Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/31/2017
-
(ACC Mentioned) Global Production of Chemicals Continues Growth, ACC Says
Mar 30, 2017 | Chemical Engineering
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that headline global production rose 0.3 percent in February, following a 0.5 percent gain in January... -
(ACC Mentioned) Cornerstone Starts Public Affairs Shop
Mar 30, 2017 | Politico - Influence
By Theodoric Meyer
...: At a reception in the Capitol Visitors Center last night co-hosted by the House Chemistry Caucus and the newly formed Senate Chemistry Caucus, according to a PI tipster:... -
Kreutzer to Leave EPA in Latest Agency Departure
Mar 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia and Alex Isenstadt
David Kreutzer, a special adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, is leaving the agency on Friday and hopes to rejoin the Heritage Foundation, marking the second departure of a political appointee this month. -
(ACC Mentioned) Lobbying Opportunities Grow as Senate Forms Chemistry Caucus
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers with views on ways federal education, regulatory, science or other policies may affect their industries have more members of Congress to lobby with the formation of the Senate's Chemistry Caucus. -
(ACC Mentioned) Sperm Killers and Rising Male Infertility
Mar 31, 2017 | American Conservative
By Pratik Chougule
The sperm density of American males may be declining at a rate of 1.5 percent per year. Yet even amid an historic expansion of government’s role in health care, male infertility has merited little discussion in mainstream discourse. -
EPA Denies Petition to Ban Chlorpyrifos
Mar 31, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The Trump EPA has denied a petition from environmental groups to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. Under the Obama Administration, EPA proposed twice to revoke all food tolerances for the organophosphate insecticide... -
Pruitt Agrees to Toll States' ESPS Deadlines
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is reiterating that states are not “required nor expected” to work to plan or comply with the agency's existing power plant greenhouse gas rule... -
Environmentalists Urge Court to Settle 'Live Controversy' on Utility GHG Rules
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Environmentalists and a state coalition in the coming days will file briefs opposing Trump EPA requests to halt suits over the agency's climate rules for new and existing power plants, arguing such a move would not conserve judicial resources... -
Gorsuch Sidesteps Questions on Carbon Rule, Green Laws
Mar 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch told lawmakers that the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 climate change ruling is precedent that should be respected, but he dodged several questions on the Clean Power Plan and other issues in responses released today. -
Dakota Access Line Foes Turn to Keystone Pipeline
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan N. Crawford
Environmentalists may have lost their months-long battle against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, but their war against the oil and natural gas industry is far from over. -
Fracking 2.0: Shale Drillers Pioneer New Ways to Profit in Era of Cheap Oil
Mar 30, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Erin Ailworth
Using a proprietary app called iSteer, Brian Tapp, a geologist for EOG Resources Inc., EOG +0.18% dashed off instructions to a drilling rig 100 miles away. This tool is among the reasons the little-known Texas company says it pumps more oil from the continental U.S. than Exxon Mobil Corp... -
Dow Expects Texas Ethylene Facility to Enter Operations by Mid-Year
Mar 30, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
Construction of Dow Chemical Co.'s world-scale ethylene production facility in Freeport, TX, is complete. The ethylene unit is in commissioning and expected to enter operation by mid-year, the company said. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Risk Management Plan Rule Delayed
Mar 30, 2017 | National Law Review
By Kathy G. Beckett
On Tuesday, March 14, 2017, EPA announced it would be delaying the effective date of the revised Clean Air Act 112(r) rule governing Risk Management Plan implementation and development from March 13, 2017 to June 19, 2017 -
(ACC Mentioned) US House Passes EPA Science Advisory Board Reform
Mar 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The House of Representatives has approved a bill seeking to increase the "fairness and transparency" of the US EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB). -
(ACC Mentioned) House Bill on EPA Science Board Heads to the Senate
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A House-passed bill that would change the makeup of a board that offers scientific advice to the EPA may face better odds in the Senate than a previous version last session. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Approves Bills To Limit Science EPA Uses For Rules, Reform SAB
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The House has approved in largely party-line votes legislation to fundamentally alter how EPA uses scientific data for rulemakings and other decisions with new requirements that critics say will hinder the agency by barring use of many types of research... -
Paris Decision Coming by May — Spicer
Mar 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Trump administration plans to finalize its stance on the Paris climate deal by May, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said today. -
Trump Critics on Climate Policy Hope Executives Can Sway Him
Mar 31, 2017 | New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Diane Cardwell
Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, says climate change is real, a position at odds with the Trump administration. -
Apple, Wal-Mart Stick With Climate Pledges Despite Trump's Pivot
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
Many of America's biggest corporations including Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are sticking by their pledges to fight climate change even as President Donald Trump guts his predecessor's environmental policies. -
Trump Nixed Social Cost of Carbon, But Courts May Play a Role
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
President Donald Trump has told federal agencies to ignore an Obama-era metric intended to measure the economic impacts of climate change. The move could land the agencies—eventually—in court. -
Colleagues Eye 'Republican Rebels' with Skepticism
Mar 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Progressive Democrats in the House aren't counting on climate-savvy Republicans to lend muscle to the heavy lift of fighting global warming in the era of President Trump.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
-
(ACC Mentioned) Global Production of Chemicals Continues Growth, ACC Says
Mar 30, 2017 | Chemical Engineering
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that headline global production rose 0.3 percent in February, following a 0.5 percent gain in January, as measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. During February, chemical production increased in every region except Latin America. The Global CPRI was up 1.9 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 110.4 percent of its average 2012 levels in February.
During February, capacity utilization in the global business of chemistry improved 0.1 percentage points to 79.4 percent. This is off from 80.3 percent last February and is below the long-term (1987-2016) average of 88.8 percent.
Results were mixed on a product basis during February, with gains in pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, consumer products, inorganic chemicals, bulk petrochemicals & organics, plastic resins and other specialties. Year-over-year comparisons growth was strongest in coatings followed by plastic resins, and inorganic chemicals.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the business of chemistry for 33 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100. This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from over 65 nations accounting for about 98 percent of the total global business of chemistry. This data are the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the U.S. CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.
http://www.chemengonline.com/global-production-of-chemicals-continues-growth-acc-says/?printmode=1
-
(ACC Mentioned) Cornerstone Starts Public Affairs Shop
Mar 30, 2017 | Politico - Influence
By Theodoric Meyer
With David Beavers, Aubree Eliza Weaver and Daniel Lippman
CORNERSTONE LAUNCHES PUBLIC AFFAIRS PRACTICE: Cornerstone Government Affairs is starting a public affairs and strategic communications practice and making two new hires to run it. Matt Paul will be senior vice president for public affairs and Jimmy Centers will be vice president of strategic communications. Paul previously worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign as chief of staff to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Iowa state director and was a longtime aide to former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Centers is another Iowa hand. He was previously communications director for GOP Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds. Cornerstone is far from the only firm looking to do more public affairs work. Targeted Victory has made several recent hires to build out a new public affairs shop.
HOW MUCH THE AIRLINES SPENT IN OPEN SKIES FIGHT: The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, a coalition led by Delta, American and United airlines, spent $6.1 million lobbying in 2015, according to its newly disclosed tax filing. The coalition, formed in 2015, has lobbied first the Obama administration and now the Trump administration to take action against the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which they accuse of violating “Open Skies” agreements with the U.S. by subsidizing their state-owned carriers, Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways. The coalition has sent letters to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and has been running TV ads on the issue.
— Back in 2015, the partnership spent lavishly to hire a quartet of top Democratic firms, according to the filing. The group spent $3.1 million with the Dewey Square Group (whose three co-founders have been deeply involved in Democratic politics for decades), $1.7 million with SKDKnickerbocker, $620,000 with the Messina Group (founded by Jim Messina, who managed President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign) and $280,000 with Beacon Global Strategies (which is led by Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton aide, and two Obama administration veterans). The partnership declined to comment, and it’s unclear whether the coalition is still employing all the same firms in the Trump era. The group continues to use SKDKnickerbocker to handle its communications.
Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. This newsletter thrives on your tips. Switching jobs? Sign a new client? Get in touch: tmeyer@politico.com. You can also follow me on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer.
CALLOUT: Thanks to everyone who’s emailed me tips about influencers who aren’t registered to lobby. I’m following up on your tips. If you haven’t gotten in touch yet, there’s still time: tmeyer@politico.com.
MORE ON WASINGER’S MOVE FROM THE ADMINISTRATION TO K STREET: “After a quick tour through government service, a former appointee in President Trump's State Department has registered to work as a lobbyist for the telecom and pharmaceutical industries, raising questions about the reach of an ethics pledge required by Trump,” The Washington Post’s Matea Gold reports. “Robert Wasinger, a former Trump campaign official and transition team member, served briefly as White House liaison to the State Department before joining McGuireWoods Consulting as senior vice president of its federal public affairs group last month.” (PI noted Wasinger signing his first clients last week.)
— Wasinger “is the second known Trump appointee who left the administration without signing a pledge to limit his lobbying activities. … Wasinger told The Washington Post in an email that he worked at the State Department for about two and a half weeks as an adviser during the early days of the administration and decided to take another job because of family obligations.” Full story.
HUNTER: ‘I WAS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY CRIMINAL ACTION’: “California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter — under criminal investigation by the Justice Department over alleged campaign violations — insists he did nothing wrong,” POLITICO’s John Bresnahan and Kyle Cheney report. “Hunter won't say who is responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in campaign charges for personal expenses, but he says it wasn't him and he's broken no laws. ‘I was not involved in any criminal action,’ Hunter said in an interview Wednesday. ‘Maybe I wasn't attentive enough to my campaign. That's not a crime.’” Full story.
GILES-PARSCALE HIRES LARA TRUMP: “The digital vendor for President Donald Trump's political campaign has hired a new senior consultant: the president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump,” The Associated Press’ Julie Bykowicz reports. “The New Yorker, Eric Trump's wife, will serve as a liaison for San Antonio, Texas-based Giles-Parscale to Trump's ongoing campaign, based at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Giles-Parscale President Brad Parscale says she's an ‘incredibly talented person with the right experience for us.’ Parscale says Lara Trump has a background in marketing and helped on Trump's 2016 political bid.” Full story.
