Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 6/6/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Novel Process for Speeding Review of New Chemicals Draws Fire
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has adopted a novel approach for reviewing “new” chemicals before approving them for market, an approach intended to address the backlog that resulted from legislation reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), though some charge the agency's... -
EPA Sets Dates for Inorganic Byproducts Reporting Negotiations
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has set initial meeting dates for its negotiated rulemaking committee (NRC) for determining inorganic byproduct reporting requirements. -
(ACC Mentioned) California Advances PFAS Measure to Senate
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
With just hours to go before a key legislative deadline, California's Assembly has passed a bill requiring the evaluation of short-chain PFASs in food contact materials (FCMs). -
(ACC Mentioned) California Assembly Passes Professional Cosmetics Ingredient Labelling bill
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
California's Assembly has passed a bill that would require ingredient labelling for professional cosmetics. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ocean Conservancy, Industry to Raise $10 Million to Combat Ocean Plastic
Jun 5, 2017 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
The environmental group Ocean Conservancy and its plastics industry partners are publicly committing to raise at least $10 million by 2020 for scientific research and to build public support for addressing problems from plastics in the oceans. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA ‘Safer Choice’ Label Program, Criteria Under Fire
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Does a detergent that Procter & Gamble Co. makes merit a ‘safer’ label designation? The issue has re-ignited a debate among trade association executives over the type of analysis needed to justify such labels. -
Toxic Chemical in Food Packaging Fight Takes Road Less Traveled
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Environmentalists are employing a seldom-used legal maneuver to fight a recent decision that would allow the continued use of a toxic chemical in food packaging. -
No New Data Needed for Nanomaterials Rule, EPA Official Says
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies making and processing nanoengineered chemicals do not have to generate new information to comply with the agency's data collection rule that is effective in August, an EPA manager said. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Oil Resurgence Boosts CP Chem Optimism for Ethane
Jun 6, 2017 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
The resurgence of US oil production has made Chevron Phillips Chemical more optimistic about the outlook for ethane supplies, the company's CEO said on Monday. -
(ACC Mentioned) New "Crackers" Will Drive 3D Printer Plastics R&D
Jun 6, 2017 | 3DPrint.com
By Charles Goulding
According to Forbes.com, plastic is the most dominant 3D printing material, accounting for 73% of all 3D printing materials used. -
Fisheries Service Proposes OKs for Atlantic Seismic Work
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Five companies are a step closer to conducting seismic surveys to identify offshore oil and natural gas prospects in the U.S. Atlantic. -
EPA Taken to Court Over Methane Rule Pause
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
A coalition of environmental groups is taking the EPA to court over its decision to halt an Obama-era regulation on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. -
With EnCap Backing, Cardinal Midstream Growing Utica Footprint, Expanding in North America
Jun 5, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Dallas-based Cardinal Midstream has received a $250 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream to build out a Utica Shale dry gas gathering system in north central Pennsylvania and acquiring other assets across North America. -
Obama-Era Rule Would Make 'Substantial' Dent in CO2 — CRS
Jun 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Congress' in-house research shop has found that the Clean Power Plan would have a "substantial impact" on carbon dioxide emissions if it goes forward, a nearly impossible scenario under the Trump administration. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Sector, Labor at Odds Over EPA's Authority to Delay RMP Rule
Jun 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical and other industry organizations are sparring with labor groups are whether EPA has Clean Air Act authority for its delay of an Obama-era facility safety rule, with industry claiming the agency has “virtually unfettered discretion” for the move... -
(ACC Mentioned) Paris Pact is Trump’s Biggest Betrayal Yet
Jun 6, 2017 | Las Vegas Sun
By Ken Cook
In just four months in office, President Donald Trump has betrayed many of the Americans who believed his campaign promises. Last week, he betrayed the planet. -
U.S. Coalition to the World: 'We Are Still In'
Jun 6, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hanneh Hess
More than 1,000 leaders of U.S. states, cities, businesses and universities declared "we are still in" the Paris Agreement in an open letter today to the international community. -
Post-ABC poll: Nearly 6 in 10 Oppose Trump Scrapping Paris Agreement
Jun 5, 2017 | Washington Post
By Scott Clement and Brady Dennis
Most Americans oppose President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, with a majority saying the move will damage the United States’ global leadership, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. -
Forget the Paris Accord. Here’s What Can Really Fight Climate Change.
Jun 6, 2017 | Washington Post
By Michael Gerson
Climate policy is the new culture war, driven by nearly theological passions. Or actually theological passions — with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claiming that President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord was a “dishonor” to God. -
Environmentalists Attack 'Illegal' EPA Modeling Guidance For Air Permits
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Environmentalists are attacking as “illegal” EPA's issuance of draft modeled emissions rates for “precursor” air pollutants that regulators will use to craft Clean Air Act permits, claiming the approach is arbitrary and will fall short of an air law requirement... -
Supreme Court Urged to Reject Suit over EPA Air Rule Waiver Prohibition
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Tiffany Stecker
Environmentalists are urging the Supreme Court to reject a power supplier's call to hear a case challenging the agency's policy of prohibiting waivers from its boiler air toxics rule emissions limits during facility malfunctions, echoing EPA arguments... -
Pruitt to Testify June 15 on Proposed Cuts to EPA Budget
Jun 5, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will testify on the White House’s controversial proposal to slash his agency’s budget by 31 percent. -
Rick Perry Skirts Question of Trump’s Stance on Climate Change
Jun 6, 2017 | New York Times
By Motoko Rich
With President Trump coming under international criticism for his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, his actual views on climate change remain a mystery.
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Novel Process for Speeding Review of New Chemicals Draws Fire
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has adopted a novel approach for reviewing “new” chemicals before approving them for market, an approach intended to address the backlog that resulted from legislation reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), though some charge the agency's new approach will impose onerous reporting requirements on most new chemicals.
Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, acting assistant administrator of EPA's toxics office in keynote remarks at the Safer Products Summit in Washington, D.C. June 1 confirmed an industry lawyer's question that EPA is using a two-step process to approve some new chemicals, including combining a consent order and a significant new use rule (SNUR) that limits approval to certain uses and requires approval for any future additional uses.
Herb Estreicher, a partner with the law firm Keller and Heckman, asked Cleland-Hamnett whether she could confirm reports that EPA is adopting a new practice in the premanufacture notice (PMN) process of using a “two-stage process by accepting [TSCA section] 5(e) consent orders that binds the submitter to the identified use followed by a modified [section] 5(e) SNUR. Can you confirm? What's the timing of issuing the 5(e) consent orders with the binding option?” he asked.
Cleland-Hamnet replied that she could confirm the information. “I think we are beginning to develop those orders and follow up [SNURs] right now. So it's just a matter of how long it takes to get those orders to companies, get those back from companies and get the information published. That will be a big piece of helping us get out our goal of eliminating our backlog by the end of July.”
The two-step approach addresses chemicals where EPA believes that the use presented by the company submitting the PMN meets its safety standard, but if others were to use the chemical in other ways it could be harmful to human health or the environment. Placing a non 5(e) SNUR on such a PMN allows the submitter to advance its proposal, but requires any future companies wishing to use the chemical in a different way to submit their plans to EPA for review first.
Such changes are intended to address industry concerns that the agency has been slow to approve hundreds of new chemicals that were submitted to EPA for approval shortly before and since the June 22, 2016 enactment of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. Part of the delay was caused by the reform law's focus on EPA's consideration of both chemicals' uses and reasonably forseen uses, both of which EPA is considering as it now views PMN notices.
Chemical industry leaders had been complaining for months that EPA's new chemicals program was taking far longer to review applications to move new chemicals into commercial production than before then-President Barack Obama signed the TSCA reform law. The delays led to a backlog, and widespread industry frustration over delays in the ability to bring new chemicals to market.
Cleland-Hamnett said the agency had a backlog of about 300 new chemicals but the agency was now down to about 150. “We are now on path to get back to the usual number of chemicals in process by end of July,” she said.
Cleland-Hamnett said that delay was due to a change in the statutory requirements for the new chemicals program, part of TSCA reform, as well as the immediate effective date in the changes to TSCA as reasons for the backlog.
'Unreasonable Risk'
Prior versions of the law put the onus on EPA to show a new chemical posed an “unreasonable risk” in order to regulate its uses, though if the agency failed to make such a showing within 90 days of a submission, a substance was automatically cleared for approval.
But the new law generally requires the agency to make an affirmative finding within 90 days of a submission about a chemical's safety before it can approve a new substance or new uses.
Cleland-Hamnett said such requirements are responsible for the backlog. “We frankly had to scramble to figure out how we were going to do that,” she said. “We didn't need to make major changes in how we do the technical review, but from a legal and transparency perspective we needed to figure out how to put pieces in place to ensure we were doing that appropriately.”
She added that the law's immediate effective date further contributed to the backlog. Cleland-Hamnett noted that there were around 300 chemicals in the pipeline last June 22, when Obama signed the law, and “we were going to make a decision about those chemicals under the new law. So we had those 300 new chemicals plus the new ones coming in all the time. So over the first four to six months or so we developed a backlog of chemicals.”
She added that she understood industry's concern about the delays in processing new chemicals. “To support the advances in the economy, [new] consumer products, the kinds of things we're all interested in seeing . . . reducing that backlog is something we've all been focused on over the past year.”
But Estreicher raised concerns that EPA's new approach could result in new reporting burdens. He asked if new chemicals which come out of the review process with a SNUR will be subject to reporting requirements that chemicals tagged in this way have been in the past, in particular TSCA section 12(b) import reporting requirements and Chemical Data Rule (CDR) reporting requirements.
Cleland-Hamnett confirmed that the PMNs would be subject to these reporting rules.
When Estreicher asked if EPA might look to change those rules, Cleland-Hamnett replied, “An interesting thought. Not now. But something I'd put on the list in the longer term because we want that 12(b) reporting and CDR reporting to be meaningful. As we go forward and we look at other opportunities we could put that on our list.” She asked Estreicher if he had submitted the idea to EPA's regulatory reform docket.
In a brief interview after the exchange, Estreicher estimated that before TSCA reform passed, perhaps 10 percent of PMNs received such a SNUR. He expects that now, as many as 90 percent of new chemicals will get such a SNUR. The “huge difference” comes because the update to TSCA requires EPA to consider all potential uses of a chemical, Estreicher said, but “the PMN submitters are not considering other uses.” As a result, he said, there is often limited data on other uses of such a chemical for EPA to base its conclusions upon. “Why would someone submit data on a use” they're not looking at producing, he asked.
PMN Processing
But EPA's approach is problematic because it can cause delay in processing PMNs and because of the reporting requirements that will be placed on many more chemicals, Estreicher said. He recommended that EPA consider adding boilerplate SNUR language to the PMN application to speed the review process.
