Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/27/2017
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Hearing On Electric Grid Threats
Mar 28, 2017 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy
Location: 366 Dirksen / 2:15 PM -
Hearing On Climate Science
Mar 29, 2017 | House Science, Space and Technology
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) As Trade Agreements Falter, ACC Calls For Harmonized Regulations
Mar 27, 2017 | Chemical.Info
By Andy Szal
A prominent chemical industry group called for an increased emphasis on uniform regulations instead of multi-national trade agreements. -
(ACC Mentioned) China Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Against S. Korean Solvent
Mar 27, 2017 | The Korea Herald
China's commerce ministry said Monday it has launched an anti-dumping probe into South Korean exports of a chemical product amid Chinese economic retaliation against South Korea. -
(ACC Mentioned) Quaker Chemical Bags ACC's RC14001:2015 Certification
Mar 27, 2017 | Fibre2fashion.com
Specialty chemicals producer Quaker Chemical has bagged the RC14001:2015 standard certification from the American Chemistry Council's Responsible Care initiative. Quaker is only the second ACC member company in the US to be awarded a 2015 version of the certification and has been awarded the certificate for its five production facilities in the US. -
Pruitt Help Sought on New EPA Overhaul Bill: Lawmaker
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
A sponsor of recent legislation to terminate the EPA now is reaching out to Administrator Scott Pruitt to help craft new legislation to overhaul the agency, the House member told Bloomberg BNA March 24. -
Early Chaos Raises Doubts On Trump's Ability To Enact EPA Agenda
Mar 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Chaos and infighting at the White House and EPA are raising doubts about whether President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt will be able to enact their ambitious deregulatory agenda at the agency, industry, Republican, and environmentalist sources say, with the instability giving some administration critics newfound hope. -
House To Vote On 'Secret Science' Bill
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Only weeks after winning approval from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, a bill that would layer new requirements on U.S. EPA's handling of scientific research is headed to a floor vote this week. -
(ACC Mentioned) SOCMA Urges EPA To Cut Costs Of TSCA Inventory Rule, Citing Trump's EO
Mar 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical and other industry officials are urging EPA to revise its proposed rule updating and and resetting its inventory of chemicals in the U.S. marketplace so that it cuts costs and eases compliance, with one group saying that such changes will help the agency comply with President Donald Trump's executive order capping rules' costs. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Science Panel Digs Into U.S. Funding of European Institute
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Members of Congress are looking to investigate how the Department of Health and Human Services funds an obscure scientific institution in Italy. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals In America Who’s Protecting Us?
Mar 24, 2017 | Oye Times
By Glen Asher
With the Trump Administration planning significant changes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signalling that it could cut the EPA’s budget by up to 25 percent, one has to wonder who will be there to protect Americans. -
Canadian, US Governments Continue Focus On Chemicals Of Concern
Mar 27, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The governments of Canada and the US have committed themselves to considering additional chemicals of mutual concern (CMC) in a 2017-19 priority action plan. -
John Crane's RICO Suit Against Asbestos Attorneys Tossed
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Gasket maker John Crane Inc. will have to find another state in which to file its claims that a law firm representing asbestos plaintiffs engaged in criminal activity, the Northern District of Illinois said (John Crane Inc. v. Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett, 2017 BL 91604, N.D. Ill., 16-CV-05918, 3/23/17). -
Footballer's Green Chemical Company Signs Deal for Biorefinery
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Shankleman
GFBiochemicals Ltd., the Italian green chemical company started by Crystal Palace midfielder Mathieu Flamini, will build a biorefinery in the U.S. to make plastics and solvents in a way that avoids using fossil fuels. -
(ACC Mentioned) AFPM ’17: Small Hike Or Roll For US March PE Contracts
Mar 27, 2017 | ICIS
By Lane Kelley
US polyethylene (PE) contracts rose in February but heading into this weekend’s International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) in San Antonio, Texas, there are doubts that March will make it two in a row. -
Pruitt Promises Clean Power Plan Rollback Tomorrow
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said that President Trump tomorrow will sign his long-anticipated executive order rolling back environmental regulations. -
Judge Tosses Suit Over Basin Group's Fracking Ban
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a would-be natural gas driller over the Delaware River Basin Commission's de facto ban on fracking activities in the Delaware River Basin (Wayne Land & Mineral Grp. v. Del. River Basin Comm., M.D. Pa., No. 3:16-cv-00897, Opinion 3/23/17). -
Keystone Foes Prepare Fight as Trump Issues Pipeline Permit
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Meenal Vamburkar and Andrew Harris
President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline—but the fight is far from over. -
Md. Fracking-Ban Bill, Once In Doubt, Now Gliding Toward Approval
Mar 25, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks and Ovetta Wiggins
Maryland is on track to become the third state in the nation to ban hydraulic fracturing, after the Senate gave preliminary approval Friday to a House bill that would prohibit the controversial gas-extraction method. -
Industry Fears Overreach From Gas Pipeline Safety Advisory
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Natural gas industry groups are still decoding a federal agency's advice for identifying threats to safe pipeline operations and say they are concerned that it may overreach. -
Senators To Vet 'Retro' Proposal To Protect Grid
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey
Senators this week will vet a bipartisan proposal to set aside $10 million for hardening cyberdefenses for an increasingly vulnerable energy sector. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Time Is Right For Freight Rail Reform
Mar 27, 2017 | Washington Examiner
By Mike Walls
Long before President Trump signed his executive order calling on regulatory agencies to identify "outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective" regulations that "inhibit job creation," one small government agency was already hard at work doing just that. -
(ACC Mentioned) Modern Tiny Houses Boast Historic Lineage
Mar 26, 2017 | Orlando Sentinal
By Joy Wallace Dickinson
If you’ve visited downtown Orlando recently, you may have noticed a little house — not on the prairie, but perched in front of the Orange County Regional History Center at 65 E. Central Blvd. -
Panel Invites Feuding Scientists
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing this week to challenge consensus climate science, which Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has called politicized and exaggerated. -
New EPA Chief Calls Paris Climate Accord A 'Bad Deal'
Mar 26, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Savransky
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Sunday blasted the Paris climate agreement, calling it a "bad deal." -
California Board to Track South Coast's Clean Air Progress
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California air quality officials want to keep a close eye on efforts to clean the air in the Los Angeles basin. -
U.S. Joins ‘Constructive’ G-20 Climate Meeting, Germany Says
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin
Officials representing the world's largest economies, including the U.S., put global climate talks back on track in Berlin March 24, after failing last week to agree on language supporting the Paris accord, the German government said.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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Hearing On Electric Grid Threats
Mar 28, 2017 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy
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Mar 29, 2017 | House Science, Space and Technology
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(ACC Mentioned) As Trade Agreements Falter, ACC Calls For Harmonized Regulations
Mar 27, 2017 | Chemical.Info
By Andy Szal
A prominent chemical industry group called for an increased emphasis on uniform regulations instead of multi-national trade agreements.
Greg Skelton, the American Chemistry Council's senior director for regulatory and technical affairs, told Bloomberg that regulatory cooperation could resolve key trade barriers facing chemical manufacturers — without wading into complicated international negotiations that face increasing political opposition.
Skelton said that sweeping trade agreements often include such language — but that deals like the ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership appear unlikely under the Trump administration.
"You don't need trade agreements to get cooperation agreements,” Skelton said.
Skelton called varying labeling requirements or other "non-tariff" trade barriers "the biggest trade issues faced by our members."
Those different requirements add to the costs of doing business; harmonizing regulations would not only reduce those costs, Skelton said, but would increase the sales potential in each nation.
Bloomberg pointed to current cooperative efforts between regulators in the U.S. and Canada which yielded "primers" for chemical manufacturers and suppliers operating in those nations.
An EPA official also told a conference last month that regulators will unveil a strategy for the U.S. and Canada to cooperate on chemical risk assessments later this year.
http://www.chem.info/news/2017/03/trade-agreements-falter-acc-calls-harmonized-regulations
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(ACC Mentioned) China Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Against S. Korean Solvent
Mar 27, 2017 | The Korea Herald
SHANGHAI (Yonhap) -- China's commerce ministry said Monday it has launched an anti-dumping probe into South Korean exports of a chemical product amid Chinese economic retaliation against South Korea.
China also said methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) imported from Japan or South Africa is also subject to the probe that could last up to Sept. 27, 2018.
MIBK is used as a chemical intermediate, a solvent for manufacturing paints, rubbers, pharmaceuticals, other chemicals, and industrial cleaners, according to the American Chemistry Council.
South Korean exports of MIBK accounted for about half of all Chinese imports of MIBK.
The probe did not mean a suspension of imports of MIBK, though South Korean, Japanese and South African companies could face suspension of their exports or fines depending on the outcome of the probe.
China has taken a series of economic retaliations against South Korea in recent months over the ongoing deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.
Beijing has repeatedly pressed South Korea to drop the plan, claiming the U.S. missile defense system would undermine its security interests.
Still, Seoul and Washington have dismissed such concerns, saying the U.S. missile shield is defensive in nature and focused on North Korea's missile activities.http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170327001044
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(ACC Mentioned) Quaker Chemical Bags ACC's RC14001:2015 Certification
Mar 27, 2017 | Fibre2fashion.com
Specialty chemicals producer Quaker Chemical has bagged the RC14001:2015 standard certification from the American Chemistry Council's Responsible Care initiative. Quaker is only the second ACC member company in the US to be awarded a 2015 version of the certification and has been awarded the certificate for its five production facilities in the US.
