Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 6/14/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) House Aide Joins Chemicals Group
Jun 14, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Lindsay Ryan, a legislative assistant for Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), has joined the National Association of Chemical Distributors as the group's new director of legislative affairs. -
CEQ Gets New Deputy General Counsel
Jun 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
The White House has tapped Viktoria Z. Seale, a former Heritage Foundation official and House staffer, as the new deputy general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), an official confirms. -
PQ Takes Another Shot at Going Public
Jun 13, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
PQ Corp., a 180-year-old maker of silicates, sulfuric acid, and zeolite catalysts, has filed for an initial public offering of stock worth $100 million. -
9th Circuit Judges Doubt EPA Claim of No Duty to Revise Lead Dust Rules
Jun 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Two of three appellate court judges at June 12 oral argument doubted EPA's claim that it has no statutory duty to revise its lead dust hazard standards, which could boost environmental and health groups in their lawsuit that claims the agency is violating the Administrative... -
EPA Pledges Long-Term Elimination of New Chemicals Backlog
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker & Pat Rizzuto
A top EPA official is promising to develop guidance for industry's new chemical submissions that will help to completely eliminate the backlog of new chemicals under review. -
House Considers Bill to Ban Cosmetic Animal Testing
Jun 14, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A bill has been reintroduced in the US House of Representatives that would ban cosmetic animal testing and prohibit the sale of products tested on animals. -
Secret Rebates Send European Plastics Benchmark Above True Cost
Jun 14, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
An unregulated benchmark used to set the price of plastics in Europe has veered above the true cost in recent years, because of secret rebates chemical companies give each other that disguise the price of the main precursor, four sources familiar with the industry say. -
BPA Replacements Like BPF and BPS Aren't Linked to Fat Bellies
Jun 14, 2017 | Men's Fitness
By Adam Bible
ABOUT A DECADE ago, a huge outcry over studies that showed Bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical compound used in plastic to make it tough, was an endocrine disruptor and could cause changes to breasts, testicles, brains, and body size... -
(ACC Mentioned) Sens. Manchin, Capito Introduce Natural Gas Storage Legislation
Jun 14, 2017 | Kallanish Energy
West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators introduced two pieces of legislation Monday regarding the possible establishment of a natural gas storage facility in the Appalachian Basin. Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito proposed the Capitalizing American... -
(ACC Mentioned) Legislation Aims to Help Create Jobs in W.Va.
Jun 14, 2017 | The Register Herald
By Wendy Holdren
In an effort to create jobs and economic growth in West Virginia, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., have introduced legislation to help establish the Appalachian Storage Hub. -
(ACC Mentioned) Building Code Fight Draws Renewed Interest
Jun 14, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The perennial dispute over energy efficiency standards for buildings continues to simmer, with proponents reiterating their support for Senate language that has been floating around for several years. -
EPA Moves to Halt Obama Methane Rule for Two Years
Jun 14, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed pausing an Obama administration oil and gas pollution rule for two years while it reconsiders the regulation. -
States, NYC Sue Trump for Delaying Standards
Jun 13, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Christa Marshall
Eleven states and New York City are suing the Department of Energy for failing to finalize five energy efficiency standards. -
Trump-Fanned Flames in Middle East May Open Door for U.S. Gas Exports
Jun 13, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to Middle East policy is exacerbating tensions across the region and increasing nervousness in global energy markets — but it could ultimately prove to be a boon for U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas. -
Blast Backlash Hangs Over Drillers as ‘Fractivists’ Seek Limits
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum
Two months after a Colorado home exploded near an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. well, the reverberations are still rattling the oil industry, driving down driller shares and raising fears of a regulatory backlash. -
Pennsylvania Appellate Court Again Finds NatGas Drilling Compatible with Residential Zones
Jun 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A Pennsylvania appellate court once again has affirmed a key 2015 decision that found natural gas drilling is compatible with residential/agricultural (RA) zoning districts, rejecting a challenge from residents and environmental groups... -
(ACC Blog) Product Stewardship Helps Keep Workers ‘Safe + Sound’
Jun 14, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By Ryan Baldwin
This week, OSHA has announced events to highlight worker health and safety initiatives through its Safe + Sound Week. While safety is a cornerstone value for us every week, the American Chemistry Council’s Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is excited for... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Officially Delays to 2019 Risk Management Program Rule Changes
Jun 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially postponed the effective date of a rule designed to help prevent accidents and explosions at refineries and other industrial facilities. -
Practitioner Insights: Rapid Tests Transform Chemical Safety Calls
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dr. Russell Thomas & Dr. John Wambaugh
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to make safety-related decisions on thousands of chemicals to accomplish its mission -
EU Set to Commit to Climate Deal, Free Trade in Rebuff to Trump
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ian Wishart
European Union leaders are planning to use a summit next week to declare their commitment to global free trade and the Paris climate accord in a rebuff to U.S. President Donald Trump. . -
Healthier, Safer Summers – Brought to You by the EPA
Jun 13, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Mandy Warner
Summer is finally here...We’ve longed to hear the waves crash, to see the kids play in the backyard sprinkler, to pack up the car for the annual camping trip. -
OTC States Eye Swift EPA Haze Air Plan Submissions to Serve as Model
Jun 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Some states within the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are aiming to submit their next compliance plans for EPA's regional haze program by 2018 instead of the agency's delayed deadline of 2021, hoping that their plans... -
California Governor Named Adviser for UN Climate Conference
Jun 14, 2017 | The Associated Press (in The Washington Post)
By Kathleen Ronayne
California Gov. Jerry Brown was named Tuesday as a special envoy to states at the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, further elevating his international profile as a leader on the issue as President Donald Trump backs away from a key international agreement.
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) House Aide Joins Chemicals Group
Jun 14, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Lindsay Ryan, a legislative assistant for Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), has joined the National Association of Chemical Distributors as the group's new director of legislative affairs.
Ryan played a role in forming the House Congressional Chemistry Caucus, which Moolenaar co-founded. The partnership involved NACD, the American Chemical Society and the American Chemistry Council.
In Moolenaar's office, Ryan worked on issues related to national defense, energy, immigration, and science and technology, among others.
"Lindsay was an outstanding part of our team and I know she will excel her in new role. She was instrumental in creating the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Chemistry Caucus and I look forward to working with her in the future," Moolenaar said in a statement.
Before her role in Moolenaar's office, Ryan was a legislative assistant for former Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.).
"Lindsay is a great addition to our legislative team, and I know she will elevate the caliber of work we do for our members," NACD President Eric Byer said in a statement.
"Her background focusing on legislative issues directly impacting the business of chemical distribution is an incredible asset both for our work here in Washington and for our members spread across the entire United States," Byer continued.
Ryan studied political science and communications at Grand Valley State University and has a master's degree in public administration from George Washington University.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/06/13/stories/1060055972
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CEQ Gets New Deputy General Counsel
Jun 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
The White House has tapped Viktoria Z. Seale, a former Heritage Foundation official and House staffer, as the new deputy general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), an official confirms.
Her selection is the latest in a series of hires for CEQ though administration officials have not yet named top leaders for the council, which is slated to play a key role speeding environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects.
Seale was most recently senior counsel for the House Small Business Committee, chaired by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). Before that she served as counsel to the committee from 2012 until last July. Seale also worked at the U.S. Small Business Administration including in the Office of Advocacy from 2002 to 2007, and at the Heritage Foundation from 1997 to 2002, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Seale was chosen for the deputy role before a CEQ general counsel or chairman have been announced. The chair position requires Senate confirmation, and Texan Kathleen Hartnett White -- who was a candidate for EPA administrator under President Donald Trump -- was re-interviewed for the role in April.
The acting chair is Mary Neumayr, a long-time senior counsel for the House Energy & Commerce Committee, who was tapped as CEQ chief of staff in March and makes her acting chair, under the council's rule of session, until a permanent chair is nominated and confirmed.
The official says there is no word yet on a pending nomination nor a selection for general counsel, which does not require Senate confirmation.
However, one other senior staff position has been filled. Christopher Prandoni was named associate director for natural resources at CEQ. He most recently worked for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the official says.
CEQ coordinates environmental policy for the administration and Trump has given CEQ a key role in speeding permitting for infrastructure projects. In a Jan. 24 order, Trump required CEQ to determine whether infrastructure projects qualify as a "high priority" project that is eligible for expedited permitting.
“All agencies shall give highest priority to completing such reviews and approvals by the established deadlines using all necessary and appropriate means,” the order says.
But so far, CEQ has yet to designate any proposed project for expedited procedure.
Trump, in a March executive order, also called on CEQ to revoke its guidance for how to consider greenhouse gas emissions under the National Environmental Policy Act, which it did in April, leaving agencies “on their own.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ceq-gets-new-deputy-general-counsel
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PQ Takes Another Shot at Going Public
Jun 13, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
PQ Corp., a 180-year-old maker of silicates, sulfuric acid, and zeolite catalysts, has filed for an initial public offering of stock worth $100 million.
The New York City-based private equity firm CCMP owns 58% of PQ. The chemical maker Ineos owns another 31% of the company, and management holds an 11% stake.
PQ, based in Malvern, Pa., generated a loss of $79 million on nearly $1.1 billion in sales in 2016. The company has a debt load of $2.6 billion. According to a prospectus filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, the company intends to use the proceeds from the stock sale to pay down debt.
