Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 12/06
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(ACC Blog) Neocon: Spotlight on High Performing Materials in Interior Design
Jun 12, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
Neocon bound? Designers heading to Chicago for Neocon this week will see the newest products and prototypes expected to transform spaces in commercial interior design. -
(ACC Mentioned) New EPA Official is Energy Lawyer, Deacon
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Longtime energy industry lawyer Patrick Traylor has joined U.S. EPA's enforcement staff. -
For Kids, Good Hygiene Can Come with a Dose of Toxic Triclosan
Jun 12, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
It goes without saying that it is important children and all people brush their teeth and wash their hands. However, depending on what type of toothpaste or soap you’re using, you and your family could be exposing... -
Environmental Group Says EPA Should Ban Chemical After Tenn. Workplace Death
Jun 12, 2017 | Manufacturing.net
By Andy Szal
An advocacy group this week urged federal regulators to ban select paint-stripping chemicals in hopes of preventing the type of accident that claimed the life of a Tennessee man in April. -
Rac Opinion Makes Candidate List Unlikely for Titanium Dioxide
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An Echa science committee's opinion on the carcinogenicity of titanium dioxide has made it unlikely the substance will ever be added to the REACH candidate list. -
European Commission Seeks Opinion on Cosmetic Ingredient p-BMHCA
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has requested a scientific Opinion on the safe use of butylphenyl methylpropional (p-BMHCA) in cosmetic products. -
Echa, Member States Start RMOA on New Substances
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa and two EU member states are starting risk management option analysis (RMOA) on five new substances under the agency's public activities coordination tool (PACT), which also assesses hazards. -
European Science Committee Issues Final Cosmetics Opinions
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has published final Opinions on two cosmetics formulations and ingredients. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ineos to Spend €2bn on Expanding Petrochemicals Capacity
Jun 12, 2017 | Financial Times
By Andrew Ward
Ineos is to invest €2bn expanding its European petrochemicals capacity in a sign of the benefits of cheap US shale gas spreading across the Atlantic. -
Court Can’t Review Trump’s Keystone Approval, Lawyers Argue
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Trump administration attorneys are arguing that the federal court system cannot weigh in on its March approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. -
Former Officials Slam Trump Admin's 'Cynical' Legal Position
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A bipartisan group of former Interior Department officials is urging a federal court to continue weighing a legal dispute over the federal government's hydraulic fracturing authority. -
How One Group is Charting Health Risks Near Oil Fields
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Lucas Jasso, 66, has seen a lot of changes in Karnes County, Texas, since oil and gas companies first began flocking to his part of the state several years ago. -
(ACC Blog) Chemical Industry Achieves Record-Setting Process Safety Gains
Jun 12, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
This week, June 12-18, marks the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (OSHA) inaugural Safe & Sound Week, a nationwide effort to help workers and managers understand the valuable role... -
EPA Delays Chemical Safety Rule Until 2019
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will delay implementation of an Obama-era chemical safety rule for nearly two years while it reassesses the necessity of the regulation. -
FERC Assesses 'Hands-On' Cyber Blackout Recovery
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak & Peter Behr
If power grid computers are disabled in a cyberattack or natural disaster, operators need plans to bring their systems up manually, dispatching crews to substations and falling back on paper checklists, maps... -
Sustainable FERC's Moore Talks Grid Vulnerabilities and Shift Away from Baseload Generation
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E TV
Are more renewables and less baseload generation making the grid less stable and more vulnerable to attacks? During today's OnPoint, John Moore, director of the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council... -
Pipeline Congestion Causes Spike Crude-by-Rail Shipments
Jun 12, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Ryan Maye Handy
Crude coming from the Canadian oil sands faces pipeline congestion on its way to the Gulf Coast, forcing production companies to opt for more expensive rail transport instead. -
Details Emerge About Trump's Planned Rollback
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
The Trump administration will use a central argument from legal challengers of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan to rescind the Obama-era climate standards. -
Trump Administration Abstains from G7 Climate Change Pledge
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Trump administration has refused to sign an international declaration committing to action on climate change. -
The Energy 202: Pruitt Punts on Climate Talks
Jun 12, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
When President Trump announced the United States would begin the process of removing itself from the Paris climate accord, he promised to renegotiate to reenter the landmark climate agreement or begin an "entirely new transaction... -
Gov. Brown Seeks Global Stage on Climate
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
Brown returned Thursday from a trip to China, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and signed multiple agreements with national and provincial governments to cooperate on clean energy and greenhouse... -
Lawmakers Float Bill to Curb Potent GHGs
Jun 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is floating legislation that would create an interagency task force that includes EPA and other agencies to improve efforts to curb emissions of short-lived but potent greenhouse gases...
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Blog) Neocon: Spotlight on High Performing Materials in Interior Design
Jun 12, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
Neocon bound?
Designers heading to Chicago for Neocon this week will see the newest products and prototypes expected to transform spaces in commercial interior design.
Interior designers can learn more about how chemistry contributes to these latest materials – whether it is in Sustainable surfaces and countertops made from a composite blend of epoxies, recycled glass, and other often discarded post-consumer materials; durable, comfortable, eye-catching office furniture; or energy-efficient lighting.
To learn more about the chemistry used in building and design materials, visit BuildingwithChemistry.org.
Chemical manufacturing companies and interior design firms also make great collaborators, working on projects that build on the latest material science innovations to create inspirational work environments.
To learn more, visit the BuildingwithChemistry.org’s new Chemistry in Interior Design.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/06/neocon-spotlight-on-high-performing-materials-in-interior-design/
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(ACC Mentioned) New EPA Official is Energy Lawyer, Deacon
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Longtime energy industry lawyer Patrick Traylor has joined U.S. EPA's enforcement staff.
A former partner at Hogan Lovells LLP, Traylor is now deputy assistant administrator within EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. OECA works with the agency's regional offices and state and tribal partners to enforce federal environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act. Inside EPA first reported Traylor's appointment late Friday afternoon.
Traylor's selection comes shortly before tomorrow's confirmation hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for Susan Bodine, President Trump's choice for OECA's assistant administrator position. Bodine is only the president's second pick for the agency (E&E Daily, May 15, 2017).
Traylor's selection follows the Trump administration's moves to push back environmental regulation across the federal government. Traylor has two decades of experience representing the energy industry. Some of his most prominent clients include Koch Industries, Dominion Energy and TransCanada, responsible for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
His legal work has focused on the Clean Air Act, environmental litigation, energy infrastructure development and climate change. Traylor has "extensive environmental experience" with permitting and constructing coal, gas and renewable electric power generation, according to his profile on the Energy Bar Association's website.
That profile praised Traylor for his work defending clients against "determined challenges by regulatory agencies and environmental groups."
