Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 11/01/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Commodity Resins Have a December to Remember
Jan 11, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American commodity resin markets didn't exactly have a relaxing holiday season, as prices for three major materials increased and one declined. -
Reorganization Clock Starts Ticking
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Scott Streater and Michael Doyle
The tough part starts now, for an ambitious Interior Department reorganization plan whose broad outlines were mapped out yesterday and today for senior staffers. -
Department's Political Grant Screening Could Get Tricky
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Michael Doyle
The Interior Department's new screening of grants by a political appointee will pose big challenges that include avoiding backlogs, heeding professional expertise and abiding by the First Amendment. -
(ACC Mentioned) US FluoroCouncil Website Aims to Counteract Mounting Controversy
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The FluoroCouncil – a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council – has launched a new website, pushing "the benefits and safety of fluorinated chemistries". -
Microorganisms in Humans Could Change Chemical Risk Assessment Results, Says NAS
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Failure to consider how chemicals interact with microorganisms in the body could lead to risk assessments that over- or under-estimate possible adverse human health effects, according to an expert committee from the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). -
Michigan Sets Enforceable Standard for PFAS at EPA Level
Jan 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
Michigan regulators have adopted EPA's health advisory level for two perfluorinated chemicals as enforceable drinking water standards, saying the tools will allow it to force responsible parties to clean up the emerging contaminants due to the lack of federal standards. -
Walgreens Pledges to Launch Long-Awaited Chemical Policy
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance has announced it will launch its long-awaited chemicals management programme this year. -
‘Natural’ or ‘Organic’ Cosmetics? Don’t Trust Marketing Claims.
Jan 11, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Carla Burns
Marketing claims about the source, safety and effectiveness of personal care products and their ingredients often aren’t worth the labels they’re printed on. -
Echa Round-Up
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has received intentions from members states, or proposed itself, to identify the following chemicals as substances of very high concern (SVHCs). -
Echa Substitution Strategy Sets Out Four 'Areas of Action'
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Echa's recently published substitution strategy says the organisation will focus on four areas of activity that aim to promote the replacement of hazardous substances with safer chemicals. -
EU Programme Publishes Draft NanoInformatics Roadmap
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The EU NanoSafety Cluster has published a draft version of its Nanoinformatics 2030 Roadmap, outlining how robust and sustainable infrastructure should be established. -
EU Issues Regulation Restricting D4, D5 in Wash-Off Cosmetics
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published its Regulation to restrict the use of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) in wash-off cosmetic products in a concentration equal to or greater than 0.1% by weight. -
MEPs Reject Motion for Total Ban on BPA in FCMs
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
MEPs have voted to reject a motion calling for a total ban on BPA in food contact materials. -
Investor Concern Over Methane Risks on the Rise. It Should Worry Industry.
Jan 11, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Sean Wright
Investor interest in climate-related financial risk is at an all-time high. -
Bomb Cyclone Should Prompt More Northeast Gas Infrastructure, Says API Chief
Jan 11, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
As the Trump administration eyes an infrastructure initiative, it should include natural gas pipelines too, a necessity underscored by the recent cold snap, i.e. bomb cyclone, which brought the Northeast to a standstill, American Petroleum Institute (API) CEO Jack Gerard said Tuesday. -
Cold Snap Reignites Debate over Future of New England Grid
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
During the recent cold snap, coal-fired power plants rumbled to life in some parts of the United States, helping to keep the lights on amid a nearly two-week deep freeze. -
Alaska LNG Project Idles as Locals Push Back and FERC Slow-Walks
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Alaska's effort to fast-track its proposed $43 billion natural gas pipeline and export project has hit several speed bumps in recent weeks, as local government officials petitioned for a bigger role in the LNG project and federal regulators ignored the state's request to issue an environmental review schedule for the operation before the end of December. -
Review: ‘What Lies Upstream,’ a Broad View of a Chemical Spill
Jan 11, 2018 | The New York Times
In “What Lies Upstream,” the documentarian Cullen Hoback begins by investigating the 2014 chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginians without safe tap water. -
Companies are Moving Faster Than Many Governments on Carbon Pricing
Jan 11, 2018 | The Economist
Economists have long argued that the most efficient way to curb global warming is to put a price on the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. -
Greens Say It's a 'New Era' for Climate Litigation
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Environmentalists seized a rare chance to play offense yesterday, with New York City announcing that it's suing big oil companies for climate-related damage.
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Commodity Resins Have a December to Remember
Jan 11, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American commodity resin markets didn't exactly have a relaxing holiday season, as prices for three major materials increased and one declined.
And a material that didn't see prices move at all — polyethylene — was surrounded by plenty of pricing drama anyway.
Regional prices for polypropylene and PET bottle resin each ticked up a penny per pound in December, while solid polystyrene prices saw a 5 cent jump and PVC prices slipped by 1 cent. It was the third consecutive 1 cent hike for PP, which also had seen a 7 cent spike in September as the market reacted to temporary shortages caused by Hurricane Harvey.
All of the cost push for higher PP prices is coming from polymer-grade propylene feedstock, according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. PGP supplies have been impacted by the temporary shutdown of a DowDuPont Inc. unit and the delayed start of an Enterprise Petrochemicals unit, both in Texas.
As a result of this tightness, PP price hikes of at least 5 cents per pound could hit the North American market in January, Newell added.
North American PP sales grew just over 1 percent in the first 11 months of 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council. Domestic sales grew 3 percent in that period but were softened by a 40 percent plunge in exports.
The 1-cent PVC drop followed flat pricing in November and marked the first regional price decline since November 2016. PVC prices had moved up 3 cents in October after six straight months of flat pricing.
PVC demand has benefited from a strong U.S. construction market. U.S./Canadian PVC sales managed growth of 3 percent in the first 11 months of 2017. Domestic sales growth of 5 percent was weakened by an export sales loss of more than 1 percent.
The 1-cent PET hike came amid market chaos tied into the bankruptcy of M&G Polymers and feedstock constraints after Hurricane Harvey. PET prices now have increased for seven straight months, with most customers seeing an 8 cents in increases since September.
M&G recently restarted a 1.2 billion-pound capacity PET plant in Altamira, Mexico, but its 800-million-pound capacity plant in Apple Grove, W.Va., remains down. M&G is trying to sell the Apple Grove unit, as well as a massive unfinished PET project in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The result of these closings has been tighter PET supplies. Imports might help North American processors in the short term, but regional suppliers have asked the U.S. government to place duties on PET imports from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan. A decision is expected by early March.
Regional PS prices had been flat in November, but jumped 5 cents in December, following increases for benzene feedstock. Benzene prices in December surged 46 cents to $3.30 per gallon, a one-month jump of 16 percent.
Prior to November, PS prices had increased by 3 cents in both September and October, meaning prices surged 10 cents per pound in the final four months of 2017.
North American PS sales fell almost 1 percent in the first 11 months of the year. A domestic sales loss of more than 1 percent was softened by a gain of almost 12 percent in exports.A state of PE confusion
The North American PE market in December was thrown into a state of confusion as some buyers received lower prices, while many others negotiated year-end price reductions that weren't reflective of pricing caused by standard factors such as supply/demand and feedstock pricing.
"Although there could be deals in the secondary markets, our experience is that the prime branded market was unexpectedly flat in December," an executive with a resin distribution firm told Plastics News. He added that although many of his firm's customers are seeking "pre-Harvey prices," fundamentals might not support such a large correction. An executive at another resin distribution firm said PE prices for his customers were flat in December as well.
RTI market analyst Mike Burns said that PE suppliers "are not conceding a December market-wide price reduction." David Barry, a market analyst with PetroChem Wire in Houston, agreed that part of the December PE market problem is that PE makers gave 3 cent discounts as non-market adjustments, meaning they were not likely to add another 3 cents to that as a true market move.
