Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 4/6/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Sen. Vitter Signs First Clients
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) has signed up his first K Street clients. -
(ACC Mentioned) Former Sen. David Vitter Lobbying for American Chemistry Council
Apr 6, 2017 | Washington Examiner
By Daniel Chaitin
Former Sen. David Vitter, R-La., is now lobbying for a trade association for chemical companies. -
(ACC Mentioned) Stakeholders Clash Over Defining Risk Reviews in TSCA Implementing Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry groups are pressing EPA to provide more specificity in its risk evaluation process and the science underlying it for "existing" chemicals when the agency finalizes a rule implementing an overhaul to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), while environmentalists counter that doing so would be bad policy. -
Biotechnology Industry Seeks Nomenclature Change in EPA's TSCA 'Reset'
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bio-based chemical producers and users group is urging EPA to adopt changes to chemical nomenclature as part of its ongoing effort to update the inventory of existing chemicals recognized by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that would lower barriers to sale and use of bio-based chemicals. -
Democrats Call for Agency Documents Tied to EPA Science Bill
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By David Stegon
Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has called on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to provide all documents related to the agency’s analysis of the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act (HONEST Act). -
Market ‘Slow to Take Up Safer Alternatives’
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The market is slow to take up safer chemical alternatives, according to speakers at the recent Chemical Watch Safer Chemicals in Products conference in San Francisco. -
Investigator Backs Whistleblower on Faulty Lead Inspections
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
It is likely that a U.S. EPA whistleblower is correct about the agency failing to uphold its lead-safe home repair rules, and that possibly caused a "substantial" danger to public health, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel decided yesterday. -
House Bill Would Force EPA to Stiffen Lead Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) introduced legislation today to require U.S. EPA to revamp the Lead and Copper Rule for public drinking water, which has not seen an update in more than 25 years. -
Chemicals Management Added to Dow Jones Sustainability Indices
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) now ask companies for more data on the chemicals used in their products. -
Final Judgement Entered in US Conflict Minerals Litigation
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A district court judge in Washington, DC has entered a final judgement in National Association of Manufacturers v SEC, bringing to a close the long-fought conflict minerals litigation. -
Echa’s Manual Checks Catching 20% of Dossiers Viewed
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
Echa analysis shows that 20% of REACH registration dossiers that are manually checked, under the agency's new 'enhanced' completeness check, fail at this point. But, of these, 95% go on to successfully pass following amendment. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Cites Harsh Penalties as Basis for Generator Rule Challenge
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
A host of industry groups say their suit challenging EPA's hazardous waste generator rule will focus on the harsh repercussions that would befall a generator if it fails to meet various “conditions for exemption” from storage facility permitting requirements. -
Enviros Push to Keep Climate Rule in Court
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmentalists are urging a federal court to keep alive litigation over the Obama administration's landmark climate regulation, even as U.S. EPA reconsiders the rule. -
Greens, Dem States Want Court to Decide on Obama Climate Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Environmentalists and Democratic states are fighting the Trump administration’s request that a federal appeals court put on hold its case regarding former President Barack Obama’s main climate change rule. -
Voters Support Efforts to Maintain and Improve Current Federal Methane Emission Regulations
Apr 6, 2017 | Real Clear Energy
By Ashlee Stephenson
We are currently at the outset of bold policy change in Washington, D.C. With Republicans in control of the White House and both legislative bodies, it’s incumbent upon our leaders to maintain promises to voters intended to streamline government, cut burdensome regulations, and enact policy that will spur the creation of good paying jobs and bolster free-market competition. -
Reactor Offers Solution to Plastic Pollution
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
A retired research chemist has developed a small, portable reactor that uses a catalysed pyrolysis reaction to take discarded plastic and produce gasoline and diesel fuel directly. -
Sustaining CSB Funding is Key to Our Nation's Safety
Apr 6, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Sam Mannan
For the well-being and safety of all Americans, we should pause and rethink the potential defunding and elimination of a small federal agency known as the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the CSB. -
Trump has Attacked Climate Policy. Is Science Next?
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Will President Trump pivot from attacking climate policies to the science itself? Some legal experts are concerned that the skeptical president could attempt to undermine researchers' credibility. -
Update to Agency Website Scrubs Climate-Related Portions
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Hannah Northey
The Obama administration's fingerprints began disappearing from the Department of Energy's website last night as officials took down a video touting the Paris climate agreement. -
Humanity Must Take Action Now to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - Opinions
By Michael Pravica
As a physicist, I was very disappointed with President Trump’s decision to stick with his party’s line that denies the reality that our Earth is warming due to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. -
Pending EPA Rules, Suits Could Help Revive Fight on 'Background' Ozone
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Pending EPA rules and lawsuits could help some states and industry groups revive their fight for the agency to account for the difficulty of complying with agency air rules due to naturally occurring "background" ozone levels, with the Trump EPA likely more receptive to the call than the Obama EPA's downplaying of such concerns.
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
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Sen. Vitter Signs First Clients
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) has signed up his first K Street clients.
Vitter has registered to lobby for a bevy of interests at his firm Mercury, according to disclosure records released by the Senate yesterday.
After a failed bid to be Louisiana governor in 2015, Vitter decided not to run for re-election to the Senate last year and joined the influence industry in February (Greenwire, Feb. 3).
The ex-senator is working on behalf of the American Chemistry Council, the real estate firm Atlantic Development Group, chemical-maker Cabot Corp. and Louisiana pharmaceutical wholesaler Morris and Dickson Co. LLC. Records show that Vitter began lobbying for his first batch of clients either in mid-March or early April.
One of Vitter's clients, the American Chemistry Council, was an important player in the push for the ex-senator's landmark chemical safety reform legislation.
Signed into law in June 2016, the act changed the Toxic Substances Control Act, giving U.S. EPA new authority to review and regulate chemicals.
A draft of the legislation was found to have been prepared on an American Chemistry Council computer, which sparked criticism of the bill from some Democrats and environmental groups (E&E News Daily, March 18, 2015).
Vitter, a former Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member, was one of the most prominent critics of EPA during the Obama administration.
In an interview with E&E News in December, he said that he was "very hopeful" for President Trump's plans on energy and infrastructure issues, noting that, "All of our priorities with regard to EPA are going to be there" (E&E Daily, Dec. 6, 2016).
Under ethics law, Vitter cannot lobby either house of Congress during his two-year cooling-off period, which ends on Jan. 2, 2019, according to Senate records. Nevertheless, he can lobby the administration during that time.
Wind adds to influence team
Separately, wind energy has boosted its K Street roster.
The American Wind Energy Association has hired Bracewell LLP to lobby on tax and energy policies, according to records.
The documents show that well-known energy lobbyist Scott Segal and Curtis Beaulieu, formerly tax counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, have been lobbying for AWEA since March 1.
Along with Bracewell, the renewable energy trade group also has several firms lobbying on its behalf, including Capitol Tax Partners LLP, Fierce Government Relations and Subject Matter.
AWEA spent $700,000 on lobbying last year, according to records.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060052742/search?keyword=%22American+Chemistry+Council%22
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Sen. David Vitter Lobbying for American Chemistry Council
Apr 6, 2017 | Washington Examiner
By Daniel Chaitin
Former Sen. David Vitter, R-La., is now lobbying for a trade association for chemical companies.
According to a lobbying registration form, Vitter registered to lobby for the American Chemistry Council on March 15. His employer is Mercury, a lobbying and public relations firm he joined in February.
ACC was a major donor supporting Vitter. The group gave more than $100,000 to a super PAC backing his failed gubernatorial run in 2014. Vitter retired from Congress when his Senate term was up in January.
Vitter currently cannot lobby his former congressional colleagues, as he is subject to a two-year "cooling-off period," but he can lobby the Trump administration.
