Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 1/30/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) State and Local Officials Clash Over Plastic Bag Bans
Jan 29, 2018 | Stateline (In Governing.com)
By Scott Rodd
Bisbee, a city of 5,200 tucked into the mountains of southeastern Arizona, has been a haven for artists and left-leaning types since the 1970s -
(ACC Mentioned) Holiday Splurges Open up Wallets (UPDATED)
Jan 30, 2018 | Bloomberg (In Arkansas Online)
By Shobhana Chandra
U.S. consumer spending rose at a solid pace in December after an upwardly revised advance a month earlier as shoppers splurged during the holiday season. While incomes also rose, the saving rate fell to a fresh 12-year low. -
DOE, Interior Picks Caught in Political Fights
Jan 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz and Kellie Lunney
Three nominees for top positions at the Energy and Interior departments are up for approval by a Senate committee today, but their futures beyond that are uncertain, with lawmakers from both parties pledging to hold them up over parochial issues. -
EPA Budget Shrank 55% as Agency Workload Grew: the Numbers
Jan 29, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Keith Gaby
When Donald Trump rolled out his budget, which cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency more than any other department, he said his goal was to shrink our “bloated federal bureaucracy.” -
EDF Files Comments on Epa’s Approaches to the Process Under TSCA Formerly Known as Pre-Prioritization
Jan 29, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Lindsay McCormick
Last week, EDF filed detailed comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the approaches it has presented for identifying potential candidates for prioritization under TSCA. -
(ACC Mentioned) Health Advocates Urge State to Ban Widely-Used Non-Stick Chemicals in Food Packaging
Jan 30, 2018 | KOMO News
By Connie Thompson
A bill under consideration in Olympia would ban certain non-stick chemicals that are widely used in food packaging. -
Time to End Quixotic Opposition to American Energy
Jan 29, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By C. Boyden Gray
The continued assault on the U.S. energy sector by certain deep-pocketed environmentalists, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and some (but not all) Democratic allies poses a number of perplexing questions. -
America’s Natural Gas Hurdles
Jan 30, 2018 | New York Times
By Agnia Grigas
Despite American sanctions against Russian natural gas producers, a cargo of liquefied natural gas that was most likely produced at Russia’s Yamal plant arrived in Boston this past weekend. -
Exxon to Spend $50 Billion in U.S. Over Next Five Years
Jan 29, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Bradley Olson
Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -1.11% said Monday it plans to spend $50 billion to expand its business in the U.S. in the next five years, investments that were “enhanced” by the American tax overhaul. -
Oil & Gas Rocky Road for Colorado Drillers as Regulatory Clampdown Looms
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
Months after a pair of deadly explosions in the Colorado oil patch, drilling stocks remain hobbled by the specter of a regulatory clampdown. -
Pennsylvania Governor Calls for Steeper Fees to Reduce Well Permit Backlog
Jan 30, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to more than double natural gas well permit fees and give more money to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reduce a backlog of permits and modernize the application process to make it more efficient. -
Energy Transfer Blasts ‘Unwarranted’ Shutdown of Rover Drilling
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bailey Schulz
A federal stop-work order on the Rover natural gas pipeline in Ohio drew a sharp rebuke from the project's developer, Energy Transfer Partners LP. -
Trump Critics Seize on Developer Ties to Infrastructure Plan
Jan 29, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
President Donald Trump’s critics are already lining up to undercut his infrastructure proposal — the purported bipartisan centerpiece of Tuesday’s State of the Union speech — as a giveaway to his well-connected friends and a rollback of popular environmental protections. -
Critics Attack 'Unsupported Mythology' in Trump Draft Plan
Jan 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczk
Environmentalists are digging in against a draft infrastructure proposal from the White House that envisions major changes to some of the nation's landmark environmental laws. -
Washington Governor Rejects Tesoro-Savage Crude-by-Rail Terminal
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) declined Jan. 29 to permit a Tesoro-Savage proposal to build what would be the nation's largest rail-to-maritime crude oil terminal on the Columbia River. -
Trump Says Ice Caps ‘Setting Records’ as He Mulls Climate Accord
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ros Krasny
Donald Trump cast doubt on the science of climate change even while saying he'd be open to keeping the U.S. in the Paris climate accord, partly because of his warm relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron. -
Pruitt Says Weaker Arkansas Haze Plan Satisfies 'Cooperative Federalism'
Jan 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says the agency's approval of revisions Arkansas made to soften an Obama-era plan for reducing regional haze in the state satisfies his push for “cooperative federalism” in boosting states' authority over environmental regulation... -
EPA's Latest TRI Analysis Finds Air Pollution Cuts Across Several Sectors
Jan 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's latest Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) analysis find ongoing cuts in air pollution across several sectors driven by electric utilities' reductions in releases of air toxics like hydrochloric acid accounting for the biggest drops in emissions... -
Lamar Smith Urges Action Through Technology
Jan 29, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
Retiring Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is urging climate action through technological innovation to cool the globe by altering the atmosphere and ecosystems. -
On Climate, Gov. Murphy Brings a New Voice to New Jersey
Jan 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
Given the Trump administration’s indifference to climate change, the task of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, has fallen largely to city and state governments. -
D.C. Circuit Rejects Rehearing of Ruling Scrapping HFC Policy
Jan 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is rejecting a request to rehear a split panel ruling that vacated key parts of an EPA rule reducing refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases, dealing a blow to environmental groups and chemical firms... -
Cheap, Portable Air Sensors Tell Communities What They Breathe (Corrected)
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
Alberto Ayala faces a July 2019 deadline to monitor pollution from factories and power plants in California's poor and minority communities, so he'd like sensor manufacturers to join a “shoot out” to prove their wares.
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(ACC Mentioned) State and Local Officials Clash Over Plastic Bag Bans
Jan 29, 2018 | Stateline (In Governing.com)
By Scott Rodd
Bisbee, a city of 5,200 tucked into the mountains of southeastern Arizona, has been a haven for artists and left-leaning types since the 1970s. The old mining town has art galleries, live music venues, and stories — many of them revolving around the supposedly haunted Copper Queen Hotel — in abundance.
Until a few years ago, Bisbee also had plenty of something it didn’t want: plastic bags. They sullied the streets, helicoptered through the air and draped the cactuses, according to Mayor David M. Smith. The problem grew so dire that in 2012, the town barred retailers from providing plastic bags to customers.
Some local businesses opposed the ban, but most residents were thrilled, according to Smith. “It made a huge difference,” said the mayor, who voted for the ordinance as a member of the city council. “After, they were all gone.”
But that was just the beginning of Bisbee’s bag battle. The Arizona Food Marketing Alliance, which represents the state’s grocers and food suppliers, lobbied the Legislature for legislation that would quash Bisbee’s ban and prevent other cities and towns in Arizona from following its lead. In 2015, they succeeded.
Republican lawmakers typically tout the benefits of local control. But in states across the country, they have taken action to rein in cities that want to enact progressive measures such as gun control laws and minimum wage hikes. Now plastic bags have become an unlikely flashpoint in the conflict between blue cities and their red state legislatures.
In recent years a handful of states — Arizona and Missouri in 2015, Idaho, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, Minnesota in 2017 — have enacted “bans on bans,” joining a group that already included Florida, Indiana and Iowa.
State Sen. Warren Petersen, the Republican who led the push for Arizona’s law, said it is intended to protect individual rights. In addition to prohibiting plastic bag bans, the measure prohibits local governments from regulating the use of boxes, bottles and containers “used for transporting merchandise to or from a business.”
“It’s not the government’s job to tell you whether or not you should use a plastic bag,” Petersen said. “Are we going to micromanage every decision of every consumer?”
The issue also has attracted national players. The American Progressive Bag Alliance, an offshoot of the Plastics Industry Association, has spent millions of dollars to defeat the local bans and support legislation that preempts local governments from implementing them. And the American City County Exchange, an offshoot of the conservative advocacy group the American Legislative Exchange Council — better known as ALEC — has drafted model legislative language for prohibitions on bag bans.
“A patchwork of bag laws is never good for the consumer and never good for businesses,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Progressive Bag Alliance. “It should be done at the state level if it’s that important of an issue.”
In Arizona, Bisbee refused to repeal its bag ban — until last fall, when the threat of losing nearly $2 million in state aid finally forced it to relent.
“The state was basically extorting us, saying that we either had to repeal this ordinance or lose our state sharing revenues,” Smith said. “That would have literally bankrupted the city.”
San Francisco Leads the Way
San Francisco in 2007 became the first city in the United States to impose a ban on single-use plastic bags. Roughly 150 municipalities in California, including San Jose, Malibu and Santa Monica, eventually followed suit.
After a series of battles in the lower state courts, the California Supreme Court in 2011 upheld the rights of cities to ban single-use plastic bags and ruled they did not have to complete an environmental impact analysis before adopting such bans.
Buoyed by victory, supporters pushed for a statewide ban, which Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2014.
But bag proponents weren’t through. In the last three months of 2014, the Progressive Bag Alliance spent over $3 million to collect enough signatures to put a reversal of the ban on the 2016 ballot. (Hilex Poly, a leading plastic bag manufacturer, contributed $1.7 million, Superbag Corporation gave $500,000, and Formosa Plastics contributed $400,000 in the successful effort.)
Then, to attract voter support for the ballot measure, the alliance spent another $2.6 million.
Still, Californians upheld the statewide ban, with 53 percent voting in favor. The ban allows stores to offer paper or reusable plastic bags for a 10 cent minimum fee, and certain businesses — like restaurants and department stores — are exempt.