An executive at a major PE packaging firm told PN that "there may have been a few non-market reductions that others are trying to turn into a market wide decrease of 3 [cents per pound]." PE suppliers "are flat for December and dug in very firm," added an executive at a major PE film supplier.
Although some regional PE buyers may have seen actual downward market moves for December, PN is showing the overall market as flat for the month. The PN pricing chart likely will show a non-market price adjustment early in 2018, based on price concessions given in late 2017 and in previous years as well.
Prior to December, regional PE prices had been flat in November after increasing a total of 10 cents per pound from August to October, largely as a result of supply tightness from Hurricane Harvey. Looking ahead, PE market leaders DowDuPont and ExxonMobil Chemical have announced attempts to raise prices by 4 cents per pound effective Feb. 1.
U.S./Canadian PE sales were mixed in the first 11 months of 2017. Sales of high density PE were down almost 4 percent as a domestic sales gain of almost 4 percent was wiped out by a drop of almost 28 percent in exports.
Low density PE sales ticked up more than 1 percent in those 11 months, with a domestic sales drop of more than 1 percent negated by an export sales gain of 9 percent. In linear LDPE, regional sales were up almost 2 percent as domestic growth of more than 4 percent was lowered by a 7 percent drop in exports.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180111/NEWS/180119987/commodity-resins-have-a-december-to-remember
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Reorganization Clock Starts Ticking
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Scott Streater and Michael Doyle
The tough part starts now, for an ambitious Interior Department reorganization plan whose broad outlines were mapped out yesterday and today for senior staffers.
Headquarter sites for the proposed 13 administrative regions must be identified; at least two cities already have been floated. Potential personnel transfers must be fleshed out. Short- and long-term costs and benefits must be brought to light. Congress, and maybe K Street, must be convinced.
And, inevitably, there will be both winners and losers in the massive bureaucratic undertaking that could define Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's tenure while it redirects an untold number of the department's 70,000 full-time employees.
"This change will require the bureaus within the Department of the Interior to work more closely together on key management decisions," Zinke said in a new video, adding that "now's the time to be transformative."
While Zinke added that certain department administrative functions like "budget, personnel and legal will see little, if any, change at all," he stressed that key decisionmaking within an ecosystem will be "more joint and more collaborative in approach."
"Joint" refers to the military's system of unified combatant commands, which Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, cites as an inspiration.
Zinke plans to propose dividing the Interior Department and the millions of acres it manages through various bureaus into 13 regions across the Lower 48 states, Alaska, the Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Greenwire, Jan. 10).
Interior is expected to reveal final details of the reorganization plan in President Trump's fiscal 2019 budget request, slated for next month.
Zinke's vision was presented to about 150 members of the Senior Executive Service, whom Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt described in an interview as "the top professionals of the department." Zinke's hourlong presentation yesterday morning during the first day of a two-day "leadership summit" at Interior headquarters was followed up yesterday afternoon and this morning with breakout sessions.
One breakout session included state directors with the Bureau of Land Management serving as directors of the proposed regional offices and discussing the logistics of such a change.
For example, BLM Oregon-Washington Director Jamie Connell during the session served as director of the Northern Rockies region covering western Montana, Idaho and the eastern portions of Washington and Oregon during this breakout session yesterday; California Director Jerry Perez served as director of the proposed Northern Pacific Mountains region covering the western halves of Washington and Oregon, as well as the northern half of California, sources said.
Mike Nedd, BLM's acting deputy director of operations, who has long been rumored to want the BLM California director position, served as director of the proposed Southern California Mountains region, sources said.
"This week was all brainstorming, so the next step [is] going through all the ideas that were put on the table," Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said today.Details, details, details
Interior must first identify suitable, centrally located sites to serve as headquarters for each region.
Under the proposed reorganization plan, the 13 regions — each covering hundreds of thousands of square miles extending into the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the coast of Alaska — would split states like Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming into multiple sections.
[+] This map, developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, shows 13 proposed Interior Department regions: North Atlantic-Appalachian, South Atlantic-Gulf, Great Lakes-Ohio, Mississippi Basin, North Central, South Central, Colorado Basin, Northern Rockies, Great Basin, Northern Pacific Mountains, Southern Pacific Mountains, Alaska and Pacific Islands. Special to E&E News
For example, the South Central region on the map with 13 regions, dated Jan. 3, includes all of Texas and Oklahoma, but only the northwest corner of Louisiana and sections of Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri, as well as the southeast corner of Colorado and the eastern two-thirds of New Mexico.
A separate director would oversee each region, and state directors and field managers from the various Interior bureaus inside each region would report to that director, sources said. The regional directors would serve two-year terms, and the position would rotate between the individual bureaus in the region, sources said.
Agency officials have already discussed potential sites for the headquarters in each region, sources said.
Among the suitable sites discussed so far are Toledo, Ohio, for the proposed Great Lakes-Ohio region and Birmingham, Ala., for the South Atlantic-Gulf region, sources said.
An Interior source said agency leaders have discussed the idea of asking states to "bid" on housing regional headquarter sites in their state boundaries by offering the use of buildings and other infrastructure.Big change
Some Interior officials expressed concerns during the summit breakout sessions about splitting up states into different regions.
For BLM, this would represent a seismic policy change.
The federal government's largest landowner, overseeing nearly 245 million acres, BLM divides management of lands in its jurisdiction, with few exceptions, along state lines.
Western congressional leaders and governors have traditionally supported a single BLM state office, with one state director with whom their staff can coordinate on issues or problems.
When BLM three years ago tried to combine the BLM New Mexico and Arizona state offices, the idea drew bipartisan opposition from Congress.
BLM dropped the proposal in September 2015.
Before it did, a coalition of 13 congressional leaders, led by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), in May 2015 sent a letter to former BLM Director Neil Kornze asking him to ditch the idea.
Among the reasons, they wrote, is that they feared "this potential consolidation is part of a larger move by the BLM to create more multi-state offices in the west." They added, "We believe this is a poor model and should be abandoned."
Zinke, then a GOP congressman from Montana, signed the letter.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/01/11/stories/1060070799
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Department's Political Grant Screening Could Get Tricky
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Michael Doyle
The Interior Department's new screening of grants by a political appointee will pose big challenges that include avoiding backlogs, heeding professional expertise and abiding by the First Amendment.
A wave of proposed funding agreements could flood the inbox of Steve Howke, the Montana native and former credit union official who will be conducting the grant reviews. In fiscal 2017, a typical year, the department funded 4,841 project grants and 10,493 cooperative agreements.
Howke will be sorting through future proposals to ensure they fit the administration's priorities, under Interior's policy enunciated in a Dec. 28 memo. Grant recipients, and the funding agencies, could be sensitive to any resulting delays.
And though Howke's review will only cover some of the department's grants and cooperative agreements, depending on their size and nature, his judgment calls could become delicate. When it comes to funding, policy conformity is acceptable, but outright political bias is not.
"Generally speaking, it would be improper to make grant award decisions based on political ideology," former Interior Solicitor Hilary Tompkins noted in an email.
The new Interior policy calls for the additional review of discretionary grants above $50,000 for universities, land acquisition purposes and nonprofits that can engage in advocacy. The review will also cover cooperative agreements (Greenwire, Jan. 9).
The screening is intended to "better align" Interior funding with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's "priorities," according to the memo, signed by Scott Cameron, principal deputy assistant Interior secretary for policy, management and budget. How that alignment works in practice may be settled on a case-by-case basis.
Zinke's enumerated priorities, for instance, include using "science" to help policies "adapt to changes in the environment." The word "climate," though, does not appear in the accompanying memo that lists priorities.
Underscoring the potential screening decisions ahead in this area, the U.S. Geological Survey is currently announcing plans to issue multiple grants totaling more than $1 million for the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center.
While the Interior Department writes the checks, which totaled $806.4 million for project grants alone in fiscal 2016, moreover, officials may be bound by other limits on where the money goes and why.
"Congress outlines the policy parameters for grants and an agency cannot supplant those parameters with its own, different criteria, and certainly cannot impose its political views in awarding grants," Tompkins said.
