Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 12/27/2017
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(ACC Mentioned) Oil Giants Poured US$180B in Plastics, Pushing 'Near-Permanent' Pollution in Oceans
Dec 26, 2017 | TeleSUR English
Oil giants will put colossal funding in plastic production raising the production by 40 percent over the next decade, and in turn risking a "permanent pollution" scenario in water bodies, a study released by the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL), earlier this month, concluded. -
(ACC Mentioned) Fossil Fuel Companies Are Fueling a Global Plastics Binge; What Will We Do With It All?
Dec 26, 2017 | Treehugger
By Lloyd Alter
They are building hundreds of new "cracking" facilities to make 40 percent more plastic. Are we going to drown in it? -
What Environmental Attorneys Are Watching Out for in 2018
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
So that was quite a year...The federal government in 2017 made dramatic reversals in nearly every area of environmental policy—from water to air to chemicals to public lands and, especially, climate. -
Industry Argues TSCA Program Obviates Need for Ethylbezene IRIS Analysis
Dec 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
An industry group is arguing that EPA's influential but controversial Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program should halt its plans to reassess ethlybenzene because the chemical is in line to be assessed by the new risk evaluation program... -
No Slacking in 2018 as EPA, Companies Confront Chemicals Law
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Manufacturers, states, and others tracking chemical policies will need to be alert in 2018 as the EPA stakes out new terrain in implementing the nation's primary chemicals law two years after Congress overhauled it. -
EPA Chemical Fee Proposal at White House for Review
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven Gibb
An EPA proposal that would set industry fees to assist with the review and oversight of chemicals is at the White House for regulatory and interagency review. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Asks EPA to Consider Benefits, Endogenous Issue in IRIS Analysis
Dec 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry is urging EPA to consider additional issues in its upcoming analysis of the human health risks of exposure to nitrate and nitrite, including conducting a risk-benefit analysis of nitrate's dietary benefits, setting a policy on endogenous chemicals... -
2017 Rollback of Obama-Era Energy Rules Expected to Continue Into New Year
Dec 27, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Iulia Gheorghiu
As the Trump administration worked to roll back Obama-era regulations this year, it took aim at ones that affected the energy industry, especially coal miners. -
Billions Already Spent on Drilling And Fracking
Dec 27, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
As a region flush with coal, oil and natural gas reserves beneath the ground’s surface, billions of dollars worth of investment continue flowing into northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio for mining, drilling, fracking, pipelining and processing. -
Railroads Implementing Positive Train Control
Dec 26, 2017 | The Columbian
By Don Brunell
While the investigation continues into the deadly Amtrak derailment near Dupont, the clock continues to tick on the implementation of Positive Train Control. The deadline is Dec. 31, 2018. -
EPA Responds to State Ozone Suggestions as Court Deadline Looms
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
The EPA stuffed states’ stockings just before Christmas with overdue letters informing local air pollution officials whether the agency agrees on regions state officials believe have ozone pollution problems. -
States Sue EPA to Protect Against Wind-Blown Air Pollution
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bob Van Voris
The EPA's refusal to expand a Northeastern region that combats ozone pollution is drawing a lawsuit from downwind states. -
EPA's Pruitt: Bring Back 'True environmentalism'
Dec 27, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
When it comes to environmentalism, Scott Pruitt thinks environmentalists have it all wrong. -
The Most Consequential Environmental Stories of 2017
Dec 27, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Darryl Fears
President Trump made his mark in the energy and environment world during his first year in Washington.
Industry and Association News
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Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Oil Giants Poured US$180B in Plastics, Pushing 'Near-Permanent' Pollution in Oceans
Dec 26, 2017 | TeleSUR English
Oil giants will put colossal funding in plastic production raising the production by 40 percent over the next decade, and in turn risking a "permanent pollution" scenario in water bodies, a study released by the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL), earlier this month, concluded.
In recent years, there has been a rise in gas exploration which has caused the price of natural gas liquids, which is used to make plastic, to drop significantly, resulting in many companies beginning over 300 plastics production projects since 2010.
Fossil fuel companies, including Exxon and Shell Chemical, have poured over US$180 billion to help create the plastic facilities that would spike production by 40 percent over the coming years, the American Chemistry Council, a trade organization noted.
"We are increasingly smothering ecosystems in plastic and I am very worried that there may be all kinds of unintended, adverse consequences that we will only find out about once it is too late," Roland Geyer, from the University of California and Santa Barbara, who led the project, told the Guardian.
The CEIL has compiled several reports about the plastics industry since September.
Per the report, in 1950, at the time that plastic was first mass-produced, nearly 2m tons was manufactured, whereas in 2017, that number has multiplied to 8.3b tons. The report projected that plastic production would reach 34bn by 2050.
"We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it," Carroll Muffett, president of the Washington-based CEIL, told the Guardian.
"Roughly half of all the steel we make goes into construction, so it will have decades of use – plastic is the opposite,” Geyer said. “Half of all plastics become waste after four or fewer years."
"Around 99 percent of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies...that have helped create the climate crisis," Muffett said. "There is a deep and pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics."
Major chemical and petroleum companies knew about the copious amounts of water pollution caused by them as far back as in 1970's.
"Several of the studies in this workshop were funded or studied by scientists at Esso, Chevron, and the American Petroleum Institute. Their participation in this conference indicates that the petrochemicals industry knew, or should have known, of the presence of plastic in such ocean surveys no later than 1973," the study noted.
The CEIL warned that the rise in plastic production will lead to insurmountable levels of waste in the sea in the coming decades.
"All this buildout, if allowed to proceed, will flood the global market with even more disposable, unmanageable plastic for decades to come," Steven Feit, an attorney with CEIL, said, Common Dreams reported.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Oil-Giants-Poured-US180B-in-Plastics-Pushing-Near-Permanent-Pollution-in-Oceans-20171226-0023.html
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Dec 26, 2017 | Treehugger
By Lloyd Alter
They are building hundreds of new "cracking" facilities to make 40 percent more plastic. Are we going to drown in it?
What's a fossil fuel company to do? Thanks to fracking, horizontal drilling and the shale gas boom, there is more natural gas at a lower price than there has been in decades. People can't burn it fast enough, so the big oil companies like Exxon and Shell are investing US$ 180 Billion in new plants to make plastics. According to Matthew Taylor in the Guardian,
“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the US Center for International Environmental Law, which has analyzed the plastic industry. Around 99% of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies, like Exxon and Shell, that have helped create the climate crisis. There is a deep and pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics.”
He quotes the American Chemistry Council, who says that 318 projects are under construction or on the boards.
“I can summarise [the boom in plastics facilities] in two words,” Kevin Swift, chief economist at the ACC, told the Guardian. “Shale gas.” He added: “There has been a revolution in the US with the shale gas technologies, with the fracking, the horizontal drilling. The cost of our raw material base has gone down by roughly two thirds.”Essentially, they are flooding the world in cheap plastic; what they can't use in the USA they are exporting to Europe and China. This amounts to a 40 percent increase in plastics production over the next decade. And of course, when one is flooded with cheap plastic there is no incentive to recycle. There is also not a chance, with that kind of investment, that there is going to be any kind of ban of single-use plastics. If anything, there will be more bans of bans.
About the only thing worth doing with it is probably going to be burning it like they do in Scandinavia, but that has a bigger carbon footprint per kWh than burning coal. Or I suppose we could start using more plastic foam and building materials instead of trying to use less. After all, as the VP of plastics for the ACC tells the Guardian:
Advanced plastics enable us to do more with less in almost every facet of life and commerce. From reducing packaging to driving lighter cars, to living in more fuel-efficient homes, plastics help us reduce energy use, carbon emissions, and waste.
Perhaps I have been taking the wrong approach all this time, promoting natural materials with low embodied energy. Perhaps it is better to turn it into foam insulation and plastic building materials than it is to burn it, since leaving it in the ground is obviously not an option that is on the table.
Perhaps it is time to bring back the plastic house, like the Monsanto House of the Future. Then Exxon and Shell could keep pumping gas and we could put all that plastic to better use than just water bottles and plastic bags that are turned into incinerator fuel.
Of course, this is all tongue and cheek; there are other problems with plastics in buildings, including the fact that they burn even though they are full of terrible flame retardants of that they often are softened with gender-bending phtalates. But the fact is, we are faced with an insurmountable problem of an industry that insists on making more plastics, in a world with no room for it.
https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/fossil-fuel-companies-are-fueling-global-plastics-binge-what-will-we-do-it-all.html
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What Environmental Attorneys Are Watching Out for in 2018
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
So that was quite a year.
The federal government in 2017 made dramatic reversals in nearly every area of environmental policy—from water to air to chemicals to public lands and, especially, climate.
What's next? Bloomberg Environment asked a handful of environmental attorneys with a wide range of specialties what they expect the new year will bring. This highly unscientific survey yielded some interesting and unexpected answers:
Waters Jurisdiction
“No legal issue goes more to the heart of our mission than this one. We know from history what will happen if we define federal jurisdiction narrowly.” —Daniel Estrin, general counsel, Waterkeeper Alliance
Estrin is referring to the protracted legal drama surrounding the federal government's attempt to define which bodies of water fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. This definition matters a lot because waters that do fall under this law's jurisdiction come with a potpourri of requirements for industry, including federal permits, oil spill prevention requirements, state water quality certifications, and more.
Redefining water jurisdiction is an issue that has bedeviled at least the past three presidential administrations and one that the Supreme Court may provide a little clarity on in 2018.
Endangered Pollinators
“It's hard to think of a more important [endangered species] issue than the upcoming consideration of potential listing decisions for several pollinator species with extensive ranges…Every industry would be affected.” —Parker Moore, attorney focused on environment and property rights issues, Beveridge & Diamond
A steady decline over the years in the numbers of pollinating insects like bees and butterflies has gotten so bad that a few species may land on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered list. That would have huge ramifications, Moore said, because the habitat range for these insects covers the entire continental U.S. The listing of bee or butterfly species could acutely affect farmers because it may force them to stop using certain insecticides on their crops.
“Partial replacements have been shown to increase the amount of lead that can get into the water and are possibly doing more harm than not touching the lines in the first place.” —Mae Wu, health attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
Largely in response to the Flint, Mich., contamination crisis, the EPA has been working for years on updating its regulations on lead in drinking water, with a draft of the new rules potentially coming out in 2018.
Attorneys like Wu will be watching to see what requirements these new regulations impose on water utilities—specifically, whether they force utilities to get rid of all of their lead pipes. Many of these pipes are on private property and Wu said she's worried the regulations won't address these privately-owned pipes, leading to lots of partial replacements that make the lead problem worse.
Groundwater Contamination
“A new wave of groundwater/drinking water contamination lawsuits…involving emerging contaminants of concern."—John McGahren, attorney specializing in toxic waste cleanup issues, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
Those emerging contaminants McGahren is talking about are the remnants of potentially toxic industrial chemicals that have seeped into aquifers over the years and caused huge problems for many cities and towns across the country. Chemicals like PFOA, PFOS, 1,4-dioxane, and others are hard to detect, even harder to clean up, and can cause health effects that scientists are just beginning to understand.
McGahren said he expects a lot more litigation from people who have been exposed to these chemicals. Who is liable for this exposure? That's an issue that likely won't be solved in 2018, or any time soon.
Mandated Disclosure
“An important emerging issue is state (and retailer) mandated ingredient disclosure and the potential preemption of those requirements.” —Warren Lehrenbaum, attorney, Crowell & Moring
Despite the long-awaited 2016 passage of an update to the law that lays out exactly how federal agencies regulate chemicals, regulatory certainty has been elusive for the chemicals industry.
Beyond the sweeping changes at the federal level, chemical makers also are finding that some states have passed their own laws regarding the disclosure of ingredients in household items like cleaners and cosmetics. And even some retailers are getting into the game, launching programs to weed from their shelves those chemicals believed to be hazardous. Will Congress pass a law blocking states and retailers from doing this? Lehrenbaum will be watching.
More Suits?
“I haven't seen as much as I expected—still more may be coming.” —John Sheehan, partner, Michael Best & Friedrich
This time last year, many were predicting a tsunami of lawsuits from environmental groups challenging the new Trump administration's decisions. But Sheehan, who previously served in both the Justice Department and the EPA's Office of General Counsel, said this tsunami never really materialized.
There were suits, of course, but not the legal barrage that some had expected. That could change in 2018 as more of the administration's policy actions become official and, as a result, ripe for a legal challenge.
This story is part of a Bloomberg Environment series on issues to look for in 2018. We're publishing these Outlook articles on a wide range of topics throughout December.
—With assistance from Amena H. Saiyid, Alan Kovski, Tiffany Stecker, and Sylvia Carignan.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125696297&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125696297&jd=125696297
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Industry Argues TSCA Program Obviates Need for Ethylbezene IRIS Analysis
Dec 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
An industry group is arguing that EPA's influential but controversial Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program should halt its plans to reassess ethlybenzene because the chemical is in line to be assessed by the new risk evaluation program required by the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and should be assessed by that program instead.
"The agency is required by statute to determine whether conditions of use for ethylbenzene present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment based on a comprehensive, weight of the evidence review using the best available scientific information. An IRIS review is not a substitute for the TSCA Prioritization and Risk Evaluation processes," the Styrene Information and Research Council (SIRC) states in its recent comments on draft scoping documents that EPA's IRIS program has prepared to update its 1991 assessment of ethylbenzene.
The comments echo previous statements from industry stakeholders who questioned whether the IRIS program was relevant after Congress revised TSCA in the summer of 2016. Some longtime industry IRIS observers, many of whom have often criticized the IRIS program for producing what they consider to be overly strict risk analyses that they worry will lead to stringent regulations, argued that the new TSCA risk evaluation program will make the IRIS program redundant.
The Obama EPA intended to continue the IRIS program, with that administration's toxics chief, Jim Jones, telling Inside EPA that the toxics office would rely on IRIS in conducting TSCA analyses, where IRIS assessments existed, because of the toxics office's limited risk assessment experience.
But it is unclear how or whether the Trump EPA intends to incorporate the IRIS program. The president's fiscal year 2018 budget proposes greatly reducing its budget, while the Senate's proposed FY18 budget has language attached to it that would eliminate IRIS entirely.
SIRC notes that "the TSCA amendments implement strict deadlines to ensure EPA is accountable in completing each step of the chemical risk evaluation process expeditiously, and requires EPA to complete an aggressive workload within these time frames."
The statute gives EPA one year to determine whether a chemical is high or low priority, and three years to complete an assessment of a chemical deemed high priority. To keep the assessments on track, the statute also requires that EPA must have underway at least 20 high priority substances by Dec. 22, 2019.
The IRIS program, housed in EPA's research office, does not have any statutory requirements, and was crafted by IRIS staff in the 1980s to ensure consistency in risk estimates across EPA offices and programs. The IRIS program has long focused on existing chemicals -- those that were on the market when the original TSCA was enacted in 1976 and were largely grandfathered from regulation. These are the same group of chemicals -- number unknown but anticipated in the tens of thousands -- that the reformed TSCA directs EPA's chemicals office to assess.
'Pragmatic Approach'
But SIRC suggests that for "a pragmatic approach to chemical risk assessment, . . . the IRIS Program office defer to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and perhaps provide support to the staff implementing risk evaluations under TSCA. . . . SIRC recommends that EPA cease an unnecessary IRIS assessment and support the TSCA program to not only save the IRIS program significant time and resources, but ensure chemical reviews are performed efficiently and consistent with the strict standards" in the revised TSCA.
SIRC further argues that IRIS should cease its assessment of ethylbenzene because ethylbenzene is already controlled by regulations based on the existing IRIS assessment, which is stricter than necessary, the group states. SIRC argues that "the necessity of an IRIS review disappears when those regulations are based on health values that are protective or overly protective," such as the IRIS reference concentration and reference dose values, "and when the agency has conducted risk reviews and found the regulations to be protective of human health and the environment."
SIRC in this case is citing a 2006 review of existing air regulations. EPA explains in its draft scoping document for ethylbenzene that the update was requested by several agency offices, including the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM), multiple regional offices, Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), the water office and the toxics office, according to the recently released EPA documents.
IRIS staff conducted preliminary work to prepare for an ethylbenzene assessment in 2014. The IRIS program's new leaders, Kris Thayer and Tina Bahadori, stated in a September presentation that they confirmed with other agency offices that the chemical assessment is still a "current Agency need."
"As noted, measured human exposures of ethylbenzene in North America are low (generally <10 [parts per billion]), which is well below toxic effects of concern (750 [parts per million] tumors), and emissions of ethylbenzene have been declining. Industrial production of ethylbenzene accounts for less than 1% of exposure," SIRC says.
The group argues these figures plus conclusions in a 2015 publication and an earlier industry-backed assessment conducted through a voluntary Bush EPA program "demonstrate how the exposure, toxicology and risk information point to a single conclusion. EPA must indefinitely postpone, if not end, its IRIS review of ethylbenzene."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-argues-tsca-program-obviates-need-ethylbezene-iris-analysis
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No Slacking in 2018 as EPA, Companies Confront Chemicals Law
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Manufacturers, states, and others tracking chemical policies will need to be alert in 2018 as the EPA stakes out new terrain in implementing the nation's primary chemicals law two years after Congress overhauled it.
Chemical manufacturers and processors face deadlines of particular interest. The Environmental Protection Agency is creating a master list of chemicals that have been made or used in the U.S. since 2006.
If the companies haven't notified the agency by specific dates about a chemical they manufacture or process, that chemical won't be legal to make or use without some additional work. Not all of the EPA's other obligations have deadlines, but they're needed to implement the law.
The agency is working toward the following deadlines throughout 2018 as it continues to implement the amended Toxic Substances Control Act.
In addition to meeting the above deadlines, the following are the agency's major implementation goals for 2018.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125696296&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125696296&jd=125696296
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EPA Chemical Fee Proposal at White House for Review
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven Gibb
An EPA proposal that would set industry fees to assist with the review and oversight of chemicals is at the White House for regulatory and interagency review.
The proposed rule (RIN:2070-AK27), sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget Dec. 22, would help defray the Environmental Protection Agency's costs of administering chemical evaluation powers that Congress granted the EPA when it amended the nation's chemicals law in 2016.
According to the plan, the fees apply to “all manufacturers, importers, and processors who submit certain notices and applications to EPA” under Sections 4, 5, and 6 of the chemicals law. The fees “defray a portion of the cost of administering . . . collecting, processing, [and] reviewing,” information on chemicals.
Section 4 allows EPA to require industry testing of compounds, and section 5 governs new chemical submissions before they can go to market. Section 6 grants EPA the authority to review chemical risks.
Agency officials and chemical industry representatives did not immediately respond to a Bloomberg Environment request for comment Dec. 26.
The EPA expects to issue the final industry fee rule in September of 2018.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125696292&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125696292&jd=125696292
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Asks EPA to Consider Benefits, Endogenous Issue in IRIS Analysis
Dec 27, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry is urging EPA to consider additional issues in its upcoming analysis of the human health risks of exposure to nitrate and nitrite, including conducting a risk-benefit analysis of nitrate's dietary benefits, setting a policy on endogenous chemicals before completing the assessment, and reviewing the existing assessment of perchlorate.
Any one of these requests would greatly complicate EPA's assessment of nitrate and nitrite, one of three new Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessments that the program's new leaders announced in September with scoping documents for public comment.
While EPA's Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC), a subpanel of its Science Advisory Board, has been generally supportive of the agency's plans for the upcoming IRIS assessments, PepsiCo and the Western Growers' Association are arguing that EPA's plans were too narrow in scope.
PepsiCo's comments, for example, reminded EPA of the dietary benefits of eating vegetables, often high in nitrates. "[A] complete evaluation of nitrate/nitrite should use an established method for the evaluation of benefit-risk, such as the benefit-risk analysis for foods ("Brafo"). Further, it is difficult to understand why the Agency has elected not to consider benefits in the assessment, particularly when it is acknowledged that environmental exposures (i.e., those that will be regulated using output from the IRIS assessment) to nitrates are minor contributors relative to dietary sources (~80%)," according to the recent comments from PepsiCo's consultant, ToxStrategies.
The comments add, "Without acknowledging benefits as part of a comprehensive evaluation, the potential for public confusion exists (e.g., should eating a healthy diet high in vegetable content be avoided because of the nitrate exposure?)."
ToxStrategies also urges EPA to consider risk-benefit assessments conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in addition to the 2017 assessment by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that EPA references in its scoping document for the analysis.
EFSA's 2008 assessment of nitrates in vegetables concluded that the estimated exposures from eating the vegetables are unlikely to result in appreciable health risks, and therefore the recognized beneficial effects of consumption of vegetables prevail, ToxStrategies says. This holds true even in circumstances in which exposure to nitrates via vegetables alone would exceed the acceptable daily intake by slightly more than two-fold, the comments add.
EPA and the Food and Drug Administration considered using risk-benefit analysis to assess methylmercury, which contaminates some seafood. But the updated fish consumption advisory for women of childbearing age and children, released at the end of the Obama administration, did not rely on risk-benefit analysis.
Scoping Documents
EPA last assessed nitrate/nitrite in 1991, and in scoping documents for the upcoming assessment, the agency explains that "Since 1987, a growing body of literature indicates potential associations between nitrate/nitrite exposure and other noncancer health effects. Some epidemiological studies also suggest an increased risk of cancer, especially gastric cancer, associated with dietary nitrite exposure."
ToxStrategies also pushes EPA to develop a policy on assessing the human health risks of an endogenous substance -- one that exists naturally in the body, as well as being produced by commercial or industrial processes and potentially contaminating the environment, such as formaldehyde, methanol and nitrate.
As industry stakeholders argued with another endogenous chemical, methanol, ToxStrategies says EPA should develop such a policy before attempting the nitrate/nitrite assessment.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) in 2013 urged EPA to hold a workshop on the endogenous issue, arguing that EPA should account for such endogenous levels or else the agency will set risk values at or below background levels, resulting in regulatory standards that will be difficult for industry to meet.
In its final 2013 assessment of methanol's non-cancer risks, EPA provided a novel analysis of how it differentiated between exogenous and endogenous exposures, but did not address the call for a broader endogenous policy.
ToxStrategies notes that EPA in its scoping document identifies "the role of endogenous and exogenous nitrate toxicity as a key scientific issue. Both endogenous and exogenous nitrate/nitrite are reduced to nitric oxide . . . essential for normal functioning of the brain, arteries, immune system, and others. The Agency has not routinely integrated endogenous/exogenous exposures into IRIS assessments, nor has the Agency developed guidance on how to do so. As such, the plan for differentiating exposures associated with normal physiological processes, such as maintenance of blood pressure, from exposures associated with potential adverse effects has not been sufficiently addressed in the draft assessment plan. Further delineation and explanation of the plan for this complex topic is warranted -- including an opportunity for the public to comment on such."
Perchlorate Assessment
Meanwhile, Western Growers, a trade group representing Arizona, California and Colorado fruit, nut and vegetable growers, in its comments is also urging EPA to expand its analyses, pressing the agency to reconsider its assessment of the rocket fuel perchlorate alongside the nitrate/nitrite assessment because they can have similar effects on the human thyroid hormone. EPA has been struggling for years to craft a health-based standard for perchlorate in drinking water, and is now operating under court-ordered deadlines to do so.
Western Growers remind EPA that perchlorate and nitrate/nitrite share the same health effect -- disruption of the thyroid -- and biological mode of action -- inhibiting the thyorid's ability to uptake iodine, which the thyorid needs to regulate properly.
"As USEPA proceeds with its IRIS nitrate/nitrite assessment, we believe it should also re-evaluate the inconsistency of a more conservative point of departure for perchlorate, especially in light of the fact that nitrate is known to account for much more of the [iodine uptake inhibition] burden at the thyroid than perchlorate. Moreover, re-evaluation of the perchlorate IRIS assessment should be a priority given that USEPA is currently considering the need for a National Primary Drinking Water Standard for perchlorate, and adoption of such standard could have widespread operational impacts on drinking water utilities and economic impacts on their customers. It could also undermine public confidence in the safety of foods containing low levels of perchlorate, leading to dietary changes that compromise public health."
The growers also urge EPA to consider an ongoing review of nitrate's health effects in drinking water by California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).
California's draft document "specifically concludes that thyroid effects should not be used as the basis for a revised [public health goal] due to a lack of consistency in study results, lack of adjustment for iodine status, possible measurement bias, and limitations in ecologic assessments of exposure. OEHHA's interpretation recognizes that these studies are not sufficiently robust to support risk assessment or risk-based regulatory decision-making."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-asks-epa-consider-benefits-endogenous-issue-iris-analysis
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2017 Rollback of Obama-Era Energy Rules Expected to Continue Into New Year
Dec 27, 2017 | Morning Consult
By Iulia Gheorghiu
As the Trump administration worked to roll back Obama-era regulations this year, it took aim at ones that affected the energy industry, especially coal miners. And 2018 is likely to see another push to repeal as many regulations as possible before the midterm elections, according to Sarah Ladislaw, director of the Energy and National Security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said in a phone interview last week that the anti-regulatory drive is expected to continue after the November elections, regardless of the outcome.
Promises fulfilled
• On June 1, President Donald Trump kept a major campaign promise when he announced his intent to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord. The official withdrawal won’t take place until 2020, but the policy shift affirmed his administration’s “America First” agenda.• Trump signed executive orders giving the green light to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, which had been blocked by the Obama administration. However, the now-operational Dakota Access pipeline faces several legal challenges, and a recent ruling from Nebraska state regulators on an alternate route for the Keystone XL pipeline further delayed the project’s construction.
• Trump also signed an executive order to slash the size of two national monuments in Utah — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — in the largest reduction of federal land protection in U.S. history. The action, which could open up the Utah land to mining and drilling, set off legal challenges of the president’s authority to reduce national monuments.
• The tax overhaul package passed by Congress this month included a provision that would lift a 40-year-old ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But drilling in the area could be delayed by permit reviews and likely lawsuits.
Expectations unmet
• Trump initiated the process of repealing climate change-related regulations established by the Obama administration by requesting reviews of the Clean Power Plan and of the five-year oil and gas leasing program that restricted offshore energy development. Efforts to eliminate the rules could take a long time, however, given the success of lawsuits to block the Trump administration’s attempts to delay implementation of certain Obama-era regulations. Vacancies in leadership roles at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have also stymied efforts to roll back regulations.
• In March, Trump ordered a review of a rule that restricts methane emissions from oil and natural gas activities on federal land. The Obama-era regulation survived an effort by congressional Republicans to repeal it via the Congressional Review Act, as the resolution failed in the Senate in May. The following month, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tried to put off enforcing the rule during the review, but a federal appeals court rejected the proposed two-year delay. In December, the Bureau of Land Management suspended the methane regulation until January 2019, prompting lawsuits from states and environmental groups.
• Despite Trump’s pledge to end “the war on coal” by repealing the regulations that he said have been hampering the industry, such as the Clean Power Plan, the coal industry has continued to struggle in the face of cheaper natural gas and declining demand for coal.
• Trump made another campaign promise to strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard, which would have stimulated growth in corn-growing and biofuel-producing states. However, proponents of biofuels were disappointed to see that the EPA last month did not increase the levels of biofuels that are federally required to be mixed into the national fuel supply each year.
On tap for 2018
• The big-ticket items for next year will focus more on trade remedies, sanctions and trade negotiations, Ladislaw said. For example, in January the White House will need to determine whether to impose tariffs on solar panel cells that are manufactured more cheaply in China; later in the year it is expected to consider tariffs on biofuel that’s sold below market price to refineries trying to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard.
• The energy industry is also closely tracking U.S. renegotiations with Canada and Mexico on the North American Free Trade Agreement, and with the South Korea trade agreement — both of which could put energy production priorities at risk. The oil-and-gas industry has relied on the existing trade agreements to transport gas to Mexico and South Korea. “Overall, the administration’s trade agenda is a dagger pointed at the heart of its energy dominance agenda,” David Goldwyn, chairman of the Energy Advisory Group consulting firm, said in a phone interview Wednesday.
• Even though the GOP-led tax code overhaul was signed into law this month, the energy industry expects lawmakers to work on the package introduced by Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) for energy tax credit extenders and orphan tax credits that were left out of the bill, as well as a renewed push for a comprehensive, bipartisan energy overhaul bill introduced in June by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). The measure is awaiting a Senate floor vote.
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is due to rule by Jan. 10 on the Department of Energy’s proposed rule to boost coal and nuclear power plants that keep a 90-day fuel supply on site by requiring utilities to pay a subsidy to those plants.
• Expectations for electric and power projects were raised this year when the Trump touted a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, but so far no action has been taken on that front beyond some hearings in Congress. However, in January the administration is expected to revive its promotion of a plan that would encourage public-private partnerships.
https://morningconsult.com/2017/12/27/2017-rollback-obama-era-energy-rules-expected-continue-new-year/
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Billions Already Spent on Drilling And Fracking
Dec 27, 2017 | The Intelligencer
By Casey Junkins
As a region flush with coal, oil and natural gas reserves beneath the ground’s surface, billions of dollars worth of investment continue flowing into northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio for mining, drilling, fracking, pipelining and processing.
As 2017 closes, the wait is on to see how the announcement by China Energy to spend $83.7 billion to build petrochemical plants and electricity generators in West Virginia will unfold in 2018 and beyond. The proposed PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker for Belmont County, meanwhile, a project with an estimated price tag of up to $6 billion, will eventually realize an affirmative or negative decision, as well.
Still, even before these “downstream” investments, new pipelines continue to be built, new wells are being drilled and fracked, and more coal continues to be shipped out of the region.
Drilling, Fracking and Pipelining
Virtually anywhere one goes in the Upper Ohio Valley, he or she will likely see signs of the oil and natural gas industry. Whether one sees rigs rising above the horizon in Belmont County, pipelines being installed in Marshall County, pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles parked at hotels in Ohio County, flaring at processing plants in Harrison County, or “sand can” trucks traveling between fracking operations along highways, the signs are clear.
Now, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Belmont County features more permitted horizontal wells than any of the state’s other 87 counties. For several years, Carroll County led the way with the most drilling operations.
According to industry leaders, one of the significant impediments to growth in recent years has been the lack of interstate pipeline infrastructure to transport natural gas to market. As 2017 draws to a close, this appears to be on its way to resolution. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given approval to multiple pipelines, including:
∫ the 36-inch diameter Nexus Pipeline, which will travel 255 miles to connect the Marcellus and Utica shale region to the Detroit area at a cost of nearly $2 billion for developer, Spectra Energy;
∫ the $4.3 billion Rover Pipeline, which will ship up to 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in pipe up to 42 inches in diameter from West Virginia and Ohio to Michigan;
∫ the $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run southward from the MarkWest Mobley plant in Wetzel County toward Virginia; and
∫ the $5.1 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is planned to be 564 miles long with the 42-inch pipeline diameter in stretching from West Virginia to North Carolina.
China Energy and PTT
In November, West Virginia officials announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with China Energy, witnessed by President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping while in Beijing.
John Deskins, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at WVU, said Thursday the state’s annual gross domestic product is about $75 billion. Therefore, the $83.7 billion investment would be more than the entire value of all goods and services generated in the state for a year.
“It could be one big ethane cracker, or it could be a couple of smaller ethane crackers,”West Virginia University Energy Institute Director Brian Anderson said of China Energy’s potential petrochemical plants. “They are looking at several different projects.”
Moreover, West Virginia Secretary of Commerce Woody Thrasher has said two of the early projects likely to be funded via the China Energy investment are natural gas-fired electricity generators in Brooke and Harrison counties.
On the other side of the Ohio River, officials continue waiting to see if PTT will ultimately build the massive ethane cracker at Dilles Bottom. If the project comes to fruition, officials expect it to create about 6,000 construction jobs, as well as hundreds of permenant jobs once it enters the operational phase.
Coal Mining
The most recent U.S. Energy Information Administration data show that Murray Energy Corp. became the fourth-largest coal producer in the nation during 2016. In 2017, Murray Chairman, President and CEO Robert Murray joined President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. when Trump signed an executive order to overturn the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a measure Murray fought because he said it would force electricity producers to abandon coal burning.
The Clean Power Plan required electricity companies in Ohio and West Virginia to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 37 percent. The easiest and cheapest way for power companies to achieve this was to reduce the burning of coal because of the mineral’s high carbon content.
“Obama is the greatest destroyer America has ever had,” Murray told The Intelligencer in 2017. “Once a coal-fired power plant is closed, it’s closed.”
Murray operates several coal mines throughout the U.S., including the Century Mine near Beallsville, the Ohio County Mine near Benwood, the Marshall County Mine near Cameron, the Monongalia County Mine near Blacksville, W.Va., the Harrison County Mine near Clarksburg, W.Va., and the Marion County Mine near Mannington, W.Va.
