Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 15/8/17
-
(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Bags Only Part of the Problem
Aug 15, 2017 | Coastal Review Online
By Catherine Kozak
Bucking the wishes of nearly every local entity that keeps the communities’ wheels turning and the tourism machinery humming, a bill to repeal a ban on flimsy plastic grocery bags on the Outer Banks is still alive in some dark corner of the North Carolina General Assembly. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA TSCA Guide May Give Industry New Strategies for Risk Evaluations
Aug 15, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical industry officials say that new EPA guidance to third parties on drafting their own risk evaluations for the agency's consideration as part of the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) may give industry new strategies for the reviews, but the law leaves several questions unanswered as it gives little guidance over how the process will work. -
(ACC Mentioned) NGOs Take EPA to Court over TSCA Framework Rules
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
In the first major legal challenges to the new TSCA, NGOs have filed petitions seeking court review of the US EPA’s final framework rules for prioritisation and risk evaluation. -
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Allies Sue Trump EPA over New Toxics Rules
Aug 14, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By CJ Frogozo
On Friday, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families filed petitions asking a federal court to review two rules recently finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act. -
Decades After Paint and Gas Bans, Kids Still Exposed to Dangerous Levels of Lead
Aug 15, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Caleigh Smith
Lead was banned from paint in 1978, and from gasoline in 1996. But two years ago the water-poisoning scandal in Flint, Michigan, turned the nation's attention to the tragic truth that lead still threatens Americans – especially children. -
Canada Prioritises Food and Drug Substances List
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian government has prioritised the 3,444 substances on its revised In-Commerce List (ICL), targeting 884 for further evaluation. -
Canada to Move Polymer from NDSL to DSL
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian Minister of the Environment has announced that a polymer is being removed from the Non-Domestic Substances List (NDSL) and added to the Domestic Substances List (DSL). -
States Want Stricter Rules on Gas Distribution Pipelines
Aug 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
State pipeline officials have recommended stricter federal rules for replacing high-risk gas distribution pipelines. -
Court Rejects Greens' Challenge to Texas Natural Gas Export Project
Aug 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A federal court has rejected a challenge to a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Texas. -
Why Blackstone Is Betting $7 Billion on Natural Gas
Aug 15, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Ryan Dezember
Blackstone Group BX +0.03% LP is making one of its biggest bets on the growth of natural gas production, wagering that even if gas prices remain stuck at depressed levels, it can profit. -
Gas Flaring Rises despite N.D. Regulations
Aug 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Gas flaring in North Dakota's Bakken Shale oil field has been creeping back up, blunting the state's efforts to tame a problem that came to symbolize the excesses of the oil boom. -
Trump Order to Change 'Protocol' for Infrastructure Permitting
Aug 15, 2017 | Politico - Energy Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
President Donald Trump will today sign an executive order setting a two-year goal for the federal government to complete the permitting process for infrastructure projects, a spokesperson told POLITICO. -
EPA's Pruitt Denies White House Will Suppress Climate Change Report
Aug 15, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency would evaluate a report on climate change, and derided the Obama administration for its apologetic stance on the issue and on the politicization of science in general. -
Researchers to Study Chemical Contamination of US Waters
Aug 15, 2017 | AP (in the New York Times)
University of Rhode Island and Harvard University professors are collaborating through a new research center to study chemicals that have contaminated water at sites nationwide.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
-
(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Bags Only Part of the Problem
Aug 15, 2017 | Coastal Review Online
By Catherine Kozak
Bucking the wishes of nearly every local entity that keeps the communities’ wheels turning and the tourism machinery humming, a bill to repeal a ban on flimsy plastic grocery bags on the Outer Banks is still alive in some dark corner of the North Carolina General Assembly.
The prospect of having to go back to hundreds of thousands of the lightweight bags suddenly re-entering the waste stream, littering coastal roadsides, floating in waterways, getting impaled on trees, filling landfills and being stuffed unknowingly into recycling collections, only to clog up the recycling machinery and contaminate the other recyclables, makes the timing right to hold a community outreach about establishing a plastic bag recycling program.
At a meeting held last month in Nags Head, sponsored by the Carolina Recycling Association, speakers mostly sidestepped the politics of the proposed repeal and focused on how to launch a local campaign to keep plastic film and bags out of landfills and recycling bins by returning them to retail stores.
As it is now, only about 1 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags – about 300 per person – produced per year are returned for recycling, said Mindy Love, environmental specialist, recycling education and outreach at North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Each of those bags is used for an average of 12 minutes.
Love noted that some version of a bag ban repeal could be found in four different legislative bills. The Outer Banks is the only area in the state where plastic grocery bags are banned.
But even if the bags were outlawed everywhere in North Carolina, there would still be plenty of the lightweight plastic that needed to be diverted from the trash and off beaches, Lisa Rider, board director of Carolina Recycling Association, told a roomful of people at Jockey’s Ridge State Park.
Not only are plastic bags always one of the top 10 litter items found in coastal clean-ups in North Carolina and worldwide, the Ocean Conservancy has named them the second-most deadly litter to marine animals, which mistake the bags for food. Only abandoned fishing gear is deadlier. The bags also take hundreds of years to decompose and leech pollutants into the environment.
“We really want to focus on reduction and re-use,” said Rider, who is also president of the Plastic Ocean Project, an advocacy group focused on the global plastic pollution problem.
Rider said a multi-county campaign to educate people about recycling plastic bags and plastic film was kicked off July 8 in Onslow County at the Earth & Surf Festival.
“I have participated in beach cleanups for 25 years,” Rider said in an earlier interview. “I have personally noticed an increase not just in plastic bags, but in plastic in general. These materials just do not go away. What does that mean for our future?”
Rider, who is employed as deputy director of Onslow County Solid Waste Department, encouraged the community to work with initiatives like the Wrap Recycling Action Program, or WRAP, to educate the public about where to recycle plastic wrapping and plastic bags that cannot be recycled with other recyclables.
During a call in to the community forum, Shari Jackson, WRAP program director, said the program’s goal is to double the amount of plastic film recycling by 2020.
“We certainly understand there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for film,” she said. “That’s why we’re working with communities.”