For instance, the National Park Service is currently soliciting applications for "Save America's Treasures" grants of up to $500,000 each. Congress set this in motion through the National Historic Preservation Act; a new administration could not easily come in and direct, say, that only the homes of presidents of a certain party would receive preservation funding.
Federal officials are limited, as well, in the kind of conditions they may place on funding. Some restrictions, like a ban on use of federal funds for lobbying, are OK, while some other restrictions might go too far.
"Even though the government may deny [someone a] benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely," the Supreme Court noted in 1972. "It may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech."
Howke, the official now tasked with leading the new reviews, is a lifelong friend of Zinke; they were in the same kindergarten class in Whitefish, Mont. He joined Interior last fall after working for Millennium Corporate Credit Union and other financial firms over the past three decades.
He started his credit union career as a teller at Whitefish Credit Union in Montana in 1985, according to an introduction prepared for one of his presentations. Howke worked his way up to become the credit union's chief financial officer, before taking charge at a firm that eventually merged with the company now called Millennium Corporate Credit Union.
Howke's current title is senior adviser to the assistant Interior secretary for policy, management and budget.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/01/11/stories/1060070789
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(ACC Mentioned) US FluoroCouncil Website Aims to Counteract Mounting Controversy
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
The FluoroCouncil – a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council – has launched a new website, pushing "the benefits and safety of fluorinated chemistries". The move could be seen as an effort to counter growing controversy over this family of chemicals.
Fluorinated chemistries, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), include the surfactants perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and GenX, which are being blamed for drinking water contamination in multiple US states.
State policy experts predict that ways of addressing this group will be the biggest emerging chemical regulation issue at state level in 2018.
And the controversy is possibly one reason Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to head the EPA's chemical regulation branch. Two North Carolina senators opposed the nomination, largely because he had worked for industry on GenX.
In December, the EPA announced "a cross-agency effort to address per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)", including PFOA, PFOS and GenX, but the plan notably included no regulatory action.Website
The industry website focuses on arguing that newer "fluorotechnology" does not carry the environmental and health risks associated with the older chemicals.
"Fluorinated chemistries are a diverse group," the website says. "The science shows that the current chemistries offer significantly reduced bio-persistence and an improved environmental profile over the chemistries they replaced."
In addition, it adds, industry has worked with textile manufacturers and the Fire Fighter Foam Coalition to develop practices designed to minimise environmental impact.
The website also says that alternatives "do not meet all the performance needs that many products require". It touts the varied uses of fluorinated chemistries, including:medical garments and equipment;non-stick cookware;electrical wire and cabling;durable first responder gear;greaseproof food packaging;stain resistant carpets;paints and coatings;certain firefighting foams;oil additives for aircraft engines; andtubing and valves for the production of advanced computer and semiconductor chips.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63030/us-fluorocouncil-website-aims-to-counteract-mounting-controversy
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Microorganisms in Humans Could Change Chemical Risk Assessment Results, Says NAS
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Failure to consider how chemicals interact with microorganisms in the body could lead to risk assessments that over- or under-estimate possible adverse human health effects, according to an expert committee from the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
The committee has drawn up a research strategy to study environmental chemicals, the microbiome – all microorganisms on or in the body, together with their genes – and health risk.
The body's microorganisms may break down some environmental chemicals to give a host of metabolites. Studies also suggest that exposure to such chemicals can alter the composition of the human microbiome, potentially affecting its function.
The EPA and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) asked the NAS to develop a research strategy to improve understanding of the interactions between environmental chemicals and the human microbiome.
Although lab animal models provide valuable experimental platforms for studying microbiome structure and function, the human microbiome is different, states the expert committee convened by the NAS. Not only does it differ between species, it also differs between individual humans.
In fact, differences in human responses to chemical exposure, reported in epidemiology studies, could possibly be explained by a population's variation in microbiome composition and function, it suggests.Human health risk
Further research could "substantially advance understanding of human health risk, posed by exposure to environmental chemicals", writes the committee. It also hopes that this might help to explain differences between animal toxicology studies and human responses and identify the "unrecognised health consequences" of environmental chemical exposures.
However, developing a research strategy to understand the interactions between environmental chemicals and the human microbiome is a "complex task", writes the committee.
It has agreed on three general topics for future research:the effects of environmental chemicals on the human microbiome;the role of the human microbiome in modulating chemical-microbiome interactions; andthe importance of variation in the human microbiome in modulating these interactions.
The first topic could be studied using existing epidemiology studies, suggests the committee. The second should look at the human microbiome's role in adsorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of environmental chemicals, using both in vivo and in vitro data. Research should also use new chemical probes and screening technologies to hunt out specific microorganisms and their enzymes, it adds.
"Ultimately, linking the specific microorganisms, genes and enzymes to particular chemical transformation processes, is essential if substantive progress is to be made in addressing individual susceptibility and interspecies extrapolation at a mechanistic level."
The committee has also picked out a few important "barriers to research", including a lack of in vitrosystems that faithfully model the gut environment and a need to standardise experimental approaches.
In two to four years from now, it hopes that research results will show whether studying microbiome interactions provides information that is not available from traditional chemical toxicity studies.
"The research should lead to the type of information needed to assess the importance of the human microbiome as a contributor to human health risks associated with exposures to environmental chemicals," it concludes.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63025/microorganisms-in-humans-could-change-chemical-risk-assessment-results-says-nas
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Michigan Sets Enforceable Standard for PFAS at EPA Level
Jan 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
Michigan regulators have adopted EPA's health advisory level for two perfluorinated chemicals as enforceable drinking water standards, saying the tools will allow it to force responsible parties to clean up the emerging contaminants due to the lack of federal standards.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) announced Jan. 10 that, effective immediately, it is setting a drinking water residential and nonresidential criterion of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for the combined concentrations of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) -- two of the most common per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
The standards match EPA's non-enforceable health advisory levels set in 2016 for the two PFAS compounds.
"This new standard allows us to take regulatory enforcement actions, something we have not been able to do absent a state criterion," MDEQ Director Heidi Grether says in a press release.
She adds that this gives state regulators "tools to mandate a responsible party conduct activities to address PFOA and PFOS contamination, thereby reducing risk to human health and the environment." Specifically, MDEQ now can issue violation notices to responsible parties and take legal action for noncompliance with the cleanup rules, the department says in the release.
The criterion aims to protect for both short-term and chronic exposures, the state says.
Michigan's move fills a gap for the state in the absence of enforceable federal standards, which EPA has signaled no plans to develop despite growing attention to contamination from PFAS. Instead, states are expected to be left shouldering the responsibility for what may become a patchwork of standards.
One environmentalist said last month that more states in the future will attempt to set enforceable regulations, and will look to the leadership of New Jersey and other states to fill this public health need.
Michigan appears to be one of the states looking to fill in gaps, with Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Nov. 13 signing an executive directive that creates a multi-agency PFAS "Action Response Team" to ensure a timely, uniform and comprehensive response to mitigating PFAS in the state.
There are sites across the state where PFAS was improperly disposed of or used in applications -- such as fire-fighting foams -- that at the time were not known to be a public health risk, Snyder said in a Nov.13 press release.
PFAS have widely been used in non-stick cookware, fire-fighting foam, waterproof rain gear and in other applications. PFOA, in particular, has been linked to adverse health effects, including several types of cancer.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/michigan-sets-enforceable-standard-pfas-epa-level
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Walgreens Pledges to Launch Long-Awaited Chemical Policy
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
US pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance has announced it will launch its long-awaited chemicals management programme this year.
The retail chain had been criticised by NGOs for failing to publish the programme, first announced in 2014.
In its latest corporate social responsibility report, WBA pledges it will publish a list of high priority chemicals of concern in its products and create an action plan for their management in 2018.
The programme will initially focus on the company's own brand baby, personal care and household products. However, WBA will also publish a roadmap to extend the scope of its chemical management to other products in its portfolio. It intends to report on progress annually.
