Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 2/28/2017
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Zinke Moves 1 Step Closer to Confirmation
Feb 28, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The Senate voted last night to end debate on Interior secretary nominee Ryan Zinke, whose nomination has languished for weeks after being caught up in the broader political fight over President Trump's Cabinet. -
Fears of Environmental Council's Demise Seen as Misguided
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A Trump administration move to essentially evict a White House environment council from its headquarters last week stoked fears that no federal entity will be spared in the new president's campaign to roll back environmental policies. -
US EPA Rejects Petition Calling for TSCA Section 6 Rulemaking
Feb 28, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has rejected a petition calling on it to use section 6 of TSCA to prohibit the purposeful addition of fluoride chemicals to drinking water. -
EPA Research Leaders Promote Relevancy, Value to Trump Administration
Feb 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
.The slides list examples such as...assisting EPA's toxics office with implementing the newly overhauled TSCA; and managing EPA's Integrated Risk Information System and Integrated Science Assessment environmental contaminant assessment programs. -
Hazardous Substance Registration Lacks ‘Crucial’ Data: EU Agency
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Chemicals companies continue to struggle with obligations under the European Union's REACH regulation to provide safety data on hazardous substances, the European Chemicals Agency said in a report issued Feb. 27. -
How Exactly Will Pruitt Kill Clean Power Plan?
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has sentenced the Clean Power Plan to death. Now it's only a matter of determining the method of execution. -
State Officials Keeping Fingers Crossed for Ohio Cracker Plant Development
Feb 28, 2017 | Beaver County Times Online
By Jared Stonesifer
Ohio officials aren’t the only ones crossing their fingers for the construction of an ethane cracker plant about 70 miles southwest of Beaver County. -
(ACC Mentioned) Groups Fighting Repeal of Safety Regs for Industrial Plants
Feb 27, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
A coalition of more than two dozen environmental justice groups is advocating against congressional repeal of recently released U.S. EPA safety regulations for chemical plants, oil refineries and thousands of other major industrial facilities. -
Hazmat Agency Delays Compliance for Transport, Labeling Rule
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration won't penalize companies complying with new, but inconsistent, hazardous material regulations, the agency announced Feb. 27. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industries Take ‘Draconian’ Hazardous Waste Rule to Court
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Trade organizations across multiple industries have brought what one called a “draconian” new regulation on hazardous waste generators to court (Am. Chemistry Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir. App., 17-01064, 2/24/17). -
Trump's 'Security Budget' Targets EPA, Other Agencies
Feb 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump wants to slash the budgets of most federal agencies as he looks to simultaneously increase defense spending, the White House announced today. -
Key Lawmakers Balk at Plan for Steep Cuts at EPA
Feb 28, 2017 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink and Geof Koss
Top Republican appropriators aren't embracing a plan to slash federal spending for U.S. EPA that President Trump is due to outline tonight in his address to Congress. -
EPA Will Focus on Short-Term SO2 Exposures in NAAQS Risk Assessment
Feb 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is placing heavy emphasis on the short-term public health impacts of exposure to sulfur dioxide (SO2) air emissions in a planned risk and exposure assessment (REA) that will inform its pending decision on whether to retain, weaken or tighten the agency's... -
Trump Plans to Begin E.P.A. Rollback With Order on Clean Water
Feb 27, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at rolling back one of former President Barack Obama’s major environmental regulations to protect American waterways, but it will have almost no immediate legal effect... -
EPA Extends Comment Deadline on Texas Haze Plan
Feb 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is extending the deadline for public comment on its proposed disapproval and replacement of Texas' plan to curb regional haze, pushing the deadline from March 6 until May 5, amid doubts that the Trump EPA will press ahead with the replacement plan...
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Zinke Moves 1 Step Closer to Confirmation
Feb 28, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The Senate voted last night to end debate on Interior secretary nominee Ryan Zinke, whose nomination has languished for weeks after being caught up in the broader political fight over President Trump's Cabinet.
Senators voted 67-31 to end debate on the Montana Republican's nomination, with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voting "present." Wyden also abstained from voting on Zinke in committee last month, citing the nominee's openness to moving management of the national forest system from the Agriculture Department to Interior Department.
Senate Republicans are hoping to confirm Zinke before Trump's address to a joint session of Congress tonight, which would allow the Montanan to take his seat with the rest of the Cabinet in the House chamber.
However, key senators yesterday said they did not expect Democrats to yield the 30 hours of customary post-cloture debate, which absent an agreement with the minority would likely push a final confirmation vote to tomorrow at the earliest.
"I'm happy to have them yield back time, but it doesn't look like they want to do that on any of them," Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said yesterday.
While Democrats have slow-walked some of the more controversial nominees, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month approved both Zinke and Energy secretary nominee Rick Perry with bipartisan support (Greenwire, Jan. 31).
Barrasso said that some Democratic senators have privately told him they are feeling intense pressure from liberal groups not to yield debate time.
"They have no freedom to maneuver because of the resistance movement that's out there that's holding them hostage to drag these out, to make them stay the full 30 hours," Barrasso said in an interview.
Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been working for weeks to see Zinke confirmed.
"I don't know why they should [object]," she said. "I can understand it if it's a nom where there's really been a lot of heartburn over, but Zinke — everybody's kind of like 'oh we haven't confirmed him yet?'"
Barrasso took to the Senate floor yesterday to lambaste Democrats for delaying confirmation for both nominees, who he noted were introduced by Democrats at their confirmation hearings.
"There are Democrats here in the Senate who are delaying things even when other Democrats in the Senate support the person who's actually been nominated by the president," he said.
The Interior Department, Barrasso noted, manages an "incredible amount" of public lands and water resources, as well as protecting thousands of animals and plants.
"The person who heads up this department has a very big and important job to do," he said. "We need someone in this job, someone who can work with the people who are most invested in the good stewardship of our natural resources — that's the people who actually live on the land. I believe that Congressman Zinke will do exactly that."
Movement on Perry, Ross
Under a schedule laid out by McConnell earlier this month, once Zinke is confirmed, Health and Human Services secretary nominee Ben Carson will be next before the Senate, to be followed by Perry.
Barrasso said the delay in confirming Perry — whom he called "totally qualified" — is delaying DOE's processing of applications to export natural gas.
"It is time for us to have a new Energy secretary in office, today, to start tackling this backlog," he said.
Barrasso signaled that Republicans will hold the vote on Perry as soon as possible but intend to see him confirmed this week.
"We'll get four of them done this week," he said.
