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PM ACC 11/28/2017
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Powelson: New FERC Commissioner to Be Sworn in Wednesday
Nov 28, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson told an audience in Philadelphia today that a fourth FERC commissioner will be sworn in Wednesday, a member of his staff said. -
(ACC Mentioned) 9th Circuit Claims Jurisdiction in Legal Row over EPA Rule
Nov 28, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Litigation over a U.S. EPA rule will continue in a California-based federal appeals court after judges rebuffed an attempt by the Trump administration to transfer the lawsuit. -
EPA Curb on Nonstick Chemical May Have Reduced Number of Babies with Low Birth Weight
Nov 28, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin
Efforts to phase out a chemical used in nonstick coatings have resulted in fewer U.S. babies being born underweight in recent years, according to findings published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health. -
Keystone Deliveries Resume as Leak Investigation Continues
Nov 28, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Flows resume Monday into the United States from Alberta on the Keystone oil pipeline after an 11-day interruption to repair a leak and start cleaning up a 5,000 bbl oil spill in northeastern South Dakota. -
Tax Reform Plan Is Also Wrong for the Environment
Nov 28, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Niki Tsongas
Count polar bears and caribou among the long list of those opposed to the Republican tax reform plan. -
DOE Fossil Fuel Chief Backs Carbon Capture as Part of Global Climate Effort
Nov 28, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Emily Holden
Steve Winberg, the new head of the Energy Department’s fossil fuel office, said today he plans to promote carbon capture technology as part of the global effort to curb rising temperatures. -
Climate Action Today: Where We're Going and How We Reach Results – Despite Current Roadblocks
Nov 28, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
Not long ago, I attended a briefing about some of the ways innovation is driving environmental progress.
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Powelson: New FERC Commissioner to Be Sworn in Wednesday
Nov 28, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson told an audience in Philadelphia today that a fourth FERC commissioner will be sworn in Wednesday, a member of his staff said.
Both Kevin McIntyre, President Donald Trump’s pick to be FERC chairman, and Rich Glick were confirmed by the Senate early this month. Their paperwork cleared the White House shortly before Thanksgiving though neither have officially joined the agency. Powelson’s office said that the commissioner did not specify which of the two men would be sworn in.
Emily Holden contributed to this report.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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(ACC Mentioned) 9th Circuit Claims Jurisdiction in Legal Row over EPA Rule
Nov 28, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Litigation over a U.S. EPA rule will continue in a California-based federal appeals court after judges rebuffed an attempt by the Trump administration to transfer the lawsuit.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday issued an order denying the administration's request to move the suit to the Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court also granted the American Chemistry Council's motion to intervene in defense of the rule and set a briefing schedule for the coming months.
Government lawyers and environmental groups have been sparring over which court should hear lawsuits over two rules that EPA issued earlier this year under the nation's new toxics law (Greenwire, Sept. 27).
One of the rules established the process and criteria for identifying high-priority chemicals for risk evaluations, while the other established the system for determining whether the chemicals present an unreasonable risk to health or the environment.
Environmentalists filed several suits challenging the rules as being too weak. In September, a special judicial panel on multidistrict litigation randomly assigned the litigation over the prioritizations rule to the 9th Circuit and the evaluations rule to the 4th Circuit (Greenwire, Sept. 5).
The move prompted a flurry of briefing by attorneys. The Trump administration argued that both lawsuits should be heard by the 4th Circuit in Richmond, largely because it would be "more convenient" for parties "because all counsel of record are located in Washington, D.C., or New York."
But environmentalists said that attorneys would have to travel regardless of where the case is heard. They instead argued that the 9th Circuit should hear the cases because more parties initially filed suit in that court.
The 4th Circuit deferred action on the motion to transfer the litigation over the evaluations rule to the 9th Circuit pending a decision by the San Francisco-based court.
The 9th Circuit panel hearing the prioritizations rule consists of Senior Judge A. Wallace Tashima, Judge William Fletcher and Judge Richard Tallman, all of whom are Clinton appointees.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/28/stories/1060067445
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EPA Curb on Nonstick Chemical May Have Reduced Number of Babies with Low Birth Weight
Nov 28, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin
Efforts to phase out a chemical used in nonstick coatings have resulted in fewer U.S. babies being born underweight in recent years, according to findings published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.
Researchers at New York University based their findings on an analysis of blood samples of new mothers that were gathered between 2003 and 2014 as part of a national health study to examine levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Exposure to the synthetic chemical, long used in a variety of consumer products, from stain-resistant carpets to nonstick pans, pizza boxes and outdoor apparel, has been associated with a range of potential health problems, including cancer.
Researchers suggest developing fetuses are particularly at risk for birth defects and lower-than-normal birth weights. Such concerns were a driving force behind a 2006 agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. manufacturers to decrease and eventually halt the production of PFOA by 2015.
