Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/29/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Senators Form Caucus Supporting Chemical Sector
Mar 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of senators has formed a caucus to support chemical sector priorities, bolstering industry efforts to ensure that the Trump EPA fully implements the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) despite the administration's deregulatory efforts. -
Senators Look To Chemistry For Bipartisan Inspiration
Mar 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) yesterday announced the formation of the Senate Chemistry Caucus, a bipartisan forum for lawmakers to work together on issues related to the science, business and economics of chemistry. -
New Hampshire to Test Throughout State for PFOA Contamination
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
New Hampshire environmental officials will test for the chemicals perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) at sites throughout the state near potential sources such as fire training sites and former manufacturing plants. -
Split Within EPA on Glyphosate Carcinogenicity
Mar 28, 2017 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
The recent release in litigation of email correspondence between the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) and the pesticide manufacturer Monsanto reveals a significant difference in the method of assessing the potential carcinogenicity of the widespread pesticide glyphosate, with the Pesticide Office using methods aligned with Monsanto’s approach and contrary to the Agency’s own Cancer Guidelines. -
First-Ever Federal Mercury Inventory Set for Release by EPA
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA is releasing March 29 its first-ever national inventory of the supply, use and trade of mercury—a list that establishes a baseline of what's in U.S. commerce. -
EU Agency Warns Manufacturers of Chemicals Data Requests
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency said it will ask manufacturers and importers for additional data on 27 suspected hazardous substances registered under the European Union's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals). -
Fanfare At EPA As Trump Heralds 'New Energy Revolution'
Mar 28, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Robin Bravender
President Trump and his allies celebrated at U.S. EPA headquarters today as they quashed the Obama administration's climate policies. -
Trump Order Seeks To Rollback 'Burdens' But Draws Democrats' Warning
Mar 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan & Doug Obey
The Trump administration is outlining a broad policy to promote development of the country's “vast energy resources,” with the president's just-issued executive order on the issue directing agencies to identify a host of “regulatory burdens” that “unnecessarily encumber energy production” and hamper job growth. -
Dow Chemical Completes Crown Jewel Of $6B Gulf Coast Expansion
Mar 28, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Dow Chemical said Tuesday it completed the massive ethane cracker plant in Freeport that’s the “crown jewel” of its more than $6 billion expansion along the Gulf Coast, primarily just south of Houston. -
Busiest US Petchem Port About To Get Even Busier, Compounding Congestion
Mar 29, 2017 | Platts
By Kristen Hays
The cheap US natural gas boom triggered a slew of new and expanded chemical production that is poised to amplify vessel traffic in the already bustling Houston Ship Channel, home to the largest US petrochemical port and second only to Rotterdam in the world. -
AFPM 2017: US Chemical Producers Encouraged By New Administration, Future Growth
Mar 28, 2017 | Platts
By Kevin Allen
US chemical producers expressed optimism regarding the future growth of petrochemicals in the US and were hopeful that decreased regulatory measures associated with the Trump administration would help facilitate growth. -
Maryland Fracking Ban Awaits Governor's Signature
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kathy Lundy Springuel
A ban on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas production in Maryland became a near-certainty March 27 as the General Assembly passed legislation (H.B. 1325) that Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he would sign. -
Senators Look 'Back To The Future' For Security
Mar 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Senators of all political stripes voiced support yesterday for exploring new strategies to thwart cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid, including a plan for keeping the lights on without relying on the internet. -
Trump Pressed To Secure US Critical Infrastructure
Mar 29, 2017 | The Hill
By Morgan Chalfant
The Trump administration is coming under pressure to safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure as experts warn of vulnerabilities in the electrical grid and lawmakers fret about potential cyberattacks. -
(ACC Mentioned) Politico: Pruitt Takes Fire from Conservatives on Climate Showdown
Mar 29, 2017 | Breitbart News
Andrew Restuccia and Alex Guillen report in Politico on the heat President Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is taking from conservatives over reports that he successfully urged Trump not to revoke the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a far-reaching ruling introduced by the Obama administration that labeled carbon dioxide a dangerous substance in need of broad regulation. -
As Trump Bows Out, States Seek to Fill Void on Climate Change
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
As President Donald Trump scales down federal efforts to combat climate change, states are ramping up. -
States Vow To Defend Rule
Mar 28, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess
The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia today vowed to protect U.S. EPA's regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from President Trump's directive on energy. The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia today vowed to protect U.S. EPA's regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from President Trump's directive on energy. -
Trump Wants To End The Clean Power Plan – But We Can Push Back
Mar 28, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Martha Roberts
President Trump took another swipe at protections for American communities today by attacking the Clean Power Plan – America’s first-ever nationwide standards to reduce dangerous carbon pollution from power plants. -
Is Pruitt's 2014 Plan a Blueprint for Carbon Rule Replacement?
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A plan that Scott Pruitt floated when he was Oklahoma's attorney general would provide only one-tenth of the carbon dioxide reductions envisioned in the EPA's power plant rule—but it could form the basis of the Trump administration's replacement as it dismantles Obama-era regulations. -
NAS Defends EPA's Human Exposure Research Supporting Air Standards
Mar 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in a new report defends EPA's controlled human exposure research program as providing essential data to support Clean Air Act ambient standards and says it should continue with certain recommended improvements, a potential setback for Trump administration critics of the air standards. -
EPA Should Continue Human Exposure Research, Panel Finds
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The EPA should continue to expose humans to air pollution to study its effects, but use clearer language to inform test subjects of potential risks, a panel of scientists says. -
Trump Order Cancels Obama Policies Aimed at Paris Climate Pledge
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
President Donald Trump is moving aggressively to undo policies designed to keep the carbon-cutting promises the U.S. made alongside nearly 200 other countries in Paris, while stopping short of a decision to formally withdraw from that landmark climate accord. -
ExxonMobil Urges Trump Administration to Remain in UN Climate Accord
Mar 28, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
ExxonMobil Corp. is urging the Trump administration to not pull out of the landmark climate change agreement cobbled together in late 2015 by more than 200 countries.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Senators Form Caucus Supporting Chemical Sector
Mar 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of senators has formed a caucus to support chemical sector priorities, bolstering industry efforts to ensure that the Trump EPA fully implements the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) despite the administration's deregulatory efforts.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues to support the infrastructure and pro-growth policies that are necessary to continue to strengthen this vital American industry,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), one of the caucus' co-chairs, said in a March 28 statement.
The caucus, which is hosting a launch reception March 29, is a companion to a similar House group that launched last year.
The Senate Chemistry Caucus is chaired by Capito and Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Steve Daines (R-MT) and Gary Peters (D-MI). The other members are John Boozman (R-AR), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
The caucus' launch comes as the chemical sector is seeking to ensure that EPA fully -- and quickly -- implements the revised TSCA that President Barack Obama enacted in June. The overhaul requires EPA to write a host of implementing rules, assess a backlog of thousands of chemicals in commerce, and establish a risk-based screening process and criteria for prioritizing chemicals for risk evaluation.
In recent months, as EPA has worked to implement the new law, the chemical sector and some congressional supporters have pressed the Trump administration to fully implement the revised TSCA, despite the president's strong deregulatory stance.
For example, in a Nov. 30 letter to then Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Capito and other senators, including James Inhofe (R-OK) and Tom Carper (D-DE), pressed for full TSCA implementation, echoing calls from industry and others who fear that Trump's criticism of EPA could stymie new rules needed to implement the reformed law.
The senators urged the Trump administration to expeditiously “identify and address chemicals with the greatest potential impact on public health,” including vulnerable populations. They said full implementation would ensure “certainty and restore confidence in the marketplace for manufacturers, consumer product producers, and the public.”
And during EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's confirmation hearing, several senators, including Carper and Capito, won commitments from the then-nominee to comply with the statute's deadlines. “If confirmed as EPA Administrator, I will take care that the Act is faithfully executed,” Pruitt told Carper.
In a statement announcing the caucus, senators say they will continue to support chemical sector priorities.
“The group will work with their colleagues in the Senate to underscore the importance of employing sound science to create effective public policy and to promote initiatives that encourage the development of chemical manufacturing and a new generation of chemists in the U.S. through world-class education and research programs,” they say.
Several industry trade associations, including the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD), the American Chemistry Council and the American Chemical Society, backed the group's formation.
“Our industry depends on Washington to put forth smart legislation and regulation that invests in our future workforce while also spurring economic growth and job creation to ensure our vital role in the economy continues for many years to come,” NACD said in the statement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senators-form-caucus-supporting-chemical-sector
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Senators Look To Chemistry For Bipartisan Inspiration
Mar 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) yesterday announced the formation of the Senate Chemistry Caucus, a bipartisan forum for lawmakers to work together on issues related to the science, business and economics of chemistry.
According to a news release from Coons' office, the caucus will work to "underscore the importance of employing sound science to create effective public policy and to promote initiatives that encourage the development of chemical manufacturing and a new generation of chemists in the U.S. through world-class education and research programs."
Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), John Kennedy (R-La.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)have joined the caucus.
"The Senate Chemistry Caucus will provide an invaluable forum for members of the Senate to promote science in policymaking and encourage businesses to take the scientific advancements chemistry yields and bring them to the marketplace," Coons said, adding that he was a chemistry major in college.
Daines joins the caucus as the only chemical engineer in Congress.
"As a chemical engineer, we are trained to solve problems, and I look forward to doing that along with Senators Capito, Peters and Coons," Daines said.
Today, the year-old House Chemistry Caucus will join the new Senate caucus for a briefing on the impact chemistry has on the economy.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/29/stories/1060052235
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New Hampshire to Test Throughout State for PFOA Contamination
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
New Hampshire environmental officials will test for the chemicals perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) at sites throughout the state near potential sources such as fire training sites and former manufacturing plants.
The state will begin broad testing for the chemicals next year, Brandon Kernen, a chief of hydrology at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, told reporters March 28.The Department of Environmental Services is contacting fire stations and town health departments for leads about where PFOA and PFOS could be lingering.
Landfills
Prime suspects are the state's 800 landfill and toxic waste sites, Kernen said.
The chemicals were widely used in Teflon, paints and waxes, and as firefighting foams and grease repellents. The Environmental Protection Agency links the chemicals to low birth weight, birth defects, liver damage, some cancers, and immune and thyroid issues.
PFOA and PFOS were phased out in 2015, but they will likely be present in surface and groundwater throughout the nation for many years, Kernen said.
“The chemicals are very persistent in the environment. They are designed to not break down,” he said.