MEANWHILE, IN CHICAGO: “Mayor Rahm Emanuel had little to say Wednesday about the dozens of potential lobbying violations found in his personal emails, declining to offer an explanation for why some individuals who contacted him on his nongovernment email seeking favorable action from City Hall did not register as lobbyists,” The Chicago Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart reports. “A Chicago Tribune report last week raised questions about whether the emails sent to the mayor crossed the line into lobbying and violated the city's ethics law.”
— “Included in the 2,696 pages of emails Emanuel released late last year under pressure from two open records lawsuits were 26 possible instances where lobbyists, corporate executives and longtime Emanuel associates and campaign donors sought action from — or access to — the mayor or city officials but did not register as a lobbyist or report their contact to the ethics board, the Tribune found.” Full story.
JOB MOVES:
— W. Andrew Gantt III has re-joined Venable as a partner in the Washington and Baltimore offices and as co-chairman of the firm’s health care practice. He was previously a partner at Cooley.
— “SCN Strategies, a California-based Democratic media and consulting firm, has hired Jim Jordan to lead East Coast operations from D.C.,” per Morning Score. “Jordan is a former executive director of the DSCC” and was also the initial campaign manager for John Kerry's presidential bid.
SPOTTED: At a reception in the Capitol Visitors Center last night co-hosted by the House Chemistry Caucus and the newly formed Senate Chemistry Caucus, according to a PI tipster: Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.); Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.); Tom Connelly Jr. of the American Chemical Society; Cal Dooley of the American Chemistry Council; Eric Byer of the National Association of Chemical Distributors; and A.N. Sreeram of the Dow Chemical Company.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-influence/2017/03/cornerstone-starts-public-affairs-shop-219517
-
Kreutzer to Leave EPA in Latest Agency Departure
Mar 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia and Alex Isenstadt
David Kreutzer, a special adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, is leaving the agency on Friday and hopes to rejoin the Heritage Foundation, marking the second departure of a political appointee this month.
Kreutzer told POLITICO he is in negotiations to accept a job at Heritage working on "productivity and economic growth" with an emphasis on labor and trade.
"Of course, you can’t talk about productivity and economic growth with talking about energy. So, I will still be somewhat involved in that arena," he said. Kreutzer spent nearly a decade at the conservative think tank before joining the Trump transition team after the election and then EPA.
Kreutzer's anticipated departure comes two weeks after another EPA political appointee, David Schnare, resigned, saying he was bothered by disloyalty to President Donald Trump at the agency among both political appointees and career employees.
Kreutzer said his decision to leave had nothing to do with the reported tension at the agency.
Schnare and Kreutzer were both members of Trump's "beachhead" team, a group of temporary political appointees tasked with helping to run government agencies while the administration gets its nominees in place.
POLITICO reported earlier this week on tension at EPA, including clashes between Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, and Don Benton, the agency's White House-assigned senior adviser. Conservatives have also lashed out at Pruitt for arguing against including language revoking the agency's 2009 “endangerment finding" in an executive order Trump signed this week.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
-
(ACC Mentioned) Lobbying Opportunities Grow as Senate Forms Chemistry Caucus
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers with views on ways federal education, regulatory, science or other policies may affect their industries have more members of Congress to lobby with the formation of the Senate's Chemistry Caucus.
The bipartisan caucus was created following Congress’ overhaul in 2016 of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the primary commercial chemicals law in the U.S., and the growing awareness of the need to foster U.S. interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to spur economic innovation, senators said in officially launching it March 29.
“I see the job of this caucus as making sure that we are educating our colleagues, educating staff members about the importance of this industry,” said Sen. Gary Peters (R-Mich.), one of four senators on the caucus.
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), and Peters— along with Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.), who co-chair the Congressional Chemistry Caucus formed by the House in 2016—joined leaders of the American Chemistry Council, American Chemical Society and National Association of Chemical Distributors March 29 to officially launch the Senate caucus.
New Construction Projects
Its formation is timely in light of the billions in investments that chemical companies worldwide are making in new manufacturing projects due to the availability of shale gas, said Cal Dooley, president and chief executive officer of the American Chemistry Council,
Chemical manufacturers have announced 294 new or expanded construction projects cumulatively valued at $179 billion in capital investment, with 46 percent completed or under construction and 54 percent in the planning phase, according to figures from the chemistry council.
“If you go back into 2016, the chemical sector—the investment in manufacturing in the U.S. by the chemical sector—constituted almost 50 percent,” Dooley said.
Chemical manufacturers contributed 48 percent of all investment in U.S. manufacturing that year, he said.
Crucial for Other Industries
“You touch every other industry. It's not just about the chemical industry,” Peters said. As one example, he pointed to Michigan's auto sector and said “you can't have automobiles without a whole lot of chemistry.”
Coons, one of the few chemists on Capitol Hill, described chemistry as the “central science.” Chemicals create new materials used for batteries, building materials, drugs, electronic devices, solar cells and many other products, Coons said.
Issues raised during the briefing included the need to:
• spur education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics;
• have immigration policies that allow companies to benefit from foreign scientists; and
• insure the Environmental Protection Agency implements the Toxic Substances Control Act Congress amended in 2016.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108241710&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108241710&jd=108241710
-
(ACC Mentioned) Sperm Killers and Rising Male Infertility
Mar 31, 2017 | American Conservative
By Pratik Chougule
The sperm density of American males may be declining at a rate of 1.5 percent per year. Yet even amid an historic expansion of government’s role in health care, male infertility has merited little discussion in mainstream discourse. Federal and state governments are conspicuously absent in identifying the drivers of male infertility. Nor are they facilitating access to many of the most promising therapies.
Such restraint from an otherwise expanding regulatory state is intriguing—and it is particularly noteworthy given that male infertility is considered a “fundamental biomarker of overall male health” and a barometer for male outcomes in American society generally.
A meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal determined that between 1938 and 1990, American men suffered a “genuine decline in semen quality”—results that suggest “an overall reduction in male fertility.” After the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to include men in its National Survey of Family Growth, agency surveys, based on data collected between 2006 and 2010, concluded that 12 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 44 sufferedfrom some form of infertility. Some 10 percent used infertility services.
And yet Obamacare, the most significant overhaul of American health care since the 1960s, was silent on federal mandates for infertility coverage. Only six states in turn have proceeded to mandate male infertility evaluation or treatment.
Three factors seem to be influencing the government’s involvement on the issue: industry influence, attitudes toward alternative medicine, and a reluctance to litigate policy choices that are jeopardizing male wellbeing.
Industry Lobbies and Agency Capture: BPA as a Case Study
To understand the government’s role in the male-infertility saga, one must dig into the most common cause of male infertility—problems in sperm production, maturation, and fertilization. Experts continue to debate the precise reasons behind declining sperm quality, but a common suspect in the literature is the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA.)
BPA is difficult to regulate because the toxin is everywhere. Introduced into commercial use in the 1950s, BPA is a plastic additive that allows a wide array of goods to be produced at low costs. The BPA industry, on track to cross $20 billion in revenues by 2020, has already put the chemical in hundreds of household objects including plastic containers, eyeglasses, and canned foods and beverages. BPA was found in the urine of 93 percent of a survey population tested by the CDC between 2003 and 2004.
While BPA toxicity is a threat to the population generally, it may be a particular concern for male fertility. According to some experts, males may be more sensitive to environmental factors—and BPA specifically, as Dr. Theo Colborn, a pioneer in the field, discovered, tends to inflict the most damage on the young. Consistent with other animal and human studies, a 2011 study in the journal Fertility and Sterility found that, when compared to men without detectable urine BPA levels, “men with environmental BPA exposure at levels comparable with those in the U.S. population” had:
· “more than three times the risk of lowered sperm concentration and lower sperm vitality”
· “more than four times the risk of lower sperm count” and
· “more than twice the risk of lower sperm motility”
These and other studies suggest that while nearly all American males, compared to past generations, may be at greater risk for BPA-related declines in sperm quality, the threat is particularly acute for those with heightened environmental exposure and/or predisposing factors.
Dogged by questions since the 1970s about BPA’s safety, industry groups, backed by corporations such as Alcoa, Coca-Cola, and Del Monte Foods, have undertaken a sophisticated lobbying effort to thwart regulatory limitations on their products. Their playbook is modeled on past efforts by big tobacco and is being carried out by the same “product defense consultants” who went to bat for asbestos and Agent Orange. Between 2005 and 2011, the American Chemistry Council spent more than $9.4 million on lobbying efforts in California alone, and donated an additional $50,000 in direct contributions to state lawmakers’ campaign accounts.
The BPA industry is overseeing a long-term strategy, rallying against bills even when BPA is not directly implicated. The goal is twofold. One is to preemptprecedents that could galvanize a consumer safety movement directed at BPA exposure. Another is to establish an unreachable standard of proof that, by discrediting specific testing methods, effectively undermines the entire process of safety testing.
In these battles, the BPA lobby has found a convenient if unsurprising ally: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As evidence of BPA’s safety, the industry has invoked the “FDA’s authority” and the “scientific assessment” of its experts. Why? Under existing FDA guidelines, academic research often gets “second billing to industry and government studies.” In the name of vague “data quality standards,”cutting-edge academic research is frequently disregarded while studies in labs financed by the BPA industry are used to inform government safety assessments.
Suspicions that FDA officials cater to the BPA industry have grown under recent administrations. In 2008, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discovered that an FDA report affirming the safety of BPA was “written largely by the plastics industry and others with a financial stake” in the chemical. The FDA findings were, let’s just say, debatable. While about 90 percent of the more than 100 independently funded experiments on BPA at the time saw “evidence of adverse health effects at levels similar to human exposure,” all 14 industry-funded studies reached the opposite conclusion.