Founded in 1831 as Philadelphia Quartz, PQ was family-owned until 2005, when the private equity firm J.P. Morgan Partners bought it for $632 million. Morgan Partners sold it to the Carlyle Group for $1.5 billion in 2007. That same year PQ merged with Ineos Silicas, a transaction that gave Ineos its stake.
Carlyle planned a $450 million IPO for the firm in 2014, but a sale of a stake in the company to CCMP preempted those plans.
PQ merged with Eco Services, also owned by CCMP, last year. The private equity firm had bought the sulfuric acid manufacturing and recycling business from Solvay in 2014 for $890 million. The transaction brought PQ’s annual sales up to an estimated $1.5 billion .
Performance materials and chemicals make up more than half of PQ’s sales. This business makes products such as specialty silicates used in dishwasher detergents and precipitated silica found in fuel-efficient tires. It also makes glass microspheres used as plastic filler and in reflective traffic markings.
The former Eco business, which sells sulfuric acid to refiners for alkylation, represents another quarter of PQ’s sales. PQ also makes zeolite and silica-based catalysts, used in refineries and chemical plants.
If the IPO goes ahead, PQ will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PQG.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/06/PQ-takes-another-shot-public.html
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9th Circuit Judges Doubt EPA Claim of No Duty to Revise Lead Dust Rules
Jun 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Two of three appellate court judges at June 12 oral argument doubted EPA's claim that it has no statutory duty to revise its lead dust hazard standards, which could boost environmental and health groups in their lawsuit that claims the agency is violating the Administrative Procedure Act by not updating the standards within a "reasonable" timeframe.
"I think there's a legislative command," Judge Lawrence Piersol of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said in response to Rochelle Russell, a Justice Department (DOJ) attorney representing EPA, who argued the court can only compel action on the lead dust hazard standard if the agency ignored a specific command.
"You know, there's an old blues song: how long can this keep going on? What is your suggestion?" Piersol went on to ask, referring to the years-long delay in EPA's work on revisions to the existing standard.
Russell replied that the agency will continue to work on the path it outlined in an earlier deposition in the case, to the extent that it is able to do so. But when pressed by Piersol as to the timeline, she would not commit to a 2023 timeline the court referenced as EPA's previous commitment for finishing its regulatory work regarding a possible update. Petitioners in the case say EPA is stalling on revising the rules, arguing the agency agreed to their petition to revise its lead dust standards in 2012 but has effectively taken no action since then.
The case, A Community Voice, et al. v. EPA, is a petition for writ of mandamus filed by eight environmental, community and health groups last August. The groups want EPA to update its lead dust standards as well as the definition of lead-based paint under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). They are requesting a court order that would require EPA to issue a proposed update to the rule within 90 days of the order, and a final rule within six months.
The groups argue that EPA has delayed a rulemaking that, in 2009, it agreed to promulgate, and that its delay comes despite "scientific consensus about the irreversible and significant harms caused by low-level lead exposure."
The petitioners contend EPA's inaction is putting children, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color, at risk of harm caused by lead in dust and paint in homes and daycares.
During oral argument, petitioners' attorney Hannah Chang reiterated those concerns, saying the litigation is about ensuring that the agency does not contribute any more to childhood lead poisoning as a result of its "foot-dragging" on updating the lead dust standards and modifying the lead-based paint definition. She later said it has been more than seven years since EPA agreed that the existing standards may not be sufficiently protective.
EPA's Duty
Russell reiterated EPA's argument that it has no clear duty to issue a rule revising lead-dust hazard standards or the lead-based paint definition. She said TSCA does not require EPA to review, let alone revise, these standards or the definition, rather giving the agency the discretion to review the standards and to decide whether to revise them, she said.
But all three judges on the panel questioned her position.
Judge Mary Schroeder retorted that it is EPA's responsibility to establish those standards.
Russell replied that TSCA sets the standard -- that the standard should be based on conditions that cause exposure to lead-contaminated dust that would cause adverse, harmful effects.
Judge N. Randy Smith asked her to explain what EPA would then "do with the purpose of the statute," which he read aloud, saying it calls for eliminating "lead-based paint hazards in all housing as expeditiously as possible and to encourage effective action to prevent childhood lead poisoning."
Russell responded that those are "congressional directives." Smith reiterated the language "as quickly as possible," and Schroeder added, "That's a charge to the agency."
Russell denied that it was a charge, saying "there is no 'shall.'" She cited Supreme Court and 9th Circuit case law to argue that for a court to compel agency action, there has to be a specific legislative command.
The judges noted though that EPA granted the petition. While Russell conceded that, she said it contained qualifications.
Smith said that even EPA's brief agreed that once the petition was granted, some duty arises. The disagreement is over what EPA had to do, he said. He then referenced the arguments made by the petitioners earlier in oral argument that EPA in 2012 scheduled a rulemaking.
Russell disputed that, arguing that the docket in 2012 said EPA was reviewing the existing standards, not that it was undertaking a rulemaking to revise the lead dust standards. EPA did not commit to a particular schedule or outcome, she said.
Schroeder responded, "Do you dispute that there are children dying of lead-based paint poisoning in buildings all over the country?"Russell replied no, EPA does not dispute that lead exposure to children continues to be a significant health threat.
But the agency does dispute that it has an obligation to take action within a reasonable time? Schroeder responded. Russell said that it disputes the court can require EPA to undertake a specific rulemaking to revise the standards and definition.
"So you can ignore your own science?" Piersol replied, noting that the agency agrees to the science.
Russell argued EPA is not ignoring the science, but cited the difficult task of differentiating lead exposure sources.
Revision Proceedings
Smith later said he was not sure what it is EPA committed to do, and questioned why it issued the letter in 2012 responding to the petition, "if you're not going to do anything."
Russell said EPA committed to commence proceedings to consider revisions to the lead dust standards.
Schroeder replied though that those proceedings "can go on forever, as far as you're concerned."
Earlier in oral argument, petitioner attorney Chang disputed EPA's contention that it had fulfilled its duty by commencing proceedings on weighing revisions. She said that argument makes no sense because then it would not matter whether EPA granted or denied the petition as it would have no obligation to do anything. EPA has "subverted any ability" of petitioners who had their petition granted to go to challenge a denial of the petition, she said.
But during Chang's arguments, Smith expressed reservations about granting a writ of mandamus, noting such an order is an "extreme remedy" that should be applied in "only extreme situations."
In such a case, the court would be telling EPA to take action when it has said it will do so by 2023, he said. "Tell me, where do I look at to say they're taking too long?" he asked Chang. He added that the 8th Circuit has even suggested that time is not the problem, but how complicated the matter is.
Chang responded that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has already moved forward to require its grantees to meet the lower lead dust standards that the petitioners requested in their 2009 petition, and has concluded that stricter standards are required. "That means the data is there, the evidence is there," she said. She added that it does not require another six years for EPA to take action when its sister agency has already determined that lowering the dust standards is necessary and has done so.
The petitioners just a week prior to oral argument filed a citation of supplemental authorities with the court, asking it to consider HUD's guidance that sets stricter lead dust hazard action levels for floors and window sills. While HUD's jurisdiction on this issue governs federally-assisted housing, EPA's covers all target housing before 1978 and public and commercial buildings, according to Chang.
Both sides effectively rejected a suggestion from Smith that the court order the parties back to mediation under the direction that 2023 was too long, and that the parties should negotiate a reasonable timetable that the court could "bless."
Russell told Smith EPA would decline such an opportunity to go back to mediation.
When asked by Piersol about new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's position on revising the lead dust standards, Russell also suggested that if the court compels EPA to take action, the agency would likely file a new briefing in light of the new administration on what that remedy should be.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/9th-circuit-judges-doubt-epa-claim-no-duty-revise-lead-dust-rules
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EPA Pledges Long-Term Elimination of New Chemicals Backlog
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker & Pat Rizzuto
A top EPA official is promising to develop guidance for industry's new chemical submissions that will help to completely eliminate the backlog of new chemicals under review.
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Director Jeffery Morris told listeners on a June 12 webinar that the agency will by July clear the backlog of new chemical assessments under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA). The pledge comes as the chemical sector is expressing frustration with the backlog of 600 applications, saying the agency is stifling innovation and safer chemical substitutes.
Morris said he hopes to speed the process by working with manufacturers and other interested parties to improve the pre-submission process for pre-manufacturing notices (PMNs), the documents chemical companies must file with the EPA before substances may be put on the market.
“I'm willing to devote as many resources as I can to put this program in place,” Morris said on the webinar hosted by Bloomberg BNA and the law firm Bergeson & Campbell P.C. to discuss reviewing new chemicals under the LCSA.
The new law mandates that the Environmental Protection Agency make a determination on all new chemicals. It must evaluate whether the substances present an unreasonable risk, may present an unreasonable risk, are not likely to present an unreasonable risk, or if there is insufficient information to make a determination.
Guidance Draft Set for Fall
Morris said he hopes to publicly release guidance this fall to keep that backlog from building back up. This “points to consider” document would help advise companies on what risk information may be needed before submitting notices to the EPA. Morris said he would like to beta-test the document with submitters to see if it would improve the evaluation process.
Morris previously told Bloomberg BNA in a May 26 interview that he intended to close the backlog of new chemicals in review by July. The backlog has shrunk from about 600 cases earlier this year to under 150, he said on the webinar.