Other Investigations
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services also is investigating the contamination of drinking water wells with PFOA and PFOS associated with a former military contractor, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and at the former Pease Air Force Base, Kernen said.
Lawsuits in nearby New York and Vermont towns allege that PFOA and PFOS found there can be traced to Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics factories.
New Hampshire officials decided to broaden the investigation to include the entire state, Kernen said. Many towns and homes in New Hampshire rely on wells for drinking water.
In its current investigation, the department has found that PFOA and PFOS have contaminated at least 580 drinking water wells in a number of rural New Hampshire towns, officials said.
PFOA in Manufacturer's Faucets
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services began testing public and private drinking water wells in Merrimack, N.H., after Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics reported in March 2016 that it detected PFOA in its own drinking water, Kernen said.
Tests of nearby wells by state environmental officials found that 239 wells had PFOA and PFOS combined levels that exceeded 70 parts per trillion, the level the EPA and New Hampshire advise as the maximum that should be allowed in drinking water.
Private Wells
Private testing of their drinking water wells by homeowners near Merrimack found that an additional 231 wells were contaminated above 70 ppt with PFOA and PFOS, Kernen said.
Recent tests in Amherst, N.H., revealed that 100 private wells were contaminated above 70 ppt with PFOA and PFOS combined.
Many parts of the state do not have access to public water and sewer systems.
Wells often become contaminated when chemicals are discharged into septic systems and migrate into private wells.
Contaminated Via Air?
The wells in Merrimack became contaminated via the air, according to Kernen.
Saint-Gobain used blowers when it manufactured items coated with repellents. The blowers discharged small particles that settled on the ground and ended in groundwater, he said.
The private wells of homes within a one-mile radius are contaminated, Kernen said, adding that the state wants to extend public water to all homes near the contamination.
The EPA previously used a standard of 400 ppt for PFOA in drinking water. It issued a guideline in May 2016 recommending that PFOA in drinking water be below 70 ppt. New Hampshire adopted the lower standard as an emergency measure, which is still in place.
Lawsuits Underway
A number of lawsuits are underway alleging PFOA and PFOS contamination of drinking water.
One of them, in the Northern District of New York, is related to claims of PFOA contamination by Hoosick Falls, N.Y. (Baker v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 2017 BL 34914, N.D.N.Y., 2/6/17).
The town claims PFOA leached into groundwater from a factory in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. The plant, formerly owned by Honeywell International Inc., is currently owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp.
In addition, a trial will begin in federal District Court for the District of Vermont in October 2018 in a lawsuit filed by four residents of North Bennington, Vt., against Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. The residents allege contamination with PFOA by Chemfab, a former manufacturer purchased by Saint-Gobain.
In Alabama, Tennessee Riverkeeper filed a lawsuit in June against 3M Co., BFI Waste Systems of Alabama and the city of Decatur, Ala., related to the chemicals (Tenessee Riverkeeper Inc. v. 3M Co., N.D. Ala., No. 5:16-cv-01029-AKK, 6/23/16).
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. is finalizing a $670 million settlement that covers 3,500 personal-injury lawsuits in West Virginia and Ohio, related to alleged contamination with the chemicals.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162933&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162933&jd=108162933
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Split Within EPA on Glyphosate Carcinogenicity
Mar 28, 2017 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
The recent release in litigation of email correspondence between the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) and the pesticide manufacturer Monsanto reveals a significant difference in the method of assessing the potential carcinogenicity of the widespread pesticide glyphosate, with the Pesticide Office using methods aligned with Monsanto’s approach and contrary to the Agency’s own Cancer Guidelines.
As the EPA faces a devastating 31 percent budget cut under President Trump, various programs are counting on support from environmental and public health groups to validate the important role played by the EPA. The pesticide office, on the other hand, has Crop Life America, the pesticide industry trade group, going to bat to protect its budget so that pesticide approvals won’t be delayed.
The cache of documents released reveals a sharp division between EPA’s science program, the Office of Research and Development (ORD) and the pesticide office over its glyphosate cancer assessment. The pesticide office―and Monsanto―characterizes glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Glyphosate is one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, with about 250 million pounds used annually on agriculture crops in the U.S., mainly―but not only―on corn and soybean crops in the Midwest, and an additional 25 million pounds used for non-agriculture purposes, such as parks, golf courses and residential lawns. It is a key ingredient in Round Up, Enlist Duo and other herbicides.
The declaration of glyphosate’s safety in September 2016 by EPA’s pesticide office and prior to that by Monsanto is in stark contrast to the finding of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). IARC convened a meeting of 17 scientific experts from 11 countries and in March 2015 finalized its assessment concluding that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” IARC has been aggressively targeted by Monsanto ever since. But an internal memo released in the litigation reveals that EPA’s science program (which has been threatened with a 50% budget cut by the Trump Administration) was more in line with IARC’s science assessment and illustrates how, in conducting its own analysis, the pesticide office failed to follow EPA Cancer Guidelines (ORD memo, Dec 14, 2015).
The difference between the two divergent conclusions is as follows:
From years of submitting comments to this office, I believe that it’s not just glyphosate and Monsanto that has received favorable treatment. NRDC sued the EPA pesticide office―and won―after proving it had inappropriate contact with Syngenta, the maker of atrazine, during the period that atrazine was undergoing regulatory approval.
Pesticides are poisons. They are designed to kill things. Recognizing this danger decades ago, Congress passed the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which gives the EPA pesticide office the authority to regulate, restrict, and even ban pesticides. Under FIFRA, all pesticides must be registered by the EPA before they can be legally sold or distributed in the United States and then undergo registration review every fifteen years. Under this same law EPA cannot renew the registration of a pesticide until it ensures that the pesticide’s use will not pose unreasonable adverse effects on the environment or human health.
The public will not be getting the protection it needs and deserves until the EPA Pesticide Office―under all Administrations―begins to independently and objectively evaluate the science, without a thumb on the scale to help industry, and, at a minimum begins to follow the Agency’s own scientific guidelines.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jennifer-sass/split-within-epa-glyphosate-carcinogenicity
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First-Ever Federal Mercury Inventory Set for Release by EPA
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA is releasing March 29 its first-ever national inventory of the supply, use and trade of mercury—a list that establishes a baseline of what's in U.S. commerce.
The inventory, which the Environmental Protection Agency said will identify any manufacturing processes or products that intentionally add mercury, will help identify industrial sectors that could be subject to a mercury-use reporting rule the agency is required to issue in 2018. That rule may include pharmaceutical makers and other industrial sectors not normally regulated under the EPA's chemicals law.
The availability of comprehensive data on mercury is important to state and federal efforts to reduce mercury pollution and its impacts, according to C. Mark Smith, chair of the Quicksilver Caucus, a coalition of states focused on reducing mercury exposure.
“Such data is critical to state efforts to prioritize, implement, enforce and evaluate state laws addressing mercury use in products, mercury disposal and the recycling of end-of-life mercury-added products,” Smith said.
The Quicksilver Caucus, managed by the Environmental Council of the States, develops strategies to cut human-derived sources of mercury, also known as quicksilver, in the environment. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that can damage the brain and nervous system, particularly in children.
Manufacturers
Products to which mercury has been added in the past includes batteries for hearing aids, watches, cameras, and clocks; dental amalgam; fluorescent lamps, automobile headlights and neon signs; laboratory chemicals, preservatives, fixatives, buffers, and dyes; barometers and other measurement devices; and thermostats found in residences, businesses, according to information the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse updated in December 2015.
The clearinghouse, which collects information from eight states that mandate some mercury-use reporting, is in the midst of updating that information, Terri Goldberg, executive director for the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association, told Bloomberg BNA March 28. The group launched the clearinghouse in 2001.
The clearinghouse has shared its information with the EPA, she said. State environmental officials will be interested in seeing the EPA's first-ever national inventory and learning what additional information the EPA may have obtained from states that are not part of the clearinghouse, Goldberg said.
Reporting Rule Coming
Congress, in 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act, ordered the EPA to establish an inventory of the supply, use and trade in mercury. The agency is required to update its inventory every three years.
The updated chemicals law also calls for the EPA to develop a regulation by June 2018 that will require companies that use mercury or mercury compounds to provide the agency with information about those uses.
Pharmaceutical and other companies that normally are not regulated under TSCA may be subject to the mercury-use reporting requirements of that rule, Charles Auer, a former senior EPA chemicals official, previously told Bloomberg BNA. Auer now is a senior regulatory and policy adviser for the Bergeson & Campbell PC law firm.
State Action
At least 13 states have adopted laws or regulated addressing products with added mercury, according to Smith.
Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are members of the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association's Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse.
That clearinghouse offers a single online portal through which companies can report mercury information mandated by various state laws and regulations, Goldberg said.
The ultimate usefulness of the EPA's federal inventory will depend on its completeness and accuracy, Smith and Goldberg said.
Useful for Global Treaty
The information the EPA has gathered also will be useful as the U.S. complies with the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which is expected to enter force later this year, Michael Bender, co-founder of the Mercury Policy Project, told Bloomberg BNA. The project works to eliminate mercury exposures locally, nationally and internationally.
Mercury is a global problem because it can travel in the atmosphere around the Earth, far from its original source.
The U.S. was the first country to join the Minamata Convention in 2013, when it deposited an “Instrument of Acceptance” to become a party to the agreement. Forty countries have ratified or accepted the convention so far, but 50 parties must do so before the agreement can enter into force.
That target should be met by June to enable the parties to hold their first conference scheduled Sept. 24-29 in Geneva, Bender said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162930&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162930&jd=108162930
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EU Agency Warns Manufacturers of Chemicals Data Requests
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency said it will ask manufacturers and importers for additional data on 27 suspected hazardous substances registered under the European Union's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
The substances are used in a range of applications, including in the manufacture of plastics, textiles, machinery, paints, adhesives and cosmetics, and in activities such as mining or the processing of chemicals. Their registration under REACH is mandatory for access to the EU market.
Authorities evaluating the 27 substances concluded March 28 that they did not have enough information to issue final findings on whether the substances presented a risk and if they should be subject to controls.
ECHA's publication of the list of substances is advance warning that there will be requests for further data. The substances are among 39 suspected hazardous chemicals that authorities in EU countries evaluated in 2016. If it's determined that the substances are hazardous, they could be subject to controls under REACH.
Binding Decisions
The chemicals agency said it will issue to companies draft decisions with the data requests, starting the last week in April. Companies will have 30 days to provide data if it is readily available or to update their REACH registration dossiers.
Subsequently, binding final decisions will be issued to companies. These decisions will require the submission of further data by specific deadlines.