The Sentinel report prompted legislative hearings. Iowa’s Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley accused the FDA of being a “business partner with industry,” while Michigan’s Democratic congressman John Dingell lashed out at the “supposedly reputable scientists” getting “paid to cast doubt on valid scientific data that raise public-health concerns about everyday products.” Still, despite the fact that Congress, under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, had mandated the FDA to screen endocrine-disrupting chemicals, the agency refused to screen even one chemical.
Little changed in 2014 when the FDA, under the oversight of President Obama’s Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, vetted 161 new studies on the potential health effects of BPA. The agency ultimately deemed only four studies to be compelling enough to consult in setting safety standards. Not one of them acknowledged harmful effects from small doses of BPA. FDA officials meanwhile routinely left government to accept jobs at the very industries they once regulated. According to Dr. Michael Carome of Public Citizen, the FDA consistently “succumbed to industry and political pressures.”
The BPA industry is only one of many suspected drivers of male infertility that aggressively lobby legislatures and pursue agency capture. Governments face similar obstacles in investigating and regulating other products linked to male infertility, among them: alcohol, beef, electromagnetic fields, fluoride, heavy metals, pesticides, soy, pharmaceutical drugs, and xenoestrogens.
Ignorance and Regulation of Promising Alternative Therapies
Even if the government is unwilling to battle powerful industries, why isn’t it facilitating access to innovative treatments? Part of the reason may be that the most promising therapies for male infertility appear to be in the realm of alternative rather than allopathic medicine. Efforts to expand access to integrative treatments, however, tend to provoke resistance from a medical establishment that has generally remained ignorant and/or skeptical of alternative approaches.
A notable example is traditional Chinese medicine. It was only in 1986 that large-scale clinical trials for male infertility, reported in Chinese medical journals, beganin large numbers to be abstracted into English. Even today, translations of whole articles are generally obtained by request from translators, a process that perhaps would be less cumbersome if government agencies and the health-care industry took more interest in these studies.
Obamacare was sold in part on the assumption that it would expand coverage of wellness-based therapies. It did indeed allow health-insurance plans to cover alternative medicine. But since the passage of Obamacare, only six states have recognized acupuncture as an Essential Health Benefit. In Washington State, which has expanded coverage for alternative medical services, businesses, carriers, and state medical associations are pursuing persistent challenges to this regime, outspending advocates of natural health. Practitioners of alternative medicine throughout the country meanwhile face inconsistent licensure and credentialing rules that restrict the care they can provide.
At least in the realm of male infertility, government’s lack of interest in alternative medicine seems outdated. Over the past two decades, a variety of placebo-controlled studies and case reports have demonstrated the ability of acupuncture and moxibustion to produce improved sperm quality. Herbology, according to clinical studies, leads to pregnancy or restored fertility in 70 percent of both male and female infertility cases. And homeopathic therapy has shown in an studies and case reports significant improvement in critical sperm markers.
Yet under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, it is illegal to claim that the supplements used in these practices “diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat or prevent illness.”
Alternative strategies are by no means without risk, but when they do work, they’re generally far less intensive and costly than standard fertility care. With mainstream modalities, 64 percent of patients spend over $15,000 and 16 percent spend over $50,000. Acupuncture treatments, by contrast, typically require twice-weekly sessions for less than two months while periodic use of herbs usually restores fertility within six to twelve months among patients in the United States.
Misguided Public Policy for Young Men?
The government’s attitude toward alternative medicine is one facet of a broader tendency to avoid grappling with male infertility in a holistic paradigm. Allopathic approaches tend to view male infertility as an obstruction of the reproductive ductal system—a condition to be managed with microsurgery or expensive reproductive technologies. Artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and intracytoplasmic sperm injections do not aim principally to improve patients’ underlying sperm quality or address the root causes of their suboptimal health. Alternative medical practitioners are more inclined to view male infertility as a symptom of systemic imbalances in the emotional and physical wellbeing of patients. The fact that sperm quality, in some studies, is negatively correlated with occupational psychological stress, psychosocial distress, fear, and fright arguably lends credence to a more holistic perspective.
Skepticism is warranted as to whether governments ultimately have an incentive to view male infertility from a holistic perspective. For doing so could raise uncomfortable questions about the consequences that bipartisan policy choices have had for young and middle-aged men.
Consider developments since the last CDC report on male infertility in 2010. Economic uncertainty for American men has been a major factor in driving the male median age of marriage to nearly 29 years. According to Brigham Young University professor Jason Carroll, the time is “quickly approaching” when that number will cross 30. Those men who intend to delay fatherhood until marriage—a demographic increasingly confined to the college-educated—face a precarious path forward:
· At age 26, a possible positive association between age, sperm damage, and declining ejaculate volume;
· At age 30, gradual drops in rapid progressive motility and normal sperm morphology; and
· After age 34, drops in total sperm numbers leading to “a declining likelihood of pregnancy.”
The twenties and thirties are increasingly years of emotional difficulty for men. Men in this age group, for example, are resorting in unprecedented numbers to mental health medications, oblivious perhaps to correlations between SSRIs and adverse effects in sperm DNA integrity.
Acknowledging that male infertility could be an outgrowth of broader policy failures could spell trouble for the political class. Public suspicion that a whole array of political, economic, and social policies is contributing to a transgenerational epidemic in male infertility could exacerbate challenges against an already beleaguered establishment.
What’s Next?
Insofar as government watchdogs must weigh in on public-health matters, they should at least bring credible information to the fore. Pervasive crony capitalism, however, renders this almost impossible. And litigating longstanding biases against alternative medicine, as well as the policy decisions that have left young men in a perilous state, is, optimistically speaking, a generational challenge.
It is too soon to tell what impact, if any, the Trump administration will have on the male-infertility issue. Trump has criticized specifically the FDA’s “inspection overkill” of farm-production hygiene and food-packaging rules, some of which involve regulation of infertility-related chemicals. His deregulatory approach is reflected in the administration’s proposed budget, which would eliminate the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program responsible for monitoring BPA and other chemicals. Trump’s nominee for FDA commissioner does embody the corrupt revolving door between the agency and the pharmaceutical industry. But in a context in which government agencies have proven unable to excise themselves from corporate capture, President Trump’s deregulation agenda may, over the long run, diminish industry influence over government inquiries into male infertility.
Regardless, reliable information and effective treatments for male infertility are most likely found outside our corporate-government nexus.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/sperm-killers-and-rising-male-infertility/
-
EPA Denies Petition to Ban Chlorpyrifos
Mar 31, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The Trump EPA has denied a petition from environmental groups to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. Under the Obama Administration, EPA proposed twice to revoke all food tolerances for the organophosphate insecticide. EPA previously said that exposure to chlorpyrifos from food and drinking water poses a human health risk, citing neurotoxicity concerns.
Dow AgroSciences, which makes the pesticide, and farmers have been pushing hard to keep chlorpyrifos on the market. They claim that chlorpyrifos is safely used on dozens of crops in the U.S. and that there are no alternatives for many pests.
The Trump Administration sided with pesticide and farm groups and reversed EPA’s earlier decision. Responding to the petition from environmental groups, EPA says that “the science addressing neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved,” and further evaluation is warranted.
EPA plans to continue evaluating the risks of chlorpyrifos over the next five years. The agency must complete its review of all chlorpyrifos uses by Oct. 1, 2022, as part of its routine review of pesticides.
Groups that filed the petition are outraged by EPA’s about-face move. “EPA’s refusal to ban this dangerous pesticide is unconscionable,” says Patti Goldman, an attorney for one of the groups, Earthjustice. “EPA is defying its legal obligation to protect children from unsafe pesticides,” she says.
The groups plan to go back to court to challenge EPA’s decision.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/03/EPA-denies-petition-ban-chlorpyrifos.html
-
Pruitt Agrees to Toll States' ESPS Deadlines
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is reiterating that states are not “required nor expected” to work to plan or comply with the agency's existing power plant greenhouse gas rule, a stance consistent with the current Supreme Court stay, but Pruitt says that even if the stay is lifted, the agency will exercise its discretion and protect states from any requirements.
“To the extent any deadlines become relevant in the future, case law and past practice of the EPA supports the application of day-to-day tolling,” Pruitt says in a March 30 letter to state governors.
Pruitt's commitment backs calls from state and other critics of the rule, who have long argued that in the event the rule is eventually upheld, its deadlines should be tolled by at least the number of days as the high court's stay.
Pruitt's letter comes just days after EPA took steps to begin review of the power plant existing source performance standards rule, also known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP), consistent with President Donald Trump's March 28 executive order.
That order directs EPA to review, and “if appropriate” revise or rescind, the CPP and related GHG rule for new power plants, as well as several other Obama-era climate policies.
States, due to the Supreme Court's unprecedented February 2016 stay of the regulation, had not been required to expend resources to plan for CPP compliance, though many states that support the rule had pledged to continue their planning efforts in the interim.
Given the rule's current status, Pruitt's letter is largely a reiteration of current policy, but it highlights the Trump administration's hostility to the regulation.
In his letter, Pruitt emphasizes that EPA does not expect states “to work towards meeting the compliance dates set in the CPP. It is the policy of the [EPA] that States have no obligation to spend resources to comply with a Rule that has been stayed by the Supreme Court.”
The administrator also suggests he is eying a shift in state-EPA relations on the issue. “The days of coercive federalism are over. Accordingly, I look forward to working with you, your state experts and local communities as we develop a path forward to improve our environment and bolster the economy in a manner that is respectful of and consistent with the rule of law,” Pruitt writes.
It is unclear whether Pruitt sent the letter to all state governors or a select number. The copy provided by the agency is addressed to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R).
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/pruitt-agrees-toll-states-esps-deadlines
-
Environmentalists Urge Court to Settle 'Live Controversy' on Utility GHG Rules
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Environmentalists and a state coalition in the coming days will file briefs opposing Trump EPA requests to halt suits over the agency's climate rules for new and existing power plants, arguing such a move would not conserve judicial resources and that there is still a “live controversy” that a key appellate court should resolve.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held oral arguments six months ago in litigation over the existing plant GHG rule, known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Also, litigation over the new source performance standards (NSPS) has been fully briefed, though on March 30 the court issued an order indefinitely postponing the slated April 17 arguments in the case until it decides on EPA's abeyance motion.
