ACC PM 12/15

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Lobbyists Hiding in Plain Sight at the EPA

   Dec 15, 2017 | HuffPost

   By Linda Reinstein
   
   
   The evidence is growing that the insidious influence of a special interest lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is compromising our environment and public health.
2. Ewire: Senate Confirms Picks for EPA General Counsel, Water Chief

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   The Senate late Dec. 14 confirmed Trump administration picks for two top EPA positions, general counsel and water chief, further filling out Administrator Scott Pruitt's team as he is poised to finalize and defend rollbacks of key Obama-era climate, water and other regulations.

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

Chemical Management News

3. (ACC Mentioned) Observers Expect Another EPA Toxics Nominee, but Brace for Delays

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   Longtime agency observers anticipate the Trump administration will eventually nominate a new candidate to lead EPA's toxics office in the wake of Michael Dourson's withdrawn nomination, a key step that will be needed to implement the revised toxics law, but they doubt whether any new nominee can make it through the highly partisan confirmation process.
4. The Energy 202: Ryan Zinke's Office Takes Control of National Monuments' FOIA Requests

   Dec 15, 2017 | The Washington Post

   By Dino Grandoni
   
   
   It is unclear whether Michael Dourson, Trump’s controversial EPA nominee who withdrew his name from consideration on Wednesday, is still working in the agency as a senior adviser.
5. “The Best People”: Trump Judicial Nominee Fails To Answer Basic Legal Questions

   Dec 15, 2017 | Vanity Fair

   By Maya Kosoff
   
   
   Back in October, Donald Trump bemoaned the arduous confirmation process faced by his judicial nominees.
6. Bill Proposes Nation's Toughest Limit for Water Contaminants

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Greenwire

   A Michigan legislator is proposing that the state adopt the most stringent drinking water contamination limits in the country for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), chemicals found in everything from shoes and cookware to firefighting foam.

Energy News

7. Deadly H2S Gas Worrying Residents, State Regulators

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Soraghan
   
   
   Emissions of a potentially deadly gas from wells in one of the country's hottest oil plays have neighbors worrying about their safety and Oklahoma regulators taking another look at their rules.
8. Increased LNG Exports Would Spell Trouble for Climate — Study

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire

   By Ellen M. Gilmer and Jenny Mandel
   
   
   Energy researchers are taking aim at the often-touted climate benefits of U.S. natural gas exports and calling on the federal government to take a closer look at the issue.
9. EPA Poised to Release ANPR for CPP Replacement

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   EPA is poised to soon release its advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) that will solicit feedback on whether and how to replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP) greenhouse gas standards for power plants, after the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) on Dec. 14 completed its pre-publication review of the notice.
10. Clean Power Plan to Be Fully Terminated in 10 Months

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

    By Niina Heikkinen
    
    
    For the first time, U.S. EPA has publicly released a timeline for its review and likely repeal of major climate regulations still on the books.
11. White House Starts March to Replacement

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Greenwire

    By Arianna Skibell
    
    
    U.S. EPA has initiated the process for replacing the Clean Power Plan, former President Obama's signature climate regulation.
12. OMB Completes Review of Clean Power Plan Rulemaking

    Dec 15, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Emily Holden
    
    
    The White House has finished its review of EPA’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on replacing the Clean Power Plan, indicating the agency could release it soon.

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

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

13. Ambitious Climate Plans Make 'Plenty of Work for Everybody'

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

    By Debra Kahn
    
    
    California officials yesterday approved a regulatory roadmap for slashing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
14. Trump Admin Puts EPA Climate Science Debate Plan 'on Hold'

    Dec 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama
    
    
    The Trump administration is putting a halt to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt’s plans to organize a forum to challenge consensus on climate change science.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Lobbyists Hiding in Plain Sight at the EPA

   Dec 15, 2017 | HuffPost

   By Linda Reinstein

   The evidence is growing that the insidious influence of a special interest lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is compromising our environment and public health.

   The ACC’s fingerprints were all over President Trump’s nomination of industry shill Michael Dourson to head the agency’s chemical safety division. Dourson was forced to withdraw his name from consideration on December 13, after bipartisan opposition rendered his Senate confirmation unlikely, given his ongoing ties to chemical industries he had spent his career defending as a toxicologist. Trump’s nomination of Dourson is but the latest example of the ACC’s influence within the agency assigned to regulate the polluting and contaminating industries—on whose behalf this trade association lobbies.

   The Fox is Dismantling the Hen House

   On December 6, the EPA held a public meeting with Deputy Assistant Administrator Nancy Beck, Ph.D., a former executive at the American Chemistry Council, who opened the public meeting. Industry cronies such as Michael Walls, the ACC’s vice president of regulatory and technical affairs organized a ‘pilot program’ with only chemical industry representatives.

   On the following day, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee summoned EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to address concerns surrounding his sweeping, counter-productive policy and departmental changes, acting at the bidding of the ACC and other corporate interests.

   Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who sued the EPA 13 times, has systematically abolished regulations and rolled back environmental protection rules and requirements. And he has slashed the agency’s budget and staff. In partnership with President Trump, he has ensured the subsequent restructuring includes the voices of chemical industry honchos with records of anti-environmental action.

   Put People Over Profits

   The purpose of the EPA, which can still be found in the Mission section of its website, is to protect human health and the environment—not the corporate bottom line.

   When the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill was signed into law in 2016, it seemed bipartisan legislation in the name of health was possible. Under the updated act, all citizens were to be shielded from dangerous chemicals—chief among them asbestos, a deadly carcinogen that kills as many as 15,000 Americans a year. ADAO has watched sadly as Trump claimed asbestos was “100 percent safe.”

   Pruitt testified on December 7 to being unfamiliar with the asbestos import issue. Yet since 2012, the USA has spent over $4 million dollars buying tons of asbestos from Brazil to be used by the chlor-alkali industry. Last week, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court ruled that there is “no safe or controlled use” and banned the mining, use, and commerce of asbestos. Although heavily lobbied by Dow, Brazil’s Supreme Court also ruled not to grant the chlor-alkali industry an exemption to continue using asbestos diaphragms. This unprecedented move is a game-changer, as Brazil has been the world’s third largest asbestos producer as well as a major exporter of deadly asbestos.

   ADAO shares the belief of Energy and Commerce Committee Chairmen Walden and Shimkus that, “It is past time for EPA to refocus on pursuing its important public health and environmental missions as Congress originally intended.”

   During the hearing, Congressman Frank Pallone pressed Pruitt on the agency’s worrying and inadequate implementation of TSCA. The law requires the EPA to examine intended conditions for use of a chemical defined under which the chemical is manufactured, processed, distributed, used, and disposed of. In the scoping document for asbestos risk assessment, however, EPA announced they will only look at manufacturing, processing, and distribution—ignoring use and disposal. We all know that with asbestos, the main sources of risk are its use and disposal. Under the EPA’s new risk assessment guidelines—drawn by and for the chemical industry—the risk to workers and ordinary Americans will not be captured nor will the assessment be scientifically sound.

   Pruitt agreed this is a valid concern and an important factor to consider. We’ll see if he backs his words up with any action. If the pattern of lack of transparency and accountability from the agency continues, it is unlikely the interests of people over profits will be considered.

   https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-chemistry-council-lobbyists-hiding-in-plain_us_5a33fb4ae4b0e7f1200cfa58
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

2. Ewire: Senate Confirms Picks for EPA General Counsel, Water Chief

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   The Senate late Dec. 14 confirmed Trump administration picks for two top EPA positions, general counsel and water chief, further filling out Administrator Scott Pruitt's team as he is poised to finalize and defend rollbacks of key Obama-era climate, water and other regulations.

   The confirmations, approved on voice votes, mean that Matthew Leopold, a former Florida environment department lawyer, will take over EPA's Office of General Counsel to help shore up the legal defense of Pruitt's efforts to roll back major Obama rules, including the Clean Power Plan greenhouse gas standards for utilities and first-time methane rules for the oil and gas sector.

