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PM ACC 11/20/2017

Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.

(ACC Mentioned) Sudden Shift at a Public Health Journal Leaves Scientists Feeling Censored
Nov 20, 2017 | ProPublica
By Lisa Song

For much of its 22-year existence, few outside the corner of science devoted to toxic chemicals paid much attention to the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.
Ewire: Trump Adds Kavanaugh to List of Possible High Court Picks
Nov 20, 2017 | Inside EPA

President Donald Trump is adding U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to his public list of candidates to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy, which would elevate a conservative judge...

LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Chemical Management News

Commentary: Trump's EPA Nominee Wrong Choice for Capital Region
Nov 20, 2017 | Bangor Daily News
By Kirsten Gillibrand

Last month, a group of families from Hoosick Falls flew down to Washington to watch a Senate hearing about Michael Dourson, President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant administrator for chemical safety...
Pick for Chemical Post a Danger to Our Health
Nov 20, 2017 | Las Vegas Sun
By Marilyn Kirkpatrick

As a grandmother, and now great-grandmother, I know it’s up to me to protect my grandchildren, whether teaching them how to safely cross the street, feeding them healthy food or keeping an eye on them as they play outside.
Chemical Apologist Is the Wrong Man to Oversee National Chemical Safety
Nov 20, 2017 | Bangor Daily News
By Editorial Board

We generally believe presidents should have wide to appoint people who share their views to cabinet and other executive branch positions.
EPA’s Latest Analysis Shows Perchlorate Risks to Fetal Brain Development
Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner

Pursuant to a consent decree with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing drinking water regulations to protect fetuses and young children from perchlorate..
In Shadow of Paris, Montreal Could Have Big Climate Impact
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac

A global agreement to limit chemicals found in equipment like air conditioners was set in motion Friday, accelerating international action on climate change and increasing pressure on the United States to grapple with rising temperatures.

Energy News

Despite EPA Knowledge of Health Hazards, Fracking Chemicals Remain Secret
Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stoiber

The Environmental Protection Agency knows that dozens of the chemicals used in fracking pose health hazards.
House Lawmakers Tangle over State vs. Federal Control
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King

A pair of dueling House bills propose sea changes for the management of oil and gas production on publicly held lands and waters.
Keystone XL Pipeline Clears Major Hurdle
Nov 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry and Timothy Cama

Developers of the Keystone XL pipeline secured approval Monday for the pipeline to run through Nebraska, clearing a key hurdle in the years-long fight to build the project.
State Department May Need to Review New Keystone XL Route
Nov 20, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre

The State Department is reviewing Nebraska's decision on approving an alternate route for the Keystone XL pipeline to clarify whether it needs to re-approve the controversial pipeline, a department spokesman said.
Another Keystone Oil Spill, Another Obvious Reason to Fund the EPA
Nov 20, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion
By John O'Grady

The Keystone 1 pipeline spilled 210,000 gallons of oil near a small town in South Dakota Thursday. The last Keystone spill in April 2016 contaminated Hutchinson County, South Dakota with 400 barrels of oil, and took around 10 months to clean up. This disaster is expected to take longer.
Alaska Advances Pipeline Deal with China, but Hurdles Remain
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The state of Alaska is pushing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to fast-track its environmental review of the state's ambitious $43 billion natural gas pipeline and export project...
Growing Gas Glut Threatens West Texas Oil Boom
Nov 20, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Ryan Dezember and Alison Sider

Natural gas is gushing out of West Texas, a byproduct of frenzied drilling for oil. That is a problem for energy producers, who are running out of places to send it all.
Colorado Sets Tougher Air Monitoring for Smaller Front Range Wells
Nov 20, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec

Colorado’s energy industry and environmental groups have thrown their support behind more stringent air quality monitoring for smaller oil and natural gas facilities operating in the Front Range.

Chemical Security News

Chicago Intends to Sue U.S. Steel After 2 Toxic Spills This Year, Mayor Says
Nov 20, 2017 | Chicago Tribune
By Tony Briscoe and Michael Hawthorne

The city of Chicago is expected to take the first step toward filing a federal suit against U.S. Steel, alleging the company repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act following a pair of toxic spills into Lake Michigan waterways near its northwest Indiana plant, city officials announced Sunday.
Gas Industry Joins Power Sector War Game
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

An electric grid security exercise last week rattled the power sector with a string of simulated physical attacks on U.S. gas infrastructure, officials say, underscoring the growing interdependence between the two industries.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

BNSF Says Changes Made Since South Dakota 2015 Derailment
Nov 20, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)

BNSF Railway says it’s using an alternative route for moving hazardous material through parts of South Dakota since federal transportation investigators determined a broken rail probably caused the derailment of a train carrying ethanol two years ago.

Environment News

Crunching New Numbers for a Potent Greenhouse Gas
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen

The Trump administration is tweaking how it measures the costs of emitting a potent greenhouse gas, a move that will have major impacts for climate rules.
Confused by U.S. Climate Messaging? We Break It Ddown
Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick

The United States didn't send one delegation to the climate talks that wrapped up here Saturday, it sent three.
Is the Science on Climate Change ‘Settled?’: Fuel for Thought
Nov 20, 2017 | Platts
By Bob Williams

First, one should be discomfited by that lightning-rod shorthand for certitude; science is never “settled.”

Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.

(ACC Mentioned) Sudden Shift at a Public Health Journal Leaves Scientists Feeling Censored

Nov 20, 2017 | ProPublica

By Lisa Song

For much of its 22-year existence, few outside the corner of science devoted to toxic chemicals paid much attention to the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.
But now, a feud has erupted over the small academic publication, as its editorial board — the scientists who advise the journal’s direction and handle article submissions — has accused the journal’s new owner of suppressing a paper and promoting “corporate interests over independent science in the public interest.”
More is at stake than just the journal’s direction.
IJOEH is best known for exposing so-called “product defense science” — industry-linked studies that defend the safety of products made by their funders. At a time when the Trump administration is advancing policies and nominees sympathetic to the chemical industry, the journal seems to be veering in the same direction.
“There are many scientists who work for corporations who are honest scientists,” said David Michaels, the former head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration under President Obama. “What we’re concerned about here is the ‘mercenary science’ … that’s published purely to influence regulation or litigation, and doesn’t contribute to public health.”
“I think the IJOEH articles were threatening to that whole industry,” said Michaels, now an environmental and occupational health professor at George Washington University. While Michaels has never served on the journal’s editorial board, he has published an article in the journal and peer-reviewed others.
The journal was one of the relatively few places that provided an outlet for “scientists whose work is independent of the corporations that manufacture chemicals,” he said. “The silencing of that voice would be a real loss to the field.”
Last Thursday, the journal’s 22-member editorial board, along with eight former board members and the journal’s founding editor-in-chief, wrote a letter to the National Library of Medicine requesting disciplinary action against the academic journal’s new publisher, Taylor & Francis Group. In particular, they asked the Library of Medicine to rescind the journal’s listing in the Medline index, which could drastically reduce its scientific influence.
Academic journals are often judged by the reputations of those on their editorial boards, and this list includes a Columbia University dean, the president of the International Commission on Occupational Health and a scientist who helped establish the cancer classification system used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
UK-based Taylor & Francis, one of the largest publishers of academic journals, acquired IJOEH and 169 other journals in 2015 by purchasing the journal’s original owner and publisher, Maney Publishing. According to the board’s letter, Taylor & Francis has done the following since taking over: Selected a new editor-in-chief, Andrew Maier, without consulting the editorial board. Board members said it’s “highly unlikely” that they would have approved of Maier. Their letter said he had a tendency to reach scientific conclusions “highly sympathetic to parties with an economic interest in favorable outcomes,” which is at odds with the journal’s mission. Withdrew a peer-reviewed article by the journal’s former editor-in-chief David Egilman that criticized Union Carbide Corporation’s efforts to oppose workers’ claims of asbestos exposure. “Suppression of an accepted paper is a direct assault on academic freedom,” the board members wrote to the Library of Medicine. Flagged three additional studies approved for publication under Egilman as “raising potential concerns,” according to a May 8 email the publisher sent to the board.
A Library of Medicine representative said they’re reviewing the board’s appeal.
Officials at Taylor & Francis declined to speak with ProPublica about the accusations in the letter and did not answer most of the questions we submitted in writing, referring us instead to two emails the publisher sent to the board in May.
In one, Ian Bannerman, manager director of Taylor & Francis Journals, insisted the company had no obligation to consult the board in choosing the journal’s new editor. “The responsibility for selecting and appointing an Editor-in-Chief lies with Taylor & Francis as the owner of the journal,” he wrote.
In the other, Bannerman responded to a question from the board about the publisher’s plans for “repositioning” the journal by saying Taylor & Francis would aim to boost its online readership, citation levels and “rapidity of publication.”
“We do not see this as ‘repositioning’ the journal as such,” Bannerman wrote, “but we do see it as a change of tack — putting in place long-term plans and goals for the journal’s future development, enhanced by our expertise in marketing, online publishing, and bibliometric analysis.”
A Struggling Endeavor
Joseph LaDou, the founding editor-in-chief of IJOEH, launched the journal in 1995 after years of struggling to publish his own research. While studying the health hazards of workers making microelectronics for Silicon Valley in the 1980s, he couldn’t find a single U.S. journal to take his paper, he said, and ended up publishing in a Scandinavian public health journal. So when a Philadelphia-based publisher offered him a chance to start a journal for similar types of studies, he jumped on board.
The journal’s financial situation was always precarious. LaDou said he put $50,000 to $75,000 of his own money into IJOEH each year. Egilman, who became editor-in-chief in 2007, said he also paid out of pocket to keep the publication going. (Both editors worked on the journal part time and earned their income from university positions or from private practice as occupational health experts).
One of the biggest expenses was paying for help writing and editing manuscripts from developing countries, LaDou said. Among the international studies IJOEH published were a paper on how cooking fuel smoke affects respiratory health for women in Cameroon and another on a worker safety program for stevedores working in Cuba’s Port of Havana.
“I can’t think offhand of [another] pro-worker occupational safety and health journal,” LaDou said. “Some are better than others — less controlled — but there’s nothing to replace what IJOEH was doing, particularly on an international scale.”
Most occupational health experts work for industry in some way because there’s little independent funding, said Celeste Monforton, an environmental and occupational health lecturer at Texas State University. There are few academic positions, and the collapse of workers’ unions over the past few decades further decimated the number of labor-related jobs.
“There’s very little investment in occupational health research or looking at exposure to toxics,” said Monforton, who has never published in IJOEH or served on its board. Most of what’s known about toxics comes from original research funded by the federal government in the 1970s and 1980s, when scientists could coordinate with unions to study large groups of workers, she said.
Those studies focused on long-known hazards such as benzene, asbestos or beryllium, setting the stage for stronger workplace regulations. The results prompted a backlash from scientists working in “product defense,” who re-analyzed individual studies to conclude the product was less harmful than the government determined, Monforton said.
If journals are judged by the size of their readership, LaDou’s was a perpetual underdog. “It was never a large subscription,” he said. “You’re up against such a powerful machine in the industry-supported journals … I think the reputation of the journal was that of a non-industry publication that was widely respected, but only by a small segment of the readership community.”
Taylor & Francis has finally figured out a way for this journal to make money, he alleged. “By selling its soul.”
‘A Change of Tack’
In the first months after Taylor & Francis purchased the journal in June 2015, neither the editorial board nor its editor-in-chief noted a major change.
Then, in early 2016, former board member Barry Castleman learned the publisher hadn’t renewed Egilman’s editing contract, which expired in December 2016.
Taylor & Francis hired Maier in early 2017 without consulting board members for their input, as is customary for scientific journals.
Maier is an environmental health professor at the University of Cincinnati and runs a program for research fellows at TERA (Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment), a consulting firm that analyzes chemical safety. TERA often works for industry clients such as the American Chemistry Council. Concerns about its conflicts of interest gained national attention after President Trump nominated Michael Dourson, TERA’s founder, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety program.
In 2010, Maier co-authored a study on the risks of diacetyl, a butter flavoring that can cause lung damage in workers. Maier’s paper recommended an exposure limit of 200 parts per billion — up to 40 times higher than federal guidelines recommend. Egilman criticized Maier’s results in a 2011 IJOEH paper for not being protective enough. Maier has said that he has a research partnership with the federal scientists who suggested the lower limit. “This ongoing close relationship …does not suggest that government parties find my work lacks scientific credibility,” Maier said in a letter to the board.
Egilman said he didn’t expect to continue as editor-in-chief once his contract expired, but he and the board should have helped choose the new editor.
The publisher disagrees. Bannerman said Taylor & Francis sought advice from “a number of people we know in the field,” including one member of the IJOEH board. Bannerman explained the conversation with the board member occurred before the publisher began considering Maier.
Maier didn’t respond to a request for comment, but he wrote to the editorial board in May to address their concerns. He said more than 80 percent of his research funding comes from his university and the government.
“As for the future, I do not suggest any major changes in mission or scope of the journal,” he wrote. “The same types of scientific articles should continue to find a home in IJOEH.”
‘In-House Review’
Taylor & Francis’ decision in March 2017 to withdraw Egilman’s paper, published about a year earlier, was just as controversial as appointing Maier — possibly more.
Journal publishers rarely interfere in editorial decisions, said Arthur Frank, an IJOEH board member and professor at Drexel University’s School of Public Health.
“I have never, ever been in a setting where the publisher, without engaging the editorial board, made a decision unilaterally to appoint a new editor, and also made decisions to retract an article,” he said. “Publishers are in the business of printing the journal. They’re not in the business of deciding what goes into the journal.”
Egilman’s paper critiqued consulting firms that conduct research that attempts to re-create historical worker exposure data for use in toxic tort litigation. Such studies are expensive and are typically commissioned by companies to defend themselves in court, said Michaels, the former OSHA administrator.
Part of Egilman’s article examined a 2005 study co-authored by consultant Dennis Paustenbach, which simulated historical exposures to conclude that the workers who manufactured Bakelite (an asbestos-containing plastic) for Union Carbide would not have been exposed to asbestos levels that violated health guidelines. Egilman also focused on Paustenbach’s role in promoting similar types of studies, pointing to a conference speech in which Paustenbach said they often made the difference between winning and losing court cases.
“My point was that OFTEN, litigation in the United States is scientifically unwarranted,” Paustenbach wrote in regards to his speech. “When anyone is inappropriately accused of a wrongdoing, they deserve a defense … We are only hired in cases that border on being ‘almost without foundation.’ So it is not surprising that most of our results show that the plaintiff claims are incorrect.”
While Egilman has served as an expert witness for plaintiffs injured by asbestos products — and is well-known for having leaked pharmaceutical company documents to a lawyer representing plaintiffs who alleged an antipsychotic drug gave them diabetes — he has also worked on the defense side. In his paper’s disclosure, he said he consulted for Union Carbide in the company’s 1984 toxic gas leak that killed thousands of residents in Bhopal, India.
It’s unclear what prompted Taylor & Francis to withdraw Egilman’s paper.
Egilman provided ProPublica with a copy of an August 2016 email a Taylor & Francis employee sent to a third party that said Paustenbach “has been in touch to request that we retract Egilman’s critique article.” It was part of a longer email chain that discussed Paustenbach’s 2005 paper and Egilman’s 2016 paper.
In an email to ProPublica, however, Paustenbach denied requesting the retraction, and copied a Taylor & Francis manager in his response. Paustenbach said the publisher began considering a withdrawal months before that August 2016 email, and that he had been primarily concerned with correcting falsehoods in Egilman’s paper.
“I have no axe to grind with Dr. Egilman,” Paustenbach said. “I believe in the importance of a lively discussion of legitimate scientific facts or beliefs. At times, I find that Dr. Egilman doesn’t deal in facts … Egilman’s article was so flawed as to be an embarrassment to any scientist; and perhaps that is why they did not publish it.”
ProPublica reached Sara Shuman, the journal’s former deputy editor who handled the paper’s submission process. She said Egilman’s paper was peer reviewed by at least two scientists. The journal uses a double-blind system to ensure that the author and peer reviewers don’t know each others’ identities, and Shuman acted as the intermediary.
Egilman was informed about the decision to withdraw his article in a March 2017 email from the publisher: “Due to an omission of oversight, the manuscript was not subject to our in-house review prior to its publication. Subsequently we have reviewed the content, and decided to withdraw it from publication.”
In a May 25 email to the board, Bannerman, the Taylor & Francis director, said the paper “was inadvertently published before the review process was completed, and was subsequently decided to be unsuitable for publication.”
The publisher declined to define “in-house review” or comment further.
“We have said all that we can about our reasons for withdrawing this article,” a company spokesperson said. The company publishes more than 2,500 journals, and our “role is to give the communities these journals serve a voice and a space to engage in debate about their research fields. We do not have any strategy to align our titles to be for or against any particular agenda.”
Egilman said the publisher never contacted him to discuss their concerns.
Maier, the new editor-in-chief, told the board he wasn’t involved with the decision. “I have no involvement or decision authority on any manuscripts that were accepted or published prior to my tenure with IJOEH,” he wrote in a letter.
Board members said the incident, compounded by what they considered the unsatisfying explanations for it, had spurred them to action.
“The idea of summarily withdrawing a paper that’s already been reviewed and published without any explanation is outrageous,” said Castleman, the former board member. “The implication is there was some kind of horrible scientific conduct that must have happened.”Pressing On
In addition to its complaint to the National Library of Medicine, the board has appealed to the Committee on Publication Ethics, a UK-based charity that sets journal ethics guidelines.
The board’s letter alleged instances in which Taylor & Francis violated COPE guidelines, including one that states, the “relationship of editors to publishers … should be based firmly on the principle of editorial independence.”
COPE’s co-chairman Chris Graf, director of research integrity and publishing ethics at a large journal publisher called Wiley, said COPE doesn’t comment on individual cases. COPE has no regulatory authority and doesn’t conduct investigations, but can advise publications facing ethical issues.
On Thursday, the president of the Collegium Ramazzini, an international academy of occupational and environmental health experts, said his organization “strongly supports” the board’s letter to the Library of Medicine. The academy is an invitation-only group of 180 scientists who work to bring public health research to policymakers. Nearly half of the IJOEH board members are part of the academy, as are Michaels and Monforton. The group also includes Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and former OSHA administrator Eula Bingham. The organization is named after Bernardino Ramazzini, a 17th-century physician who’s often called the “father of occupational medicine.”
Taylor & Francis has offered to hold a teleconference with the editorial board, but Castleman said the board first wants more answers in writing.
“Had they been more forthcoming, we would have certainly been willing to talk to them,” he said. “It’s very cumbersome trying to find a convenient time for so many people all over the world to agree to be available for such a conference. I felt that they were just fobbing us off, stonewalling our plain questions.”
When ProPublica inquired about the status of the three other articles Taylor & Francis had considered withdrawing, the publisher said those studies “are no longer on hold and the authors are aware of their status” — but didn’t explain whether that meant the articles had been withdrawn. Egilman said one of them was a separate article he wrote on Union Carbide, and that he withdrew that paper from IJOEH two months ago so he could submit it to another journal. He said something similar had happened to another paper, about cigarette filters that contained asbestos.
Through the tumult, the journal has continued to publish, though the rate has slowed considerably this year. The IJOEH website shows the journal publishes four issues a year, with 10 to 12 articles per issue. Yet only five papers have been published in all of 2017. Three of the five were approved by Egilman and the other two by Maier. Both are about how employees’ mental health affects stress and well-being.

The journal’s “first full issue of 2017 will be published before the end of the year,” said a Taylor & Francis spokesperson, “with other issues to follow in early 2018.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/sudden-shift-at-a-public-health-journal-leaves-scientists-feeling-censored

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Ewire: Trump Adds Kavanaugh to List of Possible High Court Picks

Nov 20, 2017 | Inside EPA

President Donald Trump is adding U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to his public list of candidates to fill a future Supreme Court vacancy, which would elevate a conservative judge who has as ruled in dozens of EPA-related cases, often siding with industry critics of agency rules.
Of the five new names Trump announced he was adding to the list Nov. 17, Kavanaugh has by far the longest tenure as a judge and most experience with environmental and climate change cases. He was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 to the D.C. Circuit, which hears many cases over EPA rules.
The other possible nominees include two federal appellate judges and two state supreme court judges. All four received their appointments this year and had not previously been a judge. They include: 7th Circuit Judge Amy Comey Barrett, 11th Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, Georgia Supreme Court Justice Britt Grant, and Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Patrick Wyrick.
Of note, before Wyrick received his current position he served as the Sooner State's solicitor general under then-Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is now EPA administrator under Trump.
Trump's Supreme Court list now includes 25 names.
Observers of climate and environmental policy would have a long record to assess if Kavanaugh were to be appointed to the next vacancy on the high court, and such a selection would almost certainly result in a court that is more skeptical of EPA rules that industry considers too burdensome.
Most recently, Kavanaugh authored an opinion vacating a key portion of EPA's rule to reduce refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases, ruling that the agency lacked Clean Air Act authority to replace such chemicals that are already in use with substitutes that are more environmentally friendly.
And in 2014 he dissented from a D.C. Circuit ruling that broadly upheld EPA's mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for the utility sector, arguing that the agency should have considered costs when making an initial determination that regulation was “appropriate.” That argument eventually earned a majority of the Supreme Court in a 2015 ruling that will require the agency to re-do its initial regulatory determination if it wishes to retain MATS.
Before Trump's election, Kavanaugh was also closely watched in en banc proceedings in litigation over the Obama EPA's Clean Power Plan GHG standards for power plants. Although observers expected the full court to uphold the rule, many expected Kavanaugh to dissent from such a decision and for his dissent to outline a path for eventual Supreme Court review.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-trump-adds-kavanaugh-list-possible-high-court-picks

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LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Chemical Management News

Commentary: Trump's EPA Nominee Wrong Choice for Capital Region

Nov 20, 2017 | Bangor Daily News

By Kirsten Gillibrand

Last month, a group of families from Hoosick Falls flew down to Washington to watch a Senate hearing about Michael Dourson, President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention at the Environmental Protection Agency. If Dourson is confirmed by the Senate, his job would be to protect Americans from poison in the products we use, the food we eat, and, of course, the water we drink. That includes perfluorooctanoic acid, better known as PFOA, which has poisoned the water supplies in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Hoosick.
This job is an enormous responsibility, and we can't take that lightly. But based on Dourson's reckless disregard for public health throughout his career, I do not trust him to take it seriously. I do not trust him to do it thoroughly. And I do not trust him to stand up and fight for the families in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Hoosick.
His record speaks for itself: Dourson has spent his career fighting to defend the companies that produce toxic chemicals like PFOA. He was even paid to publicly defend a safety standard that was 2,000 times less stringent than the EPA's current standard for PFOA in drinking water. This showed utter disdain for families who are suffering because of chemical pollution in their water. In other words, Dourson is the last person who should be put in charge of stopping companies from dumping toxic chemicals like PFOA into our water supply.
When I think about Dourson's nomination, I think about the families in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Hoosick who have been terrified about what their poisoned water is going to do to their children's health. I think about the parents who haven't even been able to pour their children a glass of water without wondering if that water is going to poison them, make them sick, or even give them cancer or chronic illnesses years down the road.
The situation in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Hoosick is nothing short of a tragedy, and I know this has been an awful journey for too many Capital Region residents. We should be able to drink our water without having to worry about whether it is going to harm us. This nomination matters deeply to the Capital Region because so many families here have had to live through a crisis that no one in our country should have to experience. They know painfully well what happens when companies think they can get away with dumping chemicals into their water. And they know that companies are going to keep dumping chemicals into local water supplies as long as they can get away with it.
If Dourson is confirmed, I have no doubt those companies will keep getting away with it. This would be a classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse — another example of the corrupt revolving door that lets industry shills come into our government and oversee the very industries they have spent their careers defending. Dourson is the wrong nominee for Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, and Hoosick, and should not get this job. If he won't protect these families, all of us in Congress have a moral responsibility to do it ourselves. Therefore, I am placing a hold on his nomination to block his confirmation process from going forward.
I urge all Capital Region residents to join me in opposing this terrible nominee for such an important and consequential position for keeping our communities safe from chemical contamination. If you care about this issue, raise your voices and be heard about it. The only way anything ever changes in Washington is when people stand up and demand it. So speak out, post on social media, write letters to the editor, and get everyone you know to help make sure Dourson is never confirmed to this position.
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is a U.S. senator.
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Commentary-Trump-s-EPA-nominee-wrong-choice-for-12370301.php

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Pick for Chemical Post a Danger to Our Health

Nov 20, 2017 | Las Vegas Sun

By Marilyn Kirkpatrick

As a grandmother, and now great-grandmother, I know it’s up to me to protect my grandchildren, whether teaching them how to safely cross the street, feeding them healthy food or keeping an eye on them as they play outside.
But there are other dangers for which parents need government to step in, such as keeping kids safe from dangerous chemicals. That’s why it’s so concerning that the U.S. Senate is on the verge of undermining protections from toxic chemicals.
There are tens of thousands of chemicals in use today, and scientists are increasingly finding that some common chemicals are linked to serious health impacts. With toxic perchlorate, which can impair children’s brain development, in our drinking water, or toxic flame retardant chemicals tied to cancer in our furniture, there’s not much a mom, dad or local legislator can do to protect our families from toxic chemicals.
We need credible, independent scientists to study chemicals’ risks, and we need our government to take their recommendations and ban or restrict use of those that are dangerous. Last year, after decades of inaction, Congress updated the country’s primary federal chemical safety law. Prior to that update, the law was so toothless that it couldn’t even ban asbestos, a well-known carcinogen. Now the agency responsible for implementing that law, the Environmental Protection Agency, has new tools and powers to deal with the massive backlog of chemicals that need attention, including toxic chemicals readily found in Nevada homes, schools and workplaces.
That’s why the Trump administration’s choice to oversee the EPA chemical safety effort, Michael Dourson, is so alarming. Dourson is a toxicologist for hire, who has made a career out of downplaying the dangers of toxic chemicals on behalf of the chemical and tobacco industries. He and his firm have spent decades using skewed data to create misleading scientific reports that recommend weak “safe” levels for chemicals, often hundreds or even thousands of times weaker than those established by government agencies based on the best science.
An example of Dourson’s industry-funded work that should hit home here in Nevada is perchlorate. Many Nevada families are familiar with this chemical because it contaminated drinking water in our region.
Local authorities have had to spend years to reduce the levels of perchlorate in our water. The source of the problem was the old Kerr-McGee chemical facility in Henderson, which disposed of the chemical so that it leached into the groundwater and eventually made its way into Lake Mead. Near the height of this crisis, Dourson’s firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, was hired by a perchlorate industry front group to “study” the chemical. Among the members of the front group, known as the “Perchlorate Study Group,” was none other than Kerr-McGee. Dourson and TERA argued for standards 3 to 9 times less protective than the EPA standard for perchlorate.
Such work has been par for the course for Dourson: Over and over, he has helped clients argue for less restrictive standards for their chemicals, from pesticides like chlorpyrifos that impact children’s brains, to chemicals like 1,4-dioxane and trichloroethylene known or expected to cause cancer.
No doubt, such work helps Dourson’s chemical industry clients save money or keep their products on the market. But it’s the health of our kids who suffer if his “safe” level of a chemical, like perchlorate, means too much of the stuff is allowed in our drinking water, in products in our homes, or in our schools.
Given his track record, the notion of putting Dourson in charge of our chemical safety program is nothing less than absurd. Local governments need to know they can depend on the EPA to make decisions based on impartial science, when addressing issues like perchlorate. Even more, families deserve to know that the products they buy and bring into our homes are safe. We simply cannot trust Dourson to keep our kids safe.
Frighteningly, Dourson is just one vote away from being confirmed as our nation’s top chemical safety official. I urge Sens. Dean Heller and Catherine Cortez Masto to put the safety of Nevada families first and vote no on Michael Dourson.
Marilyn Kirkpatrick is a Clark County commissioner and chair of the Southern Nevada Health District. She is a former member of the Nevada Assembly.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/nov/20/pick-for-chemical-post-a-danger-to-our-health/

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Chemical Apologist Is the Wrong Man to Oversee National Chemical Safety

Nov 20, 2017 | Bangor Daily News

By Editorial Board

We generally believe presidents should have wide to appoint people who share their views to cabinet and other executive branch positions. Some nominees, however, are so far out of the mainstream or so unqualified that their nominations should be rejected.
Michael Dourson is one of those people. President Donald Trump has nominated Dourson, a chemical industry consultant, to oversee the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Dourson isn’t just your run of the mill chemical company apologist. He built a career helping companies, like Exxon, Dow Chemical and Koch Industries, weaken and evade federal chemical safety laws. He previously did the same thing for tobacco companies. Oftentimes, his findings that chemicals were safe at very high levels were at odds with not only the recommendations of federal regulators but also the chemical companies themselves.
For example, he has argued that children are less sensitive to chemicals than adults. The scientific consensus is that children, particularly young children, are especially at risk from exposure to harmful chemicals and compounds.
This is precisely the wrong person to ensure Americans aren’t poisoned by chemicals and toxic pollution.
Fortunately, several Republican senators are speaking out. Last week, Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis of North Carolina said they would oppose Dourson’s nomination. The Republican senators expressed concerns that Dourson would downplay water contamination at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base, which has been linked to illnesses and deaths.
They also cite concerns about a chemical called GenX, which has been found in the Cape Fear River in Wilmington. The chemical maker, Dupont and Chemours, paid nearly $700 million to settle lawsuits over contamination from the chemical and its precursors, which are used in the manufacture of teflon, Gore-Tex and other coatings that repel oil and water.
Dourson, who was a consultant for Chemours and DuPont, argued that the chemical was safe, even though a panel of scientists convened by DuPont found a probable link with six illnesses: kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension and high cholesterol.
“If the head EPA chemical inspector sees nothing wrong with your children drinking these chemicals at extra-high levels, all bets are off,” the StarNews of Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote in an editorialopposing Dourson’s nomination.
Sen. Susan Collins has also expressed concerns about Dourson. “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,” she told reporters in a Senate hallway last week.
“I think it’s safe to say that I am leaning against him but I have not yet reached a final decision,” she added.
Sen. Angus King opposes the Dourson nomination.
Dourson would take over the chemical safety office as it prepares to implement the first update of the Toxic Substance Control Act. Members of Congress reached bipartisan agreement last year to provide the EPA more authority over a long list of chemicals while giving industry more certainty over their regulation.
One of the first chemicals to be reviewed, trichloroethylene (TCE), has been found in soil and groundwater in Ellsworth and Casco. Waste oilthat was disposed of in the two communities has leaked into the surrounding soil. Dourson, at the behest of chemical industry clients, has argued to allow TCE levels 15 times higher than the EPA standard.
Dourson also worked to lessen restrictions on flame retardants, putting the health of firefighters at risk. Maine lawmakers overrode a veto from Gov. Paul LePage earlier this year to prohibit the sale of new furniture containing flame-retardant chemicals.
The job of keeping Americans safe from toxic chemicals and pollution cannot be undermined by someone who made a career of downplaying the risks of toxic chemicals. Therefore, the Senate must reject Dourson’s nomination.
http://bangordailynews.com/2017/11/20/opinion/editorials/chemical-apologist-is-the-wrong-man-to-oversee-national-chemical-safety/

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EPA’s Latest Analysis Shows Perchlorate Risks to Fetal Brain Development

Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Tom Neltner

Pursuant to a consent decree with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing drinking water regulations to protect fetuses and young children from perchlorate, a toxic chemical that inhibits the thyroid’s ability to make the hormone T4 essential to brain development. The rulemaking is part of a long process that began in 2011 when the agency made a formal determination that Safe Drinking Water Act standards for perchlorate were needed. Under the consent decree, EPA should propose a standard by October 2018.
In the latest step in that process, EPA’s scientists released a draft report in September that, at long last, answers questions posed by its Science Advisory Board in 2013: does perchlorate exposure during the first trimester reduce production of T4 in pregnant women with low iodine consumption? Does reduction in maternal T4 levels in these women adversely affect fetal brain development? According to EPA’s scientists, the answers are Yes and Yes.
For several years, EPA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have developed and refined a model that would predict the effect of different doses of perchlorate on levels of T4 in pregnant women. The latest version of the model addresses women during the first trimester, especially those with low iodine intake. This is important because iodine is essential to make T4 (the number four indicates the number of iodine atoms present in the hormone); perchlorate inhibits its transport from the blood into the thyroid. The risk of perchlorate exposure to fetuses in the first trimester is greatest because brain development starts very early and is fully dependent on maternal T4. If the mother gets insufficient iodine to offset the perchlorate inhibition, she will not produce enough T4 for the fetal brain to develop properly. When free T4 (fT4) levels are low but without increase in thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), the condition is known as hypothyroxinemia. When T4 production is lowered further, the pituitary gland releases TSH to increase T4 production by a feedback loop mechanism.
EPA’s scientists reviewed 55 research studies and concluded that “Overall, the results of this literature review lend support to the concept that maternal fT4, especially in the hypothyroxinemic range, is critical to the offspring’s proper neurodevelopment” and “the impact of altered fT4 is seen even with small incremental changes in fT4 (and in populations with fT4 across the “normal” range).”[1] From the literature search, EPA identified IQ, motor skills, cognitive and language development and reaction time as measurements of neurodevelopment that enable them to quantify the effects of perchlorate exposure in the first trimester.
EPA also estimated the impact of perchlorate exposure in the population of pregnant women in the first trimester and with low iodine consumption; in other words, how many pregnant women will become hypothyroxinemic due to perchlorate exposure thus increasing the risk of adverse neurodevelopmental effects in their children. They predicted that a dose of:
· 0.3-0.4 micrograms of perchlorate per kilogram of body weight/day (µg/kg bw/day) is associated with a 1% increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia; and

· 2.1-2.2 µg/kg bw/day is associated with a 5% increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia.[2]
While these percentages appear small, they represent a significant number of potentially affected children since neurodevelopmental harm is likely irreversible. EPA did not estimate the number of pregnant women or children potentially affected. We did. Based on four million children born in the US each year,[3] an estimated 400,000 were born to women with hypothyroxinemia. A 1% shift in the population of women with hypothyroxinemia associated with perchlorate exposure would correspond to an increase of 4,000 impacted children; if there is a 5% shift, the number of impacted children born to hypothyroxinemic mothers would increase to 20,000.
The agency is accepting public comments until November 20, 2017 and will convene a peer review panel to review its findings in January 2018. After considering the panel’s feedback, EPA will develop a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) and, eventually, a drinking water standard for perchlorate. The model’s conclusions and identification of a new reference dose are also expected to inform EPA’s standards for hypochlorite bleach to limit degradation to perchlorate and FDA’s assessment of its decision to allow perchlorate to be added to plastic packaging and food handling equipment at concentrations as high as 1.2%.
EDF and NRDC submitted joint comments to EPA supporting the draft report and its analysis. We also made the following general observations:
· Incremental changes in free T4 (fT4) are fundamental: Critical neurodevelopmental adverse effects could be missed by measuring full range maternal fT4. Windows of susceptibility are common in all organs during development. Hormonal control of brain development is no exception. Therefore, adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes will vary based on the time and duration of decreases in fT4 levels. We appreciate seeing the agency building a model based on this fundamental principle of developmental biology.
· EPA’s scientists provide an essential service: Academic researchers laid a solid foundation for the analysis. Without their work, typically funded by government grants, we would not have the evidence necessary to recognize the harm from perchlorate at the levels under consideration. But it took the independent scientists at EPA, building on a model developed by FDA, to provide the objective rigorous review of the evidence and adapt the model.

· The peer-review process works: The agency rose to the challenge of two previous peer-review panels, one established by EPA’s Science Advisory Board and the other by EPA’s Office of Water. The panels operated in a transparent process and provided independent and objective review of the analysis by EPA, and we expect that this third and final panel will do the same. However, the integrity of the process depends on credibility of the experts on the panel. Screening out these experts because they receive government funding as EPA is now doing is irresponsible. It undermines the quality of the review and the credibility of the process.
[1] EPA, Draft Report, at page 5-61.
[2] EPA Draft Report, Section 7.1, Table 35 and Section 9, Table 40.
[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics System, Birth Data accessed on November 4, 201 at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/births.htm.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/20/epas-latest-analysis-shows-perchlorate-risks-to-fetal-brain-development/

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In Shadow of Paris, Montreal Could Have Big Climate Impact

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

By Benjamin Hulac

A global agreement to limit chemicals found in equipment like air conditioners was set in motion Friday, accelerating international action on climate change and increasing pressure on the United States to grapple with rising temperatures.
The Kigali Amendment, a landmark environmental effort to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, will go into effect in two years, the United Nations announced late last week, after Sweden became the 20th country to ratify the measure.
It comes as international negotiators hopscotch from the U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, to a weeklong summit advancing the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, a 30-year old treaty credited with helping to close the ozone hole. The protocol is also considered an intensely successful climate treaty because it reduced the use of highly potent greenhouse gases.
In October 2016, international negotiators agreed to the Kigali Amendment to ratchet down the use of chemical compounds found in refrigeration, air conditioner units and other consumer goods.
During those talks last year, 170 nations reached consensus on the amendment, which required at least 20 nations to ratify it before it could be entered into force.
That happened late Friday, when Sweden agreed to ratification and began a countdown toward the start of the Kigali Amendment on Jan. 1, 2019. The amendment seeks to prevent 0.5 degree Celsius of temperature rise by 2100.
Its importance in addressing climate change is often overlooked and understated. And because HFCs dissipate quickly, many climate researchers view their reduction as pivotal in staving off potentially irreversible tipping points in the climate.
"Crucially, this is the fastest climate protection available to the world today," said Paul Bledsoe, an energy lecturer at American University.
"They disappear very quickly, after a couple years in the atmosphere," he said. "It will avoid so much warming so quickly, and maybe buy us a little time to phase out CO2."
Officials hammered out the Kigali deal under the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty adopted in 1987 to phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were depleting the Earth's ozone layer with alarming speed. The treaty phased out about 99 percent of nearly 100 chemicals that are harmful to the ozone layer, though HFCs soon emerged as substitutes.
While HFCs don't deplete the ozone, they are thousands of times more powerful in warming the planet than carbon dioxide. Led by Pacific island nations, advocates have been pushing for a deal to phase out HFCS for more than a decade.
"This is a hell of a treaty and a hell of a story, that is more and more appreciated, but still not front and center," said Durwood Zaelke, founder and president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, referring to the overall Montreal Protocol.
"It's quietly done its work," Zaelke said. "And it's still quietly doing its work."
President Trump has expressed disdain for the treaty by calling it a regulation on hair spray. He has also cast doubt on the role that these chemicals have on the ozone, saying they can't escape his New York City apartment. His administration hasn't indicated whether it supports ratifying the Kigali Amendment (Climatewire, March 21, 2016).
If the U.S. Senate fails to ratify the treaty, American companies could be locked out of lucrative foreign markets, in particular in emerging-market nations, such as India, where demand for air conditioning units is booming.
"There is obviously a big industry fight for access to those markets," Bledsoe said.
Many U.S. chemical firms favor the Kigali agreement and have lobbied for it, he said. "Ratification is in the pure economic interest of the United States as a straight matter of industry policy, all climate benefits aside," Bledsoe added.
Zaelke said about 500,000 jobs in the United States are directly tied to the HFC business. "If the U.S. doesn't ratify quickly, they will lose some jobs and they will lose some market share," he said.
In September 2016, dozens of blue-chip companies issued a statement through the White House, arguing in support of efforts to slash HFC emissions.
Dell Inc., Dow Chemical Co., Ingersoll Rand and Unilever, among others, were signatories.
Sue Reid, vice president of climate and energy at Ceres, said that Honeywell and other companies have "enthusiastically backed" the Kigali Amendment. So have members of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy, a group of companies that Ceres coordinates, Reid said.
The significance of the Kigali Amendment isn't registering as many think it should in Washington.
Sterling Burnett, a research fellow at the conservative Heartland Institute, a think tank that downplays climate science, said neither Trump nor U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has weighed in on the amendment.
Burnett said if the United States signs on, the amendment should be considered a treaty, which would send it to the Senate for likely defeat.
Sarah Hunt, director of the Center for Innovation and Technology at the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative legislation exchange group, warned against using the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment as foundations to side with certain companies over others.
"Policymakers favoring free markets ought to focus on responding to those HFC environmental impacts and resist the urge to turn any Kigali-inspired U.S. actions into industrial policy favoring manufacturers of HFC alternatives," Hunt said in an emailed statement.
Nor should American lawmakers "play politics with ozone layer protection by making Kigali into a referendum on U.S. climate policy simply because HFCs also produce greenhouse gases," she said.
By early Saturday, 21 nations, including Group of Eight members Germany and the United Kingdom, had formally submitted their papers to ratify Kigali.
"This is phasing out one of six major greenhouse gases," said Bledsoe, a climate change adviser in the Clinton White House. "This is huge."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066955

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Energy News

Despite EPA Knowledge of Health Hazards, Fracking Chemicals Remain Secret

Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Working Group

By Tasha Stoiber

The Environmental Protection Agency knows that dozens of the chemicals used in fracking pose health hazards. The agency not only allows their use, but also lets the oil and gas industry keep the chemicals secret, according to a new report.
Between 2003 and 2014 the EPA identified health hazards for 41 chemicals used in fracking, according to a report from the Partnership for Policy Integrity and Earthworks, based on documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Fracking is the injection of a chemical slurry into drilling sites to free up underground oil and gas deposits. Hazards from the chemicals used included irritation to eyes and skin; harm to the liver, kidney and nervous system; and damage to the developing fetus.
Nonetheless, in most cases, the EPA allowed the chemicals to be manufactured and used without further testing. What’s more, the identities of the chemicals are hidden from the public, even though federal law authorizes the EPA to require disclosure of so-called trade secrets if there is unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.
In response to the report, over 100 scientists, health professionals and first responders wrote the EPA, asking that it make public the identities of the chemicals known to pose health hazards.
"Citizens have a right to know what health hazards we are being exposed to, especially when these hazards have been identified by government health assessments ... It is an unreasonable risk for people to be unknowingly exposed to chemicals that EPA, itself, has identified as potentially harmful," said the letter. Signers included Sandra Steingraber, author of “Living Downstream” and other acclaimed books on environmental health, and Wilma Subra, winner of a MacArthur "genius" award for her work to help vulnerable communities document the health risks of industrial pollution.
A recent investigation led by the nonprofit group Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy reported that 17.6 million Americans live within a mile of least one active oil or gas well, and could be exposed to toxic chemicals used in oil and gas production. Despite these risks, there are no federal requirements for disclosure of the names and types of toxic chemicals pumped into wells near citizens’ backyards. At the state level, California has adopted a comprehensive disclosure program for chemicals used in oil and gas, but most other states still allow protection of trade secrets.
Without knowing what chemicals are used, it is impossible to protect the health of communities in the vicinity of oil and gas production fields, especially the health of local children. When families near wells experience health problems they are often concerned that the wells play a role, but lack enough information to be sure, Marketplace found.
Their concerns are well-founded.
·     In 2014, a study by researchers from the Colorado School of Public Healthexamined data on more than 100,000 births in rural Colorado between 1996 and 2009. They found an association between the the proximity of the mother’s residence to natural gas production sites and an elevated risk of birth defects, such as heart and neural tube defects.
·     A recently published comprehensive analysis by a team of researchers from public health organizations and leading universities reported that chemicals used in oil and gas development – including fracking – can severely harm children’s brains, causing life-long learning problems and developmental disorders.

·     Of the chemicals the EPA disclosed in response to the Partnership for Policy Integrity's open records request, nearly a quarter can damage the nervous system, especially during the sensitive early development periods of fetuses and young children.
With the mounting evidence of links between fracking and health issues, it’s time for the EPA to stop suppressing information about the health risks of oil and gas production. The message from health professionals and first responders is clear: Americans deserve answers when it comes to toxic chemicals that may be used in or near their communities.
https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2017/11/despite-epa-knowledge-health-hazards-fracking-chemicals-remain-secret#.WhMPePmWY2w

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House Lawmakers Tangle over State vs. Federal Control

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire

By Pamela King

A pair of dueling House bills propose sea changes for the management of oil and gas production on publicly held lands and waters.
Democrats' "Sustainable Energy Development Reform Act," introduced by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) last week, calls for expanded federal control over the energy permitting process. Rep. Rob Bishop's (R-Utah) "SECURE American Energy Act," which carries two Democratic co-sponsors, aims to shift that power to states.
The House Natural Resources Committee — where Grijalva and Bishop serve as ranking member and chairman, respectively — reported out the Bishop legislation earlier this month (Greenwire, Nov. 8).
Bishop's proposal falls in line with an Interior Department priority to achieve U.S. "energy dominance" by streamlining permitting for oil and gas operators. Administration officials and Republicans on Capitol Hill point to requirements that applications for permit to drill (APDs) be processed in 30 days.
According to Bureau of Land Management statistics dating back to 2005, the average number of days required to work through those drilling applications has not dipped below 150 in the past decade (Energywire, Oct. 11).
The solution? Bishop and his co-sponsors propose to hand over APD responsibilities to the states.
North Dakota, for example, can approve a permit in less than 30 days, the state's chief oil regulator told a panel of the Natural Resources Committee this month.
The uncertainty of the federal process has pushed companies to file all the permits they can, said Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources.
"The backlog continues to grow," he told the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.
During the same hearing, Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) took issue with the Trump administration's characterization of the backlog of applications to drill at BLM. There are far more applications — nearly 8,000 as of this summer — that BLM has approved but that industry has not put to use, he said.
Last month, Lowenthal introduced a bill to require BLM to disclose its count of approved but unused applications to drill, after E&E News reported that the Interior agency may no longer collect those data (Energywire, Oct. 25).
The House Democrats' bill, which Lowenthal co-sponsors, includes a similar requirement.
Regulatory shifts
The Grijalva bill also proposes strengthening several Obama-era regulations, including two that are integral to oil and gas operations on public lands. BLM's hydraulic fracturing and methane rules — currently set for rescission and suspension — must either remain in effect or be strengthened, the legislation says.
Bishop's proposal would prohibit Interior from enforcing any federal regulations for fracking on public lands. The bill calls on each state to provide its own rules on the extraction practice, as well as report any chemicals used in the process.
State and federal approaches to oil and gas regulation is an "apples and oranges" comparison, Ray Brady, a former BLM staffer and a member of the Public Lands Foundation.
The bureau has a mandate to consider multiple uses, he said in testimony to the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee.
But supervision of oil and gas in states like Alaska "shows it can be done," said Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).
BLM is a multiple-use agency that under the last administration was controlled by politicals who didn't want to drill oil, he said.
"I wish they'd fess up to it," Young said.
Alaska in the crosshairsAlaska in the crosshairs
The question of who control what land — and the meaning behind those designations — was an overarching theme during last Wednesday's markup of legislation to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who introduced the legislation, said her proposal keeps environmental review procedures intact and does not necessarily deem compatibility between refuges and oil and gas drilling.
It does suggest that protection and production can work in concert, she said.
"This is not an either-or proposition," Murkowski said.
Democrats on the panel took issue with the introduction of oil and gas development as a purpose of one section of the refuge. They questioned the shift of power away from the Fish and Wildlife Service and to agencies like BLM that they said offered comparatively fewer protections.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member, said the legislation is structurally approving new development.
"The leasing and the drilling is going to happen," she said.
SEDRA would permanently designate the Arctic refuge's entire 1002 area as wilderness.
The bill "recognizes that some areas, like the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, are too special to drill," said Marissa Knodel, associate legislative counsel at Earthjustice.
Bishop's bill does not address ANWR, as the refuge is sometimes known, but it does call for a review of which lands within Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve should be made available for leasing.
Once that process is complete, Interior should move to open up those lands for leasing, the legislation says.
Bishop's bill, which has passed through committee and which carries the backing of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), could see floor action before the end of the year.
The chamber has 12 more legislative days on the calendar.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066935

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Keystone XL Pipeline Clears Major Hurdle

Nov 20, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Devin Henry and Timothy Cama

Developers of the Keystone XL pipeline secured approval Monday for the pipeline to run through Nebraska, clearing a key hurdle in the years-long fight to build the project.
The decision came after a rupture in TransCanada’s Keystone system spilled an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota last week, an incident that rankled opponents of the XL expansion.
Nebraska regulators approved plans for Keystone XL to cross the state, though the approval didn't cover TransCanada's preferred route through the state. The commission voted 3-2 to move the project forward.
The approval comes eight months after President Trump issued a presidential permit for the $8 billion, 860 barrel per day project.
Nebraska’s decision is not the last work on the project, but it is one of the last major hurdles remaining for the project.
Only the Trump administration has to issue permits for the pipeline now, though several permitting decisions — including Nebraska's — are subject to legal challenges. TransCanada itself still has to decide whether to build the pipeline, an economic question that is far from settled.
Keystone has long been a flashpoint for anti-fossil fuel activists, who have rallied environmentalists, tribes and local landowners against the pipeline. TransCanada plans for the pipeline to transport oil from Alberta, Canada, to existing infrastructure in Nebraska, where it will then travel to refineries.
The Obama administration in 2015 blocked TransCanada’s application for a presidential permit, something the project requires because it crosses the border with Canada. That decision effectively stalled the project.
But Trump revived the pipeline earlier this year, signing an executive order fast tracking its reconsideration. In March, he approved the presidential permit, kickstarting a new debate over the project.
Trump often highlights his decision to revive the project as a key accomplishment of his first year in office.
Regulators in Montana and South Dakota, the two other states Keystone XL would cross, have already approved the pipeline, making Nebraska the last major backstop. The Public Service Commission held a series of hearings on the matter this year and considered more than 500,000 comments on the proposed route across the state.
“It’s been a long path to today’s approval and the Commission should be commended,” said Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Council oil industry group.
“Pipelines such as this enhance our ability to safely deliver North American energy to our world class refineries, which in turn provide the fuels and products we all rely on every day.”
Only one commissioner spoke for or against the project on Monday.
Crystal Rhoades, an Omaha-area commissioner, questioned the economic impact of the pipeline on Nebraska and warned that a spill from the pipeline would impact environmentally sensitive areas of the state. She also said it could violate the rights of landowners in the state.
The commission’s decision is a legal decision subject to appeal, something opponents of the pipeline have said they will do. Developers still need to secure approval from two federal agencies, and permitting decisions in South Dakota and federally are the subject of environmentalist and tribal lawsuits.
“Regardless of the Public Service Commission’s decision today, millions of people across the country will continue to speak out and demand that the Keystone XL project never gets built,” Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said Monday.
“It is disappointing that the Public Service Commission sided with a foreign oil company over the interests of American communities who would be threatened by this pipeline, but we remain confident that Keystone XL will never be built.”
Thursday’s spill from a sister pipeline added a late twist to the Keystone XL saga.
TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline spilled about 210,000 gallons of oil in rural South Dakota on Thursday, with the pipeline shutting down for repair and cleanup work.
Environmentalists hammered TransCanada for the spill and warned that it previewed potential spills from the larger Keystone XL project. But Nebraska law bars commissioners from considering the threat of an oil spill when permitting pipelines, because spill prevention and cleanup is a federal issue rather than a state one.
Despite the Monday approval, TransCanada still has not made a final decision to build Keystone XL.
Company executives told investors earlier this month that they would make a final investment decision in the coming months, based largely on Nebraska’s decision and on whether there is enough interest from oil companies who would be potential customers.
“I think we let those two events play out and that will give us greater visibility into our final investment decision,” Paul Miller, president of the company’s pipelines business, told investors.
“We’re quite encouraged with the results that we’ve seen.”
TransCanada President Russ Girling reiterated that the company is bullish about Keystone XL.
“Overall, we expect support for the project to be substantially similar to that which existed when we first applied for the Keystone pipeline permit,” he said. “To be clear, production of Canadian heavy oil continues to grow, and the need for new pipeline transportation capacity remains high.”
—Updated at 12:14 p.m.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/361194-keystone-xl-approved-to-run-through-nebraska

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State Department May Need to Review New Keystone XL Route

Nov 20, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Ben Lefebvre

The State Department is reviewing Nebraska's decision on approving an alternate route for the Keystone XL pipeline to clarify whether it needs to re-approve the controversial pipeline, a department spokesman said.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission today approved an alternate route for Keystone XL, parts of which are east of the path pipeline builder TransCanada originally proposed through the state. Opponents of the project say the new route will require the company to apply for several new BLM and Army Corps of Engineers permits and could even trigger a new State Department review of the pipeline route.
“This decision today throws the entire project into a huge legal question mark,” said Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb, a leader of the anti-Keystone movement, in a press conference today. “TransCanada will have to go back to the State Department because that route has never been reviewed by the feds.”
The State Department said it is reviewing the PSC decision for just such a possibility.
“We won’t know about any impacts until we learn precisely the extent of any changes, something we are currently engaged in,” State Department spokesman Vincent Campos said.
TransCanada said it is evaluating its options.
"As a result of today's decision, we will conduct a careful review of the Public Service Commission's ruling while assessing how the decision would impact the cost and schedule of the project," TransCanada President and CEO Russ Girling said in a statement.
WHAT'S NEXT: Appeals to the Keystone XL route decision can be filed within 30 days.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Another Keystone Oil Spill, Another Obvious Reason to Fund the EPA

Nov 20, 2017 | The Hill - Opinion

By John O'Grady

The Keystone 1 pipeline spilled 210,000 gallons of oil near a small town in South Dakota Thursday. The last Keystone spill in April 2016 contaminated Hutchinson County, South Dakota with 400 barrels of oil, and took around 10 months to clean up. This disaster is expected to take longer.
Keystone 1 carries 590,000 barrels crude oil per day from Alberta's oil sands to markets in the United States. The pipeline is operated by TransCanada Corp. — the same company pushing for approval of the contested Keystone XL pipeline. The Nebraska Public Service Commission is expected to decide the fate of the Keystone XL proposed expansion on Nov. 20, which would traverse the state, though state law does not allow pipeline safety to be a factor in the commission’s decision.
When permitted to crisscross America, pipeline spills are inevitable. They threaten our communities, our land and our drinking water supply. The Keystone 1 pipeline’s defects include “dents, faulty welds, and pinholes in some sections enough to see daylight through,” according to environmental scientist James Conca.
The Keystone 1 is not the only pipeline that should be watched vigilantly; hundreds of miles of pipelines operated by Enbridge Oil lie beneath the Great Lakes and threaten drinking water resources for over 30 million people.
Who responds immediately to these historic oil spills and other infamous ones like Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon and the Enbridge Kalamazoo River? The Environmental Protection Agency. But, the Trump administration has laid siege to EPA with zealous, anti-regulation Republican lawmakers not far behind.
The House fiscal 2018 Appropriations bill cuts to EPA’s overall funding are $656 million below the fiscal 2017 level.
The real threat to our safety is in the details. That House bill cuts Environmental Programs and Management (EPM) to 24 percent below last year’s level. That cut will devastate the fund that pays for more than two-thirds of EPA’s workforce, including the essential staff — scientists and toxicologists ready to act. That expense supports critical functions including enforcement of anti-pollution rules, supervision of states that implement those requirements, air and water quality monitors and measurements and safety standards.
A 24 percent cut to the EPA’s EPM fund would result in thousands of engineers and inspectors losing their jobs. Also, a reduced budget would leave the American people high and dry during environmental emergencies like frequent pipeline spills. The Senate should reject the House Appropriations bill, which devastates staffing and EPA’s ability to afford a cleaner, healthier future.
Americans assume the risks, while Canada, China and Latin America profit. The Keystone XL promotes the export of Canadian tar sands oil and its refined products to non-U.S. markets, especially China and Latin America. It would be some solace, I suppose, if Keystone XL Pipeline were to benefit us. But the U.S. tragically experiences more spills and pollution, and costlier clean-up burdens.
Besides achieving steep industry profits, what is the upshot? Fossil fuels receive four times more taxpayer subsidies than clean energy while renewables create three times the number of domestic jobs. Financing fossil fuel infrastructure and adding capacity to move that oil exacerbates the climate crisis.
Since Trump announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, more than 2,500 local leaders from 50 states signed the “We are still in” declaration. Those leaders represent more than half of all Americans in areas responsible for nearly 10 percent of the total global emissions. Prolonging the use of coal, oil and natural gas, and their deregulated emissions speed up climate change. Energy independence is only part of the equation. America must take this opportunity to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels altogether, and build cleaner renewable energy facilities.
Spending precious resources fighting over a carbon-rich and methane polluting pipeline as the destruction of our natural resources deepens is short-sighted to the extreme. Rather than authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline, it is time to hire construction workers to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. We must replace our lead drinking water pipes, modernize our sewer systems and reduce raw sewage discharging to lakes and streams. We must repair our weakened electricity grid, aging bridges, strained air traffic control system...the list goes on.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission should cast its vision to a future free of fossil fuels, and shut down the Keystone XL. Endorsing more pipelines does not move us to a sustainable future.
John O’Grady is president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National Council of EPA Locals #238 representing over 9,000 bargaining unit employees at the U.S. EPA nationwide.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/361093-another-keystone-oil-spill-another-obvious-reason-to-fund-the-epa

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Alaska Advances Pipeline Deal with China, but Hurdles Remain

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire

By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The state of Alaska is pushing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to fast-track its environmental review of the state's ambitious $43 billion natural gas pipeline and export project, despite Alaska's delays in providing information requested by FERC regulators.
In a Nov. 16 letter to the commission, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a state-owned corporation, urged regulators to issue an environmental review schedule for the gas export project by Dec. 15 and to sign the final approval for the project by the end of 2018.
AGDC Senior Vice President Frank Richards told FERC that an immediate schedule is needed to "provide valuable assurance to the market that the regulatory process is on track and consistent with Alaska's LNG's targeted in-service date."
He noted that the timeline could be modified later if the state fails to provide necessary data.
The letter was sent a week after Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) signed a joint development agreement with three large Chinese companies that are considering partnering with AGDC to build, finance and buy gas from the Alaska pipeline project.
A final contract with those companies is targeted for the end of 2018. Walker is aiming to break ground for the megaproject by 2019 and begin shipping natural gas by 2023.
Alaska state officials describe the LNG initiative as one of the largest energy projects in the nation's history. The venture would consist of a gas treatment plant on the North Slope, an 800-mile pipeline through the heart of the state, and a liquefaction plant and export terminal on the state's southern shore. It would also include a feeder line from Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Point Thomson gas field to the Prudhoe Bay gas treatment plant.
In leaning on FERC to move quickly, AGDC's Richards reminded federal regulators that President Trump supports LNG export projects and has issued a series of directives ordering federal agencies to limit federal environmental reviews.
But Larry Persily, former U.S. coordinator for Alaska natural gas projects, said the state's proposed schedule for assessing the environmental impacts of the Alaska LNG project is unrealistic and could open the plan to legal challenges and delays.
"In 54 weeks, they want FERC to put together a draft environmental impact statement, get public comments, put together the final EIS, another round of public comments, then write the final commission order," Persily said. "The Trump administration believes in streamlined permitting, but this is like a NASA rocket launch."
To speed federal approval of Alaska's megaproject, the state asked FERC to use environmental analysis data that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed for a separate, smaller state pipeline venture.
That project, known as the Alaska Stand Alone Pipeline (ASAP), "has raised the same wetlands issues currently being reviewed in connection with the Alaska LNG project," according to Richards.
However, the ASAP gas project would be smaller and carry less gas at a lower pressure than the Alaska LNG venture. It would also follow a slightly different path than the export project. The ASAP operation would be designed to provide 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to Alaska state residents and businesses.
In contrast, the Alaska LNG operation would carry an average 3.1 billion cubic feet of gas per day to a Nikiski liquefaction facility where the majority of it will be exported to Asia. The export pipeline would also provide gas off-take links at several sites along the route. Richards asked FERC to waive commission wetlands construction requirements that are more rigorous than the Army Corp mandates.
"If not waived, these procedures will have a significant impact on project construction planning, schedule and cost," he said in the letter.
The Alaska LNG project was initially developed as a joint partnership between the state and Alaska's three major oil companies: Exxon Mobil, BP Alaska and ConocoPhillips Co. But the industry participants dropped out late last year citing strong economic headwinds for the expensive project.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066943

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Growing Gas Glut Threatens West Texas Oil Boom

Nov 20, 2017 | Wall Street Journal

By Ryan Dezember and Alison Sider

Natural gas is gushing out of West Texas, a byproduct of frenzied drilling for oil. That is a problem for energy producers, who are running out of places to send it all.
Pipelines running from the region’s Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast’s chemical plants, cities and export terminals are essentially full. Drillers in the Rockies and Canada already supply markets in the north and west.
There is plenty of room on pipelines running south to Mexico, which has emerged as a major market for U.S. producers, but there is a catch: much of the gas distribution infrastructure and power plants there that would buy the fuel haven’t been built yet.
The growing gas glut is already weighing on regional prices. Natural gas prices at the Waha trading hub in West Texas have fallen to much as 57 cents per million British thermal units—or about 20%—below spot prices at Louisiana’s Henry Hub, the national benchmark, according to S&P Global Platts. Analysts forecast the gap exceeding $1 next year, or about a third of the $3 that U.S. natural gas futures have hovered around this year.
That is good news to regional gas consumers, such as power producers, who can profit from the lower price. Electricity provider Vistra EnergyCorp. said it paid $350 million in August for a power plant in Odessa, Texas, to take advantage of the cheap fuel.
But for oil and gas producers, the excess supply could potentially force them to take drastic measures—such as capping wells and curtailing oil drilling—until new pipelines to the Gulf Coast are built and planned power plants come online in Mexico.
“We’re headed into a situation that’s never happened before,” said Rusty Braziel, a former trader who heads consultant RBN Energy LLC. “They’re making money on crude. They need to make sure the lack of gas takeaway capacity doesn’t affect their crude production.”
So far, Permian drillers have been unresponsive to falling local gas prices, focusing instead on U.S. crude prices which are trading around a two-year high at about $57 a barrel. Last week, 391 rigs were operating in the Permian, up 71% from a year ago, according to Baker Hughes.
But gas is fast becoming a major issue for companies in West Texas. Some drillers are racing to lock up space on pipelines so they can get their gas out of the Permian. Analysts say pipeline access could become important information tracked by energy investors.
Some companies, like Centennial Resource Development Inc., are paying for guarantees that their gas gets delivered. The oil producer’s finance chief George Glyphis recently told analysts that a roughly 14% increase in the company’s third-quarter gathering and transportation costs was mostly due to paying pipeline operators to guarantee space, “a prudent measure to ensure that our gas gets to market so that oil production can proceed unabated.”
Permian producers including Encana Corp. and WPX Energy Inc.have also recently highlighted steps they have taken to ensure they can move gas out of the West Texas.
Pipeline operators are poised to benefit from the congestion due to higher volumes moving through their tubes and in some cases by trading in the fuel and charging more for space.
Kinder Morgan Inc. KMI +0.53% says the glut has spurred producers to sign up for space on a 430-mile-long pipeline that it and two rivals plan to build between Waha and a trading hub near Corpus Christi.
The demand reflects concerns “that the volumes going to Mexico...are not materializing as quickly, maybe, as the pipeline capacity to move to Mexico has materialized,” Kinder Morgan Chief Executive Steven Kean told investors last month.
That pipeline, the Gulf Coast Express, and three competing trade routes won’t be completed until at least late 2019, though. Meanwhile, producers’ hopes are pinned to Mexico, which in August imported nearly 5% of total U.S. production, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
Mexico is likely to import increasing volumes of gas to fuel new power plants as it replaces aging ones that burn oil and coal with gas-fueled facilities. That is part of a plan to open its energy sector to private investment and create a market for wholesale power.
Much of the added demand from Mexico will be piped from the Permian—eventually.
“If Mexican pipelines are not on by the end of next year, we could even see shut ins and flaring,” Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analysts said in a recent report, referring to extreme measures like capping wells, curtailing drilling and setting gas aflame in the desert instead of selling it.
Bernstein analysts estimate that the roughly 6 billion cubic feet of gas that needs to be moved out of West Texas each day will rise to 8.5 billion cubic feet by late 2019, assuming oil prices remain high enough to encourage drilling. That will exceed what pipelines can transport north, east and west from the Permian.
“There is a very pertinent timing issue,” said Ross Wyeno, an analyst at S&P Global Platts. “Will this Mexican capacity come online in late 2018 to help alleviate this looming constraint?”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-a-growing-gas-glut-could-imperil-the-west-texas-oil-boom-1510870178

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Colorado Sets Tougher Air Monitoring for Smaller Front Range Wells

Nov 20, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Richard Nemec

Colorado’s energy industry and environmental groups have thrown their support behind more stringent air quality monitoring for smaller oil and natural gas facilities operating in the Front Range.
The Air Quality Control Commission of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) last week voted unanimously to increase the monitoring frequency of the smaller wells in the greater Denver area and north into Weld County, the heart of Denver-Julesburg Basin’s oil and gas production. The nonattainment ozone area exceeds federal standards.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), as well as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), jointly supported the action, noting they had worked collaboratively with the AQCC "to achieve compromise in several key areas, and we jointly support approval of these revisions." The groups said the tougher rules would lead to "meaningful emissions reductions."
Revisions include increased leak inspections frequency for certain facilities; an upgraded inspection approach for pneumatic controllers; and a mutual commitment to seek potential areas for more cost-effective hydrocarbon reductions.
Small wells are slated to be checked annually versus a check only once in the well’s lifetime. Slightly larger wells would be checked twice each year versus once a year.
"Colorado has the most technologically advanced, strictly regulated, and well-controlled oil and natural gas operations anywhere in the country, and we continue to get better," said COGA CEO Dan Haley.
EDF's Dan Grossman, national director of state programs, said the collaboration was indication that regulators, industry and environmental groups are "capable of putting politics aside" to make progress on reducing pollution from the oil and gas sector.
"There is still more work to do, but approaching policy initiatives in this manner benefits Coloradans," Grossman said.
Separately, two DPHE divisions earlier this month established an oil and gas health information response group to provide a one-stop resource for residents with concerns about health effects from operations in their communities. The collaborative effort is between the Air Pollution Control and Disease Control and Environmental Epidemiology divisions includes includes experts in oil and gas operations, air quality measurement, exposure assessment, toxicology, environmental medicine and health communications.
The group's main goals are to provide quick responses to citizens and local government health concerns; monitor/analyze oil and gas health trends; apply state-of-the-art air quality measurement and risk assessment to citizen concerns; and effectively communicate the group's findings and any health risks uncovered.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112500-colorado-sets-tougher-air-monitoring-for-smaller-front-range-wells

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Chemical Security News

Chicago Intends to Sue U.S. Steel After 2 Toxic Spills This Year, Mayor Says

Nov 20, 2017 | Chicago Tribune

By Tony Briscoe and Michael Hawthorne

The city of Chicago is expected to take the first step toward filing a federal suit against U.S. Steel, alleging the company repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act following a pair of toxic spills into Lake Michigan waterways near its northwest Indiana plant, city officials announced Sunday.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was joined by leaders of several local environmental organizations at a news conference Sunday at City Hall where he declared the city will file a notice of intent to sue U.S. Steel on Monday morning. The announcement comes after the company’s Midwest plant in Portage, Ind., dumped more than its permitted amount of chromium into a Lake Michigan tributary on two separate occasions this year.
In the most recent spill Oct. 25, documents reveal the company requested "confidential treatment" after a wastewater treatment system at the plant malfunctioned, releasing a plume of 56.7 pounds of chromium into the water — 89 percent of the amount permitted over 24 hours. Environmental Protection Agency officials said they were not notified about the incident until nearly three weeks later, following inquiries by the Chicago Tribune.
Emanuel condemned the latest spill as a deliberate attempt by U.S. Steel to skirt its obligation to report these incidents to the EPA. Though it’s unclear if the spills were accidental, Emanuel criticized the company’s lack of transparency, which he said is driven by a lax environmental stance from the EPA under the Trump administration.
“The silence from the Trump EPA has led the city of Chicago to sue and to also shake up and wake up the EPA to their responsibilities,” Emanuel said.
“It’s unacceptable and it’s not an accident that U.S. Steel did not report the incident to the EPA, because they think that, in fact, there is nobody there that they are responsible or accountable to,” Emanuel continued. “Chicago will fight against that mindset.”
A statement released Sunday by U.S. Steel says the October mishap “did not pose any danger to water supply or human health.” The company says it promptly communicated with the state but didn’t mention federal regulators.
“U.S. Steel is committed to complying with all environmental standards, to ensuring the safety of our employees and our neighbors in the communities in which we live and operate, and to safeguarding our shared environment,” the statement reads.
In April, fishermen spotted a bigger spill in Burns Waterway, a man-made slip that runs along the west edge of the steel mill and drains into Lake Michigan, prompting emergency personnel from the EPA's Chicago office to respond.
U.S. Steel later reported that 346 pounds of chromium had poured out of a rusted pipe into the waterway, including 298 pounds of hexavalent chromium, a highly toxic version of the metal. A month later the company filed another report that estimated substantially more hexavalent chromium ended up in the waterway — 920 pounds — but it dismissed the finding as an "absurd result" from a single water sample.
It remains unclear how much hexavalent chromium was released in the October spill.
“This evidence shows that they are repeatedly violating the discharge limits imposed upon them and they are neglecting to properly maintain their facility, which could lead to … unlawful discharges in the future,” said Edward Siskel, Chicago’s corporation counsel.
Siskel said copies of the notices to sue would be sent to the EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the regulators responsible for enforcing pollution restrictions. U.S. Steel will have 60 days to respond to provide information about its Portage operation and any violations of its permit, Siskel said.
The pollution by U.S. Steel was first uncovered by law students at the University of Chicago’s Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, who have said they are preparing to file a lawsuit against the Pittsburgh-based steel giant for repeated violations of the federal Clean Water Act since 2011 on behalf of the Chicago chapter of Surfrider, a nonprofit group advocating for water quality improvements for Great Lakes surfers.
Hexavalent chromium can cause stomach cancer, and other studies have claimed it increases the risk of reproductive problems, child development issues and liver and kidney damage.
Mark Templeton, director of the U. of C. environmental law clinic, said surfers have reported skin rashes after swimming in the waters, though it’s unclear if those are directly tied to chromium spills.
The spills have also heightened concerns in Chicago, which draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan. A drinking water intake at 68th Street is about 20 miles from the steel mill, which uses the metal to make products rust-resistant.
On Sunday, Emanuel tried to alleviate those worries.
“The drinking water in Chicago is safe,” Emanuel said. Monday’s legal action will put “people on notice so it never gets to that point.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chromium-spills-city-lawsuit-20171119-story.html

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Gas Industry Joins Power Sector War Game

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

An electric grid security exercise last week rattled the power sector with a string of simulated physical attacks on U.S. gas infrastructure, officials say, underscoring the growing interdependence between the two industries.
Natural gas has rapidly overtaken coal as the biggest fuel source for electricity generation in the U.S. in recent years, leaving clusters of power plants in some regions heavily reliant on a single gas pipeline to keep the lights on, according to grid overseers.
Those trends were put to the test last week during the biennial GridEx exercise organized by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
"There is absolutely a recognition that more and more electric generation is being fed by natural gas, for a variety of reasons," said Jim Linn, managing director of information technology for the American Gas Association. "There's a desire to make sure that natural gas is going to be there and be resilient like the electric industry."
Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, took part in the executive tabletop portion of the exercise Thursday for the first time, officials say. The event scenario throws a smorgasbord of simulated cyber and physical attacks at utility CEOs, cybersecurity experts and officials from various federal agencies and the White House.
During the last exercise, GridEx III in 2015, a representative from the natural gas industry attended as an observer.
This year, the sector played a more hands-on role through its Downstream Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center, an online hub designed to spread the word about the latest cyber and physical threats and vulnerabilities.
NERC announced earlier this year that its own information sharing portal, the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, would join forces with the gas group to help combat threats to both sectors.
Bill Lawrence, director of the E-ISAC who helped organize GridEx IV, said that recent agreement "proved extremely beneficial to coordinating crisis response and reducing security risk to both the electric and gas subsectors in the exercise scenario." He added that the lessons learned from the exercise "will benefit real-world activities by each ISAC," while noting that a confidential report with key lessons is being prepared for early next year.
Lawrence emphasized that this year's event included not just natural gas but also representatives from the communications, financial and supply chain industries, as well as state and federal government officials.
He said there were "robust discussions on cross-sector interdependencies" at the executive tabletop session, adding that the exercise uncovered some gaps.
Different standards
Despite coordination between the gas and power sectors' information sharing centers, the two industries don't see eye to eye on security regulations.
Last Tuesday, the day before more than 6,000 utility industry participants kicked off the "distributed play" portion of GridEx, NERC officials questioned why the gas industry isn't bound by the same set of security standards that apply to large power utilities.
"The natural gas industry should have the same cyber and physical security standards that have been established by NERC," said Thomas Coleman, director of reliability assessments at the nonprofit regulator.
NERC sets and enforces cyber and physical security rules for the bulk power system through its critical infrastructure protection standards, backed by potential fines that can top a million dollars per violation per day. The regulations are backstopped by authorities at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who can request new rules and sign off on any changes to the standards.
By contrast, major gas transmission pipelines and compressor stations fall under the oversight of the Transportation Security Administration, an agency better known and better funded for guarding airports. An E&E News investigation earlier this year showed TSA is critically understaffed to effectively review the security of more than 300,000 miles of interstate gas pipelines and associated infrastructure (Energywire, May 25).
AGA's Linn defended the voluntary pipeline oversight system run through TSA, noting that the "partnership that exists there is strong and serves a purpose."
TSA's security guidelines aren't identical to NERC's, he said, but Linn said they have been getting updated over the past year. Linn said the new version of pipeline security standards "has been very heavily influenced" by a popular cyber risk management framework published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in early 2014. "I think most folks would agree that's a good thing," he said.
Linn, who is also the executive director of the DNG-ISAC, said GridEx and recent gas industry actions "have demonstrated a commitment to pursue physical and cyber security.
"A 'relief'
Grid security officials were tight-lipped about the details of this year's scenario.
Past GridEx events have featured coordinated attacks on large power transformers and critical substations, armed drones and sophisticated hacking campaigns.
This year's event simulated social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to force utilities to consider how they would get the word out in a media environment rife with incomplete and misleading information.
Whenever GridEx wraps up, there's a sense of "relief," noted Scott Aaronson, executive director for security and business continuity at the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group representing large investor-owned power utilities. Still, he pointed out that the event isn't really over — "now, we take the lessons learned and apply them."
The inaugural GridEx, in 2011, caused the industry to re-evaluate its ability to share spare equipment like large power transformers, among other changes, officials say.
Two years later, GridEx II led to the creation of an emergency response playbook for a group of utility CEOs organized under the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council.
Cybersecurity challenges laid bare by GridEx III prompted the industry to establish a "cyber mutual assistance program" for sharing security professionals during a hacking crisis, much like line workers can be called across state lines to help recover following a hurricane.
Aaronson said he is still digesting the results of this year's exercise and would wait for an after-action report from NERC to comment on specific takeaways from GridEx IV.
But he said that "there was a really big focus on how we work with other critical, interdependent sectors" in addition to putting state and local governments' roles under the microscope.
"It's not supposed to be something easily addressed — it was a really big set of extraordinary circumstances to test us," he said of the scenario.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066939

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Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

BNSF Says Changes Made Since South Dakota 2015 Derailment

Nov 20, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)

BNSF Railway says it’s using an alternative route for moving hazardous material through parts of South Dakota since federal transportation investigators determined a broken rail probably caused the derailment of a train carrying ethanol two years ago.
BNSF spokeswoman Amy Beth said Monday the railroad has also made investments in its infrastructure since the derailment near Lesterville in September of 2015 that spilled nearly 50,000 gallons (189,000 liters) of denatured fuel alcohol. A fire erupted and caused more than $1 million in damage. No one was hurt.
The NTSB report issued earlier this year says BNSF Railway’s decision to defer track maintenance and operate trains carrying flammable cargo likely caused the derailment of seven cars.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ntsb-cites-broken-rail-in-2015-derailment-in-south-dakota/2017/11/20/09a4d39c-ce0c-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_story.html?utm_term=.73dc333ee533

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Environment News

Crunching New Numbers for a Potent Greenhouse Gas

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

By Niina Heikkinen

The Trump administration is tweaking how it measures the costs of emitting a potent greenhouse gas, a move that will have major impacts for climate rules.
Known as the social cost of methane, this obscure metric is a younger counterpart to the better-known social cost of carbon.
Economists and scientists developed the calculation to give policymakers a better idea of the economic benefits of cutting methane emissions. Its revision by the Trump administration is part of a broader shift within the federal government to downplay the impacts of climate change and will have important implications for how U.S. EPA regulates greenhouse gases.
After carbon dioxide, methane is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The shorter-lived gas has a much stronger warming effect than CO2. Over 100 years, methane's warming impact is over 30 times that of carbon dioxide.
That difference is reflected in the social cost of methane calculated under the Obama administration. For 2020, its price was set at about $1,400 per metric ton. That's orders of magnitude greater than the social cost of carbon — about $50 per metric ton.
Under Administrator Scott Pruitt, the Trump EPA is taking a different approach. The agency recently set an interim social cost of methane at $55 per metric ton in 2020, more than 25 times less than the estimate of the previous administration.
The agency will use this value "until an improved estimate of the impacts of climate change in the U.S. can be developed based on the best available science and economics," an EPA spokesperson said in an email.
EPA revealed how it was reshaping methane's impact in a recently published notice. The agency was seeking comment for a proposal to delay implementation of portions of an Obama-era rule aimed at controlling methane emissions from new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry. EPA estimated that the climate benefits the United States would give up by delaying the rule for a year would be between $4.3 million and $13 million.
Pruitt isn't the only one taking a cudgel to climate impact estimates. The Interior Department Bureau of Land Management's interim value for the social cost of methane is at about $162 per metric ton.
Domestic focus
So why are the numbers shrinking under the Trump administration? Part of the reason is EPA is only considering the domestic cost of methane emissions in its calculations, a fact that critics say severely underestimates the global environmental harm caused by the gas. The administration is taking a similar approach in its revisions to the social cost of carbon (Climatewire, Oct. 25).
Jason Schwartz, a research scholar at New York University School of Law, slammed the Trump administration's changes to calculations for the social cost of greenhouse gases. "They have begun to manipulate those estimates in ways that are not at all consistent with the best science or economics," he said.
A guide on the social cost of greenhouse gases co-authored by Schwartz and published by NYU's Institute for Policy Integrity argues that using a domestic-emissions-only approach doesn't make sense for the United States or the rest of the world.
"Because greenhouse pollution does not stay within geographic borders but rather mixes in the atmosphere and affects the climate worldwide, each ton emitted by the United States or a particular U.S. state not only creates domestic harms, but also imposes large externalities on the rest of the world. Conversely, each ton of greenhouse gases abated in another country benefits the United States along with the rest of the world," the authors wrote.
The other problem with the approach, according to the guide, is the existing methods for calculating the "domestic-only" value of the social cost of methane are neither reliable nor complete.
Instead, the Institute for Policy Integrity recommended the best approach would be to use the calculations put forward by the Obama administration's Interagency Working Group in August 2016, which set a social cost of methane at $1,200 per metric ton for 2020 in 2007 dollars ($1,400 in today's dollars).
EPA isn't just using domestic values for methane emissions. It's also changing the discount rate — a calculation that considers how much society is willing to pay now to avoid future damage.
The Trump administration is using higher discount rates of 3 to 7 percent. Under President Obama, the highest discount rate was 5 percent. That might not sound like much of a difference, but over many decades those percentage-point shifts are substantial, according to Andres Restrepo, staff attorney at the Sierra Club.
"The basic idea is that when you have costs or benefits from some sort of regulatory policy that will happen in the future, if you want to know the value today, the standard practice is to discount them by a certain degree," he said.
Schwartz said that there was "virtually no support" among economists for using a 7 percent discount rate.
"It's like saying, 'I'm only willing to spend a couple dollars right now to keep the entire economy from being destroyed for my great-great-grandchildren. It sounds like an absurd statement," Schwartz said.
Justification for stalling rules?
The faltering federal controls on methane followed a growing recognition of the gas's impact on the climate that translated into regulations on methane emissions for landfills and the oil and gas industry toward the end of Obama's second term.
In addition to crafting regulations, the Obama administration sought to expand methane reduction initiatives beyond its own borders. The United States, along with Canada and Mexico, announced in June 2016 that they planned to work together to limit methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2025. The Trump administration canceled the international collaboration — known as the "Methane Strategy" — as part of the president's energy independence executive order.
"EPA continues to collaborate with Canada and Mexico on a number of environmental initiatives," said an EPA spokesperson.
While the Obama administration made a late push to control methane, environmental groups often referred to the regulations on the books as a good jumping-off point but not nearly strict enough to match the threat, particularly over the short term.
The Center for Biological Diversity took particular issue with the way the agency calculated methane's potency. The gas only stays in the atmosphere for a dozen years. That means emissions have an intense but relatively short-lived impact on the climate.
The environmental group cites the recommendations of a 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report as a reason for EPA to dramatically shorten the time frame over which it calculates greenhouse gas impact — from 100 years down to 20.
"Methane has a very different impact over a 20-year period than over a 100-year period," said Vera Pardee, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Under a 20-year period, fossil fuel methane is 87 times as much as CO2, over a 100-year period it's 36 times as much."
Pruitt's latest change will further ratchet down methane's estimated impact. The administrator could use the resulting lower climate benefits to justify stalling the rules on the grounds that the compliance costs to the industry over the two-year stay of the oil and gas rule outweigh the value of any reductions in methane, said Restrepo.
"Obviously I think those numbers are unlawfully unjustifiable," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066951

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Confused by U.S. Climate Messaging? We Break It Ddown

Nov 20, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

By Jean Chemnick

The United States didn't send one delegation to the climate talks that wrapped up here Saturday, it sent three.
The high-profile climate champions, career diplomats and Trump political aides offered a schizophrenic view of U.S. climate politics, since they all represented different viewpoints. But they also worked together, in a way, to soften the United States' image globally after President Trump vowed to quit the Paris Agreement.
The skeleton crews sent by the State Department and other agencies to represent the United States in the negotiating rooms of the former West Germany parliament building did the actual work of the conference. It was aimed at hammering out the rulebook for the Paris accord.
The State Department team, led by Office of Global Change Director Trigg Talley, has been coming to these talks for years, and in some cases decades. It helped to secure the Paris deal with 195 countries in 2015, after years of stops and starts. It knows where the geopolitical fault lines and U.S. interests lie. And if team members left their jobs in the current climate of hiring freezes and proposed budget cuts, they would almost certainly not be replaced.
Foreign negotiators who worked with these diplomats here say they were constructive in closed-door sessions, generally advancing the same objectives on transparency and shared responsibility that they have in years past.
"They are still engaged," said one negotiator.
Another, Alf Willis, South Africa's lead climate negotiator, said, "They definitely are protecting the Paris Agreement."
But it's a deal that the United States is not likely to long be part of. The president and his team have hinted at the possibility that the exit from the accord in 2020 might not occur if "suitable terms for re-engagement can be identified." But none of them has said what those terms are. And they appear not to have been discussed in Bonn.
All this leaves the U.S. professional team in a somewhat melancholy position.
"I can't imagine that anyone who cares about climate change and has devoted a good chunk of their professional life, whether they're in their 30s or 40s or older, would be happy about the idea that the U.S. is pulling out of this agreement," said Andrew Light, a former political member of the State Department's negotiating team in Paris who is now at the World Resources Institute.
But the team also had a task in the years before Trump's exit would be complete.
It was here to defend the gains made by the United States and its developed world partners in Paris, including the removal of old divides between rich and poor countries, methods for assessing progress, and a reaffirmation that countries make their own commitments. If those advances are reversed, the deal becomes brittle, its U.S. architects say, and it would become harder for the United States to return under this administration or a future one.
"To me it seems like there are two possible objectives, and they're not necessarily different in substance," said Sue Biniaz, a former career member of the U.S. climate negotiating team. "The same types of policies that they would be pushing would also help a new administration to come back if they end up pulling out."
A top-down agreement with legally binding commitments of aid or action or a deal that let major developing emitters like China and India off the hook would not pass muster even in a Democratic administration, especially if it required Senate ratification.
"I think they're trying to keep the options open," said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Judith Garber, State's acting assistant secretary for oceans, environment and science and a career diplomat, seemed to direct her remarks to the foreign delegations gathered in the room by making a quick nod to Trump's exit plans before listing all the ways the United States is still active on climate. Those include supporting Power Africa and the Clean Energy Ministerial.
"Irrespective of our views on the Paris Agreement, the United States will continue to be a leader in clean energy and innovation, and we understand the need for transforming energy systems," she said in remarks that were probably prepared for Undersecretary of Political Affairs Tom Shannon, who pulled out at the last minute due to a family emergency.
The fight to preserve Paris' success in breaking down the "firewall" of past years is compromised because the United States doesn't have domestic actions or diplomatic assistance to offer here. Trump is in the midst of dismantling his predecessor's domestic environmental legacy, and his bare-bones aid budget for fiscal 2018 gives the U.S. delegation little to offer to developing nations.
Other countries like Canada and some in Europe share U.S. positions on bifurcation and liability for climate damages. But while they're trying to step into the breach, they spent much of this conference being criticized for hiding behind U.S. intransigence. Meanwhile, China has gained leverage.
The U.S. Climate Action Center
While career diplomats labored, a steady stream of U.S. dignitaries, ranging from governors to senators to former Vice President Al Gore, cycled through a large white blow-up "igloo" alongside the negotiating space. Sponsored by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and featuring free food and espresso, the U.S. Climate Action Center became a bullhorn for pro-Paris activists. They were mostly Democrats trying to counter foreign pessimism resulting from Trump's election.
"I was a bit skeptical, but the collective signal of U.S. engagement that was given through them has been hugely helpful," said one negotiator.
Participants like Democratic Govs. Jerry Brown of California and Jay Inslee of Washington may not have been interfacing with the delegates in the rooms, but they appeared alongside ministers in delegation offices and national pavilions, making announcements, launching partnerships and generally extending a U.S. olive branch to any country willing to offer new climate ambition.
Brown visited the Chinese pavilion to celebrate the country's impending launch of the world's largest carbon trading market, while Inslee fielded questions about the tri-national climate strategy that former President Obama launched with Mexico and Canada last year.
Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), who also made the trip, joined 20 countries in pledging to phase out coal-fired power by 2020.
"Many other countries are more or less doing the thing that we are doing, and finding new partners in the United States with subnational authorities," said Rodolfo Lacy, Mexico's deputy secretary of planning and environmental policy. "Partners that we have in the United States are convinced that climate change is real and they are investing in the future."
E.U. climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said future Conferences of the Parties (COPs) would be significant for spurring concrete national action.
"The next COPs will have very little technical discussions," he said. "And what we will discuss is the action we're doing on the ground, whether it's in the American pavilion or wherever it is."
The Trump administration opted not to sponsor a pavilion this year, leaving Bloomberg's center filling that function by default.
In remarks Nov. 13 in advance of the only side event the U.S. delegation hosted at this year's conference, Inslee told reporters that it was "a sideshow, it is a blip, the world is not paying any attention to it."
"The world is not going to pay attention to someone who says that climate change is a hoax," he said.
White House, or bleak house?
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/20/stories/1060066945

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Is the Science on Climate Change ‘Settled?’: Fuel for Thought

Nov 20, 2017 | Platts

By Bob Williams

First, one should be discomfited by that lightning-rod shorthand for certitude; science is never “settled.” Saying so is the antithesis of science. The scientific method by definition suggests a permanent state of open-mindedness, of questioning the common wisdom, of rigorously testing and retesting the hypothesis. Where does one draw the line between acceptance of scientific consensus and blind faith?
That said, it isn’t necessary to don sackcloth and ashes to see troubling trends in climate data. It isn’t fanaticism to dismiss the silly charge that the climate change issue is a “hoax”—any more than it is heresy to question some of the claims made by proponents of the catastrophic climate change scenarios. What’s especially concerning about the latter is that these scenarios center on the notion that the planet is certainly doomed by anthropogenic global warming (AGW) if fossil fuels aren’t immediately supplanted by non-carbon energy—and that only good can come from that change.
Questioning the consensus
Maybe it’s time to stop asking whether climate change is real. But asking questions about the details isn’t apostasy. The real questions should be:
* How bad will it get?
*How much time do we have?
*What can we do about it without making other things worse?
That last qualifier is a very real concern. Humankind will not quickly transition to a world fueled by rainbow-shine and unicorns if we can only slay the fossil fuel dragon.
Some AGW adherents espouse what seems to be an eminently sensible approach to the issue: the Precautionary Principle. This principle is generally understood to mean that if anything might have a deleterious effect on the public or environment, but lacks scientific consensus as to its harm, then the burden of proof that it isn’t harmful falls on the person or group taking the action.
In other words, to borrow from the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm.” What AGW disciples often forget is that the Precautionary Principle cuts both ways. Herein lies the math problem.
Questioning the numbers
It may seem oxymoronic to state that there is more than one consensus on the climate change issue, but indeed there are several different views on how to implement the transition to a “clean” energy future.
Gaining traction of late is a coalescence around a Big Idea: “Keep it in the ground.” This is shorthand for a 2015 study in Nature magazine that concluded that 80% of all known reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas must be left in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change.
This view provides much of the impetus for the heated opposition to high-visibility projects such as the Keystone XL pipeline as well as hydraulic fracturing.
The first problem with this notion is whether “known” reserves are actually “known.” The concept of reserves as a number is a moving target, dependent on technology, cost, and price. So what is a “resource” or “possible reserve” today can transition to a “proved reserve” tomorrow, if the demand, technology, and price warrant it.
This is why the US, for example, has estimated “proved” (the most stringently defined category) oil reserves totaling 48 billion barrels, with a reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio of 10.6 years, at year-end 2016, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017. Which might seem worrisome if one didn’t consider that US oil reserves totaled 30 billion barrels in 2006, with an R/P of 11.9 years.
The US isn’t the only country with this abundance. BP reckoned the world had an oil R/P of more than 40 years in 2006. That number has climbed to more than 50 years as of 2016, all while oil consumption has continued to climb.
Or take coal. Please. Kidding aside, the US Energy Information Administration not long ago estimated the US has 283 years of coal reserves plus resources at current rates of consumption—and consumption has been plummeting—by 9% from 2015 to 2016 alone.
In sum, the most widely accepted forecasts continue to hold that fossil fuels will still account for three-fourths of global energy consumption through the midpoint of the current century.
Crux of the math problem
Here’s the dilemma: According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world has perhaps only 30-40 years left before reaching a tipping point on climate change—before AGW is irreversible. Some AGW advocates say it may already be too late.
So for the “keep it in the ground” proponents, the math doesn’t add up.
But so many on the AGW side insist on severely limiting production and use of fossil fuels as the only real solution to climate change. Possible solutions such as geoengineering and carbon sequestration—already being successfully implemented by the oil and gas industry—are often dismissed out of hand. And energy affordability seems to end up the red-headed stepchild in this debate.
Here are some more problems with the numbers:
*According to the United Nations, more than 3 billion people in developing countries rely on fuel sources such as wood and animal dung for cooking and heating. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 4 million people die each year from illnesses attributable to burning these traditional biomass fuels—including 50% of early deaths among children under five.
*More than 20% of the world’s population has no available electricity; uncounted many more have access but can’t afford it.
*Lack of affordable energy can hinder availability of sanitation, potable water, and cooling and heating—i.e., the more “personal” climate control.
First, do no harm, indeed.

So let’s keep an open mind and all options on the table.
http://blogs.platts.com/2017/11/20/science-climate-change/

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