Preview Newsletter
ACC PM Clips Report 11/17/17
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(ACC Mentioned) Republican Tax Bill Backed by Industry but Not Science
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US chemical industry has applauded the passage of the massive Republican tax reform through the House of Representatives yesterday. However, dozens of scientific organisations, including the American Chemical Society (ACS), have voiced their opposition to it. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Swaps Top Science Advisers with Industry Allies
Nov 17, 2017 | Reveal
By Liza Gross, Lindsey Konkel and Elizabeth Grossman
Eleven new members of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board have a history of downplaying the health risks of secondhand smoke, air pollution and other hazards, including two who have spun science for tobacco companies, according to an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. -
(ACC Mentioned) Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership
Nov 17, 2017 | Guidry News
The momentum to build a coastal spine to protect the people, businesses, and industries of the upper Texas Gulf Coast has been building steadily since Hurricane Ike devastated the region in September 2008. -
(ACC Mentioned) A “Plastic Bag Take-Back,” Free Shredding and More
Nov 17, 2017 | Baltimore Brew
Got some documents you’d like to (ahem) shred, Baltimore? Some plastic bags you’d like to keep out of local trees, waterways and marine animals’ digestive tracts? Then you may want to check out what the city is calling “a recycling trifecta” tomorrow (Saturday, November 18) from 9am-1pm at Baltimore City Community College’s satellite parking lot, 2900 Liberty Heights Ave (across the street from campus). -
EPA Posts Agenda and Other Meeting Materials for December 6, 2017, New Chemicals Review Program Implementation Meeting
Nov 17, 2017 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On November 9, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the agenda and meeting materials for its December 6, 2017, New Chemicals Review Program Implementation meeting. -
The Energy 202: This EPA Nominee May be the First Trump Appointee to be Defeated by Congress
Nov 17, 2017 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Despite the drumbeat of opposition to President Trump's political nominees, Senate Democrats haven't been able to do much to stop Congress from confirming them. -
A New Order for Chemicals
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Google the term ‘chemical management hierarchy’— until now, at least —and you would have found only one hit, as a concept mentioned in a conference paper in the US three years ago. The term could soon become much more common, if major new study for the European Commission that Chemical Watch reported on recently comes to prominence. -
There’s an App for That
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Dr Andrew Warmington
Two of the articles in this edition touch on the issue of how to inform consumers - and above all, inform them accurately and in a way they can understand - about the potential dangers of chemicals contained in products. As the lead article by global business editor, Leigh Stringer, shows (pages 1-3), EU consumers are concerned about exposure and do not feel well informed about it. -
EPA Proposes Limits on Hypochlorite Bleach to Reduce Degradation to Perchlorate
Nov 17, 2017 | EDF Health Blog
By Tom Neltner
Every 15 years, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) reviews the safety of registered pesticides. -
A Democratic Approach to Energy: Promote the Interests of Citizens, Not Industry
Nov 17, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva
Donald Trump claims to have an “America First” energy plan. His administration’s actions over the past 10 months have made it clear that what he truly puts first are the interests of oil, gas and coal executives. Everyday Americans and our iconic American landscapes come last, if he considers them at all. -
15 Energy Lobbyists Hired Using Trump's Weakened Rule
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Troy Lyons spent 2016 lobbying for Hess Corp., a New York City-based oil company. Among the issues he was hired to work on: U.S. EPA's proposed rules limiting methane emissions from new oil and gas wells, which Hess opposed. -
Rig Count Jumps Up, but Only for Natural Gas
Nov 17, 2017 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
The number of active drilling rigs jumped up for the second straight week, but the increase of eight rigs is exclusive to those seeking natural gas. -
U.S. Trade Agency Launches LNG Push
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
A small federal agency that promotes U.S. business interests overseas is launching an initiative to support the sale of U.S. natural gas abroad, offering marketing muscle and help in building relationships for an industry in search of new outlets. -
Reassurances Reign as NAFTA Talks Resume
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Oil and gas companies are increasingly at ease with the future of North American energy investments as NAFTA renegotiations continue. -
The Chemical Industry Must Plan Better for Severe Weather, U.S. Chemical Safety Board Says
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
In light of the impact of Tropical Storm Harvey on an Arkema chemical plant and the greater Houston area, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board is urging companies, emergency planners, and regulators to quickly reassess the chemical industry’s preparedness for hurricanes and floods. -
Chemical Safety Board Scraps Recommendation on Offshore Safety
Nov 17, 2017 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
Offshore oil rig workers will remain without broad whistleblower protections after a federal agency this week opted to withdraw recommendations made in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. -
Keystone Pipeline Shut Down After Spilling 5,000 Barrels of Oil in South Dakota
Nov 17, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Keystone oil pipeline spilled more than 5,000 barrels of oil on Thursday before workers took it offline, a large spill that comes days before operators hope to secure a key permit for a sister project. -
37 Experts Urge Study of Chemicals Plaguing Military Bases
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
A group of scientists and public health professionals want more systematic research into the perfluorinated chemicals that have contaminated drinking water near military installations nationwide. -
Let’s Help Steel Manufacturing Stay on Track
Nov 17, 2017 | Pittsburgh Gazette
By Philip K. Bell
America’s industrial greatness was forged by two industries more than any other: steel and railroads. Together they built our nation, one by providing the raw material and the other by hauling it where it needed to go. -
Op-Ed: How Can We Get Rail Freight Service Back to Work for the American Consumer?
Nov 17, 2017 | ENO Transportation Weekly
By Herman Haksteen
In a country where both food and transportation are staples of our everyday lives, the members of the Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association are at a standstill. -
Calif. Utility Pins Emissions Goals to Electrification Push
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
Southern California Edison Co. has released a new road map for California's emissions goals, calling for the state to undertake a mass electrification of heating and transportation and aggressive adoption of renewables for the grid.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Republican Tax Bill Backed by Industry but Not Science
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US chemical industry has applauded the passage of the massive Republican tax reform through the House of Representatives yesterday. However, dozens of scientific organisations, including the American Chemical Society (ACS), have voiced their opposition to it.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) – the industry trade association for US chemical firms – said the bill will help modernise the tax system to create ‘a fair, simpler and internationally competitive system’ that stimulates economic growth and creates new jobs.
‘Business tax reform needs to recognise the importance of American manufacturing and the jobs it creates,’ said the ACC. The trade group expressed support for a ‘substantial rate reduction’ to levels comparable to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) averages, noting that US tax reform must produce a more level playing field for US and foreign companies when they invest at home or abroad.
Meanwhile, the American Chemical Society (ACS) joined dozens of other scientific groups and academic research organisations to publicly oppose the measure. The ACS argued that the House bill would eliminate beneficial tax provisions for graduate education and would disproportionately affect graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem). The society also pointed out that 60% of graduate students in the US are pursuing degrees in Stem disciplines, and warned that the proposed repeals would likely lead a significant number of Stem students to forego their graduate education, undermining the US innovation pipeline.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science and 44 other scientific and engineering societies wrote to House leaders in the hope of convincing them to drop these provisions from the tax bill. ‘Repealing the very provisions that allow graduate students to continue to study in critical Stem fields means that we will be shutting the door on new opportunities for discovery, exploration and innovation,’ the letter cautioned.
The legislation will still have to be brought in line with the Senate version of the bill, which is currently under consideration. If things go smoothly, the full Senate could vote on it shortly after 23 November.
The Association of American Universities pointed out that the Senate’s tax proposal retains many of the student tax benefits the House plans to eliminate. However, the group’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, said it still places too much of the burden on the US’s non-profit universities by, among other things, eliminating the state and local tax deduction. She said this would only serve to further discourage state investment in public colleges and universities, harming the ability of these institutions to fulfil their educational, research and public service missions.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/republican-tax-bill-backed-by-industry-but-not-science-/3008308.article
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Swaps Top Science Advisers with Industry Allies
Nov 17, 2017 | Reveal
By Liza Gross, Lindsey Konkel and Elizabeth Grossman
Eleven new members of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board have a history of downplaying the health risks of secondhand smoke, air pollution and other hazards, including two who have spun science for tobacco companies, according to an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt fired all board members who currently receive EPA grants for their research, saying they cannot remain objective if they accept agency money. In replacing them, Pruitt transformed the board from a panel of the nation’s top environmental experts to one dominated by industry-funded scientists and state government officials who have fought federal regulations.
Pruitt removed 21 members of the advisory board, mostly academics, and replaced them with 16 experts with ties to industries regulated by the agency and two with no industry ties. Fourteen of the new members consult or work for the fossil fuel or chemical industries, which gave Pruitt nearly $320,000 for his campaigns in Oklahoma as a state senator and attorney general.
Under the Obama administration, industry-affiliated scientists made up 40 percent of the Science Advisory Board, or 19 of its 47 members. Under President Donald Trump, 68 percent of the board, 30 of its 44 current members, now has ties to industries. That leaves 14 with no industry ties, including two Obama appointees who work for environmental groups.
The Science Advisory Board, established by Congress in 1978, helps the EPA ensure it has the best available science when crafting regulations and standards that address the nation’s drinking water, air pollution, toxic contamination and other environmental problems that threaten public health.
“If memberships are weighted toward viewpoints that support the agenda of the administration, then the administration is signaling that it’s not asking for advice, but for a rubber stamp,” said environmental scientist Deborah Swackhamer, who was chairwoman of the board under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
“That’s a complete misuse.”
