ACC AM 3/2/2017

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Mexico's Plastics Industry 'Not At Risk'; North American Chemical Sector Defends NAFTA

   Mar 1, 2017 | Plastics News

   By Stephen Downer and Steve Toloken
   
   
   A leader of Mexico's largest plastics trade association said that despite widespread concern, the plastics sector in Mexico is "not at risk," and he urged executives to ignore “predictions of a catastrophe” about the industry’s future.
2. (ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Challenge EPA's Obama-era Waste Generator Rule

   Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

   A host of industry groups has filed suit against EPA over the Obama administration's hazardous waste generator rule, with industry particularly opposed to a measure in the rule that imposes strict penalties if a generator fails to meet any of various “conditions for exemption.”
3. (ACC Mentioned) Global Chemical Production Starts Strong In 2017, ACC Says

   Mar 1, 2017 | ChemEngOnline

   By Scott Jenkins
   
   
   The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that headline global production started the year on a strong note, rising 0.6 percent in January after a similar gain in December, as measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis.
4. (ACC Mentioned) The Meek Shall Donate a Massive Inheritance

   Mar 1, 2017 | Forester Media

   By Arturo Santiago
   
   
   It’s pretty impressive when you scan the recycling efforts across the country. Dart Container Corp. has recently opened three new drop-off locations for expanded polystyrene products in Oklahoma, Illinois, and Idaho.
5. White House Said to Propose 25 Percent Cut in EPA Budget Plan

   Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Ari Natter and Christopher Flavelle
   
   
   The White House has recommended cutting the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by 25 percent and eliminating thousands of jobs and more than a dozen programs, according to an opponent of the budget plan.
6. Proposed Budget Cuts Will Be 'Devastating' — Ex-Chief

   Mar 2, 2017 | E&E Daily

   By Kevin Bogardus
   
   
   Former U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said yesterday that President Trump's proposed budget cuts for the agency would be crippling.

LCSA News

7. (ACC Mentioned) States' Chemical Rules May Set Stage For Legal Tests Of TSCA Preemption

   Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

   By David LaRoss
   
   
   Several liberal states' efforts to advance aggressive toxics laws could set the stage for legal tests over what chemical industry sources say are lingering unresolved questions on when the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) preempts state chemical safety programs, with federal courts expected to have to resolve the uncertainty.

Chemical Management News

8. The ‘Safer' Plastics Designed To Replace BPA May Be Just As Bad For You

   Mar 1, 2017 | Popular Science

   By Kendra Pierre-Louis
   
   
   A chemical called BHPF—found in some ‘BPA-Free’ plastics—may cause harmful outcomes in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
9. Key Leaders Set Out Plans For 2017

   Mar 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   By Achim Halpaap
   
   
   Chemicals regulation and management leaders have set out their plans and goals for 2017, in a series of exclusive articles for Chemical Watch’s Global Business Briefing.

Energy News

10. Executive Order on Clean Power Plan Next Week, Per White House

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Ari Natter
    
    
    President Donald Trump plans to issue an executive order instructing the EPA to begin re-doing the Clean Power Plan and overturn a federal moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands next week, White House spokeswoman Kelly Love said in an email.
11. House Eyes Infrastructure Package as Option for Energy Bills

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Rebecca Kern
    
    
    House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders plan to issue legislation to streamline natural gas pipeline and hydropower approvals. But if those don't pass as stand-alone bills, lawmakers see another vehicle: a broader infrastructure package.
12. EPA Seeks To Delay Deadline For NSPS Suit's Argument Format

    Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

    EPA in a March 1 motion is asking a federal appellate court to extend by two weeks the deadline for parties in litigation challenging the agency's greenhouse gas rule for new and modified power plants to file proposed formats for oral argument, saying the additional time is needed so the parties can reach an agreement on a proposed format.
13. Number Of Americans At Risk Of Man-Made Earthquakes Falls

    Mar 1, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Devin Henry
    
    
    The number of Americans who live in areas threatened by man-made earthquakes is half of what it was last year, researchers said Wednesday.
14. Ebell, Pica, Bravender And Lehmann On The Trump Regulatory, Climate Agenda

    Mar 1, 2017 | E&E TV

    By Monica Trauzzi
    
    
    On the heels of President Trump's speech last night before a joint session of Congress, what are the next steps for U.S. EPA on the regulatory and energy agenda pitched by the president?

Chemical Security News

15. Time For A Cybersecurity Grant Program For The States

    Mar 1, 2017 | The Hill- Congress Blog

    By Greg Garcia
    
    
    The current imbroglio between state governments and DHS over voting systems being designated as critical infrastructure misses an opportunity for more proactive partnership between states and the feds on cyber security.

Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

16. No News From Trump on Climate Pact Is Good News, Backers Say

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Dean Scott
    
    
    No news may have been good news for backers of the Paris climate pact as President Donald Trump steered clear of the climate change issue in his first speech to Congress—including whether he still believes the U.S. should withdraw from the global deal.
17. Science-Based Targets Key to Private-Sector Success in Carbon-Constrained Future

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Lisa Nelowet Grice
    
    
    The global climate agreement reached in Paris, coupled with developments in climate science, is now driving companies to link greenhouse-gas reduction goals to a global risk-based greenhouse gas budget.
18. Trump’s Green Assault Off To A Fast Start

    Mar 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro

    By Andrew Restuccia
    
    
    President Donald Trump is carrying out the most aggressive rollback of federal environmental rules since at least the Reagan administration.
19. House, Senate Move Forward to Rein in EPA, Eliminate Burdensome Regulations

    Mar 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Charlie Passut
    
    
    Lawmakers in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress are moving forward with legislation designed to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and eliminate rules perceived as ineffective and creating burdensome paperwork.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Mexico's Plastics Industry 'Not At Risk'; North American Chemical Sector Defends NAFTA

   Mar 1, 2017 | Plastics News

   By Stephen Downer and Steve Toloken

   A leader of Mexico's largest plastics trade association said that despite widespread concern, the plastics sector in Mexico is "not at risk," and he urged executives to ignore “predictions of a catastrophe” about the industry’s future.

   Meanwhile, as the Trump administration appears poised to move ahead with renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, the leading chemical industry associations in the region issued an unusual joint statement March 1 defending NAFTA as a positive — but saying they were open to its “modernization.”

   The nuanced statement from the largest chemical industry associations in Canada, Mexico and the United States came two days after the Trump aide seen as one of the leaders of any NAFTA renegotiation — Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — won Senate confirmation.

   In his confirmation hearing in January, Ross said NAFTA would be an early focus of the Trump administration, and Trump has repeatedly said that NAFTA hurt the United States and benefited its trading partners, calling the deal a “catastrophe” that led to massive job losses.

   In their March 1 statement, the American Chemistry Council in the U.S., the Chemical Industry Association of Canada and the Mexican Chemical Industry National Association all said NAFTA has had big economic benefits for the industry, leading to job growth and making the region more competitive globally.

   “NAFTA’s success lies in the economic partnerships and supply chain synergies and efficiencies that have been created through reduced barriers to trade,” they said. “Over the past two decades, [NAFTA] has provided enormous benefit for the chemical sectors in Canada, Mexico and the United States.”

   But the groups said they were also open to modernizing NAFTA, outlining priorities such as digital age updates for stronger cross border data protection, new standards for state-owned companies and closing inefficiencies in areas like rules of origin.

   The three industry groups, however, made clear that they prefer that no changes be made to the duty-free trade regime that’s existed under NAFTA.

   “Most importantly, all chemical products are traded duty free under NAFTA, and a modernized NAFTA should maintain this policy,” they said.

   While it’s not at all clear what exactly the Trump administration will pursue in NAFTA talks, Washington has been debating border adjustment taxes on imports to the United States and other measures that would upset that duty-free arrangement.

   The associations said trade in chemicals between the three NAFTA countries has grown from $20 billion in 1994 to $63 billion in 2014.Anipac: 'Our industry is not at risk'

   At a special meeting of the Mexican plastics industry Feb. 28 in Mexico City, the secretary of the plastics association Anipac suggested Mexico’s industry is prepared for any Trump-related contingency.

   “In the worst-case scenario of the United States leaving NAFTA, we can defend ourselves within the rules of the World Trade Organization,” said Eduardo de la Tijera Coeto. “The government of Mexico is prepared and our associations are united. Our [plastics] industry is not at risk.”

   Anipac, which stands for Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico AC, is one of a number of major trade bodies in the country offering advice to the Mexican government as it prepares for renegotiation.

   Talk of reopening NAFTA has sparked concern, even alarm, in some Mexican manufacturing circles, but De la Tijera said the United States is the major beneficiary in bilateral plastics trading with Mexico.

   He said previously that Mexico imported 71 percent of the $16 billion worth of resins and end-products traded between the two countries from January through September 2016.

