Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 9/4/2017
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Legislative Hearing on 3 Bills
Sep 6, 2017 | House Natural Resources Committee
Location: 1334 Longworth / 10:00 AM -
Nomination Hearing to Consider DOI, FERC Nominees
Sep 7, 2017 | Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:30 -
Meeting Announcement for H.R. 3354
Sep 5, 2017 | House Rules Commitee
Location: Meeting Announcement for H-313 The Capitol / 4:00 PM -
EPA Oversight: Unimplemented Inspector General and GAO Recommendations
Sep 6, 2017 | House Enegy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2322 Rayburn / 10:15 AM -
Expediting Economic Growth: How Streamlining Federal Permitting Can Cut Red Tape for Small Businesses
Sep 6, 2017 | House Small Business Committee
Location: 2360 Rayburn / 11:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Materials Markets Expect Reduced Supplies After Harvey
Sep 1, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
As the Houston area begins to recover from Hurricane Harvey, resin makers and processors are coping with expectations of reduced supplies. -
(ACC Mentioned) Lobbyist Pay Nears $5 Million During Budget, Solar Debates
Sep 3, 2017 | AP (In The Miami Herald)
By Marina Villeneuve
Maine lobbyists have been paid $4.8 million so far this year, including familiar political faces involved in fights over solar power, voter-approved laws and the two-year, $7.1 billion budget. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry on Solid Footing: 4 Stocks to Buy Now
Sep 1, 2017 | Zacks
The U.S. chemical industry has gotten off to a buoyant start in the third quarter with July seeing a rise in chemical production on gains across all regions, according to the latest monthly report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). -
(ACC Mentioned) A CEO’s Reflections on the 16th Anniversary of 9/11
Sep 11, 2017 | Business Journals
By Stan Silverman
Editor's note: Today marks the 16th anniversary of 9/11, the day of the worst terrorist attack on our country. Each year, Stan Silverman writes about his reflections of that day, through the lens of another year that has passed. Two hijacked aircraft flown by terrorists destroyed both World Trade Center towers. A third aircraft caused significant damage to the Pentagon. A fourth aircraft was brought down by courageous passengers in a field in central Pennsylvania before it could reach its target... -
Fossil Fuel Officials Take Key Spots on New Interior Royalties Committee
Sep 1, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Fossil fuel industry officials, academics, and state and tribal representatives will hold seats on a new Interior Department committee designed to assess federal royalty policies for energy development on public land. -
TSCA Rule Lawsuits to Head to Different Courts
Sep 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Lawsuits over two key EPA rules for implementing the revised Toxic Substances Control Act will play out in two separate courts. -
EPA Seeks to Consolidate TSCA Challenges
Sep 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA has requested that a multidistrict litigation panel randomly select a venue to hear a suite of environmentalist challenges, pending in three different circuits, to a pair of agency rules for reviewing existing chemicals under the recently revised Toxic Substances Control Act... -
Likely Carcinogen Contaminates Drinking Water of 90 Million Americans, Report Finds
Sep 11, 2017 | Truth-Out
By Zoe Loftus-Farren
According to a new report by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the drinking water of more than a quarter of Americans -- some 90 million people -- tested postive for a likely carcinogen known as 1,4-dioxane between 2010 and 2015. -
(ACC Mentioned) Environmental Defense Fund Contests EPA's Third Core Chemical Rule
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Sept. 1 challenging a federal rule on updating the nation's chemical inventory —the third of three EPA rules governing chemicals in commerce now under legal challenge by the group. -
New IRIS Leaders Pledge to Shift Program's 'Paradigm,' Winning SAB Praise
Sep 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Facing calls for its elimination, the new leaders of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) are pledging to shift the program's “paradigm,” including working quickly to implement long-pending reforms, speeding release of its chemical assessments... -
(ACC Mentioned) Study Finds Appalachian Basin Ripe for Underground NGL Storage
Sep 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
In a critical step to furthering petrochemical development in the Appalachian Basin, a team of researchers has concluded after a one-year study that there are multiple options for underground natural gas liquids (NGL) storage in various formations throughout the region. -
Refineries Slowly Restart After Harvey, but Price Impact Could Persist
Sep 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
Gulf Coast refineries are slowly coming back on line after the historic flooding brought by Hurricane Harvey, but high fuel prices could last into the winter, analysts said. -
As the US Recovers from Harvey, What’s Next? – Fuel for Thought
Sep 4, 2017 | Platts
By Gary Gentile
The shale revolution has dramatically transformed this country’s energy landscape, making the US an exporter of crude, products and LNG—a far cry from the situation 12 years ago when Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana. -
Spaghetti-Like Pipeline System Falls Short as Gulf Supplies Slow
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar and Sheela Tobben
Harvey is putting a new spotlight on a spaghetti-like network of petroleum pipelines that run across the plains and fields of Texas, disrupting the ability of at least two major Gulf Coast conduits to send fuels north. -
World's Most Important Chemical Made Rare Commodity by Harvey
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
Few Americans care about ethylene. Many have probably never heard of it. -
Oil Firms That Cheered Regulatory Rollback Are Quaking on NAFTA
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Trump administration is easing environmental regulations and opening up territory for drilling as part of the president's bid to unleash the “vast energy wealth” of the U.S. Yet Donald Trump's push to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement could have the opposite effect. -
Rule Expediting Small Natural Gas Exports May Have Limited Impacts
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
An Energy Department rule aims to expedite the approval process for small-scale natural gas exports to the Caribbean and Central and South America, but analysts and industry say the benefits for U.S. exporters will be limited. -
(ACC Mentioned) For Years, Chemical Industry Has Pressured Government To Defund Key Chemical Incident Database
Sep 3, 2017 | International Business Times
By Alex Kotch
As President Trump attempts to shut down a federal board that helps oversee chemical plant safety, a former top official from the panel says the unfolding crisis at a Houston plant could have been prevented had the plant owner's lobbying group not fought the board's work. -
(ACC Mentioned) While Lobbying Against Safety Rules, Arkema Warned Its Investors of Chemical Storage Explosion Risks
Sep 2, 2017 | International Business Times
By Jay Cassano
Arkema, the specialty chemicals company whose chemical storage facility in Crosby, Texas, exploded Thursday morning and is currently spewing noxious smoke near Houston, warned its investors earlier this year about the dangers of possible explosions... -
(ACC Mentioned) Texas Republicans Pushed to Kill Safety Regulations for Arkema Chemical Plant Before Explosion
Sep 4, 2017 | Democracy Now
The flooded Arkema chemical plant in the town of Crosby, Texas, that saw two explosions on Thursday, could see as many as six more blasts, and a new investigation reveals this comes after Arkema successfully pressured federal regulators to delay new regulations... -
(ACC Mentioned) Waiting for Answers in Corpus Christi
Sep 2, 2017 | Esquire
By Charles P. Pierce
The hotel had closed in anticipation of the storm from out of the sea. The storm had shifted north far enough that the city got brushed, but not hammered, the way Rockport and Port Aransas did. The hotel is still closed. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Companies Have Already Released 1 Million Pounds of Extra Air Pollutants, Thanks to Harvey
Sep 4, 2017 | Washington Post
By Steve Mufson
Oil refineries and chemical plants across the Texas Gulf coast released more than 1 million pounds of dangerous air pollutants in the week after Harvey struck, according to public regulatory filings aggregated by the Center for Biological Diversity. -
Arkema to Ignite Additional Unstable Chemicals at Crosby, Texas Plant
Sep 3, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
Arkema SA said Sunday it would ignite additional unstable chemicals at its plant in Crosby, Texas, because they haven’t caught fire on their own, but continue to degrade and could threaten the area. -
Harvey’s Floodwaters Mix a Foul Brew of Sewage, Chemicals
Sep 4, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By John Flesher
Harvey’s filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough that Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts. -
Why Can’t We Get Cities Right?
Sep 4, 2017 | New York Times
By Paul Krugman
The waters are receding in Houston, and so, inevitably, is national interest. But Harvey will leave a huge amount of wreckage behind, some of it invisible. In particular, we don’t yet know just how much poison has been released by flooding of chemical plants... -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry Seeks Delay of New Ozone Limits
Sep 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
Facing a variety of legal challenges, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month abruptly canceled its industry-backed one-year delay of a significant air pollution regulation. -
(ACC Mentioned) Texas' Rule Suspension Intensifies Uncertainty over Air Law Regulatory Exemptions
Sep 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has suspended a host of state environmental rules due to Hurricane Harvey, though the indefinite suspension has intensified uncertainty over the future of the states' pre-existing regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM)....
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Legislative Hearing on 3 Bills
Sep 6, 2017 | House Natural Resources Committee
Location: 1334 Longworth / 10:00 AM
LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON:
H.R. 2661 (Rep. Liz Cheney), To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to require the Secretary of the Interior to convey to a State all right, title, and interest in and to a percentage of the amount of royalties and other amounts required to be paid to the State under that Act with respect to public land and deposits in the State, and for other purposes. “State Mineral Revenue Protection Act” Hearing Memo
H.R. 2907 (Rep. Scott Tipton), To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to require the Secretary of the Interior to develop and publish an all-of-the-above quadrennial Federal onshore energy production strategy to meet domestic energy needs, and for other purposes. “Planning for American Energy Act of 2017” Hearing Memo
H.R. 3565 (Rep. Diane Black), To achieve domestic energy independence by empowering States to control the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas on all available Federal land, and for other purposes. “Federal Land Freedom Act.”
WITNESSES AND TESTIMONY:
Mr. A.J. Ferate
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association
Oklahoma City, OklahomaMr. Mike Smith
Executive Director
Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission
Oklahoma City, OklahomaMr. Paul Ulrich
Vice Chairman
Petroleum Association of Wyoming
Casper, Wyoming
John Ruple
Associate Professor of Law (Research)
Wallace Stegner Center Fellow
University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Salt Lake City, Utah -
Nomination Hearing to Consider DOI, FERC Nominees
Sep 7, 2017 | Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:30
The purpose of the hearing is to consider the nominations of Mr. Joseph Balash to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management, Mr. Richard Glick and Mr. Kevin McIntyre to be Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Mr. Ryan Nelson to be Solicitor of the Department of the Interior.
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Meeting Announcement for H.R. 3354
Sep 5, 2017 | House Rules Commitee
Location: Meeting Announcement for H-313 The Capitol / 4:00 PM
H.R. 3354 — Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018 [Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018]
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EPA Oversight: Unimplemented Inspector General and GAO Recommendations
Sep 6, 2017 | House Enegy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2322 Rayburn / 10:15 AM
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Sep 6, 2017 | House Small Business Committee
Location: 2360 Rayburn / 11:00 AM
Currently, small businesses must comply with many overlapping layers of federal permits. Obtaining all of the correct permits requires successful navigation through a complex regulatory system of federal laws and regulations and takes a significant amount of time and money. The hearing will examine how federal permitting requirements burden small businesses and ways to streamline the permitting process.
Witness List (subject to change):
Mr. Philip K. Howard
Senior Counsel
Covington & Burling LLP
New York, NY
*Testifying on behalf of Common GoodMr. Louis A. Griesemer
President
Springfield Underground, Inc.
Springfield, MO
*Testifying on behalf of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association
Mr. Mark Hayden
General Manager
Missoula Electric Cooperative
Missoula, MT
Ms. Margot Dorfman
CEO
U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
Washington, DC -
(ACC Mentioned) Materials Markets Expect Reduced Supplies After Harvey
Sep 1, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
As the Houston area begins to recover from Hurricane Harvey, resin makers and processors are coping with expectations of reduced supplies.
The storm hit the region on Aug. 25, bringing heavy rains that flooded much of the area, which is home to many resin and feedstocks plants. Many of those plants remained down or were working to restart as of Sept. 1.
Many suppliers declared force majeure sales limits because of reduced production.
"Our remaining Texas and Louisiana manufacturing sites continue to be operational at this time," a Dow Chemical spokesman said. "However, due to the limitations of infrastructure and logistics in the region, some sites may have to adjust production rates."
"Formosa will provide further information on supply quantities," Formosa Plastics Corp. USA officials said in an Aug. 28 letter to customers. "However, it is anticipated that this information will not be available for several days as we continue to assess the full impact of the hurricane and our ability to supply products."
Short-term price increases are expected on some materials. For polyethylene, a 3 cent hike that had been unsuccessful in August now is in place. Some PE suppliers have announced an additional 4-cent increase effective Sept. 1. Some PVC makers have announced a 5-cent increase attempt effective Oct. 1.
Consulting firm Petrochem Wire estimated that, as of Aug. 31, just over 60 percent of U.S. ethylene capacity remained down. Ethylene is a key feedstock used in PE, PVC and related materials.
Market analyst Phil Karig said it will probably take a few weeks to fully assess the damage to resin and feedstock plants along the Gulf Coast. The most likely scenario at this point is that at least some plants will be down for an extended period of time, he said.
"As a result, resin price increases could be steeper and longer lasting than increases in the aftermath of past hurricanes, as resin producers grapple with balancing customer demand while their resin supply is pinched," said Karig, managing director of the Mathelin Bay Associates LLC in St. Louis.
He added that resin consumers "will scramble to navigate the force majeure announcements that are sure to follow" and that the widespread nature of the flooding "is also likely to constrain the labor supply available for repairing and restarting plants, as some workers deal with damages to their own homes or volunteer for general hurricane relief efforts."
Although materials plants themselves may not have sustained much damage, market analyst Robert Bauman said that "the key problem will be the infrastructure — including roads, rail and power — which could delay products in and out of the plants."
The storm hit during a renaissance for the North American PE market, with many firms adding capacity to take advantage of low-priced natural gas feedstock. Dow, ExxonMobil and Chevron Phillips already had opened new units in Texas this year.
Bauman, owner of Polymer Consulting International in Spring, Texas, said suppliers may face delays at their construction sites.
Shipping firms also have been building new supply centers to export some of the new PE capacity. It remains to be seen how this wave of growth will be impacted by the storm and its recovery.
The National Weather Service reported that two weather stations in Texas recorded more than 50 inches of rain from Harvey, the highest recorded rainfall from a single weather system in the continental United States.
"This will be a devastating disaster, probably the worst disaster the state's seen," said William "Brock" Long, the new director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Huntsman also closed its corporate offices in the Houston suburb of The Woodlands as well as its Advanced Technology Center in the same city. Huntsman's other locations on the Gulf Coast, in Geismar, La., and Pensacola, Fla., remained open.
Flint Hills Resources closed its corporate offices in The Woodlands, but its production facility in inland Longview was still operating.
On Aug. 30, the U.S. Coast Guard allowed partial reopening of several Texas ports, including Houston, Corpus Christi, Galveston and Freeport, according to PCW. The heavily used Houston Ship Channel had been closed to inbound traffic.
M&G Group is assessing the status of a massive PET resin and feedstocks unit that it's building in Corpus Christi. Indorama Ventures and Nan Ya Plastics each had closed plants making PET feedstock MEG, according to PCW. The Indorama MEG plant is in Clear Lake, while the Nan Ya MEG unit is in Point Comfort.
PCW also said that resin shipments could be affected by Union Pacific Railroad's announcement that it will be issuing embargoes, beginning with all traffic destined to Houston and surrounding areas. As of Sept. 1, UP already had completed some repair work between Houston and the nearby cities of Bryan and Angleton.
In an Aug. 25 email, Dave Witte, a senior vice president with IHS Markit in Houston, said Houston-area flooding also could result in power outages that could last a week.
"More importantly," he added, "the supply chain will be impacted, as logistics in and out of Houston by rail, truck and the Port of Houston will be affected as will the ability of the workforce to recover and run these facilities."
American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley said that Hurricane Harvey "presented extreme and unique challenges for the city of Houston and the surrounding areas in Southeast Texas and Louisiana, warranting an unprecedented response effort, including that by local industry."
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20170901/NEWS/170909986/materials-markets-expect-reduced-supplies-after-harvey
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(ACC Mentioned) Lobbyist Pay Nears $5 Million During Budget, Solar Debates
Sep 3, 2017 | AP (In The Miami Herald)
By Marina Villeneuve
Maine lobbyists have been paid $4.8 million so far this year, including familiar political faces involved in fights over solar power, voter-approved laws and the two-year, $7.1 billion budget.
The Associated Press reviewed lobbying reports through July and found big spenders include the pharmaceutical industry, Maine's largest electrical utility, a nonprofit energy group, and organizations hoping to shape the state's recreational marijuana industry.
The spending follows renewed concern from political and advocacy groups over the influence of former lawmakers and administration officials. Maine bars lawmakers from registering as lobbyists in their first year after holding office, while certain former executive branch officials — like the governor's policy advisers — don't face such a prohibition.
But the state must better enforce a loophole that allows former lawmakers to lobby in that first year if they report lobbying fewer than 8 hours a month, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage said.
"Lobbyists play a huge role in how our statehouse functions," he said, and noted all individuals — including those who lobby — have a right to petition their government. "I think it's perfectly acceptable that we hold them accountable."
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FAMILIAR FACES
Four lobbyists for the Augusta-based Mitchell Tardy Jackson Government Affairs reported about $934,000 in pay since January. Its lobbyists include former Republican House leader Josh Tardy, and clients include Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Central Maine Power Co., and pipeline companies pushing for more natural gas infrastructure throughout the Northeast.
