Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 21/06
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(ACC Mentioned) Want to Squash Science? Follow Pruitt’s Lead at the EPA
Jun 21, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Gina Reed
The Trump Administration doubled down on its overhaul of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) this week, notifying members whose terms would be ending in 2017 and early 2018 that their terms will not be renewed and cancelling subcommittee meetings for the rest of the year. -
Split Panel Sends OIRA, OMB Nominees To Senate Floor
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
A split Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved President Trump's picks today for overseeing federal spending and regulatory changes. -
(ACC Mentioned) Will Uncovered Research Change IARC’s Cancer Conclusion?
Jun 21, 2017 | Agripulse
By Steve Davies
The already controversial decision by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – determining that the widely used herbicide glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans – is now even more subject to debate. -
The Current Debate on Cost Burden by Human Exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
Jun 16, 2017 | Springer Link
By Hermann M. Bolt
Recently, Gregory G. Bond from Northport, USA, and Daniel R. Dietrich from the University of Konstanz have contributed a comprehensive review about human cost burden of endocrine disrupting chemicals (Bond and Dietrich 2017) -
IG Report Cites Flaws in EPA Herbicide Resistance Efforts
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Marc Heller
U.S. EPA's efforts to combat herbicide resistance in weeds are hampered by poor communication between the agency and stakeholders, the agency's watchdog office said. -
Echa's Seac Adopts Restriction Proposals on Four Phthalates
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa's Committee for Socio-Economic Analysis (Seac) has adopted its final opinion on a restriction proposal on four phthalates (DEHP, DBP, DIBP and BBP) in articles. -
NGO Calls for Market Withdrawal of 23 Cosmetic Products
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A French consumer rights group is urging the European Commission to immediately withdraw 23 cosmetic products which, it claims, contain substances banned under EU law. -
Danish EPA Gives Recommendations for Tattoo Ink Allergens Restriction
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Danish EPA has released a report on allergic reactions to tattoo inks, to help Echa in preparing a REACH Annex XV dossier to restrict harmful substances in the inks. -
Irish Downstream Users Warned of 'Significant' Brexit Challenges
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Irish downstream users of chemicals have been told of the serious problems they could face when the UK leaves the EU, and warned they need to start thinking about their supply chains immediately. -
Backers Defend Rule In Report To OMB
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Hess
Supporters of the Clean Power Plan released a report today that estimates wiping out U.S. EPA's rule would cost the economy 560,000 new jobs and $52 billion in gross domestic product by 2030. -
What to Know for the Next Round of Pipeline Drama
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Challengers and defenders of the Dakota Access pipeline are preparing for a reunion of sorts in federal court today. -
Interior Pushes to Freeze Appeal as Plans to Nix Rule Advance
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
As the White House reviews the Interior Department's plans to roll back an Obama-era hydraulic fracturing rule, government lawyers are again urging a court to pause related litigation. -
Landmark Marcellus Shale Ruling Favors Enviros in Clash with State
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer & Mike Lee
Pennsylvania lawmakers can't arbitrarily divert money from natural gas drilling on state forests to other priorities, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for environmental and fiscal policy. -
Appalachian NGL Storage Study Nearing Completion
Jun 21, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
An extensive study that began last year with the backing of a Pittsburgh-based charitable organization and some of the region's major producers to determine the potential of underground natural gas liquids (NGL) storage in the Appalachian Basin is almost finished. -
Conn. Governor Blasts EPA's Ozone Delay
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D) is pressing U.S. EPA to rethink its recent decision to delay a key ozone air quality benchmark, warning that it will hurt both his state's economy and public health. -
Interior to Rewrite BLM Rule
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke yesterday gave his most definitive indication to date that his agency would rework an Obama-era regulation to curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations on public lands. -
Industry Risks Losing Trillions from Climate Rules — Report
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The global oil industry has trillions of dollars at risk from climate regulation, money that could be lost if governments clamp down on emissions, according to a report released today. -
Cities Resurrect Scrubbed EPA Climate Data
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
A group of cities is preserving years' worth of climate change data the Trump administration scrubbed from U.S. EPA's website.
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(ACC Mentioned) Want to Squash Science? Follow Pruitt’s Lead at the EPA
Jun 21, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Gina Reed
The Trump Administration doubled down on its overhaul of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) this week, notifying members whose terms would be ending in 2017 and early 2018 that their terms will not be renewed and cancelling subcommittee meetings for the rest of the year. This means that just 3 out of 18 executive committee members and 11 out of 49 subcommittee members will remain, with just 10 days to reapply to their positions.
This will stall the work of the committee, which was set to begin looking at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development’s (ORD) plans for the next five years. According to the Board’s chair, Deborah Swackhamer, it’s an inauspicious sign of what’s to come for other advisory committees with members whose terms are coming to an end, like many members of EPA’s Science Advisory Board.Scientific advisory process is already open, inclusive, and diverse
Scientific advisory committees, like BOSC, provide independent advice to the federal government, allowing agencies to seek outside expertise on critical issues. The EPA has seven advisory committees that are scientific or technical in nature, including the Science Advisory Board (SAB), the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), the Board of Scientific Counselors, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), the Chemical Safety Advisory Committee, the Environmental Laboratory Advisory Board, and the Human Studies Review Board.
Most recent membership includes a wide range of expertise, of scientists from a variety of backgrounds whose affiliations range from an academic setting to the private sector.
As appropriate, a diversity of expertise is represented on these advisory committees, the work of which ranges from reviewing epidemiological studies on a particular pesticide to advising the EPA on a contentious scientific review, like fracking impacts on drinking water.
Advisory committees should be made up of a balance of expertise, not just because it’s required under the Federal Advisory Committee Act but because it promotes a breadth of opinions, an opportunity for creative solutions to complex problems, and challenges members to come to a consensus on certain charge questions.
The EPA’s advisory committees are also very transparent. All members serving on these committees must sign ethics forms, disclose funding from the past two years, and be prepared to submit a waiver to the administrator if there is a clear conflict of interest explaining how it will be mitigated.This is about science advice, not politics
A representative from the American Chemistry Council told the Washington Post that the emptying out of BOSC was welcome and would address their “concerns in the past that EPA advisory boards did not include a diversity of views and therefore frequently presented a biased perspective on issues before them.” But this criticism doesn’t make sense for the BOSC. Its executive committee is composed of scientists with diverse research expertise, equipped to give advice on ORD’s research agenda without making policy prescriptions where a bias would come into play.
I want to reiterate something that the BOSC’s chair repeated several times in a hearing before the House Science Committee in May. She told members of congress that “robust science, not politics, should form the bedrock” of environmental policies and that all of the members who could have been renewed for a second term had been fully qualified, vetted, and ORD-recommended.
There was no justification for their dismissal. Swackhamer was rightfully offended by the implication that BOSC members would display allegiance to the administration under which they are appointed, telling the Star Tribune that, “I resent the fact that we are considered biased because were appointed during [President Barack] Obama’s tenure,” she said. “I would behave the same way if I were appointed by Pruitt.”