The report says that WBA has been acquiring tools over the last twelve months to trace the ingredients in its products and supply chain.
It is using the UL PurView platform, a system which helps businesses collect data across the supply chain and compare ingredients against sustainability standards.
"Building traceability into our supply chain will help us continue to review the substances in our products, such as chemicals," the report says.
WBA is also preparing for compliance with the EU's May REACH deadline to register substances, particularly in relation to cosmetics and hard goods, such as candles and makeup brushes.'Notable steps'
Last year, the WBA-owned pharmacy Walgreens received a D- grade in the Mind the Store report card – an NGO campaign that rates US retailers on their actions to eliminate chemicals in consumer products. Walgreens came 18th out of 30 stores, scoring just 21.5 out of 135 possible points.
Mike Schade of the NGO Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families – which runs the Mind the Store campaign – told Chemical Watch he was pleased the pharmacy was making progress towards a safer chemicals policy.
"We congratulate Walgreens for taking these notable steps and look forward to reviewing their chemicals management roadmap. We are pleased that the company has also committed to reporting on progress annually," he said.
Mr Schade added that he hoped the chemicals action programme would "set clear metrics and timeframes for reducing and eliminating chemicals of concern in these and other product categories, and report on those metrics annually."
He urged Walgreens to follow other retailers such as Target and Walmart – which scored high marks in the NGO report – by expanding the policy over time to include brand name products they sell and becoming a signatory to the Chemical Footprint Project.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63023/walgreens-pledges-to-launch-long-awaited-chemical-policy
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‘Natural’ or ‘Organic’ Cosmetics? Don’t Trust Marketing Claims.
Jan 11, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Carla Burns
Marketing claims about the source, safety and effectiveness of personal care products and their ingredients often aren’t worth the labels they’re printed on.
Lax federal regulations mean that claims like “natural,” “nontoxic,” “plant-based” and “free of” have no legal basis in the personal care industry. With so many different claims on packages, consumers are often left confused, or even misled, about what’s really in their products.
Here is what you should know about the most common claims.
Natural
Despite widespread use of the term “natural” on personal care products, the Food and Drug Administration has never legally defined the term and has no regulations on its use. What you expect in a natural product may not always match the manufacturers’ use of the term.
Because of increasing consumer demand, the market for natural personal care products is growing. According to the 2017 Green Beauty Barometer survey results, 74 percent of women with children at home, and 60 percent of women without kids at home, claim that purchasing green or natural beauty products was important to them.
A common assumption is that natural products or ingredients are safer than synthetic ones. This is not always the case.
Sometimes natural ingredients are safer and better than synthetic alternatives. But there are many naturally occurring substances that are not safe, and some of them are used as ingredients in personal care products. Most consumers would balk if they saw poison ivy as one of the ingredients in a skin care product, but there is no denying that poison ivy is natural. Other natural ingredients, such as clays, may be contaminated with toxic heavy metals, and some essential oils are potent sensitizing allergens.
In other cases, products that claim to be natural may fall short of that mark – by any definition. A 2008 study by the Organic Consumers Association found an undisclosed carcinogenic petrochemical ingredient in more than 40 percent of products tested that claimed to be natural. In 2016, the Federal Trade Commission filed complaints against four companies that marketed their personal care products as “all natural” or “100% natural” when the products contained a number of synthetic ingredients.
Organic
Organic rules for personal care products are not as straightforward as those for food. The FDA regulates personal care products, but the agency does not regulate the term “organic” for personal care products. Organic claims on cosmetics are regulated by The U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the term only applies to the agricultural ingredients used in personal care products.
Personal care products that are certified to be at least 95 percent organic will bear an official USDA Organic seal. The agency allows two categories of certification to display the USDA Organic seal:“100 percent organic,” which indicates that a product only contains organically produced ingredients.“Organic,” which signifies that at least 95 percent of a product’s ingredients are organically produced and the remaining 5 percent of ingredients are on an approved list of substances.
In addition to ingredient specifications, products bearing the USDA Organic seal must comply with handling and manufacturing specifications, and the use of genetically modified organisms is prohibited.
Another organic certification found on personal care products is the “NSF contains organic ingredients” seal. This certification is issued by third-party certifiers such as Oregon Tilth and QAI, an organic certification company that is part of NSF International. Products can bear the seal if they meet the NSF/ANSI 305 standard: They must contain at least 70 percent organic content, no genetically modified derived ingredients and no petrochemicals, and they must follow ingredient labeling and manufacturing requirements.
Products that claim to be organic but do not carry an official seal may not meet USDA organic standards. If organic is important to you, don’t rely on the claims – always look for a USDA Organic seal.
Free of synthetics
In the world of cosmetics, synthetics have a negative reputation and many companies now tout that their products are free of these chemicals. But not all synthetically derived ingredients or products are harmful.
In some cases, the damning characterization may be warranted. A number of synthetic chemicals have been linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, developmental disorders and other harmful health impacts. But there are many synthetic chemicals that have not been associated with health harms and that play an important role in personal care products.
Nontoxic, hypoallergenic, gentle
Scientifically speaking, nothing is nontoxic. Even water, in large doses, can be harmful. However, many companies use this claim to suggest that a product is safe. The term is often used alongside claims of a product being nonirritating, hypoallergenic, gentle or all natural.
“There are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term ‘hypoallergenic,’” according to the FDA. “The term means whatever a particular company wants it to mean. Manufacturers of cosmetics labeled as hypoallergenic are not required to submit substantiation of their claims to FDA.”
How to choose healthier options?
Ultimately, it is up to shoppers to gauge the merit of marketing claims. The best way to know what’s in your products is by reading the list of ingredients. For most people, that can be a daunting task given the complicated chemical names found in many ingredient panels.
But help is available: EWG’s Skin Deep® database identifies less-hazardous products. Skin Deep® rates more than 70,000 products based on the hazards associated with their ingredients.
You can also look for the EWG VERIFIED™ seal, which identifies products that do not contain any ingredients on our unacceptable or restricted lists, fully disclose all ingredients and follow good manufacturing practices. The mark helps consumers easily find products that meet EWG’s most stringent health standards at the point of sale. Click here to see all products that meet the EWG VERIFIED™ standard.
The only long-term solution to properly verify labeling claims is for the FDA to establish labeling definitions and standards for personal care products. Until then, think twice about the words you read in the personal care aisle.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/01/natural-or-organic-cosmetics-don-t-trust-marketing-claims#.WleZ21WWbIU
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Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
New SVHC intentionsEcha has received intentions from members states, or proposed itself, to identify the following chemicals as substances of very high concern (SVHCs):octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), proposed by Germany for its persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) and very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) properties;decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5), proposed by Germany for its vPvB properties;dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane (D6), proposed by Echa for its vPvB properties; and benzo[ghi]perylene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, proposed by Denmark for its PBT and vPvB properties.
The dossiers for all are expected by 7 February.CLH proposals and intentions
The agency has received five CLH proposals for the substances:nitrosomorpholine, submitted by Germany with a proposed future entry in Annex VI of CLP of carcinogenicity category 1B and suspected of specific target organ toxicity via repeat exposure (Stot Re) 1;methyl-1H-benzotriazole, submitted by Germany with proposed future entry in Annex VI of aquatic chronic 2;4-methylpentan-2-one, submitted by Austria with a proposed future entry in Annex VI of flammable liquids 2, acute toxicity 4, eye irritation 2, carcinogenicity 2, and specific target organ toxicity – single exposure (Stot Se) 3;1H-benzotriazole, submitted by Germany with proposed future entry in Annex VI of aquatic chronic 2; andn-hexane, submitted by Germany with proposed future entry in Annex VI of flammable liquids 2, skin irritation 2, reproductive toxicity 2, Stot Se 3, Stot Re 1, aspiration toxicity 1 and aquatic chronic 2.
There are two new intentions for:methyl salicylate – France is proposing a future entry in Annex VI of acute toxicity 4, skin sensitisation 1 and reproductive toxicity 2; andtetrafluoroethylene – Ireland is proposing a future entry in Annex VI of carcinogenicity (1B).Stakeholders' Day
The last chance to register for Echa's free REACH 2018 conference (29-31 January) will be 15 January.
The conference focuses on how to meet the final registration deadline and what happens afterwards.
"Get last-minute tips, training and peer advice and meet other companies, national authorities, industry associations and Echa's new executive director," says the agency.Adopted opinions on authorisation applications
The agency says the following opinions from its Committees for Risk Assessment (Rac) and Socio-economic Analysis (Seac) on applications by Wesco Aircraft EMEA for authorised uses are available on its website:one use of chromium trioxide;one use of sodium dichromate;one use of potassium dichromate; andtwo uses of sodium chromate (joint application with Aviall Services).Iuclid Cloud video tutorials
Echa has announced three new video tutorials for the Iuclid Cloud. They are on how to get help, how to use the dissemination preview, and how to use guided dossier preparation.
https://chemicalwatch.com/62990/echa-round-up
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Echa Substitution Strategy Sets Out Four 'Areas of Action'
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Echa's recently published substitution strategy says the organisation will focus on four areas of activity that aim to promote the replacement of hazardous substances with safer chemicals.
The four areas are:capacity building; mainly through the facilitation of supply chain workshops at the member state level;identifying and promoting better access to funding and technical support;facilitating the use of registration, classification and risk management data for substitution purposes; andthe development of networks related to the substitution of chemicals of concern.
The strategy – presented to the Echa management board in December – says its overall purpose is to support "informed and meaningful substitution" of chemicals of concern in the EU and to boost the availability and adoption of safer alternative substances and technologies.
Capacity building
Echa, with member state and EU-level authorities, industry associations and possibly NGOs working on substitution, will organise workshops on specific substitution challenges.
And, the strategy says, several member states and stakeholder organisations have shown interest in organising the workshops, with some being scheduled this year in Italy, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. Trade bodies Euratex and Eurometaux, as well as the NGO ChemSec, have also shown interest.
The workshops will help identify the technological, functional and capacity building/training needs of companies at the operational level.
Funding
Funding for the substitution of hazardous chemicals is scarce, the strategy report says. Technical support is available from research and technical institutions, but companies confronted with a substitution issue are not always aware of this.
To tackle this, Echa will first work with members states, the European Commission and stakeholders to map all available funding mechanisms and institutions that could finance substitution. It will then disseminate this information and "facilitate the involvement of these institutions in projects".
Data
The agency intends to further share and improve access to the vast amounts of information it holds on substances because, the report says, effective substitution requires a proper understanding of the hazards and risks associated with both the substance to be replaced and the alternative. And it sets out several ways of how it could do this, including:the potential to develop a function that searches registration data by uses, as well as sectors of use;publishing information on alternatives analysis submitted through authorisation applications and restrictions, as well as key information obtained during public consultations; andpossibly setting up an open-ended public webform for the submission of information on alternatives, outside of any REACH regulatory process, to create a database on potential alternatives.
Network
The fourth action involves the formation of a multi-stakeholder network that focuses on promoting substitution.
Currently, there is no specific network to support substitution among EU member states, the Commission and stakeholders. Therefore there is no systematic way to "routinely and effectively connect and collaborate on substitution challenges and opportunities", the report says.
Resources and indicators
To carry out the work, Echa has allocated three full-time staff positions. It is also considering developing indicators for the four actions that could help in analysing the strategy's success. Examples of indicators include, the number of workshops organised, participants’ satisfaction scores, amount of R&D funding supporting substitution and the number of network teleconferences.
The agency says information obtained from the supply chain collaboration workshops will help in further developing the substitution strategy from 2019 onwards and, by the end of this year, it will elaborate on the activities on substitution for 2019 in its annual work plan.
It also intends to prepare an annual report to document the progress of the strategy.
Jack de Bruijn (pictured), Echa's director of risk management, who is also responsible for the implementation of the strategy, told Chemical Watch: "With the strategy, we intend to give additional support to European business to move away from using hazardous substances in a cost-effective manner.
"We want to engage with industry, NGOs, member states and the Commission to improve analysis of alternatives and improve communication within supply chains."
https://chemicalwatch.com/63031/echa-substitution-strategy-sets-out-four-areas-of-action
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EU Programme Publishes Draft NanoInformatics Roadmap
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The EU NanoSafety Cluster has published a draft version of its Nanoinformatics 2030 Roadmap, outlining how robust and sustainable infrastructure should be established.
The science of nanoinformatics concerns: determining what information is relevant to nanoscale science and technology; mechanisms for collecting, validating, storing, sharing, analysing, modelling and applying that information; and the use of networked communication tools to launch and support communities of practice.
The roadmap provides commentaries from related scientific fields, including:materials science and physico-chemical characterisation;human toxicology and ecotoxicology; computer modelling; andinformatics.
It also addresses issues relating to nanomaterial risk assessment and governance.
The aim of the roadmap is to coordinate future research and develop a shared vision for the nanoinformatics community.
The authors – primarily EU and US scientists, plus some from other regions – build on the US Nanoinformatics 2020 Roadmap, published in 2011, and the outputs of three workshops, run in:2011 by the EU Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) programme on the use of Qsars for the prediction of biological effects of NMs;2014 by the US National Science Foundation (US NSF) on the fundamental science needed to support environment, health and safety (EHS) practices in relations to nanoscale science and technology; and2015 by a group of EU-funded modelling and database projects as CompNanoTox.
The authors say that the nanoinformatics community will need to increase its capacity for data storage, data retrieval and theory development to effectively support modelling for regulatory guidance. But that capacity can be increased through "modular growth" of the datasets, ontologies and structures.
Long term goals include reliable integration of modern systems biology approaches into regulatory testing and the stepwise reduction of whole animal testing, they add.
The EU NanoSafety Cluster is a programme funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD).
The commenting period on the draft closed at the end of 2017. The comments that were submitted can be viewed on the programme website.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63019/eu-programme-publishes-draft-nanoinformatics-roadmap
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EU Issues Regulation Restricting D4, D5 in Wash-Off Cosmetics
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published its Regulation to restrict the use of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) in wash-off cosmetic products in a concentration equal to or greater than 0.1% by weight.
The UK first proposed the limit in April 2015.
This Regulation will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the EU’s Official Journal. It will apply 24 months later – from 1 February 2020.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63033/eu-issues-regulation-restricting-d4-d5-in-wash-off-cosmetics
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MEPs Reject Motion for Total Ban on BPA in FCMs
Jan 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
MEPs have voted to reject a motion calling for a total ban on BPA in food contact materials. The motion had also demanded a draft EU Commission proposal to lower migration limits be dismissed.
The defeated motion was tabled by four MEPs at the European Parliament's environment committee (Envi) meeting with 42 members voting against, 17 for and one abstention.
The Commission's draft amending Regulation proposes a tighter limit on the amount of BPA allowed to migrate from plastic FCMs. And for varnishes and coatings used for non-plastic groups it would reduce the limit to 0.05mg of BPA/kg of food. It currently stands at 0.6mg.
Ahead of the vote, one of the MEPs who tabled the defeated motion – Martin Häusling of the European Green party – said he believes the Commission "should take things further" instead of this "half-hearted approach" of "a bit of a ban". Last year, MEPs backed an Envi report calling for a full prohibition.
And despite being in favour of the ban, Social Democrats MEP Christel Schaldemose said if MEPs backed the motion objecting to the Commission's draft text, there would be no restriction proposal potentially "for years".
Even though the Commission's proposal is "not ambitious enough", she said, "we will be able to protect our children in six months", the time by which the Regulation could be enforced. "We will keep fighting for a total ban in the future," she added.NGO response
NGOs have slammed the draft Regulation, saying it does not go far enough to protect consumers.
Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) policy officer Natacha Cingotti says the result of the vote means "European politicians are failing in their responsibility to protect people's health and to act on their earlier commitments". Safer alternatives are available and some governments, such as France, and industry retailers are "already on the path" to substitution, she adds.
The adverse health effects of BPA, "even at low doses, are so well documented that it should already have been banned from all consumer products a long time ago," she says.
Meanwhile, CHEM Trust’s Michael Warhurst says the Commission’s proposed controls "are not strong enough". And, he adds, unfortunately the European Parliament is not able to directly amend this measure, "which would have been the best way to strengthen it".
He says it is disappointing that the resolution was not passed by the environment committee, but, he adds "DG Health should now address the concerns raised in the resolution and develop further controls on BPA."
Jasmin Bird, from the polycarbonate/BPA group of trade association PlasticsEurope, says the Commission's proposed Regulation will cover all major food contact applications and additionally comprises precautionary elements for the protection of young children. "In essence it will ensure a higher level of consumer protection, and also help to regain consumer trust in EU regulation and restore the internal market."
She adds that "swift adoption and implementation" throughout the EU will be "a positive science-based step to resolve the distortion of the single market, while, most importantly, maintaining a high level of consumer protection".Regulatory steps
The European Council has already scrutinised the draft Regulation, paving the way for its adoption, which is expected in the next few months. The Regulation should then, according to the draft text, apply six months after entry into force.
In December, Echa's Member State Committee (MSC) agreed with Germany's proposal to identify BPA as an SVHC because of its endocrine-disrupting properties causing probable serious effects in the environment.
The substance is already on the REACH candidate list of SVHCs on two counts. Not only is it toxic to reproduction, but it also has endocrine-disrupting properties which cause probable serious effects to human health.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63011/meps-reject-motion-for-total-ban-on-bpa-in-fcms
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Investor Concern Over Methane Risks on the Rise. It Should Worry Industry.
Jan 11, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Sean Wright
Investor interest in climate-related financial risk is at an all-time high. So it makes sense for shareholders and lenders to increasingly be voicing concern over methane leaks.
In December 2017, a group of 225 investors with more than $26 trillion in assets joined a new initiative with several partner organizations to strengthen climate-related financial disclosures among the world’s largest corporations.
It followed a year during which United States shareholders filed at least 17 methane resolutions with companies across the natural gas value chain – and leading companies such as Exxon subsidiary XTO Energyresponded with new plans to manage methane emissions.
Clearly, methane – which accounts for 25 percent of Earth’s warming today – is on investors’ minds.
When it comes to operators, however, it’s a tale of two industries where a few show strong leadership and others lag woefully behind. This could have major financial implications for the oil and gas industry going forward.
Large investors wield their power
The wide gap between methane doers and non-doers will come into full display as leading investors increasingly tilt their portfolios toward businesses that follow environmental, social and government principles, known as ESG. This trend will create new winners and losers, and possibly shuffle market shares in the already-volatile oil and gas world.
Just as large institutional investors such as State Street are nowsteering publicly-traded companies to include women on their boards to boost business performance – and BlackRock, Vanguard and Fidelity vote for shareholder proposals pushing for climate change disclosure – oil and gas operators must reckon with the fact that methane risks are central to investors.
Methane management, with its cost-effective and easily implemented solutions, will be viewed as a near-term proxy for effective risk management. Oil and gas companies, in other words, need to take action to keep spigots for financing wide open and to remain competitive in a world that is quickly shifting to cleaner, and increasingly cost-effective, forms of energy.
Which makes it surprising that more companies don’t.35% of surveyed operators ignore risks
A recent report for which I served as a reviewer, Disclosing the Facts, included 13 new and detailed survey questions to leading oil and gas companies about methane management. The results were startling considering recent high-profile methane accidents and how much methane, the main ingredient in valuable natural gas, is going to waste.
Of the 28 companies that participated in the study, 35 percent scored fewer than 4 points – meaning, they had yet to grasp that methane leaks and emissions pose a significant reputational and financial risk to their business. About 20 percent scored 1 point or less.
But there were also several companies that came out on top – Apache, BHP, Southwestern, ConocoPhillips, Hess and Shell – after showing they are taking concrete action to reduce emissions from their oil and gas operations.
Still, all but four had yet to put in place quantitative emission reduction targets. Where will the many companies that are now resting on their laurels be one, five or 10 years from now?
Investors demand stronger policies
Investors today are not content only to engage at shareholder meetings. They’re also trying to affect state, national and international policymaking on methane.
In 2017, investors testified at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hearings to stop attempts to delay federal methane rules. Internationally, investors co-signed a letter to Canadian policymakers to strengthen proposed methane rules in that country to better protect investors’ stake in the oil and gas industry.
All this signals that the risk of ignoring methane problems in the industry today is too great to ignore. As the pressure continues to build, operators should only expect investor engagement – and the spotlight on their operations – to grow.
The question for these companies now is simply whether or not they plan to stay ahead of this race.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/01/11/investor-concern-over-methane-risks-rise-it-should-worry-industry
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Bomb Cyclone Should Prompt More Northeast Gas Infrastructure, Says API Chief
Jan 11, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
As the Trump administration eyes an infrastructure initiative, it should include natural gas pipelines too, a necessity underscored by the recent cold snap, i.e. bomb cyclone, which brought the Northeast to a standstill, American Petroleum Institute (API) CEO Jack Gerard said Tuesday.
New England consumers pay higher electric bills “because of a lack of infrastructure,” which has repeatedly been pointed out by grid operator ISO New England, Gerard said in the annual State of American Energy address in Washington, DC. During the speech, he also pushed for retaining the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
An API-supported study last year estimated that more than $1 trillion could be invested in potential energy infrastructure through 2035.
“The recent cold snap highlighted the difference between policymakers and regions that embrace American energy abundance and those that do not,” Gerard said.
New Englanders pay more for power even though the region is adjacent to abundant natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shales. In Ohio, for example, in the heart of Utica development, electricity prices have held steady or even declined during peak demand periods, Gerard said.
"We need policies that put consumers first," he added, which allow for private investment to safely build infrastructure to meet the energy demands of everyone, every time, everywhere.”
Gerard said adding energy infrastructure would provide multiple macro-economic benefits and potentially add millions of jobs, with an average salary that could be about $50,000/year more than the average pay for a U.S. worker.
"This isn't just about dollars and cents,” he said. “Getting the policy right on energy infrastructure will lead to greater reliability, safety, security and affordability.”
He pointed to last year's hurricane recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast region, which he said were made easier by the resilience built into the region’s energy infrastructure. Those resiliency efforts helped to mitigate the impact of storms including Hurricane Harvey.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113020-bomb-cyclone-should-prompt-more-northeast-gas-infrastructure-says-api-chief
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Cold Snap Reignites Debate over Future of New England Grid
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
During the recent cold snap, coal-fired power plants rumbled to life in some parts of the United States, helping to keep the lights on amid a nearly two-week deep freeze.
Not in New England, where coal took a back seat. The region instead relied on other fossil fuels and renewables as temperatures plunged, reigniting debate over the future of the six states' shared electric grid.
Natural gas prices soared during the cold snap. At one point, New England's spot prices registered as the most expensive in the world. That prompted power plant owners to idle their natural gas-fired workhorses — which generally provide about half of New England's electricity — in favor of their seldom-used oil units.
Oil and gas interests say the price spike speaks to the need for more pipelines in New England. A sea of gas lies only a short distance away in the shale fields of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but there is limited pipeline capacity able to bring it to population centers like Boston; Hartford, Conn.; or Providence, R.I. Increasing the availability of supply, industry experts reason, would temper the price spikes New Englanders witnessed last week.
"The fact that households and businesses are paying 600 percent more for electricity should be no surprise to the region's elected officials," said David Holt, president of the Houston-based Consumer Energy Alliance, a trade group. "This would have been a very simple fix if these political leaders would have stopped playing politics with our pocketbooks."
Environmentalists reject such proclamations. While the region's reliance on oil during periods of brutal cold prompts a temporary bump in emissions, annual pollution levels continue to trend downward. As for price, they argue billion-dollar pipeline projects are ultimately likely to cost consumers more in the long run than a temporary spike in prices.
"I don't think it's a problem that requires a special solution," said David Ismay, an attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston, noting that renewables are projected to account for an increasing share of the region's power mix.
In many ways, the cold snap represented the worst-case scenario long feared by grid planners, Ismay said. The cold helped send natural gas demand for home heating soaring, pushing pipelines to near capacity. Then the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station tripped offline after a power line went down.
And yet the reliability of New England's grid was never in question, he said. (ISO New England, the local grid operator, did ultimately issue a warning to power plant owners to cease any testing on their units and be on call during the deep freeze.)
"I see the last week as confirmation of what CLF and others have said for some time," Ismay said. "We don't need more fossil fuel infrastructure to keep our grid reliable."
Power plant owners take a similar view. Wholesale power prices in New England tracked closely with those in the eastern part of the PJM Interconnection, a wholesale electricity market running from Maryland to Illinois, said Dan Dolan, who leads the New England Power Generators Association, a trade group representing power plant owners.
Prices spiked only after a power line outage shut down the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station. Even so, they were relatively modest compared with what New England witnessed during the polar vortex of 2014. Add in the fact that Salem Harbor Footprint, a large natural gas plant, has not come online as scheduled, and the grid's performance is even more remarkable, Dolan said.
"What's remarkable to me is that in a historic cold snap, without Footprint coming online and Pilgrim tripped, we're still operating, and operating reliably," he said. "There are no reliability events."
As for new pipelines, the larger question is how often they would be used during other times of the year, Dolan said.
"If individual companies want to risk money, great. It comes down to who's going to pay and what's the market impact," he said.Carbon promises
Complicating matters further are the region's ambitious climate goals.
Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which collectively represent the vast majority of the region's electricity demand and emissions, have all pledged to slash carbon levels by 80 percent by 2050.
Renewables were generally providing about 10 percent of the region's power during the cold snap, though biomass accounted for much of the percentage. More renewables are on their way. Massachusetts has enacted a law effectively requiring its power companies to procure more offshore wind and Canadian hydropower.
And renewable advocates say Deepwater Wind's five turbines off Block Island in Rhode Island show how turbines might aid the region during future cold snaps. According to a company spokeswoman, the Deepwater turbines produced electricity through much of last week, with the exception of Thursday afternoon, when wind speeds exceeded their 55 mph capacity.
Those turbines have a collective listed capacity of 30 megawatts. Massachusetts law requires utilities to procure up to 1,600 MW of offshore wind.
Still, those solutions remain years away, and policymakers in the region have an array of opinions about how to proceed.
Ian Bowles, Massachusetts' former secretary of energy and environmental affairs under Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, sees pipelines as a temporary solution.
"New England has done a good job pushing hard on renewables and efficiency, but we're going to be reliant on backup fossil fuels for at least the next decade," Bowles said. "It's a transitional strategy. You want to have options. The only time the anti-clean-energy cranks get any attention is moments like this. People start screaming. My view is that's unhelpful to the clean energy agenda."
New England deserves credit for its efforts to clean its power grid, said Ken Kimmell, another Patrick administration alumnus who now leads the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.
The region's power-sector emissions fell 22 percent between 2006 and 2015, and coal now accounts for roughly 2 percent of the system's power generation, according to ISO New England. (Coal's share crested around 7 percent during the cold snap.) A draft report from the grid operator found emissions fell an additional 7 percent in 2016.
The region's reliance on fuel oil to see out the cold nevertheless remains concerning, Kimmell said. During the deep freeze, oil amounted to roughly a third of New England's fuel mix, up from about 1 percent annually.
"I do think that is a 20th-century solution to constrained energy supplies," Kimmell said. "The 21st-century solution is demand management, a diverse array of renewables and energy storage."
New Englanders are united on at least one subject. No one seems to be talking about building new coal plants to see out the long Northeastern winter.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/01/11/stories/1060070743
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Alaska LNG Project Idles as Locals Push Back and FERC Slow-Walks
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Alaska's effort to fast-track its proposed $43 billion natural gas pipeline and export project has hit several speed bumps in recent weeks, as local government officials petitioned for a bigger role in the LNG project and federal regulators ignored the state's request to issue an environmental review schedule for the operation before the end of December.
On Tuesday, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough filed a motion asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to intervene in the commission's review of Alaska's proposed gas export operation.
That project would consist of a gas treatment plant on the North Slope, an 800-mile pipeline through the heart of the state, and a liquefaction plant and export terminal on the state's southern shore. The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), which is handling the Alaska LNG project, is proposing to build the export facility in Nikiski, a small town on the Kenai Peninsula.
But the Matanuska-Susitna Borough insists that AGDC failed to consider the environmental benefits of building the plant at Port MacKenzie, which is located at the southern edge of the borough.
In a statement, AGDC welcomed the borough's request to intervene on the project, observing that "[t]he regulatory process is very important in terms of understanding the depth of concerns and finding ways to avoid or mitigate any perceived impacts."
The borough, which is located northeast of Anchorage, isn't the only Alaska community to seek changes in the pipeline project. Early last year a group of Alaska community officials petitioned FERC to reroute the Alaska LNG project closer to their regions and to locate the export terminal in the city of Valdez.
In that request, officials from Fairbanks, North Pole, Valdez and the Fairbanks North Star Borough argued that the natural gas pipeline should follow the right of way created in the 1970s for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
Meanwhile, FERC officials have not responded to AGDC's deadline for federal regulators to issue an environmental review schedule for the gas export project by Dec. 15, 2017, and to sign the final approval for the project by the end of 2018. Instead, FERC is waiting for the state agency to provide a long list of data that federal regulators say is needed to begin reviewing the project.
In seeking a quick timetable for FERC review, AGDC argued that immediate action was needed for assurance to the market that the regulatory process is on track.
AGDC officials are eager to speed federal approval of the project in hopes of cementing the state's nonbinding joint development agreement with three major Chinese companies to finance and build the Alaska LNG project.
Under the pact signed in early November, the Bank of China Ltd. and CIC Capital Corp. tentatively agreed to provide 75 percent of the funding — roughly $32 billion — to build the Alaska LNG project. The state would repay that loan by providing China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec, with 75 percent of the LNG capacity of the Alaska pipeline for the length of the loan.
In response to FERC's hesitance to submit an environmental review timeline, AGDC said that "the Chinese companies are aware of our regulatory process, but we do not expect it to impact our commercial negotiations in any way."
China and Alaska are aiming to complete the agreement by the end of the year. In the meantime, either party can withdraw from the deal at any time.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/01/11/stories/1060070729
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Review: ‘What Lies Upstream,’ a Broad View of a Chemical Spill
Jan 11, 2018 | The New York Times
In “What Lies Upstream,” the documentarian Cullen Hoback begins by investigating the 2014 chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginians without safe tap water. The resulting movie, national in scope, lays out damning (if not always cohesive) arguments about how government regulators tend to defer to the companies they are supposed to supervise, how legislative fixes aren’t permanent and how mandated safety checks are useless if they aren’t performed or performed properly.
Some compelling camera personalities emerge. Randy Huffman, at the time the secretary of the State Department of Environmental Protection in West Virginia, wants to “give the benefit of the doubt” to organizations. When Mr. Hoback, who has read a report suggesting that tens of thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act went uninvestigated in the state, cites that number to him, Mr. Huffman brushes it off as “not that many.” By HYRAX FILMS 2:17Trailer: ‘What Lies Upstream’VideoTrailer: ‘What Lies Upstream’
Dr. Rahul Gupta, who begins the movie as executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department and becomes the state’s commissioner of health and human resources, is presented as a dogged health advocate who is cowed as he rises in stature.
Throughout the movie, Mr. Hoback looks for a smoking gun — a revelation that will explain pollution not only in West Virginia, but also in Flint, Mich.and elsewhere — and seems to think he finds one. But the problems appear systemic, tied to human nature and economics.
Is “What Lies Upstream” persuasive in all respects? No. Will it make you think twice about what’s gone unnoticed in your tap water? Absolutely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/movies/what-lies-upstream-review.html?_r=0
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Companies are Moving Faster Than Many Governments on Carbon Pricing
Jan 11, 2018 | The Economist
Economists have long argued that the most efficient way to curb global warming is to put a price on the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. A total of 41 OECD and G20 governments have announced either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme, or both. Add state and local schemes, and they cover 15% of the world’s emissions, up from 4% in 2010. Voters concerned about climate change are egging them on. So, too, are corporate bosses. More firms are imposing such pricing on themselves, even in places where policymakers are dragging their feet.
Of the 6,100-odd firms which report climate-related data to CDP, a British watchdog, 607 now claim to use “internal carbon prices”. The number has quadrupled since CDP first began posing the query in its annual questionnaire three years ago. Another 782 companies say they will introduce similar measures within two years. Total annual revenues of these 1,389 carbon-price champions amount to a hefty $7trn. Most come from rich countries, but more developing-world firms are joining them.ADVERTISINGinRead invented by TeadsUpgrade your inbox
Corporate carbon-pricing comes in two main varieties. The first involves business units paying a fee into a central pot based on their carbon footprint. Microsoft, for example, charges all departments for every kilowatt-hour of dirty energy they contract or air mile flown by executives, to help meet firm-wide climate targets. This payment, equivalent to $8 per ton of carbon dioxide, is designed to encourage those who can cut emissions most easily to do more, and nudge everyone to do something, says Rob Bernard, who oversees the software giant’s environmental activities.
Tracking exactly how much of the power a business unit consumes comes from coal, say, is not always straightforward. Fee-based systems like Microsoft’s therefore remain rare. Although some smaller firms have toyed with them, Disney is the only other big multinational to use one. Many more firms use shadow carbon prices to stress-test investments for a world of government-mandated levies.
Investors increasingly demand that companies take that possibility seriously—81 countries mention a carbon cost in their national pledges to limit global warming under the Paris climate agreement of 2015. Plenty of the Paris promises remain just that for now, but bosses ignore them at their peril, cautions Feike Sijbesma, who co-chairs the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, which groups green-minded governments and businesses under the auspices of the World Bank.
In his day job as chief executive of Royal DSM, Mr Sijbesma has made the Dutch food producer examine all proposed ventures to check whether the sums still add up if a ton of carbon dioxide cost €50 ($60), well above the going rate of €6 or so in the European Union’s emissions-trading system, which is kept low by an oversupply of permits. Where they do not, alternative feedstocks or cleaner energy suppliers must be found. If a project still looks unprofitable, it could be discarded altogether.
Businesses ranging from European supermarkets (France’s Carrefour and Britain’s Sainsbury’s) to Indian cement-makers (ACC, Ambuja and Dalmia) espouse shadow pricing. Some add flourishes. Besides assessing capital projects at €30 per ton of carbon dioxide, Saint-Gobain, a French maker of building materials, factors in a higher price of €100 per ton when choosing between long-term research-and-development projects. AkzoNobel, a Dutch chemicals giant, uses €50 per ton for most investments, but double that for those with lifetimes of 30 years or more.
These are some of the most ambitious schemes; many others lack bite. Plenty of firms which declare their shadow prices set them below $10 per ton of carbon dioxide. As John Ward of Vivid Economics, a consultancy, points out, that is “just high enough so it has no real impact”. Companies which use higher prices should treat them as more than a “spreadsheet exercise”, counsels one climate-change expert. Oil majors have priced in carbon for years when assessing exploration projects. But there is little evidence that high-price scenarios swayed their investment decisions.
Nevertheless, the trend for firms to incorporate carbon pricing is welcome. Some of the less impressive schemes could in time come to resemble Microsoft’s or Royal DSM’s meatier ones. Such voluntary steps will not stop the planet sizzling. But they help firms prepare for when governments do bring in pricing schemes. In December China launched a market for trading carbon emissions which is the world’s largest. The clearest sign of progress would be for similar policies elsewhere to render internal exercises redundant.
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21734487-nearly-1400-firms-globally-combined-revenues-7trn-already-use-or-soon-will-internal
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Greens Say It's a 'New Era' for Climate Litigation
Jan 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Environmentalists seized a rare chance to play offense yesterday, with New York City announcing that it's suing big oil companies for climate-related damage.
Climate advocates say it sends an important signal to fossil fuel companies — and their investors — that the cost of business is only going to get steeper with climbing temperatures.
It also animated a movement that has spent most of the past year on defense against the Trump administration. With oil companies already facing lawsuits from California cities and counties, some environmentalists suggested this could be the tipping point that nudges local governments to bring big fossil fuel companies to court.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, hailed New York's moves as among the most important for climate advocates in three decades. Naomi Klein, the author and activist, went further: "Not to overstate the case, but I actually think this could change the world."
New York City officials hope to divest roughly $5 billion from the fossil fuel sector within five years, and there's no telling how long it could take to resolve the city's lawsuit. Officials seem to be enthusiastic about the long timeline, which provides them an opportunity to bad-mouth oil companies to voters.
Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) spent the bulk of his public remarks yesterday naming and shaming the "horrible, disgusting" practices of BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
Those companies, he said, bear the responsibility for the dozens of people killed and $19 billion in damages as the result of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
"This was a tragedy that was wrought by the actions of the fossil fuel companies — let's be clear, that's where it came from," de Blasio said. "Sandy may have been seen as an act of God, but let's be clear, it didn't happen by accident."
Still, the lawsuit avoids blaming big oil companies for Sandy. Instead, it details a wide swath of costly climate expenses, from the $20 billion climate resilience program the city adopted in Sandy's wake to damaged trees in urban parks.
Much of the suit rests on the assertion that oil companies knew — and spent decades lying about — the harms of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It also cites the companies' ads saying they're reducing the country's emissions through natural gas.
Industry groups said the litigation is similar to cases by climate activists against manufacturers. They predicted it would fail.
Linda Kelly, senior vice president and general counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers, pointed to the Supreme Court's 8-0 decision in 2011 to stop greenhouse gas lawsuits against utility companies. That case, American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, settled the matter of using public nuisance law to address climate change, she said, just as New York's lawsuit seeks to.
Blaming oil companies for climate change also ignores New York City's role in actually burning the fuel, she said.
"What's the big missing piece there between the production of fossil fuels and the climate impacts? That's who's burning it," Kelly said. "New York relies on the burning of a whole heck of a lot of it. That, to me, makes it pretty hypocritical, and it's a fairly large hole in their liability theory."
Environmentalists brushed off that line of thinking.
Christopher Kilian, the lead counsel in the Conservation Law Foundation's lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, said that's a common refrain in cases against polluters.
The New York case is about proportional liability, he said, and that's why the city named multiple firms that represent a big chunk of carbon pollution.
"It's about proof of action and knowledge contributing to the problem — that represents a percentage of the whole," he said. "You can have an end result that a lot of different folks contribute to. ... That doesn't mean you're not liable for your percentage."
Scientists have recently become more confident in linking specific disasters to climate change (Climatewire, Jan. 2).
The city doesn't need to prove that a company caused a hurricane or flood, legal experts said. It just needs to prove the company made it worse.
"Courts are comfortable dealing with those changes in percentages, those changes in risk, those changes in damage," said Carroll Muffett, president of the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law. "Climate change is just a new application of those [legal] theories."
And now that other cities have examples for this kind of litigation, expect more to file suit, Muffett said.
"We're at the dawn of a new era of climate litigation that, as it did with tobacco, is likely to span decades," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/01/11/stories/1060070751
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