Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 12/4/17
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Hearing On Interior, DOE Nominees
Dec 5, 2017 | Energy and Natural Resources
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM. -
Hearing on EPA
Dec 7, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 10:00 AM. -
Hearing On Energy Cybersecurity
Dec 8, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 9:00 AM. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC’s Dooley Will Get Industry Medal
Dec 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. chemical industry’s main trade association, will receive the Society of Chemical Industry, America Section’s Chemical Industry Medal at a dinner in his honor on March 6, 2018, in New York City. -
(ACC Mentioned) Economists See No Recession Next Year, Forecast for Accelerated Growth
Dec 4, 2017 | 24/7 Wall St.
By Douglas A. McIntyre
The National Association for Business Economics’ NABE Outlook is among the most carefully watched forecasts for economic growth. Its December survey shows that those questioned say a recession next year is highly unlikely. -
Pruitt To Appear For Long-Awaited Hearing
Dec 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will return to Capitol Hill on Thursday for an oversight hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Seeks To Slash Use Of Animals In Chemical Safety Testing
Dec 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is embarking on a multiyear journey to prioritize and assess the risks of tens of thousands of chemicals in the U.S. market—and much of that evaluation will be done without the use of vertebrate animals. -
EPA Plans To Revise TSCA 'Small Manufacturers' Definition
Dec 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is planning to launch a formal rulemaking to revise its current size standards for which companies quality as “small manufacturers and processors” under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), an important definition that determines whether companies are subject to reporting regulations under the toxics law. -
Ruling Slaps Down Suit Over Calif. Hazmat Enforcement
| BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A California county has a First Amendment right to pursue a criminal prosecution, rather than an administrative proceeding, against a wastewater firm on a disputed agency finding that the firm stored a hazardous chemical, a California court of appeals ruled Nov. 30. -
EPA Renews Pledge To Issue Perchlorate Rule After Official Raised Doubts
Dec 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A lead member of EPA's water office staff reassured members of the agency's children's health advisory panel that officials will continue on their path toward regulating the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate in drinking water, despite a suggestion from a top agency office last month that raised questions in some stakeholders' minds. -
Industry, Environmentalists Spar Over Perchlorate Peer Review Documents
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Environmentalists and industry stakeholders are sparring over documents that EPA prepared for a second round of peer review of the model intended to assist the agency in setting a drinking water goal for the rocket fuel perchlorate -- even as the agency has failed to meet its first court ordered deadline for doing so. -
EPA Allies Warn Of Toxics, Enforcement Cuts To Fight FY18 Spending Plan
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmentalists and other EPA allies are trying to fight major proposed fiscal year 2018 funding cuts for the agency by warning of the adverse health and environmental impacts that the cuts would have in scrapping a key toxic risk assessment program and significantly cutting enforcement, among other scaled-back programs. -
EWG, American Oversight Demand Answers on Dourson’s Work at EPA
Dec 1, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
Nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight and the Environmental Working Group today announced a joint investigation to determine if controversial toxicologist Michael Dourson has violated ethics rules in his work as a top advisor to Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. -
Fracking Ban in Delaware Basin Falls Short, Environmentalists Say
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas and Rebecca Kern
Oil and gas companies could still use water from the Delaware River Basin to hydraulically fracture wells elsewhere and ship contaminated water back, despite a fracking ban proposed for parts of four states, environmental groups said. -
Fracking Helps New Mexico Leapfrog California as Oil Producer
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Tuttle
New Mexico became the third-biggest U.S. oil-producing state in September, passing more traditional powerhouses California and Oklahoma, thanks to a fracking boom in the western section of the Permian Basin. -
U.S. Vastly Overstates Oil Output Forecasts, MIT Study Suggests
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jim Polson and Tim Loh
Turns out, America's decade-long shale boom might just end up being a little too good to be true. -
TGP's Orion NatGas Pipeline Project Cleared to Begin Service
Dec 4, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (TGP) has received authorization from FERC to place into service the Orion Project, a looping project on its 300 Line designed to serve increasing natural gas demand in the Mid-Atlantic and New England. -
U.S. Shale Gas to Travel North Via TransCanada's Bidirectional Iroquois Pipeline
Dec 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
A new eastern path will open for Canadian imports of shale gas from the United States -- potentially straight to the national capital, Ottawa -- as a result of a pipeline direction switch approved by the National Energy Board (NEB). -
Panel To Suss Out Gaps In DOE Cyber Role
Dec 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Lawmakers are set to check up on the Energy Department's cybersecurity responsibilities at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this week. -
'Forced Access' Would Jeopardize Rail Revenues, Upkeep
Dec 3, 2017 | Clarion Ledger
By Gene F. McGee
With so many of states hit hard by recent hurricanes, our thoughts and prayers go out to those suffering in their aftermath. Events like these awaken our compassion and empathy as we do what we can to help. -
Citizens Urge High Court To Reject Air Law 'Contingency' Measures Case
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Arizona citizens are urging the Supreme Court to reject the state's request for the court to hear its appeal of a ruling that said it cannot count existing air pollution controls as new “contingency measures” required to cut emissions under the Clean Air Act, saying there is no appellate split on the issue that would justify high court review.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Hearing On Interior, DOE Nominees
Dec 5, 2017 | Energy and Natural Resources
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Dec 7, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment
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Hearing On Energy Cybersecurity
Dec 8, 2017 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC’s Dooley Will Get Industry Medal
Dec 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. chemical industry’s main trade association, will receive the Society of Chemical Industry, America Section’s Chemical Industry Medal at a dinner in his honor on March 6, 2018, in New York City. SCI America says Dooley was picked for his role in strengthening the competitive position of U.S. chemical makers while achieving successes such as modernization of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required. For full story: https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i48/ACCs-Dooley-industry-medal.html?type=paidArticleContent
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(ACC Mentioned) Economists See No Recession Next Year, Forecast for Accelerated Growth
Dec 4, 2017 | 24/7 Wall St.
By Douglas A. McIntyre
The National Association for Business Economics’ NABE Outlook is among the most carefully watched forecasts for economic growth. Its December survey shows that those questioned say a recession next year is highly unlikely. And the group revised most of its predictions for GDP improvement upward.
The survey includes a group of 51 professional forecasters. It was taken between November 6 and 15, 2017, and includes opinions on this year and next.
The primary finding from the research was:
The median forecasts for average annual inflation-adjusted gross domestic product growth (real GDP growth) are 2.2% for 2017 and 2.5% for 2018—compared with 2.2% and 2.4% in the September survey. On a fourth-quarter-to-fourth-quarter basis, real GDP growth is expected to be 2.5% in 2017 and 2.4% in 2018. The median forecast for fourth-quarter 2017 real GDP growth is 2.7%, higher than the September forecast of 2.5%.
Among the main reasons are that tax cuts will stimulate the economy. The NABE is not the only group with such a forecast. Obviously, congressional supporters of a bill to cut taxes, as well as President Trump, view the results the same way. Ironically, the group surveyed said inflation would be low, not a normal set of circumstances during a recovery. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index is expected to rise by 1.6% this quarter compared to the fourth quarter in 2016. The number for 2018 is expected to be 1.8%.
And a recession is not in the cards over the course of the next year. NABE Vice President Kevin Swift, CBE, chief economist, American Chemistry Council, said:
Panelists continue to believe that a recession is unlikely in 2018. Only 7% of respondents believe the peak of the current business cycle will occur by the end of next year. The survey panel is more optimistic about the risks to the economy than it was in September. Sixty percent of panelists believe the balance of risks to the economy through 2018 is weighted to the upside, while 33% believe the risks are weighted to the downside. In the September survey, the downside risks outweighed the upside risks by a margin of 48% to 43%.
It is hard to imagine things being much better, at least in terms of the economy.
http://247wallst.com/economy/2017/12/04/economists-see-no-recession-next-year-forecast-for-accelerated-growth/
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Pruitt To Appear For Long-Awaited Hearing
Dec 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will return to Capitol Hill on Thursday for an oversight hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment.
For Pruitt, it is a long-anticipated appearance before Congress. The last time the administrator testified was this past June, when he appeared separately before House and Senate appropriations subcommittees to discuss the president's budget.
"We're looking forward to receiving a much-needed update from Mr. Pruitt on his priorities for the agency, including his stated policy of getting EPA 'back to the basics' and its impact on the agency's activity going forward," Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said in a statement announcing the hearing last month (Greenwire, Nov. 16).
The GOP lawmakers added that given the agency's "controversial and expansive interpretation" of its authority under the Obama administration, it was about time that EPA "refocus" on its public health and environmental mission as intended by Congress.
Democrats in both the House and Senate had been publicly pressing for Pruitt to testify. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee secured its own hearing date for next month (E&E News PM, Nov. 16).
"It is important that EPA Administrator Pruitt testifies before the committee," EPW Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said when announcing the meeting.
Lawmakers will have plenty to discuss with Pruitt about his tenure so far at the agency. The EPA administrator has pushed to roll back several signature Obama-era regulations, including the Clean Power Plan and the Clean Water Rule.
In addition, Pruitt has begun to reshape the agency itself, launching a round of buyouts that saw hundreds of workers depart this year.
The administrator has also barred science advisers who have received EPA grants from sitting on the agency's advisory boards.
Pruitt could face tough questions on his own use of agency resources. His focus on security, including building a secure phone booth in his office and having an around-the-clock protective detail, has come under scrutiny.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, Dec. 7, at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Witness: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/12/04/stories/1060067915
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Seeks To Slash Use Of Animals In Chemical Safety Testing
Dec 4, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is embarking on a multiyear journey to prioritize and assess the risks of tens of thousands of chemicals in the U.S. market—and much of that evaluation will be done without the use of vertebrate animals.
Most of the chemicals found in products sold in the U.S., except for prescription drugs and pesticides, have not been subjected to extensive toxicity testing in lab animals. Such testing is expensive and time-consuming and . . .
... The chemical industry echoed EPA’s enthusiasm for these new approaches. “The most promising applications of these new technologies” are predicting exposure and bioactivity, said Rick Becker of the American ChemistryCouncil, the primary trade group for chemical manufacturers in the U.S. The revised TSCA has led to a “grand experiment in the U.S.” to prioritize chemicals with new tec..
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required. For full story:. https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i48/US-seeks-slash-use-animals.html?type=paidArticleContent
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EPA Plans To Revise TSCA 'Small Manufacturers' Definition
Dec 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
EPA is planning to launch a formal rulemaking to revise its current size standards for which companies quality as “small manufacturers and processors” under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), an important definition that determines whether companies are subject to reporting regulations under the toxics law.
In a Nov. 30 Federal Register notice, the agency says that based on a years-long review that included public notice and comment it is making a final determination under TSCA section 8(a)(3)(C)(ii) that revisions to the size standards outlined in TSCA section 8(a) are “warranted,” and will be undertaken in a future rulemaking. TSCA section 8 generally outlines the reporting requirements companies face under the updated TSCA.
The Obama administration announced last December that it was considering whether to broaden its standards for determining the manufacturers and processors that qualify as small businesses for purposes of applying the reporting and recordkeeping rules under section 8(a). That includes the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rules, whose results EPA uses as a proxy for chemical exposure data in risk screening decisions.
The TSCA reform law enacted in 2016 requires that EPA review within 180 days of its enactment the adequacy of the standards for identifying small manufactures and processors, and determine whether revision is warranted. The law also requires that EPA review the adequacy of the size standards, and to consult with the Small Business Administration (SBA) -- though the agency is behind schedule on the effort.
After the Trump administration took office, EPA extended the deadline for input on whether to revise the size standards in response to input it received. “The comment period is being reopened in order to allow the public to consider feedback received by EPA from [SBA] as a result of a consultation request on EPA's preliminary determination on whether revision to these standards is warranted,” EPA said in a May 9 Register notice.
The Nov. 30 notice now affirms that the agency will pursue a formal notice-and-comment rulemaking to revise the size standards, without detailing precisely the scope of the eventual updated standards. “Based on EPA's preliminary determination, a review of the comments on the preliminary determination, and the feedback from consultation from SBA, EPA is now making a final determination under TSCA section 8(a)(3)(C)(ii) that revision to the TSCA section 8(a) size standards for manufacturers and processors is warranted,” the notice says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-plans-revise-tsca-small-manufacturers-definition
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Ruling Slaps Down Suit Over Calif. Hazmat Enforcement
| BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A California county has a First Amendment right to pursue a criminal prosecution, rather than an administrative proceeding, against a wastewater firm on a disputed agency finding that the firm stored a hazardous chemical, a California court of appeals ruled Nov. 30.
The ruling dismissed claims by Santa Clara Waste Water Co. that Ventura County environmental officials wrongly and unilaterally categorized a stockpile of Petromax, a highly alkaline chemical, as hazardous waste (Santa Clara Waste Water Co. v. Cty. of Ventura Envtl. Health Div., 2017 BL 427794, Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., No. B278967, 11/30/17).
The three-judge panel also ruled SCWW's petition was a strategic lawsuit against public participation that violated the county's rights under the First Amendment and state anti-SLAPP laws.
The litigation stems from a 2014 explosion and fire at SCWW's plant. The incident triggered a county finding that the company violated state hazardous waste regulations as well as a criminal indictment.
The county declined to seek administrative penalties over SCWW's storage of Petromax, instead deferring to the district attorney's prosecution of the company on a felony indictment. The lack of an administrative hearing on whether Petromax is hazardous was a denial of due process, the company argued.
But the county was within its rights to assist and defer to the district attorney because “that is what many enforcement agencies are mandated to do,” the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District said.
SCWW also admitted its purpose was “to gain advantage in the criminal prosecution against it by silencing” the county, and that violated the county's free speech rights, the court said.
Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert wrote the opinion, joined by Justices Steven Z. Perren and Martin J. Tangeman.
Musick, Peeler & Garrett represented SCWW.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124436022&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124436022&jd=124436022
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EPA Renews Pledge To Issue Perchlorate Rule After Official Raised Doubts
Dec 4, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A lead member of EPA's water office staff reassured members of the agency's children's health advisory panel that officials will continue on their path toward regulating the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate in drinking water, despite a suggestion from a top agency office last month that raised questions in some stakeholders' minds.
Asked if not issuing a rule on perchlorate is an option at this point, Eric Burneson told the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) at a Nov. 29 meeting that “What the statute says is that the agency having made a regulatory determination, has to proceed toward proposing and promulgating within that time frame. The statute doesn't envision the agency changing its mind” on a determination that a drinking water contaminant should be regulated.
“I can't say more than that,” Burneson, director of Standards and Risk Management within EPA's office of ground water and drinking water, said in response to a question from Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director for Environmental Defense Fund and a CHPAC member. My reading of the law is, once you make a regulatory determination, you have to issue an MCLG, or you have to issue a drinking water a rule.”
Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson made a formal determination in February 2011 that perchlorate should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
But the agency has since struggled to develop scientific analysis that would underpin such a regulation. While SDWA gives the agency two years to propose a rule once a determination is made, the agency has yet to do so.
The delay led to litigation from environmentalists, who won a series of court-ordered deadlines. But the agency has already missed the first deadline, which required it to complete a peer review of a model intended to inform where to set such a drinking water standard, by Oct. 18.
EPA late last month announced that it will be holding a second peer review on the model in January.
In the face of such delays and difficulties in developing scientific tools, EPA's acting water chief Michael Shapiro reportedly suggested at the annual meeting of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), in Norfolk, VA, last month that the agency could still decide not to regulate the chemical, according to at least two attendees at the meeting.
“It was a very subtle comment,” one source who attended the meeting tells Inside EPA. “This was unprompted, it was [Shapiro's] rundown on perchlorate, he said, 'If we regulate,' here's the time line.”
But Burneson's comments and discussions with CHPAC suggested the agency continues to examine the issue.
After updating CHPAC members on the history and status of the ongoing scientific analyses on perchlorate risks, Burneson took questions from the panel, including some regarding the variety of exposure sources of perchlorate and the cost-benefit analysis that EPA must produce before finalizing any regulation.
One CHPAC member, Deanna Scher, an epidemiologist with Minnesota's Department of Health, noted that a technology called reverse osmosis is used to treat drinking water containing perchlorate but it is “really expensive type of treatment especially for smaller [drinking water] systems. . . . Will the MCL really be much [stricter] given feasibility and cost factors?”
Burneson acknowledged “there are concerns, particularly within the small systems community.” But he said that perchlorate can also be treated with another, cheaper technologies including ion exchange.
And he reminded Scher that EPA will undertake an extensive cost-benefit analysis before finalizing the rule. “The administrator must make a determination that the benefits justify the costs,” he said. “If [the costs are not met] at the lowest level, the administrator may set [the standard] at a higher level where the costs justify the benefits.”
Former Toxics Chief
Steve Owens, a CHPAC member who served as EPA's toxics chief in the early years of the Obama administration, asked Burneson whether he and staff are working with colleagues in the pesticides office on the issue. Perchlorate can form under certain conditions in bleach that is stored for use as a disinfectant in drinking water systems and also in food production and preparation. The food uses are regulated by EPA's pesticides office under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
Owens noted a similar issue that arose during his tenure with a fumigant pesticide known as sulfuryl fluoride, he said “90-something percent” of exposures came from sources other than the pesticide, such as drinking water fluoridation. “Have you had those kind of discussions within EPA or across agency lines . . . are there other things that other offices or agencies might do to help control exposures?” Owens asked.
Burenson reminded CHPAC that part of OW's analysis includes drinking water's relative contribution of sources of exposure. In the case of perchlorate, EPA has very good data on these sources of exposure from the Food and Drug Administration's Total Diet Study. OW's default assumes that 20 percent of exposure comes from drinking water, with food and other sources representing 80 percent of exposure. But in perchlorate's case, there is sufficient data to allow EPA to estimate relative source contribution specific to perchlorate, Burneson said.
“We'll continue to work with our colleagues from FDA. . . . There are a variety of reasons that they're interested in perchlorate exposures as well. . . . As you know from your time at the agency, everybody has a different legal authority . . . and FDA has their own limits and steps they can take. They're aware of the issue and we're continuing to work with them,” Burneson said.
“So you're having to clean up water to address issues in food?” asked Neltner, who noted that FDA's latest Total Diet Study, released last year, indicates perchlorate “exposure has gone up in infants by 33 percent” over the previous version of the study, published in 2007.
“I didn't say that,” Burneson replied. He also noted that FDA's food basket study does not include drinking water sources.
Neltner also noted that perchlorate is just one of several environmental contaminants that can cause neurodevelopmental harm by impairing the thyroid's ability to properly uptake iodine. “When you adopt a standard, do you consider the fact that nitrates and isocyanates and other things can also affect the same mechanism?” he asked Burneson.
Burneson replied that EPA's analysis “No, the analysis focuses on perchlorate impacts. We take into account, obviously low iodide intake.”
But Burneson added that many of the studies EPA is incorporating into its analyses “are ecologic studies of the population and so presumably we are capturing people who are similarly exposed to these other goitrogens we are accounting for it. . . . But the data [necessary for modeling] doesn't allow us to consider other [goitrogens].”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-renews-pledge-issue-perchlorate-rule-after-official-raised-doubts
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Industry, Environmentalists Spar Over Perchlorate Peer Review Documents
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Environmentalists and industry stakeholders are sparring over documents that EPA prepared for a second round of peer review of the model intended to assist the agency in setting a drinking water goal for the rocket fuel perchlorate -- even as the agency has failed to meet its first court ordered deadline for doing so.
The Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council are faulting EPA for not estimating the number of pregnant women or children that could be affected by exposure to perchlorate in their drinking water, arguing the numbers affected could be in the thousands or tens of thousands.
Industry, however, maintains that EPA's modeling and analysis show that perchlorate exposure is occurring at levels too low to cause adverse effects.
EPA has focused on the potential for neurodevelopmental effects on the children of iodine deficient women exposed to perchlorate because of its unusually well understood mode of action. The chemical inhibits the body's uptake of iodine, a nutrient essential to normal thyroid function. If this is disrupted too greatly for too long, the result can be neurodevelopmental and other effects, such as a goiter.
"EPA's scientists . . . predicted that a dose of 0.3-0.4 [micrograms perchlorate per kilogram bodyweight per day (ug/kg/day)] is associated with a 1% increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia; and 2.1-2.2 ug perchorate/kg/day is associated with a 5% increase in pregnant women with hypothyroxinemia. While these percentages appear small, they represent a significant number of potentially affected children since neurodevelopmental harm is likely irreversible. EPA did not estimate the number of pregnant women or children potentially affected. We did," the environmental groups say in Nov. 19 comments.
The environmental groups say that of the 4 million children born each year in the United States, an estimated 400,000 were born to women with hypothyroxinemia, a condition that can be due to relative iodine deficiency. "A 1% shift in the population of women with hypothyroxinemia associated with perchlorate exposure would correspond to an increase of 4,000 impacted children; if there is a 5% shift, the number of children born to hypothyroxinemic mothers would increase to 20,000 impacted children," the comments say.
But Nov. 20 comments from the Perchlorate Study Group (PSG), which represents makers and users of perchlorate, argues EPA's modeling is overly conservative. PSG says EPA has improved its biologically based dose response (BBDR) model, which is intended to inform the perchlorate drinking water standard, but concludes the model is still unready for regulatory use.
'Extremely Unlikely'
"[V]arious model inputs are overly conservative and, as a result, the model predicts potential impacts from perchlorate exposure that are extremely unlikely," PSG says in its comments. "While using conservative inputs may be best practice for conducting environmental risk assessments, it is not best practice for model development."
But even with these inputs that PSG faults, "the model buttresses the conclusion that no adverse health effects occur from perchlorate exposure levels found in the environment, which are generally less than 4 [parts per billion (ppb)]. In clinical studies, no measurable effects occur with perchlorate exposures of 245 ppb or less," the industry group says.
The comments from the environmental groups and PSG respond to documents EPA prepared for its peer review of how best to use the outputs of the BBDR model for perchlorate. EPA, in a Federal Register notice published Nov. 28, announced the peer review has been scheduled for Jan. 29-30 in Arlington, VA. The peer review will be managed by contractor Versar, and follows an earlier peer review of the model itself held last January.
EPA scientists developed the BBDR model with colleagues at the Food and Drug Administration at the urging of a Science Advisory Board panel, which in 2013 recommended that EPA use the novel model-based approach to provide the most scientific basis for a perchlorate drinking water goal. The recommendation, however, resulted in an approach that took far longer to develop than anticipated.
Environmentalists sued EPA last year, arguing that the agency had missed a statutory deadline for proposing a drinking water goal for perchlorate, following former Administrator Lisa Jackson's 2011 determination that perchlorate should be regulated.
Under a settlement between environmentalists and EPA that laid out a series of deadlines for agency action, EPA was to have completed the peer review process for the BBDR model by Oct. 18.
But in an Oct. 30 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, EPA said it had missed the Oct. 18 deadline "due to the complexity of unanticipated revisions to the BBDR model that were recommended by the first peer review panel. . . . Although time-consuming, EPA concluded that following these recommendations would result in a more scientifically rigorous model."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-environmentalists-spar-over-perchlorate-peer-review-documents
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EPA Allies Warn Of Toxics, Enforcement Cuts To Fight FY18 Spending Plan
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmentalists and other EPA allies are trying to fight major proposed fiscal year 2018 funding cuts for the agency by warning of the adverse health and environmental impacts that the cuts would have in scrapping a key toxic risk assessment program and significantly cutting enforcement, among other scaled-back programs.
“The Senate and House have done plenty of damage, and we want to bring that to the attention of the public,” Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Elgie Holstein said in a Dec. 1 teleconference on Congress' EPA budget legislation, joined by former Department of Justice (DOJ) environmental crime chief David Uhlmann and former National Association of Clean Air Agencies executive director William Becker.
The latest EDF led effort appears to focus particular attention on broad toxic pollution and enforcement issues and potential risks to communities likely to be grasped most immediately by the public, as the agency's supporters aim to make the case for opposing the proposed budget cuts.
EDF the same day released a briefing paper discussing the “the quiet assault” on EPA's operating budget, as contained in draft Senate EPA spending bill language. The Senate language is not expected to ever be marked up in the upper chamber's appropriations panel but serves as the best available marker of the Senate's position in final FY18 budget talks.
The fate of EPA's final FY18 budget is in the hands of lawmakers and Trump administration negotiators, amid indications Congress will approve a two-week stop gap funding extension to buy time to reconcile sharply different proposed spending levels for the agency floated by President Donald Trump, and House and Senate lawmakers pushing cuts to the agency less than the 31 percent Trump is seeking.
EPA is currently funded at $8.05 billion and Trump has proposed cutting it down to $5.65 billion, while the House would reduce it to $7.4 billion and the Senate would fund EPA at $7.91 billion.
Although the Senate and House FY18 spending proposals would cut EPA's funding far less than Trump's proposal, they have already encountered criticism -- including from former EPA officials who say they include massive cuts to “core” EPA programs for protecting health and the environment.
IRIS Funding
Holstein on the Nov. 30 conference call cited the threats to a key EPA chemical risk review and program and enforcement, adding that now is a “critical time” to draw attention to proposed Hill budgets that could harm communities even though lawmakers might tout their efforts to resist Trump's more severe cuts. Such harms including the potential for more “code red days” with poor air quality, and threats to water supplies, he said.
More specifically, the EDF briefing paper cites as its first complaint about the draft Senate proposal a provision that would eliminate a seemingly small agency program in comparative terms -- the $15 million Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), even as it lists of an array of other cuts to clean air water and other programs that range from 10 percent reductions to total elimination.
EDF notes that IRIS provides “foundational assessments of chemical toxicity” that inform agency actions “to protect American families from everyday chemicals around their homes and in their communities.” IRIS assessments are often used as the basis for EPA rulemakings.
Holstein said on the call if the IRIS program is killed, “decades long unquestioned scientific leadership” would be lost.
And the group further argues that, “The relatively modest program cost suggests that the impetus for destroying it has more to do with pleasing the chemical industry than with achieving budget savings.” The paper couples that critique with a swipe at a proposed 10 percent reduction for EPA's chemical safety research program.
The Trump administration in May suggested it might preserve a smaller version of the agency's influential but often controversial IRIS program, which had been slated for elimination in an early budget memo, signaling the program will be devoted in part to assessing substances under the revised toxics law and other mandatory regulatory programs.
Enforcement Cuts
The EDF document highlights as its second issue after the chemical concerns a proposed 10 percent top line reduction in EPA's enforcement office, noting that the number of criminal investigators EPA now has is already over 50 short of a statutorily required 200 in the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.
“By reducing the office's budget further, Senate Republicans are tacitly reassuring polluters that they will not be firmly held to standards set forth by laws that were instituted to keep communities safe,” the paper says.
Former DOJ official David Uhlmann during the call delved into the threat the budget poses to criminal enforcement while articulating the broader concern among EPA's defenders that the ongoing budget process appears to guarantee some significant and damaging EPA cuts.“The [Trump] EPA budget process is playing out exactly according to script,” Uhlmann added, referencing the Trump administration proposal for an over 30 percent EPA cut that makes a final proposal appear “measured.”
Uhlmann on the issue of criminal enforcement called Pruitt “all talk and no hat,” given enforcement cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
Even under EPA's current budget “EPA has no criminal investigators in 16 of the 50 United States, and only one criminal investigator in a dozen more,” he said.
Holstein said that the draft Senate language also appears imply a 40 percent cut in many key enforcement functions, given the need to make agency payroll despite proposed cuts. That critique echoes criticism from former EPA enforcement chief Cynthia Giles in recent analysis obtained by Inside EPA.
Still, some states are welcoming what they as EPA giving them more authority over enforcement. The Environmental Council of the States' outgoing executive director says a recent EPA letter announcing the agency's Region 7 will defer more heavily to states on enforcement inspections and other work could bolster EPA's push for “cooperative federalism” that seeks to elevate states' authority over environmental protection.
FY18 Proposals
The EDF document also flags an array of other cuts for concern, including 10 percent cuts to EPA's clean air program, water research and environmental justice program.
Becker during the call slammed a rider included in the Senate budget language that would postpone the implementation of EPA's 2015 70 parts per billion ozone standard by roughly a decade. “No case has been made to do this,” Becker said, calling such a delay a threat to public health and welfare.
He also criticized what he called a possible “shell game” on state grants during the budget negotiations, raising concern that a “modest” Senate proposal to boost state grants by $10 million would be undone by other plans under to cut targeted air shed grants and grants for cleanup of diesel truck pollution, as well as talk that grant programs might be used to fund some disaster relief.
More broadly Holstein and Uhlmann cited EPA's current budget as woefully inadequate. “EPA . . . has the same resources today in real dollars that it did four decades ago during the 1970s when it had far less responsibility and far less was known about the public health impacts of pollution,” Uhlmann said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-allies-warn-toxics-enforcement-cuts-fight-fy18-spending-plan
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EWG, American Oversight Demand Answers on Dourson’s Work at EPA
Dec 1, 2017 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
WASHINGTON – Nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight and the Environmental Working Group today announced a joint investigation to determine if controversial toxicologist Michael Dourson has violated ethics rules in his work as a top advisor to Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dourson, a toxicology professor who previously ran a scientific consulting group that performed and reviewed chemical safety studies on behalf of industry clients, was nominated by President Trump to run the EPA’s office overseeing chemical safety and pollution prevention. With Dourson’s confirmation in doubt following strong opposition from the environmental and scientific communities, Pruitt hired Dourson as a senior advisor in October – a role that doesn’t need Senate approval – allowing him to begin work at the agency.
“Michael Dourson working at the EPA raises every red flag imaginable for potential conflicts of interest and inappropriate influence by the very companies that the agency regulates,” said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight. “Michael Dourson has been at the EPA for more than a month, and if he’s been using his position to help his old clients in the chemical industry, the public needs to know before the Senate votes on his confirmation.”
“Letting Dourson anywhere near the levers of power at EPA responsible for protecting the public from toxic chemicals is akin to turning over the American Lung Association to a tobacco executive,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at EWG. “If he’s now doing the bidding for chemical companies inside EPA, the American people and the Senate deserve to know.”
Dourson and his group Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, or TERA, which gets 30 to 40 percent of its funding to produce studies for the chemical industry, have advocated for chemical safety standards that are hundreds, even thousands of times weaker than what independent scientists and the EPA consider to be safe.
In a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed this week, American Oversight and EWG asked the EPA to release documents including Dourson’s calendar, his correspondence with companies such as Dow Chemical and Monsanto, and any communications with outside consultants assisting with his confirmation process.
https://www.ewg.org/release/ewg-american-oversight-demand-answers-dourson-s-work-epa#.WiU6E_mWaUk
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Fracking Ban in Delaware Basin Falls Short, Environmentalists Say
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas and Rebecca Kern
Oil and gas companies could still use water from the Delaware River Basin to hydraulically fracture wells elsewhere and ship contaminated water back, despite a fracking ban proposed for parts of four states, environmental groups said.
While the Delaware River Basin Commission proposedlate Nov. 30 to ban fracking in portions of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, the draft regulations do not do enough to protect water from contamination, the advocates said.
“It makes no sense to ban fracking and allow frack waste to be dumped in the watershed,” Maya K. van Rossum, head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said in a statement that nonetheless called the proposed ban “a monumental victory.”
Environmental groups said they want the regulations to ban the use of water for fracking and storage of the wastewater, which includes chemicals as well as salts, metals, radionuclides, and hydrocarbons from the target rock formation. Natural gas is produced from fracking in the part of Pennsylvania west of the basin, the Marcellus and Utica formations. Large volumes of water are used in the process.
The industry panned the proposal, arguing it would harm the region's economy.
“These proposed regulations amount to a taking and deny Pennsylvania citizens the right to develop their own property rights,” Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer told Bloomberg Environment Dec. 1 in a statement. “It flies in the face of settled science and common sense environmental regulation, and would bring self-inflicted economic harm to the Commonwealth.”
Outright Ban?
While the proposal would discourage exporting water for fracking elsewhere and subsequently importing wastewater to be stored in the basin, environmental groups want to see that practice banned outright.
“A comprehensive ban on fracking in the Delaware River basin means no drilling, no disposal or storage of toxic fracking waste, and no water withdrawals to drilling companies,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement Nov. 30.
The proposed regulations would apply to the 13,539-square-mile river basin. They also would govern the use, management, and disposal of water from fracking operations. If implemented, the rules would make permanent a de facto moratorium on fracking in the basin that has been in place since 2010.
Four hearings will be held at the end of January in Waymart, Pa., and in Philadelphia, according to a notice posted on the commission website. Written comments will be accepted through Feb. 28, 2018, the Delaware River Basin Commission said.
The commission is a five-member agency that includes the governors of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who serves as the federal representative.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124436018&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124436018&jd=124436018
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Fracking Helps New Mexico Leapfrog California as Oil Producer
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Tuttle
New Mexico became the third-biggest U.S. oil-producing state in September, passing more traditional powerhouses California and Oklahoma, thanks to a fracking boom in the western section of the Permian Basin.
Producers including Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and EOG Resources Inc. have been crossing from Texas into the less-expensive New Mexico portion of the Permian. That's caused the state's output to climb at the same time that one-time oil giant California has collapsed. Oklahoma's production tapered off after oil prices tumbled in 2014.
New Mexico's output now ranks behind just Texas and North Dakota, according to the latest monthly datafrom the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state's production rose 9.3 percent to 505,000 barrels a day in September, more than double the level from nine years ago.
Drilling rigs on the New Mexican side of the Permian have also increased 25 percent in the past six months, while they have fallen 2 percent in Texas, according to data compiled by Drillinginfo Inc., an Austin, Texas-based industry consultant.
—With assistance from David Wethe.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124436026&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124436026&jd=124436026
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U.S. Vastly Overstates Oil Output Forecasts, MIT Study Suggests
Dec 4, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jim Polson and Tim Loh
Turns out, America's decade-long shale boom might just end up being a little too good to be true.
There's no denying that fracking has turned the U.S. into a force in the global oil and gas markets, which has more than a few people abuzz about the prospect of energy independence.
But now, researchers at MIT have uncovered one potentially game-changing detail: a flaw in the Energy Department's official forecast, which may vastly overstate oil and gas production in the years to come.
The culprit, they say, lies in the Energy Information Administration's premise that better technology has been behind nearly all the recent output gains, and will continue to boost production for the foreseeable future. That's not quite right. Instead, the research suggests increases have been largely due to something more mundane: low energy prices, which led drillers to focus on sweet spots where oil and gas are easiest to extract.
“The EIA is assuming that productivity of individual wells will continue to rise as a result of improvements in technology,” said Justin B. Montgomery, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the study's authors. “This compounds year after year, like interest, so the further out in the future the wells are drilled, the more that they are being overestimated.”
‘Same Dynamic’
Extrapolating from field studies Montgomery and his colleague Francis O'Sullivan conducted in North Dakota's Bakken shale deposit, the research suggests that total U.S. oil and natural-gas production from new wells could undershoot the EIA estimate by more than 10 percent in 2020. Things would get progressively worse each year after that as wells in various sweet spots are exhausted and technology fails to close the gap.
“The same forecasting methods are used in other plays in the U.S., and the same dynamic is likely to be present,” Montgomery added.
Margaret Coleman, the EIA's leader of oil, gas and biofuels exploration and production analysis, said in an email “the study raises valid points” and the administration is looking at ways to give its estimates a tighter focus. She added that many shale fields lack the detailed well data that informed the MIT study, which means EIA forecasters have to use known geologic information and assumptions about prices and technology to come up with estimates.
There's little doubt the technologies used to extract oil and—natural gas trapped within rock formations thousands of feet below the Earth's surface—like drill heads, mapping software, fracking techniques and so on—have gotten better. And intuitively, it makes a lot of sense that better methods have boosted U.S. shale output and helped lead to new finds.
“It's really hard to bet against the ability of the industry to improve and get more out of the rock,” said Manuj Nikhanj, co-chief executive officer of RS Energy Group.
Undisputed Leader?
Just last month, International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said shale production will make the U.S. the “undisputed leader of global oil and gas markets for decades to come.”
But if the MIT researchers are ultimately right, the implications could be significant.
In the past three years, oil prices have been stuck around $50 a barrel on the back of rising shale output in the U.S., while natural gas has been selling for an average of less than $3 per million British thermal units. (As recently as 2014, prices for both were twice as high.)
Not only could a slowdown in production mean higher energy prices, but it also might just mark the end of the U.S. shale industry's role as the one swing producer able to counter OPEC's might. The shale boom has repeatedly frustrated the Saudi-led cartel's attempts to control oil prices.
As recently as 2015, OPEC tried to pump its U.S. rivals out of business, only to blink after shale drillers adapted by reducing costs. On Thursday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies agreed to maintain oil-output cuts through 2018, extending a campaign to wrest back the global market from America's shale industry.
Power Struggle
President Donald Trump himself has talked up “energy dominance” as a key policy, with U.S. oil and gas helping supply the world's power needs.
Of course, the MIT researchers aren't the first to question the projected growth of U.S. shale. Analysts have long debated varying methods used to predict output. And unsurprisingly, the Saudis have cast doubt on how long the shale boom can last. Even billionaire oilman Harold Hamm recently slammed what he considered EIA's “exaggerated” forecasts, saying they're depressing U.S. oil prices. (After all, higher prices are better for the bottom line.)
Yet MIT's findings stand out by providing some evidence that backs those assertions. The problem with the EIA's numbers, the researchers say, is that they give drillers too much credit for coming up with ways to improve fracking.
While the EIA's model assumes that technical advances—such as well length and the amounts of water and sand used in fracking—increase output at new wells by roughly 10 percent each year, MIT findings from the Bakken region suggest it's closer to 6.5 percent, according to Montgomery.
Increasing productivity of each new well matters because it's the only way to boost output. Typically, production drops precipitously soon after a well is tapped. The EIA recently estimated about half of U.S. oil output came from wells two or fewer years old.
Field of Dreams
So even though output in the Bakken more than tripled from 2012 to mid-2015 on a per-well basis, MIT's research suggests the main reason is that shale companies abandoned iffier fields to drill in the best acreage following the slump in energy prices. The trend is evident in local North Dakota statistics. Output in still-booming McKenzie County has held steady while neighboring Williams and Mountrail counties have experienced declines.
“There certainly could be some validity to getting a rosier forecast because right now, the industry is working sweet spots,” said Dave Yoxtheimer, a hydrogeologist at Penn State University's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research. “When that's all played out, they're going to have to go to the tier-two acreage, which isn't going to be as productive.”
Indeed, some signs of a slowdown have started to emerge. Gas output in the Marcellus basin has fallen 10 percent on a per-rig basis since reaching a high in September 2016. In the Permian, per-rig oil production has decreased almost 20 percent over a similar span.
Richard Bereschik knows firsthand that shale isn't a sure thing.
The bearded, burly superintendent of schools in Wellsville, Ohio—a small, Rust Belt community located along the western bank of the Ohio River—recalls the rush he and other townsfolk experienced when Chesapeake Energy Corp. came through some six years ago, leasing out huge tracts of property for development.
Wellsville sits atop the Marcellus and Utica shale formations and is only 20 miles from a concentration of sweet spots, but Bereschik says Chesapeake stopped renewing leases after the bottom fell out in prices.
“Everyone thought we'd found a goose that laid the golden egg,” Bereschik said. But ultimately, “it's not the boom we all expected.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=124436027&vname=dennotallissues&fn=124436027&jd=124436027
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TGP's Orion NatGas Pipeline Project Cleared to Begin Service
Dec 4, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (TGP) has received authorization from FERC to place into service the Orion Project, a looping project on its 300 Line designed to serve increasing natural gas demand in the Mid-Atlantic and New England.
Based on a Nov. 15 field report and TGP's biweekly status reports, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that TGP "has adequately stabilized areas disturbed by construction and that restoration is proceeding satisfactorily," according to a FERC order issued Thursday [CP16-4].
FERC initially approved plans for the 135,000 Dth/d expansion in February. TGP estimated that the project would cost $143 million.
The Orion Project includes constructing a 36-inch, 8.23-mile pipeline loop along the 300 Line in Wayne and Pike counties, PA (Loop 322); constructing a 36-inch diameter, 4.68-mile loop along the 300 Line in Pike County (Loop 323); and installing appurtenant and auxiliary facilities.
South Jersey Resources Group LLC, South Jersey Gas Co., and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. have signed up for all of the project's capacity, according to the Kinder Morgan Inc. pipeline's filing at FERC.
Environmental groups have sought to block the project. In August, an appellate court panel in Philadelphia ruled against two Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN) challenges to Orion. DRN argued that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection erred when it issued water quality certification permits for the project in 2016 and approved stream and wetland crossings earlier this year.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112615-tgps-orion-natgas-pipeline-project-cleared-to-begin-service
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U.S. Shale Gas to Travel North Via TransCanada's Bidirectional Iroquois Pipeline
Dec 1, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
A new eastern path will open for Canadian imports of shale gas from the United States -- potentially straight to the national capital, Ottawa -- as a result of a pipeline direction switch approved by the National Energy Board (NEB).
The ruling authorizes TransCanada Corp. to convert the Iroquois Pipeline border crossing between eastern Ontario and New York from a one-way Canadian export path into a bidirectional trade service.
The approved package also includes meter facilities to enable growth of deliveries by the TransCanada network into the Ottawa region in Enbridge Gas Distribution's franchise territory covering Toronto and eastern Ontario.
The Iroquois line has potential to become the third northbound path for U.S. shale gas into Canada, adding to flows across southwestern Ontario via Union Gas's Dawn storage and trading hub and TransCanada's Niagara Falls border crossings.
TransCanada told the NEB that three distribution companies and a marketer subscribe to capacity on the reversible Iroquois link. "The Iroquois Project will increase the diversity and flexibility of transportation routes available to shippers,” said Enbridge Gas.
Enbridge Gas and Union, Canada’s biggest distribution companies, evolved into active cross-border traders as U.S. shale production and exports grew, using permits granted by the NEB and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Trade scorecards recorded by the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy credit the two Ontario distributors with 131.8 Bcf of U.S. gas exports during 2016. The scale and pace of added Lower 48 exports along the new Iroquois path remain unknown, depending on unpredictable developments in the United States, as well as Canadian market conditions.
Until recently TransCanada forecasts called for 400 MMcf/d of new U.S. exports via the modified Iroquois border crossing as early as 2018. However, predictions were suspended after New York officials foiled a trading strategy called SoNo, short for south-to-north, by denying environmental approval to a shale gas supply project, Constitution Pipeline. The plan's fate remains tied up in court.
Questions about the Iroquois trading path's potential were also raised in the last natural gas market review conducted by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).
"By 2021, U.S. supplies -- primarily from the Marcellus and Utica basins -- will meet some 74% of Ontario demand," said an OEB staff report. "Increased access to northeast U.S. shale gas via enhanced pipeline infrastructure will raise the share of total Ontario gas demand met from shale gas originating in the U.S. northeast from 0.4 Bcf/d to 2.0 Bcf/d between 2015 and 2021."
Union raised doubts that the key ingredient of SoNo, a Constitution Pipeline gas supply link to Iroquois at Waddington in central New York State, would ever mature into a rival for the Dawn complex near the western Ontario border with Michigan.
"Even if SoNo proceeds, Waddington is likely to become only a seasonal supply point, with potential flows into Ontario only during the summer and shoulder months," said Union. "Pipeline flows from Ontario into New York through Waddington are expected to continue during winter months, even if Waddington becomes a supply point for Ontario during summer months."
Uncertainties raised by the Iroquois gas flow flexibility case included a lesson in the power of aboriginal and environmental resistance to delay even modest, routine pipeline construction.
The Iroquois bidirectional conversion plus the two Ottawa service improvements only cost C$18 million ($14.4 million). All the property affected by construction belongs to TransCanada except for a government parking lot the project will use briefly. But aboriginal intervention stretched the standard-form application into a complex case lasting 10 months. The approval took until three weeks after TransCanada's original Nov. 1, 2017 target for putting the pipeline service improvements into service.
The project ran into a 14,062-square-mile land claim by the Algonquins of Ontario that includes Ottawa and its home of Canada’s federal government, Parliament Hill. The NEB and TransCanada had to hear out and respond to demands, unsuccessful but vigorous, for expensive concessions ranging from fresh historical resources surveys to special native oversight of eastern Ontario pipeline facilities paid for by the company.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112600-us-shale-gas-to-travel-north-via-transcanadas-bidirectional-iroquois-pipeline
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Panel To Suss Out Gaps In DOE Cyber Role
Dec 4, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Lawmakers are set to check up on the Energy Department's cybersecurity responsibilities at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this week.
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations plans to root out any weaknesses in DOE and private-sector cyber capabilities amid a "growing threat" from hackers, according to a press release.
Two years ago, Congress granted DOE additional authority over electric utilities during a major grid emergency, via provisions of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015. The agency also serves as the main government point of contact for power companies threatened by hackers.
Earlier this year, the full Energy and Commerce Committee heard from electric-sector representatives on threats facing their industry, including two cyberattacks that briefly knocked down portions of Ukraine's power grid in 2015 and again in 2016 (E&E Daily, Feb. 2).
Panelists at Friday's hearing will likely share takeaways from those attacks, as well as lessons learned from recent cyber intrusions targeting nuclear power companies in the U.S.
The Oversight Subcommittee currently lacks a permanent chairman, but Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) is favored to claim that title (E&E Daily, Nov. 17).
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), currently acting as vice chairman, spoke out at a hearing last week on the need for new strategies to protect U.S. citizens from cyberattacks following massive data breaches at credit reporting firm Equifax Inc., ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc. and the Office of Personnel Management.
He will likely press any witnesses from DOE on Friday on the agency's efforts to block hackers from accessing and leaking sensitive information.
As "an increasing amount of commerce takes place online, it also creates significant challenges for organizations attempting to ensure that they provide information and services only to authorized individuals," Griffith said in an opening statement Thursday.
Schedule: The hearing is Friday, Dec. 8, at 10 a.m. in 366 Dirksen.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/12/04/stories/1060067913
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'Forced Access' Would Jeopardize Rail Revenues, Upkeep
Dec 3, 2017 | Clarion Ledger
By Gene F. McGee
With so many of states hit hard by recent hurricanes, our thoughts and prayers go out to those suffering in their aftermath. Events like these awaken our compassion and empathy as we do what we can to help.
Events like these also tend to refocus us on the basics and what it takes to maintain our quality of life, including effective institutions and infrastructure we can rely upon. This takes forethought and significant investment.
Here in Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Transportation has said it cannot keep up with our infrastructure needs under current levels of funding. Nationally, the needs of our roads and bridges are well-documented.
As local, state and federal policymakers make necessary but tough choices to fund these fixes, one transportation mode, and its policy model, stand out as a leader. America’s private freight railroads provide enormous public benefits — from economic development and jobs to less congestion and cleaner skies.
These public benefits are possible because of freight railroads’ forward-thinking commitment to funding infrastructure and operations. They’ve invested over $635 billion of private capital since 1980 into maintaining and expanding the nationwide rail lines that connect businesses, agriculture, consumers and others to the global economy.
Steady infrastructure spending has made America’s railroads the safest, most efficient and most affordable way to move goods. Shippers today can move twice as much today for roughly the same rate as in 1980, adjusted for inflation.
Today’s freight rail renaissance began in 1980 when Congress partially deregulated railroads, freeing them to operate like other businesses rather than complying with government mandates. This decision allowed rail companies to earn enough money to make the massive investments necessary to maintain and expand their nationwide network.
Despite the gains of this balanced policy framework, some regulators in Washington are indulging the wishes of a handful of the nation’s largest shipping companies by proposing a rule that would force railroads to share their privately owned tracks with other railroads.
The Surface Transportation Board has proposed new regulations “to improve the availability of reciprocal switching.” A shipper seeking reciprocal switching must show the arrangement is “practicable and in the public interest” or “necessary to provide competitive rail service.” The STB would then make its findings based on evidence the shipper and railroad present.
It’s been estimated about similar “forced access” proposals that the policy would jeopardize $8 billion in rail revenue, a massive amount that could massively undercut rail’s ability to continue investing at current levels.
If railroads aren’t able to invest in infrastructure, the loss in efficiency and reliability would harm companies and communities across the country who depend on railroads to connect them to markets here and abroad. Rail unions have also expressed concerns that less spending would dent safety. Forced access is shortsighted, cutting against not only the progress that has been made since 1980 but also against the needs of the nation.
Strong infrastructure is an important part of a strong country. I hope policymakers in Washington focus on how critical rail infrastructure is to this country and heed the lessons of the past, rejecting calls for overregulation and allowing railroads to continue to earn enough to make needed investments.
Gene F. McGee is the mayor of Ridgeland.
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/12/03/rail-travel-in-jeopardy-with-forced-access-policy-change/910835001/
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Citizens Urge High Court To Reject Air Law 'Contingency' Measures Case
Dec 1, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Arizona citizens are urging the Supreme Court to reject the state's request for the court to hear its appeal of a ruling that said it cannot count existing air pollution controls as new “contingency measures” required to cut emissions under the Clean Air Act, saying there is no appellate split on the issue that would justify high court review.
In a Nov. 30 brief in State of Arizona v. Sandra L. Bahr, et al., citizens who challenged the state's use of pre-existing contingency measures in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit say that the high court should not now grant review of the appeals court's decision. The lower court found that Arizona cannot count as contingency measures steps such as paving roads it has already taken to curb particulate matter (PM) pollution.
Contingency measures are required when areas miss air law deadlines to achieve progress in meeting national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), but the precise requirements differ according to the pollutant at issue. For example, for the ozone air standard, contingency measures are linked to “milestones” measuring progress, but there is no such requirement for the PM standard, citizens say.
EPA in the case opposes high court review, even after it fought to allow Arizona's contingency measures in appellate litigation. Arizona in earlier filings in the high court action claims that the agency's true goal in changing its position is to restrict the application of the 9th Circuit's ruling to the part of the country under that court's jurisdiction, in line with the agency's “regional consistency” policy. The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
The policy allows the agency to pursue different policies in different judicial circuits. This would avoid the possibility of an adverse ruling by the high court, Arizona alleges.
Arizona argues that the 9th Circuit's finding conflicts with a 2004 5th Circuit ruling in Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) v. EPA, which allowed certain contingency measures for ozone already taken by a state.
But citizens in their response say that case addressed a different pollutant -- ozone -- subject to different air law conditions, and further that the sequence of events was different. Further, citizens argue that there is, in general, a dearth of jurisprudence on the issue, and therefore the high court should not now consider the question.
The “issue here has virtually never been litigated,” they argue. Therefore, “review would be premature now because the provision at issue, and the key factual and legal distinctions that arise in its application, are completely undeveloped in the lower courts,” citizens say.
The case turns on air law language that requires states to craft state implementation plans (SIPs) for air law compliance that include contingency measures that are “to be undertaken” and “to take effect” under specified circumstances. The 9th Circuit held that such measures cannot include measures in place before the SIP is even submitted for EPA's approval, but that the measures must be separate and additional. Arizona counters that this unfairly penalizes states that proactively move to control their pollution.
Citizens say that there is no conflict with the 5th Circuit's LEAN ruling warranting review. “LEAN differed from this case in two critical respects. First, LEAN reached no conclusion on the question presented here, because its holding addressed whether contingency measures may be implemented before an attainment deadline. By contrast, the holding in this case concerned contingency measures implemented even before the SIP was submitted to or approved by EPA. “Second, LEAN relied on a different statutory provision that regulates a different pollutant (ozone), which is subject to a distinct regulatory scheme not at issue here,” citizens write.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/citizens-urge-high-court-reject-air-law-contingency-measures-case
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