Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 8/28/2017
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(ACC Blog) August On The Road With #ACCaugust 3.0
Aug 28, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
ACC’s Political Mobilization is back on the road for #ACCaugust! During the Congressional summer recess we will be hosting numerous events with elected officials throughout the U.S. We’ll be fanning out across the country to further our industry’s advocacy goals through our grassroots initiative #ACCaugust. -
(ACC Mentioned) US 'Superglue' The Best Way To Boost Car Parts Recovery?
Aug 28, 2017 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
United States: Researchers at Michigan State University are working together with the American Chemistry Council's automotive group as well as chemical and advanced materials company Solvay to develop a special type of 'superglue' that could bring end-of-life car disassembly to a whole new level. -
(ACC Mentioned) July Sees PP And PET Prices Up, PS Down
Aug 28, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Three of five major commodity resins were on the move in North America in July. The other two took the month off. -
(ACC Mentioned) L.A. Parker: HomeFront Needs Help As Food Shelves Are Running Empty
Aug 26, 2017 | The Trentonian
Remember those popular EF Hutton commercials where everyone stopped to listen as someone gave stock market advice offered by the successful brokerage firm. -
IG Reviewing TSCA Reporting Rule Compliance Ahead Of Program Updates
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's inspector general is beginning an assessment of industry compliance with EPA's chemical data reporting (CDR) rule and the agency's use of any data it receives to prioritize chemicals for regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), an inquiry that could provide oversight of the program just as the agency is overhauling it. -
EPA Will Hold September Webinar on PBT Chemicals under TSCA
Aug 28, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a September 7, 2017, webinar to explain its process for gathering use and exposure information on five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
(ACC Mentioned) ‘10/12 Industry Report’: Smaller Second Wave Of Petrochem Capital Investment Expected in Louisiana
Aug 25, 2017 | Business Report
The U.S.—and the Gulf Coast in particular—is due for another, albeit smaller, round of petrochemical expansions, experts tell 10/12 Industry Report in its new quarterly issue. -
Touching Thermal Receipts May Extend BPA Exposure
Aug 25, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deirdre Lockwood
When people handle receipts printed on thermal paper containing the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), the chemical could linger in the body for a week or more, according to a new study. -
New Zealand Moves Up Microbeads Ban, Expands Scope
Aug 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Murray Griffin
New Zealand plans to ban plastic microbeads in a broader range of products and tighten the deadline so the ban will go into effect in May 2018. -
Harvey Throws a Wrench Into U.S. Energy Engine
Aug 28, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times )
By Ernest Scheyder
A hurricane in the heart of the U.S. energy industry is set to curtail near-record U.S. oil production for several weeks, with the impact expected to reverberate throughout the country and across international energy markets. -
Refineries, Plants Shut Amid Hurricane Harvey Rains, Floods
Aug 28, 2017 | ICIS
By Tracy Dang
Severe weather, heavy rain and flooding from Hurricane Harvey are now major concerns for the US Gulf Coast, the nation's hub for refineries and petrochemical plants. -
Shell Halts Operations at Deer Park Refinery
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Royal Dutch Shell said Sunday the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is causing the shutdown of its massive refining and petrochemical complex in Deer Park. -
Chevron Phillips Closing Massive Baytown Chemical Complex
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Chevron Phillips shut down its massive Cedar Bayou petrochemical complex in Baytown on Sunday as flooding overtook much of the Houston region. -
Exxon Mobil shuts down Baytown refining complex
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil is in the process of shutting down the nation's second-largest refining complex in Baytown in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. -
New York State's Final Chance To Stop Fracking Is Slipping Away
Aug 28, 2017 | The Hill
By James Cromwell
Maryland recently followed suit, and local ordinances to limit it have been passed in 22 states. But a fracking expansion juggernaut is subverting state and local attempts to keep fracking’s negative impacts out. -
EPA Weighs Regulatory 'Relief' Options For Ozone NAAQS Implementation
Aug 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey
EPA is weighing several options to provide states and industries regulatory “relief” when implementing the Obama-era's 2015 rule tightening the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), including streamlining Clean Air Act permitting reviews, revising monitoring procedures, and more according to a report to Congress. -
California Cap-and-Trade Extension Law Credited For Robust Auction Results
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
California's recent extension of its greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program to 2030 was the driving force behind one of the state's most lucrative GHG allowance auctions held to date, sources say, where all credits offered at last week's event sold at well above the minimum floor price. -
EPA Proposes Retaining Existing SO2 NAAQS
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA staff in a new policy assessment (PA) is proposing to retain the current sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb) using a novel one-hour averaging time, saying that science on SO2 pollution shows it continues to pose health risks but the existing NAAQS is adequate to address them. -
States Seek Court Ruling Vacating EPA Ozone Designations Delay
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
Several Democratic-led states are backing environmentalists' push for a federal appeals court to preserve their suits over EPA's since-withdrawn delay of designations for which areas are attaining the 2015 ozone ambient air limit, with the states also asking the court to vacate the delay and declare that it was unlawful from the beginning. -
States Dare to Think Big on Climate Change
Aug 28, 2017 | The New York Times
By Editorial Board
The one bright spot amid the generally gloomy news about climate change, and the Trump administration’s resistance to doing anything about it, is the determination of a number of state governments to take action on their own. -
HFC Rule Supporters Eye Rehearing Bid Despite Risk Of Deference Limits
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Supporters of a scrapped Obama EPA rule on reducing ozone-depleting substances are eyeing requests for a federal appeals court to rehear the suit that vacated the rule, despite some observers' suggestions that a successful rehearing bid could help EPA to defend deregulatory actions or aid GOP efforts to limit courts' deference to agencies.
Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.
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 - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Blog) August On The Road With #ACCaugust 3.0
Aug 28, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
ACC’s Political Mobilization is back on the road for #ACCaugust! During the Congressional summer recess we will be hosting numerous events with elected officials throughout the U.S. We’ll be fanning out across the country to further our industry’s advocacy goals through our grassroots initiative #ACCaugust. Through plant tours, in-district meetings, and industry roundtable discussions, we will meet with Members of Congress to raise awareness of issues important to our industry and employees and showcase the economic benefits of the business of chemistry where it matters the most—in their respective districts.
You can keep track of our progress here on the ACC blog, on our @AmChemMatters twitter account, or our Facebook page. Participate in the experience by joining the conversation using the hashtags #ACCaugust and #ChemistryMatters.
Take our virtual #ACCaugust tour with us! Zoom in and out and pan around to see where we’ve been and where we’re going!On the road with #ACCaugust 3.0by American Chemistry on AUGUST 25, 2017 in INDUSTRY, MEDIA, POLICYFacebookTwitter1Google+LinkedInreddit
ACC’s Political Mobilization is back on the road for #ACCaugust! During the Congressional summer recess we will be hosting numerous events with elected officials throughout the U.S. We’ll be fanning out across the country to further our industry’s advocacy goals through our grassroots initiative #ACCaugust. Through plant tours, in-district meetings, and industry roundtable discussions, we will meet with Members of Congress to raise awareness of issues important to our industry and employees and showcase the economic benefits of the business of chemistry where it matters the most—in their respective districts.
You can keep track of our progress here on the ACC blog, on our @AmChemMatters twitter account, or our Facebook page. Participate in the experience by joining the conversation using the hashtags #ACCaugust and #ChemistryMatters.
Take our virtual #ACCaugust tour with us! Zoom in and out and pan around to see where we’ve been and where we’re going!