Despite cuts for most EPA programs, the proposed White House fiscal year 2018 budget would raise funding for the EPA's chemical risk review and reduction program to $65 million — a $6.59 million increase over fiscal 2017 levels. Industry fees are expected to help provide additional resources to run the program, including possibly boosting staff.
The percentage of new chemicals the EPA has regulated before and since the LSCA passed last June jumped from roughly 10 percent to about 70 percent, said Charles Auer, who used to run the agency's chemicals office, and Richard Engler, a chemist who worked for the EPA's new chemicals program. Both now work in the Washington, D.C. office of Bergeson & Campbell.
EPA Open to Discussion with Industry
The process to get a new chemical onto the U.S. market appears to have become a registration system, which it never was supposed to be, said Robert Mott, global regulatory manager for Sun Chemical Corp.
Morris said some requirements of the Lautenberg act are driving the agency's need for more data. For example, the determinations the EPA must make that a chemical is “not likely” to pose an unreasonable risk or “may pose an unreasonable risk” may sound esoteric, but are important, he said. The question of how to make those distinctions warrants further discussion, which the agency wants to have, Morris said.
The new approval process is particularly frustrating for makers of small-batch chemicals that rely on “low volume exemptions” to bypass the full pre-manufacture notice review, according to one webinar speaker. Beth Bosley, president of Boron Specialties, said the EPA has not granted exemptions to many manufacturers that plan to produce less than 10,000 kilograms per year.
Morris said he wants to discuss ways the EPA could review low volume exemption requests more quickly, and shift away from a case-by-case approach to the requests. These types of chemicals are particularly important to innovation and need prompt attention, he said.
Mott asked whether the EPA was open to expanding beyond polymers a strategy Morris described that allows certain polymers to enter commerce more quickly than they initially did after the toxic substances law was updated.
Mott referred to the EPA's adopted policy of allowing certain compounds—which pose little risk due to their large size that limits their ability to enter the body—to be manufactured and placed on the EPA inventory of chemicals in commerce with a “Polymer Flag.” The flag means the chemical may be made by any company as long as its production keeps the polymer a low-risk, typically large molecule.
Morris said he was open to discussing the idea.
The EPA's precautionary approach to new chemicals review will mean greater regulatory oversight for the foreseeable future, according to a June 12 alert from the law firm Wiley Rein LLP.
“Regulatory burdens that were once imposed judiciously now should be routinely anticipated by companies that file PMNs,” Wiley Rein attorneys wrote.
“Downstream processors and users should plan to make sure they understand the allowable use restrictions and increased regulatory obligations they may have, at least until PMN submitters and EPA can reach a better understanding of the information that the agency needs to avoid an overly prescriptive result.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114237031&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114237031&jd=114237031
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House Considers Bill to Ban Cosmetic Animal Testing
Jun 14, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A bill has been reintroduced in the US House of Representatives that would ban cosmetic animal testing and prohibit the sale of products tested on animals.
The Humane Cosmetics Act (HR 2790) – like a similar measure considered in the last session of Congress – was introduced with broad bipartisan support.
It calls for a phase-out of internal or external application or exposure of any cosmetic to the skin, eyes or other body parts of a live non-human vertebrate for evaluating the safety or efficacy of a product, within one year of the law’s enactment. A sales prohibition would take effect two years later.
NGO Cruelty Free International and global cosmetics manufacturer the Body Shop were among organisations which welcomed introduction of the bill.
"We are delighted that this landmark bill has been reintroduced with strong bipartisan support. Consumers in the US and worldwide want cosmetics produced without the cruel use of animals and without compromising safety or quality," said Cruelty Free International chief executive, Michelle Thew.
Jessie Macneil-Brown, senior manager of international campaigns for the Body Shop, added that the bill would help harmonise international laws on animal testing.
"It’s time for the Humane Cosmetics Act in the US, and for a United Nations global ban to end cosmetic animal testing - everywhere and forever," said Ms Thew.
The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56801/house-considers-bill-to-ban-cosmetic-animal-testing
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Secret Rebates Send European Plastics Benchmark Above True Cost
Jun 14, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
An unregulated benchmark used to set the price of plastics in Europe has veered above the true cost in recent years, because of secret rebates chemical companies give each other that disguise the price of the main precursor, four sources familiar with the industry say.
Ethylene, a flammable gas, is the main feedstock used to synthesise the most commonly used plastics, found in the vast majority of all manufactured goods. It is produced in refineries from natural gas or crude oil, as one of the main products of the $400 billion global petrochemicals industry.
When manufacturers buy and sell plastic, a benchmark of the ethylene price is often written into their purchase contracts, to reflect the raw material cost.
But the European index is unregulated and, the sources said, has overstated the actual price for the past four years because it does not take into account the now common practice of firms negotiating rebates.
The sources include one person at a petrochemical company and three people who research the industry.
The actual price companies charge each other for the chemical is secret, and companies tend to offer big clients discounts from the benchmark to reflect economies of scale, local market conditions, or other factors. But those discounts have grown, making the benchmark a less accurate reflection of the real costs.
Companies do not have to pass the rebates on to their customers further down the supply chain, who are contractually obliged to pay prices based on the higher benchmark.
Reuters was unable to assess the degree to which the practice has hurt manufacturers of goods made from plastics. More than 10 companies that buy or sell ethylene, contacted by Reuters, declined to discuss their pricing, including any rebates they offer or receive.
Most of the sources that spoke to Reuters said they did not believe rebates had made the market unfair. But they say the lack of transparency, and the divergence between the published benchmark and the true price, could create the potential for suppliers to overcharge customers who may be unaware of the practice.
"There's an understanding that this is not a perfect process," said Matthew Thoelke, senior director of olefins and derivatives at analysis firm IHS.
The sources said the petrochemical companies that participate in setting the ethylene contract price while giving or receiving rebates include Europe's biggest, such as BASF, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and LyondellBasell. BASF, Shell and Total declined to comment on their pricing. LyondellBasell did not respond to Reuters request for comment.
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The benchmark for the price of ethylene used in nearly all European contracts is produced by the Independent Chemical Information Service, or ICIS, which has published its "ethylene contract price" since 1980.
ICIS is now a unit of Reed Business Information. Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, competes with Reed as a supplier of benchmark prices for other commodities but does not publish a rival index price for ethylene.
ICIS senior editor Nel Weddle said the benchmark, published after confirming agreements with at least four companies who buy and sell ethylene, allows everyone to start on a "level playing field" with knowledge of prices.
However, the figures it uses to compile the index do not include rebates off the benchmark price. ICIS said it is not responsible for collecting information about such rebates, which it called "a common part of any supply or purchase contract".
Although ICIS is the most widely used benchmark in Europe, it is not the only one. A competitor, Argus, publishes a rival index, which also does not take rebates into account. It declined to comment.
Another competitor, Platts, has launched a new rival index which it says will better reflect the true market price by taking into account the rebates.
The sources familiar with the practice said refineries began offering substantial rebates in 2013 to clear their stocks during a period of oversupply of ethylene. But instead of being a temporary measure to deal with local market conditions, the rebates grew after oil and gas prices tumbled in 2014, and have continued to widen since.
The contract price of ethylene has hovered around 850-1,050 euros per tonne over the past year, down from a range of 1,200-1,300 euros before oil and gas prices fell in 2014. Rebates now run at more than 100 euros a tonne, the sources said.
One of the sources, at a major research consultancy, said his firm's staff use their own contacts at chemical companies to get a sense of the secret rebates. The rebates are now a key to understanding the profitability of businesses in the sector, which is therefore harder to forecast solely from public data.
Weddle of ICIS said the company was not aware of complaints from users of its benchmark about its omission of the rebates.
However, last year ICIS conducted a review of its methodology and posted feedback online from some users of the index. One of three respondents whose views ICIS posted wrote that the published prices should begin to reflect rebates.
"Otherwise, the reported contract prices do not reflect the real market situation and especially smaller suppliers and consumers are left in the dark," the respondent wrote. ICIS confirmed that the response was genuine but declined to identify who had written it.
Some in the industry who spoke to Reuters sought to play down the significance of the disparity between the index and the price after rebates, saying the market is competitive enough to prevent customers who rely on the benchmark being overcharged.
While Europe's benchmarks have their problems, "the situation in general is fair", said Jose Manuel Martinez, the chief executive of the Spanish oil company Cepsa's petrochemicals business.
NO REGULATION
Unlike benchmarks for crude oil or the major refined fuel products like diesel and gasoline, the ICIS benchmark for ethylene is not formally scrutinised by regulators, as ethylene contracts are not typically traded on securities exchanges.
In the marketing materials for the rival Platts benchmark intended to address the problem by adjusting for rebates, Platts includes a graph comparing the contract price to what it says is its own assessment of the true price, based on the cost of raw materials, economic conditions and other fundamentals.
The graph shows the ICIS contract price consistently higher than Platts' estimate from 2013 on, with the gap growing wider last year, when Platts estimates the true cost of ethylene bottomed out as low as 650 euros a tonne.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/06/14/business/14reuters-petrochemicals-companies.html
Platts says the early indications from its new index have shown large buyers typically receiving rebates of 14-18 percent.
The issue appears mostly confined to Europe, rather than the United States or Asia, which have more liquid markets with higher volumes of spot trade of ethylene, making prices relatively transparent.