As senator, Vitter was leading figure in getting bipartisan legislation on chemical regulation reform passed — an effort supported by ACC. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act updated the Toxic Substances Control Act which was passed in 1976. Former President Barack Obama signed the bill last year.
ACC did not immediately return a request for comment.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/former-sen.-david-vitter-lobbying-for-american-chemistry-council/article/2619550
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(ACC Mentioned) Stakeholders Clash Over Defining Risk Reviews in TSCA Implementing Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry groups are pressing EPA to provide more specificity in its risk evaluation process and the science underlying it for "existing" chemicals when the agency finalizes a rule implementing an overhaul to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), while environmentalists counter that doing so would be bad policy.
"The agency must provide more clarity to the process that will be used to do risk evaluations of existing substances. This includes defining key terms and concepts applied during the risk evaluation process, updating out-of-date agency guidance, and ensuring intra-agency collaboration results in the use of data to which the same rigorous standards have been applied as expected by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA)," writes Ed Thomas, director of regulatory affairs at The Fertilizer Institute in recent comments.
The LCSA, signed into law last June, overhauls the original TSCA, through which EPA has authority to regulate industrial chemicals. The original law long faced criticism for its limited approach to "existing chemicals," those that were in commerce when TSCA took effect in 1976, because it generally grandfathered them. Criticism over this and other aspects of the statute led to bipartisan passage of the LCSA last summer.
Among LCSA's changes to TSCA are requirements that EPA prioritize and assess the risks of high priority existing chemicals, conducting a minimum number of risk evaluations each year. The law also directs EPA to craft rules outlining how it will prioritize and evaluate these existing chemicals within one year of the LCSA's June 2016 enactment. EPA proposed both rules last December, and accepted comment on them through March 20.
The Fertilizer Institute's concerns are echoed by other trade groups, such as the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association and the Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group (BRAG).
Risk Evaluation
BRAG's Executive Director Kathleen Roberts writes in March 20 comments that the group is "disappointed with the lack of specificity in the proposed risk evaluation process. . . . The legislative language explicitly mandates that EPA "establish, by rule, a process to conduct risk evaluations" within one year of implementation, which indicates that Congress felt the past approaches and polices were not adequate."
BRAG urges EPA to "outline a well-defined process for when and how default assumptions and uncertainty factors will be applied, and the criteria that will be used to assess data strengths and limitations. Additionally, EPA should provide greater specificity regarding the use of systematic review approaches."
The group adds that it does not support EPA's position that is "unnecessary and problematic" to define certain scientific terms that Congress directs EPA to use in its TSCA risk evaluations, such as best available science and weight of evidence.
Interestingly, while other trade groups have urged EPA to limit the scope of its risk evaluations to make them more focused on high priority risks and to ensure that the agency can meet its statutory deadlines, BRAG encourages EPA to "expand the risk evaluation process beyond hazard and exposure considerations, to include pollution prevention and sustainability characterizations of the chemical substance of interest."
The concerns about the transparency of EPA's risk evaluation process outlined in the written comments echo those raised by ACC representatives in recent hearings before the House science committee and a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee -- that EPA should develop and describe in detail a process tailored for the TSCA risk evaluations of existing chemicals, rather than relying on existing risk analysis guidance. ACC's Nancy Beck, also argued during the Senate hearing that EPA should define the scientific terms included in new TSCA Section 26.
'Science Policy'
But the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) argues in its March 20 comments that EPA is correct not to define these terms or to describe too strictly the risk analysis process, arguing that the agency must be able to assess the risks of many different types of chemicals used in many different ways and environmental media, with scientific approaches that may change over time as technology and understanding advances.
"Rulemakings, which are developed through time- and resource-intensive processes, are not appropriate vehicles for tackling significant science policy issues. EDF believes that the details of the science policy issues related to risk evaluation, including those raised in sections 6(b)(4)(F), 26(h), and 26(i), are better addressed in guidance documents and policy statements that are more nimble and, therefore, can adapt to reflect the most current scientific understandings," the environmental group writes.
The group adds that EPA should not define the scientific terms in the rule because doing so would "overly prescribe these science policy issues that are far broader in applicability than just TSCA, are under active debate, and evolve over time as the underlying science changes in a manner could require frequent updating of the rule to keep pace with the science."
EDF further argues that LCSA directs EPA "to use its rule to establish a process for risk evaluation, not a prescriptive manual for conducting one," adding that the law also directs EPA to develop guidance and policy to support its efforts to carry out new TSCA directions, in Section 26(l)(1). "This provision does not require that such policies, procedures and guidance be developed in this or any other rule," EDF says.
The comments outline a series of concerns regarding conduct of risk evaluations and risk characterization approaches and guides. For example, EDF calls on EPA to "generally assess exposure on an aggregate basis across the conditions of use, and needs to modify its definition of sentinel exposure," pointing to direction in new TSCA Section 6(b)(4)(F)(ii) directing EPA to use either an aggregate or sentinel exposure approach in conducting its risk evaluations, and explain why it did so.
EDF argues that the aggregate exposure approach "assess[es] risk in a manner that reflects real-world exposures experienced by a diverse human population" such as from multiple exposure sources. "This is a strong argument for taking an aggregate approach; it also makes it difficult to imagine how a sentinel approach would be possible or sufficiently protective." The group notes that EPA's approach to assessing pesticides' risks is an aggregate one, as required by the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act. EDF suggests that EPA's toxics office look to guidance the pesticides office crafted to meet these requirements.
Sentinel Exposure
The group also urges EPA to question its definition of sentinel exposure, as "the exposure(s) of greatest significance, which may be the plausible maximum exposure to an individual, population (or subpopulation), or the environment to the chemical substance of interest (or any combination thereof)."
EDF argues that this definition should be re-written. "The significance of an exposure is not determined only by the magnitude of the exposure, but by a host of factors, including notably the timing of such exposures," the group states.
EPA specifically asked for comments regarding sentinel and aggregate exposure terms, noting that the sentinel term is new to the agency. ACC also commented, urging EPA to look to European and Canadian agencies that practice risk assessment and use this approach. "ACC is concerned that EPA's proposed definition does not reflect a fundamental understanding of how the concept of sentinel exposure has been used by other national authorities, such as Health Canada or the European Union (EU)," ACC's March 20 comments state.
ACC says that none of those agencies' existing definitions match EPA's. "[I]n none of the descriptions provided, does the sentinel exposure equate with the 'maximal' exposure to an individual or population. It is a term used to describe the type of product for which exposures will be highest compared to other products or exposures within the similar category."
ACC also discusses its concern that in using an aggregate exposure approach, "EPA may go beyond the intended scope of what should be in a risk evaluation under the LCSA. Risk evaluations conducted under the LCSA should be consistent with the scope of the LCSA. For instance, the LCSA does not cover the evaluation of pesticides, foods, food additives, drugs, cosmetics, tobacco products, etc. As such, it would be inappropriate for consideration of aggregate exposure to lead to a risk evaluation of non-LCSA products."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/stakeholders-clash-over-defining-risk-reviews-tsca-implementing-rule
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Biotechnology Industry Seeks Nomenclature Change in EPA's TSCA 'Reset'
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bio-based chemical producers and users group is urging EPA to adopt changes to chemical nomenclature as part of its ongoing effort to update the inventory of existing chemicals recognized by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that would lower barriers to sale and use of bio-based chemicals.
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), raises a unique concern among comments submitted to EPA regarding its proposed rule to "reset" the TSCA inventory. BIO represents companies which manufacture biobased chemicals, and it is asking EPA to update its existing chemical nomenclature policies.
BIO argues that EPA "has not addressed the chemical nomenclature language articulated in Section 8(3) of the Lautenberg Act. BIO respectfully requests the Agency address these as a matter of urgency because they affect both the listing of existing inventory chemicals, as well as the placement of new chemicals on the inventory. The TSCA Inventory is at the heart of how the Agency regulates chemicals."
