Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 6/8
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EPA Anticipates Expedited OMB Review For TSCA Framework Regulations
Jun 7, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's acting toxics chief remains confident the agency will meet a looming June 22 statutory deadline for finalizing the trio of framework rules that implement the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), in part because the agency expects the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will conduct expedited reviews for the two rules that require it. -
Webinar: Reviewing New Chemicals Under Amended TSCA
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. and Bloomberg BNA present a free webinar Monday, June 12, “Reviewing New Chemicals Under Amended TSCA: Impact on Innovation.” -
EPA Taking Steps to Reduce Chemical Approval Backlog
Jun 7, 2017 | American Security News
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it has successfully slashed paperwork regarding chemical applications, reducing the number of pending submissions by approximately half following departmentwide implementation of procedural streamlining and prioritizing. -
IG Probing Allegations Of Employee Collusion With Monsanto
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Marc Heller
U.S. EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins is investigating issues related to the agency's review of the weed killer glyphosate. -
Bathtub Refinishers’ Deaths Renew Debate: Label Products or Ban?
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Federal and state agencies have attributed the deaths of at least 17 bathtub refinishers since 2000 to the workers’ exposure to the paint stripper methylene chloride, prompting government actions. -
Butter Flavoring, Solvent Hazards Mulled in Draft Reports
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A butter-flavoring agent blamed for causing lung disease in workers and a solvent are summarized in draft technical reports the National Toxicology Program released for public comment and peer review. -
Cancer Study Finds No Link to PFOA Exposure in N.Y. Town
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
A study of Hoosick Falls, N.Y. residents by the New York State Health Department found no statistically significant incidents of cancers normally associated with exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). -
Health Advocates Say FDA Ignored Law, Science on Perchlorate
Jun 8, 2017 | Food Safety News
By Coral Beach
Using the same mechanism that resulted in the banning of cyclamates in 1970, a group of public health watchdog organizations is challenging the FDA’s decision not to ban perchlorate in food packaging. -
Iarc Publishes Nanomaterials Monographs
Jun 8, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) has published its monographs on carbon nanotubes, fluoro-edenite and silicon carbide. -
U.S. Still Rules in Global Natural Gas, Oil Production, Says EIA
Jun 7, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The United States in 2016 remained the world's top natural gas and petroleum hydrocarbon producer for the fifth year in a row, even with declines relative to 2015 levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Wednesday. -
Even With Trump's Push, Companies And Lawmakers Want More
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
The nation's natural gas industry, smitten with the Trump administration's full-throated endorsement of exports, is mulling ways to turn that affection into faster federal action. -
Key Shale-Boom Booster Threatened by Trump's Spending-Cut Plans
Jun 8, 2017 | Bloomberg BNA
By Catherine Traywick
An agency instrumental to America's surge in energy production would lose half its funding in President Donald Trump's proposed federal budget. -
Long Promised, the Global Market for Natural Gas Has Finally Arrived
Jun 6, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
One day in March, the Rioja Knutsen tanker, filled with liquefied natural gas, was traveling from the U.S. to Portugal. Suddenly, Mexico’s power company lobbed in a higher bid for its cargo. At the Bahamas, the ship abruptly made a starboard turn and headed south. -
Petrochemical Facilities Continue to Boom Along Gulf Coast
Jun 7, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By David Hunn
The Gulf Coast continues to dominate new U.S. chemical plant construction. Six of the eight new U.S. ethylene projects now being built sit along the Gulf, according to data from energy research firm Wood Mackenzie. -
A Year Later, Shell has Forever Altered Landscape of Beaver County
Jun 8, 2017 | The Times
By Jared Stonesifer
The physical landscape has changed dramatically in the last year at the site of Shell Chemicals’ massive ethane cracker plant, but the company’s commitment to building here has altered so much more than just the land in Beaver County. -
(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Updates PPE, Hygiene Guidelines for Phosgene
Jun 7, 2017 | Safety + Health Magazine
The American Chemistry Council recently released updated guidelines on preventive health measures and the use of personal protective equipment for workers exposed to phosgene, a chemical used in manufacturing that is a poisonous gas at room temperature. -
Advocate for Clients Such as BP to Lead Environment at Justice
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
President Donald Trump's choice to lead the environment section at the Justice Department is a Washington litigator known for his advocacy on behalf of clients such as BP PLC in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in opposing EPA climate regulations. -
Justice Memo Leaves Environmental Settlement Projects In Peril
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A June 7 Justice Department policy memo that prohibits including payments for third-party, not-for-profit groups in settlements could limit the inclusion of certain environmental projects, reversing a decades-long practice, attorneys told Bloomberg BNA. -
If Trump Gets His Way, World May Not Know If U.S. Emissions Rise
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
President Donald Trump's critics argue that pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. -
Trump May Restrict Length Of Environmental Reviews Under Infrastructure Plan
Jun 8, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Melanie Zanona
The Trump administration may enforce restrictions on the length of environmental reviews as part of an effort to streamline the project approval process in his $1 trillion infrastructure package. -
EPA's Scott Pruitt Wants to Set up Opposing Teams to Debate Climate Change Science
Jun 7, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Jason Samenow
Multiple scientific assessments have concluded that man-made climate change is real and poses risks to human health and the environment. -
OTC Warns Designations Delay Will Stop 'Momentum' On Reducing Ozone
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Members of the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are warning that early data show 2017 ozone levels are worsening and that EPA's one-year delay for implementing the 2015 ozone ambient air limit risks stopping the states' “momentum” on tackling ozone air pollution. -
Environmentalists, States See Major Legal Barriers To EPA's Ozone Delay
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Environmentalists and some states say EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faces major legal barriers to his plan for delaying by one year designations for whether areas are attaining the 2015 ozone ambient air standard, and suggest Pruitt is aware of the hurdles and that his move aims to “buy time” for EPA to formally undo the 2015 limit. -
Cardin: Green Programs Will Survive Trump Push To Kill Them
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
A senior Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told a gathering of environmentalists last night that he's been pleasantly surprised by how key environmental programs have survived despite Republican majorities in Congress.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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EPA Anticipates Expedited OMB Review For TSCA Framework Regulations
Jun 7, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's acting toxics chief remains confident the agency will meet a looming June 22 statutory deadline for finalizing the trio of framework rules that implement the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), in part because the agency expects the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will conduct expedited reviews for the two rules that require it.
Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, acting assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) told Inside EPA in a brief interview at the Safer Sustainable Products Summit in Washington, D.C. June 1 that she anticipates the two rules that do require OMB review before final publication will be faster than the standard 90-day time frame for reviews.
Cleland-Hamnett said OMB officials “know the administrator is very interested” in meeting the statutory deadline for completing the regulations. “I'm not expecting it be a standard [OMB] review.”
EPA's toxics office has been focused on completing the three rules before their deadline -- among other challenges -- since former President Barack Obama enacted the law last June 22.
The three rules are intended to create a new framework for assessing and managing the risks of existing industrial chemicals -- those that were on the market when TSCA was first enacted in 1976 -- which were largely grandfathered under the original TSCA.
What was widely seen as the original law's failure in managing these chemicals was an important driver for reforming it.
The framework rules include an inventory reset, which is not subject to OMB review, to determine the universe of existing chemicals that will be subject to the new law's requirements; a prioritization rule, which has been submitted to OMB for review, describing how EPA will determine which of the thousands of existing chemicals will undergo risk evaluations and when; and another measure submitted to OMB for review describing how EPA will evaluate the risks of existing chemicals.
Cleland-Hamnett during her keynote address at the summit described the framework rulemakings as “the major innovation of the Lautenberg Act.”
And she suggested that the agency will meet the statutory deadlines, noting, “I think we have been very successful in getting done the things Congress asked us to get done in the one year.”
Pointing to the pending one-year deadline, she noted that the TSCA reform law gives her staff “quite a few deadlines ... One of the difficulties we had over the years was keeping things moving; maintaining a reasonable pace of looking at existing chemicals in particular. There were no deadlines or minimum numbers of review. Then the law passed and we were in the 'be careful what you wish for' phase of implementation … Then right smack in the middle of that one year period we had a presidential transition. Just to make it a little bit more interesting in terms of trying to get things done at EPA.”
Inventory Reset
Cleland-Hamnett said the inventory reset rule is an important part of the framework because it will allow the agency to determine the universe of existing chemicals subject to review.
The TSCA inventory includes the original existing chemicals, and all chemicals that have since been added to it through the new chemicals review process, totaling more than 80,000 chemicals.
But the acting EPA toxics chief said, “There's a widespread belief that many of those chemicals are no longer in commerce, so one of the first directives under the Lautenberg Act is to get reporting from the manufacturing industry on what they are manufacturing in the past 10 years.”
“It also asked us to give processors the opportunity to [report] the chemicals that they are processing.”
EPA proposed the inventory reset rule in January, with the final due June 22. “We are looking at meeting that goal,” Cleland-Hamnett said. “The Reporting period will take place for about six months after that. The processors will have an opportunity to report for six months after that. That will give us a much better picture of chemicals in commerce in the country.”
The inventory reset rule was deemed to not be a significant regulatory action requiring OMB review, and so will not undergo White House review before it is published in final form.
EPA submitted a draft final version of the prioritization rule to OMB for final interagency review May 23 and Cleland-Hamnett said the agency plans to issue a final version “in about three weeks.”
She said the agency will be submitting a draft final version of the risk evaluation rule to OMB “very shortly.” EPA submitted the rule to OMB the same day, according to OMB's website.
“Because again we are looking to have that final rule published by the one year deadline of June 22,” Cleland-Hamnett said. “That rule will talk about the process, the timeline laid out in the statute as well as how we intend to approach gathering the data we need to do risk evaluation, how we intend to approach public comment, peer review and so on.”
Cleland-Hamnett noted that Congress did not want chemical evaluation work to halt at EPA while staff crafted the framework rules, pointing to the deadlines included in the law directing EPA to start work within the first year on assessing at least 10 existing chemicals of EPA's selection. The agency was required to pick the chemicals within six months of the law's enactment, and publish scoping documents for its evaluations also by June 22.
Cleland-Hamnett described the pending scoping documents as discussing “the hazard, uses and exposure and the analytical plan we have. ... So in addition to the rules deadlines, our risk assessment staff has been working furiously to develop those scope documents. The next few weeks will be very busy for us.”