The RC14001:2015 standard certification challenges companies to demonstrate a commitment to improving their safety, health and environmental (SH&E) and security performance.
"Responsible Care certification reinforces the high value that Quaker places on the safety, health, and well-being of our associates, protection of the environment, and security of our facilities," CEO Michael Barry said. "By embracing a culture built around safety and environmental responsibility, we ask every single associate to be proactive and apply these elements to the way we actually work."
According to Quaker, all its main manufacturing facilities around the world are ISO14001 certified, and many of its main manufacturing sites outside of North America are OHSAS18001 certified.
"The addition of the RC14001 certification enhances Quaker's current efforts to enhance safety, and is a significant step in achieving its corporate social responsibility goals," the company said. (AR)http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/sustainability-news/quaker-chemical-bags-acc-s-rc14001-2015-certification-204888-newsdetails.htm
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Pruitt Help Sought on New EPA Overhaul Bill: Lawmaker
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
A sponsor of recent legislation to terminate the EPA now is reaching out to Administrator Scott Pruitt to help craft new legislation to overhaul the agency, the House member told Bloomberg BNA March 24.
The legislation would reduce the scope of Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, and devolve most enforcement authority to states, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said.
Loudermilk joined with other House Republicans to introduce the termination legislation (H.R. 861) in early February. That bill sparked outcry from environmental groups and failed to gain momentum despite picking up some additional co-sponsors in early March.
Seven House Republicans currently back the bill.
That legislation aimed to launch a conversation on the agency, rather than actually abolish it, Loudermilk reiterated. Abolishing the EPA is likely politically unfeasible even though Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, regularly lambaste agency overreach. In the off-chance lawmakers and the Oval Office scrap the EPA, other agencies would have to implement regulations to comply with environmental statutes.
A new bill, however, will keep the EPA intact while transferring environmental authority from “ivory tower” headquarters to states, he told Bloomberg BNA.
“A smaller agency that works more directly with state agencies and gets its marching orders from Congress would be much more effective,” Loudermilk said. “We're reaching out to Mr. Pruitt right now to see if his staff is interested in helping us with that.”
The EPA didn't immediately respond to a Bloomberg BNA request for comment.
Regional EPA offices would continue to play a critical role for the agency in the new legislation, according to Loudermilk. “That would be my approach because they would be the front-end element that works closest with state [environmental agencies],” he said.
The Office of Management and Budget recently recommended eliminating two EPA regional offices. Those offices are extensions of EPA Washington, D.C., headquarters.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=107930968&vname=dennotallissues&fn=107930968&jd=107930968
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Early Chaos Raises Doubts On Trump's Ability To Enact EPA Agenda
Mar 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Chaos and infighting at the White House and EPA are raising doubts about whether President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt will be able to enact their ambitious deregulatory agenda at the agency, industry, Republican, and environmentalist sources say, with the instability giving some administration critics newfound hope.
At the rate the Trump administration is going, it will be in a position to execute its EPA agenda “somewhere around 2023,” one GOP source says.
The upside to this, one environmentalist adds, is that it “is good for the environment.”
However, one industry attorney says despite all evidence that the Trump team does not “know what they are doing,” that does not mean the administration is going to back down. The source says that the confusion and chaos may ultimately serve the goal, articulated by Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, of “deconstructing the administrative state.”
“I just think all of this is about anarchy,” the industry attorney says.
Such assessments come in the wake of a steady stream of reports that top officials in the White House and EPA are divided on a host of major personnel and environmental policy decisions, stymieing selection of political appointees who are needed to make key policy decisions and delaying high-profile actions.
Among the items that have been delayed is the president's long-awaited executive order launching expected rollbacks of the agency's power plant greenhouse gas rule and other climate policies. The delay has prompted some to fear that a federal appellate court could uphold the regulation, making any roll back more difficult.
And despite a lack of political appointees, Pruitt has suspended delegations of authority to senior career officials, a step that many say will delay decisions, including administration priorities.
In addition, several sources say the administration's plans to dramatically slash EPA's budget in fiscal year 2018, while unlikely to be enacted, is likely to further undermine the administration's effort to enact its deregulatory agenda by eliminating 20 percent of the agency's workforce, depriving officials of staff that are needed to roll back rules.
None of this is likely to ease implementation of the administration's controversial agenda, which is already facing stiff resistance from environmentalists.
The appointment of Pruitt, a lightning rod of controversy given his doubts about climate change, his suits against EPA and his support of the fossil fuel industry, may not help.
While the administration still has a lengthy to-do list, officials have already taken several steps to implement their deregulatory agenda broadly. At the White House, Trump has issued several executive orders creating an overarching deregulatory architecture, including requirements for agencies to identify rules for repeal, limit regulatory costs and create deregulatory task forces.
Trump has also signed an order requiring EPA to redo the Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule and announced plans for EPA and the Transportation Department to reconsider the Obama EPA's decision to maintain vehicle GHG standards.
'Just The Beginning'
At a March 20 rally in Louisville, Trump also touted his approval of a Congressional Review Act resolution rolling back the Interior Department's stream protection rule, saying it will be the first of several measures to help the coal industry. “I have already eliminated a devastating anti-coal regulation,” he said. “and that is just the beginning.”
Pruitt has also taken several steps to roll back previously enacted requirements. He halted an ongoing information collection request to gather data on methane emissions from existing oil and gas sources that was expected to form the basis for a future rule. He has also continued delays on several Obama-era rules that were frozen at the start of the administration and launched an administrative process to reconsider a facility safety rule update.
An EPA spokesman did not respond to a request for comment and a White House spokesman said officials had no announcements to make.
But administration supporters are acknowledging that implementing the agenda will be a “long slog” and are underscoring the need to get nominees quickly named and confirmed.
“We’ve got to get these people confirmed, get them lined up, and when that happens, you’re going to have a whole new group over there [at EPA], and they’re going to get these things done,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt March 22. Inhofe said he expects that Trump will issue his climate executive order next week.
“I just think it’s going to be a long slog, because this is about the rule of law,” Hewitt added later, noting that the administration is poised to soon nominate a former Inhofe staffer -- widely expected to be Andrew Wheeler -- as Pruitt's deputy.
Inhofe may have a point that the administration can still advance its agenda. The Obama administration did not nominate Bob Perciasepe as its deputy administrator until May 18, 2009, and he was not confirmed by a Democratic Senate until December 24 of that year.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration did not appear to have the same level of confusion and uncertainty about its environmental agenda as appears to be the case in the Trump administration, where top presidential advisers are strongly divided over a host of issues.
While officials are expected to soon announce the selection of an EPA deputy administrator, it took months as Bannon, White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus and senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner debated the selection and what role any deputy should play.
Top officials are also said to be divided over how to address the Paris agreement and other climate issues.
Such divisions exacerbate concerns at EPA, where Pruitt lacks a political leadership team and experience running a large federal bureaucracy. “To the extent there is no leadership in place, the staff has no incentive to plan for this, and will frustrate it at every turn. . . . All of the personnel stuff really does matter and it is a real problem for them unless they get their act together,” says another industry attorney.
'Okie Mafia'
While Pruitt has brought with him four aides from Oklahoma to serve in non-Senate-confirmed positions, that has raised concerns that the leadership is too closely associated with Inhofe and others from Oklahoma. EPA is being run by the “Okie mafia,” the GOP source says.
That may be in part why Pruitt appears to be at odds with several transition and White House officials.
Last week, Pruitt lost one of his top advisers, Assistant Deputy Administrator David Schnare, one of a few with significant EPA experience. Schnare told Inside EPA that he left over concerns about infighting among administration appointees and Pruitt's alleged lack of engagement with beachhead staff from the Trump campaign.
Pruitt is also said to be bristling at interactions with senior White House adviser Don Benton, who was installed at EPA by the Trump campaign after he ran the president's campaign in several western states.
According to a March 19 Washington Post report Pruitt is shunning Benton from meetings because he “piped up so frequently during policy discussions that he has been disinvited from many of them.”
Benton declined to comment to Inside EPA.
Pruitt has already cited the lack of appointees as a reason for further delaying several rules -- addressing Superfund site listings, air quality modeling, pesticide applicators, administrative procedures and formaldehyde emissions -- without notice and comment. “The agency has been faced with circumstances beyond its control,” Pruitt said in a Federal Register notice published March 20.
But the action is vulnerable to legal challenges from administration critics, who say lack of appointees does not meet the legal test for winning an exemption from Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment requirements.
Despite a lack of appointees, Pruitt has also withdrawn authority that had delegated powers to acting officials, centralizing authority in his office and potentially delaying decisions. “The big story is Pruitt suspended all delegations” to senior acting officials, the first industry attorney says, complaining that the action has not gained the traction it deserves because it means major bottlenecks on issues large and small.
That may explain the agency's recent reversal of its March 15 announcement that it would extend the public comment deadline to update the Toxic Substances Control Act inventory, noting in a statement the next day that while it had received a request to do so from a trade association, “a formal extension of this comment period was not feasible.”