“It does not conserve judicial resources, which have already been spent to a great extent, to hold these cases in abeyance,” Ann Weeks of the Clean Air Task Force said during a March 29 press call, countering a claim the Trump Justice Department made in a pair of requests filed late March 28.
Further, Weeks said “there are issues in these cases that are going to be important to decide whether we are looking at this rule or some other rule” that the Trump EPA might issue to scrap or amend the Obama administration's power sector GHG standards.
That includes “fundamental legal issues that the administration should want the answers to before moving forward with another rulemaking.” For example, rule supporters are already pointing to the issue of whether EPA can regulate “beyond the fenceline” of the power plant as a question that is likely to resurface in challenges to a Trump replacement of the CPP.
'Live Controversy'
Environmentalists are also optimistic that if the D.C. Circuit issues a ruling, it would throw out some of petitioners' arguments, such as their claim that EPA cannot regulate power plants' carbon emissions under air act section 111 because it already regulates their mercury emissions under section 112.
David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council also told the call that the D.C. Circuit must address a “live controversy.” Even though the Supreme Court has stayed implementation of the CPP, he said, it remains “on the books.” Further, the NSPS is in effect for any utility that builds a new power plant.
“There is no reason for the court to put its decision off just because the government says it might want to change the rules,” he said. “The government always has the option to change rules, but that isn't a reason not to decide cases about rules that are already on the books.”
Doniger said that environmental groups and states that support the rules would file responses opposing the abeyance requests likely by the end of next week.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D), leading a coalition of states opposed to Trump's rollback, told reporters March 28 that they will “seek a ruling” from the court. “You don't just hold cases in abeyance when they're in this procedural position.”
EPA Review
The DOJ motions cited President Donald Trump's March 28 energy executive order intended to promote domestic production of fossil fuels. They also cite pre-publication Federal Register notices from EPA announcing it has launched a review of the CPP and NSPS.
“EPA is initiating its review of the CPP, including the accompanying legal memorandum, and providing advanced notice of forthcoming rulemaking proceedings consistent with the President's policies. If EPA's review concludes that suspension, revision or rescission of this Rule may be appropriate, EPA's review will be followed by a rulemaking process that will be transparent, follow proper administrative procedures, include appropriate engagement with the public, employ sound science, and be firmly grounded in the law,” the agency says in its notice on the CPP.
DOJ's motion adds that pausing the litigation over both rules is warranted because it would avoid compelling the government to represent the current administration's position on many major issues that are the subject of EPA's newly launched review.
And it argues that groups supporting the rules would “face no harm” from pausing the litigation, noting that the CPP's GHG requirements would not take effect for years even if the litigation did move forward.
Sources have said that the requests are motivated in part to ensure that the agency has as much flexibility as possible as it seeks to scrap or substantially weaken the current climate rules.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-urge-court-settle-live-controversy-utility-ghg-rules
-
Gorsuch Sidesteps Questions on Carbon Rule, Green Laws
Mar 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch told lawmakers that the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 climate change ruling is precedent that should be respected, but he dodged several questions on the Clean Power Plan and other issues in responses released today.
“The Clean Power Plan is currently the subject of an active case or controversy. As these and related issues may well come before me, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on them,” Gorsuch wrote in response to questions for the record from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). Gorsuch gave a similar answer to questions about the scope of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Gorsuch did state that the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which established EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, is “a precedent of the Supreme Court, and its interpretation of the provisions and requirements of the Clean Air Act is entitled to all the weight such precedent is due.”
He also gave a careful answer to a question about how he weighs scientific evidence presented by an agency.
Gorsuch said that "courts defer to an agency’s findings of fact so long as they are supported by substantial evidence," but that courts can set aside an agency's actions if it "entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem."
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
-
Dakota Access Line Foes Turn to Keystone Pipeline
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan N. Crawford
Environmentalists may have lost their months-long battle against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, but their war against the oil and natural gas industry is far from over.
Not only are groups including Sierra Club joining forces and renewing their efforts to take down TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL line, a project that now has the State Department's blessing to carry Canada's oil to the Gulf Coast; they're also taking advantage of 300,000 new supporters and a surge in donations made to fight Dakota Access and Keystone to target smaller pipelines that had previously gone under the radar.
“We do plan to double down on Keystone, and we plan to use Keystone as a launching point to change a lot of hearts and minds and to fight multiple other projects at once,” Sara Shor, a campaign manager at the New York-based environmental group 350.org, said by phone.
From President Donald Trump's backing of the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines, environmentalists have found a silver lining. The new administration's support of oil and gas infrastructure has energized what activists say is a more organized, formidable opposition that's hungrier for battles than ever. Their arsenal includes legal challenges, public pressure on banks to withdraw financing and targeted lobbying of regulators and lawmakers.
“The coalition and the community of groups fighting these projects are getting creative, recognizing that the oil and gas industry does have a friend in the White House,” Lena Moffitt, a Washington-based campaign director at the Sierra Club, said in a phone interview. “We are expanding the tactics that we are using to fight these projects.”
Among the pipelines they aim to target are Keystone; Dominion Resources Inc.’s $5 billion, 564-mile (907-kilometer) Atlantic Coast pipeline that'll carry gas from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina; and Energy Transfer Partners LP's expansion of the Bayou Bridge line that delivers oil to Louisiana.
First they'll go after the projects’ financiers—a strategy that's already proven somewhat successful in the fight against Dakota Access and coal projects. Take Greenpeace, which circulated a petition to lobby banks against funding Keystone on the same day the State Department approved it.
Then, they'll fight the pipes in court. A coalition that includes the Sierra Club has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to block Williams Cos.’s Atlantic Sunrise gas line in Pennsylvania, arguing that federal regulators cut corners in their review.
Williams spokesman Chris Stockton said the action “reeks of desperation,” and would only delay much-needed energy infrastructure. Dominion and Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment.
A coalition led by the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit March 30 in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Mont., challenging the State Department's permit for Keystone. That followed a similar filing March 27 by the Indigenous Environmental Network in the same court.
Targeted Protests
Groups are also orchestrating more targeted protests at agencies at the local, state and federal levels. “Projects used to go unopposed, and now they're facing intense grassroots resistance at every level, and that will only continue to intensify,” Shor said.
Activists have already gone as far as to camp outside the homes of U.S. energy regulators. Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Tony Clark called police last year after protesters rang his doorbell while his family wrapped up dinner. Such personal attacks prompted Pennsylvania utility commissioner Robert Powelson, said to be one of Trump's picks for FERC, to remark during a recent conference, “The jihad has begun.”
While Energy Transfer's Dakota Access line prepares to start service, the pipeline industry is under no illusions about the fights they face. Opposition to gas lines has only grown in recent years, even as greater use of the power-plant fuel has helped curb emissions blamed for global warming, Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said by email.
In responding to activists’ calls to target Keystone, TransCanada spokesman Matthew John said the project has already gone through “the most rigorous environmental review process of any cross border pipeline in history.”
“Pipelines remain the safest, greenest, most reliable and cost efficient way to transport oil over long distances,” he said by email.
Other projects that'll be targeted for organized opposition include Enbridge Inc. oil lines in the Midwest, and EQT Corp.’s $3 billion Mountain Valley gas line that would tap supplies from the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in the eastern U.S., Moffitt said. Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for EQT, said the company has worked closely with residents on pipeline safety. Enbridge declined to comment.
After Dakota Access and Keystone, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes said, “Certainly there's a vacuum that needs to be filled for the protesters that are fighting to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”
—With assistance from Dave Merrill.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108241701&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108241701&jd=108241701
-
Fracking 2.0: Shale Drillers Pioneer New Ways to Profit in Era of Cheap Oil
Mar 30, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Erin Ailworth
Using a proprietary app called iSteer, Brian Tapp, a geologist for EOG Resources Inc., EOG +0.18% dashed off instructions to a drilling rig 100 miles away. This tool is among the reasons the little-known Texas company says it pumps more oil from the continental U.S. than Exxon Mobil Corp.—or any other producer.
A rig worker received Mr. Tapp’s iPhone alert and tweaked the trajectory of a drill bit thousands of feet underground, to land more squarely in a sweet spot of rock filled with West Texas crude.
U.S. shale drillers transformed the energy industry over the past decade with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, in the early days using brute force to unleash a torrent of oil and gas that altered the balance of power among oil-producing nations and triggered a global glut.
Now, with oil currently trading near $50 a barrel, these producers are trying to unleash fracking 2.0, the next step in the technological transformation of the sector that is aimed at extracting oil even faster and less expensively to eke out profits at that level.
The promise of this new phase is potentially as significant as the original revolution. If more producers can follow EOG’s lead and profitably ramp up output from shale drilling even at lower prices, the sector could become a lasting force that challenges OPEC’s ability to control market prices.
For a sector in which the previous era’s success was tied to the rapid expansion of output, the shift toward finding more cost-effective ways to get to that oil and gas is full of challenges. When oil prices dropped, critics wondered if the shale industry—rife with heavily indebted companies that had never turned a profit—would collapse.
EOG, with its longtime focus on low-cost production, is the producer many hope to emulate, thanks to the iSteer app and dozens of other homegrown innovations. Dubbed the “Apple of oil” by one analyst, EOG made its name as a pioneer in horizontal drilling and in finding ways to get oil out of shale—often dense layers of rock that hold oil and gas in tiny pores—a feat many once believed impossible.
Competitors such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. also are finding new ways to profit amid low energy prices. Many are experimenting with longer, supersize wells, and fracking them with millions of pounds of sand. Other producers, however, have said the industry needs oil prices of at least $55 to $60 to truly rebound.
The price of oil plunged about 75% from its peak of more than $100 a barrel in mid-2014, and the natural-gas price sank by half in the same period. More than 420,000 oil and gas jobs world-wide have been lost, according to energy consulting firm Graves & Co., and, since the start of 2015, over 200 U.S. energy companies have filed for bankruptcy, according to law firm Haynes & Boone LLP.
