Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 1/22/2018
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Full Committee Hearing to Examine the Performance of the Electric Power System Under Certain Weather Conditions
Jan 23, 2018 | Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Surface Transportation Security: Addressing Current and Emerging Threats
Jan 22, 2018 | Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
Location : 253 Russell / 2:30 PM -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemical Markets End Year on Strong Note, ACC Says
Jan 19, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes gained 0.9 percent in December, ending the year on a strong note. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. House Approves Tariff Relief for Some Chemical Imports
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 402-0 on Jan. 16 to pass legislation that would suspend import duties on nearly 1,700 products that are not made in the U.S. or are not available in sufficient quantities. -
(ACC Mentioned) How New York Dropped the Ball on Plastic Bags
Jan 21, 2018 | The New Yorker
By Tim Donnelly
Here is the distillation of America’s addiction to plastic bags in nutshell: I was working the register at at Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn a few years ago when a customer came up with a handful of 99-cent reusable bags. -
Tax Bill Is Saving Companies Money
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Less than a month after the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act landed on President Trump’s desk for signature, chemical companies are starting to report benefits from the lower taxes. -
Shutdown Continues, but End May Be in Sight
Jan 22, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quiñones and Kevin Bogardus
The Senate adjourned late last night without a deal to end a government shutdown, which is entering its third day. -
EPA Can Stay Open at Least One Week Amid Shutdown, Pruitt Says
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Environmental Protection Agency has “sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time in the event of a government shutdown,” Administrator Scott Pruitt told employees in a message Jan. 19. -
Lobbyists Romp in Trump’s Washington
Jan 22, 2018 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The numbers compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in American politics, might not seem surprising. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Offers Assistance to Manufacturers Reporting for the TSCA Inventory
Jan 22, 2018 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On January 18, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted additional documents on its website, specifically materials from two webinars, designed to assist manufacturers reporting for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) -
Industry Urges EPA To Defer To OSHA's Worker Limits For New Chemicals
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
A chemical industry coalition is urging EPA to forgo regulating new chemicals' risks to workers and use new authority under the revised toxics law to instead inform the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) enforcement... -
Markey Previews Pruitt Hearing Questions over Climate, Toxics, Spending
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is peppering EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt with numerous queries -- on topics including climate change, vehicle rules, toxics and the agency's spending practices -- previewing concerns he and other Democrats are likely to air... -
Coke Moves to Expand Recycling as Pressure Mounts to Cut Plastic
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Kaplan and Anna Hirtenstein
Coca-Cola Co. Chief Executive Officer James Quincey is kicking off a recycling spree, part of efforts to burnish the beverage giant's image. -
EU to Lower Limit for Bisphenol A Migration from Food Packaging
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
A draft European Commission regulation that lowers the amount of bisphenol A (BPA) allowed to migrate into or onto food from packaging materials is expected to be finalized in the coming months. -
Europe Tackles Plastics Waste
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alex Scott
The European Commission has unveiled its first-ever Europewide plan to tackle plastics waste, including waste entering the oceans. -
Energy Regulator Would Get Sole Authority Over LNG Exports in Bill
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
A House bill aiming to speed up the permitting of liquefied natural gas export terminals would take the Energy Department out of the process, leaving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the sole agency in charge of approval. -
Panel Debates Bills to Boost LNG Exports, Reform Utility Law
Jan 19, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Maxine Joselow
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy squabbled during a four-hour hearing today over three bills aimed at expediting liquefied natural gas exports and modernizing a controversial utility law. -
Trump Is Tearing Up Fracking Rules On Federal Lands. Be Alarmed.
Jan 22, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
THE TRUMP administration announced late last month that it was tearing up rules on hydraulic fracturing— better known as fracking — on federal lands. -
Trump’s Energy Juggernaut Faces a More Daunting Year 2
Jan 22, 2018 | Politico
By Ben Lefebvre
President Donald Trump has resurrected the Keystone XL pipeline, renounced the Paris climate agreement, opened a long-disputed Alaska refuge to oil drilling and ordered his agencies to erase Obama-era regulations on the petroleum, coal and power industries... -
Increased M&A Activity Could Boost Oil Production
Jan 22, 2018 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
More mergers and acquisitions could be in store for the oil patch in 2018, experts say, boosted by oil prices at levels not seen in 30 months and a flurry of available acreage as companies focus on their very best plays. -
Oil & Gas Tweet Aside, Florida Waters Still Being Analyzed for Drilling
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Despite Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's Jan. 9 tweet that Florida is “off the table” for offshore oil drilling, that activity is actually still on the table. -
Nuns Get One Last Chance on Pennsylvania Pipeline Claim
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Pennsylvania nuns who oppose a natural gas pipeline being built on their property on religious grounds have one more chance to convince a court they can sue over the project, even though they didn't object during its approval process. -
Better Thermostat Passwords May Deter Cyberattacks on Grid
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jim Polson
A key to preventing cyberattacks from crippling U.S. power grids could be changing passwords on Internet routers, wifi-connected thermostats and smart lawn-sprinklers. -
Jury Acquits Railroad Employees In Lac Megantic Fire Disaster
Jan 22, 2018 | NPR
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Haze Rule Reconsideration Signals Pruitt's 'Cooperative Federalism' Push
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's just-announced reconsideration of the Obama administration's revised regional haze rule signals how Administrator Scott Pruitt is pushing toward greater state autonomy under the Clean Air Act's system of “cooperative federalism"... -
EPA Suggests Delayed Ozone Designations for Texas Counties
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA in Jan. 19 legal filings in federal district and appeals courts is reiterating and offering further justification for its April 30 target date for finishing ozone standards attainment status of all areas of the country, except metropolitan San Antonio, TX...
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Jan 23, 2018 | Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee
The purpose of this hearing is to examine the performance of the electric power system in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic during recent winter weather events, including the bomb cyclone.
The hearing will be webcast live on the committee’s website, and an archived video will be available shortly after the hearing concludes. Witness testimony will be available on the website at the start of the hearing.
Opening Remarks
· Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Chairman
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
· Sen. Maria Cantwell
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Witness Panel 1
· The Honorable Kevin McIntyre
Chairman
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
· The Honorable Bruce Walker
Assistant Secretary, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
U.S. Department of Energy
· Mr. Charles A. Berardesco
Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
North American Electric Reliability Corporation
· Ms. Allison Clements
President
Goodgrid LLC
· Mr. Andrew Ott
President & CEO
PJM Interconnection, LLC
· Mr. Gordon van Welie
President and Chief Executive Officer
ISO New England, Inc.
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Surface Transportation Security: Addressing Current and Emerging Threats
Jan 22, 2018 | Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
The hearing will examine efforts to enhance surface transportation security including passenger and freight rail, mass transit, highways, and ports.
Witnesses:The Honorable David Pekoske, Administrator, Transportation Security AdministrationMr. John Kelly, Acting Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemical Markets End Year on Strong Note, ACC Says
Jan 19, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes gained 0.9 percent in December, ending the year on a strong note. All changes in the data are reported on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. Of the twenty-eight specialty chemical segments we monitor, twenty-five expanded in December, no markets experienced decline and three were stable. During December, large market volume gains (1.0 percent and over) occurred in catalysts, electronic chemicals, lubricant additives, mining chemicals, oilfield chemicals, plastic additives, plasticizers, and plastic compounding.
The overall specialty chemicals volume index was up 5.6 percent on a year-over-year (Y/Y) 3MMA basis. The index stood at 111.6 percent of its average 2012 levels. This is equivalent to 7.69 billion pounds (3.49 million metric tons). On a Y/Y basis, there were gains among twenty-four market and functional specialty chemical segments. Compared to last year, volumes were down in only four segments.
Specialty chemicals are materials manufactured on the basis of the unique performance or function and provide a wide variety of effects on which many other sectors and end-use products rely. They can be individual molecules or mixtures of molecules, known as formulations. The physical and chemical characteristics of the single molecule or mixtures along with the composition of the mixtures influence the performance end product. Individual market sectors that rely on such products include automobile, aerospace, agriculture, cosmetics and food, among others.
Specialty chemicals differ from commodity chemicals. They may only have one or two uses, while commodities may have multiple or different applications for each chemical. Commodity chemicals make up most of the production volume in the global marketplace, while specialty chemicals make up most of the diversity in commerce at any given time, and are relatively high value with greater market growth rates.
http://www.chemengonline.com/u-s-specialty-chemical-markets-end-year-on-strong-note-acc-says/?printmode=1
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. House Approves Tariff Relief for Some Chemical Imports
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 402-0 on Jan. 16 to pass legislation that would suspend import duties on nearly 1,700 products that are not made in the U.S. or are not available in sufficient quantities. Slightly more than half of the items—approximately 850—are raw materials and intermediate products that are used by the manufacturers of chemicals and plastics and related industries. The bill (H.R. 4318) now goes to the Senate, which is also likely...
...The tariff relief provided by the measure “will strengthen the competitive advantage of chemical manufacturers and the thousands of other businesses that depend on our products,” says the American Chemistry Council(ACC), an industry trade group. Eliminating the duties on the chemicals and plastics products listed in the bill will save U.S. manufacturers an estimated $207 million this year...
