Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 8/14/2017
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Manchin Eyed as Potential Pick for Energy Secretary: Report
Aug 14, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood and Devin Henry
White House and Republican officials are floating the possibility of appointing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) as Energy secretary, Bloomberg reported Friday. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Toxic Substances Rules Face First Legal Tests
Aug 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Two of the EPA's core regulations for implementing the nation's amended chemicals law face early legal challenges from more than a dozen environmental, labor, and health organizations. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Lobby Welcomes Congressional Probe of Cancer Research Agency
Aug 11, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US chemical industry is celebrating a government investigation into alleged scientific fraud within the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research agency. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has applauded a letter sent by Republican leaders... -
Using Private Wells: A Drinking Water Safety Guide
Aug 11, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stolber
Nearly one in seven Americans get their drinking water from private wells. Federal and state governments set legal limits for contaminants in public water systems, but those laws don't cover private wells. If you're one of the 44 million people relying on a private well... -
Then They Came For Ben & Jerry’s
Aug 12, 2017 | TownHall
By Brian McNicoll Brian McNicoll
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream had to figure it would be one of the last firms in America to come under attack from the liberal misinformation complex. -
(ACC Mentioned) Petrochemicals’ US Northeast Frontier
Aug 14, 2017 | BreakBulk
By Paul Scott Abbott
The U.S. Northeast’s Appalachian Basin is the next frontier for American petrochemical projects. And while production is highly unlikely to ever come close to rivaling that along the U.S. Gulf, impacts are anticipated to be in the tens of billions of dollars. -
Energy Industry on Losing End of Methane Ruling in Appeals Court
Aug 11, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A federal appeals court Thursday rejected a request by the oil and gas industry and allies to reconsider a court panel's decision last month to lift a stay of Obama-era rules governing new sources of methane emissions. -
Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say
Aug 11, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton
When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is... -
Pruitt: EPA Will Review 'Politicized' Climate Science Report
Aug 11, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Emily Holden
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said his staff will gauge the “accuracy” of a major federal science report that blames human activity for climate change — just days after researchers voiced their fears to The New York Times that the Trump administration... -
Health Study Could Bolster Push for Stricter PM2.5 NAAQS
Aug 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
A new study from academic researchers finds increased rates of hospital admissions in older Americans caused by exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) even below the current national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for the pollutant... -
Massachusetts Finalizes Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan
Aug 11, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Massachusetts regulators released details of a new plan Friday to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in the state, in accordance with a state law and court order. -
New York's Crusade to Price Carbon Won't End with Nuke Subsidies
Aug 11, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jim Poulson and Naureen S. Malik
New York, the state that pioneered subsidies to prop up money-losing nuclear reactors, is weighing more steps to cut carbon emissions by changing the way that electricity is traded.
Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.
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Environment News
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Manchin Eyed as Potential Pick for Energy Secretary: Report
Aug 14, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood and Devin Henry
White House and Republican officials are floating the possibility of appointing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) as Energy secretary, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Manchin was reportedly considered for the job after Trump's election in November, but Trump eventually nominated former Texas Gov. Rick Perryto the post.
Jonathan Kott, a spokesman for Manchin, told Bloomberg that the West Virginia Democrat hasn't been in talks for the job and did not say whether Manchin would take the job if offered to him.
“Senator Manchin has not had any recent conversations with the Administration about the Secretary of Energy position. He remains committed to serving the people of West Virginia,” Kott said.
If Manchin were to take over at the Energy Department, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a former Democrat who earlier this month switched to the GOP, would be able to appoint a Republican to replace Manchin in the Senate.
Such a move would expand the GOP's majority in the chamber, potentially boosting Republicans' efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare. A repeal and replace bill failed by one vote last month after three Republicans voted against it.
Perry, the current Energy secretary, has also been floated as a possible replacement for former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. Kelly became President Trump's chief of staff in July.
The Trump administration has said revitalizing American fossil fuel industries, including West Virginia’s dwindling coal sector, is a key goal. Under Perry, the Energy Department is conducting a study of the reliability of the electric grid, which some green advocates worry is a way to advance coal and natural gas over renewable sources.
But the Energy Department’s portfolio is less focused on energy production than other agencies, such as the Department of Interior. The Energy Department's main tasks include overseeing the national laboratories system, conducting research and development, and maintaining the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/346264-manchin-floated-as-potential-pick-for-energy-secretary-report
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Toxic Substances Rules Face First Legal Tests
Aug 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Two of the EPA's core regulations for implementing the nation's amended chemicals law face early legal challenges from more than a dozen environmental, labor, and health organizations.
The lawsuits mark early tests of two “framework” regulations implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 and could touch on the chemical industry's influence on the Environmental Protection Agency's rules, an attorney for the environmental groups challenges the regulations said.
A coalition of environmental, labor, and health advocacy groups, led by Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, asked a federal appeals court in California Aug. 10 to review EPA regulations that describe the procedures it would use to prioritize chemicals for risk evaluation (RIN:2070-AK23) and the procedures it would use to evaluate (RIN:2070-AK20) chemical risks (Safer Chems. Healthy Families v. EPA, 9th Cir., No. 17-72259, 8/10/17; Safer Chems. Healthy Families v. EPA, 9th Cir., No. 17-72260, 8/10/17).
Separately, the Environmental Defense Fund challenged both rules in a federal appeals court in New York City Aug. 11 (Envtl. Def. Fund v. EPA, 2d Cir., No. 17-2464, 8/11/17).
Conditions of Use
A core issue the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition plans to challenge is the final rule's interpretation of the “conditions of use” that the agency will consider as it decides whether to assess the risks of a chemical or carries out that risk evaluation, Eve Gartner, an Earthjustice attorney representing the coalition told Bloomberg BNA.
The environmental group accused the EPA of violating the law's intent by trying to pick and choose” which uses it would examine when it is required under the statute to evaluate “the conditions of use” not some conditions of use, Gartner said. The law defines the conditions of use as “the circumstances, as determined by the administrator, under which a chemical substance is intended, known, or reasonably foreseen to be manufactured, processed, distributed in commerce, used, or disposed of.” The rules as originally proposed in January would have evaluated the full circumstances of a chemical's use, Gartner said.
The EPA won't get the full science-based perspective if it looks at only some exposures, and it may underestimate risks, Gartner said.
‘Not the Real World’
The “risk scoping” documents the EPA released June 22 describing its initial strategy to evaluate the risks of asbestos and its approach for evaluating a group of flame retardants called the cyclic aliphatic bromide cluster or hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) illustrate the problems that arise when the agency picks and chooses what uses it will examine, Gartner said.
