Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/9/2017
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Backlash Grows On Science Advisers
May 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Hannah Northey,
U.S. EPA's move to rework one of its science advisory committees has been met with a growing backlash from President Trump's critics. -
Trump Scientific Adviser Shakeup Could Mean More Industry Advice
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Trump administration may give industries a bigger platform to influence agencies’ decisions by reshaping the scientific and expert panels that give advice to the federal government about the dangers of pollution, how to manage public lands and other research areas. -
Path of EPA Science Board Unclear Amid Upheaval
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The trajectory of the EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors work is uncertain after the agency declined to renew the terms for half of its scientists, board members and others told Bloomberg BNA. -
EPA To Grapple With TSCA 'Unique Identifier' CBI Requirement
May 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has asked for feedback on implementing a provision of the new TSCA regarding the application of a 'unique identifier' for substances protected as confidential business information (CBI). -
(ACC Mentioned) Pesticide Bill From Gov. LePage Mirrors Model By Secretive National Group
May 9, 2017 | Portland Press Herald
By Colin Woodard
His plan to restrict local ordinances is nearly identical to a model law promoted by a corporation-funded organization with chemical producers as members. -
International Paper Pollution Case Shipped to State Court
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Dioxin pollution claims brought against International Paper Co. by hundreds of Alabama landowners must be litigated in state, not federal, courts, the Southern District of Alabama ruled May 5 (Adams v. Int'l Paper Co., 2017 BL 151222, S.D. Ala., No. 17-cv-00105, 5/5/17). -
Bill Would Require Toy Makers To Disclose Toxins In Products
May 8, 2017 | AP (In The Wall Street Journal)
Environmental groups and child-welfare advocates want New York state to require toy makers to disclose potentially toxic chemicals used in their products. -
US House Committee Advances Conflict Minerals Repeal Bill
May 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
More than half a dozen remaining House committees that it was referred to have yet to vote on it. -
Methane Rule Vote Likely Tomorrow; Portman To Vote 'yes'
May 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kellie Lunney
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced late yesterday that he would vote to repeal an Interior Department rule that regulates methane waste on public lands, giving Republicans momentum as the measure heads to a likely floor vote tomorrow. -
CSB: Safety Lapses Caused 2015 ExxonMobil Refinery Explosion
May 8, 2017 | Powder& Bulk Solids
A final report investigating the causes of an explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, CA on Feb. 18, 2015 by a federal regulatory agency blamed the blast on lapses in the facility’s process safety management system -
Pruitt Has Free Hand on EPA Rules Despite Sitting Out Lawsuits
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid and Andrew Childers
Stepping aside from lawsuits he brought against the EPA will not hinder Administrator Scott Pruitt's ability to reshape the climate change and water regulations he challenged as Oklahoma attorney general. -
Tennessee Businesses Cheer New Limits on Air Pollution Permits
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew M. Ballard
Business cheered a new Tennessee law to prevent local governments from using the air permitting process to block industrial development projects. -
U.N. Climate Process Restarts With Undersized U.S. Participation
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eric J. Lyman
Parties to the United Nations climate change process restarted negotiations May 8 on the rulebook for how to implement the historic Paris Agreement amid speculation of the role the U.S. will take as the process moves forward. -
Ex-Military Brass Back Tillerson, Mattis in Climate-Change Fight
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Ryan and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
A group of retired senior military officers is urging U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis to remain firm in their support for combating global warming as White House officials consider exiting the Paris climate accord. -
Protesters Plan 'Wake-Up Call' At Trump Hotel, Blockade At EPA
May 9, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess
Organizers behind the Peoples Climate March are planning a rally tomorrow morning outside Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C.
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Backlash Grows On Science Advisers
May 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Hannah Northey,
U.S. EPA's move to rework one of its science advisory committees has been met with a growing backlash from President Trump's critics.
Democrats and union officials have taken aim at the agency for not renewing the terms of half of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises the agency on its research programs.
n a statement today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez used the agency action to take aim at Trump's environmental policies.
"There's a name for Donald Trump's environmental policy: aggressive stupidity," Perez said.
"The scientists he just fired have been working on nothing more political than making sure our water is safe to drink and our air is safe to breathe. By turning them into political targets, Trump is proving yet again that he doesn't care about ordinary people."
EPA has pushed back on the sentiment that the scientists were fired. Instead, their three-year terms on the panel had expired (Greenwire, May 6).
An EPA spokesman said the agency wanted to open up the nomination process for the board.
"Advisory panels like BOSC play a critical role reviewing the agency's work. EPA received hundreds of nominations to serve on the board, and we want to ensure fair consideration of all the nominees — including those nominated who may have previously served on the panel — and carry out a competitive nomination process," said J.P. Freire, the EPA spokesman.
But Trump's critics believe the action regarding the board is meant to work in industry influence at EPA.
"Our concern centers on scientific integrity and whether or not the scientists eliminated from the [board] will be replaced with impartial scientists or with scientists who will operate within the arena of opinions or industry prejudice," John O'Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents thousands of EPA employees, said in a statement today.
The story of some of the board's members not being reappointed gained wide notice in the press over the weekend after one of its members took to social media about losing his spot.
"Today, I was Trumped," Robert Richardson, a Michigan State University professor, said in a tweet Friday night. "I have had the pleasure of serving on the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors, and my appointment was terminated today."
A former Clinton administration official, however, doesn't see political interference in the reworking of agencies' advisory committees. John Deutch chaired an advisory panel at the Department of Energy that has also been disassembled since the change in administrations.
Deutch led an advisory board for former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and said members of the panel were asked to resign shortly after Trump clinched the White House. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board provides advice and recommendations to the secretary on the agency's basic and applied research and operations.
Deutch is a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as CIA director and deputy Defense secretary under President Clinton. He also served on EPA's Science Advisory Board and said he's chaired dozens of agency committees over the years.
The common practice, he said, has been for members to resign when a new administration comes into the White House. And if that doesn't happen, he said it wasn't unusual in his experience to be asked to step down.