   “In the United States our biggest shield against any change in NAFTA is in the area of plastics,” he said, noting that new U.S. Commerce Secretary Ross is also the founder and a former chairman of automotive injection molder IAC Group.$11 billion trade surplus

   Figures from the Plastics Industry Association in Washington showed that the U.S. plastics industry had an $11 billion trade surplus with Mexico in 2015, the last full year figures are available.

   De la Tijera said the Mexican plastics sector is growing between 7-8 percent a year, driven primarily by internal consumption and exports of manufactured plastics goods.

   The industry is investing $2 billion a year in new equipment, while “the vital signs of the U.S. economy continue to be good,” he said.

   He urged his audience of about 100 to ignore “predictions of a catastrophe” about the industry’s future.

   Oscar Albin, executive president of auto suppliers association INA (Asociación Nacional de Autopartes AC) told the conference, Perspectivas de la Industria del Plástico, that 500 supplier companies in Mexico work for the global automotive industry and many are involved with plastics processing.

   “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” he said, adding that the industry remained calm, nonetheless, in the knowledge that “the United States and Canada need Mexico’s low-cost workforce.”

   http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170301/NEWS/170309980/mexicos-plastics-industry-not-at-risk-north-american-chemical-sector
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Challenge EPA's Obama-era Waste Generator Rule

   Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

   A host of industry groups has filed suit against EPA over the Obama administration's hazardous waste generator rule, with industry particularly opposed to a measure in the rule that imposes strict penalties if a generator fails to meet any of various “conditions for exemption.”

   The American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute and six other industry groups Feb. 24 filed a petition for review of EPA’s Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements Rule with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

   EPA published the final rule in the Federal Register Nov. 28, which launched a 90-day window in which parties could challenge the rule in court.

   “The Final Rule should be set aside because it is unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not otherwise in accordance with law,” the petition says.

   EPA in finalizing the rule made more than 60 revisions to regulations governing hazardous waste generators with an eye toward providing more flexibility to regulated entities and making the rules easier to understand.

   Industry groups have welcomed some aspects of the rule. For example, ACC said in a March 1 statement that the rule “includes some common-sense updates that will bring greater efficiency and clarity to the [hazardous waste generator] regulatory program.”

   But industry groups have also raised concern over other aspects of the rule. In particular, they cite the rule’s conditions for exemption provision for fear that non-compliance with any of the conditions, including basic labeling requirements, would subject generators to more stringent regulation usually applicable to treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs).

   Under the rule, failure to comply with a condition for exemption can result in “an entity losing its storage facility exemptions and becoming the operator of a non-exempt storage facility subject” to many storage permit and operations requirements in RCRA parts 124, 264 through 268, and 270, the rule says.

   ACC says it is particularly troubled by the provision, which will alter the criteria under which a generator is deemed to violate the RCRA permitting program that is applicable only to facilities that treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste, or TSDFs. “Under the new rule, failure to meet any one of EPA’s long list of ‘conditions for exemption’ could subject a generator to multiple violations and substantial penalties,” ACC says in the statement.

   “Even a minor deviation in compliance would cause a generator to now be considered an illegal TSDF,” ACC says. “We oppose this draconian provision and are seeking review by the Court.”

   The objections to the provision echo comments made on the draft rule by a group representing industry generators who said that under the measure, failing to comply with the conditions for exemption would cause a generator to become “’an illegal TSDF’ that ‘becomes subject to full regulation,’” and would be viewed as a TSDF operating without a permit and in violation of storage standards. And in comments on the draft rule, retail associations said such a provision would “unlawfully erase the fundamental statutory distinction between generators and TSDFs.”

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/industry-groups-challenge-epas-obama-era-waste-generator-rule
   

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3. (ACC Mentioned) Global Chemical Production Starts Strong In 2017, ACC Says

   Mar 1, 2017 | ChemEngOnline

   By Scott Jenkins

   The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that headline global production started the year on a strong note, rising 0.6 percent in January after a similar gain in December, as measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. During January, chemical production increased in North America, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, and Asia-Pacific but fell in Latin America. Activity in Africa & the Middle East was flat. The Global CPRI was up 3.3 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 109.9% of its average 2012 levels in December

   
   

   During January, capacity utilization in the global business of chemistry rose 0.4 percentage points to 79.2 percent. This is off from 80.6 percent last January and is below the long-term (1987-2016) average of 88.8 percent.

   
   

   During January, results were positive on a product basis. Year-over-year comparisons growth was strongest in coatings followed by synthetic rubber, plastic resins, and inorganic chemicals.

   
   

   ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the business of chemistry for 33 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100. This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from over 65 nations accounting for about 98 percent of the total global business of chemistry. This data are the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the US CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.

   http://www.chemengonline.com/global-chemical-production-starts-strong-in-2017-acc-says/?printmode=1
   

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4. (ACC Mentioned) The Meek Shall Donate a Massive Inheritance

   Mar 1, 2017 | Forester Media

   By Arturo Santiago

   It’s pretty impressive when you scan the recycling efforts across the country. Dart Container Corp. has recently opened three new drop-off locations for expanded polystyrene products in Oklahoma, Illinois, and Idaho. That makes more than 40 that Dart has opened among the hundreds of others across the country. Momentum Recycling is opening a bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Colorado that can handle 49,000 tons of bottle glass a year. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection partnered with the American Chemistry Council’s Flexible Film Recycling Group to kick off a new collection campaign to boost the recycling rates of plastic film such as shopping bags and plastic wrap.

   These types of programs can be massive in their scale and boast incredible recycling metrics.

   While I admire the recycling efforts being put forth by governments and industries, I also like to keep in mind the individual efforts being made. Efforts that have an impact beyond finding new purpose for used materials and actually highlight the human factor in a recycling equation. Efforts that had gone largely unnoticed until a Facebook post by an involved party went viral.

   Eighty-six-year-old Johnny Jennings is from Ringgold, Georgia. He started recycling decades ago as a way to spend some quality time with his son, Brent. That small acorn grew, and as Brent grew up, recycling helped him put a down payment on a home. Eventually, the acorn became the proverbial giant oak in the form of $400,000 donated over the years to a local charity that provides care for troubled children and families.

   http://foresternetwork.com/daily/waste/recycling/the-meek-shall-donate-a-massive-inheritance/
   

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5. White House Said to Propose 25 Percent Cut in EPA Budget Plan

   Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Ari Natter and Christopher Flavelle

   The White House has recommended cutting the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by 25 percent and eliminating thousands of jobs and more than a dozen programs, according to an opponent of the budget plan.
   

   The Office of Management and Budget blueprint given to the EPA includes ending programs such as one that protects coastal beaches and another that safeguards homeowners against radon poisoning. Grants to states would be slashed by 30 percent under the plan.

   “These are shocking figures,” said William Becker, the executive of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, who obtained the plan. “These budget cuts would be devastating not only to EPA, but to state and local air pollution control agencies.“

   Becker said he received the figures from a government official he declined to identify. The EPA has been asked to suggest alternatives, according to Becker, whose group represents state officials responsible for cutting air pollution. Becker has led the Washington-based group for more than 35 years.

   Spokespeople for the EPA and budget office didn't respond to several requests for comment. The budget request President Donald Trump will present to Congress is still weeks away, and so the specific programs and reductions could change.

   Still, the document shows the reductions necessary at agencies in order to meet the blueprint laid out this week by Mick Mulvaney, the head of the budget office. The White House said it would propose boosting military spending by $54 billion, while slashing other departments to offset that increase. The EPA has a budget of about $8 billion and employs about 15,000 people.

   One program set for elimination was set up to help implement the Clean Power Plan, a rule EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has pledged to dismantle.

   The EPA “probably spends a lot of unnecessary funds on promoting a political agenda and it probably needs to be rolled back,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who chairs the House Science Committee.

   Other cuts appear to run counter to a pledge from Pruitt that EPA grants to states would be preserved. Instead those grants would slashed by 30 percent under the plan.

   “These proposed cuts negate any goodwill Trump may have shown during his congressional address, including his empty promises to promote clean air and water,” Travis Nichols, a spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace, said in an email.

   Another one of the more than 20 programs scheduled for elimination helps native villages in Alaska pay for safe drinking water and wastewater disposal. The state says it will fight to save it.

   “I'm trying to reach out to anybody who has any influence on the federal government, to really take a look at not cutting this portion of the EPA,” Katherine Eldemar, director of Alaska's Division of Community and Regional Affairs, said in an interview.

   Cutting the EPA's budget by nearly a quarter would likely be an uphill battle in Congress, especially in the Senate where Democratic support would be needed for passage.

   “I would hope there would be many members of Congress who recognize that whatever policy differences that they had with the agency that is different from the basic organizational integrity of the EPA,” said Stan Meiburg, who served as the EPA's acting deputy administrator during the Obama administration.

   —With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.

   http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106482439&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106482439&jd=106482439

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6. Proposed Budget Cuts Will Be 'Devastating' — Ex-Chief

   Mar 2, 2017 | E&E Daily

   By Kevin Bogardus

   Former U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said yesterday that President Trump's proposed budget cuts for the agency would be crippling.

