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AC ACC 7/12
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(ACC Mentioned) Embracing the Bumpy Road to Chemical Safety
Jul 11, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Steve Caldiera
Not everything about the federal government is seized by partisan gridlock. A major new program directed by the Environmental Protection Agency remains on course, cheering both environmentalists and industry executives. -
EPA Chemical Risk Reviews Demand New Rigor Under Amended Law
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
EPA scientists are grappling with meticulous new methods imposed by the nation's primary chemicals law for reviewing risks, a senior agency official said. -
TSCA Reform Supporters Tout Fee Rule To Help Offset EPA Budget Cuts
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's acting toxics chief and supporters of the agency's efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) say the pending draft rule imposing fees on the chemical sector could help to offset proposed EPA funding cuts in fiscal year 2018 that environmentalists and others have warned might risk hindering implementation of the law. -
Practitioner Insights: EPA's New Chemical Delays Causing Ripple Effect
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert F. Helminiak
Experts agree the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill enacted last June, is an improvement over the old TSCA of 1976. -
(ACC Mentioned) Appalachia Joins the Race for the Multibillion-Dollar Petrochemicals Boom
Jul 12, 2017 | CNBC
By Tom DiChristopher
The natural gas boom has enriched northern Appalachian states, and now the region reeling from the decline of the coal industry is hoping the surge in fossil fuel production will help it feed the world's growing demand for plastics and chemicals. -
Groups Spar Over EPA Bid to Delay Methane Curbs
Jul 11, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The Trump administration's allies and enemies squared off today over a U.S. EPA legal maneuver aimed at blocking Obama-era curbs on methane emissions from new oil and gas operations. -
Methane NSPS Supporters Say EPA Recall Bid Would 'Nullify' Court Ruling
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Environmentalists and a group of Democratic state officials are urging a federal appellate court to reject EPA's motion to further delay implementing Obama-era oil and gas methane limits the agency had sought to stay, charging that its request “distorts” the court mandate requiring officials to immediately lift the stay and, if granted, would “effectively nullify” its ruling vacating EPA's stay. -
EPA Cites Public Input To Justify Air Law Authority For RMP Policy Delay
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is claiming broad Clean Air Act authority for its final rule that significantly delays implementation of Obama-era revisions to the agency's facility safety policy, saying its decision to first seek public comment on the delay shields it from the legal uncertainty that led an appellate court to recently vacate a stay of an unrelated air rule. -
Despite Recess Delay, Senate May Punt on Energy Bill
Jul 12, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and George Cahlink
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to delay the start of the August recess may help clear some of the backlog of pending executive branch nominees but may not open the path for the bipartisan energy reform bill, Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said yesterday. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA, Industry Back Chemical Security Rule Delay
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt acted appropriately when he moved to delay new chemical plant security rules, agency attorneys and industry groups said in court filings July 10. -
House Appropriators Reject Call to Shutter Chemical Safety Board
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, targeted for elimination in the White House's budget request earlier this year, would continue operating under a funding proposal released July 11 by a House subcommittee. -
House Proposes to Slash EPA, Interior Spending
Jul 11, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Kellie Lunney
House Republicans are pushing deep spending cuts for U.S. EPA and the Interior Department, although the planned cuts are not nearly as drastic as President Trump had proposed. -
House Bill Would Fully Fund U.S. Chemical Safety Board
Jul 11, 2017 | The Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which President Donald Trumpproposed eliminating earlier this year, would be fully funded under an appropriations bill released Tuesday. -
EPA Prepares to Overhaul NSR Rules
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA appears to be preparing to overhaul its rules governing its new source review (NSR) permit program, signaling that the Trump administration is backing widespread calls from industry and labor groups to reform the controversial permit program even before formal advice from the Commerce Department that is expected to seek such reforms. -
Former Officials Seek To Clarify EPA Risk Practices, Strengthen Rule Reviews
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Two former Bush administration regulatory review officials are urging the Trump administration to overhaul EPA and other agencies' regulatory risk assessment and management process to make them more transparent and to further strengthen regulatory review requirements, measures they say will bolster review of rules' impacts, but which also seem likely to further slow the regulatory process and benefit regulated entities. -
EPA Chief Wants Scientists to Debate Climate on TV
Jul 11, 2017 | Reuters
By Valerie Volcovici
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the early stages of launching a debate about climate change that could air on television – challenging scientists to prove the widespread view that global warming is a serious threat, the head of the agency said. -
California Dems Reach Deal on Cap and Trade
Jul 11, 2017 | The Hill
By Reid Wilson
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and state legislative leaders said Thursday that they have reached a deal to extend the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program aimed at dramatically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Embracing the Bumpy Road to Chemical Safety
Jul 11, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Steve Caldiera
Not everything about the federal government is seized by partisan gridlock. A major new program directed by the Environmental Protection Agency remains on course, cheering both environmentalists and industry executives. The program, which strengthens federal regulation of thousands of widely used chemicals, met its June deadline for deciding how to assess those chemicals. Now it needs enough money from Congress to keep going.
The initiative is the product of a law, enacted a year ago, named for the former Democratic senator who championed it, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. It was designed to replace a confusing patchwork of state regulations and retailer restrictions on chemicals. For the first time in decades, the EPA will decide which chemicals are safe and which are toxic in order to provide confidence and clarity to the American consumer. Ten chemicals have been teed up to get the process started.
The program has its detractors, of course, and implementation will take years; some 10,000 chemicals used by both consumers and industry are destined for examination. But even President Trump, who has proposed to cut EPA funding deeply, wants to increase funding for the office in charge of managing the program.
A lot of work needs to be done to restore trust in the U.S.’s chemical management system. While some states like California keep close tabs on chemical safety, others are essentially hands off. At the federal level, a former statute was so weak that the EPA couldn’t limit the use of a single chemical on the market for more than 30 years.
The next steps are many. For example, the EPA plans this summer to release a list of proposed fees on chemical manufacturers to help pay for the effort. In addition, lawmakers must still appropriate the funds requested by President Trump to keep the operation underway. And a battle royal is expected in Congress over how sharply to reduce other EPA spending that supports and supplements the office’s efforts.
While some industry executives and environmental activists decry a few elements of the new law’s implementation, a rare consensus has formed about the direction the law itself is taking. Industry groups ranging from the American Chemistry Council to the Consumer Specialty Products Association, which I head, supported the law. At the other end of the spectrum, the Environmental Defense Fund “remains confident that the law is strong and can and will ultimately deliver on its promises,” according to Richard Denison, a senior lead scientist there.
The EPA has provided a snapshot of how it intends to prioritize and evaluate chemicals in commercial use. Now the hard work of analyzing those chemicals is beginning. Congress needs to appropriate the necessary funding to fully enable EPA to get the job done. It’s important that this program is not diminished directly or indirectly as Congress begins the process of determining how to alter the EPA’s budget.
In the meantime, chemical makers are willing to pay their share to help offset the costs of EPA review. And for good reason. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the chemical products sector is the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S., to a tune of more than $387 billion a year. Industry is depending on EPA to evaluate new and existing chemicals so it can bring the innovative products that consumers demand to the marketplace. Those products mean jobs and economic growth. Implementing the Lautenberg Act won’t be easy, but nothing of consequence ever is.
Steve Caldeira is President and CEO of the Consumer Specialty Products Association based in Washington, D.C.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/341482-embracing-the-bumpy-road-to-chemical-safety
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EPA Chemical Risk Reviews Demand New Rigor Under Amended Law
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
EPA scientists are grappling with meticulous new methods imposed by the nation's primary chemicals law for reviewing risks, a senior agency official said.
The law's deadlines mean that the Environmental Protection Agency must specify by the end of 2017 the uses and exposure scenarios that will inform the risk reviews of asbestos, pigment violet 29, seven solvents, and a cluster of three related flame retardants, Nancy Beck, EPA deputy assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, said July 11.
The amended chemicals law requires the EPA to weigh evidence, and the agency intends to do that by embracing “systematic review"—a method for rigorously examining the body of scientific evidence it gathers for each chemical or group of chemicals.
Despite the challenges, Beck said that by the end of 2018, the agency should be able to release for public comment and peer review its draft risk evaluations for all 10 chemicals. She addressed a group of toxicologists, risk assessors and other scientists attending the Toxicology Forum's summer meeting in Annapolis, Md. After receiving public input, the statute requires the agency to then complete the 10 risk assessments by December 2019.
The agency's evaluations will determine whether the 10 chemicals, or particular uses of them, pose an unreasonable risk to public health or the environment. If so, the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 require the agency to reduce those risks. Risk control options include limiting uses of a chemical, requiring labeling, or banning a risky compound outright.
Deadlines Plus ‘Systematic Review’
The chemical law couples tight deadlines with requirements that the information and analytic methods the agency uses meet robust data quality standards, Beck said. Those standards include requiring the EPA to use a “weight of evidence” approach in its chemical assessments. A final chemical risk evaluation rule (RIN:2070-AK20) the EPA issued on June 22 discusses how the terms “weight of evidence” and “systematic review” are interwoven.
The regulation defines systematic review and offers examples of its core elements. These elements include deciding—ahead of time—what questions a risk analysis will address and what chemical uses, hazards and exposures it will examine. Analysts also must document how they followed the predetermined risk analysis strategy.
Methods to Evolve
The criteria the EPA will use to select some scientific studies over others in setting risk limits must be clear to understand, so people outside the agency can understand the agency's decision rationale, Beck said.
Systematic review approaches, while rigorous, can be expensive in terms staff time and resources. “I think we'll find out very quickly how implementable it is, and how much it costs,” she said.