Murray said a typical miner in his company receives the equivalent of about $90,000 per year when accounting for benefits and overtime pay.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2017/12/billions-already-spent-on-drilling-and-fracking/
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Railroads Implementing Positive Train Control
Dec 26, 2017 | The Columbian
By Don Brunell
While the investigation continues into the deadly Amtrak derailment near Dupont, the clock continues to tick on the implementation of Positive Train Control. The deadline is Dec. 31, 2018.
PTC integrates new satellite tracking and trackside technology for passenger, freight and commuter rail service. It is designed to instantly feed mountains of detailed and complex information to control centers and moving locomotives to automatically stop speeding trains from going off the track and colliding.
Neither the track on new Point Defiance bypass between Tacoma and Olympia nor the engines propelling Amtrak Train 501 on its inaugural high-speed run were not equipped with new anti-crash system.
“The lightly used freight line, first laid out in 1891, would be converted into a bypass route to allow passenger trains to avoid a congested section of tracks and tunnels that run along Puget Sound in Tacoma,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
It was track upgraded by the state of Washington to allow trains to reach speeds up to 80 mph. High speed commuter rail was planned to relieve vehicle traffic congestion on Interstate 5 between Portland and Seattle.
The plan met with opposition from city leaders in congested communities such as Lakewood where the speeding trains would run. One controversial glitch was the sharp curve adjacent to the Joint Base Lewis McCord golf course where the derailment occurred. To avoid derailing, trains were supposed to slow down to 30 mph.
Speed and the tight turn are the focal points of the investigations into the Dec. 18 accident which killed three on the train and sent dozens to the hospital. Miraculously, the incident did not kill a single driver going south on Interstate 5 during the morning commute.
PTC was mandated by Congress and President George W. Bush in 2008. The law required that passenger and Class 1 (larger railroads such as Union Pacific and BNSF Railway) freight railroads complete installation of the technologies designed to automatically stop trains before accidents caused by human error.
According to the Association of American Railroads, the system is specifically designed to avoid train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speed, unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance is taking place, and the movement of a train through a track where the switch is left in the wrong position.
Even without PTC, rail-safety experts told the Wall Street Journal that Amtrak No. 501 should have been able to pass through the curve safely.
According to AAR, trains and track carrying passengers on main lines or “toxic-by-inhalations materials” were to install PTC by the end of 2015. However, the deadline was subsequently extended for three years.
Such a system requires highly complex technologies able to analyze and incorporate the huge number of variables that affect train operation. The estimated price tag for freight railroad alone is roughly $10.6 billion with hundreds of millions spent each year to maintain the system and train thousands of railroad workers.
In Western Washington, BNSF and Union Pacific trains running north-south carrying oil, coal, lumber, wheat, containers, autos, chemicals and other cargo share common track with Amtrak and Sounder commuter trains.
BNSF and Amtrak share the same rails for east-west routes on the northside of the Columbia River between Vancouver and the Tri-Cities and over Stevens Pass between Everett and Spokane. They are equipped with PTC.
BNSF stated in a special report issued on Friday that overall, BNSF is equipping 5,000 locomotives and 11,300 miles of track across its system. It has already logged 800,000 successful PTC trips.
At the end of October, Union Pacific has nearly 6,000 miles with PTC operations and 3,200 engines are now equipped. It anticipates spending $2.9 billion.
Both railroads plan to meet next year’s deadline.
Don Brunell, retired as president of the Association of Washington Business, is a business analyst, writer, and columnist.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2017/dec/26/brunell-railroads-implementing-positive-train-control/
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EPA Responds to State Ozone Suggestions as Court Deadline Looms
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
The EPA stuffed states’ stockings just before Christmas with overdue letters informing local air pollution officials whether the agency agrees on regions state officials believe have ozone pollution problems.
The Environmental Protection Agency missed its Oct. 1 deadline to decide which parts of the country exceed the national ambient air quality standards for ozone that were updated in 2015 and now faces a Jan. 12 court deadline to announce plans to complete that process.
In its latest step, the EPA late Dec. 22 sent letters to all 50 states, known as 120-day letters, informing them about whether the agency agrees with state recommendations on which areas violate the 70 parts per billion ozone standards.
Though the EPA has determined 85 percent of the counties in the U.S. currently meet the ozone air pollution standards, states are still waiting for further EPA action on areas that exceed those requirements.
The letters go out 120 days before the EPA decides to accept or alter state recommendations for regions that exceed the pollution standards.
States must then draft plans to reduce pollution in the areas deemed to violate the standards, which could lead to new emissions-reduction requirements for industries and transportation.
Sued for Missed Deadline
Environmental and public health groups sued the EPA for missing its deadline to complete the nonattaiment designation process, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave the agency a Jan. 12 deadline.
“They're taking action, which is a positive,” Seth Johnson, an Earthjustice lawyer representing environmental groups on the lawsuit against the EPA, told Bloomberg Environment.
Johnson said he would be looking at what modifications the EPA made to states’ air quality assessments.
“There are ways to draw boundaries that are more- or less-protective,” he said. If you draw very small non-attainment areas, you're going to be controlling fewer sources.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125696291&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125696291&jd=125696291
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States Sue EPA to Protect Against Wind-Blown Air Pollution
Dec 27, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bob Van Voris
The EPA's refusal to expand a Northeastern region that combats ozone pollution is drawing a lawsuit from downwind states.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit Dec. 26 on behalf of eight states that had petitioned the EPA to expand the Ozone Transport Region, which currently runs down the Eastern seaboard from Maine to Washington, D.C.
Those states are required to take additional steps to control air pollution emissions that contribute to ozone formation. The eight states had petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency in 2013 to expand the region to prevent pollution from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and areas of Virginia from worsening air quality in downwind states. The EPA denied that request in November.
Schneiderman filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont
The case is New York v. EPA, D.C. Cir., docket number unavailable, 12/26/17.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=125696290&vname=dennotallissues&fn=125696290&jd=125696290
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EPA's Pruitt: Bring Back 'True environmentalism'
Dec 27, 2017 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
When it comes to environmentalism, Scott Pruitt thinks environmentalists have it all wrong.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Trump has been on a mission to redefine the mission of the agency and, in the process, redefine what it means to be a guardian of the environment.
Pruitt, the former Republican attorney general of Oklahoma, has said in recent public appearances and interviews that environmentalism ought to mean using natural resources like fossil fuels and agricultural products to their fullest potential, while being mindful of their impact.
It’s meant as a sharp contrast, and perhaps a direct conservative challenge, to the established environmentalism of the last few decades, which has been largely dominated by the left. Green activists have long fought to reduce the use of fossil fuels, noting their impact on climate change and air quality.
“I’ve been asking the question lately, what is true environmentalism? What do you consider true environmentalism? And from my perspective, it’s environmental stewardship, not prohibition,” Pruitt said last month at an event hosted by the conservative Federalist Society.
“We have been blessed, as a country, with tremendous natural resources. ... I believe that we have an obligation to feed the world and power the world, with a sensitivity, as far as environmental stewardship, for future generations,” he said.
“But for the past few years, we have been told it’s prohibition, it’s put up a fence, it’s do not touch.”
He had a similar take in a cover story published in the conservative National Review this month.
“If you are of the side that says we exist to serve creation, then you have no trouble putting up a fence and saying ‘do not use,’ ” he said. “Even though people may starve, may freeze, though developing countries may never develop their economies.”
Mainstream environmentalists scoff at Pruitt’s argument.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a leading climate change activist in the Senate, laughed audibly at the idea, following it up with, “that laugh was on the record.”
“You don’t get to make it so because you say it is,” he said. “Up is down, left is right, no. Words have meanings.”
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, had trouble taking the idea seriously.
“I find myself wondering whether Scott Pruitt actually believes this stuff, or if he’s a careful student of George Orwell. If he repeats something enough, again and again and again, at least some portion of the public will begin to believe it,” said Brune, whose group is the largest environmental organization in the country when counted by membership.
Asked if Pruitt’s attempted redefinition angered him, Brune said it didn’t.
“His statements cause me to shake my head and almost chuckle,” Brune said. “What he says doesn’t piss me off. What he says has me worried about our country’s future.”
Pruitt’s supporters say he raises good points. Republicans have long felt that the left has unfairly taken hold of environmentalism and that conservatives who care about clean air and clean water need to reclaim the movement and be recognized for their contributions.
“I think he’s right, and I think his perspective is long overdue,” said Ed Russo, an ally of President Trump and an environmental consultant who has worked with the Trump Organization for more than a decade, frequently on environmental matters related to its golf courses.
Russo cited coal policies, along with efforts to encourage cleaner production and use of coal, as prime examples of conservative environmental policies that have not gotten a fair hearing.
“For the past 10 years, there were certain aspects of energy that you couldn’t talk about in Washington, coal being one of them,” he said.
Russo, who penned a book last year declaring Trump an “environmental hero,” opined that a focus on climate change in recent years has been a major source of the divide, detracting attention away from cleaning the nation’s air, water and soil.
“I think that global warming has been a very hurtful distraction for the environmental community,” he said.
“The focus must be redirected from these nuanced initiatives to the cleaning up of the disastrous environmental impacts that we’ve created over the last 50 years.”
Behind Pruitt’s rhetoric is his policy agenda. An outspoken skeptic of the consensus scientific view of climate change, Pruitt has taken dozens of actions to roll back Obama administration policies on climate, air pollution, water pollution, chemical safety and more.
In the process, he’s become a lightning rod for the left, with Democrats pointing to the EPA’s agenda as proof of Trump’s disdain for crucial government protections.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters have lauded Pruitt, both for his actions and for what he has done to fight liberals — including his mission to take “environmentalism” from them.
“He’s right on target, and he’s being realistic,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a close home-state ally of Pruitt’s.
“There’s no way we can run this machine called America without fossil fuels.”
The idea also aligns with Pruitt’s stated environmental goals. Like most conservatives, Pruitt says he wants to prioritize cleaning up air quality and contaminated lands, which he sees as affecting people more acutely, directly and immediately than climate change.
Aseem Prakash, director of Washington University’s Center for Environmental Politics, said that using resources responsibly has a place in environmental stewardship. For example, some experts argue that current policies make it difficult to remove brush from forests, which fuels forest fires.
“So in some ways, a puritanical approach to the environment may actually lead to more destruction of the environment, under certain circumstances,” Prakash said, with the caveat that that is an “extremely sympathetic” way to read Pruitt.
But he dismissed Pruitt’s attempts to redefine environmentalism as little more than political maneuvering.
“This is not an intellectual argument. I don’t think he is trying to redefine environmentalism at an intellectual level,” he said.
“This is pandering to a political constituency, and using environmentalism and fossil fuels to fuel polarization.”
Prakash contrasted Pruitt’s arguments with those of the free-market environmentalism community. That school of thought recognizes the same environmental problems that left-leaning greens do, but pushes small-government policies to solve them, as opposed to regulations and policies that grow government.
But Pruitt is no free-market environmentalist, Prakash argued.
“I would welcome an intellectual engagement. But what I think Scott Pruitt is doing is not an intellectual engagement, because there are no ideas there. There are a bunch of slogans that have not been carefully thought through.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/366478-epas-pruitt-bring-back-true-environmentalism
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The Most Consequential Environmental Stories of 2017
Dec 27, 2017 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Darryl Fears
President Trump made his mark in the energy and environment world during his first year in Washington. Many of his actions aimed to undo work from the Obama era. Trump all but abandoned the nation’s efforts to combat climate change, and he shrank national monuments that President Barack Obama had established or sought to preserve. Trump scaled back regulations on the fossil fuel industry and pushed for more drilling on land and at sea.
And in turn, much of the world pushed back. Protesters descended on Washington to oppose his policies and campaign against what they saw as an attack on science. Other nations denounced his decision to back out of an international climate agreement, leaving the United States at odds with the rest of the globe.
Meanwhile, extreme weather nationwide wrought devastation. Hurricanes leveled homes, triggered floods and upended lives from Puerto Rico to Texas. Wildfires ravaged California, burning entire neighborhoods to ashes. It was a tumultuous year. Here are some of the most consequential environmental stories we covered along the way.
1. Withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump proclaimed from the Rose Garden in June. With those words, he declared his intention to withdraw the nation from a global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to fend off the worst effects of climate change. The Obama administration had led the charge for the landmark deal in late 2015, helping to persuade other world powers — and major polluters — such as China and India to pledge to reduce their emissions in coming years.
Trump reversed course, despite widespread criticism from world leaders, claiming that the Paris accord was a bad deal for the United States that would disadvantage American workers. The United States is now the only nation in the world to reject the deal. While the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement cannot officially be finalized until late 2020, the action sent a clear message: Climate action has little place in the Trump administration.
2. A sea change at the Environmental Protection Agency. “The future ain’t what it used to be at the EPA,” the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, is fond of saying. That’s certainly true. In nominating Pruitt to head the agency that Trump once promised to reduce to “little tidbits,” the president chose a man who had long been one of its most outspoken adversaries. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times, challenging its authority to regulate toxic mercury pollution, smog, carbon emissions from power plants and the quality of wetlands and other waters.
Now, as EPA’s leader, he has acted aggressively to reduce the agency’s reach, pause or reverse numerous environmental rules, and shrink its workforce to Reagan-era levels. He has begun to dismantle Obama’s environmental legacy, in part by rolling back the Clean Power Plan — a key attempt to combat climate change by regulating carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants. Along the way, Pruitt has become one of Trump’s most effective Cabinet members, as well as a lightning rod for criticism from public health and environmental groups.
3. The fight over national monuments. Trump issued an executive order in April to review 27 land and marine monuments. But it was clear that two particular monuments were in his crosshairs: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Utah’s congressional delegation and its governor had lobbied Trump’s inner circle to reverse the monument designations of these parks in their state even before he was elected.
Utah Republicans called the designations by Obama and President Bill Clinton overzealous land grabs, and shortly after he took office, Trump adopted some of the same language. He promised to end what he called presidential “abuses” and give control of the land “back to the people.” In the end, Trump shrank both monuments by nearly 2 million acres last month, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the borders of other monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as in the West, are being reviewed. Native American groups that had requested a Bears Ears designation are leading a wave of lawsuits against the Trump administration’s decision.
4. Drill, baby, drill. Drilling platforms already dot the Gulf of Mexico, where the fossil fuel industry has extracted oil and gas for decades. But the Trump administration wanted to make history. In early November, it did so by announcing the largest gulf lease offering for oil and gas exploration in U.S. history: 77 million acres.
The move was consistent with Trump’s push for “energy dominance.” He and Zinke are also opening more land to coal excavation in the West. One of Zinke’s first acts as interior secretary was to remove a bright and colorful picture of a western landscape from the Bureau of Land Management’s website and replace it with a black wall of coal. Oil prices are climbing after reaching record lows in recent years, but coal is struggling to make a comeback after the rise of natural gas. The Gulf of Mexico promises more oil, but it also might promise disaster. It’s the scene of the nation’s worst environmental disaster, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which fouled beaches and killed untold numbers of marine animals when oil spewed into the water for months.
Is drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge next? The Republican-controlled Congress greenlighted leases for exploration in the recently passed tax bill completely along party lines. But let the buyer beware. Royal Dutch Shell drilled a $7 billion hole in the Chukchi Sea in 2014 and has nothing to show for it.
5. Action on the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. As winter began to fade, it became clear that camps of protesters in Canon Ball, N.D., who for months had fought a pipeline that they argued could threaten the drinking water and cultural sites of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, had lost this particular battle. Days after Trump took office, he signed executive orders to revive two controversial pipelines that the Obama administration had put on hold — the 1,172-mile Dakota Access and the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would extend from the Canadian tar sands region to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Oil is now flowing through the Dakota Access pipeline. And the company behind the Keystone XL this fall cleared a key regulatory hurdle in its quest to complete the northern half of the pipeline, running from Alberta to Steele City, Neb., when it received approval from the Nebraska Public Service Commission. Opponents of both projects have vowed to continue legal fights, as well as to protest any other pipelines they view as a threat to public health or the environment. But Trump shows few signs of backing down, calling his actions “part of a new era of American energy policy that will lower costs for American families — and very significantly — reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create thousands of jobs right here in America.”
6. Attacks on the Endangered Species Act. It is arguably one of the most powerful environmental laws in the world, credited with saving at least a dozen animal and plant species from extinction. But who will save the Endangered Species Act, which is under attack by political conservatives inside and outside Washington? Led by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who said he wants to “invalidate” the 44-year-old act, some Republicans say the law interferes with commercial development, private landowner rights and excavation of natural resources such as coal and natural gas.
Bishop’s committee passed five bills that would weaken protections for wolves, force federal workers who enforce the law to consider economic impact when deciding how to save animals and strip away a provision of the law that requires the federal government to reimburse conservation groups that prevail in court. The bills have set up a potentially titanic battle between wildlife advocates and lawmakers supporting farmers, housing developers and the oil and gas industry. It’s not the first time that conservatives have attempted to weaken the act, but it is the first time a presidential administration and the department that oversees the act appear willing to go along.
7. Epic hurricanes and wildfires. Last year around this time, a strange wildfire rushed through the Tennessee mountains, killing 14 people, destroying homes and apartment buildings, and threatening a major recreation area in Gatlinburg. The 2017 fire disasters, some of which are still burning, were much more monstrous than that Great Smoky Mountain inferno. Two California fires, the Sonoma fire that burned north of San Francisco and the Thomas fire that burned north of Los Angeles, driven by fierce Santa Ana winds, have combined to kill 45 people, burn more than a half-million acres, destroy nearly 2,000 structures and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fight. The Thomas fire appears to be finally contained near Santa Barbara after burning the second-most acreage in state history.
But fire wasn’t even the costliest disaster this year. Hurricane Harvey’sdeath toll in and around Houston was nearly double the number who perished in the two fires and sent 30,000 people in search of shelter. Miami, Jacksonville and Naples, Fla., were devastated by Hurricane Irma, which immediately followed Harvey. They were followed by Hurricane Maria, which leveled much of Puerto Rico and left at least 50 people dead, but that is probably a drastic under count and the toll could be as high as 500.
8. Criminal charges mount in the Flint water crisis. In June, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette charged the director of the state’s health department and four other public officials with involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the Flint water crisis, which has stretched into its fourth year. In addition to ongoing worries that thousands of young children were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in the city’s contaminated water supply, the crisis has been linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that contributed to at least a dozen deaths. The manslaughter charges were the latest reckoning.
According to Schuette’s office, the investigation into the decisions that led to tainted water for a city of nearly 100,000 people has resulted in 51 criminal charges for 15 state and local officials. It remains unclear how many of the charges will stick. But the cases serve as a reminder of the human toll of the tragedy and how, even today, many residents in the largely low-income, majority-minority city trust neither the water from their taps nor the public officials charged with ensuring it is safe.
9. Climate march on Washington. It didn’t draw nearly the crowd that the Women’s March did in January. And it didn’t get as much national attention as the March for Science that came only a week earlier. Even so, on a sweltering Saturday in April, tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington to mark Trump’s first 100 days in office. Their plea: Stop the rollback of environmental protections and take climate change seriously.
Building on a massive demonstration three years earlier in New York, the People’s Climate March brought its message — and its many clever signs— to the White House. “Don’t destroy the Earth. I buy my tacos here,” one read. “Good planets are hard to find,” another read. “Make Earth Great Again!” read another. Trump wasn’t around that day to witness the protests on his doorstep, and the march’s organizers didn’t expect to change his mind. But they were gearing up for a long fight ahead. By the next morning, some participants met to discuss how to get more allies to run for public office. “It can’t just be a march,” one activist said. “It has to be a movement.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/12/27/the-most-consequential-environmental-stories-of-2017/?utm_term=.71d5c6630f66
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