   In a television appearance on MSNBC, the former Obama-era agency chief said Trump's plan to cut EPA's budget by a quarter, about $2 billion, would be "devastating."

   "This is actually going to be devastating for the agency's ability to protect public health," McCarthy said.

   McCarthy said she understood that the Trump administration was not likely to support former President Obama's efforts to combat climate change, "but this is going to the heart of our air and water protections."

   "This is going to the heart of how EPA protects public health and American families," McCarthy added.

   Trump's budget proposal for EPA targets several agency programs, not just climate initiatives, and would reduce the agency's workforce by 3,000 employees.

   EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said that he has expressed concerns about the budget plan to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

   "This is early in the process. These are discussions that are occurring with OMB and the executive agencies. I've emphasized the importance of those state revolving funds, of those [Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act] grants, of making sure that we partner with the states in a very good way on water infrastructure," Pruitt said in an interview after Trump's address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday night (E&E Daily, March 1).

   Ex-New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R), who was President George W. Bush's first EPA administrator, also appeared on MSNBC with McCarthy. She said she was "fairly skeptical" of Trump's EPA, given the mixed signals that come from the president.

   "It's a little hard to figure out this president, though, because he will say one thing in one minute and then find that some member of his Cabinet is doing something else, which you have to believe is coming from him," Whitman said.

   Since his confirmation by the Senate last month, Pruitt has pledged to roll back some environmental regulations, beginning that process with the Waters of the U.S. rule this week, which he sued EPA over as Oklahoma attorney general. He also has doubted whether EPA has the authority to act on climate change.

   "If the tools aren't in the toolbox and Congress hasn't spoken on the issue, agencies can't just make it up," Pruitt said Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (E&E Daily, Feb. 27).

   Whitman noted that EPA has been authorized by Congress to take action to protect the environment. The former agency chief said EPA had to act on climate change in a response to the 2009 finding that carbon emissions were harmful.

   "That happens when you have a finding, let's say, of endangerment as with carbon, which was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court," Whitman said. "That was something that they had to take action. Didn't have a choice."

   http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/02/stories/1060050796
   

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LCSA News

7. (ACC Mentioned) States' Chemical Rules May Set Stage For Legal Tests Of TSCA Preemption

   Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

   By David LaRoss

   Several liberal states' efforts to advance aggressive toxics laws could set the stage for legal tests over what chemical industry sources say are lingering unresolved questions on when the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) preempts state chemical safety programs, with federal courts expected to have to resolve the uncertainty.

   Speaking at the GlobalChem chemical policy conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 23, attorney Eric Gotting said it is unclear whether an EPA regulation under the new TSCA would preempt a state's chemical labeling mandates, its effect on tort claims, and how the statute's "grandfather clause" -- which exempts some pre-existing state chemical programs from preemption -- will deal with new rules crafted under long-standing state laws, among other issues.

   "You're going to see how complicated this gets and how many different questions we're going to have to ask, and where [non-governmental organizations (NGOs)] and states on one hand and industry on the other are going to make their arguments. None of this is really that clear," Gotting said during a panel on TSCA preemption.

   EPA officials have said that new agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is "engaged" on implementation of the toxics law, suggesting the Trump administration will not seek to significantly delay various new rules required under the updated TSCA -- including those that once finalized could trigger state preemption.

   No cases over TSCA's preemption of state chemicals programs are currently pending because EPA is still early in the process of implementing its new powers. However, once the agency does take an action that would trigger preemption court battles will follow soon after, Gotting and other panelists said.

   For instance, the Toy Industry Association's Owen Caine said state bills to restrict the use of flame retardants "are everywhere" despite EPA assessing risks to a number of flame retardants under its 2014 TSCA Work Plan. The agency did not include those substances on a Dec. 7 list of the first 10 chemicals the agency plans to evaluate under the new law, meaning they could serve as test cases since preemption does not apply as broadly to those 10 chemicals.

   And the American Chemistry Council's Rudy Underwood said formaldehyde, oxybenzone used in sunscreen, and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) are also high-profile targets for state regulation.

   Under the new TSCA law, state requirements for chemicals are only preempted after EPA publishes the scope of a forthcoming safety assessment for a "high priority" chemical, and not all state policies are preempted.

   Among other exceptions, states' reporting, monitoring and information laws can continue, as can hazardous waste and disposal laws as long as there is no direct conflict between the two. That will set up tests for whether state policies that regulators claim fall into an exemption truly qualify -- for instance, whether a requirement to put a warning label on products containing a certain chemical is "informational."

   "If I were an NGO or a state, I would say, 'look, a warning has nothing to do with the manufacturing, processing, distribution, anything. It's just a warning. So we aren't even in the world of preemption.' But industry can come back and say, 'A warning can be a use instruction, and that goes to use. That's exactly what we're trying to preempt,'" Gottin said.

   Mandates for reporting when products include certain chemicals could also be contested despite the reporting exemption, he continued, because they include an implicit mandate to test the products for those chemicals, and testing requirements are not exempted.

   Similarly, he said, mandates to perform alternatives analyses for chemicals of concern could trigger preemption because the add a significant new cost to manufacturing a product when it includes a regulated chemical.

   While the statute grandfathers state policies enacted before President Obama signed TSCA reform into law last June, Gottin said there will likely have to be a court ruling on whether that exemption applies only to rules that were in place before 2016, or if new rules crafted later, under state laws passed before the cut-off, also benefit.

   Beyond the list of exemptions, TSCA allows EPA to grant waivers from preemption if states can show "compelling conditions" as long as it does not create an "undue burden" but gives little guidance to the agency on what test to use for those conditions.

   Most prominently it is unclear whether the threat of a patchwork created by varying state regulations thanks to preemption waivers would pose an "undue burden" under the law, Gottin said.

   Even though there have been no rulemakings that involve preemption, and thus no opportunity for a court claim, Gotting said uncertainty on the law's meaning is evident in conflicts between Democrats' and Republicans' interpretations of the law's preemption language. Each party released its own lengthy analysis of the legislation shortly after it was enacted, and the two had sharply different readings of the preemption provisions.

   Gottin said that among other issues, Democrats and Republicans were at odds over whether the reform law is meant to waive the doctrine of "conflict preemption," in which federal law takes precedence over state law any time the two pose conflicting requirements.

   The TSCA reform law does not specifically address conflict preemption -- instead, it broadly waives forms of preemption not explicitly laid out.

   But Gotting said that it is unclear whether that will be enough to convince courts to set aside conflict preemption.

   Democrats said in their analysis of the TSCA law, entered into the Congressional Record last year, said that "this preemption clause made sure that even if there is a conflict, conflict preemption does not apply. That's not in the statute" in any clear way, he said.

   He described a hypothetical where a state and EPA each set mandates for warning labels that apply to a particular chemical, and the state policy mandates specific phrasing -- such as using the word "danger" -- where EPA does not. The outcome of tort suits against chemical manufacturers to enforce such a mandate could turn on whether conflict preemption applies.

   "Courts are going to have to figure out whether, if a judge's order says 'you should have used the word danger,' and EPA says 'you only need to use the word warning,' whether or not that toxic tort suit is preempted. That is, I think, going to be a huge battle in the courts," Gotting said. 

   https://insideepa.com/inside-epa/states-chemical-rules-may-set-stage-legal-tests-tsca-preemption
   

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Chemical Management News

8. The ‘Safer' Plastics Designed To Replace BPA May Be Just As Bad For You

   Mar 1, 2017 | Popular Science

   By Kendra Pierre-Louis

   A chemical called BHPF—found in some ‘BPA-Free’ plastics—may cause harmful outcomes in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

   BPA, or Bisphenol A, has come under scrutiny in recent years, with studies suggesting that the chemical might mimic estrogen in the body in ways that are harmful to human health.

   “In recent years, BPA was shown to have estrogenic activity, linking BPA to endocrine diseases and to an increased incidence of endocrine-related cancers,” lead study author Hu Jianying of Peking University told PopSci over email. “Because materials synthesized with BPA were widely used in packing materials for food and beverages, and BPA can be released into food from such containers, many countries have restricted or banned the use of BPA in materials or containers that come in contact with food, especially baby bottles for milk or water.”

   Although BPA is not banned in the United States—in fact the US Food & Drug Administration ruled it safe for use in food packaging in 2014—manufacturers have still phased it out in response to consumer concerns. They’ve instead turned to plastics marketed as BPA-free, including BHPF.

   In recent years, BHPF has shown up in all sorts of adhesives and plastic materials—everywhere from the aerospace and automobile industry to coatings used to protect floors. "So we are interested in the human exposure and risk due to the usage of BHPF," Hu said.

   The first step in that process was exposing cells—in this case yeast cells—to the chemical. Because BPA was known to be estrogen-like, the researchers exposed cells similar to those that bind with estrogen in humans. They discovered that while BPA mimics estrogen, BHPF actually blocks the hormone. This was confirmed via a computer model that simulates the effects of BHPF on cells. The model showed that BHPF fit into the antagonist pocket of estrogen receptor—it binds to an estrogen receptor but doesn’t elicit a response.

