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Chemical Management News

1. Toxicologists Seek Flexibility On Science In TSCA Reform

   Feb 9, 2015 | InsideEPA

   The Society of Toxicology (SOT) is reiterating its call for Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation to give EPA flexibility in determining “best available science” to select testing methods for assessing the safety of chemicals and to preserve the agency's authority for using new techniques to review substances.
2. Chemical Enemy Number One: How Bad Are Phthalates Really?

   Feb 10, 2015 | The Guardian

   By Amy Westervelt
   
   
   Lately, it seems like a new study on the health impacts of phthalates comes out every week. The chemicals are everywhere: they’re used in everything from household cleaners to food packaging to fragrance, cosmetics, and personal-care products
3. Maine to Designate Formaldehyde, Phthalates as Priority Chemicals

   Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Dinesh Kumar
   
   
   The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has proposed rules to designate formaldehyde and four phthalates as priority products, under the Toxic Chemicals in Children's Products law.
4. Barrier Layers May Not Prevent Plastic Dye Migration

   Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Philip Lightowlers
   
   
   Potentially hazardous dyes can dissolve in foods, despite barrier layers of clear plastic, researchers from the US government’s Food and Drug Administration have demonstrated in a series of experiments. Polystyrene (PS) dyes contaminated food simulants, particularly where solvents had been used as dispersants.
5. 9th Circuit To Hear Novel Rights Act Suit Over EPA Pesticide Plan Approval

   Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA

   By Dawn Reeves
   
   
   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is poised to hear arguments Feb. 12 in a novel suit claiming that EPA violated the Civil Rights Act (CRA) when it approved an unenforceable California pesticide control plan that critics say disproportionately exposed Hispanic schoolchildren to harmful pesticides including methyl bromide.

Chemical Security News

6. White House to Create New Division to Streamline Cyberthreat Intelligence

   Feb 10, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal

   By Damian Paletta
   
   
   The White House will announce Tuesday it is creating a new division to sort through, and in some cases share, intelligence data about cyberthreats, the Obama administration’s latest attempt to buttress government and corporate defenses against the rising threat of sophisticated hackers, a person familiar with the matter said.
7. Obama to Unveil Cyber Data-Sharing Unit

   Feb 9, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity

   By Cory Bennett
   
   
   The White House is expected to reveal on Tuesday a new unit tasked with integrating the intelligence communities’ cyber data and sharing it with civilian agencies, according to an industry source with knowledge of the announcement.

Energy and Environment News

8. (ACC Mentioned) Advocates, Industry Raise Competing Defenses Of EPA's Incinerator Air Rule

   Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA

   By Stuart Parker
   
   
   Environmentalists and industry groups are raising competing defenses of EPA's emissions rule for commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI), filing new legal briefs that aim to undermine each others' arguments about alleged flaws in the rule -- one of several combustion rules currently being litigated in a federal appeals court.
9. (ACC Mentioned) A Bright Future for Waste Conversion

   Feb 4, 2015 | Renewable Energy From Waste Magazine

   By Kristin Smith and Lisa McKenna
   
   
   The Renewable Energy from Waste (REW) Conference attracted nearly 200 people to San Jose, California, in mid-November 2014 for a host of activities including a preconference workshop, two days of educational sessions and tours of two of the leading facilities in the country for processing organic waste and producing energy.
10. Thune, Inhofe to EPA: Facts Aren’t Adding Up on Ground-Level Ozone Proposal

    Feb 10, 2015 | John Thune Press Release

    U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy calling on the agency to explain why the analysis supporting its 2014 proposal to lower ground-level ozone standards don’t align with a similar EPA proposal from 2011.
11. GOP Senators Question EPA's Ozone Analysis

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Andrew Restuccia
    
    
    Sens. Jim Inhofe and John Thune are questioning the analysis underpinning EPA's proposal last year to tighten the country's ground-level ozone standards.
12. GOP Senators Say EPA’s Numbers Don’t Add Up on Ozone

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama
    
    
    A pair of Republican senators is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) why its ozone rule predicts much higher benefits than a similar plan three years prior.
13. EPA’s Mercury Rules: Dumb and Dumber

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

    By Pat Michaels
    
    
    This year, the Supreme Court is going to review the Environmental Protection Agency’s outrageous rules for mercury emissions from power plants, and hopefully SCOTUS will see through the Agency’s patently absurd reasoning.
14. EPA Agrees to Deadlines for State Soot, Smog Plans

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Amanda Peterka
    
    
    A pair of proposed consent decrees would set deadlines for U.S. EPA to take action on several delayed state Clean Air Act plans that address fine particulate matter and ozone pollution.
15. New Poll from Pro-Exports Group Shows Public Backs Oil Shipments

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Elana Schor
    
    
    Nearly two-thirds of voters support allowing domestic oil companies to export crude to "countries who are trading partners" as opposed to selling the fuel "only to customers in the U.S.," according to a poll released today by an industry coalition that is lobbying to end oil export limits.
16. Groups File Request for Crude Export Records

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Nick Juliano
    
    
    Three environmental groups today asked the Obama administration to more fully explain its rationale for allowing the export of a particular type of lightly processed crude oil.
17. California: Water Safety Plan Sent to E.P.A.

    Feb 9, 2015 | AP (In The New York Times)

    The state is proposing broad changes in the way it protects underground water from oil and gas operations, after finding 2,500 instances in which the state authorized such operations in protected water aquifers.
18. Calif. Proposes Changes in Protecting Drinking Water From Oil Wells

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Laura Barron-Lopez
    
    
    California is proposing to shutter up to 140 oil wells that had been allowed to inject into federally protected drinking water aquifers by October, according to state officials.
19. Lawmakers Move Quickly on Brown's Bold Environmental Agenda

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Debra Kahn
    
    
    California's legislative leaders are moving quickly to execute ambitious climate change goals that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) proposed last month.
20. Scientists See No Magic Bullet for Climate Change

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro

    By Alex Guillen
    
    
    Forget about sucking carbon dioxide from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space, the National Academies of Science concluded in a report out Tuesday.
21. No Shortcut for Stopping Climate Change, Federal Report Finds

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama
    
    
    Federal researchers gave poor reviews Tuesday to “geoengineering” strategies that aim to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reduce their global warming effects.

Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time

Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Chemical Management News

1. Toxicologists Seek Flexibility On Science In TSCA Reform

   Feb 9, 2015 | InsideEPA

   The Society of Toxicology (SOT) is reiterating its call for Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation to give EPA flexibility in determining “best available science” to select testing methods for assessing the safety of chemicals and to preserve the agency's authority for using new techniques to review substances.

   “'Best available science' means that experiments and their findings are transparent and reproducible and the methods used are underpinned by our current understanding of the underlying biology,” SOT President Norbert Kaminski writes in a Feb. 9 Roll Call op-ed. “This understanding is not static but is constantly evolving,” Kaminski says.

   Lawmakers weighing TSCA reform efforts should avoid trying to articulate specific scientific methods in reform legislation to better grant EPA flexibility and allow science to continue to advance, the article says.

   Moreover, any reform efforts should “ensure the terms and concepts used in the legislative language that apply to the science of toxicology are consistent, accurate and unambiguous.”

   TSCA has long been criticized for providing EPA too little authority to regulate industrial chemicals, particularly those chemicals that were in commerce when the law took effect in 1976.

   But reform legislation failed in the 113th Congress due to divisions between the GOP and Democrats on how to craft a bill, particularly on the degree to which state chemical safety programs should be preempted.

   For example, then-Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) refused to allow a vote on approving a bipartisan TSCA reform bill until her concerns about preemption were resolved -- something that never happened. Eventually, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who introduced a bipartisan TSCA reform bill with the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) decided to abandon the effort in late 2014.

   In the House last year, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chair of the energy committee's environment panel, floated the draft Chemicals in Commerce Act (CICA), but House Democrats criticized the bill, saying it would have broadly preempted state chemicals management programs, among various other concerns.

   The draft bills generally would have required EPA to rank existing chemicals' priority for testing, make "safety determinations" and consider possible regulation, using "best available science" for determining whether chemicals are high or low priority and in making any safety determinations.

   The Senate bill science provisions were criticized by some as too restrictive because they mandated that research be peer-reviewed and publicly available, and an early draft of the Shimkus bill defined “best available” as "the quality, objectivity, and integrity of information … uses studies conducted in accordance with sound and objective scientific practices . . . applies scientifically valid, relevant, publicly available information [and] . . . enables assessment of the risks and uncertainties in the scientific basis for decisions" among other criteria.

   SOT voiced concerns on the Shimkus bill. The group sent the lawmaker a March 10, 2014 letter urging a narrowing of the definition, and provisions allowing EPA to use some unpublished scientific material when crafting decisions and to give the agency flexibility when selecting particular test methods.

