Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 04/13/17
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC's Beck, Vocal IRIS Critic, Poised To Join EPA As Deputy Toxics Chief
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey and Maria Hegstad
Nancy Beck, a top chemical industry representative and long-time critic of EPA risk assessments, is expected to join EPA next week as the new principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) where she will play a key role implementing the revised toxics law. -
(ACC Mentioned) Sonoma County Startup Resynergi Seeks To Recycle Plastic Trash Into Diesel Fuel
Apr 12, 2017 | North Bay Business Journal
By Gary Quackenbush
Resynergi LLC has developed what the Rohnert Park company states is a proprietary system using microwaves to transform unrecycled waste plastic into oil. By mid-year the company plans to announce orders from initial customers with equipment deliveries scheduled during the second half. -
The EPA Wants to Know What Rules It Should Eliminate
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to know which of its rules should be eliminated or modified, according to a soon-to-be-published Federal Register notice. -
EPA Denies Second Flame Retardant TSCA Petition
Apr 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has denied an NGO petition calling for mandatory testing of the chlorinated phosphate esters (CPE) cluster of flame retardants. It cites similar reasoning as its denial of a testing petition coveringtetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA). -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges Commerce Department To Target Obama-Era EPA's TCE Policy
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical manufacturers are pointing to a Trump administration deregulatory memo to urge the Commerce Department (DOC) to curtail Obama-era EPA guidance for assessing sites contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) for risks of cardiac birth defects, arguing the guidance unnecessarily raises cleanup costs and is scientifically unjustified. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chromium Spill Near Lake Michigan Brings New Attention To Cancer-Causing Pollutant
Apr 12, 2017 | Chicago Tribune
By Michael Hawthorne
While federal environmental officials scrambled to protect Lake Michigan from a cancer-causing metal spilled into a northwest Indiana tributary, their political bosses in President Donald Trump's administration are pushing a new budget that would scuttle efforts to crack down on the pollutant nationwide. -
IG Urges EPA Update To Mercury Risk Value, Fish Advisory Approaches
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Inspector General (IG) is recommending in a newly released report that EPA review whether it should reassess the human health risks of methylmercury, update the agency's risk communication advice for fish advisories for states and tribes, and improve approaches for developing and communicating the advice. -
New Study On Monsanto Weedkiller To Feed Into Crucial EU Vote
Apr 13, 2017 | Reuters UK
By Kate Kelland
Results of a new animal study into possible health risks of the weedkiller glyphosate will be published in time to inform a key EU re-licensing vote due by the end of 2017, according to the researcher leading the trial. -
Study Shows Monsanto’s Roundup Can Harm Fetuses
Apr 12, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko
When mothers were exposed to glyphosate – the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup weed killer – during pregnancy, their babies weighed less at birth, according to inital data from an ongoing study. -
New U.S. Pipelines To Drive Natural Gas Boom As Exports Surge
Apr 13, 2017 | Reuters
By Scott DiSavino
U.S. energy firms are scrambling to finish a slew of pipelines that will unleash rich reserves of shale gas in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio as the nation prepares to become one of the world’s top natural gas exporters. -
Scott Pruitt Faces Anger From Right Over E.P.A. Finding He Won’t Fight
Apr 12, 2017 | The New York TImes
By Coral Davenport
When President Trump chose the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, his mission was clear: Carry out Mr. Trump’s campaign vows to radically reduce the size and scope of the agency and take apart President Barack Obama’s ambitious climate change policies. -
Colorado Approval of Drilling Project Near School Draws Lawsuit
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Colorado should not have approved a plan to drill 24 oil and gas wells near an elementary school in Weld County, a lawsuit by several environmental and social justice groups alleged (Weld Air and Water v. Colo. Oil and Gas Conservation Comm'n, Colo. Dist. Ct., No. 17-CV-31315, 4/11/17). -
SBA Advocacy Office Petitions EPA To Weaken Power Plant Effluent Rule
Apr 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
The Small Business Administration's (SBA) advocacy office is urging EPA to reconsider its Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent rule for power plants, saying that changes the SBA office is suggesting to weaken the regulation would help the agency comply with President Donald Trump's executive orders (EOs) on regulatory reform. -
Colorado Regulators Taking Aim at Oil, NatGas Well Flowline Integrity
Apr 12, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Corrosion, pipe failure and natural force damages account for more than nine out 10 leaks from oil and natural gas production well flowlines in Colorado, a draft audit by state regulators has revealed. -
(ACC Mentioned) Scientists To Sue To Defend Chemical Plant Rule, Fearing Trump Admin Won't
Apr 12, 2017 | WVTM13
Fossil fuel lobbyists and environmentalists are set for a legal battle over whether the Trump administration will defend regulations on chemical plant safety. -
Confusing Chemical Labels Created Toxic Cloud in Kansas Town: CSB
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A chemical leak at a manufacturing facility that prompted more than 100 people to seek medical attention in a Kansas town last year stemmed from flawed procedures, the Chemical Safety Board said April 12. -
Trump Eyes Climate Skeptic For Key White House Environmental Post
Apr 12, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillén and Andrew Restuccia
President Donald Trump may tap a vocal critic of climate change science to serve as the highest-ranking environmental official in the White House. -
Connecticut Renews Call For OTC Area Expansion
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
Connecticut is renewing its call for EPA to grant a petition filed in 2013 by East Coast states to massively expand the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) area subject to stricter controls on ozone-forming emissions than elsewhere, saying ahead of an April 13 hearing on EPA's proposed denial of the states petition that it would help cut transport of the pollution. -
Practitioner Insights: Environmental Law: What Will Happen With Emissions Limits
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ewa Rutkowska-Subocz and Agnieszka Skorupinska
The need to lay down air emissions limits for large industry has been on the European Union's radar for a long time.
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC's Beck, Vocal IRIS Critic, Poised To Join EPA As Deputy Toxics Chief
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey and Maria Hegstad
Nancy Beck, a top chemical industry representative and long-time critic of EPA risk assessments, is expected to join EPA next week as the new principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) where she will play a key role implementing the revised toxics law.
Her appointment is likely to be welcomed by chemical industry officials, who have long been concerned that the Trump administration may not want to quickly implement the overhauled Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) due to its deregulatory preferences and efforts to scale back EPA.
An informed source says that while EPA has not formally announced Beck's appointment, she will join the OCSPP team April 17 that currently includes current Acting Assistant Administrator Wendy Cleland-Hamnett and Deputy Assistant Administrator Louise Wise -- but it is unclear how Beck's arrival might affect either of those roles.
She will not require Senate confirmation for her position, allowing her to quickly begin work at an agency that is still lacking much of its political leadership.
Neither Beck nor an EPA spokesman returned calls seeking comment.
Once in office, Beck -- the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) director of regulatory affairs and before that a White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) risk assessment official for almost a decade -- would be expected to be heavily involved in implementing the new TSCA law, particularly adoption of new scientific standards that ACC and others helped craft when the law was written.
In testimony for ACC last month to a Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee subpanel, Beck said that the new TSCA reflects "the first time Congress directed a Federal Agency to consider not only the best available science but also the weight of the scientific evidence (WoE). . . . EPA now has a mandate to apply high quality, reliable and relevant scientific information."
But she told the March 9 hearing that ACC's "great concern" is that "EPA appears to be interpreting [the new] scientific standards [in the revised TSCA] as implying that 'business as usual' is consistent with the standards."
She said, "EPA is reluctant to explicitly incorporate the best available science and WoE standards into the framework rules that it is developing to implement the [act that overhauled TSCA]. Instead, the Agency has suggested that simple reliance on existing guidelines and current practices are sufficient to meet the standards in [TSCA] Section 26."
Beck is also likely to play a key role overseeing how the Trump administration assesses chemicals' risks for regulatory purposes, including whether OCSPP continues to use assessments produced by the agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program -- which the Trump administration is proposing to eliminate -- as the basis for TSCA assessments.
This had been a practice of the Obama administration's TSCA work plan program under then-OCSPP Assistant Administrator Jim Jones. He told Inside EPA an interview shortly before leaving office that he expected OCSPP staff to continue utilizing IRIS in risk assessments they undertake as part of their new responsibilities to assess and manage the risks of existing chemicals under the overhauled TSCA.
IRIS Elimination
But as a long-time critic of the IRIS program, Beck would not be expected to rely on IRIS risk values for TSCA assessments.
She could also play a role assisting with the elimination of IRIS, currently housed in EPA's research office, since the Trump administration has proposed eliminating it in its fiscal year 2018 budget, a plan that has surprised few observers given stepped-up efforts to bolster the agency's TSCA program.
A former EPA source has described Beck, one of two toxicologists at the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) during the George W. Bush administration, as a powerful critic of IRIS assessments which had to undergo interagency and OMB review before they could be released in draft or final form.
During that time, EPA officials blamed OMB for lengthy delays in completing IRIS assessments.
During her tenure at OMB, Beck was also among the authors of a controversial OMB bulletin on federal agencies' risk assessment practices, which critics argued could undermine existing regulatory approaches at EPA and elsewhere. Beck was criticized by EPA staff in early 2006 for taking an interagency detail at EPA where she was viewed as being able to influence EPA's comments to OMB on the draft guidance she wrote.
After a critical review from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) calling for the draft guide to be withdrawn, OMB replaced the bulletin in September 2007 with a scaled-back memorandum that generally reiterated Clinton administration risk assessment principles.
Beck has also written comments on EPA assessments for ACC and blogs on ACC's website reiterating long-running industry criticisms of various parts of the agency's risk assessments and toxics programs. For example, in February 2016 she wrote a blog faulting the agency for not fully implementing NAS recommendations from 2011 on how EPA could improve IRIS assessments.
“It is unfortunate that after five years, IRIS is still producing deficient assessments that do not reflect the 2011 NAS recommendations,” she wrote at the time.
'Specialized Ability'
On her LinkedIn page, Beck describes herself as a PhD toxicologist with 15 years of “applied public health experience” with a “[s]pecialized ability to provide a broad policy perspective as well as detailed technical comments. Deep understanding of U.S. regulatory process. Accomplished in bringing a scientific dialogue to the policy discussion to inform critical decision-making. Skilled in leading and directing interagency negotiations to improve policy.”
Beck says that her “[s]uccessful collaborations have involved partnerships with senior staff and policy officials throughout the Executive Office of the President and Federal agencies.”
Beck worked from July 1988 to August 1990 as a microbiologist with the Estee Lauder Group of Companies, before joining EPA as an AAAS science technology policy fellow from September 2000 to August 2002, according to her LinkedIn page.