A second environmentalist adds: “For an administration that came in appointing heads of agencies and departments with the sole qualification of being interested in dismantling that agency or department, it's not surprising that they don't know how to actually run them. . . . They don't know what they're doing.”
Executive Orders
Some of the president's deregulatory orders are also creating problems for Pruitt. For example, top budget officials are delaying promulgation of an effluent limit for dental amalgam that was signed by the Obama administration as they seek to apply retroactively provisions in Trump's order that requires agencies to identify two rules for repeal for each new one it promulgates.
In the face of a lawsuit from environmentalists who charge the rule's promulgation is required by statute, Pruitt is fighting White House budget officials to win the rule's release.
Pruitt has also been handed a draconian budget proposal from White House budget director Mick Mulvaney that is reportedly more than $1.5 billion lower than the administrator had sought. The budget plan represents a 31 percent cut from the current $8.1 billion budget, an even steeper reduction than what the White House first proposed despite lobbying by Pruitt to limit any cuts, an unheard-of step, according to former Democratic administrators.
Multiple sources say that the budget proposal is completely unrealistic given the amount of work that EPA will need to do to roll back the Obama rules.
The first environmentalist describes the budget proposal and the agenda as working at odds. “The minute they start cutting staff,” their agenda will only take longer to execute. For now, the budget and the agenda appear to be “acting all at cross purposes to each other.”
Another industry source agrees, and says the expected rulemaking to rollback the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan will be a long one, at least 18 to 24 months. “All of this [delay], seems to me, to really hurt any momentum that Trump had. . . . You've got to have an [air office chief] in place fairly quickly, a general counsel in place fairly quickly who understands these issues, the law, and is experienced in guiding the staff on the basic outline to write going forward.
But the first industry source says the administration's goal may be broader than revoking rules, but rolling back EPA to “tidbits” as Trump promised during the campaign.
“If you take [Bannon and] the White House at its word . . . then the best way perhaps to accomplish that is by causing these organizations to be rudderless and then to make the decisions to deconstruct the state at the budget level,” the first industry source says. “So I think that's part of what is happening here . . . not just at EPA [but at agencies] that the ideological wing of the White House would like to eliminate, and the best way to do that is through the budget.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/early-chaos-raises-doubts-trumps-ability-enact-epa-agenda
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House To Vote On 'Secret Science' Bill
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Only weeks after winning approval from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, a bill that would layer new requirements on U.S. EPA's handling of scientific research is headed to a floor vote this week.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet late this afternoon to set the terms of debate for H.R. 1430, sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the science panel's chairman. The House will then take up the bill later in the week, according to a schedule from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
The measure would bar EPA from proposing or putting new regulations in place based on science that is not "transparent or reproducible."
Along those lines, EPA would have to make all underlying research data available online to allow for independent analysis. The bill, a slightly reworked version of what was previously dubbed the "Secret Science Reform Act," has now been rechristened the "Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment (HONEST) Act."
"Since American taxpayers foot the bill for EPA regulations, they deserve to have access to the science that supposedly justifies these regulations," Smith said at the March 9 markup, not long before the bill passed on a 17-12 party-line vote.
But Democrats and critics in the scientific community view the measure as a gift to industry, crafted with a goal of both offering more footholds for legal challenges to new regulations and undercutting EPA's ability to rely on relevant scientific research since key studies sometimes draw on large data sets that are not easily reproducible.
In response to other criticisms, Smith has exempted personally identifiable information and trade secrets from the web-posting requirements.
But at the markup, ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) said the bill would ostensibly allow outside researchers to get access to sensitive data by signing a confidentiality agreement with EPA. Because EPA is not authorized to sign off on such agreements, Johnson said, the legislation would still hurt the agency's ability to use "the best science."
Another factor is the legislation's price tag, particularly as the Trump administration pushes for steep cuts to EPA's budget next year.
As of Friday, the Congressional Budget Office had not released a score for H.R. 1430. In 2015, however, CBO projected that implementation of a similar measure would cost EPA $250 million annually over several years for database construction and other steps needed to meet the bill's requirements.
In its forecast, the budget office concluded that the web-posting requirements would apply to a large body of studies underlying "covered actions," including risk and hazard assessments, and regulatory impact statements.
Smith's bill would allow the agency to spend $1 million per year, with no new spending authorized to cover that amount.
At the March 9 markup, the Science Committee also approved a related measure, H.R. 1431, introduced by Vice Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) to revamp membership requirements on EPA's Science Advisory Board. As of late Friday, that bill was not on the Rules Committee's agenda.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/27/stories/1060052098
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(ACC Mentioned) SOCMA Urges EPA To Cut Costs Of TSCA Inventory Rule, Citing Trump's EO
Mar 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical and other industry officials are urging EPA to revise its proposed rule updating and and resetting its inventory of chemicals in the U.S. marketplace so that it cuts costs and eases compliance, with one group saying that such changes will help the agency comply with President Donald Trump's executive order capping rules' costs.
In recently posted comments on EPA's proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory update rule, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA), which represents small batch and specialty chemical companies, recommends that EPA require only one company to report each chemical to the agency for it to be considered listed on the inventory.
This "one and done" approach could "dramatically reduce burdens on reporting companies -- and EPA," the group says, adding that it would help the agency comply with provisions in Trump's Jan. 30 Executive Order (EO) 13771 that prohibits any additional incremental costs for new regulations in fiscal year 2017 and directs agencies to "identify" two rules for repeal for every new rule they propose.
Complying with the order's cost and deregulatory provisions could be difficult for EPA because many agency rules are required by statute, as is the TSCA inventory reset rule.
Dan Newton, SOCMA's senior manager for government relations, writes in the group's undated comments that complying with the order's cost requirements will be difficult for EPA and the agency should therefore ease industry burdens. "EPA will face sufficient challenges meeting its 'net zero' cap in any event; it ought not make the job any more difficult than it needs to," he writes.
The group's comments echo recent suggestions from several other industry groups who urged White House officials in recent comments to prioritize provisions in the order that require agencies to offset new regulatory costs over its requirements that agencies "identify" rules for repeal.
Like many environmentalists, the industry groups say the requirement that agencies identify rules for repeal is likely to create regulatory confusion and will be difficult to implement at EPA, where many rules are required by statute.
A case in point is EPA's rule setting effluent limits for dental amalgam, which was approved by the Obama administration but which has now stalled as the White House budget office insists that the agency comply with the executive order's deregulatory provisions.
Reset Rule
EPA's inventory reset rule, proposed Jan. 13, is aimed at giving the agency a better sense of how many thousands of chemicals are already in the marketplace. Chemicals on the market do not undergo the pre-market review that is required of "new" chemicals, those not on the inventory.
The proposed rule would require a retrospective electronic notification of chemical substances on the TSCA inventory that were manufactured or imported for non-exempt commercial purposes during the ten-year time period ending on June 21, 2016.
The proposal would also accept notifications for substances that are processed, though it is not mandatory, and would use all notifications to distinguish active substances, meaning they currently being are made, imported sold or used in commerce, from inactive substances. EPA is also proposing to set procedures for future electronic notification of chemical substances on the TSCA inventory that are designated as inactive, if and when the manufacturing or processing of those substances is expected to resume, allowing EPA to easily change their designation from inactive to active.
The TSCA reform law enacted last year gives EPA more robust authority to evaluate risks for those "existing" chemicals, but industry has long said the agency must have an updated inventory so it is drawing from a universe of chemicals currently active in commerce rather than those that have been phased out.
Under the new law, EPA must promulgate a rule to facilitate industry reporting of chemicals that have been manufactured or processed in the previous 10 years, with the goal of allowing the agency to designate active and inactive chemicals on the TSCA inventory of existing chemicals. This delineation is important, because new chemicals -- those not on the inventory -- are subject to EPA's pre-market review process.
Chemicals Compilation
To ease the burden on companies seeking listings on the inventory, SOCMA, like many other commenters, urges EPA to create a dynamic public compilation of chemicals that have been identified as in use over the past decade, so that only one company needs to identify each chemical to the agency.
"If someone reports a chemical, no one else should have to. After all, the purpose of the reset is to determine which chemicals are in active commerce looking back from June 22, 2016. So long as one entity reports commercial activity, that purpose is served," Newton writes.
The group says such an approach would also help EPA comply with Trump's EO. "EPA needs to be hypervigilant about not imposing needless burdens. While the Inventory reset rulemaking seems likely not to trigger the '1 in, 2 out' provision of that order (because it is not a 'significant regulatory action'), that EO does impose on federal agencies like EPA a 'regulatory cap' for this fiscal year of zero net regulatory cost increases.
SOCMA also urges EPA to clarify in the final rule that companies need only identify chemicals by their chemical abstract service registry number (CASRN) alone, rather than requiring chemical names or structures as well.
"EPA could substantially reduce the costs of this proposed rule by implementing a 'one and done' and CASRN-only approach," SOCMA's Newton says.
SOCMA further argues that not making these changes to the proposed rule would violate TSCA Sections 8(a)(5)(A) and 8(a)(5)(B). SOCMA quotes those sections as requiring EPA to avoid unnecessary or duplicative reporting and to minimize reporting compliance costs on small businesses.
