Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/1/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Where are They Now? Lucrative Lobbying Gigs, Other Jobs Landed by Newly-Former Lawmakers
May 1, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Niv Sultan
“I think that American people should know that the members of Congress are underpaid,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) in April 2014, having recently announced his retirement from the House. -
(ACC Mentioned) Enviros, Industry Spar Over Potential TSCA Rollbacks
May 1, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Environmental groups and industry representatives gave U.S. EPA officials in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics an earful this morning on potential regulatory rollbacks of the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act. -
A Framework for Hazard Banding
May 1, 2017 | Occupational Health & Safety
By Jerry Laws
NIOSH scheduled a public meeting in Cincinnati this month to discuss and hear from industrial hygiene stakeholders about a March 2017 draft Current Intelligence Bulletin titled "The Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards." -
Understanding Chemical Safety Following the Final GHS Deadline
May 1, 2017 | Occupational Health & Safety
By Glenn D. Trout
Following a decade-long effort, the final effective completion date to align OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (HazCom) with the United Nations' Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) has come and gone. -
Litigation's Fate Still Uncertain as Enviros Chart Options
May 1, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court's decision to pause a legal battle over U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan has many advocates parsing the order's language and scoping for more. -
Trump Administration’s Push for Gas Exports Faces Market Glut
May 1, 2017 | The New York Times
By Clifford Krauss
The Trump administration is moving to make the United States the world’s leading exporter of natural gas as a central component of both energy and trade policy. -
More Wells Shut as Pressure Mounts Over Colo. Home Explosion
May 1, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A second oil and gas producer has shut down some of its wells in Colorado, weeks after an explosion destroyed a home in a Denver suburb. -
Can the U.S. Weaken its Target? The Answer May Hinge on a Word
May 1, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The future of U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement may hinge on how the Trump White House reads a single sentence. -
Agency Scrubs Climate Information from Website
May 1, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA's climate change webpage disappeared Friday just as tens of thousands of marchers prepared to descend on the nation's capital in defense of climate science. -
How Environmental NGOs are Shifting Conversation on Climate and Energy
May 1, 2017 | E&E TV
By OnPoint
With President Trump making several significant moves on energy and environment policy in his first 100 days, how are environmental groups shifting strategy? During today's OnPoint, Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, discusses the role nongovernmental organizations will play in the climate and energy conversation over the next four years. -
Judge Approves Obama Deal on EPA Reviews
May 1, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
After the Trump administration raised no objections, a federal judge has approved a settlement that sets firm deadlines for U.S. EPA to complete its latest reviews of air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. -
California’s Clean-Energy Leadership Continues
May 1, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Lauren Navarro
California is a leader, and has earned that title – it is the largest state economy in the U.S. and the sixth-largest economy in the world.
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May 1, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Niv Sultan
“I think that American people should know that the members of Congress are underpaid,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) in April 2014, having recently announced his retirement from the House.
To be fair, he was discussing the results of an annual House vote on adjusting lawmaker pay: Each year, Congress can give itself a raise to keep up with rising costs of living, but — with lawmakers wary of casting a vote that could so obviously be used against them in a campaign — it has voted against doing so since increasing the salary of rank-and-file lawmakers from $169,300 to $174,000 in 2009.
Luckily for Moran and others exiting Capitol Hill, there’s money to be made with government credentials. In early 2014, the Sunlight Foundation estimated that while lobbyists made a median of nearly $180,000 in lobbying revenue in 2012, the median for lobbyists with government experience was $300,000. No doubt aware of his earning potential, Moran went on to lobby for McDermott, Will and Emery. Among his clients in 2016 was Boeing Co., which contributed $156,000 to his campaign committee over the course of his career, making the company his third-biggest donor.
Also keen on representing Boeing is former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who lost his re-election bid to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) last November. Kirk has said that he’s considering opening up a lobbying shop, and that he’s “already talked to Boeing.” And why not, when Boeing spent more than $17 million lobbying in 2016, with its average lobbying contract worth nearly $172,000?
With their treasure troves of connections and policymaking know-how, former lawmakers are hot commodities for lobbying firms. And while ex-representatives must wait one year, and ex-senators two years, before lobbying their former colleagues, that doesn’t stop them from laying the groundwork for lobbying careers.
As long as individuals don’t exceed certain thresholds based on compensation and time spent on clients, they can carry out lobbying-esque work during their cooling-off period; “strategic adviser” is a typical title for these ex-lawmakers in the early days of their new careers. That, according to Brendan Fischer, director of the Campaign Legal Center’s federal and FEC reform program, makes the mandated waiting periods “fairly easy” to get around. In addition, there’s no restriction on former senators or House members lobbying the executive branch.
Several other lawmakers who left the Hill in January have joined Kirk in exploring their options on the other side of the revolving door. Former Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) is now with Capitol Counsel, former Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) is senior counsel at King and Spalding, former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is co-chairman of Mercury (his clients include the American Chemistry Council, the Atlantic Development Group and Cabot Corp.) and former Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) is “senior legislative advisor” at the same firm where Moran landed, McDermott Will and Emery.
Then there’s former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio), who resigned in 2015 and is now a senior strategic advisor at lobbying powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs. He’s also on the board of Reynolds American, the nation’s second-largest tobacco company and producer of brands like Camel, Newport, Pall Mall and Kent. Boehner was big tobacco’s prime recipient of campaign contributions in the 2014 cycle, the last one in which he ran for re-election; he received more than $130,000 from the industry then.
Critics of this path for former lawmakers worry that the prospect of future employment can skew how they behave while they’re still on the public payroll.
“The prospect of a lucrative post-government career can create warped incentives while a member is still in office,” Fischer wrote in an email. “[A] current member’s position on an issue may not be motivated by what’s best for their constituents or the country, but based on what’s going to curry favor with a future employer,” Fischer wrote in an email. “More broadly, the revolving door helps contribute to a permanent political class that creates distance between the people who run government and the people they are supposed to serve.”
Moran, though, explains that he was true to his values in Congress, and continues to be so in his advising role. “One of the reasons that I chose McDermott, Will and Emery has borne out, and that is that they weren’t going to ask me to work on anything that I didn’t believe in,” he said. “Those who have different points of view would probably represent a different corporation or interest, but if I talk to a member, I’m not going to ask them to do something that I don’t believe is in their interest or the interest of their constituents. And that’s why they would spend time with me, and engage in extended conversation: Because they, I hope, would trust that that would always be the case.”
As for what drew him to his new career after 24 years in Congress: “I figured that if I go with a firm I can concentrate on fewer issues, I can spend more time with my children, and I could even afford to own a home,” he said.
Lobbying might be an especially lucrative career path, but it isn’t the only line of work that awaits former lawmakers. Former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) both now work in the federal government — Coats is the director of National Intelligence, and Fleming’s the deputy assistant secretary for health technology at HHS. Former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), on the other hand, founded PAC for a Change, and is raising money to target competitive Senate races.
Outgoing lawmakers intent on staying in the public sector, like former Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), can also transition to state or local government; she’s now the public works commissioner of Macomb County, Michigan.
But for those eager to leave the government and its dealings behind, the private sector is rich with opportunity. Former Rep. Brad Ashford(D-Neb.), for example, was scooped up by Midtown Vision 2050, a development company looking to build up a portion of Omaha, Nebraska — the largest city in Ashford’s one-time district.