Additional data is not needed on 11 of the substances evaluated for potential hazards during 2016, the chemicals agency said. For the 39th substance—phenol, dodecyl-, sulfurized, calcium salts, which is used in lubricants—ECHA said, “standard information related to substance identity was missing,” and evaluation of the substance would resume once this is clarified.
Final findings could include recommendations to restrict workplace exposure, to restrict uses of the substance, to change how the substance is classified and labeled, or to phase out the substance from use in the EU unless use-specific authorizations are granted.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162914&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162914&jd=108162914
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Fanfare At EPA As Trump Heralds 'New Energy Revolution'
Mar 28, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Robin Bravender
President Trump and his allies celebrated at U.S. EPA headquarters today as they quashed the Obama administration's climate policies.
Flanked by his energy and environmental lieutenants and about a dozen coal miners, Trump signed a long-awaited executive order that immediately knocks down some Obama environmental efforts and kicks off the process of repealing major climate regulations.
"Together, we are going to start a new energy revolution, one that celebrates American production on American soil," Trump told attendees at the event at the William Jefferson Clinton Building in Washington, D.C.
The order takes aim at several high-profile Obama climate policies. It directs EPA to review the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan to limit power plants' greenhouse gases and wipes out Obama's coal-leasing moratorium on public lands, among other things (Greenwire, March 27).
The signing ceremony was jocular, with Trump appearing alongside Vice President Mike Pence, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. About a dozen coal miners were also on stage for the event, which was held in the Map Room of EPA headquarters.
"You're going back to work," Trump told the miners, pledging that today's executive order — along with his administration's energy policies more broadly — would help to revive the ailing coal mining industry. Trump joked that the miners were tough-looking, noting that he wouldn't want to mess with them.
Introducing Trump to the crowd, Pence declared, "The war on coal is over."
Trump ally and coal magnate Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., was seated in the front row for the event. At one point before the ceremony, Murray, a major Republican donor, was in discussion with Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, whose group backed Pruitt's nomination with a television ad campaign.
Also in the audience today for Trump's victory lap were several other prominent critics of the Obama administration's energy policies. Those included West Virginia Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
In an interview with E&E News before the ceremony began, Murray had high praise for Trump's order.
"I think it's wonderful, not just for the United States coal industry, our miners and their families, but it's wonderful for America," Murray said. "Mr. Obama is the greatest destroyer that America ever had."
His company sued EPA on the Clean Power Plan, and he noted it had been stalled by the Supreme Court.
"We got the stay. Now we're going to get it killed," Murray said.
In another interview, Morrisey, who also sued EPA over the Clean Power Plan, applauded Trump for taking action.
"It's so good to have a president and an EPA administrator that understands that these regulations are unlawful and that they are highly problematic," Morrisey said.
Some conservatives had hoped for more from Trump's order today, including revoking EPA's 2009 endangerment finding against carbon dioxide — the basis for the agency's climate change rules — as well as withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement (Greenwire, March 28).
Murray said those issues need to be looked at.
"It has to be addressed, the endangerment finding," Murray said. "We have a list of things that need to be done, and overturning the endangerment finding is definitely of the issues that needs to be done."
Murray said the president was correct to say on the campaign trail that the United States should withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
"We need to withdraw," Murray said. "It is a fraud."
Morrisey said to have patience regarding Trump's next steps on environmental rules.
"This is a process," Morrisey said. "You can't do everything at the same time."'Pixie dust and hope'
Pruitt welcomed visitors to his agency today. "Perhaps some of you, this is your first visit to the EPA," he said. "It's good to see some coal miners at the EPA."
Pruitt, who helped lead the legal charge against the Clean Power Plan as Oklahoma's attorney general, said, "We're no longer going to have a regulatory assault on any given sector of our economy. That's going to end by the signing of this executive order."
Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, said Trump's move would promote national security by bolstering energy independence. And he criticized the Obama administration's energy policies: "Our nation can't run on pixie dust and hope. And the last eight years showed that."
Perry heralded the move as a "bold action to unlock America's resources." He said, "Mr. President, I remember clearly your comments to me when we discussed my role at the Energy Department. You said, 'I don't want America to just be energy independent. I want America to be energy dominant.'"
EPA employees were encouraged to watch Trump's signing ceremony on the agency's own television network, EPAtv, due to "limited space" at the event, according to an agencywide email sent by EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson and obtained by E&E News.
Career staffers were spotted in the back corner of the room during the ceremony, including acting Deputy EPA Administrator Mike Flynn.
After the ceremony, Flynn was asked for his thoughts on Trump's order. He declined to comment as he left the room.
Click here to read the executive order.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/03/28/stories/1060052221
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Trump Order Seeks To Rollback 'Burdens' But Draws Democrats' Warning
Mar 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan & Doug Obey
The Trump administration is outlining a broad policy to promote development of the country's “vast energy resources,” with the president's just-issued executive order on the issue directing agencies to identify a host of “regulatory burdens” that “unnecessarily encumber energy production” and hamper job growth.
But Democrats are warning that despite President Donald Trump's flashy rollout of his energy policy -- which they characterize as a giveaway to fossil fuel companies that will harm public health -- any regulatory rollbacks will face an uphill battle in the courts and they will resist attacks on EPA's budget.
“The heart of the battle is going to be litigation,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) at a March 28 press conference on Capitol Hill. He argued that Trump's efforts to roll back Obama administration climate rules will damage the pace of GHG cuts and harm the United States' reputation, but that they will ultimately fail in court.
“There are lawyers, and there are lawsuits. There is an [Administrative Procedure Act] that means administrative procedures have to be on the up and up,” he said, also referencing the Supreme Court's landmark 2007 decision affirming that carbon dioxide falls within the scope of Clean Air Act.
Whitehouse added that both the high court ruling and EPA's subsequent endangerment finding enshrine a legal duty for Pruitt to regulate CO2. “And unless he wishes to behave illegally he has to come up with something.”
Trump's executive order, signed at a ceremony at EPA headquarters March 28, represents a sea change in energy and environment policy, and Trump officials say the action will allow the administration to forge its own approach -- one that values United States energy production and independence.
The directive helps to “set a new journey, a pathway forward with how we're going to do business in this country with respect to energy and environment,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in remarks prior to the signing.
The order directs agencies to “immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.”
Among the rules specifically cited in the order are EPA's greenhouse gas standards for new and existing power plants, its methane limits for new oil and gas drilling sources, and several Bureau of Land Management rules related to oil and gas development.
It also directs the Interior Department to lift its moratorium on new coal mining on federal lands, requires the White House Council of Environmental Quality to “rescind” its guidance on how to account for GHGs and climate change in environmental reviews, and orders the withdrawal of the Obama administration's social cost of carbon metric for calculating the benefits of GHG cuts.
The order also says it is in the national interest to produce electricity that is “affordable, reliable, safe, secure, and clean,” and that it can be produced from a wide variety of sources, including coal and renewables.
'Really Clean Coal'
Trump, in his remarks ahead of signing the order, said: “We're putting an end to the war on coal. We're going to have clean coal, really clean coal.”
He added that, with the actions outlined in the order, his administration would be “ending the theft of American prosperity and rebuilding our beloved economy.” The order will also “allow EPA to focus on its primary mission of protecting our air and our water,” Trump said.
He also noted that EPA would continue to enforce regulations to protect clean air and water, but “so many are unnecessary and so many are job-killing. We're getting rid of the bad ones.” He later added the action would “really lead to unbelievable prosperity all throughout the country.”
None of Trump's remarks -- nor those from Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Vice President Mike Pence -- mentioned renewables or other zero-carbon energy sources. The executive order mentions renewables once, as part of a long list of potential sources of electricity.
Instead, much of the remarks focused on potential employment related to fossil fuels, and coal in particular. “Our nation can't run on pixie dust and hope, and the last eight years showed that,” Zinke said.
However, during his daily press briefing March 28, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the administration has not conducted any analysis on the number of coal jobs expected to come back after EPA scraps the CPP and officials take other steps to undo Obama-era climate rules.
But Spicer noted that Trump met with coal miners and senators from key coal states such as Wyoming and Kentucky. “From a mining perspective, the miners and owners are very, very bullish on this,” he said, adding they believe the actions required under the order “will revive the industry.”
Spicer also called the order “great news” for coal states because for too long the federal government has acted as a barrier to energy development, arguing the order will “free up American energy companies” to use vast available resources.
'Not Serious'
And Democrats -- flanked by a chart of Obama-era job growth and a photo of smog from before the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments took effect -- sought to make a political liability of Trump's action by blasting it as a giveaway to fossil fuel companies that would ultimately harm jobs.
“This order clearly proves this administration is not serious about protecting jobs or our environment,” said Senate Environment & Public Works Committee ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE), citing the action as a threat to 3.2 million jobs in the “clean energy sector.” He also noted that the Clean Power Plan (CPP) was estimated to provide between $26 billion and $45 billion in “net benefits” by 2030.
He added that Trump's executive order will not bring back the coal sector. “The Clean Power Plan is not the coal industry's problem. Market forces are the problem,” he said.
The new executive order comes as Trump is proposing dramatic cuts to climate and other programs in EPA's budget for fiscal year 2018, and it also recently floated additional cuts for the remainder of FY17 after current funding expires April 28.
But Democrats vowed to resist such cuts, arguing that Republicans will ultimately not want to shut down the government over environmental protections. “We will out blink them when it comes to that [budget] issue,” Whitehouse said.
And on looming legal battles over Trump's climate regulatory rollbacks, Whitehouse predicted a “variety of consequences that can ensue in a court room,” if judges believe the EPA is acting in bad faith on its legal obligations to address climate risks.
In a hallway interview with InsideEPA/climate, Whitehouse said that lawmaker participation in such litigation is “one of the options on the table for us.” And he made the case that litigation carries political risks for the Trump administration and energy companies.
“One of the things that's interesting about getting these guys in court is that suddenly they have to tell the truth. Suddenly they have to produce discovery, suddenly they have to disclose conflicts of interest, suddenly they have to be subject to cross-examination,” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trump-order-seeks-rollback-burdens-draws-democrats-warning
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Dow Chemical Completes Crown Jewel Of $6B Gulf Coast Expansion
Mar 28, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Dow Chemical said Tuesday it completed the massive ethane cracker plant in Freeport that’s the “crown jewel” of its more than $6 billion expansion along the Gulf Coast, primarily just south of Houston.
