Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 9/18/17
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(ACC Mentioned) OSHA, American Chemistry Council Establish Partnership
Sep 18, 2017 | EHS Today
By Stafanie Valentic
Exposure during polyurethane production can have serious health effects including asthma and lung issues. Because of this risk, OSHA and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have teamed up to promote safety around the raw materials used during the production process. -
TSCA Active Substance Reporting: Advice for Importers and Manufacturers
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Michael Boucher
Amended section 8(b) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (Tsca) requires the EPA to designate all substances on the Tsca Chemical Substance Inventory as either ‘active’ or ‘inactive’ in US commerce. The EPA will then prioritise and conduct risk evaluations of the active substances under two new rules that implement amended section 6 of Tsca. -
(ACC Mentioned) Dow, Evonik, Wacker Claim Data Shows Silicone Material Safe
Sep 18, 2017 | Bloomberg BNA
By Pat Rizzuto
There’s no need for the EPA to restrict uses of a silicone material based on new environmental monitoring data, say five producers who provided the information to the agency. -
(ACC Mentioned) Taking Stock of the Big Picture
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
We all tend to get fixated on keeping up with the latest regulatory and scientific developments and learning the implications for our own organisations - but sometimes we need to ask: what does the big picture look like? What were the key chemicals management events and trends of the past ten years, and what does this tell us about the future? This, our 100th issue, seems a good time to take stock. -
Modus Operandi: How EPA Toxics Nominee Dourson Carries out His Work for the Chemical Industry
Sep 18, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I’ve now examined dozens of papers and reports that EPA toxics nominee Michael Dourson and his firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), have published on chemicals over the past 15-20 years. A remarkably consistent pattern of how Dourson conducts his paid work for the chemical and pesticide industries emerges from this examination. -
Industry Coalition Backs Increased Regulation of Beauty Products
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Fifteen makers of cosmetics and skin care products have announced a coalition to push for stronger US cosmetic safety laws. -
Danish EPA Finds Heavy Metals in Low-Cost Jewellery
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An inspection of jewellery by the Danish EPA has found a fifth of samples with heavy metals above permitted levels. -
DOE Greenlights Fla. Exports
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Federal regulators last week permitted small-scale liquefied natural gas exports from a facility on Florida's eastern shore. -
Okla. Tribe Loses Part of Oil and Gas Drilling Challenge
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
An American Indian tribe's challenge to oil and gas development in Oklahoma saw a significant setback last week after a federal court scrapped many of the tribe's arguments. -
EPA Wants Valero's Records on Benzene Leak
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. EPA has asked Valero Energy Corp. to turn over records related to benzene emissions at its Houston refinery in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. -
Officials Propose Chemical Limit to Push Air Force Cleanup
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Colorado officials have proposed a state limit on perfluorinated chemical (PFC) contamination in an effort to press the Air Force to clean up areas near bases polluted with chemical firefighting foam. -
Big Data - A New Approach to Risk Analysis and Safety Management
Sep 18, 2017 | Rail Engineer
By Paul Darlington
Big Data Risk Analysis (BDRA) is a new approach to risk analysis and safety management for the railway industry. Led by the Institute of Railway Research and RSSB, it is based on the intensified use of vast amounts of safety-relevant data, analytic software, non-relational databases and powerful computer systems. -
Trump Adviser Tells Foreign Officials No Change on Paris Climate Deal
Sep 18, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
Gary Cohn, President Trump’s chief economic adviser, told foreign climate and energy officials Monday morning that the administration still plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. -
Trump Is Making Deals, but One on Climate Is Unlikely
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Coleman
President Trump has made himself clear on climate change: He doesn't believe humans have much, if anything, to do with it. No number of hurricanes appears able to alter that. -
The Real Unknown of Climate Change: Our Behavior
Sep 18, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
Scientists urged decades ago that we buy ourselves some insurance by cutting emissions. We yawned. Even today, when millions of people have awakened to the danger, tens of millions have not. So the political demand for change is still too weak to overcome the entrenched interests that want to block it.
Industry and Association News
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Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) OSHA, American Chemistry Council Establish Partnership
Sep 18, 2017 | EHS Today
By Stafanie Valentic
Exposure during polyurethane production can have serious health effects including asthma and lung issues. Because of this risk, OSHA and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have teamed up to promote safety around the raw materials used during the production process.
The two-year alliance will raise awareness of how workers are exposed to diisocyantes and isocyantes through web-based training.
“OSHA’s new alliance with ACC will help ensure that employers and employees who work with the identified chemicals better understand the health hazards associated with these potentially hazardous chemicals, and the methods to control employee exposures,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt.
Isocyanates are raw materials used to make polyurethane products such as insulation, car seats, foam mattresses, shoes and adhesives, according to OSHA. Exposure to isocyanates can cause irritation of the skin and mucous membranes, chest tightness and difficulty breathing as well as more serious health effects such asthma and other lung problems.
In addition to a web-based training program, the organizations will publish guidance on medical surveillance and clinical evaluation techniques for employers and workers using the chemicals. The agreement also calls for best practices seminars on health and safety procedures for OSHA, on-site consultation, and state plan staff.
The ACC comprises the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) as well as the diisocyanates and aliphatic diisocyanates panels. Members of these groups include manufacturers and distributors of chemicals and equipment used to make polyurethane, according to the organization.
http://www.ehstoday.com/industrial-hygiene/osha-american-chemistry-council-establish-partnership
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TSCA Active Substance Reporting: Advice for Importers and Manufacturers
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Michael Boucher
Amended section 8(b) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (Tsca) requires the EPA to designate all substances on the Tsca Chemical Substance Inventory as either ‘active’ or ‘inactive’ in US commerce. The EPA will then prioritise and conduct risk evaluations of the active substances under two new rules that implement amended section 6 of Tsca.
Meanwhile, to identify active substances, the EPA is now requiring importers and manufacturers and allowing (but not requiring) processors to report substances added to the inventory before 21 June 2006, that they imported, manufactured or processed for any non-exempt commercial purpose during a ten-year ‘lookback period’ from then until 21 June 2016.
The EPA published its new active substances reporting rule on 11 August 2017 and it took effect immediately. Importers’ and manufacturers’ mandatory reports are now due to the EPA by February 7, 2018 and processors’ voluntary reports are due by 5 October 2018.
(The new rule also requires ‘persons’ to report inactive substances to the EPA before starting to import, manufacture or process them, but this requirement does not take effect until the agency has published final designations for every substance on the Inventory. This will not occur until some time after the 5 October 2018 deadline: this article therefore focuses on the mandatory reporting that importers and manufacturers must do by 7 February 2018.)
If a company imported or manufactured inventory-listed chemical substances during the lookback period and had an appropriate system for complying with Tsca at the time, it should not encounter serious obstacles to complying with the new active substances reporting rule, because relevant import or manufacturing records in its possession or control will be substantially complete (barring accidents) and organised by substance. Nonetheless, the points below may simplify reporting even for well-prepared importers and manufacturers.
Corporations are people too
Only ‘persons' are subject to active substances reporting. The new rule defines a 'person' to include 'any individual, firm, company, corporation, joint-venture, partnership, sole proprietorship, association, or any other business entity'.
Therefore, if a company imported or manufactured chemical substances during the lookback period, it is potentially subject to active substances reporting. Conversely, if neither the company nor any predecessor existed during the lookback period, then there was no 'person' who could have imported or manufactured anything at the time and it can avoid active substances reporting.
If both a company and a predecessor imported or manufactured during the lookback period, the EPA directs them to January 2016 guidance for the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) Rule to resolve any questions about how to report. This guidance also discusses scenarios in which a company that did not exist during the lookback period and a company that did may be the same 'person' for reporting purposes, for example when:
· a company simply changed its name;
· a company spun off a division that continued the company’s prior importation or manufacturing of specific chemical substances;
· two companies merged and either one survived or neither did and instead formed a new company; or
· one company acquired a unit of another company, and both companies continued to exist.
Therefore, if a company did not exist during the lookback period but a predecessor did and either imported or manufactured chemical substances, management should consult with its in-house counsel to understand the transaction that created the company and determine whether it is a successor to the other company for reporting purposes.
Take inventory
When reviewing a company’s imports or manufacturing of substances during the lookback period, it is possible to ignore substances that were never added to the inventory, because they are excluded from active substances reporting.
(One should keep in mind, however, that if the company has been importing or manufacturing any substance that is not on the inventory and was not relying on and complying fully with an appropriate exemption from the Tsca section 5 premanufacture notice requirement at all relevant times, there is a potential Tsca compliance problem and in-house counsel should be contacted immediately for assistance.)
In addition, two additional groups of substances can be ignored, because the EPA already has designated them as active in the 20 June 2017 publication of the Inventory: those added to the inventory since 21 June 2006 (i.e. during or after the lookback period) and 'interim active substances' reported to the EPA under the CDR Rule in 2012 or 2016. Accordingly, the focus should exclusively on the substances shown in the latest publication of the inventory without active substance designations, because these were added to the inventory before 21 June 2006, are not interim active substances and, thus, are subject to reporting.
Excuse you
Even if a company imported or manufactured a substance on the latest inventory without an active substance designation, the new rule contains many exclusions and exemptions. It is not necessary to report substances that are imported or manufactured solely as substances excluded from Tsca, notably:
· pesticides;
· tobacco and tobacco products;
· nuclear material;
· firearms and ammunition, including components; and
· food, food additives, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices, including components in each case.
Naturally occurring substances also are excluded from reporting, so long as their manufacture and processing occurred only by limited means prescribed by the EPA. The agency has provided many reporting exemptions familiar to importers and manufacturers of new chemical substances:
· import of a substance as part of an article;
· manufacture of a substance as a non-isolated intermediate;
· import or manufacture of a substance solely for export (conditions apply) or for test marketing, in small quantities solely for R&D, as an impurity, or as a by-product with no or only limited commercial purposes; and
· import or manufacture of a substance that resulted from a chemical reaction described in 40 C.F.R. § 720.30(h)(3)-(7) (use with care).
The EPA does not exempt any substance imported or manufactured during the lookback period under the polymer exemption, the Polaroid exemption, the low volume exemption, or the low releases and low exposures exemption, but if the substance is not on the latest inventory or is listed with an active substance designation, then it is excluded from active substances reporting anyway.
Lastly, there is no need to report a substance if acceptable documentation is available to show that the EPA received a report from another person for the same substance. This may occur, for example, when companies in a trade association or consortium agree that one member will report a substance for everyone.
Know what you know
There is also no need to report a substance to the EPA if any importation or manufacture of the substance during the lookback period is not 'known to or reasonably ascertainable'. However, making this determination can be tricky. Basically, this definition applies if the information is:
· in the company’s possession or control; or
· is information that a similarly situated reasonable company would know.
Information in acompany’s possession and control includes information possessed or controlled by other persons: any subsidiary, partnership in which the company is a general partner, parent company, or company or partnership that the parent company owns or controls.
Therefore, the EPA can hold a company responsible for knowing about relevant importation and manufacturing records possessed or controlled by any subsidiary, parent company or corporate sibling that it has. Information in the company’s possession and control also includes information in the following ‘locations’:
· the company’s own files, including files maintained by employees in the course of their employment;
· commercially available databases to which the company has purchased access; and
· files maintained in the course of employment by agents of the company who are associated with research, development, test marketing or commercial marketing of the chemical substance in question.
Thus, what information is in the company’s possession or control is reasonably clear. However, whether information not in its possession or control is nonetheless 'information that a similarly situated reasonable company would know' is unclear. The EPA says that it is appropriate to construe the term 'based on the totality of pertinent factors' (unhelpful) and that '[p]rior loss of records consistent with document retention policies and … other individual factors … could be pertinent in construing what information is known or reasonably ascertainable' (ditto).
In addition, the EPA directs companies to guidance issued for the 2016 CDR Rule, but the two guidance documents that the EPA specifically references do not suggest what a company should do when import or manufacturing records are missing for any portion of the lookback period. Therefore, companies may be unable to decide what, if anything, to do in the case of missing records.
Keep a secret
Tsca requires the EPA to move any active substance from the confidential portion of the inventory to the public portion, if no person asks the EPA to keep the chemical identity of the substance confidential.
Therefore, if a company imported or manufactured a chemical substance added to the confidential portion of the inventory at any time before 22 June 2016, if it does not know whether anyone else will report the substance and asks the EPA to preserve its confidential identity, and if it wants to ensure that the substance’s identity remains confidential, it will need to report the confidential substance to the EPA under the new rule, even if the company would otherwise be excused from reporting the substance, for example, because the EPA already has designated it as active in the latest inventory or the substance was imported or manufactured for an exempt purpose.
There is need to substantiate a claim of confidentiality for the substance’s identity in the report to the EPA. Instead, the agency will conduct a separate rulemaking under which the company will substantiate the claim. Until this is done and the EPA has reviewed it under the future rulemaking, the substance will remain on the confidential portion of the inventory.
Other people’s secrets
If a company manufactures substances or imports them from affiliates who manufacture them, it will usually know the substances’ identities. If the company imports substances from unrelated suppliers, however, it will often encounter trade secret claims for the identities of imported substances. Companies import trade secret substances under procedures that may or may not ensure Tsca compliance.
To facilitate the reporting of trade secret substances, however, the EPA gives importers two options. If a trade secret substance is on the confidential portion of the inventory, the agency’s online reporting form contains a 'pick list' that will allow the importer to identify the substance by the EPA accession number and corresponding generic name, which the supplier should be able to provide and has no reason to withhold.
If the trade secret substance is on the public portion of the inventory, however, then the supplier cannot give the importer an EPA accession number or the substance’s identity while keeping it secret. In this case, the importer can make a joint submission in which it provides the information available to it and invites the supplier to separately submit the confidential substance’s identity directly to the EPA. The importer fulfills its obligation by submitting its portion of the joint submission regardless of what the supplier does.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58851/tsca-active-substance-reporting-advice-for-importers-and-manufacturers
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(ACC Mentioned) Dow, Evonik, Wacker Claim Data Shows Silicone Material Safe
Sep 18, 2017 | Bloomberg BNA
By Pat Rizzuto
There’s no need for the EPA to restrict uses of a silicone material based on new environmental monitoring data, say five producers who provided the information to the agency.
Millions of pounds of the compound, known as D4, are used in making sealants, adhesives, medical tubing, shampoo, and cell phones.
The Dow Chemical Co., Evonik Corp., Momentive Performance Materials Inc., Shin-Etsu Silicones of America, and Wacker Chemical Corp. submitted a package of environmental monitoring data for octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane, also known as D4 (CAS No. 556-67-2). The manufacturers gave the environmental monitoring data to the Environmental Protection Agency Sept. 5 to comply with an enforceable consent agreement they signed in 2014.
U.S. production and imports of D4 increased from 300 million pounds in 2011 to between 750 million and one billion pounds in 2015, according to information these and other chemical companies reported to the EPA.
Uses Restricted in Europe
D4 is classified in the European Union as reprotoxic and harmful to aquatic life. The EU restricts some uses of D4 and another silicone, decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5; CAS No. 541-02-6). The European Chemicals Agency is considering restricting those chemicals’ use in skin products, tissues, and wipes.
The EPA isn’t considering any restrictions now, but D4 is one of the chemicals the EPA has teed up for possible risk assessment. The Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA to consider hazard and exposure information as it decides whether a chemical poses sufficient risk to warrant regulation.
The U.S. data show no regulatory restrictions are needed, Karluss Thomas, senior silicone director at the American Chemistry Council, told Bloomberg BNA.
Similar monitoring data convinced Environment Canada that environmental concentrations of D4 were so low that no regulations were needed to control uses of the chemical, according to conclusions it announced in 2012. Instead, Environment Canada required industrial facilities that manufacture or use D4 to prepare and implement pollution prevention plans. Australia has a pending assessment of D4, Thomas said. The new data may be relevant to that assessment if Australia decides the wastewater treatment facilities there are sufficiently similar to those monitored in the U.S., he said.
Broad Uses
More than 99 percent of D4 is used to make silicone polymers, Thomas said. Those heat resistant, flexible polymers are used to make products including:
• medical tubes such as drug delivery systems and heart pacemakers,
• sealants, adhesives and coatings for concrete, glass, granite, steel and plastic building materials,
• cake pans, muffin molds, and baking mats,
• shampoos and conditioners, and
• cell phones and laptops.
$5 Million Research Effort
The Silicones Environmental, Health, and Safety Center—managed by the American Chemistry Council—measured concentrations of D4 in wastewater, surface water, and sediment from 14 sites in Carrollton, Ky.; Waterford, N.Y.; Sistersville, W. Va.; and Adrian, Mich.
In total, the industry group invested more than $5 million in the D4 research. The data will be made public by the EPA, which did not immediately respond to questions about the information.
The companies measured D4 levels headed to and from their own on-site wastewater treatment facilities, in surface waters, and from treated waters processed by utilities receiving industrial waste water, Thomas said. The companies also measured concentrations in two fish species and one worm-like animal that lives in sediment, he said.
Generating exposure data can be expensive, Thomas acknowledged: the D4 environmental monitoring data package cost a lot more than the $1.2 million originally estimated. But, the center maintains the real value of the data is that it allows the EPA to use actual environmental measurements rather than projections calculated by computer models reliant on assumptions, he said.
Computer models largely are based on information derived from carbon-based chemicals, Thomas said.
“Silicone chemistry is fundamentally different from carbon chemistry,” Thomas said. “Having real world monitoring information is such a critical piece of the evaluation.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/lpages/lpages.adp?pg=breaking_news&bn_product=deln#urn:bna:0000015e7c87df8aad7effa7d1620000
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(ACC Mentioned) Taking Stock of the Big Picture
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
We all tend to get fixated on keeping up with the latest regulatory and scientific developments and learning the implications for our own organisations - but sometimes we need to ask: what does the big picture look like? What were the key chemicals management events and trends of the past ten years, and what does this tell us about the future? This, our 100th issue, seems a good time to take stock.
The first issue of Chemical Watch’s monthly European Business Briefing was published in October 2007, four months after the REACH Regulation came into force. From the beginning, like our news coverage, it rightly had a strong focus on REACH and set out to help companies keep abreast of its implementation and ensure they could achieve compliance. Six of the seven articles in that first issue were about REACH; the seventh looked at joint working on chemicals assessment by the US, Canada and Mexico.
The first issue of Chemical Watch’s monthly European Business Briefing was published in October 2007, four months after the REACH Regulation came into force.
REACH’s complexity and subsequent global influence is shown by the fact that one of the subjects covered in that first issue - the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of consortia formation and data sharing - is still a challenge to registrants in Europe. It has also become essential reading for policy makers recently in countries like South Korea, Turkey and Taiwan, which have established similar models under domestic legislation.
Since then, we have provided many articles offering advice, tips and summaries on aspects of REACH and other regulations. Many of the leading specialist law firms have contributed, as well as industry experts. We also wrote about the even bigger compliance challenges that faced chemical companies outside Europe, in places like the US and China, because we knew our readers wanted information on chemicals regulation and programmes from other major economies.
In the first editorial the then Briefing editor - now Chemical Watch CEO - Mamta Patel wrote: "REACH implementation is just one of many drivers for sound chemicals management to which companies will need to pay attention in the near future: emerging scientific evidence on risks; changes in public perception; increasing customer and investor demands; looming liability issues particularly surrounding vulnerable groups; the actions of legislators in other parts of the world; resource scarcity; and the trail being blazed by leading firms on sound chemicals management are some of the other issues firms will need to tackle in parallel."
Multinational coverage
Reflecting our readers’ need for updates on countries outside Europe, we soon branched out to cover the Obama administration’s interest in revising TSCA, California’s Green Chemistry Initiative and Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan, which was launched in the same month as REACH was adopted.
By 2012, when we changed the name to Global Business Briefing, things were changing fast in east Asia. Most countries in the region still lacked good information on which substances and chemical products were used in their domestic markets and what their hazardous properties might be.
By then, China had beefed up its notification rules for new chemicals, K-REACH was just months away from adoption and Taiwan was planning to require registration for priority substances. For multinational chemical companies, the headache was getting worse.
"Chemical legislations are creating a patchwork of conflicting rules and procedures," Cefic’s Leo Heezen told a workshop in Asia in late 2011. "Differences in national regulatory requirements lead to an increase in costs and time and to distortions in international competition and trade restrictions. What we are seeing is different requirements, some of which are very specific to particular countries, but which the chemical industry perceives as being barriers to trade in chemicals. We need a way of harmonising chemical management systems so that these additional requirements will not exist any more and there can be freer trade relations between countries."
Such harmonisation has proved difficult, however. One reason is that the UN’s main initiatives, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (Saicm) and the Globally Harmonised System of classification and labelling, are voluntary. The global chemical industry wants the former to remain so because of the risk that a global treaty would be modelled too closely on REACH, while plans for a list of globally agreed substance classifications are moving at a glacial pace.
Meanwhile, the OECD’s programme for the mutual acceptance of chemicals test data is now used by non-OECD countries like South Africa, Brazil and Argentina, while the US and Canada (and possibly soon Mexico) are pushing ahead with plans to align on classification and labelling procedures and streamlining approaches for new chemicals regulatory approvals.
A platform for key players
Contributors to the Briefing have included important names from the world of policy such as Björn Hansen, Geert Dancet, Erwin Annys, Jim Jones, Bob Diderich and Cal Dooley (who first wrote urging changes to TSCA back in 2009).
Political figures included European Commissioners Antonio Tajani (now president of the European Parliament) and Janez Potočnik, MEPs Jill Evans, Joe Leinen and Julie Girling, US Congressman Bobby Rush, French MP Gerard Bapt, US Senator David Vitter and Danish environment minister Esben Lunde Larsen.
We have also showcased the views of important figures in academia. For example, in 2014 we ran two articles by Ragnar Löfstedt, professor of risk management at King’s College, London.
In the first, he argued for less use by policy makers of the substitution principle, for example, by abolishing the adoption of numerical targets for listing SVHCs. In the second he criticised the way the European Commission used a second legal principle, that of precaution, calling for greater use of cost-benefit analysis when the principle is evoked. In response, Green MEP adviser Axel Singhofen defended the precautionary principle against what he saw as pesticides and chemicals industry-inspired attacks.
Other academics have contributed outspoken guest columns. Earlier this year, MIT professor Nick Ashford moved to quash optimism about the new TSCA, arguing that the law, as written, does little to advance the protection of the public, consumers and workers, and that the "anti-regulatory fervour" in Washington, DC would mean the EPA chief’s discretion was unlikely to work in favour of public health protection or help innovation.
Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at Sussex University, argued that the ‘threshold of toxicological concern’ concept is unscientific and should not be promoted by public bodies like the European Food Safety Authority and the UN’s International Programme on Chemical Safety. And Leonardo Trasande, a professor at NYU’s school of medicine, defended at statement adopted at a Saicm conference that exposure to endocrine disruptors can cause adverse effects in people and wildlife, and criticised the American Chemistry Council’s principles for applying ‘sound science’ as "hardly the best on offer".
Showcasing company and sector programmes
From the very beginning, the Briefing presented company case studies from a range of sectors, often focusing on REACH and CLP compliance. Readers were able to learn how the likes of blue chip corporates, such as Johnson Matthey, Rolls Royce, Skanska, Dow Chemical, Sabic and Lego, were meeting these challenges and what processes and tools they were busy creating.
We have also talked to smaller companies. In the last issue, for example, UK automotive repair products producer, U-Pol, repeated British businesses' urgent plea for more information from the UK government on its plans for Brexit.
As REACH began to affect downstream industries more, through processes like authorisation and restriction, and as the candidate list of SVHCs in particular has become more important to businesses’ strategic thinking, so we have reported more and more on downstream sectors (a process extended by the launch of our sector news pages over the last 12 months).
In some sectors, chemicals management has been going on a long time. The last ten years have also seen the development of sector programmes, where companies in the same industry have worked collaboratively with competitors and suppliers to efficiently create tools which benefit them all.
Among the first chemical information tools to emerge were the global automotive sector’s International Materials Data System (IMDS) to log the materials used in cars and the Global Automotive Declarable Substance List (Gadsl). Both were up and running before REACH was adopted.
As the number of regulations which set various lists of substances of concern has multiplied, so these tools have become more valuable. Other sector bodies, and many individual companies, now have their own restricted substances list (RSL), which they require their suppliers to follow.
Initiatives like the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals group, set up by major apparel brands, have taken supply chain chemicals management to a new level. As well as an RSL, the group has created guidance for its members on hazard assessment, has compiled a positive list of preferred, safer chemicals, an inventory of substances used in textile manufacturing and audit protocols its members can use to share supplier results, provides information on safer alternatives and offers training resources.
To reduce the burden on chemical and material suppliers, industry groups in downstream sectors, such as apparel, are merging different supplier questionnaires. Given the big problems with inconsistent product testing, and the costs involved in doing it, such audit processes and tools will undoubtedly become more widespread.
In parallel with the growing demand for information on chemicals in products and the supply chain, there is also for data on the hazards of particular substances. Initially driven by REACH registration, there is now a similar process in South Korea under K-REACH and several other countries, such as Taiwan, China and Turkey, are moving in the same direction.
For chemical companies, data is becoming a new global currency, and this poses significant challenges to registration consortia and Siefs. Already we are hearing the first calls for some form of global data clearinghouse so that companies know what data is out there for their substances.
Companies throughout supply chains - but particularly those that are consumer-facing, such as retailers and brand manufacturers - will continue to be pressed by NGOs to substitute the most harmful substances and to minimise animal testing. Over the years, almost 30 different NGOs have contributed articles to the Briefing and they will continue to be an important part of the mix.
So where next for our in-depth coverage? Put most simply, the need for information, news, analysis, databases and workflow tools is going to grow. As chemicals production shifts away from Europe towards Asia, Latin America and Africa, so many more countries will face pressure to promote the use of safety data sheets and labels, and to give access to information on chemical hazards and exposures.
European policy makers look set to use grouping approaches more in chemicals assessment, partly to avoid ‘regrettable substitutions’ and partly to save resources, and Echa will do its best to get companies to improve the data in registration dossiers. It is likely that more countries will decide to create national inventories of chemicals on their market. And consumers in North America, Europe and Asia will acquire more sophisticated ways of finding out which substances are in the products they buy.
We hope you will join us on this exciting journey.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58898/taking-stock-of-the-big-picture
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Modus Operandi: How EPA Toxics Nominee Dourson Carries out His Work for the Chemical Industry
Sep 18, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I’ve now examined dozens of papers and reports that EPA toxics nominee Michael Dourson and his firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), have published on chemicals over the past 15-20 years. A remarkably consistent pattern of how Dourson conducts his paid work for the chemical and pesticide industries emerges from this examination. I’ll use one example below to illustrate, but most or all of the steps I’ll describe have been followed over and over again.
The example I’ll use relates to two herbicides, alachlor and acetochlor (collectively known as acetanilides), widely used in huge volumes especially in the Midwest. The US Geological Survey reported that in 2015 about 2 million pounds of alachlor and more than 40 million pounds of acetochlor were used in agriculture annually. The USGS map images included here (click to enlarge) show where these substances are used, based on 2012 data.
Dourson’s work specifically addressed the degradation products of alachlor and acetochlor, which are frequently detected in ground and surface waters. Except as otherwise noted below, the specifics I describe are recorded in documents posted on TERA’s webpage for this activity.
STEP 1: The process typically starts with a company or industry that has a problem or a decision it wants to influence, e.g.: a chemical has been spilled or is showing up in air or water monitoring; a facility permit is being reviewed; a government agency is doing a risk review of a chemical or updating a standard. In this case, Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto, makers of the acetanilides, were facing growing scrutiny as the herbicides’ degradation products were being routinely detected in ground and surface water samples and regulators in states like Minnesota were reviewing applicable water standards.
STEP 2: The affected company or industry group contracts with TERA to convene an “expert” panel or workshop or conduct a peer review of a government or industry assessment, research plan or other document. TERA is hired to convene and manage the panel or peer review. In this case, Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto hired TERA to run a workshop involving an “expert” panel that TERA was also to select.
STEP 3: TERA appoints its own founder and President, Michael Dourson, to the panel, almost always as Chair of the panel. This is a highly questionable practice: While the selection of panels and peer reviewers is sometimes contracted out to “third parties,” the procedures used are designed to keep the entity identifying experts and managing panels and associated meetings at arm’s length from the experts themselves. TERA makes no such effort: In the acetanilides case, as in the great majority of other TERA cases, employees of Dourson’s own company appointed him (their boss) to chair the “expert” panel.
STEP 4: TERA clears Dourson of any conflict of interest in his participation on the panel. That is, employees of Dourson’s own company are the sole determiners as to whether or not their boss has a conflict of interest in the matter at hand. Highly irregular, to say the least, an approach that presents its own conflicts of interest. In the acetanilides case, TERA cleared Dourson to serve on the panel even though TERA had recently contracted with both Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto to “provide technical review on projects.” This is not an isolated incident: In numerous other cases, TERA or Dourson himself had recently worked for the very same company or industry group paying TERA to convene a panel or conduct a review in which Dourson participated, typically as Chair.
STEP 5: Based on the workshop or review, Dourson and his colleagues write a paper for publication, sometimes involving other workshop or panel participants. In the acetanilides case, the first 5 of the 9 authors on the paper (including Dourson) were TERA employees.
STEP 6: The paper is typically published in the industry’s go-to journal, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. I have blogged earlier about the large fraction of Dourson’s papers – well over half – published in this one journal, which has a longstanding reputation of being the go-to journal for both tobacco and chemical industry-friendly paper publishing. The journal has been the subject of numerous exposés over the past 15 years regarding its close ties to the chemical and tobacco industries. True to form, in this case, Dourson’s paper was published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. It recommended water quality standards for acetanilide degradation products many times less protective than those in place in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Not all of these steps have occurred with every chemical. Dourson’s work on the likely carcinogen 1,4,-dioxane, for example, paid for by PPG Industries, doesn’t appear to have relied on an intervening workshop or “expert” panel for cover, and instead went straight to publication of a paper, once again in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. Not surprisingly, here too he argued for a far less health-protective standard, in this case about 1000-fold weaker than EPA’s level indicating an increased cancer risk. It’s worth noting that state agencies in Michigan and New Jersey reviewed Dourson’s work on this chemical and found it sorely lacking on scientific grounds.
It is not only Dourson’s deep conflicts of interest that lead us to oppose his nomination, but also his questionable science and incessant claims of independence, when in fact his whole step-by-step enterprise has been set up to bend the science in support of the interests of his corporate clients.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/09/18/modus-operandi-how-epa-toxics-nominee-dourson-carries-out-his-work-for-the-chemical-industry/
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Industry Coalition Backs Increased Regulation of Beauty Products
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Fifteen makers of cosmetics and skin care products have announced a coalition to push for stronger US cosmetic safety laws.
There is no mandate for screening substances used in beauty products. There are only 30 ingredients banned from use in personal care products in the US, and the FDA does not have recall authority, the coalition said in a press release.
The coalition supports the Personal Care Products Safety Act (S 1113), which was reintroduced in May by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The bill would strengthen the FDA’s authority to regulate cosmetics and require the agency to review the safety of at least five chemicals per year.
Led by skincare and cosmetics firm Beautycounter, the Counteract Coalition also includes Annamarie, Biossance, Goddess Garden, Josie Maran, Peet Rivko, Seventh Generation, SW Basics, Vapour, Organic Beauty, Skin Care, côte, Follain, OSEA, Rahua, Silk Therapeutics, tenoverten and Vintner's Daughter.
"We know we can't do it alone, and are proud to work alongside other leaders in the rapidly growing safer and natural personal care industry to demand change in Washington, DC," said Beautycounter founder and CEO Gregg Renfrew.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58736/industry-coalition-backs-increased-regulation-of-beauty-products
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Danish EPA Finds Heavy Metals in Low-Cost Jewellery
Sep 18, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An inspection of jewellery by the Danish EPA has found a fifth of samples with heavy metals above permitted levels.
Out of the 88 items selected from 28 companies, it found 18 were in breach of the law, it says. Four products contained too much nickel, three cadmium, six lead and five both lead and cadmium.
The products tested were modestly priced jewellery for both men and women, including watches, necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings.
Inger Bergmann, head of the agency's chemicals inspectorate, noted that 10% of the products contained lead at levels that posed a risk to human health. It was important not to put such items in the mouth, she said.
All of the illegal products have been withdrawn from sale. The Danish EPA has warned other EU countries through the Common European Notification System, Rapex.
A recent study by the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) found high levels of the restricted metals in jewellery.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58908/danish-epa-finds-heavy-metals-in-low-cost-jewellery
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Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Federal regulators last week permitted small-scale liquefied natural gas exports from a facility on Florida's eastern shore.
The Energy Department approved an application for Eagle LNG Partners' Jacksonville II LLC (Eagle Maxville) plant to ship supercooled gas in quantities of up to 0.01 billion cubic feet daily.
Eagle Maxville now has authorization to send LNG to countries that are not under a free-trade agreement with the United States. The company plans to ship its product to Caribbean markets.
"Many Caribbean countries currently rely on petroleum to supply a large portion of their electricity needs," Eagle LNG wrote in a press release on a second Jacksonville, Fla., export site. "This Project supports their tremendous desire and interest to have a cleaner energy solution that provides a direct and reliable supply of LNG from a liquefaction source at predictable cost."
A call for public comment on the Eagle Maxville application elicited no response, allowing DOE to process the request in three months, according to the department.
DOE recently proposed a rule to accelerate its turnaround on gas export applications (Greenwire, Aug. 31).
"This quick response demonstrates Secretary [Rick] Perry's commitment to expedited processing of LNG export applications when ready for final action," DOE wrote in a Friday statement.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/18/stories/1060060867
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Okla. Tribe Loses Part of Oil and Gas Drilling Challenge
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
An American Indian tribe's challenge to oil and gas development in Oklahoma saw a significant setback last week after a federal court scrapped many of the tribe's arguments.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma dismissed part of a lawsuit from the Pawnee Nation that accuses the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs of approving oil and gas development on Indian allotment lands without considering environmental impacts or effects on the tribe.
The 3,200-member tribe is situated in the heart of Oklahoma's oil and gas fields and was at the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in 2016 that investigators linked to oil and gas wastewater disposal wells in the area.
The tribe, represented by the environmental firm Earthjustice, sued the government last year, challenging lease approvals in the Pawnee Nation's Cimarron River Valley and subsequent drilling permits.
Attorneys say the government's actions have ignored drilling impacts and the contribution of increased extraction to disposal-related earthquakes (Energywire, March 7.
But Senior Judge James Payne, a George W. Bush appointee, tossed the leasing challenges, ruling that the tribe needed to first raise its complaints with BIA before seeking judicial review.
Lawyers for the Pawnee had argued they couldn't appeal BIA's decision because the agency never notified the tribe of the lease approvals. The court rejected the argument.
"The BIA's exhaustion requirement is a jurisdictional prerequisite to judicial review," Payne wrote. "It cannot be waived by the Court, and it cannot be excused for equitable reasons as Plaintiffs suggest."
Lawyers for the tribe said they now intend to go through an administrative appeal process to challenge the leases.
Payne also dismissed claims under the American Indian Agricultural Resources Management Act.
But the legal battle is not over. The Pawnee's opposition to the drilling permits is still a live issue.
The tribe is challenging BLM under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and an executive order that addresses development in floodplains. Legal briefs on whether BLM violated the law in issuing its permits are expected in the coming months.
Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman said the court's decision to dismiss the lease challenges is disappointing but that the tribe is eager to move forward on the permitting claims.
"We look forward to holding the Interior Department accountable for ignoring the commitments it made to the Pawnee and for repeatedly violating federal laws," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/18/stories/1060060875
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EPA Wants Valero's Records on Benzene Leak
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. EPA has asked Valero Energy Corp. to turn over records related to benzene emissions at its Houston refinery in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
After the storm damaged a storage tank roof at the refinery, local and federal officials detected benzene — a carcinogen — in a nearby Houston neighborhood.
Valero initially said the refinery released roughly 6.7 pounds of benzene and more than 3,350 pounds of unspecified volatile compounds, but EPA says that was likely a severe underestimate (Greenwire, Sept. 15).
EPA's enforcement division requested a timeline of what happened at "Tank 3 and Tank 228," where the agency cited problems with roof draining, indicating two storage tanks may have been involved. It also wants information on emissions and what the refinery did to prevent them, as well as air monitoring data and maintenance records (Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle, Sept. 15).
However, Valero on Friday said the plume of benzene may not have originated from its facility after all.
Some of the chemical compounds that officials detected weren't present in the storage tank whose roof failed, Valero said (Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle, Sept. 15). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/18/stories/1060060925
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Officials Propose Chemical Limit to Push Air Force Cleanup
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Colorado officials have proposed a state limit on perfluorinated chemical (PFC) contamination in an effort to press the Air Force to clean up areas near bases polluted with chemical firefighting foam.
PFCs were long used to put out fires on military airfields. U.S. EPA has put out health advisories, and the Department of Defense has begun assessing groundwater contamination at its installations, but cleanup efforts have been limited and PFCs remain legal to use under federal law.
A limit from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment could help the state navigate a complicated environmental issue, officials say.
"We need to be able to have not just a carrot, but a stick," said department environmental toxicologist Kristy Richardson.
The department has proposed a limit of 70 parts per trillion in groundwater, but Richardson said the proposal won't be final until April.
Other states have pushed limits on PFCs, but the groundwater contamination problem is particularly bad in Colorado, where more than 65,000 people who relied on the Widefield Aquifer have had to find new sources of water or use cleaning systems.
"We are living in the arid West," Richardson said. "We don't have a lot of other alternative sources of water we can tap" (Bruce Finley, Denver Post, Sept. 17). — NS
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/18/stories/1060060943
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Big Data - A New Approach to Risk Analysis and Safety Management
Sep 18, 2017 | Rail Engineer
By Paul Darlington
Big Data Risk Analysis (BDRA) is a new approach to risk analysis and safety management for the railway industry. Led by the Institute of Railway Research and RSSB, it is based on the intensified use of vast amounts of safety-relevant data, analytic software, non-relational databases and powerful computer systems.
A recent conference on the BDRA programme, held in Birmingham was attended by representatives from Japan, France, Sweden, USA and Korea, had academic representation from the universities of Huddersfield, Birmingham, Cranfield, Lumera (USA) and Imperial College London, and attracted delegates from the air transport industry.
The safety performance of Britain’s railway has improved dramatically over the last 50 years. In the 1960s, up to 100 workers a year lost their lives, while now, in some years, no fatal incidents occur at all. This much-reduced number of incidents makes further improvements more challenging, and so new methods of identifying risks and control measures are needed, which is where BRDA comes in.
Proactive to reactive
In very simple terms, any safety management system consists of three elements – plan, act and review. This can be further broken down into the need to define the objectives, risks, and control measures, then to monitor the improvements and feed them back into a modified plan. Investigations following incidents identify new control measures but, because there are now fewer incidents, new ways of identifying control measures are required. Put another way, safety improvements need to become proactive rather than reactive.
The basic tools of BDRA have been developed by the University of Huddersfield and RSSB, with the objective of an integrated approach to safety and risk assessment, based on data-analytics. It is still early days in the programme but, looking to the future, state-of-the-art risk monitoring technology could pinpoint faster, targeted improvements to safety and reliability on Britain’s railways at the push of a button. The vision is that it will provide the right insight, to the right person, to help them make the right decision.
This technology is already applied in the oil and nuclear sectors and could supply tomorrow’s rail safety manager with a real-time ‘intelligence console’ about incidents, infrastructure and rolling stock faults, providing rapid tactical analysis and automating parts of the existing paper trail. It will also give better information for efficient and robust boardroom decisions.
Challenges
There are many challenges to overcome, such as sharing information between companies, privacy and security, capturing data in a consistent format, and making sure the analytic process allows appropriate human cognitive review. What it must avoid is data overload to engineers and managers so that they can’t see the wood for the trees. What BDRA must do is to extract intelligence from multiple data sets – ideally, in real time.
The Rail Industry’s Data and Risk Strategy, published by RSSB and steered by a cross-industry group, sets out how the railways can make better use of data to improve safety performance, prevent delays and disruption, retain high productivity and reliability, and prevent train accidents.
The first step of the strategy is already in place, with the new Safety Management Intelligence System up and running, and actively in use by Network Rail and train operating companies. SMIS+ is the programme to modernise safety-reporting capabilities, making it easier for people to collect information, and extract intelligence. This could reduce the time taken, from first being alerted to incidents and close calls to making the ultimate remedial decision or investment to manage the risk, from years to weeks in some cases. It will make it easier for companies to report and track safety incidents and investigations, and provide the right risk information in the right format to the right people at the right time.
SMIS+ is a completely new, cloud-based on-line system exploiting commercial off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art safety management software which has replaced the old SMIS. So, while the name is similar, this is a completely new system, denoting a transformation in system capability.
Phase 1 was introduced on 6 March 2017, replacing the old SMIS system, with phase 2 being rolled out later in the year and replacing the existing close call system. This will deliver the ability to record and track ‘close calls’, as well as the ability to use mobile devices.
SPAD management.
Improvements by the industry mean that the risk from signals passed at danger (SPADs) is low, and it is over 17 years since the last fatal train accident was caused by a SPAD. To make the next step in risk reduction, though, it is necessary to look deeper into the circumstances that cause a SPAD, such as how frequently a signal is approached while showing a red aspect.
Rail companies will be able to identify the signals which are most frequently approached at red thanks to a new on-line tool developed by RSSB and the University of Huddersfield. The tool can help to focus attention on signals where SPADs may be more likely. It has been proven successful in trials and it is hoped that it will be used to generate new safety and performance insights for rail companies.
The Red Aspect Approaches to Signals (RAATS) tool uses 420 days of train movements provided by Network Rail through its open data initiative and applies complex algorithms to identify where red signal approaches are happening. The results can be broken down by train type, day of the week or time of day and analysis can be carried out on signal groups. Users can interrogate data within the tool or export it into Excel.
The RAATS tool was released as a prototype in January, and work is underway to refine it, including linking it to live data feeds, before formally launching it later in the year. Looking to the future, it should be possible, with the right collaborative industry approach, to integrate data from on-train monitoring recorders with signal asset condition and maintenance databases, using a BDRA approach to provide a complete proactive SPAD risk management system.
SNCF SPAD experience.In France, SNCF has also been working on a similar analytical risk system for its SPAD management. It has managed to integrate a year’s worth of on-board data, but identified that the data was overwritten in all the recording systems. This is one learning point for any BDRA system.
The experience of having scattered data across the French network was not an issue, but data quality was a bigger problem, with the accuracy of geographical and time data being vital for robust analytics. Good results have been achieved using text analysis, and those from machine learning supervised classification algorithms are encouraging.
SNCF admitted that the project’s access to the company’s data could have been better and that its IT systems can’t access all the required data across the network. There are also plans to merge event reporting from other sources, such as signal asset data, performance and maintenance records.
Text analysis
Peter Hughes of Huddersfield University explained a process of text-analysis of cold calls, which is one of the tools of the BDRA system. To analyse and identify risk from free-text cold calls requires a very carefully designed set of algorithms to make sure nothing is missed and to provide intelligence to enable improvement plans to be implemented.
NoSQL is the next-generation database used at the heart of the text-analysis system. These were originally called ‘non-SQL’ or ‘non-relational’ databases, reflecting the fact that the database provides a mechanism for data storage and retrieval which is modelled in other means, rather than the tabular relations used in relational databases. NoSQL databases are used by the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon, and are increasingly being used in big data and real-time applications.
The text analysis is designed to pick out and highlight key terms in free text messages. The requirement is to identify common hazardous events, regardless of the language. It must take into account that the free text may have been generated by a user who may be wearing gloves, stood in poor light and lineside in freezing rain! So, for example, “access” could be entered as “acces” “possession” entered as “posession”. The NoSQL database takes this into account.
https://www.railengineer.uk/2017/09/18/big-data-a-new-approach-to-risk-analysis-and-safety-management/
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Trump Adviser Tells Foreign Officials No Change on Paris Climate Deal
Sep 18, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama
Gary Cohn, President Trump’s chief economic adviser, told foreign climate and energy officials Monday morning that the administration still plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Cohn hosted climate, energy and foreign ministers for an informal breakfast in New York City to precede this week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting.
He told reporters afterward that he reaffirmed what Trump said in June at the White House: The United States plans to pull out of Paris unless the accord can be made better for the country.
“We made the president’s position unambiguous, to where the president stands, where the administration stands on Paris,” he said, according to Reuters.
A senior White House official said Cohn reiterated Trump’s position that “we are withdrawing from the Paris agreement unless we can re-engage on terms more favorable to the United States,” and that was “made very clear” in the Monday morning breakfast.
The Wall Street Journal initially reported Saturday that a White House official had told climate ministers in Montreal that Trump had decided not to pull out of the Paris accord.
The White House quickly denied that, but repeated that, as before, Trump could be open to a different agreement.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that Trump could rejoin the deal “under the right conditions.”
Tillerson and Cohn both supported the Paris agreement before Trump’s pullout announcement and advocated for Trump to stay in it.
The agreement’s emissions cuts are voluntary. Under the deal’s terms, Trump cannot formally withdraw until November 2020.
Cohn also used the Monday meeting to outline Trump’s energy agenda and how officials around the world can work together to reduce energy costs, the senior White House official said.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/351146-trump-adviser-tells-foreign-officials-no-change-on-paris-climate
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Trump Is Making Deals, but One on Climate Is Unlikely
Sep 18, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Coleman
President Trump has made himself clear on climate change: He doesn't believe humans have much, if anything, to do with it. No number of hurricanes appears able to alter that.
He's been just as fixed on other issues, like immigration, before making a sudden course change. The question grappled with by some observers is whether Trump could be coaxed into ditching his view that warming is a hoax, for a political payday.
Most doubt it.
While Trump has shown he's willing to stiff-arm his conservative base to work with Democratic minority leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California on a deal to allow children illegally brought to the United States to stay in the country, the idea that he'll pivot on climate change remains far-fetched — though not impossible.
"Climate policy doesn't look like the next verse of the 'ballad of Chuck and Nancy,'" Kevin Book, managing partner at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, said in an email. "Deregulatory efforts continue at the Interior Department and EPA. It would seem they are not singing from the same psalter, but maybe the climate verse of the bipartisan hallelujah chorus hasn't been written yet."
So what would have to change? One major thing: Climate change would have to matter to more American voters.
And if there's anything Trump's election proved, it's that climate change didn't register. While 38 percent of voters cared a "great deal" about climate change, just 15 percent of likely Trump voters said they felt that way, according to an October 2016 Pew Research Center poll.
"We worked really hard at LCV to elevate the issue of climate change during the 2016 election cycle, and from where we sit, it did not break through," said Sara Chieffo, vice president of government affairs with the League of Conservation Voters.
Trump's views, after all, were not secret. It's often remarked that there's a "tweet for everything" when Trump makes a policy stand and someone can dredge up a years-old missive that criticized President Obama or someone else for doing something similar.
On climate change, though, there have been more than 100 tweets. And they've all aligned with the policy and regulatory actions, including withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, that the Trump administration has taken.
"Trump's views have been pretty consistent on climate change during his presidency," said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist.
He noted that deals on immigration made sense given the presence of the issue on the campaign trail. Climate change was barely mentioned. "Until this issue becomes a populace one that raises to the level of serious concern like top-tier issues of jobs, the economy and health care, it's unlikely this will be a serious focus," Bonjean said.
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have renewed interest in Trump's views on climbing temperatures. The president has toured the devastation in Texas and Florida, meeting victims along the way. While his administration has said discussing climate change would be insensitive in the recovery period, he has nonetheless faced questions about it (Climatewire, Sept. 12).
"We've had bigger storms than this," Trump said last week in response to whether climate change contributed in some way to Harvey and Irma, which many scientists said were made stronger by rising temperatures (E&E News PM, Sept. 14). Trump ignored a follow-up question on whether he agrees with climate scientists who say humans are largely responsible for warming the planet.
"I don't think he thinks twice about it because he doesn't see it as something that people think about on a daily basis, much less people who are getting through a hurricane," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who backed Trump in the campaign. "He sees it as not a good use of his time. That's why he ignores it."
Asked last week about Trump's climate views, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "The president has addressed this already. I don't think that it's changed over the last several weeks."
Some of Trump's past views, all encapsulated in tweets, include: "In the 1920's people were worried about global cooling — it never happened. Now it's global warming. Give me a break!"; "Do you believe @algore is blaming global warming for the hurricane?"; "It's extremely cold in NY & NJ-not good for flood victims. Where is global warming?"; and "The freezing cold weather across the country is brutal. Must be all that global warming."
And a greatest hit: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
To be sure, some hoped Trump would pivot on climate after winning the election. But analysts made similar predictions about most of his views. A New York Times interview shortly after the election contained perhaps Trump's most moderated climate perspective: "I have an open mind to it. We're going to look very carefully."
After all, this was a man who ahead of the 2009 U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, signed onto a full-page ad in the Times with other business leaders urging climate action. Surely, some thought, moderation was in order after a brutal campaign (Climatewire, Nov. 14, 2016).
But almost 11 months after his victory, those predictions amount to false guesses.
"What communities in the Gulf Coast, Southeast, and Puerto Rico need is a recovery led by a President that leaves no one behind and rebuilds with recognition of the very real threats the climate crisis poses," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement after Trump's comments last week. "Instead, what they're getting is an ignorant showman who is lying to their faces. What's clear is Trump never got it. What's worse is he doesn't care."
Bonjean said Trump's re-election strategy around climate could change if voters in battleground states that are affected by storms start drawing connections between those events and planetary warming. So far, that isn't happening in a meaningful way, he said.
Environmental groups and Democrats have tried for the past few elections to make anti-climate views a hallmark of extremism. Many will be watching whether those efforts combined with Trump's statements on climate factor into next year's midterm election.
Chieffo said LCV's research showed Superstorm Sandy swayed voters when it hit just before President Obama won his 2012 re-election bid. She's encouraged that the public and media "are connecting the dots even more so than" during Sandy. That, in turn, could spur more interest in climate change in down-ballot and gubernatorial elections scheduled before the 2020 presidential contest.
"We're working to elevate climate at all levels of the ballot," Chieffo said.
Some Republicans have pushed back against Trump on climate. The president's actions as well as those of U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt are "fueling the growth" of the 56-member House Climate Solutions Caucus, half of which are Republican, said Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, in an email.
The chance that a climate reversal could lift sagging political fortunes is what keeps Maibach's hope alive.
"He seems to be leaving open the possibility of a pivot, but he's unlikely to do so until he sees an opportunity to make himself look like a leader through his action," Maibach said. "I would be surprised if he makes it to the end of his term without some sort of pivot."
Book pointed to the administration's handling of the Paris withdrawal as that potential open door for a climate turnaround. He noted that while the White House rejected the global climate pact on June 1, the State Department in its letter of intent to exit the deal offered terms of "re-engagement." The United States, meanwhile, cannot officially exit the Paris accord until the day after the 2020 election.
Despite the timing, though, the politics of climate change remain fixed in place for now, Book said.
"[N]either climate change nor energy itself tend to be reasons why Presidents win or lose elections," he said. "A climate activist can lose in an activist country and a climate denier can win in a denier country. Most of the world — and virtually all of politics — has a shorter horizon than the timescale of climate change, hurricanes notwithstanding."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/09/18/stories/1060060917
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The Real Unknown of Climate Change: Our Behavior
Sep 18, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
As Hurricane Harvey bore down on the Texas coast, few people in that state seemed to understand the nature of the looming danger.
The bulletins warned of rain falling in feet, not inches. Experts pleaded with the public to wake up. J. Marshall Shepherd, head of atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia and a leading voice in American meteorology, wrote ahead of the storm that “the most dangerous aspect of this hurricane may be days of rainfall and associated flooding.”
Now we know how events in Texas turned out.
Dr. Shepherd and his colleagues have spent their careers issuing a larger warning, one that much of the public still chooses to ignore. I speak, of course, about the risks of climate change.
Because of atmospheric emissions from human activity, the ocean waters from which Harvey drew its final burst of strength were much warmer than they ought to have been, most likely contributing to the intensity of the deluge. If the forecasts from our scientists are anywhere close to right, we have seen nothing yet.
In their estimation, the most savage heat waves that we experience today will likely become routine in a matter of decades. The coastal inundation that has already begun will grow worse and worse, forcing millions of people to flee. The immense wave of refugees that we already see moving across continents may be just the beginning.
Scientists urged decades ago that we buy ourselves some insurance by cutting emissions. We yawned. Even today, when millions of people have awakened to the danger, tens of millions have not. So the political demand for change is still too weak to overcome the entrenched interests that want to block it.
In Washington, progress on climate change has stalled. The administration has announced its intent to withdraw from the global Paris climate accord. And top Trump appointees insist that the causes of climate change are too uncertain and the scientific forecasts too unreliable to be a basis for action.
This argument might have been halfway plausible 20 years ago – or, if you want to be generous, even 10 years ago. But today?
Today, salt water is inundating the coastal towns of the United States, to the point that they are starting to put giant rulers in the intersections so people can tell if it is safe to drive through. The city leaders are also posting “no wake” signs — not on canals but on the streets, to stop trucks from plowing through the water so fast as to send waves crashing into nearby homes.
We all see the giant storms, more threatening than any in our lifetimes — and while scientists are not entirely comfortable yet drawing links between the power of these hurricanes and climate change, many people are coming to their own common-sense conclusions.
As the challenges in the real world worsen, some senior Republicans continue to question the link between human-caused emissions and rising temperatures. Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said this on CNBC in March:
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Note that he acknowledges the planet is warming. Note that he offers no alternative hypothesis about the cause of that warming — nor will he ever, for the simple reason that there is no plausible alternative. But still, he clings to uncertainty as a reason to do nothing.
To be sure, fair-minded people can and should ask: What are the real uncertainties?
They exist in climate science, and despite claims to the contrary made by climate denialists, nobody hides them. You can spend long days at conferences, as I have, hearing from the scientists themselves about all the error bars of their studies and all the weak points of their computer models.
We are not entirely sure, for instance, how much the planet will warm in response to a given level of emissions. That is a pretty basic question, and the inability of climate science to narrow it down has been one of the great frustrations of the field these past few decades.
In the 1970s, the experts made a best guess about how sensitive the Earth would be to greenhouse gases, and as evidence accumulates, that early estimate is holding up pretty well. Forecasts from the 1980s and 1990s about the rate of warming have proven fairly accurate, too, give or take 20 percent.
In fact, to the degree our scientists have made a systematic error, it has been to understate how quickly things would unravel.
The sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing in front of our eyes. Even more ominously, land ice is melting at an accelerating pace, threatening a future rise of the sea even faster than that of today.
Huge forest die-offs are beginning, even as the remaining forests work overtime to suck up some of the carbon pollution that humans are pumping out. We are already seeing heat waves surpassing 120 degrees Fahrenheit, sooner than many experts thought likely.
Yet, it is true, the list of uncertainties is still long and vexing. Scientists have trouble, for instance, turning their broad global forecasts into specific predictions for a given locality.
Want to know what the average temperature is going to be in Athens, Ga., in 2050? Wonder how the Asian monsoon, whose rains feed billions, will hold up in the 2070s? Those forecasts exist, but even the scientists who made them are not going to advise you to put much stock in them.
Yet here is the crucial point, and one you never hear the climate denialists own up to: the uncertainties cut in both directions.
Every time some politician stands up and claims that climate science is rife with uncertainties, a more honest person would add that those uncertainties could just as easily go against us as in our favor.
And if they do go against us? We might be looking at, oh, 80 or 100 feet of sea-level rise in the long haul, a direct result of the failures of this generation to get emissions under control. What kind of shape do you think Miami – or for that matter, New York – is likely to be in after 80 feet of sea-level rise?
The truth is that the single biggest uncertainty in climate science has nothing to do with the physics of the atmosphere, or the stability of the ice, or anything like that. The great uncertainty is, and has always been, how much carbon pollution humans are going to choose to pump into the air.
In fact, calculations have been run on this. If you want, say, a forecast for global temperature in 2100, the uncertainty about how much pollution we will spew out is at least twice as large as any uncertainty about the physical response of the climate to those emissions.
So despite arguments like Mr. Pruitt’s, a century of climate science has brought us to the point where we can say this definitively: We are running enormous risks. We are putting nothing less than the stability of human civilization on the line.
And yet most of us have still not bestirred ourselves to care, much less to march in the streets demanding change. We are like the people in Texas who did not take those flood warnings seriously enough, except that the stakes are so much larger.
Is this failure to act the legacy our generation wants to leave for the generations yet to come?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/climate/climate-change-denial.html?_r=0
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