Other lawmakers-turned-lobbyists include former Democratic House Speaker Michael Saxl, former Democratic Rep. Edward Dugay, former Democratic Rep. Robert Howe and former seven-term Republican lawmaker Pamela Cahill.
Former GOP Gov. Paul LePage adviser Holly Lusk and former Democratic Rep. Adam Goode lobbied this year after more recent departures. Lusk left the governor's office in December 2015 and rejoined firm Preti Flaherty to lobby for clients including private health provider Correct Care Solutions this year, while Goode — term-limited out of office in December — lobbied lawmakers for the Maine AFL-CIO.
This spring, Maine's ethics commission voted against investigating Republican Rep. Sheldon Hanington's complaint that Goode didn't stay below the eight-hour lobbying threshold. Commissioners unanimously supported stalled legislation prohibiting any paid lobbying for lawmakers in the year after their service ends. A similar bill to extend such a ban to former executive branch officials died.
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'NO POWER IN THE LOBBY'
Maine is one of at least 34 states the National Conference of State Legislatures found has a "cooling off period" before formers lawmakers can lobby.
Tardy said effective lobbyists need a "comprehensive understanding of the legislative process and the executive branch" but takes exception to the commonly held belief that lobbyists carry outsized power to shape legislation.
"There's no power in the lobby," Tardy said. "The power is in the people who have a vote. Lobbyists don't have a vote."
Mary Orear, a Rockport resident and Democrat, wants a four-year lobbying ban and hopes to train Maine citizens to lobby. "It gives them incredible power and an unfair advantage, and it opens the door for financial wheedling and abuse," she said.
Ann Luther, advocacy chair of the League of Women Voters of Maine, said that it's hard for the public to tell why former lawmakers may lobby, and that eliminating term limits could lead to more empowered lawmakers. "When the Legislature gets weaker, the lobby gets stronger," she said.
Former Democratic Rep. John Brautigam, interim head of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, said that in his view, "legislators need more resources and they need more time to master the legislative process" than current law allows.
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WINNERS, LOSERS
Some companies fared better than others in lobbying efforts.
Nonprofit Industrial Energy Consumer Group and Central Maine Power Co. reported spending over $200,000 on lobbyists, including Tardy. They helped quash a solar energy bill strongly supported by solar installation companies and environmental groups.
Lobbyists representing McDonald's, Walmart and Maine business groups took on the labor and education lobby to remove a voter-approved tax on high earners to fund schools and roll back a voter-approved minimum wage law impacting tipped workers. Droves of Maine residents testified on both sides.
Several leading tobacco producers lost their fight against a law barring tobacco sales to those under 21. A bill to prevent sale of furniture made with flame retardants became law over the objections of the American Chemistry Council and chemical manufacturer Albemarle Corporation.
Groups such as Maine Professionals for Regulating Marijuana hoping to shape the state's recreational marijuana industry have reported spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbyists.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article171088777.html
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry on Solid Footing: 4 Stocks to Buy Now
Sep 1, 2017 | Zacks
The U.S. chemical industry has gotten off to a buoyant start in the third quarter with July seeing a rise in chemical production on gains across all regions, according to the latest monthly report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
Encouraging July Readings
The chemical industry trade group said that the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (CPRI) went up 1.1% in July on a monthly comparison basis. The U.S. CPRI, which is measured using a three-month moving average, was created to track chemical production in seven regions nationwide.
The July reading showed a rise in chemical output across the board. Production across Gulf Coast, Midwest and Northeast rose 1.1%, while both Mid-Atlantic and West Coast saw a 1% increase. Output went up 1.3% in Ohio Valley while Southeast saw a 1.2% gain.
By segments, chemical production was mixed in July. Gains across consumer products, pharmaceuticals, other specialty chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, coatings, plastic resins, adhesives, chlor-alkali, other inorganic chemicals, industrial gases and organic chemicals were neutralized by lower production of synthetic rubber and manufactured fibers.
Overall chemical production also went up 2.3% year over year in July with all regions scoring gains.
U.S. Chemical Industry Set to Ride High
The U.S. chemical industry is on course for solid growth this year and the next. The outlook for the American chemical industry paints an encouraging picture.The ACC envisions accelerated growth for the domestic chemical industry on the back of an improving global economy and a surge in shale-linked capital investment. The trade group, in its year-end 2016 outlook, said that it expects national chemical production to rise 3.6% in 2017, further accelerating to 4.8% growth in 2018.
The shale gas bounty is expected to drive investment on plants and equipment in the U.S. Chemical makers are ratcheting up investment on shale gas-linked projects to take advantage of ample and affordable natural gas supplies.
Per an ACC report, 310 new chemical projects have been already announced by chemical makers worth around $185 billion that are under construction or planned. Such investments are expected to boost capacity and export over the next several years. The ACC also expects domestic chemical industry capital spending to increase at a 7% annual rate through 2021.Favorable Industry Rank & Strong Price Performance
The Zacks Industry Rank of 34 carried by the Zacks Chemicals Diversified industry is a testimony to the fact that the chemical industry is back in favor. The favorable rank places the industry in the top 13% of the 250+ groups enlisted.
The Zacks Chemicals Diversified industry has also outperformed the broader market over the past year. The industry has gained around 16.7% over this period, higher than S&P 500’s corresponding return of 12.4%.4 Chemical Stocks to Bet on Right Now
The U.S. chemical industry’s upturn is expected to continue in the second half of 2017 on continued momentum across major end-markets such as automotive and construction. Amid such a backdrop, it would be a prudent idea to invest in chemical stocks with compelling growth prospects if you are looking to reap solid returns from your portfolio.
We highlight the following stocks with Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) that are good options for investment right now. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The Chemours Company (CC - Free Report)
Delaware-based Chemours carries a Zacks Rank #1 and has long-term expected earnings per share (EPS) growth rate of 15.5%. The company also has expected earnings growth of 255.4% for the current year. Moreover, it delivered average positive earnings surprise of 12.1% over the trailing four quarters. The stock has also gained a staggering 249% over the last year.
Kronos Worldwide, Inc. (KRO - Free Report)
Texas-based Kronos Worldwide is another attractive choice with a Zacks Rank #1. The company delivered average positive earnings surprise of 76.1% over the trailing four quarters. It has expected earnings growth of a whopping 354.8% for the current year. Moreover, the company has long-term expected EPS growth rate of 5%. The stock has also gained roughly 137% over the last year.
Koppers Holdings Inc. (KOP - Free Report)
Our next pick in the space is Pittsburgh-based Koppers, armed with a Zacks Rank #2. The company has long-term EPS growth rate of 18%. It also delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the trailing four quarters with an average beat of 56.6%. Moreover, the company has expected earnings growth of 13.5% for the current year. The stock has also gained around 19% over the last year.
Ferro Corporation (FOE - Free Report)
Headquartered in Mayfield Heights, OH, Ferro sports a Zacks Rank #2. The company has an expected earnings growth of 16.5% for the current year. It delivered average positive earnings surprise of 16.2% over the trailing four quarters. The stock has also returned roughly 43% over the last year.
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(ACC Mentioned) A CEO’s Reflections on the 16th Anniversary of 9/11
Sep 11, 2017 | Business Journals
By Stan Silverman
Editor's note: Today marks the 16th anniversary of 9/11, the day of the worst terrorist attack on our country. Each year, Stan Silverman writes about his reflections of that day, through the lens of another year that has passed.
Two hijacked aircraft flown by terrorists destroyed both World Trade Center towers. A third aircraft caused significant damage to the Pentagon. A fourth aircraft was brought down by courageous passengers in a field in central Pennsylvania before it could reach its target, possibly the Capitol building.
No one can ever forget where they were at 8:46 a.m. ET on Sept. 11, 2001. As then CEO of PQ Corporation, I reflect on how that day impacted me and my employees. I was at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, attending a board meeting of the American Chemistry Council. After a staffer entered the meeting and handed a note to the chairman, his face turned white as he announced that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
We all gathered around a TV just outside the meeting room and watched with horror as a second plane hit the South Tower. It was then immediately evident that the United States was under attack.
My first thought was for the safety of our employees and those traveling away from home. Our company operated in 19 countries, and it was not uncommon for many of our employees to be traveling within their respective countries and between countries around the world.
I called my executive assistant and asked that she find out if any of our employees were on those four flights or were visitors to the World Trade Center towers or the Pentagon that day. I also asked for a list of employees who were on trips to or from the United States, as well as employees on flights scheduled to pass over the continental U.S. I knew that it would be days before these employees could reach their business destinations or home.
I wanted to return to corporate headquarters as soon as possible. Since all flights were grounded, my wife and I drove our rental car seven hours to Valley Forge. We stopped twice – once for gas and once to get something to eat.
The genuine concern and connection offered by the people who reached out to us at both stops was nothing like we have ever experienced. They wanted to know where we had started our trip and where we were heading. They provided advice on the route we should take, and long-haul truckers made recommendations on the best places to eat along the way.
I thought of this as a small slice of America at its best – strangers helping others. I was reminded of this during Hurricane Harvey two weeks ago. Hundreds of citizen volunteers acted as first responders, knowing they could make a difference in life and death situations, demonstrated leadership, exercised initiative, and used their small boats to rescue thousands of people from rising flood waters in Houston and along the Gulf Coast of Texas.
The same will occur this week in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Irma. People helping other people in need: It's one of our country’s best cultural norms.
When I arrived home the night of 9/11, I learned that all PQ employees were safe. I received a report indicating the location of those employees in travel mode. Our travel department had already arranged hotel rooms for those who could not arrive at their destination.
Rental cars were reserved for those who could drive home. Two of our plant operations managers drove from Los Angeles to Chicago, where one lived, and the other continued on to Philadelphia. The administrative assistant of our purchasing manager was on her honeymoon in Europe. Our travel department was able to get her and her husband on a flight back to the U.S. a few days later.
What do I recall as the “best personal experience” of the horrible tragedy of 9/11 and the days that followed? It’s that we all pulled together as a nation and we had genuine concern for each other.
I recall the brave first responders in New York and Washington D.C. – fire fighters and police who saved countless lives at their own peril. I recall those first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice and did not return home to their families. I recall those brave passengers who resisted the hijackers over a field in Pennsylvania and prevented an additional catastrophe.
I recall not having the American flag that I had proudly flown off the stern of my sailboat for 14 years, regretting not keeping it when I sold that boat in August 2001. Flying a new store-bought flag at my home a month later was not the same to me.
I recall the generosity of PQ employees who contributed funds to help the victims’ families. I recall attending the hockey season’s opening game of the Philadelphia Flyers in October, where there was not a dry eye in the house when our national anthem was sung.
I recall visiting the site of the World Trade Center a month after 9/11 to pay my respects, walking on hallowed ground with thousands of other visitors.
I will never forget. None of us will ever forget.
Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com.
https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/growth-strategies/2017/09/a-ceo-s-reflections-on-the-16th-anniversary-of-9.html
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Fossil Fuel Officials Take Key Spots on New Interior Royalties Committee
Sep 1, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Fossil fuel industry officials, academics, and state and tribal representatives will hold seats on a new Interior Department committee designed to assess federal royalty policies for energy development on public land.
The Interior Department announced Friday that officials for ConocoPhillips Co., Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Cloud Peak Energy will serve as primary members of the panel.
Executives for a renewable energy firm, three academics, and representatives from four tribes and six states are also set to serve on the committee.
The new royalties committee, which will hold its first meeting on Oct. 4, is set to advise the Interior Department on the industry impact of policy and regulatory changes related to energy production royalty rates on federal and tribal land.
"Working closely with the committee, we will come up with solutions for modernizing the management of public and American Indian assets, while building greater trust and transparency in how we value our nation's public mineral resources,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement.
“It's important that the taxpayers and tribes get the full and fair value of traditional and renewable energy produced on public lands and offshore areas."
The Interior Department established the committee in March, when it suspended an Obama-initiated review of federal coal leasing rates.
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration broke the law when it delayed updating a rule governing how drilling and mining royalties are calculated for federal energy production.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/348887-fossil-fuel-officials-take-key-spots-on-new-interior-royalties
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TSCA Rule Lawsuits to Head to Different Courts
Sep 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Lawsuits over two key EPA rules for implementing the revised Toxic Substances Control Act will play out in two separate courts.
Various challenges were filed last month over EPA’s prioritization rule, which determines how the agency chooses which substances it will focus on immediately, and its evaluation rule, which describes how EPA will review substances. Public health and environmental groups argued that both rules skewed in favor of industry interests.
Lawsuits over the rules were filed in the 2nd, 4th and 9th Circuits. EPA had asked for all the lawsuits to land in the same court, but each rule's challenges will proceed in a different court. The lawsuits over the prioritization rule will move forward in the 9th Circuit, while the 4th Circuit will handle challenges to the evaluation rule.
The decisions were made randomly by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, a group of seven judges who consolidate similar lawsuits that are filed in disparate courts.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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EPA Seeks to Consolidate TSCA Challenges
Sep 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA has requested that a multidistrict litigation panel randomly select a venue to hear a suite of environmentalist challenges, pending in three different circuits, to a pair of agency rules for reviewing existing chemicals under the recently revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing the challenges to the two rules should be heard together.
The agency's request appears to sidestep -- at least for now -- any effort to move the litigation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is expected to provide EPA with more leeway than the three circuits where the suits were filed.
In an Aug. 31 filing, EPA notified the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation of the six lawsuits that numerous environmental groups filed last month challenging agency rules for prioritizing and evaluating existing chemicals under the new TSCA.
Existing chemicals were largely grandfathered under the old version of the law and were a major driver for revising the statute.
Federal “agencies are required to notify the Panel that petitions for review of the same agency action have been filed in more than one circuit within ten days after the issuance of that action,” EPA says. “The Panel is then to designate one court of appeals by means of random selection and issue an order consolidating the petitions for review in that court of appeals.”
EPA also has notified the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, and 9th Circuits of its request.
On June 22, the agency announced the three framework rules for implementing the revised TSCA. They include a prioritization rule describing how EPA will determine which existing chemicals will undergo assessment, a risk evaluation rule detailing how the agency plans to conduct those reviews, and an inventory reset to determine the universe of existing chemicals that will be subject to the law's requirements.
Environmental groups have opposed Trump EPA revisions to the Obama administration's proposed versions of the rules, arguing that the new administration significantly weakened the rules by limiting the chemical uses that the agency must review, among other criticisms.
On Aug. 11, groups including the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families filed separate petitions for review challenging the prioritization and risk evaluation rules. They may still challenge the inventory reset rule, which was not issued in the Federal Register until Aug. 11.
Groups sued EPA in the 2nd, 4th, and 9th Circuits, filing two lawsuits in each circuit. Industry attorneys have noted that groups appeared to have sidestepped the D.C. Circuit, which hears challenges to many federal rules, and suggested advocates may fear the circuit would grant the agency greater deference.
In recent filings with the 4th and 9th circuits, EPA requests random selection of one venue for all the cases and argues that challenges to the two rules should be heard together.
“While EPA is filing a separate notice with this Panel regarding challenges to the Risk Evaluation Rule, EPA believes it would be in the interest of justice and judicial efficiency for challenges to both rules to be litigated in the same court,” the agency says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-seeks-consolidate-tsca-challenges
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Likely Carcinogen Contaminates Drinking Water of 90 Million Americans, Report Finds
Sep 11, 2017 | Truth-Out
By Zoe Loftus-Farren
According to a new report by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the drinking water of more than a quarter of Americans -- some 90 million people -- tested postive for a likely carcinogen known as 1,4-dioxane between 2010 and 2015. And public water systems serving more than 7 million people in 27 states have average 1,4-dioxane concentrations that exceed the level US Environmental Protection Agency has said can increase the risk of cancer.
1,4-dioxane water contamination is linked to several sources, not least of which is the use of the chemical as an industrial solvents to dissolve oily substances. It is also a byproduct of plastic production and manufacturing of other chemicals, and can contaminate drinking water through wastewater discharge from industrial facilities, as well as due to leaching from Superfund and hazardous waste sites.
In addition to being a likely carcinogen (in California, the chemical is listed as a known carcinogen), 1,4-dioxane exposure has also been linked to liver and kidney damage, lung problems, and eye and skin irritation. Some studies also suggest a link between 1,4-dioxane exposure among pregnant women and higher rates of pregnancy loss and complication, though the results were not conclusive.
Manufacturers can alter production methods or treat wastewater to reduce 1,4-dioxane contamination before it enters a community's water supply. But Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist with EWG says that once 1,4-dioxane has made it's way into drinking water, it's hard to address, adding that common water filters are ineffective, and expensive filters only partly work. "It's tough," Stoiber says, "because once this chemical is in ground water or surface water, it's really difficult to remove."
And yet, there is no federal legal limit for 1,4-dioxane -- the EPA has not regulated the toxin under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Click here to view a map of tainted areas.
"The EPA can set a legal drinking water standard, a maximum contaminant limit," Stoiber explains. "They can also limit discharges from some of these industrial sources that are polluting surface water, and they can set regulations for industrial uses under the Toxic Substances Control Act [TSCA]."
Americans are also exposed to 1,4-dioxane through common household products, including cosmetics and cleaning supplies, as well as personal care products like shampoo, body wash, and lotion. Though the chemical is not intentionally added to these products, it can be a byproduct the production process. In addition to regulation by the EPA, consumer and environmental advocates such as EWG would like to see regulation 1,4-dioxane by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has the authority to limit contamination in household product.
But how likely is federal action? Unfortunately, though 1,4-dioxane was selected as one of the first ten chemicals to be reviewed under the revised federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), prospects for action under the current administration aren't encouraging. Preliminary documents from the TSCA review indicate that not all exposure routes will be considered. Not to mention that President Trump has proposed decreasing funding for both the EPA and the FDA.
What's more, Trump has nominated industry-insider Michael Dourson to head the EPA's chemicals and pesticides office. According to the EWG, Dourson has authored two industry-funded papers arguing that exposure to 1,4-dioxane is safe at levels 1,000 times those suggested by the EPA.
"President Trump could not have found a more objectionable nominee to be in charge of safeguarding Americans from dangerous chemicals than Dourson," Melanie Benesh, an EWG legislative attorney and co-author of the report, says in a statement. "His history of pleasing industry funders with studies that find even the most toxic chemicals to be 'safe' makes him uniquely unfit for the job."
So, for the time being, it seems it may be up to the states. And there's plenty of improvement to be made in that regard: So far, only a handful of states even have guidelines surrounding 1,4-dioxan exposure, let alone enforceable limits.
There's also room for private citizens push for action on this hidden threat. "The first step is knowing what's in your drinking water," Stoiber says. "That allows the general public to become engaged." And then, hopefully, to take action.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41866-likely-carcinogen-contaminates-drinking-water-of-90-million-americans-report-finds
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(ACC Mentioned) Environmental Defense Fund Contests EPA's Third Core Chemical Rule
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Sept. 1 challenging a federal rule on updating the nation's chemical inventory —the third of three EPA rules governing chemicals in commerce now under legal challenge by the group.
Niether the fund's attorney nor a policy analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund could be reached to discuss the group's reason for filing the lawsuit (Envtl. Def. Fund v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1201, 9/1/17).
The group has filed lawsuits in two separate federal appeals courts challenging all three rules implementing core requirements of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which amended the Toxic Substances Control Act effective June 22, 2016.The three rules describe the Environmental Protection Agency's procedures to:
• determine which chemicals are active in commerce;
• review confidential business information claims;
• decide which chemicals are high or low priorities for risk evaluation; and
• evaluate chemical risks to determine whether they pose an unreasonable concern warranting some type of regulatory control.
Michael Walls, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, told Bloomberg BNA that the “EPA has exercised its discretion appropriately in publishing well-designed framework rules to implement the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act. The rules are consistent with the intent of Congress.”
“The processes established by these rules are fundamental to EPA's ability to achieving that goal,” Walls said in an email. “The petitions for review are, in our view, without merit.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=119911995&vname=dennotallissues&fn=119911995&jd=119911995
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New IRIS Leaders Pledge to Shift Program's 'Paradigm,' Winning SAB Praise
Sep 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Facing calls for its elimination, the new leaders of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) are pledging to shift the program's “paradigm,” including working quickly to implement long-pending reforms, speeding release of its chemical assessments and making the program more relevant to partners inside and outside the agency, efforts that are winning strong support from agency science advisors.
During an Aug. 30 meeting, EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) voted unanimously to send a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt touting the benefits of IRIS, as well as EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA), which oversees the program.
Such support could be helpful not just within EPA but also in Congress as the House Science Committee is slated to hold a Sept. 6 hearing titled “Examining the Scientific and Operational Integrity of EPA’s IRIS Program.” Witnesses include risk assessment consultants Kenneth Mundt, a principal at Ramboll Environ, and James Bus, a senior managing scientist with Exponent, as well as former Obama-era EPA Science Advisor Thomas Burke, though no current EPA officials are slated to testify.
The board's support for the program came after a presentation from Kris Thayer, the IRIS program's new director, and Tina Bahadori, NCEA's new director, who detailed a series of steps they have taken since taking up their new roles last January, as well as plans for future efforts.
Their list of several measures, includes creating a group of federal experts to evaluate the program, returning to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for additional evaluations, embedding IRIS staff in program offices, planning for speedier “targeted” assessments, and implementing previous advice from NAS, especially the use of “systematic review” for guiding assessments.
Their efforts appeared to impress the SAB. Kimberly Jones of Howard University, a board member, asked how it has been possible for Bahadori and Thayer to make so many changes in the first six months of their tenures.
“When your mere existence is at risk you have a lot of adrenaline,” Bahadori replied. She said officials are closely considering “whether the IRIS program is providing the service it was designed to provide.”
And she said top officials, including Pruitt, are asking whether it is worth continuing the program's approach or, more broadly, “shifting its paradigm” of risk assessment.
“If we can't make it past the controversy, is there any merit to continuing this model? That's a question the agency is asking, the Science Advisor is asking, the administrator is asking. In that space we believe … that we are in the right place to shift the paradigm of risk assessment. The problems attributed to IRIS are not really singularly IRIS' problems. They're the problems with the challenge and complexity of risk assessment,” Bahadori replied.
Bahadori's response hints at initial budget proposals from the Trump administration that have suggested eliminating the IRIS program, though later documents suggested they would preserve a smaller version of the program that will be devoted in part to assessing substances under the revised toxics law and other mandatory regulatory programs.
'We Rely On IRIS'
But after the EPA officials' presentations to SAB, board members suggested the changes that are being made need continuing support.
Gina Solomon, an SAB member with California EPA, said that the program provides valuable information to state regulators. “We rely on IRIS numbers a lot. No other entity out there performs this function.”
She suggested that a letter from the board supporting IRIS and NCEA might help. “It might be helpful at this juncture to send a letter to the administrator about the things we are seeing,” she said. “This is truly revolutionary. This is extraordinary. We would not want to see this process stopped.”
The SAB chairman, Peter Thorne, suggested that he could write a letter on behalf of SAB to that effect within a few days. The board voted unanimously directing him to do so.
The IRIS program, created in the 1980s to centralize hazard identification and dose-response analyses within EPA, has long been influential, with its risk values used to make risk management decisions across EPA, and often adopted by other agencies, states and countries.
But some state regulators, industry and some agencies such as the Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, have long criticized IRIS for crafting what they consider overly conservative risk assessments. The program has also come under criticism from Congress and science advisors for its very limited output, which the Government Accountability Office argued leaves IRIS functionally obsolete.
IRIS' nadir came in 2011, with the publication of a critical review of its draft assessment of formaldehyde's human health risks by NAS. That report included a rare chapter outside the charge with recommendations to improve IRIS assessments generally.
EPA responded by bringing Ken Olden, a former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to oversee NCEA, and elevating career staffer Vincent Cogliano to the role of IRIS director.
Olden and Cogliano sought to increase the program's transparency by holding regular stakeholder meetings at key stages during the development of assessments. They held several workshops on overarching science issues, trying to improve the strength of the documents, and in consultation with agency partners in program and regional offices they sought to craft a prioritized agenda of chemicals to assess that were most needed by agency decision-makers.
Their efforts were praised by a 2014 followup report from NAS, which reiterated support for EPA's adoption of a systematic review approach for crafting IRIS assessments and reminding readers that many of the changes recommended in 2011 would take time to adopt.
Bahadori said that in order to ensure NCEA and IRIS continue to make progress on the NAS recommendations, she has created “a community of federal experts knowledgeable about the IRIS program, to help us evaluate that progress.” She also indicated that the agency has asked NAS to conduct a public meeting to “evaluate our progress” since its 2014 report. “We're hoping that meeting … will occur within the next few months as well,” she said.
Bahadori was selected for the NCEA role after Olden's retirement last summer. Immediately prior to taking the helm in NCEA, Bahadori was director the Chemical Safety and Sustainability Research Program, one of six research programs within EPA's research office.
A big booster of the EPA's computational toxicology center within her former research program, Bahadori boasted this experience at the SAB meeting, as well as her interest in systematic review, the analytical approach NAS recommended IRIS adopt. She indicated her interest in using non-traditional data in IRIS assessments, particularly for those chemicals with limited traditional toxicology or epidemiology data.
Bahadori also described her efforts strengthening NCEA's “ties to regional, program and state offices,” noting that Pruitt has also prioritized EPA's partnerships with state agencies.
Bahadori described some of those ongoing efforts, such as embedding IRIS staff within other EPA offices so they can better understand how risk managers use risk values. Five IRIS staffers are embedded with the toxics office, she said.
She indicated that the program is also crafting agreements with environmental health graduate schools at the University of Michigan and the University of Washington to bring in students to assist with and learn about systematic reviews.
Upcoming Meeting
Bahadori and Thayer said that they will describe their progress and plans at an upcoming meeting of the Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC), a subpanel of SAB created following the 2011 NAS report with the specific task of peer-reviewing draft IRIS assessments. Since 2014, CAAC has reviewed five IRIS assessments, according to slides Bahadori and Thayer presented at the SAB meeting.
“The subject at that meeting is the “diversity of approaches that we're going to be employing from an assessment plan that informs a full, IRIS assessment as it is classically known all the way to a smaller, targeted assessment, focused on a new need, a new slope factor, a new perspective and has a fairly quick turnaround time.”
“For those smaller targeted assessments we're hoping to get it done in 12 months which doesn't happen very often,” Bahadori said. The time line is breathtaking, given that IRIS assessments usually take years to complete.
Bahadori indicated the idea is to be more responsive to partners who need risk values quickly, perhaps in the event of an emergency, or to meet statutory deadlines. She indicated that IRIS assessments conducted for industrial chemicals prioritized by the toxics office for assessment will need to be conducted quickly to meet the deadlines for risk evaluation laid out in the statute reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) enacted last year.
As a result, even more comprehensive, longer IRIS assessments will need to be more timely, she suggested “because we're anchoring our capacity right now to provide support for the modernized [TSCA],” which she said faces “a brutal time line."
Once the toxics office prioritizes a chemical for risk evaluation, it has three years to complete its assessment, by statute. To be relevant, IRIS assessments must meet that time line, Bahadori said.
But she also indicated that the IRIS program will be considering adding new exposure and other components to the hazard identification and dose-response analysis components that have been the hallmark of IRIS assessments, because of the needs of the new TSCA evaluations.
“Because TSCA is nested in an actual risk assessment, it's not just a toxicity evaluation, it has components that are exposure, components that are ecotoxicity … there are new dimensions to what we have done traditionally so we'll be re-thinking systematic review tools to provide support in those areas we have not done in the past. It's a new frontier for us; we're excited to have the opportunity to provide that support for the agency.”
The two officials also indicated they are making progress addressing the multiyear agenda of chemicals prioritized for IRIS assessment, and released by Olden in 2015. Thayer said that they are “chipping away at chemicals,” on the list, “making sure they're right-scoped with this portfolio approach in mind, reassessing the need ... We want to reconfirm the need. In addition, we want to look for opportunities for chemicals that are not on this list, but now a current need, so we can address them.”
Bahadori added that they will consider state needs as well when reviewing the multiyear plan.
The two officials also detailed their efforts to implement NAS' calls to adopt a systematic review approach, which is a targeted approach for answering scientific questions. Traditionally, it has been used to guide evidence-based medical research questions, but in recent years proponents have sought to adopt the approach for use in environmental health research as well. The approach has proven challenging, since the data used in environmental health decision-making is much more diverse than medical studies used in traditional systematic reviews. The benefit of the approach is its ability to organize research, target the process toward evidence-based answers, and the transparency in documenting how an assessment developed.
One downside, however, has been the length of time the approach takes to grasp and perform, leaving some to question its viability, particularly within the already encumbered IRIS program. But Thayer believes that systematic reviews can make IRIS assessments more efficient.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/new-iris-leaders-pledge-shift-programs-paradigm-winning-sab-praise
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(ACC Mentioned) Study Finds Appalachian Basin Ripe for Underground NGL Storage
Sep 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
In a critical step to furthering petrochemical development in the Appalachian Basin, a team of researchers has concluded after a one-year study that there are multiple options for underground natural gas liquids (NGL) storage in various formations throughout the region.
Led by West Virginia University’s Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium, participants from the geological surveys in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio identified and mapped all potential options for subsurface storage. They developed an area of interest (AOI) that covers 50 counties along the Ohio River, stretching from southwest Pennsylvania all the way to the Kanawha River Valley in southern West Virginia.
The team found a variety of storage containers that could be suitable to meet the business needs of midstream companies with interest in the region. A preliminary assessment found four areas where the thickness of the Salina salt formation is more than 100 feet; multiple areas where mined-rock, such as the Greenbrier Limestone formation, occurs at depths of 1,800-2,000 feet, 12 natural gas storage fields and 66 depleted gas fields that were selected for further evaluation based on favorable characteristics.
A further analysis led to a shortlist of 30 locations in all three states with the greatest potential for underground storage. Three areas in the Salina are situated in the northern and central areas of the AOI, while the top-rated areas in the Greenbrier are located in West Virginia. The top two natural gas storage fields and the highest ranked depleted gas reservoirs are located in West Virginia, as well.
The study also found three storage prospects in the West Virginia panhandle, another straddling southeast Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia’s Kanawha River Valley where stacked opportunities exist. Those prospects are especially beneficial for storage because various formations in one zone are more flexible in meeting the needs of different storage customers, the study said.
The research offers one of the first geologic investigations of the region’s liquids storage potential, including detailed reservoir characteristics, field level studies and rating criteria to determine the target candidates suitability. The team has also launched a website where the public and the private sector can access data.
Researchers now hope that the industry will conduct a more in-depth engineering study and ultimately construct a storage hub that includes a network of pipelines, equipment and underground supplies to serve the basin’s proposed ethane crackers and one that’s under construction by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc in western Pennsylvania.
The team primarily studied subsurface geology in the AOI and did not consider other important aspects involved with building underground storage, such as who owns the rights across the gas fields or whether certain acreage is prospective for natural gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales.
The researchers began their work last year with a $100,000 grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation that was matched by Chevron Corp., EQT Corp., XTO Energy Inc., Antero Resources Corp. and several other companies with a stake in the region’s shale development.
Support has been growing in the private and public sectors for a storage hub in the region. The American Chemistry Council projected in a study released earlier this year that if five proposed ethane crackers and two propane dehydrogenation facilities are built in the region it could generate $36 billion in investments and create as many as 100,000 new jobs. Lawmakers are also pushing for federal agencies to study the feasibility of an underground storage and distribution hub in Appalachia.
Pennsylvania commissioned a study that found the Marcellus and Utica shales could accommodate up to four additional ethylene crackers beyond Shell’s facility. Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC is already trying to secure customers for a 3.25 million bbl storage facility targeting the Salina in Ohio, but the state study estimated that the region needs roughly 4-7 million bbl of liquids storage for more petrochemical development.
Interest has only peaked since Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast, affecting the nation’s petrochemical complex and reinforcing what elected officials have called for in a more geographically diversified supply chain.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111606-study-finds-appalachian-basin-ripe-for-underground-ngl-storage
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Refineries Slowly Restart After Harvey, but Price Impact Could Persist
Sep 1, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
Gulf Coast refineries are slowly coming back on line after the historic flooding brought by Hurricane Harvey, but high fuel prices could last into the winter, analysts said.
Harvey's path from Corpus Christi, where it made landfall on Aug. 25, up the Texas coast and into Louisiana inundated the region that's home to about half the U.S. refining capacity with several feet of rain. Many workers at those refineries are only now able to get back into their plants to inspect for damage.
“Satan himself could not have designed a storm more destructive for Texas refining,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS. “That’s not hyperbole.”
The outages have increased wholesale gasoline prices by 40-60 cents a gallon, increases that will start to work into the retail prices, Kloza added.
As of Friday, the average retail price for a gallon of gas had climbed 16 cents to $2.52 since Harvey made landfall, according to AAA.
Valero Energy, Flint Hills Resources and others have restarted their plants in Corpus Christi, and some refineries in Houston are expected to be up and running by the end of the week, Kloza told reporters. Each refinery is dealing with its own unique circumstances: Valero's Houston refinery survived the storm without shutting down, while Shell's refinery outside Houston could be closed for weeks because of flood damage, sources familiar with the operations said.
But those in Port Arthur — some of the country’s largest — are still assessing damage. Those refineries, including Motiva’s mammoth 600,000 barrel-a-day refinery, may not begin restarting until the middle of September, with some parts of the refineries remaining offline for months longer, Kloza said.
In all, 10 refineries with a combined capacity of three million barrels per day were still shut as of Friday morning, according to the DOE.
Pipeline problems are also adding to the fuel market’s woes. Though some refineries emerged from Harvey with barely a scratch, they are unable to ship gasoline and diesel to market because of power outages or pipeline problems, analysts said.
The problem could grow more acute along the East Coast because the Colonial Pipeline, which delivers up to one million barrels a day of fuel from the Gulf Coast up to New England, is unable to receive supplies from further west than Lake Charles, La., the company said.
A DOE spokeswoman did not immediately reply to questions on whether the department plans to release fuel from its Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, a stash of one million barrels of gasoline kept around New York Harbor, Boston and Maine.
But even if the NGSR was opened, the fuel would barely cover one day of Colonial shipments. The NGSR would have to hold significantly more fuel to provide a buffer for the damage Harvey brought, said Andy Lipow, head of oil market analysis firm Lipow Oil Associates
"It's too late for Northeast Gasoline reserve for now," Lipow said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/09/refineries-slowly-restart-after-harvey-but-price-impact-could-persist-161375
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As the US Recovers from Harvey, What’s Next? – Fuel for Thought
Sep 4, 2017 | Platts
By Gary Gentile
The shale revolution has dramatically transformed this country’s energy landscape, making the US an exporter of crude, products and LNG—a far cry from the situation 12 years ago when Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana.
Prolific production from unconventional sources in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford in Texas keeps OPEC up at night. Latin America has become ever more dependent on US gasoline. And even India and South Korea are becoming customers of US crude.
So when a major disaster like Hurricane Harvey strikes at the heart of US energy dominance—Texas and the US Gulf Coast—the reverberations are felt around the world.
This latest storm was unprecedented in size and ferocity. Flooding and power outages remain a serious problem for refineries and petrochemical plants. Upstream, production is resuming. But with ports closed and rail lines and roads under water in many areas, there is no place for all that oil to go.
So the question on everyone’s mind in the coming weeks is: what’s next?
Here’s a look at some of the open questions.Upstream: ‘flipping the switch’
Production onshore and in the Gulf came back online fairly quickly after the winds and rain passed. But flooding and the lack of outlets for that crude could have have a domino effect, according to Tony Sanchez III, CEO of Eagle Ford producer Sanchez Energy.
Shale wells may have to remain shut in until refineries and roads come back online.
Operators are unsure if they can be restarted with the same pressure so that they produce at the pre-storm rates.
“It’s not just a matter of flipping a switch,” Sanchez told the Wall Street Journal. “There is significant risk in those wells not coming back to previous levels.”
Production from tight, unconventional sources is still so recent, there is little precedent upon which to base an assessment.
Even as production comes back online, the big question is where will it go?
That question was raised last week when Canada’s Baytex Energy announced it was restarting operations at its Eagle Ford shale acreage.
“There is currently a limited ability to produce as downstream markets are closed or significantly curtailed,” the company said in a statement.Rig counts
Another impact of the storm could be on Eagle Ford drilling rigs. So far, the market hasn’t seen a big drop in onshore rigs nor any effect on day rates. But this kind of data is lagging, so the real story may not be known for weeks.
Bob Williams, director content at Platts RigData, points out that much of the lighter crude from the Eagle Ford is destined for export. So problems with pipelines, ports, the Houston ship channel and similar infrastructure is key here.
“What you have to keep in mind is what we count as an ‘active’ rig—one that is post-spud and pre-release—remains counted as active even if it is temporarily idled and the well shut in out of concern for weather or any other factor,” Williams said.
“While some operators temporarily shut in active wells and idled rigs, drilling could be resumed quickly. Or they could remain shut-in as DUCs (drilled uncompleted wells). That was commonplace before Harvey, but I would expect the number of Eagle Ford DUCs to rise because of the flood damage to midstream and downstream facilities (shrinkage to offtake capacity). Another concern is site access—i.e., trucks delivering consumables such as drilling muds, water, and drill pipe.”Strategic reserves
The storm has proven, yet again, the importance of maintaining a large and nimble strategic petroleum reserve.
Over the past year, the US Congress has turned to the SPR as way to raise money for various purposes, authorizing the selloff of nearly 200 million barrels of crude to fund various spending bills and to upgrade the aging SPR storage caverns.
While it may be debatable how large the SPR needs to be, its utility seems undeniable.
As of Friday, the US has authorized withdrawals of up to 4.5 million barrels. Phillips 66 at one point last week asked for 1 million barrels of crude from the SPR for its 260,000 b/d Westlake refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Later in the week, it scaled that back to 700,000 barrels as some of the constraints posed by closed ports and waterways began to ease.
On Friday, The Department of Energy approved a request from Marathon Petroleum for 3 million barrels and a request for 500,000 barrels from Valero.
Kevin Book, managing partner of ClearView Energy, said it makes sense to help the refineries that are running get more crude while ports remain closed and harder-hit refineries near Houston undergo damage assessments.
“The problem is you have close to 20 million barrels sitting [offshore] waiting to come into the Houston Ship Channel that can’t, and the pipes are still connected to the refineries that can’t get crude,” Book said. “Why not pull it from the SPR as a swap?”Petrochemicals
While the impact of Harvey on crude production and refineries has garnered most of the attention, the storm’s wet fists were equally tough on the critical petrochemical plants located along the US Gulf Coast.
More than 50% of US ethylene production capacity remained offline on Thursday, and producers with full or partial operations were focused on how they would get feedstock and whether stalled logistics or spotty access to power might squeeze their ability to move output to markets.In the LOOP
Over the years, Houston has become a vital destination for ships carrying heavy crude destined for the Gulf Coasts refineries. The shale revolution has reversed some of that flow, making both Houston and Corpus Christi critical as hubs of exports as well.
In light of this, the The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) and regional refining industry could be set to carry some of the the load in the near future, especially as the facility seeks to expand to accommodate VLCCs that could aid in the export of even more US crude.
LOOP typically ranks No. 3 behind Houston and Port Arthur for US crude imports and accounts for 10% of US imports and 16% of Gulf Coast imports, according to Platts Analytics and US Customs data. But with Texas ports closed, LOOP could be set toreclaim the title of No. 1 port for US crude imports, which it has not held since May 2016.
— with Starr Spencer, Ashok Dutta, Kristen Hays and Laura Huchzermeyer in Houston, Meghan Gordon and Brian Scheid in Washington, and Janet McGurty in New York
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/09/04/us-recovers-hurricane-harvey-what-next/
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Spaghetti-Like Pipeline System Falls Short as Gulf Supplies Slow
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar and Sheela Tobben
Harvey is putting a new spotlight on a spaghetti-like network of petroleum pipelines that run across the plains and fields of Texas, disrupting the ability of at least two major Gulf Coast conduits to send fuels north.
The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, a top transporter of gasoline for the Northeast, has closed part of its line after “the pace of supply” fell from refiners damaged by the storm. Meanwhile, Explorer Pipeline Inc. shut its lines to Tulsa and Chicago citing similar issues.
Why is the pace of supply so important? You need fuel to push fuel. Pumps at the start of a pipe get things moving, and those at its end suck product out. But it's simple momentum, so-called operating pressure, that keeps it moving in pipes that can run hundreds and even thousands of miles long. Without enough bulk at the back end, things come to a halt.
“It's not as much running out of supply as the timing, the speed at which supply gets to market,” said Buster Brown, Colonial Pipeline Co.’s director of scheduling. “The issue is the pace of supply we're getting from the origins.“
The pipeline challenges come as the industry works to recover from a storm that hit the Gulf Coast with Category 4 force on Aug. 25 near Corpus Christi, Texas, inundating the surrounding area with flooding rains. That surge, and the storm's slow movement along the coast as a tropical storm, crippled refineries and hampered crude production throughout the region.
Texas accounts for about one-sixth of total pipeline mileage in the U.S., making it the largest system in the country, with most starting or ending on the Gulf Coast, where as many as 35 major refineries are located, according to a report by Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston. At least two dozen companies operate pipeline assets in Texas and Louisiana, the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, a Washington-based industry lobbying group, said.
Most pipeline operators in that region upgraded their systems over the past few years, as part of a concentrated push to withstand storms after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the region in 2005 and Ike came in 2008, according to a 2016 studyby the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Alternate Centers
Those upgrades included new electrical systems with battery backup, as well as elevated control rooms and pump stations. In some cases, operators set up alternate control centers or office space away from storm-prone areas, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a separate report.
That helped them survive the flooding from Harvey. Now, the operators are hoping that efforts by Valero Energy Corp., Citgo Petroleum Corp., both said to be restarting their refineries near Corpus Christi, are the initial steps toward a regional revival. At the same time, the U.S. government is set to release 1 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the first emergency discharge in five years.
“While there are hurdles to putting things back, there has not been catastrophic damage” to Gulf Coast pipelines, said John Stoody, vice president of government and public relations at the pipe line association. Now, though, “we are seeing reduction in service, and it will take time to return.“
Motiva Plant
Until that new supply kicks in, pipelines will struggle to keep the flow moving. Motiva Enterprises LLC's Port Arthur plant in Texas, the largest U.S. refinery, remains shut due to flooding.
“In some storms, we have recovered pretty quickly,” said John Auers, executive vice president at energy consultant Turner Mason & Co., in a telephone interview. “However, this Harvey is an epic rain event, and right in the heart of the refining industry.“
Colonial, which moves 1.3 million barrels a day of gasoline, said its lines are running east of Lake Charles, Louisiana, though operations are down in the Houston area.
“Deliveries will be intermittent and dependent on terminal and refinery supply,” the company said in a statement. The operator is seeking to resume service from Houston on Sept. 3, the company said.
Explorer, meanwhile, doesn't have a time line to restart, but is working with shippers “to pump product under any feasible situation,” spokesman Dolin Argo said in an email.
Lower Flows
Pipeline operators can reduce pressures to accommodate lower flows, but how low depends on the types of pumps and valves a line has, according to Stoody. A few can operate down to 20 percent, he said. If supply is below minimum levels, operators can collect supply into tanks until they have enough to flow a batch to its destination.
Other lines have also been slowed. Magellan Midstream Partners LP was able to restart one products line into Houston, the company said, but others remain suspended. The company has also shut its Longhorn and BridgeTex crude pipes, stranding 675,000 barrels a day of oil.
Companies are working to assess the safety and potential damage of assets they're able to access, according to Christi Craddick, chair of the Railroad Commission of Texas, which has regulatory authority over the state's oil and gas industry. But in the coastal areas where Harvey did its worst, flooding is preventing operators from even being able to inspect some sites, she said.
“Until the water goes down and we can really go in make an assessment, I don't think anybody knows yet what assets look like” in the areas hardest hit by Harvey, Craddick said in a telephone interview. “We don't have a time line at this point.“
--With assistance from Laura Blewitt.
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World's Most Important Chemical Made Rare Commodity by Harvey
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
Few Americans care about ethylene. Many have probably never heard of it.
As it turns out, this colorless, flammable gas is arguably the most important petrochemical on the planet—and much of it comes from the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast. Ethylene is one of the big reasons the damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey in the chemical communities along the Gulf is likely to ripple through U.S. manufacturing of essential items from milk jugs to mattresses.
“Ethylene really is the major petrochemical that impacts the entire industry,” said Chirag Kothari, an analyst at consultant Nexant.
Texas alone produces nearly three quarters of the country's supply of one of the most basic chemical building blocks. Ethylene is the foundation for making plastics essential to U.S. consumer and industrial goods, feeding into car parts used by Detroit and diapers sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
With Harvey's floods shutting down almost all the state's plants, 61 percent of U.S. ethylene capacity has been closed, according to PetroChemWire.
Ethylene occurs naturally—it's the gas given off by fruit as it ripens. But it also lies at the heart of the $3.5 trillion global chemical industry, with factories pumping out 146 million tons last year, Kothari said Aug. 31.
Processing plants turn the chemical into polyethylene, the world's most common plastic that's used in garbage bags and food packaging. When transformed into ethylene glycol, it's the antifreeze that keeps engines and airplane wings from freezing in winter, and it also becomes the polyester used in textiles and water bottles.
Ethylene is an ingredient in vinyl products such as PVC pipes used to bring water to homes, life-saving medical devices and cushy sneaker soles. It helps combat global warming with polystyrene foam insulation and lighter, fuel-saving plastic auto parts. It helps commuters get to work safely when made into synthetic rubber found in tires. It's even an ingredient in house paints and chewing gum.
Man makes the chemical by starting with oil or natural gas, then steam heating it to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit (816 Celsius) inside massive furnaces that crack apart the molecular bonds. The resulting ethylene gas is separated from co-products such as propylene, and then piped to other production units for conversion to a vast array of products.
Ethylene and its derivatives account for about 40 percent of global chemical sales, said Hassan Ahmed, an analyst at Alembic Global Advisors. The U.S. accounts for one of every five tons on the market, and ethylene plants globally were running nearly full out to meet rising demand before Harvey, he said.
“So any little hiccup—and this is much beyond a hiccup—will dramatically tighten supply-demand balances,’’ Ahmed said Aug. 31.
While Gulf Coast chemical plants are designed to withstand hurricane-force winds and floods, Harvey has thrust the industry into uncharted territory. Ethylene producers hit by the storm along the Texas Gulf Coast include LyondellBasell Industries NV at the southern end in Corpus Christi, Exxon Mobil Corp. in Baytown outside Houston, and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. in Port Arthur by the Louisiana border.
Market Havoc
“The combination of Harvey's path, duration and rainfall total is wreaking havoc with the supply side of the U.S. chemicals industry on an unprecedented scale,” said Kevin McCarthy, an equity analyst at Vertical Research Partners. “We certainly haven't seen anything quite like it in our 18 years of following chemical stocks on Wall Street.”
The sudden dearth of ethylene and other materials is being felt up and down the supply chain. More than half of the country's capacity for making polyethylene plastic has been shut down in the past week. More than 60 percent of production of polypropylene—another plastic, has been curtailed.
Chemical and plastics buyers can continue operating only so long without replenishing their inventory, Ahmed said. Many producers are already telling customers that they won't be able to meet their contractual supply obligations because of the storm.
Missing Commitments
Formosa Plastics Corp., which shut its Point Comfort, Texas, ethylene and plastics plants ahead of the storm, said Aug. 30 that it won't be able to meet commitments for polyethylene, polypropylene and PVC.
With so much chemical production in the region out of commission, demand for natural gas has plummeted. Producers such as Dow Chemical Co. use gas as a raw material for ethylene and also to power their massive cracking furnaces and other equipment. Added to the impact from widespread electricity outages, demand for gas fell by more than 5 billion cubic feet a day, according to Citigroup Inc. That's equal to nearly 8 percent of the country's normal consumption this time of year.
Demand for other key raw materials used to make ethylene, such as ethane and butane, have fallen about 90 percent because of plant closures, according to PetroChemWire.
Given the complexity of the ethylene manufacturing process, and the need to carefully assess damages to ensure safe restarts, it may take many more weeks for production to reach pre-Harvey levels, IHS Markit said in an Aug. 31 report.
Restart Surprises
Companies won't know for sure whether their plants were damaged until they try to restart them, perhaps only then finding that flood waters have ruined a key piece of equipment, Ahmed said.
“No one right now has a very good handle on the full extent of the damage,” Ahmed said.
Even if most of the chemical industry can get back on its feet in the coming weeks, logistical challenges could still stymie the flow of supplies to customers and create supply chain bottlenecks. Rail shipping has been constrained by train tracks damaged by flooding or still under water.
Polypropylene producers could face an average delay of two weeks to ship their product via rail because of the storm, according to IHS. Some resin buyers are seeking supplies outside the U.S. in case of an extended disruption, the consultancy said.
Prices for ethylene-derived products, meanwhile, have begun to show signs of the looming shortage. Polyethylene prices globally have begun to climb on the expectation that U.S. exports will be slashed, IHS said.
--With assistance from Lynn Doan.
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Oil Firms That Cheered Regulatory Rollback Are Quaking on NAFTA
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Trump administration is easing environmental regulations and opening up territory for drilling as part of the president's bid to unleash the “vast energy wealth” of the U.S. Yet Donald Trump's push to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement could have the opposite effect.
As NAFTA negotiations resume Sept. 1, oil industry leaders are desperate to preserve the 23-year-old trade deal that drove a North American oil and gas renaissance and paved the way for $34 billion worth of energy exports to Canada and Mexico last year.
“Any changes that disrupt energy trade across our North American borders, reduce investment protection or revert to high tariffs and trade barriers that preceded NAFTA could put at risk the tens of millions of jobs,” said the top oil and gas trade groups from the U.S., Canada and Mexico in a joint position paper released last month.
Energy companies that sat on the sidelines during other recent trade negotiations are getting more involved on NAFTA—securing formal roles on committees advising the process, unleashing lobbyists to influence it and outlining their priorities for the administration. Armed with a modest wish list, the industry is mostly in a defensive posture, terrified Trump will torpedo the current deal or weaken existing provisions that allow investors to sue countries over discrimination, seizures and other injustices.
Trump has raised the possibility of an American exit from the deal at least three times since negotiations began last month.
‘In the Crosshairs’
“You may not necessarily be in the crosshairs, but if you don't maintain a focus on it, you could be collateral damage,” Stephen Comstock, the American Petroleum Institute's director of tax and accounting policy, said in an interview.
When the North American Freen Trade Agreement was signed almost a quarter century ago, the U.S. was importing roughly half of its daily oil and petroleum needs. Canada's oil sands—now churning out 2.4 million barrels of crude a day—were just getting started. And Mexico still had a monopoly on its own energy development, blocking foreign businesses from drilling or processing oil in the country.
“Oil and gas has grown from an incidental discussion point to an enormous target of opportunity,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC. “Because energy is such a big deal in North America—a lot's changed, not just in the U.S. but with Canada's oil sands as well as Mexico's reforms—energy could become an important hostage to the negotiations.“
NAFTA facilitates duty-free trade of gasoline and other energy products. It also serves as the legal pathway for rising gas sales to Mexico—4 billion cubic feet a day last year, or about 60 percent of U.S. natural gas exports. Because Mexico is a free-trade partner, natural gas exports to the country qualify for liberalized treatment under a U.S. law.
Arm in Arm
So far, North American oil and gas groups are collaborating, linked arm in arm as they advocate the same broad portfolio of changes. One possible exception: efforts by U.S. oil and gas interests to ensure any new trade agreement locks in recent reforms opening up Mexico's energy market for foreign investment.
U.S. companies are increasingly intertwining their operations with activity on both sides of the border.
Chevron Corp., which has a representative cleared to serve on an energy-focused committee of NAFTA advisers, stressed in comments filed with the federal government that its supply chain extends across North America. Chevron relies on manufacturers in all three countries to provide equipment, parts, repair services and chemicals.
Unbroken Chain
“Disrupting these supply chains would directly harm U.S. businesses,” the company warned.
In Mexico, U.S. businesses captured five of the eight deep-water oil and gas blocks awarded during December 2016 bidding. Andeavor, formally Tesoro Corp., just opened its first ARCO-branded filling station in northwestern Mexico—with plans for more as the company leverages refineries in El Paso, Texas, and Los Angeles to provide fuel while using newly contracted pipeline capacity to transport it.
For companies with commercial interests in Mexico, the status of the trade negotiations is vital to managing bilateral relations, said a lobbyist for an oil company with Mexican operations who asked for anonymity amid private negotiations. The stakes are even higher for the energy sector given the constitutional reforms in Mexico, the lobbyist said.
Industry officials from all three countries are eyeing the deal as a way to seek more regulatory certainty and the harmonization of industry standards, something factored in to other trade accords. Canada, for example, may use the negotiations to push for more predictability surrounding the approval of pipelines and power lines crossing into the U.S., following years of squabbling over TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL project.
Aggressive Lobbying
Energy companies also are lobbying aggressively to preserve—and even strengthen—the investor-state dispute settlement provisions in NAFTA that empower businesses to challenge other countries for discrimination. Those provisions provide much-needed assurance to companies investing in Mexico today, said API's Comstock.
“We feel this is an important part of the current agreement,” he said.
The provisions face opposition from conservationists, who have long said they embolden corporations to attack environmental and public health protections in unaccountable tribunals, with corporate lawyers—not judges—hearing the cases.
But the biggest risk may be the Trump administration itself; three energy industry lobbyists said they haven't confirmed the U.S. position on the issue and are alarmed it's on the trading block. The lobbyists asked for anonymity as they discussed private deliberations.
Oil companies are asking negotiators to make it easier for oilfield workers and equipment to move across the U.S. border with Mexico and Canada. The top oil and gas trade groups from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are jointly advocating a new “NAFTA visa program to provide access for skilled energy professionals.“
The industry also wants to make it easier to prove products originate in NAFTA countries, arguing the current regime is clunky and outdated—ill-suited for a commodity marketplace dominated by electronic trading and commingled products in pipelines.
The current rules “place a high burden on companies to gather and review supplier information—some of which is business confidential and cannot be shared—in order to certify their own goods and obtain duty-free access to markets,” the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers said in comments filed with the U.S. government.
—With assistance from Catherine Traywick.
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Rule Expediting Small Natural Gas Exports May Have Limited Impacts
Sep 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
An Energy Department rule aims to expedite the approval process for small-scale natural gas exports to the Caribbean and Central and South America, but analysts and industry say the benefits for U.S. exporters will be limited.
A Sept. 1 proposed rule could speed up the approval process for small-scale facilities to export liquefied natural gas to non-free trade agreement countries, which is part of the Trump administration's “energy dominance” goal of expanding U.S. natural gas exports. However, the narrow criteria of the rule will lead to small market impacts, analysts say.
Applicants have to meet two criteria to qualify for the expedited approval process: they are exporting no more than .14 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, and they are exempt from an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act.
The second requirement will likely narrow applications to those from existing facilities, because almost all new facilities require some sort of environmental assessment, Christopher Schindler, a partner at Hogan Lovells who works with large-scale and small-scale natural gas export developers, said.
“Existing small-scale LNG facilities would clearly benefit from the expedited export approval process, but greenfield facilities that require an [environmental assessment] would not,” Schindler told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 1.
The LNG industry was supportive of removing some administrative burdens for applicants, but was careful to not overstate the market impacts.
“It's just another move in the right direction as far as streamlining this process,” Fred Hutchison, president and chief executive officer of LNG Allies, a trade group representing large LNG export developers, told Bloomberg Sept. 1.
However, he warned, “it's not going to have any real significant market impacts.”
Benefiting Small Export Countries
In terms of the customers, Caribbean countries and those in Central and South America would also benefit from increased U.S. small-scale natural gas exports to allow electric generation facilities in these countries to switch from heavy fuel oil and diesel to natural gas, which has environmental benefits, James Lucier, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners LLC, a policy research firm that follows energy investments, told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 1.
The Energy Department refers to several executive orders from President Donald Trump to reduce regulations and regulatory burdens as another reason for issuing the proposal.
“DOE's proposed rule suggests that the department has eyed this area as an early opportunity to put into practice the Trump administration's call for regulatory reform,” Christi Tezak, a managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, told Bloomberg BNA in a Sept. 1 email.
She said the proposal to speed up the approval process for small-scale gas exports is a way for the administration to “maximize both public resources and private investment.”
Existing Small-Scale Export Facilities
One of the applications already pending at the Energy Department that could be a candidate for the expedited approval process is from Eagle LNG Partners Jacksonville II LLC for its Eagle Maxfield facility in Jacksonville, Fla. The company filed a application requesting long-term, multi-contract authorization on June 15 to export to non-free trade agreement countries. The facility's construction is almost complete, and is expected to begin commercial operation in September 2017.
The Energy Department has already provided non-free trade agreement country authorizations to seven small-scale export facilities (below .14 Bcf/d), which would possibly be eligible for the expedited approval process. These authorizations went to Carib Energy (USA) LLC (0.04 Bcf/d); American Marketing LLC (0.008 Bcf/d); Emera CNG LLC (0.008 Bcf/d); Floridian Natural Gas Storage Co. LLC (0.04 Bcf/d); Air Flow North American Corp. (0.002 Bcf/d); and Flint Hills Resources LP (0.01 Bcf/d).
Comments on the proposed rule are due Oct. 16.
The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, which represents the LNG industry, and the Natural Gas Supply Association, which represents natural gas suppliers, told Bloomberg BNA they are still reviewing the rule. However, Charlie Riedl, executive director of CLNG, also told Bloomberg that he doesn't see the rule having a large market impact.
—With assistance by Ryan Collins (Bloomberg)
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Sep 3, 2017 | International Business Times
By Alex Kotch
As President Trump attempts to shut down a federal board that helps oversee chemical plant safety, a former top official from the panel says the unfolding crisis at a Houston plant could have been prevented had the plant owner's lobbying group not fought the board's work.
In 1998, when the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) was formed, Chief Operating Officer Phyllis Scalettar led the team in creating a comprehensive database of chemical incidents, relying on data from five different federal agencies. The CSB created the database — which was the first of its kind — because officials believed a central resource documenting all incident reports, especially relevant information on what caused the incidents, was vital for the board to fulfill its mandated duty: to investigate toxic chemical incidents and determine the causes of those incidents.
When the CSB published its one-of-a-kind report in February 1999, analyzing data from 600,000 chemical incidents over a decade, and presented it to Congress, the feedback was positive. But when the American Chemistry Council (ACC) got hold of the report, the group hurled accusations of bias at the nonpartisan CSB in an effort to discredit the report. An influential lobbying and campaign spending operation, the ACC successfully pressured Congress to withhold sufficient funding for the CSB, preventing it from updating and enhancing the crucial database.
Arkema — a specialty chemicals company whose plant in Crosby, Texas, exploded last week and which pressed regulators to kill a chemical plant safety rule — is a member of the ACC.
The Chemical Safety Board planned a follow-up report for the 2000 fiscal year, but it never happened.
“Perhaps, had the report led to the envisioned subsequent work, risks that now pose current threats to the Houston area — and, indeed, throughout the U.S. — could have been evaluated and addressed prior to the disaster in a comprehensive, data-driven manner,” wrote Scalettar in an email to International Business Times.
Going forward, an underfunded CSB would not be able to harness an updated database to help prepare for, and prevent, the tens of thousands of chemical incidents that occur every year in the U.S.
Scalettar confirmed there is no current central resource in the U.S. for information on preventing chemical incidents.
The CSB still exists, but it continues to be hampered by what officials say are insufficient resources.
In April 2013, investigations into 13 prior chemical incidents were incomplete. CSB leadership told the Center for Public Integrity at the time that the budget allocated by Congress wasn’t nearly enough to tackle the numerous incidents. "We've made innumerable proposals over the years...pointing out the significant discrepancy between the number of serious accidents and the ones that we can handle from a practical standpoint," said CSB managing director Daniel Horowitz.
The chemical industry, led by the ACC, has for years fought legislation requiring chemical facilities to use safer technology.
"I was quite surprised that anyone would resist this concept, this concept of prevention," Rafael Moure-Eraso, then the CSB chairman, told NPR in 2013.
“You have to make a cost-benefit about what is more costly: to engage in a process to try to mitigate or avoid hazards; or deal with the families of the people who get killed, the destruction of an industry, the destruction of a community," said Moure-Eraso. "And I claim that it's a lot more expensive to deal with these catastrophic losses than what it will take to invest to prevent this to happen in the first place."
Tens Of Thousands Of Chemical Incidents Each Year
In 1990, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to enhance its efforts to reduce acid rain, urban air pollution and toxic air emissions. The amendments established the Chemical Safety Board “to investigate accidental releases of chemicals.” In particular, the board was created “to determine the cause or causes of an accident whether or not those causes were in violation of any current and enforceable requirement.”
It took more than seven years — until January 1998 — for the government to staff, fund and launch the board. When board finally began its work, its first order of business was to study the hundreds of thousands of prior chemical incidents across the country and analyze the reasons that these incidents had occurred.
“Most importantly from a safety standpoint, existing databases do not contain information on the root causes of incidents or patterns of causes that are the most solid clues to prevention,” the report states.
A 1993 EPA report admitted that the government’s chemical safety system was full of “overlaps, inefficiencies, and some gaps in the statutory and regulatory framework as well as in the government's management structure.” It also states that “sufficiency and quality of government data on chemical incidents impact ... most importantly, lives and livelihoods.”
CSB staff members began their research with over 10 million chemical incidents that occurred on land between 1987 and 1996. After filtering out duplicate incident reports and those that contained insufficient information, the board was left with 605,000 incidents to incorporate into its study, which came out in 1999.
Some key findings include:
—During the period 1987 to 1996, chemical incidents were recorded in 95 percent (3,145) of the nearly 3,300 U.S. counties.
—42 percent of the incidents occurred at fixed locations occupied by industrial and commercial businesses, and 43 percent related to transportation.
—9,705 incidents resulted in at least one death or injury. There were 2,565 deaths (with an average of 127 incidents per year resulting in at least one death) and 22,949 injuries.
—California had the most incidents (100,000 during the period from 1987 to 1996), nearly double the number of incidents recorded for Texas (55,209), the second leading state. The remainder of the top 10 states, in descending order, were Ohio, New York, Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and New Jersey.
—Mechanical failures led to 40 percent of the incidents. Intentional and unintentional human acts were cited in another 27 percent of the reports. The effects of natural phenomena accounted for only 1 percent of the incidents. Approximately 29 percent of the incident reports did not indicate an initiating event.
A more recent study of the period from 1980 to 2008 indicates that 3 percent of hazmat emissions occurred due to natural phenomena, and these nature-induced emissions increased as the years passed.
The ACC waged a campaign against this report.
“The industry association challenged the accuracy of the reporting data used in the study, failing to recognize and acknowledge that the data were reported by the industry itself,” Scalettar told IBT. “It also pointed out the data limitations referenced in the report undermined the findings, again overlooking the fact that identification of limitations in any research study are fundamental to establishing that claims made are not misleading, and recommendations for future work are supported by the issues raised.”
Scalettar added that “because our [CSB] board was populated by some people who had strong attachments to industry, I would be remiss not to say that there was probably some back-room arm twisting.”
Freedom of Information Act Request records show that the ACC submitted comments regarding the EPA’s risk assessment practices, discouraging the consideration of worst-case scenarios and “biased risk assessments.”
Meanwhile, in 2001, the ACC and similar industry groups successfully convinced the George W. Bush administration to kill chemical safety provisions proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, including a strengthened Process Safety Management standard.
An Arkema Disaster
Included in the CSB report was a map showing all chemical incidents analyzed. Many chemical incidents that occurred between 1987 and 1996 were located in southern California, but another area with one of the highest concentrations of explosions, emissions and other hazardous events was the southeastern coast of Texas, which is where Hurricane Harvey hit.
Nearly 20 years after that report, Arkema North America’s CEO said that “no one anticipated six feet of water” that Harvey brought to his plant in Crosby. But Sam Mannan of Texas A&M University's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center told the Houston Chronicle that it would be surprising if Arkema had not considered a flood of this magnitude before. And there was a way to prevent the explosions: Companies can “quench” organic peroxides by combining them with another chemical, potentially eliminating the danger.
"You'll lose the feedstock, but it's safer than letting it go into runaway mode," Mannan told the Chronicle.
As IBT reported on Saturday, Arkema warned its investors of the risks of chemical storage explosions at its sites.
Arkema’s most recent risk management plan submitted to the EPA is from June 2014; the facility has high levels of toxic chemicals, making it a Program 3 site that is required to file such plans with the EPA. The Environmental Defense Fund reviewed Arkema’s plan, which the public may only inspect in person in an EPA reading room. That plan, which revealed that the facility held 85,000 pounds of the flammable substance 2 methylpropene and 66,000 pounds of toxic sulfur dioxide, cited a 2013 hazard analysis that identified concerns including “equipment failure; loss of cooling, heating, electricity; floods (flood plain); hurricane; other major failure identified: power failure or power surge.”
On Friday, after several explosions had already occurred, Arkema announced that least 225 metric tons of peroxides stored at its Crosby plant were likely to explode in the near future.
The company has a history of dangerous chemical safety practices, including “serious” hazardous chemical-related safety violations in February by the Arkema plant in Crosby, resulting in a $90,000fine from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Trump’s Attack On Chemical Safety
As IBT reported Thursday, Arkema and the ACC successfully lobbied the EPA to halt new chemical safety rules that were meant to go into effect in March 2017. Numerous U.S. Congressmen from Texas co-sponsored a House resolution to quash those rules. Previously, then-Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to the EPA expressing their opposition to the safety measures.
This year, as EPA director, Pruitt has been able to delay the implementation of the safety rules twice, and as Crosby residents were evacuating due to Arkema’s plant explosions, a court denied environmental groups’ request to impose the rules as a lawsuit over the delay moves through the courts. But there are even higher-ranking officials who are trying to minimize chemical safety: Trump’s budget proposal would eliminate the CSB altogether, something that has elicited serious criticism.
“If you want to put the American people in danger this is the way to do it,” former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman told Reuters. “The chemical industry has fought back from the beginning.”
“If you can’t prove your relevance in today’s administration, you become superfluous,” said Scalettar. “Can [the CSB] show they’ve made any significant progress in reducing chemical incidents? Probably with great difficulty.”
With the current Congress and White House, Scalettar doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the near future. “There will continue to be chemical incidents, but we could make the circumstances a little bit better. But after 20 or 30 years at this, I’d say the odds aren’t very good to make it better.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/years-chemical-industry-has-pressured-government-defund-key-chemical-incident
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Sep 2, 2017 | International Business Times
By Jay Cassano
Arkema, the specialty chemicals company whose chemical storage facility in Crosby, Texas, exploded Thursday morning and is currently spewing noxious smoke near Houston, warned its investors earlier this year about the dangers of possible explosions and public health risks from the chemicals it stores. At the same time, the French-based company lobbied the U.S. Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to delay implementing new chemical facilities safety rules, as International Business Times previously reported. Two more chemical storage trailers explodedFriday evening and more explosions from the remaining trailers are expected in the coming days.
“The Group’s facilities may be subject to risks of accidents, fires, explosions and pollution due to the very nature of their operations and to the level of hazard, toxicity or flammability of certain raw materials,” Arkema wrote to investors in March, in the company’s annual report for 2016.
Arkema’s backup generators failed on Thursday, which meant that volatile chemicals were unable to be stored cooly enough, causing them to burn and explode. Speaking to the Houston Chronicle, an Arkema safety official declined to say whether its backup generators were elevated, a common-sense precaution in case of flooding. However, the company was well aware of the potential dangers of floods at its plants, as it warned its investors that “exceptional flooding” could lead to the shutdown of its facilities.
Furthermore, Arkema’s 2014 Risk Management Plan for the Crosby facility specifically noted the risk of equipment failure due to flooding. Facilities regulated as a “Program 3” facility by the EPA, such as the one in Crosby, are required to create and submit Risk Management Plans. The 2014 plan is the latest filed with the EPA. However, those documents are not publicly accessible online and can only be viewed by visiting federal reading rooms in person. The watchdog group Environmental Defense Fund did so on Thursday, finding that a hazard process analysis filed by Arkema specifically for the Crosby facility “identified concerns, including: equipment failure; loss of cooling, heating, electricity; floods (flood plain); hurricane; other major failure identified: power failure or power surge.”
A flood causing a power failure that lead to a loss of cooling is the exact scenario that has caused the recent explosions and current fires in Crosby.
After initially promising to provide its inventory of chemicals, Arkema has since backtracked that promise only offering a list of chemicals on site but not their quantities or how they are stored, making it difficult to assess public health risks from the smoke overhead in Crosby. In the 2016 annual report to investors, the company noted as a risk to investors that it uses “toxic or hazardous substances to manufacture its products,” but does not specify at which locations certain chemicals are stored or how toxic they may be. On Thursday, the company’s president, Richard Rennard, declined to tell reporters whether chemicals burning at the Crosby facility were potentially toxic.
At the same time that Arkema warned investors of these health and safety risks, the company and its trade association, the American Chemistry Council, was lobbying the Trump administration to delay implementing new EPA safety rules for chemical facilities. IBT’s review of federal lobbying recordsfound that Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt blocked the new rules following that extensive lobbying campaign.
The rules that Pruitt blocked would have gone into effect on March 14. Arkema’s annual report for 2016, which noted the risk of explosions at its facility, was filed on March 30.
In that annual report, Arkema warned investors that increased regulations could jeopardize its business, requiring it to, for instance, “institute costly emissions control or reduction systems.”
“The Group’s business activities are subject to frequently changing international and national laws and regulations in the areas of environmental protection and health and safety,” the 2016 annual report noted. “These laws and regulations impose increasingly strict obligations.”
In Arkema’s 2015 annual report, the company similarly warned investors about the risk of “increased safety costs” endangering profit margins.
“The Group’s business and financial results are likely to be directly or indirectly impacted by any adverse changes to the economic and political environment in the countries in which the Group operates,” read the 2015 annual report.
That year’s annual report did, however, reassure investors that the company carries an environmental insurance policy that will cover up to $50 million of liability within the U.S.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/while-lobbying-against-safety-rules-arkema-warned-its-investors-chemical-storage
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Sep 4, 2017 | Democracy Now
The flooded Arkema chemical plant in the town of Crosby, Texas, that saw two explosions on Thursday, could see as many as six more blasts, and a new investigation reveals this comes after Arkema successfully pressured federal regulators to delay new regulations aimed at improving safety procedures at chemical plants. It also found that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton aggressively attacked a proposed chemical plant safety rule, after his election campaign garnered over $100,000 from chemical industry donors. We speak with David Sirota, senior editor for investigations at the International Business Times. His story is headlined "Texas Republicans Helped Chemical Plant That Exploded Lobby Against Safety Rules." We also speak with Stephanie Thomas, Houston-based organizer for Public Citizen, and Matt Dempsey, a Houston Chronicle data reporter who contributed to a series called "Chemical Breakdown," which investigated regulatory failures of the chemical industry.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue to look at the flooded Arkema chemical plant in the town of Crosby, northeast of Houston, Texas, that saw a pair of explosions early Thursday, sending thick black smoke into the air. Officials evacuated residents within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of the facility, which produces highly volatile chemicals known as organic peroxides.
Well, a new investigation reveals the explosions come after Arkema successfully pressured federal regulators to delay new regulations aimed at improving safety procedures at chemical plants. It also found that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton aggressively attacked a proposed chemical plant safety rule, after his election campaign garnered over $100,000 from chemical industry donors.
We are still joined by Matt Dempsey of the Houston Chronicle, but we’re also joined, by going to Denver, by David Sirota, senior editor for investigations at the International Business Times, his new story headlined "Texas Republicans Helped Chemical Plant That Exploded Lobby Against Safety Rules."
We welcome you, David, to Democracy Now! Before we go back to this chemical plant’s history, tell us exactly what happened, David Sirota. How is it possible that people so threatened by this plant—and more explosions are expected—don’t publicly know what they’re being exposed to?
DAVID SIROTA: Well, the rule that is at issue in our story is a rule that was proposed during the Obama era after the explosion, an earlier chemical plant explosion, in West Texas. The rule would have required third-party audits of safety procedures at chemical plants. It would have required more disclosure to the community about what is in chemical plants, what specific chemicals are being housed in chemical plants. And it would have mandated a better coordination and a closer relationship between chemical companies and first responders and emergency services in those communities.
And what ended up happening was, when that rule was proposed, Republicans in Congress, top Republicans, pushed forward a bill, a set of bills, both in the House and Senate, to basically delay and effectively kill that rule. And that was a way for them to signal that they wanted the Trump administration to kill that rule. As you mentioned and in our story, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also was one of the—one of a number of Republican officials who sent a letter to the EPA demanding that the rule basically be withdrawn. It was highly critical of the rule, saying it was overly burdensome to the chemical industry. You had Arkema, in a letter to the EPA, basically making the same argument. And you had the American Chemistry Council, which Arkema is a member of, which is a big lobbying group in Washington, also making similar arguments.
And then, what ended up happening was that the Texas—many Texas Republicans ended up supporting the legislation in the Congress, as they have been getting large campaign contributions from the chemical industry, legislation that would effectively kill those rules. And the Trump administration obliged. The Trump administration delayed those rules until at least 2019, Scott Pruitt issuing that order. Scott Pruitt himself, as attorney general of Oklahoma, he had supported—he had demanded that the EPA withdraw those rules, while he was running a group that had received $50,000 from the American Chemistry Council. So, effectively, what happened, you had chemical industry-funded politicians who made sure, and were successful, in helping the chemical industry, including Arkema, lobby to delay and, effectively, at least for now, kill those safety rules.
AMY GOODMAN: So, these rules—the company, Arkema, poured millions of dollars into lobbying, right after the Trump administration, because the rules were going into effect on March 14th?
DAVID SIROTA: Yeah, well, many chemical companies, including Arkema, were lobbying against these rules, by the way, during the Obama administration and then into the Trump administration era, through, again, lobbying groups like the American Chemistry Council. Arkema also lobbied on the rules. Other companies lobbied on the rules. I mean, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, SABIC, the Saudi Arabian part-government-owned chemical conglomerate, lobbied against these rules. And they were successful, and, again, as campaign cash had flowed into the coffers of many Republicans, many Republicans from Texas, who ended up supporting the legislative effort to get rid of the rules, and ultimately the Trump administration acted.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Stephanie Thomas into this conversation, Houston-based organizer for Public Citizen. Your response to what’s happening right now in Crosby, to what the public has a right to know?
STEPHANIE THOMAS: Yes, Amy. Yesterday, I drove from Houston to Baytown, which is about 15 miles south of Crosby. And in that drive, I could see the plume of smoke coming toward that community. And people are very concerned about their health, about their well-being, whether the air that they’re breathing is really safe to breathe. And there’s this complication, because right now there’s also a lot of flooding that has happened in our area. So, even though they did evacuate the one-and-a-half-mile radius, there were people outside of that radius who were considering evacuating and weren’t sure if it was safe to do so, if the roads were going to be passable, because we still have a lot of water on the ground here. And I think another point of this is, it’s contributing a lot more concern about air quality. We already have seen a lot of reports to TCEQ, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, about emission events during the past week due to Hurricane Harvey. So people are very concerned about what they’re breathing in and whether—whether this is as safe as the officials are saying that—you know, that it’s safe. One—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this issue of emergency responders, you have the sheriff’s deputies, 10 of them, went off to the hospital.
STEPHANIE THOMAS: That’s right. That’s right. But there have been other folks saying, "Well, it’s like a barbecue. You don’t want to breathe the air in, because it’s not good for you." But they’re downplaying the safety of it. So, I think it’s really important for the community to find out what it is that they’re breathing. And I really want to commend Matt Dempsey for his work in trying to get those answers.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Matt Dempsey, you were able—first, you asked CEO Rowe of Arkema on the telephone. He said he wasn’t going to give you the information. Then you sort of got a little info dump from the company. What changed in that amount of time? And what would you say to people now, given the information that we know?
MATT DEMPSEY: So, what the—the only thing I can think of that changed is there was a lot of attention to the presser that—where they said they wouldn’t provide it. And then, I believe—so, the other thing about the info dump that I got, that just list of chemical names, like 29 chemical names, and that’s all it is, right? That was—I sent a very angry email asking where—why did I not get the Tier II? And their response was that the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality has informed them that all requests for the Tier II should go through them. The interesting thing about that is that means we probably won’t get access to that Tier II ever, because when Greg Abbott—now-Governor Greg Abbott—was then attorney general, his office issued a ruling that said that people don’t have the right to access Tier IIs from the state. So, now, the state is telling a private company, Arkema, to ask the state for information that they know they are not going to provide. It’s really incredibly frustrating.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, your knowledge, Matt Dempsey, of the Texas delegation, the congressional delegation, that got money and was lobbied by Arkema to exempt them from these right-to-know laws?
MATT DEMPSEY: Yeah, so, I thought David’s piece was really excellent, but I do want to point something out. I don’t think it’s a hard push to convince politicians in the state of Texas to do what the chemical industry wants them to do. Like, for example, there was a lot of focus on the Republican delegation from Texas. Democrats haven’t done very much, either. Like, there’s been very few bills proposed by Democrats in Texas or in the Ship Channel or in the Houston metro area or along this petrochemical capital of the country, from either party, on increasing or strengthening right-to-know laws. The stuff that—the information—the rules that David was bringing up, that was done by President Obama as an executive order after the West incident. And the American Chemistry Council is extremely powerful. They basically call the shots when it comes to what people get to know and how the chemical industry is regulated. Like, a really good example is it took decades for the Toxic Substance Control Act to finally get passed. And in a lot of ways, it only passed because Frank Lautenberg died, and they met—his colleagues in Congress felt bad that they hadn’t passed it up to that point.
AMY GOODMAN: The New Jersey senator.
MATT DEMPSEY: Yeah, right. So, even then, thought, the only version of the Toxic Substance Control Act, which is more about consumer substance—effects by those substances—the only version of it that passed through Congress and got signed into law is the one that the American Chemistry Council essentially approved of.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more, David Sirota, about the role of Scott Pruitt—Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency—when it came to what the public has a right to know? And, of course, we’re seeing it playing out right now with—for example, in Crosby, with the company Arkema.
DAVID SIROTA: Sure. Scott Pruitt, when he weighed in on the proposed safety rules that we’re discussing, as attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt made an argument that many attorney generals who were opposed to these rules in the states, that they were arguing, as well. And that argument was, essentially, that the expanded mandates for the public’s right to know, the expanded mandates for those, would threaten national security by allowing the bad guys—basically, terrorists—to know where dangerous chemicals are. So they were basically arguing, by allowing the community to know where potentially hazardous, poisonous material is, both in normal practice and even during and after a catastrophe or a crisis, that even allowing the public to know would potentially empower terrorists to know that information and organize attacks, potentially, on those chemical plants, and that—so, thereby, their argument was, Scott Pruitt’s argument was, that allowing the public to know would be an undue risk for national security. And he said that the rules should be withdrawn.
Now, the other side of the argument was, of course, that the public should have a right to know about the chemical compounds in its communities, especially when it comes to emergency situations. But, ultimately, the Scott Pruitt side won out, because he went on from Oklahoma attorney general to become the EPAadministrator who eventually and ultimately delayed and, effectively, at least for now, killed those rules.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Matt—talk about the record of Arkema over the years.
MATT DEMPSEY: So, the Arkema facility, in 2011 and, I believe it was, 2015, was cited by TCEQ for—essentially, for a fire that started with organic peroxides in 2011 and, I believe, in 2016 for not being able to control the temperature in a reactor very well. And then, last August, the—OSHA has fined them tens of thousands of dollars for mishandling—having, essentially, process safety violations for hazardous materials. They were mishandling hazardous materials.
AMY GOODMAN: We are talking about the Arkema plant in Crosby. I want to go to a clip of the local CEO. But before I do that, I just wanted to ask, in terms of circumstances on the ground for—Matt, how are you doing? How—is your house flooded? How is it to work under these circumstances?
MATT DEMPSEY: Right. We are—my family is incredibly fortunate. Though our neighborhood got flooded, we had water in the street in a lot of areas, and some houses got flooded near us, but the water never got up to like our driveway or over the curb near our house. So I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate. And actually, I feel a little bit of survivor guilt, because so many other people have been impacted so strongly by the floods. It’s a little easier to get around now. But when you’re driving around, just even getting to the studio today, you see just people starting to already gut out their homes and doing demolition. And you see sandbags out still. And there’s debris all over the roads still. It’s really hard. Even though Houston has had three major flooding events in the last three years, it’s still really—this is different. It’s a different kind. I’m from Phoenix. And when I moved here three years ago, every subsequent flood event that we had up to this point, people used to say, "Oh, it’s not as bad as Tropical Storm Allison." No one’s saying that anymore, in a not good way. It’s rough. It’s really rough.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Stephanie, what about you?
STEPHANIE THOMAS: Yeah, I am, likewise, lucky that my house did not experience any flooding. We just had some minor damage with some water coming in through the roof. But I live not too far from Buffalo Bayou, which is one of the—one of the bayous going through town. And, you may be aware, Houston has no zoning. And our neighborhood actually has some industry smattered amongst it. And I was taking a walk along the bayou and encountered a spill coming out of one of the facilities into the water, into the Buffalo Bayou. And I’m noticing that there’s been several of these small events happening locally, too, as well as these big events like the Arkema chemical fire.
MATT DEMPSEY: And actually, you know, that brings up a good point. So, the analysis we did for "Chemical Breakdown" showed that there’s a number of facilities—we essentially made an index that ranked facilities on their potential for harm. And we had like 55 facilities that were like the highest potential for harm. I’m doing a really shortcut version of this, but my really, really quick and dirty analysis, that I need to go into more detail on, that I did yesterday, showed that there’s 13 of those 55 are in the 100-year floodplain. We’re way past the 100-year floodplain with this flood. In fact, Arkema was in the 500-year floodplain.
So, one of the things that I want to do as a reporter, going forward, is find out just how many of these facilities that have highly potentially dangerous chemicals got impacted by this flood, and we just haven’t heard about it. There’s a lot—there’s more than 2,500 chemical facilities in Houston. They’re all shut down due to the flooding, and they’re all going to start up soon. The Chemical Safety Board sent out a safety alert yesterday warning companies to be extra careful and make sure they’re doing their due diligence on doing startups, because startup and shutdowns is when most incidents occur. And so, I am genuinely worried, both from an environmental perspective and from a public safety, like, and a hazard perspective, like Arkema, you know, what’s going to happen when all of these facilities all spin up all at the same time, after encountering, essentially, like biblical-proportion flood.
STEPHANIE THOMAS: Yeah, and along with that, a lot of the advocacy work that I’ve been involved with, alongside many other really wonderful organizations in Houston, we have focused a lot on the Ship Channel. And Arkema is actually not really directly in our focus, because it’s further back. But I think we’re finding a new normal, where these incredible rainfall amounts—I mean, there was about 42 inches, I think, in Mont Belvieu, which is close to Crosby. These are just phenomenal rates of rainfall within short periods of time. So, when people in industry consider risk management, I don’t know that they’re thinking about risk management in that kind of way, in terms of the amount of rainfall that they’re experiencing. This is a whole new ballgame, and people need to start thinking about things differently here.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Arkema President Richard Rennard, the president of the Arkema division, speaking on Thursday.
RICHARD RENNARD: I mean, it’s—I don’t know the composition of the smoke, but it’s certainly noxious.
REPORTER: And you’re not going to say that they’re nontoxic, correct? You’re going to say they’re nontoxic, or you’re not. Yes or no?
RICHARD RENNARD: Um.
REPORTER: I think that’s—I think it’s a pretty important—it’s a pretty important—
RICHARD RENNARD: I mean, the smoke is noxious. I don’t—its toxicity is—yeah, it’s a relative thing.
AMY GOODMAN: The toxicity is a "relative thing." Matt, we’re going to end with you on this point. This is after the explosions, after people are evacuated for a mile-and-a-half radius. Can you respond to what he has said?
MATT DEMPSEY: Well, in some way, in a weird like pedantic kind of way, he’s right. Toxicity is relative. So, the government does—measures like exposure rates for certain chemicals. And the way they measure it is like how much of a chemical will kill you, how much of a chemical will disable you so you cannot get away to help yourself, and then how much of a—how much of a material will be very uncomfortable—you won’t like it, but you won’t—you’ll be able to get away, you’ll be able to remove yourself from the situation. So toxicity is relative. But it’s kind of nonsense to say toxicity is relative, and not explain how toxic then. It’s almost like a joke. So, it’s toxic. Well, how toxic? Even though he won’t say that it’s toxic.
So, my thought, honestly, from what I know of the stuff that’s burning, the organic peroxides, is that it’s more likely that we’re experiencing exposure levels on that last part, that it’s irritating, it’s uncomfortable, it will affect people with cardiovascular disease or asthma, but it’s something you could probably escape from. You can get to your home. You can shelter in place, if you needed to. But—
AMY GOODMAN: Matt, very quickly—
MATT DEMPSEY: Like I said—yeah, go ahead. I’m sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you—do you expect more explosions at the plant?
