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ACC PM 2/11/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt Bars Researchers Receiving US EPA Grants From Advisory Panels
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
US EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has issued a Directive barring anyone receiving grant money from the agency from serving on its scientific advisory panels. This will not only shape future appointments, but could force sitting board members to step down. -
(ACC Mentioned) Disposability in the Age of Disasters: From Dreamers and Puerto Rico to Violence in Las Vegas
Nov 2, 2017 | Truthout
By Henry A. Giroux
Under Trump, a politics of disposability has merged with an ascendant authoritarianism in the United States in which the government's response to such disparate issues as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) crisis, the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria and the mass shooting in Las Vegas are met uniformly with state-sanctioned and state-promoted violence. -
EDF Asks Court to Compel Release of US EPA Documents
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has filed a lawsuit to compel the US EPA to release information on Administrator Scott Pruitt's ethics determinations, his schedule and directives to agency staff barring them from publicly discussing scientific research. -
US EPA Proposes Mercury Reporting Rules
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The US EPA has proposed reporting requirements for a new mercury inventory, mandated by the 2016 TSCA amendments. -
Little Follow-Up When FDA Finds High Levels of Perchlorate in Food
Nov 2, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom J. Neltner
FDA’s attempt at providing consumers with information about the presence of a toxic chemical in food and what it means for their health falls short. By focusing on the similar average level of perchlorate across foods, FDA masks the disturbing fact that children are consuming increasing amounts of perchlorate: 35% for infants, 23% for toddlers and 12% for children between 2 and 6 from 2004-2006 to 2008-2012. -
Newest GenX Lawsuit Attacks DuPont Science
Nov 2, 2017 | North Carolina Health News
By Catherine Clabby
A complaint filed on behalf of Brunswick County in federal court alleges the chemical company downplayed dangers detected in its own toxicology studies. -
Costco Works With Green Centre on Chemical Management
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US retailer Costco said it is working with the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry on a new chemical management policy. -
N.J. DEP Sets Nation's Strictest Limit on Chemical in Drinking Water
Nov 2, 2017 | WHYY
By Jon Hurdle
New Jersey’s efforts to clean up public drinking water took a step forward on Wednesday when the Department of Environmental Protection said it would impose the nation’s toughest limit on a chemical that has been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, and developmental problems in young children. -
Echa's MSC Agrees on Test for Benzotriazole as Endocrine Disruptor
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Dr. Emma Davies
Echa's Member State Committee (MSC) has agreed that benzotriazole, which is used in dishwasher tabs, should be tested using a fish sexual development test to determine if it is an environmental endocrine disruptor. -
Sweden's Chemicals Tax Heavily Flawed, Say Electronics Organisations
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Sweden's recently enforced tax on bromine, chlorine and phosphorous-based substances used in electronics is significantly flawed and counterproductive, according to businesses in the sector. -
NGO Coalition Urges EU-Wide Ban on Microplastics in Cosmetics
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
A group of NGOs is putting pressure on the European Commission to introduce an EU ban on all microplastics in cosmetics and to take regulatory action on polymer ingredients. -
Echa Round-Up
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has launched a targeted harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) consultation for the substance N-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide. -
Enviros Fight Exports From Other Angles After Legal Defeat
Nov 2, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court delivered a triple-blow to critics of liquefied natural gas exports yesterday, adding to a string of recent legal defeats for environmentalists hoping to block the U.S. from feeding shale gas to a global market. -
Eyeing Clock, Investors Push Shale Drillers for Returns
Nov 2, 2017 | E&E Energywire
The U.S. shale boom is ongoing, but as the most easily accessible reserves dry up, investors are beginning to get restless. -
EPA Mulls Phase-In for Methane Rule's Requirements
| Politico Pro Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA says it is considering longer phase-in periods for key requirements under the 2016 methane emissions rule for new oil and gas wells, rather than implementing an outright stay. -
Quarter of Oil Refineries Risk Closure Under Climate Goals-Report
Nov 2, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
A quarter of the world's oil refineries risk closure by 2035 if governments meet targets to limit fossil fuel burning in the fight against global warming, a report released on Thursday said.
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt Bars Researchers Receiving US EPA Grants From Advisory Panels
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
US EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has issued a Directive barring anyone receiving grant money from the agency from serving on its scientific advisory panels. This will not only shape future appointments, but could force sitting board members to step down.
EPA advisory committees have been dominated by academics. But Mr Pruitt's policy change will effectively preclude many from participating because the EPA is a significant source of funding for environmental research.
The reasoning behind the policy is that researchers dependent on agency funding could favour regulatory policies they think will lead to more funded research.
"We want to ensure there is integrity in the process and the scientists who are advising us are doing so without any appearance of conflict," Mr Pruitt said in announcing the new policy on 31 October.
Mixed reaction
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Republicans applauded the move, while Democrats and environmental advocates argued that the real conflict of interest lies with board members employed by the industries the EPA regulates.
"The Trump EPA's continued attack on science will likely be one of the most lasting and damaging legacies of this administration," said Senator Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), the ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that approves the EPA’s funding. "Pruitt is purging expert scientists from his science boards – and replacing them with mouthpieces for big polluters."
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said in a blog post that Mr Pruitt should implement his policy by firing Michael Dourson, the nominee to head the EPA's chemical management office, who has been working at the agency as a consultant. Dr Dourson's company has received funding from the EPA as well as industry, Dr Denison writes.
The new Directive says no member of an EPA federal advisory committee can "be currently in receipt of EPA grants, either as principal investigator or co-investigator, or in a position that otherwise would reap substantial direct benefit from an EPA grant."
The policy does not apply to state, local or tribal officials. Indeed, the Directive pledges more representation from those groups, as well as an effort to seek "geographic diversity".
Mr Pruitt said members of three of the EPA's advisory committees – the Science Advisory Board (SAB), the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and the Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) – had received over $77m in EPA grant funding in the past three years.
He said that board members receiving the funding "will have to choose either the grant or service". The agency confirmed that the policy will be applied to sitting board members, who would have to step down or give up their grants.
Nominations expected
Mr Pruitt has also announced three appointments. They are:
· Michael E Honeycutt, the top toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, to chair the SAB;
· Paul Gilman, an executive at Covanta, a waste-to-energy company, as BOSC chair; and
· Tony Cox, a consultant who represents clients in the oil and chemical industries, to head CASAC.
He said the EPA plans to announce more advisory board appointments soon.
Even without purging current members, the administration has ample opportunity to reshape the committees.
In May, the EPA declined to retain BOSC members whose three-year terms were expiring, although board members typically serve two terms.
Only three members remain on the 18-member panel, which provides advice, information and recommendations to the EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) on technical and management issues of its research programmes.
Only 21 of the 47 current SAB members are serving unexpired terms, and the EPA called for nominations in June.
The SAB is the largest of the agency’s advisory panels, and it has the broadest mandate: to review "the quality and relevance" of scientific information being used as the basis for regulations and the agency's research agenda, as well as advising "on broad scientific matters".
The EPA announced in August that it would name additional members to an expanded Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals.
The Obama administration appointed members in January to serve on the 18-seat board, mandated by the 2016 TSCA amendments. The picks – of which less than a quarter represent industry – were criticised by the ACC, which has backed four candidates, including one of its own officials.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60761/pruitt-bars-researchers-receiving-us-epa-grants-from-advisory-panels
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Nov 2, 2017 | Truthout
By Henry A. Giroux
Under the reign of Donald Trump, politics has become an extension of war and death has become a permanent attribute of everyday life. Witness the US's plunge into a dystopian world that bears the menacing markings of what presents itself as an endless series of isolated catastrophes. All of these are inevitably treated as unrelated incidents; victims subject to the toxic blows of fate. Mass misery and mass violence that result from the refusal of a government to address such pervasive and permanent crises are now reinforced by the popular neoliberal assumption that people are completely on their own, solely responsible for the ill fortune they experience. This ideological assumption is reinforced by undermining any critical attention to the conditions produced by stepped-up systemic state violence, or the harsh consequences of a capricious and cruel head of state.
"Progress" and dystopia have become synonymous, just as state-endorsed social provisions and government responsibility are exiled by the neoliberal authorization of freedom as the unbridled promotion of self-interest: a narrow celebration of limitless "choice," and an emphasis on individual responsibility that ignores broader systemic structures and socially produced problems. Existential security no longer rests on collective foundations, but on privatized solutions and facile appeals to moral character.
Under Trump, a politics of disposability has merged with an ascendant authoritarianism in the United States in which the government's response to such disparate issues as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) crisis, the devastation of Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria and the mass shooting in Las Vegas are met uniformly with state-sanctioned and state-promoted violence.
In an age when market values render democratic values moot, a war culture drives disposability politics. Indeed, the politics of disposability has a long legacy in the United States, and extends from the genocide of Native Americans and slavery, to the increasing criminalization of everyday behaviors and the creation of a mass incarceration state.
To read more articles by Henry A. Giroux and other authors in the Public Intellectual Project, click here.
In the 1970s, the politics of disposability, guided by the growing financialization of a neoliberal economy, manifested itself primarily in the form of legislation that undermined the welfare state, social provisions and public goods, while expanding the carceral state. This was part of the soft war waged against democracy -- mostly hidden and wrapped in the discourse of austerity, "law and order" and market-based freedoms.
At the beginning of the 21st century, we have seen the emergence of a new kind of politics of death, the effects of which extend from the racist response to Hurricane Katrina to the lead poisoning of thousands of children in Flint, Michigan, and dozens of other cities. This is a politics in which entire populations are considered disposable, an unnecessary burden on state coffers, and consigned to fend for themselves. This is a politics that now merges with aggressive and violent efforts to silence dissent, analysis and the very conditions of critical thought. People who are Black, Brown, poor, disabled or otherwise marginalized are now excluded from the rights and guarantees accorded to fully fledged citizens of the republic, removed from the syntax of suffering, and left to fend for themselves in the face of natural or human-made disasters. And their efforts to mobilize have been met with murderous police crackdowns and deportations.
With the election of Trump, the politics of disposability and the war against democracy have taken on a much harder and crueler edge, with the president urging the police to "take the gloves off" and the attorney general calling for a regressive "law and order" campaign steeped in racism.
Under 21st century neoliberal capitalism, and especially under the Trump regime, there has been an acceleration of the mechanisms by which vulnerable populations are rendered unknowable, undesirable, unthinkable, considered an excess cost and stripped of their humanity. Relegated to zones of social abandonment and political exclusion, targeted populations become incomprehensible, civil rights disappear, hardship and suffering are normalized, and human lives are targeted and negated by diverse machineries of violence as dangerous, pathological and redundant. For those populations rendered disposable, ethical questions go unasked as the mechanisms of dispossession, forced homelessness and forms of social death feed corrupt political systems and forms of corporate power removed from any sense of civic and social responsibility. In many ways, the Trump administration is the new face of a politics of disposability that thrives on the energies of the vulnerable and powerless. Under such conditions, power is defined by the degree to which it is abstracted from any sense of responsibility or critical analysis.
This type of disposability is especially visible under Trump, not only because of his discourse of humiliation, bigotry and objectification, but also in his policies, which are blatantly designed to punish those populations who are the most vulnerable. These include the victims in Puerto Rico of Hurricane Maria, immigrant children no longer protected by DACA, and a push to expand the armed forces and the para-militarization of local police forces throughout the country as part of a race-based "law and order" policy. Trump is the endpoint of a new dystopian model of disposability, and has become a window on the growing embrace of violence and white supremacy at the highest levels of power, as both a practice and ideological legitimation for increasing a culture of fear. Fear, in this context, is framed mostly within a discourse of threats to personal safety, serving to increase the criminalization of a wide range of everyday behaviors while buttressing the current administration's racist call for "law and order." This culture of fear threatens to make more and more individuals and groups inconsequential and expendable.
Under such circumstances, the US's dystopian impulses not only produce harsh and dire political changes, but also a failure to address a continuous series of economic, ecological and social crises. At the same time, the machinery of disposability and death rolls on, conferring upon entire populations the status of the living dead. The death-dealing logic of disposability has been updated and now parades in the name of freedom, choice, efficiency, security, progress and, ironically, democracy. Disposability has become so normalized that it is difficult to recognize it as a distinctive if not overriding organizing principle of the new American authoritarianism.
While the politics of disposability has a long legacy in the United States, Trump has given it a new and powerful impetus. This era differs from the recent past both in terms of its unapologetic embrace of the ideology of white supremacy and its willingness to expand state-sanctioned violence and death as part of a wider project of the US's descent into authoritarianism.
Running through these events is a governmental response that has abandoned a social contract designed, however tepidly, to prevent hardship, suffering and death. Large groups of people have been catapulted out of the range of human beings for whom the government has limited, if any, responsibility. Such populations, inclusive of such disparate groups as the residents of Puerto Rico and the Dreamers, are left to fend for themselves in the face of disasters. They are treated as collateral damage in the construction of a neoliberal order in which those marginalized by race and class become the objects of a violent form of social engineering relegating its victims to what Richard Sennett has termed a "specter of uselessness," whose outcomes are both tragic and devastating.
A politics of disposability provides a theoretical and political narrative that connects the crisis produced in Puerto Rico after the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria to the crisis surrounding Trump's revoking of the DACA program. Trump's support of state-sanctioned violence normalizes a culture and spectacle of violence, one not unrelated to the mass shooting that took place in Las Vegas.
First, let's examine the crisis in Puerto Rico as a systemic example of both state violence and a politics of disposability and social abandonment.Puerto Rico as a Zone of Abandonment
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, slammed into and devastated the island of Puerto Rico. In the aftermath of a slow government response to the massive destruction, conditions in Puerto Rico have reached unprecedented and unacceptable levels of misery, hardship and suffering. As of October 19, over 1 million people were without drinking water, 80 percent of the island lacked electricity, and ongoing reports by medical staff and other respondents indicate that more and more people were dying. Thousands of people are living in shelters, lack phone service, and have to bear the burden of a health care system in shambles.
Such social immiseration is complicated by the fact that the island is home to 21 hazardous superfund sites, which pose deadly risks to human health and the environment. Lois Marie Gibbs ominously reports that waterborne illnesses are spreading, just as hospitals are running low on medicines. Caitlin Dickerson observed that the "the Environmental Protection Agency cited reports of residents trying to obtain drinking water from wells at hazardous Superfund sites." These are wells that were once sealed to avoid exposure to deadly toxins. The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, warned that a number of people have died from Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread by animal urine.
The Trump administration's response has been unforgivably slow, with conditions worsening. Given the accelerating crisis, the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, made a direct appeal to President Trump for aid, stating with an acute sense of urgency, "We are dying." Trump responded by lashing out at her personally by telling her to stop complaining. Cruz became emotional when referring to elderly and ill victims of Maria that she could not reach and who were "still at great risk in places where relief supplies and medical help had yet to arrive." Cruz said the situation for many of these people was "like a slow death." Stories began to emerge in the press that validated Cruz's concerns. Many seriously ill dialysis patients either had their much-needed treatments reduced or could not get access to health care facilities. Because of the lack of electricity, Harry Figueroa, a teacher, "went a week without the oxygen that helped him breathe" and eventually died at 58. "His body went unrefrigerated for so long that the funeral director could not embalm his badly decomposed corpse."
Scholar Lauren Berlant has used the term "slow death" in her own work to refer "to the physical wearing out of a population and the deterioration of people in that population that is very nearly a defining condition of their experience and historical existence." Slow death captures the colonial backdrop of global regimes of ideological and structural oppression deeply etched in Puerto Rico's history. The scale of suffering and devastation was so great that Robert P. Kadlec, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response stated that "The devastation I saw, I thought was equivalent to a nuclear detonation."
Puerto Rico's tragic and ruinous problems brought on by Hurricane Maria are amplified both by its $74 billion debt burden, an ongoing economic crisis, and the legacy of its colonial status and lack of political power in fighting for its sovereign and economic rights in Washington. With no federal representation and lacking the power to vote in presidential elections, it is difficult for Puerto Ricans to get their voices heard, secure the same rights as US citizens and put pressure on the Trump administration to address many of its longstanding problems. The latter include a poverty rate of 46 percent, a household median income of $19,350 [compared to the US median of $55,775], and a crippling debt. In fact, the debt burden is so overwhelming that "pre-Maria Puerto Rico was spending more on debt service than on education, health, or security. Results included the shuttering of 150 schools, the gutting of health care, increased taxes, splitting of families between the island and the mainland, and increased food insecurity." Amy Davidson Sorkin was right in arguing that "Indeed, the crisis in Puerto Rico is a case study of what happens when people with little political capital need the help of their government."
Not only did Trump allow three weeks to lapse before asking Congress to provide financial aid to the island, but his request reeked of heartless indifference to Puerto Rico's economic hardships. Instead of asking for grants, he asked for loans. Throughout the crisis, Trump released a series of tweets in which he suggested that the plight of the Puerto Rican people was their own fault, lambasted local officials for supposedly not doing enough, and threatened to cut off aid from government services. Adding insult to injury, he also said that they were "throwing the government's budget out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico."
Trump also suggested that the crisis in Puerto Rico was not a real crisis when compared to Hurricane Katrina. Trump's view of Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens was exposed repeatedly in an ongoing string of tweets and comments that extended from the insulting notion that "they want everything to be done for them" to the visual image of Trump throwing paper towel rolls into a crowd as if he were on a public relations tour. Throughout the crisis, Trump has repeatedly congratulated himself on the government response to Puerto Rico, falsely stating that everybody thinks we are doing "an amazing job." A month after the crisis, Trump insisted, without irony or a shred of self-reflection, that he would give himself a "perfect ten."
These responses suggest more than a callous expression of self-delusion and indifference to the suffering of others. Trump's callous misrecognition of the magnitude of the crisis in Puerto Rico and extent of the island's misery and suffering, coupled with his insults and demeaning tweets, demonstrate the perpetuation of race and class oppressions through his governance. There is more at work here than a disconnection from the poor; there is also a white supremacist ideology that registers race as a central part of both Trump's politics and a wider politics of disposability. It is difficult to miss the racist logic of reckless disregard for the safety and lives of Puerto Rican citizens, bordering on criminal negligence, which simmers just beneath the surface of Trump's rhetoric and actions. Hurricane Maria exposed a long history of racism that confirms the structural abandonment of those who are poor, sick, elderly -- and Black or Brown.
Trump embodies the commitments of a neoliberal authoritarian government that not only fails to protect its citizens, but reveals without apology the full spectrum of mechanisms to expand poverty, racism and hierarchies of class, making some lives disposable, redundant and excessive while others appear privileged and secure. Trump's utterly failed response to the disaster in Puerto Rico reinforces Ta-Nehisi Coates's claim that the spectacle of bigotry that shapes Trump's presidency has "moved racism from the euphemistic and plausibly deniable to the overt and freely claimed." What has happened in Puerto Rico also reveals the frightening marker of a politics of disposability in which any appeal to democracy loses its claim and becomes hard to imagine, let alone enact without the threat of violent retaliation.Revoking DACA and the Killing of the Dream
Trump's penchant for cruelty in the face of great hardship and human suffering is also strikingly visible in the racial bigotry that has shaped his cancellation of the DACA program, instituted in 2012 by President Obama. Under the program, over 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children or teens before 2007 were allowed to live, study and work in the United States without fear of deportation. The program permitted these young people, known as Dreamers, to have access to Social Security cards, drivers' licenses, and to advance their education, start small businesses and to be fully integrated into the fabric of American society. Seventy-six percent of Americans believe that Dreamers should be granted resident status or citizenship. In revoking the program, Trump has made clear his willingness to deport individuals who came to the US as children and who know the United States as their only home.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was called upon to be the front man in announcing the cancellation of DACA. In barely concealed racist tones, Sessions argued that DACA had to end because "The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences ... denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens" and had to be rescinded because "failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism." None of these charges is true.
Rather than taking jobs from American workers, Dreamers add an enormous benefit to the economy and "it is estimated that the loss of the Dreamers' output will reduce the GDP by several hundred billion dollars over a decade." Sessions's claim that DACA contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors at the border is an outright lie, given that the surge began in 2008, four years before DACA was announced, and it was largely due, as Mark Joseph Stern points out, "to escalating gang violence in Central America, as well as drug cartels' willingness to target and recruit children in Mexico ... [A] study published in International Migration ... found that DACA was not one of these factors."
Trump's rescinding of DACA is politically indefensible and heartless. Only 12 percent of Americans want the Dreamers deported and this support is drawn mostly from Trump's base of ideological extremists, religious conservatives and far-right nationalists. This would include former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who left the White House and now heads, once again, Breitbart, the right-wing news outlet. Bannon is a leading figure of the right-wing extremists influencing Trump and is largely responsible for bringing white supremacist and ultranationalist ideology from the fringes of society to the center of power. On a recent segment of the TV series "60 Minutes," Bannon told Charlie Rose that the DACA program shouldn't be codified, adding "As the work permits run out, they self deport.... There's no path to citizenship, no path to a green card and no amnesty. Amnesty is non-negotiable." Bannon's comments are cruel but predictable given his support for the uniformly bigoted policies Trump has pushed before and after his election.
The call to end DACA is part of a broader racist anti-immigration agenda aimed at making America white again. The current backlash against people of color, immigrant youth and those others marked by the registers of race and class are not only heartless and cruel, they also invoke a throwback to the days of state-sponsored lynching and the imposed terror of the Ku Klux Klan. Additionally, they offer up an eerie resonance to the violent and repressive racist policies of the totalitarian governments that emerged in Germany in the 1930s and Latin America in the 1970s.Las Vegas and the Politics of Violence
On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, ensconced on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, opened fire on a crowd of country and western concertgoers below, killing 58 and wounding over 500. While the venues for such shootings differ, the results are always predictable. People die or are wounded, and the corporate media and politicians weigh in on the cause of the violence. If the assailant is a person of color or a Muslim, they are labeled a "terrorist," but if they are white, they are often labeled as "mentally disturbed." Paddock was immediately branded by President Trump as a "sick" and "deranged man" who had committed an act of "radical evil."
Trump's characterizing of the shooting as an act of radical evil is more mystifying than assuring, and it did little to explain how such an egregious act of brutality fits into a broader pattern of civic decline, cultural decay, political corruption and systemic violence. It also erases the role of state-sanctioned violence in perpetuating individual acts of brutality. Corporate media trade in isolated spectacles, and generally fail to connect these dots. Rarely is there a connection made in the mainstream media, for instance, between the fact that the US is the largest arms manufacturer with the biggest military budget in the world and the almost unimaginable fact that there are more than 300 million people who own guns in the United States, which amounts to "112 guns per 100 people." While the Trump administration is not directly responsible for the bloodbath in Las Vegas, it does feed a culture of violence in the United States.
Many Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, reinforced the lack of civic and ethical courage that emerged in the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre by arguing that it was "particularly inappropriate" to talk about gun reform or politics in general after a mass shooting. By eliminating the issue of politics from the discussion, figures like McConnell erased some basic realities, such as the power of gun manufacturers to flood the country with guns, and the power of lobbyists to ensure that gun-safety measures do not become part of a wider national conversation. This depoliticizing logic also enabled any discussion about Paddock to be centered on his actions as an aberration, as opposed to a manifestation of forces in the larger culture.
The corporate press, with few exceptions, was unwilling to address how and why mass shootings have become routine in the United States and how everyday violence benefits a broader industry of death that gets rich through profits made by the defense industry, the arms manufacturers and corrupt gun lobbyists. There was no reference to how young children are groomed for violence by educational programs sponsored by the gun industries, how video games and other aspects of a militarized culture are used to teach youth to be insensitive to the horrors of real-life violence, how the military-industrial complex "makes a living from killing through defense contracts, weapons manufacturing and endless wars." Nor did much of the media address how war propaganda provided by the Pentagon influences not only pro-sports events and Hollywood blockbuster movies, but also reality TV shows, such as "American Idol" and "The X-Factor."
In the aftermath of mass shootings, the hidden structures of violence disappear in the discourses of personal sorrow, the call for prayers and the insipid argument that such events should not be subject to political analysis. Trump's dismissive comments on the Vegas shooting as an act of radical evil misses the fact that what is evil is the pervasive presence of violence throughout American history and the current emergence of extreme violence and mass shootings on college campuses, in elementary schools, at concerts and in diverse workplaces. Mass shootings may have become routine in the US, but the larger issue to be addressed is that violence is central to how the American experience is lived daily.Militant Neoliberalism in an Armed USA
Militarized responses have become the primary medium for addressing all social problems, rendering critical thought less and less probable, less and less relevant. The lethal mix of anti-intellectualism, ideological fundamentalism and retreat from the ethical imagination that has grown stronger under Trump provides the perfect storm for what can be labeled a war culture, one that trades democratic values for a machinery of social abandonment, misery and death.
War as an extension of politics fuels a spectacle of violence that has overtaken popular culture while normalizing concrete acts of gun violence that kill 93 Americans every day. Traumatic events such as the termination of DACA or the refusal on the part of the government to quickly and effectively respond to the hardships experienced by the people of Puerto Rico no longer appear to represent an ethical dilemma to those in power. Instead, they represent the natural consequences of rendering whole populations disposable.
What is distinctive about the politics of disposability -- especially when coupled with the transformation of governance into a wholesale legitimation of violence and cruelty under Trump -- is that it has both expanded a culture of extreme violence and has become a defining feature of American life. The state increasingly chooses violence as a primary mode of engagement. Such choices imprison people rather than educate them, and legitimate the militarizing of every major public institutions from schools to airports. The carceral state now provides the template for interacting with others in a society governed by persistent rituals of violence.
Democracy is becoming all the more irrelevant in the United States under the Trump administration, especially in light of what Robert Weissman, the president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, calls "a total corporate takeover of the US government on a scale we have never seen in American history." Corporate governance and economic sovereignty have reached new heights, just as illiberal democracy has become a populist flashpoint in reconfiguring much of Europe and normalizing the rise of populist bigotry and state-sanctioned violence aimed at immigrants and refugees fleeing from war and poverty. Democratic values and civic culture are under attack by a class of political extremists who embrace without reservation the cynical instrumental reason of the market, while producing on a global level widespread mayhem, suffering and violence. How else to explain the fact that over 70 percent of Trump's picks for top administration jobs have corporate ties or work for major corporations? Almost all of these people represent interests diametrically opposed to the agencies for whom they now lead and are against almost any notion of the public good.
Hence, under the Trump regime, we have witnessed a slew of rollbacks and deregulations that will result in an increase in pollution, endangering children, the elderly and others who might be exposed to hazardous toxins. The New York Times has reported that one EPA appointee, Nancy Beck, a former executive at the American Chemistry Council, has initiated changes to make it more difficult to track and regulate the chemical perflourooctanoic acid, which has been linked to "kidney cancer, birth defects, immune system disorders and other serious health problems."
The sense of collective belonging that underpins the civic vigor of a democracy is being replaced by a lethal survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and a desperate need to promote the narrow interests of capital and racist exclusion, regardless of the cost. At the heart of this collective ethos is a war culture stoked by fear and anxiety, one that feeds on dehumanization, condemns the so-called "losers," and revels in violence as a source of pleasure and retribution. The link between violence and authoritarianism increasingly finds expression not only in endless government and populist assaults on vulnerable groups, but also in a popular culture that turns representations of extreme violence into entertainment.
The US has become a society organized both for the production of violence and the creation of a culture brimming with fear, paranoia and a social atomization. Under such circumstances, the murderous aggression associated with authoritarian states becomes more common in the United States and is mirrored in the everyday actions of citizens. If the government's responses to crises that enveloped DACA and Puerto Rico point to a culture of state-sanctioned violence and cruelty, the mass shooting in Las Vegas represents the endpoint of a culture newly aligned with the rise of authoritarianism. The shooting in Las Vegas does more than point to a record-setting death toll for vigilante violence; it also provides a signpost about a terrifying new political and cultural horizon in the relationship between violence and everyday life. All of these incidents must be understood as a surface manifestation of a much larger set of issues endemic to the rise of authoritarianism in the United States.
These three indices of violence offer pointed and alarming examples of how inequality, systemic exclusion and a culture of cruelty define American society, even, and especially, as they destroy it. Each offers a snapshot of how war culture and violence merge. As part of a broader category indicting the rise of authoritarianism in the United States, they make visible the pervasiveness of violence as an organizing principle of American life. While it is easy to condemn the violence at work in each of these specific examples, it is crucial to address the larger economic, political and structural forces that create these conditions.
There is an urgent need for a broader awareness of the scope, range and effects of violence in the US, as well as the relationship between politics and disposability. Only then will the US be able to address the need for a radical restructuring of its politics, economics and institutions. Violence in the US has to be understood as part of a crisis of a politics and culture defined by meaninglessness, helplessness, neglect and disposability. Resistance to such violence, then, should produce widespread thoughtful, informed and collective action over the fate of democracy itself. This suggests the need for a shared vision of economic, racial and gender justice -- one that offers the promise of a new understanding of politics and the need for creating a powerful coalition among existing social movements, youth groups, workers, intellectuals, teachers and other progressives. This is especially true under the Trump administration, since politics and democracy are now defined by a threshold of dysfunction that points not only to their demise, but to the ascendancy of American-style authoritarianism.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42450-disposability-in-the-age-of-disasters-from-dreamers-and-puerto-rico-to-violence-in-las-vegas
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EDF Asks Court to Compel Release of US EPA Documents
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has filed a lawsuit to compel the US EPA to release information on Administrator Scott Pruitt's ethics determinations, his schedule and directives to agency staff barring them from publicly discussing scientific research.
The NGO has requested the documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This requires federal agencies to release upon request documents they hold related to government policy, with only specific exemptions. Agencies have 20 days to make a determination on an FOIA request, and the EDF's requests were submitted in January, March and June. The NGO is asking the court to compel the EPA to respond.
The EDF is asking for three groups of documents. These are:
· records, relating to determinations made by the independent US Office of Government Ethics and officials within the EPA, on whether he could take part in policy discussions on issues he was involved in as Oklahoma attorney general;
· directives issued to the EPA's "scientific staff that relate to public communication about scientific research or findings"; and
· information related to the schedules of Mr Pruitt and other top EPA officials.
It has been common practice for federal officials to make their schedules and appointment calendars public, so that it is easy to determine who they meet with. However, Mr Pruitt has not done this.
The information that has been released in response to FOIA requests was heavily redacted and "provides only a minimal level of detail of how and with whom Pruitt spends his time", the EDF says.
It says the agency "has not provided any of the requested calendar and schedule information" for other officials.
"The limited scheduling information released so far by EPA has only reinforced concerns that Pruitt is granting privileged access to favoured special interests," the EDF says.
The EPA did not respond to request for comment on the lawsuit.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60653/edf-asks-court-to-compel-release-of-us-epa-documents
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US EPA Proposes Mercury Reporting Rules
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The US EPA has proposed reporting requirements for a new mercury inventory, mandated by the 2016 TSCA amendments.
The agency proposal says that the 2020 inventory – the first published under the new rules – will cover activities taking place in 2018. Data submissions are to be due 1 July 2019. Subsequent reports at three-year intervals will also cover the 12-month period two years earlier.
Mercury users are to report on amounts used in covered activities and use "pre-selected lists" to identify specific compounds and mercury-added products, as well as how the metal is used in manufacturing processes.
The EPA said it has proposed no minimum reporting threshold because TSCA requires reporting of "any" use and because the substance is highly toxic.
The proposed requirements would not apply to the generation, handling, or management of mercury-containing waste, unless it is managed with the intention to use the recovered mercury.
Exemptions
The agency also proposed exemptions for those already required to report on mercury and mercury-added products under the TSCA section 8(a) chemical data reporting (CDR) rule and the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC).
The Lautenberg Act requires the EPA to publish a mercury inventory every three years. The data is to inform policy making and also meet reporting requirements under the international Minamata Convention.
The initial inventory, published in March, consisted of readily available, previously published data on the supply, use and trade of elemental mercury and mercury compounds.
TSCA requires the ongoing inventory to include data from all manufacturers that use mercury or make products containing it. Rules governing the inventory are to be finalised by 22 June 2018. The proposed rule published on 26 October is the first step in complying with that mandate.
The law also asks the EPA to "identify any manufacturing processes or products that intentionally add mercury" and "recommend actions, including proposed revisions of Federal law or regulations, to achieve further reductions in use". The proposed rule, however, states that the "EPA is not making such identifications or recommendations" at this time.
Comments requested
Consultation on the proposal will run until 26 December.
The EPA specifically requested comments on:
· the proposed timeline;
· which activities will be considered as part of supply, use and trade of mercury and thus subject to reporting;
· proposed requirements for some users to report data on country of origin and industry sectors using North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes, to inform activities under the Minamata Convention;
· the agency's plan to require reporting on any use regardless of amount;
· what kinds of information would be particularly useful to small businesses if the EPA were to develop compliance guides;
· whether the reporting requirements should apply to businesses that trade in mercury in some way other than manufacture or importing of mercury or mercury-added products; and
· whether electronic reporting should be mandated.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60718/us-epa-proposes-mercury-reporting-rules
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Little Follow-Up When FDA Finds High Levels of Perchlorate in Food
Nov 2, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom J. Neltner
For more than 40 years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has conducted the Total Diet Study (TDS) to monitor levels of approximately 800 pesticides, metals, and other contaminants, as well as nutrients in food. The TDS’s purposes are to “track trends in the average American diet and inform the development of interventions to reduce or minimize risks, when needed.” By combining levels of chemicals in food with food consumption surveys, the TDS data serve a critical role in estimating consumers’ exposure to chemicals.
From 2004 to 2012 (except for 2007), FDA collects and tests about 280 food types for perchlorate, a chemical known to disrupt thyroid hormone production. This information is very important, because for the many pregnant women and children with low iodine intake, even transient exposure to high levels of perchlorate can impair brain development.
The agency published updates on food contamination and consumers’ exposure to perchlorate in 2008(covering years 2004-2006) and in 2016 (covering 2008-2012). On its Perchlorate Questions and Answers webpage, FDA says it found “no overall change in perchlorate levels across foods” in samples collected between 2008 and 2012 compared to those collected between 2005 and 2006. It also notes that there were higher average levels in some food and lower in others between the time periods and suggests that a larger sampling size or variances in the region or season when the samples were collected may account for the differences.
FDA’s Q&A webpage masks the most disturbing part of the story
FDA’s attempt at providing consumers with information about the presence of a toxic chemical in food and what it means for their health falls short. By focusing on the similar average level of perchlorate across foods, FDA masks the disturbing fact that children are consuming increasing amounts of perchlorate: 35% for infants, 23% for toddlers and 12% for children between 2 and 6 from 2004-2006 to 2008-2012. The agency’s webpage notes the exposures in 2008-2012 but fails to mention the increase reported by its own scientists.
FDA’s webpage also fails to mention that the perchlorate Reference Dose (RfD), the amount of exposure unlikely to result in an adverse health effect, was set more than a decade ago and does not reflect the latest research. In 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Science Advisory Board indicated that the RfD may not sufficiently protect pregnant women and young children. As a result, EPA, with FDA’s support, is in the final stages of updating that number. FDA’s estimated average exposures to perchlorate by infants and toddlers was very close to the RfD, and many children may well exceed the outdated RfD.
FDA failed to investigate extraordinarily high levels of perchlorate
In the 2016 update, we noticed that some foods, such as bologna, salami and rice cereal, had very high levels, far greater than in 2004-2006. In May 2017, FDA provided more data that enabled us to learn what region and year the samples were collected.
We knew from FDA’s Compliance Program Guidance Manual that staff are asked to follow-up on any unusual analytical findings in the TDS samples (Figure 1). So in June 2017, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details for 47 composite samples (18 baby foods and 29 other foods) that, in our view, had unusually high levels of perchlorate. We asked for any information regarding:Test results for composite and individual samples (Figure 2);Product details on the individual foods; andAny follow-up testing or investigations.
FDA’s response to the FOIA raises concerns. First, the agency did not have criteria for following up on perchlorate. Specifically, staff requested guidance “on cut-off value of perchlorate in the composite that would trigger analysis of individual foods,” but we didn’t find any in the documents provided to us. Without this guidance, some staff listed composite samples with at least 20 ppb as “noteworthy;” others used 15 ppb as the trigger for re-testing and confirmation. All 47 samples we asked FDA about were above these levels. Yet, there was no retesting of the composite for 27 of them.
Second, staff confirmed the results for 20 composite samples which should have triggered tests on the three individual samples that made up the composite.
But FDA only provided information for four individual foods:Baby food rice cereal (173 ppb in composite in summer of 2008): Newark sample had 252 ppb; New York City had 112 ppb; and Philadelphia had 3 ppb.Baby food carrots (74 ppb in composite in winter of 2011): Denver sample had 163 ppb; Los Angeles sample had 111 ppb; and Seattle sample had 0 ppb.Baby food barley cereal (67 ppb in composite in spring of 2008): Dallas had 182 ppb; and Tampa and Baltimore had 1 ppb.Baby food oatmeal with fruit (42 ppb in composite in summer of 2008): New York City had 82 ppb; Newark had 3 ppb; and Philadelphia had 0 ppb.
Even more disturbing is that, despite confirming the results in the composite samples, FDA could find no records that the individual samples in the highest levels, bologna with 1557 ppb, 1,090 and 686 ppb for collard greens and 686 ppb for salami lunchmeat, were ever tested.
Similarly, the agency could not find any records of the TDS coordinator investigating the possible cause of the high levels of contamination or any communication between the coordinator and others in the Center for Food Science and Applied Nutrition that oversees the TDS. Also not available were the receipts essential to identifying the brand and lot of the samples with unusual high levels of perchlorate; therefore EDF was unable to follow-up.
Conclusion
The agency’s apparent lack of follow-up when faced with jaw-dropping levels of a toxic chemical in food is disturbing. While testing the products is a critical first step, FDA needs to investigate the reasons for the high levels so that it can protect the food supply. Identifying the cause and crafting interventions to reduce or minimize risks, as stated in the TDS purpose statement, is especially important for toxics like perchlorate, where even short exposures during critical life stages may cause lasting harm to a child’s developing brain. But for this to happen, FDA needs to acknowledge the evidence on sources of perchlorate in food, such as its use in packaging or from degraded bleach, and clearly explain what the implications are for the health of children and pregnant women, especially those with low iodine intake.
Update on related perchlorate issue: FDA has not yet responded to EDF’s and eight other public interest organizations’ objection to the agency’s May 4, 2017 decision to reject a petition to ban perchlorate from uses in contact with food. The objection and request for evidentiary hearing were filed on June 4, 2017.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/02/little-follow-up-when-fda-finds-high-levels-of-perchlorate-in-food/
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Newest GenX Lawsuit Attacks DuPont Science
Nov 2, 2017 | North Carolina Health News
By Catherine Clabby
DuPont downplayed its own animal research regarding potential risks from the chemical GenX that the company released into the Cape Fear River for decades, a new lawsuit alleges.
And the company prolonged exposure to GenX and other compounds by not disclosing their release into the river, which feeds public drinking water systems downstream, the lawsuit filed in federal court says.
Filed by the Brunswick County government, which owns one of those water systems, the complaint delivers the most searing accusations yet regarding DuPont’s understanding of potential health risks from GenX.
“For nearly forty years, Defendants have been secretly releasing their persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic perfluorinated chemicals into the Cape Fear River at unsafe levels and contaminating the drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians—just as they did in the Ohio River—all the while misleading state and Federal regulators and the Public,” the suit says.
GenX is one of a group of compounds called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), a share of which may pose harm to people.
On Wednesday, DuPont spokesman Dan Turner said company officials would respond to the new North Carolina lawsuit in court, not in the media. But he stressed that there is no evidence that chemical releases from the industrial site that DuPont built and ran for decades in Bladen County have harmed people.
“It is important to note North Carolina regulators have publicly stated that they believe the drinking water is safe,” Turner said. “Although we understand that public concern about PFCs has increased in recent years, we have no reason to believe that the discharges at issue have harmed anyone.”
Accusations regarding research in the suit are based on reviews of published research and studies DuPont submitted to EPA, said environmental attorney Scott Summy with the national law firm Baron & Budd, which is representing Brunswick County.
The lawsuit alleges:
· Publicly reported results of DuPont and Chemours studies on Gen X toxicity “contain misrepresentations and factual misstatements that tend to understate Gen X’s potential for toxicity.”
· DuPont data show toxic effects in animals from short-term, subchronic and long-term exposure.
· Gen X exposure to rats and mice prompted incidence of cancers at levels exceeding those detected in controls in the brain, liver, adrenal glands, pancreas and testicles.
· Gen X posed reproductive and developmental risks to lab animals, as well as toxicity in the liver, kidneys, the hematological system, adrenal glands and stomach.
· DuPont animal studies demonstrated an association between GenX and effects found from other PFASs, including changes in the liver, kidney, pancreas, testicles, and the immune system.
The lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages, is filed against DuPont, its spinoff Chemours, and the newly formed DowDuPont Inc., a recent DuPont and Dow Chemical merger. DuPont built Fayetteville Works in Bladen County, the source of this chemical contamination, in the 1970s and ran it until 2015, when its spin-off company Chemours took over.
This latest lawsuit also emphasizes that researchers have detected several PFAS compounds downstream of Fayetteville Works.
“While everyone focuses on whether any one single chemical may be above a standard, no one talks about the cumulative effects of all of them together,” Summy, the Brunswick County attorney wrote in an email on Wednesday.
The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which operates a water system in Wilmington, has also filed a lawsuit in federal court against DuPont and Chemours over the GenX contamination. This week the utility made clear it badly wants information on all PFAS released at the site.
CFPUA this week filed an “urgent public records” request to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality seeking all information the agency has regarding the chemical releases, even information Chemours or DuPont says is confidential.
“The identities of perfluorinated and polyfluorinated substances that pollute a river that is a public water supply source are not confidential business information and should not be withheld,” its records request letter says.
Utility officials argue they need this information to design an upgrade to its water treatment plant to capture perfluorinated and polyfluorinated substances before they reach the drinking water distribution system. Officials also wants to identify and find ways to remove any PFAS that might remain in its distribution system.
“At present, CFPUA must rely on consultants to reverse engineer the identity of the substances (i.e., find substances without knowing what they are) based only on current intake water quality,” the utility’s request states.
The organization even offered to dispatch qualified helpers to assist DEQ offices to retrieve and copy the records if that would facilitate the process.
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2017/11/02/newest-genx-lawsuit-attacks-dupont-science/
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Costco Works With Green Centre on Chemical Management
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US retailer Costco said it is working with the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry on a new chemical management policy.
Earlier this year, the chainstore launched a screeningprogramme to test and evaluate chemicals in products, but did not reveal which chemicals it would be focusing on.
According to Costco's website, its new programme will "go beyond the boundaries of regulatory compliance from the product manufacturing process, and from consumer use and disposal", in an effort to reduce potential chemical harm to humans and to the environment.Chemicals of concern
Costco provided a list of common chemicals of concern found in its screening protocols. They include flame retardants, phthalates and perfluorinated chemicals.
The company plans to encourage its suppliers to understand which chemicals are used in its products in order to:identify chemicals of concern (utilising comprehensive testing programmes);remove or apply the process of informed substitution for any identified chemicals of concern;identify ways to change suppliers’ manufacturing processes to reduce hazardous chemical use; andreview qualified third-party green certifications
In a statement, Costco said it is working with the Berkeley Centre for Green Chemistry in a "long-term collaborative relationship" to assess current and future chemical management.
The BCGC will assist Costco in developing a strategic plan for restricting and assessing chemicals of concern within its global supply chain and guiding company procurement.
The policy will initially focus its efforts on textiles, furniture, personal care and household products.
The BCGC will review and compare Costco's current chemical restrictions to a larger list of chemicals of concern, as well as to sector restricted substances lists (RSL) and best practices in assessing safer alternatives for the identified product categories.Signal to the market
Laurie Valeriano, executive director of the NGO, Toxic-Free Future, told Chemical Watch: "Costco has been very focused on regulatory compliance, but not how to target chemicals and get ahead of the problem. Berkeley will be able to provide important help on how to implement a policy and programme to reduce and eliminate harmful chemicals."
Last year, Costco received an 'F' grade in NGO Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families' (SCHF) Mind the Store retailer report card, which rated the 11 largest US retailers on their actions to develop safer chemicals policies.
Costco received just 9.5 out of a possible 130 points, coming second from last in the ranking, while Walmart, Target and CVS Health came top.
In a joint blog for Mind the Store, Mike Schade and Ms Valeriano said the new policy was "a signal to the market that harmful chemicals need to go. Costco's suppliers will have to examine their products and reduce their use of toxic chemicals."
They add that Costco is starting to catch up with other big retailers, like Walmart and Target, which have adopted safer chemicals policies and are actively identifying and reducing toxic chemicals in consumer products.
"It's safe to say the company is no longer failing, and its grade will surely improve in the forthcoming 2017 report card," they said.
The next retailer report card is due later this month and will be expanded to include 19 more retailers across key product sectors.
US retailer Home Depot, which received a D+ grade on last year's report card, has also recently announced a new chemical policy.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60741/costco-works-with-green-centre-on-chemical-management
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N.J. DEP Sets Nation's Strictest Limit on Chemical in Drinking Water
Nov 2, 2017 | WHYY
By Jon Hurdle
New Jersey’s efforts to clean up public drinking water took a step forward on Wednesday when the Department of Environmental Protection said it would impose the nation’s toughest limit on a chemical that has been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, and developmental problems in young children.
The DEP said it will set a “Maximum Contaminant Limit” of 14 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), which has been used in consumer products including nonstick cookware and food packaging, and which has been found in some parts of 37 New Jersey public water systems at above the new limit in recent years.Strictest standard in U.S.
The new standard, which is expected to become effective in about a year, is tougher than the DEP’s current guidance level of 40 ppt, and is the strongest in the country, said DEP Commissioner Bob Martin at a press conference to announce the new measure at the Voorhees headquarters of New Jersey American Water.
New Jersey’s new limit is also stronger than the 70 ppt health advisory issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for PFOA when combined with PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonate), another chemical in the PFAS family. Both the chemicals have been used in fire-fighting foams at airports and military facilities such as New Jersey’s Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst base where ground and surface water has been contaminated.
Of the 37 New Jersey water systems where PFOA exceeded the new limit when they were tested, about half have already taken action to bring the level down, Martin said. While none can be compelled to comply with the new measure until the regulatory process is complete, all will receive letters soon asking them to monitor for the chemical and install the right technology to bring the level down, he said.
The public in those areas need not be concerned because the chemical was detected at levels of more than 14 ppt in only some places, because some utilities are curbing the contamination level by blending surface and ground water, and because some wells have since been shut down, Martin said.No reason for alarm
“We don’t believe anybody should be concerned at this time because it’s only in certain parts of systems,” Martin said in an interview. “Most water companies are already blending at this point in time or have taken wells off line. We don’t believe there is any kind of emergent concern today but we do believe in the future that water companies ensure that they get down to that 14 parts per trillion.”
Where PFOA is found to exceed the new level, the responsible parties will be required to pay for the cleanup, Martin said. “Those parties responsible for PFOA contamination will bear the costs associated with the testing, cleanup, and remediation,” he said.
Martin said the new limit has generated a lot of interest from other states.
“We’ve been talking to other states about this on an ongoing basis,” he said. “Several states have already driven theirs down, Vermont has driven theirs down to about 20 ppt. We’re the lowest in the country. Our scientists are wired into all the other DEPs around the country, we have worked closely with EPA as well.”
The DEP declined to release a list of the water systems where it found PFOA to exceed the new proposed limit in some places. Spokesman Larry Hajna said there was a risk that the data would be misunderstood by the public as meaning that water in a system was generally contaminated, and could result in unjustified calls to water utilities.Understanding the nuances?
“I’ve seen this happen too many times where people just don’t understand the nuances even if you’ve done a great job of explaining the nuances,” Hajna said. “People read these stories and then they’re calling their water utilities, and the utilities are saying ‘What? We don’t have toxic water.’”
Hajna said he did not feel comfortable releasing a list that did not include full context and which did not put utilities in a position to respond to any technical questions.
But he did provide a list of 13 water systems where PFOA exceeded the DEP’s current 40 ppt guidance limit when they were tested at various times between 2008 and 2015.
The list includes Atlantic City MUAA’s Pleasantville treatment plant where one sample in early 2015 showed a PFOA level of 43 ppt. That system is upgrading carbon treatment for PFOA. At Brick Township MUA, tests exceeded 40 ppt in 2010 and 2011 but the samples were taken from surface water and shallow wells, and the readings fell below that level when those sources were blended with ground water.
The DEP’s new limit was recommended in February by the Drinking Water Quality Institute, a panel of scientific advisers to the DEP. It’s the second recommended health limit sent to the DEP since the panel restarted work in 2014 after a hiatus of nearly four years. In August, the DEP accepted the DWQI’s proposal for another chemical, Perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), more than two years after panel made it.
DWQI chairman Dr. Keith Cooper told the press conference that the panel’s work on how PFOA affects human health was based in part on a major study in Parkersburg, WV, where a leak from a DuPont facility contaminated drinking water.
The results of that study of some 40,000 people matched the DWQI’s own animal studies in highlighting the dangers of PFOA, Cooper said. “We could see effects in the epidemiology studies that we could document in the animal studies,” he said.
Cooper said the DWQI’s mandate has been strictly scientific. “Show me the science and make sure it makes sense,” he said.
The new MCL was welcomed by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based research nonprofit that has advocated for much tighter controls on PFOA and related chemicals nationwide.
“The New Jersey action to set a MCL for PFOA and PFNA is a significant move to protect public health and reduce or eliminate these contaminants from drinking water,” said EWG’s Senior Scientist, Dr. David Andrews. “In the absence of federal leadership from the Environmental Protection Agency, it is encouraging that states such as New Jersey are working to protect their citizens.”
Andrews said the move is likely to set a national precedent as evidence mounts that the entire family of PFAS compounds are “extremely potent” toxins that are affecting public health at current exposure levels. “There may be no safe level of these chemicals in drinking water,” he said.
Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, called the planned MCL “a huge step forward” that shows the DEP recognizes that the state is a PFOA “hot spot”. But he warned that “this is not over” because the regulatory process will have to be completed by the new administration in Trenton.
Despite the action by the DEP, the lengthy process of research and regulation is a source of frustration for some activists.
Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group that has been an outspoken advocate for tighter curbs on the PFOA family of chemicals, said the new limit should have been implemented by now given that the DWQI made its latest recommendation in February.
“We need MCLs established for these and other toxic PFCs now,” she said.
https://whyy.org/articles/dep-sets-nations-strictest-limit-chemical-drinking-water/
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Echa's MSC Agrees on Test for Benzotriazole as Endocrine Disruptor
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Dr. Emma Davies
Echa's Member State Committee (MSC) has agreed that benzotriazole, which is used in dishwasher tabs, should be tested using a fish sexual development test to determine if it is an environmental endocrine disruptor.
Germany's Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Baua) is evaluating the substance, which was added to the Community Rolling Action Plan (Corap) in 2016. Up to 10,000 tonnes of the chemical are produced each year and it is also used to prevent metals corroding, for de-icing roads, in professional lubricants and greases, and in medical devices.
The MSC is requesting the test (OECD TG 234), with some modifications, as a level 4 assay, according to the OECD conceptual framework for testing and assessment of endocrine disruptors.
At its meeting on 24–26 October, the committee agreed that "clear cut" test results could pave the way to identifying benzotriazole as an SVHC, according to MSC chair Watze de Wolf.
Aluminium salts
Meanwhile, the committee agreed that one aluminium salt – out of a group of three that France is evaluating under Corap – should be tested for genotoxicity.
France is evaluating aluminium chloride (basic), aluminium chloride and aluminium sulfate as suspected carcinogenic, mutagenic and reproductive (CMR) substances. The committee has a "residual concern" that aluminium ions may be genotoxic, says Dr de Wolf.
As a result, the MSC is requesting an in vivo genotoxicity study on aluminium sulfate, with the results applying to all three substances. Used to purify water and in paper manufacturing, it is the most soluble of the three and is expected to give the highest exposure to aluminium ions.
The committee is now requesting a combined in vivo micronucleus and comet assay. The thinking is that aluminium ions may cause oxidative damage to DNA through reactive oxygen species. The comet assay will need to be modified to explore this mode of action and the MSC is detailing the type of protocol that should be followed, says Dr de Wolf.
"If the result [of the in vivo tests] is negative then the conclusion would be not to pursue this residual concern," he says. A positive result would point to mutagenicity.
The registrants will now need to agree on which of them will carry out the tests.
The MSC also agreed that a 90-day rodent study should be carried out on aluminium chloride because of concerns over workers inhaling the substance.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60732/echas-msc-agrees-on-test-for-benzotriazole-as-endocrine-disruptor
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Sweden's Chemicals Tax Heavily Flawed, Say Electronics Organisations
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Sweden's recently enforced tax on bromine, chlorine and phosphorous-based substances used in electronics is significantly flawed and counterproductive, according to businesses in the sector.
A particular aim of the tax, which entered into force in April, is to encourage the substitution of halogenated flame retardants, some of which are listed on the UN's Stockholm Convention of persistent organic pollutants. Bromine and chlorine are two of the elements in the chemical group known as halogens.
European trade group DigitalEurope, electronics firms Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Electrolux, as well as NGO ChemSec, have all expressed concerns with how effective the tax is. Although the tax is now law, the industry is putting forward its argument because Sweden holds a general election in September next year, which could bring a new government and therefore a possible review of the tax.
A particular issue for the industry is the inclusion of phosophorous-based flame retardants, which, said Viktor Sundberg, the vice president of environmental and EU affairs at Sweden-based home appliance manufacturer Electrolux, should not have been included in the tax.
These substances, he told Chemical Watch, are considered the necessary alternatives to brominated and chlorinated flame retardants. "Those phosphorous flame retardants that still cause concerns need to be handled differently," he said.
Hans Wendschlag, EMEA environmental manager at Hewlett-Packard, agreed, saying that phosphorous based flame retardants should not be taxed as the "majority are good and demonstrate safer alternatives".
In a recent blog post ChemSec's executive director, Anne-Sofie Andersson, said that because some of the preferred alternatives to halogenated flame retardants are in the phosphorous group, it would make more sense to handle them case-by-case and based on their hazardous properties. Taxing these alternatives, "decreases the incentive to phase out halogenated flame retardants, which is very unfortunate," she said.Credible foundation?
In 2016, before the tax was introduced, DigitalEurope released a position paper on the proposed tax, stating that there is "not a single representative" of the phosphorous flame retardant category on the REACH candidate list, where substances of very high concern (SVHCs) are added. Because of this, it said, the tax "lacks a credible foundation".
Responding to the concerns, a representative from Sweden’s finance ministry – which is overseeing the tax – told Chemical Watch that, as a group, phosphorus is judged to be a better alternative than bromine or chlorine. "Compounds containing phosphorus are therefore given larger tax deductions than compounds containing bromine or chlorine," the representative said. Tax deductions
According to the government representative, the level of tax deduction is based on two factors – what chemicals the compounds in the product contain and if they are an additive or reactive.
The first factor determines the potential negative health impact of the substances and the second the risk of the substances being emitted into peoples' homes.
The tax allows for a 50% tax deduction if the product's materials are free from "additively added" bromine and chlorine compounds. If the materials are, in addition, free from additively added phosphorus compounds, and from "reactively added" bromine and chlorine compounds, a company can receive a 90% deduction.
"Compounds which are used reactive, generally have a much stronger bond to the material it is used on and are thus less likely to be emitted from the product during use. Both of these factors are therefore important when addressing the problem of dangerous chemicals in peoples’ home environment," the representative said.
However, in a recently released press release, ChemSec questions this criteria: "Why try and reinvent the wheel and create a new and very complicated tax system based on risk when all the chemical research has already been done and dealt with [under the REACH candidate list]?"
DigitalEurope’s 2016 paper says that taxing flame retardants based on reactive and additive forms "ignores the depth of technical detail that goes into selecting safe chemicals to include in products".
"There are many flame retardants, such as phosphorous-based ones, that are considered safe substitutes to the halogenated category, which are being taxed 100% based only on the fact that they are added additively to polymers," it says.
Mr Wendschlag said its focus on a substance’s reactive or additive use is flawed and should be based instead on its intrinsic hazardous properties, which is "standard within REACH, RoHS, eco-labels and green procurement".
The official text says the tax should be reviewed and updated at regular intervals to account for new knowledge and developments. However, there are no set dates for this according to the government representative.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60745/swedens-chemicals-tax-heavily-flawed-say-electronics-organisations
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NGO Coalition Urges EU-Wide Ban on Microplastics in Cosmetics
Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
A group of NGOs is putting pressure on the European Commission to introduce an EU ban on all microplastics in cosmetics and to take regulatory action on polymer ingredients.
The Beat the Microbead coalition says in a position paper that the plastic pollution of waters by the cosmetics industry will not stop unless the Commission sets clear rules.
It wants Brussels to present legislative proposals for selecting polymers for registration under REACH. The molecules are currently exempt from registration and evaluation under law.
New EU regulation should ban all polymer ingredients that are persistent, bioaccumulative or toxic to ecosystems from being used in cosmetic products, the NGOs demand.
And the Commission should regulate microplastics emissions into the environment, taking into account their persistency, bioaccumulation and toxicity. The NGOs believe this will facilitate future regulation of plastics, independent of their source.Voluntary action 'not enough'
Europe's cosmetics industry has already phased out microplastics voluntarily. According to trade body Cosmetics Europe, this reduced the industry's use of plastic exfoliating microbeads by 82% between 2012 and 2015.
But Beat the Microbead says industry action should go beyond synthetic, solid particles used for exfoliating and cleansing. Under the voluntary measure, the same chemical ingredients may remain in the cosmetic formulations for functions other than exfoliating, it says.
"Using a narrow definition, the European cosmetic industry created loopholes in the voluntary measure to phase out microplastics in cosmetics and continues the use of other types in cosmetics," the NGOs say in their position paper.
"Now, in 2017, plastics of different kinds are still being added to many different types of care products in solid and wax form that have a whole range of purposes."
The position paper is signed by 29 European NGOs, including Friends of the Earth Europe, the Danish Ecological Council and the Clean Rivers Trust.Other voices
It follows a call for action on microplastics by NGO umbrella group Rethink Plastics. Last month, the group urged the Commission to implement immediate legislative measures to reduce microplastic pollution at the source.
The Commission itself recently closed a public consultation on policy options to reduce microplastics entering the marine environment.
Meanwhile, European member states are taking their own steps. In the UK, a proposed ban has been questioned by national cosmetics trade association CTPA as to whether it complies with EU law. Belgium has drafted a plan to voluntarily phase out microbeads in all consumer products by 2019.
The Nordic Council, an inter-governmental cooperation body representing Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, has rejected implementing a ban in those countries. At a meeting this week, the president of the Nordic Council of Ministers for the Environment, Vidar Helgesen, said it is waiting to see the scope of the EU strategy on plastic before it takes further action.
"The latest indications from the EU are that its strategy on plastic will be ready on 6 December," Mr Helgesen said. "Should the issue, also with regard to cosmetics, not proceed as we’d like, we’ll have to address it once more at the national level before moving on to a wider Nordic discussion."
https://chemicalwatch.com/60737/ngo-coalition-urges-eu-wide-ban-on-microplastics-in-cosmetics
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Nov 2, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Targeted CLH consultationEcha has launched a targeted harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) consultation for the substance N-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide.
It is seeking comments by 17 November on an additional document relevant to the CLH proposal.
The agency opens targeted consultations for CLH proposals in case further information is needed on a particular hazard class, or if it seeks comments, for example, on a specific additional document.
The length of the commenting period is determined on a case-by-case basis and is normally shorter than the usual public consultation. The information collected will be taken into account in the preparation for the opinion development of the CLH proposal by Echa's Risk Assessment Committee (Rac).Echa issues draft update to guidance on BPR
The agency has updated guidance on the biocidal products Regulation (BPR).
It will run a consultation on the new draft of BPR Guidance Volume III Human Health, Assessment and Evaluation (Parts B+C), Section 6 (ARTFood Project 1). Comments and new drafts will be posted on its website when available.
https://chemicalwatch.com/60633/echa-round-up
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Enviros Fight Exports From Other Angles After Legal Defeat
Nov 2, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court delivered a triple-blow to critics of liquefied natural gas exports yesterday, adding to a string of recent legal defeats for environmentalists hoping to block the U.S. from feeding shale gas to a global market.
In a single 4-page order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected three separate lawsuits brought by the Sierra Club to challenge the Department of Energy's approval of liquefied natural gas exports.
The decision upholds approvals for exports from terminals at Cove Point in Maryland, Sabine Pass in Louisiana and Corpus Christi in Texas (Greenwire, Nov. 1).
Export opponents are already pivoting from those court battles and setting their sights on other ways to fight exports.
Sierra Club attorney Nathan Matthews, who represented environmentalists in all of the cases, noted that advocates are working against several other LNG projects in their earlier stages.
For example, the group is actively opposing the construction of an export facility in Coos Bay, Ore. In that case, currently proceeding before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a coalition of environmental groups has submitted comments raising concerns about the impacts of the proposal on landowners.
Local advocates backed by the Sierra Club are also opposing LNG exports from Brownsville, Texas.Pushing the climate angle
Environmentalists are also not giving up on the climate angle. The Sierra Club and others have long argued that when DOE approves exports, it should take a closer look at the greenhouse gas emissions from related upstream gas production.
DOE has adopted a narrower scope, maintaining that some indirect climate impacts are simply too imprecise and speculative to be part of the review process.
Courts have now accepted DOE's position in four lawsuits resolved this year: the three decided yesterday and one involving the agency's approval of exports from Freeport LNG in Texas, which was upheld in August.
A separate challenge to exports from Sabine Pass in Louisiana in still pending in the D.C. Circuit. The issues in the case mirror those of the ones already decided.
The Sierra Club doesn't have any new challenges to DOE approvals on deck, but Matthews says the group is continuing to push its argument in favor of closer climate review in other contexts.
Just last month, the group submitted comments on DOE's proposal of a rule that would streamline permitting for small-scale gas exports. The comments urge DOE to adopt a more involved analysis of whether exports are in the public interest, noting potential cumulative impacts on climate, along with public health and the economy.
"We're still convinced that DOE is doing this wrong, and with available tools, DOE can really do a much better job of this," Matthews said.
He acknowledged, however, that the group's position is unlikely to gain much traction under the current administration.
Export supporters have criticized environmentalists' opposition to sending LNG overseas. In an email yesterday, the American Petroleum Institute argued that increased global use of natural gas would benefit the climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The impact on emissions can depend on whether exported gas replaces dirtier-burning fuels or displaces renewables.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/02/stories/1060065423
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Eyeing Clock, Investors Push Shale Drillers for Returns
Nov 2, 2017 | E&E Energywire
The U.S. shale boom is ongoing, but as the most easily accessible reserves dry up, investors are beginning to get restless.
"If you look at what the industry is set up to do in the next three years in the Permian, they are going to push on the rock harder than we've ever pushed on a shale play before," said Robert Clarke, a research director at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
Many analysts and shale companies have dismissed what they see as overblown fears that as wells proliferate, output could peak faster than expected.
But investors are keying in on executive compensation plans tied to increases in production and exploration, pushing companies to start reining in spending and pay back debt.
That approach, said Kevin Holt, who manages value equities at Invesco Ltd., "builds the personal net worth of the CEOs but does nothing for the shareholders for whom they are legally fiduciaries" (Nussbaum/Wethe, Bloomberg Businessweek, Nov. 1). — DI
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/02/stories/1060065351
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EPA Mulls Phase-In for Methane Rule's Requirements
| Politico Pro Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA says it is considering longer phase-in periods for key requirements under the 2016 methane emissions rule for new oil and gas wells, rather than implementing an outright stay.
The new potential approach, for which EPA will take public comment for 30 days, means the agency likely will not take action until early 2018.
In a Notice of Data Availability signed on Wednesday, EPA said that the American Petroleum Institute suggested that instead of a stay, EPA could extend the existing deadlines to set up the necessary infrastructure, conduct monitoring surveys of leaks and take other actions to implement the rule. The NODA also proposes a similar phase-in process for the certification of closed vent systems by professional engineers.
The NODA further updates the economic analysis for the proposed stay to include foregone climate benefits from the increased emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds, which was not included in the original proposal in June. EPA also updated the analysis to cover a later time period due to the delay in finalizing the stay, now covering January 2018 through December 2019.
Click here for the NODA, the updated economic analysis and an agency fact sheet.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals over the summer struck down Administrator Scott Pruitt’s temporary stay of the rule, saying he had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not taking public comment first. The rule has remained in effect since.
WHAT’S NEXT: EPA will take public comment for 30 days once the NODA is published in the Federal Register.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Quarter of Oil Refineries Risk Closure Under Climate Goals-Report
Nov 2, 2017 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
A quarter of the world's oil refineries risk closure by 2035 if governments meet targets to limit fossil fuel burning in the fight against global warming, a report released on Thursday said.
A surge in electric vehicle sales and higher efficiency in internal combustion and jet engines are expected to slow demand growth for fuels such as gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel in the coming decades, potentially putting pressure on refining profits.
At the same time, governments around the world are set to introduce legislation in the coming years to limit emissions of heat-capturing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in order to meet targets set at a U.N-backed Paris conference in 2015.
As a result, companies such as Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, France' Total and China's largest refiner Sinopec could see profits from refining drop by 70 percent or more over the period, according to the report co-authored by environment thinktank Carbon Tracker, Swedish investment fund AP7 and Danish pension fund PKA.
The study is based on the International Energy Agency's 450 Scenario to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius under which oil demand declines by 23 percent between 2020 and 2035.
Under this scenario, despite new refinery additions in Asia and the Middle East, only 62 percent of global capacity will be required to meet demand compared with around 80 percent today. Profits from converting crude oil into refined products will also shrink.
That in turn means that approximately one quarter of the 2016 refining capacity, the equivalent of some 24.7 million barrels per day of oil demand, will need to be closed, the report said.
The closures would likely be more pronounced in developed economies where oil demand is expected to peak earlier than in developing economies. Also, modern, complex refineries that can produce more high quality and cleaner fuels are likely to fare better than older plants.
"The consequences of achieving a 2 degree Celsius world are far more detrimental to the refining sector than the upstream sector, as it results in structural over-capacity and associated poor refining margin environment, which can only be addressed by sustained capacity rationalisation," said Alan Gelder, vice president for research at Edinburgh-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie which took part in the report.
Meeting the emission reduction targets however seems distant today. A report published on Tuesday said global emissions are set to be 30 percent higher than the target needed by 2030.
While oil companies including Shell have acknowledged that demand for some fuels such as gasoline could peak by the end of the 2020s, they expect demand for oil to remain strong for decades from heavy transport, aviation and chemical production.
The authors of the report estimate that overall earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for refiners could fall by over 50 percent by 2035 from around $147 billion in 2015.
"We consider that prospective investors should be wary of all new refinery investments," the report said.
"When demand growth stalls and turns negative, new investments will carry the risk of failing to earn an adequate return."
Carbon Tracker and a group of investors warned in a report earlier this year that oil giants risk spending trillions by 2025 on oil and gas projects that won't be feasible under the international climate targets.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/11/01/business/01reuters-climatechange-refining.html?_r=0
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