Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 7/4/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Ewire: A Daily News Roundup
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appears to be making major policy decisions with a core group of outside lawyers, lobbyists and others rather than consulting with the agency's career employees, which a former EPA official warns could mean some significant rulemaking decisions... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Weighs Comments on Stay of Obama-era Power Plant Effluent Rule, TSCA Identifiers
Jul 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is taking input on a series of regulatory proposals this week, including its stay of an Obama-era utility Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent rule and the Trump EPA's proposal for how to identify chemicals deemed confidential under the new Toxic Substances Control Act... -
Practitioner Insights: Lessons After One Year of TSCA Reforms
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gavin Thompson
It has been a tumultuous year since June 22, 2016, when President Barack Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA) to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Shale Just Triggered A Chemical Industry Renaissance
Jul 3, 2017 | OilPrice.com
By Tsvetana Paraskova
The shale revolution in the U.S. has led to a boom in domestic natural gas production, to the point that America is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas on an average annual basis by 2018. -
Court Rejects Trump's Delay of EPA Drilling Pollution Rule
Jul 4, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration cannot delay an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule limiting methane pollution from oil and natural gas drilling, a federal court ruled Monday. -
Oil Industry Expected to Largely Keep Drilling, But Warns of Uncertainty, After Methane Rule Revived
Jul 3, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen and Ben Lefebvre
Oil production is unlikely to fall much and the Trump administration's regulatory agenda remains largely on track even after a court reinstated an Obama-era methane rule Monday, analysts said. -
Trump to Promote U.S. Natgas Exports in Russia's Backyard
Jul 4, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
President Donald Trump will use fast-growing supplies of U.S. natural gas as a political tool when he meets in Warsaw on Thursday with leaders of a dozen countries that are captive to Russia for their energy needs. -
BLM Seeking Comment on Improving Land-Use Planning Process
Jul 4, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Esther Whieldon
BLM is asking for comments on ways to improve its land-use planning and environmental review processes while also addressing local concerns. -
(ACC Mentioned) Shutdown Threat Risks Stalling Work, Pushing Out Staff
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The CSB has continued to launch investigations since the March release of the White House's “skinny budget"—which was the first mention the administration wanted to close the agency. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Seek to Intervene in Suit over RMP Rule Delay
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
Fuel, petrochemical and other industry groups are seeking to intervene in environmentalists' lawsuit aiming to vacate the Trump EPA's 20-month delay for implementing Obama-era revisions to the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) program... -
House GOP Bills Aim To Achieve Industry's Renewed Bid To Overhaul NSR
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
House Republicans have introduced two bills that would relax several Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting requirements, which could help industry groups achieve some of the NSR overhauls that they have urged EPA to make as part of its ongoing regulatory review... -
House, Senate GOP Lawmakers Float Bill to Bar Use of SCC Metric
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
House and Senate Republicans are re-introducing legislation that would bar EPA and several other agencies from using the social cost of carbon (SCC) and related metrics for more-potent greenhouse gases in cost-benefit reviews of regulations that curb emissions. -
Scientists Skeptical of Pruitt's Call for Climate Debate
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz and Andrew Childers
Companies dealing with Chemical Safety Board investigations this year face the prospect of a distracted, inefficient agency after the Trump administration proposed to shutter it in the upcoming budget cycle. -
Pruitt’s Clean Water Break
Jul 2, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Editorial Board
President Trump is having a hard time getting legislation through Congress, but his Administration is moving fast to roll back Barack Obama’s pen- and-a-phone lawmaking.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Ewire: A Daily News Roundup
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appears to be making major policy decisions with a core group of outside lawyers, lobbyists and others rather than consulting with the agency's career employees, which a former EPA official warns could mean some significant rulemaking decisions are being made without all the “relevant facts.”
A July 1 New York Times story quotes several current and former EPA senior career staff members who say Pruitt routinely fails to consult the 15,000 career employees at the agency on rulemakings. Instead, he has “outsourced crucial work to a network of lawyers, lobbyists and others allies, especially Republican state attorneys general, a network he worked with closely as the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association.”
That network has accepted $4.2 million from energy companies, including Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Murray energy and Southern Company. And, sources note, Pruitt's few political appointees thus far tend to be former lobbyists and industrial officials, such as Nancy Beck, a former policy director at the American Chemistry Council who is now serving as principal deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP).
Robert Weissman, president of the government watchdog group Public Citizen, told the Times that the practice “amounts to a corporate takeover of the agency, in its decision-and-policy-making functions.”
Jim Jones, the Obama EPA's assistant administrator in OCSPP, said he has been “consistently informed by multiple career people at EPA that Administrator Pruitt is not meeting with them ahead of making decisions like rolling back these major regulations.”
“Going back to the Reagan administration, I was never aware of a substantive decision made without input from career staff,” Jones added. “It’s hard to imagine that you have all the relevant facts if you’re not meeting with the people who have a greater depth of knowledge on these issues than almost anyone in the country."
And a calendar excerpt obtained by E&E News through the Freedom of Information Act shows Pruitt held “multiple meetings with chief executives and lobbyists from oil, gas, chemical, agribusiness and other industries regulated by EPA” and few meetings with career employees or environmental groups between Feb. 21 and March 31.
When Pruitt has consulted with career staff it has focused on the writing legal language to carry out his agenda -- including the proposed repeal of the Obama administration's Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule -- “to help ensure the language was bulletproof,” said EPA's Acting General Counsel Kevin Minoli.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-daily-news-roundup-142
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Weighs Comments on Stay of Obama-era Power Plant Effluent Rule, TSCA Identifiers
Jul 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is taking input on a series of regulatory proposals this week, including its stay of an Obama-era utility Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent rule and the Trump EPA's proposal for how to identify chemicals deemed confidential under the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), among others.Utility ELG
July 6 is the deadline for comments on EPA's proposal to delay indefinitely many compliance deadlines in the 2015 CWA effluent limitation guideline (ELG) for power plants, which sets technology mandates for facilities to meet in their wastewater treatment systems. If finalized the delay rule would supersede another indefinite stay that the agency announced without notice or comment, citing its Administrative Procedure Act (APA) power to delay rules' implementation in some circumstances.
