Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 20/10/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Harvey Sends Nearly All Commodity Resin Prices Higher
Oct 20, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The first shock waves from Hurricane Harvey impacted North American commodity resin prices in September. -
WHO's Cancer Review of Glyphosate Left out Evidence — Report
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
One of the world's most influential cancer research agencies omitted evidence in its review of glyphosate — a weedkiller used in Monsanto Co.'s signature product — that went against its conclusion that the chemical likely causes cancer in humans, according to a Reuters report. -
U.S. Companies Explore LNG Export Options off Mexico's Coast
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. energy companies have expressed interest in setting up an outlet for U.S. natural gas exports on Mexico's Pacific coast, Mexican government officials have confirmed. -
Okla. Scientist Says He Was Scolded for Linking Quakes to Industry
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Oklahoma's former state seismologist said in a deposition that he quit because he was reprimanded by a superior at the University of Oklahoma for linking the state's earthquake swarms to its powerful oil industry. -
Pruitt Tells Big Oil 'Sue and Settle' Is Over
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energwire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told oil industry executives here yesterday that the "sue and settle" tactics used by public interest groups should be banned across the government. -
Plant That Exploded During Harvey Could Face State Penalty
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Mike Lee
Texas environmental regulators are likely to file an enforcement case against the company that burned tons of hazardous chemicals when Hurricane Harvey flooded its Houston-area plant. -
Empty Chair Takes Center Stage at Cyberdefense Hearing
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A White House official's absence from a Senate hearing on cyberdefense yesterday struck a nerve among lawmakers worried about new digital threats. -
AAR Announces Holden-Proefrock, Grand Slam Awards for Hazmat Handling
Oct 20, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today announced the 2017 recipients of the Holden-Proefrock Award and 2016 Non-Accident Release (NAR) Grand Slam Awards, which are given annually to individuals and railroads that operate in the fields of hazardous materials. -
Study: Pollution Kills 9 Million a Year, Costs $4.6 Trillion
Oct 20, 2017 | AP (In The New York Times)
By Katy Daigle
Environmental pollution — from filthy air to contaminated water — is killing more people every year than all war and violence in the world. More than smoking, hunger or natural disasters. More than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. -
U.S. EPA to Shrink Response Time for Permit Requests: Pruitt
Oct 20, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will cut response times to permit requests to within six months by the end of 2018, part of the agency's goal to reduce regulations and delays, Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday. -
Missing Agency Webpages Return Without Climate Info
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
Some U.S. EPA webpages about climate change are trickling back onto the agency's website, but without references to rising temperatures. -
Pruitt Scrubs Climate, Renewable Energy Data for State and Local Governments From EPA Website
Oct 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has wiped much of the information that helps state and local governments fight climate change and invest in renewable energy sources from the agency’s website, according to an investigation by the Environmental Data and Governance Data Initiative. -
NYU Center Bolsters State AG Offices in Fight Over Trump Rollbacks
Oct 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
A new center at New York University's law school created to fight Trump administration climate and environmental rollbacks has announced it is placing fellows in seven state attorney general (AG) offices to help work on clean energy, climate change and environmental issues “of national and regional importance.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Harvey Sends Nearly All Commodity Resin Prices Higher
Oct 20, 2017 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The first shock waves from Hurricane Harvey impacted North American commodity resin prices in September.
The storm brought high winds, heavy rains and flooding to the Texas coast beginning on Aug. 25. Those conditions led to supply shutdowns for many commodity resins. Later difficulties in sourcing raw materials needed to make resins caused force majeure sales limits to be enforced.
North American polyethylene prices moved up an average of 4 cents per pound in September, with polypropylene prices increasing 7 cents, solid polystyrene prices ticking up 3 cents and PET bottle resin prices up an average of 4 cents, according to market sources contacted recently by Plastics News.
The PE pricing situation has been complicated by a series of increases released for different dates by different suppliers. DowDuPont Inc. and LyondellBasell Industries had a Sept. 1 enforcement date for the 4 cents, while several others had Sept. 15 and a few opted for Oct. 1, with no announced date in September.
Most market sources contacted by Plastics News indicated that PE buyers who didn't see the 4-cent increase in September likely would see it by Oct. 15. As a result, Plastics News is showing the 4-cent increase.
Nova Chemicals and several other PE makers now have announced additional 3-cent increases for Oct. 15. Market sources said that move has a good chance of being successful since some suppliers continue to operate under force majeure sales limits. Spot prices for PE had jumped 10 cents or more in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
One resin supplier said Harvey and Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida on Sept. 8, has caused "a nationwide shortage of available truck-load and bulk-truck capacity." Road freight demand is returning to Houston, according to the IHS Markit consulting firm, as immediate emergency relief gives way to longer-term rebuilding needs.
Storm-related PE supply issues also had helped a 3-cent August increase take hold, after it initially was thought to be unsuccessful. Prior to that August hike, regional PE prices had been flat for two consecutive months.
U.S./Canadian PE sales were mixed in the first eight months of 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council. Sales of high density PE were down more than 4 percent, as a domestic sales gain of almost 3 percent was wiped out by a drop of 27 percent in exports.
Low density PE sales ticked up almost 2 percent in those eight months, with a domestic sales drop of more than 1 percent negated by an export sales gain of more than 12 percent. In linear low density PE, regional sales grew almost 1 percent, as domestic growth of 3 percent was lowered by an almost 8 percent drop in exports.
The 7-cent PP increase for September mainly was the result of higher prices for polymer-grade propylene feedstock, which has been in short supply because of storm-related production issues. Prices had gone up 0.5 cents in both July and August after being flat in June.
At a recent meeting of the Western Plastics Association, PCW market manager Samantha Hartke said that additional PP price hikes could be on the way. The storm and other factors created a "more acute shortage" on the PP side than the PE side. The factors include a lack of pending PP capacity expansions.
North American PP sales were not robust in the first eight months of 2017, increasing less than 1 percent vs. the same period in 2016. Domestic sales grew almost 2 percent, while exports slipped 27 percent.
Regional PS prices moved up 3 cents in September after being flat in August and tumbling 4 cents in July. Some production of benzene, which is used to make styrene monomer, has been affected by Harvey. PS maker Americas Styrenics has announced a 3-cent increase attempt for Oct. 1.
North American PS sales fell almost 1 percent in the first seven months of 2017. A domestic sales loss of more than 1 percent was softened a bit by a boost of 17 percent in exports.
For PET bottle resin, North American prices moved up an average of 4 cents per pound in September, as markets worked to recover from the storm. Price increases ranging from 2.5 cents to 6.5 cents were reported for the month.
Although no PET resin production is on the Texas coast where Harvey hit, supplies of paraxylene and MEG feedstock there were limited, causing a crunch in PET production.
Prices for PET also moved up 2.5 cents in August and now have increased for four consecutive months.
Other factors have impacted the North American PET field in recent weeks. In mid-September, Mexican conglomerate Alpek announced that it was stopping shipments of a PET feedstock to two plants operated by M&G Group in Mexico and Brazil because of unpaid debts.
M&G Group's Project Jumbo PET site in Corpus Christi, Texas, was expected to add more than 2 billion pounds of capacity to the market later this year, but that project now faces uncertainty as well. Numerous contractors working at the site have said that they have not been paid by M&G.
An M&G spokesman told Plastics News that there was no update on the status of the Corpus Christi project.
PVC prices in the region were unchanged in September, but market sources said there's a good chance that a 5-cent hike will take hold in October. PVC maker Formosa Plastics Corp. USA has resumed PVC production in Point Comfort, Texas, a spokesman said, but continues to operate under force majeure for sales of the material.
U.S./Canadian PVC sales eked out growth of 1.2 percent in the first eight months of 2017. Domestic sales growth of just over 3 percent was weakened by an export sales loss of just under 3 percent.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20171020/NEWS/171019874/harvey-sends-nearly-all-commodity-resin-prices-higher
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WHO's Cancer Review of Glyphosate Left out Evidence — Report
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
One of the world's most influential cancer research agencies omitted evidence in its review of glyphosate — a weedkiller used in Monsanto Co.'s signature product — that went against its conclusion that the chemical likely causes cancer in humans, according to a Reuters report.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization's cancer agency, edited its draft review significantly before it was released to the public, according to documents seen by Reuters. The review has sparked international controversy and millions of dollars in lawsuits.
The France-based IARC is highly influential. Its findings in the 2015 report could prompt a ban on glyphosate in the European Union beginning next year, a potentially massive blow to Monsanto's best-selling Roundup product.
The agency found glyphosate to be a Group 2A carcinogen, meaning it probably causes cancer in humans. But IARC appears to have edited out research finding the chemical not to be carcinogenic in laboratory animals and emphasized potentially insignificant results indicating that it is.
It's also the only agency to review glyphosate that has found it to be a probable carcinogen.
IARC did not respond to questions about the review, saying the draft process is "confidential" and "deliberative in nature" (Kate Kelland, Reuters, Oct. 19). — NS
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064197
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U.S. Companies Explore LNG Export Options off Mexico's Coast
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. energy companies have expressed interest in setting up an outlet for U.S. natural gas exports on Mexico's Pacific coast, Mexican government officials have confirmed.
They declined to discuss names, or details, as there are none to be had, insisting that the idea is just talk for now. But a Pacific gas export pipeline through Mexico would provide another outlet for burgeoning U.S. natural gas production, and it would suit the Mexican government's goal of developing better gas infrastructure on that nation's west coast.
One idea would see the natural gas from Texas liquefied on the coast of Sonora and shipped via the Sea of Cortez as liquefied natural gas. The gas would be sourced from either the Eagle Ford Shale or the Permian Basin.
"Is there something concrete? No," cautioned Aldo Flores, deputy secretary at the Mexico Ministry of Energy. "It is at the idea stage. People are talking about it, but we haven't been presented with a proposal, so we have no concrete opinion on a concrete proposal, which doesn't exist."
Such a project could also provide impetus for building more gas infrastructure to the port city of Mazatlán, where it would supply power companies and industry.
There is also interest in allowing Mexican deepwater offshore oil producers to tie their production directly into existing offshore energy infrastructure on the U.S. side of the Gulf, said Juan Carlos Zepeda, president commissioner of the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH).
A first obvious candidate would be projects in the Perdido Fold region, which straddles the international maritime boundary. Royal Dutch Shell PLC has producing assets in Perdido, and Mexico's state-controlled oil and gas giant is developing the area.
Mexico's top energy regulators spoke to the business community here yesterday to provide the latest on that nation's decision to open its oil and gas industry to private foreign direct investment. The briefing was hosted at the downtown offices of the Greater Houston Partnership.
Would-be investors were told they can expect two more offshore lease bidding rounds next year, only on a much greater scale. The acreage to be made available in a January 2018 deepwater lease sale will be three times the area offered in the prior deepwater round, Zepeda said. A shallow water offshore lease auction will be twice as large as the first.
With oil prices recovering and the industry back on its feet, Mexico's energy authorities are increasingly confident of their ability to attract foreign investment in offshore drilling opportunities. Though vying with competing regions such as Colombia, Brazil and Canada, Mexico has so far been the most successful with its offshore lease sales, leasing some 73 percent of prospects put on offer since the energy sector reform initiative began, officials said.
"The south of the Gulf of Mexico is the most prolific region offshore North America," Zepeda boldly declared. As proof, he offered statistics compiled by Wood Mackenzie that show all Mexican offshore wildcat wells drilled from 1980 to 2016 generated 1.7 times the cumulative production of similar wells in the U.S. Gulf and 3.5 times the production of Brazilian wells. This despite Mexico only drilling 201 wildcat wells in that time span, compared with more than 3,000 in the U.S. and over 1,000 in Brazil.
So far, the nation has attracted some $61 billion in investments from the oil and gas industry. Major offshore finds have already been announced by a consortium led by Talos Energy LLC and by Italian oil and gas giant Eni SpA. The National Hydrocarbons Commission says Eni should put forward a development plan shortly, one that envisions delivering first oil from its offshore discovery beginning in 2019.
"And it's just the beginning," Flores said.
The January deepwater lease sale will feature 29 individual blocks and one farm-out opportunity with Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. The total lease sale holds a potential 4.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in resources, the government believes.
The shallow water offshore lease sale planned for March will seek to auction off drilling rights to 35 blocks with possibly 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in prospective resources.
Companies that prequalified for past lease sales will qualify for this one as well; all the regulators ask for is a letter confirming that the prior conditions are still met. And once again, the government is offering the industry a peek at its trove of data, including seismic surveys, well logs, and even physical cuttings and cores taken from past projects.
More transparency is coming as well.
Mexico is on the cusp of joining the International Energy Agency, Flores confirmed. With IEA membership come production, reserves and stockpiles reporting requirements expected of all members. As a net oil exporter, Mexico will not be tasked with building a strategic petroleum reserve, but Flores said the government will require the industry there to keep in storage at least 13 days' worth of gasoline and diesel stores. Companies will have until 2025 to meet this new requirement.
IEA membership hinges on the approval of the Senate in Mexico City, Flores stressed.
The government also recently published its proposed regulations for "unitization," the process where companies looking to develop the same oil and gas basin do so cooperatively, so as not to end up inadvertently overproducing or ruining the field. The proposed language went up online earlier this week, and companies have 30 days to offer their input as part of a public comment period.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064181
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Okla. Scientist Says He Was Scolded for Linking Quakes to Industry
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Oklahoma's former state seismologist said in a deposition that he quit because he was reprimanded by a superior at the University of Oklahoma for linking the state's earthquake swarms to its powerful oil industry.
Austin Holland had previously explained his summer 2015 departure from the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) as a search for life-work balance and a job offer in another state. But he testified last week that wasn't the whole story.
Holland told attorneys he quit because he'd been summoned to the office of university's dean, Larry Grillot, who "reprimanded" him for a study linking earthquakes to oil field disposal. Holland was one of 12 authors. Attorney Scott Poynter said Grillot told Holland the work was "unacceptable."
"Once he had this conversation and walked out, he knew he could no longer work there," Poynter said.
Poynter is pursuing a class-action lawsuit against New Dominion LLC, a Tulsa-based oil producer, which operated a disposal well near the center of a November 2011 quake. The magnitude 5.7 shaking near Prague, Okla., injured two people and destroyed more than a dozen homes.
Poynter and co-counsel Garvin Isaacs took Holland's deposition last week in Albuquerque, N.M., where Holland now works for the U.S. Geological Survey.
A New Dominion attorney declined to comment yesterday. Holland also declined to comment.
"I don't really need to talk about this," Holland said.
Scientists have known for decades that deep injection of industrial fluid can cause earthquakes in rare cases. The fluid seeps into faults, essentially lubricating them, and they slip.
In Oklahoma, production methods that result in unusually large volumes of wastewater have combined with favorably aligned faults to cause swarms of quakes.
Holland and OGS maintained for years that the Prague quake couldn't be conclusively linked to oil and gas operations. In 2013, the agency issued a statement attributing it to natural causes.
He testified last week that he found the statement "misleading" and said a New Dominion executive participated in an OGS meeting held to develop the statement.
Holland also testified that by the time he left in 2015, he was "80 to 90 percent" scientifically certain that the Prague quake was caused by oil field wastewater injection.
The scientist spent much of his tenure at OGS studying the state's earthquake swarms and fitfully navigating the state's oil field politics.
In 2013, Holland confided to a USGS official in an email that OGS scientists had believed since 2010 that earthquake swarms might have been triggered by oil field operations. But he acknowledged the agency hadn't told the public.
He told the USGS official OGS needed more proof. But when Holland did suggest connections between oil field activity and quakes, he often was summoned to meetings with high-level officials who weren't happy about it.
After OGS signed on to a USGS statement linking quakes to wastewater disposal in 2013, Holland was called to a meeting in the office of University of Oklahoma President David Boren with Boren and Continental Resources Inc. founder Harold Hamm. Both are looming figures in the state. In a 2015 interview with Al-Jazeera, Holland said Hamm told him to "watch how you say things" (Energywire, Dec. 9, 2015).
Shortly after that, when another burst of earthquakes rattled Oklahoma City, Holland pointed to changing lake levels.
Hamm has said he was actually concerned about Holland's research linking quakes to hydraulic fracturing and was not trying to bully him (Energywire, May 11, 2015).A connection in 2015
The earthquake rate started rising in Oklahoma in 2009, shortly before Holland started at OGS. It had averaged about two a year through 2008. The number of earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater reached 585 in 2014 and peaked in 2015 with 903.
USGS started attributing the rise in earthquake activity to wastewater injection in 2012.
But it took until April 2015 for OGS and state officials to publicly acknowledge such a connection.
The number of quakes has been declining since late 2015 or early 2016. The drop has been attributed to regulatory actions by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the price slump that led to decreased production.
Grillot was the dean of the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, which includes OGS. He'd worked for Phillips Petroleum Co. for 30 years before joining academia.
Grillot serves on the board of Pioneer Natural Resources, which he joined in 2013. Pioneer has coalbed methane production operations in Colorado that scientists have linked to earthquakes. He retired in 2015, shortly before Holland left.
In 2014, as he led an effort to clarify the OGS position on earthquakes, he was part of a team seeking $25 million from Hamm for a new building at the university (Energywire, June 23, 2015).
Attempts to contact Grillot yesterday were unsuccessful, but university spokesman Rowdy Gilbert sent a statement saying that scientists at the university are "empowered" to do research without "undue interference."
Gilbert's statement did not directly address Holland's accusation. But it did include a 2015 Holland quote, from an E&E News story about the pressure applied by Boren and Hamm (Energywire, March 3, 2015).
Asked about the pressure at the time, Holland had said, "We have the academic freedoms necessary for university employees doing research."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064179
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Pruitt Tells Big Oil 'Sue and Settle' Is Over
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energwire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told oil industry executives here yesterday that the "sue and settle" tactics used by public interest groups should be banned across the government.
Pruitt also told the industry to expect reforms that streamline government regulations, with the aim of limiting permitting decisions to within six months.
Sue and settle — a boogeyman of groups unhappy about environmental regulation — refers to the practice of suing the government to force an agency to make a regulatory change. The threat of a drawn-out lawsuit often leads to a negotiated settlement. Pruitt says environmental groups use the tactic to skirt a public comment period before regulatory changes are made as outlined by the Administrative Procedure Act.
"It's been going on for years," Pruitt said to a gathering of the Texas Oil & Gas Association (TXOGA). He characterized the practice as "an abuse of the Administrative Procedures Act" and touted his recent efforts to curb the practice (Greenwire, Oct. 16).
"When you encourage litigation to be filed against you by third parties and then walk into the courthouse to bypass that rulemaking process, that's wrong," he said. "That's what we ended this week."
Even if lawsuits are still filed against U.S. EPA, the agency now intends to bring daylight to those discussions. "The sue and settle practice at its core is regulation through litigation," Pruitt decried. "We will engage in settlement discussions, but we're going to post those settlement discussions for all the world to see, with comment so that stakeholders can make their voices heard."
EPA is developing new rules to block plaintiff's attorneys from cashing in on any deals reached with the government. Prior deals saw the government footing the tab for environmental groups' legal expenses.
Pruitt said he's encouraging other government agencies facing those tactics by interest groups to adopt EPA's resolve toward ending the practice. "Hopefully this will spur others in the U.S. government to do something similar in respect to addressing this abusive sue and settle," he said.
Pruitt's remarks, made during an open conversation with TXOGA President Todd Staples, largely toed the Trump administration's industry-friendly line. He said his intention is to bring EPA back to focusing on its core mission, in particular tackling Superfund cleanups that have lingered unaddressed for decades. As an example, he pointed to a plan EPA announced last week to clean up the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, a Houston-area Superfund site that's sat on the National Priorities List of the most polluted sites for more than 20 years.
He also touted the administration's efforts to kill the Clean Power Plan, an President Obama-era regulation to stem greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector.
Pruitt characterized the Obama administration's efforts targeting climate change as "just wrong-headed," pointing out how technological innovations in oil and gas have led to a dramatic reduction in the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide.
He also promised more regulatory relief in store with regards to EPA permitting. Pruitt complained about what he described as years of waiting for permits. Those days are coming to an end, he promised.
"By the end of 2018 every permit decision we need to make, every decision we make, up or down, you're going to know in six months," he said.
Moving permits forward and cleaning up Superfund sites in a timelier manner is "just a matter of leadership and focus," Pruitt said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064173
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Plant That Exploded During Harvey Could Face State Penalty
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Mike Lee
Texas environmental regulators are likely to file an enforcement case against the company that burned tons of hazardous chemicals when Hurricane Harvey flooded its Houston-area plant.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality used the potential enforcement case as an argument against releasing information about air and water tests at the Arkema Inc. plant.
"Based on prior dealings and the nature of the violations, TCEQ believes that subsequent referral of the matter to TCEQ's office of enforcement is likely," Charmaine Backens, an attorney for the agency, wrote in a letter.
A TCEQ spokeswoman cautioned that the agency is still investigating the case and hasn't made a final decision.
Arkema is cooperating with the TCEQ investigation and also with probes by U.S. EPA and local authorities, Janet Smith, a company spokeswoman, said in an email.
"These inquiries are to be expected following an industrial incident of this nature, and Arkema is cooperating with the regulators as they investigate," Smith said.
Arkema's plant in Crosby, Texas, about 25 miles east of Houston, manufactures organic peroxides, a class of chemicals used to make plastics and other products. Some of the chemicals have to be refrigerated to keep them from catching fire.
When the storm struck on Aug. 25, Arkema's plant flooded 6 feet deep in places, knocking out normal cooling systems and two backups. Arkema moved 500,000 pounds of chemicals into several trailers on remote parts of the site and allowed them to burn.
Local fire officials evacuated homes within 1.5 miles of the plant shortly before the first trailer exploded and caught fire early on Aug. 31. Other trailers caught fire over the next few days, and on Sept. 4, Arkema and local firefighters decided to deliberately ignite the remaining trailers (Greenwire, Sept. 5).
Arkema later reported some chemicals from the plant had spilled into floodwaters more than a day before the fires broke out (Energywire, Sept. 14).
TCEQ revealed the potential enforcement action in response to a request under the Texas Public Information Act. E&E News asked for copies of air, water and soil samples that were taken in the vicinity of the plant during the storm and its immediate aftermath.
TCEQ has copies of tests that were conducted by Arkema consultants, along with emails that discuss the tests, the agency said in response. It has asked the state attorney general's office whether the information is exempt from disclosure.
Under Texas law, state agencies can withhold information that's likely to be part of a lawsuit. In addition to its own potential enforcement case, TCEQ cited an ongoing lawsuit by a group of emergency workers who claim they were sickened while maintaining roadblocks around the burning plant and a potential lawsuit filed by Harris County (Energywire, Sept. 8).
The agency has also asked the attorney general to withhold the test results based on other exemptions to the Texas Public Information Act, including trade secret provisions and an exception for documents used in the deliberative process.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064221
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Empty Chair Takes Center Stage at Cyberdefense Hearing
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A White House official's absence from a Senate hearing on cyberdefense yesterday struck a nerve among lawmakers worried about new digital threats.
Rob Joyce, President Trump's cybersecurity coordinator, had been invited to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee to clarify the roles of various agencies responsible for defending critical U.S. networks from hackers.
"Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the White House declined to have its cyber coordinator testify," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the committee's chairman, said in opening remarks.
McCain noted that while there was legal precedent for the Trump administration's decision to block Joyce from appearing, "I believe the issue of cyber requires us to completely rethink our old ways of doing business."
A spokesman for the National Security Council said that "it has been the longstanding practice of Presidents of both parties not to make White House advisers available for congressional testimony or oversight," citing separation of powers and "the confidentiality interests of the executive branch."
That tradition didn't stop members of both parties from piling on Joyce's empty chair at the hearing, as an uptick in cyber intrusions has raised questions about government readiness.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) called it "outrageous" that Joyce could not appear, alluding to the need for a White House representative to address foreign hackers' attempts to sway last year's U.S. presidential election. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, urged McCain to consider using the panel's subpoena powers to compel Joyce to testify.
"I think that has to get discussed in the committee," McCain replied, later adding, "I believe you could interpret this [absence] as a misinterpretation of the privileges of the president."A 'systemic problem'
McCain has had sharp words for the Trump administration's cyber policies in the past.
In a speech at Arizona State University in August, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee blasted "inaction from the executive branch" on cybersecurity.
He also criticized the "poorly defined" cyber roles and responsibilities for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and FBI, three main agencies charged with responding to a major hacking strike on U.S. soil.
"It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think up how a sophisticated cyberattack to a power plant's industrial control system could cause a massive disruption, with grave consequences," said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
But legislative efforts to spell out a comprehensive U.S. cybersecurity strategy — from clarifying the duties of various agencies to setting a clear cyber deterrence policy — have hit roadblocks.
Experts and lawmakers have struggled to get past basic questions, such as defining what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace and when the military should get involved.
"The challenge that we have, that is somewhat unique in cyber, is defining a threshold that then does not invite adversaries to inch up close, but short of it," said Kenneth Rapuano, DOD's assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security.
He told lawmakers yesterday that the "downside" of a broadly defined cyber red line "is then it's too ambiguous to be meaningful as a deterrent."
Rapuano noted that U.S. Cyber Command is "developing a suite of capabilities against a variety of targets," including responding to an attack on U.S. critical infrastructure.
Defending infrastructure systems before an online attack falls not to DOD, but to DHS, whose top cyber protection official, Chris Krebs, also testified at yesterday's hearing. But DHS cannot directly guard the computer networks that keep the power grid running, as those are mainly owned and operated by the private sector.
Krebs said his department is looking at "scalable solutions" for utilities that don't require sending cyber specialists out to every facility in a "Whac-A-Mole approach."
He said DHS's goal is to address grid cyber vulnerabilities at the manufacturer level to "go to the root of the problem — a systemic problem."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064155
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AAR Announces Holden-Proefrock, Grand Slam Awards for Hazmat Handling
Oct 20, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today announced the 2017 recipients of the Holden-Proefrock Award and 2016 Non-Accident Release (NAR) Grand Slam Awards, which are given annually to individuals and railroads that operate in the fields of hazardous materials.
AAR named Paul Williams of Norfolk Southern Railway as the Holden-Proefrock Award winner. For 34 years, Williams has worked to ensure the safe transport of hazardous materials by rail.
In his current role as regional manager of hazardous materials, Williams oversees emergency response, regulatory support, and managing derailments and product releases across NS' Southeast region.
Williams is a former chairman of AAR's Tank Car Committee and continues to represent NS on the committee. Additionally, he plays a key role in NS's community outreach programs, according to an AAR press release.
Prior to joining NS in 2003, Williams held positions at the AAR, Bureau of Explosives in Washington, D.C., and the Transportation Technology Center's Security and Emergency Response Training Center in Pueblo, Colorado.
The Holden-Proefrock Award is named in honor of Roy Holden, a former AAR employee and an innovator in tank car design and safety, and Art Proefrock, a former Hulcher Emergency Services employee who pioneered hazardous materials transportation emergency response.
Meanwhile, AAR bestowed the 2016 NAR Grand Slam Awards on 21 companies. The award is given annually to companies that are "exemplary" shippers of hazardous materials. An award winner must have been recognized by at least four Class Is and have had zero NARs involving their shipments the previous calendar year.http://www.progressiverailroading.com/safety/news/AAR-announces-Holden-Proefrock-Grand-Slam-awards-for-hazmat-handling--53088
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Study: Pollution Kills 9 Million a Year, Costs $4.6 Trillion
Oct 20, 2017 | AP (In The New York Times)
By Katy Daigle
Environmental pollution — from filthy air to contaminated water — is killing more people every year than all war and violence in the world. More than smoking, hunger or natural disasters. More than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
One out of every six premature deaths in the world in 2015 — about 9 million — could be attributed to disease from toxic exposure, according to a major study released Thursday in the Lancet medical journal. The financial cost from pollution-related death, sickness and welfare is equally massive, the report says, costing some $4.6 trillion in annual losses — or about 6.2 percent of the global economy.
"There's been a lot of study of pollution, but it's never received the resources or level of attention as, say, AIDS or climate change," said epidemiologist Philip Landrigan, dean of global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and the lead author of the report.
The report marks the first attempt to pull together data on disease and death caused by all forms of pollution combined.
"Pollution is a massive problem that people aren't seeing because they're looking at scattered bits of it," Landrigan said.Continue reading the main story
Experts say the 9 million premature deaths the study found was just a partial estimate, and the number of people killed by pollution is undoubtedly higher and will be quantified once more research is done and new methods of assessing harmful impacts are developed.
Areas like Sub-Saharan Africa have yet to even set up air pollution monitoring systems. Soil pollution has received scant attention. And there are still plenty of potential toxins still being ignored, with less than half of the 5,000 new chemicals widely dispersed throughout the environment since 1950 having been tested for safety or toxicity.
"In the West, we got the lead out of the gasoline, so we thought lead was handled. We got rid of the burning rivers, cleaned up the worst of the toxic sites. And then all of those discussions went into the background" just as industry began booming in developing nations, said Richard Fuller, head of the global toxic watchdog Pure Earth and one of the 47 scientists, policy makers and public health experts who contributed to the 51-page report.
"To some extent these countries look to the West for examples and discussion, and we'd dropped it," Fuller said.
Asia and Africa are the regions putting the most people at risk, the study found, while India tops the list of individual countries.
One out of every four premature deaths in India in 2015, or some 2.5 million, was attributed to pollution. China's environment was the second deadliest, with more than 1.8 million premature deaths, or one in five, blamed on pollution-related illness, the study found.
Several other countries such Bangladesh, Pakistan, North Korea, South Sudan and Haiti also see nearly a fifth of their premature deaths caused by pollution.
Still, many poorer countries have yet to make pollution control a priority, experts say. India has taken some recent actions, such as tightening vehicle and factory emission standards and occasionally limiting the number of cars on New Delhi's roads. But they have done little about crop burning, garbage fires, construction dust or rampant use of the dirtiest fossil fuels.
A court ban on firework sales before the Diwali festival didn't stop New Delhi residents from firing rockets and lighting crackers throughout Thursday night. They awoke Friday morning to acrid, smoke-filled skies and levels of dangerous, lung-clogging particulate matter known as PM2.5 that went beyond 900 parts per million — 90 times the recommended limit by the World Health Organization, and 22 times higher than India's own limits.
"Even though better pollution norms are coming in, still the pollution levels are continuously increasing," said Shambhavi Shukla, a research associate with the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, which was not involved in the Lancet study.
To reach its figures on the overall global pollution burden, the study's authors used methods outlined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for assessing field data from soil tests, as well as with air and water pollution data from the Global Burden of Disease, an ongoing study run by institutions including the World Health Organization and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Even the conservative estimate of 9 million pollution-related deaths is one-and-a-half times higher than the number of people killed by smoking, three times the number killed by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, more than six times the number killed in road accidents, and 15 times the number killed in war or other forms of violence, according to GBD tallies.
It is most often the world's poorest who suffer, the study found. The vast majority of pollution-related deaths — 92 percent — occur in low- or middle-income countries, where policy makers are chiefly concerned with developing their economies, lifting people out of poverty and building basic infrastructure. Environmental regulations in those countries tend to be weaker, and industries lean on outdated technologies and dirtier fuels.
In wealthier countries where overall pollution is not as rampant, it is still the poorest communities that are more often exposed, the report says.
"What people don't realize is that pollution does damage to economies. People who are sick or dead cannot contribute to the economy. They need to be looked after" — which is also costly, Fuller said.
"There is this myth that finance ministers still live by, that you have to let industry pollute or else you won't develop," he said. "It just isn't true."
The report cites EPA research showing that the U.S. has gained some $30 in benefits for every dollar spent on controlling air pollution since 1970, when Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, one of the world's most ambitious environmental laws. Removing lead from gasoline has earned the U.S. economy another $6 trillion cumulatively since 1980, according to studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some experts cautioned, however, that the report's economic message was murky. Reducing the pollution quantified in the report might impact production, and so would not likely translate into gains equal to the $4.6 trillion in economic losses.
The report "highlights the social and economic justice of this issue," said Marc Jeuland, associate professor with the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Duke Global Health Institute at Duke University, who was not involved in the study.
Without more concrete evidence for how specific policies might lead to economic gains, "policy makers will often find it difficult to take action, and this report thus only goes part way in making the case for action," he said.
Jeuland also noted that, while the report counts mortality by each pollutant, there are possible overlaps — for example, someone exposed to both air pollution and water contamination — and actions to address one pollutant may not reduce mortality.
"People should be careful not to extrapolate from the U.S. numbers on net (economic) benefits, because the net effects of pollution control will not be equivalent across locations," he said.
The study's conclusions on the economic cost of pollution measure lost productivity and health care costs, while also considering studies measuring people's "willingness to pay" to reduce the probability of dying. While these types of studies yield estimates at best, they are used by many governments and economists trying to understand how societies value individual lives.
While there has never been an international declaration on pollution, the topic is gaining traction.
The World Bank in April declared that reducing pollution, in all forms, would now be a global priority. And in December, the United Nations will host its first conference on the topic of pollution.
"The relationship between pollution and poverty is very clear," said Ernesto Sanchez-Triana, lead environmental specialist at the World Bank. "And controlling pollution would help us address many other problems, from climate change to malnutrition. The linkages can't be ignored."
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/10/19/world/ap-global-pollution.html
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U.S. EPA to Shrink Response Time for Permit Requests: Pruitt
Oct 20, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will cut response times to permit requests to within six months by the end of 2018, part of the agency's goal to reduce regulations and delays, Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday.
The move comes as President Donald Trump pushes to shrink the size of government and cut regulations, especially on the coal and oil sectors.
"Regulatory uncertainty is the biggest reason why the U.S. economy isn't growing faster," Pruitt said in a panel discussion at the Texas Oil & Gas Association's Lone Star Energy Forum just outside Houston.
The EPA has in some cases taken several years to review some permit requests. Pruitt said cutting that response time was a key goal when he took office earlier this year, a task he delegated to Henry Darwin, his chief of staff and a former staffer at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.
"It can be done. It's just a matter of having the process in place to achieve results," said Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general.Continue reading the main story
Environmentalists have consistently challenged Pruitt's decisions atop the EPA, saying the agency is rushing approval of some projects that could harm the environment.
In his remarks to the crowd of oil and gas executives, Pruitt said he did not see his role as having to chose between the economy or environmental stewardship.
"One of the greatest challenges we have as a country is to ask the question, 'What is true environmentalism?'" Pruitt said. "Why can't we be about jobs and growth and environmental stewardship?"
Earlier this month Pruitt issued a notice that the agency intended to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which it said relied on controversial calculations of economic costs and benefits. Ending the rule could save $33 billion in regulatory costs, the EPA estimated.
Pruitt said he did not believe the EPA had the authority to regulate how electricity is generated under the Clean Air Act, , although former President Barack Obama's administration had taken the opposite approach.
The U.S. Congress, Pruitt said, should tell him how to proceed, vowing to take no action on the issue without legislative approval.
"If Congress hasn't given us the authority to do something, we can't do it," he said. "If they want to give us authority to regulate certain areas, they need to be specific and tell us."
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/10/20/us/politics/20reuters-epa-pruitt.html
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Missing Agency Webpages Return Without Climate Info
Oct 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
Some U.S. EPA webpages about climate change are trickling back onto the agency's website, but without references to rising temperatures.
Other webpages are still missing, having been replaced with messages indicating that they're being reworked to "reflect EPA's priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator [Scott] Pruitt."
On the pages that have been returned, certain links to data, newsletters and webinars related to climate have been removed, according to a new report from the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, which has been tracking webpage changes across government agencies. Some links have also been removed that once offered details about climate mitigation strategies being employed in states across the country, EDGI found.
These are some of the first webpages to be returned after disappearing under the Trump administration, said Toly Rinberg, a EDGI Website Monitoring Committee member. They could signal how future websites might be edited, he said.
"This is the first instance of returned content since the April 28th removal, and the agency returned that content without notice or explanation of why certain portions were not included on the new website, which can be confusing for the public and can reduce access to those resources for a long period of time," he said.
Some of EPA's pages have been altered to avoid in-depth explanations of human-caused climate change, EDGI found.
For instance, before the edits, the word "climate" appeared 15 times on a webpage entitled "Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments." Now it doesn't appear at all. And multiple links to climate information are gone. For example, the website's main page no longer links to "State Climate Action Framework," "Local Climate Action Framework," "Climate Showcase Communities Program" or "Tribes & Climate Change Action," according to EDGI.
"The previous administration's webpages are still available by clicking the large link plainly visible on the banner at the top of EPA.gov," an EPA spokesperson said.
The website quietly reappeared in July. EPA made no announcement of its return, unlike in April when the agency issued a press release about it being taken down. Webinars related to climate on EPA pages are gone, while others on different topics remain. Newsletters related to energy remain, but those for climate are missing, EDGI found.
Energy resources, including information related to renewable energy, was returned to the altered webpages.
Overall, a wealth of climate information has been deleted. A webpage entitled "State Climate and Energy Program" is not linked to. That page had information on how to reduce the effects of heat islands and intense heat waves. It listed a series of state action plans, including Alaska, California and Virginia, that have reduction strategies. Those have not been returned.
EDGI is tracking 25,000 websites across the federal government. It has tracked a pattern of alterations to webpages that reference climate change across agencies, including the Interior, Agriculture and Energy departments.
Recently, EDGI found changes at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Sections related to climate change and human health disappeared from its homepage, and links to climate-related reports are no longer present.
EDGI also discovered broken web links on the website for USDA, and an EPA link to the science supporting the endangerment finding was inoperative. Spokespeople at various agencies have said the removal and alteration of climate data is due to technical problems or routine maintenance.
All incoming administrations alter and update federal websites. But the changes have raised observers' eyebrows due to Trump's skepticism about climate science.
Pruitt has also questioned the accuracy of climate research at his own agency. Though the vast majority of climate scientists determined long ago that humans are the primary driver of climate change, chiefly through fossil fuel consumption, Pruitt has called for a debate to question that assertion. He has also sought to increase the voice of industry scientists in crafting environmental policy.
Earlier this week, Pruitt suggested in a speech at the Heritage Foundation that scientists on EPA advisory boards who receive government grants may have conflicts of interest. Many, if not most, of the scientists on the advisory boards receive that type of funding, which go largely toward college and university research programs. Industry scientists, or climate researchers who reject the mainstream consensus on climate change, are less likely to receive government grants.
"If we have individuals on those boards receiving money from the agency, sometimes going back years and years to the tune of literally tens of millions of dollars over time, that to me causes questions on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way," Pruitt said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/10/20/stories/1060064193
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Pruitt Scrubs Climate, Renewable Energy Data for State and Local Governments From EPA Website
Oct 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has wiped much of the information that helps state and local governments fight climate change and invest in renewable energy sources from the agency’s website, according to an investigation by the Environmental Data and Governance Data Initiative.
EDGI researchers found that between April and July, climate change and renewables data, tools and other valuable resources for state, local and tribal governments were removed from the EPA’s website altogether, or were moved to make them harder to find and use. When the resources were first taken down or moved, a notice on the website said the change was “to reflect EPA's priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.”
EDGI is a collaboration between nonprofits and academics who have closely monitored a number of federal agency websites, including those of the EPA and the Department of Energy, for any changes or omissions of information related to climate change or renewable energy since President Trump took office.
“Pretending climate change doesn’t exist won’t help the people recovering from the California fires; or the hurricanes and flooding in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico; or the lurch from drought to floods in the Midwest,” said Grant Smith, senior energy policy advisor for the Environmental Working Group. “Despite the Trump administration’s refusal to recognize the realities of climate change or the benefits of cleaner, cheaper energy, the movement of state and local governments to safer, cheaper and cleaner climate and energy policies is only growing stronger.”
Among the information scrubbed from the EPA’s website is a section on “Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments.” That section provided state and local governments with advice on “reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and people's health, and saving money.”
Part of the site has been archived and remains accessible. But its elimination from the EPA’s site means most state and local governments, businesses, advocacy groups and citizens will not have easy access to the important information.
“There they go again,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “Week after week, Trump and Pruitt sink to new depths in their betrayal of federal leadership on climate and energy. Pruitt may not believe in the threats of climate change or the abundant environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy, but state and local leaders do. Cutting off this source of information to states and cities that want to move toward a renewable energy future is just more proof that Pruitt is the worst EPA head in history.”
Earlier this month, Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced plans to prop up the failing coal and nuclear energy sectors by heavily subsidizing both with taxpayer dollars, which would likely increase the monthly energy bills for millions of ratepayers.
“These wholesale changes to the EPA’s website, and the outrageous proposal to bail out coal and nuclear, are part of an ill-conceived strategy cooked up by the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry to slow progress towards an energy grid powered by renewables and efficiency,” Smith said.
http://www.ewg.org/release/pruitt-scrubs-climate-renewable-energy-data-state-and-local-governments-epa-website#.WeohSFuCzIU
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NYU Center Bolsters State AG Offices in Fight Over Trump Rollbacks
Oct 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
A new center at New York University's law school created to fight Trump administration climate and environmental rollbacks has announced it is placing fellows in seven state attorney general (AG) offices to help work on clean energy, climate change and environmental issues “of national and regional importance.”
NYU's State Energy and Environmental Impact Center in an Oct. 17 press release said it will supply fellows for AG offices in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Washington and Washington, D.C.
Those offices have “demonstrated a commitment to advancing progressive policies on clean energy, the environment and climate change,” according to center director David Hayes, who previously served as deputy Interior secretary under the Obama and Clinton administrations.
The release adds that the fellowship program will expand to other states over the next several months.
Launched in August, the center aims to offer legal resources and expertise to the AGs fighting Trump agency actions on climate and environment policy. It was funded with a $6 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
AGs from three of the states selected to receive fellows -- Illinois, Maryland and New York -- recently vowed to continue pressuring the Trump administration on its climate rollbacks while also supporting state-led efforts to craft aggressive greenhouse gas reduction measures.
For instance, New York AG Eric Schneiderman (D) said at a September event that the “collapse of [federal] agencies” and the “unwillingness of Congress” has forced states to exercise their critically important federalism roles.
“I don't think it's worth beating around the bush in this situation. We have a lot of work to do,” he said, claiming that federal agencies dedicated to public health and a clean environment are now led by people working to ensure “dirtier air, dirtier water and a less hospitable planet.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/nyu-center-bolsters-state-ag-offices-fight-over-trump-rollbacks
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