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Story can be found here: https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i4/US-House-approves-tariff-relief.html?type=paidArticleContent
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(ACC Mentioned) How New York Dropped the Ball on Plastic Bags
Jan 21, 2018 | The New Yorker
By Tim Donnelly
Here is the distillation of America’s addiction to plastic bags in nutshell: I was working the register at at Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn a few years ago when a customer came up with a handful of 99-cent reusable bags. She was buying about ten of them for gifts; when I finished ringing her up, I put nine of the bags neatly inside the tenth and handed them to her. She looked at me like I was trying to give her five pounds of loose egg yolks to carry.
No, I need a bag, she said.
But you have a bag, I said. Ten, actually.
But I need a bag for the bags, she insisted. I pushed back as far as friendly Trader Joe’s customer service would allow but then relented, putting her ten reusable bags in a plastic bag.
Working at a grocery store revealed to me just how deep single-use bag addiction runs. People double- and triple-bag small items, they say they’ll remember their reusable bags “next time” but never do, they ask for a handful of extra plastic bags to cover up their grocery bag so no one spies on their stuff on the bus (a lot of people are paranoid about this, apparently). They put their groceries in a plastic bag only to put that bag inside a backpack, which, it turns out, was a bag all along.
New York City last year was poised to tackle the problem of plastic bags — the sewer clogging, flood-causing, tree-strangling, ubiquitous avatars of modern waste — by enacting a five-cent fee for each bag used. The goal of that fee was to serve as a simple nudge, a mental roadblock between customer and thoughtless bag-usage. The average use lifespan of a plastic bag is all of about 12 minutes. Then that bag essentially exists forever: it can take 500 to 1,000 years to break down.
Similar fees, or outright plastic-bag bans, have been enacted in other cities, states and countries around the world. San Francisco became the first city in the country to put the kibosh on plastic bags in 2007; Hawaii became the first state to ban them in 2012. As of last March, there are bans in nearly 100 cities, towns, and municipalities and 30 others have put in place fees.
New York was extremely late the trend, especially for a city that likes to think of itself as progressive and green. But the city is being held hostage by the state on the matter, and it became clear last week that the situation will not resolve itself anytime soon.
In January of last year, about a month before the fee was set to take effect, the Republican-controlled state Senate passed legislation to block it, which was signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The city had tried to skirt state oversight by making the five cents a fee, not a tax, with the money going back to store owners. But lawmakers parrotted language from the plastic bag lobby — yes, that’s a thing, with groups like the American Chemistry Council and American Progressive Bag Alliance dipping into their large coffers to fight anti-bag laws nationwide — saying the fee would be a tax on poor people and was government overreach.
Cuomo, who last year said New York state would lead on climate change and environmental protection in the face of Trumpism, commissioned a task force to find a comprehensive solution. The task force's report came out earlier this month and offers up eight solutions, ranging from doing nothing to enacting an outright ban. This gives Cuomo room not to take a firm stance, activists say.
“It really shows a lack of leadership from the governor on the issue,” Jennie Romer, a lawyer and anti-bag advocate who worked pro bono on the City Council legislation, told The Outline. “It’s frustrating, we’re kind of back to the drawing table.”
It’s hard to read even the first sentence of the task force report and see any other solution but a complete ban on plastic bags and a full-tilt effort to make reusable bags the default option. “Throughout New York State, plastic bags have become a ubiquitous sight on the landscape. They can be seen stuck in trees, as litter in our neighborhoods, floating in our waterways and as a general aesthetic eyesore of our environment,” it reads. “Single-use plastic bags are a detriment to the health of communities and the environment alike.”
In the city alone, single-use bags account for 1,700 tons of garbage each week — which works out to 91,000 tons of plastic and paper carry-out bags each year — and costs the city $12.5 million to dispose of, according to the report. Recycling them is extremely difficult, and most people don’t do it anyway — only 12 percent of bags are recovered for recycling nationwide, according to the report. Paper bags are not any better. They may not get tangled in trees, but they burn the earth getting to you: the water usage and fuel needed to transport heavy reams of paper means they actually have a greater carbon footprint than plastic bags.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to take even more aggressive action on bags, but the city can’t do anything without the state’s approval now. The city this month made a big show of divesting from fossil fuel companies. Attacking plastic bag usage would certainly fit in with that goal: the national consumption of plastic bags uses up 12 million barrels of oil each year, according to the report.
“The mayor has made his position clear,” Seth Stein, a de Blasio spokesperson, told me. “He supports a full ban on plastic bags, which he believes is the most equitable and environmentally friendly solution.” Cuomo’s office did not return a request for comment. In an extra slap to the city, the state’s action last year only blocked New York City from enacting its own bag fees; other towns are exempt and have been putting their own fees in place. The issue of plastic bags isn’t really just about bags — it is the apotheosis of the throw-away mindset that is strangling our planet and draining resources, the mindless acceptance of garbage that is filling the oceans with plastic, leading to the most depressing Blue Planet episode of all time.
“I see it as an icon of waste overall,” Romer said. “It’s one thing we can reduce really easily. We see that all over the world and country that just a small fee component makes a difference . If we can’t do this, then how far can we go?” Opponents of bag fees or bans often complain about mundane convenience, that they shop after work and can’t bring a reusable bag with them all the time, or claim they need the bags to pick up dog or cat waste (even though it shouldn’t be the burden of society to pay for a receptacle for your pet’s waste).
The most egregious argument is that charging a bag fee is a tax on the poor. This is the line pushed by the bag industry and Republican lawmakers.
"This fee is regressive, and burns the communities it's trying to help," Steven Matteo, the City Council's Republican minority leader told Gothamist in 2016. He unhelpfully suggested his constituents would drive from Staten Island to New Jersey to buy groceries in protest. This line of thinking is not only harshly condescending to lower-income people, it’s demonstrably false.
“Just because someone’s poor doesn’t mean they don’t have environmental concerns,” said Greg Silverman, executive director of the West Side Campaign Against Hunger food pantry in Manhattan. The pantry, one of the largest in the city, serving 10,000 families a year, does not provide bags, expecting every customer to bring their own. Many of the city’s pantries have the same policy. “I don’t think it’s going to dissuade people from coming here if we don’t have the bags,” he said. (Concern for the finances of poorer people is also not, for the record, how state lawmakers usually set public policy. If that were true, there would be discounted Metrocards for low-income residents.)
When I worked at Trader Joe’s, I developed a trick to push an anti-bag waste agenda: I asked people if they brought a bag today, or if they needed one of ours. It clicked a switch in people’s minds. Some actually responded that they didn’t know they could bring their own bags.
That’s how deep bag addiction runs; people look at their phones as they’re being run up and never question what the rest of the this bag’s 1,000 year lifespan will look like.
The bag fee would go a long way to changing that mindset, because you just need to force people to think about it for a second. An outright ban on any single use bag — paper or plastic — is what is really needed. But New York is not letting either happen.
https://theoutline.com/post/2998/new-york-city-plastic-bag-ban-law
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Tax Bill Is Saving Companies Money
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Less than a month after the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act landed on President Trump’s desk for signature, chemical companies are starting to report benefits from the lower taxes.
Polymer maker Covestro says it will record a one-time windfall of $100 million in 2017 due to the new rules. The German company says its overall tax bill will decline from 28% to 24% in 2017 and another one or two percentage points in 2018.
The Thai firm Indorama cites the new “low-tax environment” as one reason it has decided to build a fiber plant in the U.S. The plant, a venture with Huvis Corp., will make low-melting materials used in the thermal bonding of composites.
Large U.S. chemical firms will likely outline the impact of the law when they announce earnings in the coming weeks.
A number of provisions of the tax bill should affect chemical companies. Firms will see their U.S. corporate tax rates decline from 35% to 21%. The bill also allows them to repatriate earnings stockpiled overseas at a reduced tax rate.
“There is no question that companies are going to enjoy more cash as a result of U.S. corporate tax reform,” says Kevin McCarthy, a chemical stock analyst with Vertical Research Partners. The companies McCarthy covers will see their taxes decline on average by 1.9%, he estimates.
“In terms of how it might be spent, I think you are going to see a broad range of outcomes in terms of increased capital spending, share repurchases, and possibly an uplift in M&A activity,” McCarthy says.
A key feature of the law is that manufacturers can now immediately expense 100% of their outlays for capital purchases, such as equipment, instead of spreading them out over a number of years. “That is designed as an incentive for businesses to make investments,” says James Brandenburg, a tax expert at the accounting firm Sikich.
However, a provision of the bill that might be tricky for some firms is a cap on interest payments at 30% of earnings before taxes. The cap, Brandenburg says, can hit companies that have a lot of debt or that had a bad year.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i4/Tax-bill-saving-companies-money.html
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Shutdown Continues, but End May Be in Sight
Jan 22, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quiñones and Kevin Bogardus
The Senate adjourned late last night without a deal to end a government shutdown, which is entering its third day.
The chamber was supposed to hold a procedural vote at 1 this morning on a continuing spending resolution to open the government through Feb. 8.
Following an objection from Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to end the shutdown sooner, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set a cloture vote on the CR for noon today.
"Let's step back from the brink, let's stop victimizing the American people, and let's get to work on their behalf," McConnell said last night.
Schumer said: "I am happy to continue my discussion with the majority leader about reopening the government. We have had several conversations. Talks will continue. But we have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides."
Despite a continuing war of words, Schumer and McConnell appeared closer to a deal than earlier in the weekend, with the Republican leader promising action on a variety of bipartisan priorities.