The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century was signed into law last June and overhauled the original 1976 TSCA. Among changes that the act makes to TSCA is its direction that EPA update its TSCA inventory so it is clear what chemicals are on the market. This delineation between "existing" and "new" chemicals is important, because new chemicals must undergo EPA scrutiny before they can enter the marketplace.
Another biobased industry group raised similar concerns in a TSCA petition to EPA in 2015, asking EPA to make nomenclature changes to recognize a group of some 35 oils and fatty acids as existing chemicals on the TSCA inventory and not subject to new chemical review. That group, the Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group, argued that the chemicals, derived from plants, algae and other biomaterials were "functionally equivalent to, and may be chemically indistinguishable from" chemicals on the inventory but sourced from traditional feedstocks.
Now, BIO calls on EPA to "formalize guidance to permit a manufacturer to make a determination of equivalence of a chemical listing for a substance which can be useful to establish the TSCA Inventory Listing and for Prioritization/Risk Evaluation" and for the final rule to recognize that certain original TSCA inventory nomenclature practice, developed in 1978 "was not intended or designed to limit the sources from which the listed alkyl ranges may be derived. As directed by statute, such Inventory reset submissions based on this statutory interpretation must be recognized and accepted by EPA."
The group urges EPA to "Develop a dedicated correction procedure as part of the reporting process to resolve nomenclature disagreements between industry and the EPA."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/biotechnology-industry-seeks-nomenclature-change-epas-tsca-reset
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Democrats Call for Agency Documents Tied to EPA Science Bill
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By David Stegon
Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has called on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to provide all documents related to the agency’s analysis of the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act (HONEST Act).
The request comes following a news report that EPA officials deliberately withheld information from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in order to misrepresent the impacts and costs of the legislation, which has since passed the House.
He has requested all documents be sent by the close of business on 5 May.
Ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee – where the bill has been referred – Mr Carper called the alleged effort to keep EPA staff’s input secret "deeply troubling". In a letter to Mr Pruitt, he said that if such actions did occur, "they fundamentally disregard the recommendations of career staff and create the appearance that EPA leadership sought to misrepresent the costs to taxpayers of the bill’s mandates."
The comments came in response to a report from Bloomberg News, based on internal emails and interviews with EPA staff. The report said that agency staff believed the HONEST Act would cost it at least $250m a year, "while threatening agency know-how and jeopardising personal and confidential business information".
Those comments, though, were not included in the official EPA comments sent to the CBO. Based on the information it received, the budget office concluded the bill would only cost $1m annually to implement.
If passed, the measure would block the EPA from proposing, finalising or disseminating regulations, assessments, guidance and other actions unless all technical information relied upon to develop them is the "best available science" and publicly available.
In response to the report, Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said "Pruitt’s enthusiasm for this legislation should not justify the suppression of information."
"It’s not only a bad bill that would make it almost impossible for the agency to use public health studies; it would also add huge additional costs to an agency already hamstrung by chronic underfunding," he added.
Senator Tom Barrasso (R-Wyoming), chair of the EPW committee, said through a spokesman that the EPA’s science should be open and transparent and that the committee will continue to work to achieve these goals. He did not say if it would take up consideration of the measure.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55023/democrats-call-for-agency-documents-tied-to-epa-science-bill
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Market ‘Slow to Take Up Safer Alternatives’
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The market is slow to take up safer chemical alternatives, according to speakers at the recent Chemical Watch Safer Chemicals in Products conference in San Francisco.
Speaking in a panel discussion, Sally Edwards, a senior research associate at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, said even though there are certain applications – such as durable water repellents – where further development of safer alternatives is necessary, "many of the chemical manufacturers actually have safer alternatives that they have developed that have not been taken up by the market".
As an example, she cited a company that has developed a safer solvent than many existing options, with particular usefulness in janitorial products.
But she said the company has had "so much difficulty getting it taken up in the market because there hasn’t been a regulatory driver or NGOs pushing to say this is really a safer alternative. There needs to be more conversation about those, because, I think, in many cases those alternatives already exist."
Speaking about her experience in conducting alternatives assessments of copper-based antifouling boat paints, Northwest Green Chemistry’s Lauren Heine added that changing consumer habits can prove challenging.
"There will be a big piece of consumer acceptance," she said. "I think we can demonstrate that certain types of products last longer, repel barnacles longer, will require cleaning or are cheaper over time, but people – I don’t know if it’s preference or just what they’re used to – they get used to painting their boat every year, when you could go ten years and not paint it."
It’s not only about finding better solutions, said Dr Heine: "You have to change people’s behaviour as well."
Broad scope
Panelists agreed that when conducting an assessment of alternatives, broad scope is essential – not only for ensuring a range of options, but also to avoid so-called regrettable substitutions.
Dr Edwards said that when working with companies, "we try to really broadly scope an evaluation of safer alternatives so it would go beyond a chemicals-only focused alternatives assessment."
She said they begin the process by determining if that function is truly necessary. If it is, the assessment will seek to evaluate if there are other ways of achieving it – perhaps through a process or material change.
Speaking from California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), Karl Palmer said the scope of the state’s Safer Consumer Products programme "is very broad, and that’s by design".
A key objective, he said, "is to ensure that we don’t solve one problem and push to another – a regrettable substitute." And arriving at such, he added, is sometimes a function of not scoping an alternatives assessment broadly.
"So we start very broad and then narrow it, as a programme, based on the information [we] get."
Moving the market
Mr Palmer acknowledged that the programme’s regulatory alternatives assessment approach is slow.
Given that it typically involves picking one to three products, he said, the department is "not necessarily going to be able to move quickly enough".
But he said it’s important to look at alternatives assessments in the context of changing the marketplace.
"If I were a manufacturer, I would look at the California candidate chemicals list, and if I have any of those 2,000-3,000 plus chemicals in my product, I’d be looking pretty closely at whether I should be doing some form of alternatives assessment or analysis."
He said there will be leaders and laggards in this process, which is a consideration the state takes into account when selecting priority products.
"We’re also going to consider what we think are strategically good products, not just to protect people and the environment, but to work with sectors," he added.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55030/market-slow-to-take-up-safer-alternatives
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Investigator Backs Whistleblower on Faulty Lead Inspections
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
It is likely that a U.S. EPA whistleblower is correct about the agency failing to uphold its lead-safe home repair rules, and that possibly caused a "substantial" danger to public health, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel decided yesterday.
Elizabeth Wilde, the former lead adviser at EPA's Region 4 office in Atlanta, documented deficiencies in the office's lead-based paint inspections over roughly three years.
OSC found that "there is a substantial likelihood that some of the information [Wilde] provided to OSC discloses a possible violation of the law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; and a substantial and specific danger to public health."
In its response to Wilde dated yesterday, OSC said it has sent the allegations to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for a report within 60 days.
Not all of Wilde's allegations were referred to EPA for investigation. OSC found credible her allegations that the majority of the regional office's lead-based paint inspections from 2012 to 2015 were conducted by people without the proper training or credentials.
OSC said it was possible that the inspections for the same time frame did not obtain proper inspection notice and entry consent materials. Inspectors also likely failed to determine whether children were in the homes being renovated and did not document evidence that the firms conducting renovations had complied with EPA's Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule or the Toxic Substance Control Act.
Wilde filed her disclosure through the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
"Proper inspections are needed to prevent children and pregnant women from inhaling or ingesting lead-laden paint chips and dust," Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, said in a statement. "This type of eco-malpractice puts public health in jeopardy."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/04/06/stories/1060052734
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House Bill Would Force EPA to Stiffen Lead Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) introduced legislation today to require U.S. EPA to revamp the Lead and Copper Rule for public drinking water, which has not seen an update in more than 25 years.
His H.R. 1974 would give the agency nine months to update the rule, which is supposed to be updated regularly.
