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ACC AM 5/11
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(ACC Mentioned) After One EPA Science Board Is Trimmed, a Bigger One Awaits
May 11, 2017 | The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Paul Basken
The Trump administration’s removal of several academic experts from a scientific advisory board at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has renewed concern about the government’s commitment to fact-based policy making. -
(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Seek Broad Recusal for EPA's Deputy Toxics Chief
May 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are urging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to ensure a broad recusal for Nancy Beck, the agency's deputy toxics chief, to prevent any conflict of interest given her past role as an official at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), where she represented the chemical industry on issues she will now oversee. -
US EPA Delays Enforcement of Nano Reporting Rule
May 11, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has delayed the effective date of its nanoscale reporting rule from 12 May to 14 August. -
Manufacturers May Struggle to Keep Up w/EPA’s Aggressive Schedule to Pass New Chemical Regs
May 10, 2017 | Environmental Leader
By Jennifer Hermes
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amended the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, was passed in June of 2016 and made sweeping changes to the nation’s primary chemical law. -
(ACC Mentioned) European Food Regulator Strikes Down Splenda Cancer Study
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Europe's food safety regulator has taken aim at a study on a popular artificial sweetener and cancer, the latest rebuttal of questions about the safety of low-calorie sugar substitutes. -
Hugo Boss Commits to Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals
May 10, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Luxury fashion brand Hugo Boss has become a signatory brand to the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) programme. -
Methane Rule Under Fire at Interior After Surviving Senate
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski and Rachel Leven
Regulations on the venting and flaring of natural gas survived a Senate attempt to nix them but may not be so lucky with an Interior Department eager to whittle them down or kill them altogether. -
Methane Repeal Fails in Senate as McConnell Falls a Vote Shy
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Senate failed May 10 to advance a measure to repeal a rule loathed by oil and natural gas companies, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suffered a rare legislative defeat by just one vote. -
Energy and Environment Senate Unexpectedly Rejects Bid to Repeal a Key Obama-era Environmental Regulation
May 10, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Chelsea Harvey
The Senate on Wednesday narrowly blocked a resolution to repeal an Obama-era rule restricting methane emissions from drilling operations on public lands — with three Republicans joining every Democrat to preserve the rule. -
Interior Vows Action on Methane Rule after Senate Vote Fails
May 10, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar and Kellie Lunney
The Interior Department this afternoon signaled its intent to overhaul an Obama-era rule on methane waste from oil and gas operations after the Republican-controlled Senate failed today to scuttle the regulation. -
Democratic Senators Urge Zinke to Overhaul BLM Methane Rule
May 10, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Scott Streater
Two Democratic senators are urging Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to revise an Obama-era methane waste prevention rule after it narrowly survived a Senate vote to repeal it. -
Rulemaking, Legal Options Remain after CRA Fails
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King and Ellen M. Gilmer
A Senate vote yesterday may have torpedoed one tine of a multipronged push to kill an Obama-era rule to control methane waste on public lands, but other options to repeal or modify the regulation are still on the table. -
Regardless of BLM Rule's Fate, State Regs Seen as 'Win-Win-Win'
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Maxine Joselow
At the federal level, the Senate voted yesterday against repealing a Bureau of Land Management rule that regulates methane waste on public lands. -
(ACC Mentioned) Firms in Driver's Seat as EPA Resets Chemical Plant Safety Work
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's move to scrap chemical security regulations issued in the waning days of the Obama administration stands to launch years more of discussion, this time on terms more favorable to industry organizations. -
Senator Urges Trump to Fill Out Cyber Roster
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
"Missing leadership" at several key cybersecurity agencies may hamper the U.S. ability to respond to a significant hacking incident, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee warned yesterday. -
U.S. Blocks Major Pipeline after 18 Leaks and a 2 Million Gallon Spill of Drilling Mud
May 10, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Steven Mufson
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has curtailed work on a natural-gas pipeline in Ohio after the owner, Energy Transfer Partners, reported 18 leaks and spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling materials. -
State, Governor Work to Increase Oil-by-Rail Safety
May 10, 2017 | Kent Reporter
Although the federal government often preempts states when it comes to regulating oil-by-rail transportation, Washington state is working to do what it can to prevent the catastrophic oil-train derailments seen elsewhere in North America, according to a media release from the governor’s office. -
Republicans Now to Face Consequences of Rule Repeals
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
House Republicans, who in February could barely contain their excitement about using a rare power to start repealing Obama-era regulations, now face the consequences of their rush to repeal.
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(ACC Mentioned) After One EPA Science Board Is Trimmed, a Bigger One Awaits
May 11, 2017 | The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Paul Basken
The Trump administration’s removal of several academic experts from a scientific advisory board at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has renewed concern about the government’s commitment to fact-based policy making.
The advisory panel, known as the Board of Scientific Counselors, lost about half of its 18 members on April 30 as they completed the first of what is typically two three-year terms and were not reappointed.
The EPA said in a statement that it receives hundreds of nominations to serve on the board and that it wanted to provide "fair consideration of all the nominees." An EPA spokesman, J.P. Freire, said that means including more people "who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community."
Some of the dismissed academic experts have criticized the move as part of an administration strategy to replace scientific judgment with political influence at the EPA. Rush Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called on the EPA to reconsider the dismissals, saying academic scientists "play a critical role in informing policy with scientific-research results."
A more significant move against academic scientists may come this fall, when a larger and more structurally integral EPA advisory panel, known as the Science Advisory Board, faces the renewal — or not — of a third of its approximately 45 members.
Both boards are filled mostly by academic experts, along with some members from private interest groups and companies. The Board of Scientific Counselors is a discretionary creation of the EPA that provides the agency with advice on technical and management issues of EPA research programs. The Science Advisory Board, however, is created by law and charged with ensuring that the EPA uses the best possible science in making decisions. It reviews major EPA reports and has direct input into regulatory actions.
The current chairman of the Science Advisory Board is Peter S. Thorne, a professor of toxicology at the University of Iowa who is one of the members with terms expiring on September 30.
Mr. Thorne is among those concerned by the direction of the EPA under its new leader, Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general known for waging legal battles with the EPA over its attempt to regulate such pollutants as mercury and smog.
Mr. Thorne is also concerned by a couple of moves in Congress that would affect scientific input at the EPA. One bill would pose a major hurdle for university scientists wanting to serve on the Science Advisory Board by barring anyone who held an EPA grant during the previous three years and making them ineligible for an EPA grant for three years after their service. People with corporate affiliations, however, would face no new restrictions.
Another bill, versions of which have been proposed for several years by House Republicans, would bar the EPA from developing new rules unless all the scientific justification involved studies for which all data were made publicly available. Given that many environmental-impact studies involve the collection of personally sensitive data, the bill is regarded by its opponents as an attempt to broadly stifle EPA regulatory processes.
While opposed to both legislative initiatives, and strongly supportive of academic experts serving on EPA advisory panels, Mr. Thorne said corporate experts have played important and constructive roles on his panel and should continue to do so. In an interview with The Chronicle, he also discussed the challenge of finding the appropriate mix of affiliations on the Science Advisory Board.
A transcript of the discussion, edited for brevity and clarity, follows.
Q. Are you concerned about the future membership of your board?
A. Whoever serves on this board has to be an absolute expert in their area. Otherwise they’re just not going to be able to follow the complexity of the discussions. So to get that kind of scientific expertise, we have to get the best people in the country to serve, whether they come from an NGO like the Environmental Defense Fund or from the American Chemistry Council, or if they come from academia. The most important thing is that they have that expertise.
And there’s a lot of vetting that goes on to ensure that there are not conflicts of interest that are going to lead to a lack of impartiality or the impression of a lack of impartiality. It wouldn’t make sense to appoint someone to the board who would be conflicted on everything the board does, and therefore they would not really be able to participate meaningfully.
Q. Right now the membership is mostly university people. Is that the way it should be, and would there be anything wrong with adding a lot more people with corporate affiliations?
A. I would hate to see a board that didn’t have sufficient representation from academia, because academicians bring a level of scholarly rigor to this that is, I think, probably the highest level. Others also bring great expertise, from places that include the Environmental Defense Fund and the Dow Chemical Company. These are outstanding scholars, but I think, by and large, the academicians are oftentimes the ones who are at the leading edge of the research and have the greatest understanding of the underlying science.
Q. Why is that not true of somebody working for Dow Chemical or ExxonMobil?
A. Companies have great training, and they’re really top-notch scientists. But they have a different perspective, and oftentimes that perspective is more on implementation, or perhaps on best practices. They bring a lot of value to the table, as do the academicians. I’m not saying one is better than the other; I’m saying that having broad representation is a good thing, and we’ve enjoyed having that, and I don’t think we need to have specific quotas in order to have that.
Q. OK, but are you getting the even-handed assessment you seek if there’s an underrepresentation of corporate experts?
A. Before I was chair, in the first several meetings, I didn’t know what people’s day jobs were — whether they were from academia or not. I knew who was an expert in water quality, who was an expert on air pollution, who was an expert on decision science, who was a biostatistician. That’s the way we function — who’s got the expertise in what areas — because we’re not there representing our institutions.
Q. Yes, but you did say earlier that people from companies were more solutions-oriented and somehow viewing the world differently than an academic might.
A. I think it’s worked very well. They get good people to serve, people declare any conflicts of interest, and there’s a formal process for that before every meeting. I haven’t seen a situation I can think of where I thought, "OK, that person is saying that because he or she works at X or Y." I haven’t seen that kind of a circumstance.
Q. What’s your view on the bill pending in Congress aimed at putting more corporate representatives on your board?
A. The part of that bill that worries me somewhat is that it seeks to exclude anybody who had EPA funding, for three years. The people who know the science the best are often the people who are engaged in the type of research we do, and many people have had support from the EPA for that research.
I think it’s the case where any conflicts or the appearance of a conflict have been managed very well by the EPA staff and by the members themselves, and I don’t see that this bill would improve upon that.
Q. When someone declares a conflict, what happens?
A. EPA staff applies federal rules on whether they can participate. Oftentimes it means they would not participate.
One example: While I was serving, my father died, and I was poised to inherit some stock that, as a special government employee, I should not hold. So I had to divest of that before taking possession to avoid a conflict of interest. It was some stock he held in the oil and gas industry.
Q. How can it be an impermissible conflict of interest for you to hold oil stock while someone from ExxonMobil can be on your board?
A. Under federal rules governing the panel, they’re not representing ExxonMobil; they’re representing themselves.
Q. Does that make sense?
A. [Long pause.] I join a board, and I learn the rules of how special government employees are vetted and selected, and how we operate, and I do all the ethics training. And in some cases, it is what it is — we play by the rules.
