Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 9/8/17
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Court of Appeals Says EPA SNAP Program Can't Force Companies to Replace HFCs under the Clean Air Act.
Aug 9, 2017 | Ammonia21
By Charlotte MacLaughlin
A federal court ruled yesterday that the U.S. EPA cannot require chemical companies to replace HFCs with low-GWP substances under the SNAP (Significant New Alternatives Policy) program in the case Mexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPA. -
Industry May Push for Climate Legislation after HFC Ruling
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
A federal court's decision yesterday to scuttle an Obama-era rule phasing out some refrigerants and coolants means industry may soon be asking Congress for narrow climate change legislation. -
Scott Forms Panel on Chemical Oversight
Aug 9, 2017 | The Vermont Press Bureau
By Neil P. Goswami
Gov. Phil Scott signed an executive order Tuesday to create the Vermont Interagency Committee on Chemical Management, which will review chemical regulations and policies in Vermont. -
Echa Confirms It Will Reject Inadequate Testing Proposals
Aug 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Where it believes possible alternatives exist, Echa has confirmed it will reject REACH registration testing proposals if they do not adequately consider methods other than animal testing. -
(ACC Mentioned) Q&A: Plastics-To-Fuel Exec on China Ban and Sector's Potential
Aug 9, 2017 | Plastics Recycling Update
By Colin Staub
RES Polyflow’s Michael Dungan says fluctuating oil prices and developments in Asia will continue to affect pyrolysis companies, but he thinks a bigger issue may be a regulatory landscape that he believes is dated and detrimental to technology adoption. -
U.S. Emerging as Powerful Force in LNG Trade
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewald
The United States is rapidly becoming a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in 60 years. -
Domestic NatGas Supply Forecast to Increase in 2017, 2018, Says EIA
Aug 9, 2017 | Natural Gas Intel
By Carolyn Davis
Dry natural gas production from U.S. onshore basins is expected to increase 1.2 Bcf/d this year from 2016, averaging 73.5 Bcf/d, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). -
U.S. LNG Export Capacity to Grow Nearly Sevenfold by 2019, EIA Says
Aug 9, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
The energy industry's capacity to export U.S. liquefied natural gas is set to increase nearly sevenfold over the next three years as companies bring gas super-cooling facilities into production, the Energy Information Administration said Wednesday. -
Investors to Trump EPA: Don't Freeze Obama Methane Rule
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
Investors managing hundreds of billions of dollars are pressing U.S. EPA to swiftly enforce a policy to limit the leaking of methane, the potent greenhouse gas. -
Pa.'s Gas Tax under Attack with Lawsuits and Banners
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A coalition of industrial groups called on Pennsylvania legislators to oppose a package of energy tax increases that cleared the state Senate last month, saying it would hurt the state's economy and smother its budding petrochemical industry. -
Tracing a Path to Better Shale Production
Aug 9, 2017 | Upstream Online
By Jennifer Pallanich
At its most basic, a chemical tracer allows operators to see the flow-back from each stage of a well. -
The Bush Team Censored Climate Reports. Some Fear Trump More.
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
Word got out in September 2002 that the George W. Bush administration had axed a chapter on climate change from an annual U.S. EPA report about air pollution. -
Climate Report’s Deadline Poses Test for Trump Administration
Aug 9, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The Trump administration faces a deadline at the end of next week on whether to approve a scientific report that verifies climate change and attributes it to humans, a position that contradicts some of the rhetoric the president used during his 2016 campaign. -
US Scientists Contradict Trump's Climate Claims
Aug 9, 2017 | AP (in the Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Seth Borenstein
As President Donald Trump touts new oil pipelines and pledges to revive the nation’s struggling coal mines, federal scientists are warning that burning fossil fuels is already driving a steep increase in the United States of heat waves, droughts and floods. -
Calif. Water Districts Sue Air Force over Chemicals
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Two California water districts are suing the federal government for $1.4 billion to clean up cancer-causing chemicals from the area's groundwater supplies.
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Aug 9, 2017 | Ammonia21
By Charlotte MacLaughlin
A federal court ruled yesterday that the U.S. EPA cannot require chemical companies to replace HFCs with low-GWP substances under the SNAP (Significant New Alternatives Policy) program in the case Mexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPA.
The two plaintiffs in the case were manufacturers of HFCs: Mexican Mexichem Fluor and French company Arkema SA. In February, green groups and the Trump administration defended the EPA in oral arguments.
The EPA’s SNAP program, which specifically relates to HFC use under the Clean Air Act, was found by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to have exceeded its authority.
The ruling requires the EPA to take action consistent with the court’s decision. The agency has other options, such as using the Toxic Substances Control Act to phase down HFCs.
"However much we might sympathize or agree with EPA's policy objectives, EPA may act only within the boundaries of its statutory authority. Here, EPA exceeded that authority," Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in a court statement on the decision.
The Obama administration in 2015 took the original SNAP program, which only dealt with ozone-depleting substances (ODS), and extended it non-ODS high global warming HFCs, reports eenews.net.
Kavanaugh, along with a majority of the three-judge panel and one dissenting judge, wrote that the law does not extend to non-ODS and does not allow the EPA to require companies to “replace” HFCs with low-GWP refrigerants.
Kavanaugh took particular issue with the EPA's interpretation of the word "replace" in the SNAP section of the Clean Air Act, and said that by using it to list more alternatives, the federal agency had gone "beyond its ordinary meaning" in a manner that "borders on the absurd".
"Under EPA's current interpretation of the word 'replace', manufacturers would continue to 'replace' an ozone-depleting substance with a substitute even 100 years or more from now," Kavanaugh wrote. "EPA would thereby have indefinite authority to regulate a manufacturer's use of that substitute."
Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee who dissented in part, wrote that he believes the court’s finding that the word "replace" under the SNAP program does not just relate to ODS.
Wilkins thinks the court should have deferred to the EPA in this case, because the position of Congress on the SNAP program is unclear and the EPA has made “reasonable” rules in this matter.
"I would deny the petition for review [of the legislation] on all grounds," Wilkins wrote.
Where do we go from here?
The EPA SNAP program is a crucial tool for U.S. efforts to limit the consumption of HFCs in air conditioning, refrigeration, heat pumps, foams and other applications.