Sponsored by the American Chemical Council, WRAP is promoted as a national public awareness and outreach initiative that works to educate consumers about the kinds of plastic film that can be recycled, and how and where to recycle it.
Jackson said many people don’t realize that the plastic film can be recycled, but there are 18,000 locations across the U.S. that will accept plastic film and bags for recycling. On the Outer Banks, retail stores such as Food Lion and Harris Teeter have marked bins to collect the plastic material.
According to the WRAP website, plastic film packaging is made of soft polyethylene and includes bags used for groceries, bread and dry cleaning, as well as sandwich and zip-top bags and bubble wrap. It is also the plastic packaging used around paper plates, napkins, paper towels, diapers and bathroom tissue.
But there are numerous caveats that make recycling such plastic a challenge. First, it has to be clean and dry. Labels need to be removed. It cannot include pre-washed salad bags, degradable bags, frozen food bags or any bag that has been glued.
According to a 2013 study done for San Diego by The Equinox Project, a nonpartisan policy initiative, only a small amount of single-use plastic bags, or similar plastic film, is recycled. The majority of bags diverted toward recycling processes, the report said, are ultimately taken to landfills due to the high contamination rate of the material and the lack of markets.
A September 2014 article in Mother Jones magazine said that the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that only 12 percent of plastic grocery bags made it to designated recycling facilities.
Lacking any sustained or consistent way to recycle thin plastic, consumers often toss it in with their curbside recyclables, or put their recyclables into plastic bags before throwing them into the recycling bins.
That is a big issue, because when the recyclables are being sorted, the bags get caught in machinery. Sometimes the machines must be stopped a couple of times a day so the plastic can be untangled from the works. The plastic also contaminates a portion of the recyclable material.
“The problem with bags and film is not that they’re recyclable or not, it is how to collect them,” said John Coward, operations manager at Eastern Carolina Vocational Center.
The center’s Material Recovery Facility handles 900-1,000 tons of comingled recyclables from 13 counties every month.
“We get a lot of bags – a lot more than we want to get,” he said. Out of necessity, he has learned that the best way to deal with the bags is to have a worker pull them out by hand at the front of line. “There’s just so much education you can do.”
San Francisco was the first municipality to ban the bags in 2007, followed over the years by hundreds more across the country. The European Union, India and China, among dozens of other nations, have also banned or restricted plastic grocery bags. Last year, California implemented the first statewide ban on the bags.
Few Outer Banks residents, local businesses or local governments support repeal of the legislation enacted in 2009 that banned the bags on beachfront areas on the Outer Banks in Hyde, Currituck and Dare counties.
Even fewer would oppose a program that encourages recycling of all kinds of plastic bags. Still, the bill’s sponsors who represent the Outer Banks in Raleigh – state Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, and state Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare – say the repeal is necessary to encourage merchants to create more jobs, and that consumer education about littering and plastic bag recycling would be more effective.
In late March, Cook introduced legislation that would repeal the bag ban. Boswell had earlier introduced a similar House bill. Both bills may be considered in an upcoming special legislative session.
Cook has said that several large retail stores have asked for the repeal. The North Carolina Retail Merchants Association also supports repeal.
In explaining his reason for sponsoring the bill, Cook cites data from the state’s now discontinued Big Sweep litter-cleanup effort that showed no correlation between the ban and less plastic bag litter. He also says that most retailers on the Outer Banks are not in compliance with the law, and it does not address the overall problem with litter.
“The purpose of the legislation that passed in 2009 banning plastic bags was to tamp down on the bags that end up flying around on our beaches – a noble goal, to be sure,” Cook said in an email. “However, this ban has not been a success and it’s a regulation that impacts North Carolina businesses large and small … And, make no mistake – should the ban be repealed, retailers may continue to use paper bags or utilize other materials or methods that work best for their business and customers.”
According to Ocean Conservancy data, volunteers who have conducted beach cleanups in North Carolina have removed 37,000 plastic grocery bags since 2008.
Sara Hallas, coastal education coordinator at the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s northeast office, said disbanding the state’s Big Sweep effort has made it more challenging to coordinate data collection on littering, although some groups, such as Surfrider, still conduct beach sweeps.
Little more than anecdotal information appears to exist about effects before and after the bag ban on the Outer Banks.
“We need data to prove its effectiveness, and the data is lacking,” Hallas said.
There are also conflicting national studies about the cost and effectiveness of plastic bag bans. But there does seem to be agreement that plastic bags are bad for marine animals and create too much litter and trash.
John McIntosh, service manager at Hatteras Recycle in Salvo, said he is supportive of any program that could decrease the number of plastic bags in the environment.
But as someone who sees the enormous volume of recycling generated by thousands of tourists – on a recent week, his company collected 30 tons of recyclables from the 1,600 accounts it services– he is skeptical about how effective plastic bag recycling could realistically be.
“Judging how people deal with recycling while they’re on vacation, that’s the last thing they’re going to think of, is returning plastic bags,” he said. “They’re just going to throw them in the garbage, or throw them in the recycling container.”
https://www.coastalreview.org/2017/08/plastic-bags-part-problem/
-
(ACC Mentioned) EPA TSCA Guide May Give Industry New Strategies for Risk Evaluations
Aug 15, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical industry officials say that new EPA guidance to third parties on drafting their own risk evaluations for the agency's consideration as part of the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) may give industry new strategies for the reviews, but the law leaves several questions unanswered as it gives little guidance over how the process will work.
The “Guidance to Assist Interested Persons in Developing and Submitting Draft Risk Evaluations Under [TSCA],” which EPA released June 22, as directed by the TSCA reform statute, describes standards EPA expects risk evaluations submitted by third parties to meet. It also outlines EPA’s process for conducting its own evaluations.
EPA released the guidance along with framework rules describing how the agency will prioritize and evaluate existing chemicals in the TSCA inventory, as well as the risk evaluation scoping documents for the first 10 existing chemicals the agency is reviewing. Existing chemicals are those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976, plus those chemicals that EPA has reviewed and added to the inventory since.
One industry source is encouraging chemical companies to consider the guidance along with other options that the TSCA reform act presents as strategies for their products. “We have an opportunity to change the way we think about chemical management,” Karyn Schmidt, a senior director in chemical regulation, regulatory and technical affairs with the trade group American Chemistry Council (ACC), said during a panel discussion at ToxForum in Annapolis July 12.
