Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Feb 9
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Oversight Hearing: Examining EPA’s Proposed Carbon Dioxide Emissions Rules from New, Modified, and Existing Power Plants
Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Location: SD 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building 406/ 9:30 AM -
Risky Business: Examining GAO's 2015 List of High Risk Government Programs
Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building SD-342/ 10:00 AM -
Budget Hearing - Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations
Location: 2362-A Rayburn / 10:00 AM -
The Fiscal Year 2016 Department of Energy Budget
Feb 11, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 2:00 PM -
Full Committee Hearing - Department of Energy’s FY 2016 Budget
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 366/ 10:00 AM -
Budget Hearing - Bureau of Reclamation
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations
Location: 2362-B Rayburn / 10:30 AM -
Subcommittee Hearing: Emerging Threats and Technologies to Protect the Homeland
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs
Location: Cannon House Office Building / 2:00 PM -
(ACC Mentioned) Quality Carriers Expands Into Kentucky Market
Feb 6, 2015 | Nasdaq
By Christine Craig
Quality Carriers, Inc. ("Quality Carriers"), the leading North American bulk chemical carrier, has expanded into the Kimper, Kentucky market. "As the leading bulk carrier in North America, when one of our customers asked us to consider affiliating a small bulk carrier servicing their coal customers in Kentucky... -
House Dems List Early Targets For Next Election
Feb 6, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jennifer Yachnin
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is vowing to be "active and aggressive" in as many as 70 House districts this election cycle, as the party looks to recoup losses from the 2014 elections that reduced its share of the House to its smallest number in more than eight decades. -
States Using Compliance Strategies Similar to EPA's Next Generation Approach
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The Environmental Protection Agency's new federal Next Generation Compliance strategy includes approaches that individual states have been using for years to help regulated entities comply with environmental laws. In Colorado and New Hampshire, for example, the state environmental departments have increased compliance.. -
(ACC Mentioned) California Advances Effort to Establish Safe Use Levels for Diisononyl Phthalate
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment will hold a public hearing March 30 in Sacramento to hear comments on whether exposure to the diisononyl phthalate in a specific brand of vinyl mesh fabrics used in outdoor furniture products presents a cancer risk level that warrants a Proposition 65 warning. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Fractured Landscape of Chemical Regulation
Feb 9, 2015 | Bed Times Magazine
By Gary James
Recent changes in California provide an example of where chemical regulation in the United States could be headed in the coming years. On Jan. 1, Technical Bulletin 117-2013—California’s revised flammability standard—took effect. The new standard aims to discourage manufacturers from using flame-retardant chemicals in upholstered furniture... -
(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Film, Bag Recycling Campaign Hits Dunn County
Feb 6, 2015 | The Dunn County News
To create awareness about plastic film and bag recycling, the Dunn County Solid Waste Division is launching a new advertising campaign. Educating people about what types of plastic film and bags are recyclable, these advertising spots will be featured in newspapers, on a billboard, banners, through radio spots and at the local movie theater. -
Profiles for Toxaphene, Trichlorobenzenes Issued by ATSDR, Listing Potential Hazards
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Berger
Final toxicological profiles for toxaphene and trichlorobenzenes have been completed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, according to a notice scheduled to be published Feb. 9. The profiles detail the potential health effects of chemicals found at Superfund sites and inform the ATSDR's assessment... -
TSCA Reform Should Embrace the Best Application of Toxicological Science -- a Perspective From its Practitioners
Feb 9, 2015 | Roll Call
By Norbert E. Kaminski
The federal law governing chemicals used in commerce in the United States affects every person and business, but few are aware of its importance to their lives or that it is outdated and in serious need of modernization. That law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, was enacted by Congress when Gerald Ford was president in 1976... -
'Gift' Of Preemption Could Secure Industry Backing On TSCA Reform Fees
Feb 6, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Giving the chemical sector a long-sought “gift” of preempting state chemical programs as part of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation could secure the sector's backing for a comprehensive industry fee program that would amply fund a robust new EPA chemicals program created by reform, stakeholders are suggesting. -
Preventing Cancer Upstream: California's Safer Consumer Products Program
Feb 6, 2015 | The Huffington Post
By Debbie Raphael
The urologist gave me a puzzled look as she evaluated the biopsy results and asked a question I never thought I'd hear: "Have you worked around or been exposed to toxic chemicals?" I answered that it was an incredibly ironic question given that I have dedicated my career to the elimination of toxic chemicals. Why did she want to know? -
European Commission Amends List of Approved Plastic FCMs
Feb 9, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has made six additions and ten amendments to the list of substances authorised under the EU's Regulation on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. The substances added to the Regulation's Annex I are... -
(ACC Mentioned) Will This Ruin $124 Billion in Natural Gas Investments? (Hint: It's Not OPEC)
Feb 7, 2015 | The Motley Fool
By Maxx Chatsko
One industry's waste is another industry's treasure. While the United States is home to some of the cheapest natural gas reserves in the world, it lacks the infrastructure needed to fully process all of the components in natural gas. Hydrocarbons such as ethane that cannot be used in gas-fired power plants or chemical facilities... -
(ACC Mentioned) Surging Dollar Adds To Uncertainty For La. Plants
Feb 8, 2015 | The Advocate
By Ted Griggs
With the plunge in oil prices already complicating many planned industrial projects in Louisiana, another factor is rearing its head — the rising value of the dollar. That’s a problem because many of the chemical and petrochemical plants target overseas markets, where demand is slowing. The surging dollar isn’t helping because ... -
House GOP To Push Energy Package Outline Next Week
Feb 6, 2015 | Politico
By Darren Goode
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans plan to issue an outline next week on a broad energy strategy that includes updating infrastructure and policies to reflect the booming U.S. production, House GOP and other sources familiar with the strategy said Friday. -
House, Senate Panels Set To Spar Over Agency Budget And Priorities
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will head to Capitol Hill this week to defend President Obama's fiscal 2016 Department of Energy budget request, kicking off a debate between the administration and the GOP-controlled Congress over funding for clean energy technology, efficiency programs and measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions. -
For GOP Presidential Candidates, a Slightly Changing Climate
Feb 8, 2015 | National Journal
By Ben Geman
The 2012 Republican presidential field was largely made up of climate skeptics. As the 2016 field shapes up, that's still the case. Many of the would-be 2016 contenders will acknowledge that the climate is changing but publicly question the extent to which man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are responsible—if at all. -
House Republicans to Release Plan Soon For Broad Energy Framework, Upton Says
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
House Republicans plan to release a broad energy policy framework the week of Feb. 9 focused on such issues as modernizing energy infrastructure and the U.S. energy workforce and boosting energy efficiency, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told Bloomberg BNA. -
Protesters March In Oakland, Push For Jerry Brown To Ban Fracking
Feb 7, 2015 | SF Gate
By Victoria Colliver
Thousands of antifracking activists took to Oakland’s streets Saturday to call for Gov. Jerry Brown to change his stance and ban the controversial practice, which uses large amounts of a pressurized water mixture to crack subterranean rocks and release oil or natural gas. -
Western Regulators, Others Urge EPA To Learn From State Actions on Methane
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
New federal rules to directly regulate methane emissions from oil and gas operations should line up with, or at least not interfere with, approaches already being used in the West, regulators, industry representatives and environmentalists in Western states said recently. -
A Proposed Pipeline Tests Property Rights in Virginia
Feb 9, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Peter Galuszka
Last August, Craig Vanderhoef, a former Navy captain who retired to a farm near Afton in Nelson County, got a fateful letter from Dominion Resources. The Richmond-based utility wanted to survey his property to help plot a route for a $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline that would transport natural gas from hydraulic fracturing... -
Keystone Pipeline Draws No Objections From Defense Department After Review
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tony Capaccio
The Pentagon “continues to have no objection” to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, a Defense Department official said. Michael Bruhn, executive secretary to the defense secretary, said in a letter to his counterpart at the State Department that the Pentagon's position hasn't changed since views it provided on the TransCanada Corp. project... -
Congress Prepares To Send Pipeline Bill To President
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Manuel Quiñones
The House this week is scheduled to take up legislation to approve TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada for the second time in recent weeks. The House passed a KXL bill soon after coming into session this year. Chamber lawmakers will now vote on a Senate-passed version, which includes a series of amendments. -
Senate EPW to Examine Clean Power Plan
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jean Chemnick
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday will hold the first of what's expected to be a series of hearings examining U.S. EPA's proposed carbon rules for electric utilities. EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe is expected to provide an update on proposals... -
McKinley Reworking Coal Ash Bill To Address Deficiencies in EPA Rule
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) is reworking legislation on the management of coal ash to address lingering uncertainty for the business community, a spokesman for McKinley told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 6. While there is no firm time frame for reintroducing a bill, spokesman Greg Dolan said the issue is a “huge priority” for... -
Clean Coal Setback Fuels Industry Attacks
Feb 8, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Timothy Cama
The Energy Department’s decision this week to pull the plug on a major “clean coal” demonstration project stands as the latest setback for a technology that only recently held promise as a key piece of the United States’ fight against climate change. -
States Fault EPA's Rejection Of Air Plans In Bid For Court To Scrap CSAPR
Feb 6, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
States opposed to EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the rule, saying it is based on a faulty justification of implementing CSAPR by rejecting as no longer valid plans for meeting an earlier air trading program. -
U.S. National Security Strategy Cites Rising Temperatures as Urgent Threat
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Climate change is an “urgent and growing threat” to U.S. national security, the White House said in a Feb. 6 National Security Strategy, with rising global temperatures expected to trigger more natural disasters and increased flows of climate “refugees.” -
EPA Standards for Wood-Burning Heaters Encourage Use of Unfinished Test Method
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned its proposal to require manufacturers of wood-burning stoves and heaters to certify their products using cord wood, but the agency's decision to establish alternative emissions standards in its first update to new source performance standards for residential wood heaters... -
Study Warns of Pollution from Arctic Shipping
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Air pollution linked in part to a shortage of regional environmental requirements for marine vessels operating in the North American Arctic could harm communities in the region, said a study from the International Council on Clean Transportation. “Marine vessels are a large source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions... -
White House Reviewing PHMSA Rule Addressing Crude, Ethanol Rail Transport
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The White House received for review Feb. 5 a Transportation Department final rule on enhanced tank car and operational control standards for the transportation of certain flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's proposed version of the rule would... -
Derailment A Reminder That Ethanol, Too, Moves By Rail
Feb 6, 2015 | Roll Call
By Tom Curry
The train derailment which spilled ethanol into the Mississippi River on Wednesday north of Dubuque, Iowa was a reminder that amid the debate about safe shipments of crude oil, ethanol traffic on the nation’s railroads remains a significant business.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Full Text of Stories Below
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Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Location: SD 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building 406/ 9:30 AM
The purpose of the hearing is to examine the proposed rules, their impacts and obtain general status update. Witness: The Honorable Janet McCabe, Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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Risky Business: Examining GAO's 2015 List of High Risk Government Programs
Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building SD-342/ 10:00 AM
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Budget Hearing - Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Feb 11, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations
Location: 2362-A Rayburn / 10:00 AM
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The Fiscal Year 2016 Department of Energy Budget
Feb 11, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 2:00 PM
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Full Committee Hearing - Department of Energy’s FY 2016 Budget
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 366/ 10:00 AM
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the Department of Energy's budget request for fiscal year 2016.
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Budget Hearing - Bureau of Reclamation
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations
Location: 2362-B Rayburn / 10:30 AM
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Subcommittee Hearing: Emerging Threats and Technologies to Protect the Homeland
Feb 12, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs
Location: Cannon House Office Building / 2:00 PM
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(ACC Mentioned) Quality Carriers Expands Into Kentucky Market
Feb 6, 2015 | Nasdaq
By Christine Craig
Quality Carriers, Inc. ("Quality Carriers"), the leading North American bulk chemical carrier, has expanded into the Kimper, Kentucky market.
"As the leading bulk carrier in North America, when one of our customers asked us to consider affiliating a small bulk carrier servicing their coal customers in Kentucky, we listened," commented Randy Strutz, President, Quality Carriers. "We've partnered with SF Transport Holdings, a family-owned bulk carrier, which services the coal industry in Kentucky and West Virginia."
"As a small local carrier, the affiliation with Quality Carriers made sense for us. This gives us access to their large trailer fleet, a nationwide terminal network, and leading technology," stated Jim Slater, President, SF Transport Holdings. "As we want to expand, Quality Carriers is enabling this by supporting our needs for equipment and working capital."
"We continue to review other under-served markets and expect to expand our footprint to serve our customers and increase our driver capacity," continued Randy Strutz.
Quality Carriers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quality Distribution, Inc. (Nasdaq:QLTY), operates the largest chemical bulk logistics network in North America. Quality Carrier's network of independent affiliates and independent owner-operators provides nationwide bulk transportation and related services. Quality Carriers is an American Chemistry Council Responsible Care® Partner and is a core carrier for many of the Fortune 500 companies that are engaged in chemical production and processing.
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House Dems List Early Targets For Next Election
Feb 6, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jennifer Yachnin
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is vowing to be "active and aggressive" in as many as 70 House districts this election cycle, as the party looks to recoup losses from the 2014 elections that reduced its share of the House to its smallest number in more than eight decades.
In a memo released today, DCCC Executive Director Kelly Ward argued that the party will campaign on the offense, arguing that Republican control of both chambers of Congress will boost the Democrats' message.
"This cycle the national political atmosphere will benefit Democrats. President Obama's approval rating is up, unemployment is down, consumer confidence is up, and gas prices are down and all indications point to continued improvement," Ward wrote. "This environment, combined with a relentless focus on 'middle class economics,' will drive a clear contrast with the Republican Party."
Ward also wrote that Democrats will target 15 districts where Republican lawmakers won their first terms with margins of 10 percent or less, referring to those members as "one-term wonders."
"These are 15 Freshman Republicans who were swept up in the electoral tsunami of 2014, winning in a Democratic or battleground district but are clearly 'out of step' with their constituents, haven't been properly vetted, won't be able to win in the altered dynamics of 2016, and start as some of our top targets this cycle," Ward wrote. The targets are Republican Reps. Martha McSally (Ariz.), David Jolly (Fla.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Rod Blum (Iowa), David Young (Iowa), Mike Bost (Ill.), Bruce Poliquin (Maine), Crescent Hardy (Nev.), Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), John Katko (N.Y.), Ryan Costello (Pa.), Will Hurd (Texas) and Barbara Comstock (Va.), as well as Reps. Bob Dold (Ill.) and Frank Guinta (N.H.), both of whom won their first terms in 2010 and lost re-election bids two years later before winning comeback bids in 2014
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States Using Compliance Strategies Similar to EPA's Next Generation Approach
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The Environmental Protection Agency's new federal Next Generation Compliance strategy includes approaches that individual states have been using for years to help regulated entities comply with environmental laws.
In Colorado and New Hampshire, for example, the state environmental departments have increased compliance with hazardous disposal requirements by creating self-certification programs for small facilities to check off their requirements.
States have primary responsibility for implementing environmental rules and ensuring compliance, which is why the EPA now is working to introduce Next Gen into even more state programs, including sending advanced monitoring equipment to 11 state and local environmental departments.
Cynthia Giles, EPA assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, told Bloomberg BNA in December 2014 that states and EPA headquarters program offices alike are seeing the benefits of “building systems” that will result in less pollution and better compliance rates, using less government resources (11 DEN B-1, 1/16/15).
Next Gen is intended to help the EPA and states target limited resources to address the highest environmental risks, and it is among the EPA's enforcement priorities for fiscal years 2014 through 2016.
The strategy includes five approaches to reduce noncompliance:
• designing permits and rules with compliance in mind,
• utilizing advanced emissions or pollutant detection technology,
• shifting environmental reporting practices to be done electronically,
• expanding transparency and
• using “innovative enforcement approaches” such as data analytics, according to the EPA.
Compliance Certification Programs
States have been implementing and proposing approaches to improving compliance for years that now would fall under the Next Gen umbrella.
For example, Martha Rudolph, director of environmental programs for Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment, told Bloomberg BNA her state has improved compliance through its Small Quantity Generator Self-Certification Program.
In 2008 the department began sending checklists detailing hazardous waste disposal requirements to small facilities, such as dry cleaners, that generate above a certain threshold of waste.
Self- and third-party certification programs fall under the “more effective rules and permits” prong of the federal Next Gen umbrella, according to a May 2014 presentation Giles gave on the Next Gen program.
In Colorado, compliance improved dramatically, Rudolph said. In 2008, state inspection data showed 31 percent of facilities met all of their hazardous waste regulatory requirements, and in 2011, that number jumped to 84 percent.
The results have prompted the department to incorporate similar self-audit approaches to other areas, such as pharmaceutical disposal in nursing homes, Rudolph said.
Similarly, in New Hampshire, a small quantity generator must review its hazardous waste management processes, self-inspect its facility and certify to the state Department of Environmental Services it is in compliance every three years, according to the department's website.
The success in Colorado and New Hampshire has prompted Oregon to consider following suit, Brian Bowling, the laboratory program manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, told Bloomberg BNA. A required or recommended self-certification program could help the department address environmental violations by smaller facilities that the office can't visit often, Bowling said.