"Traylor's air practice is marked by resourceful ability to reconcile complex environmental, technical and economic requirements with our clients' business objectives," the page read.
A Texas native, Traylor met his wife, Ronna, when they were both undergraduates at Texas A&M University. He received a law degree from South Texas College of Law Houston and a master of laws degree in environmental law from George Washington University Law School. He served brief stints as a law clerk for the Department of Justice and the American Chemistry Council before joining Hogan Lovells in 1997, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In addition to his legal work, Traylor has played an active role in the Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where he noted being a deacon and pastor on his LinkedIn page. He has been a lecturer in church history and the Old Testament at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Traylor is also a member of the church's musical ensemble and has been a child care volunteer and a deacon of budget. He has a son, Benjamin.
"Patrick is a voracious reader, and enjoys studying history and political philosophy, playing the piano, science, biking, music, sailing, hiking, and cooking," his profile on the church website reads.
EPA and Traylor could not be reached for comment over the weekend.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055876
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For Kids, Good Hygiene Can Come with a Dose of Toxic Triclosan
Jun 12, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
“Did you brush your teeth? Did you wash your hands?”
My wife and I probably utter those questions easily 10 times a day to our two kids. For our 6-year-old, Jack, it can take 20 asks just on the dental hygiene.
It goes without saying that it is important children and all people brush their teeth and wash their hands. However, depending on what type of toothpaste or soap you’re using, you and your family could be exposing yourselves to toxic, hormone-disrupting triclosan.
The chemical was once widely used in these and other personal care products as an antimicrobial agent. Many companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble, have removed it from products in recent years. Last year, the federal Food and Drug Administration finally banned triclosan from hand soap, an action for which EWG has long been advocating. But it is still allowed as an ingredient in toothpaste and other consumer products. Colgate continues to use it unnecessarily in its toothpaste.
A study by Brown University researchers, published in May in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, provided some startling evidence about just how much of the chemical can wind up in the bodies of pregnant women, babies and young children.
Scientists tested urine samples of 389 mothers and their children – mothers were tested three times during pregnancy and children were tested periodically between the ages of 1 and 8. The results show that the levels of triclosan in children’s bodies increased as they got older, almost certainly from increased use of both toothpaste and hand soap. Children who washed their hands more than five times a day had levels of triclosan in their urine that were four times higher than those of children who reported washing their hands once a day.
Children who had their urine tested within a day of brushing their teeth had levels 2.5 times higher than those who did not.
In 2008, EWG found triclosan and 15 other toxic chemicals in the blood and urine of 20 teen girls from eight states and the District of Columbia. In a separate report from the same year, EWG assembled a list of all the products in which triclosan was approved for use.
Here are a few tips from EWG for people interested in avoiding exposure to triclosan.
Look out next week for more information from EWG about triclosan.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/06/kids-good-hygiene-can-come-dose-toxic-triclosan
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Environmental Group Says EPA Should Ban Chemical After Tenn. Workplace Death
Jun 12, 2017 | Manufacturing.net
By Andy Szal
An advocacy group this week urged federal regulators to ban select paint-stripping chemicals in hopes of preventing the type of accident that claimed the life of a Tennessee man in April.
The Ashland City Times reported last month that Kevin Hartley, age 21, was refinishing a bathtub for his family's business when he was overcome by chemical fumes.
Environmental Defense Fund project manager Lindsay McCormick wrote this month that although the cause remains under investigation, methylene chloride exposure is likely to blame.
The chemical, which is used in paint-removing products, spray paint, adhesives and insect sprays, is linked to cancer, headaches and dizziness. A 2015 study, however, also blamed acute exposure for dozens of sudden deaths since 1980.
The Environmental Protection Agency last year included the chemical among the first substances it would study under new federal chemical laws, but the agency could take up to two years to decide whether to impose new restrictions or ban it entirely.
The EDF urged the agency to finalize bans on both methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone, another common paint-removing chemical, "as soon as possible."
"Unless EPA acts promptly to finalize a ban, there will surely be more avoidable deaths and other health impacts due to use of high-risk chemical paint strippers," McCormick wrote.
https://www.manufacturing.net/news/2017/06/environmental-group-says-epa-should-ban-chemical-after-tenn-workplace-death
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Rac Opinion Makes Candidate List Unlikely for Titanium Dioxide
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An Echa science committee's opinion on the carcinogenicity of titanium dioxide has made it unlikely the substance will ever be added to the REACH candidate list.
Nevertheless, the opinion of the Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) has disappointed industry.
France proposed a mandatory category 1B carcinogenicity classification. This would have made titanium dioxide eligible for REACH substance of very high concern (SVHC) status and inclusion on the candidate list for authorisation.
But, in an opinion released online on Friday, the Rac opted for a category 2 carcinogen via inhalation classification instead. Echa will now send this to the European Commission, which will decide what, if any, regulatory measures should be taken.
Industry has been consistently critical of the proposal, saying that key data from studies of rats is not relevant to human toxicology. Classification of the hazard should focus instead on the available data from human epidemiological studies, it says. In the proposal such data is considered "inadequate" on the basis of "methodological limitations".
Meanwhile it has fought Echa requests for more substance identity data in relation to titanium dioxide nanoforms. In March the internal Board of Appeal found that the agency had exceeded its mandate anddismissed the request. This caused Echa to publish its document on how to prepare registration dossiers that cover nanoforms as an advisory best practice document rather than the usual guidance.
Robert Bird, chair of the Titanium Dioxide Manufacturers Association (TDMA), said there were no grounds for classifying the substance as carcinogenic for humans by inhalation. Furthermore classification would do nothing to increase the level of protection of human health and the environment.
Industry says that the evidence supports a "no classification" decision for all forms of titanium dioxide.
The text of the opinion has not yet been published.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56755/rac-opinion-makes-candidate-list-unlikely-for-titanium-dioxide
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European Commission Seeks Opinion on Cosmetic Ingredient p-BMHCA
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has requested a scientific Opinion on the safe use of butylphenyl methylpropional (p-BMHCA) in cosmetic products.
The Commision's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) accepted the mandate at its plenary meeting on 6 June.
It comes after the International Fragrance Association (Ifra) submitted a new safety dossier addressing concerns previously expressed by the SCCS.
In 2016 the Committee concluded that the fragrance ingredient is not safe in leave-on or rinse-off cosmetics, due in part to its skin sensitisation properties.
Ifra's revised dossier proposes lower maximum use levels of p-BMHCA. It also aims to address previous SCCS concerns over impurities in the ingredient.
Publication of the new Opinion is due in December.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56742/european-commission-seeks-opinion-on-cosmetic-ingredient-p-bmhca
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Echa, Member States Start RMOA on New Substances
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa and two EU member states are starting risk management option analysis (RMOA) on five new substances under the agency's public activities coordination tool (PACT), which also assesses hazards.
