ACC AM 9/21

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Trump's Pick for Chemical Safety Chief Called 'Voice of the Chemical Industry'

   Sep 20, 2017 | The Guardian

   Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faces questions over his history as a close ally to the chemical industry and suitability to be its chief regulator.
2. (ACC Mentioned) Bringing Down the House: A Hostile Takeover of Science-Based Policymaking by Trump Appointees

   Sep 20, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists

   By Andrew Rosenberg
   
   
   The Trump administration is slowly filling positions below the cabinet officer level in the “mission agencies” of the federal government (e.g., EPA, NOAA , Interior, DOE, etc. whose job it is to implement a specific set of statutory mandates).
3. (ACC Mentioned) OSHA, ACC Form Diisocyanates Partnership

   Sep 20, 2017 | Chem.Info

   By Andy Szal
   
   
   Federal workplace safety officials and a top chemical industry group last week announced a partnership to raise awareness about the use of hazardous chemicals in the production of polyurethanes.

LCSA News

4. (ACC Mentioned) Industry Eyes Novel TSCA Analysis For Siloxanes But Doubts Need For Rules

   Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

   By Maria Hegstad
   
   
   The chemical industry is preparing a risk evaluation of a siloxane, one of a class of chemicals used to produce a host of industrial and consumer products, which will likely be one of the first that EPA receives under a provision of the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that allows third parties to submit such evaluations to EPA for its consideration.
5. EPA Extends Compliance Date for Substantiation of CBI and Schedules Three Webinars to Discuss Reporting under TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Rule

   Sep 20, 2017 | National Law Review

   By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
   
   
   On September 20, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice in the Federal Register stating that it is extending the compliance date by which submitters of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) submissions containing information claimed as Confidential Business Information (CBI) and filed between June 22, 2016, and March 21, 2017, had to submit to EPA the substantiation...

Chemical Management News

6. (ACC Mentioned) ACC Attacks Phthalate Ban as 'Arbitrary and Capricious'

   Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   Apparent plans by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to push through a ban on the phthalate DINP have been attacked as "arbitrary and capricious".
7. (ACC Mentioned) U.S. Regulators to Start Work on Product Flame Retardant Rule

   Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Martina Barash
   
   
   U.S. consumer safety regulators voted Sept. 20 to convene an advisory panel and begin creating a rule to restrict a whole class of allegedly toxic flame retardants in four product categories.
8. (ACC Mentioned) US CPSC Votes to Ban Organohalogenated Flame Retardants

   Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   In a potentially precedent-setting move, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has voted to ban the use of organohalogenated flame retardants in several consumer product categories.
9. (ACC Mentioned) Federal Panel Votes to Warn Public about Flame Retardants in Baby Products, Furniture

   Sep 20, 2017 | Chicago Tribune

   By Michael Hawthorne
   
   
   For the first time a federal agency is moving to outlaw an entire class of toxic flame retardants, a policy change intended to protect Americans from chemicals linked to cancer, neurological deficits, hormone disruption and other health problems.
10. (ACC Mentioned) Swedish Chemicals Agency Finds Potential Risks of BPA Substitutes

    Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Marcus Hoy
    
    
    Long-term exposure to a variety of bisphenols, including those that may be used as substitutes, could cause hormonal imbalances and related illnesses in humans, Sweden's Chemical Agency said.
11. U.S. Consumer Watchdog Recommends Ban on Toxic Flame Retardants in Products, Protects Children’s Health

    Sep 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group

    By Sonya Lunder
    
    
    In a victory for children's environmental health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 3 to 2 today to grant an NGO petition to remove an entire class of toxic flame retardant chemicals from consumer goods, including children’s products, mattresses, upholstered furniture and electronics casings.
12. Senate Authorizes Funding for Military PFAS Cleanups

    Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

    The Senate has approved a fiscal year 2018 defense authorization bill that includes language directing the Navy and Air Force to spend approximately $62 million on cleaning up contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as well as authorizing $7 million for a study on the health effects of PFAS.
13. EU Toxic Rule Exemption Benefits Outweigh Risks, Regulators Say

    Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Stephen Gardner
    
    
    The EU's Chemicals Agency says authorizing some exceptions to chemical control rules for plastics, lead in paints, and chrome plating have had positive economic and social benefits that outweigh the additional risks involved.
14. Echa Consults on UK Dechlorane plus Candidate List Proposal

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    Echa is calling for evidence on the UK’s proposal to identify dechlorane plus as an SVHC.
15. EU Commission 'Limiting Focus' of Chemicals and Waste Roadmap

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Tammy Lovell
    
    
    The European Commission’s roadmap on chemicals, products and waste legislation should concentrate on resolving policy conflicts, says the European Engineering Industries Association, Orgalime.
16. Cefic Suggests 'Grandfathering' of REACH Substances after Brexit

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Luke Buxton
    
    
    Substances registered under REACH by UK companies, or those which have been granted an authorisation after a UK application, should be "grandfathered" after Brexit, Europe's chemical industry council Cefic said. Grandfathering is the act of exempting something from new legislation or requirements. This will avoid duplication of regulation and associated costs, its executive director of industrial policy René van Sloten told Chemical Watch this week. "The free trade of these products should be guaranteed under the same conditions as is the case right now, and this should apply after March 2019, until the authorisation has to be renewed or the registration updated," he said. Such a move would secure continued collaboration with the relevant EU agencies, such as Echa. And any new measures must provide for regulatory consistency and clarity to economic operators and to "uphold robust health, safety, social and environmental regulatory standards on either side", he said. UK companies and authorities have made "substantial investments" in REACH compliance and therefore, Mr van Sloten said, the "most realistic" scenario would for the UK to adopt "identical REACH legislation independently". Mutual recognition His comments come two weeks after the UK Chemical Industries Association (CIA) head Steve Elliott said he wants the UK to remain in all of the REACH processes, "warts and all". Earlier this year, CIA’s chemicals policy director said "a mutual-recognition" model "could work" for REACH if the UK and the EU agree. The German chemical industry association, VCI, endorsed a similar approach this week. An agreement between the EU and the UK, director general Utz Tillmann told Chemical Watch, "should comprise the most far-reaching mutual recognition and the same standards" for the safety of products and chemicals, human health, and the environmental. In future, Dr Tillmann said, the existing high standards to protect human health and environment under EU legislations "should be kept up in a harmonised manner" in both the EU and the UK. Regarding legislation, the UK "should be largely integrated in the single market with all rights and obligations" he said. Depending on the scope of a future agreement, "at the very least long transitional periods should be granted during which all rights and obligations under existing EU law continue to apply for EU27 and the UK and need to be fulfilled by both parties", he said. UK executive? CIA’s Steve Elliott has said that setting up UK institutions parallel to Echa would likely be very costly, lead to an increased level of uncertainty and take a long time to establish. The best option, he said, would be "to continue to use the services provided by both the European Commission and Echa". When asked for a comment on this, Cefic’s René van Sloten said it is up to the UK to decide how it wishes to organise this, "either by the setting up [its] own agency or through a cooperation agreement with Echa".
17. EU-Wide Consumer App Aims to Foster Substitution of SVHCs

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Tammy Lovell
    
    
    European competent authorities, NGOs and academics are banding together to develop an EU-wide phone app for consumers to identify substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in products.

Energy News

18. Refiners Don't Know When They'll Be Done with Repairs

    Sep 21, 2017 | E&E - Energywire

    By Nathanial Gronewold
    
    
    Gulf Coast refineries are still pulling themselves out of the hole Hurricane Harvey put them in, but operations should soon return to pre-storm shape.
19. Another Industry Group Asks Agency to Regulate Carbon

    Sep 21, 2017 | E&E - Climatewire

    By Niina Heikkinen
    
    
    More power companies are calling on U.S. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases rather than nix the Clean Power Plan.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

20. (ACC Blog) Building Resiliency in Buildings, from the Molecule Up

    Sep 20, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters

    This year, the concept of ‘resiliency’ in the building landscape has emerged as more than a buzzword – it’s a key priority for builders, architects and building occupants alike. https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/09/building-resiliency-in-buildings-from-the-molecule-up/
21. Energy-Efficient Green Buildings May Emit Hazardous Chemicals

    Sep 19, 2017 | Reuters Health

    By Ronnie Cohen
    
    
    Newly renovated low-income housing units in Boston earned awards for green design and building but flunked indoor air-quality tests, a new study shows.
22. Court Gives EPA 90 Days for Decisions on PM SIPs

    Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

    A federal court is giving EPA 90 days to issue final decisions on whether several states have failed to satisfy Clean Air Act requirements for crafting complete state implementation plans (SIPs) detailing the particulate matter (PM) reduction measures they will use to comply with federal air quality standards.
23. Governors Denounce Trump, Announce Progress to Paris Targets

    Sep 20, 2017 | E&E News PM

    By Arianna Skibell
    
    
    A coalition of 14 states and the territory of Puerto Rico are on target to meet their share of the U.S. commitment under the international Paris climate accord to reduce emissions linked to global warming.
24. Calif. Cities Sue Oil Giants: 'Now the Bill Has Come Due'

    Sep 20, 2017 | E&E News PM

    By Benjamin Hulac
    
    
    San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., unveiled lawsuits today against five oil companies, arguing that a handful of deep-pocketed corporations have put the future and health of both cities in jeopardy, despite the industry's long-standing knowledge of man-made climate change.
25. San Francisco, Oakland Sue Oil Companies over Climate Change

    Sep 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama
    
    
    San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., are suing five major oil companies, blaming them for the effects of climate change.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Trump's Pick for Chemical Safety Chief Called 'Voice of the Chemical Industry'

   Sep 20, 2017 | The Guardian

   Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faces questions over his history as a close ally to the chemical industry and suitability to be its chief regulator.

   Michael Dourson, the nominee, founded a consultation group in 1995, the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a private evaluation nonprofit organization that tests chemicals and produces reports on which chemicals are hazardous in what quantities.

   Through the consultancy he 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.

   His nomination as head of the EPA’s office of chemical safety and pollution prevention had been due to be considered by a Senate committee on Wednesday, but this was postponed when the Senate adjourned early for the week.

   Past corporate clients of Dourson and of a research group he ran include Dow Chemical, Koch Industries and Chevron. His research has also been underwritten by industry trade and lobbying groups representing the makers of plastics, pesticides, processed foods and cigarettes.

   Dourson’s views toward industry are consistent with others Trump has selected as top federal regulators. Among them is the 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 did not immediately respond Tuesday to emails or phone messages from the Associated Press 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 was 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.”

   The American Chemistry Council, however, said Dourson 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.

   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/trump-epa-michael-dourson-chemical-safety
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Bringing Down the House: A Hostile Takeover of Science-Based Policymaking by Trump Appointees

   Sep 20, 2017 | Union of Concerned Scientists

   By Andrew Rosenberg

   The Trump administration is slowly filling positions below the cabinet officer level in the “mission agencies” of the federal government (e.g., EPA, NOAA , Interior, DOE, etc. whose job it is to implement a specific set of statutory mandates). The appointed individuals are leading day-to-day decision-making on policies from public health and safety to environmental protection to critical applied science programs. In other words, the decisions these appointees make will affect everyone in the country.

   The job of the agencies and their political leadership is to represent the public interest. It is not to serve the private interests of particular industries and companies, or even to push political viewpoints, but to implement legislative mandates in the interest of the American public. After all, who else but government can do this? Our laws call for the water and air to be clean, our workers and communities to be safe, our environment to be healthy and our science to be robust and fundamental to better policy and decision-making. That is what mission agencies are tasked to do.

   So, what have we seen so far? To be sure, the Administration has nominated and appointed some qualified individuals with good experience and little apparent conflicts of interest. But unfortunately, that is not the norm. In my mind, most of the key appointments with responsibility for science-based policymaking fall into three categories:The conflicted: Individuals who have spent a significant part of their careers lobbying the agencies they are now appointed to lead to obtain more favorable policies to benefit specific industries or companies—and who will likely do so again once they leave the government. These individuals have a conflict of interest because of these connections. Despite President Trump’s call to “drain the swamp,” these appointees are well-adapted and key species in that very swamp (sorry, my ecologist background showing through).The opposed: Individuals who have spent much of their careers arguing against the very mission of the agencies they now lead. This group is not entirely separate from the first, because often they made those arguments on behalf of corporate clients pushing for less accountability to or oversight from the American public. But further, they have opposed the very role played by the federal agencies they are appointed to serve. While they may have conflicts of interest as in (1), they also have an expressed anti-agency agenda that strongly suggests they will work to undermine the agency’s mission.The unqualified: Individuals who are wholly unqualified because they haven’t the experience or training or credentials that are requisite for the job. Again, these appointees may also have conflicts of interest, and opposite political agendas to the missions of the agencies, but they also have no real place leading a complex organization that requires specific expertise.

   With more than 4,000 possible political appointments to federal agencies, I of course cannot cover them all. In fact, scanning through the list of those 600 appointments requiring Senate confirmation, less than one-third have even been nominated for Senate action. But here is a disturbing set of nominees or appointments that undermine science-based policymaking.The conflicted

   William Wehrum is a lawyer and lobbyist nominated to lead the EPA Office of Air and Radiation (OAR). He previously worked at EPA during the G.W. Bush Administration. UCS opposed his nomination then. Mr. Wehrum’s corporate clients include Koch Industries, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and others in the auto and petrochemical industries. He has been a vocal spokesperson against addressing climate change under the Clean Air Act, which would be part of his responsibility as OAR director. While he has advocated for devolving more authority to the states for addressing air pollution generally, he also opposed granting California a waiver under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Mr. Wehrum has also been directly involved, both as a lobbyist for industry and during his previous stint at EPA, in efforts to subvert the science concerning mercury pollution from power plants, restrictions on industrial emissions, as well as lead, soot and regional haze regulations.

   Dr. Michael Dourson has been nominated to be EPA Assistant Administrator for Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. He is well known by the chemical industry, having spent years working as a toxicologist for hire for industries from tobacco to pesticides and other chemicals. Dr. Dourson has argued that the pesticide chlorpyrifosis safe despite a large body of science to the contrary. He has advocated for the continued use of a toxic industrial chemical called TCE, which the EPA determined was carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure. [TCE was the chemical linked to leukemia in children in the 1998 film “A Civil Action.”] When asked about his controversial chemical risk assessment company, TERA, receiving funding from chemical companies, Dourson responded: “Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He had dinner with them.”

   Dr. Nancy Beck, appointed to the position of EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator, now leads the agency’s effort to implement the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which was signed into law last year. Dr. Beck was previously senior staff with the American Chemistry Council, the trade organization that worked very hard for years to weaken the rules protecting the public from toxic chemicals. The result? The new rules from the EPA are far weaker than those developed by the professional staff at the agency and remarkably similar to the position the industry favored, while dismissing the positions of other members of the public and other organizations including UCS. Previously, Dr. Beck worked in the G.W. Bush Administration at the Office of Management and Budget. During that part of her career Dr. Beck was called out by the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee for attempting to undermine EPA’s assessment of toxic chemicals and her draft guidance on chemical safety evaluations was called “fundamentally flawed” by the National Academy of Sciences.

   Lest you think that the conflicted are all at EPA, consider David Zatezalo, nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Health and Safety. He was formerly the chairman of Rhino Resources, a Kentucky coal company that was recipient of two letters from the Mine Safety and Health Administration for patterns of violations. Subsequently a miner was killed when a wall collapsed. The company was fined.

   David Bernhardt has been confirmed as the Deputy Secretary of Interior. He was DOI Solicitor under the George W. Bush administration. In 2008, weeks before leaving office, Bernhardt shifted controversial political appointees who had ignored or suppressed science into senior civil service posts. While at his law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, he represented energy and mining interests and lobbied for California’s Westlands Water District. His position in the firm—he was a partner—and the firm’s financial relationship with Cadiz Inc. (which is involved in a controversial plan to pump groundwater in the Mojave desert and sell it in southern California) has led to one group calling him a “walking conflict of interest.” Bernhardt also represented Alaska in its failed 2014 suit to force the Interior department to allow exploratory drilling at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The opposed

   Susan Combs has been nominated to be the Assistant Secretary of Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget. She was previously Texas’s agricultural commissioner and then the state’s Comptroller where she often fought with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over Endangered Species Act issues. Notably she has a history of meddling in science-based policy issues like species protections. She has been deeply engaged in battling for property rights and against public interest protections; she once called proposed Endangered Species Act listings as “incoming Scud missiles” against the Texas economy. Of course, protecting endangered species, biodiversity and public lands is a major responsibility of the Department of Interior.

   Daniel Simmons has been nominated to be the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Energy Efficiency to foster development of renewable and energy-efficient technologies. He was previously Vice President at the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative organization that promotes fossil fuel use, opposed the Paris Climate Accord, and opposes support for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. He also worked for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as director for their natural resources task force. ALEC is widely known for advocating against energy efficiency measures.The unqualified

   Sam Clovis, the nominee for Undersecretary of Agriculture for Research, Education and Economics, effectively the department’s chief scientists, is not a scientist or an economist nor does he have expertisein any scientific discipline relevant to his proposed position at USDA—like food science, nutrition, weed science, agronomy, entomology. Despite this lack of qualifications, he does deny the evidence of a changing climate. He was a talk radio host with a horrendous record of racist, homophobic and other bigoted views which should be disqualifying in themselves.

   Albert Kelly has been appointed a senior advisor to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and the Chair of the Superfund Task Force. He is an Oklahoma banker with no experience with Superfund or environmental issues, but he was a major donor to Mr. Pruitt’s political campaigns. So far the task force has focused on “increasing efficiencies” in the Superfund program.

   Over at NASA, the nominee for Administrator is Rep. James Bridenstine, (R. OK). While he certainly has government and public policy experience (a plus), he does not have a science background, a management background or experience with the space program. He has called aggressively for NASA to focus on space exploration and returning to the moon, rather than its earth science mission. In addition, he has been a strong advocate for privatization of some of the work of the agency. He has questioned the science on climate change and accused the Obama Administration of “gross misallocation of funds” for spending on climate research.

   Michael Kratsios is the Deputy Chief Technology Officer and de facto head of Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House. He is a former aide to Silicon Valley executive Peter Thiel and holds a AB in politics from Princeton with a focus on Hellenic Studies. He previously worked in investment banking and with a hedge fund. How this experience qualifies him to be deputy chief technology officer is beyond me.Can we have science-based policies?

   This is by no means a full list of egregious nominees for positions that will have a big impact on our daily lives. So, the question remains, is science-based policy making a thing of the past? Will the conflicted, the opposed, and the unqualified be the pattern for the future?

   Fortunately, we can and should fight back. We as scientists, concerned members of the public, and activists can call on our elected officials to oppose these nominees. If they are in place, then they can be held to account by Congress, the courts, and yes, in the court of public opinion. Handing over the fundamental job of protecting the public to champions for regulated industries and political ideologues is wrong for all of us. After all, if industry did protect the public from public health or environmental impacts, then regulatory controls would be superfluous.

   We can’t just wring our hands and wish things didn’t go this way. Conflicted, opposed and unqualified they may be, but they are now in public service. Let’s hold them to account.

   http://blog.ucsusa.org/andrew-rosenberg/bringing-down-the-house-a-hostile-takeover-of-science-based-policymaking-by-trump-appointees
   

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3. (ACC Mentioned) OSHA, ACC Form Diisocyanates Partnership

   Sep 20, 2017 | Chem.Info

   By Andy Szal

   Federal workplace safety officials and a top chemical industry group last week announced a partnership to raise awareness about the use of hazardous chemicals in the production of polyurethanes.

   But some observers reportedly suggested that the initiative could have an ulterior motive: undermining new limits on the materials under consideration by California regulators.

   The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and three groups under the American Chemistry Council — the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry, a diisocyanates panel and an aliphatic diisocyanates panel — plan to collaborate over two years to educate employers and workers "on how to use diisocyanates safely in their everyday working environment," said Sahar Osman-Sypher, who directs the diisocyanates panels.

   Diisocyanates and other isocyanates are used to make a wide range of polyurethane products, from insulation and adhesives to shoes and mattresses. But exposure to the compounds can cause skin irritation, breathing problems and other health issues. Longer-term exposure can lead to asthma or death.

   “We’re thrilled to be working with OSHA on making American workplaces even safer, which has always been a top priority for CPI and ACC as a whole,” added Lee Salamone, senior director of the CPI.

   The dangers of isocyanates, however, prompted California regulators to pursue stricter limits on select chemicals in spray polyurethane foam. Some health experts told Chemical & Engineering News that the federal efforts could interfere with California's moves.

   University of Michigan environmental health scientist and former OSHA official Adam Finkel told CE&N that the partnership wasn't necessarily bad since the agency lacks the resources to oversee all potentially dangerous workplaces.

   "It should be doing whatever it can to incentivize private parties to do some of its work" Finkel said. "But this alliance concept is the least useful and most frivolous way it could go.”

   https://www.chem.info/news/2017/09/osha-acc-form-diisocyanates-partnership
   

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LCSA News

4. (ACC Mentioned) Industry Eyes Novel TSCA Analysis For Siloxanes But Doubts Need For Rules

   Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

   By Maria Hegstad

   The chemical industry is preparing a risk evaluation of a siloxane, one of a class of chemicals used to produce a host of industrial and consumer products, which will likely be one of the first that EPA receives under a provision of the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that allows third parties to submit such evaluations to EPA for its consideration.

   But even before the industry completes or submits its risk evaluation to EPA, industry officials say they do not believe that the chemical, one of the most widely used siloxanes, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), poses risks or that any future EPA regulation is needed.

   Citing its own preliminary evaluations of monitoring data recently submitted to the agency, as well as assessments conducted by regulators in Canada and elsewhere, an industry official says that any EPA regulation is unnecessary.

   “Industry is going to do its own independent, peer-reviewed evaluation of the data. Eventually, EPA will have to do an evaluation to make a determination whether [the siloxane is] safe for the environment,” Karluss Thomas, senior director of Silicones Environmental, Health and Safety Center (SEHSC), a sector group within the American Chemistry Council (ACC), tells Inside EPA in a Sept. 18 interview.

   But he noted that D4's human health risks have been evaluated by government agencies in Australia and Canada, and “both concluded it does not pose risk to human health.”

   In addition, he added that SEHSC's preliminary evaluation of its data suggests that regulation is unwarranted, and he argued that Canada made a similar decision based on its risk evaluation several years ago.

   “Ultimately Canada made the decision that [D4] did not merit further regulation,” Thomas said. But he noted that Canadian officials required facilities that use D4 to implement a pollution prevention plan, to limit releases, “but they did not impose any regulations.”

   “We think our conclusions are consistent with the Canadian data,” he added.

   His comments came after SEHSC earlier this month completed reporting to EPA of water monitoring for D4 near 14 manufacturing plants, as required by a 2014 enforceable consent agreement the companies entered into with EPA.

   The monitoring program was intended to gather data for use in a future EPA risk assessments of D4 by creating an industry-funded program designed to help the agency assess the substance's risks to aquatic and sediment-dwelling species.

   Siloxanes are a class of chemicals that serve as building blocks of silicone polymers and are used in a host of industrial and consumer products such as cosmetics, antiperspirants, shampoos and skin care lotions.

   EPA and others have raised concerns about traces of the chemicals in discharges from wastewater treatment plants, because of those uses and the environmental persistence of some siloxanes. In its notice announcing the consent order, EPA indicated that D4 and a second siloxane were under consideration for an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment, performed by EPA's research office. IRIS' multi-year agenda, however, does not appear to contain D4.

   SEHSC Submission

   But the industry group is also preparing its own risk evaluation of the chemical, with the intent to submit it to EPA.

   One avenue for doing so is under a new TSCA provision that allows third parties to submit their own evaluations to EPA for its consideration. New language added to TSCA section 26, in reform of the statute passed into law in 2016, directs EPA to “develop guidance to assist interested persons in developing and submitting draft risk evaluations which shall be considered by the Administrator. The guidance shall, at a minimum, address the quality of the information submitted and the process to be followed in developing draft risk evaluations for consideration by the Administrator.”

   EPA issued its guidance earlier this year, which describes standards EPA expects risk evaluations submitted by third parties to meet. It also outlines EPA’s process for conducting its own evaluations. While industry officials say the program may provide new strategies for the reviews, they said the law leaves several questions unanswered as it gives little guidance over how the process will work.

   Thomas agreed that any SEHSC submission could become one of the first, if not the first, such draft risk evaluations submitted for EPA's consideration, but he said that final conclusions about how to present the information to EPA have yet to be determined, especially since the TSCA process is new and still uncertain.

   “I don't know what the process is . . . [or] how the agency will proceed,” Thomas said. “We haven't made a determination about the best way to do that. There are a number of options for interested parties to provide data and information the agency for evaluation. We'd like to work with EPA to get a sense for what they had in mind, what tools are appropriate.”

   Noting that EPA acted under its TSCA section 4 authority in setting up the monitoring program, Thomas indicated that he expected to continue working with the toxics office on the risk evaluation.

   Thomas indicated that SEHSC is pursuing an evaluation of D4's environmental risks, because those were the risks of interest to EPA.

   While any D4 assessment may be the first such evaluation to be submitted to EPA, other industry officials have been urging their colleagues to consider taking similar steps.

   Karyn Schmidt, a senior director in chemical regulation, regulatory and technical affairs with ACC, encouraged Tox Forum attendees in Annapolis, MD, in July to “be creative and take advantage of what the statute has to offer.” She described the law's allowance for industry to request that EPA conduct particular risk evaluations, or perform its own and submit them to EPA for review as “a really powerful tool that we're just now beginning to think about how it will work.”

   But given limited guidance on how the new program will work, sources say there are still many questions that must be addressed. For example, the guidance EPA issued in June does not describe the process by which EPA will accept and consider any draft evaluations submitted by external parties.

   One environmentalist told Inside EPA in July that the way the statute is written, anyone could submit such a risk evaluation to EPA “whenever they wanted. It would then have to go out for peer review.”

   But the source noted that gaps remain in the process. If a third-party risk evaluation is limited to a particular use, EPA “would have to figure it out, because that hasn't happened yet,” the source says. The statute requires EPA to consider all uses and all reasonable anticipated uses of a chemical -- though EPA has indicated in its framework rules that it has latitude to determine which uses to include in a risk evaluation.

   'Minimize Aquatic Risks'

   Asked why the Canadians implemented a pollution prevention plan for D4 facilities, Thomas said he believed the decision was “based on where some of the materials could be released, they thought it would be worthwhile to minimize aquatic releases.”

   Asked if ACC would be amenable to a pollution prevention plan for U.S. facilities, Thomas said that the group is “completing our third party independent peer review of the data, where we'd make those kinds of conclusions.”

   He added that SEHSC is “moving forward” in developing the risk evaluation, with a goal of completing it in the first quarter of 2018. Once completed, the study will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, he said.

   Thomas declined to share SEHSC's submission to EPA, noting that he anticipates the agency will do so. Thomas emphasized that “the reason industry was so interested in doing this, is obviously there are very few exposure data to [use in] environmental risk assessment.”

   Using monitoring data rather than model-generated data in risk evaluation and risk management is particularly important in this case, Thomas adds, “because these types of materials behave differently than the computer models ... we found it very helpful to generate actual risk assessment data.”

   Thomas explained that the computer models are based on carbon-based chemistries, which represent “the lion's share of chemicals we talk about” but argues that these models are not good predictors of occurrence for silicone-based chemicals. For siloxanes, the carbon-based models “tend to overestimate what you find in the environment. Those models just don't work that well.”

   https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-eyes-novel-tsca-analysis-siloxanes-doubts-need-rules
   

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5. EPA Extends Compliance Date for Substantiation of CBI and Schedules Three Webinars to Discuss Reporting under TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Rule

   Sep 20, 2017 | National Law Review

   By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham

   On September 20, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice in the Federal Register stating that it is extending the compliance date by which submitters of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) submissions containing information claimed as Confidential Business Information (CBI) and filed between June 22, 2016, and March 21, 2017, had to submit to EPA the substantiation required by TSCA Section 14(c)(3) for all information claimed as confidential, other than information exempt from substantiation pursuant to TSCA Section 14(c)(2).  82 Fed. Reg. 43964.  The new deadline for substantiation of these claims is October 19, 2017.  EPA states that this extension is in response to “concerns raised by industry stakeholders regarding the ability for companies to meet the previous September 19, 2017, deadline due to recent severe weather events,” and that it is “providing this additional flexibility for stakeholders because of the impacts of hurricanes Harvey and Irma.”  Further, “because EPA published its interpretation that TSCA section 14(c)(3) requires up front substantiation after some companies had already asserted confidentiality claims subject to TSCA section 14(c)(3), the Agency set a future deadline for submission of substantiations pertaining to those submissions.” 

   More information on the CBI substantiation process is available in our memorandum The September 19th CBI Substantiation Deadline Fast Approaching.

   Also on September 20, 2017, EPA announced it was scheduling three webinars to assist the regulated community with reporting under the TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) rule.  The webinars, scheduled for September 27, 2017, October 25, 2017, and November 29, 2017, from 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. (ET), will be identical and will include an overview of reporting requirements, a demo of the electronic reporting application (Central Data Exchange (CDX)), and will provide time for questions and answers.  Registration for the webinars is not required.  EPA’s TSCA Inventory webpage contains the information on how to access the webinar.

   More information on the TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) rule is available in our memorandum EPA Issues Final TSCA Framework Rules.

   https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-extends-compliance-date-substantiation-cbi-and-schedules-three-webinars-to
   

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Chemical Management News

6. (ACC Mentioned) ACC Attacks Phthalate Ban as 'Arbitrary and Capricious'

   Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   Apparent plans by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to push through a ban on the phthalate DINP have been attacked as "arbitrary and capricious".

   In documents released on 13 September, the CPSC confirmed it will vote on a final rule banning five phthalates in children’s toys at levels greater than 0.1%. They are:      diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP);      di-n-pentyl phthalate (DnPP);      di-n-hexyl phthalate (DnHP);      dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP); and      diisononyl phthalate (DINP).

   The rule would also expand the ban on DINP, from children's toys that can be placed in the mouth to all toys. The CPSC will also vote on new requirements governing accreditation for organisations that test products for phthalates.

   The commission plans to discuss the proposal at an 11 October meeting and vote a week later.

   Four of the phthalates, the documents note, are not widely used in children's toys and childcare articles. And, they say, because toys already have to be tested for DEHP, BBP and DBP – which are already banned above de minimis levels in certain children's products – adding DINP to the list would not substantially increase testing costs.'Scientifically unjustified'

   However, the High Phthalates Panel of the American Chemistry Council(ACC) called the decision on DINP "arbitrary and capricious", and added that the proposed phthalates rule is not rooted in current science, "but, instead, is based on a scientifically unjustified report that was finalised without public input.

   "The most recent exposure data demonstrates that the cumulative exposure to the phthalates that are the subject of the rule is actually well below any level of concern."

   The CPSC settled a lawsuit in August, brought by NGOs that had protested against the more than two-year delay in finalising the proposal. The commission agreed to take action by 18 October, but the agreement did not specify the content of the final rule.

   https://chemicalwatch.com/59146/acc-attacks-phthalate-ban-as-arbitrary-and-capricious?q=%22American+Chemistry+Council%22
   

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7. (ACC Mentioned) U.S. Regulators to Start Work on Product Flame Retardant Rule

   Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Martina Barash

   U.S. consumer safety regulators voted Sept. 20 to convene an advisory panel and begin creating a rule to restrict a whole class of allegedly toxic flame retardants in four product categories.

   The 3–2 vote by the Consumer Product Safety Commission came during a meeting to address a March 2015 petition by various health, environmental, and consumer groups.

   The groups want the CPSC to ban all non-polymeric organohalogen flame retardants in a chemically “additive” form from children's products, furniture, mattresses, and the casings of electronics.

   A ban of the entire class is needed to prevent manufacturers from replacing one banned harmful chemical with another harmful chemical, they say.

   “This is an incredibly significant vote” because a majority of the commission considered a large body of information on the issue and found it convincing, Rachel Weintraub, legislative director and general counsel at the Consumer Federation of America, told Bloomberg BNA after the meeting.

   Eve Gartner, a staff attorney at Earthjustice, agreed. “Today's decision by the CPSC demonstrates the immense power of a broad coalition of health, safety, consumer and civil servants to protect our families,” Gartner said in a statement.

   But the  American Chemistry Council  took a contrary view, saying the vote ignores the importance of flame retardants for fire safety.

   “We are disappointed in today's vote by three of the commissioners at CPSC to take action on a broad and overreaching petition,” the council said in a statement. “Flame retardants are an important tool that can help products meet important fire safety standards. That is why it is so disheartening that the discussion has lacked almost any consideration of fire safety and how the petition could compromise the fire safety of consumer products.”

   The CFA, Earthjustice, and other petitioners say the flame retardants are associated with numerous adverse human health effects including reproductive impairment and neurological issues, including “decreased IQ in children, impaired memory, learning deficits, altered motor behavior.”

   Other health problems can include endocrine disruption, genetic harm and cancer, according to the groups.

   “We commend today's decision that will eventually rid our homes of this toxic class of chemicals that is damaging our children's brains and robbing them of their full potential,” Gartner, of EarthJustice, said. 
   
   A proposal to issue a public guidance message to manufacturers and consumers also passed by a 3–2 vote. It wouldn't be binding on manufacturers. But Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic (R), who opposed the guidance as going too far, said manufacturers would have to pay attention to it.

   The vote to grant the petition went against the recommendation of CPSC staff in briefing materials. Staff members said the data on toxicity and exposure wasn't sufficient.

   Both votes were along party lines.

   Long and Short Time Horizons

   
   Cheryl Falvey of Crowell & Moring LLP, a former CPSC general counsel, told Bloomberg BNA that setting up a chronic hazard advisory panel, or CHAP, “can take some time,” especially because of vetting on financial interests. 
   
   “Once the panel is selected, there is a significant amount of work involved to assess the science critically,” she said in an email. “Realistically, we could be talking years not months.”
   
   The flame-retardant issue is complicated because it involves both the hazard of fire and the chronic hazard of exposure to chemicals that inhibit fire, then-Chairman Elliot Kaye (D) said in a December 2015 meeting.
   
   Commissioner Robert Adler (D) said he proposed the guidance because the CHAP's work would take a long time. A guidance would address the issue in the short term, the CHAP and rulemaking in the long term, he said.
   
   “Manufacturers will get to work now to meet any guidance the CPSC issues,” Falvey said.
   
   A guidance document will “bolster” companies already moving away from OFRs, Weintraub said. Other companies have wanted to phase them out but the chemicals still appear in testing, she said. And it's important information for consumers, she said.

   Data Gaps

   
   Much of the CPSC meeting centered on gaps in data on OFRs and whether the commission had enough evidence to proceed to rulemaking on additive, as opposed to reactive or bound non-polymeric OFRs as a class.
   
   Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle (R) took the position that the gaps were too significant to proceed, whereas Adler and Commissioner Marietta Robinson said scientific methodologies were available to extrapolate across data gaps.
   
   Intensive negotiations among the commissioners in pursuit of consensus preceded the hearing. Those efforts fell short, however. So did a proposal by Buerkle to separate the votes on a CHAP, which she appeared to support, and rulemaking.

   http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=121035862&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499673500&searchid=30534163&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
   

    

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8. (ACC Mentioned) US CPSC Votes to Ban Organohalogenated Flame Retardants

   Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

   In a potentially precedent-setting move, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has voted to ban the use of organohalogenated flame retardants in several consumer product categories.

   At a meeting of the CPSC on 20 September, the commission voted 3-2 to grant an NGO petition to prohibit the use of any non-polymeric, additive OFR in:children's products;upholstered residential furniture;mattresses; andthe external casings of electronics devices.

   The action comes two years after the petition was filed, and a few weeks after the agency's staff recommended that the commissioners reject it.

   Arlene Blum, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, called it an historic ruling that "can prevent the common practice of banning a harmful chemical only to replace it with a similar chemical that causes similar health problems.

   "It will set a precedent of regulating chemicals by class and can prevent harm from exposure to the entire chemical class."Political majority

   Mindful that they will no longer have a majority when one commissioner's term expires on 30 September, the three Democratic commissioners rejected pleas from the Republicans to continue working toward a consensus.

   The commission's action does not immediately ban OFRs. It directs the CPSC staff to begin drafting a regulation under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA) and also to convene a Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel (CHAP). This is a group of experts charged with sifting through scientific evidence, to inform the process. Finally, the commission voted to issue guidance warning the public of the hazards posed by OFRs and urging manufacturers to stop using them.

   Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle and Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic, the panel's Republicans, asked Commissioner Robert Adler to withdraw the proposals, offering to support a CHAP if the vote to ban OFRs was deferred. Mr Adler said he did not think an "immediate resolution" was possible.

   "We are so close to forging a meaningful, bipartisan consensus position," Mr Mohorovic argued. The constituencies who feel so strongly about it would not want the issue "reduced to a political football that right now will be kicked in one direction and then with the change of new nominees ... will then be kicked back in the other direction."

   The term of Commissioner Marietta Robinson (D) will expire in September, and President Trump can shift the balance by appointing a Republican to fill the vacancy. The Trump administration has already indicated it will nominate Ms Buerkle as permanent chair, and to serve an additional seven-year term when her current one expires in October 2018.A wholesale action

   Industry groups had argued there is insufficient evidence on the specific danger to consumers of each organohalogen at existing exposure levels, and the CPSC should not ban a group of chemicals wholesale. The CPSC staff agreed with that criticism in a June 2017 briefing package. This concluded "OFRs, in fact, represent several subclasses of chemicals that should be examined separately," and that the data presented do not conclusively establish links between the presence of the chemicals and specific products.

   However, the majority agreed with NGOs that tackling one substance at a time would take too long and would be of no value, when the danger is from cumulative exposure to multiple OFRs.

   At a 14 September hearing, dozens of toxicologists and environmental advocates testified that studies have shown that OFRs are present in household dust and in humans; that levels in humans are related to the presence of the household products under consideration; and that OFRs are associated with an array of health risks.

   Commissioner Robinson pointed out that, in the agency's 2015 review and the current round, in more than 200 written comments, days of testimony, and many more private meetings, the only comments opposing the ban "represent those with a financial interest in continuing to have these potentially, and in some cases definitively, toxic, chemicals in our environment."

   Democratic commissioners asked repeatedly if any scientific studies have found that any OFR does not pose health risks, and if it is likely that there are any that do not exhibit the toxic characteristics found in others of the class.

   "I know of none that do not have the potential to cause serious effects," said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.Are some OFRs safe?

   Industry representatives pointed to TCPP (2-propanol, 1-chloro-, phosphate) and TBBPA (tetrabromobisphenol A) as OFRs that have been deemed safe. However, TCPP is being assessed by Canada, Denmark, the EPA and some individual US states. California plans to list TBBPA under Proposition 65 because it has been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) as known to cause cancer and it is one of five flame retardants addressed by Washington state's Toxic-Free Kids and Families Act.

   But industry representatives relied mainly on the argument that there is insufficient data on each substance to ban the whole class. They also noted that flame retardants were developed to address another safety concern.

   "The discussion has lacked almost any consideration of ... how the petition could compromise the fire safety of consumer products," the American Chemistry Council said, expressing disappointment in the commission's "broad and overreaching" action.

   A representative of the International Association of Fire Fighters, however, testified that the danger posed to firefighters from inhaling toxic smoke outweighs the benefits of flame retardants.

   Industry representatives also suggested that the EPA is better equipped to assess the risk posed by OFRs, noting that a flame retardant (hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD) is one of the first ten priority substances subject to risk evaluation under the new TSCA.

   "Nothing in the structure of the new TSCA or its current implementation justifies any hope that EPA will address the health risk posed by organohalogens in a manner or timeframe that will provide meaningful protection to the public for years to come, if ever," said Daniel Rosenberg, senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

   https://chemicalwatch.com/59151/us-cpsc-votes-to-ban-organohalogenatedflame-retardants
   

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9. (ACC Mentioned) Federal Panel Votes to Warn Public about Flame Retardants in Baby Products, Furniture

   Sep 20, 2017 | Chicago Tribune

   By Michael Hawthorne

   For the first time a federal agency is moving to outlaw an entire class of toxic flame retardants, a policy change intended to protect Americans from chemicals linked to cancer, neurological deficits, hormone disruption and other health problems.

   The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted Wednesday to immediately warn the public about the dangers of chemicals known as organohalogens in baby and toddler products, mattresses, upholstered furniture and electronics enclosures. The commission also set in motion what promises to be a contentious debate about new regulations prohibiting manufacturers from adding any halogenated flame retardants to products covered by the ban.

   Several of the chemicals already have been forced off the market after independent scientists determined they were accumulating in people and posed serious health risks. But advocates and scientists noted the chemical industry has a long history of replacing harmful flame retardants with chemically similar compounds that later were found to be just as worrisome, if not more so.

   The vote is a rare victory for health groups and a rare setback for industry groups during the first months of President Donald Trump's administration, which has moved to eliminate business regulations. Until next month, the five-member safety commission will still be dominated by three Democrats, all of whom supported using the authority granted under a 2008 law enacted to address "unreasonable risks" to consumers.

   The commission and other federal agencies have rarely banned chemicals without direct orders from Congress. A coalition of health groups, backed by prominent scientists, persuaded the panel to act on its own by outlining how Americans are constantly exposed to brominated and chlorinated flame retardants that escape from consumer products.

   "The more evidence accumulates, the stronger we see the case against the use of these chemicals," said Commissioner Robert Adler, a Democrat who compared industry arguments against taking action to Big Tobacco's attempts to delay government responses to the health dangers of cigarette smoking. "I see no indication we will ever find results to the contrary."

   Retailers including Walmart and Target already are pushing suppliers to avoid entire families of chemicals, spurred on by parents concerned that Americans are absorbing an array of chemicals from household products. Some of the compounds mimic hormones, and researchers have found they can subtly alter the development of children in ways that aren't apparent until later in life.

   Halogenated flame retardants also top the list of chemicals the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating under a new safety law that took effect last year. But even under the best-case scenarios envisioned by lawmakers, it will take more than a decade for the EPA to determine if the chemicals should be banned or restricted.

   Meanwhile, consumers might find it difficult to determine if products contain the flame retardants at issue.

   Any manufacturer still adding organohalogens to household furniture must attach a warning label required under a California law prompted by the Tribune's 2012 "Playing With Fire" investigation, which revealed a deceptive campaign by the chemical and tobacco industries that led to the widespread use of flame retardants in American homes.

   Baby products, mattresses and other items are not required to carry similar labels.

   The two Republicans on the safety commission said there isn't enough evidence to ban every halogenated flame retardant, echoing statements from the chemical industry and a review by the panel's staff. They suggested the decision could be overturned after Trump appoints another Republican and shifts the political balance on the commission.

   Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic, a Republican and former state lawmaker, accused Democrats on the panel of siding "with those who want to be strident and politicize this issue and be completely partisan." His comments prompted a heated response from Democrat Marietta Robinson, whose seven-year term expires next month.

   "I have absolutely no clue what the science behind this has to do with whether you are a Democrat or a Republican," said Robinson, noting the only witnesses who opposed the ban represented companies with a financial stake in the outcome of the vote.

   The American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry's chief trade group, has said companies are moving toward safer alternatives. In a statement after the vote Wednesday, the group said it was disappointed and described flame retardants as an "important tool" to meet flammability standards.

   Government and academic researchers have found the amount commonly added to household furniture fails to protect people from fire in a meaningful way.

   http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-flame-retardants-banned-cpsc-met-20170920-story.html
   

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10. (ACC Mentioned) Swedish Chemicals Agency Finds Potential Risks of BPA Substitutes

    Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Marcus Hoy

    Long-term exposure to a variety of bisphenols, including those that may be used as substitutes, could cause hormonal imbalances and related illnesses in humans, Sweden's Chemical Agency said.

    Commonly used in the manufacture of plastics and epoxy, bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to damage hormones and reproductive capacity in some humans who are subjected to long-term exposure, though the level of exposure required to cause harm is disputed.

    While the use of BPA is currently permitted in Sweden and the rest of the European Union, the substance is being restricted gradually across the bloc. Sweden has been active in urging producers to switch to less harmful alternatives and has introduced a number of unilateral national measures restricting its use.

    “Polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins are high-performing materials” said Steven G. Hentges, senior director of the American Chemistry Council's BPA/polycarbonate global group. “Because these attributes are not easily replaced, they will continue to be important commercial materials for decades to come. To be successful, alternatives must perform at least as well, if not better, than the products they replace.”

    In a new report, the Swedish Chemical Agency (KEMI) identified around 200 substances with a chemical structure similar to BPA's that are currently available in the EU. Using data simulations, the substances were categorized according to their chemical structure, possible use, and potential for harm.

    The findings show that consumers potentially could be exposed to 37 bisphenols that could have harmful properties. Six of the bisphenols that KEMI examined are already under scrutiny under the EU's REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals). 

    Small Volumes

    The 37 bisphenols that KEMI identified as possible endocrine disruptors are used in small volumes in what are deemed “niche applications” within the EU, according to the agency. “Exposure to these bisphenols is not likely to be a problem today,” it said.

    The report's overall findings should not be viewed as sufficient grounds to justify new EU-wide restrictions, KEMI Senior Technical Officer Helena Dorfh told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 20.

    “Compared with BPA, the commercial use of the bisphenols identified in the report is small in Sweden and the EU,” Dorfh said. “Our concern is that the volume of use will rise as BPA is replaced. It is positive that we have identified which bisphenols can be made available on the EU market. This means that we can monitor if and how their use changes.”

    “We found that toxicological information was inadequate or entirely lacking for half of the 37 bisphenols analyzed,” she said. ”This is problematic since simulations showed that they may have endocrine-disrupting properties. In cases where toxicological information is available, the suspected disruptive effects could not be dismissed. We therefore cannot say that any bisphenol we analyzed is better than any other from a risk perspective.”

    Disruptive Effects

    The need for safer alternatives to BPA has been questioned by industry bodies, including the  American Chemistry Council , which believes that current exposure levels do not pose a health risk. “We agree with the premise of the KEMI study,” Hentges told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 20.

    “Chemicals on the market should be adequately tested and safe for their intended uses. While other bisphenols that may be used as alternatives to BPA may or may not meet this standard, there should be no doubt that BPA more than meets that standard,” he said.

    “Regulatory bodies around the world have reviewed the extensive scientific evidence available for BPA and have concluded that BPA is safe in its primary uses, making polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins” Hentges added. “For example, in its most recent review, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that BPA poses no health risk to consumers of any age group, including unborn children, infants and adolescents, at current exposure levels.”

    In a Sept. 20 statement provided to Bloomberg BNA, the European Chemical Industry Council said the Swedish findings were unlikely to lead to new restrictions on the use of bisphenols.

    “Within REACH there is a process for assessing alternatives to substances that have been added to the REACH Authorization List” the council said. “Substances identified as suitable alternatives during this process will not present a risk to human health or the environment. For this reason, we see no advantage in adding new legislation or REACH being modified following this report. The current provisions are sufficient to ensure the safety of substitutes.”

    When contacted by Bloomberg BNA Sept. 20, the EU trade association Plastics Europe and the Swedish chemical industry employers’ organization IKEM were unwilling to comment on the report's findings.

     http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=121035859&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499675000&searchid=30534163&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0

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11. U.S. Consumer Watchdog Recommends Ban on Toxic Flame Retardants in Products, Protects Children’s Health

    Sep 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group

    By Sonya Lunder

    In a victory for children's environmental health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 3 to 2 today to grant an NGO petition to remove an entire class of toxic flame retardant chemicals from consumer goods, including children’s products, mattresses, upholstered furniture and electronics casings. The commissioners directed the agency to inform consumers and manufacturers about the hazards of these chemicals.

    In addition to couches and easy chairs, flame retardants have been added to nursing pillows, strollers, infant sleep positioners and even baby bathtubs made of foam.  

    The well-documented health hazards linked to flame retardant exposure include diminished IQ, cancer, hormone disruption and damage to the reproduction system. Not only do they pose risks to kids' health, but research also shows they don't reduce the risk of fire.

    The CPSC's decision is the most sweeping action to date by the federal government to reduce Americans’ exposure to these chemicals. It was prompted by a 2015 petition from Earthjustice and the Consumer Federation of America that requested the agency ban the addition of all halogenated flame retardants to four product categories covered by today's decision. In 2016, nearly 10,000 EWG supporters urged the CPSC to grant the petition, and last week EWG testified in support of the ban.

    EWG’s original research helped highlight the potential dangers of flame retardants, particularly for American children. In 2003 we released the first-ever study of flame retardants called PBDEs in mothers’ milk. In 2008, EWG found that toddlers and preschoolers typically had three times as much of these brain-altering chemicals in their blood compared to their mothers.

    Among the participants in the 2008 study were Laura Spark of Boston and her daughter Naomi, then 4 years old. Levels of PBDEs in Naomi’s blood were 6.5 times higher than in her mother's. That pattern was consistent among the other child-parent participants in the study. In 2014 and 2016 EWG found that levels of chlorinated Tris, a replacement for PBDEs, were similarly elevated in young children.

    "Nearly a decade ago, when I learned that my daughter had these chemicals in her blood, I did not even know what flame retardants were, much less what their hazards were,” said Spark. “Since then, research has linked flame retardants to an array of health problems. So I'm celebrating today’s news that CPSC is removing these toxic chemicals and protecting children. I hope the agency moves quickly to implement the ban.”

    The vote was along party lines with the commission’s three democrats voting to support the petition. Removing these chemicals from products will not happen overnight, as the commission will appoint an expert panel of toxicologists to guide the agency on rulemaking. In the interim, there are simple steps parents can take now to significantly lower their children’s exposure to flame retardants. You can find our tips on how to protect your family here. 

    http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/09/us-consumer-watchdog-recommends-bans-toxic-flame-retardants-products-protects-#.WcOXmbIjG4Q
    

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12. Senate Authorizes Funding for Military PFAS Cleanups

    Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

    The Senate has approved a fiscal year 2018 defense authorization bill that includes language directing the Navy and Air Force to spend approximately $62 million on cleaning up contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as well as authorizing $7 million for a study on the health effects of PFAS.

    Senators approved the legislation, H.R. 2810, on an 89-8 vote Sept. 18, after substituting Senate-written language for the bill that passed the House in July. But both the House and Senate versions of bill include authorization for PFAS cleanups and a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) and Bob Casey (D-PA) authored the cleanup language, which was not originally in the bill the Senate Armed Services Committee approved, according to Cantwell's office.

    The House-passed version of the bill authorizes a total of $60 million, split evenly between Navy and Air Force's environmental restoration accounts, for remediation of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), two of the most well known PFAS.

    The Senate bill also authorizes $7 million for the Department of Health and Human Services, acting through the CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and in consultation with the Department of Defense (DOD), to conduct a study on the human health implications of PFAS contamination “in drinking water, ground water, and any other sources of water and relevant exposure vectors, including the cumulative human health implications of multiple types of PFAS contamination at levels above and below health advisory levels.”

    Cantwell, Casey and several other Democratic senators who have PFAS-contaminated military sites in their states recently urged Senate appropriators to include funding for the study in FY18 appropriations legislation and "to include language directing DOD and the military services to budget robustly for assessment, investigation, and remediation activities in the upcoming fiscal years."

    DOD officials have said there is limited flexibility in FY18 to focus funding on PFAS activities, making FY19 the earliest DOD can fully plan for PFAS cleanups.

    The House-passed version of the defense authorization legislation includes similar but narrower language seeking a health effects study. The House bill calls for the defense secretary in consultation with ATSDR to “carry out a study on any health effects experienced by individuals who are exposed” to PFOS and PFOA “from firefighting foam used at military installations or former military installations, including exposure through” a drinking water well that is contaminated by the chemicals from such firefighting foam.

    https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senate-authorizes-funding-military-pfas-cleanups
    

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13. EU Toxic Rule Exemption Benefits Outweigh Risks, Regulators Say

    Sep 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Stephen Gardner

    The EU's Chemicals Agency says authorizing some exceptions to chemical control rules for plastics, lead in paints, and chrome plating have had positive economic and social benefits that outweigh the additional risks involved.

    The chemicals agency tallied up the benefits and risks in a Sept. 18 report, which concluded that special exemptions granted under the European Union's chemicals law can be beneficial by as much as a 15-to-1 ratio when looked at economically.

    The report also acknowledged that it was difficult to precisely quantify the costs and benefits of the REACH authorization system, but because of the program, “chemicals risks to European workers and the public at large have been and will be reduced in a notable manner.”

    Under the EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals) the most hazardous substances are slated for phaseouts. However, companies can petition for “authorizations” to continue to use the substances in specific applications if there are no alternatives and if the risks can be controlled.

    So far under REACH, 43 chemicals have been placed on the authorization list, meaning their use is prohibited unless exemptions to continue their use are granted. Among the authorizations granted are phthalates in the production of plastics and munitions, lead pigments in specialized paints, and chromium substances in chrome plating.

    Frida Hok, senior policy adviser with ChemSec—which campaigns for the phaseout of toxic substances—told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 18 that the European Chemicals Agency's (ECHA) analysis showed the REACH authorization process was effective. She said the benefits would be greater if authorizations to continue to use hazardous substances were granted only in tightly specified cases when no alternatives are available.

    The Over/Under

    The agency's report also found that, in making applications for authorizations, companies significantly overstate the socio-economic benefits of granting an authorization, and understate the risks of continued use of the hazardous substances that are subject to REACH.

    According to chemicals agency spokesman Mikko Vaananen, “To certain extent, it is understandable that companies aim to make their case as strong as they can and sometimes lack the skills to conduct a proper socioeconomic analysis. ECHA's committees are aware of this and look at each application from a wider socioeconomic perspective.”

    For authorizations granted up to the end of 2016, covering 118 uses of hazardous substances, the European Chemicals Agency's scientific committees calculated a socio-economic benefit of 4.2 billion euros ($5 billion) annually. The costs in terms of continued risks to human health amount to 281 million euros ($337 million)per year, according to the report. 

    Regulatory Burden Concern

    German chemicals giant BASF said in a statement to Bloomberg BNA Sept. 19 that “in general, REACH is working well,” and “authorities and industry have made significant achievements in assessing chemicals on the European market.”

    However, the “regulatory burden from applying for time-limited authorizations of safe uses is disproportionate,” BASF said. Hazardous substances should be regulated according to the risk they pose, meaning they should “not necessarily” be placed on the authorization list, the company statement added.

    Nathalie Gross, spokeswoman for the European Chemical Industry Council told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 19 that the council was still studying the chemicals agency's report and unable to comment.

    The chemicals agency committees that issue opinions on whether continued-use authorizations for hazardous substances should be granted “look at each application from a wider socioeconomic perspective” and take a wide range of data into account in their recommendations, ECHA's Vaananen said.

     http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=121035855&vname=dennotallissues&fn=121035855&jd=121035855

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14. Echa Consults on UK Dechlorane plus Candidate List Proposal

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    Echa is calling for evidence on the UK’s proposal to identify dechlorane plus as an SVHC.

    The UK says the substance is suspected of having very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) properties. It is used as a chlorinated flame retardant in a variety of applications, including:electrical wiring and cables;textiles; andfireworks.

    Echa says there is little information available about specific applications or the relative amounts and socioeconomic factors involved. Separately, NGOs have raised concerns about the substance’s persistent properties and the amount of time it has taken to start regulatory action.

    The consultation started on 20 September and closes 20 October.

    In late July, the UK confirmed that it will continue participate in planned regulatory action - such as screening of substances - and attend and actively participate in Echa and European Commission forums while Brexit negotiations continue.

    Don't miss our workshop examining post Brexit options for UK chemicals law, jointly hosted by industry association techUK and NGO CHEM Trust on 29 September in London.

    https://chemicalwatch.com/59145/echa-consults-on-uk-dechlorane-plus-candidate-list-proposal
    

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15. EU Commission 'Limiting Focus' of Chemicals and Waste Roadmap

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Tammy Lovell

    The European Commission’s roadmap on chemicals, products and waste legislation should concentrate on resolving policy conflicts, says the European Engineering Industries Association, Orgalime.

    There is a "limiting" of focus to how to reduce the presence, and improve the tracking, of chemicals of concern in products, it says, rather than addressing the conflicting and overlapping requirements of the legislation, the stated aim of the roadmap in 2015.

    It also says that this was clearly expressed in the Commission’s own 2016 Regulatory Barrier Study.

    Orgalime's comments come in response to a consultation on the Commission's recently published roadmap, along with those of other trade bodies, NGOs and member states.

    The association gives the example of the "conflicting and/or parallel" measures to restrict the use of certain substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) under REACH and RoHS.

    "Even if all substances of concern were banned from all products as of tomorrow, these substances would still remain present in secondary raw materials for decades. This is primarily due to the realities of today’s waste management, pre-REACH realities or a lack of implementation of existing waste and chemicals legislation," it says. 

    For its own industry, exempting legacy spare parts, and the reselling of old products, from bans on hazardous substances under REACH and RoHS would help avoid regulatory conflicts and meet the objectives of the circular economy.

    It recommends that the ‘repair as produced’ principle – which involves allowing the use of legacy parts for repairing products – is extended to other legislations, such as REACH and the Ecodesign Directive. This, it says, would be a "desirable next concrete step for more circularity in our sector".

    The Commission’s amended RoHS Directive, which is currently under consideration by the European Parliament and Council, is a good example of legislation that resolves inherent policy conflicts and establishes consistent legislation that "reconciles environmental and economic aspects". 

    The RoHS amendment exempts the reselling and use of legacy spare parts.

    Legislative convergence is still needed, however, as both REACH and RoHS cover the same uses of the same substances in EEE, for example, for lead or the phthalates DEHP, BBP, DBP, it says.

    It also recommends applying one common methodology for the identification and evaluation of substances to be restricted under the laws. This should be based on risk, the availability of reliable substitutes and technical feasibility of substitution.Information requirements

    The roadmap identifies the problem of insufficient information about substances of concern in products and waste. 

    But Orgalime says that information requirements are the least important policy issue for the sector. This is because they "can easily become disproportionate for product manufacturers while not translating into (much) benefit".

    They are also "technically and procedurally very difficult – in particular, in consideration of very long and complex supply chains. Such an approach would be contrary to the Commission’s much proclaimed wish to simplify regulation."

    The Commission is expected to publish a recommendation on policy options by the end of the year.

    https://chemicalwatch.com/58561/eu-commission-limiting-focus-of-chemicals-and-waste-roadmap
    

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16. Cefic Suggests 'Grandfathering' of REACH Substances after Brexit

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Luke Buxton

    Substances registered under REACH by UK companies, or those which have been granted an authorisation after a UK application, should be "grandfathered" after Brexit, Europe's chemical industry council Cefic said. Grandfathering is the act of exempting something from new legislation or requirements.

    This will avoid duplication of regulation and associated costs, its executive director of industrial policy René van Sloten told Chemical Watch this week.

    "The free trade of these products should be guaranteed under the same conditions as is the case right now, and this should apply after March 2019, until the authorisation has to be renewed or the registration updated," he said.

    Such a move would secure continued collaboration with the relevant EU agencies, such as Echa. And any new measures must provide for regulatory consistency and clarity to economic operators and to "uphold robust health, safety, social and environmental regulatory standards on either side", he said.

    UK companies and authorities have made "substantial investments" in REACH compliance and therefore, Mr van Sloten said, the "most realistic" scenario would for the UK to adopt "identical REACH legislation independently".Mutual recognition

    His comments come two weeks after the UK Chemical Industries Association (CIA) head Steve Elliott said he wants the UK to remain in all of the REACH processes, "warts and all". Earlier this year, CIA’s chemicals policy director said "a mutual-recognition" model "could work" for REACH if the UK and the EU agree.

    The German chemical industry association, VCI, endorsed a similar approach this week. An agreement between the EU and the UK, director general Utz Tillmann told Chemical Watch, "should comprise the most far-reaching mutual recognition and the same standards" for the safety of products and chemicals, human health, and the environmental.

    In future, Dr Tillmann said, the existing high standards to protect human health and environment under EU legislations "should be kept up in a harmonised manner" in both the EU and the UK. Regarding legislation, the UK "should be largely integrated in the single market with all rights and obligations" he said.

    Depending on the scope of a future agreement, "at the very least long transitional periods should be granted during which all rights and obligations under existing EU law continue to apply for EU27 and the UK and need to be fulfilled by both parties", he said.UK executive?

    CIA’s Steve Elliott has said that setting up UK institutions parallel to Echa would likely be very costly, lead to an increased level of uncertainty and take a long time to establish. The best option, he said, would be "to continue to use the services provided by both the European Commission and Echa".

    When asked for a comment on this, Cefic’s René van Sloten said it is up to the UK to decide how it wishes to organise this, "either by the setting up [its] own agency or through a cooperation agreement with Echa".

    https://chemicalwatch.com/59182/cefic-suggests-grandfathering-of-reach-substances-after-brexit
    

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17. EU-Wide Consumer App Aims to Foster Substitution of SVHCs

    Sep 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch

    By Tammy Lovell

    European competent authorities, NGOs and academics are banding together to develop an EU-wide phone app for consumers to identify substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in products.

    The AskREACH project was launched this week by the German Environment Agency (UBA), in collaboration with 20 project partners from 13 EU member states. The app is expected to be available from Spring 2019.

    It aims to increase consumers’ knowledge on the risks SVHCs pose to human health and the environment, and enable them to make informed purchasing decisions.

    A second objective is to encourage the substitution of SVHCs in articles, by making producers, retailers and their supply chains, including article importers, aware of their legal obligations under REACH and enhancing supply chain communication.

    Ultimately the project hopes to foster substitution of SVHCs in articles with safer alternatives, by influencing awareness.

    It will involve the development of a central European IT system, made up of three parts.

    These are:a database, where companies feed in information on SVHCs in articles;a multi-language smartphone app for consumers, which will provide information, taken largely from the database, on SVHCs in articles at the point of sale; anda supply chain communication tool for companies, which aims to "increase their competencies and capacities to comply with REACH".

    Several large unnamed companies have expressed their support, according to the partners, and will be the forerunners in entering their data into the database. 

    If the desired data is not yet available, an information request will be automatically sent to the article supplier.Article 33

    Article 33 of REACH requires manufacturers to respond to a consumer’s request for information on whether a product contains any SVHCs above a concentration of 0.1%. They must provide the information free of charge and within 45 days.

    "Empirical data shows that few consumers ask for SVHC information because they are not aware of their right," the project brief reads.

    The project partners say the "provision is not useful" because of the length of time manufacturers are given to respond, and that, for products that don’t contain SVHCs, an answer does not have to be provided at all.

    "[Article 33] may create confusion because the consumer cannot distinguish between incompliant suppliers and suppliers not answering because the article does not include an SVHC," they say.

    Furthermore, the information is not available immediately and so "cannot influence purchasing decisions".Raising awareness

    In addition, two awareness raising campaigns are planned for the 13 participating EU member states, and at least in five other EU states. Project results will be made available to all EU member states.

    During the initiative – which runs between September 2017 and August 2022 – the partners anticipate 3.1m Article 33 requests to suppliers.

    The project is being funded by the EU's Life funding programme and a website reporting on progress will be launched in March 2018.

    Similar apps are the German Toxfox, Danish Consumer Council's Kemiluppen and US scientific research organisation Silent Spring Institute's Detox Me.

    In 2014, Echa released its consumer rights video ‘The Price You Pay’, with the aim of raising awareness among the general public about the benefits of REACH, as well as the consumer's right to know about hazardous chemicals contained in products they purchase.

    https://chemicalwatch.com/59124/eu-wide-consumer-app-aims-to-foster-substitution-of-svhcs
    

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Energy News

18. Refiners Don't Know When They'll Be Done with Repairs

    Sep 21, 2017 | E&E - Energywire

    By Nathanial Gronewold

    Gulf Coast refineries are still pulling themselves out of the hole Hurricane Harvey put them in, but operations should soon return to pre-storm shape.

    More than three weeks have passed since the hurricane and tropical storm dumped rain on southeast Texas for days, and Harvey's impacts are still being felt in the energy industry. Most facilities shut down in this region in preparation for the storm. After it passed, severe flooding and storm damage forced some 25 percent of the nation's crude oil refining capacity offline.

    Most of that shuttered capacity is now back online, but not all of it.

    Officials at Motiva Enterprises LLC say they are still operating their Port Arthur complex at reduced rates. "Motiva confirms start up activities are proceeding to plan and the Port Arthur refinery is operating stably at approximately half capacity," a company representative said in an email.

    The story is largely the same at Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown refining and other petrochemical complexes.

    Repair work is ongoing. Exxon Mobil says it has resumed some fuels production, but there's no telling when refining output will rebound to volumes that would have been common had Harvey not damaged much of the facility.

    "We don't have a timeline to share on when normal operations will resume at our refineries," said Charlotte Huffaker, with Exxon Mobil's public affairs office. "The Baytown refinery is now producing products at reduced rates, and Beaumont continues to make progress on restart activities."

    The Beaumont plant could return to near full capacity by the end of this week, according to Reuters.

    Motiva and Baytown are the nation's two largest refining centers. Less massive operations are now running at normal rates. Still, refining output might remain lower than during the earlier summer months, as Harvey struck just before many companies take units offline for seasonal maintenance work.

    Yesterday, analysts at IHS Markit, an industry research firm, reported that 15 of the 20 Gulf of Mexico regional refineries laid low by the storm are now back in business, running "at or near normal operating rates."

    Prices at the pump are still elevated, a consequence of both the lingering impact of Harvey and the run on gasoline in Florida seen in advance of the landfall of Hurricane Irma.

    It could have been worse.

    When Harvey struck, the nation had about 230 million barrels of gasoline in storage, more than enough to offset the temporary loss of some 4 million barrels per day of refined products production caused by the incessant rainfall and flooding. Yesterday, the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that national stockpiles still held some 216 million barrels of gasoline as of last Friday.

    Crude oil production has rebounded strongly. Output from the South Texas Eagle Ford Shale was shut in temporarily, mainly because the storm affected refining and distribution hubs in Corpus Christi. Most of the impacted Eagle Ford crude production has recovered. EIA said crude oil stockpiles grew last week by some 4.6 million barrels, according to the agency's latest Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

    Even though oil refining is gradually returning to normal, experts warn that pollution and safety hazards remain as fuels and petrochemical manufacturing plants are brought back into operation.

    "A lot of work needs to be done to assess any potential damage to the equipment, tankage, and other process facilities by the storm and the flood," Sam Mannan, the director of Texas A&M University's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, said in an overview of the situation. "Startup and shutdown under normal circumstances are transitional processes with inherent dangers and the potential for undesirable outcomes and incidents is relatively higher compared to steady-state operations."

    As if to illustrate Mannan's point, earlier this week Valero Energy Corp.was forced to respond to a fire at its Port Arthur refinery. The accident occurred as the company was attempting to restart operations following Harvey's flood damage. The fire has since been extinguished (Energywire, Sept. 20).

    Caution will be in order for some time, Mannan said. "Startups of all the Gulf Coast plants following the receding impact of Harvey is at best going to be a challenging task and at worst could result in potential incidents because of compromised and damaged equipment."

    https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/09/21/stories/1060061295
    

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19. Another Industry Group Asks Agency to Regulate Carbon

    Sep 21, 2017 | E&E - Climatewire

    By Niina Heikkinen

    More power companies are calling on U.S. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases rather than nix the Clean Power Plan.

    The Coalition for Innovative Climate Solutions, a group that represents electric generating companies and service providers in 19 states, is asking EPA to provide industry with "regulatory certainty" by developing a replacement for the Obama-era regulation on carbon emissions from power plants.

    Representatives for CICS, whose members include Xcel Energy Inc., Ameren Corp. and Entergy Corp., met with staff from EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget last week to discuss how the agency might replace the rule. The meeting comes as EPA prepares to propose a rollback of the Clean Power Plan this fall.

    The agency is expected to either do away with the Clean Power Plan or begin the process of replacing the rule with a weakened version that would focus on regulating carbon emissions at the facility level. If EPA does pursue the latter option, which many supporters and opponents of the rule think is the most legally defensible approach, the agency would be acknowledging that it has to regulate carbon dioxide. This would go against far-right conservatives, some of whom have pushed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to stop regulating carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act and to scrap EPA's underlying endangerment finding, a cornerstone of climate action.

    CICS members say that having some version of the Clean Power Plan on the books will help the electric generating industry plan for the future. Regulating carbon could also prevent the creation of a "regulatory vacuum" that could put member companies at risk of citizen lawsuits for not controlling emissions, the group said.

    "The electric industry, which has decades-long planning horizons, requires long-term regulatory certainty to make infrastructure investment and related business decisions," CICS wrote in a Sept. 13 white paper the group submitted to OMB.

    Unlike the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which would have set state-level emissions targets, the power companies called for those targets to be based on what individual facilities could achieve. This "inside the fence line" approach would take into account technological feasibility and costs to achieve the reductions, according to CICS.

    CICS isn't the first industry representative to ask EPA to provide some sort of regulation for carbon emissions from power plants. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers told EPA and OMB in July that they support EPA developing a more limited regulatory approach (Climatewire, Aug. 1).

    In June, a number of CEOs from the power industry flew to Washington to meet with Pruitt and urged him to replace the Clean Power Plan rather than get rid of it (Climatewire, June 22).

    David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and clean air program, said Pruitt could float a number of different legal arguments for repealing the Clean Power Plan. One of them could claim that EPA doesn't have the authority to regulate carbon emissions because it was already regulating mercury under a different section of the Clean Air Act. Pruitt may also argue that the rule invaded the constitutional power of states, and that the previous administration had forced a change in the "energy mix."

    Doniger noted that EPA would face legal challenges for any replacement plan that raises emissions. He said there's "no way" Pruitt could legally sustain efforts to repeal the endangerment finding.

    Doniger added that while companies may not have liked Obama's Clean Power Plan, the current situation is creating more uncertainty for the industry.

    "The power industry knew where it was going, and they knew what EPA had done, but it was doable and it was predictable. All this litigation and the election results have done is scramble any ability for them to know where this is going," he said.

    In its white paper, CICS called for the agency to give states "broad authority" to come up with their own plans for emissions reductions. That could include allowing states to achieve emissions reductions through equivalent state programs. CICS asked that EPA clearly lay out how the administration would encourage "cooperative federalism."

    "States are in a better position than EPA to assess their own energy resources, identify constraints and opportunities, determine which measures can be implemented on a manageable time table, and develop appropriate programs and measures," the white paper reads.

    Members also asked EPA to give credit to companies that had already made progress toward cutting emissions through actions like performance upgrades and plant retirements.

    CICS added that EPA should act quickly to replace the Clean Power Plan but noted that it would take "considerable" time to develop and implement plans to comply with it.

    It suggested that EPA propose new guidelines in the beginning of 2019 and finalize them by the end of that year. States would then have two years to develop their own plans by the end of 2021. Compliance for the rule could then begin Jan. 1, 2035, and would "allow a flexible, phased approach."

    Along with EPA and OMB staff, the September meeting included Frank Prager, vice president of policy and federal affairs of Xcel Energy, as well as Megan Berge and Bill Bumpers, partners at the law firm Baker Botts LLP who represented CICS.

    Berge declined to discuss any details of the group's requests or the meeting itself. Prager could not be reached for comment by press time.

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/09/21/stories/1060061285
    

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Environment News

20. (ACC Blog) Building Resiliency in Buildings, from the Molecule Up

    Sep 20, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters

    This year, the concept of ‘resiliency’ in the building landscape has emerged as more than a buzzword – it’s a key priority for builders, architects and building occupants alike.

    Many regions around the world are increasingly subject to the rigors of various impacts, including extreme weather, population shifts, disease, power or communication disruptions, and financial shocks. Both urban and rural spaces require structures that can withstand volatile stresses while reducing the additional resources, time, and labor needed to rebuild and relocate.

    And what makes buildings resilient? Chemistry.

    Using modern technology and science, chemical manufacturers today create innovative materials that can endure the stress of extreme weather such as in a hurricane or flood, and can also help a building return to a functioning, usable state. With recent extreme weather in the U.S. like Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, this focus on building for resiliency will continue to grow.

    To learn more about building materials and resiliency:Check out the article “Chemistry and construction materials” in the September 2017 issue of Construction Specifier magazine.Read how ACC members Accella, Dow, BASF and SABIC (and article contributors) are contributing to resiliency with innovative products and materials, including:Dow’s XPS material ROOFMATE SL-A, which was recently used in a new visitor center at the Giant’s Causeway, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland. The project displays how polystyrene chemistry can be used to create high resistance to all forms of moisture, such as rain, snow and frost.SABIC’s material LEXAN™ polycarbonate sheets were used in the ICEhouse (i.e. Innovation for the Circular Economy), which took center stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. LEXAN™ sheets are 250 times more impact-resistant than glass and virtually unbreakable; they are tested to perform from −40 to 120 C (−40 to 240 F).BASF’s MasterSeal NP 100 hybrid sealants were used in the restoration of New York City’s Dayton Towers, a cooperative of seven 12-story buildings in 2013. The sealants offered strong, primerless adhesion to the broadest range of substrates while the building’s renovation was interrupted during Hurricane Sandy.Acella’s Bayseal® Closed-cell (CCX) spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation was recently used in the “Flex House”, a modular home built to achieve net-zero energy usage. The Flex House’s unique curved roof and closed-cell SPF insulation help increase its resiliency against weather events and flooding.

    Visit BuildingwithChemistry.org to find out more about chemistry’s contributions to the built environment.

    https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/09/building-resiliency-in-buildings-from-the-molecule-up/
    

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21. Energy-Efficient Green Buildings May Emit Hazardous Chemicals

    Sep 19, 2017 | Reuters Health

    By Ronnie Cohen

    Newly renovated low-income housing units in Boston earned awards for green design and building but flunked indoor air-quality tests, a new study shows.

    Researchers found potentially carcinogenic levels of toxic chemicals in the remodeled homes before and after residents moved in. All of the 30 eco-friendly homes in the study had risky indoor air concentrations for at least one chemical.

    “Even in green buildings, building materials contain chemicals that we’re concerned about from a health perspective,” said lead author Robin Dodson, a researcher at Silent Spring Institute in Newton, Massachusetts.

    “We should not only think about the efficiency of the building but the health of the building,” she said in a phone interview.

    The hazards seemed to come both from materials used to renovate the housing units as well as from occupants’ furnishings and personal-care products, the study found.

    “Synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous in modern life,” said co-author Gary Adamkiewicz, an environmental health professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

    “They’re in new housing, old housing, green housing, conventional housing and high- and low-income housing,” he said by email.

    As reported in Environment International, Dodson, Adamkiewicz and colleagues collected air and dust samples from 10 renovated units before occupancy and from 27 units one to nine months after residents moved in between July 2013 and January 2014.

    By testing the homes before and after they were occupied, investigators were able to trace the presence of nearly 100 chemicals with known or suspected health concerns to the renovation, the residents or a combination.

    Both before and after occupancy, all the tested units had indoor air concentrations of formaldehyde that exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s cancer-based screening level.

    The researchers expected formaldehyde, which has been associated with allergy and asthma, might leach out of building materials, and they found evidence that it did. But because formaldehyde emissions remained high after occupancy, the research team suspected that residents also brought formaldehyde in personal-care products.

    Researchers also believe that flame retardants, which are suspected of causing cancer and diminishing male fertility, had been added to the building insulation.

    To their surprise, they found chemicals used in sunscreen, nail polish and perfumes being emitted from building materials, possibly because they had been added to paint or floor finishes, Dodson said.

    Residents appear to have brought into the renovated homes a number of health-disturbing chemicals, including antimicrobials, flame retardants, plastics and fragrances.

    Flame retardant BDE-47, which appeared after residents moved in, has been banned since 2005. Dodson assumes residents carried the compound into their homes, possibly in second-hand furniture.

    Consumers could improve household air quality by using products free of fragrance and other seemingly innocuous but harmful ingredients, Dodson said. But the onus should not be on consumers, she said.

    “Why are manufacturers even allowed to use these chemicals in their products?” she said.

    Green building standards should be broadened to prohibit use of hazardous chemicals, she said.

    Tom Lent, policy director of the nonprofit Healthy Building Network in Berkeley, California, said the study provides important clues about which hazardous chemicals are being released from building materials so that green buildings can be constructed to be both energy-efficient and healthy.

    “There does not need to be a conflict,” Lent, who was not involved with the study, said in an email.

    But the conflict between energy-efficient building and the need to reduce toxic indoor air emissions has existed for 15 years, Asa Bradman said by email. Bradman, associate director of the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley, was not involved with the study.

    Adamkiewicz recently completed another study that suggests green buildings can be healthy, or at least healthier, he said.

    He studied families who moved from old, conventional housing to new, green public housing units in Boston. The new buildings were designed to save energy and reduce exposures to indoor pollutants.

    In the green units, adults wheezed and coughed less and suffered fewer headaches, he found, and children missed fewer school days and had fewer asthma attacks and hospitalizations.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-homes-air-quality/energy-efficient-green-buildings-may-emit-hazardous-chemicals-idUSKCN1BU2AX
    

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22. Court Gives EPA 90 Days for Decisions on PM SIPs

    Sep 20, 2017 | InsideEPA

    A federal court is giving EPA 90 days to issue final decisions on whether several states have failed to satisfy Clean Air Act requirements for crafting complete state implementation plans (SIPs) detailing the particulate matter (PM) reduction measures they will use to comply with federal air quality standards.

    In its Sept. 18 ruling in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), et al. v. EPA, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California gives EPA 90 days from the date of the ruling to issue findings of “failure to submit” required elements of SIPs from Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington.

    The SIPs are necessary to outline steps states will take to meet EPA's 2012 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), set at 12 micrograms per cubic meter.

    In the deadline suit, EPA did not dispute that the states missed a June 14, 2016, deadline to submit the SIP elements, and they still have not done so, according to the court order.

    Once EPA makes a finding of failure to submit, the agency has two years to issue a federal implementation plan instead, unless the state first submits, and EPA approves, a SIP meeting air law requirements.

    Judge Jeffrey White in his order for the court gives EPA an additional year to approve or disapprove a SIP submission already received from New Jersey for the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS, after the agency failed to take action on it by an October 28, 2015, deadline.

    CBD in a Sept. 19 statement on the ruling criticized EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, saying “the court found that the Scott Pruitt-led EPA is illegally delaying measures to reduce dangerous soot pollution generated in these states.”

    But EPA missed its deadlines to act on these SIPs under the Obama administration, part of a long-running trend of EPA missing SIP deadlines that has spawned many lawsuits and similar deadline rulings from federal courts in the past.

    Environmentalists are also raising concerns that the agency under Pruitt's leadership appears to be increasingly approving SIPs that they say fall short of Clean Air Act requirements.

    https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/court-gives-epa-90-days-decisions-pm-sips
    

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23. Governors Denounce Trump, Announce Progress to Paris Targets

    Sep 20, 2017 | E&E News PM

    By Arianna Skibell

    A coalition of 14 states and the territory of Puerto Rico are on target to meet their share of the U.S. commitment under the international Paris climate accord to reduce emissions linked to global warming.

    Democratic Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Jerry Brown of California and Jay Inslee of Washington made the announcement today in New York City. Joined by former Secretary of State John Kerry, the governors discussed how states would fill the void on climate action abandoned by the Trump administration.

    "This federal government is the most ignorant federal government we've ever had when it comes to the environment and climate change," Cuomo said at the press briefing. "I urge my other colleagues, other governors in this country, to take a hard look at the facts and science and put aside the politics."

    The bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, which formed in response to President Trump's announcement that he would with withdraw from the global climate pact, has grown and now encompasses 36 percent of the U.S. population and more than $7 trillion of the country's gross domestic product.

    Alliance co-chairmen said the group is on track to reach a 24 to 29 percent reduction below 2005 carbon emission levels by 2025 — a target of the Paris Agreement.

    "We will always have Paris," Inslee said, referencing the famous line from the film "Casablanca."

    "This [agreement] is made for our states. It's made for our country to innovate. We look at this as a growth opportunity."

    He continued, "We represent 40 percent of the U.S. economy. ... We're in this game."

    Between 2005 and 2015, the alliance states cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent, compared with 10 percent for the rest of the country. During that time, the combined economy of those states grew by 14 percent, which the governors said demonstrates leaders can cut emissions without hurting economic growth.

    "We'll keep going and eventually Washington [D.C.] will join with us, because you can't deny science forever, you can't deny reality," Brown said. "If we don't act in enough time, we will face catastrophic, irreversible changes in our world."

    The governors chastised the Trump administration for failing to take climate change seriously. Inslee joked that D.C. does not stand for the District of Columbia, but rather the "denial coalition."

    Said Cuomo, "I think they are purposefully denying the reality because they don't want to deal with the problem."

    When climate change is denied, he said, the federal government can freely drill in the Arctic, use dangerous pesticides, build in flood plains and burn coal for power.

    "It's like having a great party on the eve of destruction," Cuomo said.

    Kerry said progressive energy policy is critical to battling climate change. He urged states to build smart grids and new energy technology that can accommodate renewable sources like wind and solar.

    The alliance announcement comes ahead of a November gathering of world leaders in Germany for Conference of the Parties 23, where officials will discuss their plans and progress for meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

    The alliance states will be represented in Germany, where they plan to report on their emissions reduction progress and further strategies for reducing climate risks.

    https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/09/20/stories/1060061245
    

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24. Calif. Cities Sue Oil Giants: 'Now the Bill Has Come Due'

    Sep 20, 2017 | E&E News PM

    By Benjamin Hulac

    San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., unveiled lawsuits today against five oil companies, arguing that a handful of deep-pocketed corporations have put the future and health of both cities in jeopardy, despite the industry's long-standing knowledge of man-made climate change.

    Attorneys for the cities announced the lawsuits, filed in local courts, this morning at a press conference with their backs to the San Francisco Bay.

    "These fossil fuel companies profited handsomely for decades while knowing they were putting the fate of our cities at risk," said Dennis Herrera, city attorney for San Francisco.

    "Now the bill has come due," Herrera said. "It's time for these companies to take responsibility for the harms they have caused and are continuing to cause."

    Herrera and Barbara Parker, the city attorney of Oakland, filed the cases on behalf of the state of California. They named the five biggest publicly traded oil companies in the world — BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — as the defendants.

    By filing their cases as "public nuisance" lawsuits, the cities argue the companies have endangered public safety by contributing to rising sea levels on their coasts. Two California counties and a city filed comparable lawsuits in July (Climatewire, July 18).

    Plaintiffs want the defendants to be found liable for contributing to the public health risks of global warming, and they want the companies to pay for infrastructure to protect the cities, such as sea walls.

    In court papers, Oakland and San Francisco say the burning of "massive quantities of fossil fuels," extracted, marketed and sold by the defendants, has driven up water levels, which are now lapping at their shores.

    Both complaints, filed late last night, show flood maps, charting areas of San Francisco and Oakland projected to be under water in the coming decades.

    They also cite an internal Exxon document, dated Nov. 12, 1982, that predicts global temperatures will rise 3 degrees Celsius before the century ends.

    "The harm to our cities has commenced and will only get worse," Parker said in a statement. "The law is clear that the defendants are responsible for the consequences of their reckless and disastrous actions."

    https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/09/20/stories/1060061247
    

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25. San Francisco, Oakland Sue Oil Companies over Climate Change

    Sep 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama

    San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., are suing five major oil companies, blaming them for the effects of climate change.

    The cities announced Wednesday they each filed a lawsuit in their respective county courts against Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., ExxonMobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and BP.

    The lawsuits by two of California’s largest cities add to an emerging legal strategy to try to hold individual fossil fuel companies responsible for rising sea levels, extreme weather and other effects of human-induced climate change.

    “These fossil fuel companies profited handsomely for decades while knowing they were putting the fate of our cities at risk,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera (D) said in a statement.

    “Instead of owning up to it, they copied a page from the Big Tobacco playbook. They launched a multi-million dollar disinformation campaign to deny and discredit what was clear even to their own scientists: global warming is real, and their product is a huge part of the problem,” he continued.

    “These companies knew fossil fuel-driven climate change was real, they knew it was caused by their products and they lied to cover up that knowledge to protect their astronomical profits,” said Barbara Parker (D), Oakland’s city attorney.

    “The harm to our cities has commenced and will only get worse,” she said.

    The attorneys cite company and industry documents they say show oil companies knew about the risks of climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions, but chose to publicly sow doubts about.

    The cities sit on opposite sides of San Francisco Bay, which has already seen rising water levels due to climate change. The city attorneys say that further increases in sea level would inundate properties and cause billions of dollars worth of damage.

    The lawsuits are far from the first attempt to sue fossil fuel companies for climate change, but previous actions have not been successful. A 2008 lawsuit by an Alaska village, for example, was dismissed because the federal court ruled that the Clean Air Act overrode any public nuisance claim.

    But just two months ago, Marin and San Mateo counties, also in Northern California, sued some major oil companies in state court using similar arguments.

    Chevron said it welcomes opportunities to fight climate change, but the cities’ lawsuits are not constructive.

    “Chevron welcomes serious attempts to address the issue of climate change, but these suits do not do that,” the company said in a statement.

    "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue that requires global engagement and action. Should this litigation proceed, it will only serve special interests at the expense of broader policy, regulatory and economic priorities.”

    “The claims in these lawsuits are without merit,” said Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri. “We will vigorously defend ourselves against them.”

    http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/351603-san-francisco-oakland-sue-oil-companies-over-climate-change
    

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