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ACC AM 11/17/17
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(ACC Mentioned) The Daily 202: How EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Wants To Redefine ‘Environmentalism’
Nov 17, 2017 | The Washington Post
By James Hohmann
Love him or hate him for it, Scott Pruitt has done as much as anyone else in the executive branch to advance President Trump’s goal of what Steve Bannon called “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” -
(ACC Mentioned) Former Vitter Chief Of Staff Signs American Chemistry Council
Nov 16, 2017 | Politico
By Theodoric Meyer, Anna Palmer, David Beavers and Aubree Eliza Weaver
The American Chemistry Council has hired Kyle Ruckert, former Sen. David Vitter’s longtime chief of staff, to lobby for them in Washington through his firm, Bold Strategies. -
Senate Panel Sets Pruitt Hearing
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will be back on Capitol Hill this January. -
Senate Bill Aims To ban Asbestos
Nov 17, 2017 | Safety+Health Magazine
A group of Senate Democrats and an independent have introduced legislation seeking to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to eliminate human or environmental exposure to asbestos, a known carcinogen still legal in the United States. -
(ACC Mentioned) A Toxic Legacy
Nov 17, 2017 | Payson Roundup
By Ted Paulk
I read this in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof. I thought it might be of interest to the many Trump supporters in Rim Country ... especially those with children and grandchildren. -
(ACC Mentioned) Examining The History Of Consumer Protections And Clothing
Nov 16, 2017 | Summit Daily News
By Eartha Steward
Dear Eartha, As a mom, I'm curious how chemical safety decisions are made in the U.S. For instance, why are flame retardants found in kids' pajamas? -
(ACC Mentioned) Sen. Collins 'Leaning Against' Dourson's EPA Nomination
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) says she is “leaning against” voting in favor of former EPA toxicologist Michael Dourson's nomination to head the agency's toxics office, underscoring the potential that senators could defeat the nomination as two other Republican senators have already said they will oppose Dourson. -
Trump’s Pick to Oversee Chemical Safety at EPA May Be in Trouble in Senate
Nov 17, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Heidi Vogt
President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency may be in trouble in the Senate, as two Republicans have declared their opposition and a third said she is leaning against the nominee. -
Dourson At Risk Of Rejection As More Republicans Lean No
Nov 16, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Nick Juliano and Anthony Adragna
President Donald Trump’s nominee to a key chemical safety job at the EPA is at risk of rejection after Republican senators balked amid accusations that he is too eager to cover for companies peddling dangerous products. -
Third Republican Senator Casts Doubt on EPA's Chemical Pick
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
A third Republican senator expressed concerns with the Trump administration's selection of Michael Dourson to lead EPA's chemicals office, potentially imperiling the nomination unless at least one Democrat crosses party lines. -
More Than Local Concerns
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Globally active makers and distributors of commercial and consumer products increasingly have to contend with ‘chemicals of concern’ legislation in a handful of US states and even smaller localities. -
How To Find Flame-Resistant Pajamas For Kids, Without Toxic Chemicals
Nov 16, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Elisabeth Leamy
Which worries you more: the risk of fire or the risk of chemical flame retardants in your kids’ pajamas? That’s the question I asked Cory Miller, a Washington mom of two who’s expecting a third. “I think both my husband and I have accepted that freaking out is an integral part of being mom and dad,” Miller said. But she does put some concerns over others. -
EPA Secures Voluntary Cleanup, Defers Enforcing UAO At New York Site
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA Region 2 is deferring on whether it will enforce a unilateral cleanup order against a baby food manufacturer after the company took the rare step earlier this year of refusing to comply with the order, with the agency announcing Nov. 16 that a New York county has agreed to voluntarily dispose of the asbestos contamination at issue. -
Dancet: Better Authorisation Application Quality Will Improve Certainty
Nov 16, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Improving the information and quality of REACH authorisation applications is a key challenge that needs to be addressed, Echa head Geert Dancet has said. -
U.K. Chemicals at Risk from Brexit-Driven Investment Cuts
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Noel
The U.K.’s $50 billion chemicals industry is at risk of withering away if Brexit isn't handled properly, according to an industry expert. -
Regulatory Hurdles Are Hampering Natural Gas Exports
Nov 16, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By William Shughart
Reaching consensus about energy policy is rare in Washington these days. It’s about as hard as getting the House and Senate to move forward rather than backward on health care and taxes. Reaching consensus about energy policy is rare in Washington these days. It’s about as hard as getting the House and Senate to move forward rather than backward on health care and taxes. -
Houston Startup Envisions Chinese Chemicals Made from U.S. Ethane
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
A Houston startup is betting it can help create a market for U.S. ethane in the Chinese petrochemical industry. -
Energy Policy Wish List Could be Democrats’ Road Map
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
A 283-page Democratic energy policy bill introduced Nov. 16 may have no chance in the current Congress, but it lays down a series of markers for possible action if Democrats win a future majority of House and Senate seats. -
Millennium Pipeline Fight Led by New York Moves to Court
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
New York's bid to halt the Millennium natural gas pipeline returns to a federal court after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied the state's request to rehear challenges to the project. -
House Passes Overhaul, Shrugs Off Angst Over Renewables
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The House today passed a broad rewrite of the tax code, despite concerns from renewable energy interests over changes to key incentives that critics say renege on a 2015 agreement. -
Keystone Is Shut Down After S.D. Oil Leak
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Jenny Mandel
The Keystone pipeline was shut down today after a spill in Marshall County, S.D., that released an estimated 5,000 barrels of crude, project developer TransCanada Corp. said. -
Texas County Sues Chemical Plant Owner Over Fires, Blasts
Nov 16, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Reese Dunklin
The county that’s home to Houston has asked a state court to order safeguards and fine the owner of a chemical plant that partially exploded during Hurricane Harvey. -
Grid Attack Simulation Exercise Includes 'Fake News' Scenario
Nov 16, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Esther Whieldon
A two-day exercise to test energy companies and government agencies' response to simulated cyber and physical attacks on the electric grid has added a new wrinkle: using "fake news" on social media to gauge how participants react. -
D.C. Circuit Judges Appear Inclined To Back Air Trading As Haze Control
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at Nov. 16 oral argument appeared inclined in principle to back EPA's approval of emissions trading as an alternative to source-specific regional haze controls, which would bolster the agency in several pending suits over haze plans relying on trading. -
Defunct EPA Program Best Way to Clear Air, Power Plants Say
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
The power industry wants to use a defunct emissions trading program in place of pollution controls at individual power plants to limit air pollution contributing to visibility problems in parks and wilderness areas. -
Senators Seek Review Of EPA Monitoring Network
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three senators from Northeastern states are asking the Government Accountability Office to review U.S. EPA's air quality monitoring network and report back on whether improvements are needed. -
400 Businesses Could Fall Under New Bay Area Air Pollutants Rule
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Oil refineries, sewage treatment plants, power plants, and metal plating operations are among the nearly 400 San Francisco Bay Area facilities facing a tough new rule to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants. -
Trump Climate Exit Panned in Bonn but Cheered in Lordstown, Ohio
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Kevin Scott took a swig of his Pabst Blue Ribbon and professed his love for the environment. Inspired by a boyhood hunting and fishing, the 46-year-old Ohio autoworker earned a degree in environmental policy. -
U.S. Vows to Stay Engaged on Climate, Progress Expected in Bonn
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S. still intends to pull out of the Paris climate pact but will “remain engaged” in international negotiations—including climate talks, its top climate diplomat told other nations on the eve of the close of a two-week U.N. climate summit in Bonn.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Daily 202: How EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Wants To Redefine ‘Environmentalism’
Nov 17, 2017 | The Washington Post
By James Hohmann
THE BIG IDEA: Love him or hate him for it, Scott Pruitt has done as much as anyone else in the executive branch to advance President Trump’s goal of what Steve Bannon called “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency has worked overtime to roll back many of Barack Obama’s proudest achievements. Even with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the former president couldn’t pass cap-and-trade legislation. Because Republicans controlled the House for six of his eight years, Obama leaned heavily on executive action to push his environmental agenda. That made his victories much more vulnerable to evisceration than, say, the Affordable Care Act or Dodd-Frank.
Pruitt has moved swiftly to unwind Obama-era regulations big and small, from the Clean Power Plan to tighter emissions standards for trucks and a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos.
Trump signed an order in February to set in motion the repeal of the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, which expanded the definition of bodies of water that are protected by the EPA. “Within eight minutes of him signing that order, I had paperwork in place to advance it,” Pruitt said proudly.
During a half-hour interview Wednesday afternoon, Pruitt extinguished buzz that he might run for governor of Oklahoma in 2018. The 49-year-old said the work he’s doing right now “is some of the most consequential things domestically that can occur.” His goal is not just to fundamentally transform the EPA but to redefine what it means to be an environmentalist.
“What is true environmentalism? I think it's environmental stewardship -- not prohibition,” he said. “The last administration talked about putting up fences. [They said,] ‘Let's not develop, we're not going to use the natural resources to feed the world and power the world.’ I think that's wrong. I think our focus should be on using our natural resources – with environmental stewardship in mind. … We can be about jobs and growth and be good stewards of our environment. The last several years we've been told we can't do both.”
Sipping black coffee in his cavernous office on the third floor of EPA’s headquarters, directly across the street from Trump’s D.C. hotel, Pruitt offered a full-throated defense of his close ties to some of the industries that he regulates – which he contends will ultimately make the air cleaner and the water safer to drink.
The EPA administrator, who was formerly Oklahoma’s attorney general, is adamant that his closeness with these groups is a strength, not a conflict. “I don't hang with polluters; I prosecute them,” he said. “I think it's important in this agency to deal with the bad actors. The difference … is that the agency historically has viewed all industry and all stakeholders as adversaries, as opposed to partners and allies in improving the environment. … When you have that kind of … blanket approach, you don't achieve good things for the environment.”
Pruitt has extensively traveled the country to meet with industry trade group officials and top executives from chemical, agricultural and fossil fuel companies. Last week he flew to South Carolina’s Kiawah Island for the American Chemistry Council’s board meeting. He recently went to a National Mining Association meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., and to a golf resort in Arizona to speak at a board meeting for the National Association of Manufacturers.
Since being confirmed in February, Pruitt has visited 30 states. “The best interaction we have is spending time with individuals and companies that live under the regulations that we adopt because they are out there carrying those regulations out each day,” he said. “They breathe the air. They drink the water in these areas. They want, in my view, largely a commitment to better environmental outcomes. And so why not work with them to achieve that?
“We don't have enough resources … to hire enough personnel in this agency to stand on every corner in this country and say, ‘Thou shall,’ and make sure that people do this or that,” he added. “We need commitment from the private sector.”
Pruitt has faced criticism for listening more to these companies than career staff. “On pesticides, chemical solvents and air pollutants, Pruitt and his deputies are using industry figures to challenge past findings and recommendations of the agency’s own scientists,” Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis reported last week. “Pruitt has questioned the legitimacy of the agency’s work on climate science, and continued pressing for the White House to create a ‘red team-blue team’ effort to debate the expert consensus on climate change. … Last month, Pruitt moved to change the makeup of EPA advisory boards — including panels that help prioritize the agency’s research and provide recommendations on federal air-pollution and chemical exposure limits — reflecting his broader effort to shift the way the agency evaluates science. He cut any researchers currently receiving EPA grants from the committees, on the grounds that this funding poses a conflict of interest, while bringing in advisers whose work is funded by industry.”
In our interview, Pruitt maintained that the decline in carbon dioxide emissions – which are now at pre-1994 levels – is due far more to the emergence of hydraulic fracking and the conversion of natural gas to electricity than any government mandate. He cites this as a justification for allowing companies to innovate without interference. “Our focus should be on exporting that technology and innovation to China and India,” he said. “We have nothing to be apologetic about in this area.”
He noted that the EPA no longer promotes renewable energies over fossil fuels because that represents the federal government improperly picking “winners and losers” in the private sector. “That's not within the authority of this agency,” he said. “It's not the goal of this agency to say, ‘Your generation of electricity is good. This is not.’ That's what happened with the Clean Power Plan.”
Pruitt praised Trump for showing “great courage” in his willingness to make politically unpopular decisions vis-à-vis the environment, specifically citing his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.
Pruitt played a key role in persuading Trump to pull out. “People forget the criticism that was levied against Paris. Some of the most strident criticism was from whom? The environmental left,” he said. “If you go back and look … it was, ‘Why didn't they hold China accountable? Why didn't they hold India accountable? Why is Russia engaged with a baseline of 1994?’ The reason the rest of the world applauded America's participation … in Paris ... (and) put so much pressure on this country to stay in is because it put us at a disadvantage economically, and it also didn't hold them accountable. It was a bad business deal.”
The administrator has developed a good personal rapport with the president, who he said has been way more hands-on than outsiders understand. “I love spending time around these issues with him because he's got tremendous ideas,” Pruitt said of Trump. “He’s actually presented some things to me on the Superfund sites on how to improve our approach there. It was very instructive.”
Just like his boss, Pruitt is a counter-puncher. When he’s asked about allegations that he’s letting polluters off the hook, he insists that he’s actually being more aggressive than the Obama administration. He noted that the water crisis in Flint, Mich., and the Gold King Mine waste water spillin Colorado happened during the previous administration. He also accused the Obama EPA of cutting the number of personnel in the criminal enforcement office by almost 25 percent.
“As a former attorney general … I know what it means to prosecute people, and I can tell you that it’s a point of emphasis,” he said. “In fact, I'm the first administrator in probably more than a decade – I've been told by staff – that has actually spoken to the criminal enforcement division here to say, ‘Here are the priorities we're going to set.’”
Veterans of the Obama EPA say it would be irregular for the administrator to tell career staff which prosecutions to pursue. There are 2,800 employees in the enforcement division, with 10 regional offices and more than 30 field offices nationwide. Historically there has been a bottom-up approach, designed to prevent political appointees from exerting undue influence.
“All hat and no cattle is I think what they say in Oklahoma,” emailed Cynthia Giles, who directed the EPA’s enforcement office during all eight years of the Obama presidency. “The record does not support Administrator Pruitt’s ludicrous claim to be a tough enforcer.”
I asked Pruitt why the environmental and scientific communities are so strongly critical of him if he’s being as hard on the bad actors as he says. “Because it serves political ends,” Pruitt replied. “You know, I think certain groups want to raise money … and that's unfortunate.”
By one estimate, less than 1 percent of Pruitt’s meetings have been with environmental groups. But the administrator said that does not mean activists have been frozen out. “They’re welcome to come,” he said. “In fact, if they listen to this message, please call. This isn't a matter of not wanting to hear from stakeholders. It is a matter of: Let's have a thoughtful dialogue. … One of the greatest challenges we have the environmental space right now, in my view, is that we want to put on jerseys. People want to say, ‘You’re pro-environment and anti-jobs.’ Or, ‘You're pro-jobs … and you're anti-environment.’ It doesn't have to be that way. That's a false choice. It's a false narrative.”
In that vein, Pruitt said he’s planning to launch two initiatives that environmentalists might want to partner with him on: cleaning up abandoned mines and declaring a war on lead. “It's one of our greatest challenges in this country: lead in our drinking water … that threatens the mental acuity of children,” he said. “I'm likely going to go to Congress next year and will ask them to do some big things. … We can do those things together. Why do we have to continue this divisive type of approach to these very, very important issues to the country?”
He added that enforcement is not mutually exclusive with his parallel effort to accelerate the process for approving new projects. He pledged that, by the end of 2018, anyone who applies for a permit from the EPA will get a decision within six months.
As far as the left is concerned, Pruitt is probably the most divisive EPA administrator since Anne Gorsuch Burford – the mother of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch – during Ronald Reagan’s first term. “Her short, tumultuous tenure was marked by sharp budget cuts, rifts with career EPA employees, a steep decline in cases filed against polluters and a scandal over the mismanagement of the Superfund cleanup program that ultimately led to her resignation in 1983,” Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney wrote in February.
Pruitt, too, has already generated his share of controversies. The EPA, for example, signed a nearly $25,000 contract this summer to construct a secure, soundproof communications booth in Pruitt’s office. Many mocked this as wasteful.
“Well, it's no more than a secure phone line,” Pruitt said when I asked about it. “I didn't have a secure phone in this office to have the conversations that sometimes need to be secure. And it's kind of hard to tell someone that's reaching out that, to have a confidential secure conversation, I've got to go down two floors, and over two levels, and I'll call you back. That's just not … how things should work. … And sometimes legend leads to misinformation in the marketplace. Not everything you read, by the way, is fully reflective of what the truth is.”
Gorsuch Burford’s portrait hangs in the corridor leading to Pruitt’s office. The office itself is full of cool baseball memorabilia. From 2003 until he got elected A.G. in 2010, he was the co-owner and managing partner of a minor league team in Oklahoma called the RedHawks. Pruitt has a bucket of autographed balls, several signed by hall of famers, in front of one of his two fireplaces. He’s got two jerseys framed on the wall. And he has a signed Yogi Berra baseball card on his coffee table.
Justice Gorsuch spoke at the Federalist Society’s annual gala last night. Pruitt will address the group of conservative lawyers later today. The men, born a year apart, are both rock stars on the right. Each interprets the Constitution in a way that would dramatically defang the regulatory state if it became the law of the land.
One of the reasons legal experts expect Gorsuch to be an even more conservative justice than Antonin Scalia, his predecessor, is his rejection of what’s known as Chevron deference. The Supreme Court created the standard in 1984, which requires judges to defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of federal law in most cases where the law may be “ambiguous” and the agency’s position seems “reasonable.” As a circuit court judge, Gorsuch denounced Chevron deference as “a judge-made doctrine for the abdication of the judicial duty.”
For his part, as the attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times during the Obama administration. He challenged the legal authority of the agency he now runs to regulate everything from toxic mercury pollution and smog to carbon emissions and wetlands. He made clear during our interview that his views haven’t changed.
“Agencies and the executive branch need to enforce the law,” Pruitt said. “They don't need to fill in the spaces if Congress doesn't act. It’s a very important question because a lot of times the tools aren't in the tool box.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/11/17/daily-202-how-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-wants-to-redefine-environmentalism/5a0e124230fb045a2e0030be/?utm_term=.31f56ce22e24
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Vitter Chief Of Staff Signs American Chemistry Council
Nov 16, 2017 | Politico
By Theodoric Meyer, Anna Palmer, David Beavers and Aubree Eliza Weaver
FORMER VITTER CHIEF OF STAFF SIGNS AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL: The American Chemistry Council has hired Kyle Ruckert, former Sen. David Vitter’s longtime chief of staff, to lobby for them in Washington through his firm, Bold Strategies. It’s Ruckert’s first federal lobbying client. He’s lobbied for the trade group in Louisiana since last year, according to state lobbying records. He joins his old boss in lobbying for the trade group in Washington; Vitter, now a co-chairman of Mercury, lobbies for the American Chemistry Council, as well as Yuhuang Chemical.
HOLLAND & KNIGHT SIGNS FIAT CHRYSLER: Fiat Chrysler’s American subsidiary has hired Holland & Knight’s Dimitri Karakitsos and Rich Gold to lobby on fuel economy and vehicle emissions issues, according to a disclosure filing. As POLITICO’s transportation team points out, Fiat Chrysler “is currently battling EPA allegations that the company sold more than 100,000 diesel vehicles equipped to cheat emissions tests.” The automaker also retains Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas; Prime Policy Group; Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg; and Venable.
MORE K STREET DRAMA: Several members of the Majority Group are eyeing the exits to start their own all-Democratic lobbying shop, according to a source familiar with the situation. Among those leaving the firm are Hadley Sosnoff, Hayden Rogers, Scott Eckart and Jed Bhuta. Stay tuned for more details.
FACEBOOK ADDS ANOTHER: “Facebook added yet another lobbyist to its roster of outside consultants — this time a former staffer of Vice President Joe Biden — as the company contends with Washington lawmakers over the role of its platform in Russian efforts to sway the U.S. election,” POLITICO’s Steven Overlyreports. “Sudafi Henry of TheGROUP DC will tackle a wide range of issues surrounding congressional investigations into Russian meddling and the resulting fallout, including online advertising disclosure and so-called ‘platform integrity,’ according to a recent filing. Henry was formerly the director of legislative affairs for Biden, helping the Obama administration pass the Affordable Care Act and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in its early years.” Full story.
DEMOCRATIC MEGADONOR STEVE MOSTYN HAS DIED: "Steve Mostyn, a top Democratic donor and prominent Houston trial lawyer, has died," The Texas Tribune's Morgan Smith and Jay Root report. "He was 46. According to a statement released by his wife, Amber, Mostyn died Wednesday after 'a sudden onset and battle with a mental health issue.' She did not disclose the cause of death." Mostyn "and his wife, also an attorney, have long been considered the state’s most powerful Democratic backers, spending millions on Democratic campaigns in Texas and beyond." Full story.
ANNALS OF ASTROTURFING: “James Short, a retired deputy fire chief, is the founder of an organization called Protect Our Pensions,” Bloomberg News’ Benjamin Elgin and Zachary Mider report. “At least that’s what it says on the group’s website. But ask Short about his role at Protect Our Pensions, formed last year to oppose efforts to push endowments, foundations and pension funds to divest their holdings in fossil-fuel companies, and he has a different take. Standing in the doorway of a brick bungalow in southeast Washington, D.C., in August, a Cadillac with the license plate 'Short 1' parked outside, he refused to answer questions before shutting the door. A follow-up call elicited this response: 'That is not me. I do not know who is putting those blogs out.'"
— It’s not clear who’s behind Protect Our Pensions. “But there are clues pointing to the involvement of DCI Group LLC, a Washington public affairs firm known for its work with the energy industry and for building grass-roots coalitions that sometimes obscure their funders.” Full story.
TRUMP TAPS LOBBYIST FOR ENERGY DEPARTMENT: President Donald Trump will nominate Melissa Burnison as the Energy Department’s head of congressional affairs, POLITICO’s Darius Dixon reports. “Burnison, who will be nominated as the DOE assistant secretary for congressional intergovernmental affairs, is [the Nuclear Energy Institute]’s director of federal affairs. Before NEI, she was a senior advisor at [the Energy Department] and with the House Natural Resources Committee.” Full story.
IF YOU MISSED IT: POLITICO’s Nancy Cook reports that influential trade groups aren’t attacking provisions they don’t like in the Republican tax proposal (in public, anyway) to avoid derailing the bill entirely. “The kumbaya attitude emanates in large part from a sense of desperation among Republicans who believe the party needs to show voters and donors a concrete victory ahead of the 2018 midterms or risk losing control of one or both chambers of Congress, say strategists and conservative activists. ‘It is kind of unreal,’ said one Republican lobbyist. ‘People know this is a freight train coming, and they are doing everything they can to get their stuff on it rather than stand in front of it.’” Full story.
CALL IT THE BEER BREAK: “The revised Senate tax legislation unveiled late Tuesday includes tax breaks for the beer and citrus industries, despite the GOP’s pledges to avoid carve-outs for special interests,” POLITICO’s Catherine Boudreau reports. “The benefits for U.S. brewers and beer importers would last for two years, and are nearly identical to those included in the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (S. 236 (115)) reintroduced this year and backed by trade groups like the Beer Institute, Brewers Association, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and Wine Institute.” Full story.
JOBS REPORT:
— Bridget Walsh is joining Boehringer Ingelheim as vice president of government affairs and public policy, overseeing work at the federal and state levels. She comes from Pfizer, where she’s vice president for federal government relations.
— WeWork is adding Mary Rutherford Jennings to its public affairs team, where she’ll focus on the Mid-Atlantic. She was previously director of surrogate communications for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
— Rhett Buttle starting a consulting firm, Public Private Strategies, and also joining the Aspen Institute as a senior fellow. He was previously traveling the world and before that worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Katie Wonnenberg will join the firm as a principal while continuing to work for the National Association for the Self-Employed, where she’s vice president of government relations and public affairs.
SPOTTED: At a Monument Policy Group reception Wednesday night at Stanton & Greene, according to a PI tipster: Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas); Matt Haller of the International Franchise Association; Brian Huseman, Mike Ward, Sarah Hudgins and Blair Anderson of Amazon; Gloria Dittus of Story Partners; Laurent Crenshaw of Yelp; Viet Shelton of Zillow; Cynthia Pullom of Sen. Chris Murphy’s office; Patricia Rojas-Ungár of the U.S. Travel Association; Desiree Filippone of the U.S. Olympic Committee; Mitch Rose of NBCUniversal; Andy Halataei of the Information Technology Industry Council; Allison Halataei of the House Ways & Means Committee; Locke Loeband Paul Stamnes of Weyerhaeuser; Tom Molnar of Penske; Mark Bednar of Rep. Sean Duffy’s office; Ricky Le of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s office; Emily Benavides of Sen. Rob Portman’s office; Matt Gorman, Jesse Hunt and Kerry Rom of the NRCC; Dave Martinez of the Black Rock Group; Allie Brandenburger of TheBridge; Karim Addetia of Senate Leadership Fund; Michelle Fields; and Jamie Weinstein of “The Jamie Weinstein Show.”
ON THE CALENDAR: Members of the Asset Leadership Network are on the Hill today meeting with the members of the Joint Economic Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on federal asset management issues. The fly-in was organized by the Chwat Group.
NEW JOINT FUNDRAISERS:
America for Progress (Mathew Thomas)
Young Optimistic Useful Republicans JFC (Rep Devin Nunes, Support to Ensure Victory Everywhere PAC)NEW PACs:
American Syndicate Political Action Committee (Super PAC)
Blue Uprising (PAC)
Cryptocurrency Alliance (Super PAC)
Everbody [sic] Votes (PAC)
Latinos for American Values (Super PAC)NEW LOBBYING REGISTRATIONS:
Armory Hill Advocates (formerly known as Rawlson Policy Group): Interim Health Care of West Texas
Bold Strategies, LLC: American Chemistry Council
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Spark Therapeutics, Inc.
Capitol Tax Partners, LLP: ​Energy Transfer Equity, LP
Chamber Hill Strategies: Health Care Service Corporation
GovBiz Advantage, Inc.: Bell and Lindsay (for Label Insight)
GuidePostStrategies, LLC: Intelsat Corporation
Holland & Knight LLP: FCA US LLC
K&L Gates LLP: Islabikes
K&L Gates LLP: Moda Health
K&L Gates LLP: Pacific Seafood Group
Linchpin Strategies, LLC: Food Services Inc of Gainesville (FSIG)
Linkage Consulting LLC: State Policy Network
Lot Sixteen LLC: NRG Energy
McCarty Financial LLC: Orion Networking Inc.
McGuireWoods Consulting (A Subsidiary of McGuireWoods LLP): Old Dominion University Research Foundation
Monument Policy Group, LLC: Mississippi River Trust
Squire Patton Boggs: America's Voice
The Roosevelt Group: DZSP-21 LLC
The Roosevelt Group: Greater New Orleans, Inc.
TheGROUP DC, LLC: Facebook, Inc.
Van Scoyoc Associates: International Health, Racquet, and Sports Club AssociationNEW LOBBYING TERMINATIONS:
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: Bon Secours Virginia
Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions: Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions
The Mizeur Group, LLC: PharmBluehttps://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2017/11/16/former-vitter-chief-of-staff-signs-american-chemistry-council-025789
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Senate Panel Sets Pruitt Hearing
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will be back on Capitol Hill this January.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) announced this afternoon the EPA chief will testify before his panel Jan. 31.
"It is important that EPA Administrator Pruitt testifies before the committee," Barrasso said.
"It will give senators the chance to hear about the important work being done at the agency to protect America's air, land and water."
Lawmakers had been pressing Pruitt to come before Congress for some time. The administrator was last on Capitol Hill in June, when he appeared at House and Senate hearings to discuss President Trump's fiscal 2018 budget plan for EPA.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the panel's ranking member, had pushed for Pruitt to come before the committee to specifically discuss the agency's budget.
Pruitt's appearance before the EPW Committee will come after another trip to the House. Earlier today, Republican lawmakers said the EPA chief will appear before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment on Dec. 7 (Greenwire, Nov. 16).
Pruitt may testify for other committees in the near future. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, has said he is looking into scheduling a hearing date for Pruitt (Greenwire, Nov. 8).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/11/16/stories/1060066795
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Senate Bill Aims To ban Asbestos
Nov 17, 2017 | Safety+Health Magazine
Washington – A group of Senate Democrats and an independent have introduced legislation seeking to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to eliminate human or environmental exposure to asbestos, a known carcinogen still legal in the United States.
The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2017, introduced Nov. 2, would:Amend TSCA to require the Environmental Protection Agency to identify and assess known uses of – and exposures to – all forms of asbestos.Require EPA to impose restrictions on the use of asbestos within 18 months of enactment.Within 12 months, ban the manufacturing, processing, use or distribution of commerce asbestos other than described in EPA’s rule. (Although bans remain in place for some asbestos uses and products, many uses and products still are legal.)
According to a report from the advocacy group Environmental Working Group Action Fund, from 1999 to 2013 (the latest data available), the estimated number of deaths from asbestos exposure in the United States was 189,000 to 221,000 people – or 13,500 to 16,000 deaths per year.
Alan Reinstein died in 2006 at the age of 66 of mesothelioma, a disease linked to asbestos exposure. Two years earlier, his wife, Linda, started a nonprofit organization named Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. Asbestosis and lung cancer also are caused by asbestos.
“With the increase in asbestos imports and more than 15,000 Americans dying each year from asbestos exposure, the timing of the bill is critical,” Linda Reinstein said. “Moving forward to ban asbestos will save dollars and lives. It’s time to make asbestos a thing of the past in this nation once and for all.”
EPA, under a 2016 amendment to TCSA named the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, is required to set deadlines for assessment of risky chemicals. It listed asbestos as one of its first 10 chemicals to be assessed for risk, but that assessment has to be completed before action is taken to restrict or ban asbestos – which EPA is not required to do.
“Despite knowing the health risks for decades, asbestos is still used in a wide variety of construction materials that the public unwittingly comes in contact with every day,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), one of the bill sponsors, said in a Nov. 2 press release. “We can no longer afford to wait; Congress must ban asbestos now.”
http://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/16372-senate-bill-aims-to-eliminate-asbestos-exposure
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(ACC Mentioned) A Toxic Legacy
Nov 17, 2017 | Payson Roundup
By Ted Paulk
A toxic legacy
Editor:
I read this in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof. I thought it might be of interest to the many Trump supporters in Rim Country ... especially those with children and grandchildren.
There is a pesticide called chlorpyrifos made and sold by Dow Chemical. It was original developed by Nazi Germany. Studies have found that it damages the brain, reduces IQ and is linked to lung cancer and Parkinson’s. The EPA banned it from indoor and residential use 17 years ago and was going to ban it for agricultural and outdoor use this year.
After Dow donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee, the EPA reversed its course.
Chlorpyrifos will continue to be sprayed on our fruits and vegetables thanks to Trump and his appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt ... (and a million-dollar donation).
While we are diverted by daily White House doings, the administration is handing the keys of our regulatory apparatus to the American Chemistry Council. It will be a toxic legacy.
Ted Paulk
http://www.paysonroundup.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/a-toxic-legacy/article_05f701b3-148f-5dad-92af-60f09986fca5.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Examining The History Of Consumer Protections And Clothing
Nov 16, 2017 | Summit Daily News
By Eartha Steward
Dear Eartha,
As a mom, I'm curious how chemical safety decisions are made in the U.S. For instance, why are flame retardants found in kids' pajamas?
-Shelley, Breckenridge
Great question, Shelley. In the U.S., chemicals used in consumer goods are regulated by the Toxic Substances Control Act. Passed in 1976, this law gives the EPA the authority to evaluate the safety of chemicals added to products like clothing, carpeting or furniture. Food, drugs and pesticides are regulated by the FDA and have stricter regulations. In 2016, the Toxic Substances Control Act was overhauled by Congress with bipartisan support. The updated law ensures that newly developed chemicals are evaluated solely upon health and safety risks, and not based on financial considerations.
Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, the EPA is in the process of dismantling the consumer protections gained in 2016. In 2017, Trump appointed Dr. Nancy Beck as a top deputy in the EPA's toxic chemical unit. Prior to joining the EPA, Beck was an executive at the American Chemistry Council, which includes members like Dupont, Dow and Monsanto. Beck has led the charge to make it more difficult to track health consequences of chemicals, effectively making chemicals harder to regulate. The rewriting of these regulations has alarmed scientists and EPA administrators who have been working to protect consumers through ensuring thorough evaluation of scientific studies.
Now back to your question about kids' pajamas. By law children's sleepwear must meet flammability standards in the United States. Pajamas sized between 10 months and 14 years have to either pass specific flammability tests or be tight fitting based on strict dimensions.
There's a long history of how these chemicals ended up in kids' pajamas, crib pads and car seats. Back in the 1940s, children's clothing was often made from rayon, a very flammable fabric, which led to a rash of injuries and deaths. As a result, the 1953 Flammable Fabrics Act was passed to prevent children from being injured if their pajamas come in contact with a candle or lighter.
Brominated tris retardants were used in children's sleepwear until the 1970s when they were found to mutate DNA and subsequently banned. Next, chlorinated tris (TDCPP) chemicals were added to children's pajamas and used until 2012. TDCPP, a known carcinogen, is still found in polyurethane foam and upholstery. Currently, hydroxymethyl phosphonium chlorides are used as flame retardants, with trade names like Proban and Securest. Time for some good news, right? This newer class of flame retardants tends to migrate less from pajamas onto skin and other household items than TDCPPs.
Most flame-retardant chemicals are persistent and accumulate in both the environment and our bodies. Studies have shown that flame retardants are found in the urine of almost all Americans tested, with the highest levels found in small children. Flame-retardant levels are found in much higher levels in U.S. citizens than their European counterparts, likely because European laws prohibit the use of many flame retardants still used in the U.S.
Experts disagree on whether flame retardants in sleepwear have reduced injuries or deaths. Although fire retardants delay a fire starting, retardant-laden pajamas and other products still burn and produce toxic gases that cause fire injuries and deaths. In fact, materials with flame retardants produce dioxins and furans, which are extremely toxic. Instead of wearing fire-retardant doused PJs, making sure that your fire alarms are working properly is probably the most important thing you can do to keep your family safe.
In 1996 the Consumer Product Safety Commission created a loophole that allows sleepwear to omit flame retardants as long as the clothing is tight fitting. Non flame-resistant sleepwear is required to have tags that note that the garment is not flame resistant. Most of the non-chemical sleepwear is 100 percent cotton, which means that the warm, fleecy pajamas that are perfect here in the High Country typically contain retardants.
So what should we do as consumers to protect ourselves from harmful chemicals? Unfortunately, all decisions aren't as easy as selecting cotton pajamas. We need to continually educate ourselves by doing research on products that we purchase. The Environmental Working Group is one resource that offers ratings and information on consumer products. And although the current federal administration sometimes seems stacked against protecting consumers, it's always worth contacting your congressional representatives and asking them to enact stronger protections on chemicals in consumer products.
Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation.
https://www.summitdaily.com/opinion/examining-the-history-of-consumer-protections-and-clothing/
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(ACC Mentioned) Sen. Collins 'Leaning Against' Dourson's EPA Nomination
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) says she is “leaning against” voting in favor of former EPA toxicologist Michael Dourson's nomination to head the agency's toxics office, underscoring the potential that senators could defeat the nomination as two other Republican senators have already said they will oppose Dourson.
Collins said Nov. 16 “that she has not made a final decision on Michael Dourson's nomination, but 'I think it's safe to say that I am leaning against him,'” according to The Hill. The senator was previously considered a likely no vote on Dourson, and her comments show that she is still weighing opposing the nominee.
If Collins maintains that position she would join two other Republicans in opposing Dourson -- North Carolina Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis. The senators announced late Nov. 15 that they oppose the nominee, over concerns regarding his risk analyses for industry on chemicals of particular concern in the Tar Heel State: trichloroethylene, a contaminant once in the drinking water at Camp Lejeune, NC, and perflourinated chemicals (PFCs).
PFCs are proving to a contentious issue again in North Carolina with the recent discovery of one, GenX, that a Chemours facility in Fayetteville has allowed to enter the Cape Fear River. The state's Department of Environmental Quality “is moving to revoke Chemours’ permit to discharge process wastewater because the company failed to comply with its permit and failed to report an October spill,” according to a Nov. 16 statement.
With the GOP holding a slim 52-seat majority in the Senate, three Republican no votes would tank Dourson's nomination if all 48 Democrats remain united in their opposition. Dourson has prompted opposition from Democrats and environmentalists over his support for industry, and he is endorsed by the American Chemistry Council.
One conservative Democrat who has crossed party lines to vote for some of President Trump's nominees, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), declined to comment to The Hill on Dourson's nomination.
His West Virginia colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, is another Republican who appeared concerned about Dourson during his confirmation hearing last month. But Capito told Inside EPA last week that she intends to vote for the nominee on the floor.
Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), told Inside EPA Nov. 16 that he has yet to make up his mind on Dourson. “I don't have a firm position on that yet. I'll continue to look at it, look at his qualifications,” said Daines, a chemical engineer by trade who is one of the founding members of the Senate Chemistry Caucus.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/sen-collins-leaning-against-doursons-epa-nomination
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Trump’s Pick to Oversee Chemical Safety at EPA May Be in Trouble in Senate
Nov 17, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Heidi Vogt
Michael Dourson has worked as consultant to chemical industry; some GOP opposition
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency may be in trouble in the Senate, as two Republicans have declared their opposition and a third said she is leaning against the nominee.
Michael Dourson, a toxicologist tapped to head the EPA’s office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, has been one of the agency’s most controversial nominees because of his work as a consultant to the chemical industry. Democrats and environmentalists have strongly opposed his nomination, saying his research was skewed toward results desired by corporate clients.
The Senate environment committee approved his nomination on a party-line vote, and many had expected a similar result in the full Senate. Now, though, he has run into unexpected opposition from within the GOP.
Late Wednesday, North Carolina Republicans Richard Burr and Thom Tillis said they would not vote for Mr. Dourson because they had serious concerns about his record, particularly on water safety. Mr. Dourson has argued for weaker safety standards for trichloroethylene, one of the main chemicals found to have contaminated water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune military base, raising cancer risks for those living there.
On Thursday, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she was “leaning against” the nomination. “I have a lot of concerns about Mr. Dourson. I have not yet made a final decision. But I certainly share the concerns that have been raised by Sen. Burr and Sen. Tillis, among others,” Sen. Collins told reporters. “I think it’s safe to say that I’m leaning against him.”
Republicans control 52 of the Senate’s 100 votes, so it would take at least three Republicans voting against Mr. Dourson for his nomination to fail, assuming all Democrats voted against. Vice President Mike Pence could break a 50-50 tie.
Mr. Dourson’s supporters say he is a respected scientist with years of experience in the field of chemical risk assessment, including 15 years with the EPA beginning in the 1980s.
Mr. Dourson is being nominated to a position that is is particularly important now because the agency is implementing a major toxic-substances law passed last year after a decade-long push to tighten regulation of dangerous chemicals. How the EPA interprets the law, which requires it to prioritize and define the risk posed by the most toxic chemicals, will drive its regulation of the substances and have a broad impact on the chemical industry.
One of the first chemicals the EPA plans to evaluate as part of the new chemical safety regulations is trichloroethylene, the chemical found to have contaminated water in North Carolina.
Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, has circulated an internal DuPont email from 2000 saying Mr. Dourson was a good pick for a toxicity review because he was known for “blessing criteria,” a seeming reference to approving the approach that the company wanted taken.
If Mr. Dourson’s nomination is blocked, it would be a major victory for Democrats and environmental groups who have been able to do little more than voice loud opposition to EPA picks who want to reverse Obama administration climate policies and roll back environmental regulations that they say restrict industry. Last week, the Senate confirmed a lawyer, William Wehrum, who used to represent fossil fuel groups, to head the agency’s air regulation efforts.
So far, the Senate has not scheduled a vote for Mr. Dourson, and there’s no deadline by which it has to do so. Mr. Dourson is also already working at the EPA as an adviser to administrator Scott Pruitt, a position that does not require Senate confirmation. The EPA did not respond to requests for details of Mr. Dourson’s current responsibilities.
Mr. Dourson was a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s medical school’s department of environmental health from 2015 until Oct. 15, according to Alison Sampson, a spokeswoman for the U.C. College of Medicine. Mr. Dourson has also run a nonprofit consulting firm whose research has been the subject of much of the criticism.
—Byron Tau contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumpspick-to-oversee-chemical-safety-at-epa-may-be-in-trouble-in-senate-1510875863
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Dourson At Risk Of Rejection As More Republicans Lean No
Nov 16, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Nick Juliano and Anthony Adragna
President Donald Trump’s nominee to a key chemical safety job at the EPA is at risk of rejection after Republican senators balked amid accusations that he is too eager to cover for companies peddling dangerous products.
North Carolina’s two GOP senators have said they will vote against confirming Michael Dourson as an EPA assistant administrator, citing a record that included work on a chemical linked to cancer deaths near a Marine Corps base in their home state. And Maine Republican Susan Collins said Thursday that she is leaning no as well — a vote that would be enough to sink his nomination.
Democrats are optimistic about turning four additional Republicans who they believe should be in play based on contamination issues back home.
Republican leaders have not decided what to do about Dourson’s nomination, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Thursday.
“We’ll have to see whether it’s a viable nomination, and with two against him obviously that doesn’t leave us a lot of room,” Cornyn told POLITICO. “We haven’t made a decisions on that yet, but we’ll be revisiting it.”
Critics say Dourson, a former industry-funded toxicologist, regularly downplayed the risks of chemicals such as PFOA and trichloroethylene that are contaminating soil and water in communities across the country. Dourson has already begun working at EPA as a senior adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt, an arrangement Democrats have condemned as improper.
“There are all these local contamination issues across the country that have been bubbling up recently or have been out there for years, and because Dourson is this hired gun … he’s almost by nature of his job been working on these really controversial chemicals,” said Jack Pratt, chemicals campaign director for the Environmental Defense Fund, which opposes Dourson’s nomination.
Republican North Carolina Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr said Wednesday that they could not support Dourson because of his past work as a toxicologist who was frequently hired by industry to rebut public health concerns about chemicals. Collins said Thursday that she is “leaning against” confirming him.
A legislative aide said Democrats are eyeing Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, although Flake, Toomey and Corker told POLITICO they’re still undecided.
“Sen. Toomey remains concerned about the PFOA issue in Bucks County and Montgomery County and remains dedicated to addressing it,” a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Republican said, naming two Philadelphia-area counties where toxic firefighting chemicals leached into the ground from two closed naval bases. Toomey is reviewing the nomination “with these concerns in mind,” but the spokesman did not say how he plans to vote.
However, even if the nomination is pulled or rejected, Dourson will still be able to influence EPA’s implementation of a major chemical safety law because he has already started working at the agency. Democrats have criticized that arrangement, though EPA says previous administrations allowed people to begin working there before being confirmed.
EPA’s chemical safety office, which Dourson has been nominated to lead, has a heavy workload after Congress in 2016 passed a bipartisan law updating the Toxic Substances Control Act for the first time in nearly 40 years. The office has been charged with evaluating the safety of chemicals already in use and determining how to test new chemicals before they are allowed into the marketplace.
The near-universal support TSCA reform won in Congress last year may help explain the wariness among lawmakers about giving chemical industry allies too much of a foothold in EPA.
“They wanted to give the public some assurance that the products on their shelf are safe, and when you put the chemical industry in charge that’s not going to happen,” said Madeleine Foote, a legislative representative with the League of Conservation Voters.
Tillis and Burr stopped short of calling for Dourson to step down from his existing position at the agency. “I’ll leave that up to the EPA to decide,” Tillis told POLITICO.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has supported several Trump nominees, said he would vote against Dourson but not object to him continuing to work at EPA.
Before joining EPA last month, Dourson was a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine’s Risk Science Center, and he founded the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, which was often conducted industry-funded research. He also previously worked at EPA from 1980 to 1995. Past clients of Dourson and his research group have included Dow Chemical, Koch Industries and Chevron, according to the Associated Press.
Critics say Dourson’s research routinely concluded that chemicals were safer in far higher concentrations than those recommended by agencies like EPA, putting communities at greater risk of finding toxic substances like perchlorate, TCE or PFOA in their air or drinking water.
Pratt said Dourson’s work followed a pattern.
“Over and over again these chemical companies would hire him, he’d look at the research, and say the standard that EPA or whatever regulatory body has is too strict — it should be looser,” Pratt said.
Dourson told the Environment and Public Works Committee at his confirmation hearing last month that he did not have a thumb on the scale.
“I can give you as many or more examples of situations where the science that we brought forward as a team actually lowered the safe dose or risk position for various sponsors,” Dourson told Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) at the hearing. “If confirmed, I will rely on the guidance of EPA ethics officials.”
Tillis and Burr said they could not support Dourson based on his record and North Carolina's history of chemical pollution problems, such drinking water at Camp Lejeune that was contaminated for decades by chemicals including trichloroethylene. TCE is one of the first 10 chemicals EPA must evaluate under the new safety law, but Dourson has previously endorsed health standards that are 1.5 to 15 times less protective than those backed by other researchers, according to EDF.
Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, whose daughter died of leukemia linked to the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, met with Tills and aides to Burr to urge their opposition, according to the Wilmington Star News.
Among his other industry-funded work, Dourson appeared before an EPA scientific advisory panel session concerning the pesticide chlorpyrifos on behalf of CropLife America. He led a 2008 paper on acrylamide, which can form during high-temperature cooking of some starchy foods, that received funding from major food companies like Burger King, Frito-Lay and McDonald’s. And he studied 1-bromopropane, a solvent linked to some neurological and reproductive disorders, in 2004 with funding from Albemarle Corp. and Ameribrom Inc.
In all cases, he recommended standards many factors less protective than public health and EPA research suggested.
He also has done work for industry-friendly state governments. In the early 2000s, Dourson helped West Virginia set drinking water guidance limits for PFOA, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid or C8, at 150 parts per billion. That was 150 times less protective than manufacturer DuPont’s own internal standard of 1 part per billion and more than 2,000 times less protective than EPA’s recommendation of 70 parts per trillion.
During his confirmation hearing, Dourson argued that the research had evolved significantly since his recommendation to West Virginia, saying that "the science has progressed, significantly advanced since the time of 2004 and the new science indicates a lower level.” And he defended the integrity of his work overall.
“Throughout my career — with EPA, TERA and now with the University of Cincinnati — I have been objective in my work and applied sound science to come to my conclusions,” Dourson said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2017/11/dourson-at-risk-of-rejection-as-more-republicans-lean-no-167056
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Third Republican Senator Casts Doubt on EPA's Chemical Pick
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
A third Republican senator expressed concerns with the Trump administration's selection of Michael Dourson to lead EPA's chemicals office, potentially imperiling the nomination unless at least one Democrat crosses party lines.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Nov. 16 that, while she has not made up her mind on how she will vote, she is “leaning against” Dourson.
“I share many of the same concerns” as North Carolina Republican Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, Collins told reporters.
Burr and Tillis confirmed Nov. 15 they would not vote for Dourson, citing his work to weaken safety standards for toxic chemicals as the reason. North Carolina is home to Camp Lejeune, where Marines were exposed to chemicals in drinking water between the 1950s and the 1980s. The state is also struggling with water contaminated with the chemical GenX.
Burr told Bloomberg Environment Nov. 16 that neither the White House nor the EPA contacted him about his opposition to Dourson.
Dourson—who recently left his position as a professor of risk assessment and environmental health at the University of Cincinnati and serves as an adviser to the EPA as he awaits confirmation—has sparked numerous complaints from Democrats and environmental groups over his ties with industry. He has developed assessments for R.J. Reynolds Co., Koch Industries, and DuPont.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who voted to confirm EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, previously announced he would not support Dourson's nomination. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters Nov. 16 that he is still undecided on Dourson's nomination.
‘Wait and See’
Dourson has received support from the chemical and agriculture industries. However, environmental advocates have criticized his firm Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, which was hired to measure the risk of certain chemicals in the environment, including 1,4-dioxane and perfluorooctanoic acid, two likely carcinogens. TERA repeatedly recommended safety levels that were less stringent than those proposed by regulatory agencies.
Several newspapers in states affected by chemically-tainted drinking water, including West Virginia and North Carolina, have published op-eds and editorials opposing Dourson at the EPA. Dourson is currently serving at the agency as an adviser, which is not unusual for nominees awaiting Senate confirmation.
One of his chief backers in the Senate, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), said that Burr and Tillis opposed Dourson because of their “personal opinion,” not for his lack of the experience necessary for the job.
Dourson's nomination isn't yet a lost cause, Inhofe said.
“Let's wait and see what happens, I think we're jumping ahead of ourselves,” Inhofe told reporters.
But other Dourson supporters were less optimistic.
“I would say he's in trouble,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who voted to advance Dourson's nomination in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881805&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881805&jd=123881805
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Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Globally active makers and distributors of commercial and consumer products increasingly have to contend with ‘chemicals of concern’ legislation in a handful of US states and even smaller localities. Ironically, local regulations in the US might be doing more than international treaties, such as the Stockholm Convention, or national and regional laws and regulations, like TSCA and REACH, to force manufacturers of commercial and retail consumer products to address product content issues.
State and local chemical laws in the US differ between jurisdictions. Tracking and adapting to them presents a challenge for entities that use chemical substances to manufacture products that are marketed in numerous jurisdictions, even those who do not manufacture in the US. This new burden is emerging at a time when US retailers are establishing and imposing increasingly complex standards for product manufacturers.
Emerging legal landscape
At the federal level in the US, chemical substances are primarily regulated by TSCA. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, did not aggressively or effectively implement the statute, so efforts began nearly one decade ago to update it. This culminated in the sweeping amendments of June 2016 that were called the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, in honour of the late senator’s longrunning efforts to amend TSCA.
However, the legislative process was slow and uncertain. In the preceding decade, sporadic activity in Congress and activism by environmental and consumer interest groups had created a growing awareness of the potential presence of undesirable chemicals in products.
Several widely reported news stories concerning detection of lead in children’s toys had focused public concern on the issue. This prompted congressional action in the form of the 2008 amendments to the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), which set new standards for lead in children’s products generally and for certain phthalates in children’s toys.
The 2008 presidential election, and President Obama’s and the EPA administrator’s commitment to enhancing chemical safety, enthused environmental and consumer interest groups. As legislative efforts to amend TSCA languished and frustration grew, likeminded interest groups and activists in state legislatures increasingly began to collaborate. A handful of environmentally minded states created clearing houses for sharing information, including lists of specific chemical substances of concern.
Many of those states were keenly aware that the state of California (pursuant to Proposition 65) had already assembled a list of carcinogens and reproductive toxins, which is regularly updated through an administrative process. However, this only prompts warnings of potential hazards from exposures and does not generally impose quantitative limits on, or prohibit the presence of, a listed chemical in a commercial or consumer product.
Those states also began to develop and share their proposals for legislation, in particular seeking to regulate or prohibit products that contain certain identified substances. The states’ lists of chemicals of concern led quite quickly to legislation to control them.
Perhaps adding fuel to the fire was the enormous attention given, during the final negotiations of the amended TSCA, to the appropriate terms for federal preemption of state actions seeking to regulate Legal www.chemicalwatch.com Global Business Briefing / November 2017 16 Legal chemicals. Arguably, that discussion served to increase consumer activists’ and environmental groups’ determination to call upon state legislatures to act.
International impact
State legislation to regulate chemical substances has generally fallen into two categories:those laws banning the use of a chemical substance in a particular product or category of products; andthose authorising a state regulatory agency to create a list of ‘priority chemicals’, based on the state’s assessment of their potential risk to human health and the environment.
While the former can create headaches for manufacturers and distributors of products targeted by such legislation - such as prohibitions on certain flame retardants in mattresses - the latter can create more compliance concerns for the industry as a whole.
Priority chemicals legislation often requires manufacturers of products incorporating listed chemicals to notify the state of their presence in their products. Whether the substances will be released from a product and the likelihood of exposure do not have to be considered.
In certain states, such notification can trigger a requirement for the manufacturer to conduct an ‘alternatives assessment’ to determine whether another substance - presumably presenting fewer potential environmental and/or health concerns - could be substituted. Furthermore, some state regulatory agencies can add to state lists, potentially making the requirements even more difficult for overseas manufacturers to monitor.
To confound things further, several local jurisdictions in the US have begun to develop their own regulations. For example, in 2015, Albany County, New York, passed the Toxic Free Toys Act. This authorised the promulgation of regulations prohibiting the presence of certain chemical substances, including lead, cadmium and arsenic, over certain levels in surface coating and accessible substrate materials on children’s products.
Only following litigation by The Toy Association and other stakeholders, were the requirements amended to align with the relevant federal standards. The amended regulations went into effect on 1 November. This Act and similar requirements proffered by other localities in the state of New York, demonstrate how stakeholders need to keep up with developments in chemicals regulation, even at local level.
Emerging local trends
In recent years, chemicals legislation introduced at state and local level has often focused on consumer products, and, even more specifically, on children’s products. For example, proposed Massachusetts State Senate Bill (SB) 1175 prohibits the sale, offer or manufacture, distribution or importation of children’s products containing antimony trioxide, hexabromocyclododecane or numerous other substances in concentrations greater than 1,000ppm for any component of the product.
Additionally, New York State is considering Assembly Bill (AB) 7950, which would require the Departments of State, Environmental Conservation and Health to regulate "chemicals of high concern to children". These are defined extremely broadly, as "any chemical that has been identified by a state, federal or international governmental entity on the basis of credible scientific evidence or reliable information" as:a carcinogen, reproductive or developmental toxicant, endocrine disruptor or asthmagen;persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic; orvery persistent and very bioaccumulative.
Manufacturers would be required to report to that department if they make any children’s product containing a chemical of high concern to children. The department would maintain a list of such products and manufacturers would be required to inform retailers when a children’s product contains those chemicals.
Major US retailers, such as Walmart, are already pressing for the elimination of certain chemicals in products. If states eventually develop their own lists or a single state has an especially expansive list of chemicals of concern (Washington just increased its from 66 to 85 substances), retailers will soon take them up. A national distributor in the US can ill afford to take on the risk of selling a product throughout its channels that might contain a chemical that is unlawful, or identified as a risk to children or other users, in even a single state.
California’s role
Of all of the state and local jurisdictions in the US, California has developed the most comprehensive set of requirements concerning chemical substances and their presence in commercial and consumer products. This is of great interest to manufacturers and distributors, given the size of the market there.
The California Safer Consumer Products Regulations (SCPR) went into effect in October 2013. They require manufacturers to explore whether they can substitute the chemicals of concern they currently use in specific consumer products (defined as ‘priority products’) with chemicals that present a lower potential risk to public health and the environment.
The first priority product regulation went into effect in July, requiring manufacturers of children’s foam-padded sleeping products containing tris (1,3-dichloro-2- propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) or tris (2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP) to notify the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) that they manufacture these products, and subsequently to prepare an alternatives analysis. The DTSC has also identified a number of product categories from which it will choose additional priority products (see below).
International relevance
Manufacturers and marketers of commercial and consumer products that are distributed internationally have no choice but to keep informed about state and local legislation relating to chemicals, State and local chemical laws in the US differ between jurisdictions. Tracking and adapting to them presents a challenge for entities that use chemical substances to manufacture products because they are subject to such legislation even if they do not manufacture their products in the US.
For example, Massachusetts SB 1175 specifically covers manufacturers of children’s products, as well as entities that offer products for sale "through any means including, but not limited to, remote offerings". Similarly, the proposed New York legislation targeting chemicals of concern to children affects manufacturers, distributors, retailers and importers of children’s products for sale there.
California’s first priority products regulation covers "any person who manufactures a product" that is subject to the regulation, or "any person that controls the manufacturing process for, or specifies the use of chemicals to be included in, the product". Therefore, even designers who specify the use of TCDPP or TCEP in mattresses to comply with fire safety ordinances in other states or elsewhere in the world might become subject to these regulations.
Moreover, while this programme currently only covers children’s foam-padded sleeping products, it is intended to, and probably will, expand to numerous others.
The initial priority products list already also includes spray polyurethane foam with unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanates (MDI) and paint strippers containing methylene chloride (MeCl2); this latter category of product is also the subject of a proposed TSCA section 6(a) rule that would prohibit consumer-use MeCl2 containing paint strippers.
As part of its 2015–17 priority products workplan, the DTSC has identified seven categories from which it intends to choose the next products, including beauty, personal care and hygiene products, household and office furnishings, and clothing. US retailers have no choice but to try to anticipate and perhaps begin to phase out or ultimately deselect products that are within the scope of California’s chemical safety and priority products designations.
The state is currently seeking suggestions from the public on categories of products to include for the 2018–2020 workplan. Environmental and consumer interest groups are active participants in the nomination process.
Actions may ramp up
Despite the bipartisan nature of the 2016 TSCA amendments, the final language concerning federal preemption of state and federal laws fell far short of what would be needed to enable makers of internationally distributed products to assume there will be uniform standards in the US market. As noted above, the debate over preemption heightened the sensitivities of consumer activists and these concerns were exacerbated by the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
The EPA’s actions to date, as well as its recently issued spring 2017 regulatory agenda (which reported that the agency intends to finalise the three TSCA section 6(a) regulations proposed in the final days of the Obama administration), have done little to relieve this uncertainty.
Indeed, environmental groups swiftly challenged each of the regulations the EPA was required to issue under the amended statute to provide a framework for how the agency will proceed when identifying chemicals of concern and evaluating the risks they may present.
State and local governments are also likely to remain wary of the Trump administration taking a less vigorous approach to regulating chemical substances under the June 2016 TSCA amendments than they would prefer. This is likely to be the basis for intensifying their efforts to regulate chemical substances in products. For instance, California is considering SB 49, a law that would require the state to continue to enforce Obama-era air and water standards, among others, regardless of how such standards change at federal level.
We have entered an era where, ironically, major players on a global stage, which make countless products that are marketed internationally, now find they need to worry equally about standards set by international treaties and national regulatory agencies as the ordinances and regulations that are issued by some of the smallest of states and local jurisdictions in the US that are striving to control the chemical content of commercial and consumer-use products.
This article was written with assistance from Camille Heyboer, who also works in the environmental practice group at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. The views expressed in it are those of the expert authors and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61164/more-than-local-concerns
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How To Find Flame-Resistant Pajamas For Kids, Without Toxic Chemicals
Nov 16, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Elisabeth Leamy
Which worries you more: the risk of fire or the risk of chemical flame retardants in your kids’ pajamas? That’s the question I asked Cory Miller, a Washington mom of two who’s expecting a third. “I think both my husband and I have accepted that freaking out is an integral part of being mom and dad,” Miller said. But she does put some concerns over others.
“The risk of chemical flame retardants concerns me more than the risk of flammability, mostly because there are so many other measures we can take to safeguard our family from fires, like having our smoke detectors checked regularly,” she said.
Miller may not know it, but she’s applying 2017 logic to a 1970s regulation. Smoke detectors weren’t required in the early 1970s, but Congress decided that flame-resistant children’s pajamas should be. To comply, manufacturers started adding a flame-retardant chemical called Tris to kids’ sleepwear. Then, in the late 1970s, scientists discovered Tris was carcinogenic. It was like public opinion whiplash. The Consumer Product Safety Commission moved to ban Tris from pajamas and manufacturers ended up voluntarily removing it. The Tris was gone, but the fire safety requirement was not.
To this day, pajamas for kids age 9 months through size 14 must be flame resistant or fit snugly. (Clothes for younger babies do not have to be flame resistant, because at that age children are not mobile enough to expose themselves to an open flame.)
So how do manufacturers meet that requirement now? Are they substituting some other, mystery chemical to make children’s pajamas flame retardant? A couple years ago, I tested nearly 30 pairs of kids’ pajamas at two certified labs for a “Dr. Oz Show” investigation. We asked the labs to screen for every flame-retardant chemical they knew of — and not one pair of pajamas tested positive. Industry insiders told me they were not surprised by our results because manufacturers rarely use the chemicals in children’s pajamas these days. The Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed that it is aware of just one flame-retardant chemical used occasionally on loose, all-cotton pajamas.
If pajama manufacturers are not using chemicals, how are they keeping children safe from fire? Two ways: by using inherently flame-resistant polyester or tight-fitting cotton.
Polyester pajamas
Polyester is inherently flame-resistant because of the structure of the fabric, and the way it is woven, so it doesn’t need to be treated with chemicals. I watched Lexie Sachs, senior textiles analyst at the Good Housekeeping Institute lab, test a piece of polyester pajama fabric by exposing it to an open flame. The scrap of fabric self-extinguished in seconds. Here’s what to look for when buying polyester pajamas for your kids.
• Read fiber contents. Look for a label that says “100 percent polyester” and “flame resistant.” It’s fine for polyester children’s pajamas to be baggy, because the fabric is flame resistant.
• Follow care instructions. Some tags on polyester pajamas warn against using fabric softener, chlorine bleach or liquid soap. It’s unclear how these could diminish the flame-resistant properties of the polyester, but manufacturers are the experts on their own fabric, so follow their washing and drying instructions.
Cotton pajamas
In 2000, the Consumer Product Safety Commission amended its regulations to allow children’s sleepwear to be made of cotton or cotton blends as long as the garment is tight-fitting. Why would they do this when cotton is highly flammable? Tight-fitting cotton is considered safe for two reasons: It is unlikely to drift into an open flame because it’s so snug, and there is little oxygen between the fabric and the child’s body to fuel a fire. Here’s what to look for when buying cotton or cotton blend pajamas for your children.
•Yellow hang tag. By law, cotton pajamas must bear a yellow hang tag warning that they are not flame resistant and must be worn snug. Look for this tag, which shows the manufacturer has created cotton pajamas in a tight-fitting shape that meets the flammability standard. Do your part by buying the correct size for your child to ensure it fits snugly. Be warned, though: I was easily able to find cotton nightgowns for sale on major websites that were manufactured overseas and do not bear the yellow tag.
• No daytime cotton for sleeping. If you want your children to wear natural cotton to bed, stick with clothes that are made for sleeping. Do not allow your children to sleep in billowy T-shirts, boxer shorts or sweats, no matter how comfy they may seem. Again, the fear is that oversized cotton clothing can more easily drape into an open flame, and there is lots of air between clothing and their body to accelerate a fire.
• No homemade PJs. Whether you sew or simply enjoy buying handmade clothing from websites such as Etsy, beware. I got nearly 2 million results when I searched for “handmade girls’ cotton nightgown” online. Cotton nightgowns are not tight-fitting and do not meet the CPSC’s fire-resistant standard unless they are treated with flame-retardant chemicals. Small-time sellers often don’t know about the federal regulations and don’t comply.
If you, like Miller, are more worried about flame retardants than flames, then avoid pajamas made of fabrics other than polyester or tight-fitting cotton, because they could contain chemicals.
What else should you look for? What your child likes. “My daughter wears only short-sleeved nightgowns.” said Miller. “And my son insists that all his PJs feature a vehicle of some kind.” No problem — as long as they are made of polyester or tight-fitting cotton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/how-to-find-flame-resistant-pajamas-for-kids-without-toxic-chemicals/2017/11/08/fe587216-c32d-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.323574ec0191
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EPA Secures Voluntary Cleanup, Defers Enforcing UAO At New York Site
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA Region 2 is deferring on whether it will enforce a unilateral cleanup order against a baby food manufacturer after the company took the rare step earlier this year of refusing to comply with the order, with the agency announcing Nov. 16 that a New York county has agreed to voluntarily dispose of the asbestos contamination at issue.
In the announcement, Region 2 said it has entered into a voluntary agreement with Montgomery County, NY, to remove more than 2,500 tons of debris and other material containing asbestos after a demolition company demolished buildings at a former Beech-Nut Nutrition Company plant in Canajoharie, NY.
The agency reached the agreement with the county after Beech-Nut and B&B Recycling, a demolition company hired by purchasers of Beech-Nut's former property, refused to comply with an April unilateral administrative order (UAO) from EPA that they conduct a cleanup of the asbestos debris. The county will rely on "grant funding" to perform the cleanup, EPA says, not specifying who is providing the grant.
EPA issued the UAO under section 106(a) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA) against Beech-Nut and B&B. Refusals to comply with a UAO are unusual because the law gives EPA broad latitude to issue orders to prevent "imminent and substantial endangerment," a term that courts have broadly defined, as well as authority to recover per-day penalties and treble damages.
The region is touting the voluntary cleanup as a prime example of federal, state and local government collaboration -- something the Trump EPA has been pushing -- and as an example of Superfund reforms the administration has embraced.
"Even though the county is not legally responsible for cleaning up this site, we are so pleased that we found a willing partner to be part of the solution," EPA Region 2 Administrator Pete Lopez said in the press release. "This unique approach reinforces EPA's nationwide efforts to reform and streamline the Superfund process to make it work better for communities."
EPA says it is evaluating "its enforcement options" as to Beech-Nut and B&B.
A spokeswoman for Beech-Nut earlier this year said the company's reasoning for noncompliance was that the asbestos debris at issue was caused by the parties that purchased the property from Beech-Nut, so the company does not believe it should be held responsible.
The move is rare, one industry attorney previously pointed out, because it exposes the company to the possibility of treble and/or daily penalties for failing to comply if EPA were to pursue the matter further in court. Legal observers at the time varied on whether Beech-Nut's refusal could be read as a response to the Trump administration, with the first attorney saying the action suggested an "aggressive posture" possibly emboldened by signs of eased enforcement from the administration. Some other industry attorneys however declined to speculate or doubted a connection.
Further Action
With EPA's latest decision to secure a voluntary party cleanup and for now defer enforcement action, industry attorneys are in a wait-and-see mode. "I think it is too early to tell what EPA will do with respect to enforcement" against the two companies for not complying with the UAO, one attorney says.
A second attorney says it "will be interesting to see if EPA enforces," and also warns that Beech-Nut "better have strong defenses that it is not a liable party." The company, which could argue it sold the building intact and the contamination was caused by B&B, is at risk of the court finding the building's sale was akin to disposal, depending on the selling price and documents related to the sale.
According to the UAO, the company that purchased the property from Beech-Nut, TD Development, LLC, sought to lower the purchase price due to asbestos in the facility, and the final price of $200,000 was an 80 percent markdown from the initial asking price and just two percent of the property's assessed value.
The two attorneys also say if the cleanup is incurred by the voluntary party, Beech-Nut and B&B would no longer be at risk for treble damages -- which only can be levied if EPA used the Superfund account to conduct the removal. But they say if EPA enforces, it could pursue daily penalties of up to $54,789 against the two companies.
EPA's deferral on enforcement for now comes after the agency earlier this year in budget documents noted plans to step up use of UAOs given reduced judicial abilities. The agency has proposed to cut funding for Justice Department support for Superfund enforcement. EPA said in a budget document it may boost use of UAOs "to achieve cleanups to account for a potential limited ability to sue [potentially responsible parties] in federal court."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-secures-voluntary-cleanup-defers-enforcing-uao-new-york-site
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Dancet: Better Authorisation Application Quality Will Improve Certainty
Nov 16, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Improving the information and quality of REACH authorisation applications is a key challenge that needs to be addressed, Echa head Geert Dancet has said.
Speaking at an agency conference on the implementation of authorisation in Helsinki this week, Mr Dancet said this will allow the European Commission to shorten the time it takes to decide on an application. "It will also increase credibility of the system and certainty for industry and market operators," he added.
A year ago, Chemical Watch reported that the Commission had recommended that Echa did not allow an authorisation application to pass its 'conformity check', until the agency's committees adopted their draft Opinion on the dossier.
But, at the time, Echa said it wished to avoid situations where applicants do not know if their applications are in conformity or not, "as this would create business uncertainty".
In late 2015, NGO the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) urged Echa to reject, at the conformity check stage, applications not complying with REACH information requirements. This includes those for broad uses, and missing fundamental information on exposure scenarios, alternatives and/or socio-economic assessments.
It also said a review of the conformity check procedure was "critically needed", because the agency only checks if an application includes all the necessary documents and is complete, rather than the quality of the information.
At this week’s conference, Mr Dancet also said there is a need to improve the way upstream applications are prepared and managed. He said he hoped that "further refinements of acceptance criteria" for such applications could be concluded.
The conference heard how Echa’s Risk Assessment and Socio-economic Analysis Committees (Rac and Seac) have difficulties with use description in the application, which is often considered too broad.
Mr Dancet said information from downstream user notifications continues to be "a very important source of knowledge to help authorisation holders improve their description of uses and narrow down their authorisation needs".
Predictability is "essential" for business, he added, and regulators should ensure the authorisation system delivers this. "I am relieved the Commission finally decided to add 12 new substances to the authorisation list this year," he said. Updating the list "regularly allows us to continually harvest the benefits of the authorisation system".
There are currently 174 SVHCs on the REACH candidate list, of which 43 are on the authorisation list.Alternatives
One key benefit of authorisation is the stimulation of substitution, but this can only be achieved if providers of alternatives get more involved, the conference heard.
Mark Schwagler from Germany's federal ministry for the environment said that in some cases "it is not clear" for Seac whether alternatives exist. "More rigorous examination of alternatives is required," he added. And alternatives that are deemed "not feasible" for the applicant but available on the market "should be taken into account".
Dolores Romano from EEB said the system is "not working". The REACH legal text says applicants have to demonstrate alternatives are not available, but where it is known they are the authorisation is still granted, she said.
Finn Pedersen from the Danish competent authority said there have been cases where other industries have already started using other "less problematic" substitutes for some of the substances for which an authorisation is being sought. "We need a better explanation as to why it is not possible for [the applicants] to find alternatives," he said.
And Frida Hök, from NGO ChemSec, said the Opinions of Echa committees are "killing the incentive" to switch to safer alternatives. Alternatives providers find it "painful" to take part in the process, she added.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61146/dancet-better-authorisation-application-quality-will-improve-certainty
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U.K. Chemicals at Risk from Brexit-Driven Investment Cuts
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Noel
The U.K.’s $50 billion chemicals industry is at risk of withering away if Brexit isn't handled properly, according to an industry expert.
“My major fear is that non-U.K. companies will be afraid to continue their investments inside the U.K.,” Andreas Gocke, a senior partner and chemicals specialist at Boston Consulting Group, said in a phone interview. “The chemical assets are smaller and an exit won't be as obvious and may not be as visible to the public and press.”
Alongside a handful of sizeable British chemical companies, the U.K. is home to a myriad of small business units owned by international entities, according to Gocke. That puts the industry at risk of small yet plentiful cutbacks that could fly under the radar. In contrast, a foreign-owned company in the aerospace or car industries may have one large plant and closing it would create an outcry in the public domain and media, he said.
The lack of clarity surrounding the terms of the U.K.’s exit from the European Union risks leaving the chemical industry in “disarray,” Environmental Audit Committee Chairwoman Mary Creagh said last month. The uncertainty could cost the taxpayer millions of pounds, she said.
The U.K. chemical industry is already a shadow of its past. The nation lost its talisman Imperial Chemical Industries in a takeover in 2008 and the oil-and-gas majors have sold off large swathes of their downstream operations. Depending on the final Brexit deal with the European Union, chemical companies may reinvest less in state-of-the-art technology or de-bottlenecking, resulting in lower competitiveness of their sites, Gocke said.
“It's widely known in the European chemical industry that these companies have prepared different investment scenarios already,” he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881833&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881833&jd=123881833
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Regulatory Hurdles Are Hampering Natural Gas Exports
Nov 16, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By William Shughart
Reaching consensus about energy policy is rare in Washington these days. It’s about as hard as getting the House and Senate to move forward rather than backward on health care and taxes.
But one extremely important issue on the table should be a no-brainer even for the anti-free-trade Trump administration: given China’s growing interest in switching from coal to cleaner natural gas for its domestic energy needs, a golden opportunity exists to take advantage of America’s huge shale-gas supply.
China’s demand for natural gas is expected to reach 330 billion cubic meters in 2020, up from 206 billion last year, and the United States is well-positioned to capture a significant share of that rising demand. With little fanfare, U.S. shale-gas production has been booming. It recently rose 12 percent in one month alone, from 53 billion cubic feet in August to 59.4 billion cubic feet in September. Thanks to the shale revolution, the United States is now the world’s top producer of natural gas.
U.S. capacity for processing liquefied natural gas (LNG), or natural gas cooled to liquid form, also is expanding: it is set to grow nearly seven-fold by 2019, but that is not fast enough. Domestic gas production is outpacing domestic demand, producing a glut of unsold gas in storage, but only one U.S. LNG export facility is now operating — Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. Another terminal is scheduled to open soon on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, and at least three other terminals are expected to be online by 2019.
Despite this rapid capacity expansion, regulatory roadblocks are hampering the construction of even more terminals. The permit process for LNG facilities is outdated. Getting a permit takes several years and requires approvals from multiple federal and state agencies. Unless and until Congress passes legislation to expedite the process, the United States will find itself at a competitive disadvantage with other LNG exporters, such as Australia, Malaysia, Qatar, and Russia.
The window of opportunity for ramping up U.S. LNG exports is narrow. The window is open now because the cost of transportation to Asia has dropped and Asian LNG prices are at their lowest levels in more than a decade. As is true here at home, market forces are encouraging China to substitute LNG for coal. If we fiddle while other LNG-exporting countries move aggressively, we will wind up paying the price of neglect in lost revenue and jobs.
Clearing the path to the world’s fastest-growing market for LNG would show that the United States is committed to its role as a global energy leader. Geopolitically, U.S. LNG exports would help diversify world energy supplies and enhance global energy security. Environmentally, selling U.S. LNG to China would make the air cleaner there, as the shift from coal to natural gas has done here.
Besides those benefits, thinking about expanding LNG exports to China teaches an important lesson about the gains from unfettered international trade are mutual: The goods we import from China, besides delivering good deals to Americans, provide Chinese companies with the foreign exchange — dollars — necessary to buy LNG and other things from us.
From either nation’s point of view, exports pay for imports. The trade “game” is not zero-sum, but positive-sum.
William Shughart II, research director of the Independent Institute, is the J. Fish Smith Professor in Public Choice at Utah State University’s Huntsman School of Business.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/360782-regulatory-hurdles-are-hampering-natural-gas-exports
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Houston Startup Envisions Chinese Chemicals Made from U.S. Ethane
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
A Houston startup is betting it can help create a market for U.S. ethane in the Chinese petrochemical industry.
American Ethane Co. signed an agreement last week to supply China's Nanshan Group Co. with 125,000 barrels a day of the natural gas liquid. Closely held American Ethane's Chief Executive Officer John Houghtaling said the contract will generate about $26 billion of revenue over two decades, and it may sign more deals of a similar size with Chinese companies by the end of the year.
While U.S. companies are already exporting ethane to as far as Europe and India, no one has yet tried to make a business of shipping it halfway around the world. U.S. chemical makers have been posting record profits and building new plants at a torrid pace as the fracking boom unleashes a flood of natural gas. Inexpensive gas liquids such as ethane have made the country among the most profitable places to make products such as ethylene, which goes into everything from plastics to detergents.
“This will be the first time they do ethane-to-ethylene in China,” Houghtaling said by phone Nov. 15. “Hopefully our project is a bellwether project for the rest of the shale revolution.”
Before American Ethane can ship any ethane to China, the company will have to build a shipping terminal near Houston, with equipment to chill and liquefy ethane, and commission a fleet of ships known as very large ethane carriers. For Nanshan, it will need to build an import terminal as well as an ethane cracker—which would produce 2 million metric tons of ethylene a year—and downstream plants at its site in Shandong province. Houghtaling said he expects all this to be completed within three years.
Kelly Van Hull, director of energy analytics at Houston-based consultancy RBN Energy, said she's surprised American Ethane is attempting to supply the Chinese, given the costs of an extended shipping route.
While it could happen, “I would not have guessed this in a million years,” Van Hull said by phone.
Several factors make the plan financially viable, Houghtaling said. The gas is a relatively cheap product, cutting the cost of import taxes for Chinese customers. And building an ethylene plant in China would cost about half the several billion dollars needed for construction in the U.S., he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881825&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881825&jd=123881825
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Energy Policy Wish List Could be Democrats’ Road Map
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
A 283-page Democratic energy policy bill introduced Nov. 16 may have no chance in the current Congress, but it lays down a series of markers for possible action if Democrats win a future majority of House and Senate seats.
The Sustainable Energy Development Reform Act, introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), would raise costs, restrictions, and regulatory controls for oil, gas, and coal companies while reinforcing federal promotion of renewable energy. The bill was released with 16 Democrats as cosponsors.
The bill would bar oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and would revive some Obama administration regulations and initiatives that have been on the chopping block in Congress and with the Trump administration.
“I think that this bill does a thoughtful job of putting a lot of these issues together,” said Carol Werner, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, an organization that promotes sustainable energy ideas.
The bill can give people a larger picture of interconnected energy and environmental issues and may encourage needed discussion, Werner told Bloomberg Environment. She especially appreciated the legislation's concern for addressing the issue of climate change.
Fracking and Methane Rules
The bill would require federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing and would set tougher limits on methane venting, flaring, and leaking involved in oil and gas drilling and production on federal lands.
The Obama administration's fracking regulations have been repealed, and the Obama venting and flaring regulations are scheduled for replacement by the Trump administration.
The bill would revamp oil and gas policies on federal lands by increasing royalties, lease bid minimums, lease rents, bonding amounts, penalties, and some legal liabilities. It also would require more planning and environmental analyses and would allow regulatory procedures to take more time.
Grijalva is ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. His bill stands in stark contrast to the SECURE American Energy Act (H.R. 4239), approved by the committee Nov. 8 with supporting votes only from Republicans. H.R. 4239 would promote wider offshore oil and gas drilling and a greater state role in onshore oil and gas permitting.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881815&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881815&jd=123881815
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Millennium Pipeline Fight Led by New York Moves to Court
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
New York's bid to halt the Millennium natural gas pipeline returns to a federal court after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied the state's request to rehear challenges to the project.
FERC Nov. 15 denied a motion by the state to rehear and stay a decision allowing the Millennium Pipeline Co. to proceed with construction of the 7.8 mile pipeline about 75 miles northwest of New York City.
New York has denied the permits needed by Millennium to build the pipeline, but FERC ruled earlier this year that the company may proceed because the state failed to act within a one-year deadline set by the Clean Water Act.
The project has been a flashpoint in the larger battle between environmentalists and natural gas companies over whether more pipelines are needed to meet the region's demand for natural gas. The Millennium Pipeline would transport natural gas to a 680-megawatt natural gas plant owned by Competitive Power Ventures Inc.
The next round in the fight will be fought before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which temporarily halted the project Nov. 2 (In re: N.Y. State Dep't. of Envtl. Conservation v. FERC, 2d Cir., No. 17-3503, 11/2/17).
Neither New York nor Millennium officials immediately responded to Bloomberg Environment's request for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881826&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881826&jd=123881826
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House Passes Overhaul, Shrugs Off Angst Over Renewables
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The House today passed a broad rewrite of the tax code, despite concerns from renewable energy interests over changes to key incentives that critics say renege on a 2015 agreement.
Lawmakers passed the tax overhaul, H.R. 1, by a 227-205 margin, with all Democrats voting "no" and 13 Republicans defecting over changes to the state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
With the exception of North Carolina's Walter Jones, all of the Republican "no" votes were from New York, New Jersey and California, high-tax states that would be adversely affected.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed the bill before the vote. "This tax scam won't create jobs, it won't raise wages, it will only fill the coffers of donors and the fat cats," she said, flagging the $1.5 trillion the bill is estimated to add to the deficit. "Oh where, oh where are the deficit hawks? Have you become extinct?"
One notable GOP "no" vote came from Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, who cited the SALT provisions as well as changes to the mortgage and medical device deductions.
Republicans, who have struggled to notch any major legislative wins this year despite controlling Congress and the White House, were jubilant afterward.
Appearing in the Speaker's Lobby behind the House chamber, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) called it a "big win" and predicted "we're going to see the economy take off."
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) reiterated that Republicans' goal remains to get a bill to President Trump by the end of the year.Energy credits
House passage came over the protests of renewable and clean energy interests, who are upset over changes to the renewable production and investment tax credits.
The bill would retroactively slash the value of the PTC, while adding new requirements for qualifying for the ITC. It would also phase out a solar tax break after 2027 and eliminate a key break for electric vehicles.
However, the House measure does extend the ITC for a handful of sources that were "orphaned" after they were inadvertently left out of the 2015 deal that extended and phased down the PTC and ITC.
The legislation also includes an extension of the nuclear production tax credit, which the struggling industry desperately wants to see become law.
American Energy Alliance President Tom Pyle, a longtime critic of renewable subsidies, hailed the bill's treatment of renewables and clean energy sources.
"Taxpayers and electricity ratepayers would benefit most from an immediate termination of the PTC, but we applaud the House's proposal to trim it as an important first step and will fight for its inclusion in any final tax package," he said in a statement.
"Additionally, this bill will wisely end the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit," he said. "This unnecessary handout makes every-day Americans poorer while subsidizing those who can already afford more expensive electric vehicles."
The Electric Drive Transportation Association criticized the elimination of the EV credit.
"With intense competition from China and other nations, it is critical that this vital incentive be retained to accelerate U.S. job growth and economic competitiveness in electric drive technologies," said EDTA President Genevieve Cullen in a statement. "The global race for electric vehicles is at a key turn; this is not the time for the U.S. to surrender its lead."
Environmentalists slammed the bill, saying it would result in deep cuts to domestic spending programs, while opening the door for oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"This scam to give billionaires and corporate polluters tax cuts while making American families pay the price with dirtier air, scarred lands, and higher bills is a shameful show of the broken priorities of Congressional Republicans," said Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce in a statement.
"The GOP's plan manages to raise taxes on the middle class, while creating a path to open up the pristine Arctic Refuge for destructive drilling," she said.Senate action
With House passage, the tax focus now turns to the Senate, where the Finance Committee is working its way through amendments on its own bill, which Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) hopes to finish today.
The Senate bill largely sidesteps changes to energy provisions in the tax code but also omits extensions of the orphaned renewables, the nuclear tax incentive, and breaks for biofuels and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
GOP senators are eyeing a separate so-called tax extenders package to resolve those issues after the broader overhaul is finished (E&E News PM, Nov. 15).
A coalition backing CCS breaks said today it will push for inclusion of such provisions in the extenders bill. "Carbon capture legislation has unprecedented bipartisan, bicameral support and deserves congressional action," said the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative.
Reporters George Cahlink and Kellie Lunney contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/11/16/stories/1060066793
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Keystone Is Shut Down After S.D. Oil Leak
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Jenny Mandel
The Keystone pipeline was shut down today after a spill in Marshall County, S.D., that released an estimated 5,000 barrels of crude, project developer TransCanada Corp. said.
Crews shut down the pipeline, which stretches in the United States about 1,000 miles through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.
TransCanada officials said they detected a pressure drop on the pipeline and activated emergency response procedures to shut it down. About 15 minutes later — at 6 a.m. local time — the source of the leak was isolated, they said.
"Crews, including TransCanada specialists from emergency management, engineering, environmental management and safety as well as contracted, nationally recognized experts are assessing the situation," the company said, adding it was providing state and federal regulators including the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the National Response Center with "accurate and confirmed information on an ongoing basis."
The Keystone pipeline went into operation in 2011 and carries oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Cushing, Okla., where it connects to the Marketlink pipeline system to deliver crude to the Gulf Coast.
TransCanada said the system between Hardisty and Cushing and another section that runs to Wood River and Patoka in Illinois will remain closed as the company investigates the leak.
President Trump granted Keystone XL a federal cross-border permit in January. That project faces a critical decision for permit to cross Nebraska on Monday.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/11/16/stories/1060066801
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Texas County Sues Chemical Plant Owner Over Fires, Blasts
Nov 16, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Reese Dunklin
DALLAS — The county that’s home to Houston has asked a state court to order safeguards and fine the owner of a chemical plant that partially exploded during Hurricane Harvey.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the Harris County Attorney’s Office says Arkema Inc.’s facility in Crosby violated Texas environmental laws by releasing toxic chemicals during flooding and fires, sickening responders and residents.
The county said air tests detected volatile organic compounds, which can cause cancer, more than 1 mile (1.61 kilometers) outside a 1.5-mile (2.41-kilometer) evacuation zone created before fires began.
After flooding shut off power in August, the plant couldn’t cool and stabilize its organic peroxides.
Arkema lawyer Rusty Hardin issued a written statement saying the sides had been discussing a resolution and “suing a victim is never the right solution to a natural disaster.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/texas-county-sues-chemical-plant-owner-over-fires-blasts/2017/11/16/e3e8dd48-cb1c-11e7-b506-8a10ed11ecf5_story.html?utm_term=.a05324dace59
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Grid Attack Simulation Exercise Includes 'Fake News' Scenario
Nov 16, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Esther Whieldon
A two-day exercise to test energy companies and government agencies' response to simulated cyber and physical attacks on the electric grid has added a new wrinkle: using "fake news" on social media to gauge how participants react.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. holds its so-called GridEx simulations every two years, and this year's event drew about 6,000 people from the power, oil and gas sectors as well as from FERC, NERC, DOD, DHS, DOE and other national agencies.
This year's exercise included simulations similar to the malware attacks made on Ukrainian energy and transport companies earlier this year. And it also included a social media component in which GridEx administrators put out news stories, and allowed utilities to post their own accounts on social media.
"We had some reaction from members questioning whether what they're seeing is accurate, and using the words 'Is this fake news?,'" said Marcus Sachs, senior vice president and chief security officer at NERC. "I think that term has become part of our lexicon now and so there's an awareness as to is what we're seeing completely accurate or is it designed to fool us? Is it potentially a threat actor making something up and trying to psychologically push people in a wrong direction?"
The 2015 exercise led companies and agencies to improve their response to natural disasters and create a cyber mutual assistance program, said Kevin Wailes, co-chairman of the electricity subsector coordinating council and CEO of the Lincoln Electric System.
WHAT'S NEXT: NERC expects to publish a report on lessons learned from GridEx IV in March.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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D.C. Circuit Judges Appear Inclined To Back Air Trading As Haze Control
Nov 16, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at Nov. 16 oral argument appeared inclined in principle to back EPA's approval of emissions trading as an alternative to source-specific regional haze controls, which would bolster the agency in several pending suits over haze plans relying on trading.
Judges Nina Pillard, Thomas Griffith and Stephen Williams heard arguments from environmentalists against EPA's longstanding reliance on trading as an alternative to source-specific best available retrofit technology (BART) to curb haze-forming air emissions, in the consolidated litigation Utility Air Regulatory Group, (UARG) et al. v. EPA, et al. The Trump administration is continuing the Obama EPA's defense of the policy on trading in haze plans.
The case consolidates challenges from environmentalists, some states and utilities over the Obama EPA's 2012 rule that said power plants' participation in the 2011 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide satisfies requirements in the separate regional haze program that power plants install BART in order to cut their air pollution.
At argument, the judges also heard from the power generation industry and some states, including Texas and Louisiana, who argue that this “better than BART” rule wrongly disapproved state air plans dependent on an earlier trading program, the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) issued by the George W. Bush EPA in 2005.
EPA's haze program requires BART and other requirements, such as “reasonable further progress,” to restore visibility to natural conditions by 2064 in “Class I” national parks and wilderness areas.
CSAPR trading underpins the haze implementation plans of several states, including a recently agreed federal plan for Texas, which employs CSAPR trading in nitrogen oxides as a BART alternative.
The judges appeared inclined to find that emissions trading can serve as an alternative to BART under certain circumstances, which would be in line with the court's 2006 ruling in UARG v. EPA that upheld CAIR as an acceptable BART alternative.
Pillard was sympathetic to environmentalists' interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which they contend requires that visibility should be improved more by the BART alternative in each Class I area than it would be by BART -- though she suggested she is bound by the court's precedent to allow trading as BART.
EPA's interpretation, and the D.C. Circuit's prior position in the 2006 decision, does not require what environmentalists are seeking, only that the BART alternative trading program achieve greater “reasonable progress” than BART overall, without degradation of visibility in any individual Class I area, she said. Pillard noted that under D.C. Circuit precedent, “the aggregate is enough as long as there is no area-specific degradation."
Oral Argument
Attorney Charles McPhedran, representing environmentalists, said that environmental petitioners can show that “14 national parks would do worse” under CSAPR, also known as the transport rule, than under BART.
Environmentalists argue that EPA should have analyzed the impacts of CSAPR on a “sub-regional,” or state level, to determine if emissions trading achieves greater regional progress.
Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney Norman Rave, representing EPA, said that EPA's interpretation was established years ago by regulation and may not now be challenged in court.
Rave said that, contrary to environmentalists' analysis, CSAPR does better across the board than traditional BART would. EPA conducted modeling to determine the impacts at individual Class I areas, and in nearly all cases found emissions trading under CSAPR better.
Rave also added that there are other components beyond BART that are required in state's regional haze implementation plans, and that federal land managers responsible for Class I areas can also certify reasonably attributable visibility impairment (RAVI) if they feel such an area is being adversely impacted by a pollution source.
But “BART is the heart of the haze program,” McPhedran countered. “What we really want is for BART to be well applied at each individual source,” he said.
Industry attorney Aaron Flynn echoed DOJ's position that environmentalists' challenge is time-barred, because its real target is an underlying EPA rule establishing emissions trading as acceptable as “presumptive BART."
State Plans
Attorney Norman Fichthorn, representing industry and states on the issue of state implementation plans (SIPs) disapproved by the Obama EPA because they were based on CAIR, insisted that those plans were still valid because the emissions reductions they provide are “permanent and enforceable.”
As such, EPA could not disapprove them merely because CAIR at the time had been remanded by the D.C. Circuit pending its replacement by CSAPR, he argued.
Pillard questioned why, as EPA claims, the issue is now moot because CAIR is defunct. “It just seems like apples and oranges,” she said.
Fichthorn said EPA has never disavowed or retracted its finding that those emissions reductions were permanent and enforceable, and said that because CSAPR is tougher than CAIR, those emissions cuts must still be sufficient.
However, Pillard countered that “I don't see your logic."
In response to questions from Williams, Fichthorn agreed with Williams' thesis that, in the light of the possible vacatur of EPA's rule finding CSAPR better than BART, industry wants the earlier CAIR-based plans reinstated as a “contingency.”
Rave said that in fact, EPA only found those emissions cuts permanent and enforceable in those states where CAIR was replaced by CSAPR -- and that there is no effective remedy available to industry or states.
Williams probed the apparently disparate treatment afforded to Connecticut. In 2013, after the D.C. Circuit had vacated CSAPR, but before the Supreme Court had revived it, EPA approved a partially CAIR-based SIP for the state, which did not then become part of the CSAPR trading program. EPA did not publish its decision in the Federal Register until 2014.
Rave responded that “it was a very different time legally,” and the Connecticut decision was a “very different kind of analysis,” and “fact-specific."
For environmentalists, McPhedran said, “we agree with the government that CAIR is dead,” but that CSAPR cannot be better than BART “because BART is dynamic,” and changes as control technologies improve.
Texas Haze
Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to challenge the application of emissions trading as a BART alternative in specific SIPs.
For example, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and eight other groups are challenging the federal implementation plan (FIP) for BART in Texas, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia suit NPCA, et al. v. Scott Pruitt. EPA can write its own haze emissions reduction plans for states in FIPs in states where it rejects SIPs as falling short of Clean Air Act requirements.
In a Nov. 14 filing, these groups say that the FIP violates a consent decree, reached with the Obama EPA years ago, that led to the issuance of the overdue Texas haze plan in the first place. The new FIP relies on an “intrastate” trading program -- not previously proposed for public notice and comment -- to curb sulfur dioxide, and on CSAPR to limit NOx, but environmentalists say this a “sham rulemaking."
The final rule bears no resemblance to the Obama EPA FIP proposal from January, which lacked any such intrastate trading, and the final FIP cannot therefore be a legal, “logical outgrowth” of that proposal, environmentalists say.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/dc-circuit-judges-appear-inclined-back-air-trading-haze-control
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Defunct EPA Program Best Way to Clear Air, Power Plants Say
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
The power industry wants to use a defunct emissions trading program in place of pollution controls at individual power plants to limit air pollution contributing to visibility problems in parks and wilderness areas.
Industry groups favor using the George W. Bush-era emissions trading program to curb releases of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from power plants, although that system was replaced by a stricter emissions trading program in 2011, they told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Nov. 16 (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 12-1342, oral argument 11/16/17).
The power industry, including the Utility Air Regulatory Group, is challenging a 2012 Environmental Protection Agency rule that authorized states to rely on a stricter emissions trading program under the Obama-era Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to fulfill pollution-reduction requirements under the regional haze program. That program aims to improve visibility at national parks and other federally protected areas.
But power companies are reluctant to move to that cross-state program because the change would “require costly and burdensome emission limits,” they said in their brief.
Norman Rave, a Justice Department lawyer representing the EPA, said that power utilities hadn't shown that they would be harmed by moving to the cross-state trading rule rather than relying on older interstate rule that the court had previously overturned.
The EPA has supported the old emissions trading program, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, in favor of pollution control technology before, Norman Fichthorn, an attorney at Hunton & Williams argued. Fichthorn represented the Utility Air Regulatory Group, a power industry trade group
Judges Question Old Program
However, judges questioned whether the old emissions trading program still applied.
Power plants were required to install updated pollution controls in 2005 in an effort to prevent haze in protected parks and wilderness areas. The EPA gave industry the option of using an emissions trading program in place of pollution control upgrades.
Charles McPhedran, an EarthJustice lawyer representing the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, argued that pollution control technologies were the best means of reducing regional haze.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg BNA is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881811&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881811&jd=123881811
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Senators Seek Review Of EPA Monitoring Network
Nov 16, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three senators from Northeastern states are asking the Government Accountability Office to review U.S. EPA's air quality monitoring network and report back on whether improvements are needed.
The networks "are increasingly important in implementing and tracking compliance with the Clean Air Act, protecting public health ... and informing policy decisions," said Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) in a letter today.
They also asked GAO to examine what strategies EPA uses to deploy and run its monitoring networks and how well those networks perform in providing data suitable "for measuring progress toward air quality standards and other purposes."
Nationwide, EPA has thousands of monitors. Concerns about the adequacy of the overall system are not new (Greenwire, March 31, 2014). While a news release notes that the senators' respective states suffer from air pollution that originates elsewhere, their letter does not mention specific circumstances prompting the request.
A Whitehouse spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Late this afternoon, GAO spokesman Chuck Young confirmed receipt of the senators' request and said it will undergo a standard review that takes a few weeks.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/11/16/stories/1060066789
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400 Businesses Could Fall Under New Bay Area Air Pollutants Rule
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Oil refineries, sewage treatment plants, power plants, and metal plating operations are among the nearly 400 San Francisco Bay Area facilities facing a tough new rule to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants.
The regulation, approved by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's governing board Nov. 15, means stationary sources of benzene, diesel soot, mercury, and other hazardous air pollutants must not pose a cancer risk greater than 10 cases per 1 million people over expected cancer rates in neighboring communities. The air district said the measure is the strictest in the nation.
The regulation is effective immediately and will be implemented over the next five years.
Health risk assessments are first required to determine which businesses and facilities will be affected by the rule, the air district said. If found to pose a cancer or health threat above the risk levels, refineries run by Chevron Corp., Tesoro Corp., Phillips 66, Valero Corp., and Shell Oil Co. would have to reduce emissions of air toxics. Data centers, water treatment plants, landfills, hospitals, cement plants, metal finishing companies, and other businesses exceeding the risk levels also would have to reduce emissions of air toxics.
“Regulation 11-18 will impose burdens on businesses and public entities that operate and maintain buildings like schools and hospitals by requiring expensive and unnecessary steps to reduce a hypothetical risk,” Bob Brown, the Western States Petroleum Association's Bay Area director, told Bloomberg Environment in a Nov. 16 email.
The rule adds “more bureaucracy based on purely hypothetical computer models,” Brown said.
Members of the Metal Finishing Association of Northern California will review the final version of the rule, Ray Lucas, past president of the group, told Bloomberg Environment.
The rule could be disastrous for some companies, said Lucas, who runs a metal finishing company outside of the Bay Area.
“This rule is a critical step toward controlling toxic air pollutants from facilities, delivering cleaner air for our most vulnerable communities and providing the most health-protective standards in the nation,” Jack Broadbent, air district executive officer, said in a written statement.
Air district officials estimated annual costs could range from $14,000 to more than $5 million, depending on the facility.
The California Air Resources Board has just launched a separate statewide process, required under a new law, to develop rules to address localized emissions of air toxics.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881819&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881819&jd=123881819
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Trump Climate Exit Panned in Bonn but Cheered in Lordstown, Ohio
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Kevin Scott took a swig of his Pabst Blue Ribbon and professed his love for the environment. Inspired by a boyhood hunting and fishing, the 46-year-old Ohio autoworker earned a degree in environmental policy.
But Scott is also proud of his vote for President Donald Trump, who pledged to rescind environmental regulations and ditch the global Paris pact on climate change. In the hard-hit northeastern corner of Ohio, the promise of bringing back steel and other factory jobs is the primary concern. Scott says his support of the president's move to exit the Paris climate is about fairness, not the environment.
“I'm glad we did,” Scott, the son of a steelworker, said when asked about the proposed withdrawal. “If you're going to worry about global warming then everybody on the globe should be doing something about it—or following the same laws.“
As the international climate negotiators in Bonn, Germany scramble to salvage a global climate pact after Trump said the U.S. would bow out, the president's backers in the industrial heartland are cheering him on. Whether it's ditching Paris, moving to slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency or rescinding a series of environmental regulations, interviews in the industrial area of Lordstown, Ohio, show those moves are popular among factory workers. They see them as Trump making good on his pledges to restore factory jobs.
Democrats had a history of coming to the area and making union workers promises they never kept, said John Russo, who taught labor studies at nearby Youngstown State University for more than 30 years. “When Democrats didn't come through, Trump's appeal made a lot of sense and they said, ‘Let's give this guy a try.’“
Union workers now say they see that Trump is trying. While environmental groups are suing and Democratic governors are making their own pilgrimage to Bonn to pledge they will tackle climate change, polling shows Trump's supporters support his moves on Paris and the EPA.
While a majority of voters in every state support the Paris accord, a majority of Trump voters either oppose it or don't know if the U.S. should participate in it, according to polling by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
“His base, especially his hard-core base, they applaud these measures, but they are really the only ones,” Andrew Baumann a Democratic pollster for the Global Strategy Group, said in an interview. “Pulling out of Paris overall is pretty unpopular, EPA cuts are pretty unpopular, but those who voted for him enthusiastically support those measures quite a bit.“
According to a poll conducted by his firm earlier this year, swing-state voters who supported Trump “without any hesitation” support his EPA cuts by a 77-percent to 23-percent margin. His “weak” supporters are split on the move.
“All the data we have is that his base is looking at this like winner, winner, chicken dinner,” said Michael McKenna, who has conducted focus groups on the president's energy and environmental policies for the firm MWR Strategies. “The bottom line is: This is everything the president said he was going to do. The guys who voted for him voted for him because he said he was going to do these things.“
Trump memorably donned a hard hat and mimed shoveling coal while on the campaign trail, promising to put miners back to work. That's a stance popular with the GOP writ large. Sixty-four percent of Republicans say they would like the president to take action to revive the coal industry, compared with 32 percent of Democrats, according to a poll the University of Texas released in April.
“The general bottom line is Democrats are much more concerned about the environment than Republicans,” said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. “In that sense Trump is relating to his base of Republicans because they are less worried about the environment and environmental harm.“
Trumbull County, where the village of Lordstown is located, had been reliably Democratic. The county gave the Democratic candidate an average of 58 percent of the vote in the previous 10 presidential elections, according to the Ohio Politics Almanac. But Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the county, garnering 51 percent of the vote.
While analysts say a fracking-fueled bounty of cheap natural gas is primarily responsible for a decline in coal use, many here blame former President Barack Obama's environmental policies. Trump's pledges to revive coal and rework trade deals was a key part of his appeal to this union enclave.
“I'm glad he brought coal back in because coal needs to be continued,” said Robert Tucker, an 81-year-old retired engineering manager. “Obama cut thousands of jobs out of coal territory—West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana. He cut thousands of jobs by a presidential edict. I disagree with that. Trump disagreed with that and did something about it.“
Trump is bringing jobs back, said Tucker as he stood in the parking lot of the Board of Elections where he works part time. “Yes, jobs are coming back. Yes, he's trying to pull jobs back into this country,” he said. “We are putting America first.“
Arno Hill, the Republican mayor of Lordstown, said Trump's pledge to cut regulations resonated with him, too. President Barack Obama, he said, “went overboard.“
“Do I believe in climate change? No, not really,” added Hill, a retired tool and die maker, as he ate a slice of cheese pizza. “I think everything goes in cycles. Every time we sit here and the temperature hits 90 or 95 (Fahrenheit) people say, ‘Well that's the climate change.’“
On another overcast Ohio morning, James Melfi, the well-manicured 60-year-old mayor of the city of Girard, drove an unmarked Ford sedan to a 100-year-old steel mill on the outskirts of town. He once worked at this decaying factory, following in the path of his father and grandfather. He stood in his crisp blue suit on an old bridge overlooking the Mahoning River as a freight train rumbled beneath.
“This is where it all started for me, but this is where it all started for a lot of people,” he said.
Melfi, the Democratic mayor of an overwhelmingly Democratic city, didn't vote for Trump. But now that Trump is president, he wishes him the best. “If he does well, we'll do OK.“
“Trump said these things that appealed to workers,” Melfi said, his breath making clouds of condensation in the cold air as he talked. “Now he's got to deliver.“
—With assistance from Mark Niquette.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881824&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881824&jd=123881824
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U.S. Vows to Stay Engaged on Climate, Progress Expected in Bonn
Nov 17, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S. still intends to pull out of the Paris climate pact but will “remain engaged” in international negotiations—including climate talks, its top climate diplomat told other nations on the eve of the close of a two-week U.N. climate summit in Bonn.
The speech from Judith Garber, the State Department's acting assistant secretary for oceans, international environment, and science, came as negotiators from more than 190 nations appeared on the verge of making progress on a host of procedural issues needed to implement the Paris Agreement.
Those issues include elements of the Paris rulebook, from transparency provisions that will determine reporting of emissions but also ensure the climate actions nations pledged in the run-up to the 2015 climate deal can be analyzed and verified.
Negotiators also have set out—in broad strokes, at least—a 2018 process for reviewing whether more ambitious pledges are needed to progress toward the Paris deal's global temperature goal, which is to keep temperatures below a 2-degree Celsius rise from pre-industrial levels.
“We're on track to have a good outcome here,” David Banks, White House special assistant for international energy and environment, told reporters late Nov. 16, as the two-week climate summit approached its final scheduled day of negotiations.
Any final outcomes from Bonn, including the first text of procedures for allowing international emissions trading, will essentially lay out a road map for those rules to be concluded at the December 2018 U.N. summit hosted by Poland.
U.S. Reiterates Withdrawal Plan
In her remarks before other environment ministers, Garber—who leads the U.S. State Department climate negotiators in Germany—said President Donald Trump still plans to withdraw from the 2015 Paris deal, the first global pact in which developed and developing nations pledged actions to combat climate change.
But she reiterated, nearly verbatim, Trump's June statement that he could rejoin “at a later date” if the U.S. can cut a deal “more favorable to the American people.”
Trump argues that the Paris deal puts U.S. manufacturing and other industries at a disadvantage to other nations, particularly China.
Other nations have shown little appetite to reopen the climate deal to accommodate the U.S. since Trump's June withdrawal announcement. Banks and other U.S. officials in Bonn acknowledge no talks are underway to address Trump's concerns, which they say world leaders would have to be undertake.
“I don't think this is something that can be negotiated here at the COP or discussed at the COP,” Banks said, referring to the formal name for the annual climate summit, known as the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate.
The annual summits “are not the appropriate forum” for discussing the kinds of compromises Trump would be seeking were the U.S. to stay in the Paris pact, Banks said.
U.S. Vows Clean Energy, Innovation Focus
The U.S. is still at the table with other parties working to implement the 2015 Paris deal because it is still technically in it for a four-year waiting period set out in the climate pact that ends just after the 2020 presidential election. A future administration also could decide to re-join the deal at a later date.
The deadline for Trump to formally notify the UN and other parties that it will withdraw comes one year earlier, in November 2019. Given that timeline, it remains in the U.S. interest to continue to stay at the table to ensure that nothing in the Paris deal's implementation puts the U.S. at a disadvantage, Banks said.
“Regardless of what the president ultimately decides to do, if he pulls the trigger in November 2019, and sends the formal withdrawal notice, or he decides to stay in, it's in the U.S. national interest to make sure we have that level playing field, particularly with our major economic competitors,” he said.
Garber, a late arrival to the Bonn summit who was tapped just this week to lead American climate diplomats, vowed the U.S. will stay a leader in clean energy and innovation and recognizes “the need for transforming energy systems.”
But the challenge of climate change got only a single mention in her remarks to environment ministers. The U.S. will continue its support of a “balanced approach to climate mitigation, economic development, and energy security that takes into consideration the realities of the global energy mix,” she said.
Her speech was much anticipated in Bonn, as the U.S. delegation has largely stayed out of the limelight and has not held a single press conference since the talks begin Nov. 6, a departure from the past practice during the Obama and Bush administrations.
Garber took the reins of the U.S. negotiators this week after the State Department announced Nov. 14 that Tom Shannon, the State Department's third ranking official who advises Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on political affairs, had to remain in the U.S. for a family matter.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123881800&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123881800&jd=123881800
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