She added that once the June 22 deadline has been passed, existing chemicals staff will turn to reviewing comments the agency has received on its three TSCA section 6(a) rules, proposing bans on various uses of a trio of chemicals, including trichloroethylene, methylene chloride and NMP. The rules represent the first TSCA section 6 rules since a federal court struck down EPA's asbestos ban in 1991 -- a case that became another driver for TSCA reform. Comment deadlines for the rules closed recently, with two of the rules' dockets closing in mid-May.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-anticipates-expedited-omb-review-tsca-framework-regulations
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Webinar: Reviewing New Chemicals Under Amended TSCA
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. and Bloomberg BNA present a free webinar Monday, June 12, “Reviewing New Chemicals Under Amended TSCA: Impact on Innovation.” Speakers include Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell; Richard Engler, senior chemist at Bergeson & Campbell; Charlie Auer, senior regulatory and policy adviser at Bergeson & Campbell; Jeffery Morris, director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics at the EPA; Beth Bosley, president of Boron Specialties; and Robert Mott, global regulatory manager at Sun Chemical Corporation. More information and registration is available at http://bit.ly/2s4y58A.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653304&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653304&jd=113653304
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EPA Taking Steps to Reduce Chemical Approval Backlog
Jun 7, 2017 | American Security News
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it has successfully slashed paperwork regarding chemical applications, reducing the number of pending submissions by approximately half following departmentwide implementation of procedural streamlining and prioritizing.
“We are committed to working with companies to gather all the relevant information early in the process, to inform safety reviews for new chemicals,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a release. “Reviewing new chemicals quickly will enable those deemed safe to enter the marketplace to support jobs and our economy.”
The EPA said its secret to success can be traced to organizational expertise. Department representatives pointed out that ways of grouping chemicals by type, for example, helped to simplify reviewers’ approach to the long list.
“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 EPA said in the release.
The improvement also evolved with the help of a law passed in June 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, that essentially updated the way EPA would evaluate applications for chemical product authorization — specifically by mandating that the agency make an “affirmative finding” on, and respond to, the chemical’s risk potential prior to approving it.
The EPA assesses approximately 1,000 new chemicals annually.
http://americansecuritynews.com/stories/511124556-epa-taking-steps-to-reduce-chemical-approval-backlog
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IG Probing Allegations Of Employee Collusion With Monsanto
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Marc Heller
U.S. EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins is investigating issues related to the agency's review of the weed killer glyphosate.
In a letter to Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Elkins said he told aides to look into "several agency glyphosate review-related matters."
The development follows reports that a former EPA official may have colluded with Monsanto Co. — the maker of glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup — to counter suggestions it endangers human health.
"As you are aware, there is considerable public interest regarding allegations of such collusion," Elkins wrote to Lieu on May 31. The letter was first reported by The Huffington Post.
Communications with the former EPA official, Jess Rowland, were revealed in documents unsealed in federal litigation, in which plaintiffs claim glyphosate caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The New York Times reported on those documents' contents in March, prompting Lieu's inquiry.
The papers, including emails, indicated Rowland tipped off Monsanto months ahead of time that the International Agency for Research on Cancer — part of the World Health Organization — was prepared to declare glyphosate probably causes cancer. That gave Monsanto time to stage a public-relations response.
According to the court documents, Rowland also told a Monsanto official he would try to tamp down efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own glyphosate review.
EPA has said its studies don't support a link between glyphosate and cancer, and Monsanto has said glyphosate doesn't cause the disease.
In Congress, House Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has focused on accusing the IARC, which is partly funded with U.S. money, of being biased against glyphosate (E&E News PM, Oct. 25, 2016).
The weed killer is commonly used on corn, which Monsanto has also bred to resist the chemical. It's also common for home gardens.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, today said it welcomes news of the inspector general's review.
"The EPA is supposed to protect us from toxic chemicals, not go out of its way to protect the profits of chemical companies," said Lori Ann Burd, CBD's environmental health director, in a news release.
"I'm glad to see the inspector general investigating these disturbing indications that one of the EPA's top staffers may have been working with Monsanto to hide the truth about the dangers of glyphosate."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/06/07/stories/1060055703
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Bathtub Refinishers’ Deaths Renew Debate: Label Products or Ban?
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Federal and state agencies have attributed the deaths of at least 17 bathtub refinishers since 2000 to the workers’ exposure to the paint stripper methylene chloride, prompting government actions.
The recent death of yet another bathtub refinisher is being investigated by a Tennessee labor agency.
“Investigators from the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration continue to look into the events surrounding the workplace fatality of Kevin Hartley in April of this year,” Chris Cannon, communications director for the agency, told Bloomberg BNA June 6.
Cannon referred to the April 28 death of 21-year-old Kevin Hartley of Ashland City, Tenn. His family attributed his death to his exposure to chemicals used during his bathtub refinishing work.
The most recent worker's death—and additional details Bloomberg BNA uncovered on the deaths in 2012 and 2015 of other refinishers—comes as two federal agencies work to protect consumers and workers exposed to methylene chloride in paint and coating stripping products.
Labels Versus Ban
The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted June 2 to include stronger language on household products containing methylene chloride (CAS No. 75–09–2), so consumers would know the products can be deadly and shouldn't be used in small, unventilated spaces.
And the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a ban of paint and coating strippers containing methylene chloride along with restrictions on n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP; CAS No. 872-50-4), which can substitute for methylene chloride.
But, industry representatives say they are concerned about government overreach in regulating the chemicals.
The EPA's proposed ban is a “blatant and raw power grab” of consumer protection authority that Congress gave the commission, W. Caffey Norman, a partner in the Washington office of Squire Patton Boggs, said. Norman represents the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, Inc., which includes companies that have made products federal and state health agencies have associated with bathtub refinishers’ deaths.
Section 9 in the 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act bars the EPA from regulating a chemical already sufficiently managed by another agency, he said.
But the Environmental Defense Fund says the most recent and previous workers’ deaths are further proof the EPA must use its chemical authorities to ban the paint and coating removal uses of the solvent.
Life and Death?
“In our view, a ban on methylene chloride in paint stripping products is long overdue,” Lindsay McCormick, chemicals and health project manager for EDF told Bloomberg BNA. “It is literally a matter of life and death. Dozens of workers have died on the job from exposure to this extremely toxic chemical over the past few decades.”
“EPA should take swift action to finalize its proposed ban to meet the agency's mission of protecting public health,” she said. The EPA issued its proposed rule Jan. 19 (RIN:2070-AK07; 82 Fed. Reg. 7464).
Meanwhile companies, such as Benco Sales, Inc., Besway Systems, Inc., the Savogran Co., and the W.M. Barr & Co., Inc., which make methylene chloride-containing strippers for aircraft, furniture, and other products and materials, and the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance had already asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission to support stronger label warnings.
Explicit warnings, label language directing users not to work with products in bathrooms or other small enclosed spaces, and increased customer outreach is a better approach than the EPA's proposed ban, they say.
W.M. Barr's comments on the EPA's proposal “implore” the agency not to proceed with its proposed rule “that would require formulators to discontinue products that have been in use for generations in favor of alternative formulations that are less safe, or less effective and more expensive than the high-quality products we offer today.”
Industry Sought Stronger Label
The new label language the alliance asked the commission to approve would warn consumers about methylene chloride's acute hazards. Since 1987, labels must warn consumers about the potential for longer-term chronic exposure to cause cancer.
Technically, the commission's June 2 vote directs its staff to develop the final language in guidance.
Commission staff already told the alliance, however, that they would make very few revisions to the industry-proposed language. The staff's recommendations are included in a May 26 briefing package prepared prior to the commission's vote. The label language the staff supported would say the solvent's vapors are extremely harmful and may be fatal in enclosed, unventilated spaces.
Product labels also should say “do not use in areas where vapors can accumulate and concentrate, such as basements, bathrooms, bathtubs, closets or other small enclosed areas,” commission staff said.
Substitute for EPA Ban?
W.M. Barr, which makes products such as Klean-Strip® Premium Stripper, which federal and state agencies have associated with bathtub refinishers’ deaths, told the Office of Management and Budget last December that new labels with the recommended language would be on all products by the end of 2016.
A W.M. Barr attorney and a product compliance director could not be reached for comment. Bloomberg BNA reviewed several product labels posted June 6 and found variations in the precise language, but those labels were consistent with the company's pledge.
Some of its labels include a small HSIA-recommended pictogram showing a bathtub with a red slash and a warning “Do Not Use to Strip Bathtubs.”
Norman, the attorney representing the alliance, told Bloomberg BNA: “The labeling approved by CPSC staff is sufficient to address the safety concerns.”
“The commission's action should replace the EPA's proposed ban, because it addresses the problem the EPA initially was concerned about,” Norman said.
CPSC Staff: Not a Substitute
However, the briefing package the commission staff prepared did not support that conclusion.
“Any action taken by the CPSC would not replace the EPA's rulemaking and instead, would be an interim measure until the EPA may issue a regulation,” the staff paper said.
TSCA gives the EPA the ability to address both occupational and consumer uses of methylene chloride, CPSC staff said. Thus, the EPA may address risks associated with the solvent and products containing it “in a more cohesive and coordinated manner,” it said.
The EPA's proposed ban is the right approach, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. The agency can prevent tragic deaths from happening again, it said in a June 5 blog.
Details on 15 Deaths
The EPA's proposed rule referenced information the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in 2012 summarizing details on 13 bathtub refinishers’ deaths. Bloomberg BNA obtained additional details on two more deaths from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and federal OSHA. A 2016 OSHA FatalFacts notice said the agency knew of 17 bathtub refinishers’ deaths, but Bloomberg BNA was unable to immediately obtain details on the additional two individuals.
Any action short of a full prohibition on these paint and coating stripper uses of methylene chloride and NMP “would be insufficient to mitigate the clearly unreasonable risks identified by EPA,” the Environmental Defense Fund said in May 19 comments to the agency. The organization urged the agency to implement its ban and other proposed restrictions “as expeditiously as possible in order to safeguard human health.”
Washington state's Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County “strongly supported” the EPA's proposed ban on methylene chloride-based paint and coating strippers.
“Washington Poison Center's 2015 data shows multiple cases of exposure to methylene chloride. In our state, serious illness and death have been associated with using methylene chloride to strip paint and refinish bathtubs,” the waste management program wrote in comments to EPA.
Small Businesses
As the EPA prepares its final rule, the agency should “please consider providing financial assistance for small businesses that would need to transition away from methylene chloride,” the King County agency wrote.
“Many small business owners, often in underserved communities, continue to use known hazardous materials simply because they lack the financial ability to invest in upgrades to new machines, processes, and chemicals. A ban without assistance for small businesses could pose a severe burden, potentially resulting in business closure and job losses, especially in less wealthy communities.”
The U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy opposes the EPA's proposal.
The EPA's exposure estimates were unrealistic, the advocacy office said in comments to the agency.For example, the EPA's estimates were based on exposures before federal OSHA lowered its eight-hour time weighted average permissible exposure limit for methylene chloride from 500 parts per million (ppm) to 25 ppm. OSHA issued that rule Jan. 10, 1997 (62 Fed. Reg. 1494).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653274&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653274&jd=113653274
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Butter Flavoring, Solvent Hazards Mulled in Draft Reports
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A butter-flavoring agent blamed for causing lung disease in workers and a solvent are summarized in draft technical reports the National Toxicology Program released for public comment and peer review.