She then joined OMB in August 2002 during the Bush administration as a toxicologist, risk assessor and policy analyst where she “[u]tilized toxicology expertise to bridge the science and policy gap by framing and identifying scientific issues for an active policy debate.”
Beck continued at the White House until January 2012 when she took on her current role at ACC as senior director of regulatory policy.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/accs-beck-vocal-iris-critic-poised-join-epa-deputy-toxics-chief
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(ACC Mentioned) Sonoma County Startup Resynergi Seeks To Recycle Plastic Trash Into Diesel Fuel
Apr 12, 2017 | North Bay Business Journal
By Gary Quackenbush
Resynergi LLC has developed what the Rohnert Park company states is a proprietary system using microwaves to transform unrecycled waste plastic into oil. By mid-year the company plans to announce orders from initial customers with equipment deliveries scheduled during the second half.
The technology, called continuous microwave-assisted pyrolysis (CMAP), can recover 250 gallons of clean, reliable diesel fuel from 1 ton of low and high-density polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene plastics, also known as plastics Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6. In addition to its unique heat source, the company says its unit is small, expanding its customer pool to smaller plastic producers.
Those potential customers include carting companies, grocery chains, nonprofits, municipalities, the military, trucking firms and other sectors, according to an American Chemical Council study in 2014.
Plastic waste is mostly free today, as firms wish to offset tipping fees (from $60 to $130/ton) at landfill sites and save transportation expense. These zero-to-low material costs can help customers scale up operations.
“Today’s plastics contain a lot of stored energy in long hydrocarbon chains that can be reclaimed, while also eliminating problems associated with disposal and pollution,” said CEO Brian Bauer, who together with Jason Tanne co-founded Resynergi in April 2015. “However, today we throw most of that latent energy locked up in plastics into the trash. Our mission is to develop evolutionary energy recovery systems designed to change that.”
Some 33.5 million tons of plastic waste are produced annually in the U.S., but only 7 percent is recycled, with most being sent to municipal landfills or shipped overseas, according to the ACC. This mountain of plastic could be worth $29 billion if converted to oil.
The U.S. alone could support 600 plastic-to-oil facilities processing 20 tons of plastic per day while creating 40,000 new jobs, according to EPA, EIA and ACC data sources.
“The recycling landscape is changing,” Bauer said. “Zero-waste initiatives by many municipalities, and the fact that China is no longer taking the world’s plastic waste, means that we must find a better way to recycle and utilize this virtually untapped resource.”
“Resynergi is focused on alternative energy production to eliminate plastic waste — a goal that addresses environmental responsibility while presenting profitable business opportunities.”
He said the per system capital investment in this energy conversion technology is about $350,000 for the equipment, with a 1.5- to three-year simple payback, given an operating energy cost of 25 cents per gallon of diesel fuel that has a market value of $2.75 or more per gallon at the pump.
The new technology reverse engineers plastics through a unique form of pyrolysis — the thermal decomposition of plastic waste without oxygen — providing up to 75 percent conversion of plastic into diesel fuel. Off gases produced during this stage can be recycled to fuel a co-generation system providing up to 50% of the energy needed to power the equipment.
This process also results in zero sulphur, good lubricity and high cetane, properties comparable to those found in commercial diesel fuels. Lubricity is a measure of the reduction in friction and/or wear by a lubricant. Cetane shortens the delay in ignition.
Resynergi designed a compact, portable unit, with higher and faster operating efficiency and low overhead requirements, capable of processing up to five tons of plastic waste per day.
“Our proprietary reactor uses microwaves to gasify melted plastic in a thermal chamber that is 10 times smaller than other systems on the market,” Bauer said. “These gases travel to a condenser where oil precipitates out and where off-gases are channeled to an oxidizer, producing water and traces of [carbon dioxide]. The entire system could fit easily into a 9-by-20-foot shipping container.”
The company completed its fourth beta test of its pilot prototype, dubbed “The Evolucient CMAP 1 Rapid Continuous Pyrolysis System,” that achieves high temperatures required for the combustion and gasification process leading to condensation of high-grade diesel fuel Nos. 1 and 2.
Angel investors have provided almost $1 million in R&D development funds to date. The company will seek series A venture capital funding during 2017.
Other sources of capital include grants from universities supporting intellectual property innovations, along with backing from the construction industry, real estate firms, asphalt companies, biomass (woodchip) producers and recycling companies.
According to Bauer, economics of scale associated with the Resynergi system can produce an 11-to-1 return on investment, given an average energy input cost and a diesel output cost. In addition, more than 11.1 kilowatt-hours of equivalent energy output are derived from this process, versus 1 kilowatt-hour on the input side.
Bauer earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and attended the UCLA Anderson School of Business Management. He was vice president for sales and marketing at Santa Rosa’s TriAccess Technologies, which was acquired by TriQuint Semiconductor. Prior positions included serving as a director for telecommunications equipment marketing with Raychem, Advanced Fibre Communications (a former Petaluma company acquired by Tellabs), ADC, ALU and Motorola.
Co-founder Tanne, a former AFC country manager for Japan, discovered that this nation had several plastic-to-oil plants and wanted to bring this technology back to the U.S. He also worked with the United Nations on a video titled “Clean Up The World” that highlighted ways to reduce waste.
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/northbay/sonomacounty/6858004-181/sonoma-resynergi-plastics-recycle-petroleum?artslide=0
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The EPA Wants to Know What Rules It Should Eliminate
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to know which of its rules should be eliminated or modified, according to a soon-to-be-published Federal Register notice.
The notice, which is set to be published April 13, specifically urges businesses, non-profit groups and others to comment on what rules disproportionately impose costs, hurt job creation, are outdated or otherwise are inconsistent with this administration's recent actions. It is part of President Donald Trump's regulatory reform executive order (E.O. 13,777) directing agencies to reduce “unnecessary” federal rules through their newly created task forces.
“Through this notice, EPA is soliciting such input from the public to inform its Task Force's evaluation of existing regulations,” the notice said. “Although the agency will not respond to individual comments, the EPA values public feedback and will give careful consideration to all input that it receives. EPA will also be conducting outreach on this same topic.”
Comments are due to the agency by May 15. Interested parties can submit comments to docket number EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190 on www.regulations.gov.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109286543&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109286543&jd=109286543
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EPA Denies Second Flame Retardant TSCA Petition
Apr 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has denied an NGO petition calling for mandatory testing of the chlorinated phosphate esters (CPE) cluster of flame retardants. It cites similar reasoning as its denial of a testing petition coveringtetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA).
The TSCA section 21 petition was filed by Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Toxic-Free Future, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, BlueGreen Alliance, and Environmental Health Strategy Center on 6 January. It covered a cluster of substances comprising:tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP);2-propanol, 1-chloro-, phosphate (TCPP); and2-propanol, 1,3- dichloro-, phosphate (TDCPP).
The petitioners asserted that the EPA's published problem formulation and initial assessment "identifies seven critical data gaps around exposures and hazards of these flame retardants". These include reproductive and endocrine toxicity, and exposure resulting from recycling, disposal and industrial and non-industrial uses.
It called for mandatory testing to fill these gaps.
But in a response that echoed one issued last month, the agency said that the petition fell short.
As was the case with the previously denied petition, the EPA said the approach it took during the TSCA work plan was to focus risk assessments on those conditions of use most likely to present a concern, as well as those for which it had the most robust data. This is in contrast to the approach required under the reformed TSCA to consider all conditions of use.
Thus, it said, a policy decision under the pre-amended TSCA not to evaluate a particular use, hazard, or exposure pathway "does not necessarily indicate, at this time, that EPA will need to require testing in order to proceed to risk evaluation."
And it said that it did not find the petitioners demonstrated that the existing information is "insufficient to reasonably determine or predict the effects on health or the environment" from the CPE cluster. Nor did it find that the specific testing identified is necessary to develop such information.
Under law, TSCA section 21 petitioners have 60 days from issuance of a denial during which they may commence a civil action in a US district court to compel a rulemaking.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55173/epa-denies-second-flame-retardant-tsca-petition
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges Commerce Department To Target Obama-Era EPA's TCE Policy
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical manufacturers are pointing to a Trump administration deregulatory memo to urge the Commerce Department (DOC) to curtail Obama-era EPA guidance for assessing sites contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) for risks of cardiac birth defects, arguing the guidance unnecessarily raises cleanup costs and is scientifically unjustified.
EPA's waste office in an Aug. 27, 2014, memo to regional Superfund directors backed "early or interim" action "to eliminate, reduce, or control the [TCE] hazards posed by a site." The memo backed EPA regions' mitigation efforts, but also acknowledged the question of what contamination level causes a health risk in the short-term remains unanswered.
The memo was EPA headquarters' response to long-running industry concerns over how to implement the agency's September 2011 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of TCE. The IRIS assessment set a limit of 2 micrograms per cubic meter to protect against lifetime exposures to TCE. But the limit was based in part on a risk of cardiac birth defects, implying a danger from short-term exposures, and raising significant implementation questions.
Industry groups have long faulted the TCE IRIS assessment, as well as implementation efforts of some EPA regions, arguing that the birth defects risk is based on studies from a single laboratory that are flawed and irreproducible -- though one industry group is seeking to replicate the study. They argue the short-term risk has driven costly and unnecessary cleanup costs and slowed development.
In March 15 comments to DOC, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) reopens a contentious issue the Obama EPA sought to resolve with the 2014 memo. ACC faults the policy's underlying science and inconsistent implementation, and urges the Trump administration to target it in efforts to scale back regulations that hinder domestic manufacturing. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 200702)
"This guidance -- related to remediation of sites contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) -- is being implemented by several EPA regions and states currently, and has the potential to dramatically impact progress towards productive use of lands nationally," ACC says. "[W]e urge the Department to consider the 2014 guidance memo in its review of regulations that adversely impact domestic manufacturers."
ACC's comments respond to a March 7 Federal Register notice issued by DOC as required by President Donald Trump's Jan. 24 memo, "Streamlining Permitting and Reducing Regulatory Burdens for Domestic Manufacturing."
The memo requires the department, in consultation with EPA and other agencies, to "develop a regulatory and statutory plan to streamline Federal permitting processes for domestic manufacturing and to reduce regulatory burdens affecting domestic manufacturers."
"The report also may include recommendations for any necessary changes to existing regulations or statutes, as well as actions to change policies, practices, or procedures that can be taken immediately under existing authority," the memo says.