Locations are subject to change
Where we’ve been
Rep. Bruce Westerman visiting ORG CHEM Group, LLC, Hot Springs, AR | August 24, 2017
Rep. Bill Johnson visiting DuPont, Little Hocking, OH | August 24, 2017
Rep. Dave Joyce visiting Lubrizol Corporation, Painesville, OH | August 24, 2017
Rep. Clay Higgins visiting LyondellBasell, West Lake, LA | August 23, 2017
Rep. Brad Schneider visiting ANGUS Chemical Company, Buffalo Grove, IL | August 23, 2017
Rep. Pat Tiberi visiting Covestro, Hebron, OH | August 23, 2017
Rep. Mike Johnson visiting Cabot Corporation, Ville Platt, LA | August 23, 2017
Rep. Louie Gohmert visiting Cabot Corporation, Marshall, TX | August 22, 2017
Rep. Brian Babin visiting Covestro, Baytown, TX | August 22, 2017
Rep. Rodney Davis visiting Monsanto, Farmer City IL | August 22, 2017
Rep. Gene Green visiting LyondellBasell, Houston, TX | August 21, 2017
Rep Randy Weber visiting BASF, Freeport, TX | August 18, 2017
Rep. Garret Graves visiting BASF, Geismar, LA | August 18, 2017
Se. Rob Portman visiting BASF, Greenville, NC | August 18, 2017
West Virginia State Legislators visiting Toyota, Buffalo, WV | August 17, 2017
West Virginia State Legislators visiting Covestro, Morgantown, WV | August 17, 2017
Rep. Chaz Beasley visiting IPEX, Pineville, NC | August 17, 2017
Rep. Patrick McHenry visiting Carus Corporation, Peru, IL | August 17, 2017
Sen Chris Coons visiting Wilmington, PA | August 16, 2017
Sen. Bob Casey visiting Covestro, Pittsburgh, PA | August 16, 2017
Rep. Lisa Rochester visiting BASF, Newport, DE | August 15, 2017
Rep. Warren Kampf visiting Trinseo, Berwyn, PA | August 14, 2017
Rep. Mike Turner visiting DuPont, Dayton, OH | August 11, 2017
Rep. Dave Loebsack visiting ChevronPhillips, Bloomfield, IA | August 11, 2017
Rep. Mike Coffman visiting Colorado Chamber of Commerce, Denver, CO | August 9, 2017
Rep. Doug Collins visiting PPG Industries, Inc., Oakwood, GA | August 9, 2017
Sen. Rob Wittman visiting SON Metal Fabrication, Ashland, VA | August 9, 2017
Rep. Glenn Thompson visiting Solvay, Lock Haven, PA | August 8, 2017
Rep. Garret Graves visiting Hexion Inc., Geismar, LA | August 4, 2017
Rep. Daniel Lipinski visiting Nalco Company, Chicago, IL | August 4, 2017
Rep. James Cormer visiting Ashland Inc. in Lexington, KY | August 2, 2017
Rep. James Cormer visiting Arkema Inc. in Lexington, KY | August 2, 2017
Rep. Larry Bucshon visiting ORG Chem Group in Troy, IN | August 2, 2017
Rep. David Young visiting Monsanto in Ankeny, IA | August 1, 2017
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/08/on-the-road-with-accaugust-3-0/
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(ACC Mentioned) US 'Superglue' The Best Way To Boost Car Parts Recovery?
Aug 28, 2017 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
United States: Researchers at Michigan State University are working together with the American Chemistry Council's automotive group as well as chemical and advanced materials company Solvay to develop a special type of 'superglue' that could bring end-of-life car disassembly to a whole new level.
Mixing materials is nothing new when talking about consumer products manufacturing. And yet, finding the right adhesive so they stick one another is an entirely different thing. It’s an issue that car manufacturers are all but too familiar with, and one that hinders the efficient recycling of modern-day vehicles.
The new compound is an enhanced thermoplastic with microscopic magnetic particles that bond different kinds of plastic, metals and a combination of both without the need for more rivets or connectors. The ‘superglue’ adapts to different surface properties and works at different material temperatures adhesive. These characteristics would ultimately enable composite materials to be cleanly separated once the car is sent back for scrapping.
The research is in the ‘laboratory testing phase’ but the outlook for upscaling is very promising, according to Sandra McClelland, a member of the council and sales development manager for Solvay Specialty Polymers. She adds that the new materials bonding approach would also allow a component to be repaired in a way that will make it stronger.
http://www.recyclinginternational.com/recycling-news/10776/research-and-legislation/united-states/us-039-superglue-039-best-way-boost-car-parts-recovery
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(ACC Mentioned) July Sees PP And PET Prices Up, PS Down
Aug 28, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Three of five major commodity resins were on the move in North America in July. The other two took the month off.
Price increases were recorded by polypropylene and PET bottle resin, with polystyrene prices falling. Standing still were polyethylene and PVC.
Regional PP prices inched up an average of 0.5 cents per pound, according to buyers contacted by Plastics News. Prices for that material had been flat in June after sliding down 7.5 cents in May and 6 cents in April.
That two-month, 13.5-cent downturn came after prices rose an average of 20.5 cents in the first three months of the year. Looking ahead, regional PP prices in the second half of the year should be more stable than they were in the first half, according to Scott Newell, a PP market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas.
"Polymer-grade propylene [monomer] was all over the place in the first half, and that had an effect on pricing," Newell said in a phone interview. "Demand is doing OK, but that's been volatile as well."
North American PP sales weren't strong in the first half of 2017, increasing almost 1 percent vs. the same period in 2016. Domestic PP sales grew 1.3 percent in that period, while export sales slipped almost 11 percent.
Regional PP makers now are working on a 3-cent increase attempt effective Aug. 1, but Newell said there's a chance that move could be pushed back to September.PET bottle resin up
The PET increase for July was 1.5 cents and was the result of tighter supplies and slightly higher feedstock costs, according to market watchers contacted by Plastics News. Some buyers reported variations of different amounts between 1 and 2 cents.
The July increase is the second consecutive monthly hike for PET, which had ticked up 0.5 cents per pound in June. That June hike ended a streak of three straight monthly declines totaling 3.5 cents per pound for the material.PS prices slide
PS prices in North America tumbled by an average of 4 cents in July after being flat in June. Various buyers reported July declines ranging from 2 to 5 cents, but the 4-cent drop was seen by the largest number of buyers.
The July dip marks the third time in four months that regional PS prices have declined. Prices for the material had slid 2 cents in May and 5 cents in April. Prior to those declines, prices had increased by 6 cents in March.
The July PS slide was tied in to a 20-cent drop in price for benzene feedstock, which is used to make styrene monomer. North American benzene settled at $2.51 per gallon for the month. Market prices for both benzene and PS resin have been volatile so far in 2017.
"Benzene went crazy this year," RTI PS market analyst Robin Chesshier said. "There were refinery changeovers and more exports, and [PS] resin makers jumped all over it. But buyers naturally stopped buying when they thought prices were going to go higher, so prices swung back down."
Even with the recent price drops, North American PS prices are relatively high, Chesshier said, leading to increased competition from PP and PET resins and to higher interest in PS imported from South America and Asia.
North American PS sales fell 1.5 percent in the first half of 2017. A domestic sales loss of 1.6 percent was softened a bit by a gain of more than 3 percent in export sales.
PS maker Americas Styrenics now is attempting to raise prices by 2 cents per pound effective Aug. 1.PE, PVC flat
Prices for all grades of high density, low density and linear low density PE were flat for the second straight month in July. Regional PE prices had dropped 3 cents per pound in May. That move wiped out a 3-cent hike that had taken hold in March. First-half U.S./Canadian PE sales were mixed, according to the American Chemistry Council.
Sales of high density PE in the region were down 3 percent in the first half of the year, as a domestic sales gain of almost 4 percent was wiped out by a drop of 25 percent in export sales. Low density PE sales in the region ticked up 1 percent in that period, with a domestic sales drop of 1 percent negated by an export sales gain of almost 8 percent.
In linear LDPE, regional sales grew almost 2 percent, as domestic growth of almost 4 percent was lowered by a 6 percent drop in export sales.
Regional PVC prices in June were flat for the fourth consecutive month. This flat spell has followed a two-month stretch in which prices increased a total of 6 cents per pound.