The butter-flavoring agent, 2,3-butanedione (CAS NO. 431-03-8) is commonly used by the flavor manufacturing industry in cake mixes, flour, beer, wine, bakery products, and other foods and beverages, the National Toxicology Program's (NTP) draft report said.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union asked the NTP to study carcinogenic and other health effects of the chemical in laboratory animals that inhaled it, because of workers that have inhaled the chemical's vapors have contracted a lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. At least one worker died.
The solvent, p-chloro-α-α-α-trifluorotoluene (CAS NO. 98-56-6), is used in paints and coatings. It also is used by chemical, pesticide and pharmaceutical manufacturers to make other chemicals such as dyes, herbicides, and medicines, NTP's draft report says. The National Cancer Institute and Kowa American Corp., which inports chemicals from Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia, asked the NTP to study the solvent because of its high import volume and lack of occupational exposure limits.
Public comments on NTP's draft reports are invited through July 6. The reports will be peer reviewed on July 13. Details are available in the NTP's Federal Register notice.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653286&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653286&jd=113653286
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Cancer Study Finds No Link to PFOA Exposure in N.Y. Town
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
A study of Hoosick Falls, N.Y. residents by the New York State Health Department found no statistically significant incidents of cancers normally associated with exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).
The study, which was released June 6, looked at the incidence of 21 cancers in residents from 1995 to 2014. The only incidents of cancer that were significantly higher were for lung cancer and that's not associated with PFOA exposure, the study said.
Hoosick Falls became ground zero for the PFOA story when it was discovered in drinking water last year. Liz Moran, water and natural resources associate for Environmental Advocates of New York, said the study was misleading and inadequate because exposure to PFOA started long before 1995.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653295&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653295&jd=113653295
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Health Advocates Say FDA Ignored Law, Science on Perchlorate
Jun 8, 2017 | Food Safety News
By Coral Beach
Using the same mechanism that resulted in the banning of cyclamates in 1970, a group of public health watchdog organizations is challenging the FDA’s decision not to ban perchlorate in food packaging.
The consumer advocates say the Food and Drug Administration ignored scientific evidence that shows the chemical disrupts fetal and infant brain development, causing permanent brain damage. The groups contend FDA’s own data shows perchlorate, which is used in rocket fuel, herbicides and explosives, “migrates” from packaging materials into foods.
“FDA approved its use in plastic packaging for food in 2005 — despite evidence that it harms fetal and infant brain development,” according to a news release from the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups seeking a formal evidentiary public hearing before an administrative law judge.
“An FDA report published in 2016 found that virtually all foods sampled had detectable levels of perchlorate. Even more concerning, the amount of perchlorate in foods infants and toddlers eat increased 36 percent and 24 percent, respectively, from 2008-2012 compared to 2005-2006. Dry rice cereal — often the first solid food given to a baby — and barley cereal showed the greatest increase from before and after the decision.
“Today’s objection filed with the FDA cites the agency’s refusal to acknowledge evidence that perchlorate exposure increased significantly after its 2005 decision to allow perchlorate in packaging. Additionally, the objection cites evidence that FDA’s initial decision to approve perchlorate grossly underestimated the amount of perchlorate migrating into dry food.”
Contamination of food by perchlorate is specifically referenced as one of the dangers of the chemical by the Environmental Protection Agency, which considers it to be a carcinogen.
Other groups joining in the call for a review of FDA’s decision include:Breast Cancer Prevention Partners;Center for Environmental Health;Center for Science in the Public Interest;Center for Food Safety;Clean Water Action;Environmental Working Group;Natural Resources Defense Council; andImproving Kids’ Environment.
Food companies add perchlorate to plastic packaging for dry food such as rice cereal, flour and spices to reduce the buildup of static charges. The consumer advocates say an industry study showed the toxic chemical migrates into the food inside the packages.
“Perchlorate threatens fetal and child brain development by impairing the thyroid’s ability to use iodine in the diet to make the thyroid hormone — T4 — that is essential to brain development,” according to the news release from the public health advocacy groups.
The advocacy groups are requesting the formal evidentiary public hearing in response to FDA’s announcement on May 4 that it would not ban the chemical from dry food packaging.
In their request, the advocacy groups say the FDA made numerous legal and scientific errors during the decision-making process.
“FDA relied on a single study using a test designed for small packaging that was conducted by a company with a vested interest in the outcome,” according to the request for a hearing.
“This migration test bears little relevance to the actual conditions of use of the perchlorate in bulk packaging allowed by FDA. It was not designed to assess the abrasive and compressive forces driving the migration of perchlorate into food from this use. It also was not relevant to the contribution of perchlorate into food from food handling equipment. Despite these serious shortcomings, the company’s test still showed that perchlorate migrates into food.”
Specifically, the groups want:FDA to revoke its 2005 approval of Threshold of Regulation (TOR) exemption No. 2005–006 that allows up to 1.2 percent sodium perchlorate monohydrate in dry food packaging;FDA to issue a new § 189.301 (21 CFR 189.301) prohibiting the use of perchlorate as a conductivity enhancer in the manufacture of antistatic agents to be used in food contact articles; andFDA to remove potassium perchlorate as an allowed additive in sealing gaskets for food containers in existing § 177.1210 (21 CFR 177.1210).
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2017/06/health-advocates-say-fda-ignored-law-science-on-perchlorate/#.WTkOCuuGMd4
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Iarc Publishes Nanomaterials Monographs
Jun 8, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) has published its monographs on carbon nanotubes, fluoro-edenite and silicon carbide.
In 2014 the agency said:Mitsui-7 multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT-7) were a group 2B (possibly carcinogenic to humans) substance;multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) other than MWCNT-7 were a group 3 (not classifiable as to their carcinogenicity to humans) substance;single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) were a group 3 substance;fluoro-edenite was a group 1 (carcinogenic to humans) substance;silicon carbide was a group 1 substance with occupational exposures associated with the Acheson process;fibrous silicon carbide was a group 2B substance; andsilicon carbide 'whiskers' were a group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans) substance.In 2015 the Netherlands proposed a mandatory EU category 1B carcinogenicity classification for silicon carbide fibres.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56703/iarc-publishes-nanomaterials-monographs
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U.S. Still Rules in Global Natural Gas, Oil Production, Says EIA
Jun 7, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The United States in 2016 remained the world's top natural gas and petroleum hydrocarbon producer for the fifth year in a row, even with declines relative to 2015 levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Wednesday.
Since 2009 the United States has been the world's largest natural gas producer, exceeding Russia, and it has been the leading petroleum producer since 2013, when output exceeded Saudi Arabia. The United States also is on track to be the largest gas producer to at least 2035, according individual projections by BP plc and ExxonMobil Corp.
"For the United States and Russia, total petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbon production in energy content terms is almost evenly split between petroleum and natural gas, while Saudi Arabia's production heavily favors petroleum," EIA researchers said.
EIA defines petroleum production as coming from several different types of liquid fuels, including crude oil and lease condensate, tight oil, extra-heavy oil and bitumen. In addition, various processes produce natural gas plant liquids (NGPL), biofuels, and refinery processing gain, among other liquid fuels.
"In the United States, crude oil and lease condensate accounted for roughly 60% of total petroleum hydrocarbon production in 2016," EIA research led by principal contributor Linda Doman said. "In Saudi Arabia and Russia, this share is much greater, as those countries produce lesser amounts of NGPL, and they also have much smaller volumes of refinery gain and biofuels production."
U.S. petroleum production fell by 300,000 b/d in 2016, as a result of relatively low oil prices.
Domestic natural gas production grew rapidly through 2015. Following a mild 2015-2015 winter, which reduced demand for gas as a heating fuel, average prices last year were at their lowest level since 1999, EIA noted. Even with the modest recovery in prices late in 2016, gas production fell year/year by 2.3 Bcf/d.
Meanwhile, Russian hydrocarbon production has been rising as capital expenditures on exploration and production increased. Russia, EIA noted, also has favorable tax regimes and exchange rates that resulted in record levels of petroleum production in the second half of 2016.
"Russian natural gas production also rose in 2016, in part to meet growth in European natural gas demand. In 2016, natural gas demand increased by an estimated 6% in European countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)."
Saudi Arabia did not reduce its petroleum production between late 2014 and 2016, unlike in the past when it raised or lowered levels to balance global oil markets, even as prices remained low and world oil inventories grew. Last year Saudi Arabia's total natural gas and petroleum hydrocarbon output rose by 3% from 2015.
According to EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for June, dry natural gas production is expected to average 73.3 Bcf/d this year and 76.6 Bcf/d in 2018. U.S. petroleum and other liquid fuels production is expected to increase this year, reaching 15.6 million b/d in 2017 and 16.7 million b/d in 2018, up from 14.8 million b/d in 2016.
The June STEO is forecasting Russian liquid fuels production to average 11.18 million b/d over 2017 and 2018, close to its 2016 output of 11.24 million b/d.
The STEO also provides a production forecast for members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a whole rather than for individual countries. In the latest outlook, OPEC liquid fuels production, which was 39.0 million b/d in 2017, is forecast to average 39.2 million b/d in 2017 and 39.9 million b/d in 2018, taking into account recent agreements among OPEC members and pledges by key allies, including Russia, to restrain output.
Last November, OPEC had agreed to production cuts that would last through the first half of 2017 and at its meeting in May, the cartel agreed to extend the cuts through March of 2018.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110710-us-still-rules-in-global-natural-gas-oil-production-says-eia
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Even With Trump's Push, Companies And Lawmakers Want More
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
The nation's natural gas industry, smitten with the Trump administration's full-throated endorsement of exports, is mulling ways to turn that affection into faster federal action.
In addition to fully backing the president's newly announced agreements with gas-hungry countries like Japan and China, proponents of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports want the government to pick up its pace in approving new projects — and Republican lawmakers eager to assist are standing by, pen in hand.
"LNG ticks a lot of boxes for this administration," said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, pointing to job creation, international alliances and lowering emissions. "The timing of the Trump administration paired with the ramp-up of additional projects ... is a very good thing."
More than a dozen companies hoping to export LNG are currently awaiting approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Its environmental and safety review can take up to a year. Further along in the process, more than two dozen export firms are waiting for the Department of Energy to sign off on their projects.
Top Trump officials like Energy Secretary Rick Perry and presidential economic adviser Gary Cohn have signaled their intent to fully back LNG exports in recent weeks — and industry is paying attention.
Possibly on the horizon, Riedl said, is DOE export fast-track rulemaking. He also expects Perry to reverse an Obama-era policy implemented in 2014, under which DOE has to wait for FERC before approving projects (E&E News PM, May 29, 2014).
Fred Hutchison, who leads LNG Allies, a group that advocates for expanding LNG shipments, said the real issue wasn't regulatory red tape but the challenge companies face in securing long-term contracts and moving forward with constructing the massive and costly facilities.
Hutchison pointed to signals that President Trump is already moving to support that market. Shortly after the president met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, for example, the Commerce Department welcomed China and other trading partners to enter into long-term contracts with U.S. exporters.
The following week, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in an interview with CNBC reiterated the administration's desire to export LNG to energy-hungry countries.