Q. What’s your take on the bill requiring full disclosure of all data in scientific studies used by the EPA?
A. It seems to contradict the rules of human-subjects protection of data. When we engage people in epidemiological studies, we promise them that we will try to protect their identity and their data. And I think there’s a misconception that makes the data somehow secret, just because a constituent of a congressman can’t go to the study and find out the names of the people from his neighborhood that were in the study. That doesn’t make the science secret.
There’s as much transparency in the science we do as there possibly can be, but we need to protect the identity of human subjects because we have data about people’s health — about their incomes, whether they smoke or not, in some cases how many pregnancies they had, whether they breast-fed. There’s a lot of private data there that should not be disclosed, and most Americans don’t think that should be disclosed.
There are ways to ensure the integrity of the data without disclosing that level of detail, and we do that through peer review of the science. I think it represents a misconception of what human protections are, versus what is transparency in science.
Q. Is it just a misconception, or an ulterior motive?
A. I’d be reluctant to speculate on that.
Q. A lot of questions in environmental policy seem to come down to the question of putting a particular dollar value on a human life or a year of quality life. Doesn’t that mean the questions you face are really about values rather than science?
A. It is a very complex question you ask, because if you personalize it — what is the value of my life, and to whom? — then it cuts to the core of who we are and what we think about the value of a life.
But from a larger statistical standpoint — and I think this is the important differentiation — for a statistical life over all society, we can estimate how many more lives might be saved, or years of quality life might be saved, if we lower exposure to all of society to xenobiotic X by a certain amount. And it’s essential that we do that, so that we understand that we’re applying our regulatory actions and the dollars that that costs the regulated industry or society, to benefit in terms of saving the most lives and reducing morbidity and mortality to the greatest extent.
Paul Basken covers university research and its intersection with government policy. He can be found on Twitter @pbasken, or reached by email at paul.basken@chronicle.com.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/After-One-EPA-Science-Board-Is/240049
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(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Seek Broad Recusal for EPA's Deputy Toxics Chief
May 10, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are urging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to ensure a broad recusal for Nancy Beck, the agency's deputy toxics chief, to prevent any conflict of interest given her past role as an official at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), where she represented the chemical industry on issues she will now oversee.
“Ata minimum, test orders, significant new use rules, premanufacture notices, risk evaluations and risk management actions targeted at particular chemicals manufactured by ACC members would . . . be off-limits for participation by Dr. Beck,” a coalition of groups says in a May 10 letter to Pruitt.
Beck is unlikely to be subject to such a broad recusal -- which would effectively prevent her from participating in the vast majority of agency actions to implement the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
But environmentalists warn that if Pruitt fails to ensure such a broad recusal -- and investigate and publicly disclose his findings -- it will hamper implementation of the new TSCA law, a priority for Pruitt and the chemical industry.
“You have pledged to make effective implementation of [TSCA] a high priority. Yet that commitment will be worth little to the public, and may be called into question by the courts, if your approach to implementation is dictated by the chemical industry,” they write. “Dr. Beck's appointment will likely have this unfortunate result,” they say.
Some environmentalists also had strong warnings for industry groups that seek to take advantage of any deregulatory action Beck may advance. “Every action now taken by EPA to implement these programs, absent a recusal from Dr. Beck, must be assumed to be intended to destroy the programs, and harm the Agency’s efforts to fulfill its mission,” Daniel Rosenberg of the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in a May 10 blog post.
“Toy, auto, grocery, electronic, and other manufacturers that endorse or attempt to take advantage of the current moment, are on notice that their policies may be exposed and highlighted to their customers and consumers,” he wrote.
Despite such threats, environmentalists formally ask Pruitt to “fully and transparently investigate these concerns before Dr. Beck assumes any duties in [EPA's toxics office], provide a comprehensive list of all EPA-related matters in which Dr. Beck participated while at ACC, and inform the public of the recusals and other steps you will take to assure that EPA’s science and policy decisions affecting chemicals will remain unbiased and free from improper industry influence."
As Inside EPA first reported, Beck, a top chemical industry representative and long-time critic of EPA risk assessments, joined EPA last month as the new principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), where she will play a key role implementing the revised toxics law.
At ACC, she served as director of regulatory affairs and before that as a White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) risk assessment official for almost a decade. In both roles she was a strong critic of EPA risk assessments and the agency's major risk assessment programs, roles that drew strong criticism from environmentalists and others.
While at OMB, for example, she helped write a controversial risk assessment guidance document that eventually had to be withdrawn after a critical review by the National Academy of Sciences. According to environmentalists' letter, she was also criticized in a House science committee report in 2009 for “her efforts to rewrite, weaken and delay EPA [risk] assessments.”
Environmentalists add that “the EPA assessments she sought to influence addressed chemicals that the Agency is now evaluating under” the new TSCA law.
They also cite a host of recent advocacy on ACC's behalf that they say should preclude her from involvement in EPA decisions, including comments she filed on proposed “framework” rules for implementing the new law.
Dr. Beck will be in a position to use her influence as an EPA official to reshape the proposed rules so they align with ACC's recommendations, an outcome that conflict of interest requirements are intended to prevent,” the letter says.
While they note that Beck is not registered as a lobbyist, environmentalists argue she is still subject to conflict of interest requirements, including an executive order that President Donald Trump signed shortly after taking office that the group says is subject to the order's requirements related to past “lobbying activities.”
They also urge Pruitt not to grant Beck any waivers, “either public or secret,” from any conflict-of-interest rules that would allow her to participate in agency decisions.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-seek-broad-recusal-epas-deputy-toxics-chief
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US EPA Delays Enforcement of Nano Reporting Rule
May 11, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has delayed the effective date of its nanoscale reporting rule from 12 May to 14 August.
The final rule, issued 12 January after more than a decade of debate, requires one-time reporting for existing nanoscale materials. It also imposes a standing reporting requirement on manufacturers or processors of a discrete form of a reportable chemical at least 135 days in advance of beginning their activities.
The more than three-month extension follows repeated requests for increased guidance on several aspects of the rule. As recently as at last week's EPA hearing to discuss regulations under TSCA that could be repealed, replaced or modified, some in industry were urging the agency to press pause on the measure.
Irene Hantman, an attorney with Verdant Law who represents chemical processors subject to the nanoscale reporting rule, asked the EPA to stay and amend it on the grounds that it is "overly burdensome", will "stifle innovation", and there were problems with how it was promulgated.
Ms Hantman said that the Lautenberg Act "changed key provisions of TSCA underpinning this rule", but there has not been an opportunity to comment on these.
She also claimed the rule was "unnecessarily duplicative", in contravention of TSCA requirements, as the EPA estimates it to result in nearly 30 reports for each reportable substance. And, she said, when looking at new raw materials, chemical processors are unlikely to select nanoscale materials that have a reporting burden of 175 hours for a form that has to be submitted 135 days before processing can begin.
Raleigh Davis, assistant director of environmental health and safety at the American Coatings Association (ACA), requested at the hearing that the EPA issue guidance on the rule as soon as possible, particularly in regard to its classifications as to what constitutes a reportable substance.
"There's a great amount of confusion as to whom, and what substances, are subject to this rule," he said.
But the EPA's decision to delay the rule runs against the wishes of some in the NGO community. The Environmental Defense Fund's Lindsay McCormick, for example, testified that the EPA must not further delay enforcement of the "long overdue" rule.
"The steps leading to the reporting rule included extensive review and public notice and comment over many years, and its scope and requirements were repeatedly reduced in order to lessen burdens on the private sector. If anything, this rule could have been strengthened," she said. Administrative authority
The delay will be issued as a final rule in a 12 May Federal Register notice. The agency cites a section of the Administrative Procedure Act allowing it to take such an action without opportunity for notice or comment when it "for good cause finds that notice and public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary or contrary to the public interest".
The notice says that "because of the complex issues regarding reporting requirements of the rule and the immediate pendency of the effective date of the reporting requirements," a comment period on the extension would be "impractical".
"The public interest is served by complete [and] accurate reporting under the rule, which would be greatly facilitated by publication of the guidance," it adds. It therefore finds 'good cause'.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55766/us-epa-delays-enforcement-of-nano-reporting-rule
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Manufacturers May Struggle to Keep Up w/EPA’s Aggressive Schedule to Pass New Chemical Regs
May 10, 2017 | Environmental Leader
By Jennifer Hermes
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amended the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, was passed in June of 2016 and made sweeping changes to the nation’s primary chemical law. The new law requires the EPA to implement the changes through a number of regulations, which are critical for companies to stay abreast of and respond to.
Those rules relate to reporting on chemicals active in commerce or imports, risk evaluations of those compounds, how they are used, and specific controls to prevent harmful exposures. The EPA has an aggressive schedule to implement the law, including 17 proposed rules, which it put out for comment in March, Mary Ann Grena Manley, deputy editorial director of Bloomberg BNA told Environmental Leader. With the potentially fast-moving schedule to put the law into place, manufacturers could be hard-pressed to keep up – which can lead to fines and even loss of license to practice business.
On the other hand, a better understand of state and federal requirements can help companies to not only avoid fines, but to manage resources, time, and shifting priorities. Bloomberg BNA says its new Chemicals Management Guide offers help with these challenges, providing in-depth analysis, primary source material, chart builders and guidance to help compliance professionals easily get or stay in compliance.
The Bloomberg BNA Chemicals Management Guide offers a blueprint for Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the chemical regulatory frameworks for each state and links that information to the company’s proprietary collection of integrated environmental, health and safety laws, regulations and agency documents.
Ignoring chemical compliance laws can be costly. Last month, two California retailers faced millions of dollars for improperly disposing of hazardous waste, including products with toxic chemicals. Big Lots was found to have been disposing hazardous waste into its trash bins at stores throughout California, as well as transporting hazardous waste to landfills not permitted to receive such waste, and was ordered to pay more than $3.5 million in fines, while Dollar General parent company was ordered to pay $1.125 million as a settlement in a lawsuit alleging that Dollar General retail stores throughout the state illegally disposed of hazardous waste in waste bins at retail and distribution locations, and that toxic and corrosive items were routinely being sent to landfills that were not permitted to receive that type of waste.
In Virginia, factories and other facilities released about 35 million pounds of toxic chemicals into land, air and water in 2005, according to the EPA (via Capital News Service). More than half of that pollution came from just five facilities, including the Honeywell International plant in Hopewell. That plant paid more than $700,000 in fines for violations of the Clean Air and Water Act, and paid $3 million in penalties. Honeywell has spent more than $50 million on EHS improvements since 2010, a company spokesperson said.
In Massachusetts, two companies have also been fined for chemical violations. An Eastman Chemical subsidiary Solutia Inc., which produces synthetic organic chemical products like plastics and adhesives using a highly flammable vinyl acetate monomer, has been ordered to pay a civil penalty of more than $15,000. And an inspection of nearby Performance Food Group found unsafe conditions relating to the company’s use of anhydrous ammonia for its refrigeration system, according to Chem.Info. The company also failed to file a required risk management plan relating to storing large amounts of the chemical. The company was ordered by the EPA to pay more than $184,000 in fines.