   This sort of multi-step analysis is beneficial, says Maricel Maffini, because, “each step gives you more information and you can fine tune the type of testing you do next.” Maffini, who wasn't involved in the new study, is a scientific consultant who works with public interest organizations and businesses on issues related to chemical safety—especially for chemicals that interact with our food.

   The next step, in this case, was testing in animals. The researchers exposed four groups of pregnant mice to four different concentrations of BHPF. The mice exposed to BHPF experienced a host of pregnancy-related issues. This included low uterine weight, inflammation and thinning of the womb lining, and worse pregnancy outcomes. The mice exposed to the highest dose of BHPF had 24 percent fewer live pups per litter than the control group.

   The study authors point out that we can’t extrapolate from mice onto humans. "[But] when you have a drug and you give it to animals, people take what happens to the animals pretty seriously and say this may happen in humans," Maffini said. "Somehow there is a resistance to think the same way when we are testing chemicals. There is a tendency to say that the rat is not a human, the mouse is not a human, we don't know if the same amount of chemical...is going to do anything to the human. We are different.”

   But it's not all that clear how different we might be. A 2012 World Health report noted that “significant knowledge gaps exist on the association between exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and adverse pregnancy outcomes, even though the incidence of these outcomes, such as spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, low birth weight and fetal death, has increased in many countries over the last decades.”

   And those knowledge gaps leave many concerned.

   “In the U.S. there are no requirements for testing in animals unless a lot of the chemical gets into the food supply,” said Maffini. "There is definitely no requirement to test for potential endocrine disrupting properties in chemicals—not even doing a computer modeling study, or an invitro study, similar done to those that are done in report.”

   Similarly, we tend to test individual ingredients that are used to make a particular product, but not the product itself.

   “We can test sodium independently, we can test chloride independently, and get very bad, toxic data,” said Maffini, “but if we look at salt—the sodium and the chloride together—we're going to have a very different picture of the toxicity.”

   But none of this matters if we're not coming into contact with BHFP—it's only a potential problem if humans are exposed to it. To see if we are being exposed, Hu and his colleagues tested 100 students for the presence of BHFP. Seven percent of them tested positive for the chemical. The testing wasn’t done to prove that BHFP is harming human health, but rather serves to suggest that at least some of us are being potentially exposed to it—and that we need to look deeper into what this might mean. How dangerous might BHFP be, and how is it getting into our bodies?

   We have some clues about the latter question: because BPA rose to such prominence due to its use in plastic drinking bottles, and because a lot of Chinese students drink boiled water out of plastic water bottles, Hu's team tested polycarbonate bottles—both baby bottles (polycarbonate baby bottles are banned in China, so they had to purchase them from abroad) and adult drinking water bottles—for the presence for BHPF. They found that water samples taken from all three baby bottles tested positive for BHPF.

   Similarly, they detected BHPF in water from two bottles made of Eastman Tritan's BPA-free copolyester. It's unclear if the bottles Hu tested are available in the United States. But the U.S. might not be regulating the use of BHPF at all. A survey of three FDA databases—Indirect Additives used in Food Contact Substances, Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substance (FCS) Notifications, and the Threshold of Regulation (TOR) Exemptions—failed to turn up references to either Fluorene-9-bisphenol or BHPF. If the FDA has deemed BHPF safe to use, it should show up in one of those databases.

   In an emailed statement Eastman Tritan claimed that “no fluorene-9-bisphenol nor any other bisphenol analogs were added to Tritan,” and that "based on the chemistry of Tritan and the lack of bisphenol analogs, the results in this paper are not expected.”

   The statement went on to note that in a 2012 study, researchers tested seven bottles made from Tritan resin and found that they did not release BPA "nor plasticizer or other substances.”

   “Polymer migration testing and polymer chemistry can be very complex," the statement added. "It is more likely that the detected substances were contamination from their lab equipment (other plastics, gaskets, seals, tubes, glassware, detergents for example) or the substances were misidentified.”

   But in 2011, researchers on a different study found that most commercial plastic—including Tritan—leeches some kind of synthetic estrogen even when not exposed to microwaves, dishwashers, or boiling water, which are known to make plastics leech chemicals. Synthetic estrogens are worrisome, because estrogen hormones guide a host of biological processes—from growth, to puberty (even in boys, despite the fact that estrogen is considered a ‘female hormone), to reproduction. Eastman Tritan sued over the 2011 study and won.

   It’s possible that both Tritan and the team sued in the 2011 lawsuit are technically correct—the two sides used different tests, and different definitions of estrogenic activity. Scientists are still trying to figure out what level of endocrine disruption can be considered safe, and the answer is likely different for each chemical. In the new study, researchers found that BHPF affected mice at much lower levels than BPA did.

   The method of exposure matters, too. The FDA labels BPA as safe because it's assumed that the primary mechanism of exposure is through eating and drinking, and the body excretes BPA in just six hours. But this ignores that some of us are drinking from containers made with BPA pretty much constantly, preventing us from ever fully expelling BPA from our bodies. Meanwhile, a number of studies looking at the presence of BPA in paper receipts have found that a significant amount enters the bloodstream by way of skin contact alone. A May 2015 study found that those of us who live near industrial sites can be exposed to a high level of BPA simply by living our lives as usual. It may very well be that the level of exposure from any single source might be low enough to be safe, but that the cumulative exposure could cause health problems. We don’t know yet—there needs to be more research.

   “We think,” wrote Hu to PopSci, “that toxicity of substitutes should be assessed comprehensively, and regulations for substitution of chemicals should be developed in the future.” Otherwise, we risk introducing alternative materials that cause just as much harm.

   “People shouldn't be put in the position of selecting which are the safe products,” said Maffini, “the products should be safe.”

   In the meantime, there’s always glass.

   http://www.popsci.com/bpa-free-plastic-bad-for-human-health
   

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9. Key Leaders Set Out Plans For 2017

   Mar 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   By Achim Halpaap

   Top figures in Echa, US EPA, Unep, ICCA and OECD provide insights into their work for the year ahead
   

   Chemicals regulation and management leaders have set out their plans and goals for 2017, in a series of exclusive articles for Chemical Watch’s Global Business Briefing.

   Offering their insights, we hear from figures in Echa, the US EPA, the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and the OECD.

   Echa's executive director, Geert Dancet, writes that one of the big challenges for the agency this year is making sure that any company manufacturing or importing substances in low volumes, between 1-100tonnes/year, is "aware of its registration obligations and acts in time". The third and final registration deadline is 31 May 2018.

   "If companies have not started to prepare yet, they need to now," he says. Echa is providing support through its REACH 2018 webpages and will also hold a week in May dedicated to 2018 registration.

   Another highlight, he says, will be the Commission's finalised criteria for identifying EDCs, related to pesticides and biocides. "I hope that once these are approved, they would work for all chemical legislation, including REACH." The agency is working with the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) on guidance, ready for when the criteria are published.

   The chemicals industry, meanwhile, aims to address the challenge of sharing information up and down the supply chain. On behalf of the ICCA, Cefic's executive director of product stewardship Peter Smith says the organisation is prioritising a drive to harmonise the way safety data is collected and disseminated to sectors down the supply chain.

   "Chemical industry associations, working through the ICCA, are promoting common principles for communicating chemical safety downstream."

   It has identified the electronics sector as a priority to test the principles through the supply chain. A first workshop was organised last May in Europe. Another is planned this year in Asia.

   Head of the OECD's chemicals unit, Bob Diderich, says this year his organisation will continue to develop harmonised tools and instruments for assessing and managing the risks of chemicals. Projects that could be completed include:  the release of version 4.0 of the OECD Qsar Toolbox. This is a software system to predict the properties of chemicals, primarily by applying read-across from analogues;a guidance document on the risk assessment of the combined exposure to multiple chemicals;several emission scenario documents (for example, on the use of chemicals in aqueous film forming foam or in automotive lubricants) describing the processes involving the use of specific chemicals and identifying and quantifying the potential releases into the environment; andan update of the test guidelines on toxicity by inhalation to adapt them for testing of nanomaterials.

   Former assistant administrator for the EPA's OCSPP, Jim Jones, and Unep's head of chemicals and waste unit, Achim Halpaap, also provide insight into their organisations objectives for the year. 

   Achim Halpaap will be giving a keynote speech on global chemicals management at Chemical Watch's Global Business Summit in Amsterdam on the 20 March. 

   https://chemicalwatch.com/53920/key-leaders-set-out-plans-for-2017
   

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Energy News

10. Executive Order on Clean Power Plan Next Week, Per White House

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Ari Natter

    President Donald Trump plans to issue an executive order instructing the EPA to begin re-doing the Clean Power Plan and overturn a federal moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands next week, White House spokeswoman Kelly Love said in an email.
    

    Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, an opponent of the Clean Power Plan, had suggested an executive order directing the agency to begin the work to rescind the carbon dioxide emissions limits on power plants was imminent during a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

    “We have to send a message across the country that we're going to provide certainty by living within the framework Congress has passed,” Pruitt 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.”

    Trump just directed the EPA to rescind another Obama EPA rule intended to determine the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act as the new administration aims to roll back burdens on industry groups, particularly the fossil fuel industry.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106482440&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106482440&jd=106482440

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11. House Eyes Infrastructure Package as Option for Energy Bills

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Rebecca Kern

    House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders plan to issue legislation to streamline natural gas pipeline and hydropower approvals. But if those don't pass as stand-alone bills, lawmakers see another vehicle: a broader infrastructure package.
    

    Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of Energy and Commerce's Energy Subcommittee, told reporters March 1 an initial goal for his subcommittee would be to re-introduce provisions from last year's failed attempt at a broad energy bill in this Congress.

    But he said he's keeping an infrastructure bill in mind as potential route for such energy legislation if they don't initially pass the Senate.

    President Donald Trump said in his Feb. 28 joint address that he wants to ask Congress for a $1 trillion infrastructure package. Upton said he hopes the infrastructure bill will be introduced at some point this summer or a little bit later, but no specific time has been set.

    The energy legislation the committee wants to focus on this Congress includes speeding up the review time for federal permitting of natural gas pipelines, which was in last year's House version of the energy bill (H.R. 8). Lawmakers also want to reform the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's pipeline and hydropower approval processes “to bring greater transparency and accountability, a committee aide told Bloomberg BNA March 1.

    The committee also wants to issue legislation related to infrastructure siting and addressing potential cybersecurity attacks on the electric grid. “We want to make sure our infrastructure is protected not only from physical attacks but also from also from cyber attacks,” Upton said. The subcommittee held a hearing Feb. 1 about cybersecurity threats to the grid. 

    Democrats Want More Funding

    House Energy and Commerce Democratic leaders said they are open to adding energy language to the infrastructure package down the line as a vehicle to passage.

    However, the Democrats are only open to adding it to a larger package if it includes “significant federal funding to repair our aging gas pipeline distribution system, modernization of our electricity grid and continued investments in renewable energy,” a committee Democratic spokesman told Bloomberg BNA March 1.

    Upton said the route of adding energy language to the infrastructure package “would be a way to work with the Senate and actually get a bill to the president's desk.” He said this route “will help us avoid the steel trap of 60 votes to get it through a separate bill in the Senate.”

    He said he also plans to work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and that Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Energy and Commerce's chairman, has already met with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to discuss the infrastructure bill as a pathway for energy legislation.

    Upton said he plans to separately meet with Murkowski in the coming weeks to discuss energy title language. Murkowski's office did not immediately respond to Bloomberg BNA's request for comment.

    “Our piece, I don't think, will end up costing a lot” but will have a “multiplier effect on jobs,” Upton said.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106482441&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106482441&jd=106482441

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12. EPA Seeks To Delay Deadline For NSPS Suit's Argument Format

    Mar 1, 2017 | Inside EPA

    EPA in a March 1 motion is asking a federal appellate court to extend by two weeks the deadline for parties in litigation challenging the agency's greenhouse gas rule for new and modified power plants to file proposed formats for oral argument, saying the additional time is needed so the parties can reach an agreement on a proposed format.

    In what is the agency's first filing in the case since Administrator Scott Pruitt was confirmed, the Department of Justice, on EPA's behalf, filed an unopposed March 1 motion that asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to move the deadline to submit oral argument proposals from March 6 to March 20.

    “The Court has encouraged the parties to prepare and present a unified format for oral argument,” the new DOJ filing says. “EPA has concluded that some additional time is needed in order for the parties to have a sufficient opportunity to confer and develop an appropriate proposal or proposals concerning oral argument.”

    The D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case, North Dakota, et al. v. EPA, et al., on April 17. The litigation challenges the Obama EPA's power plant new source performance standards (NSPS), which serves as the legal prerequisite to the controversial existing source rule known as the Clean Power Plan.

    According to the DOJ filing, states and power companies that have intervened to support the EPA rule “take no position” on the motion. Environmental intervenors also take no position, but “reserve the right to file a response.”

    It is unclear whether the Trump EPA, in seeking to delay the submission of oral argument proposals, is preparing to change course in the litigation. The Trump administration is expected to oppose the NSPS, but has not yet given any indications as to how it might proceed with the litigation or whether it would drop defense of the rule.

    Observers have said the administration could seek voluntary remands of several high-profile climate rules that are in pending litigation, including the NSPS and the Clean Power Plan. President Donald Trump is expected to sign next week an executive order directing EPA to rewrite the Clean Power Plan, though it is unclear whether that order would also include language on the NSPS.

    Briefing in the North Dakota case wrapped up Feb. 6, and although Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions had already been confirmed, DOJ submitted a final brief mirroring the Obama administration's Dec. 14 initial brief on behalf of EPA -- which offered a strong defense of the rule.

    Industry and state critics of the NSPS unsuccessfully tried to extend briefing in the litigation to give the Trump administration time to short-circuit the suit, but the D.C. Circuit rejected their requests.

    Key critics of the power plant rules, including West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), are urging the Trump administration to signal it doesn't support both the Clean Power Plan and the NSPS.

    Morrisey, in a recent interview with InsideEPA, urged the Trump EPA to include the NSPS in the “package of issues that gets a close look and real scrutiny under the Trump administration's review.” And on the pending litigation, he said, “We believe that that regulation should fall if it proceeds in the courts. But we're always open-minded as to how we can resolve issues without resorting to further litigation.”

    https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-seeks-delay-deadline-nsps-suits-argument-format
    

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13. Number Of Americans At Risk Of Man-Made Earthquakes Falls

    Mar 1, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Devin Henry

    The number of Americans who live in areas threatened by man-made earthquakes is half of what it was last year, researchers said Wednesday. 

    According to a United States Geological Survey report, 3.5 million people live or work in parts of the country where there is “significant potential for damaging shaking” from earthquakes induced by human activity. 

    Most of those people live in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, according to the report. 

    Last year, the USGS determined that 7 million Americans live in areas threatened by induced seismic activity. 

    Researchers have blamed the increase in man-made quakes on the injection of wastewater from oil and gas drilling operations into the ground. The high-pressured injection of those fluids into the ground can weaken fault lines and trigger quakes.

    The problem is severe enough that regulators in several states with hydraulic fracturing operations have put strict new standards on wastewater disposal there. The USGS said the new regulations — combined with decreased oil and gas production — have lessened the threat of new man-made earthquakes around the country.  

    Even so, officials warned that the possibility for earthquakes is still there. 

    “The forecast for induced and natural earthquakes in 2017 is hundreds of times higher than before induced seismicity rates rapidly increased around 2008,” said Mark Petersen, the chief of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project. 

    “Millions still face a significant chance of experiencing damaging earthquakes, and this could increase or decrease with industry practices, which are difficult to anticipate.” 

    The USGS began distinguishing between natural and man-made quakes last year following the jump in the seismic activity.

    http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/321877-number-of-americans-at-risk-of-man-made-earthquakes-falls
    

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14. Ebell, Pica, Bravender And Lehmann On The Trump Regulatory, Climate Agenda

    Mar 1, 2017 | E&E TV

    By Monica Trauzzi

     On the heels of President Trump's speech last night before a joint session of Congress, what are the next steps for U.S. EPA on the regulatory and energy agenda pitched by the president? In this E&E News special report, Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute; Erich Pica, president at Friends of the Earth; and E&E News reporters Robin Bravender and Evan Lehmann debate the administration's climate and energy strategy. The conversation is moderated by E&E News video Managing Editor Monica Trauzzi. This video originally aired on Facebook Live.

    http://www.eenews.net/tv/2017/03/01
    

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Chemical Security News

15. Time For A Cybersecurity Grant Program For The States

    Mar 1, 2017 | The Hill- Congress Blog

    By Greg Garcia

    The current imbroglio between state governments and DHS over voting systems being designated as critical infrastructure misses an opportunity for more proactive partnership between states and the feds on cyber security. 

    Congress and DHS should show their seriousness about states’ cyber defenses by directing some of President Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure investment toward expenditures on shoring up states’ critical cyber infrastructure. 

    This is an imperative stemming from the persistent and growing gap between the cyber threat to state governments and their ability to mitigate it.  They need federal help.

    Consider some of these troubling numbers:

    ·         According to a 2015 Ponemon Institute study, 50 percent of state and local governments experienced 6 to 25 breaches in the prior 24 months, and 12 percent experienced more than 25 breaches. 

    ·         Most state cyber budgets are between 0-2 percent of their overall IT budget, compared with an average of more than 10 percent in large companies.

    ·         According to one DHS tally, only 30 states and 2 tribal territories spent a collective total of $27.3 million on cyber security as an “allowable expense” with HSGP grants over a four-year period from 2011-2014.