Independent science advisors should be judged based on their qualifications to make scientific recommendations, which don’t change just because there’s a new EPA administrator. Now instead of working to help ORD decide how in the world they will deal with likely cuts to several of its research programs, BOSC will be incapacitated for at least the next year, which according to one of the subcommittee members who resigned last month, Peter B. Meyer, will mean that “guidance to shape the coming agenda will be lost so cost-effectiveness of research will suffer, as will science.”
Of all of the EPA’s advisory committees, BOSC is the last one I would expect to be caught up in a political fight. And I’m still worried about the future of EPA’s other important science advisory committees. Let’s remember that the SAB often works on policy-relevant issues, and its current nomination process is already stalled this year.
Every year since 2007, the EPA has put out a call for nominations around the same time in April. Except this year, that call never came, despite there being 15 slots opening up this September that need to be filled. Likewise, CASAC’s chair’s term is ending in September and the EPA has so far done nothing to recruit for her replacement, even though without her the committee will be unable to function. EPA staff has reported that Pruitt has a draft notice for nominations on his desk, but he hasn’t issued it yet. Without CASAC’s chair, the committee will be unable to issue recommendations on soot and sulfur oxides that the EPA relies on for further air quality rulemaking.The crucial role of independent science advice
Delaying the work of these advisory committees is another example of this administration’s apparent philosophy of death by delay. The inability of CASAC to continue advising the EPA on its National Ambient Air Quality Standards means that the EPA will go without independent scientific advice on the six criteria pollutants of ozone, particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and lead. Changes to BOSC means that ORD will have less input on how to make cost-effective changes to its research programs while encouraging important scientific development. And if the SAB gets treatment similar to BOSC, SAB’s ongoing work to review EPA’s water quality criteria to protect aquatic life and to peer review EPA’s toxicological assessments of several chemicals, including ethyl tert-butyl ether will languish.
We must protect federal advisory committees, for they are the objective body that every agency needs in order to take on some of the most difficult questions facing our country today. The work that these advisory committees do feeds into the crucial research conducted by and the safeguards issued by the EPA. Advisory committee members volunteering their valuable time to public service to advise agencies on how best to protect us and the environment are unsung heroes. We should acknowledge and praise them more often.
It’s a shame that Administrator Pruitt is doing the opposite: actively working to offend committee members by questioning their objectivity under a new administration and devaluing their work by shifting committee composition and cancelling committee meetings. Gutting our government’s capacity for independent science advice is an attack on science. We will be keeping a watchful eye on the appointment of new BOSC committee members to make sure that scientific expertise and research experience, not political views, are the basis for qualification.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/pruitt-epa-scientific-advisory
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Split Panel Sends OIRA, OMB Nominees To Senate Floor
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
A split Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved President Trump's picks today for overseeing federal spending and regulatory changes.
The panel voted 8-7 for Russell Vought to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and 11-4 for Neomi Rao to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, sending their nominations to the Senate floor.
The top Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, restated her opposition to Vought, who during his confirmation hearing this month wouldn't commit to answering the minority party's oversight requests.
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel said executive branch agencies are only obligated to respond to requests from committee chairmen.
Vought said he was committed to working across the aisle but would need to consult his legal team's advice before responding to formal oversight requests.
"I'm very concerned by the way Mr. Vought hid behind a letter written by DOJ legal counsel," she said. "This should not be a red shirt-blue shirt exercise."
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) agreed with McCaskill, saying a lack of oversight is "not good for the country."
While Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma agreed that minority leaders should have the same access to information, he recalled waiting "months or even years" when Democrats controlled the Senate under President Obama.
Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he was committed to oversight and would work to ensure minority leadership has access to information. But he said he believes the president has the right to nominate whomever he chooses, and that should be respected.
Lankford also praised the panel for not discussing Vought's views on religion, which drew attention in his Senate Budget Committee hearing this month.
"There was some dispute about Vought and his faith, that he is too much of a Christian to be able to serve," Lankford said. "That's appalling to me that that became a part of the debate. That should not have even been a discussion in that committee hearing."
At the Budget Committee hearing, ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quoted Vought's Jan. 16 op-ed, which said: "Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned."
Christian organizations have denounced Sanders' questions as a religious test to hold public office, while Jewish and Muslim solidarity groups have urged lawmakers to reject Vought, saying he denigrated American Muslims and the Muslim faith.
Vought's theological comments coupled with his refusal to give McCaskill a firm response have overshadowed Rao's confirmation, which has been smooth despite her conservative views that have sparked opposition from watchdog groups (E&E News PM, March 9).
The Center for Progressive Reform called Rao a "demon of regulatory reform" ahead of today's committee vote.
Still, past OIRA administrators from both Democrat and Republican administrations have voiced their support for Rao. In a letter to the committee, eight former regulatory czars, including Obama's Howard Shelanski and President Clinton's Sally Katzen, endorsed Rao.
"We respectfully request that the Senate move as quickly as possible to ensure that OIRA has strong leadership in place as the new administration and Congress confront a range of difficult and complex regulatory challenges," they wrote. "We commend the nomination of Neomi Rao to fill the position of OIRA Administrator."
Stuart Shapiro, a former OIRA employee who served under Clinton and President George W. Bush, said the bipartisan support is likely due to the "camaraderie" that exists among OIRA staff and those who study the office.
"My guess is that both Sally and Howard looked at Rao's resume and writings and decided that while they disagree with her on policy, she's qualified for the positions," he said. "She's clearly a technocrat who understands administrative law really well."
Missing from the letter's signees is former Obama OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein.
"You could make the argument that the Trump administration is so far out of bounds that good Democrats don't want to be on board with anything they do," Shapiro hypothesized. "Sally and Howard went one way, and Cass went the other."
In response to an interview request earlier this year, Sunstein said he was speaking to reporters only about his new book, "The World According to Star Wars."
Shapiro said once Rao is confirmed, she will likely get to work implementing Trump's regulatory executive orders. Trump's Jan. 30 executive order directs agencies to eliminate two rules for every new significant rule in order to offset the cost.
"There's a lot of implementation to do," he said. "My guess is she picks a couple of those and focuses on them first and foremost since there's not a lot of regulating going on."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056370
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(ACC Mentioned) Will Uncovered Research Change IARC’s Cancer Conclusion?
Jun 21, 2017 | Agripulse
By Steve Davies
The already controversial decision by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – determining that the widely used herbicide glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans – is now even more subject to debate. But whether the new evidence will lead to a reversal or withdrawal of any decisions remains to be seen.
Armed with recently unearthed evidence, critics of the report charge that IARC should have considered unpublished data that may have altered the conclusion of its 2015 report.
That data, contained in a long-term epidemiological study called the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), showed no association between glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin lymphoma and would have lowered the risk estimate for that type of cancer in the IARC monograph, the chair of the IARC working group said in a deposition taken as part of a court case now proceeding in California.