The cracker facility will churn out 1.5 million metric tons a year of ethylene, which is derived from natural gas liquids and is used as the primary building block of most plastics. The plant, which is part of Dow’s sprawling complex in Freeport and Lake Jackson, won’t fully commence operations until midyear.
“The Freeport ethylene unit is the cornerstone of our $6 billion investment in the U.S. Gulf Coast,” said Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chairman and CEO. “Our growth investments leverage the advantaged shale gas supply available in the U.S.”
Indeed there are a bevy of new ethane crackers in Texas under construction that are all planning to take advantage of Texas’ ample and cheap natural gas supplies unlocked by the shale revolution.
Dow’s announcement comes just one day after Paris energy giant Total said it will build an ethane cracker with a 1 million ton per year capacity at its Port Arthur facility, as well as a new plastics plant just east of Houston near La Porte.
Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Chevron Phillips Chemical all are completing major ethane cracker and plastics plant projects this year along the Texas Gulf Coast, including the Houston area, for the same purposes. They’re producing chemicals and plastics, much of which will be exported to the developing world with growing middle classes, especially Asia.
As for Dow, the ethane cracker is expected to come online about the same time Dow completes its $130 billion merger with DuPont. The combination received conditional approval Monday from the European Union, but the U.S. Justice Department review remains pending.
Liveris has emphasized that Dow’s Texas operations will see little effect from the merger, with the exception of the divestment of one local facility. After the merger, DowDuPont will be splintered into three separate companies, including one named Dow that would continue to own and run the Freeport complex.
The materials science business would operate under the Dow name, the agribusiness under DuPont and specialty products under a yet-to-be-determined brand.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2017/03/28/dow-chemical-completes-crown-jewel-of-6b-gulf-coast-expansion/
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Busiest US Petchem Port About To Get Even Busier, Compounding Congestion
Mar 29, 2017 | Platts
By Kristen Hays
The cheap US natural gas boom triggered a slew of new and expanded chemical production that is poised to amplify vessel traffic in the already bustling Houston Ship Channel, home to the largest US petrochemical port and second only to Rotterdam in the world.
While growth is welcomed, shipbrokers and other industry players expect the Port of Houston, already teeming with liquid chemical tanker traffic, to become more so as too-few berths and fog shutdowns can strangle efficient commerce.
Much attention has been focused on increased polyethylene output as the first wave of new ethane crackers and associated PE plants at or near the Port of Houston start up this year through 2019, pumping out plastic pellets largely destined for export-bound containers to meet global demand.
However, industry players expect increased movements of liquid chemicals as well with more tankers moving monoethylene glycol, caustic soda, benzene, styrene and others in or out of the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel as new and expanded processing infrastructure starts up.
Shipbrokers say the channel already is clogged as tankers maneuver for available berths. Lines form quickly when vessel traffic is held up by fog, accidents or other issues. Vessels cannot loiter at berths, and have little choice but to find a place to “park” without transferring cargo until a berth opens up. The ship channel has few such waiting areas, so routine bottlenecks are exacerbated by fog shutdowns or unexpected berthing delays. Some tankers can sit for up to a month waiting for a berth as vessels slowly start moving again after a shutdown — nearly the time it takes to sail to Europe from Houston.
In 2015, the ship channel was shut 680 hours because of fog — the equivalent of nearly a month, and a 77% increase from 2014, according to the latest available US Coast Guard statistics.
And in shipping, holdups squeeze trading days, hike costs and shrink profits.
“If the market starts to spike as these projects come online in Houston, ships will be sitting, delayed, waiting for cargoes. It will be more expensive to find the right ship at the right price,” Scott Birtle, managing director of specialized products at Clarksons Platou, the world’s largest shipbroker, said at a conference in Houston in late 2016.
Market sources say the Houston port tries to keep ships moving, but there are limits. Unlike crude oil or refined product tankers that arrive, fill up or unload and leave, chemical tankers make multiple stops per port for multiple pickups and drop-offs — like a city bus — from multiple segregated tanks.
Different cargoes have different temperature and storage needs, so berths are not one-size-fits-all. Tanks must be inspected before they can unload and then cleaned and inspected before loading. If berths are at a premium, ships have to go to a public dock to clean tanks and may lose their place in line.
The vast majority of cases where a ship is late because of congestion involves “just trying to rotate through when there’s a hiccup in the system,” Lance Nunez, North America bulk marine mode leader for Dow Chemical, said at the same conference.
Capt. Bill Diehl, president of the Greater Houston Port Bureau, said efficient chemical ship movements is more about scheduling than congestion or capacity, though additional layberth docks — those parking areas — would help.
Houston has 169 ship docks and 129 barge docks, and the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Port of Houston Authority are working on a $10 million, four-year study to determine the best way to increase future capacity and safe channel navigation.
“Ships come to Houston because the facilities are here — 274 facilities representing 192 companies,” Diehl said.
However, shipbrokers say the issue is already critical and about to become more so with chemical production growth. A 2015 study by Texas A&M University’s Transportation Institute said that 43% to 39% of all transits in and out of the ship channel were chemical tankers from 2010 through 2014. In 2014 a line of vessels operated by global shipping company Odfjell made 88 port calls to Houston, during which they made 725 movements to more than a dozen terminals. While tankers can move efficiently, high volume means some ships spend days or weeks trying to rotate through, the study said.
And holdups emerge even with no unexpected issues or fog. When chemical tankers arrive, they submit a notice of readiness, or NOR, to all terminals where they need to load or discharge cargo. The study said that often a ship will issue NORs to multiple terminals, then head for the best one to start its rotation.
If that ship fails to cancel those other NORs, terminals “prepare for an arrival that is not coming and report that they are not available when they could be,” the study said. The ship captain may want to keep the next berth open, but a domino effect leaves other ships waiting needlessly.
Houston is primarily an export port, so cost control is “of paramount importance” to offering competitive export prices. With tight margins and timelines, companies need to corral per diem, demurrage and other costs incurred by waiting to load or discharge cargo.
“Given the rapid rate of expansion in the chemical and petrochemical industries in Houston, the current situation can be expected to deteriorate rather quickly,” the study said.
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/03/29/us-petrochemical-port-congestion/
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AFPM 2017: US Chemical Producers Encouraged By New Administration, Future Growth
Mar 28, 2017 | Platts
By Kevin Allen
US chemical producers expressed optimism regarding the future growth of petrochemicals in the US and were hopeful that decreased regulatory measures associated with the Trump administration would help facilitate growth.
Speaking on a panel at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers' International Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio, executives from Air Liquide, Chevron Phillips Chemical and ExxonMobil addressed regulatory concerns, tax reform, export opportunities and difficulties finding skilled labor.
Peter Cella, president and CEO of Chevron Phillips, and Neil Chapman, president of ExxonMobil, both emphasized the importance of the petrochemical industry's engagement in terms of regulatory change. "We want regulation, we just don't want overreach," Chapman said. "Industry engagement is more important now to put in the right kind of regulation."
Related: Find more content about Trump's administration in our news and analysis feature.
The panel also touched on tax reform, with Chapman noting that while tax reform proposals may seem drastic, they are necessary. In reference to the notion of a border tax, Chapman said reform was necessary given that exports are a $200 billion business, and that of the 800,000 jobs in the industry, one-third were dependent on exports.
"Comprehensive tax reform is in the best interest of industry in this country," said John Buckley, CEO of Air Liquide.Exports were a central part of the discussion, and Cella noted that exports played a significant role in growth. Cella estimated that more than 60% of new capacities were slated for export and that this was good for the industry as it created jobs and investment in railroads, trucking and ports. "We are buying 3,000 railcars and 85% of the material is coming from domestic sources. The entire country is benefiting from growth," Cella said.
The panel went on to discuss a dearth of skilled labor, with the industry facing a shortage of 37,000 skilled workers. To combat this shortage, investment in education is necessary, Buckley said.http://www.platts.com/latest-news/petrochemicals/houston/afpm-2017-us-chemical-producers-encouraged-by-21287045
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Maryland Fracking Ban Awaits Governor's Signature
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kathy Lundy Springuel
A ban on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas production in Maryland became a near-certainty March 27 as the General Assembly passed legislation (H.B. 1325) that Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he would sign.
Maryland's fracking ban would be the third statewide ban in the U.S., following Vermont in 2012 and New York in 2015.
Hogan recently announced his support for it, saying that the “possible environmental risks of fracking simply outweigh any potential benefits” and urging lawmakers to “finally put this issue to rest once and for all.”
Final approval came late March 27 as the Maryland Senate voted 36-10 to ban fracking in the state. The Senate followed the lead of the House of Delegates, which approved the same bill 97-40 on March 10.
Hogan spokeswoman Amelia Chasse told Bloomberg BNA in a March 28 email that she did not know yet when the governor would sign the bill. The Maryland Constitution gives him until May 30.
No fracking has been conducted in Maryland. An existing moratorium would have expired Oct. 1 if the General Assembly did not act.
If the moratorium had been allowed to expire, fracking would have been allowed under regulations deemed the strictest in the country. Hogan said they “would have made it virtually impossible for anyone to ever frack in Maryland.”
Because those rules had been put on hold by a legislative review panel, Hogan said he decided to simply “take the next step and move from virtually banning fracking to actually banning fracking.”
The only Maryland counties with potential for fracking were two in the western part of the state that are part of the Marcellus Shale formation.
Praised and Panned
Josh Tulkin, director of the Maryland Sierra Club, commended the General Assembly “for this bipartisan victory” and thanked Hogan for his support.
“But the real congratulations go to the thousands of people across the state, particularly those in western Maryland, who stood up for their beliefs, who organized, lobbied, and rallied to get this legislation passed,” he said.
However, Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, said that a “politically motivated decision moves Maryland further away from the state's economic and environmental goals.”
“Denying Maryland consumers, businesses and job-seekers the benefits that come with in-state energy production through hydraulic fracturing shuts the door on an important share in the American energy renaissance and western Maryland's future economic growth,” he said.
Cobbs’ claim of a “politically motivated decision” referred to an earlier proposal (S.B. 862) that would have extended the moratorium until 2019 and placed a fracking referendum on the 2018 ballot, when Hogan and the entire General Assembly are up for reelection.
Some have suggested that such a move could have energized more liberal voters, making it harder for a first-term Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state to win reelection.
The referendum proposal was dropped once Hogan endorsed an outright fracking ban.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162903&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162903&jd=108162903
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Senators Look 'Back To The Future' For Security
Mar 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Senators of all political stripes voiced support yesterday for exploring new strategies to thwart cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid, including a plan for keeping the lights on without relying on the internet.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) urged electricity sector experts to consider whether "back-to-the-future answers" — such as manual backup operations at critical points in the power grid — "might protect us from the kind of attack that we know is coming.