Schmidt noted that there are now three ways to think about existing chemicals and risk evaluation: selection as a high-priority chemical for evaluation by EPA, a manufacturer request for EPA to conduct an evaluation or the “third bucket -- a manufacturer-performed and submitted risk evaluation, where we have an opportunity to conduct one at any time, at any point in the process.”
Schmidt encouraged companies to “be creative and take advantage of what the statute has to offer.” And she described the law's allowance for industry to request that EPA conduct particular risk evaluations, or perform its own and submit them to EPA for review as “a really powerful tool that we're just now beginning to think about how it will work.”
Following her remarks on the panel, Schmidt explained to Inside EPA that companies need to “think about all the different ways [risk evaluation under the new TSCA] can be conducted,” and how to collect useful information. “This is a new way to think about risk evaluation, and now that we have the framework rules and the guidance there’s more opportunity for chemical manufactures to plan ahead for the next 10 or 20 years, and think about how they want to engage EPA and when,” she added.
She noted that “risk is the driver in the new statute,” rather than a hazard-based standard that some countries have adopted, “and there are opportunities to pursue “does not present” unreasonable risk determinations where justified by the data and scientific standards or TSCA section 26. . . . That's a very favorable determination where the record supports it -- where it’s based on science and risk.”
The reformed TSCA gives EPA greater ability to regulate existing chemicals under section 6. EPA’s new framework rule on risk evaluation describes how the agency will determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment -- the safety standard described in the reformed TSCA -- codifying how EPA will evaluate risk of existing chemicals in TSCA section 6.
Work In Progress
Like other sources, Schmidt acknowledges that how the process for third-party evaluations will operate remains something of a work in progress. There are “still a number of open questions and details. The statute contemplates that, in that it required EPA to publish a process rule for risk evaluations but separately required EPA to develop policies, procedures, and guidance needed for implementation within two years. This is just the beginning of complementary guidance for risk evaluations being developed or updated,” she said.
Schmidt is not alone in her bullish view of the opportunity for manufacturers presented by the TSCA reform law's allowance of third-party risk evaluations, which the statute says EPA must consider.
“My sense is that if you have a promising chemical product and wish to get it through the risk evaluation process sooner rather than later, considering this option makes sense,” Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of environmental law firm Bergeson & Campbell, tells Inside EPA.
“You control the timing, and might have a better line of sight on agency engagement,” Bergeson adds. “Why would you 'self-select?' You believe the assessment will validate your view that the product is great, poses no unreasonable risks, and is better than brand X. This is good product stewardship, good business, and may be good competitively.”
But there remain questions about how the procedure will work, as the statute provides little direction to EPA on how the process will work, and EPA has yet to give such direction either, sources note.
The TSCA reform law amended TSCA section 26 significantly, adding among other things direction to EPA that it must within one year of the law's June 2016 enactment “develop guidance to assist interested persons in developing and submitting draft risk evaluations which shall be considered by the Administrator. The guidance shall, at a minimum, address the quality of the information submitted and the process to be followed in developing draft risk evaluations for consideration by the Administrator.”
The guidance EPA released in June directs interested parties to “TSCA section 6(b) [which] identifies the minimum components EPA must include in all chemical risk evaluations.” The guidance also points out all of the scoping steps and the scientific standards included in TSCA Section 26 that EPA’s evaluations must meet.
But it does not describe the process by which EPA will accept and consider any draft evaluations submitted by external parties. One environmentalist says that the way the statute is written, anyone could submit such a risk evaluation to EPA “whenever they wanted. It would then have to go out for peer review.”
But the source notes that gaps remain in the process. If a third-party risk evaluation is limited to a particular use, EPA “would have to figure it out, because that hasn't happened yet,” the source says. The statute requires EPA to consider all uses and all reasonable anticipated uses of a chemical -- though EPA has indicated in its framework rules that it has latitude to determine which uses to include in a risk evaluation.
Further, while the law gives EPA minimum numbers of how many risk evaluations it must be conducting at any one time -- and the percentage of these which must be industry-requested chemicals -- no such proportions are given for considering the third-party reviews, the source says.
“Very little is said about the third-party reviews” in the statute, the source says. “There are no minimums or caps, They drop in as drafts. They do have to meet the same statutory requirements.”
This is an issue which causes concern for another attorney, Martha Marrapese, a partner with the firm Wiley Rein LLP. Marrapese argues that the point of the language was to allow groups to provide EPA information, such as regulatory information about chemicals compiled for other countries, like the European Union's REACH dossiers. Requiring third parties to conduct risk evaluations that match EPA's in scope and quality is unfair, and will dissuade many companies from undertaking the effort, she says, because of the cost.
The language in the statute about the third-party risk evaluations stems from REACH requirements that “companies are required to prepare the dossiers themselves. I think some of this may be motivated from that standpoint, to take advantage of the work that consortia have already developed material for REACH.”
Another motivation for including the option to the statute “probably goes to interpretation of the data,” Marrapese says, noting that on some of EPA’s existing risk evaluations “one of the key points is disagreement over how EPA is interpreting the data” in the evaluation.
High Standards
As an example, Marrapese points to the draft assessment of 1-bromopropane that EPA’s toxics office conducted as part of its TSCA work plan program in 2015, an effort created by the Obama administration in 2012 to more strictly enforce TSCA while legislative reform of the statute was stalled in Congress and to prepare staff for the eventuality that Congress would pass some type of reform act.
Marrapese points to comments from ACC on the draft 1-bromopropane assessment, where they raise concerns that EPA is relying on a study where maternal toxicity was present in an animal toxicology study, contrary to the agency’s developmental toxicity assessment guidelines. “EPA wouldn't like that if industry did it, but it wasn't transparent about why” EPA relied on such a study, Marrapese says.
But while describing why the option is of interest to companies, Marrapese expressed concern about the high standards that the guidance requires. “The agency is sending a confusing signal with this guidance. It more accurately describes what the agency must do when building its own risk evaluations.” she said. “TSCA directs EPA to make sure these risk evaluations meet the best science standards in the law,” she observed. “Is it realistic to think that EPA will just act as a peer reviewer of an industry risk evaluation without doing more work? I am concerned that EPA is setting a very high bar, with the [risk being] that if the industry risk evaluation it isn’t done the way EPA would do it, it will not pass muster.”