For years, PFOA had been nearly ubiquitous in the United States, with much of it traveling unregulated through water supplies. According to the EPA, blood serum tests in the U.S. general population between 1999 and 2012 detected PFOA 99 percent of the time. However, those figures have begun to fall as companies have phased out the chemical.
The NYU researchers found that PFOA levels in women ages 18 to 49 continued to rise from 2003 to 2008, when median levels peaked at 3.5 nanograms per milliliter. But by 2009, not long after the government compelled companies to begin phasing out the chemical, the trend began to reverse. Blood levels of PFOA began dropping from a median 2.8 nanograms per milliliter to 1.6 nanograms per milliliter by 2014.
Researchers used computer modeling to estimate the number of low-weight births that may have been caused by specific levels of PFOA chemical exposure. They compared the estimated impact of PFOA when blood levels were highest with the impact after blood levels dropped. That allowed them to estimate that the voluntary phaseout of PFOA and similar chemicals has prevented between 10,000 and 17,000 low-weight births in the United States annually in recent years.
“All too often we talk about the failure of EPA or other agencies to regulate chemicals,” the study’s lead investigator, NYU School of Medicine associate professor Leonardo Trasande, said in an interview. “But we don’t give enough credit when an agency does the right thing, and works with industry proactively to phase a chemical of concern.”
A number of factors contribute to low-weight babies, who weigh 5.5 pounds (2.5 kilograms) or less. But Trasande said he and his colleagues at NYU isolated the number that could be attributed to exposure to PFOA.
“What we found was this very striking pattern,” said Trasande, a pediatrician and health epidemiologist. He added that preventing so many low-weight births translated into billions of avoided societal costs on everything from infant hospital stays to lower earning potential for those children who faced significant health and developmental problems. “We know that more low-weight babies means extra medical care.”
The EPA’s scientific advisory panel identified PFOA as a “likely carcinogen” in June 2005. Six months later it reached a $16.5 million settlement with the DuPont Co., which used to produce the chemical compound in Parkersburg, W.Va., over the company’s failure to report possible health and environmental risks associated with its product for more than two decades. That evidence, which dated as far back as 1981, included the fact that the chemical could be transferred from a pregnant woman to her baby via the placenta.
In January 2006 eight companies — including DuPont, 3M, Ciba and Clariant — agreed to stop making PFOA.
Even as companies have eliminated the chemical from use, that doesn’t mean Americans are no longer exposed. Millions of products that contain PFOA and a similar compound known as PFOS remain in people’s homes and in commercial settings.
Last year, researchers at Harvard University found that drinking water supplies serving more than 6 million Americans contain unsafe levels of the chemicals. That data came from more than 36,000 samples collected by the EPA between 2013 and 2015.
The EPA last year issued a health advisory about PFOS and PFOA, warning about potential long-term exposures to the compounds and urging state and local officials to take action or at least notify residents about contaminants when they are detected in drinking water. Ultimately, though, the advisories are unenforceable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/28/epa-curb-on-nonstick-chemical-may-have-reduced-number-of-babies-with-low-birth-weight/?utm_term=.07fe02f93c3d
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Keystone Deliveries Resume as Leak Investigation Continues
Nov 28, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Flows resume Monday into the United States from Alberta on the Keystone oil pipeline after an 11-day interruption to repair a leak and start cleaning up a 5,000 bbl oil spill in northeastern South Dakota.
Deliveries were beginning through a “controlled return” at reduced pressure and gradually pumping back up to the seven-year-old line’s capacity for 530,000 b/d, operator TransCanada Corp. said Monday.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) reviewed the restart plan and made no objections, TransCanada noted. No air or water pollution concerns have been raised in the spill area by state authorities or landowners.
Neither TransCanada nor the PHMSA disclosed a suspected cause for the leak. The rupture was under pancake-flat and thinly populated South Dakota farmland near Amherst, a region not noted for threats to pipelines such as frequent floods, high flows in river or stream crossings, earth tremors or slope erosion. A brief flash flood damaged a cattle feedlot in 2009, before Keystone began operating.
As of last weekend about 170 cleanup and remediation personnel recovered 44,730 gallons of oil, or one-fifth of the spill of 210,000 U.S. gallons (reported more dramatically in Canada as 795,000 liters, using the national metric system).
TransCanada did not disclose cleanup cost or completion date estimates. Officials of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission said Keystone’s performance is watched closely and its operating liable is liable to be suspended or cancelled if violations are discovered.
Canadian industry analysts rated the high-volume traffic disruption as a contributor to recent oil price increases, along with optimism that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will extend restricted production quotas at a meeting this week.
TransCanada, meanwhile, gave no further hint at the fate of the proposed Keystone XL 830,000 b/d addition to the oil export network.