First-half U.S./Canadian PVC sales were up almost 1 percent. Domestic sales grew almost 4 percent but were eclipsed by an export sales drop of nearly 6 percent.
In PE and PVC feedstocks, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices began July at $46.80 per barrel and ended the month around $49.25, for an increase of 5 percent. Regional prices for natural gas — used as a feedstock in most North American PE and PVC — started the month at $2.95 per million BTUs but were at $2.80 by the end of the month, for a decline of 5 percent.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170825/NEWS/170829933/july-sees-pp-and-pet-prices-up-ps-down-and-pe-and-pvc-right-where-they-started
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(ACC Mentioned) L.A. Parker: HomeFront Needs Help As Food Shelves Are Running Empty
Aug 26, 2017 | The Trentonian
Remember those popular EF Hutton commercials where everyone stopped to listen as someone gave stock market advice offered by the successful brokerage firm.
The popular slogan espoused “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.”
Consider Connie Mercer the EF Hutton of food distribution for Mercer County.
Listen up.
“The need is urgent and time is running out. We are still struggling to keep food on our shelves,” Mercer expressed via email.
“Our food pantry program distributes over 1000 free bags of groceries every month to the most vulnerable families in our community. Those families need your help - now more than ever.”
Food insecurity in the United States sounds strange, especially when one considers that households throw away about $640 worth of food each year, according to The American Chemistry Council.
A donation of just a portion of that potentially wasted money could help HomeFront stock shelves before fall and winter.
Mercer noted two generous donors have extended their offer to match all donations up to $75,000 until Sept. 8, 2017.
HomeFront supported 16,236 clients in need of shelter, food or emergency aid in 2016.
Whether you need help or want to help others, HomeFront wants to hear from you.
The general email address is: homefront@homefrontnj.org
Phone numbers are:
Family Preservation Center - (609) 883-7500
FreeStore - (609) 396-7141
HomeFront Administrative Offices - (609) 989-9417
Lawrence Community Center - (609) 883-3379
http://www.trentonian.com/opinion/20170826/la-parker-homefront-needs-help-as-food-shelves-are-running-empty
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IG Reviewing TSCA Reporting Rule Compliance Ahead Of Program Updates
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's inspector general is beginning an assessment of industry compliance with EPA's chemical data reporting (CDR) rule and the agency's use of any data it receives to prioritize chemicals for regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), an inquiry that could provide oversight of the program just as the agency is overhauling it.
“The specific objectives for this evaluation are to determine (1) how the EPA is ensuring that companies are compliant with CDR requirements under TSCA and (2) whether the EPA is using CDR data to prioritize imported and manufactured chemicals for the purpose of identifying the potential for human health and environmental risks,” states an Aug. 22 memo from EPA's Office of Inspector General (OIG).
EPA's CDR generally requires chemical manufacturers to submit information to the agency about chemicals used and produced in the U.S., as well as imports when volumes are 25,000 pounds or greater in a single year, though certain types of chemicals are exempted or must report at lower threshold volumes. The rule grew out of the agency's efforts before TSCA reform to update its understanding of which chemicals are actively in commerce, and to provide exposure information for risk analysis and management.
The reporting is generally requested about every four years; most recent CDR data was collected in 2016.
The review begins at an active time in the CDR's rule's history. Data submitted from the last two CDR submissions, collected in 2012 and 2016, are being used to start an update to the TSCA inventory required by the reform law enacted last summer. EPA published its final inventory reset rule Aug. 11, triggering a six-month period for manufacturers to inform the agency of chemicals that they have manufactured, used and imported over the course of the past decade to allow these chemicals to remain on the TSCA inventory.
TSCA's inventory is important because it delineates new chemicals -- those that must undergo EPA review for human and environmental risks before they can enter the market -- from existing chemicals, which were already on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976, as well as those that have been added to the inventory since.
Various administrations have sought to expand or contract the amount of information that companies must submit to the agency as part of the CDR process. Most recently, the Obama administration sought to expand its information by lowering thresholds for certain types of products or chemicals that must be reported through the CDR process, raising industry concern. Eventually, these concerns led to the creation of a negotiated rulemaking committee, established to address concerns with the inorganic byproduct reporting.
Consensus Process
The committee has met several times in recent months, but environmental and industry representatives have struggled to reach consensus. The process needs consensus for EPA to adopt any panel recommendation, and it remains unclear if EPA will change the existing process. The committee met most recently Aug. 16-17, with consensus remaining elusive and an October deadline looming.
TSCA section 8(a)(6) as updated through the June 2016 reform law directs EPA to convene the negotiated rulemaking committee to address industry CDR concerns and potentially craft a rule limiting reporting requirements for inorganic byproducts in some cases.
During the committee's latest meeting, the CDR Inorganic Byproducts Negotiated Rulemaking Committee narrowed various options that could inform a future EPA rule. But panelists remain split on whether to eliminate long-standing exemptions for certain uses.
The best-received option, originally floated by EPA, calls for simplifying reporting by eliminating these exemptions for certain chemical uses, creating categories of reportable substances while also requiring companies to report some chemical processing and use information. Panelists have until a final meeting in October to resolve the issue and provide EPA with a consensus recommendation for a future rule.
Asked the impetus for the review, a spokesman for OIG says that the review is a “discretionary evaluation [that] was self-initiated as part of the OIG’s internal planning process.”
Asked how or whether the OIG review will interface with the ongoing negotiated rulemaking committee, OIG's spokesman said that it is too early in the review process to answer the question. “Once a project notification memo is issued, our evaluators begin their preliminary research, during which they may perform limited data gathering, including assessment of internal controls; collect information to identify potential conditions and effects; and determine whether a full review is justified. Since we’ve just started the phase during which we’re actively conducting our preliminary research, it’s still too early to answer this question.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/ig-reviewing-tsca-reporting-rule-compliance-ahead-program-updates
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EPA Will Hold September Webinar on PBT Chemicals under TSCA
Aug 28, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a September 7, 2017, webinar to explain its process for gathering use and exposure information on five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EPA states that the webinar will provide background on new requirements for regulating certain PBT chemicals and explain how interested parties can provide use information to EPA on these five chemicals:
· Decabromodiphenyl ethers (DecaBDE), used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics, wiring insulation, and building and construction materials;
· Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used as a solvent in the manufacture of rubber compounds and as hydraulic, heat transfer, or transformer fluid;
· Pentachlorothiophenol (PCTP), used as a mercaptan (sulfur) cross-linking agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses;
· Phenol, isopropylated, phosphate (3:1), used as a flame retardant in consumer products and as lubricant, hydraulic fluid, and other industrial uses; and
· 2,4,6-Tris(tert-butyl) phenol, an antioxidant that can be used as a fuel, oil, gasoline, or lubricant additive.
Under TSCA Section 6(h), EPA is required to take expedited regulatory action to address risks and exposures from certain PBT chemicals. By June 22, 2019, EPA must propose rules for the above five PBT chemicals that have been identified under TSCA Section 6(h)(1). EPA is currently identifying where these chemicals are used and how people are exposed to them. Following EPA’s presentation, participants will have an opportunity to provide their comments on uses of these five chemicals.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-will-hold-september-webinar-pbt-chemicals-under-tsca
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Aug 25, 2017 | Business Report
The U.S.—and the Gulf Coast in particular—is due for another, albeit smaller, round of petrochemical expansions, experts tell 10/12 Industry Report in its new quarterly issue.
On the chemical side alone, about $185 billion in chemical manufacturing investment is either under construction or planned nationwide.
The U.S. is poised to become the most competitive global manufacturer of chemicals, said Cal Dooley, American Chemistry Council president and CEO, speaking at the Downstream Engineering, Construction & Maintenance Conference in New Orleans this summer.
“Fifteen years ago, we were one of the highest cost manufacturers in chemicals. Today, the U.S. is arguably one of the most competitive global manufacturers of chemicals, and it’s all because of hydraulic fracturing and the low cost of natural gas,” he said.
