Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 4/10/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Will Scott Gottlieb Comply with Industry Plea to Stall Added Sugar Label?
Apr 10, 2017 | The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists (blog)
By Genna Reed
President Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb, faced the Senate in his nomination hearing on Wednesday, during which he implied that delayed implementation of the science-based nutrition facts label revision would be possible if he is confirmed. -
Chemistry And Computer Coding Brought Together In NSF-Funded Institute
Apr 10, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Elizabeth K. Wilson
A new computational chemistry software institute, the first of its kind funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to bring software development in the field up to speed with rapid advances in computer hardware. -
Coatings Sector Concern Over UK REACH, CLP Rules
Apr 7, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
More than three-quarters of coating companies say that, as the UK begins negotiations to exit the EU, separate chemicals regulation requirements in the country would be 'negative' or 'overwhelmingly negative' for their business. -
Perry, Wife Head To International Summit
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Jean Chemnick
Energy Secretary Rick Perry will travel to Italy this weekend with his wife, Anita, to attend the Group of Seven ministers' meeting, and he has a message for global leaders. -
Major Mid-Atlantic Project Ready For FERC Decision
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sam Mintz
The billion-dollar, 120-mile PennEast natural gas pipeline moved a step closer to federal approval today with the publication of a finalized environmental impact statement by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. -
EPA Seeks To Pause Oil And Gas Methane Rule Suit
Apr 7, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is asking an appellate court to pause litigation over its first-time methane standards for new oil and gas equipment following President Donald Trump's order for the agency to review and potentially rescind several climate rules, echoing similar requests to delay suits over the Obama EPA's power plant greenhouse gas standards. -
(ACC Mentioned) America’s Toxic Workplace Rules
Apr 10, 2017 | The New York Times
By Rachel Cernansky
Last month, President Trump’s nomination of R. Alexander Acosta to be secretary of labor was approved by a Senate committee, even though the nominee’s testimony had left unclear whether he would be more interested in protecting employers’ prerogatives than in guarding workers’ interests. -
US Chemical Safety Board Faces Elimination Under Trump: Fuel for Thought
Apr 10, 2017 | Platts
By Gary Gentile
US President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the US Chemical Safety Board, a somewhat obscure agency that has angered so many groups over the years that no one is likely to leap to its defense. -
Climate Change Adaptation Staffers Reassigned
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess and Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA has started to shift staff away from climate change work, in line with the Trump administration's priorities for the agency. -
EPA Shutters Program That Helps Cities Gird for Climate Change
Apr 10, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Tiffany Stecker
The EPA this week closed programs dedicated to aiding cities and states prepare for extreme weather events as the Trump administration continues to cut the agency's climate change role. -
EPA Focuses on Helping States, Businesses Improve Compliance
Apr 10, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
The EPA is putting more emphasis on helping companies meet their obligations under environmental rules, the acting administrator for enforcement and compliance said at a meeting of the Environmental Council of the States. -
States Plan Proposals To Achieve EPA Goals In Lieu Of Agency Guidance
Apr 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
States are preparing to craft plans for achieving EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's top priorities including compliance with ambient air standards and accelerating Superfund cleanups, taking the lead on defining the metrics for meeting Pruitt's priorities because the agency's scant political leadership is ill-equipped to develop such guidance. -
EPA Critic Attacks NAS 'Whitewash' On Human Studies
Apr 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
Steve Milloy, a long-time critic of EPA's use of human subject research to set air quality standards, is denouncing as a “whitewash” the recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report that backed the agency's use of the research and found it was “ethical,” and not unlawful, as Milloy claims.
Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no relevant clipsto report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Will Scott Gottlieb Comply with Industry Plea to Stall Added Sugar Label?
Apr 10, 2017 | The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists (blog)
By Genna Reed
President Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb, faced the Senate in his nomination hearing on Wednesday, during which he implied that delayed implementation of the science-based nutrition facts label revision would be possible if he is confirmed.
Yes, you read that right. The future chief of an agency dedicated to protecting public health is already hinting at his willingness to do industry’s bidding to push back enforcement of a rule based in solid science that would help us make informed food purchasing decisions to improve our health. But his alignment on industry talking points is not completely shocking. Mr. Gottlieb has a long list of ties to industry, including an extensive financial and professional relationship with several pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and sell opioids.
During the hearing, Senator Pat Roberts told Gottlieb that the deadline of summer 2018 was not enough time for industry to make the required label changes, including the new added sugar line, especially considering that companies will have to include biotechnology disclosures on labels soon as well. To the question of whether he would “work to ensure proper guidance is available and consider postponing the deadline for the Nutrition Facts Panel to help reduce regulatory burdens?” Gottlieb didn’t explicitly say he would postpone the deadline but might as well have:
“This is something that I do care about and I look forward to working on if I am confirmed,” Gottlieb said. He continued to explain that he is, “philosophically in favor of trying to make sure we do these things efficiently, not only because it imposes undue costs on manufacturers to constantly be updating their labels, but we also have to keep in mind it creates confusion for consumers if the labels are constantly changing…you want to try to consolidate the label changes when you are making [them] as a matter of public health so that the information is conveyed accurately and efficiently to the consumers.”Why delay?