As part of a cost and shipper lineup review the company requested clarification of a route approval order granted by the Nebraska Public Service Commission on Nov. 20, four days after the leak in the completed first Keystone line revived environmental and native protest against a system that primarily carries Alberta oilsands production.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112557-keystone-deliveries-resume-as-leak-investigation-continues
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Tax Reform Plan Is Also Wrong for the Environment
Nov 28, 2017 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Niki Tsongas
Count polar bears and caribou among the long list of those opposed to the Republican tax reform plan.
In addition to eliminating tax cuts that benefit middle-class Americans and exploding the deficit by $1.5 trillion, the GOP tax bill, H.R. 1, which passed the House on Nov. 16, also undermines one of our nation’s most successful, bipartisan conservation efforts.
Nearly four decades ago, my late husband Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) worked with then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to pass the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). To this day that law remains one of America’s most significant conservation bills, balancing permanent environmental protections with responsible economic development, energy production, and recreation activities in Alaska.
ANILCA also included an expansion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of our nation’s last remaining truly wild places and a crown jewel of our nation's public lands. The Arctic Refuge is home to caribou herds, polar bears, muskox, gray wolves, and numerous other nationally significant animal and plant species unique to the region. It also supports subsistence activities for Native Alaskan communities and is open to recreation such as hunting, hiking, fishing and wildlife viewing, all of which contribute to Alaska’s $9.5 billion outdoor recreation economy.
The GOP’s tax reform plan changes all that. Their tax bill calls for fossil fuel drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to pay for tax cuts for the top earners in this country. The Senate version of the bill, which will be considered in the coming weeks, includes similar language.
Specifically, H.R. 1 opens up the coastal section of the Arctic Refuge to fossil fuel development, a region that is critical to the biological diversity of the entire refuge and called “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins” by the native Gwich’in people.
Earlier this month, a group of scientists wrote to members of Congress opposing the expanded drilling, citing that “three-fourths of the refuge coastal plain is designated as critical habitat for polar bears,” and “New development on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, one of the nation’s and planet’s premier protected areas, will only contribute to these harmful impacts on wildlife.”
Adding insult to injury, consistently low oil prices make it doubtful that drilling in this national wildlife refuge would even bring in the revenues that Republicans expect. They are gambling with long-valued conservation efforts, putting the Arctic Refuge’s wildlife, air, and water at risk of permanent degradation.
Our nation’s public lands protect some of the natural and historic places that have shaped and defined who we are as a people, and a country, and would not be protected without support from the federal government.
As stewards of these lands, we must work to find a balance between compelling, yet sometimes competing interests, and make sure that the federal government is a good neighbor to local communities.
There are some places in our country where the best use of public lands is conservation, and one of those places is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Instead of opening up the coastal plain of the Refuge to drilling, we should be designating the site as Wilderness, guaranteeing that this special area will remain as such for future generations of Americans and for the native people who depend on it to sustain their way of life.
Sen. Paul Tsongas and his colleagues enacted ANILCA forty years ago, but the vision behind that momentous legislation is equally critical and applicable today. Neither Paul nor Sen. Stevens got everything he wanted in that law, as my many dinner table conversations with Paul at the time made clear. But they both understood that it represented a unique opportunity to balance the economic needs of Alaska with long-term conservation on behalf of the American people.
What Paul said then still holds true today: “Nature made the wilderness and wildlife in Alaska majestic during hundreds of thousands of years. Man is challenged merely to respect and preserve the natural majesty.”
Tsongas represents Massachusetts' 3rd District and is a senior member of the Natural Resources Committee.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/362031-tax-reform-plan-is-also-wrong-for-the-environment
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DOE Fossil Fuel Chief Backs Carbon Capture as Part of Global Climate Effort
Nov 28, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Emily Holden
Steve Winberg, the new head of the Energy Department’s fossil fuel office, said today he plans to promote carbon capture technology as part of the global effort to curb rising temperatures.
“We are not going to stop using fossil energy any time soon, and so if we’re going to go on an aggressive path toward CO2 reductions, CCUS or CCS simply has to be a part of the answer," Winberg told a Center for Strategic and International Studies event, echoing message White House aides delivered at climate negotiations in Germany earlier this month.
He told reporters after his remarks that climate change “is a global issue requiring a global solution” and that “if the world, if 7 billion people, going to probably 10 billion people, want to move forward on this, that necessarily has to include CCUS."
“It has to be resolved globally, if we choose to do so,” he said, declining to comment on his own positions on climate change.
CCUS should receive “equal treatment” with other clean energy sources, he said, though he did not say how DOE would promote it other than investing in research.
He said his office seeks to build industry support for carbon capture and added that the Trump administration is collaborating with a number of countries to announce a carbon capture initiative at a Clean Energy Ministerial in May in Copenhagen. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will also discuss the issue on a trip to the Middle East later this week, he said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Climate Action Today: Where We're Going and How We Reach Results – Despite Current Roadblocks
Nov 28, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
Not long ago, I attended a briefing about some of the ways innovation is driving environmental progress. It came during a visit to Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, where I heard from scientists who are developing fast-charging electric vehicle batteries that will help overcome range anxiety.
Breakthroughs like these will help scale the solutions we need to turn the corner toward a safer and more stable climate.
New technologies are empowering people to protect the environment in other ways. Cheap pollution sensors and data analytics can make hidden health threats visible – and actionable.Times are tough, but there’s still progress
In Oakland and Houston, we’re working with Google Earth Outreach to map air pollution block by block. No longer can governments or big businesses choose to conceal pollution from people; we can measure it ourselves, and use social media to make it public.
Transparent environmental data allow us to hold laggard companies accountable and celebrate the stewardship of corporate environmental leaders.
This wave of innovation is just one of the trends that makes me hopeful about our environmental future, even at a time when America’s bipartisan legacy of environmental safeguards is under assault. I also draw hope from the progress we’re making with states, corporations and other countries.
We worked with California this year as the state extended and deepened the ambition of its groundbreaking cap-and-trade program, which Environmental Defense Fund cosponsored.
We’re also helping Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, achieve an extraordinary commitment: removing 1 gigaton of climate pollution from its global supply chain. That’s more than Germany emits annually.
And in China, we are working with the government as it phases in what will become the world’s biggest emissions trading system for carbon.
As we approach the end of President Trump’s first year in office, it’s worth taking stock of how much has changed, and where leadership can still be found. My colleagues at EDF have been doing just that – adapting to a changing landscape by drafting a new strategic plan [PDF] called Pathways 2025.
Here are a few of the conclusions we’ve reached.Trump’s policies hurt his own voters
Among the many factors driving the 2016 election outcome was a profound sense of voter pessimism – a rejection of elites and mistrust of expertise driven by the sense that the rules of the game have been rigged.
There are valid reasons for people to feel this way, but the populist wave only succeeded in electing a president who is making the problem worse. With his administration’s attacks on clean air and public health standards, regular people are getting hit harder than ever.A price on carbon: Still a key priority
Fairer and more transparent rules of the road can help restore public trust. When it comes to climate change, for example, United States markets are badly broken. They let corporations pollute our common atmosphere for free.
The way to fix them is by putting in place a price and limit on carbon pollution – and this remains EDF’s No. 1 climate policy objective.
This may seem like a dark time to talk about climate progress in Washington. But the Trump administration has inspired a rebirth of environmental activism, with support for EDF and other groups at an all-time high. Hundreds of thousands marched on behalf of climate action and sound science this year.
Polls show Trump’s environmental agenda is deeply unpopular.Note to Congress: Citizen action soars
Together with our allies, we help amplify this upwelling of citizen action by giving voice to our two million members and activists, our Moms Clean Air Force affiliate with more than a million members; and Defend Our Future, a burgeoning initiative to engage millennials.
We want Congress and the administration to understand that attacking bedrock environmental standards carries the same political risk as cutting Social Security.
Even as the impacts of climate change become more damaging, we remain confident that our solutions, if scaled in time, can help turn the corner to a safer climate, cleaner air and healthier communities.A new focus: Resilience in a warming world
However, even with ambitious greenhouse gas reductions, considerable warming is inevitable. That’s why a new focus of our work is helping people and natural systems become more resilient in the face of the changes we cannot avoid.
Our Oceans, Ecosystems and Health programs are pursuing several climate resilience initiatives:
· Oceans: Well-managed fisheries are better able to withstand the stress of climate change, improving the fortunes of people everywhere.
· Health: Climate and human health will benefit from our work to reduce conventional air pollution.
· Ecosystems: The climate will benefit from work to reduce fertilizer overuse, curbing the amount of nitrous oxide entering the atmosphere. And building natural infrastructure, such as wetlands and barrier islands, helps make coastal communities more secure in the face of change.
EDF has also embraced an important new goal known as “net-zero emissions.”
It means not just reducing emissions, but eventually reaching a point of balance when the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases we’re putting into the atmosphere are matched by those we’re taking out through measures such as reforestation and agricultural practices that increase carbon in soils.
Technologies that pull carbon from the atmosphere are also promising and may become economically viable in years to come. A carbon recovery pilot project called Climeworks is up and running in Iceland, but remains too expensive to scale.
The net-zero point of balance is the place where we stop doing more harm to the climate, and begin to heal it. It’s a long way off, but it’s critical that we have a strategy for both where we’re going, and – despite the current politics – how we will get there.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/11/28/climate-action-today-where-were-going-and-how-we-reach-results-despite-current
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