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(ACC Mentioned) Ex-Industry Lobbyists Win Top Jobs in Agencies They Once Fought
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Jesse Hamilton
When Cadiz Inc. wanted to build a 43-mile pipeline to pump water from a Mojave Desert aquifer to thirsty Southern California, it enlisted an army of lobbyists, lawyers and consultants to secure the federal government's sign-off. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Congress Sends Tax Reform Bill to President Trump
Dec 21, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The Republican-led U.S. Congress gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code in 31 years. -
(ACC Mentioned) Scientists Sue to Scrap Pruitt Directive
Dec 21, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three university researchers sued today to overturn a new U.S. EPA directive that bars current agency grant recipients from serving on advisory committees, arguing the policy violates federal law and will cause "significant harm to the public interest." -
Former EPA Advisers Sue Pruitt Over Scientific Board Purge
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Two of the EPA's former scientific advisers are asking a court to overturn the agency's decision to bar grant recipients from serving on advisory committees that influence science policy. -
E.P.A. Officials, Disheartened by Agency’s Direction, Are Leaving in Droves
Dec 22, 2017 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman, Marina Affo, and Derek Kravitz
More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration. -
Environmentalists File Suit To Block Pruitt's Science Adviser Policy
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists and several former EPA advisers are suing the agency to block Administrator Scott Pruitt's controversial policy barring scientists and other experts who receive agency grants from continuing to advise the agency, charging it violates government ethics rules as well as federal statutes requiring “fair balance” in panel membership. -
(ACC Mentioned) Dourson Emails Show He Was Paid by and Worked Closely with ACC When Providing States
Dec 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I blogged last week about how a trove of emails recently released by the New York Times shines a light on the cozy relationship between Michael Dourson, who just withdrew his nomination to run the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) toxics office, and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the main chemical industry trade association. -
Democratic AGs Fight Against EPA FY18 Funding Cuts, Shuttering IRIS
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Democratic state attorneys general (AGs) are mounting a defense of EPA's overall budget and specific programs against proposed cuts in Republicans' fiscal year 2018 spending bills, including a warning that the GOP's bid to eliminate the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) risk assessment program could hamstring drinking water protections. -
Few Firms to Phase out TCE Without Ban, US NGO Reports
Dec 22, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The "vast majority" of companies that use trichloroethylene (TCE) for vapour degreasing will not stop doing so unless the US EPA follows through with a proposed ban on that use of the chemical. -
E.P.A.'s "Interesting" Holiday Gift: Delaying Bans on Hazardous Chemicals
Dec 21, 2017 | Liz Hitchock
By Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
This week the news broke that EPA had moved rules to ban certain uses of three dangerous chemicals from the “pending” column into the “long-term action” column in its regulatory agenda. -
The EPA Delays 3 Proposed Chemical Bans
Dec 21, 2017 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
Last year when the Environmental Protection Agency passed sweeping new chemical laws, the agency was given increased powers to restrict certain chemicals. -
U.S. Judge Says Groups Can Sue EPA over Drinking Water Fluoridation
Dec 22, 2017 | Reuters
By Barbara Grzincic
Opponents of fluoridated drinking water can proceed with a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Toxic Substances Control Act, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Thursday. -
Court Denies EPA's Bid To End Fluoride Suit, Muddying TSCA 'Uses' Issue
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
In a first-time decision, a federal judge has denied EPA's request to dismiss environmentalists' lawsuit charging that EPA had wrongly dismissed their Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) petition seeking to ban drinking water fluoridation, but the decision could complicate other litigation challenging which “uses” the agency considers when assessing substances under the new TSCA law. -
EPA Plan For Narrow Clean Power Plan Replacement Sparks Early Debate
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's plan to repeal the Obama administration's power-sector wide Clean Power Plan (CPP) and replace it with a narrower measure that requires only inside-the-fence greenhouse gas cuts is sparking early debate over the legality of the original rule, the chances that a less ambitious one will survive court review and prospects that states may adopt stricter requirements. -
2017 to End Without Word on Proposed Dilles Bottom Ethane Cracker
Dec 22, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
Santa Claus and his team of reindeer will not deliver a $6 billion ethane cracker during their 2017 flight across the Upper Ohio Valley — and some Shadyside and Powhatan Point residents are starting to wonder if the proposed petrochemical complex will ever become reality. -
New York State Unveils $150M Groundwater Plume Containment Plan
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
New York State will speed up construction of a $150 million well system to address a massive plume of groundwater contamination from the site of the former Northrop Grumman Corp. Bethpage military aircraft factory site in Oyster Bay, N.Y. -
Dow, Shell Agree to $85M Deal With California Water Service
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Edith Moy
The state of California's Water Service has entered into a $85 million settlement agreement and release of claims with companies including the Dow Chemical Co and Shell Oil on Dec. 20, the company said today in a regulatory filing. -
Former Chair of the NTSB: With Positive Train Control, Safety Delayed Is Safety Denied
Dec 21, 2017 | Seattle Times
By Deborah A.P. Hersman
For years, the railroad industry, safety advocates and lawmakers have known that we need to implement positive train control (PTC) to prevent collisions and derailments on passenger-train lines. -
Amtrak Derailment Raises Questions About Rail Safety Tech
Dec 21, 2017 | The Bellingham Herald
By Denver Pratt
The only two railway lines running through Whatcom Countyare equipped with technology, known as positive train control, designed to slow or stop a train even if the conductor fails to act, a BNSF Railway official said Wednesday.
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(ACC Mentioned) Ex-Industry Lobbyists Win Top Jobs in Agencies They Once Fought
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Jesse Hamilton
When Cadiz Inc. wanted to build a 43-mile pipeline to pump water from a Mojave Desert aquifer to thirsty Southern California, it enlisted an army of lobbyists, lawyers and consultants to secure the federal government's sign-off.
The Obama administration blocked it anyway.But the project's fortunes changed after the election of Donald Trump—and his appointment of David Bernhardt, one of Cadiz's former lawyers, to be second-in-command of the Interior Department.
Within months, the department had reversed course and told the Los Angeles developer it didn't need the federal government's permission after all.
In his first year as president, Trump studded his cabinet with people who previously fought to undermine what some see as the traditional missions of the agencies they now lead. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, for example, built his political career suing the agency and challenging what he termed its “activist agenda.” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has called public schools a “dead end.” And Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, downplayed proposals to cut housing aid.
Less well known—and potentially more significant—are the former industry advocates who are now shaping policy behind the scenes in lower levels of the federal government.
Illustration: Kurt Woerpel for Bloomberg Businessweek
Trump has placed former industry advocates in regulatory roles across the bureaucracy, often in charge of the very same policies they sought to weaken for previous clients and employers, according to a review by Bloomberg News. There's a former mining executive in charge of mine safety, a chemical industry advocate writing chemical safety rules and a career banker whose prior company was sanctioned by the agency he has now taken over: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Trump supporters say past Democratic presidents recruited government appointees from advocacy groups and think tanks who were equally invested in matters of policy. The pro-business worldview of Republicans just means GOP presidents are more likely to appoint people who have deep government knowledge from serving as lobbyists, lawyers and executives.
“You certainly wouldn't want your airplane pilot to not know what he is doing, and you'd rather not have your doctor just come in off the street,” said Mike McKenna, a Virginia-based Republican energy consultant who helped guide Trump's presidential transition. “Do you want a government run by people who know what the hell they're doing, or are you OK with it being run by a bunch of amateurs?”
The hiring of ex-lobbyists has been made easier because Trump scrapped an Obama-era requirement that they wait for two years before joining agencies they tried to influence. A revised ethics policy, issued in January, merely requires appointees to recuse themselves from matters involving former employers and clients for two years.
Even that requirement can be waived where the need for an appointee's expertise is deemed to outweigh conflict-of-interest concerns.Bernhardt says he didn't participate in the Cadiz decision, won't benefit financially from the policy reversal and is recused from particular matters involving specific people or companies he represented in private practice.
Pruitt at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, on Jan. 18, 2017.
Photographer: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Obama's Interior Department blocked the Cadiz project, saying the pipeline couldn't be built in a railroad's right-of-way on federal land because it wasn't originally needed by that railroad.
It had plenty of supporters, including Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who backed the project as a congressman, Bernhardt said.
“I've not been involved at all in any decision by the department on it,” he said in an interview.
Still, Bernhardt's former law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, stands to earn millions of dollars if the Cadiz pipeline gets built, according to filingswith the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Bernhardt said he has no ongoing stake in the project.
Bernhardt's client list from his time as a lobbyist and lawyer is packed with companies that have business before the Interior Department: affiliates of Noble Energy Company LLC, a major Gulf of Mexico oil producer; subsidiaries of Statoil AS, the Norwegian company that wants to build a wind farm off the New York coast; and a unit of Halliburton Co., the world's largest fracking services provider.
Now that Bernhardt is back at the Interior Department—he worked there previously in the administration of President George W. Bush—the agency's request forms for meetings with him specifically outline his commitment “to avoid even the potential appearance of a lack of impartiality” by not personally participating in any particular matters that involve former or current clients of his old law firm.
Scrupulous Process
Bernhardt has developed a scrupulous process—he says it is “vital”—to keep him walled off from potential conflicts forbidden under his ethics agreement. He issued a memo to staff listing specific companies and the type of issues that are off limits, with a level of detail surpassing that of a similar missive from a predecessor in the Obama administration.
“Morality in this sphere is based upon the rules and laws put in place,” Bernhardt said. “I am not here to act in a way that benefits me financially.”
He carries a 4-inch-by-3-inch card that lists the companies he must avoid, to help him—and anyone showing up at Interior—navigate the ethical thicket.
Not on the card: former Bernhardt client Safari Club International Foundation, the charitable arm of Safari Club International, a hunting advocacy group. The club was elated when Bernhardt was confirmed, describing him in blog post as “an avid hunter, angler and shooter” who will help Trump “wisely manage the Interior Department's resources.”
In November, the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service sided with the group and decidedto allow big-game hunters to bring elephant carcasses from Zimbabwe into the U.S., reversing a 2014 ban.
After a public outcry, Trump put the new import plan on hold, but the new policy hasn't been formally revoked or revised.
Bernhardt is not barred from matters of general applicability involving Safari Club International or its foundation—a category that includes broad regulations and policy moves.
“Mr. Bernhardt has worked on various matters regarding hunting including particular matters of general applicability related to elephants, which is entirely appropriate given his ethics agreement and the guidance he has received from ethics experts,” Interior spokesman Russell Newell said.
Even with all the precautions, the collision of Bernhardt's past work with current Interior Department policy decisions hands fodder to critics, while threatening to undermine the integrity of those moves. Bernhardt's very presence at Interior has cast suspicion over the Cadiz about-face.
“Only someone with a vested interest and intimate working knowledge of the agency could have engineered the quick reversal of a fairly arcane policy,” said Kate Kelly, public lands director at the liberal Center for American Progress. “Bernhardt had both.”
Similar scenarios are playing out across the federal government.
Power Company Lobbyist
At the Energy Department, Sean Cunningham, a former utility lobbyist, is now a vocal champion of the Trump administration's plan to help keep coal plants online by allowing them to charge more for the power they produce. One of his former clients—FirstEnergy Corp.—is poised to be a major beneficiary.
Cunningham lobbied on behalf of power companies for more than a decade, including challenging proposals that would advantage renewable power, potentially at the expense of coal plants. Asked about conflicts, an agency spokeswoman said Cunningham's role as a registered lobbyist for FirstEnergy ended in 2008, well outside the two-year recusal window.
Cunningham kept advocating for other industry clients through at least 2013. Those include Southern Company Services Inc., Duke Energy and American Electric Power Co., according to lobbying disclosures.
He has taken a pro-coal message into his new job as the head of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis. Coal and nuclear power should be “revived, not reviled, in America,” Cunningham told a conference of state electric regulators Nov. 13.
At the Agriculture Department, a former pesticide industry lobbyist has been helping to map out a blueprint for cutting red tape, after spending seven years trying to influence pesticide policy as a lobbyist for CropLife America, the trade group representing Monsanto Co., Syngenta AG and other agrichemical manufacturers.
Rebeckah Adcock's new role as the USDA's regulatory reform officer was good news for the industry. Her background gives Adcock an “an exceptional understanding” of its needs, the Southern Crop Production Association said in a news release after meeting with her in May. A current CropLife lobbyist also sat in on that meeting, according to visitors logs first reported by the New York Times and ProPublica.
Adcock had signed an ethics agreement pledging to avoid CropLife and issues she'd worked on prior to joining the Agriculture Department. But meetings with former employers and clients don't run afoul of federal ethics rules as long as they include five or more stakeholders—a threshold established in guidance issued in 2009 during the Obama administration.
The meeting “is not a violation of Ms. Adcock's ethics agreement, ” said Agriculture Department spokesman Tim Murtaugh.
In June, CropLife criticized a proposed rule to regulate genetically modified organisms. In November, the USDA withdrew it.
EPA
The presence of former industry insiders is especially pronounced in the Environmental Protection Agency, where at least 10 top Trump appointees previously represented industries with business before the EPA.
“Even setting aside Scott Pruitt, there is a very long list of other folks that are former industry lobbyists and industry lawyers, and it's not exactly draining the swamp,” said Erik Olson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's health program. “It's draining the swamp and finding all the swamp creatures that were there—and then hiring them.”
The former industry representatives include Erik Baptist, a senior deputy general counsel for the agency, who has gotten permission to deal with the U.S. biofuel mandate, despite his past work opposing renewable fuel quotas on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute.
In an interview, Baptist acknowledged his role but said his focus with API was on litigation not lobbying.
Similarly, Susan Bodine now leads the EPA's enforcement and compliance office after spending years representing an industry targeted by it as a lobbyist for the American Forest and Paper Association. She said in an interview that her work for the paper association focused on regulation of non-hazardous materials and was more than two years ago—falling outside the recusal window. Bodine has spent the majority of her career as a Republican staff member for committees in both the House and Senate that oversee environmental policy, including a stint as chief counsel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Nancy Beck was installed as the deputy assistant administrator of the EPA's chemical safety office, despite having previously pressed for less stringent requirements on behalf of the American Chemistry Council and its member companies, including Dow Chemical Co., DuPont Co., and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Since taking the EPA post, Beck has made things easier for industry by revising an Obama-era proposal for prioritizing and evaluating thousands of existing chemicals for their risks.
The Obama administration had proposed a rule for broadly assessing chemicals, including scrutinizing legacy uses that are outdated but whose effects persist in the environment, such as asbestos insulation still lurking inside schools and offices.
David Zatezalo was just confirmed as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration after nearly a decade with Rhino Resources Partners LP.
Photographer: John McCabe/The Intelligencer via AP
But the American Chemistry Council , with Beck still on board, pressed for risks to be evaluated more narrowly, focusing on current uses. Later, at the EPA, Beck guided an agency rewrite that mirrored the council's view.
Beck said the change was necessary to focus on chemicals that are “in the flow of commerce” and to make the rule “more implementable and workable.”Beck had permission to tackle chemical safety issues—and general matters involving the council—because she's technically an “administratively determined” employee exempt from the Trump ethics pledge.
“I've never seen myself as an industry person, and I've never been a lobbyist,” Beck said in an interview. “I'm a scientist first—and the fact that I have experience working with a trade association and have an understanding of how industry works doesn't make me any less of a scientist.”
Mine Safety
Some Trump appointees now charged with protecting the public have actively worked to undermine safeguards or were employed by companies cited for violating them. Consider David Zatezalo, who was just confirmed as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration after nearly a decade with Rhino Resources Partners LP, a Kentucky coal company twice rapped by that office for an alleged pattern of violations and fined for a fatal accident in 2011. The company didn't respond to a request for comment.
At his Senate confirmation hearing, Zatezalo, a miner who rose to be chief executive officer of Rhino Resources, said local management “was not doing what they should have been doing.”
Zatezalo said he was “not proud” of the episode, but he “did not try to lawyer-up and stop anything from happening.”
“If you haven't done your job, we should be big kids and deal with it as such,” he said.
Zatezalo has managed and operated 39 mines, a Labor Department spokesperson said, stressing that he will work to install a culture of safety at all mines.
Experience and expertise don't “cure fundamental conflicts,” said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizen.
“You can claim these people have experience and expertise, but the public is losing faith in our government's ability to protect the public and to act on behalf of the public and the public interest, rather than corporate special interest,” Narang said. “Even the appearance of corruption is deeply corrosive to faith in our government.”
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Congress Sends Tax Reform Bill to President Trump
Dec 21, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The Republican-led U.S. Congress gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code in 31 years. President Donald J. Trump is expected to sign the bill into law sometime in the next two weeks.
The bill (H.R. 1) includes a number of provisions long-sought by the chemical industry, such as slashing the corporate tax rate from the current 35% to 21% and taxing U.S.-based multinationals only on their domestic income. The House of Representatives passed it on a vote of 224-201.
“After decades enduring an outdated tax code that made U.S. businesses less competitive, our nation will soon have a modernized tax structure that promotes sustained American economic growth and new jobs,” says the American Chemistry Council, which lobbies on behalf of U.S. chemical manufacturers.
The legislation, which the Senate approved on a strict party-line vote of 51-48 early Wednesday morning, also leaves graduate students largely unscathed by preserving tax-free tuition waivers.
A provision in the original GOP House tax plan passed in early November proposed taxing as income the value of tuition waivers U.S. grad students receive when they teach courses or conduct research for their university. That set off a wave of protests at dozens of universities.
The measure was scrapped after 31 Republican lawmakers who voted for the House tax bill sent a letter to party leaders urging them to remove the provision from the final version of the legislation.
“Repeal of the income exclusion for graduate students would subject thousands of graduate students to a major tax increase at a time in their lives when they lack the ability to pay,” the lawmakers wrote.
Mary Sue Coleman, president of the American Association of Universities, says she is relieved that many of the “harmful provisions contained in the House bill” were not included in the final measure.
But she adds: “I remain troubled by certain provisions that will make higher education less accessible and less affordable. Taxing nonprofit educational institutions harms their ability to carry out the educational and research programs that serve the American public.”
The legislation also retains but cuts in half a tax credit intended to encourage biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to develop orphan drugs to treat rare diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people. Since 1983, companies have been allowed to write off 50% of the cost of human clinical studies to develop drugs aimed at small patient populations.
The original House bill would have killed the orphan drug tax credit entirely, while a separate Senate bill also passed in November cut the credit to 27.5% of research costs. The final bill passed by both chambers sets the tax credit to 25%.
As a result of the smaller tax credit, the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) estimates that one-third fewer orphan therapies will be developed going forward.
“The cost of conducting rare disease clinical trials could rise substantially enough to discourage some biopharmaceutical companies from developing orphan therapies altogether,” says NORD, which advocates on behalf of the 30 million Americans with rare diseases.
The House had initially passed the bill on Tuesday but was forced to vote a second time after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that two provisions in the measure did not comply with budget rules and had to be stripped out. One dealt with the criteria for exemptions to a new 1.4% excise tax on investment income of private colleges and universities with endowments worth at least $500,000 per full-time student.