Alternatively, four outgoing lawmakers are headed back to school, having accepted university gigs: Former Reps. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), and Robert Hurt (R-Va.), and former Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). But academia and lobbying have plenty of overlap: While Mikulski and Israel are settling into academically-oriented posts — Israel at Long Island Univeristy as chairman of the LIU Global Institute and distinguished writer in residence, and Mikulski as professor of public policy and adviser to the university’s president at Johns Hopkins University — Salmon has taken the role of vice president for government affairs at Arizona State University and Hurt will lead Liberty University’s Center for Law and Government, which aims “to influence public policy in America and to celebrate and spread conservative ideals.”
To see the full list of the 114th Congress’ outgoing members, follow this link. We’ll update the page as we learn how the former lawmakers choose to lead their post-congressional careers.
House and Senate staffers who recently gave up — by necessity or voluntarily — their congressional work-spaces are another story, and one we’ll tell soon.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/where-are-they-now-lucrative-lobbying-gigs-other_us_59074d04e4b05279d4edbe1b
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(ACC Mentioned) Enviros, Industry Spar Over Potential TSCA Rollbacks
May 1, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Environmental groups and industry representatives gave U.S. EPA officials in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics an earful this morning on potential regulatory rollbacks of the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act.
The stakeholders butted heads over what Congress meant when it passed TSCA reform legislation last year. While environmental groups said Congress was seeking stronger regulations, industry representatives said the regulations being implemented are stricter than what Congress intended.
According to Barbara Cunningham, the deputy director of OPPT, the public hearing was called to "understand what elements of the regulations [stakeholders] feel may be repealed, replaced or modified so they may be less burdensome."
The hearing addressed several topics under TSCA reform: the control of toxic substances, asbestos hazard emergency response, formaldehyde standards for composite wood products and the Toxics Release Inventory.
Environmental groups expressed confusion over why the meeting was happening.
"It's hard for me to understand why I'm here in the first place," said Melanie Benesh of the Environmental Working Group.
She asked why EPA was holding a hearing on potential rollbacks so soon after passing the law.
"This feels like a distraction," Benesh said.
Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources Defense Council said he was ambivalent about testifying this morning because doing so would legitimize the Trump administration's calls for regulatory rollbacks. He slammed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt using several Twitter hashtags in his testimony, including "#polluterPruitt" and "#poisonPruitt."
Rosenberg took the opportunity to express concern over the addition of the American Chemistry Council's Nancy Beck to EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (E&E News PM, April 19).
While environmental groups hit on a theme of underregulation, industry officials spread the opposite message.
Many were concerned with the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a database that provides information on pollution discharges for the general public.
Fern Abrams of IPC-Association Connecting Electronic Industries, called TRI a "costly and burdensome reporting rule." She said members of her organization didn't view this as a "rollback attempt."
Jim Cooper of American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers asked EPA to keep regulation rollbacks moving, "but do it right," he said. Cooper said he doesn't want to see EPA have to come back to change the rules in five years.
OPPT will hear public comments on lead regulations this afternoon.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053841
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A Framework for Hazard Banding
May 1, 2017 | Occupational Health & Safety
By Jerry Laws
NIOSH scheduled a public meeting in Cincinnati this month to discuss and hear from industrial hygiene stakeholders about a March 2017 draft Current Intelligence Bulletin titled "The Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards." Weighing in at 141 pages, it explains the process as one seeking "to create a consistent and documented process to characterize chemical hazards so timely and well-informed risk management decisions can be made for chemicals lacking OELs [occupational exposure limits]."
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on May 23 at NIOSH's Robert A. Taft Laboratories and will be available via a live webcast. Comments about the guidance document may be submitted until June 13 via www.regulations.gov. (search for CDC-2017-0028 and Docket No. NIOSH-290).
The executive summary portion of the document explains that, according to EPA, the Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Substance Inventory contains more than 85,000 chemicals that are commercially available, yet only about 1,000 of them have been assigned an authoritative (government, consensus, or peer reviewed) OEL.
"Furthermore, the rate at which new chemicals are being introduced into commerce significantly outpaces OEL development, creating a need for guidance on thousands of chemicals that lack reliable exposure limits," it says.
Guidance for thousands of chemicals that lack OELs is needed, and the occupational exposure banding process is useful because it employs chemical toxicity data to assign a range of concentrations to which chemical exposures should be controlled, with the resulting ranges defining the exposures that are expected to protect workers' health, it states.
The executive summary lists several pros and cons to the OEB process. It can identify potential health effects, target organs, and health risks, inform decisions on control measures and medical surveillance, and provide critical information quickly, and a major benefit is that the OEB process requires far less time and data than what is needed to develop an OEL, it states, but there is greater uncertainty as to whether the OEB is as protective as an OEL produced by a rigorous risk assessment process. An OEB isn't intended to replace an occupational exposure limit, and rather is a starting point to inform risk management decisions, it says.
Three-Tiered Assessment Process
The guidance document explains that, as it is currently practiced, hazard banding requires significant technical expertise in industrial hygiene. And so, to address that limitation, the NIOSH process provides a three-tiered assessment process that allows the technique to be applied with traditional occupational hygiene expertise, as well as the option of more in-depth processes done in consultation with specialists in occupational medicine and toxicology. The three tiers in the process are described this way:
Tier 1: "Qualitative OEB assignment based on GHS. Tier 1 involves assigning the OEB based on criteria aligned with specific GHS hazard codes and categories. It is intended for individuals with basic toxicology knowledge. Chemicals with potential for irreversible health effects at relatively low doses warrant assigning band D or band E. Chemicals that are likely to cause reversible health effects are categorized in band C. Bands A and B are not assigned in Tier 1. Since there are relatively low data requirements for Tier 1, there is not enough information to suggest exposure ranges for chemicals Bands A and B in Tier 1. In general, Tier 1 can be used as a quick screening method, but NIOSH recommends going to Tier 2 if the user expertise and data are available."
Tier 2: "Semi-quantitative OEB assignment based on secondary sources: Tier 2 involves assigning the OEB on the basis of key findings from prescribed literature sources, including use of data from specific types of studies. It is intended for individuals with intermediate toxicology knowledge. Tier 2 is more quantitative in nature than Tier 1. Individuals performing Tier 2 assessments will need to determine a point of departure by using the instructions that are provided for endpoints to support assigning chemicals into bands A, B, C, D, or E."
Tier 3: "Expert Judgement: OEB based on primary sources and expert judgement: Tier 3 involves the use of expert judgement to assign the OEB based on in-depth review of health effects studies. It should only be performed by individuals with advanced toxicology knowledge. Tier 3 involves a more quantitative comprehensive evaluation of the scientific information and requires integration of all available data to determine the band assignment."
Distinguishing the OEB Process from Control Banding
The process guides users to identify an exposure band from among five categories—bands A to E—of increasing severity to health, where band A is the least severe and band E the most severe.
The document distinguishes the occupational exposure band process from the concept of control banding, saying the OEBs process uses only hazard-based data such as studies on human health effects or toxicology studies to identify an overall level of hazard potential and an associated airborne concentration range for chemicals with similar hazard profiles. Control banding, however, essentially links hazards to specific control measures, it explains.
The authors of the document—the acknowledgements page credits seven principal authors and 35 others who provided comments, feedback, internal peer review, etc., and says the guidance document was written by a multidisciplinary team from the NIOSH Education and Information Division—note that the alignment between the exposure bands and current OELs was evaluated in order to build confidence in the occupational exposure banding approach. Analysis of a UK hazard banding scheme found that for 98 percent of the banded chemicals, the target exposure for hazard banding was lower than the OEL. Similarly, NIOSH compared the Tier 1 and Tier 2 banding results for 600 chemicals for which OELs currently exist and found that the overall of Tier 1 bands that were at least as protective as the OEL was 91.5 percent, they reported.
