the fossil fuel industry's political influence.
Baker and other members of the Climate Leadership Council have acknowledged they do not know whether their proposal can gain political traction.
In addition to Baker, the council includes George Shultz, secretary of State under President Reagan; Henry Paulson, President George W. Bush's Treasury secretary; N. Gregory Mankiw, who led Bush's Council of Economic Advisers; and Martin Feldstein, who led Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. The group also includes Thomas Stephenson, a partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital; Rob Walton, former chairman of the board at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; and Ted Halstead, the council's founder.
"Whether or not it will be adopted in the next two to four years we cannot tell you, but we can tell you this: The climate problem is not going away," Halstead said.
"We cannot tell you when, but we can tell you eventually this country has to deal with this issue, and we think our solution will be front and center," he said.
If the carbon tax gets wrapped up in broader efforts to rewrite the tax code, Baker said Congress must ensure revenues are returned to Americans in quarterly dividend checks, rather than used for corporate tax relief or other priorities. That's essential, he explained, to sustained popularity of the policy.
"The way that you do that is to pass laws that say this is what's going to happen with these funds, and if anybody fails to follow through on those laws, you have access to the courts," Baker said. "That's the way we do everything in this country, and we're doing it right now, for instance, with respect to the travel ban. So we are a country of laws."
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/09/stories/1060049780
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Feb 8, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Eric Roston
Dismembering the agency requires changing 45 years worth of laws, warns one Republican who ran it.
The new U.S. president and Congress are taking a hard look at environmental rules—none harder than a freshman U.S. representative whose new bill would “terminate the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Republicans have been known to threaten this from time to time, with the understanding that it was red meat for ideological or business interests with no real chance of success. “Everybody hates regulation,” said Republican Christine Todd Whitman, a former EPA administrator and New Jersey governor, “because it makes you either spend money or change behavior for a problem you may not see.”
This year, as we all know, is a little different.
Donald Trump has modulated his position on the EPA’s existence since the presidential campaign. And yet the concept that the preeminent guardian of clean air, soil, and water in the U.S. would go the way of the 20th century is now, if nothing else, no longer confined to the realm of fantasy.
Rule-of-thumb holds that once countries pollute their way into economic progress, they’ll pause for a second and check to see if they can still breathe the air and swim in the water. If not, they fix it. China is currently the leading example, with India coming up behind. There are fewer examples of nations unwinding national environmental efforts.
Internationally, the U.S. does pretty well when it comes to protecting its environment and doing its part to combat global climate change. It ranks 26th among 180 nations in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index, a collaboration of the World Economic Forum and Yale and Columbia University researchers. That’s just worse than Canada and a bit better than the Czech Republic.
The EPA sits at the forefront of that accomplishment (such as it is). The environmental laws passed under President Richard Nixon, who helped create the agency, have cleaned up the excesses of mid-century American industrialization. The statutes were written to anticipate new problems, too. While the Clean Air Act doesn’t address climate change—only a small group of scientists and far fewer (if any) politicians were aware of the question back then—the law is flexible enough to address new dangers.
In July 1970, the Republican president cobbled together the new agency from about a dozen offices distributed throughout the federal government. An additional dozen functions were reorganized into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the biggest entity within the Department of Commerce. By creating the EPA, “I am making an exception to one of my own principles,” Nixon wrote. “That, as a matter of effective and orderly administration, additional new independent agencies normally should not be created.” But in this case, he said, there was just no better option.
That many EPA functions predate the agency is one element of the department’s complexity. “EPA is not an entity in the typical Washington agency sense,” said Bill Reilly, who was the agency’s administrator under Republican President George H.W. Bush. “It was established by President Nixon as an amalgamation of several different entities, from Interior and Agriculture and so forth,” he explained.
Undoing Nixon’s reorganization could be accomplished by a Trump executive order, Reilly said. But “what that does not take into account is that every statute I’m aware of specifically confers authority on the administrator of EPA to carry them out,” Reilly said. “And that’s true for air, water, safe drinking water, Superfund, toxics, ‘Tosca’ [the Toxic Substances Control Act, not the opera]—the whole gamut.”