    ·         80 percent of state CIO’s surveyed in a 2016 NASCIO and Deloitte study indicated lack of sufficient funding as their number 1 challenge in cyber security, followed by inadequate availability of cyber security professionals.

    It isn’t that states aren’t getting some in-kind assistance. DHS is to be commended for the range of cyber security services it offers, such as support for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center that provides cyber threat feeds, cyber resilience reviews and on-site support. But the fact is these initiatives are the cart before the horse.  If state agencies and services do not have a foundational security architecture, advanced protective tools, and experienced technical professionals to manage them, then it won’t be able to act effectively on DHS assistance. 

    That was the principle behind establishment of the Homeland Security Grant Program in 2003, a $1 billion per year fund to help the states strengthen their security posture in a range of physical security, public safety and emergency management functions.  But it has never carved out a dedicated cyber fund since its inception.  Strapped state budgets tend to favor security investments that are more physically and politically visible than firewalls and cyber risk assessments.

    So now, the time is right for an HSGP 2.0 for cybersecurity - big league. President Trump has identified infrastructure renewal as one of his top priorities. But we can’t modernize public transportation, water purification, e-911, air traffic control or the electric grid without securing the IT and communications networks that control the nervous system of “smart cities”, “industrial internet” and “predictive maintenance.” In today’s world, physical security needs cyber security. 

    This reality is not lost on the National Governors Association under Gov. Terry McAuliffe's chairmanship, whose signature initiative – “Meet the Threat” – targets cyber security for the states.

    Now, newly introduced bipartisan bills in the House and Senate would create a dedicated cyber grant program for the states, by establishing funding first for resiliency planning and then for acquisition of technology, services and best practices implementation.  Bill sponsors Reps. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) in the House, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Cory Gardner (D-Colo.) in the Senate understand that the internet protocol and the information and services it manages across state and local governments - both online and physical – is essential critical infrastructure that needs collaborative protection between state and federal government, and the private sector.

    President Trump’s vision for infrastructure investment should in turn drive funding toward securing the digital infrastructure that powers “smart cities” and “smart states” and all the physical infrastructure that operates on top of it. 

    Business leaders agree. In an open letter to President-elect Trump, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty observed: “...(A)s infrastructure gets smarter, it also increases the need for cybersecurity, so that vital networks cannot be compromised. We recommend that your infrastructure package include incentives for states and localities to build intelligent – and secure – roads, bridges, buildings, and other public facilities.”

    Good government in the form of infrastructure investment means you need to spend money to save money in the long run – as insurance against galloping innovation and evolving threats and vulnerabilities.  Forsaking states' cyber funding needs for another four years would be penny wise and pound foolish.  Instead, shouldn’t we spend a penny to save a dollar? That’s good business, good government, more jobs and a secure infrastructure.

    Greg Garcia served as the nation’s first Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2006-08.  He is Executive Vice President for the Signal Group and is executive director of the Alliance for Cybersecurity Enhancement in the States.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/321871-time-for-a-cybersecurity-grant-program-for-the-states

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Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

16. No News From Trump on Climate Pact Is Good News, Backers Say

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Dean Scott

    No news may have been good news for backers of the Paris climate pact as President Donald Trump steered clear of the climate change issue in his first speech to Congress—including whether he still believes the U.S. should withdraw from the global deal.
    

    Trump vowed during the campaign to “cancel” U.S. participation in the 2015 deal and complained that it would make the U.S. less competitive. But the president was silent on those plans Feb. 28 and didn't make any sweeping pledges on the environment beyond a vow to “promote clean air and clear water.”

    Had the president said anything about the UN climate deal, “he probably would have said things that would have been counterproductive” to efforts by other nations to convince Trump to stay in the deal, said Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    Cardin told Bloomberg BNA after Trump's address that there were signals earlier in the day—inaccurate as it turns out—that the president would make some reference to climate, perhaps to reiterate his opposition to the Paris Agreement.

    “We had heard some rumors that he had some mentions of climate change in there [earlier] but that they came out of the speech,” Cardin said. If so, he said, “that was a positive sign for those of us who believe it's important for the U.S. to be in the agreement.”

    If climate were mentioned, “he probably would have said things that would have been counterproductive,” Cardin said. “Okay, that's a low-bar standard” for backers of the deal to celebrate, he acknowledged, “but that's where we are.”

    Hopeful Signs for Some

    Others, including Jim Connaughton, who chaired the White House Council for Environmental Quality for President George W. Bush, said they were heartened by Trump's “clean air and clear” water reference, noting he made similar pledges during the presidential campaign.

    “The president restated his commitment to clean air and clean water,” which was consistent with “where the vast swatch of public opinion is on environmental priorities,” Connaughton said in an email to Bloomberg BNA.

    And some coal state Democrats, including West Virginia's Joe Manchin, were elated that Trump embraced coal miners in his address, a reference to the rollback of a stream protection rule that got a pronounced, early mention in the hourlong speech. Manchin, along with most Senate Republicans, railed against the Obama administration's efforts to regulate the industry, including power plant carbon pollution limits, which the Trump administration plans to pull back in what could be a lengthy battle ahead.

    “I liked it, I liked it,” Manchin told reporters, referring to Trump's coal miner reference. “We need help.”

    Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) was less sanguine to reporters when asked about Trump's highlight of coal in the speech. “Once again, he [Trump] did not give us any details—how is he going to save coal jobs in America in the face of what is a natural gas, wind and solar revolution that is moving at a rapid pace,” Markey said.

    What Trump didn't mention, Markey said, “is just how deeply he is going to cut into the EPA budget, the Department of Energy's innovation budget, in order to fulfill his promises to the coal industry. But I suspect those cuts will be deep—and they are going to be very controversial once they are publicly announced.” 

    Uphill Battle for Clean Energy?

    Several Republican senators said it was no surprise to them that Trump skirted the climate issue, given the nature of such speeches, which after all are intended to highlight a new president's broad policy agenda.

    Also, they noted, Trump's views on the climate issue are well-known. The president has called climate change a “hoax” perpetuated by China, and since the election has vowed to look at the Paris deal “very closely” before acting.

    Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he welcomes Trump's “all-of-the-above” approach to energy, which wouldn't seek to bolster clean energy, for example, over fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal.

    “I myself, as are most Republicans, am an all-of-the-above” proponent, Boozman told Bloomberg BNA, adding that the U.S. should seek a balanced approach in promoting all energy sources “that the Lord has blessed us with.”

    “We're blessed with hydropower, blessed with geothermal—the list goes on and on,” he said. “I don't think anybody would deny there has been a real war on coal the last eight years.”

    Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Trump had plenty to say about energy, though in truth, he didn't actually say the word in his speech. But Trump did boast of his action to promote the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and talked of coal, which are in fact energy projects, Wicker said.

    “Now, I don't think you can expect a president to cite chapter and verse the entire party platform” in such speeches, Wicker told Bloomberg BNA. “But then, I'm an all-of-the-above energy Republican and I think most people are.”

    Perhaps, Wicker said, Trump's speech simply marked the end of what Republicans view as unfair “attacks” on coal by Obama, not a shot across the bow at renewable sources. “Clean energy hasn't been under attack,” Wicker said. “But coal—coal has been under attack.”

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106482448&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106482448&jd=106482448

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17. Science-Based Targets Key to Private-Sector Success in Carbon-Constrained Future

    Mar 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Lisa Nelowet Grice

    Lisa Nelowet Grice is the global director of sustainability services at Ramboll Environ where she has advised private companies, industry associations and governments on sustainability issues for 30 years. This article does not represent the opinions of Bloomberg BNA, which welcomes other points of view.
    

    The global climate agreement reached in Paris, coupled with developments in climate science, is now driving companies to link greenhouse-gas reduction goals to a global risk-based greenhouse gas budget.

    The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2016 ranked failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as the most potentially impactful risk facing the world. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), greenhouse gas-induced climate change—if left unchecked—is on a course that will harm people, economies and ecosystems globally. For example, we may see increasingly frequent flooding of coastal cities in North America, food shortages in Asia and worldwide coral loss. Climate adaptation costs have reached estimates of $500 billion per year.

    While companies have long set greenhouse gas reduction targets—driven variously by energy cost savings, customer expectations, regulatory conditions and stewardship—those goals were rarely, if ever, calibrated to the magnitude of global effort required to mitigate climate change.

    Strategic business planning amid climate change requires attention to a suite of tactics addressing target setting, energy management, product portfolio, and climate risk mitigation. This article delves into the first of these: successful approaches to target setting.

