Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/12/2017
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The Regulatory Accountability Act Would Spread the Asbestos Problem
May 12, 2017 | American Progress
By Alison Cassady and Sam Berger
On April 26, 2017, the Senate quietly introduced President Donald Trump’s Regulatory Accountability Act, or RAA. -
Consumers Send 30,000 Article 33 Requests via German App
May 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Consumers have sent 30,000 Article 33 requests to more than 7,000 companies using Friends of the Earth Germany's (Bund) ToxFox app, the NGO says. -
Big Investors Urge Oil Companies to Tackle Methane Leaks
May 12, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By David Hunn
Thirty institutional investors managing more than $3 trillion in assets have announced a new initiative to encourage global oil and gas companies, including utilities, to measure, report and reduce methane emissions. -
E&E News' Gilmer Talks Legal, Rulemaking Options at Play Following CRA Failure
May 12, 2017 | E&E TV
By The Cutting Edge
Following this week's surprising failure in the Senate to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove the Obama administration's methane rule, what's next for the regulation, and what are the remaining options for repealing the rule altogether? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E News reporter Ellen Gilmer discusses pending litigation and possible changes to the rule. -
Dow Chemical to Spend $4 billion in Texas, Michigan and Europe Expansions
May 11, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Dow Chemical said Thursday it's planning to spend $4 billion in further expansions in the Houston area, at its Michigan headquarters and in Europe. -
Houston Economy Still Waiting for Oil
May 11, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Lydia DePillis
Nearly a year after the oil bust reached its bottom, Houston's economy is only barely starting to recover and its future is still clouded by oil prices that have remained stubbornly low, according to a closely-watched analysis. -
Change is in the Air for Independent Power Players
May 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Edward Klump
U.S. independent power producers, no stranger to uncertainty, have entered a period that may bring dramatic change. This week offered the latest potential scenarios. -
Trump's EPA Revives Controversial Alaska Mining Project
May 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revived a controversial proposed Alaska mining project previously blocked by Obama administration regulators. -
No New Recommendations in CSB's Revised W.Va. Spill Report
May 12, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigators did not find any new recommendations necessary in its report of the January 2014 chemical spill at West Virginia's Freedom Industries. -
SEPTA Sets Sights on Final PTC Implementation Steps
May 12, 2017 | RT&S
By Mischa Wanek-Libman
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) activated equipment on three rail lines May 1 and began operation under Amtrak's Positive Train Control (PTC) system. -
Tillerson Signs International Declaration Recognizing Climate Change
May 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed on Thursday a declaration acknowledging the threat posed by climate change to the Arctic and indicating the need for action to curb its impact on the region. -
U.S. Agrees Only to Acknowledge Paris Agreement Exists
May 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The United States ended its chairmanship of the Arctic Council yesterday amid growing international alarm that President Trump may pull out of the Paris accord on climate change. -
Defying Trump, These State Leaders are Trying to Impose Their Own Carbon Taxes
May 12, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
While the Trump administration continues to consider a withdrawal from the Paris agreement, climate action in the United States is increasingly falling to the state and local level.
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The Regulatory Accountability Act Would Spread the Asbestos Problem
May 12, 2017 | American Progress
By Alison Cassady and Sam Berger
On April 26, 2017, the Senate quietly introduced President Donald Trump’s Regulatory Accountability Act, or RAA. The bill has an innocuous name but would have profound consequences for the nation’s ability to protect people from threats to both their lives and livelihoods. Also known as the License to Kill Bill, the RAA is part of Trump’s grand strategy: Use every available tool to strip people of important health, safety, and consumer protections and then prevent federal agencies from being able to protect people from these and future harms, all in the name of increasing corporate profits.
It is not an exaggeration to say that this bill would cause sickness, injury, and death. The proof lies in the United States’ tragic history of asbestos—history that could repeat itself across the nation if the RAA becomes law.
The Regulatory Accountability Act: Background
The RAA has a singular goal: Tilt the playing field toward big business and away from everyday people, making it next to impossible for federal agencies to move forward with commonsense protections. The bill would hamstring almost every agency charged with protecting the public interest—from the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, to the Federal Aviation Administration to the Food and Drug Administration.
Several organizations have written detailed analyses of the ways in which the RAA would grind to a halt the nation’s proven system for protecting Americans from risks to their health and safety. The bill would require federal agencies to engage in endless analysis of their proposed safeguards, well beyond the months or even years of extensive analysis that agencies already undertake before issuing a rule. It would also require agencies to hold, at industry’s request, time-consuming and expensive trial-like proceedings over any minor technical point, delaying action without the promise of eliciting new information. And the bill would grant judges new power to second-guess all agency decisions when big businesses seek to slow down protections in court. In short, the RAA is the definition of paralysis by analysis.
Who would want to build such an unworkable system? The powerful corporations that stand to profit from weak or nonexistent federal safeguards and the elected officials they hold sway over. According to a recent Center for American Progress analysis, during the first three months of 2017, at least 72 corporations and trade associations spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to pass the RAA.
Asbestos: The RAA would doom us to repeat history
The tragic story behind asbestos regulation in the United States shows the terrible dangers that the RAA poses.
Decades of science have proven beyond a doubt that asbestos is a known human carcinogen. The EPA first listed asbestos as a hazardous air pollutant in 1971, given its link to lung cancer, asbestosis, and mesothelioma. In 1979, the EPA began a rule-making under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, to “reduce the risk to human health posed by exposure to asbestos.” A full decade later, the agency finalized a rule to phase out asbestos after reviewing hundreds of studies and concluding that “exposure to asbestos during the life cycles of many asbestos-containing products poses an unreasonable risk of injury to human health.”
Despite this decades-long record, as of 2017, asbestos still is not banned in the United States. After the EPA finalized its rule, asbestos manufacturers sued to block it. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with the manufacturers and remanded the rule to the EPA to be rewritten. Concluding that it could never meet the TSCA’s onerous standards as interpreted by the court, the EPA took no additional action to eliminate the use and distribution of asbestos-containing products for more than 25 years.
The EPA’s inability to act has had real-world consequences. From 1999 to 2013, 12,000 to 15,000 people died every year in the United States from diseases related to asbestos exposure.
In 2016, Congress reformed the TSCA with rare bipartisan support. In November, the EPA announced that it would review asbestos for potential risks to human health under the revised law. The RAA, however, could very well hinder this new process and block the EPA from taking long-overdue action to mitigate asbestos’s risks.
Importantly, the RAA would not only thwart future action on asbestos. It would also apply the impossible-to-meet standards that prevented the EPA from banning asbestos more than 25 years ago to efforts to protect Americans from a host of other public health, safety, and consumer threats. This would put us at risk of repeating the worst kind of history.
Endless analysis of costs to industry
When the EPA tried to ban asbestos, the TSCA required the agency to choose the “least burdensome” option when deciding how to protect human health and the environment from the risks posed by a toxic substance. In this case, “burden” refers to the costs to manufacturers and users of limiting that toxic substance—not the cost to the public of being exposed to a substance posing significant health risks. The EPA chose to phase out the use of asbestos, but the 5th Circuit determined that the agency failed to demonstrate that this was the least burdensome means of mitigating asbestos’s risk to human health. The court said that the EPA should have considered “each regulatory option, beginning with the least burdensome, and the costs and benefits of regulation under each option.” This is a prohibitively onerous process and a daunting threshold to meet, as industry could identify endless alternatives that merit consideration.
Recognizing this danger, Congress removed this language when it reformed the TSCA in 2016. But the RAA inexplicably revives this standard and applies it even more broadly to almost every context in which agencies seek to implement commonsense protections.
Language in the RAA requires a federal agency to adopt the “most cost-effective” option when finalizing a rule to address problems facing public health, consumers, workers, or the environment. This means that an agency would be required to put compliance costs above public benefits in an endless, looping assessment of alternatives. The RAA directs each agency to consider a “reasonable number” of alternatives, including “substantial alternatives or other responses identified by interested persons”—such as the corporate interests that have the most to gain from the weakest protections. If protections would have a significant effect on the economy, as most protections with significant health or safety benefits would, an agency must conduct a time-consuming cost-benefit analysis of each alternative. In the inevitable litigation to challenge a rule, the agency would have to prove that it examined enough alternatives to be sure of choosing the most cost-effective one.
This is a recipe for decades of delay—while people’s health and safety suffer.
An impossible burden of proof
Before Congress revised the TSCA in 2016, the law specified that courts should set aside any rule that “is not supported by substantial evidence.” Some courts have interpreted this innocuous-sounding language as setting a standard that is very difficult for protections to meet, regardless of the evidence of risk to the public or the need to act quickly. For example, despite decades of science supporting the EPA’s position on asbestos, the 5th Circuit concluded that “the EPA failed to muster substantial evidence” in support of its asbestos phaseout. Under the RAA, this same standard would be applied to all protections with the most economic impact. And as with asbestos, this would make it difficult for agencies to address these problems.
Endless analysis and impossible-to-meet burdens of proof are just two of the RAA’s problems. For example, the bill brings back the trial-like hearings requirements that significantly slowed the EPA’s efforts to protect people from toxic chemicals under the TSCA. And it subjects independent agencies, including those tasked with preventing the next financial crisis, to potential partisan political pressure that would undermine their work to protect the public.
The effort to revive these failed requirements makes clear that the real purpose of this bill is not to create “regulatory accountability” but rather to make sure that industry can play by its own set of rules, regardless of the price paid by the people who will suffer. The RAA would recreate the asbestos crisis in thousands of ways across thousands of communities. The only ones standing between the public and Trump’s License to Kill Bill are lawmakers willing to put people’s lives over company profits.
Alison Cassady is the Director of Domestic Energy and Environment Policy at the Center for American Progress. Sam Berger is a Senior Policy Adviser at the Center.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/05/12/432332/regulatory-accountability-act-spread-asbestos-problem/
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Consumers Send 30,000 Article 33 Requests via German App
May 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Consumers have sent 30,000 Article 33 requests to more than 7,000 companies using Friends of the Earth Germany's (Bund) ToxFox app, the NGO says.
Under Article 33 of REACH, consumers can ask manufacturers if their product contains SVHCs that are on the candidate list. Suppliers are legally obliged to provide the information, free of charge, within 45 days.
Bund launched a feature on its ToxFox app in October last year that enables consumers to send the automated requests directly.
However, despite this, Bund senior toxics campaigner Ulrike Kallee told Chemical Watch many consumers are unaware about their Article 33 'right to know'.
Consumers are also unsure about which product categories the Article covers, she said. As a solution to this problem, the NGO updated its app in March to introduce categories for:
toys;
textiles;
sports equipment;
household articles;
furniture;
electronics;
construction materials; and
sanitary products.
Guidance for manufacturers
The app connects to an online database, which enables companies to save their answers to requests and make the information available to customers.
Manufacturers can also register with the ToxFox database and store SVHC details for all of their products. This way when consumers scan the product barcode they will see the information without needing to send a request. This has allowed companies to promote themselves as "transparent and responsible," Ms Kallee said.
There are 2,000 products in the ToxFox database, but some manufacturers have not dealt with Article 33 requests before and are "reluctant" to add information to it, Ms Kallee said. In addition, many claim they do not produce chemicals and therefore REACH does not apply to their products.
Very few manufacturers have responded clearly to Article 33 requests, Ms Kallee said, and often provide answers that are too complicated for consumers to understand.
Susanne Braun of the German Association of the Toy Industry (DVSI) said that when the app was launched its members were concerned they would need to provide declarations of conformity or test reports from institutes and hire more staff to deal with requests.
However, Bund has developed guidelines for companies on what should and should not be included in answers. These are sent as part of the automated messages from the app.
ToxFox was originally launched in 2013 to allow consumers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to scan barcodes of cosmetic products for information on the presence of suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
More than 1.2 million consumers have downloaded the app over the last four years.
Other similar apps include the Danish Consumer Council's Kemiluppen app and US scientific research organisation Silent Spring Institute's Detox Me app.
https://chemicalwatch.com/55806/consumers-send-30000-article-33-requests-via-german-app
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Big Investors Urge Oil Companies to Tackle Methane Leaks
May 12, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By David Hunn
Thirty institutional investors managing more than $3 trillion in assets have announced a new initiative to encourage global oil and gas companies, including utilities, to measure, report and reduce methane emissions.
The initiative, coordinated by the Principles for Responsible Investment, a nonprofit supported by the United Nations, is another example of investor concern over the financial and environmental risks of methane leaks.
Methane is the main ingredient of natural gas and a potent polluter, with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. It is a product of oil drilling and often vented or flared as production companies pump oil. The Environmental Defense Fund says methane is responsible for one-quarter of global warming and that the oil and gas industry is among the largest man-made sources of methane.
“Companies tout gas as a clean, low-carbon fuel, ignoring the vast amounts of unburned methane escaping from their systems each year or the lack of transparency with regard to monitoring and reduction strategies,” the EDF recently said in a statement.
The asset managers in PRI’s methane initiative represent a dozen countries across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2017/05/12/big-investors-urge-oil-companies-to-tackle-methane-leaks/
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E&E News' Gilmer Talks Legal, Rulemaking Options at Play Following CRA Failure
May 12, 2017 | E&E TV
By The Cutting Edge
Following this week's surprising failure in the Senate to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove the Obama administration's methane rule, what's next for the regulation, and what are the remaining options for repealing the rule altogether? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E News reporter Ellen Gilmer discusses pending litigation and possible changes to the rule.
Transcript
The transcript for this video is currently not available. Please check back later.
Transcript will be available at this link: https://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2226/transcript
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Dow Chemical to Spend $4 billion in Texas, Michigan and Europe Expansions
May 11, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Dow Chemical said Thursday it's planning to spend $4 billion in further expansions in the Houston area, at its Michigan headquarters and in Europe.
The chemical giant will keep expanding its largest industrial campus - south of Houston in Freeport and Lake Jackson - to continue taking advantage of cheap and abundant shale natural gas that's used as the primary feedstock to make chemicals and plastics. The expansion will give Freeport the world's largest plant for making ethylene, the primary building block of most plastics, Dow said.
Dow this year is completing a separate $6 billion expansion along the Gulf Coast, primarily in Freeport. That includes a "crown jewel" ethane cracker, which turns ethane, a natural gas liquid, into ethylene. The plant is expected to churn out 1.5 million metric tons of ethylene a year.
The cracker project was completed in March, but won't commence operations for a few more weeks or so. The recent expansion added 500 permanent jobs in Freeport.
The upcoming Freeport expansion will add two heating furnaces to the cracker's existing eight furnaces, upping its total ethylene capacity to 2 million metric tons.
Dow also will build a new plastics plant to produce 600,000 metric tons a year, but hasn't announced whether it will be built in Freeport or Louisiana along the Gulf Coast. Dow will expand some its existing polyethylene facilities - polyethylene being the world's most common plastic - throughout to U.S. to increase its total capacity by 350,000 metric tons.
The company will invest $500 million by its Midland, Mich., headquarters for a new innovation center and to boost its Dow Corning business.
Dow will build a plastics facility with a 450,000-ton capacity somewhere in Europe as well, although the details are scarce.
Dow plans to complete its $130 billion merger with DuPont of Wilmington, Del., in August. The merged DowDuPont would later splinter into three separate companies in 2018 and 2019.
Dow CEO Andrew Liveris emphasized recently that Dow's Texas operations would see little effect from the merger.
One of the three splintered companies, to be named Dow, would continue to own and run the Freeport complex, as well as DuPont's facilities in Orange near the Louisiana border.
The materials science business would operate under the Dow name, the agribusiness under DuPont, and specialty products under a yet-to-be-determined brand.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Dow-Chemical-to-spend-4-billion-in-Texas-11140617.php
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Houston Economy Still Waiting for Oil
May 11, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Lydia DePillis
Nearly a year after the oil bust reached its bottom, Houston's economy is only barely starting to recover and its future is still clouded by oil prices that have remained stubbornly low, according to a closely-watched analysis.
Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston's Bauer School of Business, forecast about 38,000 new jobs - more than twice as many as 2016, but far below the recent historical average - if current trends continue.
"Like you, I'm plenty tired of the crash of oil prices," he told an audience of business people on Thursday. "We're not going to get good strong growth based on $48 a barrel, where we were this morning."
That lukewarm forecast comes in spite of a rapid run-up in the rig count and a spike in what Gilmer calls "basic" jobs - those in industries that bring in revenue from outside the region, such as manufacturing and petrochemical refining, rather than selling services to locals, which merely recirculates money. The Houston area added about 13,000 goods-producing jobs between November and March, after losing about 70,000 over the previous two years, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
The local economy has improved in the early part of 2017, adding about 30,000 jobs from a year ago, but continues to lag the state and the nation as the energy industry rebounds slowly. Jobs are growing at a rate of about 1 percent a year in Greater Houston, slightly better than last year, but less than one-third of the pace of earlier in the decade.
The local unemployment rate, 5.9 percent in March, is nearly a percentage point higher than a year ago, and well above the state average of about 5 percent and national rate of 4.5 percent.
Still energy dependant
The bottom line, Gilmer said, is the region still depends heavily on the energy industry, despite efforts to diversify. The ratio of energy jobs to non-energy jobs in Houston's employment core - those "basic jobs" - hasn't changed in 20 years. Energy still accounts for half of basic jobs.
Rather than new industries, the local economy has been largely supported by strong national growth that has boosted companies that sell goods and services beyond Texas.
In a convenient historical accident, downturns in the oil industry have corresponded with periods of robust growth in the national economy and vice versa. "There is no structural change here," Gilmer says. "We haven't changed a thing in terms of how we're connected to oil."
Patrick Jankowski, research director at the Greater Houston Partnership, agreed that the local market hasn't diversified much. (The crash of the 1980s was created by a real estate and credit bust on top of a collapse in oil prices.) But despite the ups and downs, he says, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"Do we really want to give up our title as 'Energy Capital of the World?'" Jankowski asks. "What would Houston be without energy?"
Among the near-term worries is the fast-approaching end of the industrial construction boom - primarily petrochemicals - that kept Houston afloat through the oil downturn. As the plants are completed, tens of thousands of construction workers will lose jobs.
Ideally, those workers could move back to oil production. But Gilmer doubts the burst of drilling activity can continue indefinitely at prices around $50 a barrel, since producers will deplete the extremely productive wells to which they've retreated in recent months. That will force them to wells that are more costly to drill and unable to make profits at lower prices.
Crude settled in New York on Thursday at $47.83 a barrel, up 50 cents.
Housing market
Gilmer, like many economists, declined to predict where oil prices are headed. But, he said, OPEC's failure to boost prices significantly through cutting supply late last year - caused in part by the quick increase in production by U.S. shale drillers - was a disappointment.
"All of the optimism we were seeing back in November has pretty much been flushed out of the market," Gilmer said. "The problems we have continue to be about oil."
There was some good news in Gilmer's presentation. The residential housing market seems to have worked through the glut of high-end homes and production is returning in more modest housing that provides Houston with one of its key economic advantages - affordability - and attracts workers that help the economy grow.
Prices and sales in more expensive inner-loop neighborhoods continue to suffer, while growth flows to more affordable communities along the ship channel.
All in all, Gilmer said, the local economy can expect a "pretty mediocre year" - which, after a severe oil bust, might not be so bad.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Houston-economy-still-waiting-for-oil-11140412.php
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Change is in the Air for Independent Power Players
May 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Edward Klump
U.S. independent power producers, no stranger to uncertainty, have entered a period that may bring dramatic change. This week offered the latest potential scenarios.
First, Bloomberg reported that a committee of directors at NRG Energy Inc. is considering a recommendation to shed all of the company's renewable energy business.
The Wall Street Journal later had a story saying Calpine Corp. is exploring a sale and is working with Lazard investment bankers to "sound out possible buyers."
Elements of these pieces — which relied on unnamed sources — have floated around for a while. NRG said in February that its Business Review Committee would look at many aspects of its business, and rumors have come and gone for months that private suitors might pursue power companies with weakened stock prices. It's possible NRG and Calpine won't end up following the reported avenues.
But the stories reinforce the likelihood that change will come to independent producers dealing with low power prices as well as concerns about demand, the effects of subsidies on markets and competition in general. Companies such as Calpine, NRG and Dynegy Inc. aren't traditional regulated utilities, so they must navigate ups and downs in their markets.
"The industry's had some challenges for some time and in many ways has operated under the expectation that power prices would go up," said Paul Patterson, an analyst with Glenrock Associates LLC. "And as time goes on they have to find alternative strategies in the absence of that happening."
Patterson added that companies may be "open to exploring alternatives that perhaps in a rising price environment they wouldn't have been." NRG has a mix of generation tied to sources such as fossil fuels, nuclear, wind and solar. Calpine is known largely for its natural gas fleet and some geothermal assets.
Evercore ISI, in a recent report on Calpine, said the company at its current valuation "exhibits a free cash flow profile that is attractive even under current bad power and capacity market conditions." CreditSights said it wasn't ruling out a Calpine sale, though it had "a hard time seeing somebody buying a company" with its debt load. Lasan Johong with Auvila Research Consulting said Calpine's use of Lazard might be a "defensive" move.
Shares of Calpine have climbed in recent days amid speculation about its future, but it and NRG each had a market capitalization of less than $5 billion as of yesterday, according to Yahoo Finance. Dynegy had a market value of less than $1 billion.
Review at NRG
Calpine and NRG declined to comment on the recent stories about their respective companies. But executives from both made notable remarks when responding to questions during recent earnings calls.
On April 28, CEO Thad Hill of Calpine said that if somebody else "values the company a lot more than our shareholders do, we'll do the right thing." Unless or until that happens, he said, "our job is to operate, produce the cash and do what's right for the shareholders."
On May 2, CEO Mauricio Gutierrez of NRG said the Business Review Committee is focused on "cost initiatives, asset optimization and capital allocation," and that's "very consistent with how we approached our priorities last year." He suggested more initiatives could address costs, and "all the other decisions that we make will be towards creating shareholder value or maximizing shareholder value."
A filing previously indicated NRG could disclose publicly by Aug. 15 recommendations adopted by the board. There are 13 people on NRG's full board, while the committee comprises five directors.
Bloomberg's suggestion that NRG could consider selling its renewable energy business drew a response from Scott Stringer, New York City's comptroller. He led an unsuccessful campaign this year to derail shareholders' election of Barry Smitherman, who was appointed along with C. John Wilder to NRG's board as part of an agreement with Elliott Management Corp. and Bluescape Energy Partners LLC.
"It's increasingly clear that Barry Smitherman and the activist investors behind him are pushing this company — which has a strong record of embracing green energy — in the wrong direction," Stringer said in a statement. He previously noted concern about Smitherman's climate views.
The comptroller declared that selling the "renewable energy business would be the end of NRG as we know it" and "would be a death sentence for NRG's plan to transition to a low-carbon economy."
Stringer added: "This is not something NRG should even be considering. The Board has a responsibility to reject this misguided proposal if it's made."
NRG has been focusing on an integrated model of generation and retail instead of being merely an independent power producer, and Calpine and Dynegy also have retail components. NRG has continued to talk about sustainability, and it recently reiterated a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 50 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050 from a 2014 baseline.
Eyes on Texas
Meanwhile, Calpine and NRG filed a study this week with Texas regulators that suggested ways to adjust the main Texas power market. Both companies have plants in a region managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and under the jurisdiction of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC).
The report looked at ideas around price formation, scarcity pricing and transmission planning. For example, the study said: "Market-reflective policies for transmission investment should be considered as a replacement for Texas' socialized transmission planning, which, by building new transmission in advance of scarcity developing, fails to provide the opportunity for markets to respond."
The report, sponsored by NRG and Calpine, was authored by William Hogan of Harvard University and Susan Pope of FTI Consulting.
"Our goal of co-funding this study was to bring the independence, credibility and expertise of Drs. Hogan and Pope to help inform the discussion of the challenges facing the ERCOT energy-only market and to offer specific recommendations to improve its design to support a more effective and sustainable market," David Knox, a spokesman for NRG, said in a statement.
Brett Kerr, a spokesman for Calpine, said his company thinks "both the PUC and ERCOT should initiate some type of process or proceeding to address the issues that have been identified in this study."
It's not clear when or how ERCOT and the PUC might proceed. ERCOT issued reports this month saying the region appears to have enough generation for this summer and is in good shape for a number of summers in the future.
ERCOT's "staff is committed to the continuing success of the competitive wholesale market and is always open to exploring potential improvements with ERCOT stakeholders," Robbie Searcy, a spokeswoman for the grid operator, said yesterday via email. She said ERCOT could provide analysis and information to help policymakers evaluate proposals that would require PUC rule changes.
Auvila's Johong said Texas' main power market may act as a test area for Calpine and NRG. Changes there could be applied elsewhere and affect topics such as transparency and pricing, he said.
"I'm very hopeful that within the next 12 to 24 months they're going to have some sort of a market reform in ERCOT," Johong said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/12/stories/1060054469
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Trump's EPA Revives Controversial Alaska Mining Project
May 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revived a controversial proposed Alaska mining project previously blocked by Obama administration regulators.
The EPA and a mining firm on Friday announced a settlement in their legal dispute over the proposed Pebble Mine near Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska, setting the stage for an eventual permitting decision that could allow the gold and copper project to move forward.
Mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership sued the EPA in 2014 over the agency’s decision to block the mine on environmental and tribal sovereignty grounds before the company had submitted its permit applications.
That decision ignited a legal dispute between the agency and Pebble Limited, as well as congressional probes into the validity of the EPA’s action.
Republicans accused the agency of bias and improper consultation with the mine’s opponents. But the EPA’s Office of Inspector General reported last year that it found "no evidence of bias in how the EPA conducted the assessment" for the proposed mine, nor “that the EPA predetermined the outcome” of the project.
Under the terms of the settlement announced Friday, the EPA will withdraw its proposed rejection of the mine and Pebble will be able to file permit applications for it.
The EPA will not issue a recommendation on the mine until the Army Corps of Engineers issues a final environmental impact statement for the project.
The lack of both an environmental assessment and the permit applications means mining at Bristol Bay is still years away.
But the mine’s backers celebrated Friday’s decision as the end of an “unfortunate saga” and pledged to propose a “smaller project” than the potential development it was previously considering.
“We've asked for nothing more than fairness and due process under the law — the right to propose a development plan for Pebble and have it assessed against the robust environmental regulations and rigorous permitting requirements enforced in Alaska and the United States," said Ron Thiessen, the CEO of Pebble Partnership’s parent company.
“Today's settlement gives us precisely that, the same treatment every developer and investor in a stable, first world country should expect."
Pebble faces waves of opposition in Alaska, including from tribes and local businesses who worry the project threatens thousands of fishing and outdoor recreation jobs in the region.
"Protecting Bristol Bay from the Pebble Mine has been a priority issue for the hook-and-bullet community for 10 years. This was a real test for President Trump, who said all the right things to sportsmen during the election,” said Scott Hed, the director of the Sportsman's Alliance for Alaska.
“This is a direct assault on our values. America's hunters and anglers are extremely disappointed but we will not let up in the fight to protect Bristol Bay."
Key lawmakers in the state are against the project, as well. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, opposes Pebble Mine, as does Alaska House Speaker Bryce Edgmon (D).
A ballot measure requiring the state Legislature approve a Bristol Bay project passed with 65 percent of the vote in 2014.
Edgmon told reporters on Thursday that recent polls show more than 80 percent of people in the region oppose the mine. He said he’s “keenly disappointed” the EPA would agree to go back on its 2014 decision.
"The people of the Bristol Bay region don't need this kind of stress hanging over our heads once again and continuing on year after year," Edgmon said, according to the Alaska Dispatch News.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/333077-epa-mining-firm-settle-dispute-over-controversial-alaska-project
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No New Recommendations in CSB's Revised W.Va. Spill Report
May 12, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigators did not find any new recommendations necessary in its report of the January 2014 chemical spill at West Virginia's Freedom Industries.
In a revised report issued yesterday, the board included new estimates of the spill size and duration for the incident that contaminated the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and the surrounding area.
Homes and businesses were told to avoid their tap water entirely for up to a week.
The updated report does not offer any new insights into what caused the spill or whether West Virginia American Water was prepared for or properly responded to the spill.
"In the final analysis, our findings remain unchanged," said CSB Chairwoman Vanessa Allen Sutherland during a conference call with reporters.
The revised report changes the spill amount into the Elk River to 11,000 gallons of chemicals, about 1,000 more gallons than CSB previously reported. Additionally, the report changes the chemical leak time to a period of six to eight hours, instead of the previous 24-hour estimate.
During a public meeting in late September 2016, Kanawha Valley residents angrily criticized the board's findings and noted the agency gave little time for the public to review and prepare comments before the meeting.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/05/12/stories/1060054489
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SEPTA Sets Sights on Final PTC Implementation Steps
May 12, 2017 | RT&S
By Mischa Wanek-Libman
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) activated equipment on three rail lines May 1 and began operation under Amtrak's Positive Train Control (PTC) system.
SEPTA says that with the activation of PTC on the Paoli/Thorndale, Trenton and Wilmington/Newark Regional Rail Lines, its final PTC program work will focus on the boundary locations where SEPTA service abuts Amtrak.
SEPTA has taken a steady approach to its activation of PTC beginning on the Warminster line in April 2016 and adding on average one line a month. The exception being in August 2016 when it activated PTC on the Manayunk/Norristown Line and Chestnut Hill West Line and now May 2017 when it activated three lines.
"SEPTA is proud to be one of just a few customer rail systems in the United States to have PTC operating in revenue service. We greatly appreciate [our customer's] support and cooperation as we've worked to bring this important safety system to our Regional Rail network and we ask for the continued patience of our customers as PTC is introduced on their line," the agency said in a recent update on the technology.
http://www.rtands.com/index.php/safety-training/septa-sets-sights-on-final-ptc-implementation-steps.html?channel=
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Tillerson Signs International Declaration Recognizing Climate Change
May 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed on Thursday a declaration acknowledging the threat posed by climate change to the Arctic and indicating the need for action to curb its impact on the region.
The move appears at odds with the Trump administration's broad skepticism of climate change and comes at a time when President Trump is weighing a potential withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on fighting its effects.
Tillerson signed the Fairbanks Declaration in Fairbanks, Alask,a at a meeting of the Arctic Council, a forum made up of indigenous groups and eight countries with territory bordering the Arctic Circle.
"In the United States, we are currently reviewing several important policies, including how the Trump administration will approach the issue of climate change," Tillerson said at the meeting.
"We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view, and you should know that we are taking the time to understand your concerns. We’re not going to rush to make a decision. We’re going to work to make the right decision for the United States."
Trump and some of his top administration officials have expressed deep skepticism in climate change, despite overwhelming agreement among scientists that it is real and caused by humans. Trump himself has called the phenomenon a "hoax," and vowed on the campaign trail to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/333085-tillerson-signs-declaration-recognizing-climate-change
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U.S. Agrees Only to Acknowledge Paris Agreement Exists
May 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The United States ended its chairmanship of the Arctic Council yesterday amid growing international alarm that President Trump may pull out of the Paris accord on climate change.
At a meeting of foreign ministers from the world's eight Arctic nations, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged that the United States is "reviewing several important policies, including how the Trump administration will approach the issue of climate change."
In his opening statement to the Arctic Council ministerial meeting, Tillerson said the United States is "appreciative that each of you has an important point of view, and you should know that we are taking the time to understand your concerns."
But the former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO flatly noted that the United States is "not going to rush to make a decision" on whether to remain in the Paris Agreement. "We're going to work to make the right decision for the United States," he said.
Diplomats from other countries in the Arctic Council said the Trump administration sought last-minute changes to the ministerial statement to reflect the White House's reluctance to commit to serious climate change policies.
A Finnish official said the Arctic Council foreign ministers came to Fairbanks this week believing that the ministerial declaration had been settled during negotiations held earlier this month.
"But then, yesterday, we got to know that the U.S. wanted to open up some paragraphs," explained René Söderman of Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
"There was a question around how strong the language could be for the Paris [accord], and on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals," Söderman said. "There were discussions on renewable energy and so on."
Some Arctic nations wanted to insert language from the Paris Agreement into the ministerial statement, now known as the Fairbanks Declaration. The statement is designed to highlight the accomplishments of the U.S. chairmanship and lay out Finland's plans to assume council leadership.
But during a last-minute negotiating session Wednesday, "we were able to push the U.S. back as much as possible," Söderman said. "And they were able to [push] back as much as possible."
In the end, the declaration makes a single reference acknowledging the existence of the Paris deal. "It could have been stronger language, but with a U.S. government that still has the Paris accord under consideration, this is as far as they could go," he said.
During the Fairbanks meeting, the eight Arctic Council foreign ministers all signed the new document but not before many of them forcefully advocated for implementation of the Paris accord and adoption of aggressive environmental policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Elisabeth Wallström cited a recent Arctic Council study showing that within two decades, increased warming in the northern countries is likely to cause the Arctic Ocean to be largely ice-free during the summer. That report, "Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic," says the economic damages from Arctic warming could amount to as much as $90 trillion (Climatewire, April 25).
Wallström argued that the Paris Agreement and the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development "provide a science-based path away from these risks. ... Like no other generation before us, we have the knowledge, technology and the capacity to save our planet."
Murkowski: U.S. should clarify climate policy
Alaska's Republican senators, who hitched a plane ride with Tillerson from Washington to Fairbanks, each had a distinct perspective on the importance of the Arctic Council declaration and the Paris accord.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski argued that the Arctic Council ministerial statement is impressive simply because Tillerson was willing to sign the document at a time when the president "has not been overwhelming in his embrace of the realities of climate change."
Trump has been dismissive of the science backing climate change, arguing that it is a Chinese hoax.
"Remember, this is an administration in which some do not believe that climate change is real," Murkowski noted. "There could have been an outcome where there was no mention of climate change whatsoever [in the Fairbanks Declaration]. But that is not the case."
Instead, the Arctic Council statement notes that the region is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, causing "widespread social, environmental, and economic impacts in the Arctic and worldwide." The statement includes an 11-point section on the impacts of climate change that advocates implementation of global actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Murkowski said she is "agnostic" on whether the United States should remain in the Paris pact.
"In fairness, I think we probably have more leverage if we stay in," she said, noting that countries taking part in the agreement could help shape implementation of the Paris initiatives.
"My hope is that after seeing this declaration, Secretary Tillerson will be able to go back to the administration and make the argument that it's important to clarify our climate policy," Murkowski said.
On the other hand, Alaska's junior senator, Dan Sullivan, was less convinced that the United States should remain in the Paris Agreement.
Sullivan acknowledged that the Arctic is being affected by climate change. But he argued that the international climate agreement would hurt the U.S. economy.
"One of the big flaws of the Paris accord is that the commitments made by China are much less stringent and serious than the ones made by the United States," he said. "And they're the biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and they're our biggest economic competitor. I think a lot of Americans have serious issues with that."
Sullivan said he opposes environmental policies to quickly decarbonize the world economies. Such proposals are advocated by environmental groups and some Nordic nations.
"Right now, my constituents here are going through a rough economic patch," he said, referring to Alaska's $3 billion budget deficit, caused when oil prices declined.
"Further restricting the ability to develop and produce hydrocarbons is not what I believe is in the best interest of Alaskans and the country," Sullivan said.
One new observer nation
Yesterday's ministerial meeting marks the beginning of Finland's two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council.
Söderman said his country ranks climate change as a top issue for its two-year term as head of the Arctic Council. Finland will also focus on technology connectivity, meteorological cooperation and education in the Arctic.
Finland is advocating strong environmental action under the Paris accord, Soderman said, in large part because the eight Arctic Council members are some of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Also at the ministerial meeting, the Arctic foreign ministers signed a scientific cooperation agreement aimed at opening doors for researchers from other Arctic nations. That agreement is the third binding accord negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council.
In addition, the Arctic nations granted observer status to Switzerland and to six nongovernmental groups, including the OSPAR Commission, Oceana, the World Meteorological Organization and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.
The ministers did not approve of requests for observer status filed by Turkey and Mongolia, as well as several policy groups.
Under the Arctic Council rules, "observers" are allowed to sit in on council meetings, which are closed to the public. But they cannot join the conversation. So far, 12 nations have been approved for observer status, including China, India, Singapore and South Korea.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/05/12/stories/1060054474
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Defying Trump, These State Leaders are Trying to Impose Their Own Carbon Taxes
May 12, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
While the Trump administration continues to consider a withdrawal from the Paris agreement, climate action in the United States is increasingly falling to the state and local level. And now, a handful of states, mainly clustered in New England, are turning to the concept of carbon pricing with a renewed sense of urgency.
Legislators in at least five states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Washington, have recently introduced proposals that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by placing a price on carbon in the form of a tax or fee. For most, this is at least the second time such legislation has been proposed. But with a growing national interest in carbon pricing schemes — including from some Republicans in Congress — sponsors say they’re growing more optimistic about their proposals.
Carbon taxes aim to drive down greenhouse gas emissions by placing a tax or fee on either fossil fuel products or emissions — things like gasoline. It’s one of two major forms of carbon pricing, the other being a cap-and-trade system, which places a limit on the amount of carbon emissions industries can produce and establishes a market for the buying and selling of emissions permits.
There are two major cap-and-trade systems operating in the United States, one in the state of California and one regional cooperative system involving nine northeastern states. But so far, no carbon tax has ever been established at either the state or federal level in the country.
Now, leading the momentum in the Northeast is Massachusetts, where two separate carbon pricing bills — one in the House and one in the Senate — have a combined total of 80 sponsors, or about 40 percent of the state legislature. That’s 32 more supporters than a similar proposal garnered after it was introduced in the state in 2015.
Success in Massachusetts could pave the way for success in other states. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut have included language in their own carbon-tax proposals making the legislation contingent on whether the Massachusetts carbon-tax bill goes into effect.
“Last year was an educational opportunity,” said Rebecca Morris, communications director at the Massachusetts Campaign for a Clean Energy Future, which supported both the previous proposal and this year’s new ones. “People were still learning about the concept, they were learning about the bill.”
The previous bill met its end last year after its sponsor decided not to push forward with it, Morris said. But the increased support for this year’s carbon-pricing legislation is a testament to a growing awareness of the concept, she suggested.
Lessons from past carbon-tax attempts
Economists have long argued that a carbon tax is likely one of the most effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the strategy has seen success in other places. A carbon tax established in the Canadian province of British Columbia in 2008 has been widely hailed as one of the most successful examples of a carbon pricing scheme worldwide.
However, the idea has been slow to gain support in the United States, although awareness has grown significantly in the past few years. In 2015 and 2016, several states, including Massachusetts, saw carbon pricing bills introduced, and a carbon-tax proposal in Washington state made it all the way to the ballot in last November’s election, although it ultimately failed to pass.
A major reason for the Washington bill’s failure involved a fierce controversy among environmentalists over how the tax’s revenue should be used. The legislation was designed to be revenue neutral, meaning it wouldn’t produce any additional income for the state — instead, the extra money raised from the carbon tax would be used to lower the state’s sales tax, as well as to fund a rebate for low-income families. However, some environmental and social advocacy groups felt that some revenue from the tax should be used to fund clean energy investments and other social and climate-related projects — and for this reason, some groups ultimately decided not to support the legislation.
In Massachusetts this year, one of the proposed carbon-pricing bills is revenue-neutral and the other is not, tackling both sides of the potential revenue debate. Both bills propose a fee starting at $10 per ton of carbon dioxide and rising by $5 a year until it hits a cap of $40 per ton. But a bill introduced by state Sen. Mike Barrett would return 100 percent of the carbon fee’s revenue back to households and businesses, while a billproposed by state Rep. Jennifer Benson would use 20 percent of the revenue to fund green infrastructure and clean energy investments.
The two bills share many overlapping sponsors, although Barrett’s bill has a few more supporters. That said, Barrett told The Washington Post, “I’ll take a carbon price either way.” For now, both bills remain in their earliest stages and have been referred to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, which is chaired by Barrett.
A carbon tax bloc in the northeast?
Meanwhile in Rhode Island and Connecticut, the chances of a future carbon tax have also been pinned to the success of the Massachusetts legislation.
Connecticut’s bill states that its provisions shall take effect upon “Massachusetts and Rhode Island enacting a fee on fossil fuels sold in said states at a rate of not less than ten dollars per ton.” And in Rhode Island, the bill is dependent on a neighboring state with “an aggregate population of at least five million (5,000,000) persons” enacting similar legislation. Massachusetts is the only bordering state that exceeds this population, and the other border-sharing state is Connecticut.
According to the Rhode Island bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Aaron Regunberg, the clause was born of concerns about Rhode Island potentially putting itself at a competitive disadvantage if it were to become the only state with an implemented carbon tax.
“Understanding the strength of those concerns, we included trigger language and we’ve been working with folks in Massachusetts and Connecticut and other states to try to be pushing this forward together,” he told The Post.
It’s an attitude reminiscent of the cooperative spirit that resulted in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the northeastern cap-and-trade system that already includes Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. In fact, because the RGGI already addresses emissions from the power sector, Morris noted that the new carbon-tax proposals make an exemption for the electricity sector.
Another chance in Washington state?
For its part, Washington state — still recovering from the defeat of last year’s proposed legislation — has already seen four new carbon-tax bills proposed by various state legislators this year, all of which are in early stages as well. And state Rep. Diana Gonzalez of Vermont recently introduced a carbon-fee proposal that she’s described as a “conversation starter.”
Indeed, the emergence of these proposals across the nation may be taken as evidence that the conversation has already begun — and more lawmakers are beginning to join it. Even at the federal level, a surprising interest in carbon pricing has begun to surface among conservative policymakers, who have generally been opposed to the idea in the past.
In February, a group of senior Republican officials, some of whom had previously served in high-ranking positions in the Council of Economic Advisers, met with Trump administration officials to propose the idea of using a federal carbon tax, rather than top-down regulation, to address the issue of climate change. The idea quickly received endorsements from other notable Republican lawmakers, including Mitt Romney.
The White House has since stated it is no longer considering the proposal — but its newfound acceptance among some Republicans was a point of hope among environmentalists and additional testament to the idea that carbon pricing may, one day, lead the future of climate action in the United States.
For now, though, hopes for the first U.S. carbon tax remain pinned at the state level. The Carbon Tax Center suggests that seven states — Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Illinois and New York — and the District of Columbia have the greatest potential to be the first in the nation to implement such legislation. The analysis is based on factors like the states’ vulnerability to climate change impacts, voter concern about the issue, state-level renewable energy initiatives and any legal, ideological or economic challenges that could prevent the legislation from moving forward.
While Massachusetts has made some strides in terms of support this year, the legislation’s future still remains uncertain. According to Barrett, such proposals can have as long as an “eight-year lifetime,” requiring several years just to raise awareness and drum up support for the issue. This is the second year he’s introduced his proposal, but he says he’s growing more hopeful.
“I’m making my way slowly, but I think successfully,” he said. “And my hope is that the Senate, at least, will act in this 2017-2018 session. Then the pressure really builds on the House, the other branch — the more conservative branch, I might add. I think they want to see the Senate take the first step.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/12/defying-trump-these-state-leaders-are-trying-to-impose-their-own-carbon-taxes/?utm_term=.c3970adc5b78
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