For example, the agency said it would evaluate ongoing, but not legacy, uses of asbestos. That means the agency might consider the chlor-alkali industry's use of asbestos to make chlorine, sodium hydroxide, and hydrogen, but not ongoing exposures that continue from asbestos that remains in buildings, Gartner said. Nor was the scoping document clear on whether the agency would consider all the exposures that occur as asbestos is imported, transported, or transformed into the diaphragms chlor-alkali manufacturers use, and the disposal of those diaphragms, Gartner said.
Ongoing uses might pose a modest increase in risk, but they contribute to a population's background exposures, Gartner said. If the EPA doesn't take the full range of ongoing exposures into account it could underestimate the risks a chemical poses.
If EPA looks only at a snapshot in time, such as ongoing uses, those risks might not be that significant, Gartner said. “But that's not the real world.”
HBCD's ongoing uses are declining because of health concerns it raises, yet legacy uses contribute to ongoing exposures, Gartner said. Household dust measurements of HBCD show that people are being exposed to ongoing and legacy uses of the flame retardants, she said.
EDF's attorney could not be reached immediately Aug. 11.
Chemical Industry Influence May Arise
Gartner said she expects the chemical industry's influence on the two final rules to come up in some way during the litigation.
Nancy Beck, a former American Chemistry Council toxicologist, is now deputy assistant administrator in the EPA office that crafted the final rules, Gartner said. The American Chemistry Council, represents U.S. chemical manufacturers including the Dow Chemical Co. and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP. Beck's position did not require Senate confirmation.
“She gets installed. The rules get changes, and now they reflect precisely what the chemical industry wanted. That's deeply concerning,” Gartner said.
An EPA spokeswoman told Bloomberg BNA, “We welcome working with all stakeholders in a constructive way, including specific suggestions for approaches we can take and the tools we can use that are consistent with the statute, to properly implement TSCA, and ensure that chemicals in commerce are reviewed for safety. Dr. Beck, as we all know, has industry experience—she has decades of unbiased scientific and toxicology work under her belt and has served this country in three Administrations, for both Republican and Democratic presidents.
“We take our ethics responsibilities seriously; all political staff have had an ethics briefing and know their obligations. Each of us has committed to serve in a fair and professional way.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an Aug. 10 order, set an Oct. 30 deadline for the advocacy coalition to file its opening briefs.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=118447274&vname=dennotallissues&fn=118447274&jd=118447274
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(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Lobby Welcomes Congressional Probe of Cancer Research Agency
Aug 11, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US chemical industry is celebrating a government investigation into alleged scientific fraud within the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research agency. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has applauded a letter sent by Republican leaders earlier this month that seeks details about the situation from the head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
At the centre of the controversy is Aaron Blair, a scientist emeritus at NIH’s National Cancer Institute who chaired a working group of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that classified glyphosate as ‘probably carcinogenic’ in 2015. There were revelations last year that Blair did not disclose findings from unpublished research he was involved with that appeared to exonerate glyphosate as a carcinogen.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican Trey Gawdy, is now seeking more information about why the NIH did not publish results in question, and has requested a briefing from NIH staff by 22 August. In addition, he asked the agency to hand over all of its documents and communications relating to the decision not to publish these research findings.
Blair has argued that he didn’t divulge the research results because they were preliminary and unpublished, and were therefore not supposed to be considered by the IARC working group.
Cal Dooley, the ACC’s president and CEO, said the ‘potential omission of critical studies … underscores the systematic problems that exist within the [IARC] and the impact their controversial findings have on public health’. Back in June, the ACC called for an investigation of IARC after it was reported that Blair had withheld the preliminary data.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/us-chemical-lobby-welcomes-congressional-probe-of-cancer-research-agency/3007854.article
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Using Private Wells: A Drinking Water Safety Guide
Aug 11, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stolber
Nearly one in seven Americans get their drinking water from private wells. Federal and state governments set legal limits for contaminants in public water systems, but those laws don't cover private wells. If you're one of the 44 million people relying on a private well for drinking water, here's what you should know and do to make sure your water is safe.
Should I be worried about contamination in my well?
In 2009 the U.S. Geological Survey released a report based on studies of thousands of private domestic wells, finding that almost one-fourth contained contaminants – such as radioactive substances, metals or fluoride – at potentially harmful levels. Agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizer and pesticides, can also harm the groundwater that supplies most private wells. Public systems are required to treat water to lower the level of regulated contaminants, but private well owners are on their own.
Shouldn’t the government require testing of private wells?
Some states and localities require private well owners to test for arsenic or other contaminants during home construction and real estate deals. But there is no nationwide requirement for well owners to test their water. Well owners may not know their groundwater could be contaminated or how to test it. They may think it's too expensive or just not think water contamination is anything to worry about.
A recent analysis in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives called for universal testing for drinking water contaminants in well water. Researchers said states should require testing on new homes and for real estate deals that include private wells to raise awareness and community engagement on groundwater contamination. They also called for subsidies to help lower-income communities and well owners meet the cost of testing.
What contaminants are a concern in private wells? What are the health effects?
Substances found in groundwater and surrounding mineral deposits include:
· Radioactive elements such as radium or uranium. Different types of radioactive elements are associated with different health effects, but all of them increase the risk of cancer. The latest research also finds that radioactive substances may damage the nervous, immune and endocrine systems.
· Metals. Arsenic, a known carcinogen, is commonly found in groundwater, particularly in the West, Midwest and Northeast. The U.S. Geological Survey found that nearly 7 percent of private wells across the country have levels of arsenic above legal limits.
· Fluoride. It occurs naturally in surface water and groundwater, and many public systems also add it to tap water. In 2015, the Public Health Service recommended no more than 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water. Exposure to high levels of fluoride causes tooth and bone damage in young children, and may increase risk of osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that if infant formula is mixed with water containing fluoride, the baby’s teeth might be affected by dental fluorosis, which appears as white spot markings on the teeth.
Groundwater contaminants from human sources include:
· Nitrate, a fertilizer chemical, which frequently contaminates drinking water due to agricultural and urban runoff, and discharges from municipal wastewater treatment plants and septic tanks. Infants and children exposed to high levels of nitrate in drinking water may not get enough oxygen in their blood. Nitrate is also linked to increased risk of cancer and harm to developing fetuses.
· Toxic pesticides, which commonly migrate into groundwater in agricultural areas.