   Shimkus later revised the draft bill, removing references to “best available science” and instead including language on “scientific standards” that the agency must consider in making decisions on testing and restricting chemicals, and for making decisions on new chemicals.

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2. Chemical Enemy Number One: How Bad Are Phthalates Really?

   Feb 10, 2015 | The Guardian

   By Amy Westervelt

   Lately, it seems like a new study on the health impacts of phthalates comes out every week. The chemicals are everywhere: they’re used in everything from household cleaners to food packaging to fragrance, cosmetics, and personal-care products.

   In 2003, researchers at the US Center for Disease Control documentedwidespread exposure to a high level of a group of chemicals called phthalates (pdf) across the general American public. The chemicals act as binding agents and also make plastics flexible.

   The CDC recommended that the chemicals and their effect on human health be studied further, a recommendation that helped unlock funding for dozens of studies focused on phthalates, resulting in a tidal wave of recently published reports that largely indicate the CDC’s concern was warranted.

   The CDC’s warning on phthalates also caught the attention of senators Henry Waxman and Barbara Boxer, who included the class of chemicals in their Consumer Product Safety bill, passed in 2008. That bill banned the use of some phthalates in children’s products, passed an interim ban on others, and required that the Consumer Product Safety Commission take a close look at the chemicals.

   While phthalates is a huge class of chemicals, several have been shown to have negative health impacts.

   The resulting report on phthalates – the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel (Chap) on Phthalates (pdf) – was finalized in late 2014, and despite the chemical industry’s efforts to soften the commission’s recommendations, public health advocates are largely pleased with the effort, a rarity when it comes to government-penned reports on chemical safety.

   With academic studies and policy reports consistently voicing concern over the health impacts of phthalates, and consumers beginning to sit up and take notice, regulation may not be far behind.

   “The Chap report is the first major regulatory document in the federal government that’s highlighting the extent of the new science on the risks of phthalates,” says Erik Olson, senior strategic director of food and agriculture and health programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The fact that the commission is looking both at phthalates as a group and at the toxicology of individual phthalates is really important,” he says.

   Olson was the deputy staff director for the US Senate’s environment and public works committee when the Consumer Product Safety Bill was written and passed. Between the Chap report, a National Academy of Sciences report looking at phthalates as a class and what he calls “the tidal wave of research that’s been coming out fast and furious” in the past year or so, he said, “we’re getting past the phase of complete denial from the industry – they can no longer claim that there’s no risk at all with phthalates.”What’s the harm?The CDC’s warning on phthalates also caught the attention of senator Henry Waxman. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

   Name a major public health concern over the past two decades and there’s likely some link to phthalates exposure.

   In the past few years, researchers have linked phthalates to asthma, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and type II diabetes, low IQ, neurodevelopmental issues, behavioral issues, autism spectrum disorders, altered reproductive development and male fertility issues.

   While phthalates is a huge class of chemicals and nowhere near every chemical in the class has been studied, several have been shown to have negative health impacts: butyl benzyl phthalate (BBzP), dibutyl phthalate (DnBP), di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), di-butyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), diisononyl phthalate (DiNP), di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP), dipentyl phthalate (DPP), di-isobutyl phthalate (DiBP), di-isononyl phthalate (DiNP), di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP), di-isohexyl phthalate, dicyclohexyl phthalate (DcHP), and di-isoheptyl phthalate.

   Enough distinct phthalates have been studied to indicate that companies should proceed with caution when using any chemical in the phthalate class, particularly in products for pregnant women or young children, whom the research has indicated are the most vulnerable to the effects of phthalates.

   One of the first phthalates to raise a red flag, DEHP, was replaced in hundreds of consumer products with DiNP, only for researchers to discover a few years later that exposure to DiNP is correlated to male genital birth defects and impaired reproductive function in adult males.

   Public health advocates hope to learn from the mistakes made in regulating bisphenol A (BPA) as momentum gathers behind the regulation of phthalates, and ensure that one harmful phthalate isn’t just replaced with another over and over again.

   BPA was singled out as the sole chemical of concern in the bisphenol group, and regulated as such. Manufacturers largely replaced BPA with bisphenol S (BPS), which researchers are now discovering is equally as problematic as BPA.

   With phthalates, the research has come before any sort of regulation – companies are not even required to list phthalates on consumer product labels – and legislators are already looking at the entire class of chemicals, as well as any particularly bad ones.
   

   ‘Milking machines use a lot of plastic and DEHP is free and very lipophilic (fat soluble), and milk is full of lipids, so it just pulls the DEHP out of the plastic tubing and into the milk,’ explains Robin Whyatt, professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center. Photograph: Gary Roebuck/AlamyNo escape

   Both because of their ubiquitous usage and because they are not listed on product labels, phthalates are next to impossible to avoid. They are in household items (vinyl flooring), personal care products (hair care, body wash, some cosmetics), fragrance, household cleaners, and food. Even for those who either avoid these products or buy phthalate-free variations, phthalates lurk in unexpected places.

   In food, for example, even milk packaged in glass may have passed through plastic tubes on its way from the cow to the bottle, taking DEHP along with it. “Milking machines use a lot of plastic and DEHP is free and very lipophilic (fat soluble), and milk is full of lipids, so it just pulls the DEHP out of the plastic tubing and into the milk,” explains Robin Whyatt, professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center and the lead author on several landmark phthalate studies. “So my guess would be that milk is a pretty important source of dietary exposure to DEHP.”

   Spices are another surprising source of phthalate exposure. A 2013 study, published in the journal Nature, compared the phthalate levels of two groups, one eating their regular diet but armed with a handout of recommendations for ways to reduce BPA and phthalate exposure in their diet, and the other eating a catered diet consisting solely of local, organic fare, none of which had touched plastic packaging. The study authors were shocked to find that DEHP levels in the local, organic group jumped 2,377% over the course of the experiment. Determined to figure out why, the researchers tested all of the foods consumed by the group and found high levels of the phthalate in dairy products and various organic, imported spices.

   “The fact is you can’t know if a food has phthalates in it – you can suspect, but it’s almost impossible to know,” Olson says. “That makes them hard to avoid, which is why you need a regulatory framework.”

   Phthalates are used as binders and plasticizers in everything from household cleaners to food packaging to fragrance, cosmetics, and personal care products. Photograph: Nickolas Muray/Getty ImagesWhat now?

   Regulation of consumer products moves slowly in the US, and that has proven to be especially true when it comes to chemicals. Despite the recent movement on phthalates, Olson says it is likely to be a long time before we have the sort of wide-reaching framework that would adequately protect the public from harmful exposure.

   That doesn’t mean all is lost in the meantime. State and federal regulations have already eliminated the chemicals from some products, and that list is likely to grow. California’s Proposition 65 now includes four phthalates – DINP, DEHP, DBP and BBP – under its labeling requirements, and the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently proposed changes to Prop 65’s warning requirements, which would require manufacturers to list specific chemicals in their warnings and make those warnings more detailed (currently the warnings are vague, stating only “this product [or building] contains substances known by the state of California to cause cancer”).

   “Prop 65 will be a driving force for change on phthalates,” Olson says. “Companies don’t like to put warning labels on their products.”

   Consumers can also take matters into their own hands by avoiding products packaged in “recycling-code-3” plastic, products that include the vague ingredient “fragrance” on their label, and purchasing organic products packaged in glass as much as possible.

   Whyatt also recommends that consumers remove any food packaged in plastic from its packaging and place them in glass. “DEHP continues to leech over time, so you do actually reduce exposure by changing the storage container, even if it’s been in plastic before you bought it,” she says. “All the DEHP has probably not come out yet by the time you get it home. And if there’s still DEHP in there, it’s probably still leeching out, so you can at least reduce your exposure some extent.”

   “If we start by addressing the products where we know there’s significant exposure to phthalates, and we start with the most vulnerable communities – pregnant women and children – we can make a real difference,” Olson said. “We could take care of a lot of food exposure through FDA regulation and toys through the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and that’s a lot. It’s not all, but it’s a good chunk.”‘We could take care of a lot of food exposure through FDA regulation and toys through the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and that’s a lot. It’s not all, but it’s a good chunk,’ says Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Photograph: Alamy

   Retailers could also play a significant role, as they have with other chemicals of concern. Target and Walmart both launched initiatives to reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals from their shelves last year. Both retailers have said they will make evidence-based purchasing decisions to protect their customers’ health. With a mountain of scientific evidence piling up on phthalates, it can’t be long before consumers begin to put pressure on retailers and retailers in turn push their suppliers to find both alternatives to phthalates and ways to remove the chemicals from their products altogether.

   Phthalates can fairly simply be removed altogether from products, with no replacement, according to “green” chemist Bruce Akers. It’s when the chemicals are used to create tubing or packaging that eliminating them becomes tougher: “If you want soft, squeezable plastic, you’re using phthalates,” Akers says.

   But according to Whyatt, companies could be using flexible polymers instead. “There are flexible polymers that don’t require a plasticizer – they exist,” she says. “They haven’t been studied really, so we need to know more, but they probably do not leech the way phthalates do. The problem with phthalates as plasticizers is that they’re free floating, they don’t attach to the polymer, so they leech easily. If you have a flexible polymer that shouldn’t happen.”

   Despite the size of the issue, Olson remains positive. “We’ve turned a corner on the regulation of phthalates,” he says. “They’re extremely widely used in the economy and it won’t be overnight that we’ll see widespread phase-outs, but clearly we’ve crossed the river and we’re now at the point of debating exactly which uses need to go and where we can use alternatives.”

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3. Maine to Designate Formaldehyde, Phthalates as Priority Chemicals

   Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Dinesh Kumar

   The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has proposed rules to designate formaldehyde and four phthalates as priority products, under the Toxic Chemicals in Children's Products law.

   The proposed formaldehyde rule applies to children's products, covering bedding, childcare articles, clothing, cosmetics, games, jewellery, school supplies and toys. Manufacturers of products containing intentionally added formaldehyde should report information, such as the amount and the function of the chemical, to the department. 

   The four phthalates proposed for the priority products list are:di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP);dibutyl phthalate (DBP);benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP); anddiethyl phthalate (DEP).

   The rule would apply to products containing the four intentionally added phthalates in children's products, including arts and crafts supplies, building products and home maintenance articles, cosmetics and personal care products, household and commercial cleaning materials and household furniture and furnishings. It was proposed by citizen petition, last year (CW 14 July 2014). Since then, the department has made significant changes to the draft, especially in the definitions of applicable products, to make it “more consistent with current effective rules, implemented by the Safer Chemicals Program”, says the DEP.

   The deadline for comments on both proposed rules is 17 February.

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4. Barrier Layers May Not Prevent Plastic Dye Migration

   Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Philip Lightowlers

   Potentially hazardous dyes can dissolve in foods, despite barrier layers of clear plastic, researchers from the US government’s Food and Drug Administration have demonstrated in a series of experiments. Polystyrene (PS) dyes contaminated food simulants, particularly where solvents had been used as dispersants. 

   Food contact plastics are often constructed of multilayers, allowing unregulated brightly coloured dyes to be used, because they are not in direct contact with food. A clear barrier layer is used to protect against migration, but experiments showed this is not effective.

   Susan Genualdi, Susana Addo Ntim and Timothy Begley used disposable coloured PS products with a 40 micrometre barrier layer to hold food simulants, including ethanol, goat’s milk and several different oils, for ten days. Dyes were then extracted from the simulants and measured using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The bowls were also analysed and subject to scanning electron microscopy to see whether the barrier layer was still intact.

   Solvent dyes were detected migrating into palm, coconut and the neutral oil, miglyol, at rates of 1,12 and 31,000ng/cm2 over ten days. Colouration could be seen in the miglyol and coconut oil. Examination of the bowls showed that the PS barrier layer was no longer complete.

   Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of the bowls demonstrated that they contained about 11mg/kg of 1-dodecanol, probably added as a dispersant to ensure even distribution of the dye in the plastic. The authors conclude that this probably aided the migration of dye into the food simulant. However, this only occurred into the oils. Dyes were not present above the limit of detection in ethanol/water mixtures and goat’s milk, probably because the dyes are not soluble in aqueous solutions.  

   The authors conclude that disrupted barrier layers are a concern because there can be unregulated materials in the inner layers of the laminated food contact plastics, which may migrate into food.

   The paper was published in Food Additives and Contaminants.

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5. 9th Circuit To Hear Novel Rights Act Suit Over EPA Pesticide Plan Approval

   Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA

   By Dawn Reeves

   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is poised to hear arguments Feb. 12 in a novel suit claiming that EPA violated the Civil Rights Act (CRA) when it approved an unenforceable California pesticide control plan that critics say disproportionately exposed Hispanic schoolchildren to harmful pesticides including methyl bromide.

   The claim, filed under Title VI of the rights law, is one of the first environmental rights suits to be heard on the merits since the Supreme Court held that litigants must show that discrimination is intentional -- a high legal bar to meet. EPA's various investigations into Title VI complaints have faced hurdles because of that high bar, and the agency has never issued a finding of discrimination, which would trigger a suspension of federal funds.

   The upcoming 9th Circuit arguments, El Comite Para El Bienestar De Earlimart, et al., v. EPA, et al., are among the first to address the rights issue in an EPA-approved Clean Air Act state implementation plan (SIP). The SIP was written by California to reduce volatile organic compound emissions (VOCs) from application of pesticides, including VOCs emitted by methyl bromide. VOCs lead to ozone formation, so the SIP adopted an earlier pesticide strategy designed to cut VOCs from pesticides.

   El Comite, which represents residents and others making the rights argument, claims the SIP allows use of pesticides at harmful levels to Latino schoolchildren at sites near the agricultural activity where the chemicals are used. They say this violates Title VI, which prohibits agencies that receive federal funding from discriminating -- which in the case is the California agencies responsible for the policies El Comite claims harm Latino children.

   One attorney familiar with petitioners' claims says the civil rights arguments in the Clean Air Act were strengthened by EPA's finding in a separate Title VI petition response that Latino schoolchildrens' harmful exposure to methyl bromide in California constituted a disproportionate impact under the rights law.

   But EPA issued that finding only in draft and then revoked it after the agency settled with California, and ultimately denied the petition. That decision is subject to a separate suit pending in the 9th Circuit known as Maria Garcia, et al. v. Gina McCarthy, et al. A mediation conference in that litigation was held in September.

   The El Comite case, which a panel of the 9th Circuit will hear Feb. 12, has had a lengthy history. The group first challenged California's pesticide strategy in 2004. It won a district court order requiring the state to adopt pesticide regulations with the intent of reducing VOCs, including VOCs emitted by methyl bromide. On appeal however the 9th Circuit reversed and said the pesticide strategy was never federally approved and enforceable.

   Ongoing legal fights over the enforceability and status of California's pesticide plan continued until EPA approved the pesticide regulations as a revision to the state's SIP, over which El Comite filed suit.

   SIP Strategy

   The 9th Circuit will now have to decide whether EPA acted appropriately in approving what El Comite says is an unenforceable strategy as part of the SIP. El Comite also argues that the agency's approval was arbitrary and capricious because the state had not demonstrated that the strategy is in compliance with Title VI.

   The group cites EPA's draft finding from the Maria Garcia case -- known in its Title VI petition phase as Angelita C. -- where EPA found methyl bromide use near schools violated Title VI.

   The pending Garcia case will address EPA's handling of the Title VI petition, including the agency's decision not to inform petitioners of its draft finding until after it had settled with the state.

   The attorney familiar with the El Comite case says it is one of the first civil rights challenges over provisions of an EPA-approved SIP. "The Clean Air Act says the state has to demonstrate what it is doing is not prohibited by any law. And we made the point that there's been no factual [demonstration], given what EPA has already found. Somebody has got to explain whether current pesticide use is being applied in a discriminatory manner," the source says.

   If the court agrees with El Comite, it could "move the ball forward" on requiring affirmative Title VI compliance demonstrations under Clean Air Act SIPs for meeting national ambient air quality standards. But even if the court makes that determination, it is unclear "how demanding" it will be over "what that demonstration needs to look like. That will remain to be seen based on how the court treats what happened here," the source adds.

   El Comite in its opening brief, filed in May 2013, asked the appellate court to vacate and remand EPA's SIP approval for being "arbitrary and capricious because EPA failed to provide a cogent explanation, supported by facts, for why pesticide use allowed by the Fumigant Regulations and SIP Revision did not violate Title VI given EPA's own data and conclusions from the Angelita C. analysis and preliminary finding."

   EPA in an August 2013 reply brief argued that it "reasonably relied upon California's affirmative assurances that implementation of the SIP Revision would not violate Title VI of the Civil rights Act" and that "case law is clear that EPA is entitled to deference in its determination of whether a State has provided the necessary assurances required by the Act. Indeed, no court has ever overturned EPA's decision approving a SIP where a State provides affirmative assurances."

   EPA also sought to downplay the Angelita C. preliminary finding, saying the record "included no evidence of a current violation of Title VI, but did include evidence of increased regulation of the use of methyl bromide."

   Rights Compliance

   El Comite's September 2013 reply brief countered that the agency does not justify its failure to consider the Angelia C. methodology for evaluating Title VI compliance, and instead claims that EPA is wrongfully asking the court for deference because of the agency's contention that methyl bromide use has decreased.

   The reply also said that even though EPA claims it considered the preliminary Angelita C. finding, the proposed SIP approval contained "no discussion whatsoever on whether or not [California] provided necessary assurances of Title VI compliance," and the final SIP approval "failed to mention or even consider" the finding.

   "EPA disingenuously claims it considered the preliminary finding when the Final Rule reflects no discussion or consideration of the Angelita C. preliminary finding of racial discrimination," the brief said.

   A farm industry group known as the Air Collation Team filed an amicus brief on behalf of EPA saying California's pesticide rules are much more stringent than EPA's federal pesticide regulations. The industry coalition also argued that the state's regulations take into consideration not only enforcement "but also prevention of environmental contamination, protection of workers, endangered species protection and community relations."

   In more recent filings in the 9th Circuit litigation, El Comite Jan. 8 filed a brief asking the court to take notice of an April 2014 state report on pesticide use near schools, which finds that "Hispanics were the only racial/ethnic group whose representation increased as pesticide use increased."

   But EPA is objecting to the motion, arguing in a Jan. 20 filing that "Judicial review of agency action is based on the record before the agency at the time the agency made its decision."

   El Comite in a Jan. 23 response notes the 2014 report is based on the state's 2010 pesticide inventory, data which informed the rules at issue here. 

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Chemical Security News

6. White House to Create New Division to Streamline Cyberthreat Intelligence

   Feb 10, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal

   By Damian Paletta

   The White House will announce Tuesday it is creating a new division to sort through, and in some cases share, intelligence data about cyberthreats, the Obama administration’s latest attempt to buttress government and corporate defenses against the rising threat of sophisticated hackers, a person familiar with the matter said.

   The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center will be tasked with integrating intelligence from various agencies and distributing information more broadly to other federal divisions, a senior administration official said.

   “The CTIIC will improve our situational awareness, enhance indications and warning, and strengthen cyber unity effort for the U.S. government,” the official said. “It will ensure indicators of malicious activity are downgraded to the lowest possible classification level to facilitate seamless intelligence flows among centers, including those responsible for sharing with the private sector.”

   In the wake of recent high-profile hacks at Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and Anthem Inc., companies have complained the government isn’t sharing enough information internally to prevent future attacks, particularly when the threats have ties to other countries like China and North Korea.

   The new division is expected to be housed within the Office of the Department of National Intelligence, which reflects a shifting strategy in the effort to combat cyberattacks. Previously, the Department of Homeland Security had served as a sort of clearinghouse for information about cyberthreats, and it has long been responsible with communicating about new viruses and malware with businesses.

   By putting the new integration center within the government’s intelligence division, it is moving analysis into an area that has a closer connection with agencies like the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

   It’s unclear how the new division might interact with businesses and the public, if at all. Companies have also complained that the government doesn’t share enough information with them about cyberthreats, and the White House is making a push to improve the flow of cyberthreat information between federal agencies and businesses.

   One challenge in preventing cyberattacks is the vast number of federal agencies that play a role in monitoring computer risks. DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation play lead roles in sorting through and investigating possible breaches, but the Pentagon, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency and several others all have intelligence units that monitor threats.

   And then a number of other federal agencies monitor cyberthreats for individual parts of the economy, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy and the Federal Trade Commission. It has proved difficult for all of the agencies to share information simultaneously about new threats, particularly when hackers are rapidly developing new ways to avoid detection.

   The new center is part of a White House strategy to toughen protections against hackers, but much of the government’s focus so far has been to get companies to notify them of breaches.

   The FBI, NSA, DHS and other agencies have complained that businesses should share more information about possible cyber breaches so they can better warn other companies about looming threats. But businesses have raised concerns about what the government might do with any information they share, and fear that they could suffer legal liability if they gave confidential information to the government.

   President Barack Obama will meet with technology executives in California on Friday to call for more cooperation between the government and businesses, which many see as a primary way of preventing future cyberattacks.

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7. Obama to Unveil Cyber Data-Sharing Unit

   Feb 9, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity

   By Cory Bennett

   The White House is expected to reveal on Tuesday a new unit tasked with integrating the intelligence communities’ cyber data and sharing it with civilian agencies, according to an industry source with knowledge of the announcement.

   The unit, dubbed the Cyber Threat and Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), will fall under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) purview. It’s expected to serve as the main portal for intelligence agencies to share cyber threat data with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI.

   The announcement is part of the White House’s broader strategy to enhance cybersecurity information sharing both among federal agencies and between the government and private sector.

   For years, much of this sharing has been seen as ad hoc, lacking a smooth or Congressionally codified process.

   The lack of a clear process has made privacy advocates wary that increasing information sharing between the government and private sector will only bolster intelligence agencies’ abilities to collect Americans' personal information.

   The privacy community has been especially hesitant about data shared with the intelligence community following government leaker Edward Snowden’s disclosure of several secret spy programs.

   Congress and the White House have made efforts to address these concerns.

   Late last year Congress passed a few bills that finally outlined the DHS’s cybersecurity role. The measures also officially authorized the department’s own cyber info-sharing hub, the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC).

   The NCCIC, housed within a civilian agency, is seen as a less controversial info sharing partner than the intelligence community.

   The White House has been making strides to put the NCCIC at the center of the government’s cyber info-sharing efforts.

   In January, President Obama unveiled a legislative proposal that would give legal liability protections to companies sharing cyber threat data with the NCCIC.

   On Friday, Obama is expected to announce an executive action that makes it easier for private companies to exchange cyber data with the NCCIC.

   The NCCIC will apparently start getting cyber data from the intelligence community through the soon-to-be-announced CTIIC.

   The FBI is also expected to use the CTIIC for cyber data.

   The bureau serves as a lead agency investigating a variety of cyber crimes, including high-profile data breaches and cyber espionage.

   The FBI was the agency that first pinned the Sony Pictures hack on North Korea. It also often notifies companies they have been hacked and issues warnings to private companies about popular cyberattacks.

   A senior administration official said White House counterterrorism czar Lisa Monaco would make the announcement Tuesday during a speech at the Wilson Center.

   “The CTIIC will be a national cyber threat intelligence center that will 'connect the dots' between various cyber threats to the nation so that relevant departments and agencies are aware of these threats in as close to real time as possible,” the official said.

   The agency’s mission will include providing integrated all-source analysis of foreign cyber threats, improving intelligence sharing among federal cybersecurity centers and facilitating efforts by the government to counter foreign cyber threats.

   “No existing agency has the responsibility for performing these functions, so we need these gaps to be filled to help the federal government meet its responsibilities in cybersecurity,” the official said.

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Energy and Environment News

8. (ACC Mentioned) Advocates, Industry Raise Competing Defenses Of EPA's Incinerator Air Rule

   Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA

   By Stuart Parker

   Environmentalists and industry groups are raising competing defenses of EPA's emissions rule for commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI), filing new legal briefs that aim to undermine each others' arguments about alleged flaws in the rule -- one of several combustion rules currently being litigated in a federal appeals court.

   The CISWI rule is part of a package of regulations that also includes maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rules for large “major source” and smaller “area source” boilers, and a rule defining which materials are classed as “fuel” eligible for use in boilers and which are “waste” that must be incinerated. All are being litigated in parallel proceedings ongoing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

   In the CISWI litigation, known as American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), et al. v. EPA, et al., various industry organizations, including AF&PA, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council, and environmental groups, including Earthjustice, Sierra Club, Clean Air Council and others, filed competing briefs Feb. 9.

   The brief filed by industry groups defends various aspects of EPA's incinerator emissions rule faulted by the advocacy organizations, while environmentalists defend EPA against industry attacks on the rule.

   In their brief, environmentalists defend EPA's use in the rule of some methods that have frequently been challenged by industry in court. For example, they defend EPA's consideration of the pollutant content of waste as a factor in determining which incinerators are the cleanest-emitting. EPA under the rule sets MACT air toxics standards by measuring the performance of the 12 percent least-polluting sources in a given category.

   Industry argues in the case that EPA must set the MACT “floors,” or minimum emissions standards, without allowing cleaner-emitting “inputs” to affect its calculation. Environmentalists in their brief counter that, “The Clean Air Act does not permit EPA to exclude units with cleaner inputs from the floor calculations,” because MACT must be set based on the lowest emissions “actually achieved in practice.”

   Environmentalists' Defenses

   Environmentalists also defend EPA setting the MACT standards on a “pollutant-by-pollutant” basis, which they insist is the only way to interpret the air law, as to do otherwise would require calculating MACT floors using sources that only meet the 12 percent threshold for some pollutants but not others.

   Industry says that taking such an approach ignores reality, as in many rules no existing single unit maximizes reductions of all the pollutants it emits. But the environmental groups in their brief say “EPA was correct to base floors on the best-performing incinerators for each regulated pollutant, rather than attempting to base floors on unidentified incinerators that are somehow 'best' for all pollutants at once,” and say the air law mandates this approach.

   They further defend EPA's decision not to allow emissions averaging across different sources, which industry has advocated. Air law section 129, regulating CISWIs, refers to emissions “units” and hence “unambiguously precludes compliance through facility-wide averaging,” according to the brief.

   After the D.C. Circuit in earlier litigation ruled regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) illegal, EPA has sought to remove such exemptions from various air rules, prompting industry to call for such periods of higher pollution to be taken into consideration when EPA sets the MACT floors themselves. EPA denies that it must do so, and environmentalists in their brief agree.

   They say that, procedurally, industry cannot simply incorporate claims that the CISWI standards are “unachievable” by reference from the related lawsuits over the boiler MACT standards.

   Also, EPA is correct to reject industry's push for “work practice standards” to cover SSM periods, rather than tougher numeric emissions limits, because “EPA correctly concluded that it lacks statutory authority to set work practice standards for CISWI,” which are regulated under a different air law section than boilers, they say.

   Industry's Arguments

   The broad industry coalition including AF&PA and other groups in its Feb. 9 brief defends EPA's CISWI rule from criticisms that environmentalists have raised over various other provisions.

   For example, industry says that EPA correctly excluded “burn-off ovens” from the regulation. EPA said it lacked enough data on these, and industry now says that because these ovens clean equipment by burning off contaminants, rather than incinerating waste, they are correctly excluded from the rule.

   Also, EPA can legitimately use statistical techniques called the Upper Prediction Limit or Upper Limit (UPL/UL) when setting MACT floors to reflect the likely performance of regulated units in the future, industry argues.

   EPA says this is a realistic approach that accounts for variability in performance, but environmentalists counter that it violates the air law requirement to use a true “average.”

   Although the D.C. Circuit remanded a sewage sludge incinerator rule to EPA in 2013 over the UPL/UL issue, industry groups say the agency has since fully explained itself and satisfied that remand.

   Industry groups further argue that EPA was correct to allow a 30-day averaging period when using continuous emissions monitoring systems, which they say reflects variability in performance and does not, as environmentalists claim, weaken the standard.

   Also, industry groups say EPA had no obligation to set tougher standards that go “beyond” the MACT floor. The court “should grant EPA appropriate deference on these and other technical determinations, including standard-setting and its decision that beyond-the-floor standards were not achievable considering the relevant statutory factors,” they argue.

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9. (ACC Mentioned) A Bright Future for Waste Conversion

   Feb 4, 2015 | Renewable Energy From Waste Magazine

   By Kristin Smith and Lisa McKenna

   The Renewable Energy from Waste (REW) Conference attracted nearly 200 people to San Jose, California, in mid-November 2014 for a host of activities including a preconference workshop, two days of educational sessions and tours of two of the leading facilities in the country for processing organic waste and producing energy.

   The city of San Jose was chosen as the location for the conference because of its approach to integrated waste management that has helped triple the city’s commercial recycling rate and incorporate dry-fermentation anaerobic digestion (AD) to generate electricity.

   During the session “A city with a vision: how San Jose made waste to energy a reality,” Stephanie Molloy, the city of San Jose’s supervising environmental services specialist for the integrated waste management enforcement and regulations group, explained how the city issued two requests for proposals (RFPs): the first was for commercial waste collection, processing of nonorganics and preprocessing of organics, and the second RFP was for organics processing and management.

   The first contract was awarded to Republic Services, based in Phoenix, and the second was awarded to San Jose-based Zero Waste Energy Development Co.

   A panel discussion followed with Carl Mennie, division manager - Recycling and Composting, Republic Services; Emily Hanson, director of business development and communications, GreenWaste Recovery & Zero Waste Energy Development Co. (ZWED); and Jeff Draper, senior vice president for the dry-fermentation AD technology provider Zero Waste Energy, Lafayette, California.

   Tours of Republic Services’ Newby Island Resource Recovery Park (NIRRP) and ZWED were offered to attendees, allowing them a first-hand look at how material is processed. 
    The integrated approach

   From a new mixed-waste processing facility in Alabama to a biofuels facility in Canada, several projects in North America are integrating multiple processes into their management of the solid waste stream. During the REW Conference, several project developers shared how their projects are unfolding in a session titled “The Integrated Model” moderated by Jim Miller, CEO of JR Miller & Associates, Brea, California.

   Bud Latta, Edmonton, Alberta’s director for business planning and central operations, waste management services, discussed the components of the 550-acre Edmonton Waste Management Centre and how it fits with the city’s strategic plan. The center includes 12 waste processing facilities, two research facilities, a closed landfill and sewage biosolids storage/recycling lagoons.

   In 2003, the city began exploring the option of turning waste into biofuels. After years of reviewing technologies, obtaining permits and grants and receiving regulatory approval, construction on the biofuels facility began in 2010 and it was commissioned in 2014. The owner and operator of the waste-to-biofuels facility, Montreal-based Enerkem, was only a few weeks away from start-up as of the conference.

   The city of Edmonton owns and operates the Integrated Processing and Transfer Facility (IPTF), which processes the feedstock used in the biofuels facility. The biofuels facility is expected to be in full operation in 2015. The city is also working on an AD project to be operating in 2017.

   Mike Muller, of BioGas Equity 2 Inc., Woodside, California, discussed a project under construction in Grove City, Ohio, for the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO), which is being developed by Team Gemini of Orlando, Florida.

   Team Gemini was selected by SWACO to develop 365 acres next to a landfill. During the first phase of the public-private partnership, Team Gemini is tasked with building a center of resource recovery and recycling (COR3). SWACO and Team Gemini will share in the cost of new related roadways and the scale house. SWACO is required to divert municipal solid waste (MSW) to COR3. Material that cannot be recycled will be used in the AD and gasification process in phase two.

   A streamlined permit process accelerates the project adoption, according to Muller, noting, “You can’t steal second base with your foot on first,” he noted. Kyle Mowitz, cofounder and CEO of Infinitus Energy, Plantation, Florida, discussed the Infinitus Renewable Energy Park (IREP) Montgomery, a mixed-waste processing facility in Montgomery, Alabama, which opened in April 2014.

   Mowitz said paper and polymers from the facility can be converted into engineered fuel (EF) or recycled. He said the ability to produce an EF provided ultimate flexibility, depending on the markets for baled materials. “You have to be nimble and change quickly to respond to the market,” he said. “Bale quality is very high coming out of the facility,” he added.

   Mowitz shared with attendees that as of May 2014 the facility was recovering 90-plus percent of recyclables, including:plastics, 96 percent;mixed paper, 95 percent;old corrugated containers (OCC), 97 percent;tin/steel, 94 percent; andaluminum cans, 90 percent.
    

   “I’m here to tell you that the quality is very high and we’ve had no rejected loads as of now,” he said.

   The acceptance test performed by a third party in May also confirmed a processing rate of 32.36 tons per hour and an overall waste diversion rate greater than 60 percent.

   Once all the phases of the facility are implemented, Mowitz estimates the facility will have an overall recovery rate of between 60 and 85 percent. He added that 95 percent of the organic fraction will be converted and taken to a compost and AD system during the second phase.

   During phase two, Montgomery’s collection fleet will be converted to use compressed natural gas (CNG) produced at the AD facility.

   “The city will actually operate the first carbon-negative fleet in the country,” said Mowitz. The facility is saving the city an estimated $1.6 million, and once the fleet conversion takes place, the city will be saving about $2.2 million, according to Mowitz.

   Todd Green, general manager of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based American Waste Control’s (AWC’s) waste-to-energy (WTE) landfill shared what he called “a true American success story.”

   He told of how Kenny Burkett founded the business with one borrowed truck back in 1970 and now has more than 100 trucks, employs more than 200 people, services more than 2,000 commercial customers and generates more than $50 million per year in revenue.

   In 1987 the company began the first recycling transfer station in Oklahoma, Tulsa Recycle and Transfer (TRT). American Environmental Landfill was purchased in 2000 and is now a renewable energy landfill.

   “The three companies have come together with one common goal in a very competitive market, and that is to provide the most cost effective, environmentally sound solution to the clients that we serve,” said Green.

   The landfill was designated by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality as the most compliant landfill in the state, according to Green. For the landfill-gas-to-energy project, AWC formed a private partnership with Pittsburgh-based Montauk Energy.

   AWC also secured a purchase agreement with the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority for the power. The facility provides power to 4,500 homes.

   “I think we’ve achieved our goal,” remarked Green in conclusion.
    Making the case for conversion

   Forming strong stakeholder partnerships and understanding the nuances of those partnerships are keys to winning support for waste conversion projects. Those were the views from a panel of speakers who presented their experiences during a session titled “Making the Case for Conversion.”

   Session moderator John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), said winning approval for a conversion project requires involvement from residents, opponents, the media, academia and environmental and regulatory entities in addition to political leaders.

   Panelist Craig Cookson, director of sustainability and recycling for the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, described how the ACC is working to promote waste conversion technologies, though he said the U.S. waste and recycling industry still has a long way to go to convince those outside the industry that the country should be recovering more energy value from waste.

   Cookson referred in particular to plastic packaging that can be difficult to recycle and said the ACC is working to extend the definition of clean energy to include plastics.

   “You don’t create this plastic packaging to become energy, but it saves a lot of energy on the way by protecting food, by protecting food waste, by reducing shipping costs and greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “Think of these materials as fuels or feedstocks, not as waste.”

   Cookson added that a simplified permitting processes for waste-conversion projects is needed, and he talked about the ACC’s From Chemistry to Energy campaign to promote energy policy and increase awareness of energy recovery and its efficiency.

   In early 2014 ACC launched the Plastics Oil-to-Technology Alliance, currently comprising five members, three of which are technology companies. Cookson said part of the alliance’s work is eliminating confusion about potential WTE feedstocks.

   “What we’re not talking about is bottles and containers and other things that have good solid markets,” said Cookson. “We’re talking about things that are a challenge to recycle.”

   Cookson said the ACC in 2014 commissioned research at Columbia University, and researchers found that nonrecycled plastics have on average 15,000 Btu (British thermal units) per pound of energy value, “which is greater than pretty much all forms of energy except for natural gas and crude oil,” he remarked.

   “That’s a resource that’s worth going after,” he said.

   Next, Steven Torres, a partner in the municipal infrastructure group with the law firm Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West, Providence, Rhode Island, discussed the importance of developing well-informed public private partnerships (P3), which he said are key to getting waste conversion projects off the ground.

   He said the emergence of the P3 stems from the fact that waste management has traditionally been handled by the public sector, while recycling has traditionally been initiated in the private sector. Meanwhile, the energy conversion technology industry has had to straddle both sectors.

   “The public-private partnership in waste and energy is born by the intersection of those two realities in our industry,” Torres said.

   Torres said one of the most important facets of a P3 is the presence of “enabling legislation” that allows for the combined design and construction of a conversion project.

   “We need to develop legislation to facilitate building these projects,” Torres said.

   Torres explained that successful P3s tend to encompass the design, building, financing, ownership and operational factors for each proposed project.

   “Those are the true P3s, where industry comes together with the government assets, the government’s ability to regulate curbside collection, the government capability to make a choice on what to do with that valuable resource that we call municipal solid waste and that we call recyclables and reusable items.”

   Presenting the case for conversion from the local government perspective was Zack Hansen, environmental health director for Ramsey County in Minnesota.

   Hansen said Ramsey County has partnered with nearby Washington County for several years on waste management policies during a time when the state legislature has moved away from landfill use and toward a more integrated solid waste management system.

   Hansen said most of the counties’ waste is collected by private haulers, and the counties have had to subsidize the tipping fees at the local waste-to-energy plant in order to remain competitive with the region’s low-cost landfills for the needed volume of waste.

   Hansen said now is the time to rethink the WTE plan, which uses 25-year-old technology at the resource recovery facility, but which the counties have the option to purchase in 2015.

   “To us it’s expensive,” Hansen said of the current plan. “We think there’s more opportunity with the amount of money we have in the system to do something different.”

   He said Minnesota’s already aggressive recycling goals will increase to 75 percent by 2030, indicating its changing policy environment.

   “We've embarked on a paradigm shift. We’re going to look at this as an asset and a resource,” Hansen said, referring as well to the state’s elected officials and the county’s plan to tie waste conversion in with other goals.

   “We have to compete as a region for jobs and prosperity,” said Hansen. “If we can find a way to use these resources locally, that’s what we’re most interested in.”

   Currently, he said about 41 percent of the counties’ waste is being processed through its resource recovery facility and used to generate electricity. Hansen said the counties could once again benefit from flow control if they purchase the facility and become a public operator, but there are other options to consider.

   “We are looking at how to accomplish our goal by working with private vendors,” he said.

   Hansen said the counties have analyzed what type of facility would be suitable with the current technology, considering policy, governance and financing alternatives. The commission’s resulting 10-year plan incorporates more intensive source separation and use of the current facility, while also considering gasification to produce biofuels and mixed-waste processing with anaerobic digestion

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10. Thune, Inhofe to EPA: Facts Aren’t Adding Up on Ground-Level Ozone Proposal

    Feb 10, 2015 | John Thune Press Release

    U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy calling on the agency to explain why the analysis supporting its 2014 proposal to lower ground-level ozone standards don’t align with a similar EPA proposal from 2011. The EPA’s regulatory impact analysis for its proposal to revise the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone shows benefits that are significantly higher and costs that are significantly lower than the EPA’s analysis in 2011 for a similar proposal. On September 2, 2011, President Obama requested the withdrawal of the 2011 proposed rule, citing the regulatory burdens and uncertainty it would impose.

    Thune and Inhofe’s letter requests the EPA provide analysis that doesn’t include co-benefits of reducing other emissions or include in its calculations any other proposed regulation. Analysis focusing solely on the impacts of this proposal without influence from any other factors is necessary to more accurately evaluate the EPA’s proposal. Moreover, the letter requests an explanation of any changes made to the EPA’s methodology that might explain its arrival at such a drastically favorable analysis.

    The senators wrote, “We do not believe the staggering economic costs of a lower standard have improved since 2011. Rather, the EPA’s regulatory impact analysis is intentionally misleading in its incorporation of additional proposed regulations… which significantly impact forward year ozone forecasts and obfuscate the cost of compliance. Understanding that the inclusion of proposed regulations alone may not sufficiently explain the difference between the 2011 and 2014 RIAs, please also include an explanation of any changes that were made to the EPA’s methodology used to calculate costs and benefits.”

    Thune introduced legislation in the 113th Congress to block the then-anticipated EPA proposal to lower ground-level ozone NAAQS, the most expensive regulation in the EPA’s history. The proposed regulation could cost $270 billion per year and severely limit job creation across the country. Thune plans to reintroduce his bill in the 114th Congress.

    The text of the senators’ letter is below:
    __

    February 9, 2015

    The Honorable Gina McCarthy
    Administrator
    Environmental Protection Agency
    U.S. EPA Headquarters – William J. Clinton Building
    1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest
    Washington, DC 20460

    Dear Administrator McCarthy:

    We request additional information regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) November 25, 2014, proposed rule revising the primary and secondary national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone (79 FR 75233).  Specifically, we request that the EPA provide us calculations of the cost and benefits of implementing the proposed lower standards excluding any calculation of benefits resulting from reducing emissions of any pollutant other than ozone.  We also request a similar impact analysis that does not include any calculation of cost or benefits estimated to result from any other proposed regulation, as well as an explanation of the EPA’s methodology used in its analysis.

    It has come to our attention that the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for this proposed rule may overestimate the singular benefits of ozone reduction and conceal the true cost of compliance.  For example, compliance with a lower ozone standard will also reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and other criteria pollutants, which will register increased health benefits.  However, criteria pollutants are already subject to their own regulations, and in the case of PM2.5, are present at levels largely below their respective NAAQS.  Isolating the health benefits of reduced ozone from the co-benefits will provide a more genuine understanding of the proposed rule’s impact.

    Similarly, it is crucial to consider the actual costs of compliance and implementation for a lower ozone NAAQS.  As you know, on September 2, 2011, President Obama requested the withdrawal of a similar proposed rule, citing the “regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty” it would impose.  We do not believe the staggering economic costs of a lower standard have improved since 2011.  Rather, the EPA’s RIA is intentionally misleading in its incorporation of additional proposed regulations, such as the EPA’s Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, which significantly impact forward year ozone forecasts and obfuscate the cost of compliance.  A narrowed baseline will allow for a more focused review of the proposal. 

    Understanding that the inclusion of proposed regulations alone may not sufficiently explain the difference between the 2011 and 2014 RIAs, please also include an explanation of any changes that were made to the EPA’s methodology used to calculate costs and benefits.

    We appreciate your consideration of this important matter and look forward to your timely response and provision of requested information by February 27, 2015.

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11. GOP Senators Question EPA's Ozone Analysis

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Andrew Restuccia

    Sens. Jim Inhofe and John Thune are questioning the analysis underpinning EPA's proposal last year to tighten the country's ground-level ozone standards.
    
    In a letter today to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the Republicans assert that the agency's regulatory impact analysis on the proposed rule "may overestimate the singular benefits of ozone reduction and conceal the true cost of compliance."
    
    The senators note that the president withdrew a similar rule in 2011. "We do not believe the staggering economic costs of a lower standard have improved since 2011," they wrote.
    
    Inhofe and Thune argue that EPA's analysis is skewed because it incorporates the effects of other proposed environmental regulations, "which significantly impact forward year ozone forecasts and obfuscate the cost of compliance."
    
    The letter calls on EPA to provide a breakdown of the costs and benefits of the proposed rule "excluding any calculation of benefits resulting from reducing emissions of any pollutant other than ozone," as well as a similar cost-benefit analysis "that does not include any calculation of cost or benefits estimated to result from any other proposed regulation."
    
    EPA has proposed a range of 65 to 70 parts per billion, and its taking comments on levels down to 60 parts per billion.
    
    

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12. GOP Senators Say EPA’s Numbers Don’t Add Up on Ozone

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama

    A pair of Republican senators is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) why its ozone rule predicts much higher benefits than a similar plan three years prior.

    President Obama rescinded a proposal in 2011 to reduce ground-level ozone that causes smog, citing the economic costs.

    But the cost-benefit analysis of the latest ozone rule, announced in November, is much more favorable, raising the suspicions of Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and John Thune (R-S.D.).

    Inhofe, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is asking with Thune that the EPA provide a cost-benefit analysis that doesn’t include the benefits of reducing other pollutants, which would also be cut as result in “co-benefits.”

    “We do not believe the staggering economic costs of a lower standard have improved since 2011,” Inhofe and Thune wrote. “Rather, the EPA’s regulatory impact analysis is intentionally misleading in its incorporation of additional proposed regulations… which significantly impact forward year ozone forecasts and obfuscate the cost of compliance.”

    The EPA’s cost-benefit analysis predicts that other rules, such as the carbon limits for power plants, will help states meet a reduced ozone standard. But it does not count those costs in the ozone rule.

    That helped the proposal’s benefits, such as reduced respiratory illnesses, exceed its costs.

    Inhofe and Thune are both strong opponents of the ozone proposal, saying it would cost $270 billion per year with little health or environmental benefit.

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13. EPA’s Mercury Rules: Dumb and Dumber

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

    By Pat Michaels

    This year, the Supreme Court is going to review the Environmental Protection Agency’s outrageous rules for mercury emissions from power plants, and hopefully SCOTUS will see through the Agency’s patently absurd reasoning.

    The EPA’s mercury rule is yet another example of the Obama administration’s extreme bending of the law in service of its perseveration on global warming. In this case, the point of regulating mercury emissions—which are miniscule—is to further the administration’s goal of shutting down every coal-fired power plant in the country, even though they currently supply about 40 percent of our electricity. 

    The EPA has to justify regulations in order to shoehorn them into some mystical interpretation of a small section of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that allows it to regulate hazardous air pollutants.  And what could be more hazardous than dreaded airborne mercury from the combustion of coal in our power plants?

    The Court should be aware that:

    1.      there is more mercury in our air from natural sources—volcanoes come to mind—than from all human activity;

    2.      mercury emitted from both volcanoes and coal-fired smokestacks resides for months in the air, usually until it is precipitated out by some rainstorm.  As a result, a large amount of the mercury that falls here originated in highly polluted China;

    3.      all US emissions are a mere 2 percent of the global total;

    4.      US power plants emit only half of that—about 0.5 percent of the total—and by 2016 will emit even less than that.

    In its rulemaking, the EPA had to demonstrate benefits, or more precisely, how much cost is extracted by current mercury emissions. So, who would benefit?

    No one.  The EPA had to literally invent a population that does not exist, but which might be affected.  So they estimated, in their imagination, the effect on children who were born to a hypothetical population of 240,000 “women of child-bearing age in subsistence fishing populations who consume freshwater fish that they or their family caught.”

    And “consume” these hypothetical fisherwomen did—300 pounds per year.

    And now for the harm this would visit upon their children.  To determine this the EPA, of course, has a computer model, which determined how much consumption of  this fish would lower the kids’ I.Q.

    I.Q. scores, which are supposed to measure processing speed, logical inference, and creative insight, have an average value of 100, with a measurement error of plus or minus five points.   It is a fact that repetitive testing—something I endured in grade school—tends to reveal very similar scores.

    The EPA’s model predicts that mercury will lower the I.Q. of these poor children by 0.00209 points, a negligible rounding error when the range of measurement error is 10 points. The EPA doesn’t show that this loss of I.Q. could have any impact on a person’s life.

    No, instead, the EPA has another model, which claims that the loss of 0.00209 I.Q. points will cost this imaginary population up to $6,000,000 (in 2007 dollars) a year due to reduced earnings.

    Yet, to prevent an I.Q. loss of an impossible-to-measure 0.00209 points, or some 3 hundred thousandths of the range of error in I.Q. scores, the EPA’s mercury rule will effectively shut down every coal-fired power plant in America.  Hopefully the Supreme Court will see through the absurdity.

    Michaels is director of the Center for the Study of Science at Cato. 

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14. EPA Agrees to Deadlines for State Soot, Smog Plans

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Amanda Peterka

    A pair of proposed consent decrees would set deadlines for U.S. EPA to take action on several delayed state Clean Air Act plans that address fine particulate matter and ozone pollution.

    The proposed consent decrees both stem from lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that alleged EPA had failed to perform required Clean Air Act duties.

    In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication tomorrow, EPA said it has agreed by Nov. 30 to either approve or disapprove infrastructure state implementation plans (SIPs) that have been submitted by six states. The submissions detail how states plan to meet EPA's 2006 limit for fine particulate matter pollution, or particles that are about one-thirtieth the width of a strand of human hair.

    The six states in the proposed consent decree: California, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

    Under the proposed agreement, the agency said it would also issue final federal plans to address interstate fine particle emissions for five more states and Washington, D.C., under the 2006 standard. The federal plans fall under the Clean Air Act's "good neighbor" provision, which seeks to cut down interstate pollution that impedes a state's ability to meet national ambient air quality standards.

    EPA would issue a federal good neighbor plan for Colorado and Wyoming by July 31; for Oregon by Sept. 30; and for Washington, D.C., South Dakota and Idaho by Nov. 30.

    In a separate proposed settlement with the Sierra Club published Thursday, EPA would be required to take action on Clean Air Act SIP submissions from 24 states related to the 2008 ground-level ozone standard. The first deadline in the proposed agreement would come in May for Illinois, while the last deadline would be September 2016 for Iowa.

    The agency would also be required to find that Tennessee has failed to submit all the required Clean Air Act elements to address ozone pollution, a key component of smog.

    Both proposed agreements are subject to a 30-day public comment period before they go into effect.

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15. New Poll from Pro-Exports Group Shows Public Backs Oil Shipments

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

    By Elana Schor

    Nearly two-thirds of voters support allowing domestic oil companies to export crude to "countries who are trading partners" as opposed to selling the fuel "only to customers in the U.S.," according to a poll released today by an industry coalition that is lobbying to end oil export limits.
    
    The new poll was commissioned by Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, which is pressing Congress and the Obama administration to end the 1970s-era ban on overseas crude sales. It found 65 percent of respondents favor allowing overseas crude sales, versus 31 percent who believe "the federal government should mandate that" domestically produced crude stay in the country. When respondents were not given a choice between the two policies, support jumped to 69 percent.
    
    PACE Executive Director George Baker noted in a statement that the poll shows "a significant majority of voters also believe the economy and consumers would benefit and America’s strategic position in the world would be strengthened if U.S. oil producers were permitted to sell crude oil to customers in countries who are trading partners.”
    
    The poll comes as the oil industry battles skepticism from within the GOP as well as the president's party over quickly ending an export ban that lawmakers often see as linked to U.S. gasoline prices. Proponents of unlimited crude exports counter that world oil prices, not domestic ones, are the predominant influence on U.S. prices at the pump — a conclusion the Energy Information Administration echoed last year.
    
    The survey of 1,025 registered voters, conducted last week by FTI Consulting, carries a 3.1-percentage-point margin of error.
    

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16. Groups File Request for Crude Export Records

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Nick Juliano

    Three environmental groups today asked the Obama administration to more fully explain its rationale for allowing the export of a particular type of lightly processed crude oil.

    Earthjustice, Oil Change International and the Sightline Institute today filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, which has reportedly authorized at least two companies to export condensate, a type of lightly processed crude oil.

    The groups say those decisions could represent a broader shift in application of the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil and therefore requested a variety of documents related to the decisions, despite previous instances when the department has blocked release of export permit information.

    "While it is possible that some of the submitted information or aspects of the BIS determination may relate to confidential business information, the ruling itself and the rationale are matters of public policy that are not exempt from disclosure," the groups wrote in their request.

    They added, "The public has a right to know whether the BIS rulings reflect a relaxation of the crude oil export ban and portend more to come or whether they apply only to very particular refining processes."

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17. California: Water Safety Plan Sent to E.P.A.

    Feb 9, 2015 | AP (In The New York Times)

    The state is proposing broad changes in the way it protects underground water from oil and gas operations, after finding 2,500 instances in which the state authorized such operations in protected water aquifers. State oil and gas regulators on Monday released a plan they sent the federal Environmental Protection Agency last week for bringing the state back into compliance with federal safe-drinking water requirements. A state and federal review has determined California has repeatedly authorized oil-industry injection into aquifers that were supposed to be protected as current or potential sources of water for drinking and watering crops and livestock. Steve Bohlen, head of the State Department of Conservation’s oil and gas division, said 140 of 2,553 injection wells were of primary concern to the state now, because they were actively injecting oil-field fluids into aquifers with especially designated good water quality.
    

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18. Calif. Proposes Changes in Protecting Drinking Water From Oil Wells

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Laura Barron-Lopez

    California is proposing to shutter up to 140 oil wells that had been allowed to inject into federally protected drinking water aquifers by October, according to state officials.

    The Associated Press reports that the October deadline is one piece of a larger plan the state sent the Environmental Protection Agency last week to ensure state regulation of oil and gas operations is in compliance with federal water standards.  

    Under a mandatory state review required by the EPA, authorities found more than 2,500 oil and gas injection wells attached to aquifers that were designated as current or future sources of water for drinking and agricultural use.  

    Additionally, an analysis by the AP found hundreds of questionable state permits for oil-field injection into federal protected aquifers were approved since 2011.

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19. Lawmakers Move Quickly on Brown's Bold Environmental Agenda

    Feb 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Debra Kahn

    California's legislative leaders are moving quickly to execute ambitious climate change goals that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) proposed last month.

    Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D) is unveiling a package of bills today that is intended to achieve Brown's stated goals of reducing petroleum use by as much as half, increasing the state's share of renewable electricity to 50 percent and doubling the efficiency of existing buildings by 2030 (E&ENews PM, Jan. 5).

    The centerpiece of the plan will be a bill by Sen. Fran Pavley (D), the author of the original 2006 law that set a greenhouse gas emissions target of 1990 levels by 2020 -- a target that the state is on track to meet.

    The new bill, S.B. 32, would set a target of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Another bill, by De Leon and Sen. Mark Leno (D), would address electricity, buildings and petroleum use. Another De Leon bill would require the state's massive public pension funds to divest from coal, while one by Sen. Ben Hueso (D) would form a commission to invest money in creating jobs tied to clean energy.

    Brown said he welcomed the legislative proposals.

    "The Pro Tem and I share a strong commitment to dealing with climate change in an aggressive and imaginative way," he said in a statement. "I look forward to working with the legislature to hammer out the details."

    The bills are facing immediate opposition from fossil fuel producers. The Western States Petroleum Association, which includes BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and other major petroleum producers, slammed the petroleum goal in particular.

    "A mandate to reduce petroleum consumption by 50 percent is an impossibly unrealistic goal," said WSPA President Cathy Reheis-Boyd. "History tells us two things: Mandates designed to achieve a goal of this magnitude will require unacceptably coercive restrictions on our mobility choices and will be crushingly expensive."

    But it's unclear how much clout the oil companies have with legislative leaders, despite lavish political spending. WSPA spent $8.9 million on lobbying in California last year, according to state records (EnergyWire, Feb. 5).

    The proposals will face a tempering influence from moderate Democrats such as Assemblyman Henry Perea, who has sought to delay state climate policies. Perea sponsored a bill last year that would have postponed the inclusion of transportation fuels in the state's cap-and-trade program.

    In an interview, Perea said he was concerned about the proposals' economic effect on state residents, particularly in his Central Valley district.

    "There are two sort of big-picture questions we need to be thinking about here," he said. "As we move forward with these policies, who pays, who benefits?"

    Perea said he supported energy efficiency but was wary of broad-brush efforts to increase renewables or cut petroleum. He cited natural-gas-fueled trucks as an example of a petroleum-based technology that could serve as a bridge to lower-carbon transportation. On electricity, he said a general greenhouse gas standard could save utilities money, as opposed to a target of a certain percentage of renewable electricity.

    "We're going to have about nine months to debate that," he said.

    Electric utilities have signaled initial support but also plan to take an active role in the negotiations.

    "We look forward to working with the governor, the Legislature and stakeholders to reach the state's carbon reduction goals in a manner that manages costs for our customers, ensures grid reliability and creates a model program for others to follow," PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said. "We appreciate the governor's leadership and look forward to this collaborative effort."

    Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D), the chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, will also appear at today's announcement. He is planning an oversight hearing focusing on climate change adaptation, to take place Feb. 25.

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20. Scientists See No Magic Bullet for Climate Change

    Feb 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro

    By Alex Guillen

    Forget about sucking carbon dioxide from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space, the National Academies of Science concluded in a report out Tuesday.

    When it comes to fighting climate change, the NAS says the best strategy is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    Some scientists have long toyed with the idea of addressing global warming through massive, climate-altering actions, called geoengineering or climate intervention.

    Those ideas range from the economically infeasible, like machines to remove CO2from the atmosphere, to the downright dangerous, such as fertilizing the oceans with iron or spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to prevent some of the sun’s energy from falling on Earth.

    Given the extreme costs, logistical constraints or unclear dangers, most scientists — including now the federal government’s foremost scientific advisers — say that the best method by far for combating climate change is simple: Major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the source.

    “Although the likelihood of eventually considering last-ditch efforts to address damage from climate change grows with every year of inaction on emissions control, there remains a lack of information on these ways of potentially intervening in the climate system,” writes Marcia McNutt, the former U.S Geological Survey chief and current editor of the journal Science who chaired the NAS committee that authored the reports.

    Synthesized from previously published research, the two reports cast into doubt whether carbon dioxide removal or “albedo modification” — which refers to preventing some sunlight from entering Earth’s climate in the first place — can ever be more than a small part of a climate change strategy.

    “By helping to bring light to this topic area, carbon dioxide removal technologies could become one more viable strategy for addressing climate change, and leaders will be far more knowledgeable about the consequences of albedo modification approaches before they face a decision whether or not to use them,” McNutt adds.

    Of the two approaches, the researchers were far more comfortable with the idea of using CO2 removal as part of an effort to combat climate change.

    CO2 removal encompasses a number of technologies and techniques, from restoring forests that can absorb carbon to pumping CO2 that is captured from the atmosphere into underground reservoirs.

    CO2 removal presents relatively low environmental risks, the report says, but there are obstacles “largely related to slow implementation, limited capacity, policy considerations and high costs of presently available technologies.”

    The report recommends boosting research and development of carbon dioxide removal technologies, since they may eventually be needed as part of a comprehensive strategy to combat climate change.

    Meanwhile, a second report warns that so-called albedo modifications aimed at reducing the amount of energy that falls on Earth from the sun could produce a a bevy of unintended consequences.

    Those efforts can be tempting because they are projected to cost substantially less than a complete decarbonization of the global economy. But such modifications present serious environmental risks, and do nothing to combat the buildup of carbon in the climate, which is causing the oceans to become more acidic and creating other problems besides global warming.

    “It is not possible to quantify or even identify other environmental, social, political, legal and economic risks at this time, given the current state of knowledge about this complex system,” the report says, while urging policymakers to avoid large-scale albedo modifications.

    Another concern with this type of approach, the report adds, is that a single nation or even individual could take unilateral action that poses wider risks to the planet.

    In fact, it has already happened. The scientific community was up in arms in 2012 after an American named Russ George dumped 100 tons of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean in an experiment to see whether ocean fertilization can serve as a carbon sink.

    The project arguably violated UN conventions on biological diversity and the dumping of waste at sea, though the Canadian research corporation connected to that experiment argued it caused a jump in the salmon population in 2013.

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21. No Shortcut for Stopping Climate Change, Federal Report Finds

    Feb 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Timothy Cama

    Federal researchers gave poor reviews Tuesday to “geoengineering” strategies that aim to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reduce their global warming effects.

    A two-volume report issued by the National Research Council (NRC) concluded that, while removing greenhouse gases could help in the fight against climate change, there’s no substitute for dramatic reductions in carbon emissions.

    Technologies meant to help the atmosphere reflect heat outward are even worse and pose considerable risks of harm, the NRC said.

    “That scientists are even considering technological interventions should be a wake-up call that we need to do more now to reduce emissions, which is the most effective, least risky way to combat climate change,” Marcia McNutt, editor-in-chief of Science and chairwoman of the NRC committee that issued the report, said in a statement.

    “But the longer we wait, the more likely it will become that we will need to deploy some forms of carbon dioxide removal to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” she said.

    If international leaders do decide to pursue geoengineering to combat climate change, the research committee said they would need much more scientific research on the possible methods, how they work, their risks and ethical implications.

    “Although riskier ideas to lessen the amount of energy absorbed from the sun should not be considered for deployment, they should be studied so that we can provide answers if someday these ideas begin to be considered in attempts to avert catastrophe,” Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, of which NRC is a part, said in a statement.

    The research got funding support from the private sector as well as government agencies like the Energy Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and intelligence agencies.

    Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the report reinforces the need to cut carbon pollution.

    “There’s absolutely no substitute for slashing fossil fuel emissions in order to prevent catastrophic disruption of the Earth’s climate,” she said in a statement. “But it’s prudent to do research into geoengineering because, for instance, improved carbon dioxide-removal techniques could help reduce such dangerous pollution.”

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