The agency is determined to meet the law's deadlines, so it is working to figure out when, where and how to use systematic review, Beck said. The agency expects its systematic review methods to evolve over time, she added.
The EPA's risk evaluation rule did not codify any particular approach.
“It would be premature to codify specific methods and criteria that may change as the agency gains more experience conducting TSCA risk evaluations,” the rule said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116400707&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116400707&jd=116400707
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TSCA Reform Supporters Tout Fee Rule To Help Offset EPA Budget Cuts
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's acting toxics chief and supporters of the agency's efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) say the pending draft rule imposing fees on the chemical sector could help to offset proposed EPA funding cuts in fiscal year 2018 that environmentalists and others have warned might risk hindering implementation of the law.
"Fees remain very, very important as part of that budget for the chemicals program and the pesticides program. There's some uncertainty there, when will we have a final fees rule in place, will it adequately fund what it needs to fund? That's a question that's out there," acting toxics chief Wendy Cleland-Hamnett reminded attendees at an Environmental Law Institute conference on TSCA reform held recently in Washington, D.C.
Cleland-Hamnett said that she expects the agency to release a draft of the fees rule authorized in the TSCA reform law to support the program's timely risk evaluations of chemicals this summer. The rule would allow EPA to collect fees from industry to help defray the costs of implementing various TSCA requirements.
Ernie Rosenberg, the president emeritus of the American Cleaning Institute, cautioned that industry must be careful to support TSCA implementation, including the fees rule. "Industry needs to be very measured in how it responds to the assessment of fees, to the budget request for this program in particular," he said at the June 27 conference.
"First of all we need to be careful about not being overtly critical, but we also need to work with EPA to work with the elements of industry that won't automatically accept our judgments about the importance of this being a fully funded program," Rosenberg said, referencing the FY18 proposal to significantly cut EPA's budget.
Meanwhile, former Clinton EPA toxics chief Lynn Goldman, now dean of George Washington University's public health school, said in opening remarks at the conference that "EPA cannot ramp up its actual efforts unless it can ramp up the staff and resources necessary. . . . So that means that EPA needs its fee rule."
President Donald Trump is proposing to cut the agency's existing $8.1 billion budget by 31 percent down to $5.7 billion, cutting funding for a slew of programs in the air, research, toxics, waste, water and other offices.
But Cleland-Hamnett downplayed fears that TSCA implementation efforts in EPA's toxics office will be included in funding cuts in Congress' eventual FY18 appropriations bill. "In the president's 2018 budget, the chemicals program does not take a reduction. And in fact, we do take an increase."
She was responding to questions from Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at the law firm Bergeson & Campbell, on whether EPA's toxics office has the necessary resources and staff to implement TSCA.
Buyout Offers
Bergeson also asked Cleland-Hamnett about staff morale in the face of news of buyout offers for nearly eight percent of EPA's workforce, which could impact staffing levels in EPA's Office of Chemical Safety & Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) that is overseeing TSCA implementation and in the Office of Research & Development (ORD) that is assisting the agency in crafting its rules to implement the law.
"In terms of what happens in the budget and how that affects us -- we have been working very closely with colleagues across the agency on a number of issues. Obviously with ORD on risk evaluations, as well as development of alternate testing methods and so forth, so we're hoping that we will be able to continue to work closely with them," Cleland-Hamnett said.
Goldman meanwhile faulted the administration's hiring freeze and raised concerns about its impact on TSCA reform, saying "that the hiring freeze needs to be lifted."
Goldman argued that the quality and morale of EPA staff matters in achieving effective TSCA implementation, saying that with buyouts "it's your best people who leave" because they are the ones with opportunities to work elsewhere. "It's the people with no job prospects outside of EPA that stay. And those are not the people you want in charge of regulating your products, your health, or the health of your children."
Cleland-Hamnett acknowledged that uncertainty over the proposed budget and staffing cuts for the agency is "difficult" for staff, particularly junior staff who have not experienced such uncertainty before.
"Those of us who have been senior managers of many years are looking at ways to make sure that staff that don't want to leave the agency don't. There are different ways of doing that," she said.
"In terms of the buyouts, each program had the opportunity to look at how to structure that. I can say for the chemicals and pesticides program, our number one goal was not doing a buyout that would damage our ability to do either TSCA work or pesticides work. I think we have structured a buyout that will not do that," she added.
After her remarks, Cleland-Hamnett explained to Inside EPA that managers have tried to structure the buyout offers to target positions that could be replaced by technology, or new systems. The effort was in part modeled on similar cost-cutting measures that EPA's research office made in the Obama administration under then-research chief Paul Anastas, she said.
Asked what EPA would be turning to after finalizing the framework rules, Cleland-Hamnett listed a number of efforts to gather stakeholder feedback some starting as early as the fall, including EPA's pre-prioritization process for selecting existing chemicals for evaluation, the new chemicals program and alternative testing methodologies.
Cleland-Hamnett also reminded attendees that toxics staff have met all of the TSCA reform law's first anniversary deadlines -- releasing June 22 the three framework rules that will shape the regulatory program for existing chemicals and scoping documents for the evaluations of the first 10 chemicals to undergo risk evaluation in the new program -- and that TSCA reform implementation is a priority for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
"The administrator has been very clear from the get go that implementation of TSCA is [a priority]. I've been asked many times if we have what we need to get the job done," she said. "That focus is definitely there."
TSCA Implementation
But other speakers, ranging from former EPA officials to environmentalists to industry representatives reiterated concerns about EPA's ongoing resources and whether future cuts would harm TSCA implementation.
Goldman also pointed to the Trump administration's failure to date to nominate individuals to serve in most agency appointee slots, leaving the top slot at OCSPP and other major offices without nominees.
The OCSPP assistant administrator position should be filled by "somebody who actually supports the goals of the program, the staff, is fair," and "immunizes the program from small petty outside interests that need this little loophole for [themselves]. Once that starts, the entire thing erodes. Not that I'm saying that will happen . . . but I have been in that position and I have experienced that personally," Goldman said.
Cleland-Hamnett said that OSCPP staff have also worked with colleagues in other agency offices, because chemicals on the toxics office's list of the first 10 existing chemicals required for assessment under the reformed TSCA law are of interest to other agency program offices. "It is important that we be able to work with those programs, that they not be eliminated," she said.
She was joined in her concerns by former Obama EPA toxics chief Jim Jones, now executive vice president of strategic alliances and industry relations for the Consumer Specialty Products Association trade group, who also expressed concerns about the cuts proposed to EPA's resources.
"People often don't understand how much of what ORD does affects the other areas of operation," he said, pointing as an example to his experience working with staff to craft the list of the first 10 existing chemicals that would undergo risk evaluation as part of the new TSCA mandates.
"We had umpteen meetings with ORD before picking asbestos in the first 10 chemicals, because our scientists in [the toxics office] said that's where the expertise lies," Jones explained. "So they wanted to ensure that if I was going to put that on the list I had ORD's commitment they were going to do the science to support it. And . . . if there's not going to be much of an ORD, it's hard to see how they're going to support the asbestos work. That's just one example of the degree to which they support the chemicals program, that's true for pesticides as well."
Cleland-Hamnett and Jones also both pointed to the necessity of supporting EPA's computational toxicology work as well -- work that is also conducted within ORD -- to which the Trump administration has proposed funding cuts.
"The computational toxicology issue is another one. It was always obvious to me the development of that science is what was going to allow EPA in the future to have [testing] throughput that would be well beyond the minimum in the [TSCA] statute. I think everyone would like to see that," Jones said. "In the absence of that science existing, it's hard to see how we will ever be able to grab that opportunity. As anyone who's been in a car knows, no enforcement, no law. And that is gonna hurt industry as much as people harmed by these compounds."
Budget Cuts
Meanwhile, Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, cited the proposed FY18 cuts to research and other parts of EPA's budget as a major concern for TSCA implementation, along with what he described as an anti-regulatory climate driven by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
Denison argued that EPA's research program "provides numerous functions that support the TSCA program," pointing to its Integrated Risk Information System, which has provided dose-response information on five of the first 10 chemicals being evaluated, and the computational toxicology research program.
"I totally appreciate EPA is trying to do the best it can, but when we start eliminating enforcement and information management resources in the agency, we simply can't pretend that we can cordon off this one little part of the agency and have it function," Denison said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/tsca-reform-supporters-tout-fee-rule-help-offset-epa-budget-cuts
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Practitioner Insights: EPA's New Chemical Delays Causing Ripple Effect
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert F. Helminiak
Experts agree the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill enacted last June, is an improvement over the old TSCA of 1976. It clearly strengthened it. However, the new law has created a major disruption to supply chains due to the backlog of pre-manufacture notices (PMNs), and innovation is starting to suffer. Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) member companies are reporting negative impacts both internally and externally.
On a positive note, the comprehensive reforms addressed what many believed were fundamental flaws of old TSCA by:
• Requiring review of existing chemicals with an inventory “reset” (active and inactive buckets).
• Providing a prioritization process with deadlines.
• Explicitly separating cost considerations from safety.
• Enhancing testing authority for existing chemicals.
• Clarifying trade secret protections and requiring periodic substantiation.
• Requiring EPA to set up a fee structure to supplement appropriations.
Overall, the new law gives the Environmental Protection Agency more tools to obtain and review information on chemicals. The mandate to review existing chemicals with deadlines is arguably the biggest fix. Over the course of nearly a decade, a broad range of stakeholders testified that the existing chemicals section of TSCA required the most attention, whereas the new chemicals program was in working order. Nevertheless, changes to the new chemicals provision were made when House and Senate TSCA reform bills were reconciled before eventual enactment even though the House bill left the new chemicals provision alone.