EPA is reconsidering the ELG and could soon announce plans for revisions, but environmentalists have sued over the delay, charging that the APA does not allow officials to delay a rule because of reconsideration. The suit is one of a series of challenges testing the Trump administration's ability to halt Obama-era rules that officials plan to eventually rework or scrap.TSCA Reform
Environmentalists and industry sectors are likely to continue their debate over EPA's protections for confidential business information (CBI) restrictions under TSCA in comments due July 7. The new TSCA requires officials to replace the names of chemicals and processes approved as CBI with a “unique identifier,” but the agency is grappling with how to apply that mandate to situations where the same chemical is used in confidential and non-confidential settings, and has released two options for comment on how to proceed.
Environmental groups are urging EPA to enact only narrow conditions where chemical data would be anonymized, but industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council say broader protections are needed.Incinerator Emissions
Unless it receives comments in opposition by July 5, EPA is preparing to approve the “negative declarations” filed by Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming where the states found that no facilities within their borders fall into the categories subject to EPA's emissions standards for certain types of waste incinerators. As a direct final rule, the proposed approval will go into effect on Aug. 5 unless commenters oppose it.Cement NESHAP
Similarly, comments are due July 3 on a direct final rule EPA issued on June 23 that would temporarily waive test method mandates in its national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) that applies to the Portland cement sector. The rule as proposed allows for new testing and monitoring procedures to detect hydrochloric acid (HCl), “due to the current unavailability of HCl calibration gases used for quality assurance purposes.”
https://insideepa.com/week-ahead/week-ahead-july-3-2017
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Practitioner Insights: Lessons After One Year of TSCA Reforms
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gavin Thompson
It has been a tumultuous year since June 22, 2016, when President Barack Obama signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA) to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Thus, after many years of debate and negotiations between the chemical and related industries, environmental and consumer groups, and others, TSCA reform became a reality. What have we learned in the year since then?
This article focuses on the impact of the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put in place immediate, new reforms to the new chemical review process.
Yes, Existing Chemicals to be Reviewed
Industry has focused much attention on the mandated EPA prioritization and evaluation of existing chemicals. However, all of the recently identified substances on the initial prioritization list are taken from EPA's 2014 Work Plan. So, there are no surprises here. Further prioritization and listings and how the review process will be performed are topics of much current discussion and debate. This process will proceed via a series of administrative procedures and take years to come to fruition.
Yes, the TSCA Inventory will be Re-Set
Industry currently is preparing for the requirement to identify which substances have been in commercial use during the past 10 years—with the threat of any substances not notified as “active” being classified by EPA as “inactive” (the latter classification being an as-yet-to-be-determined negative status). This process will proceed over the next 12-18 months.
The changes to “new chemical” reviews were immediate and are an on-going burden and blockade.
Unlike the existing chemical re-evaluations and inventory reset, industry did not have to wait for impacts of TSCA reform on the pre-manufacture notice (PMN) review process for new chemicals: EPA instituted immediate actions that changed this process. The remainder of this article discusses the reasons for these changes and provides case studies of actual impacts on new chemical approvals.
New Chemical: Door Number 1, 2 or 3?
A key provision of LCSA amended TSCA Section 5—Manufacturing and Processing Notices—by adding §5 (a) In General… (3) Review and Determination - (A), (B)(i), (B(ii)(I), B)(ii)(II), and (C) corresponding to determinations that the PMN substance 1) presents an unreasonable risk; 2) may present an unreasonable risk; 3) is produced in substantial quantities; 4) has insufficient data to make a reasoned evaluation; or 5) is not likely to present an unreasonable risk. Thus, EPA's review of a new chemical's proposed use(s) (as presented in the PMN) is required to result in a determination that may be grouped into one of the following categories (further subdivided into the five specific types of determinations):
1. A determination that the use(s) of the substance “presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” (TSCA §5(a)(3)(A)). The outcome of this determination is that EPA may prohibit specific uses of the substance or ban any and all commercial uses of the substance.
2. A determination that “the information available to the [EPA] Administrator is insufficient to permit a reasoned evaluation of the health and environmental effects…” (TSCA §5(a)(3)(B)(i)). Or the proposed use of the substance may present an unreasonable risk due to “the absence of sufficient information” or “potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation…” (TSCA §5(a)(3)(B)(ii)(I)). Or “such substance is or will be produced in substantial quantities and such substance either enters or may reasonably be anticipated to enter the environment in substantial quantities or there is or may be significant or substantial human exposure….” (TSCA§5(a)(3)(B)(ii)(II)). The outcome of these types of determinations may be that the PMN fails to result in any allowed use or the notifier must meet substantial data requirements prior to any commercialization; e.g., a Consent Order with numerous time or volume triggers and testing requirements.
3. A determination that the proposed use of the substance “is not likely to present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment,…” (TSCA §5(a)(3)(C)). The outcome of this determination is that EPA allows the use as described in the PMN; however, EPA may not allow other uses and may promulgate a significant new use rule (SNUR).
This new LCSA determination requirement creates hurdles for both EPA and industry and had an immediate impact on the pace of new chemical approvals. Although TSCA sets no minimum data requirements or prior testing requirements on the notifier, EPA's interpretation of the new chemical review requirements in TSCA Section 5 immediately and substantially increased the information needed to support the use(s) of a new substance.The following case studies illuminate the new hurdles and examine the factors creating the need for additional information.
Case #1
In the PMN Review race, the hurdles are higher and the course may be longer.
A notifier submitted a PMN prior to the passage of the LCSA; however, the review by EPA was not complete prior to June 22, 2016. EPA interpreted the Lautenberg Act to cause the new review process (and, in particular, the new three LCSA-mandated possible outcomes) to come into effect immediately. EPA sent out notices shortly after Obama signed the Act indicating that EPA was resetting the review clock on all PMNs currently under review. EPA did this ostensibly because all of these PMN reviews would be subject to the new review process and the new, limited set of possible outcomes.