   In addition, David Ross, a former Wisconsin regulator, will be assistant administrator of the Office of Water. In that role, he will play a key part in developing a new Clean Water Act jurisdiction standard, after Pruitt has proposed to scrap the Obama administration's 2015 regulation setting the scope of the water law.

   Many industry groups and Republicans feel the 2015 rule is too expansive, though the Trump EPA could struggle to craft a replacement that aligns with several prior Supreme Court rulings on the issue that many say have created significant confusion about which waters are regulated under federal law.

   Democrats allowed the two nominations to proceed after Trump's highly controversial pick to be EPA toxics chief, Michael Dourson, asked to withdraw his nomination.

   Environmentalists and Democrats stridently opposed Dourson's nomination out of concern that his close industry ties would undermine efforts to implement a newly revised toxics law. In addition, his nomination fell into trouble last month after Republican Sens. Richard Burr (NC) and Thom Tillis (NC) announced their opposition, while a third GOP senator, Susan Collins (ME) said she was “leaning against” voting for him.

   In a Dec. 14 statement, Senate environment committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) did not address the broader dynamic regarding Dourson while praising the confirmation of Leopold and Ross. EPA “needs its full leadership team confirmed and in place,” Barrasso said.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-senate-confirms-picks-epa-general-counsel-water-chief
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

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

Chemical Management News

3. (ACC Mentioned) Observers Expect Another EPA Toxics Nominee, but Brace for Delays

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   Longtime agency observers anticipate the Trump administration will eventually nominate a new candidate to lead EPA's toxics office in the wake of Michael Dourson's withdrawn nomination, a key step that will be needed to implement the revised toxics law, but they doubt whether any new nominee can make it through the highly partisan confirmation process.

   “I think they will nominate someone else. I don't know how much of a hurry they'll be in,” one industry source says. This source and others Inside EPA spoke with have yet to hear of any potential names, but Dourson only submitted his request to Trump to withdraw his nomination Dec. 13.

   Another industry source believes that “the administration wants to move expeditiously, but they have to take into account how partisan things are in Congress.”

   And Bob Sussman, a former EPA official now serving as counsel to the environmental group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families says, “I haven’t heard of new names for the . . . post but there are well-respected people who should be considered. I hope the White House moves quickly but fear that they won’t."

   The first source says that one consideration is what qualifications the administration wants to see in a new nominee for the position of assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). “Do they want a lawyer, a scientist like Dourson?” the source says. “The real question is whether anyone nominated by this administration could get through” the confirmation process.

   It took Trump nearly seven months to nominate Dourson for the position, and the administration has been slower than others to nominate people across the government. The situation is further complicated by the narrow margin in the Senate as well as its full calendar of issues to address.

   Facing opposition from at least three GOP senators, Dourson had been unable to win confirmation under the current 52-48 Republican majority. But the next nominee will face an even slimmer GOP majority after Sen.-elect Doug Jones (D) won the Dec. 12 special election for the Alabama senate seat Jeff Sessions vacated to become President Donald Trump's attorney general, creating an even higher bar for any new nominee.

   Sussman and others who had opposed Dourson called on the chemical industry and EPA's political leadership to “learn the right lesson from the collapse of the Dourson nomination,” saying it provided a “powerful message that the public doesn’t want chemical safety decisions that are dictated by industry’s short-term 'wish list' and biased industry-driven interpretations of scientific data.”

   But Sussman said he is not optimistic. “Regrettably, this is not the mindset of the political appointees who are now directing the [Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)] program or their former industry colleagues who are whispering in their ears and calling the shots.”

   He said that “on every issue of consequence,” including the framework rules governing reviews of existing chemicals, the landmark section 6(a) draft rules barring uses of some solvents and the new chemicals program, “the path they are following is one which downplays protection of health and the environment, cuts corners on the law, repudiates the career staff and errs on the side of industry’s narrow commercial interests.”

   TSCA Implementation

   Implementation of the June 2016 law reforming TSCA is the primary focus of OCSPP leaders and staff, with its many new responsibilities and statutory deadlines for the agency to meet.

   Many sources noted that until another candidate is nominated for the top OCSPP slot, Nancy Beck, the office's political deputy assistant administrator who was formerly with the American Chemistry Council (ACC), will continue to run OCSPP.

   Her position does not require Senate confirmation, though it too has engendered outcry from environmentalists and Democrats, who see conflicts of interest in Beck's role directing EPA's toxics office while the agency is reviewing chemicals that Beck once urged EPA not to regulate.

   Beck, in Dec. 12 remarks during a panel session at the Society for Risk Analysis' annual meeting in Arlington, VA, described herself as “a scientist running a regulatory program. So I'm not gonna talk today about . . . concerns . . . I'm just gonna tell you what we're doing. And I think what we're doing is good for science, it's good for risk analysis and it's good for humbleness.”

   But asked about the role of risk assessment in the current environment during a question and answer period at the end of the session, Beck said that “at EPA we're trying to have a risk evaluation-based program, focusing on risk assessment. Some of our harshest critics want us to be doing hazard only-based approaches.”

   Beck added “that there seems to be this perception that risk evaluation is not consistent with public health. . . . I do think the field [of risk analysis] is sort of in jeopardy, because the folks that are pushing for a hazard-based approach, in the eyes of the public, are winning. There's a strong perception out there that chemicals are not safe, that these are hazards that we should not have in our environment. I think risk evaluation will help answer that question of are they really safe. But until that plays out, the hazard folks are winning and the risk analysis field is losing.”

   It was unclear at the time what Beck thought these individuals were winning outside of public opinion and what her remarks applied to. But a day later, an informed source told Inside EPA that Dourson would ask Trump to withdraw his name from consideration because of concern that his nomination was becoming a distraction.

   An OCSPP source welcomed Dourson's pulling his name from consideration, saying Dourson “brought extra scrutiny to the office.” The source compared Beck favorably to Dourson, saying that Dourson “seemed pretty clueless whereas Beck is at least trying to engage. Beck is clearly an industry representative but has more credibility than Dourson.”

   By contrast, ACC spokesman Jon Corley said it was “extremely unfortunate that someone as qualified and experienced as Dr. Dourson was targeted so viciously during the nomination process and has chosen to withdraw his name.”

   Multiple sources noted that the acrimonious confirmation process may keep some nominees from accepting a nomination. “I think some people will be scared off,” the second industry source said.

   Better Morale

   Like other observers, the OSCPP source did not expect Dourson's withdrawal will change much at OCSPP, which continues to operate under the leadership of Beck and two senior career staff. “Dourson was ineffective from the beginning so I am not sure there will be changes other than slightly better morale,” the source said.

   The industry sources also expects to see little change in OCSPP's activities, though both noted that there are some decisions that can only be made by a confirmed assistant administrator, and the lack of one will reduce appointees' bandwidth to make changes the administration would like to see.

   Further, while TSCA implementation is Beck's “strength” and will continue to be a focus, the first industry source suggests that “you may have more concerns with the other things the office does.” The source pointed as an example to the latest Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) extension bill, which remains stalled in Congress.

   The bill's predecessors for years have allowed EPA to levy extra fees on pesticide manufacturers to hire sufficient staff to review and register pesticides more efficiently and predictably. These staff would be lost if the bill is not passed, and the pesticides program thrown into turmoil. The source adds that the agency also has “huge decisions” to make on some controversial pesticides, such as chlorpyrifos, which the Obama EPA proposed banning.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-news/observers-expect-another-epa-toxics-nominee-brace-delays
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

4. The Energy 202: Ryan Zinke's Office Takes Control of National Monuments' FOIA Requests

   Dec 15, 2017 | The Washington Post

   By Dino Grandoni

   The Trump administration’s top environmental policymakers are engaged in a new war with their adversaries — over how much information to release to the media and outside groups, who are often perceived as enemies, as part of a heavy stream of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

   At both the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department, news outlets and nonprofit organizations have uncovered meeting schedules and travel manifests through FOIA requests that illustrate the ties top officials have forged with players in industries they are tasked with regulating. FOIA requests have also shed light on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s taxpayer-funded travel habits.

