Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 7/17/17
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Hearing on Electricity And Grid
Jul 18, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 10:00 AM. -
Hearing On Alaska Oil And Gas
Jul 18, 2017 | Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
Location: 1324 Longworth / 2:00 PM, -
Hearing On Energy And Resource Security
Jul 18, 2017 | Energy and Natural Resources
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:30 AM. -
Hearing On Energy Innovation
Jul 19, 2017 | Space, Science and Technology
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 10:00 AM. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Early TSCA Rules Ripe For Suits From Environmentalists, Industries
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds & Maria Hegstad
EPA's suite of early rules and guidance under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) appear ripe for a number of legal challenges from environmentalists, the chemical industry and other sectors, sources say, due to initial divided reaction to the rules and the massive scope of regulatory provisions in the complex policies. -
NAS Panel Expected To Advise EPA On Developing Low-Dose Toxicity Tests
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will release next week a report on the health effects that some chemicals may cause at low exposure levels, or doses -- a situation that NAS will say EPA's existing regulatory toxicology testing approaches does not address, though the Trump administration budget sought to eliminate one such program. -
EWG News Roundup (7/14): Toxics Passed Down for Generations, Harmful Kids’ Products and Flame Retardants in Newborns
Jul 14, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Robert Coleman
This week, EWG released a report highlighting the emerging field of transgenerational toxicity research. For years, EWG has been at the forefront of research on environmental exposures in newborns. -
Officials Making Progress With Chemical In N. Carolina River
Jul 15, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
State officials say they’ve lowered the amount of an unregulated chemical in wastewater that’s been dumped in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. -
Nordic Council Calls For Prompt Regulatory Action On PFASs
Jul 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The Nordic Council, an inter-governmental cooperation body representing five countries, has called for prompt regulatory action on per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs). -
(ACC Mentioned) Northern Panhandle Activity Picking Up in Wake of Shell's Cracker Plans
Jul 16, 2017 | The Exponent Telegram
By Linda Harris
As signs go, Eagle Manufacturing‘s Joe Eddy sees plenty that tell him the Upper Ohio Valley’s economic fortunes are changing. -
U.S. Says Energy Transfer's Rover Gas Project Violated Rules
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick, Naureen S. Malik and Tim Loh
U.S. regulators are accusing Energy Transfer Partners LP of violating federal rules by failing to disclose information about a historic house it razed to make way for the controversial Rover natural gas pipeline. -
California Bill To Lock In Obama Rules Faces New Legal Threats
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
Controversial California legislation that aims to lock in to state law Obama-era environmental and worker safety standards is drawing new legal threats and questions, with one major business group charging that the measure violates the state constitution and unlawfully delegates legislative power to state agencies. -
House To Revisit Bill Promising Big Changes To Landmark Law
Jul 17, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Last month, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt ordered a one-year delay in enforcement of the agency's 2015 ground-level ozone standard. The House this week is poised go much further. -
Military Climate Study Survives With Crucial House GOP Votes
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Language directing the Defense Department to focus on national security threats climate change poses survived in the fiscal 2018 defense bill. -
After Discussion, Macron Says Trump 'Understood' Importance Of Paris Climate Deal
Jul 16, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Savrasnky
French President Emmanuel Macron said he pressed President Trump on the possibility of returning the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement during the two leaders' Paris meeting last week. -
Carbon from L.A. to Paris Jumps as Lawmakers Plan Tightening
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr, Joe Ryan and Marine Strauss
Carbon prices from California to New Zealand are soaring as lawmakers across the globe seek more stringent rules for their greenhouse-gas markets. -
7th Circuit Hands Win To EPA On D.C. Circuit Review Of 'National' Policies
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in a unanimous July 12 opinion is agreeing with EPA's bid to transfer to the D.C. Circuit a suit over an area's attainment designation for federal sulfur dioxide (SO2) air standards, revising its precedent to make it easier to send lawsuits over “nationally applicable” rules to the D.C. Circuit. -
California Governor Fights To Achieve Two-Thirds Vote For Cap & Trade
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and legislative leaders are fighting to persuade two-thirds of lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly to support legislation to extend California's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program to 2030, but it remains unclear whether their effort will succeed ahead of floor votes scheduled for July 17. -
Environmentalists fault EPA's approval of California air plan
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is criticizing EPA's proposed approval of a California district's clean air plan that they say wrongly excludes consideration of ammonia as a precursor to forming air pollution, reviving a debate over the regulation of animal feeding operations' ammonia emissions and implementation of federal air standards.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Hearing on Electricity And Grid
Jul 18, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
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Jul 18, 2017 | Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
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Hearing On Energy And Resource Security
Jul 18, 2017 | Energy and Natural Resources
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Jul 19, 2017 | Space, Science and Technology
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Early TSCA Rules Ripe For Suits From Environmentalists, Industries
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds & Maria Hegstad
EPA's suite of early rules and guidance under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) appear ripe for a number of legal challenges from environmentalists, the chemical industry and other sectors, sources say, due to initial divided reaction to the rules and the massive scope of regulatory provisions in the complex policies.
“The risk of litigation may well be high under the new TSCA,” said Herb Estreicher, an attorney with Keller and Heckman LLP which represents industry clients, during a July 12 webinar. Still, he said that, “Our hope is that industry working with EPA will ensure that the rules developed under the new TSCA are [technically] and scientifically sound, and there would be no need for litigation either by industry or environmental groups.”
Among the many issues in the initial “framework” TSCA rules released last month that could face legal challenges are the process for how EPA should consider chemicals' conditions of use in evaluating their risks; the scope of the agency's overall risk assessments for substances; how and when to grant companies' requests to withhold from the public data on chemicals as confidential business information (CBI), and other topics.
Estreicher and others on the webinar said that environmentalists' concerns over the recent framework rules for implementing the June 2016 TSCA reform law, combined with industry concerns over the agency's plans to ban certain uses of some chemicals, creates a legal landscape that is ripe for extensive litigation.
Environmentalists and the reform law's chief Democratic sponsor have already raised questions about whether the framework rules EPA finalized last month adhere to the reform law's requirements, suggesting that some groups might challenge them by arguing that they fall short of the law's mandates.
The three framework rules EPA released on June 22 under the revised TSCA are: An inventory reset to determine the universe of existing chemicals that will be subject to the law's requirements, a prioritization rule describing how EPA will determine which existing chemicals will undergo assessment, and a risk evaluation rule detailing how the agency plans to conduct those reviews.
EPA is also weighing several novel rules under the law's section 6 authority to ban certain uses of three chemicals, which have drawn push-back from chemicals producers, the attorneys said on the July 12 webinar.
And the agency also has recently released scoping documents for the initial reviews of chemicals required under the revised TSCA, and the 10 selected chemicals are of significant interest to industry.
Potential Challenges
Although some sources believe that the early rules will face a multitude of legal challenges, some observers are expressing confidence that the regulations comport with the overhauled TSCA.
Michael Walls, the American Chemistry Council's vice president of regulatory and technical affairs, said on a July 12 conference call that “When we look at the situation out of the whole, we have every reason to be optimistic.”
Asked by a reporter about environmentalists' concerns with the changes made to the final rules compared to the proposed versions floated by the Obama administration, Walls replied, “I would agree my optimism contrasts sharply with other stakeholders. I understand why others are concerned. . . . I think to the extent that there are future legal challenges brought -- at that time, ACC will evaluate interest. Based on our view to date of the final rules, we would disagree with a conclusion that the framework rules do no comport with statute.”
An environmentalist says litigation over the regulations is a possibility but “we've not made decisions in this area,” and that groups cannot sue until EPA publishes the rules in the Federal Register in the coming weeks.
Separately, Bob Sussman, counsel for Safer Chemicals Health Families and a former Obama EPA senior official, said in a July 5 interview with Inside EPA that “there are some legal issues presented by the final” risk evaluation rule, though he stresses that he could not say whether it would ultimately spur a legal challenge.
Sussman noted issues of concern to environmentalists, such as the reform law's language requiring EPA to consider chemicals' conditions of use in risk evaluations. “One issue here is the decision of the agency in the final rule to look at some uses but not necessarily all uses of a chemical,” Sussman says. “I think that's not really what the statute has in mind here. The statute says risk evaluations will look at a chemical under conditions of use.”