Senators last night also voted 72-27 to confirm billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to be Commerce secretary, a position in which he'll oversee climate research programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who supported Ross, noted prior to his vote that the nominee had indicated he would support the work of climate scientists at NOAA.
However, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin voted against Ross, citing his ownership of the Sago mine that killed 12 miners in 2006, as well as the hundreds of jobs that were lost in the state when Ross purchased Weirton Steel.
"Following my extensive vetting, meeting with him, watching his nomination and reaching out to West Virginians who have worked with him directly, I cannot in good conscience look the families of the fallen Sago miners or the Weirton Steel workers who lost their jobs in the eye knowing I voted to give Wilbur Ross a promotion," Manchin said in a statement.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/28/stories/1060050645
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Fears of Environmental Council's Demise Seen as Misguided
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A Trump administration move to essentially evict a White House environment council from its headquarters last week stoked fears that no federal entity will be spared in the new president's campaign to roll back environmental policies.
But those concerns appear to be overblown—at least for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which has coordinated high-level environmental policies and regulations for more than 45 years.
For CEQ staff, there appeared little evidence a storm was brewing last week outside offices that are scattered across three historic townhomes along Lafayette Square in front of the White House, as movers emptied 722 Jackson Place, home to CEQ staff for decades.
The move in the end may prove to be little more than a consolidation of space. But it was still unnerving to some, including the Bush administration's longtime CEQ chairman, fueling speculation that a council that has helped presidents mesh environmental policies across agencies since the Nixon administration may be marginalized.
Chopping Block?
The Trump administration has said little about the move; the White House press office also declined to comment on the record on CEQ's future role. A White House official told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 27, however, that the White House intends to retain the space, suggesting it won't be leased to a private entity. Trump plans to nominate a CEQ chairman, the official said.
Jim Connaughton, who chaired the council for seven-plus years of President George W. Bush's entire presidency, told Bloomberg BNA the move was bound to prompt concerns, given the council's long ties to the building. But he said there is little reason to believe the environmental council is on the chopping block.
The absence of a Trump nominee to head CEQ is not surprising, Connaughton said, as the council went five months without a chairman in 2001 under President George W. Bush, and the Senate didn't confirm Connaughton until mid-June of that year.
Trump also just last month elevated the authority of CEQ and its chairman to expedite environmental reviews and permitting across agencies under an executive order, a move that would make little sense if the president's real intention is to sideline the council.
‘Symbols are Important’
Connaughton conceded, however, that the appearance of emptying the CEQ offices, where public interest, industry and international representatives have arrived for decades to discuss environmental and other policies and policy impacts, didn't exactly help matters.
“That's why it was silly to move people out, because it is a representational space” that holds symbolic value as the place “that the domestic and international environment and the natural resources community is accustomed to convening in,” he said. “And those symbols are important.”
The CEQ chairman was established as a presidential-level appointment when President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970 which governs the types of environmental impact studies must be done before major public works and other projects can begin. Staff have has since grown used to seeing its influence on environmental policy ebb and flow with each new arrival of Democratic and Republican presidents since 1970.
Reports of Demise Premature
The predictions of CEQ's outright demise—such as the Jan. 23 statement from League of Conservation Voters Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld who said Trump had delivered the council “an eviction notice”—now appear premature.
Sittenfeld, responding to news reports of the move, said it exposed Trump's “disdain for protecting public health and the environment” consistent with his pledge to roll back regulations the new administration sees as an impediment to job creation.
But Connaughton, frequently mentioned as a contender for various Trump administration environmental or energy roles, said he has it on good authority the move wasn't ordered by White House political appointees. Rather, he said, it was a “misguided” decision “made at the civil service level” with too little thought given to how it would be perceived.
Executive Order Suggests Big Role
There also is a strong indication that President Trump already sees the council playing an important role over the next four years, recasting it to focus on eliminating regulatory burdens and red tape to speed up environmental reviews and expedite permitting for new infrastructure.
Trump's Jan. 24 executive order “gives a fairly substantial charge” to the next CEQ chairman to oversee the administration's expedited permitting effort, Connaughton said.
“And there's no real political reason once you create that elevated role for infrastructure permitting under a new CEQ chair not to pick a CEQ chair,” he said.
Trump's order—“Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals for High Priority Infrastructure Projects”—authorizes the CEQ chairman to weigh and decide which projects are to be given the highest priority for expedited review. Agencies that can't speed up those reviews have to provide a rationale to the CEQ.
Still, other actions by the administration have given environmental advocates reason for concern, including Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is expected to roll back Obama-era climate and environmental rules. Upon taking office, the Trump administration also deleted all references to the CEQ on the White House home page—along with climate change references from that and other sites.
But the CEQ has a lot of company in that regard: many other pages for other White House offices, many of them with no direct connection to environmental policy, also were scrubbed following Trump's inauguration and remain blank today: Council of Economic Advisers, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Security Council, the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the president's Intelligence Advisory Board.
Tighter Quarters
CEQ employees, some of whom last week were shuttling back and forth to meetings at the massive and ornate Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, appeared resigned to the move.
Those and neighboring townhomes along Jackson Place were once threatened with demolition until First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy intervened to preserve the buildings; today CEQ's remaining offices connect along upper floors to ensure easy maneuvering from office to office.
One employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Bloomberg BNA the packing up of desks and chairs was more accurately a “condensing” into adjacent low-slung townhomes already occupied by CEQ than an eviction.
“Honestly, I don't know that this move indicates anything other than a move,” the employee said, estimating that the net result of the consolidation would be a loss of perhaps 20 percent of total CEQ workspace on the block.
For Now, an Acting Chairman
An acting chairman, Ted Boling, who served as head counsel for CEQ during the Bush administration and in various solicitor positions in Obama's Interior Department, is currently leading the CEQ.
The council was originally envisioned as a way to corral environmental decisions and challenges from across government into a central White House arm when President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act creating the CEQ in 1970. It put the CEQ in the Executive Office of the President, a sign of its elevated stature.
Under President George W. Bush, the CEQ and its chairman, Connaughton, held sway over a broad portfolio of environmental policy; Connaughton also was tapped to as a U.S. negotiator at UN talks toward a global climate deal.
President Barack Obama in 2009 shifted that negotiating authority to a special climate envoy at the State Department, but the CEQ continued to play a significant role coordinating Obama environmental regulation and climate policy.
Arguably its biggest policy effort, completed in the final months of the Obama administration, was a guidance document designed to ensure that roads, bridges and other transportation and infrastructure projects receiving federal funding are evaluated for how they might be affected by rising sea levels and other climate-related impacts.
