Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 12/15/17
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Trump to Tackle Air Permitting Changes, Delay Lead Regulation
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz, Sam Pearson, Amena H. Saiyid, Abby Smith, Rebecca Kern, Jennifer Lu, Pat Rizzuto, Sylvia Carignan and Alan Kovski
The Trump administration highlighted the moves it made to cut regulations, but it also has delayed putting into effect many federal agencies’ planned environmental policies, including initiatives on lead in drinking water and chemical plant safety. -
White House Pledges To Step Up Push To Repeal EPA Regulations In 2018
Dec 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Touting successful efforts to repeal dozens of rules from EPA and other agencies in 2017, President Donald Trump and other top officials are pledging to step up such efforts in 2018, including calling for agencies to repeal three existing rules for every new measure issued... -
Senate Confirms 2 Nominees
Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA's political leadership ranks continue to grow after Senate action. -
Industry Group: US EPA Should Cede Workplace Hazard Regulation to Osha
Dec 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An industry group has argued that the US EPA should avoid issuing orders to mitigate workplace risks associated with new chemicals. Instead, it says, it should turn over that regulatory responsibility to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (Osha). -
(ACC Blog) More Misleading Stories From The New York Times
Dec 14, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
You may have seen a recent article in The New York Times that is the latest in a string of misleading stories about current and former ACC employees. -
(ACC Mentioned) Who's Next, With Embattled EPA Toxics Nominee Dourson Out?
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Wanted: Someone to run the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention with a history of leadership on chemicals, toxic substances or pesticides. Individuals with baggage need not apply. -
(ACC Mentioned) Another Trump Nominee Drops Out
Dec 14, 2017 | BuzzFeed News
By Zahra Hirji
EPA chemical safety nominee Michael Dourson, who has ties to the chemical industry and writes “science-Bible stories," has just withdrawn his nomination. He’s at least the 39th Trump nominee to drop out of consideration for federal government positions. -
Dourson Says Withdrawal Avoids 'Politicizing' EPA Mission
Dec 14, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to run EPA’s chemicals office to prevent the politicization of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s agenda, according to a letter Dourson wrote to President Donald Trump that was obtained by POLITICO. -
Trump’s Pick to Oversee Chemical Safety at EPA Withdraws
Dec 14, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko and Heidi Vogt
President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn his name from consideration. -
EPA Chemical Safety Nominee Drops Out Amid Strong Opposition
Dec 14, 2017 | Associated Press (In Business Insider)
By Michael Biesecker and Jill Colvin
President Donald Trump's pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn his nomination after bipartisan opposition made his Senate confirmation unlikely. -
EPA Mum on Whether Failed Trump Nominee is Still on the Job
Dec 15, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Jill Colvin
The Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to say whether President Donald Trump’s failed pick to oversee chemical safety will continue to work there as a senior adviser, a role that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. -
California Will Not List Coumarin as Prop 65 Carcinogen
Dec 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
California will not list coumarin, a fragrance ingredient sometimes derived from plants, under Proposition 65 as a carcinogen. -
N.Y. Will Sue EPA If Hudson River PCB Dredging Deemed Done
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Katherine Tam
New York State says it's prepared to withdraw from the 2002 Record of Decision that has guided the Hudson River polychlorinated biphenyls dredging if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems the cleanup as “complete,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) said in a Dec. 14 statement with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). -
Companies Drop Hazardous Substances Under EU Chemical Law
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Union's REACH regulation is leading companies to substitute the most hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives, even if it's cheaper to apply for authorization to continue using the hazardous substances. -
LNG Tanker Heading to Cove Point to Help Complete Commissioning Process
Dec 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is approaching Dominion's new export facility on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and was expected to dock there Thursday to assist with the commissioning process, according to analysts and three websites that track the movement and position of seafaring vessels. -
Time Running Out for Opponents of Arctic Drilling
Dec 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are running out of time and leverage. -
Living Near Fracking During Pregnancy Linked to Poorer Newborn Health
Dec 15, 2017 | Forbes
By Tara Haelle
The closer pregnant women live to fracking sites, the greater the potential health risks may be to their developing fetus, suggests a new study published in Science Advances December 13. -
Groups Sue Chemical Safety Board for Not Creating Incident-Reporting Rule
Dec 14, 2017 | Chem.info
By Meagan Parrish
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has become the target of a lawsuit for not creating national reporting system for safety incidents. -
California Passes New Plan to Hit Climate Change Goals
Dec 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California is counting on its greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program to deliver more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the state's 2030 climate goal under a plan approved Dec. 14. -
Exxon Mobil, BP, Others Face New Climate Change Suits
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC, and Chevron Corp. are some of the oil, coal and gas companies that face a new wave of climate change litigation. These latest cases are by California cities and counties alleging the energy producers’ emissions amount to public nuisances under state law. -
Environmentalists Warn EPA-Touted Deal With Exxon May Be Unlawful
Dec 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) says a proposed Clean Air Act settlement with ExxonMobil, that top EPA officials have touted as a sign of their commitment to enforcement, may be unlawful and may not achieve the emissions reductions Administrator Scott Pruitt and others officials have claimed. -
EPA Says It Has Authority To Issue Climate Regulations
Dec 14, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Emily Holden
EPA believes it has legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, according to the Trump administration's newly updated regulatory agenda, but in far more limited manner than the Obama-era EPA asserted.
Industry and Association News
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Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Trump to Tackle Air Permitting Changes, Delay Lead Regulation
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz, Sam Pearson, Amena H. Saiyid, Abby Smith, Rebecca Kern, Jennifer Lu, Pat Rizzuto, Sylvia Carignan and Alan Kovski
The Trump administration highlighted the moves it made to cut regulations, but it also has delayed putting into effect many federal agencies’ planned environmental policies, including initiatives on lead in drinking water and chemical plant safety.
The White House released its latest schedule for federal agencies’ regulatory actions Dec. 14.
It also issued new timetables for many environmental regulations that have been in the works for years, some dating back to the previous administration.
Climate Regulation
The Environmental Protection Agency's final rule repealing the Obama administration's first-time carbon controls for existing power plants is coming in October, according to the agenda. The agency also says it will “fully consider” all comments submitted on its advance notice slated for release this month taking input on replacement options.
The agency plans to move forward with rewriting Obama-era methane limits for new oil and gas drilling operations, with a proposal slated for August. The EPA plans to finalize in March a controversial proposed delay of that regulation of more than two years.
Drinking Water
The regulatory agenda revealed that the EPA's timetable for updating its standards on lead in drinking water have been pushed back yet again. The agency now expects to unveil a draft version of these new standards in August, rather than next month as it had previously planned. It plans on finalizing these new standards in February 2020.
This effort to strengthen standards on lead, a toxic heavy metal that can cause irreversible harm in children, has been in the works at the agency for years but has suffered setback after setback. Agency officials, as well as leaders at the country's more than 50,000 water utilities, have struggled to find a solution to the corroding lead piping that is still in wide use across the country.
If the agency sticks to its current timetable, the new lead regulations will go into effect almost exactly five years after the EPA first learned that lead levels in tap water at homes in Flint, Mich., had become dangerously high.
Endangered Species
The way the U.S. Fish and Wildlife places species on its endangered list will be revised, with a proposed rule set for next month. The wildlife service also will revise regulations on the way it designates critical habitat for those species, also starting with a proposed rule in January.
The Obama administration made some revisions to listing and habitat regulations but backed off from proposals that drew the strongest opposition among environmental advocates. The Trump administration might be less inclined to back off.
Also, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, an Interior agency focused on offshore energy regulation, will propose revisions to Obama-era well control and production safety regulations for oil and natural gas operations.
Energy Department
The Energy Department has put all of its Energy Conservation Program rulemakings for home and commercial appliances on ice, according to the fall unified regulatory agenda.
It has listed “To Be Determined” as the deadline for every energy efficiency standard and test procedure, a stark break from the previous 2017 from the Trump administration and agendas from the Obama administration, which listed estimated deadlines.
Industrial Safety
The EPA outlined its plans to replace Obama-era requirements for security at high-risk industrial facilities and plans to introduce a new set of requirements by April.
The Obama administration's rules introduced new mandates on emergency response, information sharing, and other disclosures for facilities in the EPA's risk management program. This includes the Arkema Inc. plant in Crosby, Texas, where chemicals exploded after Hurricane Harvey hit in August.
Air Pollution
The EPA did not give a deadline for its overdue decisions on which areas exceed its ozone air pollution standards. Those designations were due in October of this year, drawing lawsuits from states and advocacy groups.
The agency also plans to convene a working group to streamline the air pollution permitting process for new and expanded industrial facilities.
Chemicals Regulation
The public should get its first glance in February at the fees the EPA will charge chemical manufacturers for the agency's work determining whether their chemicals are safe.
By February, it will propose a new version of a rule that would cover a class of chemicals used to make many different types of products heat-, grease- and water-resistant.
As originally proposed in 2015, the rule would have required manufacturers, importers, and processors of long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate and perfluoroalkyl sulfonate chemicals to notify the agency before they began to make or use the chemicals in any new way. Some companies that import products with these persistent chemicals also would have been required to notify the agency, before importing those products.
Water Pollution
The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are in the midst of a multi-step process of rescinding and rewriting a rule defining the geographic reach of the Clean Water Act. The agencies have pushed back their initial schedule for the update. A proposed version is slated for May, instead of March, with a final rule in June 2019.
This rule rewrite is being followed by multiple industries that have to seek Clean Water Act permits to discharge pollution or dredge and fill wetlands and other waters to build homes, roads and erect power lines.
Waters and wetlands that fall under Clean Water Act jurisdiction are protected from pollution by various regulatory regimes, including federal permits, oil spill prevention requirements, and state water quality certifications.
Pipeline Safety
In the regulatory agenda, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration notified the public of a rule (RIN:2137-AF30) that would amend requirements for Department of Transportation cylinders that are used with non-corrosive gases.
The rule was generated in response to a National Propane Gas Association petition, and will reduce regulation and save money for industry, the notice said.
However, a spokesperson for the association, which represents companies such as AmeriGas Propane and Blossman Gas, said the changes would be a “significant financial burden” on small business owners.The agency also announced it will adopt several petitions to make deregulatory changes to save money for hazardous material handlers by assembling the changes in a single rule (RIN:2137-AF33).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137645&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137645&jd=125137645
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White House Pledges To Step Up Push To Repeal EPA Regulations In 2018
Dec 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Touting successful efforts to repeal dozens of rules from EPA and other agencies in 2017, President Donald Trump and other top officials are pledging to step up such efforts in 2018, including calling for agencies to repeal three existing rules for every new measure issued, rather than the current two-for-one requirement.
“[I]n 2018, across the administration, agencies anticipate eliminating and streamlining approximately three regulations for each new one imposed,” Neomi Rao, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said in an introduction to the fall 2017 regulatory plan, which lays out agency's priorities for the coming year.
Trump delivered a similar message in a Dec. 14 address on his administration's deregulatory successes. “We have decades of excess regulation to remove.” Trump called on “every cabinet secretary, agency head and federal worker to push even harder to cut even more regulations in 2018."
Both comments come as the administration released its latest semi-annual regulatory agenda and annual regulatory plan, documents that are being closely watched for including the first explicit Trump administration classification of pending actions as regulatory or deregulatory. That is in line with the prior Trump executive order 13771, which asked agencies to identify two rules to eliminate for every new regulation.
But Rao and other officials appear to be expanding their commitment to their deregulatory agenda. “The Trump Administration recognizes that excessive and unnecessary federal regulations limit individual freedom and suppress the innovation and entrepreneurship that make America great,” Rao added, calling the regulatory plan a “fundamental shift” in policy and also touting the release of an “inactive list” of rules, not previously made public, that agencies may pursue in the future.
And Trump noted that in the first year of the order, his administration had exceeded its goals significantly. “[I]nstead of eliminating two old regulations, for every one new regulation we have eliminated 22,” Trump said.
For EPA, the latest regulatory plan outlines the 13 most significant regulatory priorities the agency plans to “propose or finalize” in the coming year, according to an EPA press release.
Policy Priorities
The plan itself references familiar priorities such as the review of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan and related rules, the agency's move to repeal the Waters of the U.S. rule, and more flexibility under the Clean Air Act new source review program (NSR). The latter language, for example pledges with respect to NSR to “examine issues including “timely issuance of permits and look at “appropriate actions” for easing certain emissions tests under the program.
The semi-annual agenda includes 26 EPA actions appearing for the first time and 54 actions that are deregulatory, according to EPA's press statement.
EPA in tandem with the release of its latest regulatory plans also announced the upcoming availability of a new online website, to be accessible “in the coming weeks” at EPA's regulatory reform web page, listing all EPA actions that meet the definition of a deregulatory action under Trump's deregulatory executive order.
But the latest regulatory agenda is already prompting blowback from environmental and public interest groups, including a Dec. 14 statement from Public Citizen stating that “the regulatory protections [the Trump] administration is rolling back, delaying or abandoning not only save lives, prevent injuries, stop consumer rip-offs and protect the planet, they make our economy stronger. The economic benefits of major regulations vastly exceed the hyped-up costs. “
A source with the group said it was still reviewing the documents, but cited as troubling what appeared to be a first of a kind agency concession in its semi-annual agenda that the agency is not planning to finalize a rule to control lead in drinking water until 2020. The source also raised concern that the proposal's status as “regulatory” will slow action on the measure, given the need to hunt for rules classified as deregulatory in order to provide offsets for the plan.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/white-house-pledges-step-push-repeal-epa-regulations-2018
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Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA's political leadership ranks continue to grow after Senate action.
Yesterday, the chamber confirmed by voice vote two of President Trump's nominees for the agency: Matt Leopold for general counsel and David Ross to head the water office.
Neither Leopold, a former general counsel of the Florida Department of Environment Protection, nor Ross, director of the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Environmental Protection Unit, attracted opposition from senators last night.
Democrats had held up the nominees as well as several others, however, to protest how the agency responds to their oversight requests.
With Leopold's and Ross' nominations now approved, EPA will have five Senate-confirmed officials in place. This includes Administrator Scott Pruitt, Susan Bodine as enforcement chief and Bill Wehrum, who leads the air office.
David Ross. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Others haven't fared as well. Michael Dourson, picked by Trump to lead EPA's chemicals office, withdrew his nomination after facing bipartisan scrutiny over his industry ties (E&E Daily, Dec. 13).
Meanwhile, Andrew Wheeler, nominee for deputy EPA administrator, has yet to move on the Senate floor.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said this week that pulling back Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump's controversial nominee to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, may help advance Wheeler through the upper chamber (E&E Daily, Dec. 13).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2017/12/15/stories/1060069117
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Industry Group: US EPA Should Cede Workplace Hazard Regulation to Osha
Dec 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
An industry group has argued that the US EPA should avoid issuing orders to mitigate workplace risks associated with new chemicals. Instead, it says, it should turn over that regulatory responsibility to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (Osha).
The TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC), a group of companies represented by the law firm Bergeson & Campbell, hopes to build on a provision in the new TSCA requiring the EPA to "consult" with Osha before imposing workplace conditions.
In a letter and position statement, published as comments on the EPA's new chemical evaluation policy, the NCC argues the agency "should disfavour" issuing consent orders that mandate workplace-specific measures.
Once Osha is informed of the concern, the NCC says the EPA should "no longer engage but instead rely on the employers responsibilities mandated by Osha, as well as Osha’s established expertise and robust existing regulatory programme, to ensure worker protection."
The EPA's duty to protect workers applies "to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk," the coalition argues. "When this duty is juxtaposed with the mandatory consultation requirement, it is clear that EPA is required to evaluate the adequacy of the existing Osha regulatory scheme and to adopt additional restrictions or prohibitions only when needed to protect against unreasonable risks not otherwise addressed."
In a blog post Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), wrote that this represents a fresh attempt to replace TSCA's "no unreasonable risk" standard with the "vastly more lenient standard [of] no significant risk of material harm" applied by Osha. He said this is something industry had argued for unsuccessfully in the TSCA reform debate.
"The chemical industry is apparently not content with bullying EPA to move away from carrying out its statutory duty to issue orders to mitigate potential risks arising from reasonably foreseen conditions of use of new chemicals," Dr Denison said. "It’s now trying to extend that victory and compel EPA to abandon issuing orders even where EPA finds a company’s intended conditions of use may present unreasonable risks to workers."
Congress not only did not intend to remove the EPA’s overlapping jurisdiction on workplace chemical exposure, Dr Denison said, but the TSCA amendments strengthened it by explicitly identifying workers as a "potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation" due special protection.
A requirement to consult "does not mean merely to inform someone else and then wash one’s hands of the matter," he said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62554/industry-group-us-epa-should-cede-workplace-hazard-regulation-to-osha
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(ACC Blog) More Misleading Stories From The New York Times
Dec 14, 2017 | American Chemistry Matters
You may have seen a recent article in The New York Times that is the latest in a string of misleading stories about current and former ACC employees. This one paints a dubious picture of emails between one of our employees and Dr. Michael Dourson.
Background
In the past, ACC has worked with respected experts in the fields of toxicology, exposure science and risk assessment for their independent perspectives on scientific matters. One of those scientists is Dr. Michael Dourson who is a toxicologist with 40 years’ experience working for the EPA, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment.
ACC scientists frequently collaborate on research with members of the academic community as part of their ongoing commitment to advancing scientific knowledge and cultivating their own expertise and education. And it’s no secret why the expertise of an award winning scientist like Dr. Dourson would be sought out.
So what’s the big deal? What’s the news that the Times is breaking by publishing 400 of Dr. Dourson’s emails from the University of Cincinnati?
‘Breaking News’
When you actually read the emails, you quickly realize there isn’t much news being reported. The crux of the story is that Dr. Dourson conducted scientific research that was funded by ACC and that ACC reviewed that research. Here is what the Times reports:
“The documents also show that Mr. Dourson’s center at the university, which accepted money from the trade group and other companies for research, sent a draft paper based on that research to the industry council to edit before submitting it to a journal for publication – considered by most to be an unacceptable practice in academia.”
What they conveniently left out of the story was the study in question was co-authored, among others, by ACC’s Dr. Neeraja Erraguntla, a highly respected board-certified toxicologist. The New York Times either skipped that part of the email, which begins with “Hello co-authors,” or they intentionally failed to mention that key detail.
Dr. Erraguntla’s co-authorship on research like the paper discussed in the email is a part of her work as a scientist and her continuing education as a board-certified toxicologist. Part of her certification from the American Board of Toxicology requires her to complete 20 continuing education credits per year, which can include coauthoring scientific studies.
Supporting Sound Science
ACC strongly supports rigorous, objective, peer-reviewed science. Such science is essential for accurately assessing chemicals and is the foundation for good public policy. To advance that mission, when working with contractors and external organizations, ACC has standing policies that stipulate:
“A Contractor’s scientific conclusions and professional judgments arising out of a project shall not be subject to the Council’s control. However, the Council shall have the right to review such judgments and conclusions prior to their final submission to the Council. The purpose of such review is for clarification, and format and editorial comments, but not for the purpose of substituting the Council’s opinion for those of the Contractor. The Council and Contractor agree to full disclosure of any health, safety and/or environmental information contained in the final report.”
When collaborating on research, it is normal and expected that scientists exchange views on the project. ACC is very confident that any input or exchanges between its staff and any researchers or any external stakeholders would reflect the state of the science and be recognized and supported in any rigorous peer-reviewed process.
A disturbing chilling effect
We are greatly concerned by misleading stories like the latest from The New York Times because they can unfairly erode the scientific credibility of people who have dedicated their lives to science. It is important for a scientist, whether her research is funded by government, an academic institution or industry, to have the ability to contribute to her field of expertise by authoring or coauthoring studies like the one in question. The Times article contributes to a disturbing bias against scientists who have ties to industry, which has a harmful chilling effect on important scientific work that benefits our society.
We hope that in the future The New York Times will do more research of its own before painting interactions between ACC employees and others in an undeserving and unfavorable light. They have an ethical responsibility as journalists to do better.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2017/12/more-misleading-stories-from-the-new-york-times/
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(ACC Mentioned) Who's Next, With Embattled EPA Toxics Nominee Dourson Out?
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Wanted: Someone to run the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention with a history of leadership on chemicals, toxic substances or pesticides. Individuals with baggage need not apply.
The Trump administration is on the lookout for a new pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency chemical safety office after its first nominee, toxicologist Michael Dourson, withdrew his name from consideration Dec. 13 as criticism mounted about his work with the chemical industry.
Dourson, who served as an adviser at the EPA as he awaited Senate confirmation, was previously head of the nonprofit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment at the University of Cincinnati, which analyzed the risk of several chemicals for local and state governments.
But it was Dourson's work with companies such as Dow AgroSciences LLC, DuPont, and Koch Industries that drew the ire of Senate Democrats and environmental organizations.
Widely regarded as a sharp scientist with a long career in chemical risk analysis—he spent 15 years at the EPA under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton and was considered to head the EPA's toxicity assessment program under President Barack Obama—Dourson's intellect and experience could not overcome his reputation as a close ally to industry, particularly as the agency overhauls its chemical review rules under the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act.
‘You Don't Have to Have a Toxicologist’
A nominee without that history—possibly an official in an environmental office from a red state—could fit the bill, Ben Dunham, a senior policy adviser in the Washington, D.C., office of Holland & Knight LLP, told Bloomberg Environment.
“You don't have to have a toxicologist to run the chemical safety law. You need somebody who's respected, who has integrity and is a good leader,” said Dunham, a former adviser to the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the namesake of the law to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. “Leave the execution of the Lautenberg Act and the other statutes to the career staff and the technical experts.”
Dunham mentioned Stephen Owens, the assistant administrator for the chemicals office from 2009 to 2011 under Obama, as a good model for a candidate who could win approval from Senate Democrats.
Before coming to Washington, Owens was director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, where he oversaw matters of air quality, water quality, hazardous waste, renewable energy, and children's environmental health. He is currently an attorney with Squire Patton Boggs in Phoenix.
Growing Divide
“No comment on that,” Owens said, laughing, when asked by Bloomberg Environment if he would consider returning to the agency to head the chemical safety office. “I served my time.”
Indeed, the position of assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention position today is very different from the role he played at the EPA, Owens said. Historically, the job has not attracted controversy, but the divide between industry and environmental advocacy groups appears to have grown as the agency tackles TSCA reform, he added.
“There has been a lot of distrust that has been built up,” he said.
The approval and regulation of pesticides, the biggest portion of the office's workload, has also highlighted the divide between environmental advocates and industry.
The administration should find somebody who can work with the career staff, Owens added. Hiring a career employee to fill the role has a precedent: The last political appointee in the role, Jim Jones, was nominated in 2011 after nearly 25 years at the EPA.
No Industry Experience? Not So Easy
Some industry ties, however, may be a prerequisite for the next chemical safety office pick, Dimitrios Karakitsos, a partner at Holland & Knight who is at the other end of the political spectrum from Dunham, told Bloomberg Environment.
“There are certainly qualified people out there, but not a lot who really understand how the program works that don't have some level of industry experience at some point in their careers,” Karakitsos told Bloomberg Environment. He worked on the bipartisan TSCA reform law as a Republican staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The Environmental Defense Fund—which noticed a pattern of industry-friendly conclusions from Dourson about 15 years ago—mounted a vigorous and ultimately successful campaign with other environmental advocacy groups to kill his nomination. Dourson's future chances at heading the chemical safety office dropped significantly when North Carolina's two Republican senators publicly opposed his nomination Nov. 15.
Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis said they would not back Dourson's nomination, citing his work to lower chemical safety standards. North Carolina is home to Camp Lejeune, where Marines and their families were exposed to chemicals in drinking water between the 1950s and the 1980s. The state also is struggling with water contaminated with the chemical GenX.
Emails Show Links With Trade Group
The Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment repeatedly concluded in its analyses that certain chemicals, including carcinogens and neurotoxins, should be considered safe at higher levels than what the EPA or state agencies recommended. These included assessments for perfluorooctanoic acid, the chemical used in making Teflon that has contaminated water bodies in several states.
Most recently, The New York Times published emails obtained from the University of Cincinnati under the Freedom of Information Act regarding the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment.
The correspondence shows that Dourson discussed an academic paper with the trade group, the American Chemistry Council, that summarized data from a study of tetrabromobisphenol A, a brominated flame retardant that is being evaluated by the EPA for its toxicity.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137646&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137646&jd=125137646
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(ACC Mentioned) Another Trump Nominee Drops Out
Dec 14, 2017 | BuzzFeed News
By Zahra Hirji
EPA chemical safety nominee Michael Dourson, who has ties to the chemical industry and writes “science-Bible stories," has just withdrawn his nomination. He’s at least the 39th Trump nominee to drop out of consideration for federal government positions.
President Trump’s controversial nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety office just dropped out.
Michael Dourson, who left the University of Cincinnati for this job, is a toxicologist who has drawn scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, environmental groups, and health experts for his close ties to the chemical industry.
Dourson announced his decision to withdraw the nomination to serve as EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention in a letter sent to the White House on Wednesday, the New York Times first reported and BuzzFeed News has confirmed. (BuzzFeed News has not seen Dourson’s resignation letter and the EPA has not disclosed his stated reason.)
Dourson is the latest Trump nominee to drop out, adding to a list of at least 38 others for posts across the federal government.
After being approved by a US Senate committee in an 11–10 party-line vote on Oct. 25, an increasing number of lawmakers have opposed Dourson’s bid. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both North Carolina Republicans, recently said they wouldn’t support Dourson because of his background working with the chemical industry. At least 19 drinking water wells in North Carolina were found to be contaminated with a chemical called GenX this fall, potentially tied to the discharge of a nearby chemical manufacturing plant.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and one of the early critics of Dourson’s nomination, celebrated his withdrawal.
“I’ve heard from families throughout Illinois who suffered firsthand from Dr. Dourson’s decades of defending poisonous chemicals that have caused health problems in children and been linked to high cancer rates in servicemembers and Veterans across the country,” Duckworth said in a statement shared with BuzzFeed News. “Moving forward, the President must nominate someone who will put loyalty to the American people above the chemical industry’s profits.”
As Dourson’s nomination stalled in the Senate, the EPA brought him on as an adviser to the agency’s head, Scott Pruitt. Dourson reportedly will not stay on in the advisory role.
When asked for comment about Dourson’s decision, the White House referred BuzzFeed News to the EPA, which did not immediately respond.
Dourson worked as a scientist at the EPA more than 20 years ago, before founding the nonprofit consulting group Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, which evaluates the toxicity of chemicals. Besides his chemical work, he writes science-Bible stories on the side.
According to emails obtained by the New York Times, even after his nomination, Dourson continued to communicate with the trade group American Chemistry Council about a chemical the EPA was looking to ban.
A series of environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and League of Conservation Voters, praised the news about Dourson’s withdrawal.
“It was clear from the beginning that Dr. Dourson was a dangerous choice,” Richard Denison of EDF said in a statement emailed to BuzzFeed News. “His record of mercenary science made clear he would have undermined public health and damaged the historic chemical safety reforms passed by Congress last year.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/zahrahirji/michael-dourson-withdraws-epa-chemical-safety?utm_term=.pxO3DOGLr#.wt5gzmbEo
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Dourson Says Withdrawal Avoids 'Politicizing' EPA Mission
Dec 14, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to run EPA’s chemicals office to prevent the politicization of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s agenda, according to a letter Dourson wrote to President Donald Trump that was obtained by POLITICO.
“My stepping aside avoids unnecessarily politicizing the important environmental protection goals of Administrator Pruitt,” he wrote in the brief letter dated Dec. 13.
“I sincerely and deeply appreciate all the love and support by my family, friends and colleagues during this 'surprising' confirmation process,” Dourson continued. “I especially look forward to working with each of my colleagues in future collaborative efforts, similar to those in the past with Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment.” TERA was Dourson’s toxicology consultancy prior to his nomination.
The letter does not address whether Dourson will remain at the agency as an adviser to Pruitt, a position he took following his confirmation hearing in October. EPA and Dourson have not replied to questions on the matter.
Opposition from several Republican senators and the victory of Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama's election made Dourson’s confirmation all but impossible.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Trump’s Pick to Oversee Chemical Safety at EPA Withdraws
Dec 14, 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko and Heidi Vogt
Michael Dourson’s nomination ran into opposition from two GOP Senators last month
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn his name from consideration.
Michael Dourson, a toxicologist tapped to head the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, has been one of the agency’s most controversial nominees because of his work as a consultant to the chemical industry. Democrats and environmentalists have criticized his research as skewed toward results desired by corporate clients.
While awaiting confirmation, Mr. Dourson started working at the EPA, as an adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt, in a position that doesn't require a Senate vote. EPA spokespeople wouldn’t answer questions about whether he is staying in that role and declined to comment about his withdrawal.
Mr. Dourson replied to messages sent to his EPA email address Thursday, referring a request for comment to the website of the nonprofit he founded, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment. The website says the group’s work was primarily for government groups and a third was for industries, and describes its projects as “transparent and/or collaborative.” Mr. Dourson didn’t address questions about his status at the EPA.
EPA officials have called Mr. Dourson a “highly qualified scientist,” and he received support from many Republicans before the nomination stalled. With the Republicans’ thin majority in the Senate, the nomination ran into trouble last month when two North Carolina Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for him. They cited his arguments for relaxed safety standards for trichloroethylene, one of the main chemicals found to have contaminated water and raised cancer risks at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune military base.
The top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works committee, which approved the nomination in October on a party-line vote, said the withdrawal was in the best interest of Americans.
“My staunch objections to Dr. Dourson’s nomination were never a matter of partisanship,” Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat said in a statement. “Dr. Dourson, an individual who has spent most of his career promoting less protective chemical safety standards, had no business overseeing our nation’s chemical safety laws.”
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to questions about the withdrawal.
Mr. Dourson’s withdrawal has been one of the few successes for Democrats in opposing Trump-administration nominees. Several have cast doubt on whether humans cause climate change and others like Mr. Dourson have been criticized for close ties to industry and the very businesses they would soon be regulating.
But many received confirmation on party-line votes or without enough opposition to overcome the Republicans’ majority in the Senate. Mr. Dourson’s nomination never got a vote by the full Senate.
Approval would have been an even bigger challenge if the Senate couldn't take a vote quickly. With Democrat Doug Jones winning Alabama’s special Senate election Tuesday, the Republican majority will get pared back to 51-49 after his election is certified and he is sworn in, possibly within a few weeks. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine also said last month she was “leaning against” the nomination, citing the same concerns as Sen. Richard Burr and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Mr. Dourson was nominated to a position that is particularly important now because the agency is implementing a major toxic-substances law passed last year after a decadelong push to tighten regulation of dangerous chemicals. How the EPA interprets the law, which requires it to prioritize and define the risk posed by the most toxic chemicals, will drive its regulation of the substances and have a broad impact on the chemical industry.
One of the first chemicals the EPA plans to evaluate as part of the new chemical safety regulations is trichloroethylene, the chemical found to have contaminated water in North Carolina.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-pick-to-oversee-chemical-safety-at-epa-withdraws-1513271154
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EPA Chemical Safety Nominee Drops Out Amid Strong Opposition
Dec 14, 2017 | Associated Press (In Business Insider)
By Michael Biesecker and Jill Colvin
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn his nomination after bipartisan opposition made his Senate confirmation unlikely.
A White House official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Michael Dourson has removed his name from consideration to serve as head of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
North Carolina's two Republican senators said last month they would vote against Dourson's nomination after The Associated Press and other media outlets detailed his past work as a toxicologist hired to defend major chemical companies. Senate Democrats are united in opposition.
The EPA's press office did not respond to requests for comment.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/ap-epa-chemical-safety-nominee-drops-out-amid-strong-opposition-2017-12
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EPA Mum on Whether Failed Trump Nominee is Still on the Job
Dec 15, 2017 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker and Jill Colvin
The Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to say whether President Donald Trump’s failed pick to oversee chemical safety will continue to work there as a senior adviser, a role that doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
Michael L. Dourson withdrew his nomination Wednesday to serve as head of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention amid bipartisan opposition in the Senate.
Dourson has been working at EPA for at least two months as a senior adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, an arrangement Democrats have said could be illegal without Senate confirmation.
EPA did not respond Wednesday or Thursday to inquiries about Dourson’s current employment status at the agency.
The agency has also refused to disclose Dourson’s taxpayer-funded salary. Other senior advisers to Pruitt are paid more than $170,000 annually, according to records reviewed by AP.
In his letter asking the president to withdraw his name from consideration as an assistant administrator at EPA, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Dourson listed his job title as “Senior Adviser to the Administrator” and provides his epa.gov email address — which has not been listed in the agency’s employee directory.
“My stepping aside avoids unnecessarily politicizing the important environmental protection goals of Administrator Pruitt,” Dourson wrote in his letter, which was dated Wednesday. “I sincerely and deeply appreciate all the love and support by my family, friends and colleagues during this ‘surprising’ confirmation process.”
North Carolina’s two Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, said last month they would vote against Dourson’s nomination after AP and other media outlets detailed his past work as a toxicologist hired to defend major chemical companies.
The Senate’s 48 Democrats were united in opposition, meaning only one more GOP defection would have been needed to defeat Dourson’s nomination.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said his staunch objections to Dourson’s nomination were never a matter of partisanship.
“I sincerely believe he is the wrong person to hold this important position, and it’s become clear that, even with a Republican majority in the Senate, he could not be confirmed,” Carper said. “Dourson, an individual who has spent most of his career promoting less protective chemical safety standards, had no business overseeing our nation’s chemical safety laws.”
The AP reported in September that Dourson has for years accepted payments for criticizing studies that raised concerns about the safety of his clients’ products, according to a review of financial records and his published work.
Past corporate clients of Dourson and of a research group he ran include Dow Chemical Co., Koch Industries Inc. and Chevron Corp. His research has also been underwritten by industry trade and lobbying groups representing the makers of plastics, pesticides, processed foods and cigarettes.
Court records show Dourson and his work have also often been called on when his corporate clients are seeking to fend off lawsuits.
Burr and Tillis, both of whom are considered reliably pro-business conservatives, cited Dourson’s past work and worries among their home-state constituents about tainted drinking water in opposing his nomination.
Marine veterans and their families have blamed decades-old contamination of wells at a North Carolina base with solvents and dry-cleaning chemicals for infant deaths and serious health problems, including cancer.
More recently, concerns have been raised about undisclosed discharges of chemicals used to manufacture Teflon and GoreTex into the Cape Fear River, a source of municipal drinking water for Wilmington and other southeastern North Carolina communities.
Dourson worked at the EPA for more than a decade, leaving in 1994 as the manager at a lab that assessed the health risks of exposure to chemicals. The following year, he founded Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a private, nonprofit organization that tests chemicals and produces reports on which chemicals are hazardous in what quantities.
Dourson’s views toward industry are consistent with others Trump has selected as top federal regulators. Among them is Pruitt, who in March overruled the findings of his agency’s own scientists to reverse an effort to ban chlorpyrifos, one of the nation’s most widely used pesticides.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/epa-chemical-safety-nominee-drops-out-amid-strong-opposition/2017/12/13/7839784e-e07c-11e7-b2e9-8c636f076c76_story.html?utm_term=.ce59d7e1e980
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California Will Not List Coumarin as Prop 65 Carcinogen
Dec 15, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
California will not list coumarin, a fragrance ingredient sometimes derived from plants, under Proposition 65 as a carcinogen.
The state's Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) voted 4-2 to list the substance at a meeting on 2 November, but five votes are required, according to a notice published on 11 December by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha).
Oehha requested information on coumarin in March.
Two industry groups submitted comments, arguing that evidence from animal studies being considered by the CIC was insufficient to conclude the substance is carcinogenic.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62568/california-will-not-list-coumarin-as-prop-65-carcinogen
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N.Y. Will Sue EPA If Hudson River PCB Dredging Deemed Done
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Katherine Tam
New York State says it's prepared to withdraw from the 2002 Record of Decision that has guided the Hudson River polychlorinated biphenyls dredging if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems the cleanup as “complete,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) said in a Dec. 14 statement with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
The state says General Electric Co. filed a request for a Certificate of Completion on Dec. 23, 2016, and that the EPA has 365 days to respond to the request.New York says that extensive sampling conducted earlier this year shows significant levels of contamination persist in the river.
“EPA cannot possibly support a finding that GE's actions have been sufficient to protect New Yorkers’ public health and the environment,” Schneiderman said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137664&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137664&jd=125137664
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Companies Drop Hazardous Substances Under EU Chemical Law
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Union's REACH regulation is leading companies to substitute the most hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives, even if it's cheaper to apply for authorization to continue using the hazardous substances.
There's no evidence yet, however, of a significant uptick in demand for safer chemicals that can be used as substitutes for hazardous substances, though this might be because of limited data, according to a major study the European Commission published.
The study published Dec. 12 analyzed the impact of REACH authorization provisions, or the requirement for companies to obtain a permit to continue to use certain hazardous substances that have been phased out. Continued-use authorizations for otherwise banned substances are granted if applicants can show that the substances can be used safely and if there are no viable alternatives.
The results should encourage “policymakers to take tougher decisions and not grant authorizations when alternatives are available,” Frida Hoek, a senior policy adviser with ChemSec, which campaigns for the phaseout of toxic substances, told Bloomberg Environment. So far, no authorization application has been refused.
For many chemicals companies, “REACH gives them guidance on what substances to prioritize” in terms of making their portfolios more sustainable, Hoek said.
So far under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), 174 chemicals have been designated “substances of very high concern,” meaning they could be prioritized for EU bans. Phaseout decisions have been made for 43 of those substances.
As of Nov. 17, the European Chemicals Agency, which administers REACH, had received 121 applications for continued-use authorizations for phaseout substances. Authorizations can be for multiple uses of chemicals and typically cover industrial processes, with the highest number of applications received for chromium trioxide, which is used in chrome plating, in addition to lead chromate in pigments, and 1,2-dichloroethane in pharmaceuticals.
Reasons to Replace
Companies might prefer to replace hazardous substances with safer alternatives, even if an authorization to continue to use the hazardous substances is likely to be available, either due to uncertainty over authorization applications, possible future tighter controls on hazardous substances, or a “desire to avoid the ‘stigma’” of using substances of very high concern, the report said.
While it's likely true that REACH authorization has lead to substitution of hazardous substances, it's “probably too early to say confidently that REACH authorization has triggered innovation across the board,” Maria Linkova-Nijs, a spokeswoman for the European Chemicals Industry Council, told Bloomberg Environment Dec. 14.
“The authorization process has indeed led to a better management of risk in the supply chain,” Linkova-Nijs said. The European Chemicals Industry Council represents companies such as AkzoNobel, DowDuPont Inc., and Mitsubishi Chemical Europe GmbH.
The European Chemicals Agency “welcomes the study and its findings,” which showed REACH authorization has “reduced risks to workers and the environment” through substitution of hazardous substances, Nedyu Yasenov, a spokesman for the chemicals agency, told Bloomberg Environment Dec. 14.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, commissioned the study from a consulting company for insight into a review of REACH, which should have been published in mid-2017 but now could appear in early 2018. The review could lead to proposals to revise REACH.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137651&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137651&jd=125137651
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LNG Tanker Heading to Cove Point to Help Complete Commissioning Process
Dec 14, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is approaching Dominion's new export facility on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and was expected to dock there Thursday to assist with the commissioning process, according to analysts and three websites that track the movement and position of seafaring vessels.
The Maran Gas Delphi, a Greek-flagged tanker with 159,800 cubic meters of LNG capacity, which converts to 3.3 Bcf, was steaming toward the Dominion Energy Cove Point LNG LP terminal at Lusby, MD, on Thursday, according to ship-tracking websites FleetMon, MarineTraffic and VesselFinder. FleetMon reported that the ship left port at Bonny, Nigeria, on Nov. 30, and its final destination was Cove Point.
The arrival of the Maran Gas Delphi comes as Dominion moves closer to commencing commercial operations from Cove Point. The company introduced feed gas at the facility last week.
"This vessel originated from Nigeria and is expected to arrive today," Genscape Inc. analyst Jason Lord told NGI. "This sort of shipping behavior is typical by which a 'cool down' cargo is brought in as part of commissioning process of a new facility."
Lord said the Maran Gas Delphi is a charter from Royal Dutch Shell plc, confirming Dominion's statement last week that Shell subsidiary Shell NA LNG is providing feed gas for liquefaction during the commissioning process and is off-taking the LNG that is produced. "The vessel is fully loaded and it will unload this LNG," Lord said.
It is not the first time an LNG tanker has docked at Cove Point. According to Lord, the Madrid Spirit, which also originated in Nigeria, docked at the Maryland facility last January.
"We are looking forward to Cove Point's first exported LNG cargo, whenever it occurs," said spokesperson Daphne Magnuson of the Natural Gas Supply Association and the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas. "It marks another exciting step in the growth of a thriving LNG export market for the United States."
FERC issued an authorization for Dominion to export LNG produced during commissioning activities via vessel in November [CP13-113].
Construction at Cove Point is completed. The facility has a nameplate capacity of 5.25 million metric tons/year (mmty) of LNG and would source gas from the Marcellus Shale. Dominion has said it expected to have the facility in service this month, and to achieve its first LNG production in mid-January.
Cove Point's marketed capacity is fully subscribed under 20-year service agreements. Pacific Summit Energy LLC, a U.S. affiliate of Japan's Sumitomo Corp., as well as Gail (India) affiliate Gail Global (USA) LNG LLC, have each contracted for half of the marketed capacity. Sumitomo has agreements to serve Tokyo Gas Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc.
Last August, Dominion requested permission to introduce feed gas to the facility's pre-treatment and liquefaction areas, and to proceed with setting up equipment for ship loading, including LNG loading pumps and return-gas blowers. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted the request in October.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112751-lng-tanker-heading-to-cove-point-to-help-complete-commissioning-process
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Time Running Out for Opponents of Arctic Drilling
Dec 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are running out of time and leverage.
Negotiators in Congress this week said that a compromise Republican tax cut bill will include a provision allowing drilling in ANWR, which has rich oil reserves.
With GOP leadership looking to get the tax bill to President Trump's desk by Christmas, environmentalists are running out of time to rally foes of ANWR drilling — and the prospects for success appear bleak.
Even those House Republicans skeptical of ANWR drilling are indicating that its inclusion in the tax bill won’t be a deal-breaker.
Asked if drilling opponents are racing the clock, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) replied, “Yes.”
“It’s an underrated aspect of this bill,” he said. “This has been a generations-long battle to preserve that refuge, and we’re going to find out the fate of it next week, so if anyone is not yet mobilized, now’s the time.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and the rest of her state’s congressional delegation have long pushed to allow for drilling in a corner of the 19 million-acre ANWR.
That effort was boosted earlier this year when Republican leadership made ANWR drilling a component of the tax reform bill, the GOP’s top legislative priority.
Murkowski confirmed this week that tax bill negotiators had agreed to include a provision in a final tax deal calling for lease sales in ANWR and a revenue sharing deal that would net the federal government a predicted $1 billion.
“This is new wealth from responsible development and the investment it brings,” she said Wednesday.
Referring to the technical name of ANWR’s oil development region, Murkowski said, "It’s time to open up the 1002 area and it’s time to reform our broken tax code.”
Greens have been urging activists to pepper Congress with complaints over the ANWR deal.
This week, a conservation group in Pennsylvania took out a newspaper advertisement calling on local Republicans to vote against any bill with refuge drilling included in it. Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club’s director of public lands protection, said his group is pushing supporters to call lawmakers and protest at local offices.
Groups have put cash behind the effort as well. The Wilderness Society has been running a $500,000 ad campaign against ANWR in 15 House districts since last month.
Environmentalists say their goal is to make the drilling issue politically potent.
“Our message is pretty consistent and clear: a vote for this bill is a vote to drill in the ANWR,” said Drew McConville, the Wilderness Society’s senior managing director for government relations.
“I know there are other issues in this bill, but we fully expect that this is a big part of the calculation: You can’t be for preserving the refuge and vote of this bill.”
But Democratic lawmakers and activists alike worry that message won’t be enough.
“I think that there’s a little bit of muscle fatigue in terms of being able to punch back,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.
“I hope, if anything, [given] the urgency and the distinct possibility it could happen now … we have time to gear up and make it consequential for members to vote for it.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said there is “so much distraction” surrounding the tax debate that it has obscured the Arctic drilling provisions within it.
“This is a hugely unpopular thing that they’re doing, tucked into a hugely unpopular tax bill that most people don’t understand,” he said.
Democrats had pinned their hopes on winning the support of moderate Republicans others who have publicly opposed ANWR drilling, but those ranks are thinning.
In the Senate, greens pushed for Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Susan Collins (Maine) to oppose drilling, but both supported a Senate-passed tax bill that included ANWR earlier this month.
Over in the House, 12 Republicans signed a letter in November saying they oppose opening up ANWR and urging leadership to pull the provision from the final tax bill.
Yet only six of those Republicans voted against the House’s original bill. Of the other six, at least three — Reps. Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Ryan Costello(Pa.) and Dave Reichert (Wash.) — did not commit to voting against a tax bill with ANWR included.
“I don’t think that there’s any one provision that would motivate me to deny tax relief for all of my constituents,” Curbelo said. Costello said ANWR wouldn’t make a tax bill “fatally defective” for him.
“This is a serious issue and I’ve been making my feelings known on it and going for some consideration of its removal,” Reichert said.
Manuel acknowledged environmentalists’ arguments against drilling haven’t resonated with Republicans the way opponents had hoped.
He blamed both political pressure on Republicans to get a tax bill done this year and the way the debate over the legislation has focused on the tax provisions within it.
He said his group’s aim now is to try messaging against the bill as a whole.
“We’re focusing on taking down the whole tax package. That’s been our message, but we’ve led with the Arctic,” he said.
“We made a real good faith effort to pull it out on the floor of the Senate, and trying to get moderate Republicans to take it out. Now it’s all about taking down the bill.”
Supporters of the ANWR provision have dug in, insisting they’ll get the drilling plan — and the tax bill — to Trump this year.
“Thank God I wore my cowboy boots today,” Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) said at a tax bill hearing Wednesday, speaking to opponents of ANWR drilling.
“You know why cowboys wear cowboy boots? They keep their damn pants clean from the horse manure that comes from people that don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/365022-time-running-out-for-opponents-of-arctic-drilling
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Living Near Fracking During Pregnancy Linked to Poorer Newborn Health
Dec 15, 2017 | Forbes
By Tara Haelle
The closer pregnant women live to fracking sites, the greater the potential health risks may be to their developing fetus, suggests a new study published in Science Advances December 13. But the study has enough limitations to tamp down anxiety among expecting moms who live near fracking sites. It’s not necessary to run away from home until giving birth if you’re around the corner from fracking.
In the study, infants born to women living within a 1-km radius (just over a half mile) of a fracking site during pregnancy had a 25% greater risk of having a low birthweight, defined as under 5.5 lbs. Those born within 3 km (nearly 2 miles) of a fracking site also had a slightly increased risk of low birthweight, but it was about one third to one half the risk seen in women living within 1 km.
“The results of our analysis suggest that the introduction of fracking reduces health among infants born to mothers living within 3 km of a well site during pregnancy,” the authors wrote. “There is little evidence of health effects at further distances, suggesting that health impacts are highly local.”
The overall risk of low birthweight among all the infants in the study overall was on par with national rates. The findings are based on an analysis of more than 1.1 million single-child births in Pennsylvania between 2004 and 2013, and they line up with similar studies comparing infant health and air pollution.
About a quarter of the infants included in the study were born to women living within 15 km of an active fracking site while pregnant. Across the US, an estimated 65,000 babies are born each year to mothers living within 1 km of a fracking site.
“Fracking” is a colloquial term for hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting oil and natural gas from the ground by shooting extremely high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals into the bedrock. The high pressure breaks up the bedrock — creating and expanding fractures — to make it easier to get more oil and gas from the nearby well.
Emerging research has suggested possible negative health effects from fracking due to air and water pollution, including water contamination from the chemicals used in the fracturing fluid. Chemicals found in higher concentrations in the air near fracking sites include “nonmethane hydrocarbons, methylene chloride (a toxic solvent), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” all of which have been linked to poorer fetal health, the authors noted.
However, this new study cannot show that being near fracking sites causes poor health for mothers, babies or anyone else. The findings only reveal that average birthweight drops the closer newborns’ mothers lived to a fracking site. The researchers made multiple statistical adjustments to their data to take into account other factors that could influence birthweight, but it’s always possible other factors they didn’t consider might explain the findings.
The study also did not explore how being exposed to fracking might harm health. The authors speculate that air pollution from the fracking or increased truck traffic could be one source, or contaminated water might leak into surface water from the fractured well.
Further, the study used only birthweight and a general “infant health index” to measure possible effects. The health index captured low birthweight, prematurity, presence of birth defects and any other apparent health problems at birth.
Low birthweight has been linked to other health and education concerns, such as asthma, learning disabilities, lower test scores, attention difficulties and infant mortality. But birthweight and the health index still may not necessarily accurately represent newborns’ overall health or predict their future health.
The researchers used birth certificates to collect their data, including the newborn’s health and the mother’s home address, race/ethnicity, education level and marital status. They focused on birthweight because it is most consistently available on birth certificates whereas other health measures may not be included on all of them.
The authors calculated multiple different statistical analyses, attempting to see if any of them did not show increased fetal risks from being close to fracking, but the calculations all revealed similar results. The researchers also tried to adjust their calculations to take into account natural variations in birthweight and infant health that occur in communities over time and mothers’ characteristics that might affect the results. Those characteristics included the mothers’s age, race/ethnicity, level of education, marriage status, child’s sex, child’s birth order and the mother’s total number children.
So what does all this mean? It means we have some evidence showing that some health concerns are slightly higher for babies who spent a lot of time within a mile or two of fracking sites while developing in the womb. But it doesn’t tell us much more than that.
We don’t know if fracking is causing the lower birthweights, and we don’t know if the children born with lower birthweights in this study will go on to have more health problems than other children. We don’t know what chemicals, or how much of them, are in the water or air around each site and whether pregnant women are exposed to those chemicals—or even how much those chemicals may or may not affect a developing fetus.
We do know that fracking is popular and probably not going away any time soon, so more researchers need to explore these child health issues and learn as much as possible about what the risks may, or may not, actually be.
The study received funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. One of the three authors “holds more than $10,000 in equities and bonds of various companies, including those within the energy sector,” they disclosed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2017/12/15/living-near-fracking-during-pregnancy-linked-to-poorer-newborn-health/#535b79082254
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Groups Sue Chemical Safety Board for Not Creating Incident-Reporting Rule
Dec 14, 2017 | Chem.info
By Meagan Parrish
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has become the target of a lawsuit for not creating national reporting system for safety incidents.
The CSB proposed an incident reporting requirement in 2009, but later backed off from the proposal due to the costs of implementation and industry opposition. Now, a group of environmental and safety nonprofit organizations are asking a federal court in Washington D.C. to require the CSB to issue the reporting mandate. The groups said that recent accidents like the fire at the Arkema chemical plant in Texas show the importance of tracking chemical-related incidents.
Currently, the CSB collects data through the news and reports from the U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center.
The CSB is an independent federal agency that was created under the Clean Air Act in 1990 and is tasked with investigating chemical accidents. Typically the CSB issues recommendations for regulators but does not create binding rules for stakeholders in the industry.
A budget proposed by President Trump earlier this year eliminated the $11 million agency all together but has yet to be passed.
https://www.chem.info/news/2017/12/groups-sue-chemical-safety-board-not-creating-incident-reporting-rule
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California Passes New Plan to Hit Climate Change Goals
Dec 14, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California is counting on its greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program to deliver more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the state's 2030 climate goal under a plan approved Dec. 14.
The 2017 Climate Change Scoping Plan that the California Air Resources Board governing panel adopted at its Sacramento meeting charts a path to shrinking statewide emissions to 260 million metric tons by 2030. Statewide greenhouse gas emissions were 440.4 million metric tons in 2015, according to state data.
“This is a major step forward for us,” CARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols said following the 14-0 vote. “It builds on proven actions and presents a template for other jurisdictions who are also committed to preventing the worst impacts of a warming planet,” she added in a written statement.
To meet the target, which requires that greenhouse gas emissions be cut to 40 percent below 1990 levels, half of the state's electricity must come from renewable energy, and emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants must be slashed by 50 percent. Buildings must be twice as energy-efficient, and the state must be well on its way toward electrification of its transportation sector.
Measures in the plan also aim to move the state toward its ultimate goal—a low-to-zero economy by 2050.
The plan had broad support from the regulated community, especially from the state's oil industry. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and Shell Oil Co. employees testifying at CARB's public hearing thanked the agency for abandoning an earlier proposal that would have required refineries to be 20 percent more energy efficient.
State lawmakers agreed to drop the requirement to pass legislation that extended the carbon trading program.
Cap-and-Trade Concerns
Environmental groups were largely supportive of the plan but were among many witnesses echoing concerns in a Dec. 12 report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office that warned CARB to update cap-and-trade program rules that permit emissions-allowance credits to be banked.
“We're asking quite a lot of this program,” David Weiskopf, NextGen America's climate policy director, said of the trading program. The banking rules could lead to an oversupply of allowances that may not reduce the emissions needed to meet the 2030 goal, he said.
CARB is planning amendments to the cap-and-trade regulations and will be reviewing the allowances banking and other rules, Rajinda Sohato, CARB's assistant division chief of the program, said.
Environmental justice advocates pressed the agency for additional direct control measures to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants from industrial and mobile sources.
On Track
California is on track to meet its initial goal under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (A.B. 32), requiring emissions be cut to 1990 levels by 2020, or to 431 million metric tons, CARB said in the plan.
Under the 2017 plan, the economy-wide cap-and-trade program will cut greenhouse gases 38 percent by 2030.
Launched in 2013, the trading program sets declining annual emissions caps for oil refineries, power plants, cement plants, the distribution of natural gas and transportation fuels, and other large sources of greenhouse gases. Regulated entities comply with the caps by either reducing emissions or buying emissions credits.
New rules to cut emissions of methane, refrigerants, and other short-lived climate pollutants will provide 35 percent of the statewide emissions reductions needed, according to the plan.
Twenty percent of the emissions reductions will come from efforts targeting transportation and improved building efficiency. Another 4 percent is expected from strengthening the state's low-carbon fuel standard and 3 percent from the state's renewable energy goals.
The new plan includes a portfolio of measures and incentive programs CARB and other state agencies will oversee to squeeze greenhouse gas emissions every sector of the state's economy, including agriculture and waste and recycling management. Another key initiative involves conservation and restoration of forests, grasslands, soils, and wetlands, all which store carbon.
More than two years in the making, the 2017 plan reflects newly enacted legislation extending the cap-and-trade program, requiring the state to address localized air pollution problems in low-income and disadvantaged areas as part its climate program.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137648&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137648&jd=125137648
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Exxon Mobil, BP, Others Face New Climate Change Suits
Dec 15, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC, and Chevron Corp. are some of the oil, coal and gas companies that face a new wave of climate change litigation. These latest cases are by California cities and counties alleging the energy producers’ emissions amount to public nuisances under state law.
The suits, filed by Marin and San Mateo counties and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Imperial Beach, are expected to be the first of many, as public officials in other states increasingly look to the courts, not the federal government, to protect their communities from sea level rise, attorneys told Bloomberg Law.
Some legal experts said this latest set of suits, sparked in large part by the Trump administration's reversal of climate change initiatives, have their basis in state law similar to nuisance claims recently upheld in high-profile lead paint litigation.
The suits’ state-law grounding, they said, makes them significantly different from federal climate change litigation rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court several years ago.
Proponents also said advancements in the ability to trace carbon dioxide and other pollutants to a relatively small group of companies could bolster the claims.
“We are at the dawn of what is a massive wave of litigation,” said Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, an environmental advocacy organization in Washington. “While it began in California, I don't think it's going to end there,” he said.
But defense attorneys, while acknowledging that more suits are in the offing, remain generally skeptical of the odds of any of the litigation gaining much traction.
The new public nuisance suits amount to “lawless exercises in standardless liability that lie beyond the power of courts to adjudicate,” said Richard Faulk with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Washington. Many courts “have already condemned” such efforts, he said.
‘Wave of the Future’
Climate change public nuisance suits are “the wave of the future,” Professor Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York, told Bloomberg Law.
While the companies could be found liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in the California suits, “it's unlikely that would make a dent in their pocketbooks,” Burger said.
More litigation will be required “to put real pressure on industry to get behind significant greenhouse gas regulation,” he said. “That doesn't happen if there are only suits in one state.”
James May, a professor at Widener University Delaware Law School in Wilmington, Del., agreed that the California suits are only the beginning.
“I would anticipate there will be filings in other states, regardless of what happens in the California cases,” May, who's co-director of Widener's Environmental Rights Institute, said.May said he would look to states that have shown an interest in addressing climate change, including New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington, as likely locations for upcoming litigation.
“The potential significance of these cases is huge,” May said “It sounds dramatic, but the world is watching.”
San Francisco and Oakland, represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in Seattle, Berkeley, Calif., and Newton Centre, Mass., filed their suits in September.
Those suits came on the heels of the San Mateo, Marin and Imperial Beach claims filed in July by Sher Edling LLP in San Francisco.
Trump Effect
The latest suits are driven by a number of factors, including the Trump administration's retreat from efforts to combat climate change such as withdrawal from the Paris accord, a premise even some defense attorneys agree with.
“We have a tone deaf administration that rejects climate change,” defense attorney William Ruskin with the Law Office of William A. Ruskin, PLLC in Rye Brook, N.Y., told Bloomberg Law. “In frustration, people are turning to the courts.”
Burger agreed that the political climate is a factor driving the litigation.
“The obvious answer is the election of Trump ground climate change action to a halt,” Burger said.
“We are seeing the federal government abdicate its responsibility,” he said. “When there's a large regulatory gap, one way to fill it is through litigation.”
May said the failure to address climate change in the U.S. outside of the courtroom leaves few alternatives to litigation.
“The politically blue states have taken action, but that can only go so far,” May said.
“Historically, the common law provides a cause of action to get into court.”
‘It's Not Going Away’
But defense counsel are critical of the public nuisance suits, which they say unfairly target companies for engaging in legal activity.
“To make a handful of companies responsible for billions in damages for climate change is inherently lawless and unprincipled,” Ruskin said.
Ruskin defends industrial companies and manufacturers in products liability, toxic tort, and environmental actions.
The suits, he said, “respond to a failure of government to address climate change.”
“But as extreme as Trump is to the right, it's an equally disturbing result on the other end of the spectrum,” he said. “There's a big social problem, and a lack of funds to address it so we turn to people whose product was perfectly legal.”
Ruskin, too, predicts more such suits in other states.
“Of course there will be copycat cases. If a city attorney or AG is running for election, these are popular cases,” he said.
“The plaintiffs’ bar will keep hammering,” he said. “It's not going to go away.”
Ruskin said, however, the plaintiffs’ assertions that they can quantify the carbon dioxide and methane emissions attributable to each defendant “is a lot of smoke and mirrors.”
“It's like claiming if you have a million dairy cows, each of which emits methane, you can somehow determine how much any one cow's methane releases contribute to climate change,” he said. “It just cannot be done. It's junk science.”
Ruskin also said he expects courts to look at the claims skeptically because both the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, found federal common law nuisance claims barred under the Clean Air Act in Am. Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. 410 (2011) and Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. 696 F.3d 849, (9th Cir. 2012).
But, he acknowledged, “who knows how a state court in California is going to look at this?”
Distinguishing the Federal Rulings
Professor May certainly sees some advantages for plaintiffs in having the first set of suits proceeding in the Golden State.
“The common law is a little more generous” in California than in other states, he said, including a more lenient statute of limitations and a higher bar to preemption.
A California appeals court recently upheld, but trimmed, a high-profile lead paint public nuisance ruling against Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and ConAgra Grocery Products.
The court affirmed liability findings in the case, but sent the suit back to a trial court to recalculate the $1.15 billion judgment against the companies.
May also said that if the climate change nuisance cases end up being moved to federal court, the Ninth Circuit, despite the Kivalina ruling, is overall a good circuit for a plaintiff to be in.
And there's the simple fact that California is a major greenhouse gas producer, he said.
Professor Burger, at Columbia Law School, said both AEP and Kivalina are distinguishable from the California cases.
“The analysis for whether federal legislation displaces a federal common law claim is different than the analysis for whether federal legislation preempts state law,” he said.
“State nuisance claims for air pollution have been found to not be preempted in several important cases,” Burger said. “And there is nothing in the Clean Air Act to indicate that Congress expressly or implicitly intended to preempt state common law claims based on harms from climate change.”
Some federal court rulings that have found that the CAA preempts state law tort claims include North Carolina ex rel. Cooper v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (4th Cir. 2010), Comer v. Murphy Oil USA (S.D. Miss. 2012), and United States v. EME Homer City Generation LP (W.D. Pa. 2011).
But other federal appeals courts have found the opposite, including in Bell v. Cheswick Generating Station (3d Cir. 2013), In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Prods. Liab. Litig. (2d Cir. 2013), Cerny v. Marathon Oil Corp. (W.D. Tex. 2013), and Merrick v. Diageo Ams. Supply Inc. (6th Cir. 2015).
New Science
Vic Sher, attorney for the Marin, Imperial Beach and San Mateo plaintiffs, cites scientific advances, and new media reporting showing industry culpability, as other factors supporting the new set of climate change suits.“In terms of science, there have been developments showing links between emissions and impacts and the attribution of them to particular corporate actions,” Sher said. “And investigative reporting shows what they did and didn't do.”
Muffett, of the Center for International Environmental Law, said it is now possible to “to quantify contributions of individual corporate actors to carbon in the atmosphere.”
“Two-thirds of all industrial emissions of C02 and methane since the industrial revolution can be traced to 90 entities,” Muffett said, citing a 2013 study by Richard Heede, co-founder of the Climate Accountability Institute in Snowmass, Colo.
“Courts aren't comfortable dealing with a million defendants. But they are comfortable dealing with 50,” he said. “Once we get to a constrained universe of defendants, the landscape changes completely.”
But Burger of Columbia Law School said it remains to be seen whether the alleged link between climate change and energy emissions will be sufficient to establish liability under state nuisance law.
“There is no single, established methodology for attributing greenhouse gas emissions to fossil fuel companies based on the eventual combustion of the products they put into the market,” Burger said.
“Plaintiffs in the California cases have offered one method. Defendants will undoubtedly challenge it in numerous ways—from the technical details to the central assumptions,” he said.
“But courts are well equipped to figure out how responsibility should be apportioned among different actors with different types and degrees of responsibility,” Burger said.
Other Claims
As the public nuisance cases make their way through the courts, they are not the only suits pending against energy companies and other defendants over climate change.
The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments Dec. 11 in a suit brought by children who allege the federal government has violated their constitutional right to a livable climate by failing to reduce greenhouse gases.
And, in November, a German court ruled that a Peruvian farmer may proceed with his claims that German energy utility RWE's emissions have caused glacier melt in his home town.
The RWE case is an “important development,” Burger said. “It's similar to the public nuisance cases, and further along than any of these cases have gotten in the US,” he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125137658&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125137658&jd=125137658
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Environmentalists Warn EPA-Touted Deal With Exxon May Be Unlawful
Dec 14, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) says a proposed Clean Air Act settlement with ExxonMobil, that top EPA officials have touted as a sign of their commitment to enforcement, may be unlawful and may not achieve the emissions reductions Administrator Scott Pruitt and others officials have claimed.
In a Dec. 7 comment letter on the proposed settlement, the group's executive director, Eric Schaeffer, a former director of EPA's civil enforcement office, and Gabriel Clark-Leach, an EIP attorney, charge that it unlawfully allows the company to exceed some permit limits.
“Federal law does not authorize a company to increase emissions above any limits that apply because it has reduced a corresponding amount of illegal pollution that it was not authorized to release in the first place,” the letter says.
The charge stems from what the group calls the proposed decree's “unusually broad exemptions” from stringent new source review (NSR) requirements. It notes that the proposal allows Exxon to rely on consent decree reductions to comply with the plantwide applicability limits (PAL) for one of the facilities, the Baytown Olefins plant, and that it allows these reductions to generate offsets, and netting and emission credits, to avoid NSR.
In addition, the group also charges that proposed decree claims it will reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by more than 7,000 tons per year (tpy) when the units reported less than 1,000 tpy combined, and allows the company to take credit for three of four already completed projects.
The letter marks the second time in the past few days that Trump administration's settlements are facing potential challenges. A group of Democratic attorneys general Dec. 13 said they will oppose a Justice Department (DOJ) request to enter a settlement with Harley-Davidson that drops a $3 million air pollution mitigation project from an earlier version of the pact, posing a challenge to the department's new settlement policy barring such third-party payments.
In the ExxonMobil case, EPA and DOJ Oct. 31 announced a proposed settlement with the company and a subsidiary to address alleged excess emissions of VOCs from poorly-functioning flares at eight of the firm's petrochemical facilities, located in Texas and Louisiana.
Pruitt hailed the deal in a press release, saying it “reinforces EPA’s commitment to enforce the law and hold those who violate it accountable.”
And Patrick Traylor, EPA's deputy enforcement chief, told reporters on a conference call that the proposed deal shows “we will be enforcing environmental laws in this administration.” EPA leadership is “absolutely committed” to enforcement, he added.
“These companies have co-operated with us,” Traylor said, and now that they have addressed their violations they can get back to “driving economic growth.”
Exxon has denied any wrongdoing in the settlement, and its spokesman told Reuters the company worked closely with the government to resolve the matter.
'New' Reductions
But others have previously noted that the proposed settlement with ExxonMobil was weaker than it otherwise might have been. One informed source noted that the settlement dropped previously discussed supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) that would mitigate some of the unlawful releases, due to Attorney General Jeff Session's third-party settlement payment bar.
And according to EIP's comments, filed on behalf of Texas and Louisiana environmental groups, the proposed settlement raises serious concerns about whether it will actually achieve new pollution cuts beyond what the company was already required to do.
While the consent decree asserts that it will reduce VOCs by 7,061 tpy, EIP notes that Exxon “only reported combined VOC emissions of 972 tons from all of the flares covered by the Consent Decree in its 2012 emissions inventory submissions.”
In addition, the letter notes, ExxonMobil's current permits only authorize 1,100 tons per year of VOC emissions from the covered flares. As a result, EPA should explain the basis for its determination “that the decree will eliminate more than 7,000 tpy.”
Additionally, the group says that while the decree estimates the compliance costs are $300 million, its analysis suggests that “many of these requirements, including the obligation to install flare gas recovery systems, were already reflected in permits issued well before the Consent Decree was lodged.” As a result, EPA should indicate which expenditures “actually result from Consent Decree obligations, not including funds already spent (or that will be spent) to satisfy pre-existing permit or regulatory requirements.”
The consent decree also authorizes the use of emission reductions, netting credits, or emission offsets for permitting various projects or from the installation and operation of flare gas recovery systems. “EPA should clarify how consent decree requirements could generate emission reductions, credits or offsets under the various permits itemized in these paragraphs, and in particular how they would be quantified,” the comments say.
Additionally, the settlement requires covered flares to achieve a 98 percent combustion efficiency, meaning they would destroy 98.26 percent of VOCs and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) but permits for several of the plants require covered flares to destroy at least 99 percent of the pollutants, “a significantly more stringent emission rate. . . . EPA should clarify that these modifications will not allow ExxonMobil to relax current permit conditions that appear to be more stringent than Consent Decree requirements.”
Finally, EIP says the settlement uses 2012, not 2017, as the baseline for measuring emission reductions, and that backdating suggests “much of the work to achieve those reductions occurred before the decree was lodged in court.”
EIP says in a Dec. 12 statement accompanying the comments that the settlement “follows the current administration's pattern of leniency toward polluters and highlights its disregard for public health. ExxonMobil is a historic repeat violator of the Clean Air Act and was among the worst emitters during Hurricane Harvey” this past summer.
EIP asks DOJ to provide a more complete explanation of what the consent decree actually requires, given its concerns, and says the $2.5 million penalty for violations at eight plants appears small, especially in light of the 6,000 tons of VOCs it illegally released every years.
One environmentalist notes that a different case against Exxon in the region resulted in a court-imposed $20 million penalty at just one plant, and the distinction between the two amounts “is telling,” and a former DOJ official said the low amount of the penalty raised questions about why the administration held a press conference to announce it.
DOJ took comment on the proposed decree through Dec. 7 and it must consider the comments and possibly modify the requirements before it asks a court to enter it.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-warn-epa-touted-deal-exxon-may-be-unlawful
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EPA Says It Has Authority To Issue Climate Regulations
Dec 14, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Emily Holden
EPA believes it has legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, according to the Trump administration's newly updated regulatory agenda, but in far more limited manner than the Obama-era EPA asserted.
The agency plans to finish withdrawing Obama's Clean Power Plan, which sought to reduce power-sector emissions by shifting away from coal and toward natural gas and renewable power, by October. The agency now argues that it can only regulate power plants directly.
EPA proposes to read the Clean Air Act "as being limited to emission reduction measures that can be applied to or at an individual stationary source," the document says, which is often referred to as an "inside the fenceline" regulation.
Administrator Scott Pruitt noted for the first time last week that the agency plans to replace the Obama climate regulations for power plants.
Conservative groups had instead been pressuring Pruitt to challenge a science-based endangerment finding that requires the agency to regulate planet-warming carbon emissions.
EPA is expected to write a rule that allows states to set their own efficiency standards for coal plants, following pressure from utilities and business groups that want EPA to replace the Clean Power Plan to protect against future lawsuits.
As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt lodged court challenges against the Clean Power Plan that questioned whether EPA had authority to write the rule for several reasons, including that it required changes in the broader power sector rather than at coal plants.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2017/12/epa-says-it-has-authority-to-issue-climate-regulations-273943
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