"It's the president's policy to rejuvenate and expand our energy activities in the United States," Ross said. "The LNG part of it is quite interesting in that we have a huge surplus, the prices there have been very depressed, but many of the countries with whom we have overall deficits need LNG."
In a letter to Perry last week, Hutchison said he supported efforts to develop an LNG "framework" with foreign governments and urged the secretary to "continue working to replicate such bilateral efforts with other nations" like China already underway.
"We also urge you to keep making it crystal clear to America's trading partners that DOE's LNG authorizations (including to non-[free-trade agreement] nations) remain a 'routine matter' with strong bipartisan support," he wrote.Legislative remedy
After years of pushing legislation to expedite LNG exports, Congress has been largely silent on the issue this year, perhaps waiting to see what the president would do.
In the last Congress, both chambers passed legislation that would impose a "shot clock" on DOE to make final decisions on export applications.
The House bill would have given DOE 60 days to decide after receiving a final National Environmental Policy Act review on an application from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Senate's bill would have allowed DOE 45 days to make a decision.
Efforts to reconcile the competing versions through a formal conference committee on broader energy legislation collapsed in the final weeks before adjournment. Trump's surprise election dampened House Republicans' enthusiasm for negotiating with Democrats, including on LNG (E&E Daily, Nov. 18, 2016).
Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), co-chairman of the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus who played a key role in past efforts to move legislation to speed up exports through the House, said yesterday the issue "is still very much on our agenda."
Johnson, who was also an energy conferee last year, said he has asked DOE "to take a look at this because there's a lot that they could do that would not require a legislative remedy to open the door."
Legislation will follow once the department's plans become clearer. "I don't want to undercut them if they plan on making some necessary reforms," Johnson said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who represents a major gas-producing and export state, has been meeting with companies and groups to identify regulatory hurdles that could be addressed in legislation, which he said is preferable to executive actions that could be reversed by new administrations.
"If Congress wants this to happen, I think it's ideal that Congress puts it into legislation," he said in an interview yesterday. Cassidy said it's possible this year's bill could be broader than the shot clock both chambers passed in the last Congress.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who served as an informal energy adviser to Trump during the campaign, said yesterday that he expects LNG exports to become a topic discussion when Congress moves on to the infrastructure package the president has long touted.
Cramer suggested Congress should pass legislation to streamline the permitting process for multibillion-dollar LNG terminals.
"At the end of the day, private entities have to make the decision whether or not they're going to invest in all that's required, not just the terminal but everything else, the fleet and whatnot that would move the product," Cramer said.
Johnson echoed the sentiment but suggested terminals and other natural gas infrastructure could be addressed in the broader push to streamline federal permitting generally.
"We're looking at permitting reforms across the board," Johnson noted.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/08/stories/1060055723
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Key Shale-Boom Booster Threatened by Trump's Spending-Cut Plans
Jun 8, 2017 | Bloomberg BNA
By Catherine Traywick
An agency instrumental to America's surge in energy production would lose half its funding in President Donald Trump's proposed federal budget.
The Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy, whose research helped push the U.S. closer to self-sufficiency, is slated for a 58 percent cut for next year, to $280 million. The shale innovations the office develops are available to any company that can use them, including industry giants that keep results of their own studies, but they're most beneficial to independent drillers that might otherwise find it tough to compete with behemoths such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and its $1.06 billion annual research-and-development budget.
“What the federal government, at times, has done very well is they help get experiments run that many companies may not be able to afford on their own, or wouldn't have the moxie to pull off,” said Greg Leveille, chief technology officer for ConocoPhillips, one of the country's biggest producers.
Many in Congress, even Republicans who favor cutting programs, have balked at the cuts. Senate appropriators defended the Energy Department's research program, citing the agency's work on shale gas development.
The U.S. government has had a hand in virtually every major energy innovation in the past half century, from nuclear power to carbon capture. The shale revolution is a descendant of federal research, and agency dollars have supported the development of biofuels, flying wind turbines and the lithium ion batteries that power electric cars. Most of the research budget today is dedicated to nuclear and renewable energies. The share that focuses on oil and gas aims to reduce the environmental harm of fossil-fuel production, which can have the added benefit of boosting a company's bottom line.
Directional Wells
In 1975, in the Appalachian Basin, the federal agency drilled the first directional wells to tap shale gas. Over the next two decades the agency invested $137 million to help demonstrate and commercialize many of the shale-drilling technologies used today.
“Small producers were able to take some of that data and say, ‘Hey, there's something here, we can start risking private capital,’” said Chris Smith, former chief of the Fossil Energy office. “The shale gas revolution certainly wouldn't have occurred on the timescale it had if it weren't for the Department of Energy.” U.S. natural gas output has increased 30 percent since 2008.
Among other projects, the Fossil Energy office is funding a study that's already improving the efficiency of hydraulic fracturing. Laredo Petroleum Inc., a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based explorer with market capitalization of $3 billion, said it's already benefiting from the research, which cost $7 million.
“Without the seed funding, it probably couldn't get done,” Laredo Chief Executive Officer Randy Foutch said in an interview. This way, “it becomes part of the public database, and will help the entire industry. Instead of one company keeping it proprietary, this is public.”
Young Tech
Given the far-reaching impact of hydraulic fracturing, it's easy to forget how young the technology is. The fractures, tucked thousands of feet below ground, remain a mystery, their dimensions only inferred through seismic measures and mathematical modeling. Explorers still don't know how many fracture stages are optimal, or why some stages are more productive than others. The process has gotten better, but is far from efficient.
The Laredo study aims to answer some of those questions. In the Wolfcamp shale in West Texas, the company partnered with the Gas Technology Institute to drill 11 horizontal wells running 10,000 feet long. Then they fracked those wells -- pumping each with a slurry of sand, water and chemicals that creates fissures in the surrounding rock. The cracks unlock the trapped resource by allowing oil and gas to flow into the well. Researchers tested the wells to determine which produced more oil and gas, and why.
They then drilled a 600-foot core through the fractured shale. That core enables the researchers to study actual physical fractures for the first time, giving them new insights into how they form and which are most productive.
Game Changer
Laredo said it's reluctant to detail its findings before the official release date late next year. But based on the core sample, the Energy Department predicts that “the fundamental understanding of hydraulic fracture propagation, modeling and effectiveness is about to undergo a game-changing alteration.” Laredo is building more efficient wells without having spent a dollar on R&D.
Under Trump's budget proposal, released last month, the Fossil Energy office's carbon sequestration and clean-coal programs would be cut even more deeply than its oil and gas programs.
The shale research has environmental benefits, too, said Jordan Ciezobka, a principal investigator on the Laredo project and a research manager at the Gas Technology Institute. By increasing productivity and efficiency, explorers can squeeze more oil out of fewer wells, with less water and a smaller footprint.
“Big companies have internal resources at their disposal,” said Hugh Daigle, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. “For the smaller producers, the small independent companies, this is a really important way for them to do research and development, or just basic stuff that they don't have the resources to do in-house.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653289&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653289&jd=113653289
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Long Promised, the Global Market for Natural Gas Has Finally Arrived
Jun 6, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
One day in March, the Rioja Knutsen tanker, filled with liquefied natural gas, was traveling from the U.S. to Portugal. Suddenly, Mexico’s power company lobbed in a higher bid for its cargo. At the Bahamas, the ship abruptly made a starboard turn and headed south.
How natural gas is bought and sold in the world’s scattered regional markets for the fuel is changing rapidly. Ships such as the Rioja Knutsen are stitching those regions together and a single global market is emerging.
This is already how nearly every other hydrocarbon, from crude oil to obscure petrochemicals, is sold. As gas joins the club, the effects will ripple through energy prices, company profits, the environment and geopolitics.
Behind the evolution is improving technology for moving gas as a liquid, which means it can go to many more places rather than simply where a pipeline runs. In addition, a glut of gas has producers working to develop new consumers all over the world. The result is growing flexibility in once-rigid gas contracts and a convergence in prices long dictated by local factors such as weather.
The share of gas moving by sea reached 40% of total trades in 2015, and the International Energy Agency forecasts that seaborne gas will account for a bigger share of trading than pipelines by 2040.
Thirty-nine countries now import LNG, up from 17 a decade ago, according to data and analytics firm IHS Markit. Several more, among them Uruguay, Bahrain and Bangladesh, are expected to lift the total to 46 in the next couple of years.
In one sign of how gas is going global, the U.S. and China are working on a trade deal that could send vast quantities of gas pumped in Texas and Pennsylvania to factories in Shanghai and Guangdong. Improved access for U.S. exporters to China’s giant energy markets could boost overall global shipments.
The changes are contributing to rapidly narrowing price differences from place to place. In 2012, Asia spot prices for LNG were $5.74 per million British thermal units higher than natural-gas prices in Europe, according to S&P Global Platts. This year so far, the difference has averaged less than $1, something analysts expect to continue.
Worries by U.S. political leaders that gas exports would drive domestic prices significantly higher haven’t been borne out, at least so far, as Energy Department studies show only marginal effects. The U.S. appears to be exporting its low gas prices rather than importing higher ones from the rest of the world.
As LNG import terminals open in more locations, gas pricing and trading mechanisms are developing as well. Some investors are increasingly using the gas price at a pipeline intersection in Louisiana, called the Henry Hub, as a global benchmark.
Trading in the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub gas futures contract is becoming more global, said Peter Keavey, global head of energy at Nymex owner CME Group . In May, Standard & Poor’s and the Intercontinental Exchange launched the first futures contract based on LNG produced in the U.S.
Seaborne gas is reducing some countries’ historic dependence on pipelines that run through potentially unfriendly territory. Poland, for instance, opened its first import terminal a year ago, lessening its reliance on gas piped from Russia.
When global trade in LNG began in the 1960s, the cost of liquefying gas was so high it was a niche product, affordable only by developed countries such as Japan.
As the technology proved reliable, trade in LNG became more common, but contracts to deliver the fuel by ship were decadeslong and had ironclad destination clauses. Gas contracted for Tokyo couldn’t be rerouted to Seoul. Traders called gas tankers “pipelines at sea.”
Now, contracts are getting shorter and starting to allow gas to be diverted to where demand is greatest. Earlier this year, three large LNG buyers in Japan, China and South Korea agreed to work together to push sellers for more contract flexibility and fewer onerous restrictions.
At any given time, there are about 170 tankers filled with LNG on the world’s oceans, up from 150 a year ago, according to a tracker firm called ClipperData. Before long, traders will be able to “make a very quick phone call to get that gas to whatever market is in distress at that particular time,” said Charif Souki, chairman and founder of Tellurian Inc., which is seeking to export gas from the U.S. Gulf Coast.
At the heart of the changes is supply. Huge new discoveries in the U.S., Middle East, East Africa and Australia, along with recovery techniques such as fracking, have expanded the amount of gas available for export. Companies and countries are moving to develop new markets to where they can sell it all.