A history of separating politics and science
Keeping drinking water safe. Shielding vulnerable populations from air pollutants that trigger asthma and heart attacks. Protecting communities from cancer-causing chemicals. These are the EPA’s mandates. And when making key decisions about science to follow these mandates, the agency relies on panels of advisers.
The Science Advisory Board is arguably the most important panel among22 federal advisory committees that report to the EPA. The board gives the agency advice on specific matters, such as the impacts of fracking on drinking water supplies, factors that drive algae blooms in the Great Lakes and whether the agency’s risk assessments are scientifically sound.
The board doesn’t give guidance on proposed regulations. Rather, it vets the scientific foundations on which those recommendations are built, such as how dangerous the air pollutant ozone is at certain exposures or at what dose an industrial chemical would raise the risk of cancer.
To get the best science to policymakers, the EPA long has relied on a diversity of experts and a tradition of keeping politics out of scientific deliberations. In establishing the Science Advisory Board, Congress called for experts from academia, industry, nongovernmental organizations and federal, state and tribal governments. Most board seats over the past several decades have been held by government-funded university researchers.
But in February, Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, convened a hearing called “Making EPA Great Again” to investigate what he called the EPA’s “political agenda.” Smith, a Texas Republican who disputes climate science, said Science Advisory Board experts under Obama had “become nothing more than rubber stamps who approve all of the EPA’s regulations” because they receive millions of dollars in government grants.
Last month, Pruitt said experts who serve on the EPA’s scientific advisory boards can’t provide objective advice if they receive agency grants. Hepromised an audience at The Heritage Foundation, an anti-regulatory think tank that questions climate change, that he was “going to fix that” by restoring the “independence and transparency and objectivity in regard to the scientific advice we are getting at the agency” by prohibiting scientific advisers from taking EPA grants.
In a news release, Pruitt said the new makeup of the board shows the “EPA’s commitment to science and openness to expertise from a diverse array of perspectives.”
Pruitt has required advisory board members to remain “financially independent” of the EPA, but has placed no such restrictions on scientists with ties to industry.
“To say that academics have more conflicts because they get (government) grants is turning the idea of conflict of interest on its head and is patently absurd,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy. “If a scientist working at a high level did not receive government funding, how would they have achieved that?”
New advisers criticize mainstream science
A Reveal investigation shows that several new board members have a history of criticizing mainstream science to cast doubt on the health risks of commercial and industrial air pollutants and products.
One new appointee, Kimberly White, is a senior director at the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents chemical manufacturers, including Dow Chemical Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and DuPont Co. The group for decades has fought EPA regulations on widely used chemicals linked to health effects, including flame retardants, formaldehyde, asbestos and plasticizers.
In an email to Reveal, White said that in the past, the EPA science board “lacked sufficient balance among its members, and they have missed out on valuable insight from important perspectives from industry.” She said her goal is to ensure that board recommendations “are objective and grounded in the highest quality and most relevant scientific evidence.”
The new appointees also include scientists who have served as expert witnesses for industries regulated by the EPA. Dr. Samuel Cohen, a cancer expert at the University of Nebraska, testified on DuPont’s behalf in alawsuit holding the company liable for illnesses related to drinking water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a chemical DuPont used in a West Virginia plant that made Teflon. Cohen testified that the plaintiff’s kidney cancer was caused by her obesity, not PFOA, yet an independent science panel has found a probable link between the chemical and serious health conditions, including kidney cancer.
Cohen did not respond to a request for comment.
Two of Pruitt’s new appointees helped companies defend their products or fight restrictions on secondhand smoke, and another sought more than $300,000 in tobacco industry funding but was rejected.
John Graham, dean of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs and founder of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, asked a top Philip Morris executive for $25,000 in 1991 to support his center, which he said had exposed “serious weaknesses in the federal government’s risk assessment process.”
Graham told the executive that he launched the center with gifts from several corporations, all with a financial interest in minimizing environmental regulations, including BP, Chevron Corp., Dow and Exxon. He ended his pitch by saying, “It is important for me to learn more about the risk-related challenges that you face.”
Graham got his $25,000 and later served as an adviser to The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition, a group created by Philip Morris to discredit an EPA report that identified secondhand smoke as a carcinogen.
Graham told Reveal in an email that he received larger amounts of funding from the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to run his Harvard center.
“Since I have extensive experience with both government and industry,” he said, “I look forward to providing unbiased advice to EPA.”
He also said he worked to reduce particulate pollution while head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President George W. Bush.
But Graham instituted an approach to risk analysis, according to a reportby the Union of Concerned Scientists, that challenged the scientific consensus underlying regulations on ozone, fine particulate matter and formaldehyde pollution. The EPA decided not to tighten its health standard for fine particulate matter in 2006 under Graham, rejecting the recommendations of its expert panel for the first time on ambient air pollution.
Another new board member, Louis Anthony Cox, early in his career worked for consulting firm Arthur D. Little, which contributed to the industry’s discredited effort to develop a “safer” cigarette. He later testified on behalf of Philip Morris and three other tobacco giants against a smoker’s husband who sued the companies for lying about the dangers of cigarettes.
Cox received at least $22,000 for his services from tobacco industry law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon – the same firm that helped Philip Morriscreate “sound science” guidelines to challenge the EPA’s listing of secondhand smoke as a carcinogen and in 2016 sued the EPA on behalf of the coal industry to prevent the agency from enforcing carbon emission reductions under its recently repealed Clean Power Plan.
In addition to his membership on the Science Advisory Board, Cox has been tapped as chairman of a separate EPA board, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
Cox, who runs consulting firm Cox Associates, told Reveal in an email that he’s used models to calculate the “excess risk of lung cancers caused by different smoking exposure histories” for various private- and public-sector organizations, including Philip Morris and the EPA. That work, he said, has helped him “appreciate some of the most common errors, heuristics and biases that can affect the judgments of scientists … in interpreting data.”
In addition to his work on behalf of the tobacco industry, Cox also has questioned the benefits of reducing particulate pollution in a paper sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute.
New board member Robert Phalen, who directs the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, asked the Center for Indoor Air Research – a tobacco industry body founded to counter evidence that secondhand smoke causes cancer – to fund a grant of more than $311,000 to study “interactions among indoor aerosols.” Phalen submitted his proposal three times, but the group rejected his request in 1997, saying his hypothesis “seems implausible.”
The center was disbanded in 1998 after the tobacco companies agreed to stop sponsoring research as part of a landmark settlement of a federal lawsuit that charged the industry with conspiring to hide the dangers of smoking for decades.
In an email to Reveal, Phalen said he did not recall seeking any grants from the tobacco-funded group.
Phalen also has discounted some of the health effects of air pollution. In a2004 report, he wrote that the risks of breathing particulate pollution “are very small and confounded by many factors.”
He told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, “Modern air is a little too clean for optimum health.” Children’s lungs, he was quoted as saying, need to be exposed to irritants to learn how to ward them off.
But studies repeatedly have shown that children are highly susceptible to air pollution for a variety of reasons, including because they breathe more air per pound of weight, have immature immune systems and spend more time exerting themselves outdoors.
Another new board member, Stanley Young – a statistician who advises The Heartland Institute, an anti-regulatory think tank that showcases global warming deniers at its annual conference – recently has questionedevidence underlying EPA regulations on air pollutants.
Young also is an adviser to the American Council on Science and Health, which describes itself as a “pro-science consumer advocacy organization” but is funded by free-market foundations and the chemical, fossil fuel and tobacco industries and challenges evidence supporting regulations.
Young did not respond to a request for comment.
Research from around the world has reported a link between air pollutants and deaths and hospitalizations from respiratory disease and heart attacks. Young published a critique of this evidence in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, a journal known for publishing industry-friendly science.
Former board members fear ‘grave danger’
The new board members’ dismissal of well-established science about air pollutants worries former board member and Princeton University air pollution expert Denise Mauzerall, who was removed by Pruitt.
“I fear the protection of our environment is in grave danger,” she said.
Mauzerall said links between air pollutants and health effects have “been well established in the epidemiological literature now for decades. … The World Health Organization has found air pollution to be one of the largest risk factors in the world for premature mortality.”
Peter Thorne, chairman of the Science Advisory Board before Pruitt’s purge, cited the panel’s guidance to the EPA about strengthening standards for ozone and fine particulates as an example of how science protects public health.
“With that science,” he said, “we save lives, and we do it in a cost-effective way for the American people.”
Thorne is an occupational and environmental health expert at the University of Iowa College of Public Health who also was removed from the board. The EPA has funded some of his research.
“The job of the Science Advisory Board is to ensure that the EPA is using the best science in all its decision-making,” he said. “It’s an insult to fine research programs to say that those of us funded by those programs are not qualified to advise on these issues.”
Earlier this month, 10 senators – nine Democrats and an Independent – asked the head of the Government Accountability Office to review the EPA’s move to purge the board of agency-funded scientists, noting that it appears to strengthen the voice of industry-funded scientists.
Former board chairwoman Deborah Swackhamer said Pruitt’s upending of the board signals the EPA’s shift away from using scientific evidence to guide policy.
“There has always been a very strong culture of trying to make sure this committee remains objective in its role,” said Swackhamer, professor emerita at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
She voiced particular concern about the appointment of Michael Honeycutt as the newest chairman. Honeycutt, director of the toxicology division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, rejected evidence that the EPA’s proposal to tighten the ozone standard will yield health benefits.
“The chair of the (Science Advisory Board) has historically been a researcher from academia, as they typically pose the least chance of conflict of interest,” said Swackhamer, who still serves on a separate EPA advisory board. “This appointment doesn’t follow that pattern.”
She called Honeycutt “a bureaucrat without a strong science background, who openly rejects most of the science used in standard-setting.”
Honeycutt declined to comment.
Thomas Burke, director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute and a former science adviser and deputy assistant administrator at Obama’s EPA, said the goal in determining the makeup of the board should be an “appropriate balance of perspectives, as long as the high bar of scientific expertise is met.”
“What’s happening, unfortunately, is many polluters’ interest groups are taking a page out of the tobacco playbook, casting doubt on the science to delay decision-making,” Burke said.
https://www.revealnews.org/article/epa-swaps-top-science-advisers-with-industry-allies/
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(ACC Mentioned) Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership
Nov 17, 2017 | Guidry News
The momentum to build a coastal spine to protect the people, businesses, and industries of the upper Texas Gulf Coast has been building steadily since Hurricane Ike devastated the region in September 2008.
The past year has seen a huge jump in activity, notably with Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush fully endorsing the coastal spine. An April 2017 letter from Bush to President Trump, signed by 62 committed stakeholders, further strengthened the case on the critical need for the coastal spine.
This region produces 27 percent of the nation’s gasoline, 60 percent of the nation’s aviation fuel, 80 percent of the nation’s military grade fuel, 35 percent of the nation’s natural gas production, and 42 percent of the nation’s specialty chemical feedstock. To say that the American Chemistry Council (ACC) has a vested interest in the Bay Area Houston region would be quite an understatement.
On Nov. 1-2, 2017, in Washington, D.C., a delegation of 13 held Cabinet level meetings, as well as other meetings necessary in moving the initiative forward, to create an interagency working group to champion the project.
The ACC arranged the meetings, and Cal Dooley, president/CEO, and Bryan Zumwalt, vice president, Federal Affairs, of ACC led the delegation that included Texas members pictured here, as well as Stephanie Pizzoferrato, U.S. Government Affairs, Covestro LLC, and Kristin Whitman, Government Relations, Shell.
The delegation’s message was straightforward — nationalize the issue of storm surge protection for the Southeast Texas coast by showing the region’s significance to the nation’s economy, energy, defense and port related transportation.
The delegation asked for the approval and full funding of the $12-$15 billion project and expedition of the Army Corps of Engineers process to dual track engineering, construction and permitting in the same way that the New Orleans project was done post Hurricane Katrina.
The delegation’s first day began at the headquarters of the ACC to prepare for the coalition meetings. Following were meetings with the Department of Commerce, the Department of Transportation, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Energy, and a dinner meeting with Texas Congressmen Randy Weber, Pete Olson, Brian Babin, and John Culberson.
On Nov. 2, there were meetings with the Office of Management and Budget; Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate’s Environmental Committee (Chief of Staff Dan Kunsman); Oklahoma’s Sen. James Inhofe, Senate Armed Service Committee (Chief of Staff Luke Holland); Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Senate Committee on Finance; and several staff members of the Office of the Vice President.
The next steps will be to follow up with Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Sen. Cornyn, and the vice president’s staff to encourage setting up an inter-agency working group to push for approval, funding and expedition of the Corps process on this project.
Bob Mitchell, president, Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, stated, “It is significant that the ACC contacted Chad Burke, Economic Alliance Houston Port Region, who requested BAHEP to form a special team to meet with influential offices and agencies in Washington. After nine years of work, this indicates that we’re on the cusp of getting the funding necessary to design, develop and build the coastal spine system.”
http://www.guidrynews.com/story.aspx?id=1000087525
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(ACC Mentioned) A “Plastic Bag Take-Back,” Free Shredding and More
Nov 17, 2017 | Baltimore Brew
Got some documents you’d like to (ahem) shred, Baltimore?
Some plastic bags you’d like to keep out of local trees, waterways and marine animals’ digestive tracts?
Then you may want to check out what the city is calling “a recycling trifecta” tomorrow (Saturday, November 18) from 9am-1pm at Baltimore City Community College’s satellite parking lot, 2900 Liberty Heights Ave (across the street from campus).
As it happens, the event is part of something called “America Recycles Day,” which is partly sponsored by the American Chemistry Council. The ACC is a trade group which lobbies against environmental regulation and chemical safety reform.
(So you may want to make a donation to your favorite environmental organization to ensure complete karmic balance.) Still, it is recycling.
Here’s what they promise at this Department of Public Works event.
• A “plastic bag take-back” – Bring in five or more plastic grocery bags and get a free re-usable bag. (Limit one per resident.)
• Free document shredding – Bring up to two 32-gallon bags of papers. (Bring a license or other proof of Baltimore City residency.)
• Discounted yellow recycling bins – Baltimore residents can purchase the 25-gallon bins for $7 (regularly $12) and the smaller 18-gallon bins are on sale for $4 (regularly $5).
https://baltimorebrew.com/2017/11/17/a-plastic-bag-take-back-free-shredding-and-more/
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Nov 17, 2017 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On November 9, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the agenda and meeting materials for its December 6, 2017, New Chemicals Review Program Implementation meeting. NOTE WELL: This is a critically important meeting for companies that innovate in the chemical space and are now preparing Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) Premanufacture Notifications (PMN) or will in the future. EPA states that this meeting will update and engage with the public on EPA’s progress in implementing changes to the New Chemicals Review Program as a result of the 2016 amendments to TSCA, and will include a discussion of EPA’s draft New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework. The meeting materials include:
Agenda for Public Meeting. The Agenda includes the following topics: the decision-making framework; TSCA orders and Significant New Use Rules (SNUR) in the context of new chemicals review; the Points to Consider document as well as the pilot results and other questions; the decision guidelines manual; chemical categories; sustainable futures; a discussion of questions submitted in advance; and two public comment periods. Featured speakers are Nancy Beck, Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OSCPP) and Jeff Morris, Ph.D., Director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT).
New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework: Working Approach to Making Determinations under Section 5 of TSCA. EPA states that this document includes EPA’s general decision framework for new chemicals and a breakdown of how EPA intends to approach each of the five types of new-chemical determinations required.
Points to Consider When Preparing TSCA New Chemical Notifications (Draft). This draft document, dated November 6, 2017, provides concise information to assist submitters in preparing a PMN, Significant New Use Notice (SNUN), or exemption notice (e.g., Low Volume Exemption or LVE) that (1) meets the requirements of TSCA Section 5 and applicable regulations; and (2) facilitates EPA’s review of Section 5 notices by ensuring that the information received accurately and completely reflects the intended manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of the new chemical substances subject to the Section 5 notice. EPA states this is a draft published for comment, but does not specify a deadline for submitting comments.
Overview of Comments Received on the Draft "Points to Consider" Document. This document summarizes 151 comments received on the draft Points to Consider document. It organizes them by topic. The topics addressed are aquatic haz/tox; chemistry; data; engineering; environmental release and disposal information; fate; a general category; human health haz/tox; regulatory; release to water; standard review; uses; risk; exposure; and prenotice meetings. These comments have not been posted in the docket for this meeting.
New Chemicals Decision Guidelines Manual – Detailed Outline. EPA states that this manual will summarize how EPA reviews new chemical submissions and the policies and decision guidelines used in making decisions under TSCA Section 5. It will provide an overview of both risk assessment and risk management approaches. Further, it is intended to help stakeholders determine what forms of regulation and restrictions on the manufacture, distribution, use, and/or disposal of a new chemical substance may arise from an EPA determination
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-posts-agenda-and-other-meeting-materials-december-6-2017-new-chemicals-review
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The Energy 202: This EPA Nominee May be the First Trump Appointee to be Defeated by Congress
Nov 17, 2017 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Despite the drumbeat of opposition to President Trump's political nominees, Senate Democrats haven't been able to do much to stop Congress from confirming them.
Fourteen Trump picks to executive branch jobs have withdrawn their names after being selected, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. Each of those nominees removed themselves from consideration before a Senate committee had the chance to vote.
Thus far, no Trump nominee, however, has actually been defeated by the full Senate -- it only takes 50 votes, remember, to reject a nomination because Senate Democrats when they last held the majority changed the rules to require just a simple majority to approve executive branch and federal judicial nominations (minus the Supreme Court).
Yet, that is.
This week, North Carolina’s two Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, said they would oppose Michael Dourson’s nomination as the top chemical safety official at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The senators raised concerns about Dourson’s track record as a consultant for chemical companies, a role in which the University of Cincinnati professor has often produced research finding little or no human health risks for their products. Specifically, Burr pointed to contaminated water documented at a North Carolina military base and an unregulated compound known as Gen X, used to produce Teflon and other products, that was discovered in the Cape Fear River.
“I will not be supporting the nomination of Michael Dourson. With his record and our state’s history of contamination at Camp Lejeune as well as the current Gen X water issues in Wilmington, I am not confident he is the best choice for our country,” Burr said in a statement.
As a consultant, Dourson has assessed a broad range of chemicals, including PFOA, which is used to make nonstick surfaces. His research concluded the chemical is safe at levels significantly higher than those considered acceptable by the EPA. Dourson’s work for a range of corporate clients, as well as various groups representing plastics and pesticide manufacturers, drew scrutiny during his confirmation hearing last month. A Senate committee narrowly voted to send his nomination to the full Senate, which has yet to vote on his confirmation.
Should he be confirmed, Dourson would be in charge of implementing landmark 2016 legislation requiring the EPA to evaluate existing chemicals and set new risk-based safety standards. Dourson would decide risk levels and pick the chemicals on which the agency should focu. Dourson, who worked at the EPA from 1980 through 1994, could also potentially oversee the review of chemicals produced by companies that he has represented.
“Over the last several weeks, Senator Tillis has done his due diligence in reviewing Mr. Dourson’s body of work,” Tillis’s office told reporters in a statement. “Senator Tillis still has serious concerns about his record and cannot support his nomination.”
The opposition of two GOP senators means that Dourson would only need one more antagonist to sink his vote. He would already need the tie-breaking support of Vice President Pence given the 52-member majority GOP Senate majority. If Dourson doesn't withdraw his nomination and another Republican senator refuses to back him, it would represent the first time the Senate has rejected a Trump nominee and would mark a significant political defeat for the administration.
That vote could come from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who says she also has reservations about the longtime toxicologist.
“I have a lot of concerns about Mr. Dourson, and I have not yet made a final decision. But I certainly share the concerns that have been raised by Sen. Burr and Sen. Tillis,” Collins told reporters Thursday. “I think it’s safe to say that I am leaning against him.”
Even among Trump picks to energy and environmental policy posts, Dourson has attracted significant scrutiny. He squeaked through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in a tight 11-to-10 vote that seemed to shake the committee's ranking Democrat, Tom Carper of Delaware.
“I have never been this troubled on this committee, or any committee, in 17 years,” Carper said after the committee vote.
West Virginia's Joe Manchin III, a Senate Democrat who often sides with Republicans on environmental issues, has chosen to vote against Dourson, too, citing evaluations Dourson has made of PFOA.
“In West Virginia, we are unfortunately familiar with the dangers that can arise when we neglect to properly comply with and enforce our chemical regulations,” Manchin said in a statement. “After reviewing his qualifications, I am not convinced that Dr. Dourson is the proper fit to oversee the federal agency responsible for overseeing chemical safety.”
Collins is among the cohort of moderate Republicans who have crossed the aisle on environmental issues since Trump took office. She opposed the nominations of both EPA chief Scott Pruitt and one of his assistant administrators, Bill Wehrum.
The two North Carolina senators are not known for bucking GOP leadership. But heightened concern about chemical contamination among Tar Heel residents was enough for them to pull their support.
In Jacksonville, N.C., officers at Camp Lejeune, the country's largest Marine base, have been sickened by tainted water that has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, leukemia and other cancers. Among the toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water there is trichloroethylene, or TCE. Dourson has argued for a safety standard for the chemical less stringent than what the EPA recommends.
This month, the Senate approved Wehrum to be the EPA's assistant administrator of air and radiation, tasked with crafting a replacement for the Obama administration's rule on curbing carbon dioxide from the nation's power plants. The Senate was narrow 49-to-47 split, with Manchin voting against Wehrum, as well.
Dourson may not be the only environmental nominee with a tough road ahead.
Trump’s pick to head the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White, also may face a challenge getting confirmed by the Senate. Although no GOP senators have declared their oppostion, according to administration officials, some have privately expressed concerns in the wake of her recent appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
During that hearing, Hartnett White said although human activity is probably warming the planet, the extent to which people contribute is “very uncertain.” In contrast, climate scientists agree that burning fossil fuels, tearing down forests and other human activity is probably the chief culprit behind climate change.
Hartnett White also refused to say whether water expands when it warms, causing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to say that “she outright rejects basic science.”
As any good high-school physics student can tell you, it does.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/11/17/the-energy-202-this-epa-nominee-may-be-the-first-trump-appointee-to-be-defeated-by-congress/5a0de27330fb045a2e0030b0/?utm_term=.04cf09cd54b4
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Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Google the term ‘chemical management hierarchy’— until now, at least —and you would have found only one hit, as a concept mentioned in a conference paper in the US three years ago. The term could soon become much more common, if major new study for the European Commission that Chemical Watch reported on recently comes to prominence.
Study for the strategy for a non-toxic environment of the 7th Environment Action Programme (EAP) was written by Belgian law firm Milieu, with input from UK-based consultancy RPA, Hamburg-based institute specialising in environmental strategies Ökopol, and RIVM, the Dutch state-funded research institute.
The study was written as part of the Commission’s mandate, under the EAP, to develop a strategy for a non-toxic environment by 2018. It emerged in part out of a workshop involving NGOs, industry, EU member states and others. Much of it is a comprehensive overview on the functioning of current EU chemicals policy and legislative framework in seven ‘sub-studies’.
The report highlights the shortcomings of the REACH authorisation process in not covering SVHCs in imported articles, plus the fact that hazardous substances will inevitably appear in waste streams and in recycled materials for many years to come, whatever legislation does or does not do.
Another identified shortcoming is that restrictions are scattered across different parts of legislation and "do not take the overall and combined exposures to chemicals in articles sufficiently into account". New strategies to prevent toxic substances from entering articles and increased supply chain transparency are crucial to remedying this, the study says.
Milieu identifies a long list of "major knowledge gaps across policies and legislation" from the sub-studies, which, it says indicate "the need for an additional [to REACH] overarching framework for protection of human health and the environment from harm due to hazardous chemicals". Three broad types of ‘building blocks’ are noted as relevant to implementing such a strategy:
improving knowledge on chemicals;
promoting innovation, development of non-/less toxic chemicals and non-chemical solutions, and substitution; and
reducing chemical exposures and promoting the circular economy.
Overall principles are then elaborated towards achieving the strategy’s goals. "In connection to this, a type of hierarchy in chemicals policy and management, similar to that which guides EU waste management policy, is envisioned," the study says.
The potential hierarchy (see box) is a novel concept which, if implemented thoroughly in practice, would have profound implications for chemical management. Bjorn Hansen, currently head of DG Environment’s chemicals unit and executive director of Echa from January, stresses that, although the Commission requested the study and set out the terms of reference, the conclusions are those of Milieu and its partners. However, he said, he is certainly interested by the concepts raised.
Dr Andrew Farmer, head of the industry, waste and water programme at the Institute for European Environment and Policy (IEEP) remarks that, although reports come and go, it may be significant that this concept is presented in the executive summary rather than buried deep down in the report.
"It is possible the Commission would seize on this, whether or not they use a hierarchy," he says. "The word suggests a rigidity but it could lead to a principle they would take forward. It is hard to argue against the core ideas. The question is not the concept but how that is translated into expressions of decisions on core policies.
"What is interesting is that they have taken the waste management hierarchy —a long-standing hierarchy of approaches to minimising waste — and applied it in a chemical Chemical management context," Mr Hansen continues. "They have put together a logical sequencing of the types of actions they identified that have been or could be identified in the 7th EAP to address key issues."
The proposed hierarchy, he adds, largely matches that of the waste management hierarchy by starting with avoidance, then minimisation. "In effect, these are two product steps that you take account of during product development." Then comes putting conditions on substances on the market, then tracking.
All of these, Mr Hansen says, are elements the Commission is already working on, so the hierarchy is "a logical idea". Avoidance and minimisation are also objectives for SVHCs in REACH, while classification and labelling also apply to many chemicals and the roadmap on chemicals and waste involves tracking of substances in articles and materials, though the proposal could go much further than REACH currently does.
"A lot of it is what we are supposed to be doing in chemical management - not just within REACH, but also about how we look at individual solutions in environmental management, including reducing exposure," Dr Farmer agrees.
"It could all be part of the revision of chemical policy or about ensuring the correct principles of reducing use of chemicals of concern and exposure are maintained within the policy framework and are not undermined." Industry has said nothing so far, perhaps due to the lack of publicity for the report. Cefic was unable to comment until after the Commission publishes the results of the REACH Review and fitness check.
Mr Hansen says of the concept of an additional overarching framework to protect health and environment only that it "is important to our internal discussions. But, whether or not we go forward with a non-toxic environment strategy, this could help us."
Although agreeing that REACH is meant to do most of the things that this additional framework is ostensibly designed to do, Dr Farmer says that the Regulation does not cover everything and is not always well integrated with other policy areas. Thus, this new framework could be significant in terms of including many other substances beyond hazardous ones and those out of the scope of REACH.
Medicines, for example, are currently assessed for their impact on health but not the environment, despite the substantial effects, for example, of hormone tablets on aquatic life. Moreover, they come under DG SANTE, rather than DGs Work and Environment, leaving a gap in the regulatory framework.
"It could be that the Commission wants, in a non-toxic environment strategy, to join up the dots of chemical policy with policies such as those on waste and water, putting it all into one large framework that defines what each policy is trying to do and address gaps. In that sense, it could be beneficial and would not touch the basic principles of REACH which seem to be correct," Dr Farmer says.
It would, he adds, be necessary to define better what a ‘non-toxic environment’ — rather than simply a less toxic one — means. The proposal is perhaps most interesting, Dr Farmer says, when it addresses legacy chemicals and the circular economy, where priorities can clash with chemical management when it comes to dealing with secondary materials containing hazardous chemicals.
This could bring chemical policy into dealing with wider resources issues. "With legacy chemicals issues, the emphasis is not just on chemicals to be got rid of, but also the decontamination of recycled materials," he says. "I believe a lot of this is driven by circular economy thinking. This is a challenge for innovation and shows an understanding that chemicals policy needs to think about interactions with the circular economy."
The report’s emphasis on "the design of non-/less toxic chemicals and of products that would allow for toxic-free use and/or recycling", he believes, could form part of an early warning system for new chemical threats. So far, this has been limited mainly to a handful of substances in the watch list concepts of the Priority Substances and Groundwater Directives.
"So if we take all this as implementing REACH and using other means to fill gaps, especially starting with the issue of what is or isn’t acceptable material reuse, this could set in chain different policy initiatives that could help deliver a non-toxic environment," Dr Farmer concludes.
Mr Hansen adds: "It would be going too far to say I agree with the principles but it is a nice representation of the type of actions we take with chemicals already and a logical sequencing of the risk management measures."The inverted pyramid
EU waste management hierarchy
1. prevention
2. preparing for reuse
3. recycling
4. recovery
5. disposalProposed chemical management hierarchy
1. avoiding the production and use of chemicals of particular concern (SVHCs and equivalents, including very persistent chemicals) as far as possible and limiting their use to situations where exposure does not occur
2. minimisation of exposure by different means, also applying this to hazardous chemicals of lower concern, along with design of non-/less toxic chemicals and of products that would allow for toxic-free use and/or recycling
3. workable approaches to addressing legacy chemicals, including system for the decontamination of recycled materials and the recovery and destruction of hazardous substances in production waste and end-of-life product disposal
https://chemicalwatch.com/61166/a-new-order-for-chemicals
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Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Dr Andrew Warmington
Two of the articles in this edition touch on the issue of how to inform consumers - and above all, inform them accurately and in a way they can understand - about the potential dangers of chemicals contained in products. As the lead article by global business editor, Leigh Stringer, shows (pages 1-3), EU consumers are concerned about exposure and do not feel well informed about it.
This issue is something industry and the authorities must address, because REACH Article 33 spells out how and when manufacturers must respond to requests for information on SVHCs in products. And, while the flow of information has improved, there is still far to go, which is not surprising when there are still so many shortcomings regarding information flow within the supply chain, never mind outside it.
The nub of the problem may be this: a 45-day timeframe for supplying information to consumers may be a headache for suppliers, but this is a world where major purchase decisions often take 45 seconds. The only thing that can even start to bridge that gap right now is the Smartphone app.
Several have been developed to allow consumers to scan products for information on chemical content and send the manufacturer an Article 33 request. Their use is bound to mushroom, bringing forth two challenges: the limitations of the scope of Article 33 and the fact that, as industry figures point out, information on SVHC content alone is not always enough to make an informed choice.
However, as our NGO Platform article from Pelle Moos of Beuc shows (pages 22-24), the issue will not go away while harmful, even carcinogenic, chemicals keep showing up in consumer products. People will want to know and that is their right, even if they will not make the right decisions based on what they learn.
This is also an area in which one environmental imperative, improved recycling rates, butts up against another, the drive to a circular economy. If the latter is the priority, then it is hard to see how the pressure on ‘chemicals of concern’ in products, however one defines that phrase, can do anything but ratchet up.
Clear and accessible information will be needed not just to enable consumers to make choices but also to help in phasing chemicals of concern out, with those identified as SVHCs under REACH first in the firing line. It could also be a means to address SVHCs in imported articles, something that REACH itself does not do. And there will probably need to be an app for that too.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61154/theres-an-app-for-that
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EPA Proposes Limits on Hypochlorite Bleach to Reduce Degradation to Perchlorate
Nov 17, 2017 | EDF Health Blog
By Tom Neltner
Every 15 years, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) reviews the safety of registered pesticides. The current cycle ends in 2022. As part of that process, the agency is evaluating the safety of hypochlorite bleaches. In January 2017, EPA decided it would consider the risks posed by degradation of the hypochlorite into perchlorate.
This is important for two reasons: 1) degraded bleach is less effective as a pesticide, and 2) perchlorate is a chemical that interferes with the production of thyroid hormone, a critical hormone for fetal and infant brain development.
On September 22, EPA proposed changes to the pesticide label to minimize the degradation for hypochlorite bleach used to disinfect drinking water, and the agency is accepting comments until November 21, 2017. The label would advise users to:
Minimize storage time;
Maintain pH of the solution between 11 to 13;
Minimize exposure to sunlight;
Store at lower temperatures; and
If practical, dilute with cool softened water upon delivery.
EDF submitted comments to EPA supporting EPA’s proposal and requesting specific changes to the proposed language, including making the advice to users mandatory. We also asked the agency to extend the label requirements to hypochlorite bleach used to treat produce and to disinfect food handling equipment. Bleach appears to be one of several significant sources of perchlorate contamination of food. Improving management conditions will reduce degradation and preserve effectiveness regardless of the whether the bleach is used in drinking water or to treat vegetables.
EPA’s proposal is an interim decision. We also were pleased to see that OPP is committed to continue working with EPA’s Office of Water (OW) in its assessment of the risks of perchlorate to pregnant women and young children. We asked OPP to incorporate the OW’s findings in additional interim registration decisions for all uses of hypochlorite bleaches.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/17/epa-hypochlorite-bleach-degradation-perchlorate/
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A Democratic Approach to Energy: Promote the Interests of Citizens, Not Industry
Nov 17, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva
Donald Trump claims to have an “America First” energy plan. His administration’s actions over the past 10 months have made it clear that what he truly puts first are the interests of oil, gas and coal executives. Everyday Americans and our iconic American landscapes come last, if he considers them at all.
Time after time Trump has capitulated to oil and gas industry deregulatory demands by gutting safety standards, decreasing royalty rates, advantaging fossil fuels, ignoring the threats of climate change, suppressing data, and minimizing the role of science at every turn. Republicans used to label their policies “energy independence” and now call it “energy dominance,” but it looks more like the ransacking of our public lands and the fleecing of American taxpayers.
The public wants a smarter way forward – an energy strategy that prioritizes renewables, takes climate change seriously, and returns balance to how we manage our public lands. That’s why 17 of my colleagues and I just introduced the "Sustainable Energy Development Reform Act", a bill designed to benefit everyday citizens instead of lining industry pockets. It offers a way forward for our nation’s energy development that balances our need for power with the health, environmental and economic interests of working people.
For years, companies have reaped outrageous profits from the extraction of natural resources that belong to all Americans. The royalty rates, rental charges, and other fees associated with development have not kept pace with inflation, let alone the environmental and social costs of mining and drilling. Right now extraction companies get a sweetheart deal – public land drilling rights for as little as $1.50 per acre, a rate far below those charged on state or private land – and local communities get elevated ozone levels, contaminated water and scarred landscapes.
Polluters don’t just enjoy amazing financial benefits from working on public lands. They take advantage of huge regulatory loopholes in our environmental laws, including several that Republicans in Congress gave them in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on the recommendation of Dick Cheney’s energy task force. Oil and gas companies already hold nearly 8,000 approved permits they’re not using. They don’t need more handouts or weaker leasing standards.
The Sustainable Energy Development Reform Act takes a more realistic approach. It makes sure that oil, gas and coal companies don’t enjoy more benefits on public land than hunters, fishers, campers, and any other users of public land. It makes fossil fuel companies pay a fair amount to drill or mine, closes environmental loopholes, and requires the federal government to take climate change seriously and plan for it, not ignore it.
It makes overdue reforms to drilling safety standards – which should have been made in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster – that Congressional Republicans have willfully avoided. It protects the health of people living near fossil fuel operations by restricting the amount of methane that can be leaked into the air and the amount of coal mine waste that can be dumped into streams. And it takes real steps to encourage the development of renewable energy, instead of just paying lip service to it. In short, it views our treasured natural landscape as a resource in its own right, to be managed carefully and protectively, and not simply as a cash cow to be exploited or dominated for unsustainable short-term profits.
Donald Trump ran his campaign against what he called a rigged system. But as with so many other sectors of our economy, Trump and the Republican Party have only made it easier for special corporate interests to rig our energy laws. Fossil fuel companies have already called the shots for far too long, enabled by a complicit Republican Party dripping in oil wealth.
We have to put an end to this. The oil and gas industry wants to drill everywhere, mine everything and pass on the costs to the public. Our bill puts our health and a livable environment ahead of those demands.
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/360762-a-democratic-approach-to-energy-promote-the-interests
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15 Energy Lobbyists Hired Using Trump's Weakened Rule
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Troy Lyons spent 2016 lobbying for Hess Corp., a New York City-based oil company. Among the issues he was hired to work on: U.S. EPA's proposed rules limiting methane emissions from new oil and gas wells, which Hess opposed.
Then, when 2017 rolled around, Lyons got a new job. He went to work for EPA.
President Trump campaigned on a promise to drain Washington of lobbyists' influence in government. But once in office, Trump issued an executive order that made it easier for lobbyists like Lyons to join the administration. Lyons, now associate administrator of EPA's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, is one of 15 former registered energy lobbyists at EPA, the Interior Department and the Department of Energy identified by E&E News in a review of Senate lobbying records.
The new hires have helped Trump implement a sweeping deregulatory agenda. In the president's first 11 months in office, EPA has dispatched proposed carbon caps on power plants and regulations meant to limit runoff from coal mines. The agency also stalled methane limits on new oil and gas wells opposed by companies like Hess.
The influx of lobbyists has been welcomed by administration supporters and industry representatives, who say the new staffers are experienced hands who can help rebalance American energy policy after eight years under President Obama. Democrats, environmentalists and some ethics experts, by contrast, have sounded the alarm over the hires, arguing that the newly minted officials could be working to fulfill the goals of their former clients.
"All of these people will need to be judged on the decisions they make. Certainly they will be aware of the way these companies have been impacted by federal regulations and other federal programs," said Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney at Bracewell LLP and a former EPA official during the George W. Bush administration. "I think that's a good thing."
Others are less sanguine. It's reasonable to appoint industry officials or lawyers to public positions because their business acumen or legal expertise might benefit the government, said Richard Painter, the top ethics official in the second Bush administration. Lobbyists, he argued, are another matter.
"Their area of expertise is persuading the government of what their client wants done," Painter said. "That's a mentality that's hard to get out of. You've been selling a certain policy agenda for a long period of time. How do you go back to the folks in industry and say, 'I was shoveling bullshit for all those years; now I'm at the agency and have to look out for the public'?"
Lobbyists today have an easier path to joining the government than under Obama, ethics experts said. Under Obama, lobbyists were subject to a two-year cooling-off period, meaning they were not allowed to join an agency they had recently sought to influence.
Trump tweaked that policy when he came into office. He adopted much of his predecessor's lobbying rules and even added some restrictions, like a five-year ban from lobbying after an official leaves public office. But he removed a restriction from the Obama order preventing lobbyists from joining an agency they had lobbied within two years.
Removing that provision made it easier for lobbyists like Lyons to join the administration, ethics experts said.
The former Hess lobbyist is hardly alone. E&E News identified seven officials at EPA, Interior and DOE who had recently lobbied those agencies.
They include Elizabeth "Tate" Bennett, who lobbied on the Clean Power Plan for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), Senate lobbying disclosures show. NRECA opposed EPA's proposed carbon caps on power plants (Greenwire, Jan. 4, 2016). Bennett initially joined the agency to work in EPA's congressional office but was moved to a public engagement role after Democratic senators questioned whether her past work violated the administration's ethics rules (Greenwire, Sept. 21).
Jeff Sands largely worked as a lobbyist for pesticide company Syngenta AG on agricultural issues between 2015 and 2017. But he also strayed into energy policy, lobbying on the renewable fuel standard and on wider issues like reforming EPA's scientific advisory body.
And Mark Menezes, now DOE undersecretary, lobbied his present department on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway Energy until last year. A longtime utility lobbyist, he co-authored a report for the National Coal Council arguing that DOE neglected carbon capture and sequestration research in favor of renewables.
"Trump's ethics executive order falls way short of what Obama had," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for watchdog group Public Citizen. "We have now seen from the application of Trump's program to 'drain the swamp' that it is not that."
Other parts of Trump's ethics order are not being enforced, Holman said. One provision, left over from the Obama era, prohibits individuals who represented or worked for companies from participating in matters related to former clients for two years. A similar restriction bars registered lobbyists from working on any matter related to a former client.
That provision might be important in the case of Andrew Wheeler, who has been nominated to become EPA's deputy administrator. Wheeler lobbied on behalf of Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based coal company, for more than eight years. Few companies have fought EPA harder over its efforts to limit pollution from coal-fired power plants than Murray, which has sued the agency on everything from the Clean Power Plan to its alleged failure to account for coal industry job losses stemming from air emissions rules.
Bob Murray, the company's CEO, has been outspoken about eliminating more environmental rules. He presented the administration with an action plan, outlining a number of regulations that he wants to see erased or changed (Greenwire, Oct. 10). Among those rules are the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and EPA's endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, the legal underpinning for carbon regulation.
Wheeler did not represent Murray in its court battles, and he appears to have done little direct lobbying before EPA. Much of his lobbying work was directed at Congress, public records show. But the Trump administration's ethics provision preventing officials from working on matters related to their former clients for two years would seem to apply to him, ethics experts said.
Wheeler, in Senate testimony last week, said he does not anticipate needing any ethics waivers.
"I don't think Trump understands his own ethics order," Holman said. "The bottom line is there are two key exciting elements, but they simply are not being enforced."
It's unclear how the agencies are addressing potential conflicts of interest. A smattering of ethics waivers has been publicly released for some officials. EPA Senior Deputy Counsel Erik Baptist, for instance, received a waiver to work on the renewable fuel standard after lobbying for the American Petroleum Institute on the same issue (Greenwire, Oct. 25).
In another instance, Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt said he would abstain from any matter relating to former clients for a year (Greenwire, May 11). Bernhardt was registered as a lobbyist for Rosemont Copper Co. until 2016 and has provided legal services to oil interests like Noble Energy Inc. and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Senate disclosures and an ethics filingshow.
But the situation is less clear for other officials. EPA did not answer questions about whether ethics waivers were issued for the officials identified by E&E News.
"Administrator Pruitt has assembled a staff of highly qualified individuals to help implement the president's agenda and ensure that EPA will continue to promote policies that provide clean air and water, while encouraging economic growth," EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said.
When asked later about how EPA is handling potential conflicts of interest, the agency said in a statement, "All EPA employees get ethics briefings when they start and continually work with our ethics office regarding any potential conflicts they may encounter while employed here."
Interior and DOE did not respond to requests for comment.
Robert Meyers, senior counsel at Crowell & Moring LLP and a former EPA official in the Bush administration, rejected the notion that administration appointees should be judged solely on the basis of their lobbying work. Many are experts in their field who have been selected because their views align with the president's, he said. Above all, they must follow the law.
"If you're a political appointee, you're accountable to who appointed you," Meyers said. "I think most people look through that prism: What's the law say, and what's the policy of the administration?"
He added: "If you're not comfortable with that, you have to get out."
Janet McCabe, EPA's former acting assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation under Obama, echoed that point. She once registered as a lobbyist, as the executive director of a children's health organization in her home state of Indiana, and now works at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a green advocacy group.
Still, she said there is a fundamental difference between Obama-era appointees and those now working in the Trump administration.
"The difference I see is EPA's mission is to protect public health, not the chemical industry or the fossil fuel industry," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060066839
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Rig Count Jumps Up, but Only for Natural Gas
Nov 17, 2017 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
The number of active drilling rigs jumped up for the second straight week, but the increase of eight rigs is exclusive to those seeking natural gas.
That contrasts sharply with last week when nine rigs were added back to shale fields and they were all drilling for crude oil.
Regardless, the rig count is showing small signs of growth after seemingly plateauing in August and falling throughout most of the fall, according to data collected by Baker Hughes, a GE company.
And the week was good for Texas, which added seven rigs, including five in the oil-booming Permian Basin. Those five oil rigs added in the Permian were presumably offset by small losses in Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming.
The only other state to see multiple rigs added was Louisiana with four rigs. That includes additions to the Haynesville shale and to the gassy shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. rig count is now up to 915 rigs, down from a July peak of 958. Oil rigs account for 738 of the total. The total U.S. rig count is up from an all-time low of 404 rigs in May 2016.
U.S. oil was selling above $56 a barrel in early afternoon trading in New York.
West Texas' Permian Basin now accounts for 391 rigs, which is more than half of all the nation's oil rigs. The next most active area is Oklahoma's Cana-Woodford shale with 74 rigs, recently surpassing Texas' Eagle Ford shale with 67 rigs. Texas is home to 449 rigs overall, while Oklahoma is second with 122 rigs. New Mexico is next with 68 rigs, having passed Louisiana for third.
Despite this week's jump, the oil rig count is down 54 percent from its peak of 1,609 in October 2014, before oil prices began plummeting.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Rig-count-jumps-up-but-only-for-natural-gas-12366027.php
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U.S. Trade Agency Launches LNG Push
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
A small federal agency that promotes U.S. business interests overseas is launching an initiative to support the sale of U.S. natural gas abroad, offering marketing muscle and help in building relationships for an industry in search of new outlets.
The U.S. Trade and Development Agency today formally launches the U.S. Gas Infrastructure Exports Initiative, which will partner with liquefied natural gas industry interests to promote the development of importing infrastructure in target markets.
The U.S. has seven multibillion-dollar LNG export terminals currently under construction, including several along the Gulf Coast and facilities in Maryland and Georgia. The Australian LNG industry is also in the midst of a building boom, with massive new capacity coming online. World LNG markets currently favor buyers, as import terminals are built out to increase overall demand.
The new federal initiative is designed to work with "middle-income" and developing countries, using so-called reverse trade missions, feasibility studies, training and technical assistance to lay the groundwork for LNG import projects, according to its website. U.S. partners in the program include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the lobbying group LNG Allies, law firm Baker Botts, and LNG exporter Tellurian Inc.
Cheniere Energy Inc. owns the only LNG export plant currently in operation in the U.S., having launched Sabine Pass LNG along the Gulf Coast late last year. Last week Jack Fusco, Cheniere's CEO, was part of a business delegation that accompanied President Trump during his visit to Asia to meet with foreign officials.
A slew of business deals between U.S. and Chinese companies were announced last week associated with the president's Asia trip. That included an agreement between Cheniere and China National Petroleum Corp. on "long-term sale and purchase cooperation"; a deal between Delfin Midstream and China Gas Holdings tied to Delfin's proposal for a floating LNG export terminal off the Louisiana coast; and a joint development agreement to support the Alaska LNG project with funding from the China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec), China Investment Corp. and the Bank of China.
An expansion of LNG trade could contribute to U.S. total exports, meeting a White House policy priority of addressing the national trade balance. It could also help the president with one of his major talking points: aiding the domestic coal industry.
Domestically, the boom in natural gas production that has unfolded over the past decade has put pressure on the coal industry with low fuel prices, contributing to the closure of coal-fired power generators. Trump's promises to rebuild the coal industry are widely viewed as unrealistic in the face of cheap natural gas. But boosting gas exports is a policy step that could lead to higher domestic prices for the fuel, indirectly helping coal to compete.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/17/stories/1060066825
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Reassurances Reign as NAFTA Talks Resume
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Oil and gas companies are increasingly at ease with the future of North American energy investments as NAFTA renegotiations continue.
The sentiment comes as a fifth round of talks on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement kicks off today in Mexico City. The talks are slated to wrap up Tuesday.
Energy companies were initially fearful that a revision of NAFTA could upset their newfound access to Mexico's enormous hydrocarbons potential. Mexico opened its oil and gas resources to private investment following historic constitutional changes enacted in 2013.
There's less worry about lost opportunities in Mexico now, as all three governments have reached out repeatedly to reassure the industry as NAFTA talks rolled on. Still, the nations' trade groups are urging negotiators to use the new NAFTA text to either cement Mexican energy reforms, or fall back on the existing NAFTA draft should the talks collapse.
Oil and gas trade groups in Canada, the United States and Mexico are sharply warning negotiators to avoid the third possibility: the end of NAFTA.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and Mexican Association of Hydrocarbon Companies (AMEXHI) together issued a joint position paper this week ahead of the negotiating round's opening, reiterating this and other positions. They outlined where they were in opposition to the U.S. government's proposals for changing NAFTA.
Rather than issue their own proposals, the groups told negotiators to "do no harm" to their industry.
"In 1993, Mexico had a closed energy sector that did not allow foreign investment nor participation of the private sector," notes the position paper. "Today, as a result of the 2013 Energy Reform, Mexico's energy sector is open to foreign investment and protected by NAFTA while allowing the private sector to associate with state-owned companies. A modernized NAFTA will need to consider this crucial change and maintain these protections."
Any changes to NAFTA should "encourage the consolidation of market-based energy reforms in Mexico," the paper states.
Earlier this week, the three nations' top energy-sector regulators gathered in Houston to discuss North American energy issues and NAFTA with executives from oil, pipeline and power companies. The three leaders voiced their strong support for continued integration of North American power, crude oil, refined products, and natural gas trade and commerce (Energywire, Nov. 15).
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry offered reassurances that the Trump administration would not upset the thriving cross-border trade in energy and energy services. "The energy security of our country is achievable because of mutual cooperation," he said. "We believe that North American energy cooperation will enhance our energy security, accelerate economic growth [and] promote the creation of well-paying jobs for our citizens."
His Mexican counterpart, Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, assured U.S. investors that Mexico is determined to continue on its reform path toward a more private investor-friendly energy sector. "I believe a very fruitful result of this meeting is our friendship and spirit of collaboration that helps us solve any topic on the table," he said.
Revealing round ahead
Praised by U.S. agriculture interests, NAFTA faces criticism for its corporate-friendly language that incentivizes the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing platforms to Mexico, contributing to the contraction of U.S. manufacturing and manufacturing employment. Analysts with Public Citizen note that by the U.S. government's own reckoning, NAFTA led to around 100,000 U.S. job losses. Some put that figure far higher.
Lori Wallach, a trade expert at Public Citizen, told reporters in a call that this weekend's round could prove critical to NAFTA's future. Wallach was joined by Celeste Drake, trade policy specialist at the AFL-CIO, and Bill Bullard, CEO of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund.
"This round of talks could be the beginning of the end of NAFTA," Wallach said.
Critics like Wallach and others say allowing corporations to largely draft trade deals such as NAFTA, without any input from labor or environmental quarters, has led to agreements that are less trade deals and more investment agreements of offshoring insurance agreements. Wallach argued that the original NAFTA was specifically designed to protect U.S. companies looking to move production to Mexico in order to exploit cheap labor and weak to nonexistent labor and environmental standards.
The Trump administration is moving to rewrite the deal in ways to reduce incentives for offshoring. The United States has also called for the trade deal to "sunset" or become null and void after five years, unless reaffirmed by the three parties. The United States has also called for the end of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, a Canadian-inspired extrajudicial process for resolving trade disputes that elevates companies to the level of sovereign governments.
API, CAPP and AMEXHI said they oppose moves to end ISDS and the five-year sunset clause. The groups says these proposals would "weaken stability and investment protection for long-term investments."
Canada and Mexico's governments both initially balked at the U.S. proposals. Perry said he was confident that trade negotiators from those nations would work with the U.S. side to find a compromise. Wallach predicted trouble ahead for NAFTA if Canada and Mexico maintain hard-line stances, instead taking a gamble that President Trump is bluffing when he says he's prepared to let NAFTA die.
"The corporate lobby's response to these administration proposals suggests that a new reality of either having a different NAFTA or no NAFTA is being dismissed by the corporate lobby as a bluff," Wallach said. "Whether it's a case of magical thinking or ideological rigidity after years of largely dictating what U.S. trade policy looks like, the fifth NAFTA negotiating round is going to reveal whether the corporate lobbies persuaded Mexico and Canada to join their high-stakes poker game. That only increases the odds of the 'no NAFTA' outcome."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/17/stories/1060066831
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The Chemical Industry Must Plan Better for Severe Weather, U.S. Chemical Safety Board Says
Nov 17, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
In light of the impact of Tropical Storm Harvey on an Arkema chemical plant and the greater Houston area, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board is urging companies, emergency planners, and regulators to quickly reassess the chemical industry’s preparedness for hurricanes and floods. The board, an independent federal investigator, made the recommendation Nov. 15 as part of an update of its ongoing investigation into the fires that occurred in late August at the Arkema facility in Crosby, Texas.
“Harvey shows that companies can’t rely on past experience” when it comes to emergency planning, says CSB investigator Mark Wingard. “More severe weather events are possible, and we need to be thinking about what can happen and how to prepare for it. Companies need to test past assumptions.” Arkema manufactures and uses organic peroxides, which must be refrigerated for stability, at the Crosby site. The plant lost primary electricity and its generators as it flooded because of Harvey. As its cold-storage warehouses lost power, the company shifted the peroxides to nine refrigerator truck trailers. But soon, three trailers caught fire and eventually Arkema officials deliberately burned the remaining trailers. The company considered neutralizing the peroxides, but it had 158,757 kg held in 15,000 individual containers, making such actions difficult, CSB investigator Wingard says. CSB officials say floods, high winds, and hurricanes are becoming more frequent and industry and regulators must be prepared. CSB will look at the adequacy of assumptions in current emergency preparedness requirements as well as approaches of different U.S. federal agencies and those of other countries as it prepares its report on Arkema, Wingard says. Arkema did emergency planning, CSB Chair Vanessa Allen Sutherland says, “but it wasn’t enough. We need to find out why and share it with other companies.” Sutherland says CSB intends to complete the investigation and issue its report before the next Atlantic hurricane season starts in June 2018 to help companies and emergency responders prepare.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i46/chemical-industry-must-plan-better.html
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Chemical Safety Board Scraps Recommendation on Offshore Safety
Nov 17, 2017 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
Offshore oil rig workers will remain without broad whistleblower protections after a federal agency this week opted to withdraw recommendations made in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board opted to pull its worker participation and whistleblower protection recommendations after the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, refused to enact the protections. Under President Donald Trump, the bureau has shifted its focus to reducing what it calls unnecessary regulations.
The chemical safety board is an advisory panel without regulatory authority. Its recommendations of April 2016, while President Barack Obama was still in office, would have allowed oil rig employees to stop work in the event of safety concerns and provide them legal whistleblower protections against retaliation.
The chemical safetly board voted 3-1 to withdraw the recommendations, citing confusion over which agency would oversee the implementation - the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Occupational Safety and Health Administration or Coast Guard. The only opposing vote was Rick Engler, who argued the safety bureau has oversight authority.
"The [chemical safety board] is entrusted by the American people to do all that we can do to prevent such catastrophes," Engler said. "The recommendations at issue, if implemented, can help prevent the next disaster."
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 workers and resulted in a three-month discharge of nearly 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana. The resulting investigations determined that BP and its contractorscut corners and ignored warning signs.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement was created in 2011 because of the regulatory failings identified after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.
Even with the downturn in oil prices and the reduced offshore drilling activity, the concerns remain great, Engler said. "Workforce cutbacks increase economic fears among workers, diminishing the likelihood that incidents, hazards and potential risks are discussed and reported," he said.
But Vanessa Sutherland, chairwoman of the chemical safety board, reiterated that it cannot force the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to act. She's asking Congress to intervene and clarify the agency's authority. "It is clear that there is ambiguity within the federal government regarding the jurisdiction of offshore worker protections."
For now, the bureau, which is an agency of the Interior Department, is focused on relieving the offshore oil and gas industry of unnecessary regulations without jeopardizing safety, said Gregory Julian, a spokesman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Douglas Morris, chief of the agency's offshore regulatory program, told the chemical safety board that it should instead work with industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and International Association of Drilling Contractors to develop voluntary guidelines for protecting offshore workers and whistleblower.
Under Trump, the Interior Department has promoted the expansion of oil and gas production both onshore and off. Trump's interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has said the stars have lined up for the U.S. oil and gas sector to dominate global energy markets.
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Chemical-safety-board-scraps-recommendation-on-12364087.php
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Keystone Pipeline Shut Down After Spilling 5,000 Barrels of Oil in South Dakota
Nov 17, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Keystone oil pipeline spilled more than 5,000 barrels of oil on Thursday before workers took it offline, a large spill that comes days before operators hope to secure a key permit for a sister project.
A TransCanada crew shut down the Keystone pipeline at 6 a.m. Thursday morning after detecting an oil leak along the line, the company said in a statement. The leak was detected along a stretch of pipeline about 35 miles south of a pumping station in Marshall County, South Dakota.
TransCanada estimates the pipeline leaked 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, before going offline. The company said it shut off the pipeline within 15 minutes of discovering the leak, and it's working with state regulators and the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to assess the situation.
According to PHMSA data gathered by environmental group Greenpeace in August, three pipeline operators have spilled more than 63,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil or refined produce in the United States since 2010.
The Keystone pipeline itself spilled an estimated 21,000 gallons of oil in 2011, and 17,000 gallons in April 2016.
The leak comes at an inopportune time for TransCanada, which is to expand its delivery network by building the Keystone XL pipeline.
Nebraska regulators are due to announce a permitting decision for the Keystone XL pipeline on Monday morning. The 830,000-barrel-per-day project would bring crude oil from Alberta, Canada to Nebraska, where it would join existing pipelines that feed refineries elsewhere in the United States.
President Trump in March signed a presidential permit allowing the company to build the pipeline, against which environmentalists have waged a years-long battle.
Then-President Barack Obama formally blocked the pipeline in 2015. But Trump revived it via executive order earlier this year, a move he often touts as one of the major achievements of his first year in office.
Keystone XL, if built, would cut diagonally through South Dakota, where state regulators have already granted construction permits.
But opponents of the project seized on Thursday’s spill, saying it should lead Nebraska regulators to reject the pipeline project as too risky.
“The [Public Service Commission] must take note: there is no such thing as a safe tar sands pipeline, and the only way to protect Nebraska communities from more tar sands spills is to say no to Keystone XL,” said Kelly Martin, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/360777-keystone-pipeline-shut-down-after-spilling-5000-barrels-of-oil-in
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37 Experts Urge Study of Chemicals Plaguing Military Bases
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
A group of scientists and public health professionals want more systematic research into the perfluorinated chemicals that have contaminated drinking water near military installations nationwide.
Over 6 million people have been exposed to the chemicals, which have been linked to kidney cancer, birth defects and other health issues, the experts wrote in a letter published in the journal Environmental Health.
"A research agenda that is coordinated across the many impacted communities in the U.S. is needed to maximize what can be learned from these unfortunate exposures," they wrote.
Perfluorinated compounds, like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), are used in a variety of products. But much of the water contamination comes from their use in firefighting foam at military airfields.
The military has begun testing to figure out the scale of the contamination, but the PFOA is not yet regulated by U.S. EPA, and military officials say cleanup will take decades.
This year's defense authorization bill includes a provision that would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to carry out a five-year study of the effects of PFOA.
Tom Bruton, one of the co-writers of the letter, said that would be an important first step.
"These perfluorinated compounds are unique in the world of chemistry in their persistence, their stability and the fact that they just don't break down," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/17/stories/1060066873
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Let’s Help Steel Manufacturing Stay on Track
Nov 17, 2017 | Pittsburgh Gazette
By Philip K. Bell
America’s industrial greatness was forged by two industries more than any other: steel and railroads. Together they built our nation, one by providing the raw material and the other by hauling it where it needed to go.
Like Pittsburgh, our industry has gone through many changes over the years — some of them hard-fought. For us, competition has helped make U.S. steel producers stronger than ever.
We believe that the increased competition would also benefit other industries that support our operations. That includes the rail carriers that are so critical to moving raw materials and finished goods.
That’s why we have joined the Rail Customer Coalition to get Washington to act on regulatory reforms that would help create a more competitive freight rail network.
The Surface Transportation Board, tasked by Congress to address freight rail issues, has finally begun to work on sensible reforms to remove regulatory barriers to competition and cut red tape at the agency.
Under one of the board’s proposals, for example, steel manufacturers and other rail customers will for the first time have an effective means to seek competitive bids for service from other railroads through reciprocal or competitive switching.
American manufacturers need the STB to operate at full strength and with a deep commitment to enacting reform policies that will light a fire under our economy.
For that to happen, we need President Donald Trump and Congress to act quickly to fill the vacancies at the STB with members who will advance long-overdue regulatory reforms.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2017/11/17/div-class-libPageBodyLinebreak-Let-s-help-steel-manufacturing-stay-on-track-div/stories/201711170054
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Op-Ed: How Can We Get Rail Freight Service Back to Work for the American Consumer?
Nov 17, 2017 | ENO Transportation Weekly
By Herman Haksteen
In a country where both food and transportation are staples of our everyday lives, the members of the Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association are at a standstill. Like so many other industries, they have fallen victim to soaring freight rail rates and unreliable service. The negative impact of these problems has extended far beyond the freight rail network, fueling higher long-haul trucking prices and making it nearly impossible for manufacturers to get their goods to market at prices consumers can afford.
The Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association (PRFBA) is an organization of more than a dozen global food and beverage producers based in North America, and they have been stretched thin and faced production shutdowns because of ongoing freight rail problems. The most recent and troubling example happened in the wake of new leadership and layoffs at one major railroad that controls a majority of the rail traffic in the eastern part of the country. Service problems became so severe that many U.S. manufacturers, energy producers, and farmers were left without rail service and were forced to redesign their supply chains in order to ship trucks, so they could keep running production lines.
While using trucks might seem like an easy solution, it’s not. Many companies have built their production around the flow of reliable rail service. They have made significant investments into building rail sidings, rail specific infrastructure, such as loading and unloading docks and specific railcar equipment. They simply cannot “flip a switch” and go from shipping rail to shipping via truck. For many of them, turning to trucks is a temporary and expensive stop gap measure.
And as we have seen, railroad problems not only impact freight rail shippers; they impact all American shippers and the consumers. The sudden shift of large amounts of cargo to truck, in the wake of rail service problems, has also had a negative impact on companies that don’t rely on freight rail service at all. Trucking rates were relatively flat from October 2016 to July 2017, but this increased demand for long-haul trucking has led to a substantial rate spike since August, leading to the nation’s highest trucking prices in more than two years.
Though it may be easy for consumers to think that these problems don’t really have much to do with them, it is important to recognize the startling inflationary effects these high transportation prices can, and will, have on their world. They will trickle down from many of America’s most prominent industries to the consumer, increasing the prices of food and beverages, everyday items, and even utility bills.
Countless Americans have food and beverage products produced and shipped by PRFBA members on their dinner tables and in their pantries. Those companies will do their best to insulate consumers from these increased costs, but it is only a matter of time before they trickle down to your grocery store receipts — all thanks to one powerful industry, the railroad industry, using monopoly power created by outdated regulatory protections.
The time for change is now. The solution to these problems involves the Surface Transportation Board (STB) adopting several commonsense regulatory reforms, including reciprocal switching. Reciprocal switching allows a shipper to choose, creating a competitive situation where two or more railroads might compete for the same business. In today’s rail industry, reciprocal switching is not allowed, thus allowing only one railroad to quote on the business and the shipper being held hostage by that railroad for rates and services.
We need a railroad system that is based on a competitive market, where two or more rail companies can compete for the shipper’s business and the consumer yields the benefits of lower costs at the grocery store. It’s simply the way American business works and it’s the way the railroad industry should work too.
Herman Haksteen is President of the Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association, Inc., a trade association comprised of 13 global food and beverage companies and manufacturers headquartered in North America.
The views expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Eno Center for Transportation.
https://www.enotrans.org/article/op-ed-can-get-rail-freight-service-back-work-american-consumer/
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Calif. Utility Pins Emissions Goals to Electrification Push
Nov 17, 2017 | E&E Energywire
Southern California Edison Co. has released a new road map for California's emissions goals, calling for the state to undertake a mass electrification of heating and transportation and aggressive adoption of renewables for the grid.
By 2030, the utility said, the state will need to get 80 percent of its electricity from renewables and 30 percent of its heat from electricity in order for it to meet its goal of 50 percent renewable sourcing.
That would be a significant leap for Edison, which generates about 28 percent of its energy from renewables, compared to 33 percent for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and 43 percent for San Diego Gas & Electric Co. — the state's other large investor-owned utilities.
The report also called for the number of zero-emission electric cars on the road there to jump from 300,000 to 7 million by 2030.
Those changes, said Edison, would cost consumers an extra $22 per month on their electricity bills.
The plan would also mean a windfall for Edison and other investor-owned utilities, which would need to undertake a vast buildout of electricity infrastructure to support the changes. And some renewable advocates and energy analysts objected to the emphasis on infrastructure developments that would necessitate upfront costs for consumers, while praising the report's call for decarbonization.
"If we're smart about how we go about getting people to charge and how to make incentives align with low-cost periods, then those costs can be manageable and low," said Eric Borden, energy policy analyst at the San Francisco-based watchdog Utility Reform Network. "But what the utilities will continue to propose in these proceedings is additional expenditures on charging infrastructure that would not normally be incurred".
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/17/stories/1060066769
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