Whether the August 2016 guidance survives is unclear; it is widely opposed by Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and could also be in President Trump's cross-hairs as he considers rolling back Obama environmental and climate policies.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106340459&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106340459&jd=106340459
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US EPA Rejects Petition Calling for TSCA Section 6 Rulemaking
Feb 28, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has rejected a petition calling on it to use section 6 of TSCA to prohibit the purposeful addition of fluoride chemicals to drinking water.
The petition, from medical academies and environmental groups, urges the agency to use its powers on existing chemicals to address what it calls an unreasonable neurotoxic risk to human health. It was filed under section 21 of TSCA in November.
But in its first petition response since the passage of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, the EPA said the request is not justified because it has not adequately addressed the substances' full sets of conditions of use.
The agency says the revised TSCA law requires section 6 risk evaluations to address all of a substance's manufacture, processing, distribution, use and disposal activities that are intended, known or reasonably foreseen. And it says that resulting section 6 risk management rules must also address these considerations.
In view of this, it says it is interpreting TSCA section 21 as "requiring the petition to present a scientific basis for action that is reasonably comparable, in its quality and scope, to a risk evaluation under TSCA section 6(b)." This includes assessing all of a substance's conditions of use, and then describing a rule that would mitigate identified unreasonable risk.
Because the petition only addressed one use of fluoride chemicals – those intentionally added to drinking water – the agency said it would need to "conduct a catch-up risk evaluation" to address the substances' additional conditions of use. And initiating this, it said, would bypass the prioritisation 'pipeline' established under the new law to address substances of highest concern first.
"Congress carefully tailored the mandatory throughput requirements of TSCA section 6, based on its recognition of the limitations of EPA's capacity and resources, notwithstanding the sizeable number of chemical substances that will ultimately require review," said the agency.
"Under this scheme, EPA does not believe that Congress intended to empower petitioners to promote chemicals of particular concern to them above other chemicals that may well present greater overall risk, and force completion of expedited risk evaluations and rulemakings on those chemicals, based on risks arising from individual uses."
However the agency said petitioners may seek to use section 21 petitions to pursue other activities related to specific conditions of use, or to submit a revised petition that includes full conditions of use.
Section 21 allows any person to petition the agency to initiate a rulemaking proceeding for the issuance, amendment or repeal of a rule under TSCA sections 4, 6, or 8, or an order under TSCA sections 4, 5(e), or 5(f).
The agency is in the midst of 90-day review periods on two separate section 21 petitions. These were filed by six NGOs, calling for mandatory testing of four work plan flame retardants under section 4 of the law.
https://chemicalwatch.com/53882/us-epa-rejects-petition-calling-for-tsca-section-6-rulemaking
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EPA Research Leaders Promote Relevancy, Value to Trump Administration
Feb 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's research leaders are seeking to demonstrate the value of the Office of Research and Development (ORD), emphasizing during a recent introductory meeting with Trump administration officials the provisions in environmental statutes that mandate various research programs, ORD's emergency and technical assistance, and other activities.
ORD's acting chief Bob Kavlock and other ORD leaders met with transition team members late last month, an agency source tells Inside EPA, adding that the other agency offices were scheduled to conduct similar briefing meetings with transition officials. ORD leaders planned to "give the '[the] agency needs us, and this is why'" speech to transition officials, the source said.
Presentation slides from the Jan. 30 ORD meeting, obtained by Inside EPA, show ORD leaders making an argument for EPA's need for its research and scientific office, which has in the past been threatened in times of declining funding. "EPA's research provides science that is mandated by several environmental laws," the slides state, pointing to language in the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
For example, the slides quote CAA's direction that EPA "establish a national research and development program for the prevention and control of air pollution," and TSCA's instruction that EPA "conduct such research, development, and monitoring as is necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act. The Administrator may enter into contracts and may make grants for research, development, and monitoring under this subsection."
The slides note that "ORD provides the scientific foundation for EPA to execute its mandate to protect human health and the environment," and outlines the three types of research that ORD conducts: long-term research, research on specific issues and emergency support research.
"ORD conducts innovative and anticipatory research applied to a range of EPA program and regional needs in air, water, land, and homeland security to solve longer term major environmental challenges and provide the basis of future environmental protection," the slides say of ORD's long-term research programs. Examples described by the slides include ORD's computational toxicology research efforts to reduce traditional animal testing and increase use of faster, cheaper, more human-relevant methodologies; ORD's Homeland Security Research Program which "focuses on protecting water systems security, and remediating wide-area contamination incidents" and oil spills research.
Environmental Research
Regarding research on specific environmental problems, the slides state, "ORD experts provide research support to EPA program and regional offices, as well as states, tribes, and communities, to help them respond to contemporary environmental challenges." Here, the slides list examples such as technical assistance for small drinking water systems that serve fewer than 10,000 customers; developing analytical and remediation methods for perfluorinated chemicals; assisting EPA's toxics office with implementing the newly overhauled TSCA; and managing EPA's Integrated Risk Information System and Integrated Science Assessment environmental contaminant assessment programs.
On emergency response research, the slides explain, "Because of our expertise, local, state, and national officials come to us for technical support to respond to environmental crises and needs, large and small." The slides outline examples including emergency response support to a 2002 chemical release from a company in Holley, NY, and to a harmful algal bloom threatening drinking water in Toledo, OH, in 2014.
The slides also list, but do not elaborate upon, a number of "critical issues," including chemical evaluations; safe drinking water; the relationship with the Environmental Council of the States, which represents many state environmental agencies; EPA's Title 42 authority and facilities.
The future of EPA's Title 42 authority has been a long-standing concern for the agency, since it only has limited authority under the statute, compared to other agencies whose Title 42 authority is broader and indefinite. The authority gives EPA and other agencies the ability to pay high-caliber scientists more than the government pay scale to enable the agencies to compete with private industry and academia.
ORD's research facilities have also been a long-standing concern given questions from Congress and the White House about the efficiency and cost of EPA's numerous lab sites around the country. They agency has in recent years, undertaken efforts to consolidate and close some of the facilities, following internal and congressional investigations.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-research-leaders-promote-relevancy-value-trump-administration
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Hazardous Substance Registration Lacks ‘Crucial’ Data: EU Agency
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Chemicals companies continue to struggle with obligations under the European Union's REACH regulation to provide safety data on hazardous substances, the European Chemicals Agency said in a report issued Feb. 27.
Of 184 checks completed in 2016 on substance registration dossiers that companies submitted under REACH, 168 or 91 percent resulted in requests to companies to provide more information, particularly on the toxic properties of substances, the chemicals agency said.