"I would think it's not unusual for all the members to resign in a changing of administration," he said. "I don't think it's unusual if that hasn't happened, to have some of the members be asked to step down so new members can be appointed."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/05/08/stories/1060054222
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Trump Scientific Adviser Shakeup Could Mean More Industry Advice
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Trump administration may give industries a bigger platform to influence agencies’ decisions by reshaping the scientific and expert panels that give advice to the federal government about the dangers of pollution, how to manage public lands and other research areas.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt notified half the 18 members of the Board of Scientific Counselors that their terms had ended and would not be renewed. The panel of experts, who typically serve two consecutive three-year terms, helps guide the agency's research office.
Meanwhile, the Interior Department suspended the work of roughly three-dozen resource advisory councils that share suggestions for managing public land in the West, as part of a broad review of how the agency uses outside panels.
“It's not totally unusual to see boards turn over,” said Thomas Burke, a former deputy administrator for the EPA's Office of Research and Development. “This one was really unexpected, and in concert with everything else that has been going on and the challenges to science, this is troubling,” he said by phone.
The changes to the obscure EPA scientific counselors panel could be a precursor to changes in the membership and makeup of two other panels that play an influential role recommending safe air-pollution limits and vetting the scientific basis of regulations. The advisory panel shakeup follows the move by Pruitt to purge web pages dedicated to climate change from EPA's website while pledging to listen more to industry before crafting pollution rules that may harm business.
“EPA received hundreds of nominations to serve on the board, and we want to ensure fair consideration of all the nominees,” EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said. “EPA is stressing here that this is supposed to be an open and competitive process; no one was ever supposed to be guaranteed a second term. We're frankly surprised by the outrage.“
Those notified in recent days may, in the end, be reappointed, he said.
But skeptics, including career EPA staff, see this as a move by President Donald Trump to redirect the focus of the pollution regulator, and cozy up to business.
Pruitt “will most likely be replacing them with members who come from industry,” said John J. O'Grady, a leader of the EPA's employees union.
Some Republican lawmakers have been pushing the Trump administration to put more industry representatives on advisory panels, a move that could ensure the groups hear from petroleum engineers with drilling experience while studying scientific research about the practice.
Conservatives also have been seeking new appointments to the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Science Advisory Board to help buttress any EPA moves to reverse Obama-era ozone limits or the agency's landmark 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare.
Best Candidates
Freire said there was no specific plan to seek out more industry appointees for the Board of Scientific Counselors. “We're just interested in finding the best candidates, the most qualified candidates,” he said.
The Trump administration already has targeted EPA's Office of Research and Development for a $233 million spending cut next fiscal year -- about half its annual budget. Tumult in the board of advisers overseeing that office could ensure there are fewer independent eyes assessing whether important work is being done, said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“It appears to be another way they are trying to take science out of the process,” Goldman said by phone. “Removing independent advisers means there's less scrutiny on what they are doing and less of a benchmark to compare to what independent scientists think they should be doing.“
There are hundreds of federal advisory committees across the U.S. government. By design, many already have members from regulated industries, sitting alongside representatives from environmental groups and other stakeholders. The Food and Drug Administration alone uses 50 committees to obtain independent expert advise on scientific, technical and policy matters.
Politics Intrudes
Politics sometimes intrudes on the process. Burke, a political appointee under President Barack Obama, said he was “unceremoniously removed” from the chairmanship of an environmental health board at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the George W. Bush administration.
“Science doesn't change with administrations, and good science should be independent of that,” said Burke, now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It's important that high-caliber, world-class, well-respected, well-published, objective scientists be appointed,” he said, acknowledging there may be value to “enriching the mix of science that advises the EPA.“
The Interior Department, which has more than 200 groups designed to solicit input, is now reviewing the charter and charge of each board and advisory committee; the evaluation forced the temporary postponement of advisory committee meetings, the department said in an emailed statement.
“The secretary is committed to restoring trust in the department's decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands,” the department said in its statement. Future meetings will be publicized “to ensure that the department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.“
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939160&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939160&jd=110939160
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Path of EPA Science Board Unclear Amid Upheaval
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The trajectory of the EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors work is uncertain after the agency declined to renew the terms for half of its scientists, board members and others told Bloomberg BNA.
Current and former board members said they do not know how the board—whose members previously numbered 18—would be able to execute its work advising the agency on its research with only five members left. The members and others also said they were concerned that politics may have played into this decision.
“I'm concerned that the message this is sending is that our advisers were not providing unbiased advice,” Deborah Swackhamer, an environmental chemist from the University of Minnesota who chairs the board, told Bloomberg BNA. “I'm disturbed that these advisory boards are being politicized unnecessarily and concerned that that will hinder their ability to provide good advice.”
The decision not to renew the members’ terms could be the tip of the iceberg should the EPA take a similar approach to other scientific panels. For example, the terms of seven of the 12-member Human Studies Review Board and 14 of 47 members of the Science Advisory Board will end in 2017, although it wasn't immediately clear they would be eligible to apply for an additional term. Some science organizations also worried it portends a broader attack on EPA research.
Environmental Protection Agency spokesman J.P. Freire told Bloomberg BNA that the agency was not automatically renewing these members terms out of concerns for fairness. He didn't respond to questions from Bloomberg BNA asking if there would be a similar approach taken on other science committees.
“Advisory panels like BOSC play a critical role reviewing the agency's work,” Freire said in an email. “EPA received hundreds of nominations to serve on the board, and we want to ensure fair consideration of all the nominees—including those nominated who may have previously served on the panel—and carry out a competitive nomination process.”
Earlier statements by others in the agency indicated that only new applicants for the board would be considered. Freire's comments were not as blunt as his statement to the New York Times implying that academic scientists might be replaced with representatives from industry.
“The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” he told the Times.
What Happened
Regardless, no one disputes that these board members’ requests for reappointment were denied. On April 28, the EPA designated federal official Tom Tracy emailed nine members of the board to tell them that their three-year terms would expire that day. Tracy also said the agency had submitted a request to reappoint them for another three-year term to the board's executive committee.