One pioneer is Houston-based Cheniere Energy Inc. Founded and led for years by Mr. Souki, Cheniere initially developed terminals to import gas along the U.S. Gulf Coast. When U.S. gas production soared in recent years, the company converted its facilities into export terminals. It has spent more than $19 billion on plants at Sabine Pass, La., and Corpus Christi, Texas, that cool gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it turns into liquid and can move by tanker.
The U.S. continues to import some gas via pipeline from Canada. By next year, Sabine Pass and other LNG terminals are expected to turn the U.S. into a net gas exporter.
In a quest for customers, Cheniere has invested in a Chilean project to build a power plant, LNG terminal, storage facility and pipeline. The company is willing to put in “early-stage capital, modest amounts of equity...to grow the LNG market,” said Anatol Feygin, chief commercial officer.
Oil titans Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC also are offering to build facilities to burn gas. The two and their partners are building an import terminal and pipeline for an estimated $200 million in Ivory Coast, which will feed a power plant in the West African country’s economic hub of Abidjan.
Part of what persuades nations to invest in infrastructure to import and burn gas is a belief its price will stay low. There are no signs supply growth is slowing. Qatar, the longtime LNG leader, recently lifted a self-imposed moratorium on the development of its North Field, the single largest gas reservoir in the world. So far there is little indication Qatar’s diplomatic spat with Arab neighbors will affect the gas market.
The volume of LNG expected to be delivered this year, 294.1 million metric tons, is up 22% in three years. It is likely to rise 21% more by 2020, according to IHS data and forecasts.
“We are going into a period of oversupply, and prices will face downward pressure for some time,” said Gautam Sudhakar, an LNG analyst with IHS Markit.
LNG faces competition even at low prices, because in some places it is cheaper to keep burning coal than to build gas facilities. In India, one of the world’s largest consumers of coal, it is renewables such as solar power, rather than natural gas, that may be mounting the strongest challenge. In nuclear power, Japan recently restarted some idled plants and China is building several new ones.
“LNG is going to have to fight for its place in the global energy mix,” said Keo Lukefahr, general manager of natural gas for the Americas arm of PetroChina International. “It has a narrow window to establish itself as a cost-competitive clean energy resource if it is going to realize its potential in the world’s energy supply.”
To take advantage of the window, producers are looking for new ways to finance gas-burning projects. Virginia-based AES Corp. is building a $1 billion project, including an import dock and gas-burning power plant, near the mouth of the Panama Canal, the recent widening of which has enhanced trading by letting larger tankers pass.
The project is aided by a $150 million loan from the World Bank’s International Finance Corp. It became involved both to provide Panama with needed power and because the plant will displace electricity from dirtier fuels such as diesel.
Helping make gas more accessible is a relatively new technology—floating LNG facilities.
Offshore plants can be built in about half the three years it takes to put up a land-based LNG import terminal. Their mobile nature also is an advantage in certain markets where an importer doesn’t have spotless credit. If it can’t pay, the terminal can weigh anchor and relocate.
The first floating terminal was christened in 2005. Today there are 25, according to the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers, a trade association. Excelerate Energy, a Houston company that developed this technology, is working on new floating terminals in Namibia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and elsewhere. The equipment to liquefy gas can also now be put on a large vessel that can be anchored offshore.
One sea creature owes its life to this new, interconnected gas market.
When the Rioja Knutsen tanker abandoned its Portugal destination to take advantage of an opportunity in Mexico, the Algerian energy company Sonatrach stepped into the breach, sending a tanker of LNG to Portugal.
That tanker, the Cheikh El Mokrani, returned to Algeria to fill up with a new cargo on April 9. As it idled off the coast, its crew spotted a small whale trapped in a fishing net. A sailor jumped in to untangle it. A video posted online showed the whale swimming free as the rest of the crew cheered.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-promised-the-global-market-for-natural-gas-has-finally-arrived-1496761392
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Petrochemical Facilities Continue to Boom Along Gulf Coast
Jun 7, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By David Hunn
The Gulf Coast continues to dominate new U.S. chemical plant construction. Six of the eight new U.S. ethylene projects now being built sit along the Gulf, according to data from energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.
Companies like Houston’s Occidental Petroleum, Michigan’s Dow Chemicaland Japanese subsidiary Shintech are all building or have recently built there.
And companies are looking to build more along the coast. The Gulf, WoodMacsaid, allows companies to take advantage of existing infrastructure and “brownfield” sites — locations that have already had industry on them.
In total, 200 petrochemical projects are planned or under study in the U.S., representing over $150 billion in capital investment over the next five years.
Four liquefied natural gas export terminals are also under construction in Sabine Pass, Cameron, Freeport and Corpus Christi.
The commonality: Abundant U.S. natural gas and low domestic prices, WoodMac said, have justified many new projects.
But much of the new production will be for export. The U.S. holds a $30 billion annual trade surplus on petrochemicals, WoodMac said, and that figure is expected to increase by as much as half over the next five years.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Petrochemical-facilities-continue-to-boom-along-11202061.php
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A Year Later, Shell has Forever Altered Landscape of Beaver County
Jun 8, 2017 | The Times
By Jared Stonesifer
The physical landscape has changed dramatically in the last year at the site of Shell Chemicals’ massive ethane cracker plant, but the company’s commitment to building here has altered so much more than just the land in Beaver County.
Shell announced on June 7 last year it would commit more than $6 billion to build the cracker plant, the first of its kind to be built outside of the Gulf Coast in several decades.
The announcement brought with it the prospect of 6,000 construction jobs and 600 full-time jobs after the plant comes online. With construction on the facility slated to start at the end of this year, those jobs are closer than ever.
Shell’s commitment here brought commendations and congratulations from people as high up as Gov. Tom Wolf, who, at the time, called it the “biggest investment in Pennsylvania since World War II.”
Shell spokesman Joe Minnitte said Wednesday marked a “significant milestone we are celebrating internally, with our contractors and the people of Beaver County.
“The last year has seen significant milestones, which include finishing infrastructure improvements, constructing the new Route 18, relocating 7.2 million cubic yards of dirt to prepare the site for construction in the fourth quarter of 2017, and permission granted by Potter Township officials to construct the facility,” he said in a statement.
But perhaps most important from Shell’s standpoint is the fact that since October 2015, there hasn’t been a single lost-time incident at the site.
“This speaks to the safety culture of our organization and the diligence of our local workforce,” Minnitte said.
Shell said it has appreciated the support it has received from local and county governments, the chamber of commerce and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.
“We are looking forward to the years ahead,” Minnitte said.
In the year since that announcement, Wolf has come and gone to Beaver County twice more, and celebrations have turned into action from local and regional officials.
For Beaver County Commissioner Tony Amadio, it’s been a year full of excitement and growth.
Amadio, who has been involved with Shell ever since the company announced it was looking at Beaver County more than five years ago, much prefers the county today compared to two decades ago.
“Two generations ago, everything shut down in Beaver County and nothing happened here,” Amadio said. “Look at it now. I played a very, very small part of bringing Shell here, but I am very happy to have been a part of it.”
For Amadio, it’s not hard to see the impact Shell has had in the last year.
“There has been tremendous economic growth occurring here,” he said. “Anywhere you look, you see new apartment buildings and multi-family homes going up. It’s a real pleasure to see the transformation.”
Even now, Amadio and his fellow commissioners host officials from around the region who want to talk about Shell.
For Jack Manning, president of the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce, the impact of Shell goes beyond the region.
“We’ve received inquiries from international companies who are prospecting land,” Manning said. “It really is a sign of progress and enthusiasm here. It’s just amazing the amount of progress that’s been made in a year.”
That progress didn’t come by itself. Manning has worked tirelessly with entities such as the Community College of Beaver County to ensure the local population is trained and ready to capitalize on Shell’s arrival.
Entire curricula have been developed at CCBC, such as the process technology program, with Shell in mind. Several open house events have been attended by thousands of local residents and apprenticeship-ready programs have been implemented at CCBC to train the local population.
There has also been a consortium of county officials who have gone into local high schools to promote careers in the trades, and even the local NAACP has hosted several events to galvanize the local black population for employment at Shell.
For Manning, he’s still trying to ensure local businesses fully capitalize on Shell’s arrival. To that end, the chamber is hosting an event in late August designed to inform businesses exactly how they can profit from the cracker plant.
Manning, who was in Harrisburg on Tuesday and received commendations from Wolf, knows that the work of local officials hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“It’s a great acknowledgement (from Wolf) that we’ve made progress and that Shell is indeed here, and we’re making sure we tap the full potential of what Shell’s investment means to Beaver County,” he said.
For John Goberish, the dean of continuing education and workforce development at CCBC, the last year has been a whirlwind.
Shell’s announcement has transformed the community college in terms of curriculum, but it’s also transformed his job.
“I’m out there literally every day networking and building these relationships with industry leaders,” Goberish said. “It’s been a busy year. To have this opportunity where the county has a shot at starting over, we’re really taking advantage of it. As a college, we see it as our No. 1 priority.”
It’s also been a busy year for Shell itself. The company has significantly ramped up preparatory work at the site and, about a month ago, finished installing concrete foundations at the site.
The company also spent millions of dollars in snatching up properties near the cracker site, like the old PGT Trucking and VersiTech headquarters along Route 18.
Shell Pipeline has also made significant progress in securing more than 35 easements from local property owners. Those easements will be used to build a 94-mile ethane pipeline that will connect directly to the cracker plant.
Terrie Baumgarder and Dave Smith, members of the Beaver County Action Team, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. BCAT has spoken out against any potential environmental impact of the Shell cracker plant.
http://www.timesonline.com/news/shellcracker/a-year-later-shell-has-forever-altered-landscape-of-beaver/article_aaf9c622-4bb1-11e7-a3f8-dff5b6888004.html
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(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Updates PPE, Hygiene Guidelines for Phosgene
Jun 7, 2017 | Safety + Health Magazine
The American Chemistry Council recently released updated guidelines on preventive health measures and the use of personal protective equipment for workers exposed to phosgene, a chemical used in manufacturing that is a poisonous gas at room temperature.
To detect the presence of the phosgene, ACC recommends the use of monitoring badges, which change colors when exposed to the chemical. ACC added that remote optical sensing systems may be effective in identifying phosgene “down a long path, rather than detecting its presence at a single point.”
Badges should be placed in “the breathing zone” of a worker, and any badges potentially hindered by water or ultraviolet light should be placed underneath the front brim of a hard hat. Clips also may be used to keep badges attached to a collar, but wearing them underneath protective equipment or on the back of a hard hat could negate their effectiveness.
ACC suggests that organizations develop written instructions for the use of badges and establish a medical reporting system. The organization also recommends handling the gas in “completely closed processing systems” to decrease possible worker exposure.
If phosgene is released, ACC advises quickly evacuating the affected area and upon re-entry, using proper respiratory protection – “pressure demand full-face supplied air respirators in combination with an auxiliary self-contained breathing apparatus.”