The delay tactic is often used by industry as a fallback plan, once they’ve failed altogether to stop a science-based policy that might impact their bottom line. This is old hat for the food industry. Back in December, I wrote about how the Food & Beverage Issue Alliance (a group made up of the biggest food and beverage trade associations, like the American Beverage Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association) had written a letter to the acting HHS secretary and USDA secretaries asking to delay the implementation of the nutrition facts rule to coordinate with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s biotechnology disclosure rule. Some of the same players doubled-down on a similar letter in March, asking HHS Secretary Tom Price to delay the rule until May 2021 for the same reason. Scott Gottlieb’s remarks at his hearing closely resemble the sentiments contained in both of those letters.
Sound familiar? Time and time again we’ve seen science-based proposed rules never make it to the final stages, or those that are finalized but implementation is soon delayed. Just last week, EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, issued a proposed rule that would delay implementation of the Risk Management Plan (RMP) amendments 20 months, until February 19, 2019. This move came after several petitions from the American Chemistry Council and a handful of other chemical manufacturing corporations, oil and gas companies, and trade organizations asked the agency to reconsider the rule.
And remember the silica rule? Although the science had been clear for over forty years, it took the Department of Labor longer than necessary to issue a final rule late last year which tightened the standard, thanks to opposition from the American Chemistry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Just yesterday, the department announced that the rule’s enforcement would be delayed because the construction industry needs more time to educate its employees about the standard.
Industry’s reaction to rules that protect our public health makes it seem like government is blindsiding them. But it’s not like any of these rules were dropped without warning or without cause. These safeguards take years to gather information for and write, during which industry is given ample opportunity to be involved in the process. FDA first began its work to revise the nutrition facts label in 2004, and the proposed rule which included the added sugar line was issued in 2014. Not exactly rapid response. The fact is that science-based policies threaten business as usual, and therefore industry will use all resources at its disposal to stop or slow progress.Industry’s excuses are wearing thin
Once again, with clear science on the public health consequences associated with excessive added sugar consumption, we have been waiting long enough for full added sugar disclosure on labels. While we wait, we’re missing out. The estimated benefit to consumers of the revisions to the nutrition facts label consumers would be $78 billion over 20 years, not to mention the less quantifiable benefits that come with the right to know how much added sugar is in the foods we buy and eat.
The majority of companies already have until 2019 to make the new changes to their labels and larger food companies like Mars, Inc. have said they could meet the July 2018 deadline just fine.
It’s clear that industry is turning this science-based decision into a political one, at the expense of Americans who will remain in the dark about how much added sugar is in their food for even longer. As National Public Health Week draws to a close, I can’t help but think about the urgent need for progress now, not in four years, if we’re to improve the health of this country, let alone become the healthiest nation by 2030. If Mr. Gottlieb secures the FDA secretary position, he must remember that he is beholden to our public health, not the pharmaceutical or food industry’s bottom line.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/will-scott-gottlieb-comply-with-industry-plea-to-stall-added-sugar-label
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Chemistry And Computer Coding Brought Together In NSF-Funded Institute
Apr 10, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Elizabeth K. Wilson
A new computational chemistry software institute, the first of its kind funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to bring software development in the field up to speed with rapid advances in computer hardware.
The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI), based at Virginia Tech, celebrated its launch with a reception on April 4 at the ACS national meeting in San Francisco.
With a five-year budget of $19.2 million, MolSSI is assembling a staff of research scientists, including coding experts, chemists, and mathematicians. They’ll occupy about 640 m2 at Virginia Tech, MolSSI director and Virginia Tech chemistry professor T. Daniel Crawford told C&EN.
The advanced software code that results from this project will be open source, Crawford said. “What we’re trying to do is develop frameworks and infrastructures that the whole community can use.”
The need for such a research effort has long been apparent, Crawford explained. The software that is used to model structures, examine molecular dynamics, and predict reaction outcomes has lagged behind advancements in computer hardware by about 10 years.
“I realized our community was really facing a crisis in that our software development was not keeping up with the massive changes in hardware,” he said.
Crawford and his colleagues approached NSF in 2010 with the idea for an institute to close this gap. After seven years of workshops and talks, NSF agreed to support the project. Unlike most projects that NSF funds, Crawford explained, the agency will work closely with MolSSI to help the project succeed.
MolSSI will serve as a model for the possible development of other such institutes in other fields, Evelyn Goldfield, program director for NSF’s Division of Chemistry, said at the launch celebration. “We are the guinea pigs,” she said.
