Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 2/5/18
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Hearing On Cancer Research
Feb 6, 2018 | House Science, Space and Technology
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 10:00 AM. -
Hearing On Environmental Rules And Farming
Feb 7, 2018 | Environment and Public Works
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:00 AM. -
Hearing On Energy Infrastructure
Feb 8, 2018 | Energy and Natural Resources
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM. -
(ACC Mentioned) Michigan GOP Is Trying To Pull A Scott Pruitt By Destroying The State’s Environmental Agency
Feb 5, 2018 | 50 States of Blue (blog)
By Jon Coumes
A Republican state senator is looking to do to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality what Scott Pruitt has been doing to the EPA at a national level — destroy it. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s EPA Chief is Reshaping Food and Farming: What You Need to Know
Feb 5, 2018 | Civil Eats
By Leah Douglas
The legendarily anti-EPA Scott Pruitt is trying to undo the agency’s work through rollbacks, inaction, and decimating its workforce. -
Family-Owned Chemical Maker SI Group Is Said to Explore Sale
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Noel
The family behind SI Group Inc., a U.S. chemicals and plastics group, is exploring a sale of the company after receiving interest from potential suitors, according to people with knowledge of the situation. -
EPA Details Two-Year Plan For 'Lean' Management Opposed By Trump Critics
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA senior officials are detailing a two-year plan for fully implementing a “Lean” management system that they say will overhaul and accelerate agency operations, but some Trump administration critics oppose the approach fearing it will diminish environmental protections and reduce EPA's workforce. -
(ACC Mentioned) Senate Committee Cross Questions EPA Administrator On Chemical Policy
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
In a Capitol Hill appearance, US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appeared to say for a second time that the agency would reverse its policy and consider legacy uses in its review of asbestos. -
Industry, NGOs Clash Over US EPA Plans For New Chemical Reviews
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Stakeholder comments have hardened the battle lines drawn over the Trump administration's plans for reviewing new chemicals under the revised TSCA. -
(ACC mentioned) The Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You To Be Afraid Of Teflon Pans. You Should Be.
Feb 5, 2018 | Salon
By Keith A. Spencer
Nonstick pans are an icon of the postwar “Better Living Through Chemistry” epoch of technological enamorment; fittingly, almost every home in America likely has at least one of them. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Division That Studies The Health Risks Of Toxic Chemicals Is In A Fight For Its Life — Against The EPA
Feb 3, 2018 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
A SMALL BUT vitally important program within the Environmental Protection Agency is in a fight for its life. -
US NGOs Urge EPA: Ban Five PBT Substances Immediately
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Environmental groups in the US have vehemently opposed an American Chemistry Council (ACC) suggestion that the EPA should update its criteria for identifying and evaluating "persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic" (PBT) substances before it completes mandated rapid risk management action on five such substances. -
BNSF Loses Bid to Keep Asbestos Claims in Federal Court
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
BNSF Railway must defend asbestos exposure claims in Montana state court because the managing agent for the railroad is a Montana resident. -
EPA Revising Disaster Debris Guide As Industry Seeks PCB Disposal Flexibility
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The utility industry is urging EPA and the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to include in an updated agency natural disaster debris guidance a template showing how regional offices in times of natural disaster could ease cleanup requirements for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) remediation waste. -
It’s Groundhog Day Again. Will Retailers Get It Right?
Feb 5, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
... Sometimes we feel like we’re stuck in a time loop with some of the retailers we’re asking to ditch toxic products through the Mind the Store campaign. -
Rigor and Transparency as an Antidote to Politicization at EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System
Feb 5, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
A National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study committee charged with reviewing advances made to the EPA’s National Center for Environment Assessment and its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program met at the NAS headquarters in DC this week. -
Lawmakers To Debate Cutting Cancer Funding Over Glyphosate
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow is likely to consider whether Congress should cut off millions of dollars of U.S. funding for an international cancer agency. -
UK Law Body Backs Post-Brexit Echa Participation
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK Environmental Law Association says it would be "highly beneficial" from both "an environmental and a practical perspective" for the UK to retain participation in Echa. -
Alert As Oestrogen-Mimicking BPA Found In Teens
Feb 5, 2018 | The Times
By Jonathan Leake
... Scientists found more than 80% of teenagers have hormone-disrupting contaminants from the plastics industry in their blood and urine, according to a study of 94 young people. -
Next-wave LNG Terminals Get Smaller To Offer Flexible Supply Deals
Feb 5, 2018 | Reuters
By Julie Gordon
The liquefied natural gas market is growing every year, but the terminals that ship and receive the fuel are shrinking. -
Trump Move May Slash $381 Million in Energy Efficiency Contracts
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Levinson
The Trump administration may propose a cut of more than 70 percent to the Department of Energy's Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) budget in its fiscal 2019 request. That could reduce contracts issued by the office by about $381 million, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis. -
Exxon Mobil Projects Falling Oil Demand To Meet Paris Climate Accord
Feb 2, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil said it expects global oil demand to fall by 0.4 percent a year by 2040 to help meet the Paris climate accord's goals. -
Texas Oil Companies Tell Trump To Leave NAFTA Alone
Feb 2, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
One of President Donald Trump's favorite subjects for praise - the Texas oil industry - is urging him to back off his hard-line stance on the North American Free Trade Agreement. -
Reform Increases Prospect of Cracker
Feb 5, 2018 | The Wheeling Intelligencer
Many area residents have had their fingers crossed for so many months that we wonder whether there is a possibility of permanent damage to their hands. -
Trump’s Deceptive Energy Policy
Feb 4, 2018 | The New York Times
By Editorial Board
“We have ended the war on American energy,” President Trump boasted in his State of the Union address, “and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.” -
Panel Aims To Include Power Projects In Infrastructure Push
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
With President Trump's infrastructure package set to be released soon, Senate lawmakers are trying to ensure that energy projects are part of the equation. -
Unions Fault Industry Call For EPA To Defer To OSHA Worker Protections
Feb 5, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Labor unions are urging EPA to reject a chemical sector call to defer regulation of new chemicals' risks to workers to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), arguing that the plan would violate the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and that OSHA lacks resources and authority to adequately protect workers. -
EPA, States, Others File Final Briefs In Suit Over RMP Rule Delay
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
Ahead of oral argument in March, EPA, environmental groups, as well as states and the chemical industry have filed final briefs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's nearly two-year delay of an Obama-era facility safety rule with the parties sparring over EPA's authority to delay the rule and environmentalists' standing to sue. -
A GPS System Could Have Prevented The Deadly Amtrak Collision, Investigators Say
Feb 5, 2018 | AP (In Time)
By Meg Kinnard
Federal investigators are trying to figure out why a switch was in the wrong position, sending an Amtrak train into a freight train and killing a conductor and an engineer in South Carolina. -
Heitkamp Introduces Two-Person Crew Legislation
Feb 5, 2018 | Progressive Railroading
U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) has introduced a bill to require a minimum of two-person crews on freight trains carrying crude oil or certain other types of cargo. -
Environmentalists Raise Broad GHG, VOC Issues Over Biomass Pellet Plants
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Environmental groups are broadly raising concerns about excess emissions of greenhouse gases and toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at biomass pellet plants, which are being built rapidly to provide fuel to European power plants that are counted as zero-carbon energy sources in that continent's GHG trading program. -
Ewire: Pruitt On Whether 'EPA Originalism' Includes Climate
Feb 5, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is embracing a description of his leadership style as “EPA originalism,” arguing that strictly interpreting the nation's environmental laws can include tough action on issues such as waste cleanups but voicing heavy skepticism that such an interpretation allows for strong steps to address climate change. -
White House Withdraws Controversial Nominee To Head Council On Environmental Quality
Feb 5, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The White House has withdrawn its controversial nominee to head the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White, whose selection failed to gather momentum with some Senate Republicans raising questions about her expertise. -
With Hartnett White Out, EPW Preps Round 2 On EPA Deputy Pick
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Just days after President Trump's controversial nominee to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality withdrew her name from consideration, the nominee for deputy U.S. EPA administrator could get a step closer to full confirmation.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Feb 6, 2018 | House Science, Space and Technology
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Hearing On Environmental Rules And Farming
Feb 7, 2018 | Environment and Public Works
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Hearing On Energy Infrastructure
Feb 8, 2018 | Energy and Natural Resources
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Feb 5, 2018 | 50 States of Blue (blog)
By Jon Coumes
A Republican state senator is looking to do to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality what Scott Pruitt has been doing to the EPA at a national level — destroy it.
It has been said that the term limits on legislators in Lansing have often encouraged short-term thinking at the expense of long-term prosperity, and the Republican Party is doubling down on proving that thesis this year. There are many grounds to criticize Governor Rick Snyder, but he knew his business when he chided Republicans in the legislature during the State of the State about “responsibility”:
Being fiscally responsible is more than just balancing budgets. It’s not just thinking about us today, but our children and future generations. We need to think about how we act in our own families. Think of this: in our families, we don’t go out and spend money on ourselves as parents … and go home and hand the bill to our kids. That’s just flat-out wrong, isn’t it?
Snyder was referring specifically to a tax cut that the GOP passed over his veto earlier in January, as well as further cuts that Republicans in the legislature have been eyeing despite Michigan’s tight fiscal situation.
The front-runner for short-sightedness in 2018, though, has to be Republican state senator Tom Casperson from Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula. Casperson is working hard to replicate the Trump Administration’s efforts to shutter or annul the federal Environmental Protection Agency with the Department of Environmental Quality here in Michigan.These bills could make MDEQ go the way of EPA
Even though his role as the Director of the EPA is to implement its mission to “protect human health and enforce environmental regulations,” Scott Pruitt has been doing his best to hamstring the agency and either cease or stall its implementation of environmental rules — all in the interest of benefiting business.The EPA has ceased studying and regulating hazardous chemicals at the behest of industry: Nancy Beck, a Trump appointee who came from the lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, stopped the agency’s investigation into carcinogenic perfluorooctanoic acid in May. In December, the agency stopped movement on TCE, NMP, and methylene chloride, ‘household’ chemicals that cause birth defects and are highly carcinogenic.With Pruitt’s collaboration, the Administration is working to cut the agency’s budget by as much as 45 percent.Despite the evidence from places like Flint that lead is still an urgent threat to American health, the EPA asked for six years to review old lead regulations.The agency has stopped enforcing regulations where it can get away with it, and has pursued litigation against violators as slowly and ineffectively as possible. Enforcement officers are subject to obstructive central control, and have collected 60 percent fewer fines than during the same period under President Obama.
Senator Casperson is trying to replicate some of those ‘victories’ with the MDEQ through three bills he’s introduced in Lansing, HBs 652, 653, and 654:
HB652 could give private industry the power to veto any and all new state environmental rules by creating the “Environmental Rules Review Committee” as part of the Office of Performance and Transportation. The ERRC would consist of 11 members, with 6 drawn from industry (solid waste management, manufacturing, small business, power generation, oil and gas, statewide agriculture) and 5 from other areas that don’t form nearly as solid a voting bloc (representatives from a statewide environmental organization, local government, land conservancy, the general public, and one medical professional). The new committee would be able to veto any new rules coming out of the MDEQ — unless the agency could rally every one of the ambivalent representatives plus one from industry, which would be a tall order.
HB653 stacks the deck on permit approval. Casperson feels that the MDEQ denies too many environmental permits in Michigan — even though the agency approved 99.5 percent of permits in 2017. The bill would create a Permit Appeal Panel of 15 appointed by the governor. Appointment to that panel would require a master’s degree in a relevant field, and while recent employees of MDEQ or anyone working with the MDEQ would be kept off, there are no corresponding restrictions on candidates with ties to business.
HB654 concentrates executive power over the environment by creating an Environmental Science Advisory Board made up of 9 members appointed by the governor, without the advice or consent of the senate. Given Casperson’s proclivities, it seems more than likely he’s counting on continuing Republican leadership in the Governor’s mansion.
All three of these bills, plus another which would prevent Michigan from creating any regulations stronger than the federal ones that Scott Pruitt is busily destroying, have already passed the Senate. That isn’t the end of the world; Governor Snyder is more prudent than the folks in the Capitol, and he’s vetoed bone-headed environmental rollbacks before.
But with GOP legislators ever more willing to override Snyder, that might not be all the stopgap we need.Why do we need these agencies, anyway?
It might be hard to remember now that we’ve weathered decades of mendacious rhetoric about overweening environmentalists and rapacious regulations, but the EPA comes from a very specific moment in American history. By the time the agency was founded in 1970, the US and the Western world had finally woken up to the dangers our own mistreatment of the environment had exposed us to.
The Cuyahoga River in Ohio had been lighting itself on fire not just in 1969, but since the mid-1800s. The Donora, PA “smog incident” killed twenty people in 1948, and the London Smog of 1952 killed 12,000. Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962.
Richard Nixon founded the EPA not as a scourge to aggravate businessmen, but as a reaction to a situation — industry treating the environment as a dumping-ground — that was becoming untenable.
The need for an environmental regulator in Michigan comes from similar circumstances. Michigan had been hard-used by industry for much of its history, with copper mining spewing slag, Ford dumping into the River Rouge, and auto suppliers and manufacturers everywhere creating leachate pools and runoff trenches. Michigan ranks fifth in the nation in terms of Superfund sites, abandoned industrial operations so polluted and dangerous that they merit federal attention.
Despite the MDEQ’s 23 years in operation — years that Senator Casperson would allege have been spent making business totally impossible in the state — Republican Governor Snyder still saw fit to mention massive problems with site cleanup, low recycling numbers, widespread lead contamination, and the massive leaks of carcinogenic PFAS chemicals into Michigan groundwater wells. The MDEQ has a hard enough time keeping Michiganders safe as it is without boards of businessmen reversing its decisions.
Regulation often feels onerous to business. Casperson comes from a long history in logging, so it’s understandable that he’d see the MDEQ as the enemy. But skirting those regulations gives us the Tragedy of the Commons writ large. Individual businesspeople may think, ‘If only I could ignore this environmental regulation, I’d be better off’ — but in the end, when carbon chokes the skies, mine tailings choke the rivers, and runoff and lead choke us as we drink water saturated with them, everyoneloses.