Dismembering the EPA could require that Congress individually change 45 years of environmental statutes, a feat that would require an enormous amount of time, organization, and political capital.
Jeff Holmstead is a former EPA assistant administrator and now a partner at Bracewell LLC in Washington. Charged with the hypothetical (and extraordinarily unlikely) task of dismantling the agency, he zeroed in on the two dozen or so statutes that assign responsibilities to the EPA administrator. Most of these laws have “citizen suit provisions” that let Americans sue the agency for not doing its job. “You’d have a huge mess on your hands,” if environmentalists started suing a government official that no longer exists.
Shredding the EPA willy-nilly would also hamstring businesses, which rely on it for approval and permits. The most recent Congress demonstrated an expanded appetite for EPA work by amending Tosca to include permitting for existing (in addition to new) chemicals. “The chemical industry needs EPA to act,” Holmstead said.
Expect Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to run the agency, to preside over an EPA that (a) continues to exist, and (b) sets to work undoing President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Clean Water Rule, and reopening carbon pollution rules for new coal plants.
“I would predict with great confidence that those three things will happen,” Holmstead said.
The selection of Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, has triggered protest among retired EPA staffers and people who would work for him if he’s confirmed. Environmentalists have made hay of Pruitt’s tenure in Oklahoma, where he joined more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA and shuttered a unit focused on environmental protection. Until he’s confirmed, it’s unclear how Pruitt may lead the agency, although the New York Times had some reasoned insight.
The EPA’s Office of Public Affairs declined to comment for this story.
Americans still need environmental protection, Whitman warned. In 2013, the most recent year with complete data, 91,000 people died of causes related to bad air, almost three times the total deaths from car accidents. “This is real, people,” the former EPA administrator said in a Feb. 3 interview.
Whitman criticized Trump’s executive order requiring federal agencies to undo two regulations for every one they create. “It’s fine to want to go back and scrutinize all regulations and make sure that none have out lasted their usefulness,” she said. “But it’s got to be a thoughtful determination,” and not an arbitrary rules-trashing quota.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/good-luck-killing-the-epa
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Trump Critics' Suit Over 'Two For One' Rule Order Claims Air Law Violation
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Environmentalists, labor unions and other pro-regulation advocates are suing over President Donald Trump's executive order (EO) that requires agencies to balance each new rule they issue by identifying two existing rules for repeal, saying the mandate violates Clean Air Act requirements for EPA to issue air and climate regulations.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Communications Workers of America and Public Citizen filed a joint complaint Feb. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They are asking for a ruling that would bar any implementation of both the EO itself and the White House Office of Management & Budget's (OMB) Feb. 3 interim guidance that directs agencies on how to implement Trump's mandate.
“The Executive Order will block or force the repeal of regulations needed to protect health, safety, and the environment, across a broad range of topics -- from automobile safety, to occupational health, to air pollution, to endangered species,” the complaint says.
Singling out impacts on EPA, the groups argue that both the “two for one” requirement and the EO's separate “regulatory budget” provision, which requires agencies to balance out new rules' compliance costs by withdrawing rules with equivalent costs, conflict with the air law's mandate to craft pollution standards based on threats to human health and the environment, not cost.
As an example, they say the EO would block EPA from setting new limits on greenhouse gases, even after it finds such limits are needed, unless it can balance out those limits with regulatory cuts elsewhere -- in violation of the Clean Air Act.
“[W]hen EPA determines that emissions from a category of mobile sources (e.g., cars, trucks, airplanes) 'cause or contribute' to elevated atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, EPA has a mandatory obligation to promulgate a regulation controlling the emissions. The Executive Order introduces statutorily irrelevant and thus unlawful factors into the 'cause or contribute' determination,” the advocates say.
Mandated Rulemakings
While the advocates are asking the court to strike down both the EO and OMB's guide, their complaint also leaves the door open to a ruling that the order does not take precedence over statutory requirements for rulemakings like those in the Clean Air Act -- as observers have argued must be the case. The groups say that if so, that limitation would render the order meaningless.
“The Executive Order states that it shall be 'implemented consistent with applicable law' . . . If, however, the language were interpreted to mean that the agencies may disregard the Executive Order when applicable statutes do not authorize conditioning regulation on the repeal of regulations with offsetting costs, that language would render the Executive Order without effect,” the complaint says.
The complaint says that the alternate reading of that passage is that any rule repeals under the order must go through the notice-and-comment process mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). That, the groups say, would not be enough to make the order's substantive requirements lawful.
If it stands, OMB's guidance could tee up battles between EPA and other agencies over how to offset the cost of new rules, because it declares that an agency can request cost-saving offsets from a separate agency rather than repealing its own rules to balance out the costs of a new policy.
The guide also clarifies that the EO excludes federal regulations that have purely deregulatory effects, applies only to “economically significant” actions -- defined as those with annual compliance costs of $100 million per year -- and that it affects “significant” guidance documents on a case-by-case basis.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
The complaint also takes aim at how the EO and interim guide affect cost-benefit analysis, saying Trump's policy is “arbitrary and capricious” under the APA because it only considers rules' costs and not their benefits.
“The Executive Order’s direction to federal agencies to zero out costs to regulated industries, while entirely ignoring benefits to the Americans whom Congress enacted these statutes to protect, will force agencies to take regulatory actions that harm the people of this nation,” the advocates argue.
Beyond that foundational principle of the order, the groups also say that OMB's implementing guidance is flawed because it directs agencies to ignore “sunk costs” of complying with old rules in calculating offsets. They say that amounts to a requirement to greatly increase the number of rules being withdrawn, since coming into compliance with a new regulation is much more expensive than the year-to-year costs of complying with an existing policy.
“Because often the bulk of the cost of existing rules (such as the cost of new equipment purchases to meet pollution standards) will already have been incurred, this requirement will greatly magnify the number of rules that need to be repealed to permit new rules to be promulgated consistent with the Executive Order,” the complaint says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trump-critics-suit-over-two-one-rule-order-claims-air-law-violation
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Air: Industry Coalitions Sue Over EPA Refrigerant Leak Rule
Feb 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
Coalitions representing a host of industrial sectors are suing EPA over the agency's recent revisions to emissions rules governing refrigerants, in suits that will likely test the agency's authority to impose tougher emission leak prevention measures for some chemicals because of their global warming properties.
The suits, filed Jan. 17, come as the Trump administration is expected to strip EPA of its climate change regulatory programs, though the Trump EPA's position on short-lived chemicals with high global warming potential (GWP) is unclear. Such chemicals are managed under the international Montreal Protocol process, and the Obama EPA took several steps aimed at phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the protocol.
HFCs were developed as alternatives for earlier refrigerants that damaged the stratospheric ozone layer. However, the Obama EPA in rules issued last year moved to phase out HFCs with high GWP values, and to expand leak prevention measures to HFCs under Clean Air Act provisions originally aimed at ozone-depleting substances (ODS).
In their lawsuits filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the industry coalitions Air Permitting Forum (APF) and National Environmental Development Association's Clean Air Project (NEDA/CAP), challenge EPA's Nov. 18 final rule updating the Clean Air Act's provisions with respect to ODS and HFC refrigerants.
The rule updates air section 608 guidelines to expand their application to high-GWP substitutes for earlier ozone-depleting chemicals, imposing handling and leak-prevention measures.
Neither APF nor NEDA/CAP give reasons for their suits in their initial legal filings, but both groups took issue with EPA's proposed version of its rule before publication.
For example, APF and the Auto Industry Forum -- collectively known as “the Forum” -- in joint Jan. 25, 2016, comments said, “The Forum does not support significantly expanding the scope of the current rule to apply the detailed management requirements to all substitutes. EPA has not demonstrated that the rule expansion is cost-effective, necessary for ozone protection for all substitutes, and legally justified.”
Further, “EPA is using [air law] Section 608 authority to regulate chemicals based on global warming potential, which is not the original intent of this section,” they argued.
NEDA/CAP in its Jan. 25 comments agreed, and further called some of the then-proposed management and leak prevention measures “punitive” and unnecessary. The group concluded “that EPA lacks authority to regulate non-ODS refrigerants in the manner that the agency proposes.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/air-industry-coalitions-sue-over-epa-refrigerant-leak-rule
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