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2017/05/overhauled-tsca-confuses-companies-bloomberg-bna-says-primary-source-material-can-help/
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(ACC Mentioned) European Food Regulator Strikes Down Splenda Cancer Study
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Europe's food safety regulator has taken aim at a study on a popular artificial sweetener and cancer, the latest rebuttal of questions about the safety of low-calorie sugar substitutes.
The European Food Safety Authority issued a statement May 8 on the validity of findings in a study last year of sucralose, the main ingredient in Splenda, saying the data in the study did not support the authors’ conclusions that the sweetener could lead to cancer in laboratory mice.
The study was led by scientists at the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, and continues a simmering debate on the methods the institute employs to study potentially carcinogenic substances.
It's not the first time EFSA has criticized the Institute's work. The regulatory agency has repeatedly downplayed Ramazzini's studies tying aspartame, another low-calorie additive, to cancer.
The U.S. government has also questioned the institute's studies. In 2010, the National Toxicology Program criticized the Institute's findings for three fuel additives, causing a delay in the Environmental Protection Agency's assessments of the chemicals. Earlier this year, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said it would look into the National Institutes of Health's grants to the Ramazzini Institute and contracts. NIH has sent about $92 million since 2009 to the institute.
The institute's methods stands out from the standard practices of cancer research, a position that has opened it to pans, but also praise from groups who say it better reflects human exposure.
Difficult Data, No Cause-Effect Link
“I think [the EFSA statement] adds to the skepticism that has existed,” Alan Boobis, a professor of toxicology at Imperial College in London, told Bloomberg BNA. Boobis is also a board member of the International Life Science Institute (ILSI) Europe, which counts a number of food and beverage companies as members.
Specifically, EFSA questioned the sucralose study's design, which considers sucralose intake from the fetal stage to the natural death of the test animals. This introduces a broad range of factors that could create misclassifications and make the data more difficult to interpret, said the panel that undertook the review.
The panel also noted a lack of a dose-response relationship between sucralose intake and the incidence of lymphomas and leukemias, and the failure to establish the cause-effect relationship for epidemiological studies. In addition, there was no reliable evidence that the mice's genes were affected by ingesting sucralose—a key consideration in the development of cancer.
“The available data did not support the conclusions of the authors ... that sucralose induced haematopoietic neoplasias in male Swiss mice,” the panel said in its statement. Haematopoietic neoplasias indicate the development of leukemia or lymphoma.
The institute uses a particular study design that is unusual for the type of research it does, Boobis said. There is no formal external quality assurance procedure, which is required under the “Good Laboratory Practices” standards set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Outside researchers have also pointed to the prevalence of similar infections in Ramazzini's test animals. The inflammation can confuse the results of the studies, he added.
A representative from the Institute could not be reached for comment. But Lisa Lefferts, a senior scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, defended the institute's way of conducting its experiments.
Ramazzini's methods are tailored to the longer studies they conduct, Lefferts said. Humans are more likely to get cancer later in life, and experimental studies that end too soon are less likely to capture those incidences of cancer. The study, which ran for nearly 10 years, also accounted for exposure to fetuses.
“It mirrors the situation to consumers and is more likely to detect cancer,” Lefferts told Bloomberg BNA. “They exceed Good Laboratory Practices, in my view.”
EFSA ‘Notorious’ for Industry-Friendly Stance
The center, which maintains a ranking of food additives’ safety, downgraded sucralose from “caution” to “avoid” last year as a result of the Ramazzini Institute's paper. The center announced May 9 it would continue to advise consumers to avoid the sweetener, despite EFSA's dismissal of the findings.
“EFSA is notorious for having industry-friendly opinions and for conflicts of interests on its panels,” the organization said in a statement. CSPI did add that risks of eating too much sugar—diabetes, heart disease, and obesity—far outweigh the cancer risk posed by artificial sweeteners.
The bigger question, Boobis said, is whether such experiments on animals are appropriate for cancer studies. A study without the proper controls and methods raises ethical questions on the use of test animals, he said. The issue has greater significance in Europe, where animal welfare laws spur a higher standard for animal experiments.
If the study's design was flawed from the beginning, “why use the animals in the first place for this purpose?” Boobis said.
The EFSA move also drew praise from the maker of Splenda sweetener and critics of the Institute's practices.
“EFSA's decision puts good science first, and it is consistent with the movement to bring greater scrutiny to poorly designed studies that draw false conclusions and unjustifiably alarm consumers,” said the Heartland Food Products Group, the Carmel, Ind., producer of zero-calorie sweeteners and water flavorings.
The Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research, an American Chemistry Council -funded campaign aimed at reforming certain European scientific bodies such as Ramazzini and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, also slammed the institute.
“We should all demand integrity in the scientific process particularly when used to determine public policy,” spokeswoman Ana Heeren said in an email.
The European agency's statement is good news for the industry following a study published in the scientific journal Stroke that found a link between artificially sweetened soft drinks and stroke and dementia.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=111106998&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499659500&searchid=29875508&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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Hugo Boss Commits to Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals
May 10, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Luxury fashion brand Hugo Boss has become a signatory brand to the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) programme.
The German company joins 22 others which have signed up, including Adidas, Burberry, H&M, Benetton and Esprit.
Signatories support the programme’s goal to implement sustainable chemistry in the textile, leather and footwear industry.
A spokesperson for Hugo Boss told Chemical Watch: "By joining the initiative, we want to move forward on the way towards a more sustainable chemical management in the global supply chain. We believe this can only be achieved through joint efforts in leading initiatives, such as the ZDHC."
Hugo Boss already has a restricted substances list (RSL), which its suppliers are required to comply with and sign a warranty declaration of compliance.
Six other organisations also signed up to the ZDHC programme as value chain affiliates and associates this week.
Value chain affiliates:Dr Petry Textile Auxiliaries;TFL; andUL Consumer & Retail Services.
Associates:TEGEWA;Ecological and Toxicological Association of Dyes and Organic Pigments Manufacturers (ETAD); andTaiwan Textile Federation (TTF).
Dr Petry Textile Auxiliaries told Chemical Watch it supported ZDHC because "as a chemical company we commit ourselves to protect the environment and the safety and health of those who are getting directly or indirectly in contact with our products."
TFL said it became a value chain affiliate "because it is a programme which addresses the use of hazardous substances in an efficient and pragmatic way, respecting many RSLs of individual brands and major regulations."
UL Consumer & Retail Services said it was looking to identify the areas in which its contribution and knowledge could provide support to the ZDHC programme’s progress – particularly through testing, audit related activities and training.
ETAD, an association of 46 international colourants producers, said it had been collaborating with the programme since its foundation and had decided to become an associate "to continue our advocacy work for the use of safe chemicals and a sensible approach to chemical management in the supply chain".
The ZDHC programme began in 2011 with six leading brands and today has 23 signatory brands, 27 value chain affiliates and 13 associates.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55502/hugo-boss-commits-to-zero-discharge-of-hazardous-chemicals
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Methane Rule Under Fire at Interior After Surviving Senate
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski and Rachel Leven
Regulations on the venting and flaring of natural gas survived a Senate attempt to nix them but may not be so lucky with an Interior Department eager to whittle them down or kill them altogether.
“The department has reviewed and flagged the waste-prevention rule as one we will suspend, revise or rescind given its significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation,” said Kate MacGregor, acting assistant secretary of the Interior for land and minerals, in a statement issued after the Senate vote.
Oil and gas companies have already begun doing work to prepare for the rule's first notable compliance deadline—Jan. 17, 2018. Many companies such as Continental Resources Inc., Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Devon Energy Corp. operate on federal and tribal lands primarily in Western states.
The Senate May 10 rejected, on a 49-51 vote, a motion to consider a resolution that would have killed the Interior rule issued in November requiring cuts in methane and other emissions from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands. The vote—which represented the Senate's only chance to overturn the regulation under the Congressional Review Act—put the ball back in Interior's court on the waste prevention rule, written by the Bureau of Land Management.
“The rule is expected to have real and harmful impacts on onshore energy development and could impact state and local jobs and revenue,” MacGregor said. “Small independent oil and gas producers in states like North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico, which account for a substantial portion of our nation's energy wealth, could be hit the hardest.”
Defenders of the rule in the Senate said it will reduce waste and help protect human health and the environment. Methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas.
‘Most Onerous New Regulation’
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“From my perspective, this is the most onerous new regulation,” said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, when she spoke to Bloomberg BNA in advance of the Senate vote.
North Dakota has many wells in which gas is burned off, or flared, because not enough gas pipeline infrastructure exists to take the gas to markets when it comes to the surface along with oil.
“This regulation will particularly impact small-producing, marginal wells located on federal lands. Shutting in these smaller wells means less royalties will get sent back to the federal Treasury,” said Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, in a statement expressing disappointment at the Senate vote.
“IPAA looks forward to working with the Interior Department on a targeted, meaningful solution,” Russell said.
Senators for Rewrite, Not Nullification
The prospect of Interior action is one reason Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted against nullifying the regulations, though it meant going against most of his fellow Republicans. Two other Republicans voting against nullification were Maine's Susan Collins and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham.
“I believe that the public interest is best served if the Interior Department issues a new rule to revise and improve the BLM methane rule,” McCain said in a statement explaining his vote.
He said he was especially troubled by the Congressional Review Act provision that says no “substantially similar” rule can be issued after the Senate has rescinded a rule under the act.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) expressed very similar reasons for opposing the rollback—anticipating Interior will revise the rule and not wanting to tie the hands of regulators with a vote that would bar any substantially similar rule. There had been much speculation that she would vote with most Republicans.
Barrasso to Talk to Zinke
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who introduced the Congressional Review Act resolution to kill the BLM rule, told reporters he was disappointed but would follow up with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to get the rule withdrawn immediately.
“I'm going to have that discussion with him shortly,” said Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “I've talked to him before. He knows how so many of us feel about this rule.”
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a defender of the BLM rule and the ranking member of the committee, said it was not a total surprise that McCain voted against the rollback.
“He's a maverick. He's a free spirit,” Carper said. “I think he looked at the facts, and—this is a way for us to conserve the resources that belong to all of the public, it's the way to actually provide additional revenues to Treasury at a time we very much need those, and this is a way for us to actually improve the quality of our air.”
Lawsuits to Continue
Litigation against the rule is expected to continue. Lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming by the state governments of Montana, North Dakota, Texas and Wyoming and by two industry groups, Western Energy Alliance and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
The states and industry associations said the BLM exceeded its authority by trying to regulate air emissions, an Environmental Protection Agency responsibility (Wyoming v. Interior, D. Wyo., No. 2:16-cv-285, 11/18/16).
The litigation would have gone away if the Senate had nullified the rule, Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, told Bloomberg BNA before the vote.