In addition to funding the research science staff, MolSSI is awarding fellowships to young researchers in computational chemistry. At the reception, Crawford announced the first 10 recipients, culled from 54 applicants. They’ll be funded for two years, working in research groups around the country.
Teresa Head-Gordon, a member of MolSSI’s board of directors and a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said one of her projects will be to create a master’s program in software engineering and molecular science at UC Berkeley.
MolSSI will also be holding workshops. For instance, a workshop at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, Calif., next month will focus on quantum chemistry software packages.
The institute hopes it will be able to extend its funding from the initial five years to 10 years.
“The long-term sustainability is a major issue for us,” Crawford said. “It’s essential that the time horizon be well beyond” five years.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i15/Chemistry-computer-coding-brought-together.html
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Coatings Sector Concern Over UK REACH, CLP Rules
Apr 7, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
More than three-quarters of coating companies say that, as the UK begins negotiations to exit the EU, separate chemicals regulation requirements in the country would be 'negative' or 'overwhelmingly negative' for their business.
Twenty-nine companies gave their opinion to a Brexit survey conducted for members of the British Coatings Federation (BCF), a trade association representing manufacturers of paint, printing inks and wall coverings.
Seventy-six percent were against the separate rules, with 93% saying the EU's REACH Regulation is of high importance for their businesses operations. A further 82% said the same for CLP.
Annual costs of regulatory compliance would go up once the UK leaves the EU, according to 61% of respondents.
Trade with the EU is important to their businesses, 86% said, as 65% of their raw material imports come from the bloc. Meanwhile, 10% would consider moving their coatings manufacturing operations to mainland Europe if there is no access to REACH or the single market.
Skilled labour from the European Economic Area (EEA) is important to 72% of respondents. And a third said existing models for free trade agreements with the rest of the world would be beneficial. Overall, 80% see Brexit as a risk.
Almost two-thirds of respondents are from UK-owned coatings companies, with 84% being SMEs.
The survey was prepared in consultation with the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis), and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).Government talks
On 17 March, the BCF met with Defra, Beis and the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) to discuss the survey results. The British Association for Chemical Specialities, Chemical Business Association and the UK Cleaning Product Industry Association were also present.
At the meeting, government officials recognised the importance of the chemical industry supply chain to the UK economy and acknowledged that "whilst it may be difficult, it is essential to align UK and EU chemical regulations," Ellen Daniels, BCF head of policy, told Chemical Watch.
Trade associations will continue to work closely with the government to ensure the coatings sector will get "the best deal" post-Brexit, she added.
BCF also presented its survey results at the REACH Cross Sector Group meeting on 10 March where the 2018 registration deadline was also discussed. The group meets every few months to talk about key issues concerning the Regulation.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55053/coatings-sector-concern-over-uk-reach-clp-rules
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Perry, Wife Head To International Summit
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Jean Chemnick
Energy Secretary Rick Perry will travel to Italy this weekend with his wife, Anita, to attend the Group of Seven ministers' meeting, and he has a message for global leaders.
"If I had to synthesize his line of thought going forward, it's 'America's open for business,'" said DOE spokesman Bob Haus. "And we want to do business on the worldwide stage pursuant to the administration's policy of not just being energy independent, but energy dominant."
On Sunday, Anita Perry, Haus said, will give a speech at a side meeting organized by the Enel Foundation, RES4Africa and the Africa EU Energy Partnership, titled "Africa 2030: Empowering the continent through innovation, green tech solutions and capacity building."
Her involvement stems from a congratulatory call Italian Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda made to Perry shortly after his confirmation, in which he asked if the secretary's wife would also be willing to make the trip. Calenda then sent a formal invitation, and Perry accepted, Haus said.
As first lady for more than a decade when her husband served as governor of Texas, Anita Perry was very involved in empowerment issues, Haus added.
"I think Minister Calenda viewed this as an interesting and important side meeting that maybe wasn't getting as much visibility as it should, and he had hoped that adding Perry's speaking arrangement would raise visibility," Haus said.
Haus said Anita Perry's trip, for which he did not know the cost, will be covered as part of the DOE delegation and that it has been reviewed by the agency's general counsel and is "not out of the norm."
Ministers from G-7 countries are gathering to hammer out language that contributes to a final statement, or communiqué, at the leader-level meeting in Taormina, Sicily, in May.
Representatives from every country must approve the communiqué's content, which means President Trump will have the ability to remove language on fossil fuel subsidies, climate finance and the Paris Agreement. Those issues have made it into past years' statements.
The G-7, which includes the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, has already committed to eliminate "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies and to "encourage all countries to do so by 2025."
The Italian presidency of this year's process has signaled it intends to include similar language in the final communiqué, and greens would like to see a 2020 deadline to phase out subsidies.
Perry's trip to Rome will overlap with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's participation in the G-7 foreign ministers meeting in Lucca, Italy, on Monday and Tuesday.
