Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 8/3/2017
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Who's Who at the EPA? Latest Staff Picks Continue Alarming Trend.
Aug 3, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
In President Trump’s Washington, polluter lobbyists are grabbing control of decisions that affect the health of our children and families. -
White House Sends Key FERC Nominations to Senate
Aug 3, 2017 | Platts
By Maya Weber
The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may be on the verge of regaining its quorum. In a move that bolsters prospects for fast floor action on two nominees to FERC that have stalled in the Senate, the White House late Wednesday sent over... -
Walmart Becomes First Retailer to Evaluate its Chemical Footprint
Aug 2, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Mike Schade
Today the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) released its second annual report, revealing that Walmart has become the first retailer to evaluate its chemical footprint and has also become a CFP signatory. -
Maine Bans All Flame Retardants in Upholstered Furniture
Aug 3, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Maine legislature has overridden the governor's veto and passed into law a measure banning the use of all chemical flame retardants in upholstered furniture. -
US Study Links Consumer Product Disinfectants to Birth Defects in Rodents
Aug 3, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
Exposure to a mixture of quaternary ammonium compounds (Quats) can lead to birth defects in mice and rats that can last for generations, a study in the US has found. -
Pregnant Women’s exposure to Flame Retardants Linked to Lower Child IQ
Aug 3, 2017 | San Francisco Chronicle
By Jill Tucker
Increased exposure among pregnant women to flame-retardant chemicals found in older furniture and other products is linked to lowered IQs in their children, UCSF researchers said Thursday. -
States, Enviros Urge Court to Reject New Bid to Kill EPA Reg
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
States and environmental groups that support an Obama-era rule for methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are urging a federal court to reject critics' latest attempt to kill the restrictions. -
Keystone XL Survived Politics But Economics Could Kill It
Aug 3, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Grant Schulte
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline survived nine years of protests, lawsuits and political wrangling that saw the Obama administration reject it and President Donald Trump revive it, but now the project faces the possibility of death by economics. -
Oklahoma Quake Series Hits on Known Fault; Temblors Less Frequent This Year
Aug 3, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jon Herskovitz
A series of earthquakes near a northern Oklahoma City suburb struck along a known fault line and damaged two power substations, resulting in about 5,000 residents temporarily losing electricity, officials said on Thursday. -
APNewsBreak: Feds Back in ‘Gasland’ Town to Test Water, Air
Aug 3, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Rubinkam
The federal government has returned to a Pennsylvania village that became a flashpoint in the national debate over fracking to investigate ongoing complaints about the quality of the drinking water. -
In Sweltering South, Climate Change Is Now a Workplace Hazard
Aug 3, 2017 | New York Times
By Yamiche Alcindor
Adolfo Guerra, a landscaper in this port city on the Gulf of Mexico, remembers panicking as his co-worker vomited and convulsed after hours of mowing lawns in stifling heat. Other workers rushed to cover him with ice, and the man recovered. -
Evacuation Ordered After CSX Train Derails in Western Pennsylvania
Aug 3, 2017 | UPI
By Ed Adamczyk
Fire crews from several states are looking Thursday into the derailment of 32 rail cars -- some carrying hazardous material -- in western Pennsylvania. -
Pruitt About-Faces, Won't Delay Obama-Era Ozone Regs
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Two months after abruptly delaying a key milestone to implement U.S. EPA's 2015 ground-level ozone standard, agency Administrator Scott Pruitt just as suddenly yesterday reversed that decision. -
Ewire: Is Ozone Reversal Strike Two in Pruitt's Deregulatory Agenda?
Aug 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
Is EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's sudden reversal of his plans to delay designating areas attainment with Obama-era ozone standards the second strike in his efforts to roll back the previous administration's policies? -
GOP Lawmaker Defends Vote for 'Crap Sandwich' Cap and Trade
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
California Republicans who voted to extend the state's cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases last month are taking heat from constituents.
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Who's Who at the EPA? Latest Staff Picks Continue Alarming Trend.
Aug 3, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
In President Trump’s Washington, polluter lobbyists are grabbing control of decisions that affect the health of our children and families.
Their goal: To deregulate and weaken laws and standards that protect our health, environment and a broad range of public services Americans have long taken for granted.
The increasingly crowded playground of industry power brokers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fits a broader pattern of presidential appointees with deep conflicts of interest with companies to which they have close ties, as uncovered by The New York Times and ProPublica.
Their influence extends well beyond Scott Pruitt, the controversial head of the EPA who has been working closely with industry to roll back dozens of the agency’s life-saving standards, often bypassing its own experts.
A growing list of polluter lobbyists are now waiting in the wings to take charge of day-to-day operations at the agency. Here are the latest three examples:
1. Coal lobbyist tapped as EPA deputy
Trump is expected to nominate a well-known coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, as EPA’s deputy and second in command. Wheeler is a top lobbyist for Murray Energy, a coal mining giant that backed Trump in the election and gave $300,000 to his inauguration.
Murray Energy is a long-time friend of Pruitt, too. The company has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pruitt-affiliated political action committees and joined him on six lawsuits against the EPA. These legal attacks set the stage for Pruitt’s current efforts to roll back standards that protect communities and families from smog and carbon pollution, toxic mercury and other health threats.
2. Industry’s hired gun chosen for toxics office
From tobacco to toxic chemicals, Michael Dourson has long been industry’s go-to man to downplay concerns about the safety of their products. Now he’s been nominated to lead the EPA toxics office charged with ensuring the safety of many of the same chemicals he defended.
3. Oil lobby man becomes top EPA lawyer
The oil industry has one of its own in the EPA’s legal office with the appointment of Erik Baptist as the agency’s senior deputy general counsel. Baptist was previously a top lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, which has been lobbying, among other things, to repeal regulations that reduce harmful methane pollution from oil and gas operations.
While most companies in America readily comply with clean air, clean water and other common-sense standards, some deep-pocketed laggards are leading the charge to roll back protections.
