Preview Newsletter
ACC PM test 26/6/17
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Trump’s EPA Ignores Hidden Carcinogen Lurking in Cosmetics
Jun 26, 2017 | Environmentakl Working GroupS
By Scott Faber
The Trump administration’s proposal to study 1,4-dioxane excludes exposures from personal care products – even though an EWG analysis found that thousands of shampoos, soaps, lotions, sunscreens, toothpastes and cosmetics may include the possible carcinogen. -
'Global Dominance' the Theme as Trump Starts Energy Week
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump will double down on achieving "global energy dominance" this week with an appearance at the Department of Energy, leaving some industry experts wondering about the White House's intentions abroad. -
Top Energy Official Urges Enviros to Stop Fracking Rhetoric
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
A top Texas energy official asked anti-fracking activists to drop the rhetoric this week and to work with industry to reduce the environmental effects of shale oil and gas development. -
Lower Oil Prices and Rising Costs Squeeze West Texas Drillers
Jun 26, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
Crude prices have fallen to a level that makes drilling most oil wells in the Permian Basin too expensive as service costs continue to rise in West Texas. -
Ill. Gears up for Fight over First Fracking Well
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A company has applied for the first high-volume hydraulic fracturing permit in Illinois, prompting protests from environmentalists. -
Another Death at Plant Where Two Died Last Month
Jun 26, 2017 | Industrial Equipment News
By Anna Wells
On May 24th, workers at Midland Resource Recovery, a company that odorizes natural gas, were using bleach and preparing a tank for cleaning when the explosion occurred. -
Agency Seeks Applicants for Hot-Button Science Panels
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is putting the word out that the agency is in the market for science advisers. -
Week Ahead: EPA Chief Faces More Questions over Trump Budget
Jun 26, 2017 | The Hill E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
Congressional appropriators will push ahead scrutinizing President Trump's fiscal 2018 budget in the coming week, bringing the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in for another hearing. -
High Court Declines To Hear Suits On EPA's SSM Policy, Gold King Spill
Jun 26, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an industry suit seeking to overturn an Obama administration policy that emissions limits apply even in cases of malfunctions as it applied to a boiler air toxics rule, leaving industry groups and the agency to now reconsider the broader issue of waivers for startup, shutdown and malfunctions (SSM) as they apply to state air quality plans. -
Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize
Jun 26, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
On the best days, the wind howling across this rugged promontory has not touched land for thousands of miles, and the arriving air seems as if it should be the cleanest in the world. -
Journalists Chide Pruitt for Keeping Records Secret
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
A journalism organization is criticizing U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's record on transparency by giving him a satirical award.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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Trump’s EPA Ignores Hidden Carcinogen Lurking in Cosmetics
Jun 26, 2017 | Environmentakl Working GroupS
By Scott Faber
The Trump administration’s proposal to study 1,4-dioxane excludes exposures from personal care products – even though an EWG analysis found that thousands of shampoos, soaps, lotions, sunscreens, toothpastes and cosmetics may include the possible carcinogen.
More than 8,000 personal care products in EWG’s Skin Deep® cosmetics database include ingredients produced through ethoxylation, including polyethylene, polyethylene glycol (PEG) and ceteareth. Although 1,4-dioxane is not intentionally added to personal care products, ethoxylated chemicals can contaminate personal care products with trace amounts of 1,4-dioxane.
Some companies voluntarily remove or reduce 1,4-dioxane from these products, but there are no rules that require them to do so. Many of the products in Skin Deep that contain ethoxylated chemicals – and thus may contain 1,4-dioxane – are marketed to children
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency released the Trump administration’s plan to determine whether and how to regulate 1,4-dioxane. Last year, the EPA identified 1,4-dioxane as one of the first 10 chemicals for review under an updated version of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Industrial uses of 1,4-dioxane – like wood pulping and manufacturing adhesives – are a major source of the chemical. But the Trump administration’s plan to assess the risks of 1,4-dioxane would ignore exposures from personal care products.
The Trump plan would consider the risks posed by other exposures – including inhaling 1,4-dioxane in the air, and drinking and washing with 1,4-dioxane in tap water. But the Trump plan would not include exposures from products like toothpaste, mouthwash, sunscreens and shampoos – creating an incomplete picture of the risks posed by the chemical.
The EPA has classified 1,4-dioxane as a “likely human carcinogen” and it is listed in California’s registry of chemicals known to cause cancer. In laboratory studies, 1,4-dioxane administered to animals through drinking water caused tumors in the liver, nasal cavity, peritoneal and mammary glands in some subjects. Short-term exposure to relatively high amounts of 1,4-dioxane is particularly damaging to the liver and kidneys.
Because manufacturers don’t have to disclose the presence of 1,4-dioxane on product labels, there’s no way for consumers to know if their personal care or household products harbor the hidden carcinogen. 1,4-Dioxane can also be in paint strippers, dyes, greases, waxes and varnishes. Residues of 1,4-dioxane are sometimes found in food additives and food packaging.
The Food and Drug Administration says there’s a simple process, called vacuum stripping, to minimize the presence of 1,4-dioxane in personal care products. But the lack of reporting and labeling make it unclear how many companies take the care to remove it.
In addition to regulating 1,4-dioxane under TSCA, the EPA could also set a limit for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water. The FDA could take action to ensure 1,4-dioxane is removed or virtually eliminated from shampoos, shower gels, body washes, foaming hand soaps, bubble baths and lotions. In addition to vacuum stripping, manufacturers could take steps to slow the formation of 1,4-dioxane as a byproduct. New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both democrats, have petitioned the FDA to ban the presence of 1,4-dioxane in cosmetics.
http://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/06/trump-s-epa-ignores-hidden-carcinogen-lurking-cosmetics
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'Global Dominance' the Theme as Trump Starts Energy Week
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump will double down on achieving "global energy dominance" this week with an appearance at the Department of Energy, leaving some industry experts wondering about the White House's intentions abroad.
The busy week of high-profile meetings will culminate with Trump's appearance at the DOE headquarters in Washington on Thursday for an "Unleashing American Energy Event" hosted by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, according to an invitation obtained by E&E News.
The invite notes Trump's dedication of the following days as "energy week" to help the U.S. achieve "global energy dominance."
The administration's focus on energy is the latest in a series of themed weeks — infrastructure and tech, for example — that have run face first into an ongoing battle over health care legislation and a deepening investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election.
Today, Trump will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an event that could become awkward given the two world leaders' disagreement over the Paris climate pledge (Climatewire, June 23).
Perry is then slated to appear alongside Sean Spicer at the White House press briefing, according to DOE, followed by a panel at the White House where Trump will host Perry, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to discuss the administration's catchphrase "energy dominance."
Perry is also slated to be at a forum sponsored by the U.S. Energy Information Administration tomorrow, speaking alongside Colette Honorable, an outgoing commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The slogan "energy dominance," which falls in lockstep with Trump's push for expanded domestic drilling and fast-tracked exports, is piquing interest at home and abroad.
"One of the questions I have is exactly what the administration means by energy dominance," said Adam Sieminski, chair for energy and geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former administrator of the Energy Information Administration. "I was at a meeting last week when someone from the U.K. said they weren't particularly looking forward to being 'dominated.'"
Sieminski said he looked up the definition of "dominance" and one synonym was "pre-eminence."
"That kind of suggests everyone is OK with your leadership, that's good, that's a win-win kind of thing," he said. "But if the administration views it as dominance by the U.S., there's going to be a lot of pushback."
One possible way to have a heavier hand over the global energy landscape, Sieminski said, would be for the Trump administration to only export and import energy commodities from certain countries instead of allowing the markets to decide.
The administration could, for example, make the case DOE no longer needs to determine the public interest of liquefied natural gas exports before approving sales abroad.
But ultimately, Trump's push for world dominance will have to contend with market dynamics, he added.
While the U.S. could try to create bigger markets for coal — an issue that's likely to dovetail with Trump's meeting with Modi — Sieminski noted that countries like Australia and Indonesia already export large amounts.
As for LNG, Sieminski said a drop in oil prices — not a federal approval backlog — has slowed exports from the United States.
While it's early to talk about the Trump administration's legacy, Sieminski said pounding the drum on "energy dominance" could allow the White House to make the ideological case for opening up more federal lands to oil and gas drilling and fast-track export approvals.
