Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 11/21/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) The Toxic Chemical Industry Is Having a Really Great Year
Nov 21, 2017 | New Republic
By Emily Atkin
The scariest part about the 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia was that, in the beginning, no one really knew anything about the chemical that poisoned their drinking water. -
Conflict Brews at Journal Known for Exposing Industry Links
Nov 21, 2017 | ProPublica (In E&E Greenwire)
By Lisa Song
A feud is brewing at the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, a small academic publication known for its work in exposing the role of industry-backed science to defend chemical products and corporate interests. -
(ACC Mentioned) Senate Spending Bill Spares EPA Deep Cuts, Not Policy Riders
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly and Corbin Hiar
Funding for U.S. EPA's beleaguered chemical assessment program — out. Alaska-centric provisions — in. And continued "workforce reshaping" at EPA — a sure thing. -
More Questions Than Answers: EDF Submits Extensive Questions to EPA in Advance of Public Meeting on New Chemical Reviews
Nov 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Environmental Defense Fund yesterday submitted questions to EPA that we hope are answered by the agency at the public meeting it is convening on December 6th on changes to its new chemicals reviews. -
Senate Funding Proposal to Eliminate EPA’s IRIS Program is a Public Health Debacle
Nov 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jennifer McPartland
Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Appropriations majority posted their version of the FY2018 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill online (see bill here and accompanying explanatory statement here; see the minority’s summary response here). -
Lawsuit: 3M Contamination Led to More Cancer, Infertility
Nov 21, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Minnesota’s attorney general alleges that chemicals dumped by 3M Co. in the Twin Cities metro led to an increase in cancer, infertility and babies with low birth weights. -
Cosmetic and Perfume Sales Staff Exposed to High Phthalate Levels
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Anthony King
Women of reproductive age could be exposing themselves to harm by working on retail cosmetics and perfume counters. Researchers found higher levels of phthalates in these workers in Taiwan and warn that this can pose health risks, particularly for pregnant women. -
Dancet: High REACH Registration Cost ‘Main Stumbling Block’
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
SMEs’ awareness of the impending REACH registration deadline is "not the problem any longer", Echa head Geert Dancet has said. Instead, one of the main concerns is the cost of registration "being too high", particularly in the lower tonnages. -
(ACC Mentioned) Greens Run Ads Against Arctic Drilling, Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Bowlin
Environmental groups are opening their checkbooks to fight a provision of the Republican tax overhaul to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. -
FERC, Pipelines and Climate Change: Revolution in Progress?
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer and Hannah Northey
The Trump administration is grappling with how best to weigh the climate impacts of natural gas pipelines. -
Administration, Enviros Plead with Court over Fracking Rule
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Trump administration and environmentalists are urging a federal court to keep intact a recent decision on an Obama-era hydraulic fracturing rule. -
5 Important Points About the Pipeline
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
It's been nearly a decade (yes, a decade!) since the Keystone XL oil pipeline became a lightning rod battle over climate change and energy development. Yesterday, Nebraska's Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to allow the pipeline to move forward. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA: 85% of U.S. Counties Meet Tighter Ozone Limits
Nov 21, 2017 | Kallanish Energy
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined 85% of U.S. counties comply with tougher federal limits on the pollutant ozone that contributes to unhealthy smog. -
Trump’s Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement Means Other Countries Will Spend Less to Fight Climate Change
Nov 21, 2017 | Washington Post
By Johannes Urpelainen
The recent round of U.N. climate negotiations ended Friday in Bonn, Germany. While no important decisions were made on climate finance — transfers from wealthy to poor countries to support climate mitigation and adaptation — the question of who pays for global climate gave rise to heated debates.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Toxic Chemical Industry Is Having a Really Great Year
Nov 21, 2017 | New Republic
By Emily Atkin
The scariest part about the 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia was that, in the beginning, no one really knew anything about the chemical that poisoned their drinking water. Ten thousand gallons of a licorice-scented chemical called MCHM had leaked from a storage container into the Elk River, a tap water source for 300,000 people in Charleston. Schools closed, hospitals evacuated patients, and the local economy of the state’s most populated city came grinding to a halt. For weeks, citizens were unsure whether they had been exposed to unsafe levels of the chemical, and what exactly MCHM would do to their bodies if they consumed it.
West Virginians did eventually get a clearer picture of MCHM. Tom Burke, who served as the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief science adviser under President Obama, thinks that’s partially because of an EPA program called the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which assesses the health risks of thousands of chemicals across the country. “When there is a mystery like West Virginia, it’s those world-class scientists in the IRIS program that do the exposure assessment and risk analysis that lead to future decision-making about the chemical,” he told me. Congress is well aware of its value. “From the dusts of the World Trade Center and the faucets of Flint; to the toxic waters of Katrina and Harvey; [IRIS scientists] are there, working selflessly to protect our nation’s environment and public health,” Burke said in September before a House Science Committee hearing on the program. “Our health depends on them.”
We may not be able to depend on them for much longer. On Monday, the Republican-controlled Senate released a spending bill that eliminates IRIS. The bill asserts that IRIS’s functions would be maintained, just transferred to the agency’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program. But Burke and others say the TSCA program is not large or well-funded enough to handle all the different types of chemical risk assessments IRIS does. “EPA’s ability to conduct risk evaluations under the new TSCA would be severely curtailed by the loss of both expertise and capacity that reside in the IRIS program,” wrote Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
But this is good news for companies that produce and disseminate chemicals. IRIS scientists’ findings have huge financial implications for polluters. When chemicals get into the air, soil, or water, regulators often base their cleanup requirements on what IRIS scientists say is safe. And chemical industry–funded scientists have been recently accusing the program of misconduct, claiming IRIS scientists exaggerate the health risks of certain chemicals. (One asserted that formaldehyde is not carcinogenic when inhaled.) A recent report also found that the IRIS program was operating more efficiently and more transparently than ever. That will surely cease being the case if the program is transferred to TSCA.
The Senate’s spending bill is just the latest victory for the chemical industry, which since Donald Trump’s inauguration has had a lot to celebrate. Freed from the Obama administration’s clampdown on safety, companies that produce essential but oftentimes toxic substances are seeing their stocks rally. Pesticides and chemicals banned for their poisonous nature are being newly reviewed; safety regulations are being relaxed; and industry representatives are being chosen for top government positions.
Indeed, the industry is getting exactly what it paid for—but at what cost to public health?
The most telling two paragraphs about the Trump administration’s approach to chemical safety are contained within New York Timesreporter Eric Lipton’s damning investigation into the topic. Given several examples of how recent EPA decisions on chemicals could pose risks to human health and the environment, a spokesperson lashed back:
“No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said in an email. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”
Before joining the EPA, Ms. Bowman was a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council.
In Trump’s federal government, industry players decide what’s best for protecting human health and the environment. The Times piece points to the example of former American Chemistry Council executive Nancy Beck, now a top deputy at EPA’s toxic chemical office. In her brief tenure, she has ordered risk re-evaluations of numerous chemicals previously found to be linked to health problems like cancer and birth defects. In addition, the person who oversees chemical safety at the EPA is Michael Dourson, the “voice of the chemical industry” who spent his career questioning the harmfulness of industry products. Trump also personally selected Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris to head his now-defunct American Manufacturing Council, which Trump was forced to disband after mass resignations.
These players’ presence “is already visible in virtually every decision being made” at EPA, Denison told ThinkProgress earlier this month. One of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s first actions was to cancel an expected ban on chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that EPA’s own scientists warned could cause brain damage in children. After Beck took charge of the EPA’s toxics office, her first major action was to weaken a key chemical safety law. A congressionally mandated chemical review, which was supposed to reevaluate risks of asbestos and several other highly toxic substances, has been limited by the Trump administration. And Pruitt also halted an Obama-era rule intended to prevent chemical manufacturers from emitting excess pollution.
The $800 billion chemical industry is finally getting what its been attempting to buy from Republicans for decades. “Since 1990, Republicans have received nearly three-quarters of the $141 million contributed by the industry,” according to OpenSecrets, which also notes that chemical industry was one of the only sectors to give more to John McCain than Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election. “Since then, it has shown an even stronger preference for Republicans, who received 77 percent of its political donations during the 2012 cycle.”
It’s true that Hillary Clinton got a bit more money from chemical industry players during the 2016 election than Trump. But Trump received more money after the election from one chemical company than both candidates received from the entire industry during the election. Dow Chemical, which sells approximately 5 million pounds of chlorpyrifos per year, donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
https://newrepublic.com/article/145952/toxic-chemical-industry-really-great-year
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Conflict Brews at Journal Known for Exposing Industry Links
Nov 21, 2017 | ProPublica (In E&E Greenwire)
By Lisa Song
A feud is brewing at the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, a small academic publication known for its work in exposing the role of industry-backed science to defend chemical products and corporate interests.
Last week, its editorial board penned a letter requesting that the National Library of Medicine take disciplinary action against the journal's new publisher, Taylor & Francis Group.
The board said that under the new leadership, the journal has veered toward promoting "corporate interests over independent science in the public interest."
"There are many scientists who work for corporations who are honest scientists," said David Michaels, the former head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration under President Obama.
But he said the concern is "mercenary science" that's intended only to influence lawsuits or regulations. "I think the IJOEH articles were threatening to that whole industry," Michaels said. "The silencing of that voice would be a real loss to the field."
Michaels is not on the journal's board but has published in it and has peer-reviewed articles.
The editorial board says the publisher has expressed concerns about certain content and suppressed a peer-reviewed paper by a former editor-in-chief of the journal that criticized industry efforts to minimize concerns about asbestos exposure.
Taylor & Francis also unilaterally selected a new editor-in-chief who the board says is "highly sympathetic to parties with an economic interest in favorable outcomes."
The publisher says that it does not have to consult the board to make personnel decisions and that the company is not trying to reposition the viewpoint of the journal.
"We do not see this as 'repositioning' the journal as such," Ian Bannerman, manager director of journals at Taylor & Francis, wrote in response to written questions from ProPublica. "But we do see it as a change of tack — putting in place long-term plans and goals for the journal's future development, enhanced by our expertise in marketing, online publishing, and bibliometric analysis."
For board members looking to produce independent content, that explanation doesn't sit well.
"I have never, ever been in a setting where the publisher, without engaging the editorial board, made a decision unilaterally to appoint a new editor, and also made decisions to retract an article," said Dr. Arthur Frank, an IJOEH board member and a professor at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health. "Publishers are in the business of printing the journal. They're not in the business of deciding what goes into the journal" (Lisa Song, ProPublica, Nov. 20).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/21/stories/1060067073
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate Spending Bill Spares EPA Deep Cuts, Not Policy Riders
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly and Corbin Hiar
Funding for U.S. EPA's beleaguered chemical assessment program — out. Alaska-centric provisions — in. And continued "workforce reshaping" at EPA — a sure thing.
If a newly released Senate spending bill for fiscal 2018 spares the agency stiff cuts proposed by the Trump administration and House appropriators, it would make some significant changes in funding levels for specific programs and also seek to shape EPA policy through a host of riders.
The bill, released yesterday by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would give EPA $7.91 billion for the fiscal year that started last month, or about 2 percent less than in fiscal 2017.
The Trump administration, by contrast, is seeking to slash agency funding by almost one-third as the House Appropriations Committee seeks a 9 percent cut.
Predictably, however, not all programs would be treated equally.
The Senate measure would provide almost $112 million for EPA's chemical safety and sustainability research effort, a cut of nearly $16 million that includes completely eliminating the chemical assessment program, known as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
IRIS has been under fire from congressional Republicans and their allies in the chemical industry because its assessments are used by EPA, as well as state and international regulators, to set safe limits for exposure to chemicals.
They argue that the revamped Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program can now handle IRIS's assessment work, a notion that Democrats and public health groups vehemently deny.
It's unclear how the proposal would affect a request EPA made last month to the National Academy of Sciences for another study of IRIS to be conducted next year (Greenwire, Nov. 7).
The Senate spending bill report included important language justifying the elimination of IRIS and directing EPA to establish a new chemical assessment effort as part of the TSCA program.
"The Committee has not provided funding for the Integrated Risk Information System program, which has been on the Government Accountability Office's High-Risk list since 2008," the report says.
"In order to ensure that important chemical assessment work is completed," it says, "the Committee has transferred resources within the Agency from IRIS to help implement the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act."
Later in the report, Senate appropriators provided detailed orders for EPA "to advance the next generation of risk assessment methods for prioritization, screening and testing" under the new law by working closer with industry.
Specifically, they called on EPA's National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT) "to expand its collaborations with scientific experts outside the Agency."
EPA should also develop a "strategic plan" for chemical assessments led by the director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics and NCCT, the report says.
The toxics office is currently overseen by Nancy Beck, the highest-ranking political appointee in EPA's chemical safety program and a former senior policy director at the American Chemistry Council trade group.
Air
On a separate front, the bill would provide $238.2 million for state and local air quality management grants, a $10 million increase over the 2017 level.
The Senate bill is notably stingier, however, than its House counterpart in funding for the more narrowly tailored Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) and targeted airshed grant programs.
The DERA program, which hands out money to replace or retrofit older diesel vehicles and other equipment, got $60 million in fiscal 2017. While legislation approved by the House Appropriations Committee in July would boost that total to $75 million in fiscal 2018, the Senate would cut it to $40 million.
Targeted airshed grants, which got $30 million in fiscal 2017, are geared to help communities grappling with severe ozone and particulate matter pollution.
Among its beneficiaries has been Alaska's second-largest city, Fairbanks; Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), head of the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, has defended the program against the Trump administration's bid to zero it out.
While the House bill would increase spending to $40 million for 2018, the Senate measure would leave funding unchanged at $30 million.
The Senate bill report also contains several policy riders aimed at giving niche industries breaks on air pollution regulations.
One would instruct EPA to exempt diesel generators used in "remote Alaska villages" from an EPA requirement that recent models have a particulate filter.
As justification, the report says that such filters "have a high failure rate in harsh weather conditions" and that repairs can be difficult and expensive. The legislation would also delay enforcement of regulations on small waste incinerators used in the state's villages.
Another would prod EPA to relax special air quality standards for the small number of power plants that burn coal refuse for fuel. Most of those plants are located in Pennsylvania.
While Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.) has reintroduced legislation that would directly codify that special treatment, his measure has little chance of passing the Senate on its own.
In an effort to relax industrial farming regulations, the legislation, like the House measure, would prohibit agencies from requiring permits under the Clean Air Act to emit carbon dioxide, methane and other gases from livestock production.
Senate appropriators are "concerned with the recent requirement that farmers and ranchers report odors from animal waste to the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and local emergency responders under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 [CERCLA] and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act [EPCRA]," they said in one section of the report.
"This widespread collection and dissemination of data has the potential to put the privacy and safety of agriculture producers at risk, as individuals will have access to farm location data," the report said.
The report calls for EPA and the Coast Guard "to preserve the privacy of agricultural operations who are required to report their continuous releases."
Another rider that also appeared in the House legislation would prevent agencies from issuing rules that require mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure management systems.
Biomass, Superfund
Senate appropriators would require EPA and other agencies to continue to treat forest biomass as carbon-neutral. Almost identical language was included in the fiscal 2017 omnibus spending measure, considered a victory for the forest products industry.
The bill would slightly bolster the Superfund program, a top priority of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. It would provide almost $1.091 billion for cleaning up the nation's most polluted sites, an increase of nearly $2 million.
The Senate bill report calls for maintaining EPA agency funding to the Justice Department for litigating Superfund cases, a rebuke to Pruitt (see related story).
Appropriators also reiterated that additional hardrock mining cleanup insurance is unnecessary. Under a court-imposed deadline, EPA has until Dec. 1 to publish new financial assurance requirements under the Superfund program.
But Republicans and industry believe reclamation liability is sufficiently covered by existing federal and state bonding regimes, which environmentalists say do not do enough (Greenwire, Aug. 1). Murkowski has for years been a champion of riders against the rulemaking.
Agency workforce
In the report, the Senate endorsed EPA's efforts behind "workforce reshaping," which may include a round of buyout and early retirement packages as well as relocating employees in fiscal 2018.
In its budget estimate sent to Congress earlier this year, EPA said it would need $68.15 million by drawing funds from various programs for the initiative.
While appropriators were receptive to the plans, they warned the agency that streamlining its workforce should not result in unintended delays in cleaning up toxic waste sites under Superfund.
House appropriations legislation, which passed the lower chamber this September, also generally agreed with EPA's plans to offer more buyouts in fiscal 2018.
EPA has already offered a round of buyouts to employees in fiscal 2017. Hundreds decided to take the offer, signing onto the payout and early retirement packages (Greenwire, Sept. 6).
Also like the House funding bill, the Senate version has slated $40 million for the EPA inspector general. That is a greater sum than the $37.48 million the Trump administration proposed, and one likely to please IG Arthur Elkins.
In a letter earlier this year, Elkins protested against the White House proposal, calling it "a significant challenge" for his office. He asked to at least get funding on par with the fiscal 2016 level, which was $39.8 million.
Water
The Senate bill includes language that would allow any repeal of the Obama-era Clean Water Rule to bypass the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The language mirrors a provision included in the House appropriations package.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have been moving forward with their plan to scrap the regulation, which defines which wetlands and small waterways are covered by the Clean Water Act. The comment period on the proposed repeal concluded in October, and the agencies could issue a final repeal at any time.
But exempting the repeal from the APA, which requires public comment on regulatory changes, among other things, could also protect the Trump administration from potential legal challenges, which would only happen once a measure is finalized in the Federal Register.
The Senate bill would maintain funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program at its current $73 million. That's higher than the House bill, which would fund the program at $60 million, and the budget proposal from the administration, which would have nixed it altogether.
Lawmakers again prohibited any spending on implementing an updated Clean Water Act definition of "fill material," which could restrict activities requiring dredge-and-fill permits, namely mining.
The committee report thanked EPA and the Army Corps for providing reports on the number of dredge-and-fill permits under review but lifted the requirement for fiscal 2018.
Reporters Kevin Bogardus, Dylan Brown, Arianna Skibell and Ariel Wittenberg contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060067119/search?keyword=%22american+chemistry+council%22
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Nov 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Environmental Defense Fund yesterday submitted questions to EPA that we hope are answered by the agency at the public meeting it is convening on December 6th on changes to its new chemicals reviews.
Despite providing some new documents in advance of the public meeting, details about EPA’s new policies and practices for reviewing new chemicals under the reforms made to TSCA by the Lautenberg Act remain scant. We identified a number of serious concerns when these changes were first announced by Administrator Pruitt in a news release issued on August 7 – concerns that the meeting background materials EPA has provided only serve to heighten.
The questions we submitted today relate to our concerns in the following topics:
· The statutory and scientific basis for EPA’s new policies, the timing of their application, and omissions from the new framework
· EPA’s plan to use so-called “non-5(e) SNURs” in lieu of consent orders
· Recent policy changes not included in EPA’s agenda for the public meeting
· Public access to information
· Confidential business information claims
· Use of section 5(e) SNURs
EDF has been raising concerns for some time now over the recent redirection of the new chemicals program starkly away from the approach taken following last year’s enactment of the Lautenberg Act.
Many of the questions we’ve just submitted were formally submitted by letter to EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) more than 3 months ago, on August 16, 2017. Unfortunately, we have yet to receive responses to them. We hope they will be addressed at the December 6th meeting.]
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/21/more-questions-than-answers-edf-submits-extensive-questions-to-epa-in-advance-of-public-meeting-on-new-chemical-reviews/
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Senate Funding Proposal to Eliminate EPA’s IRIS Program is a Public Health Debacle
Nov 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jennifer McPartland
Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Appropriations majority posted their version of the FY2018 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill online (see bill here and accompanying explanatory statement here; see the minority’s summary response here). The legislation lays out spending measures for a number of agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In releasing the bill yesterday, the majority has bypassed the amendment and markup process.
Among other cuts, the bill eliminates the EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Program. At best a small fraction of its responsibilities – and only one-third of its funding – would be re-allocated to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP).
If realized, this short-sighted move would be a debacle in terms of protecting public health from harmful chemical exposures.
Most well-known for its gold-standard chemical toxicity reviews, EPA’s IRIS Program is a non-regulatory program that provides critical information and scientific expertise to support decision-making across the agency’s programs and regional offices as well as to other federal agencies, states, localities, and tribes.
Among other things, IRIS chemical reviews are used to inform clean-up decisions at Superfund and other contaminated sites, set standards to ensure clean drinking water, assess health risks from toxic air emissions, and evaluate health risks of chemicals in commerce. These are all legally mandated activities stipulated under different laws to ensure the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the lands where we work, live, and play are safe.
Beyond supporting requirements under the law, IRIS Program experts are often called in to help regions, states, and tribes respond rapidly to emergency and other priority situations. IRIS staff are invaluable in these moments, when time is of the essence and experts are few and far between.
So, why would such a vital program be slated for elimination? Segments of the chemical industry and its allies in Congress (and now within EPA itself) have long complained about the quality of IRIS assessments, citing for support past reviews by GAO and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). But they conveniently ignore the more recent impartial reviews of the program that have given it high marks.
While NAS panels have been critical of IRIS in the past, the most recent NAS review from 2014 praised the program for substantial improvements made over a short period time. EPA’s Science Advisory Board echoed the same sentiments just this past summer, noting that no other federal entity performs IRIS functions. Critics also neglect to mention that much of the remaining critique, such as the program’s listing on the “high-risk” list maintained by GAO, points to insufficient resources and throughput, not quality issues.
And, don’t be fooled, moving IRIS staff out of the non-regulatory Office of Research and Development (ORD) into OCSPP would cost EPA scientific expertise that serves the entire agency, severely undermining the legal responsibilities Congress has given it.
Such a move would also sever the independence between scientific review and regulatory decisions informed by such reviews. This approach has been argued against in several NAS reviews of risk assessment. Indeed, per EPA’s website: “The placement of the IRIS Program in ORD is intentional. It ensures that IRIS can develop impartial toxicity information independent of its use by EPA’s program and regional offices to set national standards and clean up hazardous sites.”
In sum, EPA’s IRIS program plays a vital role in ensuring that our health is protected from harmful exposures. Instead of eliminating the IRIS Program, Congress should be dedicating additional resources in order to maintain its current workload and boost the program’s ability to help support chemical risk evaluations under the newly reformed TSCA.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/21/senate-funding-proposal-to-eliminate-epas-iris-program-is-a-public-health-disaster/
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Lawsuit: 3M Contamination Led to More Cancer, Infertility
Nov 21, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Minnesota’s attorney general alleges that chemicals dumped by 3M Co. in the Twin Cities metro led to an increase in cancer, infertility and babies with low birth weights.
The contamination caused $5 billion in health and environmental damage for which 3M should be liable, Attorney General Lori Swanson said Friday in a court filing.
The filing alleges that 3M knew the groundwater was contaminated years before it stopped making perflourinated chemicals, known as PFCs, and that it withheld critical information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“3M, in pursuit of profit, deliberately disregarded the substantial risk of injury to the people and environment of Minnesota from its continued manufacture of PFCs and its improper disposal,” the state said.
The state cited a study by David Sunding, a natural resources economist at the University of California, Berkley, in court documents. Sunding studied epidemiological data and birth and death records for Washington County and Oakdale from 2001 and 2016. He found Oakdale had a 30 percent increase in low birth weights and premature births compared to neighboring communities. The city’s fertility rate was about 16 percent lower.
The lawsuit is a “misguided attempt” to force the company to pay for a problem that does not exist, 3M said.
“3M believes these chemicals present no harm at the levels they are observed in Minnesota,” said William Brewer III, 3M’s lead attorney.
The company began manufacturing PFCs in the 1940s and stopped production in 2002. The chemicals were used in fire-fighting foam, stain repellents, non-stick cookware and other household and industrial products. The company discarded the chemicals in landfills in Oakdale, Woodbury and Lake Elmo up until the 1970s.
Pollution was discovered in groundwater in several Washington County cities in 2004. The company has spent more than $100 million to clean up the pollution by installing water filters in the Oakdale city water system, giving residents filters and distributing bottled water.
The lawsuit was first filed in 2010. After a series of procedural delays, the case is scheduled for trial early next year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/lawsuit-3m-contamination-led-to-more-cancer-infertility/2017/11/21/eff29d04-cee6-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_story.html?utm_term=.2977cfedb4ec
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Cosmetic and Perfume Sales Staff Exposed to High Phthalate Levels
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemistry World
By Anthony King
Women of reproductive age could be exposing themselves to harm by working on retail cosmetics and perfume counters. Researchers found higher levels of phthalates in these workers in Taiwan and warn that this can pose health risks, particularly for pregnant women.
Phthalates are a class of compound added to plastics to introduce flexibility and put in cosmetics as carriers for fragrances. Several phthalates have been listed as endocrine disruptors and attention has focused on their potential cumulative effects on reproductive health.
A team from Taiwan assessed levels of phthalates in 23 cosmetics, four perfume and nine clothing sales assistants before and after their shift. ‘We found that the potential reproductive and [liver] risk of these [cosmetics and perfume] sales clerks for a period of time were increased, and exposure route from inhalation and dermal absorption could be crucial,’ says first author Po-Chun Huang at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Taiwan.
The main contributors to exposure were dibutyl phthalate (DBP), diethyl phthalate (DEP) and di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). Higher levels of DEP and DEHP were measured in cosmetics and perfume sales areas of the shop. And cosmetic sales staff had higher levels of urinary metabolites of DEHP, DEP and DBP than those selling clothing. The formulations in cosmetics and fragrances sold in Asia may differ from those sold elsewhere, however, even for the same brands. It is therefore uncertain if the results of the Taiwanese study are applicable worldwide.
Significant increases in phthalates were found in cosmetics sales staff after their shifts. ‘The daily [exposure doses] of DEHP in 63% of our perfume clerks and 50% of our cosmetic sales clerks exceeded the reference dose set by the US Environmental Protection Agency,’ the authors note.
‘A lot of the concern about phthalates is that they could interfere with testosterone production, particularly during the prenatal period when they can have subtle feminisation effects [on a male foetus],’ explains Tracey Woodruff, director of the programme on reproductive health and the environment at the University of California, San Francisco. ‘Biomonitoring shows women have higher levels of phthalates.’ This may indicate cosmetics and personal care products are an important sources of exposure.
Woodruff points to a recent finding of a 50% decline in sperm concentration in men and notes that phthalates as a class of chemical are implicated. Phthalate exposure may act cumulatively, so risks rise if you are exposed to more than one, she adds.
Most of the cosmetics and perfume sales staff who took part in the study were of childbearing age and continued to work while pregnant. ‘We suggest indoor air quality of phthalates should be re-evaluated, and reproductive-age women should work in other departments to reduce the risk, especially for those pregnant workers,’ says Huang. Woodruff suggests reformulation of cosmetics would be a better approach.
DEP is the most commonly used phthalate in cosmetics worldwide and does not pose risks for human health as currently used in cosmetics and fragrances, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Woodruff is not so sure, however, as ‘recent epidemiological studies are questioning whether DEP might pose a risk’. Some phthalates have been banned from cosmetics in the EU, including DBP and DEHP.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/cosmetic-and-perfume-sales-staff-exposed-to-high-phthalate-levels/3008323.article
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Dancet: High REACH Registration Cost ‘Main Stumbling Block’
Nov 21, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
SMEs’ awareness of the impending REACH registration deadline is "not the problem any longer", Echa head Geert Dancet has said. Instead, one of the main concerns is the cost of registration "being too high", particularly in the lower tonnages.
A commissioned study, conducted by consulting firm RPA and published in August, concluded that over 95% of the SMEs consulted were aware of their duties. "Enough has been done" to make sure they register by 31 May, Mr Dancet said in a recent interview with Chemical Watch.
Now at the top of the agenda for the REACH Directors’ Contact Group (DCG) meeting this month is a discussion on how to bring down the cost of registration for SMEs, manufacturing one to ten tonnes a year.
The DCG is an informal group of directors from the European Commission, Echa and industry associations. It was set up to respond to concerns arising from companies' REACH registration obligations.
"The first thing people in ministries say is that their SMEs are complaining that Siefs [Substance Information Exchange Fora] and lead registrants are asking too much money for letters of access" and they complain it is "disproportionate", Mr Dancet said.
This topic is "the main stumbling block" when it comes to REACH registration, he added. To date, only 17% of SMEs have registered - far below the expected 40%. "We see SMEs have not yet registered in high numbers and are potentially waiting for a resolution to this cost issue."
Many are considering withdrawing from the market or going to volumes below one tonne, Mr Dancet said. "There is a risk that important substances will disappear from the market unexpectedly - that is an issue we want to avoid."
Certain substances, or the bulk production of them, are supplied only by SMEs, and if they withdraw it will be "problematic".
The DCG meeting needs also to consider "to what extent an incomplete dossier can be submitted" and if registrants will be permitted "the necessary months" to finalise them, Mr Dancet said. "They may only decide now that they need certain tests ... the test houses may not be able to complete [them before the deadline]. So they might need more time."
He added that he hoped there will be a "breakthrough" at the meeting. If that does not happen, the directors would need to reignite talks as early as possible next year. "The clock is ticking bitterly," Mr Dancet said. "I think it’s very important it is resolved." If it cannot be done on the day itself, he added, maybe it could happen "in written procedure afterwards".Data access
Cost is clearly a significant issue. Earlier this year, Echa proposed to grant SMEs conditional free access to REACH data and joint submissions, to reduce the burden of data sharing negotiations for the 2018 deadline. In a paper seen by Chemical Watch, the agency has called for the DCG to endorse the proposal.
The paper says, all parties should then "promote this voluntary approach and spread existing information on negotiations and dispute procedure among existing or future registrants that may be interacting or about to interact with SMEs in the context of their Siefs".
Mr Dancet will be replaced by Bjorn Hansen, head of the chemicals unit at the European Commission’s environment directorate-general, in January.
The December edition of the Global Business Briefing will feature Chemical Watch’s final interview with Geert Dancet in his role as Echa executive director.
https://chemicalwatch.com/61921/dancet-high-reach-registration-cost-main-stumbling-block
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(ACC Mentioned) Greens Run Ads Against Arctic Drilling, Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Bowlin
Environmental groups are opening their checkbooks to fight a provision of the Republican tax overhaul to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Wilderness Society Action Fund's $500,000 digital campaign will run six videos on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in 15 key House districts. States targeted include Florida, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington.
"The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the last truly wild places on Earth, but Congress is pushing a scheme that would pollute it beyond repair to create tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires," says one of the ads.
The spots focus on GOP members of the Climate Solutions Caucus — the only bipartisan group aiming to curb global warming — some of whom are among the most vulnerable incumbents in 2018. They include Reps. Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Ryan Costello and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
"Voters in these key Congressional districts need to know just what is at stake if we lose this fight to save the Arctic Refuge from the ravages of oil development," said Wilderness Society Action Fund President Jamie Williams in a statement.
The ads coincide with a similar effort from the League of Conservation Voters, which is spending more than a half-million dollars on a multistate television ad campaign slamming the GOP tax bill.
The LCV ads target many of the same members, including Costello, Fitzpatrick and fellow GOP climate caucus members Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania.
NRDC, Chemistry Council ads
The Natural Resources Defense Council recently released a second ad attacking Dominion Energy Inc., Virginia's largest publicly regulated utility.
It urges outgoing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to boost his environmental legacy and reject the Dominion-backed Atlantic Coast pipeline. The multistate project would carry hydraulically fractured gas from the Marcellus Shale formation across Appalachia.
Both Atlantic Coast and another proposed pipeline, Mountain Valley, recently received federal approval. Both proceed now to state agencies for final permitting.
Separately, the American Chemistry Council has new ads backing two vulnerable incumbents, Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
One ad notes the embattled Heller's conservative record — he faces a tough 2018 primary fight — while the Stabenow spot thanks her for backing policies to prevent outsourcing U.S. jobs.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/21/stories/1060067103
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FERC, Pipelines and Climate Change: Revolution in Progress?
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer and Hannah Northey
The Trump administration is grappling with how best to weigh the climate impacts of natural gas pipelines.
Why? Because a court ordered it. Will it make a difference? Tough to say.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is updating an environmental review to tally greenhouse gas emissions from the Sabal Trail pipeline project, which would slice through Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Some FERC-watchers say the agency's work, while muted in the near term, could set the stage for more expansive climate reviews in the future.
"Further on down the line, if you have a FERC that's much more of an environmental, left-leaning FERC, they could use a hook like that, sort of more intensive downstream [greenhouse gas] analyses, to complicate the plans for some other pipelines," said Tony Clark, a former Republican commissioner. "Maybe 10 to 15 years down the line."
Front and center is FERC's analysis of emissions from burning natural gas transported through sprawling new pipelines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in August sided with the Sierra Club and ordered FERC to quantify downstream emissions for Sabal Trail and related projects.
The ruling was a momentous win for environmentalists. It was the D.C. Circuit's strongest decision to date requiring FERC to do closer climate analysis. But the agency's response — a five-page draft that estimates emissions and concludes there is no significant impact — highlights potential limits to the court's ruling.
If the agency calculates emissions but still greenlights development, have environmentalists made meaningful progress on the issue? The question is critical as advocates are increasingly relying on the legal system to counter the Trump administration's unwillingness to act aggressively on climate change.
Skeptics argue that the D.C. Circuit win for environmentalists was narrow, merely cementing an approach FERC had already largely adopted. Indeed, FERC has done similar calculations for several other pipelines over the past year.
But proponents of in-depth climate analysis maintain that the court's decision was consequential, a victory for increased public disclosure and informed decisionmaking. Jason Schwartz, legal director for New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity, argued that while he believes FERC should do more than merely quantify emissions, the calculations are still a sign of progress.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction to be quantifying the downstream emissions," he said. "It's certainly more information than we had in the [2015] environmental impact statement."
Limited short-term changes
Before abruptly leaving FERC earlier this year, former Chairman Norman Bay championed the practice of broader pipeline analysis, even advising in one opinion that it's a matter of "good government" to look more closely at the indirect climate effects of gas infrastructure.
FERC began in most cases estimating downstream emissions in mid-2016, ClearView Energy Partners LLC analyst Christine Tezak noted. Once finalized, the updated Sabal Trail review would bring the project in line with several others that have landed on the commission's docket over the past year.
The calculations showed up when FERC approved the $1.8 billion Leach XPress and Rayne XPress pipelines earlier this year at a closed-door meeting. And FERC included estimates for emissions from burning gas from the recently approved Nexus, Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines.
FERC's number-crunching goes a little like this: When the commission has specific information about power plants a pipeline will feed, it looks at estimated emissions from those facilities. Otherwise, it simply tallies anticipated emissions from the volumes of gas a pipeline will likely carry.
Given that FERC is already headed down the path of crunching emissions numbers and that it's not a heavy lift for the agency, analysts and former FERC officials warned against expecting the Sabal Trail ruling to spur any dramatic near-term changes in project approvals.
Clark, now a senior adviser at Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP in Washington, noted that FERC's reviews occur under the National Environmental Policy Act, a statute and process that require a "hard look," not a particular outcome.
On the flip side, some pipeline developers even favor such analysis as a buffer from legal uncertainty. If FERC stepped back and declined to measure downstream emissions for future projects, litigation could stall pipeline construction.
Some see the Sabal Trail case as a cautionary tale: Depending on the D.C. Circuit's next move, the project could be forced to halt operations until FERC completes its updated analysis.
Not everyone at FERC is on board with the added element of review. In a recent interview with E&E News, current Chairman Neil Chatterjee noted that he disagreed with the D.C. Circuit's opinion, and he warned that FERC's recent decision not to challenge that aspect of the ruling should not be interpreted as a commitment to do the same analysis for every future application.
"I believe that climate change is real, and I believe that man is having an impact on it," he said. "I don't believe that it is in FERC's purview. FERC is not an environmental regulator — leave that up to other agencies to make that determination. Our job is to evaluate projects and oversee these markets, and not make determinations on environmental policies."
He added, "I personally think it was a wrongly decided decision, and I think it has implications that go beyond FERC. I think FERC will be able to continue to do its work, but we need to cautiously figure out our legal strategy moving forward because I do believe there could be implications beyond the agency."
Pressed for further details on the agency's plans for future analyses, Chatterjee said the agency will "have to see how the legal process plays out."
Pushing FERC for more
While industry may be content with inclusion of the downstream analysis, green groups are beating the drum for deeper reviews at FERC.
The Sierra Club maintains that NEPA requires more than a simple emissions tally. The group says the updated review FERC drafted for Sabal Trail actually falls short of what the D.C. Circuit demanded because it does not take its greenhouse gas estimates a step further by considering their incremental role in a changing climate.
"FERC's position seems to be that just plunking in a number and not providing any discussion of the significance is enough," Sierra Club attorney Elly Benson said. "But the court's decision said they have to look at the significance and the cumulative impacts, which they have not been doing and which their draft SEIS [supplemental environmental impact statement] does not do."
Benson and others filed comments yesterday on FERC's proposed update, urging the commission to do more. The agency is expected to finalize its SEIS in the coming months.
Energy lawyer Fred Jauss, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, noted that while FERC's quick action to prepare the draft may provide "a certain measure of comfort" to other developers concerned about delays, they shouldn't rest easy until the D.C. Circuit weighs in again.
"That comfort should be tempered until the D.C. Circuit rules on whether the commission's greenhouse gas analysis contained in the SEIS is sufficient to meet the commission's obligations under NEPA," he added. "Until this issue is settled, developers should be prepared to either provide a greenhouse gas analysis of their project as part of their application, or be prepared to face potential delays to their projects at the commission level and at the appellate level."
Some experts doubt the D.C. Circuit will second-guess FERC's approach to crunching the numbers and finding no major impact.
"The courts are likely to avoid wading into arguments about methodology and judgments about whether this is significant enough to change the result, change the decision," Vermont Law School professor Pat Parenteau said.
"As long as you've thought about it, you've disclosed it, you've let the people comment on it, and then you decide to go ahead, that's probably going to be upheld most of the time," he added.
Still, environmentalists argue that the D.C. Circuit's insistence that the agency at least look at downstream emissions for Sabal Trail is no small gain — even if they're unable to advance the issue further in the short term.
"Forcing FERC to disclose and discuss the link between these huge fossil fuel projects that they're approving and climate change is helpful," Benson said. "Saying, 'FERC, you're not allowed to bury your head in the sand as to the climate impacts of these pipelines, and you're also letting the public know about the true impacts of these pipelines,' I think that's a big step forward."
Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, noted that broader disclosure can yield tangible benefits, including prompting developers to propose projects with a smaller footprint in the first place and mobilizing private citizens to voice their concerns.
"For accountability to take place, for opposition to become mobilized and for sponsors to be worried enough about those things to actually come forward in the first instance with a smaller project or a less impactful project than they otherwise would, all require that these disclosure requirements be enforced," he said.
He pushed back on criticism that extra layers of review that don't change the outcome are merely an "exercise in paperwork."
"The problem with that," he said, "is that it really discounts the value of transparency and disclosure and public participation by focusing exclusively on the final result."
Long-term impacts
While the Sabal Trail case may have muted near-term effects, experts say the ruling could pave the way for more expansive climate reviews should a greener administration win the White House.
In coming years, Clark said, FERC will likely "spill more ink" and be more attentive to reviewing downstream emissions tied to proposed pipelines shipping gas to clear destination points, such as a generator.
Should a new administration take the White House reins, Clark and Steptoe & Johnson LLP attorney Cynthia Taub agreed, the Sabal Trail case could provide a platform for more expansive consideration of climate impacts for FERC actions.
With that background, Schwartz of the Institute for Policy Integrity said greens will keep up the pressure, pushing FERC to keep the downstream analyses in place and to take further steps: utilize the Obama-era social cost of carbon tool to measure the cost of emissions associated with pipelines, analyze the impacts of upstream gas production, and more closely evaluate the impacts of methane leakage from gas pipeline networks.
While the Trump administration has already scrapped Obama-era federal guidance on how agencies should incorporate the effects of climate change into their reviews, Taub suggested the White House may be wise to replace the language.
She pointed to the now-defunct White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) guidance in March that Trump scrapped as part of a larger effort to dismantle his predecessor's climate legacy and for which he has yet to offer a substitute.
Without CEQ weighing in, Taub said, agencies like FERC are left to muddle through the thorny issue of how to address climate impacts under NEPA, with courts often having the final say.
"The courts will be the only guide until this administration issues its own guidance on how to consider GHGs under NEPA, and potentially new guidance on the social cost of carbon," Taub said. "If I were sitting at CEQ right now, I'd want to replace it rather than remain silent, because then you can help guide the discussion."
Others suggested that the absence of the CEQ guidance makes it more difficult for opponents to poke holes in FERC's environmental reviews — and have duly noted that many environmentalists have shifted their focus to wetland and water quality permits.
For now, climate change continues to feature prominently in opposition of pending natural gas pipelines, with critics pointing to Sabal Trail as evidence that FERC needs to do more and go beyond mere emission tallies.
If the courts don't force that action?
"I don't think it deflates the possibility of continued litigation challenges having some traction in the courts around fossil fuel infrastructure," Columbia's Burger said. "Environmentalists tend to be pretty good at coming up with new advocacy strategies and finding legitimate faults with environmental reviews."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/21/stories/1060067083
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Administration, Enviros Plead with Court over Fracking Rule
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Trump administration and environmentalists are urging a federal court to keep intact a recent decision on an Obama-era hydraulic fracturing rule.
In filings to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, government and environmental lawyers urged the court to reject a request from states and industry groups to revisit a September ruling that scrapped a lower court's conclusion that the federal government has no authority over fracking. The court declined to directly weigh the merits of the rule.
The Bureau of Land Management and an environmental coalition represented by Earthjustice say the 10th Circuit's decision should not be reconsidered.
That's where their agreement ends, however. Environmentalists are pushing the court to issue a mandate finalizing the September decision; that mandate would revive the long-sidelined fracking rule. Justice Department lawyers representing BLM want the court to keep the mandate on hold until January so the regulation doesn't make a temporary comeback while Trump officials are working to rescind it.
The fracking rule's status is complicated: The measure was finalized by Obama's BLM in 2015 but has never taken effect. A Wyoming district court struck down the rule in June 2016, finding that it exceeded the agency's authority.
The government and environmental groups appealed, but by the time the 10th Circuit heard the case in July 2017, the Trump administration had already signaled plans to kill the regulation. The panel of judges decided to dismiss the case without answering the legal question of whether BLM has authority over fracking. But the panel also decided, as a procedural matter, to toss the underlying district court decision.
Without the district court ruling in place, there is nothing to stop the fracking rule from taking effect once the 10th Circuit issues its mandate — a simple document that finalizes appellate courts' rulings. The Trump administration is separately going through a rulemaking process to kill the regulation but hasn't yet finished the process.
The years-in-the-making regulation was the Obama administration's marquee effort to address impacts from the spread of fracking and horizontal drilling. The rule set new standards for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracked wells on public and tribal lands.
According to government lawyers, the 10th Circuit got the case right, but it should wait until Jan. 6, 2018, to issue the mandate to give the Trump administration time to finish its rescission process.
The proposed rescission is current at the White House Office of Management and Budget, where BLM says it has requested expedited review. The public comment period for the proposal ended Sept. 25.
"BLM agrees that the 2015 Rule, which has never gone into effect, should not become effective during the brief period before BLM issues a new final rule," the agency told the court. "But there is no need for the Court to grant reconsideration where there is no error in the panel opinion. ... Instead of reconsidering, the Court should either wait to decide the petitions for reconsideration or grant a brief stay of the mandate.
"Either course would give BLM an opportunity to publish a final rule that supersedes the 2015 Rule without wasting the Court's and the parties' resources in further litigation," BLM said.
BLM argues that if the court issues the mandate and allows the rule to briefly take effect before the rescission is complete, the agency will waste resources on implementation, and oil and gas operators will waste money on compliance.
That's been the industry's contention all along. In their request to the 10th Circuit two weeks ago, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance argued that the judges should coordinate their decision with the ongoing administrative process "to avoid prejudice to BLM and the regulated community" (Energywire, Nov. 7).
North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah have argued that allowing the fracking rule to take effect will also harm them by treading on their regulatory turf. The Ute Indian Tribe, meanwhile, wants the 10th Circuit to reconsider the case for the sole purpose of issuing a decision on tribal arguments against the regulation. The tribe argues that the arguments are fit for judicial review regardless of the administration's efforts to rescind the regulation.
In its filing yesterday, the environmental coalition argued that the court should reject the rehearing requests, promptly issue the mandate and allow the fracking rule to take effect.
They say the requests from industry and the states are not based on genuine legal concerns but are merely an attempt to delay the mandate. The 10th Circuit automatically put the mandate on hold when the requests were filed.
"The petitions for rehearing instead represent a thinly-veiled attempt to delay issuance of the mandate by re-litigating an issue this Court already considered and correctly decided," the Sierra Club and other groups told the court.
The groups argued that the 10th Circuit was right to scrap the 2016 district court opinion that struck down the fracking rule because it ensures the lower court's ruling does not "cloud future litigation."
"Petitioners are seeking to 'have their cake and eat it too': they want to shield the lower court's decision from appellate review by treating this appeal as unripe, while continuing to benefit from that erroneous ruling," they wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/21/stories/1060067037
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5 Important Points About the Pipeline
Nov 21, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
It's been nearly a decade (yes, a decade!) since the Keystone XL oil pipeline became a lightning rod battle over climate change and energy development. Yesterday, Nebraska's Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to allow the pipeline to move forward.
The decision greenlights the controversial project, sort of.
State regulators rejected TransCanada Corp.'s preferred route for Keystone XL, which, if constructed, would ship crude oil 1,100 miles from Alberta to southern Nebraska. From there, the oil extracted from the Canadian oil sands would flow through a network of already constructed pipelines to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Environmentalists hailed yesterday's decision as a victory for a small but vocal contingent of Nebraska farmers and ranchers who have been opposed to the pipeline. They say the economic arguments to build the $8 billion project no longer pan out.
Still, the decision could be construed as a win by President Trump, who is a vocal supporter of Keystone XL and other oil pipelines. In March, the Trump administration revived the project by reversing the Obama administration's 2015 rejection of a key cross-border permit.
Over the course of its tenure in the public discourse, Keystone XL has become a symbol of the larger fight over climate change and a galvanizing issue for environmental activists.
What does yesterday's decision really mean? Will Keystone XL actually be built? We break it down for you below.So, Keystone.
How did this all start again?
Let's go back to 2008. George W. Bush was president, and oil prices peaked at nearly $150 a barrel that summer.
Alberta-based energy company TransCanada proposed the Keystone pipeline system, an oil transport system that would allow heavy crude from the oil sands to flow down through Nebraska to refiners in Texas. The first three phrases of the project have been constructed and are operational.
Keystone XL, the fourth phase of the system, essentially duplicates the Alberta-to-Nebraska pipeline already in place, but with a shorter route that cuts diagonally across the eastern half of the state with a larger-diameter pipe buried beneath the ground.
In order to build KXL, as it's sometimes called, the project was subject to an interagency environmental review. The State Department issued several environmental impact statements between 2010 and 2014.
In 2013, then-U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy challenged State's EIS on the grounds that it gave short shrift to the effect on global warming that encouraging additional production of oil sands crude might have.
After more than six years of review, in 2015, President Obama rejected KXL, largely due to the climate impact of the dirtier oil the pipeline would transport.
In March of this year, after the State Department spent less than 60 days reviewing Obama's 2015 decision, Trump approved TransCanada's proposal.
In a White House statement, Trump called it "a great day" for both U.S. job creation and energy security.
"It's going to be an incredible pipeline," he said.
The federal permit was important, but Keystone XL also needed the approval of state regulators in Nebraska. Other states along the pipeline's route, including Montana and South Dakota, approved the proposal, but a series of public meetings held by the Republican-majority Public Service Commission in Nebraska highlighted concerns by some landowners, tribes and greens.
A group of 90 landowners with property along the proposed route opposes the pipeline, saying it could leak and hurt local groundwater, among other things.
The voice of opposition was magnified last week when the existing Keystone pipeline leaked 5,000 barrels of oil in South Dakota. Nebraska regulators could not factor the spill into their decision.
OK, what does yesterday's decision mean?
The Nebraska PSC removed a key regulatory hurdle by approving Keystone XL, which would carry 830,000 barrels of crude a day. But it didn't hand TransCanada everything it wanted (Greenwire, Nov. 20).
The commission approved an alternative plan that circumvents the ecologically fragile Sand Hills area and tracks more closely with the Keystone pipeline already in place. The company said it is "evaluating" the commission's decision.
"As a result of today's decision, we will conduct a careful review of the Public Service Commission's ruling while assessing how the decision would impact the cost and schedule of the project," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and CEO.
What happens next?
Well, lawsuits, for one thing (Energywire, Nov. 20).
All appeals of the commission's decision must be filed with the Nebraska Court of Appeals within 30 days. Environmental groups and tribal leaders opposed to Keystone XL immediately vowed they would continue to fight.
In a statement, Anthony Swift, Canada project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the decision "mistakenly brushes aside the legitimate and serious concerns raised by Nebraska landowners and indigenous people that the Keystone XL pipeline would threaten their water and climate."
"There's no safe route for Keystone XL, and we will continue fighting with every tool, in every venue and with every partner, to make sure it's never built," he added.
Furthermore, ongoing federal litigation brought by environmental groups opposing the pipeline continues.
TransCanada also needs federal approvals from the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land Management before construction could begin.
Does this thing still make sense?
Analysts are split over the economics of Keystone XL. On the one hand, oil prices are much lower than they were when it was proposed. Furthermore, the shale revolution completely changed the United States' relationship with oil and gas.
While Keystone faced prolonged analysis, a handful of other major pipeline projects, including Kinder Morgan Inc.'s Trans Mountain Expansion, have moved forward.
On the other hand, production of heavy crude from Venezuela is flagging. Gulf and East coast refiners, which are set up to process heavier oil, could find new supply from the Canadian sands, which is expected to jump in production from 4.5 million barrels a day in 2016 to 5.3 million barrels a day by 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.
In order to make the case to its investors, TransCanada is seeking 20-year contracts. The company recently held an "open season" to solicit contracts but is still analyzing demand, it said during a recent call with investors.
The argument could be made that if it's built, Keystone XL locks Alberta and the United States into the oil and gas business for decades to come, in a big way. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to pursue a climate agenda, although environmentalists contend that his support for Keystone XL undermines his goals to cut emissions.
In its 2015 record of decision, the State Department noted that approving Keystone XL undercuts the credibility and influence of the United States to promote climate action, although the pipeline's climate impacts would be tempered by the Paris climate agreement (Climatewire, March 31).
The United States has since said it intends to leave the Paris Agreement.
Meanwhile, oil majors have been pulling out of Canada's oil sands. ConocoPhillips Co., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Marathon Oil Corp. together sold about $23 billion worth of oil sands projects this year (Climatewire, Aug. 10).
One thing is for certain — the fight over Keystone XL is not over.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/21/stories/1060067049
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA: 85% of U.S. Counties Meet Tighter Ozone Limits
Nov 21, 2017 | Kallanish Energy
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined 85% of U.S. counties comply with tougher federal limits on the pollutant ozone that contributes to unhealthy smog.
The 2,646 counties face no increased compliance requirements because they comply with the limit of 70 parts per billion adopted in 2015 to better protect human health, Kallanish Energy reports.
The country has about 3,100 total counties.
The designations will become official 60 days after they appear in the Federal Register.
No designations yet
The EPA said it is not yet prepared to issue designations for the remaining counties. It said it would do so in the future. The agency said it will continue to work with those counties on their designations.
It has widely been reported 214 U.S. counties – mostly in urban areas – would likely fail to meet the federal ground-level ozone limits.
Those 214 counties, which include one-third of the U.S. population, are in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Ozone is formed when emissions of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds combine in direct sunlight.
Ozone has been linked to heart and lung disease and asthma. It affects the elderly and young children.
Power plants, vehicles and factories are the major sources of ozone-causing emissions.
Reconsidering ozone issue
The Trump administration is reportedly reconsidering the ozone issue, even as new designations are released. Congress has proposed a bill to halt the new standards.
The new designations were quietly released by the EPA on Nov. 6. The designations followed recommendations from states and Indian tribes to the EPA.
They are the first official indication of what counties might be in what’s called non-attainment if they fail to comply. Such counties could be forced to take additional steps to clean the air of ozone. That could include new restrictions on industry and power generation.
The designations are available in a 102-page document: www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-11/documents/frn_ozonedesignations-attainmentareas.pdf.
They were supposed to be released Oct. 1, but the designations were late and not complete.
Ozone designation complex
Said the EPA in releasing the new designations: “In the spirit of cooperative federalism, EPA will continue to work with states and the public to help areas with underlying technical issues, disputed designations and/or insuffi cient information. Additionally, EPA modeling, state agency comments and peer-reviewed science indicate international emissions and background ozone can contribute significantly to areas meeting attainment thresholds.”
Said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, in a statement, “The ozone designation process is complex and requires ongoing and extensive conversations with state and local agencies. As we move forward, the agency will be able to prioritize, be more responsive to local needs and move forward on a case-by-case basis.”
The designations included tribal areas and U.S. territories.
The designations cover all counties with ozone monitors and counties for which the EPA does not have reason to believe they are violating the ozone standard or contributing to ozone problems in nearby counties, the EPA said.
In Washington state, three counties could not be designated because there is not enough ozone data over three years to make a determination, the EPA said.
New limits could cost billions
In October 2015, the limit had been lowered under the federal Clean Air Act by the Obama administration from 75 parts per billion.
Several pro-business groups including the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council were strongly opposed to the stricter limits. Critics said the new limits would cost billions of dollars.
Penalties for areas in nonattainment of the ozone limits could include increased regulatory burdens, restrictions in infrastructure investment and increased costs to businesses.
Initially, the EPA had planned to delay the stricter ozone standards for one year. That plan was dropped last summer after 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the delay in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The EPA throws out the top three ozone readings at each monitor. The fourth-highest reading each year becomes the key number. The EPA then maintains a rolling average over three years, and that becomes the official ozone level at that monitor.
Once an area is listed as being in non-attainment that starts a clock on states drafting and implementing plans to reduce ozone levels.
https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2017/11/21/epa-85-of-u-s-counties-meet-tighter-ozone-limits/
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Nov 21, 2017 | Washington Post
By Johannes Urpelainen
The recent round of U.N. climate negotiations ended Friday in Bonn, Germany. While no important decisions were made on climate finance — transfers from wealthy to poor countries to support climate mitigation and adaptation — the question of who pays for global climate gave rise to heated debates.
Formally a technical meeting to finalize the design of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, the summit was the first after President Trump’s June 2017 announcement to withdraw from the deal.
Trump’s decision leaves the United States alone outside the Paris agreement. While U.S. noncooperation shouldn’t deter other countries from pledging climate action, my recent research with Thijs Van de Graafshows that it threatens industrialized countries’ promises of climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in poorer countries.
The overall Paris framework will probably survive without the United States
The basic idea of the Paris agreement is pretty simple. Each country pledges action to lower its carbon footprint, and countries together review everyone’s efforts every few years. For example, a country could pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a certain amount by the year 2030 or promise to double the share of renewable energy in power generation. The hope is that over time countries increase their ambition level so that they can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and we all can avoid rapid climate change.
Trump’s withdrawal is unlikely to directly threaten this growing ambition. The entire world — and much of the United States — is behind the Paris agreement, and the cost of clean energy is falling. With solar power, electric vehicles and more, inexpensive opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are expanding.
But the U.S. absence will take a real bite out of funding for climate mitigation
However, Trump’s withdrawal can threaten future cooperation through another channel. If the United States refuses to finance climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, then industrialized countries will have a hard time keeping their promise to offer $100 billion in climate finance every year from 2020.
These funds would support renewable energy, energy efficiency, forest conservation and other projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The money would also help poorer countries adapt to the consequences of climate change. For example, climate finance could fund levees to protect cities from flooding.
In 2014, the United States offered about $2.7 billion in climate finance, a sum comparable with contributions from Germany and France. With the Trump administration refusing to contribute, other industrialized countries will face great difficulties in putting together enough funds.
There’s a real risk that developing countries will no longer trust the governments of the industrialized world on climate issues. The broken promise could poison climate negotiations in the future.
Besides spurring disagreement and bad faith in negotiations, a failure of climate finance would also threaten future pledges under the Paris agreement. The governments of many developing countries, such as the Philippines, have promised to adopt ambitious measures conditional on financial assistance.
If U.S. noncooperation means that funds dry up, these conditional promises have little value. The lack of U.S. climate finance leaves a wide gap, and other industrialized countries will have a difficult time convincing their citizens that they should step in.
In the future, growth in greenhouse gas emissions is more likely to come from developing economies than from industrialized countries. The combination of economic growth and larger populations means that energy demand will grow in countries that are still poor, and some of that demand might be met with fossil fuels. If U.S. noncooperation reduces these countries’ willingness to cooperate, future negotiations will be very difficult.
Each year that goes by will make it harder to reverse the damage in developing countries
A more climate-friendly U.S. president could bring climate finance back on track, but the delay in climate action in the interim could be costly. Early investments in clean energy and energy efficiency could put emerging countries on a low-carbon development track. The risk is that these countries could find themselves with lots of expensive energy infrastructure running on fossil fuels. Fixing the damage later would be hard — and even costlier.
For other industrialized countries, the question is whether they can fill the gap in climate finance that U.S. noncooperation leaves. Japan, the European Union and others have the funds, but their willingness to pay for climate protection in uncertain economic times is far from clear. These issues will be prominent soon, as countries plan to review the state of climate finance in 2018.
There has been much talk of China “taking the driving seat” on climate change in the absence of U.S. leadership. But would finance from China restore faith in the trustworthiness of industrialized countries?
If China were to replace the industrialized countries as a climate finance leader, this would be yet another sign that the wealthier countries are not willing to step up and lead on climate. For now, China’s climate leadership remains uncertain, as the country remains dependent on coal despite rapid progress in clean-energy investment — and Beijing hesitates to commit to goals it might fail to achieve.
Trump’s hostility to climate policy poses a threat to future climate cooperation because it threatens to break a promise that industrialized countries made together in the 2015 Paris talks. Other industrialized countries would reap lots of goodwill and long-term benefits from filling the gap, but it remains to be seen whether they are willing and able to put together the funds required.
Johannes Urpelainen is the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is also the founding director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/21/trumps-noncooperation-threatens-climate-finance-under-the-paris-agreement/?utm_term=.dbf708c29db9
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