Chemicals agency director Geert Dancet said in a statement Feb. 27 that this showed “crucial data is still missing for most substances.” The agency said companies not responding to requests for data after compliance checks could lose their REACH registration numbers and therefore their access to the EU market.
Erwin Annys, REACH manager for the European Chemical Industry Council, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 27 that “companies should be given a fair chance to correct any mistakes,” and “revoking registration numbers has serious consequences.”
The European Chemicals Agency said its dossier checks in 2016 were of registration dossiers submitted by the second REACH deadline of May 31, 2013, which applied to substances produced in or imported into the EU in annual volumes of 100 metric tons or more. Dossier checks had focused on substances that might require “risk management measures,” the European Chemicals Agency said.
Followup Steps
Annys said the European Chemicals Agency report referred to registration dossiers submitted between 2010 and 2013 and “companies’ understanding of what is needed by authorities has improved over time.”
According to the report, although dossier checks found missing or insufficient information in the great majority of cases, more than 90 percent of dossiers were made REACH-compliant in response to the agency's requests for further information.
Peter Pierrou, a spokesman for ChemSec (the International Chemical Secretariat), which campaigns for the phaseout of toxic substances, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 27 that the European Chemicals Agency's work in checking registration dossiers was “really important” because “concrete chemical data from companies are sorely needed.”
Inadequate or lacking information “will actually become a problem for laggard companies in the future as hazardous chemicals are increasingly seen as a financial risk by investors,” Pierrou said.
Annys said the “many companies respecting the rules should be protected from those deliberately not respecting the rules.”
Substance Evaluations
The European Chemicals Agency said its checks on the information contained in REACH registration dossiers were important “for correct classification and labeling, assessment of risks and for concluding whether regulatory risk management measures are needed.”
In a parallel process to dossier evaluation, regulatory authorities in EU countries carry out evaluations of substances that are suspected of being hazardous. The substance evaluations can also result in binding requests for more data to companies that have registered the substances.
The report said 48 such substance evaluations were carried out in 2016, with 32 triggering information requests to companies “to clarify suspected concerns.”
The agency said that 20 substance evaluations were finalized during 2016. For six of the substances, harmonized EU classification and labeling was recommended, and for three of the substances, listing as substances of very high concern was recommended.
Under REACH, substances of very high concern can be prohibited from use in the EU without specific continued-use authorizations. The three substances recommended for this status in 2016—which if confirmed would join the 173 REACH's substances of very high concern list—were 1-(2-hydroxy-5-nonyl(branched)-phenyl)ethanone oxime, ammonium perchlorate and sodium perchlorate.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106340443&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106340443&jd=106340443
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How Exactly Will Pruitt Kill Clean Power Plan?
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has sentenced the Clean Power Plan to death. Now it's only a matter of determining the method of execution.
President Donald Trump could sign an executive order this week directing the Environmental Protection Agency to walk back the Obama administration's signature climate rule, which Pruitt as Oklahoma attorney general had opposed. Repealing the Clean Power Plan, a lengthy process sure to invite legal challenges from environmentalists, is the first shot in a broader effort to undo the Obama administration's efforts to address climate change.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Pruitt said the EPA would abide by the power that Congress expressly delegated, mirroring arguments he's previously made against the regulation.
“We have to send a message across the country that we're going to provide certainty by living within the framework Congress has passed,” he said. “So we're going to see regulations rolled back that aren't consistent with that—[Waters of the U.S.], Clean Power Plan, the methane rule.”
Think Smaller
While Pruitt has set his sights on killing the Clean Power Plan, embracing less onerous carbon dioxide standards on the power industry could stymie environmentalists’ legal challenges to any attempt to roll back climate regulations, attorneys said. Doing that would be “the most lock-solid, defensible, march-it-through-the-courts approach,” Megan Berge, a partner in Baker Botts LLP's Washington, D.C., office who represents industry groups, told Bloomberg BNA.
“The way to go is, don't be creative. Just do what the statute says,” she said.
As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt helped lead the legal fight against the Clean Power Plan, which was issued under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. He even offered his own counter plan, which gave states more leeway to set their own emissions targets—even setting less-stringent emissions limits than federal standards in some instances. That plan could form the basis for a much narrower alternative that would implement that section of the law more in line with the EPA's past application rather than the Obama administration's far broader interpretation.
The Obama EPA took Section 111(d), a rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act, and read its powers broadly, attempting to regulate not just emissions from power plants but prioritizing renewable energy and natural gas generation in an effort to reduce emissions from the power sector overall. Requiring individual power plants to reduce their emissions through improvements to their heat rate would have produced far more modest emissions reductions than the 30-percent cut envisioned under the Clean Power Plan.
“If they put forward some alternative, I think they have a higher likelihood of surviving,” said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, who represents cities supporting the carbon dioxide standards in litigation over the rule.
High Risk, High Reward
But if Pruitt wants to completely foreclose greenhouse gas regulation of the power sector, he may need to embrace another EPA regulation he had opposed. Opponents of the Clean Power Plan have long argued that the rule represents an overreach on the part of the EPA because the Clean Air Act bars regulating carbon dioxide from power plants under Section 111(d). That, the opponents say, is because those units are already regulated under Section 112.
The so-called Section 112 exclusion would be a way to undo the Clean Power Plan and bar similar regulations on utilities and other stationary sources of emissions going forward.
“The Section 112/111 exclusion is going to be attractive to people who really want to put this to bed,” Berger said. “It reexamines whether they really do have the authority. It's whether, not how.”
When the Clean Air Act was last amended in 1990, conflicting amendments were adopted to Section 111(d). The House amendment bars the EPA from regulating industrial facilities under Section 111(d) if they are already subject to toxic pollutant limits under Section 112, as are power plants. The Senate amendment merely prevents the EPA form regulating the same pollutants under both provisions.
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan argue that the House language should take precedence and since power plants are already subject to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards under Section 112, their carbon dioxide emissions could not be regulated under Section 111(d) as well.
Pruitt was among the challengers to the mercury rule, but utilities have already met that rule's requirements.
While reinterpreting the EPA's reading of the Section 112 exclusion would put a definitive end to the Clean Power Plan, the unusual nature of the conflicting amendments and the statutory interpretation problems they pose could also make that approach more vulnerable to legal challenges.
“Complexity is no one's friend when they're trying to get anything done before a court,” William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA.
Court is Still Deliberating
Complicating any plans the Pruitt EPA may have going forward is a pending decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the legality of the rule. Ten judges from the court heard a full day of argument on the rule in 2016 and a decision is expected soon (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir. en banc, No. 15-1363, 9/27/16).
The Trump administration has yet to ask the court to send the rule back for correction, something that would be expected if the EPA intends to revoke or revise the regulation.
“You wouldn't go about revising the rule leaving the case ongoing,” Yeatman said. “The first thing you would do, and I don't understand why they haven't done this yet, is you go to the court and you say that.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106340457&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106340457&jd=106340457
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State Officials Keeping Fingers Crossed for Ohio Cracker Plant Development
Feb 28, 2017 | Beaver County Times Online
By Jared Stonesifer
Ohio officials aren’t the only ones crossing their fingers for the construction of an ethane cracker plant about 70 miles southwest of Beaver County.
An official with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development said Monday during a webinar that state officials are also holding their collective breaths for a positive investment decision from PTT Global, the company that is exploring the possibility of building an ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio.
Denise Brinley, a special assistant to the secretary of the DCED, also said recent studies have shown the tri-state region of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio could eventually be home to four cracker plants.
From the perspective of state economic development officials, the more crackers, the merrier.
“We don’t want Shell to be the only ethane cracker in the region and we think one of the best economic development projects that could happen next is the PTT Global cracker, because it will sure up the region as a petrochemical hub.”
The fact that Shell has already announced its intent to build a $6 billion ethane cracker in Potter Township is wonderful, Brinley said. But that doesn’t mean state officials are content.
To that end, she said it’s no secret that Pennsylvania has partnered with Ohio and West Virginia to pool resources in an effort to secure more crackers and, in turn, more economic development.
“We all believe across state borders that we want to get the pie, and (then) we can fight over the size of the pieces of pie,” she said.
Brinley, who said she was involved in talks with Shell as far back as 2011, understands what it takes to bring an ethane cracker to the region. She said transportation and other infrastructure is already in place, but “pad-ready sites are key.”
“We’re making an earnest effort in the southwestern portion (of Pennsylvania) to have pad-ready sites,” she said. “Making an investment is a little bit easier when a site has the necessary infrastructure in place and is teed up and ready to go.”
Finally, Brinley said it only makes sense for the state to support more ethane crackers in the region.
“If other crackers come online, Pennsylvania will benefit as well because we’ll have participated in the construction of one cracker here in our own state, and certainly those resources can work across state borders for the benefit of all.”
Brinley, along with three other experts within the natural gas industry, spoke during a webinar conference sponsored by a trade publication called Natural Gas Intelligence.
During that webinar, the three other experts all agreed that the region will eventually have more than one ethane cracker plant.
Don Rush, the vice president of marketing for Consol Energy, was one of the officials who participated in the webinar. Consol already has an agreement in place to supply the Shell plant with ethane for a 10-year period.
Rush said there is an abundance of ethane available in the region, not to mention the necessary infrastructure and workforce to build more crackers.
“We think it points to, sooner or later, having more (cracker plants) in the region,” he said.
For Brinley and other state officials, there’s no reason why Pennsylvania can’t be home to more than just Shell’s ethane cracker plant.
“We are doing everything we can to position and market Pennsylvania as a great place to do business, and we want to incentivize folks to look at this region,” she said.
http://www.timesonline.com/news/shellcracker/state-officials-keeping-fingers-crossed-for-ohio-cracker-plant-development/article_11a3d716-fd2c-11e6-b98f-b3db52ecbebd.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Groups Fighting Repeal of Safety Regs for Industrial Plants
Feb 27, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
A coalition of more than two dozen environmental justice groups is advocating against congressional repeal of recently released U.S. EPA safety regulations for chemical plants, oil refineries and thousands of other major industrial facilities.
"Congress should reject self-interested calls from industries that use extremely hazardous chemicals to overturn the modest changes to the RMP [risk management plan] rule" and instead side with first responders, safety experts and at-risk communities, members of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform said in a letter to House and Senate leaders released this afternoon. The amended regulations "place very little new responsibility or costs on industry, but can help to prevent future disasters," they added.
Signing on to the letter are 26 alliance members from 12 states, including People Concerned About Chemical Safety in West Virginia, the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental and Economic Justice, and the Farmworker Association of Florida. A 2014 alliance analysis found that the number of African-Americans and Latinos living near hazardous chemical facilities is 75 percent and 60 percent higher, respectively, than the background average for the United States as a whole, according to an accompanying news release.
EPA had published the "accidental release" regulations last month; they were prompted by a 2013 Obama administration executive order issued in response to an ammonium nitrate explosion at a Texas fertilizer storage and distribution facility that killed 15 people.
Currently scheduled to take effect March 21, the new rules are intended to step up accident prevention efforts, keep the public better informed of potential risks, and heighten protections against chemical exposure for firefighters and other first responders.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and other industry groups argue that the new regulations will impose substantial costs without a meaningful return on safety. More than 20 are backing H.J. Res. 59, a recently introduced bill by Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) that would use the Congressional Review Act — a 1996 law that allows lawmakers to overturn recently promulgated regulations with only simple majorities in both chambers — to void the new rule (Greenwire, Jan. 26). As of this afternoon, the bill has 37 co-sponsors and is awaiting action in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
In a separate letter earlier this month, the American Chemistry Council also asked EPA to delay the effective date of the new requirements for at least 60 days beyond March 21. In the letter, the group wrote that an array of issues, such as uncertain compliance deadlines and other regulatory uncertainties, warranted further attention.
EPA officials have not replied, council spokesman Scott Jensen said in an email this afternoon.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060050624/search?keyword=%22american+chemistry+council%22
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Hazmat Agency Delays Compliance for Transport, Labeling Rule
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration won't penalize companies complying with new, but inconsistent, hazardous material regulations, the agency announced Feb. 27.
PHMSA said it will allow handlers to comply with either new international rules or current domestic rules for transporting hazardous materials via air or water. The agency will also allow those packages to be labeled by either the new or old regulations, without taking enforcement action.
“The gist of it is that they (PHMSA) recognize that international compliance and harmonization is crucial for industry, so that's a very good thing,” said Paul Rankin, president of the Reusable Industrial Packaging Association.
PHMSA is working to harmonize domestic with international standards for transporting and labeling hazardous materials. The international rules, from the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code, have already been enacted.
The agency has not yet published its own rule that would align U.S. regulations with those updates.
Companies and trade associations have asked Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to finish up the PHMSA rule as soon as possible.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106340446&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106340446&jd=106340446
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(ACC Mentioned) Industries Take ‘Draconian’ Hazardous Waste Rule to Court
Feb 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Trade organizations across multiple industries have brought what one called a “draconian” new regulation on hazardous waste generators to court (Am. Chemistry Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir. App., 17-01064, 2/24/17).