NIOSH's meeting notice asked stakeholders to place special emphasis on technical review of 11 questions, including these:
If a chemical can cause an immediate effect (necrosis, sensitization, pulmonary edema, central nervous system (CNS) effects), should there be special guidelines for assigning a short term OEB or emphasizing the importance of keeping even short duration exposures below the OEB for those types of toxicants?
If a skin toxicant is a corrosive, irritant, or sensitizer, should there be any special designation assigned along with the occupational exposure band (OEB)? Additionally, please comment on the utility of using skin and eye effects to create inhalation based bands.
The comparison of Tier 1 and Tier 2 results for a set of chemicals showed that Tier 1 and Tier 2 produce the same band for 65% of the chemicals tested. Tier 1 is more protective for 17.5% of the chemicals, while Tier 2 is more protective for 17.5% of the chemicals. NIOSH currently recommends that both the tier 1 and tier 2 process be completed for a particular chemical. Do you agree with this recommendation? If not, what approach should NIOSH take?
NIOSH has proposed a number of sources of information for the different human health and toxicological endpoints under consideration. Are there other sources of information that should be recommended? Are there some sources that should be omitted?
How should NIOSH consider data collected on structural analogs or related chemicals in the banding scheme?
If a chemical has two forms (vapor or particulate) in the workplace, we have recommended that the most protective OEB take precedence. Please comment on the utility and adequacy of that recommendation.
Acute toxicity information may be presented in an array of different units. We have attempted to address those possibilities in the banding criteria for the acute toxicity endpoint, especially for inhalation exposures. Is this information sufficiently clear? Are suitable rubrics for unit conversions provided?
Does this draft document adequately describe the occupational exposure banding process in a way that supports its use in assigning ranges of exposure concentrations to protect worker health in the occupational setting?
https://ohsonline.com/Articles/2017/05/01/A-Framework-for-Hazard-Banding.aspx?admgarea=news&Page=1
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Understanding Chemical Safety Following the Final GHS Deadline
May 1, 2017 | Occupational Health & Safety
By Glenn D. Trout
Following a decade-long effort, the final effective completion date to align OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (HazCom) with the United Nations' Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) has come and gone. While companies covered by HazCom may see the conclusion of the GHS deadlines as an ending, it's critical that they view the changes enacted with GHS alignment as just the beginning. Moving forward, OSHA will not only continue to enforce the current GHS modifications to its HazCom Standard, but the agency has also expressed intent to review and possibly update the rule in the future to align with newer versions of the GHS.
Is your facility fully GHS aligned and prepared for any future GHS-related modifications to the HazCom Standard? Following are the key steps you should perform now, not only to safeguard employees from hazardous chemical dangers, but also to ensure your facility remains in compliance.
Step One: Organize Your Chemical Inventory
Having an accurate chemical inventory creates the foundation for effective chemical management initiatives and is a key building block to ensuring compliance with GHS updates to HazCom. Without a true understanding of what chemicals you have and where they are, it's impossible to know what products should be on your radar and accounted for in your hazardous chemical management, reporting, and compliance strategy. As part of your overall strategy, ensuring an updated inventory will allow you to more easily identify chemicals that are missing their corresponding safety data sheets (SDSs) or have out-of-date versions that should be replaced.
A good first step is to follow the chemical inventory list located in your written HazCom program (in the event that you don’t have a chemical inventory list in your written plan, now is the time to do this because it's a mandatory component of a compliant OSHA HazCom program). Take your time walking through the facility, noting any inconsistencies with chemicals, locations, or amounts. Make sure the chemical manufacturers’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers line up with what is recorded on the inventory list and SDS; this will be key if you need to contact them for any updated documentation.
Once you've completed the physical inventory of the chemicals in your facility, the next step is to ensure that you have a current SDS for each chemical on your list. During the official GHS transition period, many downstream chemical users experienced a delay in receiving updated SDSs to replace their older formatted MSDSs from manufacturers. While OSHA recognized this issue, the agency made it clear that it was your responsibility as the employer to take measures to ensure your facility had the most updated SDSs available to workers for products coming in following the deadline period without updated SDSs.
Chemical manufacturers and distributors are required to send a GHS-aligned SDS of a chemical with the first or the next shipment after an update to the SDS document occurs. If you've received a first or next chemical shipment on or after June 1, 2015, and it didn't include the new SDS, you should have requested it from the supplier. If the supplier didn’t have one ready, you should be prepared to relay that information to OSHA. In other words, you need to be able to demonstrate to OSHA that this was not something you accepted passively and made all attempts to rectify.
Any attempts you made to obtain the documents should be recorded, including the date of the original shipment and exactly what manufacture documentation was missing (i.e., updated shipped label, updated SDS, or both), along with records of any calls, emails, and letters to the supplier showing your attempts to resolve the matter.
Fortunately, today, a good EHS software solution can simplify many of these complex chemical inventory management tasks and provide more efficient control needed to account for every chemical, at every location, even down to specific containers. Users can store SDSs in online databases specific to their company, providing quicker access to the critical safety information when needed. Inventory checks become easier with corresponding SDSs at your fingertips instead of having to manually locate the documents in three-ring paper binders.
Many of these solutions offer online access to safety data sheets or services to help locate SDSs from manufacturers, and they even offer mobile accessibility, making access to chemical inventory information from the field easier. Some of the more sophisticated solutions allow you to track chemicals using smartphone and tablet cameras to scan container barcodes, QR codes, and UPC codes and to use the scanned information to pull up reference data about products in your inventory. In addition to the mobile-optimized functionality offered by today’s leading EHS software providers, a handful also feature mobile applications that provide offline accessibility when Internet connectivity is limited or unavailable.
Step Two: Establish Ongoing Training Procedures
One important issue the first GHS training deadline uncovered was that some employees may never have received adequate HazCom training in the first place or had been trained so long ago that they hadn't retained a basic understanding of the standard in order to be able to put the GHS modifications into context. As a result, the first GHS training deadline not only served to provide workers with information about the new GHS-aligned SDS and shipped-label formats, but also supplied a much needed refresher course on HazCom in general.
While OSHA does not require employee training to be performed at a specified interval, regular training—even annual training—is a best practice that will help ensure your employees retain critical HazCom information. OSHA, however, does stipulate that training must occur when a new employee is hired. They must be trained to understand the hazards associated with both the chemicals they will be interacting with and those they may potentially be exposed to in the course of their work day.
Similarly, if a new chemical is introduced into your facility, employees who might come into contact with that substance must be trained on its potential hazards, as well. Again, a comprehensive EHS software solution can streamline the administrative tasks of implementing and tracking employee training. Many include features that not only help you track your training needs and streamline communication to employees about completion deadlines, but some also provide access to a wide variety of on-demand safety courses to help you meet your compliance requirements.
Regular safety trainings also will become useful as OSHA continues to modify its HazCom Standard with updated versions of GHS. Not only will employees already have a strong knowledge foundation of the current rule to understand any changes, but they will most likely be more receptive to the new information with existing—and expected—training procedures already in place.
Step Three: Update Your Labels
Consistency in the labeling of hazardous chemicals is a fundamental element of GHS adoption. The GHS-aligned HazCom standard outlines six specific elements required to appear on manufacturer shipped container labels. They are: product identifier, signal word, hazard statement(s), precautionary statement(s), pictogram(s), and supplier information. However, when it comes to workplace labels, compliance is performance-based. This means compliance will be determined by how well the labels perform during an OSHA inspection.