Marrapese adds that “EPA has the methodology and resources to [conduct top quality risk evaluations] but it shouldn't confuse its obligations with how industry feels those considerations should be met.”
The high standards set in the guidance document mean that “no one company has the resources to do this on its own. Groups would have to come together and have this professionally done,” Marrapese adds. In her opinion, “the statute gives manufactures the opportunity to do their own risk evaluation, but I don't think the statute imposes on manufacturers the [onus] to meet the same standard as EPA.”
Others, however, disagree, and join the environmentalist in the view that third-party evaluations should meet the same standards as EPA’s. Bergeson, for example, notes that EPA’s final risk evaluation rule, regarding evaluations the agency will conduct at industry’s request, “permits requesters to seek evaluation of less than all a chemical’s uses . . . unlike the proposed rule that placed the burden of information gathering plainly on industry. This is a big change and makes the request opportunity much more manageable. . . . It seems to me the requester should be responsible for at least this much.”
And Schmidt said that “if the agency is going to receive information and risk evaluations from third parties and it wants to rely on them, these materials need to meet the same standards as EPA-generated information. I think the risk evaluation guidance is appropriate -- it's applying the same requirements.”
Schmidt notes that the options to companies to request that EPA conduct risk evaluations or to conduct their own evaluations for EPA review “create a product stewardship tool that manufacturers can consider using. In some cases that's going to incentivize companies to pursue a risk evaluation, where they might not have had the opportunity to ask for that earlier.”
Or, depending on what EPA proposes for the fees rule for evaluations that EPA will conduct by request, it is possible that it could be more cost effective to have contractors conduct an evaluation to be submitted to EPA, Schmidt adds.
She acknowledged that there will be costs associated with either approach, and noted that resulting “resource constraints encourages discussion in the vertical supply chain . . . about ways companies in the supply chain might work together” to fund risk evaluations or new research.
-
(ACC Mentioned) NGOs Take EPA to Court over TSCA Framework Rules
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
In the first major legal challenges to the new TSCA, NGOs have filed petitions seeking court review of the US EPA’s final framework rules for prioritisation and risk evaluation.
The move follows sharp criticism of two key procedural rules released on 22 June. NGOs and Democratic lawmakers have decried that, as finalised, these deviate drastically from the proposals set forth in the final days of the Obama administration and have, they say, been bent in industry’s favour. NGOs have also questioned the neutrality of Nancy Beck – a former American Chemistry Council staffer recently appointed to an EPA leadership role – and the part she may have played in shifting certain provisions.
"Just last year, Congress voted overwhelmingly to overhaul America’s chemical safety law to better protect the public from toxic chemicals," said Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at petitioning organisation the Environmental Defense Fund. "Our legal challenges seek to hold EPA to the law and ensure that the public is protected as Congress intended."
Petitioners have claimed in court documents, filed last Friday, that the two rules are:
· arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;
· in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations; and
· without observance of procedure required by law.
Concerns
Chief among petitioners’ concerns is the agency’s reversal of its approach to a substance’s ‘conditions of use’. Whereas proposals issued by the EPA in January had called for its evaluation of all such conditions, the final rule gives it discretion to exclude from its analysis certain uses.
Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, said the Trump administration’s EPA "deliberately bypassed the law’s clear requirement" that all uses be considered in an evaluation.
And the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a blog post that the rules' allowing the EPA to "pick and choose" which uses it considers will lead to "incomplete analysis… [that is] likely to be wrong and could lead the EPA to conclude that a chemical does not pose an unreasonable risk when it actually does."
NGOs have also faulted the removal of the pre-prioritisation step, that the agency will no longer default to a ‘high priority’ designation and the adoption of industry-suggested scientific definitions.
"The EPA’s newly adopted rules – overseen by a former high-level chemical industry official with head-spinning conflicts of interest – will leave children, communities and workers vulnerable to dangerous chemicals," said Eve Gartner, an attorney at Earthjustice. "This lawsuit is about one thing: holding the Trump EPA to the letter of the law and ensuring it fulfils its mandate to protect the public."
But the ACC's Mike Walls said the EPA "has exercised its discretion appropriately in publishing well-designed framework rules", and that they are "consistent with the intent of Congress".
"The petitions for review are, in our view, without merit," he added.
The three sets of petitions were filed by:
· the Environmental Defense Fund;
· the NRDC, together with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and Cape Fear River Watch; and
· a dozen organisations represented by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Earthjustice, including Environmental Working Group, the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Legal proceedings
Speaking in a recent Keller and Heckman webinar on the potential for litigation under the new TSCA, firm partner Eric Gotting said that there has been "some debate" on whether the risk evaluation and prioritisation rules can be challenged, as they are procedural. "But the statute seems to answer the question in the affirmative," he said: "TSCA allows for judicial review of any rule promulgated under the statute."
Another issue, he said, is that the plaintiffs must demonstrate that they have legal standing to bring the action. They will need to demonstrate a number of things, including that unless courts review the rules they will suffer an 'injury'.
"On the one hand, the NGO arguably hasn’t suffered an injury yet because we don’t know how this policy will be applied to specific chemicals," said Mr Gotting of the framework rules. "But on the other hand, if TSCA does require that all conditions of use be considered, then the NGO probably has an argument that it’s suffered an injury now; that it was the wrong legal conclusion that the EPA made and the court should fix it."
The case is also likely to be viewed under the ‘arbitrary and capricious’ standard, he added, which is generally "very deferential" to agencies.
But Nancy Marks, a litigator for the NRDC, told Chemical Watch that the final rules "departed considerably" from the proposals. "We think it's pretty clear that that's arbitrary and capricious ... it eviscerates the law."
The first step in the litigation will probably involve the consolidation of the three related suits into a single case, said Ms Marks. A briefing schedule will follow, laying out the timeline for the proceedings.
Such a case may, however, take a "long, long time". The rules will remain in place as adopted in the interim, unless the court imposes a stay on them.