"As long as a market is liquid, the players know how to behave," said Cepsa's Martinez.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/06/14/business/14reuters-petrochemicals-companies.html?_r=0
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BPA Replacements Like BPF and BPS Aren't Linked to Fat Bellies
Jun 14, 2017 | Men's Fitness
By Adam Bible
ABOUT A DECADE ago, a huge outcry over studies that showed Bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical compound used in plastic to make it tough, was an endocrine disruptor and could cause changes to breasts, testicles, brains, and body size, including upping the risk for abdominal obesity. People in love with their Nalgene bottles—which, at that point, contained the chemical at that point—tossed them away and switched to stainless steel or glass bottles until companies began offering BPA-free plastic bottles. Now you won’t find it around as much, as it’s been replaced by two other chemicals: Bisphenol F (BPF) and Bisphenol S (BPS).
Those similarly named chemicals don’t seem like they would be much different to BPA, but a new study from the University of Iowa showed that they don’t contribute to increasing gut size significantly. The researchers looked at data from a Centers for Disease Control study which, like some past studies, determined that BPA was indeed linked to increased obesity in people. The new chemical formulations, however, were not associated with abnormal weight gain in the data they looked at.
The study authors state that even though BPA is linked to obesity, and concentrations of BPF or BPS were not found to contribute to obesity in the study, “whether BPF and BPS at the same population exposure levels as BPA pose an increased risk of obesity is not known. Additionally, BPA has only been substituted with BPF and BPS in the past two decades.”
We suggest limiting your exposure to any of the chemicals as much as possible, and trading your plastic water bottles for stainless steel ones from companies like Miir, Contigo, and Hydro Flask. The double-walled steel containers keep your daily hydration dose colder (or blast of coffee hotter) than plastic, and, while not as light, are more durable and longer-lasting.
http://www.mensfitness.com/life/gearandtech/bpa-replacements-bpf-and-bps-arent-linked-fat-bellies
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(ACC Mentioned) Sens. Manchin, Capito Introduce Natural Gas Storage Legislation
Jun 14, 2017 | Kallanish Energy
West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators introduced two pieces of legislation Monday regarding the possible establishment of a natural gas storage facility in the Appalachian Basin. Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito proposed the Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP)…
...The American Chemistry Council in May released a study stating the creation of such a hub would allow the Appalachian region to seize on opportunities ...
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Story can be found here: https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2017/06/14/sens-manchin-capito-introduce-natural-gas-storage-legislation/
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(ACC Mentioned) Legislation Aims to Help Create Jobs in W.Va.
Jun 14, 2017 | The Register Herald
By Wendy Holdren
In an effort to create jobs and economic growth in West Virginia, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., have introduced legislation to help establish the Appalachian Storage Hub.
The Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP) Act would make a regional storage hub eligible for the Department of Energy’s successful Title XVII loan guarantee program, allowing the Mountain State to realize the unique opportunities associated with Appalachia’s abundant natural gas liquids (NGLs) resources, naturally-occurring geologic storage and expanding energy infrastructure.
“The Appalachian Storage Hub is a vital American energy infrastructure project that will enhance energy and national security while leveraging the region’s unique energy resources for the long-term economic benefit of families, manufacturers and communities in nearby states and across the nation,” Manchin said. “This storage hub will create jobs and expand the economy in the Appalachian region, which has been affected by the decline in energy production and manufacturing in the region.”
Manchin said because of the regional nature of the project and West Virginia’s abundant natural resources, the loan program will not only help secure private sector investment into a natural gas liquids storage hub, but it will create economic benefits and resilience for the surrounding communities by attracting related investment.
“An Appalachian storage hub has the potential to be a game-changer for West Virginia,” Capito said. “Not only would a regional storage hub help us make the most of our energy potential, but it would create jobs and spur economic growth, benefiting communities across the state.”
American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said, “The prospect of an Appalachian storage hub is an exciting opportunity for the region and the nation. We see it as a way to not only maintain, but advance, American competitiveness.”
Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center President and CEO Steven Hedrick added, “We are grateful that our elected officials are acting with both speed and visionary leadership to advantage America through purposeful infrastructure support, grounded in Appalachia where the largest known domestic shale gas reserves are found.”
According to a joint release from the senators, an abundance of wet natural gas in the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shale formations has recently resulted in significant announcements of new investment in the Appalachian region, particularly by the petrochemical industry.
The region’s supplies of natural gas liquids (NGLs) are highly underutilized, they said.
In a recent economic study, the American Chemistry Council concluded that the creation of such a hub would allow the Appalachian region to seize on the opportunities associated with these valuable natural resources, potentially attracting up to $36 billion in new chemical and plastics industry investment and creating 100,000 new jobs in the area.
The construction of a hub and the associated infrastructure and ethylene/polyethylene facilities, will attract sorely needed economic activity to this underserved part of the country, which continues to suffer from high unemployment as a result from the downturn in both energy production and manufacturing.
http://www.register-herald.com/news/legislation-aims-to-help-create-jobs-in-w-va/article_b3129018-9d8b-5658-9325-496cd6f39c68.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Building Code Fight Draws Renewed Interest
Jun 14, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The perennial dispute over energy efficiency standards for buildings continues to simmer, with proponents reiterating their support for Senate language that has been floating around for several years.
In a letter sent yesterday to the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Energy and Natural Resources committees, a coalition of industry and professional associations back the building code provisions in comprehensive efficiency legislation (S. 385) authored by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), as well as a House companion (H.R. 1443) sponsored by Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
"As groups representing the manufacturing, building design and construction, and the millions of jobs within those sectors, we strongly support the important role that consensus-based model energy building codes play at the state level in assisting the adoption of efficiency technologies for homes and commercial buildings," wrote the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Institute of Architects and 18 other groups yesterday.
The provisions in the bills "strengthen national model codes that are already certified, adopted and in-use by 44 states and several localities around the U.S.," making the largest consuming sources of energy more efficient, while ensuring that stakeholders have a say in the standard-setting process.
The Shaheen-Portman provisions were part of a broader energy package that passed the Senate last year but died in the closing days of the 114th Congress after formal conference committee talks collapsed. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have vowed to resurrect the measure and try again this Congress.
A competing bipartisan measure that was included in the House's energy package last year has already been reintroduced, setting up the familiar showdown. The bill (H.R. 2361), sponsored by Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), would have required the Energy Department to employ a "simple payback" period of 10 years, as well as other technical requirements, in setting building codes.
Its supporters, including the National Association of Home Builders and American Gas Association, flagged their support for the bill last month (E&E News PM, May 5).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/14/stories/1060055989
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EPA Moves to Halt Obama Methane Rule for Two Years
Jun 14, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed pausing an Obama administration oil and gas pollution rule for two years while it reconsiders the regulation.
EPA officials on Tuesday formally proposed a two-year pause on implementation of the rule, which would limit methane leaks at drilling sites and set standards for equipment and employee certification within the oil and gas drilling sector.
Obama officials finalized the rule last May as part of a federal effort to cut pollution of methane, a greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Drillers contend the rule would be costly and duplicative, and have urged Trump administration regulators to reconsider the measure. The EPA, under Administrator Scott Pruitt — who had sued against the rule while Oklahoma attorney general — said in April that it would formally review the rule, a lengthy process that could take years to complete. Such a measure is subject to lawsuits, as well.
Pausing implementation of the rule for two years would mean drillers would not need to abide by the standards while the EPA's review moves forward. The EPA’s Tuesday action is itself subject to a 30-day public comment period.
Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration over its decision to pause the rule, saying the agency doesn’t have the power to issue such a stay.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/337677-epa-moves-to-halt-methane-rule-for-two-years
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States, NYC Sue Trump for Delaying Standards
Jun 13, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Christa Marshall
Eleven states and New York City are suing the Department of Energy for failing to finalize five energy efficiency standards.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, both Democrats, said in a statement today that the delays violate multiple laws, including the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and the Federal Register Act.
The rules in question would set required minimum efficiency levels for portable air conditioners, commercial boilers, uninterruptible power supplies, air compressors, and walk-in coolers and freezers.
Attorneys general from Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington joined in the case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
"It's not clear whether the Trump administration is refusing to publish these rules because of ideological hostility to cost-saving regulations that benefit the environment, or whether they simply cannot get their act together," said Earthjustice attorney Timothy Ballo, who is supporting the Sierra Club and Consumer Federation of America in a related lawsuit filed with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
DOE said in a statement that it does not comment on pending litigation.
The agency released the efficiency rules for the five products in December but never published them in the Federal Register.
There were no requests for corrections for four of the five standards, said Earthjustice. There were requests to alter the commercial boiler rule, but DOE still has a legal duty to publish the standard after a set period, the group said.
According to DOE, the rules together would save consumers more than $11 billion and enough electricity to power 19 million homes for a year.
The same group of states filed a lawsuit earlier this year over delayed standards on ceiling fans. The Trump administration later finalized that rule and several other standards left in limbo during the transition (Greenwire, May 26).
The administration is proposing to cut funding by about 70 percent for DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which oversees the efficiency standards program.
Lawmakers opposed to standards say they micromanage businesses, while environmentalists say they save consumers money while helping the climate (Greenwire, Jan. 5).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/06/13/stories/1060055975
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Trump-Fanned Flames in Middle East May Open Door for U.S. Gas Exports
Jun 13, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to Middle East policy is exacerbating tensions across the region and increasing nervousness in global energy markets — but it could ultimately prove to be a boon for U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas.
The ongoing dispute between Qatar — the world's top LNG producer — and some of its neighbors is being watched closely by U.S. companies eager to expand their global market share. Trump publicly accused the small nation of supporting terrorism and appears to be siding with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the region that cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar earlier this month.
Already, the market is starting to feel the effects. Qatari LNG shipping costs are starting to rise because Saudi Arabia is no longer allowing access to its docks, sources said. The United Arab Emirates also turned away a Qatari LNG vessel, forcing it to divert its cargo elsewhere. Gas prices in the UK, where much of the gas is supplied by Qatar, also spiked last week when tensions first flared up.
David Goldwyn, who worked on international energy issues at the State Department from 2009 to 2011, says the conflict shows the Trump administration should "be more forward-looking and nuanced in diplomacy rather than giving carte blanche to some of our allies." But it also may inadvertently help U.S. energy companies hone their sales pitch, he said.
“I don’t think the administration intended to impact U.S. LNG by giving the Saudis more of a green light when it comes to Qatar," said Goldwyn, the president of Goldwyn Global Strategies consulting firm. "But now that you add this geopolitical risk, that will help those looking to sell commitments later."
Qatar's state-owned companies RasGas and Qatargas produce up to 77 million metric tons a year of the super-cooled gas, roughly a third of the world’s total.
While the U.S. exports a relatively tiny amount of LNG today, it is on track to become one of the world's largest suppliers in just a few years. Cheniere Energy, Freeport LNG and other export projects are on the path to grow U.S. LNG export capacity to 64 metric tons a year by 2020, industry analysts have said.
Companies are not exactly using the current Middle East crisis in their advertisements, but they are quick to tout the relative stability of supply soon to come out of the U.S.
"The Qatar situation certainly brings up the delicate situations that are involved in doing business over there in the Middle East Region. ... But this conflict provides opportunity for the United States in exporting our natural gas. We are a neutral nation," Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, who advised Trump's presidential campaign, said on CNBC Monday. "Other countries like China or other Qatar customers would not have to worry about anything if they wanted to import U.S. LNG."
Further clouding the matter for the LNG sector are the mixed signals coming from the White House. In contrast to Trump's tweets, his State Department — led by Rex Tillerson, who as former head of Exxon Mobil helped Qatargas expand its Ras Laffan LNG export terminal — has called for both sides to calm down.
The resulting confusion has led some in the market wondering what, if any, long-term impacts the imbroglio may have. The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade association, plans to meet in Houston on Thursday, partly to hash out a response to the Qatar situation, said Charlie Riedl, the center’s executive director.
To be sure, the Trump administration is introducing uncertainty to the U.S. LNG market with other policy moves as well. The president has repeatedly said he would renegotiate NAFTA and other free-trade agreements, which could complicate new LNG export projects getting the necessary trade permits from the Department of Energy.
“Currently, producers tell me one of their biggest challenges is uncertainty about the administration’s plans for trade policy,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said. “Producers are hesitant to invest in expansion and growth until that is resolved.”
But for now, Japan and other countries heavily dependent on imported gas may decide that privately owned U.S. LNG suppliers offer more security than a Middle Eastern government that can be thrown into upheaval partly from a presidential tweet, analysts said.
“The buyers have been doing that anyway,” Meg Gentle, chief executive of LNG export startup Tellurian, told POLITICO. “But it would reinforce how important this is. This has introduced an additional element of uncertainty, and uncertainty of supply from one of the world’s largest producers is never a good thing.”
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/06/trump-fanned-flames-in-middle-east-may-open-door-for-us-gas-exports-158150
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Blast Backlash Hangs Over Drillers as ‘Fractivists’ Seek Limits
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum
Two months after a Colorado home exploded near an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. well, the reverberations are still rattling the oil industry, driving down driller shares and raising fears of a regulatory backlash.
The April 17 blast, which killed two people and injured a third, was followed a month later by a second deadly explosion at an Anadarko oil tank in the state. The incidents have revived calls to restrict drilling near populated areas within Colorado's rich Niobrara shale formation, the fourth-most productive shale basin in the U.S. They've also spurred the state to order new inspections around thousands of oil and natural gas wells.
While the repercussions aren't expected to kill off operations in Colorado, they could raise costs for an industry already walking a financial tightrope, with oil prices down 14 percent this year. Since May 2, when authorities publicly tied Anadarko to the home explosion, company shares have lost about 15 percent, nine times more than the S&P 500 Energy Index.
“Something like that will be remembered,” said Joe Ryan, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the industry. “Even if statistically it's infrequent, that may be the kind of thing that pushes the public to say, ‘we have to see improvement.’“
Other drillers active in Colorado have also seen their shares slide, with Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. and Noble Energy Inc. both falling about 8 percent.
Anadarko, one of the world's biggest independent oil and gas drillers, has a long history in Colorado, dating back more than 30 years. Since the April blast, the company has deployed more than 350 workers to comply with a state order to inspect underground pipelines, spokesman John Christiansen said in an email. It's also voluntarily replacing gas-supply lines of the type implicated in the blast at thousands of wells.
“Our current focus is on taking the appropriate actions to help residents feel safe,” Christiansen wrote. “We believe any legislative or regulatory action around this issue will be most effective when we have all the information from the investigation.“
Still, investors remain nervous about the potential fallout, according to Michael Scialla, a Denver-based analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. While Anadarko is likely to be fined, “the damage already pales in comparison to what they've lost in market value,” he said in an interview. The company has shed more than $7 billion of its value since the end of March.
The April incident leveled a home in Firestone, just north of Denver. Fire officials blamed gas that had seeped into the house from an abandoned line connected to an Anadarko well 200 feet away. Five weeks later, on May 25, an explosion and fire at an Anadarko oil tank in nearby Mead, Colorado, killed one contractor and left three others hospitalized.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is probing the first incident, while the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is looking into the second. Anadarko, based in The Woodlands, Texas, voluntarily closed thousands of wells for inspection after the Firestone explosion and has promised to cooperate with authorities in both cases.
Resident Fears
State officials have moved to dispel resident fears. Governor John Hickenlooper last month ordered drillers to inspect oil and gas lines throughout the state. Reports covering 17,000 wells had been turned in as of May 30 and are still being reviewed, according to the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission.
Through a spokeswoman, Hickenlooper, a Democrat and former petroleum geologist, declined to comment on whether he sees a need for more regulation.
What happens next is unclear. After the Firestone blast but before the Mead tank fire, the Republican-led state Senate blocked legislation to increase the buffer, or setback, required between new wells and other properties. The limit now stands at 500 feet for homes and 1,000 for schools and hospitals. The effort could be revived when lawmakers reconvene in January.
“We are in wait-and-see mode but we don't think a major strategic policy shift is likely,” said Ethan Bellamy, an energy analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. in Denver. While “fracktivists in Boulder” will still fight drilling, “the practicalities of the state's budgetary reliance on oil and gas revenue likely prevent any overly draconian changes.“
Failed Referendum
A referendum to expand setbacks to 2,500 feet around occupied buildings and bodies of water failed to gather enough signatures last year to make it onto the November ballot. The proposal could have outlawed operations in 90 percent of the state, the oil & gas commission said last year.
A more likely change may be new restrictions on where developers can build homes near wells. The house in Firestone was constructed after the gas well was in place and highlights a loophole in Colorado regulation, said Stifel's Scialla: While oil and gas companies are barred from drilling close to homes, there are fewer limits on homebuilders who buy land near drilling operations.
The state could also tighten rules on where pipelines are placed or require more mapping and inspections of underground flow lines, the smaller conduits that carry gas and oil from well sites. It's an area that's been “woefully underregulated,” Scialla said, even as drilling and homebuilding have both expanded around the state.
“I have to believe at the very least there will be more regulation around flow lines,” he said. “They don't even know where half the flow lines are in the state.“
Colorado's Sierra Club has called for a moratorium on all oil and gas production until the accidents are better understood and a task force to study how the industry is regulated. Politicians, nudged by millions in industry campaign donations, have become too lenient with drillers, said Jim Alexee, director of Sierra's Colorado chapter.
“What Colorado needs more than anything is an honest and objective way of looking at the industry,” he said. “Resource extraction is not going to go away in Colorado anytime soon, but we need to talk about how we deal with it in a responsible way.“
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114237039&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114237039&jd=114237039
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Pennsylvania Appellate Court Again Finds NatGas Drilling Compatible with Residential Zones
Jun 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A Pennsylvania appellate court once again has affirmed a key 2015 decision that found natural gas drilling is compatible with residential/agricultural (RA) zoning districts, rejecting a challenge from residents and environmental groups that argued the areas are not suitable for such development.
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in its ruling last week disagreed with all of the objections raised in an appeal by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the Clean Air Council and some Middlesex Township residents opposed to Rex Energy Corp.'s drilling operations that were less than a mile from a school in Butler County. The plaintiffs challenged the township's zoning board for modifying an ordinance that allows oil and gas companies to drill in RA zones. The Butler County Court of Common Pleas dismissed the case in 2015, saying the township "clearly and thoroughly balanced the considerations of the variously zoned districts," and found "no error of law or abuse of discretion" in the township's decision to uphold its ordinance.