    Global Agreement Activates Global Budget

    The climate agreement in Paris brings the final piece to a novel approach to GHG target setting—Science-Based Targets or SBTs. Advances in climate science enabled global scientists in the 2014 IPCC report to propose the global greenhouse gas budget (cumulative emissions over time) that is likely to constrain global temperature change to the degree needed to avoid the worst climate change impacts. IPCC's Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability is that consensus report consolidating worldwide climate change research under the auspices of 242 lead authors, with review by 49 governments, citing 12,000 scientific references, to assess climate change-related risks and opportunities for societies, economies and ecosystems. That same temperature target was agreed to in Paris—keep global temperature change to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). With that agreement, policy aligned with science, and the movement for science-based reduction targets has taken off.

    The IPCC proposed global greenhouse gas budget is 2,900 gigatons of carbon dioixde (cumulative emissions since the industrial age). Since we have already “spent” 1,900 gigatons of carbon dioxide of that budget, we have about 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide remaining. If we continue at the same emissions rate of around 49 gigatons per year, we will exhaust our budget in about 20 years. Science-based target setting is about determining how to allocate that 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide budget.

    Companies Busting the Status Quo

    Rather than waiting for some global agreement that may never come regarding how the 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide budget should be allocated across nations and sectors, companies have begun to assess what their share of the budget, and associated emission reductions, ought to be. This proactive approach is driven fundamentally by the desire to find an optimal operating position in a carbon-constrained future where energy costs are higher (greenhouse gas emissions are dominantly from fuel use), regulations tighter and stakeholders more distressed about climate impacts.

    As it turns out, science-based targets require far greater aspirations than more casually set targets—requiring greater willingness to disrupt the status quo. To maintain warming below 2 degrees requires 40 percent to 70 percent global anthropogenic greenhouse emission reductions by 2050 compared to 2010—and emissions levels near zero or below in 2100. Xerox, Iberdrola, Honda and GlaxoSmithKline are just a few of the 210 companies to date that have publicly committed to setting science-based targets.

    Science-based target-setting is a clear departure from the traditional approach to target-setting. Historically, companies have established voluntary emission reduction targets using either a top-down, bottom-up or combination approach. The top-down approach considers what level of reduction would be meaningful to the company's business interests and stakeholders. In the bottom-up approach, companies establish targets based on a determination of measures and costs for achieving emission reductions. A thorough approach may construct a marginal cost abatement curve (MAC) from a range of company-specific emission reduction projects that have been costed and collated to express how much abatement can be achieved at what cost. Neither of these approaches focused on ensuring that targets aligned with a scientifically determined global carbon budget.

    Dell provides a good example of a science-based target: the company has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from facilities and logistics operations 50 percent from 2010 levels by 2020. For many companies, the energy intensity of their products is more impactful than their own operations. In that vein, Dell has also committed to reducing the energy intensity of its product portfolio 80 percent from 2011 levels by 2020. 

    Evolving Methodology Allows Company-Specific Tailoring

    To help companies establish science-based emission reduction targets, a group of four advocacy groups—World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund, CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and the United Nations Global Compact—launched the Science-Based Target Initiative. Their methodology, the Sectoral Decarbonization Approach, aligns a company's emissions targets to its sector's projected level of economic activity and potential for emissions reductions. The Initiative's website serves as a clearinghouse of information on alternative methodologies to science-based target-setting as well.

    The various methodologies proposed to help companies set emission reduction targets in line with the 2 degree decarbonization scenario have commonalities. Each takes a global carbon budget, estimates emission reductions required to meet that budget, and proposes that companies reduce emissions in line with that budget. Sector-specific methods project sectoral emissions over time to then attribute a share of the projected emissions budget to a company in the sector. Other methods allocate the global carbon budget based on a company's economic contribution to GDP. Others simply propose that companies reduce emissions proportionate to global requirements.

    Some of these methodologies rely on the low-carbon future mapped out by the International Energy Agency in its 2 Degree Scenario (2DS). The 2DS defines the most economical and feasible energy system pathway and associated emissions trajectory consistent with at least a 50 percent chance of limiting the average global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. That scenario identifies a number of sectors, specifically transport, industry and buildings, as well as subsectors, such as cement and air transport, and end uses, such as lighting and space heating. For each sector, the 2DS considers how fuel-switching pathways and available technologies may be employed to reach the end goal. Companies can use the 2DS to project carbon dioxide budgets for their sector, and subsequently their share of that sector budget.

    Evolving Methodology Allows Company-Specific Tailoring

    Regardless of the methodology selected, companies may have different approaches to SBT setting for different “scopes.” Scope, in the common parlance of voluntary greenhouse gas emissions accounting, refers to where emissions occur in the commerce lifecycle. Scope 1 refers to emissions directly from an organization's own operations, e.g. emissions from stacks, tailpipes and fugitive sources. Scope 2 is a special case of indirect emissions, specifically emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling. Finally, Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions from everything else—purchased goods and services, employee business travel, waste treatment, use and disposal of sold product, even emissions from investments.

    The reason for three overlapping Scopes is simply to encourage differentiated action. Consider, for example, the many opportunities to reduce emissions from burning fuel for electricity. The power company can choose to use less carbon-intensive fuels and reduce its Scope 1, while the electricity user can be more efficient and reduce its Scope 2, and the fuel provider can produce less carbon-intensive fuels and reduce its Scope 3. For each of the three scopes, organizations may engage different approaches to SBT setting.

    To whittle down the vast array of potential Scope 3 (other indirect) emission sources that should be included in target-setting, the SBTI outlines several criteria for relevant Scope 3 emissions. Three of these criteria are size, influence and risk. The first, size, means exactly that—emissions that are a big part of an organization's total greenhouse gas emissions. The second, influence, is relevant when an organization can effect emission reductions, such as working with suppliers. Kellogg, for example, in furtherance of its goal to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 50 percent by 2050, is supporting half a million farmers in their supply chain to improve agricultural practices. And finally, there is risk, which more specifically means the extent to which emissions create risk exposure–financial, regulatory, legal, and reputational. Other criteria include stakeholder values, outsourcing arrangements, and sector-specific guidance.

    Evolving Methodology Allows Company-Specific Tailoring

    For individual companies, local governments and other institutions, mitigating climate change mitigates business risks. Climate change-related risks threaten operations, supply and products. IEA notes that temperature changes as little as 4 degrees Celsius are likely “to have profound negative impacts on the potential for economic growth.” Take, for example, IPCC's projection that climate change will reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions. This projection has a clear impact for organizations dependent on water resources in these areas—either directly or indirectly through the supply chain. Similarly, IPCC's projection that coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience submergence, coastal flooding and coastal erosion presents grave risk to assets in such locations. Strikingly, IPCC predicts that a large fraction of both terrestrial and freshwater species faces increased extinction risk under projected climate change during and beyond the 21st century. Projected climate risks presenting concomitant business challenges are varied and widespread—including risks from wildfire, flooding, health problems, coral reef destruction, species extinction and impacts to water availability, fisheries productivity, crop production and snow cover.

    For companies, local governments and other organizations setting greenhouse gas reduction targets, there are benefits beyond climate change mitigation. Achieving targets through strategic use of energy efficiency and renewable energy results in cost savings, reduced local air pollution, and improved energy cost and supply resiliency. Proactive reductions position an organization effectively for regulatory developments aligned with climate science. And a robust SBT enables effective marketing and communications with customers and other stakeholders concerned about an effective response to climate change. And finally, climate mitigation reduces or eliminates the costs of climate adaptation.

    With science and policy aligning around a global greenhouse gas budget, companies have greater clarity on what constitutes an effective greenhouse gas reduction goal of their own. In establishing such a science-based target, companies can work toward their most effective strategic position in a carbon-constrained future.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=106482419&vname=dennotallissues&fn=106482419&jd=106482419

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18. Trump’s Green Assault Off To A Fast Start

    Mar 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro

    By Andrew Restuccia

    President Donald Trump is carrying out the most aggressive rollback of federal environmental rules since at least the Reagan administration.

    And he's just getting started.

    In just 40 days, Trump has made it easier for coal miners to dump their waste into West Virginia streams, ordered the repeal of Clean Water Act protections for vast stretches of wetlands, proposed massive job cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and prepared to begin revoking the Obama administration’s most ambitious climate change regulations.

    Trump is also expected to overturn Barack Obama’s moratorium on new federal coal leases, and is considering automakers’ pleas for relief from a scheduled tightening of vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. Obama's pledge to send billions of dollars to United Nations climate programs is also likely on the chopping block. And Trump hasn’t ruled out withdrawing the United States from the 200-nation Paris climate agreement, a step that could undercut the international effort to confront global warming.

    Trump’s actions are true to his campaign rhetoric, including his promises to “get rid of” the EPA “in almost every form.” They thrill conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation that share his disdain for federal regulations and want Washington to give more control to the states.

    But they run afoul of some of Trump’s greener post-election head fakes, including a much-publicized meeting in Trump Tower with Al Gore and media speculation that the president’s daughter Ivanka might serve as a de-facto climate czar.

    Trump’s approach alarms environmental advocates and their allies in Congress, who say his early policy moves threaten to pollute the nation’s air and water while undermining the future of the planet. They would also hobble agencies like EPA: The spending cuts Trump has ordered would chop nearly 25 percent of that agency's budget, even sharper than the reductions Ronald Reagan oversaw in his first term. 
    