MATT DEMPSEY: Oh, absolutely. The company has said that. The company has said they expect all eight of those freezer trailers, that each have 32,000 pounds of organic peroxides, to explode in the coming days.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there. Matt Dempsey, thanks so much for being with us, lead reporter for the Houston Chronicle series, "Chemical Breakdown," which investigated regulatory failures of the chemical industry. Stephanie Thomas, Houston-based organizer for Public Citizen—both speaking to us from Houston, the Petro Metro. And, David Sirota, of the International Business Times, we’ll link to your piece, as well, "Texas Republicans Helped Chemical Plant That Exploded Lobby Against Safety Rules."
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be speaking with the head of Greenpeace here in the U.S. Stay with us.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/1/texas_republicans_pushed_to_kill_safety
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(ACC Mentioned) Waiting for Answers in Corpus Christi
Sep 2, 2017 | Esquire
By Charles P. Pierce
The hotel had closed in anticipation of the storm from out of the sea. The storm had shifted north far enough that the city got brushed, but not hammered, the way Rockport and Port Aransas did. The hotel is still closed. There's a note on the door and the lobby is empty except for some pumps that never were used. People who have reservations pull up to the door. They read the note, and look through the dusty windows at all the strange devices littering the floor, and then they drive down the access road a little further to one of the other hotels that are still open.
There are plenty of rooms available, even though it's a holiday weekend and the fleshpots of South Padre Island are just off the road. Up the coast, off Galveston, at night, you can see dozens of red lights out in the Gulf, tankers and freighters who are waiting to be cleared to come into the port, pausing out there like the tourists who roll up to the abandoned hotel. There's an adrenaline feeling of unfulfilled dread. It's not like waiting for the next shoe to drop. It's more as though people are waiting for the previous shoe to rise again.
THERE'S AN ADRENALINE FEELING OF UNFULFILLED DREAD.
For a week now, we have been treated to wonderful images of people helping people. There is some great journalism being done on these stories, particularly by the television people. But there is a nagging sense of being anesthetized by all the great video of National Guardsmen carrying abandoned dogs, or dialysis patients being loaded onto helicopters, or the hundreds of boats plying what once were fashionable neighborhoods in Houston. Behind the scenes, there is serious politics being played and, while there's nothing enobling about a lot of it, it would be perilous to allow the vast human tragedy of this place to obscure what is being done, because the politics really is the next shoe to drop.
For example, here's Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, carrying some bottled water and waxing in soft-focus about how great we are to each other.
And, believe it or not, through politics, we Americans can do that through our government, too, if we keep it out of the hands of pious charlatans like Paul Ryan.
On Friday, David Sirota and the people at International Business Times, in association with Newsweek, have been diving deeply into the politics that led directly to the explosion and fire at the now-iconic Arkema chemical complex near Houston. Almost simultaneously with the floods and the fires, a federal court gave a win to Donald Trump's conception of an Environmental Protection Agency in its quest to keep companies like Arkema from having to tell the people who live near its plant from knowing much of anything about what goes on inside it.
Arkema is already benefiting from the rule's delay: In a teleconference on the crisis Friday, the company refused to release a map of its facilities or an inventory of the potentially hazardous chemicals at the beleaguered plant, as would be required by the heightened safety standards. The company argued that disclosing such information to the public could put the company at risk of terrorism threats, the Houston Chronicle reported. Under both federal and state law, the firms can elect to disclose such information, or not to.
Less than four months ago, Arkema pressed the EPA to repeal the chemical plant safety rule, criticizing the rule's provisions that require chemical companies to disclose more information to the public. In a May 15 letter to the EPA, Arkema's legislative affairs director wrote that "new mandates that require the release to the public of facility-specific chemical information may create new security concerns if there are not sufficient safeguards to ensure that those requesting the information have a legitimate need for the information for the purposes of community emergency preparedness."
Arkema had friends in Texas state government, too. From IBT:
The American Chemistry Council also lauded Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for co-authoring a letter slamming the chemical plant safety rule. The letter chastised the EPA for proposing to require chemical plants to more expansively disclose castatrophic releases of hazardous chemicals and berated regulators for requiring independent audits of facilities' safety procedures. "To complicate matters further, EPA is demanding that the auditors have no relationship with the audited entity for three years prior to the audit and three years sullbsequent," wrote Paxton and Louisiana Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry. "EPA is demanding that a professional engineer be part of the auditing team, that attorney client privilege cannot apply to the audits, and finding and reports be released to the public. It is difficult to fathom how this collection of burdensome, costly, bureaucratic regulatory requirements does anything to enhance accidental chemical release prevention...This unauthorized expansion of the program does not make facilities safer, but it does subject facilities to even more burdensome, duplicative and needless regulation." Paxton received $106,000 from chemical industry donors during his 2014 run for attorney general.
This is how we got here. If we're smart, we will learn from this and not do the same damn things allover again, but I think the odds are against that. Decades of propaganda pushing the message that government is some sort of alien entity—and that politics is its alien, beating heart—cannot be overcome that easily.
Katrina wasn't enough to do it, so there's no reason to expect that Harvey will be enough, either, not with virtually the entire Texas state government's bone-deep commitment to that very message. The triumph of that message owes as much to its ability to create alienation and political apathy in the many as it does to its ability to create wealth for the very few.
We've forgotten what Pericles warned us about democracy when he looked around at the very first attempt at it. Just because you do not take an interest in politics, he warned, doesn't mean politics doesn't take an interest in you. We are those ships out in the dark now, waiting for somebody's permission to come into port. Our politics, at the moment, is an empty hotel lobby with unused pumps.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57321/corpus-christi-harvey/
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Sep 4, 2017 | Washington Post
By Steve Mufson
Oil refineries and chemical plants across the Texas Gulf coast released more than 1 million pounds of dangerous air pollutants in the week after Harvey struck, according to public regulatory filings aggregated by the Center for Biological Diversity.
While attention has zeroed in on the crisis at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, other facilities — oil refineries, chemical plants and shale drilling sites — have been reporting flaring, leaks and chemical discharges triggered by Harvey.
Emissions have already exceeded permitted levels, after floating rooftops sank on oil storage tanks, chemical storage tanks overflowed with rainwater, and broken valves and shutdown procedures triggered flaring at refineries.
The chemicals released in the week after Harvey made landfall: include benzene, 1,3-butadiene, hexane, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, toluene and xylene.
All seven chemicals are toxic air pollutants documented to harm human health; several cause cancer. Other emissions would bring the total to more than 5 million pounds, the Center for Biological Diversity said.
“Our general concern is the fact that these are relatively unseen environmental threats that don’t normally get recognized,” said Elena Craft, a toxicologist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Further damage and emissions across the region could be uncovered in the coming weeks as flood waters recede, and chemical safety experts warned that restarting plants could carry as many dangers as the shutdowns.
“We are not out of the woods yet, not the entire industry,” said M. Sam Mannan, a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University and director of an institute that studies safety procedures in chemical factories.
In addition, winding rivers overflowed and washed over some of the waste pits and drilling pads at shale gas and shale oil drilling sites in the Eagle Ford play in central Texas, according to satellite imagery collected by Sky Truth, a non-profit group. The extent of the damage was not clear.
“It’s unsafe and unacceptable for the petroleum industry to be releasing these massive quantities of air pollutants when storms hit,” Shaye Wolf, climate science director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said. She added that the companies could do more to limit flaring and leaks. “That shouldn’t be common industry practice,” she said.
Companies have two weeks to submit filings to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality so those figures could increase substantially. But the filings so far give a good picture of some of the problems.
The most common problem in oil refineries has been floating rooftops on storage tanks. Because petroleum is flammable, open space in a tank would collect dangerous vapors. So the oil industry storage tanks have round lid-like rooftops that rise and fall with the level of liquid in the tanks. With heavy rains, many were damaged and sank from the weight, leaving crude oil or petroleum products in the open air emitting fumes. In some cases, they have caused spills too.
Rooftops sank at four tanks at the Pasadena products terminal of Phillips 66. Three sank at the Pasadena terminal of Kinder Morgan, a pipeline company. Two were damaged at Shell’s Deer Park refinery. One each sank at Valero Partners’ Houston terminal, Marathon’s Texas City plant and ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery.
Shell said one leaky tank, discovered during cleanup operations, allowed oil to run out into a surrounding berm. “The leak has been isolated and we’re in the process of cleaning it up,” said Shell spokeswoman Kimberly Windon, who added that there was “no offsite impact.”
Flooding has posed other challenges. For a week, BASF, the second largest producer of chemical products in North America, has been struggling to contain rainfall at its Beaumont Agro plant, according to BASF’s filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The plant produces pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides.
The company started trucking waste water off the site the week before landfall in an attempt to maximize water storage capacity. Then, unable to contain contaminated storm water and process waste water, the company shut down operations on Sunday Aug. 27 and brought in temporary water storage capacity. Nonetheless, the tanks overflowed, spilling chemicals into a diked containment area. The diked containment area then overflowed to the surrounding ground.
Roberto Nelson, BASF’s senior manager for community relations, said a test of leaking waste water on Aug. 29 “indicated there were trace amounts of non-hazardous process chemicals in the discharge water.” He added that the overflow stopped on Aug. 31.
At ExxonMobil’s Beaumont oil refinery, oil flowed over a 10-foot levee and spilled onto a nearby county road, due to the rising Neches River, an ExxonMobil spokeswoman told the local newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise. A different spokeswoman, Suann Guthrie said the company was “closely monitoring” and “taking steps” to contain two sheens.
Oil and chemical companies have also been flaring large amounts of gases, beyond levels ordinarily permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency or TCEQ.
On Sept 2, the TPC Group said in a TCEQ filing that it was working to control the source of gases being flared at its Port Neches, Texas. It has already emitted an estimated 1,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and 1,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, well beyond the state’s permitted levels. Nitrogen dioxide is an air pollutant by itself, and also reacts in the atmosphere to form ozone, which contributes to breathing problems, and acid rain.
Huntsman Petrochemical on Sept. 2 reported it had flared an estimated 1,000 pounds of methyl tert-butyl, used as an oxygenate in gasoline and regulated in some states. The flaring exceeded the Texas limit of 0.04 pounds an hour.
Total said in a filing Friday that its petrochemical refinery in Port Arthur had no power and over a 48-hour period had flared half a dozen chemicals, including sulfur dioxide in one flare that was 50 times greater than the regulatory limit.
“A facility that shuts down may employ flaring of excess gasses that cannot be processed,” Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council, said in a statement Thursday. “Flaring is an approved way to safely relieve pressure during a unit shutdown and is considered an industry ‘best practice.’ These controlled releases are done with the permission of state and federal regulatory authorities.”
Texas is the nation’s largest producer of chemicals, with $129 billion in shipments and 79,000 employees, according to Dooley’s group.
Mannan, the chemical engineer at Texas A&M, last year authored a study ranking Houston-area facilities by their potential to cause harm to the public during a disaster. He said restarting production at dozens of waterlogged plants poses enormous risks for workers and the public.
“Additional events could happen because, if you think about it, a lot of these tanks got submerged in water and a tremendous amount of force is created in 40 feet of water. It can move the tanks around or deform them,” he said.
“Every piece of equipment, every tank, has been battered by the flooding,” Mannan said. “You have to go through and check every piece of equipment. A lot of hard work is still left, and a lot of potential for incidents is still there.”
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board on Friday issued a “safety alert” urging oil and chemical facilities to take special precautions when restarting after Harvey.
“Restarting a refinery poses a significant safety risk,” said CSB chairperson Vanessa Allen Sutherland.
Aaron C. Davis contributed to this article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/04/chemical-companies-have-already-released-1-million-pounds-of-extra-air-pollutants-thanks-to-harvey/?utm_term=.4ab160e55cc8
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Arkema to Ignite Additional Unstable Chemicals at Crosby, Texas Plant
Sep 3, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
Arkema SA said Sunday it would ignite additional unstable chemicals at its plant in Crosby, Texas, because they haven’t caught fire on their own, but continue to degrade and could threaten the area.
“There is clear visual evidence that the chemicals in the trailers are degrading, but they have failed to ignite completely,” the company said in a statement. “We are concerned that, without ignition, we can’t determine if the hazard has been fully eliminated.”
The company said it would use “proactive measures” to ignite the remaining trailers, which hold organic peroxides, but didn’t specify how that would be done.
A spokeswoman for the company said the Harris County Fire Marshall’s office would handle the ignition process but she didn’t provide additional details. The company said it wouldn’t pose any additional risk to the community but that a 1.5 mile evacuation zone will remain in place.
The decision to ignite the remaining chemicals follow fires throughout the week at the plant, about 25 miles northeast of Houston.
Power loss and flooding after Hurricane Harvey led to a failure of refrigeration systems used to keep the peroxides cold at the plant. As these peroxides warm, they become unstable and ignite. Several trailers caught fire on their own during the week, sending dark plumes of smoke billowing into the sky for hours.
The company had said it expected about eight other containers to do the same thing, but the company said Sunday that wasn’t happening.
The plant produces a variety of organic peroxides for the chemical industry under the product name Luperox. Arkema is part of a global chemical company based in a suburb of Paris, France, and its peroxides are used to make pharmaceuticals, polystyrene cups, building material and acrylic paint.
A top executive apologized Friday for the continuing crisis, saying the company could have released information more quickly.
“I’d like to once more apologize to everyone impacted by the events at our site,” said Richard Rowe, head of Arkema’s North American subsidiary.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/arkema-to-ignite-additional-unstable-chemicals-at-crosby-texas-plant-1504477793
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Harvey’s Floodwaters Mix a Foul Brew of Sewage, Chemicals
Sep 4, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By John Flesher
Harvey’s filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough that Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts.
Houston already was notorious for sewer overflows following rainstorms. Now the system, with 40 wastewater treatment plants across the far-flung metropolis, faces an unprecedented challenge.
State officials said several dozen sewer overflows had been reported in areas affected by the hurricane, including Corpus Christi. Private septic systems in rural areas could fail as well.
Also stirred into the noxious brew are spilled fuel, runoff from waste sites, lawn pesticides and pollutants from the region’s many petroleum refineries and chemical plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported Sunday that of the 2,300 water systems contacted by federal and state regulators, 1,514 were fully operational. More than 160 systems issued notices advising people to boil water before drinking it, and 50 were shut down.
The public works department in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, said its water was safe. The system has not experienced the kind of pressure drop that makes it easier for contaminants to slip into the system and is usually the reason for a boil-water order, spokesman Gary Norman said.
In a statement Thursday, federal and state environmental officials said their primary concerns were the availability of healthy drinking water and “ensuring wastewater systems are being monitored, tested for safety and managed appropriately.”
About 85 percent of Houston’s drinking water is drawn from surface sources — rivers and reservoirs, said Robin Autenrieth, head of Texas A&M University’s civil engineering department. The rest comes from the city’s 107 groundwater wells.
“I would be concerned about what’s in the water that people will be drinking,” she said.
The city met federal and state drinking water standards as well as requirements for monitoring and reporting, said Andrew Keese, spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Keeping it that way will require stepped-up chemical treatments because of the flooding, Norman said.
It’s prudent to pump more chlorine and other disinfectants into drinking water systems in emergencies like this, to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery, said David Andrews, senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. But doing so poses its own risks, he said.
There’s often more organic matter — sewage, plants, farm runoff — in reservoirs or other freshwater sources during heavy rains. When chlorine reacts with those substances, it forms chemicals called trihalomethanes, which can boost the risk of cancer and miscarriages, Andrews said.
“Right now it’s a tough time to deal with that, when you’re just trying to clean the water up and make sure it’s not passing illnesses through the system,” he said. “But we should do better at keeping contamination out of source water in the first place.”
Federal and state officials said about two-thirds of approximately 2,400 wastewater treatment plants in counties affected by Harvey were fully operational. They said they were monitoring facilities with reported spills and would send teams to help operators restart systems.
Sewage plants are particularly vulnerable during severe storms because they are located near waterways into which they can discharge treated water, said Autenrieth of Texas A&M. When they are flooded, raw or partially treated sewage can spill from pipes, open-air basins and tanks.
A report by the nonprofit research group Climate Central said more than 10 billion gallons of sewage was released along the East Coast during Superstorm Sandy.
The Houston Chronicle reported last year that Houston averages more than 800 sewage overflows a year and is negotiating an agreement with the EPA that would require system improvements.
Norman said Houston didn’t have a running tally of overflows during Harvey.
“Anytime you have wet weather of this magnitude, there’s going to be a certain amount of sanitary sewage that escapes the system,” he said. “That’s one reason why we advise people to stay out of floodwaters.”
A Texas A&M analysis of floodwater samples from the Houston area revealed levels of E. coli — bacteria that signal the presence of fecal matter — 125 times higher than is safe for swimming. Even wading through such tainted water could cause infections and sickness, said Terry Gentry, an associate professor and specialist in detecting tiny disease-producing organisms.
“Precautions should be taken by anyone involved in cleanup activities or any others who may be exposed to floodwaters,” said a statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state environmental quality commission.
They said they were developing a plan to sample residential wells.
Hazards will remain as waters gradually recede. Puddles, tires and other spots for standing water will attract mosquitoes, which can spread viruses such as West Nile and Zika, Autenrieth said.
Much of the dirty water will flow through rivers, creeks and bayous into Galveston Bay, renowned for its oyster reefs, abundant wildlife and seagrass meadows. Officials will need to monitor shellfish for signs of bacterial contamination, said Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.
The waters also may be rich with nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed algae blooms. When algae die and rot, oxygen gets sucked from the water, creating “dead zones” where large numbers of fish can suffocate.
“You have a potential for localized dead zones in Galveston Bay for months or maybe even longer,” Rader said.
The bay opens into the Gulf of Mexico, where a gigantic dead zone forms in summer, powered by nutrients from the Mississippi River. This year’s was the largest on record, said oceanographer Nancy Rabalais of Louisiana State University.
Ironically, Hurricane Harvey may have done the environment at least one favor by churning the Gulf’s waters and sending an influx of oxygen from the surface to the depths. “A temporary silver lining,” Rabalais said.
But that also happened after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, she added. “And within a week, the low-oxygen area had redeveloped.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/harveys-floodwaters-mix-a-foul-brew-of-sewage-chemicals/2017/09/04/b17b4fa6-9126-11e7-8482-8dc9a7af29f9_story.html?utm_term=.74cc47de0b82
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Why Can’t We Get Cities Right?
Sep 4, 2017 | New York Times
By Paul Krugman
The waters are receding in Houston, and so, inevitably, is national interest. But Harvey will leave a huge amount of wreckage behind, some of it invisible. In particular, we don’t yet know just how much poison has been released by flooding of chemical plants, waste dumps, and more. But it’s a good bet that more people will eventually die from the toxins Harvey leaves behind than were killed during the storm itself.
Oh, and if you trust the current administration to handle Harvey’s aftermath right, I’ve got a degree from Trump University you might want to buy. There are already signs of dereliction: Many toxic waste sites are flooded, but the Environmental Protection Agency is conspicuously absent.
Anyway, Harvey was an epic disaster. And it was a disaster brought on, in large part, by bad policy. As many have pointed out, what made Houston so vulnerable to flooding was rampant, unregulated development. Put it this way: Greater Houston still has less than a third as many people as greater New York, but it covers roughly the same area, and probably has a smaller percentage of land that hasn’t been paved or built on.
Houston’s sprawl gave the city terrible traffic and an outsized pollution footprint even before the hurricane. When the rains came, the vast paved-over area meant that rising waters had nowhere to go.
So is Houston’s disaster a lesson in the importance of urban land-use regulation, of not letting developers build whatever they want, wherever they want? Yes, but.
To understand that “but,” consider the different kind of disaster taking place in San Francisco. Where Houston has long been famous for its virtual absence of regulations on building, greater San Francisco is famous for its NIMBYism — that is, the power of “not in my backyard” sentiment to prevent new housing construction. The Bay Area economy has boomed in recent years, mainly thanks to Silicon Valley; but very few new housing units have been added.
The result has been soaring rents and home prices. The median monthly rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is more than $3,000, the highest in the nation and roughly triple the rent in Houston; the median price of a single-family home is more than $800,000.
And while geography — the constraint imposed by water and mountains — is often offered as an excuse for the Bay Area’s failure to build more housing, there’s no good reason it couldn’t build up. San Francisco housing is now quite a lot more expensive than New York housing, so why not have more tall buildings?
But politics has blocked that kind of construction, and the result is housing that’s out of reach for ordinary working families. In response, some workers engage in extreme commuting from affordable locations, spending as much as four hours each way. That’s no way to live — and no way to run a city.
Houston and San Francisco are extreme cases, but not that extreme. It turns out that America’s big metropolitan areas are pretty sharply divided between Sunbelt cities where anything goes, like Houston or Atlanta, and those on the East or West Coast where nothing goes, like San Francisco or, to a lesser extent, New York. (Chicago is a huge city with dense development but relatively low housing prices; maybe it has some lessons to teach the rest of us?)
The point is that this is one policy area where “both sides get it wrong” — a claim I usually despise — turns out to be right. NIMBYism is bad for working families and the U.S. economy as a whole, strangling growth precisely where workers are most productive. But unrestricted development imposes large costs in the form of traffic congestion, pollution, and, as we’ve just seen, vulnerability to disaster.
Why can’t we get urban policy right? It’s not hard to see what we should be doing. We should have regulation that prevents clear hazards, like exploding chemical plants in the middle of residential neighborhoods, preserves a fair amount of open land, but allows housing construction.
In particular, we should encourage construction that takes advantage of the most effective mass transit technology yet devised: the elevator.
In practice, however, policy all too often ends up being captured by interest groups. In sprawling cities, real-estate developers exert outsized influence, and the more these cities sprawl, the more powerful the developers get. In NIMBY cities, soaring prices make affluent homeowners even less willing to let newcomers in.
Can America break out of these political traps? Maybe. In blue states where cities build too little, there’s a growing political movement calling for more housing supply. Until now, there’s been much less evidence of second thoughts about unmanaged development in red states, but Harvey may serve as a wake-up call.
One thing is clear: How we manage urban land is a really important issue, with huge impacts on American lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/opinion/houston-harvey-infrastructure-development.html
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry Seeks Delay of New Ozone Limits
Sep 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
Facing a variety of legal challenges, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month abruptly canceled its industry-backed one-year delay of a significant air pollution regulation. The Obama Administration-era rule requires states to reduce smog-causing emissions.
The decision reinstates the original Oct. 1, 2017, deadline for the rule. By then, EPA must designate which regions of the country meet or violate an updated federal air quality standard for ground-level ozone, the nation’s most widespread air pollutant.
In October 2015, EPA tightened the concentration of ozone that’s legally allowed in the air to 70 ppb from 75 ppb, the previous health-based standard, which was set in 2008. The agency claimed the new pollution limit would save at least $2.9 billion in annual health care costs. The main component of lung-irritating smog, ozone forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in sunlight.
Under the Clean Air Act, states must develop plans to reduce ozone pollution in areas that exceed the limit and bring them into compliance with the new standard. Over time, that process can lead to stricter emissions limits for the primary sources of ozone precursor pollutants, including chemical and other manufacturing facilities, power plants, refineries, and motor vehicles.
The chemical industry and other businesses have argued that the more stringent ozone standard is not needed, especially with evidence showing that pollution is decreasing under the previous 2008 threshold.
“We’re concerned that the new standard could impede manufacturing investment and job creation without environmental benefit,” says Brendan Mascarenhas, director of environment, regulatory, and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry trade association and lobbying group. “Air quality has been continuously improving, and further progress was likely if the 75 ppb standard had been kept in place.”
EPA chief Scott Pruitt announced in June that he would delay compliance with the new standard until October 2018. He cited a clause in the Clean Air Act that allows such a pause if the agency needs to collect more pollution data to determine which areas aren’t meeting the standard.
But on Aug. 2, Pruitt announced that EPA would work with states to meet the Oct. 1, 2017, deadline for determining which regions of the country meet or violate the tighter ozone standard. He said the “gaps” in the data on air pollution necessary to make those decisions “may not be as expansive as we previously believed.”
EPA’s turnabout came one day after 15 state attorneys general, all Democrats, filed a lawsuit challenging the delay with a federal appeals court. A dozen public health and environmental groups filed a similar lawsuit in July.
For activist organizations that have been playing defense amid the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll back and delay dozens of regulations on a variety of fronts, the agency’s reversal represented a welcome victory.
“These safeguards are essential because smog pollution can trigger asthma attacks, cause irreversible lung damage, or even death,” says Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
But Pruitt’s reversal doesn’t completely clear the way for Obama’s updated ozone rule. On July 18, the House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored bill (H.R. 806) to delay implementation of EPA’s 2015 ozone standard from later this year until 2025. A nearly identical measure (S. 263) is pending in the Senate. Chemical manufacturers and other supporters say the legislation is needed because state and local governments and businesses have had insufficient time to comply with the latest revisions to the ozone standards.
In addition, they argue, the bill would address problems created by EPA’s slow issuance of regulatory guidance needed to implement the 2008 threshold. It took the agency until March 2015 to issue those rules, which include requirements that companies must fulfill to obtain Clean Air Act permits needed to construct new facilities and expand existing plants.
Seven months after issuing the guidance, EPA modified the ozone standard again, this time decreasing the maximum level in the air to 70 ppb, prompting complaints that localities and manufacturers are being forced to comply with different standards at the same time. This created a permitting paradox for facilities located in regions that meet the 2008 ozone standard but not the tighter 2015 limit.
“Manufacturing growth is put at risk in areas where facilities now face two sets of standards and unclear rules,” Mascarenhas says. “New standards are in effect, but it’s not clear how to show compliance. This uncertainty makes it much harder for businesses to plan new projects.”
But public health groups say that once EPA determines which areas do not meet the more stringent standard, work must immediately begin to protect the public against the harms of ozone pollution.
“Stalling implementation of the 2015 ozone standard is a dangerous step in the wrong direction,” says Harold P. Wimmer, chief executive officer of the American Lung Association. “EPA’s job is to implement the Clean Air Act to ensure the air is safe to breathe for all, especially the most vulnerable.”
The pending legislation would change the Clean Air Act by extending the timeline for EPA to review and, if necessary, update the national air quality standards for ozone and other major air pollutants to every 10 years. Currently, the agency must do so on a five-year cycle.
The proposed Ozone Standards Implementation Act would allow EPA to consider the technological feasibility of pollution controls when setting new air quality standards and not just public health, as the Clean Air Act now requires. The measure would also streamline the permitting process for businesses expanding operations and would phase in implementation of the 2008 and 2015 ozone standards.
“By tying permitting requirements to this phased schedule, the bill will help ensure that manufacturers are not caught up in red tape,” Mascarenhas says. “It will enable air quality improvement without adding undue burdens on already strained state agencies.”
However, the legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate. At a May 23 hearing by the Senate Environment & Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air & Nuclear Safety, Democrats said they will fight any effort to delay or weaken health-based standards for ozone and other air pollutants.
EPA’s 2015 ozone standard is “based on sound, peer-reviewed science,” and the 70 ppb standard is the high end of the 60 to 70 ppb range originally proposed by the agency, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the panel’s ranking minority member.
But “winning with 70 ppb was not enough for the fossil fuel industry,” Whitehouse added. “Polluters never want to reduce their pollution and regularly attack the Clean Air Act based on overblown costs that always ignore the other side of the ledger, the public health and other benefits of reducing pollution.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), subcommittee chairperson and the bill’s chief sponsor, stressed that as EPA has gradually tightened the ozone standard, compliance has become costlier and more complicated.
“This is a multi-billion-dollar issue, as there are severe constraints on economic development” in areas that don’t meet the new, tighter limit, Capito said. “To achieve compliance, governments and industry need a clear, certain timeline for implementation of standards and a willing partner in EPA. Up to now, we have not had that support in Washington,” she remarked.
With the GOP holding a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, it will be difficult for the bill’s supporters to muster the 60 votes needed to shut down a likely Democratic-led filibuster. But the measure could be attached to a spending bill or other “must-pass” legislation that Democrats might be forced to accept.
Capito said she will keep working to advance the bill. “Congress must provide a permanent fix to the broken process of reviewing and implementing ozone standards.”
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i35/US-chemical-industry-seeks-delay.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Texas' Rule Suspension Intensifies Uncertainty over Air Law Regulatory Exemptions
Sep 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has suspended a host of state environmental rules due to Hurricane Harvey, though the indefinite suspension has intensified uncertainty over the future of the states' pre-existing regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM), which the Obama EPA sought to remove but which the Trump administration is reconsidering.
In view of the hurricane emergency, Abbott Aug. 28 approved a wide-ranging request from Richard Hyde, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state's environmental regulator, to suspend a host of air and other rules for the duration of the crisis.
But once the emergency is declared over, controversy will remain over the SSM exemptions, which can also shield refineries or chemical plants from liability or enforcement action for events resulting in emissions breaching regulatory limits.
And as the state exempts industry from compliance obligations, environmentalists are already expressing concerns over high levels of air pollution resulting from plant shutdowns and malfunctions.
While their focus in Houston and other hurricane-hit areas is still on saving lives, some are already suggesting that some facilities waited too long to begin shutting down their operations in the face of an impending disaster, forcing emergency shutdowns that result in more pollution as emissions were either vented directly to the air or flared, sources say.
Shutdowns have to occur, “however, plants can take precautionary measures,” says a source with Air Alliance Houston. “They have a tendency to wait until the last minute.”
Complicating the issue is that Texas' pre-existing regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) are still intact, despite the Obama EPA's attempt to dismantle them using a “SIP Call” rule to strip the exemptions of 36 states including the Lone Star State.
Hence many excess emissions during the emergency might have been exempted from compliance anyway, even without Abbott's emergency declaration.
Although a November 2016 deadline for states to remove offending provisions has passed, Texas outlined to the Obama administration its intent to keep some exemptions, such as its “affirmative defense,” pending the outcome of D.C. Circuit litigation on the issue.
Such defenses shield industry from civil liability in the event of malfunctions deemed “unavoidable” by regulators, but environmentalists charge that they can exempt emissions from avoidable episodes resulting from poor maintenance.
The state proposed to add language to its state implementation plan (SIP) for air law compliance stressing that the defense does not interfere with federal courts' abilities to determine penalties for air law violations, the key complaint of the D.C. Circuit when it earlier ruled against affirmative defenses in federal regulations.
At the request of the Trump EPA, litigation over the SSM SIP Call, now known as Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, Inc. v. EPA, et al., is now in abeyance in the D.C. Circuit. EPA says it is considering whether to revise the rule.
Regulatory Exemptions
Despite the pending litigation, industry groups note the current framework allows for regulatory exemptions during SSM periods and pushed back against the need for any new requirements.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), in an Aug. 31 statement on the fire at an Arkema chemical plant, noted that in cases of major storms, “plants may reduce operations, shutdown a facility, evacuate personnel, and physically secure equipment. Special regulations and emissions limits apply to periods of start-up, shut-down, and malfunction.”
The group added that a facility that shuts down “may employ flaring of excess gasses that cannot be processed. Flaring is an approved way to safely relieve pressure during a unit shutdown and is considered an industry ‘best practice.’ These controlled releases are done with the permission of state and federal regulatory authorities.”
One environmentalist says the ACC statement is generally correct but that the issue is whether releases were not “reasonably foreseeable and avoidable,” as defined in regulation. If they are not, the releases qualify for Texas' SSM exemption.
In the case of the Arkema facility, the source says it is too early to say, but emphasizes that facilities may still face liability if they violate the Texas standard.
But one industry attorney says that strong language in the Texas Clean Air Act on force majeure events, such as natural disasters, will likely exempt such emissions from regulatory enforcement or civil liability.
And further complicating the issue, the Air Alliance Houston source says, is that it will be difficult to monitor compliance with federal air standards in some areas because monitors were either turned off deliberately by regulators seeking to save them from flood damage, or became inoperable.
The source tells Inside EPA that TCEQ switched off monitors in the city to save them from water damage.
“All the air monitors are shut down, and we are really relying on industry to tell the truth,” the source said Aug. 30, with early estimates of excess air emissions in Houston as high as one million pounds.
Emergency Exemption
But determining the extent of any exemption may be difficult given provisions approved by Abbott and TCEQ.
TCEQ's Hyde in an Aug. 24 guidance document reiterated the state's force majeure provisions, noting “Texas law provides for a defense against an enforcement action where the regulated entity can establish that the violation was caused solely by an act of God, war, strike, riot, or other catastrophe.”
He says, “No additional approval from TCEQ is necessary for activities directly related to disaster prevention or response. Response actions pursuant to the guidance should include all reasonable actions necessary and prudent to facilitate, maintain, or restore fuel production and/or distribution, within the State of Texas, directly related to Hurricane Harvey.”
There are conditions, however. “Regulated entities should keep records of all activities that they believe are covered by this defense. However, such entities must take all necessary steps to prevent or minimize any increased risk to human health and safety and to the environment. In addition, they must at all times apply best engineering and pollution control practices as required by applicable standards. Regulated entities should follow their standard operating procedures as well as startup, shutdown, and maintenance activities, requirements and plans, to the extent feasible, even during emergency events.”
TCEQ has further issued a list of activities that will benefit from regulatory exemptions for the duration of the emergency, which is yet to be determined. Abbott Aug. 28 authorized Hyde's request to suspend the application of numerous Texas environmental laws “until terminated by the Office of the Governor or until the Tropical Depression Harvey disaster declaration is lifted or expires.”
The order covers a wide range of air rules, including those requiring reporting of emissions “events,” rules governing startup, shutdown and maintenance of facilities, ozone limiting rules, refinery emissions controls, “visible” emissions, and many others, including several relating to water quality.
For example, Hyde says on emissions events and recordkeeping, “Unauthorized emissions as a result of hurricane effects, such as lightning, floods, fires, wind or windblown damage, and power outages would meet the definition of an emissions event, therefore, suspending the reporting and recordkeeping requirements would remove a potential impediment to disaster response.”
Similarly, on visible emissions limits for particulate matter, Hyde says, “Compliance with the specified source visible emissions requirements, or alternate opacity limits, for particulate matter may not be possible as a result of hurricane effects.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/texas-rule-suspension-intensifies-uncertainty-over-air-law-regulatory-exemptions
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