If the court ultimately sides with the petitioners, it may require the EPA to vacate the rule and promulgate one that complies with the TSCA law. But it has "a lot of options", she added.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58201/ngos-take-epa-to-court-over-tsca-framework-rules
-
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Allies Sue Trump EPA over New Toxics Rules
Aug 14, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By CJ Frogozo
On Friday, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families filed petitions asking a federal court to review two rules recently finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act. The petitions challenge final rules on how EPA will prioritize chemicals for safety review and evaluate the risks of those chemicals. Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families is a coalition of over 450 organizations and businesses fighting for reform of toxic chemical laws.
The petitions allege the rules fail to provide the protections against unsafe chemicals that Congress required in the critical priority-setting and risk evaluation provisions of the new law, which are intended to ensure that unreasonable risks to health and the environment are fully assessed and eliminated.
The petition was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Safer Chemicals and its counsel are also representing Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO). The petition was filed jointly with several organizations represented by Earthjustice, including WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Learning Disabilities Association of America, United Steelworkers, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Health Strategy Center, Environmental Working Group, and Sierra Club.
“As finalized, the rules bring back in some of the failures of the original law,” said Andy Igrejas, Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “If we’re going to swing all the way through with reform, we have to change those provisions.”
Linda Reinstein of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) pointed out that EPA’s failure to review and restrict asbestos in 1991 led thousands of people to be exposed to the deadly substance, resulting in countless new cases of mesothelioma. Reinstein also said, “similar failures under the new law will, tragically, have similar deadly results.”
The increased role of state regulatory action in recent years is partly what drove the chemical industry to accept some federal reform, said Paul Burns of VPIRG, a leading proponent of Vermont’s efforts to strengthen chemical safety rules. Burns continued, “if federal action is too weak or slow, real people’s lives are put at risk. The states will not sit idly by while the Trump administration puts the interests of industry ahead of people.”
For the sake of American families, public health advocates believe it is critical that EPA go back and strengthen these two rules.
http://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/safer-chemicals-healthy-families-and-allies-sue-trump-epa-over-new-toxics-rules/
-
Decades After Paint and Gas Bans, Kids Still Exposed to Dangerous Levels of Lead
Aug 15, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Caleigh Smith
Lead was banned from paint in 1978, and from gasoline in 1996. But two years ago the water-poisoning scandal in Flint, Michigan, turned the nation's attention to the tragic truth that lead still threatens Americans – especially children.
A 2016 Reuters investigation determined that lead poisoning rates in nearly 3,000 American communities are at least double the rate in Flint. And EWG’s recently released Tap Water Database found almost 19,000 public water systems, in all 50 states, with at least one detection of lead between 2010 to 2015 above the level at which a formula-fed baby is at risk.
Lead contamination of tap water usually comes not from the water supply itself, but from corroded pipes that deliver water to homes. If your home is served by lead-based water lines, your tap water may be contaminated even if it's not reflected in your utility's annual water quality report. And lead in water is not the only threat.
Despite the 1978 ban, lead contamination from paint, as well from contaminated industrial sites and landfills, also remains a threat. A 2011 survey by the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that more than one in five American homes – mostly ones built before 1978 – have hazardous levels of lead in their paint, household dust or soil.
There is no safe level of lead exposure, but children are particularly at risk. Even minimal amounts of ingested lead can cause reduced IQ, behavioral disorders, abnormal brain development and seizures. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventiondefine an elevated blood lead level in children at 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood. That's the level at which the CDC says public health officials should intervene to protect the child. But a child may suffer permanent damage from even lower blood lead levels.
A study published in the journal Pediatrics in May 2017 calculated, based on 1999-2010 data, that only about half of American children with elevated blood lead levels are effectively identified and treated. Insufficient testing is the major source of this shortcoming.
Here's what you can do to guard your family from lead exposures:
· Use EWG’s Tap Water Database to determine the quality of your water, find water filters that reduce lead levels and learn more about lead in drinking water.
· Especially if you live in a home built prior to 1978, consider having your houseinspected for other potential sources of lead like crumbling paint and dust.
· Check out the Environmental Protection Agency's materials on lead for additional advice on protecting your family.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/08/decades-after-paint-and-gas-bans-kids-still-exposed-dangerous-levels-lead#.WZMfr1UjHIV
-
Canada Prioritises Food and Drug Substances List
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian government has prioritised the 3,444 substances on its revised In-Commerce List (ICL), targeting 884 for further evaluation.
The ICL is comprised of substances that are in products regulated under the Food and Drugs Act, including cosmetics and several other categories. They were placed on the list in a process that ended in 2012 and in Canadian commerce between 1 January 1987 and 13 September 2001.
Substances that came onto the market after this date are subject to the notification and assessment requirements of Canada's New Substance Notification Regulations.
The government published a revised list on 10 August.
The 884 substances under further consideration include 57 identified as posing human health concerns, 523 posing environmental concerns and 304 in both categories. This decision "means that further work is required in order to determine whether the substance may pose a risk" as defined by the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa), the notice said.
This work may include information gathering and risk evaluation, targeted research or monitoring to address data gaps, leveraging of work done on similar substances or a determination that existing data is sufficient.
A total of 771 substances will be removed from the ICL because they are also included on the Domestic Substances List (DSL) and thus accepted as currently being in commerce in Canada.
The remaining 1,790 substances were designated as having a low priority. The government says that this "does not preclude future action to manage [them]".
Substances prioritised for further consideration were chosen based on indications of potential health or environmental hazards, or because the quantities in use were potentially high with insufficient hazard information to mitigate concerns.
Those not requiring this were identified on the available information and according to whether previously evaluated during DSL categorisation. For example, the notice said, these substances might be used in small quantities, readily biodegrade or have low hazard concerns based on data from a closely related substance.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58209/canada-prioritises-food-and-drug-substances-list
-
Canada to Move Polymer from NDSL to DSL
Aug 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian Minister of the Environment has announced that a polymer is being removed from the Non-Domestic Substances List (NDSL) and added to the Domestic Substances List (DSL). The change indicates that someone has reported the intent to import, manufacture or use the substance in Canada.
The NDSL is an inventory of substances that are not on the DSL, but are in commercial use internationally.
