Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 9/19/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Makers, OSHA Form Worker Safety Alliance on Diisocyanates
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The Trump Administration and a chemical industry group are forming a government-industry alliance with an intent to protect workers from exposure to diisocyanates, substances that are powerful irritants. -
Senate Passes Pentagon Bill With Energy, Chemical Add-Ons
Sep 19, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
After a rocky week of debate, the Senate passed the annual defense authorization bill last night, with a number of environmental and energy-related provisions in tow. -
House Approves 2018 Spending Bills, Rejects Further EPA Cuts
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The House of Representatives has approved fiscal 2018 spending legislation, leaving unchanged funding for the EPA proposed by an appropriations committee in July. -
Kemi To Map Hazardous Substances In Paper And Rubber
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Swedish Chemicals agency, Kemi, is to begin work, this autumn, examining a number of common materials in consumer goods, to see what hazardous chemicals might be in them. -
Shale Producers Pumping More Oil Despite Hurricane Harvey's Impact on Eagle Ford
Sep 18, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
U.S. shale drillers are expected to pump more oil this month even though Hurricane Harvey crimped output in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. -
Enviros Declare Victory as Court Panel Tosses BLM Leasing Approval on ‘Irrational’ Assumption
Sep 18, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
A circuit court ruling issued last Friday regarding potential mining in Wyoming may provide ammunition to groups challenging environmental reviews of oil, gas and coal leases for not considering the impacts on climate change. -
AP Exclusive: Evidence of Spills at Toxic Site During Floods
Sep 18, 2017 | AP (In The New York Times)
By Michael Biesecker and Frank Bajak
The U.S. government received reports of three spills at one of Houston's dirtiest Superfund toxic waste sites in the days after the drenching rains from Hurricane Harvey finally stopped. -
ExxonMobil Blast Result of Lax Procedures, Safety Board Finds
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
ExxonMobil Corp.'s poorly considered maintenance practices at its Baton Rouge, La., refinery led to a chemical release and fire last year that injured four workers, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said Sept. 18. -
To Protect State Economies, Now Is the Time for the Senate to Fix Duplicative Ozone Rules
Sep 18, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Howard Feldman
The United States has a great success story to tell when it comes to environmental progress. America’s air is getting cleaner and cleaner, as our economy grows. -
Big Oil Becomes Greener with Progress in Cutting Pollution
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Hirtenstein
It's no secret that oil majors are among the biggest corporate emitters of pollution. What may be surprising is that they're reducing their greenhouse-gas footprints every year, actively participating in a trend that's swept up most corporate behemoths. -
Cities, States and Businesses Put U.S. Halfway to Paris Goal
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Ryan
Efforts by cities, states and corporations to fight global warming have put the U.S. halfway toward its Paris climate accord goal, even as President Donald Trump rolls back federal environmental efforts. -
EPA Opens Comment on Plan to Retain SO2 Standard
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is poised to begin accepting public comment on its staff recommendation to retain its health-based sulfur dioxide (SO2) air quality standard, a position outlined in a draft staff policy assessment published in late August, even as its advisers weigh the advice. -
Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions.
Sep 19, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
We know. Global warming is daunting. So here’s a place to start: 17 often-asked questions with some straightforward answers.
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Makers, OSHA Form Worker Safety Alliance on Diisocyanates
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The Trump Administration and a chemical industry group are forming a government-industry alliance with an intent to protect workers from exposure to diisocyanates, substances that are powerful irritants. The effort by the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry trade association, would raise awareness of safe practices for use of these substances in the polyurethane industry.
However, industrial health experts warn that the alliance, announced on Sept. 14, may be a response to efforts in California to toughen safety requirements for some of these chemicals.
Isocyanates are raw materials for making polyurethane products, such as insulation, car seats, foam mattresses, shoes, and adhesives. Exposure to isocyanates can irritate the skin and mucous membranes, cause chest tightness and difficulty breathing, and lead to asthma and death.
The joint effort calls for creation of a web-based training program on the safer use of chemicals and the potential routes of exposure to users of these substances. It will develop guidance on medical surveillance and clinical evaluation techniques for employers and workers using the chemicals.
“The alliance will help ensure that employers and employees better understand the health hazards associated with these potentially hazardous chemicals and the methods to control employee exposures,” said Loren Sweatt, deputy assistant secretary of labor.
Others disagree. Several health professionals warn that creation of the alliance may be intended to blunt an effort in California to limit workers’ and consumers’ exposure to unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanates that could occur during normal use of spray polyurethane foam.
Meanwhile, Adam M. Finkel, clinical professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, calls the alliance “baby steps in the right direction.”
“OSHA is so under-resourced compared to the problems it faces, it should be doing whatever it can to incentivize private parties to do some of its work,” says Finkel, who was director of OSHA’s health standards program during the Clinton Administration. “But this alliance concept is the least useful and most frivolous way it could go.”
Finkel says there must be some measurable set of goals to demonstrate that the alliance has led or will lead to improvements in worker safety.
He suggested, for instance, a goal of a voluntary industry commitment to a worker exposure limit for diisocyanates that is lower than the current federal standard. He notes that the current standard, OSHA’s permissible exposure limit, is decades out of date.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health has a permissible exposure limits for one of the most common diisocyanates compounds, toluene diisocyanate, at 0.005 ppm in air; OSHA’s is 0.02 ppm. In 1989, OSHA proposed to significantly drop this limit to 0.005 ppm, but this standard was rescinded by court order in 1992.
Neither OSHA nor the American Chemistry Council returned requests for comment by C&EN’s deadline.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/09/US-chemical-makers-OSHA-form.html
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Senate Passes Pentagon Bill With Energy, Chemical Add-Ons
Sep 19, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
After a rocky week of debate, the Senate passed the annual defense authorization bill last night, with a number of environmental and energy-related provisions in tow.
Lawmakers squabbled last week over a handful of controversial proposals, prompting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to launch a vote to limit debate on a bipartisan package of amendments negotiated by Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
Still, the National Defense Authorization Act is typically noncontroversial, and lawmakers passed the final bill, 89-8. McCain last night hailed debate on the bill as a return to regular order after an unorthodox few months in the Senate.
The amendment deal includes a provision from Pennsylvania Sens. Pat Toomey (R) and Bob Casey (D) that would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a health impact study for eight current or former bases contaminated with perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic (PFOA) acids, which were long used in Air Force firefighting foam (E&E Daily, Sept. 15).
Toomey and Casey also landed another provision in the deal to curb Russian energy supplies flowing to U.S. military installations in Europe.
And Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren got language in the package that would require the Department of Defense to study electric grid vulnerabilities and how they affect military readiness. Warren originally floated the measure as a separate bill, but it was eventually included in the deal negotiated last week.
The base Senate bill approved by the Armed Services Committee, and by the full Senate last night, includes language that encourages DOD to "pursue energy security and energy resilience."
It also includes provisions on environmental restoration, wildfire and icebreakers, a longtime need for the U.S. Coast Guard (E&E Daily, July 12).
Though climate change was a major topic when the House took up its version of NDAA in July, the issue saw little time on the floor during debate in the upper chamber.
Yesterday, however, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) touted climate change language in the Senate's bill report, calling global warming "an issue for national security."
"It's critical that we recognize the threat so we will ensure our forces and installations are resilient enough to withstand and quickly recover from all of these natural disasters that we've been talking about," he said.The appropriations hurdle
The bill will soon move on to conference talks with the House, but regardless of what happens with NDAA in the coming weeks, lawmakers face an uncertain path ahead when it comes to appropriating money to carry out the policies laid down in the bill.
Debate over the past several months has featured a push to vastly increase defense spending, a move McCain and President Trump say is needed to improve military readiness.
They've largely succeeded at that task, but the spending levels set in the bill far exceed the caps set under the Budget Control Act. To prevent automatic cuts to military and domestic spending, lawmakers would need a budget deal, something they were unable to achieve during debate on NDAA over the past week.
"This legislation is only part of the solution," McCain said last night. "We still have no path to actually appropriate the money that we are about to authorize."
For some Democrats, however, there remains a fear that massive defense spending increases could take away from things like adapting to climate change.
"I am concerned about the overall increase in defense spending contemplated by this bill, particularly when there is no real plan in place to pay for it," Warren said last week. "It is important for us to make the investments we need here at home, to do things like address climate change and promote resilience after natural disasters, to invest in scientific research and discovery."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/09/19/stories/1060061025
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House Approves 2018 Spending Bills, Rejects Further EPA Cuts
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The House of Representatives has approved fiscal 2018 spending legislation, leaving unchanged funding for the EPA proposed by an appropriations committee in July.
HR 3354, which covers the EPA, was included in a package of 12 appropriations bills, covering all discretionary federal funding for the new fiscal year that was approved largely along party lines.
An amendment was added to another section of the package, cutting off funding to enforce the rule requiring disclosure related to conflict minerals.
If Congress follows standard procedure, the House bills would ultimately have to be reconciled with versions passed by the Senate. However, in recent years, lawmakers have circumvented that and instead passed large omnibus bills.
To give themselves more time, Congress has already voted to extend 2017 spending levels for ten weeks into the new fiscal year, which runs from October this year until September 2018. That extension expires on 8 December.
If a permanent agreement is not reached, it will have to pass another continuing resolution to avert a government-wide shut down.EPA funding
The legislation would fund the EPA at $7.5bn overall. While this would reduce the agency's budget by $528m below the fiscal year 2017 enacted level, it is close to $1.9bn above the 30% cut called for in the Trump administration’s requested budget.
The bill recommends $92.5m for the toxics risk review and prevention programme, in line with 2017 funding levels, and $27.5m more than was proposed by the Trump administration.
In floor debate on the spending bills, an amendment to cut $10m from the EPA’s enforcement budget was defeated 228 to 184, with 42 Republicans voting with the minority Democrats. The proposal was offered by Representatives Andy Biggs (Republican-Arizona) and Jason Smith (Republican-Missouri).
Another proposal by Representative Biggs, to eliminate funding for the embattled Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), was on the list of potential amendments approved by the House Rules Committee but was not offered during the floor debate.
An amendment offered by Representative Ralph Norman (Republican-South Carolina) to cut EPA funding to the level proposed by President Trump failed by a vote of 260 to 151, with 75 Republicans joining all but one Democrat in opposition.Conflict minerals
The conflict minerals provision, proposed by Representative Bill Huizenga (Republican-Michigan), would cut off funding to "implement, administer, or enforce" section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The law requires publicly traded companies to investigate and disclose their use of the conflict minerals – tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold (3TG). The purpose is to prevent the support of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighbouring countries, but the law has the effect of requiring companies to disclose the source of their minerals.
Acting Security and Exchange Commission Chairman Michael Piwowar issued a statement in April, suggesting that the agency would not seek enforcement for failure to submit ‘enhanced disclosure’ documents, but companies are reported to have largely continued the practice.
The Huizenga amendment was approved on a party-line vote of 211 to 195, with ten Republicans joining all Democrats in voting no.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58735/house-approves-2018-spending-bills-rejects-further-epa-cuts
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Kemi To Map Hazardous Substances In Paper And Rubber
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Swedish Chemicals agency, Kemi, is to begin work, this autumn, examining a number of common materials in consumer goods, to see what hazardous chemicals might be in them.
The five 'mapping' projects will look at :
chemicals in rubber and silicone;
chemicals in paper and paperboard;
chemicals in intimate hygiene products;
microplastic in chemical products; and
chemical requirements in ecolabelling.
A key aim is to find out if there are chemicals that need addressing which are currently unregulated, the agency says.
"By increasing knowledge about the chemical content of different materials, we can also make it easier for companies to replace problematic topics for better alternatives," says Erik Gravenfors, project manager at Kemi.
The agency is to report to the government in September 2018.
The work was commissioned by the government, and Kemi will use consultancies to carry it out. It forms part of the country's initiative for a non-toxic everyday environment.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58914/kemi-to-map-hazardous-substances-in-paper-and-rubber
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Shale Producers Pumping More Oil Despite Hurricane Harvey's Impact on Eagle Ford
Sep 18, 2017 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
U.S. shale drillers are expected to pump more oil this month even though Hurricane Harvey crimped output in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.
In West Texas, oil producers in the Permian Basin are projected to boost oil production by 55,000 barrels a day by October, the bulk of a daily 79,000-barrel increase expected across seven major shale plays, the Energy Department said Monday.
That jump will bring U.S. shale oil production up to 6.08 million barrels a day in October. Of that, the Permian would make up 2.64 million barrels a day. The Eagle Ford, meanwhile, is only expected to drop 9,000 barrels a day, to a daily 1.27 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration.
A few weeks ago, the Texas Railroad Commission estimated between 300,000 to 500,000 barrels a day of oil production in the Eagle Ford had been shut in as Hurricane Harvey rolled through.
"Folks will be watching how fast the shale oil producers bring back their wells after such a rapid shut in," said Bob McNally, president of the consultancy Rapidan Energy. "The refineries and ports are going to come back and the pipelines are open. The question is the upstream production. That's unexplored territory."
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Shale-producers-pumping-more-oil-despite-12206692.php
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Enviros Declare Victory as Court Panel Tosses BLM Leasing Approval on ‘Irrational’ Assumption
Sep 18, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
A circuit court ruling issued last Friday regarding potential mining in Wyoming may provide ammunition to groups challenging environmental reviews of oil, gas and coal leases for not considering the impacts on climate change.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to consider adequately the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for four large coal leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (PRB). The case is WildEarth Guardians et al v. BLM, No. 15-8109.
WildEarth and the Sierra Club are seeking to prevent BLM’s approval of four leases that would expand the Black Thunder and North Antelope-Rochelle strip mines near Wright, WY. Coalbed methane also is developed in the PRB by exploration and production companies.
The plaintiffs brought claim using the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that BLM failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it concluded that issuing the leases would not result in higher CO2 emissions than would declining to issue them.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming upheld the leases. The appeals court did not vacate the leases. However, the panel reversed and remanded the decision, with instructions to BLM to revise its environmental impact statements (EIS) and records of decisions.
The circuit court rejected BLM's argument that leasing would have no significant impact on emissions because of steady U.S. demand. BLM, arguing a “perfect substitution” theory, said demand for coal would remain static even in the face of the potential reduction in supply. If the coal were not mined in the PRB, said BLM, the same amount of coal would be mined elsewhere.
However, the appeals panel concluded that BLM’s approach contradicts basic economic principles and violates NEPA.
"Even if we could conclude that the agency had enough data before it to choose” between leasing and not leasing, “we would still conclude this perfect substitution assumption is arbitrary and capricious because the assumption itself is irrational,” said the panel.
The circuit court’s opinion, written by Clinton appointee Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, is “contrary to basic supply and demand principles.”
BLM’s assertion that coal would be mined elsewhere if the leases were thrown out is incorrect because PRB coal generally is less expensive than coal produced elsewhere in the continental United States, the panel noted. BLM’s analysis did not account for price differences.
Referring to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the appellate court said “when coal carries a higher price, for whatever reason that may be, the nation burns less coal in favor of other sources. A force that drives up the cost of coal could thus drive down coal consumption."
Reagan appointee and Senior Judge Bobby Baldock wrote in a concurring opinion, “Lessened demand for coal results in less use of coal, which results in less impact on the climate.”
BLM’s EIS relied on various governmental reports, including the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlooks for 2008, 2009 and 2010. Under the EIA’s projections of seven to 10 years ago, coal’s share of the energy mix continued to represent the largest portion of the U.S. energy mix. (EIA has since projected that natural gas will overtake coal as the largest portion of the U.S. energy mix.)
In remanding the case back to the Wyoming district court, the panel said the issue is “fairly narrow, and the district court may opt to vacate BLM’s lease approval or “fashion some narrower form of injunctive relief.”
Plaintiffs cheered the ruling.
“This is a major win for climate progress, for our public lands, and for our clean energy future,” said WildEarth’s Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director. ““It also stands as a major reality check to President Trump and his attempts to use public lands and coal to prop up the dying coal industry at the expense of our climate.”
Sierra Club attorney Nathaniel Shoaff said a similar substitution analysis is included in every coal lease review BLM has handled in the past few years, and “every one of those decisions is now called into question…”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/111772-enviros-declare-victory-as-court-panel-tosses-blm-leasing-approval-on-irrational-assumption
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AP Exclusive: Evidence of Spills at Toxic Site During Floods
Sep 18, 2017 | AP (In The New York Times)
By Michael Biesecker and Frank Bajak
The U.S. government received reports of three spills at one of Houston's dirtiest Superfund toxic waste sites in the days after the drenching rains from Hurricane Harvey finally stopped. Aerial photos reviewed by The Associated Press show dark-colored water surrounding the site as the floods receded, flowing through Vince Bayou and into the city's ship channel.
The reported spills, which have been not publicly detailed, occurred at U.S. Oil Recovery, a former petroleum industry waste processing plant contaminated with a dangerous brew of cancer-causing chemicals. On Aug. 29, the day Harvey's remnants cleared out, a county pollution control team sent photos to the Environmental Protection Agency of three large concrete tanks flooded with water. That led PRP Group, the company overseeing the ongoing cleanup, to call a federal emergency hotline to report a spill affecting nearby Vince Bayou.
Over the next several days, the company reported two more spills of potentially contaminated storm water from U.S. Oil Recovery, according to reports and call logs obtained by the AP from the U.S. Coast Guard, which operates the National Response Center hotline. The EPA requires that spills of oil or hazardous substances in quantities that may be harmful to public health or the environment be immediately reported to the 24-hour hotline when public waterways are threatened.
The EPA has not publicly acknowledged the three spills that PRP Group reported to the Coast Guard. The agency said an on-scene coordinator was at the site last Wednesday and found no evidence that material had washed off the site. The EPA says it is still assessing the scene.
The AP reported in the days after Harvey that at least seven Superfund sites in and around Houston were underwater during the record-shattering storm. Journalists surveyed the sites by boat, vehicle and on foot. U.S. Oil Recovery was not one of the sites visited by AP. EPA said at the time that its personnel had been unable to reach the sites, though they surveyed the locations using aerial photos.Continue reading the main story
Following AP's report, EPA has been highlighting the federal agency's response to the flooding at Superfund sites. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reiterated that safeguarding the intensely-polluted sites is among his top priorities during a visit Friday to the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, one of the sites AP reported about two weeks ago.
Pruitt then boarded a Coast Guard aircraft for an aerial tour of other nearby Superfund sites flooded by Harvey, including U.S. Oil Recovery.
Photos taken Aug. 31 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows dark-colored water surrounding the site two days after the first spill was reported to the government hotline. While the photos do not prove contaminated materials leaked from U.S. Oil Recovery, they do show that as the murky floodwaters receded, they flowed through Vince Bayou and emptied into the ship channel leading to the San Jacinto River. The hotline caller identified Vince Bayou as the waterway affected by a spill of unknown material in unknown amounts.
Thomas Voltaggio, a retired EPA official who oversaw Superfund cleanups and emergency responses for more than two decades, reviewed the aerial photos, hotline reports and other documents obtained by AP.
"It is intuitively obvious that the rains and floods of the magnitude that occurred during Hurricane Harvey would have resulted in some level of contamination having been released to the environment," said Voltaggio, who is now a private consultant. "Any contamination in those tanks would likely have entered Vince Bayou and potentially the Houston Ship Channel."
He said the amount of contaminants spread from the site during the storm will likely never be known, making the environmental impact difficult to measure. The Houston Ship Channel was already a polluted waterway, with Texas state health officials warning that women of childbearing age and children should not eat fish or crabs caught there because of contamination from dioxins and PCBs.
PRP Group, the corporation formed to oversee the cleanup at U.S. Oil Recovery, said it reported the spills as legally required but said subsequent testing of storm water remaining in the affected tanks showed it met federal drinking water standards. The company declined to provide AP copies of those lab reports or a list of specific chemicals for which it tested, saying the EPA was expected to release that information soon.
U.S. Oil Recovery was shut down in 2010 after regulators determined operations there posed an environmental threat to Vince Bayou, which flows through the property in Pasadena. Pollution at the former hazardous waste treatment plant is so bad that Texas prosecutors charged the company's owner, Klaus Genssler, with five criminal felonies. The German native fled the United States and is considered a fugitive. Genssler did not respond to efforts to contact him last week through his social media accounts or an email account linked to his website address.
More than 100 companies that sent hazardous materials and oily waste to U.S. Oil Recovery for processing are now paying for the multimillion-dollar cleanup there through a court-monitored settlement, including Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations Inc., U.S. Steel Corp. and Dow Chemical Co.
Past sampling of materials at the site revealed high concentrations of hazardous chemicals linked to cancer, such as benzene, ethylbenzene and trichloroethylene. The site also potentially contains toxic heavy metals, including mercury and arsenic.
A 2012 EPA study of the more than 500 Superfund sites across the United States located in flood zones specifically noted the risk that floodwaters might carry away and spread toxic materials over a wider area.
Over the past six years, remediation efforts at U.S. Oil Recovery have focused on the northern half of the site, including demolishing contaminated structures, removing an estimated 500 tons of sludge and hauling away more than 1,000 abandoned containers of waste.
PRP Group said the southern portion of the site, including the three waste tanks that flooded during Harvey, has not yet been fully cleaned. Over the years workers have removed more than 1.5 million gallons of liquid waste — enough to fill nearly three Olympic-sized swimming pools.
AP began asking the EPA whether contaminated material might have again leaked from U.S. Oil Recovery last week, after reviewing the aerial photos taken Aug. 31. The EPA said it visited the site on Sept. 4, nearly a week after site operators reported an initial spill, and again the following week. The EPA said that its staff saw no evidence that toxins had washed away from the scene during either visit.
"Yesterday, an EPA On-scene coordinator conducted an inspection of Vince Bayou to follow up on a rumor that material was offsite and did not find any evidence of a black oily discharge or material from the U.S. Oil Recovery site," an EPA media release said on Thursday.
PRP Group said the spills occurred at the toxic waste site on Aug. 29, Sept. 6 and Sept. 7. One of the EPA's media releases on Sept. 9, more than 11 days after the first call was made to the hotline, made reference to overflowing water at the scene, but did not describe it as a spill.
The company said it reported the first spill after Harvey's floodwaters swamped the three tanks, filling them. The resulting pressure that built up in the tanks dislodged plugs blocking a series of interconnecting pipes, causing the second and third spills reported to the hotline the following week.
The company does not know how much material leaked from the tanks, soaking into the soil or flowing into nearby Vince Bayou. As part of its post-storm cleanup workers have vacuumed 63 truckloads holding about 315,000 gallons from the tanks.
The Superfund site is located just a few hundred yards from the Pollution Control Services offices for Harris County, which includes Houston. Its director, Bob Allen, says his team took pictures of the flooding on Aug. 29, when the area that includes the three big tanks was still underwater. The AP requested those photos as public records, but they have not yet been released.
Allen said his staff did not note any black water or oily sheen on the surface at the time, and did not collect water samples for testing. He said the EPA later sampled the area to determine whether there was contamination.
"We knew that the water probably got into the plant, probably washed out some of the stuff that was in the clarifier," Allen said, referring to one of the old concrete tanks once used to store toxic waste. "Once they get done with the assessment of that site and the other Superfund Harris County sites, then they'll probably let us know, let the public know, what's been going on.
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Biesecker reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Reese Dunklin in Dallas and Jeff Horwitz in Washington contributed to this reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/18/us/ap-us-harvey-toxic-sites-underwater.html?_r=0
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ExxonMobil Blast Result of Lax Procedures, Safety Board Finds
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
ExxonMobil Corp.'s poorly considered maintenance practices at its Baton Rouge, La., refinery led to a chemical release and fire last year that injured four workers, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said Sept. 18.
The company allowed workers to perform maintenance without studying how their procedures affect operations at the plant, the board said. The agency released a final safety bulletin on the incident at a meeting Sept. 18 in Washington.
At the meeting, CSB Chairperson Vanessa Sutherland said Exxon workers had removed critical bolts on plug valves in the refinery's alkylation unit during maintenance, leading to a release of the flammable hydrocarbon isobutane, which formed a vapor cloud that ignited.
“These accepted practices were conducted without appropriate safety hazard analysis, needlessly injuring these workers,” Sutherland said in a statement.
Charlotte Huffaker, a spokeswoman for ExxonMobil, told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 18 the company conducted its own internal investigation into the incident and has corrected processes at the refinery.
“We learn from all incidents and will use this information to continually improve,” Huffaker said.
Lacked Training, Procedures
Exxon management allowed workers at the Baton Rouge refinery to perform tasks without adequate written procedures or training, the report said. The board said companies should use a systematic process known as the hierarchy of controls to reduce risk during operations like Exxon's regular maintenance. Operators should also set “detailed and accurate procedures” for workers performing risky tasks and provide sufficient training so it can be done in a safe manner, the board said.
Since the investigation, ExxonMobil has identified suspect plug valves and established a process to either replace or reeingineer them to be safer, according to the CSB. Broadening the impact of the findings, ExxonMobil also ordered other refineries it operates to survey similar equipment and presented their findings to other oil companies at an American Petroleum Institute conference in May.
The report was approved by CSB board members in a notation vote Sept. 7.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120867600&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120867600&jd=120867600
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To Protect State Economies, Now Is the Time for the Senate to Fix Duplicative Ozone Rules
Sep 18, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Howard Feldman
The United States has a great success story to tell when it comes to environmental progress. America’s air is getting cleaner and cleaner, as our economy grows.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest annual report on air quality, released in early August, reveals the combined emissions of six key air pollutants dropped 73 percent between 1970 and 2016. The progress is all the more noteworthy considering the same period brought increases in GDP (up 253 percent since 1970), energy consumption (up 44 percent), population (up 58 percent) and vehicle miles traveled (up 190 percent). Conventional wisdom holds that economic growth goes hand in hand with increased air pollution, but EPA’s report would seem to turn that thinking on its head.
The United States leads the world not only in production of natural gas and oil but in reduction of carbon emissions. Greater use of clean natural gas has helped drive down power sector carbon emissions to near 30-year lows, while also helping to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide.
Ozone concentrations are also down -- 17 percent since 2000 – thanks in part to increased use of domestic natural gas and technological advances. Spending in the natural gas and oil industry to improve the environmental performance of its products, facilities and operations totals $322 billion since 1990. Between 2000 and 2014, industry invested about $90 billion in new zero- or low-emissions technologies – more than twice that of the next closest industry sector and nearly as much as the federal government.
The approach is clearly working – for ozone and other pollutants.
So it makes little sense that states are being saddled with not one but two competing sets of regulations on ozone. The EPA issued stringent new ozone regulations in 2008 and then again in 2015 before the previous regulations had even been fully implemented, burdening state agencies and local economies with an obligation to develop two different but concurrent ozone programs.
To comply with standards approaching or below naturally occurring levels of ozone, states could be required to place restrictions on everything from manufacturing and energy development to infrastructure projects like roads and bridges. The regulations are so misguided and detached from science that their implementation could place hundreds of counties out of attainment and subject to costly mitigation measures.
A collection of 269 business groups -- made up of manufacturers, builders, contractors, road construction groups and chambers of commerce across the nation – warned EPA of the potential impact, explaining that the 2015 regulations would “make it difficult to manufacture products, build new projects, produce energy, improve infrastructure and hire the workers needed to make this all happen.”
The House passed bipartisan legislation in June to give states the flexibility they need to implement the standards more efficiently. The Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2017, introduced by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), recognizes ongoing state efforts to improve air quality, streamlines the air permitting process for businesses to expand operations and create jobs, and includes other reforms that bring more regulatory certainty to federal air quality standards.
A coalition of 303 associations and businesses representing a broad cross-section of U.S. industries have endorsed the legislation, which fully maintains our national commitment to protecting public health and reducing emissions -- without unnecessarily straining state and local economic resources.
Now it’s up to the Senate. With employment finally back to pre-recession levels, the last thing the government should do is move forward with regulations that could jeopardize a wide range of job-creating activities. Congress faces a packed legislative calendar in September, but sending commonsense air quality legislation to the president’s desk is a piece of unfinished business too important to neglect.
Feldman is director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/351192-to-protect-state-economies-now-is-the-time-for-the
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Big Oil Becomes Greener with Progress in Cutting Pollution
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Hirtenstein
It's no secret that oil majors are among the biggest corporate emitters of pollution. What may be surprising is that they're reducing their greenhouse-gas footprints every year, actively participating in a trend that's swept up most corporate behemoths.
Sixty-two of the world's 100 largest companies consistently cut their emissions on an annual basis between 2010 and 2015, with an overall 12 percent decline during that period, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance released in London on Sept. 19.
The findings suggest the most polluting industries had started fighting climate change before President Donald Trump took office and signaled he'd back out of U.S. participation in the Paris accord on limiting fossil fuel emissions. Now, as European officials say the White House may water down its commitment to Paris instead of scrapping the deal, the BNEF report suggests industry is scaling back the emissions.
“It doesn't matter if Trump stays in Paris; it's irrelevant as the states and big corporations are moving forward with clean energy,” Peter Terium, chief executive officer of the German power generator Innogy SE, said on the sidelines of the BNEF conference on Sept. 19. “They're not waiting. We're seeing renewable energy becoming more and more competitive opposite fossil fuels like coal.”
The five biggest oil companies -- Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., BP Plc and Total SA -- collectively curbed their pollution by an average of 13 percent between 2010 and 2015, the report said. BP cut the most at 25.5 percent. Exxon, the largest emitter among listed companies, pushed it down by 14 percent.
The report shows a reverse from previous decades, when scientific warnings about climate change were new and the companies behind the most emissions lobbied policymakers to ignore the issue. As mega-storms like Hurricane Irma this year and Sandy in 2012 raised consciousness about the issue, companies even in the oil business have taken steps to rein in pollution and associate themselves with the green agenda.
The reductions recorded by the 100 top companies saved 70.7 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, about as much as Israel emits in a year. Because emissions data takes so long to compile, 2015 is the latest year covered.
“This is a reflection of growing pressure from shareholders, investor groups and civil society for more disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as setting reduction targets,” said Laura McIntyre-Brown, analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the author of the report. “There's also an evident trend of increased emissions disclosure among many of the biggest companies.”
Oil's View
Exxon said it has spent about $8 billion since 2000 to deploy low-emission energy equipment across its operations and that it's conducting and supporting research on technologies to make further cuts. An official at Shell said its new energy business is more focused on “good projects” rather than meeting a target.
A press officer at Total said the figures in the BNEF report were accurate. BP and Chevron didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The corporations in the BNEF survey had combined revenue of more than $5 trillion. That's more than the gross domestic product of every country except the U.S. and China, according to data from the World Bank. They wield immense power over the global economy and are having a sizable impact on the state of the environment, both from their operations and through corporate lobbying.
While some of the reduction from the big oil companies is probably due to the crash in oil prices that began in 2014, leading to lower activity across the energy industry, all five majors have enacted climate and efficiency policies, as well as anti-pollution measures, the report said.
As the energy sector pollutes more than any other industry, even marginal gains can have a significant impact. Big Oil collectively saved 56.7 million tons of greenhouse gases between 2010 and 2015. That sum excludes Chevron, which only started reporting in 2012.
While progress has been made, there isn't evidence yet that the oil business could break the link between its revenue and the pollution it emits, the report concluded. While the energy industry cut emissions, its revenue declined by 26 percent in the same time period.
Outside the energy industry, companies collectively have managed to pare back emissions while boosting sales. Collective revenue for the 62 companies covered in the report rose 1.2 percent while emissions fell 12 percent. In all, 71 million metric tons of greenhouse gases were avoided while sales gained by $61 billion. Health providers and consumer-product makers led the trend.
“If you think about the oil and gas industry, use of oil and gas for combustion creates emissions,” said Rick Wheatley, executive vice president of new growth at Xynteo Ltd., a consultancy that advises Shell, Statoil ASA and Eni SpA on sustainability and long-term planning. “If diversification into other kinds of energy is on the table, then I think it's absolutely possible to decouple.”
The trend may continue after almost 200 countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to limits on fossil-fuel emissions, said Sean Kidney, chief executive officer of the Climate Bond Initiative, an organization that promotes green bonds sold to pay for environmental projects.
“The Paris agreement has been extraordinarily successful in establishing a new consensus,” Kidney said. ‘‘There's a sense of future certainty developing which is influencing decision-making in the corporate sector.”
—With assistance from Brian Parkin.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120867603&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120867603&jd=120867603
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Cities, States and Businesses Put U.S. Halfway to Paris Goal
Sep 19, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Ryan
Efforts by cities, states and corporations to fight global warming have put the U.S. halfway toward its Paris climate accord goal, even as President Donald Trump rolls back federal environmental efforts.
The push by public and private leaders from New York to California has put greenhouse gases on track to fall 12 percent to 14 percent below 2005 levels over the next eight years, according to a study released Monday by NewClimate Institute and The Climate Group. The U.S. pledged cuts of 26 percent to 28 percent during that period under a global pact brokered in the French capital in 2015. Trump announced in June that the U.S. would exit the agreement.
The study uses data from CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), that includes commitments from 22 states, 54 cities and 250 U.S.-based businesses. Some of the largest reductions come from California, New York and Colorado, according to the study, released as world leaders and industry executives gather for Climate Week NYC and the United Nations general assembly.
“President Trump and all his tweets cannot stop our states from moving forward,” Washington State Governor Jay Inslee said during Climate Week NYC's opening ceremony. “He cannot stop any of the things we are doing.”
In the private sector, commitments by companies to wean themselves off fossil fuels and source power from wind and solar farms have also been a key driver, the study found. Mars Inc. board member Stephen Badger said the economics of clean energy are driving that shift.
“We are already finding our bills to be less than what we would pay with fossil fuels,” said Badger, whose McLean, Virginia-based company has committed to spending more than $1 billion to cut its carbon emissions.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120867605&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120867605&jd=120867605
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EPA Opens Comment on Plan to Retain SO2 Standard
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is poised to begin accepting public comment on its staff recommendation to retain its health-based sulfur dioxide (SO2) air quality standard, a position outlined in a draft staff policy assessment published in late August, even as its advisers weigh the advice.
The agency is slated to publish a notice in the Sept. 19 Federal Register opening public comment until Oct. 18 on two draft documents supporting its review of the primary, or health-based, SO2 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
The policy assessment document (PA) outlines a staff recommendation to leave the current standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb) unchanged, while the risk and exposure assessment (REA) supports that conclusion, finding that the risks presented by SO2 exposure do not warrant a change in the standard.
EPA first released the documents in August for review by the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), which advises EPA on setting NAAQS.
However, publication in the Register opens an official public comment opportunity.
Both the REA and the Integrated Science Assessment (ISA), which synthesizes scientific evidence on the health impacts of SO2, support the staff recommendation that EPA retain the 75 ppb standard, which the Obama EPA set in 2010 using a first-time one-hour averaging time to try to mitigate short-term spikes in pollution. In 2012, EPA left the pre-existing “secondary” NAAQS, designed to protect the environment, unchanged.
Under consent decree deadlines, EPA must propose a rule to either modify the NAAQS or leave it unchanged by May 25, and a final rule by Jan. 18, 2019.
CASAC's SO2 review panel is meeting Sept. 18 and 19 to consider the draft REA and PA, and will later report to the agency with its advise on those documents. The panel earlier endorsed EPA's ISA conclusion that SO2 causes short-term respiratory problems, the same position the agency took in the ISA conducted to support its 2010 NAAQS rule. The ISA did strengthen the causal link between SO2 and long-term respiratory effects, to “suggestive” of a causal relationship, and the CASAC panel endorsed this view. In the last review, EPA considered there to be insufficient evidence to make this determination.
However, CASAC earlier disagreed with initial agency staff suggestions that certain other causal relationships between SO2 exposure and health effects be strengthened somewhat, prompting the agency to walk back those strengthened relationships in the most recent version of the ISA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-opens-comment-plan-retain-so2-standard
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Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions.
Sep 19, 2017 | The New York Times
By Justin Gillis
1 Climate change? Global
warming? What do we call it?Both are accurate, but they mean different things.
You can think of global warming as one type of climate change. The broader term covers changes beyond warmer temperatures, such as shifting rainfall patterns.
President Trump has claimed that scientists stopped referring to global warming and started calling it climate change because “the weather has been so cold” in winter. But the claim is false. Scientists have used both terms for decades.How much is the Earth heating up?
Two degrees is more significant than it sounds.
As of early 2017, the Earth had warmed by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (more than 1 degree Celsius) since 1880, when records began at a global scale. The number may sound low, but as an average over the surface of an entire planet, it is actually high, which explains why much of the world’s land ice is starting to melt and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, scientists say, the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would undermine the planet’s capacity to support a large human population.3.What is the greenhouse effect, and
how does it cause global warming?We’ve known about it for more than a century. Really.
In the 19th century, scientists discovered that certain gases in the air trap and slow down heat that would otherwise escape to space. Carbon dioxide is a major player; without any of it in the air, the Earth would be a frozen wasteland. The first prediction that the planet would warm as humans released more of the gas was made in 1896. The gas has increased 43 percent above the pre-industrial level so far, and the Earth has warmed by roughly the amount that scientists predicted it would.How do we know humans are responsible
for the increase in carbon dioxide?This one is nailed down.
Hard evidence, including studies that use radioactivity to distinguish industrial emissions from natural emissions, shows that the extra gas is coming from human activity. Carbon dioxide levels rose and fell naturally in the long-ago past, but those changes took thousands of years. Geologists say that humans are now pumping the gas into the air much faster than nature has ever done.5.Could natural factors be the cause of the warming?
Nope.
In theory, they could be. If the sun were to start putting out more radiation, for instance, that would definitely warm the Earth. But scientists have looked carefully at the natural factors known to influence planetary temperature and found that they are not changing nearly enough. The warming is extremely rapid on the geologic time scale, and no other factor can explain it as well as human emissions of greenhouse gases.6.Why do people deny the science of climate change?
Mostly because of ideology.
Instead of negotiating over climate change policies and trying to make them more market-oriented, some political conservatives have taken the approach of blocking them by trying to undermine the science.
President Trump has sometimes claimed that scientists are engaged in a worldwide hoax to fool the public, or that global warming was invented by China to disable American industry. The climate denialists’ arguments have become so strained that even oil and coal companies have distanced themselves publicly, though some still help to finance the campaigns of politicians who espouse such views.
What could happen?
How much trouble are we in?Big trouble.
Over the coming 25 or 30 years, scientists say, the climate is likely to gradually warm, with more extreme weather. Coral reefs and other sensitive habitats are already starting to die. Longer term, if emissions rise unchecked, scientists fear climate effects so severe that they might destabilize governments, produce waves of refugees, precipitate the sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in the Earth’s history, and melt the polar ice caps, causing the seas to rise high enough to flood most of the world’s coastal cities. The emissions that create those risks are happening now, raising deep moral questions for our generation.2.How much should I worry about
climate change affecting me directly?Are you rich enough to shield your descendants?
The simple reality is that people are already feeling the effects, whether they know it or not. Because of sea level rise, for instance, some 83,000 more residents of New York and New Jersey were flooded during Hurricane Sandy than would have been the case in a stable climate, scientists have calculated. Tens of thousands of people are already dying in heat waves made worse by global warming. The refugee flows that have destabilized politics around the world have been traced in part to climate change. Of course, as with almost all other social problems, poor people will be hit first and hardest.3.How much will the seas rise?
The real question is how fast.
The ocean has accelerated and is now rising at a rate of about a foot per century, forcing governments and property owners to spend tens of billions of dollars fighting coastal erosion. But if that rate continued, it would probably be manageable, experts say.
The risk is that the rate will increase still more. Scientists who study the Earth’s history say waters could rise by a foot per decade in a worst-case scenario, though that looks unlikely. Many experts believe that even if emissions stopped tomorrow, 15 or 20 feet of sea level rise is already inevitable, enough to flood many cities unless trillions of dollars are spent protecting them. How long it will take is unclear. But if emissions continue apace, the ultimate rise could be 80 or 100 feet.4.Is recent crazy weather tied to climate change?
Some of it is.
Scientists have published strong evidence that the warming climate is making heat waves more frequent and intense. It is also causing heavier rainstorms, and coastal flooding is getting worse as the oceans rise because of human emissions. Global warming has intensified droughts in regions like the Middle East, and it may have strengthened a recent drought in California.
In many other cases, though, the linkage to global warming for particular trends is uncertain or disputed. Scientists are gradually improving their understanding as computer analyses of the climate grow more powerful.Are there any realistic solutions to the problem?
Yes, but change is happening too slowly.
Society has put off action for so long that the risks are now severe, scientists say. But as long as there are still unburned fossil fuels in the ground, it is not too late to act. The warming will slow to a potentially manageable pace only when human emissions are reduced to zero. The good news is that they are now falling in many countries as a result of programs like fuel-economy standards for cars, stricter building codes and emissions limits for power plants. But experts say the energy transition needs to speed up drastically to head off the worst effects of climate change.2.What is the Paris Agreement?
Virtually every country agreed to limit future emissions.
The landmark deal was reached outside Paris in December 2015. The reductions are voluntary and the pledges do not do enough to head off severe effects. But the agreement is supposed to be reviewed every few years so that countries ramp up their commitments. President Trump announced in 2017 that he would pull the United States out of the deal, though that will take years, and other countries have said they would go forward regardless of American intentions.3.Does clean energy help or hurt the economy?
Job growth in renewable energy is strong.
The energy sources with the lowest emissions include wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams and nuclear power stations. Power plants burning natural gas also produce fewer emissions than those burning coal. Converting to these cleaner sources may be somewhat costlier in the short term, but they could ultimately pay for themselves by heading off climate damages and reducing health problems associated with dirty air. And expansion of the market is driving down the costs of renewable energy so fast that it may ultimately beat dirty energy on price alone — it already doesin some areas.
The transition to cleaner energy certainly produces losers, like coal companies, but it also creates jobs. The solar industry in the United States now employs more than twice as many people as coal mining.4.What about fracking or ‘clean coal’?
Both could help clean up the energy system.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is one of a set of drilling technologies that has helped produce a new abundance of natural gas in the United States and some other countries. Burning gas instead of coal in power plants reduces emissions in the short run, though gas is still a fossil fuel and will have to be phased out in the long run. The fracking itself can also create local pollution.
“Clean coal” is an approach in which the emissions from coal-burning power plants would be captured and pumped underground. It has yet to be proven to work economically, but some experts think it could eventually play a major role.5.What’s the latest with electric cars?
Sales are still small overall, but they are rising fast.
The cars draw power at night from the electric grid and give off no pollution during the day as they move around town. They are inherently more efficient than gasoline cars and would represent an advance even if the power were generated by burning coal, but they will be far more important as the electric grid itself becomes greener through renewable power. The cars are improving so fast that some countries are already talking about banning the sale of gasoline cars after 2030.6.What are carbon taxes, carbon
trading and carbon offsets?It’s just jargon for putting a price on pollution.
The greenhouse gases being released by human activity are often called “carbon emissions” for short. That is because two of the most important gases, carbon dioxide and methane, contain carbon. (Some other pollutants are lumped into the same category, even if they do not actually contain carbon.) When you hear about carbon taxes, carbon trading and so on, these are just shorthand descriptions of methods to put a price on emissions, which economists say is one of the most important steps society could take to limit them.7.Climate change seems so overwhelming.
What can I personally do about it?Start by sharing this with 50 of your friends.
Experts say the problem can only be solved by large-scale, collective action. Entire states and nations have to decide to clean up their energy systems, using every tool available and moving as quickly as they can. So the most important thing you can do is to exercise your rights as a citizen, speaking up and demanding change.
You can also take direct personal action to reduce your carbon footprint in simple ways that will save you money. You can plug leaks in your home insulation to save power, install a smart thermostat, switch to more efficient light bulbs, turn off unused lights, drive fewer miles by consolidating trips or taking public transit, waste less food, and eat less meat.
Taking one or two fewer plane rides per year can save as much in emissions as all the other actions combined. If you want to be at the cutting edge, you can look at buying an electric or hybrid car or putting solar panels on your roof. If your state has a competitive electricity market, you may be able to buy 100 percent green power.
Leading corporations, including large manufacturers like carmakers, are starting to demand clean energy for their operations. You can pay attention to company policies, support the companies taking the lead, and let the others know you expect them to do better.
These personal steps may be small in the scheme of things, but they can raise your own consciousness about the problem — and the awareness of the people around you. In fact, discussing this issue with your friends and family is one of the most meaningful things you can do.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-climate-change.html
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