Industry Requests
SOCMA is not alone in its requests and recommendations to EPA, which several other groups echoed. For example, SOCMA's call to require only one company to notify EPA of each chemical substance's activity is reiterated in comments from the American Chemistry Council and the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, among others. Similarly, its request that EPA seek only CASRN numbers, rather than chemical names or structures, is shared by many other commenters.
SOCMA, ACC and many others also strongly oppose EPA's proposed requirement that submitters indicate the date range of each chemical's production when reporting it is active and should appear as such on the inventory. "Locating records to establish conclusively first and last dates of manufacture would be significantly more burdensome than the effort to simply verify that a substance had been manufactured during the relevant period," ACC writes in its March 14 comments. "This is particularly the case when companies or business units have been sold, shut down, or merged."
ACC adds that the statute does not require these details, nor did EPA require "documentation of the date of commercial activity when the initial Inventory was established" in the 1970s.
Generally, commenters reacted positively to EPA's proposal as one designed to reduce burden and duplicative efforts by including chemicals reported to the agency as part of the 2012 and 2016 chemical data reporting rules as an initial group on the inventory, and frame their comments as changes that would further reduce burden. Chemical producers also praise EPA's proposal to allow chemical processors to voluntarily submit identifications of active substances after the manufacturing industry has reported on active chemicals. The trade groups are not alone, California's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) also praises EPA's overall approach.
"DTSC strongly supports EPA's efforts to update the TSCA Inventory to support not only the continued success of EPA's work under TSCA, but also states' efforts to safeguard their citizens and the environment from the potential harms of chemicals used in commerce," that state agency's director Barbara Lee writes in March 14 comments.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/socma-urges-epa-cut-costs-tsca-inventory-rule-citing-trumps-eo
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(ACC Mentioned) House Science Panel Digs Into U.S. Funding of European Institute
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Members of Congress are looking to investigate how the Department of Health and Human Services funds an obscure scientific institution in Italy.
House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) sent a letter March 24 to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price asking for documents they hope will clarify the financial ties between the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Ramazzini Institute, a scientific institution in Italy focused on occupational and environmental health.
“The Committee is concerned that contracts awarded to the Ramazzini Institute and its affiliates may not meet adequate scientific integrity standards,” the lawmakers said in the letter. Specifically, the panel alleges the institute accepted at least $1 million through sole-source contracts, meaning the institute did not bid against other potential recipients for the money. The letter also says that NIEHS has sent $92 million since 2009 to the institute.
The call for Ramazzini's documents dovetails with a larger campaign from the chemical industry to reform scientific agencies that conduct assessments that tend to link substances to cancer, saying these findings are misleading the public on cancer risk.
The American Chemistry Council launched a campaign in January to encourage lawmakers to “seek reform” of another European agency, the Lyon, France-based International Agency for the Research of Cancer (IARC). The agency's assessments of cancer hazards, particularly a 2015 conclusion that the herbicide glyphosate is a probable carcinogen, has triggered the ire of Monsanto Co., whose Roundup weedkiller contains glyphosate.
The Ramazzini Institute has come under fire before. The House panel questioned the Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 over Ramazzini studies used in chemical risk assessments. The Intergrated Risk Information System program used the institute's studies on the carcinogenic potential of methanol. Critics of the institute said the study's methods led to an outcome in which exposed rats were more likely to develop lymphoma and leukemia.
Representatives for the Ramazzini Institute and NIEHS could not be reached for comment.
Though the campaign doesn't specifically target the Ramazzini Institute, representatives of the initiative have linked former Ramazzini scholars with the IARC panel on glyphosate.
“CAPHR intends to promote reform of IARC. But evidence is emerging that Ramazzini and IARC are in close collaboration,” said Campaign for Accuracy in Public Research spokeswoman Ana Heeren in an email.
The free-market law institute E&E Legal also sued HHS last week for withholding responses to the watchdog's public records requests on the Ramazzini Institute.
NIEHS ultimately backed the Institute on this study, finding “consistency and value” in the analyses despite some confounding aspects that made diagnoses in the rats more difficult.
Specifically, the committee is seeking communications on grants or contracts between NIEHS and Ramazzini, as well as a list of fellows employed by Ramazzini and information on specific contracts purported to be sole-source.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=107930977&vname=dennotallissues&fn=107930977&jd=107930977
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals In America Who’s Protecting Us?
Mar 24, 2017 | Oye Times
By Glen Asher
With the Trump Administration planning significant changes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signalling that it could cut the EPA’s budget by up to 25 percent, one has to wonder who will be there to protect Americans. Fortunately, the recent launching of a new initiative that has sprung up out of nowhere gives us a sense of how future consumer protection could evolve, particularly when it comes to the chemicals that we find in the environment today.
Here’s the announcement of the formation of the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research (CAPHR), a rather warm and friendly-sounding name for a new initiative:
After all, in this age of fake news, who doesn’t want more accuracy in everything!
Here’s a screen capture from CAPHR’s new website:
The banner at the top of the website quotes Galileo Galilei…
“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”
One of the axes that CAPHR has to grind is its distain for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a group that was established in 1965 as an affiliate of the World Health Organization. The IARC’s mission is as follows:
“The objective of the IARC is to promote international collaboration in cancer research. The Agency is inter-disciplinary, bringing together skills in epidemiology, laboratory sciences and biostatistics to identify the causes of cancer so that preventive measures may be adopted and the burden of disease and associated suffering reduced. A significant feature of the IARC is its expertise in coordinating research across countries and organizations; its independent role as an international organization facilitates this activity. The Agency has a particular interest in conducting research in low and middle-income countries through partnerships and collaborations with researchers in these regions.
Emphasis is placed on elucidating the role of environmental and lifestyle risk factors and studying their interplay with genetic background in population-based studies and appropriate experimental models. This emphasis reflects the understanding that most cancers are, directly or indirectly, linked to environmental factors and thus are preventable. The IARC Monographs Programme is a core element of the Agency’s portfolio of activities, with international expert working groups evaluating the evidence of the carcinogenicity of specific exposures. The Agency is also committed to studying approaches for the early detection of cancer and in evaluating prevention strategies.”
The IARC publishes a series of IARC Monographs which identify factors that can increase the risk of human cancer including chemicals, complex mixtures, occupational exposures, physical agents, biological agent and lifestyle factors. Since 1971, IARC has evaluated 988 agents of which more than 400 have been deemed carcinogenic, probably carcinogenic and possibly carcinogenic to humans. Here is a link to the latest volume of IARC Monographs and a sample showing part of the monograph for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup product line and other herbicides:
In addition to the chemical properties of glyphosate, the IARC Monograph includes a very thorough review of research that has been done on glyphosate and its link to various cancers in humans and small mammals and amphibians as shown on these sample pages:
To summarize, in this case, the IARC considers glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic”.
What does CAPPR have to say about the IARC Monographs in light of its mission for accuracy in public health research? It claims that the IARC relies only on studies that are in the public domain and ignores proprietary research done by other groups. According to CAPHR, only one out of 998 agents that have been assessed since 1971 have been determined to “probably not” cause cancer in humans while all of the rest were identified as possible, probable or certain carcinogens as shown here:
While there is no doubt that IARC’s findings are controversial at times and confusing at others, there is something that you should know about the Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research. Here is a link to the full regular membership list of CAPHR’s parent organization, the American Chemical Council and here are a few examples that you may be familiar with:
BASF Corporation
Bayer Corporation
BP Lubricants USA, Inc.
Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP
Dow
DuPont
Eli Lilly and Company
ExxonMobil Chemicals USA, Inc.
3M
March & Co., Inc.
Methanex Corporation
Monsanto Corporation
NOVA Chemicals Corporation
Proctor & Gamble, Chemicals Division
Shell Chemical LP
It reads like a “who’s who” of America’s chemical industry, doesn’t it?
So, if you are looking for “accuracy in public health research” when it comes to the chemicals in your life, you now have a new source of information including this conclusion about the aforementioned glyphosate:
“Glyphosate is less toxic than either caffeine or table salt. Over the last 40 years, the herbicide has been rigorously tested and studied by regulatory agencies worldwide that have found it poses no risk to human health when used as directed.” (my bold)
I offer my thanks to the American chemical business for their unbiased opinion that one of their products is less toxic that two substances that most people consume on a regular basis. I think I’ll go have a sip of Roundup.
Click HERE to read more.
http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/science/163760-chemicals-in-america-whos-protecting-us
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Canadian, US Governments Continue Focus On Chemicals Of Concern
Mar 27, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The governments of Canada and the US have committed themselves to considering additional chemicals of mutual concern (CMC) in a 2017-19 priority action plan.
The agreement comes under the CMC annex of the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. This outlines the countries' commitments to protecting human health and the environment "through cooperative and coordinated measures to reduce the anthropogenic release of chemicals of mutual concern into the waters of the Great Lakes."
The first chemicals of mutual concern (CMC) list agreed by the countries comprises:
· hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD);
· polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs);
· perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA);
· perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS);
· long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs);
· mercury;
· polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); and
· short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs).
The priorities plan names the identification and assessment of new CMCs as a focus over the next three years. It also calls for the development and coordination of measures to reduce anthropogenic inputs of CMCs into the Great Lakes.
Among science priorities are undertaking research, monitoring and surveillance activities to address informational needs for CMCs, in support of future work on the substances.
