Preview Newsletter
ACC PM Clips Report 10/23/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Conversations with Plastics News: Steve Russell, ACC
Oct 23, 2017 | Page Debate
Here is the American Chemistry Council’s Steve Russell talking with Plastics News about plastics recycling, marine debris and waste to energy technologies. The video can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/ysPI8kg5u8w -
(ACC Mentioned) Trump Gives Chemical Industry Insider Power on Regulating Chemicals
Oct 23, 2017 | MSNBC
By Steve Benen
Up until fairly recently, Nancy Beck was an executive at the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for the nation’s chemical industry. As the New York Times reported over the weekend, however, Donald Trump’s administration has given Beck a job at the EPA – helping lead the agency’s toxic chemical unit. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Human and Financial Cost of Pollution
Oct 23, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Steven Cohen
Last week, the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health issued its report on the global impact of environmental pollution. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Trump White House Ramps Up Its War on Science
Oct 23, 2017 | Vanity Fair
By Maya Kosoff
Under Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency has found itself in the unusual position of being led by a man who has spent his career trying to destroy it: Scott Pruitt, a longtime ally of the fossil fuel industry who previously sued the agency more than a dozen times, and who recent reports suggest is actively shunning pro-environmental groups. -
(ACC Mentioned) Letter to the Editor
Oct 23, 2017 | Dallas News
By Hugh Resnick
Re: "New rules for toxic chemicals — Ex-executive now helps shape policy on known contaminants," Sunday news story. -
Former OSHA Chief Urges Senators to Block EPA Toxics Office Pick
Oct 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
David Michaels, the Obama administration's OSHA chief, is urging senators to reject the Trump administration's nomination of Michael Dourson to lead EPA's toxics office in part because of work Dourson has done to undermine safety measures under consideration by the worker safety agency. -
IARC's Glyphosate-Gate Scandal
Oct 23, 2017 | Forbes
By Geoffrey Kabat
In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, issued a report labeling the weed killer glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” -
Wholesale Renewable Energy Procurement: What You Need to Know.
Oct 23, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund - Business
By Daniel Hill
Clean energy is on the rise in America, and there’s no denying it. Each year, investments in renewable sources of power continue to increase, bringing with it economic and job growth. -
Colo. Tightens Emissions Standard but is Pressed to do More
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Colorado will impose tighter regulations on oil and gas operations as part of a plan to reduce ozone pollution in Denver and other cities in eastern Colorado, but state officials rejected calls from environmentalists and homeowners to do more. -
As US Exports Make Inroads to Asia, Middle East Suppliers Adopt Strategies to Secure Buyers
Oct 23, 2017 | Platts Blog
By Takeo Kumagai
With so much attention on rising US oil exports and their impact on crude flows within Asia, the region’s more traditional suppliers from the Middle East are examining their own strategic approaches to maintain customers and secure outlets for their barrels. -
3 Deaths, Oil Spills and Explosion Touch Gulf Region
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Offshore oil operations have suffered three fatalities in one week, while accidents have spilled thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. -
DHS Sounds Alarm Over Energy-Focused Hacking Campaign
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Homeland Security warned Friday of an "ongoing" hacking threat to U.S. energy systems in a rare public alert. -
PHMSA Seeks Input on Revised ECP Brake Rule
Oct 23, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is soliciting comments until Nov. 1 on a revised regulatory impact analysis (RIA) associated with the electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brake provision, the Federal Register reported last week. -
Mum's the Word About EPA's Rule-Cutting Task Force
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Eight months after President Trump established regulatory reform task forces at agencies, the U.S. EPA panel's work is still shrouded in secrecy. -
Ewire: EPA Scientists Barred from Presenting Climate Work
Oct 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
Trump administration officials have barred three EPA scientists from presenting the findings on how climate change is affecting Narragansett Bay during a conference in Rhode Island, according to press reports, a move that is underscoring some people's fears that the agency is trying to suppress scientific efforts on the issue.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Conversations with Plastics News: Steve Russell, ACC
Oct 23, 2017 | Page Debate
Here is the American Chemistry Council’s Steve Russell talking with Plastics News about plastics recycling, marine debris and waste to energy technologies. The video can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/ysPI8kg5u8w
The Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents leading manufacturers of plastic resins. We may not think about them often, but versatile plastics inspire countless innovations that help make life better, healthier and safer every day.
For example, plastics make possible bicycle helmets and child safety seats. They’re in the airbags that protect us and the cell phones that connect us. And plastics help keep the foods we eat and serve our families safer and fresher than ever before.
Our members are proud to manufacture materials that can help us to do more with less and contribute to a more efficient use of resources. These are just some of the ways plastics are helping to create a better planet and a safer world.
http://pagedebate.com/plastics.americanchemistry.com/tags
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Gives Chemical Industry Insider Power on Regulating Chemicals
Oct 23, 2017 | MSNBC
By Steve Benen
Up until fairly recently, Nancy Beck was an executive at the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for the nation’s chemical industry. As the New York Times reported over the weekend, however, Donald Trump’s administration has given Beck a job at the EPA – helping lead the agency’s toxic chemical unit.
For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has struggled to prevent an ingredient once used in stain-resistant carpets and nonstick pans from contaminating drinking water.
The chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, has been linked to kidney cancer, birth defects, immune system disorders and other serious health problems.
So scientists and administrators in the E.P.A.’s Office of Water were alarmed in late May when a top Trump administration appointee insisted upon the rewriting of a rule to make it harder to track the health consequences of the chemical, and therefore regulate it.
It was, of course, Beck, the former American Chemistry Council executive, who demanded the revision. Voters who supported Donald Trump because they hoped he’d “drain the swamp,” preventing corporate insiders from helping call the shots in government agencies, are getting the exact opposite of what they wanted.
But just to twist the knife a little more, consider what the political appointees at Trump’s EPA had to say when the New York Times called for a comment.
“No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” Liz Bowman, an EPA spokesperson told the newspaper via email. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”
And who’s Liz Bowman? Before she went to work at Trump’s EPA as a spokesperson, she was a spokesperson at … wait for it … the American Chemistry Council.
As for her official response, for folks who are unfamiliar with the idea of “clickbait,” some online outlets publish pieces of dubious quality, usually with overly provocative headlines and photos, in a brazen attempt to boost their traffic. The point, of course, is to use tantalizing content as “bait,” in order to get people to “click.”
I won’t claim to be an expert in the tactic, but I’m reasonably sure that if the New York Timeswere desperate for cheap and ill-gotten clicks, it would probably publish cat gifs, not 6,000-word pieces on EPA safeguards related to the chemical industry.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-gives-chemical-industry-insider-power-regulating-chemicals
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(ACC Mentioned) The Human and Financial Cost of Pollution
Oct 23, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Steven Cohen
Last week, the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health issued its report on the global impact of environmental pollution. The results are straightforward:
“In 2015, diseases caused by air, water and soil pollution were responsible for 9 million premature deaths, that is 16% of all global death. Exposures to contaminated air, water and soil kill more people than smoking, hunger, natural disasters, war, AIDS, or malaria.”
Nearly all of these deaths (92%) took place in poorer nations. In wealthier nations that have worked to reduce pollution, the benefits of pollution control far outweigh the costs. According to this Commission, the global financial costs of pollution are huge, totaling “$4.6 trillion per year—6.2% of global economic output”. The study reported that in the United States, air pollution control pays off at a rate of 30-1. Every dollar invested in air pollution control generates thirty dollars of benefits. Since 1970 the U.S. has invested about $65 billion in air pollution control and received about $1.5 trillion in benefits.
I strongly believe that sustainability management―or managing organizations to ensure they minimize their environmental impact―will come to be synonymous with competent management. One problem with a macro-analysis such as Lancet’s is that many of the costs of pollution control are incurred by specific firms and localities while the benefits are provided to an entire society. That is what has given rise to the myth that we must trade off economic growth against environmental protection. People learn through lore and stories, and the drama of a factory shut down is more memorable than anyone’s cost-benefit data. Nevertheless, I believe that on a more crowded planet, with instant and inexpensive global communication, a company that engages in wanton acts of environmental destruction will not survive long in the market place. Moreover, formerly free and low-cost resources, such as water, minerals and even energy are becoming significant cost factors in many organizations. Companies that learn to control these costs can outcompete those that ignore the cost impacts of pollution and wasted resources.
The notion that poisoning the planet is bad for people and profits is not shared universally. While America has been a leader in the half-century-long effort to clean up our environment, the anti-regulatory zealots now running this country’s executive branch are doing their best to eliminate that progress. The Lancet study reports that:
“There are more than 140,000 new chemicals since 1950—5,000 of these materials are produced in great volume. Fewer than half of these high-production-volume chemicals have been fully tested for safety.”
Despite these findings, the U.S. EPA under President Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been moving to weaken already inadequate U.S. chemical regulations. In a trend that we are starting to see throughout the federal government, former industry lobbyists are being given key positions in regulatory agencies. In this case, Dr. Nancy B. Beck, formerly of the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry trade group, has been serving as a principal deputy to Pruitt on the regulation of toxic chemicals. Their strategy has not been to end regulation, since that would be illegal, but to make it more difficult to track the impact of regulatory controls. This is done in the interest of reducing “regulatory burden” on the chemical industry. Perhaps worse than this effort to turn toxic chemical regulation over to the chemical industry is EPA’s unwillingness to defend their approach in any media the administration does not control. In Eric Lipton’s New York Times story on this issue last weekend, he reported that:
“The E.P.A. and Dr. Beck declined repeated requests to comment that included detailed lists of questions. “No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in an email. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.” Before joining the E.P.A., Ms. Bowman was a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council.”
There has been a long-standing debate on the risks of many chemicals and for many years the chemical industry has dominated the toxic substance regulatory process through both Republican and Democratic administrations. The precautionary principle, used to test all drugs before they are released to market, is not used when we introduce new chemicals. Perhaps that is because we do not ingest these chemicals deliberately and directly into our bodies. But we do come into direct contact with them in our air, food and water. Sadly, we are all like those canaries that were once lowered into the coal mine to see if the air was safe for miners to breathe. If the canary came back dead, we didn’t send the miners down; if the canary came back alive, all was well and the miners could go to work. We are all the test dummies for the chemical industry and everyone else that releases toxics into our environment. In the interest of pursuing jobs, jobs, jobs―mostly these days for robots, robots, robots―we are willing to unleash new chemicals on the world and assume they are safe. Even when chemicals are proven harmful or are suspected to be dangerous, the chemical industry can’t be troubled with providing the government with the data needed to assess the danger.
Many of the new chemicals introduced by industry have brought great benefits and have even transformed the way we live. The materials used in electronics, vehicles, construction, appliances, and even food have benefited from this research and development. But the idea that new materials and substances be developed and used without assessing potential dangers is idiotic. The harm caused by a new chemical may be far greater than the benefit. Asbestos is probably the prime example of this. It was very good at preventing the spread of fire, but turned out to be very bad for the human respiratory system. When harm is discovered, all the businesses and people using the substance must stop using it and if possible repair the damage caused by the chemical. This process is very expensive and is a cost that more careful regulation could avoid.
If we are to develop an economy that is productive enough to lift the entire world from poverty and maintain that economy over the long term, we need to develop and implement many new technologies. In a world even more dominated by human technology than today’s world, the preservation of our biosphere becomes critical to our long-term well-being. We need to ensure that our air, water and soil is free of poisons. To do that we need to take pollution control more seriously than we do today. Many industries have found that environmental regulation is compatible with long term production and profits. In the U.S. our GDP continues to grow even as conventional pollutants, those that we regulate, are reduced. We do not need to deregulate but instead become more effective and competent regulators. We need to test chemicals quickly, we need to process, analyze and police dangerous substances and allow industry to bring safe substances to market as quickly as possible. This means we need more money and people involved in the regulatory process, not less.
The Trump Administration, some business people and some government officials in the developing world do not think that industry should be bothered with rules and regulations. If they must be regulated, let’s be sure the “burden” imposed is not too great. But when pollution is legitimized, the cost burden is not eliminated, it just shifts to the individuals who get sick, or the communities who must clean up the mess made by industry. The mess can be avoided with competent management and more effective regulation.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-human-and-financial-cost-of-pollution_us_59edde97e4b02c6e3c609c80
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(ACC Mentioned) The Trump White House Ramps Up Its War on Science
Oct 23, 2017 | Vanity Fair
By Maya Kosoff
Under Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency has found itself in the unusual position of being led by a man who has spent his career trying to destroy it: Scott Pruitt, a longtime ally of the fossil fuel industry who previously sued the agency more than a dozen times, and who recent reports suggest is actively shunning pro-environmental groups. As goes Pruitt, so goes the E.P.A.; earlier this year, the agency began to scrub all references to climate change from its Web site, a trend that has continued incrementally, and on Sunday The New York Times reported that conference talks led by three E.P.A. scientists about the nature of climate change were abruptly canceled just days before they were scheduled to take place.
An agency spokesman declined to offer an explanation for the cancelation of the October 23 climate-change talks in Rhode Island, where three scientists were scheduled to discuss the effects of climate change on Narragansett Bay, the region’s largest estuary. According to the Times, the scientists were set to present findings that climate change is impacting sea level, precipitation, air and water temperatures, and fish near the estuary. Now, the scientists are reportedly allowed to attend the event, but they’re barred from making any presentations and from going to the opening news conference, exacerbating fears that Pruitt’s agency will silence employees from speaking out on—or even continuing to study—the widely proven phenomenon.
Though it’s unclear whether the two events are connected, the cancellation came just a day after a Times report that a recently appointed executive at the agency might be responsible for weakening regulations. Nancy Beck, who joined the E.P.A.’s toxic chemicals unit in May, spent the previous five years at the chemical industry’s trade association, the American Chemistry Council, as an executive. During her tenure, the agency has re-written rules allowing the use of some toxins and making health effects of others more difficult to track, including perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, an ingredient used in non-stick pans that has been said to cause birth defects and kidney cancer. The changes made under Beck’s leadership could result in an “underestimation of the potential risks to human health and the environment,” according to a confidential internal memo from the top official at the Office of Water, the Timesreports, while E.P.A. spokeswoman Liz Bowman (a former American Chemistry Council spokeswoman) sharply disputed this account. “No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” she said. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”
Both Beck’s appointment and the canceled talks indicate that the E.P.A. is set to continue its pattern of obfuscation when it comes to scientific fact—a tactic scientists feared would be employed under Trump. As John King, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, told the Times, “It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at E.P.A.” In an interview last week, Pruitt said that he plans to assemble a team of independent experts to investigate climate-change science. “This is a robust, meaningful debate, discussions, about what do we know and what don’t we know, and let the American people be consumers of that, so that we might be able to see consensus around this issue,” he said.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/the-trump-white-house-ramps-up-its-war-on-science
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(ACC Mentioned) Letter to the Editor
Oct 23, 2017 | Dallas News
By Hugh Resnick
Re: "New rules for toxic chemicals — Ex-executive now helps shape policy on known contaminants," Sunday news story.
EPA official Nancy Beck (and former industry insider at the American Chemistry Council) has deemed many toxins (like perfluorooctanoic acid, methylene chloride, trichloroethylene) as "less risky" to lessen oversight and restrictions. These have been blamed for cancers, birth defects, developmental disabilities and other serious health problems.
Beck, with other new EPA appointees, reportedly have given instructions to "ignore recommendations of EPA scientists" to ban or restrict many toxins. So, now the public is the EPA's guinea pig.
Here's an idea: have these EPA execs and the chemical manufacturing companies' boards of directors: 1.) state what parts per billion exposure they consider to be safe, then 2.) EPA scientists expose them to that on a weekly basis as long as that toxin is manufactured, even if they change jobs. Subsequently, the EPA can study them.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2017/10/23/toxic-chemicals-epa-obesity-proposition-4-deep-ellum-uptown-george-w-bush-toll-roads-gop
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Former OSHA Chief Urges Senators to Block EPA Toxics Office Pick
Oct 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
David Michaels, the Obama administration's OSHA chief, is urging senators to reject the Trump administration's nomination of Michael Dourson to lead EPA's toxics office in part because of work Dourson has done to undermine safety measures under consideration by the worker safety agency.
“As recently as 2001, Dourson produced results the tobacco industry wanted, as part of its effort to stop the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which I ran under President Obama, from protecting non-smokers from breathing tobacco’s cancer-causing smoke,” Michaels wrote in an Oct 18. opinion piece for The Hill.
Dourson, who formerly worked as an EPA risk assessor, is already facing a tough Senate confirmation vote.
Senate environment committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) indicated after Dourson's Oct. 4 confirmation hearing that there may not be majority support for the nomination.
For example, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who has not expressed publicly how she will vote on Dourson's nomination, raised significant concerns during his confirmation hearing over his role in developing safety standards for two high-profile chemical release events in West Virginia.
In addition, Democrats have already taken steps to block his nomination. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) announced earlier this week that she has placed a hold on Dourson's nomination as well as the nomination of William Wehrum, who is slated to head the agency's air office. While Democrats lack the votes to block the nominations, their efforts could make any final vote on the nominees take much longer than they otherwise would.
Dourson has also faced criticism from some Democrats because he has already begun work at EPA -- even before the committee votes on his nomination.
“With another end run around the Senate, it’s becoming clear this administration doesn’t care about advice and consent,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said in a statement.
“This nominee may not even have the votes to get out of committee and he’s already conducting official business. Not only is this move contemptuous of the Senate as an institution, it risks undermining the legal validity of EPA actions involving the nominee. The administration may find it easier to nominate individuals with bipartisan support and a commitment to the EPA’s mission rather than industry-funded hacks.”
Michaels' op-ed may bolster such concerns, calling Dourson “unqualified” and charging that he “made his career” manipulating scientific data for industry to create doubt about the risks posed by tobacco, toxic chemicals and other products.
“The objective is to create the appearance of a debate among scientists in order to delay any action to prevent harm. The result: Instead of the public being protected, it is the dangerous product and its unethical manufacturer that get protected.,“ Michaels wrote.
“When Dourson delivers for his industry clients, it is the public who pays, through weakened health protections. That’s not the quality of person we need in a leadership position in a critical public health agency,” he added.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/former-osha-chief-urges-senators-block-epa-toxics-office-pick
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IARC's Glyphosate-Gate Scandal
Oct 23, 2017 | Forbes
By Geoffrey Kabat
In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, issued a report labeling the weed killer glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” This ruling caused consternation in the scientific and agricultural communities. Glyphosate, which is manufactured by Monsanto and is the active ingredient in the company’s popular Roundup, is one of the most widely-used herbicides worldwide. It is cheap, effective, and has low toxicity. IARC’s ruling goes against the assessment of every other agency that has evaluated the compound, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, and the World Health Organization, of which IARC is a part.
IARC, which is based in Lyon, France, makes its assessments by convening a panel of experts to consider all the available evidence from human, animal, and mechanistic studies regarding a potential cancer threat. The agency then classifies a given substance as carcinogenic (Group 1), probably carcinogenic (Group 2A), possibly carcinogenic (Group 2B), or not classifiable as to carcinogenicity. For its glyphosate evaluation IARC formed a Working Group of 16 experts who reviewed the evidence for nearly a year before issuing its report in March 2015. The Working Group was subdivided into subgroups to assess the human evidence, the animal studies, and the mechanistic/laboratory studies. At the end of the review process, the panel designated glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” based on the animal evidence, which was judged to be “sufficient.” We will come back to this point later.
What is not widely known is that the agency’s classification of a substance does not take into account the degree of exposure to that substance in the general population. Rather, in IARC’s terminology, it evaluates “hazard” – the possibility that a substance could cause cancer under some possible condition – as opposed to “risk,” which refers to the likelihood that actual exposure in the real world might cause cancer. Needless to say, when headlines trumpet the latest IARC assessment, the public and the media assume that classification of an agent as “probably carcinogenic” must have some direct relevance to human health, even when actual human exposures are at levels too low to cause adverse health effects.
Over the past few years, when scientists have questioned the agency’s process and some of its recent classifications, rather than addressing specific criticisms, IARC officials have argued that their methods are sound and not in need of improvement, and have implied that their critics have conflicts-of-interest.
In the past year, however, as IARC’s glyphosate report has been subjected to scrutiny by scientists and investigative journalists, a number of increasingly disturbing questions have come to light. Three major, independent pieces of the “back-story” on IARC’s glyphosate assessment are presented below.
Reanalysis of the animal and epidemiologic evidence
In August 2016, Robert Tarone published a commentary entitled “On the International Agency for Research on Cancer classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen” in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention. Tarone, who is a statistician who spent most of his career at the National Cancer Institute, re-examined the animal studies cited by IARC. In such studies, typically a strain of rodents is divided into one or more “treatment” groups and a control group – and the former is exposed to a test substance at increasing dose levels - in this case, glyphosate - while the control group is unexposed to the test substance. As animals die they are examined, and at the end of the study the remaining animals are sacrificed and their organs are examined for benign and malignant changes.
What is crucial is to determine whether the treatment group shows robust evidence of a greater “tumor yield” compared to controls. In relatively small animal experiments there will likely be ups-and-down, but one is looking for a consistent excess of tumors in the treated group. Most persuasive would be evidence of a dose-response relationship – that is, the more of the substance that the test animals are given, the greater the tumor yield. Furthermore, one might expect to see consistency in male and female animals, if the substance is carcinogenic.
What Tarone found is that the IARC panel highlighted certain positive results from the rodent studies they relied upon in the deliberations, and, glaringly, ignored contradictory negative results from the same studies. He also found that an inappropriate statistical test was used, making the data look more impressive than they actually were. Tarone concluded, “When all relevant data from the rodent carcinogenicity studies of glyphosate relied on by the Working Group are evaluated together, it is clear that the conclusion that there is sufficient evidence that glyphosate is an animal carcinogen is not supported empirically. Even a conclusion that there is limited evidence of animal carcinogenicity would be difficult to support…”
In reviewing the human (i.e., epidemiologic) studies, Tarone found that IARC’s case for glyphosate’s association with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma also resulted from favoring certain study results, rather than considering the totality of the evidence.
In the past week, two new insights into the agency’s glyphosate assessment have emerged, coalescing into a full-blown scandal.
Revelations from a deposition in a law suit against Monsanto
A blogger, who uses the pen-name Risk-Monger, examined the transcripts of a deposition related to cases against Monsanto involving the scientist Christopher Portier. Portier, an American statistician who worked for the federal government for over thirty years, was the special advisor to the IARC panel that issued the report declaring glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic.” The transcripts show that during the same week in March 2015 in which IARC published its glyphosate opinion, Portier signed a lucrative contract to act as a litigation consultant for two law firms that were preparing to sue Monsanto on behalf of glyphosate cancer victims. His contract contained a confidentiality clause barring Portier from disclosing his employment to other parties. Portier’s financial conflict-of-interest has been confirmed by the UK newspaper The Times.
It turns out that it was Portier himself, who as chair of an IARC committee in 2014 had proposed that the agency undertake a review of glyphosate in the first place. He then went on to play a key role in the deliberations resulting in the IARC conclusion that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. In view of the new revelations, it appears that, rather than being the objective scientist he has portrayed himself to be, he may have had a preconceived plan to use the IARC ruling, which he played a major role in shaping, to cash in on the ensuing litigation campaign. In the years following the IARC glyphosate decision, Portier has frequently claimed that he had no conflicts-of-interest and that he has never taken a cent for his glyphosate work. At the same time, he and IARC generally have portrayed any scientist who questioned the evidence of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity as being motivated by pro-industry bias. This has proved an effective tactic for suppressing substantive arguments based on the scientific evidence.
IARC’s editorial process in the glyphosate report
On the heels of Risk-Monger’s exposé, three days ago, Kate Kelland, a journalist for Reuters, who has been investigating IARC’s recent assessments, published findings indicating that the glyphosate document underwent significant editing to remove null results and to strengthen positive conclusions. Kelland obtained a draft of the key chapter of the report devoted to animal studies, which became available as part of the lawsuits against Monsanto, and she compared the draft with the final, published report. She found 10 significant instances in which “a negative conclusion about glyphosate leading to tumors was either deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one.” Kelland’s findings indicate that the original draft found little animal evidence that glyphosate was a carcinogen. Her textual analysis provides confirmation of Tarone’s independent re-analysis of the original studies. Furthermore, Portier admits in his deposition that the interim report produced by the animal subgroup during the Working Group meeting also concluded that there was “limited evidence of animal carcinogenicity.” He proclaims ignorance of when or how the conclusion was upgraded to “sufficient evidence of animal carcinogenicity” during the deliberations of the entire Working Group. It is crucial to repeat that the classification of glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans relied entirely upon the conclusion that there was sufficient evidence of animal carcinogenicity (because the epidemiologic evidence was not strong).
All of this points to a trusted agency redacting the evidence to suit its predetermined and preferred story-line.
What is at stake
In addition to providing the basis for litigation by US law firms, IARC’s 2015 opinion on glyphosate provided powerful ammunition to environmental activists, anti-GMO groups, NGO’s, and organic foods industry lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic in their campaign to ban glyphosate. For the past two years, the European Union has been trying to reauthorize the weed killer but has been opposed by politicians in Member States who have been swayed by the anti-glyphosate crusade. A decision to ban or to phase out use of glyphosate will hurt both farmers and consumers by decreasing crop yields, increasing the costs of produce, and requiring substitution of herbicides about which less is known and which may pose a greater health risk. A final decision is expected next month.
The revelations about IARC’s glyphosate determination carry crucial lessons regarding relations among scientific evidence, policy, and public opinion. Decisions about the safety of chemical residues in the environment are challenging and require critical evaluation of the available evidence by experts in the relevant disciplines. These can only be achieved through a hashing out of the relevant evidence in a forum in which qualified scientists with no professional or political stake in the question at hand have an important role in order to keep the proceedings honest.
In the highly-charged and polarized climate surrounding questions involving public health and the environment, it is only too easy for advocates to gain support for their cause by appealing to public concern. Often this concern relates to trace levels of a chemical in our food, water, or environment. But the two sides in the debate are not equal. Evidence, no matter how weak or questionable, of a positive association is readily accepted as pointing to a serious threat. In contrast, even when there is superior evidence that calls into question the existence of threat, this simply does not have the same power to persuade concerned citizens.
A closely related point is that the prevailing view of conflicts-of-interest is one-sided and naïve and represents a major obstacle to achieving rationality in the public discussion of hotly contested questions like glyphosate. To be sure, industry has its clear interests, and, of course, these should be taken into account. In fact, the awareness of industry interests is, by now, built into our thinking. Things are quite different when it comes to seeing the interests at work on the other side. Given that deliberations on these matters involve human beings, we need to take it as axiomatic that all parties may be influenced by financial considerations – or equally importantly -- by ideological and professional agendas. We delude ourselves if we think that environmental activists and allied scientists (including academic and government researchers) engaged in these questions are free of their own interests.
The recent revelations regarding IARC’s glyphosate assessment throw these issues into stark relief. Scientists and agencies need to be transparent. It’s not acceptable for an agency to argue that “we are impartial authorities, trust us.” Rather, we should follow the rule, “Trust but verify” – or rather, “Distrust but verify.” These revelations make it clear that, where high-stakes issues involve powerful beliefs, substantial financial rewards, and opportunities for advancement, neither individuals nor authoritative agencies can be assumed to be free of conflicts-of-interest.
Geoffrey Kabat is a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is the author of Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2017/10/23/iarcs-glyphosate-gate-scandal/#46b6b9e41abd
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Wholesale Renewable Energy Procurement: What You Need to Know.
Oct 23, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund - Business
By Daniel Hill
Clean energy is on the rise in America, and there’s no denying it. Each year, investments in renewable sources of power continue to increase, bringing with it economic and job growth. In fact, it’s on track to deliver an increasing share of total energy supply, putting traditional energy sources to the side. That’s why organizations across the country are turning to renewable energy as a way to meet their sustainability goals and cut energy costs.
We’re at a time when corporate America is stepping up to the plate on climate leadership. Bigger, more ambitious commitments are being set and bolder targets announced. And renewable energy can be the tool to meet them. But it means the scale and sophistication of clean energy projects must grow. Small-scale, on-site solar installations are not always large enough to generate the quantity of power necessary. So businesses are turning to another route: wholesale renewable energy procurement.
Companies often want to increase their amount of renewable energy, but are limited by facility, land or regulatory constraints. Navigating the various options and becoming familiar with the specifics can be a challenging and time consuming process. To get around some of these operational hurdles, an increasing number of companies are turning to larger volume wholesale procurement—taking advantage of industry economies of scale—as a way to add renewable energy to their portfolio.
The most common type of wholesale procurement is a power purchase agreement (PPA). A PPA is a long-term contract that enables developers to secure financing for renewable energy projects, allowing companies to save money on their energy costs by locking in predictable prices.
What’s so great about wholesale power procurement? The ability to construct large systems in locations best suited for optimization allow companies to benefit from greater scale and lower costs. It’s a lower-risk option, providing a reliable, predictable supply and cost for energy, and they typically require no upfront capital expenditure with a PPA. By having the systems off-site, facilities won’t be impacted and there will be greater flexibility in project design. And it’s continuously evolving with new models created, becoming a suitable option for even more businesses.
How it works: In a PPA, a third-part provider arranges for the design, permitting financing and installation of a system, and sells the power generated to the host customer at a fixed rate that is usually lower than the utility’s retail rate. Keep in mind the state pricing for PPA’s can vary widely. Through either a “physical” or “virtual” PPA, companies have the opportunity to scale nearly a limitless amount of electricity.
Earlier this fall, Anheuser-Busch, one of the country’s largest beer producers, announced a new PPA for 152.5 MW of renewable electricity, representing 50 percent of the company’s annual electricity use, up from the current amount of less than 2 percent of total supply. This is the company’s first utility-scale project, and it’s expected to significantly reduce overall emissions from its operations.
Make it right for you
For companies looking to pursue any type of PPA, internal preparation is key. It’s important that all necessary stakeholders are involved (facility management, legal, financing, accounting, etc.) to be aware of all the ins-and-outs of the process. Understanding how your company uses energy will have a big impact on the design of your procurement plan. Ensure there’s a good match for your site and identify all potential barriers that could interfere with the project before moving forward with it. Because not surprisingly, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that will solve your energy problems.
But PPAs might not always be what’s best for your organization. Depending on the geographic location and site characteristics, on-site renewable energy or other financial instruments might represent the best savings opportunity, especially in states with high electricity tariffs, retail net metering programs, and good solar insolation (or access to the sun).
EDF’s Supply Chain Solutions Center is hosting a webinar on renewable energy procurement and how it can benefit your company. An expert from Forefront Power will lead the conversation.
http://business.edf.org/blog/2017/10/23/wholesale-renewable-energy-procurement-what-you-need-to-know/
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Colo. Tightens Emissions Standard but is Pressed to do More
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Colorado will impose tighter regulations on oil and gas operations as part of a plan to reduce ozone pollution in Denver and other cities in eastern Colorado, but state officials rejected calls from environmentalists and homeowners to do more.
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission started the process of approving the new rules Friday after a two-day hearing and will finalize them at a meeting in November.
The rules require companies to use reasonably available control technology to reduce ozone-forming emissions. That will translate into more frequent checks for leaks at oil wells, storage tanks and other equipment in an area stretching from Fort Collins on the north to the outskirts of Denver on the south.
"State regulators, industry and the environmental community in Colorado have once again demonstrated that we are capable of putting politics aside and achieve important progress in reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector," Dan Grossman, director of state programs for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. "At a time when the Trump administration is rolling back protections from oil and gas pollution, it is gratifying to know that Colorado can still lead."
The Front Range communities that are home to most of Colorado's oil drilling have also seen rapid population growth, and they've been roiled by debates about oil and gas regulations for years. Several communities tried to ban drilling and hydraulic fracturing starting in 2014, only to be overruled by state regulators.
The fights took on added urgency in the spring when an oil field pipeline leak sparked an explosion that destroyed a home in suburban Firestone and killed two people.
Some conservation groups argued that the state should require even more inspections and apply the rules statewide. More than 100 people testified in favor of the regulations Thursday, during the first day of the two-day hearing, The Denver Post reported.
The oil industry said expanding the rules further would be too costly and would harm small oil and gas operations and dry gas producers that have been struggling with low prices.
Colorado already imposed similar regulations statewide in 2013 as part of a plan to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations (Energywire, Nov. 19, 2013).
The state Department of Public Health and Environment expects the new rules will reduce emissions of volatile organic chemicals by an additional 6,200 tons per year over the current rules. VOCs are a key component in ozone, which is more commonly known as smog and has been linked to numerous health problems.
The Denver area, which includes most of Colorado's population, has ozone levels above U.S. EPA's threshold of 75 parts per billion and could fall into "serious nonattainment" if it doesn't reduce its emissions by 2018.
The area would also violate a new, tougher standard of 70 ppb that EPA adopted in 2015. The Trump administration has delayed implementation of that standard.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/23/stories/1060064303
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As US Exports Make Inroads to Asia, Middle East Suppliers Adopt Strategies to Secure Buyers
Oct 23, 2017 | Platts Blog
By Takeo Kumagai
With so much attention on rising US oil exports and their impact on crude flows within Asia, the region’s more traditional suppliers from the Middle East are examining their own strategic approaches to maintain customers and secure outlets for their barrels.
US cargoes are showing up more regularly in Asia, where major importers are eager to diversify their supply sources—a hot topic during the recent S&P Global Platts Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore.
Due to stability of supply and competitiveness against other grades, Middle East crudes have been East Asia’s largest supply source and many refineries in the region have been specifically configured to process Middle East sour crudes.
But the increase in spot US barrels into Asia are prompting refiners to seek lower term crude imports from the Middle East. Supplies from Latin America may also be boosted into the region, as many North Asian crude importers tend to co-load their US cargoes with central and South American grades.
South Korea, for example, may trim its dependency on Middle East crude supplies to “70% or below” from 84.9% in the first half of 2017, supported by favorable global benchmark price trends, coupled with plentiful options for supply diversification, according to Chang Jihak, senior executive vice president at Hyundai Oilbank.
Japan’s largest refiner JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy is also looking to boost flexibility in its crude oil procurements by reducing its term commitments, Executive Vice President Takashi Hirose told Platts.
JXTG will continue to emphasize its flexibility until market conditions change, Hirose said, adding that the company’s current term crude procurement ratio stands “at around 60%” of its total imports, with the balance comprising spot and framework supplies.
As buyers seek more flexibility, producers are not standing still. They are exploring ways to ensure outlets for their demand by participating in refinery projects and diversifying means of sales.
Kuwait, for example, is expected to supply 60%-65% of the crude oil to be processed at Oman’s planned Duqm refinery, which is expected to start up between the end of 2021 and early 2022.
Buy demand by investing in refineries
The Duqm refinery, with a capacity of more than 200,000 b/d, is Kuwait’s latest foreign refinery investment. Kuwait will also supply 100% of the crude oil feedstock to the 200,000 b/d Nghi Son refinery in Vietnam, which is slated to be online by the end of March 2018. Kuwait has a major stake in both refineries.
The rise in US exports to Asia “is worrying,” Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Deputy Managing Director Waleed al-Bader said, “but we have our customers and we are approaching our customers and there is healthy demand for medium sour crudes.”
For Kuwait, investing in foreign refinery projects is not simply a reaction to recent market moves. It has led the way among Middle East producers with these plans, signing its Vietnam deal almost a decade ago in 2008, well before anyone thought US producers might start exporting crude. Its decision now looks far-sighted, with the US lifting export restrictions on its crude in December 2015.
Looking further ahead, Bakheet al-Rashidi, the CEO of Kuwait Petroleum International, has said his company will continue to look for new opportunities to invest in overseas projects, targeting, India, Indonesia and China in particular.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia is also stepping up its efforts to ensure demand in the fast growing Asian markets by taking equity stakes in greenfield refinery projects.
The latest move is that Saudi Aramco is in discussions with India about the possibility of participating in a number of refining projects operated by state-owned Indian oil companies, the first of which could start up in around 2020-21, Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Platts on October 17.
The two projects include plans by the state-owned IOC, HPCL and BPCL to build a 60 million mt/year (over 1 million b/d) refinery in Maharashtra, along with another with a capacity of 9 million mt/year developed by HPCL in Rajasthan, Pradhan said.
This will be Saudi Aramco’s first foray into India’s refining sector, having been shopping for refining assets in Asia as it looks for captive markets for its crude oil.
Nigeria changes sales approach
Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., meanwhile, intends to handle up to 80% of the country’s crude oil lifting contracts via its trading arm in the next few years as part of efforts to widen its customer reach, Mele Kyari, general manager of state-owned NNPC’s crude oil marketing division, told Platts during the APPEC conference.
NNPC also plans to sell more crude on a CIF or delivered basis to ensure security of supply, Kyari said, as Nigeria’s oil exports had fallen significantly in the last two years due to renewed militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Nigerian crude is mostly sold and priced on an FOB basis.
NNPC will continue to depend on Asia and Europe as its two main traditional destinations and hopes to increase its share in both regions, Kyari said.
While 29% of Nigerian exports went to Asia so far this year, most went to India and Indonesia, and not other key demand hubs in China, Japan and South Korea.
“So Europe and Asia will be our prime buyers in the short term,” Kyari said.
Despite the difference in strategies taken by Kuwait and Nigeria, the producers’ need to secure demand for their crudes is a reflection of oil consumers’ approach to seek flexible supplies from a more diversified supply base.
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/10/23/us-crude-oil-exports-asia-middle-east-suppliers/
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3 Deaths, Oil Spills and Explosion Touch Gulf Region
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Offshore oil operations have suffered three fatalities in one week, while accidents have spilled thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities are still trying to determine the severity of the two separate spills located hundreds of miles apart.
The Coast Guard said it stopped searching for two workers reported missing after an oil barge exploded a few miles offshore from Port Aransas, Texas. The vessel is owned by Bouchard Transportation. The crew members are presumed dead, and Coast Guard Sector Commander Tony Hahn expressed the search team's condolences to their family members.
Meanwhile, investigators discovered the body of a man killed when an oil platform in Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain exploded.
The explosion reportedly resulted in no serious oil spills into the lake. The barge accident, however, did release crude into the Gulf, though the Coast Guard has yet to reveal the size of the spill. Officials there said crude washed ashore at Mustang Island, calling the pollution "minimal" last night.
Still, spill containment assets and wildlife experts have been deployed to the site, the Coast Guard said.
There is still no word on what caused the fatal explosion and fire, now extinguished. The spill is located close to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and the Padre Island National Seashore. Mustang Island is home to a popular Texas state park and is considered sensitive sea turtle nesting habitat.
"For public safety, do not touch or handle the oil if any is found," the Coast Guard admonished.
The barge crude oil spill follows an earlier spill caused from a ruptured pipeline offshore Louisiana. The Coast Guard and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement are still investigating that accident. LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC's pipeline cracked and leaked oil from a depth of about 5,000 feet.
The pipeline spill was confirmed to be the worst offshore oil spill since the 2010 Macondo well blowout. Investigators acknowledged last week that as much as 16,000 barrels of crude may have leaked from the pipeline, or about 672,000 gallons (Greenwire, Oct. 20).
Depending on the size of the Texas offshore leak, the barge accident could swamp volumes leaked from the LLOG pipeline. The barge was loaded with about 133,000 barrels of crude oil at the time of the accident, or roughly 5.5 million gallons of oil. The crude was being shipped within a couple of miles from the shoreline when the fatal incident occurred.
The Coast Guard is involved in all incidents. BSEE is investigating the pipeline spill in federal waters, but spokeswoman Karla Marshall said Louisiana state authorities will handle the Lake Pontchartrain accident investigation. For the barge spill, as it is located in state waters, the Texas General Land Office will organize cleanup efforts.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/23/stories/1060064305
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DHS Sounds Alarm Over Energy-Focused Hacking Campaign
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Homeland Security warned Friday of an "ongoing" hacking threat to U.S. energy systems in a rare public alert.
A "multi-stage intrusion campaign" dating back to at least May started with smaller, less-defended targets before moving up the food chain to "major, high-value asset owners" in the nuclear, water and energy sectors, DHS said in the alert. The hackers also hit aviation and critical manufacturing companies, according to the alert, "and, in some cases, have leveraged their capabilities to compromise victims' networks."
Much of the malicious activity in DHS's warning had been previously disclosed and analyzed by private sector cybersecurity experts (Energywire, June 27). But the alert published Friday offers the most detailed official account of a hacking campaign that has raised alarm bells for its apparent focus on industrial control systems, the specialized computers that keep the lights on and oil and gas flowing throughout the U.S.
Joe Slowik, adversary hunter at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc., said in an interview yesterday this isn't a worst-case scenario. "All of this represents initial intrusion — there's not an attack," he said.
Slowik added that the DHS alert appears to link together at least two distinct groups eyeing weaknesses in the U.S. and European power grids and other infrastructure. "There are multiple actors out there potentially doing this — and that should give us pause," he said.
The hackers used a range of techniques to reach their intended targets, according to DHS. They often began with a "spearphishing" email, a customized message to lure users into clicking and downloading malware or giving up their login credentials. Many of the hackers' emails included a resume purporting to come from an engineer with experience managing industrial control systems. Others were sent from accounts hijacked from within a target organization, making them seem more trustworthy, and included a subject line marked "AGREEMENT & Confidential."
The recent intrusions also relied on "watering hole" attacks, where hackers take over a website likely to be visited by their ultimate targets. These watering holes included trade publications and websites concerned with process control and other critical infrastructure information, according to DHS. "The initial victims are peripheral organizations such as trusted third party suppliers with less secure networks," DHS said.
It's not known what the attackers wanted once they gained a foothold on the networks of their intended targets. DHS suggested that they may be interested in everything from "cyber espionage to the ability to disrupt energy systems in the event of a hostile conflict."
What is clear, based on the alert, is that the hackers weren't pursuing random victims: "The threat actors appear to have deliberately chosen the organizations they targeted," DHS noted.
In at least one instance, they breached a corporate computer housing data from more isolated operational networks — namely, "output from control systems within energy generation facilities," DHS observed.
Slowik called the hackers' behavior "concerning," but added that "it's not like you immediately have to worry about a major grid effect." The hackers aren't known to have jumped from the corporate networks into the operational control systems where they might cause physical damage.
Bears and dragonflies
DHS cited previous reporting by the cybersecurity firms FireEye Inc. and Symantec Corp., concluding that a recent Symantec report on the "Dragonfly" hacking group matches activity tracked by the FBI.
Dragonfly has been active, on and off, since at least 2011, according to Symantec. The group went quiet in 2014 before bouncing back the following year with a spate of intrusions at fuel logistics companies and financial firms, experts say.
CrowdStrike Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based cybersecurity firm, tracked Dragonfly's first hacking spree under the name "Energetic Bear" and considers the 2015 campaign to be the work of a partially separate group dubbed "Berserk Bear."
The recent 2017 spearphishing emails and watering hole attacks are "very much in line with the Berserk Bear activity that we've seen," said Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, in an interview earlier this month.
All three episodes include some "connective tissue," he noted, such as their tactics and their likely point of origin: Russia.
"This is consistent with Russian foreign policy: specifically, the energy targeting," Meyers said. "Energy is their primary export, and they routinely use it for diplomatic purposes: kind of a carrot or stick situation.
"Collecting intelligence around the global energy sector allows them to assess to what level they can make a threat," he added.
DHS did not link the recent hacking activity back to a particular country but considers the hackers to be an "advanced persistent threat." APT campaigns, as they are known in industry jargon, can span for years and are widely considered to be the work of intelligence services backed by nation-states such as Russia or China.
Another group of suspected Russian hackers — tracked by CrowdStrike as "Voodoo Bear" — briefly cut off electricity to several hundred thousand Ukrainians in December 2015 and again in 2016. Those two cyberattacks mark the only known times hackers have harmed a power grid anywhere in the world.
The Dragonfly group has shown an interest in industrial processes but has so far stopped short of physical disruption, according to experts who have tracked the group for years. When Symantec and CrowdStrike first shed light on Dragonfly — aka Energetic Bear — more than three years ago, the hackers switched off their attack infrastructure and went on the lam.
Meyers said the latest group appears to be comfier working in the limelight.
"I don't necessarily think this actor's going to go quiet," he said. "It's almost like they don't care anymore."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/10/23/stories/1060064295
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PHMSA Seeks Input on Revised ECP Brake Rule
Oct 23, 2017 | Progressive Railroading
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is soliciting comments until Nov. 1 on a revised regulatory impact analysis (RIA) associated with the electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brake provision, the Federal Register reported last week.
The revised analysis updates the original RIA associated with the ECP brake provision contained in PHMSA's final rule, published in May 2015, titled "Enhanced Tank Car Standards and Operational Controls for High-Hazard Flammable Trains."
The agencies published the updated RIA as required under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. The revision includes new testing and analysis that the National Academy of Sciences reviewed, recommendations from two U.S. General and Accountability Office audits, and updates to the final rule's costs and benefits based on current economic conditions.
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/PHMSA-seeks-input-on-revised-ECP-brake-rule--53097
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Mum's the Word About EPA's Rule-Cutting Task Force
Oct 23, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Eight months after President Trump established regulatory reform task forces at agencies, the U.S. EPA panel's work is still shrouded in secrecy.
Trump's executive order in February directed agencies to set up task forces to target regulations for eradication, revision or replacement (Greenwire, Feb. 24).
At EPA, which has been at the forefront of Trump's efforts to slash regulations, there have been no details about rules being put on the chopping block and what shareholders are being consulted even though the president's order required the task force to submit a progress report to Administrator Scott Pruitt on May 25 and "on a schedule determined by the agency head thereafter."
No such report has been made public.
The names of task force members were identified in a memo in March, with attorney Samantha Dravis, a Pruitt adviser, leading the panel as regulatory reform officer. Dravis is a former top official at the Republican Attorneys General Association.
"Given the Republican Attorney Generals Association was a leading force to try to thwart efforts to clean up the air and water, I'd say there's plenty of reason to be concerned," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. "You know people by the company they keep. And [Dravis] has certainly kept company that hasn't often been friendly toward aggressive environmental protection."
Other task force members include three former staffers for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.): Ryan Jackson, Byron Brown and Brittany Bolen.
Inhofe is one of Congress' most vocal critics of EPA and climate science. He's called the idea that man-made emissions are causing climate change "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" (E&E Daily, Nov. 3, 2014).
"I don't know that he has ever backed away from his comment that global warming was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated," O'Donnell said. "I would say that his former staffers are bringing a bias ... against strong enforcement and strong environmental and health protections."
An EPA spokesman said all task force members adhere to guidelines on ethics and conflicts of interest.
"All agency officials will comply with their ethics requirements, the members of the regulatory reform task force are no exception," the spokesman said in an email.
The spokesman redirected other questions about the task force to EPA's regulatory reform webpage.
FOIA
Freedom of Information Act requests provide one way for reporters and environmental groups to glean information about EPA's task force. E&E News has submitted multiple FOIA requests for relevant communications among the task force members. Those requests are pending.
Larry Auther of EPA's Office of Policy said in an email today to E&E News: "The Agency is currently working through a large volume of backlogged FOIA requests."
A previous FOIA request for Pruitt's calendar from February through May, which was obtained by the liberal-leaning watchdog group American Oversight under FOIA litigation, shows that task force members have consulted with industry on regulatory reform, though not necessarily in connection with the panel.
On March 21, Dravis was listed as attending a meeting with Chevron Corp. executives "to discuss regulatory reform in our sector and to share Chevron's perspective on global oil and gas developments."
Chevron spent more than $3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 on lobbying, including on issues relevant to EPA such as the renewable fuel standard, according to disclosure formsreleased by the Senate.
On March 29, task force member Brown was listed as attending a meeting with senior officers at the National Association of Home Builders. The topics included "overall regulatory reform" and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
And on May 4, Jackson was listed as attending a meeting with members of the Southern Crop Production Association. One topic was "regulatory reform at the intersection of pesticide policy and the Endangered Species Act."
John Walke, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he hasn't heard anything about EPA's task force since its inception. But he wasn't surprised to learn its members have met with industry groups.
"The senior ranks of this Trump EPA are filled with former industry lobbyists and staff for the senator with one of the lowest lifetime scores by the League of Conservation Voters in its history," Walke said, referring to Inhofe.
"So it would come as no surprise that they are speaking exclusively with industry and committed exclusively to an industry agenda at the expense of ordinary Americans and the environment," he said.
NRDC filed its own FOIA request for information about the task force in July, Walke said. The request seeks the task force members' communications on which regulations to target for repeal, among other records.
The request is probably "sitting in a pile along with hundreds of others," Walke said.
On the Hill
The regulatory panels' secrecy will likely be the focus of two House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees at a hearing tomorrow.
The hearing is described on the committee's website as a "check-in" on the panels.
In August, top House Democrats sent a letter to the White House criticizing the panels for lacking transparency in their efforts to cut rules (Greenwire, Aug. 7).
The letter, whose signatories included House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), expressed "alarm concerning the lack of transparency, accountability and independence" of the task forces.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), another one of the letter's signatories and ranking member on the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations, said the panels reflect broader problems within the Trump administration.
"The rampant failure of senior administration officials to disclose obvious conflicts has created a cloud of mistrust that hangs over the Trump administration," Connolly said in an emailed statement to E&E News.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/10/23/stories/1060064353
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Ewire: EPA Scientists Barred from Presenting Climate Work
Oct 23, 2017 | Inside EPA
Trump administration officials have barred three EPA scientists from presenting the findings on how climate change is affecting Narragansett Bay during a conference in Rhode Island, according to press reports, a move that is underscoring some people's fears that the agency is trying to suppress scientific efforts on the issue.
“It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” said John King, an oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island who works on the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, according to the New York Times.
The Oct. 23 event is aimed at drawing attention to the health of the bay, which is the largest estuary in New England and an important economic driver. At the event, scientists will unveil a report on the state of the bay, which EPA scientists helped to write, the Times says, noting it will say that climate change is affecting air and water temperatures, precipitation, sea level and fish in bay.
The report says Autumn Oczkowski, a research ecologist at EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, was scheduled to give the keynote address.
Two other agency scientists were slated to speak at an afternoon panel titled, “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.”
The state's congressional delegation, all Democrats, are also planning to attend the conference. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told the Washington Post that “Narragansett Bay is one of Rhode Island’s most important economic assets and the EPA won’t let its scientists talk with local leaders to plan for its future. Whatever you think about climate change, this kind of collaboration should be a no-brainer. Muzzling our leading scientists benefits no one.”
The administration's opposition to the scientists appearing should not be a surprise given opposition to addressing climate change to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and other administration officials. And a new analysis from the Postfinds that Pruitt may be making misleading claims about the extent to which the United States has been cutting GHGs.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-epa-scientists-barred-presenting-climate-work
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