In the recent comments to DOC, ACC faults Obama EPA arguments that the 2014 guide is not a regulation, but merely "operationalized" the TCE IRIS assessment. To bolster the push for DOC to include the guide in its deregulatory effort, ACC cites language in Trump's Executive Order (EO) 13771 calling for repeal of two existing rules for every new one, which includes any agency policy in the definition of regulation.
ACC notes that "for purposes of this order" the administration defined regulation or rule as "an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or to describe the procedure or practice requirements of an agency."
ACC also contends that the effect of the August 2014 memo is highlighted by EPA's Dec. 7 final rule allowing EPA to consider vapor or water intrusion as part of its Hazard Ranking System used for scoring a contaminated site for possible inclusion on Superfund's National Priorities List of the country's most hazardous waste sites.
And ACC reiterates arguments that EPA's conclusion that TCE poses a risk of cardiac birth defects conflicts with other authoritative bodies, and faults use of IRIS' chronic exposure limit to create action levels for protecting against short-term exposures.
ACC also asks the Trump administration to consider cost concerns that the Obama EPA rebuffed. In November 2015, Region 9 rejected a request from a coalition of California chemical, technology and other companies for a White House cost-benefit analysis of that region's guidance for protecting against TCE exposures, arguing it is based on sound science and consistent with the August memo and other EPA headquarters' cleanup policies.
"[T]he overall weight of scientific evidence demonstrates that TCE has a wide range of potential adverse health effects, and EPA has the responsibility to apply the results of the IRIS toxicity assessment for TCE under Federal statutes and regulations," Region 9 said in the letter.
ACC details rising assessment and mitigation costs at contaminated sites in California, arguing that EPA's 2014 guidance will increase costs of remediating non-residential buildings in the state's South Bay region by as much as $48 million over 30 years. For homes in that area the estimate is more than $100 million over the same period.
"In light of the significant impact that EPA's policy guidance relating to addressing TCE exposure from subsurface vapor intrusion has had, and will continue to have, we urge the Department to consider the [headquarters'] and regional guidance memos as part of its review of the impact of federal regulations on domestic manufacturing," ACC says.
Meanwhile, another trade group, the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance (HSIA) has asked EPA to extend its comment deadline on the agency's proposal to ban certain uses of TCE, a Toxic Substances Control Act Section 6(a) proposed rule based on the same IRIS assessment. HSIA is seeking to replicate a controversial toxicology study, known as the Johnson study, that is the basis for the IRIS assessment. But the trade group recently learned that the contract lab conducting its replication study erred in dosing the lab rats and so invalidated the study, requiring them to repeat the attempt to replicate the original Johnson study, according to HSIA's March 17 request. The group is seeking a 120-day extension from the April 19 deadline, to Aug. 17.
Environmental groups are opposing the requests, arguing that EPA earlier extended the comment deadline by 30 days. Further, they argue that industry groups have had years since the Johnson study's 2003 publication, or EPA's use of it in its 2011 IRIS assessment, to conduct new studies.
https://insideepa.com/inside-epa/acc-urges-commerce-department-target-obama-era-epas-tce-policy
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(ACC Mentioned) Chromium Spill Near Lake Michigan Brings New Attention To Cancer-Causing Pollutant
Apr 12, 2017 | Chicago Tribune
By Michael Hawthorne
While federal environmental officials scrambled to protect Lake Michigan from a cancer-causing metal spilled into a northwest Indiana tributary, their political bosses in President Donald Trump's administration are pushing a new budget that would scuttle efforts to crack down on the pollutant nationwide.
The spill of hexavalent chromium, reported Tuesday by the U.S. Steel Midwest Plant in Portage, prompted the neighboring Ogden Dunes community to shut off its drinking water intake and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to close four beaches as a precaution. Chicago conducted emergency testing of water drawn at an intake crib off 68th Street, about 20 miles across the lake from the spill, but found nothing unusual.
U.S. Steel said it appears a broken pipe joint allowed a still-undetermined amount of wastewater to spill into a ditch next to the plant, where steel forged at the nearby Gary Works is coated with hexavalent chromium and other rust-inhibiting materials.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said there was no immediate threat to Lake Michigan. But the spill draws renewed attention to a toxic metal made infamous by the movie "Erin Brockovich."
Steel mills and chrome plating operations are major industrial sources of hexavalent chromium, which testing nationwide shows already is routinely found in the water supplies of more than 200 million Americans, including millions in the Chicago area. The Portage plant is one of six facilities on the southern shore of Lake Michigan that legally released a combined 1,696 pounds of the metal into Lake Michigan and its tributaries during 2015, according to federal records.
The EPA and the National Toxicology Program linked the dangerous form of chromium to stomach cancer nearly a decade ago. Yet plans to adopt the first national standards for the metal in drinking water have been repeatedly delayed by objections from the chemical industry, and there are signs the new administration could scrap the effort altogether.
Trump's proposed budget would abolish the Integrated Risk Information System, the EPA office working on hexavalent chromium standards in drinking water, as well as sharply reduce funding for scientific reviews of toxic chemicals and cut back on the agency's enforcement of environmental laws.
The administration also is moving to eliminate a program that has provided roughly $300 million a year to fund cleanup and restoration work on the Great Lakes, including projects that address past environmental damage caused by U.S. Steel and other polluters in northwest Indiana.
"Considering what we're seeing right now in northwest Indiana, that doesn't make any sense," said Molly Flanagan, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Alliance for the Great Lakes. "This situation is exactly what the EPA was created to do: respond to environmental emergencies, regulate polluters to make them follow the law and protect us from nasty things that endanger public health."
Chicago began quarterly testing for hexavalent chromium in drinking water about six years ago after the nonprofit Environmental Working Group reported finding the metal in the city's tap water and in drinking water from more than two dozen other cities.
Results posted online by the Chicago Department of Water Management show levels as high as 0.30 parts per billion in treated drinking water last year — 15 times higher than a health goal California officials adopted in 2009 based on the National Toxicology Program study. But levels in Chicago and other cities are below a controversial regulatory limit California later adopted: 10 parts per billion.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment defines the health goal, 0.02 parts per billion, as an amount that reduces the lifetime risk of developing cancer to a point considered negligible by most scientists and physicians. The state's regulatory limit was adopted based on other considerations, including the added cost of water treatment.
At home, people can reduce chromium levels in their tap water with reverse osmosis technology or devices certified by NSF International, a nonprofit group that tests the effectiveness of water filtration. Inexpensive and widely sold carbon filters aren't certified to address the problem, the group says.
Industry lobbied fiercely against tougher regulations after it became clear that hexavalent chromium has contaminated water supplies throughout the nation. The "Erin Brockovich" movie dramatized one of the most high-profile cases: a miles-long plume of the toxic metal dumped by a utility in rural Hinkley, Calif., that led to a $333 million legal settlement over illnesses and cancers.
The American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry's chief trade group, contends other studies show "no adverse health effects" at the current EPA standard of 100 parts per billion for total chromium, a measurement that includes the dangerous form of the metal and other forms, one of which is an essential nutrient in tiny amounts.
Health groups say hexavalent chromium is so dangerous that a national standard is long overdue.
"Even a single gallon of hexavalent chromium could contaminate billions of gallons of drinking water," said David Andrews, senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. "The lack of a drinking water standard ... is just one more example of our failed drinking water regulations."
Indiana officials once sought to relax limits on chromium discharges from U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest industrial polluter on the Great Lakes. State officials backed down and imposed more stringent restrictions after Tribune reporting prompted federal regulators in 2007 to block a new water permit for the steel mill.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chromium-pollution-lake-michigan-met-2-20170412-story.html
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IG Urges EPA Update To Mercury Risk Value, Fish Advisory Approaches
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Inspector General (IG) is recommending in a newly released report that EPA review whether it should reassess the human health risks of methylmercury, update the agency's risk communication advice for fish advisories for states and tribes, and improve approaches for developing and communicating the advice.
The April 12 report, “EPA Needs to Provide Leadership and Better Guidance to Improve Fish Advisory Risk Communications,” and its recommendation that EPA determine whether to update its 2001 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of methylmercury, may be stymied by the Trump administration's proposal to eliminate the IRIS program in its fiscal year 2018 budget adjustments. It is yet to be seen whether agency staff or Congress will reverse that proposal.
The IG report follows the January release of EPA's joint advisory with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on fish consumption for women of child-bearing age and children. Released in the final days of the Obama administration, the long-delayed advice was an update to an advisory the agencies crafted in the early 2000s, and had been sought by numerous stakeholders. For the first time, the joint advisory set a floor for fish consumption of eight ounces per week, and also categorized fish species into three groups based on levels of methylmercury -- a potent neurotoxin children are particularly susceptible to -- in them.
Some critics of the advice objected to its reliance on the 2001 methylmercury IRIS assessment, and the reference dose (RfD) therein, calling it outdated for using the years-old RfD as its basis rather than a controversial modeling approach FDA proposed in 2009. The FDA model attempted to consider both the methylmercury risks of exposure to these sensitive populations and the benefits of fish oils and proteins to the developing fetus. Mercury and fish oils are shown to have negative and positive impacts on the same health endpoint, the neurodevelopmental system.
Among its recommendations, the IG calls on EPA's research office to “[c]onduct an assessment for methylmercury to determine whether the reference dose requires updating, as indicated by the [IRIS], and as proposed in the system’s 2012 and 2015 agendas.” The IG's report indicates that EPA will complete by the end of December 2018 an assessment of whether the methylmercury RfD should be updated.
EPA in its response to IG's findings and recommendations indicates in an included Feb. 28 memo that acting officials from its water and research offices “generally agree[] with the findings in this report, pending suggested changes . . .”
Regarding the methylmercury RfD review, research officials indicate that while they “generally concur[] with the recommendation pending” some clarifications, they disagreed with IG's conclusion that methylmercury is overdue for an update because it was included as a priority in the 2012 and 2015 IRIS multi-year agendas. “[I]nclusion of a chemical on the multi-year agenda does not indicate a determination of whether any specific toxicity value, such as the RfD, requires updating. Importantly, IRIS has not yet determined that the RfD for methylmercury requires updating,” EPA's response says.
Newer Studies
EPA officials' memo adds that they also disagree with IG's conclusion that the RfD is overdue for assessment because it does not include some epidemiology studies that have been published since the RfD's 2001 release. Instead, they say that new literature does not automatically antiquate an existing assessment.
The officials explain that “reassessing a toxicity value within the IRIS assessment development process can be made after scoping (to identify Agency partner needs) and problem formulation (to frame scientific questions in the assessment) are conducted. Only then can a determination be made that the methylmercury RfD should be reassessed to update the reference dose (among other toxicity values).”