The deleted language would have excluded colleges with fewer than 500 tuition-paying students. The tuition paying provision was seemingly intended to help colleges with endowments large enough that students don’t pay tuition. One such college is Berea College in Berea, Ken.—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state. Now the tax will apply to schools with large enough endowments and more than 500 students—Berea enrolls about 1,600—regardless of how many pay tuition.
Republicans say the tax overhaul will boost the economy by incentivizing new investments by U.S. companies and preventing jobs from being outsourced to other countries. But Democrats have lambasted the bill, arguing it primarily provides tax breaks to the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/12/US-Congress-sends-tax-reform.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Scientists Sue to Scrap Pruitt Directive
Dec 21, 2017 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three university researchers sued today to overturn a new U.S. EPA directive that bars current agency grant recipients from serving on advisory committees, arguing the policy violates federal law and will cause "significant harm to the public interest."
The lawsuit, filed this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks a judge to vacate the policy, issued in late October by EPA chief Scott Pruitt.
The suit also seeks the reinstatement of anyone who so far had to step down from any of the agency's 22 advisory panels as a result.
The directive "is unnecessary, at best, and an explicit attack on science-informed policy, at worst," Robyn Wilson, an Ohio State University associate professor of risk analysis and decision science, said in a news release. Wilson, one of the plaintiffs, recently had to give up her seat on EPA's Science Advisory Board, according to the complaint.
In issuing the policy, Pruitt argued it would help ensure the "objectivity" of advisory panel members. "There is a question that arises over independence," Pruitt said at an Oct. 31 announcement. "They have to choose: either the grant or service. But not both" (E&E News PM, Oct. 31).
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EPA aides did not immediately respond this afternoon to a request for comment, but the agency typically does not discuss pending litigation.
Besides the Science Advisory Board, which provides outside expertise to EPA officials on a variety of topics, the panels in question offer advice on air quality standards, children's health, pesticides and other issues.
Critics of the new policy have objected that EPA had already had adequate conflict-of-interest safeguards in place. They also say the agency does not place comparable restrictions on advisory panel members who work for industries affected by EPA regulations.
As grounds for overturning the directive, the suit contends EPA was required to first get the approval of the Office of Government Ethics, which is responsible for overseeing compliance with federal ethics rules.
Plaintiffs also say Pruitt's move violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, in part by setting an unreasonably high bar for independence from the agency.
"EPA has offered no justification — rational or otherwise — for treating EPA grants as disqualifying while financial support or even employment by regulated industries is not," the suit said.
Among recent Pruitt appointees to the Science Advisory Board are a top official at the American Chemistry Council; an executive with Total SA, the French oil and gas giant; and a former manager of Southern Co., the Atlanta-based utility holding company, according to the suit.
The other plaintiffs include two past advisory board members: Joe Arvai, a University of Michigan professor of sustainable enterprise, and Edward Avol, a professor of clinical preventive medicine at the University of Southern California.
While both had left their seats before the new policy took effect, they could only serve again if they agreed to give up eligibility for EPA grants, the suit said, and thus will "suffer a loss" of professional opportunities.
"Regardless of which path scientists choose as a result of the directive — forgoing grants to fund new scientific knowledge or forgoing service — society loses out," the suit said. Last week, Arvai slammed the new restriction during a discussion hosted by the Society for Risk Analysis (Greenwire, Dec. 13).
The suit does not challenge several other aspects of the directive intended to increase participation on EPA advisory panels by members of state and local government as well as encourage greater "geographic diversity."
Under the rubric of promoting "fresh perspectives," the policy also effectively challenges a tradition under which panel members are customarily reappointed to a second three-year term after serving their first.
The remaining plaintiffs are Physicians for Social Responsibility, the National Hispanic Medical Association, and the International Society for Children's Health and the Environment.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060069703/search?keyword=American+Chemistry+Council
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Former EPA Advisers Sue Pruitt Over Scientific Board Purge
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Two of the EPA's former scientific advisers are asking a court to overturn the agency's decision to bar grant recipients from serving on advisory committees that influence science policy.
Two former members of the Science Advisory Board and three public health interest groups say Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's Oct. 31 directive prevents qualified scientists and medical professionals from advising the agency.
In his directive, Pruitt determined that a researcher who receives EPA grants wouldn't be independent of the agency and therefore would be unfit to advise it.
Plaintiff Had Been Removed
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Robyn Wilson, was removed from the EPA's Science Advisory Board as a result of Pruitt's directive. Joseph Arvai, another plaintiff, finished his second full term on the board before the directive was issued. The complaint was filed Dec. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The plaintiffs argue that Pruitt's directive violates federal ethics requirements and the concept of “fair balance” in the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
“It is EPA's policy not to comment on pending litigation,” Jahan Wilcox, an EPA spokesperson, told Bloomberg Environment.
Seven members of the Science Advisory Board were grant recipients at the time Pruitt announced the directive, according to the EPA. One member opted to give up an EPA grant in order to retain board membership, and six others left the board.
The Science Advisory Board is tasked with reviewing the quality of the scientific and technical information the EPA uses to support regulations. The board also advises the the agency and its leadership in scientific matters related to hydraulic fracturing, drinking water, and cleanup methods.
The Government Accountability Office is working on its own review of Pruitt's directive.
Physicians for Social Responsibility, the National Hispanic Medical Association, and the International Society for Children's Health and the Environment are the groups also suing the EPA. Edward Avol, a former EPA advisory committee member, is also a plaintiff.
The case is Physicians for Soc. Responsibility v. Pruitt, D.D.C., No. 1:17-cv-02742, 12/21/17.
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E.P.A. Officials, Disheartened by Agency’s Direction, Are Leaving in Droves
Dec 22, 2017 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman, Marina Affo, and Derek Kravitz
This article was written through collaboration between The New York Times and ProPublica, the independent, nonprofit investigative journalism organization.
WASHINGTON — More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.
Of the employees who have quit, retired or taken a buyout package since the beginning of the year, more than 200 are scientists. An additional 96 are environmental protection specialists, a broad category that includes scientists as well as others experienced in investigating and analyzing pollution levels. Nine department directors have departed the agency as well as dozens of attorneys and program managers. Most of the employees who have left are not being replaced.
The departures reflect poor morale and a sense of grievance at the agency, which has been criticized by President Trump and top Republicans in Congress as bloated and guilty of regulatory overreach. That unease is likely to deepen following revelations that Republican campaign operatives were using the Freedom of Information Act to request copies of emails from E.P.A. officials suspected of opposing Mr. Trump and his agenda.
The cuts deepen a downward trend at the agency that began under the Obama administration in response to Republican-led budget constraints that left the agency with about 15,000 employees at the end of his term. The reductions have accelerated under President Trump, who campaigned on a promise to dramatically scale back the E.P.A., leaving only what he called “little tidbits” in place. Current and former employees say unlike during the Obama years, the agency has no plans to replace workers, and they expect deeper cuts to come.Continue reading the main story
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“The reason E.P.A. went down to 15,000 employees under Obama is because of pressure from Republicans. This is the effort of the Republicans under the Obama administration on steroids,” said John J. O’Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union representing E.P.A. employees.
ProPublica and The New York Times analyzed the comings and goings from the E.P.A. through the end of September, the latest data that has been compiled, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The figures and interviews with current and former E.P.A. officials show the administration is well on its way to achieving its goal of cutting 3,200 positions from the E.P.A., about 20 percent of the agency’s work force.
Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the E.P.A., said the agency was running more efficiently. “With only 10 months on the job, Administrator Pruitt is unequivocally doing more with less to hold polluters accountable and to protect our environment,” he said.
Within the agency, science in particular is taking a hard hit. More than 27 percent of those who left this year were scientists, including 34 biologists and microbiologists; 19 chemists; 81 environmental engineers and environmental scientists; and more than a dozen toxicologists, life scientists and geologists. Employees say the exodus has left the agency depleted of decades of knowledge about protecting the nation’s air and water. Many also said they saw the departures as part of a more worrisome trend of muting government scientists, cutting research budgets and making it more difficult for academic scientists to serve on advisory boards.
“Research has been on a starvation budget for years,” said Robert Kavlock, who served as acting assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development before retiring in November. But under earlier buyouts, Mr. Kavlock said, the agency later hired nearly 100 postdoctoral candidates to help continue critical agency work.
“There wasn’t a reinvestment this time around,” he said. “There’s a hard freeze.”
Scientists, for the most part, are also not being replaced. Of the 129 people hired this year at the E.P.A., just seven are scientists. Another 15 are student trainee scientists. Political appointees, however, are on the rise. The office of Scott Pruitt, the agency administrator, was the only unit that saw more hires than departures this year.
In addition to losing scientists themselves, the offices at the E.P.A. that deal most directly with science were drained of other workers this year. The Office of Research and Development — which has three national laboratories and four national centers with expertise on science and technology issues — lost 69 people, while hiring three. At the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, responsible for regulating toxic chemicals and pesticides, 54 people left and seven were hired. And in the office that ensures safe drinking water, one person was hired, while 26 departed.
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By contrast, Mr. Pruitt’s office hired 73 people to replace the 53 who left.
“I think it’s important to focus on what the agency is all about, and what it means to lose expertise, particularly on the science and public health side,” said Thomas Burke, who served as the agency’s science adviser under Mr. Obama. “The mission of the agency is the protection of public health. Clearly there’s been a departure in the mission.”
Mr. Wilcox disputed that assessment and said the agency remained an attractive workplace for scientists.
“People from across E.P.A. were eligible to retire early with full benefits,” he said in an emailed statement. “We currently have over 1,600 scientists at E.P.A. and less than 200 chose to retire with full benefits.”
The impact of losing so many scientists may not be felt for months or years. But science permeates every part of the agency’s work, from assessing the health risks of chemical explosions like the one in Houston during Hurricane Harvey to determining when groundwater is safe to drink after a spill. Several employees said they feared the departures with few replacements in sight would put critical duties like responding to disasters and testing water for toxic chemicals in jeopardy.
As of Dec. 6, there were 14,188 full-time employees at the E.P.A. By comparison, there were 17,558 workers at the end of the first year of the George W. Bush administration and 17,049 by the end of the first year of President Obama’s term. The E.P.A. offered two major buyouts during the Obama administration, losing 900 employees in 2013 and an additional 465 the following year. Hundreds of other workers left through attrition and were not replaced.
Mr. Pruitt’s office has described the current buyout process as a continuation of Obama administration efforts to ensure that payroll expenses do not overtake funding for environmental programs.
Agency staff said they believed the Trump administration was purposely draining the E.P.A. of expertise and morale.
Ronnie B. Levin spent 37 years at the E.P.A. researching policies to address lead exposure from paint, gasoline and drinking water, most recently working as a lead inspector at the agency’s regional office overseeing New England. She retired in November after what she described as months of low morale at the agency. And with the lead enforcement office targeted for elimination as part of Mr. Trump’s proposed budget, she said, “It was hard to get your enthusiasm up” for the job.
“This is exactly what they wanted, which is my biggest misgiving about leaving,” Ms. Levin said. “They want the people there to be more docile and nervous and less invested in the agency.”
Lynda Deschambault, a chemist and physical scientist who left the E.P.A. at the end of August after 26 years, said her office in Region 9, based in San Francisco, had been hollowed out. The office saw 21 departures this year and no hires. “The office was a morgue,” she said.
Conservatives who helped lead the Trump administration’s transition and prepared for eliminating vast parts of the agency said scientists’ worries were misplaced.
“To me it’s not necessarily a sign of catastrophe,” said David M. Kreutzer, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation who advised Mr. Trump on the E.P.A. during the transition. He said the agency under President Obama was engaged in “phenomenal overreach” and that the Trump administration’s efforts were aimed at correcting that.
In proposing this year to slash the E.P.A.’s budget by 31 percent, Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, called the effort part of Mr. Trump’s plan to eliminate entrenched government workers.
“You can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “So, I guess the first place that comes to mind will be the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Jan Nation, who works in E.P.A.’s Region 3, based in Philadelphia, where 46 people either retired or took a buyout this year, lamented the administration’s approach to federal workers.
“We are not the swamp. The swamp are all the people who don’t have a specific function to make our government work,” Ms. Nation said. “If you have a swamp to drain, I know people in the Army Corps of Engineers who can do it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/climate/epa-buyouts-pruitt.html
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Environmentalists File Suit To Block Pruitt's Science Adviser Policy
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists and several former EPA advisers are suing the agency to block Administrator Scott Pruitt's controversial policy barring scientists and other experts who receive agency grants from continuing to advise the agency, charging it violates government ethics rules as well as federal statutes requiring “fair balance” in panel membership.
The suit was filed Dec. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by several groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibility, National Hispanic Medical Association and International Society for Children's Health and the Environment, as well as several former EPA advisers who charge they will be harmed by Pruitt's policy.
The suit was expected as critics had telegraphed their likely legal challenge in responses to the administration's policy.
At issue is Pruitt's Oct. 31 directive “Strengthening and Improving Membership on EPA Federal Advisory Committees,” that bars scientists that receive EPA grants from serving on agency advisory committee, which is forcing several current and former advisers to choose between receiving agency grants or giving up their advisory slots.
Pruitt and his supporters justified the move, saying it was intended to end conflicts of interest posed by those who receive agency grants, who they charge are biased in favor of regulations.
When Pruitt issued the directive earlier this year, the agency began to apply it immediately to currently serving advisers, forcing them to either give up grants or cut short their terms on advisory panels. Its application also prevented many advisers who have received grants from serving second terms on key panels, a change from long-running agency practice.
EPA initially applied the policy to the Science Advisory Board (SAB), Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), but it is eventually expected to apply to a host of other agency panels.
Pruitt filled the open slots on the initial three panels with industry officials and state representatives who are sympathetic to the administrator's deregulatory stances, raising significant concerns among many Democratic lawmakers, current and former EPA advisers, environmentalists, agency staff and others.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs charge that Pruitt's directive is arbitrary and capricious and unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it violates Office of Government Ethics rules and implementing statutes that impose uniform federal ethics rules on government employees, including agency advisers who are considered special government employees.
They add that Pruitt's directive is procedurally flawed because it was issued without an opportunity for public comment. And they say it violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as well as environmental statutes governing creation of advisory committees, saying they generally require “fair balance” in panel memberships.
“Defendant Pruitt has not explained, and cannot rationally explain, how disqualifying scientists who work for institutions that receive EPA grants is consistent with past agency practice or the statutory direction to recruit the most qualified scientists for service on EPA advisory committees,” the complaint says.
As a result, it is “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to the statutes establishing EPA advisory committees,” the complaint says, citing the APA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-file-suit-block-pruitts-science-adviser-policy
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(ACC Mentioned) Dourson Emails Show He Was Paid by and Worked Closely with ACC When Providing States
Dec 21, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I blogged last week about how a trove of emails recently released by the New York Times shines a light on the cozy relationship between Michael Dourson, who just withdrew his nomination to run the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) toxics office, and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the main chemical industry trade association.
You might ask why I’m blogging again about these emails. It’s because they provide a rare and fascinating inside look at how – and how closely – paid consultants, who often tout themselves to the public and state and federal agencies as independent and objective arbiters of sound science, work with industry. In this post I’ll describe what the emails tell us about Dourson’s work with state governments – and point to a “Bcc” in one of those emails that raises a big red flag.
Dourson and his consulting firm, Toxicology Excellence in Risk Assessment (TERA), have long touted their work for state governments as evidence that they are not just hired guns for industry. TERA, which has now morphed into the Risk Science Center at the University of Cincinnati, even offers a free service to states:
The StateHELP (Hazard Evaluation Lending Program) allows states to receive up to 10 hours annually of technical support from the Center scientists free of charge. States can take advantage of this project by requesting either technical support for risk assessment problems over the telephone, or requesting a written review of one of the state's risk assessments.
Dourson has worked hard to create the impression that his paid work for the chemical industry was wholly distinct from his work with government agencies.
So, in reading through the new collection of Dourson emails, my interest was piqued by the fact that quite a few of the emails are discussing work Dourson had been doing with officials in states like Missouri and Indiana. One project focused on 1,4-dioxane – a chemical for which, in a 2014 paper paid for by PPG Industries, Dourson had recommended a “safe” level in drinking water 1,000 times less protective than EPA’s guideline.
In a July 2017 email exchange between Dourson and ACC Senior Director Steve Risotto (see page 34), Dourson refers to this earlier work on the chemical, done through his Alliance for Risk Assessment (ARA). The state of Kentucky among others had requested Dourson’s help with this chemical. Dourson tells ACC:
By the way, this is a great example of the value of the Alliance for Risk Assessment (ARA) for it allowed multiple states to step up and offer time (not money), and now that they have participated, it is an easier argument for industry to make to the EPA. (emphasis added)
He then suggests that ACC consider a donation to support his work through ARA.
What Dourson means by his reference to making things “easier” for industry by getting states involved becomes even clearer in another email chain, this one involving trichloroethylene (TCE). Bear with me as I walk through it.
In March 2017, one of Dourson’s colleagues at his Risk Science Center emails a large group offering to do briefings on TCE at contaminated sites, touting Dourson’s recently published paper on that topic (see pages 251-2). That paper we have blogged about before: It was funded by ACC, published in Dourson’s go-toindustry-funded journal, and argued for a standard – called a reference concentration, or RfC – that was up to 15 times weaker than EPA’s.
In April, a health official for the state of Missouri requests a briefing, noting that “Missouri has a number of TCE sites across the state that we have been struggling with given the uncertainties related to the short-term exposure concern of fetal heart malformations.” Dourson promptly replies with an offer to “assist you in any way we can,” noting he is already working with Indiana and planning a workshop on the same matter.
A month later, in May, after some phone calls, the state official provides Dourson with a copy of “questions that we have posed to EPA and ATSDR on the uncertainties related to the short-term TCE exposure concern of fetal heart malformations” (see bottom of page 246). She copies that email to some or her colleagues at the health department and two state consultants.
And here’s where it gets even more interesting: Dourson emails back, mentioning a planning call with Indiana officials on the workshop “that includes specific discussions of the range of likely values [sic] TCE … RfCs based on a recent publication.” That publication is of course the ACC-funded one I mentioned earlier.
Dourson’s reply back includes all of the people copied on the email to which he was responding, as well as several Indiana officials he adds to the “cc” list. But he also blind-copies Steve Risotto of ACC (see top of page 246). Now why would he send that email to ACC – and keep the fact that he was doing so secret from Missouri and Indiana officials?
Yet more emails the next month make clear Risotto and ACC are fully involved in Dourson’s “state outreach” work. In late June, in a chain with the subject line “Draft Response to IDEM [Indiana Department of Environmental Management] comments on September Non-cancer Workshop,” Dourson emails those state consultants (this time not including state officials) and copies Risotto, letting them know – 3 weeks before it will become official and public – that he is to be nominated to head up EPA’s toxics office. Dourson adds: “I would appreciate you keeping this information under wraps until the announcement.” Risotto responds with his congratulations to “Professor D.” (see page 61).
Dourson replies back (see page 59):
[w]e should talk while I am still able to do so directly. I am not sure what limitations I will have with outside groups (probably pretty open), but I will be restricted to talking with UC [University of Cincinnati] folks for 1 year.
On the state outreach we are cooking along with IDEM for a workshop in September. They were looking to get Nancy Beck to give an opening talk, which might work out nicely. IDEM has also included Missouri, and we are now may be [sic] asking if Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky are available to join the party. The budget you gave us should be able to stretch through this workshop and perhaps a wee bit more– depending on how big the workshop actually gets.
This is a remarkable email in several ways. First, Dourson is telling ACC’s Risotto that they should talk now before any possible ethics constraints kick in. Second, he provides Risotto with an update on the expanding state outreach work intended to amplify Dourson’s and ACC’s views regarding “uncertainty” associated with TCE risks. The reference to inviting Nancy Beck to speak at the state workshop is also telling: Beck, who was then already (and is still) at EPA running the toxics office pending Senate confirmation of Dourson’s nomination, had arrived at EPA fresh from a senior director position at ACC, where she was a colleague of Risotto’s and led the charge in ACC’s opposition to EPA’s risk assessments of TCE. Third, Dourson’s reference to “the budget you gave us” makes clear that ACC is helping to bankroll the state outreach effort.
To summarize: Dourson is paid by ACC to help cast doubt on EPA’s risk assessment work on TCE. He then uses that work as a basis to try to convince state agencies to also question EPA’s work – an effort that ACC also funds him to do. Dourson seems also to seek to keep that connection secret from the states. Meanwhile, Dourson touts his state outreach work as evidence that he is independent and objective and not merely an industry hired gun – all the while carrying water for the industry in that very same work.
Unfortunately, this way of undertaking conflicted, often masked work is not limited to Dourson; it applies to a whole network of paid industry consultants. In this case, because of the emails we get a rare glimpse into how deep the connections run.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/12/21/dourson-emails-show-he-was-paid-by-and-worked-closely-with-acc-when-providing-states-advice-on-chemicals-made-by-acc-members/
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Democratic AGs Fight Against EPA FY18 Funding Cuts, Shuttering IRIS
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Democratic state attorneys general (AGs) are mounting a defense of EPA's overall budget and specific programs against proposed cuts in Republicans' fiscal year 2018 spending bills, including a warning that the GOP's bid to eliminate the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) risk assessment program could hamstring drinking water protections.
In a Dec. 21 letter to Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress, 13 Democratic state AGs urge against passing an FY18 spending bill based on either the House or Senate's proposed legislation. The letter reinforces Democrats' recent hard-line stance on EPA funding, after 40 Senators vowed to filibuster any budget measure that includes policy riders even if it means shutting down the government.
“The deep and damaging budget cuts and anti-environmental riders that the House-passed budget bill and the Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman’s budget propose, if adopted, would profoundly undermine EPA and its vital mission of protecting public health and the environment. We strongly urge Congress to reject that approach and instead pass a budget for EPA that fully funds its programs and omits any anti-environmental riders,” reads the AGs' letter, which is addressed to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The Dec. 21 letter deals mainly with full-year FY18 appropriations bills, rather than the expected interim measurethat the GOP is likely to push to avert a shutdown when current funding for the federal government expires at the end of Dec. 22, and which faces a filibuster threat over potential policy riders that would delay or eliminate high-profile Obama-era rules such as the national air standard for ozone.
Along with an overall push for maintaining EPA's current budget of roughly $8.05 billion, which the House's spending bill would cut to $7.4 billion and the Senate's proposed legislation to $7.91 billion, the AGs urge Congress to ensure environmental enforcement is fully funded, and to preserve IRIS -- which Republicans have sought to eliminate entirely in some proposals.
They argue that any reduction to EPA's funding or elimination of its programs will impact states' ability to implement environmental laws, by either diminishing federal monetary support for their work or forcing them to take on new responsibilities if EPA scales back its own activities.
“Stripping hundreds of millions of dollars from EPA’s core programs and depleting its workforce would hamstring the Agency, and directly jeopardize not only its central activities but also the partnership that our states depend upon,” the letter says.
IRIS Assessments
The AGs specifically identify the proposed elimination or scaling-back of IRIS as a move that could, if successful, have significant adverse environmental impacts. IRIS is influential in the scientific and regulatory communities, but often controversial thanks to what is seen as the slow pace of its chemical assessments and calls to restructure the program.
Since the first months of the Trump administration, it has become a target for either termination or extreme reduction in GOP budget proposals, with the White House and Senate each suggesting to preserve IRIS in a limited form that would be tasked with assessing substances under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and other mandatory regulatory programs.
But the AGs argue that scaling down IRIS would handicap EPA's drinking water protections, because a version of the program limited to TSCA would be forced to drop its work under the Safe Drinking Water Act, such as the current project to study health hazards from the emerging contaminants perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). Eliminating IRIS “will likely impede or block” development of drinking water standards for those substances, the letter says.
It continues that if IRIS is refocused solely on TSCA, “it is likely the work of the Office of Water -- which uses IRIS to set national drinking water standards -- will be significantly impacted . . . As a result, the elimination or reduction of the IRIS program will likely delay, if not end, progress toward effective, science-based regulation of these dangerous chemicals, and toward ensuring the health and safety of the water Americans drink.”
The AGs also defend the program on its overall merits, praising it as “critical” in waste cleanups, air toxics assessments and other points of environmental policy that they say would suffer if IRIS is ended.
“Information generated by the IRIS program is critical to the development and implementation of many federal, state, and local public health protection activities. The cleanup of hazardous waste sites, performance of emergency and rapid response, and assessment of risks from air emissions, and establishment of drinking water standards all depend on IRIS. The elimination of IRIS will undermine these activities -- thereby directly imperiling the health and safety of our residents,” the letter says.
EPA Enforcement
On enforcement, the AGs urge against adopting proposed cuts to EPA's compliance office, which they say stand at about 15 percent of current levels in the House FY18 bill and 10 percent in the Senate's version.
“Cutting EPA’s enforcement budget threatens to remove the federal law enforcement 'floor,' creating a situation where violations of federal law are enforced differently in different states. This would create competitive imbalances for businesses and catalyze a 'race to the bottom' by states toward providing reduced public health and environmental protections. Such a race to the bottom can have particularly severe and adverse impacts on disadvantaged communities,” the letter says.
It continues that “There is already evidence of a troubling retreat” on enforcement under the Trump administration, citing early statistics released by watchdog groups that showed dips in new enforcement cases and settlements compared to prior administrations.
“This reduction of core enforcement activity is directly at odds with the EPA Administrator’s stated 'back to basics' agenda. Any reduction by Congress in the budget for enforcement would send the wrong message to the Agency, which instead should be told that Congress strongly supports the EPA’s enforcement of this nation’s environmental laws,” the letter says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/democratic-ags-fight-against-epa-fy18-funding-cuts-shuttering-iris
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Few Firms to Phase out TCE Without Ban, US NGO Reports
Dec 22, 2017 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The "vast majority" of companies that use trichloroethylene (TCE) for vapour degreasing will not stop doing so unless the US EPA follows through with a proposed ban on that use of the chemical. This is the finding of a report by NGO Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (SCHF) on a survey of facilities.
The report's 21 December release follows publication of a regulatory agendaindicating that the EPA is shelving its proposed ban on the use of TCE in vapour degreasing, a process that cleans equipment with a hot vapour of chemical solvent.
SCHF used the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to identify 143 companies that had reported releasing TCE in 2015 and whose activities might potentially include vapour degreasing. The researchers followed up by contacting the companies and checking to see if their reports to the EPA contained relevant information. Seventy-six companies reported they did not use TCE for that purpose.
Of the 33 companies that said they used TCE for vapour degreasing, seven said they were phasing out their use of the chemical, although two of those reported switching to n-propyl bromide, which the NGO says is also toxic. Twelve companies were "searching for an alternative" and 14 "were not actively searching for substitutes."
Thirty-four companies did not respond to inquiries and did not provide information in their EPA reporting that would allow a determination on whether they use TCE for vapour degreasing.
"The vast majority appear to be holding back to wait and see" if the EPA "ever adopts its proposed ban on that use of TCE," the report concluded.
EPA's TCE proposal was based on a workplan risk assessment that identified cancer risks and non‐cancer risks – including developmental and reproductive toxicity, immunotoxicity and neurotoxicity – for workers.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62754/few-firms-to-phase-out-tce-without-ban-us-ngo-reports
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E.P.A.'s "Interesting" Holiday Gift: Delaying Bans on Hazardous Chemicals
Dec 21, 2017 | Liz Hitchock
By Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
This week the news broke that EPA had moved rules to ban certain uses of three dangerous chemicals from the “pending” column into the “long-term action” column in its regulatory agenda. In the same way that you might say that a holiday gift from your aunt is “interesting” when you know you’ll immediately re-gift it, “long-term action” is DC bureaucrat-speak for “shoved into a drawer,” “kicking the can down the road,” or “not happening.”
A year ago, we applauded when the EPA proposed the three rules banning certain uses of dangerous chemical solvents – methylene chloride (dichloromethane), N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and trichloroethylene (TCE). These were the first proposed restrictions on toxic chemicals under the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, and they demonstrated how EPA could use the new law to take action to protect public health. While the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) aren’t everything that we need to protect public health, the new law holds the promise that EPA finally is able to put commonsense restrictions on known chemical hazards. It made sense to start with chemicals for which the agency already had an extensive body of evidence showing harm to our families’ health.
According to EPA’s risk assessments, trichloroethylene (TCE) is associated with such health hazards as kidney and liver cancers, non‐Hodgkin lymphoma, developmental effects, neurotoxicity, and others. Used in paint strippers, methylene chloride and N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) are toxic to the brain and liver and can harm the reproductive system. Inhalation of paint strippers containing methylene chloride has also been linked to at least 50 deaths since the 1980’s. This includes 21-year old Kevin Hartley from Tennessee who died in April after stripping a bathtub.
Restricting uses of these chemicals seemed to be a no-brainer—unless of course, the brains of the operation (EPA) come straight out of the chemical lobby.
As the year wore on, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families submitted formal comments to the EPA, as did tens of thousands of activists across the country. We met with staff at the EPA to say that the rules were well supported by the science. We also told them that finalizing the rules would not only protect millions of workers and consumers from the hazards of these chemicals, but it would also begin to restore the public’s confidence in the EPA’s ability to protect our families from toxic hazards.
By kicking this can down the road, the Trump EPA is showing that it will not prioritize public health ahead of the interests of the chemical lobby. Not shocking, really – the Trump nominee to run the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (Michael Dourson, who withdrew from consideration last week when it became clear that he could not be confirmed) has worked on behalf of the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, an opponent of the rules.
Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen this course of inaction, but EPA could still take the rules out of the drawer. If you’re as outraged as I am, help us sound the alarm by submitting a letter to the editor of your local newspaper calling on the EPA to regulate these dangerous chemicals.
http://saferchemicals.org/2017/12/21/epa-s-interesting-holiday-gift-delaying-bans-on-hazardous-chemicals/
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The EPA Delays 3 Proposed Chemical Bans
Dec 21, 2017 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
Last year when the Environmental Protection Agency passed sweeping new chemical laws, the agency was given increased powers to restrict certain chemicals. But now the agency is back peddling from previous efforts started under the Obama administration to ban three chemicals: methylene chloride, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and trichloroethylene (TCE).
According to a report in The New York Times, the EPA announced this week that it would move the three chemicals from a rule category that would consider banning the substances to “long term action.” The change could delay new rulemaking for the chemicals indefinitely.
All three substances are on the EPA’s list of 10 high-priority chemicals that the agency was given new authority to review at a faster rate under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety For The 21st Century Act.
Methylene chloride and NMP, both paint strippers, have a number of known toxic effects. NMP is considered a developmental toxin, while methylene chloride has been implicated in the deaths of at least 17 workers who were handling the chemical.
TCE, which is used in dry cleaning and as an industrial degreaser, has already been deemed a “known carcinogen” by the EPA.
Environmental advocates have been pushing for stronger restrictions on the chemicals and regulators in California recently proposed a new rule that could eventually lead to a ban of methylene chloride in the state.
The EPA declined to publicly comment on the decision to delay action on the three chemicals.
Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat of New Jersey, told the NYT that the delays are “unnecessary and dangerous.”
https://www.chem.info/news/2017/12/epa-delays-3-proposed-chemical-bans
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U.S. Judge Says Groups Can Sue EPA over Drinking Water Fluoridation
Dec 22, 2017 | Reuters
By Barbara Grzincic
Opponents of fluoridated drinking water can proceed with a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Toxic Substances Control Act, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen denied EPA’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit by Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network and other groups who claim that ingesting fluoride can cause neurological damage. They filed suit in April, after the EPA denied their petition to consider banning fluoridation chemicals from public drinking water.
To read the full story on WestlawNext Practitioner Insights, click here: bit.ly/2BhulS5 (Subscription Required)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-pebblemine/alaskas-pebble-mine-project-kicks-off-permitting-process-idUSKBN1EF2QV
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Court Denies EPA's Bid To End Fluoride Suit, Muddying TSCA 'Uses' Issue
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
In a first-time decision, a federal judge has denied EPA's request to dismiss environmentalists' lawsuit charging that EPA had wrongly dismissed their Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) petition seeking to ban drinking water fluoridation, but the decision could complicate other litigation challenging which “uses” the agency considers when assessing substances under the new TSCA law.
Judge Edward Chen, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Dec. 21 in Food & Water Watch Inc., et al, v. EPA, that the new TSCA law allows citizens to petition EPA to regulate single uses of substances, a stance at odds with the agency's position in this case but one that appears to support its framework rules that grant the agency discretion to determine which uses to evaluate for possible regulation.
The judge even relies on the Trump EPA's final rule on how the agency will evaluate chemical risks to make his point -- which could be problematic for environmental groups who have challenged the risk evaluation rule and the other two “framework” rules that implement the new TSCA statute.
Language in the reformed law “does not support the EPA's interpretation” in this case, Chen wrote.
“Rather, a natural reading of the language suggests a citizen petitioner need only present facts demonstrating that a chemical substance poses an unreasonable risk due to one or more conditions of use that are of concern to the petitioner. This construction is consistent with the language, structure, and purpose of the statute, the legislative history, the EPA's interpretation of similar provisions, and the policies Congress sought to advance.”
The case is one that has been broadly watched, as it is believed to the first such case brought over a TSCA section 21 petition since enactment of the reformed statute.
When Congress enacted the law in 2016, lawmakers introduced a new concept of evaluating chemicals' risks “under their conditions of use."
The instant suit challenges EPA's decision last February to deny the groups' 2016 petition seeking a ban on fluoridation -- a single use of a class of chemicals. That denial, issued by the Obama administration, was predicated on its view that all uses of a chemical must be addressed in their risk evaluations, whether those are performed by EPA, a section 21 petitioner, or a manufacturer requesting EPA evaluate a chemical.
But the Trump EPA appeared to take contradictory stances on what that means. In the case of the fluoride petition, which sought to regulate the single use of fluoridation of drinking water, EPA denied the petition based on the Obama administration's theory charging that it failed to address conditions of use other than fluoridation, among other things.
The Trump EPA's September motion to dismiss reiterated its view that the petition -- filed by Food and Water Watch (FWW), the Fluoride Action Network, and others -- was at odds with TSCA's mandate to review chemicals and address risks from all their uses.
EPA's motion protests that the groups' petition “did not provide any analysis of any conditions of use of the chemical substances covered by the petition other than use in fluoridating drinking water.”
Framework Rules
But in the framework rules governing how EPA evaluates existing chemicals for possible regulation, the Trump administration reversed the Obama administration's stance that the agency should assess “all” uses and instead argued the agency has discretion to determine which uses to assess.
For example, agency officials have already indicated they do not plan to assess chemicals' legacy uses or those uses regulated by other agencies, such as OSHA.
The contradiction came to a head in the litigation over the fluoride petition, where EPA critics and plaintiffs argued that EPA's rejection of the petition on the grounds that it did not address all uses was at odds with the position the Trump EPA took on the issue when it issued its risk evaluation and prioritization framework rules for implementing the reformed TSCA to address existing chemicals.
Chen adopted that argument as well as conducting his own review of the statute in denying EPA's request. “The Court's interpretation is also consistent with the EPA's regulations . . . EPA initially took the position that a Section 6(b) risk evaluation must address all conditions of use, but its final rule permits it to focus on fewer than all conditions of use. . . . Similarly, the EPA backed away from a requirement that a manufacturer must address all conditions of use when requesting a Section 6(b) risk evaluation. If the term 'under the conditions of use' does not impose an affirmative requirement that every manufacturer request or sua sponte review address all conditions of use in the Section 6(b) context, then there is no reason to think it does so in the context of Section 21 citizen petitions.”
Looking at the reformed TSCA, Chen adds that “the statutory text and structure suggest that Section 21 does not require a citizen petitioner to perform the functional equivalent of a Section 6(b) risk evaluation with respect to conditions of use that the petitioner does not seek to regulate. Nor is there any reason to think that the term 'under the conditions of use,' as it appears in Section 21's judicial review provisions . . . does so either.”
Further, Chen points to TSCA's “statutory requirement that the 'conditions of use' for a chemical substance are to be 'determined by the Administrator,' . . . not by a citizen petitioner. If, as here, the EPA has not yet determined the 'conditions of use' for a chemical substance, how can a citizen petitioner submit a compliant petition addressing yet-undetermined conditions of use? Petitioners would be required to gaze into a crystal ball and make their best guess at what the Administrator will determine.”
Appellate Litigation
The ruling now raises the question of how and whether it may apply in environmentalists' challenges to the Trump EPA's framework rules, which they argue unlawfully limit the uses that EPA must assess when conducting its risk assessments. Chen notes that the section 21 petition is just one of three avenues that could lead EPA to conduct a risk evaluation and potentially regulate chemicals under its section 6 authorities -- where the phrase conditions of use comes into play.
Plaintiffs in those suits, which are being considered in the 9th Circuit, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, filed an amici brief in the fluoride case, supporting FWW's argument that reformed TSCA Section 21 does not require petitioners to address all conditions of a use of a chemical that they are asking EPA to address.
The amici brief does not appear to address the issue of EPA's change in position on conditions of chemicals' use, only mentioning the suits in a footnote.
“Shortly before EPA denied the citizen petition at issue in this case, EPA asserted [in the draft rules] that a TSCA section 6(b) risk evaluation 'must encompass all known, intended, and reasonably foreseen activities associated with the subject chemical substance.' . . . EPA has since reversed course, announcing its belief that it 'may . . . exclude [from a section 6(b) risk evaluation] certain activities that EPA has determined to be conditions of use in order to focus . . . on those exposures that are likely to present the greatest concerns' [in the final rules]. . . . Amici do not believe that limiting interpretation is permissible, and have challenged it.”
A lawyer for the fluoride suit petitioners, Michael Connett, in October acknowledged to Inside EPA the groups' positions on what uses must be addressed could be seen as conflicting. At the time, he argued that the positions are compatible.
“EPA is being challenged by environmental health groups on this final rule,” Connett said. “We're arguing now that citizens don't need to consider all conditions of use. The reason the [positions] are compatible is that we want EPA to consider all uses … we don't want them to overlook” a use that presents unreasonable risk. “All a citizens' petition is saying is, 'Here's a use [that presents unreasonable risk] -- do something about it.'”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/court-denies-epas-bid-end-fluoride-suit-muddying-tsca-uses-issue
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EPA Plan For Narrow Clean Power Plan Replacement Sparks Early Debate
Dec 21, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's plan to repeal the Obama administration's power-sector wide Clean Power Plan (CPP) and replace it with a narrower measure that requires only inside-the-fence greenhouse gas cuts is sparking early debate over the legality of the original rule, the chances that a less ambitious one will survive court review and prospects that states may adopt stricter requirements.
At a Dec. 19 event hosted by the Energy Bar Association (EBA), “The Clean Power Plan: What Lies Beyond,” attorneys representing environmentalists and industry groups, as well as an EPA attorney speaking in his personal capacity, previewed arguments that are likely to be debated as the agency advances its deregulatory efforts.
The debate featured David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); EPA deputy general counsel Justin Schwab, speaking in his personal capacity; and Tom Lorenzen, a former Justice Department lawyer who now represents rural electric cooperatives.
Additionally, Michael Dowd, air division director for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, argued that states should have the ability to go further than the federal requirements to cut GHGs, which the air law allows though some states prohibit.
The event focused on the proposed CPP repeal, on which EPA is accepting comment through Jan. 16, and its new advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to replace the CPP, which will set a 60-day comment deadline once it is published in the Federal Register.
Pruitt has long argued that the Obama-era rule was unlawful because it sought to regulate “beyond the fenceline” of individual power plants. As such, the bulk of EPA's ANPRM specifically seeks comment on several issues conducive to replacing the CPP with a narrower regulation focused primarily on actions, such as heat rate improvements, that occur “inside the fenceline” at specific power plants.
One early dispute, prompted by a question from moderator Justin Savage of Sidley Austin, focused on prospects that a future administration in four years could seek to undo the Trump administration's rollback.
The question is significant, reprising a debate that emerged during the Obama administration about whether EPA has the authority to update a section 111(d) standard. In a likely prelude to potential fights over any effort to tighten a future CPP, the utility industry sued over the Obama EPA's revision to landfill methane rules, citing this issue.
In response to the question, Lorenzen argued that if the Trump EPA successfully finalizes a CPP replacement that is upheld by the courts, there would be no opportunity for a new administration to redo that rule because Clean Air Act section 111(d) -- the section under which the rule was drafted -- is “one and done. So if you promulgate a standard for existing sources and it's upheld, that is the end of it.”
He said that makes sense because section 111(b), which applies to new sources, requires the standard be updated every eight years. But existing sources will “eventually become obsolete. They do their one improvement” required by the standard, “and that is the end until they cease operating” or make a modification and trigger new source mandates.
'Little Red Wagon'
However, Doniger replied that if “anyone bets that the Clean Air Act will be interpreted to preclude revision of the 111(d) standard, they are a very foolish person, and I don't really think that is a legal argument.” Instead, he said the dynamic is akin to a “little red wagon,” in which revising new source standards means that the companion existing source standard “needs to come along behind it. It's certainly not immune” from updating, Doniger argued. He added that if blocking future revisions to a 111(d) is the Trump administration's “secret plan,” then “it would be hard to explain to lenders,” suggesting that new fossil plants will have difficulty winning financing.
But Schwab criticized Doniger's interpretation of a future EPA's ability to redo 111(d) rules to complain that he appeared to be telling the regulated community and states that opposed the Obama CPP to not listen to anything the Trump administration is doing.
The EBA debate also focused on whether EPA has an obligation to address climate change or whether it is constrained by the tools it has available under the air law.
“We have, as a country, an obligation to address this pollution that is changing the entire world's climate,” Doniger argued, adding that the air law's purpose is to reduce pollution problems that go beyond market forces.
But Schwab said the argument for the agency's proposed view in the CPP repeal -- that generation shifting and defining the entire electricity system as the best system of emission reduction, as the Obama administration sought -- collides with important doctrines of law, including that agencies cannot argue that congressional silence confers regulatory authority on them, nor can agencies find elephants in mouse holes, citing a high court ruling.
He added that the Obama CPP ignored specific provisions of 111(d), such as taking into account the remaining useful life of a plant, and “hides the ball and removes Congress' clear intent to provide flexibility in the standard itself” for existing sources.
EPA's legal justification for repealing the CPP is based in part on the argument that the Obama rule disregarded the states' role in implementing air rules, but it is generally seen as responding to state opponents rather than supporters.
But Doniger questioned what he called the “specious argument” floated in the repeal proposal that any CPP replacement must craft targets based only on actions taken “within the fenceline” of regulated plants. He also predicted that courts would reject any attempt to allow trading for compliance flexibility but not for standard setting because it throws out 30 years of power sector regulatory framework and industry flexibility requests.
He said he expects the Obama version of the CPP would prevail. “It is within EPA's discretion to do it the way it did” under the Obama CPP, he said. A rule along the lines of the ANPRM would be “outside EPA's discretion” because the replacement will produce “miniscule results . . . I think we will be successful in arguing that EPA has come nowhere near its obligation to deal with this global climate change problem in the cramped way it has set forth,” he added.
In response, Lorenzen defended EPA's “fenceline” legal argument, noting that section 111 sets performance standards for individual sources, which is strictly defined as a facility. He added that the Obama EPA “went astray” by starting with a GHG reduction goal and then getting “creative” in interpreting the air law to achieve it. “I'm suggesting you examine the units and what they can do, and build a number from that.”
'Rebound Effect'
Doniger also criticized the ANPRM's requests for comment on concerns that new source review (NSR) would be triggered by an inside-the-fence CPP replacement because more efficient units would run more and increase pollution. “You don't get that problem if you have a meaningful standard that takes into account the full range of measures the power sector would use,” including generation shifting, he said.
Schwab noted that EPA opted not to seek to replace the CPP by simply issuing a new rule limited to building block one of the Obama regulation, which requires heat rate improvement at coal plants. He added that the Trump EPA agrees with the Obama EPA that block one cannot stand on its own because of concerns there would be a “rebound” effect that would result in increased dispatch of more efficient coal plant power, having the perverse effect of increasing GHG emissions, an issue on which EPA is taking comment in the ANPR.
Lorenzen acknowledged such a “rebound effect” of more efficient plants running more under a narrow replacement, but said that is irrelevant because section 111 is about performance, not emissions reductions. A facility that improves its efficiency can run around the clock if it is efficient enough, he said. The air law's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) program is the place to set overall limits on pollutants, he said, noting there is no carbon dioxide NAAQS.
Yet Doniger said a NAAQS is not needed to trigger a GHG reduction obligation. “It's the endangerment finding that does that, and we want to see EPA fulfill its obligation. A NAAQS for a pollutant that disperses like cream in your coffee is not the ideal way to address CO2.”
Schwab would not comment on whether he would advise EPA to seek to revoke the finding, a move many free-market groups are pursuing.
Doniger also called the Trump EPA's changes to the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) accompanying the proposed CPP repeal “a massive way to cook the books” because the analysis departs from Obama administration calculations of global benefits under the social cost of carbon (SCC), health-related co-benefits from reducing particulate matter (PM) and whether to treat energy efficiency as a benefit or an avoided cost.
For example, he noted that the 2003 White House guidance on cost-benefit reviews known as Circular A-4, which the Trump EPA cites as the reason to raise the carbon cost “discount rates,” actually tells agencies to use lower discount rates for inter-generational issues such as climate change. He said the changes in co-benefit calculations for PM, including a scenario that includes zero benefits, “will not withstand any arbitrary and capricious analysis.”
And he said the decision to move energy efficiency to the benefit side of the cost-benefit equation rather than as an avoided cost “assumes that power companies spend a huge amount to produce power that the energy efficiency benefits on the other side of the ledger avoid the need for. That sounds like cooking the books to me.”
But Schwab strongly defended changes in the draft RIA as reverting back to the norm, rather than “cooking the books” as NRDC's Doniger charged.
He said, for example, that use of a higher discount rate for calculating the SCC, as well as focusing on domestic costs and benefits is “a return to generally accepted standards and practices prior to the” Obama era, which “stacked the deck” in favor of lower costs for its GHG rules by not conducting an apples-to-apples comparison.
Schwab also declined to speculate how long it would take to complete a rule to replace the CPP that the agency released Dec. 18 other than to say that Pruitt and air chief Bill Wehrum have said while they cannot prejudge the outcome of the proposed repeal, they intend to take final action on the repeal by next fall, and that the ANPRM is on a fast boat, not a slow one.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-plan-narrow-clean-power-plan-replacement-sparks-early-debate
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2017 to End Without Word on Proposed Dilles Bottom Ethane Cracker
Dec 22, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
Santa Claus and his team of reindeer will not deliver a $6 billion ethane cracker during their 2017 flight across the Upper Ohio Valley — and some Shadyside and Powhatan Point residents are starting to wonder if the proposed petrochemical complex will ever become reality.
Government officials initially announced the potential PTT Global Chemical project in April 2015. Then, in February, representatives of the Thailand-based firm said they anticipated making a final investment decision by the end of this year.
However, PTT spokesman Dan Williamson said Thursday that while progress continues toward a decision, there will be no announcement until at least 2018.
“This is a big, big, complicated project,” Williamson said. “No one has ever built something like this in Ohio. There are so many moving parts. We had hoped to have a final investment decision this year and did not meet that.”
Williamson declined to cite a specific reasons for the delay, adding that negotiations to acquire all the property necessary to build the plant continue. He also said San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. and Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp. continue working on plans to build the massive facility.
“The prices of natural gas and ethane are not a concern. The availability of construction workers is also not a concern,” he said. “The labor leaders in the Upper Ohio Valley have demonstrated the talent and dedication they have to bring to this project.”
Officials have said the cracker plant would generate up to 6,000 temporary construction jobs. The facility likely would lead to hundreds of full-time petrochemical jobs for those in fields such as engineering.
It would also bring certain forms of air pollution, however, while dramatically changing the landscape of the Dilles Bottom area.
Royal Dutch Shell is in the process of building a similar plant in Beaver County, Pa., although industry leaders maintain there is more than enough ethane in the supply chain to support at least one more Appalachian cracker.
Local and state officials initially announced the massive project in April 2015, while company leaders joined Ohio Gov. John Kasich to confirm plans to spend at least $100 million for engineering and design work in September 2015.
More than two years later, however, company leaders remain unprepared to decide whether they will build the plant on about 500 acres of land along the Ohio River.
“They really appreciate the support they have received from the community,”Williamson said of PTT officials. “They will know more in 2018. There will be news that is going to show positive momentum for this project.”
Meanwhile, patrons of Van Dyne’s Family Restaurant in Dilles Bottom are just waiting to learn what will happen to their small town along the Ohio River.
“If I had to bet, I would say it won’t happen,” Shadyside resident Paul Youst said. “It seems like they are trying to get the state to give them something for free.”
Powhatan Point resident Charles Armann said he hopes the plant materializes because so many jobs have left the region in recent years.
“This area really needs something like that,” Armann said. “Every time you look, another coal mine or power plant or factory is shutting down.”
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2017/12/2017-to-end-without-word-on-proposed-dilles-bottom-ethane-cracker/
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New York State Unveils $150M Groundwater Plume Containment Plan
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
New York State will speed up construction of a $150 million well system to address a massive plume of groundwater contamination from the site of the former Northrop Grumman Corp. Bethpage military aircraft factory site in Oyster Bay, N.Y.
New analysis and modeling shows that the plume, which stretches nearly four miles wide and two miles long in the underground aquifer to a depth of 800 feet, can be fully contained and treated, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Dec. 21. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has been investigating since February into how best to reduce the plume's risk to nearby drinking water supplies.
The site has been a source of controversy on Long Island, where 2.6 million people depend on a sole-source aquifer. The state modified its cleanup agreement with the aerospace company in the spring of 2016, following pressure from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to accelerate remediation at the site.
Cuomo said he's directing the DEC “to use every legal tool at its disposal to hold the polluters accountable for constructing and operating” the containment and treatment system. New York is seeking more money from Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy as potentially responsible parties for natural resources damages from the plume.
Representatives of the company and the Navy didn't immediately respond Dec. 21 to Bloomberg Environment's requests for comment.
TCE, 1,4-Dioxane in Plume
The plan calls for fast-tracking an extensive well system to remediate contamination from 24 substances, including the primary contaminant of concern, trichloroethylene, and an unregulated chemical, 1,4-dioxane. Cuomo has said the state will act on its own if the EPA doesn't put out a standard for 1,4-dioxane.
Expediting the cleanup plan was part of a proposal issued by Cuomo in the run-up to the 2018 State of the State address, which will mention efforts to improve New York's water quality.
“We are taking action on a comprehensive system to contain the plume and protect communities, and we will continue to hold Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy accountable for the cleanup of their toxic contamination legacy,” Cuomo said in a statement.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125508625&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125508625&jd=125508625
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Dow, Shell Agree to $85M Deal With California Water Service
Dec 22, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Edith Moy
The state of California's Water Service has entered into a $85 million settlement agreement and release of claims with companies including the Dow Chemical Co and Shell Oil on Dec. 20, the company said today in a regulatory filing.
California said it has sought damages and other relief from Dow, Shell, Occidental Chemical, and others related to the alleged claims of contamination of drinking water supply and water wells with the chemical trichloropropane. The compound is an impurity in the processes used to produce soil fumigant chemicals such as dichloropropene.
Proceeds from the settlement will be used to reimburse a portion of the costs associated with the company's remediation efforts.
As part of the settlement, the defendants are released from all claims regarding 47 of the 57 total claimed water wells, and the state agrees to file a dismissal with prejudice.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125508629&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125508629&jd=125508629
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Former Chair of the NTSB: With Positive Train Control, Safety Delayed Is Safety Denied
Dec 21, 2017 | Seattle Times
By Deborah A.P. Hersman
For years, the railroad industry, safety advocates and lawmakers have known that we need to implement positive train control (PTC) to prevent collisions and derailments on passenger-train lines. Despite the speed at which Amtrak 501 derailed early Monday morning, the safety technology has been slow rolled, and now three more families will never again have their loved ones home for the holidays.
What happened on the Cascades line this week was a tragedy. While we won’t have the complete picture of the cause and contributing factors until the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completes its investigation, we do know that industry stall tactics and congressional complicity have delayed implementing this lifesaving technology for decades.
PTC backs up the locomotive engineer by using GPS technology to stop or slow down a train before a collision or derailment occurs. The NTSB first called for PTC on its Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements back in 1990. For 25 years the government has funded numerous PTC pilot programs, and last year the Federal Railroad Administration provided $200 million in grants to support PTC implementation at the local level. This technology is neither new or noteworthy, but we know it can save lives.
In 2008, Congress was finally pushed to act when a texting Metrolink engineer blew past a red signal and collided with a freight train in Southern California, killing 25 and injuring dozens more. That crash was the tipping point, and Congress mandated PTC be installed on every passenger and high hazardous material route across the country within seven years. Today, nearly a decade later, the U.S. continues to delay implementation, and while we wait, deadly crashes continue. The question is, how many more crashes are we willing to tolerate?
An oft-stated obstacle of installing PTC has been the cost of doing so. There is an adage: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But when we factor in the cost of crashes, disrupted service and repairs, and most important, the toll in human lives lost, the costs of implementing PTC don’t seem so high.
The reality is that PTC has often been installed after catastrophic derailments like the Metro-North crash in 2013 that killed four and injured more than 60, and another Amtrak crash in 2015 in Philadelphia that left 8 people dead and more than 200 injured. Both cases involved approaching a curve too fast, as well as common human error due to either fatigue or distraction. On the Cascades line, we will once again learn the lesson that waiting until after a tragedy happens to make use of this technology is unconscionable.
We’ve had far too many delays over the years. Every year we fail to take action, we leave rail passengers and crew vulnerable — they deserve better. Safety delayed is safety denied.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/positive-train-control-safety-delayed-is-safety-denied/
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Amtrak Derailment Raises Questions About Rail Safety Tech
Dec 21, 2017 | The Bellingham Herald
By Denver Pratt
The only two railway lines running through Whatcom Countyare equipped with technology, known as positive train control, designed to slow or stop a train even if the conductor fails to act, a BNSF Railway official said Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear how long ago the technology had been installed on the lines in Whatcom County, but the technology is available on both rail lines leading all the way to Seattle, said Gus Melonas, a BNSF spokesman. Melonas said BNSF is declining to get into specifics or breakdowns at this time.
On Monday, an Amtrak train derailed south of Tacoma, sending railcars off an overpass onto southbound Interstate 5. The derailment killed at least three passengers, injured more than 100 and has closed I-5.
The train was on its first-ever run along a faster route from Seattle to Portland that was expected to save 10 minutes, according to officials with the National Transportation Safety Board. The train was traveling at 80 mph in a 30-mph zone when it ran off the rails on a curve coming around a bridge near Mounts Road in DuPont, officials said.
The NTSB is now looking into whether the engineer was distracted by another employee-in-training that was in the cab when the 14-car train derailed.
It’s not immediately clear whether any Whatcom County residents or Western Washington University students were onboard.
Local law enforcement and emergency personnel have conducted exercises, and are planning a full-scale simulation of a train derailment in Whatcom County for 2019, said John Gargett, deputy director for the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office Division of Emergency Management.
“It’s the closest you can get without actually having something happen,” Gargett said about the full-scale drill. “We have great support. We have a good team in Whatcom County.”
Talks were held this week to plan for the 2019 train derailment exercise, which takes a full year to plan, Gargett said. Gargett said they’re not sure whether they will simulate a passenger, freight or oil train derailment or what part of the county the simulation will be conducted. BNSF will also take part in the exercise, and an evaluation will be done afterward, he said.
“The main reason we do them is because there’s different risks and hazards that we face,” Gargett said. “We want to take a programmatic approach to it. … Our job is to plan for all these things.”
This year’s exercise was simulated at the airport and next year’s will be a Mount Baker eruption, he said. They also plan active shooter exercises with school districts.
“If I had to give an answer to if Whatcom County is prepared, I would say we’re as prepared as any community and perhaps better than most communities as we’re an ideal size,” Gargett said. “There’s always room for improvement, but we do exercises so we can hone our skills.”
Positive train control, the technology used on the tracks running through Whatcom County, was not in use on the 15-mile stretch of track where Monday’s Amtrak train derailed, officials said. The track sensors and other components of the technology have been installed but the technology wasn’t set to be completed until next spring. The faster route was pressed into service, though, officials said.
Railroads are required to install the technology by the end of next yearafter Congress acted in 2008 following a collision of a Metrolink passenger train and a freight train operated by Union Pacific in California that killed 25 people and injured 135.
http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Amtrak-Derailment-Raises-Questions-About-Rail-Safety-Tech.html
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