The most recent actions in the consolidated litigation were requests for a briefing schedule to argue the merits of the cases.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=111106999&vname=dennotallissues&fn=111106999&jd=111106999
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Methane Repeal Fails in Senate as McConnell Falls a Vote Shy
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Senate failed May 10 to advance a measure to repeal a rule loathed by oil and natural gas companies, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suffered a rare legislative defeat by just one vote.
The 49-51 procedural vote means a resolution to nullify the regulation from the Bureau of Land Management fell short after passing the House. Democrats united against the measure and were joined by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and John McCain. Graham and Collins had long said they opposed the repeal, but McCain was a surprise no vote.
“We actually thought we had just enough,” said Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican who supported the repeal. “But as it turns out we lost three and didn't get any help from the Democrats.“
The vote followed a tense Senate session as the Capitol was reeling from President Donald Trump's surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey the night before. All Democratic members were urged to attend the chamber's opening statements, during which McConnell rejected calls for a special investigative committee to probe Russian involvement in the presidential election. McCain was one of the Republicans who had called for the special committee.
Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, also objected to a routine request to allow committees to continue meeting longer than two hours, citing the firing of Comey.
Opposition by Manchin, Heitkamp
Before the vote, two Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, were mentioned by lobbyists as possible supporters of the methane measure, but both opposed it in the end. Vice President Mike Pence was at the Capitol in case his vote was needed as a tie breaker in a sign that McConnell thought the vote would be close.
Hoeven said McCain had initially said he would vote with Republicans, but then late last night told proponents he “had some concerns.”
McCain said he was concerned that Bureau of Land Management would be barred from regulating on the issue again, because the the Congressional Review Act bars agencies from issuing new regulations that are substantially similar.
“Improving the control of methane emissions is an important public health and air quality issue,” McCain said in a statement after the vote. “While I am concerned that the BLM rule may be onerous, passage of the resolution would have prevented the federal government, under any administration, from issuing a rule that is ‘similar.’ “
Mark Brownstein, vice president of the climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund said “Once again, John McCain demonstrates that he is a voice of common sense and reason in the Senate.”
Accidental Leaks
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso said the failure to get majority vote to proceed means the measure is dead. “The time has expired,” the Republican chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee said.
The rule, finalized by the Obama administration in November, requires oil and gas companies to plug accidental leaks of methane, the primary component of natural gas, and scale back the practice of intentionally venting or burning the gas as they extract more profitable crude oil. It is estimated to cost companies such as EOG Resources Inc., XTO Energy Inc. and other producers on federal lands $279 million annually.
The Interior Department is already reviewing the venting and flaring regulation. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been critical of the “waste” associated with venting and flaring. “It's the taxpayers’ oil and gas resource,” Zinke said in an interview. “To waste it, for future generations, I've never been very comfortable with that.“
The loss also was a defeat for oil producers that had been aggressively pushing Senate leaders to hold the vote.
Technically Flawed
The American Petroleum Institute, which criticizes the rule as “technically flawed” and overlapping with existing state regulations, said it would push for the administrative changes.
“While it is disappointing that the Senate did not act to correct the rule more quickly, we look forward to working with the administration on policies that continue our commitment to safely produce the energy that Americans rely on,” Erik Milito, an API group director, said in an emailed statement.
The vote took place under the expedited procedures of the Congressional Review Act. Until President Donald Trump was elected, the act, created in 1996, had only been used once in 2001 to overturn a regulation a Labor Department ergonomics rule issued by the Clinton administration.
Trump has signed into law more than a dozen CRA measures to block regulations issued by his predecessor, including rules related to bear hunting by airplane in Alaska, gun purchases by the mentally ill and protections for streams from the effects of coal mining.
And now time is running out to use the measure. Congress only has 60 legislative days of a rules’ enactment to pass a CRA under a simple majority vote, and that is estimated to expire May 11.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=111106996&vname=dennotallissues&fn=111106996&jd=111106996
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May 10, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Chelsea Harvey
The Senate on Wednesday narrowly blocked a resolution to repeal an Obama-era rule restricting methane emissions from drilling operations on public lands — with three Republicans joining every Democrat to preserve the rule.
The 51-to-49 vote on a procedural motion marked the first time since Trump’s election that Republicans have failed in their attempt to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn Obama-era rules. Thirteen other resolutions, based on the 1996 law that allows Congress to overturn rules within 60 legislative workdays of their adoption, have succeeded.
Thursday is the deadline for using the Congressional Review Act this way.
The methane emissions rule, issued by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management in November, addresses a potent greenhouse gas that is accelerating climate change.
[Trump officials turn to courts to block Obama-era legacy]
The rule would force oil and gas companies to capture methane that had been previously burned off or “flared” at drilling sites. According to federal estimates, the rule would prevent roughly 180,000 tons a year of methane from escaping into the atmosphere and would boost federal revenue between $3 million and $13 million a year because firms only pay royalties on the oil and gas they capture and contain.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) unexpectedly voted no against a motion to proceed with consideration of the resolution, along with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.). Two Democrats who had considered backing the rule’s elimination — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — voted against the motion, and sent a letter asking Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to make it less burdensome.
In a floor speech after the vote, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), said “the very first victory” lawmakers have had in beating back a Congressional Review Act bill this year came from a combination of Democratic unity and a few Republicans’ willingness to buck their leadership. “Thank you so much for coming forward and seeing the common-sense nature of this issue,” Udall said, referring to Collins, Graham and McCain.
[Earth could break through a major climate threshold in the next 15 years, scientists warn]
Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society, hailed the vote as an example of how grass-roots organizing can work. “In recent months, thousands of Americans asked the Senate to stand up for clean air and against the oil lobby, and their efforts were successful today,” he said.
Republicans and industry officials said they would now switch their focus to getting the Interior Department to rewrite the rule, and Trump officials confirmed Thursday they would seek to either change or pull it back altogether.
Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said his group “looks forward to working with the Interior Department on a targeted, meaningful solution that will achieve the common goal of ensuring the American taxpayers receive a fair and equitable return in the form of royalties while developing a workable regulation, instead of this one-size-fits-all approach.”
[EPA dismisses half of key board’s scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels]
And Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement that Interior should withdraw the regulation outright. “If left in place, this regulation will only discourage energy production, job creation, and economic opportunity across the West.”
Kate MacGregor, Interior’s acting assistant secretary for land and minerals, said in a statement that as part of President Trump’s energy plan and related executive order, Interior “has reviewed and flagged the Waste Prevention rule as one we will suspend, revise or rescind given its significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation.”
“The vote today in the Senate doesn’t impact the administration’s commitment to spurring investment in responsible energy development and ensuring smart regulatory protections,” she added.
Before this year, Congress had only nullified one rule, a regulation on ergonomics former president Bill Clinton enacted during his final year in office. In less than four months, Republicans have wiped away rules covering everything from limits on the dumping of waste from surface-mining operations to enlarging states’ power to offer retirement accounts to private-sector workers.
But the move to strike a rule requiring companies to limit the practice of flaring, or leaking, methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal land had given some Republicans — who control 52 seats in the Senate — pause. FollowSenate Press Gallery ✔@SenatePress
#senate vote on HJ Res 36, the CRA on the methane rule was NOT agreed to 49-51. Collins, Graham and McCain joined all Dems/IND against.5:27 PM - 10 May 2017 272272 Retweets 594594 likes
Many Republicans and fossil-fuel producers criticized the regulation after it was finalized last year, and a resolution to repeal it passed quickly in the House of Representatives at the end of January. But despite Trump’s support, the repeal measure had been sitting in the Senate for months. It had to pass by Thursday to be eligible to be signed into law.
Democrats, as well as environmental and public-health groups, ran a months-long campaign to persuade Heitkamp and Manchin not to disclose their position publicly while arguing to centrist Republicans that abolishing the rule would cost taxpayers money as well as harm the environment.
[Trump undertakes the most ambitious regulatory rollback since Reagan]
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) also remained on the fence until Monday, when he announced in a statement that he would vote to overturn the BLM regulation. Two other wavering Republicans, Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Dean Heller (Nev.), ultimately joined Portman in voting to proceed with the bill’s consideration.
“Unfortunately, the previous administration’s methane rule was not a balanced approach,” Portman said. “As written, it would have hurt our economy and cost jobs in Ohio by forcing small independent operators to close existing wells and slowing responsible energy production on federal lands. There’s a better way.”
He added that he believes the Interior Department should still work to reduce venting and flaring on public lands. Last week, Portman wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, calling for a commitment that the department would continue to work to reduce methane waste if the Obama rule were reversed. On May 4, Zinke responded, affirming that “the Department is committed to reducing methane waste, and under my leadership, we will take important steps to accomplish this goal.”
Environmentalists urged Portman to reconsider. In a statement on Tuesday, Environmental Defense Action Fund Executive Director Fred Krupp said Zinke’s assurances were “unfounded” and argued that the strategies for reducing methane waste outlined in his letter would have little impact.
A coalition of industry groups have argued that they are taking steps to reduce fugitive methane emissions because they recognize capturing them can yield additional profits. The American Petroleum Institute noted that the Environmental Protection Agency data, released in March, shows about an 8 percent drop in methane emissions from petroleum production since 2014, largely because of improved gas venting and flaring techniques.
The legislative window for Congressional Review Act resolutions to be considered ends Thursday, though a handful of conservative analysts believe that agencies’ failure to submit a two-page report on previous rules to Congress could open the door to reconsideration of dozens of much older rules.
Curtis W. Copeland, a regulatory expert who specialized in American government at the Congressional Research Service, said in an email that regardless of how many rules this Congress ultimately overturns, “The CRA can no longer be described as ‘obscure’ or ‘little known.’ It now has to be viewed as a substantive tool of congressional oversight regarding an outgoing President’s rules, and it is likely be used again in the future.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/10/senates-poised-to-repeal-a-final-obama-era-rule-as-soon-as-wednesday/?utm_term=.0bac12832ffc
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Interior Vows Action on Methane Rule after Senate Vote Fails
May 10, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar and Kellie Lunney
The Interior Department this afternoon signaled its intent to overhaul an Obama-era rule on methane waste from oil and gas operations after the Republican-controlled Senate failed today to scuttle the regulation.
"As part of President Trump's America-First Energy Strategy and executive order, the Department has reviewed and flagged the Waste Prevention rule as one we will suspend, revise or rescind given its significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation," Kate MacGregor, Interior's acting assistant secretary for land and minerals, said in a statement.
"The vote today in the Senate doesn't impact the Administration's commitment to spurring investment in responsible energy development and ensuring smart regulatory protections," she added.
The Bureau of Land Management rule was designed to limit emissions of planet-warming methane from the oil and gas sector, the largest industrial emitter. It requires producers operating on public and tribal lands to incrementally reduce the amount of natural gas vented or flared from wells by capturing more of it over time.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke previously indicated in a letter to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) that the department would "engage in a robust assessment" of all venting and flaring requirements to ensure industries aren't wasting natural resources or taxpayer money.