When the stars aligned and the compromise bill was signed, the thought was that the throughput of new chemical reviews would continue, and the EPA essentially codified its ongoing practice.
For background, there were some concerns under the old TSCA about the ability of manufacturers to go to market if the EPA missed the 90-day deadline, which largely was not an issue. Manufacturers had to submit a second notice after a pre-manufacture notice anyway, a notice of commencement (NOC) to manufacture. According to EPA statistics, only 50 percent of new chemicals ever commenced manufacture. The number of NOCs of new TSCA PMNs has dropped substantially, approximately 50 since the passage of LCSA.
Furthermore, some new chemicals of concern were the subject of significant new use rules (SNURs) requiring manufacturers to submit a notice called a significant new use notice (SNUN). Contrary to what some TSCA critics said, the old PMN process was never completely self-executing, and the EPA did indeed have a regulatory stick it could use.
Delays in New Chemical Reviews
Now manufacturers are particularly struggling with delays in the review of their new chemical submissions. The EPA said it typically has about 300 chemicals pending at any given time, however, there continues to be an additional backlog, which peaked at 600 at the end of 2016, but is now 150 chemicals or less.
It should be noted the Trump administration has publicly said PMN review is a top priority and understands the negative impact of the backlog. Further, the administration has a target goal of eliminating the backlog by the end of July.
Since the new TSCA was enacted, only 52 new chemicals have been approved with determinations of “not likely to present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment for low hazard,” and 320 or more consent orders have been recommended out of approximately 600 or more that were pending when the backlog peaked. Traditionally, the EPA would “drop from further review” about 80 percent of the 600 or so PMNs it would receive annually. There has clearly been a marked shift in approach to reviewing new chemicals post-TSCA reform.
Because this shift has caused a major disruption to supply chains and innovation, SOCMA member companies are reporting that, internally, regulatory affairs staff who work closely with their R&D counterparts are finding it difficult to measure success since getting a new idea commercialized is proving to be more and more onerous. It is difficult to justify R&D if there are no rewarding metrics to show favorable results of investments. With the EPA's extremely broad approach in considering “conditions of use,” only the most innocuous new chemicals are getting approved when oftentimes the uses specified in a PMN have exposure scenarios that do not present risks. It is unclear what has happened to the other submissions, but it seems they are being held up with consent orders yet to be signed, or the EPA is requiring additional testing.
It is worth noting that at the early stage of product development detailed health and safety studies are typically not yet conducted. Companies often test the market at small scale to determine if a substance is commercially viable and has the potential to recoup investment. The EPA understands this and, as such, has developed state-of-the-art tools and has put programs in place that facilitate innovation while protecting human health and the environment based on the relative scale of risk as commercialization proceeds. Conversely, the cost of blanket testing requirements without consideration of scale would discourage many new chemicals from being developed.
Companies are finding that chemicals that would typically get dropped from further review are now being regulated due to the EPA's interpretation of LCSA, resulting in a bias towards continued use of existing chemicals—ironically the same problem very vocal TSCA critics highlighted with the old TSCA. While we support the EPA's track record of reviewing the safety of new chemicals, there could now be mixed messages being sent to the public since chemicals that had been considered safe are now considered unreasonably risky.
If the EPA continues to implement the new chemicals section as it has over the course of nearly a year, there will be a dramatic impact in the business of chemistry and the ability to enter the market, particularly impacting entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Updates to TSCA were certainly necessary, and SOCMA supported LCSA, but if the law is implemented in a way that over-burdens chemical manufacturers, it will fail. If customers end up with fewer choices, less effective, and more costly products that are not necessarily safer, the law will fail. If the EPA wants to promote innovation and the development of greener chemistries, Section 5 must remain efficient, predictable, and affordable.
Maintaining the productivity of the new chemicals program is perhaps the single most important way the EPA can continue to meet the policy direction LCSA retained in Section 2(b)(3): that the EPA should exercise its TSCA authority “in such a manner as not to impede unduly or create unnecessary economic barriers to technological innovation...” The EPA should be applauded for all of its hard work in implementing the new TSCA, and the administration's stated commitment to eliminate the backlog of PMNs is very encouraging. The success of the specialty chemical industry depends on the EPA making the necessary adjustments to successfully implement review of new chemicals.
Robert F. Helminiak is the managing director of government relations at the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116400727&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116400727&jd=116400727
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(ACC Mentioned) Appalachia Joins the Race for the Multibillion-Dollar Petrochemicals Boom
Jul 12, 2017 | CNBC
By Tom DiChristopher
The natural gas boom has enriched northern Appalachian states, and now the region reeling from the decline of the coal industry is hoping the surge in fossil fuel production will help it feed the world's growing demand for plastics and chemicals.
The U.S. shale drilling revolution is fueling a wave of investment in U.S. petrochemical plants, the facilities that use byproducts from oil and natural gas production to create the building blocks for plastics.
Since 2010, 301 chemical industry projects worth $181 billion have been announced in the United States, according to the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing U.S. chemical companies."In our opinion, we're going to struggle to meet that level of demand growth, even with all the assets we see going in in North America."-Mark Eramo, IHS Markit vice president of global chemical business development
Appalachia's share of the planned investment is relatively small, at roughly $16 billion. But the American Chemistry Council and regional boosters believe states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are positioned to capitalize on growing demand for plastics around the world.
"It's really a race to capture global share," said Paul Boulier, vice president of industry and innovation at Team NEO, a northeast Ohio economic development organization. "From our little part of the world, we want to get a bigger piece of that pie."Ty Wright | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesRig hands thread together drilling pipe at a hydraulic fracturing site on the Marcellus shale rock formation in Pennsylvania.
The natural gas boom has enriched northern Appalachian states, and now the region reeling from the decline of the coal industry is hoping the surge in fossil fuel production will help it feed the world's growing demand for plastics and chemicals.
The U.S. shale drilling revolution is fueling a wave of investment in U.S. petrochemical plants, the facilities that use byproducts from oil and natural gas production to create the building blocks for plastics.
Since 2010, 301 chemical industry projects worth $181 billion have been announced in the United States, according to the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing U.S. chemical companies."In our opinion, we're going to struggle to meet that level of demand growth, even with all the assets we see going in in North America."-Mark Eramo, IHS Markit vice president of global chemical business development
Appalachia's share of the planned investment is relatively small, at roughly $16 billion. But the American Chemistry Council and regional boosters believe states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are positioned to capitalize on growing demand for plastics around the world.
"It's really a race to capture global share," said Paul Boulier, vice president of industry and innovation at Team NEO, a northeast Ohio economic development organization. "From our little part of the world, we want to get a bigger piece of that pie."America's Top States for Business 2017: The full list
Among the slices it has already carved out are a Royal Dutch Shellpetrochemicals complex along the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Shell expects to begin construction next year and says the project will create 600 permanent positions and about 6,000 construction jobs.
Down the Ohio River, another multibillion-dollar facility could rise in Belmont County, Ohio. Thailand's state-owned oil-and-gas giant PTT is behind the project and says it will make a final investment decision by the end of the year.
This would provide much needed relief for Belmont County, where the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in May — among the highest in the state. The median annual income was $43,833 between 2011 and 2015, more than $10,000 below the U.S. median.
But Boulier and other boosters believe the two facilities are just the start. The American Chemistry Council envisions a regional transportation and storage hub that could create tens of billions of dollars in economic expansion and about 100,000 jobs.Appalachia's advantage
The formula is fairly simple. The Marcellus and Utica shale formations, two of the biggest natural gas fields in the United States, largely lie beneath Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York. The surrounding Rust Belt is also home to many of the country's plastics manufacturing factories.
What's missing is the link between the two: the massive plants that turn natural gas byproducts into the inputs needed to manufacture plastic products.
The plants, called crackers, heat natural gas byproducts, like ethane and propane, in order to break them down, or "crack" them, in industry parlance. What comes out is base chemicals, like ethylene and polyethylene, the most widely used plastic, which is shipped in pellets that are then shaped into a range of consumer and industrial goods.
The Shell facility near Pittsburgh will use ethane produced in the Marcellus and Utica basins to make 1.6 million tons of polyethylene a year. The oil major notes that "more than 70 percent of North American polyethylene customers are within a 700-mile radius of Pittsburgh."
Shell will no doubt seek to tap that domestic market, but the crackers already supplying the region will certainly fight to keep their share, said Steve Zinger, vice president of chemicals at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The result: Much of the new net output will likely be exported, he said.
This is one reason big companies with logistics experience like Shell will continue to drive the petrochemicals expansion, Zinger said. Already, plans for small crackers in the Appalachian region have been scrapped or delayed.
"You really need those economies of scale. You can't just go on the feedstock alone," Zinger told CNBC.
"It's one thing to have the technology to convert ethane into a chemical, but then you have to say, What am I going to do with this chemical? How am I going to move it to market?"A world hungry for plastics
The good news is the long-term prospects for the petrochemicals industry remain strong, according to Zinger. Rising demand for food packaging and consumer products in emerging markets will offset the push for more recycling and judicious use of plastics in the developed world for years to come, he said.
Demand for ethylene typically grows at about 1.3 times the rate of global economic growth, said Mark Eramo, vice president of global chemical business development at IHS Markit. Assuming 2.5 percent to 3 percent GDP growth, demand for ethylene will rise by 5.5 million to 6 million tons a year, he said.