"This qualifies as an emergency, and I hope we can act promptly," King said at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy hearing yesterday, as he called for a $10 million, two-year grid cybersecurity study (E&E Daily, March 27).
King's bill, S. 79, the "Securing Energy Infrastructure Act," was largely welcomed by witnesses at the hearing. But experts warned against letting strong cyberdefenses come at the expense of other hard-won innovations.
"A broad-scale reversion to pre-digital technology is uneconomic, unjustified and perhaps even impossible," said Michael Bardee, director of the Office of Electric Reliability at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in prepared testimony.
"But I do not see S. 79 as proposing such action," he added, noting that the legislation "could potentially aid the utility industry, FERC and others to maintain a secure electric grid" by setting up an interagency working group to examine the problem.
Bardee suggested King add FERC to the proposed list of members on the working group, which now includes the departments of Defense, Energy and Homeland Security; intelligence community; and the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the nonprofit grid overseer.
The bill was first introduced last summer in response to a series of eye-opening cyberattacks on Ukraine's power grid. In December 2015, hackers used stolen usernames and passwords to break into three Ukrainian utilities' operating networks and cut off power to about a quarter of a million people. The victim companies were able to restore electricity only after reverting to "manual mode" — dispatching employees to flip switches at remote facilities.
A year later, hackers struck again at another Ukrainian power company, temporarily severing electricity at a transmission-level substation (Energywire, Jan. 11).
"If we aren't prepared for cyberattacks, a Ukraine-like situation could take place in the U.S.," said Energy Subcommittee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) at the outset of yesterday's hearing. He added that "hackers are certainly trying to create that kind of havoc in the U.S."
Thomas Zacharia, deputy director for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, noted that his agency would be called on to support the working group if King's "retro" security bill is enacted.
He told senators that a "two-year pilot to really explore what is possible, to get out in front of this evolving challenge, is probably the best thing we can do."Better coordination
Industry speakers at the hearing pointed to existing efforts to lock down the power grid from hackers.
John DiStasio, president of the Large Public Power Council, which represents some of the biggest locally owned utilities in the country, said his group supports the "Securing Energy Infrastructure Act" on the condition that it doesn't get ahead of any existing cybersecurity requirements set by NERC.
"We've got a very robust cyber compliance and enforcement program," he said, noting that the industry has come "a long way" in improving cyberdefenses over the last 10 years. "I feel like we've got some of the essential building blocks in place."
Ben Fowke, CEO of Minneapolis-based utility Xcel Energy Inc., offered a tepid endorsement of King's bill, noting that Xcel "does not object" to the legislation based on its voluntary nature and liability protections for companies that contribute to the working group.
Fowke was more supportive of broader efforts to streamline the government's handling of cybersecurity, such as an effort by Gardner and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) to create a Select Committee on Cybersecurity to cut down on some of the overlap in Congress.
"We just need to coordinate better," said Fowke. "There's a lot of work being done, but it's being done by a lot of agencies, it's being done by a lot of congressional committees. ... I think we're getting better at coordinating, but the bad actors are getting better at attacking us at the same time."
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/29/stories/1060052228
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Trump Pressed To Secure US Critical Infrastructure
Mar 29, 2017 | The Hill
By Morgan Chalfant
The Trump administration is coming under pressure to safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure as experts warn of vulnerabilities in the electrical grid and lawmakers fret about potential cyberattacks.
The issue has attracted the attention of policy experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who are out with a new report Tuesday exploring how to reduce cyber threats to the electrical grid, oil pipelines and other critical infrastructure.
The experts, led by a former senior National Security Agency (NSA) official, are seeking to nudge the new administration on implementing policy to secure critical sectors from cyber threats.
“This is really a strategic problem for the country,” Joel Brenner, who served as the NSA’s inspector general and the head of U.S. counterintelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told The Hill.
Concerns about threats to critical infrastructure have risen in the wake of the successful December hack of Ukraine’s power grid, which Kiev has pinned on Russian hackers.
Moscow’s election-related hacks have added a new layer, spurring former President Obama to designate American election infrastructure as critical before leaving office.
An estimated 85 percent of critical infrastructure is privately owned and operated.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works with businesses and local governments to bring cyber protections to entities across more than a dozen critical infrastructure sectors, and legislation passed by Congress in 2015 encouraged the department to exchange what are called “critical threat indicators” with private organizations more quickly.
However, lawmakers like Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) say the department needs to do more to ensure cybersecurity of critical infrastructure in the face of increasing threats.
“The threat to our nation’s critical infrastructure is constantly compounding as bad actors continue taking advantage of more advanced [tactics] and utilizing higher-quality information,” Ratcliffe, who chairs the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, told The Hill. “I’m glad our cybersecurity legislation that was signed into law in 2015 has amplified DHS’s ability to combat this growing threat.”
“In analyzing the implementation of this law, we’ve seen how important it is to adequately harness the potential to be gained from strengthening our partnership with the private sector,” Ratcliffe said. “It’s my hope that the administration will also prioritize partnership with the private sector as we work together to tackle this important issue.”
The Trump administration appears to be taking the hint. President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2018 federal budget allocates $1.5 billion for Homeland Security to tackle cybersecurity, including protecting critical infrastructure.
The budget proposal also directs the agency to ramp up cyber information sharing with federal agencies and the private sector for faster response times to attacks on federal networks and critical infrastructure.
White House homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert emphasized at a recent conference that protecting critical infrastructure at greatest risk will be a priority of the new administration on cybersecurity, second only to safeguarding federal networks. He said that the new administration plans to partner with the owners and operators of critical infrastructure to achieve this goal.
Brenner warned that previous administrations have engaged in “aspirational happy talk” about defending critical infrastructure without taking action.
Among the major recommendations put forth by the MIT experts is that Trump should elevate his cybersecurity coordinator to the position of deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity and empower him to work with the Office of Management and Budget to implement long-term policy across the government.
The report also recommends that the new administration consider creating incentives for businesses to produce and use more secure hardware and software in critical infrastructure after representatives of the energy, oil and natural gas sectors said these materials were a “significant source of cyber vulnerabilities.”
Perhaps the most significant finding of the study, Brenner said, was the recommendation to remove portions of key infrastructure, like the electrical grid, from the internet.
“We concluded, and with enormous support from the many cybersecurity officials in the industry that we talked to, that you cannot make critical infrastructure reasonably safe if you don’t isolate key elements of it from public networks,” Brenner said.
“We’re going to have to work closely with the private sector to discuss what do we mean by isolation, how isolated, and how long would it take to do this, and what would it cost, and what kind of incentives can we give companies to do it?”
Brenner said that the MIT report — compiled over two years — could serve as a complement to Trump’s forthcoming cybersecurity executive order, which is expected to focus on securing federal networks.
It is unclear when the White House will finalize the revised executive order, the signing of which was abruptly delayed in January.
https://origin-nyi.thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/326218-trump-pressed-to-secure-us-critical-infrastructure
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(ACC Mentioned) Politico: Pruitt Takes Fire from Conservatives on Climate Showdown
Mar 29, 2017 | Breitbart News
Andrew Restuccia and Alex Guillen report in Politico on the heat President Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is taking from conservatives over reports that he successfully urged Trump not to revoke the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a far-reaching ruling introduced by the Obama administration that labeled carbon dioxide a dangerous substance in need of broad regulation. Politico notes that among Pruitt’s high profile critics is Breitbart News’s James Delingpole.
A cadre of conservative climate skeptics are fuming about the decision — expressing their concern to Trump administration officials and arguing Pruitt is setting himself up to run for governor or the Senate. They hope the White House, perhaps senior adviser Stephen Bannon, will intervene and encourage the president to overturn the endangerment finding.
…
James Delingpole, a Breitbart News columnist, blasted Pruitt on Monday, arguing he is “more interested in building his political career than he is taking on the Green Blob, insiders report.” Bannon ran Breitbart before joining the Trump campaign last summer.
Delingpole, who first reported that Pruitt advocated against reopening the endangerment finding, even suggested that the EPA administrator should resign.
…
Meanwhile, EPA officials have expressed frustration at the presence of former Washington State Sen. Don Benton, the agency’s White House-assigned senior adviser.
Benton has repeatedly butted heads with Ryan Jackson, Pruitt’s chief of staff. Multiple sources speculated that Benton might soon leave the agency. And EPA is expected to bring in two new communications staffers, the sources said. The agency is eyeing J.P. Freire, a spokesman for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), as its new communications director and Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman at the American Chemistry Council, as its deputy communications director. Neither Freire nor Bowman responded to requests for comment.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/28/politico-pruitt-takes-fire-conservatives-climate-showdown/
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As Trump Bows Out, States Seek to Fill Void on Climate Change
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
As President Donald Trump scales down federal efforts to combat climate change, states are ramping up.
California's Air Resources Board broke with Trump and voted to uphold auto fuel efficiency rules, while Illinois offered a bail out to carbon-free nuclear producers. Iowa and Michigan have moved to increase incentives for renewable energy, and Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is poised to sign a statewide ban on fracking.
“Climate change is real and will not be wished away by rhetoric or denial,” California Gov. Jerry Brown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a joint statement.
In statehouses across the country, both Republican and Democratic leaders are using their own regulatory powers and budgets to fill a void being left by Trump, whose order March 28 rolled back many of President Barack Obama's expansive initiatives to combat global warming.
“There will be continued and expanded efforts by states and localities throughout the country,” Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said in an interview. “Those actions will vary widely in scope and magnitude. Some who are sitting on the fence may stand down. Others will pick up their efforts.”
Trump, with coal miners arrayed behind him, signed the sweeping executive order to begin the process of repealing the Clean Power Plan that would have required states to slash emissions from power plants. That rule was central to the U.S. plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and meet its global climate pledge.
Coal War's End?
“Perhaps no single regulation threatens our miners, energy workers and companies more than this crushing attack on American industry,” Trump said of the regulation. “My administration is putting an end to the War on Coal.”
While 26 states sued to block that rule, bigger states like New York and California had intervened to support it. Now, with it on the way out, states are grappling on their own with issues like how to hook new solar or wind farms onto the grid, what to do with aging nuclear plants unable to compete with low-cost natural gas, and whether or how to try to reduce carbon emissions without a federal prod.
In many Republican-led states—ranging from Texas to Illinois—solar, wind and energy efficiency have thrived as a way to cut electricity costs and boost jobs, not necessarily as a way to protect the planet. In other Republican states, lawmakers are pressing to roll back existing incentives for renewable energy, saying they want to protect coal and natural gas.
The result is likely “this weird Balkanization of the country where the states that are more coal-friendly are going to do nothing,” said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a non-profit watchdog organization. But “states that are more likely to deal with air pollution issues are going to continue on their way.“
Cities too are getting in on the act. Thirty cities including New York and Chicago jointly asked automakers for the cost and feasibility of providing 114,000 electric vehicles, including police cruisers, street sweepers and trash haulers, said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is coordinating the effort. That would be comparable to about 72 percent of total U.S. plug-in sales last year.
“No matter what President Trump does or what happens in Washington, cities will continue leading the way on tackling climate change,” Matt Petersen, the Los Angeles chief sustainability officer, said in an email earlier this month.
Methane Regulations
California last week said it would begin drafting a more-aggressive mandate for sales of zero-emission cars powered by batteries or hydrogen. A dozen other states that also adhere to California's rules are expected to follow suit.
Earlier this month California also approved new methane regulations for the oil and natural gas sector, ordering cuts of as much as 45 percent over the next nine years. That stands in contrast to Trump's announcement that the federal government would reconsider two methane rules established by Obama. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere over a 20-year period.
Brown pledged to launch a state-funded satellite if Trump cuts off atmospheric climate research. And the head of the state's Public Utilities Commission, Michael Picker, stood outside the EPA headquarters earlier this month distributing fliers recruiting scientists to “come work for California” and “fight climate change” there.
Hogan Balked
The combination of auto-efficiency standards, power-plant rules and other regulations put in place under Obama would have resulted in steady reductions in U.S. carbon emissions through 2030, according to an analysis by the Rhodium Group. With Trump's move to change or rescind those measures, U.S. emissions are instead set to remain steady at 14 percent below the peak of 2005.
“It will largely fall to states, cities and companies to be the driving force of U.S. climate action,” the Rhodium analysts wrote. “Well-designed and well-coordinated action in states and cities could play a meaningful role in offsetting some federal policy-enabled emissions growth.”
In the Northeast, states are moving to tighten carbon limits imposed as part of the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the country's first carbon cap-and-trade program. But even those like-minded states have differences: Maryland balked at a proposal by Massachusetts to have a cap that falls by 5 percent a year, twice the current rate, according to the Washington Post.
“We need help, but in the hiatus we are going to work with California and all other willing partners to keep moving forward because this problem isn't going away on its own,” said Paul Miller, deputy director of Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a non-profit association of air quality agencies in the Northeast. “Even with the Clean Power Plan potentially gone, this plan is still in place and it's moving forward.“
In the weeks after the November election, four Republican-led Midwestern states moved to expand clean-energy incentives.
“They recognize that the electricity market is changing, wind and solar prices have come down and natural gas is cheap,” Dick Munson of the Environmental Defense Fund said in an interview. There's an “economic reason to turn to clean energy.”
Illinois passed legislation that provides incentives to its existing nuclear plants and doubles the state's energy efficiency standard. That measure is forecast to achieve a 56 percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions in the state's power sector, almost twice what would have been required under the Clean Power Plan, according to Munson.
In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich (R) vetoed legislation that would have stalled the state's renewable portfolio standard, and, in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) boosted efficiency incentives and the renewable portfolio standard.
Iowa Plan
Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa, an ally of Trump, unveiled the Iowa Energy Plan, which put a premium on increasing utility-scale wind and solar facilities in the state.
“The comprehensive new energy plan will help build on our past energy successes and reaffirms our commitment to maintaining Iowa's energy leadership in the future,” he said.
In Texas—the state with the largest greenhouse-gas emissions in the nation—a combination of policies implemented years ago and market dynamics is leading to the kind of transformation that was envisaged by the Clean Power Plan, even as political leaders eschew discussion of climate change. At one point last week, Texas wind generation supplied half the state's power demand for the first time.
That's a landmark for a state that consumes more coal than any other in the country. Wind generation capacity there has surged to more than 18,000 megawatts from just over 100 megawatts in 2000. And now solar is following along. Solar power in the state doubled to more than 1,200 megawatts last year and is forecast to rise six times over to more than 7,000 megawatts over the next five years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
“When you enable the market and build the infrastructure, the right answers come to the fore,” said Michael Webber, an engineering professor at the University of Texas. “For Texas that's been low-cost wind and solar and inexpensive natural gas.“
—With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Ryan Beene, Christopher Flavelle and Joe Ryan.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162923&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162923&jd=108162923
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Mar 28, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess
The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia today vowed to protect U.S. EPA's regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from President Trump's directive on energy.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) led the coalition, along with the attorneys general from Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.
"We strongly oppose President Trump's executive order that seeks to dismantle the Clean Power Plan," they said in a joint statement.
"Addressing our country's largest source of carbon pollution — existing fossil fuel-burning power plants — is both required under the Clean Air Act and essential to mitigating climate change's growing harm to our public health, environments, and economies," they continued.
"We won't hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump's actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change," they added this afternoon.
Also joining the coalition today were the chief legal officers of the cities of Boulder, Colo.; Chicago; New York City; Philadelphia; and South Miami and Broward County in Florida.
Today marks one year since Schneiderman joined former Vice President Al Gore and a coalition of state attorneys general to announce a multistate effort to tackle climate change, including further investigations into whether fossil fuel companies lied to investors and the public about the impacts of global warming (Greenwire, March 29, 2016).
That effort also included the U.S. Virgin Islands and Minnesota.
A free-market group has been battling in court for communications related to the effort by state attorneys general to defend Obama-era climate regulations.
The Energy & Environment Legal Institute is in Vermont today arguing for the release of records that it alleges show the involvement of major Democratic Party donors and outside political activists in the campaign by state officials.
In November 2015, a coalition of 25 states, cities and counties led by Schneiderman intervened in defense of the Clean Power Plan against legal challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Many of the same stakeholders wrote a letter to Trump prior to his inauguration urging him to continue to defend the plan in court (Greenwire, Jan. 3).
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/03/28/stories/1060052217
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Trump Wants To End The Clean Power Plan – But We Can Push Back
Mar 28, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Martha Roberts
President Trump took another swipe at protections for American communities today by attacking the Clean Power Plan – America’s first-ever nationwide standards to reduce dangerous carbon pollution from power plants.
His action puts at risk the health and welfare of families across America, threatening 3,600 more deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks annually, while creating uncertainty for businesses and putting in question our international climate commitments.
And, yet, the demise of the Clean Power Plan is anything but certain. Trump’s executive order targeting this safeguard has the legal effect of a loud and dangerous tweet.
The EPA is required by law to provide transparent and inclusive public notice and input before making any changes. The courts will set aside any final result that is based on inadequate information or public input, or that disregards EPA’s duty under the law.
Nor will Americans sit by quietly as the Trump administration revokes a common-sense policy protecting us from the worst risks from climate change.
To understand what comes next and how we can forcefully push back, here’s a look at what Trump’s ill-advised order means for this vital climate safeguard.The Clean Power Plan can’t be dismantled by fiat
Any action to revoke the Clean Power Plan must be rigorous and transparent.
The EPA’s public outreach when developing the Clean Power Plan was, in fact, the agency’s most inclusive ever. The agency conducted months of stakeholder and public listening sessions before it issued an initial proposal. The EPA then received and considered more than 4 million public comments and held hundreds of more meetings around the country to refine the final plan.
Americans can – and must – make our voices heard during the upcoming public comment process, just like we did back then. As we have in the past, we can shape the history of our nation.
Scott Pruitt’s actions would be set aside by the court if they ignore, or are contrary to, the Clean Air Act.
And even if the administration completes a new rule to replace the Clean Power Plan, it would be subject to thorough judicial review in federal court to assure that the EPA has properly followed the law.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s actions would be set aside by the court if they ignore, or are contrary to, the Clean Air Act – or if they don’t rest on sound technical and policy foundations. Similarly, if he attempts to short-circuit required stakeholder engagement, the replacement rule would be overturned.
That is also true if Pruitt ignores the EPA’s legal responsibility to protect the public from dangerous climate pollution. If he were to try, we’ll see him in court.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the EPA’s responsibility to protect public health from greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act three times since 2007. That includes a finding that the law “speaks directly” to carbon pollution [PDF] from existing power plants under the very provision that forms the basis of the Clean Power Plan.Americans stand together for clean air
There is already a robust coalition of climate and clean air supporters that will forcefully oppose any attempt to weaken the Clean Power Plan. A broad and diverse coalition [PDF] of 18 states, 60 municipalities, iconic businesses such as Apple and Google, faith organizations, the Consumers Union, Republican former EPA administrators and other leaders have risen in defense of the plan in court.
Limits on carbon pollution from coal plants also enjoy support from 69 percent of Americans, including a majority in every congressional district across the country.
These supporters know that the Clean Power Plan will help our country achieve vital reductions in dangerous carbon pollution, save thousands of lives, and support energy efficiency investments that save us money.
Just this month, more than 1,000 companies and investors called on the Trump administration to continue low-carbon policies, noting that “failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk.”Trump’s action is a clear and present danger
States and companies are pressing ahead to reduce carbon pollution, driven in part by deep cost declines for low-carbon power sources such as wind and solar.
Efforts to dismantle the Clean Power Plan can’t halt all this progress. But Trump’s executive order injects harmful and costly instability into power markets that creates business uncertainty and puts at risk affordable, achievable initiatives to cut carbon pollution.
The Clean Power Plan has a key role in helping companies and states plan investments in a way that maximizes benefits for consumers and facilitates optimal use of available power generation resources, while offering states maximum flexibility to craft a path forward.
Any disruption in its implementation will result in missed opportunities to achieve long-overdue and readily available pollution reductions that will save lives and prevent disease. This is why we must fight back.
Together with the broad coalition supporting the Clean Power Plan, and millions of Americans who want strong action, we stand ready to defend our right to clean air and a stable climate for all of us. We hope you’ll be there, too.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/03/28/trump-wants-end-clean-power-plan-we-can-push-back
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Is Pruitt's 2014 Plan a Blueprint for Carbon Rule Replacement?
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A plan that Scott Pruitt floated when he was Oklahoma's attorney general would provide only one-tenth of the carbon dioxide reductions envisioned in the EPA's power plant rule—but it could form the basis of the Trump administration's replacement as it dismantles Obama-era regulations.
The 2014 plan, which focuses on efficiency improvements at individual power plants, could sidestep thornier legal issues opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan—including Pruitt himself—raised in lawsuits over the rule, attorneys said. Pruitt's plan would merely require utilities to operate at peak efficiency. In keeping with his pledge to restore cooperative federalism, it envisions a more “ministerial” role for the EPA while states take the regulatory lead.
“That basically means allowing the plants to do what they're doing anyway especially if they're in a competitive energy market,” Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the free market-oriented Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA. “They'd always be looking to improve efficiency by a point or two from year to year.”
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump March 28 calls for “suspending, revising, or rescinding” the Clean Power Plan (RIN:2060-AR33) and similar carbon dioxide standards for newly built power plants.
Under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which is the foundation of the agency's Clean Power Plan, the federal government sets emissions guidelines that are implemented by state regulators who can take into account the costs imposed on utilities for the remaining useful life of any individual power plant. Critics of the rule had argued the agency had overstepped its lawful authority by incorporating emissions reductions from beyond the fence line of the power plants themselves, such as shifting generation from coal-fired power plants to natural gas or investing in renewable energy.
Pruitt offered the alternative before the rule was completed. His narrower focus on what power plants can do internally to reduce emissions is in keeping with how the agency has implemented the Clean Air Act in the past and could pass legal muster, attorneys said.
“It's a narrower path,” Ethan Shenkman, a partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP who served as EPA's deputy general counsel during the Obama administration, told Bloomberg BNA. “It's less ambitious than one that would seek to revisit some of the fundamental legal underpinnings of the Clean Power Plan.”
Further Reductions Needed
However, environmental advocates say that efficiency measures alone won't reduce emissions by the amount necessary required to address climate change.
“The way the power industry has wanted to be regulated for 30 years, they want to be connected through a system of emissions trading so they have flexibility to decide where to make the reductions to meet any given target,” David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg BNA. “Those are the principles underlying the Clean Power Plan.”
The EPA had estimated that its Clean Power Plan could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from utilities by more than 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. But heat rate improvements at individual power plants would only improve performance between 2.1 percent and 4.3 percent across the country, the agency had said.
The Obama EPA had also worried that improving efficiency at individual units could actually increase emissions by making older coal units more competitive, allowing them to operate more often.
New Endangerment Finding Needed?
Repealing the EPA's carbon dioxide standards will be a lengthy and fraught process guaranteed to spark lawsuits from environmental groups and states supportive of acting on climate change, but replacing the Clean Power Plan could be an even lengthier process if the Trump administration decides the agency must first determine whether regulating power plants is warranted. That decision, known as an endangerment finding, would be the first step before the EPA even proposed a replacement for the carbon dioxide rules and could draw out the process for setting new standards.
“I think requiring a new endangerment finding is a delaying tactic,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, told Bloomberg BNA.
The Obama EPA had issued an endangerment finding for emissions of six greenhouse gases from motor vehicles when it embarked on its climate change regulations, but it never issued a comparable finding specifically for power plants, something opponents of the power plant rules had argued was necessary.
The endangerment finding for vehicles has already been upheld in court and it would be nearly impossible for the EPA to fail to conclude that regulating power plants is unwarranted given that prior determination, attorneys said. However, undertaking the finding would postpone setting any new limits on utilities.
Review Racing the Court
Pruitt was one of leading critics of the carbon dioxide standards as Oklahoma attorney general, joining lawsuits targeting the regulations. Though he seeks to roll the rules back, the courts may yet have a say in how the EPA regulates carbon dioxide.
Despite the executive order, the EPA has not yet told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that it intends to repeal and revise the regulations. A 10-judge panel of the court heard a full day of argument on the Clean Power Plan in September, and a three-judge panel is scheduled April 17 to hear challenges to the new power plant requirements. A decision on the Clean Power Plan has been expected anytime now, and the court may choose to issue its ruling despite what the EPA chooses to do about the rule.
“I don't think the court is going to grant them a voluntary remand just because they said they're going to propose a rule,” Victor Flatt, an environmental law professor at the the University of North Carolina School of Law, told Bloomberg BNA.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162931&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162931&jd=108162931
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NAS Defends EPA's Human Exposure Research Supporting Air Standards
Mar 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in a new report defends EPA's controlled human exposure research program as providing essential data to support Clean Air Act ambient standards and says it should continue with certain recommended improvements, a potential setback for Trump administration critics of the air standards.
NAS' March 28 report, “Controlled Human Inhalation Exposure [CHIE] Studies at EPA,” concludes that “EPA’s procedures are consistent with and indicative of ethical approaches to human-subjects research. . . . The committee concludes that CHIE studies have provided unique information that cannot be obtained from animal inhalation studies or from studies of people engaged in their normal daily activities (that is, through epidemiologic studies).”
This information includes “biologic or physiologic mechanisms through which air pollutants might lead to health effects . . . [and] assessment of multiple biomarker and physiologic responses to specific criteria-pollutant exposures” to help inform setting EPA's six national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
NAS says that “the studies have helped to define an adequate margin of safety, as required in the Clean Air Act, and have begun to define the groups that have substantial risk factors associated with air-pollution exposures, including people who have heart or pulmonary disease and people of low socioeconomic status.”
The air law requires the agency to set its NAAQS for ozone, particulate matter, and four other criteria pollutants at a level requisite to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety.
Some states, industry organizations, and former members of the Trump administration and transition team have faulted the science underpinning EPA's NAAQS. Litigation is ongoing over the Obama EPA's decision to tighten the ozone standard from the 2008 limit of 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to 70 ppb. Critics of that standard argue that the agency lacked the scientific justification for making the NAAQS more stringent.
But the NAS report could boost EPA and undercut calls to revamp the science used in the NAAQS process, as it generally backs the research program while recommending ways to improve it.
NAS recommends that “EPA CHIE studies should continue to be undertaken cautiously under two conditions: (1) only when a CHIE study is expected to provide additional knowledge that informs policy decisions and regulation of pollutants that cannot be obtained by other means and (2) when it is reasonably foreseeable that the risks for study participants will not exceed transient and reversible biomarker or physiologic responses.”
To meet these requirements, NAS outlines a series of improvements EPA should make “in human-subjects oversight, protocols, consent forms, and communication with potential participants during the informed-consent process and improvements in scientific oversight to maximize the potential for the societal benefits of the studies.”
Critics' Attacks
NAS' findings appear likely to provide additional defense to an EPA program that has faced a lawsuit from a free-market group that sought to bar the studies, and an agency Inspector General (IG) investigation requested in 2012 by former Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), then chairman of the House oversight committee.
The federal district court case was based on research undertaken by Steve Milloy, a former strategist for Murray Energy and publisher of the website Junk Science, who recently served on President Donald Trump's EPA transition team -- but a judge dismissed the case in January 2013 for lack of jurisdiction and standing to sue.
The IG report, released in 2014, concluded that EPA followed applicable regulations when it exposed 81 subjects to concentrated airborne particles or diesel exhaust in five studies that EPA conducted during 2010 and 2011.
But the report, sparked after a volunteer participating in one of the studies had an unanticipated adverse cardiac response, also criticized EPA's policies for lacking guidance on how to address the need for "significant study modifications," when they arose, and particularly when the agency's EPA's Human Studies Research Review Office must be consulted before a change was made.
The NAS committee reviewed eight of EPA's CHIE studies conducted between January 2009 to October 2016, including 845 intentional pollutant exposures, and comments on the risk the studies present to the volunteers. “Of those exposures, only one resulted in the hospitalization of a study subject. . . . [W]hich corresponds to 0.1% of the pollutant exposures, illustrates that, despite substantial efforts to screen potential study subjects, some level of risk is present. . . . [T]he committee finds that the risk of a serious adverse event with long-term sequelae is unlikely to be large enough to warrant concern but recognizes that it is never possible to conclude that there is no risk.”
The committee also addresses critics' concerns regarding study risks of chronic diseases, such as lung cancer and ischemic heart disease, associated with exposure to air pollutants involved in EPA's studies, like fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The report says that “because those diseases are considered to be associated with cumulative effects that develop over long periods, PM2.5 exposures in the CHIE studies considered by the committee (for example, up to 600 g/m3 for 2 hours) would add very little to the cumulative lifetime PM2.5 exposures of many people in the United States. That suggests that any increase in chronic disease risk resulting from PM2.5 CHIE exposures in the studies considered by the committee would be vanishingly small.”
After the IG report's release, EPA asked NAS to review its human studies program, seeking in part advice on how to address some of the IG recommendations. NAS' report states that its finding of EPA's ethical conduct of the studies “is consistent with conclusions” of the IG report.
EPA research officials presented the NAS committee with the IG's recommendations at its first meeting in 2015, and asked for recommendations on how to address those they considered most challenging, particularly the IG's call that EPA must disclose potential cancer risk from exposure to pollutants during the studies that EPA seeks volunteers to undertake.
Recommended Improvements
Among the improvements that the NAS report recommends to EPA's research program is improving the explanations that staff provide to potential volunteers about the risks of participating in the studies. The committee notes some of the documents it reviewed contained “complicated and technical language that requires high literacy and numeracy skills.”
Instead, the report says that “EPA should use a plain-language presentation of risk information in consent documents. . . . The agency should characterize reasonably foreseeable risks by using an easily understood perspective and incorporating relevant exposure comparator scenarios into language about the study. The comparators should be evidence based and their development explained.”
Toby Schonfeld, then EPA's human subjects research review official, raised the concern at the 2015 NAS committee that there are concerns that explaining high magnitude but low probability risks has been shown in ethics research to impair volunteers' judgment by focusing attention on those risks and leading them to ignore lower magnitude risks they are more likely to experience in their decision making. Schoenfeld left EPA last July for the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs, according to her LinkedIn profile.
NAS in its report says that characterizing “reasonably foreseeable risks is an especially important part of disclosure to potential participants. The committee agrees with the approach taken by EPA in designating a risk as reasonably foreseeable if there is some credible evidence that harm might occur. However, an overdetailed list of all possibilities can result in a less valid consent process in that it groups the anticipated or likely risks with ones that are only distant possibilities.”
The report recommends that EPA give potential volunteers “accumulated information on the occurrence of serious adverse events associated with previous CHIE studies and on the resolution of the events to illustrate that a study involves risks of serious adverse events that can be anticipated and those that cannot be anticipated; Describe uniformly the risks from experimental procedures that are used often (such as bronchoscopy) and indicate how the risk profile of study subjects (such as mild asthmatic) has been taken into account; and Include and delineate all reasonably foreseeable risks and any risks likely to be perceived as important by the participants.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/nas-defends-epas-human-exposure-research-supporting-air-standards
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EPA Should Continue Human Exposure Research, Panel Finds
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The EPA should continue to expose humans to air pollution to study its effects, but use clearer language to inform test subjects of potential risks, a panel of scientists says.
The panel, convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, concluded in a report released March 28 that the Environmental Protection Agency's controlled human-inhalation exposure studies have been consistent with the ethics of human testing and provided “unique information” that could not be otherwise obtained through animal testing or epidemiological studies.
The knowledge gained through those types of studies will be important in future reviews of national ambient air quality standards for ozone and other pollutants, the panel found.
The study encompassed a review of all adverse health effects that occurred during EPA human exposure studies from 2009 through 2015. In that time, during which 845 test subjects were exposed to pollutants, there was only one instance of a person being hospitalized: a test subject who developed an irregular heartbeat after being exposed to particulate matter.
While the panel found that the risk of a serious, irreversible health effect to test subjects is “unlikely to be large enough to warrant concern,” the committee recommended that the EPA do a better job of communicating health risks. Consent documents given to test subjects in past experiments included complicated technical language, which should be presented in plain language in the future, the panel recommended.
“While communicating with potential participants, it's particularly important to appropriately characterize the risks,” Robert Hiatt, the chair of the panel, said in a statement. “EPA needs to make every effort to ensure that these descriptions are accurate, scientifically grounded, and comprehensible to people.”
Hiatt is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. The 15-person panel also included scientists from Harvard University, the New York University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Findings Reiterate OIG Report
EPA's human-exposure studies have been the subject of several congressional Republicans, including Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who have questioned why the EPA would expose people susceptible to health problems to diesel exhaust and particulate matter without informing the test subjects that the EPA considers those pollutants to be lethal.
The American Tradition Institute, a free-market litigation group now known as E&E Legal, even filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging EPA testing that they described as inhumane, but the lawsuit was dismissed in 2013 for lack of jurisdiction (Am. Tradition Inst. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. EPA, E.D. Va., No. 1:12-cv-1066, 1/31/13).
The National Academies report backs conclusions by the EPA's Office of Inspector General, which issued a 2014 report finding that the EPA followed applicable regulations governing the use of human test subjects in its air pollution studies.
The National Academies panel recommended that the EPA continue to “cautiously” conduct human-exposure studies under two conditions: if the knowledge cannot be obtained by other means and if the reasonably foreseeable risks to test subjects don't exceed “transient and reversible” responses.
In addition, the EPA should create an independent panel of science advisers to regularly review the EPA's studies and offer advice on how future studies can break new scientific ground.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162899&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162899&jd=108162899
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Trump Order Cancels Obama Policies Aimed at Paris Climate Pledge
Mar 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
President Donald Trump is moving aggressively to undo policies designed to keep the carbon-cutting promises the U.S. made alongside nearly 200 other countries in Paris, while stopping short of a decision to formally withdraw from that landmark climate accord.
Trump signed an executive order March 28 that begins unraveling rules and directives to combat climate change, which President Barack Obama wove into the fabric of the federal government as he made addressing the issue a centerpiece of his second term.
The changes stem from Trump's desire to advance the U.S. economy and domestic production of energy from fossil fuels as well as nuclear and renewable sources, while still protecting the air and water, a senior White House official told reporters March 27.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Fox and Friends March 27 that Trump was “coming to the EPA to set a new course” that is “pro growth, pro jobs and pro environment.“
Trump, who once called climate change a hoax, has vowed to reorient the federal government so that U.S. oil and coal producers thrive, while manufacturers aren't burdened by “job-killing” restrictions.
“A lot of people are going to be put back to work, a lot of coal miners are going back to work,” he said during a rally in Louisville, Kentucky last week.
Some Changes Immediate
Some changes will happen immediately, such as the repeal of a 2016 policy that encouraged federal regulators to consider climate change in environmental reviews as well as directives from Obama that compelled government agencies and the military to factor the phenomenon into their planning. The Interior Department also will swiftly rescind a moratorium on the sale of new rights to extract coal on federal land.
The Trump administration also is tossing an Obama-era “social cost of carbon” metric that estimated the potential economic damage from climate change and was used to justify a slew of environmental actions, from efficiency standards for microwave ovens to the revamp of government buildings. Instead, the government will return to an earlier 2003 approach for estimating the potential costs of any regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions.
Other policy pivots will take years of work, such as reversing the Clean Power Plan that forced states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from electricity. An Interior Department rule setting requirements for hydraulic fracturing on federal land will be rescinded. And a pair of regulations governing potent methane emissions from oil and gas wells also will be reviewed at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department—with possible changes or a reversal years away.
Legal Challenges Ahead
Most, if not all, of the changes will face legal challenges from the same environmentalists who already are fighting to defend Obama's Clean Power Plan in federal court.
“In taking a sledgehammer to U.S. climate action, the administration will push the country backward, making it harder and more expensive to reduce emissions,” Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, said in an emailed statement. “Climate science is clear and unwavering: mounting greenhouse gas emissions are warming our planet, putting people and business in harm's way.“
The news was cheered by some conservatives who have been pushing Trump to go even further in stripping climate regulations from the rulebooks, including by undoing the EPA's landmark declaration that greenhouse gas emissions jeopardize the public health and welfare. That 2009 endangerment finding served as the underpinning for later EPA carbon rules.
Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, cast Trump's executive order as a good start.
“It takes the necessary first steps in undoing President Obama's energy-rationing agenda,” Ebell said by email. “Of course, there is more work to be done down the road, most importantly withdrawing from the Paris climate treaty and reopening the endangerment finding.“
The Trump administration hasn't said if the U.S. will remain a part of the 2015 Paris climate accord—despite the president's campaign pledges to rip up the deal that set broad, nonbinding carbon-cutting targets for the U.S. and nearly 200 other countries. Whether the U.S. remains in the pact is still under discussion, according to the senior White House official.
Secretary Tillerson
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has advocated the U.S. keep its seat at the table by sticking with the plan. Even without formally pulling out of the Paris pact, the U.S. is abandoning its pledge to pay $3 billion into a United Nations fund to help countries on the front lines of climate change.
Trump's actions are politically significant, following months of promises to reverse the fortunes of struggling coal miners -- campaign vows that helped propel him to victory in industrial strongholds like West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Although the changes he is setting in motion will make it cheaper to extract coal and use it to generate electricity, they are unlikely to dramatically boost domestic demand for coal, which faces stiff competition from cheap natural gas and is affected by other pollution regulations untouched by Trump's order.
And mining jobs have been in decline for decades as automated equipment increasingly unearths coal, doing the work that once required pick axes and mules.
Even before the Obama administration imposed the coal-leasing moratorium in January 2016, coal producers had little interest in adding new federal reserves to their portfolios, amid slumping domestic demand. Existing federal leases contain at least 20 years’ worth of coal, according to Interior Department estimates.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump's Interior Department would continue a broad review of the federal coal leasing program even as it restarts sales; that analysis is already about a third complete, with regulators unveiling a broad blueprint of possible changes earlier this year.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called Trump's order “the single biggest attack on climate action in U.S. history” and said it was a misguided attempt to help workers displaced by the global shift to cleaner energy sources.
“The best way to protect workers and the environment is to invest in growing the clean energy economy that is already outpacing fossil fuels and ensuring no one is left behind,” Brune said in an emailed statement. “At a time when we can declare independence from dirty fuels by embracing clean energy, this action could only deepen our dependence on fuels that pollute our air, water and climate while making our kids sicker.“
Legal Limbo
The EPA Clean Power Plan was already in legal limbo, having been put on hold by the Supreme Court in February 2016, while lower court proceedings were underway. The U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments on the challenge last September but has not ruled on the case that the Trump administration will now seek to put on hold. Environmental groups and states that support the rule and are defending it in court have vowed to fight to keep those proceedings going.
Janet McCabe, the former head of the EPA Office of Air and Radiation that helped develop the Clean Power Plan, defended the measure as a “solid, reasonable and flexible rule based on years of research and outreach that follows” an ongoing market transition toward cleaner energy. “EPA has an obligation to address carbon pollution,” she said in an emailed statement. “Congress put the Clean Air Act in place to protect Americans from air pollution, and there is no doubt greenhouse gases are air pollution; the science makes that crystal clear.“
Critics of the initiative said the EPA went beyond its authority under the Clean Air Act by imposing broad statewide emissions targets, rather than specific mandates for individual power plants.
“The Clean Power plan was an unprecedented power grab by the previous administration that was built on a shaky legal foundation,” said Thomas Pyle, head of the American Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel-oriented free market advocacy group. “This executive order won't get rid of the regulation overnight, but it's an important first step that reaffirms President Trump's commitment to protecting American families from higher energy costs.“
—With assistance from Justin Sink.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108162916&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108162916&jd=108162916
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ExxonMobil Urges Trump Administration to Remain in UN Climate Accord
Mar 28, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
ExxonMobil Corp. is urging the Trump administration to not pull out of the landmark climate change agreement cobbled together in late 2015 by more than 200 countries.
The largest natural gas producer in North America, in a letter March 22, responded to an inquiry from the administration about its views on the Paris Agreement hammered out by the Conference of Parties, or COP21, formally known as the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"It is prudent that the United States remain a party to the Paris Agreement to ensure a level playing field, so that global energy markets remain as free and competitive as possible," wrote ExxonMobil's Peter W. Trelenberg, who manages environmental policy and planning.
The agreement requires participating nations to submit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction plans and review those plans every five years to keep a global temperature rise below 2 C above pre-industrial levels. The 2 C threshold is generally considered the point past which the most severe effect of climate change would occur.
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to re-examine the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, considered one of President Obama's signature legislative achievements.The order is seen by many as a prelude to withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, which President Trump has hinted he favors.
"We welcomed the Paris Agreement when it was announced in December 2015 and again when it came into force in November 2016," Trelenberg wrote. "We have reiterated our support on several occasions in opinion pieces and blog posts, most recently by our Chairman and CEO Darren Woods."
The Paris Agreement, he said, unlike the Kyoto Agreement, "is the first major international accord to address climate change that includes emissions reduction pledges from both developed and developing economies...
"We believe that the United States is well positioned to compete within the framework of the Paris Agreement, with abundant low-carbon resources such as natural gas, and innovative private industries, including the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors."
Using more natural gas "has helped the United States achieve 20-year lows in CO2 emissions and according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration has prevented 1 billion metric tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere since 2005."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109924-exxonmobil-urges-trump-administration-to-remain-in-un-climate-accord
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