The term “condition of use” is “framed broadly” in the revised TSCA and includes a chemical lifecycle, among other definitions. “Congress is not concerned with one use in isolation,” Sussman argues of the statute's intent. “There is really no evidence from EPA in the final rule that a full evaluation isn't feasible.”
Sussman also suggests the possibility of a lawsuit filed under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) over the risk evaluation and prioritization rules, because they contain definitions of the scientific terms “best available science” and “weight of the evidence” that were not included in the proposed version of the rules.
“There are also issues around the science definitions,” Sussman says. “The language appeared for the first time in the final rule and was not in the proposed rule.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has in prior rulings faulted EPA for adding language to the final version of a rule that was not in the proposed version and that stakeholders therefore were unable to weigh in on during the public comment process.
Sussman says “the lack of a real opportunity to comment on the definitions is problematic” as the APA outlines agencies' notice and comment rulemaking mandates and “'notice' means you know what the issues are.”
Framework Rules
While EPA officials have said the three framework rules were crafted to be “achievable,” environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers have cautioned that they still need to be lawful.
The Environmental Defense Fund has faulted key definitions in the agency's chemical risk evaluation rule, while Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), a lead sponsor of the revised law, has argued that the rules allow EPA to focus only on a subset of uses rather than conducting comprehensive reviews.
“My initial review of the final rules makes me concerned that this EPA will try to use the program to prioritize safeguarding industry, rather than the public,” Udall told a June 27 Environmental Law Institute (ELI) conference at George Washington University. “For example, EPA should not open the door to conducting very narrow assessments of chemicals, some at industry's behest, when Congress intended that EPA do broad assessments.”
On the July 12 webinar, Estreicher and Keller and Heckman's Eric Gotting argued those concerns and others suggest that environmentalists may be weighing lawsuits to challenge various parts of the final rules.
Environmentalists have also faulted the prioritization rule for removing a pre-prioritization step and eliminating a default to a high priority designation if there is insufficient information on all conditions of use, they said.
In suggesting areas of the new law that could draw industry lawsuits, Estreicher noted that environmentalists have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking data submitted under the agency's Chemical Data Reporting rule that has been deemed CBI and therefore withheld from public disclosure. If EPA chooses to grant such requests, companies opposed to the CBI disclosure may seek an injunction in federal district court.
Additionally, the attorneys noted that chemical industry groups have argued EPA's proposed rules banning certain use of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) and two paint stripping chemicals do not meet legal requirements of the revised TSCA and should be withdrawn, while environmentalists urged the Trump EPA to finalize the rules.
The TSCA Section 6(a) rules proposed by the Obama administration are the first such rules proposed since 1991, when a federal court threw out EPA's Section 6 ban of asbestos. But Gotting said that the section 6 rules could face suits from either industry or environmentalists, and that the revised TSCA specifically identifies such rules as subject to a substantial evidence standard of judicial review, which requires that an agency decision seem reasonable.
“Under the substantial evidence standard, the court will take a very detailed look at EPA's decision making process,” Gotting said. He added that a court would assess whether EPA carefully reviewed all data and explained its assumptions and inferences, as well as why it rejected some data while relying on other information in decisionmaking.
While interested parties have a right to sue over any final rule that EPA issues under the revised TSCA, Gotting said certain other agency actions expected under the new TSCA could also face legal challenges. The law requires EPA to issue additional guidance documents to support implementation of the new chemical risk evaluation program.
Courts generally do not consider agency guidance as a reviewable agency action, but Gotting argued that should future guidance be couched in binding language or enforced as a rule, courts could be receptive to a legal challenge. “If you feel a guidance document is overly burdensome or impractical, there is room to challenge those,” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-early-tsca-rules-ripe-suits-environmentalists-industries
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NAS Panel Expected To Advise EPA On Developing Low-Dose Toxicity Tests
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will release next week a report on the health effects that some chemicals may cause at low exposure levels, or doses -- a situation that NAS will say EPA's existing regulatory toxicology testing approaches does not address, though the Trump administration budget sought to eliminate one such program.
“Emerging evidence suggests chemicals such as endocrine disruptors have effects at doses even lower than those used in traditional toxicity testing performed by [EPA], raising concerns about the adequacy of current testing practices,” according to NAS' July 13 statement announcing the expected July 18 release of its report, “Unraveling Low Dose Toxicity: Case Studies of Systematic Review of Evidence.”
The report is expected to offer EPA advice on how to address the issue for endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and likely for other substances that also may have adverse effects at low doses. The NAS report “develops a strategy to evaluate the evidence for adverse human health effects from endocrine-disrupting chemicals at lower doses,” the statement says.
But how or whether EPA will address the issue is uncertain given the Trump administration's budget request for fiscal year 2018, which sought to eliminate funds for EPA's Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP), though Administrator Scott Pruitt has since indicated he hopes to “absorb” the program within the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP).
EPA crafted EDSP to screen pesticides and chemicals found in drinking water for their potential to interact with the human estrogen, androgen and thyroid hormone systems, as directed in the 2006 Food Quality Protection Act.
The program, however, has long been mired in questions over its original testing methods, and in recent years EPA scientists have sought to pivot from the original animal-based testing program to alternative toxicity testing methods that reduce or eliminate animal testing. An EPA advisory panel is scheduled to review another such proposal in November.
But the congressional justification accompanying the administration's proposed FY18 budget request says that “resources and [full-time employee equivalents] have been eliminated for this program in FY18. The EPA will absorb its remaining functions within the pesticides program using the currently available tiered testing battery.”
The proposal sparked ire from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, who questioned Pruitt extensively over the decision at a recent hearing.
“How do you justify eliminating funding for this program? Aren't you alarmed by the link between exposure to chemicals in the environment and consumer products and changes to hormones, health and the development of people and animals? What should EPA's role be?” asked Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY).
Pruitt replied, “I do share your concerns. In fact as we've studied this particular proposal, our hope is we can absorb the remaining functions of the EDSP within the office of the OCSPP we have using currently available tiered testing, battery systems and models to achieve that. … This is our approach currently but we look forward to your input on how this could be restored or addressed differently.”
It is not clear how EPA will proceed because the recently released House appropriations bill for EPA in FY18 does not appear to specifically address EDSP. The bill does, however, provide EPA with $7.5 billion, significantly more than the $5.6 billion the Trump administration had sought.
NAS Report
The upcoming NAS report is the result of a request from the Obama EPA, which sought the academy's advice on the controversial topic of the agency’s chemical toxicity testing approach sufficiently addresses potential risk to human and wildlife health from exposures to low doses of certain chemicals, long pitting toxicologists and pharmacologists against endocrinologists.
The Endocrine Society and other critics of regulatory toxicology have increasingly raised concerns in recent years that chemicals that can disrupt the hormone, or endocrine, system may be less predictable by existing regulatory testing methods because they cause effects at low doses.
This is posited to occur in part because these chemicals’ have non-monotonic dose-response (NMDR) curves that can change direction and may not follow the predictable upward slope of many chemicals’ dose-response curves that regulators are accustomed to assessing.
Current EPA test methods do not account for such outcomes and could incorrectly predict chemicals’ risks, they say.
In response to a 2012 review of studies raising such concerns known as Vandenberg et al, EPA’s toxics office requested what became a months-long review from EPA's research office. The result was a draft white paper released in 2013, including an EPA statement about the relevancy of NMDRs, and discussing whether existing testing methodologies are health protective. The document found sufficient evidence to acknowledge that NMDRs exist, but concluded that does not require altering the existing regulatory toxicity testing regime.
But several of the Endocrine Society's members faulted the agency’s draft paper for misrepresenting key studies the researchers conducted, saying this resulted in flawed conclusions. The society and other critics have charged that toxicology tests upon which EPA and other agencies base their assessments of some chemicals’ human health risks could be missing effects that are not occurring at the relatively high doses at which regulatory testing traditionally occurs.
EPA White Paper
EPA sought NAS review of the draft white paper and the NAS committee urged EPA to redo its draft white paper, after concluding that EPA's scientific review practices were too shoddy for the agency to be able to justify its conclusions.
NAS’ critical review was EPA’s impetus to fund a second NAS committee in 2015, which produced the forthcoming report.
This committee was tasked with reviewing whether the EPA’s chemical toxicity testing approach sufficiently addresses potential risk to human and wildlife health from exposures to low doses of endocrine active chemicals. A 2015 proposal outlining the study indicates that the committee will also address another challenge facing EPA, known as systematic review.