"In our opinion, we're going to struggle to meet that level of demand growth, even with all the assets we see going in in North America" and around the world, he said. "We don't see any dark clouds, barring an economic meltdown."
While the Appalachian region has convenient access to natural gas, Eramo believes companies investing billions of dollars into crackers will continue to think twice about investing there because it lacks the network of plants, pipelines and storage facilities present in the Gulf. Companies like Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical have opted to build new facilities in the Gulf.
The American Chemistry Council acknowledges it's uncertain how a second transportation and storage hub in Appalachia would be financed. It's something of a chicken-and-egg situation: The region needs infrastructure to attract petrochemical facilities, but it's hard to get financing for infrastructure without the facilities.Dow Chemical shows strong performance in plastics: CEO Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 | 9:15 AM ET | 06:24
The council created a scenario in which the region builds a hub, including five world-scale crackers, storage facilities and pipelines. It found it would require $32.4 billion in capital investment.
Earlier this year, West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito introduced legislation that directs the Energy and Commerce departments to study the feasibility of building an underground ethane storage and transportation hub in the Appalachian region.
It took about 60 years for the Gulf to develop into the highly integrated petrochemical hub it is today. Boulier believes the Appalachian region can develop one in much less time, maybe just 15 years, partly by planning the system as a whole. The United States has also become a leader in producing cheap natural gas byproducts in recent years, making it attractive to investors, he said.
States eager to grow jobs are likely to offer generous sweeteners. The tax incentives offered to Shell to build the Beaver Country cracker amount to $1.6 billion over 25 years, Pennsylvania lawmakers estimated.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/appalachia-joins-the-race-for-the-petrochemicals-boom.html
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Groups Spar Over EPA Bid to Delay Methane Curbs
Jul 11, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The Trump administration's allies and enemies squared off today over a U.S. EPA legal maneuver aimed at blocking Obama-era curbs on methane emissions from new oil and gas operations.
On July 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with environmentalists that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt lacked the authority under the Clean Air Act to issue a 90-day delay in the standards (Greenwire, July 3).
But EPA filed a motion a few days later asking the court for "relief from immediate compliance" with the decision.
Environmentalists and state supporters of methane curbs today blasted the Trump administration's request as "extraordinary." They asked the court to reject it.
The American Petroleum Institute and other oil and gas interests, on the other hand, this morning urged the court to grant EPA's motion.
"It is unreasonable to require immediate compliance with the 2016 rule," a coalition of oil and gas entities said in a court filing.
The 2016 Obama administration standards for new sources required new and heavily modified oil and gas operations to detect and repair leaks of methane.
Last month, as oil and gas companies faced an initial compliance date, Pruitt granted the 90-day stay of key provisions of the rule, including its fugitive emissions, pneumatic pumps and professional engineer certification requirements.
The D.C. Circuit threw out the stay in a 2-1 decision July 3. The court issued a mandate on the same day setting the decision in stone.
In its Friday motion, EPA said it needs more time to evaluate options for appeal and to figure out how to implement the rule.
"The regulated community would ordinarily be afforded a reasonable amount of time to make the necessary adjustments to ensure compliance," EPA said in its motion. "Not so here. The Court has arguably placed the regulated community abruptly at risk of noncompliance with the 2016 Rule" (Energywire, July 10).
But environmentalists today argued that any difficulty companies had in achieving the Obama standards was of the Trump administration's own making.
"To the extent that any oil and gas companies are 'abruptly at risk of noncompliance with the 2016 Rule,'" a coalition of environmental groups said, "it is due to the Administrator's own dilatory and irregular approach to suspending these protections, as well as some companies' failure to take advantage of the extensive lead time provided in the 2016 Rule."
State supporters of the methane rule told the court it made the right decision in requiring immediate compliance with the decision vacating the stay, noting that a third of the 90-day stay had already elapsed as of the court decision.
"Directing the simultaneous issuance of the mandate — rather than allowing the unlawful Stay to remain in effect even longer — was therefore necessary," states said in a brief.
But oil and gas interests instead argued that, since so much of the 90-day period had elapsed, restoring the standards now would result in only "speculative benefits."
They noted that EPA was considering whether to completely rescind the rules.
"It would be a significant waste of limited resources and extremely disruptive for regulated entities to spend time immediately complying with the 2016 NSPS Rule, when EPA has already indicated that it is poised to change the requirements of this rule," the industry brief said.
Click here to read the industry brief.
Click here to read the environmentalists' brief.
Click here to read the states' brief.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/07/11/stories/1060057216
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Methane NSPS Supporters Say EPA Recall Bid Would 'Nullify' Court Ruling
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Environmentalists and a group of Democratic state officials are urging a federal appellate court to reject EPA's motion to further delay implementing Obama-era oil and gas methane limits the agency had sought to stay, charging that its request “distorts” the court mandate requiring officials to immediately lift the stay and, if granted, would “effectively nullify” its ruling vacating EPA's stay.
“To withhold the mandate, as EPA suggests, for fifty-two days 'or longer' . . . would effectively nullify the Court's decision by allowing EPA to run out the clock, maintaining the unauthorized Administrative Stay in place until at least August 24, one week before it currently is set to expire,” the coalition of state intervenors write in a July 11 responseto EPA's recall motion.
In their July 11 brief, environmentalists went even further, reiterating the states' argument but also charging that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's “dilatory and irregular approach” to staying the rule's requirements -- which took almost seven weeks to be released, two days after one of the rule's compliance deadlines -- for any problems that industry might face in complying.
EPA is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to recall its July 3 mandate requiring the agency to immediately adhere to the ruling in Clean Air Council, et al. v. EPA, which vacated the agency's 90-day administrative stay of several provisions of the Obama-era oil and gas methane new source performance standards (NSPS).
The D.C. Circuit's mandate required EPA to reinstate the methane NSPS deadlines that had been paused by the agency's administrative stay.
In a rare move, EPA July 7 filed a motion asking the court to recall that mandate, particularly as officials evaluate options for appeal. The agency's motion suggested the immediate nature of the court's mandate places the oil and gas industry at risk of noncompliance.
The agency also argued the immediate nature of the court's mandate was a “departure from its norms.” EPA said it and regulated entities would typically “be provided with 52 days, or longer, before compliance was required.” That 52-day timeframe appears to be a reference in part to the 45 days federal agencies like EPA are afforded to file a petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc.
But both environmentalists and the coalition of supporting states that intervened in the case sharply refute EPA's arguments.
“Far from imposing some elaborate judicial decree on EPA, the Court simply required the agency to adhere to its own rule, which it has not lawfully altered or suspended,” environmental petitioners write in a July 11 response.
Environmentalists, as well as supporting states, note the court's immediate issuance of the mandate was “entirely proper” and “well within its discretion.” And they appear to suggest it would be counter-intuitive for the D.C. Circuit panel to adhere to EPA's request to postpone the mandate, as it would undercut the court's own ruling finding the agency's action unlawful.
“Issuance of the mandate . . . therefore had to occur immediately to meaningfully remedy EPA's unauthorized action,” the states write.
'Dilatory And Irregular Approach'
The D.C. Circuit's July 3 ruling was a victory for environmentalists in a lawsuit over the Trump EPA's deregulatory efforts, and it likely will have an impact in pending litigation over other EPA attempts to delay other Obama-era rules -- including methane standards for municipal solid waste landfills.
In its ruling, two D.C. Circuit judges -- David Tatel and Robert Wilkins -- sided with environmentalists' arguments that EPA improperly used its authority under Clean Air Act section 307(d)(7)(B) to pause provisions of the methane NSPS for 90 days while it reconsidered them.
The majority agreed with environmentalists that the reconsideration was invalid because it failed to meet one part of a two-pronged test: that the provisions at issue were “impracticable” to raise during the original rulemaking's comment period. The court found that because industry raised objections to the provisions at issue during the rulemaking, that prong of the test failed, meaning the reconsideration was not mandatory and thus EPA could not use air act section 307(d)(7)(B) to stay the rule.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented, arguing that the court did not have jurisdiction to consider the case because EPA's decision to grant reconsideration of the rule is not a final action subject to court review.
In its July 7 motion, EPA cites risk to industry as a primary reason for its request for the court to recall its mandate. With the immediate nature of the mandate -- requiring swift reinstatement of the deadlines -- “the Court has arguably placed the regulated community abruptly at risk of noncompliance with the 2016 Rule,” the agency writes.
But environmentalists in their July 11 response are skeptical, at best, of this rationale. They instead suggest that Pruitt's “own dilatory and irregular approach to suspending these protections, as well as some of the companies' failure to take advantage of the extensive lead time provided in the 2016 Rule” is the real cause of any risk to industry.
Environmentalists note that Pruitt informed industry groups in an April 18 letter that he planned to stay several provisions of the methane NSPS due to reconsideration proceedings he initiated under air act section 307(d)(7)(B) in response to an industry petition but waited until nearly seven weeks later, to June 5, to issue the stay.
In fact, EPA issued the 90-day stay just two days after a June 3 deadline requiring oil and gas operators to conduct an “initial monitoring survey” to identify leaks in their equipment that they would be required to subsequently fix. EPA made the stay retroactive to that deadline, but environmentalists argue the late timing made it “impossible for Petitioners to obtain judicial review in advance of the compliance deadline.”
To further their point, in a related footnote, environmentalists uncharacteristically suggest EPA is at fault for not doing enough to help relieve burdens to industry that the agency's brief “complain[s] repeatedly” about.