The reporting issues are perhaps not so easily addressed. “There are many things you have to do when [your chemical has a] SNUR,” Estreicher said, pointing as one example to TSCA Section 12(b) reporting. That section of TSCA requires companies who intend to export a SNURed chemical to notify EPA before exporting the chemical. EPA then notifies the country destined to receive the chemical. Such notification “should really be reserved for when foreign countries need to know, not just potential uses,” Estreicher said.
Estreicher also pointed to the lowered thresholds for reporting chemical production to EPA in accordance with the CDR. For most chemicals, only those produced in amounts greater than 25,000 pounds annually need to be reported. But chemicals that have a SNUR or 5(e) consent order must be reported per CDR if they are produced in amounts greater than 2,500 pounds, he said.
These reporting rules are “for no good reason, these are technical SNURs,” Estreicher said.
Despite these issues, numerous industry speakers, in remarks at the annual chemical industry conference GlobalChem, held last February, urged EPA officials to go back to their pre-TSCA reform practice of issuing the SNURs and consent orders for chemicals of potential concern
Still, several also noted that regulated chemicals carry a certain stigma, and some customers are not interested in purchasing chemicals that come with reporting requirements. Some GlobalChem attendees suggested that placing SNURs and consent orders on new chemicals makes them appear to be more hazardous than existing chemicals -- when the opposite is often true.
Cleland-Hamnet also described other changes made to address the backlog, such as temporarily moving additional technical staff into the new chemicals program from EPA's existing chemicals program. “At the early stages we moved a lot of technical staff into doing the technical reviews in the PMN program because at the very early stages of Lautenberg being passed they weren't doing as much in the existing chemicals side. Those folks then, once we picked the first 10 [existing] chemicals [for evaluation] in December moved back to the existing chemicals side. So we now have moved staff into the risk management side . . .”
Cleland-Hamnet noted that some staff were detailees brought in from other parts of EPA. She said the experience was helpful in providing ideas for process changes in the PMN program that helped to speed things up.
And in a June 5 statement, EPA also indicated it was seeking to reduce the backlog by “grouping reviews” of similar chemicals. “The reduction in the backlog is the result of prioritizing and implementing process efficiencies. For instance, grouping the review of similar chemicals speeds the review. EPA will continue to work with all stakeholders to identify additional changes to improve the quality, efficiency and transparency of the new chemical review program,” the statement said.
The American Chemistry Council's CEO Cal Dooley, reacting to EPA's statement, said that “In just the last month, significant progress has been made to relieve the backlog, and we welcome the Administrator’s commitment to have the program functioning smoothly again by the end of July.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-novel-process-speeding-review-new-chemicals-draws-fire
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EPA Sets Dates for Inorganic Byproducts Reporting Negotiations
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has set initial meeting dates for its negotiated rulemaking committee (NRC) for determining inorganic byproduct reporting requirements.
The new TSCA requires the agency to enter into a negotiated rulemaking to develop a proposed rule to limit the chemical data reporting (CDR) requirements for manufacturers of any inorganic byproduct chemical substances that are subsequently recycled, reused, or reprocessed.
The NRC's objective is to reach consensus on regulatory language that will accomplish this, and to develop and publish a proposed rule by 22 June 2019.
The first of these meetings will take place in Washington, DC, on 8-9 June. A second meeting will convene on 16 August.
These follow the initiation of the process in December, and a public meeting last month.
Participants
In a Federal Register notice announcing the dates, the EPA named the following stakeholder groups from which it intends to invite individuals to serve on the committee:
· inorganic chemical manufacturers and processors, including metal mining and related activities;
· recyclers, including scrap recyclers;
· industry advocacy groups;
· environmental advocacy groups; and
· federal, state and tribal governments.
And the it has selected as facilitators to conduct the negotiation:
· Christopher Moore, PhD, of Collaborative Decision Resources Associates; and
· Laura Sneeringer, of the Consensus Building Institute.
The agency also said it will have two of its own representatives at the table – one a technical expert on CDR, and the other an EPA manager with the authority to make commitments for the agency.
Response to process comments
In response to its notice of intent to negotiate, the agency says it received comments that raised substantive issues on the course it should take if the committee cannot reach a unanimous agreement.
More specifically, the commenter argued that the Lautenberg Act requires the EPA to propose and finalise a rule to lessen the reporting burdens even if a consensus cannot be reached by the NRC.
But the agency disagrees with this suggestion. It says the law requires it to take up a rule "resulting from such negotiated rulemaking".
"If consensus cannot be reached, and there is no agreement upon which to base a proposal, then there is no further statutory obligation to issue a proposal or final rule," it says.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56635/epa-sets-dates-for-inorganic-byproducts-reporting-negotiations
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(ACC Mentioned) California Advances PFAS Measure to Senate
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
With just hours to go before a key legislative deadline, California's Assembly has passed a bill requiring the evaluation of short-chain PFASs in food contact materials (FCMs).
AB 958 calls on the state Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) to revise its Priority Product Work Plan under the Safer Consumer Products (SCP) programme to include FCMs containing perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances.
If it becomes law, the bill will direct the department on or before 1 January 2019 to identify the substances as a draft priority product and, within a year, begin adopting regulations to address them
The measure was passed on a 44-28 vote in a marathon floor session ahead of the 2 June deadline for bills to pass out of their chamber of origin. It now heads to the Senate.
Industry opposition
Ahead of the vote, the California Chamber of Commerce wrote to Assembly members urging their opposition. It was acting on behalf of a coalition of more than a dozen industry groups. Co-signers included:
· the American Chemistry Council (ACC);
· the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA);
· the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA); and
· the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA).
Industry concerns include the fact that the legislation directs the DTSC not only to name FCMs with PFASs a priority product, but also to move them to the formal rulemaking phase.
This "arbitrarily rejects the possibility that a DTSC review could result in a determination that rulemaking is not necessary," they said.
Support for 'appropriate' action
But Andria Ventura, toxics programme manager at NGO Clean Water Action (CWA) – which co-sponsored the measure – told Chemical Watch that the legislation that put the SCP regulation in place also allows for the legislature to put product/chemical combinations into the regulatory process.
The SCP programme, said Ms Ventura, is "by its very nature deliberate", and it can therefore take many years for the DTSC to address a "major exposure pathway – if it ever does".
She said the department's addressing PFASs in FCMs is particularly appropriate given that it is already gathering data on the substances in other product types.
"Manufacturers will always be able to make the scientific case that the chemicals they are using are the best choices. I think that will be a hard case to make given the emerging evidence about even the newer PFASs and the fact that around 60% of products don't include this class of chemicals at all," she added.
Ban on long-chain PFASs
As currently drafted, the bill also calls for a prohibition on the manufacture or sale of any product containing PFASs with eight or more carbon atoms.
But Ms Ventura says the authors have stated their intention to amend this ban out of the bill in the Senate.
During the Assembly's consideration of the measure, industry groups protested that the proposed prohibition of long-chain fluorinated chemistry was "overly broad, technically inaccurate and imposes compliance challenges".
As drafted, they said, "many products would inadvertently be restricted", including in applications where "high molecular weight polymers are not bioavailable and are not restricted anywhere in the world."
Ms Ventura said while she doesn't completely agree with these assertions, CWA supports jettisoning the provision from the bill.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56630/california-advances-pfas-measure-to-senate
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(ACC Mentioned) California Assembly Passes Professional Cosmetics Ingredient Labelling bill
Jun 6, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
California's Assembly has passed a bill that would require ingredient labelling for professional cosmetics.
AB 575 calls for professional cosmetics manufactured after 1 July 2019 to bear a label of ingredients in order of weight. An ingredient present at a concentration below 1% could be listed without regard to predominance.
In floor remarks, the bill's author Assembly member Ash Kalra (D) said the bill would simply apply existing industry requirements for retail cosmetic products to professional products.
"AB 1575 gives salon workers and consumers the ability to view ingredients in an open way that is already standardised across our food, home products and retail cosmetics," he said.
He added the bill has "substantially been amended to resolve concerns from industry" since its introduction. But, he noted, there is one last issue that remains to be addressed regarding aligning the bill with federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requirements.
Mr Kalra said he is committed to addressing this final technical amendment in the Senate. And once changed, he said, he is "hopeful that we will be able to remove all opposition" to the measure".
Jamie McConnell, director of programs and policy at Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE), told Chemical Watch that the NGO is excited that the bill has taken one step closer to becoming law.
She says that WVE, a co-sponsor of the legislation, had hoped for a stronger bill, but that "the version that passed the Assembly puts disclosure requirements on par with retail cosmetics and we see that as a win.
"Salon workers have the right to know what ingredients they are being exposed to, often on a daily basis. This same information is already required for retail cosmetics so there is no reason to continue to keep salon workers in the dark."
The Personal Care Products Council joined the American Chemistry Council and California Chamber of Commerce, among others, in opposing the bill as originally drafted. The organisation did not return a request for comment by publication deadline as to whether approved or future amendments have caused it, or would cause it, to drop its opposition.
So-called 'right to know' legislation remains a policy priority in the US. Last week, California's Senate also passed a bill that would require ingredient labelling of cleaning products, and a similar measure was introduced in the US Congress.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56621/california-assembly-passes-professional-cosmetics-ingredient-labelling-bill
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(ACC Mentioned) Ocean Conservancy, Industry to Raise $10 Million to Combat Ocean Plastic
Jun 5, 2017 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
The environmental group Ocean Conservancy and its plastics industry partners are publicly committing to raise at least $10 million by 2020 for scientific research and to build public support for addressing problems from plastics in the oceans.
The commitment was unveiled as part a United Nations conference on the health of the oceans beginning June 5 in New York, an event that's drawing thousands of government officials, nongovernmental organizations and other delegates.
The commitment comes from a group called the Trash Free Seas Alliance, which is part of the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy and includes some big names in the plastics industry on its eight-member steering committee around TFSA's signature goal, a 50 percent reduction in plastics flowing to the ocean by 2025.
They are the American Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical Co., Amcor Ltd. and the World Plastics Council. Other committee members include Coca-Cola Co., the World Wildlife Fund and Procter & Gamble Corp.
The TFSA document said the Ocean Conservancy and its TFSA partners will raise at least $10 million between 2015 and 2020. The group has raised about half of that so far and believe it's an "ambitious but achievable" target, said Susan Ruffo, managing director of international initiatives at the Ocean Conservancy.
"Our partners from the plastic industry provide are providing an important part of that funding," Ruffo said. "In addition, they are providing expertise, leadership within the private sector and are making their own commitments to solving the problem."