To assist employers, OSHA essentially outlined three main approaches employers can take when it comes to workplace labeling (also called secondary container labeling). One, employers may continue to use their current compliant workplace labeling systems—so long as the information accounts for and doesn’t conflict with the new GHS information. Two, employers may use a homegrown system that uses a combination of the manufacturer shipped label elements and other information—so long as workers have been trained to comprehend it and it doesn’t contain any conflicting information. Or, three, simply replicate the manufacturer shipped label.
Replicating the shipped label is considered by many a best practice because it provides greater consistency between the two types of labels employees encounter in the workplace. Employees already should be trained on the GHS-aligned manufacturer shipped label format, so this approach also eliminates the need for additional training on a separate label system and lessens the burden placed an alternative label to perform as effectively as the shipped label. Here again, the leading electronic chemical management systems will include features that can help you easily produce GHS-aligned workplace labels using information taken directly from a product’s SDS.
Whatever approach you take, you should make sure your current workplace labeling system can perform during an OSHA inspection to indicate that employees have all of the information needed about hazardous chemicals in the workplace, including those newly identified as a result of GHS adoption.
Step Four: Be Prepared for What May Come Next
While the final GHS deadlines have come and gone, it's prudent to remain prepared for any additional changes to come. A good industry best practice is to designate a GHS transition leader. Such a person would have a familiarity with both current and potentially new GHS requirements and your site-specific GHS transition process and would be able to employ his or her knowledge and experience to drive the implementation of any future GHS changes resulting from OSHA’s adoption of newer editions of the global system.
Most importantly, do not view the conclusion of this round of GHS deadlines as the end of the process, but rather the beginning of the new state of HazCom and what OSHA now expects for compliance. With the phased-in period behind us, we're now closer to what may be the smaller but still significant GHS-related changes to come.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2017/05/01/understanding-chemical-safety-following-the-final-ghs-deadline.aspx
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Litigation's Fate Still Uncertain as Enviros Chart Options
May 1, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court's decision to pause a legal battle over U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan has many advocates parsing the order's language and scoping for more.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday agreed to temporarily freeze proceedings over President Obama's signature effort to address climate change while the Trump administration considers scrapping the rule.
Many state and industry challengers of the Clean Power Plan framed the order as a big win, but other court watchers warn that the case's fate is still far from certain.
"Far from reading this order as any sort of victory for petitioners or for EPA, I would say it is the court grappling with the consequences of: What if this case is held in abeyance?" said Sierra Club attorney Joanne Spalding, who is helping to defend the rule in court.
Friday's order does not give Clean Power Plan foes exactly what they asked for: an indefinite hold on the case while EPA decides a path forward. Instead, the order holds the case in abeyance for 60 days and directs both sides to submit briefs this month that address whether the court should keep the case on hold or close it and remand the issue to EPA.
Hanging in the balance is an existing Supreme Court stay of the rule. The high court decided in February 2016 to freeze implementation of the Clean Power Plan while litigation plays out.
If the D.C. Circuit agrees to put the litigation on hold indefinitely, the Supreme Court stay would remain in effect during that time. If the D.C. Circuit decides to remand to EPA and close the case, the stay would be lifted, Spalding said.
"It's speculation to try and say what's going on behind the scenes and what specifically this order means," she said. "But to me, it's at least clear that the court is still considering its options and it wants additional insight from the parties."
Remand or abeyance
Environmental groups aren't thrilled at the idea of remand or indefinite abeyance, but they're likely to most strongly oppose the latter. They've already vehemently opposed a long-term hold on the case in filings to the court over the past month (Energywire, April 6).
"The problem with holding it in abeyance is that it gives [EPA] the practical effect of having ended the rule for as long as they just sit on their heels," Natural Resources Defense Council attorney David Doniger said. "And I think the reason this order is written the way it is is that the en banc panel understands the consequences of going one way or the other."
Rejecting the long-term abeyance request would mean EPA can't "hide behind" the Supreme Court stay and drag out the rulemaking process for scrapping or rewriting the regulation, he added.
Spalding noted that D.C. Circuit judges have granted abeyance in several other cases involving regulations the Trump administration is rethinking. In those cases, however, many of the rules at issue are in effect.
"If the court wanted to grant this motion for abeyance, it would have just granted it," she said. "They clearly have some concerns about that. They understand the difference between this case and all the other rules that they are holding the litigation in abeyance, and they're trying to figure out a solution."
While environmental intervenors are firmly against indefinite abeyance, the other option — remand — could also be a tough pill to swallow.
The parties are still weighing how to move forward, but environmental attorney Sean Donahue, who is helping to defend the rule, said it would be difficult to watch the litigation come to an end without any substantive resolution.
"The idea that you would remand it at this point after seven months-plus, that seems a gratuitous waste of resources and also a way of reopening issues that the court is poised to provide guidance on," he said.
A third option
Many Clean Power Plan supporters see a third potential option: The D.C. Circuit could still address the case's meaty legal questions.
"The terms of the ruling don't take issuing a decision off the table," Spalding said. "It's saying, 'We're thinking about remanding this rule. Tell us whether we should do that.' If it gets information where it looks like neither abeyance or remand seems satisfactory, it might just decide, 'We should just decide the case.'"
NRDC's Doniger is less optimistic. "They didn't ask us to brief three possibilities: decide, abeyance or remand," he said. "They asked us to brief two possibilities, so I think there's something of a clue in there."
Still, he added, "I don't know. Everything's unpredictable."
Indeed, the case has seen a number of unexpected twists since it began, including the Supreme Court stay, the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the D.C. Circuit's decision to skip panel consideration and hear the case en banc last year, and the Trump administration's recent moves to unravel the regulation.
Donahue said environmental intervenors will continue pushing for answers on the legal questions at stake.
"I don't think it's at all clear how the court is viewing this, so we'll obviously want to address the question they posed, but we'll continue to be hopeful that they would issue a merits decision," he said.
Spalding argued that critics of the regulation should be eager for a D.C. Circuit ruling themselves.
"If they have so much confidence in their claims, they should be anxious for the court to make its decision because EPA could go through a whole rulemaking and [the court] could decide that EPA doesn't have the authority," she said.
Indeed, some opponents of the Clean Power Plan have acknowledged slight disappointment about not getting a court ruling that delves into the merits.
"Speaking for myself, I have a certain sense of wistfulness about not getting a definitive judicial disposition of [the rule's] commandeering and coercion problems," said BakerHostetler attorney David Rivkin, who represents Oklahoma and argued constitutional questions at the D.C. Circuit.
"I have the utmost confidence that we would've prevailed," he added. "But the important thing is that an unconstitutional rule wouldn't remain in place."
Unanswered questions
Advocates insist there are crucial legal questions that must be answered for EPA to do its job.
Topping the list: What does EPA have the power to do? The bulk of oral arguments last year dealt with whether the Clean Power Plan exceeds the agency's authority under the Clean Air Act.
Challengers took multiple lines of attack, including an argument that EPA cannot use Section 111(d) of the act to regulate a source that has already been regulated under Section 112. States and industry had argued that the Clean Power Plan was illegal under the "Section 112 exclusion" because EPA already regulates power plants for mercury under Section 112.
Seemingly dueling versions of Clean Air Act amendments have created confusion over whether the Section 112 exclusion bars the agency from redundantly regulating a source or a pollutant, and Obama's EPA argued last year that it was entitled to deference in its interpretation.
