Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 02/01/18
-
Scientists Sue US EPA Over Barring Grant Recipients from Committees
Jan 2, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
NGOs and researchers have filed a lawsuit against the US EPA, aimed at overturning a new policy barring anyone receiving grant money from the agency from serving on its scientific advisory panels. -
Court Orders EPA to Update 17-year-old Lead Standards
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
A federal appeals court last week ordered U.S. EPA to propose new standards for hazardous lead dust and lead-based paint in 90 days, ruling that the agency acted illegally in delaying its update to the 17-year-old standards. -
Asbestos Found in Kids’ Cosmetics Again
Jan 2, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Once again, experts have found asbestos in cosmetics marketed to kids. -
California Lists Vinylidene Chloride as Carcinogen Under Prop 65
Jan 2, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has listed vinylidene chloride as a carcinogen under Proposition 65 and proposed a "no significant risk" level (NSRL) for bromodichloroacetic acid. -
Trump Admin Takes Aim at Safety Rules for Equipment
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The Trump administration is making good on its promise to slash red tape added to industry during his predecessor's term, putting offshore oil and gas safety rules on the chopping block this time. -
Fracking Rule Fracas: The Next Round
| E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Obama-era safeguards for hydraulic fracturing on public lands suffered their final blow last week as the Trump administration formally rescinded them. -
FERC to Conduct Environmental Review of Driftwood LNG Projects
Jan 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Tellurian Inc. said FERC plans to complete an environmental review of its proposed Driftwood liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility near Lake Charles, LA, by October, with operations potentially beginning by 2023, a full two years earlier than originally anticipated. -
Oil and Gas Industry Sets Sights on a Record-Breaking 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Daily average U.S. crude oil production will likely hit a new high mark this year, if it hasn't already, breaking the 1970 record -
Appalachian Groups to Sharpen Natural Gas Competitive Edge in 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
With a new year underway, the Appalachian oil and natural gas industry is focused on many of the issues it faced in 2017, but above all else the leading trade groups want to keep their thousands of upstream, midstream and supply chain members competitive in what remains a challenging environment. -
What Will 2018 Hold?
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his staff moved quickly and decisively last year to take down the wall of Obama-era rules and policies they saw as standing in the way of U.S. "energy dominance." -
Family Alleges Toxic Vapors Killed Worker at XTO Site
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Exxon Mobil Corp. and its shale-drilling subsidiary XTO Energy Inc. are being sued for wrongful death by family members of an oil worker who say he was killed by toxic petroleum vapors at one of the company's sites. -
Northeastern States Sue EPA for 'Failing to Act' on Smog
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
New York and seven other Northeastern states are suing U.S. EPA regarding its refusal to undertake a sweeping expansion of regional ozone reduction efforts. -
4 Things That Will Shape the Climate Conversation in 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump's climate policy so far has largely been to raze the Obama administration's efforts.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
-
Scientists Sue US EPA Over Barring Grant Recipients from Committees
Jan 2, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
NGOs and researchers have filed a lawsuit against the US EPA, aimed at overturning a new policy barring anyone receiving grant money from the agency from serving on its scientific advisory panels. They argue this violates ethics regulations and procedural rules.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the directive in October, arguing that researchers dependent on the funding could favour regulatory policies they think will lead to more funded research.
Several days after, Mr Pruitt made appointments to three panels that increased the participation of scientists employed by industry.
"Losing top-flight academic researchers, and replacing them with industry-dependent voices, will undermine actions to protect us from toxic pollutants and life-threatening climate change," Barbara Gottlieb, director of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), said in a statement. "If EPA won't abandon this harmful approach, we're happy to take them to court."
Earthjustice and Columbia University's Environmental Law Clinic filed the lawsuit on 18 December in Washington, DC's federal court. Together they represent:PSR;the National Hispanic Medical Association;the International Society for Children's Health and Environment; andthree individual scientists.
One of the scientists, Robyn Wilson, is an Ohio State University professor who, the complaint says, was removed from the Science Advisory Board when she declined to relinquish her EPA grant funding. The lawsuit says at least six advisory committee members were similarly removed.
The complaint also claims to represent scientists whose future professional opportunities are curtailed if they must choose between committee service or applying for EPA funding, including members of the named scientific organisations.
It argues that the directive violates:ethics regulations applicable to all federal agencies;the Federal Advisory Committee Act and regulations implementing it, which require the EPA to assure "fair balance" in committee membership and avoid inappropriate influence by "any special interest"; andstatutes defining the membership requirements and duties of specific advisory committees.Longstanding precedent changed
There is no rule that bars federal grantees from participating on advisory committees, the complaint says, and Office of Government Ethics (OGE) rules specifically define impermissible conflicts of interest. They bar an employee or committee member from participating in a "particular matter" in which he or she has a financial interest if this will have "a direct and predictable effect on that interest".
It cites examples given by the OGE, indicating that a chemist could work on standards for vaccine trials that would affect his employer generally, but an employee of a university could not participate in evaluation of that institutions's performance in carrying out a specific grant.
"EPA has never before viewed the receipt of EPA funds as disqualifying a person from service on federal advisory committees," the suit says.
It notes that the agency defended its historical practice in 2016, in responding to a lawsuit brought by a trucking association arguing that the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee was biased. It said "the mere fact that EPA has awarded research grants to members" does not "establish that those members lack independence" or that the panel is "improperly influenced" by the agency.
The complaint argues that the EPA violated procedural requirements that supplements to OGE regulations must be formally published for public comment jointly with the OGE.
A summons was issued on 27 December. Mr Pruitt has 60 days to respond.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62789/scientists-sue-us-epa-over-barring-grant-recipients-from-committees
-
Court Orders EPA to Update 17-year-old Lead Standards
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
A federal appeals court last week ordered U.S. EPA to propose new standards for hazardous lead dust and lead-based paint in 90 days, ruling that the agency acted illegally in delaying its update to the 17-year-old standards.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that EPA must finalize the new standards for the neurotoxin within a year of the proposal.