That includes the so-called Dreamers, individuals who came to the U.S. illegally as children. Of several reasons Democrats have given for opposing legislation to keep the government open, failure to reach a deal with the GOP and White House on these immigrants appears the most pressing.
"It would be my intention to proceed to legislation that would address [Dreamers], border security and related issues," said McConnell. "It is also my intention to take up legislation regarding increased defense spending, disaster relief and other important matters."
Yesterday, a group of Senate moderates from both parties met to push a compromise. And even though the White House insisted the president would not negotiate on immigration unless Democrats agreed to help reopen the government, Republicans paint him as deeply involved in trying to end the impasse.
Vice President Mike Pence kept a trip to the Middle East, but President Trump canceled a planned escape to his Palm Beach, Fla., home. And it's unclear whether he will be able to leave this week as planned for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trump was active on Twitter, saying, "Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Can't let that happen!"
The president also again floated the idea of scrapping the filibuster and allowing the CR to move by simple majority. McConnell has been cool to such a move.
The House had been scheduled to leave for a weeklong recess Friday but stayed in Washington all weekend waiting for the Senate to act.
The lower chamber last week passed a CR to extend funding through Feb. 16. But leaders advanced a rule to allow for quick consideration of whatever plan senators pass.
Agencies implement plans
On Saturday, the Trump administration went forward with its shutdown plans. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney sent out a memo to agency heads to close up shop.
"Unfortunately, we do not have a clear indication that the Congress will act in time for the President to sign a Continuing Resolution before the end of the day tomorrow," Mulvaney wrote.
"Therefore, agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations."
Federal employees deemed "excepted" will keep working during the shutdown. Others will head into work for a few hours today to help implement shutdown operations and then return home. The rest will not report to work while the shutdown is on.
As late as Friday, agencies were still updating contingency plans. The White House's own plan has 152 out of 371 West Wing aides staying on the job.
At the White House Council on Environmental Quality, three people out of its 13 employees are considered exempted under the plan.
Still, despite the shutdown, some agencies planned to stay open for days. U.S. EPA employees are expected to report for work today, and the agency has enough funds to keep humming along for some time — a message Administrator Scott Pruitt reiterated on Twitter on Saturday (E&E News PM, Jan. 19).
Mulvaney over the weekend told reporters EPA was using "unobligated balances," otherwise known as "carry-forward funds," to stay open. That's different from the 2013 shutdown, when the agency closed once funding expired.
Mulvaney said the administration was planning operations "mostly a day at a time" while it waits on new funding approved by Congress.
"The funds that I mentioned, some agencies are sitting on quite a bit of carry-forward funds. They could go out longer without being impacted; and some have none, so they'd be impacted immediately," Mulvaney said.
The White House budget director also detailed other government functions that are still operational, like information technology staff and trade negotiations.
National parks
Closure of national parks during the 2013 federal government shutdown became a contentious issue, but the Trump administration is keeping national parks open, although no one will be picking up the trash or cleaning the bathrooms during the shutdown.
On "Fox News Sunday," Mulvaney said Trump wants to keep as many federal employees at work and as many agencies open as possible, adding that the effects of the funding lapse will not be as visible as in 2013, which he said the Obama administration chose to "weaponize."
"They wanted it to be very showy. They went out of their way to make it hurt more people and to be more visible," Mulvaney said.
The government was unable to delay all visible signs of a shutdown, however. The Library of Congress in Washington had signs outside warning of closure.
And on Twitter, the National Park Service said the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were "Closed Due to a Lapse in Appropriations. Effective immediately and until further notice."
Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke greeted visitors near the Lincoln Memorial, according to his Twitter account. He said he was "happy to announce Statue of Liberty will reopen soon."
Just hours later, NPS said a funding agreement with the state of New York would ensure the statue and Ellis Island will open this morning.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/01/22/stories/1060071517
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EPA Can Stay Open at Least One Week Amid Shutdown, Pruitt Says
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
The Environmental Protection Agency has “sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time in the event of a government shutdown,” Administrator Scott Pruitt told employees in a message Jan. 19.
All EPA employees should follow their normal work schedule for the week of Jan. 22, Pruitt said, even if annual government funding expires without a congressional spending deal at midnight. Travel needs must be approved by Pruitt's office in the meantime.
“Should the shutdown occur and remain in place through Jan. 26, 2018, we will provide further updates on the agency's operating status,” Pruitt said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212113&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212113&jd=127212113
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Lobbyists Romp in Trump’s Washington
Jan 22, 2018 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The numbers compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in American politics, might not seem surprising. The amount spent on lobbying during the first nine months of Donald Trump’s presidency, it found, was higher than in any corresponding period since 2012. A new administration would attract a new wave of lobbying, you would think.
Except that Mr. Trump promised something different. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost,” he said in his Inaugural Address. “Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”
Washington, though, has continued to flourish, and Trump himself has reaped some of the rewards. A new report from Public Citizen, a nonpartisan government watchdog, documents more than 60 examples of lobbying groups, foreign governments and corporate interests holding parties and meetings in Trump family properties, including that beacon for Washington lobbyists, the Trump International Hotel in D.C.
Mar-a-Lago, the Trump-owned private club where the president spends much of his time, charged up to $750 per person to spend New Year’s Eve with him.
As we have noted, this all began with the festivities surrounding the inauguration, which were bankrolled by coal, oil, gas, chemical, technology and pharmaceutical companies that forked over a big chunk of the record $107 million raised for the inaugural events. Organizers aren’t saying how much was spent and what was done with the leftover money — likely tens of millions of dollars — which they said would go to charity, USA Today reported on Thursday.
But what is clear is that Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress have been doing corporate interests’ bidding ever since.Continue reading the main storyRECENT COMMENTSECT 1 minute ago
Lobbyists exist on both side and if the lobbyists are the blame for getting this country out of the economic abyss Obama put us in then...Alex 2 minutes ago
And yet for trump apologists and supporters, this is just more of what makes the occupant of the Oval Office so appealing. He zigs when you...Look Ahead 13 minutes ago
Apparently, Trump supporters are loving it. The Swamp is back! Got to love those lobbyists from Big Pharma to make sure drug prices continue...SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
The Trump transition’s “beachhead teams,” which essentially took control of federal departments and other agencies without needing Senate approval, bristled with lobbyists, some working inside the same agencies regulating their former industries. Cartoonishly self-interested cabinet members and senior advisers were drawn from the corporate elite Mr. Trump derided on the campaign trail. “I’m going to fight for every person in this country who believes government should serve the people — not the donors and special interests,” Mr. Trump promised. Not so much.
Instead, Mr. Trump got to work serving those special interests, signing executive orders gutting environmental, health and safety rules, sometimes as his industry masters looked on. Interested more in media attention than in governing, Mr. Trump stages televised meetings where he glowers “Apprentice”-style and demands that Congress send him legislation to sign. What a perfect scenario for big Republican donors. They help write perks for their industries into the bill, then congressional leaders push it under the pen of a president who signs pretty much anything. Take the December tax “reform.” It shortchanges low-income people, working families and the elderly to grant a big payday to multinational corporations, hedge funds, and the Trump family businesses. Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to read legislation or much else, but there’s no doubt that last part caught his eye.
Mr. Trump has become such a Washington creature that he’s rooting for a return to earmarks, that opaque process in which legislators direct federal spending to their home districts and pet projects, like Republican Representative Don Young of Alaska’s failed “bridge to nowhere,” a plan to waste more than $300 million on a mammoth bridge to an Alaska island of 50 inhabitants.
Contrary to his promises but not surprisingly, Mr. Trump spent his first year cementing the inequity he decried at his swearing-in. In the first year of the Trump administration, his words from a year ago have echoed: “Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/opinion/lobbyists-washington-trump.html
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Offers Assistance to Manufacturers Reporting for the TSCA Inventory
Jan 22, 2018 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On January 18, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted additional documents on its website, specifically materials from two webinars, designed to assist manufacturers reporting for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements final rule that became effective on August 11, 2017. The rule, which established a retrospective electronic notification of chemical substances on the TSCA Inventory that were manufactured (including imported) for nonexempt commercial purposes during the ten-year time period ending on June 21, 2016, requires manufacturers to report to EPA by February 7, 2018, for the retrospective reporting period that began on August 11, 2017 (180 days after the final rule was published in the Federal Register). The webinar slides and transcripts posted have three general sections: (1) an overview of the new reporting requirements; (2) a demonstration of the electronic reporting application in CDX; and (3) a question and answer session, where technical questions related to the reporting requirements and the electronic reporting application were addressed. These materials are:
· TSCA Active Inactive Webinar Slides from November 29, 2017;
· TSCA Active Inactive Webinar Transcript from November 29, 2017; and
· TSCA Active Inactive Webinar Transcript from October 25, 2017.
An additional helpful development for manufacturers is the recent launch of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) TSCA Inventory Reset CDX Receipt Database. The database allows manufacturers, importers, and processers under TSCA to upload and share Central Data Exchange (CDX) receipts. Further, it is being reported that EPA will also be providing and updating a list of frequently asked questions prior to the February 7 deadline.
Following this retrospective reporting for manufacturers, EPA will include the active designations, determined by the notices received, on a draft of the Inventory. EPA will publish the draft Inventory with the active designations “as soon as is practicable” following the close of the 180-day submission period. The draft Inventory will not have the legal effect of actually designating any chemical substance as inactive, however, and EPA does not construe it as the list with “designations of active substances and inactive substances” from which forward-looking reporting commences. EPA states that it concludes that new TSCA is referring to the completed product of the initial cycle of sorting between active and inactive substances, not the preliminary product of the initial cycle of such sorting.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-offers-assistance-to-manufacturers-reporting-tsca-inventory-february-7-2018
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Industry Urges EPA To Defer To OSHA's Worker Limits For New Chemicals
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
A chemical industry coalition is urging EPA to forgo regulating new chemicals' risks to workers and use new authority under the revised toxics law to instead inform the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) enforcement, an approach environmentalists say is “patently illegal” and would undermine worker protections due to OSHA's limited reach and resources.
The industry advocacy comes as EPA is seeking comment through Jan. 20 on a proposed framework for reviewing new chemicals under the June 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The revised law identifies workers as a potentially exposed or susceptible population, and requires that EPA consult with OSHA prior to issuing certain restrictions on new chemicals.
In a Dec. 1 letter and issue paper submitted to EPA, a coalition of 20 chemical companies urges EPA to craft a process for consulting with OSHA under the revised TSCA. The group, the TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC), also argues that OSHA rules adequately protect workers, in most cases, making EPA restrictions unnecessary.
“[I]t is clear that EPA is required to evaluate the adequacy of the existing OSHA regulatory scheme, including the General Duty clause, and to adopt additional restrictions or prohibitions only when they are needed to protect against unreasonable risk,” the industry white paper says.
“Given the robust nature of the existing OSHA regulatory program, the proper role for EPA should be to provide hazard identification and risk assessment information that OSHA and affected employers can utilize in selecting appropriate [personal protective equipment (PPE)], including respiratory protection measures."
While the NCC acknowledges that EPA has long sought to address new chemicals' risks to workers, the industry coalition calls that approach “mistaken,” arguing it encroaches on OSHA's authority for ensuring safe workplaces.
“NCC does not believe that EPA’s approach under TSCA adequately appreciates and recognizes the significance and effect of OSHA’s statutory authorities and extensive regulatory scheme, as well as its enforcement mechanisms, governing workplace chemical exposures, including to new chemicals,” the group says.
Specifically, NCC cites OSHA enforcement of regulations requiring use of PPE to limit worker exposures when necessary and of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act General Duty Clause, which requires that employers provide workplaces that are free of recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm.
But labor and environmental groups that have long faulted OSHA's resources for inspections and tools for enforcement as inadequate to protect workers are arguing that industry's suggested approach would be “patently illegal."
In a Dec. 12 blog post Richard Denison, of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), argues that the revised TSCA gives EPA a direct mandate to protect workers, and says that industry calls for budget tightening have gutted OSHA's resources for enforcement.
“[A]nyone outside of industry readily acknowledges that OSHA’s ability to adequately address workplace exposures has been decimated over time -- through sustained industry efforts on many fronts, including mounting legal challenges to OSHA’s authority and successfully pressing for reduction after reduction in its budget and staffing,” Denison says.
“After the industry’s success in severely weakening OSHA, it now seeks to compel EPA -- to which Congress gave greater authority to regulate chemicals just last year -- to instead cede that authority and transfer its obligations over to a far weaker agency."
Industry Advocacy
The industry call for EPA to consider OSHA rules before imposing further restrictions on new chemicals' risks to workers is one of a variety of options that industry is floating for streamlining EPA's new and evolving process for reviewing new chemicals under the revised TSCA.
Industry attorneys say that EPA is over-regulating new chemicals under the revised TSCA, imposing restrictions based only on a chemical's hazard without consideration of exposure.
As a result they are urging EPA to scale back its regulation of new chemicals and their uses and to speed approvals. Among other things, they are preparing to urge EPA to improve pre-submission consultations, provide new data guidelines and consider existing environmental rules before regulating new chemicals and their uses.
And industry has backed EPA's plan to drop use of enforcement orders under TSCA section 5(e) as an interim step in regulating and approving some substances. The call to defer to OSHA's enforcement of its worker safety rules would further limit the agency's use of the controversial orders.
In its advocacy, NCC recommends that EPA follow a three-step approach to address potential risks to workers under the revised law.
NCC says EPA should consult with OSHA and notify the chemical's producer of any potential risks to workers, and then rely on employers to meet their obligations under OSHA rules, as well as that agency's enforcement.
“EPA should disfavor issuing TSCA Section 5(e) orders that mandate use of particular PPE or other workplace-specific measures to mitigate occupational exposure,” NCC says. “EPA should no longer engage but instead rely on the employer’s responsibilities mandated by OSHA, as well as OSHA’s established expertise and robust existing regulatory program, to ensure worker protection.”
In the paper, NCC cites a 1991 memorandum of understanding between EPA and OSHA as backing OSHA's “broad authority” to regulate chemical exposures in the workplace and EPA's responsibility for protecting public health and the environment.
Then citing the revised TSCA, NCC argues, “[W]hile additional authority was provided to EPA in making determinations and taking required actions, Congress included the OSHA consultation provision at Section 5(f)(5) to ensure that EPA’s regulation of new chemicals did not create or result in conflicts with requirements implemented by OSHA."
But labor groups have long argued that OSHA enforcement is inadequate, specifically faulting the agency's permissible exposure limits (PELs) as outdated and its General Duty Clause enforcement as cumbersome.
In his blog, Denison says that OSHA on its website acknowledges its PELs are outdated and fail to adequately protect workers. And he argues that OSHA’s risk standard of “no significant risk of material harm” is far more lenient than TSCA’s unreasonable risk standard.
“If NCC believes that OSHA’s standard should apply to any new chemical risks EPA drops into its lap, then workers would receive far less protection (and companies could well save a lot of money) under NCC’s proposed approach,” Denison argues. “If on the other hand NCC believes TSCA’s risk standard would still apply in such cases, how does it expect OSHA to use its limited authority to achieve this far more stringent standard?”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-urges-epa-defer-oshas-worker-limits-new-chemicals
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Markey Previews Pruitt Hearing Questions over Climate, Toxics, Spending
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is peppering EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt with numerous queries -- on topics including climate change, vehicle rules, toxics and the agency's spending practices -- previewing concerns he and other Democrats are likely to air at a Senate environment committee hearing with Pruitt later this month.
Markey's detailed queries in a Jan. 18 letter seek answers from Pruitt by Jan. 24, in anticipation of the administrator's scheduled Jan. 30 appearance in front of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee -- which would be Pruitt's first appearance before the panel since his confirmation nearly a year ago.
“I write to express my strong concern over decisions that you have made as” EPA administrator, Markey writes. “Despite your role as the head of an agency with a mission to 'protect human health and the environment' . . . many of your actions appeared to directly contradict this mission and these long-standing goals.”
The letter begins with nine queries related to climate change, coupled with criticism of Pruitt's attacks on EPA's Clean Power Plan utility greenhouse gas rule and indications that agency staff have been told to squelch their public communication of climate risks.
“What are the exact procedures put in place to ensure that EPA scientists continue to be able to speak at public events about climate science?” Markey asks.
Other climate-related questions include pressing Pruitt to explain why the agency's draft strategic plan for fiscal years 2018-2022 omits any reference to climate change; clarify whether political appointees were involved in such omissions; and clarify if EPA political appointees were involved in removing climate information from EPA's website.
Markey's letter also links EPA's Superfund agenda to climate risks, asking Pruitt whether he has a plan to prioritize 327 Superfund sites threatened by rising sea levels and noting that 10 senators have already sought a Government Accountability Office investigation of climate risks at Superfund sites.
EPA's agenda with respect to light- and heavy-duty vehicle GHG regulations also comes under the microscope in Markey's letter, which includes eight questions to Pruitt on the topic.
The Massachusetts Democrat asks Pruitt to clarify issues including: whether EPA has done “the necessary modeling with updated inputs” to be ready to issue an expected joint light-duty vehicle rulemaking with the Department of Transportation by March 30; whether EPA plans to rescind its existing GHG regulation as applied to heavy-duty truck trailers; and the agency's rationale for considering as part of its mid-term review of light-duty rules a possible attack on California waiver authority to enforce its own vehicle requirements.
Spending Concerns
The letter also shows Democrats will likely press Pruitt during the upcoming Senate hearing on the costs and justification for his unprecedented 24-hour security detail and installation of a new soundproof booth in his office, as well as Pruitt's travel to Morocco to discuss natural gas exports and other topics.
“Did you use the title of EPA Administrator when scheduling, attending, or heading meetings in Morocco? If not, why not?” Markey asks. Similarly, he wants to know if public funds were “used to pay for any portion of your trip” and asks Pruitt to “Please describe exactly what amounts of public funds were used and for what purpose.”
Pruitt is scheduled to visit Japan and Israel next week in part to promote U.S. fossil fuel exports, according to several news reports -- trips that could further inflame Democrats' ire on this issue.
Also included in Markey's letter are eight questions about EPA's agenda for implementing or relaxing controls on toxic chemicals. They include a request for Pruitt to explain the agency's apparent decision to no longer release the initial results of its reviews of new chemicals or new uses of existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
“While there may be legitimate reasons for the amelioration of initial concerns about a new chemical by the time the EPA makes a final decision on it, transparency and good governance warrant the EPA explaining to the public the steps it took to remove the concern,” Markey writes, asking EPA to provide examples of confusion that EPA alleges was produced by release of those preliminary results.
The toxics-related queries also include requests for Pruitt to provide a “detailed justification” for the agency's indefinite delay of proposed plans for high-risk uses of methylene chloride, N-methylyprrolidone, and trichloroethylene, as well as whether former EPA toxics adviser and toxics office nominee Michael Dourson was involved in any capacity on the trichloroethylene issue when he was working as an EPA adviser. “If so, please detail and provide any written documents of his work,” Markey writes.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/markey-previews-pruitt-hearing-questions-over-climate-toxics-spending
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Coke Moves to Expand Recycling as Pressure Mounts to Cut Plastic
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Kaplan and Anna Hirtenstein
Coca-Cola Co. Chief Executive Officer James Quincey is kicking off a recycling spree, part of efforts to burnish the beverage giant's image.
The soft-drink company, which operates in more than 200 countries, is setting the goal of recycling one bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030. It's also pledging to become a corporate leader in reducing the plastic waste that has clogged oceans and waterways.
Coke's plan is to guide consumers through the recycling process with educational outreach, according to a statement released Jan. 19. It also wants to ensure all of its packaging is, in fact, both recyclable and made with rising proportions of recycled materials. The company is aiming for an average of 50 percent recycled content for its bottles by 2030.
The 132-year-old beverage producer is betting that a better environmental record will boost its credibility with consumers, who have become increasingly vocal in demanding that companies behave responsibly. McDonald's Corp.—also oft-criticized for the litter its packaging produces—also announced this week it is stepping up recycling and using more environmentally friendly materials.
‘Global Issue’
Packaging waste “is a global issue that is very visible from an external consumer and stakeholder standpoint,” Ben Jordan, Coke's senior director for environmental policy, said in an interview.
For big companies, pressure to act is mounting. Earlier this week, the European Union announced a new strategy to make sure that all packaging is recyclable by 2030 and to curb single-use items like cutlery and bottles. British Prime Minister Theresa May, meanwhile, outlined a similar plan, saying that wasteful plastic use is “one of the great environmental scourges of our time.”
Currently, only about 10 percent of the world's plastic is recycled, with the remainder piling up in landfills and ravines before often ending up in the ocean. At the current pace, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050, according to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is one of Coca-Cola's partners for the new initiative.
Coke's recycling goals are challenging, given the patchwork of differing rules set forth by nations, states and local governments. Items such as juice pouches and promotional PET colored plastic bottles are especially difficult to recycle. The company's massive global scale, meanwhile, further complicates the efforts.
But if successful, the plan could lead to cost savings because Coke could provide a growing amount of its own packaging material, Jordan said.
The biggest challenge, however, may be taste: Not all packaging materials can maintain the same quality.
With some packages, the challenging is getting them to work as well, Jordan said. “It's breaking through those barriers.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212124&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212124&jd=127212124
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EU to Lower Limit for Bisphenol A Migration from Food Packaging
Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
A draft European Commission regulation that lowers the amount of bisphenol A (BPA) allowed to migrate into or onto food from packaging materials is expected to be finalized in the coming months.
Members of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health, & Food Safety Committee voted on Jan. 11 to reject a proposal to ban BPA in food packaging. The committee instead endorsed the Commission’s proposal to lower the migration limit from 0.6 mg of BPA per kg of food to 0.05 mg/kg.
BPA is used to manufacture polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins found in coatings that line food cans. Concerns about BPA’s estrogenic activity have prompted regulators around the world to evaluate the substance’s risks in materials that contact food. The Commission’s proposal cites “potential health effects of BPA on the mammary gland, reproductive, metabolic, neurobehavioral, and immune systems.”
The draft regulation prohibits any BPA from migrating into infant formula and baby food, essentially banning use of the chemical in materials used for those products.
Environmental and public health activists say the regulation does not go far enough to protect consumers. “The adverse health effects of bisphenol A, even at low doses, are so well documented that it should already have been banned from all consumer products a long time ago,” says Natacha Cingotti, policy officer on health and chemicals at the Health & Environment Alliance, an environmental group.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i4/EU-lower-limit-bisphenol-migration.html
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Jan 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alex Scott
The European Commission has unveiled its first-ever Europewide plan to tackle plastics waste, including waste entering the oceans. At the heart of its plan is a goal that all plastics packaging used in the region must be recyclable by 2030. The Commission also set a target to recycle 55% of plastics packaging waste—which makes up about two-thirds of all plastics waste generated in the region—by then.
Currently, less than 30% of the 26 million metric tons of plastics waste collected in Europe each year is recycled. Much of the rest is incinerated, placed in landfills, or shipped outside the region.
The Commission will provide $120 million to fund innovations in plastics recycling, including the development of processes for making plastics recyclable and systems for removing hazardous substances and contaminants.
Six European plastics recycling industry organizations, including Plastics Recyclers Europe and European Plastics Converters, say they welcome the Commission’s strategy. They pledge to launch new initiatives in a bid to recycle 50% of all plastics waste—including packaging—in Europe by 2040.
PlasticsEurope, an industry association whose members make new plastic, says it is committed to ensuring 60% of plastic packaging is reused or recycled by 2030.
In an attempt to reduce the number of plastic particles entering the aquatic environment, the Commission proposes restricting the use of particles less than 5 mm in size in products such as cosmetics and detergents. The Commission also proposes that oxo-plastics, which break down into small fragments in the environment, should be banned.
Europe’s new plastics strategy comes on the heels of China’s ban on imported plastic waste. Many European companies now have a growing plastics waste disposal problem as a result.
The EC claims its strategy will deliver economic as well as environmental benefits. Just 5% of the value of Europe’s plastics waste is recovered, meaning that between $85 billion and $128 billion is lost to the region’s economy every year, says Jyrki Katainen, the Commission’s vice president for jobs, growth, investment, and competitiveness.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i4/Europe-tackles-plastics-waste.html
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Energy Regulator Would Get Sole Authority Over LNG Exports in Bill
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
A House bill aiming to speed up the permitting of liquefied natural gas export terminals would take the Energy Department out of the process, leaving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the sole agency in charge of approval.
The support for the bill fell largely along party lines during a Jan. 19 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy hearing on the bill, with backing by Republicans and criticism from Democrats.
H.R. 4605, introduced by Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), aims to make the process of approval of LNG export terminals faster by making FERC the only agency that must give a green light to site, construct, expand, or operate a facility. Currently, the Energy Department issues a separate approval after determining a terminal exporting to non-Free Trade Agreement countries is in the public interest.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the full committee, said removing the Energy Department process could “significantly impact domestic natural gas prices and adversely affect American consumers and manufacturers.”
“DOE's process for reviewing and approving gas export applications is working efficiently and effectively, so I fail to see a reason to alter it, let alone do away with it completely as proposed by this bill,” he said.
No Trump Opinion
The bill would remove the provision in the Natural Gas Act that directs the Energy Department to determine whether the export terminal is in the public interest. Doing so would speed up the overall process, Johnson said.
The Trump administration has taken no position on the bill yet, Steven Winberg, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for fossil energy, who testified at the hearing, said.
Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, which represents LNG industry, backed the bill. It provides “greater certainty in the permitting process for LNG facilities” while also creating more jobs and reducing emissions, he said.
Consumer Group Opposition
However, Paul Cicio, president of Industrial Energy Consumers of America, representing large manufacturers, strongly opposed the bill, calling it bad for consumers’ electric bills and the U.S. economy.
“H.R. 4605 is anti-consumer by removing the Natural Gas Act's public interest determination that was wisely put in place by Congress to ensure that LNG export volumes do not damage the economy and jobs,” Cicio said at the hearing.
“A reasoned volume of LNG exports is good for the economy,” but excessive LNG exports will damage manufacturing competitiveness long-term and threaten capital investment that is now occurring because of low prices and trillions of dollars of existing manufacturing assets.
The subcommittee also received testimony on H.R. 4606, also introduced by Johnson, which aims to speed up the approval process for small-scale LNG exports not exceeding 0.14 billion cubic feet per day.
There also was a great deal of debate on H.R. 4476, which aims to reform the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. Introduced by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), it would make changes to a policy intended to encourage more renewable energy development. There have been complaints of utilities taking advantage of certain provisions of the law over the years.
A committee staffer told Bloomberg Environment that there is no timeline for next steps on the three bills at this time. Similar bills have been introduced in the Senate.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212133&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212133&jd=127212133
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Panel Debates Bills to Boost LNG Exports, Reform Utility Law
Jan 19, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Maxine Joselow
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy squabbled during a four-hour hearing today over three bills aimed at expediting liquefied natural gas exports and modernizing a controversial utility law.
Two of the bills, H.R. 4605 and H.R. 4606, would make it easier for LNG suppliers to receive federal government approval to export.
The first would allow applicants to export LNG after completing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's review process instead of waiting for additional approval from the Department of Energy.
The second would allow for expedited small-scale natural gas exports, giving the Department of Energy legal authority to automatically accept applications from companies to ship less than 51.1 billion cubic feet per year. The Trump administration is working on a similar initiative through rulemaking.
Republican Rep. Bill Johnson, from southwestern Ohio, a top supporter of LNG shipments, introduced both measures in December (E&E Daily, Dec. 13, 2017).
Both bills earned praise from Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), vice chairman of the committee, who said he didn't see "any downside" to them.
Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) also lauded the measures, saying increasing LNG exports would ease geopolitical tensions.
As an example, Olson cited an LNG tanker's recent departure from the Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana and arrival in Poland. That development, he said, helped counterbalance the Kremlin's influence in Eastern Europe.
"That simple act said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Putin. Hello, Uncle Sam,'" Olson said.
But some Democrats expressed concern that removing DOE from the LNG export approval process could undermine national security.
"Shouldn't we be careful before we greenlight unlimited LNG exports without consideration of our national security interests?" asked Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.).
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member on the committee, also raised concerns about earmarking, a process that allows members to direct money for favored projects in legislation without regard to merit or other competitive processes, and that was also the subject of two days of hearings this week in the Rules Committee (E&E Daily, Jan. 16).
"Only one project currently meets the capacity requirements of the administration's LNG rule but does not qualify for a categorical exclusion, and that's the project in development by Eagle LNG Partners in Jacksonville, Florida," Pallone said.
"Since the bill does not include a categorical exclusion provision, the Jacksonville facility would be the only project to benefit from this new, expedited process," he said. "That sounds suspiciously to me like the kind of legislative earmark that I thought my Republican colleagues opposed."
The third bill debated by the panel, H.R. 4476, from Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), would make changes to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.
One provision of the legislation would lower the threshold of the mandatory purchase obligation, which requires utilities to buy power from certain renewable projects, to 2.5 megawatts (E&E Daily, Dec. 1, 2017).
Another provision would prevent abuse of FERC's "1-mile rule," which critics say currently allows companies to game the law.
The rule essentially says that if a developer builds two power generation facilities within a mile of each other, they count as the same facility.
Walberg touted his bill as a way to "lower electricity bills for American families, to stop the gaming of a 40-year-old law at the expense of my constituents."
But Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the committee, questioned whether the provision related to the 1-mile rule was necessary.
Walden asked witness James Danly, FERC's general counsel, "Can FERC implement these changes to the 1-mile rule without H.R. 4476 becoming law?"
"Yes. That is something we can probably get a regulation for," Danly said.
"Well, that would appear to be a pretty easy fix," Walden said.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/01/19/stories/1060071473
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Trump Is Tearing Up Fracking Rules On Federal Lands. Be Alarmed.
Jan 22, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
THE TRUMP administration announced late last month that it was tearing up rules on hydraulic fracturing— better known as fracking — on federal lands. The change satisfies drillers who have long opposed federal regulations on the controversial oil and gas extraction process. But it should alarm everyone else.
Though drillers operating on public lands have in recent years fracked extensively, pumping a cocktail of water and chemicals into wells at high pressure to fracture rock formations and free trapped fuel, the Interior Department has not updated its rules in decades. So President Barack Obama’s Interior Department spent several years developing new regulations, ultimately releasing them in 2015, well into Mr. Obama’s second term. The lengthy process resulted in standards that struck a thoughtful balance between economic opportunity and environmental safety.
For example, the Obama administration’s rules would have required drillers to test carefully the cement they use to seal off their wells, which would help prevent leakage into the subterranean environment. They would have stipulated careful treatment of wastewater flowing back out of the ground after injection, insisting that it be stored in aboveground storage tanks rather than in pits. Given that many of the most disturbing fracking accidents occurred in the handling of wastewater, the need for rules such as these was glaring. The Obama regulations also would have obliged drillers to disclose publicly the chemicals they added to the water they pumped underground.
At the time, these standards failed to enthuse some on the environmentalist left, who want regulations that crack down so hard as to hobble the industry or effectively ban fracking. Instead, the Obama administration insisted that the rules would pose little challenge to the industry, because compliance costs would be extremely cheap — a relatively tiny $11,400 per well.
The Environmental Protection Agency underscored the importance of a well-balanced fracking policy in a major report on fracking’s safety profile that the agency released at the end of 2016. The EPA found only scattered evidence of harm to drinking water, which is remarkable given the staggering number of wells drilled in the past decade. The agency nevertheless identified several ways in which fracking jobs could go wrong if improperly managed, along with real-world examples of harm.
The industry and the Trump administration would increase national and local acceptance of fracking if strong federal regulations were in place. Instead, the industry argues that states are already doing an adequate job of regulating fracking, so the behemoth federal government need not slow the drilling approval process with yet more red tape. Yet even if most states have model fracking regulations, that does not obviate the need for a federal backstop guaranteeing a minimum level of regulation across the country. The Obama rules would have deferred to local regulations when states had regulations as strong or stronger than the federal ones.
If Trump administration officials were worried about regulatory redundancy, they should have ensured that the federal authorities were deferring to states when they could. Instead, they quashed a sensible set of rules that would have discouraged accidents and encouraged public confidence in the industry.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-tearing-up-fracking-rules-on-federal-lands-be-alarmed/2018/01/21/91508a10-ecd0-11e7-b698-91d4e35920a3_story.html?utm_term=.9ae989960566
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Trump’s Energy Juggernaut Faces a More Daunting Year 2
Jan 22, 2018 | Politico
By Ben Lefebvre
President Donald Trump has resurrected the Keystone XL pipeline, renounced the Paris climate agreement, opened a long-disputed Alaska refuge to oil drilling and ordered his agencies to erase Obama-era regulations on the petroleum, coal and power industries — all in the name of asserting U.S. “energy dominance.”
But from here on, his victories will become harder to achieve.
Reversing Barack Obama’s environmental and energy agenda is one of the Trump administration’s big first-year successes, alongside achievements like December’s $1.5 trillion tax overhaul. It has certainly been one of Trump's most persistent strategies, as his agencies have moved to revoke Obama’s climate and water regulations, ease limits on fracking, wipe out drilling restrictions on almost the entire U.S. coastline and postpone energy-efficiency requirements.
Now, however, the courts will have their say in how far these rollbacks go, as much of Trump’s deregulatory agenda faces legal challenges from state attorneys general and environmental groups stretching from D.C. to California.
More seriously, the parts of Trump’s agenda that survive may not have the deep impact that he is promising — especially as the nation moves into the second decade of a boom that has already made the U.S. the world's biggest oil and gas producer, and as market forces continue to take a bite out of coal.
“We already seem to have more oil than we can say grace over,” said John Northington, a former Clinton-era Interior Department official now working as an energy consultant. “I don’t think the new policies will have any impact on the market. A lot of the rulemaking they’ve proposed will be held up in courts or overturned.”
Even so, industry groups that chafed under Obama's regulations say they're pleased with what Trump has achieved so far.
"We were excited by what we saw in 2017," said Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America. "The administration got off to a strong start in reshaping and rebalancing American energy development. It was a look at putting in thoughtful policies, in contrast to the challenges we faced in the Obama administration."
So far, Trump’s most concrete impact on energy policy came when he approved the Keystone XL pipeline and ordered a speedy environmental review of the Dakota Access Pipeline, both of which had languished under the Obama administration. The Dakota pipeline started transporting oil in June, less than half a year after Trump signed an executive order, but it’s not clear if the Keystone XL pipeline will ever be built, despite Trump’s comments suggesting it was already operating.
Keystone developer TransCanada said only last week that it believed it had secured adequate demand for the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline — after garnering a significant commitment for oil shipments from customers including the Alberta government — but it hasn’t said for sure it will build the $8 billion project. The company is also still negotiating with Nebraska landowners on the route the state’s regulator approved. Meanwhile, environmental groups are challenging Trump’s approval process in court, saying the administration didn’t follow proper procedure.
Trump's Interior Department also began the repeal process on Obama-era rules that had forced oil and gas companies to tamp down on methane emission and disclose the chemicals they use to frack wells on federal land. But those rollbacks, lauded by the industry, are also being contested in court.
"It was a concentrated attempt to reverse the gains we made in the past 40 years," Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce said. "It takes so long to put a rule in place, and it takes the same administrative process to unwind, so it's slow. So the immediate impact to public health and the environment are down the road and certain to be challenged in court."
Meanwhile, last year's mammoth tax bill cleared the way for Interior to sell drilling leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, fulfilling a decades-old goal of the oil and gas industry.
But the administration’s penchant to cut corners has imperiled what should have been another energy win: its proposal this month to open up nearly 100 percent of federal waters to new offshore drilling. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did a quick about-face when Florida’s elected officials objected to the possibility of oil drilling off its coast. Zinke’s Twitter announcement that he would remove the state from his plan galvanized lawmakers and governors from other coastal states who were already wary of how drilling rigs off their beaches may harm their tourism and fishing economies.
Governors from both political parties have pressed Zinke to rethink his offshore drilling move. And his reversal on Florida drilling, which came before Interior had gone through a public comment period, could put the whole draft proposal in court over alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Meanwhile, even with oil prices on the rise, oil companies appeared to have little appetite to pour billions of dollars into new drilling projects either in Alaska or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts when onshore fields opened up by fracking remain cheap.
“A lot of the stuff coming out of Interior is just PR,” said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with financial services firm Raymond James in Houston. “It doesn’t mean anything to drilling. Drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, it’s pure fantasy to think we’ll see that.”
On coal, Trump’s promises to revive the industry have received praise from backers like Murray Energy founder Bob Murray, who had complained that the Obama EPA’s climate regulations for power plants unfairly targeted them. While EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has begun rescind that rule and the Interior Department has lifted a moratorium on coal leases on federal land, experts see little chance coal will reverse the sharp declines it has suffered in the past decade.
A last-ditch effort by the Energy Department to throw the coal industry a lifeline fell flat earlier this month when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a panel dominated by Trump appointees — rejected Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to offer financial support to coal-fired power plants. The DOE plan had drawn sharp criticism after photos of Murray delivering a plan to protect coal emerged.
U.S. coal production did rise in 2017, boosted by exports of steel-making coal. But demand is expected to drop this year as natural gas continues to take its share of the electricity market.
“If natural gas prices drop, the pace of us coal decline will accelerate,” Rhodium Group energy analyst Trevor Houser said. “This mini-recovery in coal production in 2017, the bottom will fall out from that.”
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/01/trumps-energy-juggernaut-faces-a-more-daunting-year-2-294051
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Increased M&A Activity Could Boost Oil Production
Jan 22, 2018 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
More mergers and acquisitions could be in store for the oil patch in 2018, experts say, boosted by oil prices at levels not seen in 30 months and a flurry of available acreage as companies focus on their very best plays.
But some are concerned that more acquisitions, especially in the US, could mean surging production on top of the record 10 million b/d of crude output that the US Energy Information Administration projects for next month, and 11 million b/d late in 2019.
And in a market that has been oversupplied with crude in recent years, which in turn dragged down oil prices, any large-scale trend that hints at new production volumes could pull prices even lower.
“Acquirers aren’t buying properties for the [proved developed producing reserves] associated with the properties, but rather are buying properties they can develop,” Jeff Munoz, partner in global law firm Latham & Watkins, said. “I definitely think you will see an uptick in production from properties being sold.”
When acreage changes hands, production usually does not remain the same, he noted. Instead, operators set to work improving perwell yields through efficiencies and better completion designs.
On the other hand, since sellers often dispose of acreage to meet their capital budgets, they may drill even more on their retained assets, since sales provide more capital to spend on them, Munoz said.
“I do think you are going to see more production come online, given the current movement in prices and the amount of M&A activity everyone is expecting,” he said.
Production is particularly likely to rise after acreage that has long been non-core to the seller changes hands, Greig Aitken, principal analyst for M&A at energy consultants Wood Mackenzie, said.
“In such cases, the assets often haven’t been attracting adequate capital in the seller’s portfolio, so drilling has been minimal,” Aitken said. “The buyer’s value proposition is based around applying more capital to accelerate development and production.”FOCUS IS ON LARGER COMPANIES
Waning interest and lack of scale in private-operator consolidation could lead to greater public market merger and acquisition activity, Tudor Pickering Holt said in a recent note to investors.
“We do see value in scale as increased trading liquidity, greater negotiating leverage with service providers, general and administrative synergies … could lead to higher capital efficiency for development,” TPH said.
And that could lead to greater asset values “for both acquirer and acquired,” the bank added. Higher oil prices could accelerate non-core divestitures at higher valuations than previously thought, TPH said, citing mid-size operators RSP Permian and Callon Petroleum as likely candidates for acquisition.
The most likely acquirers include larger-cap names such as Devon Energy, Continental Resources, Oasis Petroleum, Newfield Exploration, Chesapeake Energy, Apache, and Matador Resources.
Increased crude prices are a key driver for more M&A activity, Rene Santos, an upstream analyst at S&P Global Platts Analytics, said.FISCAL DISCIPLINE WEAKENING?
But that also worries some analysts who see higher prices as a trigger to spend more and potentially jettison the capital discipline that upstream operators have recently pledged to maintain so that they aren’t caught over-leveraged if oil prices should drop.
“For the past six months, companies have been talking more about living within cash flow versus continuing to grow—namely, aggressive acquisition and drilling,” Santos said. “You see some evidence of companies becoming more disciplined with the slowdown of M&A transactions and also the relatively flat rig count despite higher oil prices.”
Last year, upstream deal spending worldwide was above that of both 2016 and 2015, Wood Mac’s Aitken said. Globally, 2017 saw 384 deals collectively valued at $143 billion, compared to 420 deals at $128 billion in 2016 and 334 deals for $137 billion in 2015.
“There was a real pickup in deal activity in second-half 2016, predominantly in North America,” Aitken said. “Coming into Q1 2017, there was a huge amount of activity in the Permian Basin and Canada. But in Q2, that sort of quieted down and second-half 2017 was quiet by comparison.”
Right now, there is a small amount of bolt-on transactions to bolster producers’ core portfolio holdings, said Latham & Watkins’ Munoz, who expects it to continue a while longer.
A pickup in acquisitions and divestitures “hasn’t quite started yet,” he said. “We’re probably two or three months from people deciding $60[/b] is the new floor where they can say they’ll hedge an acquisition’s production at that price.”
“They’re not 100% convinced this will be the new floor,” Munoz said. “Until things get going, you’ll see a lot of smaller deals where people are selling off fringe acreage.”
The other type of divestiture that might be seen is acreage that companies know they likely will not get around to drilling for many years, Ray Ballotta, partner, M&A services for Deloitte, said.
“You might also see companies evaluating their drilling inventory and saying, ‘I have 50 years of drilling inventory, do I really need that? Maybe if I sell the last 10 or 15 years of drilling activity, that will be a potential catalyst for deals in the Permian,” Ballotta said. “That may be a way to shore up your balance sheet and foster small deals.”
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/01/22/mergers-acquisitions-oil-production/
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Oil & Gas Tweet Aside, Florida Waters Still Being Analyzed for Drilling
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Despite Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's Jan. 9 tweet that Florida is “off the table” for offshore oil drilling, that activity is actually still on the table.
The acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management made clear Jan. 19 that Zinke's decision, announced on Twitter and described to reporters in the Tallahassee airport, doesn't stop a formal process of considering whether to sell drilling rights in waters near the Florida coast.
A tweet “is not a formal action,” BOEM's Walter Cruickshank told a House subcommittee. That means waters around Florida—including the south Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico—will continue to be analyzed. “They are still part of the analysis until the secretary gives us an official decision otherwise.”
Required analysis is still under way on the bureau's draft proposal outlining 47 possible auctions of drilling rights in more than 90 percent of the U.S. outer continental shelf. That includes an ongoing public comment period, nearly two dozen meetings nationwide, and required environmental impact analysis.
Process Still Unfolding
“Until such time as all of those analyses are complete and we have all of those comments to put into the record and consider, we will not have any indication of where the secretary wants to go,” Cruickshank said. “We are following the process and the secretary's decisions will be reflected in the proposed program decision.“
Zinke said he was “removing Florida from the draft offshore plan” after a Jan. 9 meeting with the state's Republican governor and Senate candidate, Rick Scott. Zinke cited Florida's status as “unique” and “heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver,” while also commending Scott as a “straightforward leader that can be trusted.“
Representative Darren Soto, a Democrat from Florida who led the lease plan questioning Jan. 19, suggested Zinke's comments may foster a false sense of security among Floridians worried about drilling rigs near the coast.
“Many Floridians now believe that we're off the table—that there's going to be no offshore drilling because of that statement—and that's not true,” Soto said.
Federal law defines the process the government must follow and the factors that must be considered when deciding what parts of the Outer Continental Shelf to lease for oil and gas development.
The Interior Department generally issues a broad initial outline of possible sales—what Zinke unveiled earlier this month—but then follows that up later with a narrower interim proposal and a final sale schedule that can be even smaller.
Political considerations may make it impossible for Zinke to walk back his tweet, ClearView Energy Partners Managing Director Kevin Book said. But the Interior Department could still use a creative definition of “Florida” to allow sales in eastern Gulf of Mexico waters, the most tempting new territory for oil companies in the Trump administration's offshore draft.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212115&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212115&jd=127212115
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Nuns Get One Last Chance on Pennsylvania Pipeline Claim
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Pennsylvania nuns who oppose a natural gas pipeline being built on their property on religious grounds have one more chance to convince a court they can sue over the project, even though they didn't object during its approval process.
The Adorers of the Blood of Christ may file one more seven-page brief explaining how their case differs from another 2007 decision in a religious freedom case, and other parties will have 10 days to respond, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said Jan. 19.
It was the latest twist in a pipeline dispute that echoes the saga of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which failed in its lawsuit to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from passing through land the tribe considers sacred.
Using similar Religious Freedom Restoration Act arguments, the Roman Catholic sisters sued in July 2017 to stop Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. (Transco) from building a pipeline on cropland they own in Lancaster County, saying the project violated deeply held religious beliefs to protect the sanctity of the earth.
‘Sat on Their Rights’
The nuns sued both Transco, which applied in 2015 to build the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which approved the project in 2017, authorizing the company to take property along the pipeline route through eminent domain.
They nuns appealed their case to the Third Circuit after their lawsuit was dismissed in 2017 at the District Court level.
“The Adorers sat on their rights,” Transco's attorney Elizabeth U. Witmer of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP told the panel of three judges during oral arguments Jan. 19 in Philadelphia. The Adorers did not raise religious objections during FERC proceedings nor did they intervene during eminent domain proceedings, as four other landowners did, she said.
FERC made accommodations in response to religious freedom claims raised in other projects, the commission's attorney, Susanna Y. Chu, told the judges. “The agency would have taken these concerns very seriously had it had the opportunity to do so,” she said.
In briefs, the nuns’ attorney, J. Dwight Yoder of Gibbel, Kraybill & Hess LLP in Lancaster, had argued that the FERC approval process does not prevent the Adorers from making separate religious claims in court because the Religious Freedom Restoration Act “trumps any other federal law.”
However, judges were skeptical of that argument. Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith asked why the case wasn't “duplicative” and why the nuns didn't speak up earlier.
“Others showed up to interpose objections,” Smith said. “The Adorers did not.”
Additionally, Judge Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. suggested the nuns could have raised objections during FERC hearings and then appealed the agency's decision afterwards.Relation to 2007 Case
The judges also wanted to hear more about how the case related to the Third Circuit's 2007 decision in Francis v. Mineta, which found that a federal employee who sued on religious grounds to wear dreadlocks could not bring those claims in court because he had failed to exhaust other administrative remedies.
“Do you believe Francis was wrongly decided?” Judge Cheryl Ann Krause asked Yoder.At the end of oral arguments, the judges asked the parties to submit supplemental briefs limited to discussion of the Francis decision.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212119&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212119&jd=127212119
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Better Thermostat Passwords May Deter Cyberattacks on Grid
Jan 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jim Polson
A key to preventing cyberattacks from crippling U.S. power grids could be changing passwords on Internet routers, wifi-connected thermostats and smart lawn-sprinklers.
“A significant share” of Internet attacks result from unchanged factory default passwords on web-connected devices that allow hackers to break in and and install malware, according to a Jan. 18 report by the Advanced Energy Economy Institute.
The institute, which pushes to make energy systems more secure, says manufacturers should program devices them so people are forced to change default passwords when they connect to the grid. Utilities also could deter attacks by requiring and issuing software keys to protect connected device.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127212128&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127212128&jd=127212128
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Jury Acquits Railroad Employees In Lac Megantic Fire Disaster
Jan 22, 2018 | NPR
Jurors in eastern Canada on Friday found three men not guilty of criminal negligence following an oil train disaster that left 47 people dead. The accident in July 2013 involved a U.S.-owned train carrying North Dakota crude oil. In the aftermath, regulators in the U.S. and Canada adopted sweeping reforms to the way railroads haul and manage hazardous cargoes.
The accident occurred on a summer evening after a rail worker left an industrial train unattended on a hillside above the village of Lac Megantic, Quebec. A malfunctioning brake system allowed it to roll free. The train gathered speed, derailed and exploded, sending balls of fire rolling through downtown.
Rescue crews were forced to pull back after reporting temperatures so extreme that village streets burst into flame. Tom Harding, one of the rail workers accused of negligence, described the scene in a recorded phone call played at the trial. "Everything's on fire from the church all the way down to the metro," Harding said. "Flames are 200 feet high, it's incredible, you can't believe it here."
Prosecutors argued that Harding and two coworkers, Richard Labrie and Jean Demaitre, could have done more to prevent the accident. The men pleaded not guilty. Many critics in the U.S. and Canada argued they were scapegoats, with the lengthy trial diverting attention from lax government regulations and from cost-cutting decisions made by the Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railroad.
Tom Walsh, a lawyer for Harding, told the Associated Press his client was too emotional to speak but feels relieved. "He always admitted his responsibility. His only claim was that the responsibility was not the equivalent of criminal negligence," Walsh said. "He's very marked by this experience and he will always feel a tremendous moral responsibility and he will never be able to rid himself of that feeling."
The U.S.-owned railroad declared bankruptcy after the accident and its American officers haven't faced criminal charges. In the years since the disaster, regulators in the U.S. and Canada have tightened rules for how hazardous materials, including crude oil, are handled by railroads.
The biggest change is a gradual phase-out over the next decade of tens of thousands of single-hulled DOT-111 tank cars. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board had issued numerous warnings before the Lac Megantic disaster that the cars are too fragile to carry "dangerous products." Despite those concerns, they continue to serve as a workhorse for railroads serving oil, gas and chemical industries.
The village of Lac Megantic, meanwhile, has struggled to recover from the disaster. The community of 6,000 people had to build a new downtown area from scratch because the historic commercial district was heavily contaminated by heavy metals and other pollution released during the blaze.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/19/579242914/jury-acquits-railroad-employees-in-lac-megantic-fire-disaster
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Haze Rule Reconsideration Signals Pruitt's 'Cooperative Federalism' Push
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's just-announced reconsideration of the Obama administration's revised regional haze rule signals how Administrator Scott Pruitt is pushing toward greater state autonomy under the Clean Air Act's system of “cooperative federalism,” where states have the primary role in implementation of clean air policy.
In his former role as the Republican attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt clashed with EPA repeatedly over what he saw as the agency's excessive second-guessing of state decisions, which he and other critics of the agency said trod on state prerogatives. One area where states accused the Obama EPA of overreaching was the haze program -- and the haze rule reconsideration may help to shift power back toward states.
The Obama EPA disagreed with several states' determinations of what constitutes best available retrofit technology (BART), which is a one-time pollution control requirement and the focus of state implementation plans (SIPs) for haze reduction submitted to cover the first compliance period of the haze program, from 2008-2018.
SIPs for the second compliance period will focus on other aspects of the program, such as the need to demonstrate “reasonable further progress” (RFP) and implement pollution controls to achieve such progress.
In several instances the Obama EPA disapproved haze SIPs and imposed its own federal implementation plans (FIPs) instead, leading to litigation and accusations of federal overreach from some states.
Texas is one state where both BART and RFP are still being litigated. The state sued the agency over what it said was an excessively stringent plan focused on RFP imposed by the Obama EPA. That suit, State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al., is in abeyance in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Meanwhile, environmentalists are pursuing a 5th Circuit case over a plan jointly agreed by EPA and Texas establishing BART for power plants in the state. Environmentalists claim that the plan, which establishes a sulfur dioxide emissions trading plan within Texas, is much weaker than an earlier Obama EPA proposal, and violates the Clean Air Act on several counts.
Texas is also leading litigation against the Obama haze rule revision that EPA will now reconsider, in the D.C. Circuit case State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al. In its statement of issues to be raised in the case, Texas says it intends to question, among other issues, whether the rule “is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law because it converts the statutory discretion States have in considering the conclusions of a federal land manager into a mandatory requirement that States must respond through costly formal revision of their regional haze state implementation plan.
“In particular, the Final Rule improperly mandates that States must revise their regional plans in response to a federal land manager’s certification of reasonably attributable visibility impairment for a Class I air quality area.” The case is due to enter the briefing phase this year. Federal land managers are non-EPA employees responsible for managing “Class I” areas -- national parks and wilderness areas -- protected by the haze program.
Meanwhile, northeastern states with few problems meeting the haze program's goals are already well advanced in their preparation of haze SIPs that they intend to submit to EPA on the original schedule in 2018, rather than waiting until 2021 as the Obama rule allows. EPA's intended revision of the haze rule and issuance of new guidance may throw these efforts into doubt, even as northeastern states have touted their plans as examples for other states to follow.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/haze-rule-reconsideration-signals-pruitts-cooperative-federalism-push
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EPA Suggests Delayed Ozone Designations for Texas Counties
Jan 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA in Jan. 19 legal filings in federal district and appeals courts is reiterating and offering further justification for its April 30 target date for finishing ozone standards attainment status of all areas of the country, except metropolitan San Antonio, TX, for which the agency is now suggesting it can issue designations by Aug. 10.
Environmentalists and states are suing EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and also in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to force issuance of overdue designations of which areas of the country are attaining or in nonattainment with EPA's 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS). The Obama EPA set the standard at 70 parts per billion (ppb), tougher than the prior 2008 limit of 75 ppb, and the Trump administration is currently reviewing that decision.
The agency missed an Oct. 1 Clean Air Act deadline to issue designations, issuing designations for most parts of the country in November. But that round of designations applied only to areas in attainment or designated “unclassifiable,” leaving all nonattainment designations outstanding.
In a declaration attached to filings in three separate lawsuits, EPA air policy chief William Wehrum says the April 30 date is justified by the need to allow 120 days for states to respond to EPA's recommendations and to take public comment. EPA in late December issued “120-day letters” to states, advising them of its proposed decisions.
Wehrum further defends the agency's intended delay until Aug. 10 in designating eight counties around San Antonio, for which Texas intends to submit additional information. The agency references Wehrum's declaration in a status report to the D.C. Circuit updating it on the designations process.
Environmentalists and states in their district court suits had sought to make EPA's April 30 target -- which the agency detailed in a D.C. Circuit filing last week -- legally binding.
EPA says in a district court filing in State of California, et al., v. EPA, et al., and American Lung Association, et al., v. EPA, “EPA proposes that the Court’s remedy order direct EPA to promulgate all of the remaining area designations by April 30, 2018, except for the eight counties that comprise the San Antonio, Texas area, and that EPA be directed to promulgate the San Antonio area designation by August 10, 2018, the earliest practicable date EPA can complete its designation process for that area.”
However, the agency rejects a motion by states that the court force EPA to make designations immediately for areas where it does not disagree with a state's recommendations on attainment areas, saying this would not allow time for public comment.
EPA further rejects environmentalists' arguments that designations should be effective immediately upon designation. Rather, the agency should be allowed to make them effective “within 30 to 60 days after publication,” which would be consistent with designations for older NAAQS. This would start air law timelines for compliance from the effective date, rather than the publication date, allowing states up to an extra two months to attain the standards.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-suggests-delayed-ozone-designations-texas-counties
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