"After what happened to my hometown of Flint, we must strengthen and update the Lead and Copper Rule to provide greater transparency for families," Kildee said in a statement.
"Updating this outdated rule will not only protect public health, it will restore public confidence in their water systems. We must learn from the failures of government that [led] to the Flint water crisis to prevent a similar man-made emergency from happening elsewhere," he continued.
The measure would lower the action level of lead allowed in drinking water from 15 parts per billion to 10 ppb by 2020 and 5 ppb by 2026. It would also direct water sampling to focus on high-risk homes like those occupied by pregnant women and children.
Additionally, the "National Opportunity for Lead Exposure Accountability and Deterrence (NO LEAD) Act" would require annual lead tests in schools and day care facilities.
Under the measure, the owner of a home or building that tests above the action level would be notified within two days.
"Everyone in Michigan deserves safe drinking water and for too many in our state the reality is they are drinking water with lead contamination at dangerous levels," Michigan Sierra Club advocate David Holtz said in a statement.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/04/06/stories/1060052735
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Chemicals Management Added to Dow Jones Sustainability Indices
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) now ask companies for more data on the chemicals used in their products.
The DJSI evaluate the sustainability performance of the largest 2,500 companies listed on the Dow Jones Global Total Stock Market Index.
The update was a collaboration between NGO ChemSec and sustainable investment specialist RobecoSAM, who’s corporate sustainability assessment (CSA) feeds into the DJSI.
The product stewardship section of the CSA has been updated in order to "better reflect the growing interest from investors in issues surrounding chemical sustainability", ChemSec says.
Companies from various sectors are now asked to provide data on the percentage of products that contain substances:
regulated as hazardous;
that are of international concern; or
may become regulated in the future as referenced by ChemSec’s Substitute It Now (SIN) list of hazardous substances.
"By looking more closely at corporate chemical management, the CSA and its products like the DJSI will now give investors a more complete picture in terms of sustainability – something we know many investors have been longing for," ChemSec’s senior investors adviser Sonja Haider says.
RobecoSAM CSA is an annual evaluation of companies’ sustainability practices. It asks more than 3,400 listed companies around the world between 80-120 industry-specific questions, focusing on economic, environmental and social factors.
https://chemicalwatch.com/54821/chemicals-management-added-to-dow-jones-sustainability-indices
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Final Judgement Entered in US Conflict Minerals Litigation
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A district court judge in Washington, DC has entered a final judgement in National Association of Manufacturers v SEC, bringing to a close the long-fought conflict minerals litigation.
The suit challenged section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires publicly traded companies to conduct due diligence and report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on whether their sourcing of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold (3TG) is supporting armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or neighbouring countries.
Consistent with a decision entered in 2014, the final judgement holds that the requirement to disclose whether a product is "DRC-conflict free" violates the constitution, on the grounds that it constitutes compelled speech. This was later reaffirmed by an appeals court.
Despite the court’s striking down this provision, the law’s remaining due diligence and reporting requirements remain in place.
Last year, the SEC secured an extension to file a petition for Supreme Court review of the court’s decision. But with no petition eventually brought, the case was remanded to a district court for its final judgement.
Future of rule
Although the conflict minerals litigation has now concluded, the future of the reporting obligation remains in flux.
Michael Piwowar, acting chair of the SEC, directed agency staff to "reconsider" implementation of section 1502, and initiated a stakeholder consultation earlier this year to solicit feedback.
And while NGOs, investor groups and members of the Congolese government have called on the SEC not to weaken existing due diligence requirements, industry groups are divided over the future of the rule.
Meanwhile, a Republican-controlled Congress may seek to renew efforts to repeal, defund, or roll back the law, consistent with bills introduced in past sessions.
Earlier this week, a Senate subcommittee heard testimony from NGOs, Congolese civil societies and US businesses calling for Congress to support maintaining the law.
The hearing, A Progress Report on Conflict Minerals, was held by the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55037/final-judgement-entered-in-us-conflict-minerals-litigation
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Echa’s Manual Checks Catching 20% of Dossiers Viewed
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
Echa analysis shows that 20% of REACH registration dossiers that are manually checked, under the agency's new 'enhanced' completeness check, fail at this point. But, of these, 95% go on to successfully pass following amendment.
The agency introduced the enhancements in 2016, with the update of Iuclid to version 6. The completeness check now comprises two verification stages: automated and manual. A total of 33% of new dossiers pass the automated stage and progress to manual checking.
Agency staff members verify that:
the substance identity is clear, and any deviations from rules on identification and naming of substances are justified;
information provided in support of any waivers is clear and relevant;
each proposal for a vertebrate test is justified by a clear explanation of why alternative methods are not applicable; and
if a chemical safety report has not be included, the justification is clear and relevant.
Previously, the completeness check was an automated process. But this had significant shortcomings, said Mercedes Viñas, head of the dossier submission and Pic unit at Echa, at the agency's Stakeholders’ Day in Helsinki yesterday.
For example, it could verify that the relevant section of the dossier contained text, but it could not interpret it in any way.
The manual verification stage does not include any assessment of the quality of the information, said Ms Viñas. Staff members only check that justifications provided in the relevant sections are "foreseen in the REACH text".
The completeness checks apply to both new dossiers and updates to those that have already been granted registration numbers. In the event of failure, registrants are given an opportunity to correct errors. But if this happens again, the submission is dismissed. In the case of a new dossier, the registrant will not receive a registration number. For an update, it will be dismissed but the original dossier and associated registration number remain.
Retrospective checking
Additionally, the agency is piloting the application of the manual verification stage to dossiers that passed through a completeness check before the enhancement, and have not been subsequently updated.
Currently it is acting on dossiers in which the registrant claims to be midway through conducting a study – but for which, given the time elapsed, the agency might reasonably expect this to be concluded. It is asking the registrants responsible to update them with data from the completed studies. It is also scrutinising "placeholder" dossiers, in which the registrant promises to complete the required information after overcoming certain administrative hurdles.
The results have been positive, Ms Viñas says. In most cases, registrants have updated their dossiers and successfully passed the enhanced completeness check.
But the aim is not to apply this retrospective approach to all relevant dossiers, Ms Viñas told Chemical Watch. Instead, Echa is hoping to encourage registrants to be proactive about their dossiers and update the sections they know require further information without prompting.
Ultimately, regardless of action at this stage, completeness errors will be picked up further down the line, she added.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55025/echas-manual-checks-catching-20-of-dossiers-viewed
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Cites Harsh Penalties as Basis for Generator Rule Challenge
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
A host of industry groups say their suit challenging EPA's hazardous waste generator rule will focus on the harsh repercussions that would befall a generator if it fails to meet various “conditions for exemption” from storage facility permitting requirements.
Petitioners American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute and several other industry groups filed a statement of issues April 3 in ACC v EPA, saying they are challenging the rule’s penalties for generators’ failure to comply with the rule’s “condition for exemption."
Specifically, they say the “issue to be raised is whether the Final Rule is unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not otherwise in accordance with law insofar as it provides that a generator’s noncompliance with even a single requirement identified as a ‘condition for exemption’” in various parts of federal hazardous waste generator standards, “means that the generator is operating unlawfully as a storage facility without a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permit."
This would subject the generator to penalties and injunctive relief under RCRA section 3008 “for violations of any or all of the several dozens of RCRA permit and interim status design, operation, and administrative rules that apply to storage facilities," the statement of issues says. EPA in finalizing the rule made more than 60 revisions to regulations governing hazardous waste generators with an eye toward providing more flexibility to regulated entities and making the rules easier to understand.
The case is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
EPA on April 3 also asked the court to extend the briefing schedule in the case, asking for 60 days, rather than the usual 30 days, to file its brief on the merits in the case. EPA cites the complexity of the RCRA issues as the basis for a longer briefing period. EPA says in its motion for the extension that the petitioners have indicated they are not opposed to an extension.