The next week, Robert Kavlock, the acting EPA science adviser and acting assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development, told the members whose terms were about to expire that their appointments were not being renewed, “and that the Agency will carry out a competitive nomination process to solicit new members rather than reappointing individuals who have already served a three-year term.”
A May 8 email from Swackhamer to board members said it was EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's team who “denied the renewals.” She separately told Bloomberg BNA the renewals were normally just a formality.
“The statements coming from Pruitt's office are that he wants a clean break with Obama appointees, he wants more industry representation (regulated parties), he wants to start over with a broader pool,” Swackhamer said in the May 8 email to the board members.
Freire didn't respond to Bloomberg BNA's request for clarification on why his statements diverged from those made in Kavlock's email. Four other board members also had hit their two-term limit and are no longer with the executive committee.
What About the Work
The effect of these now vacant seats is unclear. The Board of Scientific Counselors advises the EPA's Office of Research and Development on how to most effectively target its research and programs to move science forward in a variety of areas.
For example, meetings have been scheduled for as early as the fall between the board's subcommittees and the agency. But nine of 10 of the chairs and vice chairs of those subcommittees are now off the advisory council, Swackhamer told Bloomberg BNA.
Swackhamer, as chair of the executive committee, said she has already reached out to the agency to figure out how they would like her to proceed given her newly skeletal team.
Those meetings are important, Paula Olsiewski, a program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and, until May 5, chair of the committee's homeland security subcommittee, told Bloomberg BNA.
A subcommittee meeting was tentatively scheduled for the fall on “characterizing sites before and after decontamination,” which could include decontamination from anything from bird flu to anthrax, she said. Both Olsiewski and her vice chair on the subcommittee were among the nine individuals who were not reappointed.
“This is very important research no one else is doing this and it needs to be done,” Olsiewski said.
Consultant Joseph Rodricks, chair of the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Subcommittee who remains on the committee, also appeared unsure of what would come next.
“With that number of people, it's got to have some impact, but don't ask me to predict it,” he said.
Given the proposed cuts in the Trump administration's fiscal year 2018 “skinny budget” to the EPA's office of research, Carney worried that this additional step could indicate future lags in moving science forward.
Future Make-Up of the Committee
Much of the future of the committee depends on who the EPA appoints to fill the seats, members and outside organizations said. Even though this committee isn't involved in commenting on scientific assessments that underpin regulations, its members help the EPA determine where to put their efforts in terms of loger-term research that can keep people safe.
If the administration sticks to picking members based on scientific and technical criteria—industry or no—following the rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act there isn't necessarily reason for broad concerns, according to Joanne Carney, director of government relations at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Under FACA rules, committee memberships are supposed to have balanced points of view,” Carney told Bloomberg BNA. “We will be concerned if they are disbanding members of the committees based on criteria that is outside of their scientific or technical-based expertise because that will undermine their ability to execute science and evidence based policymaking.”
And it doesn't seem like the decision not to automatically renew these scientists’ appointments necessarily means they wouldn't be willing to serve again. For Olsiewski's part, she said she would be willing to serve again on the board, if she were renominated, after hearing Freire's statement that indicates that would be an option.
This is a key area that has sparked the interest of some members of Congress who will be watching closely. For example, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the ranking member on the House Science Committee, expressed concern.
“EPA leadership's decision not to renew their membership raises serious questions about what sort of new criteria EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt intends to use to select new board members and whether he understands the distinction between political advice and scientific expertise,” Johnson said in a statement.
But House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the news is a step in the right direction. Smith's committee has passed legislation largely along party lines that would alter who could offer advice on these committees, among other actions.
“This decision increases transparency, reduces conflicts of interest, and ensures balance on expert panels,” Smith said.
“Too often, these boards serve as echo chambers to rubber stamp costly and burdensome regulations. Science and data are invaluable tools in developing regulations that can impact the lives of millions of Americans, and it is essential that EPA's science advisory panels are able to provide meaningful and unbiased advice to the EPA administrator, Congress and the American public.”
—With assistance from Maeve Allsup
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939178&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939178&jd=110939178
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EPA To Grapple With TSCA 'Unique Identifier' CBI Requirement
May 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has asked for feedback on implementing a provision of the new TSCA regarding the application of a 'unique identifier' for substances protected as confidential business information (CBI).
As amended by the Lautenberg Act, section 14 of the new TSCA requires the EPA to assign a so-called unique identifier when it approves a CBI claim that protects a substance's chemical identity.
This identifier is distinct from currently used accession numbers. It is intended "to provide a specific reference identifier that protects the confidentiality claim to the specific chemical identity for the duration of the claim, while providing a way for the public to identify other filings pertaining to that substance."
More specifically, the identifier must be applied "consistently to all information relevant to" the protected chemical, including to non-confidential information.
For any confidentiality claim that subsequently expires, is withdrawn, or is denied by the agency, the EPA must "clearly link" the specific chemical to its unique identifier on any information that has been made public.
But in a Federal Register notice, the EPA has outlined issues with the new law's requirements that "do not appear to be completely reconciled in the statute".
These include the fact that having a single unique identifier publicly applied to all information about a specific chemical may cause the release of CBI information to other parties. For example, if two manufacturers are producing the same confidential chemical and submit documents to the EPA that it then labels with the same unique identifier, each company may be able to tell that a competitor is also making the substance.
The agency has outlined two possible approaches to "meaningfully inform the public without compromising trade secrets". It is also accepting feedback on additional approaches.
The EPA has convened a public meeting in Washington, DC, on 24 May to discuss the issue and hear oral testimony. It will accept written comments until 7 July.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55696/epa-to-grapple-with-tsca-unique-identifier-cbi-requirement
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(ACC Mentioned) Pesticide Bill From Gov. LePage Mirrors Model By Secretive National Group
May 9, 2017 | Portland Press Herald
By Colin Woodard
His plan to restrict local ordinances is nearly identical to a model law promoted by a corporation-funded organization with chemical producers as members.
Gov. Paul LePage’s bill to take away municipal government’s ability to enact local pesticide ordinances closely mirrors a model bill written and promoted by a secretive national group that helps large national corporations ghost-write laws for sympathetic state legislators.
