Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 1/23/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Democratic Hill Veterans Launch New Firm
Jan 23, 2018 | Politico
By Theodric Meyer and Marianne Levine
SHUTDOWN, WE HARDLY KNEW YE: “In a dramatic turnaround, Senate Democrats said they would vote to reopen the government on Monday after receiving a commitment from Republicans to hold a vote on immigration legislation — paving the way to end the three-day shutdown,” POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim, Burgess Everett and Elana Schor report. -
EPA Open for Business but Staff Kept in the Dark on Specifics
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith and David Schultz
EPA staff arrived at the agency for work as usual Jan. 22 despite the government shutdown, but employees say communication from political management was “sporadic,” lacked specifics, and did little to boost morale. -
Pruitt's 'Vision For The Future'
Jan 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is hosting a conference for the agency's staff leadership next week that appears aimed at defining a “vision” for the agency's future, including increased use of the 'Lean' management system, and a greater focus on the agency's core mission and federalism. -
(ACC Mentioned) New Formaldehyde Science Addresses Scientific Uncertainties Raised By NAS
Jan 22, 2018 | PR Newswire
By American Chemistry Council
A detailed review that integrates the latest science on formaldehyde and cancer demonstrates no link with leukemia. -
Floored by Fluorochemicals: Locals Going Lower Than EPA's Level
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Fear and uncertainty are driving some towns to completely eliminate a ubiquitous chemical from their drinking water, even though the EPA says small amounts are safe. -
New Echa Publications Added to EU Book Shop
Jan 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Eight new publications from Echa have been added to the EU bookshop. -
Senators Eye Energy, Infrastructure Bills as Shutdown Ends
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Top Republicans and Democrats expressed eagerness Jan. 22 to return to work on energy and environmental priorities, including a broad energy bill, as the Senate moved to end the government shutdown. -
Trump Would Open Nearly All U.S. Waters to Drilling. But Will They Drill?
Jan 23, 2018 | New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Tim Wallace
The Trump administration’s move to open nearly all of America’s coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling would give energy companies access to more than a billion acres off the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts. -
Biggest U.S. East Coast Oil Refinery Files for Bankruptcy
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Barbara Powell and Tiffany Kary
Philadelphia Energy Solutions LLC, owner of an oil refinery that supplies more than a quarter of the U.S. east coast's crude refining capacity, filed for bankruptcy with a plan that could allow it to shed some environmental costs. -
PennEast Natural Gas Pipe Gets U.S. Nod, but Local Issues Remain
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar
The PennEast natural gas pipeline has received federal approval, months after its developer pressed the regulator to act promptly. -
Court to Weigh EPA Authority to Delay Chemical Safety Rules
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments March 16 in a case challenging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's authority to delay an Obama-era chemical safety regulation aimed at protecting emergency responders. -
Five Missing After Houston Firm's Rig Explodes in Oklahoma
Jan 23, 2018 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
A fiery explosion at an Oklahoma drilling rig Monday left five people missing, including three employees of the rig's owner, Patterson-UTI Energy of Houston. -
White House Prioritizes Non-Federal Funds in Infrastructure Document
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney (Bloomberg Government) and David Schultz (Bloomberg Environment)
The largest share of projects receiving funds from a new White House infrastructure plan would be awarded based on a project's ability to show that it had non-federal revenues, rather than measured economic benefits, according to a White House document. -
Democrats Pressure DOT over Safety Fixes After Amtrak Derailment
Jan 23, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By Diana Stancy Correll
The Department of Transportation is under fire from Democratic lawmakers as they press the agency for answers about the Amtrak train that derailed in Washington last month, which took the lives of three passengers and injured many more. -
(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt’s Attacks on Environmental Protections Hit People of Color Hardest
Jan 23, 2018 | HuffPost
By Lisa Garcia
The Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has shown no interest in protecting the health of all people ― and the agency actually seems averse to protecting the health of people of color. -
Texas Area Gets Extension as EPA Makes Ozone Designations
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
Areas across the U.S. will hear from the EPA by April about whether their ozone pollution levels exceed federal standards, but one Texas region will get more time. -
Cramer Revives Bill to Boost Carbon Capture
Jan 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, an early energy adviser to President Trump, reintroduced legislation last week to boost carbon capture and sequestration projects through the tax code. -
It’s the Big New Idea for Stopping Climate Change — but It Has Huge Environmental Problems of Its Own
Jan 22, 2018 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Widespread use of a futuristic energy technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would create severe environmental problems, scientists argue in a new critique, casting doubt on one potential method of helping humanity escape the worst effects of climate change. -
Climate Change Could Make Borrowing More Expensive
Jan 23, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Emily Hassan
Hurricane Maria was devastating for the residents of Puerto Rico. It hurt debt investors, too. Some of the island’s bonds plunged more than 40 percent after the storm flooded the island, knocked out its electric power, and clobbered its economy.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Democratic Hill Veterans Launch New Firm
Jan 23, 2018 | Politico
By Theodric Meyer and Marianne Levine
SHUTDOWN, WE HARDLY KNEW YE: “In a dramatic turnaround, Senate Democrats said they would vote to reopen the government on Monday after receiving a commitment from Republicans to hold a vote on immigration legislation — paving the way to end the three-day shutdown,” POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim, Burgess Everett and Elana Schor report. “Senate Majority LeaderMitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to end the shutdown and fund the government through Feb. 8 while continuing to negotiate on immigration and spending matters.”
— The weekend shutdown didn’t have much impact on K Street, said Steve Elmendorf, a prominent Democratic lobbyist, although he said he’d heard that there were lines around the block outside congressional office buildings this morning due to many entrances being closed. “A lot of the folks we would normally be interacting with at the agencies are either off or doing triple duty,” Elizabeth Gore, a lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, said this morning before the deal was struck.
NEW FIRM: Three former Democratic Hill staffers launched today a new lobbying shop called Emergent Strategies. Hayden Rogers, a former House candidate and chief of staff to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Scott Eckart, former lead Democratic lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who also worked for former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., and Hadley Sosnoff, former legislative director for former Rep. Walter Minnick (D-Idaho), will lead the new firm. The firm will include at least one other employee. The three partners worked together when Sosnoff was a partner at Majority Group, a boutique lobbying firm.
— In an interview with PI, Rogers said he saw an opening for an all-Democratic firm because “Congress doesn’t work the way it used to” and that 2016 “was a reset.” Eckart said the firm recognizes that “in order to move legislation,” lobbying firms need to work with both congressional leadership as well as the newer members of Congress who “have a very different view than the generation above them.” Rogers said that the new firm won’t be limited to a specific policy area and touted the partners’ experiences working on a range of issues, including financial services, health care, energy and commerce.
NEW BUSINESS: There’s a flood of end-of-quarter filings today. Here are a couple that stand out: Eli Lilly has added GuidePostStrategies to its stable of Washington lobbying firms. (The pharmaceutical giant, which spent $7 million on lobbying last year, also retains BGR Group; Covington & Burling; Monument Policy Group; the Simmons & Russell Group; Tarplin, Downs & Young; Venn Strategies; and Williams & Jensen. Eli Lilly recently parted ways with Robert Armitage, the Ingram Group and the McManus Group, according to disclosure filings.) And Marla Grossman has signed the Motion Picture Association of America and News Corporation.
Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. Some personnel news: POLITICO’s Marianne LeVine is joining me on the lobbying and influence beat and will co-author PI. Marianne has covered labor policy for POLITICO since 2014. You may remember the scoop she landed last year when she obtained a 1990 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on which the ex-wife of Andy Puzder, President Donald Trump’s pick for Labor secretary, accused him of spousal abuse. Puzder withdrew his nomination hours later. Please send both of us your tips, your news, your idle gossip: mlevine@politico.com and tmeyer@politico.com.
— You can also follow us on Twitter: @marianne_levine and @theodoricmeyer.
BILLBOARD LOBBY GETS READY FOR OSCAR SEASON: The Outdoor Advertising Association of America is using the award-season buzz around the film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” to “underscore the cultural connections between movies and signage,” according to Ken Klein, executive vice president of government affairs for the trade group. In January, prior to the Golden Globes, member companies in New York, California and North Carolina devoted billboard space to promoting the film, with messages such as, “This billboard deserves an award.” All of the billboards are digital, and the space for the billboards was donated. In light of tomorrow’s Oscar nominations announcement, Klein said that the billboard messages will switch to “This billboard deserves an Oscar.” In addition to drawing the connection “between motion pictures and signs,” Klein said the campaign to promote the movie shows Hollywood that “we like to have fun and we’re rooting for a film with ‘billboard’ in the title.”
TIMES EDITORIAL DECRIES INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS: An editorial inThe New York Times today with the headline “Lobbyists Romp in Trump’s Washington” accuses Trump of spending the first year of his presidency beholden to lobbyists and special interests. “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,” the editorial board writes. Here’s the full editorial.
IF YOU MISSED IT THIS WEEKEND: USA Today’s Trevor Hughes reports that marijuana “business owners are increasingly pouring their profits into lobbying lawmakers as they face a federal crackdown from the Trump administration.” They’re also becoming bigger campaign donors. "John Lord, the CEO of Colorado-based LivWell Enlightened Health, whose company employs more than 600 people, has donated nearly $23,000 to federal lawmakers in the past four years, and another $10,000 to Colorado politicians and issue committees. Increasingly he’s been giving to Republicans at the federal level. ‘It would be rather imprudent if I didn’t,’ Lord said.” Full story.
JOBS REPORT
— Brian Cornell, the chairman and chief executive of Target, will be the next chairman of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the trade group announced today at its Retail CEO Forum in Tucson, Ariz. Mitt Romney is scheduled to address the gathering later today.
— Mike Joyce has joined Total Spectrum/Steve Gordon & Associates as a partner. He was previously senior vice president and chief of legislative affairs at the American Trucking Associations.
— David London has joined ofo, which describes itself as “the world’s first and largest station-free bike sharing platform,” as a senior director and the head of North America government affairs. He previously spent more than a decade at eBay, where he rose to become head of government relations for the Americas.