They’re part of a plan coming from the very top to quietly tear down decades of environmental progress, as Rolling Stones put it in a recent article. As head of the EPA, Pruitt simply wants the agency to fail.
“If there was ever an example of the fox guarding the henhouse, this is it,” Michael Mann, a noted climate scientist at Penn State University, told the magazine. “We have a Koch-brothers-connected industry shill who is now in charge of climate and environmental policy for the entire country.”
With more foxes joining Pruitt, no environmental law or program is safe from the damage they will try to inflict.
Given the entangled web of conflicts of interest among Trump’s EPA appointees, Congress has an added responsibility to conduct oversight and guard against extremism. And yet members of both parties appear to be distracted, disinterested or timid in the face of the power grab happening at the EPA.
If ever there was a time for a public outcry, it’s now.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/08/03/whos-who-epa-latest-staff-picks-continue-alarming-trend
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White House Sends Key FERC Nominations to Senate
Aug 3, 2017 | Platts
By Maya Weber
The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may be on the verge of regaining its quorum. In a move that bolsters prospects for fast floor action on two nominees to FERC that have stalled in the Senate, the White House late Wednesday sent over the formal nomination of the pick favored by Democrats, Richard Glick, general counsel to the minority on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
President Trump had announced his intent to nominate Glick in late June, but a holdup on sending over his paperwork was complicating efforts to get agreement between the parties to clear for floor action the two nominees already advanced out of committee: Neil Chatterjee, a long-time energy staffer to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Robert Powelson, a Pennsylvania utilities commissioner.
Confirmation of Chatterjee and Powelson would bring the number of sitting commissioners to three, the minimum needed for FERC to conduct the bulk of its business.Timing of action on FERC nominees has been very closely watched because the commission has been without a quorum for six months, and the timelines of a number of key infrastructure projects are hinging on approvals from the agency in the coming weeks.
Separately late Wednesday, the White House also formally nominated Kevin McIntyre, who heads the energy practice for Jones Day, for a seat on the commission. McIntyre, a Republican, is expected to be tapped as chairman.
The formal nominations of Glick and McIntyre bolstered hopes Wednesday evening that Chatterjee and Powelson could be voted out before the Senate recesses for its August break.
The action is "another sign that we may be able to thaw the freeze that has held a number of nominees at bay and held FERC at bay since the commission lost the quorum in February," said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell.
There has been speculation that the formal nomination of Glick could allow FERC nominees to move with a package of other nominations. Key Senate leaders have been working to achieve a package of nominees before breaking for the August recess.
David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, said he did not have any updates on whether FERC nominees would be part of that group, but confirmed that broader negotiations were underway between the Senate leaders. The Senate will be in session Thursday, he said.
Washington sources were anticipating that a vote on FERC nominees could come then.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/white-house-sends-key-ferc-nominations-to-senate-26783029
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Walmart Becomes First Retailer to Evaluate its Chemical Footprint
Aug 2, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Mike Schade
Today the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) released its second annual report, revealing that Walmart has become the first retailer to evaluate its chemical footprint and has also become a CFP signatory.
Screenshot/Bloomberg
The CFP is an emerging tool that retailers can use to understand how they and their suppliers manage toxic chemicals in their supply chains and identify opportunities for improvement.
Walmart is just one of the major companies that participated in this year’s Chemical Footprint Project survey. A diverse range of companies across sectors, sizes, and the globe participated–demonstrating CFP’s relevance and application to a broad array of companies that sell and/or manufacture apparel and footwear, building products and furnishings, packaging, medical devices, household and personal care products, toys, and electronics. Participating companies had annual revenues totaling over $670 billion.
Over the past two years, participating companies that quantified their footprint reduced their use of chemicals of high concern in products by a whopping 416 million pounds–enough to fill over 3,600 swimming pools! You can read all about it in the report and supporting materials here.
Last November, CVS Health became the first major retailer to become a Signatory to the CFP, and Walmart has now become the first retailer to take the next step by participating in the survey and measuring its chemical footprint. Participation in the Chemical Footprint Project is one of the 13 categories in which we evaluated companies on in our 2016 “Who’s Minding the Store?” retailer report card, which we plan to update in November.
We applaud Walmart for taking this important step and for the company’s continued leadership in addressing chemicals of concern in its supply chain. “CFP is making data available for benchmarking and gap analysis, which are critical for us to understand where our company and our suppliers are on the journey to more sustainable chemicals,” explained Zach Freeze, Senior Director for Sustainability for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
We hope other retailers will follow suit and embrace this best-in-class safer chemicals management tool. It is a valuable tool that can help retailers “mind the store.”
http://saferchemicals.org/2017/08/02/walmart-becomes-first-retailer-to-evaluate-its-chemical-footprint/
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Maine Bans All Flame Retardants in Upholstered Furniture
Aug 3, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Maine legislature has overridden the governor's veto and passed into law a measure banning the use of all chemical flame retardants in upholstered furniture.
The measure (LD 182) prohibits the sale of residential upholstered furniture containing more than 0.1% of a flame retardant chemical, or containing more than 0.1% of a mixture that includes them.
As with several flame retardant restrictions considered in other states, the bill was backed by firefighters groups, who have raised concern about increased cancer rates due to exposure to chemicals in burning homes.
The bill cleared the House by a 127-5 margin last month, and sailed through the Senate without a dissenting vote.
But the Republican Governor Paul LePage vetoed the measure earlier this week. He said that by prohibiting all chemical flame retardants, the bill "eliminates the ability for industry to innovatively develop" alternatives, and "bypasses the scientific review process… [and instead] assumes harm to human health from all chemical flame retardants".
The measure, he said, increases red tape for businesses, disrupts interstate commerce, and may increase costs and limit availability of furniture to customers.
The governor also said that firefighters are exposed to a wide variety of chemicals during fires, and that this bill "will not do anything to address these issues"; firefighters themselves, he said, have stated the most effective way to enhance protection is through increased use of respiratory protection.