The notifier provided a substantial dossier of physical, chemical, and toxicological data in its PMN. Based on the available toxicology data, the PMN substance was categorized as low toxicity, i.e., low toxicity score (“T”); however, the substance's physical/chemical properties suggested that it would preferentially accumulate in the sediment if it were released to water. EPA determined that—if a use resulted in release to water and accumulation in sediment—additional ecotoxicological data would be needed to support the determination that the “foreseeable uses do not present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.” Therefore, initially EPA was going to issue an “insufficient information” determination, essentially a failed PMN.
Prior to TSCA Reform, a compromise would have been reached to allow some limited, specific commercial use with the submission of additional data prior to exceeding some trigger volume or prior to permitting some additional use. Such tiered testing/trigger volume agreements (Consent Orders) allowed a notifier to enter the commercial market and make the business case for conducting the additional testing prior to the increased volume.
After much negotiation, such a consent order was negotiated. However, the initial threat of “throwing the baby out with the bath water” was quite real and a surprise to the notifier that almost derailed the entire research and development program, not only for this substance but for a family of substances.
Only time—and additional PMN cases—will tell whether EPA adopts an approach to balancing the need for additional data with the business realities of commercial justification for expensive testing data. Notifiers be warned: the lack of a minimum data set requirement for a PMN is a bit of a mouse trap. Prior to submission, a notifier should carefully evaluate the proposed and foreseeable uses of its PMN substance and the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) scores, potential points of release and exposure, and fate of its PMN substance—to avoid unforeseen hurdles in the new PMN review process and the unfavorable outcomes that are now not only possible, but more likely.
Case #2
A small amount of substance may no longer be the key to a smaller data package and shorter review.
The Low Volume Exemption (LVE) was created to reduce both the data set necessary to obtain an approval for a new substance and the time for EPA's review of these data. An importer submitted an LVE for a specialty chemical for which there is only a single use in a highly contained industrial environment and no consumer exposure. The volume was quite small: less than 5 kg/year. Nevertheless, EPA calculated a high PBT score and issued a “Conditional Grant” for the LVE with the stipulation that a PMN must be submitted within eight months; this permitted EPA additional review time and had the effect of extending the submission/notification process. After much discussion, EPA allowed the single limited use with a very low annual volume of import. Thus, submitters must be prepared to be challenged on PBT scores even for very low-volume substances.
Case #3
There's a new balance between transparency vs. protection of confidentiality that may not protect your intellectual property.
LCSA requires EPA to assess claims of confidentiality of information submitted by industry; 25 percent of submissions are to be reviewed for adequate substantiation of the claims of confidential business information (CBI). Therefore, one might expect that one out of four notifications with CBI would require interrogation for substantiation. However, EPA is requiring substantiation of non-exempt CBI claims at the time that information is submitted to EPA. EPA is collecting substantiation support for CBI claims and reviewing one out of four sets. So, notifiers and submitters must be prepared with substantiation basis and documentation prior to making entries in EPA's Chemical Data Exchange (CDX), an online data entry system. EPA has employed CDX's interactive data entry screens to request that submitters provide certain information before proceeding to the next portion of their submission.
Conclusion:
More data to characterize a new substance—and each proposed use of the substance—will be needed to address the increased scrutiny (risk assessment) necessary to arrive at the LCSA-prescribed risk determinations. . At the same time, LCSA requires greater transparency and CBI claims have higher substantiation requirements.
Gavin Thompson, PhD, is a Principal Consultant at Ramboll Environ, a global environmental and health sciences consultancy.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115550570&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115550570&jd=115550570
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Shale Just Triggered A Chemical Industry Renaissance
Jul 3, 2017 | OilPrice.com
By Tsvetana Paraskova
The shale revolution in the U.S. has led to a boom in domestic natural gas production, to the point that America is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas on an average annual basis by 2018.
Abundant gas at home has also led to a renaissance in the petrochemical industry in the U.S., which had suffered a downturn in 2008 and 2009. But then came the shale revolution, and chemical companies in the U.S. now use the affordable ethane—a natural gas liquid derived from shale gas—as a feedstock.
Abundant and cheap, shale gas and ethane are now feeding the next U.S. chemical revolution, with 294 new projects in the chemical industry—due to shale gas—that were completed, started, or planned as of March 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
The U.S. chemical industry is outpacing total industrial output growth rate, and accounts for more than half of construction spending by the manufacturing sector, the ACC said in its year-end outlook in December 2016. Growth is expected to continue, and the industry is seen growing faster than the U.S. economy by 2020.
In an infographic from June 2016, ACC summed up some figures of the U.S. chemical industry—it’s a US$797-billion enterprise that provides more than 15 percent of the world’s chemicals and accounted for 14 percent of U.S. exports in 2015—the largest exporter in the U.S.
“Over the next five years, the most dynamic growth will occur in the Gulf Coast region, followed by the Ohio Valley and Southeast regions. In the long-term, the U.S. chemical industry will grow faster than the overall economy, and by 2020, U.S. chemical industry sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion,” ACC said in its outlook in December last year.
Taking advantage of the shale revolution, chemical companies and integrated oil supermajors are now announcing billions of investments in new petrochemicals plants and manufacturing ventures over the next few years.
Dow Chemical, which had cut 5,000 full-time jobs and closed 20 plants at the height of the 2008-2009 recession, announced in May this year additional projects and investments that extend its U.S. growth investments to more than US$12 billion over a 10-year period.
The Company will pursue additional investments to benefit from shale gas economics, further enhancing feedstock flexibility and reducing volatility from these advantaged inputs,” Dow Chemical said in its statement.