Tennessee Outreach, Education
Tennessee has conducted front-end outreach and education to make smaller facilities aware of evolving or new permit requirements or laws, which Bob Martineau, commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, told Bloomberg BNA falls under the Next Generation Compliance umbrella.
Many smaller facilities, such as dry cleaners and auto body shops, are unaware of certain environmental requirements they most follow, such as hazardous air pollutant rules, Martineau said. Alerting them to the requirements and showing them how to comply helps to improve compliance rates and, therefore, environmental quality, he said.
The outreach has improved the state's understanding of how many facilities should have permits in a given area and are producing pollutants or emissions, Martineau said.
The efforts are “another tool that helps lead to regulatory compliance, but it doesn't show up in any statistic regarding enforcement,” he said.
EPA, State Collaboration
The EPA has met with 10 states and plans to meet with more to discuss what actions those states have taken related to Next Generation Compliance, hoping to improve collaboration, the agency told Bloomberg BNA. The agency has conducted its outreach through the Environmental Council of the States and through other air and water state groups, the EPA said in an e-mail.
The EPA has offered to work with states on Next Gen projects in permits and other areas, it said.
Oregon decided after its meeting with the EPA that it wanted to work with the federal agency on the self-certification proposal and a separate proposal to use mobile remote sensor technology to gather data about fine particulate matter concentrations in metro areas, identifying areas with the most significant air quality problems and flagging areas of highest environmental risk, Bowling said.
Martineau said Tennessee requested to work on a pilot project with the EPA after a fall meeting, but the project's topic and timeline have yet to be determined.
The EPA also has solicited interest from states for an advanced monitoring project, the agency said. The EPA has sent or will send in 2015 infrared cameras to 11 states and other local agencies and will help the agencies with certification training.
The agencies involved are in Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, North Dakota, West Virginia, Hamilton County in Ohio, and Northwest/Puget Sound.
State Actions, Compliance Benefits
Incorporating Next Generation Compliance efforts or similar actions is important for states for a number of reasons, the EPA, state officials and a former EPA enforcement official told Bloomberg BNA.
States “do most of the implementation of setting standards, issuing permits, conducting technical assistance, inspections, and enforcement when needed” for rules and programs, the agency said, so “we anticipate that much of the benefits of Next Gen will come from using these concepts at the state level.”
Adam Kushner, a former director for the EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement, told Bloomberg BNA the EPA's decision to conduct outreach with states is appropriate and while the best practices talks aren't nascent, they are critical.
States conduct roughly 95 percent of inspections and compliance investigations, and many are strapped for resources, he said. Any help the federal agency can offer in helping states to effectively identify tools, such as a self-disclosure program, and to efficiently allocate resources to encourage compliance is significant, Kushner said.
To the extent the EPA can encourage uniform practices and policies across states, that could be helpful to “promote levelness and fairness for [enforcement of] the regulated community,” he said.
However, states must recognize that Next Generation tools such as remote monitoring require significant upfront investments, and these steps don't replace on-the-ground inspections or investigators, Kushner, now a partner at Hogan Lovells, said. Certain violations, such as new source review violations, would be difficult or impossible to identify without knowledgeable engineers sifting through historical and technical documents or visiting facilities, Kushner said. Funds for these investigators must remain intact, he said.
Use of Resources
For Oregon, Next Generation Compliance approaches help to identify what the highest risks to the environment are and then prioritize efforts that drive the state's enforcement efforts, Bowling said. This allows the state to address the most urgent needs first and efficiently use its resources, he said.
“Working collaboratively with these partners [states] will help us identify the best approaches and implement more effective environmental programs with limited resources, so we can better protect public health and environment,” the EPA said in its 2014-2017 Next Generation Compliance strategic plan, dated October 2014.
Meanwhile, Rudolph said that making it easier to comply than not comply with environmental requirements—whether or not the facility is already in compliance—helps to prevent environmental problems. While penalties play a role in incentivizing compliance, other actions, such as educating regulated entities, also can improve compliance rates.
Educating entities from power plants to dry cleaners on what they need to do to comply “is more than half the battle,” Rudolph said.
“Once the dam is breached you've got to clean it up,” Rudolph said. “But you want to make sure that the dam is never breached.”
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(ACC Mentioned) California Advances Effort to Establish Safe Use Levels for Diisononyl Phthalate
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment will hold a public hearing March 30 in Sacramento to hear comments on whether exposure to the diisononyl phthalate in a specific brand of vinyl mesh fabrics used in outdoor furniture products presents a cancer risk level that warrants a Proposition 65 warning.
Attorneys at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP requested the “safe use determination” hearing on behalf of Phifer Inc., a City of Industry, Calif., company that manufactures Phifertex ®, the OEHHA said in a Feb. 5 notice.
The hearing is the second such hearing OEHHA officials have scheduled for the use of diisononyl phthalate (DINP) in a specific product since proposing Jan. 2 to set a “no significant risk level” for the chemical at 146 micrograms a day.
On Jan. 14, the OEHHA rescheduled a safe use determination hearing on the exposure risks of DINP used in Tandus Centiva ER3® modular vinyl carpet tiles made by France-based Targett(06 DEN A-6, 1/9/15).
Originally set for Feb. 25 at California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento, the hearing on the vinyl carpet tiles is now planned for 10 a.m. to noon, Feb. 19, at the Elihu Harris Building, 1515 Clay St., Oakland, Calif.
Feb. 25 Hearing
At the request of the American Chemistry Council, the OEHHA has now set a hearing for 2 p.m., Feb. 25, in Sacramento to accept comments on its proposed “no significant risk level” for DINP.
DINP is a general purpose plasticizer used in a variety of products, including vinyl flooring, wire and cable insulation, stationery, coated fabrics, gloves, toys, tubing, garden hoses, footwear, automobile undercoatings and roofing materials. The phthalate ester also is found in rubbers, inks, paints, lacquers and sealants.
The OEHHA added DINP to the list of carcinogens the state maintains under Proposition 65, also called the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, in December 2013(241 DEN A-4, 12/16/13).
Once a safe exposure level for DINP is final, products with concentrations above that level must come with the consumer warnings required under Proposition 65. Exemptions to the warning requirement, however, are provided if a company can demonstrate exposure to their products don't pose a significant risk of cancer.
California law already bars the sale and distribution of toys and child-care products with DINP concentrations that exceed 0.1 percent (1,000 parts per million).
The OEHHA also is accepting written comments on its proposed “no significant risk level for DINP,” which must be submitted by 5 p.m., March 11. Comments on the safe use determination for the vinyl tiles are due by 5 p.m., Feb. 25, and for the fabric by 5 p.m., March 30.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Fractured Landscape of Chemical Regulation
Feb 9, 2015 | Bed Times Magazine
By Gary James
Recent changes in California provide an example of where chemical regulation in the United States could be headed in the coming years.
On Jan. 1, Technical Bulletin 117-2013—California’s revised flammability standard—took effect. The new standard aims to discourage manufacturers from using flame-retardant chemicals in upholstered furniture by eliminating the state’s previously required open-flame test. To meet the former TB 117 open-flame test, most upholstered furniture was made with polyurethane foam that contained one of several fire-retardant chemicals. The new, less demanding standard relies on three tests to evaluate the cigarette-ignition resistance of upholstery cover fabrics, barrier materials and filling materials, making the use of FR chemicals in the foam no longer necessary.
In a further step, a new law also went into effect on Jan. 1—Senate Bill 1019, also known as the Leno Bill—that requires furniture manufacturers to disclose whether an upholstery product contains any added fire-retardant chemicals. The new regulation doesn’t prohibit the use of FR chemicals in the furniture but, if such chemicals are used, they now must be disclosed through a flame-retardant content statement. The statement must appear at the bottom of the TB 117-2013 compliance label, which must be attached to every article of new upholstered furniture sold in the state.
The new FR statement also must inform the consumer that: “The State of California has updated the flammability standard and determined that the fire safety requirements for this product can be met without adding flame retardant chemicals. The State has identified many flame retardant chemicals as being known to, or strongly suspected of, adversely impacting human health or development.”
According to the American Home Furnishings Alliance, the crusade against the use of FR chemicals in upholstered furniture was bolstered in 2013 by an HBO documentary called “Toxic Hot Seat.” The film gave many consumers reason to believe their sofas may make them ill.
“Although little is currently known about possible health impacts of being exposed to FR chemicals in the amounts that might be present in household dust, the Green Science Policy Institute and other research organizations continue to investigate,” says a statement on the AHFA website. “Individual states, however, have been unwilling to wait on either the scientific results or efforts on the federal level to regulate the use of these chemicals. More than two dozen states have introduced or announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at the use of chemicals in consumer products, and many of these measures specifically target FR chemicals in furniture and children’s products.”
Implications for mattresses
In implementing SB 1019, the California Bureau of Electronic & Appliance Repair, Home Furnishings & Thermal Insulation explicitly stated in an FAQ document issued in November 2014 that mattresses are not subject to the new FR labeling requirement because they are not considered to be upholstered furniture subject to the requirements of TB 117-2013. As a result, the mattress industry was not affected by the recent furniture developments in California.
Since 2007, mattress manufacturers have had to pass a stricter national flammability standard (16 CFR Part 1633) than is the case for upholstered furniture. Unlike the upholstery industry, which used FR foam to meet old TB 117 requirements, bedding companies meet the more demanding Part 1633 standard using barrier fabrics wrapped around the filling materials. These barriers generally are quilted to, or placed directly under, the mattress ticking, where they have proven highly effective at preventing or delaying the ignition of the polyurethane or latex foam used inside the mattress—and which contains most of the product’s fuel load. As a result, even if a 1633-compliant mattress does ignite, the slower ignition process provides valuable time for consumers to identify the fire, escape the home and summon help.
“The barrier products in use by the bedding industry are all quite safe,” says Ken Oliver, president of Jones Fiber Products in Humboldt, Tennessee. “The industry had to go through a lot of due diligence about the materials we used back in the early 1970s when CFR 1632 was passed, and again in the mid-2000s, when CFR 1633 went into effect. There were a lot of questions about product safety at both points in time and, through research and analysis, those questions were all answered.”
The bedding industry builds its products with “effective, non-controversial materials that have been in the marketplace for many years,” says Ryan Trainer, president of the International Sleep Products Association. “In setting the 1633 standard, the Consumer Product Safety Commission considered the safety of the FR barrier solutions used in bedding.”
But because the list of chemicals of concern in states like California continues to grow, “the industry needs to keep a close eye on any changes that take place on the regulatory scene,” he adds.
The moving target of Prop 65
While the bedding industry is exempt from the new labeling rules in California’s SB 1019, manufacturers and retailers of all products are subject to the “right-to-know” disclosure requirements of the state’s Proposition 65 initiative. Passed in 1986 by a direct voter initiative, Prop 65 requires producers and retailers of products sold in California to notify workers, communities and consumers if chemicals that the state has concluded have the potential to cause harm are present in their products, workplace environments or retail stores.
More than 800 chemicals are currently listed under Prop 65, and the list continues to expand. California adds a chemical to the list if it has the potential to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. Compliance with this disclosure requirement can be challenging because when it decides to add a chemical to the list, the California Office for Environmental Health Hazard Assessment does not always consider the amount of daily exposure necessary to cause harm. In fact, for newly added chemicals, a safe dosage or exposure—known as Safe Harbor—may not be determined until much later, if at all.
As a result, if a Safe Harbor level has not been determined, many manufacturers and retailers err on the conservative side to avoid any possibility of a technical violation of Prop 65. These companies opt to provide a warning if a product contains any amount of a listed Prop 65 chemical, even if it is only contamination or trace amounts, regardless of whether that small amount of the listed chemical truly poses a risk to health or not.
The law requires that consumers buying products containing Prop 65 chemicals be warned prior to exposure. This warning can take the form of a label on packaging or signage at the point of purchase. For example, if a Prop 65 warning is necessary, wood furniture producers typically put the label on their product or box if it is the type of product, such as a ready-to-assemble item, that the consumer takes home in a package. Some upholstered furniture manufacturers whose products contain Prop 65 chemicals have added the disclosure language to the bottom of their products’ TB 117 flammability label—making the label a sort of “billboard” for California warnings, according to Bill Perdue, vice president of regulatory affairs for the AHFA in High Point, North Carolina.
One fire-retardant chemical once used by many foam suppliers for upholstered furniture application—TDCPP—was added to the Prop 65 list in 2011. Even if a bedding manufacturer did not specify the use of TDCPP in the foams that it purchased, TDCPP occasionally found its way into mattresses due to residual amounts left in machinery during production switchovers from upholstery foam to bedding foam. Foam producers eliminated the use of this chemical from foams used in home furnishings once it was added to the Prop 65 list.
Furniture industry players also worked closely together in 2003-04, when PBDE flame-retardant additives were phased out of foam production. For more than a quarter century before that time, PBDE additives were the predominant fire retardant used to help meet the requirements of California’s TB 117 flammability standard for upholstered furniture.
Currently, foam-containing sleep products can be produced with dose or exposure levels that do not require Prop 65 labeling, according to Scott Pugh, research director of Carpenter Co. in Richmond, Virginia. Foam suppliers must make a Prop 65 assessment based on their knowledge of the raw materials used in and the intended purpose of the product. If changes take place on the Prop 65 list, those suppliers would re-evaluate their notification requirements and inform their California customers of the presence of listed chemicals if so indicated. Bed manufacturers that sell in the state, in turn, would then decide whether to label their products.
Failure to provide Prop 65 notices when required in California can expose affected manufacturers and retailers to substantial financial liabilities. Prop 65 allows private parties to sue alleged violators, and most cases settle before trial, with settlements in 2013 averaging about $50,000, according to aog.ca.gov, the website of the state attorney general’s office. In 2012, 352 claims were settled totaling $17.4 million. Frequent filers of lawsuits include the Environmental Research Center, Consumer Advocacy Group and the Center for Environmental Health, but individual citizens also can initiate litigation.
Under the terms of Prop 65, the burden of proof is on the defendant rather than the plaintiff—an approach that means it often is less expensive for a company to settle than it is to prove its innocence, critics charge.
“Prop 65 is an 800-headed monster,” says Bobby Bush, senior vice president of foam technology at HSM in Hickory, North Carolina, which provides a range of polyurethane foam products to the furniture and sleep product industries. “We’ve had a few customers request that we provide testing, and there’s no way you can test for 800 chemicals. We couldn’t afford it, and they couldn’t afford to buy the product if we had to support that level of testing.”
The approach most suppliers have to take, when it comes to Prop 65, Bush adds, “is to say to the best of our knowledge, our product doesn’t contain these chemicals of concern. There’s no way to absolutely guarantee that something isn’t present—if you look hard for anything, you’re going to find it, because with today’s testing capabilities, virtually nothing comes out to a level of ‘zero’ anymore.”
Whether to test or not to test and label materials for toxic chemical levels is a decision each bedding supplier and manufacturer should assess based on its own product lines, business strategies and risk tolerance, says Bob Luedeka, executive director of the Polyurethane Foam Association. “There’s a lot of stuff on the Prop 65 list with no Safe Harbor. Any detectable amount could result in litigation. Manufacturers have to think this through very carefully: Is it better to err on the side of caution and issue a warning or risk detection at an extremely low level?”
The fact that foam is an absorptive medium also can be a challenge, Luedeka adds. “It’s possible for foam to acquire contaminants during transportation by simply being in contact with other products that may contain listed chemicals, such as plywood with formaldehyde.”
At one point, California officials proposed that ethylene glycol—a chemical that some suppliers use in the extrusion of polyester foam—be added to the Prop 65 list. But, at this point, no action has been taken and the chemical remains in widespread use without a Prop 65 warning requirement.
“So far, cooler heads have prevailed, but we’re watching this closely because the addition of this chemical to the Prop 65 list could have a big effect on the entire home furnishings industry,” Luedeka says. In addition to foam, the chemical also may be contained in raw materials used in fiber production and in production of PET plastic bottles.
Priorities for action
In addition to Prop 65, California has a law in place called the Green Chemistry Initiative designed to regulate chemical use in the state. Adopted in 2008, GCI established an advisory panel of scientists to guide research in chemical policy, create regulations for assessing alternatives and set up an Internet database on toxins.
Warnings galore Prop 65 warnings can be found in stores and on products throughout the state of California. Products such as jewelry, automobiles, beauty products, furniture and even coffee may contain chemicals listed in Prop 65 that require consumer notification. Shown here is a sample of typical signage and labeling.
In 2013, California adopted new Safer Consumer Product regulations to implement the GCI. The SCP regulations provide the Department of Toxic Substances Control with new authority to control the use of toxic substances in consumer products.
For certain chemicals of concern, the SCP regulations require a new life-cycle “alternatives analysis” to evaluate alternatives and substitutes for hazardous substances in consumer products based not only on their risk during product use, but also during their manufacture and after disposal. The state may then condition, restrict or ban the use of those chemicals.
