Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 4/20/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Office Taps Industry Scientist For No. 2 Post
Apr 19, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
U.S. EPA has reportedly hired Nancy Beck of the American Chemistry Council to fill the No. 2 position in its Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. -
States Back Trump's 2-for-1 Deregulatory Order
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
Attorneys general from 14 states are backing President Donald Trump's controversial executive order (EO) that requires agencies to identify two rules to repeal for every new rule issued, arguing that the order is in line with similar centralized regulatory review requirements that other presidents have ordered. -
So Far, Public Overwhelmingly Urges EPA To Retain Rules
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
It's barely a week since Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that EPA has opened a docket to seek public input on rules that may be appropriate for repeal, replacement or modification, but already the agency has received 940 public comments -- all but two of which are urging the agency to keep its rules in place. -
(ACC mentioned) Industry, Activists Diverge on ‘Best Science’ Under Toxics Law
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA must define terms like “best available science” mandated by its chemicals statute so the regulated community can understand how the agency will analyze the risks of chemicals companies make or use, trade associations said. -
Suit Over EPA's Rejection Of Fluoride Ban Claims TSCA Misinterpretation
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmentalists and public health groups are suing EPA over its rejection of a petition seeking a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ban on drinking water fluoridation, arguing the agency's denial “erroneously interpreted” language in the overhauled TSCA by placing unwieldy burdens on petitioners to justify their request for a ban. -
US EPA To Convene TSCA Regulatory Reform Meeting
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is convening two public meetings to solicit input on regulations promulgated under TSCA that could be repealed, replaced or modified. -
US EPA Extends Comment Deadline for TSCA Dection 6 Rules
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended by 30 days the comment periods for two proposed TSCA section 6 rules. -
Parabens May Affect BPA Metabolism, Say Canadian Researchers
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Exposure to parabens, used as antimicrobial preservatives, may affect the way in which the body metabolises bisphenol A (BPA), according to Canadian research on rodents. -
EPA Meetings to Discuss Changes to Asbestos, Toxics Rules
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency will host two meetings on May 1 to seek comments on whether existing asbestos, lead, Toxics Release Inventory and other rules should be repealed, replaced or revised. -
US NGO Campaigns Against 'Harmful' Chemicals In Feminine Wipes
Apr 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US NGO Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE) has launched a campaign against 'harmful chemicals' in feminine wipe products. -
Aise Proposes Measures To Reduce Detergents Poisoning In Children
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Soap and detergents trade body Aise says some of its members intend to undertake voluntary measures to help reduce child exposure to liquid laundry detergent capsules (LLDCs). -
Echa Updates Substance Assessment Under PACT
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has included updates on 18 substances in its public activities coordination tool (PACT) for risk management option analysis (RMOA) or hazard assessment. -
Canada to Monitor Potentially Toxic Hair Dye Chemical
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Menyasz
Canada will monitor use of hair dye component phenacetin despite concluding that it doesn't currently consider the chemical a toxic substance. -
(ACC Mentioned) Local Officials have Eye On Future Plant Development
Apr 19, 2017 | Victoria Advocate
By Kathryn Cargo
Although Victoria wasn't chosen as the site for a multibillion dollar petrochemical plant, local officials have hope Victoria will land another large project soon. -
EPA Grants Request to Reconsider Methane NSPS Amid Abeyance Fight
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
EPA has granted petitions from energy industry groups to delay initial compliance dates for the Obama-era rule regulating methane emissions from new oil and gas sources and to reconsider aspects of the rule -- consistent with a request for relief industry had underscored in a recent filing backing an agency motion to pause litigation over the rule. -
Pruitt Nibbles at Methane Rule; Are Larger Bites to Come?
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt launched a surprisingly narrow attack on Obama-era regulations limiting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, but a more expansive attempt to repeal the regulations may be coming further in the future, according to industry insiders and observers. -
Natural Gas Moves to the Naughty List
Apr 20, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Mark Chediak
Think coal’s got it bad in the fight against climate change? Watch what happens to natural gas. -
(ACC Mentioned) As EPA Seeks To Delay RMP, First Responders Push To Speed Adoption
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Even as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt seeks to delay implementation of the Obama-era facility safety rule, a coalition of local emergency planners is urging the agency to quickly implement provisions of the rule, arguing new requirements for coordinating with and disclosing data to local planners protect first responders and will not cause the broad public disclosure industry fears. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Mulls Delay Of Risk Management Program Changes
Apr 20, 2017 | Business Insurance
By Gloria Gonzalez
Planned changes to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program would not prevent tragic incidents such as the West, Texas, fertilizer disaster, which was ultimately ruled an act of arson, according to supporters of a proposed implementation delay. -
Industry Groups Urge EPA to Delay Chemical Facility Regulations
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Industry officials urged the EPA at a public meeting April 19 to move forward with its consideration of delaying a chemical security rule they say is needless and unsafe. But worker safety advocates worry that a nearly two-year delay of the rule could harm communities. -
Trump Targets a NAFTA Deal With Few Defenders
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
It's hard to know exactly what President Donald Trump has in mind for opening up the North American Free Trade Agreement, but it may be even harder to find industry and environmental groups or even members of Congress who want the 1994 deal left as is. -
Schumer Vows To Fight Trump's Environmental Agenda 'At Every Turn'
Apr 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) says that Democrats will continue to fight the Trump administration's environmental agenda “at every turn,” noting support from much of his caucus for the effort.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Office Taps Industry Scientist For No. 2 Post
Apr 19, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
U.S. EPA has reportedly hired Nancy Beck of the American Chemistry Council to fill the No. 2 position in its Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Beck had been with ACC since 2012 and left her position as the senior director for regulatory science policy to take on her new role as principal deputy assistant administrator at OCSPP. Inside EPA first reported the hiring last week.
While tapping an industry player for the position isn't a big surprise to environmental groups, it has sparked concerns.
A major task facing Beck will be the implementation of the new Toxic Substances Control Act.
EPA's decisions regarding TSCA "will directly affect the financial interests of the companies represented by ACC," the Environmental Defense Fund's Richard Denison wrote in a blog post today. "Any reasonable person would see a conflict here, one sufficient to seriously question whose interests Dr. Beck will be representing in playing such a role in TSCA implementation."
Last month, Beck testified on the role of science in the rulemaking process at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing (E&E Daily, March 10).
"I don't want you to trust me because I'm a scientist, but because you've looked at my analysis and it's rigorous," Beck told the committee at the time.
"The solution is in clarity and transparency," she added.
ACC spokesman Scott Openshaw said the group did not have a comment "at this point" on Denison's blog post. Beck reportedly started working at EPA this week.
EPA also declined to comment on Beck's hiring.
Before joining ACC, Beck was a toxicologist and policy analyst for the Office of Management and Budget. She got her Ph.D. in environmental health from the University of Washington.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/04/19/stories/1060053306
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States Back Trump's 2-for-1 Deregulatory Order
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
Attorneys general from 14 states are backing President Donald Trump's controversial executive order (EO) that requires agencies to identify two rules to repeal for every new rule issued, arguing that the order is in line with similar centralized regulatory review requirements that other presidents have ordered.
Presidents have long used their power to “put mechanisms in place to ensure centralized review of regulations within the Executive Office of the President” and those mechanisms have included considerations of cumulative costs of regulations, the national economy as a whole and the effect of rules on state governments, the attorneys general say in the April 17 amici curiae brief.
The case, Public Citizen et al., v. Trump, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the plaintiffs are arguing, among other things, that the order is unlawful because its preempts statutory requirements -- including EPA requirements under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.
But DOJ recently urged the court to dismiss the suit, arguing in part that the case is not ripe and the plaintiffs lack standing because any injury is speculative as implementing guidance provides significant opportunity to waive the order's requirements.
The plaintiffs are expected to push back against those arguments in their upcoming brief.
But the states, in their brief, seek to join the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ)'s defense of the order on the grounds that it is not a novel use of executive authority.
They cite similar executive orders by several past presidents, including a 1999 order issued by President Bill Clinton directing agencies to consult with state and local officials if they saw a “possible conflict” between their regulation and a state law, as well as an order signed by President Obama reaffirming the Clinton order.
And they push back against plaintiffs' arguments in the case that presidents cannot under law “consider the cumulative effects of regulations or adopt a cross-agency approach.”
“Presidents have been taking this cumulative approach for decades,” they write. “President Trump's Order simply builds upon that foundation by adopting a mechanisms whereby agencies must off-set new regulations with the elimination of old ones so as not to increase incremental costs.”
The state attorneys general say the order is needed to help reduce the burden on states that result from scores of rules adopted by recent administrations. The order is “based upon a reasonable, easy-to-administer principle, which will help limit the cumulative costs of these ever growing regulations on States and their citizens,” the brief says.
“Over the last several years, the administrative state has accelerated further the long-term growth of new regulatory burdens, while rarely eliminating unnecessary regulations issued in the past,” the attorneys general write.
“The result is a situation where agencies have implemented far more regulatory burdens than Congress ever envisioned. This unlawfully-imposed burden has been largely borne by the States and their citizens.”
The states claim that the Trump administration's so-called “2-for-1” rule will “reduce the sprawl of unnecessary, costly regulations, consistent with Congressional intent and important public policy considerations."
The brief was signed by attorneys general from West Virginia, Wisconsin, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/states-back-trumps-2-1-deregulatory-order
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So Far, Public Overwhelmingly Urges EPA To Retain Rules
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
It's barely a week since Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that EPA has opened a docket to seek public input on rules that may be appropriate for repeal, replacement or modification, but already the agency has received 940 public comments -- all but two of which are urging the agency to keep its rules in place.
As of April 19, only one comment, from the American Coalition for Ethanol, outlines specific rules it wants revoked or changed, urging EPA to ease a number of measures that would allow for increased use of ethanol.
A second comment from a Texas attorney includes a petition to reduce burdens in the Lone Star state and elsewhere by reauthorizing the Clean Air Act to allow for increased reliance on cap-and-trade systems.
But all of the other 938 comments are from members of the public -- some identified, but most anonymous -- that urge EPA to keep its rules and protect the environment.
The comments are unique and do not appear to be part of a mass postcard campaign.
One commenter, identified as Judy Petersen, says in comments posted April 17 that she grew up just north of Los Angeles and remembers days where “you couldn't go outside to play because your lungs would start to hurt just breathing normally. I am in favor of any and all regulations to help keep our air clean and safe to breath. . . . Please ensure that ALL clean air regulations remain in force.”
Another, Kelley Smith, says in April 17 comments, “These rules are designed to protect the health of my family and of the environment. The U.S. economy could not function properly if we did not have clean air and water in America. I support the rules that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued in the past and do not want them repealed.”
Eric Hancsak of Hudson, OH, says in April 12 comments: “My family and I adamantly disagree with the proposed rollback of the Clean Power Plan. Mr Pruitt's assessment that the CPP is overreaching, is false. Many fossil fuel companies have proven, again and again, to be some of the worst abusers of the environment of our country's history. Removing regulations, and giving them carte blanche to pollute our environment is unconscionable and unacceptable. Keeping the EPA and the CPP intact . . . is a matter of public health.”
Taimur Ahmad said in April 13 comments that rolling back the Obama-era rules “is a disgrace. Climate change is the single biggest issue facing the world today, even if people like Scott Pruitt would rather stick their heads in the sand and line their pockets with money from the fossil fuel industry. Dismantling the Obama climate legacy is the most foolish, short-sighted, and destructive action the EPA could take at this time. I oppose doing so in any way whatsoever.”
And Nadine Ono of Pasadena, CA, said in an April 17 comment that, “I take personal offense when there is talk of cutting regulations that can lead to more air pollution. Breathing clean air should not be political.”
EPA is accepting comment through May 15 on steps the administration can take to implement President Donald Trump's executive order directing agencies to develop plans for eliminating and streamlining “burdensome” regulations.
The agency is also hosting an office-specific series of teleconferences to take input on the request, which is in accordance with the executive order President Donald Trump signed in February, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” that establishes a regulatory review task force that will review the comments.
Some of the EPA teleconferences include an Office of Air & Radiation public meeting April 24, the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization public meeting April 25, the Office of Water meeting with water associations on April 26 and a virtual listening session May 2, and a few others.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/so-far-public-overwhelmingly-urges-epa-retain-rules
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(ACC mentioned) Industry, Activists Diverge on ‘Best Science’ Under Toxics Law
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA must define terms like “best available science” mandated by its chemicals statute so the regulated community can understand how the agency will analyze the risks of chemicals companies make or use, trade associations said.
“Definitions give better insight into how EPA would conduct its assessments, and that additional insight gives much better clarity about how to prepare,” Karyn Schmidt, senior director for chemical regulation, regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, told Bloomberg BNA.
“It is the government's duty to spell out the foundations of its decisions and clarify compliance criteria. It is a question of fundamental fairness,” Jack Snyder, executive director of the Styrene Information & Research Center, told Bloomberg BNA.
But environmental groups and some states say any rigid definition in the Environmental Protection Agency's pending risk evaluation rule would not capture evolving scientific research and approaches. They want the agency to issue nonbinding guidance documents instead.
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, and Jennifer McPartland, a health scientist with the fund, told Bloomberg BNA that defining such terms in regulations could mean the EPA would lock in analytic methods that are out of date or still disputed within the scientific community.
Regulatory definitions run the risk of limiting science to what may be best today “when at some point in the future there will be a much better way to do that,” Jack Fowle, a former EPA scientist, told Bloomberg BNA.
It may be possible, however, to include principles of what constitutes best available science—such as the need for transparency—into regulations, said Fowle, who runs Science to Inform, a consulting firm focused on emerging toxicity testing methods and other topics.
Regardless of whether the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act's science mandates are defined in regulations or guidance, lawsuits are likely to be filed in courts that will weigh in on whether or not the agency has complied, Daniel Rosenberg, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg BNA.
Proposed Rule
At issue is the EPA's Jan. 19 proposed rule (RIN: 2070-AK20) laying out the procedures by which the agency would evaluate chemical risks (82 Fed. Reg. 7562).
This is the third “framework” rule mandated by the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments. Together the three rules would require the EPA to assess the safety of chemicals in commerce, something the original TSCA never required it to do.
The three rules would establish the agency's procedures to determine which chemicals have been in commerce, sort through them to flag ones raising possible health concerns and identify ones that do not.
The EPA then would evaluate the risks of high-priority chemicals. If its evaluations determine that a chemical poses unreasonable risks to people or the environment, then those chemicals would be regulated.
Science Requirements
Companies up and down the chemical supply chain split from state regulators, physicians groups, environmental health organizations and some water utilities on the question of whether the EPA should define scientific terms and practices mandated by the TSCA amendments in the risk evaluation and other framework rules.
Section 26 of the 2016 TSCA amendments requires the EPA to:
• “use scientific information, technical procedures, measures, methods, protocols, methodologies, or models, employed in a manner consistent with the best available science;”
• decide whether toxicity or other chemical tests are needed and evaluate the risks of both new and existing chemicals “based on the weight of the scientific evidence;” and
• make its determinations and scientific information available to the public.
The EPA did not define the terms “best available science” or “weight of evidence” in its proposed rule—phrases that have drawn controversy in past debates about toxic risks.“Codifying a specific definition can inhibit the flexibility of the agency to quickly adopt and implement changing science,” the EPA said in its proposed rule.
Similar Requirement in Water Law
Rita Schoeny, a private consultant and retired senior science adviser for the agency's Office of Water, told Bloomberg BNA that the agency used the same rationale in the 1990s when it defined “best available, peer-reviewed science” in the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments.
Science evolves quickly, she said and if an agency wants to foster good—yet consistent—use of science it uses guidance to explain how.
For example, the EPA's peer review handbook has been updated four times as practices change and as the agency gains experience in using contractors and addresses conflicts of interest when forming panels, she said.
“Guidance is the easiest to adapt—even that won't change overnight. It will be submitted to a lot of scrutiny and peer review,” Schoeny said.
Existing Guidance Found Lacking
The EPA's existing guidance documents, however, do not provide clear definitions for terms such as “best available science,” “weight of evidence,” or “sufficiency of information,” the American Chemistry Council said in its comments.
The council suggested definitions of those three terms along with “unreasonable risk” and “reasonably available information.”
Other trade associations including the Styrene center and Toy Industry Associations Inc., backed the chemistry council's suggested definitions.
None of the definitions would require using specific methods to assess chemicals, or “’freeze” the science, Schmidt said.
“Indeed, best available science depends on the converse,” the council said. “Scientific advancements will be important to ensuring the effective and efficient implementation” of the TSCA amendments, it said.
Margins of Exposure
Yet in interviews with Bloomberg BNA, environmental health researchers and organizations said the council's definitions would constrain the use of scientific advances.
They pointed to the chemistry council's definition of unreasonable risk, which urges the agency to consider a metric of a chemicals’ risk called a “margin of exposure.”
Margins of exposure compare exposure levels that found no health effects in test animal studies to human exposure. The larger the margin of exposure, the smaller the potential health risk.
California's Environmental Protection Agency and a coalition of academic researchers joined by the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, National Medical Association, and Physicians for Social Responsibility objected to the EPA's use of a margin of exposure approach to assess risks.
That approach suggests “there is a ‘safe’ level of exposure below which no harm will occur,” the coalition wrote.
That may be true for a few chemicals, but cannot be an across-the-board assumption, the coalition wrote.
States, Water Agencies
In the Environmental Defense Fund's comments and an interview with Bloomberg BNA, Denison and McPartland echoed those concerns about the margin of exposure method and pointed to several other examples of proposed definitions that they said would limit scientific advances.
The chemistry council's proposed science definitions are its attempt to “put its thumb on the scale” and lock in use of specific risk analysis methods and assumptions, Denison said.
CalEPA, Washington state's Department of Ecology and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies urged the EPA to use guidance—not regulations—to define science and risk terminology.
“Codification of specific terms will inhibit agency flexibility and responsiveness to evolving and changing science,” CalEPA wrote.
Andrew Rogers, director of legislative programs for the American Association for Justice, whose member attorneys represent individuals who argue that chemical exposures have harmed them, told Bloomberg BNA that Congress considered multiple definitions of the scientific terms during the years-long effort to overhaul TSCA and intentionally chose not to define them.
Requiring repeatable scientific experiments or “independently verified” results, as some of industry's definitions would do, could prevent the use of epidemiological research on chemical exposures, according to Rodgers. “It could ignore what's happening in the real world,” he said.
Let Science Advisers Weigh In
The Natural Resources Defense Council's Rosenberg said Congress didn't define the science terms nor did it direct the EPA to do so.
The TSCA amendments required the EPA to establish a Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, which it has done, he said.
That committee should be consulted about the scientific approaches the EPA will use as it implements the TSCA amendments, Rosenberg said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109813164&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109813164&jd=109813164
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Suit Over EPA's Rejection Of Fluoride Ban Claims TSCA Misinterpretation
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmentalists and public health groups are suing EPA over its rejection of a petition seeking a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ban on drinking water fluoridation, arguing the agency's denial “erroneously interpreted” language in the overhauled TSCA by placing unwieldy burdens on petitioners to justify their request for a ban.
EPA in its petition denial said that a ban on fluoridation -- a single use of a class of chemicals -- was at odds with TSCA's mandate to review specific chemicals and address risks from all their uses. But the groups argue that EPA's denial is based on flawed scientific assessment of fluoride's neurotoxic risks and an inaccurate reading of the toxics law update enacted last June, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.
“EPA (A) erroneously interpreted the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act as placing onerous new evidentiary burdens on citizen petitioners, (B) dismissed studies relied upon by Plaintiffs on demonstrably false grounds, and (C ) failed to consider the research on fluoride neurotoxicity through the framework of its Guidelines on Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment,” petitioners say in their April 18 lawsuit over the denial.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, by the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), Food and Water Watch (FWW), and others, asks the court to declare that they have shown fluoridating water poses “an unreasonable risk of injury” to human health or the environment and mandate the ban.
Observers tracking EPA's implementation of the new TSCA law have said a lawsuit challenging the agency's denial of the fluoride petition would provide a test case for the agency's interpretation that petitioners must provide a comprehensive analysis of all uses of a chemical in order to seek a restriction on a particular use.
“This asserted view, that only a comprehensive risk evaluation considering all conditions of use will suffice, presents a very high threshold for action -- and seemingly an impossibly high threshold to move EPA to act," officials with the law firm Bergeson & Campbell said in a March 7 blog post.
FAN and FWW together with the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology petitioned EPA last November seeking a ban on the decades-old practice of adding fluoride to drinking water, a process done to reduce cavities.
The groups argued that fluoride in drinking water often exceeds doses repeatedly linked to IQ loss and other neurotoxic effects, and that TSCA allows for a "more targeted" ban than under federal drinking water law. EPA, in its most recent six-year review of drinking water contaminants as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act, did not consider fluoride a candidate for review of its drinking water standard.
The petition did not mention that water fluoridation is a local decision, made by individual water utilities and localities upon decades-old recommendations from the Public Health Service to promote dental health.
Petition Denial
In its Feb. 27 denial, EPA said that the request to prohibit drinking water fluoridation -- a single use of a chemical -- was inconsistent with the agency's obligation under the updated TSCA to conduct comprehensive reviews of specific chemicals and address risks from all uses.
The novel rationale for rejecting the request under TSCA 21 drew the attention of the industry observers who suggested in their recent blog that the interpretation essentially obviates the purpose of section 21 petitions for agency action under section 6, which has traditionally been to draw the agency's attention to a chemical hazard that had not previously been a focus.
EPA's denial outlined general obligations petitioners should meet in seeking chemical restrictions under the updated version of the toxics law. “This requirement includes addressing the full set of conditions of use for a chemical substance and thereby describing an adequate rule under TSCA section 6(a) -- one that would reduce the risks of the chemical substance 'so that the chemical substance or mixture no longer presents' unreasonable risks under all conditions of use,” the agency said.
“Rather than comprehensively addressing the conditions of use that apply to a particular chemical substance, the petition requests EPA to take action on a single condition of use (water fluoridation) that cuts across a category of chemical substances (fluoridation chemicals),” the agency added.
Bergeson and Campbell attorneys said that EPA's denial is "essentially arguing that since EPA must assess 'all conditions of use' in any control rule they might promulgate, then any outside petition must include all of the same homework before it can be granted.”
In the April 18 lawsuit, the groups argue that recent studies show fluoride at doses present in drinking water pose neurodevelopmental risks to children and that if EPA had followed its own guidelines for reviewing neurotoxicity data it would have concluded action is necessary to reduce unreasonable risks to people from fluoridation of drinking water.
The groups cite a 2006 National Research Council review that said “it is apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the brain,” and argue that numerous additional studies have since backed that conclusion.
They also say that susceptible populations, including infants fed formula reconstituted with drinking water, are at increased risk of neurotoxic effects from drinking water fluoridation, which is a decades-old practice that predates topical applications of the substance to prevent cavities which preclude the risks associated with ingestion.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/suit-over-epas-rejection-fluoride-ban-claims-tsca-misinterpretation
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US EPA To Convene TSCA Regulatory Reform Meeting
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is convening two public meetings to solicit input on regulations promulgated under TSCA that could be repealed, replaced or modified.
The move comes in response to a February executive order directing agencies to take action on regulations deemed to be unnecessary, that inhibit job creation or impose costs that exceed benefits. It is one of several directives from the Trump administration to roll back federal regulations, specifically at the EPA.
The first of two 1 May meetings will cover regulations addressing chemical risk review and reduction programmes on both new and existing chemicals, polychlorinated biphenyls, asbestos, mercury and formaldehyde. More specifically, it will focus on:
· control of toxic substances (TSCA subchapter I);
· asbestos hazard emergency response (subchapter II);
· formaldehyde standards for composite wood products (subchapter VI); and
· the Toxics Release Inventory (Epcra subchapter II).
The second meeting will address lead exposure reduction regulations, as promulgated under TSCA section IV.
The agency is also continuing to accept comments submitted to the public docket on regulations that merit closer examination.
Registration is required to attend in person or remotely.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55339/us-epa-to-convene-tsca-regulatory-reform-meeting
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US EPA Extends Comment Deadline for TSCA Dection 6 Rules
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended by 30 days the comment periods for two proposed TSCA section 6 rules.
The deadline for responding to the agency’s proposals to ban trichloroethylene (TCE) in vapour degreasing and to restrict or prohibit methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in paint stripping is now 19 May.
The extensions come despite objections from NGOs that industry groups are employing delay tactics on the EPA’s first attempts to ban substances under section 6 of TSCA in nearly three decades.
The extension for the TCE proposal is its second; the deadline had earlier been delayed 30 days to 19 April.
But the extra time falls short of the 120-day request that the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance had advocated for.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55333/us-epa-extends-comment-deadline-for-tsca-section-6-rules
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Parabens May Affect BPA Metabolism, Say Canadian Researchers
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Exposure to parabens, used as antimicrobial preservatives, may affect the way in which the body metabolises bisphenol A (BPA), according to Canadian research on rodents.
A team from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, exposed mice to butylparaben (BP) and propylparaben (PP) by injecting the chemicals under the skin to simulate absorption from personal care products. They then gave the mice a dietary supplement, containing BPA labelled with radioactive carbon-14.
People are routinely exposed to parabens, as well as BPA. For example, the US National Health and Nutrition Survey (Nhanes) found BP in the urine of almost half of the population and PP in over 92%.
The researchers, led by Denys deCatanzaro, found that pre-treating with BP caused both male and female mice to have higher BPA levels in blood and reproductive tissue. Meanwhile, exposure to PP "significantly elevated" BPA concentrations in the uterus.
They suggest that the parabens may affect how BPA is metabolised. There are "numerous" potential mechanisms for this involving action at oestrogen receptors, transport proteins in blood and enzymes, they say.
In particular, there is some evidence that parabens can inhibit enzymes involved in metabolising oestrogens. Actions of BP and PP on metabolic enzymes could explain the higher blood and tissue levels of BPA, following exposure to the two substances, suggest the researchers.
The doses of BP and PP are greater than typical exposure levels in the general public. However, exposure estimates rarely account for other sources, including foods, beverages and pharmaceuticals, they add.
The message from the team is that there is a "need to consider studies of multiple toxicants when determining regulatory exposure limits for endocrine-active chemicals".
In the EU, propylparaben and butylparaben are banned from some leave-on products and restricted in all cosmetics.
The study is published in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55336/parabens-may-affect-bpa-metabolism-say-canadian-researchers
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EPA Meetings to Discuss Changes to Asbestos, Toxics Rules
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency will host two meetings on May 1 to seek comments on whether existing asbestos, lead, Toxics Release Inventory and other rules should be repealed, replaced or revised.
President Donald Trump's Executive Order 1377, which requires each agency to create a Regulatory Reform Task Force to evaluate existing regulations, prompted the meetings, the agency said in an email announcing them.
Register by April 27 at http://bit.ly/2pDjf7o to discuss chemical and TRI regulations and at http://bit.ly/2o4ZJ3Q to discuss lead regulations. Written comments, due May 15, should be marked Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190 and submitted at http://www.regulations.gov.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109813174&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109813174&jd=109813174
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US NGO Campaigns Against 'Harmful' Chemicals In Feminine Wipes
Apr 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US NGO Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE) has launched a campaign against 'harmful chemicals' in feminine wipe products.
Naming such brands as Always, CVS, Playtex, Vagisil and Walgreens, WVE says many of these products contain biocides of potential concern, such as methylisothiazolinone (MI) and iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (IPBC).
And, as part of the campaign, it has written several letters calling on CB Fleet – brand owner of Summer's Eve wipes – to eliminate octoxynol-9 and other substances from its products. WVE also wants the company to disclose the ingredients of the trade-marked odour control ingredient, Neutresse.
The company says it maintains a "robust clinical safety testing programme" as part of its product development and follows applicable Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations for feminine products it sells.
Last year, a WVE campaign calling for feminine hygiene product manufacturers to voluntarily disclose their ingredients resulted in Procter and Gamble (P&G) and Kimberly Clark increasing their transparency efforts.
A bill requiring ingredient disclosure for feminine care products was introduced last year, but failed to gain traction in Congress.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55255/us-ngo-campaigns-against-harmful-chemicals-in-feminine-wipes
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Aise Proposes Measures To Reduce Detergents Poisoning In Children
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Soap and detergents trade body Aise says some of its members intend to undertake voluntary measures to help reduce child exposure to liquid laundry detergent capsules (LLDCs).
The move follows publication of a draft final report of the European Commission’s ‘LiquiCaps’ study, which highlighted an increase in the numbers of accidental exposure or poisoning in children under five-years-old, when compared with traditional detergents.
Aise says the LiquiCaps data show that there is still "room for improvement" in child prevention properties of LLDC packaging, which would go beyond the currently applicable CLP requirements.
The LiquiCaps report and Aise’s proposal were discussed at the meeting of the competent authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal) on 22-23 March.
Aise says some of its member companies intend to improve the safety of LLDCs further, through new voluntary commitments. These are:
· superior child-impeding closures: further improve child impeding properties of packaging by passing a new industry standardised test;
· advertising code of conduct: avoid advertising of liquid laundry detergent capsules in media channels (television and other) that are dedicated to babies and young children; and
· consumer education: improve and re-launch the educational campaign ‘Keep caps from kids’ in a way that is more engaging for parents and caregivers.
The participating companies will start on the education and advertising measures by the summer, and will implement superior child-impeding closures within 18-24 months. Aise is currently finalising the formal documents.
The trade body says companies will continue to honour their existing voluntary consumer safety education commitment of a yellow patch on product labels and safety statements on all advertising.
In addition, companies will carry on working with national poison centres to collect information on accidental exposures to LLDCs and publish a regular update on the statistics on Aise’s website.LiquiCaps study
The LiquiCaps study, which ran from August 2015 to May 2016, recorded 754 cases of exposure to LLDCs. Children aged below five accounted for 87% of these. Among them:
· 39% suffered from ‘low severity’ effects; and
· 10% suffered from ‘moderate’ effects, such as long-lasting vomiting.
Among children under five – and taking into account clinical effects associated with laundry detergents – the risk (odds) for experiencing moderate/high severity poisoning was six times higher for cases exposed to LLDCs than for those exposed to traditional laundry detergents, the study says.
There was no significant change in poisoning frequency or severity during the study period.
Following consultation with industry, the study concluded more research is required to assess the potential impact of measures to reduce visual attractiveness of LLDCs to children, and how to restrict access to the outer packaging.
Aise says the Commission study collected data from a short period and that longer-term data series, available from poison control centres over multiple years, show a substantial and "still ongoing" decrease of the incident frequency of LLDCs relative to their market presence.CLP improvements
In a different paper presented at the Caracal meeting, Aise urged the Commission, Echa and member states to find ways for a harmonised and pragmatic application of CLP principles. This could be done by supporting industry efforts to classify and label hazardous products via a voluntary industry network, such as DetNet.
Member states have recently criticised poor labelling and information on detergents, and trade bodies have called for improvements to the "inefficient" CLP Regulation.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55343/aise-proposes-measures-to-reduce-detergents-poisoning-in-children
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Echa Updates Substance Assessment Under PACT
Apr 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has included updates on 18 substances in its public activities coordination tool (PACT) for risk management option analysis (RMOA) or hazard assessment.
Seven substances have been added for which member states are now starting RMOA. The chemicals and suspected hazards or concerns are:
· alloys cobalt-tungsten carbide hard metals – suspected of being carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR), and suspected of specific target organ toxicity via repeat exposure (STOT RE);
· disodium octaborate (CMR);
· disodium peroxodisulphate – suspected of being a respiratory or skin sensitiser;
· persulfate ammonium (sensitiser);
· persulfate potassium (sensitiser);
· reaction product of 1,3,4-thiadiazolidine-2,5-dithione, formaldehyde and phenol, heptyl derivatives – suspected endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC); and
· UVCB-diamines (STOT RE).
Member states have already carried out hazard assessments and are now undertaking RMOA on the following three substances, which they say are EDCs according to the WHO/IPCS definition:
· ammonium perchlorate;
· bisphenol A; and
· sodium perchlorate.
Evaluation of a further seven suspected EDCs is under development:
· 2-ethylhexyl trans-4-methoxycinnamate;
· 3,5,5-trimethylcyclohex-2-enone (isophorone);
· climbazole;
· dichloromethane;
· dicyclohexyl phthalate;
· diethylmethylbenzenediamine; and
· isopentyl p-methoxycinnamate.
And one is a potential EDC but the member state has postponed further assessment:
· (±)-1,7,7-trimethyl-3-[(4-methylphenyl)methylene]bicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-one (4-methylbenzylidenecamphor).
The member states carrying out work on their respective substances are Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55320/echa-updates-substance-assessment-under-pact
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Canada to Monitor Potentially Toxic Hair Dye Chemical
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Menyasz
Canada will monitor use of hair dye component phenacetin despite concluding that it doesn't currently consider the chemical a toxic substance.
The monitoring could lead to restrictions on the chemical's use if the government finds that increased human exposure to it leads to toxic consequences, however.
In a draft screening assessment of phenacetin, the government said April 15 that it doesn't meet any toxicity criteria of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. But the chemical remains a concern because it is considered a potential carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, according to a notice in the Canada Gazette, Part I.
“There may be a concern for human health if exposure to the substance were to increase. Follow-up activities to track changes in exposure and/or commercial use patterns are under consideration,” the government said.
The notice asks industry to provide any new data that could help determine the best option to follow up ongoing risk posed by phenacetin, including information on planned import, manufacture or use of the substance.
The Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry & Fragrance Association has no issues with the notice or specific comment on it for now, Susan Nieuwhof, the association's spokeswoman, said April 19.
“The CCTFA is fully supportive of Canada's world-leading Chemicals Management Plan. We believe that Canadians are best served when ingredient safety is assessed through a robust process, such as the Chemicals Management Plan, and when decisions are based on sound science and risk assessment,” she told Bloomberg BNA in an email.
Phenacetin, or N-(4-ethoxyphenyl)-acetamide, is used in oxidative hair dye preparations as a stabilizer for hydrogen peroxide. It was formerly used as a drug to treat pain and reduce fever, but hasn't been used as a prescription or non-prescription drug in Canada since 1973.
The notice is open to public comment through June 14. The final screening assessment of phenacetin is expected to be published in April 2018, the government said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109813160&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109813160&jd=109813160
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(ACC Mentioned) Local Officials have Eye On Future Plant Development
Apr 19, 2017 | Victoria Advocate
By Kathryn Cargo
Although Victoria wasn't chosen as the site for a multibillion dollar petrochemical plant, local officials have hope Victoria will land another large project soon.
ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation announced Wednesday morning that San Patricio County is the site for the plant.
"Obviously now that it's official, I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised based on the level of negotiation and due diligence that was being done in San Patricio County," said Dale Fowler, Victoria Economic Development Corporation president. "I anticipated this was the direction they were going. The good news is that we have developed a great relationship and friendship with the ExxonMobil folks."
Victoria County, San Patricio County as well as Ascension and St. James parishes in Louisiana were considered for the plant.
Now that the site selection is complete, ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation officials will apply for air and wastewater permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said Aaron Stryk, ExxonMobil spokesman.
The companies will make their final decisions on the investment after they are granted the required permits.
The Victoria community and Victoria Economic Development Corporation was supportive through the process and made company officials' final site selection difficult, Stryk said.
"The Victoria site has many good features and will make an attractive location for future proposed sites - both for us and others in industry," he said.
The petrochemical plant is one of 11 plants ExxonMobil will bring or expand along the Gulf of Mexico in the next 10 years investing $20 billion in local economies, Stryk said.
Although ExxonMobil officials have not announced any additional petrochemical facilities, according to the American Chemistry Council, 264 projects have been announced or proposed, Stryk said.
"We think Victoria, Texas, could be a viable candidate for many of those upcoming opportunities," he said.
The Victoria Economic Development Corporation will continue to stay in close contact with ExxonMobil officials, Fowler said.
The fact that company officials announced that Victoria was high on their list of sites made the county more visible to the petrochemical industry.
"It has paid off for us in the past - when we didn't get a certain project," he said. "If we handle that professionally and maintain the relationship, it leaves the door open for future opportunities."
Ben Zeller, Victoria County judge, said he saw the final site decision coming.
"Obviously we wanted it in Victoria and knew that it would be successful in Victoria," he said. "Just because this one wasn't in the cards doesn't mean the next one won't be."
Zeller agreed with Fowler that Victoria County has proved itself capable of handling a large project like the plant to the petrochemical industry, state and nation.
"Victoria County is a prime location for new business growth, and we will as a community and as a county continue actively marketing what we have," he said. "It will just be a matter of time before we're able to seal the deal on a big project like this."
The petrochemical industry is growing, Fowler said.
"Be aware we are continuing to do what we do, and that's market Victoria," Fowler said. "We have proof that Exxon thought that we had a viable site for that type of project."
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2017/apr/19/local-officials-have-eye-on-future-plant-developme/
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EPA Grants Request to Reconsider Methane NSPS Amid Abeyance Fight
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
EPA has granted petitions from energy industry groups to delay initial compliance dates for the Obama-era rule regulating methane emissions from new oil and gas sources and to reconsider aspects of the rule -- consistent with a request for relief industry had underscored in a recent filing backing an agency motion to pause litigation over the rule.
The reconsideration proceedings come as EPA has already initiated a review of the methane new source performance standards (NSPS), first-time limits on emissions of the potent greenhouse gas from the sector, as required by President Donald Trump's March 28 energy executive order, which directed EPA to review and “if appropriate” rescind or revise the methane NSPS and several other Obama-era climate rules.
EPA granted the petitions -- filed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), Texas Oil and Gas Association, Independent Associations and GPA Midstream Association -- over concerns that the industry groups had not been able to comment on monitoring and other requirements that appeared in the final rule but had not been included in the proposed version, and were thus not subject to public comment.
“We find that the petitions have raised at least one objection to the fugitive emissions monitoring requirements included in the Final Rule . . . that arose after the comment period or was impracticable to raise during the comment period,” Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an April 18 letter, adding that the agency is “convening a proceeding for reconsideration” of those requirements.
Other measures that will be reconsidered include “provisions for requesting and receiving an alternative means of emissions limitations and the inclusion of low-production wells.”
“As part of the reconsideration process, the EPA will provide an opportunity for notice and comment on the issues raised in the petitions that meet the standard of [Clean Air Act] section 307(d)(7)(B), as well as any other matter we believe will benefit from additional comment,” Pruitt writes.
Pruitt also noted that, due to the reconsideration proceedings, EPA would delay a June 30 compliance date by 90 days. “Sources will not need to comply with these requirements while the stay is in effect,” Pruitt wrote in the letter.
EPA is already asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hold pending industry litigation over the methane NSPS and two related rules in abeyance, citing the agency's review of the rule.
The lawsuit, API, et al. v. EPA, et al. challenges the NSPS rule, as well as aspects of a related NSPS for conventional pollutants, finalized in 2012, and a third regulation issued in 2014 that reconsidered aspects of the second rule.
Under the current schedule, parties must submit a briefing schedule and proposed briefing format by May 19.
With the litigation pending, the industry groups petitioned EPA for an administrative stay or an extension of near-term compliance dates for the rule.
'Appropriate Relief'
But the industry groups argued in their April 17 brief supporting the administration's request to hold ongoing litigation over the methane NSPS in abeyance, that the case should “remain on the docket” during EPA's review of the rule in the event that the agency does not make sufficient changes to the rule or grant initial compliance relief.
“Industry Petitioners have separately petitioned EPA to administratively stay or extend near-term compliance deadlines so that affected facilities do not need to invest time and resources in implementing aspects of the rule that may change or be eliminated,” the industry groups wrote. “If EPA fails to provide administrative relief, Industry Petitioners want to reserve the option of seeking appropriate relief from this Court.”
Nevertheless, the industry groups, in their April 17 brief, strongly supported pausing the case, arguing that Trump's executive order “plainly shows that the Trump administration has a significantly different perspective than the prior administration on the policy issues that underlie” the NSPS.
A coalition of states challenging the methane NSPS made similar arguments in their recent filing, calling the request “routine” and arguing it would “conserve judicial and party resources.” And the states, like the industry groups, cite the D.C. Circuit's recent granting of a similar motion to hold litigation challenging EPA's 2015 ozone standards in abeyance.
“In that case, briefing is complete and oral argument was scheduled for this week. Yet, this Court granted abeyance,” the states write.
As for holding portions of the consolidated litigation challenging the two related rules in abeyance, the states take no position, as they are not parties to those separate cases.
But another group of states that support the methane rule are coming to its defense, charging in an April 17 filing that EPA “does not provide any basis for the Court to delay litigation of this matter for what is, in effect, an indefinite period of time” while it reviews the rule. They argue that because the rule remains “in force” until EPA “lawfully changes it,” the issues raised in the litigation are “neither moot nor unripe.”
And they add: “[T]o the extent any question exists about EPA's continuing commitment to defend the 2016 Rule, the State Intervenors stand ready to provide a robust defense of the 2016 Rule.”
The states also cast doubt that EPA would ultimately be successful in weakening the rule. “As a matter of law, EPA cannot predetermine the result of whatever review the agency may undertake. Rather, the record before EPA must drive the result, and the record here strongly supports the 2016 Rule, which makes it doubtful that EPA can adequately support a different or weaker rule,” they write.
They also suggest that the methane NSPS rule is “entirely consistent” with the broad directive of Trump's executive order -- to benefit domestic energy production. “Fugitive methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector not only contribute to climate change, but also result in lost revenue for producing states, producers, transporters, and distributors of natural gas,” the states write. “Every ton of methane leaked to the atmosphere is a ton of methane that cannot be sold, and for producing states, may result in lost tax and royalty benefits.”
Environmental groups are also strongly opposing EPA's abeyance request, saying in an April 14 filing that the agency is wrong to claim that its administrative review of the rules “of unknown length and uncertain outcome” warrants indefinitely pausing the litigation.
However, both environmentalists and supporting states do not oppose a 90-day extension of the deadline to submit proposed briefing schedules.
“State Intervenors recognize, however, that litigation of these consolidated cases is in its early stages with no briefing schedule set. Therefore, State Intervenors would not oppose a 90-day extension of time to submit briefing schedules, which would provide EPA a reasonable amount of time to determine its course of conduct,” the states write.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-grants-request-reconsider-methane-nsps-amid-abeyance-fight
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Pruitt Nibbles at Methane Rule; Are Larger Bites to Come?
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt launched a surprisingly narrow attack on Obama-era regulations limiting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, but a more expansive attempt to repeal the regulations may be coming further in the future, according to industry insiders and observers.
Pruitt said in an April 18 letter that his agency will grant a request from fossil fuel industry trade groups and reconsider the regulations, which were finalized last summer. In the letter, Pruitt said the reconsideration will focus on the parts of the methane rules that he said the public wasn't able to fully comment on before the rules were finalized.
By limiting the scope of this reconsideration, Pruitt may be signaling that he intends to modify the regulations rather than rescind them outright, according to James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform who specializes in administrative law.
“This doesn't really get at the heart of the rule like I thought it might,” he told Bloomberg BNA.
Methane Rules
EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman told Bloomberg BNA in an email, “All we are doing at this time is telling businesses ... that we intend to reconsider the rule. We can't speak to whether the rule would be tweaked before we have a chance to formally reconsider it.”
However, Pruitt's letter specifically avoids promising to rescind the methane rules, one of the centerpieces of the Obama administration's climate change policy, as methane is a potent greenhouse gas.
In a March 28 executive order on climate and energy policy, President Donald Trump specifically instructed the EPA to immediately review any agency actions that “potentially burden the safe, efficient development of domestic energy resources.”
These regulations only apply to methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas wells. They require the well owners to take a number of measures to search for leaking methane and then repair any leaks that are found.
Compliance Deadlines
Though the measure was finalized last year, one of its key sections doesn't go into effect until June of this year: a requirement that all well owners use an infrared camera at least once a quarter to search for leaks and then document what they find. In announcing the reconsideration, Pruitt also pushed back this compliance deadline by three months.
James Elliott, an attorney representing the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a coalition of small drilling companies, said this will impose huge costs on his clients. He said Pruitt likely acted now on the reconsideration to avoid forcing companies to comply with a rule that may eventually be rescinded in the future.
“That's why you're seeing this now,” Elliott, who is with the firm Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC's Harrisburg, Pa., office, told Bloomberg BNA. “I suspect that there will be other aspects of rule that will be evaluated.”
Mark Brownstein, an executive vice president with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has advocated for methane regulation, said even a three-month delay is significant at a time when petroleum prices are rebounding.
“Every month that goes by where these ... are not in place is another month where methane is wasted and needless waste and pollution occurs,” he told Bloomberg BNA.
Court Battle
In addition to the reconsideration, the rules are also being challenged in federal court by the energy industry. The EPA has asked the court to pause this lawsuit while it weighs how to ultimately handle these methane leak requirements.
Lee Fuller, executive vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said this may be another reason why Pruitt decided to act on this now with a narrow order, rather than wait to issue a more comprehensive repeal of the rules.
“They are showing to the court that, even though they're seeking an abeyance, that they're also in the process of addressing the issues that were identified to them,” he told Bloomberg BNA.
Regardless of what ultimately comes of the reconsideration that Pruitt announced today, whether it's a narrow tweak or a wholesale repeal, Goodwin said it won't prevent the Trump administration from revisiting this rule down the road.
“This doesn't preclude the EPA from initiating a new rulemaking process or writing a new rule,” he said. “It does give them a unique method for halting the entire thing while they decide what to do.”
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Natural Gas Moves to the Naughty List
Apr 20, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Mark Chediak
Think coal’s got it bad in the fight against climate change? Watch what happens to natural gas.
Power plants around the world are stepping up their use of gas as a fuel because it burns cleaner than coal—and in the U.S., at least, it’s cheaper. Gas now supplies about a third of the country’s power, up from just 17 percent a decade ago.
But U.S. environmentalists have vowed to go after gas-fired power plants with the same vengeance they’ve used to force the retirements of hundreds of coal facilities. Even coal miners are warning their fossil fuel kin to beware. Gas producers “will be next on the list of the industries to be destroyed,” says Robert Murray, chief executive officer of U.S. coal miner Murray Energy Corp.
Coal lost its place as America’s No. 1 power plant fuel last year, dethroned by gas. More than a thousand coal mines have closed since 2009, putting about 36,000 people out of work. Researchers and energy executives alike warn that if gas can’t cut globe-warming emissions, it’s only a matter of time before it shares the same fate.
Natural gas is often promoted as clean because it releases half as much carbon dioxide as coal when combusted. But methane, the most prevalent chemical compound in natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas in its own right, with heat-trapping emissions leaked at every stage of its life, from well to pipeline to power plant. In the U.S., the gas industry as a whole was responsible for more emissions than coal last year for the first time, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance(BNEF).
Green groups that once celebrated gas as a “bridge fuel,” helping the world transition from dirty coal to zero-emission energy such as wind, solar, and other renewable sources, are now fighting it. Lena Moffitt, a program director at the Sierra Club, says there’s a “growing recognition that it’s a fuel we’ll have to leave behind.” Her organization is increasingly focused on stopping gas-fired power plants and pipelines from being built. Among recent targets: a proposed $250 million gas-fueled plant near Los Angeles and the $1 billion Constitution Pipeline Williams Partners LP wants to construct to bring gas to New York City from Pennsylvania.
Groups seeking to mobilize public opposition to such projects can point to Aliso Canyon, a community near Los Angeles, where a blowout at a storage facility in October 2015 resulted in the largest methane leak in U.S. history, forcing thousands of residents from their homes.
Donald Trump may be undoing Barack Obama’s climate policies, but individual U.S. states and almost 200 countries from Canada to China are still switching to cleaner power, partly to honor their commitments to reduce emissions under the United Nations-sponsored Paris Agreement. That includes shifting away from natural gas. BNEF projects that by 2040 gas will make up less than a sixth of the world’s power market—down from a quarter today—as cheap, emissions-free solar and wind power prevail.
“There’s probably 30 years of environmental momentum that’s been building,” says Michael Moore, vice president of Houston-based energy broker FearnOil Inc. “It’s not going to disappear with four years of a new president.”
To keep its product from falling out of favor, the gas industry has spent at least $10 billion developing technologies to capture carbon emissions. Chevron Corp. and Australia’s government have invested $1.5 billion in equipment that collects carbon dioxide from a massive liquefied natural gas project and entombs it in an underground reservoir. In Texas, Exelon, Toshiba, and Net Power are part of a $140 million venture building a 50-megawatt “clean gas” power plant that the companies say will be the first to capture and recycle almost all of its emissions when it starts up later this year.
“There is an attack on coal to cut CO2, and switching to natural gas is a solution, but ultimately that will be constrained by regulation at some point as well,” says Tim Thomas, vice president and deputy general manager at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America. In response to “global interest,” the Houston-based company is looking to design gas-fired power units that can capture their own carbon.
But will the cost of the new technologies come down fast enough for gas to avoid coal’s fate? Dawn Farrell, chief executive officer of TransAlta Corp., a Canadian electric utility that’s shutting coal plants to comply with environmental regulations, offers a cautionary tale. Speaking to a business crowd at the Canadian Club of Montreal in February, she warned against investing in gas-fired plants. “The people who build the gas plants today will be me 25 years from now, facing the shutdown of those plants,” she said. “I fundamentally believe—whatever the rhetoric is—you want to find the way to make electricity without carbon if you want it to be a good investment.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-20/natural-gas-moves-to-the-naughty-list
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(ACC Mentioned) As EPA Seeks To Delay RMP, First Responders Push To Speed Adoption
Apr 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Even as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt seeks to delay implementation of the Obama-era facility safety rule, a coalition of local emergency planners is urging the agency to quickly implement provisions of the rule, arguing new requirements for coordinating with and disclosing data to local planners protect first responders and will not cause the broad public disclosure industry fears.
During an April 19 hearing on EPA's plans to delay the rule, Timothy Gablehouse, of the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials urged the Trump EPA not to delay implementation of a pair of provisions that generally require that facilities coordinate with local emergency planners and share data with those groups upon request.
He argued that the final risk management plan (RMP) update rule's provision for disclosure of facility data to planning groups, such as Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs), are consistent with existing requirements for disclosure of facility data under the Emergency Planning and Community Right To Know Act (EPCRA), but would make planning more efficient.
EPA held the hearing on Pruitt's plan to delay by nearly two years the Obama-era update to the agency's RMP facility safety program.
The Jan. 13 final rule includes new auditing and hazard analysis requirements, as well as provisions bolstering requirements for release of facility data to emergency planners and the public, which have drawn strong opposition from industry groups as well as GOP state attorneys general, including Pruitt prior to his selection to lead EPA.
Former President Barack Obama ordered EPA to issue the rule in response to an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, TX, that killed 15 people, including first responders. While the explosion and Obama's order triggered EPA's overhaul of its RMP accident prevention program, investigators later blamed arson for the fire that led to the explosion.
While chemical sector and other industry groups have argued that the rule's disclosure provisions would mark the nation's industrial facilities as targets for terrorists, Gablehouse said the provision for releasing data to LEPCs would not cause disclosure to the general public.
“We're very mindful of a lot of the concerns raised by industry” Gablehouse said, adding that EPCRA already requires facilities to provide data to first responders on request. “That information is generally restricted from further disclosure,” he added, noting that LEPCs would treat data shared under RMP with similar discretion.
Security concerns raised by the prospect of disclosure of facility data to the general public has been a driving factor behind industry's successful push for the Trump EPA to delay and potentially revise the agency's Jan. 13 final rule overhauling RMP with new auditing and hazard analysis requirements, as well as provisions bolstering disclosure of facility data.
On March 29, Pruitt proposed to delay by an additional 20 months -- from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 -- the effective date of the RMP rule. The administration has already twice delayed the rule originally scheduled to take effect in March, citing a need for regulatory review, and to initiate a process for reconsidering the rule.
The proposed delay and reconsideration process responds to a petition from chemical sector and other industry groups, as well as a second petition from 10 Republican attorneys general and one GOP governor.
'Not Credible'
Paul Orum, of the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, which pressed the Obama administration to bolster regulation of industrial facilities, told the hearing that industry claims that the rule's disclosure provisions threaten security are “not credible.” He argued that the rule merely facilitates the availability of facility data that is already in the public domain under current rules.
“Imagine you are explaining to firefighters' families that you just impeded that communication with an action like this,” he said, arguing that delaying the RMP revisions puts first responders at greater risk. “That's what you're asking for in delaying these rules."
The RMP rule, issued in the waning days of the Obama administration, requires certain facilities to conduct independent audits and consider whether inherently safer technologies, usually alternative chemicals or processes deemed to reduce risks, would improve facility safety.
The final rule also requires facilities to share with local emergency response agencies “information that is relevant to emergency response planning,” and includes “various enhancements to the public availability of chemical hazard information,” including requiring all facilities to provide certain basic information to the public, upon request.
Officials with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and other industry trade groups reiterated long-standing concerns about public disclosure of facility data during the hearing.
“One of the more troubling aspects of the 2016 Rule is that it mandates companies to provide facility-specific, sensitive chemical information to any member of the public upon request,” ACC's Bill Erny said. “The rule does not allow facilities to deny requests that raise red-flags and provides no safeguards to ensure those requesting the information will use it for purposes of emergency preparedness."
During the Obama administration's drafting of the rule, chemical sector officials also raised concerns that disclosure of facility data to emergency response groups could lead to broader public disclosure through release under the Freedom of Information Act.
Industry trade groups, including ACC, Agricultural Retailers Association, and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) argued that the RMP rule is costly and unnecessary, given the success of the existing rule in reducing facility accidents, and that the Obama EPA rushed out the final rule without providing adequate opportunity for public input on all provisions.
“The original rule has proven to be very effective in preventing accidental releases, according to EPA’s own data, while the revised rule would negatively impact the safety and security of our facilities,” said AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson in a statement.
“We are encouraged that EPA is taking action to extend the effective date of the rule to provide it adequate time to reconsider the revisions in light of the West, Texas findings and the many comments the agency received on the revisions."
But environmental and public interest groups argued that delaying the rule shows the Trump administration favoring corporate interests over the lives of millions who will remain at significant risk of chemical accidents if the rule is delayed.
They also argued that those who live closest to industrial facilities are unable to attend a public hearing in Washington, DC. In a public statement, Eboni Cochran, Co-Coordinator of Rubbertown Emergency Action in Louisville, KY, said her family has lived in danger of a release from an industrial facility for decades.
“We should not have to bear the burden of wondering daily if our government is going to be courageous enough to stand up to corporations who only look at their bottom line--while viewing us as expendable.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-seeks-delay-rmp-first-responders-push-speed-adoption
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Mulls Delay Of Risk Management Program Changes
Apr 20, 2017 | Business Insurance
By Gloria Gonzalez
Planned changes to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program would not prevent tragic incidents such as the West, Texas, fertilizer disaster, which was ultimately ruled an act of arson, according to supporters of a proposed implementation delay.
“The current risk management program regulations are working well,” said Richard Gupton, vice president for public policy and counsel with the Agricultural Retailers Association in Washington. “The new regulations will impose additional compliance costs on industry, potentially make sensitive security information available to the public and not provide, in our opinion, any significant safety increases.”
But supporters of the program amendments urged the agency not to delay the regulation any further, citing the dangers posed to low-income and minority communities and first responders.
The final amendments include crucial improvements and the transparency needed by affected communities to protect themselves from chemical facility incidents, said Charise Johnson, Washington-based research associate with the Center for Science and Democracy’s Union of Concerned Scientists.
“We’re disheartened that the long-waited amendments of the RMP rule have been delayed,” she said. “By delaying the rule, we’re deciding to put the best interests of industry over public health.”
The April 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. killed 12 emergency responders and three civilians and injured more than 260 others, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The disaster prompted then-President Barack Obama to issue an executive order in August 2013 to several agencies, including the EPA, to strengthen the Risk Management Program to improve safety and security at these facilities.
The program amendments were scheduled to take effect March 14, but President Donald Trump's administration delayed the effective date, first to March 21 and then to June 19. The administration is currently considering petitions to reconsider the regulation and further delay the amendments to Feb. 19, 2019, filed by industry groups and a coalition of 11 U.S. states.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined the West, Texas blaze was intentionally set and constituted a criminal act, Mr. Gupton and other speakers supporting a delay said.
“I think it’s important that we realize that the explosion, which was initially considered an accidental chemical release, really prompted all the actions we’re here to talk about,” said Bill Erny, senior director at the American Chemistry Council in Washington.
Regulated entities will be required to coordinate with local emergency responders at least annually on an emergency response plan and to ensure that responders are aware of the risks, quantities of the regulated substances at their facilities and their ability to respond to accidental releases under the amendments. This is in direct response to the West disaster because the emergency responders were unaware of the ammonia nitrate risks present at the facility and attempted to put out the fire rather than focusing on evacuations, experts said.
But the rule “doesn’t regulate ammonia nitrate and would do virtually nothing to prevent” incidents such as the West explosion and could unintentionally lead to similar criminal actions because of its “troubling” information-sharing requirements, Mr. Erny said.
Facilities would be required to inform the public of their rights to certain information about the hazardous substances at their facilities and how to request the information, according to the amendments.
“The rule doesn’t allow facilities to deny requests that raise red flags or provide safeguards to ensure that those requesting the information use it for the appropriate purpose of emergency preparedness,” he said.
But the fact that the West, Texas, fire was a criminal act is no reason not to move forward with the program amendments, said David Halperin, a Washington-based attorney and former White House National Security Council and U.S. Senate staffer.
“It may have been sabotage, but that does not undercut the urgency of implementing this rule,” he said.
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20170419/NEWS06/912312986/EPA-mulls-delay-of-risk-management-program-changes-West-Texas-explosion
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Industry Groups Urge EPA to Delay Chemical Facility Regulations
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Industry officials urged the EPA at a public meeting April 19 to move forward with its consideration of delaying a chemical security rule they say is needless and unsafe. But worker safety advocates worry that a nearly two-year delay of the rule could harm communities.
In finalizing the regulation during the last weeks of the Obama administration, industry officials said the Environmental Protection Agency moved too quickly and failed to show a need for the changes. The proposed delay of the rule to Feb. 19, 2019, could give the agency more time craft a new policy in line with Administrator Scott Pruitt's goals of producing regulations that are simpler for businesses.
Companies, meanwhile, would have more time to weigh in on the proposal, which has been in the works for nearly three years. The regulation (RIN:2050-AG82) stems from a 2013 executive order issued in the wake of an explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer facility that killed 15 people.
Delaying the regulation further “will not compromise safety” because it leaves in place the existing system, that dates to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, Matthew Hodges, director of regulatory affairs at Valero Energy Corp., said on behalf of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.
The regulation creates new requirements for plants to report information to local responders, plan for emergencies and evaluate if facilities can be run in safer ways. Business groups contend the plan requires chemical facilities to share too much sensitive information, creating security risks that would be dangerous for the public.
Some sections governing coordination with local responders should take effect after the delay, according to Timothy Gablehouse, the president of Colorado Emergency Preparedness Partnership Inc. and director of government affairs for the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials. He called them “very consistent” with existing rules under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
Safety Advocates Concerned
Public interest groups said the rule was limited in scope but a step in the right direction.
“The new requirements are really very modest,” said Paul Orum, a chemical safety consultant, “but we expect it will save lives.”
Charise Johnson of the Center for Science & Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists said the public has a right to know what risks may be present in their communities.
“Communities across the country do not need more process,” Johnson's colleague at the center, Yogin Kothari, said. “They do not need more delays. They need action.”
The 2013 executive order set in motion years of coordination between the EPA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. The EPA last held a public meeting on the then-proposed rule in March 2016.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109813177&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109813177&jd=109813177
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Trump Targets a NAFTA Deal With Few Defenders
Apr 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
It's hard to know exactly what President Donald Trump has in mind for opening up the North American Free Trade Agreement, but it may be even harder to find industry and environmental groups or even members of Congress who want the 1994 deal left as is.
Many environmental groups have seethed for more than two decades after seeing their concerns shunted aside into an environmental deal separate from NAFTA, one that lacked any significant enforcement provisions and today looks particularly inadequate compared to subsequent trade deals that were given more teeth to address environmental protections.
Some industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers aren't exactly defending the 23-year-old deal either, although they're pushing Trump toward more of a tuneup of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico deal than tossing the whole thing onto the scrap heap. Trump has continued to call for renegotiating the deal, although his administration has sent mixed signals of late that suggest some softening in that position.Then there's Congress, where support for new trade agreements and removing trade barriers has eroded over the past two decades. Many are resigned to some change in the North American deal, noting that Trump won the election at least in part due to his vow to bring back U.S. factories and sink trade deals that he claims hurt U.S. competitiveness.
NAFTA “has been in place for a long, long time. Any contract—which in essence is what NAFTA is—after this many years needs to and should be tweaked,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told Bloomberg BNA. “And I'm certain there are tweaks that could be beneficial to [all] sides.”
A Toothless Environmental Side Deal?
Environmental groups say those tweaks should include stronger enforcement of environmental protections. The environmental side deal negotiated alongside NAFTA— officially known as the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation and seen as an historic first given previous U.S. deals had been essentially silent on environmental issues—is today seen as largely ineffective, particularly in preventing environmental degradation in Mexico.
Most environmental groups wouldn't be sorry to see the side deal go. Just 22 of the total 87 environmental complaints filed under the NAFTA environmental deal have resulted in the preparation of factual records outlining the concerns, according to a 2015 analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law.
Few of those complaints “have actually had a discernible impact on the enforcement practices at issue in the initial submissions,” the center concluded; just the process of preparing the factual records took an average of nearly five years to complete.
Part of the blame lies in lofty language in the NAFTA environmental deal which called on each country to “ensure that its laws and regulations provide for high levels of environmental protection and shall strive to continue to improve those laws and regulations.” But the deal never defined what “high levels” meant.
More recent U.S. trade deals have included environmental provisions in the core text of the agreements to allow governments to bring cases against each other for violations, Ben Beachy, senior policy adviser for the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program, told Bloomberg BNA.
“Despite this,” he said, “not once has the U.S. used these trade deals to bring a single case against a single trade partner for environmental violations, despite widely documented evidence of illegal logging, rollbacks of environmental protections, and other abuses.”
Receptive in the Rust Belt
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has blamed NAFTA for eroding the state's manufacturing base, told Bloomberg BNA he is “absolutely” receptive to reopening the deal but remains skeptical of Trump's motives. One obvious fix, Brown said, would be to strengthen mechanisms to resolve trade disputes, but he noted many companies are wary of giving over such authority to international entities.
Trump's “corporate backers won't like it though, so we'll see,” according to Brown, who applauded the new president's decision made only days after his inauguration, to pull the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a deal which also included NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada.
The TPP deal and other trade deals since NAFTA have included attempts to address some of NAFTA's perceived flaws, including weak environmental and labor side deals. But the Ohio senator is skeptical, saying more recent deals haven't brought an “especially measurable” improvement in those areas.“None of these trade agreements have done both—adopt both stronger rules and stronger enforcement—together,” Brown said.
Over-Criticized and Oversold?
Trump's tough talk on NAFTA and his move to quash the TPP has put some Republicans in the Senate—including those in the Republican leadership who have supported the TPP, such as Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.) and John Thune (S.D.)—in a bind.
But a few Republicans, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have vowed to fight head-on Trump's pledge to renegotiate NAFTA.
“Facts are stubborn things, and the facts clearly show that NAFTA has delivered enormous economic benefits to the citizens of my home state since it went into effect in 1994,” McCain said Jan. 26. “In just two decades, Arizona's exports to Canada and Mexico have increased by $5.7 billion, or 236 percent,” McCain said in a statement.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) suggested part of the challenge is that trade deals are an easy target for critics as well as supporters.
“Most trade agreements I've worked on … have been overcriticized—and they've been oversold,” Roberts said at the March 14 Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing for Robert Lighthizer, Trump's U.S. Trade Representative nominee.
NAFTA was signed by President George H. W. Bush in December 1992; a year later President Bill Clinton signed legislation implementing the deal, which entered into force on Jan. 1, 1994.
Evolving Labor, Environmental Protections?
Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said critics of trade deals often ignore incremental progress that has advanced labor and environmental protections since NAFTA, such as the 2009 deal between the U.S. and Peru.
The U.S.-Peru deal included an environmental chapter that for the first time addressed illegal logging as well as illegal trade in wildlife.
“For every agreement that has gotten done, sequentially better provisions have been added for labor and sequentially better provisions have been added for environmental protections,” Cantwell told Bloomberg BNA.Trump has vowed to begin NAFTA renegotiations in the months ahead but must clear several hurdles first, including consultation with Congress to be followed by a formal 90-day notice signaling the president intends to revisit the agreement.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said he is hoping Trump in the end will modify trade agreements that have too often “sacrificed commercial interests.”
“As the administration updates existing agreements and negotiates new ones, I hope that they will be able to re-balance” that template, Hatch said during his panel's March 14 hearing on Trump's U.S. Trade Representative nominee.Among Hatch's top priorities for any NAFTA renegotiation: improving protections for U.S. intellectual property rights and trade secrets, the elimination of price controls, and improved access to other markets for U.S. farmers and ranchers.
Is Trump Softening Tone?
A draft of the notice leaked in March suggested a more modest retooling of the deal may be in the offing than might be expected from a candidate who attacked NAFTA during the campaign as a “total disaster.” Trump also vowed to pull out of the deal if he couldn't get better terms for U.S. workers.
The White House has since sought to downplay the leaked letter from Acting U.S. Trade Representative Stephen Vaughn, saying it doesn't accurately reflect the administration's latest positions on NAFTA renegotiation.
But the letter at times reads like a measured defense of the deal, noting that trade between the three nations has tripled from $293 billion to $1.07 trillion in goods since 1993. Canada and Mexico “account for 29 percent of total U.S. goods trade,” according to the draft, “and are among the largest export markets for manufacturing, the first and third largest markets for agricultural goods.”
Other actions—including two executive orders Trump signed March 31—also have been relatively modest in scope.
One directed the Commerce secretary and the U.S. trade representative to do a broad study of trade deficits. A second order is to beef up collection of punitive duties in certain trade disputes, such as anti-dumping cases.
NAFTA Benefits Overshadowed?
Other obstacles to a full-blown renegotiation of NAFTA include what are likely to be significant demands by Canada and Mexico to bolster protections for their own industries.
Mexico has signaled “it may seek to broaden negotiations to include security, counter-narcotics, and transmigration issues,” according to a Feb. 22 Congressional Research Service report, which raised the prospect of Mexico withdrawing from NAFTA “if the negotiations are not favorable” to its own interests.
Somehow lost in the debate, say backers of the trade deal, is the success of NAFTA in largely eliminating what were once substantial trade barriers to U.S. exporters seeking access to markets in Mexico.
Prior to NAFTA, about 60 percent of U.S. farm exports to Mexico required import licenses, a trade barrier essentially lifted by the agreement. NAFTA also eliminated or phased out tariffs in Mexico that were significant barriers to U.S. imports there.
Measured Response From Industry Voices
Industry groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce generally favor trade deals, and both backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump withdrew from in January. But they acknowledge that after more than two decades, NAFTA may deserve closer scrutiny.
It may be “time to examine our various trade relationships to increase opportunities for American companies to compete on a level playing field,” the chamber's president and CEO, Tom Donohue, said in a March 31 statement issued in response to Trump's trade-related executive orders.
But Donohue cautioned against placing too much emphasis on the role trade deficits play in the overall U.S. economy, saying an imbalance of trade isn't a particularly meaningful measure of economic health.
“It is worth remembering that some of our best years of economic growth have produced our largest trade deficits,” while the 2008 recession “was accompanied by a sharp reduction in the trade deficit,” he said. The chamber generally backs strong enforcement of trade rules and agreements “as long as such enforcement is based on facts and the proper interpretation of those facts and not politics,” he said.
Environmental Deals Failed to Deliver?
But environmental groups and many trade experts say the dispute settlement process for the NAFTA side deal was weak, particularly in comparison to the enforcement tools provided within the actual agreement to address trade disputes.
The environmental side agreement also authorized U.S. participation in NAFTA labor and environment commissions; authorized funding for such activities; and included provisions to address a country's failure to enforce its own labor and environmental laws. However, the deal was less clear on how to respond if nations weakened those laws.
The Sierra Club was among the environmental groups to oppose NAFTA more than two decades ago despite Clinton's inclusion of the side agreement because of concerns that the environmental standards were both weak and unenforceable.
“We at the Sierra Club opposed NAFTA at the get-go, we [warned] that it would be at the expense of workers and most people of the planet, and we feel confident after 20 years that we were right,” Beachy, the Sierra Club's senior policy advisor, said.
But Beachy said there is no reason to expect Trump, who is making good on his campaign pledge to roll back climate change and other environmental regulations, will champion strengthening NAFTA's environmental protections.
“We are quite skeptical there. Many [in Trump's administration] believe climate change is a hoax, many are not fans of unions or health care, so we don't think this will result in a more climate-friendly, environment-friendly agreement,” he said.
Jake Schmidt, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's international program, said any NAFTA re-negotiation “needs to ensure that the agreement protects the planet and the communities most affected by pollution and climate change.”Raising Climate Change in Trade
Edward Alden, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said there is little debate that the side agreements were not effective in addressing environmental issues under NAFTA.
“The notion that this would be a model whereby trade agreements could be used to enforce environmental and labor standards was, by and large, a failure,” Alden told Bloomberg BNA.
Whether those side agreements will be part of any renegotiation is unknown, Alden said. “The truth is we still don't know all that much yet, certainly not at the granular level of what will happen to these side accords,” he said, even as it appears “there will be some renegotiation, of some sort” of the NAFTA deal.
“The White House has talked about it, the new commerce secretary has talked about it as a priority, and the Mexicans and the Canadians are preparing for it and coming up with their own wish lists,” Alden said. “We are going to get a renegotiation.”
Environmental groups say any new or renegotiated trade deals should include provisions to address climate change; for example, pacts could establish a floor or base level of climate protection so that trading partners don't engage in a “race to the bottom” of climate standards. Trade policies also should, they say, encourage clean energy and eliminate incentives for fossil fuel development.
Trump Not Backing Off Criticism
The president has done little to soften his attacks on NAFTA since the November election. In his Feb. 28 address to a join session of Congress, Trump blamed the trade deal for what has been a decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
“We've lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved,” he said.
“For too long, we have watched our middle-class shrink as we have exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries,” the president said.
At a March 20 campaign-style rally in Louisville, Ky., Trump said NAFTA was “the worst trade deal ever made by any country, I think, in the world.”
Several of Trump's key picks for trade-related positions, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, have taken similarly tough stances in favor of re-negotiating NAFTA. But the day-to-day work on the negotiations has been hampered by a delay in the Senate confirmation of Lighthizer, his U.S. trade representative nominee.
Many analysts say Trump overstates the degree to which trade deals have closed U.S. factories, noting other factors including increased efficiency that also reduced demand for jobs in the sector. The output per hour for all manufacturing workers has increased by more than 2.5 times since 1987, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.
Still, the U.S. has lost, by some estimates, 5 million jobs in the manufacturing sector since NAFTA went into effect.
Dwindling Free Trade Democrats
With few exceptions, House Democrats—many of whom had to be prodded by President Clinton to support NAFTA over objections of labor unions and environmental groups—have largely turned sour on the deal.
During the campaign while Trump blamed Bill Clinton, a Democrat, for approving the North American trade deal, NAFTA as well as more recent trade measures such as the TPP, have enjoyed arguably more support from Republicans than Democrats.
Clinton did sign the NAFTA implementing law and launched negotiations toward the environmental and labor side deals, but the broad terms of the deal were negotiated by his Republican predecessor, George H. W. Bush.
More Republicans than Democrats voted for the 1993 law implementing NAFTA both in the House—where 132 Republicans voted for the measure, compared to 102 Democrats—and in the Senate, where 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats supported the measure on final passage.
Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Democratic caucus, told Bloomberg BNA his party—particularly those members in the House—have only grown more skeptical of the NAFTA deal since its passage.
Today, he said, there are two camps of House Democrats: those who voted against the deal at the time and are still in the House today, “and people like me who were not here but [say]‘had I been here, I would have voted no,’” Crowley said.
“That's the vote that is now the reality in dealing with NAFTA,” Crowley said.
But that doesn't mean Democrats will back Trump in renegotiating the deal, Crowley said, partly because the party remains skeptical that the president is committed to improving labor rights or environmental protections that are core issues for Democrats.“Look, I don't think we're going to get to the point where we're actually negotiating those aspects of it,” Crowley said. “I think the president is talking purely on the business end of it and trying to strike a better deal and bargain for American businesses,” Crowley said.
“Now I'm for American businesses to do better,” the New York Democrat said. “But the issues we have concerns about are the environment, our workers’ rights, our human rights here and in countries south of the border,” Crowley said, “and I don't think this is the president to do that.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=109813152&vname=dennotallissues&fn=109813152&jd=109813152
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Schumer Vows To Fight Trump's Environmental Agenda 'At Every Turn'
Apr 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) says that Democrats will continue to fight the Trump administration's environmental agenda “at every turn,” noting support from much of his caucus for the effort.
Speaking on an April 19 call organized by the League of Conservation Voters to mark the approaching 100 day-mark of Donald Trump's presidency April 29, Schumer blasted Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for the steps they have taken to roll back climate and environmental rules.
Since Trump took office, the White House and Republicans in Congress have “time and time again put the health of the American people and the future of our planet on the back burner,” Schumer said.
In particular, the plan announced by Pruitt to revisit EPA's vehicle greenhouse gas standards shows there is no “reflection, thought or understanding on the part of the administration in terms of what needs to be done to help the planet.”
Schumer also pointed to Trump and Pruitt's EPA budget blueprint that would cut EPA by 31 percent across the board, saying it includes “no investment in science and clean energy,” which he said create jobs, while also eliminating funding for the Great Lakes restoration and Chesapeake Bay cleanup entirely.
The senator has previously pledged to protect EPA's budget from the administration's proposed cuts. “President Trump's proposal would take an axe to the federal funds we need to keep our water clean to drink, our beaches safe to swim in and our air safe to breathe, and that's why I will do everything in my power to beat back this radical effort to slash the EPA budget,” he said on a visit to the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup in New York City April 6.
During the April 19 call, Schumer also sought to underscore broad support in his caucus for environmental protections, support that could be crucial if Democrats hope to prevent budget cutbacks and other deregulatory measures from advancing.
He noted, for example, that 40 Democrats introduced a bill to block oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, and that the caucus has “forcibly protested the roll back of fuel economy” rules and EPA's Clean Power Plan (CPP) to cut electricity-sector GHGs.
And he said ranking members on key committees, including Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) on the environment committee and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-OR) on the energy committee, “are calling for more oversight of Trump.”
The first 100 days show “that a strong green Congress . . . is needed more than ever, and we will be fighting and using all the tools we have to prevent the next 100 days from being as bad” as the first 100 days, Schumer vowed.
The call also provided an opportunity for him to underscore bipartisan support for some EPA programs. For example, a Republican county executive from near Lake Erie in western New York told Schumer that preserving Great Lakes funding is the county's highest priority.
Additionally Schumer said the appointment of Pruitt -- who questioned the extent of human-caused climate change -- “is a decision that America will look back on as one of the worst appointments we have seen in a very long time."
And he said Trump's energy independence executive order, which directs Pruitt to roll back the CPP among other steps, “reads as if it was written in the board room” of an oil conglomerate.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/schumer-vows-fight-trumps-environmental-agenda-every-turn
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