When the oil-to-gas price ratio is above 7, U.S. competitiveness is enhanced. While good for chemicals, it also positively impacts Louisiana’s natural gas market as it becomes the fuel of choice. Some owners feel this will contribute to the state becoming a major liquefied natural gas hub by 2020. More than $88 billion in LNG projects are currently planned, being built or in operation across the U.S.
Owners, designers and contractors along the Gulf Coast should prepare now, rather than later, for the potential of labor shortages and productivity woes should a second wave become reality, industry leaders say.
“We don’t think the second wave is going to be as large as the first,” says Manav Lahoti, commercial director for The Dow Chemical Company’s U.S. olefins market in Houston. “We think the second wave, for us at least, needs to be smaller. It will allow us to leverage some of the skills and lessons learned from the first wave. We feel productivity will be better as a result.”
https://www.businessreport.com/article/1012-industry-report-smaller-second-wave-petrochem-capital-investment-expected-louisiana
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Touching Thermal Receipts May Extend BPA Exposure
Aug 25, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deirdre Lockwood
Traces of endocrine disruptor bisphenol A can remain in body for a week after dermal contact
When people handle receipts printed on thermal paper containing the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), the chemical could linger in the body for a week or more, according to a new study (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2017, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b03093). BPA ingested from food, however, is excreted within a day.
Jonathan W. Martin of Stockholm University and Jiaying Liu of the University of Alberta used isotopically labeled BPA to follow what happens when people are exposed to typical levels of the compound in everyday situations: handling receipts, consuming food stored in BPA-lined aluminum cans, or drinking beverages from BPA-hardened plastic bottles, for example. They tested six male volunteers, who handled simulated thermal receipts containing labeled BPA for five minutes. The subjects then wore a nitrile glove for two hours and washed their hands with soap. Afterwards, the researchers measured the labeled BPA in the volunteers’ urine regularly for two days. A week later, the researchers fed each of these volunteers a cookie containing labeled BPA, again monitoring its concentrations in urine. The doses of BPA were lower than the tolerable daily intake set by the European Food Safety Authority.
After the volunteers handled the receipts, total BPA—including free and metabolized forms of the compound—in their urine increased linearly over two days. Surprisingly, after a week, three of the volunteers still had BPA in their urine. However, after volunteers ate the cookies, total BPA in urine spiked within five hours and was fully cleared within a day. Notably, the free, unmetabolized form of BPA—which is more toxic than its metabolites—made up a higher percentage of the compounds in urine after dermal exposure than after dietary exposure.
Ingested BPA is rapidly metabolized in the liver and quickly excreted, Martin says. But when the compound is absorbed through the skin, it is probably metabolized much less efficiently, which could lead to a more toxic exposure. “The use of BPA in thermal receipts needs to be reconsidered,” he says. Some manufacturers are replacing it with similarly concerning chemicals, he says, such as bisphenol S, but “more thought needs to be put into safer alternatives.” Along those lines, some stores have switched to vitamin C-based thermal receipts.
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New Zealand Moves Up Microbeads Ban, Expands Scope
Aug 28, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Murray Griffin
New Zealand plans to ban plastic microbeads in a broader range of products and tighten the deadline so the ban will go into effect in May 2018.
A Ministry for the Environment spokeswoman Aug. 24 told Bloomberg BNA that the country had to give the World Trade Organization six months’ notice of its intention to introduce regulations that would implement the ban on plastic beads less than 5 millimeters in diameter.
This ban is part of a global initiative to reduce the amount of plastic ending up in oceans, said Associate Environment Minister Scott Simpson. The regulations will make it illegal to sell or manufacture products containing plastic microbeads, and the ban also will extend over a wider range of products.
“We anticipate the regulations will be ready to be published by November 2017, which means the regulations would come into force in May 2018,” the spokeswoman said in emailed comments. The government originally intended to introduce a ban that would go into effect July 1, 2018.
Garth Wyllie, executive director of the Cosmetic Toiletry & Fragrance Association of New Zealand, Aug. 24 told Bloomberg BNA that his organization fully supported the ban, although the earlier start date was “a little surprising.” The association's members include Chanel, Clarins, and Elizabeth Arden.
The government initially intended applying the regulations only to personal care items, but will now extend it to all “wash-off” products, which includes cleaners and personal care products. The broader ban will be more effective at preventing microbeads from entering waterways, the ministry spokeswoman said.
The ban will not apply to wipe-off make-up products, such as powder foundation and eyeshadows, which could contain polymers, she said.
“These are supposed to be wiped off with a tissue and disposed of in a bin,” the spokeswoman said. Nor will the ban apply to “leave-on” products such as anti-aging creams, sunscreens, and hairsprays, she said.
Widespread Support for Ban
The U.S. makes the same distinctions about personal care products in its imminent microbeads ban, according to the the spokeswoman.
“The precise scope of the ban will be defined in the regulations,” she said.
The proposed ban received widespread support following the release of a consultation paper in February, according to a government summary of submissions.
Non-wash-off cosmetics containing microbeads, which won't be banned, don't pose a risk to the environment because when they are removed “they end up in landfill,” Wyllie said. Nevertheless, companies are working to remove microbeads from these products, he said in emailed comments.
Katherine Rich, chief executive of the New Zealand Food & Grocery Council (NZFGC), told Bloomberg BNA that her organization supported the ban.
Members of the council anticipate products containing microbeads “will have disappeared from shelves well before then,” Rich said in Aug. 24 emailed comments.
“A survey last year by NZFGC of its members and others in the industry showed that many were not using microbeads, or were well down the track of reformulation,” Rich said.
Greenpeace said it welcomed the government's move, but was waiting to see more details. A spokeswoman for the environment group said the ban appeared not to include bioplastics or liquid plastics, some of which are not biodegradable. Nor did it appear to include nanoplastics, which the government appeared to consider too small to be a microbead.
The regulations banning microbeads will be introduced under the Waste Minimization Act 2008.
“The New Zealand ban parallels similar initiatives in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and Australia to ban or phase out plastic microbeads in products.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=119596392&vname=dennotallissues&fn=119596392&jd=119596392
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Harvey Throws a Wrench Into U.S. Energy Engine
Aug 28, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times )
By Ernest Scheyder
HOUSTON — A hurricane in the heart of the U.S. energy industry is set to curtail near-record U.S. oil production for several weeks, with the impact expected to reverberate throughout the country and across international energy markets.
Harvey hit the Texas shore as a fierce Category 4 hurricane, causing massive flooding that has knocked out 11 percent of U.S. refining capacity, a quarter of oil production from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and closed ports all along the Texas coast.
Gasoline futures jumped as much as 7 percent to their highest level in more than two years in early Monday trading in Asia as traders took stock of the storm's impact.
The outages will limit the availability of U.S. crude, gasoline and other refined products for global consumers and further push up prices, analysts said.
Damage assessments could take days to weeks to complete, and the storm continues to drop unprecedented levels of rain as it lingers west of Houston, home to oil, gas, pipeline and chemical plants. And restarts are dangerous periods, as fires and explosions can occur.Continue reading the main story
So far, the federal government has not announced if it will release barrels of oil or refined products from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which holds nearly 680 million barrels of oil.
The SPR was established in the 1970s to prevent supply shocks in the wake of an embargo imposed by several members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
"This is not like anything we have ever seen before," said Bruce Jefferis, chief executive of Aon Energy, a risk consulting practice. It is too soon to gauge the full extent of Harvey's damage to the region's energy infrastructure, he said.
More than 30 inches (76 cm) fell in the Houston area in 48 hours and a lot more rain is forecast, according to the National Weather Service.
The storm was felt from coastal ports to inland oil and gas wells. Oil producers in the Eagle Ford shale region of south Texas have halted some operations.
At least four marine terminals in the Corpus Christi area, an export hub for energy deliveries to Latin America and Asia, remained closed due to the storm.
"We just simply don't know yet the damage all this rain will have on Houston's energy infrastructure," said Andrew Lipow, president of energy consultancy Lipow Oil Associates LLC.
Texas refineries could be offline for up to a month if their storm-drainage pumps become submerged, he said.
As the storm churned towards Texas on Friday, U.S. gasoline futures <RBc1> rose to their highest level in three years for this time of year. Those gains came even before several large Houston area refiners, including Exxon Mobil Corp, halted some operations.
Exxon closed the second largest U.S. refinery, its 560,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Baytown, Texas, complex because of flooding. Royal Dutch Shell Plc also halted operations at its 325,700-bpd Deer Park, Texas, refinery. The refinery may be shut for the week, it said.
Flooding on highways between Houston and Texas City nearer to the coast led Marathon Petroleum Corp to cut back gasoline production at the company's 459,000-bpd Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, said sources familiar with plant operations.
Marathon Petroleum employees were unable to drive to work and conditions at the plant forced the company to reduce gasoline output, said industry sources. Marathon spokesman Jamal Kheiry declined to discuss plant operations.
Not every plant in the region was hit. Operations were stable at the largest U.S. crude refinery, Motiva Enterprises' [MOTIV.UL] 603,000-bpd Port Arthur plant, the company said.
Motiva double-staffed the refinery's crew ahead of the storm, as did Total SA at the company's 225,500-bpd Port Arthur refinery, said sources familiar with plant operations.
Coastal refineries in Texas account for one-quarter of the U.S. crude oil refining capacity. All of those refineries have been impacted by Harvey since Thursday when refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas, shut in production ahead of the storm's landfall on Friday.
Colonial Pipeline, the largest mover of gasoline, diesel and other refined products in the United States, said its operations had not been affected by Harvey. Any disruptions to the conduit would send prices across the U.S. Southeast and Northeast soaring. Traders have been keeping a close eye on whether there will be an outage at the pipeline.
Citgo Petroleum Corp [PDVSAC.UL] and Flint Hills Resources [FHR.UL], two of the refiners that closed last week as the storm approached, did not provide updates about the status of their Corpus Christi refineries on Sunday.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in New York; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Sandra Maler)
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/08/28/business/28reuters-storm-harvey-energy.html
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Refineries, Plants Shut Amid Hurricane Harvey Rains, Floods
Aug 28, 2017 | ICIS
By Tracy Dang
HOUSTON (ICIS)--Severe weather, heavy rain and flooding from Hurricane Harvey are now major concerns for the US Gulf Coast, the nation's hub for refineries and petrochemical plants.
Several more companies have shut down plants as precautionary measures to Harvey impacts or have had production issues as a result of severe weather and flooding:
-Ascend declares force majeure on Chocolate Bayou acrylonitrile (ACN), hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and disodium iminodiacetate (DSIDA)
-American Acryl Bayport shuts acrylic acid
-Celanese shuts Pasadena methanol
-Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) shuts Cedar Bayou olefins and derivatives
-ExxonMobil shuts Baytown refinery and chemicals plant
-Flint Hills Resources flares at Houston propane dehydrogentation (PDH)
-Indorama unit trips at Clear Lake ethylene oxide
-INEOS has upset at Chocolate Bayou olefins 1 and 2
-Petrobras shuts Pasadena refinery
-Phillips 66 shuts Sweeny refinery
-Phillips 66 shuts Pasadena refined products terminal
-Shell shuts Deer Park refinery and chemicals plant
-TPC boilers trip at Houston butadiene (BD) sitePreviously, the port of Corpus Christi closed on Friday in preparation for the storm. The US Coast Guard (USCG) reported several ports along the Texas coast as closed.
Phillips 66 suspended operations at its Freeport terminal - which includes it new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export terminal - as a result of Port Freeport closing, although its other US Gulf assets continue to operate normally while implementing hurricane preparation plans.
Other refineries and chemical plants have shut down in preparation for Harvey:
-Braskem Seadrift polypropylene (PP)
-Citgo Corpus Christi refinery
-Enterprise Shoup gas processing plant and fractionator
-Dow Seadrift operations
-Flint Hills Corpus Christi refinery east and west
-Formosa Plastics Point Comfort olefins 1 and olefins 2
-INEOS Green Lake acrylonitrile
-INVISTA Victoria nylon intermediates
-Javelina Corpus Christi gas processing plant
-OxyChem Ingleside ethylene and chlor-alkali
-Valero Corpus Christi refineries
-Valero Three Rivers refineryMeanwhile:
-LyondellBasell is conducting preparations at its Corpus Christi olefins plant. Sources said the producer has scaled back operations at its Houston refinery.
-DuPont is down at its Victoria site for a previously planned outage. It will commence start-up activities when the weather improves.
-INEOS discovered a heat exchanger tube leak at its Pasadena site. Repairs are unable to commence until weather risks pass.
-Liquefied natural gas (LNG) export construction sites are also on alert.To view an interactive map of petrochemical plants in Texas, click here. Use the drop-down menu to see plants by products, and zoom in to see more details.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2017/08/28/10137268/refineries-plants-shut-amid-hurricane-harvey-rains-floods/
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Shell Halts Operations at Deer Park Refinery
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Royal Dutch Shell said Sunday the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is causing the shutdown of its massive refining and petrochemical complex in Deer Park.
Shell is closing one of Texas' largest refineries, which can refine more than 315,000 barrels of crude oil a day into gasoline and other petroleum products.
"The top priority of Shell Deer Park is to operate in a safe and environmentally sound manner. Due to continued inclement weather conditions from Hurricane Harvey, Shell Deer Park is conducting a controlled/planned shut down of the refinery and chemical plant," Shell said in an email response.
The move comes just after Exxon Mobil said it's temporarily closing the nation's second-largest refinery in Baytown.
The Texas Gulf Coast produces more than 25 percent of the nation's gasoline and these shutdowns are expected to lead to fuel price spikes and potential shortages.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Harvey-causing-shutdown-of-Shell-s-Deer-Park-12003530.php
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Chevron Phillips Closing Massive Baytown Chemical Complex
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Chevron Phillips shut down its massive Cedar Bayou petrochemical complex in Baytown on Sunday as flooding overtook much of the Houston region.
Chevron Phillips is undergoing a sitewide shutdown of one of the nation's largest chemical campuses, according to a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The plant is currently undergoing a $6 billion expansion that's scheduled for completion by the end of 2017.
The facility is scheduled to be closed through Sept. 6, according to the state panel.
The chemical company is a joint venture between Chevron and Houston's Phillips 66.
The news follows confirmations from Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell that they're temporarily halting operations in Baytown and Deer Park, respectively.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Chevron-Phillips-closing-massive-Baytown-chemical-12003561.php
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Exxon Mobil shuts down Baytown refining complex
Aug 27, 2017 | Fuelfix
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil is in the process of shutting down the nation's second-largest refining complex in Baytown in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
The Baytown campus, which also produces petrochemicals, can churn through up to 560,000 barrels of oil a day to produce fuel. The refinery is a major source of the Gulf Coast and nation's gasoline supplies. Baytown also serves as a major petrochemical hub that's undergoing a massive expansion.
"Safety is our first priority, and we have taken all the precautions to minimize impact to community and employees throughout the shutdown process," Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Suann Guthrie said.
Previously, refineries were shuttered temporarily in Corpus Christi by Valero Energy, Citgo Petroleum and Flint Hills Resources before Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Now, some of the Houston refining corridor is beginning to close.
More than 25 percent of the nation's fuel supplies are produced along the Texas Gulf Coast.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Exxon-Mobil-shutting-down-Baytown-refining-complex-12003468.php
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New York State's Final Chance To Stop Fracking Is Slipping Away
Aug 28, 2017 | The Hill
By James Cromwell
New York banned fracking in 2014, Maryland recently followed suit, and local ordinances to limit it have been passed in 22 states. But a fracking expansion juggernaut is subverting state and local attempts to keep fracking’s negative impacts out.