Some court watchers have noted that current EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt could dispose of the rule more easily by reinterpreting the Section 112 exclusion (Energywire, Feb. 10).
Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, said a D.C. Circuit ruling resolving that uncertainty would head off further courtroom wrangling over the issue.
"There is no compelling reason for the D.C. Circuit to delay facing those issues for years, with the serious negative consequences that would entail, when it is likely to already have decided them," he said, noting that the judges have probably already drafted opinions on the issue.
Rule challengers also argued last year that Obama's EPA relied on an overly broad interpretation of "best system of emission reduction" in formulating state-level goals to cut emissions from across the power sector. Previous EPA regulations focused on actions taken at individual power plants, while the Clean Power Plan looks "beyond the fence line" (Energywire, Sept. 28, 2016).
UCLA School of Law professor Ann Carlson said that same question will arise if a future administration attempts to revive the Obama administration's approach.
"So if Trump loses in 2020 to a Democrat or suddenly finds religion on climate change, it would be really helpful to know whether an approach like the Clean Power Plan is valid," she said, adding that a ruling would also guide the Trump administration in its review of the rule by clarifying whether the court thinks emissions cuts beyond power plants are the "best system" under the Clean Air Act standard.
One thing Friday's order crystallizes is that the legal battle over the Clean Power Plan is not over yet. Both sides will file briefs in two weeks, and the court will decide where to go from there. The Trump administration's ultimate efforts to pull back the rule will also face certain challenges.
"[The decision] gives EPA an early chance to demonstrate whether they will have an adequate substitute, and they'll almost certainly come up short," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "The only thing assured by the decision is further litigation."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053811
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Trump Administration’s Push for Gas Exports Faces Market Glut
May 1, 2017 | The New York Times
By Clifford Krauss
The Trump administration is moving to make the United States the world’s leading exporter of natural gas as a central component of both energy and trade policy.
But whether global markets, currently awash with gas, will play along remains a long shot over the next several years. Any breakdown of talks to remodel the North American Free Trade Agreement, which set the regulatory framework that allowed gas exports to Mexico to triple over the last six years, could also get in the way.
The administration’s ambitions were explained emphatically last month by Gary D. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, and they were followed up by the Energy Department’s authorization last Tuesday for a Texas export terminal that Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum have pursued for years. Other administration plans include opening the way for more gas exports from Oregon to serve Asia.
In recent years, there was strong domestic opposition to the exports, from manufacturers and others, out of fear that domestic gas prices would rise, and the Obama administration moved cautiously before increasing the pace of export terminal permit approvals during its second term.
With supplies appearing bountiful, and other countries aiming to increase their own production, opposition has mostly abated, except in pockets of the East Coast and Pacific Northwest. There remains enthusiastic support along the gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas, where there is substantial room for more growth.
For the Trump administration, the economic benefits of gas export infrastructure are paramount. Each natural gas export terminal can require an investment of $10 billion or more, produce thousands of construction jobs and consume millions of pounds of steel. Then there is the additional drilling and production of gas, which is then cooled to minus 260 degrees, condensing it to a liquid known as liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., to be shipped on giant tankers to Asian, European and Latin American markets.
The recent expansion of the Panama Canal has quickened the route to growing markets in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere in Asia, making American gas more competitive.
“Exporting L.N.G. meets many objectives, including helping to address the trade imbalance,” said Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and vice chairman of IHS Markit, a consultancy. “This supports jobs, this supports investment in energy, this supports exports, a whole host of administration objectives.”
Once six facilities under construction or being expanded are completed over the next few years, the additional liquefied gas exports could amount to as much as $50 billion in annual revenue, depending on gas prices. Much of that would help balance the trade deficit with China, an administration objective.
Additionally, four big pipelines are being built this year to take more gas to Mexico, and at least two more are slated to begin transporting gas by the end of 2018. With Mexico converting its power sector to natural gas from fuel oil, the country already imports more than 5 percent of United States gas production, which particularly helps Texas gas producers and pipeline companies.
To some extent, even American coal companies could benefit from more gas exports, because exporting natural gas tends to support its price. That is important because inexpensive gas has been the leading enemy of the shrinking coal industry, a head-to-head competitor.
Proponents in the State and Energy Departments have also long argued that more gas exports can provide better security to energy-hungry allies like Japan; lessen the dependence of Europe on Russia, which has been known to use gas as a political weapon; and speed up the replacement of coal with gas to curb climate change.
But construction has begun on so many terminals in recent years in Australia, Malaysia, Russia and the United States that supplies of liquefied gas shipped in tankers are expected to increase by nearly 50 percent over the next five years while global gas demand is increasing by less than 2 percent a year.
In the United States alone, where Cheniere Energy began major liquefied gas exports only last year, shipments are expected to jump to nearly six billion cubic feet a day from the current 1.5 billion cubic feet a day by the end of the decade as a cluster of projects are completed on the gulf coast.
The momentum for start-ups hit a wall over the last two years worldwide, and four United States projects approved in recent years have not yet begun construction. Companies have been content to complete the permitting process, seek financing and markets, and develop construction plans in the hope they can act fast in case the market turns around.
“The pace follows the market and not the wishes of the U.S. government,” said Nikos Tsafos, president and chief analyst at the consultancy Enalytica. “No one is really out there fishing for new projects right now.”
The gas business is cyclical, and proponents say it is only a matter of time before demand picks up. China and India are increasingly turning to gas to replace coal and improve the air quality of their cities. Gas demand for transport is growing in Iran, Pakistan and Argentina. Germany has largely given up on nuclear power, and it needs natural gas to replace some of the lost power.
Some L.N.G. executives say that the global demand for gas will grow as more export and import terminals are built and that the United States will continue to have a cost advantage over other major producers, including Qatar and Russia, because of the abundance of American gas production.
“It’s been demonstrated over the last two years that when you have low natural gas prices, demand increases much faster than what people think,” said Charif Souki, chairman of Tellurian, a Houston company developing a $15 billion L.N.G. export project south of Lake Charles, La.
“The Trump administration has discovered the power of natural gas,” Mr. Souki added. “Today, we are the top gas producer in the world, and in another three or four years, we’ll be one of the top two gas exporters in the world, right up there with Russia.”
That is certainly what the Trump administration is hoping for, although its policies may not have much of an immediate impact.
“We could be and should be the largest exporter of L.N.G. in the world,” Mr. Cohn said at a Washington conference in April. He said the first thing the administration would do was issue a permit for an export facility in the Northwest, a reference to the Jordan Cove L.N.G. terminal in the Oregon port of Coos Bay, where a Canadian company, Veresen, has proposed to build.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last year denied a permit to the terminal as well as a pipeline to link it to production, saying the pipe would have “adverse effects on landowners.” There was also strong opposition from local environmental groups.
The commission can reconsider the issue, but not any time soon, because three of its five seats are vacant and the Senate has been known to take months to confirm commission nominations.
With additional fanfare, the Energy Department last week authorized Golden Pass Products, a partnership between Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum, to export domestically produced gas from the Texas coast.
“This is not only good for our economy and American jobs but also assists other countries with their energy security,” said Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who championed the oil and gas industry as Texas governor.
The Golden Pass facility, originally designed for gas imports before the shale production boom created a glut, has largely remained dormant for the last six years. With an additional investment of $10 billion or so, the plant could become a force on international markets and export two billion cubic feet of gas a day, nearly 3 percent of current American gas production.