The IARC monograph concluded that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans based on “sufficient evidence” in experimental animals and “limited evidence” in humans, including a “positive association” between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
When it was announced in March 2015, the IARC finding triggered an avalanche of criticism – both of glyphosate by environmental and consumer groups that had long questioned its safety, and of IARC by Monsanto and the pesticide industry, who said IARC cherry-picked data to reach its conclusions. They also emphasized studies by regulators around the world that have found glyphosate is not cancer-causing.
Glyphosate is widely acknowledged to be the most extensively used herbicide in the world. From 1995 to 2014 its use has grown worldwide from about 148 million pounds to 1.8 billion pounds, according to a paper by agricultural economist Charles Benbrook.
After the deposition was revealed by Reuters last week, Monsanto quickly cited it to criticize the IARC finding anew.
Only time will tell how significant the latest development turns out to be. IARC issued a statement saying it was not aware of the unpublished data and did not consider any unpublished data for its glyphosate monograph – the key word being “unpublished.”
The organization has no immediate plans to revisit the glyphosate finding, saying only that it “can re-evaluate substances when a significant body of new scientific data is published in the openly available scientific literature.”
But the backlash against glyphosate continues as a result of the IARC report. The state of California used the IARC finding to list glyphosate under its Proposition 65 as a cancer-causing chemical, but Monsanto is contesting that listing, which would require labeling of consumer products.
At the center of the story is Aaron Blair, a retired National Cancer Institute epidemiologist who chaired the IARC working group. He answered questions about the Agricultural Health Study data posed by attorneys for Monsanto and for plaintiffs as part of a federal lawsuit in California. The deposition is not included in the court docket but was provided by Monsanto.
The company is defending itself from claims by nearly 200 plaintiffs that Monsanto failed to warn them that exposure to Roundup, which contains glyphosate, could cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Monsanto vice president of global strategy Scott Partridge accused Blair of deliberately “concealing” the data from the rest of the working group.
In addition, Partridge told Agri-Pulse that Blair “had the ability to push for publication” before the IARC working group began considering glyphosate, calling Blair’s failure to seek publication “intentional.”
In response to questions posed by Agri-Pulse, Blair said he did not “conceal” anything and that it “clearly would be inappropriate” to have mentioned the unpublished data.
“IARC did not have access to unpublished and unfinished data on glyphosate because IARC only reviews papers that are published or ‘in press,’” he said in an email. “This is because analyses and interpretations in manuscripts can change from early drafts to the final paper. I do not think you would describe not providing data that is specifically not allowed to be considered as being ‘concealed.’”
Blair also said that “for any working group member to mention ongoing analyses or unfinished work would clearly be a violation and frankly might be considered as an attempt to influence the deliberations with information that might not even hold up when the finished product is available.”
In addition, in the deposition he said that publication is “not a sure thing” even when researchers have prepared data for publication.
“You make it sound like you decide, then it’s done for sure,” he told Monsanto attorney Eric Lasker. “No, that’s not the case. You work on it, you look at it, you revise, you send it to the journal to get reviews back from . . . the reviewers at the journal and so forth.”
Blair also told Agri-Pulse that during the IARC deliberations, he was aware of another analysis from case-control studies from the U.S and Canada that did show an association between NHL and glyphosate, but “I did not mention these data either” for the same reason he did not mention the other data – because it had not been published or accepted for publication.
Supporting his argument that the data should have been considered by IARC, Partridge said the AHS is “the most comprehensive agricultural worker and spouse study in the history of the U.S.” According to the study’s website, it is “a collaborative effort involving investigators from National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.”
More than 89,000 farmers, pesticide applicators and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina have taken part in it since it began in 1993, “with the goal of answering important questions about how agricultural, lifestyle and genetic factors affect the health of farming populations,” the AHS website says.
Numerous scientific papers have been written and published using study data. But even though some of the 2013 data resulted in published papers, the glyphosate/non-Hodgkin lymphoma data did not.
In the deposition, Lasker asked Blair why the 2013 glyphosate data had not been published before IARC began deliberating in 2015. Blair said AHS decided to focus on insecticides first, and suggested there wasn’t time to switch to herbicides when it became clear IARC would prepare a glyphosate monograph.
He agreed, however, that the 2013 AHS data that the working group did not consider involved more subjects and a longer follow-up time than the 2005 data it did consider.
“You were aware and had been for three years that there was more AHS data that had a longer follow-up (with subjects) and some four times more cases of NHL than had been discussed in the 2005 published paper, correct?” Lasker asked him. “Yes,” said Blair, who then added, “For analyses that had not been completed.”
Laura Beane-Freeman, NCI’s principal investigator for the AHS, said in a statement that NCI was not aware when it published results in 2014 that IARC would be preparing a glyphosate monograph. In 2014, Beane-Freeman noted that IARC considered glyphosate a “medium priority” for analysis, “whereas several insecticides were listed as ‘high priority’ for review.”
Now, the NCI is drafting an expanded and in-depth analysis of glyphosate and all potential cancer risks, but has not released a timetable for the final report.
Monsanto was not the only party to criticize the IARC process. Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, also called for the glyphosate monograph to be withdrawn.
“These allegations suggest that an IARC Monograph has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for predetermined outcomes. We encourage all countries and organizations that support the Monographs program to join us in calling for an investigation into whether IARC officials knowingly withheld data that proved a lack of association between glyphosate and cancer, and other monographs should be evaluated to determine whether similar manipulation has taken place,” Dooley said.
https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/9423-will-uncovered-research-change-iarcs-cancer-conclusion
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The Current Debate on Cost Burden by Human Exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
Jun 16, 2017 | Springer Link
By Hermann M. Bolt
Recently, Gregory G. Bond from Northport, USA, and Daniel R. Dietrich from the University of Konstanz have contributed a comprehensive review about human cost burden of endocrine disrupting chemicals (Bond and Dietrich 2017). The authors critically discuss a recently published series of publications that claim that human exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals cause substantial disease burdens and consequently cost society hundreds of billions of dollars per year (Trasande et al. 2015; Bellanger et al. 2015; Hauser et al. 2015; Legler et al. 2015; Hunt et al. 2016; Trasande et al. 2016; Attina et al. 2016). The largest fractions of these costs are based on the assumption that human exposure to organophosphate pesticides and brominated flame retardants cause ‘loss of IQ’.
The authors critically discuss the possible causal relationship and come to the conclusion that currently available evidence does not support a casual association with adverse neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioural outcomes in infants and children (Roth and Wilks 2014; Kim et al. 2014; Bond and Dietrich 2017). The main criticism includes incomplete control of confounding variables, weak and inconsistent findings in studies with small population sample sizes, uncertainties of exposure characterization and the lack of dose–response relationships. The authors conclude that the postulated causal relationship between endocrine disrupting chemical and disease burden is not supported by the available data. Therefore, the assigned disease burden costs lack scientific evidence (Bond and Dietrich 2017).
In recent years, endocrine active compounds have been a major focus in toxicological research (Hanioka et al. 2016; Van Esterik et al. 2016; Eisenbrand and Gelbke 2016; Niaz et al. 2015; Hengstler et al. 2011). Considering the high number of publications in this field with partially contradicting messages (Chen et al. 2015; Mansour et al. 2016; Wang et al. 2014; Harada et al. 2016; Dietrich and Hengstler 2016), systematic reviews on the weight of scientific evidence are of high value. In conclusion, currently not sufficient evidence is available to claim a causal relationship between environmental human exposure to organophosphates, as well as brominated flame retardants and reduced intelligence of children. For future studies in this field, it will be particularly important to study sufficiently large cohorts and control for possible confounding factors.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-017-2014-x
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IG Report Cites Flaws in EPA Herbicide Resistance Efforts
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Marc Heller
U.S. EPA's efforts to combat herbicide resistance in weeds are hampered by poor communication between the agency and stakeholders, the agency's watchdog office said.
An EPA inspector general's report said the agency needs to collaborate better with private and public stakeholders while improving its system for assessing work on herbicide resistance.
At issue is weeds' increasing ability to withstand chemicals such as glyphosate and shortcomings in EPA's response to the challenge.
As much as half of some key crops grown in the United States and Canada could be lost to uncontrolled weeds, at a cost of $43 billion annually, according to the report.
Development of corn and other crops that resist herbicides has led to increased use of the chemicals, say groups that urge less reliance on chemical controls. As of last November, EPA had approved five herbicide active ingredients for use on genetically engineered crops, the inspector general report said.
The inspector general said EPA doesn't have sufficient management and oversight controls to address risks of herbicide resistance, and the report suggested EPA require product labels that better describe potential risks.
The report also said EPA isn't collecting information on instances in which the effect of a mixture of chemicals is greater than the sum of the individual effects of each.
EPA officials agreed with the report and have begun to implement the recommended changes, the report said.
A spokeswoman for CropLife America, the trade group for makers of farm chemicals, said that, generally, the organization "appreciates any move EPA makes to work with stakeholders."
The Weed Science Society of America, a nonprofit group supporting research on weeds, said vegetable and specialty crop growers face a scarcity of herbicides to help farmers diversify weed control treatments. At a series of listening sessions this year, farmers also said more emphasis is needed on non-chemical tactics such as cultivation and cover crops.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056366
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Echa's Seac Adopts Restriction Proposals on Four Phthalates
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa's Committee for Socio-Economic Analysis (Seac) has adopted its final opinion on a restriction proposal on four phthalates (DEHP, DBP, DIBP and BBP) in articles.
It recommends they are restricted in items, such as:flooring, coated fabrics and paper;recreational gear and equipment;mattresses, footwear, office supplies and equipment; andother articles moulded or coated with plastic that cause exposure through the skin or by inhalation.
The committee proposed additional derogations for certain aircraft parts, products or appliances and articles for automotive vehicles. It also made minor adjustments in the justification for its opinion in response to public consultation comments.
The proposal is based on the combined effects of all four phthalates, Echa says, although there was evidence that for some countries and populations there was a risk from individual substances.
In June 2012, Rac concluded that the proposed restriction was not justified as, it said, there was no risk from the combined exposure to the four substances, partly as a result of existing regulatory measures.
It will apply three years after the amendment of REACH Annex XVII comes into force.TDFA
The committee also supported the proposal by Denmark to restrict the placing on the market of sprays used by the general public containing tridecafluorooctyl silanetriol and derivatives (TDFA).
TDFA is used alongside organic solvents for:automotive glass, float glass coating, glass doors of shower cabins;ceramics, such as kitchen tiles, sanitary ware, wash basins, bath tubs;and enamel.
The measure requires that sprays should not be placed on the market if they contain TDFAs in a concentration equal to or greater than two parts per billion by weight in a mixture with organic solvents.
The proposed restriction will apply 18 months after the amendment of Annex XVII comes into force.
Echa's Risk Assessment (Rac) and Seac committees agreed on the opinions in March.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57029/echas-seac-adopts-restriction-proposals-on-four-phthalates
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NGO Calls for Market Withdrawal of 23 Cosmetic Products
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A French consumer rights group is urging the European Commission to immediately withdraw 23 cosmetic products which, it claims, contain substances banned under EU law.
The group, UFC Que Choisir, says the products, which include sun spray for children, hair gel, powder foundation and eye care products, contain methylisothiazolinone (MIT) or isobutylparaben.
MIT is banned in leave-on cosmetics and soon to be restricted to a concentration limit of 15 parts per million in rinse-off products.
Isobutylparaben is one of five parabens banned from cosmetic products in 2014.
UFC Que Choisir has created a database of cosmetics containing 12 chemicals of concern. It has asked consumers to help find cosmetic products containing them. The database holds more than 1,000 consumer referrals.
Several of the products contain potential endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as BHA (butylhydroxyanisol), which the NGO found in a baby ointment. BHA was among a group of chemicals that the Danish EPA recently said were the most significant endocrine disruptors to which babies and pregnant women may be exposed.
Product labelling is often misleading, the group says. Soaps and creams labelled as "hypoallergenic", "for sensitive skin" or "dermatologically tested" contained highly allergenic preservatives, such as MIT and methylchloroisothiazolinone (MCIT).
Slow EU legal procedures, such as the delay in the adoption of criteria to identify EDCs, and pressure from the cosmetic industry, it says, mean it takes too long to eliminate substances of concern from consumer products.
It urges consumers to avoid cosmetics with problematic substances by consulting its database, and to continue submitting examples of products containing any of its 12 chemicals of concern.
https://chemicalwatch.com/56948/ngo-calls-for-market-withdrawal-of-23-cosmetic-products
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Danish EPA Gives Recommendations for Tattoo Ink Allergens Restriction
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Danish EPA has released a report on allergic reactions to tattoo inks, to help Echa in preparing a REACH Annex XV dossier to restrict harmful substances in the inks.
It is collaborating with the Norwegian EPA to prepare a generic assessment for how to regulate skin sensitisers as part of the restriction.
Among its recommendations, the EPA says:allergens fulfilling the CLP criteria for classification should not be present in tattoo ink, due to the risk of allergic reactions;all ingredients in tattoo inks should be declared either on the container or in a safety data sheet, whether they are hazardous or not; andresearch should be initiated to better understand, diagnose and prevent adverse tattoo reactions.
The Danish Ministry of Environment and Food published a report, earlier in the month, describing how todevelop a robust method for analysing azo pigments and primary aromatic amines (PAA) used in tattoo inks.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57009/danish-epa-gives-recommendations-for-tattoo-ink-allergens-restriction
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Irish Downstream Users Warned of 'Significant' Brexit Challenges
Jun 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Irish downstream users of chemicals have been told of the serious problems they could face when the UK leaves the EU, and warned they need to start thinking about their supply chains immediately.
Speaking at a conference in Dublin organised by the Irish REACH competent authority, the Health and Safety Authority, Sharon McGuinness, chair of Echa's Management Board, said that Brexit means "not only will we lose a valuable member state, and its potential influence at the table, but for you as companies, you need to start thinking about what it means if there's no REACH in the UK."
Ms McGuinness, who is also the HSA's assistant chief executive, told the audience at the REACH ten-year anniversary event that if the UK keeps REACH after Brexit "we're all fine". But if it doesn't there will be significant challenges.
She said: "Lots of Irish companies are supplied through the UK. Now if they don't have REACH, every single one of those companies in Ireland becomes potentially an importer."
As importers of a substance firms could be made to submit their own registration dossier.
To try and avoid this, companies must think about their supply chains now, Ms McGuinness warned.
"What do you do? Will you be able to get another company? What happens if you potentially become an importer under REACH?"
In what she called the worst-case scenario, she asked: "What happens if supplies from the UK dry up and everybody tries to get more single suppliers in the EU ... It's something you need to be really aware of."
Klaus Berend, who until recently headed up the REACH unit at DG Growth, said the European Commission, Echa, and other agencies, will start communicating on this issue with the aim of giving early advice on what needs to be considered.Could UK registrations be transferred?
"You might become an importer, or we will discuss with Echa other possibilities to transfer registration from a company in the UK to one based in Ireland, or in other EU member states, so that you don't have to resubmit an entire dossier."
Mr Berend, who recently moved across to DG Sante where he is head of pesticides and biocides, said: "We will definitely discuss this with Echa and also put out warnings and information for stakeholders, as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already done in cooperation with DG Sante, to give early alert to authorisation holders about the [possible] consequences.
"But everything depends on what kind of agreement can be found in the end between the UK and us. But the worst case is that there won't be one and we need to be prepared."
In April, the EMA, which will have to leave its London offices and relocate to a different member state when Brexit happens, held a meeting with members of its Management Board and heads of national competent authorities, to start discussing how the work related to the evaluation and monitoring of medicines will be shared between member states in view of the UK's withdrawal.
Chairing a panel session at the conference, Michael Gillen, vice-chair of the HSA board, said that with 80% of freight transport coming to Ireland through the UK, Brexit was in danger of "becoming a nightmare of gargantuan proportions".
https://chemicalwatch.com/56963/irish-downstream-users-warned-of-significant-brexit-challenges
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Backers Defend Rule In Report To OMB
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Hess
Supporters of the Clean Power Plan released a report today that estimates wiping out U.S. EPA's rule would cost the economy 560,000 new jobs and $52 billion in gross domestic product by 2030.
The Trump administration recently sent a draft of its plan to reverse the limits on power plants' carbon emissions to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review (Greenwire, June 9).
In anticipation of the rollback, the nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs, or E2, pushed back against arguments by President Trump and his backers that cutting carbon dioxide from the power sector would be detrimental to the economy.
E2 looked at how the Clean Power Plan would affect several states by 2030, focusing on three scenarios for implementation: two mass-based approaches and one rate-based approach. EPA gave states the option of limiting either total CO2 emissions or the rate of CO2 emissions.
E2's analysis used data previously released by consultancy M.J. Bradley & Associates LLC and the Natural Resources Defense Council to calculate emissions.
NRDC plans to provide the E2 report as public comment to OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is reviewing the Clean Power Plan rollback.
Under the rate-based approach, the rule would create a minimum of 75,200 jobs and add nearly $14.9 billion to the economy by 2030, analysts found.
Under the mass-based approach, analysts projected employment gains of 176,000 to 560,000 by 2030. If states work toward a target of 2 percent annual energy savings, the nation could see a net GDP gain of $52 billion by that time. Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia are projected to be the big winners under that scenario.
The E2 analysis suggests that rolling back the program would likely reduce investments in energy efficiency, costing consumers in the form of lost savings on their electricity bills.
With the Clean Power Plan in place, they say incremental energy efficiency savings could reduce household power bills by an annual average of 7 percent, compared to a case without the rule.
"Scrapping the Clean Power Plan will hamper job creation and stifle economic growth, plain and simple," said E2 Executive Director Bob Keefe in a statement. "For someone who calls himself a job creator, President Trump is rolling right over the 3 million workers in the rapidly growing solar, wind and energy efficiency industries."
The report reflects continued efforts by regional groups and state utility regulators that worked on compliance options. In February 2016, the Supreme Court granted plaintiffs a stay of the Clean Power Plan in a 5-4 decision, freezing it until complex litigation was resolved.
E2's report points to additional economic opportunities for states that move forward with emissions reduction programs, citing the Northwest's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and California's statewide carbon market. Analysts suggest revenues from such trading systems could bring significant benefits to state and local economies.
"Adding insult to injury, a rollback would take money out of the pockets of families who could save on their electric bills. Going backward on this important program is a huge opportunity lost," Keefe said.
Trump and his defenders have said the Clean Power Plan would raise power rates and hurt American companies and their competitiveness.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056374
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What to Know for the Next Round of Pipeline Drama
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Challengers and defenders of the Dakota Access pipeline are preparing for a reunion of sorts in federal court today.
Lawyers from American Indian tribes, the Trump administration and the pipeline company will converge on a Washington, D.C., courtroom this afternoon to hash out what happens next in the ongoing legal saga. They last gathered in court in February when the oil project was still under construction.
Since that last hearing, the pipeline has begun service and the legal questions in play have narrowed to one: What should happen to Dakota Access while government officials sharpen their environmental review for the pipeline?
The status hearing comes a week after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit delivered a major victory to the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, which have been challenging the pipeline in court since last summer.
Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers largely met its obligations to consider environmental impacts of the project but failed to consider several critical issues. Boasberg ordered the agency to reconsider those sections of its analysis.
Now, the court must decide what happens to the pipeline in the meantime: continued operation or shutdown?
The Trump administration and Dakota Access will soon go head to head with the tribes in legal briefs answering that question. Today's hearing will address a schedule for the briefs and the Army Corps' added environmental review.
Here's what you need to know as the pipeline battle continues.What did the court say?
The decision is far from an all-out victory for the tribes.
Boasberg wrote several times that the Army Corps "largely complied" with the National Environmental Policy Act and that the areas in which it fell short were "discrete issues." Nevertheless, he wrote, those discrete issues are substantial and must be corrected (Energywire, June 15).
Where did the agency falter? According to the decision, the Army Corps did not adequately consider the potential impacts of an oil spill on fishing and hunting rights around Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River a half-mile north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Plus, the decision said, the scope of the agency's environmental justice analysis — which considered impacts within a half-mile of the pipeline, falling just shy of the tribe's reservation — was not adequately justified in its review.
Finally, Boasberg ruled that the Army Corps approved the final easement for the pipeline in February without properly considering a number of expert reports alleging flaws in the agency's analysis.
The court rejected several other key arguments from the tribes. Most notably, Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration adequately explained its decision to reverse Obama officials' plans to conduct an in-depth environmental impact statement.
He also upheld the Army Corps' conclusion that an oil spill was unlikely, and he rejected tribal arguments that the agency inadequately considered cumulative impacts from the project and failed to fully consider alternatives to the Lake Oahe crossing.What's next for the pipeline?