Environmental groups and some academics, however, have argued some more recent studies indicate that EPA's RfD of 1x10^-4 milligrams per kilogram bodyweight per day is insufficiently protective, particularly of fetuses. A 2016 study by the Environmental Working Group and others concluded that nearly 30 percent of the 254 women in its study exceeded an EPA safe exposure limit extrapolated from the 2001 RfD when eating fish two or three times a week.
“We strongly support an IRIS update and believe it will result in a lower RfD, and eventually more protective advice about commercial seafood as well,” a non-governmental organization source says of the IG's report. “Sadly, if previous efforts are reflective of the future, this will take at least a decade.”
IRIS assessments, particularly those of complex or political environmental contaminants, often take years to complete. The delays in updating many of the years-old assessments in its database left many stakeholders unsurprised when it was targeted for elimination in a March 21 memo by the agency's acting chief financial officer. The memo indicates that the administration proposes dropping the research office's human health risk assessment portfolio by $5.6 million and 105 full time equivalent employees (FTE) in the FY18 budget. "This change reflects the elimination of the IRIS program and the re-focusing on core statutory obligations," the memo states.
The IG report, however, points out the importance of the risk values that IRIS produces. “The RfD must be accurate and based on the best available science to support development of protective fish advisories. Without effectively developed and communicated fish advisories, consumers may be exposed to unsafe levels of methylmercury through the consumption of fish.”
Fish Advisories
The IG report also has several recommendations for EPA's water office, regarding the fish advisories that it assists states and tribes in preparing. These recommendations include updating guidance to states and tribes on clear and effective risk communication methods for fish advisories, especially for high-risk groups; working with states and tribes to develop and disseminate best practices they can use to evaluate the effectiveness of fish advisories in providing risk information to groups that are particularly large consumers of fish, like tribes and subsistence fishers; and developing and implementing methods to ensure that tribal members receive current fish advisory information.
The report says that these recommendations have also been resolved. The report indicates that EPA's acting water chief has agreed to update the risk communication guide by the end of March 2020, with a draft due in September 2018. He has agreed to develop and implement methods for evaluating the advisories by the same deadlines. The report gives a Sept. 30, 2017, deadline for developing and implementing methods to ensure that tribes get updated advisories.
IG finds that there is often public confusion between federal fish advisories that exist for different purposes or different groups of people. For example, FDA has authority over commercially-marketed fish, and uses a different amount of mercury in fish to take action than EPA does in its advice to states and tribes on how to draft local fishing advisories. Further, there are also discrepancies between state guidance, which “can lead to unclear advice” when a waterbody falls over a border between states.
IG finds that “[f]ish advisory information does not effectively reach many subsistence fishers, including tribes and other groups that consume large amounts of wild-caught fish on a regular basis. Risk communication efforts are ineffective in many instances because fish advisory information is conflicting, confusing, too complex and often not followed . . . Consequently, subsistence fishers consume large amounts of contaminated fish without adequate health warnings.”
The report adds that less than half of the states and no tribes have “adequately evaluated the effectiveness of fish advisories as outlined in the EPA’s 1995 risk communication guidance,” so the various government agencies may be unaware of the effectiveness of the advisories that are in place.
The report notes that advisories do not reach many subsistence fishers, and points to research indicating the most successful way of communicating fish advisories is to post the information at fishing sites. IG staff visited nearly a dozen fishing sites around the country, each of which had an advisory, but no information about the advice was posted at any of the sites.
The report also finds that some tribes do not receive states' fish advisories, in part because of lack of “governance arrangement[s] with the state[s],” because the tribes are sovereign governments.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/ig-urges-epa-update-mercury-risk-value-fish-advisory-approaches
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New Study On Monsanto Weedkiller To Feed Into Crucial EU Vote
Apr 13, 2017 | Reuters UK
By Kate Kelland
Results of a new animal study into possible health risks of the weedkiller glyphosate will be published in time to inform a key EU re-licensing vote due by the end of 2017, according to the researcher leading the trial.
A row over possible effects of glyphosate - an ingredient in Monsanto's big-selling herbicide Roundup - has prompted investigations by congressional committees in the United States and forced a delay in Europe to a decision on whether it should be banned or re-licensed for sale.
Giving details and preliminary findings of the latest study to Reuters, Italian scientist Fiorella Belpoggi said experimental rats exposed to the herbicide at levels equivalent to those allowed in humans showed no initial adverse reaction.
"Exposed animals had no evident differences from non-exposed animals," Belpoggi, who is director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Centre at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, said in a telephone interview.
"But this tells us very little at the moment, because the examinations of key parameters that could be affected by exposure are still being done (and) we are waiting for those results," Belpoggi added.
Those parameters include any genetic changes, as well as potential toxic effects on measures related to fertility, such as sperm, embryo development and offspring growth, she said.
Argument over glyphosate centers on whether it is carcinogenic. Scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) say it probably does cause cancer, putting them at odds with scientists at the European Food Safety Authority, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and multiple other safety and regulatory agencies around the world, who say it likely doesn't.
Congressional committees in the United States have raised questions about the work and funding of IARC, which is based in Lyon, France, and the Ramazzini Institute, based in Bologna.
IARC and Ramazzini defend the independence of their work and say their research is conducted to the highest scientific standards.
DECADES OF RESEARCH
A spokesman for Monsanto said: "There are nearly a thousand scientific studies from decades of research that are already available to every regulatory agency in the world, which have all concluded that glyphosate is safe to use."
According to data published by IARC, glyphosate was registered in more than 130 countries as of 2010 and is one of the most heavily used weedkillers in the world. Analysts have estimated Monsanto could lose out on up to $100 million of sales if glyphosate were banned in Europe.
Belpoggi said her team decided to conduct their trial to produce fresh, independent results in an effort to settle differences over glyphosate's health effect.
But she stressed that due to time constraints, the study is not able to analyze the weed killer's potential carcinogenicity, which would take several years to research properly, given the time any tumors might take to develop and grow.
"We are focused on reproductive and developmental issues, in other words, whether glyphosate ... affects the development of embryos, fetuses and pups," she said.
Chemicals that can affect hormones and reproduction are known as endocrine disruptors and, like carcinogens, are subject to strict regulations in the European Union.
This study involves scientists working at five laboratories, Belpoggi's and one other in Italy, and three outside the country. "This was to ensure we would have the best experts analyze each end point," Belpoggi said. The study is funded by the Ramazzini Institute, a research cooperative of around 28,000 members who are its co-owners and raise funds for its work.
Using laboratory rodents known as Sprague Dawley rats, the researchers exposed them to low levels of glyphosate and its formulation Roundup in their diet, equivalent to U.S. Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) levels permitted in humans.
The U.S. ADI for glyphosate is 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day while the European Union ADI for consumers is 0.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
Full results should be available by June, Belpoggi said, and will be submitted in a paper for peer review and publication in a scientific journal. A draft copy of the results will be sent at the same time to the European Commission.
The Commission has said it expects to restart talks with EU member states by August on re-approving the use of glyphosate in herbicides. A decision is due before the end of 2017.
"We would like to have the results in time to help regulators have a good judgment about this chemical," Belpoggi said. "If it is negative (no effect), then I will be happy because I am also exposed. But if there is some damage, then we would like everyone to know."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-europe-glyphosate-idUKKBN17F0S1
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Study Shows Monsanto’s Roundup Can Harm Fetuses
Apr 12, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko
When mothers were exposed to glyphosate – the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup weed killer – during pregnancy, their babies weighed less at birth, according to inital data from an ongoing study.
The study, led by Dr. Paul Winchester, medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis, Ind., tested and tracked 69 expectant mothers and their newborn babies. At a Children’s Environmental Health Network conference last week, Winchester reported that higher glyphosate levels during pregnancy correlated with with lower adjusted birth weights and earlier births. A study published last year by the same team of researchers also found an association between heavier pesticide use and premature births.
Glyphosate is the most widely used pesticide in the world, sprayed every year on millions of acres of genetically modified corn and soybeans. The Indiana researchers detected glyphosate in more than 90 percent of the mothers in the study, a sign of the ubiquity of glyphosate exposures from food and water for people in the Midwest.
“Is this level of exposure safe or not? We’ve been told it is, but exposures haven’t been measured,” Winchester told The Huffington Post. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Numerous studies link glyphosate to different forms of cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, prompting the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify it as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Last month California regulators announced the addition of glyphosate to the state's registry of chemicals known to cause cancer.
“This herbicide is practically being tested on newborn children today," said EWG President Ken Cook. "Preterm birth and small size may lead to serious health problems later in life, from IQ loss to greater risk of serious diseases, and the outcomes may be even more severe for the following generation. These exposures have to stop in order to protect the health of American children.”
Monsanto has lobbied on every level, from state and local governments to federal agencies, to protect its signature herbicide from any restrictions. A federal judge recently unsealed court documents suggesting that Monsanto executives pushed officials at the Environmental Protection Agency to kill an investigation into the safety of glyphosate.
EWG has long advocated a phase-out of glyphosate and other harmful herbicides. These toxic chemicals do not belong in our food and water – especially that of pregnant women.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/04/study-shows-monsanto-s-roundup-can-harm-fetuses
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New U.S. Pipelines To Drive Natural Gas Boom As Exports Surge
Apr 13, 2017 | Reuters
By Scott DiSavino
U.S. energy firms are scrambling to finish a slew of pipelines that will unleash rich reserves of shale gas in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio as the nation prepares to become one of the world’s top natural gas exporters.
The pipelines are expected to boost output from shale fields in the three states by giving producers access to new domestic and international markets.
Those states could supply about a third of all U.S. natural gas once the pipeline expansion is complete, up from about 25 percent now, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The network will bring cheaper fuel supplies for power generation and industry being built in the eastern half of Canada and the United States, especially along the U.S. Gulf Coast. It would also transport the huge volumes needed to feed facilities that chill the gas to liquid so it can be shipped internationally.
The construction addresses a lack of pipeline capacity that has stunted development of two of the largest shale fields in the United States, the Marcellus and Utica formations.
The lines should allow output to increase from both fields by about 50 percent in the next two years, according to the EIA. Gas from the Marcellus and Utica is among the cheapest in the country.
Among the largest projects under construction are Energy Transfer Partners LP's (ETP) Rover; TransCanada Corp's Leach XPress; and Williams Cos Inc's Atlantic Sunrise. Those lines will move gas out of these shale basins to markets in Canada, the U.S. Midwest and Southeast, including expected connections to Gulf Coast export terminals.