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He also told Portman, who was wavering on whether to support striking down the regulation, that Interior 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.
Those commitments convinced the Ohio moderate to vote for the rule repeal, which fell short by one vote of moving forward this morning (Greenwire, May 10). Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona — sided with Democrats who voted against moving ahead with the measure.
It's unclear if Zinke will follow the plan he outlined to Portman or devise a new one in light of the failed repeal attempt. Environmentalists have questioned whether such actions would have the effect of reducing methane emissions (Energywire, May 10).
Industry groups were disappointed by the Senate vote but welcomed the news that Interior doesn't plan to let the methane regulations stand as is.
Nevertheless, oil and gas companies will have to start complying with the many provisions of the regulation in January, according to Robert Dillon, spokesman for the American Council for Capital Formation, which opposes BLM's venting and flaring rule. As a result, companies must review their budgets this summer and decide whether it makes more economic sense to comply or shut down production.
"The big thing is uncertainty for companies who don't have time to wait for Interior to unwind the rule," Dillon said.
Supporters of the rule, meanwhile, were critical of MacGregor's announcement. The promise to revise or rescind the rule amounts to the Trump administration "saving the day for the oil and gas special interests who weren't able to muster even a Senate majority to kill the rule," said Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen's Congress Watch.Other rules on the chopping block
MacGregor's comments represent the second firm commitment the department has made to alter or eliminate any of the four oil and gas industry-related rules that Trump's March 28 directive said could "unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources."
Interior previously announced that it was rescinding BLM's high-profile and much-litigated hydraulic fracturing rule, which set new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracked wells on tribal and public lands (Energywire, March 17).
The department hasn't publicly weighed in on two less controversial rules governing drilling in national wildlife refuges and parks that were also targeted by the executive order (Greenwire, April 25).
Zinke was due to receive a report from his deputy secretary advising him on how to comply with Trump's energy directive, but the secretary is currently out in Utah reviewing national monuments, as called for in a separate executive order (Greenwire, May 10).
Interior didn't immediately respond to a request for more information on how it plans to proceed on the methane, refuges or parks rules.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/05/10/stories/1060054372
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Democratic Senators Urge Zinke to Overhaul BLM Methane Rule
May 10, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Scott Streater
Two Democratic senators are urging Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to revise an Obama-era methane waste prevention rule after it narrowly survived a Senate vote to repeal it.
Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) sent a two-page letter to Zinke only hours after the Senate voted down a Congressional Review Act resolution that would have killed the Bureau of Land Management rule designed to control methane emissions from thousands of oil and natural gas drilling operations on federal and Native American lands.
Heitkamp and Manchin joined their Democratic colleagues and three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona — in defeating the resolution, 49-51, and preserving the controversial rule (Greenwire, May 10).
But in their letter to Zinke, Heitkamp and Manchin acknowledged that the rule finalized near the end of the Obama administration "contains significant flaws," and they requested Zinke "take the necessary steps to promulgate a revised or new rule."
"Put simply, we believe the BLM erred in its development of the rule and failed to adequately consider credible concerns raised by industry stakeholders and tribes with active oil and gas production on federal and Indian lands," they wrote.
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While the rule was intended to ensure that taxpayers get a fair return on the resources extracted on public lands, "we believe the BLM overreached and created some areas of duplication — and in the case of Indian lands, the BLM improperly included lands that are not federal lands without proper consultation. Therefore, significant modifications to the rule must be pursued."
The Trump administration has indicated it will do so.
Kate MacGregor, Interior's acting assistant secretary for land and minerals, said in a statement yesterday that the agency will take steps to "suspend, revise or rescind" the rule going forward (E&E News PM, May 10).
"We agree with the Administration's call to review this rule — and ask that in reviewing the rule the Administration meet with affected industry stakeholders, tribes, and state regulators on making the necessary revisions," the letter says.
But the letter prompted a dismissive response yesterday from Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso (R), who voted in favor of the CRA resolution and has called on Zinke to withdraw the rule.
"Letters to the secretary are nice, but when given the opportunity to immediately remove this punishing regulation, the Senators voted no," Barrasso, who leads the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement.
Heitkamp issued her own statement after the vote, acknowledging that the methane rule "is not perfect." That's why, she said, "I'm encouraging the administration to work with industry, landowners, and tribes to make the changes necessary so the rule is more effective and efficient rather than overturn it."
But she said she could not vote for the resolution, noting that using a CRA resolution to kill a regulation prevents BLM or any other agency from proposing anything similar in the future, thereby limiting strategies to prevent waste.
"I'm concerned that both this administration — and future administrations — would be precluded from addressing waste of a valuable public resource" if the CRA resolution was approved, she said.
A BLM methane waste prevention rule is needed to prevent the venting and flaring of natural gas on federal lands, she said.
BLM worked for five years on the rule, which the Obama administration said would allow more natural gas to be sold and prevent the escape of methane and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
In their letter to Zinke, the senators noted that about 462 billion cubic feet of natural gas was burned off into the atmosphere between 2009 and 2015 from oil and gas wells on federally owned lands. That, they wrote, represents "a substantial loss of royalties to the American taxpayer."
"Given these findings of waste, there is a clear and corresponding need to improve the methods used to ensure a better return for taxpayers," they wrote. "Therefore, we urge you to modify the Methane Waste Prevention Rule in a manner that ensures an adequate return of royalties to the Treasury, while also preventing an unnecessary decline in oil and gas production on public lands."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/05/11/stories/1060054395
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Rulemaking, Legal Options Remain after CRA Fails
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King and Ellen M. Gilmer
A Senate vote yesterday may have torpedoed one tine of a multipronged push to kill an Obama-era rule to control methane waste on public lands, but other options to repeal or modify the regulation are still on the table.
The deadline has passed on the Interior Department's 21-day review of the Bureau of Land Management's Methane and Waste Prevention Rule. While the agency has not yet shared the results of its review, changes to the rule are likely, Kate MacGregor, acting assistant secretary of Land and Minerals Management, said in a statement yesterday (E&E News PM, May 10).
"As part of President Trump's America-First Energy Strategy and executive order, the Department has reviewed and flagged the Waste Prevention rule as one we will suspend, revise or rescind given its significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation," MacGregor said.
If the Senate had succeeded in its effort to pass a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution disapproving the BLM rule, the regulation would have been immediately scrapped, and the agency would have been barred from reintroducing a "substantially similar" rule.
After months of delay, a motion to proceed to the resolution did not secure the support of a simple majority in the upper chamber, failing 49-51 (Greenwire, May 10).
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"The vote today in the Senate doesn't impact the Administration's commitment to spurring investment in responsible energy development and ensuring smart regulatory protections," MacGregor said in her statement.
Oil and gas industry groups, some of the chief proponents of the CRA, bemoaned the loss of their most efficient avenue to avoid the costs of implementing the BLM rule. The Western Energy Alliance has estimated that the regulation would cost producers $1.26 billion per year — far above BLM's maximum calculation of $279 million annually.
"We had three tools in our toolkit to overturn the ill-conceived BLM methane rule," said Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma. "With the failure of the CRA in the Senate today, we'll continue with our other two tools, litigation and the rulemaking process."
Sgamma said the alliance will work with Interior to extract the elements of the BLM rule that focus on air quality control, which industry sees as strictly the purview of U.S. EPA and states. The Western Energy Alliance has supported keeping provisions of the BLM rule related to regulating waste (Energywire, Feb. 1).
"BLM has neither the authority nor expertise to regulate air quality, and we know that [Interior] Secretary [Ryan] Zinke understands that fact," Sgamma said. "While we were hoping for a clean break through the CRA process, we will just roll up our sleeves and continue to work to overturn this rule."
Alexandra Teitz, previously a counselor to former BLM Director Neil Kornze, questioned Interior's appetite to excise only some parts of the BLM rule.
"Thus far, they have not shown an interest in picking and choosing," she said.
Under President Obama, BLM spent years working on the rulemaking, holding numerous public forums, stakeholder meetings and state consultations (Energywire, April 18). President Trump's Interior will have to show a reasonable basis for making changes to the rule, Teitz said.
"In order to come to different conclusions, they're going to have to show how that record supports not regulating waste," she said. "I think that will be very difficult."
The record will set the tone for the forthcoming administrative review, said Mark Brownstein, vice president in the climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund.
"My hope is that as officials at Interior and EPA begin to understand the extensive record that was developed over the course of developing the rules that they'll see that both sets of rules are well-grounded in science, law and fact — and economics," he said. "But whether they come to that understanding or not, we're going to be in there fighting for what makes sense."In the courtroom
Gas flares at an oil well site in Mountrail County, N.D. Photo by Wes Peck, courtesy of Flickr.
The failed CRA effort also puts renewed pressure on the active legal battle over the Obama administration's rule.
Oil and gas industry groups and four states sued in federal court after Interior finalized the regulation in November. They say the rule treads on states' regulatory turf and amounts to an air quality measure that goes beyond BLM's authority.
The challenge includes the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), Western Energy Alliance, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Texas. On the other side, California, New Mexico and several environmental groups have lined up in support of the rule.
As the CRA window narrowed in recent weeks, industry lawyers urged the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming to review the case quickly. Holland & Hart LLP attorney Eric Waeckerlin, representing the industry groups, said judicial review was urgent in light of looming January 2018 deadlines for strict provisions of the rule, which operators must begin preparing for this summer (Energywire, May 9).
"We definitely wanted to give the CRA process a chance to work out," he said earlier this week. "It's kind of been this weird game of chicken and egg. You're just kind of trying to make the best decisions in light of a lot of uncertainty."
Industry lawyers pushed the court to make key legal briefs due in June and July, rather than adopting a slower schedule favored by BLM. But the court yesterday agreed to the agency's proposed schedule, with briefs due later in the summer. Judge Scott Skavdahl noted yesterday that the schedule would still allow him to consider the case and make a decision before the January 2018 compliance deadlines.
If preliminary proceedings in the case are any indication, opponents of the rule may have a sympathetic ear in the courtroom. In January, Skavdahl, an Obama appointee, rejected their request to freeze the rule while litigation played out but seemed receptive to their core arguments, expressing serious concerns about elements of the rule and an underlying cost-benefit analysis that focused on environmental gains.
He wrote that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is "outside of BLM's expertise, and not attributable to the purported waste prevention purpose of the Rule" (Energywire, Jan. 17).
"The district court judge expressed grave doubts about BLM's authority to regulate air quality, and we and the states will continue to press that point," Western Energy Alliance's Sgamma said in a statement.
It's unclear how the Trump administration will move forward in the litigation. In several other recent cases, government lawyers have asked courts to pause legal proceedings while agencies rethink various regulations.