Industry groups have welcomed some aspects of the rule, but industry attorneys late last year raised concerns about the condition for exemption measure.
Under the rule, failure to comply with a condition for exemption can result in "an entity losing its storage facility exemptions and becoming the operator of a non-exempt storage facility subject" to many storage permit and operations requirements in RCRA parts 124, 264 through 268, and 270, the rule says.
ACC in a March 1 statement said it is particularly troubled by the provision, which will alter the criteria under which a generator is deemed to violate the RCRA permitting program that is applicable only to facilities that treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste, or TSDFs. "Under the new rule, failure to meet any one of EPA's long list of 'conditions for exemption' could subject a generator to multiple violations and substantial penalties," ACC said in the statement.
"Even a minor deviation in compliance would cause a generator to now be considered an illegal TSDF," ACC said. "We oppose this draconian provision and are seeking review by the Court."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/industry-cites-harsh-penalties-basis-generator-rule-challenge
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Enviros Push to Keep Climate Rule in Court
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmentalists are urging a federal court to keep alive litigation over the Obama administration's landmark climate regulation, even as U.S. EPA reconsiders the rule.
A coalition of environmental and public health groups last night pressed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the Trump administration's recent bid to pause a legal battle over the Clean Power Plan in light of the president's executive order directing EPA to review the rule.
The groups argue that scuttling the case now would allow EPA to duck its obligation to address carbon pollution. The rule was designed to slash emissions from existing power plants.
"Delaying these urgently-needed pollution reductions would harm the health and well-being of communities across the nation," Environmental Defense Fund attorney Tomás Carbonell said in a statement.
The Clean Power Plan was finalized in 2015 and has been tangled in litigation ever since. The Supreme Court froze the rule in February 2016, and the D.C. Circuit heard a full day of oral arguments in September. Court watchers had expected a ruling from the en banc court any day, but the Trump administration last week asked the D.C. Circuit to freeze proceedings (Energywire, March 29).
In last night's filing, supporters of the rule point to its long legal journey as another reason to move forward in court.
"The motion comes at the latest possible stage of the Court's review of the current Rule — after more than six months of deliberation following a full day en banc oral argument and almost a year after the conclusion of briefing — and is premised upon the earliest possible stage of a review of the Rule that may lead to a new rulemaking of indeterminate length and outcome," the filing says.
Moreover, the groups argue, the Trump administration's request to halt the case would actually flout the terms of the Supreme Court's stay. They note that the high court agreed to temporarily freeze Clean Power Plan implementation while the D.C. Circuit considered the case but did not issue any kind of ruling on the legal merits of the regulation.
Freezing the case now would effectively "stretch that indefinitely" and allow EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to "kill the plan by stealth," Natural Resources Defense Council attorney David Doniger said.
Sierra Club attorney Joanne Spalding noted that the groups are in the fight for the long haul.
"Scott Pruitt and the Trump Administration are trying to freeze the litigation as a first step to undo those hard-won protections," she said in a statement. "If the EPA will no longer defend these rules, we will."
The groups' filing also pointed to the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow litigation over EPA's Clean Water Rule to go forward despite the government's attempt to back away from the case.
"There, as here, the government requested an indefinite abeyance premised on the earliest stages of its review of an agency rule," they wrote. "And there, as here, the effect of the abeyance would have been to indefinitely suspend a duly promulgated agency rule without judicial review, and without notice and comment rulemaking."
A coalition of states and cities supporting the Clean Power Plan filed a similar brief yesterday, arguing that the case features "critical live disputes over the scope of the Clean Air Act" that should be decided regardless of whether EPA keeps the rule (E&E News PM, April 5).
Administration lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the court should pause the case so EPA is "afforded the opportunity to fully review the Clean Power Plan."
The D.C. Circuit could issue a decision on whether to freeze the case in the coming weeks.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/04/06/stories/1060052714
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Greens, Dem States Want Court to Decide on Obama Climate Rule
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Environmentalists and Democratic states are fighting the Trump administration’s request that a federal appeals court put on hold its case regarding former President Barack Obama’s main climate change rule.
The coalition, which supports Obama’s Clean Power Plan and opposes the plan by President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to repeal it, said the request to pause consideration of the case is extraordinary and goes against legal precedent.
Environmental groups led by the Environmental Defense Fund told the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that delay “would have the effect of improperly suspending the rule without review by any court, without any explanation, and without mandatory administrative process."
“The agency cannot be allowed to accomplish through abeyance something it cannot do on its own: an indefinite suspension of a duly promulgated rule without judicial review, without a notice and comment rulemaking, and without any reasoned explanation,” they wrote in their brief filed Wednesday.
A coalition of attorneys general for Democratic states, cities and counties said the case is too important to stop, and the time has come for a decision.
“EPA fails to justify its unprecedented request for an open-ended abeyance at this late stage of litigation: more than six months after the en banc court heard a full day of oral argument,” wrote the group, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D).
“This case is ripe for decision now, and nothing that EPA has proposed to do obviates the need for this court’s review.”
The briefs come a week after Trump signed an executive order directing EPA head Scott Pruitt to begin a formal review of the Clean Power Plan for possible repeal, an outcome that both Trump and Pruitt support.
The appeals court heard oral arguments in the case against the 2015 rule in September. It could issue a ruling any day, but the Trump administration asked that it pause its consideration while the EPA undertakes its regulatory process.
Supporters of the regulation argued that the EPA is trying to short-circuit the regulatory process by having the court stop its case.
“Indefinitely deferring a decision here, as EPA requests, would waste the substantial resources already expended in this litigation by the parties and this court,” the states said.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/327513-greens-dem-states-want-court-to-decide-on-obama-climate-rule
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Voters Support Efforts to Maintain and Improve Current Federal Methane Emission Regulations
Apr 6, 2017 | Real Clear Energy
By Ashlee Stephenson
We are currently at the outset of bold policy change in Washington, D.C. With Republicans in control of the White House and both legislative bodies, it’s incumbent upon our leaders to maintain promises to voters intended to streamline government, cut burdensome regulations, and enact policy that will spur the creation of good paying jobs and bolster free-market competition. Indeed, voters are expecting results and a methodical approach toward these objectives that is both fiscally-sound and innovative.
As the Trump Administration and elected officials on Capitol Hill continue their work to revitalize American manufacturing, it will be important to balance policies that stimulate growth while also maintaining a focus on reforms that ensure we are good stewards of our critical natural resources. Nowhere is this debate more rigorous and apparent than in the ongoing discussion regarding federal methane emission regulations.
As we move toward a potential vote in the U.S. Senate on the issue of federal methane regulations, there are currently four Republican U.S. Senators who have yet to weigh in on the Bureau of Land Management methane capture rule—Sens. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Rob Portman (R-OH), Dean Heller (R-NV), and Lamar Alexander (R-TN).
A recent survey commissioned by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions and conducted by WPA Research illustrates clear trends in the four states these Republican Senators represent. Across party lines, our survey revealed that voters in Colorado (86%), Nevada (83%), Ohio (80%) and Tennessee (80%) support requirements that all oil and gas producers who operate on national public lands must use updated equipment and technology to prevent the leaks of methane gas during the extraction process while reducing the need to burn off excess natural gas in the air. Additionally, our survey data reveals broad public support in favor of the current federal methane regulations – therefore encouraging our leaders to carefully consider the substantial support for these common sense regulations should the issue come to a vote.
In 2014, Senator Cory Gardner accomplished what some thought to be near impossible-- defeating a popular incumbent in a competitive swing state. Support for clean energy remains strong in the state of Colorado, with our recent survey reporting that 76% of all voters – composed of 61% of Republicans and 74% of Independents - favor the federal government taking steps to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global climate change. Additionally, across all four of these states, Colorado reported the highest support for updated equipment and technology requirements, with nearly nine-in-ten (86%) likely voters supporting them. Further, nearly three-in-four (72%) likely voters in the state say they believe natural gas leaks are harming the environment.
