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ACC AM 11/29

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Moore Buried Under TV Ad Barrage
Nov 29, 2017 | Politico
By Maggie Severn, Zach Montellaro, Elena Schneider

... American Chemistry Council’s new spot backs Barrasso: The American Chemistry Council’s new ad praises Sen. John Barrasso as “Wyoming’s conservative force.”
(ACC Mentioned) The Politics Of Infertility and Cancer
Nov 28, 2017 | HuffPost
By Stacy Malkan

At a recent soiree at Union Station, the DC power elite gathered in an anti-public health confab dressed up as a celebration of women that should concern anyone who cares about the health and rights of women and children.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) 9th Circ. Denies EPA's Bid To Move TSCA Prioritization Row
Nov 29, 2017 | Law360
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez

The Ninth Circuit on Monday refused the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's bid to transfer to the Fourth Circuit challenges by environmental groups to its rule outlining how it will prioritize which chemicals to evaluate under the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act.
(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Framework Rules Litigation Update: Ninth Circuit Denies EPA’s Motion to Transfer to Fourth Circuit; Fourth Circuit Expected to Rule on Petitioners’ Transfer Motions Imminently
Nov 28, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham

On November 27, 2017, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) case on the petition for review of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) framework rule Procedures for Prioritization of Chemicals for Risk Evaluation (Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families v. EPA, Case Nos. 17-72260, 17-72501, and 17-72968 (consolidated)), the Ninth Circuit issued an order on several pending motions.
9th Circuit Rejects Request To Transfer TSCA Rule Challenges
Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has rejected EPA's request to transfer to the 4th Circuit litigation challenging EPA's rule for how it will evaluate existing chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a win for environmentalists who want to keep the case in the 9th Circuit.
Manufacturers Gain Insight Into EPA Reviews of New Chemicals
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Recently released EPA documents setting out review procedures for new chemicals before they can be made and sold offer chemical manufacturers insight that can help them prepare for evaluations, two chemical policy attorneys told Bloomberg Environment.
Improve Regulation, Do Not Repeal It
Nov 29, 2017 | The Regulatory Review
By Rick Reibstein

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently issued a report on “reducing regulatory burdens” in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Carper Offers To Allow EPA Picks To Advance if Dourson Withdraws
Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

A top Senate Democrat is suggesting he may be willing to allow some of the Trump administration's less-controversial EPA nominees, including its pick for EPA's enforcement office, to advance if the president withdraws his nomination of Michael Dourson to lead the agency's toxics office and leaves his post as an advisor to Administrator Scott Pruitt.
(ACC Mentions) With Prodding, Retailers Push Chemical Policies
Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Melody M. Bomgardner

A year ago, the Mind the Store campaign of consumer activist organization Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families issued a report card grading 11 retail chains on their efforts to reduce or eliminate hazardous chemicals in products they carry. No company received an A grade; Target and Walmart were the only ones to even get a B.
Draft Guidance on EDC Criteria out 'in Early December'
Nov 29, 2017 |

Echa and the European Food Safety Authority intend to publish draft guidance on the implementation of the criteria for endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in early December, the two agencies have confirmed.
French Agency Publishes Opinion On Dichlorobenzene In Mattresses
Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch

The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, Anses, has published an Opinion on the health risks to consumers posed by the presence of dichlorobenzene in polyurethane foams, used in furniture.
EU Notifies WTO Of Amended O-Phenylphenol Restriction
Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has notified the World Trade Organization of a draft Regulation that aims to restrict the maximum concentration of o-phenylphenol as a preservative in leave-on cosmetic products to 0.15%, lowered from the currently authorised concentration of 0.2%.
Merkel Issues Warning in Weedkiller Dispute Amid Coalition Talks
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Donahue

German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a warning to her acting cabinet after her agriculture minister unilaterally voted in favor of extending the use of a disputed weedkiller, a move that her Social Democrat coalition partner called an “affront.”
Glyphosate Renewed For Five Years In The EU
Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson

The world’s top-selling herbicide, glyphosate, can stay on the market in the European Union for another five years after an unexpected vote in favor of the renewal by German agriculture minister Christian Schmidt.

Energy News

Anti-Fracking Activists and Anarchists Are Blocking Rail Tracks in Olympia. They Don't Plan on Leaving.
Nov 29, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Kyle Swenson
Replacing Power Rule Divides Industry United on Repeal
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith

Industry critics of Obama-era greenhouse gas emission controls for power plants are cheering the EPA's plans to scrap the regulation at a public hearing in coal country, but initial comments on potential replacement options reveal tensions.
Little Policy Advocacy At EPA Hearing On Clean Power Plan Repeal
Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves

The first day of EPA's hearing on the Trump administration's plan to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) was consumed by competing rhetoric over the Obama administration's alleged “war on coal,” with little policy advocacy beyond industry renewing its calls for a replacement and environmentalists reiterating their push to preserve the rule.
Federal Court Halts DTE, Enbridge Natural Gas Pipeline in Ohio
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert

A federal court has temporarily halted construction of an eight-mile stretch of the Nexus natural gas pipeline in northeast Ohio, ruling the state likely didn't properly analyze environmental harm or consider alternative routes to avoid the City of Green.

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

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Washington Council: No to Tesoro-Savage Crude-by-Rail Terminal
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky

Washington's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council voted unanimously Nov. 28 to recommend to the state not approve a large crude-by-rail oil terminal on the Columbia River.
Faulty Bearing Blamed for Train Derailment, Molten Sulfur Spill in Kathleen
Nov 28, 2017 | The Ledger
By John Chambliss

A freight train derailment early Monday in Kathleen was caused by a faulty bearing on an axle of one of the rail cars that left the tracks, according to a preliminary investigation by CSX officials.

Environment News

Study Finds Updated Carbon 'Cost' Doubles Agriculture Effect
Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

A new study by University of California (UC) and Purdue University researchers finds that updating the Obama-era "social cost of carbon" (SCC) climate damage tool with the latest science would roughly double the estimated costs global warming has on agricultural activities, a step that would help justify stricter mitigation efforts.
Groups Outline Challenges to EPA's SO2 NAAQS Designations
Nov 29, 2017 |

Several groups in new legal briefs are challenging EPA's designations for areas either meeting or not attaining the 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) air standard, with environmentalists and citizens seeking tougher designations for parts of Ohio and Colorado while a power company is seeking a weaker designation for part of Kansas.
EPA Sued Over Air Pollution Trading Program for Texas Utilities
Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq

Environmental groups asked a federal appeals court to review EPA's final plan to reduce visibility-impairing air pollution in Texas, which established a trading program for utility emissions.
CPR Fears Pruitt's 'Sophisticated Sabotage' Could Hinder EPA For Years
Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt are engaging in “sophisticated sabotage” that could hinder the agency from pursuing stricter environmental standards for years to come due to little-noticed policy overhauls -- that's the assessment of Matthew Shudtz, executive director of the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), a network of scholars and academics working to protect health, safety, and the environment.
Trump Should Fire the E.P.A.’s Scott Pruitt
Nov 28, 2017 | The New York Times
By Thomas H. Kean

President Richard Nixon, who joined with a Democratic Congress nearly 50 years ago to create the Environmental Protection Agency, said then that clean air and water were “the birthright of every American” and that restoring nature was “a cause beyond party and beyond factions.”

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Moore Buried Under TV Ad Barrage

Nov 29, 2017 | Politico

By Maggie Severn, Zach Montellaro, Elena Schneider

MOORE PROBLEMS — “Moore buried under TV ad barrage,” by POLITICO’s Scott Bland and Daniel Strauss: “Doug Jones and Roy Moore both released new television ads on Monday. But many Alabama voters will see only one of them. That’s because of the massive disparity in TV ad spending between the two candidates in the Alabama special election to a Senate seat, where Jones, the Democratic candidate, is outspending Moore roughly 7-to-1. … Fueled by millions of online dollars pouring in to defeat Moore, Jones’ campaign has flooded the airwaves with over $5.6 million of TV ads overall in the general election campaign. Moore has answered with about $800,000 in ad spending, according to Advertising Analytics."
“Jones’ campaign built a big financial advantage even before women came forward accusing Moore of sexual misconduct in early November. ... A new campaign finance report from ActBlue, the widely used Democratic digital fundraising platform, shows Jones raised nearly $2.9 million online in October alone. But the firestorm that ensued after numerous allegations surfaced against Moore galvanized even more financial support for Jones, giving him the resources to relentlessly pound Moore on-air as a child predator.” Full story here.
— Pro-Moore super PAC backed by Uihlein: A pop-up super PAC that has spent six figures supporting Moore in recent months received the majority of its funds from Wisconsin-based conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein, according to a new FEC filing. The PAC, called Proven Conservative PAC, has spent $147,649 since being formed in August and received $100,000 from Uihlein. One of Uihlein’s donations came on Nov. 22, more than a week after the first allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore surfaced, according to the new disclosure.
RETIREMENT ALERT — Gutierrez won't seek reelection, via POLITICO Illinois' Natasha Korecki: "Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) a leading national voice on immigration reform, will not seek reelection and is expected to announce his decision [this] morning, three Democratic sources with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO. Gutierrez is expected to announce he's withdrawing his nominating petitions [today]."
"The sources say that former Chicago mayoral candidate Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia will begin circulating petitions for Gutierrez's post. Gutierrez's spokesman, Douglas Rivlin, said he couldn't comment." Full story here.
AIR WAR — Tax reform ads fly ahead of votes this week: A slew of liberal and conservative groups are out with television ads pressuring senators ahead of this week’s Senate votes on tax reform. The DSCC is airing an ad featuring families receiving notices saying their tax bill is going up. “How much will the Republican tax scam cost you?” the ad’s narrator asks after the spot notes the elimination of the state and local tax, student loan and medical deductions. Watch it here.
— The Chamber of Commerce airs holiday-themed spots in three states: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is up with holiday-themed radio ads pressuring three GOP senators to support the bill: Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Montana Sen. Steve Daines and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. “What’s the best gift [the senator] can give this holiday season?” the narrator of the 60-second spots asks. “The gift of tax relief.” Listen to the ads here, here and here.
— Business for Responsible Tax Reform pressures Corker: Business for Responsible Tax Reform is up with a 30-second ad targeting Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker that notes the tax reform bill increases the deficit. Watch the ad here.
— Not One Penny targets Trump: Not One Penny, a coalition of Democratic groups, is out with a television ad set to air during “Fox and Friends.” The ad notes President Donald Trump’s frequent Twitter messages and challenges him to tweet about tax breaks for golf course owners. Watch the spot here.
— AAN adds $2.5 million in TV, digital ads on tax reform: American Action Network is out with a $2.5 million TV and digital ad effort, thanking GOP House members in 29 House districts who voted for the Republican tax bill. The ad will air in largely battleground seats. Check out the full list of districts here. Watch the ad here.
— National Immigration Forum launches DACA ad: The National Immigration Forum is spending five figures to run digital ads in five states and D.C. criticizing Republicans on DACA. The ads focus on a young, undocumented immigrant named Bernardo Castro. More here.
Days until the 2018 election: 343
Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.
Playbook Interview with Marco Rubio — Join POLITICO Playbook Co-authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman for a Playbook Interview with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on end-of-year Senate priorities, policy, politics and the news of the day.Nov. 29 — Doors open 8:00 a.m. — The Liaison Capitol Hill. RSVP: here.
LONG-SHOT BID — "Former Kelly aide to mount last-minute Alabama Senate bid against Moore," by POLITICO's Cristiano Lima: "A former top aide to White House chief of staff John Kelly intends to launch a last-minute write-in campaign in the race for Alabama's open Senate seat. Retired Marine Col. Lee Busby, 60, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., said Monday he plans to challenge Democratic candidate Doug Jones and embattled Republican Roy Moore for the state's open seat. He also launched a bare-bones website counting down to the Dec. 12 special election." Full story here.
MOORE ON THOSE ADS — Moore denies allegations in new TV ad: “A new ad announced by Alabama Republican Roy Moore's campaign says the accusations that he pursued multiple women when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s are ‘false allegations,’” Strauss reports. Full story here. And read about Jones’ latest ad here.
— Pro-Jones super PAC dropped $1 million over last weekend: “Highway 31, the super PAC supporting Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, has disclosed spending another $1.1 million on ads boosting the candidate and hitting Republican Roy Moore,” reports Strauss. Full story here.
NEW ON THE AIRWAVES — Pittenger talks ‘War on Christmas’ in TV ad: North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger is out with a new TV and digital ad, which started airing over Thanksgiving weekend, about Christmas. “Christmas — a time we honor the birth of Jesus Christ, yet some choose political correctness, attacking our faith and values, refusing to say ‘Merry Christmas,’” the ad’s narrator says. “Let’s join together to honor the birth of Jesus Christ and Christmas traditions.” Pittenger, directly addressing the camera, concludes: “I’ve dedicated my life to sharing God’s love through Jesus Christ. Let’s end political correctness and put the true meaning of Christ back into Christmas.” Pittenger is up against a well-funded primary and general election opponent, both of whom outraised him last quarter. Mark Harris, a pastor who nearly beat him in a primary in 2016, is challenging him again. Watch the ad here.
— American Chemistry Council’s new spot backs Barrasso: The American Chemistry Council’s new ad praises Sen. John Barrasso as “Wyoming’s conservative force.” Watch it here.
SOMETHING TO WATCH — “Puerto Ricans could transform Florida politics, and parties are taking notice,” by NBC News’ Carmen Sesin: “So far, over 189,000 Puerto Ricans have migrated to the state after the hurricane left unimaginable destruction throughout the island. Planes arriving from Puerto Rico remain full and some estimate as many as half a million people will eventually make their way to Florida. Although some, particularly the older generations, will eventually return to the island, experts believe most will remain here. Central Florida is their preferred destination, but areas like South Florida and Tampa are also seeing an influx of Puerto Ricans.” Full story.
GETTING THE NOD — Club for Growth PAC backs Fulcher in ID-01 primary: “The Club for Growth PAC is endorsing former state Sen. Russ Fulcher in the crowded Republican primary to replace Idaho Rep. Raúl Labrador, who's running for governor. ... Fulcher initially launched a gubernatorial bid but dropped out in June and endorsed Labrador. Fulcher, who also ran for governor in 2014, led the pack of GOP candidates in fundraising last quarter, bringing in more than $100,000.” Full story.
2018 WATCH — “Virginia Republicans anticipating state Del. Nick Freitas to announce run for U.S. Senate,” by the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson: “Virginia Republicans are anticipating that a state lawmaker will join the GOP primary race for a chance to challenge U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., next year, according to GOP insiders. The new contender would be Del. Nicholas J. Freitas, R-Culpeper, an Iraq combat veteran first elected to the General Assembly in 2015 and easily reelected this year. Freitas would join Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, in seeking the GOP nomination.” Full story.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “This so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us,” Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron said, explaining why the newspaper published an off-the-record exchange with a woman who appears to have tried to scam the paper with a false Roy Moore allegation while acting on behalf of the conservative group Project Veritas.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-score/2017/11/28/moore-buried-under-tv-ad-barrage-033970

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(ACC Mentioned) The Politics Of Infertility and Cancer

Nov 28, 2017 | HuffPost

By Stacy Malkan

At a recent soiree at Union Station, the DC power elite gathered in an anti-public health confab dressed up as a celebration of women that should concern anyone who cares about the health and rights of women and children.
The Independent Women’s Forum drew an impressive array of Republican politicians to its annual gala sponsored by, among others, the American Chemistry Council, the tobacco company Phillip Morris, the cosmetics industry trade group, Google and the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council.
Speakers included House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who won the IWF Valor Award for being a “passionate advocate for limited government” who does not embrace “the idea that being a woman is a handicap.” Conway is also an IWF board member.
So what is the Independent Women’s Forum?
IWF got its start 25 years ago as an effort to defend now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as he faced sexual harassment charges. The group has since raised millionsfrom the secretive foundations of the Koch brothers and other right-wing billionaires to carry out its mission of “increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty.”
In the world of the IWF — a group Joan Walsh described in The Nation as “the ‘feminists’ doing the Koch’s dirty work” — that means defending the freedom of corporations to sell toxic products and pollute the environment, while trying to frame that agenda as good for women and children.
E-cigarettes should be approved because of the unique biological needs of women, for example, and climate science education is too scary for students. (The e-cig letter is “standard Phillip Morris PR,” says tobacco industry expert Stan Glanz; and Greenpeace classifies IWF as a “Koch Industries climate denial front group.”)
Women can also benefit by ignoring “alarmist” concerns about toxic chemicals, according to an IWF lecture series sponsored by Monsanto.
To give you a sense of the messaging on chemicals: Moms who insist on organic food are arrogant, snobby “helicopter parents” who “need to be in control of everything when it comes to their kids, even the way food is grown and treated,” according to Julie Gunlock, director of IWF’s “Culture of Alarmism” project, as quoted in an article titled “The tyranny of the organic mommy mafia” that was written by an IWF fellow.
At the IWF gala, Gunlock posed for a photo op with Monsanto staffer Aimee Hood and Julie Kelly, who writes articles casting doubt on climate science and pesticide risk, and once even called climate hero Bill McKibben “a piece of shit.”
Gunlock and Kelly are “rock stars,” Hood tweeted.
“I’m framing this,” Monsanto employee Cami Ryan tweeted in return.
Put a frame around the whole shindig and behold the absurdity of corporate-captured politics in America, where the nation’s leaders openly embrace an anti-women “women’s group” that equates “freedom” with eating toxic pesticides, at an event sponsored by the chemical industry, a tobacco company, the world’s most influential news source and an extremist group that wants to do away with a voter-elected Senate.
Meanwhile in the rational world
Recent science suggests that if you want to get pregnant and raise healthy children, you should reject the propaganda that groups like the Independent Women’s Forum are trying to sell.
In just the past few weeks, the Journals of the American Medical Association published a Harvard study implicating pesticide-treated foods in fertility problems, a UC San Diego study documenting huge increases in human exposure to a common pesticide, and a physician’s commentary urging people to eat organic food.
I wrote about those studies in more detail here, “Trying to get pregnant? Science suggests: eat organic and regulate the pesticide industry”.
Mainstream groups have been giving similar advice for years.
In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended reducing children’s exposure to pesticides due to a growing body of literature that links pesticides to chronic health problems in children, including behavioral problems, birth defects, asthma and cancer.
In 2009, the bipartisan President’s Cancer Panel reported: “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”
The panel urged then-President George W. Bush “most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”
Unfortunately for our nation, acting on that advice has not been possible in a political system indentured to corporate interests.
Corporate capture of health and science
For decades, pesticide corporations have manipulated science and U.S. regulatory agencies to keep the truth hidden about the health dangers of their chemicals.
The details are being revealed by hundreds of thousands of pages of industry documentsturned loose from legal discovery, whistleblowers and FOIA requests that have been examined in government hearings and by many media outlets.
For a synopsis of Monsanto’s “long-running secretive campaign to manipulate the scientific record, to sway public opinion, and to influence regulatory assessments” on its herbicide glyphosate, see this essay by my colleague Carey Gillam in Undark Magazine.
As one example of government/corporate collusion: in 2015, on the Obama administration’s watch, the EPA official in charge of evaluating the cancer risk of glyphosate allegedly bragged to a Monsanto executive about helping to “kill” another agency’s cancer study, as Bloomberg reported.
Suppressing science has been a bipartisan, decades-long project. Since 1973, Monsanto has presented dubious science to claim the safety of glyphosate while EPA largely looked the other way, as Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman documented for In These Times.
Brown and Grossman spent two years examining the publicly available archive of EPA documents on glyphosate, and reported:“Glyphosate is a clear case of ‘regulatory capture’ by a corporation acting in its own financial interest while serious questions about public health remain in limbo. The record suggests that in 44 years—through eight presidential administrations—EPA management has never attempted to correct the problem. Indeed, the pesticide industry touts its forward-looking, modern technologies as it strives to keep its own research in the closet, and relies on questionable assumptions and outdated methods in regulatory toxicology.”
The only way to establish a scientific basis for evaluating glyphosate’s safety, they wrote, would be to “force some daylight between regulators and the regulated.”
Limited government means freedom to harm
In Trump’s Washington, there is no daylight at all between the corporations selling harmful products and the agencies that are supposed to regulate them.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is pushing scientists off advisory boards and stacking the EPA with political appointees connected to the oil, coal and chemical industries, many of whom are connected to climate science deniers.
As one of his first official actions, Pruitt tossed aside the recommendation of EPA’s scientists and allowed Dow Chemical to keep selling a pesticide developed as a nerve gas that is linked to brain damage in children.
“Kids are told to eat fruits and vegetables, but EPA scientists found levels of this pesticide on such foods at up to 140 times the limits deemed safe,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in a scathing NYT op-ed. “Trump’s most enduring legacy may be cancer, infertility and diminished I.Q.s for decades to come.”
Pruitt has gone so far as to put a chemical industry lobbyist in charge of a sweeping new toxics law that was supposed to regulate the chemical industry.
It’s all so outrageous – but then, it has been for a very long time.
That sweeping new toxics law, which passed last year in a hailstorm of bipartisan glory, was opposed by many environmental groups but lauded by – and reportedly written by – the American Chemistry Council.
“The $800 billion chemical industry lavishes money on politicians and lobbies its way out of effective regulation. This has always been a problem, but now the Trump administration has gone so far as to choose chemical industry lobbyists to oversee environmental protections,” as Kristof described it.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics protested the administration’s decision on the nerve gas pesticide, but officials sided with industry over doctors. The swamp won. The chemical industry lobby, the American Chemistry Council, is today’s version of Big Tobacco…”
“Some day we will look back and wonder: What were we thinking?!”
The Character of our Country
A decade ago, the Independent Women’s Forum presented its Valor Award to Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s largest breast cancer organization – a group that has also drawn criticism for taking money from polluting corporations and promoting unhealthy food and toxic products.
At the 2007 IWF gala, in an acceptance speech she called “The Character of our Country,” Brinker warned that millions of lives will be lost unless America acts to avert the coming “cancer tsunami.”
But then, she said: “My friends, this is not a problem of politics. When it comes to cancer, there are no Republicans or Democrats, no liberals or conservatives.”
Rather, she said, invoking vagueness as she stood before a group that tells women not to worry about pesticides, at an event awash in corporate cash, beating cancer is a matter of summoning the will to make cancer a “national and global priority!”
But that is exactly a problem of politics. It’s about Republicans and Democrats, both of whom have let Americans down by failing to confront the chemical industry. It’s about summoning the political will to get chemicals linked to cancer, infertility and brain damage off the market and out of our food.
In the meantime, we can take the advice of science: eat organic and vote for politicians who are willing to stand up to the pesticide industry
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-politics-of-infertility-and-cancer_us_5a1d9f5ae4b0e6631c44bbc4

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) 9th Circ. Denies EPA's Bid To Move TSCA Prioritization Row

Nov 29, 2017 | Law360

By Juan Carlos Rodriguez

The Ninth Circuit on Monday refused the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's bid to transfer to the Fourth Circuit challenges by environmental groups to its rule outlining how it will prioritize which chemicals to evaluate under the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act.

The EPA had asked the appeals court to send the entire matter, which consists of three now consolidated challenges to the prioritization rule, to the Fourth Circuit, where three other challenges to a separate TSCA rule have also been consolidated. The environmental groups opposed such a move and the Ninth Circuit, in a brief order with no explanation, denied the bids.

According to the EPA, having the cases heard in the Fourth Circuit would have been more convenient because all the attorneys of record are based in Washington, D.C., or New York.

“Moreover, it would be in the interest of justice that the cases be transferred to the Fourth Circuit, because they should be heard by the same panel deciding petitions for review of a second EPA rule with some overlapping issues,” the EPA said in its September motion for transfer. “And the Fourth Circuit will likely be able to rule on the petitions more quickly.”

The environmental groups opposed moving the cases to the Fourth Circuit but instead filed a motion there to transfer those matters to the Ninth Circuit. The Fourth Circuit held off on issuing a ruling until the Ninth Circuit made its call. According to the green groups, the EPA was forum shopping.

“With its motion to transfer, EPA seeks to override the chosen forum of the vast majority of the petitioners and instead litigate these cases in its preferred forum. But that is not EPA’s choice to make,” the groups said in a brief opposing the agency's request.

The prioritization rule at issue in the Ninth Circuit is the first step under the TSCA revisions for evaluating the safety of existing chemicals. Under the rule, the agency must decide the level or risk that a chemical poses and designate it as either high priority, which requires further evaluation, or low priority, meaning further study isn’t needed.

The green groups haven’t filed any briefs explaining their opposition yet, but one of those groups — the Natural Resources Defense Council — has said that the Trump administration’s approach to the rule will result in incomplete analyses that play down risks posed by chemicals to human health.

In the Fourth Circuit, the same environmental groups have challenged a second TSCA rule, dubbed the risk evaluation rule. This is the second step in the chemical assessment regime, and requires the EPA to set up a process for determining if a chemical presents “an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”

The green groups have said in the past that the Trump administration’s final rule reversed course “180 degrees” from what the Obama administration had proposed in regard to how the agency will look at chemical uses that may no longer be common, or “legacy” uses.

A number of chemical industry groups have intervened in both the Ninth and Fourth Circuit litigations.

The U.S. Department of Justice generally does not comment on pending legal matters.

The Environmental Protection Agency is represented by Samara M. Spence and Erica Zilioli of the U.S. Department of Justice and Laurel Celeste of the EPA.

The Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, the Environmental Working Group, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists and WE ACT for Environmental Justice are represented by Eve C. Gartner of Earthjustice.

The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group are represented by Robert M. Sussman of Sussman & Associates.

The United Steelworkers is represented by Randy Rabinowitz of the Occupational Safety & Health Law Project.

The Environmental Defense Fund is represented by its own Robert P. Stockman.

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, the Cape Fear River Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council are represented by Nancy S. Marks and Sarah Tallman of the NRDC.

Intervenors American Chemistry Council, the American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Forest & Paper Association, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, the EPS Industry Alliance, IPC International, Inc., the National Association of Chemical Distributors, the National Mining Association and the Silver Nanotechnology Working Group are represented by Peter D. Keisler of Sidley Austin LLP.

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America is also represented by its own Steven P. Lehotsky and Michael B. Schon.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers is also represented by its own Richard Moskowitz and Taylor Hoverman.

Intervenor American Coatings Association and the Battery Council International are represented by David B. Weinberg, Martha E. Marrapese and Roger H. Miksad of Wiley Rein LLP.

Intervenor Polyurethane Manufacturers Association is represented by Donald P. Gallo of Husch Blackwell LLP.

Intervenor Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates is represented by James W. Conrad Jr. of Conrad Law & Policy Counsel.

Intervenor Styrene Information and Research Center Inc. is represented by Peter L. de la Cruz of Keller and Heckman LLP.

Intervenor Utility Solid Waste Activities Group is represented by Douglas H. Green and Allison D. Foley of Venable LLP.

The lead Ninth Circuit case is Safer Chemicals Healthy Families et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, number 17-72260, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The lead Fourth Circuit case is Alliance of Nurses et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, number 17-1926, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
https://www.law360.com/articles/988963/9th-circ-denies-epa-s-bid-to-move-tsca-prioritization-row

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(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Framework Rules Litigation Update: Ninth Circuit Denies EPA’s Motion to Transfer to Fourth Circuit; Fourth Circuit Expected to Rule on Petitioners’ Transfer Motions Imminently

Nov 28, 2017 | The National Law Review

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham

On November 27, 2017, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) case on the petition for review of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) framework rule Procedures for Prioritization of Chemicals for Risk Evaluation (Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families v. EPA, Case Nos. 17-72260, 17-72501, and 17-72968 (consolidated)), the Ninth Circuit issued an order on several pending motions. It granted the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) (and other industry groups) motion to intervene on behalf of respondent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); denied the respondents’ motions to transfer Case Nos. 17-72260 and 17-72501 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Fourth Circuit); denied respondents’ requests to hold Case Nos. 17-72260 and 17-72501 in abeyance; granted the motions to consolidate Case Nos. 17-72260, 17-72501, and 17-72968; and set an amended briefing schedule. The consolidated opening brief is now due January 23, 2018; the consolidated answering brief and the intervenors’ brief are due February 22, 2018; and the optional reply brief is due within 21 days after service of the answering and intervenors’ briefs.
In the Fourth Circuit case on the petition for review of the TSCA framework rule Procedures for Chemical Risk Evaluation under TSCA (Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments v. EPA, Case Nos. 17-1926, 17-2040, and 17-2244 (consolidated)), the petitioners’ motions to transfer to the Ninth Circuit are still pending; on November 21, 2017, the Fourth Circuit deferred the ruling until the Ninth Circuit ruled on its own pending motions to transfer. As the Ninth Circuit has now denied the motions to transfer (per above), the Fourth Circuit will soon make a decision about whether this case should also be heard by the Ninth Circuit. A new briefing schedule has not been set.
In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) case on the petition for review of the TSCA framework rule TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (EDF v. EPA, Case No. 17-1201), there are no current delays due to transfers or consolidations. Respondent EPA filed a motion to extend time to file its brief on November 7, 2017; petitioner Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed its statement of intent regarding appendix deferral on November 8, 2017, and filed its initial submissions including the statement of issues on November 8-9, 2017; and respondent EPA filed the certified index to the record on November 27, 2017. ACC and other industry groups were granted leave to intervene on behalf of respondent EPA on November 13, 2017. The briefing schedule has not been set.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/tsca-framework-rules-litigation-update-ninth-circuit-denies-epa-s-motion-to-transfer

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9th Circuit Rejects Request To Transfer TSCA Rule Challenges

Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has rejected EPA's request to transfer to the 4th Circuit litigation challenging EPA's rule for how it will evaluate existing chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a win for environmentalists who want to keep the case in the 9th Circuit.
In a Nov. 27 order, the 9th Circuit -- which covers Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii -- denies the request to transfer the case, while also consolidating the various suits over the TSCA rule and related policies filed in the court and establishing a briefing schedule that begins Jan. 23.
The case is one of a slew of lawsuits that groups, including Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, the Environment Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed this summer challenging three Trump EPA rules that establish a framework for prioritizing, evaluating, and updating the TSCA inventory of existing chemicals.
Last month, the 4th Circuit said it would defer to the 9th Circuit on which court should hear the lawsuit filed by environmentalists challenging the evaluation rule. The 9th Circuit's order clears the path for the 4th Circuit -- covering Maryland, North Carolina, Virgina and West Virginia -- to potentially transfer its evaluation rule case to the other appellate court.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/9th-circuit-rejects-request-transfer-tsca-rule-challenges

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Manufacturers Gain Insight Into EPA Reviews of New Chemicals

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Recently released EPA documents setting out review procedures for new chemicals before they can be made and sold offer chemical manufacturers insight that can help them prepare for evaluations, two chemical policy attorneys told Bloomberg Environment.
The Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA), Environmental Defense Fund, and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, however, want the Environmental Protection Agency to provide even more details about how it reviews new chemicals and interprets new provisions of the amended Toxic Substances Control Act.
The materials the EPA released shed light on what has been perceived as a “black box” process by which the agency reviews new chemicals, said Martha Marrapese, a partner in the Washington office of Wiley Rein LLP. The information compiled by the agency can help companies better prepare for safety reviews, she said.
The Points to Consider When Preparing TSCA New Chemical Notificationsdocument, in particular, provides a clear, useful summary of the agency's current practice, said Lynn Bergeson, managing partner in the Washington office of Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.
The information explains to agency staff what they should do, she said. That could benefit chemical makers because it should promote consistent reviews, Bergeson said.
The insights also could help chemical manufacturers understand what information the EPA needs so it can decide whether or not their proposed new chemical is safe enough and can be manufactured for the marketplace, Bergeson said.
More consistent agency reviews and manufacturers’ giving the EPA the information it needs can both help provide businesses needed regulatory predictability, Bergeson said.
The EPA has invited comments through Jan. 20, 2018, on the materials it has and will continue to develop. The agency also is hosting a Dec. 6 meeting to discuss the documents and changes it has been making to its new chemicals program since TSCA was amended in 2016.
Clash in the Making
The four documents the agency released prior to the Dec. 6 meeting were:
• the draft Points to Consider describing the general process the agency uses to review new chemicals,
• an overview of public comments on the draft Points to Consider,
• a framework describing the agency's general strategy and rationale for reviewing new chemicals under the amended statute, and
• a proposed manual on information manufacturers must submit or should consider submitting, and assumptions—such as the extent of exposure to a new chemical—that the EPA makes during its reviews.

The amended law retains TSCA's decades-old dual mission: to allow chemicals that fuel technological innovation and commerce to be made and sold and to ensure that chemicals and chemical mixtures do not present unreasonable risks of injury to human health or the environment.
Yet EPA's new chemicals program is viewed differently by various groups. Those differences are likely to arise during the Dec. 6 meeting based on comments industry and environmental groups already have filed.
Chemical manufacturing officials have interpreted the amended law's new chemicals provisions as codifying—but not substantially altering—the agency's traditional practice that made it fairly easy to bring a new chemical to market.
Environmental health organizations and some legislators, including Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who introduced the law overhauling TSCA, have said Congress specifically revised the new chemicals section of the law to ensure they are safe before they reach the market.
In comments submitted prior to the Dec. 6 meeting, the Environmental Defense Fund and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families each said the EPA is not sufficiently exercising its new authority to obtain information about new chemicals before allowing them to be sold.
They also asked the EPA to provide more details on the legal and scientific justifications it is using to evaluate the new chemicals provisions under the amended law.
Elephants: Delays & Refunds
Firms that make custom batches of chemicals among SOCMA's members filed comments that addressed the 90-day provision for new chemicals, which Marrapese said is the “elephant in the room” and an industry priority.
Since TSCA was amended, the EPA is regulating about 80 percent of new chemicals it reviews, and the reviews that lead to those regulations are taking far longer than the 90 days the law provides for agency reviews, she said.
The amended law, specifically section 5(a)(4), says that if the EPA fails to decide by the end of 90 days whether or not a chemical can enter commerce, it must refund the new chemical review fees each company pays.
The EPA will be challenged to meet the 90-day deadline using its current procedures, Marrapese said.
Since TSCA was amended, if the agency has concerns about potential risks a new chemical may pose if used in ways other than its original manufacturer intends, the agency won't let the new chemical enter the market until it has issued a significant new use rule (SNUR). These require review of any future new uses of the chemical, she said.
It can take many months, sometimes more than a year, before SNURs are finalized, Marrapese said.
“How does EPA intend to refund submitters’ fees when EPA misses a deadline?,” wrote Jared Rothstein, SOCMA's senior manager for regulatory affairs, in comments to the agency.
Creativity Needed
Richard Engler, a senior chemist with Bergeson & Campbell who worked in the EPA's new chemicals office for years, told Bloomberg Enviroment one reason for the delays is that the agency is conflating “reasonably forseeable” with “any possible” risks.
Amended TSCA requires the EPA to consider reasonably forseeable risks, but that is not the same as requiring it to manage any conceivable risk, he said.
There are ways that EPA can reduce its review time, thereby lightening its work load, while managing reasonably forseeable risks, he and Bergeson said.
For example, EPA can identify the primary uses or production methods of a chemical that could increase its risks and manage those concerns, he said.
Chemical manufacturers will be well served by suggesting creative solutions at the Dec. 6 meeting or in written comments, Bergeson said.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124301246&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124301246&jd=124301246

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Improve Regulation, Do Not Repeal It

Nov 29, 2017 | The Regulatory Review

By Rick Reibstein

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently issued a report on “reducing regulatory burdens” in the U.S. manufacturing sector. The report’s emphasis on regulatory burdens highlights an ever-present need to search for ways to improve regulations. But if the recommendations of the report are not questioned, the public will lose the benefits of regulations without knowing what those benefits are.
The Commerce Department focuses only on half the story of regulation—the costs—and ignores the other half—the benefits. The Commerce Department’s report cites a 2014 report by a business group that estimated the direct regulatory costs faced by manufacturers at $138 billion a year, in addition to “indirect negative effects on the U.S. economy such as reduced innovation and global competitiveness, lost investment, and significant job losses.”
But the Commerce Department fails to take the benefits of regulation into account. In 2012, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget estimated that annual benefits of major federal regulations from 2001 to 2011 amounted to $141 billion to $691 billion, while the annual costs were much less—only $42 billion to $66 billion. The idea that the indirect effects of regulation are wholly negative also contrasts with a substantial academic literature by authors Nick Ashford, Michael Porter, and others on the positive indirect effects of regulation.
In suggesting that “agencies should adopt the practice of working together with the regulated community,” the Commerce Department errs again. Regulators already work with regulated parties to craft better regulations. The manner in which the Commerce Department makes this recommendation also ignores that the purpose of regulations is to achieve public good. All parties must be at the table, and to deal with the regulated community only is a dead end.
Most poignantly, the Commerce Department ignores the so-called reinvention era of the 1990s, when regulatory improvement efforts produced regulatory streamlining, more efficient permitting, simplified reporting, more flexible regulation, and voluntary programs. We can resume this process of improving, not removing, the regulations needed to protect the environment, public health, equity, fairness, and other public goods.
Even many voices in industry acknowledge that regulation is not nearly so bad as its critics suggest. The Commerce Department gives this away in one surprising sentence in its report: “Through submitted comments, industry expressed clear support for the need to protect the environment, human health, and worker safety.”
Just as regulatory benefits massively outweigh regulatory costs, the real story about regulation is not that businesses hate it. Rather, the truth is that they just want actual unnecessary, adverse economic impacts to be lifted. Government’s task is not to remove regulations but to find consensus on how to improve them.
Many inefficiencies in the regulatory system arise not because of something inherently negative about regulation, but, instead, because the system has been under constant challenge and is terribly under-resourced. If businesses can be made to understand this, they might be convinced to support the provision of greater resources to agencies, rather than continuing to weaken them. They might be more inclined to look for ways to reduce the burden of regulations while increasing their effectiveness.
Overall, policymakers should take seriously concerns about regulatory burden but use industry’s complaints to help build a path forward to a better system. Irresponsible deregulation is not the solution.
A recent regulatory negotiation illustrates how government can make regulation better. The newly reauthorized Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a law that aims to protect the public from dangerous chemicals used by businesses, contained a mandate for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct a regulatory negotiation about the reporting of chemical data on inorganic byproducts recycled by manufacturers. TSCA aims to promote the dissemination of relevant information. To fulfill the law’s purpose, rules should require more and better information, not less.
During negotiations earlier this year, industry raised a series of complaints about regulatory burdens. Environmentalists listened to business complaints about the reporting process and suggested that reporting burdens could be reduced while actually improving the information produced.
TSCA currently requires manufacturers to report on downstream processing, but environmentalists argued that the downstream processors could be required to provide that information instead. Switching the burden to those downstream processes would relieve manufacturers of having to gather information they do not have at their fingertips or may not be able to acquire.
Admittedly, the environmentalists’ approach would impose a new requirement on downstream processors. But a standard form could be created that follows the chemical through the supply chain. The burden would be minimal and processors would only have to fill in the information that they have readily at hand. Nothing is stopping EPA from designing a system that tracks chemicals effectively and in real time—one that would also be minimally burdensome to use.
Industry representatives to the EPA negotiations, however, have insisted on reducing TSCA reporting altogether. Their unvarying posture of only seeking to reduce needed information raises the question of whether they represent the interests of industry as a whole. Those who sell toxics do have a different perspective than those who simply use them. More scrutiny on chemicals might worry sellers about reduced sales and increased liabilities, in addition to presenting concerns about confidentiality. But many other businesses have no problem with society’s having greater knowledge about toxic chemicals and where they end up. Many other businesses are champions of change. They do not wish to use toxics if they do not have to, and they are willing to comply with reasonable reporting rules.
With a large and growing population of green leaders committed to environmental responsibility, a negotiation in which participants work to construct the system that best provides protection with the least unnecessary adverse impact is feasible. Government officials should call for the convening of responsible actors and the resumption of a search for consensus on how regulations can be improved.
A renewed focus on the development of better rules is a much more appropriate response to complaints about regulatory burdens than any attempt at wholesale deregulation. Anyone who has worked with the many responsible and ethical people in industry will have confidence that, in the end, reasonable improvements can be made. Regulatory improvement, not regulatory repeal, should be the core aspiration of a healthy democracy and the hope of the nation’s political leaders.
https://www.theregreview.org/2017/11/29/reibstein-improve-regulation-not-repeal/

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Carper Offers To Allow EPA Picks To Advance if Dourson Withdraws

Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

A top Senate Democrat is suggesting he may be willing to allow some of the Trump administration's less-controversial EPA nominees, including its pick for EPA's enforcement office, to advance if the president withdraws his nomination of Michael Dourson to lead the agency's toxics office and leaves his post as an advisor to Administrator Scott Pruitt.
“We've made it very clear to Republicans and the administration that we think they should just pull down the nomination and ask him to leave his sinecure that he has at EPA, and that will help us to move forward on some other nominees that are awaiting action," Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) told E&E News.
Prospects for the administration agreeing to such a step are unlikely as the chemical industry continues to publicly support the nominee. "His knowledge, experience and leadership will strengthen EPA's processes for evaluating and incorporating high-quality science into regulatory decision making," the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said in a statement.
Nevertheless, Carper told E&E that if Dourson were to depart, Susan Bodine, the administration's pick to head EPA's enforcement office -- a pick well regarded by industry who served in the George W. Bush administration and also as Senate staff to EPW -- “could be one” of the nominees that Democrats would allow to a floor vote.
But he also said that Democrats still want more responses to a string of oversight letters they have sent to EPA -- one of the issues that have led Democrats to block Republican efforts to move Trump EPA nominees to confirmation votes.
Bodine, who is also serving in an advisory role at EPA, has long been expected to eventually win confirmation after she provided extended written responses to some of the Democrats' questions last month. Carper did not mention any other EPA nominees. Andrew Wheeler, Trump's pick to be deputy administrator, faces an EPW committee vote Nov. 29, while Bodine and David Ross, Trump's nominee to lead the water office, are awaiting floor time.
Dourson, a former EPA toxicologist who left the agency in the 1990s to form his own non-profit risk assessment consulting group, has faced strident opposition from Democrats and environmentalists, who charge he is too closely tied to industry and his past work represent myriad conflicts of interest.
And while other Trump nominees, like William Wehrum to lead the air office, have drawn opposition, none has been so vehement as that to Dourson.
While he is already serving as an advisor to Pruitt, Dourson is facing slim confirmation prospects as his nomination has drawn opposition from all 48 Democrats as well as at least three Republicans.
But former and current agency sources say that if the Senate fails to act on the nominee, and the administration declines to withdraw it, Dourson could continue in his current advisory role.
Alternately, they suggest, the administration could extend his tenure by appointing him to a position that does not require confirmation -- though the deputy assistant administrator position in the toxics office, the top position for a political appointee not requiring Senate confirmation, is already filled by Nancy Beck, a toxicologist most recently with ACC.
However, if the Senate were to vote Dourson down or if Trump withdraws his nomination, he could not continue in his current position because the rationale of such a role is preparing for a confirmed position. If Dourson's nomination were voted down or withdrawn, an industry source does not expect another nomination for the toxics position “anytime soon” adding that Beck would continue running the office in that case.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/carper-offers-allow-epa-picks-advance-if-dourson-withdraws

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(ACC Mentions) With Prodding, Retailers Push Chemical Policies

Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Melody M. Bomgardner

A year ago, the Mind the Store campaign of consumer activist organization Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families issued a report card grading 11 retail chains on their efforts to reduce or eliminate hazardous chemicals in products they carry. No company received an A grade; Target and Walmart were the only ones to even get a B.
This year’s report card, out on Nov. 14, looks quite different. The group of companies scoring B or better includes Apple, Walmart, CVS Health, Ikea, Target, Whole Foods Market, and Best Buy. Target and Walmart improved to B+ and A–, respectively.
It’s likely no coincidence that late last month, in advance of this year’s report card, Home Depot and Costco announced new chemical policies like those already launched by several other retailers. The big-box hardware chain scored a D+ last year; Costco got an F. The improvement in their grades this year—to C+ for Home Depot and C– for Costco—is notable.
At their core, most retailer chemical policies are based on lists of chemicals of concern. Some critics say lists are simplistic because they don’t consider the likely exposures consumers will have to the chemicals or weigh the possible performance benefits of certain ingredients.
Still, the prevalence and depth of the policies have snowballed as activist groups track, publicize, and compare company actions. The buzz about chemicals of concern in consumer products is drawing in ever more retailers, while leading firms like Target and Walmart have significantly expanded their ambitions.
The move toward retailer chemical policies started rather quietly. The Environmental Defense Fund began working with Walmart in 2005 and later opened an office near its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Walmart began an effort to gather product information in 2008 but didn’t come out publicly with its chemicals policy until 2013.
That’s the year Safer Chemicals first approached companies about their chemical policies. With its report card, which debuted last year, the organization created a rating system that is easy for consumers to understand and may put lower-ranking retailers at a competitive disadvantage.
Meanwhile, both consumers and investors are target audiences for the Chemical Footprint Project report, produced by advocacy group Clean Production Action. Walmart joined the footprint project this year.
“Retailers are feeling pressure to meet demands from NGOs and consumers,” says Georgia Rubenstein, principal change designer at Forum for the Future, a nonprofit sustainability consultancy. “The consumer push seems to be felt less upstream at the brand level, but retailers say they are feeling it.”
Drugstore chain CVS cites consumer concerns as driving its new chemical policy, announced in April after two years of study. “We started with extensive customer research, including surveys, focus groups, analysis of social chatter, and customer service channels,” says Cia Tucci, the firm’s vice president of store brands and quality assurance.
CVS asked customers which ingredients they were most concerned about, Tucci says. It decided to focus on its house brands, sometimes called private label or generic products. House brands are historically considered “me too” creations aimed at budget shoppers. But CVS is revamping 600 of its products to remove parabens, phthalates, and the most prevalent formaldehyde releaser preservatives.
The drugstore chain also provided information for the Chemical Footprint Project, the Forum for the Future’s beauty and personal care initiative, and Safer Chemicals’ Mind the Store campaign. Mind the Store awarded CVS a B+ in this year’s report card, while competitor Walgreens lingers in the basement with a D–.
Mike Schade, who leads the Mind the Store campaign, says the rankings are lighting a fire under retailers and their suppliers. “We anticipate it drives a race to the top among the largest retailers—including new companies on the list—and promotes transparency for consumers.” Indeed, of the 11 companies ranked last year, six subsequently expanded their chemical policies.
The more companies that demand goods formulated without hazardous ingredients, the easier it is to get manufacturers to comply, Schade explains. “If one retailer says to a supplier, ‘We want you to restrict x or y,’ they might face some resistance. But when three or four retailers do that, it can drive transformative change in the marketplace.”
One breakthrough for activists has been getting consumer product companies to disclose fragrance ingredients. “It’s been a multiyear movement of companies to first start with what they knew was in their products and then go deeper into proprietary fragrance ingredients,” says Boma Brown-West, head of consumer health for the Environmental Defense Fund’s business-facing arm.
Brown-West points to studies suggesting that up to 20% of the population is sensitive to certain fragrance ingredients, some of which are skin allergens.
The green brands Seventh Generation and Method were first to disclose, she says. In 2014, SC Johnson was the first mass-market brand company to commit to disclose product-specific fragrance ingredients online. Clorox and Unilever followed, and finally, in August, Procter & Gamble made a similar commitment.
There have been some difficult conversations along the way between retailers and consumer product companies, and on up the supply chain. Agreeing to be transparent is easy, but “agreeing on what is and isn’t a bad chemical is very far from that,” Forum for the Future’s Rubenstein observes. Her organization hosts gatherings where retailers and suppliers hash out their concerns.
Walmart kicked off its chemicals of concern effort by naming eight high-priority chemicals—including phthalates, toluene, triclosan, and synthetic musks—taken from government agency lists of carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and reproductive toxics. Rubenstein says the company generally had buy-in from suppliers. The retailer eliminated 95% in its first two years.
But Walmart is now working from an expanded group of up to 2,700 chemicals targeted for reduction, based on longer lists such as those compiled by Europe’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations.
That effort may not go down as easily. “Most retailers are taking a list-based approach today, but brands and manufacturers are calling for a more nuanced approach,” Rubenstein says.
The chemical industry is closely following trends in retailer chemical policies, says Jenny Heumann, director of product safety and stakeholder communications for the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. industry’s main trade group. “We want to be part of the solution to help retailers develop policies based on best available science and assessments of hazard information.”
But list-based approaches don’t take into account how a product is used and how those uses create particular exposures, she says, or how an ingredient helps a product perform. They don’t address a product’s environmental impact, such as carbon emissions and energy use.
“A lot of the frameworks for decision-making are taking those issues one by one, which we feel in the long run is not optimal,” Heumann argues. “You’re making trade-offs by default. You might make a regrettable substitution if you are not looking at the complete picture.”
It’s not always possible to find another ingredient that performs the same function. For example, antimicrobials and other preservatives are needed for product safety. And a sunscreen that doesn’t perform means kids might get burned, Heumann says.
“If you make one big list that applies to many different kinds of products—say a laundry detergent and a hand cream—you may lose the useful effects in some applications without any health benefit,” she adds.
Mind the Store’s Schade acknowledges that lists may be an imperfect solution. But basing actions solely on ingredient hazard helps reduce risk for consumers who experience prolonged exposure and for people in sensitive populations such as pregnant women and young children. This approach can also mitigate risks to workers who handle the chemicals and to the environment where products are made.
Retailers are aware of the challenges their suppliers face, Schade says. “Target has pledged to invest $5 million over five years in green chemistry innovation to develop safer alternatives where none exist. They’re not just talking the talk.” He points out that Target and Walmart have invested in the Preservatives Project organized by the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council.
Despite its shortcomings, the list approach is expanding beyond the original categories of personal care products and household cleaners. For example, Target says it will evaluate chemicals used in textiles and furniture. Best Buy’s new chemicals policy will encompass electronics, while Home Depot will eliminate certain chemicals from paints, floorings, and other hardware store mainstays.
The Mind the Store campaign has set out to grow the number of retailers on its report card, and it isn’t an easy grader. “We’re aiming for a bigger list of grocery chains, dollar stores, pharmacies, and clothing retailers,” Schade says. “Several of the new companies we are evaluating are getting failing grades.”
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i47/prodding-retailers-push-chemical-policies.html

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Draft Guidance on EDC Criteria out 'in Early December'

Nov 29, 2017 |

Echa and the European Food Safety Authority intend to publish draft guidance on the implementation of the criteria for endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in early December, the two agencies have confirmed.
The team with responsibility for the guidance – the ad-hoc Echa-Efsa ED consultation group – submitted a status update, at the latest meeting of the Competent Authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal) on 15-16 November.
It is currently processing over 1,800 comments it received during the second consultation on the matter, which involved member state competent authorities, industry and "public interest stakeholder organisations".
Submission of the draft will coincide with a third, and the first public, consultation, which will run for eight weeks.
The team says the guidance must be available when the criteria come into effect, "which will presumably be in late spring 2018".
The draft will provide a hazard assessment strategy for oestrogenic, androgenic, thyroid and steroidogenic (EATS) adverse effects. It will describe how to assess and follow up indications of these, as well as the kind of information that could be considered sufficient to conclude whether the EDC criteria are met.
In October, the European Parliament vetoed the Commission's proposal for EDC criteria in plant protection products, asking it to come up with a new proposal "without delay".
MEPs said the Commission exceeded its mandate by proposing to exempt from the criteria some substances designed to attack an organism's endocrine system, even when they cause harm to non-target organisms of the same group of species.
This, they said, was unlawful because it would change an essential element of the plant protection products (PPP) legislation. The regulation stipulates not approving substances that have endocrine disrupting properties on other species than those targeted.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62075/draft-guidance-on-edc-criteria-out-in-early-december

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French Agency Publishes Opinion On Dichlorobenzene In Mattresses

Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch

The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, Anses, has published an Opinion on the health risks to consumers posed by the presence of dichlorobenzene in polyurethane foams, used in furniture.
Its assessment looked at the safety of some contaminated raw material, toluene diisocyanate (TDI), produced between 25 August and 29 September and used to manufacture the foams and, in particular, mattresses. This had elevated levels of dichlorobenzene (DCB) – up to 500ppm when acceptable levels from the manufacturer were set at 3ppm.
The manufacturer of the TDI had responded by advising foam manufacturers not to use the material, and said it would also dispose of foams that had already been produced from it.
In its Opinion, Anses confirmed the manufacturer's test results that had showed the impact on workers and consumers to be minimal from the contaminated TDI. It concluded that there was no expected risk to consumer health from inhalation exposure, based on worst-case scenarios considered and information available.
However, it recommended that the manufacturer maintain the standard of 3ppm for TDI in the production of polyurethane foams, irrespective of this conclusion. It also suggested using as low a content as technically possible of the hazardous chemical.
It further recommended responsible marketing to ensure that articles for such foams meet the European CLI of 0.15mg/m3 for 1,4-dichlorobenzene.
The General Directorate of Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control asked Anses to undertake the analysis, following notice of the contaminated material by French furniture associations (FNAEM and UNIFA).
https://chemicalwatch.com/62053/french-agency-publishes-opinion-on-dichlorobenzene-in-mattresses

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EU Notifies WTO Of Amended O-Phenylphenol Restriction

Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has notified the World Trade Organization of a draft Regulation that aims to restrict the maximum concentration of o-phenylphenol as a preservative in leave-on cosmetic products to 0.15%, lowered from the currently authorised concentration of 0.2%.
The proposed date of adoption is the third quarter of 2018. And the proposed entry into force is 20 days from publication in the EU Official Journal.
The final date for comments is 60 days from notification.
The Commission had consulted on the proposed restriction, and amendment to the cosmetics Regulation, earlier in the year.
In June 2015, the Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) said the maximum concentration limit for o-phenylphenol in leave-on cosmetic products should be reduced.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62037/eu-notifies-wto-of-amended-o-phenylphenol-restriction

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Merkel Issues Warning in Weedkiller Dispute Amid Coalition Talks

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Patrick Donahue

German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a warning to her acting cabinet after her agriculture minister unilaterally voted in favor of extending the use of a disputed weedkiller, a move that her Social Democrat coalition partner called an “affront.”
Merkel stopped short of firing the minister, Christian Schmidt, who defied the Social Democrats’ objections and voted Nov. 27 in favor of keeping glyphosate, one of the world's most widely used herbicides, on the market in the EU for another five years.
“This was not in accord with the guidance that was formulated in the government,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin Nov. 28, adding that she had spoken to Schmidt. “This is something that can't be repeated.”
The unilateral move by Schmidt, a member of the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, casts a shadow over looming talks between Merkel's faction and the SPD—set to begin Nov. 30—just as the party eases off its rejection of forming a new coalition with her. The chancellor's Christian Democratic-led bloc has been governing with the SPD in a so-called grand coalition since 2013, and the parties currently are working together in a caretaker government while negotiations take place to form a new coalition.
The SPD suffered its worst defeat since World War II in an election two months ago and initially sat on the sidelines as Merkel struggled to form a multi-party coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party. Those talks collapsed last week after the FDP pulled out, putting pressure on the SPD to join a government or risk a new election.
The chancellor made her remarks Nov. 28 at a press conference to discuss diesel pollution in German cities and sat next to Barbara Hendricks, acting environment minister and SPD member, who opposed the glyphosate extension. Hendricks earlier demanded that Merkel take action, saying firing Schmidt would help restore trust.
“The chancellor expressed something that is actually in principle self-evident,” Hendricks told a group of reporters after the briefing, saying that she still demanded a “confidence-building measure” and that Schmidt's move was an “affront.”
Merkel and Hendricks spoke privately after the briefing out of earshot of journalists.
Schmidt's vote in Brussels helped swing the EU decision for glyphosate over concerns the chemical poses a cancer risk. Many farmers, traditionally supporters of Merkel's bloc, disagree with that assessment, saying the chemical is safe and important to their livelihoods. On Monday, 18 member countries approved the extension, nine opposed and one abstained—amounting to a positive verdict under the EU's “weighted-majority” rules.

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Glyphosate Renewed For Five Years In The EU

Nov 29, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Britt E. Erickson

The world’s top-selling herbicide, glyphosate, can stay on the market in the European Union for another five years after an unexpected vote in favor of the renewal by German agriculture minister Christian Schmidt. Germany abstained from voting in all previous deliberations on glyphosate over the past few months. Schmidt took the decision into his own hands on Nov. 27, voting in favor of the five-year renewal, despite a lack of agreement within the German government. His decision was enough to swing the EU vote after months of talks ended in stalemate.
The final vote by the European Commission’s Appeal Committee was 18 in favor, nine against, and one abstention.
Farm groups and the pesticide industry are welcoming an end to the debate over glyphosate’s renewal in the EU, but they were hoping for a 15-year reauthorization. “We are pleased the substance has been reapproved, however not pleased that despite overwhelming scientific evidence it is only for a period of five years,” says Graeme Taylor, spokesperson for the pesticide industry group European Crop Protection Association. “This debate clearly sets many precedents for the future, and one of the most worrying is the way the movement against the substance has been driven by organizations relying on fear rather than science.”
The French government remains opposed to the five-year renewal for glyphosate. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his disappointment with the vote, pledging on Twitter that France will ban the use of glyphosate “as soon as alternatives are found, and at the latest in three years.” He added, “#MakeOurPlanetGreatAgain.”
Concerns about the safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and many generic formulations, have been escalating since the World Health Organization’s cancer agency deemed the chemical a probable carcinogen in 2015. Regulators around the world, including the European Chemicals Agency and the European Food Safety Authority, dispute that classification, saying there is no evidence to link glyphosate to cancer or reproductive effects.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i48/Glyphosate-renewed-five-years-EU.html

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Energy News

Anti-Fracking Activists and Anarchists Are Blocking Rail Tracks in Olympia. They Don't Plan on Leaving.

Nov 29, 2017 | The Washington Post

By Kyle Swenson

There was little sleep the first night. Everyone was too wired with nerves and excitement. They expected the police to barrel in at any moment.
The encampment went up on Nov. 17, a guerrilla whirlwind of tents, tarps, wooden pallets and two-by-fours. In just a few hours, the intersection at Jefferson Street SE and 7th Avenue in downtown Olympia, Wash., was transformed from a drab piece of asphalt into a hulking structure, somewhere between a refugee camp and a carnival tent.
As impressive as the camp was, however, most of the 100 people who collected behind its barricades the first day did not expect it to last.
This was contested turf. Two sets of train tracks snaked north from the intersection to where the Port of Olympia sits on a piece of land jutting into the Budd Inlet like a fat thumb pointing from a fist. The encampment covered both rails, planting the makeshift site — and the people inside — directly in the path of any engines heading in or out of the port.
That was the point. In a peaceful protest action spearheaded by members of local indigenous tribes, activists planned to disrupt rail shipments related to the hydraulic fracturing business in North Dakota. A similar effort a year before ended in arrests and flash bangs and burning recycling bins. This year, the activists were sure authorities would react similarly.
“We assumed another raid would be coming instantly,” one participant, who declined to give her name, told The Washington Post this week. “We thought it had to come down. We were feeling nervous. People stayed up all night.”
But when the sun climbed up the next morning, the camp was still there. This week, 12 days into the blockade, the protesters remain. The structure has only grown. “This year its much larger,” Kyle Taylor Lucas, an indigenous rights activist involved in the protest, told The Post. “Last year we only covered one of the tracks.”
Lucas said the attitude in the camp is hopeful. “What we are trying to do is resist the forced complicity in this brutal practice to devastate the earth,” she said. “The various affinity groups here bring their own specific messages and commitments and specific reasons for being here. But we came together for the common demands.”
The blockade has successfully created controversy among Olympia’s political leaders, port commissioners, and the rail company. But the stand is also a window into protest in the age of Trump, a time when longtime activists find themselves manning the barricades with a younger breed galvanized into action by President Trump’s election and other the high-profile protests.
“We have more anarchists,” Lucas told The Post. “And I suppose last year we did have more mainstream activists there, folks who are doing climate change work but on a more mainstream level.”
The Olympia Stand — or Oly Stand, as the activist call it — is specifically over ceramic proppants, a sandlike substance used in hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Beginning in 2012, the Port of Olympia contracted to take shipments of proppants from China, the Olympian has reported. The products were then shipped via rail to the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota.
According to Lucas, a former director of the governor’s office of Indian Affairs and a member of the Tulalip Tribes and the Nlaka’pamux Nation in British Columbia, the shipments, which cross both indigenous traditional land and treaty land, are another instance of the government making decisions about land use without consulting indigenous peoples.
“We indigenous feel a special calling as historic land defenders and water protectors whose very subsistence, culture and existence is tied to and dependent upon the sacred land and waters,” she told The Post.”We want to see the fracking shipments stopped immediately.”
Last November, as the Dakota Access Pipeline protests were making headlines across the country, Lucas and other activists set up camp on the location.
Seven days into the action, the group had pressured the port enough to arrange a meeting with the activists. But 12 hours before the scheduled sit-down, police in tactical gear raided the camp in the middle of the night to allow a train to pass, Lucas said.
Twelve protesters were arrested in the fallout. According to the Olympian, some activists threw items at the train as it passed. Following the raid, “masked people supporting the group” marched through downtown, “blocking roads, dumping trash, throwing beer kegs and lighting recycling bins on fire,” the paper reported. Police used flash bangs to subdue the marchers.
Surprisingly, a week after the encampment was cleared, Olympia Police Chief Ronnie Roberts publicly rebuked port officials for failing to come to terms with the activists. He even called on the port to stop shipping proppants altogether.
“I don’t want my department to be the scapegoat for the decisions the port is making,” the chief told Olympia’s city council, the Olympian reported. “I have spent the last five years empowering our department to build trust and build relationship with our community. I don’t want to lose those efforts. It angers me to have to put our officers in combat gear and face off with members in our community over something I don’t believe in myself.”
The 2017 blockade is composed of a much more diverse range of players, from indigenous activists to anarchists to Libertarian Socialists. Now an ever-growing array of tents and boards, pictures and videos show that the whole edifice is scrawled like a bathroom wall with handwritten political slogans and statements.
Inside are living quarters, two kitchens, a family quiet area, couches and sofas, even a bashed-up piano. The blockade hosted a punk rock show. Around 75 to 100 protesters are on-site at any given time, Lucas estimated. Active Twitter and Facebook accounts regularly post and live stream from the camp.
The general vibe is different from last year, Lucas admits, due to the presence of some many younger activists from different political ideologies. The rights of the indigenous, however, are a common ground of agreement, she said.
“I should note how uplifting it was for we Indigenous women to hear all the young ones make strong and unequivocal statements in solidarity with us,” she added in an email. “And they’ve offered to stand with us in whatever we do if we’re raided tonight and in the future.”
The encampment seems to be exerting pressure the port.
Last week J. Bradley Ovitt, the president of Olympia & Belmore, the railroad operating on the tracks, sent a letter to Olympia’s mayor and chief of police urging authorities to “take an active role in the removal of the trespassers on the rail line.” Ovitt argued the blockade has stalled rail traffic; a “number of customers have indicated that their facilities will need to be idled within a few days if service is not restored,” he concluded.
But the city is hesitant to get involved. “This feels like a repeat of last year, and nobody wants to go through what happened last year,” Steve Hall, Olympia’s city manager, told the Olympian. “Their beef is really with the port, not with the city.”
This week, port officials offered to meet with the activists to discuss the situation. But “then in camp tonight we heard that we may be raided in the morning,” Lucas added Tuesday night. “Who knows when in the morning.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/29/anti-fracking-activists-and-anarchists-are-blocking-rail-tracks-in-olympia-they-dont-plan-on-leaving/?utm_term=.76ea6e6877de

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Replacing Power Rule Divides Industry United on Repeal

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Abby Smith

Industry critics of Obama-era greenhouse gas emission controls for power plants are cheering the EPA's plans to scrap the regulation at a public hearing in coal country, but initial comments on potential replacement options reveal tensions.
Coal and utility industry representatives and West Virginia policymakers giving testimony today in Charleston are largely united in supporting the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to repeal the power sector emissions limits, known as the Clean Power Plan.
But differences are emerging as well-known coal industry backers pledge to oppose any similar rule, even as many in the utility industry argue a narrow replacement would best provide long-term regulatory certainty.
Staunch coal country critics of the Clean Power Plan, including West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) and coal giant Murray Energy Corp. head Bob Murray, urged a “permanent” end to power-sector carbon dioxide emissions controls that would preclude the EPA from issuing a replacement rule. Both were in attendance when President Trump signed the executive order that directed the EPA to review the Clean Power Plan.
Multitiered Approach
Morrisey, who kicked off the day's testimonies, said the Clean Power Plan is “one of the most far-reaching rules in EPA's history.”
At a press conference on the steps of West Virginia's Capitol, Morrisey, who is running for Senate in 2018, said, “whatever capacity I serve in, we're going to have a multitiered approach to make sure the Clean Power Plan never sees the light of day.”
That includes taking regulatory steps to ensure that the EPA does not regulate “beyond the fence line” of a power plant facility, such as measures encouraging shifting generation to natural gas and renewable energy, he told Bloomberg Environment in an interview. Congress could act to bar the EPA from engaging in generation shifting without a “specific delegation,” he added.
Morrisey also suggested the EPA should reassess “the applicability of the endangerment finding and whether it applies solely to mobile sources.” That echoes a legal argument of some industry groups that the Clean Power Plan is unlawful because the EPA needed to issue a power-sector–specific endangerment finding before regulating plants’ emissions.
Were the EPA to find that its 2009 endangerment finding applies only to mobile sources, as Morrisey suggested, it would bar the Clean Power Plan—but also would restrict the EPA's ability to issue a replacement regulation, a step many in the utility industry are urging.
‘Reasonable’ Replacement
Several utility and industry groups—including the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—offered support for a “reasonable” replacement of the Clean Power Plan. Such a rule should base standards on emissions reduction measures taken at the power plant facility, such as efficiency rate improvements, they said.
“Federal guidance of sufficient flexibility, and limited to actions within the fence line, can provide regulatory certainty, diminish frivolous litigation, and can aide in planning,” Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, told EPA officials in his testimony.
Jack Harrison, a consultant for the American Petroleum Institute, said in his testimony that “if and when EPA replaces the Clean Power Plan, the agency must leverage the benefits of clean, reliable, and affordable natural gas.” Any replacement should allow states to count “increasing use of natural gas generation” toward compliance, he said.
The EPA has not yet committed to replace the Clean Power Plan, but it is preparing to issue an advance notice seeking input on how to proceed. EPA air chief William Wehrum, who just joined the agency, told Bloomberg Environment in a recent interview that the agency intends to cast a wide net and consider all options to potentially replace the rule.
“It's not surprising” that various industry stakeholders have different ideas about whether and how the EPA should proceed with a replacement, the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council's Segal told Bloomberg Environment. But the “vast majority” of industry would agree an “acceptable” replacement would be one that is flexible, respectful of state programs, and limited to “inside the fence” measures, he said.
“Over a third of electricity produced in the United States is produced by coal, and from where I sit, we don't see coal being eliminated,” Segal said. “We see coal being an important piece of baseload power, and so regulatory certainty is kind of in everybody's best interest.”
Environmentalists in Full Force
Environmental advocates were out in full force in Charleston to support the Clean Power Plan, urging the EPA to reconsider its efforts to roll back the rule. They cited the EPA's legal duty to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “wants to wrap the agency into a legal interpretation that can produce the same emissions reductions, only at much higher cost and less flexibility. Or it can produce little or no emissions reductions within the same cost range,” David Doniger, climate and clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in testimony.
Pruitt's “plainly expressed intention to consider only do-nothing replacement standards is neither compelled” by the Clean Air Act “nor a legal interpretation of it,” Doniger added.
Environmentalists also appealed to the coal community, arguing that low-cost natural gas and other market factors have caused coal power's decline. “The Clean Power Plan didn't cause these problems, and repealing the Clean Power Plan won't solve them,” Environmental Defense Fund attorney Ben Levitan said in testimony.
They also reiterated calls for the EPA to host additional hearings on the proposed Clean Power Plan repeal. Thus far, the EPA has scheduled only a Nov. 28–29 hearing in Charleston.

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Little Policy Advocacy At EPA Hearing On Clean Power Plan Repeal

Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

By Dawn Reeves

The first day of EPA's hearing on the Trump administration's plan to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) was consumed by competing rhetoric over the Obama administration's alleged “war on coal,” with little policy advocacy beyond industry renewing its calls for a replacement and environmentalists reiterating their push to preserve the rule.
The Nov. 28-29 public hearing in Charleston, WV, is taking testimony on the agency's Oct. 10 repeal proposal, which is justified through a new legal interpretation that the CPP exceeds the agency's statutory authority and must be repealed.
EPA is accepting comment on the proposal through Jan. 16 in addition to having the two-day hearing in the heart of coal country.
The agency has ignored requests to have additional hearings elsewhere in the country, and according to a list of speakers in West Virginia, the majority appear to be in favor of the rule, rather than opposed to it.
Also, the hearing is only on the repeal proposal, not a separate pending advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) to replace the CPP, though most of the industry groups that are testifying are calling for a replacement.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said he wants to repeal the rule first to provide the coal sector with certainty. In an interview last month, he argued the rule must be repealed quickly because of the continuing uncertainty it creates for coal-fired power plants as it is unclear how long the Supreme Court stay will remain in effect.
“You’ve got a rule that’s been stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court. But you don’t know how long that stay is going to, you know, remain in place. And as such, those folks that are regulated across the country, they don’t want the uncertainty,” Pruitt said.
Nevertheless, many industry groups -- even those testifying in support of the CPP repeal -- renewed their calls for a replacement rule so they can have regulatory certainty given EPA's legal obligation to regulate GHGs.
For example, Kathy Beckett of Steptoe & Johnson testified on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which “strongly supports the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed repeal of the [CPP], and encourages the agency to instead develop more durable and achievable standards that preserve America’s energy advantage while respecting the bounds of the Clean Air Act,” she said.
Additionally, Daniel Chartier of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) said in his testimonythat “NRECA both unequivocally supports EPA’s efforts to repeal the Clean Power Plan, and strongly encourages EPA to propose and finalize a 111(d) rule, consistent with the history of the regulation. Both actions are needed to provide America’s electric cooperatives and their members with a rule that is clear and durable.”
Gene Trisko of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) also backs a replacement in his testimony. “UMWA strongly supports the adoption of a replacement rule if EPA repeals the Clean Power rule, and stands ready to work with the agency to develop an effective and workable replacement rule that is consistent with Clean Air statutory requirements - a rule that will give states the primary authority to implement unit-by-unit standards of performance consistent with section 111(d).”
But Scott Segal of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council (ERCC), a group of coal-fired generators, weighed in with a note of caution, saying in his testimony that while the group “believes that absent specific guidance in legislation from the U.S. Congress, market principles are the most sound basis upon which to proceed.” But he added that ERCC members “nevertheless support the ANPRM process advanced by EPA. Federal guidance of sufficient flexibility, and limited to actions within the fence line, can provide regulatory certainty, diminish frivolous litigation, and can aide in planning.”
Allison Wood of the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) echoed those comments in her testimony and added that UARG also "supports EPA's decision to exclude from this proposed rulemaking any possible action on, or review of, its 2009 Endangerment Finding," which triggered the agency's obligation to regulate GHGs.
Need for Action
Meanwhile, environmental groups are stressing the need to act to control GHGs through rules like the CPP, which they argue is sensible and legal, and they rejected the new Trump administration interpretation.
“The Supreme Court has legally required EPA to regulate carbon pollution from power plants, and the Clean Power Plan establishes reasonable requirements based on measures that states and industry are already using . . . Repealing the Plan means ignoring the reality of the climate crisis, which would put our communities at risk of further disruption and deny them the opportunity to breathe cleaner air,” Liz Perera of the Sierra Club testified.
Other environmentalists made similar pitches even as they echoed industry calls to develop a replacement. “EPA has a legal and moral responsibility to protect Americans from air pollution that destabilizes our climate and damages our health. But instead of fulfilling its obligation, EPA’s proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan -- especially without committing to any meaningful replacement -- would put more Americans in danger,” Ben Levitan of the Environmental Defense Fund said in his testimony.
Other environmentalists also called for policymakers to do more to help those hurt by the downturn in the coal sector. “We can -- and we must -- help all Americans in all regions of this country share in the opportunities of the 21st century economy. America owes it to coal country to help the men and women of West Virginia share in these opportunities,” David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in his testimony.
'War On Coal'
While there was little new policy advocacy, much of the first day of the hearing was consumed by competing rhetoric over the rule's effects on the coal sector, with industry and labor groups saying Trump administration plans to repeal the rule is a clear sign that the “war on coal” has ended, while environmentalists are calling out the administration for its “shameful” pandering to coal miners who are being made to think their jobs will now come back.
Robert Murray, the controversial CEO of Murray Energy, told EPA officials at the hearing -- which included Region 3 Administrator Cosmo Servidio and career officials Bill Harnett and Kevin Culligan -- that he “strongly supports” the repeal of the CPP, “which was a linchpin of Mr. Obama's 'War On Coal,'” according to his testimony.
“For more than eight years, we have warned of the regulatory rampage which was being waged, often illegally, by the Obama administration and his supporters on the United States coal industry, and particularly the destruction wrought by the so-called [CPP]. In President Trump, we finally have a President who has vowed to preserve coal jobs and low cost, reliable, and fuel-secure electricity for all Americans,” he said.
Murray added that the CPP would “devastate coal-fired electricity in America, as well as the Untied States coal industry;” that it “impermissibly invades traditional areas of state regulation;” and that the rule “does not promote the national interest in securing affordable, reliable and fuel-secure electricity.”
However, James Van Nostrand of the West Virginia University College of Law Center for Energy & Sustainable Development blasted the “shameful demagoguery of this administration and the politicians in West Virginia who continue to talk about a 'war on coal' and the need to repeal the [CPP]” to end it, according to his testimony.
He called out two West Virginia GOP Senate candidates -- Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Rep. Evan Jenkins -- who are competing to take on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) next fall -- who both testified in support of the repeal. Van Nostrand called their efforts “shameful” due to their competing efforts to “decry the economic ruin caused by the [CPP] and raising hopes for the brighter future for the coal industry once the [CPP] is repealed.”
He said West Virginians “deserve better” from their elected officials because “it is cruel to raise the hopes of coal miners that their jobs will be coming back once this tiresome 'war on coal' is over. Their jobs are not coming back. The [CPP] had no impact on the decline of the coal industry, and repealing the [CPP] will not bring the jobs back,” he added.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/little-policy-advocacy-epa-hearing-clean-power-plan-repeal

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Federal Court Halts DTE, Enbridge Natural Gas Pipeline in Ohio

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Alex Ebert

A federal court has temporarily halted construction of an eight-mile stretch of the Nexus natural gas pipeline in northeast Ohio, ruling the state likely didn't properly analyze environmental harm or consider alternative routes to avoid the City of Green.
In a 2-1 decision, a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Green showed sufficient evidence the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency didn't follow its own procedures before approving a section of the 255-mile pipeline to run through the city's boundaries (City of Green v. Ohio EPA, 6th Cir., No. 17-4016, temporary stay granted 11/22/17).
City officials hope the court's ruling will lead to rerouting a section of the pipeline away from the 6-mile-wide city, which has a population of about 25,000. The city filed its suit to halt construction Sept. 26 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Shale Gas
The pipeline is a joint effort of Enbridge and DTE Energy to run supplies of Appalachian shale gas from Ohio to Ontario, Canada. The pipeline's construction was authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in August and by the Ohio EPA in September.
Nexus Gas Transmission LLC spokesman Adam Parker said the company is evaluating the court's ruling, but wouldn't comment further. However, court documents indicate the company is going to fight the stay and the court has granted an expedited appeal schedule for the issue.
In its brief, Nexus argued the city couldn't show that it would be irreparably harmed by the current construction route. While the city said there could be impacts, the city didn't offer any evidence that harm would be “certain and immediate,” Nexus said.
The company also alluded to the city's previous failed attempts to challenge the pipeline before FERC.
Insufficient Ohio EPA Action
Despite the city's opposition, state and federal agencies granted approval for the pipeline to run through Green, along several city parks, and near wetlands with endangered plant species. Critics say construction could harm the local economy and ecosystem, and the city has advocated an alternative route further south.
The Ohio EPA defended its analysis of the pipeline's path and said it will continue to defend its permit in court.
“Ohio EPA made a sound and reasonable determination of the wetlands’ quality and that Ohio's water quality standards will be protected,” Ohio EPA spokesperson James Lee told Bloomberg Environment in an email.
However, Green argued the state didn't perform a thorough analysis, because it conducted its evaluation of the project outside of the growing season.
The EPA also didn't cite any records that would have shown that it performed required alternative pipeline route analysis, the court said.
Potential Impact
City officials and environmental activists are concerned about impacts to Silver Lake Bog, a wetland the city claims is the only bog of its kind in the state and is home to plant species found nowhere else in Ohio. The city says construction or pipeline-related pollution could disrupt the springs that feed the bog.
The pipeline's approved plan to run within a few hundred feet of parks and through the city, which could cause up to $122.8 million in property tax and income tax losses, according to a Cleveland State University analysis.

“Our goal is to have the pipeline rerouted outside the City of Green based upon the proposed alternate routes,” Diane Calta, the city's law director, told Bloomberg Environment in an email. “We have clearly documented that an alternate route would have less of an impact on the quality of life, create fewer safety issues and be less of an impact to the environment.”
2-1 Decision
Sixth Circuit Judge David McKeague agreed with Nexus, saying in dissent that the city didn't meet its high burden to stop the construction at this late juncture.
“Green bears the burden of convincing us to take the extraordinary step of interfering with the Ohio EPA's administrative authority and Nexus's right to construct the pipeline,” he wrote.

For the panel majority, Judges Eric Clay and Bernice Donald said the city showed enough on balance that it could win its challenge.
“Green has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits; contrary to the dissent's suggestion, Green is not required to identify bulletproof arguments proving that it will achieve a ‘landslide victory,’” the judges wrote in their opinion.

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Washington Council: No to Tesoro-Savage Crude-by-Rail Terminal

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Paul Shukovsky

Washington's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council voted unanimously Nov. 28 to recommend to the state not approve a large crude-by-rail oil terminal on the Columbia River.
That recommendation on the 360,000 barrel-per-day terminal—a joint venture of Andeavor, formerly known as Tesoro Corp., and Savage Cos.—will go to the final arbiter: Gov. Jay Inslee (D), an advocate for action on climate change. Inslee will have until the last week of February to make the final call.
The terminal would handle Bakken crude hauled to the Port of Vancouver, Wash., by BNSF Railway and then shipped to refineries along the west coast.
An environmental analysis conducted by the council identified steps that could be taken to mitigate a wide range of impacts from the project. But the analysis also pointed to the severe damage from an earthquake that could result in an oil spill that could not be mitigated.
Earthquake Risks
A major earthquake could cause riverbank slope failure at the dock and transfer pipeline that “could result in an oil spill at the facility and into the Columbia River,” the analysis says.
The analysis identified other “significant unavoidable impacts” of the project, including an increase in train traffic that could result in greater risk of accidents at at-grade crossings, delays to emergency responders and motorists crossing the tracks, increased noise to adjacent minority or low-income residents, and a reduction in property values.
But supporters of the terminal are objecting to the vote.
“We are extremely disappointed, especially after a review of more than four years in a process that state law says should take one year,” a spokesman for the terminal said. “EFSEC has set an impossible standard for new energy facilities based on the risk of incidents that the Final Environmental Impact Statement characterizes as extremely unlikely.”
“This decision sends a clear anti-development message that will have a chilling effect on business in the state of Washington,” the spokesman said.
Local Sentiment
The review and final permitting decisions on the project come against a backdrop of strong opposition in Washington state to a range of fossil-fuel projects. Opposition to the projects has led to the formation of an ad hoc coalition that includes tribes, environmental advocates, and elected representatives.
The state's evaluation council—which is composed of executive branch officials—will send its formal recommendation that the project be rejected to the governor the last week of December. Inslee, an advocate for reducing fossil fuel consumption, must then decide within 60 days whether to approve the recommendation or order the council to reconsider.
The council's unanimous vote came at the end of an eight-minute meeting in which the only substantive comment that could provide a window into the council members’ views came from Jaime Rossman, policy advisor at the state Department of Commerce.
The environmental analysis “clearly outlines a number of impacts and risks that I think speak for themselves in describing some of the dangers in the potential facility,” Rossman said. “I believe this is the right course of action.”

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Faulty Bearing Blamed for Train Derailment, Molten Sulfur Spill in Kathleen

Nov 28, 2017 | The Ledger

By John Chambliss

A freight train derailment early Monday in Kathleen was caused by a faulty bearing on an axle of one of the rail cars that left the tracks, according to a preliminary investigation by CSX officials.
It’s unclear how the bearing became faulty, but minutes before the crash occurred, a passerby called 911 to report sparks near one of the wheels. Bearings are located on the part of rail-car axles that make the connection between the wheels and car’s suspension.
The derailment caused 3,000 gallons of molten sulfur, a hazardous chemical, to spill from one of the nine cars that left the tracks. A second car leaked 12,000 gallons of cooking oil.
It also left a busy stretch of Kathleen Road closed for more than 36 hours.
Bryan Tucker, a spokesman with CSX, said in a news release Tuesday that the road was expected to reopen late Tuesday as cleanup efforts continued. But as of 7 p.m., the road was still closed.
Earlier Tuesday, a truck hauling dozens of railroad ties could be seen traveling just off the tracks to the location of the derailment. Rail service on the track resumed at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
The spill, which occurred about 1:50 a.m. Monday, led emergency officials to warn residents to shut off their air conditioners and close their windows.
On Tuesday, CSX officials said they have conducted “continuous air quality monitoring” to make sure nearby residents are safe.
“No air quality impacts have been detected by the monitoring, which will continue until restoration work is complete,” a CSX press release said. “No waterways were impacted by the commodities spilled during this event.”
In addition, officials said they opened a temporary access road for Strickland Road residents to exit their neighborhood.
Of the 192 rail cars on the track, only one of the nine that derailed was seen near the site of the wreck on Tuesday morning. Some of the other rail cars had been moved across the street, near Alpha Chemical Corp. Officials said they will be cleaned and “prepared for transport away from the site.”
The closure of the busy road for the second morning left an inconvenient detour for early morning commuters heading south.
At Nick and Moe’s convenience store, manager Jose Rodriguez said his business was taking a hit.
“We’re only getting one-way traffic,” Rodriguez said. “It was really slow this morning.”
http://www.theledger.com/news/20171128/faulty-bearing-blamed-for-train-derailment-molten-sulfur-spill-in-kathleen

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Environment News

Study Finds Updated Carbon 'Cost' Doubles Agriculture Effect

Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

A new study by University of California (UC) and Purdue University researchers finds that updating the Obama-era "social cost of carbon" (SCC) climate damage tool with the latest science would roughly double the estimated costs global warming has on agricultural activities, a step that would help justify stricter mitigation efforts.
"It means that a higher SCC would justify more ambitious mitigation policies across the board, not just in the agricultural sector," says Frances Moore, an assistant professor at UC-Davis and lead author of the study. "Our findings mean that the agriculture sector is being hurt much more than was previously realized by GHG emissions, so correspondingly [it] benefits through efforts to reduce emissions."
The Obama administration developed the SCC to represent the climate-related damage a ton of additional carbon dioxide will have on society and the economy, including agricultural productivity, human health, property damage due to flooding and energy costs. As such, the metric was used to estimate the benefits of limiting GHGs.
However, the Trump administration is scaling back key parts of the SCC by limiting consideration to domestic, rather than global, damages and by using a sharply higher discount rate to quantify future damages using present-day economic values.
The result is sharply lower cost savings estimates in several major pending regulations, including EPA's proposal to rescind the Clean Power Plan.
But as reported by Inside Cal/EPA's Curt Barry, the study, published in the Nov. 20 issue of Nature Communications, suggests the Obama-era values significantly underestimated the adverse impacts of warming on the agriculture sector.
The researchers analyzed more than a thousand published estimates of how crop yields from four global staples -- wheat, rice, corn and soybeans -- respond to changing climate conditions. The study found that higher temperatures have a negative effect on yields of all crops in almost all locations.
Ultimately, models used to develop the SCC "would improve their damage functions to be consistent with the most recent science," Moore says. "Our finding is that, at least in the agricultural sector, this would raise the SCC significantly.”
The study asserts that for every additional ton of CO2 emitted, the global economy loses between $3.50 and $8.50 due to agricultural sector effects, rather than gaining $2.70 as previously estimated. "This leads the overall social cost of carbon to increase from $8.60 per ton of CO2 to between $14.80 and $19.70, an increase of 72 to 129 percent," the authors say.
Previous estimates were based on data from the 1980s and 1990s that suggested the short-term benefits of increased CO2 emissions on plant growth would benefit agriculture, the researchers note. The updated estimates "show that climate change has an overall negative effect on agriculture."
The paper's other authors are Uris Baldos and Thomas Hertel of Purdue; and Delavane Diaz of Stanford University.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/study-finds-updated-carbon-cost-doubles-agriculture-effect

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Groups Outline Challenges to EPA's SO2 NAAQS Designations

Nov 29, 2017 |

Several groups in new legal briefs are challenging EPA's designations for areas either meeting or not attaining the 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) air standard, with environmentalists and citizens seeking tougher designations for parts of Ohio and Colorado while a power company is seeking a weaker designation for part of Kansas.
In Nov. 27 briefs filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Samuel Masias, et al. v. EPA, et al, Sierra Club, Colorado citizens led by Samuel Masias, and also the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities call for EPA to modify its 2016 “second round” of designations with respect to areas where they disagree with the agency's determination for either attainment or nonattainment.
Although EPA established the SO2 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) in 2010 at 75 parts per billion (ppb), the agency fell years behind schedule in designating areas of the country meeting or violating the limit, a prerequisite for states to craft state implementation plans (SIPs) outlining steps they will take to meet the standard. The agency is allowing states time to establish a new air monitoring network under a consent decree schedule agreed with environmentalists that will see designations completed in 2020.
At issue in the consolidated Samuel Masias suit are remaining challenges to certain areas' designations, after others were either held in abeyance pending EPA reconsideration or transferred to other courts. A challenge by the state of Texas and Texas utilities, seeking to overturn nonattainment designations for some parts of that state, is now pending in the 5th Circuit, after the D.C. Circuit agreed that venue for that challenge is proper in the regional court because those designations were issued in a separate Federal Register notice from others.
Sierra Club in its brief contests the designation of “unclassifiable” for Gallia County, OH, arguing that mistakes in EPA's technical analysis of the area's air quality render the designation unlawful, and in fact the area should be designated “nonattainment.” Areas so designated must craft SIPs to cut SO2 emissions and come into attainment, but areas in attainment or labeled unclassifiable must merely prevent deterioration of air quality.
Citizen petitioners in Colorado similarly argue in their brief that EPA arbitrarily adopted a methodology that produced inaccurate results, preventing a nonattainment designation for Colorado Springs, CO. The area fails to meet the NAAQS, citizen petitioners argue.
The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, meanwhile, in its brief calls on the D.C. Circuit to overturn the “unclassifiable” designation of Wyandotte County, KS, because it argues EPA ignored scientific evidence it should have taken into account in its decision. The utility argues that EPA should instead adopt Kansas' recommended status of “unclassifiable/attainment.”
EPA has frequently used this designation to label areas of the country where is lacks hard evidence of attainment, but believes the area is most likely attaining the NAAQS. However, environmentalists have previously questioned the legality of this category. The practical difference from a simple “unclassifiable' designation is unclear, and the Kansas utility does not elaborate on this point in its brief.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/groups-outline-challenges-epas-so2-naaqs-designations

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EPA Sued Over Air Pollution Trading Program for Texas Utilities

Nov 29, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Nushin Huq

Environmental groups asked a federal appeals court to review EPA's final plan to reduce visibility-impairing air pollution in Texas, which established a trading program for utility emissions.
In a lawsuit filed Nov. 28, the groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Environmental Protection Agency's rule allowing Texas coal plants to participate in an intrastate sulfur dioxide emissions trading program instead of installing costly pollution controls (Nat'l Parks Conservation Ass'n v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1253, 11/28/17).
The National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club supported a previous plan by the EPA, created under the Obama administration, that would have required the plants to install pollution controls, the Sierra Club told Bloomberg Environment when the final rules were issued in September.
National Parks, Monuments
The regional haze program's purpose is to reduce haze and increase visibility at national parks and monuments, such as Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Many coal plants nationwide have already updated their pollution controls, and the new trading program will not ensure a decrease in emissions, said Elena Saxonhouse, senior attorney for the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The Obama administration, in its initial rule, singled out eight Texas coal plants owned by Vistra Energy, Dynegy, and Xcel Energy and required them to install pollution controls to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.
In August, 2017, the Trump administration asked the court if it could have more time to finalize the regulation, citing a breakthrough in talks with Texas regulators. The court refused to grant an extension, though a short extension was given due to Hurricane Harvey.
The final rule was signed by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Sept. 29, and the agency switched gears and allowed the Texas plants to participate in the trading program instead.
Industry applauded the new sulfur dioxide emissions trading program, stating that the intrastate trading program will be less costly to coal-fired power generators than retrofitting the plants with costly pollution controls.
Low power prices have made running coal plants in Texas difficult. Even after the new rule was signed, Vistra announced it would be closing three of its Texas coal plants.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124301245&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124301245&jd=124301245

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CPR Fears Pruitt's 'Sophisticated Sabotage' Could Hinder EPA For Years

Nov 29, 2017 | Inside EPA

By Anthony Lacey

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt are engaging in “sophisticated sabotage” that could hinder the agency from pursuing stricter environmental standards for years to come due to little-noticed policy overhauls -- that's the assessment of Matthew Shudtz, executive director of the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), a network of scholars and academics working to protect health, safety, and the environment.
Although the Trump administration's efforts to undo major Obama EPA rules are high-profile, Shudtz said in a recent interview with Inside EPA that he has concerns about less-prominent issues that nevertheless could still fundamentally alter how the agency develops its rulemakings, including changes to cost-benefit analysis and revisions to internal guidelines.
He says that recent steps by Pruitt to overhaul the agency's scientific advisory panels -- where he barred EPA grant recipients from also serving as agency advisors -- is likely a harbinger of other efforts that could make it difficult for the agency to pursue stricter rules in the future even after Trump leaves office.
For example, such a step could include Pruitt or other political appointees at the agency writing new guidance documents that place restrictions on the data EPA scientists can use in rulemaking that would make it harder to justify stricter rules.
“This is sophisticated sabotage, and to his credit Scott Pruitt really knows what he's doing,” Shudtz said. “They can lock in these things long-term and a different administration might not undo them.”
He said CPR plans to push back against efforts to create long-lasting -- but under the radar -- changes to how the agency operates with several tools, including a ramping up of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at EPA, use of social media, and other methods.
Shudtz is especially concerned about Pruitt's new policy on science advisors, which was widely seen as bolstering deregulatory efforts by providing a stronger voice for anti-regulation groups on the panels but which the administrator says is intended to avoid bias among its panel members.
Shudtz said that the change could make it harder for progressives to push for stricter regulation, but warned of other changes at the agency.
He said the advisory panel change is “the first step in what I expect will be changes to guidelines and very deep internal policies that have a longer-term impact on the way the laws are implemented.”
For example, last year's revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act requires EPA to not only write several new rules addressing chemicals but also to issue various guidance documents on chemical regulation. Shudtz said that rules are required to go through the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) notice-and-comment process, whereas guidance documents have a “much less public process” and could gain less public attention.
That is a concern, Shudtz said, because the guidance documents will direct agency scientists on how to collect information and analyze it in deciding whether to regulate chemicals. Overly prescriptive guidance could make it harder for career staff to make the case for regulating a particular substance, he warned.
And there is no guarantee that a future Democratic administration would reverse a little-noticed guidance change, Shudtz added. “So these changes will have a longer-term impact, because a different administration run by somebody driven more by the public interests probably isn't going to come back and look at some of the chemicals that are top priorities right now, so you lock in certain things by implementing these guidelines.”
Cost-Benefit Analysis
During the Nov. 8 interview, Shudtz also said Trump administration changes to how EPA performs cost-benefit analysis are another concern that could have a years-long impact on the agency's operations.
He noted that in several proposals to undo Obama EPA rules -- including the Clean Power Plan greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants and Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule -- the agency has revised and ramped up the projected costs of the regulations while downplaying the previously projected benefits.
“I worry that there's not a clear end goal here, that this is highly transactional and that as a result there's this complete blindness to the lost benefits of all the regulations. They're so focused on the costs to industry and just doing it on a case-by-case basis that we're not looking at the long-term benefits of all these regulations. So we are going to focus very explicitly on the benefits of these regulations and talk about those benefits,” he said.
CPR's scholars are also critical of the process EPA is following in its deregulatory efforts, Shudtz said, arguing that the rulemakings to repeal Obama-era rules fall short of mandates in the APA and other laws.
The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently struck down an EPA rulemaking to delay implementation of the Obama EPA's first-time rule setting limits on the GHG methane from new oil and gas operations, and Shudtz said that reflects the administration's “disrespect for the rule of law.”
“These efforts to repeal or delay regulations should be done under the APA through notice-and-comment rulemaking but they're trying to make an end-run around the law,” he said. “To do so in such a blatant way is different from other administrations that had their own agenda but followed the APA process.”
Shudtz also faulted Trump's “2 for 1” executive order that requires agencies to identify two rules for repeal for every new rule they issue, saying it will effectively halt the EPA rulemaking process.
If the agency wants to pursue a new regulation then it will have to develop a record for that rule and seek notice and comment, but will have to do the same for the two rules it is seeking to repeal. This will create a massive workload that will make it hard for the agency to undertake any other work. “It's putting a stop to regulation,” he said.
Shudtz added that “the administration may have shot itself in the foot” with the order, because some regulated entities might want EPA to issue a new rule that codifies environmental protection practices they are implementing in order to gain a competitive advantage -- but the agency will struggle to issue such rules because of the “huge burden” the order creates in requiring a solid rulemaking record for the new rule and the two repeal rules.
In order to push back against the Trump administration's agenda, Shudtz said CPR will be using social media more to communicate its progressive message, pursue more FOIA requests, and take other steps. The group does not lobby or litigate, but will help its “allies” in such efforts challenging EPA moves they oppose, he said.
He expressed frustration that the administration appears to be undertaking “a serious effort to avoid transparency” by avoiding answers to FOIA requests, actively fighting some groups' requests for information.
Some lawmakers have introduced legislation that he warned would also make it harder for EPA and other agencies to pursue stricter regulations, but Shudtz said the window for such legislation clearing Congress was likely earlier this year before the health care and tax debates. He doubted the bills will get a revival in 2018, noting it is an election year and “it's hard to imagine regulatory reform being a big issue in a midterm election.”
Shudtz concluded that CPR will continue to focus on the Trump administration's efforts to overhaul EPA and undo Obama-era rules but said, “There doesn't seem to be an organizing principle [for EPA] beyond, 'Let's undo what the Obama administration did.'”
https://insideepa.com/interview/cpr-fears-pruitts-sophisticated-sabotage-could-hinder-epa-years

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Trump Should Fire the E.P.A.’s Scott Pruitt

Nov 28, 2017 | The New York Times

By Thomas H. Kean

President Richard Nixon, who joined with a Democratic Congress nearly 50 years ago to create the Environmental Protection Agency, said then that clean air and water were “the birthright of every American” and that restoring nature was “a cause beyond party and beyond factions.”
Safeguarding our health and our environment has always enjoyed broad support in both political parties and among the American people. Thanks to the E.P.A.’s diligent work, our air and water are significantly cleaner, and because of that, Americans live longer, healthier lives. It is a heritage from which both parties can draw pride.
But that legacy is now in danger.
The current administrator of the E.P.A., Scott Pruitt, built his political career by attacking clean-air and clean-water rules. Now in charge of the agency, he is tearing down those protections, dismantling the E.P.A., appointing or nominating industry insiders to oversee their former businesses and blocking scientific input.
For the sake of our children’s health, it’s time for Scott Pruitt to go.
Mr. Pruitt is jeopardizing the health and well-being of Americans, and many suspect he is doing it to feed his own political ambition. “You must be running for the presidency,” a conservative radio host said while interviewing Mr. Pruitt in August as he visited Iowa, the state with the first presidential caucuses. The more popular theory inside Washington is that he is lining up deep-pocketed backers to run in 2020 for the Senate seat held by the Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who is 83.
His taxpayer-funded weekend trips home to Oklahoma are being examinedby the E.P.A.’s inspector general. His use of noncommercial and military flights to his home state and elsewhere at a cost to taxpayers of some $58,000 prompted questions from Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and others. (An E.P.A. spokesman has said that Mr. Pruitt’s travel was related to agency business and that he had no political agenda.)
Whatever his political ambitions may be, Mr. Pruitt’s regulatory rollbacks and delays have tangible health and safety risks. For example, he has put the brakes on a rule that had been sought by the Obama administration to make information about dangerous chemicals at plants more easily available to the public and local emergency responders. Mr. Pruitt fought the rule as Oklahoma’s attorney general, and in June, newly ensconced at the E.P.A., he delayed it by 20 months.
The postponement was no doubt good news to Arkema, a chemical company that had lobbied against the rule. Not long after, Arkema’s chemical plant near Houston caught fire as a result of Hurricane Harvey, sending 15 public safety officers who inhaled smoke there to the hospital.
Mr. Pruitt is also working to stifle the scientific advice that is so important for smart environmental policy. He has rigged the criteria for E.P.A. science advisory boards so that people funded by industry (or even by foreign governments) are more likely to qualify for appointment than academic experts. He has appointed as leaders of these panels people with industry ties and one who led the fight against tougher federal ozone standards.
And to satisfy his penchant for secrecy, he is installing — at a cost of nearly $25,000 to taxpayers — a secure phone booth in his Washington office to keep people, including staff members, in the dark. William Ruckelshaus, who served Presidents Nixon and Ronald Reagan as the E.P.A. administrator, has said that “Pruitt appears to be turning his back on a bipartisan tradition of transparent governance at the E.P.A.”
For months, Mr. Pruitt refused to disclose where he was going or whom he was meeting with. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that he spends his days meeting with executives from companies, many with high-profile matters pending before the agency. He has elevated cronyism to new heights.
With Mr. Pruitt in charge, Americans are extremely dissatisfied with Mr. Trump’s handling of the environment — an approval rating of only 23 percent among independents, according to an August Fox News poll. Independents have long seen handling of the environment as a barometer of whether a candidate shares their values. When I was a governor, my environmental record cleaning up toxins and protecting wetlands was important for independent voters and helped me win re-election in New Jersey.
It’s no wonder that the White House had a meeting to figure out how to fix its green image. But rebranding isn’t enough.
President Trump needs a new leader at E.P.A. who listens to business but also respects the agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment.
147COMMENTS
I was delighted to hear President Trump promise to protect clean air and clean water in his first address to Congress. I understand that he wants a new direction at the E.P.A., but that doesn’t mean he should tolerate Mr. Pruitt’s ethical lapses and lack of judgment.
President Trump should fire Scott Pruitt. Our children and grandchildren deserve better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/opinion/pruitt-trump-epa-fired.html

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