Specifically, TFSA said the money will be used to advance scientific understanding of the problem of marine plastic debris and work with governments, other institutions, corporations and the public.
It said, for example, that 8 million tons of plastic enters the oceans each year, "like dumping one New York City garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute of every day for an entire year."
And TFSA noted that plastic is entering the food chain for people: it said that plastic has been found in 28 percent of the fish in markets in Indonesia and 25 percent of the fish in markets in California.
"That is why the Trash Free Seas Alliance is focused on finding multisectoral, collaborative solutions to addressing land-based sources of plastics, to turn off the tap flowing into our ocean," the group said.
The UN conference, which runs June 5-9, includes more than 600 public commitments from governments, NGOs, companies and others toward improving the health of the oceans.
Most of them focus on other ocean challenges, like overfishing or acidification, but 95 of the commitments deal with plastic.
They include Monaco saying it banned thin plastic bags and the European Union, which said it expected its EU Plastics Strategy —to be finalized this year — will help comprehensively address the problem of marine plastics.
At a June 1 press briefing to preview the conference, Peter Thomson, president of the UN General Assembly, said plastic ocean pollution is moving from a problem of waste management to a broader public health and economic issue.
He said China and Indonesia are the two biggest sources of plastic pollution in the ocean, and that in Indonesia, the government is concerned the problem is hurting other parts of its economy.
"They are seeing that marine pollution is starting to hurt their tourist industry," Thomson said. "And so the Indonesian government is instituting laws that are going to stop plastic getting into it, because you know, it's going to affect jobs on the land in the hotel industry if the beaches and the seas are full of plastic."
Thomson also highlighted microplastics pollution from clothing and other sources as a topic that needs more attention.
"I would like to see more honesty in the microplastics area," he said, noting that he had seen video at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts showing phytoplankton in the mid-Atlantic eating microplastics.
"Where's the phytoplankton going?" he said. "It's being eaten by bigger fish, and ending up eventually on your dinner plate. What's that going to do to humanity. It can't be good.
"This is a moment of honesty for all us in terms of the plastic pollution," he said.
A draft of a final declaration from the UN conference calls for "robust strategies to reduce the use of plastics and microplastics, particularly plastic bags and single use plastics."
Ruffo said the $10 million represents a major increase in funding from TFSA's first phase of work from 2011 to 2015, and said money that is "deployed strategically" can influence action beyond the group's work.
For example, she said previous TFSA work identified that 80 percent of plastics in the ocean comes from land, mostly from sources that escape waste management systems or leak from existing waste management.
"TFSA has helped governments and other actors direct their resources toward real solutions that will make real progress," she said.
Ruffo said at least 3 billion people do not have access to safe and well-managed waste disposal facilities, and that meetings like the UN conference and discussions at the G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have the potential to unlock development capital.
"We need the reach of consumer brands, the innovation of plastic producers, the advocacy efforts of conservation groups and world-class research by scientists to truly make progress," she said.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170605/NEWS/170609964/ocean-conservancy-targets-research-public-support-to-tackle-ocean
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA ‘Safer Choice’ Label Program, Criteria Under Fire
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Does a detergent that Procter & Gamble Co. makes merit a ‘safer’ label designation? The issue has re-ignited a debate among trade association executives over the type of analysis needed to justify such labels.
Some sections of the chemical industry would like to see the Environmental Protection Agency adopt a risk-based approach that would consider additional factors when determining what products qualify for a Safer Choice label. However, other business voices and environmental advocates have voiced opposition to such a move, which one chemical industry specialist said could lead to endless debates over chemical risk estimates.
The debate over the EPA's approach to reviewing products occurs as continued funding for the Safer Choice program is uncertain: the White House's fiscal year 2018 budget request would zero out funding for those activities.
Three CEOs recently discussed the future of the Safer Choice program, a voluntary initiative through which companies can demonstrate that their products are made with chemicals that are safer or more environmentally-friendly than alternatives. Companies seek the Safer Choice label to show customers that there are eco-friendly, less toxic household products on the market.
“Chemicals in commerce should be assessed based on their risk and exposure,” Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council said May 18 during the Consumer Specialty Products Association's mid-year meeting. “We will consistently oppose any assessment of chemicals that is based on a hazard-only approach,” he said.The CEO for another trade association and chemical policy specialists from environmental and labor groups argued that hazard-based approaches present clear criteria consumers can trust.
A hazard-based approach looks only at the properties of an ingredient, such as the ability of table salt to raise blood pressure. A risk-based approach also would consider the probability that the hazard would happen, taking into consideration factors such as level and frequency of exposure.
Dooley said P&G's Tide® Coldwater detergent is a “classic example” of the problems that arise with hazard-based chemical assessment. The detergent cleans clothes without the need for hot water thereby reducing consumers’ energy bills, according to P&G.
Despite those environmental benefits, the detergent didn't qualify for the EPA's Safer Choice label because it had two ingredients that posed a greater hazard than are allowed under the program's criteria, Dooley said.
“How is a product like this that is going to reduce energy consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not a safer choice for the environment?,” Dooley said.
Metrics
An EPA spokeswoman confirmed that agency staff spoke with P&G about its detergent in 2007, when the Safer Choice program was called Design for the Environment. The EPA spokeswoman said the company didn't formally apply for the label. All other aspects of the discussions are confidential, she said.
Tracey Long, a P&G spokeswoman, told Bloomberg BNA: “We appreciate programs like Safer Choice. We also see opportunities to incorporate a broader array of environmental metrics into Safer Choice that would make it even more informative,” she said.
The voluntary Safer Choice program encourages products to achieve certain standards. Safer Choice and its criteria were developed by industry, consumer, environmental, and labor groups in partnership with the EPA to encourage use of chemicals that are the safest available for the function they perform in a product.
The standards updated in 2015, for example, encourage “the use of energy-saving technologies including the use of concentrates and detergents that work in cold water.” The program also requires products that bear the Safer Choice label to meet certain “master criteria.”
All chemical ingredients, regardless of their percentage in the product, are examined. Each ingredient must meet specific, measurable targets that attest to its lack of or reduced carcinogenicity, reproductive/developmental toxicity, toxicity to aquatic life, and persistence in the environment, EPA's website says.
Chemicals known or expected to cause cancer in people, for example, would not be allowed in a product carrying a Safer Choice label.
Adding Risk to the Equation
The Consumer Specialty Products Association supports the Safer Choice program, Steve Caldeira, president and CEO of that association, told Bloomberg BNA.
“Our member companies have made significant investments in the program which now has over 2,000 brands and 500 companies participating,” he said following the mid-year meeting.
The program fosters innovation and competition among companies and benefits consumers but could benefit by adding more flexibility such as adding risk to its criteria, Caldeira said.
Risk-based chemical analyses, for example, could allow Safer Choice labeling to be based on a wider spectrum of chemicals’ health and environmental effects than may be possible through the hazard-based toxicity and environmental effects criteria currently used, Caldeira said.
‘Magic’ With Numbers
Charlotte Brody, vice president of health initiatives for the BlueGreen Alliance, told Bloomberg BNA the program could start losing support from environmental and labor groups if it moved towards a risk-based approach.
“Hazard gives us a more science-based framework that is less likely to be gamed,” Brody said.
Using risk-based methods could mean “we would very quickly move away from good science and move to estimates of estimates of estimates,” Brody said.
“We could spend 10 years arguing about how much of a dangerous chemical is too much,” Brody said. “When we start arguing how much is too much we move away from good science and move to magic with numbers—that's what's important about safer choice—clear criteria.”
Consumers’ Trust
If industry groups were to convince the Trump administration to move away from the compromises industries and advocacy organizations reached as they crafted Safer Choice, Brody said advocacy groups would start telling consumers the program could no longer be trusted.
“I imagine that not only we at BlueGreen, but all the greens at the table would move away and advertise that we think [Safer Choice] would be meaningless,” Brody said.
David Levine, co-founder and CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council, said the cleaning product, clothing, food and other manufacturing companies that have joined the council “pay attention to what consumers are looking for, and one of those things is clarity in the market place.”
“Safer Choice has set guidelines that have earned trust of consumers,” Levine said.
Reducing energy consumption as cold water detergents do, is great, he said. “Companies should be investing in that, and investing in safer chemistries.”
However, Levine said, Safer Choice was set up as a chemicals assessment program, not a program to reduce climate risks.
Jennifer McPartland, a health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said it's inappropriate to judge Safer Choice's success by arguing it should have accomplished a goal for which it was never designed.
P&G should be commended for being innovative and designing a cold water detergent that cuts energy use, McPartland said. “It would be even more impressive” if eventually they also can get the ingredients in that product to meet the Safer Choice criteria, she said.
Safer Choice on the Chopping Block
The President's fiscal 2018 budget request would eliminate the EPA's Safer Choice program, because it seeks no funding for the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics’ pollution prevention work. Other voluntary programs, such as the agency's Energy Star initiative that recognizes appliances and other products that save energy, also are on the chopping block.
“Zeroing out pollution prevention would be a disaster for American businesses,” Levine said. “Increasing numbers of businesses are taking responsibility to make their products more sustainable, and government serves an important role in setting standards and developing credible labels.”Notwithstanding his preference for a risk-based approach to chemical assessment, Caldeira, with the Consumer Specialty Products Association, said it would be a mistake to eliminate the Safer Choice program.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487707&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487707&jd=113487707
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Toxic Chemical in Food Packaging Fight Takes Road Less Traveled
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Environmentalists are employing a seldom-used legal maneuver to fight a recent decision that would allow the continued use of a toxic chemical in food packaging.
A coalition of nine organizations is asking the Food and Drug Administration to hold a public hearing on its decision to deny a two-year-old petition seeking a ban on perchlorate, a chemical used in plastic food packaging but is best known as a component of rocket fuel.
The request for a hearing, which would be held before an administrative judge, is a rare move. The most recent such hearings happened in the 1970s.
A hearing before an administrative judge, who will likely come from a federal agency outside of FDA, would require the agency to respond to specific questions that were not addressed in FDA's denial, Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, told Bloomberg BNA.
“We think FDA's processes are so seriously flawed that to have the agency make the next decision isn't going to work,” he said.
The petition sought to have the legal exemption of perchlorate compounds revoked as anti-static agents on food storage bags and closure-sealing gaskets for food containers. The FDA announced May 3 that would not pursue the petition, saying that the request seeks to end perchlorate uses that no longer exist in the food industry, and challenges science that the agency considers to be sound.
‘Flawed Interpretation’ of Science
Perchlorate can block the thyroid gland's uptake of iodine, which affects hormone production. The chemical also has been linked to defects in fetal and child brain development.
The FDA was not immediately available for comment on the most recent petition.