Tillerson attended a gathering of foreign ministers from the larger Group of 20 countries in February, and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin participated in a finance ministers meeting in March. The finance meeting released a statement touching on the need to phase down fossil fuel subsidies. The text cut established language on climate finance.
Even if language from the G-7 energy and foreign minister meeting waters down references to fossil fuel subsidies or eliminates them altogether, that issue could resurface during next month's leader-level meeting.
Trump is expected to announce whether the United States will remain in the Paris climate deal immediately before traveling to Taormina.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/04/07/stories/1060052829
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Major Mid-Atlantic Project Ready For FERC Decision
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sam Mintz
The billion-dollar, 120-mile PennEast natural gas pipeline moved a step closer to federal approval today with the publication of a finalized environmental impact statement by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The report confirmed the assessment FERC first released in July of last year, which found that any adverse environmental impacts from the project can be addressed with mitigation measures.
The proposed pipeline, which would run from northern Pennsylvania to New Jersey, will have to wait for President Trump before the approval can be finalized; FERC needs a quorum of three commissioners to make significant rulings, and right now it consists of just two acting commissioners. Acting Chairwoman Cheryl LaFleur said last week that nominations are "imminent."
PennEast also still needs a water quality permit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and faces a review by the Delaware River Basin Commission.
The pipeline company celebrated FERC's ruling today, while environmental groups panned it.
"Federal regulators have once again determined that PennEast Pipeline can deliver enormous benefits for the region, including lower electric and gas bills, thousands of jobs, enhanced reliability, and direct access to one of the most abundant and affordable supplies of clean-burning natural gas in all of North America — while doing so with little impact on the environment," said pipeline board Chairman Dat Tran in a statement.
Advocacy group ReThink Energy NJ said the final environmental impact statement just repeated the "unfounded" conclusions of last year's draft.
"FERC's flawed review of the PennEast project failed to thoroughly examine the significant environmental impacts the pipeline would cause," said Tom Gilbert, campaign director at ReThink Energy, in a statement. "We vow to double our efforts to stop this pipeline from damaging our land, polluting our air and water, and putting our families at risk. Citizens' voices matter, and this is a project that should — and will — be stopped."
The PennEast pipeline was the subject of a failed lawsuit earlier this month by an environmental group that claimed FERC's funding structure means it is fundamentally biased toward approving pipelines (E&E News PM, March 22).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/04/07/stories/1060052826
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EPA Seeks To Pause Oil And Gas Methane Rule Suit
Apr 7, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is asking an appellate court to pause litigation over its first-time methane standards for new oil and gas equipment following President Donald Trump's order for the agency to review and potentially rescind several climate rules, echoing similar requests to delay suits over the Obama EPA's power plant greenhouse gas standards.
In an April 7 motion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf asks to pause the oil and gas new source performance standards (NSPS) litigation, American Petroleum Institute (API), et al. v. EPA, et al.
It cites a nascent review of the methane standards announced in an April 5 Federal Register notice.
The most high-profile regulation challenged in the suit is the NSPS rule, finalized in June, that issued first-time limits of the potent GHG methane from new drilling facilities.
But the litigation also challenges aspects of a related NSPS for conventional pollutants, finalized in 2012, as well as a third regulation issued in 2014 that reconsidered aspects of the second rule.
DOJ's request notes that parties challenging the rules do not oppose the abeyance request, but that environmentalists and others that intervened in support of the rule “will oppose this motion.”
Even though the litigation includes review of three separate rules, and only the 2016 methane standards are currently being reviewed by the agency, DOJ says “abeyance of these cases as a whole is appropriate given that the 2016 NSPS Rule modified the regulatory text enacted in 2012 and 2014, and therefore these three rulemakings logically should be considered together.”
It adds that if EPA determines to begin a new rulemaking to scrap or alter the methane NSPS, “the parties can consider what course is appropriate for whatever remains of Petitioners’ challenges to the 2012 and 2014 Rules and file a motion to govern accordingly.”
DOJ also notes that briefing has not yet begun in API, making the abeyance request “particularly” appropriate. The procedural posture of the methane litigation contrasts with the power plant suits -- where litigation over EPA's existing plant rule was fully argued six months ago and suits over its new plant rule are fully briefed.
Environmentalists and states that support the power sector rules noted that fact in briefs opposing EPA's motions to hold those suits in abeyance.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-seeks-pause-oil-and-gas-methane-rule-suit
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(ACC Mentioned) America’s Toxic Workplace Rules
Apr 10, 2017 | The New York Times
By Rachel Cernansky
Last month, President Trump’s nomination of R. Alexander Acosta to be secretary of labor was approved by a Senate committee, even though the nominee’s testimony had left unclear whether he would be more interested in protecting employers’ prerogatives than in guarding workers’ interests.