Boasberg's opinion notes that the typical remedy for NEPA violations is invalidation of the underlying permits. But, he noted, courts have discretion to weigh various competing factors when making that decision.
Now the litigants will make their arguments for whether the pipeline should be shut off while the Army Corps corrects its environmental assessment.
A proposed briefing schedule submitted yesterday calls for the Trump administration and Dakota Access to make their case in an opening brief on July 17. Standing Rock and Cheyenne River would have until Aug. 7 to respond, and each side would have a chance for additional replies on Aug. 17 and Aug. 28, respectively.
That means Dakota Access is likely safe from any interruption until at least the end of August.
It's not unprecedented for NEPA violations to stall projects that are already complete and in service, but it is unusual. In the pipeline context, a federal district court in Montana in 2004 shut down a small natural gas pipe for one month after finding the Bureau of Land Management's NEPA review inadequate.
In more recent case law, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2014 allowed a pipeline to remain in service while federal regulators supplemented their review.What's the timeline?
The proposed briefing schedule set out by the litigants suggests Dakota Access drama will continue for many more months.
Briefing on the remedy question will run until the end of August, and a court decision is expected soon thereafter. The Yankton Sioux Tribe, which last year filed a separate lawsuit that has since been folded into Standing Rock's litigation, has pushed back on the "lengthy" briefing schedule and is expected to argue today for a faster timeline.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps' schedule for addressing inadequacies in its environmental assessment is not yet known. If the agency already has the necessary information to fill in the gaps of its review, the process could move rather quickly. If the agency needs to conduct an additional, in-depth review, the process could take much longer.
Lawyers for the Standing Rock have noted that they are still pushing for the Army Corps to perform a full EIS — a process that would take months. The tribe has promised additional legal challenges if the corps sidesteps an EIS.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056326
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Interior Pushes to Freeze Appeal as Plans to Nix Rule Advance
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
As the White House reviews the Interior Department's plans to roll back an Obama-era hydraulic fracturing rule, government lawyers are again urging a court to pause related litigation.
In a brief to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, Interior urged a panel of judges to reject environmental groups' request to push forward in a legal battle over whether the federal government has authority to regulate fracking on public and tribal lands.
According to the Trump administration, it would be inappropriate to move ahead with the case while Interior is rethinking the fracking rule. Just last week, the agency sent the White House Office of Management and Budget a proposal to rescind the regulation.
"BLM's progress toward the publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking strengthens the arguments that BLM made in favor of abeyance in its supplemental brief," yesterday's filing said. "The Court need not make an immediate decision about the 2015 Hydraulic Fracturing Rule now because the ongoing administrative process could rescind the Rule and moot the present appeal."
The brief also sheds some light on the ongoing review of the fracking rule, which has fallen behind schedule (Energywire, June 15). The document says Interior's Bureau of Land Management will soon publish a Federal Register proposal to rescind the rule and reinstate previous regulations on oil and gas development on public lands, which did not specifically address fracking.
The proposal will be subject to 60 days of public comment.
Industry opponents of the fracking rule celebrated the administration's move yesterday, calling the proposed rulemaking's arrival at OMB "an important step" in the process. Environmental attorneys, meanwhile, slammed Interior for attempting to roll back what they see as common-sense standards (Greenwire, June 20).
The rule, which has been stalled by litigation and has never taken effect, would set new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracked wells on public and tribal lands.
Environmental groups, law professors and former Interior officials have pushed the court to issue a decision in the case, arguing that the core legal question — the government's authority over fracking — does not depend on the status of the fracking rule.
The Trump administration itself has defended its authority over fracking but has maintained that continued litigation is unnecessary in light of the regulatory review (Energywire, May 8).
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056338
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Landmark Marcellus Shale Ruling Favors Enviros in Clash with State
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer & Mike Lee
Pennsylvania lawmakers can't arbitrarily divert money from natural gas drilling on state forests to other priorities, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for environmental and fiscal policy.
The court ruled that royalties and other revenue derived from state lands must be used to preserve the "public trust" created by Pennsylvania's constitutional environmental protections.
"The Commonwealth (including the Governor and General Assembly) may not approach our public natural resources as a proprietor, and instead must at all times fulfill its role as a trustee," a majority of the seven-member court ruled in Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The court sided with the environmental group, which objected to leasing state forests for natural gas drilling and challenged a provision in the state fiscal code that diverted a substantial amount of the revenue to the state's general fund.
The immediate on-the-ground impact is unclear. The ruling sent the case back to a lower court for a rehearing on some issues. And it says diverting funds from the agency that oversees state forests "does not, in and of itself, constitute a violation of" the state constitution.
But environmentalists and legal experts say the ruling will have sweeping impacts on litigation, state decisionmaking and broader debate over what's known as the public trust doctrine.
The decision is based on the state constitution's unique environmental rights amendment, which gives Pennsylvanians a right to clean air, pure water and conservation of natural resources. The provision, Section 27, is located in Article 1 of the constitution, alongside protections for civil rights and due process, but advocates say it had been effectively dormant for decades.
"The decision means that we have a viable constitutional amendment which provides that our right to public natural resources is our inalienable right, and the government can't take that away from us by treating public natural resources as government property," said PEDF attorney John Childe, who argued the case.
Curtin & Heefner LLP attorney Jordan Yeager, who represented the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and others as friends of the court in the case, said yesterday's decision was "vindication" after a previous state Supreme Court decision addressing the environmental rights amendment failed to gain broader traction.
In 2013's Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the high court relied in part on the constitutional provision when it struck down parts of Act 13, a controversial state law that prevented local governments from using zoning powers to restrict oil and gas development. That decision was a plurality opinion, leading critics and other state judges to dismiss it as nonbinding (Energywire, Dec. 20, 2013).
"It's a vindication of what we've been saying since the Act 13 decision came down in December 2013," he said of yesterday's majority opinion. "You've got to respect the constitution."Public trust
The majority ruled that revenue from drilling on state land is part of the "corpus" of the public trust, and diverting drilling-related funds to general statewide spending violated the state's duty to maintain the trust.
Justice Max Baer dissented, saying the court's majority went too far and could wind up harming the public by locking up funds that could be spent on pressing needs. The state should be required to set aside only enough of the revenue to preserve state lands, he wrote.
If not, "hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the recent Marcellus Shale exploration on state land as well as proceeds from oil, gas, coal, timber, game and other natural resources, will be cordoned off from critical areas of the Commonwealth's budget, including education, infrastructure, and other public works, without consideration of whether such funding is necessary to protect Pennsylvania's public resources," Baer wrote.
There have been oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania's state forests for decades, but environmentalists have argued that the Marcellus Shale boom has brought more intensive production that shouldn't be allowed on public land. The formation requires a steady cycle of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Pennsylvania started leasing its state forests in 2008 under Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, but he signed an executive order in 2010 that banned further leases. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett modified the ban in 2014 and allowed leasing as long as it didn't cause additional surface disruption.
