Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 9/20/17
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Nominee Once Helped Chemical Industry, Lobbyists
Sep 20, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Jeff Horwitz
President Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has for years accepted payments for criticizing studies that raised concerns about the safety of his clients’ products, according to a review of financial records and his published work by The Associated Press. -
(ACC Mentioned) Practitioner Insights: Trump Nominee Threatens Chemical Safety Progress
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Scott Faber
Bipartisan reform of the nation's broken chemical safety law was hailed last year as a chance to rebuild consumer confidence in many of the chemicals used in everyday products. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Advocate Joins Law Firm
Sep 19, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus
Anna Burhop, a top official with the American Chemistry Council, has joined Bracewell LLP, a prominent law and lobby firm. -
(ACC Mentioned) Overnight Energy: French President Defends Paris Deal at UN | EPA Climate Science Review Could Last Months | Zinke Puts 'Big Buck Hunter' in Interior Department Cafeteria
Sep 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry
...Law and lobbying firm Bracewell has brought on Clean Air Act expert Anna Burhop to be a principal in its Policy Resolution Group. -
Groups Vow to Redouble Efforts Against Chemical Safety Pick
Sep 20, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Environmental and public health groups are gearing up to oppose the nomination of Michael Dourson, President Trump's choice to lead U.S. EPA's Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Office. -
Democrats Target Trump EPA Pick With Chemical Industry Ties
Sep 20, 2017 | NBC
By Suzy Khimm
President Donald Trump’s pick to be the nation’s top chemical regulator is expected to face tough questions from Senate Democrats for spending decades working on behalf of corporations trying to stave off tougher chemical regulations. -
EPW Postpones Hearing on EPA, NRC Nominees
Sep 19, 2017 | Politico PRO Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has postponed Wednesday’s planned hearing for EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission nominees because of plans for the chamber to adjourn in recognition of Rosh Hashanah. -
Senate Panel Delays EPA Confirmation Hearing
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Senate environment committee has delayed its planned Sept. 20 confirmation hearing for four EPA nominees giving environmentalists time to intensify their opposition to the nominees, especially the two nominees tapped to lead the toxics and air offices, who they were already strongly opposing. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Intervenes in Chemical Regulation Lawsuits
Sep 20, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The chemical industry is stepping up to assist the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in lawsuits filed by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and other campaign groups. Under dispute are the EPA’s final rules to implement the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which regulates new and existing chemicals in the US. -
EPA Non-Animal Chemical Testing Strategy Imminent
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A new EPA list of automated chemical safety tests that manufacturers can use instead of laboratory animals when securing regulatory approval for their products will be reviewed Nov. 3. -
(ACC Mentioned) Will Federal Safety Panel Ban Toxic Flame Retardants in Household Products?
Sep 20, 2017 | The Chicago Tribune
By Michael Hawthorne
Manufacturers long ago stopped adding a cancer-causing flame retardant to children's pajamas, but federal officials failed to ban the chemical during the late 1970s and as recently as five years ago it was the most widely used fire-resistant compound in household furniture. -
How Monsanto Manufactured Outrage At Chemical Cancer Classification It Expected
Sep 19, 2017 | The Huffington Post
By Carey Gillam
Internal company records show not just the level of fear Monsanto had over the impending review, but notably that company officials fully expected IARC scientists would find at least some cancer connections to glyphosate. -
US Children's Product Line First to Achieve NGO Safety Certification
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US toy company, Bioserie, has become the first children's product brand to be approved under the Made Safe labelling certification. -
Echa Says Benefits of REACH Authorisation Outweigh Risks
Sep 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa’s analysis of the first 100 applications for REACH authorisation shows the socio-economic benefits of continued use of an SVHC outweigh the risks to human health and the environment, according to a new report. -
(ACC Mentioned) Dan Byers: If You Store It, They Will Come (Daily Mail)
Sep 20, 2017 | Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Dan Byers
The implications of Appalachia one day rivaling the Gulf Coast petrochemical industry speak for themselves, but why does a storage hub make so much economic sense for northern Appalachia? -
Energy, Interior Nominees Advance Out of Senate Committee
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Five nominees to run the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Energy Department and the Interior Department are headed for Senate floor votes. -
Washington Board Rejects Methanol Plant's Emissions Analysis
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
A Washington state panel sent back plans for a $1.8 billion methanol refinery on the state's Columbia River that would have emitted enough greenhouse gases to increase the state's output by 1 percent per year. -
With End of Subsidies in Sight, Green Backers Move Cautiously
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Hirtenstein
For almost two decades, investors in renewable energy have been able to fall back on government incentives and subsidies to underpin the returns on whatever they back. Now, they're starting to think they need to proceed with caution. -
Keep Calm: Torrance Refinery Safety Is Improving Under New Owner: Guest Commentary
Sep 20, 2017 | Daily Breeze
By David W. Campbell, Kim Nibarger and Mike Wright
It is understandable that Torrance residents are concerned about a massive refinery in their midst. -
French President: Paris Climate Deal 'Will Not Be Renegotiated'
Sep 19, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Devin Henry
French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated Tuesday that the Paris climate agreement “will not be renegotiated,” despite calls to do so from the Trump administration. -
EPA Chief: Climate Science Review Could Take Months
Sep 19, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Devin Henry
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said Tuesday his “red team-blue team” review of climate change science could take months to complete once it eventually kicks off. -
Air Chief Nominee 'Not Fit for the Job' — Enviros
Sep 20, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
It's been a decade since Bill Wehrum was last in the running to head U.S. EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. The passage of time has done nothing, however, to soften the feelings of environmental groups that are again urging senators to scuttle his nomination. -
From Oil Refineries to Solar Plants, Unions Bend California Climate Change Policies in Their Favor
Sep 20, 2017 | The Los Angeles Times
By Chris Megarian
No contour of California’s vast landscape inspires such passionate devotion as its coastline, so state lawmakers recoiled when President Trump announced in April that he wanted to expand offshore drilling. The outrage was channeled into a proposal for preventing any new infrastructure along the water, pipelines or otherwise, for additional oil production. -
Stakeholders Clash Over Competing Tests In First Jurisdiction Rule Hearing
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Stakeholders are setting out early markers of their goals for EPA's new Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, with industry pointing to the late Justice Antonin Scalia's narrow standard as an easily applied, “bright-line” test the government should adopt, while defenders of the Obama-era policy say only a broad federal rule will protect water quality.
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Nominee Once Helped Chemical Industry, Lobbyists
Sep 20, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Jeff Horwitz
President Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has for years accepted payments for criticizing studies that raised concerns about the safety of his clients’ products, according to a review of financial records and his published work by The Associated Press.
Michael L. Dourson’s nomination as head of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was to be considered by a Senate committee Wednesday, but was postponed when the Senate adjourned early for the week. If confirmed, ethics experts said, Dourson’s past writings and the money paid to him and a nonprofit he founded could represent potential conflicts of interest.
Past corporate clients of Dourson and of a research group he ran include Dow Chemical Co., Koch Industries Inc. and Chevron Corp. His research has also been underwritten by industry trade and lobbying groups representing the makers of plastics, pesticides, processed foods and cigarettes.
A toxicologist, Dourson worked at the EPA for more than a decade, leaving in 1994 as the manager at a lab that assessed the health risks of exposure to chemicals. The following year, he founded Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a private toxicity evaluation nonprofit organization that tests chemicals and produces reports on which chemicals are hazardous in what quantities.
Dourson’s views toward industry are consistent with others Trump has selected as top federal regulators. Among them is EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who in March overruled the findings of his agency’s own scientists to reverse an effort to ban chlorpyrifos, one of the nation’s most widely used pesticides.
Dourson and his organization previously worked under contract for Dow AgroSciences, the Dow subsidiary that makes chlorpyrifos. In three papers, Dourson and his colleagues pointed to what they said were flaws in peer-reviewed studies that linked delays in fetal development with even low levels of exposure to the pesticide, commonly sprayed on citrus fruits and apples.
In a 2005 paper on the topic, Dourson and his co-authors passed along thanks to Dow for its support over a number of years to study chlorpyrifos’ toxicology and assess its risk and said that money in no way influenced their findings favoring the company’s position.
Dourson did not immediately respond Tuesday to emails or phone messages seeking comment.
Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University professor who studies ethics in science and medicine, said appointing Dourson to oversee EPA’s chemical safety programs is part of a broader effort to undermine federal regulations protecting public health.
“It is not even subtle,” said Krimsky, who reviewed Dourson’s recent published work. “He has chosen to be the voice of the chemical industry. His role as a scientist is simply the role of an industry-hired lawyer — only to give the best case for their client.”
In addition to its corporate clients, Douson’s organization gets money from the U.S. and Canadian governments. In some instances, companies pay the group to evaluate a chemical and it organizes a scientific panel to validate the findings.
According to the nonprofit’s most recent publicly available IRS filing, Dourson was paid $131,000 for his work there in 2015. He separately earns $103,000 a year from the University of Cincinnati, where he holds a research position.
Dourson’s pro-industry leanings were also evident in a now defunct website called “Kids + Chemical Safety,” which his group ran. The site, which described itself as a source of information about the safe use of chemicals around children, mirrored talking points by chemical companies and trade groups that financed Dourson’s work.
One 2016 article defended glycophospate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp weedkiller, saying it was too early to start pointing fingers. One post assured parents that exposure to fire retardant chemicals in children’s pajamas was too low to be a health risk. Dourson was paid $10,000 by the North American Flame Retardant Alliance, according to a financial disclosure form he filed with the Office Government Ethics. That group is a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group that has paid Dourson to conduct scientific reviews.
Dourson’s willingness to align his scientific opinions with those of his corporate patrons has earned him support from influential industry groups now supporting his nomination.
The American Chemistry Council said he would make an excellent addition at EPA.
“His knowledge, experience and leadership will strengthen EPA’s processes for evaluating and incorporating high quality science into regulatory decision making,” said Jon Corley, the group’s spokesman.
Dourson has also served without pay for two groups, the Toxicology Forum and the Toxicology Education Foundation, whose primary funders include the American Chemistry Council, oil companies and the makers of food additives. He has resigned or promised to resign from these posts if confirmed for the EPA job.
In addition to that, Dourson has also written three books seeking to reconcile his work as a scientist and a devoted Christian. His “Evidence of Faith” series seeks to align scientific knowledge with biblical accounts, such as how the Big Bang Theory could mesh with the Book of Genesis, whether the Shroud of Turin is real and whether evidence of the Nativity story can be found in the stars.
Court records show Dourson and his work have often been called on when his corporate clients are seeking to fend off lawsuits.
DuPont was accused of polluting a West Virginia town with Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a chemical that the company’s internal tests had long ago concluded were toxic. Corporate officials discussed hiring Dourson as part of a strategy to defend themselves.
One DuPont executive praised Dourson’s “ability to assemble a ‘package’ and then sell this to the EPA, or whomever we desired,” according to an email cited in a 2013 legal claim by people who blamed exposure to the chemical for cancer, birth defects and other health problems.
Dourson led a team that found in 2002 that PFOA levels up to 150 parts per billion were safe, a level higher than was found in testing of 188 private wells and springs.
That was also well above the 1 part per billion Dupont’s own scientists had concluded could be considered safe years before. The EPA now says that only 70 parts per trillion of PFOA are acceptable — or only 0.05 percent of what Dourson’s team said was safe.
DuPont and a former subsidiary, Chemours Co., later paid $761 million to settle 3,550 lawsuits stemming from its use of the chemical.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/nominee-for-epa-chemical-safety-post-has-deep-industry-ties/2017/09/19/6080ec86-9d9d-11e7-b2a7-bc70b6f98089_story.html?utm_term=.aab365530650
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(ACC Mentioned) Practitioner Insights: Trump Nominee Threatens Chemical Safety Progress
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Scott Faber
Bipartisan reform of the nation's broken chemical safety law was hailed last year as a chance to rebuild consumer confidence in many of the chemicals used in everyday products. But that perception could be jeopardized by President Donald Trump's nominee to oversee implementation of the new version of the Toxic Substances Control Act: Michael Dourson.
Prior to being nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Dourson spent decades working for food, chemical, and tobacco companies to make the case for weaker safety standards. Dourson has deep ties to the chemical industry, raising serious questions about his ability to put public health ahead of the interests of his former clients, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, DuPont, and Koch Industries.
Bias Toward Weaker Standards
Dourson has previously recommended weaker standards for many of the chemicals the EPA is now slated to review under the new version of TSCA—including 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen found in drinking water and personal care products; 1-Bromopropane, a likely carcinogen found in stain removers; and the solvent TCE, a known carcinogen made infamous by the book and movie “A Civil Action.”
For each of these chemicals, Dourson has advocated on behalf of his industry clients for a weaker safety standard than the standard proposed by the EPA. In the case of 1,4-dioxane, a contaminant found in the drinking water of 7 million Americans, Dourson advocated for a safety standard 1,000 times weaker than the standard recommended by the agency scientists he could now oversee. Scientists who later worked for Dourson's consulting firm were also hired by the industry to review methylene chloride, which has caused more than 50 deaths in recent years and will be among the first chemicals reviewed under the new version of TSCA.
If confirmed, Dourson would also oversee pesticide safety for the EPA. He has long advocated for weaker safety standards for some of the most notorious pesticides, including chlorpyrifos. EPA scientists recently recommended that the agency end the use of chlorpyrifos on food crops, citing the risks posed to the brains and nervous systems of children, but EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt quickly reversed the proposed ban. Dourson has previously advocated for a “safe” level of chlorpyrifos on behalf of Dow AgroSciences. Now he could oversee the future of chlorpyrifos, which Pruitt has pledged to review again by 2022.
Dourson also will likely decide the fate of glyphosate and dicamba, both of which are produced by Monsanto, and Dow's 2,4-D. Each of these pesticides has invited controversy in recent years for links to cancer, neurological problems, or crop damage caused by drift. Dourson's long history of advocacy on behalf of industry clients raises serious questions about whether he can put public health first.
Rocket Fuel
Perhaps most troubling is Dourson's long history of advocating on behalf of perchlorate, a rocket fuel chemical that impairs babies’ developing brains and that is found in the tap water of 7.4 million Americans. Dourson has advocated for a legal limit on perchlorate far weaker than the level proposed by the EPA or the public health goal set by California scientists.
The EPA had previously concluded that consumers should not be exposed to more than 0.7 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (ug/kg-day) of perchlorate because it interferes with the thyroid gland's ability to use iodine to make a hormone critical to infant brain development. But many advocates and experts thought this level was still not protective enough. In 2015, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published an even lower value of 0.37 ug/kg-day and a public health goal for drinking water of 1 part per billion—the level scientists say will protect both adults and infants from thyroid harm.
Dourson has a long history of advocating for perchlorate companies, including Boeing, Kerr-McGee, Goodrich, Lockheed Martin, and other members of the Perchlorate Study Group.
In 2005, he co-wrote a journal letter arguing that perchlorate exposures more than 100 times higher than the level under consideration by California did not cause harm. In 2012, after the EPA signaled its intent to create a drinking water standard, he helped write another article suggesting that 6 ug/kg-day would be a safe exposure level—more than eight times higher than the acceptable daily dose the EPA subsequently proposed and 16 times higher than the acceptable daily dose California scientists used to set the state's public health goal.
Teflon Chemical
Equally troubling is Dourson's efforts to weaken regulation of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, the toxic chemical formerly used to make Teflon. Like with his advocacy for perchlorate, Dourson has defended the compound, which has been linked to cancer and other serious health problems. Because of its widespread use for decades in hundreds of consumer products and industrial applications, PFOA and other compounds in the family of perfluorinated chemicals, known as PFCs, contaminate the tap water of millions of Americans.
As PFOA pollution in the Ohio River Valley came to light in the early 2000s, West Virginia contracted Dourson's science-for-hire consulting firm to determine a “safe” level for PFOA in drinking water. The work was done with a consent order imposed on DuPont, and the company recommended Dourson's firm to the state.
Predictably, Dourson's firm recommended a “safe” level that was 150 times less protective than the level previously recommended by DuPont's own scientists, and more than 2,000 times less protective than the health advisory level proposed by the EPA in 2016. Dourson's blessing of a weak PFOA standard paid off for the company. West Virginia adopted Dourson's findings and set a safety threshold of 150 parts per billion for drinking water from 2002 to 2006, which limited the number of people DuPont was required to provide with safe drinking water. DuPont also was able to point to Dourson's study as part of its defense in various lawsuits brought as a result of the contamination.
When researching companies, DuPont noted that Dourson and his firm had a “very good reputation among folks that are still in the business of blessing criteria” and as a company that could “then sell this to EPA, or whomever we desired.”
Should someone in the business of blessing criteria be charged with overseeing chemical safety for the EPA? And will consumers trust the decisions of someone who was paid to consistently argue for weaker chemical safety standards?
One of the chemicals that will be subject to early review by EPA is 1-Bromopropane, which is linked to neurological and reproductive disorders, as well as cancer. When Dourson completed a study of 1-bromopropane for Albemarle and Ameribrom, he proposed an Occupational Exposure Limit, or OEL, of 20 ppm. That's half as protective as the 10 ppm limit proposed by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists a year later in 2005, and 200 times less protective than the revised 0.1 ppm limit recommended by ACGIH in 2014. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended an OEL of 0.3 ppm in 2016, 67 times more protective than the Dourson group's finding.
Solvents
Another chemical subject to early review by the EPA is trichloroethylene, or TCE, which is “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure,” according to the EPA. TCE gained infamy when many residents, particularly children, developed cancer after drinking contaminated water near Boston. A Dourson study funded by the American Chemistry Council called for a safety level up to 15 times higher than the level recommended by the EPA in 2011. The EPA has since proposed banning some uses of TCE, but Dourson could decide whether to finalize or abandon the proposed bans of TCE in vapor and aerosol degreasing, and in spot cleaning.
Dourson also has served on the North American Flame Retardant Alliance Science Advisory Council, which also is funded by the American Chemistry Council . Some flame retardants—which have been linked to cancer, learning disorders, and reduced fertility—will be among the first chemicals on the EPA's to-do list. Dourson has a long history of fighting legislative proposals to ban flame retardant chemicals in upholstered furniture and children's products. In particular, Dourson co-wrote an article about the flame retardant chemical tetrabromobisphenol A, or TBBPA, casting doubt on whether it has reproductive, neurological, or developmental effects.
Legislators who made difficult compromises to enact bipartisan reform of the nation's chemical safety laws should think twice about putting someone known to “bless” chemicals in charge of the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. So too should the companies and trade associations who hoped to quell consumer doubts about the safety of products Americans bring into their homes every day.
Of course, something far more important than consumer confidence is at stake. Toxic chemicals pose serious cancer risks to consumers and workers, including farmers who handle pesticides. And, as the President's Cancer Panel noted, these risks have been grossly underestimated.
To make real progress on chemical safety, the Senate should reject Michael Dourson and instead demand a chemical safety leader who has a lifelong commitment to public health, not profits.
By Scott Faber, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the Environmental Working Group.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120917775&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499704500&searchid=30526791&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Advocate Joins Law Firm
Sep 19, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus
Anna Burhop, a top official with the American Chemistry Council, has joined Bracewell LLP, a prominent law and lobby firm.
The firm announced today that Burhop will be a principal in the Policy Resolution Group based in the Washington office.
Burhop spent more than a year at the ACC. At the trade group, she was environment director for regulatory and technical affairs. Burhop worked on Clean Air Act policy and other issues.
Prior to that, Burhop spent about seven years at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including as a professional staff member.
She served under both Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), working on oversight of the Clean Air Act and other EPA regulations. She also has experience with water and transportation issues.
In a statement, Scott Segal, co-head of Bracewell's Policy Resolution Group, said, "Having worked with Anna for more than a decade while she was on Capitol Hill and at ACC, I know our clients will benefit from her knowledge of legislative and regulatory issues on a wide range of policy matters."
Burhop said she was excited about joining the firm. "Bracewell's PRG has an excellent reputation in Washington, D.C., and I'm very much looking forward to working with its team of accomplished lobbyists and strategic communications professionals," she said.
Burhop has a master's degree in health administration from Tulane University and a bachelor's degree from Trinity University in San Antonio.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/09/19/stories/1060061125
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Sep 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry
...Law and lobbying firm Bracewell has brought on Clean Air Act expert Anna Burhop to be a principal in its Policy Resolution Group.
Burhop comes from the American Chemistry Council, where she worked on numerous air regulation issues such as ozone. She previously worked for Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
"Anna's extensive experience working on environmental and regulatory issues both in the private sector and on Capitol Hill will be a great asset to Bracewell's PRG team and our clients," Bracewell Managing Partner Gregory Bopp said in a statement....
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/overnights/351436-overnight-energy-french-president-defends-paris-deal-at
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Groups Vow to Redouble Efforts Against Chemical Safety Pick
Sep 20, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Environmental and public health groups are gearing up to oppose the nomination of Michael Dourson, President Trump's choice to lead U.S. EPA's Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Office.
Dourson, a former EPA staffer who is currently a professor at the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine, was set to appear on Capitol Hill today along with other agency picks (E&E Daily, Sept. 18), but the Environment and Public Works Committee postponed the hearing after senators finished this week's work early.
Yesterday afternoon, the Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Working Group touted experts and two people who believe their families have been harmed by perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a possible carcinogen used to make nonstick coatings whose toxicity Dourson has questioned in industry-funded studies.
"Michael Dourson has a troubling history with PFOA — the Teflon chemical that contaminated my hometown's drinking water," said Michael Hickey of Hoosick Falls, N.Y.
"After my father died from kidney cancer and I discovered the contamination, we were told not to drink the water unless PFOA levels were 1,500 times lower than what Dourson has previously endorsed as safe," said Hickey, adding that Dourson "simply can't be trusted to make decisions that will protect communities like mine."
Gwen Botkin said her previously healthy husband developed severe thyroid, cholesterol and digestive problems that required frequent hospitalizations after they moved to Parkersburg, W.Va., a community that has been contaminated by PFOA.
"Had we known that the water was polluted in any way with anything like these chemicals, we probably would never have even moved to this area," she said in a conference call organized by environmentalists. "When you're living in the United States, you think your water is safe — don't worry about it."
But unfortunately, Botkin said, "it's not that way. And if this man gets into the EPA, I think the whole country is going to have big problems."
In response to questions from reporters, Botkin acknowledged neither she nor her husband has urged their senators — Republican Shelley Moore Capito, an EPW Committee member, and Democrat Joe Manchin, who sometimes supports Trump nominees — to oppose Dourson.
"We need to do that," she said.
"We agree," Scott Faber, a senior vice president for government affairs at EWG, quickly added.
So far Faber's group has focused on "doing everything we can to help Senator Manchin and Senator Capito and the other 98 senators to understand how uniquely unqualified Michael Dourson is to be the assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention," he said.
That has included putting out several blog posts dissecting Dourson's record. EDF has taken similar steps. The confirmation hearing delay may now give advocates more time to work Senate offices and mobilize the constituents of persuadable lawmakers.
Before joining the university, Dourson led his own nonprofit consulting firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. And Gio Batta Gori, editor of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, a journal on whose editorial board Dourson sits, praised the nominee (E&E Daily, July 18).
"Dr. Dourson would bring an unparalleled breadth of experience and savvy to this position, and is ready to run full speed from the start," Gori said in a statement released by EPA. "Dr. Dourson has a can do and winning temperament that inspires confidence, and is well known as an engaging and skillful negotiator. I wholeheartedly endorse his nomination."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/09/20/stories/1060061167
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Democrats Target Trump EPA Pick With Chemical Industry Ties
Sep 20, 2017 | NBC
By Suzy Khimm
President Donald Trump’s pick to be the nation’s top chemical regulator is expected to face tough questions from Senate Democrats for spending decades working on behalf of corporations trying to stave off tougher chemical regulations.
Michael Dourson, who’s been nominated by the White House to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety program, was slated to appear at a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, but it was postponed on Tuesday. A new hearing date has not been announced.
Senate Democrats have already expressed serious concerns about Dourson’s long career of conducting industry-funded research, which major manufacturers and lobbying groups have used to downplay the effects of potentially toxic substances.
"Dourson’s work presents a disturbing track record of consistently claiming that these chemicals are much safer than independent scientists have determined," said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who’s on the Senate committee that’s considering Dourson’s nomination.
The nomination comes at a pivotal moment for chemical oversight: Last year, Congress passed a major overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act for the first time in 40 years. The new law is intended to fix serious shortcomings in the federal government’s ability to regulate hazardous substances in everything from drinking water to household cleaning products. But the EPA is still in the earliest stages of implementing the new law, and, if confirmed, Dourson would be leading that effort.
"It is imperative that we make sure EPA is up to the task of implementing those critical reforms in a credible and objective way, and giving all Americans the protection and peace of mind they deserve," said Sen Tom Carper, D-Del., the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate committee for Environment and Public Works.
"Based on his record, I'm not convinced Dr. Dourson is the right person for this important job," he added.
At the heart of the controversy is Dourson’s work for Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), a non-profit he founded in 1995 to provide chemical risk assessments and other research on behalf of clients. Industry groups and private corporations sponsored one-third of the group’s work in 2015. TERA has now folded into the University of Cincinnati, where Dourson currently works as a toxicologist.
Asked about the criticism of Dourson’s record, the Trump administration said that he was "receiving high accolades from experts across the country," according to Liz Bowman, an EPA spokesperson. She cited his leadership positions at the American Board of Toxicology, scientific journals, and the EPA, where Dourson worked from 1980 to 1994. Dourson did not respond to a request for comment.
But critics argue that Dourson has consistently recommended standards for chemical exposure that are far weaker than what federal agencies have recommended, and that are highly favorable to the corporate interests that have funded his research. Dourson was paid by PPG, a major paint manufacturer, to examine the health efforts of 1,4-Dioxane, an industrial solvent that the EPA describes as "a likely human carcinogen."
Dourson concluded that the safe level for exposure was 1,000 times higher than the EPA’s recommendation, advocates from the Environmental Working Group pointed out in a recent report. 1,4-Dioxane is among the first 10 chemicals that the EPA have made a priority for risk assessments, as required under the 2016 chemical safety law.
Dourson has also published industry-funded research on two other chemicals that are on the fast track for the EPA review: Trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent linked to kidney and liver cancer; and 1-Bromopropane, a dry cleaning chemical that has been linked to reproductive and neurological problems.
In addition to his research, Dourson has also served as an expert witness for companies being sued for toxic exposure and contamination. He was hired, for example, as a consultant for DuPont when the company was facing extensive litigation around PFOA, a chemical used to make Teflon that’s been linked to cancer. Residents of West Virginia, where DuPont had made Teflon for decades, sued the company, which settled in early 2017.
"How does he put aside a 20-year career of being paid by the industry to do science in a way that favors their desired outcomes?" asked Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund. "He creates an aura of legitimacy around a process that’s fundamentally conflicted."
At his confirmation hearing, Senate Democrats are likely to push Dourson to explain if and when he would recuse himself from policymaking decisions at the EPA because of his work on behalf of industry.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the chairman of the Senate committee on Environment and Public Works, defended Dourson as "an experienced toxicologist who deserves full and fair committee consideration, followed by a Senate vote."
Barrasso also criticized Democrats for holding up consideration of other EPA nominees, stressing the importance of filling the agency’s top positions. "Democrats would rather play politics with nominations, than see polluters held accountable," he said.
CORRECTION (Sept. 19, 2017, 6:33 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misidentified the employer of Richard Denison. He works for the Environmental Defense Fund, not the Environmental Working Group.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-pick-epa-chemical-safety-under-fire-industry-ties-n802776
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EPW Postpones Hearing on EPA, NRC Nominees
Sep 19, 2017 | Politico PRO Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has postponed Wednesday’s planned hearing for EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission nominees because of plans for the chamber to adjourn in recognition of Rosh Hashanah.
The hearing was to consider four EPA nominees: Matthew Leopold to be general counsel, William Wehrum to run the air office, Michael Dourson to run the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and David Ross to run the water office. The panel would have also considered Jeff Baran’s re-nomination to the NRC.
The committee did not immediately say when the hearing would be rescheduled.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Senate Panel Delays EPA Confirmation Hearing
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Senate environment committee has delayed its planned Sept. 20 confirmation hearing for four EPA nominees giving environmentalists time to intensify their opposition to the nominees, especially the two nominees tapped to lead the toxics and air offices, who they were already strongly opposing.
In a Sept. 19 statement, environment committee chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) said the confirmation hearing “will be rescheduled for a later date,” though he did not provide a reason for the delay.
The hearing was slated to consider four EPA nominees: Micheal Dourson, a former EPA risk assessor, tapped to lead EPA's toxics office; William Wehrum, the acting air chief in the Bush administration, selected to lead the office in a permanent capacity; former Wisconsin regulator David Ross who is slated to be EPA's next water chief and Matthew Leopold, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official, as general counsel.
But the delay comes as environmentalists have begun stepping up their opposition to the nominees, especially Dourson and Wehrum.
Several environmental groups held a Sept. 19 conference call with reporters where they attacked Dourson, charging his past work for industry undermines consumer confidence -- concerns that were elemental to reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) last year.
Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at EWG, reminded reporters on the conference call that the Senate voted to reform TSCA in June 2016, “in part to rebuild consumer confidence. We think that paying someone to greenwash [chemicals' risks] would not do much to boost confidence in the country's chemical safety law.”
Faber said with EPA working to implement the changes to TSCA directed in the reformed statute, Dourson is “the wrong person at the wrong time. Someone with his track record should not be in charge of making these major changes to the TSCA.”
Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, has described Dourson's approach to representing his clients' interests in a recent blog. Denison provides several examples where Dourson, funded by a particular company or trade group, performed risk analyses that proposed risk estimates weaker than EPA's or other public agencies'.
The companies could then use these numbers to push back against a regulatory agency's risk estimate and subsequent management decision.
“Michael Dourson has worked on dozens of dozens of chemicals for dozens of companies. He uses a process that virtually assures those companies get what they pay for,” Denison said during the conference call. “Some number that they can use to argue against a tougher number brought forward by [an environmental or health] agency.”
Denison pointed to instances where Dourson performed risk analyses for companies producing PFOA, trichloroethylene, 1,4 dioxane and a flame retardant.
Wehrum, who failed to win Senate confirmation during the George W. Bush administration, is drawing similar criticisms over his past work for industry, as well as his work in the Bush administration when many rules he oversaw failed to pass legal muster.
He “is an industry lawyer who was largely responsible for the Bush EPA’s record of violating the Clean Air Act more often, and allowing more illegal emissions of harmful air pollution, than any EPA administration before or since,” John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in a Sept. 8 blog post.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senate-panel-delays-epa-confirmation-hearing
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Intervenes in Chemical Regulation Lawsuits
Sep 20, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The chemical industry is stepping up to assist the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in lawsuits filed by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and other campaign groups. Under dispute are the EPA’s final rules to implement the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which regulates new and existing chemicals in the US.
The plaintiffs argue that the EPA’s rules governing how the agency will assess the risks posed by chemical substances, published on 20 July, cave to the chemical industry. They assert that the final rules are significantly relaxed compared to the original proposals – made in January, right before President Trump took office.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has joined other industry groups in legally applying to intervene in the litigation on behalf of the EPA. The trade group argues that the suits are ‘without merit’ and could jeopardise the EPA’s ability to prioritise chemicals for risk evaluation, and to conduct those risk evaluations of high-priority substances in the required timeframes.
‘We cannot adequately protect our interests unless we are included as a participant in the cases,’ says the ACC’s Jon Corley. ‘While we side with EPA in the cases, our motions to intervene are not legal motions to “take over the cases” on behalf of the EPA,’ he tells Chemistry World. Intervention is a legal procedure that allows the ACC to participate in the proceedings and to voice its concerns, Corley explains.
For its part, the EDF underscores the irony of the chemical industry working to protect the EPA. Organisations like the ACC have typically complained about the EPA overstepping its regulatory authority, and worked to constrain the agency.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/industry-intervenes-in-chemical-regulation-lawsuits/3008017.article
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EPA Non-Animal Chemical Testing Strategy Imminent
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A new EPA list of automated chemical safety tests that manufacturers can use instead of laboratory animals when securing regulatory approval for their products will be reviewed Nov. 3.
The upcoming tests are in part the result of pressure animal welfare groups, some toxicologists, and others exerted while Congress amended a chemicals law. The law requires the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize a strategic testing plan by June 2018.
The plan will encourage the agency and chemical makers to use automated toxicity tests, computer models, and other methods to reduce, refine, or replace traditional reliance on rats, mice, rabbits, fish and other test animals. The challenge: to make the new tests as informative, or even more so.
Louis Scarano, a toxicologist in the EPA's Risk Assessment Division, briefed an interagency committee's scientific advisers Sept. 19 about the EPA's progress in developing the plan, which they will unveil to the advisers Nov. 3.
What's Reportable?
Clear guidance and specific lists of approved tests would encourage chemical and drug companies to give regulators product safety data using animal-free tests, industry members of that advisory panel said Sept. 18 as they evaluated a broader cross-government plan to improve toxicity tests while reducing animal use.
“Agencies should articulate their expectations,” said panel member Hisham Hamadeh, director of safety sciences at Amgen, Inc., and other industry members agreed.
Chemical makers would like the EPA to offer guidance on when information from a cellular, genetic, or other new type of test shows a chemical has “substantial risk” that the company must promptly report, according to panel member Lawrence Milchak, a senior toxicology manager at 3M. Milchak referenced a substantial risk notification requirement in Section 8(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
First Peek Nov. 3
The EPA will present a draft plan Nov. 3 before the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods meeting, Scarano said. Scientists from 16 federal agencies that require, use, generate, or disseminate toxicity and safety information participate in that committee.
The agency is scheduled to release its first draft plan for comment sometime between December and April, and finalize it by June 2018, Scarano said. In addition to the list of toxicity tests and chemical characterization methods, the EPA plan will include criteria such tests must have to prove they are reliable and relevant for their intended purposes, Scarano said.
The plan also must show how the EPA will phase-in testing requirements, so that chemical manufacturers would begin with simpler, quicker, cheaper tests before EPA would require more complex and expensive tests, some of which take years and cost millions of dollars.
Equivalency Struggle
TSCA requires that EPA show that the new types of toxicity tests would generate information that's “equivalent or better” at predicting health and environmental injuries than the tests they replace.
Other challenging issues, such as how to use new types of tests for nanoscale chemicals, are likely to be dealt with in the future, Scarano said. The agency plans to train staff to understand and use new testing methods described in the plan, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120917750&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120917750&jd=120917750
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(ACC Mentioned) Will Federal Safety Panel Ban Toxic Flame Retardants in Household Products?
Sep 20, 2017 | The Chicago Tribune
By Michael Hawthorne
Manufacturers long ago stopped adding a cancer-causing flame retardant to children's pajamas, but federal officials failed to ban the chemical during the late 1970s and as recently as five years ago it was the most widely used fire-resistant compound in household furniture.
Scientists and health advocates want the government to stop repeating the mistakes it made with the chemical, known as chlorinated tris.
On Wednesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to vote on a petition that would ban tris and chemically related flame retardants from children's products, furniture, mattresses and household electronics. Many of the compounds have been linked to cancer, neurological deficits, developmental problems and impaired fertility. A growing body of research suggests they can irreparably harm fetuses and young children by mimicking hormones during early stages of life.
"Every chemical tested in this class has adverse effects," Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told the commission at a hearing last week. "Unless we approach this as a class, we are going to find ourselves in the same situation five years, 10 years down the road. The evidence has built to the point that all of these chemicals, and all future chemicals of this class, are going to escape into the environment and then into people."
Proposed by a coalition of health groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the petition targets chemicals highlighted by the Tribune's 2012 "Playing With Fire" investigation, which revealed how a deceptive campaign by the tobacco and chemical industries led to the widespread use of toxic, ineffective flame retardants in American homes.
Among other findings, the Tribune outlined how the chemical industry replaced some harmful flame retardants with chemically similar but largely unregulated compounds — a pattern known as "regrettable substitution" because the new chemicals often are just as worrisome.
With the Trump administration generally opposed to new business regulations, the commission's staff is advising the panel to reject the petition. Echoing arguments from the chemical industry, the staff review concluded there isn't enough evidence to outlaw an entire class of substances — a step the federal government has never taken without a direct order from Congress — and cautioned the agency doesn't have enough money or manpower to enforce a ban.
Three safety commissioners have told advocates they support invoking the commission's rarely used authority to ban the chemicals, known as organohalogens. All five members of the panel were appointed by then-President Barack Obama, though President Donald Trump will get his first opportunity to influence its agenda when Commissioner Marietta Robinson's term ends next month.
The chemicals at issue contain either bromine or chlorine — halogens that at high levels take the place of oxygen and slow the combustive reaction that creates and spreads fire.
Government and academic researchers have found the amount commonly added to household furniture fails to protect people from fire in a meaningful way. But because of their chemistry, many popular flame retardants spread easily and widely, persist in the environment and build up in the food chain.
Industry groups continue to promote the chemicals as lifesavers. "Fire risk is still a very real issue," said Robert Simon, a vice president of the American Chemistry Council, the industry's chief trade group. "This (petition) has the potential to undermine fire safety and compromise the fire safety of some products."
The safety commission vote comes as the Environmental Protection Agency struggles in the Trump era to follow through on promises made during a bipartisan overhaul of the nation's chief chemical safety law.
Elliot Kaye, a commissioner and former CPSC staff member, said last week that the panel could exempt certain chemicals later if future studies found they were safe.
"If at the end of the day, we look back at this decision and determine we made a mistake, I would far rather make a decision that is too protective of children rather than one that falls far short of that," Kaye said. "One can always say there is not enough information. There is always going to be doubt, whether it is a criminal case or civil case or a regulatory decision. In this case, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence."
Under pressure from retailers and the public, some companies already are moving toward safer alternatives for household products. "As you see new chemicals come on, I don't think you are going to see regrettable substitution in the future," said Thomas Osimitz, a private researcher who has conducted studies for chemical companies and serves on an industry advisory panel.
The safety commission's staff also concluded the market is changing fast, making the petition unnecessary. Yet academic scientists, advocacy groups and state regulators keep finding organohalogen flame retardants in recently manufactured products.
Any furniture-maker that still adds organohalogens to furniture must attach a warning label required under a California law prompted by the Tribune investigation. In July, the state agency that enforces the law reported that 22 percent of the furniture it sampled this year still contained the chemicals.
Electronics are another concern.
Rick Goss, a lobbyist for industry trade groups, testified last week that electronics manufacturers "have long moved past" a group of highly toxic organohalogens known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. But in a report to be released Wednesday, advocacy groups say a respected laboratory found organohalogens in the plastic enclosures of 11 of the 12 televisions it tested earlier this year.
Two of the TVs contained a PBDE known as deca that has been banned in five states, including Washington, where the nonprofit Toxic-Free Future and Clean Production Action groups purchased the products. Five of the TVs contained a chemically similar compound and eight contained another brominated chemical that researchers recently found in the placentas of pregnant women.
Samples from the television enclosures were tested by Heather Stapleton, a Duke University chemist and one of the first scientists who discovered that most human exposure to flame retardants comes from ingesting surprisingly large amounts of contaminated household dust.
Stapleton and several colleagues tracked how chlorinated tris, the carcinogen removed from children's pajamas nearly 40 years ago, later became the top flame retardant in upholstered furniture cushions. The chemical also was commonly added to nursing pillows, highchairs and diaper-changing pads, the researchers found.
Between 2014 and 2016, consumers sent Stapleton more than 1,100 samples of polyurethane foam from household products. About a quarter of the samples contained organohalogens, and chlorinated tris again was the one most frequently detected.
In 2012, testing by another lab commissioned by the Tribune found chlorinated tris and related chemicals in popular brands of baby mattresses, even though the safety commission had said manufacturers could easily comply with national flammability standards without using the chemicals.
"It's really important to close the door on these organohalogen flame retardants once and for all," said Eve Gartner, an attorney for the nonprofit group Earthjustice who helped prepare the petition.
Until last year, the EPA was hobbled by a law that allowed industry to put chemicals on the market without evaluating their safety and made it practically impossible to ban toxic substances after health hazards were documented.
Congress approved a new law intended to improve safety. But rules unveiled in June by the Trump administration included several business-friendly changes overseen by a former industry official who now holds a top post at the EPA.
Career staff at the agency pushed back in a memo that argued the administration's changes would effectively prevent the EPA from taking action when chemicals "present an unreasonable risk to health or the environment." Since then, the administration chose to fill the agency's top chemical safety post with a researcher who for years has helped the tobacco and chemical industries downplay concerns about their products.
Several researchers who testified or wrote letters in support of the safety commission petition see it as another opportunity to force the chemical industry to change.
"These chemicals are robbing our children and grandchildren of critical human potential," said Thomas Zoeller, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who has shown how flame retardants and other halogens interfere with hormones during early brain development. "While these effects might not be visible on the faces our children, they are no less important to them individually or to our society."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-cpsc-flame-retardants-ban-met-20170919-story.html
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How Monsanto Manufactured Outrage At Chemical Cancer Classification It Expected
Sep 19, 2017 | The Huffington Post
By Carey Gillam
Three years ago this month Monsanto Co. executives realized they had a big problem on their hands.
It was September 2014 and the company’s top-selling chemical, the weed killer called glyphosate that is the foundation for Monsanto’s branded Roundup products, had been selected as one among a handful of pesticides to undergo scrutiny by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Monsanto had spent decades fending off concerns about the safety of glyphosate and decrying scientific research indicating the chemical might cause cancer or other diseases. And even though the IARC review was still months away, Monsanto’s own scientists knew what the outcome would likely be – and they knew it wouldn’t be good.
Internal company records show not just the level of fear Monsanto had over the impending review, but notably that company officials fully expected IARC scientists would find at least some cancer connections to glyphosate. Company scientists discussed the “vulnerability” that surrounded their efforts to defend glyphosate amid multiple unfavorable research findings in studies of people and animals exposed to the weed killer. In addition to epidemiology studies, “we also have potential vulnerabilities in the other areas that IARC will consider, namely, exposure, genetox, and mode of action…” a Monsanto scientist wrote in October 2014. That same email discussed a need to find allies and arrange funding for a “fight” – all months before the IARC meeting in March 2015.
And Monsanto predicted internally before IARC even met that the review of the scientific evidence would result in a decision that glyphosate “possibly” was carcinogenic, or “probably” was. Monsanto officials had forecast the IARC decision in an internal “preparedness” plan that warned colleagues to “assume and prepare for the outcome...” The document shows Monsanto thought it most likely that IARC would peg glyphosate as a “possible human carcinogen.” The rating of probable carcinogen was “possible but less likely,” the Monsanto memo stated. IARC ultimately did classify glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
As the IARC meeting loomed, the internal documents show that Monsanto did not wait for the actual IARC decision before acting. It enlisted teams of PR and lobbying experts, scientists and others in a plan aimed at creating what was designed to appear as a storm of “outcry” and “outrage” to follow the IARC classification. IARC had a history of “questionable and politically charged rulings,” the Monsanto memo said.
The plan was to create enough controversy to thoroughly discredit IARC’s evaluation because Monsanto officials knew that regulators would be influenced by IARC, and continued widespread use of the top-selling chemical could be at risk.
“It is possible that IARC’s decision will impact future regulatory decision making,” Monsanto stated in its internal correspondence.
The timing was critical because in 2015 both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Commission were evaluating re-authorizations of Monsanto’s weed killer. Following IARC’s classification, both the European Union and the EPA delayed final decisions on glyphosate amid the still-brewing debate over the chemical’s safety.
“What this indicates to me is that it was obvious to Monsanto that there was evidence of carcinogenicity,” said Peter Infante, an epidemiologist who worked for more than 24 years for the U.S. government studying cancer risks to workers from exposure to toxic substances. “It would seem to me that Monsanto does not like the public to be informed of the cancer hazard.”
After the IARC ruling, a storm of protest did erupt from various individuals and organizations alongside Monsanto’s howls of indignant outrage. Some have questioned the wisdom of U.S. funding for IARC and Monsanto has perpetuated a false narrative that the chairman of the IARC working group withheld critical information from the team.
The document trail, which includes internal emails, memos and other communications obtained from Monsanto by plaintiffs’ attorneys through litigation pending in the United States, makes clear that the debate over, and challenge to, IARC’s classification did not sprout authentically from a variety of voices, but rather was manufactured by Monsanto in advance of IARC’s decision and continued afterward. The goals was - and is - to convince regulators to discount the findings of the team of independent scientific experts who made up the IARC team that examined glyphosate.
The internal records obtained through litigation, combined with documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state records requests also show that the actions employed to discredit IARC were part of a decades-long pattern of deceptive tactics by Monsanto to persuade regulators, lawmakers and members of the press and public that glyphosate and Roundup are safe. The company has used these tactics multiple times over the years to try to discredit several scientists whose research has found harmful effects associated with glyphosate.
“Orchestrate Outcry”
The IARC attack plan, which was laid out in a February 2015 memo, involved not only Monsanto’s internal PR people, scientists and marketing experts, but a range of outside industry players. Various individuals were assigned tasks. The “strategies and tactics” included:
· “Orchestrate Outcry” with IARC Decision - Industry conducts robust media/ social media outreach on process and outcome
· “Identify/ request third-party experts to blog, op/ed, tweet and/or link, repost, retweet, etc.” The documents show one such “expert,” academic Henry Miller, was provided a draft article
to submit to Forbes for publication under his name with no mention of Monsanto’s involvement. Forbes learned of the deceit last month and severed relations with Miller.
· “Inform/ Inoculate/ Engage Industry Partners” - Notably the industry partners listed included three organizations that purport to be independent of Monsanto but have long been seen by critics as front groups for the company – Monsanto named Academics Review and the Genetic Literacy Project, both based in the United States, and Sense About Science. which has run operations in the United Kingdom and the United States, as groups to help with its mission. In fact, Sense About Science was the group identified by Monsanto to lead the industry response and “provide a platform for IARC observers.” The groups did as Monsanto planned, posting scathing attacks on IARC on their websites.
· Engagement with Regulatory Agencies - Monsanto planned for grower associations/ growers to “write regulators with an appeal that they remain focused on the science, not the politically charged decision by IARC”
· “Push opinion leader letter to key daily newspaper on day of IARC ruling” with assistance of the Potomac Group marketing firm.
The preparedness plan also called for supporting “the development of three new papers on glyphosate focused on epidemiology and toxicology.” As planned, shortly after the IARC decision Monsanto arranged for several scientists – many of them former employees or paid consultants - to author and publish research papers supporting glyphosate safety. It was revealed through discovery documents that Monsanto discussed ghostwriting the papers. In one email, company scientist William Heydens told colleagues the company could “ghost-write certain reports that would carry the names of outside scientists – “they would just edit & sign their names so to speak,” he wrote. He cited as an example a 2000 study that has been regarded as influential by regulators. Documents show Monsanto’s heavy writing and editing involvement in the resulting purportedly “independent” review.
Monsanto has adamantly denied ghostwriting, but one memo from August 2015 from the files of Monsanto scientist David Saltmiras actually uses that term, stating that he “ghostwrote cancer review paper Greim et al (2015)…” referring to a paper that showed authorship by German scientist Helmut Greim along with Saltmiras. (Monsanto has acknowledged that Greim worked as a consultant to the company with part of his job being to publish peer-reviewed data on glyphosate.)
Another internal email illustrates the writing by a Monsanto scientist of a research paper titled “Developmental and Reproductive Outcomes… after Glyphosate Exposure.” The scientist, Donna Farmer, did extensive work, including what she called a “cut and paste” of certain information. But her name was not included as an author before the paper was submitted to a journal. The published version, concluded there was “no solid evidence linking glyphosate exposure to adverse developmental or reproductive effects.”
The paper trail of documents also show that Monsanto feared that a U.S. health agency planning to review glyphosate in 2015 might agree with IARC and collaborated with the EPA to successfully block that agency – the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) – from doing its review. “We’re trying to do everything we can to keep from having a domestic IARC occur,” a company official wrote.
The record also shows that well before IARC, Monsanto recruited networks of academic scientists in the U.S and Europe who have defended Monsanto’s products, including its weed killer, without declaring their collaborations with Monsanto. And that these silent soldiers helped Monsanto discredit scientists who reported research showing harm associated with glyphosate and Roundup, including working at Monsanto’s bidding to get one damaging study by French scientist Gilles-Éric Séralini retracted from a scientific journal where it was published in September 2012. The company even discounted concerns by one of its own paid consultants who found evidence of glyphosate’s genotoxicity and refused to do the additional tests he recommended.
If what Monsanto says is true, that glyphosate is so very safe, and that there is no evidence it causes cancer or other health problems, then why all the smoke and mirrors? Why would the company need to ghostwrite research papers to present to regulators? Why would Monsanto need to establish networks of scientists to promote glyphosate safety and to tear down scientists whose research raises concerns? Why would Monsanto try to block a review of glyphosate by the U.S. ATSDR?
Two committees of the European Parliament have scheduled a hearing for Oct. 11 in Brussels to delve into these and other questions as the European Commission faces a looming deadline for making a decision on the re-authorization of glyphosate before the end of 2017.
Lawmakers should take note of evidence that their own food safety agency appears to have dropped the ball on independent assessments of glyphosate research. Records show that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) dismissed a study linking Monsanto’s weed killer to cancer at the advice of an EPA official who Monsanto deemed “useful” and who is part of a probe now into possible collusion between the EPA and Monsanto.
They should also pay heed to news that EFSA based its recommendation on glyphosate on a report that copied and pasted analyses from a Monsanto study.
Monsanto Chairman Hugh Grant was invited to address the Parliament meeting in October, but declined to appear or to send anyone else from Monsanto. Dr. Roland Solecki, head of chemical safety for the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), has also declined, according to organizers. I do plan to participate, as will a representative from IARC and several others.
Throughout this debate, it is worthwhile to remember that the concerns about glyphosate safety have deep roots that date all the way back to at least 1985 when EPA toxicologists looked at data showing rare tumors in mice dosed with glyphosate and determined that glyphosate was “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Monsanto protests eventually reversed that classification but in light of all of the deceptive tactics recently revealed in documents, the words of an EPA scientist more than 30 years ago are worth considering today: ”Glyphosate is suspect… Monsanto’s argument is unacceptable.”
The EPA scientist in that 1985 memo also wrote: “Our viewpoint is one of protecting the public health when we see suspicious data. It is not our job to protect registrants…”
European lawmakers would be wise to recall those words.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-monsanto-manufactured-outrage-at-chemical-cancer_us_59c17c88e4b0f96732cbc9f3
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US Children's Product Line First to Achieve NGO Safety Certification
Sep 19, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US toy company, Bioserie, has become the first children's product brand to be approved under the Made Safe labelling certification.
The range of baby tethers, rattles and toys are certified to have been made without ingredients known to be toxic to humans or the environment.
Stephanie Triau of Bioserie told Chemical Watch that the company had decided to gain the certification, because Made Safe's goals "strongly echo" its own and there is "a growing consensus to show that international safety standards are not good enough to fully guarantee chemical safety in baby toys."
The company did not have to change its products to meet the Made Safe criteria, because it has always used fully biobased ingredients that are free of petrochemicals.
"We always recognised that the main source of harm comes from petrochemicals; and therefore we ruled out using ingredients which could contain even a very low percentage of oil-based components,"said Ms Triau.
A technical consultant on its team confirms the safety of product ingredients.
Ms Trau said: "We use a proprietary blend for our biopolymer compound and we control the manufacturing process for both our compound and for our products. Therefore we have full confidence in the safety of our processes and the quality of our ingredients."
However, one of the main challenges was getting suppliers to provide the detailed lists of ingredients, required by Made Safe.
The certification requires knowledge of product ingredients, sourcing and process. This includes asking for all materials, sub-ingredients, and everything that goes into a product.
Ms Trau said: "In that sense, going through the certification process has allowed us to obtain information from all suppliers in black and white - some of which were not always shared with us that way before. It has been a means for us to get to the level of transparency we’ve always been after."Screening process
Last year, True Botanicals became the first personal care brand to be certified by Made Safe. Toys are a new sector for the NGO.
Made Safe founder, Amy Ziff, told Chemical Watch: "Products like toys, tethers and rattlers are so important when it comes to finding safe options, because babies and small children put them in their mouths, which is a sensitive route of exposure to toxic chemicals."
She added that these products tend to be made with traditional plastic that can leach toxic chemicals like phthalates and BPA, "both of which are hormone disruptors that can disproportionately impact vulnerable populations like babies."
To gain the Made Safe certification, products are put through its primary toxicant list which screens for known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, high-risk pesticides, harmful VOCs, toxic solvents and other chemicals known to harm human health.
The NGO goes up the supply chain to check for contamination, reads existing test results and runs all ingredients/materials through its screening process.
Made Safe then works with a chemist to screen for whether or not the ingredients bioaccumulate, build up in the environment or release gas into the air, and are toxic to aquatic life or animals.
"In short, toys and children’s products with the Made Safe seal are verified made with safe ingredients not known to harm human health or ecosystems. It’s one of the most (if not the most) comprehensive screens out there, representing the highest level of safety," said Ms Ziff.
One of the things that makes Made Safe stricter than other certifications, she said, is that they exercise the precautionary principle.
"We presume chemicals and ingredients are guilty until the data can show they are innocent, or, in this case, that they can be considered a Made Safe ingredient that won’t harm humans or ecosystems," said Ms Ziff.
https://chemicalwatch.com/58802/us-childrens-product-line-first-to-achieve-ngo-safety-certification
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Echa Says Benefits of REACH Authorisation Outweigh Risks
Sep 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa’s analysis of the first 100 applications for REACH authorisation shows the socio-economic benefits of continued use of an SVHC outweigh the risks to human health and the environment, according to a new report.
The applications were for 118 uses of 21 SVHCs from 2013 to 2016. The report concluded that in all the applications for authorisation received and analysed, "the benefits outweighed the remaining risks to human health and the environment".
The monetised risks to human health in the EU, associated with the continued use of substances that require authorisation, is estimated to be €254m per year by applicants, and €281m per year by Echa’s Committees for Risk Assessment and Socio-economic Analysis (Rac and Seac).
On the other hand, applicants estimated that ceasing the uses they applied for would mean costs of €25.3bn per year – almost €20bn higher than the Rac and Seac figure of €4.2bn.
The aggregate benefit-cost ratio per continued use in the applications was 100:1. Based on Rac and Seac assessments, the report says, the ratio was 15:1.
Using industry-wide exposure measurements, it says, it is possible to come up with approximate estimates of statistical cancer cases that were prevented, "partly due" to authorisation requirements.
Better risk management measures in authorisations for hard chrome plating, for example, "may prevent 2.7 to 11 statistical cancer deaths per year". This depends, however, on the assumed number of workers exposed throughout the EU, and the preventive effect of additional risk management measures to be implemented as part of the authorisation.
"Monetising these cancer cases implies social benefits of approximately €10-55m per year, which may be attributable to REACH," the report says.
It adds that Rac recommended that additional risk management measures, operating conditions or monitoring requirements be imposed as part of an authorisation for 85 out of the 118 uses (72%).
And alongside Seac, Rac recommended the review periods for authorised uses be, on average, 2.5 years shorter than that proposed by the applicants.Promoting substitution
Authorisation has driven companies to substitute hazardous substances with safer alternatives, according to the report. No applications were received for seven substances and several applications contained planned substitution activities, it adds.
In their comments to Chemical Watch, NGOs say they welcome the analysis of the benefits authorisation can bring to society, but more needs to be done to replace hazardous chemicals.
CHEM Trust emphasises the urgency to identify SVHCs and include them in the authorisation process, which NGOs branded "ineffective" in their comments to the REACH Review earlier this year. CHEM Trust adds that the poor quality of REACH registration dossiers "remains a significant problem, which industry and regulators need to resolve".
The European Environmental Bureau says the benefits "could be even wider" if REACH’s potential for enhancing substitution is fully developed. Not granting authorisations when alternatives are available, for example, will avoid human and environmental exposures and support provision of safer alternatives, it adds.
The Swedish Chemicals agency, Kemi, says the candidate list is "a very strong tool" for substitution. For the replacement of safer alternatives to continue, it says Echa’s scrutiny of applications needs to be "rigid". And authorisations should only be granted "where really justified", and they should not be given for longer time periods "than necessary".
It warns that the conclusions made in the report "should be considered carefully" – Rac and Seac have only assessed the data included in the applications, which are company specific, and "not necessarily" done in the same way as a conventional cost benefit analysis, Kemi says.
https://chemicalwatch.com/59034/echa-says-benefits-of-reach-authorisation-outweigh-risks
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(ACC Mentioned) Dan Byers: If You Store It, They Will Come (Daily Mail)
Sep 20, 2017 | Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Dan Byers
Fairly or not, few regions of the United States are more associated with deep and longstanding poverty as Appalachia.
Poor infrastructure and relative geographic isolation have always placed the region at a disadvantage, and decades of various economic development efforts have yielded only slow and spotty progress.
And in the last decade, the Great Recession, war on coal and emergent opioid crisis have combined to impose disproportionately harsh burdens on the communities of Appalachia.
The need for comprehensive and regionally focused solutions to these burdens is clear, and this week, the bipartisan Appalachian Initiative released a report that aims to do just that.
The initiative is a joint effort of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and four bipartisan senators: Mark Warner, D-Va.; David Perdue, R-Ga.; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Appropriately (and unsurprisingly), energy is featured prominently in the report, with a chapter dedicated to leveraging the region’s rich energy resources to spur economic growth.
We were pleased and honored to participate in a task force advising the senators on this chapter (which was led by Manchin), and we believe the final findings and recommendations warrant serious attention and follow-up.
Of particular importance is the energy chapter’s top recommendation, which calls for development of an Appalachian petrochemical industry, beginning with an underground ethane storage hub:
“Use Appalachia’s vast natural gas resource to build out value-added chemical and advanced manufacturing industries.
“The first step is to develop a storage and trading hub for natural gas liquids. This would provide a powerful anchor for economic revitalization in the region.
“A hub would also be in the nation’s interest, as Appalachia’s abundant natural gas resources and location near the Midwest and East Coast could make the area a top national center for the U.S. petrochemical and plastic resin manufacturing industries.
“Ultimately, the region could rival the Gulf Coast as a center of the petrochemical industry.”
The implications of Appalachia one day rivaling the Gulf Coast petrochemical industry speak for themselves, but why does a storage hub make so much economic sense for northern Appalachia?
Primarily because the Marcellus and Utica shale basins are rich in natural gas liquids — such as ethane, propane and butane (but mostly ethane) — that serve as petrochemical feedstocks used in plastics manufacturing and countless other industrial and commercial applications.
However, a shortage of local market demand and a limited pipeline network to deliver to distant markets currently results in significant underutilization of these high value-added NGLs. In fact, this lack of a market results in widespread “ethane rejection.”
With no ready market — and no storage option — it’s uneconomical to separate the ethane from the natural gas stream, and this premium resource is simply burned for heating and electricity generation.
A storage hub could change these economics in a major way, and do so for the direct benefit of the people of Appalachia. The West Virginia Department of Commerce estimates that a storage hub will deliver regional economic benefits 20 times greater than would be realized from shipping ethane out of the region via pipeline.
Similarly, a recent study by the American Chemistry Council found that a hub could result in 100,000 permanent new jobs in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. Those are generally high-paying jobs to boot, and ACC estimates that development of the hub could generate nearly $3 billion in annual federal, state, and local tax revenue, which in turn can be used to invest in education and transportation infrastructure that Appalachia desperately needs.
In other words, delivering energy resources to markets is one thing, but bringing the market to the energy resource is a whole different ballgame.
Call it the “If you store it, they will come” approach. As tantalizing as this all sounds, barriers exist for a project of this size (estimated cost — $10 billion) and complexity.
The BPC report recommends that, to reduce uncertainties and facilitate private investment, the federal government should study the geologic and technical aspects of a potential hub and consider public-private financing, such as Department of Energy loan guarantees, to incentivize investment.
On the bright side, the BPC report and growing bipartisan support for the hub in Congress provide a solid foundation of positive momentum necessary to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of the hub’s development.
As Global Energy Institute President and CEO Karen Harbert wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Perry emphasizing the importance of this project, that’s good news for the people of Appalachia and for American energy producers alike:
“Ultimately, development of an ethane storage hub promises to not only provide an anchor for job creation and economic revitalization that is critically important to the Appalachian region, it is a key component to enabling the energy-driven manufacturing renaissance that will enhance the competitiveness of U.S. businesses around the world.”
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/daily-mail-commentary/20170919/dan-byers-if-you-store-it-they-will-come-daily-mail
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Energy, Interior Nominees Advance Out of Senate Committee
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Five nominees to run the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Energy Department and the Interior Department are headed for Senate floor votes.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 19 approved four of the nominees by voice vote: Kevin McIntyre to be Republican chairman of FERC; Richard Glick, to be a Democratic commissioner at FERC; Joseph Balash, to be assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department; and Ryan Nelson, to be solicitor at Interior. The four nominees received unanimous bipartisan support besides a “no” voice vote by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) against Barash's nomination.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member, requested a roll call vote for David Jonas to be general counsel at the Energy Department. His nomination advanced in a 14-9 vote out of the committee.
All of the committee's Republican members voted in favor of Jonas, while the majority of the panel's Democrats, including Cantwell, voted against sending his nomination to the Senate floor for confirmation. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Angus King (I-Maine) voted in favor of Jonas.
David Popp, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told Bloomberg BNA he had no details on the timing of Senate floor votes.
Jonas’ Controversial Writings
Jonas, a partner at the law firm Fluet, Huber & Hoang, wrote a controversial op-ed in 1993 criticizing the inclusion of homosexuals and women serving in the military. Cantwell previously raised concerns about Jonas’ views during his July 20 confirmation hearing. Jonas said at the hearing that he no longer holds those views.
If the full Senate confirms McIntyre and Glick, they will return FERC to a full panel of five commissioners. McIntyre, who currently co-chairs the Jones Day law firm's global energy practice, would replace the current FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee in that position and serve as a Republican commissioner. If confirmed, Glick, the general counsel for the Democrats on Energy and Natural Resources, would serve as a Democratic commissioner.
Balash, the chief of staff for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), would oversee the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement if he is confirmed.
Nelson is the general counsel for Idaho-based health supplement company Melaleuca, Inc. He would oversee 400 employees as the Interior Department's solicitor general, including 300 attorneys, if confirmed.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120917751&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120917751&jd=120917751
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Washington Board Rejects Methanol Plant's Emissions Analysis
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
A Washington state panel sent back plans for a $1.8 billion methanol refinery on the state's Columbia River that would have emitted enough greenhouse gases to increase the state's output by 1 percent per year.
The Shorelines Hearings Board denied the refinery's plans because the company, Northwest Innovation Works, failed to adequately analyze greenhouse gas emissions.
Northwest Innovation Works, whose partners include the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a ministry-level agency of the Chinese government, proposed producing methanol from natural gas at the site and shipping it to China. The methanol would be used to make a feedstock for making plastic and other products.
The plant would emit 1.076 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, or more than 1 percent of Washington state's total, according to the orderfrom the board (Columbia Riverkeeper v. Cowlitz City, No. 17-010c, 9/15/17).
The board agreed with petitioners Columbia Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity that the project's environmental impact statement concluding that greenhouse gas emissions were not significant was wrong. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg L.P., parent of Bloomberg BNA.
In its order, the board said it was “troubled by the Project's emission of greenhouse gases without further evaluation of potential mitigation measures.”
That conclusion relied on a state Department of Ecology internal guidance that had been removed from the department's website for updating some four months before the final impact statement was issued. The board remanded the impact statement to Cowlitz County and the Port of Kalama.
“We are disappointed in the Shorelines Hearings Board's order because the EIS followed both the letter and intent of Ecology's guidance,” Northwest Innovation Works President Vee Godley said in a Sept. 18 statement. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with regulators, stakeholders, and environmental and business leaders to do our part to provide greater certainty and positive impact for our state's economic and environmental goals.”
Northwest Innovation Works didn't reply to Bloomberg BNA telephone and email requests Sept. 19 for further comment.
New Technology
The project proposes using a new technology not previously employed at any full-scale methanol facility that would involve a 31 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the board order said. The company previously said in a news release that coal is used to produce methanol in China, but natural gas is cleaner.
But, “you still get over 1 million tons emitted annually,” petitioners’ attorney Adrienne Bloch of Earthjustice told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 19. And that's just on site without including shipping the methanol to Asia and the impact of drilling new natural gas wells, she added.
“They are ultimately going to have to do this environmental analysis again,” she said. “It would take them a tremendous amount of time and resources to appeal this decision.”
The Methanol Institute, a global trade association, identifies Northwest Innovation Works as a subsidiary of Shanghai Bi Ke Clean Energy Technology Co. Ltd., a partnership between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Double Green Bridge Hong Kong, an investor group of Shanghai Bi Ke management.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120917755&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120917755&jd=120917755
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With End of Subsidies in Sight, Green Backers Move Cautiously
Sep 20, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Hirtenstein
For almost two decades, investors in renewable energy have been able to fall back on government incentives and subsidies to underpin the returns on whatever they back. Now, they're starting to think they need to proceed with caution.
Sharp plunges in the cost of wind turbines and solar photovoltaics have brought forward the time when governments and their regulators can envision renewables standing on their own without support. In some places, notably Germany, technologies that were once the most costly form of green power like offshore wind now are planning to compete at market power prices.
Those trends will upend the business model for making money off renewables, with subsidies in retreat and renewables increasingly competing with fossil fuels on price. Institutional investors, bank lenders, and private equity firms that have been among the biggest backers of the green-energy industry diverged in their view about what happens next at a Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in London Sept. 19.
“It's definitely a worry,” said Robert Pottmann, head of renewable energy and new technologies at Munich Ergo Asset Management GmbH, a division of insurer Munich Re Group. “The good old times with feed in tariffs in most countries are gone, at least where we are investing.”
Insurers like Pottmann have been lured toward green energy by steady returns on projects underpinned by contracts that have support from government or regulators. That money may dry up as clean power projects take on more exposure to market prices, the executive said.
“You need predictable, stable, robust cash flows in order to show the regulator that this investment is appropriate,” he said. “At the end, if you have substantial merchant exposure, then it's no longer an infrastructure investment.”
So-called merchant risk or exposure is when projects sell their electricity on the wholesale power market, vulnerable to its volatility, rather than fixing a price in a contract.
“Power prices are very hard to forecast,’’ Pottmann said. “Stress testing on what consultants have said in the past is not favorable. It's very complex and often politically driven.”
Bank View
Banks are also watching the development closely, according to Mark Muldowney, managing director of energy and infrastructure at BNP Paribas SA, a major lender to the clean-energy industry.
“We're very interested but cautious, I think this is an area of real concern to the market as a whole,” Muldowney said.
BNP recently said it would double its lending to renewable energy, planning to allocate 15 billion euros ($18 billion) a year by 2020. However, like Munich Re, it also wants the projects it lends to have predictable cash flows so it knows it will be paid back.
“We like to see certainly a debt repayment always being supported by either a guaranteed price or a price that we can be very confident is fixed,” said Muldowney.
There are other types of investors who will be willing to lend in a post-subsidy world, as they are interested in projects with higher risk—and the commensurate rewards, Muldowney said.
“What we've been seeing is large numbers of people saying, ‘We've been really frustrated all this time, earning modest returns on projects supported by government contracts. What we really want is some power price exposure so we can potentially earn much higher prices,’” Muldowney said. “There's some people out there who want to do that.”
Private Equity
Least concerned about evaporating subsidies was Neil Auerbach, chief executive officer of Hudson Clean Energy Partners LP. The venture capital and private equity firm in New Jersey sees freer market forces prevailing on green energy as an opportunity.
“Subsidies are considered by investors that I talk to and for us as more of a problem,” Auerbach said. “Fixing price and subsidies are two different things. What I'm talking about is price clarity, the price has to be predictable.”
The issue is crystallizing quickly, since the sort of incentives that built the industry are starting to wind down now, according to Jerome Pecresse, chief executive officer of the renewables unit of General Electric Co., a major maker of wind turbines.
“Within a few years, the era of subsidies will be behind us—less than five,’’ he said. “Subsidies are progressively disappearing for onshore and in Europe offshore, you've seen a few projects happening without subsidies.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=120917759&vname=dennotallissues&fn=120917759&jd=120917759
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Keep Calm: Torrance Refinery Safety Is Improving Under New Owner: Guest Commentary
Sep 20, 2017 | Daily Breeze
By David W. Campbell, Kim Nibarger and Mike Wright
It is understandable that Torrance residents are concerned about a massive refinery in their midst.
That is especially true because when ExxonMobil owned the facility, an explosion showered debris on neighborhoods, followed in the ensuing months of 2015 by a fire and leak of deadly hydrofluoric acid.
The plant’s workers, who are the first affected by such incidents, were worried as well. Four sustained minor injuries in the explosion, though none was injured in the other two events.
But, frankly, the safety situation is different now that PBF Energy owns the refinery. And PBF has made a commitment to study converting to a significantly safer process if a pilot project by Chevron proves it’s commercially viable.
State regulators issued 19 citations against ExxonMobil and fined it $565,000 for the explosion. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board laid blame at the company’s feet. More telling, however, is workers’ experience with ExxonMobil. Many were spared injury on the day of the explosion because they were outside of the affected area, arguing with Exxon Mobil officials about their plan, ultimately a bad one, to remediate a problem.
After ExxonMobil sold the plant to PBF, the United Steelworkers (USW), which represents about 260 workers at the refinery, negotiated an extra vacation day. Workers had trouble deciding whether to call it the Martin Luther King holiday or the Freedom from ExxonMobil holiday. That says a lot about ExxonMobil’s regard for workers’ safety demands.
The union’s experience with PBF is completely different. The company has invested in new safety measures and spent $200 million on improvements to the plant. In addition, PBF listens to union operators’ concerns about safety and treats them respectfully.
Just like members of the community, workers at the plant are concerned about the hydrofluoric acid (HF) used as an alkylation catalyst. In the process at Torrance, however, modified hydrofluoric acid (MHF) is used. MHF is safer because additives, in addition to the process, prevent it from vaporizing if accidently released. Instead, it forms droplets that fall to the ground rather than traveling as a cloud. Barriers at Torrance would keep it contained as well.
Of the refineries that produce finished gasoline, as the one in Torrance does, half use HF or MHF as an alkylate, and half use sulfuric acid, which is no panacea. Sulfuric acid is extremely dangerous as well, and if Torrance switched to this method, tanker trucks carrying the caustic acid would routinely travel past Torrance homes, churches and schools.
A safer method is being tested by Chevron. It is converting its Salt Lake City refinery from HF to ionic liquid. It will take a couple of years to determine whether this process is economically viable.
If so, it would be much safer for Torrance than sulfuric acid. If PBF agreed to convert to sulfuric acid now, that would force the Torrance refinery to shut down for a year or more, significantly raising the price of gasoline in California, as occurred when the plant closed for repairs after the explosion.
That would be foolhardy if, just a year or so later, Chevron determined that ionic liquid is the best and safest way to go.
If the South Coast Air Quality Management District orders California refineries to switch to sulfuric acid now, as it has threatened to do, there’s the real possibility that one or more of the state’s refineries will permanently close. If it’s Torrance, 600 family-supporting direct jobs and 500 contractors’ jobs would disappear, the town and school district would lose millions of dollars in annual tax receipts, and gas prices would rise.
Equanimity is not easy after Torrance’s experience with ExxonMobil. But because PBF has shown a good faith effort to improve safety, the best path forward is to keep calm and carry on until Chevron determines whether a truly safer catalyst is available.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/20170919/keep-calm-torrance-refinery-safety-is-improving-under-new-owner-guest-commentary
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French President: Paris Climate Deal 'Will Not Be Renegotiated'
Sep 19, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Devin Henry
French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated Tuesday that the Paris climate agreement “will not be renegotiated,” despite calls to do so from the Trump administration.
Macron during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly defended the 2015 climate accord, saying "we won't go back" on the agreement.
The French president added that he “respects” Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the climate deal unless he can get a better deal.
Trump in June said he would pull the U.S. out of the deal, which envisions a 26 percent to 28 percent reduction in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. He opened the door to redoing the deal, though many world leaders have rejected that proposal.
Macron is among the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. In the days following the announcement, he invited “engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the president of the United States” to move to France and released a video fact-checking the Trump administration’s talking points on the Paris agreement.
The White House denied reports earlier this week that it would not pull out of the deal after all. Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, told foreign climate officials during a Monday meeting that the administration is still planning to withdraw from the agreement, something that cannot happen until 2020 at the earliest.
Trump did not discuss the Paris agreement or climate change during his speech to the General Assembly earlier on Tuesday.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/351373-macron-paris-climate-deal-will-not-be-renegotiated
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EPA Chief: Climate Science Review Could Take Months
Sep 19, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Blog
By Devin Henry
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said Tuesday his “red team-blue team” review of climate change science could take months to complete once it eventually kicks off.
Pruitt first raised the idea of a “back-and-forth critique” of the scientific consensus on climate change in June. The EPA plans to recruit scientists to take different positions on climate science and then debate the issue.
Speaking at the Concordia Summit in New York, Pruitt said details of the climate change debate are still under discussion, but he said he anticipates it being a government-wide effort involving the EPA, the Energy Department and other agencies.
“There's a framework being discussed on how it would occur,” Pruitt said.
“This would not be an overnight thing or something done in a month. It would likely last many, many months," Pruitt said.
"Again, there would be many issues that would be discussed, and it would be done in an opening setting at the EPA, for all the world to see."
Climate scientists have criticized the effort, saying it would give skeptics an undue platform from which to critique climate change.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/351363-pruitt-epas-climate-science-review-could-take-months
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Air Chief Nominee 'Not Fit for the Job' — Enviros
Sep 20, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
It's been a decade since Bill Wehrum was last in the running to head U.S. EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. The passage of time has done nothing, however, to soften the feelings of environmental groups that are again urging senators to scuttle his nomination.
"Mr. Wehrum has dedicated his career to rolling back EPA health and clean air protections for Americans, both while at EPA and in service of industry clients," the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters said in a joint nine-page letter to lawmakers released late yesterday.
While Wehrum is "a knowledgeable air pollution attorney," they wrote, "he is not fit for the job as the nation's chief air quality official."
The letter came a day before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had been set to hold a confirmation hearing on the nominations of Wehrum and President Trump's choices for three other top EPA posts. The hearing was postponed after the Senate cut short its work week.
Trump named Wehrum earlier this month to head EPA's air office. Now in private practice, the Memphis, Tenn., native spent six years in the office from 2001 to 2007, serving first as counsel and then as acting chief during President George W. Bush's administration.
Although Bush twice nominated Wehrum to get the chief's job on a Senate-confirmed basis, he was unable to overcome a blockade by Senate Democrats at the time. Environmental organizations fought his previous candidacy as well (E&E News PM, April 19, 2006).
During his tenure at EPA, courts found that the agency violated the Clean Air Act "repeatedly and egregiously," the NRDC and the other three groups said in yesterday's letter. Wehrum also played "a key role" in defending the Bush administration's refusal to address carbon pollution, they said, adding that he has continued to work at weakening air quality standards as a corporate attorney.
In Wehrum's defense in this round, the administration has touted his 31 years of work as an engineer, lawyer and federal official in the environmental field and highlighted the support of people like John Cruden, a now-retired career Justice Department attorney who headed DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division in the final years of the Obama administration.
Whatever the intensity of opposition to his nomination, Wehrum is far more likely to win Senate approval this time. The reason lies in a 2013 rules change orchestrated by Democrats that allows most presidential nominees to win confirmation with a simple majority vote instead of a supermajority of senators. Republicans currently hold 52 seats, meaning that Wehrum's confirmation is virtually assured if they stick together.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/09/20/stories/1060061153
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From Oil Refineries to Solar Plants, Unions Bend California Climate Change Policies in Their Favor
Sep 20, 2017 | The Los Angeles Times
By Chris Megarian
No contour of California’s vast landscape inspires such passionate devotion as its coastline, so state lawmakers recoiled when President Trump announced in April that he wanted to expand offshore drilling. The outrage was channeled into a proposal for preventing any new infrastructure along the water, pipelines or otherwise, for additional oil production.
But the day before a key Sacramento committee hearing this summer, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) received some bad news about her legislation — it was opposed by a politically powerful labor group whose members' paychecks depend on the steady flow of oil.
In a letter to lawmakers, the top lobbyist for the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California said he feared harming projects that "maintain and create new employment opportunities." The legislation, Senate Bill 188, stalled the following day, an unceremonious defeat for a proposal announced with much fanfare months earlier.
"I was startled," said Jackson, who represents a region with a painful history of oil spills but said she recognizes the jobs that fossil fuels provide. "I don't think people say, 'I love oil so much.' It's, 'I have to feed my family.'"
The episode was a reminder of how an array of California unions, despite their vocal support for fighting climate change and their willingness to embrace green issues scorned by national labor groups, either bent or blocked environmental proposals during the legislative session that ended last week. At a time when the state is trying to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their effort to protect or create jobs threatens to conflict with goals to combat global warming.
Unions torpedoed an ambitious proposal to phase out fossil fuels for generating electricity after lawmakers refused to insert a provision limiting clean energy projects that don't hire their workers. Another group pushed for changes that could stop the state from awarding electric car rebates to automakers involved in labor disputes.
Perhaps most notably, the building trades reinforced oil industry opposition to an early version of cap-and-trade legislation shortly after they forged a new statewide labor agreement with Chevron, which operates two of California's most productive refineries. The cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, was eventually extended by lawmakers in July, but on terms more favorable to oil companies.
Although the fossil fuel industry is the most obvious adversary of climate change policies, labor resistance can be an especially potent factor in a state dominated by Democrats who rely on political support from carpenters, electricians, pipe fitters and other blue-collar workers.
"I don't think it's a secret the influence they have," said Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), who authored the cap-and-trade legislation defeated with labor's help.
The situation has frustrated environmentalists, another crucial Democratic constituency that often works with labor to advance green goals. The two factions have previously built alliances around landmark climate policies, such as a renewable energy mandate that protects union jobs with incentives for building new solar and wind plants in California. The building trades also support cap and trade because the sale of emission permits finances mass transit projects, including the bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
"We're like cousins who occasionally go off in different directions, but sit down at Thanksgiving together," said Kathryn Phillips, a Sierra Club lobbyist.
When schisms develop between environmentalists and unions, they reflect an anxiety over finding dependable jobs during a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
"We believe that green energy is the way the world is going," said Robbie Hunter, president of the state building trades group.
At the same time, he wants to protect the dwindling number of blue-collar jobs left in California, rattling off a list of industries — aerospace, steel, cars — that have fled the state over the years. Too many regulations have occasionally been a problem, Hunter said, and defending facilities like oil refineries is "no different than a miner showing up trying to save his mine."
The pressure to curtail fossil fuels has been a source of tension among progressives around the country. Last year, national trade unions harshly criticized an alliance with Tom Steyer, a billionaire donor and environmentalist from San Francisco, after he opposed building the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project expected to create jobs.
Trump has directly appealed to that kind of divide, recently standing before a North Dakota oil refinery and promising to "unlock the extraordinary potential of our great American workers."
"We're getting rid of one job-killing regulation after another," he said.
Kim Glas, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a national partnership of unions and environmentalists, said pitting workers against fighting global warming represents a false choice. The goal, she said, is creating "an economy and a climate policy that's more fair and equitable."
In California, oil companies are also vying for labor's loyalty and the clout that comes with it. During an industry conference in Kern County two years ago, a member of the audience asked a California Resources Corp. executive why the Los Angeles-based oil and gas company had signed a union agreement.
"We're using the trades, mainly for their quality, and for the political power they bring with them," said the executive, Robert Barnes.
This year the oil industry benefited from that political power when the building trades lobbied against Garcia's Assembly Bill 378, which would have reshaped California's cap-and-trade program to include more stringent regulations. A broad cross section of environmental advocates supported the proposal, but it fell short in the Assembly.
"Once labor came out against it, it killed my bill," Garcia said.
The June vote came shortly after the building trades finished negotiating an expansive labor deal with Chevron. Initial drafts were exchanged two years ago and the agreement was finalized in May, ensuring 5 million hours of work annually for five years.
"It's game-changing," said Bill Whitney, who leads the building trades affiliate in Contra Costa County, home to Chevron's Richmond refinery. "I don't think there's anything to come along like this in decades."
There may not be a need for fossil fuels in the distant future, Whitney said, but until then there's no reason to "eviscerate the goose that lays the golden egg" for middle-class workers.
Hunter said the statewide agreement with Chevron was the logical result of state law requiring refineries to hire more workers who graduate from apprenticeship programs, which "gives us a common cause" with the oil industry.
A spokesman for Chevron, Braden Reddall, said the agreement will "help further guarantee access to a qualified labor force" for the company's refineries.Play VideoA breakdown of the cap and trade program.
The enduring value of oil jobs is a challenge for environmentalists.
"Some of these industries that are emissions intensive are also the industries where the worker protections are strongest and the wages and compensation has been the best," said Betony Jones, director of the Green Economy Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Labor influence over climate policies occasionally made Democrats uncomfortable last week. One late addition to state budget legislation, Assembly Bill 134, directs regulators to develop a process for determining whether automakers are "fair and responsible" in their treatment of workers.
If lawmakers approve the process next year and companies fall short of that standard, their electric cars could become ineligible for California rebates that are crucial to making zero-emission vehicles more cost competitive. Tesla, the state's only automaker, has resisted efforts to unionize the workforce at its Fremont factory.
The provision was supported by the California Labor Federation, a coalition that includes the United Auto Workers, as a way to ensure public money doesn’t flow to companies that mistreat employees. But these kinds of rules could end up “undermining our own goals” of fighting climate change with more electric cars, said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).Robots assemble parts of a car at Tesla's factory in Fremont. (David Butow / For The Times)
Another example of union influence came during the debate over Senate Bill 100, which would have required the state to stop using fossil fuels for generating electricity by 2045. The proposal was announced in May and appeared to be cruising through the Legislature until support within the labor community fractured.
Although the building trades, eager for jobs building new solar plants, remained supportive, unions representing electrical and utility workers announced their opposition the week before lawmakers adjourned for the year.
The unions wanted lawmakers' help curbing the role of so-called distributed resources, such as rooftop solar panels and batteries for storing energy, that are owned and operated by private companies instead of utilities. Environmentalists view the initiatives as key tools for reducing emissions, but the unions called them a dangerous example of electricity grid deregulation that also threatens their jobs.
"We have a parochial self-interest in this," said Tom Dalzell, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245.
The legislation stalled in the Assembly, a defeat for the author, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles). He plans to push the proposal next year and acknowledged more work will be needed to ensure environmentalists and unions are on the same page.
"It's going to be really important in the immediate future that we bridge the gap between labor and clean energy," he said.
http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-climate-change-unions-20170920-story.html
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Stakeholders Clash Over Competing Tests In First Jurisdiction Rule Hearing
Sep 19, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Stakeholders are setting out early markers of their goals for EPA's new Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, with industry pointing to the late Justice Antonin Scalia's narrow standard as an easily applied, “bright-line” test the government should adopt, while defenders of the Obama-era policy say only a broad federal rule will protect water quality.
During a Sept. 19 teleconference listening session -- the first of 10 sector-specific calls EPA plans to host -- representatives of “small entities” including businesses, environmental groups and local governments laid out their requests for how EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers should proceed, with industry groups that have long sought a narrow standard focusing on the need for a “clear” rule with few judgment calls left to regulators.
EPA should adopt “a clear, certain regulation. . . . Efforts to regulate based on tenuous hydrologic or biological connections should be abandoned,” the American Farm Bureau Federation's Don Parrish said during the call.
And speaker Alan Parks, representing the Tennessee gravel supplier Memphis Stone & Gravel, said the agency should focus on setting “clear, objective characteristics” for the waters that its rule will cover.
They and other industry speakers urged EPA to strictly adopt the narrow CWA test that Scalia set out when he wrote for a four-justice plurality in the 2006 case Rapanos v. United States, rather than the broader one crafted by Justice Anthony Kennedy in that same decision.
The National Federation of Independent Business' (NFIB) Luke Wake said that of the two standards set out in the 4-4-1 Rapanos ruling, only Scalia's can be the basis for a clear regulation -- echoing calls from GOP-led states for EPA to apply that standard.
“Small business owners don't know what is or is not jurisdictional, and we really think Kennedy's test is especially problematic” because experts applying it can disagree on whether any specific waterbody or wetland should be protected, he said, concluding, “EPA should adopt the plurality's bright-line rule.”
And the National Association of Home Builders' Owen McDonough said the rule should only apply the CWA to smaller waters with a “measurable surface connection” to the navigable waterbodies that the law is designed to protect, excluding “ephemeral” waters that only flow for a short time each year or after rain.
Scalia Test
In Rapanos, Scalia and three other conservatives backed a narrow CWA test limiting jurisdiction to "relatively permanent" waterbodies that share a "continuous surface connection" to navigable waters. But Kennedy, writing alone, said EPA should apply a broader test based on downstream waterbodies' "significant nexus" to navigable waters.
The Obama administration's 2015 CWA rule was based on the Kennedy test, but EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are now preparing to formally withdraw it and craft a new, narrower standard, following a Feb. 28 executive order that directs the agencies to consider Scalia's opinion in the process.
However, it remains unclear whether the agencies will adhere closely to Scalia's language, or expand on it in order to craft a rule that is only “consistent with” the plurality opinion.
Speaking on the Sept. 19 call, EPA's Mindy Eisenberg, the acting director at the water office's division of oceans, wetlands and communities, said that while the agency is still considering that question, the eventual proposed rule will be “one that reflects the principles that Justice Scalia expressed in his 2006 opinion.”
Eisenberg used a presentation first shown at an April 19 meeting with states to note that EPA is looking at a range of options for which waters should be considered “relatively permanent” and what should qualify as a “continuous surface connection.”
But she added that in addition to calls for broad or narrow interpretations of those terms, the agency has also seen calls for “some sort of regionalization” that would apply different standards depending on local conditions. Such a step might allow regulators to avoid difficulty applying the “relatively permanent” standard to areas in the arid West where major rivers only flow seasonally, but could also run afoul of the calls for a bright-line test.
For instance, NFIB's Wake said the rule should exclude “lands that are recurrently dry for more than a few weeks of the year,” a strict test for when a stream would be considered ephemeral.
And McDonough pushed for a similarly strict definition of “continuous surface connection” that would exclude wetlands that are distant from navigable waters, even if they have a biological or hydrological connection. “Wetlands should only be [jurisdictional] when they are immediately adjacent to navigable waters,” he said.
Other industry speakers, including Parks and Emily Conyer of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, emphasized a need for EPA to clearly exclude man-made features such as gravel pits and ditches from its rule -- reviving a long-running argument over whether the 2015 rule regulates ditches as “tributaries” of jurisdictional waters.
“Any revised definition should continue to exclude pits and quarries. Man-made features like pits and quarries should never” be considered jurisdictional, Conyer said.
Environmentalists' Push-Back
Meanwhile, environmentalists and industries that have historically supported a broad reading of the CWA -- such as craft brewers and outdoor tour companies -- are countering that since the Scalia test only won support from four justices, it cannot be the basis for a new rule.
“There's no legal basis to use his opinion as the primary basis for this rulemaking,” Julie Mayfield, of the North Carolina environmental group MountainTrue, said during the call.
Another speaker who backed a broad CWA standard, David Butler of Alabama-based Canoe the Cahaba, said states will be unable or unwilling to maintain the same standards of water quality that EPA has required in waters subject to the CWA. That line of argument pushes back against EPA's early statements on the rule that touted states' ability to protect waters through their own laws regardless of federal jurisdiction.
In his statement, Butler said that when federal authorities have ceded jurisdiction over smaller waters, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) has not maintained the same level of protections.
Water quality “continues to dwindle with the weaker protection that ADEM has shown over smaller streams [and] non-continuous streams. . . . [T]here's nobody in Alabama willing to take on that responsibility,” he said.
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