We may soon find out, and here’s one test — an issue of worker health that President Barack Obama’s Labor Department tried to resolve, without much success: Why does the department’s Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration allow workers to be exposed to dangerous chemicals at limits far higher than those set for everyone by the Environmental Protection Agency?
Mr. Acosta should know that issue. He served on the National Labor Relations Board during George W. Bush’s presidency. And OSHA was making slow progress toward equalizing some standards when Mr. Obama’s presidency ended.
The issue of toxic hazards at work went national nearly 20 years ago, when former employees brought more than 200 lawsuits against IBM, accusing it of having concealed knowledge that it was exposing them to carcinogenic chemicals. Ultimately, IBM settled the suits, with the details sealed.Continue reading the main story
Perhaps the most striking feature of those suits was that IBM seems to have not violated any OSHA regulations. The real problem was that OSHA’s standards, across the board, allowed — and still allow — workers to be exposed to much higher concentrations of chemicals than are permitted in the general environment. For example, its standard for lead allows up to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air, averaged over eight hours; the E.P.A. ambient air quality standard is 0.15 micrograms.
Standards for other chemicals are similarly unbalanced — so much so that David Michaels, an epidemiologist who headed OSHA under President Obama, told me in 2015 that because of the current law, the agency’s chemical exposure standards were much too weak.
Today’s limits “are driven more by economic and technological feasibility than they are by the risk assessments,” he said. “Congress would have to change that.”
OSHA has estimated that chemical exposure kills 50,000 American workers a year and sickens more than 190,000, but Dr. Michaels and other experts say these figures are gross underestimates.
One explanation for the disparity between OSHA and E.P.A. standards, offered by Amanda Hawes, a California lawyer, is that E.P.A. rules “are supposed to protect the most vulnerable in the population — typically children, fetuses, the elderly and folks with pre-existing health problems.” Environmental standards, she added, “more often look at chronic effects.”
Dr. Robert Harrison, an occupational medicine specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, explained that cancer and other chronic diseases are usually not recognized as occupational illnesses. Doctors often don’t know when patients have been continually exposed to carcinogens like lead or formaldehyde.
The IBM case also illustrates how difficult it is in court to pinpoint chemical exposure as the cause of illness. To show that IBM knew it was risking workers’ health, the plaintiffs obtained a company study of employee deaths. An epidemiologist said the data showed abnormally high rates of some cancers. IBM said the data’s purpose was intended to determine survivor benefits. The judge refused to admit it. Two years later, an IBM-supported study found an elevated rate of mortality from brain cancer among former employees.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade association, says safety is a core concern of the industry. “In addition to strictly adhering to OSHA’s worker health and safety standards,” it said in an email, its members accept recommendations from other organizations. Nevertheless, Ms. Hawes says she has argued enough cases involving birth defects to understand that voluntary standards don’t work.
Dr. Michaels adds that some OSHA standards are so weak they send a false message of safety. In an interview this winter, he said OSHA did eke out some progress last year after a public dialogue among industry, unions and advocates. The agency moved to revoke the most outdated workplace exposure limits in favor of general-duty standards. It also set new limits for beryllium and silica.
But those measures “don’t deal with the bigger issue,” Dr. Michaels said. “There are many, many chemicals that either have no permissible exposure limits, or that have out-of-date permissible exposure limits.”
OSHA does encourage companies to comply with limits set by other organizations. And Congress took a first step in June by requiring the E.P.A. to regulate more chemicals and add vulnerable populations, including workers, to health risk assessments. Dr. Michaels said this is the first time “that workers will be treated like other populations.”
Still, he added, “It’s only going to be done on a chemical-by-chemical basis, and only for certain uses.”
And that’s where Mr. Acosta comes in.
President Trump has already required agencies to remove two existing regulations for every new one issued. That seems a difficult political climate in which to favor worker safety over employers’ convenience. If confirmed, will Mr. Acosta order his OSHA chief to continue the work toward more rigorous environmental protections for laborers and defend standards already in place that protect worker safety?
The many thousands of workers routinely exposed to toxic chemicals can only hope the answer will be yes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/opinion/americas-toxic-workplace-rules.html
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US Chemical Safety Board Faces Elimination Under Trump: Fuel for Thought
Apr 10, 2017 | Platts
By Gary Gentile
US President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the US Chemical Safety Board, a somewhat obscure agency that has angered so many groups over the years that no one is likely to leap to its defense.
The group is an independent government agency, much like the National Transportation Safety Board. While the NTSB investigates plane accidents and train derailments, the CSB probes refinery explosions and chemical accidents.
In 2010, it launched its own investigation of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. It also issued high-profile reports on the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion as well as a fire at a Chevron refinery in California in 2012.
In Trump’s broad budget blueprint (details coming in May), the CSB is lumped in the same category of defunded groups such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
But while public broadcasting, the arts and scholars all have constituencies willing to raise a fuss, the CSB, in its zeal to pin blame for disasters at industrial facilities, has made very few friends.