The governor’s bill – which a legislative panel will take up again next week – would prohibit Maine municipalities from restricting a wide range of chemicals used for everything from treating lawns to killing household pests and invasive moths. It has the support of local pest control and lawn care companies, but is opposed by environmental groups, the Maine Municipal Association and towns that have adopted ordinances to protect vulnerable local resources such as lobster.
Not disclosed during a lengthy May 1 public hearing is that L.D. 1505 is almost identical to a model bill advanced in state houses across the country by a business-backed organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and drafted by one of its task forces with corporate members such as pesticide makers CropLife America, Dow AgroSciences and the American Chemistry Council.
While ALEC claims to be a nonpartisan professional association for state legislators, virtually all of its funding comes from its corporate members, who give “scholarships” for lawmakers to attend ALEC conferences, where the group works with them to draft legislation. The Washington-based group conceals the identity of its rank-and-file members – including more than 1,500 state legislators – and until recently hid the content of its model bills from public view, frustrating efforts to determine who was behind a given piece of legislation.
The pesticide measure is one of at least three recent ALEC-modeled bills to be introduced in Maine seeking to restrict the powers of local governments. In a state with a strong home rule tradition, none has been passed into law.
The language of the governor’s bill – a one-paragraph substitution to existing law – was borrowed from the operative paragraph of ALEC’s State Pesticide Preemption Act, which was originally drafted in 1995 and reapproved by the group’s board of directors in 2013. State Sen. Andre Cushing, R-Newport, is one of ALEC’s 26 directors, and Sen. President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport, served on the task force that deals with pesticides as recently as 2011, when documents leaked to the group Common Cause revealed rank-and-file members for the first time.No city, town, county, or other political subdivision of this state shall adopt or continue in effect any ordinance, rule, regulation or statute regarding pesticide sale or use, including without limitation: registration, notification of use, advertising and marketing, distribution, applicator training and certification, storage, transportation, disposal, disclosure of confidential information, or product composition.’
– ALEC’s model bill‘A municipality may not adopt or enforce any ordinance or rule regulating the sale or use of pesticides, including without limitation ordinances relating to pesticide use limitations, registration, use notification, advertising and marketing, distribution, applicator training and certification, storage, transportation, disposal or product composition or the disclosure of confidential information related to pesticides.
– Gov. LePage’s bill
With many state governments controlled by Republicans, ALEC long has sought to preempt or limit the ability of cities and towns to introduce their own ordinances on everything from raising the minimum wage to tightening restrictions on guns. This legislative session, ALEC’s Maine state co-chairman, Rep. Nate Wadsworth, R-Hiram, introduced another ALEC model bill that would hamper municipalities who tried to build public broadband networks.
“Preemption is one of their main goals, preemption of the democratic process by having higher levels of government supersede the local level,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a Washington-based nonprofit that has tracked ALEC’s efforts. “Industry adopted pesticide preemption before ALEC, but ALEC has taken up the mantle and been the predominant force in advancing it for some time.”
Arn Pearson, general counsel of the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit that scrutinizes ALEC, says the group’s corporate members fear that local ordinances might become precedents for statewide policies. “ALEC is a Republican operation,” Pearson said, “and now that the Republicans have control over the majority of states, they have been turning very aggressively to strip municipalities – which often have more Democratic control – of their ability to pass local laws.”
But the effort has not gotten much traction in Maine, where even tiny, rural communities have incorporated municipal governments – the majority of them Republican-controlled – and many citizens prize local control and prerogatives.
A legislative panel took up the pesticide bill Monday, but after lengthy discussion tabled it until next week.
The bill that sought to restrict local governments from setting up high-speed internet networks when private providers declined to do so received a withering welcome from officials from a wide range of Maine towns at a public hearing last week. A legislative panel voted 12-0 against the bill last Wednesday, effectively killing it.
In 2015, a two-sentence measure introduced by Cushing sought to stop all municipalities from raising the minimum wage in their communities, echoing ALEC’s Living Wage Mandate Preemption Act. This bill also died in the Legislature.
“Maine has a long tradition of localities being fairly autonomous and independent, and therefore towns guard their powers and their ability to make their own decisions,” said Amy Fried, head of the political science department at the University of Maine in Orono. “Legislators are from those areas and steeped in those traditions, and they are also accountable to local constituencies. And therefore they would not want to just simply hand over the powers to state government.”
Ron Schmidt, associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, agreed. “Maine voters prefer a pragmatic approach to politics – the pothole fixing as opposed to an ideological battle,” he said. “It’s a longstanding boogeyman that people or institutions from outside will try to intrude on what Mainers read as very practical, locally based issues.”
It is not clear how the governor’s bill came to mirror the ALEC bill. The official who introduced the bill before the Legislature, Commissioner of Conservation, Forestry and Agriculture Walt Whitcomb, said through a spokesman that he was “not aware of any connection” between the bill and ALEC. “The department has had no contact with ALEC,” John Bott said via email.
LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett declined to speak with the Portland Press Herald about the bill.
ALEC referred an interview request to its director of the task force responsible for the model bill, Kenneth Stein, who confined his comments to the need for the bill itself. He said the central problem was that municipalities did not have the expertise to evaluate chemical safety, but state environmental protection departments do.
“It also makes sense as a practical matter: It simply doesn’t make market sense for hundreds of municipalities to approve or disapprove of hundreds of different chemicals,” Stein said. “The economy couldn’t function if each decided what could be used in their town but not in the next one.”
Stein said he did not know the particulars of how ALEC’s model bill came to be introduced in Augusta.
In his legislative testimony in support of the bill, Whitcomb said local ordinances were creating a confusing “patchwork” of regulations that often exceeded state and federal regulations, even though towns lacked the technical expertise and resources to evaluate pesticide safety. He also said many towns were being advised by unnamed “national advocacy groups.”
“A Washington, D.C., organization has been active in multiple meetings and has organized training sessions on how to develop ordinances,” he told lawmakers. “Maine once again is a staging ground for political advocacy, to the detriment of sound decision-making. … Out-of-state advocacy groups are impacting Maine people and business using Maine law to champion their own agenda.”