Nevada’s commitment to clean energy has continued to grow substantially with each passing year, and as we head into 2018, Senator Dean Heller is actively preparing for a vigorous challenge. Our survey results reveal a ripe opportunity for Nevada’s senior senator to prioritize the concerns of his constituents by sustaining the methane rule. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Nevada Republicans and 72% of Independents favor the federal government taking steps to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global climate change. Moreover, nearly three-in-four (72%) voters in Nevada believe that natural gas leaks are harming the environment.
In 2016, Senator Portman executed what is now considered to be by far and away the new gold standard of reelection campaigns by running an innovative, data-driven operation while elevating local issues of critical importance to working class voters. Our survey indicated that a majority of Ohio Republicans (54%) and 71% of likely independent voters polled favor the federal government taking steps to reduce methane emission.
A seventh-generation Tennessean, Senator Alexander has a long history of serving the people of the Volunteer State. In fact, he was twice elected governor and has served in the Senate since 2002. Our survey indicated that a majority of Tennessee Republicans (56 percent) and 68 percent of likely Independent voters polled favor federal action to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global climate change.
These survey results are in line with recent elections in that they show that advancing clean energy solutions is not only smart policy, it is also smart politics. While there are clear political divisions in our country, efforts to reduce emissions and maintain and improve existing regulations are a priority for voters regardless of partisan preferences. Should there be a vote, Senators Gardner, Heller, Portman, and Alexander have a prime opportunity to serve as a voice for their constituents on this issue, while continuing to serve as clean energy leaders who embrace solutions that will introduce innovation, unleash economic potential and help to create good paying jobs across the country.
Ashlee Stephenson is a pollster at WPA Research and a strategist for Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.
http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/04/06/voters_support_efforts_to_maintain_and_improve_current_federal_methane_emission_regulations_110210.html
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Reactor Offers Solution to Plastic Pollution
Apr 6, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
A retired research chemist has developed a small, portable reactor that uses a catalysed pyrolysis reaction to take discarded plastic and produce gasoline and diesel fuel directly. The idea is that supply ships could have this technology on board, enabling plastic waste collected to be converted into fuel that goes straight into their own tanks.
The technology, developed by Swaminathan Ramesh, formally of BASF, is a metallocene catalyst deposited on a porous support material that, when combined with a controlled pyrolysis reaction, produces high yields of fuel from polyethylenes, polypropolyenes and polystyrenes that needs no further refinement. ‘You don’t have to separate them out, they all can go into the same hopper,’ said Ramesh, who presented his work at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2017 meeting in San Francisco. ‘The reaction is very efficient – we get a 90% to 95% yield.’
Ramesh explained that the reactor itself is continuously being fed plastic, which is heated as it goes through so that it is the right temperature when it hits the reactor, and the end product is immediately removed. ‘You can just operate it 24 hours a day and it takes up a [small] space,’ Ramesh said. ‘Ten pounds [of plastic] will give you a gallon of fuel depending on how pure the plastic is.’
To create this plastic-to-fuel conversion system, Ramesh partnered with long-time sailboat captain James Holm, the founder and executive director of Clean Oceans International, a California-based non-profit working to address marine plastic pollution.
‘Commercial shipping doesn’t have a method of recycling their plastic, this would be ideal for them,’ Holm stated. He also suggested that remote resort communities would greatly benefit from such technology because they could avoid having to ship out plastic waste to be recycled elsewhere. ‘Forty years at sea I have seen a steady decline in the health of the ocean, most notably the plastics problem,’ Holm recalled. ‘We wanted the option if we found and collected plastic in large enough quantities … to do something practical with it – just burying it in a landfill didn’t seem like the right response.’ Billions of pounds of plastic waste are currently estimated to be littering the world’s oceans.
When Holm looked into the existing plastic-to-fuel conversion technologies, he found that these systems were too large to work for his purposes of traveling by boat to remote areas. ‘We wanted something that was small enough to travel with us, hopefully even on board a vessel,’ Holm said.
The hope is that Ramesh’s plastic-to-fuel conversion system will be in operation on vessels in a few years. Ramesh and Holm will kick off a demonstration project for the city government of Santa Cruz, California to see whether the technology can help the city address unrecyclable plastic waste and create diesel fuel to power vehicles.
The next step involves scaling up. Ramesh already has the design plans to build the next-generation of his machine that can produce 2,000lbs of fuel per day, and even another one that can make 10,000lbs daily. ‘It costs around $1.5 million, but you will get back your money in 15 or 18 months, even at today’s low gasoline and diesel prices,’ he says.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/reactor-offers-solution-to-plastic-pollution/3007090.article
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Sustaining CSB Funding is Key to Our Nation's Safety
Apr 6, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Sam Mannan
For the well-being and safety of all Americans, we should pause and rethink the potential defunding and elimination of a small federal agency known as the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the CSB. For an annual budget of about $11 million dollars, the CSB is charged with the daunting responsibility of investigating industrial chemical accidents, developing lessons learned, and communicating those lessons and recommendations with the objective of preventing or mitigating future accidents.
The CSB was authorized by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Utilizing the successful model of the National Transportation Safety Board, Congress directed that the CSB's investigative function be completely independent of the rulemaking, inspection and enforcement authorities of EPA and OSHA. Congress recognized that CSB investigations would identify chemical hazards that were not addressed by those agencies.
Lessons learned from objective investigation of past accidents can be of great use in keeping the chemical industry safer and thereby increase public safety. Chemicals play a key role in the modern world. Only a handful of the goods and services we enjoy on a daily basis would exist without essential chemical products. However, the use of chemicals is a two-edged sword. Safe use creates a higher standard of living and a healthier economy; unsafe use can threaten our lives, our businesses and our communities. For this reason, working and living safely with chemicals are the ultimate focus of the CSB.
The CSB does not issue fines or citations, but does make recommendations to companies, regulatory agencies, industry organizations and labor groups. Congress designed the CSB to be non-regulatory and independent of other agencies so that its investigations might, where appropriate, review the effectiveness of regulations and regulatory enforcement. Since becoming operational in January 1998, the CSB has investigated 132 accidents, issued 794 recommendations, and produced 164 publications and animations to promote learning. The CSB has accomplished so much with so little in this important area of safety.
The 2018 federal budget proposed by President Trump defunds the CSB completely. As a nation we must make tough choices and look at the need and effectiveness of every dollar that is spent; however, the $11 million needed to keep the CSB operational is worth every penny. The unique mission of the CSB cannot be fulfilled by another agency or industry organization.
In presenting the 2018 budget blueprint, President Trump stated that: "A budget that puts America first must make the safety of our people its number one priority - because without safety, there can be no prosperity… a budget that emphasizes national security and public safety."
In fact, it can be argued that public safety and national security are intricately tied with process safety in the chemical industries. And in effect, process safety is directly tied with the sustainability and continued development of the nation. Incidents like the methyl isocyanate incident in Bhopal in 1984 and the Deep Water Horizon incident in 2010 are classic examples in this regard. The Bhopal incident resulted in more than 2,000 fatalities, hundreds of thousands of injuries and major environmental impacts. The Deep Water Horizon incident resulted in 11 fatalities and the worst oil spill in modern times causing major environmental impacts. The financial impact of each one of these two incidents was also far-reaching. There are a multitude of other incidents that have caused harm to employees, the public and the environment.
Today, if the budget called for the defunding of the NTSB, Americans would rightfully be asking that we give it another thought. We should not defund and eliminate the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an agency that for $11 million dollars supports a mission that is highly critical to maintaining and supporting the safety and national security of American communities.