EOG, part of Enron Corp. until 1999, now drills horizontal wells in West Texas more than a mile long in 20 days, down from 38 days in 2014. It has done it in as few as 10½ days. It estimates it can get at least a 30% rate of return on wells at $40 a barrel, and that at $50 it can boost oil production at least 15% a year through 2020.
The company said it produced roughly the same amount of oil last year as it did in 2014 with a budget that was 67% smaller.
The iSteer app and other proprietary programs EOG designed are partly why.
EOG uses iSteer to help navigate through rock thousands of feet underground, landing in identified layers with more precision. A device behind the drill bit underground transmits information—including depth and direction but also readings to identify types of rock and the presence of gas—to a geologist at the office. The numbers are crunched, using EOG’s databases on the location’s rock layers and on previous wells, and course corrections are sent to the driller on the rig.
EOG said adjustments can happen in minutes, instead of a process that in the past took at least 30 minutes. The quick modifications keep the drill in a 10-to-15 foot window, which EOG said improves the output and consistency of a well.
The apps help employees work at the “speed of thought,” said Sandeep Bhakhri, EOG’s chief information officer.
The company now uses 65 apps it designed after realizing it needed tools with capabilities it couldn’t find off the shelf. Along the way, it boosted its staff of data scientists, and over the past three years has hired recent computer-science graduates from the University of Texas at Austin.
The apps help EOG answer a range of questions, such as how much pressure to use to crack a particular geologic stratum, to identifying ideal trajectories for drills, to more mundane queries, such as the fastest route to drive from one drilling site to the next.
“I look at [the apps] first thing in the morning, on the exercise bike or during breakfast—it gives me a head start on the day,” said Ezra Yacob, general manager of EOG’s Midland operations.
Tinkering, core to the company’s culture, was evident on a recent visit to the division office in Midland, a city of about 124,000 at the heart of the oil-rich Permian Basin in West Texas.
There, geologists, engineers and technicians could be found constantly on their computers and iPhones using EOG’s apps. The company says all workers are encouraged to fiddle and find novel solutions to problems.
It’s an outgrowth of the company’s habit of ignoring conventional wisdom as it looks for ways to become a better producer.
In the early 2000s, EOG was determined to show that vast supplies of natural gas could be unlocked by drilling horizontally through shale. It drilled 15 uneconomic wells in the Dallas-Fort Worth-area field known as the Barnett, while its employees experimented to find better techniques, according to former CEO Mark Papa. It succeeded on the 16th.
As the shale boom took off, scores of producers borrowed heavily to lease land for drilling. EOG moved in the opposite direction, keeping debt low and favoring technological innovation and returns over rapid growth.
When Mr. Papa in 2007 realized gas prices were headed for a drop, he said the company started shifting to oil. At the time, few in the industry thought oil could be economically extracted from shale formations.
A bespectacled EOG geologist named Bill Thomas, then the head of the company’s Fort Worth office, was among those who did.
He became CEO in 2013, and now can often be found in his 35th-floor office at EOG’s headquarters in Houston scrutinizing data about well productivity. Instead of a secretary, the assistant outside his office is one of the company’s top geo-technicians, responsible for analyzing information.
The company’s market cap is now $56 billion. Shares closed at $97.17 Thursday, down 18% from their price at oil’s mid-2014 peak, beating the SPDR S&P Oil and Gas Exploration and Production ETF, a common industry benchmark, which dropped 56% in that time.
EOG regularly solves problems in-house. When, in the early days of drilling for crude in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, the company hit logistical problems getting its oil to market, it built a rail terminal and pipeline to help move it from North Dakota to the trading hub near Cushing, Okla.
These days, it designs its own motors to power drill bits, allowing its engineers to constantly incorporate fixes that improve performance. Oil is pumped into olive-green storage tanks made to EOG’s specifications, cutting down costs and the number of tanks it needs in the field.
It often works with smaller services contractors, instead of giants such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co., so it can negotiate costs and find expertise tailored to its needs. The partnerships save it money and give it more control over the logistics and supplies needed for any given project, EOG said.
For example, a larger services company might ask EOG to use a particular sand supplier or employ a standard mix of sand, water and chemicals when fracking a well. With a smaller services company, EOG can potentially use sand from a company-owned mine—it bought one in 2008 when the specialized grains started becoming hard to find—and design fracks to meet specific needs.
Heath Work, an EOG drilling manager in Midland, compared the way the company operates to a championship Nascar driver and crew, who make small adjustments that add up over time. “Jimmie Johnson has won seven times and he does it with the same engine as his competitors; he just figures out how to change tires faster,” Mr. Work said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-2-0-shale-drillers-pioneer-new-ways-to-profit-in-era-of-cheap-oil-1490894501
-
Dow Expects Texas Ethylene Facility to Enter Operations by Mid-Year
Mar 30, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
Construction of Dow Chemical Co.'s world-scale ethylene production facility in Freeport, TX, is complete. The ethylene unit is in commissioning and expected to enter operation by mid-year, the company said.
Dow began construction in 2014. Project completion was reached within one week of the original projection.
"The Freeport ethylene unit is the cornerstone of our $6 billion investment in the U.S. Gulf Coast," said Dow CEO Andrew Liveris. "Our growth investments leverage the advantaged shale gas supply available in the U.S., and represent thousands of new jobs and significant economic value, including exports of approximately 20% of our U.S. production."
The production unit has a nameplate capacity of 1.5 million metric tons and is a "central component" of the company's Gulf Coast investment program, designed to strengthen the competitiveness of its downstream, consumer-led businesses, Dow said. It will feed Dow's derivative investments coming online throughout 2017 and 2018, which include: Enhanced polyethylene for high-performance flexible food packaging and personal hygiene applications; New specialty low-density polyethylene for industrial and supply chain packaging applications; Next Generation "NORDEL" metallocene EPDM (a type of synthetic rubber) for applications in the transportation, infrastructure and consumer durables end-markets; High melt index specialty and conventional polyolefin elastomers for high-performance flexible packaging, transportation and consumer markets; and Bimodal gas phase de-bottleneck to enable more offerings for high-performance pipe and fitting applications, as well as the cap and closure market.
Dow COO Jim Fitterling said the ethylene unit would bolster the company's activities in the packaging, transportation, infrastructure and consumer care markets.
"Not only does this investment leverage Dow's early-mover advantage in shale gas, but it will also fuel the industry's broadest and most differentiated derivatives slate, featuring Dow's proprietary catalyst and process technologies, to meet growing consumer demand throughout the Americas," Fitterling said.
Dow's Freeport site now has more than 4 million metric tons of olefins capacity, said Doug May, president of the hydrocarbons business.
Separately this week France's Total said it is planning a joint venture with Borealis and Nova Chemicals to construct a $1.7 billion ethane steam cracker and a new polyethylene unit on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/109952-dow-expects-texas-ethylene-facility-to-enter-operations-by-mid-year
-
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Risk Management Plan Rule Delayed
Mar 30, 2017 | National Law Review
By Kathy G. Beckett
On Tuesday, March 14, 2017, EPA announced it would be delaying the effective date of the revised Clean Air Act 112(r) rule governing Risk Management Plan implementation and development from March 13, 2017 to June 19, 2017. The rule is of concern to the regulated community, comprised of large industrial sources, because it represents enhanced regulatory obligations with questionable result and justification. A Risk Management Plan Coalition, comprised of the American Chemistry Council, American Forest & Paper Association, America Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Petroleum Institute, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of American, National Association of Manufacturers, and the Utility Air Regulatory Group filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Request for Agency Stay Pending Reconsideration and Judicial Review on February 28, 2017. This Coalition is also considering appellate litigation of the rule.
Specifically the petition notes, “Unfortunately, the Final Rule undermines safety, creates significant security risks, and does not further prevent criminal acts that threaten facilities, such as the sabotage that led to the tragedy in West, Texas.”1 The Petition raises objections to: threat of release of security sensitive information that describes facility vulnerabilities; costly and burdensome obligations relative to “each covered process” to include third party audits, the safer technology alternatives analysis (“STAA”) requirements; and procedural failures by the EPA to adhere to Administrative Procedures Act.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-risk-management-plan-rule-delayed
-
(ACC Mentioned) US House Passes EPA Science Advisory Board Reform
Mar 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The House of Representatives has approved a bill seeking to increase the "fairness and transparency" of the US EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB).
HR 1431 addresses the qualification requirements of members serving on the board. It also introduces provisions to increase public participation in its activities.
Introduced by Science, Space, and Technology Committee Vice Chair Frank Lucas (R–Oklahoma), the bill passed on a 229-193 vote.
Republican backers say it "restores the independence" of the SAB and "promotes fairness, transparency, and public participation to ensure unbiased scientific advice".
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) lauded its passage. It says the measure would:
· make peer reviewers accountable for responding to public comment;
· strengthen conflicts of interest policies;
· ensure a wide range of perspectives of qualified scientific experts in review panels; and
· increase transparency in peer review reports.
But House Democrats objected saying the measure "sets out requirements that will weaken the credibility and effectiveness of the Board's scientific review process and paves the way for industry to have a greater influence over EPA."
And the bill drew harsh criticism from several consumer advocacy groups and healthcare NGOs.
The advocacy arm of NGO Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) says the bill would "permit an infusion of special corporate interest into what should remain an objective scientific review" by allowing individuals with financial conflicts of interest to serve on the panel so long as those conflicts are disclosed,
Simultaneously, it adds, it would make it more difficult for academic experts to serve. "The bill considers an expert's research on a topic covered by the Board to be a conflict of interest, when in fact the academic's expertise would make them more, not less, valuable," the EDF says.
A coalition of healthcare groups – including Healthcare Without Harm, the American Lung Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility – says the measure would make such "unneeded and unproductive changes" as:
· modifying membership requirements to increase the influence of industry representatives on the scientific advisory panels;
· adding a "burdensome and unnecessary" notice and comment step to all SAB actions;
· preventing the SAB from making policy recommendations, "even though EPA administrators have regularly sought their advice in the past";
· blocking scientists who receive EPA grants from serving on the SAB; and
· restricting scientists from speaking on issues that include their own expertise.