A couple of months earlier, ExxonMobil had said that it had plans to expand its manufacturing capacity along the U.S. Gulf Coast through planned investments of US$20 billion over a 10-year period to take advantage of the American energy revolution. Exxon’s ‘Growing the Gulf’ expansion program consists of 11 major chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas projects at proposed new and existing facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Most of Exxon’s planned new chemical capacity investment in the Gulf region is targeted toward export markets in Asia and elsewhere, the company said.“We are using new, abundant domestic energy supplies to provide products to the world at a competitive advantage resulting from lower costs and abundant raw materials. In this way, an upstream technology breakthrough has led to a downstream manufacturing renaissance,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said.
For one of those 11 projects, Exxon signed in May an agreement with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) to conduct a detailed study of a proposed petrochemical project in the Gulf Coast region and to begin planning for front-end engineering and design work.
Royal Dutch Shell is also investing in expanding its chemicals business in the U.S. Shell Chemical is expanding its chemicals manufacturing site in Geismar, Louisiana, with a fourth linear alpha olefins (AO) unit, which, with its 425,000-ton-per-year capacity increase, will make Shell’s Geismar site the largest AO producer in the world.
Shell is also getting ready to begin main site construction of a petrochemicals complex in Pennsylvania in late 2017, with commercial production beginning early next decade.“The petrochemicals complex will use ethane from shale-gas producers in the Marcellus and Utica basins to produce 1.6 million tonnes of polyethylene per year,” Shell said in April.
According to ACC, the Appalachian region could become a second center of U.S. petrochemical and plastic resin manufacturing, similar to the Gulf Coast.
“Proximity to a world-class supply of raw materials from the Marcellus/Utica and Rogersville shale formations and to the manufacturing markets of the Midwest and East Coast has already led several companies to announce investment projects, and there is potential for a great deal more,” ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley said in May this year.
The chemicals industry, which directly touches more than 96 percent of all manufactured goods, is taking full advantage of the American shale revolution.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/US-Shale-Just-Triggered-A-Chemical-Industry-Renaissance.html
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Court Rejects Trump's Delay of EPA Drilling Pollution Rule
Jul 4, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration cannot delay an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule limiting methane pollution from oil and natural gas drilling, a federal court ruled Monday.
In an early court loss for President Trump’s aggressive agenda of environmental deregulation, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the EPA didn’t meet the requirements for a 90-day stay of the Obama administration’s methane rule.The decision means the EPA must immediately start enforcing the standards.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to delay enforcement of the provision was based on arguments that when the Obama administration wrote the rule, it violated procedures by not allowing stakeholders to comment on some parts of what became the final regulation. The agency used that reasoning to formally reconsider the rule and to pause enforcement.
But the court said the argument doesn’t withstand scrutiny.
“The administrative record thus makes clear that industry groups had ample opportunity to comment on all four issues on which EPA granted reconsideration, and indeed, that in several instances the agency incorporated those comments directly into the final rule,” two of the judges on the three-judge panel wrote.
“Because it was thus not ‘impracticable’ for industry groups to have raised such objections during the notice and comment period [the Clean Air Act] did not require reconsideration and did not authorize the stay.”
Environmental groups led by the Environmental Defense Fund had sued the EPA after its delay, asking for quick emergency action from the court on the matter.
An EPA spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing the court’s opinion and evaluating its options.Tim Ballo, an attorney at Earthjustice who represents some of the groups involved, cheered the decision as a resounding victory. “This is a big win for public health and a wake-up call for this administration,” he said in a statement. “While Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump continue to bend over backwards to do the bidding of Big Oil, Earthjustice and our clients and partners will use every tool at our disposal to hold them fully accountable for their actions.”
The decision could spell trouble for the Trump administration, which is working to dismantle nearly all of former President Obama’s major environmental rules.
In many cases, Trump officials are unilaterally delaying regulations such as the EPA’s rules on ozone pollution, safety plans for chemical plants and methane pollution from landfills.
But the D.C. court, the main court for hearing challenges to regulatory decisions, warned the administration it would take a hard look at such delays and would allow them to proceed only if they are specifically required under the law.
Judge David Tatel, appointed by former President Clinton, and Judge Robert Wilkins, appointed by Obama, wrote the decision.
Judge Janice Brown, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote a dissenting opinion. She argued the court has no authority to rule in the case because it is not a final action by the EPA.
The 2016 rule by Obama was part of a regulatory strategy to reduce emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Pruitt, who was Oklahoma's Republican attorney general at the time, was one of dozens of parties to sue the EPA in a bid to have the rule overturned.
The EPA has proposed to delay the methane regulation by two years while it formally considers repeal. Since that delay has not been made final, the decision Monday does not affect it.
The Trump administration is working to undo all of Obama’s methane rules, including the landfill rule and one from the Bureau of Land Management.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/340536-court-rejections-trumps-delay-of-epa-drilling-pollution-rule
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Oil Industry Expected to Largely Keep Drilling, But Warns of Uncertainty, After Methane Rule Revived
Jul 3, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen and Ben Lefebvre
Oil production is unlikely to fall much and the Trump administration's regulatory agenda remains largely on track even after a court reinstated an Obama-era methane rule Monday, analysts said. But the industry's lobbying group called for a new stay on the EPA regulation to reduce uncertainty for its members.
“A stay is needed to allow for regulatory certainty as EPA continues the formal process to review the rule making,” American Petroleum Institute spokesman Reid Porter said in a statement.
He noted that a previous 2012 rule is "already effectively reducing emissions," as much as 28 percent below 1990 levels, according to an EPA draft inventory from March. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in June tried to pause enforcement of key aspects of the updated rule while he considers ways to revise it, but a split panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said he did not follow the proper procedure in doing so. A longer-term delay is working its way through the regulatory process but could take up to a couple more months to implement.
"API supports revision of the 2016 New Source Performance Standards and we are hopeful that the eventual outcome recognizes the science, allowing for revisions to the flawed rule," Porter added.
Porter referred questions about how many wells or companies will actually be affected to EPA. The agency said earlier Monday that it is studying the ruling and mulling its options.
But the rule’s reinstatement won't result in many wells being shut in, said Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director for energy and sustainability at University of California Davis.
"Most large oil and gas companies have already worked to comply with the rule, either because they saw this coming or because they have shareholders who care" about wasting gas, Jaffe said.
It still remains to be seen how the ruling could affect smaller drillers, especially those with operations in North Dakota and other relatively recent drilling areas, Jaffe added. In those areas, new wells haven't been connected to pipelines yet and state governments could write new laws in reaction to the EPA rule, she said.
Meanwhile, ClearView Energy Partners in a note to clients said its analysts "do not regard today’s ruling as a significant setback to ... Pruitt’s deregulatory agenda," although it showed that "the D.C. Circuit can still force deregulators to follow the regulatory process."
EPA's two-year delay could be finalized by September, and further litigation over that stay is likely, ClearView added.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/07/oil-industry-expected-to-largely-keep-drilling-but-warns-of-uncertainty-after-methane-rule-revived-159112
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Trump to Promote U.S. Natgas Exports in Russia's Backyard
Jul 4, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
President Donald Trump will use fast-growing supplies of U.S. natural gas as a political tool when he meets in Warsaw on Thursday with leaders of a dozen countries that are captive to Russia for their energy needs.
In recent years, Moscow has cut off gas shipments during pricing disputes with neighboring countries in winter months. Exports from the United States would help reduce their dependence on Russia.
Trump will tell the group that Washington wants to help allies by making it as easy as possible for U.S. companies to ship more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central and eastern Europe, the White House said.
Trump will attend the "Three Seas" summit - so named because several of its members surround the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas - before the Group of 20 leading economies meet in Germany, where he is slated to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.Continue reading the main story
Among the aims of the Three Seas project is to expand regional energy infrastructure, including LNG import terminals and gas pipelines. Members of the initiative include Poland, Austria, Hungary and Russia's neighbors Latvia and Estonia.
Trump's presence will give the project a lift, said James Jones, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
Increased U.S. gas exports to the region would help weaken the impact of Russia using energy as a weapon or bargaining chip, said Jones.
"I think the United States can show itself as a benevolent country by exporting energy and by helping countries that don’t have adequate supplies become more self-sufficient and less dependent and less threatened," he said.
Trump's Russia policy is still taking shape, a process made awkward by investigations into intelligence findings that Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Russia denies the allegations and Trump says his team did not collude with Moscow.
Lawmakers in Trump's Republican Party, many of whom want to see him take a hard line on Russia because of its interference in the election and in crises in Ukraine and Syria, support using gas exports for political leverage.
"It undermines the strategies of Putin and other strong men who are trying to use the light switch as an element of strategic offense," said Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Kremlin relies on oil and gas revenue to finance the state budget, so taking market share would hurt Moscow.
"In many ways, the LNG exports by the U.S. is the most threatening U.S. policy to Russia," said Michal Baranowski, director of the Warsaw office of think-tank the German Marshall Fund.
COMPETITIVE ARENA
The U.S. is expected to become the world's third-largest exporter of LNG in 2020, just four years after starting up its first export terminal. U.S. exporters have sold most of that gas in long-term contracts, but there are still some volumes on offer, and more export projects on the drawing board.
Cheniere Energy Inc, which opened the first U.S. LNG export terminal in 2016, delivered its first cargo to Poland in June. Five more terminals are expected to be online by 2020.
Tellurian Inc has proposed a project with a price tag of as much as $16 billion that it hopes to complete by 2022, in time to compete for long-term contracts to supply Poland that expire the same year and are held by Russian gas giant Gazprom.
"We would like to be a supplier that competes for that market," Tellurian Chief Executive Meg Gentle told Reuters.
A global glut in supply may, however, limit U.S. LNG export growth, regardless of Trump's support.
The glut has depressed prices and made it difficult for LNG exporters to turn a profit, said Adam Sieminski, an energy analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Russia has the advantage in Europe due to its proximity and pipeline connections.
"Europe is going to be the great competitive arena between Russian gas and LNG," said Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning oil historian and vice-chairman with IHS Markit analysis firm.
NORD STREAM
Europeans will be watching to see whether Trump clarifies his administration's position on a new pipeline to pump Russian gas to Germany, known as Nord Stream 2.
The U.S. Senate in June passed a package of sanctions on Russia, including provisions to penalize Western firms involved in the pipeline. The new sanctions have stalled in the House of Representatives.
The U.S. State Department has lobbied against the pipeline as a potential supply chokepoint that would make Europe more vulnerable to disruptions.
The threat of sanctions adds to tensions between Washington and Berlin. Germany's government supports the pipeline, and Trump's position on it is a concern for European diplomats.
(Additional reporting by Jan Pytalski in Washington, Alissa de Carbonnel and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels, Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Simon Webb and Marguerita Choy)
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/07/04/business/04reuters-usa-trump-lng.html
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BLM Seeking Comment on Improving Land-Use Planning Process
Jul 4, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Esther Whieldon
BLM is asking for comments on ways to improve its land-use planning and environmental review processes while also addressing local concerns.
The agency will be accepting comments through July 24 in an online questionnaire, and it plans to use them for a report to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke this year on ways to speed up and decrease the costs of the processes.
President Donald Trump in March signed a Congressional Review Act resolution that revoked BLM's Planning 2.0 rule, which had updated those processes. Critics of that Obama-era rule, including fossil fuel companies, said it decreased the role of states and local field offices in planning and prioritized conservation over tapping into natural resources.
The request for comments reflects this administration's belief that "public engagement, especially at the local level, is a critical component of federal land management,” acting BLM Director Michael Nedd said in a statement. BLM is already working with local groups, including the Western Governors’ Association and the National Association of Counties, on possible solutions, Nedd said.
The CRA bars BLM from writing another rule that is substantially the same, so it remains unclear what Zinke will ultimately decide to do with the recommendations.
WHAT'S NEXT: BLM will be accepting comments through July 24.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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(ACC Mentioned) Shutdown Threat Risks Stalling Work, Pushing Out Staff
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The CSB has continued to launch investigations since the March release of the White House's “skinny budget"—which was the first mention the administration wanted to close the agency.
Jeff Ruch, the director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in an email to Bloomberg BNA the logistics of closure were unclear. The prospect of deep funding cuts “raises questions as to whether CSB should open any new investigations no matter how big or significant the chemical accident,” Ruch said.
Shutting down a federal agency is fairly rare. Congress closed two small agencies in the 1990s—the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Office of Technology Assessment. Their cases provide some glimpse of how a shutdown of the CSB could play out.
ACUS, which describes itself as an agency dedicated to improving the administrative process and providing nonpartisan expert advice for improving federal agency procedures, closed in October 1995 after Congress withheld funds for the fiscal year. It reopened in March 2010 after receiving funds for fiscal 2009. When ACUS was shutdown, work was left unfinished, according to Alan Morrison, one of about 100 attorneys at the agency at the time.
Pending work “didn't go any place,” Morrison said, “it just stopped.”
Morrison, a co-founder of the Public Citizen Litigation Project, who is now an associate dean at George Washington University, said his former agency was doomed because “it didn't have any strong supporters in Congress, it didn't have any clout on its own and nobody cared enough to fight about it.”
ExxonMobil spokesman Aaron Stryk referred questions to the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council. ACC spokesman Scott Jensen told Bloomberg BNA he hasn't heard complaints about the CSB from member companies. API did not respond to a request for comment.
“We will continue to follow all applicable rules and regulations that impact our business,” Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners, which operates a Nederland, Texas, terminal facility formerly owned by Sunoco Logistics Partners, which completed a merger with Energy Transfer Partners in April.
The seven other companies—Didion Milling Co., Midland Resources Recovery, Loy Lange Box Co., Packaging Corporation of America, MGPI Processing Inc., Enterprise Product Partners LP and DuPont Co.—did not respond to requests for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115550561&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115550561&jd=115550561
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Seek to Intervene in Suit over RMP Rule Delay
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
Fuel, petrochemical and other industry groups are seeking to intervene in environmentalists' lawsuit aiming to vacate the Trump EPA's 20-month delay for implementing Obama-era revisions to the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) program, with the groups saying that they would face financial harm if the court were to scrap the stay.
In their June 30 request to intervene in the lawsuit challenging the delay, groups including the American Chemistry Council, American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argue that their “distinct commercial and financial interests” will be harmed if the rule takes effect.
Facility owners “would be forced to incur costs immediately to comply with certain aspects of the [RMP] Amendments, even while they remain under review by the agency,” they say. “These costs include training personnel on new requirements, revising manuals and operating procedures, and conducting additional compliance audits for each 'covered processes.'”
The industry groups also say that rule's requirements for disclosure of facility data raise security risks, and that a new requirement that certain facilities analyze whether alternative substances or technologies could improve safety will create significant uncertainty given that EPA has yet to publish guidance on the concept.
The Obama EPA's Jan. 13 final RMP update includes new auditing and hazard analysis requirements, as well as provisions bolstering release of facility data to emergency planners and the public, which have drawn strong opposition from industry groups as well as GOP state attorneys general, including Pruitt prior to his selection to lead EPA.
The Trump EPA June 14 issued a final rule delaying the RMP update and claiming broad authority for setting effective dates, and the need to review complex issues businesses have raised. The agency suggested significant changes are possible, saying the RMP rule is based on “policy preferences” that could vary between administrations, and that the agency intends to raise concerns with the rule not raised by industry.
Groups, including Sierra Club, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, and the Union of Concerned Scientists June 15 petitioned the D.C. Circuit to reverse Pruitt's rule delaying the RMP update 20 months -- from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 -- to allow for a process to review and potentially revise the Obama EPA RMP rule.
Petitioners and labor unions that intervened in the suit, in a June 22 filing asked the court to stay, or alternatively grant summary judgment and vacate, the delay rule, arguing that such a lengthy delay is “plainly illegal” under the Clean Air Act and would irreparably harm their interests given past agency findings that chemical accidents continue to occur.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/industry-groups-seek-intervene-suit-over-rmp-rule-delay
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House GOP Bills Aim To Achieve Industry's Renewed Bid To Overhaul NSR
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
House Republicans have introduced two bills that would relax several Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting requirements, which could help industry groups achieve some of the NSR overhauls that they have urged EPA to make as part of its ongoing regulatory review initiative weighing revisions to agency policies.
The first bill, H.R. 3127, introduced on June 29 by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) and co-sponsored by Reps. David McKinley (R-WV) and Evan Jenkins (R-WV) would alter the definition of a facility “modification” that triggers NSR, which can lead to permits that require installation of expensive emissions control technology. The revised definition would broaden the number of exclusions from the modification definition.
The second bill, H.R. 3128, that the lawmakers introduced the same day, would revise the definition of emissions increases for the purposes of determining whether NSR permitting is triggered.
If the legislation were to clear Congress and President Donald Trump signed it, the measures would likely reduce the number of industrial facilities that would have to obtain NSR permits. It would also be a win for industry groups that have long sought to reform and weaken NSR requirements, a push that they are renewing under Trump's deregulatory agenda by pitching an NSR overhaul as one of their top energy priorities for the administration.
Several groups recently urged the Trump administration to make NSR reform part of any rule to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) greenhouse gas standards for power plants.
At a June 26 meeting with EPA and White House officials, representatives from several mining, industrial and other unions urged the administration to extend an NSR exemption for “routine maintenance, repair and replacement” to projects undertaken to cut greenhouse gas emissions at coal plants, in order to comply with what they see as a narrow CPP replacement that would require only efficiency improvements within a coal plant's fenceline.
And in comments earlier this year to the Commerce Department, the American Forest and Paper Association, called for a “a substantial re-examination from top to bottom” of the NSR program.