Golden Pass claims construction of the facility would mean 45,000 direct and indirect jobs over five years, and 3,800 direct and indirect permanent jobs.
The partnership released a one-line statement in response to the administration announcement: “Golden Pass Products is pleased to have achieved this important regulatory milestone as we continue to work to develop the export opportunity.”
But executives noted that the companies had not yet made a final decision on whether to go ahead with the investment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/business/energy-environment/trump-natural-gas-exports.html?_r=0
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More Wells Shut as Pressure Mounts Over Colo. Home Explosion
May 1, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A second oil and gas producer has shut down some of its wells in Colorado, weeks after an explosion destroyed a home in a Denver suburb.
Great Western Oil & Gas Co., one of the top 10 producers in the state, said it has shut in 61 wells that have pipelines running within 250 feet of nearby homes or other occupied buildings. The company won't reopen the wells until the pipelines pass a pressure test, according to a statement.
"We are proactively taking the necessary steps to ensure the public that our facilities continue to be safe," the statement said. The company already tests its pipelines annually and said its testing regime passed an inspection by state oil and gas regulators.
Great Western didn't say whether any of its wells were near the Oak Meadows subdivision in the town of Firestone, where the explosion happened April 17.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the biggest oil producer in Colorado, voluntarily closed 3,000 of its wells until it can perform safety tests. One of Anadarko's wells is 178 feet from the home that was destroyed (Energywire, April 27).
The explosion killed Mark Martinez and his brother-in-law, Joey Irwin. Erin Martinez, Mark Martinez's wife, was severely injured.
The move comes amid intensified political conflict over how close the state's residents live to oil and gas operations. State regulators at the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission require a 500-foot setback between new oil and gas wells and surrounding homes or other occupied structures.
But the state agency doesn't control how close new homes can be built to existing, older wells. Firestone allows homes to be as close as 150 feet to oil facilities (Energywire, April 28).
The potential for conflict between home development and energy production has been growing in Weld County, northeast of Denver, which includes Firestone. It's the seat of Colorado's oil industry, and its population is among the fastest-growing in the country.
Commissioners in two nearby counties — Boulder and Adams — called on the oil industry to do more about safety.
Adams County commissioners asked operators to test vertical wells within 250 feet of homes; Boulder County commissioners called on operators to shut in all their vertical wells until they can be tested.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053814
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Can the U.S. Weaken its Target? The Answer May Hinge on a Word
May 1, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The future of U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement may hinge on how the Trump White House reads a single sentence.
Sources briefed on Thursday's White House meeting over whether America will remain a party to the landmark climate change accord said discussion broke down around conflicting interpretations of Article 4.11.
It reads: "A party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution [NDC] with a view to enhancing its level of ambition."
So can the United States reduce its Paris Agreement promise to cut emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and replace it with a laxer goal that better reflects President Trump's agenda? Conservatives like Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and corporate leaders urging Trump to remain in the global accord say yes. Hardline opponents who want Trump to deliver on his campaign promise to "cancel" the Paris deal insist that the only solution is to withdraw from the deal or risk damaging U.S. credibility by falling short of the pledge.
"Obama made a promise that is going to haunt Trump as long as he continues to honor that promise," said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Chris Horner.
Debate has swirled around the Paris Agreement since Trump took office. Factions have emerged, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, advising the president to stay in, while U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon have urged him to pull out.
The issue is expected to be discussed today when Trump administration lawyers huddle to discuss the options, one person with knowledge of the meeting told E&E News. The "stay" faction appears to have gained traction recently inside the White House counsel's office, headed by Don McGahn. But it relies heavily on the possibly problematic assumption that a country can revise its target — its NDC — downward.
Obama administration officials who helped craft the deal say weakening the target is indeed possible. Not only that, but it was intentionally constructed with that possibility in mind. And like so many things in the deal that saw every semicolon subject to hours of negotiation, the opening comes down to a single word: may.
Diplomats gathered at the suburban Paris airfield in 2015 weighed whether to try to include legal language requiring countries to increase ambition and never to backtrack. That objective would have required the "may" in Article 4.11 to be swapped for a "shall." Some thought that requirement would help ensure that the world would reach the level of emissions reductions that could deliver the long-term goal of keeping warming to safe levels.
Todd Stern, the former U.S. special envoy for climate change, said that idea was deliberately rejected. "We did not want to foreclose this," he said.
The U.S. position in those talks, which won out, "was that that was a good prescription for countries to lowball what they were going to do in their targets out of a fear that if circumstances came up that were difficult, they would nonetheless be stuck — that there was nothing they could do," Stern said.
It had happened before. Japan lowered its 2020 emissions reduction pledge in 2013 after shuttering nuclear capacity in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster four years earlier. And while that led to pushback from some quarters, Japan stayed a part of the process.
"The negotiators who wrote this language were completely capable of writing language that said, 'And the party may not go backward,'" said Stern. "But it doesn't say that. And it doesn't say that on purpose."
Sue Biniaz, a longtime senior U.S. climate negotiator who recently left the State Department, was directly involved in the design of Article 4.11.
"There shouldn't be any doubt about the Agreement on this point," she said in an email to E&E News. "Targets are nationally determined, and a party can change its target even after it has been submitted. While Parties are encouraged to make changes in the more ambitious direction, there is no prohibition on changing in the other direction."
Far from barring parties from ratcheting down the stringency of their targets, the sentence was aimed at encouraging those that had offered pledges to Paris that were based on 2030 reduction targets to revise them early, said Stern.
"The bottom line is this: If the administration sets out to renegotiate Paris and either cannot do so or fails to achieve the objective they have in mind, they can always opt out at that point," said Scott Segal of Bracewell LLP. "Nothing is risked by trying to get a better deal at the outset."
Environmental groups have blasted pro-Paris members of Trump's team for floating the idea of a laxer target, and other countries are considered likely to push back strenuously if it happens. But another member of the Obama-era State Department climate team said the Trump team should revise its target to preserve the integrity and transparency of the U.N. process. The president has already terminated many Obama-era policies like U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan that would have made progress toward the 26 to 28 percent pledge.
CEI Senior Fellow Myron Ebell said he believes the language is clear and that it binds countries to their promise. If U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change officials agree that Article 4.11 does not bar countries from weakening their commitments, he said, they should come forward and say it before Trump makes up his mind.
"If people really believe that who are involved in it, then I would expect that they will be in the next few days making public attestations of that understanding, because otherwise, the remainders are going to lose the argument," he said.
A UNFCCC spokesman said the Trump administration has not asked the body to clarify the language.
But Stern said U.N. bodies aren't the final word on the meaning of U.N. agreement language the way the U.S. Supreme Court is for American law.
"Parties always have to hash that stuff out," he said. "There's nobody who opines on that."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053818
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Agency Scrubs Climate Information from Website
May 1, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA's climate change webpage disappeared Friday just as tens of thousands of marchers prepared to descend on the nation's capital in defense of climate science.
The agency says it is changing the page to "eliminate confusion" and "reflect the agency's new direction" under the new administration. That means first changing content to reflect President Trump's "energy independence" executive order and specifically updating language about the Clean Power Plan, which the new administration is planning to roll back. EPA is also "reviewing" the past administration's language on regulations and climate change. As of Sunday, the webpage had not yet returned online.
Late Friday afternoon, people began reporting on social media that the webpage was no longer online. By the evening, the agency released a statement explaining why the page had been temporarily removed.
J.P. Freire, EPA's associate administrator of public affairs, said in an email that the timing of the website update the day before the Peoples Climate March was a coincidence.