Environmentalists say discarded plastic bags, in addition to being unsightly, are often eaten by animals such as fish and eventually end up in human food, which can make people sick. Citing data collected by the California Coastal Commission, a state agency, environmentalists say bag bans can go a long way toward minimizing those risks.
In 2010, volunteers picked up about 65,000 plastic bags littered along state beaches and rivers during the Coastal Commission’s annual cleanup day. Plastic bags accounted for 7.4 percent of all the items of trash collected throughout the day — the third most common item after cigarette butts and food wrappers.
In 2016, according to the commission, the number of littered plastic bags collected dropped by 63 percent compared to 2010. Plastic bags accounted for only 3.4 percent of the items picked up during the cleanup. In 2017, the number of plastic bags collected continued to drop, down to 3.1 percent of items picked up.
“This is a big win for the coast of California and the state in general,” said Mark Vargas, a commissioner on the Coastal Commission. “And it is proof that [these bans] work.” Paper or Plastic?
But opponents of plastic bag bans maintain that they do little to protect the environment — and may even harm humans.
Minnesota state Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, a Republican who successfully pushed a measure prohibiting local bag bans in his state, pointed out that single-use plastic bags can be reused or recycled at many grocery stores. He also argued that single-use plastic bags are more sanitary than reusable bags, and that manufacturing single-use plastic bags creates a smaller carbon footprint than the production of single-use paper bags.
Other bag-ban opponents argue that reusable bags pose sanitary risks. Many cite a 2013 study that found that reusable grocery bags, a common substitute for plastic bags, contain potentially harmful bacteria. The researchers found that emergency room admissions related to these bacteria spiked in San Francisco after it adopted its ban in 2007.
In Minnesota, state lawmakers acted quickly to preempt a bag ban that Minneapolis approved in spring 2016. Days before the city’s ban was slated to go into effect, state lawmakers in 2017 enacted a statewide prohibition on cities imposing bans on any type of bag in stores.
In 2016, the Progressive Bag Alliance spent $20,000 on lobbying at the state level in Minnesota, and the American Chemistry Council — an organization that helped found the Progressive Bag Alliance — spent $270,000.
City councilman Cam Gordon, a member of the Green Party who introduced the Minneapolis ordinance, said he and other proponents of the measure met with business groups and adjusted the ban to address retailers’ concerns. He said state lawmakers were trampling on the will of the City Council and residents of Minneapolis.
“I felt disrespected by the Legislature,” Gordon said. “It was not very good democracy.”
http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/stl-plastic-bag-bans.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Holiday Splurges Open up Wallets (UPDATED)
Jan 30, 2018 | Bloomberg (In Arkansas Online)
By Shobhana Chandra
U.S. consumer spending rose at a solid pace in December after an upwardly revised advance a month earlier as shoppers splurged during the holiday season. While incomes also rose, the saving rate fell to a fresh 12-year low.
Purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, climbed 0.4 percent after a revised 0.8 percent advance, Commerce Department figures showed Monday. The December gain matched the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Incomes also rose 0.4 percent as worker pay climbed the most in three months.
The data are in sync with a report last week that showed faster fourth-quarter consumption, which put the biggest part of the economy on a firm footing entering 2018. In addition to low borrowing costs and steady hiring, many Americans will benefit from lower tax rates. A pickup in wages would provide further impetus for spending.
The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge -- tied to consumption -- rose 0.1 percent in December from the previous month and 1.7 percent from a year earlier. Inflation has mostly missed the central bank's 2 percent target since 2012. Excluding food and energy, so-called core prices climbed 0.2 percent, matching the survey median. The core was up 1.5 percent from December 2016.
While inflation remains below the Fed's goal, officials are expected to keep raising rates gradually in 2018. Investors project that policy makers will raise rates three times this year, possibly starting as soon as March. Central bank officials are meeting today and Wednesday.
Wages and salaries increased 0.5 percent in December after a 0.4 percent gain, the data showed. Disposable income, or earnings adjusted for taxes and inflation, rose 0.2 percent after little change a month earlier.
Fourth-quarter household consumption expanded at a 3.8 percent annualized rate, matching the fastest pace since the end of 2014, Commerce Department figures on gross domestic product showed Friday. GDP increased at a 2.6 percent pace, slower than forecast, as trade and inventories subtracted from growth.
However, Americans' saving rate fell to 2.4 percent in December, the lowest since September 2005, from 2.5 percent.
Durable goods spending, adjusted for inflation, rose 0.8 percent after a 1.1 percent increase in the prior month; nondurable goods little changed after a 1 percent gain; household outlays on services, adjusted for inflation, increased 0.3 percent for a second month.
A net 48 percent of economists surveyed this month by the National Association for Business Economics said worker pay was increasing. That's the highest in 18 years and the third-highest in NABE data to April 1982. The net share expecting bigger wage costs over the next three months reached the highest since April 2014.
"More respondents report that their firms are hiring -- and having trouble filling positions -- than in the October survey," Kevin Swift, NABE vice president and chief economist for the American Chemistry Council, said in a statement. "Looking at 2018 as a whole, 63 percent of respondents expect their firms to increase sales, and three times as many expect hiring to increase rather than decrease."
Capital spending rose at more firms and is expected by business economists to keep climbing. A net 37 percent reported increased investment in the latest survey, conducted from Dec. 29 to Jan. 10, up from 28 percent at the start of the fourth quarter and the strongest since July 2015. At the same time, roughly two-thirds said no changes were made to hiring or investments in anticipation of changes in U.S. economic policy.
Shelly Hagan of Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jan/30/holiday-splurges-open-up-wallets-201801/?f=business
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DOE, Interior Picks Caught in Political Fights
Jan 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz and Kellie Lunney
Three nominees for top positions at the Energy and Interior departments are up for approval by a Senate committee today, but their futures beyond that are uncertain, with lawmakers from both parties pledging to hold them up over parochial issues.
Anne White, President Trump's pick to lead the Department of Energy's legacy nuclear waste cleanup, has a hold placed on her by senior Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) over DOE's releases of excess uranium. Barrasso says that the practice has driven down uranium prices and led to production slowing in his home state and elsewhere.
Barrasso said at White's confirmation hearing earlier this month, "I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this issue with me in my office, but you were unable to give me a firm commitment to immediately halt these barters — something that Secretary [Rick] Perry has told me he wants to do. It's something he wants to accomplish."
He said, "For this reason, I am unable to support a confirmation at this time and will hold the confirmation until the department ends its practice of bartering excess uranium."
A spokesman for Barrasso, for years a champion of his state's uranium mining sector, said yesterday that he had nothing new to announce about the hold.
Three Interior nominations, including two whom the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote on today, remain in limbo because of politics related to the administration's offshore drilling proposal.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), a vocal opponent of oil and gas drilling off the coast of his state, has holds on Susan Combs, Trump's choice for assistant secretary for policy, management and budget; Ryan Nelson, nominated to be solicitor; and Steven Gardner, the administration's pick to be director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
The ENR panel is likely to approve Combs and Nelson today for the second time. The panel cleared both last year, but the White House had to renominate them. Lawmakers are still waiting for paperwork from Gardner before holding a hearing.
Nelson placed the holds shortly after Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Florida would be exempt from a proposal to opens up more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration.
The Democrat has criticized the decision as a "political stunt" designed to help Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who may run against Nelson (E&E Daily, Jan. 18).
The senator wants details from Zinke on what he meant when he said Florida drilling is "off the table," including whether that means an extension of the current moratorium in the eastern Gulf of Mexico beyond the current statutory limit of 2022.
Nelson sent Zinke a letter about the matter on Jan. 10 (E&E News PM, Jan. 10).
He told reporters last week that the secretary hadn't reached out to him on the issue. Nelson's spokesman, Ryan Brown, confirmed yesterday that the senator's office had not yet received a response from Zinke.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said last week she hoped to talk to Nelson about his hold on the nominees her committee approved months ago.
"The thing that I find confusing is, Sen. Nelson has long fought to make sure that Florida is off the table," Murkowski told E&E News, referring to offshore drilling. "The secretary has done that, so I'm not sure what exactly he [Nelson] is hoping to effectuate by continuing the hold."
Murkowski said Zinke is still receiving feedback from governors and other stakeholders on the proposed offshore drilling plan and that the required review period is lengthy.
"So, I would certainly hope the senator not hold these individuals ... who need to get to work to help facilitate the operations of Interior," she said.
Murkowski added: "I have had many conversations with Sen. Nelson about his very strong opposition to drilling off the Florida shores, and I do think that it is important that there be a process. But I also recognize the secretary's prerogative in saying, 'OK, if this is no longer on the table, this is no longer on the table.' He has been very public in stating that."
Zinke tweeted Jan. 9 that he was "taking #Florida off the table for offshore oil and gas" and attached a statement saying, "I am removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms."
That ignited a firestorm of criticism from many other elected officials in coastal states who want to opt out of leasing in the 2019-24 plan.
But during a Jan. 19 House subcommittee hearing, the acting director of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management contradicted Zinke's Florida exemption, saying Florida, along with the other coastal states included in the draft plan, will undergo the same analysis as outlined by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (Greenwire, Jan. 19).
Florida is "still part of the analysis until the secretary gives us an official decision otherwise," said BOEM's Walter Cruickshank.
