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ACC AM 6/29
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Trump Taps Democratic Senate Aide for FERC Seat
Jun 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
President Trump announced last night that he plans to nominate Democratic Senate aide Richard Glick to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Beck Clashes With Environmentalist Over Key TSCA Rule Definitions
Jun 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's top political toxics official Nancy Beck and the Environmental Defense Fund's lead senior scientist Richard Denison are clashing over key definitions in the agency's final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) chemical risk evaluation rule, including whether the term... -
(ACC Mentioned) US Environment Agency Delivers on Chemical Reform
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
One year after Obama enacted law to modernise chemical regulation the EPA has met its deadlines and issued the required rules -
(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Framework Rules Offer Manufacturers Regulatory Clarity
Jun 28, 2017 | National Law Review
By Kaitlin C. Straker and Jane E. Montgomery
On the one year anniversary of major amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued three new “framework” rules on how it plans to prioritize and evaluate risks from new chemicals or new uses of chemicals... -
EPA's Less-Stringent Chemical Rule Likely To Spark Suits
Jun 29, 2017 | Law 360
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
The EPA's newly finalized rule for evaluating a chemical's risk to health and the environment retreats from a version proposed by the Obama administration by not requiring the agency to evaluate all of a substance's uses before making a determination... -
Practitioner Insights: New Chemical Bias Worse Than Ever
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Charles L. Franklin and Leonard W. Velsor
Since the early 1990s until Congress finally amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in June 2016, the statute's most frequent criticism was that it gave EPA inadequate authority to ban dangerous substances that were already in commerce and “grandfathered”... -
(ACC Mentioned) Trending: Pro-Ocean Orgs Use YouTube, Video Games, Fashion to Educate Consumers About Marine Plastics
Jun 29, 2017 | Sustainable Brands
Eight million tons of plastic trash find their way into the world’s oceans every year. If this trend continues, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. -
(ACC Mentioned) StarNews Forum on GenX in Local Water Draws 450 People
Jun 28, 2017 | Jacksonville Daily News
By Cammie Bellamy
During a forum Thursday on GenX, New Hanover County Commissioner Woody White captured the feelings of a packed auditorium: “Folks, this is unacceptable.” -
Group Warns of 'Lethal Lunchboxes' in Ad Hitting Portman Bill
Jun 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
Lethal lunchboxes filled with contaminated food would be a consequence of a bill sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), according to a new TV advertisement paid for by the watchdog group Public Citizen. -
California Says Key Ingredient in Roundup Weed Killer Can Cause Cancer
Jun 29, 2017 | CNN
By Holly Yan
One of the most popular herbicides in the world can cause cancer, California health officials say, and they might demand warnings saying so. -
Worker Gets Second Shot at Industrial Asthma Case
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A California worker's claims of industrial asthma from exposures to a hospital disinfectant shouldn't have been summarily dismissed, a California court of appeals ruled June 27 (Maldonado v. Medivators, Inc., 2017 BL 221442, Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., No. G052489... -
EU Chemicals Agency Hopes to Increase Imports’ Scrutiny
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Updated guidance on the notification obligations of companies that import goods containing hazardous chemicals into the European Union could lead to more compliance checks on imports, the European Chemicals Agency told Bloomberg BNA. -
Echa Outlines Goals for 2020
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
Echa has published targets setting out its vision for achieving an internationally recognised goal for achieving sound chemicals management. -
EU Enforcement Project to Check REACH Registrations in 2019
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
EU national enforcement authority (NEA) inspectors will focus on registration obligations –including substances registered as intermediates – under the seventh REACH enforcement project (Ref-7). -
Germany Notifies Echa of SVHC Intention for BPA
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Germany has notified Echa it intends to submit a proposal identifying bisphenol A (BPA) as an SVHC on the grounds it has equivalent level of concern having probable serious effects to the environment. It is expected to submit it on 7 August. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Secret War Pennsylvania Is Winning - But Will It Win Foxconn?
Jun 29, 2017 | PennLive
By Candy Woodall
From the car window, the man from New Jersey can see why Pennsylvania is winning the war. -
(ACC Mentioned) API Study Finds Natural Gas Benefits on an Expansion Path
Jun 29, 2017 | Observer-Reporter
By Michael Bradwell
The abundant output of natural gas in the United States over the past decade, particularly from the Marcellus and Utica shale strata, are providing economic benefits across the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute. -
Trump Calls for ‘Golden Age of American Energy Dominance’
Jun 28, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump continued his drive to promote an “energy dominance” policy Wednesday by meeting with state and tribal leaders and energy industry association heads on the subject. -
The White House Labeled This ‘Energy Week.’ And You Thought It Was All Health Care.
Jun 29, 2017 | Washington Post
By Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney
The White House has branded this week “energy week,” rolling out a buzzword, “dominance,” and replaying lines from last year’s Trump campaign in an effort to portray the United States as a global energy superpower — and to label previous administrations as obstacles... -
U.S. Energy Companies Fear Trump Will Stifle NAFTA Boom
Jun 29, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
President Donald Trump may be proclaiming the era of U.S. "energy dominance" this week, but the oil industry worries he's about to gut the trade deal it's counting on. -
House Panel's Spending Bill Cuts Energy Research Program
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said that while he likes the Energy Department's ARPA-E program, which provides early stage investment in innovative energy technologies, his Energy and Water Subcommittee's fiscal 2018 appropriations bill would cut it... -
Industry, Safety Advocates Building Pipeline Data System
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is drawing on industry and state expertise to build a shared information system that will help prevent pipeline accidents. -
A New Problem for Keystone XL: Oil Companies Don’t Want It
Jun 29, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews and Bradley Olson
Keystone XL is facing a new challenge: The oil producers and refiners the pipeline was originally meant to serve aren’t interested in it anymore. -
European Commission to Assess Reprotoxins Under Workplace Law Deal
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Council and Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on proposals to update the carcinogens and mutagens Directive (CMD), which is designed to protect workers. -
Oregon Oil Train Bill Moves to Floor, With Key Regulation Removed Again
Jun 29, 2017 | KUOW
By Tony Schick
For the second time since 2015, the Oregon Legislature has stripped language out of a bill that would have increased the state’s regulation of oil trains. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Energy Committee Approves Bill to Delay Ozone NAAQS
Jun 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
The House Energy & Commerce Committee June 28 voted to approve H.R. 806, a bill that would delay by eight years the implementation of EPA's tougher 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and make far-reaching changes to the Clean Air Act... -
House Committee Approves Bill Slowing Ozone Regulations
Jun 28, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A House committee approved a bill Wednesday slowing the implementation of federal ozone regulations. -
Air Pollution Is Still Killing People in the United States
Jun 28, 2017 | TIME
By Justin Worland
Air pollution continues to drive premature deaths in the United States with no level of exposure leaving humans unaffected, according to new research.
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Trump Taps Democratic Senate Aide for FERC Seat
Jun 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
President Trump announced last night that he plans to nominate Democratic Senate aide Richard Glick to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Glick, currently the minority general counsel for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has also worked for the Department of Energy and in the private sector, including as a lobbyist for the wind industry.
If confirmed, he would replace Commissioner Colette Honorable, whose last day at the agency is tomorrow. Once Honorable leaves, the normally five-member body will be down to just one, acting Chairwoman Cheryl LaFleur.
FERC has been without a quorum since February, when Chairman Norman Bay abruptly departed from his position.
The two other Republicans picked for the commission, Pennsylvania regulator Robert Powelson and Senate staffer Neil Chatterjee, were approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee weeks ago but are still waiting for a confirmation vote on the Senate floor before they can get to work.
Glick is likely to be paired with a third Republican FERC nominee, rumored to be Jones Day energy lawyer Kevin McIntyre (Greenwire, May 9).
Meanwhile, the continued absence of a quorum at FERC has left billions of dollars in infrastructure projects waiting for approval, to the frustration of developers.
This story also appears in Energywire.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/29/stories/1060056766
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Beck Clashes With Environmentalist Over Key TSCA Rule Definitions
Jun 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's top political toxics official Nancy Beck and the Environmental Defense Fund's lead senior scientist Richard Denison are clashing over key definitions in the agency's final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) chemical risk evaluation rule, including whether the term “best available science” could be biased toward industry reviews.
Beck, a former American Chemistry Council (ACC) official and now principal deputy assistant administrator in EPA's toxics division, debated the terms with Denison during a June 27 Environmental Law Institute (ELI) conference in Washington, D.C. to mark the anniversary of President Barack Obama signing an overhaul of TSCA on June 22, 2016. The risk evaluation rule was one of several “framework” rules EPA was required to finalize by June 22.
The final rule addresses public comments on how to define key terms, Beck said, adding, “We recognize the importance of strong scientific standards. So we codified our commitment to use best available science.”
But Denison countered that some of the approaches EPA has taken to making definitions in the final rule could unfairly favor industry's approach to reviewing chemicals and overly politicize the evaluations. He warned that some of the terms in the final rule could be overly restrictive. “My complaint is that some of the core features of these rules move us away from meaningful realization of what these terms are intended to bring about,” he said.
The Obama EPA released a proposed version of the rule outlining how the agency will perform chemical risk evaluations, but it was left to the Trump EPA to issue the final version. In response to industry comments, the final rule makes a number of changes including its discussion of scientific standards and other definitions.
Section 26 of the revised law mandates how EPA should apply certain scientific standards, including that decisions under TSCA be based on the “best available science” and use the “weight of scientific evidence.”
Chemical makers in their comments on the proposal sought more specificity from EPA on how it would conduct risk evaluations in accordance with the statute's science standards. For example, the ACC urged EPA to “articulate, with specificity, the scientific approaches and methods it will use in the risk evaluation, rather than simply pointing to Agency guidance which is often outdated, inconsistently interpreted, and inconsistently applied.”
ACC argued it is “essential that [TSCA] Section 26 science standards are applied to science-based decisions throughout the entire risk evaluation process. These requirements are so central to the function of [the TSCA reform law] risk evaluations that they must be described fully and defined in the regulation so they are applied consistently and stakeholders have adequate notice to participate in the development of the risk evaluations.”
By contrast, environmentalists supported the Obama EPA's decision in the draft rules not to define these terms or to describe too strictly the risk analysis process, arguing that the agency must be able to assess the risks of many different types of chemicals used in many different ways and environmental media, with scientific approaches that may change over time as technology and understanding advances.
TSCA Evaluations
The Trump EPA's final risk evaluation rule addresses the concerns raised by ACC and others, by defining in the final risk evaluation rule the scientific standards in TSCA section 26, requiring EPA to use “best available science” in its decisionmaking, and similarly base its analyses on the weight of evidence (WoE).
At the ELI event, Beck explained that the final rule's definition for “best available science” is in two parts, with the first copied from the Safe Drinking Water Act “which is language EPA and all other agencies have already adopted in their Information Quality [Act] guidelines. So this . . . standard is not new to the agency at all. It basically says we'll use science that is reliable and unbiased. As a scientist, this is apple pie.”
Adhering to the standard “means we'll use supporting studies that are conducted in accordance with sound and objective science practices and when available are peer reviewed. And . . . [we'll use] supporting studies and data collected by accepted or best available methods and we'll look at the reliability of those methods,” Beck added.
Addressing environmentalists' concerns, Beck argued that she didn't “think there's anything in there that stifles the advancement of new technology or the incorporation into really any risk assessment.”
The second part of the definition is “taken directly from the statute, we're just codifying what's already in the statute because most people when they look at a rule, they don't go back to the authorizing statute. So let's just put it in there.”
Beck also noted debate over the definition of WoE, and cited the Congressional Record as the source for the definition included in the final evaluation rule -- an approach she called for EPA to adopt last spring, while testifying for ACC before a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee panel.
“If you look at the Congressional Record, both the members of the House and members of the Senate used the same definition. . . . A [WoE] method means you have systematic review that's applied in a manner suited to the nature or the evidence of the decision. It's got to be fit for purpose . . . you don't want to spin wheels if you don't have to, you don't want to spend resources that are not commensurate with the importance of the decision,” Beck told the ELI event. “To me as a scientist, this is standard practice. Again, it's apple pie. This is what EPA is committing to doing.”
Beck also said that the TSCA evaluation rule did not include a definition of “systematic review,” as it is relatively new to environmental risk assessment, and the practice may evolve. “I think a lot of people were concerned about what systematic review means. It's important to explain what that is,” noting that the National Academy of Medicine “has defined it as a scientific investigation focused on a specific question using scientific methods to assess and summarize findings, ensure findings are complete, unbiased, reproducible, transparent.”
She added, “I think we can all agree we want these TSCA evaluations to be complete, unbiased and transparent,” comparing the approach to a recipe book, which she said would be shared with the public before cooking commences.
Denison's Concerns
During the ELI conference, Denison said that the definitions in the TSCA evaluation rule on their face seem appropriate. But he argued that “if you dig a little deeper, you'll find cults have developed around those two words,” referencing the terms “reliable” and “reproducible.” He said that “reliable for many means reliance solely on industry studies that are conducted through the [good laboratory practices] and test guidelines.”
Denison added that testing guidelines were developed “to prevent the kind of fraud that occurred in the 1970s and '80s when companies cooked the books on studies. . . . But those guideline studies are often being called reliable to disparage studies that are done in the academic world that are high quality, peer reviewed but do not use a guideline study because those guidelines are not applicable to scientific research. That's a great example of how that term is very loaded and what it means now that EPA has put it into rules for TSCA is a million dollar question.”
He said that the term “reproducible” that is used in the evaluation rule is also “a term that sounds great but it is fraught with scientific debate, and unfortunately these days, political debate.”
Denison pointed to the multitude of references in the final rule to the terms “best available science” and WoE, and explained his concern with their codification in the rule. “My complaint is that some of the core features of these rules move us away from meaningful realization of what these terms are intended to bring about.”
He said his long-standing criticism of risk assessment generally has been “its failure to adequately account for the real world,” including multiple sources of exposure and different populations with varying susceptibilities.
“I thought we had made progress toward this under TSCA reform. The law requires and the proposed rule sought to codify the requirement that EPA must conduct broad reviews of chemicals including known, intended and reasonable foreseen uses,” Denison said. “Yet the final rules represent a renewed effort to move us squarely away form that by allowing and in some cases even facilitating EPA to only examine certain uses of chemicals and exposure to chemicals. How is that best available science?” he asked during the event.
Denison argued that “The reason that Congress mandated broad reviews was to ensure that chemicals were looked at comprehensively,” and disagreed with Beck's claim that the final rule's approach is more practical than the proposal.
“I'm not saying that means chasing down every single last molecule of every single chemical. I don't disagree with the need for practicality in this area,” he said. “But to say that we are going to have a system where EPA doesn't have to look at everything and the criteria they're going to use to lop off certain uses simply isn’t explained, is a real problem.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-beck-clashes-environmentalist-over-key-tsca-rule-definitions
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(ACC Mentioned) US Environment Agency Delivers on Chemical Reform
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
One year after Obama enacted law to modernise chemical regulation the EPA has met its deadlines and issued the required rules
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued final rules for the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that regulates new and existing chemicals in the US. Released on 22 June, the rules establish a process for the agency to conduct risk evaluations to determine whether a chemical presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment, without consideration of costs.
The EPA also released a guidance document to help companies, trade associations and others to develop and submit draft chemical risk evaluations for the agency’s consideration. It details the science standards, data quality considerations and the risk evaluation steps that must be followed. In addition, the EPA issued ‘scoping documents’ for the initial 10 risk evaluations of chemicals that will be conducted.
TSCA was more than 40 years old when former President Obama signed into law long-awaited legislation to overhaul the programme in June 2016. There was significant concern, in Congress and elsewhere, about whether the EPA would be able to meet this deadline, yet the agency prevailed and delivered the required rules by the one-year mark. ‘This is incredibly significant – a lot of kudos to the EPA for making sure that when their feet were held to the fire, they were able to produce and get done what they needed to to make the programme work,’ says Judah Prero, former assistant general counsel to the American Chemistry Council, who is now counsel at the corporate law firm Sidley Austin in Washington DC. ‘It appears that the EPA did look at the comments that were made on the issue, and they tried to produce a final rule that was responsive.’
Prero says EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has voiced support for the revamped TSCA law. ‘The EPA will need every cent that they can get, and even to date they have been shifting resources around looking to really beef up staff in order to keep the pace as steady and consistent as required,’ he tells Chemistry World. Even though there might be significant cuts in other parts of the EPA’s budget, Prero predicts that the agency’s funding and staff in this area of chemical reviews will be increased significantly.
The American Chemistry Council expressed support for the EPA’s new rules to implement a modernised TSCA, emphasising that it is ‘imperative that the risk evaluations for these first 10 chemicals, and all future risk evaluations, are grounded on the best available science and the weight of the scientific evidence.’ However, environmental groups did warn that these final rules introduce loopholes that could allow the EPA to ignore important exposure routes and chemical product uses. For example, the Natural Resources Defense Council said the new rules on chemical prioritisation and risk evaluation had been weakened and are now much more favourable to the chemical industry than the versions agreed upon through the public consultation process.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/us-environment-agency-delivers-on-chemical-reform/3007642.article
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(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Framework Rules Offer Manufacturers Regulatory Clarity
Jun 28, 2017 | National Law Review
By Kaitlin C. Straker and Jane E. Montgomery
On the one year anniversary of major amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued three new “framework” rules on how it plans to prioritize and evaluate risks from new chemicals or new uses of chemicals — offering clearer guidance to manufacturers on how chemicals will be evaluated and regulated.
Here is a brief breakdown of the three rules:
1. The prioritization rule sets out the first step the EPA will take — determining whether a chemical should be designated as a high priority (e.g., requiring additional study) or low priority, for which immediate study is not required.
2. The risk evaluation rule outlines how EPA will decide whether a chemical presents an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”
3. The final inventory notification rule requires industry businesses to electronically report chemicals that were manufactured or processed in the United States in the last ten years, so that EPA can focus regulatory decisions on those chemicals that remain active in commerce. Risk evaluations are required for all active chemicals, so inactive ones may be eliminated from the time-consuming risk evaluation process. The TSCA Inventory will be appropriately updated.
In addition to the framework rules, EPA explained the scope of review for the first ten chemicals that will undergo risk evaluation, which we described in a former post.
A clear framework outlining how EPA will evaluate chemicals increases certainty for the manufacturing and chemical processing industries as TSCA still imposes complex requirements. The rules also help define important terms, such as “best available science,” which helps companies plan for the scope of EPA’s review of a given chemical.
EPA is encouraging further company and public involvement as well. For example, when EPA publishes a notice identifying a chemical substance for prioritization, there is a 90-day public comment period that follows. A second 90-day comment period is triggered after EPA publishes its proposed designation of a chemical substance as high or low priority.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt commended the new rules as providing “regulatory certainty to American businesses, while protecting human health and the environment.” The American Chemical Council welcomed the framework created by the rules and praised EPA for meeting the deadline required by last year’s amendments.
Under the amended TSCA, EPA has additional obligations beyond promulgating these rules. EPA will release additional documentation relating to the first ten chemicals being evaluated by September 19, 2017, and must complete a minimum of twenty chemical evaluations by 2019. We will share updates on these and other important developments along the way.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/tsca-framework-rules-offer-manufacturers-regulatory-clarity
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EPA's Less-Stringent Chemical Rule Likely To Spark Suits
Jun 29, 2017 | Law 360
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
The EPA's newly finalized rule for evaluating a chemical's risk to health and the environment retreats from a version proposed by the Obama administration by not requiring the agency to evaluate all of a substance's uses before making a determination, a move that could spur legal challenges from environmental groups.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued three new rules and other guidance that implement recent revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act, including the framework for evaluating chemical risks and a method of prioritizing chemicals for review.
The risk evaluation rule has been the focus of much attention because it adopted an approach toward "conditions of use" that isn't as strict as the one proposed by the EPA in January, just days before President Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Conditions of use are defined in the TSCA as "the circumstances, as determined by the administrator, under which a chemical substance is intended, known or reasonably foreseen to be manufactured, processed, distributed in commerce, used or disposed of."
Under the Obama proposal, the EPA would have conducted chemical evaluations that considered all conditions of use; under the Trump administration's final rule, that hard line was softened, and the agency said it is not required to consider every condition of use before determining a chemical's risk.
Although the EPA's approach is consistent with feedback it received from industry groups that said it would be extremely difficult to account for every possible use at the risk evaluation stage, Maureen Gorsen, a partner at Alston & Bird LLP, said she would not be surprised if environmental groups sue over the rule.
Gorsen said the groups may allege that language in the rule doesn't exactly match what's in the law, something she said could be attributed to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's rush to accomplish an ambitious agenda that includes both statutorily mandated duties and policy changes driven by the new administration.
"There could be some sloppiness in the language because of the speed at which they wrote these," she said.
Richard Denison, the Environmental Defense Fund's lead senior scientist, said in a statement that the EPA's changes "significantly weaken" the proposed rules, "in some cases in ways that are contrary to the new law."
The organization declined to comment on whether it's considering litigation.
David Lennett, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council's health program, said it's too early to know whether the group will challenge the rule in court, but he said they are considering it.
"We're going to do a complete and thorough evaluation, and then we're going to make up our minds," Lennett said. "That's our normal course of business, and the importance of this rule will make that process paramount."
Lennett said that under the proposed rule, the strictness of the conditions of use analysis would have been good for vulnerable populations by making sure that the various ways in which they could be exposed could be understood.
By reserving its discretion to study the conditions of use on a case-by-case basis, Lennett said the agency has created a lot of uncertainty as to whether those populations will be adequately protected.
Bart Seitz, a partner at Baker Botts LLP, said the proposed rule's strictness made it very difficult to comply with.
"The omission of any one remotely identified use could potentially sabotage a determination down the road," Seitz said. "So as a practical matter, I think EPA is probably smart to identify the fact that it's going to be relying on its discretion on a case-by-case basis and doing a very fact-specific evaluation to assess which are the uses deemed to potentially pose the greatest hazard."
He noted that the agency can't escape the fact that they still have to identify the uses that are "reasonably foreseen," as well as to protect susceptible populations.
"I know some environmental groups are raising the alarm that EPA is backing away from full implementation of its statutory obligations, but I think some of this is just a wise or prudential drafting of rules to allow for EPA to evaluate each chemical substance it evaluates on a case-by-case basis, so it’s not locked into too stringent or too loose a framework," Seitz said.
Gorsen said that after the proposed rule was released, she became concerned about how she would help her clients comply with it, since the supply chain that a chemical might traverse from manufacturer to end product can be a complicated route.
"You sell a building block, say, glycerol. It could go into a gazillion different products and uses. Somebody could be using it to make plastic eyeglasses, but you don't even sell to those people — they're buying it from an intermediary," she said. "I thought the proposed rule was not just onerous and burdensome but impossible, because it's so difficult to know what every condition of use is."
Lennett said there are just too many loopholes and open questions in the final rule that amount to inadequate protection for human health and environment.
"It's problematic, particularly given who's in charge of the agency at the moment, both at the top level and in the TSCA office," he said. "The potential for doing the wrong thing is there and is real."
--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg and Sara Ziegler.https://www.law360.com/articles/939381/epa-s-less-stringent-chemical-rule-likely-to-spark-suits
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Practitioner Insights: New Chemical Bias Worse Than Ever
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Charles L. Franklin and Leonard W. Velsor
Since the early 1990s until Congress finally amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in June 2016, the statute's most frequent criticism was that it gave EPA inadequate authority to ban dangerous substances that were already in commerce and “grandfathered” when TSCA was passed in 1976 (so called “existing chemicals”).
The Frank R. Lautenberg Safe Chemicals Act for the 21st Century (LCSA) was supposed to change that and revitalize public confidence in federal chemical control law. It is too early to know whether LCSA will fix these longstanding concerns over existing chemicals, but early indications suggest that EPA's new chemical program—the part of TSCA designed to bring innovative and safer new products to market—is now broken.
Since LCSA's passage, several problems have emerged. The first is a timing issue. During the first eight months after the law's passage, EPA's pace for reviewing new chemical submissions plummeted from an average of roughly 1,000 per year to fewer than 60 during the first eight months, leading to a sizable backlog of new chemical submissions. EPA has made progress in bringing this number down and has committed to eliminating the backlog by the end of July 2017—a positive sign that the agency is bringing in additional staff and resources to manage the constant flow of “premanufacture notice” (PMN) applications submitted for new chemicals each year.
The second problem is harder to detect, but may have more far-reaching consequences for federal efforts to phase out risky chemicals. As it has begun to whittle down its backlog of PMN applications, EPA appears to be conditioning market entry on significant use restrictions far more severe than those required previously, forcing a majority of submitters to withdraw their applications or agree to regulatory consent orders imposing onerous testing, use restrictions, and import and export requirements.
Consider this: During the 40 years before LCSA's passage, EPA processed roughly 39,000 PMNs. In roughly 2,100 cases, just under 6 percent of PMN submissions, applicants elected to withdraw their applications in the face of EPA concerns and the prospect of untenable regulatory restrictions. In roughly 1,800 cases, just under 5 percent of all submissions, EPA required applicants to enter into consent orders restricting the product's use or requiring testing as a condition of market entry. In contrast, since passage of LCSA, EPA has imposed consent orders and/or testing requirements in 50 percent of the completed reviews, and forced the withdrawal of another 21 percent, limiting or prohibiting market for an astounding 70 percent of completed reviews—a 600 percent increase over pre-LCSA practice.
This remarkable trend exacerbates a decades-old problem under TSCA called “new chemical bias,” wherein review delays, testing requirements, onerous use restrictions, and import/export reporting requirements discourage the use, and sometimes the commercialization, of new safer chemicals, leaving more dangerous but less regulated existing chemicals as the only market options.
New chemical bias is a long-recognized problem under TSCA. Agency documents indicate that EPA officials have grappled with the issue since the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the EPA's interpretation of its new LCSA authority appears to be making the problem worse, not better.
The breakdown of the new chemical review process is particularly disturbing given that prior to LCSA's passage, EPA's new chemical program was widely seen as the one aspect of TSCA that worked. EPA had established systems and tools that allowed it to evaluate the pipeline of new chemicals efficiently and effectively, requiring additional testing and risk management steps where necessary, while bringing to market safer alternatives to existing risky chemicals. Indeed, during the four decades that EPA reviewed and added roughly 20,000 new chemicals to the TSCA Inventory, there is little documentation to suggest that even a fraction of approved new chemicals have required subsequent action to manage unreasonable risks.
EPA staff have asserted that the amended statute's requirement for an affirmative safety finding is driving the review delays and the need for more onerous restrictions on the manufacture and use of new chemicals. But LCSA's additional procedural burdens (EPA always reviewed new chemicals using an “unreasonable risk” safety standard) do not explain the unprecedented number of withdrawals and TSCA consent orders being imposed on new chemicals, or the agency's vocal dismissal of labeling as a means of risk mitigation in lieu of more costly and anti-competitive commercial requirements.
Ultimately, it will be new chemical innovations, not agency regulation, that will push dangerous chemicals and their uses off the market. Under a best-case scenario, EPA will complete risk evaluations on the first 10 of the 90 substances on its priority action plan by late 2019, and complete risk mitigation measures on those substances by late 2021, presuming EPA obtains the funding, staff, and political support necessary to meet LCSA's ambitious risk review quotas and deadlines. Even then, EPA will have difficulty banning or restricting substances and uses where no viable alternatives are available. This means that 80 of its priority chemicals, and the tens of thousands of other existing chemicals that may pose risks, will remain unregulated. For most high-risk chemicals on the market today, the real solution is to develop safer replacements. Transitioning to alternative chemicals will be difficult or impossible, however, if new chemical submissions cannot get through EPA, or emerge from the review process with commercially impracticable restrictions.
Before LCSA, the common refrain among TSCA critics was that TSCA was so weak that “EPA could not even ban asbestos.” If EPA's implementation does not change, the new refrain may be that EPA can't even approve an asbestos substitute. If so, the new law will turn out to have been a bad bargain for everyone—the public, the environment, and industry.
Charles L. Franklin is a Senior Counsel in the Regulatory Practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP. Leonard W. Velsor is a Senior Attorney for Global Trade & Compliance at Eastman Chemical Company.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115175926&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115175926&jd=115175926
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Jun 29, 2017 | Sustainable Brands
Eight million tons of plastic trash find their way into the world’s oceans every year. If this trend continues, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Considerable action is required to avoid this fate, but more and more organizations are beginning to step up to the plate. Creative campaigns that seek to engage consumers through multi-media and innovative products are proving to be an effective way to reach and educate wide audiences quickly, accelerating the uptake of behaviors and actions that could spur meaningful change.
While many big-name brands, top advertising firms and global corporations struggle to engage consumers and communicate their sustainability stories, 23-year-old Daisy Kendrick’s nonprofit collective We Are the Oceans (WATO) — which aims to safeguard the planet by protecting the world’s oceans — is already making waves.
Kendrick launched the campaign group after working with the UN on a sustainable development mission to Grenada, an experience that demonstrated the interconnectedness between civilization and the world’s oceans and how pollution threatens that co-existence.
To tackle the growing issue of ocean plastics, WATO has been utilizing music, video games and social media campaigns to garner support from Millennials. The response has been overwhelming.
Only eight months after its launch, the organization has already worked with recording artist Joss Stone to record the single, “We Are The Oceans,” which spotlights issues such as overfishing, marine pollution and climate change. WATO has also teamed up with global agency Instrumental to create a digital live aid collective in which global artists and top-tier influencers will record their own versions of the song and scored a partnership with the Vans Warped Tour. The US’s largest traveling music festival will allow WATO to present its message to an even larger audience — over 500,000 people attend Warped Tour every summer.
Recognizing the shortcomings of social media, where messages can easily be buried, filtered out or scrolled past, WATO is looking to videogames as another way to engage with Millennials.
“There is a huge existing gaming audience with a lot of potential. Every day, mobile gamers are playing online but aren’t interacting with philanthropy or the oceans — businesses needed to discover how to reach this audience on their own terms. A lot of games have millions of people on their platforms and they can use the power of advertising and media in implementing a message or a game. People are being educated on a gaming site to become a reusable society,” said Kendrick.
In partnership with Angry Birds creator Rovio, WATO has developed two video games — Big Catch and Island Nation Defense. The former, which has already been played by three million players since its launch in April, sees players learn facts about ocean pollution as they navigate through plastic-ridden oceans. Island Nation Defense, on the other hand, challenges players to manage an island’s scarce resources in an effort to reduce CO2 levels and defend it from rising sea levels.
While public education and engagement is an important component of WATO’s work, Kendrick plans to extend the organization’s scope by working with technology companies to harness the power of blockchain to create completely transparent supply chains. WATO previously worked with fast fashion retailer H&M to promote its Bionic line to demonstrate its message.
Kendrick’s fresh perspective — and those like it — are critical for driving real change, but businesses need to take greater strides to engage younger generations on sustainability issues.
“Collaboration is key and as a new organization, we want to work with others,” Kendrick told edie.net. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but others aren’t reaching millennials in an appropriate way.”
“People are increasingly realizing that if there are no oceans, there’s no life. The oceans have become the crisis of this generation. We recognize that one solution doesn’t fit all people and so we have been approaching audiences which don’t usually interact with the topic of ocean plastics — and we have seen some success. If people are educated on the issue, they will start to think about the alternatives to plastic waste and will favor more sustainable business models so that we can live in a more sustainable society.”
Meanwhile, adidas today released a new white Parley for the Oceans edition of its UltraBOOST, UltraBOOST X and UltraBOOST Uncaged performance sneakers made with Parley Ocean Plastic™, a fiber derived from recovered ocean plastics.
While the first adidas x Parley collection was inspired by the blue color of the oceans, the new white edition serves as a nod to the coral bleaching crisis threatening oceans and is symbolic of the white flag humanity should raise in order to end marine plastic pollution with a collaborative approach.
“At adidas we believe that through sport we have the power to foster eco-innovation and enable our consumers to make a difference. The new white colorway we are introducing across the adidas x Parley collection aims to make not only a style statement, but an environmental one too,” said Matthias Amm, Product Category Director of adidas Running. “Humanity has been waging battles against pollution of the oceans for too long and the colorway is symbolic of the peace we need to make with the oceans.”
Reusing an average of 11 plastic bottles per pair in the upper, UltraBOOST Parley, UltraBOOSt X Parley and UltraBOOST Uncaged Parley also feature laces, heel webbing, heel counter, heel lining and sock liner covers made from recycled PET material. The shoes marry functionality and style with a definitive purpose — to raise awareness of marine pollution and evoke positive change.
The shoes are also equipped with an NFC Chip — a unique digital experience to learn more about the adidas x Parley partnership, as well as the Parley A.I.R. Strategy, which stands for ‘Avoiding’ the use of plastic, ‘Intercepting’ plastic waste and ‘Redesigning’ the plastic material itself.
“Every second breath we take is generated by the oceans. Still, we are polluting them with plastic, killing their life, driving majestic creatures into extinction. Our attacks bring the largest reefs down, make them lose their color as if they raise the white flag of surrender. Let’s make peace with the oceans and secure the future of mankind. This new shoe is not just an item. It’s a symbol. A new way to link products to the ocean cause,” said Cyril Gutsch, Founder of Parley for the Oceans.
Recognizing the unnecessary pollution created by plastic straws Burlington, VT native Milo Cress started a crusade against the unassuming beverage accessory, launching the Be Straw Free campaign in an effort to eliminate unnecessary waste. Now 15, Cress has become the face of the movement to eliminate plastic straws, one that has exploded since a video appeared on YouTube in 2015, depicting a turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose.
According to an estimate by Be Straw Free, Americans use half a billion straws every day — enough to wrap around the Earth 2.5 times — yet they rarely, if ever, make it into recycle bins. While seemingly insignificant, these small, slender tubes represent a momentous opportunity to address marine plastic pollution — a concept that more businesses are beginning to embrace. Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom and the Smithsonian Institute museums concession areas already ban them and many others are starting to follow suit thanks to efforts taken by nonprofits such as Cress’s to educate consumers and companies about the environmental impacts of plastic straws.
To date, approximately 1,800 organizations around the world — including schools, restaurants and institutions — have already eliminated the use of plastic straws or put a serve-upon-request policy into place, according to research done by the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
The public sector is also getting on board with the idea. Cities such as Berkley, Calif. are considering putting a ban into place and Manhattan Beach, Calif. has already done so. Restaurants in New York, Miami, British Colombia, San Diego and London have pledged to ban straws or withhold them until customers ask for them.
The momentum the movement is gaining is inspiring, but even so, not everyone is keen on the idea. The American Chemistry Council, which promotes plastics manufacturers, is none too pleased. In a recent National Geographic article, the organization’s managing director for plastics markets, Keith Christman, said the group would fight any attempts to ban plastic straws.
But with anti-straw policies receiving positive reception from consumers, the future is well-poised to be straw-free.
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/marketing_comms/sustainable_brands/trending_pro-ocean_orgs_look_youtube_video_games_f
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(ACC Mentioned) StarNews Forum on GenX in Local Water Draws 450 People
Jun 28, 2017 | Jacksonville Daily News
By Cammie Bellamy
During a forum Thursday on GenX, New Hanover County Commissioner Woody White captured the feelings of a packed auditorium: “Folks, this is unacceptable.”
Roughly 450 people came to the event with signs, questions and worries about the chemical compound found in local drinking water. The forum, held in Kenan Auditorium at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, was sponsored by StarNews Media, WWAY TV News and WHQR News 91.3. Among the 16 panelists were Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) leaders, scientists, health officials, economic and legal experts and elected officials from Wilmington and New Hanover County.
“I feel responsible for creating this mess in many ways,” joked panelist Dr. Detlef Knappe, a member of the team that discovered GenX in local water. “But also I’m very happy that you’re all here ... and it’s incredible that the results we had in our lab have made an impact.”
There was one glaring absence on the panel: anyone representing Chemours, the company that discharged GenX into the river from its plant 100 miles upriver of Wilmington.
StarNews Media invited Chemours to participate in the forum; the company declined. The American Chemical Council, a chemical industry group, did not respond to an invitation.
White, chairman of the county’s Board of Commissioners, said holding Chemours accountable is a board priority. He told the audience that on June 8 -- the day the StarNews broke the GenX story -- his first call was to a U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
“This community needs to know that their federal law enforcement officials were notified within hours of this newspaper article being published,” he said. “If (an investigation) reveals that they have criminal violations they can put people behind bars.”
Sheila Holman, assistant secretary for environment with the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, said state officials will continue to check that Chemours has stopped putting GenX into the Cape Fear River, something the department verified Tuesday. She said water containing GenX has been diverted to a storage tank and sent to Arkansas for disposal by incineration.
“We’re currently reviewing the company’s request to renew its wastewater permit, and the permit will not be renewed until the state’s investigation is complete,” she said to applause.
CFPUA leaders grilled
CFPUA director Jim Flechtner and board chair Mike Brown faced a tough crowd Wednesday, asking questions about why the authority did not alert locals about GenX when it learned months ago that the chemical was in drinking water.
Flechtner said CFPUA has started evaluating new water treatment options for its Sweeney Plant. Among those options is reverse osmosis, which Flechtner said CFPUA consultants have told him would be 90 percent effective at removing GenX, but an enormous expense.
“Before we take that on we need to make sure that’s going to work and we need to make sure its not going to have unintended consequences,” he said. “I’d like to say I share the public’s concerns as the provider of the public water. This is our business, and we have 300 people who’ve dedicated their lives and their careers to providing water to this community.”
Brown fielded a question on the CFPUA board’s recent decision to raise water rates 2 percent in the middle of the GenX firestorm.
“That is a very valid question, and we had debate on that,” he said. “I am certainly very much sympathetic to the timing of that rate increase, however the board voted the way they did and I think they had the best intentions for the long term interests of our rate payer.”
Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said too many questions remain unanswered about how the crisis will affect the region, from its image to the lives of people who live here.
“We should all be concerned about it when it makes national news,” he said. “I’ve been here all my life and I’ve been drinking this water for 35 years and I was damn upset about that, as we all should be.”
Investigating other threats
Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette said the uproar over GenX should move officials to take action against other pollutants.
“Dr. Knappe’s study identified at least six other fluorochemicals that are also found in the river, some at actually higher levels than GenX,” he said. “There are also other things in the river than are unregulated and are harmful.”
White said environmental laws, and the authority of agencies like the EPA, do not go far enough to protect consumers from those unknowns.
“We have numerous laws on our books to keep our drinking water safe,” White said. “But that’s not good enough. What we’ve learned over these last few weeks is that companies discharge emerging contaminants -- not just one or two, not just GenXo or C8, but many, hundreds.”
During the forum, WWAY-TV news director Kevin Wuzzardo assured the crowd that local media are committed to investigating GenX. He addressed a rumor circulating on social media that outlets were being pressured to drop the story.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Wuzzardo said. “This is the kind of story that we get into the business for: to serve our community and interact with our community for a public service.”
http://www.jdnews.com/news/20170628/starnews-forum-on-genx-in-local-water-draws-450-people
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Group Warns of 'Lethal Lunchboxes' in Ad Hitting Portman Bill
Jun 29, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
Lethal lunchboxes filled with contaminated food would be a consequence of a bill sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), according to a new TV advertisement paid for by the watchdog group Public Citizen.
The ad, airing in the Cincinnati market, targets Portman's "Regulatory Accountability Act," S. 951, which was introduced earlier this year to update the decades-old Administrative Procedure Act that guides the rulemaking process. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) co-sponsored the bill.
While the measure has received much support from business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, environmentalists and government organizations have lambasted the proposal as anti-regulatory and dangerous.
The ad opens on a picture of a woman kissing her son on the cheek while dropping him off at school. She's handing him his lunchbox. A woman's voice says, "We care about what goes into our children's lunch," and a gray square appears on the lunchbox with the tag "safe?"
The 30-second clip oscillates between dark images of Portman and family scenes of babies and small children.
"Sen. Rob Portman sponsored a bill that could prevent essential safeguards of our food and our drinking water, prevent safety standards on everything from baby cribs to toys," the narrator states.
"If Sen. Portman has his way, it could be nearly impossible to protect our families from tainted, contaminated foods or dangerous products."
The ad urges Ohio voters to call Portman's office and express their opposition to the proposal.
"Call Sen. Portman and tell him we didn't vote for lethal lunchboxes," it states.
Public Citizen said it is spending $75,000 on the cable buy in Cincinnati and is spending $15,000-$20,000 on corresponding digital ads in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.
Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said regulations are intended to protect the air and ensure lead-free water and toxic-free food.
"Portman's bill would let big corporations block these protections," he said in a statement. "Portman is delivering the goods to big business, but if he gets his way, kids in Ohio and across the country will pay the price."
The "Regulatory Accountability Act" would direct agencies to find the most "cost-effective" regulatory option and make law the common practice of conducting cost-benefit analyses (E&E Daily, May 17).
It would also invite early participation by regulated entities. And it would build in a review process for new rules and allow for agency hearings on the costliest actions, among other provisions.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-5 to advance the legislation last month, with Heitkamp the lone Democrat to vote in favor of the measure (Greenwire, May 17).
The bill is not yet scheduled for a full Senate vote, a committee aide said, but could come up in the next few weeks.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/06/29/stories/1060056771
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California Says Key Ingredient in Roundup Weed Killer Can Cause Cancer
Jun 29, 2017 | CNN
By Holly Yan
One of the most popular herbicides in the world can cause cancer, California health officials say, and they might demand warnings saying so.
That herbicide, glyphosate, will be added to California's list of chemicals that can cause cancer, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said this week. Glyphosate is the key ingredient in weed killers such as Roundup.
California keeps a list of carcinogenic chemicals because of a law commonly called Proposition 65, which "requires businesses to provide warnings to Californians about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm."
The decision to add glyphosate to that list stemmed from the International Agency for Research on Cancer's assessment that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic to humans," said Sam Delson, deputy director of OEHHA.
But Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, is fighting back.
"Glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and the listing of glyphosate under Prop 65 is unwarranted on the basis of science and the law," said Scott Partridge, Monsanto's vice president of global strategy.
The company sued California's OEHHA to stop the listing, but last week the California Supreme Court rejected Monsanto's request for a stay. "That led us to move forward," Delson said Wednesday.
Hundreds claim they got cancer from Roundup
As CNN reported last month, more than 800 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients are suing Monsanto, claiming Roundup gave them cancer.
And an internal Monsanto company email said an EPA official had offered to "kill" a separate investigation into glyphosate. That official, who was the head of the EPA's Cancer Assessment Review Committee, has since retired.
Monsanto has consistently maintained that the herbicide is safe.
"California's sole reason for listing glyphosate under Prop 65 is the fatally flawed classification by IARC, which ignored crucial scientific data that undermines its conclusion," Partridge said.
Monsanto said more than 800 studies have demonstrated glyphosate's safety, including studies conducted internationally.
"In fact, since IARC classified glyphosate, regulatory authorities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia have publicly reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer," Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord said in April.
In March, the European Chemicals Agency ruled glyphosate is "not classified as a carcinogen."
But Christine Sheppard, one of the cancer patients suing Monsanto, said she's thrilled by California's decision to list glyphosate as carcinogenic.
"I thank all the powers that be that I live in California, a state that actually looks after its citizens," she said Wednesday. "It is a great start, and let's hope that others follow California's wise leadership."
To label, or not to label?
Despite California's ruling, it's not certain whether Monsanto will have to issue cancer warnings for glyphosate products sold in the state.
Under California law, "a warning must be given for listed chemicals unless the exposure is low enough to pose no significant risk of cancer or is significantly below levels observed to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm."
That leaves one big question: Is the amount of glyphosate exposure from using Roundup enough to pose a "significant risk"?
"As for Roundup itself, we're not sure," Delson said.
Delson said his agency is trying to establish a level for how much glyphosate exposure would equal a significant risk. He said the current proposal is 1.1 milligrams a day, though a final answer might not be ready until July 2018. It's unclear how much exposure a user might have, given the wide variation in how the product is used.
And if a certain product is deemed to pose a significant risk, the manufacturer doesn't have to put a warning label on each container, Delson said. It could instead have a warning sign next to the product in stores.
If makers of glyphosate products have to issue cancer warnings in California, they would have a year before that requirement would be enforced.
"That year gives them time to either change their labeling or ... hopefully modify their products to make them safer," Delson said.
Meanwhile, Monsanto says it will keep appealing California's decision.
"This is not the final step in the process, and it has no bearing on the merits of the case," Partridge said. "We will continue to aggressively challenge this improper decision."
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/28/health/california-glyphosate-cancer-chemical-listing/index.html
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Worker Gets Second Shot at Industrial Asthma Case
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A California worker's claims of industrial asthma from exposures to a hospital disinfectant shouldn't have been summarily dismissed, a California court of appeals ruled June 27 (Maldonado v. Medivators, Inc., 2017 BL 221442, Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., No. G052489, unpublished 6/27/17).
The diagnosis of Carlos Maldonado's asthma, not the onset of his symptoms, may be the trigger for California's two-year time limit for hazardous substance-related personal injury actions, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, said in an unpublished decision.
The ruling upended a summary judgment for Medivators Inc., the manufacturer of Rapicide, a disinfectant Maldonado used to clean medical instruments at Placentia-Linda Hospital in Placentia, Calif.
The trial court ruled Maldonado waited too long to file his suit in 2013 after reporting flu-like symptoms and ventilation problems in the cleaning room more than two years earlier.
But the filing period could have been triggered, and Maldonado's suit made timely, when he was diagnosed with industrial asthma from exposure to glutaraldehyde in Rapicide, the three-judge panel said.
The court analogized the case to a gas station customer with short-term nausea from petroleum fumes, who “does not expect or connect the short-lived discomfort to a future permanent life-threatening condition.”
Further, a workers’ compensation physician assured Maldonado that he was “fine” when he first reported symptoms, the court said.
Medivator's related claim that Maldonado, vocational nurse, should have known about the health risks of glutaraldehyde was belied by the fact that even company officials were unaware it can cause asthma, the court said.
Presiding Judge Kathleen E. O'Leary wrote the opinion, joined by judges William W. Bedsworth and Richard M. Aronson.
The law offices of Gordon, Edelstein, Krepack, Grant, Felton & Goldstein represented Maldonado.
Walsworth WFBM represented Medivators.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115175915&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115175915&jd=115175915
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EU Chemicals Agency Hopes to Increase Imports’ Scrutiny
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Updated guidance on the notification obligations of companies that import goods containing hazardous chemicals into the European Union could lead to more compliance checks on imports, the European Chemicals Agency told Bloomberg BNA.
The agency issued the revised guidance June 28, covering the requirement under the EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals) for companies that import goods containing hazardous substances above a 0.1 percent by weight threshold to notify the chemicals agency, unless exposure of people or the environment to the substance can be reasonably excluded.
The obligation applies to chemicals that are considered to be “substances of very high concern” under REACH, of which there are currently 173. Examples of hazardous substances in products include phthalates in vinyl flooring, cables, garden hoses and other soft plastics, and lead compounds in batteries, electronics and machinery.
According to the European Chemicals Agency website, only 365 product notifications covering 39 of the 173 high concern substances have been submitted.
The agency told Bloomberg BNA it was “of the impression that the number of notifications is low and probably does not reflect” the number of products containing high concern substances that are imported into the EU.
“Awareness-raising amongst importers, and ultimately stronger enforcement are the keys to making these mechanisms work better,” the chemicals agency said. Clarity in the updated guidance on the obligations might “help and encourage” EU countries “to consider the initiation of additional enforcement actions,” the agency added.
The updated guidance takes into account a European Court of Justice ruling from September 2015 that the 0.1 percent notification threshold for hazardous chemicals in products should apply to individual components within products, and not only to the whole product. For example, the obligations would apply to vehicle components that contain hazardous substances, rather than to the whole vehicle.
The updated guidance replaces interim guidance on the rules on hazardous substances in products that the chemicals agency issued in December 2015 in the wake of the court ruling.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115175918&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115175918&jd=115175918]
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Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
Echa has published targets setting out its vision for achieving an internationally recognised goal for achieving sound chemicals management.
The goal, adopted at the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, says this will be met by ensuring 'that chemicals are used and produced in ways that lead to the minimisation of significant adverse effects on human health and the environment'.
To answer the question has Echa achieved this goal?, the agency has compiled a list of 'success factors' grouped into four areas:
· getting robust data;
· using regulatory measures such as restrictions, authorisation and mandatory classification;
· ensuring good supply chain communication on uses and exposures; and
· helping to spread the use of such information among citizens, businesses and regulators in Europe and internationally.
A key target is to complete "well over 1,000 comprehensive compliance checks" for substances in the 100 to 1,000 tonne and above 1,000 tonne categories by 2020 and decide whether they are of concern, of no concern or need more data for a judgement to be made.
The agency will also continue to conduct automated screening of all substances, regardless of tonnage band, to decide which require compliance checking, substance evaluation, regulatory measures or no action for the time being.
For substances between 1 and 100 tonnes it will have adopted a plan covering compliance checking and substance evaluation during 2020-2025.Substance evaluation
Another target is for Echa to have evaluated 400 substances and to have requested necessary data to conclude on suspected risk.
This does not mean that conclusion documents will have been produced for all 400 –something that has so far been achieved for just 54 substances – but that the initial evaluations will have been completed and any requests for further testing have been met.
Currently there are 243 substances for which either evaluation is ongoing and information requested, or the conclusion document has been completed.
Speaking to Chemical Watch, Echa executive director Geert Dancet said there are a lower number of substances being evaluated this year than previously, but the agency is assuming that member states will catch up – partly by adopting a grouping approach.
As there is uncertainty about whether the UK will continue to evaluate substances, and if so for how long, Echa "will have a scenario by which other member states may take over that work". This will need to be discussed, possibly in Caracal (Competent Authorities for REACH and CLP), or in a member state competent authority directors meeting.
The agency has also reconfirmed its commitment to meeting the target originally set by the European Commission in 2012 to have "all relevant and currently known SVHCs" on the candidate list by 2020.
Mr Dancet said this effectively means any registered category 1 CMRs, or PBTs or vPvBs that meet the required threshold, that are still in use and are not exempt from the authorisation process, qualify.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57263/echa-outlines-goals-for-2020
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EU Enforcement Project to Check REACH Registrations in 2019
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
EU national enforcement authority (NEA) inspectors will focus on registration obligations –including substances registered as intermediates – under the seventh REACH enforcement project (Ref-7).
They will check whether companies that need to register substances on their own or in mixtures after the last registration deadline in 2018 have a valid registration (Articles 6 and 7 of REACH).
"We will be looking at registrations of smaller tonnages, but might not limit ourselves to only checking 'new' registrations submitted in 2018," Echa's Enforcement Forum chair Katja vom Hofe (pictured) told Chemical Watch after the forum's 21-22 June meeting. "Instead, we might assess registrations from higher tonnage bands that have been submitted before."
In addition to checking full registrations, inspectors will examine intermediate registrations (Articles 17 and 18 of REACH) to see whether substances registered as intermediates fulfil the necessary requirements – that a substance is only manufactured and used under strictly controlled conditions according to Article 17 (3), for example.
They will also check imported chemicals in cooperation with customs authorities in the member states.
The project will start at the beginning of 2019 and run for one year. It will be followed by a one-year reporting period.
Authorisation pilot
The Forum has decided to conduct a third pilot project on authorisation in 2019. This will check whether companies that are using Annex XIV substances, or marketing them, have the required authorisation.
The recent report of the second authorisation pilot said about 90% of European companies are in compliance with their REACH authorisation obligations. The authorities took legal action against 13 companies for failing to meet them.
Ms vom Hofe said the Forum will look at some of the most commonly used substances to see if companies are fulfilling their authorisation obligations.
The project will start at the beginning of 2019 and is slated for completion that June. The report should be ready by the end of the year.
Joint action on SDSs
The Forum has also launched its first joint action agreement with its accredited stakeholder organisations (ASOs) – trade bodies and NGOs – to improve the quality of safety data sheets (SDSs). This was floated at the last Forum meeting in April.
Representatives from the ASOs will join the Forum's working group, which will be set up in mid-July to draft an action plan, Ms vom Hofe said. The Forum will identify the most common deficiencies and together with the ASOs will jointly develop ideas for best practice to address these. Once the plan is agreed, stakeholders will be asked to communicate and implement the measures, Ms vom Hofe said.
The Forum also heard a presentation by Jonathan Küster from Echa's substance identity and data sharing unit on enforcing the implementing act on data sharing.
He said if breaches of obligations for joint submissions cannot be solved, Echa may revoke the registration, as it fails the one substance one registration (Osor) principle. NEAs should be aware that Echa will inform them of such cases so that they can follow up to ensure the companies are no longer using the substance.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57267/eu-enforcement-project-to-check-reach-registrations-in-2019
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Germany Notifies Echa of SVHC Intention for BPA
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Germany has notified Echa it intends to submit a proposal identifying bisphenol A (BPA) as an SVHC on the grounds it has equivalent level of concern having probable serious effects to the environment. It is expected to submit it on 7 August.
In June, Echa's Member State Committee (MSC) agreed with a French proposal that BPA is an SVHC due to its endocrine disrupting properties that cause probable serious effects to human health.
And the substance was added to the candidate list in January on the grounds that it has properties that are toxic to reproduction.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57266/germany-notifies-echa-of-svhc-intention-for-bpa
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(ACC Mentioned) The Secret War Pennsylvania Is Winning - But Will It Win Foxconn?
Jun 29, 2017 | PennLive
By Candy Woodall
From the car window, the man from New Jersey can see why Pennsylvania is winning the war.
It's not an answer found in the green and amber mazes of the state's rich farmland or the steel and glass that dominate city skylines.
It's what lies beneath and where it leads.
Along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and throughout southcentral Pennsylvania, travelers can see construction of the Atlantic Sunrise and Mariner East 2 pipelines.
Those multi-billion dollar projects will soon carry the state's stockpile of energy to market, but they're already carrying Pennsylvania to a leading spot on the eastern seaboard.
"Surrounded by states in fiscal crisis, Pennsylvania has a new revenue stream that's very powerful," said John Boyd, principal owner of The Boyd Company Inc.
His Princeton-based site selection firm just listed Pennsylvania as the cheapest state for manufacturers to do business.
Annual operating costs of $34 million might not sound cheap, but it's $6 million less than neighboring New Jersey and the lowest cost in the northeast region. That's everything in a competitive market.
"Economic development is the second war between the states," Boyd said. "Everyone is trying to win the battle for new jobs."
And Pennsylvania is poised for victory.
'Red hot'
So, what does Pennsylvania have that New Jersey doesn't?
Plastics, revamped ports, a Shell cracker plant and some of the lowest natural gas costs in America.
Because most Pennsylvania communities have a lower cost of living than their competitors in neighboring states, employers can pay lower wages here - which is one of the main reasons companies can save 15 percent by choosing the Keystone State instead of New Jersey, according to Boyd's report.
Combine that with Pennsylvania's energy surplus and transportation infrastructure, and it's no surprise Foxconn is eyeing this state as part of a $10 billion U.S. expansion, Boyd said.
The Boyd Company's customers include Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, PepsiCo, PNC Bank, Chevron, Office Depot, GlaxoSmithKline, JP Morgan Chase, Shell, Verizon and more.
But most of Boyd's work is done discreetly, carefully avoiding leaks before a company is ready to share expansion plans.
This week, Boyd was in southcentral Pennsylvania, explaining why his unnamed clients are focusing on the commonwealth as a place to reshore their operations after years of outsourcing.
"There's renewed interest for myriad reasons," he said.
It's partially because of the rising cost of doing business in Asia, which pushed companies home long before a Republican candidate launched an "America first" agenda.
Though some of that reshoring began before President Donald Trump's election, his leadership is "accelerating the pace," Boyd said.
"There's a perception of tax cuts on the horizon," he said.
Pennsylvania has much more to offer, including a strong labor market, transportation structure leading to the nation's capital, proximity to New York and New England consumers, nearby ports and railyards, and U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey.
"More companies are open to Pennsylvania because costs are lower, but also to gain the ear of Senator Casey and Senator Toomey," Boyd said. "There's a politicization of site selection, looking at gaining leverage in D.C."
The senators' hometowns are the most popular areas for development in Pennsylvania.
"The northeast Pennsylvania market is red hot," Boyd said, "especially the Lehigh Valley."
Fighting for Foxconn
Lehigh Valley developers say they have the room for a Foxconn facility and thousands of workers.
While Pennsylvania is the leading candidate, Foxconn chairman Terry Gou said the company is also considering Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Texas. Most of those are Rust Belt states where Trump won.
Foxconn, an electronics giant and Apple supplier, is expected to announce plans in early August for at least three states.
The company in 2013 flirted with Pennsylvania, claiming it would spend $30 million and add 500 workers at a new factory in central Pennsylvania. That factory was never built.
When companies consider a site, Boyd said they look at five factors: operating costs, workforce, lifestyle, access and incentives.
Dennis Davin, the state secretary of economic development, is working to promote Pennsylvania in those categories.
"We've done a pretty good job going out there and telling Pennsylvania's story," he said.
There are "a number of companies" currently working with state economic development leaders, but Davin wouldn't name them.
He said he's operating under nondisclosure agreements and couldn't list the companies showing "tremendous interest in Pennsylvania."
Many of the discussions detail the positives and "perceived negatives" of doing business in the commonwealth, Davin said.
And the positives are potentially bigger than Foxconn.
Bigger than Foxconn
In Gulf states that already have the pipeline infrastructure and refineries, some $185 billion is being spent on petrochemical projects, according to the American Chemistry Council.
That work is turning energy from the shale fields into a seemingly infinite list of plastics: bags, bottles, cups, phones, appliances, auto parts, furniture and more.
But it's not just ethane and other byproducts being sought.
Companies are also using natural gas to power their Pennsylvania manufacturing operations, such as Procter & Gamble in Wyoming County.
"Low-cost energy" is a repeat on the list of positives Davin hears.
Another positive: the state phased out the capital stock and franchise tax, which was a tax on manufacturing assets.
However, Davin and Boyd both hear complaints about Pennsylvania's 9.9 percent corporate tax rate, which is the second-highest in the U.S. behind Iowa at 12 percent.
"I think the Legislature needs to take a look and reduce that tax," Davin said.
ov. Tom Wolf in 2015 proposed dropping the 9.9 percent rate to 5.99 percent in 2016, 5.49 percent in 2017 and 4.99 percent in 2018.
Both Davin and Boyd pointed out companies have left or avoided states because of corporate tax rates. For example, General Electric Co. last year announced it would leave its Connecticut headquarters for Boston, where it received a $145 million tax incentive. That move came after Connecticut raised its corporate tax rate to 9 percent.
Companies don't really pay the commonwealth's full 9.9 percent rate, but it should be lowered anyway to attract and keep businesses, Davin said.
One of the most common complaints from industry is that the state still lacks the needed pipeline infrastructure.
That's attributed to a slow permitting process from the Department of Environmental Protection and environmental activists, according to David Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association.
"All of this is a lot harder than it should be, in the view of the business community," Taylor said. "You can get a permit in one day in Texas, three days in Oklahoma, and in Pennsylvania it takes 180 days."
Davin said he and the governor "wholeheartedly support" energy development and that it needed to be done in an environmentally responsible way - something Wolf said in the past.
"We're burning daylight," Taylor added. "I don't want us to miss out. In a lot of ways, Pennsylvania is living in the past...We don't have the right infrastructure. We've gotta expedite our pipelines."
Pennsylvania's pipeline infrastructure is presently being built, with $12 billion worth of construction underway, Davin said.
Other business concerns surround the proposed severance tax, with Taylor and Boyd lobbying against it, but Davin said those concerns are unfounded.
For years, the oil and gas industry has said a severance tax on the energy it produces would be punitive and job crushing, while the administration has called it industry's way of paying its "fair share."
"There's $12 billion worth of pipelines being built," Davin said. "Companies are not spending money to have empty pipelines."
Those pipelines will be filled by extracting more resources, which should be taxed, he said.
"There's a tremendous amount of activity," Davin said. "I believe wholeheartedly a severance tax will have no effect on jobs at all."
For Boyd, though, it's as simple as this: There's more growth when "the business climate is business friendly."
Manufacturers are in a perpetual state of trying to lower baseline costs and keep jobs, Taylor said.
"It's a big competitive world out there, and it goes beyond Pennsylvania and the U.S.," he said. "It's a global market."
Harrisburg region
Locally, some companies are still recovering from the recession, but there are signs of growth. The Manufacturers' Association, which represents 350 members in southcentral Pennsylvania, isn't seeing much interest from new companies.
"But there is a bit of a turnaround on the employment side," said Tom Palisin, executive director. "Companies are hiring again."
For example, BAE Systems, a York County defense contractor is adding 530 jobs during the next few years.
"Southcentral Pennsylvania is attractive for a couple reasons," Palisin said. "It's a day's drive to get to 60 percent of the population in the U.S. and Canada. There's a huge customer base and a significant workforce."
Boyd agreed southcentral Pennsylvania has a lot going for it.
"The Harrisburg region is a hub for the computer industry," he said, pointing to Tyco, HP and IBM. "Harrisburg is a leader in the computer tech industry."
That's why Boyd was in town.
"Back office is a big opportunity for a financial service project in Harrisburg, but I can't say who it is," he said. "These projects are exciting. It's a pivotal time in Pennsylvania."
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/06/the_secret_war_pennsylvania_is.html
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(ACC Mentioned) API Study Finds Natural Gas Benefits on an Expansion Path
Jun 29, 2017 | Observer-Reporter
By Michael Bradwell
The abundant output of natural gas in the United States over the past decade, particularly from the Marcellus and Utica shale strata, are providing economic benefits across the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute.
The study, conducted for the institute by ICF International, examined the economic benefits and opportunities from the entire natural gas value chain, including the production of natural gas, its transportation and end uses such as power generation and manufacturing.
And despite the current and projected savings for U.S. consumers of natural gas for heating, one of the biggest growth areas is expected to be in domestic manufacturing of petrochemicals.
The study, which looked at the domestic natural gas industry spectrum from 2015 and made projections to 2040, also foresees the benefits continuing well into the future for all 50 states, as the United States has achieved status as one of the world’s leading natural gas producers.
The report from API comes during a time when other industry groups, particularly the U.S. petrochemical industry, are also reporting growth as a result of shale gas, the liquid portion of which provides feedstock for numerous petrochemical and plastics applications.
The ICF study found there were 4.1 million jobs in the United States related to natural gas in 2015, with the top three sectors being support activities for oil and gas operations, chemical manufacturing and oil and gas pipeline construction. The contribution to the U.S. economy in terms of direct, indirect and induced value added in 2015 was $551 billion, of which $272 billion was related to the end-use segment, $168 billion from the infrastructure segment, and $111 billion from production.
During a Tuesday teleconference to introduce the report, API chief economist Erica Bowman noted while U.S. consumers are expected to be saving an average of $655 a year by 2040 because of cheap, abundant natural gas, “it’s already producing great benefits.”
She noted, as of 2015, it was supporting 3 percent of the U.S. economy. “It’s not just limited to the states that produce the resource,” she said.
But in states like Pennsylvania that are in the heart of the Marcellus, the impact is more palpable.
“We are now the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas,” said API Pennsylvania Executive Director Stephanie Catarino Wissman.
According to the study, in 2015, there were 178,100 jobs in Pennsylvania related to natural gas, representing 3.1 percent of total state jobs. The top three sectors with the greatest number of jobs were support activities for oil and gas, freight trucking and crude petroleum and natural gas extraction.
The contribution to Pennsylvania’s economy in terms of direct, indirect and induced value added in 2015 was $24.5 billion, of which $11.1 billion was related to the end-use segment, $8.16 billion from the infrastructure segment and $5.21 billion from the production segment.
In 2015, Pennsylvania consumed 1.07 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the residential, industrial and consumer segments. The value of natural gas delivered to consumers was $5.65 billion.
Wissman added despite the capital expenditures already being made on pipeline infrastructure, “Pennsylvania needs more infrastructure to get natural gas to market,” adding while gas-fired electricity reached 5.3 million homes in the state, New York and Massachusetts also need to import natural gas for home-heating demand there.
And while natural gas for heating of homes, factories and commercial operations accounts for much of the product sold in the United States, Bowman noted natural gas liquids are used in feedstocks for a variety of petrochemical and plastic products.
Last week, Dow Jones Newswires reported the U.S. petrochemical sector’s investment “is staggering” as a result of the shale revolution, citing American Chemistry Council figures that show $185 billion worth of new projects are in construction or planning.
One of those is Shell Chemical’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant under construction in Beaver County. When completed in the next several years, the plant is expected to supply ethylene feedstock from some 70 percent of Shell’s customer base that is within 700 miles of the plant.
“There is a lot of opportunity in the United States to use the feedstock in industrial applications in the U.S.,” Bowman said.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/20170629/api_study_finds_natural_gas_benefits_on_an_expansion_path
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Trump Calls for ‘Golden Age of American Energy Dominance’
Jun 28, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump continued his drive to promote an “energy dominance” policy Wednesday by meeting with state and tribal leaders and energy industry association heads on the subject.
“I’m confident that, working together, we can usher in a golden age of American energy dominance and the extraordinary financial and security benefits that it brings to our citizens, not only the Native Americans, but all over the country,” Trump said during brief remarks in front of reporters before the meeting.
In his prepared remarks, Trump spoke repeatedly about the need to end restrictions on drilling, mining and other energy production activities. Trump also promoted his administration's roll back on environmental regulations that he said got in the way.
“Many of your lands have rich natural resources that stand to benefit your people immensely,” Trump said to the American Indian leaders assembled at the White House for a discussion.
“These untapped resources of wealth can help you build new schools, fix roads, improve your communities and create jobs, jobs like you’ve never seen before. All you want is the freedom to use them, and that’s been the problem. It’s been very difficult, hasn’t it? It’ll be a lot easier now, under the Trump administration.”
Turning to the mostly Republican group of governors and other state government representatives present at the meeting, Trump said they have confronted similar issues.
“Many of our states have also been denied access to the abundant energy resources on their lands that could bring greater wealth to the people and benefit to our whole nation,” Trump said.
“We’re becoming more and more energy dominant. I don’t want to be energy free; we want to be energy dominant in terms of the world.”
He thanked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruittand other administration officials, saying they’ve “taken swift action to lift the crushing restrictions on American energy.”
“Scott Pruitt has done an amazing job, an incredible job, in a very short period of time. And most people love him; there are a couple that don’t, but that’s OK, right?” Trump said to laughter from the room.
A reporter asked Trump at the end of the speech whether he believes in climate change, following up on recent statements from Energy Secretary Rick Perry, White House press secretary Sean Spicer and others who said they have not discussed Trump’s climate beliefs with him.
Trump listened to the question, but did not answer. Instead, Trump thanked the journalists as they were escorted out of the room.
The event was organized as part of the administration’s “Energy Week,” which is meant to promote Trump's energy agenda.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339850-trump-seeks-golden-age-of-american-energy-dominance
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The White House Labeled This ‘Energy Week.’ And You Thought It Was All Health Care.
Jun 29, 2017 | Washington Post
By Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney
The White House has branded this week “energy week,” rolling out a buzzword, “dominance,” and replaying lines from last year’s Trump campaign in an effort to portray the United States as a global energy superpower — and to label previous administrations as obstacles to energy growth.
President Trump is expected to sound these themes Thursday in an address on energy, picking up from Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who said Tuesday: “We’re ending the bureaucratic blockade that has hindered American energy creation.”
But analysts say that many of the administration’s claims about American “dominance” are overstated and that authoritative energy statistics do not line up with those cited by the administration.
One example: The White House asserted that the United States has 20 percent more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. But according to the Energy Information Administration, the federal authority on such matters, the United States had proven oil reserves of 32.3 billion barrels as of Dec. 31, 2014. That’s a fraction of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves of about 268 billion barrels.
“This is false,” Frank A. Verrastro, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of the White House claim. “They’re building a narrative on false premises. I’m disappointed that messaging has overtaken substance here.”
Setting ambitious energy goals has been a presidential ritual for decades. Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, noted that energy independence has been a goal ever since President Richard M. Nixon launched Project Independence after the oil embargo by Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The Trump administration’s new buzzword comes with similar aspirations. An op-ed article in the Washington Times appearing under the names of three Trump Cabinet secretaries — Perry, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior’s Ryan Zinke — said that “dominance” means being a “self-reliant and secure nation, free from the geopolitical turmoil of other nations that seek to use energy as an economic weapon.”
“An energy-dominant America will export to markets around the world, increasing our global leadership and influence,” they said. “For the first time in four decades, the energy story in the United States is about becoming an energy exporter and no longer about peak resources or being beholden to foreign powers,” they wrote. “For years, Washington stood in the way of our energy dominance,” the Cabinet members continued. “That changes now.”
Verrastro said dominance comes with “a negative connotation. If you’re dominant, someone else is subordinate.”
Bordoff, who served in the Obama White House, warned that while the United States is in a stronger position thanks to a boom in shale oil and gas over the past decade, it remains one of the world’s largest net oil importers. Last year, the United States imported a net 4.8 million barrels a day of crude oil and refined petroleum products.
A White House fact sheet issued Tuesday did not mention that figure; it only pointed to the 1 million barrels a day of crude oil exported recently thanks to the lifting of the oil export ban in December 2015. If oil prices spike, Americans will still feel it.
“Energy development here has always supported and balanced environmental objectives, economic needs, and foreign policy and national security objectives,” Verrastro said. “We’ve always operated in that space. If we’re going to use energy dominance to persuade other countries to do things this seems like a ham-handed way to go about foreign and diplomatic policy.”
But energy week has been marked by a campaign style rather than a policy analysis. The White House statement ticked off a handful of actions, including pushing through the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, removing protections for streams near mines, and vowing to shelve the Clean Power Plan.
The three Cabinet members asserted that dominance “is about becoming an energy exporter,” but that isn’t happening right away, if it happens at all. The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast that the United States will become a net energy exporter by 2026 — although it could be earlier if oil prices rise, and later if oil prices fall.
The White House also claimed that the Keystone XL pipeline would “support” 42,100 jobs, even though the State Department says nearly 4,000 construction jobs would be created, at least temporarily. Since the pipeline construction company has already bought and stockpiled steel pipe, very few jobs would be created down the supply chain. On a permanent basis, fewer than 100 jobs would be created.
Behind the debate over energy dominance lies the tremendous increase in shale oil and shale gas production over the past decade. The technology of fracking combined with horizontal drilling began at small levels when George W. Bush was president and soared during the Obama years. Shale oil production increased tenfold during Obama’s presidency.
As a result of the boom in domestic oil production, the country’s net petroleum imports in 2016 were half the level seen in the first year of Obama’s administration. Although Obama didn’t do anything to bring that about, he didn’t try to “blockade” it either, as the secretaries’ letter suggested. While the oil and gas industry complained about regulations to reduce methane leaks, market conditions dictated the booming level of activity, Verrastro said.
There were other disputed claims in Trump’s “energy week.”
The Trump secretaries’ op-ed noted that the United States will soon become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas, and said that “we have also authorized LNG export permits.” But the Trump administration has not yet issued a final export permit. The Obama administration, by contrast, approved permits to 11 LNG export terminals and turned down only two, according to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission.
It’s possible that Trump could see one of those decisions reversed on his watch. But the final say on the LNG export terminals rests with the FERC, which is an independent agency.
Perry, Zinke and Pruitt also heralded the launch of the Petra Nova plant in Texas, which captures carbon dioxide from the burning of coal and then uses it to help push additional oil out of largely depleted oil fields.
“Innovative technology like this is what will clean up the environment, not bad deals for the American people like the Paris agreement,” they wrote. “We will build on that success. Instead of preaching about clean energy, this administration will act on it.”
The Petra Nova plant, however, was built in significant part thanks to the Obama administration, which promoted research into carbon capture and storage technology. Overall, Petra Nova received $ 190 millionfrom Obama’s Department of Energy.
Meanwhile, Perry’s Energy Department is proposing to slash funding for research on carbon capture and storage science and technology. Carbon-capture research funding would decline from $100.8 million in 2017 to just $16 million in 2018 in the administration’s proposed budget, and carbon storage research dollars would similarly fall from $105.8 million to $15 million.
The Sierra Club argued that Trump’s energy plan was focused on “the dirtiest, most outdated” energy sources, and would cede dominance in renewable energy to other nations.
Perry, in a briefing for journalists at the White House, said the Trump administration would push harder on nuclear energy. Perry has made finding a central nuclear waste storage site a priority, and the department’s proposed budget would revive work on the Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada.
Perry said reviving American nuclear power plant construction companies was important. “It’s about America maintaining, or regaining may be a better word, our leadership role in nuclear energy,” he said. He mentioned Westinghouse, the nuclear construction firm that has been part of Toshiba and that recently declared bankruptcy.
“It’s a lot bigger than just making sure that Westinghouse continues to be a stable American company,” Perry said. “This is a massively important issue for the security of America and the security for America’s allies.”
However, once again, the Energy Department is seeking to slash funding for nuclear energy research by 28.7 percent. A price on carbon emissions, the policy that would most help nuclear compete against natural gas and coal, is not on the Trump table.
As for what substantively the administration might do to rescue Westinghouse, Perry was mum. That was not a question for this week.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/29/the-white-house-labeled-this-energy-week-and-you-thought-it-was-all-healthcare/?utm_term=.b9c64bdec1de
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U.S. Energy Companies Fear Trump Will Stifle NAFTA Boom
Jun 29, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
This article is part of a continuing series examining the finer points and nettlesome issues as the United States, Canada and Mexico revisit NAFTA.
President Donald Trump may be proclaiming the era of U.S. "energy dominance" this week, but the oil industry worries he's about to gut the trade deal it's counting on.
Upcoming talks to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico could provide a huge financial boost for the U.S. energy industry, which is still recovering from the collapse in oil prices three years ago. But sources in the refining, drilling services and oil and gas production industries fear that Trump could endanger the trade agreement instead, imperiling their hopes for an updated pact that would aid cross-border pipeline and drilling projects, enable Mexico to buy more American oil and gas and allow U.S. companies to tap the largely untouched shale fields south of the Rio Grande.
One worry is that the whole process could be undone by jostling from Trump senior adviser Steve Bannon or a stray tweet from the president himself, half a dozen industry and government sources said.
“We’re taking things carefully,” said one refining industry source who has talked to government officials in the White House and Mexico about updating the trade deal. “My sense is the NAFTA battle in the White House continues. They need to tamp down the anti-NAFTA people in there.”
The American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers weighed in this week with letters to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, extolling free trade's role in helping unite the U.S., Canadian and Mexican energy markets and urging the administration to keep NAFTA together.
"The overall functionality of the current NAFTA agreement works for the oil and natural gas industry," API wrote to Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "API and its industry members therefore wish to ensure that as NAFTA is modernized, the provisions of the current agreement remain in place in a new NAFTA."
Trump has been quiet on NAFTA in recent weeks after triggering the process in May for renegotiation, leaving Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and others to prepare for formal talks that could start as early as Aug. 17. But he said during the campaign that he may “tear up” NAFTA, which he has called "a disaster for our country," and he has already frustrated the energy industry's hopes for expanded global trade by scuttling TPP.
"If I'm unable to make a fair deal, if I'm unable to make a fair deal for the United States, meaning a fair deal for our workers and our companies, I will terminate NAFTA," Trump said in April, shortly before he ordered a review of all U.S. free trade agreements.
North American energy trade has been a boon to the three NAFTA nations for more than a decade. Canada and Mexico long benefited from the United States' voracious appetite for oil, while changes to Mexico's laws in 2013 now allow foreign companies to enter and partner with state-owned Pemex. Canada is shipping about 4 million barrels of oil per day to the U.S., a figure that's only likely to grow if the Keystone XL pipeline — which Trump has championed — gets built.
That's been a bright spot for U.S. oil producers and refiners that saw the 2014 price collapse wipe out profits across the sector and drive dozens of companies into bankruptcy. Companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron want to make sure that any updates to NAFTA will make it easier for them to to move fuel, drilling rigs and labor across North America's borders.
The White House recognizes the success of the North American energy market, a senior aide said, adding that some in the administration are considering whether to include energy provisions in any NAFTA modernization or leave it for separate deal. Meanwhile, energy-supporting lawmakers like Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) talk of the benefits of modernizing NAFTA.
But the refining industry source said energy companies working on NAFTA talks fear that Trump could lash out at Mexico during the negotiations, helping persuade Mexican voters to support the outspokenly anti-Trump, leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the next presidential elections in 2018. That would only worsen trade relations between the countries.
Kevin Book, senior associate for energy and national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, echoed the thought that renegotiation may depend on how far Trump limits any bombast and lets talks unfold in their normal manner.
“Is it a renegotiation under gunpoint or one under the usual diplomatic mode — slow?” Book asked. “It’s not very ‘America First’ to lose what trade we have with Mexico.”
Energy largely remained off the table with Mexico when NAFTA was signed in 1993. Mexico wanted to protect its state-owned energy monopoly Pemex, so any expansion of free energy trade was postponed until the country passed free-market reforms internally.
More than two decades and one U.S. shale boom later, the region's energy ties have strengthened so much that Democrat and Republican lawmakers are insisting that the agreement be updated to reflect the current realities.
Oil companies on both sides of the border have prepared a wish list of what they’d like to see in an updated agreement. That includes a streamlining of permits allowing cross-border pipelines, and greater ease of transit for rigs drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or the vast shale formations stretching through either country.
Both Mexico and the United States have an interest in updating NAFTA’s provisions, said Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), whose hardscrabble district touches on the Houston refining hub. The trade agreement dominated a discussion he recently attended between U.S. and Mexican lawmakers.
Green said he opposed the original trade agreement, which he blames for causing four chemical plants in his district to decamp to Mexico. But this time he wants to ensure that the workers at the refineries and drilling companies in his district can take advantage of Mexico’s growing appetite for U.S. energy.
“NAFTA didn’t protect all my blue-collar guys who lost their jobs,” Green told POLITICO. “I wouldn’t probably be in Congress if I would’ve voted for NAFTA back in 1993. But now, we want energy under NAFTA.”
It isn’t just U.S. companies that want a freer hand with energy trade. Indeed, Mexico has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. shale boom.
U.S. exports of natural gas to Mexico hit 1.39 trillion cubic feet in 2016, more than a thousand-fold over 2000 levels. Shipments of gasoline, diesel and other fuels heading south across the border in the same period more than doubled to 879,000 barrels a day.
Meanwhile, Pemex has long had problems finding and producing oil and natural gas inside Mexico, and the Mexican government has more recently opened the country to outside companies to help develop wells.
Exxon and Chevron are both working on plans to develop oil and gas in a recently acquired lease in the Perdido field in the Gulf. Both companies sent lobbyists to the White House and State Department to hash out “provisions related to renegotiation of NAFTA and trade,” according to lobbying disclosure forms.
Pipeline companies are also forecasting big business connecting U.S. natural gas fields to Mexican power plants. Kinder Morgan said its natural gas exports to Mexico will nearly triple to 5.6 billion cubic feet per day by 2021.
On the refining side, Tesoro, Valero Energy and Exxon have spent millions on pipelines and other infrastructure to help them sell U.S.-produced fuel south of the border.
And if the NAFTA carrot doesn’t work, Mexico has been happy to unpack some sticks: It has proven ready to war with the U.S. when it comes to sugar, and lawmakers there have made a not-so-subtle threat that someone else will happily fill any vacuum the Americans leave in oil and gas drilling.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) pointed to a photo in the Mexican newspaper La Reforma showing the governor of Mexico’s energy-rich state of Nuevo León meeting with Chinese government trade officials.
“I don’t think they’re there to buy piñatas,” Cuellar said of the Chinese officials. “Mexico has a lot of potential for energy. If we don’t take advantage, what country is out there all over the world looking for natural resources? China."
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/06/us-energy-companies-fear-trump-will-stifle-nafta-boom-158790
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House Panel's Spending Bill Cuts Energy Research Program
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said that while he likes the Energy Department's ARPA-E program, which provides early stage investment in innovative energy technologies, his Energy and Water Subcommittee's fiscal 2018 appropriations bill would cut it “because of limited resources.”
The House Appropriations Committee's Energy and Water Subcommittee approved by voice vote June 28 the $37.56 billion appropriations bill funding the Energy Department, Army Corps of Engineers, and other related agencies. The funding would be $209 million below the fiscal 2017 enacted level and $3.65 billion above the President Donald Trump's budget request. No amendments were offered during the markup.
The bill will be taken up by the full House Appropriations Committee, but no timing has been set on that markup.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy was proposed to be eliminated in Trump fiscal 2018 budget, which requested just $20 million to wind down remaining projects, compared to $291 million in the fiscal 2017 annualized continuing resolution.
Both small, start-up firms and large companies as well as national labs and universities have received grants from ARPA-E. Recipients include companies like 3M Co. and General Electric Co., which received grants to do work on battery storage and power converter technologies.
Democrats Oppose Elimination
Reps. Marcy Katpur (D-Ohio) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), ranking members of the subcommittee and full committee, respectively, opposed the proposed ARPA-E elimination.
“While the chairman limited the damage to many of the programs, the bill before us short changes renewable energy and science by terminating ARPA-E,” Kaptur said at the markup.
Meanwhile, ARPA-E has strong backing in the Senate. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Energy and Water Subcommittee, told Energy Secretary Rick Perry that he plans to keep funding the program.
“The budget proposes that we're going to eliminate ARPA-E, and that's not what we're going to do,” Alexander said during the June 21 Senate subcommittee hearing on the Energy Department budget. “My view is that ARPA-E has been a big success.”
Simpson acknowledged the funding bill will be altered.
“We'll go into conference and it will change. This is the first step in a process, but it will change along the way,” he told reporters after the markup.
ARPA-E was created during President George W. Bush's administration. Since 2009, ARPA-E has funded more than 400 potentially transformational energy technology projects.
Clean Energy, Renewable Funding Cuts
The funding for the Energy Department energy programs is $9.6 billion, which is $1.7 billion below FY 2017 enacted level, but $2.3 billion above the Trump proposed budget, which particularly sought to gut the clean energy and renewable programs.
All of the department's energy program offices saw some cuts from FY 2017 levels, ranging from a $33 million cut for the Office of Fossil Energy (funded at $634.6 million) and a $48 million cut to the Office of Nuclear Energy (funded at $969 million). But both were still increases from the proposed Trump budget cuts.
The largest cut was to the department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which invests in energy efficiency research and reducing the cots of wind, solar and other renewable technologies. The bill provides $1.103 billion to the office, down from $2.07 billion in the annualized continuing resolution in 2017, but an increase from $636 million, which Trump had proposed.
Both Kaptur and Lowey said they opposed the bill's cuts to the energy programs.
$120 Million to Yucca Mountain
The bill continues congressional efforts to support the restarting the work on the Energy Department's license to permanently store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas.
It would provide $120 million to the Energy Department and $30 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue the review of the department's Yucca Mountain license application. These were the same funding levels in Trump's budget request.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and most of the state's congressional delegation remain ardently opposed to burying commercial spent fuel from nuclear power plants at Yucca Mountain. The Obama administration had mothballed the idea.
The subcommittee's bill also provide $5 million for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, which supports the production of fuel-efficient, advanced technology vehicles, and $2 million for the Title 17 Loans Program providing loan guarantees for innovative technologies. Both programs were proposed to be zeroed out under the Trump budget proposal.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115175893&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115175893&jd=115175893
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Industry, Safety Advocates Building Pipeline Data System
Jun 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is drawing on industry and state expertise to build a shared information system that will help prevent pipeline accidents.
The agency's current challenge is not that it doesn't have enough information, but rather that its data doesn't provide enough value, industry representatives say.
PHMSA’ s Voluntary Information Sharing System Working Group, mandated by Congress, is formally tasked with improving risk analysis for gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines by developing an information-sharing system.
The group will next meet June 29 and June 30 to discuss how to assemble the building blocks of that system.
“PHMSA today captures a great deal of data on individual incidents across the country,” Dan Cote, working group member and vice president of pipeline safety and compliance at NiSource Gas, said at the working group's last meeting in December. “With all due respect, it produces very little information on the actual root causes of those explosions.”
The information-sharing system would ultimately help the agency identify emerging risks earlier and improve pipeline safety, PHMSA's former administrator, Marie Therese Dominguez, said at the group's December meeting.
Kate Blystone, a working group member representing the Pipeline Safety Trust, told Bloomberg BNA the members probably intend to form subcommittees at the upcoming meeting to begin work on the information system.
Improving Safety
The Protecting Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016 defines the working group's responsibilities and requires that it provide recommendations to Transportation's Secretary Elaine Chao.
Under the act, the group must consider:
• the need for, and identification of, a system that ensures dig verification data are shared with in-line inspection operators to improve pipeline safety and inspection technology;
• how to encourage sharing of pipeline inspection information;
• data-sharing opportunities, including those that expand knowledge on advantages and disadvantages of in-line inspection techniques and methods;
• how to create a secure system that protects companies’ data but also encourages sharing inspection information;
• best practices for protecting sensitive and proprietary information; and
• regulatory, monetary and legal barriers to information sharing.
The working group's 24 members include industry representatives, safety advocacy groups, state officials, labor groups, and research institutions.Simona Perry, founder of the Pipeline Safety Coalition, said she joined the working group because she wants to advocate for transparency in pipeline safety data.
Opening up pipeline mapping data, for example, would allow landowners to see where existing pipelines are and to consider their risks, she said.
“We want to make sure the public good is not ignored,” she told Bloomberg BNA.
Fine-Tuning Information
Alan Mayberry, PHMSA's associate administrator for pipeline safety, hopes the resulting information sharing system will also be applicable to gas distribution lines, not just in-line inspection of gas transmission lines.
Generally, transmission lines carry products over longer distances, while distribution lines connect transmission lines with the product's final destination.
“By far, most of the people who were injured or die in this country [in pipeline accidents], it's probably from distribution accidents out there, notably of course third party or other outside force damage,” Mayberry said. “But I think it's possible to have a platform or framework that would be applicable to both.”
Sherry Borener, chief data officer at PHMSA, said at the working group's December meeting that the working group needs to identify safety issues first, before seeking data about them.
“When you're collecting this data and you're pooling this data, you do have to structure it in a way so it addresses a question that's important to you,” she said.
The working group is expected to meet in-person four times per year for two years.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115175900&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115175900&jd=115175900
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A New Problem for Keystone XL: Oil Companies Don’t Want It
Jun 29, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews and Bradley Olson
Keystone XL is facing a new challenge: The oil producers and refiners the pipeline was originally meant to serve aren’t interested in it anymore.
Delayed for nearly a decade by protests and regulatory roadblocks, Keystone XL got the green light from President Donald Trump in March. But the pipeline’s operator,TransCanada Corp. TRP 1.34% , is struggling to line up customers to ship crude from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, say people familiar with the matter.
TransCanada Chief Executive Russ Girling remains committed to completing Keystone XL and believes it will prove profitable in the long term, say two people familiar with his thinking. But it may be years before the company recoups its investment in the pipeline, these people say.
TransCanada has spent $3 billion to date on Keystone XL, much of it on steel pipe, land rights and lobbying. Completed, the pipeline would travel 1,700 miles from Alberta to Steele City, Neb., where it would link up with existing pipelines that run to the Gulf Coast.
The lack of interest has put the pipeline’s fate in jeopardy. The company, based in Calgary, Alberta, has said it wants enough customers to fill 90% of Keystone’s capacity before it proceeds. It started to aggressively court potential customers earlier this year as it seeks to meet that target, according to people familiar with the situation.
TransCanada expects the pipeline, which would carry up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day, to cost $8 billion, compared with its initial estimate of $7 billion. The company took a $2 billion write-down related to the pipeline last year.
A TransCanada spokesman said the company is making progress with customers and anticipates it will firm up support in coming months. The company has said construction could begin next year and finish as early as 2020.
The uncertain outlook for Keystone XL stands in contrast to Mr. Trump’s upbeat rhetoric in March. The president invited Mr. Girling to the Oval Office and announced he was reversing an Obama administration move to block construction, declaring, “It’s going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man.”
But much has changed in the oil markets since TransCanada first filed an application with the State Department in 2008 for a cross-border permit.
Back then, the price of oil had surpassed $130 a barrel, producers were rushing to pump as much as possible and refiners were itching to secure steady supplies. Today, oil is trading around $45 amid a global supply glut caused in part by the emergence of American shale drillers.
Refiners want the flexibility of being able to buy oil from wherever it is cheapest. In a world awash in low-price oil, Canadian crude doesn’t look as attractive as it once did. Many refiners thus far are unwilling to commit to long-term deals for Canadian crude, say people familiar with the matter.
“A lot of water has gone under the bridge over the last seven or eight years since we proposed that project with respect to where energy prices are today,” Mr. Girling told investors in May. “So it all sort of complicates the negotiation.”
Meanwhile, uncertainty about output growth from Canada’s oil sands has given producers pause about signing long-term agreements for space on a pipeline they may not need, people familiar with the matter say.
While forecasters predict production there will grow into the next decade, largely due to investments already made, some analysts warn increases beyond that are far from assured. The oil-sands industry faces potential regulatory headwinds as Canada seeks to reduce carbon emissions to comply with global climate agreements.
Some shippers are choosing to move crude out of Canada by rail. Transporting crude to U.S. refineries this way is $2 to $8 a barrel more than pipeline tolls, which average around $8.50 a barrel from Alberta to Texas, according to analysts. But rail shipments generally don’t require long-term commitments.
While Keystone XL stalled for years, other projects moved forward. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that Enbridge Inc.’s expansion of an existing pipeline connecting Alberta and Superior, Wis., will be completed by 2019, while Kinder Morgan Inc.’sexpansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia will be finished by 2020. They predict Keystone XL may not be finished until 2021.
Keystone XL still requires final approval from Nebraska and faces the prospect of additional protests from a reinvigorated antipipeline movement in the U.S. following the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline. The other pipeline projects face similar obstacles.
TransCanada is betting the demand that spurred the project still exists. Analysts project that over the long term the Gulf Coast’s demand for Canadian crude will rise as oil imports from Venezuela and Mexico fall.
The company’s U.S.-denominated shares have risen by almost 50% since President Barack Obama blocked Keystone XL in November 2015, signaling the market’s belief that the company can afford to move on.
Investors warmed to TransCanada after the company bought Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. for about $10 billion in 2016, a deal which offers the opportunity to expand its natural-gas operations in the U.S. Northeast. Revenue from TransCanada’s power operations has continued to grow, as has its natural-gas pipeline business, which expanded into Mexico.
“We don’t own TransCanada because of Keystone,” said Rob Thummel, portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC, which manages about $16 billion. “We own it because of the potential for expansion of natural-gas infrastructure in the Northeast.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-3-billion-spent-keystone-xl-cant-get-oil-companies-to-sign-on-1498734002
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European Commission to Assess Reprotoxins Under Workplace Law Deal
Jun 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The European Council and Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on proposals to update the carcinogens and mutagens Directive (CMD), which is designed to protect workers.
Under the deal, the Commission will have to assess the possibility of including reprotoxic substances in the scope of the CMD by the first quarter of 2019, and may, as a result, present a legislative proposal.
There are two updates to the Directive progressing through the EU institutions currently.
For more details, see CRM Hub.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57273/european-commission-to-assess-reprotoxins-under-workplace-law-deal
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Oregon Oil Train Bill Moves to Floor, With Key Regulation Removed Again
Jun 29, 2017 | KUOW
By Tony Schick
For the second time since 2015, the Oregon Legislature has stripped language out of a bill that would have increased the state’s regulation of oil trains.
Oregon has the weakest regulations among West Coast states.
A year after a Union Pacific oil train derailed and caught fire in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, lawmakers are advancing to the House and Senate floors House Bill 2131, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland.
The bill moves money toward oil train emergency preparations, particularly toward known gaps in Central Oregon. Smith Warner called the bill “a huge step in our ability to maintain safer routes and safer communities.”
But it fails to give the state authority over railroads' emergency plans, and adds layers of secrecy for railroad operations.
“I believe the leadership and also the bill sponsor buckled under railroad pressure. Even just one year after the derailment and fire in Mosier, they started weakening the bill,” said Michael Lang, conservation director for Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
The original version of HB 2131 would have given the state’s Department of Environmental Quality the authority to approve or deny railroad contingency plans for oil train spills. It also would have required tests and drills to make sure railroads could execute the plans.
That’s the same regulatory oversight Oregon has over other forms of oil transport, such as pipelines and marine terminals.
The original bill also would have created a fee on rail carriers. The estimated $375,000 per year generated by the fee would have gone toward oil train emergency response planning.
Railroads lobbied against bill, claiming as they have in previous sessions, that it was invalidated by federal railroad safety and commerce laws. In later amendments, the bill was rewritten to remove the fee and DEQ’s legal authority over the railroads.
The current version specifies railroad contingency plans submitted to the state are not subject to DEQ approval. If the plans do not meet state standards, the department cannot impose new requirements. Instead, it can try for changes “by conference, conciliation or persuasion.”
The bill also specifies railroads can move oil trains through Oregon even if they fail to provide a plan.
“Union Pacific worked hand-in-hand with legislative leadership this session in a bipartisan effort to continue enhancing safe rail movement of crude oil,” Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs said.
Smith Warner said after Mosier, there were calls for major rule changes on oil trains, but she and other lawmakers ran up against limitations in federal law.
“I cannot emphasize enough how challenging it is to do state level work with railroads. Because they have the power of 200 years of federal preemption legislation on their side,” she said.
Other states have found a way past some of those limitations, including California and Washington.
“Washington and California get the same plan. Legally, they operate in a similar area. They ask for the plans, they receive the plans," Smith Warner said. "They cannot prohibit them from running through the state, same as us.”
Washington does go a step beyond just receiving plans, however. Regulators there have the ability to approve or deny plans. If railroads do not comply, they can issue civil penalties.
Smith Warner and others worried how such laws would hold up in court.
The legislative council report on HB 2131 said it largely tracks with current laws in Washington and Minnesota, which have not yet been challenged. But the report added “it is possible that certain provisions of the bill, if enacted, would face scrutiny in court.”
Lawmakers later removed those pieces, the same ones railroads opposed. They also added some that the railroads wanted.
HB 2131 would conceal information railroads provide to the state from public scrutiny.
It states that railroad contingency oil spill plans provided to DEQ would be exempt from public records requests and not disclosed to anyone outside of a few select government agencies.
In addition, it states, “no subpoena or judicial order may be issued compelling the disclosure of a contingency plan, except when relevant to a proceeding where compliance by an owner or operator of a high hazard train route with this section is to be adjudicated.”
That same secrecy provision is established for a section of the bill requiring railroads to provide proof of financial responsibility, showing they can cover the cost of an oil train derailment. Those would be filed with the Oregon State Fire Marshal.
These disclosure exemptions drew harsh criticism both from environmental advocates and from trial lawyers, who otherwise applauded Smith Warner’s efforts to tackle oil trains.
“In the next catastrophe, if people are seriously injured or die because of the negligence of the railroad, they should have access to information they need to prove the wrongdoing,” wrote Paul Bovarnick and Arthur Towers of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.
“This is a response to an issue the railroads had in Washington." Smith Warner said. “They submitted the plans, and indeed there is federally confidential information in there. They asked us if we could resolve that on the front end.”
Washington not only discloses the plans but incorporates public comment as part of the plan approval process.
Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, preparedness manager for the Washington Department of Ecology, said only one railroad, Union Pacific, took issue with the public disclosure. The agency and railroad eventually worked past it, and Washington still discloses Union Pacific’s plan.
“It’s good for people to be able to see the content of a plan, because they have confidence from seeing a response system in place,” Pilkey-Jarvis said.
HB 2131 is the second attempt Smith Warner has made to increase the state’s preparedness for oil trains.
In 2015, Smith Warner sponsored a bill that also would have given the state the authority to regulate oil train spill plans. It, too, was gutted.
But she claimed an incremental victory in getting the State Fire Marshal to increase training and resources for oil trains, which she said were crucial in the response to Mosier.
This year, her bill contains other pieces she also sees as victories. That includes an allocation $918,000 over the next two years for oil train preparedness. It would fund a position at the State Fire Marshall to train local responders.
It would also fund two positions at the Department of Environment of Quality for spill planning along oil train routes. Those positions will enable DEQ to expand oil train spill planning for areas currently lacking, which include important waterways such as the Deschutes River.
“The biggest concern is if we have oil that hits some of our rivers that support our salmon fisheries, those could be damaged for decades,” said Bruce Gilles, cleanup and emergency response manager for Oregon DEQ.
In the two years he has funding, Gilles said his department needs to write rules and establish planning along 600 miles of rail.
“Two positions," he said. "It’s going to be very difficult to accomplish what needs to get done.”
http://kuow.org/post/oregon-oil-train-bill-moves-floor-key-regulation-removed-again
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(ACC Mentioned) House Energy Committee Approves Bill to Delay Ozone NAAQS
Jun 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
The House Energy & Commerce Committee June 28 voted to approve H.R. 806, a bill that would delay by eight years the implementation of EPA's tougher 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and make far-reaching changes to the Clean Air Act that Democrats warn will harm public health.
Committee members voted 29-22 along party lines to approve the bill, as amended by environment subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Shimkus, (R-IL), clearing the way for a House floor vote.
Shimkus' amendment would lift the threat of certain air law fees and penalties that can be imposed on some areas in “severe” or “extreme” nonattainment of the NAAQS -- mostly California districts -- if those areas fail to provide EPA with air quality plans sufficient to attain the standards.
H.R. 806 would prohibit any ozone NAAQS review before 2025 rather than the air law's current five-year review schedule for all NAAQS.
It would also extend the compliance date for states to meet EPA's 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS. The Trump EPA has already announced a one-year implementation delay for the 2015 standard.
The Obama EPA in 2015 tightened the standard down to 70 parts per billion (ppb) from the prior level of 75 ppb set in 2008 by the Bush administration, but mainly GOP critics charge that implementation of both standards at once places an unreasonable burden on states and industry. Further, some critics charge that the 2015 NAAQS may be unattainable in some areas that experience high levels of naturally-occurring or foreign-sourced ozone.
However, Republicans supporting the bill at the markup underscored the Obama EPA's finding that most of the country will attain the 2015 NAAQS by 2025 with only existing pollution controls or regulatory programs in effect, refuting Democratic claims that the bill will result in public health damage.
Under the bill, States' suggested designations of areas in attainment or nonattainment with the 2015 NAAQS would now be due in 2024, with EPA's final decisions on designations due in 2025, rather than October this year as currently foreseen, and state implementation plans (SIPs), outlining states' plans to attain the NAAQS, not due until 2026.
The bill would further extend the NAAQS review cycle from five years to 10 years for all six NAAQS, including those for ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and lead. It would for the first time allow EPA to consider technical feasibility in setting NAAQS, among other provisions.
Committee Democrats condemned the bill as undermining key public health protections, and should the bill pass the full House, it may face concerted opposition and a possible Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
Democrats unsuccessfully offered amendments designed to make the bill's reforms contingent on a finding from EPA's Clean Air Science Advisory Committee that it will not endanger public health, and also to eliminate a bar on additional funding for EPA to perform certain additional tasks required by the bill, such as a study on the impacts of foreign emissions.
Democrats further linked the ozone bill to Republican efforts to reform the country's healthcare system that they say would deprive millions of their healthcare. For example, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), said, “attacks on America's health continue in this committee,” and “this bill adds insult to injury.”
However, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) in a June 28 statement welcomed the committee's vote, and urged “swift consideration on the House floor."
ACC noted the permitting problems that can stem from NAAQS implementation, saying, “Manufacturing facilities must obtain regulatory approval before they can proceed with a new construction or expansion project. Doing so is complicated when localities are forced to comply with two different ozone standards concurrently.
“EPA has failed to provide needed implementation rules and guidance promptly, leaving facilities and state permitting agencies in limbo. The confusion and delays that result from EPA’s approach to setting and implementing ozone standards put new investment and jobs at risk.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-energy-committee-approves-bill-delay-ozone-naaqs
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House Committee Approves Bill Slowing Ozone Regulations
Jun 28, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A House committee approved a bill Wednesday slowing the implementation of federal ozone regulations.
The legislation, from Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), would instruct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update its limits on ozone pollution every 10 years rather than every 5 years, the current timeline.
Supporters of the bill say it would help localities comply with existing ozone standards before federal regulators issue newer, stricter limits on the pollutant.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill on a 29-24 vote, sending it to the floor for a second straight session. The House passed the bill last year but with President Obama in the White House, it stalled before going through the Senate.
The measure comes as the Trump EPA says it will reconsider and possibly repeal the ozone standards set by Obama administration regulators in 2015.
The EPA formally delayed implementation of the 2015 rule on Wednesday, saying it will not make final decisions on which areas of the country are out of compliance with the ozone limits until October 2018.
Ozone, a component of smog and a byproduct of pollutants produced by burning fossil fuels, contributes to health problems like asthma attacks. Democrats broadly opposed the bill on public health grounds.
“Despite all the scientific research, this bill would stall the new ozone standards, permanently weaken the Clean Air Act and hamstring EPA’s ability to regulate these harmful contaminants, both now and in the future,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said.
Public health groups generally support instituting tighter limits on ozone, though conservatives and manufacturers warn that the regulations present expensive and difficult compliance problems.
“The bill also takes positive steps to address manufacturers’ permitting challenges as they pertain to ozone standards and requires real examination of the impact of international air pollution on domestic ozone levels,” said Ross Eisenberg, a vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers, which has led the industry fight against ozone rules.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339886-house-committee-approves-bill-slowing-ozone-regulations
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Air Pollution Is Still Killing People in the United States
Jun 28, 2017 | TIME
By Justin Worland
Air pollution continues to drive premature deaths in the United States with no level of exposure leaving humans unaffected, according to new research.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found a strong correlation between mortality and exposure to the pollutants ozone and particular matter, both of which contribute to smog. The higher the concentration of the pollutants in the air the higher the chance of an early death, according to the research.
While air pollution levels in the U.S. have declined significantly in recent decades thanks to regulation — including the Clean Air Act — many cities and regions still struggle to meet air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But the new research suggests that even those standards may not be stringent enough: Air pollution contributes to premature mortality even below those levels.Play Video
"We think air quality in the United States is good enough to protect our citizens," Joel Schwartz, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who authored the study, said in a statement. "In fact we need to lower pollution levels even further."
The study joins a growing body of research showing the deadly effects of human exposure to air pollution at any level. But while researchers behind many recent studies have relied on relatively small data sets, the new study used data from more than 60 million Medicare beneficiaries between 2000 and 2012.
Air pollution has received the most attention in the developing world, and for good reason. Recent research published in the journal Nature estimated that air pollution leads to more than three million deaths annually. But research has also showed that tens of thousands of people in the U.S. face an early death because of exposure to air pollution.
The Trump Administration has promised to focus its environmental efforts on "clean air and clean water," but has also sought to undo or defund many of the programs that address those issues. At President Donald Trump's direction, the EPA has begun a process to undo rules regulating power plant emissions, which contribute to a variety of health ailments, in addition to climate change. The Trump budget proposal also includes funding cuts for EPA programs across the board. "Despite compelling data, the Trump administration is moving headlong in the opposite direction," scientists wrote in a New England Journal editorial accompanying the study. "We must redouble our commitment to clean air. If such protections lapse, Americans will suffer."
http://time.com/4836660/air-pollution-health-death-epa/
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