The countries have also signalled their intent to focus these activities to provide for "early warning for chemicals that could become CMCs."
https://chemicalwatch.com/54699/canadian-us-governments-continue-focus-on-chemicals-of-concern
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John Crane's RICO Suit Against Asbestos Attorneys Tossed
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Gasket maker John Crane Inc. will have to find another state in which to file its claims that a law firm representing asbestos plaintiffs engaged in criminal activity, the Northern District of Illinois said (John Crane Inc. v. Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett, 2017 BL 91604, N.D. Ill., 16-CV-05918, 3/23/17).
Crane claims that Dallas law firm Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett P.C. falsified clients’ exposure histories, and hid the existence of exposures to other companies’ products by delaying the filing of asbestos trust claims until after litigation.
But Crane failed to show that the alleged illegal conduct was “expressly aimed” at Illinois, which is necessary to establish personal jurisdiction, the court said.
The complaint alleged that the firm violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Judge Amy J. St. Eve issued the ruling.
Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP in Chicago represents Crane.
Jones Walker LLP in New Orleans represents Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett.
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Footballer's Green Chemical Company Signs Deal for Biorefinery
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Shankleman
GFBiochemicals Ltd., the Italian green chemical company started by Crystal Palace midfielder Mathieu Flamini, will build a biorefinery in the U.S. to make plastics and solvents in a way that avoids using fossil fuels.
The company, founded in 2008 by Flamini and his business partner Pasquale Granata, joined with biotech company American Process Inc. to redevelop an old industrial site into a cellulosic biorefinery, according to a March 24 statement by the two companies.
GFBiochemicals’ plant in Caserta, Italy, about 28 miles (45 kilometers) outside Naples, is the largest producer of levulinic acid, a little-known chemical that comes from plants and that can be used to make environmentally-friendly fuels, plastics and food preservatives. The closely-held company estimates the market eventually may be worth $10 billion.
“This is an important first step in our strategy to partner with major market players in the bioeconomy,” Flamini said in an emailed statement.
API's existing biorefinery in Georgia takes biomass to produce cellulosic sugars. GFBiochemicals wants to use those sugars to produce levulinic acid for use in a range of applications. It can go into solvents and plasticizers, which make brittle items more flexible.
The companies didn't disclose the value of the investment. The plant will be able to create as much as 50,000 tons to 200,000 tons of the material a year, according to the news release. It would be a major step beyond the roughly 10,000 tons a year that GFBiochemicals can produce from its current plant in Italy.
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(ACC Mentioned) AFPM ’17: Small Hike Or Roll For US March PE Contracts
Mar 27, 2017 | ICIS
By Lane Kelley
SAN ANTONIO (ICIS)--US polyethylene (PE) contracts rose in February but heading into this weekend’s International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) in San Antonio, Texas, there are doubts that March will make it two in a row.
Producers separately issued at least half a dozen proposals to raise US PE prices by a penny more than the February hike of 5 cents/lb, though most PE watchers considered such an increase unlikely.
The early consensus was that it made sense only if cut in half. ExxonMobil this week confirmed that opinion by reducing its March increase to 3 cents/lb from the original 6 cents/lb, according to a letter the company sent to customers.
ExxonMobil said the “restatement” included an additional 3 cents/lb increase for 1 April and applied to all high-density (HDPE), low-density (LDPE) and linear low-density (LLDPE) resins sold by the company.
But sceptics said the March hike served only as a backstop for the February increase, providing a slightly more expensive choice for customers who did not buy material in January or February.
A longtime PE watcher said slipping ethylene spot prices and lacklustre demand became major obstacles for the March hike.
The PE watcher predicted that March contracts for the polymer will roll over from February, because ethylene contracts for the month will drop at least 5 cents/lb and global export prices are dropping because of declining prices in China. Domestic PE prices there have sunk below the prices for imports in recent weeks.
“The whole world has stopped buying PE,” that source said. “It’s like a disease. It started in Asia and spread around the world.”
There has been no conclusive settlement yet for PE, but talk in the US market went back and forth between the half-increase and a rollover this week. A stretch film producer said LLDPE material had rolled for March. But there was no final settlement yet.
Final industry data released this week showed February PE sales declined both on year-on-year and month-on-month bases.
February PE sales dropped by 2.6% compared to the same month last year, and dropped by almost 6% from January, according to data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
February 2017 US PE data, in billions lbs
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2017/03/25/10091167/afpm-17-small-hike-or-roll-for-us-march-pe-contracts/
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Pruitt Promises Clean Power Plan Rollback Tomorrow
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said that President Trump tomorrow will sign his long-anticipated executive order rolling back environmental regulations.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week" yesterday, Pruitt said the "energy independence" executive order will come out tomorrow, ensuring the Trump administration has "a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country."
Pruitt said the order will address the Clean Power Plan, which requires power plants to reduce their carbon emissions and has been subject to a stay issued by the Supreme Court. The EPA chief said the regulation drafted by the Obama administration was "unlawful" and that after Trump's executive order, the agency will act "within the framework of the Clean Air Act."
"And it will be legal," Pruitt added.
The order is expected to include several other energy-policy-related initiatives. Many thought the measure would be issued soon after Pruitt's Senate confirmation last month, but it was delayed for weeks.
On yesterday's show, Pruitt was pressed on whether the order rolling back the Clean Power Plan would bring back industry jobs, as Trump has repeatedly promised. The EPA administrator said it would.
"I think absolutely it will. It will bring back manufacturing jobs across the country, coal jobs across the country," Pruitt said, adding, "The last administration had an idea of keeping it in the ground. We need to [be] more independent, less reliant upon foreign energy sources. And this is an opportunity."
Trump has long courted the coal industry. The president and others in his administration have said he would roll back federal rules to help boost the energy sector.
"We're going to get Washington out of the way of energy producers and coal miners — because energy means growth for America, and President Trump digs coal," Vice President Mike Pence said in an appearance in West Virginia on Saturday.
Trump has targeted several regulations at EPA, including ordering the withdrawal of the Waters of the U.S. rule as well as reopening a review of the agency's vehicle emissions standards.
Yesterday, Pruitt was also asked how the United States could reach its carbon reduction targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement if EPA backed down on the Clean Power Plan.
Saying Paris was nonbinding as well as "a bad deal," the EPA chief said the power plant rule was not tied to the climate change deal.
"The Clean Power Plan is not tethered to the Paris accords. And so this is an effort to undo the unlawful approach the previous administration engaged in and to do it right going forward with the mindset of being pro-growth and pro-environment, and we can achieve both," Pruitt said.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/27/stories/1060052095
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Judge Tosses Suit Over Basin Group's Fracking Ban
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a would-be natural gas driller over the Delaware River Basin Commission's de facto ban on fracking activities in the Delaware River Basin (Wayne Land & Mineral Grp. v. Del. River Basin Comm., M.D. Pa., No. 3:16-cv-00897, Opinion 3/23/17).
The ruling upholds the authority of the commission to review hydraulic fracturing activities in the Delaware River Basin watershed. The commission said in 2010 that it would suspend reviews of natural gas drilling proposals in the basin until it issues final natural gas regulations.
Property owner Wayne Land and Mineral Group LLC of Wayne County, Pa., said it planned to appeal. The company sued the Delaware River Basin Commission in May 2016, arguing that the federal-interstate agency does not have authority to oversee natural gas drilling in the basin. The property owner said it bought the property in 2015 with the intent to drill an exploratory well in Wayne County and was stymied because the commission wouldn't allow it.
The property owner's plan to construct a natural gas well pad and drill exploratory wells is clearly a “project” as defined in the agency's Compact, U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani wrote in his opinion March 23.
The opinion “cuts to the heart of the issue” of whether or not shale gas drilling in the basin constitutes a “project” as defined under the agreement that established the agency, Daniel B. Markind, a partner specializing in natural gas development and real estate at Weir and Partners LLP in Philadelphia, told Bloomberg BNA in an email March 24.
“The court pretty clearly states that it does, and any higher court is going to have to completely overrule that on a definitional basis,” Markind said. “Not an easy thing to do.”
“The judge's decision reflects a wholesale rejection of WLMG's argument,” Jordan B. Yeager, attorney for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group that intervened in the case, told Bloomberg BNA March 24. “It is clear that the DRBC has authority over gas development and a vital role to play in protecting the region.”
The property owner's attorney, David R. Overstreet, told Bloomberg BNA March 24 that “our guys are pretty darn happy” about the opinion, because it will allow a quicker appeal. The case was expected to be appealed regardless of the court's decision, he said.
“The important point to us is that the basic question of the Commission's authority will be presented to the Third Circuit, which is all [the company] ever wanted,” he said. “We all knew this business wasn't going to stop until it got to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals … and now we're going there and we're going to be there quickly.”
The group will file an appeal within 30 days, he said.
A spokesman from the Delaware River Basin Commission said the agency is reviewing the decision and had no further comment.
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Keystone Foes Prepare Fight as Trump Issues Pipeline Permit
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Meenal Vamburkar and Andrew Harris
President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline—but the fight is far from over.
Instead, it shifts to courtrooms, a Nebraska agency and congressional town hall meetings, where environmental activists and landowners have plotted ways to keep blocking the pipeline TransCanada Corp. has been trying to build for more than eight years. Just winning Nebraska regulators’ approval for Keystone XL's route through the state could take TransCanada another six months.