ACC also noted additional PPE to be used:Chemical-resistant suits to protect against splashing liquidsRubber or leather safety shoes with built-in steel toes.Hand protection to guard against cryogenic burns.Safety glasses with side shields.
For decontamination purposes, ACC recommends that emergency response personnel seal any contaminated clothing/phosgene badges in airtight containers. Decontamination should be verified before respiratory protection is removed. Keep in mind, ACC states, that phosgene can remain trapped in low dips in pipes/equipment, process fluids or solids.
http://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/15776-american-chemistry-council-updates-ppe-hygiene-guidelines-for-phosgene
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Advocate for Clients Such as BP to Lead Environment at Justice
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
President Donald Trump's choice to lead the environment section at the Justice Department is a Washington litigator known for his advocacy on behalf of clients such as BP PLC in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in opposing EPA climate regulations.
Jeffrey Bossert Clark, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, would lead the career attorneys of the Environment and Natural Resources Division who enforce environmental laws and defend federal agencies in court. The division's work on behalf of agencies in the Trump administration will include litigation to explain the administration's reasons for rescinding environmental rules.
If confirmed, Clark would oversee a Justice Department division that handles enforcement cases brought by the Environmental Protection Agency. It remains to be seen how those cases will change as the administration works out its views on how much enforcement should be done at the state level versus at the federal level and how budget cuts will affect enforcement work.
Former Head of Appellate Division
Attorneys who know Clark said he has deep knowledge of environmental law. He also understands how the Justice Department's environment division operates.
Clark was was deputy assistant attorney general there from 2001 to 2005 when his duties included supervising the appellate section of 50 lawyers and staff.
“That's often the area where some of the more difficult and significant issues are litigated. So he's pretty well in tune with what the department's procedures and policies are,” said Jim Rubin, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney who worked for 15 years in the Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Representing BP
Joel Gross, a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP who was formerly chief of the Justice Department's Environmental Enforcement Section, said Clark was a “very zealous advocate” for his clients and has conservative legal values. Gross said he knew Clark from their work as co-counsels defending BP in the oil spill case.
Clark has worked for Kirkland & Ellis since 1996, except for his time at the Justice Department. About 38 percent of the firm's appearances in more than 1,000 cases in the past five years were on behalf of BP PLC and two of its subsidiaries, BP Exploration and Production Inc., and BP America Production Co., according to Bloomberg Government's Litigation Analytics.
Gross said one of Clark's challenges would be to get career people “on board” even if they do not share his political views. He said he expected Clark would “respect the rule of law and be an advocate for the division.”
Docket at ENRD
The Environment and Natural Resources Division is expected to have a large docket of cases as it handles challenges to regulations.
Much of the work of the division is to represent federal agencies in court consistent with the administration's policies, Gross said.
“But traditionally the assistant attorney general of ENRD is not a potted plant and gets involved in what those policy issues will be,” he told Bloomberg BNA. “And many of the issues that have been in the forefront of what the administration's been talking about so far have been things that will fall in the scope of what the environment division does.”
That work will include efforts to jettison the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which would put the first greenhouse gas limits on power plants.
While representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2011, Clark signed a legal brief asking the court to overturn the EPA's landmark finding in 2009 that greenhouse gases should be regulated because they endanger health and welfare. That endangerment finding was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that decision.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653276&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653276&jd=113653276
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Justice Memo Leaves Environmental Settlement Projects In Peril
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A June 7 Justice Department policy memo that prohibits including payments for third-party, not-for-profit groups in settlements could limit the inclusion of certain environmental projects, reversing a decades-long practice, attorneys told Bloomberg BNA.
The move may address concerns by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others that the government is inappropriately making policy decisions through settlements, an allegation former EPA official Eric Schaeffer and others dispute. Schaeffer said the move could tie prosecutors’ hands, leave the environment less protected, and nix an option some companies appreciate in settlement negotiations.
“A business will often be willing to commit something to environmental projects,” in part because these actions can help repair the company's reputation, Schaeffer, who served as director of EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement from 1997 to 2002, told Bloomberg BNA. “A penalty means guilt. Environmental projects mean, well, you're trying to make it up to the public.”
The extent to which these types of voluntary environmental projects—supplemental environmental projects under civil suits and similar projects under criminal actions—will be limited in new settlements is unclear. The Justice Department didn't respond to Bloomberg BNA's message requesting clarification.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ memo strikes at the heart of a bill congressional Republicans are currently attempting to make law. The bill, Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act (H.R. 732), would bar payments to third party groups across the entire federal government. One of the examples of “overreach” the 2017 bill sponsor, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), has mentioned is a project in a Volkswagen emissions settlement.
What Environmental Projects?
The Sessions memo could specifically affect use of the Environmental Protection Agency policy known as supplemental environmental projects (SEP), Steve Solow, former chief of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section, told Bloomberg BNA.
According to the EPA, an SEP is “an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that a defendant agrees to undertake as part of the settlement” in addition to a civil penalty. For example, if a facility exceeded the pollution requirements of its permits and harms a nearby waterway, a company could restore a wetland in the same ecosystem as its facility, the EPA said in 2015.
These projects have typically been used even when the Justice Department has been involved in the civil settlements with the EPA. In criminal environmental cases, similar projects have also been used although they were not called SEPs. These projects are commonly executed by not-for-profit groups.
“The very reason why SEPs came into being was that if someone violated their permit and put too many pollutants into a river, it was basically impossible to quantify the exact harm,” Solow, who is now partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, said. “Instead, the thought was that as long as it relates to that kind of harm, then that was acceptable.”
Put another way, the Environmental Integrity Project says these projects allowed prosecutors to help the environment get a little bit cleaner in an area that was affected by difficult to quantify pollution on behalf of hard to identify victims. And companies often prefer to delegate these projects to reputable third-party groups rather than take on the projects themselves, Schaeffer said.
Congressional Authority
There is another view on these kinds of projects—one Goodlatte shares—that while paying a third party to remediate specific environmental harms caused by the violation may be acceptable, going further than that goes into policymaking or congressional territory.
Matt Webb, senior vice president of legal reform policy at the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform, told Bloomberg BNA that the settlements allow a given administration to use these funds for policy purposes rather than negotiating the maximum penalty and putting that money into the U.S. Treasury for Congress to decide how to use. It is important from a good governance perspective, he said.
The recent Volkswagen emissions settlement, for example, included $2 billion for zero-emissions vehicles infrastructure and promotion. That money, Webb says, should have gone to the U.S. Treasury and then Congress could have decided whether to invest that money in those vehicles.
However, Schaeffer said in practice that isn't how these negotiations work. Sometimes companies are willing to pay more to do voluntary environmental projects because of the reputation boost that goes along with it. Prosecutors wouldn't be able to just add those project funds to the general penalty pot in negotiations, he said.
Bloomberg BNA reached out to Volkswagen and BP Plc asking why they chose to include voluntary environmental projects in their settlements and what they thought about the policy memo. Neither responded.
Coming Up Next
It isn't clear how this will work out in practice. The language in the memo does include exemptions that would allow third-party, non-governmental organizations to be written in to fix certain direct environmental harms, for example.
But attorneys were unsure or disagreed on how the language in the memo would ultimately be interpreted and what would constitute an exemption. Webb said these issues may be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
Schaeffer said tracking the Justice Department's actions in the latest lawsuit against Fiat-Chrysler for faulty pollution controls in more than 100,000 diesel-powered vehicles could give us a clue as to what the memo means.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653275&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653275&jd=113653275
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If Trump Gets His Way, World May Not Know If U.S. Emissions Rise
Jun 8, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
President Donald Trump's critics argue that pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
If Trump has his way, the world may never know.
The president's budget request to Congress would eliminate or gut core programs across the federal government that track the heat-trapping gases. If those cuts go ahead, the government may not be able to tell if emissions are rising or falling.
“The first step in any decent regulatory program is a requirement for monitoring,” David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. “If you don't know what's there, it's harder for the public or the regulators to do anything about it.“
Stephen Cole, a spokesman for NASA, which is slated under the president's proposed budget to lose money for a satellite-based carbon-measuring system, said the cut reflects budget constraints. “NASA remains committed to studying our home planet and the universe, but we are reshaping our focus within the resources available to us,” he said in an email.
Whether the cuts happen will depend on Congress, and the degree to which Republicans share Trump's priorities.
Critics of government climate efforts, meanwhile, support the administration's cuts, calling emissions-monitoring programs a waste of taxpayers’ money. “This doesn't necessarily need to be housed within the federal government,” said Nick Loris, a research fellow for the Heritage Foundation. “If the private sector wants to continue to pursue greenhouse gas monitoring, that's fine.“
Tools for Tracking
The government has two basic tools for tracking emissions. The Trump administration is proposing to cut or wind down both of them.
The first approach is to measure gases at their source. Every factory or other installation that emits the equivalent of 25,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global warming, must track and report those emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency makes those emissions public through its annual Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
That inventory makes it possible for the federal government to measure total emissions, and also to see changes in emissions by industry and by region. It also fulfills the U.S. commitment under a 1992 United Nations climate treaty, signed by President George H. W. Bush and ratified by the Senate, to publish “national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources.“
Trump's budget request would reduce funding for the EPA's greenhouse-gas reporting program by 86 percent, to $14 million in 2018 from $95 million this year. It is not clear how the EPA would be able to continue the inventory with that cut, according to Janet McCabe, who was responsible for it as head of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation under President Barack Obama.
“Sometimes we find out that certain activities emit LESS than we thought, sometimes more,” McCabe said in an email. “As they say, you can't manage what you don't measure.”
And rolling back the program would give tacit permission to other countries to make similar changes, according to Bob Perciasepe, deputy EPA administrator from 2009 to 2014.
“Weakening U.S. capacity to report accurately will undermine our ability to push the rest of the world to be transparent,” Perciasepe said in an email. “One of the core strengths of the Paris agreement is extending similar requirements to China and other developing countries so they're more accountable to the international community.“
The EPA said it can do more with less. “While many in Washington insist on greater spending, EPA is focused on greater value and results,” the agency said in an emailed statement.
Satellite Measurement
The second way to measure greenhouse gas emissions is in the atmosphere.
In 2010, NASA created the Global Carbon Monitoring program, which uses satellites to detect the concentration of those gases. Trump's budget request would eliminate that program entirely.
The NASA program provides “long-term, reliable, continuous data series” that can't be matched by other countries, said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Without such vital monitoring efforts, we can't understand and prepare for climate change as well.“
Democrats say they will try to maintain funding for the programs.
“We know that the Earth is warming, sea ice is disappearing, the glaciers are receding, the oceans are acidifying, and sea levels are rising,” Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said in an email. “We know all of this from climate research and monitoring."
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113653292&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113653292&jd=113653292
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Trump May Restrict Length Of Environmental Reviews Under Infrastructure Plan
Jun 8, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Melanie Zanona
The Trump administration may enforce restrictions on the length of environmental reviews as part of an effort to streamline the project approval process in his $1 trillion infrastructure package.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, speaking at a Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) dinner Wednesday evening, outlined some of the broad details of Trump’s rebuilding proposal.The plan is expected to roll back regulations that can slow down transportation projects and streamline the lengthy construction approval and permitting process, with the goal of bringing the timeline from as long as 10 years down to two years.
Chao said the administration’s infrastructure task force has already identified dozens of potential proposals to “cut red tape and reduce time delays and cost burdens.”
One idea is to allow steps in the permitting process to occur simultaneously instead of sequentially.
Another idea under consideration is enforcing the page limit restrictions on environmental reports, which Chao said can reach tens of thousands of pages.
“Streamlining the regulatory process not only cuts costs, it can improve the environmental outcomes by delivering infrastructure improvements more quickly,” she said. “Resources will be spent on actual environmental mitigation, rather than stacks of paperwork.”http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/336866-trump-may-restrict-length-of-environmental-reviews-under-infrastructure
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EPA's Scott Pruitt Wants to Set up Opposing Teams to Debate Climate Change Science
Jun 7, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Jason Samenow
Multiple scientific assessments have concluded that man-made climate change is real and poses risks to human health and the environment. Even so, Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, told Breitbart News on Monday that he would like to essentially re-litigate the science of climate change.
In an interview with Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, Pruitt proposed setting up opposing teams to debate key climate science issues.
“What the American people deserve, I think, is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt voiced support for a “red team-blue team” exercise to foster such a discussion. The red-blue team concept gained prominence in a Wall Street Journal commentaryby Steven Koonin, a professor at New York University.
Koonin argued that such an exercise would subject the scientific consensus on climate change to a rigorous test. The red team would challenge consensus findings from scientific assessments, and the blue team would have the opportunity to respond.
“The outcome of a Red/Blue exercise for climate science is not preordained, which makes such a process all the more valuable,” Koonin wrote. “It could reveal the current consensus as weaker than claimed. Alternatively, the consensus could emerge strengthened if Red Team criticisms were countered effectively.”
Pruitt said such an exercise would improve an understanding of what we know and don’t know about carbon dioxide and the health risks it poses to United States and the world. “The American people need to have that type of honest, open discussion, and it’s something we hope to provide as part of our leadership,” he said.
For his part, Pruitt has voiced skepticism about the human role in climate change, saying he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a “primary contributor.”
[Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change]
Historically, red teams have been called upon in military exercises as a way to introduce alternative ideas and, ultimately, strengthen organizational performance. But David Titley, a climate scientist at Penn State University and retired Navy rear admiral, said introducing a red team into climate science doesn’t make sense. “Science already has a red team: peer review,” he said.
The peer review process allows any scientist to submit their work. The submission is then evaluated by other scientists on its merits, and published if deemed acceptable. Often, scientists must revise their manuscript based on reviewer comments before it is published. Most academic journals also allow scientists to submit critical comments on published studies which are printed if insightful.
A study of the peer-reviewed literature found that 97 percent of published papers support the consensus view that human activities are responsible for the majority of recent climate warming.
Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said introducing a red team is an act of false equivalence — giving more prominence to alternative ideas than they have earned in the refereed journal process.
“The notion that we would need to create an entirely different new approach, in particular for the specific question around global warming, is unfounded and ridiculous and simply intended to promote the notion of a lack of consensus about the core findings, which in fact is a false notion,” he told The Post’s Chelsea Harvey.
Pruitt’s call for a red-blue team duel has been promoted by two scientists outside the mainstream, unconvinced of the risks posed by climate change.
John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said in prepared testimony at a House Science Committee hearing in March that a red team “would offer to Congress some very different conclusions regarding the human impacts on climate.”
[These scientists want to create ‘red teams’ to challenge climate research. Congress is listening]
Judith Curry, professor emeritus at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, also expressed support for the idea in congressional testimony. On her blog, she elaborated on its potential benefits:
Such an exercise, as pointed out by Koonin, would strengthen climate science, improve public understanding of science, better inform the policy process, and would publicly demonstrate scientific reasoning and argument.
If the “consensus” is really as strong as they think it is, then the “consensus” scientists have nothing to lose in such an exercise — the consensus would emerge as strengthened.
But Marshall Shepherd, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Georgia, called the red-blue team concept a “gimmick.” He said skeptics who complain about not being heard have ample opportunity to express their ideas through journal submissions and at scientific meetings. “This just feels to me a like another way to skirt the tried and true scientific process that has worked for years in our field and many others,” he said.
Pruitt’s call for a review of key climate-change science findings, after pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, is, in some ways, reminiscent of the actions of President George W. Bush 16 years prior.
After pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, in March 2001, the Bush White House also sought a review of climate-change science — although the science was more uncertain then than it is now. In May of that year, it asked the National Academy of Sciences for “assistance in identifying the areas in the science of climate change where there are the greatest certainties and uncertainties.”
In response, the National Academies — a body set up to provide objective scientific advice — published the 2001 expert assessment “Climate Change: An Analysis of Some Key Questions.” That report, prepared by a diverse group of climate scientists, concluded that the planet was warming, humans were likely contributing and that warming posed risks.
Here are two key excerpts from that report:
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century.
. . .
Global warming could well have serious adverse societal and ecological impacts by the end of this century, especially if globally-averaged temperature increases approach the upper end of the IPCC projections.
Since 2001, the planet has experienced its three warmest years on record, and multiple subsequent reports from the National Academies, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. government have found that the case for human-induced climate change has only grown stronger.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/07/epas-scott-pruitt-wants-to-set-up-opposing-teams-to-debate-climate-change-science/?utm_term=.1569ae3b6ab8
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OTC Warns Designations Delay Will Stop 'Momentum' On Reducing Ozone
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY -- Members of the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are warning that early data show 2017 ozone levels are worsening and that EPA's one-year delay for implementing the 2015 ozone ambient air limit risks stopping the states' “momentum” on tackling ozone air pollution.
Anne Gobin, air director for Connecticut, said at the OTC's spring meeting here June 6 that she opposed any delay in implementation of the 2015 ozone standard, which she said would not be good for public health.
OTC Executive Director Dave Foerter said “we have a momentum” on meeting the 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 70 parts per billion (ppb) and the weaker 2008 ozone limit of 75 ppb. EPA “putting a pause on things doesn't work very well” for those efforts, he warned. That momentum could be hampered by the agency's delay announced June 6, and because of a looming potential bad year for ozone levels.
The latest OTC computer modeling presented at the meeting suggests several OTC areas, including Connecticut, New York City and Maryland will fail to meet even the more lenient 75 ppb NAAQS by 2023, and that these states plus New Jersey will also fail to meet the 2015 NAAQS in 2020. States can face the ultimate threat of having their federal highway funds withheld if they fail to come into attainment with federal air standards.
Much of the air pollution responsible comes from outside the OTC area, making swift implementation of ozone standards essential to the OTC member states. And 2017 looks set to be a bad year for ozone in the region, according to monitoring results and weather predictions for the summer, OTC projections show.
The OTC members discussed the one-year delay of designations for areas as either attaining or in nonattainment for the 2015 standards as a potential future action because EPA had not announced it. The designations are critical because once they are issued it triggers the air law mandate for states to craft ozone reduction plans.
Mike Koerber of EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards said at the meeting that no decision had been made on a one-year delay. “We have not said we are doing that” and no decision on it has been taken but “it is on the table,” Koerber said. The move would be legal if EPA lacks sufficient data to make a determination on attainment for a given area, he said. Koerber said the Trump administration is taking a “very deliberative approach.”
Just hours later EPA issued a press release announcing that agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is delaying by one year -- from Oct. 1 this year to Oct. 1, 2018 -- the deadline for issuing designations for whether areas are in attainment or nonattainment with the 2015 NAAQS because he has “insufficient information.”
Designations Delay
In a June 6 letter to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Pruitt says the extra year will give EPA more time to collect “the most recent air quality data” to make the designations.
He also said that the additional time will allow the agency to conduct its previously announced review of the Obama EPA's decision to tighten the ozone limit in 2015. As part of that review, EPA will consider issues such as the role of naturally occurring “background” ozone in affecting states' ozone levels, “appropriately accounting” for ozone transported internationally, and considering the role of “exceptional events” such as uncontrollable and unplanned dust winds or wild fires that can affect a states' overall ozone air pollution.
Pruitt also says that, in line with language in the fiscal year 2017 omnibus funding law, he is establishing an Ozone Cooperative Compliance Task Force to “develop additional flexibilities for states to comply with the ozone standard,” arguing that costs of compliance with the standard have “significantly increased.”
In a press release announcing the one-year designations delay, Pruitt said, “We share the goal of clean air, a robust economy and stronger, healthier communities. We are committed to working with states and local officials to effectively implement the ozone standard in a manner that is supportive of air quality improvement efforts without interfering with local decisions or impeding economic growth.”
The letter to Ducey claims that since 1980, total emissions of the six criteria pollutants regulated under the NAAQS program have dropped 63 percent and ozone specifically by 33 percent.
Republican lawmakers and some industry groups have criticized the situation under which states must take steps to comply with the standard and the 2008 NAAQS of 75 ppb at the same time. Many oppose the 70 ppb standard as needlessly tough or even unattainable, threatening to throw areas into nonattainment, a status that requires them to impose costly pollution controls on industry or face the ultimate sanction of losing federal highway dollars. Many further complain about the administrative burden of meeting two standards at once.
That concern prompted the FY17 law language, and various bills have been introduced in the House and Senate aiming to delay implementation of the 2015 ozone NAAQS, lengthen the NAAQS implementation cycle from five to 10 years, allow EPA to consider technical feasibility of implementation, and other measures.
Ozone Pollution
But OTC members at the spring meeting made clear that 2017 could see increases in ozone pollution levels, and that more work needs to be done to bring overall ozone levels down.
OTC at its meeting issued a formal statement opposing the GOP legislation targeting the ozone NAAQS, specifically S. 263, S. 452 and H.R. 806. All three of these bills, if enacted, “will postpone the substantial public health and environmental benefits offered by the 2015 NAAQS for almost a decade,” the group says.
Ali Mirzakhalili, air director for Delaware, said he found it difficult to reconcile the administration's actions on a range of environmental programs with its professed focus on attaining ozone and other air quality standards.
He “pushed back a little” on the “narrative” driving GOP bills to soften implementation of the ozone NAAQS or an administrative delay, which holds that it is somehow unreasonable for the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS to co-exist. “It is the same pollutant,” and if you reduce the precursors, you reduce ozone, he said.
Maryland air director George 'Tad' Aburn said that while great progress is being made in reducing ozone regionally, “we are missing the daily or episodic part of the problem.” OTC states have long complained that certain upwind power plants that they cannot regulate but which are contributing to ozone problems downwind are not running their pollution controls on hot days already conducive to ozone pollution, so far to no avail.
Under emissions trading established by EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide trading program, power plants can legally buy NOx allowances rather than running their controls on such hot days. If NOx allowances are too cheap, plants have no incentive to run controls.
The Obama EPA's 2016 “update” to the CSAPR rule was intended in part to address this problem, reducing emissions caps on ozone-forming NOx for states and driving up allowance prices.
While OTC figures show that allowance prices have ticked up, they have not yet reached the $800 per ton level that the group believes represents the cost of running controls such as selective catalytic reduction.
CSAPR Revision
EPA staff at the meeting said there are currently no plans for another revision to CSAPR, which even in its updated form does not fully ensure compliance with the 2008 ozone NAAQS and does not address the tougher 2015 NAAQS. EPA issued a notice of data availability (NODA) early this year with some calculations showing which areas “contribute significantly” to pollution in other states, which states could use in writing their NAAQS compliance plans. The agency is now sifting through extensive public comment on that, EPA staff said.
EPA's Reid Harvey, head of Clean Air Markets, noted that the agency's CSAPR update rule is now in effect, and EPA continues to work on its technical implementation, including conversion of banked NOx allowances from the old program to the new one. “We believe implementation of this rule is feasible,” he said.
But he also noted ongoing litigation against the rule brought by states and industry in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in State of Wisconsin, et al. v. EPA, et al. While EPA has halted lawsuits over other clean air matters, including the 2015 NAAQS, State of Wisconsin is still scheduled for briefing, with EPA's brief due in November and oral argument not likely until after January 2018, Harvey noted.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/otc-warns-designations-delay-will-stop-momentum-reducing-ozone
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Environmentalists, States See Major Legal Barriers To EPA's Ozone Delay
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Environmentalists and some states say EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faces major legal barriers to his plan for delaying by one year designations for whether areas are attaining the 2015 ozone ambient air standard, and suggest Pruitt is aware of the hurdles and that his move aims to “buy time” for EPA to formally undo the 2015 limit.
This is “a cynical ploy by Pruitt to buy himself time to sabotage” the ozone standard which Pruitt opposes as too tough, says an environmentalist. Pruitt as Oklahoma's GOP attorney general was part of litigation over the Obama-era decision to tighten the 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to the stricter 70 ppb limit in 2015, and that case is on hold while the agency reviews the standard.
Pruitt said that he is delaying designations for whether states are meeting the 2015 limit in order to gather more information on it. He added that the agency is also creating a task force to look at ways to ease implementation of the standard, in line with a directive included in the fiscal year 2017 omnibus funding law.
Pruitt's decision, announced in a June 6 letter to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), says EPA will postpone from Oct. 1 this year to Oct. 1, 2018, a decision on issuing attainment and nonattainment designations. The designations are critical as they trigger a Clean Air Act mandate for states to craft plans for meeting the ozone standard. But Pruitt offers no further legal justification for his decision, beyond saying it is due to incomplete data.
EPA in a press release said, “the Agency is taking time to better understand some lingering, complicated issues so that air attainment decisions can be based on the latest and greatest information.”
Environmentalists say this falls far short of the legal standard for issuing such a delay and is vulnerable to a likely lawsuit. “I am unaware of any precedent for EPA making the sweeping and ludicrous assertion that it lacks information” to make designations “for every inch of the USA,” says the environmentalist.
Ali Mirzakhalili, air director for Delaware, at the June 6 spring meeting of the Ozone Transport Commission in Saratoga Springs, NY, questioned which information EPA thinks it lacks in order to make the designations. Delaware and other states oppose the delay because it means at least a one-year delay before states start crafting ozone-reduction plans, which will exacerbate OTC states' long-running problems with ozone.
Pruitt bases his delay on Clean Air Act section 107(d)(1)(B), which allows the administrator to defer designation where EPA lacks sufficient information to determine attainment. “I have determined that there is insufficient information, and taking additional time is appropriate in order to consider completely all designation recommendations provided by state governors,” in order to “rely fully on the most recent air quality data.”
Further, “This additional time will also provide the Agency time to complete its review of the 2015 ozone NAAQS, prior to taking this initial implementation step,” Pruitt writes to Ducey. But Pruitt offers no further justification of the decision in terms of which states have not supplied necessary data -- if any.
Legal Challenge
The first environmentalist rejects Pruitt's statements as legally inadequate, saying that governors of all states have supplied their recommendations for which areas of their states should be classified in attainment or nonattainment. Further, the air quality monitoring network used to determine attainment is operated jointly by states and EPA, supplying abundant data. Yet Pruitt claims a delay is warranted for the entire country.
The source says the delay has complex implications for states. For example, states -- including Oklahoma, where Pruitt was formerly attorney-general, and West Virginia -- have already presented data showing they attain the standards, the source says. Industries in those states will have to wait an additional year to get an attainment designation that lifts the threat of further state regulation, the source adds.
Pruitt “is throwing the baby out with the bathwater because he hates the baby,” the source says, adding that the bigger concern among environmentalists is EPA taking the next step of undoing the 2015 Obama agency rulemaking that tightened the 2008 ozone standard of 75 ppb down to 70 ppb.
However, if all designations across the United States are delayed, “upwind” states that contribute to ozone problems downwind will be able to hold off longer on mitigating their contribution to downwind ozone attainment problems, under the air law's “good neighbor” provision, the source says.
Legally speaking, most of the arguments advanced by Pruitt for the move in his letter -- referencing factors such as not impeding economic growth -- have nothing to do with the absence of air quality data, the source says. Public health groups and environmentalists “will certainly sue” over the decision the source says.
The source adds that EPA does not appear to be planning further actions to implement or provide additional justification for the move, such as Federal Register notices, rulemakings or solicitations for public comment on the question.
A second environmentalist concurs that EPA must supply more information to justify its move under the administrative law requirements for reasoned decision-making.
But the source says the agency may yet do so, issuing a Register notice and opening a docket for public comment despite not indicating such a move is coming.
The decision is unlawful because “EPA has all the data it needs,” the source says. The agency “has been through this analysis multiple times.”
Environmentalists will likely sue over the designations delay, “but it won't help because the case will take more than a year to get a decision unless they can get the [U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit] to issue some sort of emergency order, which is hard.” The result, the second environmentalist says, is that “people will die” of needless asthma attacks and other illnesses.
But one industry source notes that environmentalists sued the Obama EPA for allowing states several more months to make area designations using more complete data, with the D.C. Circuit ultimately vindicating EPA's approach. Implementation of the 2008 standard was held up for years pending resolution of litigation over the standard, pushing ultimate submission of state compliance plans years beyond statutory deadlines.
An EPA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Designation Delay
The agency has also previously delayed designation of areas because of lacking data for its 2010 sulfur dioxide NAAQS, resulting in legal challenges from both states seeking attainment designations and environmentalists seeking classification of more areas in nonattainment.
The litigation saw EPA agree ultimately to a years-late schedule for designation, based on a consent decree with environmentalists that allows states time to set up a required new monitoring network.
While the Obama-era SO2 delay bears some similarities to the ozone delay, it also had many differences, the first environmentalist notes. EPA in that instance designated some areas first, then rolled out designations according to a delayed timetable, issuing Register notices documenting its actions, the source says.
Meanwhile, others are expressing support for Pruitt's decision, saying it will ease regulatory burdens on states and industry.
For example, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), a sponsor of proposed legislation to delay implementation of the 2015 NAAQS, said June 6, “State and local governments and employers across the country have had insufficient time to comply with the latest revisions to the ozone standards,” commending Pruitt “for acknowledging this reality and acting today to delay existing standards.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a June 6 statement said, “Today’s postponement will give states and municipalities relief in the interim while EPA continues to review NAAQS levels.”
Others agreed with the delay, without addressing its legality. The American Petroleum Institute, for example, said June 7 that the delay “offers a needed opportunity for states, the administration and Congress to improve the standards and ensure job security while protecting the economy.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in a June 6 statement said, “I am grateful for the leadership of EPA Administrator Pruitt in courageously pausing the costly and ineffective Ozone Rule, and I’m hopeful that the one year delay will provide time for the EPA to review the detrimental effects the Ozone Rule will have on the Texas economy.”
However, EPA is legally barred from considering such economic effects when setting the NAAQS under Supreme Court precedent.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-states-see-major-legal-barriers-epas-ozone-delay
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Cardin: Green Programs Will Survive Trump Push To Kill Them
Jun 8, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
A senior Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told a gathering of environmentalists last night that he's been pleasantly surprised by how key environmental programs have survived despite Republican majorities in Congress.
He also predicted that his colleagues will reject President Trump's attempts to eliminate Energy Star and other popular efficiency initiatives.
"I think we're going to be successful and get it done," Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said during a Capitol Hill fundraiser for the Maryland League of Conservation Voters. "There's bipartisan support for it. [Republicans] don't want to be associated with the president and what he's done" in his budget proposal.
But Cardin was less sanguine about Trump's decision last week to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. He gloomily conceded that many of his Republican colleagues — including some considered more centrist on climate and environmental issues than current GOP orthodoxy — would not support any Democratic legislation to remain in the Paris Agreement.
"There are a number of Republicans who would oppose him, but less than you think," Cardin said. Even though many GOP senators have privately come to the conclusion that Trump is "unfit" to be president, Cardin said, "there are a lot of Republicans who are not upset that he is pulling out of Paris."
Cardin, who called Trump's presidency "a disaster in so many ways," fretted that the U.S. failure to meet the greenhouse gas reduction commitments of Paris would have a meaningful impact on Maryland's environmental crown jewel, the Chesapeake Bay. He said it could affect sea grasses, water temperature, soil erosion and ocean levels and undo years of progress that governments, advocates and businesses have fought for to clean up the famous estuary.
Cardin recalled serving in the state Legislature in the 1980s when U.S. EPA's Chesapeake Bay program was created by the federal government following pressure from all the states in the watershed — a program that Trump would all but eliminate in his fiscal 2018 funding proposal. Cardin said the program is currently funded at $73 million and that Maryland lawmakers will push for a $100 million allocation in the upcoming fiscal year.
"I don't think it's going to come by so quickly," Cardin said, "but we're going to ask for it."
While expressing anguish over Trump's spending proposal, he noted that the calendar could become an ally for those seeking to preserve environmental programs: It's already June, and the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. "We haven't taken up any major bills. ... I haven't seen any legislating by any of the committees," Cardin said. "It's a little bit strange."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Cardin said, will be key to the fate of many programs in the months ahead, because he has been hesitant to allow controversial amendments to come up during legislative votes. That, too, could help preserve environmental initiatives even with GOP opposition.
But despite his cautious optimism, Cardin urged the environmental advocates gathered in the town house owned by John Jameson, who runs a business dedicated to boosting turnout for Democratic campaigns and liberal initiatives, to remain vigilant.
"We've got our work cut out for us, people," he said. "We're going to have our hands full."
Cardin, whose state has one of the largest concentrations of federal employees, said he is often asked how he is able to wake up in the morning and go to work given the unfavorable political environment for the policies he supports. "My answer is, I don't want to leave at night," he said. "I don't want to leave my folks" in the federal workforce.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/08/stories/1060055732
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