"Our plan is to carefully review the pages to ensure a focus on a clean environment and a strong economy. It won't be overnight, but ultimately the public will be able to see the work we are doing on regulatory reform, partnering with states, and getting results for human health and the environment," he wrote.
Freire pointed out that the public can still access archived information on the Jan. 19 snapshot page. EPA said it would work to follow agency guidelines for properly archiving online content from the previous administration.
"The book burning has commenced," said John O'Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, in reaction to the website change Friday. AFGE represents over 9,000 EPA employees.
"Something appears to be very wrong with this Administration's position on global climate change, and this impacts all Americans, especially the poor and marginalized," O'Grady wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Twitter account Rogue EPA Staff used the website change as a call for action to preserve EPA research. Yesterday, the account tweeted out a link to thenationalgood.com, which provides a toolkit for how to advocate for climate research at the agency.
Concerns about changing content on websites have abounded since the very beginning of the new administration, when a climate change page disappeared from the White House's website on the day of Trump's inauguration.
Activists and EPA staff have been especially concerned about potential changes at EPA, which has led federal government action on climate change. Administrator Scott Pruitt has cast doubt on the causes of climate change during a television interview, even as the EPA website continued to describe human activity as the leading cause of recent global warming.
"Over the past century, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The majority of greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels to produce energy, although deforestation, industrial processes and industrial practices also emit gases into the atmosphere," EPA's website read.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053820
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How Environmental NGOs are Shifting Conversation on Climate and Energy
May 1, 2017 | E&E TV
By OnPoint
With President Trump making several significant moves on energy and environment policy in his first 100 days, how are environmental groups shifting strategy? During today's OnPoint, Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, discusses the role nongovernmental organizations will play in the climate and energy conversation over the next four years.
Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Howard, it's nice to see you again.
Howard Learner: Good to join you.
Monica Trauzzi: So Howard, with President Trump making some big news on energy and environment issues in his first 100 days, in many ways seeking to reverse a lot of what we saw the Obama administration do. How has your work and your focus shifted over the last six months?
Howard Learner: There's an interesting combination of what I'll call both defense and offense. Clearly at the Environmental Law and Policy Center we're seeing some of the moves by the Trump administration as being in the wrong direction. We're pushing back. We're fighting back and we hope that President Trump will reassess and move in a better direction.
On the other hand, clean energy development is moving forward at a rapid pace in the Midwest states. When it comes to places like Iowa, tremendous amount of wind power development. Illinois just passed the strongest renewable energy standard in the region; one of the best in the country. That will lead to 2,500 megawatts of new solar energy. Minnesota's stepping up. Other states in the Midwest are moving forward.
So what we're seeing is while the federal government is stepping back, cities and states in the Midwest are stepping up and moving forward with clean energy jobs of the future, solar energy, wind power and storage that works.
Monica Trauzzi: You said that you're pushing back and fighting back. What specific actions have you taken so far and what do you have planned?
Howard Learner: Well there's certainly things going on in court and that's a problem. Some of those issues have been stayed by the courts. Some of them are going forward.
We're involved, for example, in the BLM methane case and we'll see what happens on that one. We're certainly concerned about what's going on with the Clean Power Plan. If the administration really moves backward on the Mercury and Air Toxic Standard, that's a real problem.
It doesn't matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. You live in the city. You live in a rural area. When it comes to mercury people understand about kids' health. People understand about maternal health. People don't want more mercury getting into our lakes and rivers.
Every lake and every river almost in the Midwest has a fish advisory. Everybody and particularly women of childbearing ages are being warned don't eat much fish from the lakes because of mercury contamination. So that's a place when it comes to mercury we really hope the administration will reconsider and not move backward on the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards, which are already in effect.
Monica Trauzzi: Right, and in many of these cases industry is already taking steps in the direction of the current regulations that are in place. So are the regulations even necessary at this point and even if they are rolled back, might we see industry continuing to move in that direction anyway?
Howard Learner: Well, I think when we talk about industry we're talking about different players in the industry. There are a fair number of companies that own coal plants that have said, "All right. Mercury is a concern." Some of the states have stepped up like Illinois and Michigan with mercury standards. The companies that own power plants in those states are moving forward. They've installed controls and the regulations don't affect them much anymore.
There are a couple of places where there still needs work to be done and simply talking about rolling back the mercury pollution reduction standards, that doesn't sit well with people in America and it doesn't play well with people, and it reflects an insensitivity to the effect of mercury on kids' health and on our environment.
Monica Trauzzi: What do you think the biggest challenge or challenges are facing the environmental community and environmental NGOs over the next four years?
Howard Learner: We've become used to an administration that has been mostly supportive where sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree. This is an administration, at least in the first 100 days we're finding ourselves disagreeing with way too much.
Let me give you an example. President Trump won his election in the Great Lake states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio — but his administration's policies and funding decisions in the first 100 days amount to a war on the Great Lakes.
Everybody in the Midwest cares about safe, clean drinking water in the Great Lakes and you're seeing everybody from Senator Portman to Senator Durbin to Governor Snyder and Governor Walker stepping up and saying, "The president should reverse slashing the Great Lakes restoration initiative from $300 million to zero."
You're seeing people on both side of the aisle say keeping the EPA regional office in Chicago, the third largest city in the country on the shores of the largest freshwater body in the world, makes sense. Moving it to Lenexa, Kan., doesn't make sense.
So I think we're at the point with the administration where there's an ideology that's driving the environmental and clean energy policies and it's time for us to see whether they can move back to more practicality and common sense.
When it comes to solar energy development that's about jobs. When it comes to wind power development that's about jobs. We understand the president's concerns with job creation, but when it comes to clean energy that's where the new jobs are being created. Again, politicians on both sides of the aisle understand that, as does the public.
Monica Trauzzi: Let's talk money for a second. How's funding these days and is the money flowing?
Howard Learner: For the Environmental Law and Policy Center, we're fine. We're not like the ACLU or the Sierra Club. We don't have hundreds of thousands of members and we're not sending out an email every day saying, "Here's a disaster. Please give money."
I think we've developed a track record of success. We're known for results and getting things done and people in the philanthropic community and people who just look at what's going on in the world and say, "I wanna help make a difference," are being generous. We appreciate it.
Monica Trauzzi: Where are you putting that money? Where are you putting the money these days?
Howard Learner: That money's going into really two things. First of all, it's going more into attorneys. We know fully we need to be in the courts more. We need to be in the courts both playing defense and that's some of the things you and I have been talking about, but we also, unfortunately, are going to need to step up and play offense.
If the EPA cuts back its environmental enforcement budget in a serious way, and that's what seems to be happening, while they're stepping backwards, I think we're going to see more citizen suits under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
We can never substitute for the EPA and the Department of Justice doing its job right and doing it well on enforcement, but let's not default to zero. So we're getting ready to move forward in the citizen suit realm if EPA doesn't do its job, which we really hope they will do.
The other place we're increasing our resources is when it comes to the eco-business side. Tremendous opportunities to accelerate solar energy and storage in the Midwest, in Illinois, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So we're increasing our MBA team, our policy experts, people who really understand how the business dealmaking side works when it comes to clean energy development.
There are great opportunities to move clean energy forward. It's working in the market. With the price of solar panels going from $4 a lot down to about 30 cents a lot, solar is even more practical and more economic in more places of the country.
Monica Trauzzi: Do you think that this could be a game-changing moment for environmental NGOs in that we could see the conversation moderate a bit? Is there an opportunity here or is this where you really need to dig your heels in and compromise is not an option at all?