· Industrial products and wastes, which can contaminate groundwater from improper disposal, leaks from underground tanks, or leaching from landfills or waste dumps. Carcinogenic volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, can pollute private water wells near industrial sites or landfills.
· Lead and copper, which can leach from pipes and plumbing fixtures due to the presence of corrosive compounds such as acids in groundwater. Homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes. If your water has a pH value of less than 7, or has other indicators of corrosive water, metals such as copper and lead can easily leach from pipes into water. To address this problem, private well owners can install a treatment system to balance the water’s chemistry.
· Microbes such as bacteria, viruses and other parasites, which can contaminate wells from both natural and human-related activities. Water contaminated with infectious microbes can cause gastrointestinal illnesses, and in more severe cases, long-term infections may follow. This particularly affects private well owners who live near large animal feeding operations. Boiling water to kill microbes offers an immediate remedy, but in the long term, the only effective solutions are finding a new source of water, building a new well, or requiring polluters to prevent runoff of manure and other contaminants.
How can I find out what contaminants are in my well?
The only way is to have it tested by a certified laboratory. This Environmental Protection Agency website will help you find a certified lab in your state. Local health departments may also have programs to test private well water.
When should I have my water tested?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend regular mechanical maintenance and testing your well every spring. Regular testing is recommended because contaminant levels can change over time. You should also test your well:
· Before you use it for the first time.
· If someone in your household is pregnant or nursing.
· If there are known problems with well water in your area.
· If your household plumbing contains lead.
· If there has been flooding or other land disturbances in your area.
· After you repair any part of your well system.
· If you notice changes in the taste, color or odor of your water.
What should I do if contaminants are detected?
Contact your local or state health department for more information and to discuss the test results. You can also compare your results to EWG’s Drinking Water Standards, which reflect the best and most current science about health risks of contaminants, instead of government regulations that are often based on political and economic compromises or outdated studies. In-home water treatment will remove some chemicals, but different types of devices remove different pollutants.
How can I keep my well safe?
1. Have it tested annually. You don’t know what’s in the water if you don’t test.
2. Remain aware of potential sources of contamination near your well, such as livestock operations, septic tanks or fuel spills.
3. Practice regular maintenance of your well. Look each month for cracking, corrosion or a missing well cap. Keep records of testing and maintenance.
4. Hire a certified well driller for any new construction or modifications.
5. After a flood, have your well inspected and cleaned by a professional. Do not turn on the pump until after inspection.
Where can I find additional resources?
· The EPA’s list of state resources and programs.
· The EPA’s factsheet “Drinking Water from Household Wells.”
· The CDC’s “Guide to Drinking Water Treatment Technologies for Household Use.”
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/08/using-private-wells-drinking-water-safety-guide#.WZFVaVUjGUk
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Then They Came For Ben & Jerry’s
Aug 12, 2017 | TownHall
By Brian McNicoll Brian McNicoll
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream had to figure it would be one of the last firms in America to come under attack from the liberal misinformation complex.
It has created flavors to honor Democrat politicians, contributed to Democrat campaigns and positioned itself well to the left on social and employment issues. It has cultivated an image of the “good capitalist,” which can create jobs, lead in its field and do it all in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
But when there became a bigger fish to fry, all the loyalty the company thought it had earned suddenly dried up. And now the knives – or at least the ice cream spoons – are out for it.
Last month, the New York Times fired an opening salvo in this new battle with an article that said several of Ben & Jerry’s more popular flavors – Half Baked, Phish Food Peanut Butter Cookie and Chocolate Fudge Brownie were found to contain a “controversial herbicide” – glyphosate, the main ingredient in the RoundUp brand of weed killers.
Why would the left turn on Ben & Jerry’s in this way? Because a bigger lobby – in this case the Organic Consumers Association – wants it this way. For years, the organization has tried to pressure Ben & Jerry’s to “stop greenwashing” itself and “go organic.” Ben & Jerry’s already doesn’t use genetically modified plant ingredients in its products, but that is not enough.CARTOONS | STEVE BREENVIEW CARTOON
It also is not enough that the amounts of glyphosate found in those ice cream pints fell far below the safe legal limits set by the EPA. To reach what the EPA considers the danger zone, a 75-pound child would have to eat 145,000 servings of Chocolate Fudge Brownie, which contained the most glyphosate of any of the brands tested. An adult would have to at 290,000. Even the binge-iest of ice cream eaters could not come close.
The Organic Consumers Association’s Ronnie Cummins summed up his group’s response: “Not everyone agrees with the acceptable levels governments have set. And, anyway, would you want to be eating this stuff at all?”
So, perhaps it’s twice as bad as government describes, and kids would need to eat only 72,000 pints and adults 145,000. No one has proposed eating glyphosate itself, and everyone has safely eaten food grown with the help of glyphosate.
Few things bring out the regulatory crazy like anti-glyphosate campaigns. The organics people point out the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as “probably carcinogenic” in a 2015 report. But they do not point out that just last month, the European Chemicals Agency refuted the link with cancer or that nearly every regulatory agency, food safety outfit and chemicals evaluator in the world has tested glyphosate repeatedly for decades now and found no link with cancer.
They also fail to point out that, according to a Reuters story in June, the working group that developed the IARCs’ findings that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic refused to consider an important study that contradicted its thesis. The Agricultural Health Study followed 89,000 farm workers and their families for two decades and found no discernible link to cancer.
Findings from this study were first published in 2005. But because the group is still processing some data for its updated study, the IARC working group refused to consider its findings, even though one of the scientists is involved with both projects and knows full-well what the updated findings are expected to reveal.
The foot-dragging on releasing the new data, which appears to be designed to keep information unfavorable to the IARC’s findings from seeing the light of day, has caught the eye of Congress. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, who wrote to the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health last week, pushing them to review the data and publish those parts having to do with glyphosate. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked the same of the National Cancer Institute.
So we have advocates lobbying for organic food claiming on one side that any exposure to glyphosate is too much, regardless of the fact we’re nearly all consumers of it and seem to be surviving. On the other side are the public health, food safety and chemical analysts of the United States and most of the countries of Europe saying the amounts we may inquire in normal food intake pose no threat.