“Notably, while readying three different suspensions of the Rule, the Administrator has not taken readily available steps suggested by industry to alleviate the alleged burdens of the Rule, such as issuing guidance to clarify that a company or trade association may apply for approval of alternative means of compliance for multiple sites,” the environmentalists write, referring to pending EPA proposals to delay the methane NSPS provisions by an additional three months and by two years.
“Indeed, his proposal to extend the stay explicitly does not seek comments on any 'substantive issues,' including the issues he raised for reconsideration months ago,” they add.
EPA, as well as industry groups and a separate coalition of states that have both intervened to back the agency, must file replies on the recall motion by morning July 12.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/methane-nsps-supporters-say-epa-recall-bid-would-nullify-court-ruling
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EPA Cites Public Input To Justify Air Law Authority For RMP Policy Delay
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is claiming broad Clean Air Act authority for its final rule that significantly delays implementation of Obama-era revisions to the agency's facility safety policy, saying its decision to first seek public comment on the delay shields it from the legal uncertainty that led an appellate court to recently vacate a stay of an unrelated air rule.
In a July 10 filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, EPA urges the court to reject environmental and labor groups' calls to vacate agency Administrator Pruitt's June 14 final rule that delayed by 20 months implementation of EPA's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program update rule. The Obama EPA made a series of revisions to the program designed to tighten RMP requirements.
Environmentalists oppose the RMP delay and have been buoyed by a D.C. Circuit ruling in a case challenging EPA's stay of an Obama-era rule setting limits on methane emissions from new oil and gas drilling.
In that litigation, Clean Air Council, et al., v. EPA, the court rejected the agency's claim that the stay was valid under air law section 307(d)(7)(B), which authorizes the agency to delay a rule three months for a reconsideration process. The court agreed with environmentalists that EPA's 90-day stay of the rule while it reconsiders some provisions of the regulation was invalid because it failed to meet one part of a two-pronged test: that the provisions at issue were “impracticable” to raise during the original methane rulemaking's comment period.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf in the RMP litigation, Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and E. Scott Pruitt, is now trying to distinguish the two cases -- first by arguing that the RMP delay satisfies the 307(d)(7)(B) test and second that it is also valid under air law section 112(r) on reducing accidental releases of hazardous pollutants. DOJ says EPA's decision to seek input on the RMP delay before finalizing it makes it legally valid.
Citing the D.C. Circuit's ruling in the methane litigation, DOJ in its new filing in the RMP suit says, “[T]his Court stressed that where, as here, an agency follows rulemaking procedures to defer deadlines in conjunction with a substantive reconsideration proceeding, that action should be upheld 'so long as ‘the new policy is permissible under the statute . . ., there are good reasons for it, and . . . the agency believes it to be better.’”
DOJ adds, “The Delay Rule, which defers the effective date of the RMP Amendments, is a lawful and reasonable exercise of EPA’s statutory authority and discretion” because it first issued the plan as a proposal. “EPA promulgated the Delay Rule using the same notice-and-comment rulemaking authority -- including public notice and comment and a public hearing -- that EPA used to promulgate the RMP Amendments.”
A pair of industry coalitions and a dozen GOP-led states that have sought to intervene in the case to defend the RMP delay in separate filings also back EPA's claim of broad authority under Clean Air Act section 112(r) to delay rules after following required notice and comment rulemaking procedures.
The appeals court July 10 granted the industry groups' requests to intervene. A July 7 request from state attorneys general from states, including Louisiana, Utah, Texas and Florida, is still pending.
DOJ's Arguments
In backing the delay rule, DOJ also argues that environmental petitioners and labor intervenors who joined the request to stay or scrap the delay rule have not shown they would be harmed by the Trump administration's delay of the effective date from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 to allow time to revise the RMP update rule. As a result, the department says that the groups lack the legal standing necessary to justify their suit over the stay.
Additionally, DOJ says the delay affects only one of the rule's major compliance dates because others are several years away. And they add that the prior RMP regulation will remain in effect to mitigate risk of accidents.
The Trump officials' claim that section 112(r) authorizes the agency to delay rules through notice-and-comment rulemaking comes after a panel of the D.C. Circuit in its July 3 ruling in Clean Air Council rejected EPA's stay of the Clean Air Act rule setting limits on the greenhouse gas methane from new oil and gas drilling.
Sources have suggested that the ruling could boost environmentalists' suit over the RMP delay, because the agency cited the same air law section 307(d)(7)(B) as part of its justification for both delays.
But in the recent filings in the RMP case, EPA and industry intervenors argue that nothing in section 307(d)(7)(B), which authorizes the agency to delay a rule three months for a reconsideration process, precludes the agency from issuing a longer delay under 112(r) after taking public comment on a proposed delay.
The Chemical Safety Advocacy Group (CSAG), an industry coalition intervening in the case, backs the Trump administration's claim of section 112(r) authority for a lengthy delay issued after notice and comment.
“While it is true that an administrative, non-rulemaking stay is limited to three months” under the relevant statutory provision, “nothing in that provision affects EPA’s ability to change an effective date through rulemaking (as compared with a stay) or prohibits EPA from invoking other substantive authorities to set effective dates,” CSAG says.
Environmentalists, including Sierra Club and Earthjustice, June 15 challenged Pruitt's RMP delay as exceeding the agency's authority. In a June 22 motion, the advocates asked the court to stay, or in the alternative, vacate the delay rule, arguing it is “plainly illegal” under the Clean Air Act and would irreparably harm their interests given past agency findings that chemical accidents continue to occur.
In their request, environmental and labor union intervenors argued that delaying the rule 20 months beyond an earlier three-month stay “contravenes both the letter and spirit” of the Clean Air Act.
They also say the delay rule violates section 112(r), which authorizes the RMP program designed to prevent industrial accidents. “EPA fails to show that the Delay Rule helps prevent accidental releases or minimizes the consequences of such releases -- rather, it delays prevention and reduces requirements the agency found necessary.”
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 previous administration said the revisions were necessary following the massive West, TX, fertilizer plant explosion, as it highlighted the need for more-stringent RMP requirements to improve facility safety.
Industry groups and states petitioned the Trump administration to delay and significantly revise the rule, arguing that the update imposes significant new costs without bringing new benefits, and that the rule's disclosure provisions could actually worsen the risk of facilities becoming targets for terrorists.
RMP Delay
To justify issuing the delay of the Obama-era revisions to the RMP policy, Pruitt backed industry petitioners' arguments that companies had insufficient time to meaningfully comment on a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) finding that the fire that led to the West explosion was intentionally set. ATF issued the finding days before the deadline for public input on the Obama EPA's proposed rule.
Urging the court to reject the request to stay or scrap the delay rule, DOJ says a lengthy delay of the RMP rule is reasonable and does not cause the groups irreparable harm. But allowing the RMP update to take effect would impose significant costs on industry even though some new provisions may not survive the revision process, DOJ says.
DOJ argues that the original RMP rule will remain in effect during the delay to mitigate risk of accidents, and that the delay does not postpone the majority of compliance dates in the update rule given that most dates are years away.
DOJ also argues that the Trump administration's pending process for revising the RMP rule creates significant uncertainty for industry. “[T]he regulated community and affected emergency responders do not know whether or how the RMP Amendments will be revised at the conclusion of reconsideration proceedings, and it is reasonable for EPA to consider this uncertainty when evaluating the practicability of potential effective dates,” DOJ says.
“EPA has here acted reasonably, responsibly, and entirely consistently with applicable law, and neither the extraordinary relief of a stay pending appeal nor the even more extraordinary relief of summary vacatur is warranted,” the filing says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-cites-public-input-justify-air-law-authority-rmp-policy-delay
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Despite Recess Delay, Senate May Punt on Energy Bill
Jul 12, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and George Cahlink
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to delay the start of the August recess may help clear some of the backlog of pending executive branch nominees but may not open the path for the bipartisan energy reform bill, Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said yesterday.
The Alaska Republican has been angling to bring her bill revised from last year, S. 1460, to the floor this work period in between a possible debate over health care, nominations and other items.
Before McConnell shocked Capitol Hill at around noon yesterday by opting to delay recess, Murkowski said, "I am going to advocate that in these spaces that we have that we've got a bipartisan product that is ready to go and why wouldn't you want to take that up?"
But when McConnell pushed for action on a long list of unfinished legislative business, he mentioned the defense policy bill, the debt ceiling and nominations. Not energy.
At least, Murkowski said, the extended work session may help clear Trump administration picks under her jurisdiction, including two nominees for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as well as Dan Brouillette to be deputy Energy secretary and David Bernhardt to be the No. 2 official at the Interior Department.
She said it was unclear whether there would be time to squeeze in debate on energy. "I don't know the answer to that," Murkowski said.
The chairwoman added she was "a little bit frustrated" following McConnell's decision. The usefulness of delaying recess remains to be seen.
"It's one thing to say, 'Hey gang, let's work to make sure that we're finished up these initiatives and we're going to stay here until it's done,'" she told reporters. "That gives us sort of a plan or outline going forward, but instead what we got is 'Sorry, nobody's going home for the first two weeks'" of recess.
There's likely to be competition from other committees in processing nominations and taking up legislation. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a political ally of U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, said he hoped the extra time would allow the Senate to move on stalled EPA picks.
Inhofe, former chairman of the Environment and Public Works panel, said he had recently spoken with Pruitt about his frustration about not yet having any other Senate-confirmed posts filled at the agency.
"He is still not over the fact that Washington does not move like Oklahoma moves," said Inhofe.