Last December’s federal tax cut and Pruitt’s single-minded determination to make the EPA serve industry should be proof that business already has enough friends in government. Term limits already so badly skew the culture in Lansing that many legislators can’t imagine life after the next fiscal year. But as Snyder said in the State of the State, “One of the things we don’t think of often enough in this political world is not just the consequences on us today, but…the question, ‘How do we make it so future generations are better off and not worse off?'”
https://www.50statesofblue.com/2018/02/mi-gop-targeting-department-environmental-quality/
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s EPA Chief is Reshaping Food and Farming: What You Need to Know
Feb 5, 2018 | Civil Eats
By Leah Douglas
The legendarily anti-EPA Scott Pruitt is trying to undo the agency’s work through rollbacks, inaction, and decimating its workforce.
Since assuming leadership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last February, Scott Pruitt has found himself at odds with environmental organizations, community advocates, farmers, and increasingly lawmakers.
Just last week, Cory Booker (D-NJ) confronted Pruitt in a Senate hearing about his recent efforts to roll back regulations that set a minimum age for farmworkers who handle pesticides. The rules include requirements for a minimum age of 18 for applying pesticides and for buffer zones around pesticide-spraying equipment. Booker said he feared that the rollback would have a “disproportionate impact on low-income folks and minorities.”
Booker’s concerns mirror many aired by others invested in the country’s environmental policies. Pruitt has made wholesale changes to the EPA over the last year, and his impact on food and farming have been no less sparing. His rollbacks of Obama-era regulations on pesticides, water safety, and farm runoff and close alignment with the seed and chemical industry has caused deep concern for both advocates and scientists. And as Pruitt’s EPA marches forward, many longtime staffers are opting to leave the agency they’ve supported for decades rather than supporting his agenda.
“This EPA is not interested in protecting people from harmful pesticides,” says Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s more interested in bowing to the wishes of Dow [Agrochemical].”
Before his tenure at the EPA, Pruitt infamously sued the agency 14 times. While most of those lawsuits were focused on preventing new regulations to limit carbon and mercury pollution from power plants, his approach to ending regulation has remained constant throughout.
In November 2016, he signed on to a lawsuit against the Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS), which details which bodies of water are regulated under the federal Clean Water Act, and was updated and expanded with the 2015 Clean Water Rule.
As EPA chief, Pruitt has worked quickly to stop implementation of the rule, which many conventional farm and industry groups have opposed, arguing that it is an example of the agency’s overreach. In June, the EPA began its efforts to rescind the rule, and last month the Supreme Court ruled that challenges to WOTUS would be sent back to federal district courts, several of which have issued stays against implementing the rule. Then, Pruitt responded last week by announcing a two-year delay in implementing WOTUS while his EPA works to repeal and replace it.
Pruitt rejected the EPA’s own scientists’ recommendation to ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos after years of internal and external research on the pesticide’s potentially harmful health effects. The chemical was banned in 2000 for household use, but is still used in some commercial farming. A New York Times investigation found that new EPA staff appointed by Trump had pushed career employees to shift the agency’s position on the chemical. A number of states have sued the agency in an effort to force it to implement the ban; California has also moved to ban the chemical’s use in the state in hopes of skirting the EPA’s inaction.
Pruitt has defended his deregulatory efforts, saying they’re in the interest of “cooperative federalism.” In his view, this type of deregulation empowers the states to take on more regulatory responsibility, while preventing the overreach of federal agencies.
Among Advocates, Anger at Changes and the Status Quo
Many agriculture and environment advocates don’t think Pruitt’s deregulatory efforts will improve the working relationship between the federal government and the states. John O’Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees National Council #238, which represents over 1,000 EPA employees, says “we’ve been doing cooperative federalism for years.” But “this administration is kind of twisting it” to justify incorporating direct input from more corporations, and to defund environmental regulatory work that has been happening in the states, he says.
Pruitt has supported Trump’s budget proposals, which would cut 20 percent of the funding states rely on for staffing and environmental program work, such as one program established in 2009 to restore and clean up contamination—from agriculture and other sources—in the Chesapeake Bay. More environmental regulations have been targeted for rollback than in any other sector.
And despite his stated interest in diffuse governance, Pruitt is reportedly keeping a tight rein on the EPA’s ongoing work. Michele Merkel, co-director of Food & Water Watch’s Food & Water Justice program and Tarah Heinzen, a staff attorney of the program, note that since many top positions at EPA remain unfilled, much of the agency’s business is flowing through Pruitt himself. Heinzen says that, consequently, there is “far less autonomy at the regional level,” and that state agencies are finding it challenging “to even gather information.”
Conventional agriculture groups, however, are mostly in agreement with the newly defined priorities of Pruitt’s EPA. When Pruitt addressed meetings of the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in early 2017, he was reportedly given standing ovations. Others say it is still too early to tell whether the changing priorities of this EPA will dramatically affect the relationship between the EPA and farmers.
On the one hand, the biggest players in the “[agriculture] industry have always had the EPA pretty captured,” says Merkel. Indeed, EPA’s regulatory trends have shown a shift toward more self-regulation in the agribusiness sector. There has also been a decline in the number of inspections and enforcement actions by the agency against concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) since the final years of the Obama administration.
And while many farmers have traditionally had an antagonistic relationship with the agency, Tom Driscoll of the National Farmers Union says the idea that farmers have a “knee-jerk distrust of EPA is a bit overstated.” He adds that the farmers he works with are “invested in a clean and healthy environment” and many farmers are still hoping to work with the EPA toward better conservation practices.
Plummeting Morale Inside the Agency
Between April and December, 770 employees left the EPA, many taking buyouts and early retirements. O’Grady says that some of these departures could be unrelated to the political environment. But, he says, some could be “related to people being disgusted with the program that this [administration] is putting in place.” Regardless of their reasons for leaving, many are not being replaced—barely one-third of the 624 EPA positions that require Congressional confirmation have been filled, with another third sitting vacant with no nominees.
Other EPA employees have gone to the media or other forums to speak out against the current administration—but not without consequence. Several employees who’ve spoken out publicly against the recent actions of the EPA have had their emails scrutinized. Many reports suggest that the internal staff morale is low. While the administration fears information leaks, many employees fear the agency will retaliate without proof if they are suspected of leaking information.
Pruitt has repeatedly condemned the EPA under Obama for treating states and industry as “adversaries,” preferring to see them as “partners.” That philosophy has translated into bringing many former industry representatives in to fill major EPA roles.
A November 2017 Center for Public Integrity investigation into 46 political appointees at the EPA found that the majority had worked for an either an organization with a history of climate change denial or an industry commonly regulated by the agency. The appointees include a former senior director of the American Chemistry Council (whose members include Dow, Monsanto, and Bayer), former senior counsel at the American Petroleum Institute, and former legislative affairs director for the National Association of Chemical Distributors.
And the appointees go beyond the agriculture and energy industries. In May, Pruitt appointed his friend and personal banker Albert Kelly, to lead the new Superfund Task Force. Just two weeks prior, Kelly had been fined by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for financial misdeeds that resulted in his being banned from rejoining the banking industry by the FDIC.
Pruitt has also reportedly spent much more of his time in meetings with industry reps than environmental organizations or citizen groups. A trove of documents detailing his schedule during his first three months at the helm of the agency show dozens of meetings with or travel to events sponsored by General Motors, Shell Oil executives, CropLife America, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Cement Association, and the National Mining Association. Meanwhile, between March and September, Pruitt met with just five environmental groups.
Some of Pruitt’s deregulatory actions, particularly those targeted at Obama-era executive orders, could only last for a short while if they were soon overturned by a new administration. But others, like unwinding WOTUS, would take years of litigation and rulemaking to get back to where the Obama administration left off.
And staff at EPA could also prove hard to replace. John O’Grady points out that the agency has shrunk from 18,000 employees in 1999 to around 14,500 today, and he predicts the Trump administration will cut several thousand more jobs. After all the cuts, “there’s still the same amount of work,” he says. The staff that remain at EPA “are dedicated, they’re trying to get the work done.” But as morale falls, many are burning out. And those who stay must face an agency that seeks to unwind decades of its own efforts to fight climate change, regulate harmful chemicals, and protect the country’s waterways.
https://civileats.com/2018/02/05/trumps-epa-chief-is-reshaping-food-and-farming-what-you-need-to-know/
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Family-Owned Chemical Maker SI Group Is Said to Explore Sale
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Noel
The family behind SI Group Inc., a U.S. chemicals and plastics group, is exploring a sale of the company after receiving interest from potential suitors, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
A sale could value SI Group at more than $1.5 billion, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details aren't public. The Schenectady, N.Y.-based business, which generates about $180 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, is working with an adviser to field interest, said the people. Initial discussions have been held with several companies, they said.
No decision has been made, and the company may choose not to proceed with a sale, the people said. A representative for SI Group declined to comment.
SI Group's owners are timing a possible exit with an ongoing surge in chemical dealmaking, as companies announced mergers and acquisitions in the industry totaling $76 billion last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some large combinations, including Linde AG's tie-up with Praxair Inc. and Bayer AG's acquisition of Monsanto Co., have faced tough antitrust investigations and are yet to be finalized.
Tax reform in the U.S. is providing an additional spur to M&A, according to a January report from PwC.
As well as additives for fuels, polymers and lubricants, SI Group, which employs 2,800 people, manufactures surfactants and bonding resins. The company is led by Chief Executive Officer Frank Bozich, a former BASF SE executive who oversaw the German chemical giant's catalysts business, among other roles. Bozich is approaching his fifth anniversary as CEO at SI Group.
SI Group's origins date back more than 100 years to a General Electric Co. startup under chief chemist Howard Wright, which manufactured an enamel coating to provide electrical insulation to wires. From there, the company expanded into resins and chemicals. In 2014, the renamed SI Group purchased an antioxidants and active drug-ingredient business from Albemarle Corp., its largest acquisition, according to the company's website. Financial terms of that deal weren't disclosed.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127754691&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127754691&jd=127754691
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EPA Details Two-Year Plan For 'Lean' Management Opposed By Trump Critics
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA senior officials are detailing a two-year plan for fully implementing a “Lean” management system that they say will overhaul and accelerate agency operations, but some Trump administration critics oppose the approach fearing it will diminish environmental protections and reduce EPA's workforce.
In Jan. 30 remarks at an EPA National Executive Leadership Development Conference in Washington, D.C., agency Chief of Operations Henry Darwin touted Lean, which is a set of principles and methods to help organizations identify and eliminate inefficiency in their processes. EPA launched a Lean Government Initiative in 2014 “as a way to maximize the agency’s ability to effectively implement its mission,” a 2014 EPA memo says.
Darwin implemented the system in Arizona while serving as director of the state's Department of Environmental Quality. The Lean management system is often cited in business as a way to boost value for “customers” of a company or organization, and Darwin says it could help to make the agency more efficient.
“Put simply, the Lean management system is our ability to solve small problems before they become big problems,” said Darwin during his remarks, touting the system as a way to better measure agency progress on key tasks while providing staff tools to solving problems that can slow agency work. “We are going to make sure that the management system is is not an end in and of itself,” but a route to better agency process.
“The [implementation] model that we have landed on, is one that is most commonly used [to implement Lean management], is that we pick a few parts of the organization and we very narrowly and deeply employ the entire management system with all of its elements,” said Darwin.
The two-year plan therefore focuses initially on a “narrow” and “deep” implementation of Lean for priority areas and measures in EPA's strategic plan, while over a two-year timeline expanding to a “broad” implementation of elements of the plan across EPA.
Darwin is in charge of organizational streamlining at EPA, and he has touted implementation of the Lean system during his Arizona tenure as helping to slash by more than half permitting times, as well as the time to bring out of compliance facilities back into compliance.
But he has come under fire for prior descriptions of industry in some circumstances as “customers” of regulatory agencies, and Trump administration critics are wary of the Lean approach.
Most recently, a Jan. 29 letter to the editor in the Washington Post by Environmental Defense Fund's Elgie Holstein characterized the Trump EPA's implementation of Lean in the agency's Superfund program as “lean on cleanups and lean on holding polluters accountable.” Holstein cited in part a proposed Trump administration budget cut of roughly 30 percent to the Superfund program.
Last August, when Darwin announced his initial plan to implement Lean at the agency, it prompted concern from a top EPA union that it could lead to reduced workforce numbers. John O' Grady -- president of the American Federation of Government Employee's Council 238 that represents many EPA employees -- said, “I can only imagine that 'Lean' stands for 'Less Employees Are Needed.'”
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said he is looking to significantly reduce agency staffing levels, defending efforts to cut the agency's workforce by 50 percent.
Lean Plan
Darwin in his remarks to the EPA conference acknowledged that the Lean approach could prompt some criticism.
“We will continue to be criticized. . . . That should not keep us from . . . under certain circumstances. . . treating those that are using, the end users of our products and services, as our customers,” Darwin said.
“It even applies, and maybe more so applies, in the Superfund context,” he added, “where we might be performing activities that those that are responsible for cleanup need from us in order to perform cleanups as quickly as possible.”
Darwin delved into the often jargon-heavy vocabulary of such management protocols, while pledging not to let the management system itself become a distraction from the agency's mission.
He outlined a plan for initial “narrow and deep” implementation of management system in selected parts of EPA, followed by a “broad and thin” approach with the goal of broad deployment of “elements” of the system across EPA within two years.
With respect to the narrow and deep approach, “We are in the process of doing that . . . in all of the strategic measure areas, in all of the priority areas that are process driven or process oriented,” Darwin said, referencing EPA's draft strategic plan for fiscal year 2018-2022.
But Darwin added that most of the senior EPA staff present at the forum were likely to be affected more by the “broad and thin” Lean management implementation approach “where we will be deploying elements of the management [system],” more widely.”
At one one point he cited a goal with respect to the broad and thin approach of implementing the approach in 80 percent of the agency over a two year period, though he at other points more generally referenced deployment across the agency. “This is going to be where all of you have an opportunity to see, we are going to work with you on an individual program basis, individual regional office basis,” Darwin said.
Darwin also told the audience that he is going to ask regional offices “ in the near future” for help implementing the system, because “I'm . . . convinced that the vast majority of that knowledge [of Lean] exists in the regions.”
Accordingly Darwin will ask regional offices to send to EPA headquarters “groups of people from the region that have a passion for Lean, a knowledge of Lean . . . so they can come to headquarters, they can learn about the management system learn how to deploy management system, learn how to do the training, and they can help us deploy the management system at EPA headquarters.”
Subsequently, those staff “will be asked to go back to the region and deploy the management system in their region.”
