Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 9/18/2017
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Hearing on the Nominations of Michael Dourson, Matthew Leopold, David Ross, and William Wehrum to be Assistant Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency
Sep 20, 2017 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Business Meeting to Consider Various Nominations
Sep 19, 2017 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 9:30 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Records Show Nominees' Ties to Industries They'd Regulate
Sep 15, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar and Sean Reilly
Financial disclosures for two U.S. EPA nominees underscore their ties to industries they would oversee. -
(ACC Mentioned) 8 Ways to Cut Calories and Cost at the Grocery Store
Sep 17, 2017 | USA Today
By Jean Chatzky and Joy Bauer
Do you feel like you spend your entire paycheck at the grocery store? You're not alone. Most of us walk in intending to buy just a handful of items — but leave with so much more stuff and so much less money. -
(ACC Mentioned) ‘Making Your Future’ Initiative Strives to Connect ‘Makers’ to Area Manufacturers’ Growing Needs
Sep 18, 2017 | Observer-Reporter
By Michael Bradwell
Over the next decade, a growing manufacturing sector in the tri-state region will require 30,000 new workers to fill current and new vacancies. -
Partisan Split Expected as Panel Vets 4 for Top EPA Jobs
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to grill nominees for some of U.S. EPA's most sensitive jobs — along with a Nuclear Regulatory Commission member up for a second term — at what's certain to be a contentious Wednesday hearing. -
(ACC Mentioned) State of the Nation
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Prior to the reform of the US’s decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act, many consumer advocates and environmental NGOs looked to legislatures as a pathway to address chemicals of concern that were left largely unmanaged by the dated federal policy. -
EPA Seeks to Move TSCA Prioritization Rule Suit From 9th to 4th Circuit
Sep 15, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to transfer to the 4th Circuit environmentalists' challenges to the agency's rule for prioritizing chemicals for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing the 4th Circuit is already... -
EWG Presses EPA to Add Consumer Uses to Scope of Dioxane Review
Sep 18, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Environmentalists are urging EPA to expand the scope of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) review of 1,4-dioxane to consider potential exposures from consumer uses of personal care and cleaning products, after releasing data that shows widespread occurrence... -
(ACC Mentioned) Consumer Product Safety Commission Takes on Flame Retardants
Sep 15, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
In 2015, Earthjustice and Consumer Federation of America, on behalf of a broad coalition of health, consumer, science and firefighter organizations, petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban a class of flame retardants, additive organohalogen flame retardants... -
Industry to Recycle Ideas for Easing Chemical Reporting Requirements
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies want to spend less time and money informing the EPA about the chemicals they use and the agency wants to simplify the process. -
EPA Seeks Comments on Perchlorate Materials, Peer Reviewers
Sep 15, 2017 | Inside
EPA is preparing for its second peer review of its novel scientific approach for proposing a drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, seeking comment on new materials and a list of proposed peer reviewers, though the action is unlikely to help... -
Finding Safer Disinfectants
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Vanessa Zainzinger
NGOs in the US and the EU have often advised consumers to be wary of overusing disinfectants in and around their homes. -
HHPA, MHHPA and the Article 57(f) Criteria
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The authorisation procedure under the REACH Regulation is a step-wise process aimed at ensuring that the risks from SVHCs are properly controlled and that these substances are ultimately replaced by suitable alternatives. The authorisation process consists of three steps: -
Trump Administration Working Toward Renewed Drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Sep 18, 2017 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
The Trump administration is quietly moving to allow energy exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the first time in more than 30 years, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, with a draft rule that would lay the groundwork for drilling. -
Eagle Ford Shale's Big Operators Getting Output Back to Pre-Harvey Levels
Sep 18, 2017 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
Three weeks after Hurricane Harvey slammed into the lower Texas coast and caused widespread production shut-ins, although little actual damage, in the Eagle Ford Shale play, several big upstream operators say they are at or nearly at pre-storm levels. -
Perry Highlights Need for Oil Reserve in Rebuke of Trump's Plan
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma demonstrate the importance of keeping the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said, in a not-so-subtle rebuke to President Donald Trump. -
DOE Gives Nod to Florida Small-Scale LNG Project
Sep 15, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben LeFebvre
The Energy Department approved a company’s application to export small amounts of liquefied natural gas from Florida, the agency said today. -
Using the E.P.A. to Prop Up Big Coal
Sep 18, 2017 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The Trump administration is unflinching in its misbegotten campaign to protect the coal industry from what has become an obvious and inevitable decline. -
EPA Demands Valero Records on Houston Refinery Emissions Release
Sep 15, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
The enforcement division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding Valero Energy's records and maintenance history related to a storage tank roof failure after Hurricane Harvey that released cancer-causing benzene and other volatile compounds into the air. -
Oil and Chemical Spills From Hurricane Harvey Big, but Dwarfed by Katrina
Sep 18, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Emily Flitter and Richard Valdmanis
More than 22,000 barrels of oil, refined fuels and chemicals spilled at sites across Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of tons of other toxic substances, a Reuters review of company reports to the U.S. Coast Guard shows. -
Train ‘Transparency’ Bill Exposes Jersey to New Threats
Sep 18, 2017 | NJ.com
By Peter Goelz
The security of freight rail has attracted the attention of a number of groups and elected officials in part because of the shipment of crude oil to refineries around the country. -
OPED: A Solution for Upgrading Infrastructure
Sep 18, 2017 | York Dispatch
By Chris Reilly
Infrastructure has been front and center in the public eye lately as hurricanes in Florida and Texas test it, and policymakers, including the Trump administration, develop plans to fix it. -
(ACC Mentioned) Groups Urge D.C. Circuit to Scrap Part of Obama Boiler Rule
Sep 15, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
Environmental groups urged a federal appeals court during oral arguments today to overturn key parts of Obama-era toxic air pollution standards for industrial boilers. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Backing for Lax Boiler Rule a ‘Black Box,’ Judge Says
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Federal appeals court judges are putting the EPA in the hot seat, asking the agency to present technical evidence backing its decision to not set lower carbon monoxide emissions limits for large industrial boilers. -
Trump Administration to Brief Officials on Emissions Goals
Sep 17, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Emre Peker, Nick Timiraos and Russell Gold
President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser is expected to outline the administration’s proposals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions while restating that its stance on the Paris climate accord has not changed, White House officials said... -
Tillerson: Trump Open to Paris Climate Deal 'Under the Right Conditions'
Sep 20, 2017 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
By Rebecca Savransky
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday suggested President Trump would be open to remaining in the Paris climate deal under the right conditions. -
Next EPA Science Advisers Could Include Those Who Question Climate Change
Sep 18, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis
People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. The
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Sep 20, 2017 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:00 AM
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a full committee hearing entitled, “Hearing on the Nominations of Michael Dourson, Matthew Leopold, David Ross, and William Wehrum to be Assistant Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Jeffery Baran to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Business Meeting to Consider Various Nominations
Sep 19, 2017 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 9:30 AM
The purpose of the business meeting is to consider the following nominations:Mr. Joseph Balash to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management;
Mr. Richard Glick to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission;
Mr. David Jonas to be General Counsel of the Department of Energy;
Mr. Kevin McIntyre to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and
Mr. Ryan Nelson to be Solicitor of the Department of the Interior. -
(ACC Mentioned) Records Show Nominees' Ties to Industries They'd Regulate
Sep 15, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar and Sean Reilly
Financial disclosures for two U.S. EPA nominees underscore their ties to industries they would oversee.
Documents received today by E&E News show Michael Dourson, who's nominated to lead the Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Office, made $10,000 last year consulting for the North American Flame Retardant Alliance, a component of the chemical industry's top lobby group, the American Chemistry Council.
Records also indicate that Bill Wehrum, a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams LLP and President Trump's choice to head the Air and Radiation Office, has a long list of industry clients that include Koch Industries, the Utility Air Regulatory Group, and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
Wehrum is also representing the Brick Industry Association and the Tile Council of North America, both of which are plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging EPA emission standards issued two years ago. The combined litigation is set for oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in early November.
Dourson, Wehrum and several other Trump administration nominees opposed by environment and public health groups are scheduled to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee next week, where they are expected to encounter stiff resistance from Democrats (E&E Daily, Sept. 14). The Office of Government Ethics released the disclosure reports and accompanying ethics agreements for both men.
In his EPA ethics agreement, Dourson promised to resign from the agency's Science Advisory Board and his posts at the University of Cincinnati, where he is an environmental health professor at the college's Risk Science Center, and at the Toxicology Education Foundation, where he serves as president of the industry-funded nonprofit.
Dourson also noted he'd recently quit working with the flame retardant group and the Toxicology Forum, another industry-backed group. He pledged to not participate in "any particular matter" involving any of his recent employers.
Before joining the university, Dourson, a former EPA staffer, led his own nonprofit consulting firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment.
In 2014, reporters at the Center for Public Integrity and InsideClimate News found that TERA had close ties to chemical manufacturers, tobacco companies and other industry interests. For instance, more than 50 percent of the peer-review panels the firm has organized since 1995 were for studies funded by industry groups.
Dourson's filings also show he has three rental properties in Ohio and Kentucky, where he and his adult son own undeveloped land via a general partnership that he has promised to resign from.
If confirmed as assistant administrator for chemical safety, Dourson promised the ethics office he would not work with his wife's will and probate law practice or the CreateSpace independent publishing platform, which has put out three of his books on integrating scientific concepts with biblical text.
Wehrum also told EPA he would resign from Hunton & Williams upon winning Senate confirmation and wouldn't participate in matters involving former clients for a year after last providing a service.
This is Wehrum's second bid for EPA's top air job. After serving as counsel in the air office from 2001 to 2005 during the George W. Bush administration, he held the acting air chief post from 2005 to 2007. When Bush nominated him to get the job on a Senate-confirmed basis, Democrats blocked his nomination from going forward. Wehrum resigned in mid-2007 to return to private practice.
Neither Wehrum nor Dourson could be reached for comment.
Reporter Kevin Bogardus contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/09/15/stories/1060060859
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(ACC Mentioned) 8 Ways to Cut Calories and Cost at the Grocery Store
Sep 17, 2017 | USA Today
By Jean Chatzky and Joy Bauer
Do you feel like you spend your entire paycheck at the grocery store? You're not alone. Most of us walk in intending to buy just a handful of items — but leave with so much more stuff and so much less money.
This week, TODAY's financial expert Jean Chatzky and nutritionist Joy Bauer share their top tips for grocery shopping the smarter and healthier way. Here are a few of Jean's tips for saving the most cash:
1. Make a list.
It sounds old fashioned, but if you know what you’re cooking that week — and you have an actual list — you’ll save money because you won’t buy things not on your list.
2. Pick one store — and get to know it.
The easiest way to leave the store with money still in your pocket is to shop just the perimeter and a few aisles. A study from the Marketing Science Institute found the more aisles you go down, the more unplanned purchases end up in your cart.
3. Have a snack before you go.
Don’t sample. I know your mother told you this and it’s true. Chewing gum and wearing headphones with your own playlist (not the store’s, which is designed to get you to dawdle) will also help you tune out the triggers stores put in place to get you to buy. Also, try to go alone so that no one eggs you to buy things you don’t need.
4. Anything non-perishable should be bought on sale.
Grocery stores work on cycles and every five or six weeks, things cycle on sale. For that reason, you don’t have to buy anything other than true perishables when they’re not on sale.
5. Be brand agnostic.
Because of the sale cycles, if you can be happy switching between brands of yogurt, hummus or types of apples, you can almost always get items on your list on sale. For example, one brand of yogurt is almost always on sale. If you don’t mind switching between Chobani, Oikos, Fage, etc., you can almost always get it for a discount.
6. Things you think are perishable don’t have to be.
Frozen fruits and veggies are cheaper — for example, a 12-ounce bag of fresh, microwave-in-bag string beans is $2.50 (on sale), while a 12-ounce bag of frozen microwave in bag string beans is $2.00 (on sale). If you wind up not using the frozen string beans when you were planning to, they won’t go bad. That’s a big savings. The average American household throws out $640 worth of food each year, according to the American Chemistry Council
7. Download coupons to your loyalty card.
You certainly can clip coupons, but you don’t have to anymore. You can download them at coupons.com, couponmom.com, or redplum.com. Make sure to keep that loyalty card in your wallet or on your key ring. Then, photograph your receipt to get cashback through Ibotta.
8. Use the self-checkout.
According to a study from IHL Consulting Group, impulse purchases among women drop 32 percent and men 16 percent when self-checkout is used instead of a staffed checkout. The primary reason for the drop, according to the study, is that self-checkout devices are not as stacked with candy, gum and other merchandise as staffed lanes at most retailers. Additionally, there is usually a shorter line at each register, removing the captive audience with the tempting impulse items in front of them.
Using Jean's tips outlined above, stock your pantry, fridge and freezer with these essential foods from Joy Bauer. You'll always have something healthy to turn to when you're feeling hungry and short on time!
https://www.today.com/health/8-ways-cut-calories-cost-grocery-store-t113918
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Sep 18, 2017 | Observer-Reporter
By Michael Bradwell
Over the next decade, a growing manufacturing sector in the tri-state region will require 30,000 new workers to fill current and new vacancies.
A new venture between Pittsburgh-area manufacturers of metals and advanced materials and Catalyst Connection, a nonprofit that works with small and mid-sized manufacturers – including those in Washington and Greene counties – is trying to attract young adults to fill these positions.
The target audience for the “Making Your Future” initiative are part of the so-called “maker” movement, men and women in the tri-state area who make or produce something like an art or a craft, or those who enjoy working with their hands, with a passion for building, baking, welding, painting, coding, assembling, carving or designing.
The program, which will help to bring together makers with the area’s 2,829 manufacturers, also associates the maker with a new manufacturing term for someone who uses digital tooling or processes to create a tangible product.
‘Immediate need’
During an interview at the Observer-Reporter last week, Catalyst Connection CEO Petra Mitchell said the target audience was chosen “because we have this immediate need, so we can’t wait for the kids to graduate from high school.”
While Mitchell concedes that many in the target group could currently be unemployed or underemployed, she believes they can be trained for good-paying manufacturing jobs. According to MakingYourFuture.org, the average salary of employees working in manufacturing is $59,683.
Mitchell noted that like the growing maker movement, a career in manufacturing often requires creativity, technical skills and a desire to see a task through from start to finish.
The Making Your Future initiative was designed to help thousands of people find a career in manufacturing with a desired outcome of connecting qualified employees to the 30,000 -plus job vacancies over the next decade.
The focus of the initiative is threefold:
• Making it easier for adult job seekers to learn about and network with manufacturing leaders;
• Making it easier for employers to find skilled talent; and
•Making it easier for our partners to collaborate on new initiatives for regional economic impact.
Connecting employers, job seekers
The new website, www.MakingYourFuture.org serves as the connection between potential employees and the thousands of manufacturing companies in Western Pennsylvania.
According to information provided by the organization, the demand is real and will continue to grow.
According to the state Department of Labor and Industry’s Center for Workforce Information & Analysis, about 8,500 new manufacturing jobs open up every year across the state. CWIA estimates that by 2024, there will be an average of 10,398 annual openings in the “Production Occupations” sector, a result of a combination of growth and replacement of the existing workforce.
The real challenge looming ahead isn’t just the 30,000 or more people needed for manufacturing jobs. Statistics provided by MakingYourFuture.org state that by 2025, there is expected to be a workforce deficit of 80,000 people in the Pittsburgh region.
In addition to the region’s legacy metals manufacturing jobs, the American Chemistry Council estimates that the new Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County will generate roughly 17,800 new jobs: 600 at the facility itself, 1,800 more chemical industry jobs, 8,500 supply chain jobs and 6,900 “spin-off” jobs.
According to Mitchell, some of the most in-demand jobs are for makers: machinists, mechanics, engineers, assemblers, welders and many more. While many of the jobs will need some training or certification, most do not require a four-year degree.
The website was created to help job seekers find opportunities in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Other high-priority jobs in manufacturing that are in-demand now include CNC operators, electrical engineers, first line supervisors of production workers; industrial machinery mechanics, machinists, mechanical/manufacturing engineers and sales engineers.
Mitchell said one of the features of the initiative is to guide people to apprenticeships for training in many of the positions.
The website provides numerous resources for job seekers including assessment tools to help guide them to the best career options; a list of regional training programs and guidance on how to choose the appropriate one; an explanation of, and resources for, apprenticeships; and access to current job postings to connect to thousands of positions with real-time information about trending occupations and salaries.
Because a common theme to successful manufacturing companies is the need for strong leaders at every level of the organization, Catalyst Connection’s Manufacturing Academy has expanded its leadership training to help manufacturing managers and supervisors obtain the skills they need to keep employees productive and motivated.
Just as the website provides resources for job seekers, it also provides them for manufacturers in the region, including assessment tools to attract desired job seekers and retain current employees; toolkits to help create or improve existing apprenticeship and internship programs; a list of sites and area workforce organizations that connect to job seekers; and a list of programs in the community that connect with the future workforce pipeline.
Tech prep a must
The Making Your Future initiative acknowledges that the future workforce will need technical preparation for what it will encounter on the shop floor, a reason why it views apprenticeships as a way to train many of those who are hired.
Mitchell said many manufacturers in the region are increasingly making investments in automated machinery that requires operators who can program units to perform a variety of tasks.
Some are moving toward “connected environments” where robots are connected to other machines or other robots in the factory.
She said a recent survey of area manufacturers found that 43 have already invested in some form of automation, while another 48 percent said they plan to make investments within the next three years.
On Wednesday, the Brookings Institution released the results of an 18-month study on Pittsburgh’s rise as a global innovation city, and its recommendations included additional support for advanced manufacturing.
The institute suggests the formation of a partnership of public, private and civic leaders to “build and support Pittsburgh’s innovation clusters around advanced manufacturing, as well as life sciences and autonomous systems.
While the study notes that there are many candidates for innovation clusters, it placed advanced manufacturing at the top of its list “given Pittsburgh’s technical strengths in robotics.”
“We need workers who can program, run and maintain machines,” Mitchell said, adding that while many of the job-seekers aren’t working in tech-related industries, the expectation is that they can be trained.
“If you can get an individual in the door, there are so many resources to guide them,” she said.
To learn more about the Making Your Future initiative, access www.Making YourFuture.org.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/20170916/making_your_future_initiative_strives_to_connect_makers_to_area_manufacturers_growing_needs_
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Partisan Split Expected as Panel Vets 4 for Top EPA Jobs
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to grill nominees for some of U.S. EPA's most sensitive jobs — along with a Nuclear Regulatory Commission member up for a second term — at what's certain to be a contentious Wednesday hearing.
The meeting will cover President Trump's choices to lead EPA's offices of air, water and chemical safety, as well as the agency's top lawyer position.
It has taken Trump up to seven months to settle on the nominees; three of the four were nominated only this month. And Republicans' decision to pack them all into a single hearing drew objections from at least one Democrat.
In a statement, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said the move fits into a "troubling pattern of stacking nominees into hearings and jamming them through the committee."
A spokesman for EPW Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) responded that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt "needs his leadership team in place to ensure America has clean land, air and water."
The spokesman, Mike Danylak, also knocked Democrats for holding up final Senate action on the nomination of Susan Bodine to head EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The committee approved Bodine's candidacy in July on an 11-10 party-line vote.
The same partisan split can be expected to surface at Wednesday's hearing, particularly as Democrats see the nominations as an opportunity to squeeze answers out of Pruitt on EPA policies and activities.
Since Pruitt joined the agency in February, "EPW Democrats have sent more than 20 letters ... seeking information on serious and substantive matters and have received adequate responses to only a fraction of them," ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in a statement last week after meeting with the four candidates.
"Responding to oversight requests from a co-equal branch of government is not optional, a view my Republican colleagues strongly held when President Obama was in the White House," he said.
Controversy
For William Wehrum, a lawyer who is Trump's choice to head EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, this will be his second try for the post. Under George W. Bush's administration, Wehrum served as acting air chief from 2005 to 2007.
But while Bush tapped him to get the job on a Senate-confirmed basis, Wehrum was unable to overcome opposition from Democrats wary of his ties to businesses regulated by EPA.
In private practice, Wehrum has since continued to represent clients in the oil and gas sector and other industries with a direct stake in environmental regulation, according to a financial disclosure report.
Should he win Senate confirmation, Wehrum has pledged to step back from any involvement in matters affecting former clients for a year. The EPW Committee's Democrats are nonetheless likely to probe the strength of his commitment to EPA's mission of protecting public health and the environment. They could also question Wehrum on his previously stated view that Congress never intended for the agency to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act (ClimateWire, Sept. 8).
In an email replying on Wehrum's behalf to queries from E&E News late last week, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said he "has a long history of public service" and has spent more than 31 years "working in the environmental field through engineering, legal practice, and administrative duties."
Chemicals
Similar questions about industry connections surround the nomination of Michael Dourson, Trump's pick to lead the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Dourson began his career at EPA, where he served for 15 years, rising to the position of associate director of the agency's Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office. He then went on to found Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a nonprofit consulting firm that worked to swiftly evaluate chemical hazards.
A year after the Center for Public Integrity and InsideClimate News reported on TERA's close ties to chemical manufacturers, tobacco companies and other industry interests, Dourson shut down the firm and joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine, where he earned his doctorate in 1980.
But financial disclosures released by the Office of Government Ethics last week show that Dourson has continued to work closely with the chemical makers he would be tasked with regulating (E&E News PM, Sept. 15).
Public health and environmental groups, led by the Center for Environmental Health, have launched a campaign to "Dump Dourson." An online petition urging members of Congress to oppose his nomination had already attracted nearly 11,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon, a CEH spokeswoman said. The coalition also plans to increase its effort after the hearing.
Also on the agenda is Matt Leopold, Trump's nominee to be general counsel at EPA. He has a long record in environmental law.
Leopold is a former general counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, having held that job from 2013 to 2015. He also served at the Justice Department from 2007 to 2013.
As an attorney in DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division, Leopold worked on litigation, such as the federal response to BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Currently based in Tallahassee, Fla., he has been at Carlton Fields since 2015. At the law firm, Leopold has represented several clients that have had dealings with EPA in the past, including chemicals giant BASF, utility company Florida Power & Light Co. and automaker Ford Motor Co., according to his financial disclosure form.
Under his ethics agreement, Leopold said he would avoid EPA matters that involve the firm or former clients for his first year at the agency unless he is given authorization to participate. In addition, he would forfeit his right to payments from ongoing litigation if confirmed.Water, nuclear
Senators will also consider David Ross to lead EPA's Office of Water. Ross currently directs the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Environmental Protection Unit and has represented states and industry in lawsuits against EPA.
Ross challenged EPA's Clean Water Rule as a senior assistant attorney general in Wyoming's Water and Natural Resources Division in 2015. He also represented the American Farm Bureau Federation in its 2012 lawsuit over EPA's Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan (Greenwire, July 27).
Under his agreement with EPA's ethics office, Ross has committed to not "participate personally and substantially" in matters related to the Wisconsin Department of Justice for one year after his confirmation.
Another Trump pick appearing at the hearing will be Jeff Baran, a Democrat renominated for a new five-year term on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Baran has served on the commission since 2014, and his current term is set to expire next year.
If confirmed, he would be the second NRC commissioner to be handed a new term by Trump after Kristine Svinicki, who was also selected as chairwoman of the agency earlier this year.
Schedule: The hearing will be Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Michael Dourson, Matthew Leopold, William Wehrum and David Baran.
Reporters Kevin Bogardus, Corbin Hiar, Sam Mintz and Ariel Wittenberg contributed..
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/09/18/stories/1060060899
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(ACC Mentioned) State of the Nation
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Prior to the reform of the US’s decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act, many consumer advocates and environmental NGOs looked to legislatures as a pathway to address chemicals of concern that were left largely unmanaged by the dated federal policy.
"The growing urgency of the potential health threat posed by unregulated chemicals, fuelled public and consumer concerns," wrote Dr Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy group, in an article earlier this year.
"Spurred by concerned parents, public interest advocates turned to individual states to enact legislation and regulations to address specific uses of certain toxic chemicals and – in a few cases – to more systematically identify and act on chemicals of concern."
Many in industry saw the passage of a bill to overhaul TSCA as a way to stem the growth of this state-by-state ‘patchwork’ regulation of chemicals. Dr Denison – a key player from the consumer advocacy community in negotiating the TSCA reform bill – credits this sentiment as one of the contributing factors leading to the industry, in 2009, "effectively abandoning its long-standing opposition to TSCA reform".
With support from both industry and consumer advocates, the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act was signed into law some seven years later. Its passage on 22 June 2016 set in motion an aggressive implementation timeline that the EPA has largely adhered to over its first year.
However, the extent to which the agency’s renewed strength in managing chemicals of concern – especially with Republican-appointed leadership in place – will replace the role of states in taking the lead on chemicals management remains in doubt.
Activity ‘relatively consistent’
Sarah Doll, national director for the NGO Safer States, describes the level of state legislative activity this year as relatively consistent with previous ones. This year alone the organisation is tracking 107 policies on reducing exposure to chemicals of concern that have been introduced in 24 states.
"We have always anticipated that states would have a continued role, given the sheer number of chemicals out there and the relatively slow rate that the Lautenberg Act requires chemicals to be reviewed," agrees Nancy Buermeyer, senior policy strategist with the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners.
However, she adds, when the Trump administration appointed new agency leaders with strong ties to industry, including former American Chemistry Council (ACC) staffer Nancy Beck as deputy assistant administrator to the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), that further stimulated "concerns about whether public health will be at the centre of what EPA does".
For many in the advocacy community, those fears were realised when the agency issued three final ‘framework rules’ in June that departed considerably from the proposals that had been issued in the final days of the Obama administration.
The proposed rules that came out then, according to Ms Buermeyer, were considered by many in the NGO community to "accurately reflect the legislative language and intent of the statute". However, the changes that were made prior to their being finalised, she adds, were "problematic and moved in the direction of industry" – a shift that some have attributed to the agency’s new leadership.
"Having somebody second in command [at the EPA] that came directly from the ACC, commented on those rules as a member of the ACC and then was part of the decision-making to finalise those rules ... is a classic case of conflict of interest," says Ms Buermeyer. "If that's a predictor of what's happening in the future, we'll continue to have grave concerns on how this important law will be implemented."
States continuing to lead
Ms Doll agrees that the takeaways from the first year of TSCA implementation – and especially in view of the changes at the agency since the Trump administration came in – made it "increasingly clear that leadership is not going to come from the federal government to create the protections we seek".
Instead, she says, states will need to continue to be the leaders and this feeling has been reflected in state activity. At the beginning of the legislative session, there was a sort of a ‘wait-and-see’ approach in many legislatures. But as the year progressed and as TSCA implementation continued to be rolled out, the informal feedback from states indicated a sense that they felt they "must continue to lead, must continue to push the envelope".
States "have little confidence in the implementation of TSCA", Ms Doll adds. "I see more momentum at the end of the sessions than at the beginning."
The ACC acknowledges that there are a number of chemical bills that have been introduced across the country, as there have been in years prior to the new law. But it adds that there are policy makers and stakeholders who recognise that the reformed TSCA law "provides EPA modern tools to meet the chemical management demands of today, creating a strong national system – a better alternative to a patchwork of laws that impedes commerce".
"It’s still early in EPA’s implementation of the updated law," the ACC continues, "but over time – as the agency identifies high and low priority chemicals, and risk evaluations and safety determinations begin to flow – we are optimistic that legislatures will see evidence of a modernised TSCA that strengthens consumer confidence and promotes interstate commerce".
Class approach
While the future of state legislative activity remains uncertain, state legislatures this year have pressed forward with ambitious policy directed at addressing chemicals of concern.
Ms Doll describes one new law out of Maine in particular as a "huge win", as it banned a whole class of chemicals – flame retardants – from upholstered residential furniture. Taking such a class approach, she says, allows localities to "get out of the narrative of regrettable substitution".
Apart from a few states with robust chemicals programmes, like California or Washington, states engaging in policy making around safer alternatives and enacting legislation that avoids regrettable substitutions is a "less comfortable" space, in her view. So Maine’s action is a "clear touchstone win" from 2017 – and one that she expects to see surface again in future sessions.
Ms Doll also notes the significance of the legislation being enacted with broad bipartisan support – and such strong backing that it overcame the state’s governor’s veto, despite a heavily fractured federal landscape.
"The middle becomes harder to find, since lines are so clearly drawn," she says of the highly partisan 2017 federal session. Maine demonstrated that "[Democrats and Republicans] agree that this is smart, important policy", which she sees as an encouraging sign in a fractured environment.
Trends
Ms Doll foresees that Maine’s ‘class approach’ to substance bans could pave the way for similar legislation in the coming year, with phthalates and perfluorinated chemicals among those that could also be targeted. Bills focused on food packaging and drinking water safety are also likely to see a surge of activity, she predicts, as will those product categories that are outside TSCA’s primary purview – such as children’s products and cosmetics.
Ingredient disclosure will remain a priority, Ms Doll says. Many of these efforts have focused on ingredient and fragrance disclosure in personal care products, while California’s SB 258 has focused on cleaning products. Legislation was also introduced in Washington this year centered around the disclosure of high priority chemicals in electronics. Electronics could also prove a future battleground for flame retardant usage, she adds, given the pervasiveness of the substances in those products.
Overall, Ms Doll believes that the market transformations seen in the US, over the past ten years, have come from states and market demand. Retailers, she adds, will say that the fastest growing sector of their marketplace is greener products. Federal policy is an "important puzzle piece, but it's just a piece of the puzzle". Given the current political climate, it is one that is "more likely to be dragged along kicking and screaming" than to be driving change.
Even under the best scenario of TSCA implementation, it is a process that will take years, in Ms Doll’s opinion. "The key drivers will really continue to be states, local markets and the grassroots interplay."
TSCA preemption
The reformed TSCA law generally preempts state activity on a specific chemical while the EPA conducts a review of it and once the agency has taken final action on the substance. This includes both situations where the EPA determines that a substance does not present an unreasonable risk, as well as those where it does.
Such preemption, however, is limited to the scope of the agency’s action on the chemical. Therefore, states may act on the chemical’s uses or risks that the EPA does not consider in itsreview. The law does not prevent states from imposing reporting or disclosure requirements, regardless of the EPA’s risk determination.
The law also ‘grandfathers in’ any state action taken before 22 April 2016, as well as any laws in effect as of 31 August 2003 – including California’s Proposition 65 and Massachusetts’ Toxic Use Reduction Act.
Andy Igrejas, national campaign director of NGO Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, pointed out in the wake of the law’s passage that the pace at which the EPA reviews chemicals is very slow. Moreover, because the preemption is tied to the progress EPA makes on a chemical-by-chemical basis, "state authority is preserved in full for the vast majority of chemicals."
"States are not encumbered by the burdens of proof and analysis that will still weigh the federal programme down, so state action, even on a chemical EPA has just prioritised, will often make sense and it will still be possible," he added.
Mr Igrejas also noted that TSCA does not apply to categories like food packaging and cosmetics, so states are "free to take the lead there too".
https://chemicalwatch.com/58803/state-of-the-nation
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EPA Seeks to Move TSCA Prioritization Rule Suit From 9th to 4th Circuit
Sep 15, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to transfer to the 4th Circuit environmentalists' challenges to the agency's rule for prioritizing chemicals for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing the 4th Circuit is already hearing a case over a related rule and moving it there could conserve resources.
But environmentalists oppose the move, though they have not yet provided their reasons for doing so.
In a Sept. 14 motion, EPA notes that the 4th Circuit is already slated to hear environmentalists' lawsuit, Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment et al. v. EPA, challenging the agency's risk evaluation rule and argues that hearing challenges to both the risk evaluation rule and the prioritization rule in the 4th Circuit is the best option for conserving judicial resources.
“[H]aving the cases heard in the Fourth Circuit would be more convenient for the parties, because all counsel of record are located in Washington, DC, or New York,” EPA says. “Moreover, it would be in the interest of justice that the cases be transferred to the Fourth Circuit, because they should be heard by the same panel deciding petitions for review of a second EPA rule with some overlapping issues.”
Additionally, EPA says the 4th Circuit would decide the prioritization rule case more quickly, citing differences in the courts' dockets.
EPA also asks that the 9th Circuit hold the prioritization rule challenge, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families et al. EPA et al., in abeyance until it rules on the transfer motion and until the deadline for new challenges to the prioritization rule expires on Sept. 20, 60 days after the rules' July 20 promulgation in the Federal Register.
Environmental groups, including Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, the Environment Defense Fund (EDF) and the Natural Resources Defense Council, in August challenged two of EPA's three rules establishing a framework for agency reviews of existing chemicals under the revised TSCA law that former President Barack Obama signed in June 2016.
Existing chemicals are those that have been in commerce for decades and were largely grandfathered under the old law. The need to address risks from existing chemicals was a major driver of TSCA reform.
Court Orders
In separate orders this month, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated environmentalist challenges to the prioritization rule in the 9th Circuit and to the risk evaluation rule in the 4th Circuit. In the order, the panel sidestepped an EPA request to consolidate challenges to the two rules in a single circuit.
A host of industry groups earlier this week filed petitions asking the two courts to allow them to intervene in defense of EPA's rules.
In the request to the 9th Circuit, EPA argues that judicial economy supports a single circuit panel hearing challenges to both the prioritization and risk evaluation rules, and that the 4th Circuit is the appropriate choice to conserve travel resources because lawyers in the case are based in Washington, D.C. and New York.
The 4th Circuit encompasses Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas, while the 9th spans several West Coast states.
EPA also argues that environmentalist petitioners have argued in favor of consolidating challenges to the two rules, though the agency says that Safer Chemicals and EDF oppose the agency's motion to transfer the prioritization rule case to the 4th Circuit. Those petitioners also oppose the delay, EPA says.
“Although the two Rules are distinct and have separate administrative records, the parties anticipate that there will be some overlap of issues,” EPA says. “And the Petitioners in these cases have expressly stated that challenges to the two Rules will involve issues that are substantially similar or related.”
In addition to the previously filed suits, EDF Sept. 5 challenged EPA's third framework rule for existing chemicals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The inventory reset rule was not published in the Register until Aug. 11. The suit will target what environmentalists say are the rule's overly broad claims of confidential business information that will shield information from the public.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-seeks-move-tsca-prioritization-rule-suit-9th-4th-circuit
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EWG Presses EPA to Add Consumer Uses to Scope of Dioxane Review
Sep 18, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Environmentalists are urging EPA to expand the scope of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) review of 1,4-dioxane to consider potential exposures from consumer uses of personal care and cleaning products, after releasing data that shows widespread occurrence of the substance in drinking water locations around the country.
"As part of this review, the EPA must look at all potential uses and exposures to 1,4-dioxane, including chemical manufacturing and processing, contaminated personal care and cleaning products, water contamination, accidental spills and disposal processes," the Environmental Working Group (EWG) said in its report detailing occurrence data.
But it notes that EPA's scoping documents, released in June, "did not propose limiting or even considering all 1,4-dioxane exposures. Furthermore, the proposed scope of the EPA's 1,4-dioxane assessment leaves out important uses and exposures, including likely consumer exposures through personal care and cleaning products."
The group is targeting EPA's preliminary scoping document for its ongoing risk evaluation of 1,4-dioxane, one of the first 10 "existing" chemicals the agency is reviewing under the revised TSCA.
The initial documents indicate that the agency intends to exclude consumer uses of products containing the substance that environmentalists consider important to the general population's exposure, and therefore risk, due to the Trump EPA's view that the revised law provides discretion to preclude some chemical uses from risk evaluations.
The Trump EPA's risk evaluation rule, one of three framework rules the administration issued to implement the new TSCA law, precludes from consideration some uses, such as legacy uses and uses regulated by agencies, that EPA will consider as it reviews chemicals for possible regulation.
Environmentalists are already challenging the agency's risk evaluation rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The suit, Environmental Defense Fund et al., v. EPA, is one of at least two cases that will test the discretion courts are willing to give the agency on interpreting the law's definition of which chemical's "uses" must be considered.
Environmentalists say that EPA's failure to consider uses is significant because it will determine when a substance is subject to the rules and must undergo a risk assessment, sources say. "My interpretation, and most of those in the environmental community, is that EPA has to look at all uses" of a chemical it is evaluating under its reformed TSCA section 6 responsibilities, says Melanie Benesh, an EWG attorney, in a Sept. 7 interview.
A risk evaluation "has to look at ways [the chemical is] disposed of, and all uses, including reasonably foreseen uses. This has become a real issue in the way the final rule was written, which is very different from how it was prepared" in the proposed rule, she says.
Benesh explains that the final rule generally excludes from evaluation uses that are considered legacy, or not ongoing, imperfections . . . [and] uses adequately regulated by other agencies," such as worker exposures controlled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or personal care products regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Scoping Document
EPA's scoping document for 1,4-dioxane indicates that some uses are outside the scope of the planned review. The document explains that the chemical can be produced "as a reaction by product," particularly in a chemical process called ethoxylation.
"Therefore, 1,4-dioxane may be present at residual concentrations in commercial and consumer products that contain ethoxylated chemicals. Examples of products potentially containing 1,4-dioxane as a residual contaminant are paints, coatings, lacquers, ethylene glycol-based antifreeze coolants, spray polyurethane foam, household detergents, cosmetics/toiletries, textile dyes, pharmaceuticals, foods, agricultural and veterinary products," the scoping document adds.
Manufacturers can remove the 1,4-dioxane from the finished product, though not all do. And, the chemical is often not listed in ingredient lists because it is not required and is a contaminant, rather than an intentional ingredient.
EPA adds that the chemical, "produced as a by-product of reactions in the production of other chemicals is excluded from the scope of the risk evaluation. EPA anticipates that 1,4-dioxane by-product and contaminant issues will be considered in the scope of any risk evaluation of ethoxylated chemicals."
EWG argues in its new report that EPA could "set a legal limit for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water and regulate industrial uses of 1,4-dioxane under" TSCA. "EPA must also take action as part of this review to limit all potential exposures to 1,4-dioxane by setting health-protective restrictions on its use," EWG adds.
But EPA indicates in its scoping document that it does not plan to assess exposures stemming from consumer uses. "No consumer uses for 1,4-dioxane were reported to EPA ... 1,4-Dioxane may be found as a contaminant in consumer products and/or commercial products that are readily available for public purchase," the agency says.
"However, it is present as a result of by-product formation . . . EPA does not expect to consider exposures to consumers and bystanders from by-product or contaminant exposure in the risk evaluation for 1,4-dioxane. Rather, EPA anticipates that 1,4-dioxane by-product and contaminant issues will be considered in the scope of any risk evaluation of ethoxylated chemicals."
Benesh acknowledges that EPA's scoping document includes drinking water as an exposure source that will be included in the 1,4-dioxane risk evaluation. EWG's report finds "water supplies for more than 7 million Americans in 27 states are contaminated … at levels higher than [EPA's 0.35 parts per billion (ppb)] minimal lifetime risk of cancer" when ingested in water. The report identifies hotspots of drinking water contamination, and ranks "the most contaminated water systems by population," finding hot spots that included "the Cape Fear River basin in North Carolina, affecting Fayetteville and surrounding communities; southeastern Los Angeles County, CA; and New York's Long Island."
"Drinking water is included but leaving out this other use," in personal care and other products made with an ethoxylation process, "is a real problem," Benesh said.
Dourson's Role
In addition to the narrow scope of EPA's planned review, environmentalists are also concerned about the role that Michael Dourson, the Trump administration's nominee to head EPA's toxics office, may play in any assessment, given his past work on behalf of industry advocating for a safety standard significantly weaker than EPA's.
The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee is slated to hold a Sept. 20 confirmation hearing for Dourson, as well as several other nominees for top EPA positions.
EWG's report notes that in 2014 and 2017, Dourson authored papers funded by PPG Industries, a manufacturer of paints and coatings in Circleville, OH, that argued that people can safely be exposed to 1,4-dioxane at levels of 350 parts per billion (ppb) -- 1,000 times greater than the EPA's increased cancer risk level.
"We're a little concerned … if Michael Dourson is coming in … if he still thinks 350 ppb is an appropriate number and that's what he tells staff" to use," Benesh said.
EPA cites in its scoping document its 2012 Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 3), which requires monitoring of 1,4 dioxane and 29 other contaminants. "Reported levels of 1,4-dioxane in groundwater range from 3 to 31,000 [ppb]," the scoping document states. "Such instances of ground water contamination with 1,4-dioxane are documented in the states of California and Michigan. These data provide a basis for including groundwater in the scope of the 1,4-dioxane risk evaluation from manufacturing, processing, distribution and use unless otherwise regulated or managed."
Benesh says that it is hard to know where the 1,4-dioxane in drinking water originates, in part because labeling of its presence is not required in products made with ethyoxlation processes. "Some of it is proper or improper disposal where it is inadequately regulated, she said. "Some of it is from people's personal care and cleaning products going down the drain. It's hard to tell because it's not labeled if it's a contaminant."
EPA appears to agree, stating in its scoping document that the "general population may ingest 1,4-dioxane via contaminated drinking water. Based on reported uses, down-the-drain sources may contribute to surface water and drinking water levels. Therefore, there is potential oral exposure to 1,4-dioxane by ingestion of drinking water from surface water and ground water sources. Based on these potential sources and pathways of exposure, EPA expects to consider oral exposures to the general population that may result from the conditions of use of 1,4-dioxane."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/ewg-presses-epa-add-consumer-uses-scope-dioxane-review
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(ACC Mentioned) Consumer Product Safety Commission Takes on Flame Retardants
Sep 15, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
In 2015, Earthjustice and Consumer Federation of America, on behalf of a broad coalition of health, consumer, science and firefighter organizations, petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban a class of flame retardants, additive organohalogen flame retardants, from children’s products, furniture, mattresses, and electronic casings as hazardous substances.
The CPSC is considering whether or not to grant the petition and held a public hearing yesterday, at which I testified regarding the risks of flame retardants in households and the way in which flame retardant manufacturers and their lead trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), have fought hard to keep these hazardous products on the market. The ACC is not a stranger to using the disinformation playbook. As we documented in our 2015 report, Bad Chemistry, the ACC has wielded influence to delay and quash important safeguards on a long list of chemicals, has funded science to exaggerate the chemicals’ effectiveness at lowering fire risk, and has employed innocuous-sounding front groups to do its dirty work without disclosing its relationship. A 2012 Chicago Tribune series did an excellent job of bringing much of the trade association’s activities to light.
The Commission will vote next week to determine whether they will grant the petition and begin to develop proposed rulemaking to ban these chemicals. We hope that the Commission will heed the recommendations of a long list of scientists, public health, and legal experts who agree that the CPSC has the legal authority and the scientific backing to ban these chemicals.
My testimony is below.
Good afternoon, I would like to thank Chairwoman Buerkle and the CPSC Commissioners for the opportunity to testify before you today on this important issue. My name is Genna Reed. I am the science and policy analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. With more than 500,000 members and supporters across the country, we are a national, nonpartisan, non-profit group, dedicated to improving public policy through rigorous and independent science. The Center for Science and Democracy at UCS advocates for improved transparency and integrity in our democratic institutions, especially those making science-based public policy decisions.
The Union of Concerned Scientists stands with other members of the scientific community in supporting this petition calling upon the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to declare organohalogen flame retardants (OFRs) as a hazardous class of chemicals and to ban their use in children’s products, furniture, mattresses and the casings surrounding electronics. The scientific evidence laid out in the petition supports this regulatory change. The CPSC has the authority to protect the public from toxic substances that “may cause substantial personal injury or substantial illness.”
Since the Center’s inception, we have worked to protect scientific integrity within the federal government and called attention to incidences of special interests mischaracterizing science to advocate for specific policy goals. The chemical industry and its trade association, the American Chemistry Council’s, work to sow doubt about the science revealing harms about chemicals’ impacts on our health, including flame retardants, is an egregious example of this inappropriate behavior.
The companies that manufacture OFRs have put significant time and money into distorting the scientific truth about these chemicals. As a 2012 Chicago Tribune investigative series noted, the chemical industry “has twisted research results, ignored findings that run counter to its aims and passed off biased, industry-funded reports as rigorous science.” In one case, manufacturers of flame retardants repeatedly pointed to a decades-old government study, arguing the results showed a 15-fold increase in time to escape fires when flame retardants were present. The lead author of the study, however, said industry officials “grossly distorted” the results and that “industry has used this study in ways that are improper and untruthful,” as the amount of flame retardant used in the tests was much greater than would be found in most consumer items. The American Chemistry Council has further misrepresented the science behind flame retardants by creating an entire website to spread misleading ideas about flame retardants as safe and effective, even though research has consistently shown their limited effectiveness. In doing so, the American Chemistry Council and its member companies have promoted the prevalent use of OFRs at the expense of public health.
Looking at these chemicals through a strictly objective lens illustrates the need for CPSC’s swift action. Toxicity and exposure data support the assessment of organohalogen flame retardants as a class of chemicals under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA). Properties that are shared by OFRs include their semivolatility and ability to migrate from consumer products into house dust and exposure has been associated with a range of health impacts including reproductive impairment, neurological impacts, endocrine disruption, genotoxicity, cancer, and immune disorders. As a class, there is an adequate body of evidence supporting the conclusion that these chemicals have the “capacity to cause personal illness” and therefore meet the definition of “toxic” under FHSA. Perhaps most egregiously, biomonitoring data have revealed that communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to and bear high levels of flame retardant chemicals, adding to the cumulative chemical burden that these communities are already experiencing, from increased fine particulate matter from power plants or refineries in their neighborhoods to higher levels of contaminants in their drinking water.
I’ve seen firsthand the persistence of the earliest form of flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), that still plague the sediment and water of the Hackensack Meadowlands just a couple of miles from where I grew up in New Jersey. One of my first jobs was working in the chemistry division of the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute where I spent my days extracting PCBs and organochlorine pesticides from the soil and sediment of the Meadowlands and analyzing that data. Despite being banned in 1977, these chemicals are still found in dangerously high amounts all over industrial hotspots of the country, and continue to bioaccumulate in a range of species. The ban of PCBs happened decades ago and we are still managing the damaging impacts of the chemical’s prevalence across the country. The next generation of these chemicals, organohalogen flame retardants, are inside of our own homes in a range of products, thanks largely in part to the disinformation campaign sowed by special interests. The fact remains that the science does not support their continued use.
Seeing firsthand the persistence of PCBs in my local environment inspired me to use my scientific training to work to design or improve policies that minimize public health and environmental risks to prevent future scenarios of chemicals overburdening ecosystems and households. That is why I’m here today to ask the CPSC to act with urgency to grant this petition and further regulate OFRs to protect our children and future generations.
Thank you.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/consumer-product-safety-commission-takes-on-flame-retardants
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Industry to Recycle Ideas for Easing Chemical Reporting Requirements
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies want to spend less time and money informing the EPA about the chemicals they use and the agency wants to simplify the process.
A lot of good ideas were put on the table by industry and EPA during a failed committee tasked with smoothing the process, Fern Abrams, director of regulatory affairs for the Association Connecting Electronics Industries, told Bloomberg BNA. While the committee failed to agree on a strategy to do that, industry will recycle some ideas as the EPA takes its own stab at reworking requirements for companies to submit information on the chemicals they make and import.
The Environmental Protection Agency is considering changes to its Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule, which requires chemical manufacturers and importers to report data on chemical production, importation, chemical use, and worker exposure. If the EPA determines the rule needs to be updated, it will propose changes by May 2018.
A committee that was considering possible changes to a very narrow portion of that reporting rule dissolved Sept. 15. Members failed to agree on a way that would both reduce industries’ burden and ensure the collection of all the information that EPA, states, tribes and environmental groups want.
Some of the ideas discussed, however, could be incorporated into changes the EPA may make as it considers an overhaul of the broader reporting requirements under the CDR rule, said Abrams and Kathleen Roberts, executive director of the North American Metals Council.
Suggestions included simplifying the reporting requirements for inorganic byproducts by allowing companies to report ranges of inorganic chemicals in their wastes rather than specific concentrations.
Environmental groups also are focused on the EPA's plans to propose changes to its CDR rule, according to a letter that Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and other groups recently sent the EPA.
Possible Rule Change Before 2020
The agency announced in its 2017 regulatory agenda it may change the data requirements before the next reports are due in 2020. The EPA uses the chemical production, importation, chemical use, worker exposure and other information manufacturers and importers provide for many reasons, in particular to help it decide which chemicals need to be reviewed for possible regulation.
The inorganic byproducts committee was charged with proposing changes to a small portion of the CDR requirements. The committee discussed possible revisions to the reports that circuit board, metal fabricators, coal-fired power plants, and other industries submit when they produce chemicals in “inorganic byproducts,” mostly metal-bearing wastes. The wastes become subject to CDR when they're recycled, reused, or reprocessed, which gives them commercial value.
The Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 required the EPA to convene the committee to discuss whether it could agree on a strategy to reduce industries’ regulatory burden while ensuring that EPA would get the data it, states, tribes, and other groups use to evaluate the potential risks of inorganic byproducts.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120793727&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120793727&jd=120793727
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EPA Seeks Comments on Perchlorate Materials, Peer Reviewers
Sep 15, 2017 | Inside
EPA is preparing for its second peer review of its novel scientific approach for proposing a drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, seeking comment on new materials and a list of proposed peer reviewers, though the action is unlikely to help ensure the agency meets a court-ordered deadline for completing its review.
The agency Sept. 15 published Federal Register notices containing a list of candidates to conduct the peer review, with deadlines for comments on the candidates, a list of questions for the peer reviewers and materials the panel will consider.
EPA has yet to set a date for the review, which will be managed by its contractor Versar. The notice says only that “Reviewers will participate in a two-day meeting expected to be held in the Washington, DC, metro area, projected to occur in late fall of 2017 (exact date to be determined).”
The notices request comments on the 12 candidates to serve on the peer review panel by Oct. 6, furthering ongoing speculation that EPA will be unable to meet its court-ordered Oct. 18 deadline to complete peer review of the science which will form the basis for a pending perchlorate rulemaking.
The twelve candidates include members of a 2013 Science Advisory Board panel who reviewed an Obama EPA analysis of perchlorate data, and recommended that EPA use a novel modeling approach to propose a drinking water standard for the chemical, as well as members of the most recent peer review panel who met last January to consider the model EPA and other federal scientists have developed.
SAB's recommendation was considered novel because it called on EPA to use a modeling approach rather than the traditional algebraic approach to setting drinking water goals. Perchlorate is a rare chemical with a generally well-understood mode of action (mode of action). It is one of several chemicals known to be inhibitors of iodine uptake, which helps to regulate thyroid hormones. If the thyroid is sufficiently altered for too long during sensitive developmental stages, this can lead to neurodevelopmental and other effects, such as goiter.
While former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson formally determined in 2011 that perchlorate met statutory conditions and should be regulated, challenges in developing the model and other issues kept the agency from acting within the two-year time-frame required by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) eventually sued over the missed deadline in February 2016, a suit that ultimately resulted in a settlement that set a series of deadlines for EPA to complete the process. The settlement's first deadline is the Oct. 18 deadline for peer review completion. The consent decree says that if EPA fails to complete peer review by the Oct. 18 deadline, it will update the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York with a status report by Oct. 30.
The settlement spells out additional court-ordered deadlines for EPA to propose a drinking water goal for perchlorate by Oct. 31, 2018, and finalize it by December 2019.
In a separate Sept. 15 notice, EPA opens a 45-day comment period on a version of its biologically based dose-response model revised based on recommendations from the critical peer review panel which reviewed the model last January. The notice explains that EPA made revisions “to address those peer review recommendations that had the greatest influence on the scientific rigor of the model and modeling results.”
The model is intended “to predict the effects of perchlorate on serum thyroid hormone concentrations in pregnant and lactating women exposed to perchlorate in drinking water and in infants exposed via ingestion of perchlorate in formula or breast milk,” the notice explains.
EPA also outlines the materials it is asking the public and peer review panel to comment on. The notice explains the agency “used the modeled thyroid hormone levels to predict potential adverse health effects based on published epidemiology data demonstrating a relationship between changes in thyroid hormone levels and neurodevelopmental effects.”
Now, EPA says it “will present an array of approaches to inform the derivation of an [maximum contaminant goal level] for perchlorate for expert peer review. Using the revised [biologically based dose response] model output, EPA linked statistical relationships derived from five studies to implement the MOA framework linking perchlorate exposure to neurodevelopmental impacts. All five studies assess the relationship between thyroid hormone levels in women in early pregnancy and various neurodevelopmental effects on children at various ages.”
The model's inability to address impacts on a first-trimester fetus was among the concerns raised by panelists who reviewed the model last January, who appeared split on whether the model was ready to inform policy.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-seeks-comments-perchlorate-materials-peer-reviewers
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Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Vanessa Zainzinger
NGOs in the US and the EU have often advised consumers to be wary of overusing disinfectants in and around their homes. Breast Cancer UK, for example, campaigns for minimal use of disinfectants and particularly against the inclusion of triclosan in everyday consumer products, such as antibacterial soaps, liquid hand washes, impregnated cloths and chopping boards.
Triclosan is thought to interfere with oestrogen, androgen and thyroid hormones and animal studies suggest it can accelerate the spread of breast cancer. For these reasons, Breast Cancer UK encourages consumers to avoid using it. Science policy officer, Margaret Wexler adds: "The widespread use of biocides such as triclosan selects for antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms. [And] there is no evidence that its inclusion in soaps and hand washes has any medical benefit."
In the US, Healthcare Without Harm is due to launch a campaign in September for hospitals to eliminate triclosan and triclocarban in hand hygiene products, while, at the same time, encouraging them to reduce their use of biocides in general.
"Of course, healthcare-acquired infections are a major problem but we want to make sure hospitals keep in mind that hand soaps containing antimicrobials are only necessary for certain settings," says Rachel Gibson, the NGO’s director for safer chemicals. "Sometimes just soap and water is sufficient."
Healthcare Without Harm warns that disinfectants can contain chemicals that cause cancer, reproductive disorders, eye and skin irritation, central nervous system impairment and respiratory ailments, such as asthma. Its website advises that the active substances in disinfectants may be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, be classified as hazardous waste, or contribute to environmental pollution during their manufacture, use and disposal.
"Less toxic, environmentally friendly maintenance products exist for almost all healthcare facility needs," the NGO states. For safer alternatives, Ms Gibson recommends products based on alcohol, benzalkonium chloride or iodine.
Triclosan is one of the most scrutinised disinfectant ingredients of the last few years. Most recently, a statement by over 200 scientists and health professionals called on governments and industries to limits its use and production, citing concerns about its effects on human health and the environment.
Last year the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned triclosan - along with triclocarban and 17 other ingredients - from use in consumer antiseptic wash products because it classified them as not generally recognised as safe and effective (Gras/GRAE). The ban comes into effect on 6 September.
The FDA is also due to process a review of active ingredients currently allowed for use in healthcare antiseptics. This is expected to result in bans for triclosan and triclocarban as well. In fact, the American Cleaning Institute’s associate vice president for environmental safety, Paul DeLeo, expects that it will lead to the disinfectants industry losing over 20 ingredients.
In Europe, most biocidal disinfectants will be reviewed by the competent authorities for biocides and Echa, when they begin work on the second and third priority lists of the biocidal products Regulation's review programme. Meanwhile, triclosan has already been rejected by the authorities and will have been phased out from use in human hygiene products.
Disinfectants database
While NGOs and regulatory authorities are continuing their own work, smaller governmental organisations are quietly having an impact on the disinfectants market. In Austria, for example, the Vienna Ombuds office for Environmental Protection has published a database of disinfectants, which has established itself as a tool for substitution in the city and beyond.
The database, called WIDES, was put together by a disinfection working group, delegated by the Vienna city administration as part of its ÖkoKauf (EcoBuy) environmental protection programme. It now contains human and ecotoxicological data on more than 230 disinfectant ingredients and more than 260 products, including their composition and application.
Users of WIDES can conduct searches by use and exclusion criteria. It lists, for example, surface sanitisers without allergens, or hand disinfectants suitable for pregnant women. Soon the database will allow users to check their results against the market supply of the product, according to Marion Jaros, who leads work on the project at the Ombuds office.
WIDES is beginning to impact the market. When Vienna's Central Labour Inspectorate used the database to release a list of hand sanitisers recommended for pregnant women, some manufacturers changed their formulations so as not to be excluded, Ms Jaros observes.
"It led to the database being used even more widely; and more companies applying to be included in it," she says. "Hospitals and public departments don't want to buy hand sanitisers that are not suitable for pregnant women. This could have a big impact on the market: these are expensive disinfectants and important to their manufacturers."
The working group started by monitoring the disinfectants used in hospitals, schools, swimming pools and other public places. Currently, it is being expanded to include disinfectants used in liquid cooling systems.
Many systems used in office buildings and hospitals store water in a cooling tower. As the water warms up during its flow through the building’s cooling system, it evaporates and escapes to the surrounding air. The process can lead to biofilms evaporating with the water and carrying disinfectant particles through the air. Using the least toxic disinfectants possible in these systems can help protect the environment and human health, according to Ms Jaros.
The database is freely available and Vienna has made its use binding for city departments. Roughly 40% of users accessing WIDES are from industry. Only a quarter come from Austria, the rest are spread across Europe, Asia, the US and Canada. Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) is using WIDES to buy disinfectants to use internally.
Going forward, Ms Jaros hopes WIDES will, in fact, become superfluous. "Ideally the European Commission will develop an instrument like WIDES itself. We have proposed to them that the database could be extended to EU level."
She also hopes that data in Echa's registry for biocidal products (R4BP) will feed into the database, and create a public platform where users can compare the hazardous properties of all disinfectants. "This would facilitate comparative assessment and substitution at the European level."
Alternatives assessment
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a joint project between the Green Purchasing Institute and the city’s Department of the Environment (DoE) has resulted in a widely used list of safe disinfectants. The two bodies conducted an alternatives analysis of non-food contact surface sanitisers and disinfectants in use at public facilities.
The federal EPA and California's Department of Pesticide Regulation register all surface sanitisers and disinfectants as pesticides, which means they undergo a rigorous risk assessment procedure.
However, the DoE says that finding the safest disinfectants on the market is tricky, because US law does not allow the use of ecolabels on EPA-registered pesticides. Moreover, identifying the environmental and human health risks of disinfectants is complex, involving testing their efficacy against a variety of pathogens and in terms of surface compatibility and dwell time.
After an analysis considering these points - as well as human health and environmental impacts - the city DoE published a list of products it recommends for use in local schools and daycare settings. These contain the safest ingredients it identified: caprylic acid; hydrogen peroxide; lactic acid; silver; and citric acid.
The DoE warns against the use of several ingredients in public places, including chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite), quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) and peroxyacetic acid, which is a known asthmagen. Ortho-phenylphenol was also rejected because it is on the California Proposition 65 list with a ‘cancer’ notation. Thymol and pine oil were rejected because they are known skin sensitisers and have several health and efficacy issues.
The department also urges citizens to avoid disinfectants containing triclosan and triclocarban in office environments, as well as quats, which are commonly found in household and janitorial surface cleaners but thought to be occupational asthmagens.
For city purchases, San Francisco "specifically prohibits antimicrobial hand soaps and hand sanitisers containing triclosan and triclocarban", says DoE toxics reduction and healthy ecosystems programs manager, Jen Jackson. She adds that the DoE is seeing benzylkonium chloride used a lot now, "which is a quat and problematic".
Non-chemical alternatives
Disinfectant use is particularly high in hospitals and pharmacies, fuelled by a rising problem with healthcare-acquired infections. The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has warned against an overuse of sporicidal disinfectants, after finding that they trigger asthma-like symptoms, eye and nasal problems, skin problems and wheezing in hospital employees.
However, healthcare providers say their ability to use safer alternatives is limited. Accredited bodies - such the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Joint Commission and various states’ boards of pharmacy - require healthcare facilities to use EPA-registered chemical pesticides that are tested as sporicidal. This keeps hospitals and pharmacies from using non-chemical technologies in lieu of chemical disinfectants, according to a consultant with a US healthcare giant.
Pesticide devices carry a biocidal function by physical means, such as electricity, light or mechanics. Although the EPA does not require them to be registered under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, devices are regulated in that "false or misleading claims" cannot be made about them. If a manufacturer is making claims about a device, they must have scientific data to back them up.
According to some, there is strong evidence that several non-chemical technologies are an effective approach to disinfection. Ultraviolet (UV) germicidal irradiation, for example, uses short-wavelength UV light to kill or inactivate microorganisms by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA. Probiotic cleaners, which interfere with the metabolic pathways of their target organisms, are currently being compared to bleach cleaners in a study by manufacturer Chrisal.
Another method, UV disinfection, is already being used in some hospitals to disinfect patient rooms, but to maintain compliance with US legislation has to be followed by a chemical sporicidal agent. Making way for non-chemical alternatives to be used in lieu of chemical disinfectants in healthcare would require a change in legislation.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58801/finding-safer-disinfectants
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HHPA, MHHPA and the Article 57(f) Criteria
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The authorisation procedure under the REACH Regulation is a step-wise process aimed at ensuring that the risks from SVHCs are properly controlled and that these substances are ultimately replaced by suitable alternatives. The authorisation process consists of three steps:
· identification of an SVHC;
· inclusion in the Candidate list; and
· inclusion in the Authorisation list (Annex XIV).
According to Article 57 of REACH, substances may be identified as SVHCs if the fall into one of the following categories:
· meeting the criteria for classification as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction (CMR) category 1A or 1B in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on the classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures;
· persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) or very persistent and bioaccumulative (vPvB) according to REACH (Annex XIII); and
· identified on a case-by-case basis in accordance with Article 57(f) of REACH, for which there is scientific evidence of probable serious effects that cause an equivalent level of concern to CMR or PBT/vPvB substances.
By way of example, respiratory sensitisers and endocrine disruptors fall into the Article 57(f) category. The issue inevitably arises as to exactly what the criteria under Article 57(f) are and whether these apply equally to respiratory sensitisers and endocrine disruptors. A recent case has clarified these questions.
HHPA/MHHPA case
On 15 March 2017, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on cases C-323/15 P (Polynt v Echa) and C-324/15 P (Hitachi Chemical Europe and Polynt v Echa), regarding the inclusion in the Candidate List of hexahydrophthalic anhydride (HHPA) and methylhexahydrophthalic anhydride (MHHPA) on Article 57(f) grounds.
Both HHPA and MHHPA, which are cyclic acid anhydrides, were listed as category 1 respiratory sensitisers in Table 3.1 of Part 3 of Annex VI to Regulation 1272/2008. Echa, upon referral by the Netherlands, identified both substances as meeting the criteria referred to in Article 57(f) and thus added them to the Candidate List.
In essence, the applicants raised two substantial arguments before the General Court:
1. Article 57(f) of REACH does not apply to respiratory sensitisers; and
2. Echa was incorrect when it took the view that the substances give rise to a level of concern equivalent to those of category 1 CMR substances.
The General Court dismissed both actions, essentially concluding that Article 57(f) excludes any consideration of data other than those relating to the hazards arising from the intrinsic properties of the substances concerned, such as those relating to human exposure, and thus reflecting the risk management measures in force. The companies appealed those judgments before the ECJ.
Specifically, the ECJ distinguishes between SVHC inclusion for CMRs – which can be hazard-based - and inclusion for "equivalence of concern" on grounds of Article 57(f) - which can be based also on other factors. The court stated that Article 57(f) provides for an independent mechanism of assessment (paragraph 25) and that a decision under this provision ''requires a range of factors to be taken into consideration, wider than those relevant for the purposes of a simple technical exercise to categorise the effects or intrinsic properties of a substance'' (paragraph 36).
In this context, the ECJ found that Echa and the European Commission erred in law when examining the second condition laid down in Article 57(f). In particular, according to the court "taking data relating to human exposure reflecting the risk management measures in force into consideration, where they exist, does not result in rendering the identification of a substance as being of very high concern impossible, nor does it deprive Article 60(2) of that regulation of any meaning" (paragraph 41).
The court justified its conclusion by reference to Echa's ‘Guidance for the preparation of an Annex XV dossier on the identification of substances of very high concern'’, which highlights, in section 3.3.3.2, that Article 57(f) "does not prohibit the taking into consideration of data other than those relating to the hazards arising from the intrinsic properties of the substances concerned" (paragraph 43).
The most important conclusion of the ECJ is that overall "the General Court erred in law in holding, in essence, that Article 57(f) of the REACH Regulation excludes, in principle, any consideration of data other than those relating to the hazards arising from the intrinsic properties of the substances concerned, such as those relating to human exposure reflecting the risk management measures in force" (paragraph 44).
According to the court, therefore, exposure and other risk-based consideration may be considered under Article 57(f), as opposed to Article 57(a)-(c), which refers to CMRs. This is a very important conclusion for all substances being considered as SVHCs for ‘equivalence of concern’ on Article 57(f) grounds.
The ECJ’s judgement addresses unprecedented aspects of the authorisation process and has important implications, because it defines the legal test for placing respiratory sensitisers on the SVHC list.
Wider applicability?
It should be noted that the HHPA/MHHPA case should be considered as one of general application and relevant to all substances, not just respiratory sensitisers. Indeed, the court did not link the reasoning only to respiratory sensitisers but to the application of Article 57(f) as such (which includes both respiratory sensitisers and, even more explicitly, endocrine disruptors).
Specifically at paragraph 34 of the case, the court made it clear that the scope of Article 57(f) encompasses "the possibility of taking into consideration, for the purposes of comparison, material going beyond merely the hazards arising from the intrinsic properties of the substances concerned".
A recent example of the application of the ECJ’s findings to other substances besides respiratory sensitisers is the case of the substance bisphenol A (BPA). This was included in the Candidate List due to its toxicity to reproduction in January 2017, with the involvement of the member state committee (MSC).
BPA was subsequently identified as having endocrine-disrupting properties for human health. The entry was updated in July 2017 to include endocrine-disrupting properties. According to the proposal, the serious effects to human health that BPA causes give rise to an equivalent level of concern to CMR categories 1A and 1B substances.
When assessing BPA, the MSC followed a two-stage process, analysing both its endocrine-disrupting properties and its SVHC properties. The latter assessment was based on a ‘weight of evidence’ approach. More precisely, the MSC took into account two groups of factors:
1. those related to the health effects which might be caused by the substance, including assessment of the type and irreversibility of and the delay in health effects; and
2. those that affected quality of life, raised societal concern or were based on a 'safe concentration' assessment.
In conclusion, the EU authorities based their decision on the weight of evidence when identifying BPA as a SVHC according to Article 57(f) for the probable serious effects on human health, due to its endocrine-disrupting properties, which are of equivalent level of concern.
The decision to identify BPA as having endocrine-disrupting properties was taken in like line with the criteria set by the ECJ in the HHPA and MHHPA and more precisely with the findings of the court in paragraph 36. This requires "a range of factors to be taken into consideration, wider than those relevant for the purposes of a simple technical exercise to categorise the effects or intrinsic properties of a substance''.
Conclusion
The ECJ has clarified the criteria for identifying substances "of equivalent concern" under Article 57(f), by reference to the need to consider not only hazard properties but also "other factors". These include, amongst others, exposure data. The same approach may be followed for respiratory sensitisers and endocrine disruptors, as shown by the recent example of BPA.
Not all member state currently agree with this approach (France, for example, does not) and therefore it is anticipated that there will be further discussions on this. Moreover, as criteria for endocrine disruptors are being developed at EU level there will be additional guidance to take into account in the coming months.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58813/hhpa-mhhpa-and-the-article-57f-criteria
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Trump Administration Working Toward Renewed Drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Sep 18, 2017 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
The Trump administration is quietly moving to allow energy exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the first time in more than 30 years, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, with a draft rule that would lay the groundwork for drilling.
Congress has sole authority to determine whether oil and gas drilling can take place within the refuge’s 19.6 million acres. But seismic studies represent a necessary first step, and Interior Department officials are modifying a 1980s regulation to permit them.
The effort represents a twist in a political fight that has raged for decades. The remote and vast habitat, which serves as the main calving ground for one of North America’s last large caribou herds and a stop for migrating birds from six continents, has served as a rallying cry for environmentalists and some of Alaska’s native tribes. But state politicians and many Republicans in Washington have pressed to extract the billions of barrels of oil lying beneath the refuge’s coastal plain.
Democrats have managed to block them through votes in the Senate and, in one instance in 1995, by a presidential veto.
In an Aug. 11 memo, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acting director James W. Kurth instructed the agency’s Alaska regional director to update a rule that allowed exploratory drilling between Oct. 1, 1984, and May 31, 1986, by striking those calendar constraints.
Doing so would eliminate an obstacle that was the subject of a court battle as recently as two years ago.
“When finalized, the new regulation will allow for applicants to [submit] requests for approval of new exploration plans,” Kurth wrote in the memo.
If the rule is finalized after a public comment period, companies would have to bid on conducting the seismic studies. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in a June 27 memo, obtained by Trustees for Alaska through a federal records request, that this work would cost about $3.6 million.
With oil prices averaging around $50 per barrel, potentially too low to justify a significant investment in drilling in the refuge, it is unclear how much interest companies would have. Some might consider proceeding with those studies to get a better sense of the area’s potential.
The behind-the-scenes push to open up the refuge — often referred to by its acronym, ANWR — comes as longtime drilling proponents occupy key positions at the Interior Department.
Its No. 2 official, David Bernhardt, represented Alaska in its unsuccessful 2014 suit to force then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to allow exploratory drilling there. Joseph Balash, President Trump’s nominee to serve as Interior assistant secretary for land and minerals management, asked federal officials to turn a portion of the refuge over to the state when he served as Alaska’s natural resources commissioner. The state’s plan was to offer the land for leasing.
During a stop in Anchorage on May 31, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he hoped to jump-start energy exploration on Alaska’s North Slope in part by updating resource assessments of the refuge.
“I’m a geologist. Science is a wonderful thing. It helps us understand what is going on deep below the surface of the Earth,” Zinke said at the time. “We need to use science to update our understanding of the [coastal plain] of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as Congress considers important legislation to responsibly develop there one day.”
The Fish and Wildlife memo notes that the Interior Department asked it “to update the regulations concerning the geological and geophysical exploration” of that coastal area but does not identify who issued the directive.
An Interior official said in an email Friday that the department is “required by law — the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act — to allow for seismic surveys in wildlife refuges across Alaska.”
“Hundreds of seismic surveys have been conducted on Alaska’s north slope — many of them on ANWR’s borders,” the official added.
Both the Clinton and Obama administrations concluded that the department was legally barred from permitting seismic studies in the refuge. And environmentalists have consistently opposed such activity, which sends shock waves underground. They say it would disturb denning polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, as well as musk oxen and other Arctic animals.
An increasing number of polar bears are now denning onshore during the winter — when seismic studies would take place — due to diminishing sea ice, and a significant portion of the coastal plain is designated as critical habitat for the bears. The Aug. 11 memo directs the Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional director to conduct an environmental assessment as part of the proposed rule change because the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to show that their actions will not jeopardize or adversely modify critical habitat of a listed species.
“The administration is very stealthily trying to move forward with drilling on the Arctic’s coastal plain,” said Defenders of Wildlife President Jamie Rappaport Clark, who led the Fish and Wildlife Service under President Bill Clinton. “This is a complete about-face from decades of practice.”
Environmental groups would be likely to challenge any decision to conduct seismic work in the refuge in federal court.
Alaska officials have been working for several years to restart seismic studies on the coastal plain. They say the initial ones, conducted in the winters of 1984 and 1985, were done with outdated technology and do not reflect the area’s true potential. The Geological Survey, which reanalyzed that data nearly 15 years later, estimated that 7.7 billion barrels of “technically recoverable oil” lie under the coastal plain.
The June 27 memo, sent to Zinke’s energy policy counselor Vincent DeVito, said the department could either assume the existing seismic data is acceptable, reexamine that data with “state-of-the-art” technology or conduct new studies with modern, 3-D technology.
In an interview Thursday, Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Andy Mack said that recent oil discoveries near the refuge’s western edge suggest there may be more oil there than federal officials identified three decades ago.
“Alaska’s always had an abiding interest in resource development, particularly in oil,” Mack said. “We’re not discounting the existing data, but it’s old, and it’s relatively limited.”
The question of whether Interior can restart the seismic work is a subject of legal dispute. The 1980s studies, which took place along 1,400 miles of survey lines and were financed by private oil firms, were aimed at gathering information for a report the interior secretary submitted to Congress in 1987.
In 2001, Interior solicitor John Leshy issued a formal opinion concluding that the 1983 rule was “a time-limited authorization for exploratory activities in the coastal plain.”
Twelve years later, Alaska sought permission from the Fish and Wildlife Service to launch a new exploration program; Obama administration officials rejected the request, and the state sued.
On July 21, 2015, U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason ruled against the state. “Whether the statute authorizes or requires the Secretary to approve additional exploration after the submission of the 1987 report is ambiguous,” she wrote, but Jewell’s interpretation that she no longer had authority to allow it “is based on a permissible and reasonable construction of the statute.”
Mack said he was not sure whether companies would want to drill in the refuge, but they now are more interested in the potential on land than offshore.
ConocoPhillips, for one, is “actively exploring and focused on new development opportunities” within the neighboring National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, according to spokesman Daren Beaudo. “If ANWR was opened, we’d consider it within our portfolio of opportunities . . . and it would have to compete with other regions for our exploration dollars,” he said.
Yet Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James & Associates, predicted “very little interest” in drilling in the refuge for the foreseeable future.
“The number of companies that would be open to a meaningful bet on ANWR we could realistically count on one hand, and that would be generous,” Molchanov said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-working-toward-renewed-drilling-in-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/2017/09/15/bfa5765e-97ea-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_arctic-747pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.ecc79b28bb46
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Eagle Ford Shale's Big Operators Getting Output Back to Pre-Harvey Levels
Sep 18, 2017 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
Three weeks after Hurricane Harvey slammed into the lower Texas coast and caused widespread production shut-ins, although little actual damage, in the Eagle Ford Shale play, several big upstream operators say they are at or nearly at pre-storm levels.
Devon Energy said Friday its production is at pre-storm levels in the South Texas play. The Oklahoma City-based company produced 63,000 b/d of oil equivalent in the second quarter, including 36,000 b/d of crude oil and 96,000 Mcf/d of natural gas.
"Post-storm inspections indicated that Devon's producing assets and facilities sustained minimal damage," the company said in a statement. "The company has now resumed production from all producing pads in the Eagle Ford."
Devon estimated Harvey's total impact on its net liquids production in the Eagle Ford and selected other US areas to be a 15,000 b/d reduction in the third quarter, about two-thirds of it oil.
The impact should be restricted to the third quarter and Devon said it represents 0.5% of its total expected volumes for full-year 2017.
Hurricane Harvey tore into the Texas Coast late August 25 near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 hurricane -- the second-most powerful on the five-level Saffir-Simpson wind scale. But it quickly downgraded to a tropical storm. Most producers have reported any damages to their wells or topside facilities was minimal or non-existent from the storm.
According to one reported estimate by IHS Markit, at one point a third of the Eagle Ford's 1.254 million b/d of August crude oil production and 4.835 Bcf/d of gas output -- figures projected by Platts Analytics -- was shut in. Platts now estimates September Eagle Ford production at 1.273 million b/d of oil and 4.896 Bcf/d of natural gas.
On Thursday, SM Energy said its Eagle Ford production had also returned to pre-storm levels. The company produced 88,000 b/d of oil equivalent in the Eagle Ford in the second quarter.
Harvey's total effect on its production is estimated at 200,000 boe or 2,174 boe/d, effectively reducing total previous Q3 guidance to 10.6-11 million boe (115,200-119,500 boe/d).
SM also said its Eagle Ford daily operations are run from its field office in Catarina, Texas, on the western end of the Eagle Ford further inland from the coast, and was not affected by the storm.
But SM's Houston office remains closed from flooding as Harvey's wide swath of heavy rains lumbered slowly northward from Corpus Christi, and eventually caused flooding over a large area of Beaumont in far East Texas and also western Louisiana.
In addition, BHP Billiton's Eagle Ford fields "have returned to near pre-storm levels of production and we sustained no damage from the storm," company spokeswoman Judy Dane told Platts in an e-mail.
BHP produced 99,000 boe/d in the Eagle Ford in the second quarter, including 47,000 b/d of crude oil and 166,000 Mcf/d of natural gas.
Ramp-up will continue as downstream refining and processing capacity becomes available, Dane said.
Also Thursday, EOG Resources reiterated its Eagle Ford impact from Harvey of 15,000 b/d of oil for the third quarter, although full-year production guidance is unchanged.
"It was a short-term impact," Billy Helms, EOG's executive vice president for exploration and production, said in webcast remarks at the UBS Bus-less Tour Conference in Houston. "We were affected by not only shut-in production, but we had a lot of road [obstructions] we had to deal with, and logistics, getting trucks moved, getting sand to location" for hydraulic fracturing of wells.
"[But] we're pleased with our recovery efforts and what it means to the full-year picture," Helms said.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/oil/houston/eagle-ford-shales-big-operators-getting-output-21971820
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Perry Highlights Need for Oil Reserve in Rebuke of Trump's Plan
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Flavelle
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma demonstrate the importance of keeping the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said, in a not-so-subtle rebuke to President Donald Trump.
“This is a good example of why we need an SPR,” Perry said at a press conference Sept. 15. The reserve, run by the federal government, is a stockpile that can hold more than 700 million barrels of crude. Trump's budget proposal this year called for selling half the reserve, saying it was no longer useful in a time of U.S. oil surpluses.
Perry made his disagreement with the president's position clear. “I didn't write that budget,” he said at the press conference, held with other federal officials to discuss the state of government assistance to Florida after Hurricane Irma.
After Harvey left refiners in Texas and Louisiana unable to secure crude, Perry's department agreed to deliver 5.3 million barrels from the reserve to them. It was the first such delivery in five years.
“The president brought me in not to agree with him on everything,” Perry, the former governor of Texas, said. “He brought me in because of my experience of running the 12th-largest economy in the world for 14 years.“
It's appropriate for the government to look at whether the reserve can be run in a “more efficient way,” and whether the reserve holds the right amount of oil, Perry said.
“These two storms may change everyone's opinion about,” the importance of the SPR, he said. “Our job is to make sure the United States never gets surprised.“
—With assistance from Catherine Traywick.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120793732&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120793732&jd=120793732
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DOE Gives Nod to Florida Small-Scale LNG Project
Sep 15, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben LeFebvre
The Energy Department approved a company’s application to export small amounts of liquefied natural gas from Florida, the agency said today.
Eagle LNG Partners Jacksonville II LLC is now authorized to ship 10 million cubic feet a day of natural gas in intermodal containers, DOE said. The company plans to ship the LNG to Caribbean islands to be used mainly as ship fuel, according to its website.
DOE has now approved up to 21.35 Bcf/d of natural gas exports.
WHAT'S NEXT: The U.S. is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas this year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Using the E.P.A. to Prop Up Big Coal
Sep 18, 2017 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The Trump administration is unflinching in its misbegotten campaign to protect the coal industry from what has become an obvious and inevitable decline. Eight months in, the administration has already killed, or is in the process of killing, rules that would prevent the dumping of coal mining wastes in streams, impose a temporary moratorium on new mine leases in the West, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants — one of President Barack Obama’s most important efforts to resist climate change. All of this to prop up an industry whose workers would be best served not by false promises of new mining jobs, but by aggressive programs to retrain them for a changing economy.
The latest ritualistic bow from Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who has presented himself as an industry savior, was to order last week a two-year postponement of the Obama administration’s tighter controls on lead, mercury, arsenic and other coal plant wastes that threaten human health. Delaying the rule’s effective date to November 2020, Mr. Pruitt said, merely “resets the clock.”
What it does, rather, is to try to twist the clock back to the day when coal was essentially a monopoly fuel, a day that practical-minded utility executives know is long gone. In fact, these executives are busily shutting down coal-fired plants in favor of more affordable energy sources like natural gas and wind and solar power.
“We’re not going to build any more coal plants; that’s not going to happen,” Chris Beam, head of Appalachian Power, West Virginia’s largest utility, bluntly told the state last April, despite President Trump’s phantasmagorical campaign promise to resurrect lost jobs for coal miners. No less candid, Lynn Good, the head of Duke Energy, America’s largest utility, defended the closing of 12 coal plants across five years, with more to come, in order to cut the company’s coal-fired energy output by a third: “Our strategy will continue to be to drive carbon out of our business.”
In February, one of the nation’s biggest coal-fired plants, the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, set plans to shut down by the end of 2019 — more than two decades earlier than expected — in order to turn to alternatives, cut consumer prices and shed the notoriety of being the third-worst carbon polluter in the nation, according to the ratings of the (pre-Trump) E.P.A.Continue reading the main storyRECENT COMMENTSThomas 2 minutes ago
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While environmental rules have played some role in the closing of coal-fired plants, the main driver is cheaper and abundant natural gas. Coal’s use in power generation has been declining since 2007, and by 2016 coal-fired plants produced only 30 percent of the nation’s total generation, compared with 50 percent in 2003.
The trend will continue; an estimated 46-plus coal-fired units will close at 25 electricity plants in 16 states over the next five years, according to theInstitute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. In its outlook for 2017, the institute skewered Mr. Trump’s campaign vows, saying, “Promises to create more coal jobs will not be kept — indeed the industry will continue to cut payrolls.”
About 60,000 coal industry jobs have been lost since 2011, and three of the four major mining companies have gone bankrupt, according to a new study by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Even so, Mr. Trump remains obstinate in his “war on coal” statements and steadfast to his bloated campaign promises to laid-off miners, despite expert opinion, expressed in the study, that lifting vital environmental controls “will not materially improve” the coal industry’s prospects.
It is shocking that an administration led and staffed by supposedly shrewd business executives deliberately overlooks the blossoming of profitable and cleaner energy products simply because of Mr. Trump’s hollow showmanship before his campaign base.
Until now, the E.P.A. and the environmental safeguards Congress has ordered it to enforce have been crucial to the development of new technologies. To have Mr. Pruitt sully that history with false promises to a fading industry is irresponsible.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/opinion/using-the-epa-to-prop-up-big-coal.html
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EPA Demands Valero Records on Houston Refinery Emissions Release
Sep 15, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
The enforcement division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding Valero Energy's records and maintenance history related to a storage tank roof failure after Hurricane Harvey that released cancer-causing benzene and other volatile compounds into the air.
The EPA records request to Valero - a response is legally required - comes as the EPA said San Antonio-based Valero Energy "significantly underestimated" the amount of benzene and other compounds leaked during Harvey's torrential rains. The letter shows the EPA is choosing to further investigate the accident near East Houston's Manchester neighborhood.
Valero initially reported the Aug. 27 leak from a partially collapsed roof of a storage tank released an estimated 6.7 pounds of benzene and more than 3,350 pounds of unspecified volatile compounds. The EPA now says Valero believes it significantly underestimated the volumes leaked near the Manchester neighborhood.
New totals won't be released until the EPA says it has completed its investigation. The EPA said Valero is preparing a new report that will show a "substantial increase" in emissions from the incident.
Valero did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Benzene is a dangerous component of crude oil and gasoline that can evaporate into the air and potentially swirl into neighborhoods.
The EPA records request submitted Thursday to Valero asks for a specific timeline of the incidents related to "Tank 3 and Tank 228" at the refinery, showing there were issues with at least two storage tanks. The EPA letter specifically cites roof issues with Tank 3 and roof drain problems for Tank 228.
The EPA is asking for detailed calculations of any emissions and releases and the efforts taken to prevent and mitigate against any such issues both before and after the incident. The EPA is asking for any air monitoring data Valero collected, as well as for the calibrations of the monitoring equipment.
The request also asks for information on work done in advance of Harvey to protect against storm damages, as well as the routine maintenance work done on the storage tanks for inspections and seal gap measurements. Also of interest are any instances of emissions issues with the tanks prior to Harvey.
"The information requested must be submitted whether or not you regard part or all of it a trade secret or confidential business information," the letter states, although Valero can assert a business confidentiality claim on the information it provides to the EPA.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/EPA-demands-Valero-records-on-Houston-refinery-12200878.php
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Oil and Chemical Spills From Hurricane Harvey Big, but Dwarfed by Katrina
Sep 18, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Emily Flitter and Richard Valdmanis
More than 22,000 barrels of oil, refined fuels and chemicals spilled at sites across Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of tons of other toxic substances, a Reuters review of company reports to the U.S. Coast Guard shows.
The spills, clustered around the heart of the U.S. oil industry, together rank among the worst environmental mishaps in the country in years, but fall far short of the roughly 190,000 barrels spilled in Louisiana in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina - the last major storm to take dead aim at the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Harvey slammed ashore in Texas on Aug. 26, unleashing record flooding around Houston that destroyed countless homes, displaced around a million people and killed scores.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned people affected by the storm to avoid floodwaters, saying they could contain bacteria and other dangerous substances, but the agency has so far provided few details about spills. The EPA said earlier this week it was responding to more than a dozen spills in the wake of Harvey, but said it could not immediately provide volume estimates.
The U.S. Coast Guard reports showed over 22,000 barrels of crude oil, gasoline, diesel, drilling wastewater, and petrochemicals spilled from refineries, storage terminals and other facilities in the days after the storm.
Nearly half of those came from a 10,988-barrel spill of unleaded gasoline from Magellan Midstream Partners' storage facility in Galena Park, Texas, according to the reports, confirmed by a company official.
"We expect clean-up operations to be completed within a few weeks," the company said in an email on Thursday. Most of the gasoline had been removed, it said, including quantities that spilled offsite and into the Houston Ship Channel, and remaining work was mainly focused on removing contaminated soil.
The Coast Guard filings also showed some 365 tons of toxic chemicals like sulfur dioxide, ammonia, toluene, benzene, and carbon monoxide escaped from facilities during the storm.
In addition, some 27 million cubic feet (765,000 cubic meters) of natural gas, 1,000 tons of asphalt, and unknown quantities of other substances from more than 200 other incidents also escaped, according to the data.
Officials for the Coast Guard and the EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filings.
As some spill estimates were preliminary, it was too early to assess pollution damage from the storm, said Tom Pelton, a spokesman for environmental advocacy group the Environmental Integrity Project.
One company is already raising its spill estimates: Valero Energy Corp told the EPA it probably underestimated the emissions of dangerous chemicals when the roof of a storage tank at its Houston refinery collapsed in the storm.
Valero defended its handling of the spill, noting its initial calculation came during the storm and crews kept the spill within its grounds. "We have been diligent in responsibly addressing the tank release and taking steps to minimize any potential impacts," it said. Air monitoring systems that showed elevated benzene and other emissions likely included sources other than its own plant, it added.
Katrina caused 190,000 barrels of oil spills along the Louisiana coastline, according to Donald Davis, the administrator of the Louisiana Applied Oil Spill Research and Development Program, who presented his findings to the EPA in 2006.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/09/15/us/15reuters-storm-harvey-spills.html
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Train ‘Transparency’ Bill Exposes Jersey to New Threats
Sep 18, 2017 | NJ.com
By Peter Goelz
The security of freight rail has attracted the attention of a number of groups and elected officials in part because of the shipment of crude oil to refineries around the country. As a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, I believe that this sharpened attention on the delivery of hazardous materials is a step in the right direction. Gov. Chris Christie made the right decision to veto Sen. Loretta Weinberg’s, D-Teaneck, bill, but some are still aiming to undermine the very safety and security they purport to protect.
The politicization surrounding rail transport of crude oil is leading to proposed solutions that will make our nation more vulnerable to attack while providing no additional accident prevention. Safety advocates should be just as concerned with protecting their communities from terrorists and others who wish to do harm as with the safety of transport.
In many communities, there are calls for the general public to have access to precise railroad hazmat and crude oil schedules. Though railroads should and do strive to do better, this would accomplish one goal for certain: potential terrorists would gain access to the schedules of our most volatile cargos. Total transparency in train routing to anybody at any time, as some advocate, would have catastrophic effects on national security.
It’s unsettling that the political response to unfortunate and rare railroad crude accidents is to publicize their hazmat transport information as if it were a subway schedule simply moving people. Making hazmat schedules available to all only allows terrorists a head start in planning, by making it easier for them to plan and execute attacks.
Those charged with safeguarding communities are already kept abreast of key hazardous materials transports. State emergency response officials are able to inform local authorities on a “need-to-know” basis. The protocol employed by railroads and state officials is an essential part of our country’s national security strategy for hazmat transport.
Like any vulnerability, the key to keeping trains safe from the threat of terrorism is minimizing risk. Among the strongest advantages trains have is their unpredictability. Attempting an attack on these targets is literally “trying to jump on a moving train.” That’s exactly how we should keep it.
The security of rail networks is already tightly regulated by federal authorities. These federal agencies, as well as the railroads themselves, routinely conduct rail and track inspections, review employee certifications, check rail facilities, inspect freight and monitor the locations of hazardous cargo. Most importantly for the safety of communities around the country, railroads cannot route hazardous materials as they see fit. Railroads use a sophisticated routing tool developed in partnership with federal authorities that looks at 27 routing factors to determine optimal routes (even if they are more costly) that minimize risk to the public.
An attack on U.S.-based rail is not far-fetched – earlier this month, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula expressed their desire to target trains and released an 18-page playbook on how to carry out an attack in the United States and Europe – further reinforcing why broadcasting rail routes of oil and other hazmat cargo is a dumb idea.
If communities want to diminish the risk associated with crude oil transportation, one way is through improved training at the local level. First responders are taking advantage of the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads (AAR) that trains emergency responders on how to effectively deal with railroad accidents.
Railroads also ensure that first responders know they can use a powerful mobile application called AskRail, which provides precise, on-demand data about what is inside a specific railcar or entire train. Armed with this information, firefighters and responders can plan an effective response to keep themselves and their community safe. These brave men and women have a need to know what is inside a railcar if an incident occurs. A potential terrorist does not.
The public, media, government and rail industry should join together to focus on making sure that those who “need to know” – state and local emergency responders – are prepared, rather than arguing about who has a “right to know.” Let’s protect our communities – not put out the welcome mat to terrorists.
Peter Goelz served as managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1995-2000.
http://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/09/15/train-transparency-bill-exposes-jersey-new-threats/670206001/
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OPED: A Solution for Upgrading Infrastructure
Sep 18, 2017 | York Dispatch
By Chris Reilly
Infrastructure has been front and center in the public eye lately as hurricanes in Florida and Texas test it, and policymakers, including the Trump administration, develop plans to fix it. Lawmakers here in Pennsylvania are also looking for ways to improve our state’s deteriorating roads, bridges and waterways.
To address this increasingly urgent problem, policymakers should look to the freight rail network — a success story in Pennsylvania and across the country — as an example of how robust investment and smart regulation can lead to sustained infrastructure improvements.
A 2014 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) graded 16 categories of Pennsylvania’s infrastructure and 11 received grades of C or lower. Rail was the only category to receive a B.
Pennsylvania’s 65 operating freight railroads are the most of any state in the country and play a major role in moving cargo to and from the busy ports in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Erie. The state ranks ninth in the country in goods moved through ports, with more than 100 million tons moved each year.
The freight rail industry is also engaging in innovative public-private infrastructure projects that will further increase the efficiency in which goods can be moved throughout the state and across the nation. For example, the Crescent Corridor, a freight rail improvement project covering 13 states that will connect rail lines with inter-modal shipping facilities, has been powered by $264 million from Norfolk Southern.
When it is completed in 2020, shipping goods in Pennsylvania will be cheaper and more efficient and the state will save 9.9 million gallons of fuel and $44.1 million worth of congestion costs each year. On top of that, it will have created more than 25,000 jobs.
These successes are possible because of economic policies that create incentives for freight railroads to invest in the preservation and upgrade of their tracks and equipment. Before these policies were enacted in 1980, railroads were losing money and operating on an inefficient network. Since then, they have invested more than $635 billion toward improving rail infrastructure nationwide, including many projects like the Crescent Corridor.
Freight rail exemplifies the resurgence that can occur when struggling infrastructure is met with sustained investment and reasonable regulations. One way to reasonably regulate is to prioritize outcome-based standards over more prescriptive controls. Another is to reject current calls at the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to add several new rail regulations, including “forced access,” which would compel railroads to open their lines to competitors at rates and schedules determined by the government.
As our leaders continue to look for ways to modernize Pennsylvania’s infrastructure, they should consider implementing policies that allow for more widespread private investment in our roads, bridges, water systems and other sectors. Doing so allowed freight rail to thrive, and could ensure Pennsylvania’s economic health for years to come.
— Chris Reilly is a member of the York County Board of Commissioners. He was elected to a fifth four-year term as county commissioner in November 2015. He is the longest-serving commissioner in York County history.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/opinion/2017/09/18/oped-solution-upgrading-infrastructure/666980001/
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(ACC Mentioned) Groups Urge D.C. Circuit to Scrap Part of Obama Boiler Rule
Sep 15, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
Environmental groups urged a federal appeals court during oral arguments today to overturn key parts of Obama-era toxic air pollution standards for industrial boilers.
Led by the Sierra Club, the organizations are challenging U.S. EPA's choice of limits for carbon monoxide as a surrogate for more dangerous pollutants.
They also argue that EPA's requirements for boilers during periods of startup and shutdown illegally allow facilities to prolong the release of hazards.
During 90 minutes of arguments today before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, at least two judges expressed skepticism that EPA had adequately justified its choice of limits for carbon monoxide. They asked pointed questions about where in the record the agency explained its decision.
"It just seems like this black box needs an explanation," Judge Cornelia Pillard said.
The court is expected to issue an opinion in the coming months after a busy week grappling with complex air pollution issues. Yesterday, a separate panel heard an hour and a half of arguments on EPA's rule for implementing the 2008 ozone standard (E&E News PM, Sept. 14).
Judge Judith Rogers, a Clinton appointee, sat on both panels. Pillard and Judge Sri Srinivasan, both Obama appointees, joined her today.
EPA issued the rules at issue today in 2011 to curb toxic air emissions from large industrial boilers, process heaters and smaller boilers. The agency later amended them in 2013 and 2015.
Major industry groups challenged the rules, arguing that they were too stringent and that EPA failed to account for what emission reductions are achievable.
Environmental groups, on the other hand, argued that the rules were too weak and that EPA failed to crack down on certain hazardous pollutants.
Years of litigation
In July 2016, the D.C. Circuit tossed out part of the standards, agreeing with environmentalists that EPA wrongly excluded some existing boilers that were among the best-performing in certain subcategories. Had they been included, EPA's standards would have been more stringent (Greenwire, July 29, 2016).
The court, though, severed the issues over the rule's carbon monoxide limits and startup and shutdown requirements from the larger lawsuit.
In the rule, EPA used carbon monoxide as a surrogate for limiting certain complex organic hazardous air pollutants that boilers emit downstream of the combustion process.
Led by the Sierra Club, greens contend that EPA illegally weakened 13 carbon monoxide standards to 130 parts per million after finding that the relationship between CO and polycyclic organic matter breaks down at levels below 200 ppm.
According to the environmental groups, EPA failed to provide evidence that 130 ppm is the limit that best performers in the industry can achieve as the Clean Air Act requires.
"Having chosen carbon monoxide as a surrogate, EPA has to set lawful standards," James Pew, staff attorney at Earthjustice, told the judges today.
The Clean Air Council, Environmental Integrity Project and Chesapeake Climate Action Network joined the Sierra Club in the suit.
'Chemistry problem'
In court briefs, EPA has argued there's no further destruction of the toxic air pollutants at carbon monoxide levels below 130 ppm.
But Pillard and Srinivasan grilled the Justice Department on that point, looking for evidence of the reasoning backing EPA's decision.
"I didn't see much in the record explaining why there wasn't an effort" to set limits "beyond the floor" of 130 ppm, Srinivasan said.
Pillard said it was hard to tell whether the issue with setting the carbon monoxide standard lower than 130 ppm was instead a problem of "fuzzy data" on what happens with the hazardous air pollutants below that level.
She said it appeared that EPA had a "general understanding" of the relationship between carbon monoxide and the target pollutants, but that it was blaming the breakdown in the relationship at low CO levels on data issues.
"I don't see anything in the record" on what EPA refers to as the "chemistry problem," Pillard said. "That's where I find the hole to be," she added.
Norman Rave, an attorney at the Justice Department representing EPA, said the agency's position is both that there's no benefit to a lower limit and that the data become "erratic" at lower CO levels, with some study showing that formaldehyde, one of the target hazardous pollutants, actually increases.
He also said the limit was set with the best industry performers in mind. "These are the best-performing sources, and this is the best anyone can do," Rave said.
While the judges questioned EPA's rationale, they also wondered whether there was anything left for the court to decide on the issue after last year's boiler standards ruling.
As part of the decision in U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA, the court found that the agency could use carbon monoxide as a surrogate but asked EPA for a better explanation of whether there are other controls available to limit the target hazardous air pollutants.
"I'm just wondering what flexibility we have given what U.S. Sugar says," Srinivasan said
.Startup and shutdown
When it comes to guidelines for startup and shutdown, in lieu of numeric standards, EPA set work-practice standards during those periods. When boilers are starting up, the rules allow operators to use fuels that aren't considered "clean" and requires them to engage their cleaner alternatives "as expeditiously as possible." During shutdown, certain emissions are exempt from pollution controls.
EPA took a different approach to periods of malfunction at boiler plants, requiring emissions limits to apply on a continuous basis. The D.C. Circuit upheld that decision in July 2016 (E&E News PM, July 29, 2016).
The Sierra Club argues that EPA illegally expanded the startup period for which numeric limits don't apply to four hours after a boiler supplies "useful thermal energy." The requirements allow boilers to skirt emissions limits for a longer period of time, according to the group.
"When you turn the controls off, emissions can go up a hundredfold," Pew said.
He told judges the environmentalists didn't dispute EPA couldn't set work practice standards — just that they have to be consistent with the law.
The "most egregious problem," Pew said, is that EPA set work practice standards for all boilers even though some boilers can activate their controls earlier than four hours.
Rave defended the rules. He explained that starting up an industrial boiler is "like starting a big fire." An operator has to feed "kindling" and different types of fuel before it's able to add bigger logs. "It takes awhile to get going," Rave said.
The panel focused many of their questions on whether any boiler would ever try to operate its controls before the four-hour grace period in the rule is up.
Lauren Freeman, an attorney at Hunton & Williams LLP, said industry has incentive to run its controls swiftly to avoid being found in violation once the four hours are up.
"They want to get their controls operating as soon as they can," she said.
Freeman is representing a coalition of industry groups led by the American Chemistry Council that intervened in the case on behalf of EPA. Among the group's legal team is Bill Wehrum, the Trump administration's nominee to lead EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/09/15/stories/1060060857
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Backing for Lax Boiler Rule a ‘Black Box,’ Judge Says
Sep 18, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Federal appeals court judges are putting the EPA in the hot seat, asking the agency to present technical evidence backing its decision to not set lower carbon monoxide emissions limits for large industrial boilers.
Environmental groups say the carbon monoxide limits—which are intended to reduce toxic pollutants such as formaldehyde—are insufficient to protect health and are inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared unable to reconcile the emissions limits set by the EPA with the data the agency presented to justify its decision.
Judge Nina Pillard told Justice Department attorney Norman Rave that there seems to be a “data blip.” Rave responded that the EPA determined there was no proven emissions reduction benefit in setting a lower standard, but Pillard and the other judges appeared unconvinced during Sept. 15 oral argument. (Sierra Club v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1021, 9/15/17).
“This black box needs an explanation,” Pillard said.
Broadly, the boiler standards apply to more than 14,000 boilers nationwide and are estimated by the EPA to cost industry about $1.6 billion annually.
Concrete Evidence Needed
In setting the 2015 emissions limits for boilers, the EPA chose carbon monoxide as a so-called surrogate for various hazardous air pollutants, claiming that reductions in carbon monoxide would drive reductions in the other pollutants. The D.C. Circuit upheld that choice in broader litigation over the boiler rule last year— a case Judge Sri Srinivasan said is “the predicate against which we take this case.”
But the EPA set a floor for the carbon monoxide limits of 130 parts per million. The EPA did not conclusively find that reductions in carbon monoxide beyond that limit would also drive reductions in the targeted toxic pollutants, Justice Department attorney Rave said.
The judges pressed the EPA to present concrete evidence of its position, but Rave was unable to point to anything specific during the argument that satisfied the judges’ query. Pillard asked the EPA to submit evidence, if possible, in a subsequent letter for the record.
“It seems like you are kind of trying to have it both ways. Without some affirmative reason to do so, you need to stick with” using carbon monoxide as a surrogate “all the way down, notwithstanding some fuzzy data,” Pillard said, suggesting that without evidence, the EPA's act of setting a floor could be arbitrary.
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups say the EPA's position is contrary to the Clean Air Act, as well as factually incorrect. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg BNA is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.
And “if EPA really determined it is futile” to set a lower standard, “it needs to abandon carbon monoxide as a surrogate,” said James Pew, the attorney representing environmental groups.
Work Practice Standards
Environmental groups also say the EPA unlawfully established work practice standards that allow boiler operators, during startup and shutdown, to choose the less stringent standard rather than comply with stricter emissions limits.
“Emissions standards protect people much, much better than work practice standards,” Pew said.
Rave argued boiler operators had an incentive to comply with the stricter emissions limits because the work practice standards included more burdensome requirements for recordkeeping. The judges questioned whether that incentive was strong enough and whether there was another advantage.
Lauren Freeman, an attorney with Hunton & Williams LLP representing industry group intervenors, said boiler operators may choose the more stringent option if they are better performing than the average on which the EPA based its standard. Those industry groups include the American Chemistry Council and Utility Air Regulatory Group.
Pew, however, said if the EPA determined some boilers cannot meet the stricter emissions limits, the agency must “draw a non-arbitrary line.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120793722&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120793722&jd=120793722
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Trump Administration to Brief Officials on Emissions Goals
Sep 17, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Emre Peker, Nick Timiraos and Russell Gold
President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser is expected to outline the administration’s proposals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions while restating that its stance on the Paris climate accord has not changed, White House officials said, following signals over the weekend that the U.S. was exploring ways to remain in the 2015 pact.
White House economic chief Gary Cohn’s planned breakfast discussion on energy and climate matters in New York follows a similar meeting led by Canada, China and the European Union in Montreal on Saturday, when U.S. officials broached revising Washington’s goals under the Paris accord to avoid pulling out of it, according to officials at the event.
Mr. Cohn, who is leading the White House’s stance toward the 197-party accord, is set to discuss how the U.S. can continue to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without sacrificing its re-emergence as a leading energy producer, according to a White House official. The initiative to hold an informal meeting in New York materialized shortly before the Montreal event, according to an invitation letter from Mr. Cohn, and it was interpreted by some U.S. partners as a harbinger of a policy shift.
Trump administration officials on Sunday confirmed the president remained open to revising U.S. commitments under the Paris accord rather than quitting the pact.
The White House has said such a position isn’t a shift: Mr. Trump said in June that the U.S. would withdraw from the pact “but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an…entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States.”
But Mr. Trump has repeatedly boasted of withdrawing from what he has called a “job-killing” deal and hasn’t emphasized revising the country’s participation in the pact.
Asked Sunday by ABC News whether the U.S. could remain in the Paris pact, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said: “If there’s an agreement that benefits the American people, certainly.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told CBS News: “The president is open to finding those conditions where we can remain engaged.”
Remarks by the top U.S. national-security official and diplomat reflected the message offered by the U.S. delegation, led by White House senior adviser Everett Eissenstat, to representatives from 34 governments in Montreal Saturday, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Mr. Trump’s envoy, who is deputy director of the National Economic Council, the White House office led by Mr. Cohn, said the U.S. couldn’t carry forward with targets set by the Obama administration. Mr. Eissenstat said the White House continued its review of those commitments, the person said. In the meantime, the U.S. said it would participate in climate talks, remain active and be constructive, the person said.
Participants at the Montreal gathering said Mr. Eissenstat’s remarks fueled optimism among proponents of the Paris deal. Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January, officials from China, the EU and Canada have tried to convince his administration that fighting climate change could also prove an economic boon.
Businesses mostly declined to discuss the administration’s position, while indicating it wouldn’t affect clean-energy investments.
“Until we know more about the administration’s thoughts and plans, FirstEnergy doesn’t have anything to add,” a spokeswoman for the Ohio-based electricity company said. Since the president’s June announcement, companies have showed few signs of changing long-term strategies in the capital-intensive industries with decade-long planning horizons.
Many firms are shifting to less carbon-intensive fuels and renewable energy to satisfy customer preferences, and because these fuels have become less expensive and more competitive. Most also operate in multiple countries, including in jurisdictions still pursuing ambitious climate regulations.
“Reducing emissions cost effectively remains an important part of our strategy,” said NeilNissan , a spokesman for North Carolina-based power company Duke Energy , which plans to cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.
America’s international partners will be looking for clarification during Mr. Cohn’s briefing in New York, as world leaders arrive in the city for the United Nations General Assembly.
The Paris deal, brokered under a U.N. framework, is on the agenda as countries seek to meet their commitment to limit the global temperature increases to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. The U.S. wants to use the annual U.N. gathering to present its “softer vision” on the sidelines, according to one official who participated in the Montreal event.
Mr. Cohn is planning to exchange views on the path ahead, a White House official said, underlining that the U.S. was focused on reducing emissions by pursuing clean energy and other technological improvements. Mr. Cohn would point to areas where the U.S. had made such strides without sacrificing economic growth or energy security, the official said. Mr. Cohn had argued in favor of remaining party to the Paris deal before the president’s June decision, though he remains committed to Mr. Trump’s policies, the official said.
“The plan is for Director Cohn to consider other ways in which we can work with partners in the Paris climate accord,” Mr. Tillerson said Sunday on CBS. “We want to be productive. We want to be helpful.”
The U.S. delegation joined the Montreal discussions on climate change and clean energy, which spurred optimism around the table about American engagement, one participant said. At the meeting Mr. Eissenstat appeared to juggle the Trump administration’s competing policy priorities on the Paris agreement, according to participants in the Montreal meeting.
On the one hand, the U.S. delegate sought to reaffirm that Washington is ultimately committed to the accord, and on the other he sought an opening to deliver on the president’s promise to clinch more favorable terms.
“I was in the meeting, and effectively, the negotiator didn’t close the door to remaining in the agreement, and in addition ruled out looking for a new agreement,” Chilean Environment Minister Marcelo Mena said late Saturday in a tweet from Montreal.
Yet some of the representatives were more measured in their enthusiasm of Mr. Eissenstat’s position.
The American envoy “did not imply that the U.S. would reconsider its decision to withdraw” from the Paris deal, German State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth said.
“This is obviously a misunderstanding,” he said. “However, the Montreal talks were constructive and showed that the U.S. administration does not want to cut all ties with the international climate community.”
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), who has urged Mr. Trump to renegotiate U.S. commitments under the Paris accord, said Sunday that the White House told him the president’s “position hasn’t changed—he still plans to withdraw unless we find more suitable terms.” Still, Mr. Trump’s position allows for flexibility, he said.
—Paul Vieira, Ben Leubsdorf, William Mauldin, Bradley Olson and Sarah Kent contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-poised-to-clarify-climate-policy-1505694530
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Tillerson: Trump Open to Paris Climate Deal 'Under the Right Conditions'
Sep 20, 2017 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
By Rebecca Savransky
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday suggested President Trump would be open to remaining in the Paris climate deal under the right conditions.
"I think under the right conditions, the president said he's open to finding those conditions where we can remain engaged with others on what we all agree is still a challenging issue," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Tillerson was asked about a report that the Trump administration is no longer looking to withdraw from the agreement, although Trump announced in June the U.S. would withdraw.
The White House denied the reports and said there hasn't been any change in the country's position on the deal.
"As the president has made abundantly clear, the United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable to our country," said White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters in a statement.
"I think if you recall, the president also said, look, we are willing to work with partners in the Paris climate accord," Tillerson said Sunday.
"If we can construct a set of terms that we believe is fair and balanced for the American people and recognizes our economy, our economic interests, relative to others, in particular, the second-largest economy in the world, China," he listed the terms.
Tillerson said the plan is to consider other ways the U.S. can work with global partners in the Paris climate agreement.
"We want to be productive, we want to be helpful," Tillerson said.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/351070-tillerson-trump-open-to-paris-climate-deal-under-the-right
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Next EPA Science Advisers Could Include Those Who Question Climate Change
Sep 18, 2017 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis
People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. The board currently has 47 members, but 15 have terms ending in September and could be replaced by some of the candidates.
One candidate believes more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will “confer great benefits upon future inhabitants of the globe” by driving plant growth. Another has said of the climate change debate that “scare tactics and junk science are used to secure lucrative government contracts.” Five candidates have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s own science on the warming of the planet in court.
The board nomination process is an open one — anyone can nominate anyone else for consideration — and an EPA official involved in the process said that there had been “no whittling down” of the names submitted, other than making sure those nominated were indeed interested. The list includes scientists with diverse subject matter expertise and a long lists of credentials.
But the inclusion of a handful of climate contrarians has caused early concern among environmental groups and some employees at the agency.
“We should be able to trust that those who serve the EPA are the all-stars in their fields and committed to public service,” said Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said the upcoming round of appointments will test whether EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is “remotely interested” in independent scientific advice. “He already has a parade of lobbyists and advisers providing him with the perspectives from oil, gas, and chemical companies. The Science Advisory Board is a check on political influence and can help the agency determine whether the special interests are telling it straight.”
The EPA official, who requested anonymity because the selection process is ongoing, said that after the public comment period ends, staff members likely will scale down the list of nominees to a smaller group of qualified candidates, with an emphasis on balancing out the board and trying to make sure there are experts across a range of disciplines, from hydrology to microbiology to statistics. But the final decision of who winds up advising the EPA resides with one person.
“Administrator Pruitt ultimately makes that decision,” the official said.
E&E News last week identified about a dozen board candidates that it said had previously expressed skepticism of widely accepted findings of climate science.
Even though none may ultimately end up on the board, the current list is raising eyebrows in light of Pruitt’s own statements questioning the human role in climate change and the agency’s removal of an informational website that publicly presented established climate science.
“There are definitely some inappropriate names on there,” said one EPA scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “I don’t know how concerned to be. But I’m hoping that the scientific community comments actively on the list.”
Several of the candidates are affiliated with the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based conservative think tank with a long history of questioning various aspects of climate change science. E&E News reported that it had suggested a number of the names.
“We applaud any effort by Administrator Pruitt to bring qualified non-alarmist scientists onto the EPA’s advisory boards,” Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely told the publication.
One Heartland-affiliated scientist who is now a candidate for the EPA board is meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo, a co-founder of the Weather Channel and currently chief forecaster with WeatherBELL Analytics LLC. D’Aleo was one of 13 scientists who submitted an amicus brief in litigation over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, challenging the agency’s science, including its key finding that atmospheric carbon dioxide, by driving climate change, endangers human health and welfare.
“EPA has no proof whatsoever that CO2 has a statistically significant impact on global temperatures,” the scientists, including D’Aleo, wrote. “In fact, many scientists feel no such proof exists.”
D’Aleo reiterated his skepticism that humans are driving a steady warming of the globe through greenhouse gas emissions, instead saying he thinks urbanization is creating pockets of heat where people live. “I really believe that virtually all of the warming is due to population building out cities and even building out small towns,” D’Aleo said.
D’Aleo also has opposed the agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a scientific document that provided the basis for the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. “If I was asked to participate, I would want to find out how much I can do and what they plan to do with the endangerment finding before I made my decision,” he said.
Four other scientists who co-authored a legal brief challenging EPA’s conclusion regarding human-caused climate change also appear on the list of advisory board candidates.
One of them, astrophysicist Gordon Fulks, wrote in The Oregonian in 2010 that he is “concerned that many who promote the idea of catastrophic global warming reduce science to a political and economic game.” Fulks also is a policy adviser with the Heartland Institute.
Asked his take on the causes of global temperature change, Fulks responded by email that the Earth has seen “modest warming as we have come out of the Little Ice Age since about 1830 in ice core temperature reconstructions. That surely says that the warming over the last almost two centuries is natural in origin.”
He also said that the Science Advisory Board has suffered from conflicts of interest and that “my hope is to make sure that the decisions that the EPA makes regarding regulations are firmly based in science and not superstition.”
Another scientist, Craig Idso, is chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, where he has written that “the modern rise in the air’s CO2 content is providing a tremendous economic benefit to global crop production.”
Yet another scientist, Richard Keen, is a meteorologist and author who traveled with the Heartland Institute to Rome in 2015 for a “prebuttal” to Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change. There, he argued that “in the past 18 years and how many months, four months, there has been no global warming.” Another candidate, Anthony Lupo, is an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Missouri. In 2014, he told a local Missouri media outlet, KOMU 8, that “I think it is rash to put the climate change completely on the blame of humans.”
Under Pruitt, the agency has already removed a Web page devoted to climate change science that presented the scientific consensus view that it is largely caused by humans, and Pruitt has endorsed the idea of a “Red Team”/“Blue Team” exercise, in which a group of outside critics would interrogate the validity of mainstream scientific conclusions. The agency also has begun taking steps to roll back Obama-era climate regulations, while President Trump has proposed deep cuts to climate research.
The EPA has already seen a controversy involving a separate advisory board, the Board of Scientific Counselors, where a number of researchers expecting to have their terms renewed were informed by the new administration that they would not be retained.
The EPA said in a public notice that for the Science Advisory Board, it is seeking expertise in a wide range of areas, extending far beyond fields generally relevant to what is happening with the climate, such as “chemical safety; green chemistry; homeland security; uncertainty analysis; and waste management.” But it is also looking for expertise in “atmospheric sciences,” where much climate knowledge lies.
“The Science Advisory Board of the EPA hardly ever takes on the issue of [is] climate change real,” said William Schlesinger, a current board member and the president emeritus of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies. “They take on things like, what should be new emissions standards for the oil and gas industry, or just recently, what would be standards for performance for the airline industry.”
For his part, D’Aleo says that on climate change, the Science Advisory Board needs more diversity of opinion.
“You don’t go anywhere,” he said, “if you just put together a committee of like minded people that just share the same opinion.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/18/next-epa-science-advisers-could-include-those-who-question-climate-change/?utm_term=.814dfbb9d06c
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