Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 13/9/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry NAFTA Platform: Maintaining Duty-Free Status the Top Priority
Sep 13, 2017 | World Trade Online
The American Chemistry Council, representing U.S. chemical manufacturers, has issued a wish list for NAFTA reforms that leads with a recommendation to keep a key component of the current deal – duty-free status for all qualified chemical products. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Seek Role in TSCA Framework Lawsuit
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of industry organisations has moved to intervene in defence of the US EPA, in lawsuits seeking court review of the agency's final framework rules for prioritisation and risk evaluation. -
Industry Urges US EPA Against Full Paint Stripper Ban
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Manufacturers and industrial users of the paint remover methylene chloride may push for restrictions on the substance's use rather than an outright ban. -
(ACC Mentioned) Partisan Debate Over IRIS Continues in US
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The longstanding debate over the EPA's Integrated Risk Information System continued during and after a recent hearing, held by two House subcommittees. -
Junk Rocket Science: How Trump’s EPA Nominee Greenwashed Brain-Damaging Chemical
Sep 13, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Before he became President Trump’s pick to oversee the nation's chemical safety, Michael Dourson argued for a weak drinking water standard for a rocket fuel chemical that impairs babies’ developing brains, on behalf of big defense contractors and chemical companies. -
Unilever US Discloses Fragrance Ingredients in Nearly 100 Products
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Fragrance ingredient information for almost 100 Unilever US products has been made available online and through an app. -
State Officials and Chemours Reach Partial Deal on Gen X; Cape Fear Utility Authority Not Consulted
Sep 13, 2017 | North State Journal
By Mollie Young
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the Chemours Company have reached a preliminary agreement to halt the future discharge of GenX into the state waters, after state officials sought a temporary restraining order against the company responsible for releasing unregulated chemical compounds into the Cape Fear River. -
In California, Cleaning Products Come Clean on Ingredients
Sep 13, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Monica Amarelo
In a major victory toward safer cleaning products in the marketplace, today California lawmakers approved legislation to require manufacturers to disclose the ingredients in home and commercial cleaning products. -
Cefic Urges Certainty Around Compliance With EU Regulations
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Cefic's director general has called for a tighter rein on compliance with EU chemical controls in order to secure a level playing field. -
Dangerous Chemicals Found to Abound in ‘Green’ Housing
Sep 13, 2017 | Courthouse News
By Sean Duffy
Many materials used to construct “green” housing can expose residents to dangerous indoor air pollution, according to a study that examines how toxic chemicals are introduced to seemingly environmentally friendly homes. -
Burgeoning Legal Movement Pits Landowners Against Pipelines
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Lugar is representing 10 landowners in the path of the proposed Mountain Valley pipeline in an ambitious lawsuit that challenges the standard federal process for pipeline development and land acquisition through eminent domain. -
In Harvey and Irma, Different Tales for Oil and Gas
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By David Iaconangelo
As Florida takes stock of the destruction left by Hurricane Irma, the U.S. oil industry is likely to see a fall in demand, said Goldman Sachs analysts in a research note Monday. -
Houston Refineries Scramble to Get Back to Normal
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Refining in this fuel manufacturing hub is still struggling to return to normal operating mode, weeks after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc here. -
West Virginia Officials to Reexamine Controversial Pipeline
Sep 13, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
West Virginia environmental officials are planning to take a new look at a natural gas pipeline that they previously approved amid national controversy. -
Delaware River Group May Ban Fracking, Allow Waste Disposal
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
The multistate agency that has blocked natural gas development in part of northeastern Pennsylvania could move this week to make the ban permanent, but allow waste disposal from the gas industry. -
U.S. Investigating Arkema’s Safety Practices After Texas Fires
Sep 13, 2017 | Reuters (In Insurance Journal)
By Emily Flitter
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether chemical maker Arkema SA followed safety rules at its Crosby, Texas, plant where chemical containers exploded and burned for days after flooding from Hurricane Harvey, an EPA official said. -
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Makes Appointments
Sep 13, 2017 | Transportation Today
By Kelly Druga
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently made several appointments, according to committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA). -
Trump’s Folly
Sep 13, 2017 | The New York Times
By Thomas L. Friedman
The other low-probability, high-impact threat is climate change fueled by increased human-caused carbon emissions. -
Trump Team Wades Back Into Climate Talks
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
Administration officials plan to attend climate-focused meetings abroad and host a breakfast in New York next week to search for ways to "move forward most productively" on the Paris accord, although it's unclear what might satisfy President Trump and whether international players would even be willing to come back to the table. -
Environmentalists Seek Separate CWA Groundwater Appeals
Sep 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are urging a federal appeals court to keep separate two pending Clean Water Act (CWA) cases over liability for contaminants that leak into groundwater and then migrate to surface waters, saying a power company's bid to connect argument in the two suits lacks any basis in law and blows the groundwater issue “out of proportion.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry NAFTA Platform: Maintaining Duty-Free Status the Top Priority
Sep 13, 2017 | World Trade Online
The American Chemistry Council, representing U.S. chemical manufacturers, has issued a wish list for NAFTA reforms that leads with a recommendation to keep a key component of the current deal – duty-free status for all qualified chemical products. With more than half the three-country trade in chemicals now intra-company, the ACC says, “imposing trade barriers in chemicals within NAFTA would be like putting a tollbooth in the middle of a factory.” Besides recommending maintaining duty-free chemicals trade, the ACC singles...
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Story can be found here: https://insidetrade.com/trade/chemical-industry-nafta-platform-maintaining-duty-free-status-top-priority
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Seek Role in TSCA Framework Lawsuit
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of industry organisations has moved to intervene in defence of the US EPA, in lawsuits seeking court review of the agency's final framework rules for prioritisation and risk evaluation.
Their intervention comes after several NGOs filed the petitions for review on 10 and 11 August, following sharp criticism of the key procedural rules released by the EPA on 22 June.
NGOs and Democratic lawmakers argue that the final rules deviate drastically from the proposals set out in the Obama administration's final days, and do not faithfully implement the 2016 TSCA amendments.
Chief among NGO concerns is the agency's reversal of its approach to a substance's conditions of use. Whereas proposals from the EPA in January called for its evaluation of all such conditions, the final rule gives it discretion to exclude from its analysis certain uses.
NGOs have also faulted:
· the removal of the pre-prioritisation step;
· that the agency will no longer default to a 'high priority' designation; and
· the adoption of industry-suggested scientific definitions.
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at petitioning organisation the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said in a blog post that industry's move to intervene as an interested party proves that the final rules were bent in their favour.
"Step back for a minute and consider the unusual nature of this development: When was the last time such a heavy-hitters list of industry groups rushed in to support EPA regulations?" Dr Denison wrote.
The American Chemistry Council said in a statement that the NGO petitions "are without merit and could jeopardise EPA's ability to prioritise chemicals for risk evaluation and conduct those risk evaluations of high-priority substances within the strict but achievable timeframes that LCSA demands."
However, the industry groups’ petitions to intervene say they should be deemed to have a right to do so because they would be injured if the EPA rules are not allowed to stand.
If the NGOs succeed, the industry groups told the court, the "practical effect" would be to:
· expand the number of chemicals that would be prioritised for evaluation by the EPA;
· increase the breadth and extent of restrictions that would arise from a related rule establishing procedures for chemical risk evaluation; and
· otherwise negatively affect the market prospects of existing chemicals.
They say the NGOs and EPA all stated that they would not immediately take a position on the motion to intervene but might do so after reviewing it.
The following organisations joined in the motions to intervene:
American Chemistry Council
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers
Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates
United States Chamber of Commerce
American Coatings Association
American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute
American Forest & Paper Association
American Petroleum Institute
Battery Council International
EPS Industry Alliance
IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries
National Association of Chemical Distributors
National Mining Association
Polyurethane Manufacturers Association
Silver Nanotechnology Working Group
Styrene Information and Research Center
Utility Solid Waste Activities Group
The original petitions for court review were filed by: the EDF; the Natural Resources Defence Council, together with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and Cape Fear River Watch; and a dozen organisations represented by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Earthjustice, including Environmental Working Group, the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58682/industry-groups-seek-role-in-tsca-framework-lawsuit
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Industry Urges US EPA Against Full Paint Stripper Ban
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Manufacturers and industrial users of the paint remover methylene chloride may push for restrictions on the substance's use rather than an outright ban.
This became clear at an EPA stakeholder workshop in Boston on 12 September.
The purpose of the event, held in collaboration with the Small Business Administration, was to gather information on the chemical's use in furniture refinishing. But much of the discussion focused on consumer use of paint removers. The EPA's treatment of furniture refinishing could have implications for related proposals.