Eight trade organizations, representing the chemical, paper, iron, steel, petroleum, wood, electronics, motor and oilseed industries, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review an EPA rule. The rule revises regulations for those generating hazardous waste and is scheduled to go into effect in May.
The rule makes revisions to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's hazardous waste generator regulation program. It seeks to make the regulations more user-friendly for generators, strengthen environmental protections and allow generators more flexibility in managing their hazardous waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
‘Substantial Penalties’ Feared
Failing to meet any one of the EPA's conditions for exemption “could subject a generator to multiple violations and substantial penalties,” the American Chemistry Council said in a statement.
Even minor deviations in compliance could mark a generator as an illegal treatment, storage and disposal facility, the statement said. The council called the provision “draconian,” though it said it approves of some “common-sense updates” also included in the rule.
In addition to the council, the plaintiffs in the case are the American Forest and Paper Association, American Iron and Steel Institute, American Petroleum Institute, American Wood Council, Association Connecting Electronics Industries, Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, National Oilseed Processors Association and Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates.
EPA officials didn't immediately respond to Bloomberg BNA's e-mail and phone call requests for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106340449&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106340449&jd=106340449
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Trump's 'Security Budget' Targets EPA, Other Agencies
Feb 27, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump wants to slash the budgets of most federal agencies as he looks to simultaneously increase defense spending, the White House announced today.
Trump is sending out his budget blueprint to individual agencies today, where he'll lay out top-line numbers that are expected to slash spending at agencies like U.S. EPA and the Interior and Energy departments. It's the first step in a lengthy negotiation over a federal budget that will involve agencies' input about specific programs and could change dramatically after it moves through Congress. With Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House, major cuts to environmental programs are likely.
"We don't want to provide specific agency reductions, but most federal agencies will see reductions," a White House Office of Management and Budget official told reporters today on a conference call. "In the process, we're going through and we're looking at unauthorized programs; we're looking for where there's duplication, where consolidation needs to occur."
The OMB official called Trump's blueprint a "security budget," noting that Trump wants to increase defense spending by $54 billion, with corresponding cuts to non-defense spending.
The administration intends to formally release its budget blueprint in mid-March, which would include top-line spending numbers. A full budget will come later this year. During President Obama's first year in office, he submitted a budget outline in February, followed by a fleshed-out proposal in May.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer wrote on Twitter today, "On budget @potus says we are going to do more with less, with $20 trillion debt country needs to tighten it's [sic] belt." Trump, speaking to governors today, said "his budget will be a public safety & national security budget: will include military increase," Spicer wrote.
Among the cuts proposed by Trump will be "a large reduction in foreign aid," the OMB official said. "This budget expects the rest of the world to step up in some of the programs that this country has been so generous in funding in the past."
Although the White House declined to comment today on cuts proposed for specific agencies, The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump would request a budget with tens of billions of dollars in reductions from EPA and the State Department.
Most of those cuts would likely come from State, which has an annual budget of about $50 billion, including foreign aid programs. EPA's annual budget has hovered around $8 billion in recent years.Conservative blueprints offer clues
For hints about which energy and environmental programs might be on the chopping block, sources close to the Trump administration have pointed to the sweeping budget outlines laid out by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, Republican Study Committee and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Those groups have offered up an array of programs at agencies like EPA and the Energy Department that they would like to see cut.
Among the many specific programs that could be in the crosshairs: EPA climate offices, the renewable energy shop at the Energy Department and efforts to increase federal landownership (Greenwire, Jan. 27). EPA's enforcement office and regional offices have also been discussed as possible targets for budget cuts by sources close to the administration.
Trump made it clear during the campaign that he wanted to scale back federal environmental programs. "Environmental protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations," Trump told Fox News during the campaign, referring to EPA. He added, "We'll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses."
EPA spokesman Doug Ericksen today declined to discuss potential cuts to the agency's climate change programs.
"On the budget front, we are committed to investments on the capital side, clean water projects, water treatment facilities and cleaning up Superfund sites and Brownfields sites," Ericksen said in an interview. "Any cut that did come would be on the non-capital side. It would be strategic and in line with the president's agenda and Congress."
Congressional Democrats today slammed Trump's plans to cut funding for most federal agencies.
"It is clear from this budget blueprint that President Trump fully intends to break his promises to working families by taking a meat ax to programs that benefit the middle-class," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "A cut this steep almost certainly means cuts to agencies that protect consumers from Wall Street excess and protect clean air and water. Most Americans didn't vote to ease up on polluters or to give Wall Street the green light to rip them off."
New York Rep. Nita Lowey, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, vowed that her party would fight against a budget that includes "devastating cuts to services and investments that are critical to working families, communities and American leadership."
Enacting appropriations law will likely require Democratic votes, she said. "Democrats will make crystal-clear the misplaced priorities of the Administration and the Republican majority, and we will fight tooth and nail to protect services and investments that are critical to hardworking American families and communities across the country."
Reporter Kevin Bogardus contributed.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/02/27/stories/1060050618
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Key Lawmakers Balk at Plan for Steep Cuts at EPA
Feb 28, 2017 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink and Geof Koss
Top Republican appropriators aren't embracing a plan to slash federal spending for U.S. EPA that President Trump is due to outline tonight in his address to Congress.
The White House yesterday previewed Trump's spending plans, which would make deep cuts in fiscal 2018 for most federal programs not tied to national security. EPA could see its $8.1 billion annual budget cut by nearly a quarter, E&E News reported yesterday (E&E News PM, Feb. 27).
"This defense spending increase will be offset and paid for by finding greater savings and efficiencies across the federal government. We're going to do more with less," Trump said yesterday in a speech to the National Governors Association.
The proposed cuts are part of a broader Trump administration move to scale back environmental protections established by the Obama administration. For example, Trump is planning to issue an order today that would begin to dismantle Obama's Clean Water Rule (Greenwire, Feb. 27).
The president said he would offer more details about the plan in his speech this evening — in advance of a budget outline due to Congress on March 16.
Senior House and Senate appropriators, though, were noncommittal and skeptical about the cuts that would reduce EPA spending by $2 billion.
Appropriators' support is crucial as they'll write the fiscal 2018 spending bills that carry out any potential funding reductions. If they are not on board, it would be almost impossible to have the spending bills with EPA cuts move in either chamber.
There's "not that much in the EPA [budget] for crying out loud," said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, when asked about the reported cuts. He noted that more than a quarter of the EPA budget goes toward popular drinking water and clean air grants for states, local communities and tribes that lawmakers from both parties would be reluctant to cut.
Simpson said he had not yet seen enough to oppose the budget but also said EPA has been scaled back sharply by Republicans in recent years compared with 1980s spending levels and is not convinced there's room for even deeper cuts.