So let’s get those results out and see what they say and where we stand. And if it turns out yet again that the dangers have been oversold and the benefits undersold, then let’s, for once, let science dictate over lobbying interests and let farmers use the products they find most effective.
https://townhall.com/columnists/brianmcnicoll/2017/08/12/then-they-came-for-ben--jerrys-n2367509
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(ACC Mentioned) Petrochemicals’ US Northeast Frontier
Aug 14, 2017 | BreakBulk
By Paul Scott Abbott
The U.S. Northeast’s Appalachian Basin is the next frontier for American petrochemical projects. And while production is highly unlikely to ever come close to rivaling that along the U.S. Gulf, impacts are anticipated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
The region – which includes large portions of western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky – is rich in natural gas and oil supplies from the Marcellus/Utica and Rogersville shale plays, making it a logical place for building massive petrochemical plants, known as crackers, used in transforming raw materials into everyday plastics.
A U.S. unit of British-Dutch energy and petrochemical giant Shell has this year begun grade-level construction for a massive cracker complex about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, while Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical Public Co. Ltd. is expected to decide by year-end whether to solidify plans for building a 450-acre cracker plant of its own in Dilles Bottom, Ohio, about 15 miles south of Wheeling, West Virginia.
Shell plans to have its facility at a former zinc smelter site along the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, operational by early 2020s. It will take the natural gas liquid ethane from the Marcellus/Utica formations and use furnace units to break it apart – or “crack” it – rearranging its large molecules into carbon and hydrogen atoms to create ethylene, which is to be further processed to create different types of polyethylene. Polyethylene pellets, produced at a pace of 1.6 million tons a year, are then to be shipped to plastics products manufacturers via railcars and trucks.
Senators Seek Action
Meanwhile, U.S. senators from West Virginia and Ohio are pushing legislation to direct the U.S. departments of Energy and Commerce to study establishment – likely along the Ohio River – of a subterranean Appalachian Storage Hub for holding and distributing ethane from the region’s shale plays. Currently, much of that ethane is shipped via pipelines to the U.S. Gulf region for cracking, with the rest blended into the overall methane stream and sold as commercial natural gas.
The Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act of 2017, S. 1075, was introduced in May by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.; and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where it remained without action through early summer.
But development of storage facilities for natural gas liquids, or NGLs, isn’t waiting on legislation. Energy Storage Ventures LLC, a Denver-based portfolio company of a private equity fund managed by Goldman, Sachs & Co., anticipates storing ethane below ground at a 200-acre site 12 miles south of Dilles Bottom by the end of 2018. That Ohio site is near Blue Racer Midstream’s Berne Complex of two cryogenic natural gas processing plants, both of which became operational in 2015.
Costs Expected to Rise
Yet, even with the current and projected activity, expert observers don’t see the U.S. Northeast as ever coming close to the long-established Gulf petrochemical industry in production capabilities. This is in part because of higher construction and labor costs. Moreover, the Gulf is decades ahead in infrastructure, with more than a dozen major new cracker projects in the pipeline. An abundance of Gulf region feedstock is helping fuel a record boom in exports of plastic resins from Gulf ports.
American Chemistry Council economists see higher costs associated with Northeast crackers compared with Gulf counterparts, but they see Appalachia offering some advantages as well.
“The fixed capital costs are higher largely because construction costs are higher in the Northeast,” said Kevin Swift, chief economist at the Washington-based chemical industry trade group. He pointed out that states of the Appalachian Basin are heavily unionized, while Texas and Louisiana are right-to-work states, with opportunities for lower-cost nonunion labor.
Swift’s view on costs is supported by a May report from Petrochemical Update, a division of London-based market intelligence firm FCBI Energy Ltd. The report indicates capital costs, including construction and detailed design, are US$250 million to US$270 million higher in the Northeast compared with the Gulf for development of a similar typical cracker.
Whereas hundreds of millions of dollars may seem to be a deal-breaker, one way to look at the comparison is that the capital cost difference is about 5 percent of the total investment for a new cracker. While the companies haven’t released figures, the Shell and PTT cracker projects each have estimated price tags in the US$6 billion range.
Proximity is Key
Martha Moore, the American Chemistry Council’s senior director of policy analysis and economics, agreed that costs may be higher, but also cited several benefits related to Northeast crackers.
First of all, Moore said, Appalachian Basin crackers benefit from proximity to shale plays that are rich in NGLs, with production expected to increase, reaching 350,000 barrels a day of ethane available from Marcellus/Utica formations by 2025.
Furthermore, she said, the Appalachian Basin is close to Midwest manufacturing hubs, including those which demand plastics.
Moore offered the strength of the U.S. economy as another factor favoring Northeast cracker development. And her colleague, Swift, noted that the interior Northeast does not experience hurricanes as the Gulf does – although it does get plenty of snow.
A report from the American Chemistry Council, unveiled at a Capitol Hill press event featuring lawmakers from West Virginia, said the four-state region of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky could realize 100,000 permanent new jobs, including 25,700 new chemical and plastic products manufacturing positions, by 2025, with new facility investments generating US$2.9 billion a year in federal, state and local tax revenues.
All told, the American Chemistry Council analysis projects a US$32.4 billion investment in petrochemicals and derivatives and a US$3.4 billion investment in plastic products in the Northeast through the mid-2020s, including construction of five ethane crackers and two propane dehydrogenation facilities, with each of the latter containing a polypropylene resin plant.
In releasing the report, council President Cal Dooley underscored the importance of supportive governmental policies in bringing to fruition the Appalachian Storage Hub around which Northeast petrochemical activity is seen as being centered.
“The right policies are critical to realizing this opportunity,” Dooley said, adding that he sees the Senate bill as “an important step forward [that] will help inform efforts to maximize America’s domestic energy and manufacturing potential.”
“Uncertainty around financing is a key barrier to the development of energy infrastructure in the Appalachian region,” Dooley added. “Policymakers can help by affirming that NGL storage and distribution projects are eligible for existing private-public financing programs. As Congress and the administration consider infrastructure modernization legislation, the Appalachian Hub should be a priority. And a timely and efficient regulatory permitting process is essential.”
‘Not A Competition’
Swift emphasized that the Gulf, with its seven-decade lead in providing crackers and related infrastructure, should always be a much larger player than the Northeast when it comes to the petrochemical business. While development of U.S. shale resources is spurring a cumulative investment of US$181 billion, that is predominantly occurring in the Gulf, with a comparatively small US$16 billion announced for the Appalachian basin.
“We’re only talking about up to five crackers going into the Northeast,” Swift said. “The Northeast will never surpass the Gulf. It’s not a competition.”
In fact, the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research & Innovation Center, a South Charleston, West Virginia-based not-for-profit group that is at the forefront in pushing for the Appalachian Storage Hub, is anticipating plenty of activity for both regions.
