Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 6/9/2017
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Carper Opposes EPA Nominees in Lieu of Oversight Responses
Jun 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE) says he will oppose “any additional nominees” for top EPA positions until he and other Democratic EPW members receive “adequate responses” to a slew of outstanding... -
Tap Water in 27 States Shows Levels of Toxic Chemicals: Report
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
The drinking water supplies of about 15 million residents in 27 states have unsafe levels of two potentially toxic chemicals once used in common household products, environmental advocates said in a June 8 report. -
Watchdog May Find EPA-Monsanto Links on Pesticides Routine
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
The EPA inspector general will look into a relationship between an agency deputy director in the pesticide program and Monsanto Co. -
Infants Born in Water Births at Risk of Legionnaires’ Disease, CDC Says
Jun 9, 2017 | Washington Post
By Lena H. Sun
Babies born during water births are at risk of contracting Legionnaires’ disease, a severe and potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia that infected two infants in Arizona last year. -
EU Commissioner Bieńkowska Calls for Authorisation Simplification
Jun 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
The REACH authorisation process should be simplified for those applications that "do not raise major concerns", according to European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska (pictured). -
Industry Slams CLH Proposal for DINP
Jun 8, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Companies and industry bodies from around the globe disagree strongly with a Danish EPA proposal to classify the plasticiser DINP as a category 1B reproductive toxicant, according to comments submitted during a public consultation. -
How CVS Is Cutting Back on Chemicals in Cosmetics
Jun 9, 2017 | GreenBiz
By Cia Tucci
As vice president of store brands and quality assurance at CVS Health, I spend a lot of time thinking about one big question: What do our customers want? -
U.S., China Discuss American Liquid Natural Gas Exports
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Butcher
Energy Secretary Rick Perry advanced the prospect of expanding American liquid natural gas (LNG) exports to China during a June 8 meeting with Executive Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli in Beijing. -
EPA Sends Clean Power Plan Review to OMB
Jun 9, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA has sent its proposed review of the Clean Power Plan to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to a notice on OMB's website. -
Industry Attorneys See Legal Risks to EPA's CPP 'Repeal First' Strategy
Jun 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Industry attorneys say that EPA faces legal risks if it carries out a plan to revoke the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) without having a replacement proposal at the ready, charging the agency could face new suits from rule supporters... -
Interior Orders Review of Sage Grouse Protections to Assess Oil, Gas Impacts
Jun 8, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday ordered a review of the federal Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plans to see if they are in any way restricting energy production on public lands. -
Bill Would Expand FERC's Public Outreach
Jun 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
Two Virginia Democrats introduced a bill yesterday that would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take extra measures to get feedback from communities about proposed pipeline projects. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Sends Final RMP Delay for OMB Review
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA has sent for White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) pre-publication review a final rule that will delay by more than a year the effective date for the Obama-era rule overhauling the agency's facility accident prevention rule, which could give the Trump EPA... -
Wisconsin Senator’s Freight Railroad Addresses Challenges Cited by Shippers
Jun 8, 2017 | Logistics Management
By Jeff Berman
Even though legislation introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) may have a keen focus on her home state, it essentially also doubles as a wish list of sorts for rail shippers throughout the country. -
GOP Climate Policy Survives Trump's Bombshell
Jun 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Climate-conscious lawmakers are stumped on how to tackle carbon dioxide emissions at the federal level after President Trump's decision to pull the plug on U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement — but a few proposals are showing new signs of life. -
Lawmakers Push Bill to Target 'Super Pollutants'
Jun 9, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill aiming to reduce pollutants with an outsized impact on climate change. -
Pruitt's Predecessors Pan EPA 'Originalism' Philosophy
Jun 9, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is sounding one theme as he pushes to erase the agency’s regulations and shrink its workforce: EPA is returning to its roots. -
As Trump's EPA delays Smog Rules, California Vows to Forge Ahead
Jun 8, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Tony Barboza
California officials say they are forging ahead with emissions-cutting measures despite the Trump administration’s move this week to delay implementation of Obama-era limits on ozone, the lung-searing gas in smog.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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Carper Opposes EPA Nominees in Lieu of Oversight Responses
Jun 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE) says he will oppose “any additional nominees” for top EPA positions until he and other Democratic EPW members receive “adequate responses” to a slew of outstanding oversight queries to the agency over the Trump EPA's agenda.
“I feel I have no choice to oppose the consideration of any additional EPA nominees,” Carper said in a June 7 press statement after meeting with Susan Bodine, President Trump's nominee to head the agency's Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance (OECA). Carper noted that “multiple letters from EPW members have still received no response, including an inquiry on EPA's enforcement activities.”
Carper's comments are the latest indication that Senate Democrats, to the extent they are able, will seek to slow consideration of Trump administration nominees for EPA and other posts, citing unresponsiveness of the Trump White House to numerous oversight related queries.
But it is unclear whether changes to Senate rules mean that Democrats can place a procedural “hold” on nominees preventing them from advancing, or whether the GOP's control of the Senate ensures the nominees' eventual confirmation if all Republicans vote for them.
Bodine is only the second major EPA nominee after agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, and Trump is yet to name nominees for several major slots including deputy administrator and air office head.
Carper's statement makes a point of citing the nomination of Bodine for EPA's enforcement office as affected by his oversight concerns. However, he says -- in line with recent comments from other Democrats -- that her resume is “helpful,” noting that it includes over a decade of experience in the House and Senate.
Senators at Bodine's rescheduled June 13 EPW confirmation hearing are expected less to attack her qualifications and more to raise concerns about the Trump EPA's agenda and how it might hinder Bodine's work as OECA chief.
Carper's statement came the same day that Senate Democrats released a compilation of over 100 unanswered queries to federal agencies, including numerous queries to EPA on topics such as the firing of science advisers, enforcement, and Trump administration plans not to require additional information from methane emitters.
At the same time, in at least some cases -- including the Carper query on EPA enforcement activities -- deadlines for response have not been reached, with Carper on that issue seeking answers from EPA by June 23.
Carper's warnings also coincided with similar objections to the Trump administration response to Hill oversight from members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee, who at a June 7 nominations hearing grilled Russell Vought -- Trumps pick for deputy White House Office of Management & Budget director -- on whether he would respond to oversight requests, with one Democrat calling Vought's hedging on the matter “almost disqualifying.”
The concerns at the hearing over the Trump's administration response to Hill queries appeared to take precedence over specific concerns about Trump's pick to head OMB's regulatory affairs office, Neomi Rao.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/carper-opposes-epa-nominees-lieu-oversight-responses
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Tap Water in 27 States Shows Levels of Toxic Chemicals: Report
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
The drinking water supplies of about 15 million residents in 27 states have unsafe levels of two potentially toxic chemicals once used in common household products, environmental advocates said in a June 8 report.
Water supplies for some of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles County and Miami, have atypically high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), formerly used by DuPont Co. to make Teflon coatings for cookware, and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), once an ingredient in 3M Co. product Scotchgard. The chemicals have been linked to cancer and a weakened immune system, the report said.
While the report, published by the Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University, shows major population centers are burdened by atypically high levels of the contaminants, Walker and EWG senior scientist David Andrews told Bloomberg BNA they don't think EPA will soon impose new regulations on water utilities and industrial companies requiring them to treat drinking water containing the contaminants because of the Trump administration's reluctance to impose additional environmental regulation on U.S. industry.
The report's interactive map showing the locations of contamination from PFOA and PFOS combines data the Environmental Protection Agency collected from water utilities with information about large chemical spills from large manufacturing facilities, civilian airports and military bases.
“By putting the two [information sources] together, we actually can start to see something of a pattern where some of the drinking water contamination may be coming from,” Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group vice president and managing editor, told Bloomberg BNA.
Walker said contamination of drinking water supplies may be more prevalent than the report indicated. The EPA testing was only conducted on water supplies serving at least 10,000 individuals and more contaminated industrial sites are being identified all the time, he said. And the level of contamination used by EPA to indicate a contamination event is higher than levels that may actually cause human health problems, Walker said.