"Especially with the executive orders, they're trying to deliver on the idea that government shouldn't stand in the way," he said. "You could talk about legacy in four years; I think what we're talking about now is aspirations."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/26/stories/1060056578
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Top Energy Official Urges Enviros to Stop Fracking Rhetoric
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
A top Texas energy official asked anti-fracking activists to drop the rhetoric this week and to work with industry to reduce the environmental effects of shale oil and gas development.
Todd Staples, the president of Texas Oil & Gas Association, said it doesn't solve any issues to blame hydraulic fracturing for every spill, leak or earthquake.
Instead, he suggested, scientists, industry and regulators must pinpoint the problems and work to solve each one.
"Words matter," Staples said. "Fracking is a small part of the process. Yet it's been used loosely and incorrectly by those seeking to stop energy production."
Staples praised a study released last week that drew distinctions on fracking from other elements of shale development (Energywire, June 20).
He said industry is willing to partner on technological solutions to the current problems (David Hunn, Houston Chronicle, June 23). — CS
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/26/stories/1060056528
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Lower Oil Prices and Rising Costs Squeeze West Texas Drillers
Jun 26, 2017 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
Crude prices have fallen to a level that makes drilling most oil wells in the Permian Basin too expensive as service costs continue to rise in West Texas.
The average oil well in the prolific region now breaks even at about $43 a barrel – the price at which U.S. oil settled on Friday – up from about $39 a barrel at earlier this year, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.
That's because oil field service companies have raised prices for equipment and crews that drill wells and bring them into production amid a surge in drilling and equipment there.
"They definitely can't maintain the trajectory they're on," said Ben Shattuck, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie. "For a lot of these pad wells to work, you need those ultralow service prices, and that doesn't happen when you have more than 300 rigs in the Permian."
U.S. oil prices settled at $43.01 a barrel on Friday, down from more than $50 a barrel last month. The number of active oil rigs in the Permian Basin has climbed from a low of 132 in April 2016 to 369 last week, according to Baker Hughes.
More wells in West Texas are still lucrative at lower oil prices than in other fields in South Texas and North Dakota, but service costs are expected to climb 15 percent to 20 percent in the region this year, bringing the break-even level of new wells to $45 a barrel by the end of 2017, according to Wood Mackenzie.
That's in part because oil companies in the Permian have drilled larger wells that require two to three times the amount of sand for hydraulic fracturing, and hauling that sand takes 1,800 truckloads.
Service firms cut costs up to 30 percent during the oil downturn in 2015 and 2016, and shed thousands of jobs to reduce their own costs. Unless oil prices rise later this year, producers could begin resisting cost pressures from oil field service in negotiating contracts for the second half of the year, Shattuck said.
"Operators won't be willing to take a 5 to 10 percent upcharge to move a rig into the field," he said. "Oil field service companies would have their work cut out for them when it comes to clawing back pricing."
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Lower-oil-prices-and-rising-costs-squeeze-West-11245048.php
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Ill. Gears up for Fight over First Fracking Well
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A company has applied for the first high-volume hydraulic fracturing permit in Illinois, prompting protests from environmentalists.
Woolsey Operating Co. LLC, based in Wichita, Kan., filed the application in May. At one point, Woolsey had leased 260,000 acres in southern Illinois, in an effort to develop the New Albany Shale field. But the company has faced years of delays as the state Legislature and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources worked on new regulations to govern fracking in the state (Energywire, Nov. 7, 2014).
"It's the most difficult place I've ever worked in my life," said Wayne Woolsey, chairman of Woolsey Operating.
The Natural Resources Department has already delayed the permit because Woolsey didn't include details about several subjects, including the storage tanks it plans to use and a traffic management plan for trucks at its site. Environmentalists have already sued the state once over its fracking regulations, and they're preparing to challenge Woolsey's permit application (Energywire, Nov. 24, 2014).
"We're very concerned about this permit, in particular, and what would appear to be the beginning of fracking in Illinois," said Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club.
Geologists believe the New Albany, like other shale formations, will require a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to release oil and gas trapped in the rock's pores.
The oil industry says fracking has been used safely for decades and it's helped revive oil and gas production around the country. But like all oil and gas drilling, the fracking boom has seen cases of water pollution caused by poorly constructed wells, along with surface spills and pipeline leaks.
And shale drilling requires a constant cycle of drilling and fracking, which has led to complaints about noise, dust, truck traffic and other side effects.
Darin, with the Sierra Club, said he's concerned about the amount of water required for fracking, since southern Illinois is prone to droughts.
Woolsey said those fears are unfounded. His company has already drilled 10 vertical wells in the field and fractured five of them. He's also drilled a horizontal well across the state line in Indiana.
The company had a blowout at one of its wells in 2014, which injured a worker who was making a delivery to the site. A lawsuit related to the incident is ongoing; Woolsey said it was an accident caused by a contractor and an engineer who's no longer with his company.
The proposed new well would be in White County, on the Indiana border about 290 miles south of Chicago. Woolsey said it's in what his company has calculated as the sweet spot of the field, and it could boost the state's economy.
"This could not do anything but create a better situation," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/26/stories/1060056554
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Another Death at Plant Where Two Died Last Month
Jun 26, 2017 | Industrial Equipment News
By Anna Wells
Recently we reported on an explosion at a West Virginia industrial plant that killed two people and injured a third.
On May 24th, workers at Midland Resource Recovery, a company that odorizes natural gas, were using bleach and preparing a tank for cleaning when the explosion occurred.
Later that week, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which examines the root causes of chemical incidents, announced it would be looking into the incident.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, things appear to be getting worse before they get better. Just last week, another explosion at the Phillipi, WV facility claimed the life of local volunteer fire chief Scott Albertini, a 35-year veteran of the force who was also employed by Midland Resource Recovery.
According to CBS Pittsburgh, 53-year-old Albertini was killed, and another worker injured, when a chemical that is used to give natural gas an odor spilled.
Phillipi Fire Chief Dave Utt told local news station WDTV- Channel 5 that, as far as the local public is concerned, they shouldn't feel like they are at risk near the plant. The only safety concerns would be actually on the grounds where the tanks are stored, which the plant's employees may not feel so great about. Especially when you consider that WDTV also interviewed Chief Deputy Brett Carpenter of Barbour County Sheriff's Department who indicated that workers were actually trying to clean one of the tanks again, just as they were when the last deadly explosion occurred, but that they’re still not completely sure yet what caused it.
And while Midland appears to be avoiding any comments on the situation, Fire Chief Utt said he consulted with the company, and they have a plan to increase employee safety going forward.
At the time of reporting, all of the facility’s workers had been cleared and the site shut down for investigating.
http://www.ien.com/safety/video/20865812/another-death-at-plant-where-two-died-last-month
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Agency Seeks Applicants for Hot-Button Science Panels
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is putting the word out that the agency is in the market for science advisers.
In a notice to be published tomorrow in the Federal Register, EPA is inviting nominations of "scientific experts from a diverse range of disciplines" to serve on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee as well as the EPA Science Advisory Board, including six of that panel's subcommittees.
The notice says nominations should be submitted to the agency within 30 days of its publication.
Members of both the advisory committees are scientists and engineers who work outside of EPA and are appointed to three-year terms by the agency administrator.
As part of the nomination process, EPA will apparently seek to fill the seat of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee chairwoman, Dr. Ana Diez Roux, a Drexel University epidemiologist. Diez Roux's second three-year term on the panel expires at the end of September.
CASAC is charged with advising EPA on possible changes to the standards for ozone, particulate matter and four other "criteria pollutants." The committee is in the early stages of a closely watched review of the particulate matter standard.
Last year, the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, a conservative-leaning legal group, unsuccessfully sued to disband the review panel on the grounds that most of its members had received EPA grants and were thus allegedly biased toward the agency's view that tighter limits were needed (Greenwire, Aug. 2, 2016).
Also falling short last year was an unusual lobbying campaign mounted by Michael Honeycutt, the head of toxicology for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, for a seat on the committee. Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy picked another contender instead (Greenwire, Aug. 26, 2016)
The Science Advisory Board has been the target of congressional criticism that its current roster of members — drawn mostly from academia — doesn't include enough representation from those affected by EPA regulations.
Under H.R. 1431, a bill approved by the House in March, at least 10 percent of the board's members would have to come from state, local and tribal governments. Industry representatives with a stake in the board's work would also be allowed to serve as long as any conflicts of interest are disclosed. The measure is awaiting action by a Senate committee.
Critics of the Trump administration have expressed worries over how EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will reshape the agency's science advisory committees to add members from EPA's regulated industries.
For example, Pruitt has decided to not renew several dozen members' terms on EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors.
That led to the science board's canceling all of its subcommittee meetings for the remainder of the year. In an internal email obtained by E&E News, an EPA official said he hoped that the panel could resume its work in 2018 (Greenwire, June 20).
EPA is also seeking nominees to fill that advisory committee. Nominations for BOSC should submitted by Friday of this week (Greenwire, May 24).
EPA's moves to rework the science board have attracted criticism that the agency is pushing science aside.
Deborah Swackhamer, a University of Minnesota science professor who chairs BOSC, said in written testimony for Congress that adding industry representation to the board "may lead to the perception that science is being politicized and marginalized within EPA."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/06/26/stories/1060056593
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Week Ahead: EPA Chief Faces More Questions over Trump Budget
Jun 26, 2017 | The Hill E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
Congressional appropriators will push ahead scrutinizing President Trump's fiscal 2018 budget in the coming week, bringing the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in for another hearing.
This time, EPA head Scott Pruitt will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee's subpanel with authority over the agency's spending at a Tuesday meeting.
Trump's budget proposal released in May sought to slash the EPA'sspending by $2.4 billion, or about 31 percent. It includes eliminating or making deep cuts to air quality grants, climate change programs, cleanup efforts for major water bodies and more, as part of a $54 billion cut to non-defense spending for fiscal year 2018.
This will be Pruitt's second time defending the budget on Capitol Hill. Earlier in June, he faced a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, where both Republicans and Democrats slammed major pieces of the budget and committed to restore funding for programs they favor.
Pruitt tried to reassure lawmakers that the EPA can continue to execute its "core" functions with a much slimmer budget.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the House Natural Resources Committee will have a busy week advancing legislation and GOP priorities.
The full panel will hold a markup meeting Tuesday to vote on nearly two-dozen proposed bills within its jurisdiction.
The agenda includes some major legislation, such as the Reclaim Act, which aims to help revitalize distressed coal communities; and the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which seeks to reduce the threats of wildfires and other threats to federally owned forests.
The Natural Resources Committee's subpanel on oversight will meet Wednesday to discuss the impacts of "excessive" litigation against the Interior Department.
The next day, the energy and mineral resources subcommittee will hold a hearing on access to oil and natural gas development on federal lands.
Senators will kick off the week with a Monday vote on confirming Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairwoman Kristine Svinicki for a third term of five years.
Svinicki has broad, bipartisan support, and her confirmation passed through the Environment and Public Works Committee on voice vote. She has served on the NRC for nearly a decade.
Svinicki cleared a procedural vote in the Senate Thursday by a vote of 89 to 10, setting up a Monday evening final vote.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339210-week-ahead-epa-chief-faces-more-questions-over-trump-budget
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High Court Declines To Hear Suits On EPA's SSM Policy, Gold King Spill
Jun 26, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an industry suit seeking to overturn an Obama administration policy that emissions limits apply even in cases of malfunctions as it applied to a boiler air toxics rule, leaving industry groups and the agency to now reconsider the broader issue of waivers for startup, shutdown and malfunctions (SSM) as they apply to state air quality plans.
In a June 26 order, the court by a 7-2 vote also rejected New Mexico's petition to file a bill of complaint against Colorado, which would have been the first step in a direct suit against the Centennial State for its contribution to the 2015 Gold King Mine wastewater spill.
The court's decisions not to hear the two cases means the high court has no new environmental cases on its docket for the 2017-18 term other than National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, the suit that will determine which court -- appellate or district -- has jurisdiction to hear challenges to the Obama administration's CWA jurisdiction rule, which will also affect the certain challenges to the Trump administration's forthcoming replacement.
