Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 10/31/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt's New Science, Air Advisors Draw Heavily from States, Industry
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is poised to announce a new slate of scientists to serve on the agency's congressionally authorized scientific advisory panels, with the administrator's new nominees drawing heavily from states and industry groups... -
(ACC Mentioned) Dems Press EPA on Former Industry Executive's Role
Oct 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday pressed U.S. EPA's inspector general and administrator in separate letters for more information about the former American Chemistry Council executive now playing a key role at the agency. -
(ACC Mentioned) Eric Lipton's Attack on Dr. Nancy Beck is a Call to Conservative Women
Oct 31, 2017 | Independent Women's Forum
By Julie Gunlock
New York Times reporter Eric Lipton’s smear piece on Trump EPA appointee Dr. Nancy Beck reeks of the sort of anti-Trump, anti-business hysteria that’s now commonplace in the media. But it also reveals Lipton’s deep and very peculiar hatred for women who serve in the Trump administration. -
(ACC Mentioned) Bakersfield Recycles Day Event This Weekend
Oct 30, 2017 | KERO 23ABC News
On Saturday, November 4th AEG Bakersfield, Aramark, the Bakersfield Condors, and Keep Bakersfield Beautiful will host Bakersfield Recycles Day. -
Rail Executive Takes Charge at PHMSA
Oct 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sam Mintz
Howard "Skip" Elliott was sworn in as head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration today. -
EU Focuses Its Research Funding
Oct 30, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The European Commission is directing part of the last phase of its current seven-year research and innovation program to priorities including the development of low-carbon energy and sustainable materials. -
CW Report Captures Key Messages from Brexit Conference
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The uncertainty for business after the UK’s exit from the EU is among key points highlighted in a recently published Chemical Watch report on its inaugural Brexit conference. -
EPA Must Finish the Job on Toxic Solvents
Oct 30, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
Almost a year ago, using its authority under the newly reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the EPA proposed banning certain uses of three solvent chemicals—methylene chloride (MC or DCM) and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) for paint and coating... -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Regulation Continues to Rise at State Level
Oct 30, 2017 | Thomas Russell
By Furniture Today
Chemical regulation at the state level has risen in the past several years and does not appear to be slowing down. -
EPA Chief Backs Another Pesticide Harmful to Kids
Oct 30, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko
A pesticide called dicamba has become a poster child for the arms race between ever-stronger weeds and ever-stronger weed killers. -
US EPA Bars Manufacture of Rubber Additive
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The US EPA has ruled that a rubber additive cannot be manufactured in the country, unless the company submits additional animal testing data. -
Forty Two PMNs Received by US EPA in August
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The US EPA received 42 pre-manufacture notices (PMNS) in August. -
Interior Aims for Fewer and Quicker Steps for Land Decisions
Oct 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
How long should it take, and how many layers of bureaucracy should be involved, to get to a yes or a no on a proposed oil exploration plan or a natural gas pipeline right-of-way on federal land? -
Trump's Shifting Trade Stance a Key Question for Gas Exporters
Oct 30, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion
By Chris Newkumet
With a tight global market currently discouraging entry and forcing new U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters to think outside the box, a special challenge comes in the form of the somewhat erratic messaging and policy shifts of President Donald Trump’s administration. -
U.S. Oil, Gas Dealmakers Likely Eyeing Niobrara, Bakken and Beyond Permian Core, Says Raymond James
Oct 30, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Global oil and gas dealmaking has remained fairly resilient even when pressured by commodity pricing, and transactions now may extend beyond the Permian Basin’s core, as well as into the Niobrara formation and Bakken Shale... -
Arkema Fire May Complicate Pruitt's RMP Redo but Few Expect Stricter Rule
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry attorney is acknowledging that the industrial facility fire sparked by Hurricane Harvey flood waters may complicate the Trump administration's effort to revise an Obama-era rule updating the agency's risk management plan (RMP) accident prevention program... -
Industry May Seek EPA Guide to Ease Strict 'Off-Site' Enforcement Reviews
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Industry officials may ask the Trump administration to provide greater clarity on how EPA reviews facilities' analysis of the potential impacts of accidental “off site” releases as agency enforcement officials are maintaining the Obama EPA's stepped up scrutiny... -
More Must be Done to Protect America's Nuclear Power Plants from Cyberattacks
Oct 31, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion
By Michael Nacht and Charalampos Andreades
In testimony this month before the congressional Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, Patricia Hoffman, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, outlined some of the measures government agencies are taking to protect our energy infrastructure... -
(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt Poised to Shake Up Key Advisory Panels
Oct 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appears set to reshape two key advisory panels with an influx of new members drawn from industry and state government, while ousting others because they receive agency grants. -
In Unprecedented Move, EPA to Block Scientists Who Get Agency Funding from Serving as Advisers
Oct 31, 2017 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is poised to make wholesale changes to the agency’s key advisory group by jettisoning scientists who have received grants from the EPA and replacing them with industry experts and state government officials. -
Carbon Footprints Now Come Standard for Benchmarks Like S&P 500
Oct 30, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio
Carbon footprints and other related metrics are now shown alongside financial data for popular stock market benchmarks like the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. -
EPA Claims Suit over Ozone Designations Delay is Moot
Oct 31, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf is claiming that litigation filed by several states and environmentalists over the agency's since-withdrawn delay of designations for which areas are attaining the 2015 ozone standard is moot...
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt's New Science, Air Advisors Draw Heavily from States, Industry
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is poised to announce a new slate of scientists to serve on the agency's congressionally authorized scientific advisory panels, with the administrator's new nominees drawing heavily from states and industry groups, a departure from the past practice of appointing academics, according to a list of appointees obtained by Inside EPA.
Pruitt is expected to announce the new appointees at an Oct. 31 press conference, where he also slated to unveil new guidance limiting advisors' ability to receive grant funds from the agency.
Among those selected is Michael Honeycutt, director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's Toxicology Division, a longtime critic of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program and a colleague of the agency's controversial toxics office nominee, Michael Dourson. Pruitt has tapped Honeycutt as the new chairman of EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB).
The move is likely to be controversial in part because Pruitt opted to replace the board's outgoing chairman, Peter Thorne, with a new appointee rather than usual past practice of elevating an existing SAB member to serve as the chair.
Pruitt also elected to remove all SAB members whose terms expired Sept. 30, including those who had only served one term and who traditionally were invited to serve a second term.
This move is less surprising since Pruitt made the same decision last spring when he elected to remove all members of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which reviews EPA's research agenda, whose terms expired, regardless of whether they were eligible to serve a second term.
Other new SAB appointees include other state officials, petrochemical industry representatives and others. Among them is Sam Cohen of the University of Nebraska's medical school, a longtime industry consultant who has argued that there is a safe level of exposure to arsenic and other chemicals; John Graham of Indiana University, who formerly served as President George W. Bush's director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Donald van der Vaart, former North Carolina's environment secretary and once considered a contender to lead EPA; and Kimberly White, a toxicologist with the American Chemistry Council.
The new SAB members join 25 existing SAB members whose terms expire in 2018 or 2019.
EPA did not respond to requests for comment but Pruitt in the past has signaled his intent to appoint advisers from state and industry groups. In an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this year, Pruitt said he wants to emphasize new panelists' “geographical representation,” as well as their scientific credentials.
And his spokesman has said Pruitt believes he should have advisers “who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community.”
Conflicts Of Interest
But the appointments are still likely to be controversial in part because they raise questions about their potential conflicts of interest.
The new membership lists show a “decided shift away from major university-based appointments in favor of consultants for industry, direct industry appointments and staff from red state environmental departments,” says Terry Yosie, the director of SAB during the Reagan administration. “The independence and stature of the new appointees is generally not at the level of the people they replaced although some individually legitimate scientists are within the mix.”
Yosie, who led SAB's staff office when then-Administrator Anne Gorsuch removed a number of scientists from SAB and sought to replace them with more administration-friendly experts, adds that many of the new members “have received industry funding in large amounts. No current SAB members whose terms expired on September 30, 2017 and received EPA research support are being re-appointed.”
Pruitt and many Republicans have pushed back against such charges, arguing that the agency's past practice of appointing academics, many of whom have received EPA grants, also raises conflict of interest concerns as those academics favor EPA regulation.
Pruitt said earlier this month that he would soon issue guidance to address the issue. “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 [me to] question the independence and veracity and transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way,” Pruitt told the Heritage Foundation Oct. 17.
For the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), which advises EPA on the science underlying its national ambient air quality standards, Pruitt tapped Anthony Cox, an independent consultant who has long questioned the benefits of reducing air emissions.
Other CASAC appointees include James Boylan with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Air Protection Branch; and Larry Wolk, executive director and chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The administrator's new approach will almost certainly draw significant controversy, especially given that he removed two members from CASAC whose terms were not slated to expire to make room for new appointees.
Pruitt was only required to replace one CASAC member -- the past chairwoman, Ana Diez Roux, whose term expired Sept. 30.
But Pruitt was under pressure from House science committee Republicans to avoid an appointee like Roux whose credentials allowed the agency to comply with statutory requirements that the committee include both a medical doctor and a member National Academy of Sciences.
However, Pruitt appears to have gone beyond the requirement. According to the General Services Administration's FACA Database, EPA has removed CASAC members Donna Kenski, the analysis director for the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium and Ronald Wyzga, a technical executive with the Electric Power Research Institute.
The database indicates that Kenski's term was to expire in 2019 and Wyzga's term was to expire 2018.
'Never Happened'
Pruitt's approach to removing -- and not renewing -- existing members is already drawing criticisms. “All current CASAC and SAB members whose terms expired on Sept. 30, 2017 are not being renewed. This has never happened in the history of the SAB,” says Yosie, the former SAB director.
Yosie says Pruitt is announcing his appointments at an Oct. 31 press conference, despite requests from close aides to delay the decisions until next year. “Administrator Pruitt has personally signed off on these appointments. Requests from his political staff to delay these decisions until early next year were rejected by Pruitt,” he says.
Yosie adds that the “pipeline of future SAB reviews is drying up,” and predicts that “SAB will become a much less active participant in EPA decision making as various EPA offices choose not to engage the SAB for scientific reviews.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitts-new-science-air-advisors-draw-heavily-states-industry
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(ACC Mentioned) Dems Press EPA on Former Industry Executive's Role
Oct 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday pressed U.S. EPA's inspector general and administrator in separate letters for more information about the former American Chemistry Council executive now playing a key role at the agency.
The requests — from Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, Kathy Castor of Florida, Diana DeGette of Colorado and Paul Tonko of New York — followed a New York Timesinvestigation of onetime ACC official Nancy Beck and her role in reshaping EPA regulations required under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act reform law (E&E News PM, Oct. 23).
"In March, we requested that you initiate an investigation into the protections in place at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prevent conflicts of interest and unethical abuses of power," the lawmakers wrote to Inspector General Arthur Elkins.
"We write today to renew that request, with a focus on the work of Dr. Nancy Beck related to the interests of her previous employer, the American Chemistry Council (ACC)," they said.
The Democrats were particularly troubled by a June memorandum — first reported by E&E News — from the agency's top ethics official to Beck allowing her "to participate fully in matters of general applicability, including rulemaking, including consideration of any comments that were made by ACC" (Greenwire, Aug. 8).
They asked Elkins to determine whether "all applicable regulations, policies, and procedures" were followed in crafting the memo. And they want him to determine whether Beck's involvement in TSCA rule revisions complied with the memo.
The lawmakers also want to know about the appropriateness of her "administratively determined" employment status as deputy assistant administrator for the chemical safety office.
In their letter to Administrator Scott Pruitt, the Democrats criticized him for not responding to an earlier oversight request Pallone sent about Beck (Greenwire, June 22).
"Americans deserve an EPA that protects human health and the environment in an honest and transparent manner," the members' letter said. They renewed calls for documents on Beck, some of which have been released by E&E and the Times.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/10/31/stories/1060065119
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(ACC Mentioned) Eric Lipton's Attack on Dr. Nancy Beck is a Call to Conservative Women
Oct 31, 2017 | Independent Women's Forum
By Julie Gunlock
New York Times reporter Eric Lipton’s smear piece on Trump EPA appointee Dr. Nancy Beck reeks of the sort of anti-Trump, anti-business hysteria that’s now commonplace in the media. But it also reveals Lipton’s deep and very peculiar hatred for women who serve in the Trump administration.
President Trump appointed Dr. Beck to head the EPA’s office of Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention in July. Yet, because Dr. Beck previously worked for the American Chemistry Council (ACC)—a trade association that represents the chemical industry—Lipton thinks she’s a danger to the environment and human health.
It makes sense that Lipton limits his attack to her tenure at the ACC. He doesn’t attack Beck’s credentials (Dr. Beck has a Ph.D. in environmental health as well as a Masters in environmental health and toxicology) nor does he attack her reputation as a scientist (she’s wildly respected by colleagues and Lipton even includes compliments from colleagues). Instead, Lipton limits his slurs to the fact that she worked for a trade association and suggests she’s using her position to help the chemical industry. He writes:
The E.P.A.’s abrupt new direction on legacy chemicals is part of a broad initiative by the Trump administration to change the way the federal government evaluates health and environmental risks associated with hazardous chemicals, making it more aligned with the industry’s wishes.
Yet, for those who watched the EPA embrace the precautionary principle during Obama’s presidency, this “abrupt new direction” is a welcome change. During the Obama administration, the EPA’s aggressive, hazard-based approach to regulations hurt businesses and property owners. Many see this shift not as pro-business, but as pro-science, in that the EPA is moving to a risk-based regulatory model that relies only on legitimate and well-designed studies, instead of studies produced by environmental activist organizations, while also requiring agencies do a cost-benefit analysis of the regulations its proposing.
This obviously rattles Lipton and his friends in the environmental movement who want scientists to stay in their place—that is, in academia, or working as government scientists who dutifully push for the regulations the evironmental movement demands. According to Lipton, any scientist who ventures off this path—like Nancy Beck has done—to work within and advise industry on better safety standards or improved safety practices is a sellout who cares nothing for human health and safety.
Just consider how he compares Dr. Beck to Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, another woman who worked at the EPA and who held Beck’s position during the Obama Administration. Accompanying a flattering picture of Hamnett looking off into the distance winsomely, Lipton writes that she “spent her entire 38-year career at the E.P.A., joining the agency directly from law school as a believer in consumer and environmental protections.” A believer, folks. She’s a believer. And, she was at the agency for nearly 40 years. You can almost imagine Lipton swoon as he wrote that.
Writing about Dr. Beck, Lipton simply ticks off her resume, writing she “…did a fellowship at the E.P.A., but has spent most of her 29-year career elsewhere: in a testing lab at Estée Lauder, as a toxicologist in the Washington State Health Department, as a regulatory analyst in the White House and most recently with the chemical industry’s trade group.”
You see? Beck’s not a believer. Beck went astray—back and forth from the more virtuous work as a government employee to the selfish side trips into industry—and worse, the makeup industry—a tool of the patriarchy!
Then, Lipton reaches peak sexism by suggesting Dr. Beck and Ms. Hamnett had some sort of catfight going on while they were both serving at the EPA (because of course women always act that way at work), writing:
Before Mr. Trump’s election, Ms. Hamnett would have been regarded as the hands-down victor in their professional tug of war. Her decision to retire in September amounted to a surrender of sorts, a powerful acknowledgment of the two women’s reversed fortunes under the Trump administration.
Hands down victor? Why then did several paragraphs later, Lipton quote Hamnett complimenting Dr. Beck for her work ethic, grasp of both the scientific and regulatory process, and clear competency to lead that regulatory office. In fact, Hamnett admits, Beck was downright intimidating.
She described Dr. Beck as a voracious reader of scientific studies and agency reports, diving deep into footnotes and scientific data with a rigor matched by few colleagues. She combed through thousands of comments submitted on proposed rules. And she had a habit of reading the Federal Register, the daily diary of new federal rules.
All of it made Dr. Beck an intimidating and confident adversary, Ms. Hamnett recalled. “She’s very smart and very well informed,” she said.
Yet, instead of celebrating the appointment of this smart, well informed woman to head one of EPA’s most important regulatory offices, Lipton says Beck’s confidence had “destructive side” because, he writes, she had the gall to challenge EPA scientists and risk assessors and to question the validity of their studies. She also had the nerve to impose her own judgment.
I mean, can you imagine? A strong, smart, thorough, intimidating, self-assured women who had the confidence to impose her own opinions and demand answers to challenging questions? Someone better cancel some of those STEM Programs for girls (you know, the ones that Lipton and so many other science reporters love to prattle on about) or we run the risk of getting thousands more of these Beck monsters!
Maybe for his next story, Lipton can examine Hilary Clinton’s destructive confidence. Or Nancy Pelosi’s annoying habit of challenging Republicans. Maybe Lipton can do a series on how Rose McGowan has really had a destructive influence on Hollywood’s sexual assault machine.
Lipton wasn’t done insulting Dr. Beck. Next, he questions her ethics by suggesting that the changes made during the EPA’s rulemaking process to a recently passed chemical reform bill was due to Dr. Beck looking out for her buddies in the chemical industry.
Yet, if Lipton really understood the rulemaking process, he would know that changes are often made to laws during the rulemaking process, either to correct errors or to account for things not considered or not known during the legislative process. In fact, under Obama, agency bureaucrats were infamous for flagrantly and entirely ignoring Congressional intent and crafting rules that fully altered laws to better suit their pro-environmental agenda. Naturally, Lipton was silent about those rulemaking shenanigans.
Conservatives have long steeled themselves to the dismal way they’re treated by the mainstream press. Yet the naked and aggressive sexism, cruel derision and shocking distortions female conservatives endure—particularly those who have chosen to serve President Trump--is a new, and somewhat scary frontier that has the potential to drive women away from federal service.
Maybe that’s the point.
http://www.iwf.org/news/2805081/Eric-Lipton%27s-Attack-on-Dr.-Nancy-Beck-is-a-Call-to-Conservative-Women
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(ACC Mentioned) Bakersfield Recycles Day Event This Weekend
Oct 30, 2017 | KERO 23ABC News
On Saturday, November 4th AEG Bakersfield, Aramark, the Bakersfield Condors, and Keep Bakersfield Beautiful will host Bakersfield Recycles Day.
They are joining thousands of local organizers holding recycling events across the country to celebrate America Recycles Day, the only nationally recognized day dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States.
Community partners for the event include California Assemblymember Rudy Salas, Alianza Recycling and Recovery, Metropolitan Recycling, The Salvation Army, and Metro Record Storage and Shredding. The 5th annual event is part of the AEG 1EARTH, AEG's corporate environmental sustainability program.
Residents of Bakersfield and greater Kern County are encouraged to drop off the following recyclable materials to the South Parking Lot of Rabobank Arena on the 4th from 8 AM to 1 PM:
Electronic items (E-waste)Large and small household items, including mattressesPassenger vehicle tires (Kern County residents only – limit 4)Used motor oil filters (Kern County residents only)Used clothing, shoes, and linensSurplus construction materialsPaper shredding (limit 2 file size boxes)Batteries and other recyclable material
“America Recycles Day provides a key moment in time to regain momentum for recycling in America, and to help make recycling a daily social norm across the country,” said Brenda Pulley, senior vice president, recycling, Keep America Beautiful. “Get involved by conducting an America Recycles Day event in your hometown. Take the “#BeRecycled” Pledge and invite your friends, family and neighbors to do the same. Let’s get people recycling in every aspect of their lives – at home, at work and on the go!”
For more information about recycling at Bakersfield Recycles Day, please call 661-852-7300.
America Recycles Day is made possible through the generous support of Amcor, American Chemistry Council, ISRI and Northrop Grumman Corporation.
http://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/bakersfield-recycles-day-event-this-weekend
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Rail Executive Takes Charge at PHMSA
Oct 30, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sam Mintz
Howard "Skip" Elliott was sworn in as head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration today.
The rail industry veteran was approved by the Senate earlier this month after clearing the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee without controversy.
Elliott, who before joining the federal government was a vice president at freight rail shipper CSX Transportation, now will take up the task of reforming an agency that has earned criticism for moving too slowly and failing to communicate effectively with stakeholders.
He said at his confirmation hearing he will work to address a backlog of congressional mandates from the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty and Job Creation Act of 2011 that have still not been enacted (Greenwire, Oct. 4).
His arrival at the agency was welcomed by the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.
"AOPL looks forward to working with the new PHMSA administrator to keep pipelines the safest way to transport energy," said CEO Andy Black in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/10/30/stories/1060065073
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EU Focuses Its Research Funding
Oct 30, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The European Commission is directing part of the last phase of its current seven-year research and innovation program to priorities including the development of low-carbon energy and sustainable materials.
The €80 billion ($92.8 billion) program, called Horizon 2020, began in 2014 and runs through 2020. Of that total, about €30 billion ($34.8 billion) will fund research and development between 2018 and the end of 2020, the Commission announced on Oct. 27.
Priorities for research include €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion) earmarked for efforts on low-carbon energy and boosting resilience to climate change. Another €1 billion ($1.2 billion) is aimed at helping create a “circular economy” in which resources are kept in use as long as possible, then recovered for reuse. As part of a €2.2 billion ($2.6 billion) effort on clean energy, €200 million ($232 million) will support the development and production in Europe of next-generation batteries. In addition, €2.7 billion ($3.1 billion) is designated for high-risk research that will likely have high payoffs if successful.
Horizon 2020 encourages scientists in the European Union to collaborate with counterparts elsewhere in the world, says Robert-Jan Smits, the EU’s director general for research and innovation. A number of program areas flagged for such international cooperation involve the chemical sciences. They include development of biobased plastics, personalized medicine, biotechnologies to clean up pollution, methods to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals, management of radioactive waste, research into nanomaterial safety, and the microbiome.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/10/EU-focuses-research-funding.html
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CW Report Captures Key Messages from Brexit Conference
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The uncertainty for business after the UK’s exit from the EU is among key points highlighted in a recently published Chemical Watch report on its inaugural Brexit conference.
Another main message at the event, jointly produced with NGO Chem Trust and trade body techUK on 29 September, is that industry groups representing the UK and the EU do not want trade barriers set up between Britain and the rest of Europe. And no one wants a reduction in standards to protect human health and the environment.
Business needs to improve its lines of communication – from the supply chain to government – and speak up for the best deal possible, delegates heard.
Representatives from UK government, member states, Echa, NGOs, consultants, law firms and British and European industry took part in the debate.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60627/cw-report-captures-key-messages-from-brexit-conference
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EPA Must Finish the Job on Toxic Solvents
Oct 30, 2017 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
Almost a year ago, using its authority under the newly reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the EPA proposed banning certain uses of three solvent chemicals—methylene chloride (MC or DCM) and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) for paint and coating removal and trichloroethylene (TCE) for spot removal in dry cleaning and industrial vapor degreasing. Nearly a year later, the agency still hasn’t finalized these protections.
More than 60,000 people submitted comments in support of finalizing these public health protections through Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and our allies in the environmental health community.
This week, concerned by reports that EPA may delay or weaken final action on the rules, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families was joined by sixty-three public health, consumer, and environmental groups, in sending a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruittcalling on the Trump Administration to finish the job of protecting our communities and families from these dangerous chemicals.
If these rules are delayed, more than two million workers and consumers will be needlessly exposed to serious, well-documented health risks. We urge you to keep the rulemaking process moving forward and finalize the three rules as proposed as soon as possible.
With overwhelming bipartisan votes, Congress overhauled TSCA last year in direct response to EPA’s abysmal record in addressing unsafe chemicals under the law. The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act removes the roadblocks to effective public health protections that had stymied action under the old law. Thanks to the 2016 law’s TSCA amendments, EPA now has the tools it needs for forceful action to eliminate unacceptable chemical risks.
It is long past time for the EPA to ban these uses, which have been shown hazardous to worker and consumer health time and time again. Waiting to finalize the bans puts the health of millions of consumers and workers at risk. In fact, just a few months ago, 21-year-old Kevin Hartley died after using a methylene chloride-based paint stripper at a job site in Tennessee. What is the EPA waiting for?
http://saferchemicals.org/2017/10/30/epa-must-finish-the-job-on-toxic-solvents/
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Regulation Continues to Rise at State Level
Oct 30, 2017 | Thomas Russell
By Furniture Today
Chemical regulation at the state level has risen in the past several years and does not appear to be slowing down.
That was a key message from Allyson Azar, manager of state affairs and political mobilization at the American Chemical Council. She was among the speakers at the American Home Furnishings Alliance 2017 Regulatory Summit held Oct. 25 at Guilford Technical Community College.
She began her presentation, The Unpredictable Landscape of State Legislation, with an overview of the evolution of chemical regulation, touching on the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 and subsequent revisions to the law and a surge in chemical regulation by states starting in the mid-2000s through last year.
Labeling and disclosure bills also have risen in recent years, according to Azar.
Some of this increased regulation has occurred due to the influence of Non-Governmental Organizations, which include citizens’ groups concerned about the health impact of various chemicals, particularly on children.
According to Azar, the net effect has been increased legislation in many states. This year alone, for example, there have been bills restricting flame retardants in 19 states and 17 bills regulating flourochemicals in 9 states.
Chemical labeling bills have been introduced in eight states, including New York and California.
But NGOs are not only advancing their cause at the state level, Azar noted. They are also going to large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target. These are among the retailers that already have asked their suppliers to phase out certain chemicals.
Due to increased consumer awareness and increased NGO fundraising efforts, Azar predicted further efforts to regulate chemicals in consumer products in 2018 and beyond. This includes increased scrutiny of flame retardants and flourochemicals.
http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/547628-chemical-regulation-continues-rise-state-level/
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EPA Chief Backs Another Pesticide Harmful to Kids
Oct 30, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko
A pesticide called dicamba has become a poster child for the arms race between ever-stronger weeds and ever-stronger weed killers. By drifting from fields of crops genetically engineered to withstand it onto unprotected neighboring fields, dicamba has devastated millions of acres of soybeans and other crops throughout the Midwest.
But dicamba is not only a danger to crops. The weedkiller could increase the risk of cancer in pesticide applicators and cause nervous system damage. An Environmental Protection Agency risk assessment shows that 1- and 2-year olds are the group most heavily exposed to dicamba on food. EWG’s analysis of the assessment found that if the EPA followed the rules required by a federal law to protect children’s health, dicamba would be banned.
Nonetheless, earlier this month the EPA cut a deal to allow dicamba’s continued use. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to ignore the risks to kids – echoing his earlier decision to reverse a scheduled ban on the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos – was warmly received by dicamba’s manufacturers, including Monsanto, DuPont and BASF. A Monsanto executive told NPR. “We’re very excited by it.”
No wonder. Following Pruitt’s decision, Monsanto expects dicamba use to double next year, swelling profits. Meanwhile, farm fields that aren’t planted with dicamba-resistant GMO crops remain at risk – and so do people.
A National Cancer Institute study found an increased risk of colon cancer for pesticide applicators who spray dicamba. Inhaling dicamba may also increase the risk of lung cancer – a troubling finding that indicates dicamba drifting from fields could also endanger people who live or attend school nearby.
In animal studies, rats exposed to dicamba in their diet for two years showed an increased frequency of malignant lymphomas and thyroid carcinomas. In both animals and people, accidental ingestion or inhalation of dicamba can damage the nervous system. The European Union classifies dicamba as a category II suspected endocrine disruptor.
EWG dug into the EPA’s human health assessment for dicamba. Using a dietary analysis that accounted for the presence of dicamba in various foods and the dietary patterns for different age groups, the EPA determined that 1-to-2 year-old children have the highest exposure to dicamba for their body weight. Dicamba is used not only on genetically modified soybeans, but also on non-GMO wheat, barley, corn and other grains.
Under the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, after calculation of risks to the general population, an additional tenfold safety factor must be applied to protect children. Despite the potential risks, the EPA decided not to use this safety factor. Because the highest exposure level is for 1-to-2 year-old kids, had the EPA used the children’s health protection factor required by law, the agency could not have allowed dicamba on the market.
In contrast to the EPA, Arkansas regulators have proposed a ban on dicamba for 2018, pending further studies on its tendency to drift, and eight states have limited its use.Monsanto is challenging the Arkansas ban, but manufacturers are also facing lawsuits from farmers in at least 10 states.
Regardless of what happens with dicamba, it is clear that the pesticide arms race is a losing battle. The dicamba debacle is mirroring the fallout from the explosion in use of glyphosate, another Monsanto pesticide engineered for GMO crops. Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, has triggered the evolution of “superweeds” and the State of California lists it as a known human carcinogen. To protect crops, farmworkers, the general public and children, the answer is reducing the use of chemical pesticides – not continuing to develop newer, more powerful formulations.
https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/10/epa-chief-backs-another-pesticide-harmful-kids#.WfgxOFuCyUk
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US EPA Bars Manufacture of Rubber Additive
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The US EPA has ruled that a rubber additive cannot be manufactured in the country, unless the company submits additional animal testing data.
Alkyldiene, polymer, hydroxy terminated alkoxysilylalkylcarbamate (generic), was to be used as an additive to improve the compatibility of the dispersibility of inorganic fillers in industrial rubber formulation, according to its pre-manufacture notice (PMN). The EPA "predicts irritation and lung effects to unprotected workers from repeated inhalation and dermal exposures", it said in a notice published in the 19 October Federal Register.
The decision is one of 29 significant new use rules (Snurs), issued this month by the EPA regarding substances subject to TSCA section 5(e) consent orders.
In the case of 12-Hydroxystearic acid, reaction products with alkylene diamine and alkanoic acid (generic), the EPA is concerned about both danger to human health and toxicity to aquatic organisms. The Snur limits manufacture of the substances to a "confidential production limit", unless the manufacturer submits data from specified toxicity tests. The substances are to be used in the production of industrial paints and coatings.
Snurs more commonly require protective measures to limit worker exposure, restrict how a substance is manufactured or otherwise mitigate potential risks, as is the case with most of the 29 published on 19 October.
Consent orders are only binding on the original pre-manufacture notice (PMN) submitter. The EPA typically promulgates a Snur that mimics the 5(e) order so that all subsequent manufacturers and processors of the substance will be bound to the same requirements.
The EPA will accept comments on the Snurs until 20 November. The rule will take effect on 18 December if no adverse comments are received.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60561/us-epa-bars-manufacture-of-rubber-additive
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Forty Two PMNs Received by US EPA in August
Oct 31, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The US EPA received 42 pre-manufacture notices (PMNS) in August.
A notice published in the 23 July Federal Register indicates that in 34 of them, the name of the manufacturer or importer was withheld as confidential business information (CBI).
Seven PMNs concerned additives for electrocoat formulas, six were for substances used to manufacture polymers and five for processing additives.
The agency announced in September that it received 49 new PMNs in July; 36 in June; 22 in May; and 58 in April.
The EPA also received 13 notices of commencement (NOCs) in August, compared with 17 in June and 20 in July. This represents a significant drop from the spring, when 115 NOCs were received in May and 152 in April.
The agency is accepting comments on the August submissions until 22 November.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60554/forty-two-pmns-received-by-us-epa-in-august
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Interior Aims for Fewer and Quicker Steps for Land Decisions
Oct 31, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
How long should it take, and how many layers of bureaucracy should be involved, to get to a yes or a no on a proposed oil exploration plan or a natural gas pipeline right-of-way on federal land?
David Bernhardt, deputy secretary of the Interior Department, is trying to answer those questions as part of an effort to streamline federal regulations governing not only oil and gas projects but also the broad range of natural resources and diverse activities on federal lands, from the largest coal mines to simple brush-clearing projects or recreational opportunities.
The effort will include strategies for expediting environmental analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act, but NEPA is only part of the larger picture.
President Donald Trump has ordered Interior and other federal departments and agencies to find ways to promote U.S. energy development. One of Bernhardt's tasks as the No. 2 official at Interior is to reduce the many steps needed to achieve that goal without falling afoul of NEPA or other laws.
“If we just take half the steps out of that, we will have made a real positive decision,” Bernhardt said during an interview with Bloomberg Environment.
It could mean savings of money and time for companies and federal agencies and allow the companies to feel more confident about including federal lands in their capital investment plans. Oil, gas, and coal companies routinely urge the government to clarify, simplify, and speed their permitting. Many companies avoid federal lands because of the regulatory burdens.
For some advocacy groups, the worry is the changes could mean skipping steps needed for environmental protection.
‘Give Us Our Best Ideas’
Bernhardt is well aware that many lawsuits will follow if the changes are not done right. He's an attorney whose clients included energy companies and other natural resource developers while he was at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, and he was in the Interior Department under President George W. Bush.
“I am pretty confident that our track record will be as good if not better than our predecessor's track record,” Bernhardt said in reference to the prospect of the administration defending itself in court.
Many ideas for procedural changes are coming from staff members, according to Bernhardt. “We're coming in saying, ‘How do we make the place better? Give us our best ideas.’ And they're providing those best ideas,” he said.
One example of reducing steps would be to identify potential problems early, Berhnardt said.
“That's one of the things we're working on is to make sure if there's a project that has issues, those issues are identified early, they're considered in terms of a best course of action early, and then at the senior management level they make decisions,” he said.
The process also could be sped up by different teams or agencies doing parallel rather than sequential work, he said.
Such ideas are not new, but the Trump administration could go further than its predecessors in requiring them.
The first Interior agency up for changes is the Bureau of Land Management, manager of 245 million surface acres and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals rights—or about one of every 10 acres of U.S. land and 30 percent of U.S. minerals, the agency estimates.
Bernhardt said he expects to get the procedural changes for the BLM to be in place in a couple of months for all projects that include a review by offices at Interior headquarters, which means the majority of projects.
More broadly within Interior, the results of the streamlining efforts should be evident in the agenda announced this fall for regulatory work in 2018, Bernhardt said. It will be a robust regulatory agenda with shorter timelines—relative to the rulemakings of the last administration—because of less cumbersome decision-making procedures, he said.
NEPA Review Targets Set
NEPA requirements often lead to environmental impact statements that could take two years to review and run to 1,000 to possibly 2,000 pages. The added pages typically accommodate extensive consideration of impacts, alternative courses of action, public comments—and the many court decisions that have helped define those obligations.
Lengthy NEPA procedures can be unavoidable in certain big projects, such as the Gateway West high-voltage transmission plan, a 1,000-mile project that needed the BLM to grant rights-of-way on federal lands in Idaho and Wyoming. It was planned by Idaho Power Co. and PacifiCorp, the latter utility a part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. empire.
That process involved a five-year study that produced an environmental impact statement in 2013 for Gateway West. A supplemental impact statement was issued in 2016 and remanded by the Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals in early 2017, after which Congress stepped in and used an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 to eliminate a right-of-way sticking point by altering the boundaries of a national conservation area. An additional BLM environmental assessment has yet to be completed.
Bernhardt issued a memorandum at the end of August setting a one-year period for completing an environmental impact statement, but with flexibility to go beyond that, with an assistant secretary's approval needed to exceed the target by more than three months. The memo also set an impact statement length limit of 150 pages for most projects and 300 pages for unusually complex projects—also with flexibility to go longer if an assistant secretary approves.
Bernhardt suggested a variety of ways to cut length, such as using “incorporation by reference,” which means the use of short references to other regulations rather than lengthy repetitions of those other regulations.
“Implementation of the memo could result in an uptick of NEPA-based challenges to final agency actions, and lead to additional case law defining the contours of environmental impact analyses,” attorneys for the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP said in a September note.
‘Magna Carta’ of Environmental Law
Ted Zukoski, a Denver-based attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, during an Oct. 24 interview related the worries many activists have about policy changes under NEPA, nicknamed the Magna Carta of U.S. environmental law because of its broad requirements for federal agencies to consider impacts.
“When you hear the word ‘streamline,’ usually what that means is cut out the public,” Zukoski said, referring to NEPA's requirements for public notice and comment.
Zukoski did not suggest an environmental impact statement can't be done in one year and 300 pages, but it could be difficult, given two potentially significant comment periods and the possible requirement for time-consuming wildlife surveys. He said he had seen an environmental impact statement of 1,000 pages with a many holes in it.
But length alone doesn't assure a good job in Bernhardt's view. A 2,500-page environmental impact statement will have been put together by teams writing various sections, and a lawyer will be able to comb through it and find inconsistencies that can be the basis for litigation, he said.
NEPA environmental analyses, shorter than environmental impact statements, can take six months and sometimes a year.
“I asked the bureaus frankly to give me what they think would be achievable, and I think I'm going to see a lot of three to six months” for environmental analyses, Bernhardt said. “Now that's assuming that this process is fixed.”
The changes he was describing were management decisions that need no rulemaking, Bernhardt said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123190987&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123190987&jd=123190987
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Trump's Shifting Trade Stance a Key Question for Gas Exporters
Oct 30, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion
By Chris Newkumet
With a tight global market currently discouraging entry and forcing new U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters to think outside the box, a special challenge comes in the form of the somewhat erratic messaging and policy shifts of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Still, many U.S. market observers see access to financing and general pricing dynamics — rather than regulatory delays — as the key holdups for U.S. projects looking for a piece of the growing pie. Meanwhile, the administration’s ongoing assailments of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provides yet another twist in the LNG narrative.
Global LNG markets have swung over the last five years from a supply-constrained environment, which drove spot LNG prices to near $20 per one million British thermal units (MMBtu), to the well-supplied environment in place today, with prices trending down to levels equal to European gas prices plus transportation costs.
LNG trade is expected to triple over the next few decades, climbing from 12 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2015 to 31 Tcf in 2040.
“North America is projected to become a major exporter of natural gas by 2020,” through pipeline deliveries across borders with Canada and Mexico and LNG cargoes throughout the world, said the Energy Information Administration in a recent report, pointing to Asia as a major landing spot for growing U.S. LNG exports.
So far this year, Mexico is the largest single importer of U.S. LNG, accounting for roughly 117 Bcf, or 25 percent of all delivered cargoes. Mexico’s continued dependence on LNG is largely a result of falling domestic natural gas production and delays facing U.S. cross-border pipeline expansions.
While Mexican production is expected to continue its downward march through at least the end of the decade, the pending addition of another 3.35 Bcf/d of cross-border capacity, coupled with roughly 8.9 Bcf/d of expansions within Mexico, should drastically reduce Mexico’s need for LNG by 2019.
While Mexico’s position as a major importer of U.S. LNG may be short-lived, it still will require increasing imports of U.S. pipeline gas over the next five years. As Mexico liberalizes its energy markets, pipeline gas figures to push out fuel oil for power generation and LNG.
In the midst of NAFTA negotiations, U.S. natural gas exports are in a curious spot. Mexico is unlikely to place import tariffs on U.S. gas, as that country is becoming increasingly dependent on U.S. supply and has no other import options aside from higher-cost LNG.
A tax on U.S. natural gas would translate to a levy on Mexican consumers, who would end up paying more for imported gas. And while natural gas represents a nearly one-way trade between the U.S. and Mexico, it is considered unlikely that the U.S. would place an export tariff on gas. Other trade sectors, such as auto parts, are seen as more likely candidates for tariffs.
Against this backdrop, competition is fierce among pending U.S. export projects seeking to outlast the current global LNG glut. Platts Analytics expects that the six LNG export terminals currently under construction will be completed over the next five years, raising total U.S. LNG export capacity to 9.9 Bcf/d, and that U.S. LNG export terminals will reach full utilization by 2024.
That could make the U.S. the third-largest LNG exporter by 2019, with total exports potentially nearing that of rival Australia by the mid-2020s. According to Platts Analytics, Australian LNG exports are expected to average 10.05 Bcf/d in 2024, just ahead of the U.S. at 9.3 Bcf/d.
But a big question for U.S. LNG is “do the economics still make sense?" offered Edward Chow, senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. U.S. LNG was well-positioned when international prices were above $8/MMBtu and domestic natural gas was at $3/MMBtu or less. "At global spot LNG prices of $5 or even below, I don't see how U.S. LNG is in the money," he said recently.
However, for some new project developers, it still makes sense because by 2022, there should be sufficient demand and the spot LNG prices won't stay at the relatively low levels they are at today, he continued.
Still, the U.S. regulatory picture continues to flicker in and out of focus, and the president’s shifting trade policy pronouncements have left some scratching their heads.
For instance, after high-profile handshakes with China and South Korea, other signals have been less friendly, including a passing threat by Trump of a trade war with China or of tearing up South Korea's trade agreement.
Nonetheless, industry advocates have welcomed the Trump administration's high-level cheerleading for LNG exports. In meetings with foreign leaders from Asia and Eastern Europe, Trump has touted LNG exports as a way to lower the U.S. trade deficit while bolstering energy security abroad.
Added to that is the administration’s push to streamline the project permitting process. Also looking to grease the skids for LNG exports are Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who are pushing legislation that would lift the requirement that the Department of Energy make a public interest determination for exports to countries without free-trade agreements.
But it's unclear for now how much attention revamping LNG export reviews will get in the crowded political arena in Washington, as larger battles loom this fall over taxes, the debt ceiling and the budget.
Chris Newkumet is bureau chief of the Washington bureau of S&P Global Platts.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/357854-Trump-trade-stance-a-key-question-for-gas-exporters
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U.S. Oil, Gas Dealmakers Likely Eyeing Niobrara, Bakken and Beyond Permian Core, Says Raymond James
Oct 30, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Global oil and gas dealmaking has remained fairly resilient even when pressured by commodity pricing, and transactions now may extend beyond the Permian Basin’s core, as well as into the Niobrara formation and Bakken Shale, said Raymond James & Associates analysts.
The long-term trend “shows an industry preference for asset deals” as the industry moves toward more capital discipline, said analysts Pavel Molchanov, John Freeman and Muhammed Ghulam. They issued a note to clients on Monday about the previous trends and what they predict going forward.
If oil prices trend higher in the next one to two years, the merger and acquisition (M&A) “hot spots” likely will be higher-cost and/or higher-risk areas, which in the United States could mean beyond the Permian core.
“The bulk of the Permian deals in recent years have focused on the Midland and Delaware basins,” said analysts. “Looking ahead, we envision activity picking up in the Central Basin Platform, especially the northern portion, an area that has historically had relatively little development.”
In addition, the Niobrara formation and the Bakken Shale “should see renewed interest once the industry feels comfortable in the durability of $50/bbl West Texas Intermediate.”
Analysts used a holistic approach to analyzing deal flow worldwide to view what has happened in recent years, looking at every global upstream-focused deal from 2005 to today with a value of $1 billion and higher, using data supplied by IHS Markit.
Each transaction was placed into either the corporate or asset category. Corporate M&A represents buying an entire enterprise, or a partial equity stake in an enterprise while asset M&A relates to individual properties (producing or nonproducing), a package of properties, or a volumetric production payment.
“Even in 2016, the year when oil bottomed below $30/bbl, M&A was roughly at the levels of 2011 and 2007, both strong years in the oil market,” said Molchanov and his colleagues. “By contrast, global capital spending in 2016 was at barely half the level of 2011!”
There may never be a return to the record $200 billion-plus boom years of 2012 and 2013, but with $120 million year-to-date, 2017 is tracking to be the first year for M&A increases since 2013. This year also may be the fourth of the past six with asset M&A making up most of the transactions.
Conventional wisdom is that the energy industry is interested only in U.S. opportunities, but the Raymond James team found the geographic footprint actually is highly diverse, at least among the $1 billion-plus transactions. What may appear skewed is that the Permian Basin takes a lot of the spotlight.
“The Permian may be the only basin globally where valuations have actually increased as oil prices fell by half from their peak 2013-2014 levels,” analysts said. “Bearing this in mind, along with the market’s overall fixation on everything shale (less than 10% of global supply gets perhaps 90% of the investor attention), conventional wisdom seems to think that the U.S. accounts for a large majority of global M&A.
“The reality is quite different.”
The U.S. percentage of global M&A actually has not trended higher in the past decade or so, with the “norm” around 20-30%.
“Interestingly, the two years with the lowest U.S. percentage (8% in 2013 and 2015) were both quite recent.” The outlier in 2015 was the mega-merger between two European majors, Royal Dutch Shell plc and BG plc.
“To be sure, the U.S. is generally ‘punching above its weight’ in terms of M&A, relative to its proportion of global oil production or capital spending,” said analysts. “As to how any given player approaches its decision to increase or decrease U.S. asset exposure, that is a highly individualized matter.”
Generally, U.S. operators with an international footprint have become more domestically oriented, including ConocoPhillips, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., while operators not based in the United States, including Shell and BHP Billiton, “have sourced on their previous efforts to build a U.S. onshore business.”
U.S. offshore dealmaking is nearly stalled, according to a recent analysis by IHS Markit. While overall U.S. energy M&A increased during the third quarter, total value fell substantially as operators sought smaller, bolt-on acquisitions and went hunting outside the Permian for the first time in months, PwC said in a third quarter review. PwC said three transactions were completed in the Permian worth $1.48 billion, with the Anadarko Basin reporting the most active unconventional dealmaking with six transactions worth $3.94 billion total. Five deals each also were made in the Bakken for $4.86 billion total, and in the Eagle Ford Shale, worth $698 million total.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112265-us-oil-gas-dealmakers-likely-eyeing-niobrara-bakken-and-beyond-permian-core-says-raymond-james
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Arkema Fire May Complicate Pruitt's RMP Redo but Few Expect Stricter Rule
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry attorney is acknowledging that the industrial facility fire sparked by Hurricane Harvey flood waters may complicate the Trump administration's effort to revise an Obama-era rule updating the agency's risk management plan (RMP) accident prevention program with new requirements, as environmentalists have argued the fire backs the need for the Obama rule.
“With this Arkema incident, if [EPA] opens the rule back up, they're now going to have to consider the impact of a catastrophic storm on RMPs,” the source says. “It's something they probably hadn't anticipated when the rule was originally delayed … I don't know how they'll address this, but it's certainly something they will have to contend with.”
But other industry attorneys say the Trump administration is unlikely to impose new requirements on facilities. They say EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may seek to tighten protections for facility data, given his past opposition to the Obama-era rule's provisions for streamlining disclosure of facility data to first responders and the public.
“You could see maybe more data protection requirements, something targeted toward the security concerns that facilities had, and that Pruitt was concerned with before his nomination,” a second industry attorney says.
The second attorney and others also suggested that any rolling back of the Obama-era RMP update could open the door to greater state oversight of industrial facility safety, something that the Trump EPA is unlikely to try and stop, given Pruitt's pronouncements in favor of increased state and local responsibility for addressing environmental concerns.
Pruitt in March delayed by nearly two years implementation of an Obama-era rule updating the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program with new requirements to allow time to significantly revise the rule.
While a federal court is slated to weigh the validity of the Trump administration's delay, environmental groups are pushing for maintaining the Obama rule and calling for additional requirements on facilities, though industry sources say Pruitt will likely seek to better protect facility data from disclosure, and also target other rule provisions.
But one industry attorney acknowledges that the Aug. 31 fire at an Arkema, Inc. facility in Crosby, TX, will likely complicate the Trump administration's effort to roll back RMP as the agency will have to respond to environmentalists' calls for considering the effects of increased storms, possibly spurred by climate change, in any final revisions.
The industry attorney notes that Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), in a Sept. 1 letter to Pruitt argued that the Arkema fire cast doubt on Trump administration plans to roll back the RMP rule, and suggesting stronger requirements to bolster emergency planning may be necessary in an era of increased flooding, often attributed to climate change.
In addition, environmental and public health groups are continuing to point to the Arkema fire in opposing any roll back of the Obama-era rule, and to push for additional regulations to protect environmental justice communities from cumulative risks from industrial facilities and other factors.
'Diminished' Damages
In an Oct. 25 blog post Charise Johnson, of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) argues that, “[I]f the improvements to the RMP had been allowed to go into place as planned, damage from chemical plants during Hurricane Harvey could have been diminished.”
The blog announced a pair of recent reports issued by UCS and other advocacy groups calling for greater protections for communities near industrial facilities and for preserving the Obama-era update to RMP.
The Obama EPA's Jan. 12 final RMP rule updated the agency's Clinton-era RMP regulation with new requirements for facilities to conduct independent audits, analyze safer alternatives, and improve emergency response planning and streamline release of facility data to the public.
Pruitt opposed the rule while attorney general of Oklahoma, faulting provisions for streamlining release of facility data as worsening terror threats. Then, with Pruitt in charge, EPA June 14 issued a final rule delaying the update 20 months from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 to allow time to revise the Obama-era rule.
Environmental groups including UCS, Sierra Club and Air Alliance Houston, are challenging the delay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has expedited the litigation. Sources have speculated that any Trump administration proposal to revise the Obama-era RMP rule will likely come after the delay case is resolved.
But environmental groups are continuing to press for preserving the Obama-era rule in a series of new reports and in meetings with Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Coons (D-DE), according to a source with an environmental group.
In an Oct. 20 fact sheet “Community Impact: Chemical Safety, Harvey, and Delay of the EPA Chemical Disaster Rule,” UCS argues that the Obama-era RMP rule could have mitigated the Arkema incident and that rolling back the rule would increase risk of future accidents.
The fact sheet cites provisions of the Obama RMP update rule that require facilities, such as Arkema's Crosby facility that have had past incidents, to conduct a root cause analysis and consider whether inherently safer technologies would improve safety, arguing those steps may have led to changes at the facility that could have prevented the fire.
Additionally, UCS argues that the Obama RMP update rule's requirements for greater coordination between facilities and first responders would have led to better protections for first responders.
“With the first explosion on August 31, these responders were not informed by Arkema officials that anything had occurred, resulting in their exposure to toxic fumes and significant medical harm,” the fact sheet says. “A requirement to engage local officials in conducting field exercises would have ensured that first responders were aware of the potential dangers and also knew how to protect them-selves from exposures.”
UCS, along with the Environmental Justice Health Alliance and several Delaware-based environmental groups issued an Oct. 26 report, “Environmental Justice for Delaware Mitigating Toxic Pollution in New Castle County Communities” argue that insufficient oversight of RMP facilities contribute to cumulative risks faced by environmental justice communities.
The report reiterates environmentalists' long-standing calls for EPA to use Clean Air Act authority to require that industrial facilities use inherently safer technologies, usually alternative substances or processes, to reduce risks, and for facilities to share data with first responders and neighboring communities.
Advocates also urge the Trump administration to prevent construction of new or expanded industrial facilities near homes and schools, and also to require large chemical facilities to continuously monitor and publicly report fence line emissions, including “near miss” incidents that result in unplanned releases and that could warn of future incidents.
“People living in nearby communities should be able to easily access information (based on validated continuous monitoring) on the toxic emissions coming from industrial facilities, along with information about the chemicals’ health hazards,” the report says.
“The EPA or state or local pollution control agencies should expand current requirements for oil refineries to monitor benzene at their fence line by adding other toxic air pollutants such as toluene and xylene and requiring fenceline monitoring for other major industrial sources.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/arkema-fire-may-complicate-pruitts-rmp-redo-few-expect-stricter-rule
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Industry May Seek EPA Guide to Ease Strict 'Off-Site' Enforcement Reviews
Oct 30, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Industry officials may ask the Trump administration to provide greater clarity on how EPA reviews facilities' analysis of the potential impacts of accidental “off site” releases as agency enforcement officials are maintaining the Obama EPA's stepped up scrutiny of the analyses, an industry attorney says.
EPA's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention rule requires companies to conduct an off-site consequence analysis (OCA) of a worst-case release of hazardous substances.
Although facilities submit OCAs to EPA, the attorney says RMP does not require agency approval and in years past EPA has rarely faulted the analyses, though that is now changing. “They've ignored these plans for a long time, and they're now taking a much harder look and they're finding things they believe are inconsistent with their regulations,” the source says.
But the source also faulted agency guidance on conducting the reviews as inconsistent with the RMP rule.
The concern comes as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has delayed implementation of an Obama-era final rule updating RMP with new requirements for independent audits, hazard analysis and streamlined disclosure of facility data. The delay is to allow time for the Trump EPA to propose a rule revising the Obama EPA's RMP update.
While it is unclear when the Trump EPA will propose changes to RMP, the source says that industry may urge the agency to clarify steps facilities must take in conducting OCAs in final revisions to the RMP rule.
“It could be that if this impacts a significant number of facilities, or if people feel they are being unfairly squeezed by EPA on this issue” that companies might raise the concern in comments to the agency.
The source says the increased focus on OCAs began as part of the Obama administration's wide-ranging response to a 2013 explosion at a fertilizer facility in West, TX, that killed 15 people, including first responders, and injured 200 others.
In 2013, former President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13650, requiring federal agencies to review their facility safety and security regulations, which led to EPA's Jan. 12 final rule updating RMP.
While environmentalists are challenging Pruitt's delay of the update rule, others are questioning industries' compliance with the underlying regulation.
In one public sign that the agency is stepping up its scrutiny of facilities' OCAs, EPA recently urged the chlorine industry to rescind guidance detailing a dispersion modeling method for conducting OCAs after recent testing showed that the method underestimated risks.
The industry attorney says that EPA's increased scrutiny on OCAs extends to toxic gases other than chlorine, and is coming as a surprise since the agency for years rarely, if ever, faulted facilities' analyses.
The source says industry is reluctant to push the new approaches for fear of looking as if they are downplaying environmental risks, though newer models are based on emerging science and may be more accurate.
The source also argued that companies' OCAs contain numerous other conservative assumptions, including that EPA does not allow consideration of so-called active mitigation measures, which require a worker action, such as turning on water sprayers after an incident in the risk calculations. The source argued that overestimating risks diverts accident prevention resources from focusing on risks to areas that would actually be affected.
Still, the source says that companies that have used newer modeling approaches that account for how vegetation or other variables may mitigate a hazardous release have drawn scrutiny from EPA.
EPA is “very concerned that your calculations and the modeling that you use will mirror real-world tests,” the source says. But also that “It has been difficult for the agency to wrap their head around how [new models] end up with a smaller radius” of a potential worst-case release.
In an email to Inside EPA, an agency spokeswoman said the agency has made “no recent changes to its requirements or guidance for conducting offsite consequence analyses” under the RMP.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-may-seek-epa-guide-ease-strict-site-enforcement-reviews
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More Must be Done to Protect America's Nuclear Power Plants from Cyberattacks
Oct 31, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion
By Michael Nacht and Charalampos Andreades
In testimony this month before the congressional Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, Patricia Hoffman, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, outlined some of the measures government agencies are taking to protect our energy infrastructure from “significant cyber incidents.” The programs she outlined — information sharing, research and development, physical preparedness, and multi-stakeholder coordination — are all vitally important. But there are additional novel approaches that can be taken to further bolster the cybersecurity of our power system, particularly at the 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants that account for almost 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply.
America’s nuclear plants have already become targets of cyber-attack, as evidenced by the recent breach of the administrative computer system at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Kansas. According to reports, this intrusion was part of a much broader, sophisticated cyber-attack involving over a dozen U.S. electrical power facilities. Such an attack is alarming, as a failed safety system at a nuclear power facility could result in substantial releases of radioactive materials.
The good news is that U.S. federal agencies have taken the question of nuclear power cybersecurity seriously. By law, nuclear control systems are segregated, meaning attackers wishing to manipulate the systems that plants use to operate and produce power would need to infiltrate multiple levels of plant networks, including air-gapped interfaces that are disconnected from the Internet. A successful cyber-attack on a plant’s reactor protection system, which detects potential accident conditions and responds by shutting down the reactor and initiating reactor core cooling, would be yet more challenging, particularly as the vast majority of existing nuclear reactor protection systems still use analog or early digital technology that predates the Internet.
Still, despite these safeguards, nuclear power facilities may still be vulnerable to attack on multiple fronts. For example, while penetrating an air-gapped system would be difficult, nuclear plants are not impervious to insider threats; a person working in a plant could put a virus directly into the network, as was demonstrated in the famous case of Stuxnet, when a foreign intelligence agent posing as an employee reportedly used a thumb drive to inject malware into Iran’s centrifuge industrial controls. The sophisticated virus even altered the plant’s digital displays to deceive plant operators into thinking all was normal, even as the virus was causing massive damage to nearly 1,000 centrifuges.
Additional risk lies in the potential for a remote hacker to cripple a plant through its external power source. Ten years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted tests at Idaho National Laboratory demonstrating that large electrical generators and motors could be destroyed remotely by hacking into the digital controls used to open and close electrical switches connected to this equipment. Within a few repetitions of such an attack, smoke emerges and the equipment is destroyed. Meanwhile, state actors already have the proven ability to shut off power grids through cyber-attack, as was demonstrated when suspected Russian hackers shut down power across much of Ukraine in 2015-2016, and many current plants cannot successfully shut down without external power.
Given such risks, it is essential that cybersecurity be top of mind in all decisions related to nuclear power plant design, particularly as the United States will need to replace or retrofit almost all our existing energy infrastructure by the year 2050. The newest designs signal a step in the right direction: four of the newest reactors being constructed in the United States use “passive safety,” where safe shutdown is achieved by disconnecting external electrical power and digital control.
Plant designers also have opportunities to research and design control system interfaces that are more usable and intuitive for human operators. There will always be a role for human operators — just as airplane pilots must supervise their “auto pilot” functions — but automating the quantitative analysis of plant status and streamlining communication in off-normal scenarios will empower operators to place information into context more rapidly and make decisions in a timely fashion. Research has shown that real-time simulators can help by allowing operators to refer to virtual models to detect erroneous information resulting from component failure or data manipulation by cyberattackers. Simulators can also be immensely effective for training operators and optimizing control room design.
Because details about security systems in nuclear plants are classified, it is possible that many of the safety measures noted here are already in place. Regardless of what steps have been taken, industry and government leaders must continue to work together to stay one step ahead of would-be attackers, particularly as they may be state-sponsored actors with unlimited budgets. The Securing Energy Infrastructure Act, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Angus King (I-Maine), notes the need to “safeguard against cyber-attacks by replacing key devices like computer-connected operating systems, which can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks, with less-vulnerable analog and human-operated systems.” This bill called for a pilot program focused on identifying security vulnerabilities in the energy sector, as well a working group comprising both government and industry stakeholders, both of which would support the kind of proactive research that will be needed.
Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry must continue to invest in not only new technology, but also training and human factors, to maximize plant safety and security. By combining technological protections with the intuition and experience of seasoned plant operators, the nuclear industry can provide a fruitful path to enhance the future security of U.S. nuclear plants for decades to come.
Michael Nacht is a professor of public policy and former Aaron Wildavsky Dean at the Goldman School of Public Policy, and previously served as assistant secretary of Defense. Charalampos Andreades is a postdoctoral scholar in the University of California, Berkeley Department of Engineering.
http://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/357902-more-must-be-done-to-protect-americas-nuclear-power-plants-from
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt Poised to Shake Up Key Advisory Panels
Oct 31, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appears set to reshape two key advisory panels with an influx of new members drawn from industry and state government, while ousting others because they receive agency grants.
A list obtained by E&E News late yesterday indicates that Pruitt will name 17 new members to EPA's Science Advisory Board as well as three new appointees to the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
Earlier this month, Pruitt said he intended to address concerns that board members who also receive EPA grants may lack "objectivity" (E&E News PM, Oct. 17). While the new directive was initially supposed to be released last week, the announcement is now scheduled for this afternoon at EPA headquarters, according to lawmakers and leaders of conservative groups invited to attend.
The new policy will probably please EPA critics — including Republican members of Congress — who say the panels are tilted toward academic researchers with little understanding of the real-world impact of regulations tied to their work. It's also bound to infuriate environmental groups that already view the agency under Pruitt as abandoning its responsibility to protect public health.
EPA press representatives did not reply to an emailed request for confirmation of the list's authenticity, but sources familiar with the selection process deemed it accurate.
Among the new members of the Science Advisory Board (SAB) would be Larry Monroe, who recently stepped down as chief environmental officer for Atlanta-based Southern Co.; Kimberly White, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council; and Donald van der Vaart, the former head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, who at one point was a front-runner to head EPA's Office of Air and Radiation in the Trump administration.
The board's new chairman would be Michael Honeycutt, director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's toxicology division and an outspoken foe of EPA's 2015 decision to tighten the ground-level ozone standard to 70 parts per billion (Greenwire, April 1, 2015).
Heading the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) would be Tony Cox, a Colorado-based consultant who similarly argued against tightening the standard. According to the list, Pruitt will also name to the panel Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director and chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; and James Boylan, manager of planning and support at the Georgia Environmental Protection Division's air branch.
The CASAC is charged with offering outside expertise to EPA during legally required reviews of air quality limits for ozone and other major pollutants; the SAB, which currently has almost 50 members, advises the agency on a variety of topics. At present, the rosters of both panels are mostly drawn from colleges and universities.
In some cases, the new appointees would be taking the place of people whose terms recently expired. While members have traditionally been named to a second three-year stint, Pruitt broke with that custom earlier this year in opting against renewing the terms of members of a third EPA panel, known as the Board of Scientific Counselors (E&E News PM, May 8). He appears to be following suit with the SAB and CASAC.
Other incumbents are apparently being ousted because they are currently EPA grant recipients; last week, agency staffers had queried them on their funding status(E&E News PM, Oct. 24). It's unclear whether the forthcoming directive will affect membership on almost two-dozen other EPA advisory panels.
'Step in the right direction'
While critics of Pruitt's forthcoming policy say it will cost EPA the expertise of top-flight scientists, it's likely to be welcomed by GOP lawmakers who contend that receipt of agency money creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and could promote a bias in favor of new regulations.
"If you're involved in a grant process, we don't want you to be influenced," Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a brief interview at the Capitol yesterday evening. While cautioning that he had not seen the specifics of Pruitt's policy, Rounds called it a "step in the right direction."
Rounds, one of three senior EPW Committee members to voice concerns to Pruitt this summer about other aspects of CASAC's work, said he planned to attend this afternoon's announcement. Attempts to learn whether the other two — EPW Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) — would also be present were unsuccessful yesterday.
Backers of the existing system note that EPA already polices potential conflicts of interest. There's no evidence that agency money improperly influences researchers' conclusions, they say.
By replacing advisers with people who are opposed to EPA's mission, Pruitt "shows that his idea of science advice involves an echo chamber instead of a sounding board," Genna Reed, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, said in an email last night.
Honeycutt's campaign
Honeycutt, who referred questions yesterday about his possible appointment back to EPA, last year mounted an unusual public quest for a seat on CASAC that featured endorsement letters from business giants like Exxon Mobil Corp., along with support from colleagues elsewhere in government and the academic community (Greenwire, Aug. 26, 2016).
Then-Administrator Gina McCarthy passed him over in favor of a candidate who now looks likely to lose her seat because of the forthcoming grant policy (Greenwire, Oct. 10, 2016).
At a 2013 congressional hearing, Honeycutt agreed that receipt of EPA funding could be "seen as a potential source of bias," according to his prepared testimony before the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Environment.
More balanced, he said, would be the approach taken by Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), a nonprofit consulting firm founded by Michael Dourson, now President Trump's pick to head EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
TERA's work for tobacco companies, chemical manufacturers and other industry interests has roused particularly intense opposition to Dourson's nomination from Senate Democrats and environmental groups (E&E Daily, Oct. 5). At the 2013 hearing, however, Honeycutt lauded the firm for striving to include a variety of perspectives on its review panels that included "diverse professional affiliations."
"TERA believes, and we concur, that an objective evaluation by independent experts with a variety of viewpoints is critical to the credibility of any peer review," Honeycutt said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/10/31/stories/1060065109
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In Unprecedented Move, EPA to Block Scientists Who Get Agency Funding from Serving as Advisers
Oct 31, 2017 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is poised to make wholesale changes to the agency’s key advisory group by jettisoning scientists who have received grants from the EPA and replacing them with industry experts and state government officials.
The move represents a fundamental shift, one that could change the scientific and technical advice that historically has guided the agency as it crafts environmental regulations. The decision to bar any researcher who receives EPA grant money from serving as an adviser appears to be unprecedented.
A list of expected appointees to the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, obtained by The Washington Post from multiple individuals familiar with the appointments, include several categories of experts — voices from regulated industries, academics and environmental regulators from conservative states, and researchers who have a history of critiquing the science and economics underpinning tighter environmental regulations. They would replace a number of scientists who currently have agency grants and whose terms are expiring.
The formal list of appointees is scheduled to be announced Tuesday.
Terry F. Yosie, who was the advisory board’s director during the Reagan administration, said the changes “represent a major purge of independent scientists and a decision to sideline the SAB from major EPA decision-making in the future.”
The EPA could not immediately be reached for comment, but Pruitt suggested in a speech this month at the Heritage Foundation that he planned to rid the agency’s scientific advisory boards of researchers with EPA funding. He argued that the current structure raises questions about their independence, though he did not voice similar objections to industry-funded scientists.
“What’s most important at the agency is to have scientific advisers that are objective, independent-minded, providing transparent recommendations,” Pruitt said at the time. “If we have individuals who are on those boards, sometimes receiving money from the agency . . . that to me causes questions on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way.”
Among the likely appointees are sharp proponents of deregulation who have argued both in academic circles and while serving in government that federal regulators need to raise the bar before imposing new burdens on the private sector.
John D. Graham, who now serves as dean of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, launched a major deregulatory push while head of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under George W. Bush. He repeatedly informed agencies that they had not sufficiently justified the rules they wanted to enact, establishing a process under the Data Quality Act that allowed petitioners to ask agencies to withdraw information that did not meet OMB standards for “quality, objectivity, utility and integrity.”
In an interview with The Post in 2004, Graham said regulations are “a form of unfunded mandate that the federal government imposes on the private sector or on state or local governments.”
Anne Smith, who serves as managing director of NERA Economic Consulting and co-heads its environmental practice, belongs to a firm that has done extensive work for groups that fought the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda. In June, President Trump cited a report NERA produced for the American Council for Capital Formation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when announcing his decision to exit the international Paris climate agreement. The report projected that meeting America’s commitment under the accord would mean “as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025.”
That study was based on several assumptions, including the idea that the United States would meet its emissions targets not by maximizing energy efficiency or other low-cost approaches but by forcing the industrial sector to cut emissions by 40 percent between 2005 and 2025. The report did “not take into account potential benefits” from cutting greenhouse gas emissions or technological advances that could make cutting carbon emissions cheaper.
After Trump’s use of these statistics drew criticism, NERA issued a statement saying that the 2016 report “study was not a cost-benefit analysis of the Paris agreement, nor does it purport to be one.”
At least three of the listed appointees have backgrounds working for large corporations whose activities are or could potentially be regulated by the EPA, including the French oil giant Total, Phillips 66 and Southern Co., one the largest U.S. utilities.
One of them, Larry Monroe, was previously chief environmental officer at Southern, which has millions of customers in the Southeast. Monroe has particular expertise in how the EPA regulated emissions from coal-fired power plants and criticized the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which Pruitt is trying to roll back. Monroe argued that the plan, which was intended to reduce carbon emissions, was “unworkable and would increase electricity prices to customers while hurting reliability.”
n addition, the group of new appointees include those who have, like Pruitt, battled the EPA in the past. They include Michael Honeycutt, head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s toxicology division; he has suggested that the health risks associated with smog are overstated. Another expected appointee is Donald van der Vaart, the former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, who has called Obama-era efforts to slash carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and to regulate water quality in the nation’s rivers and wetlands “glaring examples of federal overreach.”
The move to prohibit anyone receiving EPA grant money from serving on the board has prompted questions and criticism from independent researchers and from some of the agency’s current advisers, who noted that they follow strict ethics procedures to avoid conflicts of interest.
Robyn Wilson, an Ohio State University professor and an advisory board member who specializes in risk analysis, said in an interview Monday that she received a grant this year to work on a project evaluating the extent to which federal funds spent on restoring the Great Lakes have made an impact. The agency approved a roughly $750,000 grant that will be divided among about 10 researchers at three different institutions; about $150,000 would go to Ohio State.
“You want people there with expertise, who have experience with the issues EPA is dealing with,” Wilson said, adding that with each assignment board members must “go through a pretty elaborate conflict of interest process” to make clear that they don’t have a stake in the outcome.
“I just study how farmers make decisions,” she added. “Whether EPA regulates something or not, that doesn’t play into what I do.”
Angela Nugent, who previously worked for the EPA as the designated federal officer for the board, said that the determination regarding EPA grants would differ from how the agency used to determine when a conflict of interest had occurred.
“It would be a major departure from current policy” to assume that board members have a conflict of interest based on their grants without looking at the actual situation in which they are being asked to do their work and how those grants might affect it, she said.
In the past, Nugent said, the board has required financial disclosures from members in relation to each particular study or project on which they were advising. Determinations of conflict of interest were then made relating to the specifics of the subject matter conflicts, rather than a blanket bar because an individual had an EPA grant.
Current advisory members reached out to Pruitt on Sept. 13, formally asking him to meet with them so they could discuss his agenda and their role in advising the agency.
“Such a meeting would afford you the opportunity to highlight EPA activities and priorities and would allow for a dialogue on how best the SAB can work to ensure the highest quality science supports Agency’s policies and decisions,” wrote board chair Peter Thorne, a professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Iowa. “The SAB stands ready to serve and encourages you to take full advantage of the vital resource we can provide.”
Pruitt has not met with the group.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/10/30/in-unprecedented-shift-epa-to-prohibit-scientists-who-receive-agency-funding-from-serving-as-advisers/?utm_term=.a9734b8aae73
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Carbon Footprints Now Come Standard for Benchmarks Like S&P 500
Oct 30, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio
Carbon footprints and other related metrics are now shown alongside financial data for popular stock market benchmarks like the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
S&P Dow Jones Indices, the first index provider to include such information among standard metrics published online, said it did so in response to increasing interest from investors, banks, insurers, and others concerned about climate change.
“All types of finance sector participants are quickly realizing the need to understand, assess, and manage the carbon inherent in their investments for many reasons, including responding to their own clients’ requests for carbon transparency,” S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Hannah Skeates, who is responsible for developing new strategy indices and indices based on environmental, social, and governance considerations, said in an Oct. 30 email to Bloomberg Law.
“Being able to explicitly integrate carbon in decision-making allows them to assess and communicate a more rounded picture to their clients, one which understands environmental characteristics to be increasingly important,” Skeates said.
The index provider also countered the worry that incorporating environmental considerations into an index may hurt financial performance. Low-carbon versions of the S&P 500 in the U.S. and the S&P Global 1200 have actually outperformed their benchmarks over the past five years, according to research released as part of the announcement.
The carbon metrics come from Trucost, an environmental data and analysis firm that S&P Dow Jones Indices bought a controlling stake in a year ago.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123190998&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123190998&jd=123190998
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EPA Claims Suit over Ozone Designations Delay is Moot
Oct 31, 2017 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf is claiming that litigation filed by several states and environmentalists over the agency's since-withdrawn delay of designations for which areas are attaining the 2015 ozone standard is moot, and the fact that EPA then missed the Clean Air Act deadline for issuing the findings does not make the case ripe.
In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suit American Lung Association, et al. v. EPA, et al.,states and environmental groups are suing the Trump EPA over its June decision to extend the air law's Oct. 1 deadline for all area designations for the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The designations are necessary for implementation of the NAAQS, which the Obama EPA set at 70 parts per billion (ppb), tougher than the prior level of 75 ppb set by the Bush EPA in 2008.
EPA then revoked its initial one-year delay in August. The agency insists this mooted the lawsuit, and reinstated the original Oct. 1 deadline -- which the agency has now missed. The court has now placed the case in abeyance, but states and environmentalists continue to press the court to issue a vacatur of the one-year extension.
States advised the court of EPA’s missed Oct. 1 deadline in an Oct. 19 letter, arguing that it shows EPA has no intention of complying with the Clean Air Act’s deadline requirements. “EPA’s continued delay in issuing designations evidences its departure from the withdrawal notice and support for the prior policy of illegal delay,” wrote New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Many of these same states have threatened to sue EPA afresh in federal district court over its missed Oct. 1 deadline, but some fear EPA could re-issue a delay before they are able to file suit in December.
However, in an Oct. 30 legal filing in reply, DOJ says the case is moot because the one-year extension “has been withdrawn and is thus a nullity.”
Further, “That the deadline for designations has now passed does not mean that the extension has somehow sprung back to life.” Rather, “the situation today is exactly the same as it would have been had EPA never issued the extension, i.e., the designations were not made by the deadline and State Petitioners may bring a citizen suit to compel EPA action once they have met the statutory prerequisites,” DOJ says.
The withdrawn extension “has a concrete legal effect that renders this case moot. The withdrawn extension is not causing, and cannot cause, Petitioners an injury-in-fact, and thus there is no effective remedy the Court can grant,” DOJ says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-claims-suit-over-ozone-designations-delay-moot
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