Separately, the Senate voted 57-41 to advance the nomination of David Stras to sit on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/01/30/stories/1060072305
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EPA Budget Shrank 55% as Agency Workload Grew: the Numbers
Jan 29, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Keith Gaby
When Donald Trump rolled out his budget, which cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency more than any other department, he said his goal was to shrink our “bloated federal bureaucracy.”
He clearly meant to leave the impression that the EPA had gotten too big and costly. Not surprisingly for a president who just told his 2,000th lie in less than a year in office, this rationale is flat-out wrong.
Far from growing too big, EPA’s budget has been devastated. Other than a bump in the early Obama administration, the agency’s funding has been in a downward spiral for the past four decades.100 million more Americans – but a decimated EPA
Contrary to Trump’s implication, EPA’s budget in real dollars is now less than half of what it was in the late 1970s – even as our population since then increased by 100 million people and our economy doubled in size.
It means that with many more people and businesses, the agency has far fewer resources to protect clean air and water, deal with toxic waste and chemicals and protect our health.
Not only that, Congress has repeatedly added to the agency’s responsibilities. Since 1979, there have been at least a dozen major new and necessary laws the agency must enforce – such as the Superfund to clean up toxic waste, the Oil Pollution Act, the Food Quality Protection Act, as well as updates to laws on safe drinking water and clean water.Some agencies doubled in size since 1979
Meanwhile, the EPA’s funding dropped 55 percent in real dollars. These cuts are not merely the result of general reductions in government. Over the same period – 1979 to 2017 – the average federal agency’s budget has increased by 26 percent.
Overall, 18 agencies, departments or branches of government saw real increases. The Executive Office of the President, for example, grew by 43 percent, the Department of Commerce by 29 percent, and the Department of Justice by 117 percent.
All do important work, but the discrepancy in agency funding levels illustrates what’s happening at the EPA.EPA now at a breaking point
The fact that the EPA has managed to make our environment dramatically cleaner, helped states provide clean drinking water, and saved 100,000 lives a year by reducing pollution is remarkable.
It’s done so by implementing efficient safeguards, holding polluters accountable, and by working closely with states and business to find the best way to protect human health. But there comes a point where money can’t stretch any further.
The idea that the Trump administration now wants to reduce the agency’s budget another 30 percent – as the House and Senate are also considering serious cuts – is reckless.
Reducing funding for clean air monitors, state anti-pollution programs, and toxic waste cleanup would be a disaster. It would lead directly to more smog and asthma attacks, more toxic chemicals and cancer in our lives, and more climate pollution threatening our future.
Our leaders need to tell the American people the truth: The EPA’s budget has been devastated for decades and it’s time to fully fund the agency on which we all depend.
Editor’s note: A longer version of this post first appeared in The Hill.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/01/29/epa-budget-shrank-55-agency-workload-grew-numbers
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Jan 29, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Lindsay McCormick
Last week, EDF filed detailed comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the approaches it has presented for identifying potential candidates for prioritization under TSCA.
EDF believes the purpose of prioritization is to provide an orderly, transparent process for EPA to use in working its way through the huge backlog of chemicals needing risk reviews and to provide an accountable means by which EPA decides which chemicals need full risk evaluations and which have ample information at the time of the prioritization decision indicating they can be set aside absent new information. Our comments argue for a simple process for identifying potential candidates for prioritization that:
· is not overly formalized or regimented;
· ensures sufficient information is available or will be developed in a timely manner to inform prioritization, and subsequently risk evaluations, through robust and early use of EPA’s section 4, 8 and 11 information-generation and information-gathering authorities;
· proceeds at an incremental pace to build trust and gain experience, and preserve balance between high- and low-priority designations; and
· allows EPA to routinely meet deadlines for making priority designations and completing risk evaluations on high-priority substances.
In light of these objectives, EDF recommends using an augmented TSCA Work Plan approach to identify potential high-priority candidates. The earlier methodology would need to be updated to incorporate statutory requirements not previously included – or not sufficiently addressed (e.g., exposure to children) – and to integrate new information.
We also believe EPA could use the Safer Choice Ingredient List (SCIL)as a starting point for identifying a comparable number of low-priority candidates. However, EDF does not believe that the presence of a chemical on the SCIL list alone is at all sufficient for designating it as low-priority. Rather, the SCIL list may help EPA identify a select number of candidates, which would need to undergo a much more robust evaluation to determine whether they meet the strict statutory requirements for low-priority designations.
For additional detail, check out our full comments.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/01/29/edf-files-comments-on-epas-approaches-to-the-process-under-tsca-formerly-known-as-pre-prioritization/
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(ACC Mentioned) Health Advocates Urge State to Ban Widely-Used Non-Stick Chemicals in Food Packaging
Jan 30, 2018 | KOMO News
By Connie Thompson
A bill under consideration in Olympia would ban certain non-stick chemicals that are widely used in food packaging.
The chemicals are man-made compounds called PFAS chemicals.
PFAS chemical are used to coat paper and cardbaord so that food liquids and grease won't seep through the wrappings or containers.
Local consumer and health advocates say PFAS have been linked to cancer and other health risks. They say the same chemicals that make non-stick food packaging can stick to our food, and stay in our bodies.
When you eat popcorn that's popped in a typical microwave bag for example, local consumer and health advocates say there's a good chance you're also consuming toxic, non-stick chemicals used to keep the popping oils from leaking.
According to researchers at Toxic Free Future, a non-profit science and consumer advocacy group in Seattle, 100% of microwave popcorn bags recently tested likely contained perfluorinated non-stick coatings. Prefluorinated chemicals are part of the PFAS chemical group.
"They're the same industrial chemicals that are used in stain-proof coatings on your furniture and your carpeting or waterproof coatings on your jackets," said Toxic-Free Future spokesperson Ivy Sager-Rosenthal.
Perfluorinated chemicals are found in all sorts of food packaging, including muffin and sandwich wrappers, butter wrappers, french fry boxes and many take out food containers.
But health and safety advocates say the non-stick chemicals migrate from food packaging to the food- and pose a serious health risk- especially for children. And the chemical migration increases when introduced to heat.
Proponents of SB 6396 and it's companion bill HB 2658, say laboratory testing has found the chemicals damage the liver and kidneys, cause developmental delays, and reproductive problems.
They want state lawmakers to ban PFAS chemicals in food packaging in Washington.
But whether it's microwave popcorn or other non-stick food packaging materials, representatives of the chemical industry call the proposed ban too far-reaching and the concern unnecessary.
Jessica Bowman is a spokesperson for the FluoroCouncil, which represents the fluorochemical industry worldwide. She testified at a January 29 public hearing in Olympia.
"We respectfully oppose this bill for the following reasons: The bill would restrict all PFAS unnecessarily and without full consideration of their actual use and safety," said Bowman.
The American Chemistry Council argues on its website that the use of the PFAS in food packaging "is highly and rigorously regulated."
If Senate Bill 6396 passes- the state Department of Ecology would have to first determine whether there are safer alternatives to PFAS chemicals in food packaging and present it's findings.
If that assessment is accepted, a statewide ban would take affect in 2021.
http://komonews.com/news/consumer/health-advocates-urge-state-to-ban-widely-used-non-stick-chemicals-in-food-packaging
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Time to End Quixotic Opposition to American Energy
Jan 29, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By C. Boyden Gray
The continued assault on the U.S. energy sector by certain deep-pocketed environmentalists, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and some (but not all) Democratic allies poses a number of perplexing questions. One might ask, for example, why they have waged this particular campaign with such ferocity and single-mindedness: The United States generally enjoys among the lowest levels of traditional pollution in the developed world. Moreover, the United States has been a principal global leader in reducing and controlling greenhouse gas emissions over the last decade, in part because of the new abundance of U.S. natural gas and its leadership on the Montreal Protocol (implemented in Title VI of the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990).
But perhaps the most puzzling question is why the opponents of U.S. energy are so eager to please Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and Russia itself, in light of the favor they are doing Putin and Russia by helping keep energy prices high — thus financing what some see as our most dangerous enemy.
In this context, it is critical to remember what helped break up the old Soviet Union in the early 1990s: the flooding of the oil market in the mid-1980s by the Saudis (responding in part to our request) to lower oil prices, which in turn helped bankrupt the Soviet Union, whose budget was deeply dependent on high oil and gas revenues.
The same dynamic is playing out today with such force that Saudi Arabia and Russia have joined forces to keep oil prices high, notwithstanding their mutual differences over the ambitions of Iran, which is also dependent on high energy prices. There is, of course, a difference between now and the 1980s, in that Russia’s economy is more resilient today than it was then. But high prices are nevertheless a great boon for Putin. Low prices are not. Indeed, thanks to domestic shale gas, the U.S. surpassed Russia as the largest natural gas producer in the world in 2009 and has now become a net exporter of natural gas, keeping global natural gas prices low. Much of Russia’s past political leverage over Europe has been exercised mainly through Russia’s control over conventional natural gas supplies.
The U.S. anti-energy campaign is all the more puzzling since it so starkly highlights how much the campaigners’ bête noire — U.S. President Donald Trump — is doing to increase energy production in the United States, to increase our prosperity, and to fortify our influence in world affairs. Witness the recent growth in our oil and gas production, our emergence as the largest energy producer in the world, and the commitment made by the president in his recently-unveiled National Security Strategy to prioritize energy as one of the United States’ highest goals.
Notably, according to the Energy Information Administration’s newest short-term energy outlook (released Jan. 9, 2018), U.S. crude oil production is now forecast to average 10.3 million barrels per day in 2018, “the highest annual average production in U.S. history,” breaking the 1970 record. This is simply astounding.
Instead of applauding the administration’s approach (in part because of its challenge to Russia), the energy opponents ridicule it. Consider a prominent opponent of the Keystone Pipeline and oil drilling in Alaska, who said that allowing the latter “trades away a national treasure — for what — oil we don’t need.” So — give Russia a free hand?
All of the foregoing invites one final question: If Mr. Putin really colluded with Mr. Trump’s campaign to help Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, then why is the president so actively and successfully pursuing the most effective weapon we have against Russia, namely, our growing dominance over world energy markets made possible by our sustained and growing capacity to out-produce both Russia and Saudi Arabia at low prices that they cannot long tolerate?
Needless to say, the United States is not energy independent in the sense that we do not need to import oil. But the North American continent, including both Canada and Mexico, is becoming largely energy independent — a point that is abundantly emphasized in the administration’s new National Security Strategy. One cannot read that document and think that the Administration will fragment this continent’s integrated energy market.
By the same token, it is impossible to survey the United States’ emphasis on and success in energy production of all kinds, specifically including renewables, and conclude that the administration is not maximizing the greatest threat to Russia’s long-term ambitions. It was not so long ago that European references to the “Red Army” meant Gazprom and not the military. In more recent years, Russia may have improved its military position, but not its energy power.
Many environmentalists will no doubt continue their seemingly parochial and quixotic opposition to American energy. But they should remember that some of the biggest U.S. oil producers have long supported market-oriented climate change policies, such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems. And they should likewise remember how well our technology has worked in recent years to reduce both our greenhouse gas output and our energy intensity.
C. Boyden Gray served as U.S. Ambassador to the EU from 2006-2007 and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/371223-time-to-end-quixotic-opposition-to-american-energy
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Jan 30, 2018 | New York Times
By Agnia Grigas
Despite American sanctions against Russian natural gas producers, a cargo of liquefied natural gas that was most likely produced at Russia’s Yamal plant arrived in Boston this past weekend.
This development would seem to fly in the face of the sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama in 2014, though those restrictions apply to the financiers and producers of Russian oil and natural gas, not the output. But the arrival of the gas in the Northeast after frigid temperatures does raise questions about whether President Trump’s efforts to pursue American energy dominance in the world are falling short.
The journey of this liquefied natural gas from the Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia to Boston may at first appear like a well-orchestrated move from the Kremlin playbook to hide what might be an embarrassing delivery for the United States. On Dec. 8, President Vladimir Putin oversaw the opening of Yamal L.N.G., Russia’s second liquefied natural gas plant. The project was personal for Mr. Putin for several reasons.
First, despite being the largest natural gas exporter in the world, Russia has ranked only seventh as an exporter of liquefied natural gas, and Yamal is expected to improve the country’s position (the United States is expected to be the third-largest L.N.G. exporter by 2020).
Second, Yamal’s completion signaled a small Kremlin victory over Washington — the majority owner of the plant is Novatek, which is one of the energy companies hit by the 2014 financial sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine. While the aim was to derail Yamal’s construction, in the end, the plant was financed by Russian and Chinese banks and its output never faced sanctions.
Thus it was under the proud eyes of Mr. Putin that the first cargo from Yamal L.N.G. was loaded into the Russian icebreaker/tanker Christophe de Margerie (named after the recently deceased chief executive the French energy company Total, which holds a 20 percent interest in the project.) The cargo was initially intended for Asia, but as gas prices soared in the Britain, it made its way to the Isle of Grain terminal near London on Dec. 28.
Here the gas was briefly stored but never made its way to the British grid. On Dec. 30, the French energy company Engie’s Gaselys tanker picked upcargo and set off for Boston, where gas prices were soaring because of the cold winter.
Because the time between the unloading of the Russian vessel and loading of the Gaselys vessel at Grain was brief, it is safe to assume that the Gaselys vessel was carrying at least some, if not all, of the Russian gas from the Yamal L.N.G. project. The storage facility in London might also have been holding L.N.G. from other producers. Nonetheless the Russia news media has gloated over this gas delivery to Boston and claimed it as Russian.
In the globalizing natural gas markets, we can expect more of these trades. Once, natural gas was primarily a regional resource delivered by land-based pipelines, but in recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the shipping of natural gas in liquefied form across the globe. Indeed, another shipment of Russian liquefied natural gas via Franceis expected to arrive in New England in February.
If the United States plans to continue imposing sanctions on Russia and its energy sector, it should consider how to approach output from projects like Yamal L.N.G. This is because the original source of such gas will become increasingly difficult to determine as the trade becomes more global. The gas can be loaded and unloaded multiple times and its carrier redirected to various destinations while at sea.
At the same time, the United States should not restrict L.N.G. exports to meet domestic demand. Such exports benefit American allies that have been dependent on imports from hostile state-owned monopolies like Russia’s Gazprom.
In addition, the federal government and private sector need to reassess the need for pipelines, storage facilities and L.N.G. export terminals as the Midwest and Northeast become powerhouses for natural gas production.
Bottlenecks in the natural gas pipeline network this winter led to significant increases in oil-fired and dual-fuel electricity generation to meet energy demands in New England. That development demonstrates the importance, despite grass-roots environmental opposition, of building pipelines connecting the Appalachia gas-producing region — namely the Marcellus and Utica shale gas reserves — with New England markets. Otherwise, New England is likely to continue to have the nation’s highest energy prices and remain dependent on L.N.G. imports and burning oil.
Moreover, Washington and industry need to re-evaluate the 1920 Jones Act, which stipulates that shipping between United States ports must be on American built, registered and crewed vessels. None of the vessels carrying L.N.G. from the Gulf Coast meet this requirement and thus cannot supply New England with domestic gas.
President Trump could waive the law during peaks of energy demand as he did for Puerto Rico relief efforts following Hurricane Maria. Ideally, the private sector would launch a fleet of complying American L.N.G. vessels, though operations of American flag vessels tend to be nearly three times more expensive than foreign ones.
We also need to end the environmentally and economically costly practice of flaring — the burning off of gas produced as a byproduct of oil and gas extraction that releases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Instead, equipment should be installed so that this gas can be collected for use.
These changes would strengthen America’s domestic energy sector, limit calls to curtail America’s L.N.G. exports, reduce the need for imports, and help the country compete with Russia in the global natural gas markets.
Policy and infrastructure has not kept pace in the United States as the country has sought to turn into a net exporter of natural gas. But with thoughtful legislation and investments in infrastructure, the United States has the resources, technology and ambition to claim a position as the global leader in the coming golden age of natural gas.
Agnia Grigas (@AgniaGrigas), a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, is the author of “The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/opinion/sanctions-russia-natural-gas.html
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Exxon to Spend $50 Billion in U.S. Over Next Five Years
Jan 29, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Bradley Olson
Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -1.11% said Monday it plans to spend $50 billion to expand its business in the U.S. in the next five years, investments that were “enhanced” by the American tax overhaul.
The Texas-based energy giant didn’t specify whether the investment plan represented an increase in spending as a result of the tax rewrite passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump late last year, or how much of the $50 billion was tied to prospects Exxon was considering before the tax changes.
Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods made the announcement in a blog post, adding that the company was still studying whether the tax overhaul made additional investment more economically viable.
“We’re actively evaluating the impact of the lower tax rate on the economics of several other projects currently in the planning stages to further expand our facilities along the Gulf Coast,” Mr. Woods said in the post.
He singled out drilling operations in West Texas and New Mexico as areas where Exxon will be investing billions to boost production. The company has been planning to step up its spending levels in that region for years.
Last year, Exxon spent almost $6 billion to vastly expand its holdings in that area, and the company promised to more than triple its production in the Permian basin and North Dakota through 2025.
Exxon is well known for meticulously planning its build-out of oil and gas projects all over the world, evaluating multibillion-dollar opportunities over many years before making a final decision.
Last year, Exxon said it would spend between $23 billion and $27 billion a year globally from 2018 to 2020. The announcement Monday equates to about $10 billion a year in the U.S. for five years. In 2016 and 2017, Exxon spent about $6 billion a year on U.S. investments, according to the company and analyst estimates.
The $50 billion figure disclosed Monday includes about $15 billion in previously announced projects, such as an initiative to invest $20 billion over a decade along the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri.
It may be years before the full impact of the new tax law is apparent on Exxon’s strategic planning, but Mr. Woods made clear the company sees the tax cuts in extremely positive terms.
“Good to see sound policy laying the groundwork for America’s future economic success,” Mr. Woods said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-to-spend-50-billion-in-u-s-over-next-five-years-1517257417?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Oil & Gas Rocky Road for Colorado Drillers as Regulatory Clampdown Looms
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
Months after a pair of deadly explosions in the Colorado oil patch, drilling stocks remain hobbled by the specter of a regulatory clampdown.
Explorers like Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. and SRC Energy Inc., which are focused entirely on an oil and gas field northeast of Denver known as the D-J/Niobrara Basin, aren't fully benefiting from soaring energy prices because of concerns about their future freedom to drill. Shares of those operators are undervalued, having gained only half as much in the last six months as geographically diverse drillers, said Welles Fitzpatrick of Suntrust Robinson Humphrey Inc.
Colorado's energy industry was rocked in April and May when explosions at two Anadarko Petroleum Corp. sites killed three north of Denver, raising questions about the safety of oil and gas operations close to population centers. Regulators ordered widespread inspections while environmental groups stepped up efforts to tighten rules.
