Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 25/9/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Economists See Slower Growth for U.S. Than Trump Does
Sep 25, 2017 | USA Today
The pace of U.S. economic growth will stay stuck in the low 2% range in 2017 and 2018, far slower than the 3% pace President Trump has been targeting, according to the latest survey of nearly four dozen economists by the National Association for Business Economics. -
Trump Nominates Product Liability Defence Lawyer to US CPSC Vacancy
Sep 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
US President Donald Trump has chosen a lawyer who specialises in defending companies against product liability claims, to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. -
Economic Gains, 9.5 Billion Tons Emissions At Stake In Trump Defense Of Obama-Era Policy
Sep 25, 2017 | Energy Collective
By Robbie Orvis
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington recently vacated one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s most promising rules for reducing the use of high global warming-potential refrigerants hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), in air conditioners, refrigerators, solvents, and other applications. -
Company Long Knew of Asbestos Risk in Baby Powder — Lawsuit
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Johnson & Johnson may have known for decades that its talcum powder contained asbestos fibers linked to ovarian cancer, according to a lawsuit involving 50 St. Louis women. -
EPA Identifies Rules Ripe for Repeal; Other Agencies Mum
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow and Hannah Northey
U.S. EPA submitted a final report to the White House yesterday on rules that are ripe for repeal because they may hamper fossil fuel production, a spokeswoman said. -
Permian Winning Streak Could Be Running Out
Sep 25, 2017 | Journal of Petroleum Technology
By Stephen Rassenfross
Hot shale plays tend to fall short of expectations after a few years, and the Permian Basin will be the next big test of the pattern. -
Exxon Aims to Slash Methane Emissions
Sep 25, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Exxon Mobil Corp. is rolling out a new program to cut methane emissions at its oil and natural gas drilling operations. -
Tennessee Chemical Plant Could Be Offline For Months Due To Explosion
Sep 25, 2017 | Manufacturing.net
By Meagan Parrish
A Wacker Chemie plant in Charleston, Tenn. could be offline for several months as the company completes an investigation into an accident that occurred earlier this month. -
Fatal W.Va. Blasts Occurred During Tank Cleaning — CSB
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Two explosions that killed three West Virginia workers in May were likely caused by "unintended chemical reactions" in tanks they were cleaning, according to an update released Friday by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. -
Residents Don Wristbands to Detect Chemicals
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Researchers are asking victims of Hurricane Harvey as they return home to wear wristbands that detect the presence of hazardous chemicals in air and water. -
USDOT Publishes First Report on Tank-Car Fleet Composition
Sep 25, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has unveiled its first report on data measuring the rail industry's progress in manufacturing and modifying rail cars that transport flammable liquids. -
EPA Sends Ozone Implementation Rule to White House
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
With U.S. EPA nearing a key compliance deadline for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, the agency has sent a related regulation to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to the Reginfo.gov site. -
Team to Examine How Agency 'Engages With Industry'
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
U.S. EPA announced the formation of a Smart Sectors team as part of a planned restructuring for its policy office. -
Energized by Trump, Climate Critics Seize on New Study
Sep 25, 2017 | Politico PRO
By Emily Holden
A small, vocal community of climate change skeptics is using the Trump administration's climate policy rollback and its doubts about humans' role in boosting temperature to dig into unsettled issues — including a new report that indicated countries may have more latitude in curbing emissions. -
Trump Transition Targeted Climate Records
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Scott Reilly
Members of President Trump's U.S. EPA transition team were frustrated in their requests for documents dealing with climate change and carbon regulations.
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(ACC Mentioned) Economists See Slower Growth for U.S. Than Trump Does
Sep 25, 2017 | USA Today
The pace of U.S. economic growth will stay stuck in the low 2% range in 2017 and 2018, far slower than the 3% pace President Trump has been targeting, according to the latest survey of nearly four dozen economists by the National Association for Business Economics.
The economy's estimated trajectory was unchanged from NABE's last survey in June, with economists still expecting the economy to grow 2.2% in 2017 and 2.4% next year. Although the economy has been picked up steam in recent quarters, "the weak start to the year is expected to hold the average annual GDP growth rate in 2017 to 2.2%," said NABE vice president-elect Kevin Swift, who is chief economist and managing director for the American Chemistry Council.
On the bright side, the odds of recession for this year and next remain low, according to the survey. "Panelists continue to believe that a recession is unlikely in the next two years," NABE said in a statement. The economists placed a 25% or less probability of recession this year and nearly three out of four economists estimated the same low odds of recession an economic slowdown in 2018.Finding work shouldn’t be workSponsored by The Job Network
When looking at the economy's annual growth on a fourth-quarter to fourth-quarter basis, the economists surveyed by NABE expected 2.3% growth in 2017 and 2018, which is in line with Trump's 2017 projection but below the 2.5% expected growth rate the administration forecasts in 2018, according to the administration's economic assumptions.
In the long run the Trump administration sees GDP growth to "increase gradually to 3% by 2020," which is slightly below the average growth rate since World War II. The faster growth projections are seen as resulting from the administration's "productivity-enhancing policies, such as tax reform, infrastructure investments, reductions in regulation, and a greatly improved fiscal outlook," the administration noted in its economic assumptions that underlie its Fiscal Year 2018 Budget.
If the projections of the 47 economists are on target, it would be a negative for Trump, who has been banking on faster growth to help generate more revenue for the nation and help pay for his proposed tax cuts.
Nearly three out of four (73%) economists surveyed said they anticipate both individual tax cuts and corporate tax reform to occur by the end of 2018, down slightly from the June report. And 61% expect Trump's infrastructure spending plan also to be passed by Congress by the end of next year. If passed, the money would help pay for costs related to upgrading the nation's bridges, tunnels, roads, airports and other infrastructure.
If these changes to fiscal policy are put in effect next year, it will add a quarter of a percentage point or, 0.25%, to U.S. GDP in 2018, the survey found.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/25/economists-see-slower-growth-u-s-than-trump-does/699429001/
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Trump Nominates Product Liability Defence Lawyer to US CPSC Vacancy
Sep 25, 2017 | Chemical Watch
US President Donald Trump has chosen a lawyer who specialises in defending companies against product liability claims, to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
President Trump, the administration announced, will nominate Dana Baiocco, a Boston-based partner at the international Jones Day law firm, to a seven-year term.
The term of Commissioner Marietta Robinson (D) will expire on 30 September, and President Trump was widely expected to shift the balance of power by appointing a Republican.
By law, the five-member CPSC cannot have more than three commissioners of the same party. The importance of who holds the majority was clear when the panel voted 3-2 to ban the use of organohalogen flame retardants in several consumer product categories. That precedent-setting decision came the day before Ms Baiocco's nomination was announced.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will consider Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle’s nomination to fill that post permanently at a 27 September hearing. The administration has indicated it will nominate her to serve an additional seven-year term when her current one expires in October 2018. The committee has not yet scheduled a hearing on Ms Baiocco's nomination.
Experience
According to the Jones Day website, Ms Baiocco is "known for strategic business advice and high-intensity trials involving mass torts, consumer and industrial products, and medical devices". It said she "counsels clients on minimising risks, regulatory and reporting obligations, warranties and CPSC product recalls".
Ms Baiocco defended Yamaha against multiple claims resulting from rollover accidents in its Rhino all-terrain vehicle. The CPSC launched an investigation in 2009 after at least 46 occupant deaths were reported, and reached an agreement with the company to suspend sales and make safety improvements.
She also successfully defended a respirator manufacturer in a lawsuit brought by the family of a man who died of asbestos-related illness. The court agreed the plaintiff had failed to identify defects in the equipment, which was in compliance with the standards set by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh).
https://chemicalwatch.com/59294/trump-nominates-product-liability-defence-lawyer-to-us-cpsc-vacancy
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Economic Gains, 9.5 Billion Tons Emissions At Stake In Trump Defense Of Obama-Era Policy
Sep 25, 2017 | Energy Collective
By Robbie Orvis
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington recently vacated one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s most promising rules for reducing the use of high global warming-potential refrigerants hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), in air conditioners, refrigerators, solvents, and other applications.
With its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals dealt a blow to the Obama Administration’s climate legacy as well as the current Trump Administration, which had supported the regulation upon the urging of U.S. chemical companies Honeywell International Inc. and The Chemours Co.
Now, the Trump Administration must choose if it will side with business interests and appeal the decision, or continue its full-court press against actions to reduce emissions and slow climate change – and the decision could have unexpectedly large implications for climate change as well as the economy.
The court ruling risks between 3.6 billion and 9.5 billion metric tons of avoided emissions by 2050, making it harder for U.S. companies to participate in the global HFC phasedown and preventing consumers from accessing net cost savings from HFC alternatives. The ruling could also make it more challenging for the U.S. to meet the commitment it made to the United Nations in 2016 to reduce HFCs and slow climate change. However, several other avenues for regulating HFCs already exist, and new legislation, regulations, or rules remain a hopeful possibility.
Domestic HFCs Could Remain High Under Ruling
The 2015 EPA regulation updating the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program would have significantly reduced the use of HFCs with high global warming potential in certain applications such as air conditioners, refrigerators, foams, and aerosols, over the next five to ten years.
HFCs, which are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, were banned across Europe in 2012, and would have been increasingly phased out in EPA’s proposed updates. The updates the SNAP rule would have reduced emissions from HFCs nearly 30%, preventing up to 162 million metric tons (MMT) of emissions per year. Cumulative reductions would have totaled more than 3.6 billion metric tons through 2050, equivalent to more than half of the U.S. economy’s total emissions in a single year.
EPA’s SNAP program garnered support from environmental advocates as well as multiple U.S. companies who had committed to HFC reductions. Honeywell and Chemours, two large US chemicals companies that make HFC substitutes, have pushed for an HFC phase down for years and supported the EPA’s decision during litigation. Chemours (the largest HFC substitute manufacturer) expected its primary line of HFC alternatives to be used in 10,000 supermarkets by 2018 and in 85 million cars within a few years, and reported a 24 percent increase in sales of its alternative worth $710 million in the second quarter of 2017.
Global HFC Reductions Also At Risk
The court’s decision hinged upon whether EPA could use the Clean Air Act to phase out certain HFCs, and unfortunately, the impact of that decision could extend beyond the reductions required under SNAP by hindering further HFC reductions under the Kigali Amendment. This international treaty negotiated under the Montreal Protocol by delegates from across the world in October 2016 would gradually phase out HFCs.
Under Kigali, HFC use in the U.S. is required to decrease 85 percent from 2019-2036 by phasing down the use of all major HFCs in air conditioners, refrigerators, aerosols, foams, solvents, and fire protection chemicals. However, SNAP was one of the most promising options to meet this target, and it is now unclear how the U.S. will achieve the required reductions.
If the U.S. were able to implement Kigali as planned, HFC emissions would fall nearly 90 percent by 2050, or nearly 500 MMT of carbon dioxide per year, equal to 5-10 percent of total forecast U.S. emissions in 2050. Through 2050, U.S. reductions under the Kigali Amendment would total nearly 9.5 billion metric tons, or about one and a half years’ of total U.S. emissions. EPA’s SNAP rule as finalized in 2016 could have provided about 33 percent of the emissions reductions needed to fully implement the Kigali Amendment, while providing policymakers and regulators with a clear option for further ratcheting down emissions.
Despite Setback, Several Promising Avenues for HFC Reduction
Beyond the climate change concerns, the court decision could have wide-ranging business implications, and could lead to a corporate-led appeal of the ruling if the Trump Administration does not intervene. Two foreign companies, Mexichem and Arkema, brought the legal challenge to EPA’s SNAP rule because they can gain international market share if the U.S. does not implement the standard. Several U.S. companies have pushed for an HFC phase-down for years, and Honeywell and Chemours cited their opportunity to profit from manufacturing HFC substitutes in their court filings.
Even if the court’s current ruling stands, Congress could take action by passing legislation that would allow EPA to regulate HFCs. That may seem unlikely considering the gridlock endemic in today’s Congress, but legislators should reasonably be expected to support standards that benefit some of America’s largest companies as well as human health.
While the current administration has not indicated an interest in reducing emissions, if business interests can persuade EPA to reduce HFCs for economic reasons , it could take alternative avenues to uphold America’s commitment to the Kigali Amendment. For example, EPA’s greenhouse gas requirements for passenger cars allow manufacturers to improve air conditioning leakage rates and replace HFCs used for air conditioning with non-GHGs to comply with the rule, and similar approaches are possible using existing rules at EPA like the Clean Air Act or Toxic Substances Control Act.
http://www.theenergycollective.com/energy-innovation-llc/2413187/economic-gains-9-5-billion-tons-emissions-stake-trump-defense-obama-era-policy
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Company Long Knew of Asbestos Risk in Baby Powder — Lawsuit
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Johnson & Johnson may have known for decades that its talcum powder contained asbestos fibers linked to ovarian cancer, according to a lawsuit involving 50 St. Louis women.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the drugmaker say unsealed documents show Johnson & Johnson knew the talcum powder contained the carcinogen back in the 1970s.
But an undated memo unsealed in the suit shows that the company instructed employees to reassure concerned consumers that asbestos "has never been found and it never will" in the talcum powder.
Johnson & Johnson faces more than 5,000 lawsuits across the country alleging that its baby powder products led women to develop ovarian cancer.
In an unsealed document from May 1974, an official at a Johnson & Johnson mine in Vermont suggested using "citric acid in the depression of chrysotile asbestos" from talc gathered there.
"The use of these systems is strongly urged by this writer to provide protection against what are currently considered to be materials presenting a severe health hazard and are potentially present in all talc ores in use at this time," the official wrote.
The unsealed documents add new dimension to the suits after five juries have ruled against Johnson & Johnson and the company has won one case (Greenwire, Aug. 22). Some claims have been thrown out.
The drugmaker maintains that testing of its talcum powder dating back to at least 1972 indicates no traces of asbestos.
"We are confident that our talc products are, and always have been, free of asbestos, based on decades of monitoring, testing and regulation," Johnson & Johnson spokesman Ernie Knewitz said in an emailed statement (Feeley/Fisk/Hopkins, Bloomberg, Sept. 21). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061565
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EPA Identifies Rules Ripe for Repeal; Other Agencies Mum
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow and Hannah Northey
U.S. EPA submitted a final report to the White House yesterday on rules that are ripe for repeal because they may hamper fossil fuel production, a spokeswoman said.
The agency submitted the document in compliance with President Trump's March executive order on regulations, E.O. 13783, and subsequent Office of Management and Budget guidance, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman told E&E News.
"In accordance with EO 13783 and OMB's implementing guidance, EPA will be submitting its report to the White House and making it publicly available," Bowman said in an email.
In addition to quashing several of the Obama administration's climate policies, E.O. 13783 directed all federal agencies to submit a roundup of existing policies that "potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy resources."
Earlier this year, agencies submitted draft reports to the vice president, the OMB director and other top administration officials (Greenwire, July 26).
Clean Power Plan foe and conservative attorney Samantha Dravis led EPA's efforts (Greenwire, April 4). While that agency confirmed its compliance with the deadline set forth by the executive order, others stayed mum.DOE, DOT
The Department of Energy didn't respond to multiple requests for comment on its work to comply with the executive order, an effort being led by Dan Simmons, a political appointee overseeing the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
But sources suggested the agency could look to efficiency standards as one area for potential cuts and changes, and DOE has already moved to fast-track small export projects shipping domestic gas to foreign shores.
Any effort to shift the agency's position on efficiency mandates could see pushback from advocates who have argued that the department has a history of overestimating the costs of rules.
"We review the substantial record that demonstrates that DOE has a track record of overestimating the costs of new standards," wrote a coalition of efficiency groups in July.
The Department of Transportation and the Agriculture Department did not return multiple requests for comment about their submissions to the White House.
While OMB guidance exempted agencies that don't deal with the development or use of domestically produced energy, a DOT spokeswoman previously told E&E News that the department was preparing a draft report.
DOT's final document is expected to include recommendations for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and for the agency's corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) program.
The agency is also reviewing guidelines for autonomous vehicles and the environmental review process for large construction projects.Interior, FERC, NRC
When asked about a final report, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Smith said, "We have no announcements at this time."
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Mary O'Driscoll said FERC "will make public its actions related to an executive order as appropriate based on the executive order and the commission's internal processes."
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Scott Burnell said OMB's guidance exempted independent regulatory agencies such as NRC, and it was not voluntarily preparing a final report.
Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate with Public Citizen's Congress Watch, said he suspects some agencies may have missed yesterday's deadline; their past compliance with executive orders has been scattershot.
"I've definitely seen that agencies have been missing those deadlines so far," Narang said. "So I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up missing this deadline, as well."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061577
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Permian Winning Streak Could Be Running Out
Sep 25, 2017 | Journal of Petroleum Technology
By Stephen Rassenfross
Hot shale plays tend to fall short of expectations after a few years, and the Permian Basin will be the next big test of the pattern.
A recent technical paper by Robert Clarke, research director for Lower 48 Upstream for Wood Mackenzie, questions whether future drilling in the Permian can increase its production by 150% by 2025, as his consultancy has predicted. The answers he offers do not change the consultancy’s 2025 prediction, but it does show that output results could vary widely based on how unconventional producers deal with the challenges ahead.
“There is a lot of exuberance in low-cost unconventional plays in their early years,” he said on a recent podcast from Wood Mackenzie, adding, “In retrospect, the first 3 years of a shale play are easy, then it gets harder.”
While older plays such as the Marcellus and Bakken hit economic limits due to limited pipeline capacity, Clarke’s big concern in the Permian is more geological. There have been reports that wells added to develop rock near the original “parent wells” may deliver significantly lower estimated ultimate recoveries (EUR).
Recent technical papers delivered at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference reported that infill wells—“child wells”—could have ultimate recovery rates 20-40% lower than the parent wells nearby, he said.
To test if that shortfall could become common, Clarke searched the Wood Mackenzie North American well database to find parent and child pairs similarly completed. Those 20 Eagle Ford wells showed similar drop-offs in the second generation.
While the percentage of infill wells is not significant now, the child wells will have a large impact next decade.
“You are drilling wells with a EUR of X and we will be drilling really, really hard for the next 3-4 years. We will exhaust a lot of parent locations,” Clarke said. “We will keep drilling hard but we will be drilling into pressure-depleted areas and if all the EURs for those future child wells are 0.7 X (EUR), it will be very, very hard for the Permian to keep growing.”
Adding wells that produce less in developed areas can still be profitable in spots where the cost of developing the field has already been paid, said R.T. Dukes, research director for Wood Mackenzie, who discussed the outlook with Clarke on the podcast. And the productivity loss per foot will be easy to miss because wells now are so much longer.Major Uncertainty
Clarke’s three scenarios ranged from 1 mm B/D less than Wood Mackenzie’s 5 mm B/D reference case for 2025, to more than a 500,000 B/D above it. The gap between the high and low estimates offered in the scenarios in the report is 1.5 mm B/D, which Clarke points out is “more than the Bakken has ever produced.”
The big variable is technology. Until now, production from unconventional rock has advanced with the methods used to extract it. For example, the average EUR for wells in the Wolfcamp, a prime unconventional horizon in the Permian, doubled between 2013 and 2016 due to better reservoir models, targeting the best rock, and completions that were bigger and better executed.
Those solutions, though, depended on targeting the best rock, which is gassy with relatively high pressure. As that pressure drops, the gas drives production of liquids. Over time, the production and pressure goes down. In the future, a high percentage of the targets will be 500 ft or less farther from these low-pressure zones.
While completions are designed to focus on evenly fracturing rock within a confined area, it is clearly hard to control the flow of the high-pressure streams injected during hydraulic fracturing. A recurring theme in the presentations are URTec was frac hits—fluid flowing from well to well during fracturing that can significantly reduce production, but not always.
Tight spacing increases the risk of hits, but the industry is not likely to stop doing it because there is an upside to fracturing nearby. To get a sense of where the industry is headed, Clarke will keep up on the technical papers.
“We follow the technical commentary from SPE and others because we think it gives us a notion of what will happen in the future,” he said, adding, “some things that occurred that were important with investors we can back up and say that was very important to geologists and engineers a year before.”
https://www.spe.org/en/jpt/jpt-article-detail/?art=3452
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Exxon Aims to Slash Methane Emissions
Sep 25, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Exxon Mobil Corp. is rolling out a new program to cut methane emissions at its oil and natural gas drilling operations.
The moves at Exxon come as the Trump administration works to dismantle aggressive methane-reduction regulations that were written by the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department but opposed by much of the oil and gas industry.
Methane is the main component of natural gas, and a greenhouse gas as much as 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide by volume.
Exxon’s efforts are focused mostly on its fracking and unconventional drilling subsidiary XTO Energy.
The company is switching to pneumatic pumps designed to reduce methane leaks, implementing new leak detection and repair programs and investing in new research, it said in a Monday statement.
“Our comprehensive initiative is underscored by a technology research and testing effort, and includes personnel training, equipment phase out and facility design improvements,” XTO President Sara Ortwein said in the statement.
Exxon’s announcement elicited praise from the Environmental Defense Fund, which has been working for years with industry and government to try to cut methane emissions.
“XTO Energy is showing real leadership in addressing methane emissions at key sources across its U.S. operations. Delivering on this promise will make XTO a stand-out among the U.S. oil and gas industry,” Mark Brownstein, vice president for climate and energy at EDF, said in a statement.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/352239-exxon-aims-to-slash-methane-emissions
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Tennessee Chemical Plant Could Be Offline For Months Due To Explosion
Sep 25, 2017 | Manufacturing.net
By Meagan Parrish
A Wacker Chemie plant in Charleston, Tenn. could be offline for several months as the company completes an investigation into an accident that occurred earlier this month.
On Sept. 7, some kind of mechanical problem triggered a hydrogen leak and subsequent fire at the $2.5 billion polysilicon plant. The incident released a large cloud of hydrochloric acid into the air and injured five plant workers. The company said it was able to contain the chemical release by pouring water on it.
According to Reuters, the plant, which was finished last year, manufacturers about a quarter of Wacker’s annual production of polysilicon — a key ingredient to make solar cells.
Immediately after the incident, the company said it would not reopen until the cause of the accident was identified.
The company is reportedly working with an “independent expert team” along with government officials — but it could take “several months” before the plant restarts.
“Production will not start until a thorough inspection is completed and it is certain that the facility is safe,” Tobias Brandis, global president of Wacker’s polysilicon division, said.
The company reported that it will still be able to fulfill existing orders using its stockpiled inventory and polysilicon produced at two of its German facilities.
Wacker does not expect the lost production to impact its profit forecast because insurers will compensate Wacker for physical damage and the lost production time.
https://www.manufacturing.net/news/2017/09/tennessee-chemical-plant-could-be-offline-months-due-explosion
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Fatal W.Va. Blasts Occurred During Tank Cleaning — CSB
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Two explosions that killed three West Virginia workers in May were likely caused by "unintended chemical reactions" in tanks they were cleaning, according to an update released Friday by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
Both blasts occurred at a Midland Resource Recovery industrial site in Barbour County while workers drained cleaning chemicals from tanks used to store natural gas odorizers, according to the report.
The report attributed both blasts to accidental chemical reactions but did not say how they might have occurred.
"The CSB is continuing to investigate the primary causal factors of both incidents," CSB wrote. The report did not discuss regulations or safety protections for the facility
The first Midland Resource Recovery plant explosion happened May 24, killing two, including Jan Strmen, an owner of Midland Resource Recovery. A second explosion June 20 killed another worker.
The explosions occurred while workers were decommissioning odorant tanks, containers used to give odors to dangerous substances to make them easily detectable (Ken Ward Jr., Charleston[W.Va.] Gazette-Mail, Sept. 22). — NB
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061579
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Residents Don Wristbands to Detect Chemicals
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
Researchers are asking victims of Hurricane Harvey as they return home to wear wristbands that detect the presence of hazardous chemicals in air and water.
The wristbands, provided by Oregon State University, detect both volatile and semivolatile chemicals, researchers said. They're being given to people living and working in homes that were flooded.
After a week, researchers from Oregon and Texas will collect the wristbands and analyze the findings, which could shed light on the possible health effects of exposure to contaminated floodwaters.
"It is so important to establish a cohort of those affected by Harvey to understand short-term and long-term health effects as a result of floodwaters," said Melissa Bondy, associate director for cancer prevention and population sciences at the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The Baylor College of Medicine in Houston is funding the study (Melissa Correa, KHOU, Sept. 25). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061561
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USDOT Publishes First Report on Tank-Car Fleet Composition
Sep 25, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has unveiled its first report on data measuring the rail industry's progress in manufacturing and modifying rail cars that transport flammable liquids.
Prepared by the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the report is required under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015. The bureau prepared the report in coordination with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The FAST Act calls for the department to collect data on the number of tank cars that have been built or modified to meet higher safety standards for the transportation of flammable liquids such as crude oil.
Congress has mandated the rail industry to phase out the use of DOT-111 rail cars for carrying hazardous materials or flammable liquids. The National Transportation Safety Board has called for replacing DOT-111 tank cars with DOT-117 cars as soon as possible.
At the end of 2016, 9 percent of the tank cars used to transport class 3 flammable liquids met the new safety standards, up from 2 percent in 2015, according to the new report, "Fleet Composition of Rail Tank Cars that Transport Flammable Liquids: 2013-2016."
Eighty-nine percent of the newer model DOT-117s and DOT-117Rs were used to carry crude oil and ethanol.
The report also noted that the increase in newer tank cars used to transport flammable materials coincided with a reduction in the number of tank cars needed to carry crude oil due to market forces and an overall reduction in the number of rail tank cars carrying flammable liquids.
Moreover, the bureau found:
• In 2016, 81,027 tank cars were used to transport class 3 flammable liquids. A majority (53 percent) were non-jacketed DOT-111 cars; followed by the non-jacketed CPC-1232 cars (15 percent); and jacketed CPC-1232 cars (10 percent).
• The percentage of non-jacketed DOT-111 cars carrying crude oil declined from 25 percent in 2013 to less than 1 percent in 2016.
• The percentage of non-jacketed DOT-111s carrying ethanol increased from 46 percent in 2013 to 65 percent in 2016.
• The percentage of jacketed CPC-1232 cars used for transporting crude oil fell from 87 percent to 65 percent between 2013 and 2016, while the percentage of non-jacketed CPC-1232 cars used for carrying ethanol rose from 3 percent to 20 percent during the period.
• Among the fleet of rail tank cars that meet the DOT-117 specification, 70 percent are new and 30 percent have been retrofitted.http://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/USDOT-publishes-first-report-on-tank-car-fleet-composition--52872
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EPA Sends Ozone Implementation Rule to White House
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
With U.S. EPA nearing a key compliance deadline for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, the agency has sent a related regulation to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to the Reginfo.gov site.
The site describes the regulation as both a "proposed rule" and a "final action" that will "establish the air quality thresholds that define the classifications assigned to all nonattainment areas" for the 2015 standard.
EPA had proposed an implementation rule last November; agency staffers could not immediately be reached for comment this morning on the extent to which the current regulation is related to last year's proposal. But Janice Nolen, assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association, said in an interview that the regulation is more related to attainment designations than to implementation, adding that it would set the thresholds to define where nonattainment areas fall on a sliding EPA scale that now ranges from "marginal" to "extreme" and how long they accordingly have to clean up.
"It's the framework for putting together the plans that will allow them to meet the standard," Nolen said.
EPA sent the regulation to OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs last Thursday, the Reginfo.gov site indicates.
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is linked to asthma attacks in children and worsened breathing problems for people with emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases.
Under the Obama administration, EPA tightened the ozone standard in October 2015 from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb, citing Clean Air Act requirements to protect public health in light of research showing that ozone is harmful at lower levels than previously thought. As a first step in the implementation process, states sent their attainment recommendations to EPA last fall; under a standard timetable, the agency is supposed to make final determinations by this Sunday, Oct. 1.
In June, however, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt ordered a blanket one-year extension for those decisions until October 2018, citing the need for more information. Pruitt then reversed that decision last month, but in a recent report, EPA officials left open the possibility of providing "additional relief" (Greenwire, Aug. 25). The attainment designations are key to implementation of the tighter ozone standard because they start the clock for out-of-compliance areas to come up with cleanup plans.
Meanwhile, a coalition of public health and environmental groups — later joined by 15 states and the District of Columbia — filed suit in July with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to block the initial blanket delay in attainment designations. While EPA attorneys have asked the court to dismiss the litigation as moot in light of Pruitt's reversal, the plaintiffs are seeking to keep it alive on the grounds that EPA could again attempt a postponement (Greenwire, Aug. 15).
As of this morning, the court had not ruled. John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is among the plaintiffs, said in an interview today that the court may be waiting to see what happens by Oct. 1.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061605
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Team to Examine How Agency 'Engages With Industry'
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
U.S. EPA announced the formation of a Smart Sectors team as part of a planned restructuring for its policy office.
The Smart Sectors team within the Office of Policy is set to "re-examine how EPA engages with industry," according to a Federal Register notice posted Friday.
The goal of the team is to "reduce unnecessary regulatory burden, create certainty and predictability, and improve the ability of both EPA and industry to conduct long-term regulatory planning while also protecting the environment and public health," according to the notice.
Samantha Dravis, top policy aide to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, previously hinted at the Smart Sectors team in an internal email obtained by E&E News (Greenwire, Sept. 7).
"The Sectors Team will develop strategies that better protect human health and the environment by engaging with partners at all levels to ensure the agency puts forth sensible regulations that encourage economic growth," Dravis said in the email.
"This team will coordinate with stakeholders to better understand their needs and challenges so as to improve environmental performance and inform smarter and more predictable rulemaking," she said.
While Dravis has promoted the policy office's restructuring as a way to boost the agency's efficiency, some critics have derided the effort as politically motivated.
Karl Brooks, who was acting chief of EPA's Office of Administration and Resources Management during the Obama administration, said he's keeping a close eye on whether the agency's reorganization effort is driven by political appointees.
"Personnel often makes policy," said Brooks, also a former EPA Region 7 administrator. "So if the administration shares a list of team members, I'd want to look at it really carefully."
He added, "Almost any time I see the word 'smart,' I'm always a little bit on alert. ... Sometimes when people use 'smart' when they're looking at regulation, what they're really talking about is less enforcement of the laws and less environmental protection."
James Goodwin, senior policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform, decried the Smart Sectors team as a means of giving industry even more input in the rulemaking process.
"The idea that we need to create yet another avenue for industry to express its views or concerns about regulations is bananas," Goodwin said.
"The whole regulatory process, from beginning to end, offers several opportunities for public participation, which industry not only avails itself of, but overwhelmingly dominates to the exclusion of public interests," he said.
The reorganization is set to occur Oct. 1, the start of the next fiscal year.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061583
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Energized by Trump, Climate Critics Seize on New Study
Sep 25, 2017 | Politico PRO
By Emily Holden
A small, vocal community of climate change skeptics is using the Trump administration's climate policy rollback and its doubts about humans' role in boosting temperature to dig into unsettled issues — including a new report that indicated countries may have more latitude in curbing emissions.
While the vast majority of the world’s scientists agree that human activity like burning fossil fuels is raising temperatures at a pace far faster than would naturally occur, studies are still staking out the specifics about the levels of greenhouse gas the atmosphere can absorb before the Earth reaches dangerous temperature benchmarks and how climate change influences extreme weather events.
A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience last week suggests the planet can tolerate more greenhouse gas emissions than previously forecast before reaching a critical point of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Earth’s temperatures are already up about 1 degree C above pre-industrial levels. Some respected scientists have disagreed with the methodology the authors used to come to their conclusions, but the study drew wide attention.
The conservative Heartland Institute, one of the biggest voices for U.S. climate skeptics, has seized on the research as proof that scientific models used to forecast temperature changes are wrong and overestimate the rate of global warming.
But the authors behind the study say their work has been willfully misinterpreted for political purposes. Damon Matthews, a study author and Concordia University research chair in climate science and sustainability, said the group had been prepared for its research to mischaracterized, but hadn't expected the reaction to be so intense.
“We are not trained in PR. We don’t have the resources to hire PR firms,” Matthews said. “We’re trying to balance teaching, research, media outreach. Our job is to do solid science and communicate that. It’s not really our job to guard against every possible critique, especially when they’re not real critiques.”
Climate science of any kind is under increasing scrutiny, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has called for public debates about whether humans are causing temperatures to rise. Trump administration officials gathered at the White House last week to hone their messaging on the issue.
Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, told POLITICO the new study supports the need for Pruitt’s debates.
“This is exactly the type of debate discussion scientists need to be having,” he said. “This article proved that there can be a lot of debate about the fundamental issues.”
Huelskamp said the study raises the question that “[i]f they were wrong 10 years ago, what makes their new modeling correct?”
Several scientists associated with the Heartland Institute have been nominated to EPA’s Science Advisory Board that reviews environmental regulations, according to E&E News. Heartland has also suggested researchers to take part in Pruitt’s red-team, blue-team exercise, but Huelskamp declined to release any of their names.
Huelskamp said he saw no scientific consensus supporting man-made climate change, and argued his side has “dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands that say that is not the case.” The mainstream research community has said the climate skeptics overstate their numbers and are amplifying their message through the White House.
Climate scientists fear critics at advocacy groups like Heartland cherry-pick details from research to try to fuel doubt that climate change is real and poses dire threats to the environment and human health.
“[T]here is no scientific result in our story that questions the basics of climate change and the imperatives for mitigation action,” Matthews said.
Pierre Friedlingstein, another co-author of the study and chair of mathematical modeling of climate systems at University of Exeter, said the new research showed the Earth has 20 years at the current rate of carbon dioxide emissions before lifting global average temperatures 1.5 C. That's more than the 10 years the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had estimated in its 2013 report, but “certainly not a reason to encourage inaction. The emission mitigation challenge in front of us is still herculean and unprecedented,” he said.
Previous research had estimated that countries had a total "carbon budget" between 200 billion to 400 billion metric tons of carbon emissions before temperatures climbed 1.5 C. But the new paper put the figure above 700 billion metric tons. That carbon budget is often used by policymakers to determine what actions they should take to curb climate change, and that's why the authors decided to take a second look.
Stefan Rahmstorf, the head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who outlined some doubts about the paper’s findings in a blog post on RealClimate.org, said the paper didn't alter the science showing action to reduce emissions needed to be taken.
“At this point, debating whether we have 0.2 [degrees] C more or less to go until we reach 1.5 [degrees] C is an academic discussion at best, a distraction at worst. The big issue is that we need to see falling emissions globally very, very soon if we even want to stay well below 2 [degrees] C,” he said.
The 2015 Paris climate agreement states the goal of keeping greenhouse gas emissions below the level that would cause 2 degrees C of warming, and the nearly 200 countries that signed on backed a more ambitious goal of keeping a temperature increase at no more than 1.5 degrees C.
Many island nations say that any warming over that level would be catastrophic for them. Fiji will chair the next United Nations meeting on climate change in November in Bonn, Germany, giving those countries a bigger spotlight.
Asked about the study last week, Fiji's' COP23 Chief Negotiator Ambassador Nazhat Khan said she wanted to wait for the IPCC report to “see exactly how we’re doing.”
“It would be great news,” she said. “We are committed to 1.5 degree target, and it is the 1.5 degree target that is going to give hope. ... On the question of whether things are better, we don’t know. We hear on a daily basis of more intense cyclones, and in the Pacific Rim itself we have disappearing shoreline.”
Richard Millar, the lead author of the new study and a research fellow at the University of Oxford, said the team tried to be clear that the paper does not argue for fundamentally revising ranges of uncertainty about how strongly the environment responds to carbon dioxide. Instead, the paper reinterpreted data that IPCC used to re-evaluate the world’s carbon budget.
“It’s because we’re so close that we’re thinking about how best to use the modeling tools we have available ... to really answer the direct question that’s required by policymakers,” Millar said.
Rahmstorf’s blog suggested the researchers found a bigger carbon budget because they had used a different baseline year when counting rising emissions, and incorporated recent temperature data that may not account fully for Arctic warming.
Millar explained that the research took into account a slowing growth in emissions by developing countries that have begun to back away from coal, and said he was disappointed that the paper's conclusions have been “willfully manipulated.”
“We tried our hardest to conduct a press briefing and put out there a clearly written, nontechnical blog trying to explain our finding,” he said. “There certainly seemed to be a sort of snowball effect.”
A first set of news articles covered the study well, he said, but then opinion writers followed and “facts got lost along the journey.”
Matthews said he expects that to continue.
“It’s fairly obvious that having people in the Trump administration who are openly questioning the science of climate change is going to give fuel to the people who were already doing that more quietly,” he said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2017/09/energized-by-trump-climate-critics-seize-on-new-study-162413
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Trump Transition Targeted Climate Records
Sep 25, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Scott Reilly
Members of President Trump's U.S. EPA transition team were frustrated in their requests for documents dealing with climate change and carbon regulations.
More than 1,000 pages of emails and other records obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act show that some of EPA's fiercest critics who served on Trump's transition effort, such as Christopher Horner and Dave Stevenson, sought specific, detailed records on controversies like "Climategate" and the social cost of carbon rule.
Yet at least five of the Trump transition team's information requests were denied or "disapproved" by Matt Fritz, then EPA's chief of staff serving under Administrator Gina McCarthy.
In a Dec. 20 email to Myron Ebell, the head of Trump's EPA transition team, Shannon Kenny, an EPA career official serving as the agency's transition coordinator, shared documents with him detailing the denied requests.
"Per the process you and Matt Fritz discussed at your initial meeting, I recorded your requests and shared them with Matt for his consideration," Kenny said.
"He has agreed to grant one of the requests, and I will post that information in the morning on the site."
EPA staff and transition team members had set up an internal website to share briefing materials with each other.
Attached to Kenny's message were several information access request forms, submitted by her at the behest of various members of Trump's transition team, that asked for documents held by EPA.
One request from Horner and submitted by Kenny was for a "specific memo discussing Climategate emails."
"Climategate" refers to the 2009 hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit's server. The scandal has resonated with several Republican lawmakers and climate change skeptics, who argue the emails showed global warming was a conspiracy among scientists. Several reviews of the stolen material, however, found no scientific misconduct (Climatewire, April 15, 2010).
"Subject line had words: 'Hacked Emails CRU.' Memo begins: 'Issues raised regarding climate research,'" said the form. It also noted that Horner believed a 13-digit control number was associated with the memo.
Asked why the information was requested, the form said, "Information needed to implement the president-elect's climate agenda."
In a section on the form showing a decision on the request, "Disapproved" was circled.
"The memo referred in this request will be withheld," said the form, followed by Fritz's signature as indication that the EPA chief of staff is who made the decision.
Other requests were not approved.
Horner also requested access to correspondence from a two-week stretch in November 2013 between Lorie Schmidt, EPA's associate general counsel for air and radiation, and Michael Goo, a former EPA policy chief during the Obama administration. Horner was interested in communications regarding carbon capture and sequestration, which were needed to implement Trump's "climate agenda."
Fritz also disapproved that request.
In addition, Horner sought access to communications sent to Al McGartland, director of EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, regarding setting discount rates for the social cost of carbon rule. Fritz denied that request as well.
Fritz told E&E News the information requests he disapproved were for documents not pertinent to the transition effort. Instead, they were related to some of the individual transition team members' prior litigation against EPA.
"These were related to topics that were already being litigated by members of the transition team," Fritz said. "They were related to very specific matters. They weren't related to matters of policy, of organization, of budget. ... They weren't relevant to actual transition items."
Fritz, who served nearly two years as EPA's chief of staff at the end of the Obama administration, said he didn't know Horner's motives in asking for the information but said the requests were part of a process set up with Trump's transition team.
"This was a process we established with the transition team, with Myron, that if they had requests for non-public information, we would have to approve them," said Fritz, who now works at the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP.
Horner told E&E News that his information requests were relevant to Trump's transition effort at EPA. He also said he has not requested the same information again since the transition team wrapped up and Trump's appointees took charge of the agency.
"Transition work was and is confidential. About whether I made the same request post-transition, no, I did not seek those records after the transition was over. They were sought for transition purposes," Horner said.
Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has relentlessly pursued EPA records in the past.
A foe of mainstream climate science, he has hunted down documents through FOIA requests and subsequent litigation, battling EPA in court to force the agency to cough up more records. His best-known find was former EPA chief Lisa Jackson's alternative email address, "Richard Windsor," named for her dog and hometown (Greenwire, Dec. 12, 2016).
Horner said it was logical for a new administration to review records dealing with possible policy shifts.
"With that said, it would make sense for a new administration team to review an agency's internal record of matters that are subject of changes in policy. Indeed, it seems irresponsible if one did not," Horner said.
Bob Sussman, who served as co-chairman of President Obama's transition effort at EPA, told E&E News that his team asked the outgoing George W. Bush administration about general policies at the agency.
"We did not zero in on what particular individuals had done or said on specific issues," Sussman said. "The focus was understanding the state of play in the agency, where regulatory actions stood and so on."
The Trump transition's targeting of EPA's climate change records calls to mind another episode from the recent changeover in administrations. At the Department of Energy, transition aides asked for the names of DOE employees who attended international climate change talks and worked on carbon rules, sparking cries of a "witch hunt" (Greenwire, Dec. 12, 2016).
Fritz said at EPA, his staff brought to his attention that Trump's transition team was discussing making a similar request, although it didn't follow through.
"They [were] talking about possibly requesting to find out who works on international climate, does international travel associated with climate here at the agency," Fritz said. "That request should be made in writing because there's also work associated with that to figure out exactly what they were looking for."
Fritz added, "They didn't ask for it formally, so it was something that was mentioned along the way. What they were going to do with that information, I have no idea."
In an email to E&E News, Ebell dismissed Fritz's comments as "speculation."
"How does he know we were, that is I was, thinking about it?" wrote Ebell, who is director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "Someone told him? We asked a lot of questions during the landing process, but that wasn't one of them."
Under the Trump administration, EPA has taken a much different tack on climate change.
Administrator Scott Pruitt has sought to roll back the agency's Clean Power Plan and has proposed a "red team, blue team" exercise to debate climate science. In addition, EPA took down its climate change website earlier this year.
Sussman, now a consultant, said the transition team's focus on certain EPA employees with its requests worried him.
"I'm sure the Obama folks had a very uncomfortable feeling that these questions were being asked for not learning about internal deliberations but for getting the goods on EPA and making a big public stink about it," Sussman said. "It sounds like an effort to find smoking guns so particular people could be rooted out or embarrassed publicly."
Other transition team members found their requests for information denied at EPA.
Stevenson, director of the Center for Energy Competitiveness at the Caesar Rodney Institute, also asked for access to communications to McGartland regarding a 2013 social cost of carbon report dealing with "the decision not to include domestic GDP impact." Fritz denied his request.
In an email to E&E News, Stevenson declined to comment, saying he was bound by a confidentiality agreement not to discuss the details of transition team activities.
According to one form submitted by Kenny, David Schnare, a member of Trump's transition team for EPA, requested to know, "Does EPA plan to settle the NOx and SOx NAAQS [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] case before January 20?"
Fritz disapproved that request.
Schnare was apparently referring to a lawsuit brought by environmental and public health groups last year seeking to lock EPA into firm deadlines for completing past-due reviews of existing standards for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx).
The reviews of NAAQS are required under the Clean Air Act. Days before Obama left office in January, EPA signed off of a tentative consent decree setting the deadlines (Greenwire, Jan. 17). The Trump administration made the settlement final in April.
Schnare told E&E News that he had never seen the form before and he never submitted a FOIA request for the information.
"It was the kind of question we were asking as we prepared the transition plan. There were several regarding various legal cases, and for the most part, the agency was quite unwilling to discuss those with the transition team," Schnare said.
Schnare, a former longtime EPA attorney who was general counsel for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, later joined Trump's "beachhead" team. He resigned from the agency this March.
"Once the beachhead team had been sworn in and were agency employees, we began to assemble reports on all current actions. The legal actions list was quite lengthy and would have included a statement on the status of the NOx [and] SOx litigation," Schnare said. "But frankly, I don't recall spending any time dealing with that."
With Schnare's resignation, none of the Trump transition team members behind the document requests is at EPA today.
Fritz said his disapprovals did not lead to protests from members of the transition team at the time.
"No one came back to me at the time to say, 'Can we discuss these further?' or asked, 'Why did you disapprove them?'" Fritz said.
Interest in workforce numbers
Records show Fritz did approve at least one information request.
Schnare asked how many non-career EPA employees had converted to career positions in the agency in the last 18 months. The then-EPA chief of staff signed off on disclosing that information.
Ebell would ask for information on the makeup of EPA's workforce.
"Attached is a breakout of # employees currently on board, by office, per your request," Kenny said in a Dec. 27 email to Trump's EPA transition chief.
Kenny included a spreadsheet detailing where all of EPA's nearly 15,000 employees were located in the agency.
Downsizing EPA's employment levels was a goal for Ebell. This January, he told E&E News he wanted to cut the agency's staff by 10,000 positions (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
The Trump administration has looked to shrink EPA as well. On the campaign trail last year, the president said he wanted to break apart the agency.
The White House's fiscal 2018 budget blueprint proposed cutting roughly 3,800 jobs at EPA, although lawmakers on Capitol Hill are not expected to follow suit. Nevertheless, hundreds of EPA employees have already left the agency after accepting buyout and early retirement packages this summer (Greenwire, Sept. 6).
Other information was prepared for Trump's transition team. EPA drafted a report, obtained by E&E News under FOIA, detailing major EPA regulations that had been finalized or were pending, as well as charts of key staffers and congressional committees with jurisdiction over the agency (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2016).
Kenny would also alert Ebell that outside groups were eager to talk to him and later Pruitt.
At least initially, EPA had little contact with the president's transition team in the first weeks after Election Day. McCarthy said in December that only one individual had visited the agency at that point.
"They're going to, as career staff, engage in that transition. We're most anxious to have the transition team around so we can have that conversation," McCarthy said (Greenwire, Dec. 5, 2016).
During that period, emails between Ebell and Kenny showed they both were left waiting for Trump to fill out his transition team at EPA. Individuals had to be cleared by the Obama White House before setting foot in the agency.
"Myron, the WH tells me that the President-elect's team turned in no names today for any agency," Kenny said in a Dec. 5 email.
"I flew in two people and have more on the way to brief your team — is that any chance they will turn in your names tonight?
"'Welcome to EPA!'
Transition records provided in response to E&E News' FOIA requests mostly deal with meetings and other mechanics associated with the handover of power. They also — for reasons that are unclear — include emails from then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign to then-Administrator Gina McCarthy's public-facing email address.
"Without you, this campaign would be NOTHING," one email reads.
"Governor Mike Pence WON last night's debate," said another.
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked EPA, even suggesting the agency should be abolished. Apart from Fritz's decision to deny most of the landing team's information requests, there's no evidence of tension in the communications between EPA employees and transition team members.
"Welcome to EPA!" Kenny wrote to Ebell late in November after an introductory meeting. "As we discussed, my goal is to be as helpful as possible in providing you and other members of the review team the support you need to prepare the President-elect's team to lead the agency beginning January 20."
That collegial tone continued throughout the transition, Ebell said in an interview last week.
Kenny "was unfailingly polite and proper," he said. "She did things by the book."
Sussman said transitions between administrations tend to be professional affairs.
"I remember the transition from Bush 1 to Clinton. That was relatively harmonious. ... There was a lot of cooperation there," said Sussman, who also served as deputy EPA administrator during the Clinton administration.
"Bush to Obama, we certainly came in with different ideas on how to run the agency. But the transition was fairly professional."
Lost 'beachhead' team members
The Monday after Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, EPA welcomed 10 members of the president's "beachhead" team to help smooth the transition from the Obama administration (Greenwire, Jan. 24).
Emails, however, show that initially there may have been 13, not 10, members of that group, which followed Ebell's landing team at the agency.
On the Monday before Inauguration Day, Kenny emailed Ebell with several questions, such as, "Is our list of 13 beach head team members (below) accurate and up-to-date?"
Included on Kenny's list were three names that were not part of the final beachhead team. They were Roger Martella, a former Justice Department attorney who served as EPA's general counsel during the George W. Bush administration and is now at General Electric Co.; Joseph Desilets, a Republican political operative who worked on Trump's campaign; and Brian Dansel, a former Washington state Republican senator.
Martella declined to comment for the record when contacted by E&E News.
In an email the following day, Kenny told Ebell, "We understand Roger Martella will not be joining at this time."
Via a Twitter message, Desilets confirmed to E&E News that he was offered an unspecified job at EPA but ultimately opted to work on special congressional elections in Georgia and Montana instead.
"I've been working on the campaign side of politics since college and I just wanted to stay on the trail instead of going into government at that time," he said.
Dansel would resign from the Washington state Senate on Jan. 24. He told lawmakers he was taking a job in the Trump administration — not at EPA but at the Department of Agriculture as a special assistant, according to The Spokesman-Review.
He was taken off the list of EPA beachhead team members. In a separate email to Ebell, Kenney said, "We just received an updated beach head list from GSA which removes Brian Dansel."
E&E News reached Dansel by phone. He declined to comment for this story.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/09/25/stories/1060061603
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