The completion of the lines will be a welcome boon for the firms and their investors after a tough couple of years. A slump in international energy prices led to reduced demand for new oil and gas pipeline capacity from producers.
ETP and other firms were also hit by a growing protest movement of environmentalists, Native American rights groups and U.S. military veterans, which delayed big ticket projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Contractors building ETP's $4.2 billion Rover gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to Ontario will hire up to 15,000 workers during construction of the line, expected to be completed by late 2017, according to ETP spokesperson.
CHANGING FORTUNES
Just over a decade ago - before technological innovation unleashed huge oil and gas supplies trapped in shale rock - U.S. gas production from conventional fields was in decline and the nation was expected to become one of the world’s biggest importers of natural gas.
High prices for fuel encouraged petrochemical and chemical industries to move abroad.
Now, amid the shale revolution, the nation is producing 50 percent more gas, making it the world's biggest producer as energy firms opened up new energy frontiers across the United States.
Prices for gas have averaged less than $3 per million British thermal units over the past two years, a third of the price in 2005, and are expected to remain mostly below that level through at least 2023, based on current futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
That cheap and ample supply motivated industrial firms to spend billions to build and expand manufacturing facilities mostly along the U.S. Gulf Coast but also in the Midwest, such as chemical companies that use gas to make plastics.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC last year agreed to build a multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex near Pittsburgh to be close to the source of the Marcellus and Utica gas. It will employ about 6,000 workers to build the facility and is expected to create about 600 permanent jobs when completed.
Abundant supply has also sparked interest from many countries in buying U.S. LNG exports.
The United States is expected to become a net exporter of gas this year or next for the first time since 1957 on the back of those rising LNG exports as well as pipeline flows to Mexico.
UNLOCKING PENNSYLVANIA RESERVES
At the center of activity in both the Marcellus and Utica is Pennsylvania, which accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. gas production, making it bigger than any state other than Texas.
Pennsylvania's output rocketed from 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2006 to 14.5 bcfd in 2016, according to the EIA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
One billion cubic feet is enough to fuel about 5 million homes - or every house in Pennsylvania.
Still, the state has the potential to pump a lot more gas as more pipelines provide producers with avenues to new markets.
At least five pipelines capable of transporting over seven bcfd from the Marcellus and Utica are scheduled to open in 2017, with five more due for completion in 2018, capable of moving another five bcfd.
Pipeline capacity from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia was around 23 bcfd in 2016, according to the EIA and Thomson Reuters data. If all pipes under construction are completed, that would rise to more than 35 bcfd.
The pipeline construction and gas production expansion mean billions of dollars in new investments in Pennsylvania and hiring that will extend well beyond the energy sector, said Ryan Unger, CEO of the Team Pennsylvania Foundation, a nonprofit foundation focused on public-private partnerships.
“We are in a position now where we can maximize the state’s resources to create good, stable jobs in Pennsylvania,” Unger said.
Some of the biggest drillers in Pennsylvania stand to benefit most from increasing pipeline capacity. They include units of Chesapeake Energy Corp, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp, Range Resources Corp and EQT Corp.
Cabot sees an opportunity in the "underserved" markets of the northeast, said spokesman George Stark.
"We’d love to see a pipeline build-out to get Pennsylvania gas to New England,” he said.
Those four companies together expect to spend an estimated$4.8 billion on U.S. drilling and well completions in 2017, up about 61 percent from what they spent in 2016, according to a capital expenditure analysis by Cowen & Co.
SHIFT TO EXPORTS
The U.S. started to export LNG from the lower 48 states in 2016; five additional export terminals are expected to open by 2020 to export LNG to large markets in Asia, including China and Japan.
Those terminals could make the U.S. the world's third largest exporter of natural gas by 2018, according to an EIA projection.
Most of the pipeline infrastructure in the Marcellus and Utica was built before the shale revolution, when the region produced just 3 percent of the nation's gas.
Those lines were designed largely to bring gas into the region - not out of it - as customers in Pennsylvania and other nearby states used gas from Texas and the Gulf Coast.
The new lines aim instead to take gas from Pennsylvania to markets worldwide.
Almost a third of the wells drilled in Pennsylvania since 2004 were inactive because of a lack of pipelines to transport the gas, according to a report prepared last year by a task force created by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. "Drilling for gas in Pennsylvania has far outpaced the development of the infrastructure needed to get that gas to markets," the task force said in the report. "The primary challenge the industry faces now is to get the gas around or out of Pennsylvania."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lng-pipelines-analysis-idUSKBN17E2CH
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Scott Pruitt Faces Anger From Right Over E.P.A. Finding He Won’t Fight
Apr 12, 2017 | The New York TImes
By Coral Davenport
WASHINGTON — When President Trump chose the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, his mission was clear: Carry out Mr. Trump’s campaign vows to radically reduce the size and scope of the agency and take apart President Barack Obama’s ambitious climate change policies.
In his first weeks on the job, Mr. Pruitt drew glowing praise from foes of Mr. Obama’s agenda against global warming, as he moved to roll back its centerpiece, known as the Clean Power Plan, and expressed agreement with those who said the E.P.A. should be eliminated. His actions and statements have galvanized protests from environmentalists and others on the left.
But now a growing chorus of critics on the other end of the political spectrum say Mr. Pruitt has not gone far enough. In particular, they are angry that he has refused to challenge a landmark agency determination known as the endangerment finding, which provides the legal basis for Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan and other global warming policies.
These critics say that Mr. Pruitt is hacking only at the branches of current climate policy. They want him to pull it out by the roots.
“The endangerment finding must be redone, or all of this is for naught,” said Steven J. Milloy, who runs a website, JunkScience.com, aimed at debunking the established science of human-caused climate change, and who worked on the Trump administration’s E.P.A. transition team.Continue reading the main story
“If you get rid of the endangerment finding, the rest of the climate regulations just sweep themselves away. But if they don’t get rid of it, the environmentalists can sue, and then there’s going to have to be a Trump Clean Power Plan,” said Mr. Milloy, who is also a former policy director for Murray Energy, a major coal company whose chief executive, Robert E. Murray, was a backer of Mr. Trump’s campaign and his push to undo climate change policy.
The 2009 legal finding is at the heart of a debate within the Trump administration over how to permanently reverse Mr. Obama’s climate change rules. The finding concludes that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare by warming the planet, which led to a legal requirement that the E.P.A. regulate smokestacks and tailpipes that spew planet-warming pollution.
Mr. Pruitt has told the White House and Congress that he will not try to reverse the finding, saying that such a move would almost certainly be overturned by the courts.
Last month, as Mr. Trump prepared to release an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, along with nearly every other major element of Mr. Obama’s climate change legacy, Mr. Pruitt argued against including a repeal of the endangerment finding in the order, according to people familiar with the matter.
Legal experts outside the Trump White House say that while Mr. Pruitt may face political fire on his right flank for the move, it is nonetheless pragmatic legally, since the finding has already been challenged and upheld by federal courts.
But Mr. Pruitt is now being pilloried by conservative allies of the White House. Writing in Breitbart News — the conservative website formerly run by Mr. Trump’s senior strategist, Stephen K. Bannon — James Delingpole, a writer who is close to Mr. Bannon, said that if Mr. Pruitt refused to undo the endangerment finding, “it will represent a major setback for President Trump’s war with the Climate Industrial Complex.”
Thus, climate policy experts on both sides of the debate say, even if Mr. Pruitt succeeds in the legally challenging process of withdrawing the Clean Power Plan, the endangerment finding will still put him under the legal obligation to put together a replacement regulation.
“If Scott Pruitt is not up to that task, then maybe it’s about time he did the decent thing and handed over the reins to someone who is,” he added.
Legal experts say they can see why opponents of climate change policy want to go after the endangerment finding — as long as it remains in place, any efforts to undo climate regulations can always be reversed.
“As a matter of theory, they’re absolutely right,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard. “If you want to get rid of the climate stuff, you get rid of the root, not just the branches. They want him to uproot the whole thing.”
But, Mr. Lazarus added, “as a matter of legal strategy, it makes little sense, because the endangerment finding is very strong.”
The original recommendation to make an endangerment finding on carbon dioxide emissions was made by Stephen L. Johnson, a career scientist who led the E.P.A. under President George W. Bush, although the Bush White House did not act on Mr. Johnson’s memo. After the Obama administration did so, the finding was legally challenged but upheld in a federal court. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
Mr. Lazarus said that Mr. Pruitt would have his hands full with the legal challenges of undoing the regulations themselves. Taking on the endangerment finding would probably be futile, he said.
“He doesn’t want to spend a lot of time with something that’s a sure loser,” he said. “It wrecks your credibility with the courts.”
Mr. Pruitt has a long history of championing legal efforts to undermine major environmental rules. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, he sued the E.P.A. 14 times in efforts to undo regulations. He believes in stripping power away from the federal government and returning it to states.
But during his Senate confirmation hearing, he told senators that despite that, he was likely to draw the line at trying to overturn the endangerment finding.
“It is there, and it needs to be enforced and respected,” Mr. Pruitt said. “There is nothing that I know that would cause it to be reviewed.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-endangerment-finding.html?ref=energy-environment
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Colorado Approval of Drilling Project Near School Draws Lawsuit
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Colorado should not have approved a plan to drill 24 oil and gas wells near an elementary school in Weld County, a lawsuit by several environmental and social justice groups alleged (Weld Air and Water v. Colo. Oil and Gas Conservation Comm'n, Colo. Dist. Ct., No. 17-CV-31315, 4/11/17).
The lawsuit by the Sierra Club and other organizations, filed April 11 in the Colorado District Court, Denver County, challenges the March 10 approval by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission of Extraction Oil and Gas LLC's applications for a well pad and vetting facility south of Bella Romero Academy, a K-8 school in Greeley.
The lawsuit said the commission violated its own regulations and the state Administrative Procedure Act by approving the large oil and gas production facility without adequately addressing public health information submitted during a public comment period on the Extraction applications. It charged the commission arbitrarily and capriciously found the production facilities were “as far as possible” from school building units and failed to apply the correct legal standard to the company's production facility.
Todd Hartman, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, told Bloomberg BNA the commission was reviewing the complaint and had no comment April 12.
Playground Nearby
The athletic fields and playground at Bella Romero are situated behind the drilling project site, the lawsuit said. Portions of the schoolyard are less than 500 feet away from where the well pad will be located. Colorado's oil and gas rules require a 500-foot setback between wells and occupied buildings such as homes, hospitals and schools.