Systematic review represents approaches for collecting and evaluating scientific literature, intended to answer specific, pre-determined questions in a transparent and methodical way. NAS has recommended in recent reports that EPA's influential Integrated Risk Information System adapt systematic review for its assessments, and EPA's toxics office is also working to develop its practice for the new risk evaluations it is tasked to conduct of existing chemicals following last year's reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
The challenge is that systematic review was developed for evaluating medical literature, and there have been difficulties to adopting it for use in environmental health questions, where studies often detail epidemiology or animal toxicology research. The IRIS program has been struggling for several years to craft a systematic review approach for that program's use.
A proposal outlining the study indicates that the NAS committee is asked to “detail findings of systematic reviews of animal and human studies on two chemicals conducted by the study committee, demonstrating how the results can be integrated and considered with other relevant data to draw conclusions about causal associations.”
The report may also consider low dose effects from a broader spectrum of chemicals than those that act through endocrine disruption -- as former Obama EPA Science Advisory Tom Burke appeared to urge the committee to do at its first meeting in 2015.
“I know that much of the thought for this committee and some of the words in the statement of task are really focused toward endocrine-mediated effects. But are the effects that we see in endocrine-mediated effects, are they relevant, are the approaches, is the science relevant to other kinds of endpoints?” Burke said at the NAS panel's first meeting in October 2015. “For example, one of our biggest challenges is neurodevelopment and neurological effects.”
In addition to asking the committee to think beyond the endocrine effects that are a focus of the committee and its charge questions from the agency, Burke also encouraged the committee members to think beyond the mere data and consider its use in regulatory and public health decisionmaking at EPA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/nas-panel-expected-advise-epa-developing-low-dose-toxicity-tests
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Jul 14, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Robert Coleman
This week, EWG released a report highlighting the emerging field of transgenerational toxicity research. For years, EWG has been at the forefront of research on environmental exposures in newborns. Now, new research out of Washington State University at Pullman shows effects of toxic chemicals can extend to the third generation of offspring – great-grandchildren.
EWG has long been an advocate for better personal care product formulation and regulation. This week, we hosted an inspiring 12-year-old who lost her hair after using a dangerous shampoo. We also detailed the widespread use of 1,4-dioxane in children’s personal care products and the Food and Drug Administration’s release of records showing that a large sum of harmful personal care products are marketed to children.
There is good news though – a bipartisan bill would give the FDA the regulatory teeth to research and recall harmful personal care products. This legislation, introduced by Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, has gained widespread support from both health advocates and personal care product manufacturers.
Also, startling research out of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs showed that a flame retardant banned in 2004 is still found in U.S. newborns. EWG was instrumental in the removal of such chemicals from the market due to our analyses of breast milk in 2003 and cord blood in 2004, but these findings are a reminder that children born today still face a body burden from these pervasive chemicals.
For additional coverage on those stories and more, here’s some news you can use going into the weekend.
Transgenerational Toxicity
Parents.com: Could Toxic Chemicals During Pregnancy Harm Your Great-Grandchildren?
"It suggests that some pollutants can cause damages that are passed down from generation to generation," EWG senior research analyst Sonya Lunder, the author of the report, told Parents.com. Reprinted by NewsDog.
Chlorpyrifos
Fusion: In Trump’s America, People Sue the EPA to Block a Toxic Pesticide
Pruitt’s rejection of a chlorpyrifos ban goes against the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation. Last month, the organization said it was “deeply alarmed” by Pruitt’s decision. AAP wrote a joint letter with the Environmental Working Group to Pruitt imploring him to reconsider. They wrote, “The risk to infant and children’s health and development is unambiguous.” Reprinted by Mother Jones.
1,4-Dioxane
Organic Authority: The 14 Toxic Cosmetic Ingredients to Avoid (and How to Find Healthier Alternatives)
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) Skin Deep database found the contaminant in approximately 46% of personal care products tested in 2008. 1,4 dioxane often shows up in items like shampoo, facial cleansers, body wash, bubble bath, baby bath, and liquid soap.
Cosmetics
Refinery 29: The One Mascara That Never Irritates My Sensitive Eyes
In January, the brand's color cosmetics got the seal of approval from the Environmental Working Group as meeting its standards for health and safety. The offerings are eco-friendly and free of parabens, gluten, SLS, artificial colors, synthetic fragrances, and phthalates. Perhaps one of those ingredients was the source of my eye irritation?
Phthalates
New York Times: The Chemicals in Your Mac and Cheese
Environmental and food-safety groups petitioned the FDA last year to remove all phthalates from food, food packaging, and food-processing and manufacturing equipment, though the petition has been delayed temporarily for technical reasons, said Tom Neltner, chemicals-policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, which is coordinating the petition process for 11 advocacy groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Working Group and others. Reprinted by the Boston Globe, Seattle Times and eight other outlets.
Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in ProduceTM
AP: Ask Brianna: How can I eat well and stay fit on a budget?
Use the nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce to decide which fruits and vegetables to splurge on. The “Clean Fifteen” lists foods least likely to contain pesticides, which means you can select their cheaper, non-organic versions. Reprinted by the Kansas City Star, the Charlotte Observer and 192 others.
Cheat Sheet: These 15 Things Could Be Screwing up Your Hormones
If you need to pick and choose which foods to buy organic and which ones to skip, address the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list. These are the fruits and veggies that have the most pesticide residue.
Muscle & Fitness: 5 Fruits And Veggies You Should Always Buy Organic
Here are the 5 types of produce with the highest amount of pesticides this summer, according to the Environmental Working Group, along with suggestions on what to get instead.
Sunscreen
WCVB: 5 healthy sunscreens you can find at the drugstore
According to the Environmental Working Group, these products deliver the most bang for your buck. Reprinted by WBAL and 10 other outlets.
Bicycling.com: The Best Sunscreens for Cyclists
“In the United States, only two ingredients offer strong UVA protection,” says Lunder. So, if you find yourself on vacation abroad this summer, it might be time to stock up!
The Chronicle: Sunscreen should be your last resort
Sunscreens are important — but they should be your last resort, says the Environmental Working Group. Reprinted by The Pike County Courier.
Star Tribune: Friday: 81st Anniversary of the All-Time Record High of 108°
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) urges people to understand how sunscreen works (read: why some brands are much better than others) and to think of it as “just one tool in your arsenal.”
Teen Vogue: How to Tell if Your Sunscreen Protects You From the Sun
Earlier this summer, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released its 11th annual Sunscreen Guide, containing the results of its investigation into more than 880 sunscreens, 480 moisturizers, and 120 lip products with SPF. The guide itself is quite extensive, but one shocking claim stands out right up front: “Almost three-fourths of the products we examined offer inferior sun protection or contain worrisome ingredients.” Reprinted by True Viral News.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/07/ewg-news-roundup-714-toxics-passed-down-generations-harmful-kids-products-and#.WWxsPPmGO00
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Officials Making Progress With Chemical In N. Carolina River
Jul 15, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
WILMINGTON, N.C. — State officials say they’ve lowered the amount of an unregulated chemical in wastewater that’s been dumped in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.
The state departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services said Friday they had lowered the amount of the GenX chemical allowed before drinking water is assumed to be a health risk.
The Cape Fear River is the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands in eastern North Carolina. Test samples collected three years ago detected the chemical in the water supply at levels considered to pose a low risk to humans.
There’s not much data about the relatively new chemical’s health effects.
Chemours, a Wilmington, Delaware-based chemical company with a plant near Fayetteville, has cut its discharges of the compound.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/officials-making-progress-with-chemical-in-n-carolina-river/2017/07/15/ad67499c-695d-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html?utm_term=.79dc3d37de33
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Nordic Council Calls For Prompt Regulatory Action On PFASs
Jul 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Amendments to REACH could help control the substances
The Nordic Council, an inter-governmental cooperation body representing five countries, has called for prompt regulatory action on per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs).
PFASs, and their degradation products, are extremely persistent in the environment, the Council says, and some are proven to be bioaccumulative and toxic. While for others there is a lack of publicly available scientific data.
In a working paper, the Council – which represents Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – says a global regulation on PFASs would be preferable but "given the time necessary to put it in place, existing EU regulatory tools can be used and further developed".
The paper brings together the outcomes of a workshop on joint strategies for PFASs, hosted by the Swedish Chemicals Agency (Kemi) on 5-6 April. Attendees included members of the European Commission, Echa, and delegates from European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
The Council says that REACH would be the most effective regulation to control PFASs, which could be considered for candidate list inclusion as substances of equivalent concern under Article 57(f), due to their extreme persistence and mobility.
Restrictions could also be applied to non-essential uses of PFASs – in particular in consumer products, produced in the EU or imported – in addition to the restriction that has already been adopted for PFOA, its salts and PFOA-related substances, it says.
The Council agreed the following REACH amendments were necessary in order to cover PFASs as a group:include registration for polymers, and a redefinition of a polymer in line with established polymer science definitions;allow for more automatic testing for persistence in substance evaluation;include "very persistent" substances in the list of substances of very high concern or make a specific category for "very very persistent" substances; andensure that imported articles are covered when measures on PFASs are adopted.
Regulatory action should include the following characteristics, the Council says:fill in critical data gaps on PFASs and their alternatives;apply to PFASs as a group/groups, and adapt to their evolution;regulate PFAS-containing articles, and improve the traceability;allow specific uses of PFASs only under controlled conditions;have a global scope given the long-distance mobility of PFASs; andban their reuse or recycling.
There is also a need to raise more awareness on the impact of PFASs, combined with global action to label products containing them, the Council says.
Other legislation, such as the drinking water and groundwater Directives, could also be amended in order to establish limits for PFASs and monitoring obligations, it adds.
PFASs have been widely used across a range of products, processes and articles to give them stain-resistant, waterproof and nonstick properties.
In June, Swedish government agencies and research institutions signed a collaborative agreement to reduce risks and increase knowledge of PFASs.
And long-term monitoring data from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (Amap) released in April showed new chemicals of emerging concern, such as PFASs, are now found in the Arctic.
https://chemicalwatch.com/57673/nordic-council-calls-for-prompt-regulatory-action-on-pfass
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(ACC Mentioned) Northern Panhandle Activity Picking Up in Wake of Shell's Cracker Plans
Jul 16, 2017 | The Exponent Telegram
By Linda Harris
As signs go, Eagle Manufacturing‘s Joe Eddy sees plenty that tell him the Upper Ohio Valley’s economic fortunes are changing.
With one ethane cracker under construction in nearby Monaca, Pennsylvania, and another on the table in nearby Dilles Bottom, Ohio, Eddy says it’s no longer a question of “if” West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle will benefit, but when.
“This opportunity is generational; it’s the best opportunity we’ve had to see growth in the valley for 50 years,” Eddy said. “This type of growth has really never been afforded in the local area. It’s still a big story; it’s the best thing West Virginia has going for it.”
PTT Global, a Thai company, is mulling the feasibility of building a cracker in Dilles Bottom, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from Moundsville. PTT recently exercised its option to purchase a 172-acre parcel in Dilles Bottom, and locals are optimistic the firm will make an announcement by the end of the year.
Preliminary work is already under way outside Monaca, where Royal Dutch Shell is building its $6 million cracker. Slated for completion around 2020, it will use low-cost ethane from gas producers in the Marcellus and Utica shale to produce 1.6 million tons of polyethelene per year. The cracker will create 600 permanent jobs and 6,000 others during the construction phase.
Polyethelene is used in the manufacture of any number of products ranging from food packaging and containers to automotive components. It’s feedstock at Eagle, used in safety cans and cabinets and materials-handling items such as parking stops, barricades, dockplates, post protectors, posts and machine guards.
Eddy said there’s “a significant amount of interest from chemical companies and plastics processors looking for property in the area.”
“The additional supply of ethylene brings in additional chemical manufacturing capacity, and with the supply of polyethelene at both cracker plants we’re going to see expansion at existing processors, like Eagle, as well as new plastics processors moving into the area,” Eddy said. “We actually have been preparing for having a local supply of polyethelene and trying to grow our capacity so we could take advantage of it when the time came.”
Pat Ford, executive director of the Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle, said employment statistics, economic indicators, property inquiries and actual shovel-in-the-ground projects all point to better times ahead. After decades of decline, he said it’s good to see optimism building.
“All you have to do is drive up and down the Ohio River valley right now; there are shovels in the ground from Pittsburgh to Wheeling,” Ford said. “Five years ago, we started seeing it in the form of temporary jobs, temporary construction jobs associated with pipeline, land surveyors, appraisers, deed researchers. We saw all those people moving in and out of our area from all over the country, but they were only here for three to nine months at a time.
“Now, look at what’s happened over the past 24 months — we’re starting to see the temporary jobs tapering down and the permanent jobs growing just as rapidly as we saw construction jobs grow.”TheAssociated General Contractorsorganization reports the Weirton-Steubenville metropolitan statistic area ranked third in the nation in construction growth from November 2015 to November 2016: The national report said the area recorded a 16 percent increase in construction jobs — going from 1,900 to 2,200 construction jobs — over that period.
“Compared to other regions of West Virginia, Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, we probably have the most rapid growth rate in our region, and also the highest increases in construction activity not just in the tri-state area, but throughout the country,” Ford said.The unemployment rate was at 5 percent in Brooke and Hancock counties in May, the lowest it’s been in nearly a decade, and less than half what it was (13 percent) when Shell announced it was considering building a cracker in 2010. Meanwhile, May unemployment was 3.9 percent in Ohio County; 4.7 in Marshall; 5.5 in Wetzel and 5.1 in Tyler. In nearby Monaca, unemployment was 5.8 percent. May unemployment was 5.7 percent in Belmont County, Ohio, where PTT Global’s proposed site is.
“At the nadir of the steel mill (consolidation) in January 1983, the unemployment rate in the 10-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area was 17.1 percent,” said Jack Manning, executive director of the Beaver County (Pa.) Chamber of Commerce. “In Beaver County, the unemployment rate was 27.1 percent. That nadir really started the population drain that Beaver County just hadn’t recovered from. If you think about it in those terms, it’s really been quite a while since we had anything even close to a $6 billion investment and the potential for prosperity like this, boosting employment and prosperity for a real regeneration of opportunities and, I think prosperity for our region.”
Though the cracker construction won’t be done for a couple of years, Manning said his community is already seeing new businesses coming in for the construction phase. Others are sizing sites up for downstream opportunities. There’s been a flurry of highways upgrades, including several new interchanges and bridges added to a nearby interstate, to accommodate the anticipated traffic load.
“Most of those folks have bought property or are looking for property and making plans to come in and be downstream,” he said. “There’s been an amazing transformation of the landscape in the area of the plant, now we’re starting to see a lot of other plants come in to help support construction ... and there’s a tremendous amount of housing (going in). Three hotels are under construction, there’s apartment complexes, condos and new single family homes being built. All of those are in anticipation of workers coming in.”
Manning said the downstream plastics business “is an $800 billion enterprise in the U.S. alone. And, according to the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. chemical industry (represents) almost 25 percent of our gross domestic product — it’s a significant contributor to the balance of trade because we export significant amounts.”
“That’s why I get upset with naysayers about chemical or plastics plants coming into the area,” Manning added. “Ninety-six percent of all manufactured goods are touched by the chemical industry: If you like your iPhones, if you like your computers, your cars, your food packaging that reduces spoilage ... the benefits of the industry are significant, but the impact on the economy is huge. If we can entice them into the Tri-State area and create an Appalachian hub that can compete with the Gulf Coast and Texas, we can have long-term jobs and opportunities and be able to regrow our population and sustain the economy.”
Tyler County, which recently joined the West Virginia Polymer Alliance Zone, is close enough to the Shell cracker to see some spin-off growth. It’s even closer to Dilles Bottom — about 42 miles — where PTT Global has been mulling the feasibility of a cracker.
“We’re enthusiastic about the possibility, not just for midstream, but downstream development,” said Eric Peters, executive director of the Tyler County Development Authority. “We see opportunities for processors of ethylene here, probably small- to medium-size users. We can probably put together about a 100-acre site, we can put together sites for smaller or medium-sized downstream users. We also see opportunities for existing companies to ramp up their polymer production.”
He also sees potential for expansion of existing companies, like Momentive, a specialty chemical company with a plant in Friendly. “Historically, they’ve had polymer units. We see an opportunity for expansion and new investment by them if they choose to use the feedstock that would come out of Dilles Bottom. I can’t speak for them, but I see that as a inducement for them to consider going back in more polymers production.”
Peters said the more inquiries they get, “the better chance (we) have of landing something real.” And that, he said, is just the shot in the arm the regional economy needs.
“If that interest is piqued outside the region, we know they’re going to start coming to us for sites and opportunities here and that gives us the opportunity to refer (them) to our existing companies,” Peters said. “It’s sexy to recruit new companies, but our real bread and butter is retention and expansion of our existing companies, and we want to do all we can to get in on it.”
Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott said his city may not be able to cash in on land-intensive industrial projects, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be left behind.
“Wheeling does not possess a surplus of flat, developable properties suitable for the offshoot industries that tend to cluster around crackers (but) we have a surplus of office space in our downtown business district suitable for the corporate activity associated with all this regional commerce,” Elliott said, adding there’s a “very palpable level of excitement in and around Wheeling about the prospect of the Belmont County cracker plant being announced later this year.”
“While it is difficult to project the overall regional economic impact of a cracker plant, there is no doubt that this facility would be a tremendous shot in the arm to our regional economy,” he added, pointing out Wheeling is ideally positioned “to become the corporate headquarters for the cracker-based economy, particularly when you consider the impressive collection of banks, law firms, accounting firms and financial firms in and around our downtown.”
Peters said it’s important to take advantage of new opportunities as they present themselves.
“What could derail it, I think, is any hesitation on our part regionally to welcome this and encourage and attract users of the products coming out of the cracker plants — of course, that means ethylene,” he said. “We saw how, over a 20, 30-year period our polymer business go south to the Gulf Coast because that’s where the feedstock was being produced, the companies rebuilt near the feedstock.
“Now, we’re going to have the feedstock here and we have to do everything we can to show them this is a good investment — the feedstock, probably less expensive feedstock, is going to be produced here, in our backyard.”
Peters said a workforce that isn’t prepared to meet the demands of the new industry also could be problematic, “not only for the cracker but for companies coming in here to use those feedstocks. We have to be ready to populate the workforce, to have a workforce with the technical skills and the ability to be trained on-site.”
And Eddy said a companion project, an Appalachian Storage Hub, is crucial, to provide underground storage for the high-value natural gas liquids and chemicals like ethane, ethylene and propane. Instead of pumping them to the Gulf Coast or shipping them oversees, the proposed hub would capture their value for the states that would most benefit — West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
In May, the American Chemistry Council suggested the region could support as many as five crackers. It estimated a storage hub, coupled with pipeline development and the crackers, could spur more than $30 billion in new development, attract as many as 100,000 new jobs and generate nearly $3 billion in new federal, state and local tax revenue in the four-state region.
“Seventy percent of plastics processing capacity in North America is within 400 miles of this area, so it makes great sense, with the feedstock of ethane, to start making polyethylene for the centralized part of plastics processing capacity,” Eddy said. “You don’t want to have a conversation about cracker growth potential without discussing an Appalachaian Storage hub.”
“There’s a total value-added multipler of 20:1 by keeping it here, cracking it locally as opposed to shipping it,” Eddy said, outside the Appalachian Basin.
Ford, meanwhile, points to heightened interest in available properties, as well as recent site announcements in the two northernmost counties: Bidell Gas Compression purchased an idled 100,000-square-foot machine shop on the outskirts of Weirton to manufacture, sell, lease and service natural gas and compression equipment. Bidell will initially employ 60 people, with as many as 300 permanent jobs expected when it reaches full operations. West Virginia beat four other states — Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and New York — to land Pietro Fiorentini‘s first U.S. plant, a $9 million investment that will employ 41 in the early stages and as many as 150 when production ramps up. Fiorentini produces pressure regulators, valves and meter systems for the natural gas industry.
He said they’re also showing properties throughout Brooke and Hancock counties to investors — including the 30,000-square foot shell building funded by the state at the former TS&T pottery site in Chester. He says there’s a “high likelihood” an announcement on the shell building site will be coming by the end of the year. The building can be expanded to about 70,000 square feet if need be.
“One cry we’ve always heard since 2009 is, ‘What are you doing to create opportunities for our young people?’ Well, we’re finally there, seven years later,” Ford said. “We’re doing it.”
https://www.theet.com/news/free/northern-panhandle-activity-picking-up-in-wake-of-shell-s/article_dc549df4-bbf9-52b7-a863-d2210477ce49.html
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U.S. Says Energy Transfer's Rover Gas Project Violated Rules
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick, Naureen S. Malik and Tim Loh
U.S. regulators are accusing Energy Transfer Partners LP of violating federal rules by failing to disclose information about a historic house it razed to make way for the controversial Rover natural gas pipeline.
As part of an investigation, staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission made a preliminary finding that the Dallas-based pipeline operator violated the Natural Gas Act when it failed to “fully and forthrightly” provide relevant information about a historic house in Ohio that the company ended up demolishing last year to make way for the $4.2 billion, 713-mile (1,150-kilometer) Rover line being built in the eastern U.S. The agency disclosed the alleged violations in a notice on its website July 13.
The accusations are only the latest woe for the Rover project. Energy Transfer drew fire after the demolition last year and then had to race against the clock to clear thousands of miles of trees before a bat-roosting season. Most recently, it has been fighting with Ohio's regulators over massive spills of drilling fluids that the state says have done environmental damage.
The challenges have left gas traders guessing as to whether the first part of Rover will really come online this month as promised. When the whole line is in service, it will be capable of moving more than 3 billion cubic feet of gas from eastern U.S. shale formations to markets daily.
The commission said July 13 that Rover “falsely promised it would avoid adverse effects to a historic resource that it was simultaneously working to purchase and destroy.” The agency said in its notice that the company then made “several misstatements” about why it had purchased and demolished the Stoneman House.
Resolving Issues
Energy Transfer spokeswoman Alexis Daniel said by email that the company has already resolved “all outstanding issues” related to the house's demolition with the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office and would “continue to work with FERC to address any remaining Stoneman House issues.”
Exactly how the notice will affect the timing of the project remains to be seen. Commission spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen declined to comment beyond the notice.
The agency's enforcement investigations can take years to conclude and have cost companies millions of dollars in civil penalties. In February, FERC ordered GDF Suez Energy Marketing to pay $41 million in civil penalties and turn over $40.8 million in profits after alleging that the company had violated the agency's anti-manipulate rule.
Energy Transfer razed the 173-year-old Stoneman House without prior approval from the commission—and despite staff recommendations to minimize harm to the property, according to the agency. The commission later used the demolition as the basis for denying Energy Transfer a blanket construction permit and referred the matter to its Office of Enforcement in February.
Christi Tezak, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners LLC, said in an emailed note that, based on conversations with those familiar with the agency's enforcement process, “violations of certificate terms are serious.”
The agency's Office of Energy Projects “has the authority to halt construction on a project,” she said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116623199&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116623199&jd=116623199
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California Bill To Lock In Obama Rules Faces New Legal Threats
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
Controversial California legislation that aims to lock in to state law Obama-era environmental and worker safety standards is drawing new legal threats and questions, with one major business group charging that the measure violates the state constitution and unlawfully delegates legislative power to state agencies.
The new attacks on the bill, SB 49 by California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D) and Sen. Henry Stern (D), appear to be troubling some Democrats in the state Assembly, possibly casting doubt about the measure's fate as it moves to a key fiscal panel and potentially to the Assembly floor, Inside Cal/EPA's Curt Barry reports.
SB 49 -- the California Environmental, Public Health, and Workers Defense Act of 2017 -- is one of several high-profile bills being sponsored by leading Democrats to counter the Trump administration's current and threatened rollbacks of federal environmental and worker safety regulations.
The measure would establish a "minimum baseline for environmental, public health, and labor standards" by referencing federal law, and prohibit California standards from falling below the baseline, according to an analysis by the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Affected state agencies would be required to "adopt a standard present in the baseline if that standard is unavailable under state law."
But the California Chamber of Commerce, a leading opponent of SB 49, is adding to its criticisms of the bill, raising several concerns during a recent Assembly judiciary panel hearing.
Chamber lobbyist Louinda Lacey charged that the bill violates the "single-subject rule" in the California Constitution "by trying to use a common legislative purpose to conjure up multiple subjects into one subject. There are a myriad of subjects in this bill -- that can be practically shown by the fact that this was triple-referred, yet none of the committees have considered the endangered species provision of the bill or the labor provisions of this bill."
New amendments to SB 49 provide "broad and sweeping discretion to the [state] agencies, which we believe would be an unlawful delegation of legislative power without sufficient parameters," Lacey argued. "For example, we're asking the agencies to interpret the status of the law and then to make law, which is a task that's within the purview of the legislature."
Further, the "broad, sweeping discretion" given to state agencies under the bill "creates additional uncertainty as to what the baseline is, because it is left to the agencies' discretion in the future," Lacey testified. "So while this provides more flexibility to the agencies, it does not allow for certainty for businesses."
Regarding the private right of legal action, Lacey argued that SB 49 would go beyond federal law that limits attorneys fees to prevailing parties by awarding such fees to additional categories of plaintiffs, including for cases that are dismissed.
She also charged that the private rights of action in SB 49 go beyond the status quo by allowing new lawsuits targeting more stringent regulations adopted by state agencies as a result of the measure.
But Kate Poole, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is supporting SB 49, testified earlier in the judiciary panel hearing that SB 49 "retains existing citizen enforcement rights under state law if, and only if, those rights are curtailed under federal law."
Further, parties are required to provide 60 days notice prior to bringing any litigation, "which allows an agency time to either correct the action or allows a polluter to stop the violations before a court action is commenced," Poole said.
Poole also charged that some opponents of SB 49 are currently lobbying in Washington D.C. to "undermine" several federal environmental protection statutes. She said, for example, that the California Farm Bureau Federation is supporting legislation in the U.S. House that would repeal "science-based protections" under the ESA affecting the Bay/Delta region in California, and roll back water quality standards to 1994 levels.
"This bill is trying to prevent those [kinds of] attacks from succeeding in California," she added.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/california-bill-lock-obama-rules-faces-new-legal-threats
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House To Revisit Bill Promising Big Changes To Landmark Law
Jul 17, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Last month, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt ordered a one-year delay in enforcement of the agency's 2015 ground-level ozone standard. The House this week is poised go much further.
Up for passage is a bill that would kick that milestone to 2025 and make the most wide-ranging changes to the Clean Air Act in more than a quarter century.
For most members, the "Ozone Standards Implementation Act," H.R. 806, will make for familiar reading, given that the House passed a similar measure last year.
The new version would again delay EPA attainment designations for the 70 parts per billion ozone threshold until 2025; it would also reset the Clean Air Act's cycle for reviewing the air quality standards for ozone, particulate matter and four other pollutants from once every five years to once every decade.
Among a host of more narrowly tailored provisions, the legislation also includes an industry-sought change to permitting requirements and mandates an EPA study of the impact of foreign sources of ozone on levels inside the United States.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill late last month on a party-line vote (E&E News PM, June 28). At a meeting late this afternoon, the House Rules Committee plans to set the terms of floor debate, meaning that the full House could take up the legislation as early as tomorrow.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, results from the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunlight; it has been linked to asthma attacks in children and worsened symptoms in people with emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases.
For the bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), the rationale for the measure hasn't changed. Under President Obama, EPA had lowered the ozone standard to 70 ppb in October 2015, citing the need to protect public health.
But only seven months earlier, in March 2015, the agency had issued the formal implementation guidance for the previous 75 ppb standard, set in 2008. As a result, Olson said, large parts of the country now have to juggle the attainment process for two separate thresholds.
Given that EPA expects most counties to meet the 2015 standard by 2025 with programs already under way, Olson argues that air quality will continue to improve, regardless of a delay in the attainment designations, which had originally been scheduled for this October. Critics, who have christened the bill the "Smoggy Skies Act," say it would harm public health by slowing needed cleanup measures.
But if the arguments are familiar from last year, the political climate is dramatically different. Last year, Olson's previous version of the bill, H.R. 4775, quickly ran into a veto threat from then-President Obama and then died in the Senate.
No such pushback is likely from President Trump, who has trumpeted the importance of reducing regulations on manufacturers and other businesses.
In pushing back the attainment designations until 2018, Pruitt last month cited the need to better understand the impact of ozone from foreign sources and other factors. At his direction, EPA employees are also reviewing the 70 ppb benchmark with an eye to possible changes.
But to clear the Senate, where Republicans hold 52 seats, Olson's latest bill will need 60 votes. Still to be seen is whether the GOP can corral eight Democrats willing to get behind it.
Schedule:: The House Rules meeting is Monday, July 17, at 5 p.m. in H-313 Capitol.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/07/17/stories/1060057432
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Military Climate Study Survives With Crucial House GOP Votes
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Language directing the Defense Department to focus on national security threats climate change poses survived in the fiscal 2018 defense bill.
The House passed July 14 the National Defense Authorization Act, which retains the climate-related national security provisions, by a vote of 344-81. That vote came a day after Republicans suffered a rare defeat in trying to kill a climate measure.The climate section puts the House on record in viewing climate change as a “direct threat” to U.S. national security and directs the Defense Department to compile a general top 10 list of U.S. military installations in each branch that are most vulnerable to sea-level rise and other climate impacts. The section appeared to be in jeopardy July 13 when Republican Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) offered an amendment to strike the section, but 46 Republicans joined Democrats in voting it down.
Buck told Bloomberg BNA before the vote that he was confident the amendment would prevail, given a string of Republican victories that have derailed climate funding and policies in recent years. But the Perry-Buck proposal, which appeared to have sailed through an afternoon voice vote, fell to defeat by a vote of 185–234 hours later.
The vote was hailed by groups that argue for robust preparedness for climate impacts on the U.S. military including the American Security Project, which is headed by former U.S. Marine Corps Brigadier General Stephen Cheney.
Climate Security Concern Reaffirmed
The vote reaffirms the U.S. military's efforts in recent years to prepare for climate impacts, from threats to military bases from rising sea level to destabilizing impacts of climate overseas. “From Syria to Mali to our own borders, sea level rise and increasingly frequent and extreme droughts and floods are undermining our security” and increasing instability, the American Security Project said after the vote.
“The United States has been a leader in this area for years,” the group noted, adding that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, has repeatedly pledged to support military preparedness for climate impacts.
The defense-related climate language, included in Section 336 of the bill, is the only language in the defense authorization bill that directly referred to climate change.
The climate section refers to ways in which increasing temperatures, droughts, and other climate impacts may already be contributing to conflicts around the world.
Even some climate advocates acknowledge the national security implications of the provisions may have helped sway some Republicans to back the section, including some who might have had a harder time voting for climate action without the connection to national security.
“I think that's a fair distinction,” Angela Anderson, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program, told Bloomberg BNA July 14. “But that's still good news because regardless of how some members might feel about the science about climate change, they want the military and folks in the services to have all the information they need to keep themselves safe and maintain our readiness.”
“And it shows ideology doesn't get in the way of making sure the military has what it needs. So it's not earth shattering. But it's a good sign,” she said.
Buck, the Colorado Republican who co-sponsored the amendment to kill the section, said he recognizes that the climate is changing but is skeptical that the impacts will be as grave over the coming decades as some scientists predict.
“The issue here is whether we need to spend money on climate change in the Department of Defense,” he said, arguing that the money would be better spent addressing backlogs in maintenance for U.S. Navy planes and other defense needs. “I think we have better priorities, and I want to make sure that we fund the core mission,” of U.S. defense.
Some Top Republicans Vote No
The 46 Republicans who voted to defend the national security climate section included a handful of top Republicans who bucked party leaders in joining Democrats, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and the previous chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who co-chairs the Climate Solutions Caucus of nearly 50 House members split evenly between the two parties, said the vote showed the group was just beginning to flex its muscles in the climate debate. But it is unclear whether the coalition can extend the victory to more difficult terrain on climate change, such as battling the Trump administration's rollback of climate regulations and zeroing out of international climate funding.
Climate caucus members are starting to “build momentum for this cause in Congress,” Curbelo said in a statement after the amendment vote, which he called a “great step forward for all who accept the reality of climate change and know Congress needs to act to address it.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116623190&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116623190&jd=116623190
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After Discussion, Macron Says Trump 'Understood' Importance Of Paris Climate Deal
Jul 16, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Savrasnky
French President Emmanuel Macron said he pressed President Trump on the possibility of returning the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement during the two leaders' Paris meeting last week.
During an interview Sunday in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Macron said Trump "listened" to him, according to the Associated Press.
"He understood the reason for my position, notably the link between climate change and terrorism," Macron said.
He added: “He said he would try to find a solution in the coming months. We spoke in detail about what could allow him to return to the Paris deal."
Trump announced earlier this year his plan to pull the U.S. out of the climate change agreement.
Trump visited Paris last week and met with Macron, a vocal supporter of the Paris deal and a critic of Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the accord between nations.
During a joint news conference after the meeting, Trump said "something could happen with respect to the Paris accord."
"We'll see what happens," he said.
“But we’ll talk about that in the coming period of time. If it happens, that will be wonderful. If it doesn’t that’s ok, too," according to Trump.
Macron also said during the Sunday interview that he thinks Trump left the country with a "better image of France than upon his arrival."
“Our countries are friends, so we should be too,” Macron said, adding he thinks the two gained a "better, intimate knowledge of each other" during Trump's visit.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/342255-macron-on-trump-meeting-we-spoke-in-detail-about-what-could-allow
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Carbon from L.A. to Paris Jumps as Lawmakers Plan Tightening
Jul 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr, Joe Ryan and Marine Strauss
Carbon prices from California to New Zealand are soaring as lawmakers across the globe seek more stringent rules for their greenhouse-gas markets.
California emission permits surged to a four-year high this week after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) published a plan to extend the biggest U.S. carbon trading program. In Europe, allowances reached their highest level since March as politicians debate proposals to cut a permit glut, while New Zealand carbon contracts rose before a review of its system.
Most countries are looking for the most cost-effective way to switch from the fossil fuels blamed for climate change. Even in the U.S., President Donald Trump's decision last month to pull out of the landmark Paris accord on cutting emissions triggered widespread condemnation by civic and state leaders across the country including from the governors of New York and Massachusetts.
China is planning to install the world's largest carbon market this year, though it's seen phasing in industries over time to smooth the impact on the economy. The biggest energy consumer burned the least coal in six years in 2016, became the number one producer of renewable energy and even lowered its emissions of climate-warming gases, BP Plc data show.
“There seems to be a clearer political will to lift carbon prices,” said Ingo Ramming, the London-based co-head of commodity solutions for Commerzbank AG. “Even if China's national carbon market takes longer to install than expected, globally there's a lot happening, especially among the North American states and provinces.”
In carbon trading, governments set a limit on emissions and then auction off or give away rights to pollute within the cap. These permits can be sold by more efficient companies to those that are less efficient. As governments periodically lower the caps, overall emissions fall.
No Poison
California's proposed legislation is designed to extend the basic current structure of its cap-and-trade program through 2030. Brown emphasized early this week that his plan would not only help limit global warming, but “protect vulnerable communities from industrial poisons.”
On July 13, he urged lawmakers to extend the program to show the world how to lower the risks of mass migration, fires and disease. “This isn't for me. I'm going to be dead. It's for you. And it's damned real. So I just ask you; take it seriously.”
California's December allowances closed at a peak of $15.41 a metric ton this week, the highest since January 2013 when the program started, according to data from exchange ICE Futures.
“They've never been this high, except for the very beginning of the market,” said Lenny Hochschild, managing director at Evolution Markets Inc., the environmental broker based in White Plains, N.Y.
In Europe, lawmakers are currently debating proposals to control the supply of emission allowances as a way to boost prices in its 12-year-old carbon market. Per Lekander, a fund manager at Lansdowne Partners U.K. LLP in London, reckons permit values will double within a year if the plans are approved.
“Finally, after 10 years of oversupply, this mechanism is now about to deliver what was intended,” Lekander said.
European Union efforts to reform its $48 billion cap-and-trade system have repeatedly failed to increase the penalty for polluting, with the price of emissions slumping more than 80 percent since 2008 because of the glut. Futures fell 0.8 percent to 5.32 euros ($6.07) a ton on ICE Futures Europe July 14.
The latest steps to overhaul the market looked “promising” after legislators met July 10, said Siim Kiisler, the environment minister of Estonia, current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency. Lawmakers meet again on the market changes in September.
The Group of 20 nations published its first-ever climate and energy action plan at the weekend. The U.S. was the only member that didn't agree that the Paris accord was “irreversible.”
“It's good to see the countries taking a stand against the regressive climate policies of President Trump,” said Trevor Sikorski, head of carbon and natural gas at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=116623201&vname=dennotallissues&fn=116623201&jd=116623201
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7th Circuit Hands Win To EPA On D.C. Circuit Review Of 'National' Policies
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in a unanimous July 12 opinion is agreeing with EPA's bid to transfer to the D.C. Circuit a suit over an area's attainment designation for federal sulfur dioxide (SO2) air standards, revising its precedent to make it easier to send lawsuits over “nationally applicable” rules to the D.C. Circuit.
The decision is a win for EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) which had argued that keeping the suit over one specific area's designation in the 7th Circuit risked fragmentation of the methods by which different areas across the United States are labeled attainment or nonattainment for the SO2 and other national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
Electric utility Southern Illinois Power in the case challenged a Jan. 18 Obama EPA decision to reject its petition for reconsideration of the July 12, 2016, nonattainment designation for Williamson County, IL. The area surrounds the company's Marion, IL, power plant. But Judge Diane Sykes, writing the opinion for fellow Judges William Bauer and Kenneth Ripple, said the designation was part of a nationally applicable rule. Under the Clean Air Act, challenges to such regulations must be heard in the D.C. Circuit, but other circuits can hear suits over EPA rules without national impact.
“Overlapping, piecemeal, multicircuit review of a single, nationally applicable EPA rule is potentially destabilizing to the coherent and consistent interpretation and application of the Clean Air Act,” Sykes wrote.
At May 30 oral argument in the case, DOJ attorney Dustin Maghamfar, representing EPA, said that “the D.C. Circuit is the exclusive forum” for challenges to EPA's 2016 rule that said which areas are either attaining or violating the 2010 SO2 NAAQS. EPA determined the rule to be nationally applicable because it set designations for many states. “There is real practical harm and consequences to having different rules apply to different parts of the country for how you determine their nonattainment,” he said.
The court's decision endorses EPA's argument that the SO2 designations rule is nationally applicable and therefore the legal challenge over the area designation at issue in the 7th Circuit belongs in the D.C. Circuit.
In its unanimous opinion transferring the SO2 litigation, known as Southern Illinois Power Cooperative v. EPA, et al, to the D.C. Circuit, the three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit also overturned its own precedent set in a Clean Air Act suit from 1993 in Madison Gas and Electric Co. v. EPA, which it said was “mistaken.”
Southern Illinois Power relied on the Madison Gas decision to bolster its argument that disputes over designation of areas as attaining or violating federal air standards should be heard in regional courts of appeals, since local circumstances determine whether areas are in attainment with the NAAQS.
EPA countered by asking to transfer the suit to the D.C. Circuit because it hears suits over rules that are nationally applicable or that have been determined by the agency to have “nationwide scope or effect."
'Nationally Applicable'
Because the designation at issue for Williamson County was part of a rule setting attainment status for the 2010 SO2 NAAQS, EPA argued in the suit that the rule was “nationally applicable.” As such, the case can only be heard in the D.C. Circuit, the agency said, warning that leaving regional courts to decide such issues would fragment policymaking on NAAQS attainment nationally and leave some areas at a disadvantage to others.
The 7th Circuit panel agreed, finding that Madison Gas was wrongly decided. In that case, the court determined that it had jurisdiction to hear a challenge to a Clean Air Act rulemaking that implemented source-specific determinations under the national acid rain program.
The court's decision in Southern Illinois Power should make it easier for EPA to ensure disputes over similar air law issues are heard in the D.C. Circuit, for cases originating within the 7th Circuit states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
In her opinion for the court, Sykes however downplays the impact of breaking with Madison Gas, noting that the court has seldom relied on the case in other decisions and has on several occasions transferred suits contesting NAAQS attainment designations to the D.C. Circuit. “Our decision today does not disturb deeply established precedent; we’ve cited Madison Gas in just one published opinion,” the court's 1998 decision in New York v. EPA, Sykes writes.
In New York, three northeastern states filed a petition for review challenging an EPA action exempting several Great Lakes states from nitrogen-oxide emission regulations. The court found venue proper in the 7th Circuit, because the EPA decision at issue was “limited to a cluster of states; it thus is regional in a literal sense.” Even then, however, “our decision in New York did not follow the petition-focused method adopted” in Madison Gas, Sykes writes.