Between 2008 and 2014, the state Legislature diverted $335 million from state-land gas revenue to general revenue spending, according to court documents. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which oversees state forests, still received more than half of the drilling proceeds, the state argued.
The current governor, Tom Wolf (D), was elected after promising to crack down on the gas industry. He signed an executive order banning new drilling in state forests when he took office in 2015. His administration has allowed gas production from existing leases to continue, though (Energywire, Jan. 30, 2015).
Spokesmen for Wolf and the DCNR said they were still evaluating the ruling.
The DCNR expects to bring in about $80 million this year from leases on state forests, Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn testified at a budget hearing in February.'It breathes life into those words'
The court's decision is making big waves in the legal community, with experts in environmental law and public trust buzzing about the ruling on group email lists and Twitter.
John Dernbach, a Widener University law professor and director of the school's Environmental Law and Sustainability Center, hailed the ruling as a "landmark decision" and said it will change the way Pennsylvania courts consider many legal challenges to government actions.
"This case creates binding precedent, and it will have to be followed," he said, adding that the impact on particular cases remains to be seen.
"Simply invoking Article 1 Section 27 is not going to mean that the plaintiff wins," he said, referring to the environmental rights amendment. "On the other hand, there are any number of gaps in Pennsylvania environmental and natural resources law that the public trust language of Article 1 Section 27 will now be able to fill. The likely result is that the commonwealth will be more protective of public natural resources than they have been in the past."
For decades, Pennsylvania courts have relied on a balancing test to determine whether state actions violated the amendment. A 2015 analysis by Dernbach showed that the test almost always tilted in favor of the government. Yesterday's decision scraps the test, finding that it "strips the constitutional provision of its meaning."
John Quigley, former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, noted that he was pleasantly surprised at the sweeping nature of the decision.
"It breathes life into those words, that the public natural resources are the property of all the people," he said. "The idea of requiring elected officials to act as trustees on behalf of the public is tremendously powerful, from not only the standpoint of managing the public lands but also from the standpoint of guaranteeing their right to clean air and clean water, among other things."
Quigley, now a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said the decision will affect everyday decisionmaking as well as future litigation. State agencies will have to grapple with how to incorporate the full force of the environmental rights amendment into their policy choices.
"Article 1 Section 27 was largely observed in the breach in Pennsylvania," he said. "We paid lip service as a commonwealth to the environmental rights amendment, but it's pretty clear from the decision today that those days are over.
"It is a right coequal to things like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. It's in that same category as fundamental constitutional rights in Pennsylvania, and that is going to require some real substantive changes in budgets and government practice."
Mary Wood, a University of Oregon law professor and director of the school's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center, noted that the decision will have ripple effects beyond Pennsylvania.
"While this opinion is jurisdictionally limited to Pennsylvania, its wisdom is relevant to every state in the United States, and courts are bound to refer to it in their own public trust jurisprudence," she said.
Wood, who has written extensively on the public trust doctrine, argued that while most states' trust responsibilities are not spelled out as explicitly as Pennsylvania's, the court's decision will illuminate pre-existing trust obligations across the country.
She said the concept is gaining traction in other jurisdictions, with a federal court recently allowing youth plaintiffs to move forward with a constitutional challenge to the U.S. government's efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions.
"Its main message is that government can't act as a proprietor or monarch of public lands and resources with sole discretion to make decisions favoring private industry," Wood said. "Instead, it is a trustee and has a fiduciary relationship and duty toward citizens and future generations."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056337
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Appalachian NGL Storage Study Nearing Completion
Jun 21, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
An extensive study that began last year with the backing of a Pittsburgh-based charitable organization and some of the region's major producers to determine the potential of underground natural gas liquids (NGL) storage in the Appalachian Basin is almost finished.
The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation awarded a $100,000 grant early last year to study if the region could support the kind of underground storage necessary for petrochemical industry growth. The grant was matched by Chevron Corp., EQT Corp., XTO Energy Inc. and several other companies with a stake in shale-related development. Director of the West Virginia University Energy Institute Brian Anderson, who's played an integral role in the study, said it should be complete by the end of the summer.
"There is a lot of opportunity not just for ethylene and polyethylene, but other specialty chemicals that really -- once we start building infrastructure -- comes naturally in that ecosystem," Anderson said last week during a presentation at the Appalachian Storage Hub conference in Canonsburg, PA. Propane and butane derivatives, he added, could also be manufactured in the region if liquids storage was available. A unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc plans to move forward later this year with construction of a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Western Pennsylvania.
Support has been growing in the private and public sectors for a network of pipelines, equipment and underground storage to ease supply and demand imbalances if other crackers like Shell's are built.
Anderson said the findings of the Benedum study are expected n September. The goal is to pass along the findings to private industry for a costlier engineering study and ultimately to construct a storage hub somewhere in the basin.
The study has closely examined land along the Ohio River in a corridor that spans Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Researchers believe a number of formations could provide ideal conditions for underground storage. They have examined mined-rock, such as the Greenbrier Limestone formation, which at about 2,000 feet underground is shallower than other possible targets that are under study like the Salina salt formation, which is roughly 6,000 feet underground.
The region also has an abundance of depleted gas reservoirs that could be ideal as well. Researchers have ranked 113 of them by the most favorable characteristics. The basin has significant underground gas storage capacity, and it’s long been a staging area to move gas to the Northeast. But its NGL storage and pipeline options are inadequate.
Pennsylvania commissioned a study that found the Marcellus and Utica shales could accommodate up to four additional ethylene crackers. Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC is trying to secure customers for a 3.25 million bbl storage facility targeting the Salina in Ohio, but the state study also estimated that the region needs roughly 4-7 million bbl of liquids storage for more petrochemical development.
Researchers believe the region is right for a storage hub, but Anderson added that the geology there is not as conducive as it is in Mont Belvieu, TX, the North American NGL hub that sits on a shallower salt dome on the Gulf Coast. It would take more work and collaboration among the states to get such a project jump-started, he said.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110853-appalachian-ngl-storage-study-nearing-completion
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Conn. Governor Blasts EPA's Ozone Delay
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D) is pressing U.S. EPA to rethink its recent decision to delay a key ozone air quality benchmark, warning that it will hurt both his state's economy and public health.
The agency's decision to give states more time to develop air quality plans for the 2015 ozone standard "will push back long-awaited remedial actions required to clean the air Connecticut residents breathe every hour of every day," Malloy wrote in a letter yesterday to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. "Your action is the latest evidence of EPA's failure to address ozone levels and to require all states to limit the discharge of air pollution within their borders."
After states submitted attainment recommendations last year, EPA had been scheduled to make the final designations for the 70 parts per billion standard by this October, a step that would start the clock on development of cleanup plans for states deemed out of compliance.
But in a letter to Malloy and other governors earlier this month, Pruitt pushed that deadline back by a year, saying there remained "a host of complex issues that could undermine associated compliance efforts by states, localities and regulated entities" (Greenwire, June 7). As grounds for the delay, Pruitt also cited "insufficient information" to make the final designations, an assertion that Malloy yesterday termed "weak and unjustified."