The federal fix is in, with the Trump administration ramming through project approvals and reversing Obama’s initiatives to regulate fracking’s air and water impacts and methane leakage.
There has been some push-back from the courts, including important decisions over the last few days rejecting Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval of Florida's Southeast Market pipelines because it ignored their climate impacts, and upholding New York state's refusal to issue a water permit for the Constitution Pipeline.
Still, some of the damage to state power to say “no” to fracking has been self-inflicted. Even in states like New York and California, which proclaim themselves sustainability leaders, fracked gas power plants and infrastructure are getting built over local objections, to serve as markets for fracked gas producer states like Pennsylvania and Wyoming. Increasingly, fracking’s environmental and health impacts are coming home to residents who fought to keep fracking out and believed they had prevailed.
Sadly, they haven’t. New York is a cautionary case in point. Already the fourth-largest consumer of fracked gas in the U.S. despite its famous fracking ban, New York is surely on track to become the largest. It took a giant step down that path by allowing Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) to build an unneeded 680 MW fracked gas plant in the Hudson Valley’s Orange County.
CPV opponents call it “the head of the snake,” because the plant necessitates a vast network of pipelines, compressor stations and fracking wells. Despite CPV’s spectacularly inappropriate siting, its efforts to preempt state laws and regulations, and an egregious corruption scandal, construction of the plant continues. If it becomes operational, it will signal a public health and climate catastrophe, and carte blanche for fracking expansion elsewhere.
In his last state of the state report, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York “must double down” on renewable energy “by investing in the fight against dirty fossil fuels and fracked gas from neighboring states,” and touted his goal of cutting New York's greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030. But CPV would import and burn untenable quantities of dirty fracked gas from Pennsylvania, singlehandedly increasing New York's GHG emissions by 10 percent, according to the testimony of Cornell University's Anthony Ingraffea at our recent civil disobedience trial. This would effectively put Cuomo’s emissions goals beyond reach.
Some studies have found fracked gas is worse for the climate than oil or coal. Its infrastructure network emits large amounts of fugitive methane, at least 86 times more powerful a warming agent than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Burning it emits particulate pollution under 2.5 microns that crosses the blood-brain barrier, as well as co-contaminants we breathe such as formaldehyde, benzene and other toxins.
Fracking contaminates water supplies with toxins, endocrine disruptors and radium. It also contaminates soil, which in CPV’s case is the precious “black dirt” of southern Orange County, some of the most fertile in the U.S.
The Millennium fracked gas pipeline needed to feed the plant would cross and risk valuable farmland and 60 sensitive streams and wetlands. Yet the protected designation for the area was blocked by extraordinary efforts of New York State Senator John Bonacic, who took campaign contributions from CPV and whose son happens to work for CPV and Millennium.
Millennium and CPV tried to preempt New York’s permitting authority over the pipeline. The state attorney general’s office complained Millennium repeatedly sought to “strategically compartmentalize” the project “to engineer FERC authorization for piecemeal construction activities.”
Meanwhile, in an end-run around the New York's power plant siting laws, lead permitting authority for CPV plant construction was given to the small, local town planning board instead of the New York Department of Environmental Protection (NYSDEC). The town was promised jobs and development, though in fact the plant would create just 23 permanent jobs and most of its modest economic benefits would accrue out-of-state.
All this unfolded against the background of a high-profile bribery scandal. Disgraced Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco and others in the Cuomo administration are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from CPV to advance the project. Plant permitting and construction forged ahead preemptively, even while an investigation and prosecution of the corruption behind it continues.
Such a project should never have gotten off the drawing board, let alone granted permit after permit, amid apparent violations of law.
New York has one last opportunity to stop it. It can still reject the last permit CPV needs to operate, a water quality certificate for the Millennium feeder pipeline, which by rights it shouldn’t get. But the tangle of private and political agendas makes it far from certain whether Cuomo will uphold the public interest against the combined power of the industry and the feds. NYSDEC has until the end of August to decide. After that FERC will preempt its authority and ram CPV through.
Cuomo’s credibility as a would-be environmental leader matters for his presidential aspirations. But as 350.org’s Bill McKibben said, “It makes no sense to say you’re banning fracking in New York, and then build a power plant that demands that you go frack somewhere else to do it. There may be old-style corruption at the bottom of this CPV plant, but there is definitely a kind of intellectual corruption at the top of it.”
Neither kind of corruption can be allowed to stand.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/347983-new-york-states-final-chance-to-stop-fracking-is
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EPA Weighs Regulatory 'Relief' Options For Ozone NAAQS Implementation
Aug 28, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey
EPA is weighing several options to provide states and industries regulatory “relief” when implementing the Obama-era's 2015 rule tightening the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), including streamlining Clean Air Act permitting reviews, revising monitoring procedures, and more according to a report to Congress.
The Aug. 14 report says the agency could offer the measures in its pending rule detailing the steps states can take in their state implementation plans (SIPs) for complying with the 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion (ppb).
“EPA is examining and may include additional relief in its final implementation rule for the 2015 ozone NAAQS and will further consider other mechanisms for providing regulatory relief suggested by stakeholders,” the report says.
EPA is yet to issue a final implementation rule for the 2015 ozone standard, but its implementation rule for the weaker 2008 ozone limit of 75 ppb faces a suit scheduled for argument next month over measures that environmentalists fear will weaken implementation of the standard and lead to increased ozone air pollution.
As the agency crafts the 2015 ozone NAAQS implementation rule, the report says that regulatory relief options that are under consideration include: “[S]treamlining preconstruction permitting review for new and modified stationary sources, whether there are flexibilities for areas significantly impacted by background ozone in addition to the statutory international transport relief provided for areas impacted by international sources, and establishing a nonattainment area classification scheme that provides states with as much flexibility as possible to craft local solutions before the onset of more prescriptive mandatory requirements.”
Other relief options “that have been suggested” according to the report are: “[R]evising monitoring or data handling procedures to exclude exceedances attributable to background ozone, deferring designations in locations impacted by background ozone, and designating areas influenced by background ozone as unclassifiable. EPA is still exploring whether these additional mechanisms may provide a viable path forward for providing regulatory relief.”
EPA also says it will “continue investing in the science” on ozone to better evaluate and quantify naturally occurring background ozone that cannot be regulated, and to assist in exceptional events demonstrations.
Congress mandated in the consolidated fiscal year 2017 appropriations law enacted May 5 that EPA provide the House and Senate spending panels with a report “examining the potential for administrative options to enable States to enter into cooperative agreements with the Agency that provide regulatory relief and meaningfully clean up the air.”
The lawmakers' directive responds to concerns from GOP lawmakers, industry groups and others that the 70 ppb standard is unnecessarily strict and will lead to onerous and expensive air pollution reduction mandates for businesses. Critics of the tighter standard say that simply being placed in nonattainment with the NAAQS is enough to drive companies away, due to their fear about the costs of having to comply with a strict SIP written for such areas.
Existing steps that EPA has offered through ozone implementation rules and other measures include discounting ozone pollution associated with “exceptional events” such as wildfires from counting toward NAAQS compliance, and allowing some areas almost in attainment to be classified as “marginal attainment” rather than violating the standard -- a move that means they are subject to less-onerous SIP requirements for reducing ozone.
Legal Challenges
But the additional new regulatory relief steps EPA says it is weighing could face legal challenges from environmentalists and Democratic-led states if they fear the measures could weaken implementation of the 70 ppb limit, in turn increasing ozone air pollution that poses a risk to public health and the environment.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had previously tried to delay from October this year until October 2018 the deadline for issuing designations for which areas are attaining or violating the NAAQS, which triggers the Clean Air Act clock for writing SIPs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's vacatur of an unrelated delay of a methane rule was said to be a factor in Pruitt's decision to withdraw the ozone designations delay.
Pruitt is asking a federal appeals court to dismiss litigation over the delay as moot, but petitioners are opposing the request for fear he might try a similar delay again. A coalition of Democratic-led states is asking the D.C. Circuit to vacate the delay as unlawful to prevent any attempt to revive it.
The report to Congress, first reported by Greenwire, does not wade into the legal back-and-forth over the designations delay and instead largely summarizes prior and existing EPA efforts designed to help states and industries with their steps toward complying with federal ozone standards.
Toward the end of the report the agency outlines the various regulatory relief measures that it is considering, but avoids making a commitment on adopting any of them.
EPA also acknowledges that some of the regulatory relief measures in the 2008 ozone NAAQS implementation rule face ongoing legal challenges in a D.C. Circuit case slated for oral argument Sept. 14.
In particular, it notes that its decision in that rule to revoke the prior 1997 ozone standard expressed as 84 ppb is one of the issues in the consolidated litigation South Coast Air Quality Management District v. EPA, et al. “This provision is currently in litigation in the D.C. Circuit, and the outcome of that litigation could affect moving forward with this [relief] in the future,” the agency says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-weighs-regulatory-relief-options-ozone-naaqs-implementation
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California Cap-and-Trade Extension Law Credited For Robust Auction Results
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
California's recent extension of its greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program to 2030 was the driving force behind one of the state's most lucrative GHG allowance auctions held to date, sources say, where all credits offered at last week's event sold at well above the minimum floor price.
As reported by Inside Cal/EPA's Curt Barry, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Aug. 22 released the results of the latest California-Quebec GHG allowance auction that was held Aug. 15. All 63.8 million vintage 2017 allowances offered for sale sold at $14.75 each. And all 9.7 million vintage 2020 allowances offered sold for $14.55 each. The minimum floor price for the allowances was $13.57.
Supporters of California's cap-and-trade program said the robust results of the latest auction reflect much more confidence in the state's trading program, which was given a major boost when Gov. Jerry Brown (D) enacted AB 398, which extends the program to 2030 and was approved by a two-thirds majority of the state legislature to help protect it from future legal challenges.
"Today's results affirm the courage of the votes taken to secure the future of cap and trade in California," said Erica Morehouse, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, in an Aug. 22 blog post. "Carbon prices now more directly align with expectations about the true cost of reducing carbon pollution through 2030. That clearer and more accurate price will send a signal throughout California that will drive the action needed to meet the state's climate targets and show others around the world what is possible."
An industry attorney agreed. "This shows exactly what we'd expected as a result of the passage of AB 398: All allowances sold across both vintages, showing confidence not only in the carbon market as it exists today, but the future as well," the source says. "This means a steady, stable source of revenue for California to use to amplify its efforts to reduce pollution and the impacts on disadvantaged communities."
The auction raised about $640 million for California's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which Morehouse says is an all-time high for the program.
Another reason for the robust auction is that a California appellate court ruled in April that the cap-and-trade program is not a tax, overturning a lengthy legal battle spearheaded by the California Chamber of Commerce, Morehouse says.
In addition, the California Supreme Court in June declined to review the appellate court's decision.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/california-cap-and-trade-extension-law-credited-robust-auction-results
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EPA Proposes Retaining Existing SO2 NAAQS
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA staff in a new policy assessment (PA) is proposing to retain the current sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb) using a novel one-hour averaging time, saying that science on SO2 pollution shows it continues to pose health risks but the existing NAAQS is adequate to address them.
“[W]e reach the preliminary conclusion that the currently available evidence and quantitative information, including the associated uncertainties, do not call into question the adequacy of protection provided by the current standard, and thus support consideration of retaining the current standard, without revision,” says an Aug. 24 external review draftof the PA marked “Do Not Quote or Cite.”
The proposal to retain the NAAQS, which will undergo review by the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), is not unexpected based on the science reviewed in the NAAQS review process.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA must review its ambient air limits for SO2 and five other criteria pollutants every five years, although it often falls behind on those assessments. Environmentalists filed a deadline suit once EPA missed the five-year review cycle for the SO2 NAAQS, resulting in a consent decree mandating that EPA propose a new SO2 NAAQS rule by May 25, 2018, and a final rule by Jan. 28, 2019.
Once CASAC has completed its review of the PA it will offer its recommendations on either retaining or revising the SO2 standard, and EPA will then craft the proposed rule on the NAAQS, which under the air law must be set at a level requisite to protect public health within an adequate margin of safety.
Earlier in the NAAQS review process, CASAC gave its blessing to EPA's second draft integrated science assessment (ISA) for the assessment, after members on a June 20 conference call made only minor recommendations for revising the document.
After early criticism from CASAC, EPA in the ISA -- a summary of the latest science on SO2 -- walked back some statements that strengthened the “causal” linkage between SO2 exposure and various health effects. Ultimately, EPA has retained its conclusion that SO2 causes short-term respiratory problems, the same position the agency took in the ISA conducted to support its 2010 rule strengthening the SO2 NAAQS from the prior standard of 140 ppb over 24 hours or 30 ppb annually.
The new ISA however strengthens the causal link between SO2 and long-term respiratory effects, to “suggestive” of a causal relationship, and the CASAC panel in its draft letter endorses this view. In the last review, EPA considered there to be insufficient evidence to make this determination. The lack of new findings that SO2 definitively causes health effects at the time were seen as a signal that EPA would not seek to tighten the standard.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-proposes-retaining-existing-so2-naaqs
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States Seek Court Ruling Vacating EPA Ozone Designations Delay
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
Several Democratic-led states are backing environmentalists' push for a federal appeals court to preserve their suits over EPA's since-withdrawn delay of designations for which areas are attaining the 2015 ozone ambient air limit, with the states also asking the court to vacate the delay and declare that it was unlawful from the beginning.
A group of 14 states and Washington, D.C., filed an Aug. 24 brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit urging it not to dismiss American Lung Association (ALA), et al. v. EPA, et al., even though the agency has voluntarily abandoned its attempt to delay from Oct. 1 to Oct. 1, 2018, the designations for whether areas are attaining or in nonattainment with the 2015 ozone limit of 70 parts per billion (ppb).
The states say that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that sued over the delay are right to worry that EPA could try again to push back the deadline for issuing the designations, which starts a Clean Air Act clock for states to write emissions control plans for meeting the standard.
As a result, they ask for the declaration that the delay was unlawful ab initio -- from the beginning -- in order to prevent EPA from reviving it.
“Although EPA withdrew the Designations Delay, NGO Petitioners’ challenge to it is not moot because EPA could reverse course again, and in fact, the withdrawal notice expressly contemplates that EPA may determine that further delay . . . is necessary,” says the brief, which is joined by New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued the one-year delay on June 6, saying it was vital to allow more time to assess the data that the Obama administration used to justify tightening the ozone limit from the 75 ppb level set in 2008 down to 70 ppb.
But on Aug. 2, after NGOs and states sued to overturn that delay and reinstate the original deadline for the designations, Pruitt withdrew his letter through a Federal Register notice and said the review could instead be completed this year.
The agency then moved to terminate the ALA suit, saying Pruitt's reversal rendered the case moot. But the NGO petitioners, now joined by the states, are saying that the wording EPA used to reinstate the 2017 deadline leaves the door open for another delay.
“EPA may try to reverse course yet again by issuing a new rule reinstating the Designations Delay or withdrawing the Withdrawal Notice. The Withdrawal Notice itself is agnostic as to its permanence, noting only that there 'may be areas of the United States for which designations could be promulgated' by the statutory deadline, but that '[t]he Administrator may still determine that an extension of time to complete designations is necessary,'” the states' Aug. 24 brief says.
Rather than dismiss the case, they argue, the D.C. Circuit should either keep it alive but stayed, so litigation can resume if and when EPA delays designations again, or explicitly declare that EPA never had statutory authority for the stay, which would bar it from instituting another one in the same approach Pruitt used for the since-withdrawn delay.