NEW JOINT FUNDRAISERS:
None
NEW PACs:
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. Political Action Committee (PAC)
National Committee To Draft Oprah Winfrey For President Of The United States 2020 (Super PAC)
Ohio First PAC (Super PAC)
Terrica Elyse-And we're pushing forward (PAC)NEW LOBBYING REGISTRATIONS:
10-Square Solutions: Boston Scientific Corporation
10-Square Solutions: Medtonic, Inc. [sic]
38 North Solutions, LLC: Sierra Club
American Defense International, Inc.: Rand Innovations, Inc.
APCO Worldwide LLC: Tin Thanh Electricity Steam Industrial Corp.
Arent Fox LLP: SanBio, Inc.
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP: Firstrust Savings Bank
Barnes & Thornburg, LLP: Select Milk Producers
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP: Combustion Emissions Reduction Technologies, LLC
Broydrick & Associates: Thomas Financial Group
c6 Strategies, LLC (FKA Ms. Dana W. Hudson): Design Interactive
c6 Strategies, LLC (FKA Ms. Dana W. Hudson): Florida Coalition for Children
c6 Strategies, LLC (FKA Ms. Dana W. Hudson): Maritime Solutions Inc.
c6 Strategies, LLC (FKA Ms. Dana W. Hudson): Strategos Technology Transference
Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP: KeyBank National Association
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: American Podiatric Medical Association
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: Assette
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: LHC Group, Inc.
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: UCare Health Plan
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: American President Lines, LLC
CSRA Inc.: CSRA Inc.
Dentons US LLP: ORock Technologies
Fidelis Government Relations: Coalition to Stop Genocide in Burma
Fierce Government Relations: Verax Biomedical
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP: The Children's Investment Fund
Gordley Associates: Meridian Implementation Fund
GuidePostStrategies, LLC: Eli Lilly & Co.
Hannegan Landau Poersch & Rosenbaum Advocacy, LLC: SiNode Systems, Inc.
Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, P.C.: Association for Behavioral Healthcare
Hughes Lawyers, LLC: Equipment Dealer Association
Husch Blackwell Strategies: AT&T
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Cassidy & Associates on behalf of Cerner Corporation
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Cassidy & Associates on behalf of Doe Run Company
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Cassidy & Associates on behalf of Eaglepicher Technologies LLC
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Cassidy & Associates on behalf of Expedia Inc.
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Gephardt Government Affairs on behalf of Bayer AG
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Kansas City Power and Light Company
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Kevin Kayes LLC on behalf of The Broadway League
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Lathrop & Gage on Behalf of Bridgeton Landfill LLC and Rock Road Industries I
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Lathrop Gage on behalf of EDP Enterprises Inc
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Mutualink Inc.
Husch Blackwell Strategies: National Audubon Society
Husch Blackwell Strategies: Outdoor Amusement Business Association
Husch Blackwell Strategies: World Wildlife Fund
Jones Walker, LLP: Advantage Capital
Jones Walker, LLP: JDW Properties III, LLC
K&L Gates LLP: Information Technology Management, Inc.
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: Cenikor Foundation
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries
Meyers and Associates: Irdeto
Michael Best Strategies LLC: USANA Health Sciences Inc.
ML Strategies, LLC: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
ML Strategies, LLC: Lahey Health System, Inc.
Molly Cox: CAMBA, Inc.
Mr. Gaylord Hughey: KP Engineering, LP
Mr. Gaylord Hughey: Southland Holdings, LLC
Mr. H.R. Bert Pena: OFW
Mr. H.R. Bert Pena: Provinces of San Juan and La Rioja of Argentina
Ms. Elizabeth Walker: Montana & Associates, LLC on behalf of Omaha Tribe of Nebraska/Crow Creek Tribe
Ms. Marla Grossman: Motion Picture Association of America
Ms. Marla Grossman: News Corporation
Ms. Tami Wahl: Rock & Associates
National Environmental Strategies: Northwest Paper & Pulp Association
Ogilvy Government Relations: American Health Care Association
Oldaker & Willison, LLP (formerly Oldaker Law Group, LLP): National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
PRASAM: HawkEye 360
Prime Policy Group: Economic Innovation Group
Prime Policy Group: National Federation of Independent Business
Prime Policy Group: RSM
Rose Garr: Waxman Strategies on behalf of Jerry Jung
Sextons Creek: Nevro Corporation
Squire Patton Boggs: University of California
Stapleton & Associates, LLC: InquisIT, LLC
Summit Strategies Government Affairs LLC: City of Lynnwood, WA
TCK International, LLC: DLA PIPER (US) (for Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority)
The Cormac Group, LLC: HeartFlow, Inc.NEW LOBBYING TERMINATIONS:
A1.9 Strategies LLC: Cornerstone Government Affairs obo Cubic Corporation
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: Arista Networks Inc.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: The Boeing Company
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: Consumer Health Products Canada
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: DowDuPont (FKA Dow Agrosciences LLC)
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: Google, Inc.
Alere Inc.: Alere Inc.
American Continental Group: CONSOL Energy, Inc.
American Continental Group: Diebold Nixdorf, Inc.
Arent Fox LLP: American Library Association
B&C Consortia Management, L.L.C.: North American Metal Packaging Alliance, Inc. (NAMPA)
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Advaxis, Inc.
Baker & Hostetler LLP: American Chemistry Council
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Hospital Association of Rhode Island
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Texas Children's Hospital
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Aralez Pharmaceuticals US, Inc.
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Pentec Health, Inc.
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Baker & Hostetler LLP: Prudential Financial Inc.
Banner Public Affairs, LLC: Borroughs Corporation
Banner Public Affairs, LLC: Niobrara Energy Park
Barnes & Thornburg, LLP: Sig Sauer, Inc.
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Complete Bio Solutions, Inc.
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: AMG Healthcare Services
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: reTXT Inc.
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Telephone Systems International, LLC
Bracewell LLP: Environmental Working Group
Bracewell LLP: Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA)
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Cobalt International Energy
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Complete Pharma Holdings LLC
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Constellis Holdings, LLC
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Consumer Healthcare Products Association
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Independent Directors of the Board of Directors of Wells Fargo & Company
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: Intercontinental Exchange Group, Inc.
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC: Collier Health Services d/b/a Healthcare Network of SW Florida
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC: Gulf County, Florida
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC: The Chevy Chase Land Company
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney Pc: Women's Choice Pharmaceuticals, LLC
c6 Strategies, LLC (FKA Ms. Dana W. Hudson): Persistent Sentinel
Cameron Krier Massey, Inc. DBA Scout GR: LIVESTRONG Foundation
Capitol Counsel LLC: Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed)
Capitol Counsel LLC: Financial Services Roundtable
Capitol Counsel LLC: Judicial Crisis Network
Capitol Counsel LLC: NextEra Energy, Inc.
Capitol Counsel LLC: Swift Transportation Company (formerly Coalition Against Bigger Trucks)
Capitol Counsel LLC: The Invest in America Coalition
Capitol Decisions, Inc.: Med Pro [sic] Billing
Capitol Hill Consulting Group: McBride Orthopedic Hospital
Carmen Group Incorporated: Crown Castle Solutions Corp
Clark Hill, PLC: Henry Ford College Congressional Strategies LLC: Fidelis Cybersecurity
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: American President Lines, LLC
Crossroads Strategies, LLC: ID Integration, Inc.
Crossroads Strategies, LLC: Seattle Opera
Crossroads Strategies, LLC: Select Management Resources, LLC
Crossroads Strategies, LLC: SPV OSUS Ltd.
Crossroads Strategies, LLC: Tsg Interactive Services Limited
DeBrunner & Associates, Inc.: Pacific Alliance Medical Center
DeBrunner & Associates, Inc.: Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
Delta Strategy Group: CME Group
Dentons US LLP: Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
Dentons US LLP: Friends of the Global Fight
DLA Piper LLP (US): Akers Biosciences Inc.
DLA Piper LLP (US): Experian Group
DLA Piper LLP (US): Massage Envy Franchising, LLC
DLA Piper LLP (US): Rheem Manufacturing Company
ECA Strategies, Inc.: Compass Professional Health Services
Epplin Strategic Planning: Sixteen Thirty Fund
Epplin Strategic Planning: InCoStrat, LLC
Epplin Strategic Planning: Trip Advisor
Ernst & Young LLP (Washington Council Ernst & Young): Clean Line Energy Partners LLC
Ervin Hill Strategy: Amatex Capital
Fidelis Government Relations: Circinus, LLC
FifeStrategies, LLC: Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC (on behalf of Techshot, Inc)
Flywheel Government Solutions: Johnson Controls, Inc.
Foley & Lardner LLP: GEA Farm Technologies, Inc.
Foley & Lardner LLP: Liberty Dental Plan
Foley & Lardner LLP: Par Pharmaceutical
Foley & Lardner LLP: Pharmasan Labs
Foley & Lardner LLP: Western Growers Association
Franco Government Relations, Inc.: Stratus Pharmaceuticals Inc.
FTI Government Affairs: Tamir Biotechnology, Inc.
FTI Government Affairs: Yum! Brands
Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International: Heating Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International
Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC: Cultural Care, Inc.
Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC: Techshot, Inc.
Hogan Lovells US LLP: Sorin Group USA Inc
Holland & Knight LLP: Metropolitan State University of Denver
Holland & Knight LLP: NextEra Energy Inc.
Holland & Knight LLP: S.C. Johnson & Son
Holland & Knight LLP: Esri National Government
Holland & Knight LLP: Hendry Marine Industries Inc.
Holland & Knight LLP: Lennar Corporation
Hunton & Williams LLP: Agrium U.S. Inc.
Husch Blackwell, LLP: 408 Coalition
J M Burkman & Associates: Cafe Foods
J M Burkman & Associates: Colorado Asphalt J M Burkman & Associates: Esaero
J M Burkman & Associates: J3 Bioscience Inc.
J M Burkman & Associates: NanoPhotonica, Inc.
J M Burkman & Associates: Thera Target
J M Burkman & Associates: Tvidia
J M Burkman & Associates: Wind Surface Pro LLC
J.A. Green and Company (formerly LLC): SKA International Group
JGW International Ltd.: Smiths Detections
K&L Gates LLP: Math For America
K&L Gates LLP: Prashant Modi
K&L Gates LLP: Radian Group, Inc.
K&L Gates LLP: Aptim Corp.
K&L Gates LLP: City of Murfreesboro, Water & Sewer Department
K&L Gates LLP: Cooke Aquaculture Pacific LLC
K&L Gates LLP: Foster Wheeler Corp
K&L Gates LLP: Syracuse International Airport Authority
Kamins Consulting: BAE Systems, Inc.
Kyle House Group: The Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance
Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC: Washington State University Liberty
Partners Group, LLC: American Vascular Access LLC (Dialysis Vascular Access Coalition)
Lobbyit.com: Graduate School USA Lobbyit.com: Henry Lyden
Lobbyit.com: National Pasta Association
Lone Rock Strategies: Public Timber Purchasers Group
Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips: Isle Of Capri Casinos Inc
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: ORBIS International
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: Henkel Aerospace
McAllister & Quinn, LLC: University of Maryland Orthopaedic Association
McIntyre & Lemon, PLLC: American Bankers Association Insurance Council
Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Inc.: Entertainment Cruises Holdings LLC
Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Inc.: Monster Worldwide
Mercury: Cemex
Mercury: Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina
Monument Policy Group, LLC: BrightSource Energy, Inc.
Monument Policy Group, LLC: Claim Your Health Data Coalition
Monument Policy Group, LLC: Yelp Inc.
Mr. Scott Hed: New Venture Fund
Nancy Van Duyne: United Airlines Inc.
North Bridge Communications, Inc.: Clean Energy Fuels Corporation
O'Brien, Gentry & Scott, LLC: MacGregor
Ogilvy Government Relations: Ally Financial Inc.
Ogilvy Government Relations: Potters Industries Inc.
Orlie Yaniv Strategies LLC: InfoReliance Corporation
Orlie Yaniv Strategies LLC: Cogniac Corporation
Palmetto Group: Bessemer Securities Corporation
Palmetto Group: BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina
Palmetto Group: Comcast Corporation
Palmetto Group: Cox Enterprises, Inc.
Palmetto Group: International Aids Vaccine Initiative
Palmetto Group: National Cable Telecommunications Association
Palmetto Group: Stephens Investments Holdings LLC
Palmetto Group: United Airlines Inc.
Palmetto Group: Parsons Corporatio
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: Guardian Moving and Storage Co
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: InfoReliance Corporation
Policy Navigation Group: RSS Group on behalf of BIO
Policy Navigation Group: RSS Group on behalf of BP Americas
Potomac Partners DC: Children's National Health System
PricewaterhouseCoopers: Kiewit Corporation
PricewaterhouseCoopers: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (Canada)
PricewaterhouseCoopers: Coalition for Effective and Efficient Tax Administration (CEETA)
PricewaterhouseCoopers: Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc.
Prime Policy Group: National Federation of Independent Business
Public Strategies Washington, Inc.: Bain Capital LLC
Public Strategies Washington, Inc.: Camara de la Industria Textil, Confeccion y Zonas Francas de El Salvador (CAMTEX)
Public Strategies Washington, Inc.: FightSMA
Public Strategies Washington, Inc.: Rila Public Strategies Washington, Inc.: NextNav, LLC
Raffaniello & Associates: PSEG
Rampy Northrup LLC: Blue Shield of California
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Ridge Policy Group: United States Brain Injury Alliance (USBIA)
Sextons Creek: Pfeil Inc.
Sextons Creek: Singh World Foundation
Sixkiller Consulting, LLC: Allergan USA, Inc.
Sixkiller Consulting, LLC: American Wild Horse Campaign
Summit Strategies Government Affairs LLC: Chehalem Parks and Recreation District
Summit Strategies Government Affairs LLC: Drive Oregon
The Ferguson Group, LLC: Long Beach Transit
The Ferguson Group, LLC: Capital Region International Airport Authority
The Ferguson Group, LLC: Madison County/Anderson Corporation for Economic Development
The Glover Park Group LLC: American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACSCAN)
The Glover Park Group LLC: GAVI Alliance
The Glover Park Group LLC: JPMorgan Chase Holdings LLC
The Glover Park Group LLC: Netflix, Inc.
The Glover Park Group LLC: Sesame Workshop
The Glover Park Group LLC: UnitedHealth Group
The Glover Park Group LLC: Lattice Semiconductor Corporation
The Ingram Group LLC: Clean Line Energy Partners
The Ingram Group LLC: Eli Lilly and Company
The Madison Group: U.S. Black Chambers Inc.
The Majority Group, LLC: Southern Company
The McKeon Group, Inc.: Dorelita Limited
The McManus Group: Eli Lilly And Company
The McManus Group: National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP)
The O Team LLC: Newberry Advisors, LLC on behalf of Educational Media Foundation
The O Team LLC: Univision Communications, Inc.
The Potomac Alliance: PACE, LLP on behalf of Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC
The Washington Tax & Public Policy Group (formerly The Washington Tax Group): Enbridge (U.S.) Inc. (formerly Spectra Energy)
The Washington Tax & Public Policy Group (formerly The Washington Tax Group): LIFT America Coalition
theGROUP DC, LLC: Globalstar
Thorn Run Partners: AbbVie Inc.
Thorn Run Partners: Childrens [sic] Hospital Colorado
Thorn Run Partners: Greater New York Hospital Association
Thorn Run Partners: Mercy
Timothy R. Rupli & Associates, Inc.: Big Game Forever, LLC
Townsend Public Affairs: City of Palm Springs
Ulman Public Policy & Federal Relations: Duke Energy Corporation
Van Scoyoc Associates: Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc. dba Hoosier Energy
Venable LLP: Ally Financial, Inc.
Venable LLP: Comscore Networks Inc
Venable LLP: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Venable LLP: Noble Energy, Inc.
Venable LLP: The Clearing House Association
VogelHood, LLC: AJG Coal
VogelHood, LLC: American Catalog Mailers Association
VogelHood, LLC: Forest Landowners Association
VogelHood, LLC: Jewelry Television
Washington Advocacy Group: Clean Line Energy
Washington 2 Advocates: Bristol Myers Squibb Company
Washington 2 Advocates: City of Mercer Island
Washington 2 Advocates: Oak View Grouphttps://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2018/01/22/democratic-hill-veterans-launch-new-firm-079763
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EPA Open for Business but Staff Kept in the Dark on Specifics
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith and David Schultz
EPA staff arrived at the agency for work as usual Jan. 22 despite the government shutdown, but employees say communication from political management was “sporadic,” lacked specifics, and did little to boost morale.
“Unlike with previous shutdowns, there was no communications prior to the shutdown,” Becky Daiss, who works in the Environmental Protection Agency's chemicals office, told Bloomberg Environment. “It's ironic that [Administrator Scott Pruitt] wants us here because he usually doesn't want us here.”
Pruitt sent a memo to staff Jan. 19 saying the agency has “sufficient resources to remain open” for the week of Jan. 22.
Until that memo, agency staff “had little to nothing to go on. We still have little to nothing,” John O'Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union division that represents EPA employees, told Bloomberg Environment.
On Jan. 22, however, lawmakers and the White House reached a deal to end the shutdown.
‘Sporadic’ Communication
In prior shutdowns, particularly the 2013 shutdown during the Obama administration, O'Grady said agency staff received a lot of detail about the EPA's plans. But this time, top EPA officials have been largely mum on specifics, he said. “We should be informed, and efforts should be made to keep morale up,” he said.
Daiss said communication has been “very sporadic.” She said she found out the EPA would be open Jan. 22 from Washington radio station WTOP.
Meetings On Schedule?
According to Pruitt's memo, the EPA would remain open—though agency officials haven't provided specifics beyond that all travel must be approved by the administrator's office.
The EPA's Environmental Laboratory Advisory Board held a Jan. 22 meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., as scheduled, according to Lara Phelps, the EPA's designated federal officer for the committee.
But it is unclear whether a Jan. 23-24 public meeting of the Human Studies Review Board will take place. The EPA declined to comment on the status of that meeting.
The agency also is listed as a sponsor of the National Air Quality Conference in Austin, Texas, from Jan. 24-26 where agency staff were scheduled to participate and speak.
The EPA's Office of Inspector General in a Jan. 22 notice on its website said “with the exception of our hotline and certain law enforcement functions,” the office would be closed.
The notice said that while the EPA said most of its offices would be open through Jan. 26 if the shutdown continued, the OIG is independent of the agency and has a separate appropriation.
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Pruitt's 'Vision For The Future'
Jan 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is hosting a conference for the agency's staff leadership next week that appears aimed at defining a “vision” for the agency's future, including increased use of the 'Lean' management system, and a greater focus on the agency's core mission and federalism.
According to the draft agenda for the Jan. 29-30 EPA National Executive Leadership Development Conference in Washington, D.C., Pruitt will give an opening address that may focus on increasing efficiencies, according to a note the administrator sent with the agenda focusing on EPA's Lean Management system (ELMS).
Lean is a set of principles and methods used to help organizations identify and eliminate waste in their processes. EPA launched its Lean Government Initiative in 2014 “as a way to maximize the agency’s ability to effectively implement its mission,” an agency memo said at the time.
But Pruitt appears poised to ramp up his focus on Lean, hiring as the agency's assistant deputy administrator, Henry Darwin, the former head of Arizona's Department of Environmental Quality, who helped that state implement such a system.
In the note, Pruitt says he has asked Darwin “to deploy” the ELMS system “throughout EPA” and “provide every agency employee with the opportunity to identify better ways of serving the regulated community, states, grantees, stakeholders, and ultimately, the American public.”
He adds that he is looking forward to “talking with the agency's career and political leaders about their role in EPA's transformation” to the “most capable and highest-achieving agency in the federal government” that will “accelerate progress in delivering clean air, water and land.”
Despite his efforts to roll back agency rules and scale back its reach, especially over greenhouse gases, Pruitt's address will be shortly followed by Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus, who helped win the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that provided EPA authority to regulate GHGs.
According to the agenda, Lazarus will speak about, “The Need for a Strong EPA” that “will focus on the importance of a robust EPA and the intersection of law and economics in environmental protection.” It will also address EPA's “need to become more agile in this period of exponential growth in technology and opportunities to advance EPA's mission as challenges become more complex.”
Another session at the conference for agency leaders is called, “EPA at an Inflection Point,” which will address the agency's “opportunity to rethink how it works internally and with its customers.” It will also include discussion on the agency's new strategic plan and “new ways to deliver the mission through cooperative federalism and streamlining business processes.”
And another, “Envisioning EPA's Future,” will invite participants to identify “draft concepts for a vision statement reflecting the aspirations of EPA's leaders.” The outcome will “inform further development of the vision statement by EPA's Transformation Steering Committee.”
Day two will include a talk by the heads or other high ranking officials in the chemical, enforcement and air offices on the agency's new strategic plan and mission measures, including development of additional goals.
There will also be a full session on ELMS and the “transformation roadmap” to describe “how EPA will use [ELMS] to resolve current crises and prevent future ones” as well as to “make employees, customers, and taxpayer investors joyously happy.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/pruitts-vision-future
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(ACC Mentioned) New Formaldehyde Science Addresses Scientific Uncertainties Raised By NAS
Jan 22, 2018 | PR Newswire
By American Chemistry Council
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A detailed review that integrates the latest science on formaldehyde and cancer demonstrates no link with leukemia. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the review highlights the recent research conducted to address recommendations identified by a special committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in reviewing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2010 draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde. The newly published comprehensive review arrives at a conclusion that directly contradicts EPA's previous conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia.
NAS provides independent advice on scientific and technical matters to Congress, EPA and other federal agencies. The draft IRIS assessment was soundly criticized in 2011 by the NAS, which called for significant improvements to the draft formaldehyde assessment and to the IRIS review process. In the six years since the NAS report, significant new epidemiological, toxicological and mechanistic studies have been published, filling critical knowledge gaps and addressing many of the questions raised by the NAS committee.
"Some of the NAS' criticisms of the formaldehyde draft IRIS assessment centered on scientific transparency and the use of the best available science," said Kenneth A. Mundt, Ph.D., lead author of the paper and Health Sciences Global Practice Network Leader for Ramboll. "Accurate evaluation of formaldehyde as a potential human carcinogen and determining the levels at which formaldehyde from occupational, residential and consumer products might cause disease are absolutely critical, especially considering its production by humans as part of their normal biological processes. Central to this challenge is proper evaluation of the weight of the entire body of scientific evidence."
Much of the research generated in response to the NAS recommendations has been supported by the Foundation for Chemistry Research & Initiatives and members of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Formaldehyde Panel. The ACC Formaldehyde Panel is a strong proponent of generating and using the best available science and weight of evidence approaches to understanding important human health questions related to chemicals and their regulation. Formaldehyde is an important and widely used industrial chemical that is naturally produced in our bodies and is also naturally present in many foods and beverages we consume. It also is one of the single most studied chemicals.
"The scientific literature is clear," continued Mundt. "Integration of the currently available human, animal and mechanistic evidence consistently shows a lack of a causal association between formaldehyde exposure and leukemia."
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-formaldehyde-science-addresses-scientific-uncertainties-raised-by-nas-300585873.html
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Floored by Fluorochemicals: Locals Going Lower Than EPA's Level
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Fear and uncertainty are driving some towns to completely eliminate a ubiquitous chemical from their drinking water, even though the EPA says small amounts are safe.
Towns and state governments are asking whether the Environmental Protection Agency's limit for exposure to poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, is too high. Instead of relying on federal guidance, some towns are trying to remove as much as possible of the chemicals from their drinking water, and states are developing stricter limits.
The EPA determined in 2016 that in drinking water, a person can be safely exposed to perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), two chemicals in the PFAS family, at a concentration of up to 70 parts per trillion during their lifetime.
“The decision by [municipalities] and their customers as to whether to accept this advice is a very local one,” Howard Neukrug, former commissioner and chief executive officer of Philadelphia Water, told Bloomberg Environment.
The extent of the health effects of these chemicals is still unclear, but they may cause high cholesterol, thyroid problems, and testicular and kidney cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some states also are considering whether the EPA's 70 parts per trillion exposure level is too high and setting their own limits below that.
Military Sources
Horsham, Pa., found PFAS in every one of its 14 wells after the EPA asked water utilities to start testing for the chemicals in 2013.
“Maybe 70 [parts per trillion] is protective enough, but we haven't been able to get a definitive answer to that question,” Tina O'Rourke, business manager at Horsham Water and Sewer Authority, told Bloomberg Environment. “We felt we had a responsibility to do better.”
Horsham and its neighbors, Warminster and Warrington, border properties owned by the Navy and Air National Guard.
The military has taken responsibility for the area's PFAS contamination. The chemicals are believed to come from the military's use of aqueous film-forming foam, which was widely used to put out fires on aircraft and ships. Once the foam is sprayed onto a training ground, airfield, or accident site, it has the potential to seep into soil and groundwater.
Testing Limits
Horsham is aiming for “non-detect” concentrations of PFAS in its drinking water supply, an amount low enough that tests cannot find the chemicals.
The EPA's lifetime limit may be too high to be safe, O'Rourke said, because the township is uncertain how long PFAS has been in its drinking water or how long its residents have been exposed.
“Despite the best levels of scientific understanding, some communities don't trust the results of health exposure studies,” Neukrug said.
Anaheim, Calif., found PFOA and PFOS in its water supply, but is following the EPA's guideline of 70 parts per trillion, “which, for the benefit of everyone, is extremely stringent,” Mike Lyster, spokesman for the city, told Bloomberg Environment.
States’ drinking water limits for PFOS and PFOA vary, though all are under the EPA's 70 parts per trillion limit. Some are now revising their limits, making them more stringent.
“That's probably a trend that will continue,” David Flannery, senior global market segment manager at Cabot Corp., told Bloomberg Environment. Cabot, a specialty chemicals and performance materials company, has developed an activated carbon technology to remove PFAS from drinking water.
The Association of State Drinking Water Administrators wrote to the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Jan. 12 about inconsistent PFAS limits.
The EPA has not yet developed a single, enforceable limit for PFAS in drinking water. According to the agency, it's collecting data and conducting analyses required under the Safe Drinking Water Act to evaluate PFOA and PFOS. Drinking water limits often are used as cleanup targets at Superfund and other waste sites the EPA oversees.
“We're concerned that several sets of differing risk numbers will be communicated from each agency, which will cause confusion, delay, or worse, no action at all,” the association wrote.
According to Alan Roberson, a spokesman for the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, they have not received a response from the EPA or CDC.
Treating Water
“There are technologies available now that can treat many of the PFAS compounds down to non-detect,” David Woodward, vice president and PFAS technical leader at Wood Plc, doing business as Amec Foster Wheeler, told Bloomberg Environment.
Developing those technologies also can test their long-term use as more municipalities install permanent remedies for their water supplies, Woodward said.
Calgon Carbon Corp. installed permanent PFAS removal filters on two of Horsham's contaminated wells.
In addition to installing filtering systems, Horsham is shutting down wells and buying water from other towns, even though the concentration of PFAS in the township's drinking water falls below EPA limit. By blending drinking water sources, the town estimates that its PFOS and PFOA levels are about 4 parts per trillion.
“There have been a few instances so far where municipalities have been very close to the [EPA's] health advisory goal and then go ahead and decide to implement the [PFAS removal] technology,” Ralph Franco, director of municipal products for Calgon Carbon, told Bloomberg Environment.
“I would say that's more of an exception than a rule,” he said.
State Standards
Like the EPA, Vermont's limit is based on a combined measure of PFOS and PFOA. But instead of setting it at 70 parts per trillion, the state set a limit at 20 parts per trillion.
Sarah Vose, toxicologist at the Vermont Department of Health, said the state's limit differs because unlike the EPA, Vermont considered the potential health effects of the chemicals for children under one year old. That's a standard consideration when Vermont reviews drinking water contaminants, she told Bloomberg Environment.
New Jersey is proposing a maximum limit of 14 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water. The state is revising its acceptable level down from 40 parts per trillion, which it set in 2007.
“A large body of relevant health effects information from both human and animal studies has become available since it was developed,” the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said in a memo last October.
New Jersey also proposing a maximum limit of 13 parts per trillion for PFOS in drinking water. Like Vermont, the state considered infants who may be exposed to PFOS when drafting its limit, according to the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute.
The differences in state standards “demonstrate the difficulty in calculating health risk goals and determining risk reductions without federal standards, and are creating public confusion about what levels of PFAS are safe in drinking water,” the association wrote.
Pennsylvania is choosing to follow the EPA's health advisory for drinking water while it considers whether to set a state limit, Neil Shader, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, told Bloomberg Environment.
Pennsylvania, like the association, is encouraging the EPA to provide more support to states and take the lead on PFAS limits.
—With assistance from Pat Rizzuto and David Schultz.
This is the fourth part of a Bloomberg Environment series looking at the impact of fluorinated chemical contamination on communities and businesses.
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New Echa Publications Added to EU Book Shop
Jan 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Eight new publications from Echa have been added to the EU bookshop.
They are:
· Guidance for identification and naming of substances under REACH and CLP (latest edition);
· How to prepare registration dossiers that cover nanoforms;
· Follow up to dossier evaluation decisions;
· General report 2016;
· General report 2016 Highlights;
· Guide on safety data sheets and exposure scenarios;
· Guidance on registration; and
· Technical agreements for biocides (version 1.2. latest edition).
https://chemicalwatch.com/63261/new-echa-publications-added-to-eu-book-shop
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Senators Eye Energy, Infrastructure Bills as Shutdown Ends
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Top Republicans and Democrats expressed eagerness Jan. 22 to return to work on energy and environmental priorities, including a broad energy bill, as the Senate moved to end the government shutdown.
Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Bloomberg Environment she sees a window to move her Energy and Natural Resources Act (S. 1460) measure once the Senate gets past deals in the weeks ahead that may include yet another spending resolution to avoid a shutdown when the current one expires Feb. 8.
Democrats and Republicans also must have to reach a deal on lifting defense and non-defense budget caps, Murkowski said, but that could clear some space on the calendar to start moving energy legislation by the spring “and I'm hoping earlier,” Murkowski said.
“I'd love to be moving forward on my energy bill,” she said, but until the budget cap issue is resolved, “we're probably not going to be looking at taking up the free-standing energy bill.”
The bill is cosponsored by the top Democrat on the energy committee, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who also backed another Murkowski energy package that fell just shy of being signed into law in the last Congress.
The new legislation would require the Energy Department to expedite approval of liquefied natural gas export projects while authorizing money for safeguards against cybersecurity attacks. It also includes a range of energy efficiency, power grid modernization, and pipeline measures.
Back on Track on Infrastructure?
In the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.) and the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) are hoping to see the panel take up an infrastructure package, which President Trump had originally hoped to move in 2017.
“Hopefully that's something we could work on together and get done” in the weeks and months ahead, Carper told reporters Jan. 22. “And I think the question at the end of the day is, is the administration willing to actually put real money into this? We'll find out.”
“I expect the president will talk about it [in] his State of the Union address” when Trump will address both chambers of Congress on Jan. 30, Carper said.
The largest share of projects receiving funds from a new White House infrastructure plan would be awarded based on a project's ability to show that it had non-federal revenues, rather than measured economic benefits, according to a widely leaked White House document obtained by Bloomberg News.
The draft document did not contain any details on how much funding would be available or where it would come from.The White House has long-touted a $200 billion direct federal investment in infrastructure, a push expected in January or February. The leaked six-page White House “Funding Principles” document was obtained by Bloomberg Government Jan. 22.
Funding Negotiations
The Senate deal to reopen the government does little to solve a continuing battle over what to do about funding federal agencies and departments through Sept. 30, which is the end of fiscal year 2018.
Progress toward providing longer-term funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, and the Department of Energy, will likely hinge on whether both parties can agree on lifting the caps on defense and non-defense spending, a Senate Republican Appropriations Committee aide told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 22.
Both parties want to tinker with the caps, which were put in place under a 2013 sequestration agreement. But Republicans have generally pushed for more military spending while Democrats want a commensurate boost in domestic spending.
“What we need to advance FY18 appropriations [is] an agreement on defense and non-defense spending caps,” the aide said, noting that the issue “has been among the leading issues bantered about during the long hours of shutdown floor speeches” over the last weekend.
But plenty of hurdles remain to getting a deal on lifting those caps. They include what will soon be the pressing issue of negotiating how to extend the current three-week funding extension, which expires Feb. 8.
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Trump Would Open Nearly All U.S. Waters to Drilling. But Will They Drill?
Jan 23, 2018 | New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Tim Wallace
The Trump administration’s move to open nearly all of America’s coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling would give energy companies access to more than a billion acres off the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts.
Mr. Trump’s plan upends a decades-long effort to balance the nation’s energy needs with protecting ocean ecosystems, and it is meeting stiff resistance from governors up and down the coasts. Mr. Zinke announced on Jan. 9 that Florida wasoff the table after meeting the state’s governor, Rick Scott. But 10 days later, a senior Interior official appeared to contradict Mr. Zinke, telling a congressional hearing that the secretary’s decision was not final.
Other states are also seeking exemptions.
The California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, has asked why the Trump administration felt Florida’s coastline was valuable enough to preserve, but not California’s. The Republican governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, has also asked the Trump administration for a drilling exemption, citing the risks that oil and gas would pose to the “unspoiled beauty” of his state’s beaches.
All told, at least 15 governors of coastal states, one-third of them Republican, have publicly opposed Mr. Trump’s offshore drilling plan.
How did we get here, and what’s at stake? Here’s the breakdown.
Different Presidents, Different Ideas on Drilling
Most coastal states control leasing off their shorelines out to three nautical miles. At least 200 miles beyond that, the federal government owns the seabed and its mineral resources — some 1.7 billion acres’ worth.
The Department of the Interior parcels out offshore leases in those areas under five-year plans. Both Congress and the president also have the authority to impose protections and moratoriums that render areas off limits to leasing.
The oil-rich western and central parts of the Gulf of Mexico have been open to drilling for decades, while other areas have been withheld from leasing or protected under moratoriums and other protections. And each of the last three presidents has had differing ideas about how to parcel out leases.
These three maps break down the changing status of the offshore zones: Areas open to drilling leases, areas not yet open to leases, and areas under protection, where leases are prohibited.
At the End of the George W. Bush Administration
President George W. Bush opened up new areas to offshore drilling for the first time in decades when he lifted a longstanding moratorium on new drilling off much of the nation’s coasts. At the same time, a bill passed by Congress in 2006 allowed new drilling in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico but banned drilling in most of the eastern Gulf until 2022.
At the End of the Obama Administration
Much to the chagrin of environmental groups, the Obama administration initially said it would also expand offshore drilling and allow new leases off the Atlantic coastline, parts of the Gulf and the north coast of Alaska. However, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, which killed 11 people and caused the worst-ever oil spill in American waters, triggered a reversal of Mr. Obama’s plans.
In the final weeks of his administration, Mr. Obama called for what he described as a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard, a move meant to bolster his environmental legacy.
President Trump’s proposal seeks to reverse that legacy.
Trump’s Proposal
Under its new plan, the Interior Department would open 25 of 26 regions of the outer continental shelf to drilling. That would leave only the North Aleutian Basin, the traditional territory of many Native Alaskans and home to one of the world’s biggest salmon runs, off limits to drilling.
The eastern Gulf would also remain out of bounds until 2022 because of the 2006 moratorium. But after that it, too, could be opened to drilling under the Trump plan. Separately, drilling is banned within about 600,000 square miles of marine and Great Lakes waters designated as marine sanctuaries or monuments.
Where Is America’s Offshore Oil?
Economically Recoverable Oil and Gas
Just how much oil lies off America’s coasts, and how much drilling could actually happen?
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which manages offshore leasing, estimates that the areas opened up to drilling under Mr. Trump’s plan hold nearly 45 billion barrels of oil, of which 21 billion barrels would be economically recoverable assuming oil prices remain around $60 a barrel. (To put that in perspective, since 1970, the western and central zones of the Gulf have yielded about 14.5 billion barrels of oil.)
While those are large amounts, there are significant oil reserves still to be found in the western and central Gulf, which are already open to drilling. There, some 45 billion barrels of oil reserves are up for grabs, of which 37 billion barrels could be produced economically at current oil prices.
Stated another way: Almost two-thirds of the nation’s oil reserves that companies can hope to drill for while still turning a profit lie in seas already open to drilling. Meanwhile, there’s little recoverable oil and gas in the South Atlantic or the Straits of Florida, or off the Washington and Oregon coast, or off Alaska outside the north shore.
The abundance of cheap oil and gas from onshore fracking in the United States has already diminished the incentive for companies to go drill in new offshore zones. Given the risks and costs of building wells in seas that have seen little development to date, not to mention the possibility that a new administration could again change offshore policy down the road, analysts don’t expect a rush into newly opened waters soon.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/23/climate/trump-offshore-oil-drilling.html
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Biggest U.S. East Coast Oil Refinery Files for Bankruptcy
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Barbara Powell and Tiffany Kary
Philadelphia Energy Solutions LLC, owner of an oil refinery that supplies more than a quarter of the U.S. east coast's crude refining capacity, filed for bankruptcy with a plan that could allow it to shed some environmental costs.
The restructuring would allow PES to emerge a new company with the same stakeholders, according to the firm's chief executive. Court filings show it intends to do so through a sale that will erase $300 million to $350 million of compliance costs. Those expenses helped spur the Chapter 11 filing by PES, which runs the largest oil refinery serving the New York Harbor gasoline and diesel market. It's a joint venture between Carlyle Group LP and Energy Transfer Partners LP subsidiary Sunoco Inc.
The compliance costs include “renewable identification numbers” or RINs, which the company was forced to buy under a federal program that has cost $832 million since 2012, the court filing shows. The purchases create an “unpredictable, escalating and unintended compliance burden” that amount to twice the cost of payroll and almost 1-1/2 times capital expenditures, the company said.
“Absent RINs, we're competitive with anyone in the world,” Chief Executive Officer Greg Gatta said in telephone interview Monday.
Biofuel Costs
Independent U.S. refiners that lack the infrastructure to blend biofuel into gasoline and diesel have been hit hard by surging costs for the credits they must buy to meet Environmental Protection Agency quotas for ethanol and biodiesel. The Trump Administration in late November rejected a bid by fuel-makers including Valero Energy Corp. to relieve refiners of the obligation. Billionaire Carl Icahn, the majority owner of CVR Energy Inc., has complained that the program structure is “rigged.”
“RINs going forward continue to be an issue for independent merchant refiners,” Gatta said. “We continue to work with the government to find a solution that works for everyone.”
Under terms of the filing in Delaware late Sunday, PES seeks to sell off assets while leaving behind $300 million to $350 million worth of the compliance liabilities, effectively erasing them. It might also opt not to sell its assets and reorganize on a stand-alone basis. But in that case, the company will have $225 million less in cash and $275 million more in debt, according to court records.
The PES plan already has support from key lenders, according to court documents. The Chapter 11 filing allows the company to keep operating while it works out a recovery. Assets sale could be subject to competing bids as well court approval, which PES is seeking by Feb. 23.
Lender Support
Lenders to two term loans were unanimously in favor of the preliminary plan, according to court filings. On term loan A, $97.5 million in debt including large stakeholders such as Goldman Sachs Lending Partners and PNC Bank National Association voted for the plan. For term loan B, $486 million voted for it, including several funds of Credit Suisse Group AG and Halcyon Capital Management.
More than $260 million in new funding will be infused, giving current lenders debt or equity in a new company. Term loan B lenders are financing a $120 million bankruptcy operating loan that will convert to an exit loan. A non-bankrupt parent, Philadelphia Energy Solutions LLC, will invest $65 million in exchange for 25 percent of equity in a new company and Sunoco will also put $75 million in new money into the company, court papers show.
Formed in 2012 as a result of a partnership between Carlyle and Sunoco, PES drew government aid and was hailed by state, city and union leaders as it worked to save the plant, which faced shutdown due to dwindling margins. The company was able to ride the back of the U.S. shale boom, building a terminal to take in trainloads of cheap oil from North Dakota that couldn't be sold elsewhere.
1,100 Employees
The end of the U.S. crude export ban in late 2015 and the start of the Dakota Access pipeline last year forced East Coast refiners to turn back to more expensive imports.
The refinery, a 1,300-acre tract near downtown Philadelphia, will keep operating and there will be no impact on jobs, salaries and benefits of the company's 1,100 employees. It is operated as two plants -- Girard Point and Point Breeze -- with a combined processing capacity of 335,000 barrels a day of crude oil. It remains the largest oil refining complex on the U.S. Eastern seaboard.
The plan brought in PJT Partners Inc. as the company's investment adviser. Alvarez & Marsal North America LLC is a restructuring adviser and Kirkland & Ellis LLP is legal adviser on the plan, according to court papers.
The case is PES Holdings LLC, Bankr. D. Del., No. 1:18-bk-10122, 1/22/18
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PennEast Natural Gas Pipe Gets U.S. Nod, but Local Issues Remain
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar
The PennEast natural gas pipeline has received federal approval, months after its developer pressed the regulator to act promptly.
PennEast Pipeline Company LLC has been seeking federal support for the $1 billion project since 2015. In August, the company urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to “promptly” grant its certificates, and FERC agreed Jan. 19. The 116-mile pipeline is projected to be in-service in 2019, with construction starting this year.
The conduit would carry 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from eastern Pennsylvania to near Trenton, N.J. However, it has faced opposition in New Jersey, and foes will likely question the adequacy of FERC's review, ClearView Energy Partners LLC wrote in a research report Jan 22. Landowner cooperation also remains a question.
“PennEast has come a long way, but it still has some hurdles to overcome,” ClearView wrote in the report.
The conduit's developers include AGL Resources Service Co., Public Service Enterprise Group and Spectra Energy Partners. The benefits their project will provide to the market “outweigh any adverse effects on existing shippers,” FERC said in its order.
“While the Project will result in some adverse environmental impacts, the environmental conditions imposed in today's order will ensure that such impacts are reduced to acceptable levels,” Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur said in a statement.
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Court to Weigh EPA Authority to Delay Chemical Safety Rules
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments March 16 in a case challenging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's authority to delay an Obama-era chemical safety regulation aimed at protecting emergency responders.
The Obama administration issued the rule last year in the closing days of the administartion, setting new emergency response and information sharing requirements for high-risk chemical facilities. The changes—originally meant to take effect this March—would substantially update the EPA's risk management program, a set of regulations authorized under the Clean Air Act, for the first time since the agency issued them in 1996.
The case started June 15, 2017, when safety and environmental groups claimed, in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, that Pruitt violated the Clean Air Act in delaying the rule's effective date to Feb. 19, 2019. They said the law allows for no more than one three-month postponement under a single reconsideration proceeding, a process established under the Clean Air Act.
The court announced Jan. 22 it would hear oral arguments in the case March 16.
High-Risk Chemical Management Plan
The program would require facilities using large quantities of certain high-risk chemicals to develop a program to manage the hazards, complete a risk management plan, and submit the information to EPA.
A loss for the EPA could force it to allow the rule, which Pruitt and industry organizations have criticized as burdensome, to take effect. Advocacy groups have asked the court to vacate the EPA's delay of the rule, meaning it “would be back in effect immediately at that point,” Gordon Sommers, an Earthjustice associate attorney representing the groups, told Bloomberg Environment.
If that happens, companies will have “no one to blame but themselves” if they are unprepared to comply with the rule, Sommers said.
The EPA didn't respond to Bloomberg Environment's request for comment.
Arbitrary, Capricious
An interagency working group set up after a Texas fertilizer explosion killed 15 people in 2013 identified the 1996 risk management program as still “effective,” but noted that continued major safety incidents showed the program would not work if it was not updated to “continuously advance process safety management.”
The safety and environmental groups that brought suit allege the delay is “arbitrary and capricious, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” because the EPA failed to rebut the rulemaking record established by the Obama administration showing the necessity of the rule.
Justice Department attorneys wrote in a brief filed Dec. 8 that the Pruitt EPA acted appropriately because the agency learned the regulation's costs may outweigh its benefits, and provisions in the final rule may increase risks and burdens to states, local communities, first responders, and regulated companies.
Had the original rule remained in place, companies would have faced multiple compliance deadlines beginning March 14, 2018, and extending to March 15, 2021.
The case is Air Alliance Houston, et al v. EPA, D.C. Cir., 17-1155, 6/15/17.
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Five Missing After Houston Firm's Rig Explodes in Oklahoma
Jan 23, 2018 | Chron
By Jordan Blum
A fiery explosion at an Oklahoma drilling rig Monday left five people missing, including three employees of the rig's owner, Patterson-UTI Energy of Houston.
The explosion cut through the Patterson-UTI rig just before 9 a.m. Monday, according to Oklahoma authorities, and the Houston driller confirmed that three of its workers were among the missing at the Pittsburg County natural gas well site. Patterson-UTI said the cause of the fire is unknown at this time.
"At this moment, no one knows with certainty what happened and it would be unwise to speculate," Andy Hendricks, Patterson-UTI's chief executive, said in a statement. "Well control experts and emergency responders are on site and we will conduct a thorough investigation when the incident is fully contained. "
Hendricks said the company was providing support to the families of the missing, whose names have not been released.
"There is nothing more important to us than the safety of our employees and others we partner with in the field, "Hendricks said. "Tonight, our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected and their loved ones."
Aerial footage showed several fires were still burning by midday on the rig and much of the equipment had collapsed to the ground, the Associated Press reported.
"Pretty much everything that is on location is on fire," said Pittsburg County Emergency Management Director Kevin Enloe during an afternoon news conference.
Patterson-UTI has grown in recent years into one of the nation's largest onshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, companies. Patterson-UTI has about 25 drilling rigs active in Oklahoma, second only to Texas, where it has nearly 60 rigs in operation.
The incident occurred at the site of one of Patterson-UTI's more modern APEX 1500 rigs, described as a "light, safe, and efficient rapid deployment rig." More than 20 people were working at the well site when the explosion occurred west of Quinton, about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa, authorities said.
Confirmation of any fatalities won't be possible until the fire is extinguished and investigators can get to the scene of the explosion, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma medical examiner's office. Authorities said they are still searching the surrounding woods to see if anyone had fled into the area
The drilling site was operated by Red Mountain Operating Oklahoma City-based, said Matt Skinner, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates oil and gas operators in the state. Red Mountain did not immediately comment.
Skinner said the company has not had any incidents or complaints in the last five years.http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Five-missing-after-Oklahoma-rig-explosion-12516195.php
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White House Prioritizes Non-Federal Funds in Infrastructure Document
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney (Bloomberg Government) and David Schultz (Bloomberg Environment)
The largest share of projects receiving funds from a new White House infrastructure plan would be awarded based on a project's ability to show that it had non-federal revenues, rather than measured economic benefits, according to a White House document.
The draft document did not contain any details on how much funding would be available or where it would come from. The White House has long touted a $200 billion direct federal investment in infrastructure, a push expected in January or February. The leaked six-page White House “Funding Principles” document was obtained by Bloomberg Government and other media organizations Jan. 22.
The document largely hewed to talking points key administration officials such as DJ Gribbin, special assistant to the president for infrastructure policy, have used in recent months, including calling for greater participation by states and more private investment in infrastructure through mechanisms like tolls. Lobbyists and advocacy organizations also found the document to be consistent with items they had read or been told by the administration, for better or worse.
“There's no replacement for direct federal funding even though private sector investment is important,” Bud Wright, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), said during a phone call with reporters Jan. 22.
Wright's group has been an outspoken proponent of creating a long-term funding fix for the Highway Trust Fund, something not included in the White House document. Wright was cautious about over-valuing the effects of regulatory streamlining highlighted in the document.
“We need more investment and improving the process by which those investments occur is important, but that's not going to substitute for actual dollars flowing into the system,” Wright said.
State/Local Share
The funding paradigm for infrastructure between states and federal partners has long been 80 percent federal, 20 percent state/local. The administration looks to flip that structure, putting more of an onus on the infrastructure owners to pay for construction and maintenance.
Half of all appropriations for the new proposal would go to the “Infrastructure Incentives Initiative” that encourages state, local and private investment in core infrastructure projects, but no one state would be able to secure more than 10 percent of any available grant funds and no project could have more than a 20 percent federal cost-share.
“For any individual project that's going to be a difficult achievement and we don't necessarily support the notion that that should be a requirement of receiving federal assistance,” Wright said.
It is unclear whether other federal funds outside of the infrastructure package could be applied to the same project, ultimately creating a larger federal footprint.
AASHTO favors the proposal's call for new tolls on existing road and allowing private operators to commercialize interstate rest areas.
“But, that's a pretty difficulty political proposition in and of itself,” Wright said.
The group worries though about one section of the document that would give credit to states that do things like create new tolls or raise their own gas tax, but with diminishing value based on how recently states did so. Raise a fee for a project this year and you'll get full credit, raised it last year and you get half, according to a lookback period chart in the document.
Expanded Investment
The document also follows through on other administration talking points by allocating a quarter of funding for rural infrastructure, including broadband and water and waste. It increases the capacity of existing federal lending programs to boost investment; allocating 7 percent of the $200 billion plan of the appropriations would result in $15 billion, vastly expanding these programs.
The document also outlines several measures that would change the way federal agencies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, dole out money for water projects.
“This is a big step forward,” Tracy Mehan, executive director for government affairs at American Water Works Association and a former EPA official, told Bloomberg Environment.
Several of the provisions would vastly expand the authority of the EPA's Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or WIFIA, program. This program, which was first authorized in 2014, provides cities, states and for-profit utilities with subsidized, low-interest loans for big-ticket infrastructure projects.
Under the Trump administration's plan, WIFIA loans would be able to go toward projects outside of the water and sewer sector—for example, flood prevention, toxic waste cleanup and navigation improvement projects.
“The idea of the transformative grants is very intriguing. Authorizing the Clean Water SRF for use by private companies: that's something we'll be considering seriously,” said Mehan. “It's a good opening shot.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127270102&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127270102&jd=127270102
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Democrats Pressure DOT over Safety Fixes After Amtrak Derailment
Jan 23, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By Diana Stancy Correll
The Department of Transportation is under fire from Democratic lawmakers as they press the agency for answers about the Amtrak train that derailed in Washington last month, which took the lives of three passengers and injured many more.
In question is whether the department has been fully implementing a provision of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act that instructs passenger railroads to locate high-hazard curves on the train tracks, and then file an action plan to the DOT to boost safety in those hazardous areas.
“What’s the big secret? DOT should be transparent about who’s complying and who’s not. We should know what those plans say, we should have them fully implemented, and we should have the law enforced,” the author of the provision, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., told the Washington Examiner.
In the Washington derailment, the National Transportation Security Board determined that an Amtrak train going from Seattle to Portland was traveling at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone as it was about to enter a curve just before it derailed.
Amid the investigation related to the derailment, nine Democratic lawmakers, including Maloney, signed a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao this month demanding answers about the implementation of Maloney’s provision and copies of any action plans.
“Specifically, we would like to know if Amtrak has submitted any speed limit action plans to the DOT for review and approval, as required by law, and whether DOT reviewed and approved such plans,” the letter reads.
The department is still reviewing the letter, a DOT spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
Meanwhile, Amtrak claims that action plans had been submitted and approved, but did not apply to the route where the derailment occurred, since it did not exist at the time.
“Under the law, Amtrak submitted its action plans to DOT regarding compliance with this requirement, which were approved by the secretary,” said Jason Abrams, communications lead at Amtrak. “These plans were related to the existing Amtrak operations at the time of submittal and didn’t cover the Point Defiance Bypass portion of the Cascades route, as it was not in operation when the plans were submitted.”
The train was on its inaugural run of the route when it derailed.
Maloney said the derailment was preventable and pointed to other recent and similar Amtrak derailments: the 2015 derailment in Philadelphia and the 2013 derailment in New York City.
“That’s three times that this has happened in the last five years,” he added. “We’ve lost a lot of innocent lives, and it’s 100 percent preventable.”
Maloney said his provision in the FAST Act asked railroads to identify some “common sense” solutions to deal with high-hazard curves, which are those that require a speed reduction of more than 20 mph. Some of these solutions include modifying existing automatic train control and other signal systems, boosting the size of the crew and crew communications, and installing alert systems in cabs.
“There are some very important common sense steps, including identify high-hazard curves and having a plan for them,” Maloney said, noting that the curves remain the same. “They don’t change from one day to the next; there’s only so many of them. That’s the nice thing about railroads — they’re in the same place every day, and there’s only so many of them.
“These plans won’t be the whole solution; that’s going to require positive train control, and we’ve done real work on that as well. But at a minimum, we need to know that the law is being enforced by the Department of Transportation in respect to high-hazard curves,” he added.
Lawmakers are pushing for positive train control to be completed by the end of 2018. The technology automatically reduces speeds of trains that are over the speed limit. Although it had been installed on segments of the track in the Washington derailment, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., told the Washington Examiner it was not operational at the time of the accident.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the derailment would have been prevented with functioning positive train control.
In 2008, Congress first instructed railroads to install positive train control with a deadline of full implementation by Dec. 31, 2015. However, as the deadline approached in 2015, lawmakers delayed it to Dec. 31, 2018, with the possibility of an extension to Dec. 31, 2020, if the railroad meets certain requirements.
But DeFazio, the ranking Democratic member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, wants positive train control to be implemented this year.
“I want to see PTC implemented as quickly as possible,” DeFazio said.
As a result, DeFazio introduced the Positive Train Control Implementation and Financing Act of 2018 on Jan. 11, which would require railroads to implement and install the system by the end of 2018.
“We want to see that this deadline is met this time,” he said.
DeFazio’s legislation extends $2.5 billion in grant money to assist commuter railroads and intercity railways in installing positive train control.
Although the letter submitted to the Department of Transportation was signed only by Democrats, Maloney noted his provision in the FAST Act had attracted bipartisan support from Republicans including Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Additionally, he said he had no reason to believe Republicans would not back him and other Democrats as they seek answers related to the derailment.
“The truth is, there is good bipartisan support on the committee to fix this problem,” Maloney said.
Maloney said he and others who signed the letter want to know the full details concerning enforcement of the provision. He expects that it will be revealed his provision has been partially followed, and is calling for full compliance and transparency from the Department of Transportation so lawmakers can evaluate whether it is helping.
“If you had to speak with a family that’s lost someone in an accident like this, you certainly feel an obligation to do something about it,” Maloney said. “This is a problem that we can fix; this is not beyond our capability to solve.
“The sooner we put an end to [derailments], the more lives we’re going to save,” he added.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-pressure-dot-over-safety-fixes-after-amtrak-derailment/article/2646336
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt’s Attacks on Environmental Protections Hit People of Color Hardest
Jan 23, 2018 | HuffPost
By Lisa Garcia
The Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has shown no interest in protecting the health of all people ― and the agency actually seems averse to protecting the health of people of color.
Consider smog, a type of air pollution formed when exhaust from vehicles and power plants heats up in the sun. It is a major contributor to asthma and premature death. One 2014 study found that people of color live in communities with 38 percent more nitrogen dioxide, a compound that is a precursor for the formation of smog.
The nation has made strides in reducing this type of pollution and was on track to do an even better job when the EPA, under former President Barack Obama, set more protective smog standards in 2015.
Last October, the EPA was required to pinpoint those areas of the country that weren’t meeting the 2015 air quality standard, so action could be taken to clean up the air.
But instead of identifying all those problem areas, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt simply ignored federal law by missing the October deadline. In fact, Pruitt has stalled numerous environmental regulations by delaying action or deciding to revisit rules that were set for implementation.
This prompted Earthjustice, the nonprofit I work for, to sue him on behalf of a number of health and environmental groups, including the American Lung Association, National Parks Conservation Association and Environmental Defense Fund.
Pruitt’s inaction is one of many examples of how the Trump administration has attempted to stall the implementation of required health protections so that corporations can focus on their bottom lines, rather than on the communities or neighborhoods they may be polluting.
Pruitt’s actions indicate nothing is safe. Earlier this month, he announced his decision to rescind Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have reduced carbon emissions, a primary driver of climate change. And he’s planning to scale back regulations that protect streams and other wetlands from pollution, which has affected the wildlife and drinking water that communities depend on.
Pruitt’s disregard for the health of our communities comes as no surprise, considering he has spent much of his tenure as Oklahoma’s attorney general fighting environmental protections on behalf of corporate interests.
At the end of October, Pruitt issued a directive barring scientists who have received grants from the EPA from serving on science advisory committees.
Many of those who have served on these committees and have received EPA grants are highly qualified medical professionals and expert university academics who have guided the agency on scientific and technical matters. Instead, Pruitt has begun replacing themwith people that have a track record of disagreeing with established scientific research and in some cases have financial connections to polluting industries.
One of these new appointees to the Science Advisory Board, Robert Phalen, the former director of the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, claims that air pollution is good for children. He has also said that “modern air is a little too clean for optimum health.”
Pruitt has appointed other people who’ve downplayed the effects of pollution to lead the Science Advisory Board. This includes Michael Honeycutt, lead toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, who has expressed doubt about the overwhelming evidence that smog causes asthma. Honeycutt has served on the Alliance for Risk Assessment, which conducts research for polluters, including the American Chemistry Council and Coca-Cola.
The quality of your air and water ― and your exposure to toxic and hazardous substances ― is determined to a great extent by your race and income.
People of color have limited access to the healthiest environments and are more likely to live near highways, garbage dumps and toxic waste sites. Even people of color who are middle class are forced to breathe worse air than their white counterparts.
The health impacts of these environmental disparities are clear. One in six black children has asthma, a rate that is about double the proportion of white children with the disease. One in five Puerto Ricans across the U.S. has asthma, which is the highest of any racial or ethnic group in the nation. And thousands die from the disease every year.
More than two decades ago, the EPA first began addressing this issue of environmental injustice when then-President Bill Clinton, following pressure from community and environmental justice groups, issued Executive Order 12898. It directed federal agencies to address the disproportionate burden faced by communities of color and low-income populations.
I was the adviser on environmental justice for two EPA administrators ― Lisa Jackson, the first African-American to serve in that role, and Gina McCarthy ― both Obama appointees. My role existed because of pressure from environmental and community groups, and because of the Obama administration’s desire to fully implement Clinton’s executive order. It took years to deepen the EPA’s focus on environmental justice so that disproportionate impacts and health disparities were considered when environmental regulations were drafted or updated.
Throughout the Obama administration, the EPA focused on improving health in communities by creating a new environmental justice-focused strategy with Plan EJ 2014. This, in part, offered screening tools to identify environmental threats and disparities wherever they exist in the U.S. That effort continued the Environmental Justice 2020 Action Agenda, the agency’s commitment to work in the 100 communities most overburdened by pollution.
But last spring, Pruitt proposed eliminating the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice by gutting the $2 million allocated to run it.
Pruitt and President Donald Trump’s lack of concern for healthy communities, while deeply troubling, has not caused environmental leaders of color to bury their heads in the sand. We’re resolved to fight even harder.
In California, for instance, communities have been at the forefront of demanding zero-emissions technology, knowing that communities of color bear the brunt of air pollution from fossil fuels. And last spring, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority committed to ending their use of natural gas-powered buses and replacing them with all electric buses by 2030, in large part due to communities’ efforts.
In April, the New York City Council passed the most comprehensive environmental justice legislation found in any U.S. city, requiring the local government to address pollution in overburdened communities. Environmental justice groups across the city, including the New York City EJ Alliance and the Harlem-based We ACT for Environmental Justice, played a leading role in developing this legislation and getting it across the finish line.
These efforts in California and New York, small examples among many in this nation, show how democracy can function when local and state leaders carry out the will of communities determined to protect their health.
Lisa Garcia is the vice president of Litigation for Healthy Communities at Earthjustice, where she directs litigation that helps protect communities and families from a wide range of pollution issues.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-garcia-pruitt-environmental-justice_us_5a565eede4b03bc4d03d77b2
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Texas Area Gets Extension as EPA Makes Ozone Designations
Jan 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
Areas across the U.S. will hear from the EPA by April about whether their ozone pollution levels exceed federal standards, but one Texas region will get more time.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it needed until Aug. 10 to decide the status of eight areas in Texas that make up the San Antonio area.
The extension was granted because the state might have extra information to submit, according to a statement filed by EPA Assistant Administrator William Wehrum in a parallel court case on delayed ozone implementation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The agency announced this date Jan. 19 after the agency was ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December to set a firm deadline for identifying ozone problem areas.
Those determinations—known as nonattainment designations—were due Oct. 1, 2017, two years after the agency had set the 2015 ozone standards at 70 parts per billion. Without completed designations, regions with ozone problems can't begin work on plans to control pollution, including emissions limits for vehicles and permitted industries.
State Reversed Recommendation
In its designation recommendation to the EPA, Texas originally said that Bexar County, part of the San Antonio area, should be in nonattainment of the 2015 eight-hour ozone standard.
But the state reversed its recommendation in a follow up letter, saying that a nonattainment designation would impose an economic burden on San Antonio.
Ground-level ozone is formed when air pollution—primarily from burning fossil fuels—reacts in the presence of sunlight. Ozone inhalation can cause muscles in the airways to constrict, leading to respiratory problems.
More than 107 million people live in areas where ozone pollution exceeds federal standards, according to the EPA.
After missing the deadline to complete the reviews, the agency announced in November which areas of the country met the 2015 standards, but not the areas that didn't.
The American Lung Association and Sierra Club have sued the EPA for missing its deadline to complete the designations process.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127270107&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127270107&jd=127270107
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Cramer Revives Bill to Boost Carbon Capture
Jan 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, an early energy adviser to President Trump, reintroduced legislation last week to boost carbon capture and sequestration projects through the tax code.
Supporters of the bill, H.R. 4857, the "CO2 Regulatory Certainty Act," say it would better align tax guidelines with U.S. EPA regulations related to CCS.
GOP Reps. Sam Johnson of Texas, David McKinley of West Virginia, and Gregg Harper and Steven Palazzo of Mississippi are co-sponsoring the legislation.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) introduced companion legislation in the Senate last August (E&E Daily, Aug. 3, 2017). Cramer previously introduced a similar measure, H.R. 2010, last April.
Backers say current IRS guidelines don't clearly distinguish between companies pumping trapped CO2 into wells as opposed to deep geological formations. This tax code issue, they say, could prevent some CCS developers from applying for a credit known as 45Q.
"This straightforward bill aligns EPA and IRS regulations as they relate to the existing carbon sequestration tax credit," Cramer said in a statement last year.
"Under the Obama Administration, IRS guidelines were set over and above even the EPA's requirements for enhanced oil and gas projects," he said.
"This is one small way to help President Trump rebalance the previous Administration's insistence on picking winners and losers in energy markets at the expense of consumers and job producers."
Some environmentalists say the legislation is unnecessary and could weaken CO2 monitoring.
Cramer, a former utility regulator, has a mixed track record when it comes to climate policy. On one hand, he has downplayed the role of humans in global warming, opposed the Clean Power Plan and cheered the Trump administration's rollback of energy regulations.
On the other hand, he has offered some support for a small carbon tax and opposed Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord (E&E Daily, Sept. 26, 2017).
When Cramer announced earlier this month that he wouldn't run for Senate, some environmentalists cheered the move, saying it bolstered the re-election campaign of Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a moderate Democrat they view as preferable to a Republican (Climatewire, Jan. 12).
Pending tax legislation to address a number of breaks includes language from Heitkamp along with Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to boost existing credits for storage of captured CO2 (E&E Daily, Dec. 21, 2017).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/01/23/stories/1060071641
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Jan 22, 2018 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Widespread use of a futuristic energy technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would create severe environmental problems, scientists argue in a new critique, casting doubt on one potential method of helping humanity escape the worst effects of climate change.
The technology, known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), comes in many variations. But the core idea is burning trees or other plants for energy while pulling in the resulting carbon dioxide and storing it below ground. When the plants grow back again, they would pull more carbon dioxide from the air, resulting in a net removal of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
BECCS has been used only rarely thus far, but many had hoped widespread use of the technology would provide large amounts of energy while helping to fight climate change. It would be particularly important if the world misses its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In that scenario, greenhouse gases concentrations would pass the maximum levels climatologists say could avoid bringing about extreme consequences of climate change, and hitting the targets would require “negative emissions” technologies that lower concentrations.
But in the new paper, scientists argue that deploying BECCS technology on the scale needed to address the problem would use up massive amounts of water, fertilizer and land. That would probably lead to large environmental problems or even destabilize key planetary systems, wrote Vera Heck of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and three colleagues.
“We could achieve substantial amounts of bioenergy potentials, but this would really come at the cost of extensive environmental damage in many other dimensions,” Heck said.
To analyze BECCS, Heck and her co-authors examined invoke the influential concept of “planetary boundaries,” a list of nine ecological thresholds beyond which we should not push natural systems, because doing so “could generate abrupt or irreversible environmental changes.”
Changing the Earth’s climate transgresses one a key boundary — in this sense, BECCS helps out. But at the same time, the new research says it could up the risk of crossing other boundaries — those concerning freshwater, the integrity of ecosystems, large-scale changes to land areas, and shifts in flows of nitrogen and phosphorous.
The study found that large-scale BECCS initiatives, with biomass plantations stretching over millions of square miles, could store between 1.2 billion and 6.3 billion tons of carbon annually. That’s enough to make a very large dent in global greenhouse gas emissions. However, at this scale, BECCS “could trigger critical environmental feedbacks to the Earth system,” the study finds.
BECCS at such a scale would lead to millions of square miles of forest loss and large pressures on biodiversity, the study found. Meanwhile, the huge plantations would require tens of millions of tons of nitrogen fertilizer that would alter flow of this chemical around the Earth, and huge amounts of water — over a trillion tons of it each year.
“We would increase freshwater consumption by biomass plantations by an amount that more than doubled agricultural uses currently,” said Heck.
If we wanted to do BECCS in a way that would not risk blowing past key planetary boundaries, we could, but the resulting carbon storage would be far smaller — less than 0.1 billion tons per year, the research found. But then, that wouldn’t make a major dent in the climate problem.
“Negative emissions using biomass has great potential for removing carbon from our air,” said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University earth scientist who has also studied the environmental limitations of BECCS but was not involved in the current paper. “It can’t be done, though, without using more land, more water and more nutrients. There is no free ride.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/22/a-technology-many-hoped-would-fight-climate-change-would-cause-even-bigger-environmental-problems-scientists-say/?utm_term=.78c1e1eb813c
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Climate Change Could Make Borrowing More Expensive
Jan 23, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Emily Hassan
Hurricane Maria was devastating for the residents of Puerto Rico. It hurt debt investors, too. Some of the island’s bonds plunged more than 40 percent after the storm flooded the island, knocked out its electric power, and clobbered its economy.
Now bond rating agencies such as Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings are looking at whether they should be including more disaster forecasting in calculating the grades they give to government debt and to companies in industries ranging from insurance to construction. The agencies have looked at these risks for years and issued reportson them, but in recent months they’ve been working to integrate this research more into individual ratings. In November, Moody’s warned coastal cities and states to address their climate risks or face possible downgrades. A month later, it issued a reporthighlighting 18 small islands, from Fiji to the Bahamas, that were “particularly susceptible to climate change.” S&P analysts are working with its insurance practice on climate models and scenario research.
In the U.S., costly natural disasters are becoming more common. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tallied 16 major, billion-dollar-plus storms, fires, and floods in 2017, including Maria and Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston. That compares with an average of about six a year since 1980. The weather and climate events wreaked a record $306.2 billion of damages, NOAA said. Companies and governments are feeling the brunt. A Moody’s study in 2015 found roughly $9 trillion in rated debt exposed to environmental issues such as pollution, carbon regulation, water shortages, and natural disasters. In a recent review of its research, S&P found 717 cases from mid-2015 to mid-2017 in which environmental and climate concerns were factors in corporate credit ratings, equal to about 10 percent of its research updates, says Michael Wilkins, who heads sustainable finance at S&P. That’s more than twice as many cases as in the previous two-year period.
Lower ratings can translate into higher borrowing costs for companies, but environmental changes can also help some businesses. S&P found that when it took a rating action based on a climate issue, 44 percent of the time it was upgrading the bond or issuer. That might happen if, for example, it expected higher revenue for a lithium producer because electric car battery demand is rising.
Investors are pushing ratings firms to give them more of a warning about the risks. “The pressure is really mounting,” says Carmen Nuzzo, a former senior economist at Morgan Stanley in London. Nuzzo is now leading a ratings project for Principles for Responsible Investment, a United Nations-backed organization that brings investors and other market participants together to talk about systematically incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance factors into the investment process. More than 130 institutional investors—overseeing a combined $23 trillion—and 14 bond grading companies globally are participating.
Debt investors are still not completely clear as to how thoroughly ratings firms have considered these risks, says Jonathan Bailey, head of environmental, social, and governance investing at asset manager Neuberger Berman Trust Co. “We don’t know if they’re looking at every power plant and their relationship to rising sea levels, and we don’t know if they’re looking at rising temperatures and their impact on productivity,” Bailey says. “We want it to be clear how it’s being done.” Ratings firms often have better access to information than fund managers, which puts them in a stronger position to weigh in on these risks or compel the issuer to disclose more, Bailey says.
But ratings firms have previously been slow to cotton on to risks. Enron Corp. was one of the largest corporate frauds in U.S. history, but bond raters were far behind equity short sellers in recognizing the company’s problems: Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch Ratings Ltd. rated Enron investment-grade until four days before it filed for bankruptcy. A few years after that, bond graders gave top scores to complicated securities backed by subprime mortgages, which helped inflate the mortgage bubble.
In the case of natural disasters, figuring out the potential damage for individual companies and governments isn’t easy. Weather and climate are known to mathematicians as chaotic systems, which means small differences in assumptions can have huge impacts on predicted outcomes. It’s often hard to know the cost of a climate shock—and who will bear it—in part because government-backed and private insurance can mitigate losses.
Still, it’s clear that risks are rising, and borrowers should pay attention to them, says Rahul Ghosh, who heads environmental, social, and governance research at Moody’s in London. Disasters themselves can wound borrowers, but government policies concerning carbon emissions, for example, can have a big impact on them, too. “These trends will have pretty disruptive credit impacts,” Ghosh says.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-23/climate-change-could-make-borrowing-more-expensive
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