The groups also alleged the situation is one of environmental justice. Citing figures from the Colorado Department of Education, the groups said 89.5 percent of Bella Romero's student body is Latino or Hispanic, African-American, or other people of color. Some 87 percent of the school's students are eligible for free or reduced fee lunch, the suit stated.
“We believe that Extraction Oil and Gas's plan to drill 24 new wells in such close proximity to a primary school, one that is predominately low-income and Hispanic, to be a huge case of environmental injustice, and an unnecessary risk to public health,” Hillary Larson, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Sierra Club in Denver, told Bloomberg BNA in an email.
Brian Cain, spokesman for Extraction Oil and Gas, did not return calls and emails from Bloomberg BNA seeking comment April 12.
In addition to the Sierra Club, the groups filing suit include Weld Air and Water, the NAACP Colorado State Conference, and Wall of Women.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109286557&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109286557&jd=109286557
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SBA Advocacy Office Petitions EPA To Weaken Power Plant Effluent Rule
Apr 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
The Small Business Administration's (SBA) advocacy office is urging EPA to reconsider its Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent rule for power plants, saying that changes the SBA office is suggesting to weaken the regulation would help the agency comply with President Donald Trump's executive orders (EOs) on regulatory reform.
The reconsideration petition filed April 5 by the SBA Office of Advocacy argues that Trump's orders mean EPA must rework its power plant effluent limitation guideline (ELG), charging in particular that the agency should reinstate provisions that it weighed in the proposed version of the policy but opted not to implement.
“Without modification, we expect that this extraordinarily stringent final rule would force early closures of many small units owned by small entities, predominantly in rural America, with serious consequences to jobs and communities. This rule is exactly the type of rule targeted for review by the new EO . . . to address reduce regulatory costs,” the petition says.
SBA's advocacy office -- which acts as an advocate for small business interests and does not represent SBA's political leadership -- says it supports the separate March 24 petition filed by the Utility Water Act Group that represents power companies, and which seeks changes to soften the rule.
But the advocacy office also urges the agency to make targeted changes to specific portions of the ELG, such as striking a requirement for all power plant wastewater discharges to undergo biological treatment regardless of the pollutants they release.
The office argues that the intensive treatment method only meaningfully affects releases of selenium, a pollutant most closely tied to coal waste, and so should only be required at plants that discharge to waters where selenium is a concern.
“Since this is only a problem at a minority of plants that discharge into small water bodies, it makes sense to limit this technology to those scenarios. In all other situations, this technology drives up the cost but creates no additional environmental benefits,” the petition says.
EPA finalized the ELG in 2015, setting a “best available technology” standard for power plants to minimize pollutants in their wastewater discharges. The agency floated a wide array of options for the rulemaking in a 2013 draft, but ultimately enacted stringent limits that environmentalists supported -- a choice that the SBA office is now urging the Trump EPA to revisit.
“EPA's proposed rule included consideration of additional regulatory alternatives that would have addressed small business concerns, but the agency failed to adopt these alternatives in the final rule,” the petition says.
Industry groups are among those suing over the rule, but have focused their argument largely on the fact that EPA withheld much of the supporting documentation as confidential -- which the utility-sector challengers claim leaves the policy without scientific support.
Rule Revisions
Beyond its argument that the final ELG is too stringent, the SBA advocacy is also claiming that EPA must revise it because the current policy was developed to fit with two other high-profile power plant rules that the Trump administration is modifying.
The petition says that many of EPA's cost estimates for the ELG relied on power plants taking independent steps to comply with the Obama administration's greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for the sector, and the first-time Resource Conservation & Recovery Act rule governing disposal of coal ash -- including a predicted series of plant closures to comply with the GHG rule.
But the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) act changes the ash rule from a unified national policy to a state-by-state permit program where state regulators can craft their own requirements as long as they meet minimum standards. And the Trump administration has pledged to repeal or drastically loosen the GHG standards.
“Given that both these rules are also under reconsideration, those previously excluded more vulnerable utility plants are likely to re-emerge in the analysis of plants subject to the ELG requirements, increasing the estimated adverse economic effects on ELG plants,” the advocacy office says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/sba-advocacy-office-petitions-epa-weaken-power-plant-effluent-rule
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Colorado Regulators Taking Aim at Oil, NatGas Well Flowline Integrity
Apr 12, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Corrosion, pipe failure and natural force damages account for more than nine out 10 leaks from oil and natural gas production well flowlines in Colorado, a draft audit by state regulators has revealed.
NGI's Shale Daily was provided a copy of a presentation of the audit by Mark Schlagenhauf, engineering integrity supervisor at the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). He leads the integrity group.
"I think most other states have rules on flowlines, but they may not have a dedicated group looking at spill prevention and auditing of flowlines as Colorado established recently," Schlagenhauf said.
COGCC's integrity group focuses on preventing spills, reducing volumes from spills and maintaining proactive integrity programs.
The initial audit involved 30 operators, 2,847 wells, 400-plus flowline inspections and 3,800 pressure tests in parts of the Denver-Julesburg (DJ), Piceance, and North Park basins. Nearly half (48%) of the flowline releases were caused by corrosion; 23% were due to pipe weld or joint failures, and 22% were caused by natural force damage.
"Statistics on flowlines are hard to come by as they are part of the overall spill statistics," Schlagenhauf said. "One of the things our group does is sort the flowline spill data as a subset of the overall spill data and then reviewing the root cause of the spills."
The draft report stresses the high participation rate among operators, use of advanced technology to pinpoint flowlines and confirm leaks, along with documenting and explaining pressure testing procedures on the pipelines, which for the most part have escaped regulation in producing basins.
COGCC created the engineering integrity unit, and the audit followed the lead of the state legislature, which sought a "risk-based strategy" for inspections and a subsequent third-party study of more than 1,600 spills during a 3.5 year period (2010 to August 2013). The audit found that nearly 80% of the leaks came from the production process.
Preventing spills and keeping ones that do occur small is the major focus of Schlagenhauf's group, which was formed in 2015.
The COGCC audit identifies improvements the group plans to seek going forward. Improvements include developing more detailed root cause and preventative information on spill reports from operators and creating an electronic database for storing records on flowlines. The state staff wants more comprehensive documentation on flowline integrity efforts.
As part of the extension of the program, the COGCC unit this year and in 2018 plans to target proper flowline abandonment, something that hasn't happened in the past As a result, the state engineers plan to develop a priority list of orphan flowlines and line up a team of qualified contractors to begin dealing with abandoned pipelines through fiscal 2017-2018, starting in July.
Regarding the list of projects planned, Schlagenhauf said, "Our group will be working on the flowline portion, and other groups will handle the well abandonment and site reclamation."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110102-colorado-regulators-taking-aim-at-oil-natgas-well-flowline-integrity
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(ACC Mentioned) Scientists To Sue To Defend Chemical Plant Rule, Fearing Trump Admin Won't
Apr 12, 2017 | WVTM13
Fossil fuel lobbyists and environmentalists are set for a legal battle over whether the Trump administration will defend regulations on chemical plant safety.
The Union for Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club and Earthjustice plan to jointly file a motion Wednesday to intervene in a lawsuit filed by fossil fuel groups in March that asks the Environmental Protection Agency to delay or reconsider a rule that places more regulations on chemical plants. The chemical plant regulations were signed into the Federal Register in January as a direct response to the fertilizer plant explosion in West Texas that killed 15 and injured more than 160 in 2013.
"We don't know for sure whether EPA will defend it or not, but given the fact that (EPA) Administrator (Scott) Pruitt has in the past opposed this regulation, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we won't get EPA out there defending the rule," said Yogin Kothari, Washington representative with the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Pruitt has voiced objection to the EPA's Accidental Release Prevention Requirements in the past, writing a letter in 2016 while he was Oklahoma Attorney General to then EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy urging her to rethink course on the rule.
Pruitt and 10 other attorneys general, including Florida's Pam Bondi, asked the EPA to consider national security concerns in the regulations. Part of the ARPR would allow the public to inquire about the nature of the chemicals held at facilities nearby. Supporters of the requirement argued the knowledge would help public safety and readiness, but Pruitt and others argued the information could make the facilities targets for terrorism.
"The safety of these manufacturing, processing and storage facilities should be a priority for us all, but safety encompasses more than preventing accidental releases of chemicals, it also encompasses preventing intentional releases caused by bad actors seeking to harm our citizens," Pruitt said in the letter.
The EPA regulations on chemical plants came to fruition following an Obama-era executive order signed in 2013 to revisit those regulations following the West Texas accident. The regulations are also intended to improve coordination between facilities and first responders.
In March though, a group of fossil fuel groups including the American Chemistry Council, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufactures and American Petroleum institute sued the EPA to petition a review of the final rule, arguing in the suit it is "unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not otherwise in accordance with law."
Additionally, the group asked the EPA to consider a 90-day freeze on implementing the rule.
Early in the year, a group of Republican members of Congress also made it clear their dislike for the rule and introduced a joint House and Senate resolution showing congressional disapproval of the regulation and asking to nullify it.
Environmental groups see both efforts as stalling tactics for a rule that has taken two years to be signed.
"We see that this rule as an important rule to have on the books," Kothari said. "We see it as a modest improvement over the current regulations and we see it as a way to protect workers, first responders and low income communities and communities of color, which are often living right next to these chemical plants."
http://www.wvtm13.com/article/scientists-to-sue-to-defend-chemical-plant-rule-fearing-trump-admin-won-t/9268196
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Confusing Chemical Labels Created Toxic Cloud in Kansas Town: CSB
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A chemical leak at a manufacturing facility that prompted more than 100 people to seek medical attention in a Kansas town last year stemmed from flawed procedures, the Chemical Safety Board said April 12.
The board said MGP Ingredients, which operates a plant manufacturing specialty wheat proteins and starches for use in distilled spirits like bourbon, rye whiskey, gin and vodka, in addition to food products, could better label loading and unloading stations and more closely follow safety procedures when transferring chemicals.
“This type of accident is preventable,” CSB Chairperson Vanessa Sutherland said in a statement April 12. “Our investigation demonstrates all too clearly that complacency with routine practices and procedures can result in severe consequences.”
Chemicals Mixed, Creating Toxic Cloud
The mishap occurred as a truck driver from Harcros Chemicals delivered a shipment of sulfuric acid to the MGP Ingredients planet in Atchison, Kan., around 7:35 a.m. Oct. 21, 2016.
The board said a facility operator unlocked a sulfuric acid fill line but didn't notice a fill line for sodium hypochlorite also was unlocked. At the truck, the driver mistakenly connected the line for sodium hypochloride and discharged thousands of gallons of sulfuric acid into the tank containing sodium hypochloride. The two lines were near each other and poorly labeled, the CSB found.