Substances on the DSL do not require notification unless they are subject to a significant new activity (Snac) notice. Those on the NDSL are subject to new substance notification, with lesser requirements.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58210/canada-to-move-polymer-from-ndsl-to-dsl
-
States Want Stricter Rules on Gas Distribution Pipelines
Aug 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
State pipeline officials have recommended stricter federal rules for replacing high-risk gas distribution pipelines.
They also want faster action to deal with leaking gas pipelines, saying they should not be "accepted as normal operating conditions," according to a report to Congress from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
"Many called for more prescriptive federal and state regulations or policies regarding pipeline replacement," the report stated.
PHMSA did not endorse the stricter rules in its recommendations to Congress in a report earlier this month on pipeline leaks. It said additional study is necessary to determine if more regulation would enhance safety.
The country has about 2.2 million miles of gas distribution pipelines, which comprise 81 percent of all gas and hazardous liquid pipelines.
The American Gas Association (AGA), in a statement to E&E News, said "it is unclear how a federal regulation that requires more frequent inspection would improve pipeline safety."
AGA noted that the PHMSA report found no barriers from state policies to replacing high-risk pipelines. The group's member companies point to permitting delays, higher material and labor costs, and availability of qualified workers as factors delaying replacement of such lines.
The survey and report were ordered by Congress in a 2016 pipeline law. Forty-eight states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico responded and 44 percent offered suggestions. Hawaii and Alaska do not participate in PHMSA's pipeline safety program. The study was done in collaboration with the National Association of State Pipeline Safety Representatives.
The state recommendations were distilled by PHMSA officials from the responses of 22 states or state-level entities who provided suggestions about dealing with pipeline leaks. The agency's report did not say which states recommended stricter rules.
Federal regulations require leaking pipelines to be repaired immediately, call for the "immediate repair" of hazardous leaks or continuous work until they're no longer hazardous. But repairs of nonhazardous leaks can often be delayed.
In 2015 there was an average of 50 unrepaired leaks outstanding for each 1,000 miles of gas distribution pipeline, according to operator data reported to PHMSA.
The survey also indicated 48 percent of states do not have regulations addressing the repair of leaks on natural gas distribution pipelines.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/08/15/stories/1060058762
-
Court Rejects Greens' Challenge to Texas Natural Gas Export Project
Aug 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A federal court has rejected a challenge to a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Texas.
In its Tuesday decision, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Department of Energy (DOE) conducted the necessary environmental and economic reviews before it approved the Freeport LNG export terminal project.
The Sierra Club had challenged DOE’s review of the project, saying the agency didn’t comply with federal environmental laws before approving the Freeport terminal in 2014, and that its determination that the terminal is in the “public interest” was flawed.
But the court batted down both contentions on Tuesday, ruling DOE followed procedures outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it approved the project. The court rejected the Sierra Club’s argument that DOE should have considered indirect environmental impacts of increasing LNG exports.
“Under our limited and deferential review, we cannot say that the Department failed to fulfill its obligations under NEPA by declining to make specific projections about environmental impacts stemming from specific levels of export-induced gas production,” the court determined in an opinion written by Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama-appointee.
The court also ruled that DOE’s determination that the project is in the public interest properly considered domestic economic impacts, foreign policy goals and energy security measures. All non-free-trade agreement exports are required to attain a public interest determination.
In a statement, the Sierra Club said it was “disappointed with the court's refusal to require DOE to use available tools to inform communities of the impact of this additional fracking prior to approving exports."
“This LNG export approval creates unnecessary risks for the people of Freeport, Texas, and for every community that is saddled with fracking rigs next to their homes, schools and public spaces,” Nathan Matthews, a Sierra Club staff attorney, said.
Tuesday’s decision is the latest development in a lengthy legal fight over the Freeport terminal, which is due to come online next year, and other natural gas export facilities.
The D.C. Circuit had previously rejected environmentalists’ complaints over the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval decisions for the Freeport project and another terminal in Louisiana.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/346604-court-rejects-greens-challenge-to-texas-natural-gas-export-project
-
Why Blackstone Is Betting $7 Billion on Natural Gas
Aug 15, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Ryan Dezember
Blackstone Group BX +0.03% LP is making one of its biggest bets on the growth of natural gas production, wagering that even if gas prices remain stuck at depressed levels, it can profit.
The New York private-equity firm has built a roughly $7 billion bet on natural gas by investing in drilling fields, pipelines and a gas export terminal. The latest piece came last month, when it agreed to pay $1.57 billion for a 32.4% stake in the Rover Pipeline, a 710-mile tube being built across Ohio.
Natural gas investments have been popular in recent years among private-equity firms. Many investments count on prices rising to turn profits—and have been doomed by low prices
Blackstone says its wager is generally more dependent on production volumes increasing than on prices climbing. Most of the $7 billion has been put toward moving gas out of areas where drilling has increased despite low prices. The remainder has been invested in exploration and production in those regions.
“We’re betting on which basins are going to be the winners,” said David Foley, who leads the firm’s energy investing. He’s put Blackstone’s money down in West Texas, Appalachia and Louisiana.
Blackstone raised its latest energy fund, a pool with more than $8 billion, in late 2014 and early 2015, when collapsing crude prices stoked optimism that investors could snap up oil assets on the cheap. The firm has invested billions in oil, but its splashiest deals have been aimed at natural gas.
The natural gas gambit has grown into one of Blackstone’s biggest, comparable in scope to its $10 billion bet on rental homes. But unlike home prices, the prognosis for natural gas prices isn’t as bright.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and others say that abundant supply, and production that can be ramped up quickly, should keep U.S. natural gas prices at an average of around $3 per million British thermal units for the next couple of years. Futures contracts for gas to be delivered in the winter, when demand and prices tend to be highest, don’t exceed $3.50 an MMBTU until late 2027.
Natural gas for September delivery fell 2.2 cents, or 0.74%, to $2.937 a million British thermal units on Tuesday morning.
Blackstone joins a crowded field of private-equity firms that have barreled into gas investments since the combination of horizontal drilling and a rock-cracking process called hydraulic fracturing unlocked new drilling fields across the country. These firms’ cash helped feed a drilling frenzy that has produced a flood of the heating and power-generation fuel.
Some firms have made disastrous bets, underestimating the new drilling technology and how severely it would affect prices.
The Texas power producer formerly known as TXU Corp. was bankrupted by buyout debt after KKR & Co. and TPG bought the company in 2007 for $32 billion assuming that gas prices, and thus electricity prices, would remain high. Instead, shale gas flooded the market.
Another surge of shale gas sent prices spiraling shortly after KKR and others paid $7.2 billion for oil-and-gas producer Samson Resources Corp. in 2011. Samson’s bankruptcy case is approaching its second anniversary.
But there have been enough successes to keep investor interest in natural gas alive. KKR once made $1.5 billion in about a year by flipping Pennsylvania shale fields. Big scores like that have helped draw more than $200 billion into energy funds since 2013, according to Preqin.
The earliest of Blackstone’s natural gas investments is poised to begin paying dividends. In 2012, the company put $1.5 billion toward the construction of Cheniere Energy Inc.’s LNG -1.32% facility in Sabine Pass, La., to liquefy natural gas for export.
The facility, which last year became the first to ship U.S. shale gas overseas, is adding capacity and recently reached a construction milestone that triggered Blackstone’s stake to convert to common shares of an entity that distributes 42.5 cents a share each quarter. With more than 202 million shares, Blackstone is due about $86 million quarterly, or $344 million annually.
The Rover Pipeline could be completed as early as autumn, according to Energy Transfer Partners LP, which is building the project. It will connect some of the country’s most prolific wells to markets around the Great Lakes and along the Gulf of Mexico. Once it opens, the Appalachian drillers who have signed up for shipping space on the pipeline will pay fees whether they send gas or not.
Earlier this year, Blackstone paid $2 billion for 375 miles of pipelines in West Texas that gather gas being produced as a byproduct of the frenzied Permian Basin oil drilling, and is therefore not particularly sensitive to gas price movements.
Mr. Foley says owning infrastructure like gas pipelines and export terminals is akin to selling supplies to speculators during the California Gold Rush. “It’s like picks and shovels for gold mining,” he said. “We don’t really care about the gold price, we just need it to be sufficient that people continue to mine.”
Blackstone’s strategy isn’t without price risk. A decline much below $3 could hurt the firm’s investments in exploration and production outfits. Persistently low prices have pressured such companies and limited the places where drilling is profitable.
In Appalachia, Blackstone has placed hundreds of millions of dollars with closely held prospectors, including $250 million with a 105-year-old Pittsburgh outfit called Huntley & Huntley, which it has used to acquire acreage and drill wells near fields that gas giant EQTCorp. has been consolidating. In northwest Louisiana, it spent $1.2 billion on drilling fields and created a company called Vine Resources Inc., which filed paperwork in April to pursue an initial public offering.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-blackstone-is-betting-7-billion-on-natural-gas-1502789402
-
Gas Flaring Rises despite N.D. Regulations
Aug 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Gas flaring in North Dakota's Bakken Shale oil field has been creeping back up, blunting the state's efforts to tame a problem that came to symbolize the excesses of the oil boom.
The volume of gas burned in flares reached 222 million cubic feet a day in June, a 31 percent increase from the same month last year, when the volume was 170 million cubic feet. That's still far lower than the peak in 2014, but critics said the turnaround shows the limits of North Dakota's industry-friendly regulations.
The flares release carbon dioxide and raw methane, both of which contribute to global climate change. Methane from flares is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from North Dakota's oil and gas sector, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
Landowners have objected to the waste of gas from their property, and residents who live in the oil field worry that the emissions from flaring could cause health problems, said Don Morrison, president of the Dakota Resource Council, whose members include farmers and ranchers in the Bakken region.
"What we can do about it is not issue a permit to drill until there is some place for the gas to go," Morrison said. "Other states have figured it out. I'm not sure why North Dakota can't figure it out, too."
Like other oil fields, the Bakken Shale produces large amounts of gas along with its crude. Unlike other fields, though, it has historically lacked the pipelines and processing plants needed to get gas to market. While oil companies can still turn a profit by trucking gas out to collection points, they argued they had no option but to burn their gas in flares at individual well sites.
Most other oil-producing states don't allow long-term flaring.
The practice drew widespread attention in 2011, when The New York Times featured a front-page story with a picture of a flare lighting up the surrounding prairie. At the time, producers in North Dakota were burning about 180 million cubic feet per day — more than a third of the gas produced in the state.
The publicity led then-Gov. Jack Dalrymple's (R) administration in 2014 to pass regulations aimed at limiting flaring by 2020, and the oil industry invested billions of dollars in infrastructure to move the gas to market.
The state Industrial Commission, which the governor leads, set a goal of reducing flaring to 10 percent of total gas production and later reduced the final level to 9 percent. The state also required companies to submit plans for how they'll capture gas when they apply for an oil well permit (Energywire, July 2, 2014).
The Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund argued at the time that the state should set a limit on the total volume of gas that can be flared. Setting a percentage limit allows the volume to rise when production rises.
"The planet doesn't care what percentage of gas you're wasting — the planet cares about the volume," said Dan Grossman, director of state programs at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Hard to enforce
Regulators at the state Department of Mineral Resources considered a volume limit when they wrote the rules in 2014 but rejected the idea because it would be too hard to enforce, said Alison Ritter, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Overall, the program has worked, she said. At the peak of the oil boom in December 2014, producers in North Dakota were flaring 374 million cubic feet a day, or 25 percent of production. By April 2016, the volume was down to 144 million cubic feet a day, or 8.8 percent of production.
In the last year, though, the oil bust has forced producers to shift their drilling into the most productive parts of the field, which also produce the most gas, according to the Department of Mineral Resources.
The increase in production means that more gas has been flared, even though the percentage has stayed roughly flat.
By May of this year, production grew to 1.85 billion cubic feet a day and flaring hit 203 million cubic feet a day, or about 10.9 percent of production.
This June, shutdowns at processing plants and a pipeline operator pushed up both the volume and percentage of flaring — to 12 percent and 222 million cubic feet — even though production stayed flat, according to the Department of Mineral Resources.
The industry has also had problems obtaining rights of way for new gas lines, particularly across the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.
Two new gas-processing plants are planned for the field, which should help reduce the amount of flaring. Processing plants strip out byproducts and impurities from the gas stream so that the gas can meet the standards set by interstate pipelines.
Environmentalists hope that the state will rethink its approach to the regulations during the current downturn in drilling.
"Hopefully the Industrial Commission learned from the last boom cycle to be proactive so that it doesn't get away from us again," said Wayde Schafer, the North Dakota organizer for the Sierra Club.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/08/15/stories/1060058765
-
Trump Order to Change 'Protocol' for Infrastructure Permitting
Aug 15, 2017 | Politico - Energy Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
President Donald Trump will today sign an executive order setting a two-year goal for the federal government to complete the permitting process for infrastructure projects, a spokesperson told POLITICO.
The order, which Trump plans to sign after meeting with his infrastructure team, will establish the protocol of “one federal decision” and strive to create accountability for federal agencies involved in the review process, according to the White House.
Among those slated to attend are Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.
In January, Trump signed an executive order instructing the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality to create expedited procedures and deadlines for environmental reviews and approvals for high-priority infrastructure projects.
Then, in June remarks at the Department of Transportation, Trump announced a new office within CEQ that he said would “root out inefficiency, clarify lines of authority and streamline federal and state and local procedures so that communities can modernize their aging infrastructure without fear of outdated federal rules getting in their way."
There’s been no further word since then on the new CEQ office and Trump has not nominated anyone to run the White House’s in-house environmental policy shop, although names of some contenders have emerged. Mary Neumayr, formerly senior counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, serves as acting CEQ chairwoman.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
-
EPA's Pruitt Denies White House Will Suppress Climate Change Report
Aug 15, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency would evaluate a report on climate change, and derided the Obama administration for its apologetic stance on the issue and on the politicization of science in general.
In an interview last week with Fort Worth, TX-based WBAP-AM, Pruitt said the agency would complete its review of a draft version of a report on climate change, part of the National Climate Assessment (NCA), by a Friday deadline to do so. But he categorically denied a report by the New York Times that the Trump administration plans to suppress the report.
"We're going to review it, like all the other 12 agencies [required to review it] and evaluate the merits, demerits and the methodology and accuracy of the report," Pruitt said last Thursday. "[But] frankly, this report ought to be subjected to peer review methodology and evaluation.
"Science should not be politicized. Science is not something that should be thrown about to try to dictate policy in Washington, DC. It ought to be objectively measured, and we ought to be able to inform our citizens about what we know and what we don't know."
Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, Congress mandated that an NCA is produced every four years. A draft version of the climate assessment was completed in June.
During the interview, Pruitt said the United States had reduced its carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint to pre-1994 levels through the use of innovation and technology. He cited the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas production and the switch to natural gas for power generation as major reasons for lower CO2 emissions.
"If we really care about reducing CO2 globally, we need to be exporting what we're doing in this country," Pruitt said. "What's lost in this whole discussion about climate and climate change [is that] warming happens. So do cooling trends.
"The climate changes always. Do we contribute to it? Yes. To what degree? Measuring that with precision is very challenging. But the big question is this: What is the process, and what do we do in response? We're already leading the world in the reduction of greenhouse gases [and] CO2. We need to be exporting what we're doing, not being apologetic about it here in this country."
He added that the Trump administration's decision this summer to withdraw from the 2015 global climate agreement signed in Paris in 2015 was "without question" the right decision.
"That was the Obama administration going to Paris and being apologetic, and not recognizing the very things that we've done as a country," Pruitt said. "The Paris accord was a bad business deal for this country, and represented an apologetic view of the progress we've already made as a country in leading these CO2 reductions."
When asked why his critics continue to have a preoccupation with CO2, Pruitt responded that such criticism "serves political ends."
"Frankly, [for] the last several years the past administration used the CO2 issue as a wedge issue. That's why we talk about it as much. Why aren't we celebrating what we're achieving with respect to CO2?"
Pruitt added that while he believes "there are a lot of good, hard-working folks" at the EPA, the agency "lost their mission" during the Obama years.
"There are many examples where the agency just hasn't done its core mission, and most importantly to me is that they haven't worked with their partners," he said. "One of the things that I've been focusing on is restoring that trust."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111405-epas-pruitt-denies-white-house-will-suppress-climate-change-report
-
Researchers to Study Chemical Contamination of US Waters
Aug 15, 2017 | AP (in the New York Times)
University of Rhode Island and Harvard University professors are collaborating through a new research center to study chemicals that have contaminated water at sites nationwide.
The chemicals, called perfluorinated chemicals, have been linked to cancer and other illnesses but aren't regulated in drinking water. Water has been contaminated near sites of industrial facilities and U.S. military bases.
URI announced Tuesday that it received a five-year, $8 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to establish a center focused on gaining a better understanding of how these chemicals make their way into water, through the food chain, and affect people and animals.
They will work with communities in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where contamination has been an issue. They also want to develop new detection tools.
They chemicals are found in many household products and in firefighting foam used by the U.S. military.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued stricter guidelines last year regarding human exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA.
"So frustratingly little has been done on the regulatory side, I thought a center like this could help," said professor Rainer Lohmann of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.
Lohmann, an environmental chemist, said he wants to give regulators the information they need to help communities dealing with contamination. He's trying to devise a better way to sample and measure water for perfluorinated chemicals.
Lohmann applied for the funding to start the research center with his URI colleagues, experts at Harvard and at the nonprofit Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts.
Philippe Grandjean, who leads a research group at Harvard's School of Public Health, has done studies suggesting that breast milk is a major source of exposure during infancy and that these chemicals may adversely affect immune system development, thereby reducing the effectives of vaccines in children. Grandjean will contribute research to the center.
Many of his studies are focused on the Faroe Islands, a country between Norway and Iceland, where the homogeneous population makes it easier to measure the effects of chemical exposure from marine food contaminants.
Elsie Sunderland, who teaches at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is trying to understand how the geochemistry of an area affects how far the chemicals will travel and enter into drinking water. She's also figuring out how to better discern the source of the chemicals and how fish respond once exposed to contaminated water.
"For the compounds we've already released into the environment, we have to figure out how to assess risk from their exposure and where action needs to be taken," she said. "More broadly, we want to raise awareness about these compounds so we don't make any more mistakes about their release or use in ways that have unanticipated health effects down the line. The effects we're seeing are alarming."
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/08/15/us/ap-us-water-contamination-research.html?_r=0
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested