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(ACC Mentioned) Prices on the Rise for PP, Nylon and Recycled PET
Nov 30, 2017 | Plastic News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene resin prices ticked up another penny per pound in November, while regional prices for nylon 6 and 6/6 resins and some recycled grades of PET bottle resin have increased in recent months as well. -
(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Backs Manchin in New Ad
Nov 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Kevin Robillard
The American Chemistry Council is out with a new ad praising Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is facing a tough reelection bid in 2018. -
Too Little, Too Late: Why SNURs Alone Are Not a Sufficient Alternative to Consent Orders for New Chemicals
Nov 30, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of making some major changes to its policies and practices governing new chemical reviews. -
Choosing a Safe Mattress for Your Baby's Crib
Nov 30, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko and Tasha Stoiber
During the first few years of their lives, infants can spend most of their time sleeping or crawling in the crib. -
EU Green Criteria Backs Need for Flame Retardants, Says Trade Group
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The European Flame Retardant Association (Efra) said it welcomed the EU Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for furniture. -
REACH New Substance Registrations Estimate 'May Fall Short'
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa has revealed that the number of new substances registered for the 2018 REACH registration deadline is less than expected and may not meet estimated figures. -
Revise Nano Definition Before Amending REACH Annexes, Industry Says
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Trade bodies have expressed concerns over the European Commission’s timing of the publication of its draft revised REACH annexes to address nanomaterials. -
Survey Shows Strong Support for Unified List of GHS Classified Substances
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
There is strong support for work to continue on a list of chemicals with harmonised, non-binding GHS classifications, according to a Chemical Risk Manager survey. -
Carpet Manufacturers 'Stepping up Efforts' on Ingredient Disclosure
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Leading US carpet manufacturers are stepping up efforts to communicate the components of their products — and their relationship to human and ecological health — according to US trade association the Carpet and Rug Institute. -
Echa Round-Up
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published a series of letter templates that companies, especially SMEs, can use when starting negotiations with co-registrants for sharing data and submitting jointly for REACH registration. -
Regulators Suspect Construction Damage Caused Keystone Spill
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Mechanical damage to the Keystone pipeline that occurred when it was built may be responsible for the leak of 5,000 barrels of crude oil into a rural part of South Dakota earlier this month, federal officials say. -
A New Study Offers Further Proof That North Texas Earthquakes Are Fracking-Related
Nov 30, 2017 | Texas Monthly
By Dan Solomon
In January 2015, there were a dozen little earthquakes in the Dallas–Fort Worth area in less than 48 hours. -
Report Warns of Hacking Risk to Refining Sector
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The refining industry's rush to adopt digital technology could open doors for hackers, according to a report this week from the Deloitte consultancy. -
EPA Finds 3 Barrel Plants Broke Chemical Laws
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. EPA announced yesterday that three industrial plants in Wisconsin broke federal laws regulating hazardous chemicals. -
Climate Goals Rely on 'Negative Emissions.' That's a Problem
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Scientists increasingly agree that it might be impossible to cap global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels — without first overshooting it and then using technology to siphon carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, causing temperatures to fall again. -
Inequality a Key Concern Among Climate Activists
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Civil rights activists and Appalachian environmentalists used the last day of Clean Power Plan testimony to cast its repeal as the newest chapter in a long history of racial and class discrimination.
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(ACC Mentioned) Prices on the Rise for PP, Nylon and Recycled PET
Nov 30, 2017 | Plastic News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene resin prices ticked up another penny per pound in November, while regional prices for nylon 6 and 6/6 resins and some recycled grades of PET bottle resin have increased in recent months as well.
The 1-cent PP hike marked the second straight month that market prices had moved up by that amount. Prices had jumped 7 cents per pound in September as the market reacted to temporary shortages caused by Hurricane Harvey.
North American PP sales grew just over 1 percent in the first 10 months of 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council. Domestic sales grew 2.5 percent in that period, but were softened by a 32.5 percent plunge in exports.
Domestic sales of PP into injection molded housewares surged almost 5 percent for that 10-month stretch. PP sales into sheet jumped almost 9 percent.
Nylon prices rise
Higher feedstock costs and strong demand from the automotive market sent nylon 6 prices up an average of 6 cents per pound and nylon 6/6 prices up an average of 8 cents per pound since Sept. 1, according to market sources contacted by Plastics News.
North American nylon 6 and 6/6 prices already had surged a total of 18 cents this year.
For recycled PET, a 3-cent increase for clear pellets was fueled, in part, by higher demand and concerns surrounding an anti-dumping petition filed against U.S. PET imports, according to the PetroChemWire LLC consulting firm in Houston.
Strong demand partially has resulted from end users meeting end-of-year production quotas for bottles and packaging with recycled content, the report added.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20171130/NEWS/171139989/prices-on-the-rise-for-pp-nylon-and-recycled-pet
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(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Backs Manchin in New Ad
Nov 30, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Kevin Robillard
The American Chemistry Council is out with a new ad praising Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is facing a tough reelection bid in 2018.
"Working for bipartisan solutions, Sen. Joe Manchin is fighting for West Virginia," the narrator says in the ad, citing Manchin's work on the economy, infrastructure, coal and the opioid epidemic. "Call Sen. Manchin and tell him to keep fighting for real results,"
The American Chemistry Council has also aired ads backing Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow in recent weeks.
Watch the ad here.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Rep. Evan Jenkins and coal magnate Don Blankenship are all running for the GOP nomination to challenge Manchin.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Nov 30, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of making some major changes to its policies and practices governing new chemical reviews. This post discusses one of the most troubling ones.
As I have previously described, last year’s Lautenberg Act made extensive changes to section 5 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which governs the review of new chemicals prior to their manufacture and use. Among these changes is a requirement that EPA must evaluate potential risks, and mitigate potential unreasonable risks, of a new chemical under its “conditions of use,” which the new law defines to include “reasonably foreseen” circumstances of production, processing, distribution, use or disposal, as well as those intended by the company submitting notice of the new chemical to EPA. If EPA identifies potential risk or significant exposure or lacks sufficient information on a new chemical, it must issue an order prohibiting or limiting the conditions of use of the chemical in order to mitigate any unreasonable risk.
After passage of the Lautenberg Act until recently, and in keeping with the new law, if EPA’s review identified risk concerns relating to conditions of use beyond those strictly identified by a company submitting a new chemical notice to EPA, the agency made a “may present an unreasonable risk” finding and pursued development of a consent order with the company sufficient to ameliorate those concerns. (While EPA has authority to issue unilateral orders, it typically negotiates with the company to arrive at a consent order that both parties sign.)
Now EPA is indicating it will instead make a “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” finding for the intended conditions of use, and says it can address any concerns over reasonably foreseen uses without issuing an order by developing only a significant new use rule (SNUR). This “SNUR-only approach” is inconsistent with the law, a matter I won’t discuss further here. However, it also raises a host of policy concerns, some of which I lay out in this post.
The SNUR-only approach EPA is now deploying differs dramatically from and provides far less risk protection than would result from it simply doing what the law requires: using orders, with SNURs as backup.
There are ample reasons why Congress called on EPA to use orders to address concerns and then use SNURs as backup: Orders (including consent orders) and SNURs are not created equal. This post discusses 12 key differences, with respect to:legal requirements available in a consent order vs. a SNUR;the scope of risk review under a consent order vs. a SNUR;the requirements for issuing a consent order vs. promulgating a SNUR; andthe incentives and disincentives companies face under a consent order vs. a SNUR
(Spoiler alert: Deep dive ahead. Let me apologize to and warn readers in advance that this post gets rather into the weeds, as the issues are complicated and the details are important.)
Legal requirements available in a consent order vs. a SNURA consent order imposes legally binding conditions on the company that signs it. Where EPA identifies potential risk or a lack of sufficient information, TSCA requires that it impose binding conditions that must regulate the chemical “to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” Even where a SNUR defines a significant new use to be any activity outside of those same conditions, the conditions are not binding and the only requirement on a company is to notify EPA prior to engaging in that significant new use (by filing what is called a Significant New Use Notification, or SNUN). The SNUN then undergoes a review similar to that for a premanufacture notification (PMN). Only if that review leads to a risk finding, an exposure-based finding, or an insufficient information finding can EPA impose binding conditions – which would likely be done through a consent order applicable to the SNUN submitter. (Note also that the provisions in a PMN are not legally binding on the submitter; only if codified in a consent order would they be binding.)Consent orders are readily enforceable because the party subject to a consent order is known and has consented to abide by the conditions of it. A consent order must also be posted visibly within any workplace where activities subject to the consent order are taking place. In contrast, EPA has very limited means to know if companies are complying with the conditions of a SNUR or should have, but did not, file a SNUN.Testing requirements cannot be imposed through SNURs, but can be through consent orders. Section 5 of TSCA requires EPA to issue an order whenever “the information available to the Administrator is insufficient to permit a reasoned evaluation of the health and environmental effects of a chemical substance,” without limitation to a company’s intended uses, and section 5 orders provide a critical direct mechanism for EPA to address the data gaps that characterize the great majority of PMNs.
Given that only about 10-15% of PMN submissions include chemical toxicity and/or fate data as part of the submission, EPA is typically making determinations based on insufficient data about the PMN substance, often relying exclusively on analogs. There is no current ability to quantitatively evaluate how predictive an analog is of the PMN substance’s properties; at best EPA can make a qualitative determination. Relying on a SNUR instead of a consent order provides no opportunity either to generate new information or to use that information to reassess EPA’s initial evaluation based on limited information.Consent orders can be reopened and revised based on new information (including results of required testing). If testing shows a chemical is more toxic than initially thought, EPA can tighten conditions in the order. No such option exists with a SNUR: If companies are engaging in activities that do not trigger notification under a SNUR but later those activities are found to present potential or actual risk, those activities cannot be brought under the original SNUR or addressed by a new SNUR, because they are now ongoing uses. EPA’s only option at that point would be to pursue action under section 6 of TSCA: designate the substance as high-priority and undertake a risk evaluation.
In contrast, a consent order includes both actual restrictions to protect against the unreasonable risk and a “reopener” provision: If testing indicates that EPA underestimated the magnitude of the unreasonable risk, then the terms of the consent order allow EPA to modify it to require new restrictions to protect against the unreasonable risk. In the SNUR-only scenario, because there is no testing requirement, EPA will not even be able to learn whether its initial estimate of the risks was accurate.
Scope of risk review under a consent order vs. a SNURUnder the reforms made by the Lautenberg Act, Congress required that EPA subject new chemicals to risk reviews and risk determinations that extend to reasonably foreseen as well as intended conditions of use. The law requires an order to be issued following a risk finding, an exposure-based finding, or an insufficient-information finding for either category of conditions of use.
In contrast, a SNUR-only approach at best defers or evades altogether the risk or related finding requirement with respect to reasonably foreseen uses. This is because a risk or related finding is not required to be made in order for EPA to issue a SNUR, only consideration of certain factors delineated in TSCA section 5(a)(2). A SNUN submitted in response to a SNUR undergoes a review similar to that for a PMN. If EPA chooses to similarly limit that review only to the new intended use(s) identified by the submitter of the SNUN, it may yet again not make a risk finding, an exposure-based finding, or an insufficient information finding, and hence again not issue a consent order imposing binding conditions on that company.
To summarize and bring together the points made above: Under the Lautenberg Act, EPA’s review of a new chemical requires a risk review and risk determination, whereas EPA may issue a SNUR without such a review or determination. Similarly, the terms of an order issued under section 5 of TSCA must meet a specific, protective risk standard: EPA must issue an order that regulates the chemical “to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, … including an unreasonable risk to a potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation.” In contrast, the terms of a SNUR, standing alone, do not need to meet any specific risk standard.Congress gave EPA a mandate under the law to consider both intended and reasonably foreseen uses of a new chemical in deciding whether conditions, to be imposed through an order, are warranted. It did not intend for EPA to pursue a more piecemeal approach under which EPA evaluates only intended uses initially and promulgates a SNUR to address any concerns over reasonably foreseen uses.
In addition, under its SNUR-only approach, it appears EPA is warping the concepts of intended vs. reasonably foreseen uses. When a PMN is submitted and EPA finds potential risks based on the scenarios in the PMN, EPA apparently now typically works with the company to identify additional conditions to include in the PMN to protect against the risks. In its SNUR-only approach, EPA is de facto redefining the intended uses to be inclusive of the additional PMN conditions, and redefining the intended uses without those additional conditions (i.e., what the submitter originally intended and was in the original PMN) as the reasonably foreseen uses. As previously noted, however, the provisions in a PMN are not legally binding on the submitter; only if codified in a consent order would they be binding.
The result is that EPA will typically make a “may present” finding for intended uses only if there is no feasible way for the company to add conditions to its PMN sufficient to protect against the risk. In other words, EPA and the submitter iterate the process – with EPA effectively serving as a free consultant or coach to the PMN submitter. The process effectively keeps moving the goal posts until a “not likely” finding can be made that avoids EPA ever having to make the initial “may present” finding and issue an order, clearly not what Congress intended. And crucially, even these additional conditions added to the PMN are not binding on the PMN submitter in the absence of an order.
EPA appears intent on further warping Congressional intent by asserting as a new operating principle that it is redefining “reasonably foreseen” to mean “probable,” thereby setting a higher evidentiary bar EPA would have to meet than Congress intended in order to include in its review ways in which a new chemical could reasonably be used after it enters commerce.Relying on a SNUR instead of a consent order may result in EPA only analyzing the specific intended use(s) of the new chemical in isolation and never analyzing the chemical substance comprehensively, whereas section 5 of TSCA contemplates that a new chemical substance will receive a comprehensive analysis based on sufficient information, to the extent practicable. That is, deferring the review of potential risks arising from reasonably foreseen uses to a setting that is removed in time and divorced from the risk review of intended uses provides no assurance that EPA will ever conduct a robust review of potential risk under all of the new chemical’s conditions of use.
In addition, the specific proposed use in the PMN only reflects the knowledge that the PMN submitter has of its market and downstream users at the time of PMN submission, which may be quite limited and not reflect the full range of potential uses and users. If EPA only looks narrowly at the conditions of use in the PMN to make its determination, its review and determination may well not reflect or be representative of the actual conditions of use once the chemical enters commerce. Congress clearly intended for EPA to take a more expansive and prospective approach when reviewing new chemicals under reformed TSCA.EPA proposes to relegate its consideration of any potential risk beyond that specifically presented by a PMN to a SNUR instead of protecting against those risks in an order. To even begin to achieve a sufficient level of protection, EPA would need to write a SNUR in a way that does not allow any activity that could present additional potential risk beyond the activities specified in the company’s PMN to occur without prior notification. Otherwise, EPA’s proposed approach will not provide a pathway to achieving protection comparable to that provided by an order (coupled with a SNUR) addressing reasonably foreseen conditions of use. This is because EPA will be allowing risks to occur (with no consequence) that extend beyond those it deemed acceptable when it determined that the PMN was not likely to present unreasonable risk. Consider, for example:
A PMN specifies a company will require its workers to use a respirator with an air protection factor (APF) of 1000. Unless the SNUR triggers notification if a company does not require its workers to use a respirator with the same level of protection, a “risk gap” will result.
A PMN specifies a company will produce 50,000 pounds of a chemical annually. If the SNUR does not set a volume trigger or sets a volume trigger that would allow more than 50,000 pounds of the chemical to be produced annually when aggregated across what could be multiple producers that are each in compliance with the SNUR, a “risk gap” will result.
In such cases, the SNUR-only approach would allow risk in excess of that EPA deemed “not likely” in reviewing the PMN. That excess risk – even though it by definition does not meet the “not likely” bar – will never be reviewed, let alone subjected to conditions, because the SNUR notification requirement will not be triggered.
The only way the SNUR-only approach could seek to prevent any “risk gap” would be to have the SNUR notification triggers so tightly aligned with the PMN specifications as to effectively lock in the conditions specified in the PMN, with any deviation whatsoever triggering notification. Otherwise, EPA will have conducted a new chemical review with an outcome insufficient to address the risks of the chemical’s reasonably foreseen uses, in clear violation of the law.
Requirements for issuing a consent order vs. promulgating a SNURWhile orders can simply be issued, SNURs must be promulgated through an involved process of rulemaking. This raises numerous uncertainties:
EPA’s designation of what constitutes a significant new use applies upon proposal of a SNUR. However, even upon proposal, that significant new use can be engaged in until the SNUR is finalized (assuming it is in fact finalized), at which point such activity must cease, either altogether or pending the outcome of EPA’s review of a subsequently-filed SNUN.
If there is a time gap between a PMN submitter’s commencement of manufacture (which puts the new chemical on the Inventory) and EPA’s proposal of a SNUR for that chemical, it runs the risk that a company (including the PMN submitter) could engage in the significant new use activity about which EPA is concerned. The company would then be able to argue that its activity negated EPA’s ability to propose the SNUR because that use would then be ongoing.
While EPA can try to promulgate a SNUR as a direct final rule, if anyone files, or notifies EPA of their intent to file, an adverse comment, EPA must withdraw the rule and propose it for public comment.
Once a SNUR is final, it can be judicially challenged, with any final resolution significantly delayed and subject to significant uncertainty.
While some EPA staff have informally suggested they will seek to finalize a SNUR before making a “not likely” finding that allows the PMN submitter to commence manufacture, EPA has not made any public commitment to this approach nor identified any means to ensure this will happen. Nor has it addressed the scenario of what happens in the event of an adverse comment being filing on a direct final SNUR or a judicial challenge to the final SNUR.
In contrast to the SNUR-only approach, a consent order includes provisions that bind the PMN submitter, and indirectly its downstream users, to the conditions of the order throughout the interval until a SNUR is promulgated.Seeking to address a new chemical’s risks through rulemakings rather than orders has several additional downsides.
While, under an informal agreement with EPA, OIRA does not currently call in SNURs for regulatory review, that agreement could be changed at any point. OIRA has considerable discretion to determine what constitutes a significant regulatory action and is subject to an OIRA-managed interagency review.
The extent to which Trump’s regulatory executive orders apply to SNURs is highly uncertain. Certain aspects apply to all rules, and the EOs give OIRA considerable discretion in deciding which provisions apply to which rules.
Administrator Pruitt has included SNURs among the potential regulatory actions at EPA that must be logged into his new EPA regulatory database upon initiation, signaling that SNURs may be subject to greater scrutiny under this Administration.
Finally, the anti-regulatory climate that prevails at present will likely mean that all new proposals to promulgate rules will be closely scrutinized.
Incentives and disincentives under a consent order vs. a SNURIf EPA fails to ensure that a final SNUR is in place before it provides a PMN submitter with a “not likely to present an unreasonable risk” finding, and EPA instead makes that finding in advance of a finalized SNUR and allows the submitter to proceed to commence manufacture, that company might have a strong incentive to oppose, seek to delay or weaken, or even judicially challenge a SNUR applicable to its chemical. This is because that SNUR would apply to the submitter and could constrain its future ability to expand use of its new chemical. And because the company would not be subject to a consent order, it would not already be constrained.
Companies have long complained that SNURs “stigmatize” their chemicals, which would also add incentives for the PMN submitter to resist promulgation of a SNUR. The company would have a number of means by which it could seek to prevent, delay or weaken the SNUR, including:
-preventing its issuance as a direct final rule by notifying EPA of its intent to file adverse comments;
-filing adverse comments;
-seeking to have OIRA subject the SNUR to interagency review;
-using its political influence with EPA management, the White House and Congress; and
-challenging the SNUR in court.
In contrast, a PMN submitter subject to a consent order would have significant incentive to support EPA’s promulgation of an accompanying SNUR, in order to “level the playing field” with its competitors who are not subject to the order.
Only through such a SNUR would its competitors likely be held to most of the same conditions that the submitter is already subject to through the consent order.
The Lautenberg Act contemplates that such SNURs would likely be promulgated, by requiring EPA, within 90 days of issuance of an order, to either initiate development of the SNUR or publish a statement indicating why one is not necessary [see TSCA section 5(f)(4)].
In conclusion, I hope this post makes abundantly clear how different the SNUR-only approach EPA is now proposing differs dramatically from and provides far less risk protection than would result from it simply doing what the law requires: using orders, with SNURs as backup.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/11/30/too-little-too-late-why-snurs-alone-are-not-a-sufficient-alternative-to-consent-orders-for-new-chemicals/
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Choosing a Safe Mattress for Your Baby's Crib
Nov 30, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Olga Naidenko and Tasha Stoiber
During the first few years of their lives, infants can spend most of their time sleeping or crawling in the crib. Choosing children’s products that are good for air quality in the baby’s room can be a difficult task. To help with that choice, EWG talked with Dr. Brandon E. Boor, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue University.
Since 2011, Boor has been researching indoor air quality and sleep microenvironments. Studies published by Boor and colleagues at The University of Texas at Austin in 2014 and 2015 found that crib mattresses released nearly 30 different types of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and other potentially harmful airborne chemicals such as endocrine-disrupting phthalates and fragrance allergens.
“Our research shows mattresses can be a significant source of chemical contaminants in the nursery and bedroom,” Boor said.
Crib mattresses are typically composed of polyurethane foam, a petroleum-derived synthetic material. They also contain adhesives and other chemical additives. The foam core is usually enveloped with a waterproof cover. These mattress components can release harmful VOCs, some of which can cause respiratory and nervous system damage.
Boor said VOC exposures are especially troubling for babies.
“A baby’s exposure to chemical contaminants in their crib mattresses can be amplified since they sleep for 12 to 14 hours every day and inhale air just inches above the mattress surface, where the concentrations of the VOCs can be about twice as high as standing just a few feet away," he said. "Their body heat also increases VOC emissions.”
Airing out a new mattress can reduce VOCs, but other harmful chemicals could still be present.
“VOC emissions from new mattresses are four times greater than those from used mattresses," said Boor. "VOC emissions tend to decay over time, but airing out will not get rid of less volatile chemicals, such as phthalates and flame retardants, that leach slowly for years and tend to accumulate in house dust.”
Mattress testing also revealed the surprising presence of fragrance ingredients, such as chemicals associated with lemon and lavender scents, that can act as allergens. Researchers don’t know exactly why these chemicals were present in mattresses. Fragrance ingredients can be used by manufacturers to mask other odors, as can happen in a product that can get wet with use.
Mattress dust and microbes are readily released into the air when a baby moves in bed, kicking up the dust. To reduce allergens, Boor recommends vacuuming the mattress once per week.
“Vacuuming a mattress may not sound fun, but research has shown that it is an effective way to reduce the amount of dust mite allergens and microbes that accumulate on the surface,” he said.
Boor's ressearch has moved from crib mattresses to carpets, which can harbor the same chemicals and bacteria.
“We are studying how infants are exposed to dust and microbes stirred up from carpets as they crawl, using a robotic infant," he said. "We are also relating real-time measurements of microbes in the air to the activities and movements of children in a child care setting. I hope my research could help in the future design of safer bedrooms, cribs and play environments for babies.”
EWG recommends that parents look for low-VOC emitting crib mattresses that have been independently verified by a third-party certifier, such as Greenguard or Oeko-Tex Standard 100, and mattresses made without polyurethane foam. For additional tips on air quality in your baby’s room, visit EWG’s Healthy Living: Home Guide and watch EWG’s video on mattresses and crib mattresses.
For more information about Boor’s research and practical tips for creating a healthy bedroom, watch a short CNN video filmed at the Purdue lab.
In part two of our interview, Boor will discuss his work on endocrine disruptors in crib mattresses.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2017/11/choosing-safe-mattress-your-babys-crib#.WiAutlWWa6I
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EU Green Criteria Backs Need for Flame Retardants, Says Trade Group
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The European Flame Retardant Association (Efra) said it welcomed the EU Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for furniture.
The trade body's president Edie Engels told Chemical Watch that, because the criteria does not introduce new restrictions on flame retardants, the European Commission was "reaffirming the importance of fire safety" and acknowledging the chemicals are "used to save lives and in accordance with fire safety standards".
The voluntary guidelines — published in August — aim to help public authorities purchase products and services with reduced environmental impacts.
Mr Engels said that because flame retardants are classified under the REACH and CLP Regulations based on their individual toxicological properties, restricting their use as a group of chemicals would be "inconsistent and incoherent with the EU regulatory framework".
"That is precisely why in the GPP criteria technical report the Commission is urging procurers that have decided to specifically restrict the use of flame retardants to consider each of them on the merits of its individual REACH registration and CLP classification," he said.
He also said that flame retardant restrictions "should be avoided" in EU GPP criteria because they may conflict with specific countries’ legislation.
The criteria has been welcomed by the European Furniture Industries Confederation (Efic) because it warns the use of flame retardants "may have negative effects for the environment, health, durability and quality of products, and may lead to cost increases".
In the US, San Francisco banned the sale of upholstered furniture and children's products made with or containing an added flame retardant chemical in October. More than a dozen US states have banned some categories of the chemicals.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62103/eu-public-procurement-criteria-backs-need-for-flame-retardants-says-trade-group
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REACH New Substance Registrations Estimate 'May Fall Short'
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa has revealed that the number of new substances registered for the 2018 REACH registration deadline is less than expected and may not meet estimated figures.
The agency has so far received 12,918 dossiers covering 5,856 total substances for the May deadline, which is just six months away.
While the agency says this is in line with its original estimates, it also acknowledges that only 3,713 of the substances have not been registered in either of the previous 2010 or 2013 deadlines. And, it says, the number of these 'new' substances is less than it expected at this point.
"Currently, companies seem to mainly be registering those substances for which a registration already exists," the agency said in its latest newsletter.
"At this pace, it may be that we will not reach the estimated 25,000 registered substances by the deadline. We need to monitor this carefully, although industry associations have not yet raised this as a concern."
Approximately 15% of registrations are from SMEs, it says.
2018 REACH deadline figures
Total registrations to date: 12,918
Total expected registrations: 60,000
Total substances to date: 5,856
Total expected substances: 25,000
Directors' Contact Group
At a meeting on 27 November, the REACH Directors’ Contact Group (DCG) issued a recommendation, urging companies to improve efforts to communicate their 2018 registration intentions to customers.
The DCG is an informal group of directors from the European Commission, Echa and industry associations. It was set up to respond to concerns arising from companies' REACH registration obligations.
Disseminating this information, they said, will avoid crucial substances not being registered and help ensure supply chains are not disrupted. Companies should also identify the uses their registrations intend to cover and communicate them downstream, the group said.
Industry associations represented in the DCG "are committed" to pass on this recommendation to their members, Echa says.
The directors also agreed to publish a factsheet on access to EU finance. According to Echa, it provides helpful advice to companies that need to find resources to ensure safe handling of their substances, and also to those that choose to take action on substituting their chemicals with more sustainable alternatives.
In an interview with Chemical Watch earlier this month, Echa head Geert Dancet said the high cost of registrations is "the main stumbling block" in the process.
The DCG will next meet on 15 December to review the solutions it established for the 2010 and 2013 REACH registration deadlines.
It will also continue discussions to endorse an approach for easing the financial burden on SMEs, preparing to submit registrations in the one-ten tonnage band.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62114/reach-new-substance-registrations-estimate-may-fall-short
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Revise Nano Definition Before Amending REACH Annexes, Industry Says
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Trade bodies have expressed concerns over the European Commission’s timing of the publication of its draft revised REACH annexes to address nanomaterials.
Metals trade body Eurometaux has said the revision of the Commission’s Recommendation on the substances' definition should be completed before tackling the REACH annexes, in order to ensure "the best possible" regulation.
Its comments to the consultation on the long-delayed text, and those of other industry stakeholders, have recently been published.
SME trade body Ueapme said the fact there is no final definition of a nanomaterial is "a more pressuring problem" than the delayed revision to the annexes. Not having this causes "significant uncertainty and may lead companies to take wrong decisions and waste resources for something that is not needed to fulfil legal requirements". It is something that "may be fatal" for a SME, it added.
Eurometaux said the terms ‘nanomaterial’ and ‘nanoform’ are "not clearly distinguishable" and "create confusion" in the text, because they are not defined in the Commission Recommendation.
It recommended adding a separate definition for each term – ‘nanomaterial’, ‘nanoform’, ‘distinct substance’ – while clarifying their relation to each other.
Belgium’s Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment said that the introduction of new and undefined terminology such as ‘set of nanoforms’ into definitions should be avoided. Instead, it proposes to replace it with ‘clearly defined groups of similar nanoforms’. This, it said, is expected to ensure "sufficient level of legal clarity" for both registrants and authorities.
Meanwhile, Cefic and the German chemical industry association (VCI) said that further explanations on how to identify the different nanoforms should be included in the guidance and not in the legal text. "This will allow modifying guidance if needed, instead of having to reopen the legal text," it added.Read-across
The Commission’s proposed changes create "a high burden" of tests and the use of the read-across approach becomes "unclear", Eurometaux said. It added that the non-ferrous metals industry would like to have a "clear picture" of which type of justifications are necessary for read-across.
Cefic and VCI said a "pragmatic and flexible approach" is "absolutely essential in order to guarantee the safe use of nanomaterials" without an unreasonable addition to the burden of registration. Communication between authorities and registrants "will be an essential need", they added, to comply with the amendments "in a workable manner".
And the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses) said that possible substance groupings if the responsibility of the declarant "must be scientifically justified". The categorisation or grouping of families of nanomaterials "can only be done for a specific use".Tonnage band data
The text must also clarify data requirements for nanomaterials, based on their tonnage band, stakeholders said in their responses.
The tonnage threshold "must be clearly linked" to that of the nanomaterial and not the substance, Eurometaux said. Otherwise, it added, this could lead to "unnecessary high burden for the production of few kilos" of nanomaterials of a substance registered (for the bulk form) in the highest tonnage bands.
It "will result in huge costs and in products taken from the market and creating high hurdles for innovation", Cefic and VCI said. "The approach taken must be pragmatic, and not adversely affect EU innovation both current and in future."
According to the draft text, the Regulation will enter into force on 1 January 2020.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62139/revise-nano-definition-before-amending-reach-annexes-industry-says
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Survey Shows Strong Support for Unified List of GHS Classified Substances
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
There is strong support for work to continue on a list of chemicals with harmonised, non-binding GHS classifications, according to a Chemical Risk Manager survey.
The UN Economic Commission for Europe (Unece) GHS subcommittee, which has been working on the list for several years, is due to make a decision on the project's future at its regular meeting, next week.
Of the 47 people responding to the survey, nearly 96% think the project should go ahead.
From a list of key reasons to continue the programme:45 said it would simplify classification and labelling systems and management across countries;28 cited improved safety through a better, common understanding of classification and labelling; and13 saw significant operational cost savings.
One respondent noted: "There are inherent benefits vis-à-vis human resource development in working towards harmonised safety classifications, as it inherently improves safety knowledge and risk management abilities of staff as they move across organisations."
However, one commentator noted: "While a harmonised list might simplify classification and labelling, not all jurisdictions follow the precautionary principle. Differences in regulatory schemes and philosophies would likely result in greater confusion and add to the cost and time of completing such a project."
According to the poll, 68% of respondents thought industry should provide some funding to support it.Responses
In posts to Chemical Watch’s LinkedIn Group, Hans-Peter Rensch, senior manager regulatory compliance at Datwyler Sealing Technologies, said: "A global harmonised system should use harmonised classifications or it will stay a collection of different national specialities."
Sonia Bautista Ortiz, a consultant at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, said she felt global harmonisation would really help companies achieve compliance in any country, and, at the same time, this could also benefit people who live in countries where the restrictions are not so exacting. And this could contribute to avoiding hazardous substances worldwide.
Phil Rowley, regulatory affairs manager at James M Brown, disagreed: "I see no point in this development. For a start, the UN has no legal mandate anywhere; and, as different jurisdictions can, and do, choose which of the GHS building blocks they will use, and can add ones of their own. Any 'harmonised' classification produced by the UN would not be so anywhere else – unless all the jurisdictions choose to implement identical GHS models – which they will never do."
James Lee, senior compliance analyst at Hach, said he supports the initiative as a step towards global harmonisation. And he thinks the project wil go forward. According to his information from US Osha, there still is strong support from the regulated communities worldwide and the UN GHS subcommittee is willing to continue the work.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62134/survey-shows-strong-support-for-unified-list-of-ghs-classified-substances
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Carpet Manufacturers 'Stepping up Efforts' on Ingredient Disclosure
Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Leading US carpet manufacturers are stepping up efforts to communicate the components of their products — and their relationship to human and ecological health — according to US trade association the Carpet and Rug Institute.
CRI president Joe Yarbrough told Chemical Watch that they were doing this through Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and certified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
Mr Yarbrough's comments are in response to a recent report by the NGO Healthy Building Network (HBN), which called for the fundamental redesign of the carpet industry to eliminate toxic chemicals so that carpets can be more recyclable.
The HBN report claims that manufacturers consistently fail to fully disclose carpet ingredients and green certifications did not address some of the key substances of concern.
Mr Yarbrough said that carpet manufacturers "work with a variety of certification programmes to evaluate and verify the safety and sustainability factors of products, such as Cradle to Cradle and Declare".
He added that 95% of carpet meets the CRI's Green Label Plus programme. This sets standards and limits for indoor air quality and "ensures that customers are purchasing the very lowest emitting products on the market".Disclosure
In response to the report, Interface, the world's largest manufacturer of commercial carpet tile, said that it is the first in the industry to disclose product ingredients — through EPDs and HPDs — globally on its website.
Chief science and technology officer, John Bradford, told Chemical Watch that "the industry has followed suit in disclosure, but there is more work to be done to educate the market about specific materials of concern, especially where there is potential for exposure".
Interface has committed to having no negative environmental impact by 2020, part of which includes removing known harmful materials from its products.
"Through a global initiative, all of our designated materials of concern will be removed globally in early 2018, which keeps our loop clean and enables us to scale recycling to greater volumes," Mr Bradford said.
He added that while he agreed with the sentiment of the HBN report, he would like to see it place more emphasis on recycling.
"We believe that recycling is a critical piece of the puzzle and we would love to see the industry implement protocols and guidelines to ensure that it can scale up quickly and safely," he said.
As well as "working to drive recyclability" of its products, he said that Interface supported regulatory efforts to encourage carpet recycling, such as the California bill (AB 1158, Chu) which was signed into law in October. This mandates recycling 24% of post-consumer carpet waste by 2020, a doubling of the state's current carpet recycling rate.
CRI's Mr Yarbrough said that carpet is more complex to recycle than other products, because it is made from many materials that are bound together in different ways, "making it complicated to deconstruct, sort and process".
However he said "industry's resolve in this challenge is strong" and it was committed to "investing in innovation and sustainability, product health and safety and the careful use of natural resources".
The issue of removing hazardous chemicals from waste streams is a hot topic of discussion in Europe.
The European chemicals agency's (Echa) newly appointed head, Bjorn Hansen, said at his inaugural address to the European Parliament's Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (Envi) last month that the decision to have different regulations for chemicals in recycled materials than for chemicals in primary products is a key challenge for the circular economy.
Meanwhile, environmental NGO Greenpeace, recently warned that without eliminating the use and releases of harmful chemicals from production chains, "the circular dream could well become a toxic recirculation nightmare".
https://chemicalwatch.com/62140/carpet-manufacturers-stepping-up-efforts-on-ingredient-disclosure
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Nov 30, 2017 | Chemical Watch
Letter templates for joint REACH registrationsEcha has published a series of letter templates that companies, especially SMEs, can use when starting negotiations with co-registrants for sharing data and submitting jointly for REACH registration. The templates are available as a download on Echa's website in Microsoft Word format.REACH substance evaluation conclusions published
Seven new substance evaluation conclusion documents are now available on the agency website for:acetone oxime, added to the Corap list in 2016 and evaluated by Austria;chloromethane, added to the Corap list in 2012 and evaluated by Italy;resorcinol, added to the Corap list in 2016 and evaluated by Finland;cyclohexylamine, added to the Corap list in 2016 and evaluated by Belgium;tetrahydrofuran, added to the Corap list in 2013 and evaluated by Germany; andhydroquinone, added to the Corap list in 2012 and evaluated by Italy.Opinions on two uses of diglyme
Echa has published the consolidated Opinions of the Committees for Risk Assessment and Socio-economic Analysis (Rac and Seac) for an application for authorisation for two uses of bis(2-methoxyethyl) ether (diglyme) by Acton Technologies.Compliance checking substances
Echa has added 149 new substances to the list of those that might be chosen for compliance checks.
The substances are mostly selected together with related substances based on structural similarity, read-across or category information. Registrants are advised to check the list and update their related registration dossiers by 16 February 2018.REACH 2018 registration infographic
The agency has released an interactive map of Europe showing REACH 2018 registrations in each country.
Users can click on a specific country on the map to gain access to more detailed information. There is also the possibility to view the data in graphs and tables, and to compare data between two EU/European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62135/echa-round-up
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Regulators Suspect Construction Damage Caused Keystone Spill
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Mechanical damage to the Keystone pipeline that occurred when it was built may be responsible for the leak of 5,000 barrels of crude oil into a rural part of South Dakota earlier this month, federal officials say.
A "corrective action order" issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration on Tuesday says the pipeline failure that led to the spill was a rupture that "has characteristics of mechanical damage from original construction" in 2008.
PHMSA's preliminary analysis suggests that the failure may have been caused by damage to the pipe and a protective coating that covers the metal, associated with a weight sometimes placed on pipes to hold them down "in areas where water could potentially result in buoyancy concerns."
The broken portion of the pipeline will undergo testing to inform the agency's ongoing investigation into what caused the rupture. PHMSA said the pipeline section that failed was manufactured by Berg Steel Pipe Corp.
Cleaning and leak detection tools were in use on the pipeline at the time of the rupture and had already passed the failure site without detecting any problems and are not believed to have contributed to the leak, according to PHMSA.
TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone pipeline runs from Hardisty, Alberta, to Patoka, Ill., and on to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Following the leak on Nov. 16, the pipeline was shut down from Alberta to Illinois. TransCanada got the go-ahead to restart operations at reduced pressure Tuesday after excavating and replacing the ruptured pipeline segment.
Regulators have directed TransCanada to identify other locations where weights like those at the rupture point are in use and to look for damage or cracks at those locations that could have be similar to the failure point. The company has 90 days to complete a "root cause failure analysis" on the incident.
The spill comes at a difficult time for TransCanada, as it weighs the results of a permitting decision earlier this month in Nebraska that gave the company a green light to build Keystone XL, a controversial expansion of the Keystone line. Nebraska's permit gives the company permission to build along a route that it said was not optimal for the project, and the company has said it is weighing the cost and schedule implications of the proposed change (Energywire, Nov. 21).
One facet of the Keystone XL controversy has revolved around the fragile soils and high water table in some areas the pipeline would pass through. If Keystone is found to have problems related to an engineering solution for high water tables, those issues could extend to the proposed Keystone XL project as well. TransCanada did not respond to questions for this story.Full remediation expected
While PHMSA is in charge of investigating the recent spill, TransCanada bears cleanup responsibility under oversight from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Brian Walsh, environmental scientist manager with the state DENR, said yesterday that the cleanup was going well. Liquid oil has been sucked up with vacuum trucks, he said, and contaminated soil is being removed and characterized. If the samples show only the expected contaminants, they will likely be disposed of in a general-purpose landfill in North Dakota.
The spill site runs north-south along the pipeline path about 1,000 feet, Walsh said, is about 400 feet at its widest part. Walsh said groundwater monitoring stations have been set up around the perimeter of the site and will be in use until state standards for post-spill water quality are met. TransCanada "did sample some drinking water wells that were well outside of the spill area, and of course there were no drinking water impacts, but they wanted to reassure the landowners," he added.
Walsh said the relative simplicity of the spill site, at an easily accessible location without surface bodies of water, made the cleanup easier. He expects the site will be fully remediated over the course of several weeks. "The geology here is going to allow us to get the vast majority if not all of the contaminated soil out," he said. "We will assess the groundwater and address any impacts there."Warning from S.D.
Last week, members of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission said they would be monitoring PHMSA's investigation and would consider revoking TransCanada's permit to operate the pipeline if the company had violated its terms.
Commission Chairwoman Kristie Fiegen told E&E News that the comments were meant as a reminder that the PUC has the authority to revoke a permit but said "the facts [of the investigation] don't come in until many months from now, so we're a long ways from any kind of revocation."
Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, an organization that works for pipeline safety, noted that very little information has been publicly released about the soil type, spill depth or water table level at the site of the leak. "If it is really just a spill into agricultural soil as reported and did not soak or migrate much deeper than the pipeline, than DENR's [remediation estimate of] 'a period of months' may be correct. If they need to do any fancy bio-remediation or purging to get [oil] out of any groundwater then it could be [a] longer period of months," he said.
Beyond the immediate questions of what went wrong in this incident lie bigger questions about why such a new pipeline failed, he added, "and why, with all the promises of safety beyond federal regulations, was the problem not identified before the failure occurred?"
During permitting, TransCanada's spill risk assessment put the chance of a leak of 50 barrels or more at "not more than once every seven to 11 years over the entire length of the pipeline in the United States," with a spill "no more than once every 41 years" in South Dakota, according to a Reuters report.
Data reported publicly by PHMSA show that Keystone spilled 424 barrels of crude in North Dakota in 2011 as a result of a connector failure, at a cleanup cost of $2 million. Another spill in South Dakota in 2016 resulted in 400 barrels released due to "construction, installation or fabrication-related" issues at a cleanup cost of $9 million.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/30/stories/1060067639
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A New Study Offers Further Proof That North Texas Earthquakes Are Fracking-Related
Nov 30, 2017 | Texas Monthly
By Dan Solomon
In January 2015, there were a dozen little earthquakes in the Dallas–Fort Worth area in less than 48 hours. They weren’t the first, or the last, that would strike the region, either. Prior to 2008, there had been no reported earthquakes in the Fort Worth Basin. In the ten years since, there’ve been hundreds.
The biggest geological difference in North Texas in the years since 2008 has been the amount of hydraulic fracking going on in the area. That process, which injects fluid deep underground to allow access to oil further below the surface and often is followed by wastewater injection into underground formations through injection wells, has been known for decades to cause earthquakes—a 1990 study from the Environmental Protection Agency makes that clear—but the fact that there’s a causal relationship between fracking-related fluid injection and earthquakes doesn’t necessarily mean that every earthquake that happens in a fracking-intensive area is automatically the result of fracking.
That’s what the Texas Railroad Commission—which regulates the oil and gas industry—has pointed to in the past. The Dallas Morning News reported on the agency’s approach to fracking last year, quoting commissioner Ryan Sitton:
As for the link between quakes and disposal wells in Texas, he said, “Unfortunately in the world of science and research, we very rarely have things that we consider to be conclusive.” So far, he added, “there’s been a large amount of assumptions, simplistic analysis and hypothesis in place of real data.”
When the U.S. Geological Survey—a federal agency whose responsibilities includes studying earthquakes—categorized the North Texas quakes since 2008 as man-made back in September, a Railroad Commission spokesperson told the Morning News that it hadn’t yet had a chance to review the studies that led to that conclusion. In a recent statement, the Railroad Commission said, “Our rules are designed to prevent or minimize any risk, as well as give us the necessary authority to amend permit conditions up to and including shutting a well down as a result of seismicity.” The RRC regulates disposal wells and its rules for “seismicity-related” disposal wells went into effect in 2014.
As of this week, they’ll need to take one more study under advisement. According to a landmark study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, the earthquakes in North Texas have been occurring in faults that, geologically, are considered “dead.”
The study used an ultrasound technique to trace the history of the fault lines in the Fort Worth basin dating back 450,000,000 years. These “seismic reflections” created data images they could use to look at the rock layers to determine how long it had been since the faults were active. According to SMU seismologist Beatrice Magnani, who was the lead author of the paper, there hadn’t been activity along those faults for 300 million years.
The study went on to verify that, not only had there not been major seismic activity along the faults over the years, but also to examine the data closely to be certain that the small-scale earthquakes that have been occurring in DFW hadn’t been happening over those hundreds of millions of years. As Scientific American explains:
[T]he recent north Texas earthquakes were so small they caused offsets of just a fraction of a centimeter. The seismologists wanted to be sure these faults had not been producing this kind of tiny earthquake all along. They were able to do this because the offsets representing rock moved by quakes are cumulative: each new quake adds more distance. The researchers took the 300-million-year time span and calculated the maximum number of small to medium sized quakes it would take to produce a cumulative offset just shy of 15 meters. That fell into the range of 3,800 to 6,000 earthquakes—or, roughly, an earthquake every 50,000 to 79,000 years. Even if temblors occurred that frequently, the probability of a natural earthquake sequence occurring in north Texas in the previous 10 years was only one in 6,000 and the probability of two sequences was one in 60 million. Since north Texas has had five earthquake sequences during that 10-year span, the scientists write that it is “exceedingly unlikely” that the recent quakes were natural.
This isn’t the first study to conclude that the earthquakes in North Texas are man-made, it’s just the most conclusive one. A UT study from 2016 found that human energy-exploration activity had been responsible for earthquakes throughout the state, dating back to well before the 2008 timeline commonly cited, looking at statistical analysis dating back to the seventies. A study last year led by Stanford University used satellite imagery to demonstrate a clear linkexplaining exactly how earthquakes are triggered by wastewater disposal injections from fracking activity. An April 2016 study led by UT researchers ruled out other explanations for the quakes.
All of which is to say that, while this comes the closest we’ve seen to a smoking gun on proving the link between fluid injections from fracking and earthquakes—the sudden reactivation of fault lines that had been dormant for many millennia is hard to explain away—it can also be added to the stacks of existing research to help explain exactly what’s going on with those quakes. Whether the state’s regulatory body takes action based on this information, of course, remains to be seen.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/new-study-offers-proof-north-texas-earthquakes-fracking-related/
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Report Warns of Hacking Risk to Refining Sector
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The refining industry's rush to adopt digital technology could open doors for hackers, according to a report this week from the Deloitte consultancy.
As downstream oil and gas facilities add connected sensors and automation tools, the risk of a "broader impact" cyberattack costing tens of millions of dollars "becomes increasingly more likely and more consequential," the study claims.
"Cybersecurity will become increasingly important to downstream oil and gas companies, due in part to the sophistication of would-be attackers but mostly due to the sheer complexity and scale of digitizing the business," Deloitte concludes.
Andrew Slaughter, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions and one of the report's authors, said there can be safety and efficiency benefits from adopting "internet of things" technologies and automated controls.
"But the flip side is, if you don't manage it correctly from the start, you open up cyber vulnerabilities," he said.
The report cites a 2014 cyberattack on a German steel mill that caused catastrophic damage to a blast furnace, painting the mysterious case as a cautionary tale for refiners.
"If bad actors were to get into a refinery operating system ... that could be catastrophic in terms of business interruptions, safety and environmental impact," Slaughter said.
The report notes that the hazard, so far, is largely "speculative." The Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team could point to just two U.S. incidents with "significant impact" to control systems in fiscal 2016, neither of which was made public. Hackers aren't known to have physically damaged any U.S. refining facilities or energy control systems, though such networks have been targeted in the past.
Unlike large electric power utilities, U.S. oil and gas companies don't face binding cybersecurity rules for their control systems. The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major refining industry trade group, opposes mandatory cybersecurity standards in favor of voluntary guidelines set through the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
"Even though the risk of cyber breaches is ever-present, tremendous steps have been taken to ensure refineries and petrochemical facilities are safe against the increasing amounts of cyber threats facing our facilities," the group noted in a policy paper on the issue.
Deloitte's report did not address the regulatory landscape for refiners, but it did include some tips for energy companies. For instance, the study suggested that downstream oil and gas firms set up a "digital twin" of their control systems, so operators can raise red flags when the duplicate and the real networks fall out of sync.
Still, Slaughter cautioned against relying too much on technological fixes for the cybersecurity dilemma.
"You don't get to a health and safety culture by issuing hard hats and putting barriers around dangerous equipment — much of it is behavior," he said. "It's the same with cybersecurity."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/11/30/stories/1060067637
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EPA Finds 3 Barrel Plants Broke Chemical Laws
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Greenwire
U.S. EPA announced yesterday that three industrial plants in Wisconsin broke federal laws regulating hazardous chemicals.
An agency investigation triggered by a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report found that plants in St. Francis, Oak Creek and Milwaukee failed to obtain licenses for the transport, storage and treatment of hazardous waste.
EPA said officials at the St. Francis and Oak Creek plants initially tried to prevent investigators from entering, despite their warrant.
Once inside, the investigators found barrels of flammable chemicals that were labeled as "nonhazardous" or that workers said contained water.
The three plants are owned by Ohio-based Greif Inc., which has 30 days to respond to the investigation.
"We are not perfect and will always work to address issues in cooperation with regulators," Greif spokeswoman Debbie Crow said in a statement. "Company representatives have met — on a voluntary basis — with federal and state environmental regulators on multiple occasions to discuss perceived issues" (John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 29). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/11/30/stories/1060067695
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Climate Goals Rely on 'Negative Emissions.' That's a Problem
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Scientists increasingly agree that it might be impossible to cap global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels — without first overshooting it and then using technology to siphon carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, causing temperatures to fall again.
The problem is there are no rules under the Paris climate accord, or anywhere else, for how badly the target can be missed and what techniques might be used to lower the planet's temperatures. And that's a big weakness in the global fight against climate change, some experts argue.
"Without clearly defined constraints to overshoot, politicians cannot fail and thus cannot be held accountable for insufficient action," say climate experts Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Andreas Löschel of the University of Münster in Germany in a comment published this week in Nature Geoscience.
In other words, global temperatures could continue to rise without any clear stopping point, and policymakers could still claim that they will be brought back within acceptable limits eventually. Without clearly outlined rules and action plans for overshoot scenarios, there's no exact definition of what constitutes a failure to meet global climate goals — which makes it harder to plan for the type of action needed for success, they argue.
Although rarely mentioned by policymakers, "negative emissions" technology — the idea of sucking carbon dioxide out of the air to bring global temperatures down — is essentially built into the models that scientists use to explore different climate scenarios. Meeting a 1.5-degree temperature target almost certainly relies on it, even with aggressive emissions reduction efforts starting now. And many modeling scenarios assume that a 2-degree threshold may require negative emissions, although it might be possible to reach that goal with heavy-handed mitigation efforts.
A major problem is that the technology isn't developed enough to be useful on a global scale. In fact, scientists disagree on exactly what methods could be used. Some have suggested a future in which machines are used to chemically scrub carbon dioxide out of the sky. But while some projects have demonstrated this type of technology on a small scale, it's nowhere near ready to be deployed at the levels required.
Other experts have proposed combining bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technology, an approach nicknamed "BECCS." Under this strategy, trees would soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow and then be harvested for fuel. The bioenergy power plants they feed would be equipped with carbon-capturing technology to trap the emissions.
Even this approach may have its shortcomings. Multiple studies in the last year or two have indicated that it's not feasible to grow enough trees, even on plantations. In one such paper, published earlier this year in Science, the authors recommend that scientists and policymakers seriously manage their expectations about negative emissions and avoid "cavalier assumptions of future technological breakthroughs."
Developing negative emissions technology to the point that it's actually capable of meeting global climate goals is essential for temperature overshoot scenarios to be considered viable. But in their new paper, Geden and Löschel say policymakers generally "refrain from any political commitment to developing and deploying negative emissions technologies" at the scale needed for success.
And the lack of urgency may be tied to the fact that there are no clearly defined goals for when or how the technology should be deployed. What is the last year by which global temperatures should be back below a 1.5- or 2-degree threshold? How acceptable is it to overshoot either goal?
Setting these limits is essential, not just for developing negative emission technologies, but for motivating political action in the first place, Geden and Löschel say. "Otherwise, climate policymakers, and even more so other branches of governments, could easily miss the urgent need for drastic mitigation, because they are under the impression that even inadequate action will never result in political failure," they write.
Geden and Löschel point to several clear parameters for overshoot scenarios, including setting a date for temperature stabilization at the end of the century: "If targets agreed upon in 2015 cannot be met by 2100 then it should be called failure," they write. And they also say that future reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should exclude any overshoot scenarios associated with the 2-degree threshold, another effort at keeping global climate goals strict and their required action clearly defined.
Still, there are plenty of other concerns about overshoot scenarios, even with their limits clearly outlined. Both the 1.5- and 2-degree goals were established to avoid triggering catastrophic climate effects in the future. But Geden and Löschel point out that it's "unclear what the overshoot effects would be on issues such as sea-level rise, ice-sheet loss or thawing permafrost, and whether such impacts might be reversible when global mean surface temperature falls below the threshold again."
And they're not the only ones to caution against potential unintended consequences of overshoot scenarios. Other scientists have warned about the dangers of assuming that negative emissions will solve the climate problem.
In a paper published last year in Science, climate experts Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research and Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom warn, "If we rely on these [technologies] and they are not deployed or are unsuccessful at removing CO2 from the atmosphere at the levels assumed, society will be locked into a high-temperature pathway."
Instead, they say, policymakers should proceed with their climate mitigation efforts as though negative emissions technology will fail. Then, if it proves useful in the future, it will only add to an already aggressive global climate action plan.
The same spirit of caution is presented in this week's comment. Overshoot scenarios may be a useful way of looking at the global climate problem if their limitations are understood, the authors suggest. That could prevent global climate targets from becoming "mere benchmarks that can be crossed for extended periods of time."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/30/stories/1060067651
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Inequality a Key Concern Among Climate Activists
Nov 30, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Civil rights activists and Appalachian environmentalists used the last day of Clean Power Plan testimony to cast its repeal as the newest chapter in a long history of racial and class discrimination.
President Obama in 2015 unveiled the Clean Power Plan as a major climate policy with some health benefits. Now, as the Trump administration prepares to gut it, its defenders flipped the script.
They said the Clean Power Plan offered a way to ease the pollution concentrated in places where people of color and the working class live, including West Virginia. Historically disenfranchised communities have lacked the political muscle to stop heavy polluters like coal-fired power plants from clustering nearby — driving up respiratory illnesses and early deaths compared to areas with wealthy, white residents.
Repealing the Clean Power Plan hardens those inequalities, activists said.
"How many more people do we have to bury before we as communities of color are granted equal protection under the law," said Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP's environmental and climate justice program.
If rows of coal miners dominated the hearing room Tuesday, then yesterday it was the NAACP's turn. The civil rights group's members flew in from as far as Hawaii and formed a deep crowd.
They talked about climate change, but it played undercard to their personal experience with emissions.
"I was privileged to see the last piece of the [St. Louis] Arch go in. But also what I'd seen from my window was the smoke from the Peabody coal stacks, the Monsanto Corp.'s coal stacks, the Anheuser-Busch coal stacks," said E.D. Mondaine of the NAACP's Portland, Ore., chapter, adding that he and most of his childhood friends suffered chronic cardiopulmonary problems later in life.
Politically, the environmental injustice argument continues a well-worn attack on President Trump, whom detractors call racist. Activists also see potential for it to undermine his base in coal country, where there's a long history of environmental disasters and chronic pollution.
Tavian Moore, a college freshman and president of the Greater Grand Rapids (Michigan) NAACP Youth Council, drew a parallel between the health risks of working in a coal mine and living in a polluted neighborhood.
"I am sick and tired of special interests sacrificing our communities' health for their corporate wealth," he said.
The Obama administration calculated the Clean Power Plan's health advantages would make it worth the cost of cutting emissions at power plants, with each dollar of expenses bringing $6 worth of climate and health benefits (Climatewire, Sept. 25).
The Trump administration says that vastly overstates the case. Michael Whitten, a former coal worker, isn't so sure.
Whitten's father worked in the mines too, and he died from black lung. Whitten operated mining machinery for more than eight years before giving it up, tired of the on-again, off-again work. He retrained as a construction crane operator.
Now, strip mining operations and coal processing plants "surround" his home, he said, and he's waiting for the problems to start.
"[If] you're around coal mines, you're in hell. It's just — you can't get away from it," Whitten said.
West Virginia's poverty under the coal industry has been a common theme among local environmentalists, who've stressed the job opportunities in renewable energy while evoking coal workers' historic and ongoing conflicts against mining companies (Climatewire, Nov. 29).
U.S. EPA this week tweeted a picture of coal miners, saying it's holding Clean Power Plan hearings in West Virginia to hear from people "most impacted by the rule." Local chambers of commerce and energy companies welcomed the attention.
Local environmentalists called it cynical.
"As a West Virginian, I'm insulted at the choice of this location," said David Lillard, special projects manager for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
"It doesn't make great TV to have coal executives, coal barons speaking about saving a few pennies per ton of coal. But it's great theater to have desperate coal miners carrying the message of the coal barons," he said.
New York will hold its own public hearing on the Clean Power Plan in December, said Michael Myers, an assistant attorney general under Eric Schneiderman (D).
"EPA is obviously welcome to join us," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/11/30/stories/1060067643
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