Before McConnell's announcement, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), one of 10 junior senators who lobbied for extending the session, said he believes the chamber will have more time for meaningful action, including "unleashing" American energy independence and pushing a major infrastructure package.
"You get the sense when you talk about August recess or any other element of recess it's some sort of sacred issue you can't touch. I think what should be more sacred is getting things done," Sullivan said.
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told reporters yesterday he would defer to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on scheduling matters but said he preferred to be home with constituents.
"My view is August is an important month to connect with our voters on tax reform," he said.
A House leadership aide last night indicated the House was sticking to its scheduled July 28 departure date.
Murkowski echoed Brady's sentiment. "When we go back home, this is not a recess like you and I used to have when we were little kids," she said. "This is certainly where I do my hardest and best work."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/07/12/stories/1060057241
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA, Industry Back Chemical Security Rule Delay
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt acted appropriately when he moved to delay new chemical plant security rules, agency attorneys and industry groups said in court filings July 10.
If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agrees, it could clear the way for the Environmental Protection Agency to continue work on a replacement for the regulation (RIN:2050-AG82) on terms likely to be more favorable to major companies as they address the need for accident prevention and emergency response.
The EPA's delay “is not an example of delay for delay's sake,” agency attorneys wrote, but is “a reasonable and appropriate step to take in assuring that serious concerns about the foundation for the RMP Amendments—including whether certain provisions may do more harm than good—are fully and fairly evaluated before its requirements are put into effect.”
The EPA, 12 states and industry groups filed responses July 10 to labor and environmental organizations’ request for an emergency injunction halting the delay of the regulations that updated provisions for accident prevention programs, emergency response requirements, and public information disclosure rules for high-risk industrial sites such as chemical plants and oil refineries under section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (Air Alliance Houston, et al v. EPA, et al, D.C. Cir., 17-01155, 6/15/17).
Industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council , American Petroleum Institute, and the Chemical Safety Advocacy Group, an organization whose members include lobbyists from Koch Industries and Marathon Petroleum, have balked at what they say are burdensome requirements. They argue that the mandates could harm plant security by sharing too much sensitive information, and that a rushed process blocked consideration of important information.
While emergency response provisions would have taken effect one year from enactment, most of the new requirements would not take effect for four years, the EPA noted. In the meantime, communities will be protected by an existing risk management program, the agency said.
Pruitt, who opposed the pending regulation as Oklahoma Attorney General, granted an industry petition to reconsider the regulation in March and later issued a final rule delaying the regulation until Feb. 19, 2019.
The action drew a lawsuit from environmental and labor groups, alleging EPA exceeded its authority to delay the regulation and was putting communities at risk.
Methane Connections
The risk management program case is similar to a challenge to the EPA's delay of methane standards for oil and gas wells, which the D.C. Circuit blocked July 3 in Clean Air Council v. Pruitt.
The 2-1 ruling was an early win for environmental groups. In its filing, EPA contends Clean Air Council does not affect the risk management program delay.
EPA delayed both regulations under section 307(d) of the Clean Air Act, but the filing argues the court decision allows agencies to delay action when they stick to “rulemaking procedures to defer deadlines in conjunction with a substantive reconsideration proceeding” as long as the action is allowed by law, has good reasons, and the agency believes it will improve the regulation.
Michael Reer, an attorney at Harris, Finley & Bogle in Fort Worth, Texas, said in an email to Bloomberg BNA the EPA's action was “at least partially vulnerable” because it delayed the effective date of the regulation from March 21 to June 13 under similar reasoning to that used in Clean Air Council.
The filings reiterate industry complaints that it lacked meaningful opportunity to comment on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives press conference May 11, 2016, where ATF officials spoke about the West, Texas, fertilizer plant fire that killed 15 people. The ATF believed the fire, which jumpstarted the risk management rulemaking, was caused by intentional arson. But the agency has not released any evidence to support that claim.
EPA determined the finding was of “central relevance,” the agency's brief noted, and that industry organizations could not raise it during the comment period on the proposed rule, which ended May 19, 2016.
ATF's press conference also came five months after the U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a 265-page final report that found multiple possible contributing factors made the fire more severe, including other substances stored nearby that could have interacted with the fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate and the way the building was ventilated.
The CSB also flagged problems with local authorities that knew almost nothing about what chemicals were present at the site and were unprepared to fight the fire—issues EPA tried to address in the risk management program update.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116400712&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=498528000&searchid=30180777&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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House Appropriators Reject Call to Shutter Chemical Safety Board
Jul 12, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, targeted for elimination in the White House's budget request earlier this year, would continue operating under a funding proposal released July 11 by a House subcommittee.
The House Appropriations Committee posted the fiscal year 2018 Interior-Environment Appropriations bill July 11, which funds the CSB along with other agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department.
The White House proposed closing the board earlier this year, with a budget document describing it as “duplicative.” Not only did lawmakers decide the CSB should keep running, but their proposal would keep funding flat at $11 million.
The CSB “is encouraged and grateful that the Subcommittee recognizes the valuable work of the Board,” spokeswoman Hillary Cohen said in a statement to Bloomberg BNA July 11. “The funding level proposed allows the Board to continue to execute the mission to protect the safety of citizens and the environment by driving chemical safety change.”
In a statement July 11, Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said the bill “responsibly supports the agencies and offices we rely on to preserve our natural resources for future generations, and prioritizes our limited funding to programs that protect environmental safety, such as the Chemical Safety Board.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116400711&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116400711&jd=116400711
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House Proposes to Slash EPA, Interior Spending
Jul 11, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Kellie Lunney
House Republicans are pushing deep spending cuts for U.S. EPA and the Interior Department, although the planned cuts are not nearly as drastic as President Trump had proposed.
Released this afternoon, the House fiscal 2018 Interior and environment bill, up for subcommittee markup tomorrow, would fund EPA at $7.5 billion, cutting the agency by more than $500 million. Still, the funding amount is far more than the White House's proposed $5.6 billion.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said the bill "prioritized proven programs that have a meaningful impact to achieve these goals while also ensuring our economy can continue to grow."
The draft bill supports EPA's coming buyout program for employees by offering resources for the voluntary separation agreements.
The bill would provide $58 million on workforce restructuring at the agency, according to a House Appropriations Committee aide. Trump's budget had proposed $68 million in fiscal 2018 to reshape EPA's workforce.
EPA has planned to offer buyouts to more than 1,200 employees this summer while Trump has proposed to cut 3,800 jobs at EPA in fiscal 2018 (E&E News PM, June 20).
The legislation includes a provision authorizing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw the Obama-era Clean Water Rule "without regard to any provision of statute or regulation that establishes a requirement for such withdrawal."
That language is identical to a provision included in the energy and water spending bill, and comes as the Trump administration is moving to repeal the rule, which aims to clarify the Clean Water Act's reach (Greenwire, June 27).
Exempting the rule, also known as the Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule, from the Administrative Procedure Act could not only remove the requirement that it undergo certain public scrutiny but also make it easier for the new administration to ignore the Obama team's justifications for WOTUS.
That could include the cost-benefit analysis of the 2015 regulation and an accompanying 408-page technical report, as well as a review from EPA's Science Advisory Board.
The appropriations bill also reiterates that the Clean Water Act does not apply to farm ponds and irrigation ditches in agricultural areas.
The bill would maintain spending levels for the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative at $72 million and $300 million, respectively.
The move is a repudiation of the Trump administration's budget request, which had asked Congress to eliminate funding for regional cleanup efforts like those in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay.
The bill would also provide $1.14 billion in capitalization grants for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and $863 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program would receive an additional $25 million.Air and climate
Appropriators flatly rejected the White House's bid to slash or eliminate funding for two popular air quality grant programs.
The administration proposed cutting Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grants from $60 million this year to $10 million; the draft would instead increase next year's total to $75 million.
And while the White House is seeking to zero out Targeted Air Shed grants, which are getting $30 million this year, the bill would boost the amount of money in next year's pot to $40 million.
DERA grants are used to replace or retool older, higher-polluting school buses and other diesel-powered equipment; airshed grants are supposed to help areas suffering from unhealthy levels of ozone and particulate pollution.
The bill would further delay EPA attainment designations for its 2015 ozone standard until 2025; the agency had been scheduled to make those designations by this October, but Administrator Scott Pruitt recently pushed back that deadline until 2018.
Another rider would require EPA and other agencies to continue to treat forest biomass as carbon-neutral. In a victory for the forest products industry, almost identical language was included for the first time in the fiscal 2017 omnibus spending measure signed in May.
In an effort to relax industrial farming regulations, the legislation would prohibit agencies from requiring permits under the Clean Air Act to emit carbon dioxide, methane and other gases from livestock production.
The measure would also prohibit agencies from issuing rules that require mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure management systems.
The appropriations bill would provide more than $1.1 billion for the Superfund program, around $600.6 million more than the $515.8 million requested by the president's budget. It also represents an increase of around $27.6 million from the omnibus spending deal.
In addition, the bill seeks to send $11 million to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the same amount as last fiscal year. The Trump budget had called for CSB to be eliminated.Interior
For Interior, the bill would provide $11.9 billion in fiscal 2018. That's slightly more than the $11.7 billion the White House requested. The legislation would also fund some popular programs at a higher level than the president's budget.
House appropriators, for example, want to fully fund the payment in lieu of taxes system at $465 million and provide $275 million for Land and Water Conservation Fund programs.
The bill hewed to the administration's recommendation on wildfire firefighting and prevention, fully funding the 10-year average for suppression costs for Interior and the Forest Service with $3.4 billion. That's $334 million below the fiscal 2017 level.