“To the extent the Designations Delay remains capable of springing back into effect if EPA withdraws the Withdrawal Notice or the Withdrawal Notice is otherwise invalidated, vacatur declaring the Designations Delay as void ab initiowill ensure” EPA cannot act on that possibility, the states say.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/states-seek-court-ruling-vacating-epa-ozone-designations-delay
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States Dare to Think Big on Climate Change
Aug 28, 2017 | The New York Times
By Editorial Board
The one bright spot amid the generally gloomy news about climate change, and the Trump administration’s resistance to doing anything about it, is the determination of a number of state governments to take action on their own.
California, as usual, has commanded the headlines on this score, having just strengthened its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Now the nine Northeastern states that form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have done much the same, in a further rebuke to the know-littles and do-nothings like Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who are now calling the shots on climate policy in Washington.
The nine states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, last week agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants an additional 30 percent by 2030, on top of the 40 percent cut they have already achieved since the program began in 2009. R.G.G.I., as the initiative is known, was the nation’s first multistate greenhouse gas initiative. From the beginning (and despite the defection of New Jersey’s Gov. Chris Christie), it has had the backing of governors from both parties. More important, it has quietly achieved substantial emissions reductions at little cost to the states’ economies or to their consumers.
The nine states require power plants to buy permits to pollute. Over time, these permits decline in quantity. The idea of such cap-and-trade systems is to put a price on emissions, giving utilities an incentive to figure out ways to reduce emissions. Utilities can trade permits with one another. Since it began, the initiative has raised $2.7 billion, which the states have invested in energy efficiency, in helping low-income people pay electricity bills and in renewable sources of power like wind and solar. (The other R.G.G.I. states are Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.)Continue reading the main storyRECENT COMMENTSAlice 7 minutes ago
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Even as emissions have come down, electricity rates have fallen by an average of 3.4 percent in the nine states, according to the Acadia Center, an energy research and advocacy organization. And the economies of the nine states have grown faster than the economy of the rest of the country. The program has had the added benefit of reducing ground-level pollution that causes respiratory illnesses and other diseases, providing nearly $6 billion in public health benefits, according to Abt Associates, a research company.
All this serves to chastise Mr. Christie, who pulled New Jersey out of the program in 2011, complaining about its costs and saying it had “no discernible or measurable impact upon our environment.” Mr. Christie’s tenure will soon be history, and the Republican and Democratic candidates to replace him say they want New Jersey to rejoin the initiative. Virginia may also decide to participate if the Democratic candidate for governor wins this November.
Other states in the area, like Pennsylvania, ought to consider joining, as well. And given the potential for interstate trading of permits, R.G.G.I. might over time connect to California’s recently strengthened cap-and-trade program. The R.G.G.I. agreement will be the subject of a public meeting in Baltimore on Sept. 25, after which states will incorporate it into their laws and regulations.
As important as it is, R.G.G.I., which applies only to power plants, is but one of several steps states can take to achieve even more dramatic reductions. New York, Massachusettsand several other R.G.G.I. states have laws (or have issued executive orders) that commit them, on paper, to reducing all greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. To meet ambitious targets like these, the states will need to reduce emissions from cars and trucks while ramping up solar and wind power to produce the electricity required by hybrid and electric vehicles and new mass transit fleets. (Nationally, the transportation sector is now a bigger source of climate pollution than power plants, according to the Energy Information Administration.)
Many of these targets are, at the moment, aspirational. But that does not mean they are unachievable, and in any case their ambition and that of the governors behind them, people like Andrew Cuomo of New York, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Jerry Brown of California, shame President Trump and his appointees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/opinion/climate-change-states-trump.html?_r=0
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HFC Rule Supporters Eye Rehearing Bid Despite Risk Of Deference Limits
Aug 25, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Supporters of a scrapped Obama EPA rule on reducing ozone-depleting substances are eyeing requests for a federal appeals court to rehear the suit that vacated the rule, despite some observers' suggestions that a successful rehearing bid could help EPA to defend deregulatory actions or aid GOP efforts to limit courts' deference to agencies.
In a 2-1 ruling issued Aug. 8, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the 2015 rule was unlawful because of clear statutory prohibitions on what EPA was trying to achieve -- therefore failing the first part of the two-part test for granting agencies deference on their decisionmaking. Under the test, known as Chevron, a court first determines whether statutory language is ambiguous, and then if the agency's interpretation is reasonable.
Judge Robert Wilkins dissented and said the statutory language at issue was unclear, and environmentalists who support the rule agree with Wilkins. But one attorney following the proceedings saw the dissent "tie itself in knots" to find ambiguity, which could risk undermining the overall Chevron test.
Foley & Hoag attorney Seth Jaffe wrote in an Aug. 9 post at the Law & Environment blog that if the dissenting view in the case, known as Mexichem Fluor v. EPA, et al., were to become law, either in rehearing or before the Supreme Court, it could render the high court's Chevron deference standard so broad as to be useless.
"If the dissent were to prevail here, it would only add legitimate fuel to the fire that those who oppose Chevron are trying to set. If there's an ambiguity here, it's difficult to conceive of many statutes that aren't ambiguous, leaving all interpretation to agencies. That's not supposed to be what Chevron is about, though it is what Chevron's critics say it is about. Supporters of Chevron should not be giving ammunition to its critics," Jaffe wrote.
GOP legislators and conservative judges have recently called for cutting back or ending Chevron, which they see as giving agencies too much power, either through lawmaking or with a Supreme Court ruling setting a new deference test.
Despite that risk, one environmental attorney says, "People should expect rehearing petitions" from supporters of the rule, which used restrictions on ozone-depleting substances to limit use of refrigerants that contribute to climate change.
The majority in Mexichem said these limits on high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants exceeded EPA's Clean Air Act section 612 Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) authority.
The court vacated much of the Obama administration's policy for limiting high-GWP HFCs using the SNAP program under Clean Air Act section 612. The majority opinion, written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh and joined by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, said that section is intended only to reduce ozone-depleting substances, and excludes HFCs since they are generally not considered to fall into that category.
Wilkins dissented, writing that the statutory language did not clearly define the meaning of the mandate for EPA to have companies "replace" existing chemicals with those that "reduce overall risks to human health and the environment," meaning it cleared the first stage of Chevron.
Jaffe wrote in his post that the air law's SNAP language is clear, and "The dissent just seems to tie itself in knots in order to find an ambiguity in the statute so it can get to step 2 of Chevron."
EPA's Discretion
However, the environmental attorney -- who supports Wilkins' dissent -- counters that the air law "certainly is not unambiguously forbidding what EPA did."
And the attorney says that despite Jaffe's argument, environmental groups see a path to limiting EPA's discretion even if courts hold that the air law's SNAP language is ambiguous and open to interpretation -- such as in litigation over the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan (CPP) limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.
"You will see us argue [in the CPP litigation] that some other provisions unambiguously refute the kinds of arguments that [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt and the industries were making before last year. . . . With Chevron properly applied, some things are unambiguous," the attorney says.
The source adds that the case should be reheard as the test for deference should be the same regardless of the political affiliation of the administration. "Our view is that stability in the law is more important -- you don't want to throttle up deference or throttle it down depending on who's in charge. It's a neutral principle, and it should be implemented neutrally," says the environmental attorney.
The attorney also notes that HFC regulation appears to be a rare point where environmentalists and the Trump administration both support a climate policy. "HFC rules have been notably absent from any of the executive orders and public statements" attacking Obama-era rules, the attorney says, attributing that stance at least in part to the fact that American companies have backed the restrictions while the suit came from foreign firms -- which fits President Donald Trump's "America first" agenda.
"It probably hasn't gone unnoticed that the rules are being attacked by two foreign chemical manufacturers, one from Mexico and one from France, and they're being defended by two American companies," the attorney says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/hfc-rule-supporters-eye-rehearing-bid-despite-risk-deference-limits
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