The ruling by the district court means that SNAP’s HFC program is incompatible with the Clean Air Act in the current manner that it is being pursued. The EPA could use one of several other statutory authorities that are similar to the Clean Air Act, such as the Toxic Substances Control Act, to phase down HFC use instead.
The agency could also force manufacturers using ODS to leapfrog over HFCs to low-GWP refrigerants and blowing agents. This would represent a "retroactive disapproval" of HFCs under the Clean Air Act, which the court ruled would only be permissible if the EPA were to explain why it is pursuing this under the current legislation.
The ruling has now gone back to the EPA, which is required to take action consistent with the court’s decision.
David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which intervened on behalf of the EPA, said the U.S. NGO is "exploring all options for appeal”.
http://www.ammonia21.com/articles/7787/u_s_court_rules_hfc_cannot_be_limited_by_current_epa_rules
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Industry May Push for Climate Legislation after HFC Ruling
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
A federal court's decision yesterday to scuttle an Obama-era rule phasing out some refrigerants and coolants means industry may soon be asking Congress for narrow climate change legislation.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit returned the 2015 rule for hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to U.S. EPA, finding that it had used the wrong Clean Air Act provision to control the powerful heat-trapping chemicals (Greenwire, Aug. 8). While the agency could use other provisions to address HFCs, it's unclear whether the Trump administration will do so, although it did defend the rules in court (Greenwire, Feb. 17).
Without EPA rules, the U.S. heating and cooling industry — which has long sought a transition to less climate-warming chemicals it took the lead in developing — faces a predicament.
Congressional action would be needed to phase the chemicals out. But even the narrow legislation required would be an uphill slog in the contentious political environment. Ending the use of the chemicals would require a two-thirds Senate vote to ratify the landmark amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer that calls for phasing out those chemicals (Climatewire, Oct. 17, 2016). The House and Senate would also need to approve legislation allowing the United States to comply with the protocol.
"You need both the House and Senate to move forward, and that is something that has been relatively difficult of late," acknowledged Stephen Yurek, president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute.
All that would be required is a tweak to the Clean Air Act language governing ozone-depleting chemicals that would clarify that it could also cover HFCs, he said.
"Under normal congressional action, it could be done very quickly, but now I don't know," he said.
Yurek and Kevin Fay, executive director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, said they'd had good meetings on Capitol Hill and with White House and State Department officials, who would need to submit the amendment to the Senate for ratification. Supporters exist on both sides of the aisle and in both the legislative and executive branches, they said.
"We've been talking to them all year, and we're continuing to do that," said Fay. "I'd characterize those conversations as positive so far, but no decision has been made, and no timing."
He added that the number of open leadership positions at the State Department has complicated that process.
Yurek said he hopes the amendment will travel to the Senate for ratification late this year or early next year, and that implementing legislation providing EPA authority to restrict HFCs will be ready then, as well.
It's unclear what kind of reception Republican operatives will give the Montreal Protocol amendment and its implementing legislation. The State Department declined to respond to questions about submitting it. It seems likely that HFCs, if not a political lightning rod, won't be a priority.
"We always knew ratification would be a challenge," said Fay.Kigali amendment's climate impact
The amendment that parties agreed to in Kigali, Rwanda, last October drew fewer headlines than the broader climate deal brokered in Paris in 2015. It requires the gradual elimination of the chemicals beginning in January 2019, with developed and developing countries following different timelines (Climatewire, Oct. 17, 2016).
The U.S. industry, which has backed a global phaseout of HFCs for years, says it will bring both economic and environmental boons. U.S. manufacturers like Carrier Corp. — the air conditioning company whose Indiana factory President Trump visited in December to claim a role in retaining 1,000 U.S. jobs — have sunk tens of millions of dollars into developing new climate-friendly coolants. U.S. companies hold the patents and would stand to win if those markets grew.
But the Kigali amendment also promises climate benefits. Unlike the Paris Agreement, which is largely political, the Montreal Protocol carries eventual trade sanctions for countries that fail to live up to their obligations by the 2030s. It would reduce global HFC levels by between 80 and 85 percent by 2047, helping the world avoid nearly half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century.
Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, called the court's ruling "a small bump in that road."
"This is happening," he said.
Even a U.S. failure to ratify the Kigali amendment is unlikely to keep it from coming into force in the next couple of years and creating a signal to the markets. But it would mean ceding historic U.S. leadership in the Montreal Protocol process that dates back to President Reagan, who saw the importance of curbing ozone depletion after he was diagnosed with skin cancer, Zaelke said.
Paul Bledsoe, who teaches environmental policy at American University, noted that the challenge to the EPA rule was brought by Mexican and French manufacturers nervous that it would have given an advantage to U.S. competitors.
"There are climate-related regulations that are in the competitive interest of U.S. economies," he said. "U.S. manufacturers have had the foresight to see that lower [global warming potential] chemicals were going to be in demand and that HFCs were eventually going to be phased out, and they're gaining market share because of that foresight."
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) headed the Foreign Relations subcommittee responsible for considering the amendment in the 115th Congress.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058559
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Scott Forms Panel on Chemical Oversight
Aug 9, 2017 | The Vermont Press Bureau
By Neil P. Goswami
Gov. Phil Scott signed an executive order Tuesday to create the Vermont Interagency Committee on Chemical Management, which will review chemical regulations and policies in Vermont.
The committee created by executive order will look to ensure compliance with laws regulating chemical use in the state and try to reduce risks posed to Vermonters from the use or storage of unsafe chemicals. The committee “will incorporate the expertise of state agencies and outside experts who will participate in the citizen advisory panel,” according to Scott’s office.
“The discovery of PFOA contamination of the drinking water in Bennington County was a wake-up call for Vermont,” Scott said in a statement. “I am directing this committee to find solutions that will ensure proactive coordination among the agencies charged with chemical oversight to protect Vermonters from unsafe chemicals, increase public access to information about chemicals in our communities, and help Vermont businesses comply with existing law.”
The committee will be chaired by Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore or her designee. It will also include representatives from the Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, Agency of Commerce and Community Development, Department of Health, Department of Labor, Department of Public Safety and the Agency of Digital Services.
Scott said the committee will be responsible for improving the coordination of chemical management in the state and recommending any actions needed to address risks. It will also develop an electronic reporting system to help businesses comply with reporting requirements and improve access to information for state agencies, businesses and the public.
Additionally, the committee, which will hold its first meeting in September, will consult with a citizen advisory panel comprised of public health and chemical policy experts, industry representatives and individuals with toxicology, risk assessment, environmental law and data management expertise.
Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said his organization is working to pass S. 103, legislation that would enhance regulation of chemicals in Vermont. The bill passed both the House and Senate this year, but the two chambers did not reconcile differences before the session ended.
Burns said VPIRG supports the creation of the committee but will continue pushing lawmakers to pass the House version of the bill, which is more stringent than what the Senate sought.
“We think that makes perfectly good sense to move forward with that kind of investigation and come up with recommendations,” he said. “No one should believe that this executive order takes the place of that legislation. There are various pieces of the legislation that would go beyond the executive order.”
The executive order calls for the committee to provide its recommendations by July 1, 2018. Burns said he hoped the committee would provide recommendations earlier so lawmakers could consider them during the 2018 legislative session.
Bill Driscoll, vice president of Associated Industries of Vermont, said he supports the creation of the committee.
“I think it’s reasonable. Certainly, compared to some of the proposals by some of the other groups, or some of the legislation proposed, I think it’s much more rational. I think the issues it’s been charged with dealing with are reasonable ones to discuss and work on,” he said.
Driscoll said the committee includes the necessary departments and agencies that oversee chemical regulations or have jurisdiction of businesses that are subject to regulations.
“We’re hopeful that it will be a good process,” he said.
Unlike VPIRG, however, Driscoll said the committee negates the need to continue considering S.103. With the committee’s creation, the remaining legislation leaves behind “some sections that we have pretty serious concerns about,” he said.
“I’m not sure we would see any need for S.103. The version of S.103 that passed the Senate is basically accomplished by what the governor has put forward,” Driscoll said.
http://www.vermontpressbureau.com/2017/08/09/scott-forms-panel-on-chemical-oversight/
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Echa Confirms It Will Reject Inadequate Testing Proposals
Aug 9, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Where it believes possible alternatives exist, Echa has confirmed it will reject REACH registration testing proposals if they do not adequately consider methods other than animal testing.
In a July letter to the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), Echa said when checking a proposal that includes animal testing, it does check the registrant’s assessment of alternatives along with any third party comments. If, on the basis of all the available information, Echa considers the test is unnecessary it can reject it.
However, the agency says it does not "actively and specifically evaluate" whether a registrant has explored and evaluated all possible alternatives to animal testing.
The ECEAE had complained to the European Ombudsman that Echa was claiming to abide by a September 2015 ruling while in practice "systematically and openly ignoring it".
At the time, Echa said it was not able to reject a testing proposal for a standard REACH information requirement on the grounds that the registrant had not considered all viable alternative methods.
The ECEAE later urged the Ombudsman to resolve the issue by reiterating that Echa can and should reject the testing proposals as described.
In letters from June and July this year, the Ombudsman said she is satisfied that the agency has an effective system in place.
Dr Katy Taylor, director of science at ECEAE, said that Echa's confirmation is "significant progress". However, she would like the agency to take "an even more proactive role" in evaluating potential alternative methods. "We hope this constitutes a renewed approach and that we start to see some more proposals for animal tests rejected."
https://chemicalwatch.com/58111/echa-confirms-it-will-reject-inadequate-testing-proposals
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(ACC Mentioned) Q&A: Plastics-To-Fuel Exec on China Ban and Sector's Potential
Aug 9, 2017 | Plastics Recycling Update
By Colin Staub
RES Polyflow’s Michael Dungan says fluctuating oil prices and developments in Asia will continue to affect pyrolysis companies, but he thinks a bigger issue may be a regulatory landscape that he believes is dated and detrimental to technology adoption.
Dungan is director of sales and marketing at RES Polyflow, which is based in Chagrin Falls, Ohio and has been working to commercialize its pyrolysis technology. It hopes to break ground this year on its first facility, which will be located in northeast Indiana and will be capable of processing about 100,000 tons per year, he said. Material will be sourced primarily from curbside recycling programs, although the company processes post-industrial plastics, as well.
“We tend to focus on the material that either has low value, is unstable as a market, or has no value at all,” Dungan said. “Our technology is well-suited to handle those types of streams.”
Plastics Recycling Update: What’s your take on China’s announcement that they’re going to ban just about all plastic imports by the end of the year?
Dungan: We haven’t formed an opinion as a corporate statement. It’s early, and being in the Midwest, we’re somewhat sheltered from that kind of shift. In our experience, it seems to affect the ports first, especially on the West Coast, before we show any kind of ripple in the Midwest.
We really haven’t sensed a change in the recycling industry in the Midwest, although a lot of people are talking about it primarily because of the news accounts and the recent announcements.
We’re an energy-recovery technology. We’re positioned as a manufacturer. We’re always interested in helping support the existing market, the existing recycling industry, and positioning plastics-to-fuel as a complement to existing recycling practices. And if we can help create or support markets that are already in existence through our technology coming on-line and getting going, we’re good with that.
I think you’re going to see a lot of questions around what kind of market pull for these low-value materials will be created within the U.S. if their primary export sources are reduced, rerouted, diverted or go away. The timing for energy-recovery technology such as ours seems to be good, if there’s a need for a new market or new disposition for low-value plastics scrap. A plastics-to-fuel technology such as ours is well-positioned to address that.
A plastics-to-fuel facility will take material that nobody wants and create something that everybody needs. Whatever the world economy and import-export market wants to do, I think we’re well situated to participate in a positive manner, complement current recycling, grow recycling rates in the U.S. and add a whole lot of jobs in the states in which we’re going to be processing.
Plastics-to-fuel could be an outlet for materials there’s no other way to handle.
True in a sense. Our largest competitor is landfills. Most of the stuff ends up in the landfill, especially when markets are questionable or unpredictable. We just become a different outlet for those streams, and hopefully a beneficial outlet because we’re repurposing. We’re not hiding it in a hole in the ground or storing it where it really doesn’t belong. I don’t think plastic’s the primary thing that should go in a landfill for economic and environmental reasons. So we’re positioned to help with that shift in the domestic markets if they occur.
Where is the plastics-to-fuel industry in its development?
It’s evolved pretty dramatically. We and two other companies self-organized and self-funded a small tradeorganization nearly five years ago, the Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, part of the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division.
We have seen a number of developments at a macro level that has helped our technology members and affiliate members grow this channel and get to a stage of commercialization and birthing this industry together. Our focus has been on policy initiatives, whether on a state-by-state or federal level.
Having our value proposition and the energy-recovery benefits and the features of a plastics-to-fuel technology properly positioned in the marketplace, whether it’s a policy audience, a supply-based audience, permitting, customer audience, we spend a lot of time developing a lot of materials to talk through the features and benefits of plastics-to-fuel from economic, social and environmental studies.
We just completed two studies this year, one with Argonne National Lab that was published, as well as a recent study that was released on the emissions of plastics-to-fuel facilities when compared to other types of manufacturing, So we’re seeing a good base of information going forward into the marketplace, and that really helps with permitting decisions, siting decisions, attracting capital – that tends to be the largest focus for any of our industry partners, is attracting capital to grow and get established.
Oil prices of course are another factor often tied to plastics-to-fuel. Right now oil remains under $50 a barrel. How is that market affecting your company?
It certainly has an effect, because we’re making blendstocks for the transportation fuels industry as well as heavy hydrocarbon and waxes. So if you look at the diesel and gasoline markets, those are directly tied to the crude oil market indexes and trading, so there is a direct effect.
Obviously, when crude oil is trading at $90 a barrel, the profitability of a petroleum-producing facility is much higher than it may be at $30 like we touched on a couple of years ago. It does have an impact on us. We watch it carefully because we are tied to the petroleum markets. And it’s just one of those conditions that we can’t do much about but pay close attention to.
What are some other forces that impact the sector?
The challenges we can’t control would be energy pricing, and to some extent, a macroeconomic issue like National Sword or Green Fence, a beyond-our-borders kind of disruption or change.
The thing we can control that we’ve had some success with, which does impede progress to some extent, is the regulatory side. Many, if not most states in the U.S., really have not addressed or accommodated for innovation and cutting-edge technologies such as plastics-to-fuel. We’re saddled with waste regulations that are 20 and in some cases 25-30 years old. It’s difficult to begin a permitting process to establish a location when you’re treated no different than anybody else in the disposal industry.
That’s one of the efforts we’ve taken on through our plastics-to-fuel group with the ACC, is to begin to modernize the waste regulations state by state so these technologies are allowed to establish themselves, and blossom and bring innovation to the industry. We had recent success in the state of Florida with House Bill 335, which passed in May.
We hope to use that as a template for remaining states that have not codified in their solid waste regulations or statutes to acknowledge energy recovery and, specifically, plastics-to-fuel to allow locations to be permitted correctly and to allow these technologies to proliferate with very low barriers.
Plastics-to-fuel plants bring jobs. They bring positive local environmental impact. We take scrap out of the waste stream that may end up in the landfill, waterways or as litter and convert it into a local fuel that can be used by the local community.
https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2017/08/09/qa-plastics-fuel-exec-china-ban-sectors-potential/
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U.S. Emerging as Powerful Force in LNG Trade
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewald
The United States is rapidly becoming a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in 60 years.
That's according to data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. While imports of gas are flat or falling, exports continue to rise, and the data give weight to government analysts' conviction that the United States is on track to become a net energy exporter, possibly as soon as within a decade.
EIA noted in a report yesterday that during the first half of 2017, the United States exported more natural gas than it imported in three of the first five months.
New Census Bureau data show that, by value, the United States was again a net exporter in June 2017, selling about $593 million worth of natural gas to the world while importing $566 million via gas pipelines from Canada and as liquefied natural gas.
That means the United States sold more gas to foreign trade partners than it imported for four of the first six months of the year. With new pipeline and LNG export capacity coming online soon, the United States should close out 2017 as a net exporter of natural gas, a situation that hasn't been seen since 1957, according to EIA.
Pipeline gas exports to Mexico are climbing relatively quickly as Mexico moves toward more gas-fired power generation. But gas pipeline exports to Canada have risen, too, while Canadian exporters have struggled to increase sales to the United States ever since the shale gas revolution unlocked huge new volumes of U.S. gas reserves.
"While the United States remains a net importer of natural gas from Canada, U.S. exports to eastern Canada have been increasing steadily since 2000, when the Vector pipeline began service," EIA noted. "U.S. natural gas exports from Michigan, mainly through the Vector pipeline, make up most of the natural gas export volumes by pipeline to Canada."
Imports from Canada enter primarily in the West.
Census Bureau trade data show the values of exports and imports of natural gas are about neck and neck so far this year in value, both at around $4.2 billion each. LNG exports now dwarf imports, however. The data show $1.7 billion in sales of U.S. LNG to the world for the first half of this year, while LNG importers bought $346 million worth.
Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass became the first major LNG exporting hub to commence shipments since the shale gas boom. That facility is now poised to expand export capacity. Freeport LNG south of Houston expects to begin liquefaction and shipments in late 2018 or early 2019. Dominion Energy's Cove Point LNG in Maryland will be in service by the end of this year, the company says. More projects are coming in Corpus Christi, Texas; elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico region; and at Georgia's Elba Island.
Proponents of these investments say LNG and other gas exports will help alleviate the United States' gargantuan trade deficit. However, to date, there is little evidence that rising exports of fossil fuels are helping to reduce the deficit.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Friday that the trade deficit is now more than 10 percent larger than it was a year ago. Oil imports used to make up a major portion of the total trade deficit as the United States became heavily dependent on other nation's crude oil production. But that ceased being true around 2000. A huge goods trade deficit with the world and with China in particular now dwarfs any impact on the numbers from oil imports.
Though the data show U.S. energy exports are not alleviating the overall trade deficit, that could change over time as the nation becomes a net energy exporter, depending on the future value of oil and natural gas. So far this year, U.S. oil exports have more than doubled, while exports of refined fuels remain strong.
Rising sales abroad of U.S. crude oil, pipelined natural gas, LNG and refined fuels should combine to see the nation becoming a net energy exporter, but that transition is being led by fossil fuels trade. The United States has seen its domestic solar power manufacturing industry hammered by import competition; combined with wind power technology, the U.S. renewable energy industry's overwhelming dependence on foreign wind and solar technology will likely continue for a long time.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058545
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Domestic NatGas Supply Forecast to Increase in 2017, 2018, Says EIA
Aug 9, 2017 | Natural Gas Intel
By Carolyn Davis
Dry natural gas production from U.S. onshore basins is expected to increase 1.2 Bcf/d this year from 2016, averaging 73.5 Bcf/d, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Domestic exports to overseas markets also should continue to strengthen, government researchers said Tuesday in the August Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).
The forecast for total U.S. 2018 gas production is an increase of 3.9 Bcf/d from 2017 to 77.34 Bcf/d, up from a previous estimate of 76.42 Bcf/d.
The United States should become a net gas exporter in 2018, a shift already underway this year as gas exports exceeded imports in three of the first five months of 2017.
EIA also is forecasting gas prices to move higher.
“In July, the average Henry Hub natural gas spot price was $2.98/MMBtu, about the same as in June,” EIA noted. “Higher natural gas exports and growing domestic natural gas consumption in 2018 contribute to the forecast Henry Hub natural gas spot price rising from an annual average of $3.06/MMBtu in 2017 to $3.29/MMBtu in 2018.”
Last month EIA’s researchers estimated gas prices would average $3.10/MMBtu this year and $3.40 in 2018. The June STEO estimated gas prices would average $3.16 in 2017 and $3.41 in 2018.
New York Mercantile Exchange contract values for December 2017 delivery, in the five-day period ending last Friday (Aug. 3), “suggest that a range of $2.17/MMBtu to $4.48/MMBtu encompasses the market expectation for December Henry Hub gas prices at a 95% confidence level,” the STEO said. The Aug. 3 Henry price settled down 15 cents from July 3. Henry spot prices averaged $2.98/MMBtu in July, nearly unchanged from the June average.
Gas production in the Marcellus and Utica shales has risen substantially in recent years, often outpacing gas pipeline capacity growth, which in turn has pressured regional prices lower relative to the benchmark Henry price.
The front-month basis swap for Dominion South in southwestern Pennsylvania was minus $1.20/MMBtu as of last Friday, down from the average basis of minus 50 cents/MMBtu from January through May, EIA noted.
“This price decrease reflects constrained pipeline takeaway capacity, which drives producers to lower their natural gas prices. Prior increases in takeaway capacity in the region have narrowed the basis.”
Last November the Algonquin Incremental Market expansion began service, likely contributing to the basis swap narrowing by more than $1.00/MMBtu, according to EIA.
“The Dominion South basis swap could remain near minus $1.00/MMBtu without new takeaway capacity,” researchers said. However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission certified several gas pipeline projects for the region earlier this year.
“Once new capacity comes on line, especially from the Atlantic Sunrise and the Rover pipeline projects, the basis swap with Henry Hub could narrow.”
EIA also sees U.S. electricity generation declining this year by 1.2% from 2016, mostly reflecting forecasts of milder temperatures in 3Q2017 versus a year ago. Forecast generation is seen up by 1.8% in 2018 mostly on expectations of an upcoming colder winter.
“EIA expects the share of U.S. total utility-scale electricity generation from natural gas to fall from an average of 34% in 2016 to about 31% in 2017 as a result of higher natural gas prices, increased generation from renewables and coal, and lower electricity demand,” researchers said.
Meanwhile, coal's forecast generation share now is expected to match natural gas in 2018, averaging 31-32%.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111354-domestic-natgas-supply-forecast-to-increase-in-2017-2018-says-eia
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U.S. LNG Export Capacity to Grow Nearly Sevenfold by 2019, EIA Says
Aug 9, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
The energy industry's capacity to export U.S. liquefied natural gas is set to increase nearly sevenfold over the next three years as companies bring gas super-cooling facilities into production, the Energy Information Administration said Wednesday.
The United States has exported more gas than it imported over the past few months, a trend the EIA expects to continue for the rest of this year and next year. The advent of shale gas has raised the nation's production by a third since 2008.
Five new LNG export projects, as well as rising capacity on pipelines to Mexico, will lift the nation's export capacity from 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas a day at the end of last year to 9.5 billion cubic feet a day by the end of 2019 – behind only Australia and Qatar, the EIA said.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/U-S-LNG-capacity-to-grow-nearly-sevenfold-by-11744997.php
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Investors to Trump EPA: Don't Freeze Obama Methane Rule
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
Investors managing hundreds of billions of dollars are pressing U.S. EPA to swiftly enforce a policy to limit the leaking of methane, the potent greenhouse gas.
The agency last year finalized a rule requiring the oil and gas industry to rein in methane leaks from hydraulic fracturing and natural gas projects. But the Trump administration stayed the rule, which is now tied up in a federal court fight.
In comments sent yesterday, 66 investors representing $270 billion of assets under management urged EPA to reinstate the rule.
Investors concerned about climate change often use their financial clout to negotiate with companies and governments on environmental issues. The practice has grown in popularity in recent years, though House Republicans are seeking to dismantle shareholder activism (Climatewire, June 9).
"As shareholders, we have a vested interest in the long-term success of the companies we are invested in," the authors wrote to Peter Tsirigotis, an official in EPA's air office. The comments were submitted in response to the Trump administration's plans to freeze the regulation's implementation for two years, after initially staying the rule for 90 days.
The stay of the rule and a jump in methane emissions "constitute a clear and measurable harm not only to the climate, but also to investors who have positioned their portfolios with these regulations in mind," they said. "We urge their implementation now."
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder advocacy group, organized the letter. And mutual funds, pensions and religious investment groups signed it.
Last month, a federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled against EPA and ordered it to enforce the rule after the Trump administration halted the implementation of the standard.
Oil and gas industry lawyers filed court papers Friday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. They said the panel of judges on the court had erred in requiring EPA to enforce the methane rules and requested that the full 11-judge court consider the case (Energywire, Aug. 4).
Those behind the investor letter want quick EPA action.
"Despite real efficiency gains by some parts of the industry in regard to its methane emissions, investor concern about methane leakage has only grown since the EPA methane rules were first proposed," Jamie Bonhamof NEI Investments, a Canadian firm and a signatory, said in a statement.
"The oil and gas industry is the leading industrial source of methane pollution," said Mary Minette of Mercy Investment Services. "If methane emissions are not addressed, they will undermine natural gas's reputation as a cleaner energy source."
Delaying the Obama administration's methane rules, the investors wrote, will waste natural gas that could be sold, put jobs at risk and flummox investors who planned for climate regulations, including those to slash methane leaks.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058560
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Pa.'s Gas Tax under Attack with Lawsuits and Banners
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
A coalition of industrial groups called on Pennsylvania legislators to oppose a package of energy tax increases that cleared the state Senate last month, saying it would hurt the state's economy and smother its budding petrochemical industry.
The bill is unpopular with environmentalists, too, because it would roll back some of the state's environmental regulations. Some nonprofit groups have discussed suing to block portions of it.
The business groups have consistently opposed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's tax proposals, but they're sounding a more urgent alarm this year. A bipartisan compromise in the state Senate would impose a direct tax on natural gas production for the first time. And House Democrats may use a procedural move that could force a vote on a separate natural gas tax proposal in the lower chamber.
The combination "brought more stuff to a head," Gene Barr, president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said in an interview yesterday.
The chamber held a conference call with the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents the state's unconventional drillers, and a half dozen other trade groups calling on the House leadership to reject the bill.
The budget bill would impose a variable tax on natural gas production, in addition to the annual impact fee that producers pay for each well. It also would tax natural gas consumers and expand the taxes on electricity for telephone usage (Energywire, July 28).
An analysis by nonprofit group Resources for the Future estimated that the production tax would've brought in $90 million in 2015. That makes it "unlikely to have a major effect on either government revenues or the investment climate for Marcellus shale developers," wrote senior research associate Daniel Raimi.
Wolf and other proponents argue that taxing the soaring production from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale gas field is an easy solution to the state's recurring budget problems. Most other oil- and gas-producing states have a similar tax.
Producers argue that they already pay a tax in the form of the impact fee, and some other oil and gas states don't have a corporate income tax. The Marcellus field also struggles with low prices — as little as half the national average — because Pennsylvania lacks pipelines connecting to major markets.
A new tax would not only harm gas producers, it would raise costs for plastic manufacturers and others that might consider building in Pennsylvania. Higher energy costs would also harm factory owners and other big energy users, said Dave Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association.
"We leave it unto ourselves to take every measure whether it is Hill visits or town hall meetings or earned media or paid media or internet buys or smoke signals or we'll hire a plane down the shore in Jersey with a banner behind it," Taylor said on the conference call. "We're going to do whatever is necessary."
Environmentalists, too, are trying to kill the budget bill. The proposal includes a series of measures aimed at speeding up permitting for natural gas products and would create a committee to review the state Department of Environmental Protection's proposed regulations aimed at controlling methane emissions from the industry.
The Clean Air Council and other groups have researched whether that language would stand up in court, said Joe Minott, executive director and chief counsel of the Clean Air Council. In the meantime, they're pressuring legislators to change the bill.
"This tax code is a disaster," he said. "Hopefully the Legislature will come to its senses."
It's unclear when the House will even vote on the bill. Both legislative chambers have approved the state's $32 billion budget for fiscal 2017-18 but haven't agreed on a revenue plan to pay for it. The House adjourned shortly after the Senate passed its version of the tax bill and may not return to the Capitol until the end of this month.
House Speaker Mike Turzai (R) has blocked previous attempts to pass a gas tax. But the idea has some support among the Republican rank and file, and at least two GOP representatives have filed their own gas tax bills.
Democrats in the House hope to use a procedure called a discharge resolution to force a vote on one of the GOP tax bills, which has been stuck in a committee since it was introduced. A discharge resolution removes a bill from a committee's jurisdiction and brings it to the floor of the House for a vote.
The maneuver isn't guaranteed to work, because the resolution process allows enough time for the committee to modify the bill, either diluting it or changing its purpose enough that the speaker can assign it to a different committee, said Michael Herzing, a spokesman for the House Democratic Caucus.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058544
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Tracing a Path to Better Shale Production
Aug 9, 2017 | Upstream Online
By Jennifer Pallanich
At its most basic, a chemical tracer allows operators to see the flow-back from each stage of a well.
In an unconventional well, which may have four dozen or more stages, operators can find this quantitative measurement useful.
“Putting tracers in the well is neat, but I want a better well. I want to make money from it. I don’t want to do it just because I like science,” says Dave Bucior, Tracerco’s Reservoir business development manager.
“It’s nice to say that I got 10% of the oil from stage five and 20% of the oil from stage seven, but I want to know why stage seven gave me 20%, and why stage five gave me 10%.”
Tracers provide correlation between the stage production and geophysical data about the well, and operators can use the ever-increasing understanding about their reservoirs to create better plans for future wells and fields.
Chemical tracers are not new to the oil and gas industry. They have provided information about reservoirs for about half a century.
From the outset, the pattern tended to be a production well surrounded by injection wells, whereby a different tracer was placed in each injection well to determine how long it took to reach the production well.
As unconventional wells gained in number and increased in length – and regulations to protect the environment became more stringent – new technology had to evolve that could provide the information operators wanted about their wells, such as whether the stimulation of a stage was effective and whether the frac stage placement was correct.
About seven years ago, Tracerco developed and patented a tracer technology that would provide insight as to where in the reservoir oil was coming from.
Bucior says the company created a tracer capable of forming an emulsion with frac water, and due to its high solubility in oil or gas move across when in contact with native hydrocarbons in the reservoir.
The tracer enters the well’s fracture matrix via the stimulation fluid. When the well flows, the water comes out of the well first, followed by the oil or gas. The oil or gas carries the tracer back to the surface.
“We put a different tracer into each stage and sample the oil or gas at the top of the well when it’s returned,” Bucior says.
“We measure the concentration of oil or gas tracers in the samples and assign how much oil or gas came from each stage based upon the amount returning over a given time period.”
Tracerco’s new tracer technology, which the company refers to as Tracer Production Log, allows operators to track the water, oil and gas phase flow from each stage in a well.
“If I understand what I produced, I can then look at the assumptions I made when I drilled and stimulated the well and validate whether those were accurate,” he says.
An operator can then compare that tracer feedback with logging and production data.
“Whatever data they have and whatever decisions they’ve made about the well, the tracer technology today provides a method to evaluate how well they did when planning, drilling, completing and stimulating.
"The more they know and more they refine it, the better they’ll produce in the future,” Bucior says.
This data can tell them how close together to drill future wells, for example.
“If they drill wells too far apart and the fracture matrix doesn’t connect, then they’re leaving untapped hydrocarbons in the ground, but if they overlap too much, they’re drilling too close together,” he says.
“If we see tracers in one well and it also turns up in the other well, we can prove connectivity. By seeing how much returned from the parent well and how much came from the sister well, we can then begin to understand how much the fracture matrix overlaps.”
How long a tracer remains in the reservoir depends on the well. If a stage does not produce oil, the tracer will remain static in the ground. The higher the flow rate from a stage, the quicker the tracer comes out of the reservoir.
It is also possible to determine just how much tracer has been recovered from an individual stage.
Bucior says lengthening laterals in the unconventional plays mean more unique tracers are required.
“Five years ago, 15 tracers were all that was needed, because wells would be typically 15 stages in design. Today, 50 is common, and 70 stages is not completely unheard of,” he says.
“We’re on a never-ending quest to identify new tracers and bump that number up.”
However, identifying new tracers is not a simple matter. To be considered, a tracer must be a chemical that is non-native to the reservoir, it must not cause any changes in the reservoir, and it must not be altered by the reservoir or absorb into the geology within the reservoir. It must also have no detrimental environmental properties.
Sometimes there are misconceptions about how tracers work.
“Some people want to know what isotope we’re using. We’re not using radiation or stable isotopes. We’re using chemicals at such low levels that you couldn’t even detect them if you don’t know how,” he says.
Tracerco, which stopped relying on radioactive tracers nearly two decades ago, uses chemical compositions that are detectable in the production stream at a rate of parts per trillion.
“Every tracer we use has to be environmentally friendly,” Bucior says. “The tracers we use are carried in an environmentally-friendly solvent.
"The active chemical tracers have undergone scrutiny by the likes of the US (Environmental Protection Agency) to ensure that they meet requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act programme.”
http://www.upstreamonline.com/incoming/1324488/tracing-a-path-to-better-shale-production?utm_medium=email&utm_source=free_article_access&utm_content=160473728
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The Bush Team Censored Climate Reports. Some Fear Trump More.
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
Word got out in September 2002 that the George W. Bush administration had axed a chapter on climate change from an annual U.S. EPA report about air pollution.
Environmentalists were furious. John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council recalls marshaling about a dozen interns to EPA's Washington headquarters to protest. They put black electrical tape over their mouths to represent censorship of climate science, Walke said.
That was just one of several instances when the Bush administration was accused of meddling with government reports to water down or remove discussions about climate change. Now, after a draft federal climate change report surfaced this week, greens who went to war against the Bush administration's environmental policies are watching closely for similar — or even more overt — interference.
"The preliminary signs and the public views of the political actors in 2017 are much worse than they were in 2001 and 2002," Walke said.
Scientists and environmentalists will be scrutinizing how the Trump administration handles the National Climate Assessment, a draft segment of which was published by The New York Timeson Monday. The draft contains conclusions about climate change — including a statement that humans are primarily responsible — that contradict what some members of the Trump administration have stated.
A White House official said in an email that "drafts of this report have been published and made widely available online months ago during the public comment period. The White House will withhold comment on any draft report before its scheduled release date."
The episode is giving some a sense of déjà vu.
"It did harken back to what happened in the Bush administration," said a former EPA official who worked at the agency during the Bush years. "This is 15 years later, there's so much more science than there was then. ... It's sad to think that there's still a controversy over it, if in fact the administration does decide to pull the language or significantly change it."
In 2002, the Times reported that the Bush administration deleted a section on global warming in a report on air pollution. The move was made by top EPA officials and approved by the White House. It reversed a practice started six years earlier of including climatic impacts in the report.
And in June 2003, the Bush administration came under fire again from critics after reportssurfaced that the White House had cracked down on language in an EPA report, removing references to studies finding that global warming was caused at least somewhat by rising emission levels from smokestacks and automobiles and could threaten health and the environment.
Jeremy Symons, a former EPA climate official who moved to the National Wildlife Federation, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post in July 2003. "What began with the Bush administration exercising its discretion over policy choices on global warming has devolved into attempts to suppress scientific information," he said.
Symons, who's now at the Environmental Defense Fund, said this week in an interview that the draft climate report now under review will be a "clear test" about "to what degree the Trump administration is going to politically interfere with climate science."
He and other critics of the Trump administration say they expect political interference with climate science reports to be more extensive than it was during the Bush years. They point to a diversity of views about climate science among top Bush political appointees.
Under Bush, "you had a person in the White House that was leading the effort against the wishes of the EPA administrator and the science team," Symons said.
Phil Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality under Bush, repeatedly changed government climate documents to emphasize uncertainties, the Timesreported in 2005, citing internal White House documents.
Under Trump, Symons said, "You have the head of EPA and the president himself who are hostile to climate science, and there's no telling what the limits of their interference will be. ... I think that Trump and [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt have been pretty clear that they'll go to great lengths to try to prove that climate change isn't real despite the best science."
Pruitt has said of human activity, "I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to global warming that we see." The EPA boss has also called for an intensified public debate about climate science, an idea that has many climate scientists fuming.
Trump, for his part, has called global warming a "hoax" and "bullshit" in the past, although he's skirted the topic of climate science since becoming president.
During the Bush years, deleting climate language from official reports may have done more damage to the administration's agenda than if it had simply left it in, said the former EPA official.
"What it ended up doing was ramping up the pressure on them to do something on climate because it made it a higher-profile issue," that person said. However, that pressure "did not end up forcing them to do anything, they pretty much kicked the can down the road ... and delayed doing much on climate."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058554
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Climate Report’s Deadline Poses Test for Trump Administration
Aug 9, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The Trump administration faces a deadline at the end of next week on whether to approve a scientific report that verifies climate change and attributes it to humans, a position that contradicts some of the rhetoric the president used during his 2016 campaign.
The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is supposed to decide by Aug. 18 whether to approve or recommend changes to the “Climate Change Special Report,” the research on climate science that feeds its National Climate Assessment. That document, mandated by Congress, is a quadrennial government analysis of the effects of climate change in the U.S. Its last version, in 2014, concluded climate change cost the economy billions of dollarsthrough flooding, droughts and other disasters in every region of the country.
The initial draft of the current report documents thousands of studies that show a changing climate with the hottest temperatures in 1,700 years, the fastest-rising seas in more than 2,000 years and a five- to 10-fold increase in U.S. coastal flooding since the 1960s. New scientific advances since 2014 also show more clearly that climate change and extreme weather events come from humans, the draft report said.
“Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible,” it said. “There are no alternative explanations.”
That is at odds with President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, who has said it is “very challenging” to be precise about humans’ role in climate change. And the president himself, while campaigning, called global warming a “hoax.”
“So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the—a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign stop in Hilton Head, S.C. in December 2015.
The scientific draft has been through several versions, one publicly available since late last year. The New York Times reported about the latest draft on Tuesday. Environmental groups and scientists say they are concerned that the Trump administration might try to change or quash the findings. The White House criticized the Times’s article but declined to discuss details.
“Drafts of this report have been published and made widely available online months ago during the public comment period,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “The White House will withhold comment on any draft report before its scheduled release date.”
The Aug. 18 deadline is set by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the administrative unit created by Congress in part to manage the assessment, said Katharine Hayhoe director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center and a lead author of the report. That deadline is to ensure that the scientific report gets released by this autumn so the National Climate Assessment can then publish in late 2018.
This would be only the fourth assessment in 28 years, though Congress required one every four years. Two of the prior three assessments were published during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Mr. Trump has reversed several Obama-era environmental policies, most notably announcing in June he planned to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. Mr. Pruitt is reportedly considering an exercise that would serve as sort of a public debate in which the science of climate change would be thoroughly and publicly discussed. Backers of this concept say there are questions about humans’ role in climate science and that a public airing of the debate would be the best approach.
Scientists and environmentalists say the draft scientific report shows how there is no longer a legitimate debate on whether the climate is changing and whether humans are responsible. And by leaking a draft copy of the report, the authors made it more difficult for potentially hostile political leaders to meddle with those findings, those environmentalists and scientists said.
“It’s scientifically bulletproof,” said Jeremy Symons, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund. “This report takes us past questions of science to focus on solutions.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-reports-deadline-poses-test-for-trump-administration-1502296213
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US Scientists Contradict Trump's Climate Claims
Aug 9, 2017 | AP (in the Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Seth Borenstein
As President Donald Trump touts new oil pipelines and pledges to revive the nation’s struggling coal mines, federal scientists are warning that burning fossil fuels is already driving a steep increase in the United States of heat waves, droughts and floods.
It is the latest example of collisions between Trump’s environmental policies and the facts presented by his government’s experts.
Contradicting Trump’s claims that climate change is a “hoax,” the draft report representing the consensus of 13 federal agencies concludes that the evidence global warming is being driven by human activities is “unambiguous.” That directly undercuts statements by Trump and his Cabinet casting doubt on whether the warming observed around the globe is being primarily driven by man-made carbon pollution.
“There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate,” says the report, citing thousands of peer-reviewed studies. “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans.”
Faced with reams of evidence compiled by federal scientists that conflicts with their policy positions, Trump and his advisers frequently cite the work of industry-funded think tanks. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have championed the formation of a “red-team, blue-team” exercise where climate-change skeptics would publicly debate mainstream climate scientists.
Submitted as part of the upcoming National Climate Assessment, the draft federal report sends the overriding message that failing to curb carbon pollution now will exacerbate negative consequences in the future. That assessment calls into question the wisdom of Trump’s environmental and energy policies, which seek to boost U.S. production and consumption of fossil fuels even as the world’s other leading economies promote cleaner sources of energy.
An early version of the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, was distributed widely in December for review by leading scientists. The New York Times published a copy Monday.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program, which will edit and produce the final climate report, did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment on Tuesday.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders criticized the Times for reporting on the draft document “without first verifying its contents with the White House or any of the federal agencies directly involved with climate and environmental policy.”
She then declined to comment on the report.
“The White House will withhold comment on any draft report before its scheduled release date,” Sanders said.
The assessment has generally been released every four years under a federal initiative mandated by Congress in 1990. The current draft for 2018, targeted for release later this year, largely builds on the conclusions of the 2014 assessment released under the Obama administration.
The assessment said global temperatures will continue to rise without steep reductions in the burning of fossil fuels, with increasingly dire effects on the lives of every American.
Worldwide, 15 of the last 16 years have been the warmest years on record. Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said 2017 is on track to be the second warmest for the United States.
Scientists from all over the world have documented warming in the air and water, melting glaciers, disappearing snow, shrinking sea ice and rising sea level. The report said the United States will see temperature increases of at least 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) over the next few decades, even with significant cuts to carbon pollution.
Even if humans stop spewing heat-trapping gases today, the world will warm another half a degree (0.3 degrees Celsius), the report said, citing high confidence in those calculations. Scientists, such as Stanford University’s Chris Field, say that even a few tenths of a degree of warming can have a dramatic impact on human civilization and the natural environment.
“Every increment in warming is an increment in risk,” said Field, who wasn’t part of the report but reviewed it for The National Academy of Sciences.
Trump, who has called climate change a “total con job” and “hoax” perpetrated to harm U.S. economic competitiveness, has spearheaded a wholesale scrapping of Obama-era initiatives that sought to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources. Last week, the Trump administration formally told the United Nations that the U.S. intends to pull out of the international climate accord signed in 2015, in which nearly 200 nations pledged to reduce carbon emissions.
U.S. climate scientists have watched these policy developments with increasing alarm, with some expressing concern the Trump administration might seek to bury or significantly water down the quadrennial climate assessment.
Four co-authors of the science assessment, who spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue, said they have not heard of or witnessed any attempt by the White House to suppress or censor the scientific document.
“It was under the radar and we were fine about that,” one author told AP on Tuesday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-scientists-contradict-trumps-climate-claims/2017/08/08/3483c8aa-7ca1-11e7-b2b1-aeba62854dfa_story.html?utm_term=.cf499f72be16
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Calif. Water Districts Sue Air Force over Chemicals
Aug 9, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Two California water districts are suing the federal government for $1.4 billion to clean up cancer-causing chemicals from the area's groundwater supplies.
In lawsuits, the Sacramento Suburban Water District and the Rio Linda Elverta Community Water District named the Air Force and 10 major firms that were involved in supplying the old McClellan Air Force Base with hexavalent chromium.
Workers used the chemicals for decades on the base while performing maintenance and other duties, the water districts allege.
The lawsuits claim they will need $1.4 billion to clean up or replace wells and install treatment equipment.
The current water being supplied is safe, the two districts say.
The Air Force has consistently denied responsibility for the chemical being present in groundwater around the base (Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee, Aug. 8). — CS
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/08/09/stories/1060058568
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