Passage of the bill came just a day after the House voted to approve a separate EPA science bill – the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act (HONEST Act). Both measures will now be considered in the Senate.
https://chemicalwatch.com/54829/us-house-passes-epa-science-advisory-board-reform
-
(ACC Mentioned) House Bill on EPA Science Board Heads to the Senate
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A House-passed bill that would change the makeup of a board that offers scientific advice to the EPA may face better odds in the Senate than a previous version last session.
The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017 (H.R. 1431), sponsored by Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), passed on a 229-193 House vote March 30.
It is similar to one passed in the last Congress by a 236-181 margin and would put in place new qualifications for board members—including disqualifying scientists who have EPA grants or contracts as having a conflict of interest.
The measure also would require that “at least ten percent of the membership of the Board are from State, local, or tribal governments.”
Backers says the bill aims to make the board more independent and accessible for public comment. Opponents say it would block scientists with expertise from serving on the board, increase industry's influence and unnecessarily slow the board's activities.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where its predecessor in the last session of Congress—the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 1029)—never received a hearing. A spokesman for the majority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee previously told Bloomberg BNA the committee is committed to the bill's stated goal of ensuring Environmental Protection Agency science is more open and transparent.
The American Chemistry Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation are among the legislation's key supporters. Opponents include the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense Action Fund and American Geophysical Union.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill, which would amend the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978, would cost less than $500,000 annually for additional personnel and administrative expenditures. It would not affect direct spending or budget deficits, the office said in its March 27 cost estimate.
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved the bill March 9 by a 19-14 vote.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108241696&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108241696&jd=108241696
-
(ACC Mentioned) House Approves Bills To Limit Science EPA Uses For Rules, Reform SAB
Mar 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The House has approved in largely party-line votes legislation to fundamentally alter how EPA uses scientific data for rulemakings and other decisions with new requirements that critics say will hinder the agency by barring use of many types of research, and also approved another bill that would overhaul EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB).
The Republican-led H.R. 1430, the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, cleared the House 228-194 March 29 with the support of just three Democrats. The legislation directs the agency to use the “best available science,” in all its actions, but bars the agency from using any studies that cannot be released publicly online “in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results.”
On March 30, the House then approved H.R. 1431, the EPA SAB Reform Act, by 229-193 with support from two Democrats. It would overhaul SAB by requiring a minimum number of members representing state and local agencies, barring members that have EPA grants or from receiving EPA grants for three years after their service on SAB, and allowing for representatives of regulated entities to become members, among other changes.
At press time, neither bill has Senate companion legislation this session. Similar bills advanced through the House last session, but faltered in the Senate upon veto threats from former President Barack Obama. Observers say the Senate has other priorities including the pending nomination of Neil Gorsuch to be a Supreme Court justice, and the Senate's level of interest in the bills is unclear.
A spokesman for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee says “the committee is aware of the House legislation” that cleared this week, adding that EPA's “science should be open and transparent and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will continue to work to achieve these goals.”
Gretchen Goldman, the research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) which opposes both bills, “definitely expects to see Senate versions” of the legislation in the coming weeks or months.
But she pointed to a handful of Republicans who voted against the bills -- seven who voted against H.R. 1430 and five who voted against H.R. 1431 -- as a welcome sign. “That should send a signal to folks in the Senate this is going to be harmful to science,” she said. “We were really surprised to see that many Republicans jump off the bill in the House. That's more than we've seen in the history” of these initiatives.
'Transparent' Science
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging the Senate to take up both bills, while calling for changes to H.R. 1430. The trade association's March 29 statement says that “it is critical that the regulated community and the public have confidence that decisions reached by EPA are grounded in transparent and reproducible science, while ensuring the protection of confidential business information [CBI] and competitive intelligence.”
An ACC spokesman says the trade group is “advocating strongly that any final legislation that eventually passed Congress must include protection for CBI and competitive intelligence. We’d expect that to be addressed in the Senate if legislation advances there.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a March 30 cost estimate for H.R. 1430, estimating that EPA “could spend between a few million dollars per year to more than one hundred million dollars per year over the 2018-2022 period” to meet the bill's requirements.
“That range reflects the uncertainty about the number of studies the EPA would choose to rely on to support covered actions, the extent to which the agency would invest in data infrastructure to make researchers’ data and models available to others, and in the number of covered actions the agency would issue in future years,” CBO says, adding that information from EPA officials leads it to estimate the total cost at $5 million between 2018-2022.
Meanwhile, CBO's March 27 cost estimate for the bill states that it “estimates that implementing the bill would cost less than $500,000 annually for personnel and administrative expenses.”
House science committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who sponsored H.R. 1430, hailed that bill's passage as “one step closer to a more open and honest EPA,” in a March 29 statement.
'Insidious Bills'
But Democrats bemoaned the bill's impact on EPA, arguing that it would bar the agency from using many studies because it cannot release the data underlying studies that include personal medical records, does not have copyright or other permissions to disclose, or that contain CBI.
“The Secret Science bills the Republicans tried to enact over the previous two Congresses were insidious bills designed from the outset to prevent the EPA from using the best available science to meet its obligations under the law,” said House science committee ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) on the floor before the March 29 vote. “Those bills were constructed to hamstring the ability of the EPA to do just about anything to protect public health.”
Science committee Democrats pointed to numerous letters opposing the bill from groups such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society, the Association of American Universities, Environmental Defense Action Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and UCS.
In a joint March 28 letter, AAAS and other scientific societies and academic groups raised concerns that scientific terms in the bill could be misinterpreted, and that some studies cannot be reproduced because of their size or because they are based on one-time events.
Further, the authors argue and that EPA may not have the authority to release some information that is uses in its decision-making process.
“H.R. 1430 would give the EPA administrator sole authority to disclose private information gathered in research studies, which might include confidential health and proprietary business information, to anyone who signs a confidentiality agreement with the EPA, the letter said. “It is unclear whether the EPA has this authority, and very clear this would deter individuals and businesses from participating in studies used by the EPA.”
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative -- a coalition of academics and non-governmental organizations which has been archiving government scientific information they consider at risk of removal from federal websites by the Trump administration -- also criticized the legislation. The Initiative argues that many of EPA's health protective standards would not exist without studies that EPA could not use if H.R. 1430 were to take effect.
In a March 27 letter to representatives, the group pointed to examples such as EPA's lead-based paint standard and its drinking water standards for radioactive elements. It said both standards rely on epidemiological studies that could not be replicated: Children who are now adults, and survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-approves-bills-limit-science-epa-uses-rules-reform-sab
-
Paris Decision Coming by May — Spicer
Mar 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Trump administration plans to finalize its stance on the Paris climate deal by May, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said today.
"We are currently reviewing issues related to the agreement and expect to have a decision by the time of the G-7 summit, late May-ish if not sooner," Spicer told reporters today, referring to the Group of Seven, a summit of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States slated for May 26 and 27 in Italy.
The White House still hasn't determined how to handle the international climate agreement, which wasn't addressed in the executive order on energy that Trump signed earlier this week.
Spicer told reporters yesterday that U.S. participation in the deal was still under discussion within the administration.
The decision not to address the Paris Agreement in the executive order irked some conservatives, who want Trump to act quickly to withdraw from the deal (Greenwire, March 28).
Trump pledged to withdraw from the agreement while on the campaign trail but later said he would keep an open mind, and he's facing pressure from some inside and outside his administration to stay in the accord (Climatewire, March 30).
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/03/30/stories/1060052370
-
Trump Critics on Climate Policy Hope Executives Can Sway Him
Mar 31, 2017 | New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Diane Cardwell
Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, says climate change is real, a position at odds with the Trump administration.
As a member of a White House manufacturing advisory council, he also has President Trump’s ear. And environmentalists are counting on Mr. Immelt, and other executives close to the president, to use that access to argue for policies to combat global warming when the White House is rolling them back.
The companies’ business objectives and credibility are also at stake. Elon Musk of Tesla, another member of Mr. Trump’s council, is building an energy business intended to avoid the need for fossil fuels in favor of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles. Doug McMillon of Walmart, the retail giant, has committed his company to a sharp reduction in the planet-warming gases it emits, as has Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, the food and beverage company.
BlackRock, the world’s largest publicly traded money manager — whose chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, sits on Mr. Trump’s council — has pledged to press companies to address the effects of climate change on their businesses. And Intel, Johnson & Johnson and Campbell Soup were among hundreds of businesses that urged the United States after Mr. Trump’s election to stick with last year’s Paris climate agreement and its commitment to reduce carbon emissions.
“Mr. Trump says the business perspective is especially important, so hearing the business voice is critical,” said Kevin Moss, of the World Resources Institute, an environmental research group in Washington.
“The companies are demonstrating that it’s in their business interest to take action on climate,” he said. “The more they’re willing to say that and take action, the stronger the message comes across.”
Those hopes have become increasingly urgent as Mr. Trump — against the warnings of scientists, environmentalists and even the government’s own research — has moved to nullify the Obama administration’s efforts on climate change.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency to start withdrawing and rewriting Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have closed hundreds of coal-fired power plants.
In a joint statement after the order, a group of technology companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, urged Mr. Trump to stay the course.
“Strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change,” they said.
That action also spurred Mr. Immelt to write a blog post to G.E.’s 300,000 employees in which he criticized the rollback.
“We believe climate change is real and the science is well accepted,” said the post, first reported by Politico. “This is just the beginning of what will be a long process” of a repeal, he said, but “no matter how it unfolds, it doesn’t change what G.E. believes.”
Jennifer Friedman, a General Electric spokeswoman, declined to say whether Mr. Immelt intended to relay his thoughts to Mr. Trump personally. Many other companies also declined to commit their executives to intervening with the president on climate-related policies.
But Ms. Friedman emphasized that Mr. Immelt was outspoken, and she cited G.E.’s focus on clean energy, including Current, a subsidiary that focuses on products and services in energy efficiency, renewable generation and energy storage to large customers.
“He’s pretty out there and clear,” she said. “That’s his position in every conversation he has.”