   In turn: Some high-level officials at both EPA and Interior are keeping closer tabs on these FOIA requests, while at least at the EPA — according to those who have filed such requests — bureaus drag their feet in responding, Juliet Eilperin and I repor in a piece out this morning.

   Here's the breakdown of what's happening:

   At Interior, Zinke’s office has taken direct control of the various FOIA requests that have piled up across the bureaucracy regarding his review of national monuments created during the last three presidential administrations.

   In early November, as Zinke was finalizing his official monuments recommendations to the White House, Clarice Julka, a FOIA officer in Zinke’s office, emailed other FOIA officers in 11 different Interior offices, including the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to inform them she and FOIA officers in the secretary’s office would handle requests pertaining to the monument review going forward.

   Julka told the staffers to collect records that responded to FOIA requests about the monuments, and forward them to the secretary’s office rather than send them directly to the news outlets, corporations, nonprofits and other groups making the requests.

   “This would also include any FOIA requesting records pertaining to your bureaus’ participation in the review of any monument,” Julka wrote in the Nov. 6 email obtained by The Washington Post.

   Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift declined to comment on how Interior is handling national monument requests. “We don’t have anything to add on the internal process,” she said in an email.

   Interior is also being sued over FOIA requests from two whistleblowers, Joel Clement and Matthew Allen, both of whom were reassigned since Trump took office.

   Allen, who was working as BLM’s communications director for nearly a year before was transferred to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in September, filed suit Tuesday in  U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over the department’s failure to release public records related to his case.

   Allen’s attorney, Katherine Atkinson — who previously sued Interior over Clement’s case — said in a statement that they went to court because “federal agencies are required to release documents and records in a timely manner as part of their responsibility to transparency to the American people.”

   In an interview, Allen said he had disagreed with how political appointees at BLM, including then-acting director Michael Nedd, handled public records requests.

   Nedd, a longtime BLM employee appointed by Zinke to the acting position, asked to review and weigh in on FOIA requests that identified him specifically, Allen said, adding that he reported Nedd’s request to Interior’s deputy secretary. Dan Dubray, BLM’s acting communications director, said the bureau’s director is apprised of FOIA requests but does not determine which documents are released.

   “Any time you have leaders within a government agency who are taking steps to withhold information from the public press and the Congress,” Allen said, “we should all be concerned.”

   Meanwhile  at the EPA, several environmental groups and media outlets have criticized the agency for failing to more quickly provide documents responding to these requests. Pruitt announced last month his staff has prioritized clearing out the backlog of records requests filed during the previous administration. There were 652 such open requests as of October, and officials estimate they will complete 70 percent of them by the end of the year.

   As of October, the EPA had 652 open FOIA requests that were submitted in prior years. The agency said it is on track to answer 70 percent of those requests by Dec. 31.

   In a recent hearing before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, lawyers from two environmental groups argued that the intense level of scrutiny applied by the administrator’s office had delayed the release of critical documents.

   Thomas J. Cmar, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Judge Valerie E. Caproni that hard copies of redacted documents they were waiting to receive about the delay of a rule curbing the amount of polluted water steam electric power plants can emit “had been submitted for something that was described as a senior management review before they could be finally released,” something he said was “not a normal part of FOIA procedures as we understand them.”

   Asked about the procedure, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony J. Sun said “the new administration put in a procedure for this case — not all cases, but this particular case” where the office that manages Pruitt’s correspondence and records reviews any releases under FOIA.

   In an email, EPA acting general counsel Kevin Minoli said that while he could not discuss that specific case, the role that office performs regarding FOIA requests “is consistent with what it was in the last administration.”

   Caproni ordered the EPA to provide a complete response to the FOIA that NRDC and Earthjustice filed in April by Dec. 31. Earthjustice spokeswoman Daveon Coleman said late last month that the EPA provided the three documents that had been subject to senior management review.

   Carbon-capture push: In a letter sent Thursday, four senators urged leaders in the chamber to include carbon-capture-and-storage tax breaks in the end-of-year tax extenders package. In July, the ideologically diverse group — Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) — introduced a bill to create tax credits for carbon-capture projects, similar to those for wind and solar energy.

   Why they might get what they want: Support is bipartisan,. Whitehouse and Barrasso — who are among the biggest proponents and detractors in the Senate, respectively, of the idea that humans are warming the planet — rarely ever agree on energy policy. Plus, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has co-sponsored similar pieces of legislation in the past.

   Most importantly, unlike the tax cuts the GOP is trying to passing right now, the tax extenders bill requires 60 votes in the Senate, meaning McConnell will need some Democratic votes.

   “A breach of public trust:” About 35 percent of the nearly 30,000 employees at the Interior Department who participated in a survey reported they had experienced harassment or intimidation at work, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The thousands of employees said they felt the incidents were often related to their age or gender. More than 85 percent of those department employees noted they had to continue to work with the person who harassed or intimidated them, per the report. About 44 percent of the 70,000 employees who work in the Interior department responded to the survey.

    Zinke called it a “breach of public trust.” “Harassment – intimidation – is a cancer that can destroy even the best organizations,” he told the newspaper. Zinke also said he had personally fired four employees over harassment accusations.

   Though the issue has taken on new urgency in this #MeToo moment, harassment has been a longstanding problem for Interior. In May, a senior law enforcement official in the department who investigators documented had sexually harassed six women who worked for him or with him retired rather than face discipline, The Post's Lisa Rein reported. And Zinke's predecessor as interior secretary, Sally Jewell, acknowledged last year that a "culture" of sexual harassment probably pervades the National Park Service.

   -- Tax bill update: Ari Natter and Chris Martin at Bloomberg News fill us in on the latest tax breaks for different parts of the energy sector to emerge from the conference committee trying to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the GOP tax bill:

   A crucial exemption for wind and solar credits from anti-offshoring is in: "A $12 billion tax-equity tool that U.S. wind and solar developers depend on to finance projects appears likely to remain largely intact [.]"

   Renewables orphaned in 2015 will be orphaned again in 2017: "Tax credits for fuel cells, small wind and geothermal heat pumps, which were left out of that 2015 legislation, will again be omitted."

   Nuclear credits abandoned too: "Also excluded from the final bill is the extension of a tax credit for new nuclear production that had been included in the House’s bill, according to a Republican familiar with the process."

   Is Dourson still at the EPA? It is unclear whether Michael Dourson, Trump’s controversial EPA nominee who withdrew his name from consideration on Wednesday, is still working in the agency as a senior adviser.

   Although he removed his name from consideration to serve as head of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention after it became clear insufficient Republicans would support him, the AP reports Dourson has been working at the department as a senior adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt in a role that doesn't require Senate confirmation. The EPA would not say, per the AP, whether Dourson will remain in that job. The agency has also declined to disclose Dourson’s taxpayer-funded salary. 

   With Dourson down, the Senate marches on: On Thursday, the chamber confirmed two other EPA nominees: Matt Leopold to serve as general counsel and David Ross to run the agency's Office of Water.

   -- Meanwhile, outside the EPA, more than 2,100 people, including 704 former agency employees, have signed an open letter to current EPA staff urging them to “Guard the gate" as Pruitt begins to offer buyouts to scientists and other technical experts.

   “These may be the most trying but also the most crucial days of your career," reads the letter, organized by the Environmental Integrity Project. "We appreciate you, we admire you, and we look forward to relying on a strong and supported EPA in the days and decades to come. You protect our health, you protect our resources, and you ensure a safer and more truly prosperous future for all Americans."