"I think you would see a lot of Republicans voting against those bills" if they cut domestic spending by $54 billion, Simpson said. "There's a lot of members who have a lot of interest in these programs. There's more to our government than just defense."
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said he only heard about the proposed EPA cuts through news reports and said he would wait for more details from the administration before weighing in.
"I am going to see what [new EPA chief] Scott Pruitt has in mind and then sit down shortly with him to figure it out," said Calvert, who added he does expect there will be "some reorganization" at the agency.
House appropriators are likely to hear more about the proposed EPA spending cuts today, when they host a "members' day" hearing on the Interior and environment spending plan — a session in which any lawmaker can weigh in on the fiscal 2018 budget.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, already is blasting the prospect of sharp cuts at EPA and promised to oppose them.
"Deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency threaten to take us back to the days when corporations could freely dump dangerous chemicals in our water and spew harmful pollutants into our air," McCollum said.
Unease in the Senate
While conservative support could potentially allow deep cuts to move in the House along party lines, any Senate plan would still need 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Republicans only control 52 Senate seats, and there are already signs of GOP unease.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, said last night that she was unaware of the rumored 24 percent cut to EPA's budget.
However, she noted that in a private meeting with Pruitt, he expressed support for EPA programs that help state and local governments finance water infrastructure upgrades — an issue that is popular with members of both parties.
"He recognizes that that is a key role for EPA," Murkowski said.
She suggested that the administration look more broadly at reducing full-time equivalents for efforts that have been stayed by the courts, such as the Clean Power Plan.
"I'm hoping that now Pruitt has been confirmed as EPA administrator that he's taking a real critical look at some of these positions," she said.
Several other Republicans also were not yet ready to back Trump's budget plan.
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), a Budget Committee member who regularly calls for balancing the budget and cutting the deficit, said he wanted to see a "realistic" plan for achieving those fiscal goals. "We can't simply cut spending to solve the debt crisis," he added.
Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the plan is not enough for the Defense Department even with a $54 billion increase. He said it amounts to a 3 percent increase for the Pentagon to deal with a "world that is on fire."
Like many Democrats, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a senior appropriator, said she'd vote against any spending legislation seeking a 24 percent cut in EPA funding.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/02/28/stories/1060050648
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EPA Will Focus on Short-Term SO2 Exposures in NAAQS Risk Assessment
Feb 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is placing heavy emphasis on the short-term public health impacts of exposure to sulfur dioxide (SO2) air emissions in a planned risk and exposure assessment (REA) that will inform its pending decision on whether to retain, weaken, or tighten the agency's existing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for the criteria pollutant.
An REA planning document released Feb. 22, a part of the NAAQS review process, to some extent reiterates the strong focus on short-term exposures from a similar review done in 2009. That earlier review resulted in the agency tightening the standard to 75 parts per billion (ppb) using a novel one-hour averaging time to control for short, intense bursts of pollution that harm human health -- compared to the previous NAAQS of 140 ppb over 24 hours and 30 ppb annually.
But the planned new REA will seek to bolster the emphasis on short-term exposures with better emissions data and modeling techniques, and it will inform a policy assessment (PA) outlining options for revising the NAAQS.
The Clean Air Act requires that EPA review its ambient air standards for SO2 and five other criteria pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter every five years. But the agency has often missed those deadlines and is already years behind schedule with the SO2 NAAQS review, which should have been finished in 2015.
The Obama EPA's schedule indicated that a final NAAQS rule for SO2 “primary,” or health-based, standards, could be complete in 2019. It is unclear, however, how the new administration will proceed, given President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda and intended deep budget cuts for the agency's work.
The one-hour standard has created implementation problems in monitoring compliance, requiring the creation of a new monitoring network and new modeling techniques to capture the short-term releases of SO2.
This has pushed some deadlines for designation of states as either “attainment” or “nonattainment” with the standard years beyond schedules, drawing litigation from environmentalists and states. Under the current schedule agreed with environmentalist litigants, designations must be complete by the end of 2020.
While that work continues, the planned REA signals the agency is pushing ahead with the review, although it is unclear what the PA might say. EPA in a Federal Register notice says it will take public comment on the risk assessment plan through April 13.
An SO2 integrated science assessment, which is an earlier part of the NAAQS process, released in December, weakened several findings of adverse health effects contained in an earlier draft in response to criticism from science advisors, further undermining the case for any strengthening of the NAAQS.
Respiratory Harm
The REA plan, which includes quantitative characterizations of SO2 exposures and associated risks, says the new review will be similar to the 2009 version, placing heavy emphasis on short-term exposures measured over five-minute increments and their impacts on human health. However, for the new review the agency has better short-term air monitoring data to use and better computer modeling than in 2009, according to EPA.
EPA says this review, like the last, will be based largely on the respiratory harm to asthmatics who are exercising. The last review contained “analyses focused on short-term (5-minute) SO2 concentrations; an exposure assessment designed to estimate exposures likely to be experienced by at-risk populations while at increased ventilation; and risk characterization utilizing two types of metrics: (1) comparisons of exposures to concentrations of potential concern (benchmark levels), and (2) lung function risk estimates,” according to the REA plan.
However, EPA says it will aim to use better data and improved analytical techniques to reduce scientific uncertainties inherent in the 2009 REA. The agency required reporting of SO2 emissions over 5-minute periods for compliance with the one-hour standard, and EPA aims to exploit this new information.
EPA in the new review plan “focuses on the updated SO2 air monitoring dataset available in this review. Specifically, the data for 5-minute concentrations are greatly expanded with regard to both the number of monitoring locations for which hourly maximum 5-minute concentrations are available and the number for which all 5-minute values for each hour are available,” the agency says.
“The analysis approach for the new REA will be based on linking the health effects information to population exposure estimates that draw on this improved understanding of 5-minute concentrations of SO2 in the ambient air and will also take advantage of a number of improvements and updates to the air quality, exposure, and risk models, and associated input data,” according to the REA plan.
EPA says improvements in its air quality model known as AERMOD will reduce uncertainties in one-hour SO2 concentration estimates, and a greatly expanded database of personal “activity diaries” will provide a stronger foundation for population exposure modeling. The agency will take advantage of improvements to several aspects of its Air Pollutant Exposure Model, and will use an expanded dataset for development of a lung function “exposure-response function” to estimate risks with reduced uncertainty.
In addition to public input, EPA will solicit the advice of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which counsels EPA on how to set NAAQS, on the review plan.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-will-focus-short-term-so2-exposures-naaqs-risk-assessment
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Trump Plans to Begin E.P.A. Rollback With Order on Clean Water
Feb 27, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at rolling back one of former President Barack Obama’s major environmental regulations to protect American waterways, but it will have almost no immediate legal effect, according to two people familiar with the White House plans.
The order will essentially give Mr. Trump a megaphone to direct his new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin the complicated legal process of rewriting the sweeping 2015 rule known as Waters of the United States. But that effort could take longer than a single presidential term, legal experts said.
An advance copy of the order was viewed by The New York Times on Monday. It is the first of two announcements expected to direct Mr. Pruitt to begin dismantling the major pillars of Mr. Obama’s environmental legacy.
In the coming week, Mr. Trump is also expected to sign a similar order instructing Mr. Pruitt to begin the process of withdrawing and revising Mr. Obama’s signature 2015 climate-change regulation, aimed at curbing emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants.Continue reading the main storyThe Trump White HouseStories about President Trump’s administration.In Joint Sessions of Congress, Capturing Moments of American Public LifeFEB 28What to Watch: Trump Gives His Presidency an ‘A’ So FarFEB 28Trump’s Budget Is Aspirational. Reality in Congress Will Change It.FEB 28Trump Order Will Aim to Roll Back a Clean Water RuleFEB 27Trump Concedes Health Law Overhaul Is ‘Unbelievably Complex’FEB 27
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Because both of those rules were finalized under existing laws long before Mr. Obama left office, they cannot be simply undone with a stroke of the president’s pen, legal experts in both the Obama and Trump White Houses have said.
“The executive order has no legal significance at all,” said Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University. “It’s like the president calling Scott Pruitt and telling him to start the legal proceedings. It does the same thing as a phone call or a tweet. It just signals that the president wants it to happen.”
Still, Mr. Pruitt, who was confirmed by the Senate to his new position this month, is expected to enthusiastically dive in to the lengthy task of undoing major environmental rules on clean water, climate change and air pollution. In his former job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt led or took part in 14 lawsuits intended to block the E.P.A.’s major regulations, including the clean water and climate rules that he is now charged with dismantling.
Speaking over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Pruitt told an audience, to applause, “I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way,” and he said those rollbacks would probably begin this week.
The clean water rule, completed by the Obama administration in spring 2015, was issued under the 1972 Clean Water Act. It gives the federal government broad authority to limit pollution in major bodies of water, like Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and Puget Sound, as well as in streams and wetlands that drain into those larger waters.
Two Supreme Court decisions related to clean water protection, in 2001 and 2006, created legal confusion about whether the federal government had the authority to regulate the smaller streams and headwaters and about other water sources such as wetlands.
The Obama administration’s water rule, put forth jointly by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers, was intended to clarify that authority, allowing the government to once again limit pollution in those smaller bodies of water. Environmentalists have praised the rule, calling it an important step that will lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water.
But it has come under fierce attack from farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers, golf-course owners and other business interests that contend that it will stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, which has led the legal fight against Mr. Obama’s rule, contends that it places an undue burden on farmers in particular, who may find themselves required to apply for federal permits to use fertilizer near ditches and streams on their property that may eventually flow into larger rivers.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump won cheers from rural audiences when he vowed to roll back the rule.
Despite the controversy over the regulation, it has yet to be put into effect. A federal court delayed it as judges review the legal challenges against it. Mr. Trump’s executive order directs Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review the challenges and to consider asking the court to delay a decision on the matter until a new regulation is released.
That could take several years. To follow the law, Mr. Pruitt will have to withdraw the current Obama administration water regulation and craft a new version of the rule, along with a justification as to why it would be legally superior to the earlier one. That would be subject to a public comment period before it is finalized, and it could face new lawsuits afterward.
Either way, the fight over who controls the nation’s waterways is expected to end up in front of the Supreme Court. In directing Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to craft the new water regulation, Mr. Trump’s order asks him to consider a 2006 review of the rule that was written by Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who died last year. Justice Scalia, who was long the court’s most prominent conservative voice, offered a narrow and tightly constrained interpretation of what would constitute a federally protected body of water. Based on his interpretation, the number of federally protected waterways under Mr. Trump’s order would probably be far less than the 60 percent covered by the Obama administration.
Also on Tuesday, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order intended to strengthen the federal office in charge of coordinating support for the nation’s historically black colleges and universities. That office has for years been housed in the Education Department, but it will now move to the White House, officials said.
Aides to the president, who requested anonymity to discuss the executive order before it had been officially announced, said Mr. Trump hoped the move would mean more support for the colleges. They said the president also hoped to enlist the colleges in efforts to help urban centers in America.
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/us/politics/trump-epa-clean-water-climate-change.html?_r=0
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EPA Extends Comment Deadline on Texas Haze Plan
Feb 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is extending the deadline for public comment on its proposed disapproval and replacement of Texas' plan to curb regional haze, pushing the deadline from March 6 until May 5, amid doubts that the Trump EPA will press ahead with the replacement plan that would impose tough pollution controls on power plants.
EPA announced the delay in a Federal Register notice published Feb. 24, following several requests for an extension, the agency says. The Jan. 4 proposal would disapprove elements of Texas' state implementation plan (SIP) for reducing haze-forming pollutants, which EPA considers too weak, and instead impose a federal implementation plan (FIP) with tough pollution controls on power plants in the state.
The Obama EPA and Texas clashed frequently over state plans for haze and other Clean Air Act programs, but the Trump EPA under Administrator Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma Attorney General, is expected to defer more to states on such issues. Pruitt sued EPA over its decisions on haze plans, among other issues, citing federal overreach and abrogation of states' rights.
Pruitt's EPA will have to decide on the final plan, after taking comment. The proposed FIP would require new or upgraded technology to control sulfur dioxide, and also sets standards for particulate matter (PM) pollution in line with those established in the agency's landmark rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) to limit air toxics from power plants. EPA in the MACT rule used PM emissions as a proxy for toxics, and the rule is almost fully implemented already despite years of litigation over the regulation.
For nitrogen oxides emissions, however, the agency in its FIP says Texas can rely on the state's participation in the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule power plant air emissions trading program, as updated by EPA in October, to satisfy best available retrofit technology (BART) air control requirements. BART is a one-time control requirement for eligible sources, mostly power plants.
Meanwhile, Texas is challenging an earlier haze FIP in the case State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al., now in briefing in the 5th Circuit, which focuses on the “reasonable further progress” portion of the state's haze program. The court in a preliminary ruling last year backed Texas, and is widely expected to do so again when it issues a definitive ruling.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-extends-comment-deadline-texas-haze-plan-0
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