A PepsiCo spokesman, Jay Cooney, said the company believes that “combating climate change is critical to the future of our company, customers, consumers and our world.” Kevin Gardner of Walmart, said its environmental commitments were “embedded in our business.”
Thomas Hushen, spokesman for Campbell Soup, said the company supported “continued U.S. participation in the Paris agreement and the continuation of low-carbon policies and investment in a low-carbon economy.” Campbell’s chief executive, Denise Morrison, participates in Mr. Trump’s advisory council because “we believe it is important to have a voice on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees.” Mr. Hushen said.
Corporations, especially those with strong consumer brands, have been increasingly responsive to customer and shareholder concerns about climate change. And the global nature of their businesses means many of their customers are in countries where there is a greater acceptance of the science behind climate change, and the need to tackle it.
Walmart, Intel, General Motors and Lockheed Martin — all of which have senior executives on Mr. Trump’s business councils — have signed on to the principles of the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance, a coalition of nonprofit groups working to make corporate purchases of renewable energy easier. Last year, General Motors said it would generate or procure 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050.
Dell, another company with the president’s ear, says it expects to reduce the energy intensity of its products by 80 percent by 2020.
“In many cases, I think businesses disagree with the administration,” said Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, a nonprofit group that uses shareholder resolutions to advocate for greater corporate environmental and social responsibility.
“People still care about climate change,” she said. “The administration may not, but they do have consumers and employees and reputations to uphold.”
Some corporations’ positions on climate change are not as clear-cut as they may seem. Intel joined in a plea for the United States to honor its Paris commitments but was also among companies that submitted comments critical of the carbon pollution regulations in the Clean Power Plan.
Environmentalists also worry about the influence of companies that have opposed climate regulations. General Motors and Ford, for example, successfully advocated a review of stringent federal regulations on vehicle pollution.
And at least six companies with seats on Mr. Trump’s advisory boards — JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Boeing, IBM, Dow Chemical and Lockheed Martin — also participate in the Business Roundtable, which in mid-February gave Mr. Trump a wish list of 16 rules it wanted killed, including the Clean Power Plan. (Walmart declined to address the discrepancy between that group’s demands and its climate commitments, and Intel did not respond to requests for comment.)
Then there is the former ExxonMobil chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, now secretary of state. Mr. Tillerson has publicly disparaged the Clean Power Plan, calling it “an unfortunate example of E.P.A. exceeding its authority” in a 2015 speech. But Exxon has also urged the Trump administration not to retreat from the Paris agreement and has supported a tax on carbon emissions.
Businesses are pushing for policies to fight climate change “because of a well-balanced economic judgment of whether or not they should,” said Hervé Touati, a managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental research group.
He added that sentiment among corporate executives had, after the 2009 global climate conference in Copenhagen, shifted away from the belief that fighting climate change would be too expensive.
“In Paris, there was a very significant number of business leaders that had changed their minds and considered that it was going to hurt the economy if we don’t do something,” he said.
Clifford Krauss contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/business/energy-environment/trump-business-climate-policy.html?_r=0
-
Apple, Wal-Mart Stick With Climate Pledges Despite Trump's Pivot
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
Many of America's biggest corporations including Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are sticking by their pledges to fight climate change even as President Donald Trump guts his predecessor's environmental policies.
Companies say their pledges, coordinated by the Obama administration, reflect their push to cut energy costs, head off activist pressure and address a risk to their bottom line in the decades to come.
“This work is embedded in our business,” Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner said by email. It's “good for the business, our shareholders and customers; if ultimately we are able to positively impact the environment in the process, that's a win too.”
Wal-Mart was one of 81 companies that promised to reduce emissions in the run up to the 2015 Paris global climate negotiations. The company upped its targets last November, saying it would get half its power from renewable sources by 2025.
Trump signed an order March 28 that tells the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider former President Barack Obama's climate rules, and rescinds a series of orders Obama issued to embed consideration of climate change in government actions from where to lease buildings to whether to allow oil pipelines to be built.
‘Move Ahead’
“Most big companies in the U.S. recognize that climate change is real,” Geoffrey M. Heal, a professor at Columbia Business School, said in a telephone interview. “They need to move ahead on the climate change front no matter what Trump's government does.”
Business's biggest lobbying force supports Trump on this issue. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce welcomed Trump's order calling that shift “vital to stimulating economic growth.” The group argues that Obama's regulations held back economic growth, preventing business owners from constructing needed pipelines, roads and other infrastructure. It also warned that the climate push would lead to a jump in energy prices.
But many of the group's members and other corporate titans supported Obama's Clean Power Plan, or have set their own goals. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest beer-maker, also announced March 28 that it would get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Nearly 90 companies have made similar pledges, according to the Sierra Club.
One of them is Mars Inc., the maker of M&M's. The company committed to eliminating its emissions entirely by 2040. Andy Pharoah, vice president of corporate affairs, said that Mars would keep that commitment, and it's “disappointed the administration has decided to roll back climate regulations.”
‘American competitiveness’
Technology companies including Apple, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. also expressed their support for Obama's policies.
“We believe that strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change while also supporting American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth,” the companies said in a joint statement after Trump's order was signed.
Other companies, while stopping short of criticizing the Trump administration, said they would keep pursuing lower emissions in their own operations. Procter & Gamble, Nestle Inc., Ikea, Levi Strauss & Co. and Best Buy Co., which all signed the 2015 pledge organized by the Obama administration, said they still intended to honor their commitments.
“We will continue to integrate sustainability into our business practices, operations, innovation, brand building and culture,” Damon Jones, a spokesman for Procter & Gamble said.
Energy Companies
Many energy businesses welcomed Trump's rollback. The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents oil and natural gas producers, joined the Chamber of Commerce in praising his move. So did the National Federation of Independent Business, which challenged the Clean Power Plan in court.
“People are going to freeze in the dark because of the destruction of the reliable electric power grid under Obama and the Democrats,” Robert Murray, the president and CEO of coal-mining company Murray Energy Corp. said in an interview. “Mr. Trump is doing the right things.”
Some environmental groups cautioned that action from the private sector, wasn't enough to make up for the pullback in federal policy.
“Policy is going to be required to get us where we need to be,” said Karen Palmer, research director at Resources for the Future.
—With assistance from Ari Natter, Matthew Boyle, Christopher Martin, Lauren Coleman-Lochner, Craig Giammona, Lindsey Rupp, Molly Smith and Eric Roston.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108241689&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108241689&jd=108241689
-
Trump Nixed Social Cost of Carbon, But Courts May Play a Role
Mar 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
President Donald Trump has told federal agencies to ignore an Obama-era metric intended to measure the economic impacts of climate change. The move could land the agencies—eventually—in court.
Trump's executive order instead directs agencies to rely on guidance issued in 2003 during President George W. Bush's administration to assess the “social cost of carbon” in its regulations. Academics say the 2003 document doesn't contradict the Obama-era approach, even as the order highlighted certain considerations environmentalists have said could be used to inappropriately lower the number.
However, the move does leaves individual agencies on the hook to come up with their own estimates. And if those estimates aren't of high enough quality, the administration's actions could be legally overturned, attorneys said.
“This is not a smart move from the ability of the administration to carry out their program,” Richard Revesz, director of New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, told Bloomberg BNA.
The social cost of carbon measures the impact a federal action will have on carbon emissions and projects those impacts into the future.
The metric has become an industry target because of how the estimate has been used to justify stringent regulations. Some industry representatives have said the number is inappropriately calculated or shouldn't be used at all, but courts have said these emissions must be assessed and that the Obama-era approach is reasonable.
The executive order that said the Obama-era approach to the social cost of carbon would no longer reflect federal policy also pulled back other climate policies from the last administration. The actions have been expected for months, as Trump railed against the policies on the campaign trail.
Obama Group Used Three Models
The social cost of carbon under the Obama administration represents long-term damages expected from a ton of carbon emissions in a given year. Carbon emissions are known to accelerate global warming, which leads to damages such as sea-level rise and increased and more severe wildfires.
The interagency working group that developed it under the Obama administration used three established social cost of carbon models and then averaged them. A ton of carbon emissions at a 3 percent average discount rate is worth $36 in 2015, $42 in 2020 and so on, they found.
However, the March 28 executive order said the Obama-era approach will no longer represent government policy. The working group—the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases—will also be disbanded. The administration urges compliance with a 2003 Office of Management and Budget guidance document—the Circular A-4.
“Effective immediately, when monetizing the value of changes in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from regulations, including with respect to the consideration of domestic versus international impacts and the consideration of appropriate discount rates, agencies shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that any such estimates are consistent with the guidance contained in OMB Circular A-4 of September 17, 2003,” the order states.
The OMB document was “the longstanding practice of the federal government, prior to ... the previous administration putting out its own estimates,” a senior Trump administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity about Trump's executive order said.
The apparent upshot of the order is that individual agencies can and, according to the order, will continue to assess the value of carbon dioxide emission reductions or increases stemming from federal action. While the executive order discarded the Obama-era method, nothing in the Circular A-4 overtly conflicts with the now-sidelined approach, economists said.
“An agency could legitimately follow the executive order and come up with the same number,” Billy Pizer, a Duke University economics professor, told Bloomberg BNA. “It may be hard to imagine in this political environment … but it certainly would be inconsistent with the executive order.”
Room for Legitimate Debate
Pizer told Bloomberg BNA that two factors highlighted in the order—discount rates and global or U.S. impacts—could be debated by reasonable people and, if changed, could lead to a significantly lower number than the Obama-era approach. Pizer said he supports the path the Obama-era group took.
One issue highlighted by the Trump administration is whether to consider the domestic or global impacts of greenhouse gas emissions affected by federal decisions.
Global impacts were considered under the interagency working group, partly in light of the impact that U.S. action can have on other countries to take their own mitigation actions that would circuitously benefit U.S. citizens, Pizer said. However, one could reasonably argue that U.S. regulatory policy is intended to protect U.S. citizens from harm, and therefore only direct domestic impacts should be considered, he said.