Nonetheless, Sykes confronts the precedent set by Madison Gas. “Regrettably, Madison Gas was mistaken. And here, the structural significance of the Clean Air Act’s venue provision makes the case for overruling especially strong. Overlapping, piecemeal, multicircuit review of a single, nationally applicable EPA rule is potentially destabilizing to the coherent and consistent interpretation and application of the Clean Air Act. Madison Gas is overruled,” she writes.
Madison Gas “directly contradicts the venue statute’s plain text,” she finds. The “analytical method adopted in Madison Gas stands in direct conflict with the actual text of the venue provision, which . . . focuses entirely on the nature of the agency action in question (is the action nationally applicable or locally or regionally applicable?) and omits any reference to the scope or nature of the petitioner’s challenge.”
'Ultimate Outcome'
Further, the “ultimate outcome” of Madison Gas illustrates why the air law is correct to ensure centralized review of nationally applicable or nationwide rules, Sykes finds. “Despite our initial conclusion in Madison Gas that the petitioner’s challenge was based on an entirely local factor, our final decision on the merits had much broader implications. Indeed, at the merits phase, we rejected the EPA’s interpretation of the statute and vacated the allocation of pollution allowances to the petitioner’s facilities,” Sykes writes. “In so doing, we called into question the EPA’s interpretation of the statute as it applied to other facilities around the country.”
As a result of the Madison Gas ruling, EPA granted the utility more pollution allowances, but also revised the allowances for other facilities across the country to avoid exceeding a national emissions cap, EPA told the court.
The court's opinion accepts the arguments that DOJ's Maghamfar raised in the suit, where he warned against allowing any court but the D.C. Circuit to review the designations rule. If it is easier or harder to be designated attainment in one part of the country versus another, then “that is problematic,” he said at argument.
The court accepted this position and rejected Southern Illinois Power's claim that EPA's designations rule involved a fact-specific determination concerning a single area of the country, and that “it is not a national thing.”
The company claimed that EPA, in effect, grouped 61 different rulemakings on 61 different areas together and labeled them a single national rule, without a factual rationale for doing so.
Although the court sides with EPA in its ruling, the judges rejected EPA's assertion that Southern Illinois Power is “distinguishable” from Madison Gas because the adverse consequences of granting industry's petition in Southern Illinois Power would be greater than those of siding with industry in Madison Gas. The court found the issues in both cases indistinguishable, forcing it to overrule the earlier decision.
The D.C. Circuit must now rule on the merits of the case over the SO2 designation, but courts have traditionally been deferential to EPA on technical decisions such as which areas are designated nonattainment for NAAQS.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/7th-circuit-hands-win-epa-dc-circuit-review-national-policies
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California Governor Fights To Achieve Two-Thirds Vote For Cap & Trade
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and legislative leaders are fighting to persuade two-thirds of lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly to support legislation to extend California's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program to 2030, but it remains unclear whether their effort will succeed ahead of floor votes scheduled for July 17.
Successful votes in the coming days could be a watershed moment for the trading system, which is the only program in the country to cover nearly all major economic sectors. Coming shortly after state courts rebuffed an industry legal challenge to the program's GHG allowance auctions, a two-thirds vote would provide a significant boost to the program's long-term vitality.
Brown and leaders of the Senate and Assembly included in the legislation fee and tax relief to attract some Republican votes, and are supporting a separate measure backed by Democrats to implement a new air quality monitoring and control program to reduce pollution in disadvantaged communities.
AB 398, authored by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D), is the measure extending the cap-and-trade program to 2030. AB 617, sponsored by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D) and Eduardo Garcia, is the new air quality improvement program that also hikes monetary penalties against violators. While AB 398 is an “urgency” measure requiring a two-thirds vote, AB 617 requires only a simple majority vote.
Brown testified in support of AB 398 during a July 13 hearing of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, calling the cap-and-trade program the “most efficient and elegant” strategy to achieve the state's long-term GHG targets. He warned lawmakers, especially Republicans, that if AB 398 does not pass by a two-thirds vote, the state would move to a “command-and-control” system that would carry costs on businesses that are three to five times the amount that the cap-and-trade program would create. “That will be noticed by your constituents,” Brown warned the panel.
Brown predicted that “we are going to get it,” referring to the two-thirds vote on AB 398. “Whatever I have to do, I'm going to do it.”
Brown also noted that AB 398 includes a provision that would suspend until 2030 controversial fire protection fees that Republicans have opposed for years. The governor said that opposing AB 398 would mean that the Republicans would be voting in favor of continuing the fee.
At the hearing, the environment committee approved AB 398 by a 5-2 vote, sending it to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The panel was also expected to approve AB 617 and send it to the fiscal committee.
Super-Majority Thresholds
In the Senate, 27 votes are needed to achieve the two-thirds threshold. Sources said at press time that they had heard that at least one Democrat, Sen. Josh Newman, might vote against AB 398. Under that scenario, where 26 other Democrats vote in favor of the bill, one Republican would be needed to achieve the two-thirds super-majority.
The Senate Republican Caucus in a July 11 letter to Brown said it is “united” in opposing AB 398 because of its cost impacts, saying that they could not support it unless the governor and legislative leaders provided more tax cuts in other sectors.
However, two Republicans in the caucus -- Sens. Tom Berryhill and Anthony Cannella -- did not sign the letter, raising speculation that the caucus might not be as united as claimed and that the two may vote in favor of AB 398.
In the Assembly, 54 votes are needed to achieve the two-thirds mark. It was unclear at press time which Democrats would vote in favor or against AB 398. Some recent media reports claimed that 15 Republicans in the Assembly may vote for the bill; however, others said that Assembly Republican leaders have claimed that none of the house's GOP members will support the bill.
Even though environmental justice groups strongly oppose the cap-and-trade extension bill, some sources say it appears there may be enough liberal and moderate Democrats in the state Legislature that will support the cap-and-trade extension bill to provide the two-thirds margin, given Brown's commitment to sign AB 617 into law.
“My hunch is they probably have the votes, having given tax cuts to bring on some Republicans and brought the Garcias on board as leaders” of the Democrats who support AB 617, says an environmentalist.
This source says that it may be more difficult for the governor to achieve a two-thirds margin in the Assembly than in the Senate.
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D) issued a joint press release July 12, saying that they have scheduled floor votes on the bills for July 17. “Taking up AB 398 and the companion air-quality measure AB 617 next week will also allow our discussion on long-term housing affordability solutions in California to catch up to the climate effort,” the release says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/california-governor-fights-achieve-two-thirds-vote-cap-trade
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Environmentalists fault EPA's approval of California air plan
Jul 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is criticizing EPA's proposed approval of a California district's clean air plan that they say wrongly excludes consideration of ammonia as a precursor to forming air pollution, reviving a debate over the regulation of animal feeding operations' ammonia emissions and implementation of federal air standards.
In a July 12 comment letter to EPA Region 9, CBD faults EPA's proposed approval of a revision to a regulation implementing federal air permitting in Imperial County, CA, under the new source review (NSR) program. Imperial County's Rule 207, which establishes NSR permitting requirements for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), “does not satisfy the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which requires ammonia to be regulated as a PM2.5 precursor,” CBD says. CBD's comments might presage an eventual lawsuit against EPA's approval, if the agency finalizes it as proposed.
Environmentalists have long argued that EPA and states should both evaluate the impacts of ammonia as a precursor to air pollutants such as PM2.5 and ozone.
Some groups, including CBD, have also pushed for EPA to regulate ammonia as a “criteria” air pollutant in its own right, subjecting it to national ambient air quality standards under the air law.
Because Rule 207 lacks “specific enforceable measures” taking into account ammonia emissions as a precursor, EPA cannot approve it, CBD argues. “EPA’s conditional approval is not valid under the CAA and the District’s Rule 207 proposal must be denied. The EPA is therefore obligated to implement a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) that will mandate ammonia as a PM2.5 precursor and cure the Rule 207 deficiency within two years,” CBD says.
Ammonia emissions are a significant issue in Imperial County, which experiences substantial air quality problems but also has a large livestock population. Environmentalists have pressed EPA to regulate ammonia and other air emissions from concentrated animal feed operations, so far without success.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently ruled for environmentalists that EPA must require air emissions reporting from smaller animal feeding operations, which were previously exempt.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-fault-epas-approval-california-air-plan
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