    Unlike Reagan, Trump has no Democratic House majority to resist his policies. And decades after Reagan left office, scientists warn that policymakers have little time left to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

    “I would call it the worst environmental disaster of all time if he has the ability to implement the plans which he has outlined,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said of Trump.

    Even some Republicans are concerned.

    “I haven’t ever really seen anything quite like this,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who served as George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator, warning that any effort to weaken enforcement of environmental rules could harm public health. “A lot of that enforcement is protecting people.”

    The Environmental Defense Fund, which has for decades cultivated relationships with Republican administrations, was so concerned about Trump’s agenda that it publicly opposed Scott Pruitt’s nomination for EPA administrator, a first for the group. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt had led legal challenges against a series of major EPA regulations, including a power plant rule that formed the centerpiece of Obama’s climate strategy. 
    
    “We’ve worked with every Democrat and every Republican and we’ve never opposed any Cabinet official, period,” EDF President Fred Krupp said in an interview. “That’s how far outside the bipartisan environmental tradition the agenda is.

    “The very bedrock protections that have led to dramatically cleaner air and a healthy environment through both Democratic and Republican administrations are under attack,” he added.

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment on this story. But conservatives say it’s about time someone started cutting back Washington’s tangled environmental bureaucracy.

    “In a lot of ways the federal government has bitten off more than they can chew,” said Nick Loris, an energy and environment economist at Heritage, which worked closely with Trump officials during the transition. “The Trump administration is undoing a lot of the regulations that the Obama administration put forth that would increase the cost of energy and would really be devoid of any environmental benefit.”

    At the EPA, one career official said many nervous employees are living by two mantras: “Shelter in place” and “wait and see.” The official said senior career staffers are “being kept out of the loop on major decisions” amid distrust from Trump’s political appointees.

    “Some folks have zero work,” the official said. “Others, who the appointees trust because they are Republican, are getting overtime while their counterparts are dying to get work assignments.”

    To some long-time environmentalists, Trump’s unabashed assault on key planks of Obama’s agenda are especially harrowing. 
    
    “Reagan and [George W. Bush] after him made their big moves on Friday afternoon when the media had gone home or cloaked in Frank Luntz cotton-candy phrasing so that only the intended donor beneficiaries would know what was happening,” said Carl Pope, who led the Sierra Club for nearly two decades. “Trump proclaims it in prime time. He's not just trying to change policy. He's trying to eliminate a key phrase in the Constitution: ‘promote the general welfare,’ by changing our public culture.”

    At the EPA, some career employees privately draw comparisons between Pruitt and Anne Gorsuch Burford, who drew widespread criticism from environmentalists and Democrats while leading the agency during Reagan’s first term.

    Burford — the mother of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch — slashed the EPA’s budget by 22 percent and once bragged that she cut the agency’s book of clean water regulations from 6 inches thick to a half-inch, according to her Washington Post obituary from 2004. Her tenure included being held in contempt by the House after Reagan ordered her not to turn over records about Superfund cleanups.

    At the core of Trump’s approach to energy and environmental issues is a disdain for federal regulation and bureaucracy, paired with a desire to streamline permit approvals. That was the motive behind one of his earliest executive actions, an order commanding federal agencies to rescind two regulations for every one they enact.

    Trump has also signed off on congressional repeals of some Obama-era regulations, including an Interior Department rule meant to protect streams from pollution by mountaintop removal coal mining. And this week, he ordered EPA to begin rewriting the Obama administration's sweeping Waters of the U.S. rule, a move that green groups say could leave 60 percent of U.S. stream miles and 20 million acres of wetlands unprotected from development or pollution.

    Next week, Trump is set to sign an executive order that will start the process of unraveling Obama’s most important climate change regulations, aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal-burning power plants. Those rules were the centerpiece of Obama’s commitment to other nations that the U.S., the world’s second-biggest carbon polluter, would do its share to lessen the causes of global warming.
    
    A person familiar with Trump’s order said it is expected to emphasize increasing U.S. energy independence and maximizing domestic energy production on federal lands, while eliminating and streamlining regulations. The order will also overturn the Obama administration's 2015 moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

    The order won’t have instant effect: It could take years for EPA to undo the regulations, and the administration will face fierce legal challenges from environmental groups.

    Despite Trump's aggressive early moves, some of his advisers are pushing a more moderate approach on environmental policy — chiefly Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple succeeded in removing language criticizing the 2015 Paris climate deal from the president's upcoming executive order, as The Wall Street Journal first reported.

    Trump's advisers have not yet fleshed out a detailed position on whether the U.S. should stay in the Paris agreement, according to a person close to the process. Some advisers have argued the U.S. should pull out altogether, a process that would take years under the agreement’s rules. Others favor staking out a middle ground, perhaps by staying in the agreement and rewriting the emissions reduction targets that Obama set.

    In some ways, the debate is symbolic: None of the carbon reductions outlined in the Paris deal are legally binding. But climate advocates say U.S. leadership is critical to getting other nations to follow through on their pledges — so a pullout could undermine the agreement.

    Trump has been equivocal on the Paris deal, saying during the campaign that he would "cancel" the agreement but later saying he has an "open mind." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during his confirmation hearing that the U.S. must keep "its seat at the table" for climate talks, but didn't commit to staying in the agreement.

    Trump’s critics and supporters alike are looking for clues about his future policy moves in his remaining personnel choices.

    For example, sources close to the administration told POLITICO the administration is considering nominating Kathleen Hartnett White, a former Texas environmental regulator who is a vocal skeptic of mainstream climate science, to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a move that would infuriate green groups and signal a continuation of the president’s current approach.

    But sources said the White House is also considering less divisive candidates for the job. Those include Marty Hall, who was CEQ's chief of staff during the George W. Bush administration and is now an executive at the Ohio-based electric utility FirstEnergy.

    In the meantime, though, defenders of the EPA are urging Trump not to ignore the agency’s core missions, which are to protect human health and the environment.

    “If EPA doesn’t provide these protections, no one else will,” said William Reilly, the EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush. “No one else in the government has that mandate. It’s EPA or nothing.”

    Alex Guillén contributed to this story.

    https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/03/trumps-green-assault-off-to-a-fast-start-150059
    

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19. House, Senate Move Forward to Rein in EPA, Eliminate Burdensome Regulations

    Mar 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Charlie Passut

    Lawmakers in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress are moving forward with legislation designed to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and eliminate rules perceived as ineffective and creating burdensome paperwork.

    On Monday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) introduced a pair of bills that would affect the EPA. The first, S 452 -- also known as the "Ozone Regulatory Delay and Extension of Assessment Length" (ORDEAL) Act of 2017 -- calls for amending the Clean Air Act by delaying the enforcement and implementation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone until Jan. 1, 2025. The bill also calls for changing the interval for review of the standards from five to 10 years.

    The EPA strengthened NAAQS for ground-level ozone from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb in 2015.

    A second bill, S 453, would apply to any proposed rule that limits greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If the rule imposes increased costs to other federal agencies, the EPA administrator would be required to offset the increase by reducing funds available to the EPA.

    "Arizona ratepayers and businesses shouldn't be forced shoulder the burden of EPA's costly, convoluted regulations," Flake said. "By holding EPA accountable for its actions, we can keep our air clean without creating job-killing regulatory uncertainty."

    Both of Flake's bills were referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

    Meanwhile, three additional bills are moving forward in the House.

    Lawmakers agreed to add four amendments to HR 998 on Tuesday. The bill, also known as the "Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome" (SCRUB) Act, calls for establishing a temporary commission tasked with reviewing rules that meet certain criteria for possible repeal.

    Specifically, the Retrospective Regulatory Review Commission (RRRC) would have nine members appointed by the president and exist for five years and 180 days after the bill's passage. According to the bill, the RRRC would focus on reviewing major rules that have been in effect for more than 15 years, yet impose a burdensome amount of paperwork and high costs on business. Under HR 998, the RRRC's goal would be to reduce the cumulative costs of federal regulation by at least 15%.

    The second bill under consideration, HR 1004, would require federal agencies to publish information about pending regulatory action within 24 hours and make it available to the public, either on the agency's website or in the rulemaking docket on the website regulations.gov. The bill would not affect notices published in the Federal Register.

    A third bill,HR 1009, would require the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to form a Regulatory Working Group to review regulations on at least a quarterly basis. According to the text of the bill, the group would be tasked with developing "innovative regulatory techniques...methods, efficacy and utility of comparative risk assessment in regulatory decision making...and streamlined regulatory approaches for small businesses and other entities."

    HR 998 was introduced in the House on Feb. 9, while HR 1004 and HR 1009 were introduced on Feb. 13. All three bills were reported to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

    http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109598-house-senate-move-forward-to-rein-in-epa-eliminate-burdensome-regulations
    

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