All five substances are suspected of being carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR).
Sweden is carrying out activities on the following substances, which are also suspected of specific target organ toxicity via repeat exposure (STOT RE): cadmium carbonate;cadmium hydroxide; andcadmium nitrate.
The Netherlands is conducting RMOA on tricobalt tetraoxide and Echa is assessing soluble cobalt salts.
In May, Echa provided updates on seven substances under PACT.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56763/echa-member-states-start-rmoa-on-new-substances
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European Science Committee Issues Final Cosmetics Opinions
Jun 12, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has published final Opinions on two cosmetics formulations and ingredients.
These confirm:
the committee's position that it was unable to conclude on the safety of Basic Blue 99 (C059) as a direct hair dye substance in formulations with a concentration on-head of up to a maximum of 1.0%;
anddimethylpiperazinium aminopyrazolopyridine HCl (A164) is safe when used in oxidative hair colouring products up to a maximum on-head concentration of 2%.
The final Opinions come after the SCCS sent them out for comments in March.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56760/european-science-committee-issues-final-cosmetics-opinions
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(ACC Mentioned) Ineos to Spend €2bn on Expanding Petrochemicals Capacity
Jun 12, 2017 | Financial Times
By Andrew Ward
Ineos is to invest €2bn expanding its European petrochemicals capacity in a sign of the benefits of cheap US shale gas spreading across the Atlantic.
The privately owned UK group said it planned to build a new plant, probably in Belgium, to produce propylene — a raw material used in many plastics and other chemical products — using US gas as a feedstock.
Ineos also intends to expand existing ethylene plants at Grangemouth in Scotland and Rafnes in Norway, which are already using imported US gas.
The plans follow a wave of similar investments by US manufacturers, taking advantage of cheap natural gas as a feedstock for chemicals.
Jim Ratcliffe, the multi-billionaire founder and chairman of Ineos, is aiming to extend the trend to Europe by establishing a “virtual pipeline” for US gas exports across the Atlantic.
Ineos is building a fleet of tankers to transport US ethane and propane — byproducts of natural gas — to its European plants. The first shipment arrived at Grangemouth last September.
“These projects represent the first substantial investments in the European chemicals industry for many years,” Mr Ratcliffe said on Monday. “It has only been made possible because of . . . our Dragon Ships programme which allows us to import ethane and LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] from the US in huge quantities.”
The investments will make Ineos more self-sufficient in ethylene and propylene, which it currently imports in large volumes from outside Europe for use in manufacturing other chemical products.
“Europe is an importer of propylene, mostly from the Middle East, so if you can make it cheaply in Europe there should be a competitive advantage,” said Patrick Lambert, chemicals analyst at Raymond James. “Ineos is making a bet that gas prices will remain weak because there’s so much of it available.”
Ineos said it was considering sites across Europe, including Antwerp in Belgium, where the group already has operations, for its planned Propane Dehydrogenation, or PDH, plant. The facility would produce 750,000 tonnes per annum of propylene.
The investments highlight the widening impact of the US shale revolution, which has already revived the competitiveness of US chemicals manufacturing against Middle Eastern and Asian rivals.
Since 2010, $85bn worth of petrochemicals projects have been completed or started construction in the US, with about a further $100bn proposed, according to the American Chemistry Council.
Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Total are among the companies which have built new US plants or are planning to do so.
As well as its impact on the chemicals sector, the ripples from surging US shale gas production are also spreading across global energy markets. The first shipments of US liquefied natural gas to northern Europe arrived last week in the Netherlands and Poland, helping reduce the region’s dependence on Russia, the Middle East and declining North Sea resources.
https://www.ft.com/content/66c9b43a-4f62-11e7-a1f2-db19572361bb
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Court Can’t Review Trump’s Keystone Approval, Lawyers Argue
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Trump administration attorneys are arguing that the federal court system cannot weigh in on its March approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Justice Department attorneys said in a legal filing late Friday that the State Department’s right to approve cross-border pipelines stems directly from President Trump’s authority under the Constitution, and the Montana federal court hearing the case must dismiss it.
The attorneys argue that the approval is therefore not subject to the Administrative Procedures Act or the National Environmental Policy Act, the laws that environmentalists are using to try to get the courts to block the pipeline.
“As multiple courts have found, because the issuance of a presidential permit for an international crossing is an exercise of the president’s delegated authority over foreign affairs and national security, the exercise of that authority constitutes presidential action that is not reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act,” the lawyers told the federal District Court for the District of Montana in a brief.
“As such, plaintiffs’ claims that the U.S. Department of State violated the National Environmental Policy Act — which claim relies on the APA as the sole basis for invoking this court’s jurisdiction — must be dismissed.”
Anticipating that argument, green groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club said in their March lawsuit that in approving TransCanada Corp.’s permit to build Keystone XL, State used an outdated 2014 environmental review of the project, which was illegal.
But the Trump attorneys said that State “acted solely pursuant to the inherent constitutional authority delegated by the president,” making the environmental review moot.
State approved Keystone in March, fulfilling a key campaign promise by Trump and reversing former President Obama’s rejection of the project from November 2015.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/337400-court-cant-review-trumps-keystone-approval-lawyers-say
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Former Officials Slam Trump Admin's 'Cynical' Legal Position
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A bipartisan group of former Interior Department officials is urging a federal court to continue weighing a legal dispute over the federal government's hydraulic fracturing authority.
In a brief to be filed today, officials from the Obama, Clinton and both Bush administrations argue that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should hear oral arguments over Interior's fracking rule and reverse a lower court's conclusion that the government has no authority to regulate the oil and gas extraction process, which is used on 90 percent of wells on public lands.
"If there's no authority to regulate them, it's open season for oil and gas companies to do whatever they want," said David Hayes, deputy secretary under Presidents Obama and Clinton, who signed on to today's friend-of-the-court brief.
The filing is part of the latest round of legal wrangling over the Obama-era fracking rule, which was struck down by a district court in Wyoming last year. The government appealed the ruling and was set to argue its case at the 10th Circuit earlier this year when the Trump administration announced plans to rethink the rule.
"The district court's erroneous ruling is also almost surely having a negative effect right now on BLM's rulemaking processes and day-to-day supervision of public lands, and will continue to do so as long as it is allowed to stand," the former officials said in today's brief.
In addition to Hayes, the group includes Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary for Interior under George W. Bush; James Caswell, Bureau of Land Management director under Bush; and Michael Dombeck, BLM acting director under Clinton and special assistant and science adviser under George H.W. Bush.