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/09/pesticide-bill-from-gov-lepage-mirrors-one-by-secretive-national-group/
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International Paper Pollution Case Shipped to State Court
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Dioxin pollution claims brought against International Paper Co. by hundreds of Alabama landowners must be litigated in state, not federal, courts, the Southern District of Alabama ruled May 5 (Adams v. Int'l Paper Co., 2017 BL 151222, S.D. Ala., No. 17-cv-00105, 5/5/17).
The ruling transferred to Alabama courts the claims of Samuel Adams and 247 other plaintiffs who say International Paper and H.O. Weaver & Sons Inc. released toxic chemicals onto their properties.
H.O. Weaver, an Alabama-based company, was added as a party only after the case was transferred to federal court, and International Paper asserted that the plaintiffs’ aim was to defeat diversity jurisdiction. But Adams’ intention was to accurately identify a third-party that worsened the contamination from the plant in Mobile, Alabama, the court said.
Federal diversity jurisdiction requires proof that a minimum monetary threshold is at stake, and that no plaintiff shares citizenship with any defendant.
Nor did the case belong in federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, the court said.
CAFA gives jurisdiction over “mass actions” of 100 or more persons if they meet a monetary threshold and at least one plaintiff and defendant are citizens of different states.
But the law includes a “local controversy” exception, and that test was met here, where a single occurrence resulted collective related acts of the two companies, the court said.
U.S. District Judge William H. Steele wrote the opinion.
The law offices of Stewart & Stewart, as well as Steven J. Baker represented the plaintiffs.
Maynard, Cooper & Gale represented International Paper.
Luther Collier Hodges & Cash represented H.O. Weaver.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939166&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939166&jd=110939166
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Bill Would Require Toy Makers To Disclose Toxins In Products
May 8, 2017 | AP (In The Wall Street Journal)
ALBANY, N.Y. — Environmental groups and child-welfare advocates want New York state to require toy makers to disclose potentially toxic chemicals used in their products.
Several parents and child health experts gathered at the state Capitol Monday to push for a requirement that toy manufacturers notify the state of products sold in New York containing one of several chemicals deemed hazardous to children.
The same group has advocated legislation that would phase out the use of chemicals like benzene, mercury and cobalt in toys.
The measure has faced challenges from toy makers, who note they're already required to comply with federal regulations.
Supporters said Monday they still want a ban on toxic toys, but requiring disclosure of the chemicals is a reasonable first step.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/AP1ffee66d124f47e0ad612491d2b3d221
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US House Committee Advances Conflict Minerals Repeal Bill
May 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
More than half a dozen remaining House committees that it was referred to have yet to vote on it.
The House Financial Services Committee has voted in favour of a measure that would repeal the US's conflict minerals reporting rule.
The far-reaching Financial CHOICE Act – like a bill of the same name introduced last session – seeks to overhaul the nation's financial regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act. Among many reforms, HR 10 calls for the repeal of section 1502 of the law, and the restoration and revival of provisions affected by it "as if [it] had not been enacted".
Section 1502 requires publicly-traded companies to conduct due diligence and report to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) on whether their sourcing of conflict minerals – tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold (3TG) – is supporting armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), or neighbouring countries.
Introduced by chairman Jeb Hensarling (R–Texas), the bill passed the committee by a 34-26 margin.
Yet despite the measure's progress, it faces an uphill climb to becoming law. More than half a dozen remaining House committees that it has been referred to have yet to vote on it. And electronics trade group IPC is among organisations to point out that even if passed by the House, the bill is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate given "united opposition" from Democrats.
The trade group says that "smaller, more targeted" measures are more likely to gain the bipartisan support necessary to move forward.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55697/us-house-committee-advances-conflict-minerals-repeal-bill
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Methane Rule Vote Likely Tomorrow; Portman To Vote 'yes'
May 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kellie Lunney
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced late yesterday that he would vote to repeal an Interior Department rule that regulates methane waste on public lands, giving Republicans momentum as the measure heads to a likely floor vote tomorrow.
Portman, who has been publicly undecided for months on whether he would support the Congressional Review Act resolution (S.J. Res. 11) to overturn the Obama-era rule, said his decision was based on a commitment to reduce methane waste that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made to him last week.
Zinke responded Thursday to a May 1 letter from Portman, saying the Bureau of Land Management would continue to regulate methane emissions and would take "concrete action to reduce methane waste" if Congress passes the resolution rolling back the rule.
"Absent this commitment, the department would have rescinded this methane rule with no guarantee that it would take any action to better protect our environment in the future," Portman said in a statement. "I'm pleased that the department has made a commitment to act on this important issue, and I will hold the agency accountable to ensure that it does."
Zinke pledged to "engage in a robust assessment" of all venting and flaring requirements to ensure industries aren't wasting natural resources or taxpayer money. He also said the department would revise existing BLM restrictions on the flaring of unmarketable methane, as well as expedite certain permitting processes and eliminate any BLM policies that duplicate flaring restrictions in several Western states, including the one in Colorado, which the Obama administration modeled its rule on.
Portman said the Obama administration's methane rule was not a "balanced" approach, arguing that it would have led to job losses in Ohio "by forcing small independent operators to close existing wells and slowing responsible energy production on federal lands. There's a better way." Still, the Republican made clear that he believes Interior needs to do more to prevent methane waste on public lands.
But under the CRA, agencies cannot issue "substantially similar" rules on regulations that Congress has repealed without new legislation.
Even with Zinke's commitment to reduce methane waste and strengthen BLM policies related to it, it's unclear how the department can move forward given the restrictions of the CRA if the resolution passes.Vote tomorrow?
The deadline for passing the resolution related to the methane rule under the CRA expires this week, so senators have to move quickly (E&E Daily, May 8).
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told reporters yesterday the vote would happen tomorrow. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who remains publicly undecided, also said he believed the vote would happen then.
Donald Stewart, a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said by email a vote was "possible" tomorrow but that it hadn't been scheduled yet.
With two GOP senators — Maine's Susan Collins and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham — expected to oppose the resolution, the margin of error for Republicans is razor-thin, but Portman's support helps the measure's prospects. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) also remains publicly undecided.
Another complication: Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) has been recovering from back surgery this spring and hasn't been around regularly for votes. It's possible Vice President Mike Pence will have to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of S.J. Res. 11.Ethanol wrinkle
Last week, news emerged that corn-state Republicans were using the methane rule vote as possible leverage to encourage their colleagues to support a waiver of seasonal restrictions on the sale of E15, or 15 percent ethanol in gasoline (E&E News PM, May 3).
Pro-ethanol senators, including Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Thune (R-S.D.), tried unsuccessfully to get the ethanol waiver — which producers say would help get the fuel's higher blend into more markets — into the massive 2017 omnibus package.
They have been seeking other legislative vehicles for the measure and seeing "how methane fits into that picture," Thune told E&E News last week. A deal on the ethanol matter "is still up in the air," he said at the time.
Grassley yesterday told reporters "nothing more has happened" on that front. Inhofe said he wasn't sure whether the ethanol issue as it relates to the methane vote had been resolved yet. "There's always a problem. I think that they're all talking to each other, and I think they're making headway. Both sides have told me that."
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who has been involved in amassing support for the measure to repeal the methane rule, said last week that Republicans were willing to work with those corn-state senators on getting the E15 waiver but that it couldn't be tied into the CRA.
"It's got to be separate," he said.Pros and cons
Meanwhile, opponents of the resolution are still making their voices heard.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and other stakeholders who favor keeping the methane rule held a conference call with reporters yesterday in a last effort to voice opposition to the resolution.
"This week, the Senate faces a simple choice: pollution or people," Cantwell said. "We can side with people and keep in place a common-sense rule that's already saving taxpayers money and keeping our children healthy, or we can side with polluters and allow them to go back to needlessly wasting our natural gas resource — $330 million every year in order to marginally increase their profits."
She said repealing the rule would be a "huge step backward," noting that Interior would be unable to issue any "substantially similar" rule under the law.
"You would have to start an entirely new administrative process," Cantwell said, adding that she believed "it would be politically impossible for Interior to broach the topic of methane waste at all if [the resolution] is signed into law."
The measure to overturn the methane rule is one of several such resolutions that Republicans in both chambers have introduced during this legislative session using the 1996 CRA to roll back Obama-era regulations that they argue are burdensome and illustrative of the federal government's overreach on energy and environmental issues.
So far, President Trump has signed into law 13 disapproval resolutions under the CRA, four of them directly related to natural resources.
The struggle to garner support for the resolution shows positions on the issue have not split cleanly along party lines. Republicans generally have argued that in addition to the methane rule being burdensome and ineffective, U.S. EPA — not BLM — has the authority to curb emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Democrats have said that the resolution is a gift to wealthy GOP donors and that methane reductions have occurred in other energy production arenas, like transportation, but not public land extraction. They also cite damage to the environment and taxpayer waste among the negative consequences of overturning the rule. Supporters of the regulation have argued that rolling it back will translate into an $800 million loss in royalty revenues to states, tribes and taxpayers over the next 10 years that they could use to invest in infrastructure and other needs.Lobbying muscle
Oil companies and industry associations that favor scrapping the rule call it redundant, as some states already have regulations in place that minimize methane emissions and industry has deployed technologies to reduce emissions. They've also argued that it's burdensome, imposing unnecessary additional costs on smaller operators.
Friends of the Earth, a progressive environmental advocacy group, compiled a list of 31 lobbying disclosure forms from the first quarter of 2017 that showed several major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc. and Chevron Corp., advocating for the methane rule's repeal via the CRA resolutions.
Some companies lobbied Congress directly and others hired firms, including the Nickles Group — led by former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) — and CGCN Group, where White House energy policy adviser Michael Catanzaro was a partner before joining the Trump administration in February. Catanzaro also served as an energy and environment aide to then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
The extensive lobbying by oil and gas companies "makes it very clear that oil is trying very hard to erase this rule that was designed to make them pay for a public resource," said Lukas Ross, climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, who analyzed and compiled the lobbying data.
Last week, several groups, including the American Energy Alliance, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Americans for Tax Reform, sent senators a letter urging them to roll back the methane rule.
"The methane rule will decrease energy production on federal lands, leading to fewer revenues from royalties and higher energy costs, not to mention lost jobs," said the letter. "This regulation runs completely counter to the pro-growth agenda many of you ran upon in the 2016 elections."
Reporter Geof Koss contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/05/09/stories/1060054236
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CSB: Safety Lapses Caused 2015 ExxonMobil Refinery Explosion
May 8, 2017 | Powder& Bulk Solids
A final report investigating the causes of an explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, CA on Feb. 18, 2015 by a federal regulatory agency blamed the blast on lapses in the facility’s process safety management system
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said in a May 3 press release that the explosion in refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit stemmed from a faulty slide valve that permitted hydrocarbons to flow into the “air side” of the FCC unit. An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) was ignited, causing the explosion.
“The explosion and near miss should not have happened, and would likely not have happened, had a more robust safety process safety management system been in place. The CSB’s report concludes that the unit was operating without proper procedures,” the agency’s chairperson, Vanessa Allen Sutherland, said in a statement.
Gaps in the facility’s safety system allowed the FCC unit to operate without pre-established safe operating limits and shut down criteria, instead employing safeguards that were not verified and re-using a previous procedure deviation that did not take current process conditions into account, the CSB’s investigation found. The slide valve was determined to be degraded, contributing to the incident. Agency investigators also found that a large piece of debris nearly collided with a tank holding “tens of thousands” of pounds of modified hydrofluoric acid (MHF).
“Adoption of and adherence to a robust safety management process would have prevented these other incidents. In working with inherently dangerous products, it is critical to conduct a robust risk management analysis with the intent of continually safety improvement,” Sutherland said.
he CSB report said direct violations of ExxonMobil’s corporate safety standards occurred at the site leading up to the incident, including the firm’s lock out/tag out procedures. The agency said the site, which was sold to PBF Holdings Company LLC in July 2016, has continued to experience incidents since the 2015 explosion.
“There are valuable lessons to be learned and applied at this refinery and all refineries in the U.S. Keeping our refineries operating safely is critical to the well-being of employees and surrounding communities, as well as to the economy,” Sutherland said.
As a result of the explosion, the refinery was run at limited capacity for more than a year and gas prices rose in California, costing drivers there an estimated $2.4 billion, according to the CSB.
No fines are issued by the CSB, but the agency provides recommendations to facility owners and operators on safety matters.
http://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/CSB-Safety-Lapses-Caused-2015-ExxonMobil-Refinery-Explosion-05-08-2017
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Pruitt Has Free Hand on EPA Rules Despite Sitting Out Lawsuits
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid and Andrew Childers
Stepping aside from lawsuits he brought against the EPA will not hinder Administrator Scott Pruitt's ability to reshape the climate change and water regulations he challenged as Oklahoma attorney general.
Pruitt, in a May 4 internal memo, announced that for the duration of his administration he will sit out active lawsuits in which Oklahoma was a party. That abstention could be functionally meaningless because in many of them, including those challenging major Obama-era greenhouse gas and water jurisdiction regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency has already sought to halt litigation while it reconsiders the rules Pruitt had opposed.
Pruitt will get to reshape those rules because different ethical standards apply for government officials seeking to recuse themselves from lawsuits versus those for the regulatory process, Kathleen Clark, a law professor and expert on government ethics at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, told Bloomberg BNA. Because regulations apply generally, Pruitt does not face the same ethical demands when reviewing the rules he had opposed as he does when participating in lawsuits he brought against the EPA, she said.
Pruitt Could Shape Rules
Even if Pruitt were to sit out the EPA's reviews of the Clean Power Plan carbon standards for existing power plants and the Clean Water Rule, also known as the waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) jurisdiction rule, the outcome would likely be the same, one law professor said.
“If he didn't run the show on the new rulemaking, I would expect another political staff with similar views would be put in charge,” Justin Pidot, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, told Bloomberg BNA in an email. “While such an individual might proceed somewhat more cautiously because they are not the administrator, I expect the end result would be similar.”
While Clark said Pruitt is doing nothing improper, advocates for the EPA's regulations intend to press the administrator over his apparent conflicts of interest as he reconsiders the various Obama regulations.
“We need to keep calling attention to the conflict of interests that come from his past position, and at some point it becomes more important to focus on his ties with industry and his bias toward industry,” David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and clean air program, told Bloomberg BNA.
Water Rule Door Left Open
Pruitt's memo lists a dozen lawsuits in which he will not participate as administrator, including challenges to carbon dioxide limits for both new and existing power plants, methane standards for the oil and gas industry and federal ozone standards.
One area where Pruitt's recusal is unclear is in challenges to the Clean Water Rule, which delineates which rivers and streams are subject to Clean Water Act protections.
While Pruitt vowed not to participate in lawsuits challenging the rule in two federal appellate courts, he may still participate in questions currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Pruitt said Oklahoma was not a party to that challenge, but did file a friend of the court brief on which court is the proper venue to hear lawsuits over the jurisdiction rule.
Pruitt said he would seek a ruling from EPA ethics officials before participating in the Supreme Court proceedings.
“I couldn't tell whether he was saying whether he was still bound by the impartiality agreement or not,” Clark said. “I don't think I could tell because he didn't tell us.”
In fact, the EPA has already begun the process of reconsidering the Clean Water Rule.
“I don't see how any recusals from judicial review of the Obama [Clean Power Plan] or Clean Water Rule would at all affect his ability to call the shots in new rulemakings that could have the effect of amending or replacing the [Clean Power Plan] or Clean Water Rule,” Richard G. Stoll, a retired partner Foley & Lardner LLP, told Bloomberg BNA in an email. Stoll's practice focused on federal administrative and environmental law.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939162&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939162&jd=110939162
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Tennessee Businesses Cheer New Limits on Air Pollution Permits
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew M. Ballard
Business cheered a new Tennessee law to prevent local governments from using the air permitting process to block industrial development projects.
Bradley Jackson, the president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Bloomberg BNA May 8 that S.B. 1371, which Gov. Bill Haslam (R) signed May 4, would limit local air permit decisions to air quality control requirements solely.
The new law was enacted in response to recent efforts by the Nashville metropolitan area to stop the construction of a natural gas transmission station through air permit procedures, according to Jackson. He said the city's attempt to curtail an energy transmission project “could have had a major ripple effect in Tennessee on both industry and consumers.”
Tennessee allows municipalities and counties to enact local air quality standards that are at least as stringent as state requirements (Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-201-115). The Nashville/Davidson metropolitan area and Hamilton, Knox and Shelby counties currently operate their own programs.
Land Use Cited in Gas Project Challenge
The Nashville/Davidson metropolitan government had requested that the state Air Pollution Control Board allow it to reject an air permit for the transmission station based on land use and zoning considerations. The board denied the request, but Jackson said clarifying the issue was needed. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry (D) opposed the bill.
Land use and zoning considerations should be made separately from the permitting process, which should be based on air quality standards alone, Jackson told Bloomberg BNA. “In no way do we feel that it jeopardizes Nashville's effort to attain clean air,” he said, as the permit could have been denied under the state implementation plan if the project was a major source of pollution.
Anne Passino, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Nashville, told Bloomberg BNA that “the new law is inconsistent with other Tennessee laws and existing state air pollution plans that recognize the relationship between land use and air quality.”
Passino said the effect of the law is broader than just one project.
“This new law seemingly gives all of the air polluting industry a pass because it takes an important science-based tool away from cities that want to control their air pollution, and it suggests that businesses and their profits are more important than clean air,” she said.
However, Jackson said local authority should be limited when it comes to siting energy generation and transmission lines, which are generally made by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Trying to intervene in something like that was really beyond the scope of what Nashville is authorized to do,” he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939159&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939159&jd=110939159
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U.N. Climate Process Restarts With Undersized U.S. Participation
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eric J. Lyman
Parties to the United Nations climate change process restarted negotiations May 8 on the rulebook for how to implement the historic Paris Agreement amid speculation of the role the U.S. will take as the process moves forward.