As a result, investors aren't willing to give Colorado drillers “the premium they deserve” because “of perceived regulatory issues,” said Fitzpatrick, a managing director.
Explorers have been eager to revive a section of the D-J/Niobrara region known as the Wattenberg field, a 1970s-era discovery that yielded massive amounts of gas for decades. When new drilling and fracking techniques were imported from the shale fields of Texas and North Dakota, vast reserves of crude were unearthed, spurring a land rush. Still, the Wattenberg has a long way to go before reaching the frenzied valuations of the Permian Basin: drilling rights in the area cost just 58 percent of those in the Permian, according to RS Energy Group.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127607833&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127607833&jd=127607833
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Pennsylvania Governor Calls for Steeper Fees to Reduce Well Permit Backlog
Jan 30, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to more than double natural gas well permit fees and give more money to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reduce a backlog of permits and modernize the application process to make it more efficient.
The oil and natural gas industry has bemoaned the backlog as it’s worsened over the last year or so. In some cases, operators have waited more than 230 days for well permits, according to the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC). The backlog has become most severe in the DEP’s Southwest District Office, located in a part of the state where Marcellus and Utica shale development has been heaviest.
Permit applications have piled up amid a “decade of cuts that led to bigger backlogs and longer wait times,” DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said. Over the last decade, the agency’s oil and gas staff has declined from 226 employees to 190. Wolf said Friday that DEP will soon release a regulatory package calling for a well permit fee increase from $5,000 to $12,500 to help the agency implement efficiency initiatives that the administration said would better serve the industry.
Wolf also plans to call for $2.5 million in the 2018-2019 budget he’ll release in February to hire 35 new employees to fill high-priority positions across the agency. About half of DEP’s budget comes from the state general fund and federal funds, while the other half comes from fees and fines. DEP’s general fund appropriation has steadily decreased from a high of $245.6 million in 2002-2003 to about $148 million in this year’s budget. Wolf has unsuccessfully called for funding increases in the past that have not been met by the legislature, where some lawmakers have questioned the time it takes for DEP to issue oil and gas permits.
After a yearlong effort to identify and implement strategies to cut the backlog, Wolf said Friday that DEP would also expand electronic permitting, support legislation to better align the permitting process with the industry being served and provide clearer instructions to operators to help reduce time-consuming incomplete applications.
Only underground mining permits and storage tank renewal authorizations are currently able to be applied for online. But the DEP said it plans to phase in its Office of Oil and Gas Management, along with the Bureau of Air Quality and others into the e-permitting platform by the end of the year. That would help reduce paperwork.
The administration also plans to support legislation that would eliminate the requirement that a well be constructed within one year of a permit being issued and replace it with a three-year term. As pads grow to accommodate more wells, Wolf said his administration would back other legislation that would allow for permitting multiple wells on one pad site with just one application.
MSC President David Spigelmyer welcomed the state’s commitment to solving the problem, and said his organization would continue to “engage with policymakers on ways to enhance Pennsylvania’s business climate and maximize the shared benefits of natural gas development.”
However, the industry also seemed bearish on the idea of increasing permitting fees, which the MSC noted has happened before. Three years ago, fees were increased from an average of up to $3,600 -- based on the depth and length of a well -- to a flat fee of $5,000.
The DEP, however, continues to maintain that it’s been asked to do more with less. The agency’s responsibilities have only increased in the shale era. There are more than 10,000 unconventional wells on record in the state, according to the agency’s latest annual report. Some of DEP’s permitting initiatives, the Wolf administration said, are already being implemented, which have helped reduce the agency’s overall backlog by 6,000 permits since the summer.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113201-pennsylvania-governor-calls-for-steeper-fees-to-reduce-well-permit-backlog
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Energy Transfer Blasts ‘Unwarranted’ Shutdown of Rover Drilling
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bailey Schulz
A federal stop-work order on the Rover natural gas pipeline in Ohio drew a sharp rebuke from the project's developer, Energy Transfer Partners LP.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission halted progress on Rover in a letter released Jan. 24 that requested new information, including details on how the pipeline plans to address expected drilling fluid losses that could affect local groundwater.
Energy Transfer, in a letter released Jan. 29, said it was “frustrated by the inaccurate central premise underlying” the FERC response. It called the stop-worker order “unwarranted.”
The Rover snag is the latest in a series of setbacks for Energy Transfer projects. Earlier this month, Pennsylvania regulators ordered the company to halt work on its Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline due to “egregious and willful” violations of rules covering water use, industrial waste and erosion. The first phase of the Rover project received approval to start in August after months of delays. Energy Transfer also built the controversial Dakota Access crude oil line, which started up last year after an initial federal rejection.
The Rover project, which is designed to shuttle gas from Appalachian shale fields to major markets in the U.S. and Canada, is more than 99 percent complete. Energy Transfer said it has it has complied with required measures for horizontal directional drill activities and asked the commission to authorize Rover to finish the pipeline.
“Rover is fully compliant with the FERC-approved plans” the company said in a letter addressed to Terry Turpin, director of the FERC Office of Energy Projects. “And it remains Rover's intent to cooperate as fully as possible with the commission in order to complete this process and bring these badly needed gas supply to market.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127607830&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127607830&jd=127607830
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Trump Critics Seize on Developer Ties to Infrastructure Plan
Jan 29, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
President Donald Trump’s critics are already lining up to undercut his infrastructure proposal — the purported bipartisan centerpiece of Tuesday’s State of the Union speech — as a giveaway to his well-connected friends and a rollback of popular environmental protections.
Even before the president formally calls for a deal to help rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure, a watchdog nonprofit stocked with former Democratic aides is ramping up a campaign to discredit his plan as “a blueprint for cronyism.”
The group Democracy Forward will release a report Tuesday that alleges potential conflicts of interest on Trump’s infrastructure advisory council, which was disbanded last summer. The board was led by two of Trump’s longtime New York developer allies, Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, who were tapped to help shape his plan to shore up roads and bridges by leveraging public money with private investors’ involvement.
Among the potential minefields the group singles out are lobbying by LeFrak's company against flood risk regulations that the Trump administration axed last year and the prospect that Roth's company would benefit from a public-private partnership in the works to build a new Penn Station in New York City.
The Transportation Department and LeFrak's company did not return a request for comment, and a spokesman for Roth said he "has not been commenting on all matters related to the administration."
The report highlights the key role that the Trump administration gave to the private-sector figures in shaping its infrastructure plan — in addition to showing how bitterly partisan the infrastructure debate has become. The conflicts, it alleges, are political as well as financial.
One email chain, obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with POLITICO, features an exchange between Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, LeFrak and Roth. Chao begins by forwarding a story about how the Trump administration was not “showing much love” for a massive New York development project backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The story by the Weekly Standard also noted that Schumer had voted against Chao’s confirmation, even though she is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The vote set tongues wagging in the Capitol, and prompted McConnell to ask Schumer on the Senate floor afterward whether he had "any transportation projects up in New York?" (GOP aides later said the remark was more lighthearted than a direct jab.)
“Thank you for sharing. You are doing great … stick to your guns,” Roth replied to Chao, an apparent reference to the Trump administration’s resistance to the Schumer-backed project, a $13 billion bridge and tunnel rebuild known as Gateway.
Democracy Forward’s report goes on to raise detail other potential conflicts of interest involving members of the now-disbanded infrastructure council, which it contends exerted critical influence by shaping the administration’s policy early. The group's policy director, Corey Ciorciari, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, vowed that Trump's infrastructure pitch would prove politically toxic in the end.
"What the American people will see is an infrastructure plan designed in secret by a council endowed with more power than Dick Cheney’s infamous and self-enriching Energy Task Force,” Ciorciari said.
The group's efforts, conducted with the environmental group Food & Water Watch, are set to include legal actions aimed at the involvement of foreign entities as well as presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner in the crafting of the administration's infrastructure policy.
It's not the only pre-emptive strike against Trump's infrastructure plan. Another came Sunday from Center for American Progress, long considered a Democratic executive branch-in-waiting during times of GOP control. While White House legislative director Marc Short told Fox News that day that the infrastructure plan would not "gut" the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act, the administration is likely to propose permitting changes that would affect existing environmental rules.
The administration is signaling that it's "not going to put in any real money here, so the only thing [it] can do is go after the environmental deregulation side," said Christy Goldfuss, vice president of energy and environmental policy at CAP.
Despite the already sharp discord over the infrastructure plan, some Democrats facing reelection this fall in states that Trump carried are still eyeing the issue as an opportunity for the bipartisan dealmaking that has so far eluded the president.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in an interview that he brought up infrastructure during a visit to the White House last week with Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), adding that "hopefully, it'll be something that we're going to come together on."
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) warned in a brief interview "that a lot of the public-private" partnerships the administration had initially proposed are unlikely to make sense for rural areas like his own.
“But, that aside," Tester said, "we certainly need an investment in infrastructure in this country. And I’m hoping we can get together and get something done."
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/01/trump-critics-seize-on-developer-ties-to-infrastructure-plan-316007
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Critics Attack 'Unsupported Mythology' in Trump Draft Plan
Jan 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczk
Environmentalists are digging in against a draft infrastructure proposal from the White House that envisions major changes to some of the nation's landmark environmental laws.
President Trump's "discussion draft" for streamlining permitting was first published on Friday by The Washington Post.
It would limit reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act to two years and require the White House Council on Environmental Quality to revamp its NEPA guidance for the first time in decades (Greenwire, Jan. 29).
"Artificially curtailing the length of a NEPA review is dumb policy, shortsighted, and counter-productive," Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email to E&E News.
On Capitol Hill, though, some lawmakers are cautiously withholding judgment.
"I'm frankly interested not in hearing about leaked documents that have been reported in The Washington Post or some other publication. I'd like to actually see what this administration has in mind," said Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.).
Pointing to past compromises in transportation authorization bills, Carper added that there would likely be some room to negotiate permitting reform when the White House unveils its plan after tonight's State of the Union address.
But discussions about revamping NEPA will be tricky, especially with environmental groups bearing down hard.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said yesterday that she was unaware of the administration document reported on by the Post but added that revisions to environmental laws to expedite permitting must be done carefully to avoid alienating Democrats.
"I think that there is a shared interest in doing what we can to expedite some of this infrastructure through some aspect of regulatory reform or regulatory rollback, but I think if you push too far on some of the environmental safeguards, I think that makes it very hard to get support that we need for a bill that we want to try to do on a bipartisan basis," she told E&E News. "So let's be smart with this."
Environmentalists and left-leaning groups don't think that the Trump administration has been smart so far, particularly when it comes to NEPA.
"Occasionally, some projects that require NEPA reviews are very complex, and curtailing the analysis leads to sloppy mistakes, poor decisions, and makes something easy to overturn in court," said Hartl. "So if the Trump administration wants to see their pet projects fall apart due nothing to right-wing ideology, then they will reap what they sow.
"It is just unsupported mythology that NEPA should be artificially curtailed," he added, pointing to successful environmental reviews for projects supported by the 2009 stimulus bill.
A White House official pushed back in a statement yesterday, saying that Trump recognizes the importance of protecting the environment.
"He just knows that every system can be made more efficient so that we are also good stewards of our economy," the official said.
Other environmentalists, and members of both parties in Congress, think Trump should put more federal money on the table, rather than focusing on permitting.
The administration has proposed spending $200 billion of federal money and getting the rest from state and local governments and the private sector, flipping the 80-20 split that has traditionally been used to fund infrastructure.
"I'm not from Missouri, but you've got to show me how that works," quipped Carper, in reference to Missouri's nickname, the Show-Me State.
Still, Carper said he was hopeful that Congress could move on an infrastructure package this year, despite a packed schedule and intense partisan fights over issues like immigration.
"I think there's a potential for a broad bipartisan consensus moving forward," he said. "God knows we need it."
Reporter Geof Koss contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/01/30/stories/1060072313
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Washington Governor Rejects Tesoro-Savage Crude-by-Rail Terminal
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) declined Jan. 29 to permit a Tesoro-Savage proposal to build what would be the nation's largest rail-to-maritime crude oil terminal on the Columbia River.
The draft 360,000-barrel-per-day terminal would receive crude oil hauled by Berkshire Hathaway's BNSF Railway and ship it to refineries on the West Coast. Its geographic proximity to Asia would position it as a potential export terminal.
“Seismic conditions at the site present an unacceptable and potentially catastrophic risk to the public,” Inslee wrote in a Jan. 29 letter to the state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, concurring with its recommendation that the project be rejected. He also cited oil spill and explosion risks.
The project developers—a joint venture between Tesoro Refining and Marketing Co. LLC and Savage Cos.—have 30 days to appeal Inslee's decision to state Superior Court.
While Tesoro has changed its name to Andeavor, the joint venture's name remains the same. A project spokesman reached by Bloomberg Environment Jan. 29 had no immediate comment.
‘Inslee's Washington’
Inslee—an attorney who has made proactive climate change policy a signature issue since serving in Congress in the 1990s—did not raise climate effects in denying the project.
But the final sentence of Inslee's letter says: “I am confident that our ports will continue to play an important role in regional trade, and providing opportunities for jobs in clean energy.”
Patrick Connor, Washington state director of the National Federation of Independent Business called the denial part of “a pattern of regulatory overreach” in a Jan. 29 telephone interview with Bloomberg Environment. “It seems as though if it's not so-called clean energy, then there is no place for it in Inslee's Washington.”
Cause Celebre
The denial was immediately celebrated by environmental and conservation groups.
“Governor Inslee's rejection of the largest oil train terminal in all of North America is a historic victory for our climate and the Washington communities that have fought tirelessly to protect their families and communities from this dirty and dangerous project,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, in a Jan. 29 prepared statement.
“This is further proof that Big Oil is no match for communities that organize and fight back against the dirty fossil fuels of the past,” he said. “We invite Governor Inslee to continue this climate leadership by taking the next step and opposing all new fossil fuel projects in Washington.”
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
‘A Political Agenda’
“It's troubling that important economic development and energy independence projects are repeatedly getting a red light from the Inslee Administration. In too many cases, the rejections seemed to be based more on a political agenda than state law or applicable regulations,” Connor said.
Lighthouse Resources Inc., owners of what would be the only U.S. terminal for exporting Powder River basin coal to Asia, sued the state of Washington Jan. 3 for denying Millennium Bulk Terminals the permits it needs to operate at a site downriver from the proposed Tesoro-Savage project. The suit alleges Inslee and his administration “oppose coal on policy grounds.”
The Inslee administration's rejection of the Tesoro-Savage project mirrors that of MIllennium in that neither denial cites climate change impacts.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127607815&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127607815&jd=127607815
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Trump Says Ice Caps ‘Setting Records’ as He Mulls Climate Accord
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ros Krasny
Donald Trump cast doubt on the science of climate change even while saying he'd be open to keeping the U.S. in the Paris climate accord, partly because of his warm relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records,” Trump said in excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan on the U.K. television network ITV broadcast Jan. 28. Trump didn't specify the data behind his statement about setting records.
The president said in June that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, signed in 2015 by almost 200 countries after years of negotiations. He continues to call it a bad deal for the U.S. The accord was reached even after climate science had become a partisan issue in the U.S., with Republican voters becoming more skeptical over the years about the links between a warming planet and human activities.
“The Paris accord, for us, would have been a disaster,” Trump said in excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan. “Would I go back in? Yeah, I'd go back in. I like, as you know, I like Emmanuel” Macron.
“I would love to, but it's got to be a good deal for the United States,” Trump added. The comments were similar to ones he made Jan. 10, after a meeting with Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House.
‘Bundle Up!’
“We can conceivably go back in,” Trump said at the time. Countries can't formally submit paperwork to leave the Paris climate agreement until 2019, with their exits effective no earlier than Nov. 4, 2020—a day after the next U.S. presidential election.
Trump also expressed skepticism in the ITV interview that the global climate is warming, as a majority of scientists have concluded.
“There is a cooling, and there's a heating,” he said. “I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn't working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place.”
Trump's comment was consistent with one he made on Twitter in late December as the eastern U.S. shivered through a brief cold snap. “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”
Polar Bears
In 2014, less than a year before he entered the 2016 presidential race, president, Trump said on Twitter that the “POLAR ICE CAPS are at an all time high, the POLAR BEAR population has never been stronger. Where the hell is global warming.”
Data released this month from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show 2017 was the third hottest year on record. Seven of the 18 hottest years have been logged in the 21st century, and the planet hasn't had a cooler than average year since 1976.
On ice caps specifically, NOAA, in its annual Arctic Report Card published in December, said the amount of the Arctic Ocean frozen over in the coldest points of winter set a record low in 2017 and is declining faster than at any time in the past 1,500 years.
The cost of natural disasters hit records in the U.S. in 2017, straining the U.S. budget. NOAA tallied 16 major billion-dollar-plus storms, fires and floods in 2017, including Hurricanes Maria and Harvey, which devastated Puerto Rico and Houston, respectively. The price-tag for damage from those weather and climate events was $306 billion.
A Yale University study in 2016 showed that 82 percent of Democrats believe “global warming is happening,” against 50 percent of Republicans. Democrats consistently had higher rates of worry about global warming and the harm it could do to people in the U.S., and were more supportive of funding research , regulating pollutants, and using renewable energy.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127607831&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127607831&jd=127607831
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Pruitt Says Weaker Arkansas Haze Plan Satisfies 'Cooperative Federalism'
Jan 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says the agency's approval of revisions Arkansas made to soften an Obama-era plan for reducing regional haze in the state satisfies his push for “cooperative federalism” in boosting states' authority over environmental regulation, but environmentalists warn that the plan will lead to more air pollution.
“Arkansas’s revised plan is yet another excellent example of the positive environmental outcomes we are achieving across the country from a cooperative federalism approach,” Pruitt said in a Jan. 29 statement on EPA backing the haze plan revision. “After working closely with Arkansas, this action returns power back to the rightful hands of the state and gives them the necessary flexibility to improve air quality,” he said.
Under co-operative federalism, states have primary responsibility for implementing the Clean Air Act, but EPA has an oversight role to ensure timely submission of adequate plans.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said, “The state’s proposed approach achieves greater environmental results while providing flexibility to Arkansas power plants and reducing costs to ratepayers.”
And Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-AR), called EPA's decision “a much-needed corrective to the heavy-handed ways of the previous administration.”
But Stephanie Kodish, an attorney with the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), said the Arkansas plan for haze-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) fails to satisfy EPA's duty to protect the environment.
“The idea of co-operative federalism has 'co-operative' in it. Part of the responsibility belongs to EPA.” It is incumbent on EPA to provide baseline environmental protections, but the agency failed to do that here, and instead opted to “create a state and polluter-defined agenda,” Kodish said.
The announcement means EPA is giving final approval to a weaker plan for controlling emissions of NOx from Arkansas power plants, walking back an Obama EPA federal implementation plan (FIP) that the state and industry groups said was unreasonably tough. But environmentalists in comments on the proposed approval last fall were harshly critical of the plan, which they say fails to satisfy air law requirements.
The plan agreed with Arkansas so far covers only NOx, and not the equally contentious problem of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from power plants, which is the subject of a separate process now unfolding at the state level. EPA has yet to publish its final decision on the NOx component in the Federal Register.
Haze Program
In his previous capacity as GOP attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt was a vocal critic of what he saw as federal overreach in second-guessing states' efforts to implement various aspects of the Clean Air Act. The Obama EPA issued FIPs to replace state implementation plans (SIPs) where it deemed state-crafted regional haze plans insufficient or found them missing entirely.
But the Trump EPA has made returning decision making power to states a cornerstone of its agenda, and EPA in its statement on the Arkansas plan cites the haze program as a prime example of this.
The haze program aims to restore visibility in “Class I” national parks and wilderness areas to natural conditions by 2064, but new EPA air policy chief William Wehrum in public comments has cast doubt on how seriously EPA takes this goal. The agency has further announced it intends to reconsider aspects of the Obama-era regional haze program, possibly to scale back the role of federal land managers in states' planning processes.
EPA says that during the Obama administration, the agency imposed more than 50 FIPs on states, including “nearly 20 under the Regional Haze program. Under the Trump Administration, with Administrator Pruitt's leadership, EPA has turned at least one FIP into a SIP approximately every month and over 200 SIPs have been approved since March 1, 2017.” The agency says states are “best suited to run their clean-air programs."
But the agency's eagerness to approve state plans will likely revive accusations from environmentalists that the agency is rubber-stamping states' plans, some of them weaker than required by law, in its quest for cooperative federalism.
Conversely, some state air regulators are pleased to see EPA action on clearing the once-considerable backlog of pending SIP approvals.
The agency has adopted a practice of approving as “direct final rules” its approval of many SIPs, but in several instances has then been forced to withdraw them after adverse public comment and proceed instead with notice-and-comment rulemaking on proposed versions of the rules, which are typically issued in parallel with direct final rules. While this is a longstanding agency practice, its use appears to have increased under Pruitt.
Arkansas Plan
NPCA, Sierra Club and Earthjustice strongly criticized the proposed version of the Arkansas plan as unlawful in comments to EPA last fall.
In Oct. 11 comments, the groups said, “The State’s plan suffers from multiple, independent flaws. First and foremost, the State does not even pretend to analyze the four factors which the Clean Air Act requires states to consider when determining reasonable progress. Second, the State has violated its statutory and regulatory obligation to consider whether measures are needed to make reasonable progress at out-of-state Class I areas."
The smaller NOx reductions required by the revised plan violate “anti-backsliding” provisions of the Clean Air Act, and the state's reliance on EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) to satisfy control requirements known as “best available retrofit technology” (BART) is also unlawful, the groups argue. CSAPR created an emissions trading program for NOx and SO2, but environmentalists argue that it cannot serve as a substitute for source-specific determinations of BART.
Meanwhile, EPA has yet to propose approval of a second phase of Arkansas' revised haze plan that will address SO2. The draft plan is now under discussion at the state level, but is likely to run into substantial opposition from environmentalists. This is because it would abandon the Obama EPA plan's requirement for “scrubbers” to remove SO2, and replace it instead with reliance on low-sulfur coal, which environmentalist sources say will not achieve the same emissions reductions. Public comments are due to the state by Feb. 2.
The state's haze plan is further being litigated by NPCA and Sierra Club in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in State of Arkansas v. EPA, et al., where they are fighting motions from Arkansas and electric utility Entergy for the court to stay application of the Obama-era rule, pending its replacement by the revised version. The case remains in abeyance until April 5 with respect to merits briefing, while EPA and the state negotiate a replacement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitt-says-weaker-arkansas-haze-plan-satisfies-cooperative-federalism
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EPA's Latest TRI Analysis Finds Air Pollution Cuts Across Several Sectors
Jan 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's latest Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) analysis find ongoing cuts in air pollution across several sectors driven by electric utilities' reductions in releases of air toxics like hydrochloric acid accounting for the biggest drops in emissions, followed by air pollution cuts from the chemical and paper manufacturing sectors.
The agency on Jan. 25 quietly posted its National Analysis for 2016 TRI data -- the most recent available -- and says releases of toxic chemicals to air decreased 58 percent, or by 829 million pounds between 2006 and 2016, with the most recent year marking another drop. In 2016, facility stack emissions were 453 million pounds compared to 512 million pounds in 2015, and fugitive emissions in 2016 were 136 million pounds compared to 154 million pounds in 2016.
EPA usually releases the annual report sometime in January with an accompanying press release, but has yet to take any major steps to publicize the data beyond posting it to the agency's website.
For example, in January 2017 the agency's then-Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Jim Jones touted the release of the 2015 TRI report in a Jan. 12 press release, saying it “shows action by EPA, state and tribal regulators and the regulated community has helped dramatically lower toxic air emissions over the past 10 years.”
TRI tracks releases of specified chemicals by air, land and water disposal, recycling and other releases to the environment as defined by its authorizing statute, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
The report notes that between 2006 and 2016, the decline in air releases was accompanied by reduced “[o]n-site surface water discharges (down 24% since 2006) and off-site releases (down 30% since 2006)” resulting in total reduction in releases of 21 percent.
But, over the course of the decade “on-site land disposal increased (up 6% since 2006)” and that trend continued between 2015 and 2016. EPA says the metal mining sector accounts for most of these releases, and that the “recent fluctuations” in reported releases “are primarily due to changes in waste quantities reported by metal mines,” which account for 66 percent of land disposal releases in the 2016 data.
The analysis adds that with metal mining facilities, “even a small change in the chemical composition of the mineral deposit being mined can lead to big changes in the amount of TRI-listed chemicals reported nationally. In recent years mines have cited changes in production of waste rock, changes in the composition of waste rock, and the closure of a heap leach pad as the primary reasons for the reported variability in land disposal of TRI chemicals.”
TRI Data
Congress created TRI in 1986 in response to a pair of accidents at chemical-producing facilities in Bhopal, India, in 1984 and in West Virginia in 1985. TRI requires certain sectors, including manufacturing, electricity generation, metals mining and others to report environmental releases of a specified set of more than 650 chemicals.
Overall, the TRI analysis finds that “On-site air releases, on-site surface water discharges, and off-site disposal decreased while on-site land disposal increased. Total releases to the environment increased by 1%.”
Of the industries that produced the most releases, including disposal, in 2016, the top overall producer of releases was the “metal mining sector [which] accounts for 44% of releases (1.52 billion pounds)” followed by the chemicals manufacturing sector, accounting for 14 percent of total releases.
Of the 27.8 billion pounds of “production-related waste managed by industry” in 2016, nearly half, or 47 percent, was managed by the chemicals industry, a similar level as in previous years.
In 2016, total releases “of 8 chemicals comprise 73% of total releases,” with most of those releases being zinc, at 21 percent, and lead, at 19 percent. Nitrate compounds, manganese, barium, arsenic, ammonia and copper round out the top eight chemicals released.
The TRI website indicates that the agency has also quietly released enhanced access to its related Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) data for the first time. RSEI is an effort to place TRI data in a risk context by combining toxicity information for TRI chemicals along with the TRI release information.
EPA's analysis indicates that its RSEI hazard trend and risk scores track the historical trend of declines in TRI releases. RSEI numbers represent risk screening-level type information, not the result of a traditional risk assessment. The RSEI hazard estimates “consist of the pounds released multiplied by the chemical's toxicity weight,” while the RSEI risk scores “are estimates of potential human risk based on pathway-specific modeling of chemical concentrations at specific points in the environment, such as in the air around a facility or in the water downstream from a facility.”
Between 2006 and 2016, the “overall RSEI hazard estimate decreased by 60 [percent], while corresponding pounds released decreased by 46 [percent]. This suggests that in recent years, TRI reporters may be releasing chemicals that have slightly lower toxicities.”
Similarly, over the course of the same decade the “overall RSEI score estimate decreased by 56 [percent], while corresponding pounds released decreased by 46 [percent].”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-latest-tri-analysis-finds-air-pollution-cuts-across-several-sectors
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Lamar Smith Urges Action Through Technology
Jan 29, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
Retiring Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is urging climate action through technological innovation to cool the globe by altering the atmosphere and ecosystems.
"Technological innovation takes many forms in many fields of science. One area that needs more focus is climate change," he wrote in an op-ed in the conservative Daily Caller. "As the climate continues to change, as it always has, we should look to technology to solve possible problems."
Smith rejects the assertion that humans are the main drivers of global warming, but he agrees it needs to be addressed, though not through regulation.
"For too long, the government has tried to use mandatory regulations to address climate change," he said. "The previous administration proposed extensive climate regulations like the Clean Power Plan, which would have driven up basic living costs for all Americans."
While Smith disparaged former President Obama's signature climate regulation, he did so not because it would hamstring the economy, as many of his Republican colleagues maintain, but because he said its impacts would be negligible.
"The plan would have reduced global temperatures by only 0.03 degrees Celsius and reduced sea level rise by the thickness of three sheets of paper," Smith said, putting forth similar complaints against the international Paris Agreement.
"The Paris Climate Accord, which incorporated environmental pledges from countries around the world, failed to meet any type of arbitrary climate goal," he said.
According to analysis by Bjørn Lomborg, the former director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute and advocate for long-term climate solutions, the Paris climate deal would reduce global temperatures by only 0.17 degree Celsius by 2100, Smith said.
The chairman said geoengineering, though still in the basic research phase, could prove the most effective way to curb climate change.
Geoengineering is a method of artificially cooling the Earth by intentionally altering the atmosphere and natural ecosystems — a tactic that has long been anathema to environmental groups who fear it would provide an out for cutting carbon emissions.
"One such area of research is solar radiation management, which involves slightly altering the amount of sunlight that penetrates and warms the earth," he said. "Another concept, greenhouse gas reduction, involves altering the makeup of gases in our atmosphere to ensure that levels remain safe."
Ideas include marine cloud brightening, which involves making clouds brighter so they reflect a fraction of incoming sunlight back into space. Some scholars have also proposed injecting aerosols such as sulfate particles into the atmosphere to shade the Earth.
Many scientists have voiced concern about the potential risks of artificially altering the atmosphere. Man-made attempts to drop temperatures could affect weather patterns and prompt more extreme events, they warn.
The Science Subcommittee on Environment and Energy held a hearing last year to discuss the viability of such emerging technologies, in which Democrats and Republicans found common ground (E&E Daily, Nov. 9, 2017).
Following the hearing, Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) introduced a bill that would require the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to lay out a research and oversight strategy for the field.
So far, however, no Republicans have signed on to H.R. 4586, the "Geoengineering Research Evaluation Act."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/01/29/stories/1060072263
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On Climate, Gov. Murphy Brings a New Voice to New Jersey
Jan 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
Given the Trump administration’s indifference to climate change, the task of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, has fallen largely to city and state governments. It is thus greatly encouraging that New Jersey, under its new governor, Phil Murphy, a Democrat, will join — more precisely, rejoin — the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a consortium of nine Eastern and New England states that has achieved substantial emissions reductions from large power plants since its start in 2009.
Mr. Murphy chose Highlands, a borough on the Atlantic shore hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, to announce that he would sign an executive order renewing New Jersey’s participation in the consortium. His predecessor, Chris Christie, a Republican, pulled the state out of the agreement in 2011, claiming he was trying to protect New Jersey ratepayers. A more plausible explanation lay in his nascent presidential aspirations. Climate change had become an unpopular subject among Republicans, and big donors like the Koch brothers were threatening to pull the plug on any candidate who favored regulation of greenhouse gases.
RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”) has, in fact, a Republican pedigree, dating back to 2003, when Gov. George Pataki of New York invited other Northeast governors to join a regional effort to reduce carbon emissions. What followed was a regionwide system that sets a declining cap on emissions from large power plants — about 170 in total — and requires individual power producers to buy permits from state governments to pollute. As the cap declines, the price of the permits rises, giving utilities an incentive to find cheaper ways to reduce emissions.
According to various studies, power plant emissions have declined 40 percent since 2009, while the sale of the permits has raised $2.7 billion that’s been invested in efficiency measures and renewable energy. Some of these reductions would have occurred anyway as plants shifted from coal to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas, and the reductions are a small fraction of the total greenhouse gases generated in the nine-state region. Even so, it’s a well-designed program that will only get stronger; last August, the nine states agreed to reduce emissions a further 30 percent by 2030. A national program along similar lines passed the House in 2009 but never came to a vote in the Senate.
There is one more thing Mr. Murphy can do to show that he’s bringing a new sensibility on energy and environmental matters to Trenton. That is to chart a sensible way forward for two New Jersey nuclear plants that keeps them alive for now but provides for the day when they become too old or costly. At issue are the Salem and Hope Creek generating stations. Their owner, Public Service Electric and Gas, is threatening to close them unless the Legislature provides a subsidy of $300 million a year. A bill to do exactly that came close to approval in the waning days of the Christie administration and is now in negotiations between the new governor and the State Senate.
Nobody doubts the value of the two plants. Nuclear power is carbon-free, and thus vital to the fight against climate change. But simply throwing money at them is shortsighted. California, Illinois and New York have all faced the issue of aging, uneconomical nuclear plants and have devised creative solutions that would significantly ramp up investment in renewables like wind and solar so that when the plants do close, there are carbon-free sources to take their place — not to mention new jobs for the displaced workers. Mr. Murphy should insist on a similarly creative and comprehensive plan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/opinion/jersey-murphy-climate-change.html
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D.C. Circuit Rejects Rehearing of Ruling Scrapping HFC Policy
Jan 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is rejecting a request to rehear a split panel ruling that vacated key parts of an EPA rule reducing refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases, dealing a blow to environmental groups and chemical firms that supported the rule.
In a Jan. 26 order in Mexichem Fluor v. EPA, et al., the court said that “a majority of judges eligible to participate did not vote in favor of” rehearing the suit en banc. Of the 11 active judges on the D.C. Circuit, two did not participate in the decision: Judges Patricia Millet and Greg Katsas.
The rejection means that environmentalists and chemical firms that support EPA's 2015 Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) rule to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) would have to seek Supreme Court appeal if they wish to overturn the Aug. 8 split panel ruling vacating key parts of the rule.
That ruling held that EPA lacks authority to require companies to “replace” substances that do not deplete the ozone -- the issue SNAP was intended to address -- with other non-ozone-depleting substances that are friendlier to the climate.
EPA has long used the SNAP program to replace ozone-harming substances such as chlorofluorocarbons with ozone-friendly substitutes such as HFCs, but the Obama EPA sought to require such chemicals to be replaced with alternatives with a much lower global warming potential.
The ruling leaves in place EPA's finding that HFCs are now considered “unacceptable” substitutes, though it bars the agency from using SNAP to require firms to replace HFCs that are already in use.
Environmentalists have said that the D.C. Circuit's ruling could “complicate” initial implementation of the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which set a global phasedown schedule for HFCs.
However, chemical firms that support the ruling argue that the 2015 SNAP rule and a similar measure issued the following year would not have guaranteed the United States would hit its first targets under Kigali, and that EPA would have to take additional action to implement the deal.
The Trump administration in November said it supports the “goals and approach” of Kigali -- a rare example of a climate policy the administration backs -- though it outlined no timeline for submitting the deal to the Senate for ratification and subsequent implementation steps.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-rejects-rehearing-ruling-scrapping-hfc-policy
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Cheap, Portable Air Sensors Tell Communities What They Breathe (Corrected)
Jan 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Lu
Alberto Ayala faces a July 2019 deadline to monitor pollution from factories and power plants in California's poor and minority communities, so he'd like sensor manufacturers to join a “shoot out” to prove their wares.
“As an air quality regulator, it's important that we move the needle on sensors,” Ayala, executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, said at an air pollution conference in Austin, Texas. “Everyone is talking about the potential, and no one is doing it.”
With an abundance of new air pollution sensors coming on the market, Ayala—like a lot of other regulators—is eager to incorporate new technologies that promise to give state officials and beleaguered communities more information about the air they breathe. Emerging sensors are cheap and portable, promising to put more power in the hands of communities that bear the brunt of pollution.
However, the new sensors still have their limits. There are more than 50 sensors on the market, according to Tim Dye of TD Environmental Services, a Petaluma, Calif.-based air pollution consulting firm. These sensors primarily measure particulate matter or ozone and, at around $300 a pop, run a couple hundred times cheaper than the reference monitors used by state, local, and tribal agencies for monitoring and air quality forecasting.
Unlike the new wave of sensors, those monitors have won the Environmental Protection Agency's approval and have their data rigorously validated.
Faster, More Localized Data
One area in which the new sensors could arm communities with additional data is the EPA's AirNow program, which provides alerts about poor air quality days, participants said at the National Air Quality Conference in Austin, Texas, which was sponsored by the EPA, National Association of Clean Air Agencies, and the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies.
The data from the sensors, if verified, could provide even more localized and real time alerts about air pollution spikes that aggravate asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
“What we're waiting for on the AirNow site is for EPA to determine how reliable the sensors are to report to the public,” Phil Dickerson, EPA's AirNow program director, said at the conference.
The EPA put out an air sensor guidebook in 2014 in response to growing interest from companies developing the technology, citizen scientists, community groups, and tribal, state, and local air quality agencies. The agency, together with the South Coast Air Quality Management District in California, has been cataloging and comparing sensor performance.
Managing Expectations
David Ralston, community engagement manager for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said at the conference that people constantly ask how they can use sensors to collect “actionable data” that can drive new regulations or enforce existing standards at industrial facilities. But that data needs to stand up not just to peer review but in a court of law, he said.
Actionable data is the kind that can be used to mitigate emissions, and to support enforcement and rulemaking.
Sensor technologies, based on their current capabilities, collect qualitative air quality data that are more like “snapshots in time,” Ralston said. However, the information gleaned from sensors can help define and refine study questions that move towards actionable data collection.
That's why it's important to communicate with local communities who want to use sensors in order to manage expectations and explain what the technology can and can't accomplish in terms of understanding air quality.
“As science-based regulators, we can't move that fast,” he said. “We have to explain the length of time and the science.”
(This story originally said the July 2019 deadline was to monitor vehicle pollution. The first paragraph has been corrected to note the deadline is to monitor pollution from factories and power plants.)
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127607822&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127607822&jd=127607822
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