The Trump administration submitted its own brief last month, defending its authority over fracking but recommending that the appeal be paused while Interior considers revising or scrapping the regulation (Energywire, May 8).
Hayes called the agency's position "cynical and irresponsible."
"To me, that shows an irresponsible approach here that would leave the question open about whether there's any regulatory authority over fracking and invite the new administration to simply rescind the fracking regulations and leave that fundamental question open — even though the administration forthrightly states that there is such regulatory authority," he said.
The main players in the case — industry groups, states, environmental groups and the Ute Indian Tribe — made their own arguments in briefs last Monday. States, industry and the Utes want the 10th Circuit to pause the case, while environmentalists want it to move forward (Energywire, June 6).
Today's friend-of-the-court brief from the former officials argues that the 10th Circuit appeal focuses only on the fundamental question of authority, not the mechanics of the fracking rule, so the question remains ripe for review even as the Trump administration reconsiders the rule.
"And the district court's erroneous conclusion does not only implicate the rule under review, but all federal agency actions that purport to regulate hydraulic fracturing," the brief says.
The officials filed an initial amicus brief at the 10th Circuit last summer before the case was sidetracked by the Trump administration. Other groups and individuals who weighed in on the case last year are also expected to file supplemental briefs today.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055868
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How One Group is Charting Health Risks Near Oil Fields
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Lucas Jasso, 66, has seen a lot of changes in Karnes County, Texas, since oil and gas companies first began flocking to his part of the state several years ago.
"I call it Flare City USA — every time I go into the countryside, I see flares," Jasso said. "It used to be paradise."
Once mainly fields and ranchland, Karnes County is now a top crude oil producer in Texas, due to its location on top of the Eagle Ford Shale play. But long-term residents like Jasso say they are concerned about whether the oil boom, which helped to fix up their highways and put money into their children's schools, was also responsible for their migraines, dizziness and shortness of breath.
"A lot of them noticed there had been a lot of changes in the community. A lot of people, when they talk about their health issues, were saying, 'We weren't feeling this before all this,'" said Priscilla Villa, a community organizer with the environmental group Earthworks.
Her outreach is part of the Washington-based nonprofit's newly expanding national effort to help people around the country living near oil and gas development hold polluters and governments accountable.
Those efforts could take on added significance under the Trump administration, which has moved to halt implementation of methane regulations, a potent greenhouse gas that has 25 times the heat-trapping capability of carbon dioxide. Not only would these regulations have helped address climate change, they would also have helped stop emissions of other pollutants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are linked to respiratory and cardiovascular problems.
Examples of some known hazardous air pollutants include benzene, a carcinogen, which comes from burning oil. Chronic exposure to toluene, used to produce benzene, can lead to upper respiratory tract irritation, dizziness, sore throat and headaches. VOCs also have indirect health impacts when it forms chemical reactions with nitrogen oxides in sunlight and creates ground-level ozone, the main component of smog. Exposure to smog can lead to asthma, wheezing and cardiovascular effects, according to U.S. EPA data.Collecting evidence state by state
About 12.4 million people in the United States live within the "threat radius" — about half a mile away from active oil and gas wells, compressors, and processors, according to the Oil and Gas Threat Map compiled jointly by Earthworks, the Clean Air Task Force and FracTracker Alliance. The estimate is based on data from industry, EPA, recorded methane leaks and resident interviews.
The groups say the figure is a conservative estimate of the area where people are exposed to toxic air pollution. The actual figure, they argue, is likely much greater. The threat map also identifies 238 counties in 21 states where the cancer risk exceeds EPA's threshold of 1 in 1 million.
Earthworks is aiming to go into as many of these affected areas as it can around the country. The organization has been tracking both anecdotal and empirical evidence about pollution levels from the oil and gas sector around the country as part of its Community Empowerment Project and has worked with communities to help file complaints both against the companies themselves and state environmental regulators.
The goal is to improve state oversight and "systematically reducing oil and gas pollution from all operations in those states," said Alan Septoff, strategic communications director at Earthworks.
While other groups are also working at the community level, none is working at quite the same scale, environmental groups say.
As the South Texas fracking organizer, Villa is educating community members about the health risks associated with emissions from the oil and gas industry. The forums also encourage residents to talk to each other about their concerns, she said.
"Generally, communities contact us and tell us there is a problem and they invite us to go in and help them," said Sharon Wilson, a certified optical gas imaging thermographer with Earthworks' Oil and Gas Accountability Project. She periodically tracks emissions levels in Karnes County.
"A community member will contact us because they are experiencing odors and health impacts, and the industry says, 'Oh, it's not us,'" she said.Nausea, headaches, asthma
After receiving a complaint, Wilson will either tour with someone from the area or use residents' photographs to guide her through a thorough survey of as many oil and gas facilities as possible. She uses a specialized infrared camera to record evidence of methane leaks and VOCs coming from the facilities, and then sends the videos to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as part of a formal complaint. The footage helps identify where methane and VOCs are escaping into that atmosphere.
"We can't say which VOCs or how much. We can say there is a dense plume, and we can see emissions are crossing the fence line and going into the neighborhoods," Wilson said. "Some of these events that I have captured are stunning."
Jasso, who once thought of Karnes County as paradise, is cautious about laying blame for his health problems on the oil flare at the edge of his property or the oil wells on private land around his home. The retired postal work had a bout with cancer last year and experiences with severe nausea.
"I'm going to be 67 years old, I have one foot in the grave or one foot out," he said.
Other residents have similar questions about their health. A Karnes County resident who declined to give his name for fear of backlash said his wife experienced debilitating headaches that made her forehead and sinuses throb after their neighbor leased part of his land to the oil industry about four years ago. He has had his own troubles with headaches and trying to keep his asthma in check. Meanwhile, his three grandsons, who also live nearby, always seem to be coming down with something.
"The federal government is not going to protect us from anything. They are interested in money, and these oil companies are pumping tons and tons of money," the 67-year-old man said.
"They don't care about the regular Joe Blow, the regular guy. They don't care in the environment, they don't believe in global warming or any of this stuff. Our politicians are turning a blind eye."Oil industry emphasizes communication
Oil and gas companies say they are working to reduce their emissions to prevent harm to the environment and want to increase transparency and dialogue between companies and local communities.
While they did not speak directly to the situation in Karnes County, in a recently published report, the American Petroleum Institute included eight paragraphs in a 64-page report about the need to work with communities affected by oil and gas development.
"The industry understands that operating daily in a manner that protects the safety, environment and health of the community, employees and contractors is critical to building trust, as is open, two-way communication through a number of channels," the report read.
Chris Ashcraft, vice president of the South Texas Energy and Economic Roundtable (STEER), said preserving the environment in the Eagle Ford Shale region is a "top priority." The organization is meant to ensure that energy development in the region is "mutually beneficial to industry and communities throughout South Texas."
Ashcraft noted in an email that the oil and gas industry had partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund in their methane leak detection program and is currently testing "cutting edge" technology for detecting and reducing methane leaks and other pollutants. The industry had also worked with the Alamo Area Council of Governments, providing emissions data to enable the creation of a regional emissions inventory.
Because air pollution is a regional problem, he said, everyone needs to work together to address it.
"In addition to our partnerships with outside organizations, STEER members are continually implementing voluntary steps to reduce emissions," Ashcraft said. "Companies have implemented leak detection and repair (LDR) programs and are sharing the data to learn how and when equipment fails in order to prevent leaks."
Earthworks recently received a three-year, $3 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to expand its work in the six states that emit about half of the methane emissions from oil and gas.
The group is still fine-tuning a strategy for using the funding across the country, but it plans to base its work in part on efforts it has already made to help residents in places like Karnes County.
It's an approach that Paul Billings, senior vice president of advocacy at the American Lung Association, said has been an important one to combating pollution from the oil and gas industry in particular.
"I think that's really true that community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, that is how you drive change — change the community, change the state, I think it's very important for that change to be going together with strong advocacy at the state, local and federal level," he said.
"You need continued research of the problems and innovation to craft solutions, but it does start at the basic community level," Billings added.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055865
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(ACC Blog) Chemical Industry Achieves Record-Setting Process Safety Gains
Jun 12, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
This week, June 12-18, marks the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (OSHA) inaugural Safe & Sound Week, a nationwide effort to help workers and managers understand the valuable role that occupational safety and health programs can play in helping to prevent workplace accidents.
As a Safe & Sound Week Partner, ACC joins OSHA and hundreds of other event partners to showcase the benefits of successful safety and health programs that identify and manage workplace hazards before they can cause injury or illness, improving sustainability and the company’s bottom line.
For nearly 30 years, Responsible Care® has embodied the U.S. chemical industry’s commitment to environmental, health, safety and security performance excellence. Under Responsible Care, ACC member companies report out their progress on a variety of process safety-related performance measures each year, and ACC makes this information available to the public.
Responsible Care companies have a long record of worker safety gains that far outstrips the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole – five times better, on average – and almost three times better than the U.S. business of chemistry overall.
But while ACC Responsible Care companies are proud of their safety performance, they also recognize that the job is never done and that they need to constantly stay focused on identifying and addressing potential workplace hazards.
Emphasizing safety at all levels, including engagement from the board room can significantly move the needle. After reviewing industry progress over the past five years and identifying a plateau in process safety performance, the ACC Board of Directors implemented a series of approaches throughout 2016 to further promote performance improvement across member facilities. This included conducting forums and enhancing regional networks to share safety information and promote new metrics that enable a deeper understanding of process and occupational safety incidences.
These new initiatives, combined with a heightened engagement, focus and commitment to process safety, has resulted in significant improvements:For the 2016 calendar year, the ACC overall total recordable injury rate fell to 0.7, or less than 1 injury/illness per 100 full-time employees, an all-time low for Responsible Care companies.In the same time frame, the ACC Lost Work Day Case Rate (LWDCR) also reached an all-time low of 0.17, or less than one-quarter day of lost work per 100 full-time employees.In the area of process safety, member companies reported 212 process safety incidents in 2016, which is the lowest level in more than 10 years and represents approximately 50 fewer incidents than in 2015. An analysis of this data shows that only 7 process safety incidents were Category 1 (most severe), while 115 fell into either Category 4 (least severe) or the “negligible” category.
A complete summary of ACC member company occupational and process safety performance is accessible on the Responsible Care section of the ACC website.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/06/chemical-industry-achieves-record-setting-process-safety-gains/
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EPA Delays Chemical Safety Rule Until 2019
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will delay implementation of an Obama-era chemical safety rule for nearly two years while it reassesses the necessity of the regulation.
The EPA announced on Monday that Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a directive last Friday delaying the chemical plant safety standards until at least Feb. 20, 2019.
The move comes after the EPA delayed the regulation in March amid discussions over the rule’s impact on businesses.
“We are seeking additional time to review the program, so that we can fully evaluate the public comments raised by multiple petitioners and consider other issues that may benefit from additional public input," Pruitt said in a statement.
Obama regulators in December finalized a rule beefing up safety standards at chemical production plants, calling for new emergency requirements for manufacturers regulated by the EPA.
Officials moved to overhaul chemical safety standards after a 2013 explosion at a chemical plant in Texas killed 15 people. Their rule would require companies to better prepare for accidents and expand the EPA's investigative and auditing powers.
But chemical companies wrote in a letter to Pruitt shortly after his February confirmation that the rule would raise “significant security concerns and compliance issues that will cause irreparable harm."
The EPA sought public comment in March on a proposal to delay the rule while considering those objections. The agency said it received 54,117 comments before Pruitt formally moved to delay the rule.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/337410-epa-delays-chemical-safety-rule-until-2019
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FERC Assesses 'Hands-On' Cyber Blackout Recovery
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak & Peter Behr
If power grid computers are disabled in a cyberattack or natural disaster, operators need plans to bring their systems up manually, dispatching crews to substations and falling back on paper checklists, maps, push pins and even pagers to bring the lights back on, according to a government report released Friday.
Such an old-fashioned approach to restoring the bulk power system would take time and plenty of extra personnel, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded in its joint analysis with the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
It would be possible, according to eight power system entities surveyed on condition of anonymity. But power restoration strategies should be planned and practiced under extreme emergency scenarios that could take down communications channels or block roads, FERC-NERC reviewers have recommended in a previous report.
FERC and NERC studied how these operators would handle grid emergencies without the benefit of control system technologies, including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and energy management systems (EMS).
The report offers one of the most comprehensive public assessments of the challenges to U.S. grid operators in reverting to manual mode following a one-two punch of a power outage and a massive computer failure.
The authors noted that a coordinated cyberattack on Ukraine's power grid in 2015, in addition to other events, has "demonstrated the need to have alternate methods to monitor and control the electric grid when SCADA/EMS and other control and data systems are unavailable."
In the 2015 Ukraine incident, hackers hijacked the SCADA systems of three distribution utilities and temporarily cut off electricity to more than 225,000 people. The attackers simultaneously flooded the victims' phone networks with bogus calls in an attempt to hamper recovery efforts. Operators were able to restore power in a few hours by rolling out to substations and flipping switches by hand.
Restoring service across the huge U.S. electric power footprint would be a much greater challenge, the report indicates.
After a widespread outage, operators begin by bringing up smaller "blackstart" generators that energize regular units. Power is restored piecemeal to separate "islands" of customers, and these clusters must be linked together like jigsaw pieces, always keeping supply and demand for power precisely in step, John Moura, NERC director of reliability assessment and system analysis, said in an interview.
"Every [grid] planning coordinator is required to have a blackstart plan," he said. They choose plans "that have the best chance of succeeding. You only get one shot at that. It's a very important process."
Because reconnecting islands must be directed by regional coordinators, the communication of precise voltages and other grid data must be relayed to coordinators by field crews, greatly increasing the staffing requirement in these situations, the review said. Backup power, battery rechargers and provisions for field crews would also be required, given the possibility of prolonged emergency operations, it added.
"If a cyber event caused the unavailability of SCADA or EMS and if it is unclear whether the underlying problem has been addressed, participants indicated that it may be more reliable to operate in an islanded configuration until associated risks are alleviated to avoid a repeat, wide-area blackout," the report said.
Every study participant had backup sources of communication, such as satellite phones, in the event cell service was cut off or overwhelmed, FERC and NERC found. One respondent had even developed its own "private text paging system" for such a disaster. Many also reported keeping printed copies of step-by-step recovery plans in key facilities.
The review does not address whether the selected operators' plans are typical for the U.S. power industry. No follow-up regulation was proposed.
"All participants indicated that they would be capable of executing their restoration plan independent of SCADA or EMS availability," the study concluded, although the process "would overall be more time consuming and more involved" without the crutch of modern control systems.
Manual restoration could be compounded in coordinating power restoration across multistate regions when computer-run systems were not available and cellphone networks and satellite phones were offline or not working normally, grid experts say.
Friday's report anticipated that "dependency on interpersonal communications would significantly increase in performing system restoration in the absence of SCADA, and that any unavailability of interpersonal communications would further hamper system restoration."
All participants agreed that they had to be ready to roll with the punches, staying "flexible to adjust to the situation at-hand," the study added.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055867
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Sustainable FERC's Moore Talks Grid Vulnerabilities and Shift Away from Baseload Generation
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E TV
Are more renewables and less baseload generation making the grid less stable and more vulnerable to attacks? During today's OnPoint, John Moore, director of the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explains why he believes electric power generation will continue to move away from baseload power. He also discusses the future of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission once quorum is restored.
Monica Trauzzi: Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is John Moore, director of the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. John, thank you for joining me.
John Moore: Thank you Monica. It's good to be here.
Monica Trauzzi: So John, many moving parts on energy and environment policy right now with, in many cases, uncertainty surrounding next steps on regulation.
Recently EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt commented that, "The grid is more vulnerable to attacks when coal generation is at or below 30 percent." When coal is replaced by renewables, does the grid become less stable and more vulnerable to attacks?
John Moore: Well Monica, I have to say when I first heard about Administrator Pruitt's comments, my first thought was that the most protective resources are the wind and the sun, which terrorists can't attack as far as I know so far.
The reality is that beyond that, we know the grid can function on very high levels of renewable energy. It's not just the federal studies that say so. It's on the ground experience in large parts of the country where coal is largely irrelevant now. That's a quote from the head of the New England grid operator. So whether or not it's the grid operator's experience or the studies that say we can get up to 80 percent of renewable energy in our country, I think that's the real reality.
Monica Trauzzi: But there are concerns and questions relating to replacing too much baseload generation with wind and solar. Do you think potentially the administrator misspoke and he was pointing to that or do you specifically think he meant a terror attack or some kind of cyberattack?
John Moore: I think he was referring to fuel security and the perception that a pile of coal is more secure than natural gas or something else. I understand the term baseload is a comforting term, but the reality is our nation is moving away from that term, and we can talk maybe more about that in a little bit.
Monica Trauzzi: FERC's recent infrastructure update showed to this point an increase in wind, solar and natural gas capacity in the first quarter of 2017. No new coal-fired capacity. This is at a time when we really hear the Trump administration ramping up and doubling down its talk about the coal industry and coal jobs, very coal-positive rhetoric.
Do you believe that we will see concrete policies coming out of this administration that boost investments in coal?
John Moore: I think that we are encouraging the administration to focus on things like renewable energy and transmission infrastructure in particular. We know the president supports new infrastructure, and in our view, transmission infrastructure is a much smarter way to go for the administration. The interest is definitely there.
I think that what the administration can actually do related to FERC-focused policies is much less than might meet the eye.
Monica Trauzzi: So, is that a no? We won't see policies specific to coal?
John Moore: I think we'll see what happens with FERC and with the administration.
Monica Trauzzi: What do you think the net impact is of the Trump administration's broad support of the coal industry?
John Moore: I think that the markets are speaking. We know that coal is on the decline all around the country. It's nearly nonexistent in New England, in California, and it's declining in other areas. The reason is it's just uneconomic and that's a fact pure and simple.
The markets are speaking and so I think that's the reality. Not policies to pull back and revive a resource that's clearly on the wane.
Monica Trauzzi: So FERC has been in a bit of a state of limbo lately with just two commissioners. Senate Energy recently approved the president's two nominees, new nominees for FERC, and we're hearing from Chairwoman Murkowski that she hopes that a vote will come to the floor before the Fourth of July.
Once quorum is restored on the commission, what are the top-tier issues that you believe need to be tackled by the commissioners?
John Moore: Sure. In our view, FERC's got a few really big items on its plate. No. 1 is addressing the markets and public policy issues that was the subject of a major technical conference in early May that's also in play in the major eastern organized markets.
It's also got Order 1000 reform on its list. It talked about that a year or two ago, and we're looking for some improvements to the way the regions implement Order 1000.
Distributed energy resources, rooftop solar and whatnot along with energy storage also is big. FERC's got a pending rulemaking out on that.
We hope that FERC moves forward as quickly as possible to finalize that rule. I think that rule is especially important. It's part of the reflection of the changing grid we operate in with more small-scale resources, a diversity of resources and even the customers like you and me now actually becoming market participants through selling resources into the grid.
Monica Trauzzi: There's also a backlog of infrastructure —
John Moore: Absolutely —
Monica Trauzzi: — projects that need approval. So could be some time before we actually see the balls rolling on all these different topics —
John Moore: We know absolutely that they've got a lot of pipeline approvals in front of it. We will really be asking FERC as it moves forward with those approvals for the pipelines to do a better job of the way it reviews and approves pipelines. Looking longer-term need, considering regional need for pipelines and updating its now 20-year-old or so policy guidance on how it looks at certifications for new pipelines.
Monica Trauzzi: Energy Secretary Perry has ordered a grid study that is to look at subsidies and baseload generation. There have already been criticisms of the study following the leak of a memo where Perry called for a review of regulatory burden, mandates and tax and subsidy policies and the impact that that all has on the closure of baseload plants. Will the career staff at DOE be able to do an impartial and fair job on this study?
John Moore: That's a really good question. I hope so. I'm a bit skeptical about the study given that the study assumes that we need baseload power as it's been defined in the past to operate a reliable grid. I think that if the study is intellectually honest, they might not actually like the result that they find.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. It'll be interesting to watch that one.
John Moore: It will be.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We'll end it right there. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
John Moore: Thank you, Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
https://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2231/transcript
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Pipeline Congestion Causes Spike Crude-by-Rail Shipments
Jun 12, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Ryan Maye Handy
Crude coming from the Canadian oil sands faces pipeline congestion on its way to the Gulf Coast, forcing production companies to opt for more expensive rail transport instead.
The lack of pipeline options partially stems from the controversy, and delay, over the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, which was added to a backlog of other pipeline projects crossing the border. Since 2013, crude-by-rail shipments to the U.S. have fluctuated, but starting rising again in 2016 until they reached a record 183 million barrels a day in March.
But companies could be stretched more in the coming months to pay for more expensive rail shipments of crude while oil prices remain stubbornly below $50 a barrel, according to Morningstar, a Chicag0-based research firm.
"Given that no new crossborder pipeline capacity is expected on line before 2019, we expect Canadian crude-by-rail traffic into the United States to continue growing as production increases," Morningstar analysts wrote in a report released Monday.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Pipeline-congestion-causes-spike-crude-by-rail-11213350.php
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Details Emerge About Trump's Planned Rollback
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
The Trump administration will use a central argument from legal challengers of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan to rescind the Obama-era climate standards.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt will argue that the agency went too far in setting carbon reduction goals by looking at what the broader power system could achieve instead of focusing solely on improvements at coal plants, an administration official told E&E News.
Obama's EPA contended that it made sense to accelerate a market trend away from coal and toward lower-carbon natural gas and renewable power. Critics said the agency exceeded its authority by trying to regulate the entire sector.
States and industry groups brought that challenge, along with a slate of others, in September to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Pruitt was among them as Oklahoma's attorney general.
The decision to focus on the legal argument is expected. But it also signals that EPA might not, as of now, try to fight the science behind the rule.
Environmental advocates say they will contest the reversal of the Clean Power Plan once Trump's EPA makes it final. The agency recently sent a draft to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review (Greenwire, June 9).
"We'll wait and see what actually emerges," said Sean Donahue, a lawyer representing a coalition of environmental groups in the litigation. "I'm sure that the many organizations and states that supported the Clean Power Plan and that support climate action would challenge any rescission on whatever ground."
Donahue said he would not be surprised if EPA relied on a legal rationale, "because it takes a lot less work than a factual one." An industry lawyer said that even if the agency thinks the regulation is illegal for several reasons, officials only need to use the strongest one to revoke the Clean Power Plan.
The rulemaking to rescind the Clean Power Plan is far shorter than the regulation itself, which was hundreds of pages. It comes with a regulatory impact analysis that will consider the societal benefits of reducing carbon in the United States, but not the rest of the world, according to the source.
That assessment will also count the benefits of energy efficiency differently.
Those changes would greatly increase the projected cost of the regulation and could be meant to strengthen political arguments that it would do economic harm.Court fights are certain
The Clean Power Plan was core to America's international pledges to curb climate change under the Paris Agreement, which Trump has said he will exit. Court battles about the regulation could drag out for years, potentially determining how future administrations act on climate.
After OMB finishes with the rulemaking, EPA will publish the draft and take comments. Then the agency will issue a final version, which is when environmental groups and green states are preparing to sue.
They also will challenge the federal government if EPA rescinds the Clean Power Plan and then never replaces it with alternative standards.
They say EPA's prior finding that carbon is a danger to public health requires it to regulate sources of emissions.
Climate advocates could bring an "unreasonable delay" case, although there is not a specific deadline for EPA to take action on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Trump administration could also decide to fight the endangerment finding, which would be a huge undertaking.
The Clean Power Plan is currently on hold, following a stay from the Supreme Court. The D.C. Circuit has agreed to halt its consideration of legal challenges until at least the end of June while the Trump administration decides how to handle the regulation. The court could issue a decision or give EPA more time to finalize its proposal.
EPA spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055877
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Trump Administration Abstains from G7 Climate Change Pledge
Jun 12, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Trump administration has refused to sign an international declaration committing to action on climate change.
The U.S. abstained from sections of a Group of Seven (G7) communiqué that dealt with climate change action, the Paris climate agreement and international development funds focused on mitigating the impacts of climate change, according to a joint statement following a meeting of G7 environment ministers.
“The United States will continue to engage with key international partners in a manner that is consistent with our domestic priorities, preserving both a strong economy and a healthy environment,” the G7 communiqué said.
“We the United States do not join those sections of the communiqué on climate and [Multilateral Development Banks], reflecting our recent announcement to withdraw and immediately cease implementation of the Paris Agreement and associated financial commitments.”
The decision to not join the G7 commitment to climate change comes nearly two weeks after President Trump said he would pull the United States out of the Paris climate deal.
That decision — necessary, Trump argued, because the deal would put the U.S. at an economic disadvantage — was met with scorn internationally, including from some of the United States’ key allies.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was among the loudest critics of the Paris deal in the Trump administration. He was the U.S. representative to this weekend’s G7 meeting, but he left the summit early due to scheduling issues.
“We are resetting the dialogue to say Paris is not the only way forward to making progress,” Pruitt said in a statement.
“Today's action of reaching consensus makes clear that the Paris Agreement is not the only mechanism by which environmental stewardship can be demonstrated. It also demonstrates our commitment to honest conversations, which are the cornerstone of constructive international dialogue.”
The Trump administration had previously refused to sign on to a G7 energy declaration because of its focus on climate change.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/337389-us-does-not-sign-international-climate-change-pledge
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The Energy 202: Pruitt Punts on Climate Talks
Jun 12, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
When President Trump announced the United States would begin the process of removing itself from the Paris climate accord, he promised to renegotiate to reenter the landmark climate agreement or begin an "entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States."
"We will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair," Trump told an audience in the Rose Garden. "And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine."
But over the weekend, the Trump administration largely punted on its first opportunity to push for a better deal for the United States, providing fodder for critics who say the offer from a president who once calledclimate change a "hoax" was never sincere in the first place.
On Sunday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt left a meeting early in Italy with fellow G-7 environmental ministers to attend a full Trump Cabinet meeting on Monday.
"I believe engaging in international discussion is of the utmost importance to the United States when it comes to environmental issues," Pruitt said in a statement to explain his departure. 9191 Retweets 298298 likesTwitter Ads info and privacy
According to the Associated Press, Pruitt attended only the first few hours of the two-day summit. Pruitt's acting assistant administrator, Jane Nishida, stayed in his place.
In the week leading up to the Italy trip, Pruitt seemed to do little to abate some allies' ire over the the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Germany's environmental minister, in a striking rebuke to a formal ally, posted ahead of the meeting a web page of "fact-checks" into Trump's recent statements about the Paris deal. Here's some of what it said:
Trump: "As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States – which is what it does – [...]"
Fact checks: False. The agreement is not a punishment for anyone or any individual country.
Behind the scenes, German Chancellor Angela Merkel "is seeking to bolster support among G-20 members for tackling climate change ahead of a summit in Hamburg next month, while trying to avoid giving the impression she is rallying an anti-U.S. alliance," according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, France's newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron, invited U.S. climate researchers to move to France -- which apparently is a sincere offer:
"Don’t be fooled by the cheeky slogan “Make Our Planet Great Again” and the snazzy graphic design — this is an actual policy and platform to recruit climate researchers. France, it boasts, has “top-level research infrastructure and laboratories as well as an effervescent startup ecosystem.”
American researchers fed up with the Trump administration’s rejection of the urgency of climate change can fill in a form detailing their vocation, nationality, and research interests. Then they get a customized pitch for why they ought to move to France," writes Rebecca Tan for Vox.
Pruitt's statement aside, the relative disengagement of the United States from climate talks over the weekend belie an overlooked fact in the Paris fallout: The United States is still a member of the agreement. And it will be until November 2020, at the earliest.
That means Pruitt and other Trump officials will be invited to rounds of Paris climate talks, like the one scheduled in Germany in November, for years to come.
And even after that, should the United States go through with pulling out, the nation will still be a party to the overarching 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty under which the Paris agreement was built.
So the Trump administration will have several more opportunities to strike the deal they say they want on a climate agreement. Excuses for leaving future meetings early will be harder and harder to come by.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/06/12/the-energy-202-pruitt-punts-on-climate-talks/593dcdf1e9b69b2fb981dcd5/?utm_term=.46224e599225
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Gov. Brown Seeks Global Stage on Climate
Jun 12, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
Brown returned Thursday from a trip to China, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and signed multiple agreements with national and provincial governments to cooperate on clean energy and greenhouse gas trading programs. He announced Friday at a meeting with German officials that he would attend the upcoming U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, in November.
"This is not an easy thing, to turn around a modern economy and move it in a direction of decarbonization," Brown said. "It's urgent, it's fundamentally important but extremely difficult, and it requires heroic effort. That's the reason I went all the way to China to advance our climate action agenda, and that is the reason why the environment minister of Germany comes all the way to California."
"That is an indication that there are leaders in the world that care and are determined to move the world down a path of sustainability, a path we're not really on yet; we haven't made the turn," he added.
He met Friday with German Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety Barbara Hendricks, who had been in New York at a U.N. conference on ocean acidification. The two signed a joint statement affirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement and the Under2 Coalition, a group aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to under 2 tons per capita, started by Brown and the German state of Baden-Wùrttemberg in 2015. The coalition now has 175 jurisdictions as members.
"This broad alliance shows that the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was a decision of the administration [of] Trump and not of the whole American society," Hendricks said through a translator. "We will also continue to reach out to the U.S. administration to come back to the table of climate action."
If Trump continues to oppose international climate cooperation, Hendricks added, it would have only a temporary effect. "According to the U.S. Constitution, a president can only serve for two terms, so eight years, and I think climate is going to survive this," she said.
Brown sounded a similarly optimistic note.
"I still think that this path will not be continued," he said. "You can't go against every country in the whole world except, what is it, Nicaragua and Syria? I don't think that's possible. And if you notice, Trump does not always stay the course. He does change his mind. I believe that the federal government will at some point turn to a more environmental and climate-friendly policy."
"Far from slowing down on climate change, President Trump, by some Hegelian dialectic, has emphasized a strong forward movement in dealing with climate change," Brown said. "And if you can get 'Hegelian dialectic' on television, I will give you a Pulitzer."
When asked about California's own contribution to fossil fuel production and hydraulic fracturing, Brown made a demand-side argument.
"I would venture to say that most of the people here came with the aid of oil to get here, one way or the other," he said. "Your microphones and cameras are part of oil. So California does its part. We provide 30 percent of our oil consumption from our own drilling, and a very small part of that 30 percent involves the fracturing process."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/12/stories/1060055874
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Lawmakers Float Bill to Curb Potent GHGs
Jun 12, 2017 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is floating legislation that would create an interagency task force that includes EPA and other agencies to improve efforts to curb emissions of short-lived but potent greenhouse gases, with the lawmakers touting the move as part of a growing bipartisan push to address climate change even as the Trump administration scraps federal climate measures.
The bill, H.R. 2858, introduced June 8, would create a “Task Force on Super Pollutants” that would coordinate and improve efforts at the federal and state levels to cut emissions of such GHGs, which include methane, black carbon and refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
The task force would include representatives from a range of federal agencies, including EPA and the Energy Department; White House offices; state and local government; academic or nonprofits; and industry groups.
The legislation would require the group to create a report within 18 months that identifies existing efforts to curb the potent GHGs; recommends activities to consolidate or new programs to fill “gaps” in efforts; highlights innovation or job creation benefits of programs; and compiles best practices.
The bill notes a range of existing federal programs to curb HFCs -- including several EPA rules -- and the recently finalized Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty established to limit substances that deplete the ozone layer.
The Trump administration has been largely mum regarding the HFC regulations and the Kigali Amendment, and it is unclear whether the White House plans to move forward with implementing the global deal, which has strong industry support. The Kigali deal would likely have to be ratified by the Senate, and the White House would have to submit the deal to the chamber for approval.
The recently introduced bill says that though agencies have several programs to “reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, . . . these programs are scattered across multiple agencies and there is insufficient coordination to maximize reductions of these pollutants.”
The bill is similar to prior efforts in the Senate that have also attracted support from lawmakers in both parties.
Lead co-sponsors of the measure are Reps. Scott Peters (D-CA) and Carlos Curbelo (R-FL). Additional co-sponsors include Reps. Mike Coffman (R-CO), Matt Cartwright (D-PA), John Delaney (D-MD), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA).
In a statement, Peters says the move comes just one week after President Donald Trump announced his plan to leave the Paris Agreement on climate change, a move roundly denounced by most Democrats, environmentalists, businesses and a few Republican lawmakers.
This bill “demonstrates the growing bipartisan will in Congress to act on climate,” he said.
However, the bill might face an uphill battle in the GOP-controlled Congress as many Republicans have supported Trump's move on Paris and his broader efforts to roll back federal climate policies.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/lawmakers-float-bill-curb-potent-ghgs
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