"I applaud the intent of the bill, but there are other ways to protect firefighters without negatively impacting the economy".
Nevertheless, the legislature overrode his decision yesterday, voting 127-14 in the House and 31-1 in the Senate to enact the law notwithstanding the objections.
'Groundbreaking' law
The Professional Firefighters of Maine, along with the NGOs Prevent Harm and the Silent Spring Institute, as well as the professional group American Academy of Pediatrics, were among the many groups supporting the measure.
Backers called the bill "groundbreaking" for including a comprehensive ban on flame retardants that avoids the possibility for 'regrettable substitutions'.
And Sarah Doll, national director for NGO Safer States, said the measure "sets a national precedent" around restricting flame retardants in furniture.
But the North American Flame Retardants Alliance (Nafra) said it is disappointed in Maine's decision. Spokesperson Bryan Goodman said the new law "will remove a critical layer of fire protection and could increase the vulnerability of Mainers when fires occur".
Chemicals manufacturer Albemarle Corporation testified earlier this year that the bill’s "over the top" ban on all chemical flame retardants encompasses substances that are "so benign that they actually double as over the counter pharmaceuticals".
And Maine's Department of Environmental Protection also testified against the measure in February, citing fears that it would impose a "tremendous" burden on the agency.
The ban takes effect from 1 January 2019.
Meanwhile, San Francisco, California introduced legislation last week that would ban the sale of upholstered furniture and children's products "made with or containing an added flame retardant chemical".
The city joins more than a quarter of US states that have considered legislation to ban or restrict flame retardants this year.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58037/maine-bans-all-flame-retardants-in-upholstered-furniture
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US Study Links Consumer Product Disinfectants to Birth Defects in Rodents
Aug 3, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
Exposure to a mixture of quaternary ammonium compounds (Quats) can lead to birth defects in mice and rats that can last for generations, a study in the US has found.
Researchers from Virginia Tech and Washington State University exposed laboratory animals to dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (ADBAC) and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DDAC). These are common ingredients in cleaners and disinfectants, hand wipes, food preservatives, swimming pool treatments, shampoos and other personal care products.
In a series of experiments, mice and rats were fed a combination of the substances, or were exposed to them at airborne levels or via surface residues from disinfectants used to clean the labs and cages.
In the exposed animals, the rate of neural tube defects increased by 150%. Ambient exposure to the Quats caused transgenerational effects, which persisted through generations of mice that had not been directly exposed to the chemicals.
The study authors suggest that the defects are induced at relatively low, environmentally relevant doses. They say this begs serious questions over the effects ADBAC and DDAC could have on human development.
Although Quat disinfectants are generally viewed as having low toxicity, they are being used more extensively than ever in household, medical and industrial settings. With little human data available, the authors call for an immediate study of their effects on human health and development.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58038/us-study-links-consumer-product-disinfectants-to-birth-defects-in-rodents
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Pregnant Women’s exposure to Flame Retardants Linked to Lower Child IQ
Aug 3, 2017 | San Francisco Chronicle
By Jill Tucker
Increased exposure among pregnant women to flame-retardant chemicals found in older furniture and other products is linked to lowered IQs in their children, UCSF researchers said Thursday.
Every 10-fold increase in women’s exposure during pregnancy to the chemicals — polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs — was associated with a 3.7-point decrease in their children’s IQ, the researchers said.
“A 3.7-point decrease in IQ might not sound like a lot, but on a population-wide level it means more children who need early interventions and families who may face personal and economic burdens for the rest of their lives,” Juleen Lam, associate research scientist at USCF’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said in a statement.
Researchers also found a link between PBDEs and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but cautioned that more studies are necessary to better understand the relationship.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at international data from 3,000 mother-child pairs.
Flame retardant chemicals are found in couches, consumer plastics, mattresses, insulation and car parts, among other products. The chemical became common in the 1970s in California to meet fire safety standards.
In recent years, health concerns related to the fire retardants have resulted state and international legislation to remove such chemicals from products.
“Despite a series of bans and phase-outs, nearly everyone is still exposed to PBDE flame retardants, and children are at the most risk,” Tracey Woodruff, a UCSF professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, said in the statement. “Our findings should be a strong wake-up call to those policymakers currently working to weaken or eliminate environmental health protections.”
In San Francisco, Supervisor Mark Farrell introduced legislation last month to ban flame-retardant chemicals from furniture and children’s products sold in the city. If passed, San Francisco would be the first city in the nation to eliminate the chemicals from those products.
Farrell said banning the chemicals would not only product children and families, but also firefighters who inhale the flame retardants while battling fires and whose blood samples show a high level of dioxins.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Pregnant-women-s-exposure-to-flame-retardants-11731559.php
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States, Enviros Urge Court to Reject New Bid to Kill EPA Reg
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
States and environmental groups that support an Obama-era rule for methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are urging a federal court to reject critics' latest attempt to kill the restrictions.
In a court filing yesterday afternoon, more than a half-dozen states and several environmental groups urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to deny their opponents' request that the court reconsider a recent panel decision reviving U.S. EPA's standards for methane emissions from new oil and gas sources.
A panel of three judges last month rebuked EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for attempting to use a Clean Air Act reconsideration process to stall for 90 days key provisions of the New Source Performance Standards for methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The court issued a mandate earlier this week ordering EPA to enforce the standards (Energywire, Aug. 1).
Two dozen industry groups and 11 states that oppose the rule last week petitioned the court to rehear the case en banc — before all active judges (Energywire, July 28).
Rule supporters pushed back yesterday, arguing that there are no grounds for the en banc court to reconsider the panel's decision, especially because EPA itself has not requested a rehearing.
"The Panel correctly decided that Administrator Pruitt's stay of a duly promulgated regulation was reviewable and was arbitrary, capricious, and in excess of his authority," state and environmental attorneys wrote in a joint response. "Respondent EPA has not even sought rehearing. The Industry and State Respondent-Intervenor petitions do not raise any serious argument that casts doubt on the decision, much less show that this case presents a question worthy of en banc review."
Opponents of the methane rule are expected to respond in a brief later today. They have argued that the methane standards fail to account for voluntary efforts industry has taken to slash emissions.
Nine of the court's 11 active judges supported the decision earlier this week to order EPA to enforce the standards for now.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/08/03/stories/1060058318
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Keystone XL Survived Politics But Economics Could Kill It
Aug 3, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Grant Schulte
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline survived nine years of protests, lawsuits and political wrangling that saw the Obama administration reject it and President Donald Trump revive it, but now the project faces the possibility of death by economics.
Low oil prices and the high cost of extracting Canadian crude from oil sands are casting new doubts on Keystone XL as executives with the Canadian company that wants to build it face the final regulatory hurdle next week in Nebraska.
The pipeline proposed in 2008 has faced dozens of state and federal delays, many of them prompted by environmental groups who ultimately persuaded President Barack Obama to deny federal approval in November 2015. President Donald Trump resuscitated the project in March, declaring that Calgary-based TransCanada would create “an incredible pipeline.”
After all that, a TransCanada executive raised eyebrows in the energy industry last week when he suggested that the pipeline developer doesn’t know whether it will move forward with the project. Paul Miller, an executive vice president who is overseeing the project, told an investor call that company officials won’t decide until late November or early December whether to start construction.
“We’ll make an assessment of the commercial support and the regulatory approvals at that time,” Miller said in the conference call Friday with investors.
The company has invited customers to bid for long-term contracts to ship oil on the pipeline. The bidding will run through September.
An energy expert said the project has been delayed so long it may no longer make economic sense.
“Frankly, in the current price climate, it’s probably not going to be a going venture unless there’s a massive improvement in technology” for processing Canadian crude, said Charles Mason, a University of Wyoming professor of petroleum and gas economics. Crude oil was trading at around $49.50 a barrel on Wednesday, down from highs of more than $100 in 2014.
The 1,179-mile pipeline would transport oil from tar sands deposits in Alberta, Canada, across Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines that feed Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
South Dakota and Montana regulators have approved the project, although there are legal challenges pending in both states. Only Nebraska has yet to give regulatory approval. The rest of the route for the oil to the Gulf would travel an existing pipeline in the network.
Mason said the biggest economic problem is that synthetic crude from the Canadian deposits is considered a lower-value product because it tends to be heavier, and thus more expensive to refine into gasoline and jet fuel. It’s also more expensive to extract than other oils.
Producers have also found other ways to ship oil, primarily by train, and many are reluctant to sign long-term contracts with a pipeline that wouldn’t go into operation for several more years, said Jeff Share, editor of the Houston-based Pipeline & Gas Journal, a leading industry publication. Given the difficulties, Share said TransCanada has probably a “50-50” chance of completing the project.
The five-member Nebraska Public Service Commission is supposed to decide by Nov. 23 whether the project serves the public’s interests, based on evidence presented by attorneys in a formal legal proceeding beginning Monday and a series of public hearings held over the last few months. The elected commission is comprised of four Republicans and one Democrat.
Environmental opposition to the project has persisted in Nebraska, where opponents say the pipeline would pass through the Sandhills, an ecologically fragile region of grass-covered sand dunes, and would cross the land of farmers and ranchers who don’t want it.
Nebraska law enforcement authorities already have had discussions with their counterparts in North Dakota about how that state handled widespread protests during construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indiana Reservation, said Cody Thomas, a Nebraska State Patrol spokesman.
Protesters led by Native American tribes and environmental groups flocked to North Dakota last summer to rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and some camped out in bitter cold through early this year, prompting the state to send a large law enforcement contingent that sometimes skirmished with protesters. The pipeline was ultimately completed but legal challenges remain.
Pipeline opponents in Nebraska said they are wary of TransCanada’s recent statements and don’t believe the company will surrender without a fight.
“We can’t let our guard down,” said Jim Carlson, a farmer near Silver Creek, Nebraska, who grows corn on the pipeline’s proposed route. “We’ve got to continue to be vigilant and proactive. TransCanada could be doing things just to throw us off.”
Carlson said TransCanada has offered him $307,000 since the company first contacted him in 2013, but he refuses to sign an easement agreement to grant access to his land. To highlight his opposition, Carlson is installing solar panels on his land directly in the path of the proposed pipeline.
If the Nebraska commission approves the route, TransCanada can initiate legal proceedings under eminent domain to gain access to the land of holdout property owners. TransCanada has secured agreement with roughly 90 percent of Nebraska landowners along the route.
The company said that if it decides to go ahead with the project, it would need six to nine months to start doing some of the staging of the construction crews followed by two years of construction.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/keystone-xl-survived-politics-but-economics-could-kill-it/2017/08/03/11cee4ac-780a-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html?utm_term=.7a04fc45de80
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Oklahoma Quake Series Hits on Known Fault; Temblors Less Frequent This Year
Aug 3, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jon Herskovitz
A series of earthquakes near a northern Oklahoma City suburb struck along a known fault line and damaged two power substations, resulting in about 5,000 residents temporarily losing electricity, officials said on Thursday.
The quakes on Wednesday night near Edmond included one with a magnitude of 4.2, and came after the state imposed guidelines to reduce the risk of quakes caused by man-made activity related to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in its oil-rich shale formations.
The number of quakes rattling Oklahoma has fallen after the state guidelines went into effect late last year. New fracking activity has also declined, officials said.
In 2016, there were nearly 2,200 earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.5 or above in Oklahoma, against slightly more than 600 as of the end of July this year, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
The Edmond quake was the state's fourth this year with a magnitude of 4 and above, while last year, there were 15.Continue reading the main story
"We are optimistic that the seismicity rate has gone down but we still believe that the seismic hazard is still significant in Oklahoma," said Jake Walter, state seismologist for the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
He said the Edmond quakes took place on a mapped fault and included one of the strongest recorded quakes to hit the area.
Seismologists and state officials have said an increase in the frequency of quakes over the past few years in Oklahoma has been tied to the disposal of wastewater from fracking.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, a state regulatory agency for the energy industry, said it was investigating the Edmond quake series.
It added that the quakes took place in an area where the commission has instituted volume reduction in disposal well operations.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/08/03/us/03reuters-quake-oklahoma.html
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APNewsBreak: Feds Back in ‘Gasland’ Town to Test Water, Air
Aug 3, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Rubinkam
The federal government has returned to a Pennsylvania village that became a flashpoint in the national debate over fracking to investigate ongoing complaints about the quality of the drinking water.
Government scientists are collecting water and air samples this week from about 25 homes in Dimock, a tiny crossroads about 150 miles north of Philadelphia.
“Residents have continued to raise concerns about natural gas activities impacting their private water well quality,” the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Thursday in a statement to The Associated Press.
Dimock was the scene of the most highly publicized case of methane contamination to emerge from the early days of Pennsylvania’s natural-gas drilling boom. State regulators blamed faulty gas wells drilled by Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. for leaking combustible methane into Dimock’s groundwater.
Cabot, one of the largest natural gas producers in the state, has consistently denied responsibility, saying methane was an issue in the groundwater long before it began drilling.
The ATSDR, a federal public health agency, said Thursday that it is “conducting an exposure investigation to determine if there are drinking water quality issues that may continue to pose a health threat.”
The water will be tested for bacteria, gases and chemicals. The agency is also testing indoor air for radon. Sampling results are expected in the fall, which will be shared with residents. A report will be released to the public next year.
Dimock became a battleground in environmental activists’ fight against fracking, the technique that allows drilling companies to extract huge volumes of oil and natural gas from rock formations deep underground. The village was featured in the Emmy-winning 2010 documentary “Gasland,” which showed residents lighting their tap water on fire. Drilling supporters have long accused Dimock residents of seeking money and attention.
Dozens of plaintiffs who say their water was ruined settled their lawsuit against Cabot in 2012.
In April, a federal judge threw out a $4.24 million jury verdict against the Houston-based driller and ordered a new trial in a lawsuit alleging that Cabot contaminated the well water of two families who were not part of the 2012 settlement.
A Cabot spokesman did not immediately respond to an email from the AP on Thursday.
It’s the first time that ATSDR has tested private well water in Dimock. The Environmental Protection Agency conducted testing in 2012.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/apnewsbreak-feds-back-in-gasland-town-to-test-water-air/2017/08/03/3f39e1ee-785f-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html?utm_term=.b028685561e4
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In Sweltering South, Climate Change Is Now a Workplace Hazard
Aug 3, 2017 | New York Times
By Yamiche Alcindor
Adolfo Guerra, a landscaper in this port city on the Gulf of Mexico, remembers panicking as his co-worker vomited and convulsed after hours of mowing lawns in stifling heat. Other workers rushed to cover him with ice, and the man recovered.
But for Mr. Guerra, 24, who spends nine hours a day six days a week doing yard work, the episode was a reminder of the dangers that exist for outdoor workers as the planet warms.
“I think about the climate every day,” Mr. Guerra said, “because every day we work, and every day it feels like it’s getting hotter.”
For many working class people, President Trump’s promise to make America great again conjured images of revived factories and resurgent industries, fueled by coal and other cheap fossil fuels. Such workers gave more of their votes to Mr. Trump than they did four years before to Mitt Romney, helping him eke out victory in November with narrow wins across the Rust Belt. Latino votes fell off for Democrats as well, from the 71 percent that went to Barack Obama in 2012 to the 66 percent that went for Hillary Clinton last year.
But to Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who some call the “father of environmental justice,” the industrial revival that Mr. Trump has promised could come with some serious downsides for an already warming planet. Professor Bullard is trying to bring that message to working-class Americans like Mr. Guerra, and to environmental organizations that have, in his mind, been more focused on struggling animals than poor humans, who have been disproportionately harmed by increasing temperatures, worsening storms and rising sea levels.
“For too long, a lot of the climate change and global warming arguments have been looking at melting ice and polar bears and not at the human suffering side of it,” Professor Bullard said. “They are still pushing out the polar bear as the icon for climate change. The icon should be a kid who is suffering from the negative impacts of climate change and increased air pollution, or a family where rising water is endangering their lives.”Continue reading the main story
The “environmental justice movement” has, in fact, caught on with major environmental groups, but it has far to go before it begins moving the dial in the nation’s politics. Professor Bullard envisions the recruits for his movement coming not only from the liberal college towns of the Northeast and Midwest, but also from the sweltering working-class communities in the Sun Belt, which he sees as the front line of the nation’s environmental wars.
Residents of working-class communities in the Sun Belt often cannot afford to move or evacuate during weather disasters. They may work outside, and they may struggle to cover their air-conditioning bills. Pollution in their communities leads to health problems that are compounded by the refusal of most Sun Belt state governments to expand Medicaid access under the Affordable Care Act.
Working-class people must juggle a long list of problems, from getting gainful employment to finding decent schools. But Professor Bullard is trying to raise awareness of the environment around them. For the poor, the challenges of climate change are not abstract. John W. Nielsen-Gammon, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University who is the Texas state climatologist, says that in coastal southeast Texas, seasonal temperatures are about 1.5 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they were in the early part of the 20th century.
In Texas, as in other parts of the world, that seemingly small average warming leads to a much greater chance of extreme heat waves, scientists say.
Mr. Guerra, who said he could not afford health care and feared this summer could lead to more spells of sickness, is hoping he can get a new job once he finishes the industrial mechanic program at College of the Mainland. Until then, he plans to use the $115 a day he makes mowing lawns to pay for school and rent. Mr. Guerra also hopes President Trump will reconsider his environmental policies.
“They don’t know what’s going on and can’t say anything because they are in cool houses and in offices,” Mr. Guerra said.
Professor Bullard and others in his field have hosted conferences on climate change and environmentalism at historically black colleges and have taken groups of black students to climate meetings to educate them on the intersection of race, income and the environment
“I’ve been doing this work for 40 years and I have seen change; 25 or 30 years ago, many of the white organizations that were doing environmental work, they had no black members, no black staff and no black people on the board,” he said. “They had no contact with black communities and communities of color, and that has changed a bit.”
Freelander Little, 49, of Galveston, understands the trauma of abandoning a home because of flooding. In 2008, Hurricane Ike tore through the city and destroyed almost all of her family’s belongings. Her sister’s home, which was next door, collapsed onto Ms. Little’s, which filled with seven feet of water. For months, she and her three children lived in hotels and used vouchers to get by while their home was rebuilt, eight feet off the ground.
When people like Professor Bullard talk of a warming climate producing more frequent and stronger storms, Ms. Little shudders. Attributing Ike’s power to a warming climate is scientifically dicey, but to her the warnings of climate scientists ring true.
“Climate change is my life,” Ms. Little said.
Professor Bullard said that part of his mission was getting people to understand the particular danger that storms like Ike can pose for working-class people. “We are bringing in the Black Lives Matter folks and talking climate justice and the black lives that were lost in New Orleans because of climate change and because of who was left behind on roof tops,” he said, referring to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “Racism left them behind on rooftops.”
And race is beginning to infuse the response to Mr. Trump’s environmental policies. When the president began transforming the Environmental Protection Agency, Mustafa Ali, who is African-American, resigned after more than two decades there.
“Science should be talking about how do we improve lives and what is it that is going to impact a life,” said Mr. Ali, a former assistant associate administrator for environmental justice at the E.P.A. who now works at the Hip Hop Caucus, a nonprofit focused on activism through hip-hop music. “So instead of thinking about trickle-down effects, we need to be thinking about building-up effects.”
The unleashing of the fossil energy sector that Mr. Trump has championed could have repercussions more immediate than the global climate. In Houston, predominantly African-American neighborhoods like Sunnyside and Pleasantville have been dealing with pollution from the energy sector for years.
Ana Parras, her husband, Juan, and her stepson, Bryan, have been educating Houston residents about the dangers of living in communities surrounded by refineries and chemical plants. And they speak from experience. Ms. Parras recently began having breathing problems herself.
“Sometimes I can actually taste chemicals on my lips and I think to myself, ‘Maybe this is the price you pay for working and doing some of this stuff,’” Ms. Parras, 51, said as tears filled her eyes. “At the same time, I have even more empathy for these communities because a lot of these children have asthma and are sick.”
The Parras family has spent much of its time in Manchester, a community in Houston that is one of the most polluted places in the country. Because of Houston’s liberal land-use laws, the community is ringed by an oil refinery, a chemical plant, a car-crushing yard, a wastewater treatment plant and an interstate. In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency found toxic levels of seven carcinogenic air pollutants in the neighborhood.
“You can’t have freedom and justice in this country if you can’t breathe your air, if you can’t open your window because of the toxic smells,” Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, said. “It may not be a billy club that is hitting you or a dog that is tearing your skin — those images from the Civil Rights movement — but it is violence to the body.”
Eva Morales, 44, who has lived in Manchester for more than three decades, said she would like to sell her house but has not attracted offers high enough to allow her to buy a new one elsewhere. While climate change may not be at the top her mind, the chemical smell in the air is, she said.
“We are kind of trapped. We don’t have money to just pick up and leave. We don’t have options,” Ms. Morales said. “Who knows how it is going to affect me later? I don’t know. How will it affect my kids? I don’t know.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/us/politics/climate-change-trump-working-poor-activists.html
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Evacuation Ordered After CSX Train Derails in Western Pennsylvania
Aug 3, 2017 | UPI
By Ed Adamczyk
Fire crews from several states are looking Thursday into the derailment of 32 rail cars -- some carrying hazardous material -- in western Pennsylvania.
Preliminary reports said the railroad cars left the tracks in Bedford County, near Hyndman, at around 5 a.m. Three cars burned, as well as residential garage struck by a rail car.
Officials said at least one car contained liquefied petroleum gas, and others contained flammable liquid asphalt. One, which was confirmed to have leaked and caught fire, contained molten sulphur.
The derailment forced the evacuation of residents within a one-mile radius of the derailment, which occurred about 85 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. A local elementary school was also evacuated, but no serious injuries have been reported.
All roads leading into Hyndman were closed, and some flight restrictions have been put in place.
Train owner CSX Corp. said in a statement that its hazardous materials specialists were dispatched to the scene, and that it's opened a community outreach center near the derailment site. The Hyndman Fire Department opened a similar center nearby.
CSX said the 178-car train was traveling from Chicago to Selkirk, N.Y., near Albany, when the derailment happened. Its load includes construction material, wood pulp, paper and the hazardous material which caught fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to investigate the derailment.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/08/03/Evacuation-ordered-after-CSX-train-derails-in-western-Pennsylvania/4201501767055/
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Pruitt About-Faces, Won't Delay Obama-Era Ozone Regs
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Two months after abruptly delaying a key milestone to implement U.S. EPA's 2015 ground-level ozone standard, agency Administrator Scott Pruitt just as suddenly yesterday reversed that decision.
He said late yesterday that states must begin implementing the standard by this October as originally planned.
EPA "now understands that the information gaps that formed the basis of the extension may not be as expansive as we previously believed," Pruitt said in a notice posted online after the close of normal business hours. While leaving open the possibility of future delays, EPA "is not making such a determination at this time," the notice said.
The about-face represented a striking reversal for Pruitt, who had announced in early June that he was pushing back the statutory deadline for the state attainment designations for the 70-parts-per-billion standard until October 2018. At the time, he cited a Clean Air Act waiver that permits a one-year extension in situations where more information is needed to make the compliance decisions.
The delay was applauded by industry groups and some members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but denounced by environmental and public health organizations who sued last month to stop it.
For those groups, which have seen little to celebrate amid the Trump administration's efforts to roll back regulations on a variety of fronts, Pruitt's turnabout represented a welcome victory.
"To protect the health of Americans, EPA must move forward quickly," the American Lung Association and two other groups said in a joint statement today voicing satisfaction with the decision. With 2016 data showing unhealthy ozone levels in cities across the nation, cleanup work "must immediately begin" once EPA decides which areas are not in attainment, they said.
McConnell's office had no immediate comment. A spokeswoman for Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who also backed the postponement, said she will keep working to advance S. 263, a bill that would push back implementation of the 2015 ozone threshold until the middle of the next decade.
Congress "must provide a permanent fix to the broken process of reviewing and implementing ozone standards," the spokeswoman, Ashley Berrang, said in an email. A companion bill, H.R. 806, won House approval last month.
Pruitt was not available for an interview this morning, and employees in EPA's press office did not respond to written questions by today's publication deadline. But the reversal came shortly before today's deadline for the agency to respond in court to a motion by the public health and environmental groups to stay or vacate the delay.
"I would say it's not coincidental," said Ann Weeks, one of the lawyers representing those organizations in the suit, which is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Weeks also speculated that EPA had taken note of the court's refusal to go along with an implementation delay for another Obama administration rule limiting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
After a three-judge panel in that case last month rebuked Pruitt for trying to use a Clean Air Act reconsideration process to stall key provisions of the methane rule for 90 days, the court's full complement of active judges this week ruled 9-2 that EPA must enforce the restrictions for now.
"This is an agency that has gone kind of rogue, and they [the judges] are going to make sure that the rule of law is followed," Weeks said.
EPA also faces a separate legal challenge filed this week by a coalition made up of New York and 14 other states as well as Washington, D.C., that similarly seeks to void the implementation delay. In a news release today, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D), the lead plaintiff in that suit, also hailed Pruitt's reversal and said the coalition "will continue to take the legal action needed" to ensure EPA finalizes the attainment designations by this October.
Tightening the standard
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in summertime smog, is produced by the reaction of chemicals tied to fossil fuel production and combustion in sunshine. It is linked to asthma attacks in children and added breathing problems in people with emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases.
Under the Obama administration, then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy had tightened the standard from 75 ppb to 70 ppb in October 2015, citing the Clean Air Act's requirement to protect public health based on continuing research on ozone's effects.
The attainment designations, which are supposed to be put in place two years later under the act's timetable, are important because they start the clock on cleanup efforts for areas that are out of compliance. Over time, that process can lead to stricter emissions limits for industries and vehicles. States had turned in their attainment recommendations last fall.
At the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, whose members include 20 state regulators, Executive Director Clint Woods said in an email that they now look forward to working with EPA "to ensure there is adequate information and time to accurately address" the designations.
But the energy industry and other business interests have been lobbying for a delay, on the grounds that some areas of the country are still implementing the previous 75 ppb standard, set in 2008, and that air quality is continuing to improve regardless.
"Implementing both the 2008 and 2015 standards creates unnecessary complexity and inefficiency, in addition to needlessly burdening the states and businesses with potentially enormous costs," Howard Feldman, the American Petroleum Institute's senior director for regulatory and scientific affairs, said in a statement.
But in filing suit this week, Schneiderman pointed to EPA forecasts that the tighter standard will annually prevent hundreds of premature deaths by 2025 and yield net health benefits worth up to $4.5 billion. Those estimates excluded California, which is expected to need more time to comply.
In June, Pruitt had announced the delay with no advance notice and no attempt to gather public feedback. Among other issues, he said, EPA needed to fully understand the impact of background ozone as well as ozone that wafts into the United States from other countries.
At Congress' direction, Pruitt said, he had also created an Ozone Cooperative Compliance Task Force to develop "additional flexibilities" for compliance. Under the provision creating the task force — which was tacked on to a fiscal 2017 spending bill signed in early May — Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) had ordered it to report back in 90 days.
In an interview last week, Hatch said he was uncertain whether the task force would meet that deadline, adding that he had "kind of lost track" of its status. EPA has released little information about the task force or its members, saying only that it is "an internal working group of key EPA staff who have relevant expertise" and that its report will be made public.
Agency spokespeople did not reply to an email today asking when the report will be released.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/08/03/stories/1060058360
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Ewire: Is Ozone Reversal Strike Two in Pruitt's Deregulatory Agenda?
Aug 3, 2017 | Inside EPA
Is EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's sudden reversal of his plans to delay designating areas attainment with Obama-era ozone standards the second strike in his efforts to roll back the previous administration's policies?
You may have missed the late-breaking news last night that Pruitt reversed course and decided to meet October 2017 deadlines to issue designation decisions, rather than waiting till 2018.
The agency announced that Pruitt signed a Federal Register notice reversing his recent decision to delay the designations, saying that “information gaps” justifying the initial delay no longer appear to be as extensive as initially believed.
But as Inside EPA's Stuart Parker reported earlier this year, environmentalists and states opposed to the delay indicated shortly after EPA announced the delay that the agency had the data it needed to make its designation decisions. Even states like Oklahoma, Pruitt's home state, and West Virginia, have already presented data showing they attain the standards, one source said at the time, adding that industries in those states will have to wait an additional year to get an attainment designation that lifts the threat of further state regulation.
The news follows a federal appellate court ruling requiring the agency to begin implementing another Obama administration rule governing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector after finding that EPA's effort to delay implementation by 90 days was unlawful.
Two legal experts, writing in Slate before Pruitt reversed course on ozone, say the methane decision may be the first of several setbacks the administrator is likely to face in his aggressive deregulatory push because he may be ignoring key procedural and other legal requirements.
“Pruitt claims that these regulatory rollbacks represent a return to the 'rule of law, but he has pursued them in a lawless fashion, cutting corners and ignoring fundamental legal requirements. Now, failing to follow the rules of the game is catching up with him -- his EPA recently suffered its first courtroom defeat [in the methane rule case], kicking off what is likely to be a long losing streak and creating regulatory uncertainty along the way,” according to Bethany Davis Noll, an attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), a non-partisan group that advocates for use of cost-benefit analysis to strengthen regulatory requirements, and Richard Revez, a professor and dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law.
The two legal experts say Pruitt's loss in the federal appellate court was strike one against the administrator's deregulatory push.
They point to flaws in the agency's efforts to delay regulatory requirements, arguing it will hamper other efforts too. For example, they note the agency claimed that information to quantify the costs and benefits of delaying the methane rule was “'currently unavailable', despite the fact that the details of the original rule’s benefits were published just last year.”
“Pruitt’s other repeal efforts are full of similarly questionable moves,” they write, pointing to violations of the Clean Air Act, Administrative Procedure Act and other legal requirements.
We've covered such arguments, noting in a recently analysis that the precedent set by the methane ruling could aid challenges to other administration efforts to delay Obama-era policies, including suits challenging administration efforts to delay the Obama administration's Clean Water Act power plant effluent limits, its facility safety Risk Management Plan rule, its landfill methane rule, the now-reversed ozone plan and worker protection standards for pesticide handlers.
But Jeff Holmstead, who led EPA's air office in the Bush administration and is reportedly being considered for the deputy administrator slot in the Trump administration, pushed back against such arguments. He told the Washington Post that it was "a mistake to read too much into the methane decision."
Holmstead also said that the rollback of other Obama-era regulations, such as the CWA rule, rely on different parts of the law than what Pruitt used to halt the methane rule. "Because they know everything will be challenged in court," Holmstead said of EPA officials, "they are bending over backwards to make sure that everything they do has a legal basis."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-ozone-reversal-strike-two-pruitts-deregulatory-agenda
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GOP Lawmaker Defends Vote for 'Crap Sandwich' Cap and Trade
Aug 3, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
California Republicans who voted to extend the state's cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases last month are taking heat from constituents.
Assemblymember Devon Mathis was one of eight Republicans who broke ranks to support A.B. 398, the bill that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) backed to extend the market-based system through 2030.
He held a town hall meeting in the Central Valley city of Tulare last week to explain his decision to cross the aisle, where he received a barrage of criticism from district residents who faulted his willingness to cooperate with the Democrats, who hold a supermajority in the state Legislature.
Mathis, 34, was elected in 2014 to represent the agriculture-heavy 26th District in the southeastern portion of the Central Valley. He explained he had voted against a carbon-capping bill last year and would have voted against A.B. 32, the original 2006 law that set up the 2020 target and authorized the use of cap and trade.
But because last year's S.B. 32 extended the emissions target through 2030 without prescribing a way to reach it, it created an overwhelming incentive to back the subsequent extension of cap and trade rather than direct "command and control" regulations, which industry argued would be cripplingly expensive and lead to layoffs.
"I'm not about ready to tell 10,000 families you're out of a job and you gotta go stand in a food line, and that's why I voted the way I did, and I hope by tonight you can understand that," he said.
An audience member in a Trump T-shirt and Make America Great Again baseball cap immediately stood up and confronted Mathis. "You voted like a coward, and you should be ashamed of yourself," he said before being removed from the event. "Pathetic. We need leaders who aren't afraid."
Mathis was flanked by a panel of representatives from the dairy, agriculture, food-processing and manufacturing industries, who argued that Mathis had made the best of an unfavorable political calculus by at least securing more free allowances for industry and a promise to reconsider how the cap-and-trade revenue is spent. Mathis and other state Republicans are sharply opposed to Brown spending a quarter of the revenue on the state's high-speed rail project.
"Republicans are outnumbered 2-to-1 in the Legislature," said Rob Vandenheuvel, a vice president at California Dairies Inc. "To play that weak hand and play it well took real leadership. It would be great to put on a Trump hat, which I have, as well, just like the guy here in the room, and to just say no. And that would've been the easy thing for the assemblyman to do, it would have been the easy thing for me to do, representing a bunch of conservative dairy farmers. But the reality is, all that gets us is the command and control they talk about. All that gets us is the gun to our head actually going off."
'You have to be adults'
The audience was not convinced. "The fallout over this has been tremendous," said Mariann Hedstrom, chairwoman of the Tulare County Republican Party. "I don't know what they promised you, but I hope it's worth it for our county and for our Republican Party in this county, because right now, I don't think it is."
Industry representatives sought to strike a sympathetic note. "To say that this is anything but a turd sandwich would be incorrect," said Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairymen. "We were trying to control the cost of our production, and it is really, really critical in this county, particularly in this area particularly, that dairies are able to control their costs of production so that they can keep employing people."
One audience member suggested that Mathis should have distanced himself from the debate: "Just sit back and go, 'You know what, this is your crap sandwich, you eat it. I'm not doing it, my constituents won't support it.'"
Another speaker said she would work to unseat him and the other Republicans who voted for the bill. Facebook campaigns have already sprung up targeting Assemblymember Rocky Chávez and Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes.
"Mindless, spineless Mathis," she said. "Kinda got a certain ring to it, now, doesn't it?"
Mathis, visibly frustrated, made a plea for civility.
"People are tired of watching us sit on our hands and not do anything," he said. "People are tired of the nonsense; we see it in D.C. Nobody'll even sit down at a table and have a conversation with each other. That is what's felling America; that's what's felling us in California. There's a point where you have to be adults and sit down and have the hard conversation and figure out how in the world do we start turning this around and making it better. And we don't do that by eating each other."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/08/03/stories/1060058334
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