The other is the question of what discount rate to use: How much we should pay now for impacts of increased or reduced greenhouse gas emissions up to hundreds of years down the road? There are similarly reasonable arguments regarding why it is appropriate to use lower discount rate, Pizer said.
For example, the lower discount rate is considered the appropriate way to assess impacts for cost-benefit analyses, Pizer said. However, other parts of the cost-benefit analysis outside the social cost of carbon may not be executed in line with that theoretically appropriate approach and so there is an argument to calculate the social cost of carbon the same way as the rest of the cost-benefit approach, he said.
Where Debate Ends
Some have advocated for flipping the social cost of carbon's estimate more aggressively.
Nick Loris, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, said if this value has to be estimated, for example, the appropriate approach to quantifying the impact of reducing carbon emissions is to look at “the abated temperature increase,” rather than the broader climate impacts.
But many economists, including Pizer, stood by the Obama-era approach as the one that would yield the most realistic estimate of the impacts.
Michael Hanemann, director of Arizona State University's Center for Environmental Economics and Sustainability Policy, told Bloomberg BNA that—barring steps that would actually make the estimate higher—taking a broadly different approach to that of the working group would have the same value as “looking at chicken entrails.”
The Trump administration will have some legal restraints guiding what it can and can't do, legal scholars told Bloomberg BNA.
Rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2007 over fuel efficiency standards, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2016 over certain energy efficiency standards, say agencies have to consider the social cost of carbon and that the method the Obama administration developed to do so is reasonable, respectively, several academics and environmentalists said.
Dan Farber, Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed to a 2015 opinion written by now-deceased Justice Antonin Scalia in a case over the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury emissions limits for power plants. That opinion further bolsters the argument that agencies must take a holistic look at costs and benefits of its actions, he said.
However, not everyone agreed these rulings are bulletproof or affect federal actions equally.
Will Yeatman, a fellow at the free market-oriented Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA he believed these rulings could be overturned and said the Ninth Circuit decision applies specifically to analyses done under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Confidence on All Sides
Observers from all sides said the use of social cost of carbon and the numbers used by agencies could easily end up being vetted by the courts. Even if the administration includes a social cost of carbon estimate in its regulations, some may lack the resources to do a thorough analysis.
David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate and Clean Air Program, expressed confidence that, were the social cost of carbon to be inappropriately lowered, “they're going to find their rules are legally defective just the same way the Bush administration's was in the last decade.” Yeatman was equally confident the Trump administration could defeat those kinds of legal challenges by citing relevant academic literature, and could overturn the earlier Ninth Circuit ruling.
“The whole essence of the social cost of carbon is based on assumptions,” Yeatman said. “It wouldn't shock me if they re-did the social cost of carbon and it came out near zero.”
Others were skeptical the Trump administration would actually have each individual agency take a hard look at the social cost of carbon to assess it in rulemakings.
Noah Kaufman, a climate economist for the World Resources Institute's U.S. Climate Initiative, told Bloomberg BNA, “I worry more that this is just the first step toward directing agencies not to address the social cost of carbon at all.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108241723&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108241723&jd=108241723
-
Colleagues Eye 'Republican Rebels' with Skepticism
Mar 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Progressive Democrats in the House aren't counting on climate-savvy Republicans to lend muscle to the heavy lift of fighting global warming in the era of President Trump.
Observers see the push for tax reform and the White House's $1 trillion infrastructure package as potentially opening a window for votes to occur on carbon pricing — an option some on the environmental right support — or clean energy subsidies. The upcoming appropriations fight is also likely to magnify the administration's antagonism toward climate action.
Look no further than California's delegation for evidence that congressional climate hawks on the left — while widely supportive of the fledgling GOP movement — remain skeptical.
"Not under Donald Trump, but I do think it will happen under the next president," said Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat who represents a coastal stretch of Los Angeles County.
Lieu sought federal investigations during the Obama administration of Exxon Mobil Corp. for its past climate risk disclosures. Last year he hosted a Capitol Hill screening of "Merchants of Doubt," a 2014 documentary that examines public relations strategies charged with casting doubt about the science of man-made climate change (E&E Daily, July 11, 2016).
Lieu told E&E News he thinks a revenue-neutral carbon fee is the "most realistic path forward" for tackling climate at the federal level in the next few years, given the ideological opposition of conservatives to any approach that would expand the size of the government.
But it's not happening in the near term, he speculated.
The Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group looking at economically viable adaptation and mitigation solutions, announced yesterday its ranks have grown to include 34 members, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Reps. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) are the latest additions.
The "Noah's Ark" group, co-chaired by South Florida Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R) and Ted Deutch (D), now includes six members of California's 53-person delegation.
Rep. Darrell Issa is the caucus's lone Golden State Republican. After narrowly winning re-election, he joined the caucus in March — a move that turned heads after his strident criticism of U.S. EPA during the Obama administration (Greenwire, March 2).
"Well he's had a 'road to Damascus' experience apparently," joked Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents a coastal district between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oregon border. "Maybe it happened in November — an epiphany.
"'Greenwashing'
The difficulty for climate-friendly lawmakers, according to Huffman, is that Republicans are trying to organize "in a way that is very incremental, some might even say tentative, and we need at some point to see if it's going to translate to any actual results and actions."
Earlier this month, 17 Republicans reintroduced a measure, H. Res. 195, that calls for Congress to recognize the threat climate change poses and commit to acting on it.
Huffman said he's hopeful that maybe this year those Republicans on the climate resolution "can reach out to the huge number of Democrats that would love to work with them."
A few weeks after then-Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) introduced the original GOP climate resolution in the 114th Congress, Curbelo told E&E News that the group would turn its attention to legislation — first adaptation, then the "more controversial part" of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (E&E News PM, Oct. 7, 2015).
Almost a year later, when the House was on the verge of its pre-election adjournment, Curbelo, Gibson and then-Rep. Bob Dold (R-Ill.) joined Deutch and three other Democrats in the climate caucus to introduce H.R. 6240, dubbed the "Climate Solutions Commission Act."
The bill would have established a 10-person commission to undertake a comprehensive review of "economically viable" government and private-sector actions that could reduce emissions (E&E News PM, Sept. 30, 2016). It suggested that goals for cutting greenhouse gas should "reflect the latest scientific findings of what is needed to avoid serious human health and environmental consequences of a changing climate."
Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), the leading sponsor of the bill, plans to reintroduce it within a couple of months. A spokesman told E&E News yesterday that it would again have bipartisan support.
Those closest to the caucus push back on the idea that vulnerable Republicans are signing up as a way of "greenwashing" their image among moderate constituents.
In the 114th Congress they met with energy companies, businesses and nongovernmental organizations that are working on policies and technology to prepare for and address climate change. They intend to follow the same pattern this Congress, according to a source who was present for the caucus's initial organizing meeting last week.
"Everyone walked away very excited," said the source, who asked to speak on background about the session.
Carbon tax
Those lobbying to reshape the Republican Party's policies on climate change initially predicted Trump's pledges to unravel key pieces of President Obama's climate legacy would energize members of Congress to look at long-term legislative approaches.
Pricing carbon could be one of the easiest ways to address climate. It could also pay for the tax code overhaul and $1 trillion infrastructure push Trump has advocated, experts said this week during a forum at the conservative Hoover Institution (Climatewire, March 30).
"No carbon tax is going to come into place over the next three or four years because we want to take action on climate. We've got a vehicle on tax reform that, whether it makes it or not we don't know, but we have incredibly broad-based agreement that somebody ought to do something," said Phil Sharp, a former Indiana congressman who retired last year after 11 years at the helm of energy and environment think tank Resources for the Future.
The Niskanen Center's Jerry Taylor acknowledged there are probably 40 Republicans in the House and at least 10 in the Senate who are deeply uncomfortable with climate skepticism but disagreed that any action is imminent.
"There is no unity among Republican rebels about what a Republican-branded climate response might look like," Taylor said, pointing to the spectacular collapse of health care legislation in the House. "If the policy stream is not genuinely united in the party over what reform ought to look like, when they have an opportunity to strike they are going to screw it up."
A White House official said last week that the Trump administration is not considering a carbon tax, in response to queries about the ongoing push for a carbon fee and dividend by a group of senior GOP statesmen, including former secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz (Greenwire, March 22). But optimists note that White House spokesman Sean Spicer has declined to explicitly rule it out on multiple occasions.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Myron Ebell told E&E News there is "zero chance" of a carbon tax.
Ebell, former head of Trump's EPA transition team, has warned a carbon tax could become part of a "backroom deal" on any sweeping tax reform package to see whether lawmakers could win approval for the plan as part of a larger tax deal. But Ebell said Trump is solidly against such a proposal.
"It's an attempt to find Republican standard-bearers to give cover in the House to Democrats for something they know is an election loser," he said of the growing bloc of GOP members who support climate action.
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), another recent addition to the Climate Solutions Caucus, is working on carbon fee and dividend legislation that he hopes to introduce with bipartisan support. In the Senate, Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is doing the same.
'Ready to not be cynical'
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a supporter of climate action who has not aligned himself with the Climate Solutions Caucus, said he is optimistic those Republicans who have joined the movement might start to show increased concern for the environment in their voting record.
"As representatives, even those who were opposed to having the discussion on climate change are hearing from their constituents that this is a problem. This is good," Garamendi said.
Asked if he was among the dozen or so Democrats in line waiting for a Republican partner to join the caucus, Garamendi said he was not. "I'm my own caucus of one."
Huffman said he does want to add the caucus to his growing climate portfolio.
Last Congress, Huffman pressed the Obama administration to permanently bar fossil fuel leases on all federal public lands and in federal waters. In response to Trump's executive order designed to expand coal, oil and gas exploration, Huffman this week reintroduced the "Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act."
"There are so many things looking us right in the eye right now that could get 218 votes and pass if you wanted to start operationalizing this goodwill into action," Huffman observed, citing Clean Air Act waivers for fuel economy standards that appear to be in jeopardy under Trump and funding for climate research.
"I'm ready to not be cynical and actually be collaborative and supportive and actually say great things about this group and their intentions — but it has to be paired with action," Huffman said.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/03/31/stories/1060052390
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested