Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 5/25/2017
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(ACC Blog) Spray Foam Coalition Continues Sponsorship of DOE’s Race to Zero Student Design Competition
May 25, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
As we have for the past few years, the Spray Foam Coalition of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) sponsored the 2017 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Race to Zero Student Design Competition. -
(ACC Mentioned) Toward a Broader View of the New Plastics Economy
May 25, 2017 | Plastics Today
By Steve Russell
America’s plastics makers welcome efforts to promote innovation and advance the sustainability of plastics, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s recent report, The New Plastics Economy—Catalysing Action. -
(ACC Mentioned) GATX Receives Award from American Chemistry Council
May 25, 2017 | Monitor Daily
Railcar leasing company GATX received a Responsible Care 2017 Partner of the Year Award from the American Chemistry Council. The award was presented to GATX at the ACC’s annual Responsible Care Conference and Expo in Miami. -
GAO to Review Guidance Docs as Republicans Test CRA's Reach
May 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
The Government Accountability Office is accepting requests from lawmakers to review guidance documents and issue a legal opinion as to whether individual documents constitute rules under the Congressional Review Act, a GAO spokesman confirmed to E&E News. -
EPA Moves Up Deadline for New Science Advisers
May 25, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
EPA is accelerating its nomination process for new scientific advisers, moving up the deadline for applicants to submit their materials by three weeks. -
US EPA Round-Up
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has published section 5(a)(3)(C) determinations for two substances that were the subject of pre-manufacture notices (PMNs). -
MIT Professor Questions Extent New TSCA Will Manage Risk
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A leading academic expert has questioned whether the new TSCA will produce the improvements sought when the law was reformed for the first time in nearly forty years. -
US Health Group to Phase Out Triclosan and Triclocarban Hand Soaps
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
University Hospitals (UH) has committed to eliminating hand soaps containing triclosan and triclocarban from all of its facilities this year. -
US Federal Agencies to Guide Development of Non-Animal Tests
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
US regulators and industry are to steer the future development and implementation of new non-animal tests, according to a draft US strategic roadmap for alternative approaches, developed by the US Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (Iccvam). -
Period Activists Want Tampon Makers to Disclose Ingredients
May 24, 2017 | New York Times
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Have you ever wondered what chemicals and other ingredients are in your tampons? -
GreenScreen Reveals Hazard 'Hotspots' for Preservatives Used in Cosmetics
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Skin sensitisation, skin and eye irritation and aquatic toxicity are hazard 'hotspots' for preservatives in personal care products, says US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). -
Echa, Ducc Try to Promote Use Maps in Time for 2018 Registrations
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Industry associations are succeeding in their promotion of sector use maps, the downstream users of chemicals coordination group (Ducc) says. -
Echa Issues REACH Dossier 'Best Practice' Document for Nanoforms
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published nanomaterials guidance in the form of two documents, and updates to three existing documents. -
NGOs Criticise Echa for 'Ignoring Safer Alternatives' in Authorisations
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Several NGOs have criticised Echa for failing to thoroughly assess alternatives to toxic chemicals when considering authorisation applications. -
EPA Has Early Draft of Rollback
May 25, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
U.S. EPA has drafted the initial rulemaking for rescinding the Clean Power Plan and is developing a related economic analysis, according to an administration official with knowledge of the documents. -
Pruitt Unsure If EPA Will Replace Clean Power Plan
May 24, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Jack Fitzpatrick
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Wednesday the agency may not replace the Obama administration’s greenhouse gas-cutting Clean Power Plan, which the Trump administration is reviewing. -
Mexico Poised to Draw Deeply From Dry Gas Eagle Ford Shale
May 25, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
Production from the dry gas Eagle Ford Shale, particularly in Webb County, TX, has skyrocketed, and so has Mexico's gas demand. That would sound like an opportunity to anyone. -
Report: Huge Tank That Exploded Needed Emergency Repairs
May 25, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Jim Salter
A giant steam-filled tank weighing nearly 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) that exploded at a St. Louis box plant, flew a quarter-mile into the air and smashed into a neighboring building, was being used despite needing emergency repairs, federal investigators said Thursday. -
Slim TSA Cyber Staff Takes on Rising Pipeline Threat
May 25, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Hannah Northey, Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak
As the cyberthreat facing the nation's biggest natural gas pipelines grows and evolves, a small group of federal workers tasked with protecting the sprawling, hidden energy matrix is woefully outnumbered. -
State AGs Call for Crude Oil Volatility Standards
May 25, 2017 | American Shipper
By Hailey Desmoreaux
A coalition of six state attorneys general expressed strong support for a nationwide limit on the vapor pressure of crude oil transported by rail in the United States in a letter sent last Friday to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials... -
Top GOP Senators Tell Trump to Ditch Paris Climate Deal
May 25, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told President Trump on Thursday to abandon the Paris climate change deal negotiated by former President Obama. -
Pruitt's First 100 Days at the EPA: His Most Alarming Actions So Far
May 25, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fun
By Keith Gaby
Columnists across the political spectrum have been calling President Trump names – questioning his discipline, knowledge and focus. No one can say the same things about Scott Pruitt. -
Looking for Trump’s Climate Policy? Try the Energy Department
May 25, 2017 | New York Times
By Brad Plumer
The Trump administration’s deepest impact on domestic climate policy might have little to do with its efforts to dismantle the Clean Power Plan or its decision on the Paris accord.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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May 25, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
As we have for the past few years, the Spray Foam Coalition of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) sponsored the 2017 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Race to Zero Student Design Competition. This year, the first-place winner in the small multifamily housing contest – from Georgia Tech – used SPF in their design.
Georgia Tech’s team named their project Westart. According to their project summary, “Westart is a multi-family building consisting of 36 dwelling units. It is designed mainly for local residents wishing to improve their housing quality with limited budget. The goal of this project is to design a building to provide a high living quality at low total cost, bringing a sustainable, affordable and equitable Net Zero Home to the residents of West End.”
In the design, the team used SPF in the floor trusses to maximize acoustic and thermal insulation between floors and units.
A little background on the competition: the Race to Zero competition was created to inspire students to design the next generation of zero energy ready homes with features that sharply reduce energy use and offset most, if not all, of the remaining energy needs with renewable energy. This year, 37 teams from 33 collegiate institutions competed with market-ready designs for homes that are more energy efficient than today’s standard new homes.
We’ve been proud to sponsor this event for the past few years because it provides examples of how SPF is an outstanding building material for high-performance homes. SPF is an excellent fit for net-zero energy construction because it helps to increase overall energy efficiency by adding high-performing thermal insulation to the building envelope and reducing costly air leaks that can account for up to 40% of the heating and cooling loss in a typical home.
And we’re always glad to see a winning team incorporating SPF into their designs. Congratulations to Georgia Tech and the other winners in the competition!
The Spray Foam Coalition is composed of companies that produce and sell SPF insulation systems as well as suppliers of raw materials and machinery used to apply them. For more information, please visit: https://www.whysprayfoam.org/.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/05/spray-foam-coalition-continues-sponsorship-of-does-race-to-zero-student-design-competition/
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(ACC Mentioned) Toward a Broader View of the New Plastics Economy
May 25, 2017 | Plastics Today
By Steve Russell
The American Chemistry Council (Washington, DC) assesses the New Plastics Economy initiative and finds there’s an emphasis on recycling at the expense of packaging functionality and other aspects of sustainability.
America’s plastics makers welcome efforts to promote innovation and advance the sustainability of plastics, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s recent report, The New Plastics Economy—Catalysing Action . In packaging, plastics have a demonstrated track record of helping to store and ship more product with less material than many alternatives. And plastics’ ability to do more with less enables significant environmental benefits throughout the life of a package.
Using less packaging material to start with—often called “source reduction”—helps to reduce energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and waste. And plastics makers are already working with value chain partners to bring about even greater contributions to sustainability, including increased recycling.
The key to sustainability lies in using any material efficiently, and less weight often means less waste in the first place. That’s just one of the reasons sustainability is best evaluated across the full life of a product or package. Anything else is only part of the story.
Unfortunately, Catalysing Action singles out specific resins such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS) and expanded polystyrene (EPS), which are used in relatively small volumes in packaging, and states that because these materials’ recycling rates are low, alternatives would need to be explored. These materials are in use today because they offer specific and sometimes unique properties that can provide important performance and environmental benefits.
Too narrow of a focus?
Because Catalysing Action focuses so tightly on recycling—an important element, but not the only element in determining material sustainability—other critical benefits such as resource efficiency and GHG emissions reductions are overlooked. Discussions would benefit from taking a fuller perspective and giving more weight to functionality and environmental benefits across a package’s entire life cycle.
For example, a peer-reviewed life-cycle study found that commonly used cups, plates and sandwich containers made of EPS require significantly less energy and water than comparable paper-based or corn-based alternatives (such as polylactic acid, PLA), primarily due to EPS’s much lower weight ( Franklin Associates, 2011 ). And new innovations are making it easier and more efficient to chemically and mechanically recycle EPS.
This is why many sustainability experts are moving toward a holistic approach called Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) , which is based on life-cycle analysis. SMM takes into account the material, energy and water used across the lifespan of a product or package, from manufacturing to transportation to end of life.
Lightweight plastic packaging plays a key role in protecting and safely transporting goods, which reduces waste, material and energy use, and GHG emissions. SMM considers all of these impacts of a package, not just its ability to be recycled.
In a life-cycle context, plastics and plastic packaging typically compare favorably to alternatives in many applications. A 2016 study by Trucost found that the environmental cost of using plastics for consumer goods and packaging was nearly four times less compared to using alternatives for the same job—a difference of $139 billion versus $533 billion annually.
As we look for ways to enhance sustainability, we should remember functionality and environmental benefits often go hand-in-hand. From food packaging that helps prolong freshness and prevent food waste—which has significant environmental impacts—to sterile medical packaging that improves safety, specific packages are designed to protect products. And that protection helps to avert damage, loss and waste.
Recycling also has a role
Of course, recycling also is an important part of a package’s environmental performance. Plastics makers, brand owners, retailers and recyclers are working to advance plastics recycling through better sorting equipment, collection practices and education. Increasing access to single-stream collection, moving from bins to 96-gallon recycling carts, and growing grocery store takeback programs for film are among the actions dramatically expanding the types of plastics that can be recycled and consumer access to plastics recycling programs.
While there are economic barriers to recycling 100% of any material, new technologies are leading the way to recover more of the energy embodied in plastics. These new technologies have the potential to create a diverse range of products from non-recycled plastics, including fuels and feedstocks for manufacturing.
Our work to increase plastics’ recycling and recovery through ongoing partnerships and innovation will continue, and so will endeavors to improve overall sustainability. Both are critical for the environment and the future of our industry, but recycling is only part of sustainability, not the other way around. The path toward a more sustainable future lies in looking across the full life cycle of our products.
Steve Russell is vice president of the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, the industry’s source for solutions-oriented programs, scientific research, and public outreach initiatives for the plastics industry—with a particular focus on sustainability, recycling, recovery and marine debris.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/toward-broader-view-new-plastics-economy/211530339956884
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(ACC Mentioned) GATX Receives Award from American Chemistry Council
May 25, 2017 | Monitor Daily
Railcar leasing company GATX received a Responsible Care 2017 Partner of the Year Award from the American Chemistry Council. The award was presented to GATX at the ACC’s annual Responsible Care Conference and Expo in Miami.
The ACC’s Responsible Care Program has been in place for almost 30 years, and is designed to bring chemical producers and their key suppliers together to demonstrate a common commitment to continuously improving the industry’s safety, sustainability and overall performance. GATX is a Responsible Care Partner in both the ACC’s program in the U.S. and the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada’s Responsible Care Program.
GATX was specifically recognized for its superb performance and safety record in the distribution, transportation, storage, use, treatment, disposal and/or sales and marketing of chemicals.
Thomas Ellman, president of GATX Rail North America, said, “On behalf of our dedicated employees at GATX, we are very proud to receive this award from the ACC. All of our employees are focused on safe and efficient performance so we can continue to make it easier for our customers to operate their railcar fleets.”
http://www.monitordaily.com/news-posts/gatx-receives-award-american-chemistry-council/
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GAO to Review Guidance Docs as Republicans Test CRA's Reach
May 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
The Government Accountability Office is accepting requests from lawmakers to review guidance documents and issue a legal opinion as to whether individual documents constitute rules under the Congressional Review Act, a GAO spokesman confirmed to E&E News.
"We are responding to Congressional requests for legal opinions," spokesman Chuck Young said in an email. "Our legal review will include guidance."
The 1996 Congressional Review Act requires that agencies submit rules to Congress and GAO for a review before they can take effect. There has been a vigorous debate as Republicans have begun rejecting Obama-era rules about whether the law also requires agencies to send guidance documents to Capitol Hill (E&E Daily, March 7).
While guidance documents are intended to help regulated businesses and individuals comply with regulations, federal agencies are sometimes accused of issuing rules masquerading as guidance documents to skirt public notice-and-comment requirements. A guidance can carry as much weight as the regulation itself.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has asked GAO to look at a bulletin issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a guidance jointly issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
"I write to seek your determination of whether the Guidance constitutes a 'rule' for the purposes of the Congressional Review Act," Toomey wrote in the request, obtained by E&E News.
Katherine Siggerud, GAO's managing director of congressional relations, accepted both requests in a letter sent Tuesday.
If GAO determines certain guidances constitute rules, the move would be a win for conservatives who are trying to expand the reach of the CRA, which Republicans have used to roll back 14 Obama-era regulations this year (E&E Daily, May 12).
After agencies submit final rules to Congress and GAO, Congress has 60 legislative days to review the regulation. During that time, lawmakers can schedule a simple majority, up-or-down vote on rules they want to overturn using fast-track procedures.
Todd Gaziano — a lawyer with Pacific Legal Foundation who was the chief legislative counsel to the sponsor of CRA legislation, former Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.) — has been arguing that agencies have failed over many years to properly report rules to Congress. This, he argues, means the rules cannot be legally enforced.
Should agencies choose to send these rules to Congress now, Gaziano said, the window for congressional disapproval would open, giving lawmakers 60 legislative days to toss rules dating as far back as the law itself.
There is debate about how many rules agencies have actually failed to send to Congress. Guidance documents and policy statements, however, are rarely, if ever, sent.
Gaziano argues that while agencies are not required to publish guidance in the Federal Register, they are required to send it to Congress.
The CRA defines "rule" very broadly as including the "whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency."
Some legal scholars have disputed the notion that agencies would have to send guidance to Congress, arguing that such documents are not rules and impose no enforceable obligation.
Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University, said the definition in the CRA is so broad, it includes guidance.
"I testified when Congress passed the CRA, and I urged Congress to narrow the definition of 'rule' because I knew it was absurd to expect agencies to submit every guidance to Congress," he said in a recent interview.
While an agency head can easily rescind guidance documents, subjecting them to CRA reviews would prohibit agencies from ever issuing "substantially similar" guidance or rules.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/05/25/stories/1060055171
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EPA Moves Up Deadline for New Science Advisers
May 25, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
EPA is accelerating its nomination process for new scientific advisers, moving up the deadline for applicants to submit their materials by three weeks.
In a Federal Register notice to be published next week, the agency will move the deadline for nominations to the Board of Scientific Counselors up to June 30. New nominations for the board, which lost half its members after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declined to renominate nine members, were originally due July 21, according to a notice published today.
The board's chairwoman, Deborah Swackhamer, this week expressed concern about its ability to function with so few members. Not only did it lose nine members when Pruitt elected not to renominate members whose first term had expired, as is customary, but it also lost four members whose second terms had expired.
"I'm obviously concerned. My committee is no longer populated. I'm anxious that it gets repopulated as quickly as possible," Swackhamer told a subpanel of the House Science Committee earlier this week.
WHAT'S NEXT: Nominations for new board members will be accepted by EPA through June 30. A subcommittee of the board is scheduled to meet in August, Swackhamer said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
TSCA section 5(a)(3)(C) determinationsThe US EPA has published section 5(a)(3)(C) determinations for two substances that were the subject of pre-manufacture notices (PMNs).
The first, a generic polycarbonate polyol intended for use as an industrial intermediate, was determined not likely to present an unreasonable risk based on low human health and low environmental hazards.
This mirrors the determination for the second substance – a reactive polymer intended for use in waterborne coating applications – but the latter includes a polymer exemption flag. This says the substance must be manufactured such that it meets these exemption criteria.
The agency issued its determinations on 15 May. The review of the polycarbonate polyol began on 28 February, while the polymer’s began on 18 September 2016.Environmental Modelling Public Meeting (EMPM)
The agency is holding an Environmental Modelling public meeting on 28 June in Arlington, Virginia.
The biannual event is held to discuss current issues related to modelling pesticide fate, transport and exposure for risk assessment in a regulatory context.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56113/us-epa-round-up
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MIT Professor Questions Extent New TSCA Will Manage Risk
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A leading academic expert has questioned whether the new TSCA will produce the improvements sought when the law was reformed for the first time in nearly forty years.
In an opinion piece in this month’s Global Business Briefing, which expands on a presentation he gave in March at a Chemical Watch conference in San Francisco, Nick Ashford, professor of technology and policy at MIT, says the recently revised law "does little to advance the protection of the public, consumers and workers".
There are, he says, two "fundamental flaws" with it: that it continues the two-step process to chemical regulation – risk assessment followed by risk management; and it fails to place the identification, assessment and development of safer technology alternatives early in the process.
The new law separates risk assessment and risk management, and removes from the former any consideration of costs and other ‘non-risk factors’ in determining unreasonable risk.
This was a priority for many in reform negotiations to eliminate the "least burdensome" requirement previously required for the assessment of chemicals in commerce.
But Dr Ashford argues that these considerations are effectively relegated and reinserted into the risk management phase. This, he says, "codifies the paralysing effect of the Fifth Circuit Court decision" – the 1991 ruling overturning the EPA’s attempt to ban asbestos, which is largely agreed to have rendered ineffective the agency’s ability to regulate existing substances under TSCA.
Further, while Dr Ashford says the law "appears to require – or invite – risk assessment to be firmly based on science and the weight of the evidence", he writes that in the context of TSCA, "that is not enough".
Indeed, in some respects this is a "step backwards" because the existence of conflicting studies can be used against a determination that a risk is unreasonable. "A concern with the new TSCA is that only risks supported with strong, and essentially unequivocal, risk assessment results are likely to be considered and addressed as unreasonable," he adds.
And with regard to consideration of alternatives, Dr Ashford says that the law "does almost nothing to extinguish [the] onerous burden" of requiring that substitutes be individually assessed through an examination of their costs and benefits.
"Simply shifting economic concerns from determination of what constitutes unreasonable risk to a risk management decision does nothing in practice to address the reality that economics will trump public health and environmental protection," he adds.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56110/mit-professor-questions-extent-new-tsca-will-manage-risk
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US Health Group to Phase Out Triclosan and Triclocarban Hand Soaps
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
University Hospitals (UH) has committed to eliminating hand soaps containing triclosan and triclocarban from all of its facilities this year.
The US group – which runs 12 medical centres, three joint-venture hospitals and more than 40 outpatient units in Ohio – has already replaced triclosan soap with bland soap in one hospital and two administrative buildings. This followed a successful pilot in 2014 focused on removing the substances that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned from certain consumer products last year.
Speaking at the CleanMed expo in Minneapolis, UH’s Anna Cifranic said that both bland and other antimicrobial soaps are being explored as possible replacements for its remaining facilities.
Ms Cifranic shared with attendees a case study of how hospitals are implementing the targets of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) safer chemicals challenge. Run by the NGOs Healthcare Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth, the HHI initiative has 1,865 members – representing 33.5% of total US hospitals.
The challenge sets out four targets:
· mercury elimination;
· purchase 90% Green Seal or UL ECOLOGO-certified cleaning products;
· eliminate di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from at least two product categories; and
· ensure 30% of furnishing purchases eliminate use of formaldehyde, PVC, perfluorinated compound (PFCs), antimicrobials and flame retardants.
Challenge progress
UH has seen a steady increase in its use of cleaning products holding the Green Seal – a non-profit environmental certification standard that prohibits the use of harmful chemicals, such as formaldehyde donors, 2-butoxyethanol, certain phthalates and heavy metals. In the past five years, this number has risen from about a quarter of its products to approaching its 90% goal.
It has also reduced the need for chemical cleaners in its hospitals by using alternative methods, such as a xenex machine, which uses UV light to kill germs, and a machine which uses ionised water to clean floors.
Green cleaning has been incorporated into the health group’s integrated pest management (IPM) programme. This uses proactive cleaning as a prevention for pests, to decrease the need for chemical treatments.
With regard to its efforts on DEHP and PVC, UH has marked progress in phasing the substances out from three of the seven product categories named in the challenge.
Currently, 100% of its breast pumps and accessories, 99% of its enteral nutrition products and 98% of its nasogastric tubes are DEHP / PVC free. It aims to completely eliminate the substances from these three categories by year's end.
A new DEHP / PVC free exam glove is being trialled which, if successful, will replace the vinyl gloves currently used.
In 2009, prior to joining the safer chemicals challenge, the health group also eliminated DEHP from furniture, flooring, medical supplies and equipment in its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Last year, 66% of furniture UH purchased met the safer chemicals challenge criteria. Ms Cifranic said this was a "bit of a shock" because the figure was 80-90% in previous years.
The change, she said, was mainly due to the purchase of beds, mattresses, side tables and over-bed tables for patient rooms, containing flame retardants, PVC and antimicrobials.
"Brand loyalty and contract restrictions" prevented the group from purchasing compliant options, she added. Relying on vendors to supply information about chemicals in products is "a challenge".
UH has joined the Chemical Footprint Programme "as a way to let vendors know we are interested in the chemicals used in our medical supplies". This is an initiative for measuring corporate progress to safer chemicals, run by the NGO Clean Production Action (CPA).
https://chemicalwatch.com/56089/us-health-group-to-phase-out-triclosan-and-triclocarban-hand-soaps
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US Federal Agencies to Guide Development of Non-Animal Tests
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
US regulators and industry are to steer the future development and implementation of new non-animal tests, according to a draft US strategic roadmap for alternative approaches, developed by the US Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (Iccvam).
"What makes this approach very different is that what we are doing is driven by the federal agencies," said Warren Casey, director of the US National Toxicology Program's Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (Niceatm), which provides scientific and operational support for the committee.
Importantly, Iccvam expects the approach to increase the rate at which new non-animal test methods are accepted by regulators. "If the regulators are driving the validation, everything goes really fast," said Dr Casey.
"It's completely reversing the current model of validation, which is basically bottom up," he told Chemical Watch. "Somebody has a technology that they think can be applied to the toxicology and they start finding a method they think they can replace … The regulators are never heavily involved so we end up with methods that they don't want."
With the new approach, "not only are we starting things with the regulators, we are also tying in with industry very early on to see what they would use and how they would use it," he added.
Dr Casey presented the draft roadmap at an Iccvam public forum on 23 May. Its goals are to:
· help agencies and industry guide the development of new tools that support regulatory and research needs;
· use "timely, flexible and robust" practices to establish confidence in new methods; and
· encourage the adoption and use of new approaches by federal agencies and industry.
It also lists objectives, such as communicating the needs of federal agencies to test developers.
Lack of communication is the "number one complaint" from test method developers and industry, says Dr Casey. "They need agencies to be very clear about what the testing requirements are and how they are being used."
The roadmap describes a need to identify and collate sources of high quality human toxicological data, relevant to assessment of new alternative methods. Some human data sources exist, said Dr Casey, but "pulling those together and getting them into a format that's suitable for regulators and toxicologists is a different issue."
Although the plan focuses on the US, global harmonisation, he said, is critical, and a key goal is "the acknowledgement that we have to have international harmonisation for any of this to work".
NGO involvement
The roadmap takes into account the views of NGO People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). These include expanding programmes that are working well in one agency and incorporating them into others, said Peta International Science Consortium associate director, Amy Clippinger.
The roadmap is open for consultation until 31 August. It will then be discussed at the Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods, which advises both Iccvam and Niceatm, in September, and is due for publication in December.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56102/us-federal-agencies-to-guide-development-of-alternative-approaches
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Period Activists Want Tampon Makers to Disclose Ingredients
May 24, 2017 | New York Times
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Have you ever wondered what chemicals and other ingredients are in your tampons?
The answer typically is not on the label. Unlike candy bars, frozen dinners and eye shadow, tampons and menstrual pads are not required to carry a list of ingredients.
Instead, many tampon makers give a suggested ingredient list saying their product “may” contain cotton or rayon or polyester, or possibly a combination of them. And many sanitary pads don’t list any ingredients at all on the package, though companies may offer information on their websites, noting that the pads contain materials like “absorbent wood cellulose” and polyolefin, a chemical compound.
Now a vocal group of health activists focused on “menstrual equity” are calling for new rules to force companies to disclose the chemicals and materials used to manufacture feminine care products.
“I call this ‘the other tampon tax,’ ” said Laura Strausfeld, co-founder of Period Equity, a law and policy institute focused on menstrual equity issues, referring to a lack of transparency that prevents women from knowing exactly what’s in an intimate product, with potential consequences for their health.Continue reading the main story
Until just a couple of years ago, the subject of menstruation wasn’t discussed in mixed company. Women kept tampons out of sight, and girls used code language to refer to their periods. But over the past few years, activists have attempted to normalize the subject of monthly periods. They have called for an end to sales tax on sanitary products in some states, and pushed to make feminine products free in schools and homeless shelters.
Now activists are calling for more scrutiny of the manufacturing process of a consumer product used by a woman for about a week out of every month of her childbearing years.
Earlier this month, Representative Grace Meng, Democrat of New York, introduced a bill called the Menstrual Products Right to Know Act, which would require menstrual hygiene products — including tampons, pads, and menstrual cups – to list their ingredients on the package.
On Tuesday, members of Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit organization whose 2013 report “Chem Fatale,” focused on toxic chemicals in feminine care products, rallied in Washington to express their support for the proposed legislation.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, another Democrat from New York, also has reintroduced a bill directing the National Institutes of Health to do research to determine whether chemicals used in feminine hygiene products pose health risks. The bill, which Ms. Maloney is introducing for the 10th time, has never moved out of committee. The prospects for both bills most likely are dim, given the complicated legislative agenda and divisive political climate.
But proponents are convinced that the proposed legislation and rallies can leverage public support for the changes, and put pressure on tampon and pad makers to disclose ingredients and ensure their products are safe for women.
“We want women to be able to know what chemicals are in these products, which come in direct contact with our bodies,” said Ms. Meng.
The Food and Drug Administration regulates menstrual hygiene products as medical devices, a category that also includes dental floss and condoms. The agency recommends manufacturers provide general information on the label about the material composition of the product – such as whether the product is made of cotton or rayon — but does not require the individual ingredients, said Deborah Kotz, an F.D.A. spokeswoman.
“Disclosure of ingredients in pads and tampons right now is entirely voluntary,” said Sarada Tangirala, the national campaigns manager for Women’s Voices for the Earth.
There are two types of ingredients that most interest women’s health activists. One category is added ingredients like fragrances, gels and other additives, including those used to enhance absorbency or provide adhesives for pantyliners. The other category includes incidental contaminants that may be toxic, such as persistent pesticide residues in cotton or toxic byproducts created during the manufacturing process.
One longtime concern about menstrual products has been whether the process of purifying or bleaching cotton and rayon with chlorine compounds may leave worrisome traces of toxic dioxins behind. Some research in nonhuman primates has linked exposure to dioxins to endometriosis.
But several other studies of dioxin content in different brands of tampons and disposable diapers found no evidence of the most toxic dioxin. The F.D.A. has also analyzed dioxin content in tampons and determined that for the average woman, the typical monthly exposure from tampons does not exceed tolerable levels set by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, though the amounts that were detected varied between tampon brands and types.
Several large manufacturers, including Procter & Gamble, maker of Always and Tampax, and Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kotex, state on their websites that they use a process called elemental chlorine-free bleaching, which they said does not create dioxins during the bleaching process. “Increasingly women want to know more about their feminine hygiene products and we take our responsibility to provide that information seriously,” said Maria Burquest, a spokeswoman for P &G Feminine Care.
Another concern is pesticide residue in nonorganic cotton. Since cotton is not a food crop, it is often treated heavily with pesticides, Ms. Strausfeld noted. Some smaller companies, including Seventh Generation, a subscription service called Lola and a new company Sustain Natural, sell products made with organic cotton.
Many gynecologists discourage their patients from using scented products, which can trigger allergic reactions, and encourage them to use the least absorbent product they require, said Dr. Nichole Tyson, a gynecologist with Kaiser Permanente who spoke on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But overall, she said, there is no evidence that ingredients in tampons cause long-term harm. “There are probably a lot of other things in the food, water and the world around us, that are more risky than the very low levels of pesticides that exist in a tampon,” Dr. Tyson said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/well/live/period-activists-want-tampon-makers-to-disclose-ingredients.html?_r=0
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GreenScreen Reveals Hazard 'Hotspots' for Preservatives Used in Cosmetics
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Skin sensitisation, skin and eye irritation and aquatic toxicity are hazard 'hotspots' for preservatives in personal care products, says US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
The group conducted hazard assessments of 16 commercial preservatives using the GreenScreen tool developed by Clean Production Action (CPA).
The hotspots were endpoints corresponding to high numbers of moderate to very high hazard scores across the group of substances:· eight registered such scores for skin sensitisation;
· seven for skin irritation;
· 11 for eye irritation; and
· 12 for aquatic toxicity.
EDF says it has produced a baseline of toxicity information for preservatives – as a functional class of substance – which can guide efforts to develop safer alternatives, set design criteria and serve as a basis for toxicological comparison.
The GreenScreen tool provides:· hazard scores for 18 human health, environmental and physical hazard endpoints;
· 'confidence values' for the hazard scores; and
· a benchmark score for each substance that integrates all the hazard scores and data gaps.
DMDM hydantoin generated a 'high' hazard score for carcinogenicity because it can release formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.
The group says it also "consistently" found data gaps for endocrine activity, neurotoxicity and respiratory sensitisation, but the confidence values varied widely across the group.
An independent chemicals assessment clearinghouse that would provide "comprehensive, structured, transparent and comparable health and safety assessment of chemical in a centralised, web-accessible repository" is needed, it says. This could "show how a new chemistry represents an improvement over the status quo".
The project used input from several companies, including Active Micro Technologies, Beautycounter, Clariant and Seventh Generation.https://chemicalwatch.com/56114/greenscreen-reveals-hazard-hotspots-for-preservatives-used-in-cosmetics
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Echa, Ducc Try to Promote Use Maps in Time for 2018 Registrations
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Industry associations are succeeding in their promotion of sector use maps, the downstream users of chemicals coordination group (Ducc) says.
The need for registration dossiers to contain more information on uses is a key issue. Almost a year ago, Echa head Geert Dancet wrote to Cefic director general Marco Mensink asking for greater collaboration, to ensure that industry implements sector use maps as their "highest priority".
Last October, a joint statement encouraging formulator industries to produce the maps and urging Cefic member companies to include such information in new and updated REACH registration dossiers was signed by the two men at the trade body's General Assembly in Florence. Ducc chair, Janice Robinson, also signed the statement on behalf of its 11 trade body member organisations.
With the 2018 REACH registration deadline only 12 months away, Ducc regulatory affairs manager Laura Portugal says "enough promotion" of use maps has been done so far.
Ducc members are taking the initiative, companies are contacting suppliers and their REACH managers are presenting the subject at national level. "Ideally we would have published use maps one year ago, but it was not possible. Some registrants have said it is too late, but when I talk to consultants I have the feeling we are still on time. I don’t see what else could have been done," she says.
More work needed
Echa, however, says "most of the visible effort" appears to be done by a small number of individuals in some active sectors.
"The overall success is dependent on a broad implementation process. We therefore look to industry to commit and make enough resources available," the agency tells Chemical Watch. The chemical safety assessment, and corresponding communication in the supply chain, it says, is "not just paperwork" for the registration of substances, but a long-term investment to secure business.
It is not too late, says Echa, for further promotion of existing and forthcoming use maps – such as Cepe’s, the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists' Colours Industry, which is expected by early June. The agency "strongly recommends" industry sectors still prepare the maps as information for 2018 registrants. Downstream sector associations may be "forced to act" if, after the deadline, formulators in a certain part of the market have difficulties in fulfilling their duties in terms of applying the information from exposure scenarios they receive.
Another point, says Echa, is that the use maps will have a longer life span because they will provide useful information after 2018 and registrants are urged to always keep their dossiers up to date.
Projects
Downstream user sectors associations, registrants and Echa met in early May at two one-day workshops on implementing the use map approach.
The first looked at converting sector use maps into a format compatible with Chesar – the agency's workflow tool for conducting exposure assessments and risk characterisations – so that registrants can easily import them when performing their chemical safety assessment with the tool and can generate their chemical safety report automatically. The second started a project to share registrants’ experiences in generating exposure scenarios from downstream sector use maps.
The project could lead to practical advice for registrants on selecting uses relevant to them, or how formulators make best use of the exposure scenarios they receive from their suppliers. A follow-up workshop is expected in June.
Cefic was also asked how much progress its members have made with use maps but did not comment in time for publication.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56105/echa-ducc-try-to-promote-use-maps-in-time-for-2018-registrations
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Echa Issues REACH Dossier 'Best Practice' Document for Nanoforms
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published nanomaterials guidance in the form of two documents, and updates to three existing documents.
The guidance aims to help companies dealing with the substances understand how to comply with EU chemicals legislation.
The new document on ‘how to prepare registration dossiers that cover nanoforms’ takes the form of an advisory best practice document rather than the usual guidance because of a recent Board of Appeal decision, concerning the provision of information on the nanoforms of a substance in its registration dossier. The case ended with the BoA ruling that Echa cannot demand such information on the grounds that the dossier fails to provide enough information on substance identity.
And importantly, it has been published before the European Commission has issued its proposal for changing the REACH Regulation’s information provision annexes to take account of nanoforms. The agency had hoped they would be updated in time for registration dossier preparation for the 2018 deadline, but the Commission has yet to publish any proposals.
In March, Echa, member states and NGOs criticised the European Commission's handling of discussions on revision of the REACH annexes at an EU meeting on nanomaterials. They said that the Commission’s discussion document did not incorporate the comments they made at a previous meeting, held a year earlier.
The Commission said that it would launch a public consultation on the review of the definition of a nanomaterial within a month.
It had said, at the previous meeting, that its preferred option for improving transparency on nanomaterials was a public website listing existing information, rather than an EU register.
It had also confirmed that changes to the REACH annexes, to account for substances with nanoforms, would not be made in time to affect registrations for the 2018 deadline.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56103/echa-issues-reach-dossier-best-practice-document-for-nanoforms
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NGOs Criticise Echa for 'Ignoring Safer Alternatives' in Authorisations
May 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Several NGOs have criticised Echa for failing to thoroughly assess alternatives to toxic chemicals when considering authorisation applications.
The International Chemical Secretariat, ChemSec, says the agency rarely takes into account arguments put forward by producers of safer alternatives. Instead it "constantly" allows companies to use harmful chemicals even when it is for "aesthetically pleasing" results.
"What's worse is that Echa won't look anywhere else except in the documents submitted," the NGO's executive director Anne-Sofie Andersson wrote in an online commentary.
"A simple Google search can reveal a number of different companies that either produce or use alternatives to the chemical in question, but that doesn't matter if that information is not submitted."
The latest case in point, NGOs say, is an application by German auto parts manufacturer Gerhardi, representing a coalition of 12 companies, to use chromium trioxide on plastic surfaces to achieve a high wear and weather-resistant chromed look.
The substance has been in the SVHC candidate list since 2010 due to its carcinogenic and mutagenic properties, and has received the highest number of authorisation applications, with 26 requests from 62 applicants so far.
Echa's Committee for Socio-economic Analysis (Seac) has adopted an opinion to grant Gerhardi a 12-year review period. This is the longest review the committee considers for authorisations, particularly for automotive and aerospace industries where substitution can take many years.
In this case, however, a long review is not justified, NGOs say. Even if the alternatives may not produce the same results, chrome plated car door handles are not vital for society, they say, and lengthy review periods hurt innovation and defeat the purpose of authorisation.
"Seac took, as they usually do, the side of the company that applied for authorisation," said Vito Buonsante at ClientEarth.
Changing trend?
he trend may be changing, however, with some Seac members already apprehensive about long authorisation periods.
The committee's opinion on Gerhardi was accompanied by two minority positions – formal complaints by committee members who questioned the length of the authorisation and lack of market surveys on alternative products submitted by the applicant.
While minority positions are not unusual – Echa says 15 of Seac's 107 opinions included minority positions – two of them in one opinion is considered rare, as is the fact that four members signed them.
"It is very unusual for committee members to go this far in their criticism," said Ms Andersson.
Dolores Romano, senior policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), said the Gerhardi case shows that "Seac members are becoming concerned about granting authorisations with long review periods when the applicant has not demonstrated that alternatives are not available."
Even if alternatives were not available now, applicants should be informing on their substitution efforts every four years as the market on alternatives is developing fast, Ms Romano said.
Echa rejects criticisms
Echa has rejected the NGOs' claims, arguing that its committees take into account "all information that becomes available during the opinion making process and challenge applicants on the suitability of alternatives."
Of the 107 Echa opinions sent to the Commission, the average number of years recommended per use is about eight, the agency said, whereas the average number of years per use suggested by the applicants is about 12.
In the Gerhardi application, three providers of alternatives participated in the trialogue meeting involving the chairs of Seac and Echa's Risk Assessment Committee (Rac), Seac chair Tomas Öberg told Chemical Watch. But the Seac rapporteur decided the alternatives had "shortcomings related not only to aesthetics, but also to functional properties," which made them unsuitable for the applicant's use.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56120/ngos-criticise-echa-for-ignoring-safer-alternatives-in-authorisations
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EPA Has Early Draft of Rollback
May 25, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
U.S. EPA has drafted the initial rulemaking for rescinding the Clean Power Plan and is developing a related economic analysis, according to an administration official with knowledge of the documents.
The regulatory language, known as a "preamble," is focused on the legal justification for nixing President Obama's greenhouse gas standards for power plants.
It has not circulated widely at EPA and began as a memo at least a month ago, according to the source. It could go to the White House's Office of Management and Budget for interagency review in the coming weeks. EPA did not respond to a request for comment.
EPA is moving forward with plans to revoke the rule, but Administrator Scott Pruitt yesterday said the agency had not yet determined whether to replace it with less stringent standards (E&E News PM, May 24).
The agency's choices on the Clean Power Plan could determine the pace and direction of U.S. climate policy well into the future. Courts could weigh in on the decisions the agency makes and could use them to define EPA's overall responsibilities and legal boundaries when it comes to climate change.
The gauntlet might not fall until the White House sorts out several policy decisions, including whether to exit the Paris climate deal and whether to try to fight a finding that EPA must regulate greenhouse gases. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday told reporters aboard Air Force One that Trump has not yet decided whether to stay in the accord with most of the world's nations. Pruitt wants to leave the agreement, but others in the Trump administration disagree.
At least one industry group has outlined ways EPA could allow states to set their own minimal efficiency requirements for coal plants. That could replace the Clean Power Plan, which asked states to come up with plans to shift away from coal and toward natural gas, renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Opponents of the rule have said individual plant standards would more closely hew to the intent of the Clean Air Act, although they would hardly make a dent in overall emissions. They also might protect EPA from legal battles over not regulating greenhouse gas emissions after deciding they endanger public health.
An analysis by the Obama administration's EPA found that the costs of complying with the rule would be between $5 billion and $8 billion in 2030, and energy efficiency investments would help limit power costs. It also determined by examining the social cost of carbon that climate and health co-benefits would outweigh costs.
Trump's EPA is likely to suggest the Clean Power Plan would have cost far more. Pruitt yesterday said it would have cost $292 billion, citing figures from a NERA Economic Consulting report prepared for the coal lobby, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
Pruitt's team could cite higher costs to get more credit for rescinding the rule under a 2-for-1 executive order that requires any new regulatory effort to be offset by rescinding rules worth double the cost.
Pruitt has argued that Congress should specify in law if it wants EPA to restrict greenhouse gases. He says he believes the Clean Air Act and its amendments cover only air pollutants, although supporters of the Clean Power Plan say court precedent requires action on carbon.
Colin Hayes, the staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) chairs, said yesterday that relying on decades-old laws to address climate change is a problem for people on both sides of the climate debate.
"At some point, the general agreement in Congress on a bipartisan basis that we can and should do something more than what we're already doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that just has to translate into legislative action," Hayes said. "I think the waters are brutally muddy right now as to what existing legal authorities can and can't be used for as it related to greenhouse gas emissions."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/05/25/stories/1060055141
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Pruitt Unsure If EPA Will Replace Clean Power Plan
May 24, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Jack Fitzpatrick
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Wednesday the agency may not replace the Obama administration’s greenhouse gas-cutting Clean Power Plan, which the Trump administration is reviewing.
The rule was a cornerstone of former President Barack Obama’s actions on climate change and drew criticism from conservatives, including Pruitt, who said it would hurt the economy. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt was involved in the lawsuit against the plan, which led the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay on it; he has recused himself from the lawsuit when he came to the EPA.
Environmentalists argue the Clean Air Act, which calls on the EPA to regulate dangerous air pollutants, requires some kind of rule on power plant emissions. The EPA has also not revoked its “endangerment finding,” a position that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health.
But Pruitt said he doesn’t necessarily think the EPA has to introduce new regulations on emissions if it revokes the Obama administration’s rule, and says new rules aren’t required under the Clean Air Act.
“On CPP, I think it’s yet to be determined,” Pruitt said at a discussion at the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, referring to whether the agency should introduce a replacement. “I think there’s a fair question to be asked and answered on that issue with stationary sources [of emissions]. What are the tools in the toolbox?”
The Clean Air Act was “set up to address local and regional air pollutants” rather than greenhouse gas emissions, Pruitt said.
Pruitt contrasted the Clean Power Plan review with the EPA’s consideration of another Obama-era regulation: the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, which defines the agency’s jurisdiction in regulating water pollution. Conservatives disagreed with the rule, saying the agency claimed too much authority. But Pruitt said the Trump administration can’t simply undo it. Instead, it needs to come up with its own definition.
The Clean Power Plan is “unlike WOTUS, where there’s a definition that is required, needed,” Pruitt said. “That’s something that’s been worked on for a number of years. We have to get that right.”
Pruitt also reiterated his position that the U.S. should leave the Paris climate agreement, calling it “a bad business deal at its core.” Pruitt’s comments come as Trump administration officials publicly debate whether the U.S. should stay in the deal and try to renegotiate its commitments — or simply leave.
Pruitt criticized the Paris deal for allowing developing countries such as China and India to continue using more coal for a time. He also said it was unwise to move aggressively away from fossil fuels, as states need a diverse set of fuels in their energy portfolios.
“Paris represents basically the rest of the world applauding as we penalize ourselves and our economy,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt also laid out several other priorities for the agency. The backlog of chemicals awaiting EPA approval under the Toxic Substances Control Act should be “cleared out by this summer,” he said, adding he also hopes to speed up the agency’s work on Superfund sites contaminated by hazardous materials. He also said he expects the White House to support funding for water projects in its coming infrastructure package.
https://morningconsult.com/2017/05/24/pruitt-unsure-epa-will-replace-clean-power-plan/
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Mexico Poised to Draw Deeply From Dry Gas Eagle Ford Shale
May 25, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
Production from the dry gas Eagle Ford Shale, particularly in Webb County, TX, has skyrocketed, and so has Mexico's gas demand. That would sound like an opportunity to anyone.
"There's no reason that Mexico should be chasing gas with the drillbit when they can buy it at the border for a lot cheaper," Howard Energy Mexico President Brandon Seale told attendees at a conference in San Antonio Wednesday.
He would say that. Howard Energy is developing the Nueva Era pipeline to carry gas from the South Texas Eagle Ford to Monterrey, Mexico where it will serve power plants northeast and northwest of the city as well as other end-users.
"Monterrey today is a market that passes through or consumes about 1.3 Bcf/d of natural gas, but it's basically topped out," Seale said. "There's no capacity available on existing pipelines to get gas into Monterrey."
Dry gas Eagle Ford producer William Deupree, CEO of Escondido Resources II LLC, can't wait for that new pipeline of Seale's.
Webb County, where Escondido is active, produces about 2 Bcf/d. That's up from just 100 MMcf/d seven years ago. While most producers have focused on the Eagle Ford's wet gas, Escondido and a few others have been poking holes in the play's dry gas window.
"There is a lot of gas to drill for in Webb County in the dry gas Eagle Ford," Deupree said at the Third Mexico Gas Summit. "The innovations are just continuing to go on and on and on.
“Five years ago, we thought a 5,000-foot lateral with 20 frack [fracture] stages was a big well. We just recently completed a four-well pad, 10,500-foot long average laterals, 72 million pounds of sand, 50 frack stages."
These wells are expected to be producing 50-60 MMcf/d, curtailed, he said. Current strip pricing supports development; $3.00/Mcf gas is enough. "The economics work...They're not great, but they work," Deupree said.
"I think you're going to see a lot of things coming into Mexico from this part of the trend. All of our gas in Webb County ties into the Howard system...It's going to be nice to just turn a valve and go just one mile across the border and we're there."
All that gas is good for producers and pipeliners, but it's going to be really good for Mexican consumers, especially as the country's natural gas infrastructure is built out, and liquidity and transparency emerge in the gas market, White Eagle Trading LLC CEO Robert Cooper said at the conference.
Despite its name, White Eagle isn't a trading company but rather an energy services provider.
End-users in Mexico have never had unbundled service; they had to take their gas from and pay the price to Petroleos Mexicanos. "Today, we're spending a lot of time in Mexico teaching our clients how United States natural gas markets work," Cooper said.
In order to work, market reform must stretch from the wellhead to the burner tip; that's where the efficiencies come from, Cooper said. Benefits stand to compound quickly as Mexico's gas market is expected to grow faster than its gross domestic product, thanks to the rapidly growing reliance on gas to fuel power generation.
U.S. shale gas "is huge," and it's going to support Mexico demand for a long time to come, Cooper said. With U.S. gas supply, Mexicans "can control their destiny."
It won't happen overnight, though. It took the U.S. gas market 30 years to mature to the point that it's at today.
Mexican end-users will need to balance their gas requirements on a daily basis on the country’s pipeline network, the Cenagas system. New systems are needed to manage imbalance activity. The market will need a pipeline capacity release system and electronic bulletin boards. Metering needs to be automated. U.S. storage facilities can help with balancing for now, but Mexico wants its own gas storage, too. Additionally, Cooper said, "a strong regulatory presence" is necessary to keep the market on track.
When Seale first started talking about the Nueva Era project a few years ago, Mexico was importing about 1.8 Bcf/d from the United States. That's now up to 4 Bcf/d.
South Texas, with its prolific and liquid gas market, stands ready to serve Mexico. But then there's a lot of gas in the West Texas Permian Basin, too. Can't that support Mexico demand, too?
"The fact is you can't really get Permian gas to northern Mexico as efficiently as you can get it from the Eagle Ford," Seale said. "It's going to lose 10-30 cents to get it there...I think the Eagle Ford is pretty secure as the most economic supplier of gas to Mexico."
Perhaps, but others are planning Texas projects to take gas out of the Permian to the Gulf Coast region and to Mexico via Agua Dulce. And then there are the recently finished Trans-Pecos and Comanche Trail pipelines taking gas out of West Texas to the border.
At the conference, Cooper noted the ongoing buildout of Mexico’s Cenagas system and its eventual greater connectivity with the Waha Hub in West Texas. “It's kind of like dropping an egg on the floor; it [gas] goes all over the place,” he said.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110582-mexico-poised-to-draw-deeply-from-dry-gas-eagle-ford-shale
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Report: Huge Tank That Exploded Needed Emergency Repairs
May 25, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Jim Salter
A giant steam-filled tank weighing nearly 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) that exploded at a St. Louis box plant, flew a quarter-mile into the air and smashed into a neighboring building, was being used despite needing emergency repairs, federal investigators said Thursday.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board released findings of its investigation into the horrifying April 3 explosion at Loy-Lange Box Co. that left four people dead. The blast propelled the tank through Loy-Lange’s roof and into the offices of Faultless Healthcare Linen.
The steam condensation tank, used in the process of making corrugated packaging products, first sprung a leak in November 2012. The federal report said a contractor made emergency repairs and less than a month later recommended the replacement of lower portions of the tank.
The tank parts were never replaced, investigators said. They also found no evidence that the city ever inspected the tank. A city official said the tank was frequently inspected.
Engineers again noticed a leak on March 31 this year, a Friday, the report said. The steam generation system was shut down and a repair technician was scheduled to arrive the following Monday afternoon, April 3.
“On Monday, despite the leak and the pending technician visit, Loy-Lange started up the steam generation system,” the agency’s report said. “ ... it appears that the catastrophic failure occurred near the end of the startup process.”
The failure was caused by corrosion of a 6-inch (15-centimeter) ring that was part of the tank, investigators said.
“The entire ring failed suddenly,” the report said. “The tank circle blew away in one piece from the (tank), creating the conditions for the steam explosion.”
The result was a massive blast “equivalent to about 350 pounds (160 kilograms) of TNT” that “launched the storage tank like a rocket through the roof.”
The 1,952-pound, 17 1/2-foot-long (5-meter-long) tank rose to about 425 feet (130 meters) above street level and was airborne for more than 10 seconds before crashing through the roof at Faultless.
Loy-Lange engineer Kenneth Trentham, 59, died. At Faultless, Tonya Gonzalez-Suarez, 46, and her husband, Christopher Watkins, 43, were filling out paperwork for new jobs when they were killed. Clifford Lee, 53, also was fatally injured while filling out papers to begin work at Faultless.
The Loy-Lange Box Co. did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Thursday.
Safety of things such as boilers and industrial water tanks are regulated almost uniformly in Missouri, with standards that generally include periodic inspections. But St. Louis is exempt from the Missouri law requiring regular inspections by either a state inspector or insurance company.
The city instead requires a company to have a licensed stationary engineer on site. Loy-Lange employed three stationary engineers assigned to the company’s two tanks.
“The city provided no evidence of inspection,” the federal report said.
But St. Louis Building Commissioner Frank Oswald said it was one of the stationary engineers charged with inspections who noticed the leak on March 31. That engineer, he said, had nothing to do with the decision to restart the system before repairs were made.
“Our position is indeed the system did work because they did notice it,” Oswald said.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s role is to investigate industrial chemical accidents. It is not authorized to issue citations or fines, but it can make safety recommendations. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration also is investigating the accident.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-investigators-to-discuss-fatal-st-louis-explosion/2017/05/25/c2184d14-4108-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_story.html?utm_term=.44cc927a5a68
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Slim TSA Cyber Staff Takes on Rising Pipeline Threat
May 25, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Hannah Northey, Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak
Second in a series. For part one, click here.
As the cyberthreat facing the nation's biggest natural gas pipelines grows and evolves, a small group of federal workers tasked with protecting the sprawling, hidden energy matrix is woefully outnumbered.
Just how many career staffers at the Transportation Security Administration's headquarters in Arlington, Va., are tasked with protecting more than 300,000 miles of interstate gas pipelines from the intrusions and surveillance of enemy states and rogue vandals?
Six. And they're not all cyber experts.
In a blog restricted to congressional staff and obtained by E&E News, federal researcher Paul Parfomak last month explained how TSA, the Department of Homeland Security branch better-known for aviation security, landed the job of overseeing pipeline cybersecurity in the days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Parfomak, a specialist with the Congressional Research Service, laid out the brewing concerns among policymakers about TSA's reliance on industry-driven, voluntary safety measures. He suggested Congress may wade into the prickly debate over the quality of threat information and whether TSA is sufficiently staffed and trained to protect a network of pipelines and, by extension, the backbone of a gas-reliant U.S. electric grid.
Last year, he warned House members that hackers could find their way into sophisticated pipeline operating systems and trigger spills, explosions or fires. He reported an uptick in repeated and aggressive attacks on U.S. pipelines — a category that includes not just gas transmission but hundreds of thousands of additional miles of crude oil and refined product lines — for the purpose of collecting sensitive information.
Experts have found that the nation's pipeline sector has been penetrated and spied on, with hackers holding some of the blueprints needed to launch a cyberattack that could plunge parts of the nation into darkness.
"If our critical infrastructure has an attack, we're not going to recover anytime soon," said William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which houses the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Dire scenarios targeting gas supplies are on its radar, he said, even though the government hasn't pointed to an imminent threat against gas pipelines.
TSA officials acknowledged in written responses that only half a dozen federal workers were monitoring security threats against pipelines.
According to multiple sources briefed on TSA inspections, reviews take up to four hours and focus largely on physical security.
For example, Sonya Proctor, TSA's surface division director, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee last year that the agency's top priority has been 100 of the highest-risk U.S. pipelines, which it inspected over 2008 to 2011 following a congressional mandate. Now, five years after the last of those inspections, TSA is conducting follow-up visits. TSA conducted six "corporate security reviews" or visits in fiscal 2015 and planned to conduct eight in fiscal 2016, she said.
TSA in written comments said such reviews "were not developed to assess an agency's technical cyber-security environment," but do include a "cyber-component." An online copy of a pipeline corporate security review, apparently dating back to 2009, asks about basic password security practices, overlap and coordination between the control system and corporate networks, and cybersecurity staffing details, among dozens of other topics. TSA declined to confirm the authenticity of the document, citing its security-sensitive classification.
TSA has also encouraged the oil and gas industry to take advantage of more technical tools from the Department of Homeland Security to assess their online protections, and use the agency's voluntary guidelines that address cybersecurity. Insiders say that while companies may use such resources internally, the incentives aren't there for companies to provide the government with specific information.
"Do I feel that government has an accurate view across the interdependencies of infrastructure and the risk that it introduces? No. I have no confidence that they know that," said Robert M. Lee, a former Air Force cyberwarfare operations officer who now leads industrial cybersecurity company Dragos Inc.
But while Lee said TSA's limited view of cyberthreats and vulnerabilities could lead to bad outcomes for both government and industry, he added that the private sector is "rightfully scared" about offering the agency a warts-and-all look at the state of gas pipelines' cyberdefenses.
In the wrong hands, such information could prompt a heavy-handed government response that, in Lee's view, would do more harm than good compared to a cooperative approach. "We are going to get solutions that don't match the problems that we have," he said.
For its part, TSA has not expressed interest in taking a tougher line toward industry, defending the voluntary approach as "currently achieving desired results in protecting pipeline infrastructure."
A 'constrained' agency
Parfomak has warned Congress about TSA's precarious situation in the past, but little has changed.
He has gone into great length about TSA's inclusion of industry guidance to bolster pipeline cybersecurity and the agency's partnerships with the departments of Energy and Transportation. He outlined the hundreds of visits TSA inspectors made to the nation's major oil and gas pipelines throughout the years, the results of which were never made public.
Yet Parfomak ultimately concluded in comments to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security that deep questions linger about the effectiveness of a voluntary system overseen by a sliver of DHS that is underfunded and operating with only a handful of employees. Those concerns, he said, permeate TSA, where some career workers have raised concerns about limited staff and the inability to conduct enough reviews given their workload sussing out terrorist threats.
"At its current staffing level, TSA's pipelines branch has limited field presence for pipeline site visits, and has constrained capabilities for updating standards, interacting in the various stakeholder groups with which it collaborates, analyzing security information, and fulfilling other administrative responsibilities," Parfomak wrote in prepared remarks.
Parfomak declined to be interviewed for this series, but said his written reports speak for themselves.
Further complicating TSA's oversight was the agency's reorganization in 2014, which eroded some of the agency's capacity to oversee pipelines by replacing specialists with generalists, Kathy Judge, director of corporate security for National Grid, a Britain-based supplier of electricity and natural gas to customers in the northeastern United States, told lawmakers at the same House hearing.
Judge said the reorganization "dismantled" effective security programs both the government and the operators had benefited from, and TSA is only "slowly rebuilding" its capacity.
An official at the American Gas Association agreed with that assessment, saying TSA is still recovering from that decision. A former TSA official backed up that claim, noting that the agency's Corporate Security Reviews offered at least a surface-level evaluation of cyberdefense capabilities, but that the program "has not been the same since" the shakeup.
Up until the reorganization, the AGA official, who did not want to be identified, said industry had a good working relationship with TSA's pipeline staff on site review and receiving feedback. But after the realignment, those federal workers were moved to other departments, throwing a wrench into a working system and undermining the development of effective teamwork on cybersecurity.
The industry source said Proctor, the TSA division director, recognized the ineffectiveness of the reorganization and the need to return to the agency's original model, as well as the need to fill open pipeline security positions with qualified candidates, a process that is ongoing.
The agency is still working to fill the shoes of a recently retired TSA general manager, Jack Fox, who sources say had a good grounding in cybersecurity issues. Fox did not respond to request for comment. A current TSA employee said his responsibilities have been distributed among the office's staff until a replacement can be found.
Meanwhile, TSA's surface transportation unit — covering everything from pipeline to rail security — gets only a fraction of the funding of the agency's better-known role protecting airports. The latest budget deal sets aside $122 million for TSA surface programs, less than 3 percent of funding levels for aviation.
TSA officials have pointed out that this discrepancy is because the agency bears the cost for airport screening on its own, whereas pipeline operators are responsible for their own security programs.
'Low' threat?
In 2011, TSA placed the probability of a cyberattack on the nation's pipeline network as "low."
A report from the agency's Office of Intelligence that year noted that terrorist groups had discussed attacks on unspecified computer systems underpinning major oil and gas pipelines, but federal officials weren't certain whether al-Qaida or any other group had the capability to conduct a successful cyberattack on the systems.
But months after TSA released its assessment, news of a malicious cyber campaign emerged.
Five years ago, members of an elite cyberwar unit of China's military hacked into U.S. pipeline companies, likely walking away with some of the blueprints needed to take down critical energy infrastructure for days, if not longer, according to law enforcement and security experts.
Two years later, the Justice Department would unveil charges against five of these hackers, putting up a "Wanted" poster for People's Liberation Army officer Wang Dong and throwing open the door to "sophisticated" campaign of alleged cyber theft dating back to 2006.
Still, federal experts and industry continue to provide assurances that the threat is not high. Even if Dong had specifically targeted pipeline companies, rather than casting a wide net and incidentally stealing information from their networks, there is no evidence he or his fellow hackers ever breached the industrial control systems that could cause physical damage.
A more general recent DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis assessment examining the energy sector as a whole concluded last year that "the threat of a damaging or disruptive cyberattack against the U.S. energy sector is low."
But recent cyberattacks on parts of Ukraine's power grid temporarily knocked out power to several hundred thousand people and raised questions about how long the threat will stay dormant in U.S. critical infrastructure.
"Right now, you're staying one step ahead of the bad guys," said Jim Guinn, who leads the energy and utilities cybersecurity practice at Accenture while based out of Houston. "The problem is, you don't know how fast the bad guys are running, because you're dealing with a nameless, faceless enemy."
'Assessment fatigue'
TSA officials said they were not aware of any cyber incidents disrupting the gas grid. The agency draws on data from its Transportation Security Operations Center, which in turn is fed intelligence from the FBI and other DHS offices.
The U.S. government relies in large part on the cybersecurity information volunteered by the pipeline industry, according to multiple government and industry sources.
Government watchdogs have questioned how deeply TSA probes cybersecurity issues during its inspections. In 2010, the Government Accountability Office reviewed TSA's oversight of pipelines' overall security posture, noting that the agency's "corporate security reviews" do indeed include questions about cybersecurity.
But a footnote to the report reveals that interviews with officials from TSA's Pipeline Security Division (PSD) didn't involve "in-depth inspections or assessment of an operator's cyber security system and its vulnerabilities because PSD does not possess this expertise." TSA officials said that expertise could be found either in the private companies themselves or in DHS's cybersecurity division.
This diffusion of cyber responsibilities may exacerbate what GAO once called "federal assessment fatigue," or "a perceived weariness among critical infrastructure owners and operators who had been repeatedly approached or required by multiple federal agencies and DHS offices and components to participate in or complete assessments."
That July 2016 report singled out TSA's voluntary critical facility security reviews — a distinct program from the agency's corporate security reviews — as being "potentially subject to multiple assessment efforts" that interviewees warned may not provide the government with new or "useful" information.
Executive action
A GAO spokesman said the office is updating its 2010 review of TSA pipeline oversight, with no timetable on its release.
One of the best sources for energy-sector-specific cybersecurity knowledge in the U.S. government, the DHS Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), also conducts on-site security reviews for government agencies and private-sector companies. But the office adheres to a strict Protected Critical Infrastructure Information program, keeping any uncovered security slip-ups out of reach to regulators or the general public.
In fiscal 2016, ICS-CERT made 130 cybersecurity evaluations, more than double the number in fiscal 2010. Just 22 of those assessments took place at energy companies, and the agency's resources are strained to meet a growing demand. ICS-CERT has increasingly picked up the burden of warning about insecure "internet of things" devices that are coming online by the thousands across multiple critical infrastructure sectors. One DHS official recently described feeling "completely overwhelmed" by the sheer volume of equipment and potentially vulnerable technology on ICS-CERT's plate.
DHS was one of the few agencies spared cuts in the Trump administration's fiscal 2018 budget request released Tuesday, which calls for a multibillion-dollar boost at the agency to pursue his immigration policies and border wall.
The 2017 budget deal hashed out in Congress earlier this month advised setting aside an additional $11.9 million for TSA's surface transportation program, more than a 10 percent raise from 2016 levels, plus an extra $73.5 million for DHS's broader cybersecurity activities, which include securing federal networks and staffing round-the-clock cyber watch floors (E&E Daily, May 2).
On May 11, President Trump signed an executive order on cybersecurity that homed in on the need to strengthen critical infrastructure protections (Energywire, May 12). It also called for a 90-day review of "transparency in the marketplace" when it comes to cybersecurity, with an emphasis on large, publicly traded infrastructure operators. The DHS-led report would examine "the sufficiency of existing federal policies and practices to promote appropriate market transparency of cybersecurity risk management practices by critical infrastructure entities," according to the order.
"I do sense that [Trump administration officials] want to focus on critical infrastructure, and gas would certainly be part of that," said Gerry Cauley, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., in an interview conducted before the final executive order was signed.
"Other than the gas companies just exercising good practice and good risk management, what is the role of government to assure that?" Cauley said. "I think that's the question that needs to be answered."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/05/25/stories/1060055097
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State AGs Call for Crude Oil Volatility Standards
May 25, 2017 | American Shipper
By Hailey Desmoreaux
A coalition of six state attorneys general expressed strong support for a nationwide limit on the vapor pressure of crude oil transported by rail in the United States in a letter sent last Friday to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) Executive Director Howard McMillan.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman led the coalition, which also included California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, Maine Attorney General Janet T. Mills and Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
In the letter, the coalition called on the PHMSA to adopt a standard requiring that all crude oil transported by rail in the U.S. achieve a vapor pressure of less than 9.0 pounds per square inch (psi).
The coalition's comments were filed in response to PHMSA's Jan. 18, 2017 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). Comments were originally to be excepted until March 20, 2017, but the deadline was extended to last Friday.
Schneiderman filed a petition for rulemaking with PHMSA in December 2015 to set the national limit on vapor pressure of crude oil transported by rail at less than 9.0 psi, and in December 2016, specifically citing Schneiderman’s petition, the agency announced it would issue an ANPRM to gather public comment on vapor pressure limits, a release from Schneiderman’s office explained.
“Because of a regulatory loophole, these trains can carry crude oil through some of our most densely populated areas without any limit on explosiveness or flammability,” Schneiderman said.
“In the past 10 years, U.S. production of crude oil has nearly tripled - and most of it is now being shipped by rail,” said Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Attorney Kimberly Ong. “The frequency of related deadly fires and explosions has also skyrocketed across the country.”
Accidents of trains carrying crude oil have resulted in various catastrophic incidents, including the 2016 train derailment in Mosier, Ore., where the fire caused the evacuation of nearly one-quarter of the town’s residents, and with the 2013 Lac-Mégantic, Quebec accident, in which a derailed train burst into flames, destroying the downtown area and killing 47 people.http://www.americanshipper.com/main/news/state-ags-call-for-crude-oil-volatility-standards-67638.aspx?source=Little4#hide
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Top GOP Senators Tell Trump to Ditch Paris Climate Deal
May 25, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told President Trump on Thursday to abandon the Paris climate change deal negotiated by former President Obama.
In a letter to Trump, 20 Republicans said the Paris agreement would create “burdensome regulations” in pursuit of cutting climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions.
They argued environmentalists could use the Paris deal as a “legal defense” in lawsuits calling for more stringent regulations like the Clean Power Plan, a key climate rule from the Obama administration.
They also dismissed arguments from the deal’s supporters, who say leaving Paris would hurt the U.S.’s ability to influence future climate agreements.
“We applaud you for your ongoing efforts to reduce overregulation in America,” the senators wrote in their letter to Trump, noting his use of executive orders and legislation cutting Obama-era rules.
“To continue on this path, we urge you to make a clean exit from the Paris agreement so that your administration can follow through on its commitment to rescind the Clean Power Plan.”
Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), two of the senate's biggest opponents of the Paris deal, co-wrote the letter.
The White House has been debating whether the U.S. should pull out of the Paris deal, something Trump promised as a candidate.
Supporters of the deal say leaving the pact will isolate the U.S. diplomatically and economically. Hundreds of businesses have urged Trump to stay in the deal, as have some energy firms, environmentalists and Democrats.
Republicans’ Thursday message to Trump came the day after Senate Democrats sent the president a letter of their own, asking him to stay in the deal.
The White House has said Trump will decide on the future of the Paris deal after this weekend’s Group of Seven conference.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/335127-top-gop-senators-tell-trump-to-ditch-paris-climate-deal
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Pruitt's First 100 Days at the EPA: His Most Alarming Actions So Far
May 25, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fun
By Keith Gaby
Columnists across the political spectrum have been calling President Trump names – questioning his discipline, knowledge and focus. No one can say the same things about Scott Pruitt.
Indeed, as we approach Pruitt’s 100th day as leader of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it’s clear that he is nothing like the president. And that, ironically, makes him even worse for our health and environment.
Scott Pruitt is highly disciplined, skillful and focused – and obsessed with his mission of advocating for big polluters and undermining the EPA’s historic role of protecting public health. Now that he’s in charge of the agency, he’s methodically pushing to gut rules that limit pollution, hobble enforcement of clean air and water laws, and shove aside unbiased scientific guidance.
In contrast to the often-dysfunctional White House, Pruitt has been laser focused. In his first 100 days, he has:
· begun the process of abandoning the Clean Power Plan, America’s only national limits on carbon pollution from our largest source. This will allow the power plants to emit unlimited amounts of this pollution – leading to more asthma attacks and a more dangerous future for our children.
· taken aim at the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule, which reduces dangerous neurotoxins that harm children’s brain development. Pruitt is opposing it even though virtually all power plants in the country now comply with the rule, demonstrating that none of the fear-mongering about cost and reliability problems we heard from industry were true.
· actively been lobbying the White House to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, a move that would hurt our economy and cede American leadership to China and Europe. We would join only two other countries in the world – Nicaragua and Syria – on the outside of this global system, potentially inviting tariffs on our exports. In true Alice in Wonderland fashion, the EPA administrator is reportedly lobbying the coal industry to support withdrawal from the climate agreement.
· appeared to be trying to shut out neutral scientific advice. He’s declined to reappoint half of a scientific advisory board, with some reports indicating he may choose more industry-friendly advisors instead. On his watch, the EPA has removed key pollution and climate data from its web site. Pruitt also claimed on CNBC that carbon dioxide is not “a primary contributor to the global warming that we see” – flatly contradicting the scientists at NASA, every major American scientific organization and his own agency.
· paved the way for the Trump administration’s call for a 31-percent cut to the EPA budget – more than what any other federal agency faces. If enacted, it would dramatically reduce protections against pollutants such as mercury, lead, smog, and carbon pollution; undermine enforcement of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts; and reduce cleanup of toxic waste sites. It will result in more asthma attacks for kids, more health problems for elderly Americans, accelerated climate change and more pollution in our lives.
· slowly been stocking his agency with appointees with serious conflicts of interest. A few examples: Nancy Beck moved from the chemical industry’s main lobbying organization to be the highest political appointee at the EPA office overseeing the chemical industry. Justin Schwab, now a top lawyer at the EPA, previously represented a coal utility. Christian Palich, a lobbyist for a coal industry group, was appointed to a senior position in the EPA’s Congressional relations office.
The fact is, the EPA has saved countless lives and made America dramatically cleaner and healthier by sticking to sound science, seeking smart solutions to limit pollution, and enforcing the law. In his first 100 days, Scott Pruitt has turned the agency’s mission on its head.
Estimates suggest that if he is able to fully enact his agenda, about 130,000 Americans will die prematurely due to air, water and toxic pollution. So while America will survive Scott Pruitt’s tenure at the EPA, we know that many Americans won’t.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/05/25/pruitts-first-100-days-epa-his-most-alarming-actions-so-far
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Looking for Trump’s Climate Policy? Try the Energy Department
May 25, 2017 | New York Times
By Brad Plumer
The Trump administration’s deepest impact on domestic climate policy might have little to do with its efforts to dismantle the Clean Power Plan or its decision on the Paris accord.
Instead, the coming battle over the future of the Energy Department could prove far more significant for the United States’ long-term efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Among energy experts, there is broad agreement that the world still needs major technological advances to halt global warming, like better batteries to integrate larger shares of solar and wind power into the grid, or carbon capture to curb pollution from cement plants.
Historically, the Energy Department has nurtured these kinds of innovations, conducting basic research in its network of 17 national laboratories and aiding private firms struggling to bring risky technologies to market. But those efforts would be drastically scaled back under President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal, released on Tuesday, which proposes to cut the agency’s energy programs by $3.1 billion, or 18 percent below last year’s levels.
The agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which has helped nudge down the cost of solar power, faces a 69 percent cut. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a program that funds research into long-shot energy technologies, like algae biofuels or advanced batteries, would face elimination. And, despite Mr. Trump’s stated desire to promote “clean coal,” the Office of Fossil Energy, which invests in techniques to scrub carbon dioxide from coal plants and bury it underground, faces an 85 percent cut to its carbon-capture efforts.
Even if members of Congress, who have indicated they will resist many of these changes, shield the agency from cuts, observers worry about the broader effects of an administration skeptical of federal energy research. Political appointees can still thwart approval of new programs internally — and already appear to be doing so. Uncertainty over funding could disrupt plans for research at the national labs. Many career staff members are now contemplating leaving, raising fears of a talent drain.
“Companies need a degree of certainty from the agency,” said Jeff Navin, a former acting chief of staff at the Energy Department. “The worry is that if someone has a game-changing technology and is looking to the government to help them commercialize it, maybe Europe or China starts to look more attractive.”
How the Energy Department tackles climate change
Only one-fifth of the department’s $30 billion budget is devoted to energy programs. The rest goes toward maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, cleaning up environmental messes from the Cold War and conducting scientific research in areas like high-energy physics.
But that slice of energy spending plays an outsize role in helping commercialize new technologies — particularly since private investors often lack patience for bankrolling large-scale energy infrastructure that may take decades to pan out. The agency’s investments in shale-gas technology in the 1970s laid the groundwork for the fracking boom now revolutionizing the domestic energy landscape.
Under the Obama administration, the department focused on reducing the costs of clean-energy technologies to help combat global warming. That included programs like the SunShot Initiative, which helped drive down the price of utility-scale solar more than 70 percent from 2010 to 2016. The department also provided financial support to start-ups like Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle venture, and, less successfully, Solyndra, a failed solar company.
Yet many analysts argue that the United States is still underfunding energy research, which has declined since the 1970s after adjusting for inflation. “It’s risky to say that we already have all the technologies we need to tackle climate change,” said David M. Hart, who studies energy and innovation policy at George Mason University. “The more bets we’re making now, the better positioned we’ll be to meet those challenges.”
What happens if the agency pulls back on energy research?
The Trump administration’s budget makes clear that it does not consider climate change a priority. Its proposed cuts to the Energy Department were heavily influenced by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that argues that the federal government should fund only very basic research and leave commercialization entirely to the private sector.
That thinking is reflected clearly in places like the budget for the agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which faces a 31 percent cut. Although the proposal would preserve some basic lab research into advanced nuclear fuels, it would cancel cost-sharing agreements with firms like TerraPower and X-energy working on new designs for reactors that might produce less radioactive waste than today’s models.
Few experts believe the private sector can fill the void if the Energy Department pulls back.
“We’re already seeing private-sector investment in energy research diminish,” said Shannon Angielski, executive director of the Coal Utilization Research Council, a coalition of electric utilities and coal companies promoting research into carbon capture technologies for coal and gas power plants. “My concern is that if we cut federal investment here, we simply won’t have these technologies available.”
Even if Congress shields the agency’s budget for next year, as it did for fiscal year 2017, current and former staff members fear that the department may be reluctant to tackle big energy challenges.
In public, Rick Perry, the energy secretary, has disagreed with the Heritage Foundation’s position. “I’m a big believer that we have a role to play in applied R. & D. and technology commercialization,” he told senators at his confirmation hearing in January. Yet inside the department, Mr. Perry has struggled to articulate a clear direction for the agency, and a number of initiatives have slowed to a crawl.
In recent months, the secretary’s office has demanded to review all new and pending grants and contracts, creating a bottleneck that did not exist previously and that has bogged down agency work, employees say. Recently, Democrats on the House appropriations committee wrote a letter to Mr. Perry criticizing him for delaying funding for renewable energy and other programs that Congress mandated in its 2017 budget.
One sign of how adrift the agency has become: The previous secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, set up an Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Energy to break down walls between basic research at the national labs and applied energy programs. That office had 15 employees last year. Today, it has just two.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/climate/energy-department-climate-trump-budget.html?_r=0
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