Mannan is Regents Professor and executive director of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Mannan-Sustaining-CSB-funding-is-key-to-our-11055284.php
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Trump has Attacked Climate Policy. Is Science Next?
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Will President Trump pivot from attacking climate policies to the science itself? Some legal experts are concerned that the skeptical president could attempt to undermine researchers' credibility.
Trump's executive order last week took aim at the Obama administration's efforts to tackle climate change, with an eye toward rescinding emissions regulations for power plants and gas wells. The moves signal that the federal government could do little to address climate change in the near term. But what's less clear is how far Trump is willing to push an agenda that disputes climate change itself.
"I think there is this big overarching question with all this, which is, does the Trump administration want to go to court on climate science? Does the Trump administration want to go to court on the reality of climate change?" said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
"I don't think that they do, because they will lose," he added. "My guess is they will do anything they can just short of that because they do not want to go to court to have climate denialism subjected to judicial scrutiny, because climate denialism will not survive it."
There are two ways the Trump administration could signal that it wants to fight climate science itself. The first would be to completely get rid of the social cost of carbon — which puts a dollar value on the effect of carbon emissions on the planet and society. The second way would be to reverse the endangerment finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health and welfare, Burger said.
Neither of these things happened in the wide-ranging "energy independence" executive order the president signed last week.
While the order disbanded the Interagency Working Group that calculated the social cost of carbon across federal agencies, it did not eliminate the metric entirely, said Jonathan Wiener, a professor of law and environmental policy at Duke University.
"It says each agency can employ its own social cost of carbon, so it allows agency-by-agency development," he said.
Also, instead of calculating the cost based on global carbon emissions, the executive order says agencies should follow the guidance of a specific document published by the Office of Management and Budget in September 2003, Circular A-4.
"[The circular] has language that agencies should focus on domestic impacts [of carbon emissions], but where a rule is likely to have impacts outside the United States, the agency should include those impacts," Wiener said.
What's next for the endangerment finding?
Under the Obama administration, economists calculated the social cost of carbon based on the overall estimated impact of carbon on the planet. The rationale was that carbon emissions don't just hover above the country that releases them but travel around the planet, contributing to warming that affects everyone.
This is especially relevant in a global economy, where events happening across the globe can have ripple effects on the American economy. A domestic social cost of carbon, by contrast, only calculates the costs of pollution based on emissions from the United States, so it is a fraction of the global cost of carbon.
If agencies do calculate the social cost of carbon based solely on domestic emissions, the dollar value could be approximately 7 to 22 percent of the current value — roughly $40 per metric ton of CO2. The value could be even smaller if the government decides to adopt a higher discount rate (Climatewire, Feb. 13).
A social cost of carbon based on domestic emissions alone could still stand up in court, as long as it wasn't "shockingly low," Burger said.
Previous court cases have found that federal agencies should include the metric in their cost-benefit analyses, though they have left leeway on what the dollar value should be. Last August, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in Zero Zone Inc v. the Department of Energy that DOE could use the social cost of carbon.
"The Court of Appeals upheld DOE's analysis and said it was not wrong to use the social cost of carbon and not wrong to use the global scope [of carbon emissions]. It is not saying the global scope is obligatory," said Wiener. "I think if agencies in response to this executive order stopped using the social cost of carbon altogether, they will face rejections from the court telling them that's arbitrary, and that's possibly why the executive order does not end the social cost of carbon altogether."
The order also did not mention the endangerment finding. Last week, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Breitbart News Network that the agency would have to at some point address petitions calling for EPA to revisit the endangerment finding (Greenwire, March 31).
Burger also noted that if Neil Gorsuch is confirmed to the Supreme Court, he doesn't think the justices would rule against climate science.
"Obviously there are policy differences, and legal concerns about the scope of executive branch authority under the Clean Air Act. There are differences of opinion as to who should be in court to argue about what type of issues. I haven't seen anything along the lines of 'We don't believe in climate science' coming from the justices on the Supreme Court," he said.
"I think, even with a five-judge conservative majority, that climate science, a decision by EPA to undo the endangerment finding based on science, loses in court," Burger said.
A tricky precedent for rolling back regs
So far, the Trump administration has made clear that it intends to tackle regulations and coordinated agency action on greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental attorneys warn that doing so will not be easy. They point to a Reagan-era Supreme Court battle, Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as an example.
The 1983 case established the precedent that if an administration wants to roll back a regulation, the government has to conduct the same level of review as it does while enacting a rule in the first place.
The often-cited case will likely guide upcoming legal battles as the Trump administration seeks to undo the Clean Power Plan and newly finalized regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Environmental lawyers have said the challenge for the Trump administration will be coming up with sufficient evidence to show that undoing these climate regulations isn't "arbitrary and capricious."
"We are confident because EPA went through a tremendous amount of work and data-gathering to come up with these regulations, so it's not going to be an easy lift for EPA to undo all of that," said Howard Fox, legal counsel for Earthjustice.
Fox pointed to the State Farm doctrine, as it is known, as standing in the way of new administrations undoing the regulatory work of their predecessors. It has established that agencies that use this type of rulemaking have to provide "substantial evidence" to support why they would want to go back on regulations they previously deemed necessary.
"The agency has to respect the evidence that is in the record. When there is evidence pointing in a specific action, then the agency can't make a decision that conflicts with that evidence," said Fox.
An agency has to be able to explain why the evidence explains the outcome, he added.
Even if the administration does not level a direct attack on the science supporting climate change, the president's recent executive order reverses much of the governmentwide focus on climate change. This includes getting rid of the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan, which aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy efficiency and climate resilience.
"I think there is no question that this is a blow to the administration addressing climate change," said Burger. "President Obama's executive orders directed agencies to take climate change seriously; these series of executive orders tell them to ignore climate change and ignore climate science and ignore the risk that climate change poses to the United States."
Weeks into the Trump administration, it is still unclear whether deregulation will be the president's only response to federal action on climate change.
"This is not the end of the story. Even for the Trump administration policymaking, there are probably more pieces yet to come," said Wiener.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/04/06/stories/1060052675
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Update to Agency Website Scrubs Climate-Related Portions
Apr 6, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Hannah Northey
The Obama administration's fingerprints began disappearing from the Department of Energy's website last night as officials took down a video touting the Paris climate agreement.
Visitors who click on a "climate change" section of DOE's home page will no longer see a video showcasing the historic pact among 195 nations that signed the 21st Conference of the Parties climate agreement in Paris, complete with former President Obama's tweets and a string of international headlines celebrating the agreement.
Viewers will instead find a still photo of planet Earth nestled in a patch of grass.
Also missing from the DOE website's climate section are links to "climate resources," including climate.data.gov, the National Climate Assessment, a resilience toolkit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
While some cosmetic changes are inevitable as a new administration settles into the White House, the Trump administration has ushered in nothing short of a sea change in the United States' approach to climate science and policy.
President Trump has already called for U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan to be reviewed or rescinded, and the energy sector is waiting to learn of the administration's plan for the multinational Paris climate pact. Also in flux is Trump's proposal to make steep budget cuts to DOE's clean energy and efficiency programs, a move Congress may not approve.
Amid that uncertainty, changes to the DOE website could provide a clear line of sight into the management style of newly confirmed Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who at his confirmation hearing said the climate is changing and humans are partially to blame.
Before being tapped to lead DOE, Perry said climate change was a "contrived phony mess."
While DOE didn't immediately comment on the website changes, the use of the term "climate change" on the site could also bolster the agency's argument that the term has not been banned under Perry's watch.
Current and former staffers just last week pushed back against a report from Politico that workers in the agency's Office of International Climate and Clean Energy were told to avoid using the phrases "Paris Agreement," "emissions reduction" and "climate change" in written communications (Climatewire, March 30).