In its order, the high court without comment denied the petition for certiorari filed by electric utility American Municipal Power (AMP) over EPA's air toxics rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) for large “major source” industrial boilers.
AMP challenged the rule because it enshrines a malfunction policy, common to many EPA rules, that in effect renders compliance impossible, AMP and free-market groups argued in AMP, et al. v. EPA, et al.
Responding to rulings from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Obama EPA abandoned a Bush-era policy allowing exemptions for emissions breaching regulatory limits during SSM periods.
The agency is presently employing case-by-case “enforcement discretion” in deciding whether and how to enforce against sources found polluting in excess of permitted limits.
In a brief to the court, the Trump EPA defended the Obama-era policy and urged the justices to reject the petition, though the agency is reviewing the SSM policy.
The D.C. Circuit first in its 2008 ruling in Sierra Club v. EPA blocked blanket exemptions, then later in the 2014 decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA also found unlawful narrower “affirmative defenses” that shield industry from civil liability for malfunctions deemed unavoidable by EPA.
The court and later the Obama EPA held that emissions limits must apply on a continuous basis, but AMP and many other industry groups argue the cases were wrongly decided.
The high court's decision now leaves another D.C. Circuit suit, Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, Inc., et al., v. EPA, et al., as the lead case in consolidated litigation testing EPA's SSM policy. The case, formerly known as Walter Coke, et al. v. EPA, et al., prior to the withdrawal of petitioner Walter Coke, pits a coalition of industry groups and states against the Obama EPA's SIP Call rule that required 36 states to remove from their state implementation plans (SIPs) SSM exemptions, including affirmative defenses, by Nov. 22, 2016.
EPA issued the SIP rule in response to the D.C. Circuit's rulings in NRDC and Sierra Club, arguing that it is necessary to comply with the court's view of SSM and to harmonize state plans with federal regulations as EPA had been stripping SSM exemptions from its own rules for some time.
But the agency's opponents say it has overreached by extending the D.C. Circuit's holdings to state plans. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is among those who attacked the agency over various rules for alleged overreach, and the Trump administration is now reviewing the SIP Call -- and therefore the underlying SSM policy -- while the SIP Call litigation is on hold at its request.
EPA could opt to reconsider the SSM policy itself, but Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group also remains a possible vehicle for ultimate high court review.
Some industry sources have indicated this would be preferable to review of AMP anyway, as the company, in its argument, claimed that EPA wrongly overlooked Clean Air Act provisions on malfunctions not previously associated with SSM policy. This raised the possibility of unforeseen consequences that could further hamper states and industry, sources say, and many in industry would prefer a simple return to SSM exemptions as a legal option.
Gold King Spill
In the Gold King case, New Mexico had hoped to sue under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, Superfund law and common law, claiming Colorado played a direct role in allowing improper closure procedures at the former mine that allowed contaminated wastewater to build up there, until an EPA-led cleanup team caused a blowout that released 3 million gallons of waste.
Both Colorado and the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump urged the court to reject New Mexico's complaint, arguing that the waste laws do not allow state-to-state suits and that the Clean Water Act also preempts litigation over the spill.
Suits between states can only be filed in the Supreme Court, but if the justices decline the bill of complaint, as they have in the Gold King litigation, the case cannot go forward.
Thus, the court's June 26 order means New Mexico will not be able to sue its neighbor over the spill, or the broader issue of acid mine drainage from former Colorado mines into waters that flow downstream, which it also included in the filing. Instead, the state, together with the Navajo Nation, will be limited to continuing the pending district court suit against EPA and private defendants.
While the justices rejected the bill of complaint, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the denial, citing Thomas' 2016 dissent in Nebraska v. Colorado for their reasoning.
In that case, Thomas wrote that no law gives the Supreme Court discretion to reject a bill of complaint filed by one state against another -- instead, he argued in 2016, the justices must hear any such suit brought to them.
“If there is a controversy between two States, this Court -- and only this Court -- has jurisdiction over it. Nothing . . . suggests that the Court can opt to decline jurisdiction over such a controversy,” Thomas wrote.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/high-court-declines-hear-suits-epas-ssm-policy-gold-king-spill
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Carbon in Atmosphere Is Rising, Even as Emissions Stabilize
Jun 26, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
On the best days, the wind howling across this rugged promontory has not touched land for thousands of miles, and the arriving air seems as if it should be the cleanest in the world.
But on a cliff above the sea, inside a low-slung government building, a bank of sophisticated machines sniffs that air day and night, revealing telltale indicators of the way human activity is altering the planet on a major scale.
For more than two years, the monitoring station here, along with its counterparts across the world, has been flashing a warning: The excess carbon dioxide scorching the planet rose at the highest rate on record in 2015 and 2016. A slightly slower but still unusual rate of increase has continued into 2017.
Scientists are concerned about the cause of the rapid rises because, in one of the most hopeful signs since the global climate crisis became widely understood in the 1980s, the amount of carbon dioxide that people are pumping into the air seems to have stabilized in recent years, at least judging from the data that countries compile on their own emissions.
That raises a conundrum: If the amount of the gas that people are putting out has stopped rising, how can the amount that stays in the air be going up faster than ever? Does it mean the natural sponges that have been absorbing carbon dioxide are now changing?
“To me, it’s a warning,” said Josep G. Canadell, an Australian climate scientist who runs the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration among several countries to monitor emissions trends.
Scientists have spent decades measuring what was happening to all of the carbon dioxide that was produced when people burned coal, oil and natural gas. They established that less than half of the gas was remaining in the atmosphere and warming the planet. The rest was being absorbed by the ocean and the land surface, in roughly equal amounts.
In essence, these natural sponges were doing humanity a huge service by disposing of much of its gaseous waste. But as emissions have risen higher and higher, it has been unclear how much longer the natural sponges will be able to keep up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/climate/carbon-in-atmosphere-is-rising-even-as-emissions-stabilize.html?_r=0
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Journalists Chide Pruitt for Keeping Records Secret
Jun 26, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
A journalism organization is criticizing U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's record on transparency by giving him a satirical award.
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) recognized Pruitt on Saturday with its "Golden Padlock" award. IRE, which announced the award at its annual conference here, said it was highlighting Pruitt's efforts to keep public records secret and remove information from the EPA website.
"Judges were impressed with the breadth and scope of Pruitt's information suppression techniques around vital matters of public interest," said Toronto Star reporter Robert Cribb, head of the group's Golden Padlock committee. "It is a powerful expression of excellence in the principles of government secrecy that the Golden Padlock was created to honor."
Cribb said that Pruitt had been invited to receive the award in person, but no response was received.
Spokespersons for Pruitt did not immediately return an email yesterday seeking comment.
The controversy about records goes back to Pruitt's time as attorney general of Oklahoma.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) made nine open records requests to Pruitt's office starting around January 2015. The requests sought Pruitt's correspondence with 29 fossil fuel companies, including Murray Energy Corp., Devon Energy Corp. and Koch Industries Inc. (Climatewire, Feb. 15).
CMD filed suit, and an Oklahoma judge told the attorney general's office in February to turn over the documents or provide them to her.
"There was an abject failure to provide prompt, reasonable access," Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons said from the bench (Energywire, Feb. 17).
The resulting emails showed Pruitt "closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers to roll back environmental regulations." But many other emails have been withheld and are subject to a lawsuit.
Once released, the emails showed Pruitt had a familiar — if not symbiotic — relationship with fossil fuel companies during his time in statewide office (Greenwire, Feb. 22). Other emails have been withheld and are subject to a lawsuit (Greenwire, Feb. 24)
Since taking office, EPA has changed its website, most notably removing references to climate change. IRE said the agency has also removed information about air, water and ground pollution and the sources of toxic chemical releases. In a release, IRE said Pruitt is "helping lead a Trump administration effort to remove information from public websites."
Pruitt was chosen over four other finalists, including a judge who jailed a reporter because of his open records request and a mayor who buried records related to a bribery scandal by releasing more than a million documents.
"Too many government officials forget that they are paid by the public and that they work for the public," said IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix. "The Golden Padlock finalists are among the most egregious examples. Unfortunately, they have a lot of company with other officials across the country who fail the public by working in secrecy."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/06/26/stories/1060056559
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