System Deployment
As part of the Lean system deployment efforts, Darwin said he expects to be visiting agency program offices on a quarterly basis, and EPA regional offices twice a year.
In response to an audience query, Darwin also indicated that -- at least initially -- the system will not be tied to performance evaluations of individual EPA front line staff.
“Over time we will develop a better way to tie the Lean management system to the employee performance system,” he said, but initially Lean is is a tool for holding agency leaders accountable.
“There is a design reason for that. We want to make sure that we are holding leaders accountable, and managers accountable to the system, and [to] the results of the system before we hold individuals to the system. We are trying to create a culture in which staff feel like they can bring issues and problems to their supervisors without blame.”
Darwin also described the implementation process the agency envisions as more reliant on “internal” training than use of outside contractors. This is because he has had past experience with relying more on contractors and it proved to be a “mess” because contractors often would rather do initial training sessions and then leave the agency staff to work out the details.
Elements of Lean include the use of both “flow boards” and “performance boards” to visually track agency processes, Darwin said. “The idea is that at the work unit level they will have boards that represent the overall performance of of their work unit,” Darwin said.
Assuming you need roughly one such board for every 10 people -- and broad deployment across the entire agency over the next two years -- that means about “1400 of these boards when we are done.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-details-two-year-plan-lean-management-opposed-trump-critics
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate Committee Cross Questions EPA Administrator On Chemical Policy
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
In a Capitol Hill appearance, US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appeared to say for a second time that the agency would reverse its policy and consider legacy uses in its review of asbestos.
Mr Pruitt was answering questions at a 30 January hearing convened by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
The PA Administrator avoided direct answers to questions on how the agency would address chemicals such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), whether it is dragging its feet on priority chemical reviews, and whether it is abandoning proposals to restrict the use of methylene chloride, n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and trichloroethylene (TCE).
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) expressed concern that the EPA was only focusing on new manufacturing while overlooking "legacy" uses of asbestos.
"I can tell you that the legacy uses you make reference to are very important," said Mr Pruitt, who told another committee in December the issue was under "active consideration".
The framework rules and scoping documents for the first ten substances subject to risk evaluation under TSCA generally exclude "legacy uses" of chemicals from consideration.
Senator Merkley cited a news report that review of the ten priority chemicals was being "slow-walked".
In response, Mr Pruitt said the EPA has adopted TSCA implementation rules as required by the law, and "added resources to address a backlog of chemical reviews". However, those new chemical reviews are unrelated to the review of existing priority chemicals Senator Merkley asked about.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) asked if a focus on new uses would prevent the EPA from addressing the toxic levels of PFOA and PFOS that have been found in New York and other states.
State policy experts predict that ways of addressing these and related substances will be the biggest emerging chemical regulation issue at state level in 2018. And the FluoroCouncil – a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council – recently launched a new website seeking to counter the growing controversy.
In December, the EPA announced "a cross-agency effort to address per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)," but the plan includes no regulatory action.
"All the issues we have from PFOA and PFOS are in fact legacy uses and we are going to focus on that," Mr Pruitt told Sen Gillibrand, without further detail.
Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) demanded Mr Pruitt commit to finalising within 30 days proposed rules restricting the use of methylene chloride, TCE and NMP.
December updates to the EPA's regulatory agenda moved those rules to the back burner.
"EPA proposed rules banning these chemicals more than a year ago," Senator Carper said. "Recent reports indicate EPA may delay action, which will almost certainly mean more people will get sick and probably some of them will die."
Mr Pruitt said that the chemicals in question are on the priority review list, without addressing the separate proposals for immediate action.https://chemicalwatch.com/63620/senate-committee-cross-questions-epa-administrator-on-chemical-policy.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63620/senate-committee-cross-questions-epa-administrator-on-chemical-policy
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Industry, NGOs Clash Over US EPA Plans For New Chemical Reviews
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Stakeholder comments have hardened the battle lines drawn over the Trump administration's plans for reviewing new chemicals under the revised TSCA.
The public consultation on a proposed review framework document has thrown up several areas of major disagreement between industry and NGOs.
And, to compound the problems facing the EPA, the environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has filed a lawsuit against the agency in an effort to block the document's implementation.
The draft framework document was published for comment ahead of a December public meeting on new chemicals policy. It sets out the EPA's intended policy and procedure.
The framework is not a formal regulation, but key issues surrounding it parallel arguments over the EPA's risk evaluation and prioritisation rules, guiding its assessment of existing chemicals under the new TSCA.
The NRDC lawsuit filed on 5 January does not set out legal arguments, but just asks the court to review the new chemical plan. The risk evaluation and prioritisation rules are being challenged in a separate series of lawsuits.'Conditions of use'
One of the biggest issues in the EPA's plans for both new and existing chemicals is whether the amended law requires the agency to review all potential uses of a chemical, as NGOs argue, or whether it can choose to limit its review to specific uses.
In their written comments, industry organisations argued that the EPA should limit new chemical reviews to the proposed uses set out in the premanufacture notice (PMN) that triggers them.
"The manufacturer of a new chemical should not be held responsible for others’ uses or misuses," wrote American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. "Inclusion of other potential uses requires speculation on the part of the Agency and exceeds the authority granted to EPA."
The EPA's framework calls for addressing "reasonably foreseen" uses, repeating the language in TSCA. At the December meeting, Jeff Morris, director of the agency's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, said the agency will assess "probable" uses of new chemicals.
However, NGOs disagree. "This interpretation has no legal basis," wrote Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). "By definition, the EPA must also include foreseeable uses throughout the entire lifecycle of the chemical from cradle to grave."Snur-only approach
Also at issue is the EPA's intention to address through significant new use rules (Snurs) situations where a PMN is not problematic but a potential use of the new chemical could raise risk concerns. The agency has most often issued consent orders restricting how the submitter can use a new chemical, followed by a Snur requiring additional review if a different use is proposed.
Industry groups supported the EPA's argument that issuing only Snurs is legal and accomplishes the same goal. But NGOs reiterated their arguments that TSCA requires the agency to issue consent orders, which they believe are more clearly legally binding and give the agency more leverage to regulate additional uses.
And NGOs are also concerned about the implications of issuing "not likely to present an unreasonable risk" findings for new chemicals when there are concerning potential uses not being proposed in the PMN.
Industry groups specifically argued in their comments that the EPA should do that. They say manufacturers should not be held back from bringing a chemical to market based on concerns about potential uses they are not proposing.
The International Fragrance Association North America (Ifrana) even contended that the EPA should not issue Snurs based on potential uses at all. "As a general rule, chemicals subject to Snurs are simply not marketable for nonindustrial uses," Ifrana wrote, due to stigma, record-keeping burdens and knowledge that such chemicals cannot be marketed in Canada.
NGOs say that the EPA should not allow manufacturing of a chemical to start before a Snur is in place preventing more problematic uses.
"PMNs, standing alone, are not legally binding on the submitter," the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) wrote. "Absent a final Snur that is fully in effect, a submitter can at any time engage in conditions of use beyond those identified in the PMN without even notifying EPA."Deadlines not met
Another issue raised by industry groups is that the EPA has been too conservative in reviewing new chemicals and that the reviews are taking too long.
While the agency is supposed to issue determinations within 90 days, the American Chemistry Council found that for new chemical proposals submitted after the TSCA amendments, it has taken an average of 115 days to issue "not likely to present" findings and an average of 255 days to issue a Snur.
The ACC proposed a series of changes to "streamline" the review process by conducting various required reviews simultaneously and improving communication with submitters.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63538/industry-ngos-clash-over-us-epa-plans-for-new-chemical-reviews
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(ACC mentioned) The Chemical Industry Doesn’t Want You To Be Afraid Of Teflon Pans. You Should Be.
Feb 5, 2018 | Salon
By Keith A. Spencer
Health experts and advocates say nonsticks should have been banned years ago; fortunately, you can mitigate risk
Nonstick pans are an icon of the postwar “Better Living Through Chemistry” epoch of technological enamorment; fittingly, almost every home in America likely has at least one of them. Teflon pans have existed since the 1960s; Cook’s Illustrated notes that today 70 percent of all cookware sold in the United States is nonstick. And while Teflon’s powers of food repulsion are a source of wonderment, the chemical engineers behind them were unable to endow them with the equally magical property of indestructibility. Hence my house, and your house, and probably every house I’ve ever set foot in, has at least one aging, slightly warped nonstick pan, often with small bits of black plasticine crud chipping off the surface.
I encourage you to take a break from this article and report to your kitchen. Find the aforementioned aging teflon pan in your cupboard, and then run your fingernail down the flaked parts on its surface. Some black stuff came off, didn’t it?
Normally, we don’t intentionally flake our pans with our fingernails. But if something as soft as keratin can cause teflon chipping, presumably the black flakes come off naturally while we’re cooking with them — and especially when we cook with them using non-recommended utensils (like metal, which you're not supposed to use on nonsticks). Manufacturers impel us not to use metal on our teflon pans, nor to heat them beyond "medium," but these instructions are not well-disseminated.
In any case, the ubiquity of Teflon means that the average American is exposed to Teflon-cooked food routinely at home, or in meals prepared at restaurants. That means all of us are consuming or put in contact with Teflon all the time. Indeed, Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the carcinogenic chemical involved in Teflon production until a few years ago, is so prevalent that it is present in nearly every American’s bloodstream in measurable quantities, according to the New York Department of Health.
More concerning, the companies involved in manufacturing Teflon, both 3M and DuPont, have a track record of covering up or lying about the effects of said chemicals used in the manufacturing process. It took a court order in 2000 to get DuPont to release their studies about PFOA. What lawyers discovered in decades of PFOA files was documented in horrific detail a New York Times Magazine feature from 2016:
...The documents [revealed] that 3M and DuPont had been conducting secret medical studies on PFOA for more than four decades. In 1961, DuPont researchers found that the chemical could increase the size of the liver in rats and rabbits. A year later, they replicated these results in studies with dogs. PFOA’s peculiar chemical structure made it uncannily resistant to degradation. It also bound to plasma proteins in the blood, circulating through each organ in the body. In the 1970s, DuPont discovered that there were high concentrations of PFOA in the blood of factory workers at Washington Works. They did not tell the E.P.A. at the time. In 1981, 3M — which continued to serve as the supplier of PFOA to DuPont and other corporations — found that ingestion of the substance caused birth defects in rats. After 3M shared this information, DuPont tested the children of pregnant employees in their Teflon division. Of seven births, two had eye defects. DuPont did not make this information public.
“DuPont, 3M and other PFC manufacturers had ample indications decades ago that PFOA and other perfluorochemicals contaminate the blood of the general U.S. population,” writes the Environmental Working Group, an environmental nonprofit. “How and why they ignored the warning signs is one of the more disturbing chapters in the unfolding tragedy of PFC pollution.” DuPont noticed birth defects in its female employees’ children back in the 1980s, a fact that they were not forthcoming about; later in 2001, 3M scientists did a study of 598 American children that found that 96 percent had PFOA in their blood.
There are a slew of chemical acronyms here, so let’s review: The chemicals involved in nonstick pans are known as PFAs, shorthand for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. There are many different subclasses of these chemicals, but they all start with “PF”; the Centers for Disease Control factsheet includes details on perfluorosulfonates (PFOs) and perfluorocarboxylic acids like PFOA and PFNA. The specific molecule chains are less important than what these molecules do — which is, namely, reduce friction. In creating surfaces with relatively little friction (thanks to the fluoride atoms), PFAs have tremendous industrial application beyond cooking an omelet; famously, they were used in the uranium refining process in the United States to manufacture A-bombs. PFAs don’t occur naturally, either: unlike some contaminants that existed on Earth long before humans (e.g., lead and mercury), there were no polyfluoroalkyl substances on Earth prior to industrial civilization. It is a testament to global capitalism that virtually everyone in the developed world now has these contaminants coursing through their veins.
In the past two years, manufacturers have phased out the most lingering perfluorinated compounds from nonsticks — those are the PFOAs, which have a four-year half life to leave the bloodstream. In their stead, other shorter-chain perfluorinated chemicals have merely replaced them. However, there is no evidence these are safe; merely, the fact that they are less-tested means manufacturers can claim ignorance and keep selling their same products with slightly different chemicals.
“Thyroid affects, cancer concerns… this is definitely a chemical that should be phased out,” Dr. Tracey Woodruff, the director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco, told Salon. Woodruff explained that PFOAs are being “replaced with newer perfluorinated chemicals, shorter-chain ones… the industry says they’re okay, but there aren’t many studies on them yet. Some of these shorter ones may also be problematic.”
Woodruff described the way the chemical industries toy with these chemicals as akin to an unsanctioned, "Silent Spring"-esque experiment on humans. “We’re in another grand experiment with toxic chemicals, finding out which are bad,” she said. “They phase one out and then replace it with something not thoroughly tested. It’s a sad, never-ending loop the government should get in and break, but this administration will probably make it worse.”
Indeed, it has already: The New York Times reported in October 2017 that Nancy Beck, a Trump appointee in the Environmental Protection Agency, had revised the rules regarding PFOA to make it more difficult to track the health consequences of PFOA contamination — in effect, making it harder to regulate. Beck previously worked at the American Chemistry Council, effectively a lobbying group for the chemical industry. In other words, if you were looking to the federal government to help protect you, you’re looking in the wrong place.
In her research at UC San Francisco, Woodruff analyzes studies on perfluorinated chemicals and their health effects, particularly on pregnant women. “We have done a systematic review of the literature on prenatal exposure to PFOA, and believe that it can adversely increase the risk of lower-birth-weight babies,” she said. She explained that one of the most frightening things about PFOA is how it doesn’t degrade.
“Once the EPA started monitoring PFOA in drinking water, they it they found it everywhere. It doesn’t break down in the environment,” she told Salon.
Woodruff, who says she cooks frequently at home, was able to convey her own research into practical advice about how to mitigate risk in one’s own kitchen.
“When you use a [nonstick] pan, you shouldn’t heat it without putting anything in it,” Woodruff told Salon. “That will emit fumes.” Fumes are one way that perfluorinated chemicals get into human bodies, but birds are particularly susceptible. “There have been reports of people heating those Teflon pans without adequate ventilation, and the birds in their house dying,” Woodruff said. “When someone in the industry was asked about this, she said something like, ‘people should know better than to cook in an enclosed kitchen.’ Like, blaming the canary for being in the coal mine?”