Congress mandated that EPA regulate lead-based paint and lead dust in two laws in the early 1990s. The agency set standards in 2001 but has not updated them since, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the initial standard was insufficient — particularly for children.
"Congress did not want EPA to set initial standards and then walk away," Judge Mary Schroeder wrote for the court, "but to engage in an ongoing process, accounting for new information, and to modify initial standards when necessary to further Congress's intent: to prevent childhood lead poisoning and eliminate lead-based paint hazards."
Since the initial standard was set, EPA's own scientific advisory panel has found it "insufficiently protective of children's health." And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that even half of EPA's standard would constitute a "level of concern."
"The lead-based paint standard set out originally by Congress also appears to be too high to provide a sufficient level of safety," Schroeder wrote.
At issue in the case is a petition that public health groups, including the Healthy Homes Collaborative and Sierra Club, filed to EPA in 2009 seeking new standards. EPA granted the petition and took some steps toward promulgating new rules, including forming a scientific advisory panel on the issue.
The agency did not, however, strengthen the rules.
EPA did not dispute the science underlying the challengers' legal arguments in the case. Instead, it contended that since it granted the petition, it had taken action and was not legally required to issue new standards.
A majority of the three-judge panel disagreed.
"Under these circumstances, EPA is under a clear duty to act," Schroeder wrote, adding that the agency's legal argument would create a "perverse incentive" for the agency to grant petitions but then not act on them.
"This would allow the EPA to grant petitions for rulemaking and take no action in order to avoid judicial review," Schroeder wrote.
Judge Randy Smith disagreed.
"The EPA's refusal to act in light of the new information it obtained (even if frustrating) is within its authority set forth by Congress," he wrote in a dissent.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069891
-
Asbestos Found in Kids’ Cosmetics Again
Jan 2, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Once again, experts have found asbestos in cosmetics marketed to kids.
Claire’s stores pulled 17 products from their shelves last week after researchers foundasbestos in glitter, eye shadow and other cosmetics marketed to children.
The findings by the Scientific Analytic Institute echo those of a study released last summer, which found asbestos in eight products sold by Justice. Experts say talc used to make the cosmetics can be contaminated with asbestos.
There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, which causes diseases that kill an estimated 15,000 Americans a year. Tiny asbestos fibers in cosmetics can be inhaled by a child, become lodged in their lungs, and eventually cause mesothelioma, an incurable cancer.
There is no law that prohibits the presence of asbestos in cosmetics. Asbestos has been banned by more than 50 nations, but its use remains legal in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration encourages companies to carefully select talc mines to avoid asbestos contamination, but it does not have the power to regulate products that contain talc.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., have championed legislation to regulate cosmetics and other personal care products. Their bills would require the FDA to review and restrict, or even ban, the most dangerous ingredients.
But so far, Congress has failed to act on the Personal Care Products Safety Act, even though the bill is broadly supported by cosmetics companies and a recent FDA report found the rise in cosmetics imports poses new risks.
If asbestos in kids’ cosmetics won’t force Congress to act, what will?
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/01/asbestos-found-kids-cosmetics-again#.WkvB0lWWbIU
-
California Lists Vinylidene Chloride as Carcinogen Under Prop 65
Jan 2, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has listed vinylidene chloride as a carcinogen under Proposition 65 and proposed a "no significant risk" level (NSRL) for bromodichloroacetic acid.
The California law requires manufacturers and retailers to warn workers and consumers exposed to chemicals on the list. If the state sets an NSRL, exposures below that limit do not trigger warning mandates.
Oehha announced in September it would list vinylidene chloride through the labour code listing mechanism. This requires listing under Prop 65 of substances identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) as known to cause cancer.
In a separate notice published at the same time, the agency proposed adopting an NSRL of 0.88 micrograms per day (mg/d) for the substance, but it did not finalise this when the Prop 65 listing became active on 29 December.
Vinylidene chloride, also known as 1,1-dichloroethylene, is used as a comonomer in the polymerisation of vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile and acrylates. It is also used in the production of adhesives, fibres, refrigerants, food packaging and coating resins.Bromodichloroacetic acid
Oehha separately proposed an NSRL of 0.95mg/d for bromodichloroacetic acid. The agency will accept comments on this until 12 February.
It was listed as a carcinogen on 29 July 2016, based on a 2015 National Toxicology Program (NTP) report.
Bromodichloroacetic acid forms when water containing natural organic matter and bromide is disinfected with chlorine-containing oxidising compounds.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62790/california-lists-vinylidene-chloride-as-carcinogen-under-prop-65
-
Trump Admin Takes Aim at Safety Rules for Equipment
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The Trump administration is making good on its promise to slash red tape added to industry during his predecessor's term, putting offshore oil and gas safety rules on the chopping block this time.
Last week, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement proposed revising or eliminating regulations on offshore drilling safety equipment. The public is invited to comment on BSEE's proposals, posted Friday in the Federal Register. The public comment period lasts one month.
One regulatory rollback proposal stands out in particular. The agency says it would like to eliminate a requirement that offshore drillers receive third-party certification that their critical safety equipment is operational. Other revisions or eliminations are in store for the Production Safety Systems Rule, which governs the use and maintenance of blowout preventers, the last line of defense against a potentially catastrophic loss of well control.
BSEE Director Scott Angelle said in a release that the rules, most a little over a year old, are unnecessary and that the same level of safety can be achieved without them. The agency also estimates the industry would save some $288 million over 10 years by eliminating or amending many requirements.
Through reviewing safety equipment rules that came into force in November 2016, "BSEE has become aware that certain provisions in that rulemaking created potentially unduly burdensome requirements to oil and natural gas production operators on the [outer continental shelf], without significantly increasing safety of the workers or protection of the environment," the agency says in the notice.
Among the more aggressive deregulation steps, BSEE is seeking to free up subsea safety equipment checks, including on blowout preventers. In the published proposals, the agency seeks to "remove the requirement for operators to certify through an independent third party that each device is designed to function in the most extreme conditions to which it will be exposed and that the device will function as designed." The regulators say this assurance is already achieved if equipment meets the manufacturing standards of the American Petroleum Institute and American National Standards Institute.
The deregulation push came a few weeks after the Department of the Interior put a halt to independent research on offshore oil and gas safety (Greenwire, Dec. 22, 2017).
Multiple failures and missteps contributed to the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the failure of the blowout preventer installed at the wellhead led to the spill becoming the largest in U.S. history. Just last month, investigators at BSEE and the Coast Guard confirmed that most issues uncovered in offshore safety equipment inspections during 2017 involved faulty blowout preventers, with multiple leaking BOPs detected. Third party certification was meant to get a handle on this ongoing problem. Those revelations were made at a public hearing of the National Offshore Safety Advisory Committee held in Houston.
Investigators are also still struggling to address a major problem stemming from the premature failure of bolts holding together subsea equipment, including blowout preventers.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069837
-
Fracking Rule Fracas: The Next Round
| E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Obama-era safeguards for hydraulic fracturing on public lands suffered their final blow last week as the Trump administration formally rescinded them.
The Bureau of Land Management's fracking rule is really dead this time, but the conflict is not over.
Finalized Friday, the rescission caps off a yearlong deregulatory campaign by President Trump and his team as they attempt to dissolve any measures seen as hurdles to domestic fossil fuel production (see related story).
It also sparks the next round in a bitter battle over fracking on public and tribal lands, as environmental groups prepare to sue BLM and the Interior Department for rolling back the only federal regulation that specifically addressed the practice.
"Yesterday's move represents another example of the Trump administration sacrificing our public lands, air and water in order to pad the profit margins of oil and gas companies," said Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, who has led environmental defense of the Obama rule.
"We'll see them in court," he added.
The fracking rule would have set new standards for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure, and would have required operators to get BLM approval for fracking operations. The Trump administration's rescission took effect immediately, skipping the 30-day waiting period often incorporated into rollbacks.
Freeman and a coalition of groups supporting the tighter safeguards for fracking on public lands are expected to file suit in the coming weeks, taking aim at the government's rationale for reversing the regulation.Overly burdensome or common sense?
In Friday's Federal Register notice, BLM reasoned that the fracking rule was simply too costly to be justified.
"This [rescission] is needed to prevent the unnecessarily burdensome and unjustified administrative requirements and compliance costs of the 2015 rule from encumbering oil and gas development on Federal and Indian lands," the notice says.
The repeal follows a March 2017 executive order that targeted the fracking rule and other measures affecting fossil fuel production. BLM noted that it complied with the order by reviewing the need for the fracking rule and determined that all 32 states with federal oil and gas leases have regulations that address fracking.
Plus, the agency said, drillers are increasingly disclosing fracking chemicals to state agencies and the industry-backed FracFocus database.
Friday's notice adds that BLM has existing regulations governing well construction, and the agency can impose stricter site-specific measures at its discretion.
Environmental lawyers are less than impressed with the agency's explanation.
"The Trump administration's move here is patently arbitrary and violates multiple federal statutes," said Freeman, who has defended the rule as a commonsense protection to address impacts from the rapid expansion of fracking and horizontal drilling.
Specifically, supporters of the Obama rule say the rollback violates the Administrative Procedure Act and does not meet the legal standard of providing a "reasoned basis" for shifting policy.
They also say it violates the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Mineral Leasing Act, leaving public lands vulnerable to environmental harm and reckless development. Part of the regulation addressed "frack hits," in which fractures in the earth interfere with existing oil and gas wells.
The groups are also expected to challenge BLM under the National Environmental Policy Act. In comments earlier this year, some environmentalists argued that the agency's environmental assessment for the rescission should have been broader, looking more closely at potential impacts to groundwater, surface water and other resources. Some also contended that the agency should have conducted a full-blown environmental impact statement.
Analysts at ClearView Energy Partners LLC noted that the impending litigation over the fracking rule reversal may serve as a test case for the Trump administration's broader defense of various attempts at "rip-it-up" deregulation justified by the president's energy independence executive order.
"It could also test the viability (or limit the likelihood) of future Trump Administration rescissions premised upon the President's call to eliminate 'undue burdens,' including those imposed by 'duplicative rules,'" the group said in a memo last week.
If courts reject the rollback of the fracking rule, ClearView said, the administration may instead opt to revise or rewrite other targeted regulations.
Years of work reversed
The Obama administration spent more than four years working on the fracking rule before finalizing it in early 2015.
But the new standards were not enforced a single day — sidelined by lawsuits from Western states, industry groups and the Ute Indian Tribe. A Wyoming district court scrapped the rule in 2016, prompting an appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 10th Circuit dismissed the case and sidestepped the underlying legal question of whether the federal government has authority to regulate fracking. The court did, however, scrap the Wyoming decision — a move that would have revived the rule if Interior didn't act quickly enough to complete its rollback (Energywire, Sept. 22).
Last Wednesday, the court rebuffed industry and state requests to reconsider the ruling, and it gave Interior and BLM until Jan. 12 to finish its rollback efforts. The rescission was finalized two days later.
Some former Interior employees lamented the years of work down the drain.
"So I guess my professional life from 2012-14 is being erased," one former BLM official remarked on Twitter.
David Hayes, deputy Interior secretary under Obama and Clinton, accused the Trump administration of abandoning its responsibility to oversee public lands.
"It is remarkable that the final federal fracking rule in today's federal register would abdicate the federal government's responsibility to oversee the unique risks associated with fracking-related drilling," he said in an email last week. "The final rule would remove any and all fracking-specific requirements for private lessees operating on public lands."
He argued that high-pressure fluid injections and the management of high volumes of wastewater associated with fracking require enhanced oversight. And he defended the 2015 rule as the product of extensive outreach to industry, states, tribes, environmentalists and the general public.
But the oil and gas industry cheered the hard-fought victory.
"The rescinding of this burdensome rule ... will save our member companies and those operating on federal lands hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs without any corresponding safety benefits," Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069827
-
FERC to Conduct Environmental Review of Driftwood LNG Projects
Jan 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Tellurian Inc. said FERC plans to complete an environmental review of its proposed Driftwood liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility near Lake Charles, LA, by October, with operations potentially beginning by 2023, a full two years earlier than originally anticipated.
Last Wednesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a notice of schedule for environmental review for a pair of projects that include constructing a 27.6 million metric ton/year (mmty) LNG export facility, and an associated 96-mile, 4 Bcf/d pipeline [CP17-117, CP17-118]. The projects were proposed last March by Tellurian's Driftwood LNG LLC and Driftwood Pipeline LLC.
Under the timeline, FERC plans to release a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the projects before the end of June with a final EIS scheduled by Oct. 12. By Jan. 10, 2019, or 90 days later, is the Commission deadline to issue an order to allow construction and authorizing the projects.
Houston-based Tellurian expects to make a final investment decision during the first half of 2019. If the projects move forward, operations could launch in 2023.
When Tellurian first filed the projects with FERC last March, the company anticipated that full operations would begin in 2025. At the time, Tellurian estimated that engineering, procurement, and construction costs would be $13-16 billion for the export facility.
Last month, Tellurian unveiled plans for two pipeline systems: the 625-mile Permian Global Access Pipeline (PGAP) and the 200-mile Haynesville Global Access Pipeline (HGAP). Each 42-inch diameter pipeline have up to 2 Bcf/d of transport capacity and terminate near Gillis, LA. PGAP is to carry gas from the Permian Basin, while HGAP would push more supply from the Haynesville Shale. Each are expected to supplement Tellurian's LNG export plans.
Tellurian was founded by the co-founder of Cheniere Energy Inc., Charif Souki, and former BG plc executive Martin Houston.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112921-ferc-to-conduct-environmental-review-of-driftwood-lng-projects
-
Oil and Gas Industry Sets Sights on a Record-Breaking 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Daily average U.S. crude oil production will likely hit a new high mark this year, if it hasn't already, breaking the 1970 record. Meanwhile, crude oil exports are poised to rise as domestic refineries remain amply supplied, while natural gas exporters will gain as major new liquefied natural gas export capacity is set to come online this year. Also in store: large new demand from new and expanding petrochemical production facilities.
So long as commodities prices hold, this year will likely prove the strongest for oil and gas business performance since the oil price crash that started in 2014. Drillers are increasingly feeling confident, as measured by several recent industry surveys. Brent international crude oil contracts have been trading at around $66 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude pricing is at around $60 per barrel.
"The energy sector is going into 2018 on a positive note," said economist Michael Plante of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in a survey of business conditions. "Growth in activity rebounded a bit relative to last quarter, outlooks improved greatly, and there was a modest decline in uncertainty about the future. Responses were strong for both E&P [exploration and production] and support services firms this time around."
The Dallas Fed's oil and gas business activity index surged higher by nearly 40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017. A separate barometer measuring unease in the industry actually fell during the same period, showing higher confidence and optimism overall, Fed economists report. Upstream E&P companies are in an upbeat mood, and that rosier outlook is beginning to spread in the oil field services sector, as well.
For sure, the industry has not completely rebounded. Oil and gas prices are still lower than before the price crash that started in 2014, and employment numbers are way down, even though 2017 saw a surge in new hiring as drilling picked up and companies made their operations more efficient. Many companies are only beginning to rid themselves of the red ink spilled when oil prices fell from $100 per barrel to around $30.
But in many ways, 2018 will look a lot stronger for the petroleum business than in past years, even compared to the era of $100 oil. For starters, U.S. oil production will probably hit a new record, exceeding the 1970 annual average peak output of 9.64 million barrels a day.
The Permian Basin, now the center of the U.S. tight and shale oil revolution, has already exceeded its 1970s output records, according to researchers at the consultancy IHS Markit. The Permian plays of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico "reached a new oil-production record of 815 million barrels or more in 2017 — far exceeding its previous peak of 790 million barrels set in 1973," researchers there said in a note published last week.
They've dubbed the Permian to be one of the world's newest "super-basins," and though the Permian Basin remains a focus of ongoing geological research in academia and at IHS Markit, according to their latest report, "initial results indicate the giant basin still holds an estimated 60 billion to 70 billion barrels of technically recoverable resources — about twice as much as the cumulative oil production to date."
For the U.S. as a whole, forecasters at Rystad Energy think it's possible that the U.S. is already at a record high oil production figure, arguing that the effects of production shut-ins due to last year's Hurricane Nate may be skewing the figures somewhat. The company says a closer reading of data published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show record output figures.
"Data released today from EIA for October largely confirms earlier predictions by Rystad Energy that US oil production could reach 10 million barrels per day at the end of 2017," said Rystad marketing manager David White in an email Friday. "Strong growth of U.S. onshore production in October was masked by impacts of Hurricane Nate on offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico which was down as much as 250 thousand barrels per day below monthly capacity."Export records poised to be broken, too
Hydrocarbon export records will also likely be broken this year. It's highly likely that the U.S. ended 2017 as a net exporter of natural gas. The gap between exports and imports will only widen in 2018 as new LNG export capacity comes online (Energywire, Dec. 22, 2017).
In parallel with LNG export projects, 2018 will see the completion of a major buildout of new petrochemical production capacity along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. The joint venture Chevron Phillips Chemical recently christened its new ethane cracker at Cedar Bayou in Texas. More facilities will join it, and not only in Texas or the Southeast.