The National Environmental Development Association’s Clean Air Project (NEDA/CAP), a coalition representing a wide range of industry groups, said in its comments that, “the [Clean Air Act] permit process must be streamlined and simplified to provide incentives for companies to build plants in the U.S. rather than abroad.”
The group identified over a dozen proposed NSR changes, many of which revisit longstanding contentious issues, such as: how to “aggregate” emissions units to make them subject to the program; codifying a new definition of routine maintenance activities excluded from the program; and creating a more flexible plant-wide applicability limit for limiting NSR applicability in cases when plant-wide emissions do not rise.
NSR Legislation
New or modified industrial sources of air pollution in areas out of attainment with national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) must apply for nonattainment NSR permits for their projects before construction commences. In areas meeting the NAAQS, plants must apply for related prevention of significant deterioration permits.
NSR and PSD require applicants to demonstrate that their facilities' emissions -- either new facilities or major modifications to existing facilities -- are not going to worsen air quality with a NAAQS violation, and can require costly new pollution controls, or in some cases stall industrial development altogether if air pollution “offsets” cannot be acquired from another source at reasonable cost.
H.R. 3127 and 3128 would address some of industry groups' long-running concerns about the costs and other burdens of the NSR program by excluding more facilities from permitting mandates.
“These bills encourage power plants and manufacturing facilities to reduce pollution and improve efficiency or grid reliability by not requiring the burdensome New Source Review. We should not penalize companies upgrading existing facilities while improving efficiency, trying to reduce pollutants, or strengthening grid reliability,” Griffith said in a statement June 29.
H.R. 3127 would exclude “any energy efficiency project, pollution control project, or reliability project” from the definition of modification. It defines an energy efficiency project as one which decreases carbon dioxide emissions and does not increase conventional pollution, expressed in terms of maximum hourly rates. Pollution controls projects are defined as those “undertaken to reduce the emission of any pollutant."
Reliability projects are defined as those designed to strengthen the resiliency of the electric grid, including cyber security. There is no requirement for reliability projects to result in the same levels or lower levels of pollution, however.
H.R. 3128, meanwhile, ties the definition of an emissions increase to the maximum achievable hourly rate of pollution before and after the project, and also to the plant’s historical performance. An emissions increase only occurs if the maximum achievable hourly emissions rate after the change will be higher than the rate hourly rate “of the source as it was originally designed,” and also higher than “the maximum hourly emissions rate of such source that was actually achieved during the 10-year period preceding such change.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-gop-bills-aim-achieve-industrys-renewed-bid-overhaul-nsr
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House, Senate GOP Lawmakers Float Bill to Bar Use of SCC Metric
Jul 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
House and Senate Republicans are re-introducing legislation that would bar EPA and several other agencies from using the social cost of carbon (SCC) and related metrics for more-potent greenhouse gases in cost-benefit reviews of regulations that curb emissions.
The bill, H.R. 3117, builds upon a similar prohibition in President Donald Trump's March energy executive order, which disbanded an inter-agency working group that crafted the metric and said the Obama-era tool does not reflect official government policy.
In a June 29 press release, bill sponsor Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-WV) said the bill “will ensure that no future administration can hide behind flawed metrics to justify their regulations.”
The SCC -- and related tools for the potent GHGs methane and nitrous oxide -- are intended to calculate the climate-related costs caused by an incremental ton of GHGs. Those figured can then be used as benefits in cost-benefit reviews of rules that curb emissions.
But Republicans and industry groups have criticized the metrics as speculative, adding that they are not consistent with prior White House guidance on conducting cost-benefit reviews.
The legislation would bar any use of the SCC or related metrics unless they are changed to reflect several factors that critics have raised that would have the effect of significantly lowering the estimated climate damages.
In addition to Jenkins, House co-sponsors include GOP Reps. Rob Bishop (UT), John Culberson (TX), David McKinley (WV), Markwayne Mullin (OK), Steve Womack (AR), Darin LaHood (IL), Bill Flores (TX), Morgan Griffith (VA), Paul Gosar (AZ), Tom Cole (OK), Pete Olson (TX), and Alex Mooney (WV).
Sponsors of a companion Senate bill are Republican Sens. James Lankford (OK), John Barrasso (WY), Roy Blunt (MO), John Cornyn (TX), and James Inhofe (OK).
Despite Trump's executive order, White House budget officials have been mulling a “rigorous” way to update the metric, though any changes would likely reduce the projected damage estimates.
Outside groups have also launched efforts to continue to advance the SCC by incorporating new scientific and economic research. Such efforts could be used by states and potentially by a future administration.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-senate-gop-lawmakers-float-bill-bar-use-scc-metric
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Scientists Skeptical of Pruitt's Call for Climate Debate
Jul 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz and Andrew Childers
Companies dealing with Chemical Safety Board investigations this year face the prospect of a distracted, inefficient agency after the Trump administration proposed to shutter it in the upcoming budget cycle.
ExxonMobil Corp., Sunoco Logistics, DuPont Co. and others could see their efforts to cooperate with the CSB's investigations go to waste if the board, an independent agency that probes industrial chemical accidents, is shut down without finishing ongoing projects.
The Trump administration's budget proposal would shutter the board and leave logistical questions unanswered. Companies could also be left in the lurch if the board starts probing their plants only to stop later due to a disruption in funding.
Some have suggested, however, that the board's investigative responsibilities can reasonably be transferred to another agency.
Congress could “think seriously about moving this mission to another entity with better defined administrative and investigatory protocols to ensure that the facts and not political agendas drive outcomes,” said Stephen Brown, vice president of government affairs at Tesoro Corp., which has been the subject of two CSB investigations in the past eight years.
“That mission is equally important to industry, our employees and the general public as safety is paramount,” Brown told Bloomberg BNA. “That said, there is no reason to believe that this mission can only be carried out by the CSB,” rather than another agency.
Mechanics of Shutdown Unclear
The budget provided $9.42 million for the CSB in fiscal 2018 to wind down operations, but the board and White House have not explained how the number came about. How a shutdown could happen is unclear, but the specifics could leave the nine companies under investigation as well as any other firms that may come under scrutiny without information on the causes of fatal incidents at their facilities.