Howard Learner: Well I think you have to look at this. You have to be able to do two things at once. We've always said let's find places where we can agree and let's try to do that when we can and there are going to be places where we disagree and let's disagree without being completely disagreeable.
I think there's a crying need right now for people to occupy that middle space where it's not about ideology. It's about getting things done.
Renewable energy development makes sense because it's good for jobs, it's good for economic growth, it's good for the environment. Energy efficiency creates jobs and it makes sense. It saves both businesses and people in their homes money on their utility bills while it reduces pollution.
One last example for you. Tremendous ideological battle, tremendous legal battle over the Clean Power Plan. As you know, the Clean Power Plan has not been implemented yet, but in Illinois we're 80 percent of the way toward achieving the carbon pollution reduction benefits that are required by 2030 without the Clean Power Plan even being implemented.
Minnesota's about 100 percent. Michigan's about 90 percent. What's happening is we're seeing a combination of savvy policies, technological innovation and market forces working that some of the coal plants are shutting down and more wind power and solar energy and storage is coming into the market. Energy efficiency is working. The system's getting cleaner and that's all happening while the very justifiable battle's going on over the Clean Power Plan. So let's get some things done.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We'll end it right there on that note. Thanks for coming on the show. Nice to see you.
Howard Learner: Good to see you. Glad to join you.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
https://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2223/transcript
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Judge Approves Obama Deal on EPA Reviews
May 1, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
After the Trump administration raised no objections, a federal judge has approved a settlement that sets firm deadlines for U.S. EPA to complete its latest reviews of air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.
U.S. District Judge Vincent Chhabria for the Northern District of California signed the consent decree Friday, resolving litigation bought last year by the Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Environmental Health.
Both reviews are already underway. Under the deal, reached in the final days of the Obama administration, EPA officials will have to proceed with proposed rulemaking for the primary nitrogen dioxide standards by this July, followed by a final rule in April 2018 (Greenwire, Jan. 17).
For its review of the primary sulfur dioxide benchmark, EPA will issue the "integrated science assessment" that synthesizes the latest research on the pollutant's health effects by this December. The agency will then propose any changes to that standard by May 2018, with a final rule due by January 2019.
For regulatory purposes, NO2 and SO2 are stand-ins for the broader classes of nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. One source for both pollutants is coal combustion, a point underscored by Jonathan Evans of Arizona-based CBD.
"This agreement prevents the Trump administration from pandering to coal companies to delay life-saving updates to our air quality standards," Evans, the group's environmental health legal director, said in a statement.
"Setting concrete deadlines informed by the strong science underpinning the Clean Air Act will quite literally save lives threatened by dangerous sulfur and nitrogen pollution," he said.
EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment this morning.
Still to be seen is whether the latest reviews prompt any tightening of the existing primary standards, which are intended to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety.
In a policy assessment released last month, for example, EPA staff recommended leaving the NO2 thresholds in place, saying they afford adequate protection.
The annual NO2 standard, set in 1971, is 52 parts per billion; a one-hour standard, added in 2010, is 100 ppb. The primary one-hour standard for SO2, established in 2010 and still being implemented, is 75 ppb.
Nitrogen oxides, a lung irritant, react with volatile organic compounds in sunlight to form ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog. Sulfur oxides are linked to a variety of heart and respiratory ailments.
Under the Clean Air Act, the two are among a half-dozen "criteria pollutants," and EPA is supposed to revisit existing standards every five years to determine whether ongoing research warrants any changes.
In practice, EPA officials rarely meet that timetable. Statutorily, for example, the latest reviews for the NO2 and SO2 standards should have been completed in 2015.
The new administration's decision to go along with the consent decree stands out in light of its hesitation to defend EPA rulemakings undertaken under President Obama.
Last month, it won open-ended postponements for oral arguments scheduled in several cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Those cases include litigation over EPA's 70 ppb ground-level ozone standard; regulations to reduce air pollution resulting from startups, shutdowns and equipment breakdowns at refineries and other industrial plants; and the agency's handling of compliance cost considerations in deciding to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/05/01/stories/1060053838
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California’s Clean-Energy Leadership Continues
May 1, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Lauren Navarro
California is a leader, and has earned that title – it is the largest state economy in the U.S. and the sixth-largest economy in the world. Forward-thinking clean energy policies are the backbone of California’s prosperity, creating jobs and businesses for the state while cutting emissions. While the presidential administration assaults critical environmental protections nationwide, clean energy momentum is California’s leadership is committed and poised to move forward.
Energy policy drives economic growth
Most energy policy is done at the state level, reflecting that energy management is a fundamental concern for local residents and their livelihoods. How we make, move, and use power can create jobs and protect citizens’ rights to clean air and energy choice. The following bills currently in front of the California State Legislature illuminate the state’s path forward:
SB 584 (De Leon) – This bill proposes increasing our current Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) – a requirement that utilities meet half of sales with clean, renewable energy sources – to 100 percent. While the means are still being determined, the ambitious spirit of 100 percent is clear. As California’s leaders consider how best to reach a 100 percent renewable energy goal, they should consider investing in and developing a variety of clean energy options that can ensure the grid stays clean, balanced, and reliable.
SB 356 (Skinner) – This bill increase access to data about the whole energy system. Information makes it easier for businesses to develop and deploy new clean energy technologies and help bring clean-tech jobs to the forefront of our economy. It also ensures the state will have important information about the energy use of its buildings and properties.
AB 726 (Holden) – This bill takes advantage of smart meter technologies by requiring utilities to notify customers before their bills get too high, thereby avoiding “unpleasant surprises.” Through this increase in information, customers can become more active participants in their energy usage and reduce their costs.
SB 366 (Leyva) – SB 366 helps ensure all our communities are able to take part in the clean energy revolution and reap the benefits of lower electricity costs and cleaner air. Specifically, it clears the way for community solar projects in disadvantaged communities and supports well-paying green-collar jobs through local training programs. Unlocking community solar is a key to helping communities overcome physical and economic barriers (like not owning your home or not being able to afford the upfront costs of solar) to accessing clean energy.
AB 1431 (Arambula) – AB 1431 will increase access and participation in energy efficiency, weatherization, and renewable energy programs for low-income, disadvantaged communities. It creates a comprehensive database to track program participation and a working group in which state agencies and stakeholders can exchange views on how to make these programs better and increase participation. This combination of data and dialogue will allow for a comprehensive analysis of all related state clean energy efforts.
Big, bold benefits of renewable integration
Not only do renewables create clean-economy benefits, so does renewable integration. In some ways, how we bring these resources onto the grid is as important as the resources themselves. A thoughtful approach to incorporating increasing levels of renewables includes establishing a strong, diverse portfolio of clean energy resources.
Each solution has environmental and economic benefits, and each works hand in hand with the RPS to create a totally clean energy system – functioning like two sides of the same coin. In California, we can and should develop clean technologies that will “back up” renewable generation, like automated demand response, time-of-use rates, and electricity storage, including the use of electric vehicle as batteries. It also means looking beyond California’s borders and considering how the state can best sell our excess clean energy when we don’t need it, like our abundant midday solar, and buy cheap, clean energy from other states when the sun isn’t shining.
California clean-energy leadership continues
California is working hard to create an economy that runs fully on clean, renewable resources. That’s why our legislators should pursue these innovative policies. We know this action is more important now than ever. And no one is more ready to demonstrate how clean energy policy can be an economic boon than California.
http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2017/05/01/californias-clean-energy-leadership-continues/
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