“First, to be clear, we are advocating for a dual-region approach,” said Steve Hedrick, president and CEO of the group, which is known at MATRIC. “Second, we can foresee significant projects in the Appalachian Basin enjoying the advantage of being collocated with major raw material resources in the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shales, and hence avoiding the transport costs of these raw materials to other processing locations in the U.S. Gulf.
“These manufacturing facilities will be complementary to those being built and those already operating along the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Hedrick said. “We may see that the major operations in the Gulf are utilized at maximum capacity to supply export markets around the world through supply chains with high elasticity, while significant operations in Appalachia may supply the domestic markets with cost-effective intermediates to be transformed into finished consumer goods.”
Hedrick said he believes most of the transport of raw materials and liquid intermediaries in the Northeast will be accomplished by pipelines, with intermediate solid goods requiring transport to converters via road, river and rail.
Storage Hub Remains Vital
Development of the Appalachian Storage Hub is critical to maximizing potential of the raw materials from the Marcellus/Utica and Rogersville shales, according to Hedrick, who said the concept is similar to the Mont Belvieu hub in Texas that supports the Gulf Coast chemical industry. Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles east of Houston, has been the center of the NGLs universe since the 1950s, with salt dome storage served by an expansive network of pipelines.
The Appalachian hub project, with a cost estimated by TopLine Analytics to be about US$10 billion, would have capacity for 75 million to 100 million barrels of NGLs and liquid chemicals, and would include as many as 3,000 miles of underground pipelines to move the chemicals to industries along a 454-mile corridor in four states.
Advocates for the Appalachian Storage Hub are quick to note that 70 percent of all North American polyethylene and polypropylene demand is within 700 miles of the Appalachian Basin, thus offering a ready market for plastics that are used by consumers and original equipment manufacturers.
The other key selling point, proximity to NGL supplies, is driven home in a report produced by IHS Markit for Team Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development. That report says transportation accounts for between 65 percent and 70 percent of the cost for ethane and propane transported to Mont Belvieu, while the Appalachian Basin has access to ethane or propane for “less than half the cost.”
The same report notes that, in 2015, natural gas from Marcellus/Utica shale plays accounted for one-quarter of all natural gas produced in the U.S., and these Northeast formations are expected to account for more than 40 percent of the nation’s natural gas production by 2030, with commensurate increases in availability of NGLs.
http://www.breakbulk.com/petrochemicals-northeast-frontier/
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Energy Industry on Losing End of Methane Ruling in Appeals Court
Aug 11, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A federal appeals court Thursday rejected a request by the oil and gas industry and allies to reconsider a court panel's decision last month to lift a stay of Obama-era rules governing new sources of methane emissions.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by an 8-3 voted denied a motion to rehear arguments over the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed rules governing fugitive emissions, pneumatic pumps and professional engineer certification requirements as outlined in updates to the agency's New Source Performance Standards (NSPS).
Last May, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a 90-day stay over the rules, but a three-judge panel in early July lifted the stay following a 2-1 vote.
Earlier this month, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and other trade associations representing the energy industry filed a reply in support of a petition to rehear the case en banc. They argued that the panel erred when it said the stay constituted a reviewable final agency action. However, the appellate court disagreed.
"Industry intervenor-respondents' and states intervenor-respondents' petitions for rehearing en banc, the response thereto, and the reply were circulated to the full court, and a vote was requested," the court said. "Thereafter, a majority of the judges eligible to participate did not vote in favor of the petitions. Upon consideration of the foregoing, it is ordered that the petitions be denied."
The order said Judges Janice Rogers Brown, Karen LeCraft Henderson and Brett Kavanaugh would have granted the requests for rehearing en banc.
The respondents included API, the GPA Midstream Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance, as well as numerous state organizations representing producers. The states of North Dakota and Texas are amici curiae in the case, Clean Air Council et al. v. EPA [No. 17-1145]. The same groups filed a petition for rehearing on July 27.
It is unclear how long the updated NSPS rules may remain in effect. The EPA accepted public comments on another attempt to block the rule, proposing a two-year stay of the rules through Wednesday. According to Regulations.gov, a website operated by the federal government, the EPA received 125,055 public comments over the agency's proposal.
In a 16-page letter dated July 27, API’s Matthew Todd, senior policy adviser, said the EPA has "multiple sources of legal authority" to extend the compliance deadlines for the NSPS updates, and that the rulemaking authority granted under the Clean Air Act allows for a two-year stay.
"There are significant procedural and substantive flaws with the rule," Todd wrote. "EPA already has announced its intent to undertake a rulemaking to address these issues. Requiring compliance with the rule in the meantime would cause substantial harm to regulated entities. They would incur significant costs in complying with standards that almost certainly will be changed or eliminated. They also would face potential enforcement liability for provisions that are unwarranted and unlawful.
"At the same time, immediate implementation would not produce environmental benefits that are commensurate with the costs and potential legal liabilities…” Also, “EPA's stay is narrowly tailored to the most time-sensitive and burdensome requirements. For these reasons, justice compels EPA to stay the rule."
Alex Mills, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers (TAEP), wrote in a separate letter that a two-year stay was appropriate and would give the agency more time to gather reliable emissions and cost estimates, especially as it pertains to methane leak detection and repair (LDAR).
"The LDAR requirements, as applied to low production wells, is likely to make many of these wells uneconomical," Mills wrote. For many TAEP members, their “entire business consists of low production wells. In many cases, an operator will forgo 'modifying' an existing low production well because of the costs of the LDAR requirements. In the best case scenario, the well is plugged. In the worst case scenario, the company folds and the well may be abandoned.
"This is a negative externality the EPA has failed to evaluate and it has environmental consequences in and of itself. The EPA has failed to quantify in any meaningful way the emissions associated with leaks from low production wells."
As expected, environmental groups and their supporters voiced opposition to the stay.
"I believe EPA has led the world in pollution reduction and prevention," wrote South Texas resident Teresa Carrillo, of Duval County, TX, on behalf of the Sierra Club. "I also believe we have the smartest, most creative, and most solution oriented oil and gas industry in the world, right here in the U.S.A.
"I believe this industry has enough depth and smarts to come up with solutions to reducing and even eliminating methane escapes, excessive flaring, and the discharge of other nasty pollutants. Most oil and gas industry folks I know care about families, children and public health. But it's EPA’s job to hold the oil and gas industry accountable. When that's done effectively, the industry will come up with a cost-effective and safe solution to pollution."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111376-energy-industry-on-losing-end-of-methane-ruling-in-appeals-court
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Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say
Aug 11, 2017 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton
When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the federal agency.
Doors to the floor are now frequently locked, and employees have to have an escort to gain entrance.
Some employees say they are also told to leave behind their cellphones when they meet with Mr. Pruitt, and are sometimes told not to take notes.
Mr. Pruitt, according to the employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs, often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security.
A former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career suing the E.P.A., and whose LinkedIn profile still describes him as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” Mr. Pruitt has made it clear that he sees his mission to be dismantling the agency’s policies — and even portions of the institution itself.
But as he works to roll back regulations, close offices and eliminate staff at the agency charged with protecting the nation’s environment and public health, Mr. Pruitt is taking extraordinary measures to conceal his actions, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former agency employees.
Together with a small group of political appointees, many with backgrounds, like his, in Oklahoma politics, and with advice from industry lobbyists, Mr. Pruitt has taken aim at an agency whose policies have been developed and enforced by thousands of the E.P.A.’s career scientists and policy experts, many of whom work in the same building.
“There’s a feeling of paranoia in the agency — employees feel like there’s been a hostile takeover and the guy in charge is treating them like enemies,” said Christopher Sellers, an expert in environmental history at Stony Brook University, who this spring conducted an interview survey with about 40 E.P.A. employees.
Such tensions are not unusual in federal agencies when an election leads to a change in the party in control of the White House. But they seem particularly bitter at the E.P.A.
Allies of Mr. Pruitt say he is justified in his measures to ramp up his secrecy and physical protection, given that his agenda and politics clash so fiercely with those of so many of the 15,000 employees at the agency he heads.
“E.P.A. is legendary for being stocked with leftists,” said Steven J. Milloy, a member of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. transition team and author of the book “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the E.P.A.” “If you work in a hostile environment, you’re not the one that’s paranoid.”
Mr. Pruitt’s penchant for secrecy is reflected not just in his inaccessibility and concern for security. He has terminated a decades-long practice of publicly posting his appointments calendar and that of all the top agency aides, and he has evaded oversight questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to the Democratic senators who posed the questions.
His aides recently asked career employees to make major changes in a rule regulating water quality in the United States — without any records of the changes they were being ordered to make. And the E.P.A. under Mr. Pruitt has moved to curb certain public information, shutting down data collection of emissions from oil and gas companies, and taking down more than 1,900 agency webpages on topics like climate change, according to a tally by the Environmental Defense Fund, which did a Freedom of Information request on these terminated pages.
William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as E.P.A. director under two Republican presidents and once wrote a memo directing agency employees to operate “in a fishbowl,” said such secrecy is antithetical to the mission of the agency.
“Reforming the regulatory system would be a good thing if there were an honest, open process,” he said. “But it appears that what is happening now is taking a meat ax to the protections of public health and environment and then hiding it.”
Mr. Ruckelshaus said such secrecy could pave the way toward, or exacerbate, another disaster like the contamination of public drinking water in Flint, Mich., or the 2014 chemical spill into the public water supply in Charleston, W.Va. — while leading to a dearth of information when such events happen.
“Something will happen, like Flint, and the public will realize they can’t get any information about what happened or why,” he said.
But Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., categorically denied the accounts employees interviewed for this article gave of the secrecy surrounding Mr. Pruitt.
“None of this is true,” she said. “It’s all rumors.”
She added, in an emailed statement, “It’s very disappointing, yet not surprising, to learn that you would solicit leaks, and collude with union officials in an effort to distract from the work we are doing to implement the president’s agenda.”
Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to undo a major water protection rule are one example of his moves to quickly and stealthily dismantle regulations.
The rule, known as Waters of the United States, and enacted by the Obama administration, was designed to take existing federal protections on large water bodies such as the Chesapeake Bay and Mississippi River and expand them to include the wetlands and small tributaries that flow into those larger waters.
It was fiercely opposed by farmers, rural landowners and real estate developers.
The original estimate concluded that the water protections would indeed come at an economic cost to those groups — between $236 million and $465 million annually.
But it also concluded, in an 87-page analysis, that the economic benefits of preventing water pollution would be greater: between $555 million and $572 million.
E.P.A. employees say that in mid-June, as Mr. Pruitt prepared a proposal to reverse the rule, they were told by his deputies to produce a new analysis of the rule — one that stripped away the half-billion-dollar economic benefits associated with protecting wetlands.
“On June 13, my economists were verbally told to produce a new study that changed the wetlands benefit,” said Elizabeth Southerland, who retired last month from a 30-year career at the E.P.A., most recently as a senior official in the agency’s water office.
“On June 16, they did what they were told,” Ms. Southerland said. “They produced a new cost-benefit analysis that showed no quantifiable benefit to preserving wetlands.”
Ms. Southerland and other experts in federal rule-making said such a sudden shift was highly unusual — particularly since studies that estimate the economic impact of regulations can take months or even years to produce, and are often accompanied by reams of paperwork documenting the process.
“Typically there are huge written records, weighing in on the scientific facts, the technology facts and the economic facts,” she said. “Everything’s in writing. This repeal process is political staff giving verbal directions to get the outcome they want, essentially overnight.”
Jeffrey Ruchs, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an organization representing government employees in environmental fields, said the E.P.A. could not allow changes like this to take place, or expect its employees to follow such directives.
“This is a huge change, and they made it over a few days, with almost no record, no documentation,” Mr. Ruchs said, adding, “It wasn’t so much cooking the books, it was throwing out the books.”
Experts in administrative law say such practices skate up to the edge of legality.
While federal records laws prohibit senior officials from destroying records, they could evade public scrutiny of their decision-making by simply not creating them in the first place.
“The mere fact they are telling people not to write things down shows they are trying to keep things hidden,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, a professor of administrative law at American University.
Mr. Pruitt had a reputation for being secretive before he ever came to the E.P.A.
While serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general, he came under criticism for maintaining at least three separate email accounts, including one private account that he at times used for state government business.
During his Senate confirmation, he was asked about these multiple accounts, providing what some senators considered a misleading answer.
A subsequent lawsuit resulted in the release of some of these other emails, which Mr. Pruitt had asserted did not exist.
“He’s got a serious problem because of his emails down in Oklahoma — he’s burned himself,” said David Schnare, who worked at the agency from 1978 to 2011 and then on the Trump administration’s E.P.A. transition team. “He doesn’t want to take any risks.”
Mr. Schnare, a conservative Republican who has backed President Trump’s broader agenda, had taken on what was expected to be a more permanent role at the E.P.A.
But he resigned last month in protest of what he said is Mr. Pruitt’s mismanagement of the agency.
Mr. Schnare noted that some previous E.P.A. administrators had been secretive — during the Obama administration, for example, Lisa Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, came under criticism for using an email alias, “Richard Windsor,” to conduct official business.
But Mr. Schnare said that Mr. Pruitt’s methods stood out from all of his predecessors.
“My view was that under this administration we would be good at transparency, particularly in the regulatory area,” he said. “But these guys aren’t doing that.”
Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the committee overseeing federal government operations, has criticized Mr. Pruitt for embracing what he calls “a culture of secrecy around everything from his schedule to the way the agency makes scientific determinations.”
Mr. Carper and other Senate Democrats have a dozen outstanding requests awaiting a response from Mr. Pruitt, and when responses do come, Mr. Carper said, they referred lawmakers to printouts of news releases instead of answering questions.
An E.P.A. spokesman disputed Mr. Carper’s criticisms.
“Administrator Pruitt has responded to 14 of the 27 oversight letters, which often contain numerous in-depth questions and it takes time to provide an extensive and through response,” he said, adding that he “has been incredibly responsive to Congress.”
Mr. Pruitt and his staff are also subject to intense scrutiny from the public and the news media: The E.P.A., just in the last two months, has received more than 2,000 Freedom of Information requests, many of them focused on Mr. Pruitt, asking for every possible record related to his tenure, including text messages, telephone records and even his web browsing history.
Yet for E.P.A. employees, information about Mr. Pruitt’s activities can be hard to obtain.
In April, for example, he traveled to Chicago to visit an E.P.A.-designated hazardous waste site.
But E.P.A. employees at the agency’s Chicago office said they had no idea he was there — nor did he visit the Chicago branch of the agency, or meet with staff members.
“He won’t meet with us or talk to us to make decisions about policy, and we don’t even know when he’s in town,” said Nicole Cantello, a lawyer in the E.P.A.’s Chicago office and a leader of the employee union.Correction: August 11, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated part of the title of a book by Steven J. Milloy. It is “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the E.P.A.” not “Scare Pollution: How and Why to Fix the E.P.A.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/politics/scott-pruitt-epa.html
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Pruitt: EPA Will Review 'Politicized' Climate Science Report
Aug 11, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Emily Holden
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said his staff will gauge the “accuracy” of a major federal science report that blames human activity for climate change — just days after researchers voiced their fears to The New York Times that the Trump administration would alter or suppress its findings.
“Frankly this report ought to be subjected to peer-reviewed, objective-reviewed methodology and evaluation,” Pruitt told a Texas radio show Thursday. “Science should not be politicized. Science is not something that should be just thrown about to try to dictate policy in Washington, D.C.”
Pruitt, who has expressed doubts about carbon dioxide’s role as a major driver of climate change, also dismissed the discussions in Washington about man-made carbon emissions, calling them “political."
Scientists called his remarks troubling, especially because the report — part of a broader, congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment — has already undergone “rigorous” peer-review by a 14-person committee at the National Academies. The reviewing scientists backed the report’s conclusion from researchers at 13 federal agencies that humans are causing climate change by putting more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to a clear increase in global temperatures.
The report's authors implemented the 132 pages of suggestions from the reviewers, and now the Trump administration has one last opportunity to review the document before publication. Agencies are supposed to sign off by Aug. 18 and send their comments to the authors.
“It’s a much more extensive process than a usual peer review, which does not typically come out as a paperback book,” said Bob Kopp, a lead report author and climate scientist at Rutgers University.
Kopp said he has “no idea” what to expect after hearing Pruitt’s comments. Staffers at EPA had already signed off on an earlier draft.
Eric Davidson, president of the American Geophysical Union, said the report has undergone “a very rigorous peer-review” and is “built on 50-some years of published research, and each of those papers went through its own peer review.”
He added that while fears of Pruitt suppressing the climate report might be more imagined than real right now, he didn't rule it out.
"Certainly it’s a possibility, and if the administration doesn’t understand that it’s already peer-reviewed, that really is a sign of concern that he may not understand the process," Davidson said. "If he’s continuing to question why CO2 is a big deal, that’s also very concerning, because CO2 is a big deal. … To see those quotes continue to come out is definitely disconcerting."
Several climate experts said they welcomed scrutiny of the report, but they also expressed concerns that political biases could color the process.
“The question is will it be reviewed by people who are scientific experts or will it be reviewed by people who have a political agenda?” said Kathy Jacobs, who oversaw the broader National Climate Assessment under the Obama administration and now heads the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona.
"The implication of [Pruitt's statement] is that it hasn’t been linked to the data," she said of the report. "That certainly is not true. This is built on a mountain of evidence."
Even as Pruitt said EPA would review the report for objectivity, he criticized the Times for saying scientists worry that the administration might interfere with its publication.
“The New York Times out there saying they had to release this report because it’s going to be suppressed is just simply legendary," he said. "It’s just made-up news trying to create a distraction from the real work that’s being done in Washington, D.C."
His comments Thursday came the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a separate report confirming that 2016 was the warmest year on record, surpassing the records set in each of the two previous years.
This week's dust-up over the 13-agency climate report is far from the first climate science dispute for Pruitt, who as Oklahoma's attorney general sued to block a series of major EPA regulations. He drew criticism after announcing in June that he wanted to conduct a "red team, blue team" debate of climate science, a move that his detractors said would put fringe views on the same plane as established, peer-reviewed research.
The EPA chief defended his "red team-blue team" strategy in the radio interview, saying that “this debate, this discussion, I think it’s good and healthy for the country.”
Pruitt told the Texas radio show that his agency would review the 13-agency report “like all other 12 agencies and evaluate the merits and demerits and the methodology and accuracy of the report.”
But EPA already plays a role in reviewing that document. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates the agencies involved in the review, lists EPA’s point person as Andrew Miller, a longtime employee and associate director of climate research.
“On the one hand, EPA has been a very productive contributor the entire process, including during this administration,” Rutgers University's Kopp said. “On the other hand, Administrator Pruitt has said things in the past that contradict sort of mainstream climate science and the findings of the report. But the process has been operating quite well. I’m hopeful that it will continue to operate well.”
Katharine Hayhoe, another report author from Texas Tech University, said she strongly agreed with Pruitt that the report should be peer-reviewed and that science shouldn’t be politicized.
“Thankfully, all of this has already happened,” she said in a lengthy email responding to Pruitt’s comments.
“Science should not be politicized, and I and my colleagues deplore the attempts of politicians to do so, their attempts to pretend as if a thermometer gives us a different answer if we are Democrat or Republican,” she continued. She noted that the report found no alternative explanations for why climate change is happening other than human influence.
Another expert familiar with the process of crafting the report said the standards exceeded the typical scientific process.
Typically, the president’s science adviser signs off on the report, but Trump has yet to appoint one. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates the report, lists Kimberly Miller at the White House Office of Management and Budget as the president’s liaison.
Democrats and other critics contend that Pruitt has criticized climate change policies because he wants to run for the U.S. Senate in Oklahoma, where his stance might resonate with conservative voters. EPA did not comment on that issue.
David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate program, said addressing climate change would affect the fossil fuel industries, and Pruitt has “lined up his personal political fortunes” with the economic interests of oil, gas and coal companies.
Science organizations have asked to meet with Pruitt to discuss why he doesn’t acknowledge a link between human action and climate change.
In the radio interview, Pruitt accused the Obama administration of using carbon dioxide as a “wedge issue.”
“Why aren’t we celebrating what we’re achieving with respect to CO2 … why do we continue to engage in this political football?” he said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/08/pruitt-epa-will-review-politicized-climate-science-report-160646
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Health Study Could Bolster Push for Stricter PM2.5 NAAQS
Aug 11, 2017 | Inside EPA
A new study from academic researchers finds increased rates of hospital admissions in older Americans caused by exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) even below the current national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for the pollutant, which could bolster a potential push for EPA to tighten the PM2.5 NAAQS.
In their study recently published in the September issue of the journal Epidemiology, air quality researchers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led by Maggie Makar and Joseph Antonelli find that hospital admissions for Americans on Medicare rose with exposure to PM2.5, even when exposure levels remained below the NAAQS limit of 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3).
The study, “Estimating the Causal Effect of Low Levels of Fine Particulate Matter on Hospitalization,” concludes that the NAAQS limit, set in 2012 by the Obama administration, may not be sufficient to protect public health, as required by the Clean Air Act.
EPA is overdue to review the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS, which by law it must review every five years. The Obama administration did not anticipate issuing a final NAAQS rule for PM2.5 until 2021, and sources say the Trump EPA's timeline for the PM2.5 NAAQS review is unclear.
The researchers looked at hospital admissions for all causes, including respiratory and cardiovascular effects. They found that when they restricted analysis to Medicare enrollees with exposure always lower than 12 μg/m3, they found that increasing exposure from levels lower than 8 μg/m3 to levels higher than 8 μg/m3 increased all-cause admission hazard rates by 15 percent, circulatory admissions rates by 18 percent and respiratory admission rates by 21 percent.
“Results from this study have important implications for policymakers,” the authors write, saying “this work provides compelling evidence that substantial public health benefits have accrued from compliance with the annual NAAQS. The evidence also suggests that further reductions in PM2.5 below the current NAAQS would provide additional benefits.”
However, in a nod toward the current political environment, in which the Trump EPA has pledged a deregulatory agenda, they say, “Although there are massive benefits to reduced air pollution levels that far exceed their costs, research examining the public health benefits of cleaner air will be subjected to immense scrutiny due to the potential costs associated with more stringent regulatory policy.”
The study follows another recent effort by Harvard researchers that found PM2.5 is contributing to premature death. That study, Air Pollution and Mortality in the Entire Medicare Population, published in the June 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found an elevated risk of premature death from exposure to ozone and PM2.5 even at levels below current regulatory limits.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/health-study-could-bolster-push-stricter-pm25-naaqs
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Massachusetts Finalizes Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan
Aug 11, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Massachusetts regulators released details of a new plan Friday to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in the state, in accordance with a state law and court order.
The rules rely on a clean energy standard, carbon dioxide emissions limits for the transportation and energy sectors, and curbs on methane pollution, among otter things, to reduce emissions in the state.
“Combating and preparing for the impact of climate change remains a top priority of our administration, and requires collaboration across state government and with stakeholders throughout Massachusetts,” Gov. Charlie Baker (R) said in a statement.
The expanded regulations come nine years after Massachusetts lawmakers passed a climate change law to cut emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent before 2050. As of 2014, emissions in the state were down 21 percent from 1990 levels.
The state’s top court ruled in May 2016 that officials had not properly implemented the law, leading Baker to issue an executive order last year requiring regulators to strengthen their curbs on pollution.
Among other things, the new rules require utilities produce 80 percent of their power from low-carbon sources by 2050, and it creates a cap-and-trade program for 21 fossil fuel power plants in the state Mass Live reports.
The rules also call for lower emissions from vehicles owned or leased by the state, decreasing transportation sector emissions and a reduction in methane leaks along natural gas distribution lines.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/346253-massachusetts-finalizes-greenhouse-gas-reduction-plan
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New York's Crusade to Price Carbon Won't End with Nuke Subsidies
Aug 11, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Jim Poulson and Naureen S. Malik
New York, the state that pioneered subsidies to prop up money-losing nuclear reactors, is weighing more steps to cut carbon emissions by changing the way that electricity is traded.
Adding a carbon charge to the price of power generated by fossil-fuel plants could advance the state’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels, at little or no extra cost to customers, according to a study carried out by the Brattle Group. The premium paid could be refunded to customers.
Brattle was hired by New York’s grid operator to study ways in which the state could advance its fight against global warming while preserving competitive power markets. Last year, New York created subsidies for nuclear reactors that generate zero-emissions power and drew fire from fossil-fuel plant owners who say such policies undermine free markets.
“A carbon charge would be a straightforward and economically efficient way to harmonize New York’s environmental goals and the wholesale market design,” the report found. “Customer costs would not rise materially.”
Imposing a $40 a ton carbon charge has a “relatively small” impact on customer costs, the report found, amounting to a minus 1% to plus 2% change in total electric bills. Although energy prices would rise, part of the extra cost could be offset by returning carbon revenues to customers, as well as lower prices for other types of credits, among other factors.
A conference on the idea is scheduled for Sept. 6 by the grid operator, which monitors the reliability of the state’s power system and coordinates supply.
Average spot on-peak electricity for New York City plunged to a record low of $35.19 a megawatt-hour last year, according to grid data compiled by Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-11/new-york-to-weigh-more-power-market-reforms-to-curb-emissions
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