If Skavdahl were to freeze this case, the methane rule would remain in effect until the Interior Department completes a process to rescind or revise it. The agency's final decision — and any attempt to pause compliance requirements in the interim — would be subject to new legal challenges.
IPAA said it stands ready to defend its challenge of the BLM rule.
"This regulation will particularly impact small-producing, marginal wells located on federal lands," IPAA CEO Barry Russell said in a statement yesterday. "Shutting-in these smaller wells means less royalties will get sent back to the federal Treasury. These federal dollars are vital for many western economies and are used to fund state and local priorities, such as education and infrastructure projects like roads and bridges."Western response
La Plata County, Colo., Commissioner Gwen Lachelt and New Mexico rancher Don Schreiber traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to continue their push against scrapping the Bureau of Land Management's methane rule under the Congressional Review Act. Photo by Pamela King.
The on-the-ground budget impacts of the BLM methane rule have been the subject of heated debate out West.
Opponents of the rule say it could shut in production from small independent operators (Energywire, Feb. 21).
"It's just a way to shut down more oil and gas is all it is," Shawn Bolton, commissioner for Colorado's Rio Blanco County, said after the Senate vote yesterday. "This isn't about wasted taxpayer dollars. This is just another one of these rules that's another hit to oil and gas."
Western supporters of the BLM rule said their economies — and their health — could take a hit if the regulation is wiped from the books (Energywire, Feb. 15).
Two of the rule's most vocal Western supporters — Don Schreiber, a New Mexico rancher, and Gwen Lachelt, a commissioner in Colorado's La Plata County — traveled to Washington to attend the Senate vote yesterday.
Before the vote, Lachelt had the chance to chase down Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose last-minute change of heart on the CRA resolution was a major factor in its defeat.
She followed the former presidential candidate from the Senate dining room to an elevator, where she told him how Colorado's own methane rules are improving air quality conditions in most of the state — except its southwest corner, which is close to less-regulated oil and gas fields in Utah and New Mexico.
Lachelt said she's not certain whether her story convinced McCain to vote against the resolution.
"It sure didn't hurt," she said.
Schreiber's ranch abuts public land where flaring takes place. The BLM rule offers landowners who are normally powerless an avenue to require the agency to act on their behalf, he said.
"The change of having a federal policy in place is indescribable," Schreiber said. "It is best summarized as hope and support and possibility."
Unlike the CRA, Schreiber said, a rulemaking or legal action allows additional voices to be heard — even if the outcome isn't what he desired.
"I'll live with that," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/11/stories/1060054376
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Regardless of BLM Rule's Fate, State Regs Seen as 'Win-Win-Win'
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Maxine Joselow
At the federal level, the Senate voted yesterday against repealing a Bureau of Land Management rule that regulates methane waste on public lands. But at the state level, support for methane regulations is alive and well among a growing chorus of environmentalists, politicians and industry leaders.
Three Republicans joined Democrats to defeat the measure that would have repealed the BLM methane rule under the Congressional Review Act (Greenwire, May 10).
But regardless of the BLM methane rule's fate, five states have implemented rules that regulate methane from oil and gas production facilities within their borders. California, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming have all adopted rules that apply to new or existing facilities.
Colorado led the charge among states in 2014, implementing what are considered stringent regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas flaring, venting and leakage. The BLM methane rule, which took three years to finalize, was based on Colorado's rule.
In March, California became the most recent state to adopt a methane rule after the California Air Resources Board lent its unanimous approval to the stringent measure (Energywire, March 24).
In California and beyond, state-level methane rules have received support from a growing group of environmental nonprofits, research firms, politicians and business interests.
Among this group, a common refrain is that state-level methane rules are a "win-win-win." The phrase suggests these rules benefit three key parties: the environment, the economy and the job market.
"Cutting methane leaks really is that win-win-win," said Andrew Williams, senior state regulatory and legislative affairs manager at the Environmental Defense Fund. "By cutting the natural gas waste, you're keeping the good, high-paying jobs that can't be exported overseas, while at the same time you're cleaning up the air."
"When a lot of methane leaks into the atmosphere, it's doubly harmful because it contributes to climate change more than carbon dioxide, and companies waste their product," said Marcy Lowe, CEO of Datu Research LLC, a firm that has analyzed data on state-level methane rules. "It really is a win-win-win because it creates jobs, helps the environment, and saves the oil and gas operators' wasted product."The proof is in the report
To back up their claims about the benefits and impact of state-level methane rules, many people point to a Datu Research report that surveyed the methane leak detection and repair (LDAR) industry nationwide.
The report found that at least 60 companies provide LDAR services to oil and gas companies in 45 states. And companies that operate in states with methane rules have experienced 5 to 30 percent annual business growth in recent years.
"Since the companies were operating over varying lengths of time, the annual growth rate isn't uniform for the same period," Lowe said. "But it was interesting what the companies attributed their growth to. They consistently drew a connection to the state-level methane regulations."
For Lowe, the report provided proof that state-level methane rules have a greater impact on LDAR firms and economic growth than any decisions by the Trump administration or Congress.
"We gathered the data for this report last summer, when federal methane rules were expected to come out," Lowe said. "Firms were expecting those rules to result in growth for their business.
"After the election, when we were preparing to release the report, we circled back with firms and asked if they wanted to readjust that expectation," she said. "They were still very confident because they thought the momentum was moving toward more state-level regulations."
Williams emphatically agreed with these sentiments. "I think, generally, the shift in politics at the federal level, or the initiatives of the Trump administration, don't really change the ballgame in respect to methane," he said.Pennsylvania as a case study
Thousands of feet below the earth's surface in Pennsylvania, the Marcellus Shale contains trillions of cubic feet of gas. That's led the oil and gas industry to exercise an outsized influence in the state.
The oil and gas industry made generous donations to Republican Tom Corbett's 2010 campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, with Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s top executive writing a $450,000 check (Greenwire, June 29, 2011). Corbett went on to win the election and cement his party's role as a friend of the industry.
But Democrat Tom Wolf, who had a more fraught relationship with the shale drilling industry, succeeded Corbett as governor of Pennsylvania in January 2015 (Energywire, Oct. 27, 2015). Wolf announced new methane rules to improve air quality and reduce industry loss in January 2016.
"Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the nation behind Texas," Wolf said in a press release at the time. "We are uniquely positioned to be a national leader in addressing climate change while supporting and ensuring responsible energy development, creating new jobs, and protecting public health and our environment."
Based on Wolf's recommendations, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is currently holding an open comment period on two permits that would require operators of natural gas facilities to conduct quarterly methane leak detection programs, said Neil Shader, spokesman for the Pennsylvania DEP. The comment period will remain open until June 2017, he said.
At a news conference last month in West Mifflin, Pa., Wolf's efforts to address methane emissions garnered praise from industry leaders and local politicians.
"The reality is, beneath our feet, there's a lot of old pipe," Peoples Natural Gas CEO Morgan O'Brien said at the news conference. "For a gas utility like Peoples, we have to figure out how to prioritize the replacement of that pipe" to avoid methane leaks, he said.
"We know how important energy and the Marcellus Shale and gas production is to southwestern Pennsylvania in our economy. And it's really created a sense of optimism being felt in this region," Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said at the news conference. "We also know that with our production, we haven't always been the best environmental stewards."Driving innovation
Some supporters of state-level methane rules don't just believe in their power to create jobs. They also believe in their ability to drive innovation.
"I think the regulations are already spurring innovation on many different fronts. And we're a great example of that," said Jason Gu, CEO of SenSevere LLC, a Pittsburgh-based startup.
SenSevere has developed a sensor that remotely detects methane emissions. The sensor relies on technology called tunable laser diode spectroscopy, which Gu first began exploring as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University.
The technology works by shooting a laser from a hand-held device. As the laser travels along its path, methane molecules absorb some of its energy. When the laser bounces back, SenSevere analyzes the intensity of the beam and calculates how much methane is present in the atmosphere.
For help with scaling up and commercializing the sensor, SenSevere turned to SENSIT Technologies Inc., an Indiana-based company that specializes in manufacturing lines of natural gas leak detectors.
Scott Kranstuber, vice president of sales and marketing at SENSIT, said he agrees with the idea that state-level methane regulations foster innovation.
"Our history is all about innovation and advancing the state of the art of leak detection," Kranstuber said. "Our technology continues to march forward.
"Whether states or the feds put in place methane emissions regulations, it's going to keep marching forward," he added. "There was some uncertainty with the new administration coming in January. But I think the methane leak detection and repair industry is only going to get bigger in the coming years."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/11/stories/1060054374
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(ACC Mentioned) Firms in Driver's Seat as EPA Resets Chemical Plant Safety Work
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's move to scrap chemical security regulations issued in the waning days of the Obama administration stands to launch years more of discussion, this time on terms more favorable to industry organizations.
While industry groups pushed for Congress to overturn the regulation under the Congressional Review Act, their comments filed with the Environmental Protection Agency last year indicate at least some willingness for new, but more lenient, security regulations. Congress appears unlikely to overturn the regulation under the CRA, a procedure that would allow them to block it by a simple majority vote, before a deadline to use the law is reached later this week.
The regulation was a capstone of the Obama administration's interagency effort to tighten chemical safety rules after a fertilizer explosion in West, Texas killed 15 people in 2013. EPA's regulation aimed to strengthen safety requirements at high-risk facilities covered under its risk management program, which was created with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
As the new administration's EPA mulls a new approach, industry-friendly changes could include relaxed auditing rules, an emphasis on existing industry programs, removal of a safer technologies alternatives assessment requirement, or more of a focus on security over public disclosure of facility information—all of which were laid out in public comments filed last year. Still, at least some groups say they may take a harder line this time around, questioning the premise of the overhaul.
Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council , said in an email to Bloomberg BNA the group's views have “evolved a bit” since public comments filed last year.
The council , alongside the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and others, petitioned the EPA to reconsider the regulation and sued the agency to block it from taking effect. The groups represent major corporations like Dow Chemical Co., DuPont Co., ExxonMobil Chemical Corp., Monsanto Co. and others.
The ACC “thinks that EPA's analysis was flawed and they did not follow federal regulatory guidelines to demonstrate how the Agency's new regulatory requirements would further reduce the risk of an accidental release,” Jensen said.
These views could hold sway with the new EPA leadership, which has shown an interest to accommodate business interests as it rolls back the previous administration's initiatives. Pruitt has echoed the concerns in a letter he sent last year to the agency while serving as Oklahoma's attorney general.
At a public meeting April 19, many industry groups agreed the regulation should be delayed, but haven't fully outlined positions on what comes next.
The agency's process in the Obama administration was “simply too rushed,” Richard Pavlak, an official at the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in Washington, said at the public meeting on behalf of the Chemical Safety Advocacy Group, a coalition of refining, oil and gas, chemicals and manufacturing firms. The pace led to a “highly prescriptive final rule that runs counter to the performance standard approach” contained in the original risk management plan regulation, he said.