"For the sake of public health and economic fairness, I urge you to reconsider the unnecessary one-year extension," he wrote.
An EPA spokeswoman today had no immediate comment. Following the release of Pruitt's letter, the agency has furnished no further explanation of the rationale for the delay, which was announced without prior notice. The agency has also not responded to requests from E&E News for details on the charter and membership of the Ozone Cooperative Compliance Task Force, which Pruitt said he created to come up with "additional flexibilities" for meeting the standard.
The task force is an apparent response to a provision accompanying a 2017 spending bill that gives EPA 90 days to report to Congress on administrative options for letting states reach "cooperative agreements" that would sidestep the standard attainment process in return for meeting customized air quality targets (E&E Daily, May 5).
Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has acknowledged adding the provision; a Hatch spokesman also has not replied to recent requests for more information on the task force.
Ozone, the prime ingredient in smog, is largely a summertime phenomenon spawned by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunshine. Among its health effects, ozone can worsen emphysema symptoms and help trigger asthma attacks in children. In tightening the standard two years ago, then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy tied the move to the latest scientific evidence on ozone's impact on people and the environment.
Considering that Connecticut is still struggling to meet the 2008 ozone standard of 75 ppb, Malloy might have been expected to welcome the delay in enforcement of the stricter 2015 threshold.
In the letter, however, he wrote that more than 90 percent of Connecticut's ozone originates in areas outside the state's borders.
Because Connecticut has made extensive investments to limit pollution, Malloy added, the state will remain "at a competitive economic disadvantage against states that ignore critical air quality issues in an effort to maintain a low-cost environment for their businesses."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056372
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Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke yesterday gave his most definitive indication to date that his agency would rework an Obama-era regulation to curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations on public lands.
"My intention, so you know, is we're going to rewrite the rule," the former Montana congressman said in response to a line of questioning from the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell had been asking Zinke whether he would enforce BLM's Methane and Waste Prevention Rule after delaying its forthcoming compliance dates (Greenwire, June 14).
The suspension followed a failed effort to scrap the rule under the Congressional Review Act — a move that would have barred Interior from reintroducing a "substantially similar" regulation (Greenwire, May 10).
"Congress has said this is the law, and we want to know how you're enforcing it," Cantwell said to Zinke during a committee hearing on Interior's proposed fiscal 2018 budget.
Interior postponed elements of the rule in light of pending litigation, according to a Federal Register notice last week. The notice did not say whether Interior would propose a new rule to replace the existing regulation, although a prior secretarial order noted that a revision was possible.
The order also suggested suspending or rescinding the rule, depending on the results of an agency review.
In a Monday letter to Zinke, Cantwell and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) questioned Interior's authority to halt provisions of a rule that has already taken effect (Greenwire, June 20).
"The effect of this claim is to allow the Department, according to its whim, to suspend properly promulgated regulations with no public notice and comment nor any legal reasoning beyond an unsubstantiated claim that 'justice requires' suspension of a rule that has already gone into effect," the senators wrote. "This could lead to all manner of improper giveaways and special relief for regulated industries."
Zinke said the new rulemaking would be subject to public notice and comment.
"I follow the law," he said.New rule
After the hearing, Zinke offered a few details about Interior's plans for the rule over the next two months.
The existing rule dictates that operators submit waste minimization plans with applications for permits to drill. They must also meet new requirements for royalty-free use of production, downhole well maintenance and liquids unloading.
Postponed requirements include incremental methane capture percentages through 2025 and optimization of leaky pneumatic equipment and storage tanks.
"We're going to go forward and redo it. It can't be arbitrary," Zinke said. "Personally, I think unrestricted methane is a waste, and as the steward of our public lands, I think we've got to be cognizant of decentivized waste. That means incentivized capture systems."
Zinke did not offer specifics on how Interior would encourage companies to contain escaped methane but outlined some potential destinations for the gas. The flare stack — where excess gas is burned into the atmosphere — would not be one of them, he said.
"This is an asset that we're flaring, and we need to find a different way to make sure the gas is used, whether it's reinjected, whether it's stored, whether it's transferred to some other location," Zinke said.
"But certainly flaring it is wasteful."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056315
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Industry Risks Losing Trillions from Climate Rules — Report
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The global oil industry has trillions of dollars at risk from climate regulation, money that could be lost if governments clamp down on emissions, according to a report released today.
The London think tank Carbon Tracker says its analysis marks the first time that oil industry assets have been ranked by the amount of their exposure to loss from public climate policies. The group studied 69 publicly traded oil and gas companies.
The report found that $2.3 trillion in investments planned through 2025 "should not be deployed" if the world is to meet the goal of preventing more than 2 degrees Celsius of warming.
"There are clear signs that oil demand could peak in the early 2020s," James Leaton, research director at Carbon Tracker, said in a statement. He added that companies should consider shelving projects, in part to protect their investors.
The report is part of a growing chorus from financial analysts who warn of economic risks from climate change and regulations to address it.
The Group of 20 nations has commissioned a panel to study how climate change could fuel financial crisis. Central banks in China and in the United Kingdom are also studying the topic, and bank regulators in Canada and Australia are paying attention, too (E&E News PM, Feb. 17).
The Carbon Tracker report identifies six supermajors — BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Total SA, Eni SpA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — that have at least 20 percent of their planning exposed to a 2 C scenario. That level of risk translates to billions of dollars in possible loss, the group says.
The report's authors say that some drilling projects don't make sense economically when climate regulations are considered. They point to the Bonga North and the Bonga Southwest projects in Nigeria. Oil prices would have to reach $90 a barrel or more for those projects to break even, according to the authors.
"Sticking with the growth-at-all-costs scenario just doesn't add up for shareholder value when the policy and technology momentum is heading in the opposite direction," Leaton said.
The Paris climate agreement encourages nations to ratchet down emissions to meet the 2 C goal.
The Principles for Responsible Investment, a U.N. group, and a handful of European investment companies also worked on the report.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056325
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Cities Resurrect Scrubbed EPA Climate Data
Jun 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
A group of cities is preserving years' worth of climate change data the Trump administration scrubbed from U.S. EPA's website.
Boston, Chicago and at least a dozen other cities are using their own municipal websites to host a broad range of research that has disappeared from the EPA website since April, including data drawn from ice core samples, tide gauges, pollen remains and other methods.
EPA also deleted the agency's responses to previous statements by Scott Pruitt, who served as Oklahoma's attorney general before President Trump tapped him to lead EPA. Details about carbon emissions and the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan were nixed, too.
An EPA official said the changes reflect the agency's new leadership, and the EPA home page still links to a "snapshot" of the website as it appeared the day before Trump's inauguration.
Boston has framed its preservation of that information as a rebuke of Trump's pro-fossil-fuel agenda. "Here, in Boston, we know climate change is real and we will continue to take action to fight it," city officials wrote on the site (David Abel, Boston Globe, June 18).
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056321
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