Several Interior agencies would see cuts from fiscal 2017:
The Bureau of Land Management would receive $1.2 billion, a decrease of $46 million from fiscal 2017. The spending legislation would provide $68.9 million for sage grouse conservation.
The National Park Service would receive $2.9 billion, a decrease of $64 million from fiscal 2017, mostly a reduction in land acquisition activities.
The Fish and Wildlife Service would receive $1.5 billion under the bill, $38 million less than the fiscal 2017 level. The fiscal 2018 bill also continues a one-year delay on Endangered Species Act reviews and rulemakings for sage grouse.
The U.S. Geological Survey would receive $1 billion in fiscal 2018 under the bill, $46 million below the fiscal 2017 enacted level.The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement would receive $213 million for fiscal 2018, $40 million less than in fiscal 2017. That includes $75 million to continue a pilot program to reclaim abandoned land mines and $68.6 million for state regulatory grants.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/07/11/stories/1060057225
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House Bill Would Fully Fund U.S. Chemical Safety Board
Jul 11, 2017 | The Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which President Donald Trumpproposed eliminating earlier this year, would be fully funded under an appropriations bill released Tuesday.
The bill would provide $11 million to the CSB - the only agency charged with investigating chemical disasters - equal to the fiscal year 2017 level.
That was met with relief by a diverse set of stakeholders, from labor and safety advocates to the very industries often scrutinized by the agency, many of which reacted with bafflement in March when the Trump administration proposed axing it.
That's because the CSB is puny in size for a federal agency, and it does a lot with the money. While CSB investigations are rare, and their resulting recommendations often go ignored, they delve deeply into the root causes of incidents without penalizing anyone, helping companies improve and yielding fodder for academic researchers who study ways to make complex chemical plants safer. They investigate everything from wayward lab experiments that harm schoolchildren to the worst industrial catastrophes.
A Houston Chronicle investigation last year found that federal agencies, including the CSB, don't have enough resources to provide adequate oversight to facilities that handle dangerous chemicals.
The White House budget claimed the CSB was redundant, overly focused on new regulations and mismanaged, though even the administration acknowledged it has made significant strides to correct management problems under new leadership.
The Trump proposal faced a hard sell in Congress, said Jordan Barab, the former No. 2 Occupational Safety and Health Administration official under President Barack Obama.
"Nobody wants to be stuck with a major chemical accident in their district, having voted to eliminate the one agency that investigates those," he said.
It also helped, he said, that House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican, hails from New Jersey, with its dense industrial complexes.
"This legislation responsibly supports the agencies and offices we rely on to preserve our natural resources for future generations, and prioritizes our limited funding to programs that protect environmental safety," Frelinghuysen said in a prepared statement.
CSB officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment. But Barab said it was a win for the agency to receive funding at last year's level, given that the administration was aggressively looking for places to cut.
"There aren't a whole lot of things that are flat funded these days," he said.
The 2018 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill provides $31.4 billion for various federal programs, including the Environmental Protection Agency, another place where officials are looking to roll back chemical safety protections. It will be considered in a House subcommittee Wednesday.
Health and safety experts said Trump's proposal to eliminate the CSB signaled a full retreat from two decades of progress against chemical disasters and would have resulted in more fatalities.
The CSB is to chemical disasters what the much better-funded National Transportation Safety Board is to airline crashes, train derailments and bridge collapses. Without the recommendations that come from these boards, preventable accidents repeat themselves.
Gutting the CSB is "standing up for death and destruction," chemical safety consultant Paul Orum previously told the Chronicle. "It's disrespectful to those killed in such incidents."
Three of the most far-reaching investigations in the history of chemical safety resulted from the CSB.
In 2005, a unit at BP's Texas City refinery overfilled with hydrocarbons, releasing a massive cloud of liquid and gas that exploded, killing 15 and injuring more than 180. The resulting investigations rippled through an industry that had long harped on worker safety, like preventing falls and wearing the right equipment, to the detriment of process safety - designing and monitoring chemical and refining units to prevent releases and explosions.
Then in 2010, BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, leading to an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 people, injured 17 and caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history. CSB findings in 2016 showed gaping holes in offshore safety and regulatory oversight.
And the CSB's study of the 2013 West Fertilizer disaster, where 15 people, including 12 first-responders, died, exposed major gaps in emergency planning and response across the nation.
http://www.chron.com/about/article/House-bill-would-fully-fund-U-S-Chemical-Safety-11281494.php
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EPA Prepares to Overhaul NSR Rules
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA appears to be preparing to overhaul its rules governing its new source review (NSR) permit program, signaling that the Trump administration is backing widespread calls from industry and labor groups to reform the controversial permit program even before formal advice from the Commerce Department that is expected to seek such reforms.
Citing President Donald Trump's orders aimed at streamlining permits and enforcing the administration's deregulatory agenda, the Office of Air and Radiation's draft National Program Manager Guidance for fiscal year 2018-19, quietly released late last month, includes language pledging to reform NSR rules.
“Pursuant to the January 24, 2017, Presidential Memorandum on permit streamlining and Executive Order 13777, EPA will repeal, replace, or modify existing regulations to streamline the federal permitting process and reduce regulatory burdens for domestic manufacturers,” says the section in the draft guidance on NSR and other permit rules.
“EPA will work with states and tribes to implement any revisions to the Title V, [prevention of significant deterioration (PSD)] and NSR programs, including updates to delegation agreements for delegated states and review of implementation plan and program revisions for SIP-approved states,” the document says.
EPA also says it will “conduct timely review of permit applications for areas of the country where EPA is the permit authority.”
NSR and the related PSD program generally require new and modified facilities that increase emissions significantly to install state of the art emissions controls. Industry groups have long sought to ease the requirements, charging they are burdensome and forestall equipment upgrades.
But a major effort to overhaul the program in the Bush administration was largely blocked by federal courts.
EPA's latest action comes as the Commerce Department is poised to issue a report -- in response to a Trump directive seeking recommendations to streamline permitting -- that is widely expected to back widespread industry calls to overhaul the program.
Many others have also urged the administration to make the program's overhaul a priority. Labor unions recently urged White House officials to make NSR reforms part of any rule to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP).
And a Florida power group recently urged the Energy Department to take a major role in potential efforts to revise NSR and develop a replacement for the CPP.
But veterans of earlier fights over the program question whether the Trump administration will have enough administrative bandwidth to tackle the issue given other priorities. “To come up with [an NSR] rulemaking that is defensible, that is a multi-year effort,” says one industry source.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-prepares-overhaul-nsr-rules
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Former Officials Seek To Clarify EPA Risk Practices, Strengthen Rule Reviews
Jul 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Two former Bush administration regulatory review officials are urging the Trump administration to overhaul EPA and other agencies' regulatory risk assessment and management process to make them more transparent and to further strengthen regulatory review requirements, measures they say will bolster review of rules' impacts, but which also seem likely to further slow the regulatory process and benefit regulated entities.
Marcus Peacock, who served in the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and on the Trump OMB transition team, and Susan Dudley, the former Bush-era director of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, detailed their recommendations in a working paper, “Improving Regulatory Science: A Case Study of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards,” late last month from George Washington University's Regulatory Studies Center.
In addition to seeking broader review of risk practices, Dudley and Peacock also seek to further expand the regulatory review process at EPA and other agencies, requiring them to develop new mechanisms for assessing regulatory costs after rules have been promulgated.
Even though Peacock served on the Trump transition team and help craft President Donald Trump's EO 13771, which requires that agencies repeal two rules before issuing a new rule, the paper appears to question whether it will be effective in garnering better regulatory look backs. “Whether President Trump’s requirement that agencies identify existing regulations to remove or modify before issuing new ones will lead to a shift in resources and motivate better retrospective analysis remains to be seen,” the paper states.
For example, they argue that agencies should add additional analyses in their reviews of pending rules before proposing them, by requiring agencies “to include in proposed regulations a framework for empirical testing of assumptions and hypothesized outcomes.”
They also urge officials to institutionalize a requirement for agencies to “evaluate whether the predicted effects of the regulation were realized,” saying this would provide “an incentive to improve the use of science for predicting the benefits of interventions.”
Outside the agencies, the authors call on Congress and OMB to “reallocate resources from ex ante analysis to allow agencies to gather the information and evaluation tools necessary to validate ex ante predictions. Shifting resources from ex ante analysis to ex post review would not only help with evaluation, but would improve our ex antehypotheses of regulatory effects."
Dudley and Peacock also suggest that agencies are not the best judges of their own retrospective reviews, which they say “should be subject to third-party evaluation.” The advisors also encouraged EPA to broaden their reviews by “focus[ing] on the drivers of the differences in ex post and ex ante costs so that insights can be gained that would improve ex-ante cost estimation in the future.”
EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics sought to perform a retrospective study of the costs of agency rules during the Obama administration, and its economic advisors ultimately reviewed the work of five case studies that EPA provided on the narrow question of whether regulatory cost estimates were too high or too low. The advisors in their 2013 interim report agreed with EPA that more data and case studies were needed to draw conclusions.
Several Recommendations
The paper also lays out a series of recommendations intended to address concerns about the alleged politicization of science that is relied upon by EPA and other agencies in the regulatory process. The authors cite two concerns in particular: when scientists “intentionally or unintentionally, insert, but do not disclose, their own policy preferences in the scientific advice they provide government decision-makers,” resulting in “hidden policy judgments” that are a form of “advocacy science.”
