Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 11/21/17
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(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Ads Back Heller, Stabenow
Nov 21, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Kevin Robillard
The American Chemistry Council is out with television ads praising two vulnerable senators facing reelection in 2018: Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Nevada Republican Dean Heller. -
Comments Due on Use Information of PBT Chemicals by December 9, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On December 9, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened five dockets to collect information on five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals. -
Floored by Fluorochemicals: Who Pays to Decontaminate Water?
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The mushrooming costs of cleaning a toxic fire-fighting chemical out of water supplies are becoming difficult to bear, according to interviews with water utility officials in cities and towns across the country. -
3M Faces New Cancer Claims in Minnesota's $5 Billion Toxic Suit
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Kary
Chemicals once used by 3M Co. for Scotchgard, fire retardants, and other products have shown links to cancers and premature births, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson said in a request to update a $5 billion lawsuit against the company. -
California Targets Methylene Chloride Paint Strippers
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Manufacturers of methylene chloride-based paint and varnish strippers may have to use a less toxic solvent to continue selling their products in California. -
EPA: Perchlorate in Drinking Water Can Harm Fetal Brain Development
Nov 20, 2017 | EcoWatch
By Tom Neltner
Pursuant to a consent decree with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the U.S. 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. -
US Study Highlights Lead Fishing Tackle Threat To Water Birds
Nov 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A study in New Hampshire has identified lead fishing tackle as the leading cause of death in adult common loons – a threatened species of diver bird. -
Acetic Anhydride Not 'Toxic', Canada Confirms
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian government has confirmed a provisional conclusion from January that the industrial chemical acetic anhydride is not a threat to human health or the environment. -
Chemicals Industry 'Must Work Together' To Limit Brexit Damage
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Brexit is an "exercise in damage limitation" and the chemicals industry needs to work together to achieve this, the chair of Cefic's Brexit taskforce has said. -
Driller Disputes Agency Authority Over Fracking in Delaware River Basin
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Ten days before the agency that oversees the Delaware River Basin is scheduled to release regulations that could ban the use of water for fracking activities, a would-be Pennsylvania driller argued to a federal court that the watershed manager should have no jurisdiction over natural gas drilling activities at all. -
Keystone XL Approval May Open Door for Foes to Fight New Route
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Harris, Meenal Vamburkar and Kevin Orland
Nebraska's approval of an alternative route could throw more uncertainty into the mix for the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline. -
Alternatives to Enbridge Lake Michigan Pipeline Expensive, Risky: Report
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Decommissioning an Enbridge pipeline on the bed of Lake Michigan is unfeasible without an alternative, but above-water options would be more expensive and risky, Michigan said in a new report. -
Mexico Gets Closer To China As NAFTA Talks Fray U.S. Relationship
Nov 20, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Sabrina Rodriguez
While American, Mexican and Canadian negotiators sat in the Mexican capital this weekend trying to discuss NAFTA, Mexico's top trade official was 500 miles away in the city of Monterrey — celebrating the country's growing trade relationship with China. -
EPA Faces Threat Of Lawsuit Seeking Facility ERP Data
Nov 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmental and community groups in a recent notice of intent to sue (NOI) are alleging that EPA and New Jersey state officials failed to provide communities access to industrial facilities' emergency response plans (ERPs) in violation of a federal law requiring emergency planning and disclosure of hazardous substances. -
Body of Worker Recovered After Cosmetics Factory Blast, Fire
Nov 20, 2017 | AP (In the New York Times)
Authorities recovered the body of a male worker reported missing after two explosions and a fire at a New York cosmetics factory left 30 to 35 people injured, including seven firefighters caught in the second blast, officials said Monday. -
Climate Envoys Step Up Pace of Work Without Support from Trump
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Shankleman
Envoys from almost 200 nations agreed to step up the pace of their work on reining in global warming even without additional help from the world's richest polluter. -
U.S. Balancing Act May Be More Difficult at 2018 Climate Talks
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S. was largely able to pull off a high-wire act at the Bonn climate talks—touting President Donald Trump's coal-friendly agenda while working in closed-door talks to draft rules for Paris climate pact—but could be headed into some heavy crosswinds at next year's summit in Poland. -
U.S. Could Soon Offer Signal On Coolant Climate Deal
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The world is moving forward with reducing greenhouse gas refrigerants, and the deal's momentum could raise questions about whether the Trump administration will join or sit on the sidelines. -
HFC Pact To Take Effect In 2019 Amid U.S. Policy Uncertainty
Nov 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
An international deal to limit the use of refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases has cleared a key hurdle after Sweden became the 20th country to ratify the agreement, meaning that it will take effect in 2019 amid ongoing uncertainty about whether the Trump administration plans to implement the pact. -
California Bucks Global Trend with another Year of GHG Reductions
Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jonathan Camuzeaux
This post was co-authored by Maureen Lackner and originally appeared on the EDF Talks Global Climate blog. -
Heartland Launches Campaign To Persuade EPA To Reverse GHG Finding
Nov 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Heartland Institute is launching a plan to persuade the Trump EPA to revoke the landmark Obama-era finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare -- a radical but necessary step to shield the coal industry from any climate controls, according to a senior fellow with the free-market group that dismisses mainstream climate science.
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Ads Back Heller, Stabenow
Nov 21, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Kevin Robillard
The American Chemistry Council is out with television ads praising two vulnerable senators facing reelection in 2018: Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Nevada Republican Dean Heller.
The ad backing Heller appears aimed at shoring up the Nevadan's support with Republican base voters. Heller, the only Senate Republican facing reelection in a state Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2018, has faced criticism from Republicans for coming out against a version of Obamacare repeal. Danny Tarkanian, a businessman and frequent GOP candidate, is challenging him in the Republican primary.
"Fighting for conservative principles, Sen. Dean Heller is leading efforts to cut taxes for workers and reform the tax code so small businesses can invest and create high-paying jobs," a male narrator says. As an image of President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch appears on screen, the narrator continues: "Sen. Heller is dedicated to putting conservative judges on the federal bench." The ad then asks viewers to call Heller and thank him for "fighting for Nevada values."
Watch the ad here.
The ad backing Stabenow, which is paid for by both the Chemistry Council and North America's Building Trades Unions, is also a positive spot.
"Dedicated to Michigan workers and families, she's fighting to keep jobs here, opposing unfair trade practices and fighting to close loopholes that give tax breaks to companies that move jobs overseas," the male narrator says. "And Sen. Stabenow supports tax reforms that help middle-class families and small businesses."
Watch the ad here.
Both ads began airing today. According to Advertising Analytics, the Nevada buy will run until Dec. 2 and includes $436,000 of broadcast airtime in Las Vegas and Reno. The size of the Michigan buy is unclear.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Comments Due on Use Information of PBT Chemicals by December 9, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On December 9, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened five dockets to collect information on five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals. EPA requested information on uses, products containing these chemicals, exposed populations, and alternatives to these chemicals. These five chemicals were selected on October 11, 2016, to receive expedited action under Section 6(h) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which requires EPA to take expedited regulatory action to address risks from certain PBT chemicals. The deadline to submit comments is fast approaching: December 9, 2017. The five chemicals and their corresponding dockets are:
Decabromodiphenyl ethers (DecaBDE), used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics and polyurethane foam -- Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0724;
Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used in the manufacture of rubber compounds and lubricants and as a solvent -- Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0738;
Pentachlorothio-phenol (PCTP), used as an agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses -- Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0739;
Tris (4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate, used as a flame retardant in consumer products and other industrial uses -- Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0730; and
2,4,6-Tris(tert-butyl)phenol, used as a fuel, oil, gasoline or lubricant additive -- Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0734.
In August 2017, EPA provided background information for each of the five PBT chemicals in the form of use documents which provide a preliminary summary of available information collected by EPA on the manufacturing (including importing), processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of each chemical. Amended TSCA gives EPA three years to propose rules to reduce risks and exposures from these PBT chemicals to the extent practicable (until June 22, 2019), and EPA must issue the rules in final within 18 months of when they are proposed.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/comments-due-use-information-pbt-chemicals-december-9-2017
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Floored by Fluorochemicals: Who Pays to Decontaminate Water?
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The mushrooming costs of cleaning a toxic fire-fighting chemical out of water supplies are becoming difficult to bear, according to interviews with water utility officials in cities and towns across the country.
As scientists have connected more illnesses to these chemicals, known as perfluorinated or polyfluorinated compounds, many utilities have scrambled to shut down wells and secure alternative sources of drinking water—in some cases incurring millions in unbudgeted expenses.
Some of the utilities that were most affected by this contamination are now asking who should compensate them for these expenses. Should it be the military, the most prolific user of these chemicals? Or should it be the companies that manufactured them: Chemours, DowDuPont, 3M and others?
This question will likely be answered in a court of law, just as similar questions were answered about other toxic industrial chemicals—asbestos, PCBs, chromium six.
Until then, water utilities are doing what they must.
Daniel Santos, head of the water utility in Barnstable, Mass., told Bloomberg Environment that his town spent about $5 million over the past two years to deal with contaminated water and is poised to spend $6.5 million more in the near future. If Barnstable has to bear those costs on its own, he said, water bills in the town of less than 50,000 could soar for years to come.
“You have to provide water,” he said. “I predict we'll be treating well water for eight to 10 years.”
Highly Persistent
While there are a wide number of variations within this class of chemicals, the two that have garnered the most concern among scientists and environmental regulators are known as PFOA and PFOS.
They've been linked to a number of diseases, including kidney and testicular cancers, and liver and thyroid problems.
But what sets PFOA and PFOS apart from other toxic chemicals is their persistence in the environment—and in the human body. The compounds take much longer to degrade than others do, so exposure over many years can have cumulative effects.
The chemicals were first developed by 3M in the late 1940s for use in stain-proof and nonstick products, but they also proved highly effective at putting out jet fuel fires on airfields.
That is how the Air Force, Navy, and other military branches used the chemicals on bases for decades: spraying foam containing PFOA, PFOS, and other fluorinated compounds on tarmacs across the country. Because the compounds didn't break down, they eventually seeped into aquifers.
As a result, most of the communities now dealing with water contamination are ones that rely on well water and are located near military installations or airports, according to EPA and Government Accountability Office data analyzed by Bloomberg Environment.
A Bloomberg Environment analysis of EPA water contaminant data found that 65 water utilities across 24 states and territories had at least one sample that came back above the agency's safety threshold for these chemicals. Collectively, these utilities serve more than six million people across the country.
(Click this link to look at an interactive map that shows the civilian and military water utilities that were contaminated with PFOA or PFOS.)Lower Safety Thresholds
The Environmental Protection Agency recognized almost a decade ago the potential harms that these chemicals could cause if they seeped into drinking water. In 2009, it set interim safety thresholds for both PFOA and PFOS and advised utilities to take action if their water tested above those health advisory levels.
As more became known about the health effects of these compounds, the EPA decided to revise its threshold downward. Last year, it set a single threshold for combined amounts of the two chemicals in water that was slightly more than one-tenth as high as the 2009 benchmark.
Utilities were shocked by how low this new threshold was and how little notice the EPA had provided them, according to Roy Heald, general manager of the water utility in the town of Security, Colo.
“It was terrible. It created panic within our community,” Heald told Bloomberg Environment. “You have more notice of a hurricane coming through than this.”
The EPA's threshold for PFOA and PFOS is not legally binding, so utilities with concentrations above it aren't legally required to remove the chemicals from their water supplies. But they are required to notify their customers of a test result above the threshold.
Given that, and the ensuing public outcry as news of contamination spread quickly, inaction was not an option for Security, Heald said.
Had the town not sought an alternative water source, “I would be working at Home Depot by now and all of our board would be recalled,” he said. “No one chose to sit back and take no action. It's our customers that enforced it, it's not the EPA.”
Other utility officials echoed similar sentiments: If the public believes there's a potential carcinogen in their water, utilities have to act, regardless of what's legally required of them. Utilities listed fluorinated chemicals as one of their top three regulatory concerns in a 2016 American Water Works Association survey of more than 1,700 people working in the industry.
Shutting Down Wells
A suburb of Colorado Springs, Security is a town of less than 30,000 just south of Peterson Air Force Base. Heald said the base is the likely source of Security's contamination, among the worst of nearly any civilian water utility in the country, according to EPA data.
Before the EPA's threshold was lowered, Heald said, only a few of the town's 24 wells were affected. After the lowering, Security decided it couldn't use water from any of its wells and, with an annual water budget of only $4 million a year, struggled to find a solution. Security ultimately had to purchase water from Colorado Springs at an exorbitant cost, Heald said.
Last year, the town spent roughly $2.5 million on securing alternate sources of water and has already spent nearly $5 million this year, according to Heald. That doesn't include money the town spent over the years on groundwater rights for its 24 wells—a sunk expense, Heald said, since those wells may never come back online.
Complicating the situation even further, contamination isn't limited to a single geographic area. Utilities in Cape Cod, the Pacific Northwest, Florida's panhandle and the Twin Cities area also incurred steep costs after the EPA lowered its threshold.
Issaquah, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, has already paid roughly $1 million to install filters on its wells and will likely be facing around $200,000 annually to maintain them, according to Emily Moon, a deputy city administrator. Issaquah's water bills are certain to be affected, Moon told Bloomberg Environment.
The financial impacts of contamination vary. The main water utility in Pensacola, Fla., was able to compensate for its handful of contaminated wells by pumping more out of its roughly two dozen wells that remain free of the chemicals, according to Tim Haag, head of government affairs at the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority.
Public water utilities aren't the only ones affected by these chemicals. Some private wells, which aren't regulated by the EPA, also are testing positive.
The pollution control agency in Minnesota, where PFOA and PFOS were manufactured by 3M, has been installing hundreds of carbon filters on private wells at a cost of roughly $1,000 each, according to Gary Krueger, a supervisor in the agency's cleanup division. The number of wells that need filtering in the state is rapidly increasing, Krueger told Bloomberg Environment.
Who Pays?
Minnesota's agreement with 3M is somewhat unique. Like DowDuPont, BASF, and other chemical companies, 3M has long since phased out its production of PFOA and PFOS. But the company has agreed to help cover the costs of decontamination near the facilities where it produced the chemical in Minnesota, Alabama, and Illinois.
Other towns are still looking for help in defraying the costs of the contamination so those costs don't fall squarely on their own ratepayers.
The town of Security is in talks with the Air Force to try to access some of the funds it has allocated, Heald said, although those talks are slow going. Issaquah is considering a lawsuit against chemical manufacturers, Jeff Kray, an attorney in the Seattle offices of Marten Law who represents the city, told Bloomberg Environment.
If it does take legal action, Issaquah would join several other utilities that have already filed against manufacturers. Financial disclosures from DowDuPont, Chemours, and 3M list numerous lawsuits, both resolved and ongoing. The suits were filed by utilities in West Virginia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Alabama.
Dina Pokedoff, a spokeswoman with one of the manufacturers of the chemicals, the French company Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, told Bloomberg Environment that her company is working with municipalities in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. However, she didn't respond to questions about how much money Saint-Gobain has paid these municipalities to decontaminate their water.
Bloomberg Environment also reached out to other chemical manufacturers—3M, DowDuPont, and Chemours—to ask them how many contaminated utilities have asked them for compensation and how much they've paid out to these utilities. These companies either didn't respond or didn't comment.
It's an issue that won't be going away any time soon. Tim Haag, the utility official in Pensacola, said affected communities will be grappling with this contamination for years to come.
“We have to assume that this contaminant will always be in the well,” he said.
—With assistance from Pat Rizzuto and Sylvia Carignan
This is the first part of a Bloomberg Environment series looking at the impact of fluorinated chemical contamination on communities and businesses.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967915&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967915&jd=123967915
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3M Faces New Cancer Claims in Minnesota's $5 Billion Toxic Suit
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Kary
Chemicals once used by 3M Co. for Scotchgard, fire retardants, and other products have shown links to cancers and premature births, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson said in a request to update a $5 billion lawsuit against the company.
Minnesota, which initially sued in state court for natural-resource damages in 2010, is now seeking punitive damages as well, it said in court filings on Nov. 17. Elevated levels of cancers, leukemia, premature births and lower fertility have been found in the suburbs east of St. Paul, where 3M dumped the chemicals for more than 40 years, the state said. 3M also concealed health risks from regulators and distorted science on the chemicals, according to the filing (Minnesota v. 3M Co., Minn. Dist. Ct., No. 27-cv-10-28862n, 11/20/17).
The company said in its own court filings that the $5 billion lawsuit is “misguided” and that it's entitled to a judgment in its favor because the state didn't bring its complaint within a required time limit. The company phased out the chemicals in question, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), by 2002, it said.
“We believe that PFOS and PFOA do not present health risks at levels they are typically found in the environment or in human blood,” said Carol Ley, a vice president and corporate medical director for 3M. “This view is informed by testing our production workers who were exposed to these chemicals at levels significantly higher than those in the general population.” 3M's court filings say there is a “clear weight of scientific evidence” that shows the state has sustained no injuries to its natural resource, let alone more than $5 billion in damages.
Not Alone
The motion to amend a 7-year-old lawsuit shows how liabilities can shift over time with changing science and advancing research. It comes as companies including DowDuPont Inc. and Chemours Co. have faced new issues on the same class of chemicals, alternately known as perfluorinated compounds, PFCs or PFAS, which are used to make products such as Teflon cookware, waterproof fabrics and grease-resistant food packaging. The new generation of chemicals made to replace older, phased-out formulations are also being investigated.
A regulatory filing by 3M last month didn't estimate a loss from the suit, and said that in cases where the company didn't do so, its liabilities weren't probable or possible to estimate.
Minnesota's court filing cited a scientist who found that fertility and birth outcomes in the areas affected by the chemicals were lower than in other communities. The analysis also noted a “statistically significant” increase in certain cancers associated with the chemicals -- including of the breast, bladder, kidney and prostate—as well as increased levels of leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma compared to the rest of Minnesota.
3M said in its court filings that Minnesota knew or should have known about the potential for environmental contamination before May 2007, making it too late to bring the lawsuit, and that the state is trying to recover the cost of cleaning up the chemicals through a natural-resource damages claim, something prohibited by state law.
The chemicals, once used in fire-fighting foams, have also led to lawsuits against 3M from individuals who say nearby airports or other locations where the foams were used polluted their drinking water.
A trial in the case, which for some time was in court-ordered mediation, is scheduled for Feb. 13.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967921&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967921&jd=123967921
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California Targets Methylene Chloride Paint Strippers
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Manufacturers of methylene chloride-based paint and varnish strippers may have to use a less toxic solvent to continue selling their products in California.
The state's Department of Toxic Substances Control proposed a rule to list the paint removers as a priority product under the Safer Consumer Products Program.
If listed, W.M. Barr & Co., Inc., Formby's, The Savogran Co., and nearly 20 other companies would have to determine whether and how the products can be made safer. Should that analysis find no available safer alternatives, the state could issue a range of regulatory options, including banning the products.
Consumers, workers, and hundreds of furniture refinishing companies, antique stores, and other small businesses use the products.
The department found that most paint or varnish strippers sold in California contain methylene chloride, which the EPA has linked to cancer, harm to the central nervous system, skin irritation, and other adverse health effects.
Federal and state agencies also attribute the deaths of at least 17 bathtub refinishers between 2000 and 2015 to the workers’ exposure to methylene chloride-based paint strippers.
Stalled EPA Rule Opens Door
California's rulemaking, launched Nov. 17, follows the Trump administration's stalling of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule (RIN: 2070-AK07) to ban paint strippers with methylene chloride and n-methylpyrrolidone, or NMP, to conduct a broader risk assessment of the two chemicals.
“The administration's action to suspend EPA's rulemaking efforts opens the door for states such as California to fill the void and pursue their own action to regulate and restrict those products,” Peter Hsiao, a partner and head of Morrison & Foerster LLP's green products and chemicals team, told Bloomberg Environment.
The EPA's action on the rule appears to buy California additional time to identify methylene chloride-based paint strippers as a priority product without triggering federal preemption provisions, Eric Gotting, a partner in Keller & Heckman LLP's litigation and environmental and practice groups, told Bloomberg Environment.
With some exceptions, federal law preempts, or displaces, state regulation of specific chemicals once the EPA determines whether a chemical poses an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. A temporary exemption allows states to regulate a substance while the EPA is completing its risk assessment of the chemical.
Preemption Still Possible
“Preemption could be an issue down the road,” depending on the scope of California's regulation, he said.
While it will take years for the EPA to complete its process, the alternative analyses required under California's Safer Consumer Products Program and the state's final regulatory requirements also is a years-long process, Gotting said.
If California adopts its rule to regulate methylene chloride in paint strippers before the EPA takes action for the same use of the chemical, the state's rule would remain in effect until there is a final federal rule, he said.
Still, preemption questions remain about the state's Safer Consumer Products Program and the action on paint strippers, Gotting said.
California adopted the program in 2008 and proposed identifying methylene chloride in paint strippers as a priority product in 2014, ahead of the April 22, 2016, enactment deadline.
The state is moving forward with its proposed rule because its framework for regulating methylene chloride “is fundamentally different” from that of federal law, the department said. Also, the scope of the EPA rule may change before it is final, the department said.
Listing First Step
The identification of paint strippers as a priority product is the first regulatory step in the program. Manufacturers then must submit information about their products and alternative analysis report, which the state reviews. A final regulatory decision involves separate rulemaking process.
The department estimated the cumulative costs for manufacturers to conduct the alternative analyses at between $2.4 million and $6.4 million.
A public hearing on the proposed regulation is set for Jan. 8, 2018, at the California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967922&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967922&jd=123967922
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EPA: Perchlorate in Drinking Water Can Harm Fetal Brain Development
Nov 20, 2017 | EcoWatch
By Tom Neltner
Pursuant to a consent decree with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the U.S. 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, "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)."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 one percent increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia; and
· 2.1-2.2 µg/kg bw/day is associated with a five percent increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia.
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 U.S. each year, an estimated 400,000 were born to women with hypothyroxinemia. A one percent 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 five percent shift, the number of impacted children born to hypothyroxinemic mothers would increase to 20,000.
The agency is accepting public comments until Nov. 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 percent.
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.
https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-perchlorate-drinking-water-2511108754.html
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US Study Highlights Lead Fishing Tackle Threat To Water Birds
Nov 20, 2017 | Chemical Watch
A study in New Hampshire has identified lead fishing tackle as the leading cause of death in adult common loons – a threatened species of diver bird.
Researchers from the Loon Preservation Society, and Tufts and Plymouth State universities, found that 48.6% of collected adult loon deaths were as a result of lead poisoning from the ingested tackle. They estimated that lead tackle mortality reduced the population growth rate by 1.4% and the statewide population by 43% during the years of the study (1989-2012).
The researchers used a long-term dataset to describe types of lead tackle ingested, how they were ingested by the birds, and the number and rate of deaths resulting from this.
The study concluded that replacing lead fishing sinkers and jigs weighing 28.4g with non-toxic alternatives would be an immediate benefit to the state's loon population.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61190/us-study-highlights-lead-fishing-tackle-threat-to-water-birds
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Acetic Anhydride Not 'Toxic', Canada Confirms
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
The Canadian government has confirmed a provisional conclusion from January that the industrial chemical acetic anhydride is not a threat to human health or the environment.
Specifically the substance is not toxic as defined by section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa).
The conclusion of the final screening assessment means the Canadian authorities will take no further action in relation to the substance at this time under its national Chemical Management Plan (CMP).
The assessment says that in 2011 Canada imported 10,000-100,000kg acetic anhydride for use:
· in the manufacture of other chemicals;
· as a laboratory chemical;
· as a plasticiser in commercial building or construction materials, including certain silicone sealants;
· as a permitted food additive for modifying starches; and
· as a non-medicinal ingredient in pharmaceuticals.
The substance is the 'dry' form of acetic acid, which occurs naturally in the environment and is the primary component of vinegar.
The assessment says acetic anhydride is highly corrosive and has the potential to damage skin and other tissues on contact. But it is primarily used in industrial settings and is readily hydrolysed to acetic acid in the environment. Consequently, exposure of the general public is expected to be negligible and the corresponding risk to human health low.
It did not cover occupational risks because these are managed through regional legislation in Canada.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61181/acetic-anhydride-not-toxic-canada-confirms
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Chemicals Industry 'Must Work Together' To Limit Brexit Damage
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Brexit is an "exercise in damage limitation" and the chemicals industry needs to work together to achieve this, the chair of Cefic's Brexit taskforce has said.
Speaking at a Chemical Industries Association (CIA) conference in London on 16 November, Heinz Haller, who also heads Cefic’s industrial policy programme council, said trade associations need to be "politically aware" and "ahead of the game".
The UK will leave the EU in March 2019 and detailed negotiations on future chemicals trade policies and regulations have yet to begin and a no-deal scenario looks increasingly possible.
In preparation for a last-minute deal, however, CIA president Tom Crotty said the association has given the government several hotline numbers to call. "When we get to the nitty-gritty, the big decisions will be taken very quickly," he said. "If a call comes at 3am in the morning, we want to be able to answer it."
The UK’s Chemical Business Association (CBA) has also taken a similar step and has set up a "rapid response sounding board" to respond to government questions about chemicals during Brexit negotiations.
The CBA, CIA and Cefic have all called for regulatory consistency and for the country to remain in REACH. Failure to do so, they say, might result in UK registrations and authorisation applications becoming invalid.
In a snap poll of around 125 conference participants, representing companies ranging from multinationals to SMEs, 62% expected Brexit to have a negative impact on their business, up from 50% in the same poll conducted last year.
Susannah Storey from the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) told delegates that the government needs to engage more with them, and urged industry to speak up to make sure its concerns are heard. Recently, she said, the government has "started to hear more publicly from more businesses".Global challenge
Delegates heard that Brexit is a "pan-European issue" and the main challenge is to make the UK and Europe more attractive for investment, as China vies for global leadership and greater market share.
Cefic's Mr Haller urged the European Commission and member states to "come forward" with a follow-up plan on Europe's industrial strategy in the spring council meeting. It is "crucially important", he said, to sustain that momentum and keep industry firmly at the centre of the political agenda.
Europe will "survive or fail together, not as individual actors", he added, but the Commission needs to do more to improve regulatory practices within the bloc when it comes to chemicals.
Chemicals regulation has "doubled" in the last ten years and is "expected to double again" in the next decade, he said. Regulation is "slowly but surely squeezing life out of our industries and economies", he added, and the lack of transparency has been "one of the biggest sources of aggravation".
And Peter Huntsman, president and chief executive of US-based multinational chemicals manufacturer Huntsman, told the audience that Brexit uncertainty could cause a dip in companies investing in the UK. There are alternatives for investment, he said, and added he is not going to be "investing in chaos". However, there could be "all sorts of opportunities" if Brexit is "done right", he said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61215/chemicals-industry-must-work-together-to-limit-brexit-damage
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Driller Disputes Agency Authority Over Fracking in Delaware River Basin
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Ten days before the agency that oversees the Delaware River Basin is scheduled to release regulations that could ban the use of water for fracking activities, a would-be Pennsylvania driller argued to a federal court that the watershed manager should have no jurisdiction over natural gas drilling activities at all.
Wayne Land and Mineral Group LLC sued the Delaware River Basin Commission in May 2016, arguing that the federal-interstate agency overstepped its authority by asserting control over natural gas drilling in the basin.
The property owner said it bought a 180-acre property in Wayne County, Pa., in 2015 with the intent to drill an exploratory well and was stymied by the commission's de facto moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (Wayne Land & Mineral Grp. v. Del. River Basin Comm., 3d Cir., Case No. 17-01800, oral arguments 11/20/17).
“What we need at a minimum is a declaration that they went too far,” the property owner's attorney, David R. Overstreet, told a panel of three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Nov. 20. “Until we get that, we're stuck.”
The case could potentially decide whether the commission has any authority to regulate fracking activities in the 13,539 square mile Delaware River Basin, which spans four states and provides drinking water for 15 million people.
A regional federal-interstate agency created in 1961 to manage the basin's water resources, the commission is a five-member body comprised of a representative of the federal government and the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The Marcellus Shale formation, one of the largest shale formations in the country, underlies about 36 percent of the watershed.
De Facto Ban
A number of Pennsylvania lawmakers have intervened in the case in support of the would-be driller, arguing the commission's de facto ban on drilling in the basin is trampling over the state's sovereignty. Fracking is not banned in the neighboring Susquehanna River Basin or elsewhere in Pennsylvania. About 6,422 square miles of the Delaware River Basin, more than half of its total land area, lies in Pennsylvania.
State legislators “never gave away the power to ban development in a large swath of the commonwealth to a bunch of people who don't even live here, and they're going to continue to fight any ban,” attorney Matthew H. Haverstick of Kleinbard LLC, who is representing the legislators, told Bloomberg Environment Nov. 20 following oral arguments.
The commission declared in 2009 that any natural gas extraction activities in the watershed would require the commission's approval. In 2010, the commission said it would halt review of drilling proposals, including exploratory wells, until after it finalized natural gas development regulations.
The rulemaking process stalled less than a year later, creating an unofficial de facto ban on fracking in the basin despite drilling elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
About 75 acres of Wayne Land and Mineral Group's property lies in the Delaware River Basin. The company has argued that natural gas drilling does not constitute a “project” as defined in the 1961 compact that governs the Commission because it involves natural gas, not water.
In March, U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani disagreed, finding that the property owner's plan to drill exploratory wells is clearly a “project” as defined in the agency's compact.
Activity's Use of Water
On appeal before Third Circuit Judges Kent A. Jordan, Thomas M. Hardiman, and Anthony J. Scirica in Philadelphia, the company's oral arguments centered on the compact's definition of “project” and whether the agency's jurisdiction extended to any activity affecting water or only to projects exclusively intended “for” a water-oriented purpose, such as a dam or a storage tank.
Overstreet said the only question before the court involved the well pads and wells, and the court could set aside the question of how the water will be used.
“How can we set it aside?” Jordan asked Overstreet. “I thought there was a concession that we'd have to do something with the water that is generated” during hydraulic fracturing operation. “If that is part and parcel of what you're doing, I'm getting some cognitive dissonance here.”
The other judges also questioned how they could separate wells and water when deciding the case.
“It's not a hypothetical,” Hardiman said. “Under Pennsylvania law, you have to do something with the water after the fracking occurs.”
Scirica said: “We still have to figure out what the source of the water is and where it goes afterward.”
4.3 Million Gallons
It's “unfathomable” that the commission would have no jurisdiction over an activity that would have such a substantial impact on water in the basin, Jordan B. Yeager, attorney for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group that intervened in the case, told the court.
Hydraulic fracturing operations use 4.3 million gallons of water every time a well is fracked, and a single well pad can hold several wells, the commission's attorney, Kenneth J. Warren, told the court. Pipes that inject water into the ground pass through aquifers, creating a water management challenge the commission must address, he said.
“If we just sit back” and let hydraulic fracturing “destroy the aquifer, people will say we didn't do our job,” Warren said.
After years of stalled rulemaking, the DRBC is about to release revised draft regulations that “will ban the use of water for hydraulic fracturing within the basin,” Warren told the court.
At its Sept. 13, 2017, business meeting, the commission decided it would issue revised draft rules for public comment no later than Nov. 30. The draft regulations still need to go through several months of public comment and could change substantially before they are officially adopted, Warren told the court.
It is not known when the court will rule on the case.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967920&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967920&jd=123967920
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Keystone XL Approval May Open Door for Foes to Fight New Route
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Harris, Meenal Vamburkar and Kevin Orland
Nebraska's approval of an alternative route could throw more uncertainty into the mix for the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The Public Service Commission approved TransCanada Corp.’s project on a three-to-two vote, removing one of the last hurdles to the Calgary-based company's construction of the $8 billion, 1,179-mile (1,897-kilometer) conduit, which has been on its drawing boards since 2008.
The decision, though, wasn't wrinkle-free: The commission approved an alternative route that was immediately targeted by the project's opponents as lacking adequate vetting.
Jane Kleeb, president of the environmental advocacy group Bold Alliance, said green-lighting the alternative may have helped the commission reach a “middle ground solution.” But it opens new questions that she said her group would explore in federal court.
That view mirrored a dissenting opinion from Commissioner Crystal Rhoades, who spoke before the final vote. TransCanada didn't meet “the burden of proof” in determining that the pipeline is in the state's public interest, Rhoades said. The alternative route, she said, needed more study on both the state and federal level, and it failed to give landowners along that different path the ability to address the commission.
For example, she said Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality didn't analyze the alternative route at all in its 2013 report. “It is clear” TransCanada “never intended it to be considered,” Rhoades said.
‘Years of Study’
In its post-hearing brief, TransCanada told the panel its “preferred route was the product of literally years of study, analysis and refinement by Keystone, federal agencies and Nebraska agencies,” and that no alternate route, even one paralleling the Keystone mainline as the approved path does, was truly comparable.
TransCanada didn't immediately respond to emails and telephone calls seeking comment.
The panel's decision overrode the objections of environmental conservationists, Native American tribes and landowners along the pipeline's prospective route. The project had the support of the state's governor, Republican Pete Ricketts, its chamber of commerce, trade unions and the petroleum industry.
With Nebraska's go-ahead in hand, TransCanada still must formally decide whether to proceed with construction on the line, which would send crude from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it will connect to pipelines leading to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. The XL pipeline would add the ability to move 830,000 barrels a day, more than doubling the existing line's capacity.
Customer Interest
The company's open season for gauging producers’ interest closed late last month, and TransCanada executives have indicated that they've secured enough shipping commitments to make the project commercially worthwhile.
President Barack Obama's administration rejected TransCanada's bid for permission to build across the U.S. border in 2015. President Donald Trump vowed to reverse that determination and, in January, invited the company to reapply. Approval was quickly granted. He also championed completion of the Energy Transfer Partners LP-led Dakota Access Pipeline, which runs from northwestern North Dakota to Illinois via South Dakota and Iowa.
The panel heard testimony and took in evidence during a four-day August hearing. Its power over the project is drawn from the state's constitution.
The U.S. State Department found the KXL project would support about 42,100 jobs and contribute $34 billion to the economy— including millions of dollars of new economic activity, millions of dollars in annual property tax revenue and hundreds of jobs for Nebraskans — according to the company's filing.
Omaha attorney David Domina, who's been fighting construction of the Keystone XL for more than seven years, represented more than 90 landowners in the case, many of whom had fought the project to a standstill two years ago. He urged the commission to reject the project, contending TransCanada's lawyers hadn't met their burden of proof.
Native American tribes claimed it threatened their historic lands and cultural sites.
The case is In the Matter of the Application of TransCanada Keystone Pipeline LP for Route Approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline Project, 0p-0003, Nebraska Public Service Commission (Lincoln).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967923&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967923&jd=123967923
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Alternatives to Enbridge Lake Michigan Pipeline Expensive, Risky: Report
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Decommissioning an Enbridge pipeline on the bed of Lake Michigan is unfeasible without an alternative, but above-water options would be more expensive and risky, Michigan said in a new report.
Shutting down the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline could cost the state up to $585 million and drive up propane and oil costs in the Upper Peninsula. Additionally, routing the fossil fuels through an above-ground pipeline or by rail would increase environmental risks exponentially beyond the risks of just maintaining the 645-mile, 64-year-old pipeline, the state-commissioned report said.
Enbridge has been attaching anchors to the pipeline to secure it to the lake floor, but that has damaged its outside, prompting the state to explore alternatives to the aging pipeline.
Although environmentalists and state officials have been calling to close the line, the Nov. 20 report found transporting the 540,000 barrels of light crude and natural gas daily across sensitive Michigan rivers, wetlands, and lakes via train or a pipeline on the ground could increases risks of a spill up to 1,242 times.
State officials told Bloomberg Environment they still needed time to digest the report and determine the best course of action, while Enbridge Inc. called the report proof of the line's importance.
“The report generally represents a thorough, deliberate, and expert consideration of the safety, feasibility and cost of alternative methods to transport energy to the Great Lakes region,” company spokesman Ryan Duffy told Bloomberg Environment in an email. “Equally significant, the report reiterates the importance of Line 5 to the region.”
In-Lake Replacement ‘Negligible’ New Risk
Analysis in the report seemed to be more favorable of new construction either entrenched in the lake bed or tunneled beneath the Straits of Mackinac. A new trenched upgrade would increase risk of a spill by 21 percent and a tunneled pipeline would provide “negligible” increased risk—these were the two least risky alternatives.
But the area is incredibly sensitive and a pipeline shouldn't be placed there, Liz Kirkwood, executive director of environmental group For Love of Water told Bloomberg Environment. She said she hadn't had time to fully read the report, but said the state has authority to close the line if it wanted.
“We're playing with fire here in the Great Lakes,” she said. “While pipelines are the safest mode of transport, they ultimately fail due to corrosion, and other factors such as human error. Thirty to 40 percent of a recovery of oil is deemed a success; when you think about the catastrophic consequence of polluting the drinking water supply for millions of people in the Great Lakes the fundamental question we must ask ourselves is when does this become an unacceptable risk?”
Costs of Alternatives
Replacement costs to Michigan ranged from $23.3 million for an entrenched pipeline replacement in the lake bed, to a $585.8 million state investment in a new above-ground pipeline. Although the analysis expected switching to rail transport wouldn't cost the state anything for construction, it would cost the state $100 million more in annual costs. Even just abandoning the line would cost the state $183 million in clean-up.
Spokespersons for the Michigan Agency for Energy and the Department of Environmental Quality said they couldn't comment because they were “actively reviewing the report.”
Michigan Attorney General and Republican governor candidate Bill Schuette has called for closure of the line on multiple occasions. He didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967924&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967924&jd=123967924
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Mexico Gets Closer To China As NAFTA Talks Fray U.S. Relationship
Nov 20, 2017 | PoliticoPro
By Sabrina Rodriguez
MEXICO CITY — While American, Mexican and Canadian negotiators sat in the Mexican capital this weekend trying to discuss NAFTA, Mexico's top trade official was 500 miles away in the city of Monterrey — celebrating the country's growing trade relationship with China.
As the Mexico-U.S. relationship frays during tough NAFTA talks, Mexico is strengthening ties elsewhere. And as tensions rise over reopening the two-decade-old trade pact, no country stands to benefit more than China.
That's why Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico's economy secretary, headed to Monterrey on Friday, the first official day of the NAFTA negotiations, to celebrate the growing Mexico-China relationship with business executives from both countries. It was an overt sign of the renewed ties that could give China a bigger foothold in Latin American trade and investment.
Guajardo underscored the need to “pay attention” to China, its second-largest trading partner, during the fifth annual reunion of Grupo de Alto Nivel Empresarial México-China, a partnership between more than 25 Mexican and Chinese companies — including Chinese tech company Huawei and Mexican airline Aeroméxico. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Chinese President Xi Jinping founded the group to promote more business cooperation between the two countries.
“In this process of strengthening [the Mexico-China relationship], this group, without a doubt, has given us a vision on how to continue forward at a time when protectionist messages” are beginning to be part of the world’s vision, Guajardo said at the event, according to Mexico’s business newspaper, El Economista.
Members of the Mexican government and private sector emphasized room for development in infrastructure, energy, automobiles and finance, El Economista reported. The group’s Mexican president, Juan González Moreno, said that after two days of meetings, the business leaders agreed to foster cooperation between financial services and energy companies.
While Peña Nieto’s efforts to diversify trade and investment partnerships predate the election of President Donald Trump and the NAFTA renegotiation, Mexico and Asia policy experts agree that there is a growing momentum for a stronger Mexico-China relationship.
“China is really the unspoken fourth partner in NAFTA,” said Enrique Dussel Peters, a Mexican economist and head of the Center for China-Mexico Studies. “China has benefited the most. As Trump talks about Mexico robbing U.S. jobs, he’s really looking at the wrong country — not the right beneficiary.”
Long seen as competitors for exporting manufacturing goods, Mexico and China have historically avoided deep economic or trade ties. At the same time, Mexico has racked up more than 50 trade agreements with partners around the world, including joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and China has expanded investment and trade ties with other big Latin American economies such as Brazil and Chile.
Slowly, however, both countries have shifted closer.
China is now Mexico’s third-largest export partner, receiving $5 billion in goods in 2016. Mexico also imports almost 20 percent — roughly $70 billion — of its goods from China. China is Mexico’s second-largest import partner, according to the World Integrated Trade Solution. Still, U.S. trade with Mexico is upward of $600 billion, overshadowing any other country, and the U.S. absorbs 80 percent of Mexican exports; almost half of Mexico’s imports come from the U.S.
“I don’t think it’s Mexico’s first option, but if it’s being pushed into a corner, China is looking more interesting and more attractive,” said Antonio Ortiz-Mena, former head of economic affairs at the Embassy of Mexico and current senior vice president of Albright Stonebridge Group.
In September, Peña Nieto visited China as one of Xi’s guests — alongside the leaders of Egypt, Kenya, Tajikistan and Thailand.
And during that same trip, Peña Nieto inked a deal with Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce company that’s worth more than $500 billion. The memorandum of understanding between Mexico’s economy ministry and Alibaba aims to get more Mexican products on Alibaba platforms, while also helping small- and medium-sized enterprises export beyond Mexico and into China by helping with logistics, analytics and electronic payments. More than 200,000 Mexican companies are now listed on the Alibaba platform, according to ProMéxico, the Mexican government’s trust fund to promote trade and investment.
This is no small feat, experts say, as upward of 99 percent of Mexican enterprises are small and medium-sized. More than half of Mexico’s GDP comes from these enterprises, according to 2014 figures from Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
“By partnering with Alibaba, we can expand Mexico’s export options in China and in Asia more broadly, while enhancing Mexican SMEs’ knowledge of e-commerce and cross-border trade,” Peña-Nieto said at the signing ceremony.
Ortiz-Mena, who advised Mexico in the original NAFTA negotiation, noted how rare it is that Peña-Nieto was present at the signing of the deal, rather than just the Mexican economy or foreign affairs ministers. His appearance underscored the government’s commitment to expanding trade opportunities, he said.
Other deals include a March joint venture between Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s Giant Motors and China’s JAC Motors. JAC is investing more than $200 million for both companies to work together in Mexico to manufacture cars specifically for Latin American markets. The U.S. will not see these exports.
A future free trade agreement between the countries is also possible, as both Peña Nieto and Xi mentioned it during the September visit, said Margaret Myers, director of the Latin America and the World Program at Inter-American Dialogue. Mexico has 10 FTAs with 45 countries, 32 reciprocal investment promotion and protection agreements with 33 countries and nine other trade agreements within Latin America, according to ProMéxico.
However, Ortiz-Mena and other Mexican policy experts agree that regardless of the future of NAFTA or Mexico’s 2018 presidential elections, Mexico will have to better build out its infrastructure — notably in transportation and telecommunications — if it seeks to diversify its trade partnerships and court foreign investment.
Even with deals with companies like Alibaba and JAC Motors, Dussel Peters said the prospects of a close Mexico-China relationship are still “primitive” and have a long way to go, as Mexico does not have the strategy in place to enact a large-scale trade expansion with China. Both Dussel Peters and Myers emphasized that given the historic competitiveness between the two countries, there are still challenges and tensions to overcome.
“There’s certainly a growing footprint. We’re seeing some interesting gestures,” Myers said. “But the real question is whether Mexico is prepared to strengthen those ties with China. How that materializes is questionable.”
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2017/11/mexico-gets-closer-to-china-as-nafta-talks-fray-us-relationship-176074
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EPA Faces Threat Of Lawsuit Seeking Facility ERP Data
Nov 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmental and community groups in a recent notice of intent to sue (NOI) are alleging that EPA and New Jersey state officials failed to provide communities access to industrial facilities' emergency response plans (ERPs) in violation of a federal law requiring emergency planning and disclosure of hazardous substances.
In an Oct. 25 NOI sent to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and New Jersey officials, Earthjustice and the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) of Newark, NJ, argue that state officials have failed to provide access to facilities' ERPs in violation of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), and that numerous past releases from facilities demonstrate the need to ensure adequate planning for future accidents.
“ICC has grave concerns that this history of explosions, fires and toxic spills will only continue,” the groups say in the NOI. “In particular, ICC is worried that the lack of comprehensive emergency response planning in Newark threatens to needlessly exacerbate the potential harms from future industrial accidents."
The groups are threatening to sue EPA, New Jersey, and New Jersey's State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) in 60 days if federal and state officials fail to comply with EPCRA. The advocates will seek a judgment against the three entities for failure to provide public access to ERPs, and against the state entities for failing to appoint a Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) with membership that complies with EPCRA.
The NOI reflects environmental and community groups' wide-ranging efforts to improve public access to data on industrial facilities' chemical holdings and emergency planning documents, disclosures that Pruitt, in his former job as Oklahoma's attorney general opposed.
Pruitt has delayed by nearly two years, and signaled he intends to revise, the Obama EPA's Jan. 12 final rule updating the agency's Risk Management Plan facility accident prevention rule with new requirements for facilities to coordinate with first responders and streamline disclosure of facility data to the public, among other changes.
In the Oct. 25 NOI, Earthjustice argues that EPA and state officials have failed to provide facilities' comprehensive ERPs as EPCRA requires, and that state officials have failed to appoint an EPCRA-compliant LEPC for the Newark area that would provide the necessary information to the public.
The NOI also details numerous ICC requests to state officials for ERPs and other facility data, which the groups say were denied. “EPA, the State, and the NJ SERC have therefore failed to provide a mechanism for the public availability of an EPCRA-compliant comprehensive emergency response plan for Newark, in violation of EPCRA,” the NOI says.
The groups' potential lawsuit would be at least the second alleging New Jersey's SERC has failed to provide an adequate mechanism for public disclosure of facilities' ERPs. The New Jersey Work Environment Council in April sued the state's SERC and an LEPC in Linden, NJ, alleging they failed to disclose ERPs as required under EPCRA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-faces-threat-lawsuit-seeking-facility-erp-data
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Body of Worker Recovered After Cosmetics Factory Blast, Fire
Nov 20, 2017 | AP (In the New York Times)
NEW WINDSOR, N.Y. — Authorities recovered the body of a male worker reported missing after two explosions and a fire at a New York cosmetics factory left 30 to 35 people injured, including seven firefighters caught in the second blast, officials said Monday.
"A deceased male employee was recovered from the plant fire at approximately 7:40 p.m.," Orange County spokesman Justin Rodriguez said in a statement Monday night. He gave no additional details.
Police said the first explosion occurred around 10:15 a.m. Monday at the Verla International cosmetics factory in New Windsor, about an hour's drive from New York City. Firefighters who responded were inside when the second explosion occurred around 10:40 a.m.
Up to 35 people were being treated for injuries, including seven firefighters, most of them from the nearby city of Newburgh, Town Supervisor George Green said. Two of the firefighters were taken to the burn unit at Westchester Medical Center, he said. None of the injuries appear to be life-threatening.
There was no word on a cause of the blaze, which fire crews and hazardous materials teams were battling into the night.Continue reading the main story
Verla was cited for nine occupational safety violations earlier this year, according to records on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's website. One was related to problems with the handling of flammable and combustible liquids.
The federal agency also cited inadequacies relating to respirator protection for workers and the maintenance of exit routes. The company agreed to pay $41,000 in penalties.
Television video from Monday's explosions showed thick, black smoke spewing from a section of the roof of the sprawling facility, which includes manufacturing and warehouse buildings. Workers milled about a parking lot while fire crews looked on.
"It's still an active fire scene," Green said, adding that the flames were "knocked down pretty well at this point."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said state emergency response teams have been sent to the factory. State personnel dispatched included homeland security staffers, state police, environmental conservation enforcement officers and health department technicians, the Democratic governor said. The state also will investigate working conditions and regulatory compliance at the plant.
"Following today's chemical explosion, I am directing a multi-agency investigation to get to the bottom of what happened and review compliance with state labor and environmental laws," he said in a statement.
The factory is about a half-mile from the town hall and police station in New Windsor, on the Hudson River's west bank, 55 miles (88 kilometers) north of New York City. The 37-year-old New Windsor-based company's website says the products it makes include nail polish, perfumes, lotions and other products.
The company's phone number wasn't working. An email sent to the company wasn't answered.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/11/20/us/ap-us-cosmetics-factory-explosion.html?_r=0
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Climate Envoys Step Up Pace of Work Without Support from Trump
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Shankleman
Envoys from almost 200 nations agreed to step up the pace of their work on reining in global warming even without additional help from the world's richest polluter.
Two weeks of discussions organized by the United Nations concluded on early Nov. 18, after talks were delayed by a grammatical error in the draft text. The delegates, drawn from energy and environment ministries set out plans to reassess efforts next year to cut fossil fuel emissions and hold extra round of talks before the next regularly scheduled meeting in December 2018.
The measures are aimed at preserving momentum in the international fight against greenhouse gases. President Donald Trump has vowed to pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Agreement, and while his delegates joined the consensus in Bonn this week, his government is watering down environmental restrictions at home.
Trump is “weakening” the Paris deal, Christian Ehler, a German member of the European Parliament who speaks on EU and U.S. relations at the climate change talks, said in an interview. “You could sense it every day, that the U.S. was creating a huge vacuum, so now you see people trying to fill it up. There's a leadership gap, and I think now the interests are falling apart in a way.”
The voluntary pledges on cutting fossil-fuel pollution that countries including the U.S. made in Paris two years ago aren't enough to meet the UN's target to hold global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. A degree of warming over the past century already has been blamed for stronger storms, more frequent floods and droughts and rising seas.
“We are 15 years or so away from busting the 1.5 degree Celsius budget,” said Piers Forster, a professor of climate change at the University of Leeds. “Emissions need to decrease to zero over the next 40 years to prevent us breaching this 1.5 threshold. We can do it, but all countries, cities and citizens need to move.”
This year's talks were largely a launchpad for next year's round of discussions, where countries will start a process that will eventually lead to them putting new, tougher pledges on the table. Yet Trump's reluctance to engage in new meaningful efforts was just part of the discord that emerged in Bonn.
Poland, the host of next year's Conference of the Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is threatening to derail ambitions for deeper cuts within the European Union, one of the biggest negotiating blocs. While French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to pick up slack in financing climate projects that will be created by the U.S. departure, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told delegates at the meeting that coal would remain a big part of her nation's energy policy. China and India revived efforts to differentiate their contribution to emissions reductions from richer nations.
“This COP saw Germany drastically lose credibility and leadership on climate action,” said Sweelin Heuss, executive director of Greenpeace in Germany. “Merkel's disappointing speech failed to align Germany with a coalition of progressive nations stepping away from coal, raising doubts if Germany is committed to the ambition of the Paris agreement.”
With limits set out in the Paris deal only set to take effect in the next decade, envoys in Bonn were focused on how to get countries to commit to deeper emissions cuts before 2020. To do that, they asked for each country to submit evidence about what they've done to implement anti-pollution programs in time for the 2018 meeting.
Fiji, which presided over this year's discussions, persuaded the delegates to endorse a series of “Talanoa dialogues,” a traditional gathering around a large wooden bowl called a Tanoa in the South Pacific nation where village elders share stories in hopes of building a consensus for action.
“The Talanoa dialogue is what makes the Paris Agreement tick, and it's essential that it features prominently at next year's important summit in Poland,” said Mohamed Adow, international climate lead at Christian Aid, a charity.
The envoys in Bonn agreed:
• on the need for “additional negotiating time” before their next annual meeting;
• that nations should submit by May 1 information about progress in cutting pollution levels before 2020;
• that a “Talanoa dialogue” should aim to spur more efforts before 2020; and
• that a “stocktake” of pollution cuts before 2020 will be made in time for the 2018 meeting.
—With assistance from Dean Scott (Bloomberg Environment)http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967912&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967912&jd=123967912
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U.S. Balancing Act May Be More Difficult at 2018 Climate Talks
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S. was largely able to pull off a high-wire act at the Bonn climate talks—touting President Donald Trump's coal-friendly agenda while working in closed-door talks to draft rules for Paris climate pact—but could be headed into some heavy crosswinds at next year's summit in Poland.
But the U.S. balancing act will be tougher because the rulebook to implement the Paris accord, which was barely sketched in Bonn, has to be finished in Poland a year from now. In a sense, the U.S.—the only country in the world heading for the exits on the climate pact—would be alone at one end of the table trying to exert pressure on the rest of the world, which actually intends to use those rules in implementing the landmark 2015 deal.
“We are doing OK now, but how is it going to look next year, or the year after that, as we get closer and closer to the actual withdrawal date?” Andrew Light, a former Obama administration climate envoy, told Bloomberg Environment. “Do we actually lose some ability to corral” other nations, “just as things get harder” because so much more is at stake.
In Poland, those countries are likely to be less receptive to arguments from a nation withdrawing from the deal, but also less flexible knowing they are making final decisions to implement a deal covering only them for the next decade and beyond, he said.
Among the policies and procedures the nearly 200 nations must conclude at the 2018 high-level summit in Katowice, Poland: rules to launch international emissions trading; a process for taking stock of nations’ collective actions to address climate change; and final reporting and verification rules.
Deadline Looms
Trump announced in June that he will pull the U.S. out of the deal citing fears it puts the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage. But he also has questioned whether climate change is happening, calling it a “hoax” in the 2016 campaign.
But by the time the U.S. delegation arrives in in Katowice for the next United Nations climate summit in December 2018, it also will be much closer to the Nov. 4, 2019, deadline for the U.S. to formally notify other parties it is withdrawing from the accord. The earliest it can technically leave the deal is one day after the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election.
Viewed another way: Environmental groups, Fortune 500 companies, and more than 20 states now have two years to mount a campaign and convince Trump to let the U.S. stay.But next year is likely to be a lot tougher for the U.S. in Poland because the nearly 200 nations that adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015 agreed to make the accord operational at the 2018 summit's end.
Consequently, there won't be the wiggle room countries had in Bonn to boot tough issues forward, not only on the Paris rule book but other land mines that could trip up negotiators in Poland. Developing nations are sure to demand more specifics on when the U.S., Japan, European nations, and other richer industrialized nations will go beyond the $100 a billion annually in public and private funding they are to provide developing nations starting in 2020.
Those developed countries agreed in 2015 to consider boosting annual climate aid totals beginning in 2025.
Onus on Backers?
One Trump administration political appointee who was part of the U.S. delegation in Bonn sees it differently. The onus will squarely be on those pushing to get Trump to reverse himself, the appointee told Bloomberg Environment Nov. 20.
No countries have taken up Trump on his offer to stay in the climate deal if it's renegotiated on better terms for the U.S. Thus, the appointee said, there's no reason for the president to stay.
The key issue for 2018 is “having strong political leadership with [the] resolve to carry the exit decision through to the end"—and finally withdraw the U.S. from the pact in 2020, the official said.
U.S. Pushing Fossil Fuels Elsewhere
One question for the 2018 summit is whether there will be any fallout from a Trump administration decision to host a Bonn event touting fossil fuels as a climate mitigation approach.
The panel, the brainchild of White House energy adviser George David Banks, was to “reintroduce [a] pragmatic policy discussion on energy and climate,” Banks told Bloomberg Environment just before the summit's end.
The “technical negotiations"—figuring out how to implement the Paris Agreement—were “separate” and in the hands of State Department career staff, he said. But the U.S. still plans to push fossil fuels in a host of other international talks the U.S. is engaged in, which range from one-on-one bilateral talks to multilateral trade deals, according to Banks, who was named White House special assistant for international energy and environment in February.
Showdown Coming
Harjeet Singh, who tracks the climate talks for the nonprofit ActionAid International, agreed that the administration appeared to avoid injecting that fossil fuel message into the negotiations, where the U.S. didn't appear to diverge from previous Obama and Bush administration positions that as a whole sought to advance or protect U.S. interests.
“At the technical level, the U.S. has been negotiating as if nothing has changed,” Singh told Bloomberg Environment, “even when they are blocking things like finance” for vulnerable nations—a reluctance to take on climate aid commitments shared by the last two administrations.
But that consistency is not exactly cause for celebration, according to Singh. “It's good and bad—bad because they are still not letting us make progress on some very important issues,” he said. “But good because we need everybody at the table, and the task is so huge that everybody must contribute.”
One Obama-era State Department official told Bloomberg Environment that the U.S. positions in hindsight were very close to what negotiations for Hillary Clinton might have brought to Bonn had she been inaugurated instead of Trump. One exception might be on climate finance.
Had Clinton won, the U.S “would have been slightly less hostile to some of the long-term finance conversations” held in the negotiating rooms in Bonn, the official said, where many island nations and others already hit by climate impacts pressed richer nations for greater commitment to more funding beginning in 2025.
The Trump administration, by contrast, has sought to zero out most international climate finance, including $2 billion of President Obama's $3 billion pledge over four years to the fledgling U.N. Green Climate Fund.
“It's no secret this administration hates the $100 billion goal—it thinks it's stupid and is wary of any affirmation of it going forward,” the former State Department official said. “And it certainly doesn't want to participate in the post-2025 conversation of what is the new version of that $100 billion is going to be.”
Raising Eyebrows
Light, now a senior fellow in the World Resources Institute's global climate program, said having the U.S. remain at the table in the talks while it waits to formally withdraw is still useful
“They could stop sending a delegation. Or, they could start sending a place-holder, a delegation that's even smaller” than the State Department delegation sent to Bonn, which fluctuated but was roughly a team of about a dozen or so.
Holding the 2018 summit in Katowice has raised some eyebrows for those who remember two controversies that erupted the last time Poland played host to the talks in 2013 in Warsaw.
First, there was the heavy presence of fossil fuel companies at the talks, which prompted a walkout by some environmental groups. This was followed by Poland's peculiar decision to oust its environment minister and president of the Conference of the Parties just as nations were heading into the the last days of the summit with deals on the table for global forest protection and the still simmering debate over how to address the loss and damage in nations already impacted by climate change.
Avoiding Surprises
It will be crucial for Poland “to avoid surprises like we had” at that summit, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who presided over the 2014 U.N. talks in Peru, told Bloomberg Environment. Negotiators don't need the distraction of a heavy fossil fuel presence or tenuous leadership with Paris implementation issues front and center in Katowice, said Pulgar-Vidal, who now heads the World Wildlife Fund's global climate and energy program.
The fact that Poland, a coal-friendly European Union member that's often tugging against the bloc's clean energy push, will host again is already making some jittery. Perhaps in response, Poland's environment minister, Jan Szyszko, has repeatedly touted Katowice, located about 50 miles northwest of Krakow in a southern region of Poland bustling with coal mines, for its own environmental progress.
Katowice “is a good example of a just transition,” from black capital to green capital, “an environmentally responsible city [and] one of the greenest” in Poland, Szyszko told environment ministers in the high-level plenary in the final hours of the Bonn talks.
The environment minister also announced in the final hours of the Bonn talks that Poland has tapped Tomasz Chruszczow, a familiar face to negotiators and others who track the U.N. talks, to a new dual position of special envoy for the incoming Polish presidency overseeing the 2018 summit, as well as a more nebulous post of “climate champion.”
Szyszko is still expected to serve as COP president next year, however. Chruszczow has headed the Polish delegation since 2009 and has some technical expertise as chairman of a U.N. technical wing—the Subsidiary Body on Implementation—that advises the nearly 200 nations.
Next year will mark the fourth time Poland has presided over the summit in the two decades or so that have passed since the parties launched talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty to the Paris pact.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967911&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967911&jd=123967911
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U.S. Could Soon Offer Signal On Coolant Climate Deal
Nov 21, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The world is moving forward with reducing greenhouse gas refrigerants, and the deal's momentum could raise questions about whether the Trump administration will join or sit on the sidelines.
Sweden on Nov. 17 became the 20th nation to ratify a global deal to limit hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, refrigerant chemicals that are highly potent greenhouse gases. Approval by 20 countries was required to ensure the deal, known as the Kigali Amendment, begins on schedule in January 2019.
Despite a quiet lobbying push from the refrigeration and chemical industries, the Trump administration has not publicly indicated whether it will back the deal, which it would have to submit to the Senate for ratification. In total, the reduction's climate impact could be substantial, limiting as much as 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.
The Kigali deal is an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 treaty crafted to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. The amendment, adopted last year by nearly 200 nations, sets a schedule for countries to limit HFCs—beginning in 2019 for most developed countries, including the United States, and in 2024 for most developing nations.
HFCs do not deplete the ozone, but have served as widespread replacements for chemicals like hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs, that do.A first signal of the White House's leanings could come this week as countries meet in Montreal to discuss the Kigali Amendment and other aspects of the Montreal Protocol, including a replenishment of funding from developed countries to help developing nations meet the treaty's requirements.
Steve Yurek, president of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that U.S. officials “will have positive comments” on the Kigali deal during the meeting's high-level sessions Nov. 23-24.
‘Strong U.S. Contingency’
Yurek, speaking from Montreal, told Bloomberg Environment he is hopeful the administration has been receptive to efforts from his group—which represents a range of appliance manufacturers and chemical companies—to demonstrate the Kigali deal is good for U.S. industry.
A “strong U.S. contingency” is at the Montreal meetings, he said, including representatives from the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House, and both chambers of Congress.
Cindy Newberg, a long-time career staffer with the EPA's Office of Atmospheric Programs, is co-chairing the meetings, which Yurek also said is a “good sign.”
A major focus of the week-long meetings will be hammering out an agreement on funding levels for the next three years for the protocol's financial arm, known as the Multilateral Fund.
Most of the money committed by developed countries over the next three years will support developing nations’ transition away from ozone-depleting HCFCs—though the protocol's economic advisers suggested up to 10 percent of the funds could be used for beginning efforts to comply with the Kigali deal.
Funding for Developing Countries
The protocol's economic advisory panel in an October report recommended developed countries provide between $514.7 million and $560 million to developing countries for the 2018-2020 timeframe.
It is unclear how much money the U.S. would bring to the table. The Trump administration's fiscal year 2018 budget request proposed to sharply decrease the level of funding provided to the Multilateral Fund, zeroing out the EPA's share of the commitment and significantly reducing the State Department's share.
Speaking Nov. 20 at the meeting's opening plenary, a U.S. official said the budget situation is “extraordinarily constrained” and urged a fair burden sharing and prioritized funding for nations that need the most help, according to an account from Avipsa Mahapatra, climate campaign lead for the Environmental Investigation Agency. The nonprofit identifies and implements solutions to global environmental problems.
Mahapatra said following the U.S. official's remarks, a Chinese official took the floor to stress the importance that developed countries don't renege on funding commitments. The exchange is “somewhat of a foreshadowing of what's to come” during the funding negotiations this week, Mahapatra, speaking from Montreal, told Bloomberg Environment.
Typical Give-and-Take
But Yurek said he believes the industry's ongoing conversations with lawmakers and Trump administration officials to continue to support the Montreal Protocol have largely been successful, and he is hopeful a strong level of funding will be provided for the Multilateral Fund in Congress’ final fiscal year 2018 package.
He added that the refrigeration industry, like U.S. officials, believe the funds “need to be used judiciously and on programs that deliver” demonstrable benefit toward reducing ozone-depleting and HFC refrigerants.
Mahapatra also noted that there is typically a give-and-take between developed and developing nations over the Montreal Protocol funding levels, and she expects a final decision will come down to the wire.
On the Kigali deal specifically, Mahapatra said now that “we know for sure” that the amendment will enter into force on schedule in January 2019, countries “need to get serious about how they lay the foundation for entering into force.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=123967913&vname=dennotallissues&fn=123967913&jd=123967913
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HFC Pact To Take Effect In 2019 Amid U.S. Policy Uncertainty
Nov 20, 2017 | Inside EPA
An international deal to limit the use of refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases has cleared a key hurdle after Sweden became the 20th country to ratify the agreement, meaning that it will take effect in 2019 amid ongoing uncertainty about whether the Trump administration plans to implement the pact.
Known as the Kigali Amendment, the deal issues a global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are refrigerants with a high global warming potential. The deal amends the Montreal Protocol, which is considered a highly successful treaty to cut down on the use of a prior generation of coolants that harmed the stratospheric ozone layer.
The New York Times reports that because 20 countries have formally joined the deal, it will enter into force at the earliest possible date, Jan. 1, 2019.
The commercial refrigeration sector and chemical companies broadly support Kigali, though there has been debate about whether a recent appellate court ruling vacating a key portion of an EPA rule limiting HFCs will block implementation of the global deal.
Environmentalists who back the rule say that the August ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will certainly “complicate” implementation because the measure and a subsequent regulation largely put the United States on track toward meeting its 2019 compliance target.
However, chemical company plaintiffs in that suit charge that EPA's significant new alternatives policy (SNAP) regulation did not guarantee the U.S. would meet its Kigali target, and that any scenario would have required additional policies to implement the deal.
A commercial refrigeration source recently told Inside EPA that large retailers are already moving away from HFCs and that the country is likely to meet its 2019 target even if EPA's SNAP rule remains vacated.
Another open question is whether the Trump administration will submit the Kigali Amendment to the Senate for ratification. Some believe it might not embrace the push to reduce HFCs due to its broader antipathy to climate rules, however, others have noted that the White House has steered clear of criticizing the issue, unlike its sharp critiques of other Obama administration climate mitigation policy.
Frank Maisano, a Bracewell lobbyist who represents industry groups that back Kigali, notes that Sweden's formal ratification of the deal “will allow the plan to go into effect in 2019. Given this move, we expect to see potential U.S. action on the agreement that was forged in partnership” and requires both developing and developed countries to limit use of HFCs.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/hfc-pact-take-effect-2019-amid-us-policy-uncertainty
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California Bucks Global Trend with another Year of GHG Reductions
Nov 20, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jonathan Camuzeaux
This post was co-authored by Maureen Lackner and originally appeared on the EDF Talks Global Climate blog.
The California Air Resources Board’s November 6 release of 2016 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from the state’s largest electricity generators and importers, fuel suppliers, and industrial facilities shows that emissions have decreased even more than anticipated. California’s emissions trends are showing what is possible with strong climate policies in place and provide hope even as new analysis projects that global emissions will increase by 2% in 2017 after a three-year plateau.
California’s emissions kept falling in 2016
The 2016 emissions report, an annual requirement under California’s regulation for the Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (MRR), shows that emissions covered by the state’s cap-and-trade program are shrinking, and doing so at a faster pace than in prior years. Covered emissions have dropped each year that cap and trade has been in place, amounting to 31 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (MMt CO2e) over the whole period, or 8.8% reduction relative to 2012. The drop between 2015 and 2016 accounts for over half of these cumulative reductions (16 MMt CO2e; 4.8% reduction relative to 2015). The electricity sector is responsible for the bulk of this drop: electricity importers reduced emissions about 10 MMt CO2e while in-state electricity generation facilities reduced emissions by about 7 MMt CO2e.
Some sectors’ emissions grew in 2016. Just as with global transportation emissions, California’s transportation emissions have steadily crept up in recent years, and the MRR report suggests this trend is continuing. Transportation fuel suppliers, which account for the largest share of total emissions, reported a 1.8 MMt CO2e increase in emissions covered by cap and trade since 2015. Cement plants and hydrogen plants also experienced small increases in covered emissions. One of the benefits of cap and trade, however, is that if the clean transition is occurring more slowly in one sector, other sectors will be required to reduce further to keep emissions below the cap while the whole economy catches up.
Emissions that are not covered by the cap-and-trade program dropped, from 92 MMt CO2e in 2015 to 87 MMt CO2e in 2016. While small, this represents the largest reduction in non-covered emissions since 2012 and is mostly driven by suppliers of natural gas/NGL/LPG and electricity importers. Net non-covered and covered emissions reductions resulted in a 20.5 MMt CO2e drop in total emissions from these sectors.
The California climate policies are accomplishing their emissions reductions goals
The 2016 MRR data indicate impactful reductions in GHG emissions and progress toward reaching the state’s target emissions reductions by 2020. The 2016 emissions drop is a consequence of several factors: a CARB analysis of the year’s electricity generation points to increased renewable capacity, decreased imports of electricity from coal-fired power plants, and increased in-state hydroelectric power production. To put it in perspective, the 20.5 MMt CO2e emissions reductions is equivalent to offsetting the energy use of about 2.2 million homes, or 16% of California’s households.
Emissions below the cap are a climate win, not a concern
Total covered emissions in 2016 were about 324 MMt CO2e, well below California’s 2016 cap of roughly 382 MMt. Some observers of the cap-and-trade program worry that an “oversupply” of credits will result in reduced revenue for the state and lesser profits for traders on the secondary market. This concern was especially pronounced when secondary market prices dipped below the price floor in 2016 and 2017.
Importantly, oversupply of allowances is not a bad thing for the climate. As Frank Wolak, an energy economist at Stanford, points out, oversupply may be a sign of an innovative economy in which pollution reductions are easier to achieve than anticipated. Furthermore, having emissions below the cap represents earlier than anticipated reductions which is a win for the atmosphere. Warming is caused by the cumulative emissions that are present in the atmosphere so earlier reductions mean gases are not present in the atmosphere for at least the period over which emissions are delayed.
While market stability is a valid concern, the design of the program has built-in features to prevent market disruptions. Furthermore, the California legislature’s recent two-thirds majority vote to extend the cap-and-trade program through 2030 provides long-term regulatory certainty. Both the May and August auctions were completely sold out suggesting that the extension has succeeded in stabilizing demand.
These results are a welcome reminder that the cap-and-trade program is working in concert with other policies to accomplish the primary objective of reducing emissions, and that we’re doing it cheaply is an added bonus. Early reductions at a low cost can lead to sustained or even improved ambition as California implements its world-leading climate targets.
As California closes its fifth year of cap and trade, it should be with a sense of accomplishment and optimism for the future of the state’s emissions.
http://blogs.edf.org/markets/2017/11/20/california-bucks-global-trend-with-another-year-of-ghg-reductions/
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Heartland Launches Campaign To Persuade EPA To Reverse GHG Finding
Nov 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Heartland Institute is launching a plan to persuade the Trump EPA to revoke the landmark Obama-era finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare -- a radical but necessary step to shield the coal industry from any climate controls, according to a senior fellow with the free-market group that dismisses mainstream climate science.
The fellow, Fred Palmer, who joined Heartland early this year and after stints at coal mining company Peabody Energy and the Western Fuels Association, tells Inside EPA Nov. 17 that the endangerment finding “has to be taken out. It demonizes [carbon dioxide]. It treats it as if it is a toxic pollutant, and it's not, it's just not.”
The group's second chief goal is to persuade the Trump administration to withdraw from the 1992 United Nations Rio Treaty that established the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“So Rio is the mother lode,” Palmer says. “The endangerment finding is first. It is right in front of us and a potential impediment to saving coal plants. We're just starting this process of EPA rolling back regulations, but there are lawsuits sitting in drawers waiting to be filed” that will seek to halt coal projects due to the endangerment finding, he claims.
Palmer fears a liberal judge could cite the existence of the endangerment finding and use it as a reason to enjoin any more coal from being burned or mined.
As such, he is committed in his plans, though is less clear on the process to successfully revoke the policy, given that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has not indicated any interest in seeking to revoke the finding. However, Pruitt has voiced significant doubts about the harms of CO2 and is planning a “red team, blue team” review of climate science that skeptics are embracing.
Palmer's remarks are emblematic of several hard-line conservative groups -- including Heartland, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation -- that are seeking to fundamentally eradicate any possibility of federal or state climate controls.
However, they stand in contrast with major business groups, scores of individual corporations, some Republican lawmakers and even, to some extent, the Trump administration.
For instance, an official with the National Association of Manufacturers recently told a Senate hearing that “we should be acting on climate, period.”
Also a growing number of House Republicans has joined the “Climate Solutions Caucus” that seeks to discuss ideas to address anthropogenic climate change, and Congress recently passed legislation requiring the Defense Department to study climate risks -- a policy opposed by Heartland.
Further, despite the administration's myriad climate policy rollbacks, a State Department official told a U.N. climate conference Nov. 16 that the United States is “committed to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through, among other things, increased innovation on sustainable energy and energy efficiency, and working towards low greenhouse gas emissions energy systems.”
'Embrace CO2'
However, the surprise November 2016 election of President Donald Trump has given new life to the aggressive free-market groups that oppose all climate controls because Trump dismisses climate science and vowed to aggressively roll back climate mitigation policies.
Palmer notes that his move to Heartland occurred after Trump won the election, and that he had been planning to start a different venture designed to push back against an expected expansion of Obama climate policies by Hillary Clinton.
The Obama EPA issued the GHG risk finding in 2009 and it forms the basis for several GHG regulations that the Trump administration is seeking to roll back. But without revoking the science-based finding, the administration will be required to have some level of GHG limits. Industry groups largely prefer minimal requirements so they can have regulatory certainty, and also believe that revoking the finding would be impossible because of the scientific evidence behind man-made climate change.
But Heartland and other like-minded groups are pushing harder for the Trump EPA to take on the mainstream science they reject and are seeking to debunk.
Palmer says in the interview that atmospheric CO2 may cause mild winter warming but that is not a bad thing, and that severe weather is a fact of life. He sees limiting fossil fuels because of CO2-related concerns as the real problem because it would impair “the industrial evolution of the human community,” which “is succeeding because of, not in spite of, fossil fuels, led by coal.” He adds that coal can be burned with few criteria pollutant emissions thanks to new technology. He acknowledges that burning coal for electricity emits CO2, but says, “I don't worry about CO2. I embrace CO2.”
Heartland is touting early success in persuading Pruitt and Trump to scrap EPA rules they oppose, but is also circulating a wish list of other policies it seeks to undo.
A three-page Energy Freedom Score Card, obtained by the Washington Post, says that as part of an effort to repeal global warming regulations, the administration must “End the war on fossil fuels by withdrawing from the Paris and FCCC, the endangerment finding, the social cost of carbon, Clean Power Plan and other regulations justified by global alarmism.” For some reason, however, the Oct. 15 document does not specify the endangerment finding withdrawal among 30 action items that are labeled as “done” “started” or “not done.”
David Schnare, who served as a top EPA official early in the administration but left in March over disputes with Pruitt, told a private Heartland meeting in Houston that the group should threaten legal action against the agency over the endangerment finding, according to a Post report that cited a tape recording of the meeting.
“So the question then becomes, what pressure can you put on Mr. Pruitt to make him do it?” Schnare told the group, before starting to mimic his former boss’s twang, the Post reported. “The answer he gave me was, ‘Dave, if the president tells me to do it, I’ll do it. Otherwise, I’ll decide what I’m going to do.’ Well, okay, and then I resigned.”
At another point, Schnare raised the idea of using the threat of litigation to force the EPA to act. That approach is largely similar to what conservatives have dubbed “sue and settle” -- though Schnare at the meeting denied it was the same tactic -- and which Pruitt curtailed after criticizing it for benefiting environmental groups.
Schnare declined to comment on the meeting, though CEI's Myron Ebell confirmed the paper's account of his own remarks, while speculating that the tape was made not by an attendee but by a hotel employee paid by a reporter. Nonetheless, Ebell said the closed-door discussion was not about any “secret strategy” but to ensure everyone was on the “same page,” and noted similar meetings have occurred at other venues recently.
Palmer is also unconcerned that details of the Houston meeting have emerged, noting that there “was no real security, no one was paying attention and none of it is a secret.”
Endangerment Petitions
EPA already faces three petitions to revoke the endangerment finding, though Heartland has not filed one and Palmer is unsure whether it would.
A CEI attorney says there are no current plans to go to court over EPA's lack of response to its petition, which was filed in February.
Palmer says he is underwhelmed by the petitions, and says that if the public is educated on the real story about CO2, then the group's favored policy will follow. He calls his effort an “educational” and “societal” one. “We have a great disadvantage in the way we are treated in the popular press. . . . But it's a positive message, not a negative message, not a denial message.”
His chief message is that curtailing fossil fuels hurts people's lives, because it will make electricity scarce and expensive. He does not believe the computer models' dire predictions of global warming impacts and thinks the benefits of energy -- including that billions of people live comfortably with long life expectancies -- outweigh any risks.
While he has not had direct conversations on the issue with Pruitt, he says EPA “knows what we think” and that he knows what Trump's nominee for deputy EPA administrator Andy Wheeler thinks. “All you have to do is look at who the president has nominated to be in these positions to know where they are going,” he says, predicting that the agency officially will take steps to revoke the finding. He acknowledges that the process will likely stretch over a few years.
Without the finding, coal will regain its rightful place in the world, Palmer believes, claiming that renewables are only succeeding because of tax credits and that natural gas is only earning increased market share because it has a lower CO2 profile than coal.
Gas is “a default fuel because of the climate agenda. But for CO2, the [coal] plant closures that we've had in the United States might be cut by 75 percent, and the engineers, when you talk to them, they say they want baseload coal.”
Delivering this message remains a “work in progress,” Palmer says, though he says he has complete faith in Trump's ability to execute it, in part because as a candidate he put forward an “America first” energy plan that had no reference to CO2. “[Trump] put this on the table . . . but he needs help [delivering the message of] why CO2 is good and not bad.”
Palmer says has been involved in the climate change issue since 1988, when he was defending electric cooperative coal plants in the West and he was instrumental in producing the video “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which argued rising CO2 would benefit agriculture.
He says he wants to release an update to the video to conclude that prediction has been proven true. He also notes that predictions from the early 1980s that the world would experience 3 degree Celsius of warming by 2050 have been debunked, noting that satellite data shows the warming between then and now is about a half a degree. In the meantime, “Coal exploded. The economy exploded,” he says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/heartland-launches-campaign-persuade-epa-reverse-ghg-finding
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