EPA has not set limits for concentrations of PFOA and PFOS in drinking water, but in May 2016 issued health advisories—non-enforceable and non-regulatory guidance on contaminants that may affect human health—for fluorinated organic chemicals.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113689146&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113689146&jd=113689146
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Watchdog May Find EPA-Monsanto Links on Pesticides Routine
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
The EPA inspector general will look into a relationship between an agency deputy director in the pesticide program and Monsanto Co. But former agency officials say it's unlikely that the relationship was improper given the level of interaction required by agency staff and companies to safely register pesticides.
Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General Arthur Elkins told Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) in a letter dated May 31 that he has initiated an inquiry into several matters related to the registration review of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's widely used Roundup weedkiller.
Lieu's request was spurred by the unsealing of court documents in March that suggest that a former agency scientist worked closely with Monsanto, and the perception that he may have tried to derail another federal agency's investigation into the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate.
Industry Interaction Routine
The investigation hits an office whose work relies on frequent communication with companies like Monsanto. OPP licenses pesticides for use, and registers herbicides, insect-killers, disinfectants, and other chemicals for pest control for sale. A review of Office of Pesticide Programs’ visitor records show staff meets frequently with pesticide-makers and their consultants.
EPA has “data call-in” authority under pesticide laws that allows the agency to require companies to conduct specific toxicology studies to support pesticide registrations and discuss their results.
For that reason, news of a possible OIG probe into the registration of glyphosate isn't likely to shake the office, OPP's former director told Bloomberg BNA.
“If people were alarmed at it, it would indicate they're doing something wrong,” Jack Housenger, who retired from the EPA earlier this year, said. “I don't think they're doing something wrong.”
In his three years at the Office of Pesticide Programs, Jack Fowle said staff kept their internal decision-making close to the vest when meeting with companies, often declining to answer questions that would disclose internal agency deliberations.
“It was not tipping of the hand or any kind of cozy relationship,” Fowle, who was a division director in the pesticides office and spent more than 30 years at the EPA, said of the meetings with registrants.
Investigation Could Be Short
EPA's Jess Rowland interacted with Monsanto's regulatory affairs manager Dan Jenkins on glyphosate.
In those conversations, Jenkins suggested that Rowland would try to end the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's evaluation of glyphosate's toxicity.
“If I can kill this, I should get a medal,” Jenkins quoted Rowland as saying in an email to colleagues. Emails also suggest that Rowland may have tipped off staff at the company in 2015 of a then-pending decision at the International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify glyphosate as a “probable” carcinogen, giving Monsanto advance notice to build a public relations defense of their herbicide.
The stream of documents may thin out going forward as U.S. District for the Northern District of California Judge Vince Chhabria has signaled that plaintiffs’ attorneys in a cancer case are releasing these documents to indirectly hand information to the news media.
“The concern I have,” he said at the hearing, “is that you are using this litigation as a PR campaign. That is obviously what you have been trying to do and that is going to stop.”
The EPA does not comment on ongoing investigations, an agency spokesman said.
The IG investigation may not go very far, said Steve Hopkins, a former union representative for the EPA who worked on voluntary programs at OPP for 12 years. In his experience, the inspector general responded to a complaint by interviewing the supervisor two levels above the individual in question. The probe ended when the upper manager deemed there was no problem to investigate, Hopkins said.
Watchdog's Approach
But EPA IG spokesman Jeffrey Lagda said this approach is not always used, and investigators must take into account a variety of factors when moving forward.
“We have to consider, among other things: Who is suspected of what activity? Is the supervisor being interviewed as a witness or a subject? Is the supervisor below them believed to be a part of the activity in question? Is the supervisor being interviewed to corroborate information?” Lagda said in an email.
The office's director of the Pesticide Re-Evaluation Division said recently that the office's licensing work sets OPP aside from the agency's other mission areas.
“We are fundamentally different from the rest of EPA in many ways,” Yu-Ting Guilaran told an audience at a pesticide industry conference in April. “It's bringing a new active ingredient onto the market, versus ... water or air or other programs.”
Undue industry influence on the office's work, however, is not unheard of. Hopkins, who left EPA in 2015 after 12 years with the agency and served as a union representative in the pesticide program, said he has represented employees who felt pressured to quickly complete reviews of pesticide registrations, despite their concerns that the studies were faulty.
Registrants “are the ones who get you your money and keep the program alive,” he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113689139&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113689139&jd=113689139
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Infants Born in Water Births at Risk of Legionnaires’ Disease, CDC Says
Jun 9, 2017 | Washington Post
By Lena H. Sun
Babies born during water births are at risk of contracting Legionnaires’ disease, a severe and potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia that infected two infants in Arizona last year.
Both infants survived after receiving antibiotics.
Infections among infants born in heated birthing pools are rare. So public health officials in Maricopa County were alarmed when they learned of two cases that had taken place just months apart. They identified “numerous gaps in infection prevention” during the water births, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the Arizona investigation.
In the United States, there has been only one other reported case of Legionellosis in an infant after a water birth. That involved a Texas baby who died in 2014 just weeks after being born at home in a heated birthing pool.
The Legionella bacteria thrive in warm water and can grow in water systemssuch as water storage tanks or pipes. Among those at greatest risk are the elderly and people who have weakened immune systems. In 2015, about 6,000 cases of the disease were reported in the United States. Nearly 10 percent of cases are fatal. A CDC report this week found that more than 500 of the total cases definitely or possibly occurred in health-care facilities such as nursing homes or hospitals.
Arizona officials say the number of reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease has increased in recent years, jumping to 93 cases in 2015, doubling the 46 cases in 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, there was only one case reported in an infant younger than 1 month old.
But in the first four months of 2016, Arizona had two infants who contracted Legionnaires' disease, both of whom were delivered at home in a birthing tub.
The first baby was delivered Jan. 6 by a midwife in a tub filled with tap water. The following day, the baby was rushed to a local emergency department in severe respiratory distress with low blood oxygen levels. Clinicians found fluid in the lungs, which can indicate pneumonia. Lab tests confirmed the infection.
The tub had been cleared with vinegar and water before being filled with tap water immediately before delivery. A new drinking water hose was used, and the mother delivered the child within an hour of entering the tub. But tap water is not sterile; Legionella can grow and spread in plumbing systems. The child did not swallow any water, but the bacteria still found its way into its lungs.
The second infant was delivered in a rented jetted Jacuzzi tub April 5 by a different midwife. Three days after birth, the baby developed a fever of 101 degrees that lasted two days. The next day, the baby arrived in the emergency room with an even higher fever, 102.6 degrees. A chest X-ray showed cloudy spots in the lungs. The infant was admitted, and the bacterial infection was later confirmed to be Legionella.
In that case, the water in the Jacuzzi had been allowed to stay at 98 degrees F for a week, an optimal temperature for the bacteria to grow, the report said.
The health department was alerted to the second case when the same infection specialist who worked on the first baby realized that the second infant had also been delivered in a home water birth.
“She was so astute,” said Tammy Sylvester, who co-manages infectious disease epidemiology at the Maricopa County health department. “She’s the one who picked up on the fact that these were both at-home water births and that we need to look into this to find out what’s going on.”
Health officials declined to identify the hospital or the clinician who spotted the connection to protect the privacy of the patient and families.
Even though appropriate measures were used, including a new tub and new hose in the first birth, the tap water in both births wasn’t treated, and that’s how the infection was introduced, she said. Although the risk for infection cannot be eliminated because of the need for warm tap water, it can be reduced by running hot water through the hose for three minutes before filling the tub to clear the hose and pipes of stagnant water and sediment.
Immersion in water during labor or delivery has been popularized over the past several decades. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it's hard to measure its prevalence in the United States because it hasn't been studied outside of the home or birth centers, and the information isn't recorded on birth certificates.
Undergoing the early stages of labor in a birthing pool may offer some advantages to pregnant women, ACOG noted last October in an opinion by its obstetric practice committee. However, water delivery has no proven benefit to women or newborns, and the safety and efficacy of immersion in water during delivery have not been established, ACOG said. It also noted that “rare but serious health problems in the newborn have been reported,” including a higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections.