In September 2014, DTSC issued a “Draft Priority Product Work Plan” identifying six categories of products from which “Priority Products” will be selected for detailed review over the next years. One of the categories is “household, office furniture and furnishings,” including bedding, that contains chlorinated and brominated organic compound and organophosphate flame retardants. DTSC also has named three initial product types to be assessed under the SCP regulations. “Children’s foam padded sleeping products containing Tris phosphate or TDCPP” is one of three targeted product types.
Children’s sleep products became a focus after independent testing commissioned by the Center for Environmental Health found that some children’s mattress sets, changing pads and rest mats imported from China in 2012 contained TDCPP. Even though U.S. manufacturers were no longer using this chemical by that time, there was still some residual use in foreign markets. CEH’s tests identified 15 baby and children’s products being sold in California with high levels of chlorinated Tris but without the required Prop 65 warning labels. The appearance of those products in the U.S. strengthened calls for more scrutiny of the whole category of children’s sleep products.
Children’s products have drawn the special attention of regulators because of the higher risks that toxin exposure poses to newborns and young people. But, as is the case with adult beds, manufacturers will use FR barriers—not FR-treated foams—when necessary to make children’s mattresses meet federal flammability standards. Indeed, in some cases, bedding producers will simply use an untreated cotton barrier, since “cotton smolders and chars but doesn’t burn,” says Jones’ Oliver. “Since the product is so much smaller than an adult bed, and therefore contains a much smaller fuel load, the heat generated from the ignited test mattress never rises to the point of failure on 1633 FR tests.”
Because the size of the children’s bedding market segment is relatively small, a number of bed manufacturers buy their foam from local distributors and fabricators rather than directly from a major foamer. These distributors and fabricators often handle many types of foam bought from a variety of domestic and import producers. Such resellers may not always be aware of their foam’s components, creating a slight chance that an FR-treated foam designed for automotive use—where some FR foam is still required—might find its way into a residential bedding application even though it wasn’t specified for that use.
“If a manufacturer buys from a small local fabricator or distributor, it needs to be especially diligent to make sure it gets the right product,” Luedeka says.
Once the DTSC finishes its review of the various priority products, it will issue regulations on the use of specific chemicals. At that time, manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers of these priority products could be required to take action, depending on any new guidelines that are set. As a result, all entities in the chain of commerce producing and selling such products need to keep abreast of future developments and understand the steps required to be in compliance when that time comes, the DTSC advises.
State activity heating up
Following California’s lead, other states also are moving to impose tighter restrictions on the use, labeling and reporting of chemicals in consumer products.
“There’s a lot going on right now with regard to chemical regulation,” says ISPA’s Trainer. “Governments at the international, federal and state levels are imposing new rules regarding what chemicals industry can use, what needs to be disclosed and whether alternatives should be used.”
In June 2014, for example, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law a bill requiring manufacturers of products with toxic chemicals that can cause harmful health effects to disclose when those chemicals are present in children’s products. The new law identifies 66 chemicals of high concern to children and provides the authority for chemicals to be added or removed through rulemaking. Manufacturers that intentionally add these chemicals to their children’s products, including cribs and kids’ mattresses and bedding, will have to notify the Vermont Department of Health.
Manufacturers must begin to submit disclosures biennially to the Health Department starting July 1, 2016.
The new law is designed to give scientists data about the number of products that contain chemicals of concern and the amount of chemicals in products. The state will provide that information on a website that consumers can use to assist in making purchasing decisions. Eventually, some of the chemicals of concern could be banned for sale in Vermont for use in children’s products or require a label before they can be sold.
To date, Vermont has restricted the use of bisphenol A (BPA), some phthalates, some PBDEs and some chlorinated phosphate (Tris) flame retardants in children’s products and a limited number of other products. The current list should have little or no impact on mattress producers. For example, the use of most types of phthalates in children’s products is already prohibited by federal law, PBDEs were phased out of use in the United States as an FR additive in polyurethane foams years ago, mattresses do not need to use Tris-treated foam to meet 1633 requirements and BPA is not used in mattresses. But that could change depending on what new chemicals Vermont adds to its list.
Similar laws restricting the use of chemicals in children’s products have been enacted in Washington state and Maine. And legislators in other states, such as Connecticut, Oregon and Massachusetts, are considering measures.
State legislative interest in this topic appears to be growing. A total of 577 bills involving toxins and chemicals were introduced in 2014, or reintroduced from previous sessions, covering 43 states, according to an environmental health legislation database maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2013, 399 such bills were filed.
In a news release announcing Vermont’s new law, Shumlin shared his view that chemical regulation should be a national enterprise, not a state-by-state endeavor, but added that the failure of Congress to update the federal Toxic Substances Control Act prompts many states to act on their own. TSCA (pronounced Tah-skah) has not been as effective at limiting exposure to toxic chemicals in consumer products as state officials desire, he said, so they moved to impose their own requirements for the state.
“Until TSCA is updated, more and more states are going to follow the lead of California,” says ISPA’s Trainer. “And it’s likely the scope of regulation in states that have already acted, like Vermont and Washington, will expand to include a wider range of products. Right now, this issue only affects children’s products, a relatively small segment of our industry. But we know from the actions of the past 15 years that home furnishings is a targeted group for these sorts of regulations.”
If more states move to set their own standards, that will cause significant new challenges for suppliers and manufacturers, Carpenter’s Pugh adds. “Piecemeal regulations are very hard to keep up with since the rules vary from state to state. Just tracking all the proposals and regulations and making the necessary notifications and labels for customers will be a costly and time-consuming process.”
And a hodgepodge of different state rules will create many logistical challenges, since virtually everything would have to be labeled to protect against a product intended for one region or market ending up being used in another location or industry, he adds.
When states act on their own, there’s also a risk that a useful product may be eliminated from the marketplace without cause. “Most states don’t have the resources to do a true scientific assessment of the materials,” Pugh says. “Their decisions can sometimes be purely reactionary, based on the court of public opinion rather than a scientific risk assessment.”
The call for TSCA reform
Passed in 1976, TSCA is a federal law that provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to review and regulate chemicals in commerce. TSCA was designed to protect the public and the environment from toxic substances. Rarely amended since its adoption, the law is in need of a major update to reflect the many changes that have taken place in science and society since that time, says Robert Flagg, senior director of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council in Washington.
“Creating an effective process for assessing chemicals is crucial for generating valuable exposure information and developing regulations that protect human health and the environment while preserving America’s ability to innovate,” Flagg says. “Unfortunately, because few substantive changes have been made to TSCA over the years, there’s been a loss of faith on the part of the public that the government—no matter which party is in control—is using the tools available to make sure the chemicals we use are safe.”
To educate Congress and the public about the need for reform, ACC formed the American Alliance for Innovation, a coalition of more than 180 trade associations representing a broad spectrum of the economy, including ISPA. In an April 2014 letter to senior leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the group urged officials to take action to strengthen TSCA.
“Creating an effective national regulatory system that will allow us to continue to provide the goods and services that so many Americans rely on as part of their everyday lives is critical as part of this update,” the letter says. “In addition, any update needs to allow U.S. industries to continue to bring innovative solutions to the marketplace and provide consumers with a greater degree of confidence that chemicals in commerce are being used safely.”
Even though bills to reform the measure have been under consideration by Congress since 2011, when the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced the Safe Chemicals Act, which attracted bipartisan support, little progress has been made (See story on pages 38-39), causing a number of environmental advocacy groups and attorneys general to push for more immediate action at the state level. As a result, the regulatory landscape has become fractured and contradictory in some cases, says Chris Hudgins, vice president of government relations and policy at ISPA. This state-level patchwork of chemical bans has the potential to become a regulatory nightmare—an outcome the mattress industry and many other businesses hope can still be avoided by meaningful reform to TSCA.
Be prepared
With more changes to California’s Prop 65 warning regulations on the horizon, as well as the identification of potential products that will be subject to California’s new SCP regulations, sleep product producers need to keep a steady eye on their shifting obligations and liabilities in the state.
“If they aren’t doing this already, manufacturers need to talk with their suppliers about what’s in their components,” says ISPA’s Trainer. “They need to know what chemicals are being used, if they are on the Prop 65 list or are of concern to other states, and in what volumes. Manufacturers need a clear understanding of any areas where they might be exposed to regulation and possibly litigation. And if they are adding a new product that they don’t have any history with, they need to pay close attention to what’s in that.”
The concern is not the chemicals that are used to make the product, but the residual, unreacted chemicals that remain, adds HSM’s Bush. “TDI has been on the Prop 65 list for around 30 years. A key ingredient in flexible polyurethane foam, TDI is completely reacted in the foaming process and cannot be found in cured, finished foam. As a result, TDI carries a Prop 65 label. Foam does not.”
This due diligence is particularly important when it comes to imported fabrics, foams and other components.
“It’s the U.S. importers’ responsibility to keep records and, if there is a lawsuit, they are the face for the foreign company,” Bush says. “That can be a big problem if you’re not prepared. One of our furniture customers recently called and asked how he would go about having a piece of Chinese-made foam tested for fire retardants. The smart answer: Don’t buy from them or, if you do, make sure you ask lots of questions at every stage of the transaction.
“Anybody using imported product, particularly shipping into California, better be sure they know exactly what’s in it.”
To stay on top of potential issues, Bush recommends that mattress manufacturers develop a set of chemical best practices, assigning an individual or team to work with product engineers and component sources to assess the chemical content of current and planned products. He said that California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment provides a number of useful resources, including a newsletter and Listserv for staying on top of Prop 65 requirements, additions and changes.
“We regularly go through their list and look for any new chemicals that have been added that might be relevant,” Bush says. “But the way things are going, it may reach the point where one day it will be easier to make a list of chemicals that aren’t on Prop 65 than the ones that are.”
Bush also suggests companies consult with legal counsel familiar with the requirements of Prop 65 and other federal and state safety laws for advice on what, if any, action to take with regard to the sourcing of materials and labeling of products. “Communication both in and outside the organization, along with the ongoing monitoring and compliance with safety standards, are critical to one’s success in avoiding problems,” Bush advises.
While it looks like current regulations won’t have much of an impact on the sleep products industry in the short or medium term, “long term, we all need to have a basic understanding of the issues and be alert to new developments,” adds Trainer of ISPA.
“Down the road, we may be required to provide additional information on our product labels. We may reach the point where we’re not only showing that we’re using new foam or fiber in our products, as we currently do, but we’re also providing details about what’s in the foam or fiber,” Trainer says. “That’s one area where our industry may face more of a regulatory burden in the future.”
Administered by the Alliance for Flexible Polyurethane Foam—a joint program of the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry of the American Chemistry Council and the Polyurethane Foam Association—the CertiPUR-US label provides assurance that the foam in bedding or upholstered furniture has been tested and certified by an independent laboratory to meet specific criteria for indoor emissions, content and physical performance.
To earn the seal, CertiPUR-US-certified foams are tested by a third-party laboratory to confirm they have been made without chlorofluorocarbons or other ozone depleters; PBDE flame retardants; mercury, lead and heavy metals; formaldehyde; and prohibited phthalates. Certified foams also must demonstrate low levels of volatile organic compound emissions that impact indoor air quality, and they must pass physical performance tests for durability.
More than two dozen foam producers and 100 mattress manufacturers from around the world have certified foam products through the program since its launch in 2008. Companies with certified products include major foamers such as Carpenter, Future Foam, FXI, HSM, Innocor and Vitafoam. Manufacturers such as Englander, Glideaway, Kingsdown, Restonic, Simmons, Symbol and Therapedic also have qualified all of their foam sources as CertiPUR-US compliant. A number of import foam and mattress sources also participate in the program.
“Participation in the CertiPUR-US program continues to grow every year,” says Bob Luedeka, executive director of PFA in Loudon, Tennessee. “It’s been a very successful vehicle for the mattress industry to demonstrate that products are free of problematic chemicals. The program is designed around a framework of science-based tests that break down key components and emissions to provide a clear picture of a foam product’s safety.”
The odds of Congress reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act—the federal law passed in 1976 that gives the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate the manufacture, use and distribution of new and existing chemicals—may improve now that the Senate is in Republican hands.
With Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) out as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, one of the main impediments to TSCA reform has been removed. Last Congress, Boxer blocked an historic bipartisan chemical safety reform package introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and David Vitter (R-La.) from seeing committee action. (When Lautenberg passed away in 2013, Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico became the lead Democrat for the bill.) The bill had strong bipartisan support, with more than 25 percent of the Senate signed on as cosponsors, but Boxer viewed the measure as threatening the stronger state regulations California recently has put in place.
“Sen. Boxer and other state lawmakers opposed the bill’s preemption language, which would make the EPA the deciding authority on these issues rather than each individual state,” says Chris Hudgins, vice president of government relations and policy for the International Sleep Products Association. “They are concerned that EPA won’t have as much power as the states, and they don’t want to undo what the states have already done in this area.”
But having each state set its own restrictions for chemical use, disclosure and labeling would be “death by a thousand cuts,” says Robert Flagg, senior director of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council in Washington. “It would make business terribly difficult, since companies would have to track and comply with a blizzard of ever-changing regulations that vary from state to state.”
The ACC and ISPA, along with a diverse coalition of manufacturers and retailers, supported the Vitter-Udall measure, known as the Chemical Safety Improvement Act. The group—working together as the American Alliance for Innovation—contends that chemicals management law must be updated to keep pace with scientific advancements and to provide Americans with the confidence that the federal regulatory system is working to protect their families and the environment.
“The sound oversight of the production and use of chemicals affects us all, which is why we are committed to science-based, common-sense bipartisan reform of our nation’s chemical regulatory system,” says Amy DuVall, senior director of federal affairs for the ACC, which helped organize the alliance.
With the change in the balance of congressional power, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) now leads the Senate’s EPW committee, which means the Vitter-Udall bill, when reintroduced in 2015, will have a better chance of heading to the floor for a vote than in years past.
“The choke points that kept the previous bill from moving forward have been removed,” Flagg says. “It doesn’t mean that a bill will be a slam dunk, but the odds of passage are greatly improved.”
To ensure that a new bill has a chance of being signed by President Obama, it needs to have bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, Flagg adds. “The administration has never taken a position on any of the TSCA reform bills, so it’s possible that passage would require a veto-proof majority.”
Flagg adds that Vitter and Udall in the Senate and Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) in the House all have indicated that TSCA reform remains high on their priority lists. “We’re optimistic that this Congress may be able to act this time.”
For some U.S. environmental groups and policymakers, Europe’s REACH system provides a model for how chemical regulation might be approached in the United States.
REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. Put into force by the European Community in 2007, it is founded on the “precautionary principle,” which requires that chemicals undergo a rigorous program of testing and assessment to demonstrate before they can be marketed or released into the environment that they pose no danger to people or wildlife.
“REACH is substantially different from the regulatory approach historically employed in the United States,” says Ryan Trainer, president of the International Sleep Products Association. “Under the REACH model, there’s no presumption that existing chemical substances that have been commonly used and marketed safely for many decades are safe. Instead, the manufacturers and importers of particular chemical substances to the EU must overcome a presumption that these substances are not safe.”
The European approach can be time-consuming and costly, adds Trainer. “Critics argue that REACH imposes costs that discourage innovation. In the U.S., we take a more common-sense approach based on practical experience: If a chemical has been in use for a long time without problems, we generally assume it’s safe unless shown otherwise. We don’t force companies to prove a negative—that no harm could be caused by a chemical’s use.”
At one point in time, the Toxic Substances Control Act—the current federal law regulating U.S. use of chemicals—was seen as the “gold standard” for global chemical regulation, says Robert Flagg, senior director of federal affairs for the American Chemistry Council in Washington. “But in recent years, everyone has started poking holes in TSCA. Some proponents of change argue that a more precautionary approach is needed, and they point to REACH as a possible model. But REACH is an unproven system with a number of potentially serious flaws.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Film, Bag Recycling Campaign Hits Dunn County
Feb 6, 2015 | The Dunn County News
To create awareness about plastic film and bag recycling, the Dunn County Solid Waste Division is launching a new advertising campaign. Educating people about what types of plastic film and bags are recyclable, these advertising spots will be featured in newspapers, on a billboard, banners, through radio spots and at the local movie theater.
The ad campaign playfully compares recycling to reincarnation, giving new life to old materials. Featured in the ads are a digging dog who was formerly an archeologist, and a plastic lumber fence that used to be a bread bag. The ads were created by Flapjack Creative of Wausau. Funding to create the ads came from a grant through the Dunn County Community Foundation, while placement of the ads is funded by the American Chemistry Council.
The Dunn County Solid Waste Division has been working to energize and educate the public about plastic film and bag recycling since last summer.
In 2014, Dunn County was chosen as part of a pilot program for a nationwide public outreach initiative aimed at increasing the recycling of plastic film packaging. The pilot program, called WRAP (Wrap Recycling Action Program) is made possible through coordination of both local and national organizations including the American Chemistry Council, Flexible Film Recycling Group, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Indianhead Enterprises, Inc. and Trex Company, Inc.
The Dunn County Solid Waste Division and the City of Menomonie initially kicked off their plastic film and bag recycling program by designating June as “Plastic Film and Bag Recycling Awareness Month.” Area Collection Stations and the Transfer Station began accepting plastic film such as dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags, plastic wrap around napkins, toilet paper, bottled water, etc. in addition to traditional grocery bags.
Thanks to a partnership with Indianhead Enterprises, the plastic film and bags collected by Dunn County are recycled into composite decking by Trex Company, Inc. Dunn County hopes the new campaign will teach residents to recycle plastic film and bags, as well as encourage businesses to recycle items such as stretch wrap, pallet wrap, furniture wrap, retail bags and more.
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Profiles for Toxaphene, Trichlorobenzenes Issued by ATSDR, Listing Potential Hazards
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Berger
Final toxicological profiles for toxaphene and trichlorobenzenes have been completed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, according to a notice scheduled to be published Feb. 9.
The profiles detail the potential health effects of chemicals found at Superfund sites and inform the ATSDR's assessment of threats to human health from contaminants at those sites, the notice said.
Toxaphene was a widely used pesticide, particularly on cotton, until it was banned in the U.S. in 1990. In large enough doses, toxaphene can cause convulsions, liver and kidney damage and immune system impacts, according to the new profile, although it notes that high doses are unlikely now that the chemical has been banned.
Toxaphene ranks 32nd among the 275 substances on the ATSDR's Substance Priority List, which ranks substances that pose the most significant threats to human health and are commonly found at Superfund sites. It has been found in at least 68 sites listed on the Superfund National Priorities List.
Trichlorobenzenes are solvents that come in three different chemical structures, two colorless solids and one colorless liquid. They get into the air and have been detected in water, where they can accumulate in high concentrations in fish and other species that humans might consume. Studies on animals have predicted liver problems in humans from high dosages of trichlorobenzenes. The substances have been found in at least 222 NPL sites and are ranked No. 137, 199 and 258 on the Substance Priority List.
The release of the final profiles follows ATSDR's release of a draft profile and incorporation of public comments on that draft into a final profile (75 Fed. Reg. 71,132).
ATSDR conducts assessments of the human health risks posed by hazardous substances at sites proposed for the NPL. The toxicological profiles summarize information on those substances for the general public.
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Feb 9, 2015 | Roll Call
By Norbert E. Kaminski
The federal law governing chemicals used in commerce in the United States affects every person and business, but few are aware of its importance to their lives or that it is outdated and in serious need of modernization.
That law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, was enacted by Congress when Gerald Ford was president in 1976 and has not been revised since. During that time, our knowledge and abilities to develop, evaluate and manage chemicals has dramatically improved. The new Congress offers an opportunity to take advantage of these advanced capabilities and ensure a revised law will enable application of future scientific and technological progress and that the best science is used to protect public health and the environment.
The Society of Toxicology, which is composed of scientists from across academia, government and industry, will be on the front lines of implementing a revised law and intends to play an active role in determining how that new law develops to best ensure the health and safety of all Americans. The very basis of chemical safety regulation — evaluating hazard, exposure and risk — are core activities that toxicologists engage in daily.
Toxicology provides science and information essential to supporting innovation and addressing human and environmental health, and it is essential that any TSCA reform legislation reflect the human health and economic value of science-informed decision making.
The SOT’s approximately 8,000 members worldwide represent the broad spectrum of sciences that toxicology encompasses, ranging from the more mature disciplines of pharmacology, biology, chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, pathology, pharmacy and veterinary sciences to emerging disciplines such as genomics and computational biology.
As scientists, we advocate for the science. We do not engage on the commercial or political elements that will, no doubt, also influence TSCA modernization. Our goal is simple — to ensure the best science is applied to protect public health and the environment.
SOT formed its TSCA Task Force in 2010. Our TSCA reform efforts adhere to three main principles:
1. Ensure the revised legislation affords flexibility in selection of the best available science for generating and evaluating information used in the safety and risk assessment process.
2. Ensure protection of the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency, working with the scientific community, to judge when and how to apply new techniques and methods.
3. Ensure the terms and concepts used in the legislative language that apply to the science of toxicology are consistent, accurate and unambiguous.
“Best available science” means that experiments and their findings are transparent and reproducible and the methods used are underpinned by our current understanding of the underlying biology. This understanding is not static but is constantly evolving. Congress should resist the temptation to try to spell out specific scientific methods in law and allow scientific evolutionary progress to continue.
Molecular biology advances are now being used to better describe and understand the basic biology of cells and provide tools to evaluate the effects of chemicals on early cellular processes. Advancements in analytical techniques and data analysis have opened a new level of capability for determining the types and amounts of chemicals we actually encounter in everyday life. Alternative approaches to traditional animal testing are increasingly being developed and used, along with an explosion of high through-put tools that offer key insights, in near “real time,” into a chemical’s intrinsic hazard potential.
The law should ensure that as we scientists learn more, we should be free to apply this new understanding to develop and use new methods and approaches for evaluating chemicals for the protection of public health.
TSCA reform should also ensure that only those government agencies with the appropriate scientific expertise, such as the EPA, shall have the authority to judge when to adopt and how to apply new techniques and methods for generating information for safety and risk assessment within TSCA. Recognizing the potential of the many advances in available tools requires a deep understanding of both the capabilities, as well as the limitations, of the science and the skill to be able to synthesize this information to make chemical safety decisions. At its core, TSCA is about protection of human health and the environment through the evaluation and regulation of chemicals in commerce. Evaluation of chemical hazard and risk fundamentally involves toxicological sciences. SOT is deeply committed to providing knowledge and working with all stakeholders so that sound, progressive and protective TSCA legislation will emerge in 2015
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'Gift' Of Preemption Could Secure Industry Backing On TSCA Reform Fees
Feb 6, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Giving the chemical sector a long-sought “gift” of preempting state chemical programs as part of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation could secure the sector's backing for a comprehensive industry fee program that would amply fund a robust new EPA chemicals program created by reform, stakeholders are suggesting.
“Preemption is a big gift,” Alexandra Dunn, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) -- representing many state environmental agencies -- told a Feb. 5 panel discussion on TSCA reform.
Dunn noted that state agencies, several of which have chemicals management programs stricter than EPA's regime, are currently unwilling to accept preemption of their own toxics regulations because there is not a robust and well-funded federal alternative. “As the conversation matures, that's an important connection to make.”
Ernie Rosenberg, president and CEO of the American Cleaning Institute, told the same panel while there currently is “no nexus between the preemption and fee discussions, I do think they inevitably will converge.”
Fellow panelist Herb Estreicher, of law firm Keller and Heckman, added, “I think industry would be happy to pay user fees if they had a strong preemption provision,” suggesting a potential “trade off.”
EPA has long maintained that any legislation to overhaul the decades-old TSCA must include a mechanism for a sustained source of funding for the agency to implement the bill's new provisions. And agency officials indicated last year that existing budget levels would likely produce between 10-20 chemical assessments per year -- far less than what is needed to tackle the thousands of chemicals that are already in the marketplace.
The funding issue raises questions including “What is the hook, what is industry getting, and what is the tollbooth for collecting fees?” Rosenberg asked at the discussion on “The Price of Reform: Models for Financing TSCA 2.0,” hosted by law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and the Environmental Law Institute.
The issue of preempting state chemicals programs has long been a major hurdle to advancing TSCA reform, with previous Republican-led bills drawing opposition from Democrats for blocking state efforts.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) while chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) in the 113th Congress refused to hold a markup on a bipartisan TSCA reform bill introduced by then-EPW ranking member Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) until her concerns about preemption were addressed. A compromise was not reached and TSCA reform did not advance in the Senate last year.
Similarly, divisions in the House over the preemption issue helped to kill the lower chamber's TSCA reform push last year. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chair of the Energy & Commerce Committee's environment panel, says he will start anew on crafting a TSCA reform bill this year in a bid to win more Democratic support.
Some TSCA reform stakeholders have suggested the merits of crafting a TSCA reform bill first and punting a debate over the bill's preemption language until agreement is reached on all other aspects of the bill.
For example, Claudia Polsky, deputy attorney general with the California attorney general's office, at a Jan. 27 ELI event said, "The possibility of preemption has to be the last ask," as the level of preemption that states could accept must be viewed against potentially stricter EPA chemical rules under such a bill.
Fee Program
But Dunn acknowledged that the panel discussion “might be onto something with tying the fee” issue to the level of preemption in a reform bill, which could finally resolve the long-running issue.
A potential agreement to preempt state programs in exchange for industry support of a comprehensive new fee program to pay for implementing whatever EPA chemicals program would be created under a TSCA reform bill could also help end prolonged uncertainty over how to pay for toxics law reform.
Panelists at the recent discussion questioned whether preemption could serve as incentive for industry to accept user fees that would partially fund EPA safety determinations and other assessments on chemicals.
Similarly, other stakeholders voiced the concern that the TSCA framework does not provide similar incentives for manufacturers to pay for reviews of chemicals already in the marketplace.
In contrast, under federal pesticide laws and the European Union's REACH chemical safety program, a substance must be registered or approved before being distributed in the marketplace.
Proponents of TSCA reform have suggested various options for addressing the funding issue for TSCA reform. For example, industry-financed models used to pay for Food & Drug Administration drug approval programs, as well as EPA's own pesticide registration program -- which sets fixed deadlines for regulatory action in exchange for user fees -- have been suggested as possible models for a TSCA fee structure.
“I don't think current TSCA is set up for user fees at all,” Martha Marrapese, an attorney with the firm Keller and Heckman, said during the discussion.
She noted that under the current TSCA framework, user fees would allow one company to pay a fee for a safety assessment that competitors using the same substance could then take advantage of.
Richard Denison, senior scientist with Environmental Defense Fund, agreed that the current TSCA framework is not necessarily conducive to user fees. But he noted that “I think there are hooks,” such as reviews for substances designated “high-priority” as under the reform bills introduced last Congress.
ECOS' Dunn suggested that one possible incentive for industry to partially fund EPA safety research might be driven by the concern frequently cited by chemical manufacturers of states stepping increasingly into the regulatory arena with their own toxics programs absent a strong federal program.
Legislative Efforts
Last Congress, two Democratic TSCA reform drafts circulated in the form of marked-up bills addressed funding mechanisms in an attempt to resolve the issue.
For example, a redlined draft House Democrats floated of a bill crafted by Shimkus contained a fee provision, and Boxer also floated her own revisions to the Vitter-Lautenberg bill that would have directed EPA to determine “reasonable fees.” Both the S. 1009 and Shimkus bills were silent on the issue of funding.
The Democratic models, however, did not propose to clearly set specific percentage of chemical reviews that the fees would finance, Mark Duvall, of Beveridge & Diamond, pointed out at the legal discussion. He said that the plans would instead “punt to EPA to set quote, reasonable, unquote, fees.”
ECOS' Dunn said that TSCA reform proponents should begin thinking about whether a reform bill should set up a fee structure or leave to the agency, the latter of which she said could “leave EPA in a complete vacuum and years and years of litigation of the reasonableness” of the fee system the agency establishes.
Pat Casano, senior counsel at General Electric, also pointed out that it must be clear what sort of EPA chemical assessments the fees would be supporting, noting that the agency's Integrated Risk Information System reviews are far lengthier and more costly than the TSCA “work plan” chemical reviews the agency conducts.
“We need to be very clear about what it is we want to fund, what kinds of assessments we want to pay for, what we mean by robust . . . all that needs to be defined,” Casano said. Some stakeholders also raised concerns that a user fee might face Republican opposition because it might be viewed as a tax of sorts. “There's a very practical concern here,” Duvall said, noting that if a fee is considered a tax, a reform bill might have to go through the congressional finance committees in addition to environmental panels, facing additional GOP scrutiny.
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Preventing Cancer Upstream: California's Safer Consumer Products Program
Feb 6, 2015 | The Huffington Post
By Debbie Raphael
The urologist gave me a puzzled look as she evaluated the biopsy results and asked a question I never thought I'd hear: "Have you worked around or been exposed to toxic chemicals?" I answered that it was an incredibly ironic question given that I have dedicated my career to the elimination of toxic chemicals. Why did she want to know? Much to her surprise and mine, her results showed that I have bladder cancer. Common risk categories for this cancer include older white guys who smoke or workers exposed to certain industrial chemicals like dyes and pesticides. Aside from being white, to my knowledge none of the above seemed to fit. And so I was left wondering why. Why me?
I am not alone. Scientists, cancer survivors, and the families who love them around the world are wondering what is going on. Genetics cannot explain the significant increases in incidence of certain cancers, nor can random mutations or lifestyle choices. Perhaps most alarming are the statistics around breast cancer. Between 1973 and 2011, the span of one generation, a woman's lifetime risk of breast cancer increased from 1 in 20 to a mind-boggling 1 in 8.
It turns out we expose ourselves daily to a myriad of chemicals known to harm human cells and disrupt the body's development. Tests of blood, urine and breast milk show the presence of dozens of carcinogenic chemicals and other chemicals of concern in our bodies. Proving that a particular chemical exposure led to someone's cancer is an elusive and impossible goal. Still, it is naïve to think that these toxic industrial chemicals found within our bodies have no impact on health.
But how can it be that chemicals, which can cause such harm, are allowed in the products we bring into our homes, schools and workplaces? Unfortunately, the laws intended to protect us are out of date. The US law that governs the use of chemicals in commerce, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), was put in place in 1976 and grandfathered in all chemicals on the market at that time. Since 1976, our understanding of cancer and toxicology has significantly advanced, while federal law has largely remained static and ultimately ineffectual.
While Europe, Japan, and Canada have all modernized their approach to regulating toxic chemicals at a national level, it has largely fallen on local and state governments in the US to take action and prevent harm. A plethora of local and state bills restrict the use of chemicals like lead and cadmium in children's products, phthalates in toys, or certain flame-retardants in upholstered furniture. These efforts are incredibly important, but not comprehensive enough. With over 100,000 chemicals used by industry, bans on a handful of chemicals barely scratch the surface of the problem. In addition, a narrow focus can lead to the phenomenon of "regrettable substitution." Witness the replacement of the hormone-disrupting bisphenol A (BPA) in cash register receipts with the lesser known, bisphenol S (BPS), which has been shown to disrupt normal brain growth, leading to hyperactivity. Scenarios like this require renewed vigor in safer product design.
Even before my personal experience with cancer, I have spent my career as an advocate for safer product design and the Precautionary Principle. On February 4th, I had the opportunity to convey my efforts and thoughts at Less Cancer's event for National Cancer Prevention Day in Washington DC. I proudly shared that California is taking a comprehensive approach through its Safer Consumer Products Program. The program will radically change the way manufacturers design and produce consumer products and the benefit will be felt far beyond the borders of our state. Manufacturers who want to sell certain products into California will have to answer the question: "Is it necessary to use this toxic ingredient, or is there a safer alternative?" The state's landmark 2008 Green Chemistry Law introduced the concept of alternatives assessment, providing a regulatory driver to spur the development of safer products. When manufacturers must examine all alternatives, the marketplace responds with innovative solutions that are both effective and protective to human health and the environment. We have seen it happen again and again.
Under the leadership of Governor Jerry Brown and the California Department of Toxics Substance Control, California's Safer Consumer Products Program supports public health and is a strong driver for business innovation. Already, companies have responded by promoting products designed with safer alternatives to some of the 1,100 potentially problematic chemicals targeted by the program. As with previous state regulations around energy and fuel efficiency, California's early actions to protect health and the environment send signals to a wider marketplace eager and able to respond. California's Safer Consumer Products Program benefits the entire nation by encouraging an innovative upstream framework, which is critical to making products safer.
While the task of identifying safer alternatives may seem daunting, it pales in comparison to dealing with the impacts of cancer in our lives. As more families like mine struggle to cope with a diagnosis of cancer, we don't have time to waste debating whether the known carcinogens or endocrine disruptors found in everyday products cause cancer-even my bladder cancer. Evidence and ingenuity have shown that far too often, those chemicals are NOT necessary. So, even as governments around the world continue to work with manufacturers on safer alternatives, families need to start asking, "Is there a safer alternative available and if not, why not?
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European Commission Amends List of Approved Plastic FCMs
Feb 9, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has made six additions and ten amendments to the list of substances authorised under the EU's Regulation on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
The substances added to the Regulation's Annex I are:
butadiene, ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and styrene, copolymer cross-linked with divinylbenzene, in nanoform;
butadiene, ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and styrene copolymer not cross-linked, in nanoform;
butadiene, ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and styrene copolymer cross-linked with 1,3-butanediol dimethacrylate, in nanoform;2H-perfluoro-[(5,8,11,14-tetramethyl)-tetraethyleneglycol ethyl propyl ether];
ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer wax; andpolyglycerol.
The ten amended entries are:
tartaric acid, to include only its natural occurring form;phenol, to add a specific migration limit of 3 mg/kg;
1,4-butanediol formal, to add a specific migration limit of 0.05 mg/kg;
1,4:3,6-dianhydrosorbitol, to add its use as a co-monomer for the production of polyesters;kaolin, to include particles in the nanoform of less than 100 nm and incorporated up to 12% in ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer;
charcoal, activated, to add the name of activated carbon as applying to the same substance;
1,3,5-tris(2,2-dimethylpropanamido)benzene, increasing the migration limit to 5 mg/kg food;
polyethyleneglycol (EO = 1-50) ethers of linear and branched primary (C8-C22) alcohols, to set a maximum ethylene oxide content;the group of substances acids, fatty (C8-C22), esters with pentaerythritol, to delete the associated CAS number;
2,2,4,4-tetramethylcyclobutane-1,3-diol, extending its use to single use applications.
The changes will enter into force on 26 February. However, products that are currently compliant may be placed on the market until 26 February 2016 and will be allowed to remain on the market until stocks are exhausted.
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(ACC Mentioned) Will This Ruin $124 Billion in Natural Gas Investments? (Hint: It's Not OPEC)
Feb 7, 2015 | The Motley Fool
By Maxx Chatsko
One industry's waste is another industry's treasure. While the United States is home to some of the cheapest natural gas reserves in the world, it lacks the infrastructure needed to fully process all of the components in natural gas. Hydrocarbons such as ethane that cannot be used in gas-fired power plants or chemical facilities at the other end of a pipeline are instead typically burned off. Not only is this wasteful from an environmental standpoint, but it creates inefficiencies from an economical standpoint, too, sapping potential revenue streams for drillers.
That point is illustrated by the fact that the United States produces over 300,000 barrels per day of ethane that it cannot use. Luckily, companies such as ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM ) and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW ) have raced to provide solutions by building or expanding dozens of domestic petrochemical facilities, which represent an industrywide investment of $124 billion, according to the American Chemistry Council. These petrochemical plants, called ethane crackers, will convert excess ethane into ethylene (the starting point for higher-value fibers, plastics, detergents, and various other everyday products) at such low costs that not even the OPEC-induced oil pricing war will challenge the economics.
But that doesn't mean the investments are entirely safe. In fact, a new process for manufacturing ethylene developed by Brazilian chemical leader Braskem (NYSE: BAK ) could be the biggest global threat in the long term. It's secret ingredient? Ethanol.
Ethanol vs. Big Oil, Round 2?
In late 2010, Braskem opened a production facility that each year converts 122 million gallons of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol into 200,000 metric tons of ethylene. It was the first in the world capable of churning out renewable ethylene, which avoids 4 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions for every 1 MT of product. At a capital cost of $278 million, the facility was relatively cheap to build -- an uncommon feature for a first-of-a-kind facility. It's important to note that the product is exactly the same as ethylene created from petrochemicals. Those factors helped Braskem to sell roughly 80% of the facility's production to environmentally conscious, consumer-facing companies such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson before construction even began.he platform has won dozens of awards throughout the world, helped Braskem to cement its leadership position in renewable chemicals, and forced the company to evaluate how to best expand its technology on a global scale. That will be necessary, considering production of 200,000 MT per year is not particularly significant, even for Braskem. Renewable ethylene represents less than 2% of its total annual production capacity and just 5% of its total annual ethylene capacity. The small volume of renewable ethylene will be further diluted by production from an ethane cracker the company hopes to bring online by the end of 2015.
Yes, even the world's leading green chemical manufacturer is investing billions in North American ethane crackers to produce petrochemical ethylene. The economics are just too good to pass up, as investments from nearly all of the world's leading chemical companies demonstrate (keep in mind, these are just a few).
American ethane is so cheap that Sasol, the company that perfected gas-to-liquids technology, decided to cancel an $11 billion gas-to-liquids facility in Louisiana instead of its $7 billion ethane cracker. Dow Chemical expects to add nearly $2 billion in annual EBITDA once its ethane crackers are running at full capacity, which will give the company access to cheaper ethylene (produced in-house) for its performance plastics products. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil estimates increased chemical investments will create 600,000 American jobs and $250 billion in economic output within a decade of operations.
Given the optimism about and size of investments in American ethane, does renewable ethylene created from ethanol have any chance of competing on a global scale?
How low can you go?
Chemical manufacturing is a game in which the cheapest feedstock wins. And when it comes to ethylene production, the world has two options: (1) ethane-to-ethylene and (2) naphtha-to-ethylene. That said, American ethane from natural gas handily beats naphtha derived from crude oil nearly anywhere in the world. The severe cost disadvantage facing naphtha-to-ethylene production in Europe and Japan remains in place despite falling oil prices and has driven the industry's $124 billion in investments in ethane crackers.As you can probably guess, ethanol-to-renewable ethylene will also have a difficult time competing with American ethane anytime soon. Using current market prices for ethanol and ethane, production from Braskem's renewable ethylene facility is roughly 200% to 300% more expensive than would-be production from the petrochemical plant Dow Chemical expects to bring online in 2017. Sure, Braskem's facility is many times cheaper to build, but capital cost advantages are washed out in the long term. Besides, ethane isn't necessarily the competition for ethanol.
Consider that Braskem's ethanol-to-renewable ethylene process is already competitive with established naphtha-to-ethylene processes in certain markets that have access to cheap ethanol, such as Europe or China. The economics will become more persuasive when oil prices inevitably rise in the years ahead. That could encourage foreign chemical manufacturers to invest in renewable ethylene production relying on domestic feedstocks instead of imports from America. Should Europe or China build enough capacity, American chemical plants could lose valuable export markets already penciled into earnings and growth projections.
It's also worth noting that American ethane will eventually be valued higher than current near-zero levels. When ethane crackers come online in 2017 and begin gobbling up excess ethane, so, too, will new ethane pipelines to Canada and ethane export terminals along the Gulf Coast. That combination of infrastructure solutions will force ethane markets to behave as, well, real markets with competition for supply. In other words, ethane prices will rise.
But even if ethanol maintains its 10-year average price of roughly $2.25 per gallon (compared to $1.40 today) and ethane rises to $0.40 per pound (compared to $0.10 today), then renewable ethylene still wouldn't be cost competitive with ethane crackers. However, presenting global ethanol producers with an alternative -- and higher value -- market to transportation fuels could shift the economics in unpredictable ways. For instance, rather than idling production due to constraints in fuel markets, American ethanol capacity could operate full-steam ahead with an eye toward renewable chemical production. Throw in another record corn harvest that pushes corn prices and ethanol production costs to multiyear lows and the economics of renewable ethylene don't sound so crazy, even when compared to ethane.
What does it mean for investors?
Diversification is a good thing, even for large, established industries such as natural gas and chemical manufacturing. Companies such as ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical are investing billions of dollars to leverage cheap American ethane to create a global alternative to higher priced naphtha for ethylene production. The economics are almost too good to be true, which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for naphtha to compete head-to-head. That alone should protect the earnings power of world-class ethane crackers being built along the Gulf Coast, along with proposed facilities in the Appalachians. Go ahead, take a deep breath.While investors cheer growth-enabling ethane crackers, they must also acknowledge that ethanol-to-renewable ethylene production provides a realistic and economical manufacturing option. With just 200,000 MT of annual production globally today, it remains a distant threat. But Braskem could expand to markets currently relying on more expensive naphtha that have access to cheap ethanol, such as Europe and China. In the long term that could chip away at the customer base and export markets for American ethane crackers, although the industry's $124 billion in investments are safe for now.
However the ethylene market plays out, two things are likely true. Naphtha-to-ethylene may be going the way of the dodo. And the world's complicated relationship with ethanol is about to get a bit more complicated. How to invest in the technology fueling the U.S. energy boom
As the price of oil plummets, savvy investors are looking for a way to invest in this new energy dynamic. And there's one high-caliber company in the oil-services sector using advanced technology to profit from the U.S. oil boom. Given the country's ongoing quest to extract more and more oil, I strongly urge you to claim your copy of our brand-new investigative report on this company helping fuel its boom. -
(ACC Mentioned) Surging Dollar Adds To Uncertainty For La. Plants
Feb 8, 2015 | The Advocate
By Ted Griggs
With the plunge in oil prices already complicating many planned industrial projects in Louisiana, another factor is rearing its head — the rising value of the dollar.
That’s a problem because many of the chemical and petrochemical plants target overseas markets, where demand is slowing. The surging dollar isn’t helping because it makes U.S. products more expensive.
“It seems to me that you’re going to start seeing the word ‘delay’ a bit until all the dust sort of clears, especially on the price of oil,” economist Loren Scott said. “The value of the dollar is just one more thing that’s being thrown in there that is causing folks who haven’t started up their plants yet to hesitate a bit, to think about it again.”
Over the past five years, plentiful and cheap supplies of natural gas created an enormous cost advantage for U.S. manufacturers. The cost to produce chemicals such as ethylene — the major feedstock for plastics plants — from natural gas is a fraction of the cost to get ethylene from oil.
The result? Since 2010, more than 200 U.S. chemical projects costing more than $135 billion have been announced, according to the American Chemistry Council, the industry trade association. Forty-eight of those projects, valued at $34 billion, are in Louisiana. Most of those are in the Baton Rouge-New Orleans Mississippi River corridor.
The projects promise thousands of permanent and construction jobs and a surge of economic benefits for surrounding communities.
Many of those plants and expansions are targeting foreign markets.
The problem is that the global economic picture has changed.
A more than 50 percent collapse in oil prices since June has eaten into domestic chemical makers’ cost advantage. Slowing European and Asian economies have reduced demand for U.S. chemicals.
In the past year, the dollar has risen about 20 percent against the euro and the Japanese yen. Most economists expect the dollar to maintain its strength.
David Dismukes, executive director of the LSU Center for Energy Studies, said the rise in the dollar’s value was not a surprise. But adding that variable further complicates the economic equation.
Chemical companies haven’t made any big announcements about delaying projects. However, a different kind of facility, Sasol’s $14 billion natural gas-to-liquids plant, was put on hold last month.
The lack of delays suggests chemical companies consider oil’s collapse and the economic slowdown overseas temporary, Dismukes said.
“But you know everybody’s sitting down and resharpening a pencil and going through these, looking at how their profitability outlook has changed,” Dismukes said.
The markets, investors and the chemical industry are having a hard time processing all the information, he said.
For example, when oil services company Baker Hughes reported another significant decline in the U.S. drilling rig count a week ago, “talking heads” on various cable channels said oil production also would drop, he said. Even though the commentators were wrong, investors, buoyed by the idea of declining supplies, helped boost oil prices by 8 percent.
Every day, there’s a knee-jerk reaction in the stock market that’s not based on any real information, Dismukes said. That sort of uncertainty makes it tough for the companies pouring billions of dollars into new projects and highlights how risky the business can be.
The oil price collapse and the surging dollar also are an unpleasant reminder of the 1980s. An oil price collapse then devastated oil and gas drilling activity. Natural gas prices nearly tripled, while the dollar’s value jumped more than 80 percent. The severity of the combination hammered Louisiana’s chemical industry, which lost more than 25 percent of its jobs.
The current conditions are nowhere near as dire.
John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, said the strong dollar affects Louisiana exports, and that could affect the state’s economy.
But the competitive advantage from affordable natural gas remains strong, Felmy said. The United States has the second-lowest feedstock costs in the world.
While the oil price drop has narrowed that advantage, the gap was so wide to begin with that there likely will be little impact on domestic manufacturers, Felmy said. Of course, that prediction depends on how low oil goes and how high the dollar rises.
The oil-to-natural gas price ratio has fallen from around 26:1 to 15:1 since June. The ratio would have to fall to roughly 7:1 to reach the breakeven point, according to the American Chemistry Council.
However, Scott said, the oil-to-gas price ratio doesn’t have to reach parity for U.S. chemical makers to lose the upper hand.
It’s important, he said, to remember that the natural gas advantage has been so great that it overwhelmed Europe and Asia’s benefits of lower costs for labor, transportation and taxes. Those factors mean oil-based feedstock prices don’t have to reach parity with natural gas to eliminate domestic manufacturers’ edge.
“If you just look at the oil side, our problem is that this nice competitive gap that we have is starting to be eaten away. If you layer on top of that now an increase in the value of the dollar, then it’s eating it away even more,” Scott said.
Manufacturers are now trying to factor in “one of the most volatile, difficult-to-forecast things” in the economy: the price of oil, Scott said. And that raises a host of other questions, including: Will oil stay down? Is it going to pop back up? If it does, how high will it go?
Small wonder then, that some companies may ease off the accelerator, Scott said.
“They’re saying, ‘Let’s don’t necessarily stop. Let’s delay a minute until we see where this thing’s going,’ ” he said.
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House GOP To Push Energy Package Outline Next Week
Feb 6, 2015 | Politico
By Darren Goode
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans plan to issue an outline next week on a broad energy strategy that includes updating infrastructure and policies to reflect the booming U.S. production, House GOP and other sources familiar with the strategy said Friday.
The move appears to run parallel to an early strategy that Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski is developing and may represent a serious bicameral effort to craft the most expansive update for energy policy since at least 2007.
The House outline, which could be released as early as Monday, is aimed at modernizing the electric grid and oil and natural gas pipeline infrastructure, addressing what the Republicans dubbed as “energy diplomacy” to bolster cross-border electricity and pipeline links within North America, boosting the energy sector workforce, and increasing energy efficiency and accountability.
The strategy will be to move four separate draft plans through the committee that could be combined into one package on the House floor, with input from other panels.
In a statement, Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) derided what he called “Jimmy Carter-era policies” that threaten the boom in U.S. oil and gas production, and said the measures would follow up on the “Architecture of Abundance” the GOP issued last year.
“That conversation continues this new Congress as we are finalizing a framework to modernize infrastructure, prepare our workforce, take advantage of our energy as a force for good in the world, and boost efficiency and accountability,” he said.
Upton and top panel Republicans are specifically leaving out contentious language involving Republican efforts to rein in EPA regulations, which sources said represents a serious effort by the GOP to broaden bipartisan support for its energy legislation.
“This is a legacy project for Fred Upton,” said one source. “He wants a bill the president will sign.”
Upton has been “frustrated” by the large number of bills his panel has approved and which were passed by House only to die in the Senate, another source said.
Upton “now sees an opportunity that there’s some low-hanging fruit that they can address and put into a bill” that can pass both chambers and that President Barack Obama would sign, a source said. “The guy’s got two years left, so this is as good a time as any to try to do something,” the source said.
Upton also wants to have some built-in support from Democrats from the outset on at least some pieces of the broader plan.
That includes specifically basing the energy workforce section off legislation from Energy and Power Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) that was cosponsored by Energy and Power Chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and several other panel members, sources said.
The House accountability section appears aimed at looking at redundancies across energy policies, and updating those old measures to reflect the surge in domestic energy production.
Upton also has the benefit now of having a Republican-led Senate, and his push is in line with a similar effort by Murkowski to get a broad energy plan through early on this Congress.
The Alaska Republican is seeking to move a package consisting of titles addressing infrastructure, supply, efficiency and accountability. Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has also shown interest in pursuing a broad update to energy law.
Murkowski told reporters Thursday that she and Upton have had “a broad conversation” about the potential for the Senate to move an energy package this year, as well as the jurisdictional and scheduling challenges that may complicate the effort.
“I’ll be upfront, there are people here who are saying, ‘Oooh, Lisa, remember we don’t do big well,’” Murkowski said. “But having said that, think about the process around here. … There’s just not a lot of time for the energy committee to take all the floor time out there because there’s everything else that’s going on.”
Murkowski and Upton are trying build on the momentum after January’s Keystone XL pipeline bill debate, which the House is expected to take up next week before sending it to the White House, where it faces a veto.
And since pipeline supporters lack the votes to override a presidential veto, Upton is hoping he can create a bundle of energy policies that could survive White House scrutiny, while Murkowski’s is focusing on one big package rather than a series of smaller bills.
“I’m good with trying a bigger, broader approach and then selling that to my colleagues,” Murkowski said.
And that may match Upton’s strategy as well, sources said. “They do want to do this in one fell swoop, in one package,” one source said.
The Michigan Republican hopes to have proposals marked up in his panel around late spring and on the floor by early summer. That could get a bicameral agreement in place by early fall, and before Capitol Hill turns its attention to the 2016 election, sources said.
“You’re not going to be doing much past September of this year, so I think they want to get this done soon,” one source said.
The package may also bring in other panels — such as Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure — to deal with potential issues like right of way for pipelines on federal lands, but it would be led by Energy and Commerce. A House GOP leadership aide referred an inquiry Friday to Energy and Commerce.
The House and Senate plans could have notable differences. Murkowski has been a vocal advocate of lifting the decades-old ban on U.S. crude oil exports for instance. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a senior member and past chairman of the House energy committee, has a bill with 13 Republican cosponsors to lift the export ban, but Upton is among those Republicans who appear reluctant to act quickly on that, an issue that Murkowski also has acknowledged.
“I recognize … many of my colleagues in both the House and the Senate haven’t given the considered review that I have and they’re still digesting all of this,” she said Thursday.
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House, Senate Panels Set To Spar Over Agency Budget And Priorities
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will head to Capitol Hill this week to defend President Obama's fiscal 2016 Department of Energy budget request, kicking off a debate between the administration and the GOP-controlled Congress over funding for clean energy technology, efficiency programs and measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Moniz will appear before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power on Wednesday and the full Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday.
DOE's energy and science programs would receive $10.7 billion in fiscal 2016 under the proposed White House budget released last week, a 5 percent increase from fiscal 2015 spending levels (Greenwire, Feb. 2).
The bulk of the funding would go to clean energy technology programs in the National Science Foundation and Defense and Agriculture departments, which would receive a combined $7.4 billion -- a 7 percent hike from last year's White House request.
The White House also called for $1.9 billion in mandatory spending on 29 manufacturing innovation hubs, part of the Energy Department's National Network for Manufacturing Initiative.
The budget request includes increased funding for natural gas research, as well as an extension of the production tax credit for wind and solar energy -- programs that have long been opposed by most GOP lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry.
Moniz touted the budget request in a statement last week, saying it reflects DOE's commitment to "an all-of-the-above energy strategy that meets our economic and environmental objectives through innovative science, technology and analysis."
But while both parties could reach agreement on some defense, infrastructure and energy programs, House Republicans at the hearing Wednesday will likely focus on their own energy proposals, which include bills to lift the ban on crude exports and fast-track permits for natural gas pipelines.
Last month, the House voted 253-169 to approve Rep. Mike Pompeo's (R-Kan.) pipeline permitting bill, drawing support from 14 Democrats (E&ENews PM, Jan. 21). The White House quickly issued a veto threat, signaling one area of disagreement as the budget process moves forward.
After making his case to House lawmakers, Moniz will appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Thursday.
Energy discussions in the Senate so far this year have revolved around the monthlong debate over legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which was passed last month 62-36 with support from nine Democrats.
With that out of the way, ENR Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has said she will start crafting a comprehensive energy package alongside House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
The package could include efficiency legislation and a bipartisan export bill backed by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), among other measures.
House lawmakers may release an outline of the bill this week (see related story), and Murkowski expressed confidence last week that she and ENR ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) could shepherd a bipartisan energy package through the Senate.
Still, the KXL debate highlighted disagreements over climate change policy between Democrats and Republicans that will drive the debate over energy funding in coming months. Congress must complete its budget resolution by April 15.
Schedule: The House Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing is Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 2 p.m. in 2132 Rayburn.
Witness: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Schedule: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing is Thursday, Feb. 12, at 10 a.m. in 366 Dirksen.
Witness: Moniz.
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For GOP Presidential Candidates, a Slightly Changing Climate
Feb 8, 2015 | National Journal
By Ben Geman
The 2012 Republican presidential field was largely made up of climate skeptics. As the 2016 field shapes up, that's still the case.
Many of the would-be 2016 contenders will acknowledge that the climate is changing but publicly question the extent to which man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are responsible—if at all. There's strong opposition in the field to President Obama's EPA regulations on power plants, a central pillar of his second-term agenda.
"The federal government has no business attempting to massively reorder the global economy, resulting in policies that kill jobs and keep people from rising out of poverty, all in the name of a theory that can't be proven or disproven," Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas told National Journal.
Yet there are fault lines emerging. Some prominent Republicans eyeing the 2016 race agree there's at least some link between human activity and climate change (see our chart on the fledgling 2016 field here).
Before he dropped out of the 2016 race, Mitt Romney declared himself to be "one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that," a rebuke of his 2012 position. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has touted efforts to cut carbon emissions. And the GOP-led Senate voted 98 to 1 last month in favor of a resolution declaring that "climate change is real and not a hoax."
But don't expect Republicans to embrace a carbon tax or find their inner Al Gores just yet.
Jon Huntsman was the only major 2012 contender to break with the climate deniers among his fellow Republicans—and went nowhere. And even moderate language on global warming is accompanied with sharp criticisms of the Obama agenda and concerns about the economic impact or effectiveness of U.S. action on emissions.
Climate change may be an issue more difficult to avoid in 2016 than it was in 2012. States will be grappling with how to implement Obama's power-plant regulations, which will also be the subject of high-profile court battles. Pope Francis has been talking a lot about climate change and plans to release a detailed statement, called an encyclical, in March. Republicans' struggles to explain their position on vaccines raises broader questions about the party's relationship with science.
The public also backs federal action on climate change—and candidates who say global warming is real and happening. A recent poll in January by The New York Times, Stanford University, and the think tank Resources for the Future showed that two-thirds of respondents, including nearly half of Republicans surveyed, are more likely to vote for a candidate who says human-induced global warming is happening.
GOP strategist Ron Bonjean says there's little upside to candidates raising the issue of climate science, calling it a "rabbit hole."
"It will take them off the message they are trying to appeal to Republican voters about, which is usually about the economy and national security," said Bonjean, a former aide to House and Senate GOP leaders. But he said that criticizing what Republicans call the economic harm of Obama's regulations is good fodder for GOP candidates.
"The bottom line is that the solutions coming from our Democratic friends about how to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions turn our economy upside down," South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who once was set to sponsor cap-and-trade legislation before abandoning talks in 2010, said on the Senate floor in January.
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House Republicans to Release Plan Soon For Broad Energy Framework, Upton Says
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
House Republicans plan to release a broad energy policy framework the week of Feb. 9 focused on such issues as modernizing energy infrastructure and the U.S. energy workforce and boosting energy efficiency, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told Bloomberg BNA.
The effort is being coordinated with Senate Republicans, who are in the early stages of writing a multi title comprehensive energy bill led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“We have gone from bust to boom in energy, but now Jimmy Carter-era policies threaten our ability to reap the benefits,” Upton said in a statement to Bloomberg BNA Feb. 6. “We are finalizing a framework to modernize infrastructure, prepare our workforce, take advantage of our energy as a force for good in the world and boost efficiency and accountability.”
The House effort has included participation from committee Democrats as well, and it is expected to include a focus on energy exports, pipelines, transmission and cybersecurity, although the outline is still in early planning stages, according to several energy lobbyists familiar with the plans.
Transmission Lines, Pipes
“We hope to come up with a more comprehensive energy bill on efficiency and reliability and the grid,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said.
The bill that does emerge from the framework is expected to build on an Energy and Commerce policy plan, “an Architecture of Abundance,” outlined in a speech by Upton in July (136 DEN A-11, 7/16/14).
The plan included a range of energy ideas from reforming “archaic permitting processes” for siting new electricity transmission lines and pipelines, increasing energy efficiency in government buildings and fleets and a call to “revisit current laws to ensure they are not creating artificial barriers” for energy exports.
“We unveiled our ‘Architecture of Abundance’ plan last year that fulfills our energy potential, fortifying America's energy security, and keeping prices affordable for all folks,” Upton said in his statement to Bloomberg BNA. “That conversation continues this new Congress.”
The House effort comes a month after Murkowski announced plans to write broad energy legislation, saying the current policy needs to be “refreshed.” Like the House plan, the effort being led by Murkowski will focus on strengthening supply, modernizing infrastructure, supporting efficiency and ensuring federal accountability(06 DEN A-1, 1/9/15).
Senate Hearings Planned
Murkowski told reporters Feb. 5 that she has discussed the matter with Upton and she also is meeting with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as other members about what their priorities were for the legislation.
“We both agree this is long overdue,” Murkowski said. “I'm good with trying a big broad approach.”
She added that she plans to schedule a series of hearings for the bill later this winter or spring.
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Protesters March In Oakland, Push For Jerry Brown To Ban Fracking
Feb 7, 2015 | SF Gate
By Victoria Colliver
Thousands of antifracking activists took to Oakland’s streets Saturday to call for Gov. Jerry Brown to change his stance and ban the controversial practice, which uses large amounts of a pressurized water mixture to crack subterranean rocks and release oil or natural gas.
Chanting, playing music and waving signs reading “Don’t Frack Your Mother” and “There’s No Planet B,” demonstrators wove their way along an almost two-mile route, starting at Oakland’s City Hall and then moving through downtown Oakland to Lake Merritt.
“We’re here, marching in Jerry Brown’s hometown, to let him know climate leaders don’t frack,” said Linda Capato Jr., fracking campaign coordinator for 350.org, an international organization that fights climate change and one of the partner groups in the protest, called the March for Real Climate Leadership.
Saturday’s march, billed as the country’s largest demonstration against hydraulic fracturing, drew a wide range of supporters, including labor unions, students, environmental justice groups, health activists and people who just feel strongly that fracking worsens climate change, jeopardizes health and exacerbates the already historic drought.
Protesters march in Oakland, push for Jerry Brown to ban fracking
By Victoria Colliver Updated 6:27 pm, Saturday, February 7, 2015
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Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Image 1 of 21Saturday’s march, billed as the country’s largest demonstration against hydraulic fracturing, started at Oakland’s City Hall and then went through downtown and on to Lake Merritt. Image 1 of 21
Saturday’s march, billed as the country’s largest demonstration against hydraulic fracturing, started at Oakland’s City Hall and then went through downtown and on to Lake Merritt.
Thousands of antifracking activists took to Oakland’s streets Saturday to call for Gov. Jerry Brown to change his stance and ban the controversial practice, which uses large amounts of a pressurized water mixture to crack subterranean rocks and release oil or natural gas.
Chanting, playing music and waving signs reading “Don’t Frack Your Mother” and “There’s No Planet B,” demonstrators wove their way along an almost two-mile route, starting at Oakland’s City Hall and then moving through downtown Oakland to Lake Merritt.
“We’re here, marching in Jerry Brown’s hometown, to let him know climate leaders don’t frack,” said Linda Capato Jr., fracking campaign coordinator for 350.org, an international organization that fights climate change and one of the partner groups in the protest, called the March for Real Climate Leadership.
Saturday’s march, billed as the country’s largest demonstration against hydraulic fracturing, drew a wide range of supporters, including labor unions, students, environmental justice groups, health activists and people who just feel strongly that fracking worsens climate change, jeopardizes health and exacerbates the already historic drought.
The demonstrators called on Brown to change his position on fracking, which has put the governor at odds with many who saw him as an environmental leader dating back to the 1970s.
While the governor sees the oil production spurred by fracking as a potential source of money and jobs in a state whose economy is still recovering, activists want him to follow the lead of New York and Vermont, as well as California’s San Benito and Mendocino counties, in banning the practice for health and environmental reasons.
Andrés Soto, Richmond organizer for Communities for a Better Environment, accused Brown of caving to oil company interests and building the state’s infrastructure on the “carbon economy.” “If you don’t get on our side, Jerry Brown,” he said, “Frack you!”
Brown’s administration has said there’s no direct evidence of harm from fracking in the state, a sentiment echoed by Sabrina Lockhart, spokeswoman for Californians for Energy Independence, a coalition that includes energy companies.
“California is the third-largest consumer of oil and gas on the planet,” Lockhart said. “All the oil we produce in California is used here, so if we did not produce oil here under the strictest standards, we’d have even greater reliance on imported oil from places like Iraq and Venezuela.”
Lockhart said that any potential health effects will be offset by state regulations and that the state’s geology requires less water than fracking activities in other states. “Water is used, but when you look at the large-scale water usage in California, it accounts for a small fraction of that,” she said.
The activists weren’t buying those arguments.
“No matter how profitable a practice is, if it harms people, there’s absolutely no justification whatsoever for that practice to continue,” said Eva Malis, a student at UC Berkeley serving as the outreach coordinator for Students Against Fracking at the university.
More than 700 chemicals are used in fracking, 25 percent of which are known to cause cancer, said Sahru Keiser, program manager at San Francisco’s Breast Cancer Action. “Fracking produces a toxic legacy that threatens our health for years to come,” she said.
Sofia Parino of Sacramento traveled to Oakland for the march, and was carrying her 9-month-old daughter, Aurora.
“This is their future,” said Parino, 37, who works for an environmental justice organization and is also the mother of a 3-year-old. “It’s the future generations that are going to suffer if we don’t look at new energy solutions.”
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Western Regulators, Others Urge EPA To Learn From State Actions on Methane
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
New federal rules to directly regulate methane emissions from oil and gas operations should line up with, or at least not interfere with, approaches already being used in the West, regulators, industry representatives and environmentalists in Western states said recently.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management, both of which are planning to propose rules to directly regulate methane emissions, should consult with states early in the rulemaking process and take into account state views, opinions and economic needs, the Western Governors' Association said in a policy statement (Resolution 2015-2).
The EPA in mid-January released a broad-based strategy targeting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry and said it would propose a rule in the summer of 2015 (10 DEN A-1, 1/15/15).
As it develops the proposed rule, the EPA should cooperate with Western states that are taking specific steps to reduce methane, whether by direct rule or collaterally through strategies aiming at ozone precursors, sources from Western states said.
“We already have a good relationship with operators to solve our ozone problem,” Brock LeBaron, deputy director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 5. “We've got a plan, and we're following it and implementing it and being proactive about it.
Don't Work at Cross Purposes
“We don't know what EPA is going to do,” he added. “Is this something that is going to work with Utah, or go at cross-purposes with what we are already doing? We are very concerned about some sort of national, one-size-fits-all approach, and whether that will fit in with our approach.”
The methane rule to be proposed by the EPA would not be the first to directly regulate the greenhouse gas. In February 2014, Colorado adopted the nation's first statewide limit on methane emissions from natural gas operations.
“We hope EPA will follow Colorado's lead in one important respect, by directly regulating methane emissions,” Dan Grossman, Rocky Mountain regional director and senior counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund in Boulder, Colo., told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 5.
Meanwhile industry representatives contend a new federal rule would be redundant and unnecessary.
“The President's plan is another case of the Administration adding new red tape to make mandatory what industry has been doing voluntarily for several years,” Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for the Western Energy Alliance, a regional oil and gas industry association based in Denver, said in a statement when the EPA strategy was announced.
‘Learn From States.'
The EPA said its rule will establish emissions standards for methane and volatile organic compounds from new and modified oil and natural gas wells. The final rule is expected in 2016.
In addition, BLM, which is part of the Interior Department, will propose this spring new standards to reduce venting, flaring and leaks of natural gas from new and existing oil and natural gas wells on public lands.
When the EPA strategy was announced, several air quality officials from Western states called attention to existing efforts in the region that take aim at methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
Any new federal regulations for methane emissions reductions “should recognize state authority” under the Clean Air Act, the Western Governors' Association resolution stated.
The WGA urged “federal agencies to learn from states' experience in methane emission regulation, to engage states as co-regulators, and to ensure state agencies and regulators have a robust voice and meaningful role to play in the development of a rulemaking for methane emission reduction before rules are officially proposed.”
For example, the Colorado rules are designed to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds and other hydrocarbons. They include leak detection requirements for drilling and production processes, monthly inspections of large emissions sources and a timeline for leak repairs at oil and gas facilities (Regulations 3, 6 and 7; 37 DEN A-5, 2/25/14).
It is hard to say how the federal rules will affect the Colorado rules, Will Allison, director of the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 5. “From all indications, it looks like what they are going to propose is going to align nicely with what we have in Colorado,” he said.
Existing v. New Sources Only
However, one key difference, he said, is that “Colorado's leak detection and repair requirements apply to both new and existing sources, while the EPA program is looking at only new sources.”
Colorado didn't play a direct role in the EPA announcement in mid-January, but since then it has had “a number of conversations with them about what our rules do.”
It would be helpful if the EPA and BLM “reach out to states,” Allison said. “EPA can learn some valuable lessons from Colorado.”
Grossman said it does not appear the new EPA regulation will have any real impact on Colorado operators “beyond what they are required to do to comply with the state” rule. “If they are in compliance in Colorado, they will be in compliance with the federal rule,” he said.
“I can't imagine a situation where their leak detection and repair requirements would be more stringent than Colorado's,” he said. “Colorado moved early and aggressively to the greatest extent we could, and other states will have some catching up to do.”
The Environmental Defense Fund worked with oil and gas operators—initially, Anadarko Petroleum Co. and Noble Energy—to hammer out the new rules in negotiations brokered by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D). Later, Encana Corp. and DCP Midstream played a part in formulating the regulations.
No ‘Kumbaya Moment.’
Despite the involvement of those energy companies, the Colorado rules don't have the broad support of the industry, Sgamma said. “This has been described as a done deal in Colorado, but to suggest it was a Kumbaya moment would be to mischaracterize it,” she said. “And expanding it nationwide also does not have broad support.”
During the rulemaking process before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, producers and trade associations said they opposed the rule because it directly regulated methane instead of focusing on ozone precursors, Grossman said. “A significant segment of the industry thought it should be an ozone-only rule,” he said.
Meanwhile representatives of some environmental organizations urged the commission to pass rules with more stringent setback requirements for oil and gas facilities near homes and other occupied buildings, Grossman said. A setback is the minimum distance required between wells and homes.
Ultimately, Colorado's leak detection and repair requirements are “not a good model” for a national rule, Sgamma said. “It's more expensive than it needs to be, and it fails to reflect what industry has done to reduce emissions already.”
From 2006 to 2012, natural gas production increased by 26 percent, while methane emissions from production facilities increased by more than 40 percent, she said.
Sgamma cited the EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which reported that industry methane emissions have declined 12 percent since 2011, and emissions from hydraulic fracturing have decreased by 73 percent.
Rules to Be ‘Completely Redundant.’
“We're the ones who have voluntarily reduced methane emissions,” she said. “We don't need government red tape glomming on to a success story that industry has already started to write.”
The EPA believes in “rule upon rule upon rule,” she added. “These rules are getting completely redundant. We are already doing things that are reducing methane.”
Utah is concerned that a national regulatory regime will retard its efforts to reduce ozone pollution in the Uintah Basin in the northeastern part of the state, LeBaron said.
Oil and gas operations have been identified as a major source of ozone precursor emissions in the basin during the wintertime, and the region has exceeded the EPA eight-hour standard during the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011.
“Sure, we're worried about it,” LeBaron said. “I saw the EPA fact sheet. There are special requirements for areas that already had an ozone problem, control and quality guidelines. I don't know how that's going to play out with what we're already doing.”
No Credit for Early Action
What oil and gas operators are doing right now in the basin “is proactive and voluntary,” he said. “I know they are concerned about this. If they have to meet targets for leakage rates, I'd be worried they are not going to do proactively as much for ozone. Under a methane leak detection and repair requirement, they might not get credit for early action.”
The WGA resolution articulated another reason federal regulation should recognize state authority under the Clean Air Act: the economic value of methane capture and subsequent sale.
“Encouraging commoditization of this natural gas can provide economic value for states and incentivize methane emission reduction,” the WGA statement said. “Encouraging state oil and natural gas industry members to take steps to prevent methane emissions and increase methane capture will have substantial air quality and other environmental benefits.”
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A Proposed Pipeline Tests Property Rights in Virginia
Feb 9, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Peter Galuszka
Last August, Craig Vanderhoef, a former Navy captain who retired to a farm near Afton in Nelson County, got a fateful letter from Dominion Resources.
The Richmond-based utility wanted to survey his property to help plot a route for a $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline that would transport natural gas from hydraulic fracturing (known as “fracking”) in West Virginia to the coast. It would stretch 550 miles over the Appalachian Mountains southeastward into Virginia and North Carolina.
Vanderhoef wrote two letters back saying no. Then, at 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 16, he got a nasty surprise. A sheriff’s deputy knocked on his door to serve him with legal notice that he was being sued by Dominion, which was demanding access to his property. “Now, I have to get a lawyer,” said the 72-year-old.
Dominion plans to sue 240 Virginia landowners to force survey access for the pipeline. Nelson County residents are not used to industrial projects — or being pushed around. Grass-roots groups quickly protested. The utility lost points locally when it mistakenly filed suit against 14 local property owners, including David Brooks, the county sheriff.
The dilemma strikes at the heart of eminent domain issues. Individual property rights had previously been regarded as sacrosanct in a state that worships Thomas Jefferson. But the situation has changed as fracking stirs a race for markets and profits.
The key legal point in the controversy is a 2004 law passed that few thought mattered much. It states that a pipeline firm may enter private property for survey work without permission. Whether that law is constitutional may decide the entire issue. While there has been no such legal test, one may be forthcoming. On Feb. 5, U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by several landowners. He said he will rule soon, adding that it is a “fascinating and important case.”
Dominion argues that it is a “public service company” and has the right to compel recalcitrant property owners to allow surveys. Doing so doesn’t constitute taking of property and isn’t condemnation, the utility claims.
The state’s 2004 pipeline law has plenty of problems, says Joe Waldo, a property rights lawyer with the Norfolk firm of Waldo & Lyle who is offering to represent Nelson County property owners pro bono. “People just can’t go on your land,” says Waldo. Besides the constitutionality question, there are procedural flaws, he claims.
He questions how Dominion, which plans the project with Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas, both based in Charlotte, and AGL Resources of Atlanta, can force its way when it hasn’t even filed the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the lead regulator. “They can’t come on property until FERC says, ‘Hey, you got a project here,’ ” Waldo says. Dominion says it won’t file for a FERC permit until late this summer and doesn’t need to jump more procedural hurdles.
The same battles are being repeated in other parts of Virginia and the nation. Similar lawsuits have been filed in western Virginia, where Pennsylvania and Florida energy firms plan to build the 330-mile Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline. Land rights are at the center of disputes in eastern Texas, where TransCanada wants to build the better-known Keystone XL pipeline to take Canadian shale oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
In Virginia, top officials such as Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) applaud the projects, believing they will spark new industries in the more impoverished sections of the state. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would create 2,873 construction jobs from 2014 to 2019 and then 271 permanent ones, Dominion says. Landowners have a point when they note that the number of real jobs is quite small.
Another issue is whether some of the natural gas carried by the Atlantic Coast project will be used for the “public” purpose — such as serving state residents — or whether it will be exported. The pipeline includes a leg to a deepwater port area in the Chesapeake Bay. Dominion insists that no gas would be exported and that the extension is needed to serve local customers of its partner, AGL Resources. By coincidence, Dominion plans to export natural gas not far away at a facility it plans to retrofit at Cove Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay.
Exports or no, the pipeline is going down badly in Nelson County. Vanderhoef fears that it will forever transform the retirement farm he loves and end plans for his daughter to build a home on his land. “This will have an economic impact and a family impact on us,” he says. Chalk it up to the controversial fracking that is a game-changer in more ways than one.
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Keystone Pipeline Draws No Objections From Defense Department After Review
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tony Capaccio
The Pentagon “continues to have no objection” to approving the Keystone XL pipeline, a Defense Department official said.
Michael Bruhn, executive secretary to the defense secretary, said in a letter to his counterpart at the State Department that the Pentagon's position hasn't changed since views it provided on the TransCanada Corp. project in March 2014.
“The Department is not aware of any substantive changes in the intervening period and it continues to have no objection to the granting of the subject permit to TransCanada,” Bruhn said in the letter that was sent Jan. 30 and obtained Feb. 6.
Eight federal agencies had until Feb. 2 to file comments to the State Department as it considers whether Keystone, which crosses an international boundary, is in the U.S. national interest. The department has no deadline for making a decision on the pipeline permit.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Energy, Interior and Justice said they would submit comments but wouldn't release them to the public. The EPA, in a separate letter responding to a 2014 environmental analysis, said falling oil prices may make Keystone's impact on the climate greater than an earlier analysis suggested (23 DEN A-10, 2/4/15).
Bruhn said in his letter that a real estate agreement would have to be obtained from the Defense Department if any facilities for the pipeline are “sited, constructed, expanded or operated” on land owned by the department.
Proposed in 2008, Keystone would deliver Alberta oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. The project has pitted Obama's allies in the environmental movement against the U.S. energy industry. Obama has said he would reject it if it would lead to a significant increase in carbon pollution.
The president also has said he would veto legislation requiring approval of the pipeline that is pending in the Republican-led Congress. The House plans to vote next week on a Senate-passed measure.
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Congress Prepares To Send Pipeline Bill To President
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Manuel Quiñones
The House this week is scheduled to take up legislation to approve TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada for the second time in recent weeks.
The House passed a KXL bill soon after coming into session this year. Chamber lawmakers will now vote on a Senate-passed version, which includes a series of amendments.
After weeks of debate last month, senators included provisions to the pipeline legislation to boost energy efficiency and streamline programs to help schools save energy. SPECIAL REPORT
A look at the far-reaching debate on the Keystone XL pipeline, which could change the energy and economic agenda for both the United States and Canada. Click here to view the special report.
More controversial amendments include a provision to encourage lawmakers to close a loophole that allows oil sands crude producers to avoid paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
Another asserts that climate change is real and not a hoax. It passed the Senate with overwhelming support, but only because it didn't include a provision asserting that humans were having an impact.
Some House Republicans would have liked a conference committee to harmonize the House- and Senate-passed versions. But, at least at this point, it doesn't appear the amendments will jeopardize the bill among conservatives skeptical of climate change (E&E Daily, Feb. 4).
The addition of amendments, even though they had significant backing from Democrats, is also not encouraging KXL critics on that side of the aisle to vote for the broader bill.
Then there's President Obama, who has assured lawmakers he will veto the KXL bill, with or without changes. He wants his administration's six-year-old permitting process to continue.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last week urged the president to reconsider his veto threat and sign the legislation. Boehner also chastised the administration for failing to release comment letters from agencies regarding its national interest determination review.
"When Secretary Kerry was sworn in, he guaranteed -- and he used that word, 'guaranteed' -- a fair, transparent and accountable review of the Keystone pipeline," Boehner said. "But now, the State Department is stonewalling and refusing to answer basic questions about its review."
State considers the letters part of the deliberative process. "Once we have reviewed the agencies' submissions, analyzed all the information needed for completion of the review and prepared the final documents, a determination will be made," said spokeswoman Jen Psaki last week.
U.S. EPA last week did release its comment letter, not on the national interest determination review but on State's final environmental impact statement on KXL.
It did encourage the department to dig deeper into climate concerns, likely a point of discussion during this week's House debate ahead of the chamber voting on the Senate bill.
The House Rules Committee has scheduled a meeting tomorrow to discuss the parameters of debate for the KXL legislation.
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, Feb. 10, at 5 p.m. in Capitol H-313.
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Senate EPW to Examine Clean Power Plan
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jean Chemnick
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday will hold the first of what's expected to be a series of hearings examining U.S. EPA's proposed carbon rules for electric utilities.
EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe is expected to provide an update on proposals -- due to be finalized this summer -- for new, modified and existing power plants.
In a floor address during last month's floor debate on Keystone XL oil pipeline legislation, Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said one of his top priorities this year would be conducting "vigorous oversight on the EPA regulations, getting into President Obama's excessive regulation regime through numerous hearings."
The goal, he said, would be to assess the cost of the rules and their ineffectiveness, since Inhofe maintains that human emissions are not driving global warming.
In the same floor address -- made the day after 15 Senate Republicans put themselves on the record acknowledging man-made warming -- Inhofe made familiar arguments disputing science on human-driven climate change (E&E Daily, Jan. 28).
"The scientists are having a difficult time explaining the 15-year hiatus we've seen in temperature increases," he said.
Climate scientists have refuted the oft-repeated line that no new warming has occurred since 1998, a "pause" or "hiatus" that global warming naysayers contend has limited temperature rise (ClimateWire, Jan. 30).
In fact, it is not difficult to demonstrate warming this century, they say. NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers last month announced that 2014 was the warmest year on record for both land and ocean surface temperatures. The previous records occurred in 2005 and 2010 -- both within the period that skeptics say saw no new warming.
Inhofe pledged his committee would hold oversight hearings to examine the value of those findings. It will also look at some of the regulatory approaches EPA has proposed to address emissions, especially a mandate for carbon capture and storage technologies on new coal-fired power plants and a rule for existing units aimed at encouraging states to require fuel-switching, renewable energy and energy efficiency.
"The EPA has gone beyond the plain reading of the Clean Air Act in an attempt to grossly expand its authority," he said. "It is forcing states to achieve dubious emissions reductions and targets from the limited menu of economically damaging and legally questionable options."
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, for her part, has said she expects to spend a substantial amount of time on Capitol Hill this year explaining the value and basis of EPA's rules to a Republican majority.
"We'll make our case, we'll make our case, we'll make our case, and then we'll let it run its process," she said at a recent reporter roundtable.
But while she acknowledged that a Republican Congress has many tools to limit EPA's regulatory authorities, she said Obama wouldn't sign bills to restrict her agency's mission and the public wouldn't support them.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 9:30 a.m. in Dirksen 406.
Witness: EPA acting Assistant Administrator Janet McCabe.
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McKinley Reworking Coal Ash Bill To Address Deficiencies in EPA Rule
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) is reworking legislation on the management of coal ash to address lingering uncertainty for the business community, a spokesman for McKinley told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 6.
While there is no firm time frame for reintroducing a bill, spokesman Greg Dolan said the issue is a “huge priority” for the West Virginia Republican and that he hopes the House would consider the revised legislation “in a timely fashion.”
The House has passed legislation on coal ash sponsored by McKinley several times previously. “His principles remain the same,” Dolan said of the upcoming revised bill.
The final regulation on coal ash that the Environmental Protection Agency released in December failed to provide adequate certainty to utilities, states, coal ash recyclers and others, McKinley has said. It also left open the possibility that the residue from coal-fired power plants could one day be regulated as a hazardous waste, he said.
Rule Remains Unpublished
That EPA regulation (RIN 2050-AE81), which hasn't been published yet in the Federal Register, says that coal ash could be regulated as a solid waste under Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The rule sets minimum engineering and structural standards for impoundments and landfills, mandates regular inspections of such sites and limits where new structures could be built (245 DEN A-1, 12/22/14).
The EPA has submitted the final regulation for formal publication, but a spokesman did not respond to request for comment on its status.
At a Jan. 22 hearing by a House subcommittee, Republicans raised a number of concerns about the rule, including its reliance on citizen suits for enforcement that could result in significant litigation costs, unclear language that would result in dual federal and state regulatory requirements, retroactive application of location or siting requirements and the possibility for hazardous waste regulations in the future.
The regulation “was a reasonable effort, but it doesn't create certainty,” McKinley said at the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. “When you have that language that something can happen in the future, the next administration can come out with a different attitude towards it than you personally have had. It makes it uncertain. So we need to just close that.”
Legislative efforts on coal ash are also expected in the Senate, where Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) plans to introduce legislation. Hoeven believes his bill could gain the support of a significant number of Democrats, although the Senate has not considered language on coal ash since the 2012 transportation bill debate (221 DEN A-3, 11/17/14).
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Clean Coal Setback Fuels Industry Attacks
Feb 8, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Timothy Cama
The Energy Department’s decision this week to pull the plug on a major “clean coal” demonstration project stands as the latest setback for a technology that only recently held promise as a key piece of the United States’ fight against climate change.
Meanwhile, industry groups are seizing on the decision to scrap the years-old initiative as more evidence of the Obama administrations ”war on coal.”
FutureGen 2.0, a project with roots in the George W. Bush administration, had the lofty aim to be the first utility-scale coal-fired power plant to use carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The idea is simple enough: to pump carbon dioxide into the ground instead of putting it into the atmosphere.
Funding, however, was a different matter. President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus law provided initial funding for the Illinois-based project, though it was to be financed via a public-private partnership and a September 2015 deadline to spend the federal portion was fast approaching.
The private sector, meanwhile, has shown little interest in expensive CCS technologies, making it a hard sell for government projects.
“The biggest problem CCS faces right now is that there are no markets for the projects,” said Howard Herzog, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“These demonstrations are created by government incentives and government programs to get the first of the kind going.”
Herzog said there would be no market for coal plants with expensive carbon-capture systems until federal limits on power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions require them.
“Longer term, you need markets, and the markets are only created via climate policy,” he said. “And the climate policy is just too weak right now to create the markets.”
There's no indication that the Energy Department had any fundamental problems with the carbon capture technology, Herzog said.
Nonetheless, the Energy Department says carbon capture is still important to the Obama administration. It’s providing funding to a variety of projects to develop different pieces of the CCS puzzle, like a power plant in Texas.
The administration also says that FutureGen was not a complete loss, and it had some important results.
“While this is an unfortunate outcome, the department acquired valuable information and tangible benefits from the work accomplished to date,” a department spokesman said.
“That progress will continue to benefit our broad clean coal portfolio, helping to further the deployment of carbon capture and storage projects and the development of next-generation technologies.”
Although the private sector is not ready to adopt carbon capture, coal interests were quick to suggest that losing FutureGen meant that Obama is turning his back on an opportunity to make coal cleaner and more viable in the future.
Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, said in a statement that ending FutureGen “calls into question the commitment of the administration to the development of clean coal technologies.”
Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said the decision shows that “President Obama and his federal agencies are clearly opposed to advancing carbon capture and storage technology, despite repeated assurances.”
The industry said that the end of FutureGen also makes it hard for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon from power plants.
A January 2013 proposal from the EPA would limit new coal-fired power plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt-hour produced, a level based on what can be achieved with carbon capture.
Without FutureGen, the industry has a stronger argument that the proposed limit is unreasonable, the industry argues.
“This decision cannot be reconciled with the administration’s proposal to require CCS as the only acceptable technology for any new coal-fueled power plant in the U.S.,” Quinn said in the statement.
More than anything else, the decision could be a reflection of the reduced urgency of deploying carbon capture, said Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University.
“One of the things that’s changed in a big way since the middle of the previous decade is the rise in horizontal drilling and fracking and that effect that has had on the cost of natural gas,” he said. “That took a lot of the pressure off of finding a clean coal alternative.”
Gas drilling advances have also made it a much cheaper fuel than the government had anticipated, making it a much more accessible low-carbon option than a coal plant with carbon capture.
“The market context in which policy decisions and recommendations were being made back then was extremely different,” he said.
But in the long term, it’s still important to study and develop carbon capture, Ansolabehere said.
“Compared to the rest of the world, we’re rich in supplies of energy, and coal is one of the central fuels,” he said. “And how we use that in an environmentally friendly way is a very important question.” -
States Fault EPA's Rejection Of Air Plans In Bid For Court To Scrap CSAPR
Feb 6, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
States opposed to EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the rule, saying it is based on a faulty justification of implementing CSAPR by rejecting as no longer valid plans for meeting an earlier air trading program.
The novel argument claims that EPA violated the Clean Air Act by determining that the plans dependent on the predecessor program known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) were illegal and had to be replaced with CSAPR compliance plans following a D.C. Circuit ruling that found fault with CAIR's legality. EPA argued that CAIR plans were no longer valid, but the states counter that the court only remanded and never vacated CAIR.
Power industry groups are also urging the court to scrap CSAPR, filing a new brief in remaining litigation over the rule that claims EPA erred in how it calculated emissions control mandates under the program.
The various arguments are detailed in a pair of reply briefs filed Feb. 6 in EME Homer City Generation L.P., et al. v. EPA, et al., which is consolidated litigation over challenges to various technical provisions and other aspects of CSAPR. The rule is a nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) air trading program covering 28 states, and was designed to replace the Bush-era CAIR after the D.C. Circuit remanded that rule to EPA.
The D.C. Circuit said that CAIR -- which was also a NOx and SO2 cap-and-trade policy -- had several legal flaws, though the court never vacated the rule. The Obama administration instead developed CSAPR as its response to the remand, though the replacement policy was then mired in years of legal challenges.
In a 2-1 ruling in 2012, a three-judge panel of the court in EME Homer City vacated CSAPR and rejected as unlawful EPA's process of implementing the rule through federal implementation plans (FIPs) imposed on states before giving states the chance to craft state implementation plans (SIPs) to implement it.
States said they should have been allowed to first determine their air law “good neighbor” mandate to cut interstate transport of emissions that are hindering downwind states from attaining EPA's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM) and ozone, as SO2 reductions help cut PM and NOx cuts reduce ozone levels.
EPA then appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which issued a 6-2 decision in April that upheld the overall legality of CSAPR but remanded the case to the appellate court to resolve a host of other challenges the original EME Homer City ruling never addressed. Observers have predicted that none of the remaining suits pose the risk of the D.C. Circuit again vacating the rule, but that is the precise outcome that some states are seeking.
EPA in briefing has strongly defended its rules, saying it was justified in its approach for rejecting or approving state interstate air plans and did not exceed its authority with the pollution caps it imposed in FIPs.
The agency has the support of environmentalists, a handful of states that need the rule's pollution cuts to attain federal air standards, and “clean” utilities that generate much of their power from energy sources that have lower emissions than coal, such as natural gas. For example, the clean utilities in a brief in EME Homer City last month faulted the rule's opponents for trying to claim the high court ruling undermines several provisions of CSAPR.
States' Arguments
In a Feb. 6 reply brief, the state and local authorities opposed to the rule, however, argue that the D.C. Circuit never vacated CAIR and therefore CSAPR was implemented by invalidating CAIR-based air plans that were in fact legitimate.
The states -- including Alabama, Florida, Kansas and Texas -- say the agency was wrong to rescind existing, EPA-approved good neighbor SIPs and FIPs that were dependent on CAIR. They claim EPA acted illegally by revoking CAIR plans and in their place imposing federal plans to implement CSAPR's trading program.
They say that although the D.C. Circuit initially determined it would vacate CAIR, it never issued the mandate and instead merely remanded it to EPA pending a replacement trading program. Therefore, the states argue, CAIR SIPs and FIPs were valid both before and after the D.C. Circuit's 2008 ruling in North Carolina v. EPA that remanded CAIR to EPA, and the agency had no basis to disapprove them to make way for the new program.
One of the major lingering questions that the D.C. Circuit must resolve in EME Homer City is the legality of EPA's disapproval of air plans that relied on emissions cuts from CAIR, which the agency achieved using an air law SIP error-correction mechanism that it says allows it to replace SIPs that are no longer air law compliant.
Texas and other states opposed to the rule have previously argued this mechanism cannot apply to SIPs that were correct at the time of approval. The states in their new brief say that “The North Carolina mandate . . . ensured that CAIR would not be vacated but would rather continue in full force and effect.”
Hence, “Both before and after North Carolina, CAIR was thus a binding legislative rule defining the applicable good-neighbor SIP requirements for the covered States and requiring EPA to approve those States’ CAIR-compliant SIPs,” they say. And even had this not been the case, North Carolina addressed only CAIR-dependent FIPs, not SIPs crafted by the states, they argue, and those plans were therefore still valid when approved.
The states then reiterate previously raised arguments against CSAPR, including that EPA can only disapprove valid SIPs and amend them through the Clean Air Act's “SIP Call” procedure, giving states the opportunity to comment on the required changes and allowing them time to comply.
They also repeat claims that EPA failed to give independent meaning to the air law's good neighbor requirement that upwind emissions not “interfere with maintenance” of NAAQS in downwind areas.
EPA says it used distinct methodology to calculate both the “significant contribution” of upwind states to NAAQS nonattainment downwind, and also the interference with maintenance of NAAQS in areas that at one time, but no longer, have been designated “nonattainment.” The states disagree, saying that EPA's methodology in fact imposes obligations on upwind states based on their linkage to downwind areas that have never been designated nonattainment.
EPA misread the air law, interpreting it to require mitigation of upwind emissions that “will,” in the future, threaten downwind areas with NAAQS attainment problems, say the states. This forward-looking view of the law is incorrect, the states add. They say that EPA erred procedurally by making dramatic changes to CSAPR between its proposal and the final version. These necessitated fresh public comment that was not sought by EPA, they argue.
Also, Kansas and Indiana argue that EPA was wrong to initiate rulemakings to impose CSAPR FIPs before the agency had formally disapproved the states' existing SIPs.
Industry's Criticisms
Meanwhile, industry groups and labor unions opposed to CSAPR in a separate Feb. 6 reply brief echo the states' complaints about other aspects of CSAPR, notably EPA's calculation of which upwind areas must cut emissions to ensure air quality in downwind states.
EPA's interpretation of the Supreme Court's view of “overcontrol” -- cutting upwind emissions more than required to meet NAAQS downwind -- is incorrect, industry says, as many areas are overcontrolled.
Industry and labor unions in their reply brief say that EPA has overcontrolled many downwind areas needlessly. This is the result of flawed methodology and the agency's refusal to cross-check its computer-modeled analysis of upwind areas' linkages to downwind areas with actual air quality monitoring data, they argue.
They also claim that EPA fundamentally misreads the Supreme Court's view of overcontrol as outlined in its CSAPR ruling. “EPA contends that no upwind State is overcontrolled so long as any downwind location will have attainment problems, even if the upwind State is not linked to that location, and that EPA may impose 'uniform cost thresholds' even when they require a State to reduce more emissions than necessary to resolve all attainment problems at the downwind locations to which it is linked,” they say. “These contentions -- which would mean that no State could ever have a valid as-applied overcontrol challenge -- are inconsistent with the standard adopted by the Supreme Court for showing overcontrol,” they say. The high court said upwind areas cannot be controlled by more than the level required to ensure NAAQS compliance in every downwind area to which they are linked, they say.
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U.S. National Security Strategy Cites Rising Temperatures as Urgent Threat
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Climate change is an “urgent and growing threat” to U.S. national security, the White House said in a Feb. 6 National Security Strategy, with rising global temperatures expected to trigger more natural disasters and increased flows of climate “refugees.”
Climate change is a theme throughout the White House National Security Strategy, with mentions of the issue found on about one-third of the report's total 29 pages. Among the strategies in the report for preparing the U.S. for those climate impacts is to strengthen the nation's energy security and increase “global access to reliable and affordable energy to bolster economic growth and development worldwide.”
Other climate-related strategies include more actions to confront the “crisis” of climate change, “including through national emissions reductions, international diplomacy, and our commitment to the Green Climate Fund,” the report said.
Green Climate Fund Highlighted
The Green Climate Fund is to provide financial assistance to vulnerable developing nations to help them adapt to rising sea level and other climate impacts. Developed nations pledged more than $10 billion to such funding by the end of 2014. The U.S. has pledged to provide $2 billion total to the green fund over four years.
The report also touts Obama administration efforts, both in domestic and in international approaches, to curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Over the last 6 years, U.S. emissions have declined by a larger total magnitude than those of any other country,” according to the report. The U.S. is able to make that claim in part because it measured progress against a high point in U.S. total emissions, which occurred before the economic collapse of 2008-2009.
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EPA Standards for Wood-Burning Heaters Encourage Use of Unfinished Test Method
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned its proposal to require manufacturers of wood-burning stoves and heaters to certify their products using cord wood, but the agency's decision to establish alternative emissions standards in its first update to new source performance standards for residential wood heaters since 1988 is an attempt to encourage industry to adopt the yet-to-be-finalized test method.
Despite EPA expectations that many manufacturers will choose to certify their products by 2020 using cord wood, representatives of industry and state organizations told Bloomberg BNA that they have concerns about the agency's decision to establish emissions standards based on an unfinished test method.
The Environmental Protection Agency's revised new source performance standards for residential wood heaters, signed by Administrator Gina McCarthy Feb. 3, include a phased-in approach for meeting new emissions limits that are estimated to reduce emissions of fine particulate matter and volatile organic compounds from wood-burning devices by about 70 percent. Manufacturers of wood-burning stoves, pellet stoves and wood-fired hydronic heaters will be required to meet initial “Step 1” standards on the effective date of the final rule (RIN 2060-AP93) and more-stringent “Step 2” emissions limit in 2020 (24 DEN A-20, 2/5/15).
The agency finalized multiple Step 2 limits for both stoves and hydronic heaters: an emissions limit based on standardized crib wood testing and a standard for devices certified using an alternative compliance method for cord wood testing. Crib wood is a specified configuration and quality of lumber that has been used to certify wood-burning stoves since the emissions standards were initially set in 1988, while cord wood is a different configuration and quality of wood that more closely resembles the type of wood a typical homeowner would use.
John Ackerly, president of the Alliance for Green Heat, told Bloomberg BNA after the rule was released that the EPA is “really encouraging” manufacturers to certify with cord wood by setting different standards. For adjustable burn-rate heaters, single burn-rate heaters and pellet heaters and stoves, manufacturers must meet a particulate matter emissions limit of 2 grams per hour by 2020 if they use crib wood and 2.5 grams per hour if they use cord wood testing. Ackerly said those limits will benefit manufacturers that are doing well with including catalytic combustors in their products.
Adoption Estimate Called ‘Premature.'
The EPA said in its final rule that it expects many manufacturers will choose to certify their products using the alternative cord word compliance testing option.
However, John Crouch, director of public affairs at the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 4 that statement is “premature” given that there currently is no certified cord wood test.
The agency, in its 2014 proposed standards, proposed to require all manufacturers to use cord wood testing to certify their products for compliance with Step 2 emissions limits. At that time, the agency anticipated that ASTM International, an organization that develops international standards, would soon finalize test methods for testing using cord wood. However, ASTM's cord wood test methods still have not been completed and there has only been limited testing using a draft test method, the EPA said.
“We have determined that we do not have sufficient data at this time to support a regulatory requirement for cord wood testing,” the EPA said in its final rule.
Crouch said it is “interesting, at best” that the agency decided to finalize Step 2 emissions limits that will be in place in five years despite its acknowledgment that it doesn't have sufficient data to support a cord wood testing requirement. Manufacturers generally support the idea of moving to cord wood testing, but there are “still lots of details” to be determined on how that testing will occur, Crouch said.
“How you define the test defines the outcome,” he said. “The metric and test are joined at the hip.”
Industry Leaders Recognized
The EPA said that while some manufacturers may not be ready to certify their products using cord wood testing by 2020, the creation of an alternative compliance option “acknowledges the efforts of the industry leaders.”
Setting the alternative compliance option also encourages other companies to adopt cord wood testing, the EPA said.
In addition to being subject to a slightly higher Step 2 emissions limit, manufacturers who certify their products using cord wood testing also will have the option of placing a special temporary label to inform consumers that the appliance was tested when burning cord wood.
Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat said the agency is trying to create an incentive for consumers to recognize stoves that were tested with the kind of wood that the consumer is actually going to use.
States Also Concerned
Lisa Rector, a senior policy analyst at the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 6 that the EPA's handling of cord wood testing is an “issue of concern” for her member states. NESCAUM represents air quality agencies in eight Northeastern states.
The EPA said it anticipates its alternative emissions limits based on cord wood testing will be at least as stringent as the emissions limit for crib testing.
However, Rector said that not all test methods are equal and that emissions can differ based on fueling protocols and how a device is operated.
“Just because it's a cord wood test doesn't mean it's a tougher test,” Rector said. “A cord wood test isn't necessarily going to give you better results in the field.”
Revised Requirements Expected
The EPA said in its final rule that it expects it will have enough cord wood test data “within a few years” to establish revised certification requirements based on cord wood testing.
In the meantime, the agency said it will consider alternative cord wood test method requests on a “case-by-case basis.”
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Study Warns of Pollution from Arctic Shipping
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Air pollution linked in part to a shortage of regional environmental requirements for marine vessels operating in the North American Arctic could harm communities in the region, said a study from the International Council on Clean Transportation. “Marine vessels are a large source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur oxide, particulate matter and black carbon, which impact local air quality, human health and the global climate,” said the study from the group, which calls itself an independent nonprofit organization. Potential policies to constrain emissions growth could include the use of cleaner marine fuels and the expansion of international emission control areas for ships, the council recommended. The working paper, “Air Pollution From Marine Vessels in the U.S. High Arctic in 2025,” is available at http://op.bna.com/env.nsf/r?Open=jfoy-9tfntg.
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White House Reviewing PHMSA Rule Addressing Crude, Ethanol Rail Transport
Feb 9, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The White House received for review Feb. 5 a Transportation Department final rule on enhanced tank car and operational control standards for the transportation of certain flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's proposed version of the rule would set new rail tank car standards, speed restrictions and braking standards, among other requirements, to ensure the safe transport of the materials. The proposed rule would apply to trains carrying 20 tank car loads or more of Class 3 flammable liquids.
The final rule is expected to be released in May.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced in July 2014 the PHMSA proposal to improve safety of this type of transport, following several high-profile derailments of trains carrying crude oil. The derailments led to a range of environmental and property damages and one led to 47 deaths.
A PHMSA spokesman said the agency is unable to know what the final rule would include at this time.
‘Top Priority.'
“I've made the tank car rule a top priority for this Department because the American people must have confidence that when hazardous materials are transported through their communities, we've done everything in our power to make that train as safe as possible,” Foxx said in a statement given to Bloomberg BNA by the PHMSA spokesman.
“This is a highly complex issue, consuming massive staff time, scientific study, dialogue with stakeholders and experts, and coordination across borders,” Foxx said. “The Department has and will continue to put a premium on getting this critical rule done as quickly as possible, but we've always committed ourselves to getting it done right.”
Members of Congress and several affected industries have expressed concerns regarding several aspects of the proposed rule, including proposed braking standards and deadlines for retrofitting older tank cars or building new tank cars. Environmental groups and certain members of Congress have chided the Transportation Department for not phasing out older tank cars quickly enough (23 DEN A-16, 2/4/15).
All sides have urged PHMSA to release its final rule quickly for safety reasons, as well as to provide affected businesses certainty (19 DEN A-13, 1/29/15).
The proposed rule was the subject of 19 meetings with industries as varied as railroads and petroleum producers from May through July 2014 at the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Groups that met with the White House included Continental Resources, BNSF Railway, the Dow Chemical Co. and Tesoro Corp (112 DEN A-21, 6/11/14).
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Derailment A Reminder That Ethanol, Too, Moves By Rail
Feb 6, 2015 | Roll Call
By Tom Curry
The train derailment which spilled ethanol into the Mississippi River on Wednesday north of Dubuque, Iowa was a reminder that amid the debate about safe shipments of crude oil, ethanol traffic on the nation’s railroads remains a significant business.
According to the LaCrosse Tribune, three rail tank cars carrying ethanol caught fire and at least eight leaked their contents after a train derailed along a stretch of Canadian Pacific track on the bank of the Mississippi River.
At a House hearing this week on “How the Changing Energy Markets Will Affect U.S. Transportation,” almost all the discussion was about rail and pipeline shipments of oil. The word “ethanol” was not mentioned.
According to the most recent available data from the Association of American Railroads, more than 306,000 carloads of ethanol were carried by railroads in 2012. That was 1 percent of total railroad carloads, up from just 0.3 percent in 2003.
The railroads move the ethanol from Iowa, Nebraska, and other corn states to refineries and gasoline blending sites in other parts of the country. California, Texas, and New Jersey were the top rail destinations for ethanol in 2012, according to AAR.
The Renewable Fuel Standard requires that ever-increasing amounts of ethanol be blended into the nation’s gasoline supply.
Back in 2012 the number of rail shipments of ethanol were 30 percent greater than the number of carloads of crude oil shipped by rail.
But according to AAR president Edward Hamberger’s testimony at Tuesday’s House hearing, about 500,000 carloads of oil were shipped by rail last year, so oil by rail has now surpassed ethanol by rail.
Hamberger also noted that “exactly seven cars were in an accident that released crude oil out of about 500,000. That’s 99.999 percent safety.”
But Jared Margolis, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in response to Wednesday’s ethanol spill, “The train derailment and ethanol spill now affecting the Mississippi River is just the latest reminder that the Department of Transportation is not taking aggressive enough steps to protect us from the growing threat posed by use of out-dated DOT-111 tank cars.”
“These are the same tank cars used to haul millions of gallons of highly explosive crude oil through the heart of towns and cities and along waterways important to both people and wildlife,” he said, calling for an immediate ban on using DOT-111 cars to transport dangerous substances.
The AAR has called on the federal regulator, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, to mandate new tank car standards that would require cars to be more crash resistant.
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