Take Deepwater Horizon, for instance. The CSB was asked to investigate the disaster at the site of BP’s Macondo deepwater well by Congress. Right from the start, it was an unwelcome participant, alongside more mainstream investigations by government regulatory agencies, BP and other companies, and a special presidential commission.
It pressed for independent access to the blowout preventer — the massive structure that sat atop the well and was supposed to snap shut, preventing explosive gases from reaching the surface. Everyone wanted to know why the BOP failed and the CSB wanted the freedom to conduct its own investigation.
For its refusal to play nice with other concurrent investigations, the CSB was hauled into court by Transocean, the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and was fought by the Interior Department, which challenged its authority to extends its jurisdiction offshore.Enough blame to go around
No one escaped scrutiny from the CSB, which found enough blame to go around.
The group concluded that the offshore exploration industry had placed too much emphasis on personal safety-preventing falls, cuts and similar accidents-overlooked the need for safer drilling technology and techniques.
The finding that companies need to adopt a “safety culture” — a hallmark of the investigation into the Texas City refinery explosion — would ultimately be adopted by the mainstream investigations.
After winning partial independent access to the BOP, and winning a court fight over its offshore jurisdiction, the CSB posited a unique theory about the cause of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Other investigations concluded that the failure of the BOP to cleanly cut the drill pipe and seal the out-of-control well was an isolated incident, the result of a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances.
But the CSB said that a force known as “effective compression” buckled the drill pipe, pushing it off center. The phenomenon was not a one-off, but could happen again with other BOPs, the CSB concluded.
That conclusion has yet to gain traction. But a new federal drilling safety rule did include a a requirement that BOPs be able to center drill pipe in order to get a clean shear.
The group’s budget is tiny — about $12 million. But in the current atmosphere of reducing the regulatory burden on businesses and a need to follow through on campaign pledges to reduce spending, the CSB is in real danger of elimination.
Labor unions have spoken out against the proposed cut. But big labor doesn’t have the same clout under a Republican administration that has vowed to boost the US business climate.
Presidential budgets are notoriously ambiguous and rarely does every proposed cut or new program make it through Congress. Cutting federal funds for PBS, for instance, has been proposed before, to no avail. Same for public radio.
But the fiercely independent history of the CSB makes it vulnerable. And the push to reduce costly regulations, or even repeal some rules adopted during the Obama administration, could mean that some portion of the rules aimed at improving offshore safety are also at risk.
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/04/10/us-chemical-safety-board-trump/
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Climate Change Adaptation Staffers Reassigned
Apr 7, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess and Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA has started to shift staff away from climate change work, in line with the Trump administration's priorities for the agency.
EPA disbanded its climate change adaptation program Wednesday, said Jerry Filbin, a former senior analyst with the adaptation team. Filbin retired from the agency two years ago but is still in touch with the current staff and confirmed the change this afternoon.
The adaptation team comprised just four staff positions, including its director, Joel Scheraga.
Three of the four have since been reassigned within the Office of Policy, which housed the adaptation program, an EPA spokesman confirmed to E&E News. A fourth person is remaining.
The small group was responsible for coordinating the implementation of the agency's Climate Change Adaptation Plan, first developed under President Obama. The staff led the working group behind the agency's initial 2014 plan.
They tracked department commitments under the plan and reported progress back to the administrator and to the White House. They also developed tools for states, municipalities and tribes and represented EPA while collaborating on adaptation efforts with other federal agencies.
"I feel badly, given everything they have accomplished to keep communities safe; it feels like a waste to me," said Filbin.
He suggested the move could signal more reorganization to come within the agency. Each main office within EPA has a "key point person" whose job is to provide information about adaptation to all the subprograms. Those positions could also be in danger.
"I read into this something bigger. With that small staff going away and there is no coordination, will this happen across the agency?" Filbin said.
EPA said an earlier news report of broader staff reassignments within the Office of Policy was not accurate.
The spokesman emphasized that the knowledge would remain in the office, and that the agency's regional offices already have this expertise.
"The main point of this is reducing redundancy," he said.
"This is us delivering on President Trump's promise to return EPA to its core functions and make it more efficient and effective for all Americans," he added.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/04/07/stories/1060052834
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EPA Shutters Program That Helps Cities Gird for Climate Change
Apr 10, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Tiffany Stecker
The EPA this week closed programs dedicated to aiding cities and states prepare for extreme weather events as the Trump administration continues to cut the agency's climate change role.
Three employees in the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy will be reassigned as the Trump administration closes down departments dedicated to climate change adaptation, according to multiple EPA employees familiar with the decision as well as former agency officials still in contact with current employees.
The EPA said the reorganization is being driven by President Donald Trump's budget request, which would cut agency funding 31 percent from fiscal year 2017 funding levels, and a desire to eliminate redundant programs. According to an EPA official, those functions will be absorbed into other EPA offices. Many regions already do much of the same work, particularly on adaptation, the official said.