The EPA is taking public comments on the issue until May 19.
Delay ‘Beyond Meaning’
Mathy Stanislaus, the EPA's former assistant administrator for land and emergency management, told Bloomberg BNA it was “beyond meaning why anyone would delay these requirements.”
Stanislaus, who played a leading role on the regulation from 2013 to 2017, said he found security concerns “a particularly false narrative and basically a substitute for not having the rule going in place.”
The EPA made changes to the process for facilities sharing information with Local Emergency Response Committees in response to industry concerns, Stanislaus noted, but still failed to win their support.
The rulemaking was “engaged and reflective of authentically listening,” he said.
Industry groups and the EPA have also approached the rule with different statistics, citing ones backing their narratives of the rule. Stanislaus and EPA noted more than 1,500 accidents at facilities covered by the program in the past 10 years. Industry firms, though, say reportable deaths at the same sites have declined 60 percent since 2004 and 92 percent of them did not have a reportable incident.
At the public hearing, Bill Erny, a senior director at ACC, said the EPA should target the “8 percent of facilities responsible for 100 percent of the accidents” and also offer compliance assistance.
In public comments last year, ACC requested extensive changes but largely left the premise of the rule unquestioned.
Erny, in the comments, described a public-private partnership to be called the Chemical Safety and Security Excellence Partnership that would leverage ACC's existing ResponsibleCare program and federal resources.
In the paper, Erny described the program as similar to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Programs and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program.
OSHA started the VPP in in 1982. The program requires companies to meet certain prevention standards in exchange for an exemption from OSHA programmatic inspections, and firms are reevaluated every three to five years to ensure compliance.
C-TPAT, meanwhile, adds tougher border inspection requirements in exchange for conveniences to shippers like lower examination rates and faster processing times, the paper said.
ACC also left the door open for some kind of required auditing for facilities, but only after an “accidental release… that results in serious injury or death onsite or offsite.”
Stanislaus said both were good ideas, but “you're never going to get the comprehensive, optimal safety regime if you just rely on that.”
Safety vs. Security
The short time between federal investigators’ surprise announcement they thought the West Fertilizer Co. fire was set intentionally and the close of the EPA's public comment period drew industry complaints last year. Companies’ supposed lack of time to comment on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ findings was the sole specific reason Pruitt cited in delaying the regulation.
Pruitt said some other issues also “may have lacked notice and would benefit from additional comment and response.”
ATF announced its findings at a press conference May 11, 2016, shortly before the close of a public comment period on the proposed rule May 13, 2016.
The regulation noted despite ATF's ruling, the West explosion showed the lack of coordination between the fertilizer plant's employees and local emergency responders. The final rule thus appropriately tries to boost Local Emergency Response Committees while preserving local flexibility, the EPA stated. Changes to advance this goal include requiring facility owners to communicate, conduct training exercises and other activities with the committees.
Should Pruitt's EPA decide to emphasize security to prevent intentional acts like what ATF thinks happened in West, it could defer to the Department of Homeland Security's Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, said Judah Prero, an attorney at Sidley Austin LLP and former ACC official. The idea would be to require facilities to take actions like building fences and control access to their sites rather than to change how the chemicals are produced or how information is shared, Prero said.
This would prevent situations “where someone can just waltz their way in and walk off with the stuff,” Prero said -- something that investigators found was common in West.
Any action is sure to take years and result in litigation from industry or public interest groups, said Michael Reer, an attorney at Harris, Finley & Bogle in Fort Worth, Texas.
“EPA will try to leave a very strong administrative record so that if this action is challenged in court, they have a very strong fallback,” Reer said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=111106991&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499659000&searchid=29875508&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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Senator Urges Trump to Fill Out Cyber Roster
May 11, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
"Missing leadership" at several key cybersecurity agencies may hamper the U.S. ability to respond to a significant hacking incident, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee warned yesterday.
"Right now, we're needlessly fighting with one hand tied behind our back," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), pointing to unfilled positions at the Department of Homeland Security, including the undersecretary of the cyber-focused National Protection and Programs Directorate and deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications. "I implore the president to fill these positions with qualified nominees as quickly as possible."
White House spokesman Michael Short said it is "certainly rich when Senate Democrats lament delays in the confirmation process caused by their own politically motivated obstruction."
Yesterday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pledged to freeze the nomination of former Homeland Security counselor Sigal Mandelker to be undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, holding out for documents related to President Trump's potential financial ties with Russia.
Senate Democrats separately blocked afternoon hearings yesterday to call attention to Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey (Greenwire, May 10). Led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), several Democratic lawmakers have called for an independent prosecutor to take the reins of an investigation into Trump staffers' links to Russian officials last year, around the time when Russian spies allegedly carried out a hacking campaign aimed at harming the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton.
For her part, McCaskill has said there is "no room for partisan politics when it comes to protecting the United States homeland," while voting for Trump nominee Elaine Duke to become the next deputy secretary of DHS in March.
Beyond DHS, McCaskill said yesterday that "there are essential cyber-related positions at the Department of Defense, the Judiciary, State and Commerce that are still awaiting nominations from the White House as well," echoing the concerns of some private-sector executives who see too many empty seats at the table for cybersecurity (Energywire, May 10).
A DHS spokesman did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. The National Protection and Programs Directorate is the office there responsible for assisting critical infrastructure owners and operators, such as electric utilities and oil companies. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate and House, led by House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), is now hashing out legislation to elevate the cybersecurity role within DHS, restructuring NPPD in the process.
"We can't afford to let the bureaucratic sclerosis prevent us from really addressing the cyberthreats," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Johnson pressed private-sector panelists at yesterday's hearing on cyberthreats to share potential solutions to the workforce, information-sharing and organizational challenges facing the federal government in cyberspace.
He called attention to two cyberattacks on Ukraine's power grid — one in late 2015 and another in December — that he said highlight the need for the U.S. government to draw clear red lines in cyber warfare.
"With the 'internet of things,' all the explosion of devices, we become more and more dependent on our electrical grid, more and more dependent on the internet — as a result, we are far more vulnerable," Johnson said, adding that the United States "ought to start laying out some pretty strong lines and be very predictable: 'You cross this, and this is something that we would define [as] war.'"
Steven Chabinsky, global chairman of data, privacy and cybersecurity at the law firm White & Case LLP, told lawmakers that "when it comes to critical infrastructure," there have been a "series of normative discussions" internationally about when certain cyber behaviors go out of bounds.
"Less understood than what the boundaries are is what we would do about it," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/11/stories/1060054396
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U.S. Blocks Major Pipeline after 18 Leaks and a 2 Million Gallon Spill of Drilling Mud
May 10, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Steven Mufson
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has curtailed work on a natural-gas pipeline in Ohio after the owner, Energy Transfer Partners, reported 18 leaks and spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling materials.
The pipeline regulator blocked Energy Transfer Partners, which also built the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, from starting horizontal drilling in eight areas where drilling has not yet begun. In other areas, where the company has already begun horizontal drilling, the FERC said drilling could continue.
The FERC also ordered the company to double the number of environmental inspectors and to preserve documents the commission wants to examine as it investigates the spills.
The biggest spill, in a pristine wetland along the Tuscarawas River about 50 miles south of Akron, covered 6.5 acres, the commission said, “coating wetland soils and vegetation with bentonite clay and bore-hole cuttings.” A video provided by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency showed drilling mud a foot or two deep.
Energy Transfer Partners has asserted that the spills of nontoxic drilling mud, used to cool and lubricate drilling equipment, were inadvertent and had been predicted in its permit application to build the Rover gas pipeline. The horizontal drilling is done to place pipelines well below ground to minimize the chances of contamination of rivers or wetlands.
However, the FERC said that its staff has “serious concerns” regarding the magnitude of the largest spill, “its environmental impacts, the lack of clarity regarding the underlying reasons for its occurrence, and the possibility of future problems.”
It said that the largest spill was “several orders of magnitude greater than other documented inadvertent returns for this project.”
The commission, which regulates all natural gas pipelines, said that “a stoppage of additional drilling is warranted to facilitate a review of Rover’s efforts to search for and locate any potential releases.”
The Ohio EPA has fined Energy Transfer Partners about $400,000 and asked the FERC for support. Craig Butler, the Ohio EPA director, said the company’s response had been “dismissive,” “exceptionally disappointing” and unlike any other response he has seen from a company in his 27 years at the agency.
The Rover pipeline is $4.2 billion project that would link the shale-gas-rich regions of Appalachia to Michigan and Ontario.
It is just one of many pipelines whose fate lies in the hands of the FERC, a technocratic and relatively obscure agency. The five-member commission has lacked a quorum since early February, putting new permits on hold. That has placed an obstacle in the path of the White House.
The Trump administration late Monday nominated two new members for the commission, potentially clearing the way for controversial, multibillion-dollar pipeline and natural-gas export projects like Rover, which was one of the last permits issued in February.
The White House picked Neil Chatterjee, energy policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Robert F. Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission since 2008.
President Trump has voiced support for new oil pipeline projects such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access lines, and Gary Cohn, head of the White House National Economic Council, recently threw the administration’s support behind a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Oregon’s Jordan Cove that had been rejected by the FERC a few months ago.
The nominees, who must be confirmed by the Senate, would probably tilt the balance of the commission toward approving gas projects.
The Jordan Cove project was the only major LNG project the FERC has rejected. And the commission does not have jurisdiction over oil pipelines.
Nonetheless, leading Republicans and oil and gas industry groups have applauded the nominations.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Environment Committee, said in a statement that he was “thrilled” and that the nominations would “ensure Republican leadership” of the commission and “bring a great, pro-energy perspective.”
Christopher Guith, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called the nominations “phenomenal picks” and said, “From strained competitive markets to crucial energy infrastructure, FERC faces many challenges, and these nominees will help move America toward a more secure energy future.”
Height Securities said in a note to investors Tuesday that it would take about six weeks or more for the two nominees to be confirmed. “In the meantime, we believe FERC will continue avoiding controversial issues, even after quorum returns,” the firm said.
That could change once there is a new chairman. Height Securities said that the White House is expected to name Kevin McIntyre, co-head of the energy practice of the Cleveland-based law firm Jones Day, to serve as FERC chairman, further cementing the position of industry supporters.
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Height said that the list of pipelines delayed by the lack of a FERC quorum includes the Nexus crossing Ohio, PennEast serving Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and Mountain Valley, serving West Virginia and Virginia. The stalled merger of Westar and Great Plains, two utilities, would need the FERC’s go-ahead once they finish ironing out final terms.
“For too long, FERC has merely served as a pit stop for the fossil fuel industry on its way to constructing dirty energy infrastructure,” Sierra Club global climate policy director John Coequyt said in a statement. “This cannot continue.”
A native of Lexington, Ky., Chatterjee has played a role in the passage of major energy, highway and farm legislation. Before working for McConnell, he worked in government relations for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and as an aide to then-House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio.
Powelson was first nominated to the Pennsylvania PUC by Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) and appointed chairman by Gov. Tom Corbett (R) in 2011. Powelson serves as the president of National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/10/pipeline-shut-down-after-18-leaks-and-a-2-million-gallon-spill-of-drilling-materials/?utm_term=.61c7951db2d0
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State, Governor Work to Increase Oil-by-Rail Safety
May 10, 2017 | Kent Reporter
Although the federal government often preempts states when it comes to regulating oil-by-rail transportation, Washington state is working to do what it can to prevent the catastrophic oil-train derailments seen elsewhere in North America, according to a media release from the governor’s office.
In 2014, when the number of trains carrying volatile Bakken crude through the state skyrocketed, Gov. Jay Inslee issued a directive requiring agencies to prioritize actions to improve public safety and spill prevention associated with transporting oil by rail. He also called on the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission to review all rail crossings on oil train routes.
And in 2015, the Legislature passed Inslee’s legislation giving the UTC and the Department of Ecology greater authority to improve oil-by-rail safety.
On Tuesday, the governor visited an oil train crossing in Southwest Washington that had been identified as under-protected by UTC rail safety staff. The crossing, on Skamania Landing Road in Skamania County, intersects with a BNSF Railway track that transports oil through the scenic Columbia River Gorge.
In March, the UTC approved nearly $450,000 in grant funds to make safety upgrades at the crossing. The improvements will add those gate arms and install a new signal system. A few interim upgrades have already been completed, including replacing old lights with more efficient LED lights, new signage, and painted stop bars on the pavement near the crossing.
The main problem with the crossing was that although it had flashing lights, it didn’t have gates, said Tim Homann, a Skamania County engineer.
“We’re always concerned about safety, and that’s the number one issue with this project,” Homann said. “In terms of this particular railroad, it is a busy railroad,” with up to 30 freight trains and two Amtrak passenger trains each day, he added.
The crossing is about 35 miles downstream from Mosier, Ore., where 16 oil tanker cars on a Union Pacific train derailed in June, causing an explosion and fire, the closure of Interstate 84 and a sewer treatment plant, and the two-day evacuation of nearby residents.
The UTC has spent the past several years examining how to prevent incidents like the one in Mosier. In addition to improvements to the Butler crossing, the agency has approved nearly $530,000 for similar improvements in Snohomish County on 48th Avenue and in Spokane County on Millwood’s Marguerite Street.
“With the dramatic increase in the transport of oil by rail, it is more important than ever that we address under-protected rail crossings,” UTC Chairman David Danner said. “The governor’s leadership has made the difference in getting us the resources to do our job. He understands our work and really shares our commitment to safety.”
New state law
The 2015 Oil Transportation Safety Act gave the UTC greater inspection and enforcement authority around oil by rail, increased track and hazardous materials inspections, and improved safety at crossings along oil train routes.
It gave the state Department of Ecology the ability to require oil spill contingency planning by railways, meaning that railways are now subject to the same emergency preparedness rules as vessels transporting oil and oil refineries.
The law increased money for prevention and cleanup of oil spills, and it required railroads to notify local officials when oil trains are moving through their areas. It also provided the opportunity for the development of locally based equipment caches for responding to hazardous material spills and for firefighting.
Additionally, it gives Ecology the resources to develop locally tailored Geographic Response Plans along several rail line segments to help minimize impact of spilled oil on sensitive natural, cultural and economic resources during the early hours of a response.
The law also allows the UTC to:
• Hire more rail inspectors.
• Enter oil refineries without federal officials to conduct hazardous materials inspections.
• Give 10 of Washington’s cities the opportunity to participate in the state’s rail crossing inspection program, where they were previously exempted.
• Adopt minimum safety standards at private railroad crossings along oil-train routes and the authority to inspect those crossings. There are about 500 such crossings in all.
More federal action needed
Inslee has called on the federal government to do more to regulate the safety of oil transported by rail. Last summer, he sent two letters to federal officials requesting immediate action to mitigate the risks of train derailments, oil spills and explosions.
In June, following the oil train derailment and fire in Mosier, Inslee asked then-Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx for six specific safety improvements:
• Speed up the transition to safer rail cars, with new tank car designs required by 2021.
• Lower the speed limit for oil trains. Federal guidelines have a 50 mph limit for high-hazard flammable trains, while some railroads voluntarily limit speeds to 35 mph when passing through large cities.
• Safeguard the electronic braking requirements for oil trains.
• Prohibit liability caps sought by railroads to shield them from the costs of an oil train disaster, which could leave affected states and communities bearing the costs.
• Restrict the storage of train cars loaded with crude oil on unused rail tracks.
• Finalize the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rules that strengthen oil spill response requirements, and ensure that states have the authority to adopt requirements for railroad response plans.
“Federal preemption severely limits our ability to respond to the emerging challenges resulting from increased oil train traffic,” Inslee wrote. “The concerns of the people who live and work near oil train routes can no longer be brushed aside, and the safety policies needed to protect them can no longer be postponed.”
In his July letter to then-Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Sarah Feinberg, Inslee wrote that the FRA inspection standards were “insufficient to protect our communities from the imminent threat of fires, spills, and collisions that result from oil train derailments.”
Feinberg visited Mosier following the derailment, and Union Pacific made an agreement with the federal government that it would conduct walking inspections of its tracks rather than relying on other types of inspections.
It’s unclear how the federal government, under a new administration, will regulate oil-by-rail transportation. Foxx and Feinberg no longer serve in those federal roles and President Donald Trump’s administration has yet to appoint an administrator or a deputy administrator to the FRA.
http://www.kentreporter.com/news/state-governor-work-to-increase-oil-by-rail-safety/
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Republicans Now to Face Consequences of Rule Repeals
May 11, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Cheryl Bolen
House Republicans, who in February could barely contain their excitement about using a rare power to start repealing Obama-era regulations, now face the consequences of their rush to repeal.
So far, 13 rules have been indefinitely repealed under the Congressional Review Act and one more is headed to President Donald Trump's desk for elimination before the window closes on this process. The law specifically prohibits federal agencies from issuing “a new rule that is substantially the same” as the original regulation.
Just under the deadline of May 11, a 15th rule repeal was rejected by the Senate May 10 when it voted 49-51 against a resolution (H.J. Res. 36) passed by the House that would have repealed a Bureau of Land Management rule on waste limits for methane.
“The methane vote going down in flames is a fitting end to this tragic chapter in Congress,” said Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen. “This Republican Congress made the purpose of the CRA clear: it's nothing but a shortcut for Congress to hand out favors to corporate special interests.”
Cost Savings to Industry
In April, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short said the CRA resolutions enacted to date would save industry $10 billion in regulatory costs over the next 20 years and boost economic growth.
Trump and congressional Republicans often tout the significant cost savings to business and industry from repealing regulations, but have been silent on public benefits lost.
“And far from creating jobs or boosting wages, they will have negative effects on hardworking families, including, on an annual basis, a net loss of jobs, $3 million in lost wages, and $57 million in increased costs as a result of higher carbon dioxide emissions,” Sam Berger, senior policy adviser at the Center for American Progress, said in a blog posted April 24.
Unintended Consequences
Some of what Congress did is quite detrimental even to their own interests, because the CRA is a blunt and poorly designed instrument, said Richard Revesz, professor of law and dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law.
For example, a Department of Labor rule that has been repealed (H.J. Res. 42) would have allowed state unemployment compensation agencies to conduct drug testing of certain applicants. The problem, Revesz said, is that proponents of the rule wanted broader drug testing, not that they didn't want drug testing at all.
Unfortunately, the CRA states that once a regulation has been set aside, a substantially similar rule cannot be implemented, Revesz said. So a broader rule probably is precluded by the CRA, he said.
“So instead of getting what they wanted, they might end up in a position that's worse,” Revesz said. “They want to test more people—they might end up not testing anyone as a result of the CRA,” he said.
Mulvaney: No Going Back
It is “unlikely” that the Trump administration will revisit any of the repealed rules, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said in an April 20 interview with Bloomberg BNA. “We will be moving on and focusing on other areas,” he said.
The regulations overturned through the CRA were “so generally violative of this administration's principles” that any agency would be unlikely to go back and even get close to them, Mulvaney said.
Mulvaney pointed to the Department of Interior's stream protection rule that was overturned (H.J. Res. 38) to make it more difficult for coal mines to release pollutants into nearby waters. “That's not consistent with the priorities of this administration regarding coal power,” he said.
Another example is a Department of Health and Human Services rule that was repealed (H.J. Res. 43) to protect funding for health clinics such as Planned Parenthood. “We're not going to go back in and redo that,” Mulvaney said. “We're simply going to undo what the previous administration did.”
$7 Billion in Giveaways
Adding up the 13 repealed regulations results in $7 billion in “giveaways” to businesses over the next decade, Berger said in a May 9 interview with Bloomberg BNA. But everyone else is likely to face a net loss of jobs, millions in reduced wages and the elimination of important consumer protections across the board.
Berger, who previously served at the OMB and White House Domestic Policy Council in the Obama administration, said he was able to calculate the quantitative costs and effects of the rules. But there are frequently qualitative effects, which cover a lot of things that people find important, he said.
For example, how is a monetary or quantified cost calculated for an increased risk to people of having pollutants in their drinking water, an outcome of the repeal of the stream protection rule, Berger said.
Congress also repealed a Federal Communications Commission rule (S.J. Res. 34) to protect the privacy of broadband connections. There is no way to quantify the privacy concerns that people have about their browser history being up for sale to third parties, Berger said.
“As important as the quantifiable effects are, the qualitative effects are equally important in terms of the negative impacts they'll have on people's lives,” Berger said.
Uncertainty Now the Rule
Another consequence is the important role that regulations play in setting the rules of the road, so that everyone knows whether to drive on the left or the right, Berger said.
“And there's a huge value in providing that set of certainty—that's not the only thing regulations do, but people frequently forget that there actually are folks in the business world and industry that care about knowing what they're supposed to do,” Berger said.
A rule repeal headed to the president's desk (H.J. Res. 66) that governs retirement savings plans at the state and local levels is likely to invite a lot of litigation and confusion as to what they can and can't do, Berger said.
Cumulative Effect
Overall, Berger predicted a “cumulative effect” for the rule repeals. Some people will notice the disappearance of various regulations and protections, and if the effects are not noticed this month, they will be noticed next month, or two or three months down the road, he said.
“Because people pay attention and they know when government is working in a way that hurts them,” Berger said.
Industry came through with its wish list of the rules it wanted to get rid of, and “no one really cared” whether or not it was going to have a negative effect on hardworking Americans across the country, Berger said.
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