Arizona health officials have put together a tool kit about the risks for Legionella infection for women choosing water immersion for labor or birth and distributed the resources to all licensed midwives in the state and professionals working in health-care associated infection.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/06/08/infants-born-in-water-births-at-risk-of-legionnaires-disease-cdc-says/?utm_term=.fd69452ce31d
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EU Commissioner Bieńkowska Calls for Authorisation Simplification
Jun 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
The REACH authorisation process should be simplified for those applications that "do not raise major concerns", according to European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska (pictured).
In a rare speech on chemicals policy, the internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs commissioner, said that for substances added to the authorisation list, the Commission must ensure the procedures are "fit for purpose".
Speaking at this week's Helsinki Chemical Forum Ms Bieńkowska said feedback on the second REACH review had identified improving the REACH authorisation process as a priority.
One possible way forward, she said, is to build "on the success of existing risk management option analysis (RMOA)" as this would allow "discussion at a very early stage" about the best regulatory route.
And if the main concern is protection of workers there could be "authorisation, restriction or action under the occupational safety and health (OSH) legislation."Frustration
The current process has frustrated companies that have already substituted substances subject to authorisation, she said. But while industry says authorisation is too costly and lacks legal certainty, NGOs feel more could be done and that more substances should be restricted.
And the European Parliament, several member states and NGOs think some applications for authorisation should have been rejected because they are insufficient, Ms Bieńkowska told the Forum.
The question, the commissioner said, is how to keep the benefits of the process, such as improved protection to human health and the environment while – for industry – reducing the costs and "uncertainty" created by the process.
Alternative
Bjørn Hansen, head of DG Environment's chemicals unit, said that as the authorisation process is still relatively new it can be difficult to say what can be done.
"The Commission makes mistakes like everyone else," he told the Forum, adding that it has questioned too late what 'alternative' means – whether it is an alternative for the chemical itself or the functionality of the article in which the chemical is used. He said the discussion needs to quickly come to a close "in order to start gaining efficiencies in what we see as being procedurally a piece of legislation that is working".
There is no alternative to REACH, he said "so let’s roll up our sleeves and make it more efficient".
Impact on innovation
ndustry complains that the authorisation process has little effect on innovation, Ms Bieńkowska said. REACH "drains resources" from innovation for which there is no standard cycle – companies apply for review periods of four to 15 years or more. She said the Commission will "better reflect" these realities when addressing individual applications for authorisation.
And Andrea Paetz, director of regulatory policy at Bayer, said the authorisation process does not promote innovation. This is something companies "always do […] to improve their portfolio. I don't see stimulation of innovation by substitution. We are willing to do it, but often it is not possible."
Authorisation and restriction are "two sides of the coin", she added, and restriction is a "better way" to proceed as a threshold is set across the EU that everybody must follow. "I think it is the easiest way" as it does not phase out a substance, she said.
ClientEarth lawyer Vito Buonsante said authorisation and restriction "can live together at same time". Authorisation is a huge driver for substitution, he said, and inclusion on the candidate list can make substitution happen "overnight when it's an easy substitution".
The European Commission's report on the second REACH review is due to be published after the summer.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56730/eu-commissioner-bie%C5%84kowska-calls-for-authorisation-simplification
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Industry Slams CLH Proposal for DINP
Jun 8, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Companies and industry bodies from around the globe disagree strongly with a Danish EPA proposal to classify the plasticiser DINP as a category 1B reproductive toxicant, according to comments submitted during a public consultation.
Denmark's harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) dossier suggests that DINP's mode of action is similar to some other phthalates already classified as category 1B reproductive toxicants, including DEHP, DBP and DIBP.
Available data indicate that DINP has effects on reproductive organs, sperm count and sperm motion, potentially leading to developmental and fertility effects, it states.
DINP is added to PVC to make it flexible, as well as being used for other polymer applications. The chemical has largely replaced smaller molecules such as DEHP and now accounts for 70% of the market in Europe, according to trade body European Plasticisers (formerly known as the ECPI).
Under REACH, the chemical is already restricted in toys and childcare articles that children may put in their mouths.
"To our best knowledge, there are no suitable plasticisers available on the market which could fully replace high molecular weight phthalate plasticisers such as DINP when considering the price range and existing production volumes," said the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers.
Rodent research
The EPA makes its case with key findings from rodent studies, including:
· skeletal effects in offspring observed in developmental toxicity studies;
· decreased body weight in offspring in a two-generation study;
· reduced testes weights at high DINP doses;
· reduced sperm count and effects on sperm motion after 28 days exposure in juvenile rats; and
· dose-dependent reduced sperm motility in rats exposed perinatally
CLH criteria do not cover potency. However, the EPA is clear that DINP is far less potent than other phthalates already classified as reprotoxic. The chemical causes effects at "much higher doses that those observed for other, classified phthalates," confirmed an EPA spokesperson.
Several industry groups are particularly critical of a 2011 study on reproductive and behavioural effects, which features in the dossier. Julie Boberg from the Danish Technical University, who also helped to compile the EPA dossier, led the research, which suggested statistically significant changes in sperm parameters following perinatal DINP exposure.
Following industry criticism, the team published a corrigendum in 2016, expanding on its methods. "In the original paper the methods were not as detailed as we would wish them to be. We have corrected that to give the necessary level of detail," Dr Boberg told Chemical Watch.
Dissatisfied, European Plasticisers wrote a letter to the editor of Reproductive Toxicology, suggesting that the corrigendum actually modified the statistical methodology. In a later 'rebuttal' in the same journal, Dr Boberg and colleagues denied the claims and defended the use of "non-standard statistical approaches".
The researchers also made all of their data publicly available on a US EPA database. Industry researchers, led by Christine Palermo from ExxonMobil, analysed the data using the methods published in the original paper but reported being unable to confirm the statistical significance for four of six reproductive parameters, including sperm motility. However, the industry team was able to reproduce findings presented in the corrigendum, wrote Dr Boberg et al in their rebuttal.
European Plasticisers also draws attention to another analysis that it funded, which assigns quality/reliability scores to DINP studies. Studies in the CLH dossier fall "well below" the benchmark to trigger classification, according to Wolfgang Dekant from the University of Wurzburg and James Bridges from the University of Surrey, former chair of the EU's Scientific Committee on newly identified health risks.
However, Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at US NGO the Natural Resources Defense Council, criticised the study for dismissing independent science showing harm. "Reputable scientific data suggests that DINP interferes with hormones and human development," she added.
Back to the backbone
Other classification proposals have concluded that phthalates with backbones comprising three to six carbon atoms (C3-C6) cause adverse health effects, while C7-C13 substances do not tend to show adverse reproductive effects. "Since DINP has a backbone length of C7, classification for reproductive and developmental toxicity is unexpected," says a comment from the Netherlands. It suggests that classification should be based solely on DINP's observed effects. "Only the type of effects can be compared with other ortho-phthalates," it adds.
However, it suggests that the proposed classification is justified, based mainly on a decrease in sperm counts and sperm motility.
France and Germany also support the proposed classification although France asks the Danish EPA to clarify if all of the studies are considered to be of "adequate reliability".
The CLH dossier deals only with hazard. However, Dr Boberg has worked on a range of phthalate risk assessment projects. "We are quite heavily exposed to phthalates, including DINP, and exposure is increasing," she said.
DINP does not appear to contribute much to the overall risk of chemical exposure, she adds. "From a risk assessment perspective, DINP also has liver effects which are seen at the same or lower doses. So with increasing exposure that may be the first problem."
Next, the EPA will prepare responses to the public comments before Echa's Risk Assessment Committee considers the CLH proposal.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56732/industry-slams-clh-proposal-for-dinp
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How CVS Is Cutting Back on Chemicals in Cosmetics
Jun 9, 2017 | GreenBiz
By Cia Tucci
As vice president of store brands and quality assurance at CVS Health, I spend a lot of time thinking about one big question: What do our customers want?
Every decision our team makes is driven by customer trends and insights, gleaned through research, external data and consumer testing. When it comes to our store brand beauty and personal care products, we’ve heard our customers loud and clear. They want products that work, with all the benefits they’re accustomed to, but with fewer ingredients of concern.