“The expertise that exists regarding this is still part of our arsenal of knowledge,” the agency official said.
Sources familiar with the move, however, said the decision to close those programs sends a signal to agency staff that those functions are no longer a priority.
“The priorities are, wherever the budget is at, these functions won't continue,” one source said.
Climate Spending a ‘Waste’
The Trump administration has moved quickly to roll back Obama-era climate change regulations, seeking to halt carbon dioxide standards for power plants and promising to repeal other regulatory impediments to energy exploration.
“I think the president was fairly straightforward: we're not spending money on [climate change] anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said March 16 as the Trump administration released its budget.
Losing the climate adaptation program will be a blow to cities, states and companies seeking to prepare for storms or droughts that might be exacerbated by climate change, Janet Peace, senior vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told Bloomberg BNA. The adaptation program helped regional coordination so local governments and corporations could cooperate and share best practices.
“The most important thing they do is they facilitate this regional coordination,” Peace said. “In our view, coordination is really important because it helps you better prepare whether you're a company or whether you're a city.”
—With assistance from Rachel Leven, Renee Schoof and Steve Gibb
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108807068&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108807068&jd=108807068
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EPA Focuses on Helping States, Businesses Improve Compliance
Apr 10, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
The EPA is putting more emphasis on helping companies meet their obligations under environmental rules, the acting administrator for enforcement and compliance said at a meeting of the Environmental Council of the States.
“No one wants to spend years negotiating a consent decree if we can get compliance,” Lawrence Starfield, a career Environmental Protection Agency official, said April 7 in a discussion of how states can improve compliance with environmental regulations.
State officials nationwide are looking at ways to help companies comply with air, waste and water regulations, officials said during the discussion. Starfield told Bloomberg BNA afterward that the EPA was hearing from states that they want more help with compliance assistance.
The EPA has been working on compliance assistance with efforts such as clearer regulations, he said.
Carol Comer, the ECOS Compliance Committee vice chairwoman and director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said during the panel discussion that her state works on a “compliance first” model.
In some small communities, the state agency takes a consultant-like role in helping employers comply with the regulations in the most cost-effective way, she said.
Companies shouldn't be in a position where they don't ask a state regulator for guidance out of fear that they will get inspected and cited for violations as a result, she said.
“If we partner, we get to compliance faster,” because citations often are appealed and can take years to resolve, Comer said. “And keep in mind, I don't think we're giving up anything because we still have that enforcement authority.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=108807075&vname=dennotallissues&fn=108807075&jd=108807075
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States Plan Proposals To Achieve EPA Goals In Lieu Of Agency Guidance
Apr 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
States are preparing to craft plans for achieving EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's top priorities including compliance with ambient air standards and accelerating Superfund cleanups, taking the lead on defining the metrics for meeting Pruitt's priorities because the agency's scant political leadership is ill-equipped to develop such guidance.
Speaking to Inside EPA at the Environmental Council of the States' (ECOS) spring meeting April 7 in Washington, D.C., immediately following Pruitt's keynote address there, ECOS President and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency head John Linc Stine said his organization sees the Trump administration's focus on shifting implementation of many environmental laws to the states as a chance for states to take a lead role rather than following EPA.
“I think we're converging on the idea that we should propose, that we should set a framework by which we can work together” with EPA, Stine said. He continued that Pruitt openly sought input on how to move toward his cleanup and compliance goals, and noted that as this point the agency likely lacks the resources to craft such plans on its own since President Donald Trump has yet to name any nominees for its program offices.
Former EPA officials earlier at the ECOS conference had urged states to take the lead, given a dearth of nominees or Senate-confirmed Trump administration officials at the agency that means EPA is unlikely to craft a plan for the states in the near future.
However, Stine said it will take some time for state regulators to agree on any strategy to submit to EPA, and that they will likely stay away from more ideologically charged issues, such as climate policy, where disagreements between the states are almost guaranteed to be intractable.
"There are many, many ideas that are out there. One of the benefits that ECOS provides is that there is a lot that we share in common under the law -- Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, solid waste -- if we could align ourselves, offer some framework with clear goals and objectives for EPA, I think that would be useful,” Stine told Inside EPA.
Pruitt called for such input during his speech to ECOS, which represents many state environment agencies -- urging the regulators there to work with his agency to establish a joint plan of action. But he has not said how the agency will implement the plan to shift environmental work to the states at the same time that Trump is seeking massive funding cuts to EPA in fiscal year 2018, including to grants to help states pay for environmental work.
'Benchmark Objectives'
“We need to set clear, benchmark objectives to go and achieve. . . . What's really helpful to us is hearing from you at the state level to say what should our objectives and goals be -- how do we set those metrics to achieve better outcomes? Let's look over a two, three, four-year process and how we can do that together,” Pruitt said.
Stine told Inside EPA that he took Pruitt's statement as “an invitation to us to offer those ideas,” and a signal that the agency is open to following the states' lead both on broad strategies to achieve environmental gains and on specific targets for measuring success.
“I heard [Pruitt] say more clearly today . . . that he really does want us to engage in kind of a proposing kind of a way -- what would be the solution from the states' perspective that we could offer as a starting point, perhaps, on discussions,” Stine said.
Pruitt's comments echoed statements by former EPA officials during the April 6 ECOS session. There, both Bob Perciasepe, deputy EPA administrator under President Barack Obama, and Jeff Holmstead, the agency's air chief under President George W. Bush, called on state officials to bring their own agendas to Pruitt rather than waiting for EPA to take the lead.
However, Pruitt offered no guidance on how states or EPA might overcome the barriers posed by the agency's fiscal year 2018 budget request that would cut its funding from $8.1 billion to $5.7 billion.
ECOS has already spoken up in opposition to those cuts, saying they would impede states' ability to fulfill their existing responsibilities and block them from taking up more duties as the Trump administration desires. “I know there were some people who were hoping we would hear more about the budget. However, I know . . . he needs to get his team fully in place,” Stine said of the speech.
Measurable Goals
During his speech, Pruitt said he hopes to remedy the fact that only 40 percent of the country is now attaining national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) set under the Clean Air Act, and the backlog of more than 1,200 contaminated sites on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL).
But he stopped short of saying how far he hopes to reduce either the NPL or NAAQS nonattainment, leaving the door open for states to propose not only strategies for making those reductions but what the ultimate measure of success should be.
“I think what we heard today was an outcomes statement -- how many should we be getting done?” Stine told Inside EPA.
During a subsequent panel discussion on sustainability, he suggested that states could make such a proposal on waste management and reuse.
Speaking of how EPA and state policies treat reused solid waste, Stine said “there's an opportunity to revisit the overall regulatory framework in which we make these decisions. Now might be the right time for a new tool -- a new way of materials reuse and recovery. That would be something [for] all states -- we don't want to create it 50 times. We should look at it in a way to do it in an effective regulatory method that we could all share. I think that's what I take from the administrator this morning -- an opportunity for us. So we should jump on that.”
While the states have yet to take any definite position on how to work with the Trump EPA, Stine told Inside EPA their proposals could draw on the framework many states have used to build renewable energy mandates.
“Anyone who's worked on results-based accountability knows that you have a long-range goal, and then you have a series of step goals that are going to take you there. We do it on the state level already, for example on renewable energy,” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-plan-proposals-achieve-epa-goals-lieu-agency-guidance
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EPA Critic Attacks NAS 'Whitewash' On Human Studies
Apr 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
Steve Milloy, a long-time critic of EPA's use of human subject research to set air quality standards, is denouncing as a “whitewash” the recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report that backed the agency's use of the research and found it was “ethical,” and not unlawful, as Milloy claims.
In an April 6 op-ed in the Washington Times, Milloy, a former member of the Trump transition team at EPA and publisher of the website Junk Science, says “the fix is in” for EPA in the NAS report.
“The NAS committee did the only thing a government organization could do -- bless the EPA's human experiments and hope the agency could ride out the obvious but unspoken conclusion that it had lied to the public and Congress about the dangers of particulate matter."
NAS in its March 28 report found that controlled human inhalation exposure (CHIE) studies conducted by EPA “are consistent with and indicative of ethical approaches to human-subjects research,” and provide “unique information” that cannot be obtained by other means. EPA in a series of tests exposed human volunteers to diesel exhaust in order to study the impacts of air pollution, to support its position that the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) contained in the exhaust, along with other pollutants, is seriously harmful to human health.
Milloy and others have said the absence of serious health impacts from the studies has trapped EPA in a lie, arguing that PM2.5 cannot be as harmful as the agency claims -- and that if it were, EPA would have committed crimes by exposing humans to such risk.
Milloy's research previously spurred a federal lawsuit by a free-market group against the EPA's CHIE program, but a judge dismissed the suit in January 2013 for lack of standing.
And EPA's inspector general (IG) in a 2014 report also concluded that EPA should develop guidance on how to address the need for “significant study modifications” when needed, after a study subject had an unexpected adverse cardiac response.
But Milloy says in his op-ed that “the only time EPA told the truth about particulate matter was when it told its human guinea pigs that the experiments were harmless."
Yet he notes that the Trump administration will likely pull funding for “EPA's pointless experiments on the young, old and sick in its twisted gas chamber."
NAS in its report, however, notes that the diseases attributed to PM2.5 exposure, like lung cancer and heart disease, take years to develop. It says, “because those diseases are considered to be associated with cumulative effects that develop over long periods, PM2.5 exposures in the CHIE studies considered by the committee . . . would add very little to the cumulative lifetime PM2.5 exposures of many people in the United States.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-critic-attacks-nas-whitewash-human-studies
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