On 19 January, the agency issued a proposed rule under section 6 of TSCA that would ban all consumer, and most commercial, use of methylene chloride as a paint stripper. And the agency solicited feedback on whether to additionally ban n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), or impose rules on concentration, workplace protections and labelling.
The January proposal specifically excluded furniture refinishing, indicating that the EPA would "propose such a regulation at a later date" and that it is considering requiring both respiratory protection equipment and an outright ban.Adequate precautions?
Throughout the stakeholder meeting David Rostker, assistant chief counsel at the SBA's Office of Advocacy, an independent branch of the agency that represents the interests of small businesses in regulatory issues, asked speakers if there is a way to provide guidance on safe practices "that may be alternatives to taking chemicals off the market".
He repeatedly suggested that widely publicised deaths of people using methylene chloride stripping products is an argument for better warnings and improved use of protective equipment, rather than evidence of danger from general exposure.
"We are making leaps from 'there have been deaths' to 'this causes cancer,'" Mr Rostker said.
But Lindsay McCormick, project manager of NGO Environmental Defense Fund's health programme, argued that worker deaths as well as "overwhelming" scientific evidence indicates that methylene chloride should be banned without exception.
"For every use studied, there is a suitable substitute," she said. "EPA's own analysis demonstrates that concentration limits or venting controls will not address the unreasonable risk."
However, manufacturers and furniture refinishers said alternatives, like heat-based methods or other chemicals, are inadequate. They argued that even NMP, which NGOs fear could be considered an alternative, is much less effective.
NMP is twice as expensive, slower and only works on 30% of finishes, said Patrick Mitchell, president of The Strip Joint, a California refinishing business, and "all the products marketed as replacements do not work whatsoever".
Banning methylene chloride would make furniture stripping unprofitable and "would cause many businesses to close", said Benny Bixenman, owner of Benco Sales, Inc, which manufactures commercial strippers. He argued that the leading chemical alternatives are dangerously flammable.
Other refinishers echoed Mr Mitchell's opinion that "we need to take methylene chloride off retail shelves and let it be sold to licensed businesses only."
But Dennis Shireman, vice president for research and development at chemical manufacturer WM Barr, argued that methylene chloride is deadly specifically when used on bathtubs, and "this can be addressed by better labelling."Section 6
TSCA section 6, which predates the 2016 amendments, gives the EPA power to regulate a chemical if it presents an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. The paint stripper rule was one of three section 6 rules published in the Obama administration's final days.
The semiannual regulatory agenda the EPA published on 24 August indicated that the agency plans to publish a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, amending its original proposal. Advocates agreed this would be on furniture refinishing. They said this could be a clue that the agency plans to move ahead with some sort of regulation, while the agenda's treatment of section 6 proposals related to trichloroethylene (TCE) is less favourable.
The EPA will accept comments on furniture refinishing until 12 November.
There is no timetable for further action under section 6. However, methylene chloride is being reviewed separately as one of the first ten priority substances subject to mandatory risk evaluation under the new TSCA. Furniture refinishing is included in the scope of that evaluation.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58644/industry-urges-us-epa-against-full-paint-stripper-ban
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(ACC Mentioned) Partisan Debate Over IRIS Continues in US
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The longstanding debate over the EPA's Integrated Risk Information System continued during and after a recent hearing, held by two House subcommittees.
Republicans questioned the programme's scientific foundation but also argued that IRIS has failed to adequately address critical reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and should be discontinued.
The House Science and Technology Committee's subcommittees on Environment and Oversight jointly held the hearing on 6 September.
One of the majority's witnesses was Kenneth Mundt of consultancy Ramboll Environ. He led an industry-backed analysis, published in July, challenging the EPA's conclusion that formaldehyde is carcinogenic when inhaled. The 2010 draft assessment generated under IRIS attracted strong criticism from the NAS as well as industry, and led to EPA efforts to improve the clarity and transparency of the IRIS programme. Formaldehyde is still officially under evaluation and the release date for the final assessment has yet to be determined.
Dr Mundt and James Bus, senior managing scientist at the consultancy Exponent, argued that IRIS sometimes extrapolates animal studies improperly and fails to differentiate between the studies it analyses in choosing which results to rely on. He said the IRIS assessment of trichloroethylene (TCE) may lead to the unnecessary reopening of Superfund sites.
"Which studies you use as the bases of making determinations [is the decision that] really drives the regulatory action," Dr Bus said.
But neither witness agreed with abolishing IRIS, as Representative Andy Biggs (Republican-Arizona), the environment subcommittee chairman, proposed in an amendment to a fiscal 2018 appropriations bill. Dr Mundt explicitly said: "I don't think all the current functions of IRIS could be absorbed by other organisations."
Thomas Burke, a professor of risk sciences at Johns Hopkins University, defended EPA's analysis of TCE, which he called "one of most pervasive contaminants the world has ever seen". He said the criticism of IRIS is less an objective disagreement over analytical methodology than "frustration on the part of stakeholders because they don't like the answer".
Professor Burke, who was the EPA's science adviser and director of its Office of Research and Development in the Obama administration, echoed the committee's Democrats in pointing to a 1 September letter from the agency's independent Science Advisory Board to Administrator Scott Pruitt praising the "rapid progress" IRIS has made in adopting recommended reforms.
Democrats observed pointedly that the Republican majority had not invited anyone from the GAO, the NAS or the EPA itself. Representative Suzanne Bonamici (Democrat-Oregon) tried to bait Chairman Biggs into summoning Mr Pruitt to a future event, saying "we shouldn't go a whole year without hearing from the EPA".
When the hearing was over, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued a statement applauding the committee "for their continued efforts to enact positive reforms to EPA's chemical assessment approaches".
From the other side, Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), published an impassioned article characterising the hearing as part of an ongoing attempt by the chemical industry to discredit IRIS.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58649/partisan-debate-over-iris-continues-in-us
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Junk Rocket Science: How Trump’s EPA Nominee Greenwashed Brain-Damaging Chemical
Sep 13, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Before he became President Trump’s pick to oversee the nation's chemical safety, Michael Dourson argued for a weak drinking water standard for a rocket fuel chemical that impairs babies’ developing brains, on behalf of big defense contractors and chemical companies.
Dourson, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency's chemical safety office, advocated for a legal limit on perchlorate up to eight times weaker than the level proposed by EPA and up to 16 times weaker than the public health goal set by California state scientists. The explosive ingredient in rocket fuel, perchlorate contaminates tap water supplies for an estimated 9 million Americans.
Dourson founded and ran a science-for-hire consulting firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. TERA has been paid to conduct chemical safety studies by dozens of companies, including Boeing, Kerr-McGee, Goodrich, Lockheed Martin, and other members of the Perchlorate Study Group. The industry-funded group has lobbied for decades against tighter regulations on the rocket fuel chemical.
After years of pressure from EWG and other groups, the EPA finally decided in 2011 to set a legally enforceable drinking water standard for the chemical. But the EPA has failed to propose or set a standard, and had to be sued by the Natural Resources Defense Council before agreeing to finalize a rule before the end of 2019.
The EPA had previously concluded that consumers should not be exposed to more than 0.7 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg-day) of perchlorate because it interferes with the thyroid gland’s ability to use iodine to make a thyroid hormone critical to infants' brain development –many advocates thought this level was still not protective enough. In 2015, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published an even lower value of 0.37 mg/kg-day and a public health goal for drinking water of 1 part per billion – the level the scientists say will protect both adults and infants from thyroid harm.
Dourson's been working for perchlorate polluters a long time. In 2005, he co-wrote a journal letter arguing that perchlorate standards could safely be 100 times higher than the level proposed by the EPA. In 2012, after the EPA signaled its intent to create a drinking water standard, he helped write another article suggesting that 6 mg/kg-day would be a safe exposure level – eight times higher than the acceptable daily dose the EPA subsequently adopted, and 16 times higher than the acceptable daily dose the California scientists used to set the state's public health goal.
Dourson's advocacy for a lax perchlorate standard is typical of his career. On behalf of the chemical industry, Dourson has repeatedly sought to weaken safety standards for PFOA, a carcinogen formerly used to make Teflon, and 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen that contaminates drinking water and personal care products. He's also worked to greenwash chlorpyrifos and other herbicides linked to cancer and brain damage; the food chemical diacetyl, which gives workers “popcorn lung”; and TCE, the cancer-causing chemical made infamous by the book and movie “A Civil Action.”
Other polluters that have paid for Dourson’s services include Monsanto, Dow and the Koch brothers. But unless the Senate refuses to confirm his nomination, Dourson will soon decide the fate of perchlorate, chlorpyrifos, TCE, glyphosate and scores of other toxic chemicals linked to cancer and brain damage.
http://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/09/junk-rocket-science-how-trump-s-epa-nominee-greenwashed-brain-damaging-chemical#.WblSyLIjHIV
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Unilever US Discloses Fragrance Ingredients in Nearly 100 Products
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Fragrance ingredient information for almost 100 Unilever US products has been made available online and through an app.
The released information covers selected products across seven personal care brands – Dove, Axe, Degree, Nexxus, Suave, TRESemmé and Vaseline.
A Unilever spokesperson told Chemical Watch: "We work with several fragrance suppliers and this was the first set of fragrance ingredients we received from a supplier and processed into our system."
Unilever first announced its plans in February. It said it would provide consumers with information about specific fragrance ingredients above 0.01% (100 parts per million) present in its personal care products by the end of 2018.
Procter & Gamble also recently announced an initiative to reveal all the fragrance ingredients in its products above 0.01%, by the end of 2019.
The Unilever information will be available to view on the SmartLabel app and on the company's What’s in Our Products website, which launched earlier this year.
There are also descriptions of each fragrance ingredient to help consumers understand their purpose and benefit.
The spokesperson said that Unilever requires its suppliers to adhere to its responsible sourcing policy (RSP) and verify alignment to its mandatory requirements, through the use of:
· supplier self-declaration;
· online assessments; and
· third party audits in designated high-risk countries.
Consumer barrier
Welcoming the company's action, Dev Gowda of the NGO US Public Interest Group (US PIRG) said: "These are some of the most popular Unilever brands and it’s great that the first round of implementation includes products for the entire family."
However, he added, the company should disclose the ingredients on product packaging rather than online and via an app.
"Needing a smart phone in the store or having to look up the ingredients online at home before shopping is an unnecessary barrier for consumers," Mr Gowda said.
Alex Scranton, director of science and research at the NGO, Women's Voices For the Earth, also questioned why the company did not add the fragrance ingredients to product labels.
"For years, major manufacturers claimed that, if they had to disclose all of the fragrance chemicals on the label, there would be no room because they would be listing up to 100 additional chemical names on each product. In reality, now they are disclosing, the number of fragrance ingredients is much smaller," she said.
Ms Scranton also noted that SC Johnson, which has a Glade product range with 100% ingredient disclosure, lists around 50 fragrance ingredients compared to six to ten ingredients for Unilever and eight to 17 for P&G, which are both only revealing those above 0.01%.
"So are SC Johnson’s fragrances just simply much more complex (involving more ingredients) than P&G's or Unilever's or is the fragrance disclosure we are getting (everything above 0.01%) giving us much less information than we expected it might?" she asked.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58617/unilever-us-discloses-fragrance-ingredients-in-nearly-100-products
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State Officials and Chemours Reach Partial Deal on Gen X; Cape Fear Utility Authority Not Consulted
Sep 13, 2017 | North State Journal
By Mollie Young
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the Chemours Company have reached a preliminary agreement to halt the future discharge of GenX into the state waters, after state officials sought a temporary restraining order against the company responsible for releasing unregulated chemical compounds into the Cape Fear River.
“By failing to disclose the presence of GenX and related compounds in its discharge, and by misrepresenting that GenX and related compounds were not present in its discharge, Chemours has caused a state of public alarm and uncertainty regarding the safety of public drinking water,” the state complaint read.
Legal teams deliberated privately for close to five hours on Friday, before Judge Douglas Sasser of the Bladen County Superior Court granted a partial consent order.
As part of the agreement, Chemours will continue measures to prevent wastewater contaminated by GenX and Nafion byproducts from being released into state waters. The company will also be required to provide the federal Environmental Protection Agency and NCDEQ with confidential business information, in a timely manner, to comply with their ongoing investigations.
The complaint comes as part of Gov. Roy Cooper’s response to reports that Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant was releasing GenX, a fluorinated chemical, into the Cape Fear River as a byproduct of producing nonstick coating.
Chemours said the chemical has been released for 37 years and has a federal consent order in place that exempted the chemical when it was produced as a byproduct.
In June, NCDEQ inspected the Chemours plant and reported that they had properly isolated the byproduct from public water sources, but later stated concerns about two additional compounds — Nafion byproduct 1 and 2.
State lawmakers have criticized Cooper and his environmental head, Michael Regan, for a slow response to the crisis. Republican leadership questioned why it took months for the executive branch to issue a Notice of Violation — often an initial step in holding violators accountable and requiring them to bear the cleanup costs, and passed legislation to direct funding to measure and develop technologies to remove GenX from public water supplies.
NCDEQ eventually issued an NOV to Chemours on September 6, just days before a deadline set by the General Assembly.
The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which monitors the main water supply affected by the contamination, said they were not consulted prior to negotiations with Chemours on Friday and were not invited to participate in the hearing. Regardless, after reviewing the order they were pleased with the results.
“We applaud the DEQ for taking this action and believe that the Court would have granted a TRO with or without Chemours consent,” the utility said in a statement on Monday.
https://nsjonline.com/article/2017/09/state-officials-and-chemours-reach-partial-deal-on-gen-x-cape-fear-utility-authority-not-consulted/
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In California, Cleaning Products Come Clean on Ingredients
Sep 13, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Monica Amarelo
In a major victory toward safer cleaning products in the marketplace, today California lawmakers approved legislation to require manufacturers to disclose the ingredients in home and commercial cleaning products. If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, California would join New York as one of only two states with cleaning products disclosure laws.
The Cleaning Product Right to Know Act, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would require ingredients – particularly hazardous chemicals, including those used in fragrance mixtures – to be listed on both product labels and online. It would not require disclosure of the concentrations of these ingredients, or how the product is formulated and processed.
“California will be the first in the nation to clear the air for consumers and workers about what is in their cleaning products,” said Sen. Lara. “Consumers are demanding transparency and the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act will set a strong national standard. Consumer advocates and manufacturers worked together to disclose potentially harmful ingredients while allowing businesses to protect proprietary information and retain some flexibility.”
“Consumers and professional cleaners will be able to breathe easier knowing the ingredients in their household and industrial cleaning products,” said Bill Allayaud, EWG's California director of government affairs. “The demand for transparency is growing, as people, workers and business owners want to make informed decisions about the cleaning products they choose to purchase and use.”
Until now, consumers and public health agencies have been left in the dark by labeling requirement loopholes that have allowed manufacturers to hide allergic and even carcinogenic ingredients in their cleaning products. Many manufacturers make it difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to learn what ingredients are in products, because they don't want shoppers to know that their products contain chemicals that can cause reproductive problems, exacerbate asthma, burn or irritate skin, and harm the environment.
A Groundbreaking Bill
“Consumers are increasingly demanding information about the ingredients in their products, and this is especially true for cleaning products. Breast cancer survivors and new and expecting moms, in particular, work extra hard to avoid chemicals that could contribute to a re-occurrence of cancer or negatively impact the healthy development of their children” said Nancy Buermeyer, senior policy strategist for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners. “This groundbreaking bill will help consumers make educated decisions about their purchases and avoid harmful chemicals.”
“This is truly a breakthrough! For the first time ever companies will be legally required to disclose ingredients in fragrance,” said Jamie McConnell, director of programs and policy at Women’s Voices for the Earth. “But passing SB 258 isn’t simply about listing ingredients – it’s about eliminating the barriers that prevent women and men from having the information they need to avoid concerning ingredients like powerful allergens, or synthetic musks linked to breast cancer, or known hormone distruptors like phthalates – all of which can be found in fragrance. Calling this bill a game-changer is an under-statement. This is going to change lives.”
Even cleaning products advertised as “green” or “natural” may contain ingredients that can cause health problems. Manufacturers can use almost any ingredient they choose, including known carcinogens, and substances known to pose health or environmental hazards.
“We all have the right to know the ingredients in the products we bring into our homes that could affect our health,” said Avinash Kar, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That’s why consumers overwhelmingly support ingredient disclosure. The cleaning product industry recognized this consumer demand and worked with our coalition to craft a solution in Sen. Lara’s bill. This bill will put California, once again, at the forefront of public health protections.”
New York passed a cleaning products disclosure bill in 1971, but inexplicably never implemented it. After pressure from environmental and consumer groups, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation is currently working on guidance to manufacturers on how to comply with the law. With the two largest states mandating disclosure, some companies will likely reformulate their products to remove ingredients of concern.
Federal regulations do not require manufacturers of cleaning products to disclose their ingredients on product labels. In the absence of legislation, some companies like Proctor & Gamble, SC Johnson and Unilever have voluntarily provided detailed information on fragrance ingredients. But without mandatory disclosure, most companies resist calls to list all ingredients and use the term “fragrance” to hide hundreds of chemicals, including known allergens, on the grounds that they are obligated to protect the trade secrets of their fragrance suppliers.
Workers, particularly janitors and housekeeping staff, are exposed to chemicals in cleaning products all day, every day. Women account for 9 out of 10 domestic workers and housekeepers, and of those, a majority are Latina or African American. Cleaning ingredients vary in the type of problems they can pose for workers: some cause acute allergic reactions, while others are associated with chronic or long-term effects such as asthma and cancer. Work-related asthma among California’s janitors and cleaners is nearly double the rate of the overall workforce.
“While research shines light on the harms of secret chemicals used in common cleaning products, very little of this information makes its way to domestic workers, like house clearners, who are the most exposed. Domestic workers deserve the right to know and based on that information, hopefully have the ability to leverage the use of better products with their employers,” said Nancy Zuniga of the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA). “Commercial cleaning professionals and domestic workers have a right to know what’s hiding in these products so they can protect themselves whenever possible in their workplace – their health shouldn’t be compromised for the work they do.”
“Every day consumers are exposed to chemicals commonly found in products used to clean and disinfect their homes, cars and offices,” said Mayra Soto of Pacoima Beautiful. “Consumers of all socioeconomic backgrounds have a right to know exactly what chemicals are in the products they are buying for themselves and their children. As the expectation of more transparency continues to skyrocket, this mandatory disclosure will guarantee that consumers and workers will know what chemicals are in these cleaners to better protect their health.”
EWG’s interactive Guide to Healthy Cleaning provides real-time hazard and ingredient information on more than 2,500 products to fill the transparency void, drive the market toward healthier products and empower consumers through education.
http://www.ewg.org/release/california-cleaning-products-come-clean-ingredients#.WblSB7IjHIU
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Cefic Urges Certainty Around Compliance With EU Regulations
Sep 13, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Cefic's director general has called for a tighter rein on compliance with EU chemical controls in order to secure a level playing field.
Marco Mensink (pictured) says enforcement is "crucial" and must be improved to guarantee uniformity across the EU – especially for substances regulated by REACH. "Member states must ensure that companies comply with the EU regulatory framework when entering substances and articles on the EU market," he says.
He has also addressed concerns around controls on articles imported into the bloc. "Certainty that compliance with EU regulations is equally met by global competitors" is a "crucial element" for small and large European chemical companies, he says.
His comments follow today’s publication of the Commission’s Communication Investing in a smart, innovative and sustainable Industry – a renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy. In it, the Commission outlines nine key plans, including:
· maintaining and reinforcing Europe's industrial leadership in the age of globalisation;
· making its industry stronger through job creation and growth via innovation and investment;
· boosting the single market by facilitating integration of companies in European and global value chains and acting as an essential driver of industrial competitiveness;
· building on the Union’s leadership in a low-carbon and circular economy; and
· promoting a global level playing field in bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations.
The Communication, Mr Mensink says, is "a good starting point", but he warns that "more work will need to be done to translate this into a truly impactful strategy". He adds that in order to boost economic growth through innovation and investments, "concrete actions" are necessary.
His comments precede Echa’s Enforcement Forum meeting on 7-10 November, at which authorities will discuss issues and projects around the enforcement of the REACH, CLP and prior informed consent (Pic) Regulations.
Harmonisation
Cefic has previously raised concerns about the mismatch between EU and non-EU regulation of the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals.
In its comments to the European Commission’s consultation on the regulatory fitness of chemicals legislation, excluding REACH, Cefic said various non-EU countries "implement different building blocks" of GHS. This is "not sufficiently addressed" in the CLP legislation and in practice, especially in labelling, Cefic said. And it means more communication is needed in the supply chain, which incurs "significant costs".
In addition, more coordination is needed between the EU and the rest of the world to ensure a successful circular economy, it has said. The knowledge gap at the recycling stage, Cefic said in July, will not be solved "simply by increased information provided through the value chain, because it results also from the lack of information related to imported articles".
It is necessary, the organisation said, to address the global flow of materials that ends up in European recycling systems. It has urged an EU study on imported articles to help to identify "priority value chains that need to be addressed and which measures, such as restriction, could be implemented to limit the entry of ‘contaminated’ articles".
Learn more about the current challenges for EU enforcement at Chemical Watch’s Enforcement Summitfrom 13-14 November in Brussels.
https://chemicalwatch.com/5867
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Dangerous Chemicals Found to Abound in ‘Green’ Housing
Sep 13, 2017 | Courthouse News
By Sean Duffy
Many materials used to construct “green” housing can expose residents to dangerous indoor air pollution, according to a study that examines how toxic chemicals are introduced to seemingly environmentally friendly homes.
Indoor air quality is a concern in housing development, particularly in low-income and minority communities, as research has shown that units in these communities often have higher levels of pollutants.
The report, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Institute, offers insight into how building materials featuring such hazardous substances, as well as certain personal items, expose residents to health problems that may include hormone disruption, lower IQ and cancer.
“Most buildings aren’t designed with people’s health in mind,” said lead author Robin Dodson, an environmental exposure scientist at the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, Mass. “Yet, indoor air pollution can lead to a range of health problems.”
To identify the primary culprits of such pollution, the team collected air and dust samples inside newly renovated subsidized housing in Boston, which were redeveloped to meet certain green standards. The researchers collected samples before and after residents moved in.
“This is the first study to look at air pollutants pre- and post-occupancy, allowing us to really hone in on the sources,” Dodson said.
The team tested for nearly 100 chemicals, including formaldehyde, pesticides, flame retardants, fragrances and phthalates — substances that have been associated with numerous health problems.
After comparing pre- and post-occupancy samples, the researchers identified several chemicals that appeared to originate from the building, including two flame retardants: tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) and tris(1,3-dichloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCDIPP). The researchers believe these substances may have been added to the insulation.
To their surprise, the team also found multiple chemicals coming from the building that are typically used in personal care products. These include benzophenone (BP) and benzophenone-3 (BP-3), which are found in sunscreen. The researchers also detected di-butyl phthalate (DBP), a chemical used in nail polish and perfumes.
“We certainly didn’t expect to see that,” Dodson said. “It’s possible these chemicals are being added to paints or floor finishes.”
The makeup of the units’ indoor air changed once residents moved in, including significant increases in levels of triclosan — an antimicrobial used in soaps and toothpaste — and phthalates, which are added to plastics, vinyl and personal care products.
The team also detected higher levels of fragrances used in personal care and cleaning products, and flame retardants found in furniture. This shows that residents’ personal belongings and behaviors also affect the air inside their units.
Several chemicals that have been banned or phased out were found, including the flame retardant 2,2′,4,4′- tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE 47), which was found post-occupancy. Phased out in 2005 due to health concerns, BDE 47 is a component of a flame retardant mixture commonly known as PentaBDE. The chemical is present in older furniture. Diazinon and propoxur, pesticides that were banned from residential use in 2004 and 2007, respectively, were also found inside the units.
Formaldehyde, a carcinogen, was detected in all units, apparently coming from the residents and from the building. The volume of formaldehyde exceeded risk-based screening levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Several other chemicals were also above screening levels, according to the study.
“These results are extremely informative,” said John Kane, senior program coordinator for the Boston Housing Authority. “We’re committed to creating housing that is not only safe and affordable, but also healthy, and this study will help support our efforts toward achieving that goal.”
Dodson said the findings could be used to develop new strategies for improving air quality in similar housing projects and other developments. She noted that consumers can limit their exposure to dangerous chemicals by using products without them.
“But the onus shouldn’t be on them,” Dodson said. “People living in public housing don’t have as much control over their building, and we know from this study that the building is an important source of exposure to harmful chemicals.”
Dodson said that green building standards should be expanded to include other hazardous chemicals, and that such changes are particularly important following natural disasters such as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which require massive rebuilding projects.
“We should use these opportunities to get things right the first time by using safer, and healthier, materials that won’t make people sick,” she said.
https://www.courthousenews.com/dangerous-chemicals-found-abound-green-housing/
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Burgeoning Legal Movement Pits Landowners Against Pipelines
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Justin Lugar is more familiar with white-collar criminal defense than the intricacies of pipelines and eminent domain law.
And yet the Roanoke, Va.-based Gentry Locke attorney recently found himself at the center of a potentially precedent-setting battle over a gas project slated to sweep 300 miles across Appalachia.
Lugar is representing 10 landowners in the path of the proposed Mountain Valley pipeline in an ambitious lawsuit that challenges the standard federal process for pipeline development and land acquisition through eminent domain.
"This is way out of left field for me," he said. "I love litigating, I love fighting and I love being the underdog. But there's always that unknown."
The pipeline battle has also led Carolyn Reilly to unfamiliar territory. The southern Virginia resident saw her daily routine upended when Mountain Valley backers in 2014 unveiled plans to cut through 4 acres of the small farm she runs with her husband and parents in rural Franklin County.
The family has spent the past three years working with neighbors to oppose the project, and in February, Reilly signed on to work as a "regional pipeline fighter" for Bold Alliance, the anti-pipeline group that sprang from opposition to Keystone XL in Nebraska.
Just last week, Bold Alliance and more than 50 landowners, including Reilly, filed their own lawsuit against government officials and builders of the Mountain Valley proposal and the Atlantic Coast pipeline, a separate project proposed farther north in Virginia.
Like Lugar and his clients, they're taking aim at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's delegation of eminent domain power to private companies that build pipeline infrastructure across the country. Attorney Carolyn Elefant, who is representing the group, said the agency's longtime practice of giving that power to builders treads on property rights protected under the Fifth Amendment.
"Those rights are given to the pipeline without any real assessment of whether the pipeline is serving a public use," she said, referring to the amendment's decree that private property can be taken for public use when owners receive just compensation.
Both lawsuits — Elefant's in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Lugar's in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia — stem from rising tension between landowners and the backers of new projects that have stretched across the country to move natural gas from shale fields to markets.
"We have more projects, and we have the public more focused on the issue, more worked up about the issue and a sense that momentum is perhaps building in that area," said Alexandra Klass, a University of Minnesota law professor who has researched the use of eminent domain for pipelines.
Indeed, the two lawsuits are just the start. Additional eminent domain litigation is on deck for the Appalachia projects, and another case challenges property takings for the Nexus natural gas pipeline in Ohio, which just received FERC approval.
Klass and other property and energy law experts are watching the cases with interest. While many are skeptical that the landowners will ultimately prevail, some say the issue is ripe for debate in the courtroom.
"I think it's a good vehicle because, interesting enough, no one has previously challenged FERC's eminent domain authority under the Natural Gas Act," said David Bookbinder, a former Sierra Club lawyer who is now chief counsel for the libertarian Niskanen Center.What counts as public use?
Indeed, FERC's practice of granting eminent domain authority to pipeline builders has gone largely unchallenged for decades.
As laid out in amendments to the Natural Gas Act in 1947, developers are allowed to take land, with compensation, from any holdout landowners along an approved route after FERC grants what's known as a "certificate of public convenience and necessity."
Elefant and Lugar say it's time to take a closer look at whether that arrangement meets the constitutional public use standard for taking property, especially in light of major changes to pipeline regulation and natural gas markets.
"Once upon a time when the Natural Gas Act was passed, pipelines did serve a public use: They acted as utilities, delivering gas to remote communities to keep Grandma warm in the winter," Elefant said. "Today, with deregulation, all of that has changed. Today's pipelines are basically being used as a platform ... for supporting commodity sales and gas for export. Those are activities that don't constitute public use."
The two lawsuits include a number of distinct issues but overlap in their core challenge to how the eminent domain process works. They say FERC's criteria for pipeline builders to receive a certificate fall short of the constitutional public use standard.
While the agency's process has evolved through the years, its current approach is spelled out in a 1999 policy statement that establishes a balancing test weighing potential public benefits against adverse effects.
"FERC cannot change the constitutional standard," said Brian Hodges, an attorney for the property-rights-focused Pacific Legal Foundation. "FERC is an administrative agency, so issuing a certificate authorizing the exercise of eminent domain upon a showing that the public benefit will outweigh any harms that may result from establishing a pipeline is not the constitutional standard for determining public use. The public use still has to be determined consistent with the Constitution."
Lugar says FERC's practice also runs afoul of the nondelegation doctrine, which requires Congress to give agencies an "intelligible principle" to steer regulations.
"Congress, however, failed to set forth any set standard, known as an intelligible principle, rendering its delegation of power overly broad and unconstitutional," Lugar's lawsuit says. "Without boundaries from Congress, FERC has run wild in the years since, and has unconstitutionally subdelegated the power of eminent domain to private parties seeking private profits."
FERC has responded forcefully in legal filings that urge the district court in Virginia to throw out the case on procedural grounds.
While the plaintiffs have argued that the constitutional nature of their challenges make district court the proper venue, FERC counters that the lawsuits amount to challenges to certificate proceedings — which the Natural Gas Act places under appellate courts' jurisdiction.
Plus, the agency argues, the issue is not ripe for review. FERC hasn't yet made a final decision on certificates for the pipelines, and even when it does, landowners must first make any complaints to the agency before they can seek judicial review, FERC lawyers told the Virginia district court last month. If the lawsuits are not dismissed, the agency will respond to the substance of the plaintiffs' allegations over the next few months.
Backers of the pipelines are quick to note, too, that the projects are being built to serve growing demand from public utilities in the region.
"Our region's existing pipelines are fully tapped and are unable to meet the growing energy needs of public utilities and the economy," said Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for Atlantic Coast backer Dominion Energy Inc. "The FERC will thoroughly evaluate public need in its final order."
Steep battle
On a recent tour of Mountain Valley's proposed route near Roanoke, Lugar looked down an abrupt slope of a transmission corridor on Poor Mountain, imagining the even bigger footprint of the pipeline and the many affected landowners along the route.
"You've got to draw a line somewhere, and our Constitution is supposed to do that," he said. "If nobody stands up and says no, then the default is that it's OK. And it's not."
Still, he acknowledged, the fight will be an uphill battle — "a very steep, steep mountain."
Many legal experts tend to agree with that outlook, largely because public use has been broadly interpreted for years — making it less likely that a court would second-guess FERC's analysis today.
"You've got a lot of deference to FERC in their determinations, and that deference seems to be given by the Natural Gas Act itself," said Klass, the Minnesota law professor.
The biggest development in eminent domain law in recent years was the Supreme Court's landmark Kelo v. City of New London in 2005. In the 5-4 decision, the court sided with New London, Conn., in its effort to use eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another for redevelopment.
The majority adopted a broad interpretation of public use to include economic development.
Many say the decision supports expansive application of eminent domain in other contexts, including pipelines. But others believe the high court — if it ever considers the pipeline question directly — will view the use of eminent domain for modern gas projects as a bridge too far.
"How do we as a society think about delegating the ability to infringe on people's property rights to a private corporation?" said Reed Watson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Montana-based group that prioritizes property rights and free markets. "That, to me, is Kelo 2.0, if you will."
Bookbinder agreed, arguing that FERC's criteria for approving pipelines and granting eminent domain power could catch the court's attention because they do not "rise to the level of even what the court found acceptable in Kelo."
State reform and its limits
Outside the pipeline context, Kelo actually led to major reforms in eminent domain law across the country.
Several states were concerned at the breadth of power protected by the decision and worked to tighten state-level rules for taking property. But those state reform efforts generally focused on restricting economic development takings and did not change the way land is acquired for energy infrastructure.
In more recent years, some states have turned their attention to oil pipelines, which go through a state-level route approval process. South Carolina and Georgia, for example, have restricted the use of eminent domain for oil pipelines. Landowners in other jurisdictions, including Ohio and Iowa, have challenged property takings for pipelines in court.
"What [Kelo] did, and the legislative reaction and the backlash to that case did, was make property rights advocates and property owners more emboldened to take on 'What is a public use?' and to try to litigate that in different contexts," Klass said.
But, she cautioned, the debate is more complicated for gas projects.
"If you're a landowner, you don't really care whether it's an oil pipeline or a gas pipeline, right? It's a pipeline; it has the same impact on your property," she said. "And so in terms of public opinion, the fact that one is state and one is federal doesn't matter that much.
"From a legal standpoint, it matters a lot."
That's because, unlike oil pipelines, natural gas lines are approved at the federal level — through FERC's certificate process. That means changes to state laws, constitutions and case law don't affect how interstate gas pipelines are approved, and any legal challenges must take on the federal permitting process and the broad eminent domain power protected under Kelo.
Robert McNamara, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, which represented the landowner in Kelo, said plaintiffs are trying to export that state-level "just skepticism" of eminent domain to the federal level. But it's hard to know what will happen in federal courts, he said.
A foothold?
George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, who has spent the past 12 years studying Kelo and its implications, said a targeted effort to get the court to reconsider aspects of the decision might be possible with the right case.
"While I think Kelo makes it very hard to challenge a taking ... it's possible that they might rethink parts of Kelo or maybe even overrule it," he said. "I don't think it's super likely that Kelo would be overruled in the immediate future, but it certainly could potentially be narrowed, and overruling is not out of the question."
The ideal case, he said, would involve what's known as a "pretextual taking," in which the stated purpose of a project is merely a pretext for benefiting a private party. To make a strong case, pipeline challengers would need to show that a project is not designed to serve multiple shippers, that it will financially benefit just one or two companies and that those private benefits are the primary motivation for development, he said.
But it's not clear these pipeline cases would rise to that level, he added.
"It's possible that they might be able to somehow show that the taking is actually pretextual, but overall, I'm not optimistic that they could win under the Supreme Court's current approach to the federal public use clause," he said.
Indeed, the pipeline backers have sought to dispel the notion that the projects don't serve the public. EQT Corp. has touted regional energy reliability benefits from the Mountain Valley pipeline, and Dominion has noted that the Atlantic Coast pipeline proposal was a direct response to requests from regional utilities for more natural gas capacity.
Given the legal hurdles, Klass said the most effective path toward eminent domain reform for pipelines would be an amendment to the Natural Gas Act. But that would be a heavy lift in the current Congress, which is more focused on streamlining infrastructure development.
Somin noted, however, that dissipating public support for eminent domain for natural gas pipelines could at least crack open the door to legal changes.
"Sometimes with these kinds of things, the trend of opinion at one level of government can affect the other level," he said. "So people might be rolling the dice and saying, 'Let's try.' We could be looking at a period where the ground begins to shift in this area of jurisprudence."
For Reilly, the southern Virginia landowner and Bold Alliance organizer, that shift can't come soon enough. She fears the pipeline will disrupt her family farm and, worse, that it will steamroll property rights in the region.
"'Is there anywhere we can try to get a foothold on a case like this?'" she said, recalling her early deliberation about bringing an eminent domain challenge. "Part of it to me as a landowner, too, was, 'We don't know if we don't try.' It's worth making the effort and taking a position and standing up for what we know is right."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/13/stories/1060060443
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In Harvey and Irma, Different Tales for Oil and Gas
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By David Iaconangelo
As Florida takes stock of the destruction left by Hurricane Irma, the U.S. oil industry is likely to see a fall in demand, said Goldman Sachs analysts in a research note Monday.
But compared to Harvey, where disruptions in networks of pipelines, refineries and shipways took offline about 20 percent of the nation's processing capacity in the ensuing days, Florida's post-storm paralysis would reverberate less dramatically across oil and gas markets, the authors wrote.
"We believe that Irma will have a large impact on oil demand but not on oil production or processing as the region is sparse in such infrastructure," they said.
Few oil and gas wells, and no refineries or ethylene crackers, lay along the hurricane's path in Florida. And the three pipelines threading different parts of the peninsula are used to supply Floridians with natural gas consumed mostly in the generation of electricity.
Even solely in terms of disruption to demand, Irma wouldn't measure up to Harvey, the analysts said.
"Although Irma will be a more powerful hurricane than Harvey with potentially greater destruction, the negative impact on oil demand will be smaller," they said. "This is because Texas has twice the oil consumption per capita of Florida given the significant concentration of refining and petrochemical capacity on the US Gulf Coast."
The analysts also revised earlier predictions that crude flows after Harvey would return to normal within two weeks, predicting they wouldn't normalize until a full four weeks had elapsed.
Richard Kuprewicz, a veteran adviser on gas pipeline operations and president of Accufacts Inc., said in the lead-up to Irma's landfall that pipelines were often designed "so they can run independently, like an island on their own."
Among potential vulnerabilities, he suggested, might be anything that relies on electric power.
"Florida is a great big old peninsula, so there's no real obstacle" to hurricane winds, he said.
"If you lose electric power, would your backups actually work? We never rely on a common-linked backup system," Kuprewicz said. "You'd have critical electric power coming from more than one source."
Operators of the Gulfstream and Sabal Trail pipelines, which deliver natural gas from neighboring states to central Florida, said Irma had not interrupted service.
Pipeline safety authorities said in a Friday notice that contractors would carry out post-storm inspections of pipelines by helicopter "as soon as possible" and suspended enforcement of compliance with operator qualification requirements.
When asked for details on authorities' post-storm efforts, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration spokespeople referred questions to the online notice.
Christopher Stockton, a spokesman for Gulfstream operator Williams Partners LP, said an ongoing assessment of above-ground facilities had so far turned up "no significant operational issues."
Post-Harvey fuel shortages in Texas did find some parallel in Florida, where gas pumps in many of Florida's biggest cities had run dry. A little over half of Miami and Fort Lauderdale's stations were out of fuel as of yesterday morning, according to the crowdsourced tracker GasBuddy, though shortages had been alleviated somewhat compared to prior days as stations replenished their supplies.
The Goldman Sachs note suggested that the condition of Florida ports could be a bellwether of impact to demand, given the state's reliance on ships for deliveries of nearly all of its refined products.
As of yesterday afternoon, Fort Lauderdale's Port Everglades, an important destination for fuel shipments, had been reopened with restrictions. U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Megan Dean said the port was open only for daylight transit, as aids to navigation near shore had been damaged.
Several other Florida ports remained closed, including Tampa's Port Manatee, another major receiver of oil and gas cargo. A spokesperson from the Coast Guard said the agency was working with the Army Corps of Engineers to assess damage and called reopenings a "top priority."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/13/stories/1060060437
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Houston Refineries Scramble to Get Back to Normal
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Refining in this fuel manufacturing hub is still struggling to return to normal operating mode, weeks after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc here.
Many operations have resumed runs at normal capacity since the storm finally left this region, but three of southeast Texas' largest refineries are still cleaning up and making repairs. Harvey dumped rain on the Houston metropolitan area for five days before finally leaving this state almost exactly two weeks ago.
The inundation shuttered some 25 percent of the nation's refining capacity. Things are slowly returning to normal: Media reports say that a major fuels and chemicals plant in Deer Park run by Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Mexico's state-owned oil company is resuming normal operations and suggest a possible return to business as usual there by the end of the week.
Less certain is the state of the nation's largest and second-largest refining centers: Motiva Enterprises LLC, owned by Saudi Aramco, and Exxon Mobil Corp.'s massive Baytown complex.
Exxon Mobil representative Suann Guthrie was still unable to provide an estimated time for when the company thinks the Baytown plant will be fully operational again. She said work there is ongoing. The company has had better luck getting petrochemical manufacturing units back online.
"ExxonMobil's Baytown refinery continues to make progress on its restart activities," Guthrie said in an email. "The ExxonMobil Mont Belvieu Plastics Plant has resumed normal operations."
Questions linger over the Motiva complex, as well.
Reuters reported on Monday that Motiva output had resumed to about 40 percent capacity. With about 60 percent of its operations still likely offline, there is still no word on where cleanup and repair work stands or when the Motiva plant will have fully recovered from Harvey's damage. Company officials there did not respond to a request for comment and information.Pollution fears
As refineries do resume operations, neighboring communities face the possibility of being exposed to another wave of pollutants emitted into the air around them.
Refineries often experience "upset" emissions events during shut downs and start ups. Environmental groups active on the ground in east Houston fear that oil refining companies will move to quickly ramp up refining output given the weeks they've been forced to miss out on earnings from sales of fuels, increasing the risk of oversized emission events.
It may take another week until environmental regulators make public the full extent of the pollution stemming from flooded refineries and toxic sites. Federal agencies have reported that hazardous chemicals have mixed with floodwaters and spread beyond containment areas.
Yvette Arellano, a research fellow at Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS), said that her organization has so far counted 3 million pounds of air pollution reported to state and federal environmental regulators in records researchers there have been combing through, "and we haven't even hit the first of September."
She said environmental organizations and academic researchers are busy taking air and water samples in affected areas. TEJAS is particularly concerned with large plumes of emissions wafting over neighboring communities as refineries resume production.
"What we expect to be the worst will probably be those start-up events. We're trying to get a better understanding of how bad it is," she said.
Water pollution also remains a key concern.
Guthrie said her company is taking all the measures it can to protect communities from air pollution as normal refining output resumes.
"In response to the effects of Hurricane Harvey, we were forced to shut down our impacted facilities, and worked to do so in a safe and environmentally responsible way," she said. "We are now in the process of restarting those facilities, and are also working to ensure a safe and environmentally responsible restart."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/13/stories/1060060467
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West Virginia Officials to Reexamine Controversial Pipeline
Sep 13, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
West Virginia environmental officials are planning to take a new look at a natural gas pipeline that they previously approved amid national controversy.
The state’s Department of Environmental Protection last week withdrew approval for the Mountain Valley pipeline.
The agency told a federal court Wednesday that the information it used to approve the project “needs to be further evaluated and possibly enhanced.”
Specifically, the agency wants to take a new look at how the pipeline proposed by EQT Corp. complies with West Virginia’s “antidegradation” policy, which seeks to prevent or mitigate environmental degradation.
Wednesday’s filing was in a federal lawsuit that the Sierra Club and other environmental groups filed against the pipeline. The state agency asked that court to kick the issue back to the agency for its new review.
The Sierra Club cheered the development.
“Our rivers and streams make West Virginia a beautiful place for residents and visitors alike and preserving them also preserves what we love about our state,” said Justin Raines, chairman of the Sierra Club’s natural gas committee in West Virginia.
“The fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline is dirty, dangerous and needlessly endangers West Virginia’s waterways, wilderness, and communities, and it should be rejected.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/350457-west-virginia-officials-to-reexamine-controversial-pipeline
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Delaware River Group May Ban Fracking, Allow Waste Disposal
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
The multistate agency that has blocked natural gas development in part of northeastern Pennsylvania could move this week to make the ban permanent, but allow waste disposal from the gas industry.
The Delaware River Basin Commission is scheduled to hold a preliminary vote on the issue today.
If the procedural vote is successful, the commission said on its website that it would publishdraft regulations by Nov. 30 that would ban horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in its jurisdiction. But it would allow "storage, treatment, disposal and/or discharge of wastewater within the Basin associated with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing."
A coalition of green groups called the commission's plan a step backward, since fracking wastewater has caused a variety of problems around the country, including soil and water pollution.
"With this resolution, the DRBC is poised to roll back the high level of protection from drilling and fracking for shale our watershed now enjoys," Maya van Rossum, who leads the Delaware Riverkeeper network, said in a statement.
The Marcellus Shale gas field lies under part of the Delaware River watershed in Pennsylvania and New York. Producers use fracking to break up the rock and release gas that's trapped inside. The process produces a stream of wastewater that can be contaminated with drilling chemicals, traces of oil and gas, and underground minerals.
Fracking has helped turn Pennsylvania into the second-biggest gas-producing state in the country. But New York banned the practice in 2014 (Greenwire, Dec. 17, 2014).
The commission is made up of representatives from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and the Army Corps of Engineers. It has blocked fracking for gas within the Delaware River's watershed since it published a set of proposed regulations in 2010, which were revised in 2011 but never adopted.
Landowners and gas producers have said the commission has no authority to ban fracking, but a federal judge has sided with the commission in a lawsuit challenging the ban. The case is on appeal (Energywire, April 13).
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/13/stories/1060060465
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U.S. Investigating Arkema’s Safety Practices After Texas Fires
Sep 13, 2017 | Reuters (In Insurance Journal)
By Emily Flitter
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether chemical maker Arkema SA followed safety rules at its Crosby, Texas, plant where chemical containers exploded and burned for days after flooding from Hurricane Harvey, an EPA official said.
The EPA sent Arkema a letter asking for information that would help the agency determine whether the plant had followed chemical accident prevention rules and other parts of the Clean Air Act, according to a copy of the letter provided to Reuters by the EPA official, who did not want to be named.
Containers holding volatile organic chemicals ignited on Aug. 31, after flooding from Harvey knocked out power to the plant. Arkema’s North America chief executive had warned there was no way to prevent them from igniting after the plant’s cooling systems shut and its workers evacuated.
“We warned the public well in advance that fires would occur and of the danger of breathing the smoke from the fires at our site,” Arkema spokeswoman Janet Smith said in an email to Reuters. “We pleaded with the public, for their own safety, to respect the 1.5-mile evacuation zone imposed by the unified command well prior to any fire.”
Smith said “a number of government agencies” were investigating the plant and the company was fully cooperating.
The Sept. 7 letter, from the EPA’s Enforcement Division director, Cheryl Seager, said the company had 10 days after receiving it to comply with the agency’s request. She said the EPA could use what it received in an “administrative, civil or criminal action.”
Containers at the plant, which each held around 500,000 pounds of organic peroxides, burned for days, leading the plant’s operators to evacuate the area around the plant and carry out a controlled burn of the remaining chemicals that had not yet ignited on their own.
Police and firefighters who responded to the fires are suing Arkema in a Texas county court, claiming negligence led to the fires and caused the first responders “serious bodily injuries” when they inhaled smoke.
The first responders filed their lawsuit the same day that Seager sent her letter.
“We deeply regret that anyone suffered harm as a result of the havoc wreaked on our plant by Hurricane Harvey,” the company said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.
The EPA is also testing areas around the plant for pollutants. It announced on Saturday it had not found any volatile chemicals in water runoff samples collected from the plant.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2017/09/13/464110.htm
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Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Makes Appointments
Sep 13, 2017 | Transportation Today
By Kelly Druga
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently made several appointments, according to committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA).
“The Committee’s excellent staff has enabled our members to develop and pass important legislation to ensure America has a 21st-century infrastructure, and I look forward to the contributions of these experienced staff members in their new roles,” Shuster said. “We have a number of important priorities in the 115th Congress, including passing an FAA reform and reauthorization bill, moving an infrastructure bill, sending the next WRDA bill to the President, and more.”
Johanna Hardy was appointed staff director of the subcommittee on economic development, public buildings, and emergency management. She has worked for the subcommittee since 2008.
Denny Wirtz was appointed staff director of the subcommittee on railroads, pipelines, and hazardous materials. He has served as legislative director for Shuster since 2015.
Ian Bennitt was appointed staff director of the subcommittee on water resources and environment. He previously served as chairman of the subcommittee on water resources and environment.
Collin McCune was appointed director of coalitions and outreach. He previously served as director of member services.
Kathy Loden was appointed parliamentarian, while Brittany Smith was appointed director of member services.
https://transportationtodaynews.com/news/5448-transportation-infrastructure-committee-makes-appointments/
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Sep 13, 2017 | The New York Times
By Thomas L. Friedman
America faces two serious national security threats today that look wildly different but have one core feature in common — they both have a low probability of happening, but, if they did happen, they could have devastating consequences for our whole country and the world.
One of these threats is called North Korea. If the reckless leader of North Korea is able to launch an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles that strike the U.S. mainland, the impact on America will be incalculable.
And even though the odds of that happening are low — it would be an act of suicide by the North Korean dynasty — President Trump is ready to spend billions on antimissile systems, warships, cyberdefenses, air power and war games to defuse and deter this North Korean threat.
And if we prepare for a North Korean nuclear attack and it never happens, we will be left with some improved weaponry that we might be able to use in other theaters, like fighter jets, ships and missiles — but nothing particularly productive for our economy or job creation.
The other low-probability, high-impact threat is climate change fueled by increased human-caused carbon emissions. The truth is, if you simply trace the steady increase in costly extreme weather events — wildfires, floods, droughts and climate-related human migrations — the odds of human-driven global warming having a devastating impact on our planet are not low probability but high probability.
But let’s assume for a minute that because climate change is a complex process — which we do not fully understand — climate change is a low-probability, high-impact event just like a North Korean nuclear strike. What is the Trump team doing when confronted with this similar threat?
It’s taking a spike and poking out its own eyes. In possibly the most intellectually corrupt declaration of the Trump era — a high bar — Scott Pruitt, a longtime shill for oil and gas companies now masquerading as the head of the E.P.A., actually declared that even discussing possible links between human-driven climate disruptions and the recent monster storms was “insensitive.” He said that after our country got hit by two Atlantic Category 4 hurricanes in the same year for the first time since records have been kept — storms made more destructive by rising ocean levels and warmer ocean waters.
Makes me wonder … if Pruitt were afflicted with cancer, would he not want scientists discussing with him, let alone researching, the possible causes and solutions? Wouldn’t want to upset him.
Frauds like Pruitt like to say that the climate has been changing since long before any human drove a car, so how could humans be causing climate change? Of course they aren’t solely responsible. The climate has always changed by itself through its own natural variability. But that doesn’t mean that humans can’t exacerbate or disrupt this natural variability by warming the planet even more and, by doing so, making the hots hotter, the wets wetter, the storms harsher, the colds colder and the droughts drier.
That is why I prefer the term “global weirding” over “global warming.” The weather does get warmer in some places, but it gets weird in others. Look at the past few months: Not only were several big U.S. cities slammed by monster hurricanes, but San Francisco set a heat record — 106 degrees on Sept. 1, a day when the average high there is 70 degrees; the West was choked by record-breaking forest fires exacerbated by drought; and South Asia was slammed by extraordinarily harsh monsoons, killing some 1,400 people.
But what if we prepare for disruptive climate change and it doesn’t get as bad as feared? Where will we be? Well, we will have cleaner air to breathe, less childhood asthma, more innovative building materials and designs, and cleaner, more efficient power generation and transportation systems — all of which will be huge export industries and create tens of thousands of good, repeat jobs. Because with world population steadily rising, we all will need greener cars and power if we just want to breathe clean air, no matter what happens with the climate. We will also be less dependent on petro-dictators.
Indeed, it is safe to say, that if we overprepare for climate change and nothing much happens, it will be exactly like training for the Olympic marathon and the Olympics get canceled. You’re left with a body that is stronger, fitter and healthier.
Trump has recently fired various knuckle-headed aides whose behavior was causing him short-term embarrassment. The person he needs to fire is Scott Pruitt. Pruitt is going to cause Trump long-term embarrassment. But instead, together they are authoring a new national security doctrine — one that says when faced with a low-probability, high-impact event like North Korea, the U.S. should spend any amount of money, and if the threat doesn’t materialize, well, we’ll have a lot of Army surplus and scrap metal.
But when faced with an actually high-probability, high-impact threat called climate change, we should do nothing and poke both our eyes out, even though if the impact is less severe — and we prepare for it anyway — we will be left healthier, stronger, more productive, more resilient and more respected around the world.
That is the Pruitt-Trump Doctrine — soon to be known as “Trump’s Folly.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/opinion/trump-climate-north-korea.html
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Trump Team Wades Back Into Climate Talks
Sep 13, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The Trump administration appears to be making good on its offer to "re-engage" on the Paris Agreement.
Administration officials plan to attend climate-focused meetings abroad and host a breakfast in New York next week to search for ways to "move forward most productively" on the Paris accord, although it's unclear what might satisfy President Trump and whether international players would even be willing to come back to the table.
White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn has invited officials from major economies to gather for breakfast Monday on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly session in New York to discuss "international energy and climate issues," The New York Timesfirst reported yesterday.
A White House official also confirmed to E&E News yesterday that adviser Everett Eissenstat, who served as President Trump's "Sherpa" during the July Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, will attend a climate meeting in Montreal this Friday and Saturday hosted by the European Union, Canada and China. U.S. participation in the gathering had been uncertain.
The New York gathering hosted by Cohn is being billed as an "informal exchange." An administration official said the agenda would include not only Paris but also a consideration of how to promote universal access to affordable and reliable energy, including more efficient and cleaner use of fossil fuels.
Observers noted that this echoes language Cohn and international energy and environment adviser George David Banks promoted during the G-20 meeting. That language ended up in a paragraph of the meeting's final communiqué that only the United States signed and a few other countries, including Saudi Arabia, expressed interest in.
"I think the idea here is to expose Cohn to some of the key players in the space and have a discussion about U.S. policy in the context of international policy and answer questions," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
International players are likely to ask Cohn exactly what the Trump administration meant in an Aug. 4 letter to the U.N. secretary-general.
The letter said that while President Trump currently expects to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate deal — a process that will not be complete until November 2020 — he is open to re-engaging "if the U.S. can identify terms that are more favorable to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers."What exactly does Trump want?
International diplomats say it remains unclear what "terms" the United States has in mind, unless it's the right to put forward a new, lighter commitment to Paris — something many oppose but few say the U.S. government couldn't do unilaterally.
They note that countries ranging from Germany to the small islands to China have made it clear that a wholesale renegotiation is not in the cards. They wonder what the pro-Paris faction of Trump's team wants.
Andrew Light, a former senior State Department climate official, said that could be one thing Cohn and his team might wish to communicate — that they're not looking to reopen the Paris accord.
A diplomat said part of what Cohn would need to show Monday would be a general commitment to Paris despite Trump's emphatic June speech withdrawing from the pact of nearly 200 countries.
"That's something they need to tell the world, because otherwise, the world is going to say, 'Why are you coming to Bonn?'" the diplomat said, referring to the U.N. climate talks that kick off in Germany in two months.
Meyer said some level of trust between the Trump administration and its erstwhile international partners must be re-established if the United States is to be a force in the coming negotiations on the Paris rulebook, as it pledged in August that it would be. White House proponents of remaining in the Paris deal may want to frame U.S.-friendly rules as concessions, he said, to show Trump the deal has improved.
The U.N. climate talks are not a forum where White House officials can find concessions on fossil fuel access — like new opportunities for natural gas and coal exportation — but Meyer said Cohn and Banks may be looking for assurances of concessions in other venues, like international support for a rules change at the World Bank.
The State Department sent delegations to last week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Montreal and to a meeting ahead of the Bonn summit in Rabat, Morocco, as the United States remains a member of both the IPCC and UNFCCC.
Eissenstat's participation in the Montreal gathering is more notable.
The gathering, which was first announced in May, is a new effort to replace the Major Economies Forum previously convened by the United States under President Obama. It provides a new venue to iron out differences on Paris implementation ahead of the U.N. year-end conference in Bonn.
The White House has also tapped a veteran U.S. negotiator and career diplomat to serve under Banks at the National Security Council.
John Thompson, the former deputy director of environmental policy at the State Department, is most closely associated with the yearslong effort during the Obama administration to support an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that would control heat-trapping hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. He was a frequent member of the U.S. delegations to climate summits.
Obama officials cheered the selection, calling Thompson level-headed and professional.
The so-called Kigali Amendment on HFCs was agreed on last year, though U.S. participation is now in some doubt after a federal court struck down U.S. domestic regulations for the coolants last month.
"That was a long game, and John played that game very patiently and admirably, with a good result in the end," said Paul Bodnar, who previously held the position at NSC and is now at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The United States has yet to ratify the amendment, which is supported by industry and environmentalists alike.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/09/13/stories/1060060511
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Environmentalists Seek Separate CWA Groundwater Appeals
Sep 13, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are urging a federal appeals court to keep separate two pending Clean Water Act (CWA) cases over liability for contaminants that leak into groundwater and then migrate to surface waters, saying a power company's bid to connect argument in the two suits lacks any basis in law and blows the groundwater issue “out of proportion.”
Sierra Club and other environmental groups in Sierra Club, et al., v. Dominion Virginia Power, et al., filed a Sept. 8 brief opposing Dominion's effort to have the same U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit panel hear both that case and Upstate Forever, et al., v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. Even though the suits overlap on a novel question of CWA enforcement, the groups say, that is no reason to tie together two otherwise unrelated cases.
“With no legal basis, Dominion’s request is nothing more than an unwarranted attempt to manipulate the procedures of this Court to try to avoid the possibility of a ruling that is adverse to its interests resulting from the Upstate Forevercase,” the brief says.
Dominion is trying to reverse a district court ruling that held it liable under the CWA for pollution that leaked from coal ash impoundments at its Possum Point, Va, power plant even though the water law normally does not protect groundwater quality. Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ruled that the groundwater channel's direct connection to nearby surface waters acted as a “point source,” triggering liability for Dominion.
The appeal is one of many cases testing liability for coal ash-related groundwater contamination, in which district courts have ruled largely for environmentalists -- prompting Dominion and other power companies to seek a precedential ruling from the 4th Circuit overturning those decisions. However, so far the appellate court has yet to rule on the issue, after it rejected an earlier appeal of Gibney's decision on procedural grounds.
Upstate Forever, also pending in the 4th Circuit, deals with a gasoline spill that traveled through a sub-surface connection near the spill site into protected surface waters. Dominion argued in its Sept. 1 motion to coordinate the suits that the common thread warrants holding back-to-back oral argument sessions before the same panel of judges. “Coordinating the cases for argument before a single panel will promote judicial economy by eliminating the need to have two different panels of this Court familiarize themselves with overlapping legal issues,” the company said in its brief.
But Sierra Club and its allies say the two cases are very different beyond the groundwater issue. “'Coordinating' argument of these distinct appeals will also necessarily confuse the issues in a way that is likely to prejudice Sierra Club in this appeal. Hydrologic connection is only one small part of the complex cross-appeal in the Dominion case,” the Sept. 8 brief says.
It continues that there is no basis in the rules governing federal appeals for linking two cases merely because they raise similar issues. The groups say that any attempt to force a single panel to decide multiple cases because they involve similar legal questions would be a step toward making judges into specialists who deal only with certain areas of law -- which, the groups say, is counter to the design of the American judicial system.
“If this were true, a multitude of cases would be routinely 'coordinated,' resulting in specialist panel days, such as an [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] panel day, a Social Security Administration panel day, or a habeas corpus panel day. . . . [T]he Fourth Circuit has already rejected this sort of assignment system, instead requiring random panels to prevent 'presentation of particular types of cases to particular judges,'” the environmentalists argue.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-seek-separate-cwa-groundwater-appeals
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