Last month we announced a major step forward with respect to "free-from" products: We will remove parabens, phthalates and the most prevalent formaldehyde donors (preservative ingredients that can release formaldehyde over time) across nearly 600 of our beauty and personal care products from our CVS Health, Beauty 360, Essence of Beauty and Blade store brands.
We will begin rolling out products that do not contain these ingredients to our stores in the coming months, and we plan to stop shipping products that don’t meet these standards to our distribution centers by the end of 2019.
We have been working on this important initiative for the last couple of years. We started with extensive customer research, including surveys, focus groups, analysis of social chatter, customer service channels and more.
Identifying chemicals of concern
We wanted to know which ingredients our customers were most concerned about, so we could work with our suppliers and internal teams to determine which products could be safely reformulated while maintaining the product efficacy our customers expect.
Throughout this process, we have been fortunate to receive support from several partners that have collaborated with us in shaping our approach to chemical safety in the area of beauty and personal care.
Our work with groups including Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Chemical Footprint Project allows us to stay on top of emerging issues that we need to be mindful of and prioritize in our approach to chemical management.
Beyond removing certain chemicals, customers and advocacy groups increasingly demand more transparency on all product ingredients.
That’s why, in addition to announcing our "free-from" milestone last month, we also published our full list of restricted chemicals (PDF) by category. A quick visit to this list can reassure a customer that any product within a certain category — including baby and child care, beauty or personal care products — never will contain certain chemicals of concern.
We will update this list each May when we release our annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report. And as we work to redesign our packaging over time, we’ll add a call-out about the "free-from" characteristics of products.
This work is an outgrowth of efforts started a decade ago, in 2007, when CVS became the first major drugstore to establish a Cosmetic Safety Policy (PDF). In 2016, we were the first major pharmacy chain in the country to become a signatory of the Chemical Footprint Project.
Our plans for the future include addressing additional chemicals of consumer concern and focusing on more product categories.
For instance, we’ve also begun partnering with our suppliers to validate the label claims on all of our store brand products in every category — more than 4,000 products. That means suppliers who make claims based on studies must provide us with validation of the studies' methodology and results. We look forward to sharing results and learnings from this effort in the coming year.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-cvs-cutting-back-chemicals-cosmetics
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U.S., China Discuss American Liquid Natural Gas Exports
Jun 9, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Butcher
Energy Secretary Rick Perry advanced the prospect of expanding American liquid natural gas (LNG) exports to China during a June 8 meeting with Executive Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli in Beijing.
LNG exports was among a range of energy issues the pair discussed, during a meeting in Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of China's Communist Party, according to a release by the U.S. Embassy.
LNG exports to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the U.S. are restricted, but President Donald Trump last month agreed to lift barriers on exports to China as part of a range of trade deals between the two countries. That could offer huge export potential for U.S. LNG suppliers to China, which is the world's largest growth market for gas, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, and may prompt new investment in industry.
It would also benefit China, which seeks alternatives to coal as it tackles a serious problem with air pollution.
Perry's talks with Zhang will be welcome news for U.S. LNG suppliers such as Cheniere Energy Inc., which has been in negotiations with China about increasing exports there.
The Trump administration also hopes it will help them deliver on election promises to rebalance trade and deliver jobs. In a statement, released June 5, to kick off his visit to China, Perry said, “By unleashing our domestic energy sector, we are creating, and will continue to create, well-paying, middle-class jobs and economic prosperity, protecting our environment, promoting innovation, and strengthening energy security for America and our allies.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=113689147&vname=dennotallissues&fn=113689147&jd=113689147
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EPA Sends Clean Power Plan Review to OMB
Jun 9, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA has sent its proposed review of the Clean Power Plan to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to a notice on OMB's website.
The notice submitted Thursday gives no indication of the proposal's details, it is expected to seek to repeal the rule. Environmental and industry groups likely will flood OMB with meeting requests to make their cases for or against keeping the rule.
EPA Administrator Pruitt said last month that he has not yet decided whether to craft new climate rules. The lawsuit over the Clean Power Plan is on hold, and the court is mulling whether to keep it that way or remand the rule to EPA outright.
WHAT'S NEXT: OMB will spend the next several weeks or months reviewing EPA's proposal and meeting with interested parties before it is released.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Industry Attorneys See Legal Risks to EPA's CPP 'Repeal First' Strategy
Jun 9, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Industry attorneys say that EPA faces legal risks if it carries out a plan to revoke the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) without having a replacement proposal at the ready, charging the agency could face new suits from rule supporters who could argue the agency has a mandatory duty to issue a replacement.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is tight-lipped about whether and how the agency will address greenhouse gases from existing power plants after it rescinds the CPP even as reports indicate the agency is preparing to send a repeal proposal to the Office of Management & Budget that provides a legal justification for revoking the rule and a draft economic analysis.
Those items are in a memo reportedly drafted by Justin Schwab, EPA's deputy general counsel -- a Pruitt pick and member of the “beachhead” team who does not need Senate confirmation, sources say.
Pruitt told an energy conference May 24 that he has not yet decided on how to proceed or whether EPA would issue a substitute power plant GHG rule. “I think that is yet to be determined,” he said.
At the same time, the Department of Justice told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a May 30 status report that it may soon seek interagency review of a repeal proposal. “EPA continues to review the rule, as required by [President Donald Trump's] Executive Order, and may be prepared to begin the interagency review process of a resulting proposed regulatory action in the near future,” the filing says.
If EPA does move forward with a proposed repeal and legal justification for getting rid of the CPP without making any decision on how or whether to replace it, that carries potential legal risks for the agency, the attorneys say.
Attorney Jim Rubin of Dorsey & Whitney, who worked at the Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resource Division for 15 years, tells Inside EPA that EPA's plan to only withdraw the rule before having a replacement is likely necessary simply because Pruitt still lacks key political appointees to lead the offices that would do that work.
“Pruitt only has a handful of people . . . so the short answer is, I don't think repeal and replace are seriously being considered. They are focused on repeal and will focus later on whether to replace.”
But he also sees a risk. While there is “no ticking clock to replace it, at some point someone will sue,” he says.
Rubin adds that even though Pruitt is averse to GHG regulation due to his view that they negatively impact jobs, the agency may want to think about replacing it in a strategic manner, such as to hamper the next administration from redoing the CPP.
“But the larger focus appears to be getting rid of as many rules as they can now, and then decide what to do prospectively,” he says.
And while that is the focus, Rubin warns that a “repeal only” approach opens the door to parties that supported the initial rule filing a legal challenge arguing that EPA has a “mandatory duty” to issue regulations under Clean Air Act sections 111(b) and 111(d), the sections under which the Obama administration issued the power plant rules, based on the GHG endangerment finding.
Unreasonable Delay
Another industry attorney agrees that EPA faces legal risks by revoking the CPP without having a replacement strategy. “If they simply revoked, then it is likely an unreasonable delay [case] will be filed fairly soon, and the court could put them on a schedule.”
But Rubin notes it is unclear what kind of deadline EPA would have to issue a replacement, making a future “unreasonable delay” challenge potentially more difficult.
“At the same time, there is also a reason for EPA to set forth a new regulation in its own time frame, perhaps limited to a more traditional 'inside the fence' standard” that could focus, for example, on plant efficiency, he says.
“This would fill the regulatory void created by repeal and potentially lock in the regulation for future administrations. . . . Given the amount of regulations under review, the focus on deregulation, and the limited agency resources, I would not expect a replacement rule any time soon,” Rubin adds.
The industry attorney also points out that EPA is going to have to have a broader strategy before deciding how to move forward on replacing the CPP in combination with what it does on the companion rule for new power plants and the related Mercury & Air Toxics Standard (MATS), a portion of which it is also reconsidering.
For example, if EPA were to seek to scrap the MATS rule, then it would lose one possible CPP repeal argument: that the agency is barred from regulation power plants under section 111(d) of the air law, where it issued the CPP, because it already regulates them under section 112, where it issued the MATS rule.
That argument was advanced by CPP opponents, including Pruitt when he was attorney general for Oklahoma. But the Obama EPA rejected it. EPA under Pruitt has not stated a position.