“A federal approval of the permit is not the end of the line for this project; there's still many obstacles,” said Anthony Swift, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council that opposes Keystone. “There's legal challenges, there's the Nebraska issues and, frankly, there are the economic and market obstacles.“
The State Department said March 24 it had issued a presidential permit authorizing TransCanada to construct, connect, operate and maintain the project—a decision TransCanada President Russ Girling called “a significant milestone.“
The decision reverses former President Barack Obama's rejection of the $8 billion project in 2015, after a State Department review concluded Keystone XL did not serve the national interest. The pipeline is slated to carry as much as 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, crossing 1,179 miles (1,897 kilometers) and cutting through Montana and South Dakota on its way to Steele City, Neb. From there it will join a southern leg that flows to Gulf Coast refineries.
Keystone has long been a flash point for fossil-fuel opponents who argue it will encourage the development of Canadian oil sands crude, which generally requires more energy to extract and process. Landowners also say it endangers drinking water resources in America's heartland.
Those same opponents who chained themselves to bulldozers, rallied at the White House and forced route revisions in Nebraska now are plotting a multipronged legal attack as well as protests in the pipeline's path.
Sara Shor, a campaign manager for the climate advocacy group 350.org, vowed to “raise hell at the national level” and recruit millions of people to fight the project, including by highlighting their concerns during lawmakers’ town halls during a planned congressional recess next month.
“We're going to continue to make Keystone XL a political issue and push every elected official to come out against this project if they care about communities, local rights, eminent domain, air, water and climate,” Shor said by phone. “It just touches so many issues.“
Environmental groups are slated to file at least one legal challenge right away—arguing that the State Department violated the National Environmental Policy Act by approving Keystone on the basis of a three-year-old analysis of the project that was issued when oil prices were nearly double what they are now.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, traded near $100 a barrel when the State Department's final environmental study was issued in January 2014 but has slumped by roughly half, now hovering near $50 a barrel. That comes after a prolonged rout that sent crude plummeting to nearly $26 in 2016.
“The oil market has shifted and will always be shifting, and it's really not adequate to rely on old analysis to approve this pipeline,” said David Turnbull, campaigns director with Oil Change International.
That earlier analysis was built around assumptions about prices and the availability of rail transport and alternatives for moving Canadian oil sands crude that have not come to pass, Swift said.
“The weaknesses of an approval at this stage and the legal vulnerabilities of that approval are apparent,” Swift said by phone. “Moving forward solely on the basis of an objectively outdated environmental review on a pipeline that doesn't have a full route does pose a lot of problem for the legality of the approval.“
Energized Landowners
Other legal challenges will play out in Nebraska, where energized landowners have already forced changes to the project during previous reviews. At least 40 groups or individuals have filed intervenor applications with the state's Public Service Commission ahead of a March 22 deadline, seeking to participate in the review. At least one of the petitions came from a law firm representing 92 people. All of them are subject to review and approval by the hearing officer assigned to the case.
TransCanada submitted an application to the commission last month, triggering a 210-day period for the agency to decide whether the company demonstrated the project serves the public interest. That points to a decision in September—if the Public Service Commission's review is not extended for an additional five months.
If TransCanada wins state approvals and invokes eminent domain to claim land for pipeline construction, the activist group Bold Alliance will file a lawsuit challenging the action, said Jane Kleeb, president of the organization.
Separate challenges may play out in South Dakota, where opponents earlier this month asked a judge to reverse an authorization critical to its path through the state.
Sand Hills
All of the activity means that Keystone's “best-case scenario for coming online” is the second half of 2019, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said.
TransCanada is making its third attempt to carve a path across Nebraska. After the company encountered opposition from landowners with its initial proposed route, which sliced through the state's environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region, lawmakers passed and then-Governor Dave Heineman signed legislation enabling him to work closely with TransCanada to chart a course for the project. Successive landowner legal challenges over the legality of that maneuver brought the project to a standstill.
TransCanada eventually surrendered to a review by the commission instead of waging further court battles—shortly before Obama's rejection.
All the concerns about land, water and using foreign steel remain, Kleeb said. “It's going to be a long process—very much into the weeds,” Kleeb said in a phone interview, noting that “the courts are the only fair and viable path for us,” given Trump's support for Keystone XL.
The Public Service Commission's review will not encompass design and safety considerations, according the agency. Rather it will be limited to how it impacts the environment, including soil, plant life, groundwater and wildlife.
Legal opposition is already mounting. Attorneys David Domina and Brian Jorde, who led the fight previously, last month reiterated their view that there is no public use whatsoever for this private pipeline company's project.
Changed Conditions
Opponents have argued that the economic backdrop has changed since TransCanada first pursued the project—and the numbers no longer work in its favor. Pipeline capacity from the Canadian oil sands is expanding, so producers have more options to send their crude to market. The Canadian government approved Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain line to the Pacific and Enbridge Inc.’s expansion of Line 3 to the Midwest. With the addition of Keystone, the combined capacity of 1.8 million barrels a day would be enough to handle Western Canada's growing oil production for nearly two decades, according to National Energy Board oil projections.
TransCanada officials have said the company is committed to build a state-of-the-art pipeline system that will be monitored around the clock using satellite technology and aerial patrols. The company has stressed that pipelines are safer than trains for transporting crude and has vowed to work with all stakeholders in Nebraska.
Native Americans
Native Americans have battled the Dakota Access Pipeline in South Dakota and are set to reprise the activity against Keystone XL.
The activism will spill over into local debates over other pipelines proposed to ferry oil and natural gas across the country, Shor said. Her group, 350.org, is planning to “use Keystone to fight hundreds of other projects” nationwide.
“People are going to be mad at Trump for bringing Keystone back because it's going to cause resistance for every single pipeline project across the country and it's going to cause pressure for the banks that fund all these projects,” Shor said. “We are building an army of resistance. This fight is not over. And we're going to have to keep on fighting this for probably years to come.“
—With assistance from Ari Natter and Robert Tuttle.
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Md. Fracking-Ban Bill, Once In Doubt, Now Gliding Toward Approval
Mar 25, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks and Ovetta Wiggins
Maryland is on track to become the third state in the nation to ban hydraulic fracturing, after the Senate gave preliminary approval Friday to a House bill that would prohibit the controversial gas-extraction method.
The legislation is expected to face a final vote in the Senate on Monday before advancing to the desk of Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who endorsed it this month in a move that surprised advocates and disappointed pro-fracking Republican lawmakers from Western Maryland.
Meanwhile, a major fight is brewing between Hogan and the Democratic-majority legislature over an education-accountability bill that the governor is threatening to veto.
At a news conference Friday morning, Hogan called the bill, which has been approved by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate, “one of the most outrageous and irresponsible moves” taken by the General Assembly.
The measure is the legislature’s response to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which allows state boards of education to determine how schools should be rated to determine performance. It would force the Maryland State Board of Education to reduce the weight of some academic markers, including standardized testing, and prohibit the state from turning a low-performing neighborhood school into a charter school.
The bill has strong backing from the Maryland State Educators Association but is opposed by the State Board of Education.
Hogan, a charter school proponent, said the bill would eliminate an opportunity to move beyond “outdated practices and to embrace innovative strategies that are producing results across the country.” Citing a legislative analysis, Hogan also said the bill could put $250 million in federal funding in jeopardy. But its supporters said the proposal adheres to all federal rules.
Del. Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery), the bill’s sponsor, dismissed Hogan’s comments as “political rhetoric.”
“We all want better schools and we all want to make sure every kid has access to a great education every single day, but there are other options than just privatizing schools,” he said.
The fracking bill needs support from 24 Senate lawmakers to pass; 23 have already signaled their support by sponsoring a companion measure in their chamber.
The fate of the legislation was in doubt before Hogan’s endorsement, with advocates convinced that the Senate environmental committee chair, Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), would not allow her panel to vote on the proposal unless it had at least 29 Senate votes, a veto-proof majority.
Hogan had previously said he would support hydraulic fracturing in Maryland if it could be done in a way that wouldn’t seriously harm the environment and public health. On March 17, he said he was no longer convinced that was possible.
Fracking, as the extraction method is known, involves injecting water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground at high pressure to break up rock and release natural gas. Advocates say the practice provides a cleaner energy source than coal, but opponents have raised concerns about the potential for water contamination, greenhouse-gas emissions and earthquakes.
Garrett and Allegany counties have the greatest potential for fracking in Maryland, due to their location along the massive Marcellus Shale rock formation, which gas companies have tapped extensively in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
New York and Vermont are the other states that have banned fracking, with an executive order and with legislation, respectively.
Also on Friday, the Senate unanimously approved an emergency bill establishing an independent safety agency to oversee Metro. Last month the federal government began withholding millions of dollars from Maryland, Virginia and the District because they missed a deadline to create the agency.
The Senate gave final approval to a bill that makes it a civil offense to carry a gun on public college campuses. The measure now heads to the House.
The Senate also passed a measure that increases the window of time a victim of child sexual abuse has to file a lawsuit, from seven years after reaching adulthood to 20 years.
Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery) thanked Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), the bill’s sponsor, for having the courage to share his own experience of being abused as a child as he pushed for the measure over the years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-fracking-ban-bill-once-in-doubt-now-gliding-toward-approval/2017/03/24/e7082c62-0fde-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.f0875ed0105a
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Industry Fears Overreach From Gas Pipeline Safety Advisory
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Natural gas industry groups are still decoding a federal agency's advice for identifying threats to safe pipeline operations and say they are concerned that it may overreach.
The advisory bulletin, published in the Federal Register March 16, relays new guidance from the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration on identifying threats to the integrity of gas transmission pipelines.
It specifies when corrosion and other sources of pipeline failures should be considered high-priority threats.
Industry groups are concerned that the advisory may have a significant cost, that it goes beyond the limits of a routine advisory and that stakeholders weren't properly notified.
PHMSA has not provided any details or comments about the advisory in response to questions from Bloomberg BNA.
Regulation by Guidance
One consultant said the industry generally agrees that threat assessments and periodic reviews are essential for pipeline integrity, but PHMSA's intent is unclear in this bulletin. Josie Long is a consultant at Process Performance Improvement Consultants LLC, which advises gas pipeline operators.
“Instead of attempting to regulate via advisories, we should focus on advancing practices and technologies that truly boost safety,” she said in an email.
The National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives does not think the bulletin imposes an “excessive burden” on operators. They should already have integrity management plans that address those threats, association national chairman Peter Chace said in a statement.
Beyond Advice
Bryn Karaus, an associate in the Washington office of Van Ness Feldman LLP who specializes in pipeline safety, said PHMSA may be exceeding what can be done in a bulletin.
An advisory bulletin can't impose new requirements, Karaus said. But, this isn't the first time PHMSA has pushed new ideas via bulletin.
In 2011, the agency issued an advisory bulletin about certain records operators keep: saying they need to be “traceable, verifiable and complete.”
“It's now pipeline lingo,” Karaus said.
An advisory bulletin doesn't carry the weight of a rule, and is not enforceable, but operators will have to decide if and how to act.
“Operators might choose to make those changes, in order to avoid raising any flags for PHMSA's inspectors, but this is an advisory bulletin—it's guidance,” Karaus said.
Rebecca Craven, program director at the Pipeline Safety Trust, a safety advocacy group in Washington state, said this advisory isn't unusual, and may be an effective way to get safety recommendations to pipeline operators.
“Dealing with it in an advisory bulletin rather than in individual enforcement proceedings seems a more efficient way to get the message to a lot of operators, and does so more quickly, without having to bring enforcement actions following individual inspections,” she said in an email.
It's difficult for the trust to tell how operators are currently handling threats to pipeline integrity because those risk assessments aren't made available, Craven said.
Identifying Risks
In the bulletin, PHMSA expands on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ industry standard that identifies nine types of pipeline integrity failure.
The first type, for example, is pipeline corrosion that happens over time.
In the advisory bulletin, PHMSA adds that external corrosion over time is always a threat for steel pipelines, and should be considered an active threat within an operator's integrity management plan.
Craven said the trust was concerned that PHMSA did not notify stakeholders about the bulletin promptly because the bulletin is not on the agency's website and was not announced via email.
Long said neither her fellow consultants nor PHMSA have calculated the potential cost of implementing the changes in the bulletin, but it may be “significant.”
Ultimately, Long said, “there is a need for clearer and consistent guidance, without inconsistencies and contradictions that don't align with current regulations and standards.”
The trust has had little communication with PHMSA since Jan. 20, according to Long, except for minor notices such as postponed meetings.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America is still reviewing the bulletin, but agrees with PHMSA's determination that pipeline operators must continually consider potential threats to pipeline integrity and conduct periodic reviews, said Cathy Landry, spokesperson for the association.
As of March 23, Landry said the association had not received any further clarification from the agency.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=107930975&vname=dennotallissues&fn=107930975&jd=107930975
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Senators To Vet 'Retro' Proposal To Protect Grid
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey
Senators this week will vet a bipartisan proposal to set aside $10 million for hardening cyberdefenses for an increasingly vulnerable energy sector.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy will hear testimony tomorrow on legislation from Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Angus King (I-Maine), S. 79, or the "Securing Energy Infrastructure Act."
Also backing the bill is Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mike Crapo of Idaho.
The measure would set aside $10 million for a two-year pilot program to identify security vulnerabilities in the energy sector (E&E Daily, Jan. 12).
Often referred to as a "retro" bill, the language would replace computer-connected operating systems that are vulnerable to cyberattacks with human-operated ones.
This is the second time senators have floated such language, hoping to bolster grid security by creating a 10-member working group to develop a national strategy for isolating power systems from cyberthreats (Greenwire, June 6, 2016).
The working group would consist of representatives from federal agencies, the energy industry, a state or regional energy agencies, the national labs, and other groups with relevant experience, the lawmakers said.
The original bill came in response to a cyberattack on the Ukraine power grid in December 2015. The loss of power only lasted a few hours because operators were able to switch their systems to manual control.
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, March 28, at 2:15 p.m. in 366 Dirksen.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/27/stories/1060052092
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(ACC Mentioned) The Time Is Right For Freight Rail Reform
Mar 27, 2017 | Washington Examiner
By Mike Walls
Long before President Trump signed his executive order calling on regulatory agencies to identify "outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective" regulations that "inhibit job creation," one small government agency was already hard at work doing just that.
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) has broad economic oversight of the nation's freight railroads. Because of the unique structure of our nation's freight rail network and concentration of market power by a handful of railroads, the STB serves an indispensable role in addressing problems with rates and service where no effective rail-to-rail competition exists. In 2016, the board issued a proposal to revise outdated regulations that have effectively blocked farms and factories across the country for more than three decades from accessing competitive freight rail service. The STB's proposal would cut bureaucratic red tape and provide market choices to rail customers that currently have no competitive transportation options.
The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 is widely credited with saving the railroad industry from overly burdensome regulation. The act recognizes that "competition and the demand for services" should drive rail transportation markets, not government regulation and gave the board important tools to promote greater rail competition.
One of those tools is called reciprocal switching, also known as competitive switching. Competitive switching simply allows a shipper served by a single major railroad to request to have its freight "switched" to another railroad at a nearby interchange. It allows rail customers to choose a rail carrier that provides the most competitive rates and best service.
The Staggers Act already authorizes the STB to require competitive switching where it is "necessary to provide competitive rail service." In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has gone on record saying, "Competitive switching offers a market-based solution to balance the needs of the railroads and shippers and is in keeping with the goals of the Staggers Act."
Unfortunately, existing rules impose such high regulatory hurdles that no rail customer has ever been able to successfully request switching. As stated by the board itself, these rules have "effectively operated as a bar" rather than as "a standard under which [switching] could be granted." By blocking access to competitive bids from more than one railroad, these rules artificially increase the railroads' market power at the expense of rail customers, consumers and the American economy. In its recent proposal, the board announced plans to scrap the outdated requirements and offer rail customers a more realistic and workable process to obtain competitive switching.
Not surprisingly, the rail industry is fighting hard to keep the current regulations in place. They misleadingly call the STB's proposal "re-regulation." In reality, competitive switching will further reduce the need for government oversight by allowing the marketplace to work. Any change to freight rail rates would come through negotiations between shippers and railroads, and would not prescribed by the STB or set by regulation. Importantly, enhanced competition would also create market incentives for railroads to improve service and invest in new infrastructure.
Competition is the foundation of the free enterprise system and helps American producers grow their businesses and create new jobs. That is why a large cross-section of manufacturing, agricultural and energy industries have formed the Rail Customer Coalition to urge the STB to complete its deregulatory efforts and open up greater access to competitive and reliable freight rail service. With President Trump calling for regulatory reform that will help spur the economy and job creation, there has never been a better time for the STB to adopt reforms that will get our nation's freight rail system back to work for American producers.
Mike Walls is the Vice President of Regulatory & Technical Affairs at the American Chemistry Council
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(ACC Mentioned) Modern Tiny Houses Boast Historic Lineage
Mar 26, 2017 | Orlando Sentinal
By Joy Wallace Dickinson
If you’ve visited downtown Orlando recently, you may have noticed a little house — not on the prairie, but perched in front of the Orange County Regional History Center at 65 E. Central Blvd.
To be precise, it’s a “tiny house,” built in part with plastics and on display to accompany the “Plastics Unwrapped” exhibition that’s at the museum through April 23. Constructed in Colorado, the 200-square-foot dwelling has traveled the country, also visiting museums in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
In recent years, the tiny house movement — typified by houses in the 100-to-400 square foot range — has attracted wide attention on television and other media and has sparked conversations on topics ranging from simpler lifestyles to energy conservation.
Tiny houses are as varied as the people who love them, an essay on the website curbed.com notes. “They can be gingerbread cottages or ice-fishing shacks, sit on wheels or float on water.”
The Lilliputian abode outside the History Center was built to showcase plastic materials that enhance energy efficiency and durability; it’s a product of the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Make It Possible campaign, in collaboration with Zack Giffin of TV’s “Tiny House Nation.”
Simplify, simplify
As this tiny house looks to the future, it also has echoes of the past. For example, the classic American role model for simplifying one’s life, Henry David Thoreau, lived in a 10-by-15-foot house with 8-foot ceilings during his time on Walden Pond.
“Our life is frittered away by detail,” Thoreau wrote in “Walden,” published in 1854. Another quote: “It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day.”
Amen, Henry, amen.
‘Classic Cracker’
Thoreau chose to live in his tiny house, but many folks who lived simply while settling our nation’s frontiers did so out of necessity. In Florida, they forged a style that architect Ronald W. Haase described in his 1992 book “Classic Cracker: Florida’s Wood-Frame Vernacular Architecture.”
By the way, “vernacular” originally meant words that are spoken in someone's native language or in the dialect of a region or place, Haase has noted. “There’s a lilt and energy in all things vernacular,” he says.
The simple lines and classic proportions of some of the old fhouses that used to linger by the side of the road, especially in North Florida, speak to the time when people built their own dwelling places with information handed down from one generation to the next.
Outside, they would clear away brush — anything where snakes and other critters might lurk — and rake their yards like Japanese gardens.
Whether these cabins and houses were small, single-room cabins or larger structures, they were places where breezes flowed and porches invited the outdoors inside. They were places for people who embraced the land and cared for it, and knew their future was tied deeply to the landscape that surrounded them. Maybe that’s partly what the fascination with tiny houses is all about.
Seminole War encampment
Orange County’s Fort Christmas Historical Park features great examples of small Florida pioneer homes that have been moved to the park from their original sites. The park also hosts programs such as the upcoming Historic Florida Militia Encampment on April 1 and 2, with presentations at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. each day. Re-enactors clad in Seminole War-period militia garb will be camped at the fort during the weekend. The park, at 1300 Fort Christmas Road, is well worth a visit any time. Details: 407-254-9310. (Note that pets aren’t allowed in the park.)
Black soldiers in World War I
On Monday, April 3, the Pauley Speaker Series on Global Affairs at the University of Central Florida presents a talk by Prof. John Morrow of the University of Georgia on the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War I. The program, at the UCF Fairwinds Alumni Center, begins with a reception at 6 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-joy-wallace-dickinson-0326-story.html
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Panel Invites Feuding Scientists
Mar 27, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing this week to challenge consensus climate science, which Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has called politicized and exaggerated.
It is set to feature some of the field's most vocal critics and one of climate science's most controversial defenders: Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University known for his iconic "hockey stick" analysis of global warming trends.
"Get your popcorn ready," tweeted Judith Curry, another one of the four witnesses set to testify.
Curry retired this year from her tenured position as a professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, citing the "craziness" of the field (Climatewire, Jan. 4).
Curry has panned scientists such as Mann as "climate alarmists." Her blog recently sparked renewed fighting over federal temperature data with a post by a retired federal scientist related to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's finding that global warming never took a "pause" in the 2000s (E&E Daily, Feb. 8).
Republicans will likely ask Curry and John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, to talk about research and analysis that they say casts doubt on climate forecast models.
Roger Pielke Jr. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, another witness invited by the GOP, is well-known for questioning the link between climate change and extreme weather costs.
In a 2014 blog post addressing the damage caused by extreme storms like Superstorm Sandy, Pielke said it was wrong to link larger losses to climate change, arguing that they are instead tied to greater world wealth. Pielke's piece was criticized by prominent climate scientists in what he alleged was a targeted attack (Climatewire, Oct. 28, 2016).
Such public feuding has many expecting fireworks.
Smith last week read the names of the witnesses while on stage at a conference that brought together scholars who have broken with the vast majority of their colleagues on human-caused global warming. The crowd cheered Curry, Christy and Pielke, then booed Mann.
Smith said that he hoped to make a distinction between "climate study" and "climate science." The panel will explore assumptions, policymaking and the scientific method, which Smith said is "repeatedly ignored by the so-called self-professed climate scientists" (E&E News PM, March 23).
The hearing comes as the White House is poised to issue an order on "energy independence" that will begin the process of unraveling Obama-era rules aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions (see related story).
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 29, at 10 a.m. in 2318 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Judith Curry, president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network; John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville; Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University; and Roger Pielke Jr., professor of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/27/stories/1060052094
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New EPA Chief Calls Paris Climate Accord A 'Bad Deal'
Mar 26, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Savransky
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Sunday blasted the Paris climate agreement, calling it a "bad deal."
"You know, what was wrong with Paris was not just that it was, you know, failed to be treated as a treaty, but China and India, the largest producers of CO2 internationally, got away scot-free," he said during an interview on ABC's "This Week."
"They didn’t have to take steps until 2030. So we’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally," he continued.
"So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation."
Pruitt said the administration is now focusing on "getting things right here domestically and making sure we operate within the framework of the Clean Air Act."
Pruitt also during the interview talked about an executive order that will be coming out next week regarding regulations on power plants.
"The president is keeping his promise to the American people this week with respect to this executive order that’s coming out on Tuesday, the Energy Independence Executive Order," Pruitt said. "And as you indicated, this is about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country."Pruitt said the U.S. for too long has accepted the narrative that if "you're pro-growth, pro-jobs, you're anti-environment." "And that’s just not where we’ve been as a country throughout our existence," he said. "We’ve made tremendous progress on our environment and we can be both pro-jobs and pro-environment, and the executive order’s going to address the past administration’s effort to kill jobs across this country through the Clean Power Plan."
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/325826-pruitt-says-paris-accord-a-bad-deal
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California Board to Track South Coast's Clean Air Progress
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California air quality officials want to keep a close eye on efforts to clean the air in the Los Angeles basin.
At a meeting in Riverside March 23, the California Air Resources Board signed off on the ambitious 16-year clean air plan the South Coast Air Quality Management District approved earlier this month. The approval, however, came with provisions adding more state oversight to implementation of the plan.
“Going forward, I think we need to have more oversight, more engagement, not just a rubber stamp at the end but be engaged throughout the process,” said Hector De La Torre, the public member of CARB's governing board.
De La Torre, executive director of the Transamerica Center for Health Studies and former member of the State Assembly, moved an amendment to the board resolution approving the South Coast air district's plan following a lengthy public hearing where the environmental community questioned whether it would meet federal Clean Air Act requirements.
“The district deserves praise for going as far as they have,” said CARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “This is an ongoing work in progress, but it is progress.”
Timelines to Ensure Progress on Air
Approved in a unanimous vote, De La Torre's amendment sets timelines for CARB staff to ensure the air district makes progress in achieving voluntary emissions reductions from the region's two massive ports, rail yards, warehouses and distribution centers. It also requires CARB to monitor the district's success in raising the $1 billion a year in funding to implement incentive programs to reduce mobile source emissions.
The advocacy groups took issue with the air district's choice to depend on voluntary measures to reduce emissions from the ports and other “indirect sources.” And they voiced little faith in the district's pledge to pursue rulemaking if the voluntary approach failed.
“It's a substantial improvement,” Bill Magavern of the Coalition for Clean Air told Bloomberg BNA after the vote.
At the same time, CARB approved a State Implementation Plan Strategy outlining its commitment to further reduce vehicle emissions needed to meet federal air quality standards over the next 15 years. The commitments are designed to help South Coast achieve the mobile source emissions reductions it needs.
The plan outlines a series of actions, including the state's clean vehicle and fuels programs, including its zero-emission vehicle program. CARB provides a pledge to call for stronger national standards for cars and heavy-duty diesel trucks and equipment.
Both plans need Environmental Protection Agency approval.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=107930985&vname=dennotallissues&fn=107930985&jd=107930985
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U.S. Joins ‘Constructive’ G-20 Climate Meeting, Germany Says
Mar 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin
Officials representing the world's largest economies, including the U.S., put global climate talks back on track in Berlin March 24, after failing last week to agree on language supporting the Paris accord, the German government said.
G-20 climate and energy ministers held a “constructive” meeting over a plan to address global warming, setting the stage for further negotiations leading up to the July summit in Hamburg where U.S. President Donald Trump, China's President Xi Jinping and other leaders will gather, the German Environment Ministry said in a statement to Bloomberg.
The climate meeting comes a week after the U.S., China, India and Saudi Arabia successfully pushed to have a reference to global warming dropped from a statement issued by G-20 finance ministers and central bankers. German officials were frustrated by the move and said they would continue using their role as host of this year's G-20 meetings to support efforts to fight global warming.
“It's an important concern to push implementation of the Paris accord,” the German Environment Ministry said in its statement. The climate treaty offers “manifold chances to modernize economies, boost competitiveness and create jobs and growth.”
Economic Push
The climate plan presented by Germany emphasizes economic growth opportunities from clean energy, underscoring Chancellor Angela Merkel's strategy to sell the idea to Trump and preserve the global effort to rein in greenhouse gases.
There's scant evidence the strategy will pay off. Trump has derided climate change as a hoax and during his campaign threatened to pull the U.S. out of the Paris accord. Since taking office, he's called for relaxing fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks and proposed sweeping cuts to climate change research.
The moves have sparked concern among environmentalists around the globe. On March 23, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged countries may be retreating on climate change efforts, but didn't single out the U.S.
The U.S. was represented in talks March 24 by State Department official Griffin Thompson. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the meeting. Germany was represented by Economy and Energy Ministry division head Thorsten Herdan.
Germany will try to rally support for its climate plan during three meetings in May, with the aim of gaining enough backing to be adopted by G-20 leaders including Trump at the Hamburg summit on July 7 and July 8.
—With assistance from Joe Ryan.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=107930979&vname=dennotallissues&fn=107930979&jd=107930979
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