In addition, they raise concerns when scientists and/or policymakers “conflate scientific information and nonscientific judgments to make a policy choice, but then present that decision as being solely based on science.” The authors say this tends to camouflage controversial policy decisions as science, which they say is a “science charade” and it can be particularly pernicious.
They cite EPA's risk assessment process for developing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) as an example of such concerns, arguing that it “exemplifies the incentives at work that compel every party to the regulation
to engage in hidden policy judgment and the science charade.”
As a result, Peacock and Dudley call on agencies like EPA to reveal the “hidden policy judgments” in their risk assessments, arguing that these “harm[] the credibility of science advice and results in poorer policy decisions.”
The authors recommend that the “executive branch must establish procedures and incentives to make more transparent the effect different credible risk assessment inputs and assumptions have on the range of plausible outcomes.” One way to accomplish this would be for “agency scientists to calculate and present multiple risk estimates based on a variety of scientifically plausible data sets, endpoints, models, etc. … Once a range of plausible risk outcomes is identified … agencies could transparently identify which set of inputs, models, and outcomes comported with its preferred risk assessment policy choice. Policy officials would choose specific numerical values from a range of scientifically plausible risk estimates and publicly defend the risk assessment policy choices that support that choice.”
The authors argue that doing so would lead to more “constructive discussion about science and policy, improving the ultimate policy decision and probably engendering greater acceptance of that policy choice.”
Over the years, multiple proponents, perhaps most notably Bush EPA research chief George Gray, sought to ensure that EPA risk assessors provided a range of risk estimates rather than the traditional single point estimates.
Gray sought to implement this practice in EPA's influential but often controversial Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) but his efforts to require such calculations -- to give a better concept of the uncertainty inherent in such analyses -- met with rejection from staff, and significantly delayed release of an IRIS assessment.
Reports from the National Academy of Sciences have also pushed the cause, perhaps most recently the 2014 report positively reviewing EPA's IRIS program. Ken Olden, then chief of EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment, which manages the IRIS program, indicated IRIS managers would consider the recommendation. But he also described traditional roadblocks to doing so -- in part that it could result in different risk estimates used by different agencies for the same contaminant -- a situation that IRIS was created to stop.
Risk Analyses
In addition to the traditional intra-agency hurdles to implementing such practices, environmentalists may also protest such efforts to broaden discussion of risk analyses, and similarly, the authors' recommendation that agencies should take steps to “encourage greater feedback and challenge of risk assessment practices and policy choices."
Environmentalists, public health groups and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are quick to point out that while industry and other regulated entities have the resources and expertise to participate in such discussions, NGOs and the general public often do not.
Many protested Olden's efforts to make the IRIS program more transparent through the creation of open meetings to discuss contentious science issues within individual assessments. NGO representatives protested that most of the speakers were representatives of industry or other regulated entities, skewing the discussions -- an issue that EPA struggled to address. Eventually, Olden contracted with NAS to recommend independent experts to address the various topics at later meetings -- a change that led to concerns from industry.
Dudley and Peacock also call for legislators to recognize that “'science' … can inform, but not decide appropriate policy.” They question the differences in statute which may incentivize policy discussion over rhetoric, suggesting that the allowance for the Safe Drinking Water Act to consider costs of treatment while the Clean Air Act disallows consideration of costs when setting NAAQS may be one reason “why the debates over drinking water standards are generally less acrimonious than debates over ambient air quality standards” because “the full burden of decision-making is not vested in the risk assessment.”
The authors also urge Congress to “clarify the appropriate role for scientific advisors,” and to “restrict their advice to matters of science, and not ask them to recommend regulatory policies.” They point to EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council as one panel where these roles are conflated.
In a recommendation echoing GOP legislation to reform the makeup of EPA's Science Advisory Board that passed the House on a nearly party line vote last spring, the authors argue that advisory panels “should be required to represent a diversity of perspectives, disciplines, expertise and experience. But the recommendation does not go as far as the bill, which would bar scientists who have received EPA grants from serving on the panels and require representation of state agencies and industry. The bill has yet to move in the Senate.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/former-officials-seek-clarify-epa-risk-practices-strengthen-rule-reviews
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EPA Chief Wants Scientists to Debate Climate on TV
Jul 11, 2017 | Reuters
By Valerie Volcovici
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the early stages of launching a debate about climate change that could air on television – challenging scientists to prove the widespread view that global warming is a serious threat, the head of the agency said.
The move comes as the administration of President Donald Trump seeks to roll back a slew of Obama-era regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, and begins a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement - a global pact to stem planetary warming through emissions cuts.
"There are lots of questions that have not been asked and answered (about climate change)," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.
"Who better to do that than a group of scientists... getting together and having a robust discussion for all the world to see," he added without explaining how the scientists would be chosen.
Asked if he thought the debate should be televised, Pruitt said: "I think so. I think so. I mean, I don’t know yet, but you want this to be open to the world. You want this to be on full display. I think the American people would be very interested in consuming that. I think they deserve it."
Pruitt, one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration, has repeatedly expressed doubts about climate change – one of the main points of contention in his narrow confirmation by the Senate.RELATED COVERAGETranscript of Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
While acknowledging the planet is warming, Pruitt says he questions the gravity of the problem and the need for regulations that require companies to take costly measures to reduce their carbon footprint.
"It is a question about how much we contribute to it. How do we measure that with precision? And by the way, are we on an unsustainable path? And is it causing an existential threat?" he said in the interview.
Since taking up his role at EPA, he has emerged as one of the more prolific Trump cabinet appointees, taking steps to undo more than two dozen regulations, and influencing Trump’s decision to pull the United States from the Paris climate change deal, agreed by nearly 200 countries in 2015.
Pruitt rejected global criticism of the United States for pulling out of the climate deal, which Trump has said would have cost America trillions of dollars without benefit.
"We have nothing to be apologetic about," Pruitt said. "It was absolutely a decision of courage and fortitude and truly represented an America First strategy with respect to how we are leading on this issue."
Pruitt said the United States had already cut its carbon output to the lowest levels in nearly 25 years without mandates, thanks mainly to increased use of natural gas - which burns cleaner than coal.
"Red Team, Blue Team" Tactics
Pruitt said his desire for the agency to host an ongoing climate change debate was inspired by two articles published in April – one in the Wall Street Journal by theoretical physicist Steve Koonin, who served as undersecretary of energy under Obama – and one by conservative columnist Brett Stephens in the New York Times.
Koonin’s article made the case that climate science should use the "red team-blue team" methodology used by the national security community to test assumptions. Stephens’ article criticized claims of complete certainty in climate science, saying that it "traduces the spirit of science."
Pruitt said scientists should not scoff at the idea of participating in these debates.
"If you’re going to win and if you’re so certain about it, come and do your deal. They shouldn’t be scared of the debate and discussion," he said.
Pruitt said debate is not necessarily aimed at undermining the 2009 "endangerment finding," the scientific determination that carbon dioxide harms human health that formed the basis for the Democratic Obama administration's regulation of greenhouse gases. He said there may be a legal basis to challenge the finding but would prefer Congress weigh in on the matter.
In the interview, Pruitt added that he intended to deal "very aggressively" with automakers that use devices to cheat emissions tests, and would also seek to boost accountability for companies to clean up polluted sites under the Superfund program.
He said EPA was also not ready to decide yet on a change proposed by Trump’s special adviser Carl Icahn to the U.S. biofuels program, that would shift the burden of blending biofuels like ethanol into gasoline away from refiners to companies further down the supply chain.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-pruitt-idUSKBN19W2D0?il=0
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California Dems Reach Deal on Cap and Trade
Jul 11, 2017 | The Hill
By Reid Wilson
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and state legislative leaders said Thursday that they have reached a deal to extend the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program aimed at dramatically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
The new deal will extend the program, initially authorized in 2006, by 10 years. It would help the state meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, Brown’s office said.
The two bills that will begin moving through the legislature on Tuesday include a program aimed at cutting pollution in some of the state’s dirtiest neighborhoods, as well as higher penalties against companies that pollute. They would also require industrial facilities like oil refineries to replace outdated technology with cleaner machines within the next six years.
“The legislature is taking action to curb climate change and protect vulnerable communities from industrial poisons,” Brown said in a statement issued with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D) and state Senate President Kevin de Leon (D).
Lawmakers worked for months to come to an agreement that could bring together the liberal and centrist factions inside the Democratic Party in Sacramento.
The two bills that will extend the cap-and-trade program will require the votes of two-thirds of all legislators to pass. Democratic leaders were so concerned that they might not hit the two-thirds threshold that they asked Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D) — a state assemblyman before he resigned to take a seat in Congress — to delay leaving Sacramento while the deal was struck.
One senior Democratic aide said the agreement represented a “threading of the needle” between industry groups that will be most impacted and environmental groups, which wanted harsh new penalties and stricter caps.
A new program to clean pollution in smog-soaked neighborhoods helped close the deal, the aide said.
“This agreement ensures that Californians in underserved communities — and communities most impacted by air pollution — will receive the greatest benefit,” Rendon said in a statement. “All communities deserve clean air, benefits from strong climate actions, and a strong green economy.”
The California Chamber of Commerce said it was still reviewing the legislation before offering an assessment.
The new legislative language would require businesses taking advantage of carbon offset programs like planting trees to locate most of those programs in California.
Legislative rules will allow a vote on the two measures as early as Thursday. Legislators are scheduled to wrap up their summer session in Sacramento at the end of next week, before returning later this year.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/341484-california-dems-reach-deal-on-cap-and-trade
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