Denise Brinley, energy adviser at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, said her state is excited about investments made by Royal Dutch Shell PLC to tap the gas-rich Marcellus Shale for petrochemical manufacturing. The state expects to enjoy an economic boost from the plant.
"Shell Pennsylvania Chemicals' announcement to locate in Beaver County is a game-changer for our commonwealth," Brinley said. "Shell's investment has been the catalyst for additional petrochemical prospects in the Marcellus-Utica shale play, including PTT Global Chemical in Belmont County, Ohio."
Brinley said hers and other neighboring states are not content to allow Texas and Louisiana to continue leading the nation's higher value-added petrochemical businesses. "Pennsylvania and our neighboring states of Ohio and West Virginia faced stiff competition from the investments in the Gulf Coast over the last several years," she said. "We are making every effort to ensure that additional ethane produced in the region, enough to support up to four additional ethane crackers, is not simply exported to other regions for petrochemical manufacturing."
The hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in petrochemicals should combine with LNG export projects to noticeably lift demand for natural gas, helping to improve natural gas prices in turn. Stubbornly low natural gas prices since at least 2008 played a part in encouraging the shale oil boom, beginning mainly in North Dakota before taking off in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and beyond.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069841
-
Appalachian Groups to Sharpen Natural Gas Competitive Edge in 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
With a new year underway, the Appalachian oil and natural gas industry is focused on many of the issues it faced in 2017, but above all else the leading trade groups want to keep their thousands of upstream, midstream and supply chain members competitive in what remains a challenging environment.
“We want to make sure that we’re a capital competitive location for folks to invest in upstream development, to continue to invest in the modernization of our midstream infrastructure,” said Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) President David Spigelmyer, when asked what the Pennsylvania-based organization’s top priorities are for 2018.
U.S. dry natural gas production is expected to be nearly 80 Bcf/d in 2018, or about 6 Bcf/d more than projected 2017 levels, according to the Energy Information Administration’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. That growth should be driven largely by growing production in the Marcellus and Utica shales.
Pipeline projects that came online toward the end of 2017, such as Rayne and Leach Xpress, along with Adair Southwest and Access South, tapped into production. Larger projects including Nexus, Atlantic Sunrise, the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Rover Phase 2 should keep producers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia busy and production growing as they come online throughout 2018.
In Pennsylvania, which produced 5.1 Tcf of natural gas in 2016 and was on track to finish higher in 2017, trade groups maintain that momentum remains threatened by a series of regulatory and legislative realities and possibilities. Basis discounts and rising associated gas production from places like the Permian Basin also have producers feeling pressured, industry representatives said.
Compared to its neighbors, the stakes would appear to be the highest in the Keystone state, where the gas industry faces new permitting requirements that should take effect early this year and where lawmakers continue to push for a severance tax in an election year.
The Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) is primarily concerned with the possibility of implementing a severance tax in addition to the state impact fee, which is levied annually on most unconventional wells or distribution to communities and state agencies. Since the fee was implemented in 2012, producers have paid more than $1 billion, easily surpassing severance tax collections in states that include Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio and West Virginia, Spigelmyer said.
The answer to any severance tax “is simply no. We can’t afford it. We honestly can’t,” said PIOGA Executive Director Dan Weaver. Lawmakers in the state have quarreled for years about implementing a severance tax on gas production to help plug budget deficits. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is up for reelection this year, has proposed a tax three times since taking office. A four-month budget impasse that ended in October, after much debate and again no tax, didn’t pacify the industry. Representatives believe the debate will pick up again when the legislature reconvenes for the new year.
“No doubt that this will probably be the cornerstone of the governor’s campaign,” Spigelmyer said. “So, we’ll be engaged, and we’re going to be working hard to educate.”
The upstream and midstream sectors in the state are also facing the daunting prospect of permitting changes that could go into effect by the end of March. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been working since last year on a new general permit for unconventional well sites and revisions for the general permit for midstream facilities, such as pigging and compressor stations, and processing plants.
The proposals are part of Wolf’s plan to reduce industry emissions and would be among the first in the nation to establish a threshold to control methane emissions at upstream and midstream facilities.
“They took a few steps in the right direction after the comment period and tried to fix some of the more glaring errors within [the proposals], but we didn’t get all the way there,” Weaver said of the new permits. “There’s still some huge concerns about how this affects the ability of our members to operate. I think it raises a lot more questions than it answers.”
One of those concerns, Weaver said, is the current stipulation that operators “spec-out” their equipment, or provide the agency with the serial numbers of certain pieces of equipment, like an engine, for example. If the engine goes down during operations, and it’s replaced with the exact same model, then a new serial number would still have to be provided, Weaver said.
“It’s a brand new piece of equipment, but it’s the same model, and it would have the same emissions,” Weaver said. “It’s going to cause operational delays. They’re asking us to know what every piece of equipment is going to be on location way in advance. We don’t know that far out.”
Spigelmyer added that the permitting proposals prompted what was likely the MSC’s “most comprehensive committee effort ever on commenting on those rules.” He declined to discuss what exactly the MSC would still like to see changed for fear of compromising ongoing negotiations with the DEP. He joined Weaver, however, in adding that his organization is committed to working closely with the agency and complying with the final rules when they’re issued.
Industry representatives added that ongoing delays for existing earth disturbance and well permits in Pennsylvania -- which the DEP has in some cases taken more than 100 days to issue -- remain a top concern heading into the new year. “We have to do a better job when our neighbors are turning those permits around in a month,” Spigelmyer said. “We need better certainty on the permitting side, and I’m confident the agency is working to improve there.”
In West Virginia, the story is a bit different, but the aim is the same. Both the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA), and the West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association, will continue their ongoing efforts to get some kind of law on the books to gather landowners into large tracts for unconventional horizontal drilling.
Forced pooling legislation has repeatedly failed in the state over the years because of legislators’ concerns about property rights. WVONGA Executive Director Anne Blankenship told NGI’s Shale Daily that her organization would push only for co-tenancy legislation during the 2018 regular session, which begins next week (Jan. 10), and drop the joint development proposal it also pursued in 2017.