When the chemicals mixed, they created a green cloud that drifted northeast of the plant, and then wind moved it northwest toward the center of town, the CSB said. More than 140 people sought medical treatment at area hospitals and thousands were ordered to stay inside until the gas dissipated.
The plant also lacked a simple way to conduct an emergency shutdown of the plant from either a secure location at the facility or in the truck.
When the investigation is finished, the board plans to release a report on the incident, spokeswoman Hillary Cohen said in an email April 12.
Spokesman Steve Pickman said in a statement April 12 that MGP is cooperating with investigators and making improvements to the plant. The company also is working with the firm Burns & McDonnell, an engineering, environmental and consulting services firm in Kansas City, Mo., to review its operations, according to Pickman.
The company “appreciates the important work that the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) performs to assist in the prevention of incidents,” he said. “The company understands that CSB's findings are preliminary and could be subject to change as further information is forthcoming.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109286555&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109286555&jd=109286555
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Trump Eyes Climate Skeptic For Key White House Environmental Post
Apr 12, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillén and Andrew Restuccia
President Donald Trump may tap a vocal critic of climate change science to serve as the highest-ranking environmental official in the White House.
Kathleen Hartnett White, who says carbon emissions are harmless and should not be regulated, is a top contender to run the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House’s in-house environmental policy shop, sources close to the administration told POLITICO.
White House officials brought White in for an interview late last month, according to a person familiar with the hiring process, and Trump met with White at Trump Tower in November when she was under consideration to lead the EPA.
Adding White to the administration would be a major win for Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, and other hardline conservatives in the White House, who have been feuding behind the scenes for weeks with the more moderate forces in the West Wing over issues like climate change. And her nomination could appease climate skeptic Trump supporters, who have criticized EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for hesitating to revisit his agency's conclusion that global warming threatens public health.
Trump administration officials are divided over whether White is the best person for the job, and they are also considering other candidates to lead CEQ, sources said. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment, saying, "We will let you know when we have an announcement."
Like Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general and fossil fuel ally, White would be another voice from a large oil and gas producing state in charge of climate change and environmental policy.
White is a former chairwoman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality who now works for a conservative think tank in the Lone Star state. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, is said to be advocating for White behind the scenes.
Tapping White would only deepen environmentalists’ fears that the new administration will implement a wholesale reversal of Barack Obama's approach to climate change as a serious, long-term threat to the environment and national security.
White sat on Trump’s economic advisory council during his campaign and since 2008 has worked at the Austin-based conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has received funding from Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy and other energy companies and utilities. White, who was a registered lobbyist with the group until Nov. 29, has long been a major voice in the niche cottage industry of public figures who question climate science data or downplay the risks of global warming.
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and carbon is certainly not a poison. Carbon is the chemical basis of all life on earth. Our bones and blood are made out of carbon,” White wrote in a June op-ed. She added that CO2 is the “gas of life” because it is a nutrient used by plants — an argument frequently raised by climate skeptics that most scientists say distracts from the climate-changing components of the gas.
White’s position contrasts sharply with established climate science. In its most recent comprehensive report, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading scientific body on global warming, concluded that the Earth is warming because of human-generated emissions — and that time is running short to stave off the worst risks of climate change, including increased temperatures, more extreme weather, sea level rise and ocean acidification.
Similar findings have been reached by U.S. authorities, including EPA, NASA and NOAA — all agencies that would be subject to guidance White would issue as CEQ chair, if she were confirmed by the Senate.
In an interview with POLITICO in September, White proposed establishing a "blue ribbon commission" to re-litigate climate science, underscoring her unorthodox belief that the science showing human-induced climate change is unsettled.
The commission, she said, would develop an "alternative scientific methodology" to the IPCC, whose usefulness she said has "reached its peak.”
If nominated, White would likely be an advocate within the administration of reopening the foundation of Obama's climate change agenda: EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases constitute a threat to public health or welfare.
Trump told an industry-backed think tank last year that he will “review” the endangerment finding, a potentially difficult task given the scientific consensus on the issue. Any withdrawal of the finding would be challenged by environmentalists in court.
Pruitt has so far declined to reopen the endangerment finding, a decision that has infuriated some of Trump's conservative supporters.
White would be able to play a key role in shaping the Trump administration's overall approach to climate change, and she has been clear that she does not think the issue should be addressed by EPA. In 2015, she argued that Obama's rules to limit carbon emissions from power plants marked "an unprecedented expansion of federal administrative power" with "no measurable climate benefits.” And last May, she urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to pass a bill that would block EPA from regulating carbon dioxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons or other greenhouse gases.
At CEQ, White could direct other agencies to turn their attention away from climate change and would be in charge of implementing recent executive orders on energy development and regulatory streamlining. Last month, Trump ordered the council to revoke recently issued guidance directing all federal agencies to consider climate change when they conduct environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, a decision that would be difficult to challenge in court. And in January, the president told CEQ to come up with a plan to expedite environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects.
While environmentalists have long accused GOP officials of dragging their feet on climate change, White is by far the most outspoken critic of the underlying science — and the most ardent defender of fossil fuels — that Trump has considered to serve in his administration.
In a 2014 blog post, White took aim at an article in the Nation by MSNBC host Chris Hayes, whose "recommendation to avert global warming, like most warmist policies, toys with the greatest advance made by mankind," she wrote. In White's view, there is a connection between “the abolition of slavery and humanity's first widespread use of energy from fossil fuels.” The rise of coal and oil, she argued, provided economic incentive to end the practice of slavery in the U.S. and elsewhere. (One critic fired back that the industrial revolution actually “exacerbated” slavery by increasing the demands for slave-produced goods such as cotton.)
Putting a permanent CEQ chair in place would also raise the question of where Trump wants decision-making on environmental issues to happen — in the White House or at agencies.
The Obama administration shifted major environmental responsibilities from CEQ to EPA and some other agencies as it sought aggressive action on climate change. It remains unclear whether Trump’s CEQ will continue in that vein or have a greater role in policy making, though outside Republicans have encouraged Trump aides to grant the council wide latitude.
The council was run from 2015 through the end of Obama's term by Christy Goldfuss, an unconfirmed managing director. Obama never nominated a replacement for his first CEQ chair, Nancy Sutley, who left in 2014.
White’s criticism of Obama environmental regulations goes beyond climate change.
She said in 2015 that EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule, which determines which bodies of water are subject to federal oversight, “is about amending the definitions of well understood words into tortured versions of themselves so that the EPA can seize control of dry land where water may flow after heavy rains.”
She also criticized the new ozone standard of 70 parts per billion, calling the rule’s scientific conclusions “a statistical house of cards” and predicting it “may be the straw that breaks the back of our struggling economy.”
White, who received her bachelor and master’s degrees from Stanford University, was a commissioner at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality from 2001 to 2007, serving as chairman for the last four years of that term. She previously sat on the Texas Water Development Board.
Environmentalists do give White some credit for advances made during her tenure at TCEQ.
Luke Metzger, the director of Environment Texas, told POLITICO that she helped implement a legislative order to create an online reporting system for major emissions events, which is still used by green activists to track noncompliance by major energy companies. Metzger also credited her with a "slightly improved" enforcement policy, though he noted that she blocked an effort by a fellow TCEQ commissioner in 2006 to boost penalties.
In 2008, White joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where she directs its Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/04/climate-skeptic-white-house-143107
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Connecticut Renews Call For OTC Area Expansion
Apr 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
Connecticut is renewing its call for EPA to grant a petition filed in 2013 by East Coast states to massively expand the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) area subject to stricter controls on ozone-forming emissions than elsewhere, saying ahead of an April 13 hearing on EPA's proposed denial of the states petition that it would help cut transport of the pollution.
The Obama EPA proposed to deny the petition by nine OTC states to expand the zone to another nine states further west and south, citing other, better mechanisms to address interstate air pollution transport, such as the Clean Air Act's “good neighbor” provision requiring states to mitigate their contribution to interstate pollution.
Given the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda, it appears unlikely that EPA would depart from this denial, as granting the petition would impose tougher regulatory requirements on industry in key states President Donald Trump won in November's elections.
Nonetheless, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) is again pressing EPA to grant the expansion, as the state prepares to testify in favor of the enlargement sought by the OTC states under air law section 176A.
The agency will hold its public hearing in Washington, D.C., to get input on its denial of the petition after rescheduling the hearing from last month due to inclement weather.
In an April 12 statement ahead of tomorrow's hearing, Malloy's office cites his March 9 letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, in which Malloy said, “Now is the time to require upwind states to take action. EPA must move to include the petitioning states in the collaborative and efficient OTC process.” Connecticut, Malloy wrote, “is tired of serving as the tailpipe of America.”
The governor appears pessimistic that the Trump administration will divert from the Obama EPA's denial of the petition, however. Malloy told the Connecticut Post in a March 12 article that Pruitt gave “some gobblegook answer” in response to the governor's queries about the fate of the proposed petition denial.
Filed in 2013 by current OTC members Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, the petition asked EPA to dramatically expand the OTC area, which includes the nine petitioning states states, as well as Maine, New Jersey, the northern part of Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
The petitioning states argue that curbing ozone in their jurisdictions also requires reductions of ozone-forming emissions from Midwestern and Southern states upwind. They therefore urged EPA to expand the OTC area to include Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the rest of Virginia. EPA is taking written comment on the issue until May 15.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/connecticut-renews-call-otc-area-expansion
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Practitioner Insights: Environmental Law: What Will Happen With Emissions Limits
Apr 13, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ewa Rutkowska-Subocz and Agnieszka Skorupinska
The EU's Approach to Emissions Limits
The need to lay down air emissions limits for large industry has been on the European Union's radar for a long time. It was a question of balance: Industry drives economic growth, but harms the environment in many ways, including degrading air quality. As major emitters, power and heat production facilities in particular were scrutinized under European law. Nevertheless, local limitations on industrial air emissions could have been a hurdle to the common market.
Thus, the only reasonable way forward was to confront the issue head on at the EU level. After adopting stricter emissions standards that were binding for all 28 member states a few years ago, the EU is now transitioning to even more stringent pan-European emissions limits that will apply to more industry sectors. As businesses try to figure out how to tighten their belts, it is worth considering what options lie ahead.
I. Historical Legacy
The EU tackled the issue of air emissions from industry in 1996 with Directive 96/61/EC, which called for an integrated pollution prevention and control approach to prevent emissions into air, water and soil, and to better control waste.