The industry source says, “They really, at some point, will be forced to deal with 112. The only way to avoid that issue is if they decide to reverse” the Obama “appropriate and necessary” decision they are reviewing under MATS. If they undo that, there is no longer a legal basis for the MATS rule, the source explains.
And even though most regulated utilities do not want the mercury rule to go away, since plants have either already shut down or are coming into compliance, there is widespread disagreement over the prior administration's use of co-benefits from fine particulate matter to justify the benefits of the toxics rule and the precedent that could set.
“They'll have to figure that out before they decide what to do with the Clean Power Plan,” the source says.
But in the meantime, if the Trump EPA moves forward with a CPP repeal and has no strategy beyond that, there is a good chance the agency would end up in court sooner rather than later.
While EPA could determine, as part of a repeal rule, that the CPP goes beyond a facility's fenceline and is therefore unlawful as a legal justification for repeal, “then they have to do something quickly to replace it.”
New Source Case
Another issue the agency will have to deal with is reconsidering the requirement in the companion new source performance standards under 111 (b) to require new coal plants install carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) because EPA cannot have a rule under 111(d) before it has a 111(b) requirement. All three of the rules remain interrelated, the industry attorney stresses.
Another possibility is that EPA could opt to review the Obama GHG endangerment finding -- something the agency was not expected to do though Pruitt may have opened the door to such an approach.
He told Breitbart Radio June 5: “What the American people deserve is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about [carbon dioxide (CO2)],” he said, according to a transcript. “ . . . The American people need to have that type of honest, open discussion, and it's something that we hope to help provide as part of our leadership.”
EPA has several petitions asking it to reverse the GHG risk finding, which was the trigger for the Obama administration's GHG rules. If the Trump EPA does not reverse it, the agency is legally bound to have some level of GHG regulation.
Petitions filed since Trump took office in January include one from a coalition of California firms and free-market groups filed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, one from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a third from the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers' Council.
But successfully revoking the endangerment finding is considered a monumental undertaking, given overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue.
Even Jeffrey Clark, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Justice Department's environment division, has suggested that the Bush administration could have made a finding that GHGs do not endanger public health and welfare, though he acknowledged it would have been difficult to do so given the weight of the scientific evidence.
Short of seeking to revoke the finding or claiming a 112 exclusion to avoid regulating GHGs from power plants, EPA will then have to carefully consider how to justify any narrower replacement, which has to follow Administrative Procedure Act requirements, Rubin points out.
“Once they do that, then it will go to court but it is not at all clear how a court will review this,” he says. “First, if [the Obama] EPA went out and” justified the CPP based on science and legal authority, and the Trump EPA wants to go in a different direction, “they have to have a rational authority. It cannot be that Trump doesn't like it. It has to be a rational reason or the court won't allow it.”
EPA must create records of its decisions to rescind or repeal, including a voluminous scientific record that proves their point and is reasonable so a court will defer to the agency.
And one more legal risk is that Trump chose a skeptic of agency deference when he successfully nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
“So they'll have to be careful because they're going to need deference to change those rules. The agency could decide it does or doesn't have authority under 111(b) or (d) and want as much discretion to undo them as Obama wanted to enact them,” Rubin says.
All of these factors “are complicating the vision of essentially redoing the CPP in a whole new way. The court is going to say a lot about how this all transacts,” Rubin says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-attorneys-see-legal-risks-epas-cpp-repeal-first-strategy
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Interior Orders Review of Sage Grouse Protections to Assess Oil, Gas Impacts
Jun 8, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday ordered a review of the federal Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plans to see if they are in any way restricting energy production on public lands.
Designated by Zinke's predecessor Sally Jewell as the largest land conservation effort ever undertaken, the federal-state effort was launched two years ago. The cooperative plan protects the ground-dwelling bird with public-private conservation programs at the state level to avoid the bird’s listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The state effort was billed at the time as a comprehensive way to deal with a political, economic and environmental issue for 11 western states, while accommodating both the oil and natural gas industry.
A consistent critic of the Obama administration’s sage grouse plans, Zinke’s cabinet-level order establishes a review panel to look at both federal and state protection efforts that could lead to recommendations for significant changes in how the protections are managed. He emphasized that it was designed to improve the conservation efforts and bolster communications and collaboration with the states.
"While the federal government has a responsibility under the ESA to responsibly manage wildlife, destroying local communities and levying onerous regulations on the public lands that they rely on is no way to be a good neighbor," Zinke said.
"As we move forward with implementation of our strategy for sage grouse conservation, we want to make sure that we do so first and foremost in consultation with state and local governments, and in a manner that allows both wildlife and local economies to thrive."
Noting that more than half of the sage grouse habitat is found on public lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the interagency federal-state plans launched two years ago, Zinke said an interagency team of experts from BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey will focus on the principal threats to rangeland and the sage grouse: invasive grasses and wildland fires.
The review will examine the habitat protection plans in the context of an executive order by the Trump administration related to U.S. energy independence. "To this end, the team will be asked to identify plan provisions that may need to be adjusted or rescinded based on the potential for energy or other development on public lands," an Interior spokesperson said.
Zinke stressed the need for the federal government to be "a good neighbor" and put the states in the forefront of conservation efforts similar to what has been launched to protect the sage grouse.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, praised Zinke's action, noting it will help assess local economic and job growth in the face of the conservation effort. “Cooperation among the federal, state, and local governments will produce a better result for the citizens and species that depend on our public lands.”
In September 2015, Govs. John Hickenlooper of Colorado), Matt Mead of Wyoming, Steve Bullock of Montana and Brian Sandoval of Nevada appeared with Jewell to reiterate that their states and the Western Governors' Association (WGA) had reached a compromise that resulted in not listing the grouse under the ESA.
Just before the federal-state agreement in 2015, governors in Oregon and Colorado separately issued executive orders to upgrade conservation efforts for the greater sage grouse, emphasizing that individually and through the WGA the states had demonstrated that they were able to oversee dwindling habitat than are federal regulators.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110724-interior-orders-review-of-sage-grouse-protections-to-assess-oil-gas-impacts
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Bill Would Expand FERC's Public Outreach
Jun 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
Two Virginia Democrats introduced a bill yesterday that would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take extra measures to get feedback from communities about proposed pipeline projects.
Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said they were motivated to fix FERC's public engagement process after hearing from Virginians about permitting for two projects there: the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
If FERC schedules public comment meetings, S. 1314 would task the agency with holding one in every jurisdiction directly affected and during different stages of permitting.
"Driving two hours through the mountains to a public meeting at which you can speak for two minutes is not public input. Having 90 days to read and comment on 2,000 pages while a dozen other 400-page supplements are trickling out is not public input," said Kaine in a statement.
"FERC's job is to adjudicate the public interest — especially when eminent domain is involved — and this requires taking public input more seriously," he said.
The bill makes a policy statement that eminent domain should be limited to property taken for public — not private — use. It would also mandate that compensation for conservation easement land taken under eminent domain include lost conservation value.
Another provision calls for a single environmental impact statement — rather than two — if two pipelines are proposed within one year and 100 miles of each other. The goal is to allow communities to better gauge cumulative impacts, said Kaine's office.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) is expected to file companion legislation in the House in the next few days. A spokeswoman for Griffith said it would be similar but not identical to the Senate bill.
A FERC spokeswoman, Tamara Young-Allen, said it is the agency's policy not to comment on pending legislation. She did say, though, that the agency's implementation of several current laws provides "numerous opportunities for the public to participate in FERC's review processes."
Young-Allen said, "While [the National Environmental Policy Act] requires federal agencies to gather public comment on proposed infrastructure projects, it does not mandate in-person public comment sessions. This is an extra opportunity that FERC has long provided to gather as many comments as possible about proposed interstate natural gas and hydroelectric projects."
Interested parties can also file written comments on projects by mail or online.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/09/stories/1060055799
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Sends Final RMP Delay for OMB Review
Jun 8, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA has sent for White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) pre-publication review a final rule that will delay by more than a year the effective date for the Obama-era rule overhauling the agency's facility accident prevention rule, which could give the Trump EPA sufficient time to revise controversial aspects of the regulation.
But the final rule -- which the agency submitted to OMB on June 7 -- could face a legal challenge from supporters of the Obama EPA's Risk Management Plan (RMP) overhaul. Critics of the Trump EPA's earlier proposal for the lengthy delay of the rule have raised doubts over the agency's legal authority for a delay.
Labor and environmental groups have hailed the Jan. 13 final rule as a modest improvement to EPA's RMP facility accident prevention program that should remain in place, though chemical and agricultural industry groups contend the rule increases costs without improving safety, and could worsen terror threats.
EPA took comment through May 19 on Administrator Scott Pruitt's March 29 proposal to delay the rule's effective date by an additional 20 months -- from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 -- to allow for reconsideration after a coalition of industries and GOP-led states separately petitioned the agency to revise the rule.
OMB is now reviewing the final version of the rule known as, “Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act; Further Delay of Effective Date”
While OMB review can take up to 90 days, it can take more or less time depending on the rule, and the Trump administration may seek to quickly finalize the delay before the rule takes effect June 19.
EPA issued the RMP update in response to former President Barack Obama's Executive Order 13650 issued in the wake of a fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX, that killed 15 people, including first responders. While the explosion and ensuing order triggered EPA's overhaul of its accident prevention program, investigators later blamed arson for the fire that led to the explosion.
The Jan. 13 final rule includes new auditing and hazard analysis requirements, as well as provisions bolstering release of facility data to emergency planners and the public, which have drawn strong opposition from industry groups as well as GOP state attorneys general, including Pruitt prior to his selection to lead EPA.
The chemical industry and other sectors have faulted the new requirements for certain facilities to conduct third-party audits and hazard analysis as burdensome and unnecessary, and argued that the requirements to streamline disclosure of facility data could make facilities targets for terrorist attacks.
In comments on Pruitt's proposed delay, industry and advocates sparred over the agency's Clean Air Act authority to delay the final rule. Groups including the American Chemistry Council and the Corn Refiners Association said the air law and Administrative Procedure Act give EPA broad discretion to delay effective dates, while the United Steelworkers argued that language in section 112(r) of the air law requires the agency to quickly implement rules issued under authority in the law, such as the RMP.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-sends-final-rmp-delay-omb-review
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Wisconsin Senator’s Freight Railroad Addresses Challenges Cited by Shippers
Jun 8, 2017 | Logistics Management
By Jeff Berman
Even though legislation introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) may have a keen focus on her home state, it essentially also doubles as a wish list of sorts for rail shippers throughout the country.
Entitled the “Rail Shipper Fairness Act,” the legislation is geared towards challenges rail shippers face along the lines of a need to reduce costs and improving rail service.
Some of the key aspects of the legislation include: requiring rail service to be efficient and reliable; clarifying STB authority to address service emergencies for shipments moving under contract; and expanding fines and equitable damages that railroads can be forced to pay for poor service. allowing competitive switching for interchanges within 100 miles; removing the presumption that market dominance cannot exist when a shipper is served by two carriers; and revising rail transportation policy to reflect shipper priorities in addition to railroad priorities; suspending collection of rate increase while a rate case is pending; requiring use of market-based revenue methodology in stand-alone rate cases; shifting the burden of proof to railroads in stand-alone cost cases; and eliminating the qualitative market dominance test; prohibiting railroads from charging customers for fuel in a way that does not correlate with actual fuel costs; and removing the revenue adequacy test and cap railroad cost of equity at a reasonable level
This legislation is the most recent example of rail shippers’ collective efforts to re-regulate the freight railroad sector to a large degree.
Speaking from a Wisconsin perspective Senator Baldwin said in a statement that Wisconsin businesses need a quality and responsive railroad system to effectively get their goods to market.
“In order to continue building a strong Made in Wisconsin economy that is fair to farmers, manufacturers, and consumers, we need to give these shippers a seat at the table,” she said. “This legislation will address the challenges faced by local businesses and help drive our Wisconsin economy forward.”
In some regards, this bill resembles and leverages the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2015, which was signed into law by Congress.
Baldwin’s bill was warmly embraced by Ann Warner, executive director of the Freight Rail Customers Alliance, whom noted that the legislation would also positively reinforce current proceedings before the STB on rate reasonableness, expediting rate cases, and competitive switching.
As for the freight railroads, they have been consistent in saying for years that the existing regulatory railroad environment has produced—for North American railroad shippers—a freight railroad system that is the envy of the world, adding that while it is not perfect, to deprive the industry of its ability to earn its cost of capital could have a chilling effect on capital investments to support traffic growth and it could begin to reverse the great strides freight rail has made after Staggers in the areas of rail safety and service reliability.
http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/wisconsin_senators_freight_railroad_addresses_challenges_cited_by_shippers
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GOP Climate Policy Survives Trump's Bombshell
Jun 9, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess
Climate-conscious lawmakers are stumped on how to tackle carbon dioxide emissions at the federal level after President Trump's decision to pull the plug on U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement — but a few proposals are showing new signs of life.
In the seven days following Trump's White House Rose Garden announcement, nearly a dozen House members added their names to bipartisan legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) that would reinstitute expired tax credits for multiple low-carbon energy technologies.
Since February, 50 Republicans and 37 Democrats have endorsed H.R. 1090, which is meant to extend incentives for "orphan" technologies left out of a 2015 budget deal (Greenwire, Feb. 16). GOP Reps. Ken Calvert of California and Mike Simpson of Idaho added their names to the bill on June 2, one day after Trump announced his decision.
Others have turned their focus from CO2 to short-lived contributors to climate change.
Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) yesterday introduced the bipartisan "Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction Act," or "SUPER Act," which deals not with carbon dioxide but with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), methane, black carbon and other emissions that remain in the atmosphere for a short time but trap far more heat than CO2.
Peters said the bill, backed by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) and four other Democrats in the Climate Solutions Caucus, "demonstrates the growing bipartisan will in Congress to act on climate" in the wake of the Paris exit.
"Super pollutants are the low-hanging fruit in the fight to slow climate change," Peters said in a statement on the measure.
The bill would establish an interagency task force to include U.S. EPA and the departments of Energy, the Interior, Commerce, State, Transportation, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. The group would be tasked with coordinating and improving federal programs aimed at limiting short-lived climate pollutants.
"While the focus is always on carbon, we need a full picture of all emissions that diminish our ozone, impact our climate and accelerate sea-level rise," Curbelo said. "This task force would be a significant first step to ensuring that our nation has all the information needed to accurately protect our environment from these pollutants."
In the Senate, the response has been more sharply partisan. Democrats touted a resolution introduced last month that calls on the U.S. to cooperate with the international community and take a leadership role on climate.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who led a delegation to the 2015 Paris climate talks, announced last week that he was "exploring legislative solutions to mitigate the damage the president seeks," in a statement blasting Trump's decision.
But Cardin hasn't yet found Republicans who would be interested in signing onto legislation, an aide told E&E News yesterday.
Mark Reynolds, executive director of Citizens' Climate Lobby, called for GOP senators who were once champions on the issue to take Trump's Paris pullout as an opportunity to "reassert their leadership" by fighting for a revenue-neutral fee on carbon.
GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona cast the deciding votes that blocked repeal of an Obama-era rule to regulate methane waste on public lands (Greenwire, May 10).
Reynolds wrote the vote "stirred the embers of their once-burning passion to preserve a world that is hospitable to future generations," in an analysis that noted the trio's past leadership on legislation to deal with carbon emissions. "That is the legacy these three hoped to achieve years ago, a legacy that is still within their reach," Reynolds said.
Some state delegations have directed their energy toward the governor's mansion.
New Hampshire's four congressional Democrats — Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster — wrote a letter to Republican Gov. Chris Sununu on Wednesday.
"Governor, we write in support of New Hampshire joining the U.S. Climate Alliance. It is vital that the Granite State continues to be a leader on climate change and clean energy," the members wrote.
Sununu announced New Hampshire would not join a growing number of governors, including four from New England, in the U.S. Climate Alliance, which aims to uphold the U.S. pledge to cut emissions by at least 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. He said New Hampshire, including its businesses, takes environmental stewardship seriously, and he doesn't need to sign a piece of paper to continue that tradition.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) received a similar piece of mail from 11 Democrats who represent the Land of Lincoln in the House.
"Because it is good for the residents of Illinois and because it is the right thing to do, we feel that the State of Illinois should publicly commit to do its part to meet the existing Paris Agreement goals with or without formal U.S. participation in the Agreement, and to subsequently take actions to do so," read the letter, led by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.).
"Thirteen other states, as well as 175 cities, including Chicago, have already taken this step. ... We owe it to the people of our state to act with the urgency required to address this threat head-on and we must take the action necessary to protect our state — and our planet — for future generations, regardless of the Trump Administration's recent decision," they wrote.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel formally announced Wednesday the city's support of the Paris climate agreement as he welcomed mayors and leaders from around the world for a three-day conference about the global role of cities.
Partisanship on display
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) responded to the Paris withdrawal announcement by reintroducing legislation meant to prevent the Export-Import Bank of the United States from funding overseas coal- or oil-fueled power plants.
The bill would limit Ex-Im Bank funding to projects that produce less than 500 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt-hour. Many coal and oil plants without carbon capture technology would not qualify.
Huffman in a statement blasted Trump's "hasty" call on Paris as "a complete abdication of America's leadership in the fight against carbon pollution."
"While some in Washington pursue a dirty energy agenda at home and abroad, Congress can still take action to reduce carbon pollution," Huffman said. "The Standing Against Dirty Diplomacy Act will help get America back on the right track: building a clean energy future by cutting off the billions of dollars we are wasting on dirty coal boondoggles abroad."
The measure has no co-sponsors.
Brookings Institution senior fellow Philip Wallach assessed the aftermath of the Paris pullout as a direct function of the partisan politics surrounding climate policy in the U.S., rather than particularly tied to Trump.
Trump administration officials already made it clear that they were going to wipe out climate regulations, Wallach said during an event earlier this week hosted by the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate. What's happening now is a consequence of climate activists in the U.S. writing off the possibility of winning Republican support for carbon-cutting policies during the Obama administration.
"The policies are the policies; the Paris goal is the Paris goal," Wallach said. "One doesn't necessarily flow out of the other."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/09/stories/1060055802
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Lawmakers Push Bill to Target 'Super Pollutants'
Jun 9, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill aiming to reduce pollutants with an outsized impact on climate change.
The bill, from Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) and others would create a task forced to study ways to reduce pollutants like black carbon methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that contribute significantly more to climate change than carbon dioxide, the most plentiful greenhouse gas.
The task force would “optimize existing efforts at various levels of government to reduce super pollutant emissions,” according to Peters’ office.
“Super pollutants are the low-hanging fruit in the fight to slow climate change,” he said in a statement.
“Existing technologies have been proven effective at reducing these potent gases. By coordinating efforts across multiple levels of government, the 'SUPER Act' would help make the U.S. federal government a leader in reducing these pollutants and keeping our air and water clean.”
The legislation comes as the Trump administration increasingly moves away from enforcing pollution rules put in place by Obama-era regulators.
Trump, for example, has repealed the entire Obama administration strategy for reducing emissions of methane, which has 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Interior Department have already begun the process of repealing rules limiting those emissions from oil and gas drilling sites.
The U.S. is party to an international agreement phasing out the use of HFCs, which are primarily found in air conditioning and refrigeration and carry climate change potential 10,000 times higher than carbon dioxide. The deal, reached in October, requires the EPA to write a domestic HFC reduction plan.
California moved last fall to cut methane, HFCs and black carbon, a byproduct of incomplete fossil fuel combustion, setting emissions reduction standards for each pollutant.
“This task force would be a significant first step to ensuring that our nation has all the information needed to accurately protect our environment from these pollutants,” Curbelo said in a statement.
Seven lawmakers, including two Republicans, are co-sponsors of the new bill.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/337001-lawmakers-push-bill-to-cut-super-pollutants
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Pruitt's Predecessors Pan EPA 'Originalism' Philosophy
Jun 9, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is sounding one theme as he pushes to erase the agency’s regulations and shrink its workforce: EPA is returning to its roots.
To Pruitt, that means helping states and cities clean up their toxic waste sites and provide safe drinking water — while rejecting the Obama administration’s expansion into issues like climate change. He calls it a “Back to Basics” agenda, aimed at bringing EPA “back to the core of what we do as an agency.”
But Pruitt’s brand of "EPA originalism" has one big problem: His predecessors say he’s got it wrong.
Past EPA administrators from both parties, as well as the GOP author of EPA's landmark environmental laws, say the agency’s mission is far broader than the cramped version he’s promoting, and has been designed by Congress to take new environmental issues into account.
“I don’t personally think you can say, ‘I’m somehow going back to what the basic responsibilities of EPA are,’” said Lee Thomas, who led the agency during Ronald Reagan’s second term. “That’s not what EPA is, that’s not where the laws are and that’s not where the risk is.”
That mission began with a 1970 order from President Richard Nixon, calling for the creation of a single federal agency that would help keep the planet “a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.”
Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator, said Pruitt appears to have jettisoned the agency's responsibility as a protector of human health when regulations impose costs on businesses. She also disputes his decision to focus on a limited set of EPA programs, such as the toxic-waste programs it carries out under the 1980 Superfund law.
“I don’t think it has to be an either-or, nor should it be,” Whitman said, adding: “Superfund is not the only issue for human health. Water pollution is a huge issue and very important and you need to work on it, but it’s not the only issue. Air is an issue too. Even if you don’t want to believe in climate change, you've got to believe that carbon and mercury are not good for you.”
The tension highlights the dispute over EPA’s role, particularly as environmental threats evolve beyond the mid-20th century crises of burning rivers and smog-choked cities into the long-term global menace of climate change. Admirers say Pruitt’s approach makes him an “EPA originalist,” in the words of Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel — much like some conservative judges who argue for hewing to the Founders’ original intent when interpreting the Constitution.
So far, Pruitt has launched rollbacks of former President Barack Obama’s greenhouse gas rules for power plants, delayed deadlines for polluters and slowed agency work on new regulations, and most recently helped persuade President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
EPA did not make Pruitt available for an interview, but he told Strassel that his aim is for EPA to achieve “tangible” results through “a restoration of its priorities,” such as cleaning up the nation’s 1,300 Superfund sites.
“These are issues that go directly to the health of our citizens that should be the absolute focus of this agency,” Pruitt told the Journal. “This president is a fixer, he’s an action-oriented leader, and a refocused EPA is in a great position to get results.”
Trump has endorsed that vision as well. “We’re going to have clean, beautiful air — clean, beautiful, crystal water,” he said in a speech Wednesday in Cincinnati, Ohio, about his infrastructure priorities. “But you’re going to have your jobs also.”
On the other hand, Trump’s proposed 2018 budget, which seeks to chop EPA’s spending by 31 percent, has also called for slashing the same toxic-waste and clean-water programs that Pruitt has put at the center of the agency's mission.
The EPA administrator can have huge influence over the direction of the agency, but its scope and responsibilities are set out by Congress in laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Pruitt has prioritized a different focus for EPA: economic concerns, which he has cited in rolling back regulations on climate change, air pollution and clean water, even in cases where the Supreme Court has said costs cannot factor into the regulation.
Thomas Jorling, the Senate Republican staffer who co-authored the Clean Air Act in 1970 and the Clean Water Act in 1972, said that Pruitt's philosophy of "EPA originalism" is just wrong.
Pruitt cannot be a "tinhorn dictator" who decides which laws to avoid "in favor of economic development," said Jorling, who filed a court brief last year defending the Obama EPA's landmark climate regulation. Continuing to stick to a limited set of cherry-picked priorities Pruitt has chosen to champion is “just disingenuous," he added.
“It’s all basically a smokescreen to their real intention, which is kind of a moral and ethical corruption, to … restore the dependence of the United States energy system on fossil fuels,” he said.
Pruitt maintains that his Obama-era predecessors, such as Gina McCarthy, vastly overstepped EPA’s authority by issuing regulations such as the carbon dioxide limits in its climate regulations for power plants. Pruitt previously made that argument while waging legal fights against the agency’s regulations when he was Oklahoma attorney general.
Pruitt said last month that he has not yet decided whether to craft new climate rules after repealing the Obama versions.
But his Republicans critics say it’s wrong to reject climate change as an EPA priority, even if there’s room for debate on the details of Obama’s actions. The Supreme Court has ruled that EPA must regulate greenhouse gases if they threaten human health and welfare, and the agency has concluded they do.
States say Superfund sites are big issues in their communities, said Thomas, but the risks of climate change are "significantly higher."
"There’s a lot more uncertainty around [global warming], but that doesn’t mean you don’t deal with it," he said.
Meanwhile, the rollbacks under Pruitt’s “EPA originalism” campaign go well beyond climate change. Pruitt has ordered a rewrite of the Obama-era Waters of the U.S. rule, a sweeping regulation that sought to define which waterways and wetlands fall under the federal government’s purview. And he remains critical of the Obama administration’s efforts to tighten smog standards when much of the country have yet to meet previous limits — even though the Clean Air Act says EPA is supposed to base those decisions solely on the latest health science.
In addition, Pruitt has said his philosophy will involve fewer instances of the federal government overriding state cleanup plans it deems insufficient. And he says EPA will use fewer consent decrees — settlements negotiated with companies that have violated regulations — a practice Republicans have long criticized as “regulation by litigation.”
Instead, Pruitt aims to focus on the Superfund program, cleanups of polluted “brownfields” and drinking water infrastructure, all of which involve economic development. He has also placed an emphasis on implementing last year’s bipartisan chemical safety reforms, especially the process that approves new chemicals for use in products.
Myron Ebell, a longtime critic of climate change science and the Trump administration’s transition leader for EPA, supports Pruitt’s originalism mission because it dials back the agency’s reach.
“It seems to me EPA has fairly clear statutory responsibilities under a number of statutes, and those statutory responsibilities should come first,” said Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and the Environment.
“But over time and particularly in the Obama administration, they have taken on a whole lot of things which are entirely discretionary, that they don’t have to do, they’re not required by law to do it, but they decided to do it anyway,” Ebell added.
Jorling said he and Leon Billings, his late Democratic counterpart in writing the laws, believed that the environmental statutes they wrote were not static, despite what critics like Ebell contend. Instead, they were designed to adapt to new situations.
“It’s a complete misreading of those statutes and it really denigrates the senators and members of Congress that I worked for and with at the time,” he said. “They were very concerned that you don’t just write a statute for the past, you write a statute for the future.”
Georgetown environmental law professor William Buzbee agreed that the legislative history of environmental laws shows they were "not written to be frozen in time, but to give EPA important protective roles that will evolve in light of improved science and understanding of emerging risks."
For example, the Clean Air Act included a catch-all provision, Section 111, that allowed the agency to address newly discovered pollutants not covered elsewhere in the law. EPA used that provision just five times over the decades, mostly on obscure pollutants, before the Obama administration wielded it to target carbon dioxide from power plants.
McCarthy, Pruitt’s immediate predecessor, said it’s "crazy" to believe EPA's role was not intended to evolve to include new problems like climate change.
"I know that a lot of this language about ‘EPA originalism’ is really just an excuse ... for disempowering the agency, particularly as it relates to climate change," she said.
“Is EPA supposed to respond and say, ‘We’re really busy cleaning up Superfund sites from the ’60s. We really can’t address the problems that you’re facing today?’” McCarthy added. “Is that what they’re really suggesting? And as long as we catch up with the damage that was in place when these laws came in, that we’ll have done our job? That doesn’t make any sense.”
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/06/pruitts-predecessors-pan-epa-originalism-philosophy-157849
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As Trump's EPA delays Smog Rules, California Vows to Forge Ahead
Jun 8, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Tony Barboza
California officials say they are forging ahead with emissions-cutting measures despite the Trump administration’s move this week to delay implementation of Obama-era limits on ozone, the lung-searing gas in smog.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told governors Tuesday he was extending by one year a deadline for them to determine which areas of their states violate federal standards for the pollutant, citing what he said was a lack of information and “increased regulatory burdens, restrictions on infrastructure investment, and increased costs to businesses.”
“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,” Pruitt said in a statement.
The extension applies to a tougher 70 parts per billion limit on ozone the Obama administration EPA adopted in October 2015.
The move is the latest in a series of steps Pruitt has taken to roll back or delay Obama-era environmental protections. The decision is expected to push back federal deadlines to reach the health standard, allowing states with dirty air, including California, to put off the adoption of pollution-reduction measures.
California regulators insisted that Pruitt’s decision would in no way delay progress in cleaning the air.
“California is forging ahead with aggressive actions to reduce ozone levels, irrespective of EPA’s delay,” California Air Resources Board spokesman Stanley Young said. “In the meantime, we believe that EPA cannot back off on its own responsibility to set cleaner standards.”
Young cited the “critical public health challenge” of air pollution in Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley. He said steps that California regulators are taking to reduce emissions in the freight and transportation sector “will put us on the trajectory for meeting the 70 [parts per billion] standard in any case.”
Ozone is a corrosive gas that forms when emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes cook in the heat and sunlight. It triggers asthma and other respiratory illness. Southern California has the nation’s worst ozone pollution and remains far from meeting a series of previous federal air quality standards.
Environmentalists blasted the EPA’s move as a step toward rolling back the Obama administration’s clean-air standards and allowing industries to avoid stronger emissions controls.
“This delay is a flagrant violation of the law that denies Americans their right to safe air free from unhealthy smog pollution,” said John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Industry groups waged a fierce lobbying and advertising campaign against the 2015 ozone rules, predicting they would harm businesses by requiring costly new pollution controls.
In his previous job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt was one of the top legal adversaries seeking to block the EPA’s regulations on climate change, clean water and air quality, suing the Obama administration over its 2015 ozone standards and other major environmental rules.
After Trump appointed Pruitt administrator, the EPA began reexamining its ozone rules.
EPA records show all 50 states and the District of Columbia submitted recommendations last year on which areas should be designated as meeting or violating ozone limits. None said they had insufficient information to do so.
The EPA did not respond to requests for comment, including questions about what specific information it lacks and the potential health consequences of the delay.
Republican lawmakers who have long been critical of Obama’s environmental regulations applauded Pruitt’s decision.
“This regulation was yet another attack on the middle class by the Obama Administration and was forced through despite significant concern from communities across the country,” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement.
Tougher ozone standards, achieved quickly, would benefit tens of millions of Americans who live in counties with unhealthy air. That includes 17 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties who breathe the nation’s worst-polluted air. After decades of reducing ozone levels, progress has faltered in recent years.
This year, ozone has exceeded the 70 ppb ozone standard on 37 days. That’s up from 33 days during the same time last year and 21 days in 2015, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District data through Monday.
Clean-air advocates say that means California pollution regulators must do more locally to reduce emissions. California adopted its own 70 ppb ozone standard in 2005, citing the threat to children’s health.
AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said “the best path forward toward meeting this standard is the one we are on now — implementing all feasible measures, fostering cleaner technologies and accelerating deployment of zero- and near-zero technologies.”
In 2015, the EPA estimated that achieving the 70 ppb limit by its 2025 deadline would prevent hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and missed school days for children and hundreds of early deaths from cardiovascular disease and other illnesses. It also said the savings from those health benefits would outweigh the billions of dollars in annual costs to the industry by about 4-1.
Obama gave California extra time to comply — until 2037 — because of the severity of its air pollution.
California air quality officials say they expect the EPA to extend the deadline until 2038.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to review its air quality standards for ozone and other pollutants every five years and adjust them if necessary to reflect the latest health science.
Ozone is such a widespread pollutant that obligations to keep reducing it have vexed previous administrations.
The administration of George W. Bush rejected recommendations for a tougher limit when it adopted the 2008 ozone standard of 75 ppb.
Obama’s EPA vowed to tighten ozone rules but set aside EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s recommendation for a 65 ppb standard during his reelection bid, leaving the Bush administration limit in place. When his administration ultimately tightened the standard in 2015, it selected a less protective standard than the 60 ppb public health groups had endorsed.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ozone-delay-20170607-story.html
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