It is well-documented that perfluorinated chemicals can kill birds. In 2010, during a thunderstorm off the coast of the Dutch-occupied Caribbean island of Bonaire, lightning struck several oil tanks, resulting in huge fires. Firefighters fought the fires for many days using foam sprays that contained perfluorinated chemicals, which served as foaming agents. Over a four-month span, the Bonaire population of Caribbean flamingos dropped from several thousand to zero. “For multiple years flamingos were not or only incidentally seen,” wrote scientists in an article in Marine Pollution Bulletin, an academic journal.
I asked Woodruff about my own in-home concerns, the visible chipping of black, plasticine material that one sees on old nonstick pans. Woodruff said her understanding was that the vapors were more dangerous than the chipped pieces. “The research isn’t very definitive,” she added. “The bigger scraped bits — they might just pass through your body, as opposed to the vapors.” Woodruff added that she “was not sure that anyone had thoroughly investigated this question of scratched surfaces.”
Woodruff explained that if you must use nonstick pans, always have oil or food in it. “Definitely don’t heat the pan without something in it,” she said.
Woodruff also mentioned that simple ways of avoiding perfluorinated chemicals were things that you should already be doing — like washing you hands before you eat, or forgoing higher trophic level foods for lower ones. “A lot of these chemicals stick to dust, and that’s how we’re exposed to them — they migrate into dust, sticky surfaces,” Woodruff said. She encouraged doing “small things like washing your hands before you eat, eating fruits and vegetables — things you should already be doing.” Woodruff added that she herself uses cast-iron or stainless steel pans, and that a little oil on those surfaces can achieve the same effect as a nonstick pan anyway.
It is problematic that basic knowledge about the proper use of nonstick pans is not more widespread. Indeed, the dark history of perfluorinated chemicals leads to a more political question, and one that implicates the chemical companies manufacturing these kinds of things: Where is the line between corporate responsibility and consumer responsibility? One cannot reasonably expect everyone using a nonstick pan — often which the consumer may not have bought themselves — to know not to heat it over a certain temperature. Are the chemical companies culpable in this regard?
“The industry response is that consumers should just have better training,” Woodruff said caustically. “Studies have shown that training/labeling programs [are] not efficacious. If you don’t want people to get sick you shouldn’t have [perfluorinated chemicals] in homes in the first place.”
How to avoid exposure to perfluorinated chemicals in your kitchen:
1. Avoid using Teflon or other similar nonstick pans, if you can. Cast-irons, enamel cast-irons and stainless steel pans are harmless, and function similarly to nonstick pans if you add enough oil. Titanium and titanium ceramic nonstick pans are different chemical formulations, generally free of perfluorinated compounds, though the titanium ceramic pans have not been well-studied.
2. If you must use Teflon or similar nonstick pans, do not heat them on the stove without something in them, whether oil or food.
3. Do not heat them higher than the manufacturer-specified temperature, and do not put them in the oven.
4. Wash your hands and wipe down surfaces to avoid dust contamination, which PFOAs stick to.
5. Keep your kitchen well-ventilated when you use these pans. If you have pet birds, do not keep their cages in the kitchen while you use these pans.
https://www.salon.com/2018/02/04/the-chemical-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-be-afraid-of-teflon-pans-you-should-be/
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Feb 3, 2018 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
A SMALL BUT vitally important program within the Environmental Protection Agency is in a fight for its life. The Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, is the only division of the EPA that independently assesses the toxicity of chemicals. IRIS supplies evaluations used by states, tribes, private developers, Superfund sites, and foreign countries, among others, and has long been a target of the companies whose profits can rise and fall based on its findings.
A meeting at the National Academy of Sciences on Thursday and Friday to review the program’s recent progress brought IRIS’s defenders together with its critics. Though the agenda focused on IRIS’s scientific process and whether the program has adequately incorporated guidance the academy gave it in 2014, questions about its survival permeated the meeting.
It’s not clear how IRIS might lose its ability to continue independently evaluating chemicals, but one possibility is that it would be folded into another division of the EPA, as the 2018 Senate Appropriations Billproposes. According to that plan, staff would be moved from the current division of the agency, which is primarily concerned with science, to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which deals with regulation.
The transfer from a scientific to a regulatory part of the agency would hobble the program, according to many familiar with its work. “Moving it would bias the risk assessments,” said Tracey Woodruff, director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco. “You should try to keep the science separate, then use the independent science for regulation.”
An arguably bigger cause for concern is the current leader of that regulatory office: Nancy Beck, who worked at the American Chemistry Council before joining the EPA and seems to have maintained her allegiance to industry.
Another possible threat to IRIS and the trustworthiness of government information on chemicals is that Beck and others could attempt an end-run around the program. The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the recently updated chemical law. Although some of the chemicals up for review under that law have already been evaluated by IRIS, it’s unclear whether Beck’s office will use those assessments, which have been subject to independent reviews, or use other studies to reach conclusions that are better received by industry.
“We are very concerned that this is a parallel process,” Jennifer Sass of the Natural Resources Defense Council warned at the meeting.
Fierce attacks on the little office within the EPA are nothing new. “Industry has been hating on IRIS for a long time,” said Woodruff, who worked as a senior scientist and policy adviser at the EPA under the Clinton and Bush administrations and said that hostility toward assessors within the agency is par for the course. “They are constantly being harassed by the chemical industry and told their science is bad because it doesn’t align with what they want their science to say.”
But the attacks on IRIS have reached a new level over the past year. The program that assesses the likelihood that various chemicals cause cancer and other diseases is “facing some of the most intense and sustained pressures in the history of this agency,” said Karl Brooks, a former EPA regional administrator who left the agency in 2016. “I have never seen this amount of pressure being dedicated to career scientists at the agency.”
While talk of budgets and political attacks swirled around them, IRIS staff remained focused on science. Kris Thayer, the director of IRIS, and Tina Bahadori, who directs the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, which includes IRIS, meticulously laid out the scientific processes involved in their evaluations — in front of an audience packed with representatives of industry and science-for-hire groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, the Naphthalene Council, Ramboll Environ, and Gradient.
Among the chemicals currently in the program’s sights are uranium, chloroform, ethylbenzene, and Bahadori and Thayer discussed plans to move ahead with evaluations of mercury, manganese, and PFAScompounds.
Though they have studied only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals in use, IRIS staff have also recently had to revisit one completed assessment. The chemical in question, chloroprene, has been polluting the air of a community in Louisiana for decades. Because of a 2010 IRIS evaluation of chloroprene, the people of St. John the Baptist, which is just across a fence from a factory that emits chloroprene, learned that they had by far the highest risk of cancer in the country from air pollution. In June, they sued both DuPont, which operated the plant starting in 1969, and Denka, which bought it in 2015.
The same month, Ramboll Environ, a scientific consulting company that has been paid by both companies, asked IRIS to review its evaluation of chloroprene. Ramboll Environ claimed that the evaluation was flawed and asked that IRIS “correct” it by changing its classification of the chemical from a “probable” to “suggestive” human carcinogen and by replacing the safety limit for chloroprene set by IRIS with one calculated by the industry scientists to be 156 times higher.
Last week, IRIS denied the request to tailor the evaluation of the chemical to its manufacturers’ liking. The EPA’s response, which Bahadori presented at the meeting, included a detailed explanation of the scientific evidence supporting their denial and a 36-page review of chloroprene studies that have come out since the initial evaluation.
The response ate up considerable staff time, Bahadori told The Intercept.
“We killed ourselves,” she said. “But it was our firm response that you can’t change the science just because you don’t like the answers.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/03/epa-iris-toxic-chemicals/
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US NGOs Urge EPA: Ban Five PBT Substances Immediately
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Environmental groups in the US have vehemently opposed an American Chemistry Council (ACC) suggestion that the EPA should update its criteria for identifying and evaluating "persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic" (PBT) substances before it completes mandated rapid risk management action on five such substances.
In August 2017, the EPA published preliminary information on exposure and use for each of the five PBT chemicals the agency had identified in 2016, and asked for additional data.
In public comments made in response, the groups argue that TSCA's mandate to reduce exposure to these substances "to the extent practicable" requires the EPA to ban their use entirely and take action to reduce exposure to "legacy" uses of the chemicals.
The NGOs also urged the agency to publish regulations requiring disclosure of all uses of the PBT substances rather than relying on the incomplete information currently available and voluntary submissions from industry.
The 2016 TSCA amendments require the EPA to take expedited action on certain PBTs by skipping risk evaluation and proceeding directly to regulation. Proposed risk management rules are due by 22 June 2019.
The agency said in October 2016 it would take action on:
· decaBDE, a flame retardant;
· hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used as a solvent and as a hydraulic, heat transfer or transformer fluid;
· pentachlorothiophenol (PCTP), used to make rubber more pliable;
· tris(4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate (IPTPP), used as a flame retardant in consumer products and as a lubricant and hydraulic fluid; and
· 2,4,6-tris(tert-butyl) phenol, an addition in fuels and lubricants.
The ACC argued in its comments that updating the "outdated" PBT criteria from the EPA's workplan, which were used to identify the five priority substances, is consistent with the "scientific requirements" of TSCA and the agency's regulations for implementing it.
But the NGOs said that the criteria are widely accepted and underpin many of the EPA's chemical evaluation activities.
"To now jettison the Congressionally-approved and internationally-accepted Workplan criteria would be not only irresponsible but a reckless reversal of EPA’s determination nearly a year ago that the five PBTs" being assessed meet those criteria, wrote Elizabeth Hitchcock, Acting Director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (SCHF).
Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the Center for Environmental Health, Earthjustice, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Toxic-Free Future also signed onto those comments.
Robert Stockman, senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said the agency should add to the PBT list Pigment Yellow 83, because it meets the law's criteria. He noted that two fragrance chemicals were excluded from rapid action because a manufacturer asked for risk evaluation. There is no evidence that the EPA has begun those evaluations.Exposure information
In their comments to the August consultation, NGOs argued that the information collected by the EPA thus far underestimates exposure and health risks.
While the EPA document notes that reported US production of decaBDE dropped dramatically between 2012 and 2015, multiple commenters cited studies showing continued presence of the substance in consumer products. For example, under Washington state’s disclosure law, the substance was reported 145 times between 2012 and 2017 in children's products.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63628/us-ngos-urge-epa-ban-five-pbt-substances-immediately
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BNSF Loses Bid to Keep Asbestos Claims in Federal Court
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
BNSF Railway must defend asbestos exposure claims in Montana state court because the managing agent for the railroad is a Montana resident.
The railroad failed to show that the managing agent, John Swing, was fraudulently named as a defendant in an effort to keep the case in state court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana said.
BNSF had earlier removed the case to federal court on grounds that no two parties share the same state of residence.
Since the railroad is a citizen of Texas and Delaware, BNSF argued, there is no federal diversity jurisdiction if Swing was fraudulently named.
The railroad argued that Swing can't be held personally liable for conduct occurring within the course and scope of his employment.
Rejecting that argument, the court said the complaint alleges negligence against Swing.
Plaintiff Gerrie Flores alleges that Swing failed to inquire, study, and evaluate the dust hazard, failed to take measures to prevent toxic dust from collecting upon and escaping from BNSF's property, and failed to warn Flores of the hazardous effects of the dust.
Judge Brian Morris issued the order.
McGarvey Heberling Sullivan & McGarvey, P.C. represents Flores. Knight Nicastro, LLC represents BNSF and Swing.
The case is Flores v. BNSF Ry., 2018 BL 34915, D. Mont., No. 17-CV-90, 2/1/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127754706&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127754706&jd=127754706
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EPA Revising Disaster Debris Guide As Industry Seeks PCB Disposal Flexibility
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The utility industry is urging EPA and the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to include in an updated agency natural disaster debris guidance a template showing how regional offices in times of natural disaster could ease cleanup requirements for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) remediation waste.
EPA's revisions to its 2008 "Planning for Natural Disaster Debris" guidance are currently undergoing interagency review, led by OMB, according to an EPA spokeswoman. Representatives of energy utilities met with OMB and EPA staff in December to offer their views on the update.
The 2008 guidance centers on preparing local communities and encouraging them to develop disaster debris management plans. It includes case studies on preparing and managing for such disasters, and provides federal, state and local resources to reference when making such plans.
Once interagency review is completed on the updated guidance, EPA will make the proposed guidance available for public comment, the EPA spokeswoman says.
Of particular interest to utilities is how PCB remediation waste will be handled in such planning, according to a utility industry source. The disposal of PCBs, which are no longer manufactured in the United States, is strictly regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Utilities have faced PCB disposal issues as the chemicals were used as coolants and lubricants in transformers and other electrical equipment, according to EPA.
In particular, the utility industry is citing an EPA Region 4 guidance -- put in place just prior to Hurricane Irma making landfall in 2017 -- which eased spill and waste cleanup requirements for the cleanup of PCB-containing debris stemming from the hurricane. Utility representatives met with EPA and OMB on Dec. 13 over revisions to the natural disaster planning guide, according to OMB's website.
Regional administrators also have issued this kind of guidance for other hurricanes to provide regulatory flexibility, giving utilities certainty and allowing them to focus on power restoration in the aftermath of a disaster, the utility industry source says.
The industry believes having a template like the Region 4 guidance inserted into the updated disaster debris guidance "would make sense," the source says. The template would be available to regional administrators to use in preparation for natural disasters, according to the source.
While the 2008 disaster debris guidance references PCB waste, it does not speak to addressing this issue, the source says.
Region 4 Guidance
The Region 4 guidance for Hurricane Irma, signed Sept. 8 by Region 4 Resource Conservation and Restoration Division Director G. Alan Farmer, eased both waste disposal and time requirements for PCB remediation waste. The memo defines PCB remediation waste as "wastes containing PCBs as a result of spills, releases, or other unauthorized disposals, with specified limitations on PCB concentrations and disposal dates." These wastes include PCB-contaminated soil and gravel, buildings and other man-made structures such as wood and concrete floors and walls contaminated by leaking transformers, it says.
The guidance, developed in collaboration with EPA headquarters' Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, eases requirements under both an enforcement policy known as the Spill Cleanup Policy under 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 761, subpart G, and under PCB remediation waste cleanup and disposal requirements under 40 CFR section 761.61.
The Spill Cleanup Policy -- applied to recent spills of liquid PCBs exceeding 50 parts per million -- determines cleanup and disposal obligations based on the concentration of PCBs in the source material, rather than in the material onto which the PCBs were spilled. But the Region 4 guide eases that requirement, allowing for using as-found concentrations on the material onto which the release occurred.
The guide says there is flexibility in the regulations governing the Spill Cleanup Policy "based on the exceptional spill situations anticipated to be caused by Hurricane Irma, namely, the impracticability of cleanup based on source concentration when it is not possible to locate the source of the spill at a site or otherwise readily determine the source's PCB concentration." In addition, the guide notes responders in the aftermath of the hurricane need to quickly mitigate exposures and risks from PCB spills, and if cleanup is delayed in order to identify the PCB concentration of the source of a spill, such risks and exposures could rise.
The Region 4 guide also allowed flexibility in allowing cleanups to occur beyond the 24-48 hour time limits that otherwise apply under the spill policy. Typically, responsible parties must respond within that time period after being notified or becoming aware of a spill. The guidance lifted that requirement for Hurricane Irma responses.
The guide also notes that under the other set of requirements -- the PCB remediation waste cleanup requirements -- responsible parties can take emergency measures to mitigate PCB waste migration that would otherwise not fully be in compliance with a 30-day advance requirement for notifications conducted under this regulation.
EPA's revisions to its 2008 guidance follow a 2016 Inspector General report that criticized the agency for not ensuring its regions know where different types of debris from natural disasters can be disposed and for not knowing whether states are prepared for disaster debris.
The agency agreed to establish procedures for its regions to obtain available information from the Army Corps of Engineers for the types, volumes and disposal sites for disaster debris in future disasters. And it agreed to work to incorporate EPA guidance into Federal Emergency Management Agency guidance and training for states, and to collaborate with a state group to encourage states' adoption of elements of the EPA guidance.
The revisions EPA is now making to the 2008 guidance also come as senators on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee recently put the spotlight on how well EPA is prepared to protect Superfund sites from the impacts of natural disasters. A Dec. 6 hearing by the EPW Committee highlighted challenges facing waste cleanups in the wake of natural disasters. In addition, the Government Accountability Office, at the request of EPW Democrats, recently agreed to investigate how well the agency is prepared to protect Superfund sites from natural disaster impacts caused by climate change.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-revising-disaster-debris-guide-industry-seeks-pcb-disposal-flexibility
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It’s Groundhog Day Again. Will Retailers Get It Right?
Feb 5, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
Have you seen the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray’s fictional weatherman Phil Connors keeps reliving the same day over and over again until he gets it right. At first, he’s frustrated. But then he starts becoming a better person and eventually he gets Groundhog Day right—and is released from his time loop.
Sometimes we feel like we’re stuck in a time loop with some of the retailers we’re asking to ditch toxic products through the Mind the Store campaign. Some of them have listened to consumers and are right on track. Companies like Target, CVS and Walmart scored top ranks in our annual retailer report card ranking company actions on toxic chemicals. But some others have been hearing from us for years and still haven’t gotten it right. We think this should be the year that companies like Babies “R” Us, Lowe’s and Kroger evolve like Bill Murray’s character and tackle toxic chemicals on store shelves.
Will you tell the retailers who got D’s and F’s on the annual report card ranking retailers on toxic chemicals to ditch toxic products?
Now more than ever, we need companies to step up and tackle toxic chemicals. Cancer cases and infertility rates are soaring—and scientists agree that exposure to toxic chemicals from various sources can contribute. Plus, chemical industry insiders are running the EPA’s chemical safety office and they aren’t doing enough to regulate potentially dangerous chemicals.
We’re calling on the stores where we shop to take the lead on making sure the products they sell us are safe. But we need your help to make sure that they get out of their toxic time loop and get this right!
http://saferchemicals.org/2018/02/02/its-groundhog-day-again-will-retailers-get-it-right/
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Rigor and Transparency as an Antidote to Politicization at EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System
Feb 5, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
A National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study committee charged with reviewing advances made to the EPA’s National Center for Environment Assessment and its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program met at the NAS headquarters in DC this week. Over a day and a half, IRIS presented the full slate of activities that the program has been engaging in to modernize and improve the ways that the program is completing its hazard assessment and dose response evaluations.
IRIS assessments on environmental contaminants represent the gold standard for chemical toxicity reviews at the federal, state, and local level, and even internationally. These reviews provide a science basis for many of the standards set by U.S. environmental statues, including the Clean Air Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) also known as Superfund, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and the Safe Water Drinking Act. IRIS is crucial in helping the agency meet its mission to protect human health and the environment. However, because of this program’s critical role in standard setting for federal and state policy, it is often targeted by industry for criticism and even calls to alter its mission or strike the program altogether.
During Thursday’s meeting, IRIS staff expressed concerns about the ability for IRIS to do the work at timelines expected due to staff attrition (now down to just 30 staffers) and lack of funding for external contractors to help with its workload, all while trying to meet Administrator Pruitt’s priority for increased efficiency. Over the course of four information sessions and a poster session, IRIS staff systematically addressed the ways in which the program has made targeted improvements to its processes as NAS recommended in its last review of the program in 2014. Layers upon layers of internal and external peer review and public engagement have been built into the review process using new tools and state-of-the-art methods.
The NAS meeting offered opportunities for public comment at several points throughout the meeting, and there were a series of comments communicating the value that this program offers, from a nonprofit organization that relies on IRIS assessments as it works to remediate superfund sites in New Jersey, to the plight of La Place, Louisiana community members living near a facility emitting chloroprene, a likely carcinogen as determined by IRIS. We cannot afford to have the work of this program diminished or politicized in any way.
My comment in support of the independence and integrity of the IRIS office is below.
Good afternoon, I would like to thank this National Academies study committee for the opportunity to provide this comment today. My name is Genna Reed. I am the science and policy analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The Center for Science and Democracy at UCS advocates for improved transparency and integrity in our democratic institutions, especially those making science-based public policy decisions.
The EPA IRIS program provides a critical scientific service to the public, offering a public searchable database with scientific analyses that inform the decisions that protect us from environmental contaminants.[1] This office is not just important for federal policymaking, but IRIS assessments and associated toxicity values are used by state environmental and public health agencies, as well as community groups, to assess local risks from facilities producing chemicals across the country. This incredibly valuable program must be preserved and protected to conduct its scientific work without political interference. The EPA’s authority to determine the risks posed by hazardous chemicals should not be compromised by interference from other federal agencies or industry stakeholders with vested interests in decision outcomes.
This office has been targeted for political interference in the past. A 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found several examples of interference from EPA political appointees, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), or other agencies to delay or weaken IRIS assessments, including decade-long review processes for naphthalene, formaldehyde, and RDX.[2] A fall 2017 hearing held by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology about the integrity of IRIS failed to invite any IRIS staff to talk about the progress of the office.[3] This year, there have even been attempts to defund the program through the appropriations process.[4] Time and time again, the chemical industry has targeted IRIS because new assessments may lead to more stringent standards set based on the best available science on a chemical. Now there is the potential for the IRIS program to move under the jurisdiction of the TSCA program, which would limit the ability of the office to develop risk assessments for a range of industrial chemicals, instead forcing focus solely on those under TSCA’s authority.[5]
IRIS assessments and their staff provide institutional knowledge and assistance not only to risk assessors within the EPA and its regional offices, but also to public health practitioners in state and local governments. It is critical that the career staff scientists that comprise the IRIS office are supported so that they can continue to be a resource for individuals making regulatory decisions about these chemicals. This will allow for federal, state, and local decisions to be based on the best available science, using best methods for systematically evaluating that science. IRIS must continue to be housed in the Office of Research and Development as opposed to the policy office at the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention because IRIS represents a scientific database that should be prepared by scientific experts. There is not room for political considerations in the work that IRIS staff do. The EPA’s scientific integrity policy explicitly protects the agency’s scientists and their work from political interference or personal motivations,[6] thus NAS should consider what a potential restructuring of the program would mean for its ability to conduct scientific work free from interference.
NAS has acknowledged some of IRIS’ challenges in the past, including room for improvement in transparency in communicating risks and decision points to the public and standardizing assessments, updating methodologies, and regularly training employees. Its most recent report in 2014 found that IRIS had made impressive strides toward implementing their previous recommendations.[7] The EPA Science Advisory Board found similar results after reviewing IRIS progress. In a September 2017 letter from the chair of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB), the Board commended the agency for its swift improvements to the IRIS program.[8]
At a time when the agency’s staff is shrinking[9] and science advisors are being underutilized,[10]the EPA needs its robust scientific staff to continue the work that has sustained stringent standards at the federal level and beyond. The healthy functioning of the IRIS program will ensure that we continue to have the data to set health-protective limits for hazardous chemicals and ensure public trust that the EPA has our best interests in mind.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/rigor-and-transparency-as-an-antidote-to-politicization-at-epas-integrated-risk-information-system
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Lawmakers To Debate Cutting Cancer Funding Over Glyphosate
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow is likely to consider whether Congress should cut off millions of dollars of U.S. funding for an international cancer agency.
The potential move was prompted by a controversial 2015 determination that the widely used herbicide glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic."
The finding by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer has been questioned by Monsanto Co., which uses glyphosate in its popular Roundup weed killers, as well as many Republican lawmakers (E&E News PM, March 24, 2015).
The science committee, in particular, has been dogged in its second guessing of IARC's work. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who leads the Environment Subcommittee, have signed onto several letters to top officials at WHO, the Department Health and Human Services, and U.S. EPA asking about their potential roles in the glyphosate decision.
Late last year, Smith, Biggs and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), the vice chairman of the full committee, went so far as to threaten to withdraw American support for IARC. The international body has received more than $48 million from the U.S. since 1985, $22 million of which has gone to its Monograph Programme.
The science committee leaders' warning was part of an attempt to secure a witness from IARC for Tuesday's hearing. It appears those efforts were unsuccessful (Greenwire, Dec. 8, 2017).
Instead, lawmakers will hear from a top staffer in EPA's pesticide office, a former scientist at pesticide maker Syngenta AG who now has his own science communications firm, a conservation group expert and a retiree who previously worked at the National Cancer Institute.
Witnesses are likely to compare IARC's carcinogenic conclusion on glyphosate with the risk-free determination EPA reached last year for Roundup when it is "used according to the pesticide label," the agency said (Greenwire, Dec. 19, 2017).
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 10 a.m. in 2318 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Anna Lowit, senior science adviser in EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs; Timothy Pastoor, CEO of Pastoor Science Communications LLC; Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Robert Tarone, a retired mathematical statistician at the National Cancer Institute and the former biostatistics director for the International Epidemiology Institute.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/02/05/stories/1060072817
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UK Law Body Backs Post-Brexit Echa Participation
Feb 5, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK Environmental Law Association says it would be "highly beneficial" from both "an environmental and a practical perspective" for the UK to retain participation in Echa.
The UKELA is a body of 1,400 environmental law professionals in the UK. Its recent report Brexit and Environmental Law – the UK and European Cooperation Bodies, explores the benefits to the country of continued participation in the agency, and the ramifications of no involvement.
It names membership of Echa as a high Brexit priority.
If the UK leaves Echa, it says, the country would need to set up a national agency, agree equivalency rules and mutual recognition and work out procedures to resolve differences.
Continued involvement would help keep the UK aligned with and abreast of constantly evolving EU regulatory development – notably REACH – it says.
Membership would not be possible, it says, without amending underpinning legislation. However, involvement with Echa can be achieved and, alternatively, a cooperation agreement may be possible. In both cases it is unclear to what extent the UK would have to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, it says.
In December, Steve Baker, a junior minister in the UK’s Department for Exiting the European Union, told MPs that current EU chemicals law, including REACH, will be incorporated into UK law.
A couple of months earlier, a Brexit risk tracker organised by a coalition of environmental NGOs said the UK chemical industry is at a "high level" of risk from the country's departure from the European Union.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63639/uk-law-body-backs-post-brexit-echa-participation
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Alert As Oestrogen-Mimicking BPA Found In Teens
Feb 5, 2018 | The Times
By Jonathan Leake
For Britain’s teenagers, plastic pollution could be about to get personal.
Scientists found more than 80% of teenagers have hormone-disrupting contaminants from the plastics industry in their blood and urine, according to a study of 94 young people.
The chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), can mimic oestrogen, a female sex hormone, with some research linking it to reduced fertility in men.
BPA is used to make polycarbonate, one of the most common plastics, whose uses include food packaging and bottles. The plastic industry says it is safe.
However, when scientists at Exeter University tested the 94 students aged 17-19, they found the chemical in almost all of them.
“Measurable levels of BPA were present in the vast majority of our participants,” said Tamara Galloway, professor of ecotoxicology at Exeter, who co-led the study. “There is growing evidence that exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals may be associated with adverse health outcomes.”
After the initial tests the subjects were asked to switch diet, avoiding anything packaged in plastic, including fresh fruit and vegetables, ready-meals and tinned food, to see if that would reduce the levels in their body.
Galloway found that BPA levels fell in those teenagers who had the highest initial levels but overall there was little reduction, probably because the chemical is found in so many foods that they were exposed to some BPA whatever they ate.
The British Plastics Federation, the main industry body, said it accepted that BPA could get into people’s blood and urine but the levels were so low as to pose no risk. Matt Davies, a spokesman, said: “We support the conclusions of the European Food Safety Agency that at current exposure levels, plastics containing BPA pose no consumer health risks.”
Some scientists disagree, pointing to studies showing how BPA is linked to changes in sex hormone levels and can also affect the working of some genes. A 2014 study called it a “testicular toxicant” while another linked BPA with decreased sperm counts.
Lorna Harries, professor in molecular genetics at Exeter, who worked with Galloway, said consumers should not be exposed to such chemicals. “BPA is a pervasive endocrine disruptor and most people are exposed on a daily basis. We should have a choice over what we put into our bodies.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alert-as-oestrogen-mimicking-bpa-found-in-teens-ch82zvjz7
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Next-wave LNG Terminals Get Smaller To Offer Flexible Supply Deals
Feb 5, 2018 | Reuters
By Julie Gordon
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - The liquefied natural gas market is growing every year, but the terminals that ship and receive the fuel are shrinking.
The booming sector’s next-generation infrastructure is being designed for a emerging-market buyers that want smaller volumes on shorter, more flexible contracts.
LNG export terminals, where the gas is liquefied and put on vessels for shipping, have traditionally been massive, custom-built facilities that cost tens of billions of dollars. And so to justify the investment, they have typically required equally massive, long-term supply deals, often lasting a decade or more.
Numerous terminal projects on the horizon, by contrast, are new modular-style designs built to snap together like Legos, allowing for small to mid-scale liquefaction or regasification plants that can be expanded if and when demand grows.
The first next-generation liquefaction plant is under construction in the U.S. state of Georgia and is expected to begin operating mid-year.
These facilities, with far smaller liquefaction units - known as trains - are “more consistent with market conditions,” said John Baguley, chief operating officer of Australia-based LNG Ltd, which has proposed mid-scale LNG plants in the United States and Canada.
The new designs reflect a maturing market with a more diverse base of customers that will drive future growth.
In 2008, the average contract was for 18 years and more than 2 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). By 2016, it had dropped to less than eight years and less than 1 Mtpa, with new buyers in emerging markets like China, India and Pakistan seeking flexibility due to market uncertainty.
These new buyers are fueling small utilities and industrial users such as fertilizer plants and factories, said Alfred Moujaes, Houston President for Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company. The firm is building small, modular plants for LNG buyers, who need to convert the liquefied fuel back to a gas form after shipping.
Typically, such markets will be small at first, but the hope is that demand will grow as additional customers convert to LNG, Moujaes said. The modular plants allow terminals to grow with the market.
Demand for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, has taken off in recent years as it is a cleaner fuel than oil or coal, and abundant supply has driven its price sharply lower.
Overall global consumption of LNG rose to 33.1 billion cubic feet per day in 2016, about 10 percent of total natural gas usage; it is expected to grow by 75 percent by 2027, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The United States, with its abundant supply of pipeline gas and well-developed energy hubs such as the U.S. Gulf Coast, is emerging as a dominant global producer.
U.S. export capacity has shot up from less than 2 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) in 2015 to 18 Mtpa in 2017, and is projected to top 77 Mtpa by 2022, transforming the United States into the world’s No. 2 exporter behind Australia.
In 2005, just 15 countries imported LNG; now there are 39, with another eight expected to hit the market by 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.TINY TRAINS
The new style of North American liquefaction projects will be built in Asia before being shipped to the United States for assembly. At the heart of these new terminals are modular trains which produce just a fraction of the LNG of a traditional train.
LNG Ltd has proposed four 2-Mtpa trains at its Magnolia project in Louisiana, while Tellurian Inc is planning up to 20 1.38-Mtpa trains at its Driftwood project, also in Louisiana.
That compares to Cheniere Energy’s four 4.5-Mtpa trains now operating at its 18-Mtpa terminal in Sabine Pass.
With modular trains, companies hope to avoid the delays and cost overruns that have dogged custom mega-projects like Chevron Corp’s Wheatstone and Gorgon projects in Australia.
Another large terminal, Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG project in Louisiana with three 4.5-Mtpa trains, has been delayed to 2019 after originally targeting a launch this year.
While modular designs allow more flexibility, some experts question whether they will ultimately cost less to build and be as easy to expand as promised, noting the technology is unproven.
“The issue that everybody is wrestling with is, does that really save you money?” said Jason Feer, head of business intelligence at shipbroker Poten and Partners.
The first such facility in the U.S. will provide a test case. The $2 billion Elba Island project, being built in Georgia’s Chatham County by Kinder Morgan, will have 10 trains and export capacity of just 2.5 Mtpa.
The technology is attractive enough that Cheniere has proposed a cluster of seven 1.36-Mtpa trains for a project being constructed in Corpus Christi, Texas, in addition to other, much larger liquefaction units.
Michael Wortley, Cheniere’s CFO, said in an interview that the company still believes traditional large-train designs work well. But it wanted to explore smaller-train technology, he said, to make sure “we weren’t missing anything.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lng-companies-technology/next-wave-lng-terminals-get-smaller-to-offer-flexible-supply-deals-idUSKBN1FP0IP
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Trump Move May Slash $381 Million in Energy Efficiency Contracts
Feb 5, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Levinson
The Trump administration may propose a cut of more than 70 percent to the Department of Energy's Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) budget in its fiscal 2019 request. That could reduce contracts issued by the office by about $381 million, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis.
President Donald Trump will propose an EERE budget of $575.1 billion in his request, due to be released Feb. 12, down from the $2.1 billion the office received in fiscal 2017, according to a Washington Post report.
EERE spent about $526 million on contract obligations in fiscal 2017, and 25 percent of its annual budget is spent on contracts. If the budget cuts are reflected in contracting, obligations could fall to about $145 million in fiscal 2019 from the fiscal 2017 level of $526 million.
A cut of this magnitude could reduce or eliminate awards to the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, which has a contract to operate the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with administrative offices and laboratories in Golden, Colorado.
In fiscal 2017, the Alliance for Sustainable Energy received about $403 million to operate the facility, an amount representing more than three quarters of all EERE contract obligations.
Other companies with more than $10 million in contracts with EERE include Allegheny Technology Corp., Navigant Consulting Inc., Catalyst Services LLC, Iowa State University of Science & Technology, and Clean Energy Communications, a joint venture.
In the budget request for fiscal 2018, Trump proposed a large reduction for EERE, to $636 millionfrom $2.1 billion. A final budget for fiscal 2018 has not been enacted, so agencies are still spending at an annualized 2017 rate under the current continuing resolution, which expires on Feb. 8.
It's possible that the final cuts to EERE may not be as large as the Trump administration seeks. The proposed cuts in fiscal 2018 are part of the administration's goal of offsetting a proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending with cuts to nondefense programs. When the final 2018 budget is agreed upon, defense is likely to receive more money. To gain support from Democrats in Congress, however, civilian agency budgets may not be cut as deeply to offset the defense increase.
(Robert Levinson is a senior defense analyst with Bloomberg Government.)
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=127754692&vname=dennotallissues&fn=127754692&jd=127754692
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Exxon Mobil Projects Falling Oil Demand To Meet Paris Climate Accord
Feb 2, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil said it expects global oil demand to fall by 0.4 percent a year by 2040 to help meet the Paris climate accord's goals.
Exxon Mobil released the "Energy & Carbon Summary" report Friday afternoon after years of pressure from environmentalists and investors finally resulted in a shareholder vote last year for the non-binding annual climate report.
Exxon Mobil is predicting that renewables and natural gas will play larger roles to meet rising global energy demand, while crude oil and coal consumption will fall.
The Paris accord, which the U.S. is pulling out of under President Trump, aims to keep global temperatures from rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2100.
To meet such goals, Exxon Mobil projects global oil demand to fall from 98 million barrels a day now down to 78 million barrels - a major drop from current consumption. Cleaner-burning natural gas demand would grow by 0.9 percent a year, Exxon said.
However, in reality, global oil demand remains on the rise and natural gas consumption is growing closer to 1.5 percent a year, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Exxon Mobil said coal usage would have to fall by a much larger 2.4 percent a year, and renewable energy - led by wind and solar - would grow 4.5 percent annually.
"Our job is to supply the energy the world needs in an environmentally responsible way," said Darren Woods, Exxon Mobil chairman and CEO. "It's a dual challenge – we need to meet society's growing need for energy while addressing the risks of climate change. We are committed to being part of the solution by investing in new technologies that can provide economic solutions on a globally scalable basis."
He said Exxon Mobil is investing big in biofuels and other cleaner alternatives.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Exxon-Mobil-projects-falling-oil-demand-to-meet-12547724.php
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Texas Oil Companies Tell Trump To Leave NAFTA Alone
Feb 2, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
One of President Donald Trump's favorite subjects for praise - the Texas oil industry - is urging him to back off his hard-line stance on the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which represents oil companies across Texas, passed a resolution this week urging Trump not to raise tariffs on Mexico and Canada, so as "to foster the expansion of unfettered energy trade and investment."
"NAFTA is important to Texas, and if renegotiated, its impact on our markets for oil and gas needs to remain positive and profitable," Bob Osborne, chairman of the energy alliance, said.
The energy alliance is also asking Trump to keep NAFTA as is should negotiations break down and not to seek a resolution putting an expiration date on the pact.
The plea comes as talks continue to renegotiate the more than two-decade old trade pact, which lifted tariffs on goods moving between the three nations. Last month, Canadian officials, along with some U.S. congressmen, expressed concern Trump would pull the United States from NAFTA.
But following talks in Montreal last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he didn't believe Trump would pull out because of the potential damage to U.S. workers.
"I'm confident that the president is going to see that and choose to not terminate because it's not in his or Americans' best interests to walk away from NAFTA," he said.
The stakes are especially high for oil and gas companies operating in Texas, which have watched gas exports to Mexico increase more than five-fold since 2010, according to the energy alliance.
At the same time, refineries along the Gulf Coast rely on a steady stream of crude from Western Canada.
"The heavier grades of crude oil imported to the U.S. from Canada are a necessary part of the U.S. oil supply mix," said John Tintera, president of the energy alliance. "Many U.S. refineries were built to handle those grades, and require heavy crude to make several vital consumer products."
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Texas-oil-companies-tell-Trump-to-leave-NAFTA-12543303.php
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Reform Increases Prospect of Cracker
Feb 5, 2018 | The Wheeling Intelligencer
Many area residents have had their fingers crossed for so many months that we wonder whether there is a possibility of permanent damage to their hands.
Just kidding, but you probably know where we’re headed: the ethane cracker plant.
Prospects for PTT Global Chemical to build the plant in eastern Belmont County have appeared excellent for a long time. That is the trouble, however. Many in East Ohio and the Northern Panhandle have become so accustomed to economic development disappointments that lack of a final decision on the cracker has caused concern.
Not to worry, Ohio Gov. John Kasich is assuring us. During a press event last week, he emphasized, “You just have to wait. These things are complicated.”
Kasich added he is working to ensure PTT comes to Ohio. “I’ve been on the phone with these folks. What I tell them is, ‘Decide. Not being in the U.S. is crazy.”
Precisely.
For several reasons, including our region’s abundant supply of cheap natural gas, Belmont County makes sense as a cracker plant site. But during the past several weeks, events have made the decision even easier.
Tax and regulatory reform under President Donald Trump’s administration have made the United States more attractive for economic development than has been the case for decades. The bottom line is that a cracker plant here should be cheaper to build and operate — and more profitable — than PTT officials expected when they began considering the facility.
So yes, please: Make a decision. Area residents now have more reason to believe it will be what we have been hoping for.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/opinion/editorials/2018/02/reform-increases-prospect-of-cracker/
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Trump’s Deceptive Energy Policy
Feb 4, 2018 | The New York Times
By Editorial Board
“We have ended the war on American energy,” President Trump boasted in his State of the Union address, “and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.”
Those two sentences were about all Mr. Trump devoted to his energy policy in his message. Brief as they were, they encapsulated nearly everything that is shallow, dishonest and just plain wrong with that policy, as well as his approach to environmental issues generally.
Here’s what’s deceptive: There has been no war on energy. American oil, gas and renewables like wind and solar flourished under President Obama. Coal was the exception, but Mr. Obama was not its enemy; the market was. “Beautiful, clean coal,” meanwhile, remains a mirage, at least for now; the affordable technology isn’t there. And the United States has always exported energy. In recent years — the Obama years — the amount of energy the country has sent abroad has begun to catch up with the energy it brings in.
Mr. Trump’s false narrative on coal is particularly cruel, since it offers empty promises to Appalachian coal miners who are suffering grievous job losses and myriad health and economic ills. It’s true that the last two Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama — cracked down on power plant emissions like soot and mercury with rules that imposed real costs on producers; and Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, aimed at cutting the carbon emissions that fuel global warming, would have pressured the industry more.
But these regulations did not kill coal-fired plants, and rolling them back, as Mr. Trump is doing, will not stop the unforgiving forces of the market, chiefly the switch to cheaper natural gas, and renewables’ increasing competitiveness. These are the forces that have been largely responsible for the decline in mining jobs and the closing, or conversion to natural gas, of hundreds of coal-fired plants.
What miners need are real programs to help transition them to new jobs, not promises of “beautiful, clean coal.” That, incidentally, is not a new promise. Clean coal technology involves turning coal into a gas, then stripping out the carbon dioxide and burying it so it cannot pollute the atmosphere. Many environmental groups (and this board) hoped it would work. It hasn’t. In 2015, the Obama administration finally pulled the plug on a clean coal experiment called FutureGen; then the Southern Company gave up on a clean coal venture in Mississippi after spending billions of dollars.Continue reading the main story
America’s leverage in world markets has indeed improved, due largely to a spectacular surge in domestic oil and gas production from big shale deposits in Texas and North Dakota. Domestic production recently hit 10 million barrels of crude oil a day, a figure not seen since 1970. Oil imports have steadily dropped. This has helped change the old dynamic in which the United States was forced to rely too heavily on unstable parts of the world for its oil supply.
All this production, however, has a dark side, rarely mentioned in the huzzahs about the 10-million-barrel milestone: the continued carbon-loading of the atmosphere as global temperatures rise, as one extreme weather event follows another, as almost all mainstream scientists say that to avoid a climate catastrophe, the world must leave a big chunk of its fossil fuels in the ground and spend heavily on more benign forms of energy. That is one reason Mr. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, did not approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s oil sands.
Such concerns are nowhere to be found in the playbook of a man who says that climate change is a hoax. Hence, full speed ahead, at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, with Mr. Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda, and with the overturning of rules that seek to balance conservation and commercial exploitation, and the opening up of nearly all of America’s offshore waters to drilling — whatever the risk, and however small the need.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/opinion/trump-energy-policy.html
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Panel Aims To Include Power Projects In Infrastructure Push
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
With President Trump's infrastructure package set to be released soon, Senate lawmakers are trying to ensure that energy projects are part of the equation.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is holding a hearing this week on energy infrastructure, which according to the committee will touch on a wide range of topics including the electric grid, oil and gas drilling, cybersecurity, energy efficiency and pipelines.
The energy-focused senators are not the only ones hoping to be part of the $1.5 trillion plan, for which few details have been released.
But a leaked draft of Trump's infrastructure plan suggested that it could give lawmakers plenty to mull over when it comes to energy. The plan has several measures that would change different pipeline permitting laws and change provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Senate committee did not provide other details or a list of witnesses for the hearing in time for publication.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, Feb. 8, at 10 a.m. in 366 Dirksen.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/02/05/stories/1060072825
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Unions Fault Industry Call For EPA To Defer To OSHA Worker Protections
Feb 5, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Labor unions are urging EPA to reject a chemical sector call to defer regulation of new chemicals' risks to workers to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), arguing that the plan would violate the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and that OSHA lacks resources and authority to adequately protect workers.
“This is a shameless attempt by industry to leave workers unprotected from chemical hazards by advocating for an environment where federal regulation and enforcement of worker safety is impossible,” the United Steelworkers (USW) say in Jan. 19 comments on EPA's framework for evaluating risks of new chemicals under the revised toxics law. EPA is the lead agency for implementing the law's various rulemaking requirements.
“While OSHA does indeed have primary responsibility for regulating exposures in the workplace, TSCA is a gap-filling statute and Congress explicitly required that EPA consider worker exposures,” USW says. “OSHA has no ability to do EPA’s job in regulation or enforcement.”
The AFL-CIO, in separate Jan. 20 comments, calls the chemical sector's suggested approach “illegal” and based on “an incorrect interpretation of OSHA’s and EPA’s authorities.” The revised TSCA “specifically mandated EPA to evaluate and control exposures to protect workers as a subpopulation,” the union adds. The new law “has only given EPA more authority over workplace exposures, not less.”
The unions submitted the comments ahead of EPA's Jan. 20 deadline for input on a “New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework” that the agency is currently implementing and plans to further revise. The revised TSCA identifies workers as a potentially exposed or susceptible population, and requires that EPA consult with OSHA prior to issuing certain restrictions on new chemicals.
A coalition of 20 chemical companies in a Dec. 1 letter and issue paper submitted to EPA urged that agency to craft a process for consulting with OSHA under the revised TSCA, arguing that OSHA rules adequately protect workers in most cases, making EPA restrictions unnecessary.
In the request, the industry TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC) acknowledged that EPA has long sought to address new chemicals' risks to workers but called that approach “mistaken,” arguing it encroaches on OSHA's authority for ensuring safe workplaces.
“[I]t is clear that EPA is required to evaluate the adequacy of the existing OSHA regulatory scheme, including the General Duty clause, and to adopt additional restrictions or prohibitions only when they are needed to protect against unreasonable risk,” the industry white paper said.
“Given the robust nature of the existing OSHA regulatory program, the proper role for EPA should be to provide hazard identification and risk assessment information that OSHA and affected employers can utilize in selecting appropriate [personal protective equipment (PPE)], including respiratory protection measures."
Unions' Criticisms
But the labor unions argue that OSHA regulations are outdated and inadequate to protect workers and that the agency also lacks resources for enforcement.
USW says that since 1970, OSHA has issued few comprehensive standards protecting workers from chemical exposures, and that 400 OSHA chemical exposure limits are based on science from the 1960s or earlier.
While the industry coalition cited the Occupational Safety and Health Act's general duty clause, requiring a safe workplace, and OSHA's respiratory protection standard as already protecting workers, the unions contend those are either difficult to enforce or inadequate.
For example, USW argues that OSHA faces a heavy burden in enforcing the general duty clause, which requires that industry generally recognize that a chemical poses risks to workers. Such a showing is virtually impossible for new chemicals, given limited data on health and safety risks.
“A quick search of OSHA’s public citation database show two commonalities in the few general duty clause citations for chemical exposures: (1) they occur when a worker presents clinical effects of exposure, usually acute, and (2) the citations are for harmful exposures to well-studied chemicals or classes of chemicals,” USW says.
“NCC’s argument that OSHA citations under the general duty clause are an effective method of protecting workers from the hazards of new chemicals is laughable.”
Both unions also back environmentalists' opposition to EPA's plan to drop use of enforceable orders, under TSCA section 5(e), under which manufacturers agree to limit chemicals' uses as an interim step before finalizing significant new use rules. Advocates have argued that TSCA mandates use of such orders to ensure that the new chemical uses EPA allows do not pose unreasonable risks or inadvertently allow other uses that may pose risks.
“Where a new chemical poses an unreasonable risk to workers, EPA must act to impose and codify worker protections when the new chemical is introduced into commerce,” AFL-CIO says, adding that such orders are long-standing EPA practice under TSCA. “Unions are all well-experienced in the fact that chemicals often are used, not as they are intended to be, but as a practice of off-label use.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/unions-fault-industry-call-epa-defer-osha-worker-protections
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EPA, States, Others File Final Briefs In Suit Over RMP Rule Delay
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
Ahead of oral argument in March, EPA, environmental groups, as well as states and the chemical industry have filed final briefs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's nearly two-year delay of an Obama-era facility safety rule with the parties sparring over EPA's authority to delay the rule and environmentalists' standing to sue.
“EPA acted well within its authority under the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) to adopt the Delay Rule, and its action was eminently reasonable and thus not arbitrary and capricious,” a coalition of 12 Republican-led states, including Louisiana, Arizona, Arkansas and Kentucky say in a Jan. 31 filing supporting the delay rule.
The state intervenors argue that “the information disclosure requirements in the Amendments threaten the security of covered facilities; and that the Amendments create duplicative burdens for state and local emergency response organizations, given that they overlap with existing requirements under state and federal law.”
Environmental groups and 11 Democratic-led states, along with labor union intervenors, however are challenging EPA's delay from June 19, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2019, of the effective date of an Obama EPA rule updating the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention rule.
The update rule brings new requirements for independent audits, hazard analysis and disclosure of facility data.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt delayed the rule to allow the Trump administration time to revise the regulation after it accepted an industry petition for reconsideration. Pruitt has claimed broad authority under section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act to set effective dates after following notice-and-comment procedures.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled March 16 oral argument in Washington, DC, in the case, Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and E. Scott Pruitt.
In the recently filed briefs, environmental groups and the Democratic-led states argue that the Clean Air Act limits delays for purposes of reconsideration to three months. They also contend that EPA has failed to justify the delay that conflicts with the agency's past findings that greater protections from facility disasters are needed.
EPA, in its Jan. 31 filing, claims broad Clean Air Act authority for setting effective dates after notice-and-comment. The agency says petitioners have failed to show the delay will harm their interests and so lack standing to sue.
“EPA had ample authority to modify the effective date of the Amendments pursuant to CAA section 7412(r)(7)(A) and (B),” the agency says. “Those are the same provisions that authorized EPA to set the original effective date for the Amendments -- and EPA followed the same notice-and-comment procedures to modify the effective date as used to first promulgate it.”
Industry intervenors back EPA in a Jan. 31 brief arguing that environmentalists will not be harmed by the delay, and that the advocates' claims “ignore the extensive, overlapping regulatory protections currently in force.” They add, “As EPA explained, the existing RMP Rule has 'been effective in preventing and mitigating chemical accidents.'”
EPA issued the Jan. 12, 2017 final RMP update rule in response to former President Barack Obama's August 2013 executive order on improving facility safety issued after a fertilizer facility in West, TX, exploded in April of that year killing 15 people, including first responders.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-states-others-file-final-briefs-suit-over-rmp-rule-delay
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A GPS System Could Have Prevented The Deadly Amtrak Collision, Investigators Say
Feb 5, 2018 | AP (In Time)
By Meg Kinnard
(CAYCE, S.C.) — Federal investigators are trying to figure out why a switch was in the wrong position, sending an Amtrak train into a freight train and killing a conductor and an engineer in South Carolina.
But they already know what could have prevented the wreck that injured more than 100 passengers — a GPS-based system called “positive train control” that knows the location of all trains and the positions of all switches in an area to prevent the kind of human error that can put two trains on the same track.
“It could have avoided this accident. That’s what it’s designed to do,” said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt, referring to technology that regulators have been demanding for decades with mixed success.
He said the passenger train hurtled down a side track near Cayce (CAYsee) around 2:45 a.m. Sunday after a stop 10 miles (16 kilometers) north in Columbia because a switch was locked in place, diverting it from the main line. A crew on the freight train had moved the switch to drive it from one side track — where it unloaded 34 train cars of automobiles — to the side track where it was parked. The switch was padlocked as it was supposed to be, Sumwalt said.
The system that operates the train signals in the area was down, so CSX Corp. — the freight railroad operator which runs that stretch of track — was manually operating the signals. Sumwalt said it was too early to know if the signal was red to warn the Amtrak crew that the switch was not set to continue along the main train line.
Just hours after Sunday’s crash, which also sent 116 of the 147 people on board the New York-to-Miami train to the hospital, Amtrak President Robert Anderson said there must be no more delays from the federal government in installing the safety system by the end of 2018.
He deferred to investigators about whether the system would have stopped this crash. “Theoretically, an operative PTC system would include switches in addition to signals, so it would cover both speed and switches,” Anderson said.
The Silver Star was going an estimated 59 mph (94 kph) when it struck the freight train, Gov. Henry McMaster said. It was the middle of the night, and many people were jolted from sleep by the crash and forced into the cold.
“I thought that I was dead,” said passenger Eric Larkin, of Pamlico County, North Carolina, who was dazed and limping after banging his knee.
Larkin said he was on his way to Florida when he was awakened. The train was shaking and jumping, and his seat broke loose, slamming him into the row in front of him, he said.
He said he heard screams and crying all around him as he tried to get out. Other passengers were bleeding.
The locomotives of both trains were left crumpled, the Amtrak engine on its side. One car in the middle of the Amtrak train was snapped in half, forming a V off to one side of the tracks.
Engineer Michael Kempf, 54, of Savannah, Georgia, and conductor Michael Cella, 36, of Orange Park, Florida, were killed, Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher said.
“Any time you have anything that happens like that, you expect more fatalities. But God blessed us, and we only had the two,” Fisher said, her voice choked with emotion.
Of the 116 people taken to four hospitals, only about a half dozen were admitted. The rest had minor injuries such as cuts, bruises or whiplash, authorities said.
On Wednesday, a chartered Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat slammed into a garbage truck in rural Virginia, killing one person in the truck and injuring six others.
And on Dec. 18, an Amtrak train ran off the rails along a curve during its inaugural run near Tacoma, Washington, killing three people and injuring dozens. It was going nearly 80 mph (128 kph), more than twice the speed limit.
With the recent string of crashes, “it’s becoming almost like an epidemic for Amtrak,” said Najmedin Meshkati, a University of Southern California engineering professor who has studied positive train control.
http://time.com/5133095/amtrack-crash-preventable-carolina/
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Heitkamp Introduces Two-Person Crew Legislation
Feb 5, 2018 | Progressive Railroading
U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) has introduced a bill to require a minimum of two-person crews on freight trains carrying crude oil or certain other types of cargo.
The bill aims to improve rail safety, and builds on an initiative Heitkamp introduced after a crude-oil train derailed, caught fire and exploded near Casselton, North Dakota, in 2013.
"After the Casselton derailment, it was clear that having two crew members on board the train made all the difference to prevent the fire from escalating and threatening those living nearby," said Heitkamp in a press release. "My legislation is a commonsense way to make our communities strong and safe while supporting an industry that is vital to North Dakota jobs and prosperity."
Heitkamp's bill is supported by first responders across North Dakota, as well as SMART Transportation and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
The legislation was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Four Senate co-sponsors have signed on: Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Angus King (I-Maine).http://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/Heitkamp-introduces-two-person-crew-legislation--53832
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Environmentalists Raise Broad GHG, VOC Issues Over Biomass Pellet Plants
Feb 2, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Environmental groups are broadly raising concerns about excess emissions of greenhouse gases and toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at biomass pellet plants, which are being built rapidly to provide fuel to European power plants that are counted as zero-carbon energy sources in that continent's GHG trading program.
The groups say the domestic pellet manufacturing plants emit significant amounts of GHGs and VOCs that should make them major sources of pollution under the Clean Air Act requiring stringent emission controls, but most are being permitted by states as minor sources.
Part of the campaign seeks to convince state regulators to address these issues, and the groups are making some strides, including persuading the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to withdraw a draft minor source permit and instead move to a major source prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit for the Enviva Cottondale pellet plant, according to one environmentalist involved in the effort.
Because of the vast GHG emissions released during pellet production, and even more released when the fuel is burned for energy, the groups charge that the fuel is still mistakenly considered carbon neutral.
The campaign could be considered similar to environmentalists' broader efforts to limit both the supply and demand of fossil fuels, in that efforts surrounding pellet manufacturing targets biomass fuel supply, while groups are separately trying to restrict emissions from biomass power plants.
The groups are broadly targeting the pellet manufacturing plants for both their GHG and VOC emissions.
Environmentalists explain in a Jan. 30 memo that making pellets “emits a substantial amount” of GHGs, and that a typical facility producing 575,000 tons per year (tpy) of pellets emits between 175,000 and 225,000 tpy of GHG.
This is well over the 25,000 tpy threshold that the Obama EPA used as a permitting threshold when it first began considering GHGs in stationary source permits.
The largest pellet plant in the country, Georgia Biomass, emits 355,000 tpy of GHG for 825,000 tpy of pellets, the memo says.
These numbers are just direct emissions and do not include transporting the timber to the facility, the electricity needed to run the plant or shipping the pellets to plants in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, the memo notes.
Yet despite these large numbers, “Few, if any, have conducted emissions testing for GHGs. Instead, permitting authorities typically estimate GHG emissions, if they do so at all, based on emission factors developed by EPA. The majority of permits simply ignore GHGs,” the memo says.
The biomass industry argues that because of fast regrowth, the fuel source is carbon neutral and points to a 2015 paper written by Madhu Khanna -- a University of Illinois professor who has chaired EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) panel that has struggled for years to agree on a proper biomass lifecycle GHG assessment -- that found significant GHG benefits of manufactured wood pellets over coal even when they are transported across the Atlantic Ocean.
But that finding is being challenged by a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which concludes biomass energy is not carbon neutral, as proponents claim.
The Jan. 25 report and a related article back up “the growing argument that burning wood pellets for power is worse for the climate than burning coal, because of the short-term effects and the 'potentially irreversible impacts that may arise before the long-run benefits are realized.'”
The study finds the payback time for the carbon debt -- where the GHGs released when the wood is burned is recaptured through new growth -- is 44 to 104 years depending on forest type, and assuming the land remains forested.
The study adds that “projected growth in wood harvest for bioenergy would increase atmospheric [carbon dioxide] for at least a century because new carbon debt continuously exceeds” net primary forest production.
Many New Plants
Despite these concerns -- and a stalled, years-long EPA Science Advisory Board process to develop a lifecycle GHG accounting standard for biomass -- the industry is booming, with pellet plants being built all over the United States.
Even Native American populations are getting involved. The Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut this year started a company, Mohegan Renewable Energy, to export wood pellets as fuel, according to a local press report, after earlier acquiring a 100,000 tpy pellet manufacturing facility in Alabama.
The environmentalists' effort to address this issue includes weighing in on individual permit applications nationally in hopes of winning incremental pollution controls. Additionally, if they succeed in convincing state regulators that these facilities are major sources requiring a best available control technology (BACT) analysis, then other facilities would need to adopt stringent BACT limits no matter where they are located, or else justify why they could not meet the limit.
Groups including Our Children's Earth Foundation, Dogwood Alliance, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the Natural Resources Defense Council and local organizations most recently filed Jan. 26 comments on a permit for a Colombo Energy pellet plant in Greenwood County, SC, asking the state to withdraw the minor source requirements and instead issue a PSD permit.
The permit was issued Jan. 12 and revises a 2013 permit that includes new installation of VOC controls.
But like the original permit, “the revised permit purportedly limits the facility's potential to emit (PTE) VOCs and hazardous air pollutants . . . to below” levels that would require a major source permit, allowing the facility to avoid going through PSD and maximum achievable control technology (MACT) permit review.
But the letter notes that the plant has been purchased by Enviva, which plans to “more than triple” pellet production from 172,000 tpy to 660,000 tpy. The groups argue the revised permit conditions “remain inadequate,” “enable the facility to avoid PSD and MACT applicability and fail[] to ensure adequate protection of public health.”
The groups also argue the after-the-fact 250-tpy VOC limit is “unenforceable and cannot be relied upon to restrict the facility's VOC PTE for purposes of PSD.”
They say the plant must instead undergo a PSD review, including BACT, and that unlike the permit at issue, it must be open for public comment. “This permit was issued without public notice, and without notifying [EIP], despite the fact that EIP has repeatedly expressed a clear desire to stay informed on permitting activity.”
EIP also filed Jan. 2 comments on a draft Title V operating permit for the Amite BioEnergy plant in Mississippi, questioning the VOC emissions estimates provided by Drax Biomass. It argues that “Drax's response omits crucial information” about a stack test on which the estimates rely, including that it failed to follow an EPA-approved method.
“Given that Drax’s self-reported VOC emission factor for pellet coolers is 20 to 30 times lower than similar facilities, Mississippi must reject these dubious tests,” the letter argues.
The groups also filed Dec. 1 comments on draft major source permits for the proposed 578,000 tpy German Pellets Plant in Tyler County, TX, arguing that the “deficiencies in the draft permits make the draft permits inadequate to assure the facility's compliance with applicable Clean Air Act requirements.”
The comments say the state failed to conduct a proper BACT for VOCs, and violated the permitting program by failing to analyze or set any GHG emission limit at all. While GHG emissions cannot be used to trigger major source permitting requirements on their own, a facility that has to have a major source permit for conventional emissions is supposed to also undergo a GHG BACT review.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) “improperly dismissed burning alternative, low-carbon fuels in its furnace, which would dramatically reduce GHG emissions,” the comments say. “TCEQ acknowledges that burning wood emits more CO2 per unit of heat produced than other fuels, in particular natural gas. TCEQ further states that natural gas is both available and the lowest carbon content fuel. Despite these findings, TCEQ dismissed natural gas as a fuel for German Pellets' wood dryers as being too expensive.”
Finally, EIP's Sept. 16 comments persuaded the Florida DEP and Enviva to sign an administrative compliance order requiring the Cottondale facility to obtain a major source PSD permit, according to the environmentalist involved in the effort.
The draft minor source permit contained so many deficiencies, the comments ask DEP to “amend the draft Title V permit to address our concerns and replace the after-the-fact construction permit with an actual PSD permit.”
The source says environmentalists are “waiting to see what happens in that process.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-raise-broad-ghg-voc-issues-over-biomass-pellet-plants
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Ewire: Pruitt On Whether 'EPA Originalism' Includes Climate
Feb 5, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is embracing a description of his leadership style as “EPA originalism,” arguing that strictly interpreting the nation's environmental laws can include tough action on issues such as waste cleanups but voicing heavy skepticism that such an interpretation allows for strong steps to address climate change.
And at a more fundamental level, Pruitt tells a Feb. 2 episode of the New York Times podcast “The Daily” that more “inquisitive” debate is needed before scientific findings on climate change can “inform public policy.”
“Is there a place in this 'EPA orginalism' for the EPA to fight climate change?” Times reporter Michael Barbaro asked Pruitt on the podcast.
“Perhaps,” Pruitt responded, adding: “Perhaps what we ought to be thinking about is: What does the statute say?”
Referring to aggressive steps to cut greenhouse gases that the vast majority of scientists say are driving climate change, Barbaro asked: “So Congress has to change the law in order for you to regulate climate change in this way?”
“Absolutely,” Pruitt said. Regarding EPA's Clean Air Act authority to limit GHGs -- particularly from the power sector -- he said “the jury is out, literally and figuratively, on what authority exists. . . . If you really care about these issues, you need to make each branch do their job. Our branch is a branch that exists to enforce the law.”
Barbaro followed up with a question intended to gauge Pruitt's assessment of the risks posed by climate change. “Do you care about these issues? I mean, that issue, climate change?”
Pruitt made clear he does not view the issue as an “existential threat” that many believe it to be.
“Frankly, as I look at these issues, I think the debate about the impact of [carbon dioxide] is important for us to wrestle with as a country,” he said. “We need to be much more inquisitive. The American people deserve an open, honest, transparent, objective debate about these issues. Because if you're going to inform public policy about it, that needs to occur.”
However, the administrator then circled back to a legal critique. “But after we do all of that [debate], I still have a little issue over here, and the issue is, what authority do I have?”
In other news:Miami Herald: Keys to raise roads before climate change puts them underwater. It'll be expensive.The Guardian: It's not okay how clueless Donald Trump is about climate change
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-pruitt-whether-epa-originalism-includes-climate
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White House Withdraws Controversial Nominee To Head Council On Environmental Quality
Feb 5, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The White House has withdrawn its controversial nominee to head the Council on Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White, whose selection failed to gather momentum with some Senate Republicans raising questions about her expertise.
The administration released a statement Sunday in which Hartnett White asked that her name be pulled from further consideration, effective immediately. President Trump had re-nominated Hartnett White for the job in January after the Senate failed to vote on her nomination during the last congressional session, due in part to fierce opposition from Democrats.
“I want to thank President Trump for his confidence in me and I will continue to champion his policies and leadership on environmental and energy issues of critical importance to making our nation great, prosperous and secure again,” she said in the statement.
“I’ve been in this process for more than a year,” she continued, asking that her name be withdrawn “in the best interest of facilitating confirmation of the President’s nominees throughout his administration, as well the needs of my family and work.”
Hartnett White, who once headed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and now serves as a fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has stirred controversy because of her statements on climate change. Testifying in the fall before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, she said that while humans probably contribute to current warming, “the extent to which, I think, is very uncertain.”
Her comments, which echoed some other appointees of President Trump, contradict the conclusion of an overwhelming number of scientific experts and the findings of the federal government. Leading scientific assessments have repeatedly found that recent climate change is fueled largely by human greenhouse gas emissions.
“I’m not a scientist, but in my personal capacity, I have many questions that remain unanswered by current climate policy,” Hartnett White said at her confirmation hearing. “I think we indeed need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role.”
Just days before she testified, the federal government released its Climate Science Special Report, a collaboration among more than a dozen agencies that found “no convincing alternative explanation” other than human influence for the warming the world has experienced in the past 70 years.
“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” the document stated.
When asked during her hearing by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) what portion of the heat trapped in Earth’s atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans — the majority of it is stored there — Hartnett White responded, “I don’t have numbers like that.”
“But I believe that there are differences of opinions on that, that there’s not one right answer,” she added.
Whitehouse later tweeted that Harnett White “outright rejects basic science.”
Much of the mainstream scientific community agreed. In November, more than 300 scientists from around the country signed a letter urging the Senate to reject her confirmation. It cited her “dangerous” views about climate change, saying. “This is not a partisan issue; it is a matter of defending scientific integrity.” Confirming Harnett White, the group said, “would have serious consequences for people and the ecosystems of the only planet that can support us.”
Her withdrawal from consideration for the Council on Environmental Quality was first reported Saturday by The Washington Post.
The influence of the CEQ, established in 1970 under the Nixon administration, has waxed and waned depending on who occupies the Oval Office. It coordinates activities across agencies and typically holds more power under Democratic presidents. But it played an important role under President George W. Bush on issues ranging from ocean conservation to air quality, in part because its chair, James L. Connaughton, served for the entirety of Bush’s two terms.
On policy issues such as infrastructure, for example, the CEQ typically would convene representatives from a variety of agencies when formulating an overall administration approach. Trump has empowered the council to accelerate the construction of infrastructure projects in the United States through executive orders, and that work is being done at the staff level.
Before being nominated, Hartnett White criticized the 2007 Supreme Court decision finding that the federal government had the legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
“I take issue with that,” she told The Post in an interview in the fall of 2016. “Carbon dioxide has none of the characteristics of a pollutant that could harm human health.”
In 2016, she described carbon dioxide — emissions of which rank as one of the primary ways human activity contributes to climate change — as a key asset to the planet. “Our flesh, blood and bones are built of carbon,” she wrote in 2016. “Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the gas of life on this planet, an essential nutrient for plant growth on which human life depends.”
She made similar arguments in a book she co-wrote in 2016, titled “Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy,” as well as in numerous essays questioning climate change, including one last year in which she called President Barack Obama’s efforts to slow global warming by reducing carbon emissions “deluded and illegitimate.”
Her co-author on that book, Stephen Moore, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and an economic adviser to the Trump campaign, said in an email Sunday that she was “uniquely qualified” for the White House environmental post.
“She led the Texas environmental protection agency during a period of rapid growth in the Lone Star state economy and declining pollution levels,” Moore wrote. “That’s what we want for the nation. Faster growth and a cleaner environment. And she shows that prosperity and clean air can go hand in hand.”
Hartnett White is not the first Trump environmental nominee to fail to win confirmation. Michael Dourson, whose nomination to become the Environmental Protection Agency’s top chemical safety official drew widespread criticism, withdrew from consideration in December after it became clear that the Senate probably would not confirm him.
A longtime toxicologist who worked at the EPA from 1980 to 1994, Dourson was closely tied to the chemical industry through a nonprofit consulting group he founded shortly after leaving the agency. Over the years, it produced research for chemical companies that consistently found little or no human health risks from their products. Critics said Dourson had too many conflicts of interest to be considered for an Environmental Protection Agency post in which he might oversee reviews of chemicals produced by companies he once represented.
On Saturday, news of Hartnett White’s withdrawal triggered relief among some of her staunchest critics. Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called her a “remarkably poor choice” for such a consequential environmental post.
“A while ago, I wrote that many Trump appointees to science-based positions could be considered to either have deep conflicts of interest, to be fundamentally opposed to the mission of the agency they were to lead or totally unqualified. Hartnett-White was all three — a trifecta,” he said.
Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement Saturday evening that it was “abundantly clear very early on that heading up the Council on Environmental Quality wasn’t the right job for Ms. White.”
Instead, he said, “Withdrawing Kathleen Hartnett White’s nomination is the right thing to do, and I believe it is past time for this administration to nominate a thoughtful environmental and public health champion to lead this critical office in the federal government.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/03/white-house-to-withdraw-controversial-nominee-to-head-council-on-environmental-quality/?utm_term=.acb37ad0e6f0
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With Hartnett White Out, EPW Preps Round 2 On EPA Deputy Pick
Feb 5, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Just days after President Trump's controversial nominee to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality withdrew her name from consideration, the nominee for deputy U.S. EPA administrator could get a step closer to full confirmation.
On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a business meeting to consider the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be No. 2 at the agency.
This will be the second time Wheeler will be voted on by the panel. In November, the committee cleared him on a party-line vote, but the full Senate never voted on his nomination, which was sent back to the White House at the end of last year. Trump renominated Wheeler last month.
Wheeler has attracted scrutiny from Democrats for his lobbying record at the firm Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, specifically his work on behalf of coal giant Murray Energy Corp.
But the EPA nominee is a familiar face for many senators on the EPW Committee, having been a longtime aide to the panel as well as to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a former committee chairman.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the committee's ranking member, told reporters last week that he has advised Wheeler to meet with Democrats on and off the panel to explain his lobbying for Murray Energy, led by CEO Bob Murray, a vocal critic of the Obama-era EPA.
Carper also had said it would be tough to move Wheeler and other nominees as long as Kathleen Hartnett White was under consideration to lead the White House CEQ.
Carper and other Democrats had blasted Hartnett White, who has disputed climate change science and defended carbon dioxide in the past.
Carper said he discussed that issue with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt after a hearing with the agency chief last week.
"I made it clear that those nominations, we're going to find it difficult to move them forward expeditiously as long as the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White was still out there," Carper said (E&E News PM, Jan. 30).
Hartnett White, however, withdrew her CEQ nomination this past weekend, easing the path for Wheeler (Greenwire, Feb. 3).
A White House official confirmed to E&E News that Hartnett White has withdrawn from consideration and shared a statement from the failed CEQ nominee.
"I respectfully withdraw my name from further consideration to be confirmed as Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality effective immediately," said Hartnett White.
"I want to thank President Trump for his confidence in me and I will continue to champion his policies and leadership on environmental and energy issues of critical importance to making our nation great, prosperous and secure again," she said.
She added, "I've been in this process for more than a year. In the best interest of facilitating confirmation of the President's nominees throughout his administration, as well the needs of my family and work, I feel it is best, at this point in time, to withdraw my name from further consideration."
Environmental groups took a victory lap after news of Hartnett White's withdrawal, issuing statements of relief that her nomination had been blocked.
"That sound you hear is millions of people across the country exhaling in relief that Kathleen White won't be setting foot inside CEQ, a position that would have elevated her climate-denying platform to the highest levels of government," said Raul Garcia, Earthjustice senior legislative counsel.
"Her withdrawal is welcome news for anyone who cares about the health of our planet and communities," he said, "and we hope the administration will take this opportunity to nominate a more credible and more qualified candidate to fill this vital role."
Schedule: The markup is Wednesday, Feb. 7, at 9:30 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.
Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/02/05/stories/1060072815
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