Even so, some tweaks to DOE's website, including a broken link, signaled more changes were on the way. Under the image of a cloud-covered globe, text referring to the agency's push to make fossil fuel cleaner was unchanged.
So was a link to the president's Climate Action Plan that led to the White House home site, which read, "STAY TUNED AS WE CONTINUE TO UPDATE WHITEHOUSE.GOV."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/04/06/stories/1060052708
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Humanity Must Take Action Now to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Apr 6, 2017 | The Hill - Opinions
By Michael Pravica
As a physicist, I was very disappointed with President Trump’s decision to stick with his party’s line that denies the reality that our Earth is warming due to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The vast majority of scientists agree that the climate is warming due in part to ever-increasing carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gas) levels, now surpassing 410 parts per million, which correlate in large part with widespread fossil fuel use.
The increasing latent heat in the atmosphere is causing massive oscillations — drought, flooding, heat and cold — in our weather with increasing strength just as a spring does when increasingly stretched oscillates with higher and higher amplitude. Whenever there are rapid changes in the biosphere of the Earth, all life suffers as it struggles to adapt to new equilibrium conditions. Regardless of climate change denial by some of our leaders, this problem will only get worse with time and will not go away. Even insurance industry experts admit that there has been a 15 percent increase in payouts due to weather-related catastrophes in the last five years.
The saddest aspect of this tragic story is that we have so many means currently available to reduce fossil fuel consumption and make America energy-independent by using alternative sources of energy — including wind, solar and geothermal — and reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by planting more trees.
We need leaders with the vision and courage to implement far reaching changes in the energy industry via fair policies that wean America off fossil fuels and develop alternative fuel sources. However, as so many of these “leaders” are scientifically illiterate, they are incapable of understanding the precipice that we are approaching. We should all be deeply concerned. We must accept the reality of climate change and enact strategies to reduce greenhouse gases in our atmosphere before it is too late for the Earth, our only home.
From Michael Pravica, Associate Professor of Physics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nev.
http://thehill.com/opinion/letters/327502-humanity-must-take-action-now-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions
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Pending EPA Rules, Suits Could Help Revive Fight on 'Background' Ozone
Apr 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Pending EPA rules and lawsuits could help some states and industry groups revive their fight for the agency to account for the difficulty of complying with agency air rules due to naturally occurring "background" ozone levels, with the Trump EPA likely more receptive to the call than the Obama EPA's downplaying of such concerns.
Ground-level background ozone arises from foreign and natural sources and is uncontrollable, prompting some stakeholders to argue that EPA rules need to acknowledge that high levels of background pollution might make it impossible for some areas to attain federal ozone standards or other air rules. Others, including the Obama administration, have countered that no area of the United States has background ozone at a level that would cause such a problem.
The debate is likely to arise at April 19 oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case Murray Energy Corp., et al. v. EPA, et. al. that consolidates a host of challenges to the Obama EPA's October 2015 decision to tighten the ozone ambient air standard from 75 to 70 parts per billion (ppb).
It could also feature in comments due April 6 on a Jan. 6 EPA ozone notice of data availability (NODA), and may get a boost from a recent study on foreign sources' contribution to U.S. background ozone.
Critics of the decision to tighten the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) say that the 70 ppb limit might be unattainable in western states where background ozone levels are high. Local regulators cannot control background emissions, yet are still held responsible if areas fail to attain NAAQS.
Classification in "nonattainment" for the standards by EPA results in mandates to impose costly pollution controls on industry, and in some cases can preclude industrial development entirely, EPA's detractors say. Failure to write state implementation plans (SIPs) outlining controls of ozone-forming air pollution sufficient to meet the NAAQS can ultimately result in loss of federal highway funding.
Meanwhile, EPA is taking comment on its NODA intended to help states craft SIPs to satisfy the air law's "good neighbor" provision that requires states to mitigate their air emissions that compromise NAAQS attainment in downwind states. The NODA indicates that around 21 states could face this duty to curb interstate ozone emissions, according to the methodology developed for its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program.
EPA updated CSAPR in 2016, tightening state emission caps in order to try to meet the 2008 ozone NAAQS of 75 ppb, whereas the original rule targeted compliance with the earlier 1997 NAAQS expressed as 84 ppb. However, the updated rule does not address the 2015 ozone standard.
Background Ozone
The agency in the NODA uses the same threshold of one percent of the NAAQS to determine whether an upwind state has a "significant contribution" to a downwind state's problems attaining or maintaining NAAQS.
The comments on the NODA will provide one early opportunity to test the Trump EPA's position on that methodology, and also the overarching question of how to comply with NAAQS in high-background areas.
For example, the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA), which represents 20 state environmental agencies including many from the South and Midwest, says in March 13 comments that EPA must rework the projections in its NODA using better, more up-to-date information. The agency must do so in order to help states meet an Oct. 26, 2018, deadline for states to submit to EPA good neighbor SIPs to meet the 2015 ozone NAAQS.
"In examining interstate transport obligations under increasingly stringent NAAQS approaching background levels, EPA should recognize the tremendous progress that has been made in reducing ozone precursors," including a reduction in nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from stationary fuel combustion of nearly 65 percent from 2000 to 2015, AAPCA says.
Background ozone will likely feature prominently at oral argument in the Murray Energy consolidated D.C. Circuit suits, where numerous industry groups and states are challenging the 2015 ozone NAAQS. Parties opposed to the NAAQS say the standard is unattainable, but EPA in the litigation is adhering to its long-running position that the standards themselves must be set based on only public health considerations.
According to this Obama-era position, background concerns can only be taken into consideration in the implementation phase. The approach is based on the Supreme Court's 2001 landmark ruling in Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, in which the court in a unanimous opinion authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia found that factors such as implementation costs cannot be taken into account in setting NAAQS.
However, GOP lawmakers are promoting a bill, H.R. 806, that would substantially revise the NAAQS-setting process. Among other changes, the bill would allow the EPA administrator to "consider, as a secondary consideration, likely technological feasibility in establishing and revising the national primary ambient air quality standard." Primary NAAQS are intended to protect human health, while secondary standards are aimed at protecting the environment.
Scientific Evidence
More scientific evidence also continues to fuel the background ozone discussion and could potentially feature in a revived push to have EPA make background ozone a bigger factor in policy decisions.
For example, in an article published March 1 in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal, researchers with EPA and Princeton and Columbia universities cite a significant contribution to U.S. background ozone from Asia. "Asian NOx emissions have tripled since 1990, contributing as much as 65% to modeled springtime background [ozone] increases" in the western United States, outpacing domestic emissions reductions. "During summer, increasing Asian emissions approximately offset the benefits of U.S. emission reductions," the researchers say.
EPA has taken heavy criticism from states and industry over its 2016 revision to the agency's "exceptional events" policy, because of the agency's narrow approach to background ozone. The exceptional events rule and associated guidance allows states to discount for the purposes of NAAQS attainment air quality data gathered during "exceptional" occurrences such as dust storms or wildfires, when pollution is unusually high.
The revision, designed to streamline the process of states making demonstrations of events to be excluded, is drawing fire for its proposal that an exemption for international emissions available under Clean Air Act section 179(b) only be available for areas on the U.S. border. This removes the option that states with high ozone levels could demonstrate that Asian emissions, for example, are artificially inflating their ozone levels.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club filed suit over the rule claiming it is too weak, and the petitioners are due to submit their opening briefs on May 19.
Meanwhile, according to an EPA staff presentation to AAPCA's Spring Meeting in Tucson, AZ, March 28, the agency is also working on a document relating to stratospheric ozone intrusion. This is the naturally occurring process in which high-level atmospheric ozone, which is beneficial, intrudes into the lower atmosphere, where it is harmful. EPA has so far refused to make special allowances for such occurrences, which occur in at high elevations in the mountain West.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pending-epa-rules-suits-could-help-revive-fight-background-ozone
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