   The latest on Puerto Rico: More than a third of Puerto Rico is still in the dark, more than 12 weeks after Hurricane Maria hit the island, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Power is also unstable in the areas where service has been restored. A small business advocacy group Centro Unido de Detallistas, estimates that about two-thirds of small businesses on the island have shuttered since the storm, and up to 40 percent may never reopen.  

   “For a decade, Puerto Rico has experienced a steady erosion of economic opportunity,” Monte Reel writes for Bloomberg Businessweek, “and now there’s a fear that the storm has convinced too many residents, a critical mass, to pursue new livelihoods elsewhere.”

   NPR reports some of the problems include garbage. Even before the storm hit, the EPA said the island’s landfills were beyond capacity. And Puerto Rico’s Solid Waste Authority estimates 6.2 million cubic yards of waste and debris has gathered as a result of the storm, enough to fill about 43 football stadiums.

   Puerto Rican and Latino groups continue to urge lawmakers not to create additional problems for the struggling U.S. territory with the Republican tax plan, NBC News reported.

   One group went to the offices of GOP lawmakers to press its point. "Puerto Rico is under the U.S. flag and after the hurricane and fiscal crisis, the last thing we need is a hurricane full of punitive and unnecessary taxes on P.R.," Federico de Jesus, a consultant and lobbyist and former Puerto Rico government official told reporters, according to NBC News

   Where Republicans live nationwide may give a clue about their views on climate change, a new report from the New York Timesreveals. The Times breaks down research published in the journal Climatic Change that shows how maps can explain the ideological discrepancies on climate change among Republicans. Here are some highlights:

   An average of half of Republicans nationwide believe the climate is warming.

   The strongest support for the view that climate change is happening occurs on the coasts and where the effects of global warming are being felt, per the report. In Florida, the Times notes, about 56 percent of Republicans believe the climate is changing. And in Hawaii and Alaska, a majority of Republicans agree.

   Most Republicans across the country do not believe humans are causing climate change. Just 31 percent of Republicans in each congressional district say so.

   A majority of Republicans support policies to combat the effects of climate change.

   The research found 48 percent of Republicans support requiring a 20 percent renewable energy standard. Republicans on the East Coast and West Coast showed a majority support for the standard.

   More than 75 percent of Republicans in 15 states support financing renewable energy research, as well as at least 70 percent in all states except for Texas and Rhode Island, which has the nation's first offshore wind farm.

   There are three weather events that scientists say would not have happened in 2016 if it were not for climate change: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration compiles a report every year to pinpoint global warming's effect on weather disasters. This year, the agency found three weather events that “would simply not have occurred if climate change didn’t exist,” Capital Weather Gang’s Angela Fritz reports.

   The deadly heat wave in India and Thailand that lasted weeks in April and May and led to the death of more than 500 people.

   A severe warming in the North Pacific Ocean led to thousand of exotic crabs showing up in South California beaches, a Galapagos sea turtle spearing near San Francisco, toxic algal bloom on the west coasts of the United States and Canada and mahi-mahi appearing off the coast of Oregon.

   2016 was Earth’s hottest year on record for the third year in a row. 

   California is still burning: A firefighter died while responding to the massive Thomas Fire in Southern California on Thursday, officials said. The largest of the flames raging across the southern part of the state continued into its 11th day. It had burned through almost 380 square miles, and destroyed 1,000 buildings, The Post’s Mark Berman reported. It was 30 percent contained as of Thursday.

   The firefighter’s death is just the second fatality confirmed as a result of the recent spate of fires.

   Authorities said they expect the Thomas Fire to be fully contained by Jan. 7.

   Other fires in the region have been mostly contained. The Lilac Fire in San Diego County, which grew to more than 4,100 acres, was 97 percent contained and the Rye Fire in Los Angeles County, which had grown to 6,000 acres, was 100 percent contained earlier this week, Berman reports.

   -- “No significant relief in sight:” That’s how the National Weather Service described conditions in Southern California in a tweet this week as firefighters continue to battle historic flames. 

   Capital Weather Gang’s Fritz reported Thursday morning that the Thomas fire, which this week became the fifth largest in the state’s history, was likely to climb even higher before the end of the month. Fire officials confirmed the blaze has already moved into the spot for the fourth largest fire on record, per the Los Angeles Times.

   “Without any help from Mother Nature, officials are warning, fire growth is going to continue on nearly all sides of the Thomas Fire — west, east and north — in the coming days,” Fritz writes.

   The long-term challenge for the area, she continued, will be a lack of rain. Forecasts predict almost no rain for another two weeks at least.

   Air quality is also at a new low in Santa Barbara, she writes. Health officials have handed out more than 200,000 protective masks to prevent people from inhaling fine particles that can lead to asthma attacks and enter the lungs and bloodstream.

   Fighting the fire has also been a costly. The Associated Press reports the Thomas fire has so far resulted in $74.7 million in firefighting costs, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. 

   Finally, here’s a good longread to bookmark for your weekend. The New York Times takes you to a Wyoming county with seemingly limitless faith in President Trump’s promises to boost energy production and thus provide job security. Almost everyone, the paper’s Clifford Krauss writes, is dependent on energy jobs – from coal miners, out-of-state oil workers and business owners.

   The residents of Converse County support the president’s plan to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, they approve of slashing environmental regulations and allowing coal leasing on federal lands. And they want to limit oil imports and boost exports.

   But wind production is also on the rise in the county, a sign that it may not return to a coal boom that some are hoping for. One 36-year-old who works at a coal-fired plant praised the president, Krauss describes, but appeared wary of the future. “I think he will keep fossil fuels operating and keep E.P.A. within limits,” Shawn Gates told the Times, adding “They’re putting all these wind turbines up that are not cost effective, at the taxpayer’s expense.”

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/12/15/the-energy-202-ryan-zinke-s-office-takes-control-of-national-monuments-foia-requests/5a32c36230fb0469e883fbc0/?utm_term=.f039a05651b7
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

5. “The Best People”: Trump Judicial Nominee Fails To Answer Basic Legal Questions

   Dec 15, 2017 | Vanity Fair

   By Maya Kosoff

   Back in October, Donald Trump bemoaned the arduous confirmation process faced by his judicial nominees. “We have some of the most qualified people,” he told reporters, blaming Democrats for “obstruction.” “They're waiting forever on line. . . . It shouldn't happen that way. It's not right, it's not fair.” Two months later, Trump, aided by the aggressive workings of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,is approaching the record for most federal appeals court judges confirmed during a president’s first year in office; so far Trump has nominated 59 young conservative judges, and 14 have been confirmed. But one of the president’s “most qualified people” appeared to hit a roadblock on Wednesday, floundering in the face of questions from senators.

   During his confirmation testimony, Matthew Spencer Petersen, a nominee for U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who currently serves as a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, appeared ignorant of basic legal principles, according to a video Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse posted to Twitter on Thursday. “MUST WATCH: Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrump’s US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one,” Whitehouse tweeted. “Hoo-boy.”

   In the clip, Senator John Kennedy asked the five nominees up for confirmation whether they’d ever tried a case to a verdict. Petersen admitted that he hadn’t, and Kennedy went on to spend the five minutes he was allotted peppering Petersen with run-of-the-mill legal questions. It quickly became clear that Petersen seemed to lack the basic knowledge expected of a federal judge. “As a trial judge, you’re obviously going to have witnesses. Can you tell me what the Daubert standard is?” Kennedy asked. “Senator Kennedy, I don’t have that readily at my disposal, but I would be happy to take a closer look at that. That is not something I’ve had to contend with,” Petersen replied. Kennedy then asked Petersen if he could define such legal principles as a motion in limine, the Younger abstention doctrine, and the Pullman abstention doctrine. Petersen, like a first-year law school student caught in the headlights, demurred, ultimately admitting he’d never argued a motion in state or federal court or taken a deposition by himself.

   Petersen’s tacit admission that he’s unqualified to do the job for which he’s been tapped comes after two other Trump judicial nominees withdrew their names from consideration following Republican lawmakers’ vocal skepticism. Brett Talley, who had been in the running for a district court job in Alabama, withdrew his controversial nomination this week after Senator Chuck Grassley advised the White House “not to proceed” on his nomination; not only had Talley practiced law for just shy of three years and received a rare “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association, but he failed to disclose a flagrant conflict of interest during his confirmation process. Grassley also recommended that the nomination of Jeff Mateer, who had called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” pushed conversion therapy, and linked homosexuality to bestiality, be “reconsidered.” Ultimately, both nominations were pulled.

   Nor have Trump nominees in other departments been spared: on Wednesday Michael Dourson, Trump’s E.P.A. chemical safety nominee and a longtime toxicologist with ties to the chemical industry, withdrew his name from consideration after Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both Republicans, said they would not vote to confirm him. “Over the last several weeks, Senator Tillis has done his due diligence in reviewing Mr. Dourson’s body of work,” read a statement released by his office. “Senator Tillis still has serious concerns about his record and cannot support his nomination.” Thus far in Trump’s presidency, Republicans have shown an outsized willingness to confirm even his most ill-fitting nominees, as the confirmations of Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, and Betsy DeVos can all attest. But with Trump shedding political capital in the wake of his twice-failed Alabama Senate endorsements, lawmakers’ uptick in scrutiny could be a sign that they’re finally drawing a line in the sand, albeit one that hinges on the most basic modicum of decency and know-how.

   https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/trump-judicial-nominee-fails-to-answer-basic-legal-questions
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

6. Bill Proposes Nation's Toughest Limit for Water Contaminants

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Greenwire

   A Michigan legislator is proposing that the state adopt the most stringent drinking water contamination limits in the country for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), chemicals found in everything from shoes and cookware to firefighting foam.

   State Rep. Winnie Brinks (D) introduced a bill this week with six Democratic co-sponsors that would set a PFAS standard of 5 parts per trillion. That's more than 10 times lower than the 70 ppt standard recommended by U.S. EPA in a 2016 health advisory and lower than the toughest current state standard of 20 ppt in Vermont.

   Brinks said he wants to "start a conversation" about PFAS chemicals, which have garnered attention in Michigan in recent years, with the state investigating nearly two dozen contaminated sites (Greenwire, Nov. 27).

   A decades-old tannery sludge dump used by the shoemaker Wolverine Worldwide has been blamed for tainting private and municipal drinking water in Kent County.

   Nationally, the chemicals have drawn attention around military installations in recent years. Two PFAS chemicals — PFOS and PFOA — were long used in firefighting foam on military air fields.

   Some Republicans in the Michigan Legislature, like state Rep. Chris Afendoulis, say the state should wait for more solid science before setting the standard so low.

   Brinks said she was open to a conversation.

   "Maybe 5 ppt is not exactly the right number, but we need to start with a sufficiently low number that we're having a real conversation about actual health impacts with a specific level," she said. "From what I've read, 70 ppt is just way too high."

   David Andrews, a scientists with the Environmental Working Group, a chemical advocacy group, said the important thing is that states join the conversation, since the EPA recommendation of 70 ppt is not enforceable.

   "Federal drinking water regulations are failing to protect the public, but states do not have to rely on this broken system," Andrews said. "The fastest route to ensure clean drinking water is state action, such as the legislation introduced by Rep. Brinks to set more stringent limits for PFOA and PFOS contamination of water" (Garret Ellison, Grand Rapids Press, Dec. 14). 
   
   https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069153
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

Energy News

7. Deadly H2S Gas Worrying Residents, State Regulators

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Soraghan

   Emissions of a potentially deadly gas from wells in one of the country's hottest oil plays have neighbors worrying about their safety and Oklahoma regulators taking another look at their rules.

   Foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has escaped from oil wells near Dover, Okla., in recent weeks, starting in November. State officials say the emissions have been reduced to safe levels, and the companies that operate the wells say they never reached levels high enough to require notifying the public.

   That isn't reassuring to Karen Smilie, who lives across the street from one of the wells.

   "They're not issued a violation. Nobody tells the public," Smilie said in a phone interview. "Not one person knocked on my door."

   She and her neighbors are especially concerned, she said, because many more wells are planned in the area that is in Kingfisher County, part of what's called the "STACK" play.

   Officials say hydrogen sulfide could become a topic in the coming weeks as oil and gas regulators at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) draft new regulations for approval by the state Legislature next year. Agency spokesman Matt Skinner said H2S emissions have usually been in remote rural areas.

   "The SCOOP and the STACK involve populated areas," Skinner said. "We are looking at the H2S rules."

   STACK stands for "Sooner Trend (oil field), Anadarko (basin), Canadian and Kingfisher (counties)." Along with neighbor play the "SCOOP" (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province), it has led the revival of Oklahoma's oil industry. Both plays reach the western side of the Oklahoma City area.

   The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality is also investigating complaints about the situation in Dover, according to a spokeswoman.

   Smilie and her neighbors are organizing a community meeting in Dover on Monday night to discuss the hydrogen sulfide situation.

   The gas can cause "nearly instant death" at levels as low as 1,000 parts per million (ppm) in the air, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

   The well across the road from Smilie's house registered 900 ppm, according to OCC records. But that is a measure of the H2S flowing up with the fluids inside the wellhead. It's not a measure of how much H2S was escaping into the air.

   Chaparral Energy Inc., which operates the well, said it immediately began treating to reduce the H2S level.

   "At no time did the radius of exposure reach the threshold for public notification," said company spokeswoman Brandi Wessel. There is no OCC notification threshold for Dover, which is not a known H2S area. The threshold for notification in known H2S areas is 300 ppm measured 50 feet from the wellhead.

   Chaparral works with regulatory agencies, Wessel said, "to ensure we protect the local communities and environments where we operate."

   Hydrogen sulfide, also called "sour gas," is a known killer in the oil field. It is often identified by its rotten-egg smell.

   It has killed at least seven oil field workers since the beginning of 2013 and in 1975 was responsible for one of the worst oil field accidents in the country. Nine people died in the Denver City, Texas, tragedy, eight of them in a home about 600 feet from the leaking well.

   "I basically tell people if they're living in these areas, they should move," said Neil Carman, clean air director for the Sierra Club in Texas and a former state inspector. "Hydrogen sulfide is just bad stuff."

   He said there has been concerns for years that the gas could kill children at levels far below what it takes to kill an adult. But there has long been debate about whether frequent exposure to low levels is harmful.'It hit me'

   The oil and gas industry says such chronic exposure is not dangerous.

   "While the smell can be unpleasant, the odor itself is not cause for health concerns," the American Petroleum Institute (API) states on its website. In a 2010 regulatory filing with other trade groups, API said that chronic health effects are unlikely at levels at or below 5 ppm.

   Regulatory agencies, however, say there can be health problems at lower concentrations. OSHA says prolonged exposure to levels as low as 2 to 5 ppm can cause nausea, headaches or loss of sleep. U.S. EPA says lifetime exposure to H2S is unlikely to cause problems as long as the concentration is at or below 0.001 ppm.

   The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality sets the limit at 0.2 ppm. But oil and gas is generally regulated by OCC, which allows higher amounts.

   As the concentration increases, the gas deadens people's sense of smell, making it hard for them to detect the danger.

   Smilie said she was at the hospital in mid-November with her husband, who'd had a heart attack, when a neighbor sent her a message that a yellow flag was flying over the well near her house. She didn't know what that meant, but the neighbor told her it was a warning for hydrogen sulfide.

   A few days later, she woke up with a headache. When she walked downstairs and into her kitchen, she said, "it hit me." She started seeing double and retching. A neighbor took her to the hospital. Heavier than air, H2S often collects in low-lying areas. After that, she and her husband left and stayed for a week in a recreational vehicle they own on property near Stillwater, Okla.

   Her house, she said, is 500 feet or less from the wellhead at the Chaparral site. Oklahoma doesn't have setback rules for oil and gas wells, so they can be built as close to homes as the drillers want. But a home cannot be built within 150 feet of a well.

   Corporation commission records indicate Chaparral installed an H2S alarm system, a vapor recovery system, and scrubbers to treat the gas at the wellhead and water tank. Because it took appropriate measures, OCC officials said, the company didn't violate any rules.

   Another well operated nearby by Gastar Exploration Inc. had similar sour gas levels, according to the OCC records, and was the subject of a complaint. Gastar CEO Russ Porter said in an interview that what neighbors smelled was H2S from the well's produced water. Company officials hadn't realized it was in the wastewater and have now begun treating it.

   Porter added that there have been oil and gas production operations in the area since at least the 1950s.

   But many of Smilie's neighbors told her and friends they didn't know the odors were caused by a dangerous gas. They also didn't know that red and yellow flags flying over the well sites were warnings. On Wednesday night, the smell returned, Smilie said, alarming her and her neighbors.

   Hydrogen sulfide emissions have been rising during the oil and gas boom that started in the United States around 2010 (Energywire, Oct. 21, 2014).

   In Kansas, state regulators received 15 requests to flare gas containing hydrogen sulfide in 2013, up from three in 2012 and none from 2009 to 2011, state records show. Most of those cases involved the Mississippi Lime field, which also underlies Oklahoma.

   Oklahoma regulators calculated that oil and gas operators emitted 594 tons of hydrogen sulfide in 2011 and are planning to do more monitoring of air emissions overall. In New Mexico, which shares patches of the sour-gas-producing Permian Basin with Texas, state officials received reports of five hydrogen sulfide releases in 2013, after receiving none in 2012 and four in 2011.

   In Texas, the amount of gas from H2S-containing fields rose 48 percent in the five years before 2015, to 1.7 trillion cubic feet.

   Shale fields, where the boom has focused, have been known to have high levels of H2S. Parts of the Eagle Ford field in Texas have a maximum concentration of 68,000 parts per million, according to state data, 130 times the lethal level.

   EPA has tried to tighten regulations on hydrogen sulfide, with limited success.

   Hydrogen sulfide was on the original list of hazardous substances to be included in the Clean Air Act of 1990, which would have required it to be treated and monitored as an air pollutant. But it was removed before the act became law, after heavy lobbying from industry.

   In 2011, EPA reinstated reporting requirements for H2S under the Toxics Release Inventory. But most oil and gas wells are exempt because they are small sources that fall below the reporting thresholds.

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069131
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

8. Increased LNG Exports Would Spell Trouble for Climate — Study

   Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Energywire

   By Ellen M. Gilmer and Jenny Mandel

   Energy researchers are taking aim at the often-touted climate benefits of U.S. natural gas exports and calling on the federal government to take a closer look at the issue.

   In a paper published in the journal Energy, researchers argue that shipping liquefied natural gas abroad will likely cause an uptick in global greenhouse gas emissions, rather than creating the benefits claimed by export boosters. The authors are pushing the Department of Energy and other decisionmakers to dig deeper into how other countries are likely to use American gas and how different types of use would affect overall emissions.

   "We're making very important decisions that have decadeslong ramifications related to LNG exports and how we do our energy trade globally, and we're not properly considering the environmental impacts right now," said Washington, D.C.-based energy researcher Alex Gilbert, who co-authored the paper.

   "There are good reasons for that: It's difficult. The analysis is not the easiest thing in the world. It takes time to develop systems and methods and develop cross-agency and cross-academia expertise in those areas," he added. "But really the implications from our paper are that the greenhouse gas impacts from exporting U.S. natural gas, if you're really looking at how it impacts things here at home and abroad, can be very, very bad."

   That's because large volumes of U.S. LNG may not actually replace dirtier sources. Instead, the study says, exports could simply add more fossil fuels to the mix for electricity, industry and other uses, while prolonging the lives of American coal-fired plants.

   The research comes as the federal government is pushing the U.S. to become a major LNG exporter, building on efforts launched under President Obama. Gas exports are part of a broader Trump administration strategy to achieve "energy dominance" on a world stage.

   Environmental groups, meanwhile, have mounted massive opposition campaigns to export proposals in recent years. Though their arguments about climate impacts have not gained traction in federal courts to date, studies like this give the groups new ammunition for future regulatory and legal battles. Questions about the climate impacts of LNG exports will also fuel ongoing political and policy debates.

   The new study takes issue with previous DOE analyses and industry talking points that contend LNG exports help the global climate because importing countries can replace coal-fired power with cleaner-burning natural gas. Gilbert, co-founder of the energy research firm Spark Library, authored the new paper with Benjamin Sovacool, a professor at Aarhus University and the University of Sussex. They did not receive outside funding.

   Weighing the energy needs and policies in markets they deem most likely to import American gas, Gilbert and Sovacool looked at a broader array of potential end uses of LNG, including heating and industrial use. They focused on four of the largest LNG importers in 2013 — Japan, South Korea, China and India — and concluded that a variety of factors would likely undercut potential climate benefits of exports to those countries.

   In Japan and South Korea, for example, the study suggests that policies favoring fuel import diversity in the face of shuttered nuclear reactors could steer the countries to import more coal alongside LNG, meaning the U.S. product would be unlikely to actually displace high-emitting fuels. In China and India, meanwhile, American gas could simply serve ever-rising energy demand rather than sideline any dirtier sources.

   The study converts emissions from various sources to a normalized metric of billion cubic feet per day, considers climate-warming methane leakage rates and lays out the extreme bounds of global warming potential over 20 or 100 years.

   For example, U.S. gas that replaces coal used for electricity in the U.S. or the four Asian markets, or replaces Japanese oil or industrial coal, would generally reduce global climate impacts over 100 years — at varying levels depending on how much methane leaks along the way. On the other hand, U.S. LNG that feeds additional electricity and energy needs or displaces renewables would increase global emissions. The study suggests that most of the likely near-term scenarios fall into the latter category.

   "While uncertainty remains, methane leakage, additional energy demand, and decreased domestic coal displacement have the very real potential to undermine any prospective climate benefit in the long term," the article says, adding: "Only with favorable assumptions which conflict with the energy strategies and needs of importing countries are there net climate benefits from LNG exports."New tools and ammunition?

   Gilbert noted that the study specifically targets DOE's own life-cycle analysis of LNG exports, which he has criticized for focusing on gas replacing coal-fired electricity.

   He said the approach he and Sovacool used — weighing importers' energy strategies and corresponding end uses to analyze the upper and lower bounds of emissions — could easily be incorporated into the agency's National Environmental Policy Act reviews for export applications.

   "When we're looking at these issues, we're dealing with cross-border transactions, that gets really messy really quickly," he said. "And for the purposes of something like NEPA, we don't need to know within any measure of certainty what the emissions are going to be, because that's impossible. What we want to know is, 'What are the potential ranges of outcomes? What is the high case, and what is the low case?' And that's what this study is really doing."

   The study drew quick interest within the environmental community, which has long warned of the potential climate impacts of increased reliance of any fossil fuel, including natural gas.

   "It confirms a lot of the issues that we have been arguing, not only with LNG but with gas in general," said Lorne Stockman, senior research analyst for Oil Change International. "The idea that it displaces coal and therefore it's cleaner — this is often made without any actual analysis of the markets where it's going."

   "It's definitely helpful to have a peer-reviewed academic paper that backs up what we've been saying for the past three years," he added.

   Stockman and Sierra Club attorney Nathan Matthews, who has raised multiple failed legal challenges to DOE's climate analysis for LNG exports, said they were likely to reference the new study in comments on pending applications.

   The Sierra Club is waging relatively early-stage battles against export proposals from Jordan Cove in Oregon and three projects in Brownsville, Texas. Matthews noted that each challenge to DOE's climate analysis depends heavily on the specific administrative record for the project at issue.

   "My hope is that this takes a more sophisticated look at a point we've been saying for years and will be a reason to cause the Department of Energy to re-examine the issue," he said.

   According to Gilbert, the study's approach could help policymakers study the potential end-use scenarios for exported LNG and attempt to reduce emissions by reducing methane leakage and by influencing other countries to use U.S. gas in the most climate-friendly way possible.

   "To the degree that we can influence those through international relations and through the Paris Agreement and through trying to reduce all our emissions globally together, that's something that would tend to reduce a lot of the negative emissions impacts," he said.

   If the U.S. were to reverse its current course and commit to meeting climate goals set under the international climate accord, it could also pressure others to enhance their commitments.

   "We could use this as a very powerful tool of strategic environmental policy, and we're not right now," he said.

   Many environmentalists aren't on board with that conclusion. Stockman, for one, maintains that any increase in natural gas use is untenable for the climate because any emissions reductions it might support in the best-case scenario would not be enough to avoid a devastating rise in temperature.Growing research

   The analysis is one of many that has sought to quantify the life-cycle greenhouse gas implications of an expanded U.S. natural gas industry. The results of those studies have been all over the map, depending in part on who commissioned them and what assumptions were made about end use.

   DOE's 2014 study completed during the Obama administration compared LNG exports with mining and burning coal over a 100-year time span and concluded that U.S. LNG used in Europe and Asia would not increase greenhouse gas emissions. At the time the White House was balancing pressure from environmentalists to rein in the surging natural gas industry with support for a domestic industry that was helping to decrease U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (Greenwire, June 10, 2014).

   The following year, the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas published a study with more aggressive conclusions, contending that burning coal for power in LNG market countries resulted in twice the climate pollution that LNG would cause (Energywire, Oct. 6, 2015).

   In 2016, a study of the Canadian LNG industry's potential climate impacts that one of the authors described as "middle of the road" found that the climate impacts of growing the country's export industry were too close to call, depending on numerous variables outside the control of the exporting country (Energywire, Aug. 25, 2016).

   Responding to the top-line results of the new study, Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, said yesterday, "We agree with the study that it's difficult to predict the range of export scenarios to Asia. However, we are pleased that this life-cycle analysis joins other leading studies in acknowledging that LNG's life-cycle emissions are superior to coal's."

   Most of the existing studies, including Gilbert and Sovacool's study, are based on an assumption that the vast majority of U.S. LNG exports would go to Japan, South Korea, China and India. Those four countries have big natural gas appetites and newly improved access to North American supply, thanks to a widening project that was recently completed on the Panama Canal that means it can now accommodate modern, super-sized LNG tankers.

   Since LNG exports began flowing from Cheniere Energy Inc.'s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana last year, marking the first flows from the so-called U.S. export boom that is starting to roll out, cargoes have shipped to those four Asian countries. But they've also shipped to an unexpected variety of smaller markets on every continent except Antarctica, including Turkey, Poland, Malta, Jordan, Chile and the United Arab Emirates.

   The surprising variety of destinations for U.S. shipments, and corresponding proliferation of use and emissions profiles for the fuel, highlights the uncertainties that Gilbert and Sovacool described in their assessment.

   Leslie Abrahams, who led a 2015 LNG life-cycle analysis from Carnegie Mellon University researchers, said those uncertainties should spur action in areas where the U.S. government has control, like policies to reduce methane leakage from natural gas infrastructure.

   "For LNG exports in particular, the interaction between environmental, social and economic consequences are so complex that it's challenging for traditional tools like life-cycle analysis to really capture all those," said Abrahams, now at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, "so I think that doing these thorough and comprehensive life-cycle studies are an important first step to understanding what some of those highly sensitive parameters are, such as the methane leakage rate and end-use efficiency."

   She urged caution on gaming out likely emissions scenarios, noting the broad suite of factors that go into DOE's determination of what's in the public interest.

   "It's not enough just to quantify all of the emissions and to understand the parameters," she said. "I think that for these types of issues that involve so many different stakeholders and are really so interdisciplinary in nature, we really need to take a broader perspective and think more carefully about how the social, economic and environmental issues all play in together to inform the policy decision."

   Gilbert maintained that closer scrutiny of how American gas is used in other countries is critical to understanding how the country should move forward on exports.

   "Studies like this, they're not going to give you a definitive up or down vote; they're not going to be able to say, 'This will have this impact' for any specific project," he said. "What they can do is give you an initial look at what the range of outcomes are, to also allow you to start targeting ways to reduce the bad parts of those outcomes."

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069129
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

9. EPA Poised to Release ANPR for CPP Replacement

   Dec 15, 2017 | Inside EPA

   EPA is poised to soon release its advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) that will solicit feedback on whether and how to replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP) greenhouse gas standards for power plants, after the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) on Dec. 14 completed its pre-publication review of the notice.

   OMB's description of the imminent ANPR says it will “solicit information on systems of emission reduction and provide notice of the agency's interest in developing a rule similarly intended to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil-fueled electric utility generating units and to solicit information for the agency to consider in developing such a rule.”

   EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently pledged to Congress that the agency is “going to be introducing a replacement rule” for the Obama-era CPP, which he proposed to rescind in October.

   The statement is important because debate is raging between major industry groups and hard-line conservatives about whether EPA should have some level of GHG regulation for the power sector to create legal and regulatory certainty, or whether the agency should attempt to scrap all of its GHG controls.

   It appears Pruitt, in opting to craft a replacement rule, has sided with industry groups, including nearly all facets of the power sector, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

   Also, agency air chief Bill Wehrum recently said that the ANPR will ask a lot of questions about a “building-block one-style rule,” referring to the first of the CPP's three “building blocks” that sought to improve the efficiency of power plants inside their “fencelines.” He said the Obama CPP was “more of a federal mandate” than a suggestion, signaling that any replacement may likely leave more discretion to states.

   Wehrum during a Dec. 12 meeting of the agency's clean air advisers also downplayed concerns that EPA's decision to issue an ANPR, rather than directly releasing a replacement proposal, would add significant time to the process of crafting a replacement.

   The ANPR should not be construed as meaning EPA is on a “slow boat here. I believe we are on a fast boat,” he said.

   OMB's website says that a proposed replacement rule could be released in June 2018, though it is possible that deadline could slip given that the site also says the ANPR was scheduled to be released this November.

   EPA's proposal to rescind the CPP -- which argues that the Obama-era rule overstepped the agency's Clean Air Act authority by setting GHG targets based on actions taken “beyond the fenceline” of regulated plants -- is open to public comment though Jan. 16. EPA says it expects to finalize the rule in October 2018.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-poised-release-anpr-cpp-replacement
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

10. Clean Power Plan to Be Fully Terminated in 10 Months

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

    By Niina Heikkinen

    For the first time, U.S. EPA has publicly released a timeline for its review and likely repeal of major climate regulations still on the books.

    The announcement came as part of the release of the Trump administration's overall regulatory agenda. In a news conference yesterday afternoon, President Trump touted efforts to roll back regulations.

    "We're lifting restrictions on American energy, and we've ended the war on coal. We have clean coal — beautiful, clean coal, another source of energy," Trump said.

    EPA highlighted its own efforts at rolling back regulations, noting in a press release the agency had taken 54 deregulatory actions in 2017.

    "EPA's plan balances its statutory requirements to issue regulations and its commitment to providing regulatory certainty through improvements to existing regulations that were flawed, outdated, ineffective, or unnecessarily burdensome," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

    The agency appears to be a month behind schedule on its plans for deciding whether to replace the Clean Power Plan. According to the semiannual Unified Agenda released yesterday, EPA had planned to release an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in November. Earlier this week, the agency's air chief, Bill Wehrum, said he hoped the document would be signed by the administrator in "a few days." It's unclear whether this delay will have an impact on the agency's projection for the release of its notice of proposed rulemaking, currently slated for June 2018.

    Meanwhile, the agency is moving forward with its plans for repealing the Obama administration's climate rule for power plants. EPA has suggested it will have a final rule ready in October 2018. The agency is proposing to narrowly consider the "best system of emissions reductions" as applying only to individual stationary sources. The Obama administration had sought to take a systemwide approach.

    "The EPA believes that this interpretation is consistent with the CAA's text, context, structure, purpose, and legislative history, as well as with the Agency's historical understanding and exercise of its statutory authority," the agenda read.

    The Unified Agenda summary notes that repealing the CPP would avoid $33 billion in compliance costs but does not highlight potentially lost environmental or economic benefits of the rule.

    In its overall summary of its planned actions related to power plant emissions, the agency mentions it is still reviewing EPA's regulations for new and modified power plants. However, there is not a clear timeline in the near term for when that review would occur.

    The agency is considering emissions controls on well sites and compressor stations, along with standards for pneumatic pumps and the requirement that a professional engineer certify closed vent system design capacity.

    EPA plans to have a notice of proposed rulemaking out in August 2018 and to have a final rule in place by September 2019.

    "The reconsidered rule is anticipated to streamline certain areas of the rule in an effort to reduce burden and improve implementation," according to EPA's agenda.

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069091
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

11. White House Starts March to Replacement

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Greenwire

    By Arianna Skibell

    U.S. EPA has initiated the process for replacing the Clean Power Plan, former President Obama's signature climate regulation.

    The White House Office of Management and Budget cleared an EPA notice that it intends to issue a new rule for regulating greenhouse gas emissions at power plants. The advance notice of proposed rulemaking would solicit comments from the public on what a replacement regulation should look like.

    Once EPA signs and issues the notice, it is expected to appear in the Federal Register in the following days or weeks. An official proposed rule detailing the replacement is expected sometime next year.

    While there has been debate about what the nature of a new rule would be, the Trump administration is believed to be looking for an "inside the fence line" rule, which would target specific plants. This move is supported by business groups that argued against a total repeal of the rule (Climatewire, Dec. 11).

    Obama's rule had a broader, "beyond the fence line" approach, which allowed emissions reductions through the addition of more natural gas and renewable energy sources.

    A replacement rule is also particularly appealing to industry officials who are looking to avoid widespread common law and citizen lawsuits, which would likely incur steep legal costs and settlement fees. Environmental lawyers have been plotting creative courtroom challenges against EPA and utilities since the repeal was announced (Climatewire, Oct. 12).

    The notice coincides with yesterday's release of the administration's Unified Agenda, or regulatory survey for all federal agency actions, in which EPA said it was set to finalize the CPP repeal by October 2018 (E&E News PM, Dec. 14).

    The Obama administration's Clean Power Plan required states to craft strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. It estimated that, by 2030, the plan would bring up to $45 billion annually in net public health and climate-related benefits.

    https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069171
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

12. OMB Completes Review of Clean Power Plan Rulemaking

    Dec 15, 2017 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Emily Holden

    The White House has finished its review of EPA’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on replacing the Clean Power Plan, indicating the agency could release it soon.

    The OMB completed its process Thursday, according to its website.

    Legal experts say EPA has been under pressure to produce the rulemaking document soon as a signal to the courts that it is moving forward on the issue after proposing to withdraw the Obama administration’s power-sector climate standards.

    The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed not to make a decision on lawsuits challenging the Clean Power Plan pending updates from EPA.

    EPA will release its notice seeking public comment “in the upcoming weeks,” according to the most recent court filing.

    Administrator Scott Pruitt last week said he would replace the regulation, and the agency this week acknowledged its authority to regulate coal plants directly.

    https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

    Return to headline | Return to top

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

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

13. Ambitious Climate Plans Make 'Plenty of Work for Everybody'

    Dec 15, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

    By Debra Kahn

    California officials yesterday approved a regulatory roadmap for slashing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

    Due every five years, the state's scoping plan serves as a rough estimate of how the state will reach its economywide emissions targets — 1990 levels by 2020 and 40 percent below that by 2030.

    The California Air Resources Board predicts that "direct" regulations — including the state's renewable portfolio standard; low-carbon fuel standard; and new rules to slash methane, refrigerants and soot from fuel combustion — will account for 62 percent of the cumulative reductions needed through 2030. The rest will be delivered by the state's cap-and-trade system, a far bigger share than it currently contributes (Climatewire, Dec. 13).

    That reliance on cap and trade drew criticism yesterday from environmental justice advocates and several members of the board, who said it could conflict with a 2016 law that requires the state to prioritize direct emissions reductions. "Cap and trade is one thing and direct reductions are another," said board member Diane Takvorian.

    The move comes against a backdrop of unseasonably ferocious wildfires across the state and, on the federal level, the Trump administration's promotion of fossil fuels and rollback of greenhouse gas regulations. The board's chair, Mary Nichols, said the scoping plan should serve as a bright spot amid a "gloomy" climate picture.

    "Literally everyone around the world is looking at California," she said. "Considering the gloomy news that we're getting on a daily basis now about how much faster the global warming worst-case scenario is proceeding than anyone had thought early on, I think it behooves us to take a minute and say this is something really important and it's good that we did it."

    "As 2017 comes to a close, the news from Washington and our federal government is profoundly discouraging," Rick Frank, director of the University of California, Davis' California Environmental Law and Policy Center, wrote in a blog post yesterday. "California, in stark contrast, remains steadfast to its commitment to environmental quality, wise stewardship of its natural resources and to leading by example in reducing the state's GHG emissions and otherwise confronting the cataclysmic consequences of climate change."

    The agency also announced a new approach yesterday to cutting vehicular emissions through land-use planning under a 2008 law that sets regional targets for reducing emissions from passenger vehicles. Starting next year, CARB will increase targets for regional governments to achieve a 19 percent average reduction from 2005 levels by 2035.

    Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission voted yesterday to establish a pilot program for utilities to buy gas generated from methane at dairies, in line with a bill passed last year. The CPUC, CARB and the California Department of Food and Agriculture will select at least five pilot projects to test dairies' ability to inject the gas into utilities' natural gas distribution systems.

    "I think there's going to be plenty of work for everybody for years to come," Nichols said.

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/12/15/stories/1060069137
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

14. Trump Admin Puts EPA Climate Science Debate Plan 'on Hold'

    Dec 15, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama

    The Trump administration is putting a halt to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt’s plans to organize a forum to challenge consensus on climate change science.

    The plan, dubbed “red team, blue team” after the national security community’s exercises, was halted after various administration officials met about it this week, Climatewire reported Friday.

    A source familiar with the Thursday meeting told Climatewire the idea “has been put on hold.”

    The White House meeting included the EPA's air office chief Bill Wehrum, White House energy adviser Mike Catanzaro and President Trump’s deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn.

    A source close to the situation told Climatewire that there might be disagreements about how to formulate the program and who should oversee it.

    Pruitt has for months pushed the “red team, blue team” exercise, which he says would be a rare opportunity for Americans to see real debate about climate science.

    The scientific consensus is that the climate is changing and human-induced greenhouse gases are by far the primary cause. But Pruitt and others in the administration are skeptical, only agreeing that human activity has some role.

    The approach “is something that puts experts in a room and lets them debate an issue,” Pruitt said earlier this year on Fox News. “The American people deserve that type of objective, transparent discussion.”

    Pruitt told lawmakers last week that the exercise would launch as early as January.

    An official told Climatewire earlier this week that Trump was on board with Pruitt’s idea, but not everyone in the administration was in agreement.

    http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/365104-trump-admin-puts-epa-climate-science-debate-plan-on-hold
    

    Return to headline | Return to top