The May 8-18 talks near the Bonn, Germany headquarters of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change are the first major multilateral climate change talks since the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president.
The U.S. under Trump has yet to take a firm stance on its role in the U.N. climate talks process. But Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and has threatened to remove the U.S. from participating in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first global pact to fight and respond to climate change.
And there are clear signals that a change in stance could be under way: Of the 2,052 accredited delegates in Bonn, just seven are from the U.S. delegation, compared to 39 at the UNFCCC's mid-year talks in 2016.
Wait-and-See Attitude
The U.N. has scheduled a multilateral assessment session at the Bonn talks May 11 and 12, providing a forum for delegations to formally ask questions about climate policies in other countries. A U.N. official told Bloomberg BNA most delegations that have so far indicated plans to ask questions want to ask them of U.S. delegation head Trigg Talley.
Patricia Espinosa, the U.N.'s top climate official, did not mention Trump or the U.S. by name in her remarks at a press briefing May 8, despite being specifically asked about the impact that a change in the U.S. stance might have on the talks.
“We continue to monitor internal events in specific countries,” Espinosa said in response to one question.
Similarly, the European Union delegation heads said they would take a wait-and-see attitude.
“We are all waiting on the final decision of the new U.S. administration and we don't want to pre-empt that announcement,” said EU delegation co-head Yvon Slingenberg. “We can just put our arguments forward to try to persuade the U.S. to remain a party to the Paris Agreement, and we are doing that.”
‘As Strong as Possible’
Environmentalists said it was important that the central goals of the Paris Agreement—which include keeping global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels this century—not be weakened to try to persuade the U.S. to remain part.
“We want and need the U.S. to stay in the Paris Agreement,” Brandon Woo, a U.S.-based climate campaigner from Action Aid, told Bloomberg BNA. “But we also need the agreement to be as strong as possible, or we will never be able to achieve the goals of the agreement.”
Formally, the U.S. has stated it would not agree to any new objective in Bonn.
“We are focused on ensuring that decisions are not taken at these meetings that would prejudice our future policy, undermine the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, or hamper our broader objectives of advancing U.S. economic growth and prosperity,” said a statement from the U.S. State Department distributed in Bonn.
Questions of Money
Most aspects of the Paris Agreement do not officially begin until 2020, and delegations in Bonn will start work on the rulebook that will govern the implementation of the Paris deal.
One U.N. official told Bloomberg BNA that issues related to finance—whether related to the budget for the UNFCCC, for assistance programs for developing countries looking to meet targets set out in the Paris Agreement, or for the Paris Agreement's many financial mechanisms, including the adaptation fund expected to provide at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change—will take canter stage in Bonn, as countries look for ways to compensate for what could be reduce contributions from the U.S.
Breakout groups in Bonn will also discuss ways to take action before 2020, as well as preparations for a 2018 session that will seek to push countries to take on more ambitious targets for climate action.
“This is the crucial phase in which we must turn the words we have all agreed to into action,” Espinosa said in her remarks.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939161&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939161&jd=110939161
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Ex-Military Brass Back Tillerson, Mattis in Climate-Change Fight
May 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Ryan and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
A group of retired senior military officers is urging U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis to remain firm in their support for combating global warming as White House officials consider exiting the Paris climate accord.
The 17 veterans argue that climate change poses a critical national security risk and say the U.S. must remain engaged in the international effort to fight it, according to letters sent May 8 to Tillerson and Mattis. Among the signatories are three four-star veterans, including former Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Sam J. Locklear.
The ex-officers are the latest to call for the U.S. to uphold its environmental commitments as President Donald Trump's senior advisers prepare to meet May 9 to debate whether to exit the Paris accord. Tillerson and Mattis are among those pushing the president to stick with the agreement, brokered in 2015 by almost 200 nations. The letters were sent by the Center for Climate and Security, a Washington-based research institute.
“Climate change poses strategically significant risks to U.S. national security, directly impacting our critical infrastructure and increasing the likelihood of humanitarian disasters, state failure and conflict,” the former officers and security officials wrote in the letter to Tillerson.
Stay or Go
Trump, who has called global warming a hoax, has derided the Paris accord as unfair to the U.S.
The president has said he would make his decision regarding the agreement by the end of the week, and several of his top advisers are pushing him to exit, including chief strategist Stephen Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Leaders in Europe and elsewhere, meanwhile, have called on Trump to honor the agreement, which calls on nations to reduce their use of fossil fuels and limit global warming causing gases.
Businesses have weighed in too. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and dozens of other top U.S. technology, manufacturing and consumer goods companies took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times May 8 in support of the agreement.
And more than 200 investors with more than $15 trillion under management wrote to Trump and the heads of other members of the Group of Seven nations, urging political leaders to keep their commitments to the Paris deal.
“Investors are willing and ready to work with governments to facilitate the changes that are needed to improve the pricing of climate related financial impacts, and to mobilize the capital flows that are required to underpin a strong and resilient financial system,” they wrote.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=110939176&vname=dennotallissues&fn=110939176&jd=110939176
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Protesters Plan 'Wake-Up Call' At Trump Hotel, Blockade At EPA
May 9, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess
Organizers behind the Peoples Climate March are planning a rally tomorrow morning outside Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C.
With White House officials planning another meeting on whether to officially pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, climate advocates say they will flood the lobby of the hotel around 7:30 a.m. for what they call a "massive wake-up call to the president."
They also want to ring a loud alarm clock to wake up hotel guests. After the action, protesters will gather outside U.S. EPA's headquarters for a rally, starting around 8 a.m., then will attempt to block the building's entrances.
"This isn't just one march — it's a movement," spokesman Harrison Beck told E&E News today.
More than 150,000 people marched in Washington on April 29 (E&E Daily, May 1).
Last night, organizers invited march participants to a planning meeting on how to respond if the Trump administration follows through with signals of a pending Paris withdrawal.
Tomorrow's event, which starts at 7 a.m. at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, will include signs, banners and a giant alarm clock.
They demand that the Trump administration commit to staying in the Paris accord, implementing the Clean Power Plan and taking further action to address global warming.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/05/08/stories/1060054216
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