A recent FDA study suggested that babies and children are ingesting more perchlorate in their foods than they were 10 to 15 years ago, although the level is well below the Environmental Protection Agency's risk limit.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Breast Cancer Fund, the Center for Environmental Health, and other groups sued the FDA in March 2016 after it failed to respond to a December 2014 petition to ban perchlorate in food packages. The FDA told the court on Aug. 30, 2016, that it would respond to the petition by March 2017.
The 2005 approval of perchlorate, requested by the now-defunct Ciba Specialty Chemical Corp., allowed as much as 12,000 parts per million of the chemical to be added to plastic packaging.
The agency's denial of the petition is “based on a flawed interpretation of the law and the science,” the groups said. They cited an analysis they say underestimated the extent to which perchlorate migrates from packaging to food handling equipment into dry food. The FDA also failed to incorporate data that links plastic food packaging to high levels of the chemical in dry baby food. Concentrations of the chemical in baby food increased threefold after FDA's approval of perchlorate, the petition states.
The administrative hearing process is more similar to challenging an EPA pesticide permitting decision, rather than efforts to ban a chemical in the food supply, Neltner added.
The FDA is expected to soon post a notice to the Federal Register, inviting outside parties to join the hearing.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487711&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487711&jd=113487711
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No New Data Needed for Nanomaterials Rule, EPA Official Says
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies making and processing nanoengineered chemicals do not have to generate new information to comply with the agency's data collection rule that is effective in August, an EPA manager said.
The rule is the first any federal agency has issued addressing any intentionally engineered nanoscale chemical. BASF SE and the Dow Chemical Co. are among the many chemical manufacturers making nanoengineered chemicals for markets as diverse as aeronautics, electronics, transportation, and sports equipment.
“Only report what's in your possession. You don't have to develop surveys or information,” Jim Alwood, a manager in the Environmental Protection Agency's new chemicals program, said during a June 1 webinar organized by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).The goal of the rule is to get information on chemicals in commerce, Alwood told the global trade association that represents the semiconductor and flat panel display equipment and materials industries. “To manage risks, we need to know which nanoscale materials are in commerce.”
“You are just required to submit the information you have. It goes back to what's in commerce and what you know about it,” he said. Processors, for example, may not have many specific details about the nanoscale chemical they purchase, but they can tell the agency what they do with it, Alwood said.
Processors mix or otherwise work with a chemical without causing it to transform into other compounds.
Alwood answered questions received during the webinar and questions he said he has heard repeatedly before and after EPA's final rule (RIN: 2070-AJ54) was published in January (82 Fed. Reg. 3641). The agency has delayed the rule's effective date until Aug. 14 (82 Fed. Reg. 22,088).
He encouraged companies to submit more questions by June 15. The agency plans to answer such questions in guidance it announced May 16 (82 Fed. Reg. 22,452).
The rule applies to existing chemicals intentionally designed at the nanoscale—one to 100 nanometers—to have special strength, electrical or other properties they would not have if made in larger dimensions. A human hair is approximately 80,000-100,000 nanometers wide.
Rule's Goals
The rule's goals, Alwood said, are to ensure the EPA knows which nanoengineered chemicals are in commerce and to help the agency decide whether some of those chemicals or some ways companies work with them could pose a risk to workers, the general public or the environment. That information would help the agency decide whether it needs yet more information or if some type of risk management were needed, he said.
Any requests for additional data or regulatory actions would be pursued separately under the normal regulatory notice and comment or other procedures authorized by the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016, Alwood said.
R&D Generally Exempted
Alwood said he also is hearing many questions about how the rule affects research and development (R&D).
Research involving nanoengineered chemicals is generally exempt from the rule, Alwood said. Companies or other institutions that “manufacture or process, or intend to manufacture or process these chemical substances as part of articles, as impurities, or in small quantities solely for research and development” are exempt, the final rule said.
Michael Castorano of Dow Electronic Materials asked how much a company would have to change a specific nanoengineered chemical before it became a new form of the chemical that the company would have to report.
“You aren't going to need to report every change,” Alwood said. The agency wants new information if a company is redesigning a chemical to give it a different size or shape to enable it to function differently than it did, he said.
Eventually, EPA's guidance will be on its website and periodically updated, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487721&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487721&jd=113487721
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(ACC Mentioned) US Oil Resurgence Boosts CP Chem Optimism for Ethane
Jun 6, 2017 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
The resurgence of US oil production has made Chevron Phillips Chemical more optimistic about the outlook for ethane supplies, the company's CEO said on Monday.
Oil production is important to the chemical industry because it also results in associated gas, which is rich in ethane and other natural gas liquids (NGLs), that the US plants use for feedstock.
Following the decline in oil prices, US companies reduced production, raising concerns about ethane supplies. While the US would have enough ethane to supply the new crackers being built, there were concerns about how expensive this ethane would be.
However, US producers have successfully cut costs, allowing them to make money even with oil prices well below $60/bbl.
The result has been a resurgence in crude production in the US. The nation's oil and gas rig count rose for the 20th consecutive week, reaching 916.
US oil production is now at 9.34m bbl/day, close to the all-time record hit earlier in the decade, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Moreover, oil production is rising in areas that are relatively close to chemical plants. These areas are already well served by infrastructure and processing plants that can ship the resulting NGLs to crackers along the Gulf Coast.
These oil-producing regions include the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province), the Eagle Ford and the STACK (Sooner Trend Anadarko Canadian Kingfisher). But the standout is the Permian.
"What's happening there is nothing short of phenomenal," said Peter Cella, CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical. He made his comments on the sidelines of the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Annual Meeting.
The Permian has been producing oil for close to a century, Cella said. He estimates that so far, companies have extracted 30bn bbl of oil and 14 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas from the Permian. There could be another 20bn bbl coming out.
This new generation of wells is producing tight oil, and as these wells age, they produce a larger proportion of gas, he said.
The Permian already has plenty of gas-processing capacity and NGL pipelines to take product to the Gulf Coast.
However, midstream companies have plans to build more.
DCP Midstream is planning an additional large-scale expansion of the Sand Hills natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline from the Permian to the Gulf Coast.
Targa Resources plans to build a new common carrier natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline from the Permian Basin to Mont Belvieu, Texas, the nation's NGL hub.
Enterprise Products plans to build a pipeline to transport natural gas liquids (NGL) from the Permian Basin to Mont Belvieu.
A group of former executives from Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) has launched Aspen Midstream, having secured a $200m commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream and the management team of the new company.
EnCap has since made another equity commitment to create Cardinal Midstream III.
EnLink and Natural Gas Partners created a joint venture to build a processing plant in the Delaware basin.
Enterprise announced several projects back in June 2016
The annual meeting runs through Wednesday.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2017/06/05/10113069/us-oil-resurgence-boosts-cp-chem-optimism-for-ethane/
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(ACC Mentioned) New "Crackers" Will Drive 3D Printer Plastics R&D
Jun 6, 2017 | 3DPrint.com
By Charles Goulding
According to Forbes.com, plastic is the most dominant 3D printing material, accounting for 73% of all 3D printing materials used. The good news for the 3D plastics sector is that the US is making unprecedented investments in massive ethylene cracker manufacturing plants that produce plastic. Since 2010, over $150bn has been invested in US chemical plants, according to the American Chemistry Council. This huge investment will continue to spur plastic production available for the 3D printing industry.
The Research & Development Tax Credit
Enacted in 1981, the federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit allows a credit of up to 13 percent of eligible spending for new and improved products and processes. Qualified research must meet the following four criteria:
· New or improved products, processes, or software
· Technological in nature
· Elimination of uncertainty
· Process of experimentation
Eligible costs include employee wages, cost of supplies, cost of testing, contract research expenses, and costs associated with developing a patent. On December 18, 2015 President Obama signed the bill making the R&D Tax Credit permanent. Beginning in 2016, the R&D credit can be used to offset Alternative Minimum Tax and startup businesses can utilize the credit against $250,000 per year in payroll taxes.
Changes in the U.S. Chemicals Industry Cracker Plant Investments Benefits 3D Printing
Over the past several years, the US made a shift towards developing new plants that make chemicals necessary for plastic production. Because manufacturers are more confident than ever that the available and less expensive gas feedstock in the US will last longer than previously anticipated, they are leaning towards developing new plants called ethylene crackers. These plants convert ethane into ethylene, a necessary component for plastic production. By using such low-cost feedstock, chemical operations will become more feasible and profitable.
According to The Financial Times, companies such as Exxon, Sasol in South Africa, Dow, and CP Chem developed large ethylene crackers along the US Gulf of Mexico to begin production in 2017 and 2018. It is estimated that US ethylene production will increase from 25.8m tonnes last year to 34.2m tonnes next year, a 33% increase. Such growth will undoubtedly reap benefits in 3D printing, especially considering various industries’ reliance on plastic products. The plastic will become more affordable, which will promote use and growth of 3D printing of plastic products as described below.
HP’s 3D Printing Taken to a New Level
HP is in the process of testing 3D printing with thermoplastic urethane, or TPU. This material has many properties, including elasticity, transparency, and resistance to oil, grease, and abrasions. 3D printing with TPU can be integrated into many markets, including consumer products, sporting goods, automotive, aerospace, and packaging. This invention has the potential to bring the somewhat niche market of 3D printing to an entirely new level. HP’s vice president, Timothy Weber, said, “It’s all about plastic now,” and that by 2021, plastics in 3D printing will account for $10.4 billion or 57%.
3D Printer Plastics in Aerospace Companies
Aerospace companies have the opportunity to employ numerous 3D printing techniques. The most commonly used one is fused deposition modeling. With this method, aerospace companies create products made from plastic. Honeywell Aerospace is one of the many companies that invested in 3D printing in the US. A Honeywell engineer explained, “Our developments in this field have already helped save time and deliver better solutions for our customers.”
Airbus saw the most benefit from fused deposition modeling in creating and supplying spare parts for Airbus’ older aircrafts. In 2014, Airbus began producing 3D-printed plastic spare parts, including crew seat panels, based off designs that were 30 years old, according to Engineering & Technology Magazine. 3D printing of spare parts is beneficial because it means they can be printed on demand without inventory management requirements. Airbus also uses 3D printing to create noncritical plastic parts for aircraft cabins to reduce the overall weight.
Because of the increased availability of plastics used for such 3D printing, the aerospace industry can venture into producing other parts that have significant benefits for this sector and aircraft maintenance.
Ford Produces Car Parts out of 3D Printer Plastics
Ford is currently exploring ways to produce large, one-piece auto parts, such as spoilers, via 3D printing. They suggest the Stratasys Infinite Build 3D printer will revolutionize the vehicle manufacturing industry to develop more efficient and affordable cars and components. Ford is using plastic in its 3D printing, and anticipates to produce lighter-weight parts that will improve fuel efficiency. The company estimates that a 3D-printed plastic spoiler will weigh less than half of a metal-cast spoiler.
The benefits of 3D printing in the automobile industry are evident for speedy prototyping and parts manufacturing needed in minimal quantity. Via traditional methods, needed parts would take months to produce. However, with 3D printing, parts can be developed within days.
Mattel Offers 3D Printing Toy Studio
Mattel, the toy manufacturer, recently created a 3D printer that families can purchase to create their own toys at home. Priced at $300, the printer pairs with an app on smart phones that let users customize a wide range of toys. The printer currently uses hard PLA plastic filament. Mattel engineers plan to offer toy development with softer plastic to create more intricate heads on figurines, and glow-in-the-dark plastics. Exploration and usage of these different types of plastic will be possible with the recent growth in ethylene crackers.
Print Your Furniture in Manhattan
During the month of March, 2017, designers could go to a 3D printer pop-up shop called Print the Future in midtown Manhattan. The company is based in Vancouver, Canada, and plans to create permanent shops in major US cities. The purpose of this pop-up shop is to promote local designers to convert their designs into practical and beautiful furniture that is sold directly and quickly to consumers. The customized furniture is printed to order within 24 hours, and in the shop, consumers can watch the design come to life as the printer takes a flat disk of plastic and transforms it into furniture. It is predicted that this experience of watching furniture be “born” will inspire consumers to purchase more custom 3D printed furniture. This can possibly change the future of the furniture industry, and will be further explored with the recent growth in plastic production.
Printing Plastic for the US Military
The US military reaps many benefits from 3D printing with plastic. It intends to scan soldiers before they are deployed so in the event of catastrophic injury, precise prosthetics can be designed and printed on demand. The military will use Polyetherketoneketone (PEKK), a semi-crystalline thermoplastic with high heat resistance, chemical resistance, and the ability to withstand heavy mechanical weights. The Healthcare sector already uses PEKK in 3D printing after the FDA approved creating bone parts out of plastic. Following this approval, a doctor replaced 75% of a man’s skull with a 3D-printed PEKK skull that also stimulates cellular growth on its surface, according to Tech News Daily.
The 3D printers are beneficial in combat zones, where the Rapid Equipping Force can quickly design and produce spare parts or make fixes as needed to their equipment. For example, a notable and useful creation in the field was a plastic guard that prevents light emitted from a flashlight from exposing a soldier’s location.
The military also uses 3D printers to test and design plastic prototypes for equipment that will be needed in the field. This decreases time required to manufacture and deliver equipment. The Army’s Rapid Equipping Force’s commander explained, “Rather than bringing the soldier home to the scientist, we have uprooted the scientist and the engineer and brought them to the soldier.”
Conclusion
3D printing is becoming a more widely accepted method to produce products more efficiently and on-demand. The most popular material used in 3D printing is plastic, which has many applications in a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, military, and consumer markets. At the same time, the US chemicals industry is flourishing with its development of and reliance on ethylene crackers—plants that facilitate plastic production. 3D printing will benefit from this current expansion in plastic production, which will undoubtedly impact many industries in the near future.
Charles Goulding and Chloé Margulis of R&D Tax Savers discuss 3D printing in the plastics industry.
[i] https://www.ft.com/content/28649ac0-2f23-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a
[2] http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170320/NEWS/170329993/hp-says-3d-printing-is-moving-from-niche-to-production
[3] https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2016/10/3d-printing-in-the-aviation-industry/
[4] http://www.airbus.com/
https://3dprint.com/176990/3d-printer-plastics-r-and-d/
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Fisheries Service Proposes OKs for Atlantic Seismic Work
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Five companies are a step closer to conducting seismic surveys to identify offshore oil and natural gas prospects in the U.S. Atlantic.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposed June 5 to grant “incidental harassment authorizations” for the survey proposals of the five. The authorizations would allow for possible physical harm to marine mammals or at least disturbance of the mammals.
The five companies are TGS NOPEC Geophysical Co. ASA, Spectrum ASA, ION Geophysical Corp., CGG S.A. and WesternGeco Ltd., a subsidiary of Schlumberger Ltd. They would need approvals from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as well as NMFS to do the work.
The surveys would be conducted over a broad area from Delaware to Cape Canaveral in central Florida. They generally would be limited to coming no closer than 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) to the coast.
The permits will be good for one year. Whether surveying occurs may depend on oil companies volunteering to finance the work. That in turn may depend on calculations of when—if ever—the federal government will again schedule exploration lease sales for Atlantic waters.
NMFS may take several more months after that before deciding to issue authorizations, an official of the fisheries service told reporters June 5.
Fears for Marine Mammals
The seismic surveys would use airguns that send out bursts of sound waves through the water and subsea geologic layers. Reflections of the sound waves are recorded and analyzed to provide a better picture of the geology of the subsurface, allowing identification of possible deposits of oil and gas.
Many environmental activists remain adamantly opposed, and they reinforced that opposition during a June 5 news conference and in other statements.
Michael Jasny, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, was joined in the news conference by Doug Nowacek, a Duke University marine scientist who has focused on marine mammals. Nowacek also joined five other academic scientists in signing a statement opposing the proposed authorizations.
Seismic surveys have been conducted in the Gulf of Mexico for decades without harm to populations of marine mammals and without known harm to the organs or tissues of the mammals, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which consults with NMFS on marine mammals and endangered species.
Novacek disagreed about the absence of harm. “Nobody's actually looked,” he said, insisting there has not been enough research.
Jasny added that the concerns are not all about mammals. Seismic noise can cause massive displacement of some fish populations, he said.
Trump Reversed Obama
The Obama administration in January rejected seismic survey proposals from six companies. President Donald Trump reversed that action April 28 when he issued an executive order to accelerate development of offshore energy resources, including seismic permitting.
NMFS, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has authority under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to permit limited harm to mammals when it is incidental to work, not deliberate.
The fisheries service does not anticipate any deaths of marine mammals will be caused by the seismic surveys, according to Jolie Harrison, chief of the Permits and Conservation Division within the NMFS Office of Protected Resources.
The primary expectation is that if trouble is caused to marine mammals, it will take the form of temporary disruptions of behavior patterns, Harrison told reporters June 5.
Protective Measures Required
A variety of mitigation measures will be required for companies to receive incidental harassment authorizations. Lookouts will be devoted to watching for whales and dolphins, and subsurface acoustic monitoring will be used to detect the vocalizations of whales and dolphins.
An exclusion zone around the survey work will have a 500-meter (547-yard) radius. Airgun use must be shut down immediately if a marine mammal is detected in the exclusion zone or is headed toward the zone.
Greater protections are applied for endangered North Atlantic right whales or for any large whale with a calf, and a variety of other mitigation measures are specified.
The proposed authorizations were scheduled for publication in the June 6 Federal Register. Publication will kick off a 30-day public comment period (RIN:0648-XE283).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487713&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487713&jd=113487713
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EPA Taken to Court Over Methane Rule Pause
Jun 6, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
A coalition of environmental groups is taking the EPA to court over its decision to halt an Obama-era regulation on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
The groups, which include the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club, filed suit in a federal appeals court just days after the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would delay the regulation's upcoming compliance deadlines by at least three months while it weighs whether to repeal the regulation altogether. (The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg BNA is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.)
The regulation, enacted during the Obama administration, requires oil and gas drillers to step up their monitoring for leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit want the appeals court to overturn the EPA's delay of the regulation's upcoming deadlines. (Clean Air Council v. Pruitt, D.C. Cir., No. 17-01145, 6/5/17.)
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487715&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487715&jd=113487715
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With EnCap Backing, Cardinal Midstream Growing Utica Footprint, Expanding in North America
Jun 5, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Dallas-based Cardinal Midstream has received a $250 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream to build out a Utica Shale dry gas gathering system in north central Pennsylvania and acquiring other assets across North America.
Management said Cardinal Midstream III LLC would pursue midstream acquisitions and development opportunities in both conventional and unconventional oil and natural gas plays. Cardinal currently owns and operates a high pressure system serving Utica gas production in Tioga County, PA, long been a hotbed for Marcellus Shale drilling that has seen renewed interest in recent years as the deeper Utica is developed.
Led by CEO Doug Dormer, the company's executives have been involved in acquiring, developing and operating more than $1.3 billion in midstream assets since Cardinal was founded in 2008. At one time, the company was one of the largest gas processors in Oklahoma's Arkoma Woodford Shale before selling the assets in 2012.
Earlier this year, Cardinal Midstream sold its interest in Cardinal PA Holdings LLC to a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LP. Cardinal PA provides midstream services in the Marcellus in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Last week's announcement marked the third partnership between EnCap and Cardinal. The company provided few details in its announcement, but Dormer said the equity would likely be put toward growing the midstream footprint in Tioga County and entering other basins across the country.
EnCap was also formed in 2008 by a partnership between energy-focused private equity firms EnCap Investments LP and Flatrock Energy Advisors. The firm manages investment commitments of nearly $6 billion. More recently, it sold Midland, TX-based EagleClaw Midstream Ventures LLC for $2 billion and committed $200 million to help form Aspen Midstream LLC.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110685-with-encap-backing-cardinal-midstream-growing-utica-footprint-expanding-in-north-america
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Obama-Era Rule Would Make 'Substantial' Dent in CO2 — CRS
Jun 6, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Congress' in-house research shop has found that the Clean Power Plan would have a "substantial impact" on carbon dioxide emissions if it goes forward, a nearly impossible scenario under the Trump administration.
A newly released overview by the Congressional Research Service examines modeling projections by U.S. EPA, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Rhodium Group, M.J. Bradley & Associates LLC and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
CRS undertook its review with the Trump administration in the process of rescinding U.S. EPA's signature rule, and the courts stalled in their consideration of whether it is legal.
CRS published the overview, titled "U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions Trends and Projections: Role of the Clean Power Plan and Other Factors," last week — one day before President Trump announced he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.
While the agency does not make its reports available to the general public, the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy posted a copy online yesterday.
Researchers tried to answer the question of whether existing power-sector trends and policies would continue to put the U.S. on track to slash power-sector emissions in 2030. They looked at the impact of rescinding the rule, as Trump wants to do, and implementing it.
The report notes multiple factors have contributed to emissions falling 25 percent between 2005 and 2016, including the decline in coal generation and the growth of natural gas and renewables as a power source. CO2 emissions may continue to decrease if those trends continue, CRS said, from 16 to 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
However, the models indicate that following through with the Clean Power Plan could result in a reduction of 28 to 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
"Accurately forecasting future CO2 emission levels is a complex and challenging endeavor," the report states.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/06/stories/1060055582
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Sector, Labor at Odds Over EPA's Authority to Delay RMP Rule
Jun 6, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical and other industry organizations are sparring with labor groups are whether EPA has Clean Air Act authority for its delay of an Obama-era facility safety rule, with industry claiming the agency has “virtually unfettered discretion” for the move but labor arguing the air law's compliance mandates undermine the delay.
EPA took comment through May 19 on Administrator Scott Pruitt's March 29 proposal to delay by an additional 20 months -- from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 -- the effective date of the Obama EPA's update to the Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention rule to allow for reconsideration of the rule.
The Jan. 13 final rule includes new auditing and hazard analysis requirements, as well as provisions bolstering release of facility data to emergency planners and the public, which have drawn strong opposition from industry groups as well as GOP state attorneys general, including Pruitt prior to his selection to lead EPA.
In May 19 comments, recently posted to EPA's docket for the proposed delay, the United Steelworkers (USW) argues that EPA has twice delayed the rule despite language in section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act that requires the agency to quickly implement rules issued under authority in the law, such as the RMP.
The delays occurred “notwithstanding the expressed mandate that regulations promulgated pursuant to §112(r) have an effective date assuming compliance with RMP requirements 'as expeditiously as practicable,'” the union argues. USW says further “delay in this regulation is inappropriate and would cause harm."
But industry trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), and the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) argue that EPA has broad discretion under the air law and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to delay the rule's effective date.
ACC in its May 19 comments says section 307(d) of the air law “generally allows the EPA to set effective dates as appropriate unless other provisions of the CAA control,” and reads the same provision of 112(r) that USW cites in opposing further delay, as backing the agency's authority to postpone the regulation.
“Congress gave the Administrator significant discretion to establish the effective date for RMP regulations as long as compliance is achieved as 'expeditiously as practicable,'” ACC says. “Here, EPA’s proposal to extend the stay through the rulemaking process comports with the requirement that compliance be achieved as expeditiously as practicable and therefore falls squarely under the discretion afforded the Agency under section 112(r)(7)(A) of the Clean Air Act."
Regulatory Delay
Industry groups that have challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit argue that the APA gives EPA authority to delay the rule pending the outcome of the litigation.
The industry groups also argue an extended delay is appropriate to allow EPA to reconsider numerous “flaws,” in the rule, arguing that the Obama EPA failed to adequately coordinate its RMP update with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's planned update to its Process Safety Management program, and failed to provide sufficient opportunity for comment on certain provisions.
The National Rural Water Association (NRWA) in its May 19 comments argues that local governments should not have to invest in compliance while the Trump EPA is considering scaling back the regulation.
“The RMP Rule imposes extensive new requirements on covered facilities and on state and local governments,” NRWA says. “It would be impracticable and unreasonable to require these entities to expend resources to achieve compliance with the rule when it is subject to change."
In comments on the proposed delay, industry trade groups reiterate long-standing arguments that the Obama administration failed to follow proper procedure in issuing the rule, and that new requirements increase costs without improving safety and pose security risks by facilitating release of facility data.
CRA, in its May 19 comments says a delay is warranted because EPA has failed to issue guidance on the RMP rule's “vague and confusing” new requirements.
The Trump administration has twice delayed the rule since taking office. Pruitt proposed the lengthy delay March 29 after granting separate petitions from industry and GOP-led states to begin a process for reconsidering the rule.
'Ample Consideration'
But environmental, labor and public interest groups, including Earthjustice, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) argue that the RMP rule is a modest update, bringing long overdue improvements that were already subject to public comment.
“This matter has been given ample consideration; further delay would potentially endanger not only the public, but the lives of fire fighters responsible for responding to incidents at chemical facilities,” IAFF says in its May 19 comments.
EPA promulgated the rule in response to former President Barack Obama's Executive Order 13650 issued in the wake of a fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX, that killed 15 people, including first responders. While the explosion and ensuing order triggered EPA's overhaul of its accident prevention program, investigators later blamed arson for the fire that led to the explosion.
Groups including USW, IAFF, and UCS in separate comments also cite EPA statistics in arguing that the prior regulation is inadequate, noting that more than 1,500 serious incidents at RMP covered facilities occurred in the decade prior to the rulemaking, resulting in more than 17,000 injuries and 58 deaths.
“Complaints that the rule is too stringent do not take into account the risk to the public or the stronger recommendations made by safety professionals after learning lessons from devastating accidents,” USW says. “Releases of RMP regulated substances pose a real and immediate threat to USW members and their families who work, reside and/or recreate near these facilities. Our members cannot wait any longer for implementation of these protections.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/chemical-sector-labor-odds-over-epas-authority-delay-rmp-rule
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(ACC Mentioned) Paris Pact is Trump’s Biggest Betrayal Yet
Jun 6, 2017 | Las Vegas Sun
By Ken Cook
In just four months in office, President Donald Trump has betrayed many of the Americans who believed his campaign promises. Last week, he betrayed the planet.
Trump’s foolish decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement — a pact endorsed by almost every other nation on Earth — is yet another sign that he is exceptionally unfit for the job.
The United States now joins Syria and Nicaragua as the only three nations in the world not party to the agreement. Nicaragua’s refusal to sign stems from the agreement not going far enough to fight the devastating effects of climate change. Even such forward-thinking leaders as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signed the agreement, acknowledging the serious challenges facing the world as climate change accelerates.
The voluntary agreement of now 194 nations seeks to keep global average temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius by pledging to cut or limit emissions from burning fossil fuels. Nicaragua is right on one count: It does not go far enough. But it marked the first time the world community came together in an attempt to head off one of the most dangerous threats the planet has faced.
The office of president carries responsibility not only for the health of American people and environment, but for the world. In stepping away from the Paris accord, the president is abrogating that responsibility to appease a handful of fossil fuel lobbyists and the know-nothing climate change deniers he has installed in his administration. Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, favored staying in.
Trump has further cemented in the minds of Americans and others around the globe that he has no sense of moral responsibility to protect future generations from the ravages of climate change. He has set into motion a calamitous chain of events that could be irreversible. When will he wake up to the enormity of the consequences of continuing to spew carbon into the atmosphere — when the Atlantic Ocean rises to swallow up Mar-a-Lago?
Trump’s decision to make America a rogue nation on climate change, underscored by his Rose Garden speech insulting many of our long-held allies, is an outrage — but not that surprising. This is only the most recent step in Trump’s mad crusade to cripple efforts to protect the American people and the planet from industrial pollution.
The world watched as this president nominated climate change denier Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt notoriously sued or supported lawsuits against the EPA more than two dozen times and disbanded Oklahoma’s environmental protection unit while he was the state’s attorney general.
Since Pruitt took the reins at EPA, the administration has rolled back rules to protect tap water for 117 million Americans. Pruitt personally overruled the agency’s own scientists to abort a scheduled ban on a dangerous pesticide that can harm children’s brains. With a straight face, he argued that his boss’s proposal to cut the budget for the Superfund program by 30 percent represented a stronger commitment to clean up the nation’s most severely polluted toxic waste sites.
Just last month, the administration appointed Nancy Beck to a high-level position in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Beck previously worked for the American Chemistry Council, the powerful lobby that represents ExxonMobil Chemical and Dow Chemical, among other big polluters, and for decades has fought efforts to protect Americans from hazardous substances in drinking water, food and consumer products.
But in pulling out of the Paris agreement, Trump not only showed his disregard for the nation’s health and safety but also for the planet’s future. In the eyes of the global community, he has given the United States a black eye that may take generations to heal.
Walking away from the climate pact is one of the most stunningly wrong-headed, uninformed decisions ever made by a president of the United States — the kind of bullheadedness seen from zealots who close their eyes to science and common sense. The evidence mounts daily that the Oval Office is occupied by exactly that kind of man.
Ken Cook is president of the Environmental Working Group. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/jun/06/paris-pact-is-trumps-biggest-betrayal-yet/
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U.S. Coalition to the World: 'We Are Still In'
Jun 6, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Hanneh Hess
More than 1,000 leaders of U.S. states, cities, businesses and universities declared "we are still in" the Paris Agreement in an open letter today to the international community.
The letter is meant to signal to 194 countries that signed the U.N. climate accord that the United States will continue to deliver emissions reductions, despite President Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact.
"The Trump administration's announcement undermines a key pillar in the fight against climate change and damages the world's ability to avoid the most dangerous and costly effects of climate change," the letter says. "Importantly, it is also out of step with what is happening in the United States."
Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. are among the largest businesses and investors on the list. They account for total annual revenue of $1.4 trillion, organizers said.
The states and cities whose leaders signed represent about 120 million people. The states are California, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and Hawaii. Among the cities and counties are New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Pittsburgh and Dubuque, Iowa.
Bob Perciasepe, a former U.S. EPA deputy administrator who is now president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, called it evidence of "an enormous groundswell of support for continued progress on climate change" despite Trump's decision.
"The signatories understand that climate change imposes real and rising costs on America's communities, and that the clean energy transition presents enormous economic opportunities for U.S. workers and companies," Perciasepe said in a statement. However, he acknowledged that success will ultimately require federal leadership as well.
National polling data released today by The Washington Post and ABC News finds 59 percent of the country opposes Trump's decision to withdraw from the agreement, including 46 percent who are strongly opposed. The telephone survey of 527 adults was conducted Friday to Sunday, with an error margin of 5 percentage points.
Today's declaration adds to a growing movement of nonfederal entities stepping forward to commit to meeting the Obama administration's pledge to slash emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
CEOs in a dozen blue and purple states have joined the so-called U.S. Climate Alliance, a pact organized by New York, California and Washington state in response to the Trump administration's decision.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) announced today that he would add his name to the list, along with leaders of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island and Vermont.
"If the federal government insists on abdicating leadership on this issue, it will be up to the American people to step forward — and in Virginia we are doing just that," McAuliffe said in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/06/05/stories/1060055564
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Post-ABC poll: Nearly 6 in 10 Oppose Trump Scrapping Paris Agreement
Jun 5, 2017 | Washington Post
By Scott Clement and Brady Dennis
Most Americans oppose President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, with a majority saying the move will damage the United States’ global leadership, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Opposition to Trump’s decision outpaces support for it by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, with 59 percent opposing the move and 28 percent in support. The reactions also break down sharply along partisan lines, though Republicans are not as united in support of the withdrawal as Democrats are in opposition to it. A 67 percent majority of Republicans support Trump’s action, but that drops to 22 percent among political independents and 8 percent of Democrats. Just over 6 in 10 independents and 8 in 10 Democrats oppose Trump’s action.
The survey also finds broad skepticism toward Trump’s argument that leaving the Paris agreement will benefit the U.S. economy. While 32 percent of respondents say his action will help the nation’s economy, 42 percent say it will hurt and 20 percent say it will make no difference. On a separate question, slightly more people surveyed say that exiting the climate accord will cost jobs, such as those in renewable energy, than it will create jobs in traditional energy sectors such as coal, oil and gas.
Trump’s decision to exit the landmark Paris climate agreement — a pact signed by more than 190 countries — drew criticism last week from U.S. allies, major companies and mayors of numerous U.S. cities, all of whom underscored their commitment to what they called the necessary task of combating climate change. Trump argued that the nonbinding agreement imposed “draconian financial and economic burdens on our country” and predicted it would cost Americans millions of jobs and the U.S. economy trillions of dollars — a stance critics quickly noted did not consider the health benefits from cutting emissions and the potential economic benefits of investments in clean energy.
On Sunday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said the Paris agreement was “a bad deal for this country” in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s clear that the demerits, the efficacy both in environmental outcomes as well as the cost to us from a jobs perspective was a bad deal for this country,” Pruitt said, arguing that the United States has already accomplished a great deal in reducing its carbon footprint.
The Paris deal essentially represented a promise by countries to hold the planet’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and to aspire to a 1.5-degree limit if possible, in an effort to stave off the worst effects of global warming. Under the deal, countries would set their own targets — and their own approaches — for reducing their emissions, with the aim of increasing the ambition of their targets over time. The United States, for instance, had agreed to cut greenhouse gases to 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
“Someday we may see this as the moment when we decided to save our planet,” President Barack Obama said last September as he and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally joined the Paris climate accord, a move that compelled other countries to follow suit and led to the landmark deal officially entering into force that fall. He added at the time, “History will judge today’s efforts as pivotal.”
With Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, the United States is abandoning its role as a global leader in the fight against climate change and instead joining only two other countries not participating in the accord: Syria, which is in mired in civil war, and Nicaragua, which refused to join because its leaders said the Paris deal did not go far enough to combat global warming.
The Post-ABC poll’s finding that 59 percent oppose leaving the climate deal is similar to 56 percent who opposed such a move in a January Post-ABC poll, though the latest survey finds attitudes split more sharply along political and demographic lines. Opposition is 15 percentage points higher among Americans under age 40 than among seniors ages 65 and older (67 percent vs. 52 percent), and non-white adults are similarly more likely to oppose exiting the climate deal than whites (71 percent vs. 54 percent).
One cleavage of support bodes well for Trump and Republicans: Registered voters are twice as likely to approve of Trump’s decision to exit the climate agreement (33 percent vs. 15 percent). Still, majorities of both groups oppose Trump’s decision.
Beyond economic concerns, the Post-ABC poll finds 55 percent saying Trump’s decision will hurt U.S. leadership in the world, while 18 percent say it will help and 23 percent expect no impact. Even supporters of Trump’s action expressed mixed views on this question, with 48 percent saying Trump’s action will boost U.S. leadership, while 49 percent think it will make no difference or will harm the nation’s standing. Among those who oppose Trump’s decision, 77 percent say it will hurt American leadership.
Republicans are largely optimistic about the economic benefits of leaving the climate agreement, with more than three-quarters saying Trump’s decision will help the economy and 73 percent saying it will create more jobs like those in traditional energy than it will cost in the renewable-energy sector.
Independents are much more pessimistic on these questions, with just over one-quarter (26 percent) saying that leaving the agreement will help the economy and 33 percent saying it will create more jobs than it costs. As expected, Democrats are even more critical, with clear majorities saying that abandoning the Paris accord will cost jobs and hurt the economy.
The percentages of Americans who expect leaving the agreement will have negative consequences for international efforts to combat climate change and U.S. leadership more broadly are higher than the share who foresee positive consequences.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted Friday to Sunday among a random national sample of 527 adults, including users of cellular and landline phones. The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus five percentage points.
Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/05/post-abc-poll-nearly-6-in-10-oppose-trump-scrapping-paris-agreement/?utm_term=.f2aeaf6a68b2
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Forget the Paris Accord. Here’s What Can Really Fight Climate Change.
Jun 6, 2017 | Washington Post
By Michael Gerson
Climate policy is the new culture war, driven by nearly theological passions. Or actually theological passions — with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claiming that President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord was a “dishonor” to God.
While God certainly values his creation, he is probably less concerned with the details of implementing the Paris agreement. Both detractors and supporters share a similar temptation of exaggeration. Trump claims that a relatively modest, entirely voluntary agreement that essentially maintains the current momentum of reductions in carbon emissions would somehow destroy the U.S. economy. It wouldn’t. Some advocates seem to imply that a relatively modest, entirely voluntary agreement that essentially maintains the current momentum of reductions in carbon emissions would somehow save the world. It can’t.
Here is the climate bottom line, as far as science can currently describe it: In order to keep the rise in average global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius and thus avoid the worst climate disruption, it will be necessary to keep more than 80 percent of existing coal reserves in the ground, unexploited. The same will be necessary for more than 50 percent of natural gas reserves.
Those who believe this will happen through some global regulatory regime enforced by the United Nations are inhaling not carbon dioxide but nitrous oxide. Developing nations will not accept the argument that developed nations — having built their own hydrocarbon-based prosperity — can now pull up the carbon ladder.
The best hope for keeping hydrocarbons in the ground is for non-carbon-based alternatives — ones that don’t disappear at night or when the wind doesn’t blow — to cost less. Putting a price (such as a tax) on carbon emissions would help. But the only sufficient, realistic path is technological innovation, producing non-intermittent, non-carbon-based sources of energy that cost less than coal and natural gas.
This technology will eventually develop in the normal course of innovation. But the timelines of innovation and climate degradation are not the same. Every ton of carbon released into the air can have climate effects for hundreds of years. To avoid the worst climate disruption, we need to speed up the technological timeline. And this will take massive, urgent, strategic, public and private investment in energy research and development.
Why didn’t Trump propose this rather obvious, market-oriented alternative to the Paris agreement? A normal president — Republican or Democrat — might have said: “The difficulty with this particular agreement — support it or oppose it — is that it is caught in 20th-century thinking, seeking answers to technical challenges through bureaucracy. The problem is too big for that approach, and our ambitions are too small. We incur an enormous risk in using current energy technologies, yet we can’t expect hundreds of millions of people in the developing world who want middle-class lives to forgo the most cost-effective sources of energy. So today I’m announcing an unprecedented project of research into advanced energy sources, matched by investment pledges from the private sector. This is the way America will lead — through the development of climate-saving technologies that can eventually be employed by the entire world.”
But we do not have a normal president, as Trump’s Paris agreement unsigning statement made clear. Trump is applying the worst kind of populism to foreign affairs. The problem he seeks to solve is a global conspiracy against American workers. A conspiracy utilizing climate science as a type of subversion or sabotage. A conspiracy including our closest allies, friends and trading partners, who “went wild, they were so happy” at the prospect of greater American poverty and suffering.
This is far, far away from the post-World War II American foreign policy tradition — which located American success in an expanding order of economic, political and social freedom. Trump is critiquing not “globalism” but the Atlantic Alliance that prevailed in the Cold War and a Pacific strategy that has deterred aggression and increased mutual prosperity through trade for more than half a century.
“No people can live to itself alone,” said that pernicious globalist Dwight Eisenhower in his second inaugural address. “The economic need of all nations — in mutual dependence — makes isolation an impossibility; not even America’s prosperity could long survive if other nations did not also prosper. No nation can longer be a fortress, lone and strong and safe. And any people, seeking such shelter for themselves, can now build only their own prison.”
That prison is Trump’s most ambitious building project.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-the-paris-accord-heres-what-can-really-fight-climate-change/2017/06/05/59fa2302-4a21-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html?utm_term=.7a126e923b4c
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Environmentalists Attack 'Illegal' EPA Modeling Guidance For Air Permits
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Environmentalists are attacking as “illegal” EPA's issuance of draft modeled emissions rates for “precursor” air pollutants that regulators will use to craft Clean Air Act permits, claiming the approach is arbitrary and will fall short of an air law requirement for permit applicants to prove their projects will not violate federal air standards.
In contrast, groups representing the power, paper, petroleum and other sectors are generally supportive of the agency's draft guidance on modeled emissions rates for precursors (MERPs). But they raise specific complaints about EPA's approach, including calling for additional technical guidance or rulemakings to ease implementation of the MERPs, and to continue weighing alternative approaches for estimating the impact of precursors.
The agency last month posted to its website a compendium of comments it received on the Obama EPA's Dec. 2 draft guidance on MERPs, which are modeling tools for use by permit applicants and air regulators to help ensure that industrial projects do not result in air emissions that violate national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). The guidance applies to modeling for permits for NAAQS for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone.
Various industries that must obtain permits have long sought a way to more easily estimate the impacts of emissions of air pollution precursors, such as nitrogen oxides, on formation of regulated pollutants. Permit applicants must prove their projects do not violate NAAQS, but also not exceed the “increment” allocated by EPA for a given area, which in effect is the volume of air pollution available in the area for industry without violating NAAQS.
This can prove an onerous requirement, and EPA has previously developed a series of screening tools to help avoid full-blown analysis, including significant impact levels (SILs) of pollutants. Emissions estimated to result in pollution levels below SILs are assumed to be air law compliant -- but environmentalists say SILs are arbitrary, and therefore unlawful. And because MERPs are based on SILs, they too are unlawful, environmentalists say. Federal courts, meanwhile, have found specific SILs unlawful, but not invalidated SILs as a concept.
In the compilation of comments, environmentalists reprise their argument against these screening tools. In their March 31 comments, Earthjustice and Sierra Club say “MERPs are illegal and arbitrary.”
The groups say, “Because a source that complies with MERPs only demonstrates compliance with SILs, and SILs are illegal and arbitrary tools for evading” the air law, “MERPs are themselves illegal and arbitrary.” The law “unambiguously requires a permit applicant to demonstrate that it will not cause or contribute to noncompliance with NAAQS and increments, a requirement that is not met by demonstrating compliance with a MERP,” they say.
Industry's Support
Industry groups in their comments posted to EPA's website are generally supportive of MERPs, but have some specific complaints about the agency's methodology.
For example, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), representing power generators, in Feb. 16 comments says, “EPA possesses clear authority under section 165” of the Clean Air Act “to fashion mechanisms that aid [prevention of significant deterioration, or PSD] permitting authorities and applicants in determining if a project’s impacts cause or contribute to a NAAQS exceedence. It would be appropriate for EPA to issue an independent legal memorandum explaining the sources of legal authority to issue MERPs . . . in order to help permitting authorities to compile complete, appropriate records to support their initial MERPs decisions.” PSD permits are required in areas attaining the NAAQS.
Also, “EPA also should issue a technical memorandum explaining in more detail how EPA’s own calculations implement its authority” under the air law, EEI says.
Further, EPA should pursue a rulemaking to set “presumptively approvable” MERPs and SILs, clarifying the relationship between the two tools, and allowing for the development by states of “site-specific values,” EEI says.
The American Wood Council and American Forest & Paper Association in March 31 joint comments say, “Permitting authorities should be allowed to develop and use their own critical air quality concentration threshold values for deriving MERPs rather than relying solely” on SILs, “which are currently set to levels that are unnecessarily low.”
The American Petroleum Institute (API), representing the oil sector, generally supports the MERPs concept but says that for those situations where MERPs cannot be applied, EPA needs to continue exploring other, cheaper options for estimating the impact of precursors. “Some alternatives under development, such as the SCICHEM model, show promise as more efficient tools for assessing single-source precursor impacts, and EPA should actively support and prioritize such development efforts,” API says. SCICHEM is a model being developed by the Electric Power Research Institute.
The Utility Air Regulatory Group, representing the power generation sector, says MERPs are an appropriate tool, but urges EPA to further develop the MERPs in its draft guidance and ultimately include them in a rulemaking.
Several industry groups and the state of Ohio also criticize the draft guidance's inclusion of photochemical modeling as a “second-tier” tool if application of MERPs does not establish the NAAQS compliance of a project. Such modeling is far too onerous, they argue.
Demonstration Guidance
Meanwhile, EPA also recently released comments on its Nov. 17 Draft PM2.5 Precursor Demonstration Guidance, a document designed to help air regulators and industry model the impact of precursor chemicals on PM2.5 formation.
Ohio EPA, the state's environmental regulator, criticizes the guidance as late and “unfairly prescriptive. . . . Ohio EPA is concerned that U.S. EPA has presented excessively conservative guidance and encourages U.S. EPA to highlight a path towards a scientifically valid demonstration that may be approved without unnecessary costs."
API in March 3 comments echoes Ohio EPA's concerns that the guidance relies on excessively conservative assumptions. EPA's thresholds to determine whether volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or ammonia emissions are contributing to ambient PM2.5 levels, are based on 2016 SILs -- and “the SIL threshold is so conservative that it is not likely to provide any benefit as an initial screening,” API says.
However, Earthjustice in March 31 comments says the agency's handling of precursors should compensate for years of regulation of PM2.5 under the wrong air law provision, “subpart 1,” when in fact the more demanding, PM-specific “subpart 4” applies. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2013 found EPA had for years applied the more general, less-onerous subpart 1 provisions, forcing EPA to revise its approach. The move toward limitation of precursors is a part of that policy shift.
“PM2.5 precursors -- especially ammonia -- have largely escaped regulation. Moreover, monitoring networks and other fundamental systems for measuring and attaining the national standards have been designed without regard to the sources of precursor emissions,” Earthjustice says. “Guidance that assumes we are starting from the point where all sources of PM2.5 will be treated equally ignores the history of neglect around the monitoring and controlling of these pollutants and could arbitrarily reinforce that neglect. Instead the Guidance should take steps to get areas to 'catch up' in the treatment of these precursors,” the group adds.
The group also warns EPA that its assertion that the air act term “contributes significantly,” used in the law to give the EPA Administrator leeway to exempt from precursor regulation sources that do not contribute significantly to “coarse” PM (PM10), cannot serve as an excuse to allow “areas to avoid adopting controls that would expedite attainment.” Such an approach would be inconsistent with the statute and could not be legally defended, the group says. Air law subpart 4 on particulate applies to PM10 -- and hence also, under the D.C. Circuit's holding, to PM2.5.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-attack-illegal-epa-modeling-guidance-air-permits
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Supreme Court Urged to Reject Suit over EPA Air Rule Waiver Prohibition
Jun 5, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Tiffany Stecker
Environmentalists are urging the Supreme Court to reject a power supplier's call to hear a case challenging the agency's policy of prohibiting waivers from its boiler air toxics rule emissions limits during facility malfunctions, echoing EPA arguments that the policy is in line with appellate precedent and that the Clean Air Act bars any such waivers.
In a May 26 intervenor brief, a coalition of three environmental groups says that EPA followed legal and statutory requirements in its decision to require that the limits in its boiler air toxics rule apply at all times, without allowing for exceedances of the limits in malfunction periods. As a result, the groups call on the court to reject American Municipal Power's petition for a writ of certiorari to hear their challenge to the waiver policy.
“The central argument in AMP’s petition is that, despite the Clean Air Act’s requirement that all 'emissions standards' apply 'on a continuous basis,' EPA must set standards that exempt sources from compliance during periods of malfunction. The D.C. Circuit and EPA have both rejected that argument unequivocally, and petitioners below (including AMP) expressly disavowed it,” says the filing by Sierra Club, the Clean Air Council, and the Partnership for Policy Integrity which describes its goal as being to “promote sound energy policy.”
AMP is asking the justices to hear its appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's 2016 decision in U.S. Sugar Corp., et al. v. EPA, et al. that broadly upheld most of the boiler air toxics standards.
The court remanded some of the numeric emissions limits for large “major” source boilers to EPA because they were too weak, but left intact other provisions including the bar on waivers for malfunction emissions.
The power company's cert petition is an attempt to use an appeal of the D.C. Circuit ruling broadly upholding the boiler standards to attack the malfunction waiver prohibition included in the air toxics rule.
If the Supreme Court takes the case it would pose an important test of whether the Clean Air Act requires emissions limits to apply at all times as environmentalists claim, or whether industry is correct when it argues that the air law allows for some exemptions from the limits during unavoidable incidents like malfunctions.
AMP and free-market legal advocates acting as amici in the case are using the boiler rules to challenge what they see as EPA's unfair and unlawful policy requiring emissions limits to apply “continuously.” This effectively bans inevitable industrial malfunctions, rendering it impossible for industry to comply with the law, AMP contends.
The suit has major implications for EPA's air rules, many of which are now premised on the continuous application of emissions limits. EPA, guided by D.C. Circuit precedent in other cases, has been removing regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM).
The agency further issued a rule requiring 36 states to remove similar exemptions from the Clean Air Act state implementation plans, a regulation that also faces a lawsuit.
Although the Obama EPA took the steps to remove SSM waivers from a slew of rules, the Trump EPA has continued to defend the policy and called on the high court to reject the cert petition.
Case-By-Case Enforcement
The environmentalists in their brief similarly defend the agency's approach as consistent with air law mandates that emissions limits apply at all times, with enforcement discretion determined case-by-case. “Although AMP would prefer that EPA provide an exemption in advance for all violations of emissions standards that occur during malfunctions, the text of the Act shows that Congress intended violations to be addressed on a case-by-case basis if and when they occur and provided expressly for consideration of sources’ good faith efforts to comply.”
The court should also reject the petition because nothing in the D.C. Circuit's decision conflicts with any decision by another court, the environmentalists argue. The Supreme Court typically is more likely to grant cert petitions where there is a circuit split on an issue, but the brief says that no such situation applies here.
Finally, the environmentalists also say that the justices should reject the petition because AMP never raised its claims over the flaws in the exemption policy during the boiler air toxics rulemaking process and as a result cannot raise them in an appeal of the lower court's ruling in U.S. Sugar.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113487711&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113487711&jd=113487711
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Pruitt to Testify June 15 on Proposed Cuts to EPA Budget
Jun 5, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will testify on the White House’s controversial proposal to slash his agency’s budget by 31 percent.
The hearing before the House Appropriations Interior-Environment subcommittee will take place Thursday, June 15 at 1 p.m. It is Pruitt’s first time testifying since his Jan. 18 confirmation hearing. He will be joined by Holly Greaves, a landing team member who works on budget issues.
Appropriators have already indicated they will not cut away EPA’s budget as severely as the White House’s proposal, particularly on state grants and popular programs cleaning up the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay and other regions.
WHAT'S NEXT: The subcommittee hearing is June 15 at 1 p.m.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Rick Perry Skirts Question of Trump’s Stance on Climate Change
Jun 6, 2017 | New York Times
By Motoko Rich
With President Trump coming under international criticism for his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, his actual views on climate change remain a mystery.
Does he believe, as he has repeatedly stated on Twitter, that global warming is a hoax? Or does he acknowledge that the climate is changing and that “pollutants” are involved, as Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said on CNN over the weekend?
Those who seek to determine what, exactly, the president believes are “chasing a rabbit down a hole,” said Rick Perry, the United States secretary of energy, speaking to reporters in Tokyo on Monday.
Mr. Perry, who was in the capital for a three-day visit to discuss nuclear power and liquid natural gas exports with Japanese officials, said the United States would “continue to be a leader in the climate issue.”
But, he added, “This deflection of ‘Oh, let’s go talk about do you really think that you have a president that believes in the climate at this level,’ well, then, I’m sorry, I’m just not going to participate in that. I’m going to tell you: Watch us.”
Ever since Mr. Trump announced last week that he would abandon the agreement for environmental action that was signed by 195 nations, most of his aides have deflected questions about whether the president believes in climate change and the role of human activity in global warming.
Under repeated questioning on “Fox News Sunday,” Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, declined to say whether the president believed that human activity had an influence or whether that activity should be controlled. Ms. Haley told CNN that the president “believes the climate is changing,” and that “pollutants are part of that equation.”
In Tokyo, Mr. Perry declined to indicate whether he had encouraged the president to remain in the accord. But he said it “was an agreement with no teeth.”
“Don’t show me a piece of paper that you’ve signed and good intentions,” Mr. Perry said. “What is that old saying about the road to hell?”
In Japan, government officials have expressed disappointment with Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord. Koichi Yamamoto, the environment minister, told reporters last week that Mr. Trump had “turned his back on the wisdom of human beings.”
But supporters of renewable energy in Japan said they hoped states, cities and companies in the United States would continue to address global warming. “Even after this Trump administration announcement, most of the businesspeople will not change their minds or opinions,” said Kentaro Tamura, principal researcher at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Kanagawa.
Mr. Perry said he hoped China would “take this as an opportunity to step forward and be a real leader.” But he added that American companies would continue to develop new green technologies, regardless of the Paris agreement.
“Is the climate changing? Yes,” Mr. Perry said. “Is man having an impact? Yes. How are we going to address it going forward? And the answer is, that’s not going to change. The United States is still going to be very engaged in that.”
Asked whether Mr. Trump agreed with him, Mr. Perry said: “That’s what I believe and I’m telling you the United States is still going to be a leader in technologies and innovation that make a real difference in the air that we breathe.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/world/asia/trump-climate-change-paris-accord.html?mcubz=1&_r=0
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