Pending investigations include probes of an ExxonMobil Corp. refinery, a former DuPont Co. chemical plant in LaPorte, Texas, and facilities in Missouri, Kansas and Mississippi. The board also sent investigators to a Wisconsin corn processing plant June 1 and to a chemical tank explosion in Barbour County, W.Va., May 25.
The White House Office and Management and Budget and CSB have not specified if the plan would bar the board from taking on new work while allowing it to finish existing investigations, or leave those probes incomplete.
Mark Farley, a partner at the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP who has represented companies being investigated by the CSB, told Bloomberg BNA his clients have heard the agency is making contingencies for a possible disruption in appropriations.
Investigators “have been told to be in a position to conclude their investigations by the end of the fiscal year,” Farley said, including at a minimum having their findings ready to be published either as a report or a shorter “lessons learned” document. The CSB also faces operational risks if key investigators leave the agency over the fiscal uncertainty, he said, and losing staff would only make it harder for the board to function.
“I know investigators who are thinking that way,” Farley said.
Hillary Cohen, a spokeswoman for CSB, said in an email to Bloomberg BNA the agency “has every intention of completing all of its open accident investigations if [fiscal year] 2018 funding is provided and the agency is able to carry forward its mission.”
Continuing Investigations
Climate change scientists see little upside to engaging in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's interest in additional debate on the merits of their research, fearing it will only validate the agency's plans to roll back regulations.
“There's nothing that's going to help science in this. If they really want to know what the scientists think, why don't they get a team through the [National Academies of Science] to look at this?” Donald Wuebbles, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Illinois, told Bloomberg BNA.
Pruitt expressed an interest in “honest, open discussion” of climate science in a recent interview with Breitbart News Daily. In that interview, he cited a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Steven Koonin, director of the Center for Urban Science & Progress at New York University, that called for a “red team versus blue team” debate on climate science.
Those exercises, which originated with the military, pit two groups of experts against each other to attack or defend a proposition, in this case climate change. That approach would highlight any lingering uncertainties with climate science, according to Pruitt.
But where Pruitt sees an open debate on the Environmental Protection Agency's climate change work, advocates fear it's the first step toward delaying or blocking more attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
“Is this a true, valid scientific process, or is this a charade to attack the well-established global scientific consensus and justify decisions that have already been made?” Thomas Burke, a Johns Hopkins professor and past EPA science adviser and deputy assistant administrator of the agency's research office, said to Bloomberg BNA.
The EPA did not respond to requests for comment, but proponents of the exercises said they will promote transparency in the agency's work.
“I think that Mr. Pruitt recognizes that red-blue exercises have worked very well,” William Happer, a Princeton physicist who has argued that a warmer planet would be beneficial, told Bloomberg BNA. “He's had the courage to apply it where it would make an enormous difference. It will give an answer that people will look at with their own eyes.”
Will Minds Change?
While critics of climate change see this as an opportunity to course correct the dogma around carbon dioxide, the exercises—if it happens—is unlikely to change minds on either side of the debate.
“Science is not done by people voting and determining whether something is right or not,” Wuebbles said. “And you certainly don't do that with scientists going against a team of nonexperts.”
Whether the debates change minds, proponents said the exercises are useful because an adversarial approach can catch and correct institutional biases or blind spots. Both sides agree that how the analysis is structured is critical, however.
“I hope there would be a lot of discussion about how to set this up in a way that is fair and trustworthy, because otherwise it will fail to convince anybody,” said Judith Curry, president of Climate Forecast Applications Network who recently retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology citing the politicization of climate science. “A lot of deliberation needs to go into that and it should be public,” she told Bloomberg BNA.
How Far Will Analysis Go?
Some critics of the EPA's climate change regulations said the scientific review could be a prelude to the agency walking back its scientific finding on the harms of greenhouse gases that underpin its regulations.
“If they're going to address the science at all in a way that supports their policies, this would be the only way to do it,” Marlo Lewis Jr., a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA. “You can't go back to the same people at EPA who are already in the tank for the Paris Agreement and are convinced that this is the end of the world. If you're going to have a debate, you've got to have two sides.”
The institute, a free-market advocacy group, has petitioned the EPA to undo the greenhouse gas endangerment finding.
“All of these issues have been discussed in great detail in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], outside the IPCC, in the literature, in the policy world. I think there's nothing new that would come out,” D. James Baker, director of forest and land-use measurement at the Clinton Climate Initiative and past administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Bloomberg BNA. “All of the issues have been discussed in detail. We know what carbon dioxide does: It warms the atmosphere.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=115550558&vname=dennotallissues&fn=115550558&jd=115550558
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Jul 2, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Editorial Board
President Trump is having a hard time getting legislation through Congress, but his Administration is moving fast to roll back Barack Obama’s pen- and-a-phone lawmaking. The latest example, which barely registered in the press, is the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to rescind the unilateral rewrite of the Clean Water Act.
The Obama EPA in 2015 redefined “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act to include any land with a “significant nexus” to a navigable waterway. Several arbitrary thresholds were used to determine significance, such as land within a 100-year floodplain and 1,500 feet of the high-water mark of waters under government jurisdiction. The rule extended the government’s writ to prairie potholes, vernal pools and backyard creeks.
Thirty-one states sued the feds for violating the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined the rule nationwide. Now Administrator Scott Pruitt is putting the rule on ice while the EPA works up a replacement. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy muddied the waters with his controlling opinion in the 2006 Rapanos v. U.S. case that conceived the new “significant nexus” standard, which the Obama EPA used as a pretext to pursue its water land grab.
Mr. Pruitt said the EPA will propose a new rule “in accordance with Supreme Court decisions, agency guidance, and longstanding practice” that would “return power to the states and provide regulatory certainty.” Consider it another lesson in the limits of pen-and-phone rule by decree.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pruitts-clean-water-break-1499030184
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