The next major development came 12 years later. Directive 2008/1/EC on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) sought to base emissions limit values, parameters and equivalent technical measures on the best available techniques (BAT). The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, determines the BAT on the EU scale based on information that member states provide. The BAT for industries was established in reference documents called BREFs.
Chinks in the environmental armor appeared fairly quickly. The BREFs were not binding legislation. National agencies could—but didn't have to—take into account the content of particular BREFs when issuing integrated pollution prevention and control permits and setting emissions limits. Consequently, discrepancies arose among member states; some countries used BREFs to determine emissions limits, others did not.
In the meantime, binding emissions limits were laid down at the EU level for specific industries, including waste incineration, activities using organic solvents and titanium dioxide production, through a handful of specially targeted directives. Directive 88/609/EEC in particular had the biggest impact on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants (LCP). It was later superseded by Directive 2001/80/EC on limiting emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants. It laid down emissions limits for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust from large combustion plants (i.e. combustion plants, the rated thermal input of which is equal to or greater than 50 megawatts, irrespective of the type of fuel used). These directives changed the playing field as all businesses throughout the EU had to comply with the same emissions levels.
II. A Common System for Industrial Emissions
In an effort to combine the numerous acts on emissions levels and the integrated environmental protection system, the EU adopted Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions in 2010. This Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) entered into force Jan. 6, 2011, and had to be transposed into national law by the member states by Jan. 7, 2013. It repealed and replaced the IPPC and LCP directives, as well as Directive 2000/76/EC on waste incineration, Directive 1999/13/EC on use of organic solvents, and Directives 78/176/EEC, 82/883/EEC and 92/112/EEC concerning titanium dioxide production.
The IED lays down rules on integrated prevention and control of pollution arising from industrial activities that are set out in Annex I to the Industrial Emissions Directive. The IED also includes rules designed to prevent or, where that is not practicable, to reduce emissions into air, water and land, and to prevent the generation of waste in order to protect the environment.
What is most important, however, is that IED combines into one act the emissions limits laid down in the previous specially targeted directives, and member states must make sure that these emissions limits are kept by the businesses. This is the so-called safety net.
III. Large Combustion Plants and Get-Out Clauses
Directive 2010/75/EU significantly tightens the standards for emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust from large combustion plants.
For example, installations with a total rated thermal input between 50 and 100 megawatts combusting coal, brown coal or other solid fuels under the old LCP directive were allowed to emit 850 milligrams per cubic meter (mg/Nm3) of sulphur dioxide. The IED slashed this to 400 mg/Nm3. Changes of the same magnitude affected nitrogen oxides and dust.
Generally, these stringent new standards have applied to existing large combustion plants since Jan. 1, 2016. There is an exception for plants that can benefit from the so-called treaty derogation, but this runs out Dec. 31, 2017. A treaty derogation allows member states to delay complying with certain provisions of IED. Many of the new member states negotiated the treaty derogation when they joined the European Union. Essentially, it gives these member states free reign to ignore emissions limits in the short term until they can get their act together. This includes values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust indicated in the LCP directive for installations explicitly listed in the attachments to the amendments to the Treaty of the European Union.
For new large combustion plants that became operational after Jan. 7, 2014, the emissions limits set in the Industrial Emissions Directive apply from their launch date.
A considerable number of combustion plants, mainly in newer member states such as Poland, could not operate under the emissions limits set in the IED without costly and time-consuming upgrades. Therefore, Directive 2010/75/EU introduced a few derogation mechanisms allowing operators to adapt these installations to the new standards later than originally prescribed.
These derogations are: the Transitional National Plan valid until June 30, 2020; district heating plants derogation valid until Dec. 31, 2022; limited lifetime derogation valid until Dec. 31, 2023; and small isolated systems derogation valid until Dec. 31, 2019. Laxer emissions limits were introduced for older large combustion plants working a maximum of 1,500 hours a year.
Many businesses applied for inclusion in these derogation mechanisms. Poland, in particular, was finding it difficult to comply with the directive's new emissions standards.
IV. Coming Soon: BAT Conclusions
This is not the end of tightening the emissions levels at the EU level, however. The Industrial Emissions Directive introduced a mechanism that allows the European Commission to adopt decisions on best available techniques conclusions. Decisions on BAT conclusions are directly binding in the member states and do not have to be transposed into national law. Once published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the decision on BAT conclusions is directly binding both for the member states and for natural and legal persons from the time of its entry into force.
BAT conclusions denote a document setting out the conclusions on what exactly best available techniques mean. They set out BAT descriptions, information to assess their applicability, the emissions levels associated with the best available techniques, monitoring and consumption levels and, where appropriate, relevant site remediation measures. BAT conclusions are based on and form part of BREFs. BAT reference documents themselves are not binding legal documents. Because they are used as the main tool that gives grounding for BAT conclusions, however, they play an essential procedural role in the adoption of decisions on BAT conclusions.
In order to draw up, review and, where necessary, update BREFs, the European Commission organizes an exchange of information between member states, relevant industries, appropriate nongovernmental organizations and the European Commission.
The BAT conclusion is a significant development because it is a reference point for setting permit conditions. The competent authority in each member state is obliged to set emissions limit values in the respective permit to ensure that, under normal operating conditions, emissions do not exceed the levels associated with the best available techniques as laid down in the decisions on BAT conclusions. These are known as BAT associated emissions levels, or BATAELs. In fact, this means that BAT conclusions introduce binding emissions limits throughout the EU. The permit should be updated and installation should comply with the new permit conditions within four years of publication of decisions on BAT conclusions. Consequently, operators have a maximum of four years to adapt their installations to the new emissions limit values as set forth in the respective BAT conclusions. This is very short period, especially if upgrading projects are necessary.
Thirty-one BAT conclusions were planned for various industrial activities, but to date only 10 have been adopted. The adopted BAT conclusions concern industrial activities such as: common wastewater and waste gas treatment; management systems in the chemical sector; iron and steel production; glass, non-ferrous metals manufacturing industries; cement, lime and magnesium oxide production; chlor-alkali; pulp, paper and board production; mineral oil and gas refining; hides and skins tanning; and wood-based panels production.
After years of intensive work, the BAT conclusions for large combustion plants are expected to be adopted in late 2017. Based on the available draft of the BAT conclusions for these plants, one thing is clear: In many cases, these BATAELs are stricter than the emissions limits in the Industrial Emissions Directive. This means that businesses that have already adapted to the strict emissions limits laid down in the IED now will have to invest again in order to adapt to even stricter BATAELs.
Industry as a whole can expect a serious increase in the air emissions requirements and they will have to undertake serious modernization efforts to meet these stricter requirements. And it may not end here. The BAT conclusions will be updated in the future. Thus, in a few years’ time, the emissions level values could be even stricter. It is crucial to see what could be done to avoid fast repetition of upgrade works.
V. Derogation From BAT Conclusions
To ease the pain, the Industrial Emissions Directive introduces a derogation mechanism from emissions limit values set in the BAT conclusions. This derogation mechanism allows the competent authority in each member state to set less strict emissions limits than the BATAELs.
The derogation, however, may apply only if an assessment by the competent authority shows that achieving the BATAELs as laid down in BAT conclusions would lead to disproportionately higher costs compared to the environmental benefits. Moreover, these disproportionately higher costs could be due only to the location, environmental conditions or technical characteristics of the installation.
When these conditions are fulfilled, the competent authority may grant derogation from BATAELs, but the reasons for such a decision must be precisely explained in the permit. The European Commission has the option to adopt guidance on the derogation criteria. So far, however, it has not issued such a document. It is up to member state authorities to interpret these criteria and grant derogations.
It is important to note that where the derogation is to be granted, public participation needs to be assured. This means that the applications for derogation should be carefully drafted as they will be under intense public scrutiny. This also means that member states may be reluctant to grant derogations. In the years to come we will see whether derogations will be commonly granted or just as a rare exception.
VI. Medium Combustion Plants
As mentioned earlier, the Industrial Emissions Directive applies only to large combustion plants. In order to establish emissions limit values for combustion plants with a total rated thermal input lower than 50 megawatts, Directive 2015/2193/EU for Medium Combustion Plants (MCP) was adopted.
The MCP directive regulates pollutant emissions from the combustion of fuels in plants with a rated thermal input equal to or greater than 1 megawatt and less than 50 megawatts. It entered into force Dec. 18, 2015, and needs to be transposed to national law by Dec. 19, 2017.
The directive regulates emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust into the air with the aim of reducing those emissions and the related risks they pose to human health and the environment. The emissions limit values set in this directive will have to be applied from Dec. 20, 2018, for new plants and by 2025 or 2030 for existing plants, depending on their size.
The Medium Combustion Plants Directive also includes a couple of derogations from the imposed emissions limits that member states may adopt. One type of derogation may be applied to existing plants supplying heating networks, combusted with solid biomass or used to drive gas compressor stations, and this will last until Jan. 1, 2030. The other type concerns existing and new plants that do not operate for more than 500 hours a year. This type of derogation has no formal ending date. Other derogations may apply in extraordinary circumstances of operation of certain types of MCPs.
VII. What's Next
Changes to the air emissions management at the EU level are far from complete. Once large combustion plants are adapted to the BATAELs laid down in the BAT conclusions, work will begin on adapting smaller combustion plants. Then the BAT conclusions may be amended again and this will trigger new upgrade obligations. This shows that air quality is still one of the EU's top priorities.
Ewa Rutkowska-Subocz is a partner in the Warsaw office of Dentons and the head of the Environmental Protection practice in Warsaw and in Europe. She specializes in environmental protection law, natural resources and the regulatory aspects of corporate activity. Her practice covers all aspects of business operations from the angle of environmental protection law, climate change regulations, and the regulations governing geological and mining activities. She advises Polish and foreign companies and public bodies on issues regarding Polish and EU environmental protection law, as well as geological and mining aspects of mineral exploration and exploitation, including conventional and unconventional gas such as shale gas and tight gas. She can be e-mailed at ewa.rutkowska-subocz@dentons.com.
Agnieszka Skorupinska is a member of Dentons’ Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Practice. She specializes in environmental protection law, natural resources law and the regulatory aspects of corporate activity. She advises Polish and foreign companies and public bodies on issues regarding Polish and EU environmental protection law, as well as geological and mining aspects of mineral exploration, identification and production, including shale gas. She has experience in advising on IED implementation, including baseline reports; on liability for environmental damage; on civil, administrative and criminal environmental liability; as well as on legal measures concerning climate change. She can be contacted at agnieszka.skorupinska@dentons.com.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109286533&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109286533&jd=109286533
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