The Commonwealth Court agreed, finding that natural gas development is not an incompatible industrial use in RA zones. The court also said the township's ordinance meets the provisions of Article I, Section 27 of the state constitution, an environmental rights amendment, by requiring certain safeguards. And among other things, the court found the board did not exclude or reject evidence during deliberations and public hearings about the ordinance.
Several townships across the state have faced similar challenges to drilling permits issued in RA zones. In most of the cases, opponents have claimed that those zones are not suitable for unconventional drilling well sites. Challengers have claimed such development threatens public safety and the legal rights afforded to residents under the state’s environmental amendment.
Producers have so far been successful in the proceedings. In its opinion, the Commonwealth Court cited one of its earlier decisions in a case that pitted Inflection Energy LLC against homeowners in the northeastern part of the state. In that case, the court said most of the state is zoned for RA use, ruling oil and gas wells are compatible with such zones, similar to public service facilities such as power plants, parking garages or offices.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110765-pennsylvania-appellate-court-again-finds-natgas-drilling-compatible-with-residential-zones
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(ACC Blog) Product Stewardship Helps Keep Workers ‘Safe + Sound’
Jun 14, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
By Ryan Baldwin
This week, OSHA has announced events to highlight worker health and safety initiatives through its Safe + Sound Week. While safety is a cornerstone value for us every week, the American Chemistry Council’sCenter for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is excited for the opportunity to highlight our commitment to safety and some of the ways we help our members and their customers make safety important every day.
Safety is a primary function for us. Our role here at CPI is to support the polyurethanes industry by developing environmental, health, and safety programs and associated educational literature; conducting research to further current understandings on use of the product; and establishing relationships with regulatory and legislative bodies to help promote sound and responsible public policies.
We promote the growth of the North American polyurethanes industry through effective advocacy, and by demonstrating how polyurethanes deliver sustainable outcomes. The industry supports 48,800 jobs in nearly 1,000 locations in the United States.
A robust product stewardship program encompasses environmental, safety and health aspects of manufacturing, transportation, and use, and helps those involved to understand, control and communicate a product’s environmental, health and safety-related effects throughout the product’s life cycle, from initial production to final disposal.
There’s obviously a lot involved in promoting safe and healthy environments in the workplace. CPI provides environment, health and safety literature, training programs, and videos about polyurethanes to suppliers, producers, applicators, and other trade associations to help support safe and responsible practices for workers and the environment.
In addition, our library of information, which has over 60 documents available in multiple languages, includes guidance materials on general polyurethane product safety, worker protection, waste disposal, transportation guidelines, industrial hygiene and regulatory compliance.
And it’s not just CPI that’s working toward safety, of course. The entire polyurethanes industry has been working on a variety of fronts to educate workers about safe and appropriate handling, use and disposal of polyurethane raw materials and products.
So, join us this week as we share some of what we do to promote health and safety in the workplace. According to OSHA’s website, Safe + Sound Week is “a nationwide event to raise awareness and understanding of the value of safety and health programs that include management leadership, worker participation and a systematic approach to finding and fixing hazards in workplaces.” OSHA is encouraging organizations of all sizes to participate and “show their commitment to safety to workers, customers, the public [and] supply chain partners.”
For more information, check out CPI’s website or the OSHA website.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/06/product-stewardship-helps-keep-workers-safe-sound/
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Officially Delays to 2019 Risk Management Program Rule Changes
Jun 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially postponed the effective date of a rule designed to help prevent accidents and explosions at refineries and other industrial facilities.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a final rule to delay the effective date of amendments to its Risk Management Program (RMP) rule until Feb. 19, 2019. The rule was originally planned to take effect next Monday (June 19).
"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 Monday.
According to the EPA, the delay will provide "an additional 20 months to allow the agency to conduct a reconsideration proceeding and to consider other issues that may benefit from additional comment...[and] allow the agency time to evaluate the RMP amendments.”
The agency “will consider the relevant questions and concerns submitted to the agency through multiple petitions and other comments received during the public comment period and public hearing."Last March, Pruitt, acting on a request from several trade associations, including the oil and gas industry, issued a three-month stay of the RMP amendments. By month's end, Pruitt had signed a proposed rule to delay their implementation.
Several trade associations, collectively calling themselves the RMP Coalition, sent Pruitt a petition at the end of February, urging a stay. The American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers were among the petition's signatories.
Among the issues raised by the RMP Coalition, the petitioners said the RMP rule "raises significant security concerns and compliance issues that will cause irreparable harm to the Coalition members. The final rule, for example, compels facilities to make available sensitive information about covered processes that could expose vulnerabilities to terrorists and others who may target refineries, chemical plants and other facilities."
The amendments would make changes to the Accidental Release Prevention Requirements for Risk Management Programs under the Section 112(r)(7) of the Clean Air Act. They emerged in response to an executive order issued by President Obama following several industrial accidents, including an ammonium nitrate explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, TX, in April 2013.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110771-epa-officially-delays-to-2019-risk-management-program-rule-changes
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Practitioner Insights: Rapid Tests Transform Chemical Safety Calls
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dr. Russell Thomas & Dr. John Wambaugh
Dr. Russell Thomas is the Director of EPA's National Center for Computational Toxicology. He has broad multidisciplinary training in chemistry, physics, and toxicology and has worked in the pharmaceutical sector and with chemical safety institutes in the past.
Dr. John Wambaugh is a physical scientist with EPA who works as a team member on the ToxCast and Virtual Tissues projects and is a co-leader of the Rapid Exposure and Dosimetry project.
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to make safety-related decisions on thousands of chemicals to accomplish its mission. These range from prioritizing chemicals for additional study to performing in-depth risk assessments and are typically based on an understanding of the chemistry, hazard (inherent toxicity), dose-response, and exposure.
The ability to fulfill these obligations is challenging due to the lack of hazard and exposure data available for these chemicals and the cost of generating data on potential health effects using traditional animal toxicity tests. Apart from the economic considerations, there are ethical concerns with the number of animals required to thoroughly test all the chemicals the EPA regulates.
To address these challenges, the EPA is developing faster and more economical approaches to measuring and predicting these properties and incorporating the data into a range of online dashboards to support regulatory and health decision-making.
By the Numbers
Lack of data: Although nearly 60 percent of chemicals on various EPA chemical lists have acute toxicity data, less than 30 percent have data for other types of toxicity such as cancer, developmental, and reproductive endpoints. Of the chemicals that have at least limited toxicity information, less than one-fifth also have exposure information.
Costs: The costs and time associated with traditional animal toxicity testing is significant. A developmental toxicity test costs approximately $100,000 per chemical and can take up to six months to complete. An animal cancer bio-assay costs nearly a million dollars and takes several years to perform.
During the past 12 years, the EPA's Computational Toxicology (CompTox) research efforts have developed transformative scientific approaches that can help prioritize chemicals to find those that are most in need of testing. To date, the EPA's CompTox efforts have compiled or generated data on thousands of chemicals. Apart from prioritization, these approaches are showing promise for use in a broad range of chemical-safety decisions, including screening-level chemical assessments, as well as supporting in-depth risk assessments.
Chemical assessments typically include chemistry, hazard (inherent toxicity), dose-response, and exposure and incorporate uncertainty and variability in each area. This article summarizes progress in the EPA's CompTox research in each area and how it is being integrated to support chemical safety decisions.
Chemistry
The foundation of chemical safety testing relies on high-quality chemistry information. This includes chemical structures, identifiers, and physicochemical properties. To provide the chemistry data needed for rapid and efficient risk assessments, the EPA recently released the CompTox Chemistry Dashboard (https://comptox.epa.gov/dashboard/), which provides access to a variety of information on more than 700,000 chemicals.
Within the CompTox Chemistry Dashboard is information on chemical structures, intrinsic properties, identification of related chemicals or mixtures, and physicochemical properties. This database includes thousands of experimental measurements of chemical properties, as well as predictions made by quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR) developed using the measured data. For predicted chemical properties, the domain of applicability of the predictions are provided and details on the model are provided in standard QSAR Model Reporting Format (QMRF), where available.
Hazard
To identify the potential hazard of a chemical, the EPA's Toxicity Forecaster (ToxCast) uses advanced high-throughput screening technology to rapidly screen thousands of chemicals for effects on biological processes and pathways. ToxCast has so far generated biological activity data on more than 1,800 chemicals in 700 high-throughput assays that cover a range of high-level cell responses and approximately 300 cellular signaling pathways.
In addition to ToxCast, the EPA participates in the U.S. Federal Collaboration–Toxicology in the 21stCentury (Tox21), which includes the National Toxicology Program (NTP), National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Tox21 partnership also uses high-throughput screening to evaluate potential hazards and has screened almost 10,000 chemicals across 50 assays.
An essential component in the interpretation of high-throughput screening data for hazard is the integration of this data into predictive computer models. To date, these computational models have included statistical and dynamic models, as well as empirical and biologically based models.
Examples of pathway-based models are those for estrogen and androgen receptors in the endocrine system. The computational models combine data from multiple assays in the pathway to reduce statistical “noise” and compensate for technological deficiencies. Statistical models also have been developed to predict organ-specific hazards, identify mode-of-action, and estimate toxicological “tipping points” associated with the concentration-dependent transition from cellular adaptation to adversity.
Lastly, the high-throughput screening assays have been used to inform and put parameters around dynamic computational modeling of biological processes involved in human development to understand the impacts of chemically related perturbations.
Dose Response
The high-throughput screening data in ToxCast and Tox21 are collected in concentration-response format, that is, looking for increased disease response as the chemical concentration is increased. An automated data analysis pipeline the EPA developed provides a quantitative estimate of the potency of a chemical for disrupting a biological process or pathway.
To be useful for risk assessment, however, the potency estimate must be translated into an external dose using toxicokinetics. This is the study of how chemicals enter, distribute around, and leave the body and affords a bridge between toxicity and exposure assessment by providing a quantitative link between external exposure to a chemical and resulting blood and tissue concentrations.
Although traditional animal-based toxicokinetic studies are expensive and time-consuming, a collection of methods called high-throughput toxicokinetics have been used in the pharmaceutical industry to determine likely efficacious doses when designing human clinical trials. These methods rely on high-throughput measurements of plasma protein binding and hepatic metabolism.
The experimental data from these assays are scaled from the laboratory setting to predicted human (or animal) conditions using in vitro-to-in vivo extrapolation to build predictive toxicokinetic models. These toxicokinetic models can then estimate blood concentrations associated with a given dose.
With some modification for application to environmental and industrial scenarios, these in vitro methods and toxicokinetic models allow translation of potency estimates from the ToxCast and Tox21 high-throughput screening assays to external dose equivalents.
Exposure
Exposure data such as daily chemical intake rates are needed to provide a risk context to the hazard dose response relationship. Understanding how much chemical a person is exposed to can be a significant challenge, however, since human exposure involves human activity.
For example, exposure could result from the amount of air breathed, food eaten, and/or consumer product used. Since the exposure event is often difficult to observe, surrogate measures are used either leading to exposure (such as concentration of chemical in air) or resulting from exposure (such as amount of chemical excreted from the body). In either case, mathematical models have been developed to relate the surrogate measures to exposure estimates.
For example, an ongoing survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quantifies markers of chemical exposure in the urine of a representative sample of the U.S. population. Using knowledge about human physiology (amount of urine excreted in a day) and several simplifying assumptions, daily exposure rates were inferred for approximately 100 chemicals. The process is complicated by the fact that the chemicals monitored in the urine are often metabolites of the parent chemical and, in some cases, different chemicals share the same metabolite.
The EPA's Exposure Forecaster (ExpoCast) is developing computational and experimental approaches to provide quantitative exposure estimates across thousands of chemicals using limited data. ExpoCast has used computer-driven statistical approaches (including machine learning) to identify trends in daily exposure rates inferred from the CDC data.
Information on national production volume and product use can broadly predict the CDC exposure monitoring data. These trends are then used to predict exposures to other chemicals that are lacking exposure measurements.
For example, chemicals with sources within the home have been found to be more likely to have higher exposure rates than other chemicals. This finding has led to an increased effort to develop new databases of chemicals known to be in consumer products in order to increase the accuracy of the exposure predictions. These databases are being expanded with new experimental methods for the analysis of chemicals in the home (including house dust and consumer products).
Despite these efforts, a significant number of chemicals still have no easily obtained information about how they are used, leading to the development of new computer models that can predict likely uses for a chemical based on structure.
Uncertainty and Variability
A critical part of any chemical assessment or prioritization activity is an understanding of the uncertainty and variability surrounding each component used in the process.
In this context, uncertainty is defined as a lack of knowledge, while variability is a true difference among a population. For decades, the uncertainty and variability in traditional animal studies were captured using standardized adjustment factors called “uncertainty factors.”
By contrast, efforts to characterize uncertainty and variability in high-throughput hazard, toxicokinetic, and exposure data have generally focused on chemical-specific methods. This focus leads to better informed chemical safety decisions, as well as the ability to identify where in the process additional data may be useful for reducing uncertainty in risk decisions.
In the analysis of the high-throughput screening assays, statistical methods are being developed and evaluated to establish uncertainty bounds around the potency and efficacy estimates. These statistical methods involve resampling the data and refitting the concentration response curves thousands of times to quantitatively estimate the uncertainty.
For the toxicokinetic modeling, the experimental uncertainty in the plasma protein binding and hepatic metabolism is being propagated to the toxicokinetic models that estimate steady-state blood concentrations from a given administered dose. Inter-individual variability is incorporated into toxicokinetic models by changing how physiological parameters (such as age and body weight) are distributed across the population.
Finally, the ExpoCast model is built on a statistical framework that provides quantitative estimates of uncertainty and predictions for a range of demographic groups within the U.S. population (that is, variability).
Moving the Science Forward
The EPA CompTox effort has developed and applied innovative new approaches to toxicity testing, toxicokinetics, and exposure. The resulting data provide a valuable resource for beginning to shift from the traditional paradigm of testing small numbers of chemicals in resource-intensive animal studies toward higher throughput approaches that evaluate disruption of biological processes and pathways across thousands of chemicals.
The initial translation of the developments in the EPA CompTox effort into regulatory decisions occurred first in the U.S. Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program. During the past two years, the agency has announced its intent to use the high-throughput and computational approaches for replacement of specific in vitro and in vivo tests in the Tier 1 EDSP battery and prioritizing chemicals for further evaluation.
In building on these successes, the EPA is developing a semi-automated online decision support tool with a dashboard interface called RapidTox. This online tool will integrate a range of information related to chemical properties, fate and transport, hazard, and exposure. It will be transparent and interactive enough to enable expert users to review the assumptions made. It also will be flexible enough to refine the data or models used as needed for specific decision contexts.
Initially, the RapidTox dashboard is being developed to support chemical safety decisions using two case studies. The first case study is to prioritize non-food use pesticidal inert ingredients for additional study in partnership with the Office of Pesticide Programs. The second case study is to estimate screening levels with associated uncertainty for data-poor chemicals at Superfund sites in partnership with the Office of Land and Emergency Management and the Regions.
Following completion of the case studies, the RapidTox tool will be expanded to cover the full range of decisions related to chemical safety that the EPA faces. The RapidTox tool will enable the agency to make decisions on thousands of chemicals quicker, cheaper, and more transparently.
Dr. Russell Thomas is the Director of EPA's National Center for Computational Toxicology. He is a trained toxicologist with multidisciplinary experience in molecular biology, bioinformatics, and genomics and has worked in the biotechnology industry and with chemical research institutes in the past.
Dr. John Wambaugh is a physical scientist with EPA who works as a team member on the ToxCast and Virtual Tissues projects and is a co-leader of the Rapid Exposure and Dosimetry project.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114237049&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114237049&jd=114237049
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EU Set to Commit to Climate Deal, Free Trade in Rebuff to Trump
Jun 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ian Wishart
European Union leaders are planning to use a summit next week to declare their commitment to global free trade and the Paris climate accord in a rebuff to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The bloc's 28 leaders will issue a statement rejecting protectionism and underlining that the Paris agreement is a “cornerstone for global efforts to effectively tackle climate change, and cannot be renegotiated,” according to a draft for the June 22-23 summit obtained by Bloomberg.
“The EU is strongly committed to free, fair and mutually beneficial trade and investment,” the draft conclusions, dated June 12, say. “The EU will keep its markets open and fight protectionism by pushing for the removal of all trade-distorting practices.”
The EU has been angered by Trump's “America First” economic policy and his rejection of global free trade, as well his decision earlier this month to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate pact, which he claimed favors other nations at the expense of American workers.
‘Fair Trade Conditions’
Trump's trip to Europe in May, during which he failed to explicitly support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's collective defense policy, criticized allies over military spending spending and said Germany is “very bad” for flooding the U.S. with cars, damaged U.S.-Europe relations and angered leaders. At a Group of Seven summit in Sicily, passages on free trade and immigration were substantially altered compared with previous years.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel used a speech last month to bemoan Trump's trade policies, referring to “a whole series of protectionist tendencies” emerging worldwide. “It's necessary to be open to achieve fair trade conditions,” she said.
In another sign of the EU's increasing belief that it can't rely on the U.S., leaders will declare the bloc's commitment to working together to “develop its common security and defense.” While underlining cooperation with NATO, leaders will demand strengthened EU coordination, according to the draft. The conclusions are subject to revision.
The EU's 27 leaders without U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a separate meeting during the summit to discuss the latest Brexit developments following the British general election that saw May return to office without a parliamentary majority.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=114237029&vname=dennotallissues&fn=114237029&jd=114237029
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Healthier, Safer Summers – Brought to You by the EPA
Jun 13, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Mandy Warner
Summer is finally here.
We’ve longed to hear the waves crash, to see the kids play in the backyard sprinkler, to pack up the car for the annual camping trip.
Few of us ever think about the fact that one government agency is working hard to keep our beaches, national parks and outdoor air healthier and safer during these wonderful summer months.
Here are three ways the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency improves summers for all Americans – and what’s at stake this particular season.
1. Gives us safer, cleaner beaches
Americans made nearly 360 million trips to the beach in 2016. We love our ocean and lake days in the summer, and certainly don’t expect to get sick from taking a dip.
Most of us won’t because the EPA works in partnership with states and local governments to protect our nation’s beaches.
The agency enforces laws and administers programs that regulate sources of water pollution at beaches, conducts leading scientific research on pathogens and sets national water quality standards. It also funds grants to states and local governments to help protect our beaches, and provides water quality information to the public.
Even so, beaches are sometimes shut down by pollution – for example, from raw sewage – that can expose swimmers to harmful microorganisms.
Of 3,485 coastal U.S. beaches analyzed a few years ago, 10 percent were above the EPA’s benchmark for swimmer safety, one analysis showed.
We clearly need to work harder, not less, to keep beaches open for visitors. Unfortunately, President Trump’s proposed budget for the EPA would eliminate the beach monitoring grants program, a move that could directly affect the health of our beloved shores.
2. Cleans up the air in national parks
There were 331 million visitors to our national parks in 2016 who spent $18.4 billion in surrounding communities. Such tourism supported 318,000 jobs and contributed $35 billion to economic output nationally.
The EPA and other agencies monitor visibility at 155 national parks and wilderness areas across the country. An EPA program to reduce haze and other pollution that affects our parks has led to measurable improvements in recent years.
Today, visitors to the south rim of the Grand Canyon are more likely to get a clear view of the natural wonder than they would have in the mid-1990s when gray haze sometimes made it impossible see the other side of the canyon.
Still today, three of our four most iconic national parks struggle [PDF] with unhealthy air, and visitors miss on average 50 miles of scenery because of haze.
Making things worse, the EPA’s work to reduce the pollution affecting our parks is currently under threat by Administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the EPA over a plan to reduce haze when he was attorney general of Oklahoma.
3. Reduces deadly smog
This is the time of year when, instead of spending time outside, some children with asthma and seniors with heart conditions are told to stay indoors because of smog alerts.
A number of “code orange” days have already been issued this year in states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Alabama.
Such problems are not nearly as prevalent as a few decades back because the EPA has worked steadily to reduce smog. More progress is needed, however, which is why new smog standards the agency issued in 2015 are so important.
Once in effect, these standards are expected to prevent 230,000 asthma attacks among children annually – and finally give parents a little less to worry about when their kids bike around the neighborhood, or run through that sprinkler with their friends.
Or so we hope: The new smog standards recently came under attack in Congress, which is moving several bills to delay and fundamentally alter how these and other air pollution protections are set. And just last week, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that he will delay implementation of the protections against smog.
In addition, Trump’s proposed budget for 2018 slashes funding for the air monitoring that warns families about “code red” and “code orange” days – when air quality reaches unhealthy levels – by almost one third.
Will it be safe for our kids to play outside in the summer going forward? Or to swim in the ocean or hike in the Shenandoah National Park?
It will if we make the right choice as a country and keep moving forward, rather than backward, to protect and expand critical health protections. It will if we defend the agency that has been working hard since the 1970s to make your summers so much better.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/06/13/healthier-safer-summers-brought-you-epa
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OTC States Eye Swift EPA Haze Air Plan Submissions to Serve as Model
Jun 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Some states within the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are aiming to submit their next compliance plans for EPA's regional haze program by 2018 instead of the agency's delayed deadline of 2021, hoping that their plans will serve as models for other states.
At OTC's June 6 spring meeting here, member states that have “Class I areas,” which are national parks and wilderness areas, protected under the haze program stated their determination to stick to the original 2018 deadline for submission of state implementation plans (SIPs) despite EPA's delay. These states are Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont.
The Obama EPA in a Jan. 10 rule overhauled the haze program, which aims to restore visibility to natural conditions in Class I areas by 2064, easing some requirements for states including allowing them to delay by three years submission of the SIPs that detail the emissions controls they will impose on haze sources. The rule, however, also increased the involvement of federal land managers (FLMs) in state planning, and required states to work together on Class I areas they jointly pollute, prompting criticism from some states that view these changes as federal overreach.
Under the haze program's first phase, states submitted SIPs covering the period 2008-2018 showing how they will reduce visibility-obscuring pollution. Those plans were based largely on the one-time requirement for states to impose best available retrofit technology (BART) to curb emissions at eligible sources, mainly power plants.
The second-phase SIPs, covering the period 2018-2028, will focus on other requirements such as “reasonable progress” goals and long-term strategy. Although EPA has delayed the submission deadline for SIPs until 2021, the second planning period still concludes in 2028.
Speaking on behalf of regional planning organization Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Visibility Union (MANE-VU), which facilitates haze planning in the OTC area, New York air regulator Rob Sliwinski outlined the procedure by which MANE-VU states will prepare their SIPs in accordance with the reformed haze program. MANE-VU includes the OTC-area states with the exception of Virginia: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
OTC's 'Ask'
The states will first consider what actions they will take internally, and in the MANE-VU region. They will then take their “ask” to non-MANE-VU area states that the group's analysis shows contribute to haze problems in the region, which according to Sliwinski's presentation could be as far afield as Texas. Finally, the MANE-VU states will take their planning “ask” to FLMs and EPA for their input, before drafting final SIPs.
The “asks” will take the form of three separate documents. Once the process is established, “we hope it is an example for others to follow,” Sliwinski told Inside EPA at the event.
According to Sliwinski's presentation, the draft “ask” to states both inside and outside of MANE-VU will involve: operating and optimizing of installed controls such as selective catalytic reduction and scrubbers at power plants year-round; conducting four-factor analysis of reasonable progress goals, including costs of controls, time necessary for compliance, energy and other impacts and remaining equipment life; completing implementation of a 2007 low-sulfur oil rule within the MANE-VU states; achieving 90 percent sulfur dioxide (SO2) reductions at sources that have not already done so; updating permits and rules to reflect already achieved rates of SO2, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter; performing four-factor analysis on units implicated in worsening air pollution on high electric demand days in MANE-VU states only; and initiating measures to increase energy efficiency and implement combined heat and power generation at industry sources.
The ask document to FLMs and EPA will ask FLMs to consult with MANE-VU Class I states when scheduling prescribed burns; ask EPA to develop measures that will further reduce emissions from heavy-duty road vehicles; and ask EPA to ensure that MANE-VU states' “asks” are addressed in the SIPs of states contributing to haze in the region prior to approval.
Haze Planning
Regulators present at the meeting said that MANE-VU states considered that the benefits of halting haze planning because of the SIP submission delay until 2021 would in fact be outweighed by additional costs, hence their decision to continue on the earlier schedule.
Other states are, however, challenging the revised consultation procedures contained in the haze rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suit State of Texas, et al. v. EPA.
Environmentalists are intervening in the suit to defend the rule, but also to challenge aspects of it they dislike, including EPA's requirement for states to use 2000-2004 data to calculate baseline emissions, which environmentalists say results in weak reduction mandates, and also the agency's definition of wildfires as “natural events” exempt from regulation, even if caused by people.
In general, OTC-area states have few problems meeting regional haze reductions, due to a significant reduction in SO2 emissions in recent years. However, in Western areas home to major Class I areas such as Grand Canyon National Park, haze planning challenges are likely to be much tougher than in the East. Nonetheless, the OTC/MANE-VU states' plans will be the first submitted under the new haze rule, assuming it survives the ongoing D.C. Circuit challenge, and as such will provide a blueprint that others can either adopt or modify, Sliwinski said
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/otc-states-eye-swift-epa-haze-air-plan-submissions-serve-model
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California Governor Named Adviser for UN Climate Conference
Jun 14, 2017 | The Associated Press (in The Washington Post)
By Kathleen Ronayne
California Gov. Jerry Brown was named Tuesday as a special envoy to states at the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, further elevating his international profile as a leader on the issue as President Donald Trump backs away from a key international agreement.
The announcement of Brown’s role at the November conference in Bonn, Germany, by Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama comes on the heels of the governor’s meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks to discuss climate change.
“I will lean on Gov. Brown to continue to bring the great leadership he has demonstrated time and time again, and to mobilize a strong contingent of like-minded leaders from around the world, to show the world that we mean business,” Bainimarama said during a news conference at the historic governor’s mansion in Sacramento.
The four-term governor has made reducing greenhouse gas emissions and boosting green technology a key tenet of his administration. He’s launched non-binding climate change pacts, including the newly formed U.S. Climate Alliance of states committed to upholding the carbon reductions goals in the Paris climate agreement, from which Trump plans to withdraw. Bainimarama on Tuesday joined Fiji in the Under2 Coalition, a pact among cities, states and countries that Brown helped launch in 2015 aimed at keeping the rise of global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
Bainimarama hailed U.S. states’ commitment to upholding the Paris agreements. He noted Trump’s choice to withdraw could bring fireworks to the U.N. conference, known as “COP 23.”
“I think the withdrawal of the White House is going to make COP 23 very exciting,” he said.
Brown won’t be the only governor potentially playing an outsize role at the conference. Fellow West Coast Govs. Kate Brown of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington, who also traveled to Sacramento on Tuesday, both plan to attend with other governors in the state’s Climate Alliance.
“We’re going to play a very important role,” Jerry Brown said.
The state agreement is a non-binding commitment to uphold the Paris goals, which include reducing the country’s emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels. Many of the 13 states involved already have their own targets in place, and the goal of the coalition is to collaborate and share ideas on using green technology and other means to meet the goal.
“When the president decided to run up the white flag of surrender to the challenge of climate change, we jumped right into the barricades,” Inslee said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/california-governor-named-adviser-for-un-climate-conference/2017/06/13/e1459b08-5097-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html?utm_term=.5c1c3d49575d
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