Co-tenancy would require a producer to obtain a simple-majority agreement from mineral rights owners to gather landowners into a proposed tract. Joint development would allow unconventional development to occur on land with older leases without having to modify them.
Joint development “is not something that WVONGA is going to pursue because it is just too controversial,” Blankenship said. “It may be something that another company on their own will be working toward, but our goal is to keep anything like that out of a co-tenancy bill.”
WVONGA continues to maintain that producers’ inability to gather leaseholders into large tracts to block up acreage for today’s longer laterals is hurting the state’s competitive advantage. Blankenship said that while she expects a number of energy-related bills to advance during the 2018 legislative session, co-tenancy “is at the top of our list.”
Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA) spokesman Mike Chadsey said things have been quieter in the Buckeye state, with operators settling into a more methodical development pace. He said his organization is primarily focused on three bills that are expected to advance this year.
HB 225 would make it easier for the state to identify and plug orphaned and abandoned wells, while HB 430 would expand the sales tax exemption to cover oil and gas producing equipment. Another piece of legislation supported by OOGA is SB 236, which would create an “affected mine commission” to better guide coal and natural gas producers working near one another.
“I know we’ve certainly had some input on all three of them,” Chadsey said of the bills. “We’ve been out talking with legislators, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), to educate them on the issues and share our perspectives,” he said. “We have to stay in front of these guys, have to remind them that we’re here. These are priority issues for the industry, so we have actively been working on them.”
Beyond that, Chadsey joined others from across the basin in stressing how important downstream opportunities are to both the upstream sector and the region’s economy. Representatives for all the basin’s leading trade groups said they’ll be working more in 2018 to capitalize on growing natural gas production by focusing on attracting petrochemical, power generation and manufacturing opportunities to all three states.
One of the leading opportunities, representatives said, is Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC’s underground natural gas liquids (NGL) storage project in Monroe County, OH. Support has been growing in the private and public sectors for a storage hub in the region to help accommodate more petrochemical facilities like the ethane cracker Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC is constructing in western Pennsylvania.
Mountaineer, which hopes to have four 500,000 bbl NGL storage caverns in service by 4Q2018, has hit permitting snags in Ohio that it’s currently working through.
“It’s challenging for the state of Ohio because ODNR has never issued a permit for an ethane storage hub,” Chadsey said. “We’re admittedly starting from scratch here. We’re writing the book from day one. We can look to other states for best practices, but the real fear is that if we keep delaying this, these guys are just going to pick and move across the river” to West Virginia.
The trade groups also said they have a wary eye trained on the rash of pipeline opposition that’s cropped up across the basin and in nearby states, such as New York. The groups said they plan to keep up the fight at the grassroots level to educate the public, support various projects throughout court proceedings and help their midstream members in any way they can as pipelines continue to face challenges at both the state and federal levels.
“It’s always a possible threat that makes the Appalachian states more burdensome to invest in,” Chadsey said of the environmental opposition. “What we want is a consistent and transparent regulatory structure serving our operators, whether they’re upstream, midstream or downstream. We’re competing with other Appalachian states for investment just like the Gulf Coast is.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112922-appalachian-groups-to-sharpen-natural-gas-competitive-edge-in-2018
-
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his staff moved quickly and decisively last year to take down the wall of Obama-era rules and policies they saw as standing in the way of U.S. "energy dominance."
Brick by brick, the barrier came down.
"Across the Department we are striking the right balance to protect our greatest treasures and also generate the revenue and energy our country needs," Zinke said in a statement last week that accompanied his list of accomplishments during his first year at Interior.
December brought at least three formal developments on the Interior Department's deregulatory checklist for the onshore oil and gas industry.
The Bureau of Land Management suspended its methane and waste prevention rule, officially wiped out its congressionally disapproved planning regulation and completed rescission of its rule on hydraulic fracturing operations on public lands.
Industry groups saw Friday's Federal Register notice on the fracking rule as an end to an eight-year battle to curb federal control over a practice that birthed the U.S. shale boom.
"It was clear from the start that the federal rule was redundant with state regulation and politically motivated, as the prior administration could not point to one incident or regulatory gap that justified the rule," Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a statement last week. "Western Energy Alliance appreciates that BLM under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke understands this rule was duplicative and has rescinded it."
Conservation groups marked the holiday season with mournful postmortems of all the public lands regulations the Trump administration has unraveled.
"Although more and more Americans are standing up to the administration's systematic, reckless efforts to undermine protections for our public lands, Secretary Zinke appears to be only interested in what the fossil fuel industry has to say," said Jenny Kordick, advocacy director for energy and climate at the Wilderness Society.
Those changes are particularly frustrating in light of evidence that the oil and gas industry may not even want to work the land Interior is seeking to open, the group wrote in its year-end analysis.
Low oil prices and a surplus of unused permits could indicate that energy firms may not be rushing to operate on federal land (Energywire, Aug. 4, 2017).
Zinke hinted that 2018 will bring even more changes.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said. "Next year will be an exciting year for the Department and the American people."Year ahead
Legal action on the fracking rule rollback could dictate the direction of Interior's deregulatory strategy in 2018 and the years ahead.
Environmental groups are poised to challenge the rescission (see related story). How that litigation plays out will help determine whether federal regulators use a "rip-it-up" or "write-it-again" approach to rulemaking under the Trump administration, according to a Thursday note from ClearView Energy Partners LLC.
BLM has indicated that it will rewrite its methane rule — even if the new rule is severely limited, the researchers say.
"In this context, the BLM fracking rule stands out as the first outright rescission of a major, far-reaching energy rule enumerated in" President Trump's energy independence executive order, the ClearView note says. "Simply put, if it works, we think it could potentially tilt the balance towards rescission (and the opposite seems likely if it fails.)"
Interior could skip the Federal Register altogether and implement less official — yet potentially more pervasive — changes by redirecting the department's culture.
There are hints that such a shift is already underway, said Jeremy Nichols, director of the climate and energy program at WildEarth Guardians.
Documents obtained by the group under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that individuals in the Washington, D.C., offices of Interior and its sub-agencies are communicating new operational narratives to field staff.
In a June 6, 2017, email to the manager of one of BLM's New Mexico district offices, Steven Wells, fluid minerals branch chief in D.C., tailored Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan to reflect the bureau's renewed focus on an oil-rich basin in the Southwest.
"Indeed, I had planned to call a bit after the email update, but became distracted, will call you today, absolutely," Wells wrote.
"Making the Permian Great Again — PGA," he signed off.
The department's leadership appears to have no regard for findings by the Government Accountability Office and Interior's Office of Inspector General that the agency is lacking in its oversight of energy production and revenue collection, Nichols said.
"Zinke didn't come in to fix the department," he said. "He's come in to advance an agenda."
A November inspector general report found that Interior faces many "continuing and emerging challenges" on energy oversight (Energywire, Nov. 28, 2017).
GAO has yet to weigh in on the changes floated by Zinke's Interior.
As those proposals take effect in 2018 and beyond, the watchdog agency may begin its new analysis.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069839
-
Family Alleges Toxic Vapors Killed Worker at XTO Site
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Exxon Mobil Corp. and its shale-drilling subsidiary XTO Energy Inc. are being sued for wrongful death by family members of an oil worker who say he was killed by toxic petroleum vapors at one of the company's sites.
Trent Vigus, 30, died in July 2010 while working at an XTO well site near Lambert, Mont., for Nabors Well Services.
Vigus' death was the first of at least nine that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has linked to vapors at oil production sites. His case was first reported by E&E News and later featured in The Wall Street Journal (Energywire, Oct. 27, 2014).
But Exxon officials say the company is not to blame, stressing that Montana officials have attributed Vigus' death to natural causes.
"There is no evidence to support that there were any hazards at XTO's well site that would have caused Mr. Vigus' death," Exxon spokeswoman Suann Guthrie said in a statement to E&E News. "According to an autopsy performed by the medical examiner, Mr. Vigus died from natural causes."
Guthrie added that XTO "deeply regrets" that the incident occurred and expressed sympathy to Vigus' family.
Officials at first thought Vigus had been overcome by lethal hydrogen sulfide gas, a well-known oil field killer. But that was ruled out after the company said the well didn't emit hydrogen sulfide.
Vigus' death certificate said he died of hardening of the arteries — "hypertensive and atherosclerotic heart disease." But the Billings, Mont., pathologist who did the autopsy, Thomas Bennett, wrote in his report that he didn't find any hardening of the arteries.
Laboratory tests turned up small amounts of propane and butane in Vigus' blood. Both of these chemicals are found in Bakken Shale crude oil produced in the area. Other oil and gas chemicals could have gone undetected, because the test was done for recreational drug use ("glue sniffing" or "huffing") rather than exposure to industrial chemicals.
In 2014, Bennett told E&E News that Vigus could have been killed by petroleum vapors.
"Back in 2010, we didn't know as much" about the dangers of petroleum vapors, Bennett said. "We're still learning how to test for these."
Vigus was born and raised in Butte, Mont. After high school, he bounced to Washington state and back. But in 2005, a friend told him there was good money to be made along the North Dakota border, working oil rigs.
Vigus worked an overnight shift on July 9, 2010, at the XTO well. Around 3 a.m., Vigus climbed a set of steel stairs to gather readings from the top of the tall, beige tanks.
His co-workers found him in a fetal position on the catwalk. They carried him down and frantically tried CPR in the red gravel, with no response.
Vigus' son, Trent Jr., was born four months later to Emma Fischer, described in the lawsuit as Vigus' common-law wife. They were living together in Sidney, Mont., at the time of his death.
The lawsuit was filed last month in U.S. District Court in Montana by Fischer's mother, Mary Devera, as a court-appointed representative of Vigus' estate.
A question of time
A key factor in the case could be when Vigus' family first came to believe he had been killed by toxic gases instead of natural causes.
The suit says Fischer was estranged from Vigus' family for years and understood that he had died of natural causes. In April 2016, according to the suit, Fischer read about a similar oil well tank death and "at that time came to believe that Trent did not die of a heart attack but rather was killed by poisonous gas." The suit says the clock on the statute of limitations should not have started ticking until then.
The suit says Exxon was negligent in failing to warn workers at the site that they could be exposed to potentially lethal gases when opening tank hatches.
All crude oil has volatile hydrocarbons, or volatile organic compounds such as benzene, butane and propane. Lighter than the rest of the crude, they bubble up from the oil and collect in storage tanks. Shale crude often has more of these "light ends" than conventional oil. It's related to why shale oil is more prone to explode in rail cars.
The vapors can burst out of the tank with enough force to knock the helmet off a worker's head. They can also kill. At high enough concentrations, they can asphyxiate a person or disrupt the heart's rhythm to the point it fails.
Guthrie, the Exxon spokeswoman, said the company was not negligent.
"XTO complies with all state and federal safety regulations," she said. "Safety is an enduring commitment at XTO. It is a fundamental part of our culture and central to our business. We are committed to ensuring the health and safety of our employees and contractors."
Exxon settled another tank death case in September with the widow of a worker who died on an XTO oil production site in Oklahoma. Cynthia Simpson of South Jordan, Utah, said her husband, David, died from exposure to toxic gases from an oil storage tank he was measuring. The amount of the settlement was confidential, but her attorney, Fred Bremseth of Minneapolis, called it "substantial" (Energywire, Sept. 22, 2017).
Bremseth is also representing Vigus' family, along with Missoula lawyer Andrew Huppert.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069831
-
Northeastern States Sue EPA for 'Failing to Act' on Smog
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
New York and seven other Northeastern states are suing U.S. EPA regarding its refusal to undertake a sweeping expansion of regional ozone reduction efforts.
The lawsuit, filed last week, challenges the agency's turndown last fall of a 2013 petition to add another nine states — mostly in the South and Midwest — to the Ozone Transport Region (OTR). That step could have required those states to take fresh steps to limit the downwind drift of ozone and the pollutants that create it; in opting against expansion, EPA officials highlighted existing "good neighbor" requirements that already give regulators the ability to target polluters that contribute to the spread of ozone across state lines (E&E News PM, Nov. 1, 2017).
That final rule followed a similar proposal issued in the waning days of the Obama administration. In announcing the suit, however, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) accused the "Trump EPA" of "repeatedly failing to act to control smog pollution that jeopardizes New Yorkers' health." The other plaintiffs, all of which also have Democratic attorneys general, are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The suit is pending with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In an email this morning, an EPA spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunlight. It has been linked to asthma attacks in children and worsening breathing problems for people with cystic fibrosis and other chronic respiratory diseases.
Congress created the OTR as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. The area encompasses part or all of a dozen states, ranging from Maine to Northern Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.
In the 2013 petition seeking a first-ever expansion of the region, New York and the other states had argued emissions from outside the OTR were undercutting their efforts to comply with EPA's 2008 ground-level ozone standard of 75 parts per billion.
The agency, while continuing to implement the 2008 threshold, also tightened the ozone standard in 2015 to 70 ppb.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069895
-
4 Things That Will Shape the Climate Conversation in 2018
Jan 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
President Trump's climate policy so far has largely been to raze the Obama administration's efforts. In 2018, the Trump team will show how it plans to fill those voids.
Many of the administration's climate moves last year consisted of following through with the president's campaign trail promises: rebuking the Paris climate treaty, trimming down U.S. EPA, rolling back the Clean Power Plan and halting other Obama climate efforts.
But many of those efforts are ongoing. Some require wrangling with Congress; some are subject to lengthy regulatory requirements and certain to draw legal challenges. As those processes play out, the Trump administration will show how far it wants to go to challenge mainstream climate science and to reform the role of the federal government.
The pace so far has offered some comfort to Trump's critics.
"For all the big talk, they certainly have stopped forward motion, but they have not succeeded in rolling anything back on climate change yet," said David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
He noted that several major climate rules remain in effect as the Trump administration reviews them, and the Clean Power Plan is in limbo as EPA works to finalize its repeal. EPA's endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, which underpins the agency's climate rules, is still in place.
But some conservatives pushing for drastic reforms think Trump has plenty of time to make big changes.
"In my view, this is just year one, and you don't have to win every battle or start every battle simultaneously; sometimes it's better to sequence what you do and win things that are winnable first and build on those," Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told E&E News in a recent interview (Climatewire, Dec. 22, 2017).
As the Trump administration approaches its second year in office, here are four areas to watch on climate policy:Rule rollbacks
In one of its highest-profile climate moves, the Trump administration is slated to propose a replacement rule for the Clean Power Plan in June, according to EPA's regulatory schedule.
That will serve as a major indicator of how the administration views EPA's role in regulating greenhouse gases from power plants as well as other sources. EPA has signaled that it will issue a much narrower rule than Obama's, but many conservatives are pressing for no replacement rule at all. Comments on EPA's notice of proposed rulemaking are due Feb. 26.
EPA is also planning to finalize the Clean Power Plan repeal by 2018, the agency has said. EPA is planning to hold three more public listening sessions on that rule, and formal comments are due by Jan. 16.
The Trump administration is also considering how to proceed on Obama-era efforts like carbon dioxide limits for new power plants, attempts to curb methane emissions from new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry and fuel economy rules for cars and trucks (Climatewire, Nov. 16, 2017).Congressional control
Congressional Democrats have had limited capacity for blocking the Trump administration's agenda thanks to their minority status in both chambers.
The November election could change that.
If the Democrats clinch either the Senate or the House in the midterm elections, they'll gain subpoena power to haul administration officials into hearing rooms (a tactic House Republicans relished when they seized control in 2010 — after two years of Democrats controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress).
Democrats holding gavels would be empowered to set hearing schedules, giving them more control over messaging from Capitol Hill. They could also score political points by passing messaging legislation — possibly including climate and energy bills — much like House Republicans did frequently under Obama.Trump's team
Many of Trump's high-level environmental appointees aren't even in place yet, but observers are predicting some staffing shakeups at senior levels. Switching top staffers could bring major policy shifts.
Trump's first year in the White House saw the departure of key White House players like chief strategist Steve Bannon and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Senior political officials at agencies like EPA have also departed. More officials are expected to leave this year — particularly if it becomes likely that either chamber of Congress will flip to Democratic control in the midterm election.
"I would be concerned that there's a strong possibility that we'll lose one of the chambers and that the Democrats will implement an aggressive oversight campaign that could put a lot of people in really awkward positions," said a former congressional Republican aide.
One administration official said to expect "significant turnover in 2018." And if at least one chamber of Congress changes hands, the official said, "you're likely to see more turnover than what you would see otherwise." However, staying between one and two years in an administration isn't unique to the Trump team, that person added.The climate
Last year, the Trump administration largely shied away from discussions about climate policy, including in the wake of natural disasters.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, for one, called it "insensitive" to discuss the role of climate change in two devastating hurricanes.
Still, a series of severe natural disasters — like hurricanes, floods and wildfires — continually raised questions about the role of climate change (Climatewire, Dec. 22, 2017).
Trump's critics say climate change-fueled natural disasters bolster their case that federal climate policies are needed.
"What will the climate bring us?" said Doniger of NRDC.
Last year, he said, was "an incredible year of impacts of stuff coming home that you used to talk about as a future risk — horrendous impacts coming home. ... We used to be able to say, 'This is what it would be like.' Now we have scientists saying, 'This is it.'"
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/01/02/stories/1060069857
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested