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ACC AM 2/8/18
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(ACC Mentioned) How The EPA's Scott Pruitt Became The Most Dangerous Member Of Trump’s Cabinet
Feb 8, 2018 | Newsweek
By Alexander Nazaryan
For someone whose entire political career has been built on an animosity to Washington, D.C., Scott Pruitt certainly appears to have enjoyed the past 12 months of federal employ. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges EPA To Revise PBT Criteria Over Environmentalists' Objections
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging EPA to update its criteria for identifying persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), calling the criteria “outdated” and failing to reflect current science. -
(ACC Mentioned) Data Collection, Evaluation Criteria Seen As key TSCA Prioritisation Issues
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Data collection and evaluation criteria have emerged as key issues as the US EPA deliberates on how it will identify candidate chemicals for prioritisation. -
In Another TSCA Defeat, EPA Loses Bid To Limit Scope Of Fluoride Suit
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge has denied EPA's request to limit the scope of environmentalists' lawsuit over the agency's denial of their petition seeking to ban the practice of treating drinking water with fluoride, opening the door to the plaintiffs offering a broad range of evidence to bolster their case rather than relying on information in EPA's record. -
EPA Floats New Option For Protecting CBI Data Under TSCA
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is seeking public input on a third proposed alternative for using a unique identifier (UID) to protect confidential chemical data submitted to the agency under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), citing “drawbacks” to two prior approaches that the agency floated last summer. -
(ACC Mentioned) Critics And Defenders Of Cancer Research Agency Spar At US Hearing
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Frank Zaworski
Republican lawmakers have renewed their attack on the International Agency on the Research for Cancer at a 6 February hearing on Capitol Hill. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Send Limited Exposure Data to EPA as Deadline Nears
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Companies could face EPA demands for costly chemical exposure studies on five persistent, toxic chemicals as the agency faces a 2019 deadline to control them. -
Agencies Boost Exchange of Fluorochemicals Data
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Federal scientists are sharing more information on fluorochemicals to aid water treatment, cleanup, and other decisions facing state and federal regulators across the U.S. -
California To List TRIM® VX As A Carcinogen Under Prop 65
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Frank Zaworski
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) plans to list TRIM® VX as a carcinogen under Proposition 65. -
Nordic Textile Chemical Guide to Help Asian Factories Comply
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Marcus Hoy
Clothing companies that may be in violation of European chemical rules will benefit from new guidance on textiles often made in distant countries, according to Denmark's EPA. -
Study Raises Fears About Chemicals In Secondhand Toys
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The toy industry has assured consumers that risk from chemicals in secondhand plastic toys is low, following a study in the UK that revealed the presence of hazardous elements. -
German Coalition Deal Sets No Timetable to End Glyphosate Use
Feb 7, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Michael Hogan
Germany's draft coalition deal includes a goal of ending use of the weed-killer glyphosate within the country but gives no time frame, after Berlin swung a vote in November extending its use across the European Union. -
Panama Canal Expects LNG Tanker Traffic To Rise 50 pct -Official
Feb 8, 2018 | Reuters
By Elida Moreno
The number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers traversing the Panama Canal is expected to jump 50 percent by September due to rising exports of the fuel from the United States, the head of the canal’s governing agency told Reuters. -
EPA Ordered to Address Connecticut's Upwind Pollution Complaint
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
The EPA has 60 days to decide whether a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant must install new pollution controls to protect Connecticut's air, a federal judge ruled. -
Environmental Groups Press OMB To Retain EPA Oil And Gas Guidelines
Feb 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmental groups are pushing back against Trump EPA plans to rescind control techniques guidelines (CTG) for emissions of ozone-forming pollutants from the oil and gas sector, arguing in recent White House meetings that the guidelines represent an efficient route for both industry and states to manage the emissions. -
EPA Sends Air Permit Screening Tools For OMB Review
Feb 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA on Feb. 6 sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review guidance on “significant impact levels” (SILs), which are screening tools used by air regulators and industry to determine an industrial project’s compliance with federal air quality standards, according to OMB’s website. -
Group Sues For Access To Scientific-Integrity Documents
Feb 8, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
An environmental group filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking documents related to U.S. EPA science in the wake of Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to bar staffers from presenting climate change studies at a conference last October. -
EPA Administrator Questions 'Assumptions' That Global Warming Is Bad
Feb 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Luis Sanchez
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday questioned whether global warming is harmful to humans and suggested warm climate could be beneficial. -
Dem Senators Demand EPA Chief Recuse Himself On Clean Power Plan Rulemaking
Feb 8, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Four Democratic senators are calling on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt to recuse himself from overseeing any rulemaking regarding the repeal of an Obama-era rule on carbon dioxide emissions, because of his "closed mind."
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(ACC Mentioned) How The EPA's Scott Pruitt Became The Most Dangerous Member Of Trump’s Cabinet
Feb 8, 2018 | Newsweek
By Alexander Nazaryan
For someone whose entire political career has been built on an animosity to Washington, D.C., Scott Pruitt certainly appears to have enjoyed the past 12 months of federal employ. He has been to Morocco, where he shilled American natural gas. There was also a trip to a golf resort in Naples, Florida, for a meeting of the National Mining Association. And to lovely Kiawah Island, off the South Carolina coast, to join a retreat of the American Chemistry Council. Some bureaucrats may be relegated to the sad desk lunch, but Pruitt is not among them. When executives from a coal company were in town, they took Pruitt to BLT Prime, the restaurant at the Trump International Hotel that is the unofficial clubhouse of the Make America Great Again crowd.
Not bad—and not routine—for an administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a post Pruitt has held since last February. Never has the EPA been in custody of a chief who so unabashedly wants to enervate the agency while serving transparent political goals. And, it should be added, the goal of the president who appointed him. Donald Trump promised, during the campaign, to abolish the EPA. That may have been bluster, but Pruitt will get him close.
Detractors know this, and they are furious. “People should be terrified with what Pruitt is trying to do with the EPA,” a scientist who has worked at the agency for several years told me. “If people aren’t terrified, they probably don’t know how important EPA is for public health.”
Making the same case in a New York Times op-ed, former Republican New Jersey governor Thomas Kean pleaded with Trump to fire Pruitt. “Our children and grandchildren deserve better,” Kean wrote.MOST READPhilly Chaos Shows Double Standard Over Riots: CriticsMcDonald’s Fries Chemical May Cure Baldness, Study SaysMan Dies Weeks After Million-Dollar Lottery WinWatch: Mass Riots Greet Philadelphia Eagles WinEagles Fans Run Amok After Win: ‘Horrific’ Scenes
Trump has not fired Pruitt, and he has little reason to do so, since Pruitt has proved himself a ruthlessly efficient member of the president’s Cabinet amid the administration’s well-documented chaos.
Last February, White House chief political strategist Stephen Bannon promised a “deconstruction of the administrative state,” a drastic diminution of the federal government’s role in both public and private life. But deconstruction turned out to be tricky stuff for which many of Trump’s Cabinet members don’t seem especially well-equipped. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign, due to his penchant for private jet travel—at a cost to taxpayers of $400,000. Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, is fending off similar scrutiny of his travel, not to mention unflattering reports of his self-aggrandizing tendencies (issuing his own challenge coins and insisting on the hoisting of a departmental flag whenever he is at Interior’s headquarters). Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is rumored to be ever on the cusp of dismissal, his corporate diplomatic style painfully out of place amidst Trumpian fire and fury. Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, was irrelevant in last year's tax change efforts. Ben Carson, at Housing and Urban Development, had openly declared he wasn’t suited for a Cabinet position. He got one anyway, even though he appears to know nothing about housing policy and is floating inconsequentially through his workweek. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Jr., sleeps through his.
But Pruitt has been Trump’s drama-free Energizer bunny of a Cabinet appointee—his “most adept and dangerous hatchet man,” The Los Angeles Times deemed him—channeling the president’s wants without arousing his anger.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told me that Trump and Pruitt “have a good relationship. President Trump is very supportive of Administrator Pruitt's work on deregulation. He regularly recognizes him in group meetings for his work on this front.”
EPA officials declined repeated Newsweek requests for an interview with Pruitt; their only comment, sent by spokesman Jahan Wilcox, was a statement that read, in part, “We have a great working relationship with career EPA employees.” Wilcox then referenced “the faux-outrage,” without making clear what he meant: whose outrage it was and what about that outrage was feigned.
Even Pruitt’s most vociferous critics are awed by his regulatory rollback, “the scope and the magnitude of [which] is really unprecedented,” says Thomas Cmar, a lawyer for the environmental organization Earthjustice. Pruitt, Cmar notes, “has no hesitation about acting quickly and acting on his own.”SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTERSIGN UP
Update your preferences »In early January, the agency published a list of 67 environmental safeguards Pruitt has either fully rolled back or is in the process of undoing. These include the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, which expanded the protections afforded by the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Power Plan, which established nationwide carbon emissions standards for power plants. It’s the regulatory equivalent of the German blitzkrieg across Poland: so extensive, and effective, that no front is safe. The ban on chlorpyrifos, an insecticide EPA scientists say may cause neurodevelopmental problems in children, has been lifted, to the delight of Dow Chemical. An Obama administration rule curbed power plant emissions of mercury and arsenic, among the most destructive elements to human health. Despite scientific consensus about how harmful those emissions are, Pruitt has ordered the rule under “review,” thus indicating that he intends to weaken it.
It’s hard to think of another instance in American public life in which the economic interests of corporations were placed so far above the health interests of individuals.
Pruitt was a vocal supporter of Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions; with Syria having joined the accords this past fall, the U.S. is the world’s lone holdout. Climate change has been scrubbed as a topic on the agency’s website at Pruitt’s personal direction. An investigation by Rachel Leven of the Center for Public Integrity published last fall found that the vast majority of Pruitt’s 46 political appointees at the EPA “previously worked for climate change doubters or industry,” including with the powerful lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, as well as energy companies Hess and ExxonMobil. Leven also noted that a dozen undersecretary positions that would need Senate confirmation remain empty.
Pruitt’s primary goal at EPA is, as he has put it, to “refocus the agency back to its core mission.” To critics, that means he will curtail the EPA’s regulatory reach. Another goal is what he calls “cooperative federalism,” which is conservative code for slashing federal oversight of state actions.RELATED STORIES
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Some liberals loathe Pruitt even more than they do Bannon or Trump, given the potential permanence of environmental degradation. Pruitt certainly seems to feel the animosity, even within his agency. Definers Public Affairs, a Republican opposition research firm, was hired to monitor the email accounts of EPA employees critical of him.
“The mood here is morbid,” says Nate James, an information technology specialist at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as the chapter head of American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents EPA workers. “There is an element of fear.”
John O’Grady, an engineer in the Chicago regional office of the EPA, says Pruitt “does not meet with the staff” and generally behaves like a “mystery guest” within the agency. Last summer, Pruitt had his spacious office outfitted with a secure communication booth costing nearly $25,000. This was a practice common among intelligence agency chiefs, not EPA administrators. It suggested grandiosity, ambition and more than a little paranoia. Previous to that, he devoted $9,000 of taxpayer money to the installation of biometric locks and ordered an inspection of his office for listening devices. He travels with a security detail of more than a dozen high-ranking EPA officials who are supposed to be investigating environmental crimes. They are instead guarding Pruitt.
By abolishing advisory committees, making obvious shows of obeisance to his friends in private industry and refusing to take the advice of scientists, Pruitt has also forced a remarkable attrition at the agency. More than 700 employees have left since he took over, more than a quarter of them scientists. Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says that purging of talented scientists will be even more deleterious than the regulatory rollback.
All this makes it easy to caricature Pruitt as a zealous anti-environmentalist, even as his associates insist his approach is guided by both principle and faith. Political ambition plainly guides Pruitt as well. In his first three months at the agency, Pruitt spent 43 days in Oklahoma, flying there at taxpayers’ expense, but not on taxpayers’ business. Instead, his meetings there, with energy concerns and ranchers, looked like the beginnings of a political campaign. So does his hiring of several staffers from the office of octogenarian Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, whom many believe Pruitt wants to replace.
Judith Enck, a former EPA administrator, says the former colleagues she keeps in touch with are “demoralized. And they are embarrassed to be working at the agency.”
They can take solace in constant whispers that Pruitt doesn’t intend to stay long. Most recently, he’d reportedly told people he wanted the job of U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions, who is perennially in Trump’s disfavor. Keith Gaby, communications director for the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental organization that frequently battles Pruitt in the courts, wondered in The Huffington Post last summer if Pruitt wanted to run for president. “We feel that [Pruitt] is an emergency-level threat,” Gaby reiterated in a subsequent conversation. “His level of ambition is not limited to the Senate.”
About two weeks before Gaby posed the question about Pruitt’s ambition, the EPA administrator traveled to Iowa, where he paid a visit to the studio of conservative radio host Simon Conway. “You must be running for the presidency,” Conway joked in an interview with Pruitt.
Pruitt, who’d once called Trump “an empty vessel” in a similar interview before the presidential election, praised his boss without revealing anything of his own intentions.Dogmatic Originalism
Short and solid, with closely cropped white hair, the native Kentuckian who has long called Oklahoma home carries himself with a rancher’s confidence; there is nothing scholarly or bureaucratic about Edward Scott Pruitt. At 49, he is the second-youngest member of Trump’s Cabinet—Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is his junior by four years—and his boyish smile makes him look even younger.
Pruitt grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. His father ran restaurants, while his mother tended to the three Pruitt children. On the strength of his skill as a baseball player, Pruitt entered the University of Kentucky in 1986. “Pruitt ate Little Caesars pizza in his freshman dorm with his teammates and talked constantly about baseball,” Robin Bravender wrote in her profile of him for E & E News, a news outlet focusing on energy and environmental issues. “He wasn’t a drinker or a partier.” His nickname was the Possum, because teammates decided he looked like one. “Baseball is emblematic of what made America successful,” Pruitt later told one interviewer. “We’re a peculiar and unique place where you can become what you dream.… Look at me: I’m 5-foot-9, I could have never played in the NFL, but I was able to play baseball. The game allows you to achieve great things if you persevere.”
Pruitt has never been called lazy, but his work ethic wasn’t sufficient to succeed on Division I team. In 1987, he transferred to Georgetown College, a small Baptist school outside of Lexington. (He was, and still is, a devout Southern Baptist, one of the most conservative Christian affiliations.) Pruitt continued to play baseball, eventually earning a tryout with the Cincinnati Reds. But once it became clear that a career in the major leagues was unlikely, Pruitt turned to law, entering the University of Tulsa in 1990.
One of his professors there was Rex Zedalis, who called Pruitt a “diligent” student in a recent op-ed for the Santa Fe New Mexican. This wasn’t exactly praise, as the professor added, “I confess regret for whatever small role I played in unleashing Administrator Pruitt on the unsuspecting public.”
After graduating from law school in 1993, Pruitt started Christian Legal Services Inc., a law practice that represented clients seeking religious liberty protections under the First Amendment. Among these was a state employee who said she had been prevented from holding a Bible study group in her home. Later reporting alleged that Pruitt’s client “had been instructed to avoid proselytizing agency clients,” but the case demonstrated Pruitt’s conviction that Christianity has been wrongly pushed out of the public square, a belief in alignment with the culture warriors then ascendant in the Republican Party.
His political career began in 1998, when he challenged Gerald “Ged” Wright, the 16-year Republican incumbent, for his seat in the Oklahoma state Senate. Although he’d never run for office, Pruitt announced his arrival in electoral politics with bracing self-confidence: “This race has little to do with Ged Wright,” he said as the primary neared. “He simply holds the seat I'm seeking.”
Pruitt won 48.9 percent of the vote, to Wright’s 45.5 percent, forcing a runoff. He won that race, and the general election that followed.
Just five days into the 1999 legislative session, Pruitt introduced his first bill, SB 804, which would mandate that women seeking to terminate a pregnancy first notify the fathers-to-be. Oklahoma was then a Democratic state, so the bill stood little chance of passage. Nevertheless, its introduction signaled the arrival of a dogged conservative voice in Oklahoma City. Tyler Laughlin, a deputy commissioner at the Oklahoma Insurance Department, got to know Pruitt during his ’98 state Senate campaign and became a close political adviser in later years. He describes Pruitt’s governing philosophy as “a love affair with the Constitution”—dogmatic originalism with little tolerance for expanded federal powers or updated interpretations. The man Laughlin described to me is no malicious executor of malevolent ideas. The Pruitt he knows is independent, pious and capable.
“Anything he touches, turns to gold,” Laughlin says.
Pruitt’s brand of alchemy may have attracted voters who see politics as ideological warfare, but not those who want politicians to promise that their roads will be paved and then pave those roads. And while he had plenty of support in conservative Broken Arrow, efforts at greater prominence came to naught: Pruitt lost a race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2001 and another, for lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, in 2006.
Pruitt’s religious views earned him the nickname “Pastor Pruitt” in a 2003 Tulsa World newspaper editorial occasioned by a seemingly innocuous bill that would offer teachers insulation from lawsuits. Tucked into the bill was a disclaimer for science textbooks that called Darwinian evolution a “theory,” effectively putting it on par with the creationist belief held by some evangelicals and Baptists that God created the universe and all its inhabitants in six days.
Pruitt’s faith may also explain his approach regarding the effects of human industry on the environment. Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College who was raised in the evangelical tradition, which is similar to the Baptism practiced by Pruitt, says Pruitt reminds him of James Watt, who headed the Department of the Interior during the Reagan administration. Watt once answered a question about the custodianship of the nation’s natural resources by telling a congressional committee, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”
Southern Baptists are attracted to premillennialism, the notion that “Jesus is going to return at any moment,” Balmer says. “If you believe Jesus is coming back at any moment, why bother with social reform, why bother with environmental protection?”
The Tulsa World editorial described how, after Pruitt’s amendment failed to pass, he tried—without success—to claim he wasn’t its author. The affair had one of Pruitt’s fellow legislators, Democratic state Senator Bernest Cain, worried that Oklahoma would turn into “the laughingstock of the country.”
In 2010, Pruitt was running again, this time for state attorney general. He did so by challenging the very notion of what an attorney general should be—not a legal officer adjudicating local matters, but a defender of abstract legal principles. Pruitt was not going to merely prosecute malefactors in Oklahoma; he was going to go after those he saw as threatening the state’s sovereignty. This was in keeping with the rise of the Tea Party movement, which saw in President Obama the first signs of incipient socialism. Pruitt’s platform was less law enforcement than constitutional defense. “As attorney general,” Pruitt promised in a 2010 campaign advertisement, “day one, I would file a lawsuit against President Obama to stop the application of health care in the state of Oklahoma,” a reference to the Affordable Care Act. Just as he would seven years later, he vowed to institute an “office of federalism,” whose staff lawyers would “wake up each day, and go to bed each night, thinking about the ways they can push back against Washington.”
Pruitt defeated the Democratic candidate by a 2-1 margin, thus becoming the first Republican to hold the attorney general’s seat in Oklahoma since 1971.
One of his first steps was to file suit against Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, in an attempt to keep Oklahoma out of the ACA program by refusing federal tax credits. He also shuttered the state’s Environmental Protection Unit, replacing it with a unit devoted to “federalism,” which would presumably protect Oklahoma against Washington. It was, essentially, an anti-government branch of the government. (The office has since been disbanded.)
“I always wondered why he wanted to be attorney general,” says M. Scott Carter, a longtime investigative journalist in Oklahoma who now teaches journalism at Oklahoma City Community College. “Scott Pruitt has always seemed to me a lawmaker who didn't care for government very much.”
His anti-government sentiment was also, whether by design or coincidence, a pro-corporate one. Since 2005, the previous attorney general had been working on a lawsuit against 14 Arkansas-based poultry producers who, he alleged, had polluted the Illinois River. Pruitt, who had taken more than $40,000 from the chicken farmers, according to reporting by StateImpact Oklahoma, the NPR-affiliated state-government reporting project, halted the lawsuit. Even if he claimed to be acting on principle, that principle frequently aligned with the desires of his political benefactors: Koch Industries, Chevron, Pfizer, Altria.
Nancy MacLean, a Duke University historian who recently published Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, says conservative donors like Charles and David Koch and “allied elected officials” like Pruitt intend to “achieve radical change by stealth means,” without the input of a populace they’ve decided is too fickle and untutored to trust. “They rely on extensive rules changes, voter suppression, aggressive use of state government power, misinforming the public (as with voter fraud claims and climate science denial) and extreme secrecy to achieve their ends,” MacLean says.
I raised this notion with Laughlin, and he replies indignantly that Pruitt “leads people; he does not get lead."
“That’s trash,” says Kenneth Cuccinelli II, a former Virginia attorney general who knows Pruitt well and has relied on many of the same conservative donors. Donations from the Koch brothers were a sign of intellectual kinship, he says, not evidence of the puppetry liberals suspect. “That is the argument of the weak-minded. It's really pretty pathetic."
As it became clear that the Affordable Care Act was going to survive legal challenge, Pruitt shifted his focus to fighting the EPA. He sued the agency 14 times during his nearly two terms in office, often in concert with other Republican state attorneys general. In 2012, Pruitt was elected the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which coordinated anti-Obama legal actions on a variety of fronts. “These days, whenever states go to court against the Obama administration, the chances are that Pruitt is somehow involved,” Governingmagazine said in a 2015 profile of Pruitt. Even “when Oklahoma isn’t an actual party in litigation, the state often submits a legal brief against the federal government.”
He challenged federal rules and regulations on air pollution across state lines, mercury emissions, ozone levels, clean-air standards relating to energy extraction, greenhouse gases. He filed four suits challenging Obama’s Clean Power Plan, as well as suits challenging the Clean Water Rule and the Regional Haze Program, which sought to reduce smog on federal lands. In some instances, The New York Times found, Pruitt simply cut-and-pasted language provided to him by energy companies into his correspondence with the EPA.
While those suits made Pruitt popular with conservatives, casting him as an anti-Obama crusader, not one of Pruitt’s 14 challenges to the EPA has been successful in fully getting rid of an EPA rule. According to an analysis of Pruitt’s lawsuits by the Environmental Defense Fund, various federal courts tossed six of the challenges, while seven others remain in litigation. His one partial victory, on a procedural matter, remains the subject of a legal dispute.
Pruitt was not up for re-election in 2016. But the governorship would be open in 2018, while Senator Inhofe, in his 80s, would likely retire in the next several years.
Then came November 8, 2016.‘Modern Air Is a Little Too Clean’
In early December, there was an unlikely sign of hope when President-elect Trump met in New York with Al Gore, the former vice president and environmental activist. Gore told reporters the meeting was “a sincere search for areas of common ground.” Two days later, Pruitt walked through the same Trump Tower lobby, in anticipation of being nominated to lead the EPA.
Those who knew of his record in Oklahoma understood just how dangerous Pruitt was going to be. An anonymous EPA employee told New York magazine, “We were terrified when Scott Pruitt was nominated. He seemed to be somebody who understood the legal underpinnings of our work and the ways to legally unbind it. He’s competent in the wrong ways.” Despite the predictable hostility of Democrats, Pruitt was easily confirmed by the Senate.
Pruitt can’t do much about the nation’s environmental laws, but he has great say in how and when those laws are applied—if at all. Using the complexity (and obscurity) of the federal rulemaking process, Pruitt has proposed to either overturn or arrest the implementation of Obama-era rules with remarkable efficiency. Last April, for example, he wrote a letter to energy executives announcing an administrative stay on a rule regarding air pollution by energy producers. As attorney Martha Roberts of the Environmental Defense Fund later wrote, he did so “abruptly…with no formal notice given to the public until well afterwards—and no opportunity provided for public input.” He made other such decisions regarding rules about toxic wastewater effluents from energy plants, as well as a program designed to address chemical accidents and air quality standards for ground-level ozone, or smog.
“This guy is unprecedented in that he is repealing rules that have long since been final,” says Betsy Southerland, who spent 30 years as a scientist at the EPA but chose to retire shortly after Pruitt’s arrival. In addition to his clean water and clean power rollbacks, Southerland points to Pruitt’s revision of the 2015 of the Certification of Pesticide Applicators rule, which will allow younger workers (virtually all of them migrants from Latin America) to handle pesticides. She notes that "none of these rules have technical or procedural errors" that would merit a stay, further review or complete rollback.
That assertion is supported by Pruitt’s hiring of many lobbyists and lawyers who’ve worked to undermine the EPA. Samantha Dravis, “widely seen as Pruitt’s closest adviser,” according to Rachel Leven, had worked at RAGA, the national group Pruitt headed when he was attorney general of Oklahoma. William Wehrum, confirmed late last year to head the Office of Air and Radiation, sued the EPA 31 times on behalf of private industry. Robert Phalen, who will head the EPA’s new science board, once said “modern air is a little too clean for optimum health.”
Several of Pruitt’s top deputies are former aides to Inhofe, who is generally regarded as the most vociferous denier of human-caused climate change in Congress: energy-industry lawyer Andrew Wheeler, who has been nominated as the EPA’s deputy administrator, and who was Inhofe’s chief counsel; senior Inhofe aide Ryan Jackson, now Pruitt’s chief of staff; Daisy Letendre, who worked as Inhofe’s communications director and is now overseeing the Smart Sectors program, which will allow industries to tell the EPA how they would like to be regulated.
One of Obama’s main regulatory achievements was the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which was an update of the Toxic Substances Control Act, passed in 1976. In a House of Representatives that could barely come to consensus on anything, the measured passed with a 403–12 margin in the spring of 2016. Pruitt, however, has issued rules that greatly vitiate TSCA’s ability to monitor and regulate the use of chemicals. The new guidelines were written by scientist Nancy Beck, formerly of the American Chemistry Council.
Given the complexity of the issues involved, and Pruitt’s apparent immunity to public outrage, courts have been the most effective means of stopping Pruitt. This is ironic, given how Pruitt pioneered the use of courts to stop his predecessors at the EPA. For example, when faced with a lawsuit by 15 states, Pruitt dropped his objection to the ozone rule. And a United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that he could not stay the rule on air pollution by oil and gas companies.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has led the effort, with nearly 50 legal challenges against Pruitt. “We’re witnessing an all-out assault on public health and our natural resources,” Schneiderman says in a statement for this story provided by his press secretary. “My first job is to protect New Yorkers. Our federalist system puts the power in states’ hands to fight back,” the statement continues, with an obvious jab at Pruitt’s use of “federalism” to obstruct Obama’s regulatory actions.
Southerland believes the courts will ultimately prevent Pruitt from entirely undoing Obama’s legacy. However, she thinks that given all the forthcoming legal challenges, plus the motions and countermotions they will involve, the nation will not return to the environmental regulatory structure that was in place when Obama left office until 2028.Back When Republicans Protected the Environment
Climate change was nonexistent as a political issue when President Richard Nixon created the EPA in 1970 “to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food.” To critics of the agency, the EPA has deviated from this mission and become a liberal activist organization advocating global warming science. Pruitt has called himself an “EPA originalist,” a phrase that alludes to the conservative originalists on the Supreme Court who believe that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in its literal, 18th-century context. In keeping with his views as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt believes environmental protection is better left to the states, which can mean no protection at all.
Pruitt’s allies say this slimming down is necessary, especially after what they see as the excesses of the Obama era. The coal miner has come to occupy a mythic—if discordant—place in Pruitt’s EPA. That tracks closely with Trump’s campaign rhetoric, with its romantic evocations of churning factories and bustling mines, an America whose return to greatness would be announced with the clang of machinery, the spewing of soot. “We are going to get those mines open,” he promised. “Oh, coal country. What they have done?”
In late March 2017, Pruitt stood grinning in the EPA headquarters auditorium as Trump, surrounded by coal miners and their bosses, signed an executive order that directed Pruitt to cancel the Clean Power Plan. “You’re going back to work,” Trump said to the people in the room. And while Pruitt virtually never mentions climate change, he talks about job creation so often one might think he’s the labor secretary…or in the midst of an electoral campaign.
To supporters, this is how it should be. Cuccinelli describes with outrage the economic conditions in southwestern Virginia, where many mountaintop strip mines have closed. Environmentalists “don’t give a flying rat’s ass about ordinary people," he says. “I’ll be a lot more open to what these people say when they show me they care as much about the bottom of the mountain as the top of the mountain."
“That’s a pretty arresting metaphor,” says Eric Schaeffer, who resigned from the EPA in 2002 and now runs Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit that has been critical of Pruitt. It is also a delusive one, he warns, with its corollary: a “worker’s paradise” in which Pittsburgh is a steel town again, while the mines of West Virginia have churned back to life.
A report published by Schaeffer’s organization earlier this year found that “only 0.2% of ‘mass’ layoffs— layoffs of 50 or more workers—are caused by government intervention or regulations” and that for “every job lost due to regulations, 15 are lost due to ‘cost cutting’ and 30 are lost due to ‘organizational changes.’”
Last summer, Pruitt asserted that the “coal sector” had created 50,000 jobs in the first five months of the Trump administration. In fact, fewer than 2,000 such jobshave been created, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Automation will diminish fossil fuel sector more than any regulator could. “Pretty soon, it’s gonna be three guys at a console,” Schaeffer says of mining jobs. Despite that, he worries the EPA is being used as a scapegoat. As long as any regulatory structure exists, Trump and Pruitt can blame the agency for lack of growth in the industries they’ve promised to bolster. They can also justify further regulatory rollbacks by continuing to misrepresent the effects of regulation on industry. Either way, they can fuel the very kind of resentment that animates the right.Superfund Me
In late January 1977, a severe blizzard brought 40-foot drifts of snow to Buffalo and its surroundings. When the snow melted that spring, the runoff significantly raised the water table. That was when residents in a community in Niagara Falls, New York, noticed something strange. Dirty liquid was seeping out of the ground, into their backyards.
The working-class community was called Love Canal, between faded Buffalo and the magnificent waterfall on the border with Canada. Today, most of the houses are gone, and the center of Love Canal is a fenced-in toxic dump, capped to prevent chemicals from leaching into the ground.
The people who lived here in 1977 had little conception of what festered beneath their feet. They did not know that they were living on the remnants of the Hooker Chemical Co., which had for years used the land as a dumping ground. And later, when the land was sold to developers, nobody was mandated to disclose what had been there before—and what remained in the ground.
These are some of the chemicals that, in 1977 and ’78, the residents of Love Canal learned they were breathing and ingesting: benzene hexachloride, carbon tetrachloride, toluene, dioxin, 1,2-dichloroethylene. All are known carcinogens. It was a bad scene, and these innocents were living through it: 21,000 tons of waste composed of 82 chemical compounds, 11 of which had the capacity to cause cancer.
There were mothers here, and children. The people of Love Canal needed help, and they weren’t going to be polite about it. At one demonstration, a young girl held a sign: “Please don’t let me die.”
In response to Love Canal, President Jimmy Carter and Congress created the Superfund program three years later — the name comes from the trust fund Congress set up to pay for protracted cleanups of the most seriously polluted places in America—which uses both public funds and a tax on industry (the latter was allowed to expire during the Clinton administration) to pay for the remediation of toxic wastelands across the nation.
Pruitt has vowed to speed clean-up of the Superfund sites, leading his critics to wonder what, exactly, he has in mind. The man he has hired to head the program is Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly, whom the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has banned from the banking industry for life for making improper loans. Kelly is friend and political contributor to Pruitt, as well as a three-time mortgage lender.
In the United States envisioned by Pruitt and his funders, personal liberty is everywhere. So is trichloroethylene.
“With Scott Pruitt at the helm at the EPA,” says former EPA official Enck, “there will be more Love Canals.”
http://www.newsweek.com/2018/02/16/scott-pruitt-most-dangerous-member-trump-cabinet-801035.html
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges EPA To Revise PBT Criteria Over Environmentalists' Objections
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging EPA to update its criteria for identifying persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), calling the criteria “outdated” and failing to reflect current science.
However, environmentalists argue that Congress in crafting the TSCA update backed use of the existing criteria and that industry's proposed alternative is biased.
EPA recently sought public input on uses, exposures and alternatives to five PBT chemicals it is targeting for expedited review under the revised TSCA.
Section 6(h) of the new law directs EPA to identify persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals and, after conducting a streamlined evaluation of only use and exposure, rather than a full risk assessment, impose risk management actions in an expedited time frame.
The provision allows EPA to restrict PBT substances where exposure is likely under the conditions of use to the general population or susceptible subpopulations or the environment on the basis of an exposure and use assessment.
ACC is urging EPA to update its criteria before conducting use and exposure assessments under the streamlined review process. “EPA must update its PBT criteria consistent with the best available science,” the group says in recent comments to EPA. The group cites a provision in the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that allows EPA to use a “successor scoring system” for identifying PBT chemicals in lieu of current criteria.
But an environmentalist coalition, including Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, EarthJustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council in Jan. 12 comments argues that Congress, specifically backed criteria the Obama EPA used in its TSCA “workplan” chemical review program while lawmakers sought to revise the old TSCA.
“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 are subject to section 6(h) because they meet these criteria,” the groups say.
The coalition contends the agency has already shown exposures to the five substances is likely, and is encouraging EPA to move forward with restrictions while gathering additional data.
“EPA should not create unnecessary roadblocks but should focus on the overriding Congressional objective of achieving the maximum possible reduction in human exposure and environmental release,” the groups say, adding that EPA should continue to update information on the chemicals' use as data is submitted to the agency.
Exposure Analysis
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in separate Jan. 12 comments, argues that EPA should seek data from a variety of sources to inform its future exposure analysis, including through consultation with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other agencies, and issuing new data collection rules.
“EPA has provided no sound reasoning for relying solely on voluntary requests for information, and doing so may result in limited, biased, inaccurate, or incomplete information on the chemicals,” EDF says. “EPA must promulgate reasonable regulations under” TSCA section 8, arguing that EPA must consider all information it can reasonably generate.
EPA Oct. 11, 2016 announced plans to review five PBT chemicals under the revised TSCA section 6(h) expedited risk process. The agency must then take steps to impose limitation sufficient to reduce exposure to the “extent practicable” within three years of the law's June 22 effective date.
For the five chemicals it has listed as targets for expedited action, EPA has conducted some assessment of the use and exposure potential in accordance with the work plan program, but the agency plans to refine those assessments in support of regulatory action, and will make those documents public as part of an eventual rulemaking.
The five chemicals are: Decabromodiphenyl ethers (DecaBDE), used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics and polyurethane foam; Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used in the manufacture of rubber compounds and lubricants and as a solvent; Pentachlorothio-phenol (PCTP), used as an agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses; Tris (4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate, used as a flame retardant in consumer products and other industrial uses; and 2,4,6-Tris(tert-butyl)phenol, used as a fuel, oil, gasoline or lubricant additive.
In calling for EPA to update its criteria for determining PBT chemicals, ACC argues that the revised TSCA directs EPA to either adopt the agency's 2012 work plan criteria for identifying PBTs or use a “successor scoring system,” and that EPA should use the second option because it reflects current science.
EPA's Criteria
ACC argues that EPA's workplan chemicals program relied on criteria from 1999 that were based on science from the late 1970s and early 80s. ACC says a 2008 Society of Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) summary of SETAC's Pellston Workshop found that science has produced an array of new methods for identifying PBTs but regulatory criteria have failed to keep up.
And ACC notes that EPA has deemed “best available science” an integral component of section 6 risk evaluations in other facets of its TSCA implementation, such as its final risk evaluation rule for existing chemicals. Environmental groups are challenging that rule in federal court.
“EPA should update the outdated PBT criteria used in its Work Plan Methodology with the framework established in the Pellston Workshop Summary before it conducts its use and exposure assessment on the five substances to ensure it is using the best available science, consistent with the scientific requirements of section 26 of amended TSCA and the Agency’s articulation of its definition of 'best available science' in its final risk evaluation rule,” ACC says.
But the environmentalist coalition argues that Congress expressly backed the workplan PBT criteria in House report language on the revised TSCA, and that altering the criteria would require a lengthy public process, including significant input from the scientific community, and have implications far beyond TSCA.
The advocates also fault ACC's suggested alternative, arguing that SETAC's 2008 paper on the Pellston Workshop has not been adequately peer reviewed and carries an industry bias.
“[T]he Workshop was industry funded and 6 out of 9 of the workgroups were chaired by industry participants,” the environmental groups say. “It strains credulity to suggest that a non-peer-reviewed document published ten years ago in 2008, sponsored by industry, is a 'consensus' on the 'current science' of PBTs.”
Meanwhile, the environmentalist coalition, and EDF, in separate comments, are pressing EPA to assess exposures to PBTs' legacy uses, an issue the Trump administration has declined to address in evaluating existing chemicals generally, though EPA officials have left open the possibility of assessing such risks for PBTs.
Cindy Wheeler, of EPA's toxics office, told the agency's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee during a Nov. 29 meeting that the agency had not yet decided whether to assess legacy uses of PBTs, saying the agency may "depart" from the approach the agency took in the risk evaluation rule. "We are basically approaching them as, 'we'll just look at exposure and then we'll reduce exposure to the extent practicable,'" she said.
The environmentalist coalition argues that EPA should prohibit use and unsafe disposal of legacy PBT-containing products and require manufacturers to repurchase or replace the products.
And EDF contends that EPA's exclusion of legacy uses and their associated disposal under the Trump administration's final risk evaluation rule for existing chemicals is unsupported by law and argues that continuing that approach for PBTs is especially unfounded.
“[T]hese chemicals are particularly likely to result in heightened exposure for lengthy periods of time even if their active production, use and disposal has ceased,” EDF says. “Congress focused on these chemicals because of their long legacy; it would be absurd to ignore exposure resulting from those legacy uses and associated disposals in determining exposure to and regulating these chemicals.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/acc-urges-epa-revise-pbt-criteria-over-environmentalists-objections
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(ACC Mentioned) Data Collection, Evaluation Criteria Seen As key TSCA Prioritisation Issues
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Data collection and evaluation criteria have emerged as key issues as the US EPA deliberates on how it will identify candidate chemicals for prioritisation.
In its prioritisation rule, finalised last June, the agency dropped a "pre-prioritisation" step for gathering data on candidates before chemicals enter the formal process that leads to a designation of "low" or "high" priority substance that will undergo risk evaluation.
The EPA then initiated a consultation on how to progress the prioritisation rule that included a December public meeting.
Comments submitted since that meeting have thrown up disagreements between industry and NGOs in several areas.Data collection
One area of sharp disagreement is how and when the EPA should gather data.
Industry groups want to rely as much as possible on existing data and voluntary submissions. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) suggested a "tiered" approach in which the agency first gathers "reasonably available information," then calls for voluntary submissions and issues data collection orders only after those avenues are exhausted.
NGOs say the EPA should use its data collection authority early in the pre-prioritisation process. The agency should issue information collection regulations under section 8 of TSCA and orders for testing under section 4 "on a routine basis as part of the process leading up to prioritisation," the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) wrote.Work plan changes
The issue of work plan chemicals was another area where industry and NGOs don't see eye to eye.
The process for identifying work plan chemicals under the old TSCA whittled down candidates in stages, based on scoring for hazard, exposure and persistence. The new TSCA requires the EPA to take at least half of high priority substances from the 2014 work plan list.
Stakeholders agree that the work plan process should be the basis for pre-prioritisation, and that newly available data should be incorporated.
But some NGOs argue that the EPA should incorporate additional criteria, especially responding to the new TSCA’s mandates to consider exposure of "sensitive populations."
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, for example, suggested adding additional hazard end-points, such as:
· chronic toxicity;
· acute toxicity;
· neurotoxicity;
· immunotoxicity; and
· endocrine effects.
It also suggested adding "triggers based on reported eco-toxicity values."
The ACC urged the EPA to amend criteria for "persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic" substances, as it did in separate comments on plans for mandated rapid action on five such substances. But NGOs reject this, arguing the existing criteria are widely accepted and attacking the ACC’s proposed substitute, based on a 2008 industry funded workshop.
Industry groups said the EPA should clearly specify its scoring criteria, and ensure that stakeholders know which chemicals are being considered for prioritisation at a given time so they can offer input.Canada
Many industry groups argue that the EPA should adopt processes and conclusions from Canada’s Chemical Management Plan, possibly even deeming "low priority" all chemicals that Canada has determined do not warrant further investigation.
NGOs say the CMP does not meet TSCA requirements, noting that it didn’t consider worker exposure or proximity to drinking water, and it assigned low priority to low-volume. NGOs also attacked Canadian data collection; the Natural Resource Defense Council said more than 90% of its ecological data was based on models.
"Because of the Canadian law’s aggressive timeline, Canadian officials had to make do with whatever information they already had or could develop rapidly through predictive models," the EDF said.
"As a result, despite what the chemical industry frequently asserts, chemicals not found to meet the categorisation criteria cannot be characterized as affirmatively low-priority."Low priority chemicals
Industry groups applauded the EPA’s intention, as stated in a discussion document ahead of the December meeting, to identify more "low priority" chemicals than TSCA requires. They argue that clearing chemicals not needing risk evaluation allows rapid progress, increasing public confidence.
"Identifying a substantial number of low-priority chemicals is likely to become the primary indicator of the success of the TSCA programme," wrote the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (Socma).
But environmental groups say resources should be focused on high priority chemicals and relatively few should qualify as "low priority."
Because TSCA requires that any chemical that may pose an "unreasonable risk" be designated high priority, the EPA must be "very confident that a chemical does not present any potential hazard or potential exposure concerns before it can designated as low priority," wrote Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
"Most importantly, the law is very clear that EPA can only make low-priority designations on chemicals that are data rich."
https://chemicalwatch.com/63786/data-collection-evaluation-criteria-seen-as-key-tsca-prioritisation-issues
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In Another TSCA Defeat, EPA Loses Bid To Limit Scope Of Fluoride Suit
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge has denied EPA's request to limit the scope of environmentalists' lawsuit over the agency's denial of their petition seeking to ban the practice of treating drinking water with fluoride, opening the door to the plaintiffs offering a broad range of evidence to bolster their case rather than relying on information in EPA's record.
Judge Edward Chen, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled Feb. 7 in Food & Water Watch Inc., et al, v. EPA, that the citizen petition provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) allows a petitioner whose request is not addressed by EPA to seek de novo consideration of their case before a federal district court -- overruling EPA's arguments that such reviews are limited to data in the administrative record.
“The EPA moves for a protective order limiting the scope of review in this litigation to the administrative record, a request that would effectively foreclose Plaintiffs from introducing any evidence in this litigation that was not attached to their administrative petition,” Chen writes.
“The text of the TSCA, its structure, its purpose, and the legislative history make clear that Congress did not intend to impose such a limitation in judicial review of Section 21 citizen petitions.”
Chen ordered the parties to “meet and confer and agree” on a discovery plan consistent with the order.
The ruling marks the second time that Chen has rejected EPA arguments in the precedent-setting case and could impact future legal challenges to agency TSCA petition responses because it provides plaintiffs the opportunity to present a broader range of scientific evidence on chemicals' risks.
Late last year, Chen ruled that TSCA, as reformed by Congress in 2016, allows citizens to petition EPA to regulate single uses of substances, a stance at odds with the agency's position in this case, where it rejected the petition because it sought to regulate one use of fluoride, the fluoridation of drinking water for its dental benefits.
After his earlier ruling, environmentalists and industry attorneys said they expected an increase in the number of section 21 petitions to be filed because environmentalists and other groups are likely to see the petitions as a new way to force EPA to address their concerns.
“The fluoridation case may signal to environmental groups that the courts may be receptive to granting section 21 petitions or at a minimum that EPA’s reasons for a denial will be closely scrutinized,” Herb Estreicher, an attorney and chemist with the law firm of Keller and Heckman, told Inside EPA.
But the possibility of de novo review of fluoride risks appealed to petitioners in this case, who have long sought to end drinking water fluoridation but believe their case has received short shrift from EPA and other agencies. They argue the practice can result in people ingesting too much fluoride, and they point to recent studies showing neurotoxic health risks from fluoride exposure at lower levels than previously considered of concern.
"One of the reasons I was interested in the TSCA petition was to obtain a different forum" for consideration of fluoride and its risks, Michael Connett, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told Inside EPA in 2016.
"It will be good to get the issue considered by people not entrenched in the issue," he added. "EPA never really applied its own risk assessment procedures to fluoride. We believe if EPA does, then it will see the . . . that fluoridation would be incompatible with the dose that would be appropriate."
De Novo Review
Chen's Feb. 7 order responds to litigants' arguments over the standard of judicial review, which TSCA section 21(b)(4)(B) states provides petitioners filing section 21 petitions “an opportunity to have such a petition considered by the court in a de novo proceeding.”
EPA, having failed to end the suit, then sought to limit the scope of the court's review by arguing that it should be based on the administrative record rather than the broader de novo review the plaintiffs sought.
But environmentalists and their supporters pushed back. “EPA asks this Court for a sweeping order that would exempt this 'civil action' from Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) and deny Plaintiffs their right to discovery,” the plaintiffs said in a Jan. 5 reply brief. “This request is not only incompatible with the plain meaning of [TSCA], but runs directly counter to Congress’s clearly expressed intent in the legislative history.”
In his order, Chen largely agrees with environmentalists. He notes that TSCA section 21(b)(4)(B) “does not explicitly provide for a scope of review. Rather, it states that the plaintiff shall be entitled to 'an opportunity to have such petition considered by the court in a de novo proceeding.' Defendant seizes upon the term 'such petition' to support a limited scope of review, and Plaintiff seizes upon the term 'de novo proceeding' to support an unrestricted scope of review.” But after reviewing the text, Chen concludes that EPA's “reliance on the term 'such petition' to imply a limited scope of review is unpersuasive.”
Further, Chen concludes that the 2014 D.C. Circuit case that EPA principally relied upon in its arguments, Trumpeter Swan Soc. v. EPA, “did not specifically address the significance of the term 'such petition.' . . . The dicta from Trumpeter, therefore, does not carry persuasive weight here.”
Chen adds that the Trumpeter decision also does not address what he considers a more salient 2010 D.C. Circuit holding, in Environmental Defense Fund v. Reilly.
“The D.C. Circuit reasoned in Reilly not only that the standard of review (i.e., the degree of deference owed to the agency's position) differed under the TSCA and [the Administrative Procedures Act (APA)], but also that the scope of review was distinct, as the court reiterated several times the APA's presumptive limitation to the administrative record as a factor distinguishing TSCA from APA review. The clear implication of Reilly is that Section 21 petitions are not limited to the administrative record.”
Chen writes that as a result, he does not consider “EPA's interpretation of the term 'such petition' with respect to the scope of review . . . persuasive because it contradicts the EPA's own position and is not supported by case law.”
After further review of TSCA's statute and the historical record, Chen concludes that EPA “ultimately falls back on policy arguments, some of which have significant force. For example, Defendant argues that Plaintiffs already had an 'opportunity' to make a case to the EPA with all the evidence they need ... If petitioners are permitted to simply file suit, then they will be able to file barebones administrative petitions and then sandbag the EPA with new evidence in litigation, effectively depriving the agency of an opportunity to avoid litigation by reviewing an adequate petition on the merits first. Moreover, the EPA contends that an open record would render meaningless the requirement that the administrative petition 'set forth the facts' making a rule necessary.”
But Chen concludes that “EPA's concerns are forceful but ultimately do not bear the weight of the statutory text, structure, purpose, and legislative history to the contrary. Defendant's argument also overlooks policy reasons why an open record would be permitted. For example, as Plaintiffs pointed out at the hearing, new studies relevant to the merits have been issued after their petition was denied, and therefore they were unable to present such evidence in their petition. Defendant also overlooks the fact that even though a petitioner has unlimited time to prepare their initial petition, they do not have a chance to respond to the EPA‟s denial or evidence prior to this civil proceeding.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/another-tsca-defeat-epa-loses-bid-limit-scope-fluoride-suit
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EPA Floats New Option For Protecting CBI Data Under TSCA
Feb 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is seeking public input on a third proposed alternative for using a unique identifier (UID) to protect confidential chemical data submitted to the agency under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), citing “drawbacks” to two prior approaches that the agency floated last summer.
“EPA has developed a third alternative approach for reconciling the competing requirements of TSCA section 14(g), and now invites public comment on this new alternative,” the agency says in a pre-publication version of a noticescheduled for publication in the Federal Register Feb. 8.
“This third alternative approach would avoid several problems that EPA has identified with assigning more than one UID to a single substance."
EPA will seek comment on the approach for 30 days after its publication in the Register, or from Feb. 8 to March 8.
Section 14(g)(4) of the revised TSCA requires that EPA assign a “unique identifier” to each specific chemical for which the agency approves a request for confidential business information (CBI) protection and to consistently apply that UID to all data submitted on the chemical, including non-confidential information.
Agency officials have said that the provision of TSCA fails to adequately specify a process for ensuring that related, publicly disclosed information, does not identify the chemical, or other related data, that is protected as CBI. EPA last summer sought public input to address the concern, and has since formulated an alternative approach.
Under the proposed alternative, EPA would ascribe a single UID to the name of a chemical substance with a valid CBI claim and use that UID whenever the chemical is referenced in other non-confidential data submitted under various TSCA provisions. But the approach would allow EPA to forgo use of the UID in cases where doing so would permit connection of public data with a chemical for which the agency has approved a CBI claim, and identify the substance.
EPA says it expects cases where it would forgo use of the UID to preserve a CBI claim would be rare.
During a May 24 meeting at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., environmentalists and petro-chemical sector groups sparred over how broadly EPA should apply CBI restrictions preventing disclosure. Advocates argued that the new law favors disclosure over secrecy, while industry officials said the revised TSCA gives EPA significant flexibility to craft a system for balancing public disclosure with protecting agency-approved claims for CBI.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-floats-new-option-protecting-cbi-data-under-tsca
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(ACC Mentioned) Critics And Defenders Of Cancer Research Agency Spar At US Hearing
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Frank Zaworski
Republican lawmakers have renewed their attack on the International Agency on the Research for Cancer at a 6 February hearing on Capitol Hill.
The hearing focused on claims of data manipulation in the monograph programme's assessment of the herbicide glyphosate. But Iarc's work has wide implications. In the US, substances it lists as carcinogens are also listed as such under California's Proposition 65. This requires manufacturers and retailers to warn workers and consumers exposed to them.
Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology, said at the hearing that the organisation's "selective use of data and the lack of public disclosure raise questions about why Iarc should receive any government funding in the future".
In December three Republican Representatives threatened to pull US financial support for the agency.
However, Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon) presented Iarc's defence to the latest hearing. Submitted in a document to the committee in January, this argued that the controversy over glyphosate is emblematic of industry efforts to attack independent scientists.
"It is important that we review the methods and tactics that industry has used to influence this administration and attack independent scientific organisations," Ms Bonamici said. "We must make sure any chemical review is not undone by undue industry influence or misleading scientific studies."
And Jennifer Sass, senior scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council, told the committee:"Fundamentally, this hearing is about the ability of a public health agency to call a carcinogen a carcinogen, even if it makes a huge amount of money for a powerful corporation."
"Iarc monographs are considered essential for informing cancer prevention strategies and effective public health decision making around the world," she said. "Are we willing to sell out the public's right to know about harmful chemicals in the places we work, live and play, just so that Monsanto Company can sell more glyphosate?"
The American Chemistry Council's Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research (CAPHR) applauded the House committee's move to examine what it called Iarc's "severely flawed cancer hazard evaluation programme".
"We have serious concerns with the programme's lack of scientific integrity and transparency in developing monographs," said Cal Dooley, ACC President and CEO. "Our goal is to reform and update the Iarc monographs programme to bring it into the 21st century and restore public trust.
"This will require Iarc to increase transparency in its processes for choosing experts, involving stakeholders, and selecting and analysing studies. Iarc monographs should be subjected to robust independent peer review, a procedure that is inexplicably lacking at the present time."
https://chemicalwatch.com/63787/critics-and-defenders-of-cancer-research-agency-spar-at-us-hearing
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Send Limited Exposure Data to EPA as Deadline Nears
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Companies could face EPA demands for costly chemical exposure studies on five persistent, toxic chemicals as the agency faces a 2019 deadline to control them.
EPA data show that companies such as Albemarle Corp. and ICL-IP America Inc. manufactured some of the chemicals in 2015, the most recent year available, but provided little specific exposure information in response to the Environmental Protection Agency's request for input last month.
Persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic (PBT) chemicals are found in flame retardants, plastics, rubber and other products, and are challenging to manage as they stay in the environment and accumulate in food webs for extended periods.
Because of that, Congress prioritized five of these chemicals under 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Albemarle and ICL-IP America did not respond to requests for comment.
The EPA is currently reviewing the information in the dockets, and may require more data if warranted, agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox told Bloomberg Environment.
“If EPA determines additional information is needed, the agency will consider additional approaches for obtaining the information, including using its authority under amended TSCA,” Wilcox said.
At least one environmental group said the EPA may not be doing enough to get the data it needs to reduce PBT risks—actions it's required to propose by June 2019.
The Environmental Defense Fund commented that the EPA must consider all information it “can reasonably, generate, obtain and synthesize,” and that the agency's actions to date suggest it “will fall short of that standard.”
But the EPA also has to weigh exposures to chemicals and their related “conditions of use” to establish whether and how they can be reduced and if they pose unreasonable risks.
Thin on Exposure Submissions
The EPA received 73 comments on its five separate dockets seeking exposure and use information on the chemicals, 18 of which were from industry organizations like the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
The ACC, which represents hundreds of companies such as BASF Corp., Dow Chemical Co., and ExxonMobil Chemical Co., made procedural suggestions to the EPA in its public comments, but didn't provide any exposure data from its members.
“A very small number of companies” in its membership are impacted by the PBT provisions, Jon Corley, an ACC spokesman, told Bloomberg Environment. The EPA should instead consult “downstream users who are likely to have the most relevant exposure information.”
Companies’ failure to provide more data wasn't “all that surprising as value chain challenges make it very difficult to populate these files with a lot of user information,” Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at the law firm Bergeson & Campbell PC, told Bloomberg Environment.
Exposure information may not be as crucial since the chemicals are already accepted as causing harm, Lorenz Rhomberg, a former EPA risk assessor who is now with Gradient, a consulting firm, told Bloomberg Environment.
The fact that companies did not supply more information, Rhomberg said, could reflect that “either they think the agency has whatever information there is on persistent, bioaccumulative criteria or that they can't improve on it too much.”
The chemicals’ uses range widely and cross many industries, including defense industry functions like aircraft and helicopter hydraulic fluids, fire suppressants in airplane interiors, and at oil refineries.
The EPA is looking into five specific chemicals in its first round of reviews under the amended TSCA:
• decabromodiphenyl ethers (DecaBDE), which is used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics, and polyurethane foam,
• hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used in the manufacture of rubber compounds, lubricants, and as a solvent,
• pentachlorothiophenol (PCTP), used as an agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses, including in the aerospace industry,
• tris (4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate, used as a flame retardant in consumer products, and
• 2,4,6-tris(tert-butyl)phenol, used as a fuel, oil, gasoline, or lubricant additive.
Will EPA Have Sufficient Data?
The EPA published in August 2017 preliminary information on manufacturing, processing, distribution, use and disposal of the chemicals. But, the agency said it was interested in learning more about the chemicals’ “uses, products containing these chemicals, exposed populations, and alternatives to these chemicals.”
The TSCA law directs the agency to address the five chemicals. The 2016 amendments to the law ordered EPA to examine an Obama administration priority list known as the “work plan chemicals list,” and begin expedited review of all chemicals there with PBT properties.
EPA also has to consider a chemical's PBT properties for future reviews of substances that were not present on the work plan list.
Advocates say the coming months could be crucial for the EPA.
“We think that pretty stringent steps are necessary here to fulfill these requirements of the law,” said Robert Sussman, a principal attorney at Sussman & Associates and former EPA attorney. Sussman prepared comments to the EPA on behalf of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, an advocacy group.
Some Companies Replace PBTs
Some companies have already shifted away from the chemicals in question, though others say the PBT chemicals now under review were themselves replacements for worse chemicals.
Boeing Co., for example, replaced the flame retardant DecaBDE in airplane interiors in 2013 or 2014, Linda Thomas, the company's chemical risk assessment leader, said at an EPA advisory committee meeting last year.
Other defense manufacturers have shifted from flammable hydraulic fluids to ones based on phosphate esthers such as tris (4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate to increase safety, Leslie Riegle, director of environmental policy for the Aerospace Industries Association, commented. Changing course again “would require extensive collaboration” to “ensure no incompatabilities are introduced by the change.”
A spokesman for the association declined to comment to Bloomberg Environment on the filings.
Tire manufacturers have also long since abandoned the chemicals HCBD and PCTP, which were once used to make rubber more pliable. The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association told EPA that HCBD and PCTP are no longer used in tire production for U.S.-made or imported tires.
Tires have been “round and black for a long time, but they're changing all the time,” Dan Zielinski, senior vice president of public affairs for the association, told Bloomberg Environment. As a result, Zielinski said, tire manufacturers “don't anticipate there's any issue facing us.”
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Agencies Boost Exchange of Fluorochemicals Data
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Federal scientists are sharing more information on fluorochemicals to aid water treatment, cleanup, and other decisions facing state and federal regulators across the U.S.
More than 150 federal, state, and academic scientists attended a two-day Federal Information Exchange this week on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 7. The meeting was held Feb. 5-6 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
“Participants shared ongoing research and achieved a better understanding of the science behind decision-making regarding PFAS,” Birnbaum told Bloomberg Environment.
The meeting will help future information-sharing across federal agencies, Birnbaum said. It also marked an important step toward coordinating research efforts across federal agencies—along with their state partners—to address PFAS challenges, she said.
“Protecting the safety of our nation's drinking water is one of EPA's top priorities, and the information exchanged between our federal partners over the past few days will help us as we work together to support states, tribes, and local governments with the tools needed to address PFAS,” EPA representative Jahan Wilcox told Bloomberg Environment.
David Andrews, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, applauded the federal-state information exchange even though he did not attend the meeting, which was closed to nongovernment organizations.
“Sharing information will empower states to step in where the federal government has left off,” Andrews said.
Multiple Uses
Fluorochemicals, often referred to as PFAS, have multiple consumer and industrial uses because they can make products heat-, stain- and grease-resistant.
Companies including 3M, Angus Fire, the Chemours Co., and Solvay S.A. have produced or used these chemicals to make stain-resistant upholstery, waterproof apparel and footwear, specialized fire-fighting foams, and grease-resistant food packaging such as pizza boxes, popcorn bags, and hamburger wrappers.
People exposed to elevated concentrations of one of the most studied fluorochemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), faced greater risk of testicular and kidney cancer, thyroid disease, autoimmune disorders, and elevated cholesterol, a court-ordered science panel, found.
The increasing detection of PFAS chemicals in sources of drinking water and contaminated sites across the U.S. is prompting states, water utilities, and responsible parties to spend millions of dollars, and spurring toxic tort and property damage litigation.
Exposure, Treatment
Among the federal officials who spoke during the Feb. 5-6 meeting were Birnbaum, Patrick Breysse—the director of two Centers for Disease Prevention and Control agencies—and Maureen Sullivan, a deputy assistant secretary with the Department of Defense.
Research areas discussed included exposure to, health effects of, and remediation and treatment methods for the group of chemicals that some researchers estimate may include 3,000 types of compounds.
Federal agencies may establish a central internet website that links to their divergent PFAS research efforts, NIEHS Chief of Staff Mark Miller said Jan. 29 at a Toxicology Forum session discussing fluorochemicals. The first step, he said, was to identify the scope of federal research in this area.
Empowering States
States are eager to get information on health effects, cleanup technologies, and other data about PFAS chemicals because of their prevalence.
The Environmental Protection Agency has identified at least 17 non-federal contaminated sites with PFAS, according to a list it provided Bloomberg Environment. The list also includes 32 federal facilities where PFAS contamination may impact drinking water.
CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is working at more than two dozen federal and non-federal sites, according to information it updated Jan. 10.
A Bloomberg Environment analysis of EPA water contaminant data found that 65 water utilities across 24 states and territories had at least one sample above the lifetime health advisory that the Environmental Protection Agency set for just two of the PFAS chemicals: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). EPA's non-enforceable health advisory level for the two compounds is 70 parts per trillion.
Collectively, these drinking water utilities serve more than 6 million people, and have prompted states and responsible parties to spend millions of dollars in cleanup efforts.
State, federal, and academic officials attending meetings and speaking with Bloomberg Environment have estimated the number of PFAS-contaminated sites and water sources—and cleanup funds that may be needed—could be much higher.
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California To List TRIM® VX As A Carcinogen Under Prop 65
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Frank Zaworski
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) plans to list TRIM® VX as a carcinogen under Proposition 65.
The California law requires manufacturers and retailers to warn workers and consumers exposed to chemicals on the list.
TRIM® VX is a metalworking fluid used as a lubricant and coolant liquid for cleaning tools and parts during cutting, drilling, milling and grinding.
The action is being proposed under the "authoritative bodies" listing mechanism, based on findings of a 2016 National Toxicology Program (NTP) report on TRIM® VX that concluded the chemical causes cancer.
Oehha will accept comments until 26 February.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63789/california-to-list-trim-vx-as-a-carcinogen-under-prop-65
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Nordic Textile Chemical Guide to Help Asian Factories Comply
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Marcus Hoy
Clothing companies that may be in violation of European chemical rules will benefit from new guidance on textiles often made in distant countries, according to Denmark's EPA.
The new English-language guidance, created by the Nordic Council of Ministers, details EU and Nordic restrictions on the manufacture, import, and distribution of chemicals commonly used in the global textile industry.
According to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, numerous reports of clothing and textiles that violate EU chemical rules appear on the Rapid Exchange of Information System registry, a weekly reporting system used by EU member nations to share data about hazardous products in the marketplace.
Violations can prove costly for companies, the EPA said, as they may imply that a whole line of clothing must be withdrawn from store shelves. While it is designed to be used by all textile companies, small- and medium-sized businesses within the sector will likely find the new guidance especially helpful, as the rules apply to internet purchases as well, the EPA said in a Feb. 5 statement.
Prevailing EU restrictions and national rules are detailed in the guide for the five Nordic nations—Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland.
Breaches are Serious
In addition to EU restrictions, the guidance notes that special regulations exist in Denmark related to the presence of pentachlorophenol, lead, phthalates, cadmium, and mercury in textiles and other products.
Norway has special restrictions on mercury, brominated flame retardants, pentachlorophenol, formaldehyde, and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA,) while Finland imposes additional restrictions on the use of formaldehyde.
Knowledge of the specific composition of a product's materials is essential, the guidance said, as the use of specific chemicals is highly related to the type of material and related treatments.
“We think this can be a useful tool,“ Weronika Rehnby, textile and environmental expert at Teko, the Swedish Textile & Clothing Industries’ Association, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 6. “It will help companies identify potentially hazardous chemicals in their textile products and take active steps.”
Rehnby added that it is important that the guide be continuously updated.
“One problem that many importers and retailers face is obtaining information about the chemical content in their products,” Rehnby said. “This is due to long supply chains and the fact that much of the production, especially for fashion takes place far away, in for example, China.”
Some companies but not all are familiar with Nordic chemical regulations, Rehnby said. The new guidance will help companies ask for information from suppliers and specify technical requirements, he said.
“Learning about the chemical content of their own textile products and about the related chemical regulations within the EU and the Nordic nations should be an ongoing process for companies,” Rehnby said.
Bror William Stende, director for clothing and textiles at the Federation of Norwegian Enterprise, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 6 that his organization had previously published a similar tool but found it difficult to keep it updated.
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Study Raises Fears About Chemicals In Secondhand Toys
Feb 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The toy industry has assured consumers that risk from chemicals in secondhand plastic toys is low, following a study in the UK that revealed the presence of hazardous elements.
Research carried out at the University of Plymouth tested 200 toys from schools, charity shops and family homes for the presence of: antimony; arsenic; barium; cadmium; chromium; lead; mercury; selenium; and bromine (as a proxy for brominated flame retardants).
Every element was detected in more than 20 toys or components, with the exception of arsenic, mercury and selenium. The greatest concerns for potential exposure, were the frequent occurrences of bromine, cadmium and lead.
A sample on components of 26 toys found eight occurences did not comply with migration limits for cadmium and lead set by the EU’s toy safety Directive. Two further cases contained potentially non-compliant migratable chromium.
Report author, Andrew Turner, said secondhand products were acting "as a conduit for exposing ‘legacy’ chemicals to the current generation of young children".
And he warned consumers should "be aware of the potential risks associated with small, mouthable, and brightly coloured (and in particular red and yellow) old plastic toys or components".
Dr Turner also said the study found evidence for the occurrence of historical brominated flame retardants in some neutrally coloured secondhand toys, which he said "is part of a broader and more complex issue concerning the recycling of electronic plastic waste and one that warrants further study".
Responding to the study, the British Toy and Hobby Association issued a statement saying risk from secondhand toys "should be considered low and should not alarm parents unduly."
"Any assessment of older products needs to be conducted in line with the actual legislation using the correct standards and methods, which must be followed by a risk assessment on a case by case basis, considering real life exposure."Game counters, beads and old Lego concern
After examining a number of secondhand products, the study found "co-associations of multiple elements exceeding their respective limit values" in:
· two types of bead – antimony, bromine, cadmium and lead;
· a number of old Lego bricks – cadmium and selenium, or cadmium and antimony;
· a small games mat – barium and lead;
· various games counters – cadmium and selenium – and figures – cadmium and lead; and
· the plastic bowl of a bell – chromium and antimony.
The study raised concerns about red and yellow Lego bricks from the 1970s, which it says contained the highest levels of cadmium of the toy studies.
This is probably because of the introduction of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) at that time, the study says.
"Given their popularity, durability, collectability and compatibility with newer products, older, ABS-based Lego sets, and in particular those containing brightly-coloured pieces, should be treated with caution," it says.
A Lego spokesperson said the company has always applied the highest toy safety standards of the time that the toys were made and no cadmium-based pigments had been used in Lego bricks since 1981.
"We have had independent toxicology review of the safety of old Lego bricks which found no cause for concern for children playing with bricks which are more than 40 years old as long as they are in good shape and condition," they said.Enforcement action
A spokesperson for the European Commission said: "Since the knowledge about the toxicity of chemicals is continuously increasing and limit values in the toy safety Directive are strengthened accordingly, it appears plausible that toys of the 1970s and 1980s may not comply with today's strict Directive.
"It should be noted that the first toy safety Directive was adopted in 1988."
The spokesperson added that all toys placed on the market are covered by the Directive, whether secondhand or not, and member state authorities need to take enforcement action against non-compliant toys when identified.
However the spokesperson added that authorities could not prohibit toys which were not put on the market – such as those handed down in families.
Mark Gardiner, Chartered Trading Standards Institute lead officer for product safety, said: "Local trading standards services would not have the resources to test old toys. If parents are concerned then the advice would be to take them away."
An awareness raising campaign could be helpful for parents, says Michael Warhurst, of the UK NGO CHEM Trust.
"It might be possible to give advice on certain types of toys that are problematic. Some sort of guidance and national coordination would be useful," he said.
"This shows why the regulators need to be moving much faster in assessing and restricting chemicals. The slower we are the greater volume of unsafe chemicals on the market."
https://chemicalwatch.com/63753/study-raises-fears-about-chemicals-in-secondhand-toys
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German Coalition Deal Sets No Timetable to End Glyphosate Use
Feb 7, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Michael Hogan
HAMBURG — Germany's draft coalition deal includes a goal of ending use of the weed-killer glyphosate within the country but gives no time frame, after Berlin swung a vote in November extending its use across the European Union.
The timing of an end to glyphosate use has been highly controversial in Europe amid a heated debate over whether the chemical causes cancer.
"We will with a systematic minimalisation strategy significantly restrict use of plant protection chemicals containing glyphosate, with the goal of fundamentally ending usage as fast as possible," the draft deal to establish a new German coalition government said.
The draft, published on Wednesday on the homepage of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party, did not indicate a schedule for ending glyphosate use.
"We will develop alternatives jointly with the agricultural sector as part of an arable farming strategy which will regulate environmentally friendly and nature-compatible use of plant protection chemicals," it added.Continue reading the main story
The new strategy will conform with EU rules, it said.
In November, German agriculture minister Christian Schmidt caused international controversy and a major row in Germany's government by unexpectedly backing a European Commission proposal to permit use of glyphosate for the next five years.
The move by Schmidt, a conservative, effectively allowed the extension in glyphosate use within the EU, despite opposition from France and from the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Germany's current government coalition.
Germany's SPD environment minister Barbara Hendricks has called for an end to glyphosate use in the current four-year parliament. Both ministers are still in their jobs as caretakers but a new coalition cabinet will soon be named.
Other agricultural policies agreed for the new government include a formalisation of the current ban on growing crops containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Germany and an expansion of organic farming, the draft deal said.
An animal welfare food label will also be introduced for meat produced using farming methods with high care standards.
The new government will oppose patents on animals or plants and will not accept cloning of animals for food production.
European Union farming support should remain at around current levels, it said.
The EU is considering reforms to its huge farm subsidy programme from 2020 which faces a big loss of funding following Britain's withdraw from the EU.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/02/07/world/europe/07reuters-germany-politics-glyphosate.html
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Panama Canal Expects LNG Tanker Traffic To Rise 50 pct -Official
Feb 8, 2018 | Reuters
By Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers traversing the Panama Canal is expected to jump 50 percent by September due to rising exports of the fuel from the United States, the head of the canal’s governing agency told Reuters.
After adding a third set of locks in 2016, the Panama Canal Authority expects that growing global demand for LNG will boost transit through the waterway, said Jorge Quijano, head of the authority.
Demand for LNG has taken off in recent years because of abundant supplies of natural gas, especially from United States shale fields, and because natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal or oil.
“We are about to reach one (LNG tanker) per day,” Quijano said.
The canal received 60 LNG tankers in the last quarter of 2017, up sharply from 43 tankers in the same period a year earlier. Most carriers are loaded in the United States for delivery to the Pacific coast of Mexico or South America.
Houston-based Cheniere Energy, which owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG export facility in Louisiana, has been expanding exports while building a new LNG plant near Corpus Christi, Texas, expected to come online in December.
An LNG plant is used to process natural gas for export.
Cheniere, which signed an agreement last month to sell trading firm Trafigura 1 million tonnes of LNG per year for 15 years beginning in 2019, plans to inaugurate a second liquefaction at Corpus Christi and a fifth train at Sabine Pass next year.
U.S. LNG exports via the Panama Canal fell temporarily in September due to damages caused by Hurricane Harvey to several Texas and Louisiana ports, but have recovered in recent months, Quijano said. U.S. export capacity jumped to 18 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) last year from less than 2 Mtpa in 2015.
Panama is trying to be more flexible for LNG transit bookings so exporters can choose to pass through the canal even if that was not originally planned, Quijano said. (Reporting by Elida Moreno, writing by Marianna Parraga; additional reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Ernest Scheyder and David Gregorio)
https://www.reuters.com/article/panamacanal-lng/panama-canal-expects-lng-tanker-traffic-to-rise-50-pct-official-idUSL2N1PV1EJ
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EPA Ordered to Address Connecticut's Upwind Pollution Complaint
Feb 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
The EPA has 60 days to decide whether a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant must install new pollution controls to protect Connecticut's air, a federal judge ruled.
Connecticut had petitioned the EPA in 2016 to require additional pollution controls at the Brunner Island Steam Electric Station, in York County, Pa., arguing those emissions were interfering with air quality in the Northeastern state. But the Environmental Protection Agency failed to respond to the petition within 60 days as required by the Clean Air Act, leading Connecticut to sue the agency.
The EPA had asked for until the end of the year to make a decision, but Judge Warren Eginton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in his Feb. 7 decision gave the agency 30 days to hold a public hearing on the state's request and 60 days to make a decision.
“Connecticut's air quality is significantly impacted by many upwind pollution sources, including Brunner Island. It is critical that the EPA take action to protect the air quality of all states,” Chris Collibee, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, told Bloomberg Environment.
Upwind, Downwind
Connecticut is one of several downwind states with pending petitions asking the EPA to control pollution that blows from power plants in upwind states.
Delaware has threatened to sue the EPA after it delayed making a decision on that state's request to control pollution from four power plants, including the same Brunner Island facility.
Maryland has already filed a lawsuit after the EPA failed to address its petition seeking pollution reductions from 36 power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Connecticut was joined in its lawsuit by the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The case is Connecticut v. Pruitt, D. Conn., No. 3:17-cv-00796, 2/7/18.
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Environmental Groups Press OMB To Retain EPA Oil And Gas Guidelines
Feb 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmental groups are pushing back against Trump EPA plans to rescind control techniques guidelines (CTG) for emissions of ozone-forming pollutants from the oil and gas sector, arguing in recent White House meetings that the guidelines represent an efficient route for both industry and states to manage the emissions.
The arguments comes in response to EPA's seeking White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) approval of its proposal to withdraw the guidelines, after industry argued that they are an unnecessary burden on the sector.
The proposal is also the latest instance of EPA seeking to scale back components of the Obama administration's climate agenda, which included the voluntary ozone guidelines in its suite of strategies for controlling oil and gas methane emissions because the measures would have the co-benefit of reducing methane.
The CTGs provide states a non-binding but presumed roadmap for making emissions cuts from existing sources in the oil and gas sector to comply with ambient ozone standards. They apply to localities that suffer from at least moderate nonattainment of ozone standards, as well as states in the Ozone Transport Region. And they provide guidelines for establishing Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT).
States do not have to follow the specific requirements -- if they can demonstrate that alternative strategies would achieve equal or better protection.
“This is a public health measure,” says one environmentalist, summarizing advocates' defense of the CTGs during a Jan. 26 meeting at OMB. Several groups touted the guidelines as beneficial to the public and state regulators, but also to oil and gas companies that need more certainty on requirements they may face in multiple states.
Groups involved in the Jan. 26 meeting included Clean Air Task Force (CATF), Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club. Background documents for that meeting included fact sheets -- based on a prior CATF report outlining national health effects from oil and gas pollution -- detailing health risks in Texas and Pennsylvania.
The advocacy groups met with OMB roughly a week after a similar Jan. 18 pitch to OMB from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which defended the CTGs as cost-effective steps modeled on requirements adopted by major energy-producing states and argued there would be “no reasonable justification” for EPA to withdraw the guidelines, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Background materials for that meeting included the CATF health effects report as well as a 2015 study by EDF and others that reduced uncertainty in methane emissions data and cited oil and gas methane emissions as nearly double those estimated previously by EPA.
State Burden
Environmentalists told OMB and EPA officials at the meetings that having a presumptively acceptable program in the guidelines saves a lot of time and effort for state regulators.
“Because they know it is something they can adopt, and EPA will generally accept, they don't have to go through their own from-the-ground-up rulemaking,” the first environmentalist says.
In addition, the CTGs also help oil and gas companies operating in multiple states, the groups argue, since the guidelines provide a good indication of the strategies states are likely to use to control pollution from facilities under their jurisdiction.
And groups argued that the CTGs contain strategies similar to requirements for comprehensive oil and gas emissions controls -- including for existing sources -- already in place in leading states such as Colorado, Wyoming and California.
“It hasn't crippled the industry whatsoever,” another environmentalists says.
A third environmentalist says groups also told OMB that the newer, more strict 2015 ozone standard means that states will have to revise their strategies to bring areas into attainment, meaning that the CTGs do not impose a new administrative burden on those states.
“This is not even going to add substantially to anything that the states administratively didn't already have to do” to address ozone problems, the source says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmental-groups-press-omb-retain-epa-oil-and-gas-guidelines
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EPA Sends Air Permit Screening Tools For OMB Review
Feb 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA on Feb. 6 sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review guidance on “significant impact levels” (SILs), which are screening tools used by air regulators and industry to determine an industrial project’s compliance with federal air quality standards, according to OMB’s website.
In the guidance, EPA addresses SILs for ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). SILs are helpful to industry project developers seeking to determine whether they need to conduct a full-blown analysis of the projects’ air quality impacts that might result in violations of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
If the projects’ predicted emissions fall below the SIL threshold, they are considered de minimis and more in-depth analysis is not necessary, saving industry time and money.
The guidance now undergoing OMB review pertains to air permitting under the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program, which applies to new projects and major modifications in areas currently meeting national NAAQS. White House pre-publication review typically takes 90 days but can take more or less time depending on the policy under review.
Industry groups have pressed EPA to release SILs for the 2015 NAAQS, set by the Obama EPA at 70 parts per billion (ppb), stricter than the previous limit of 75 ppb set in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration.
EPA has adopted SILs for PM2.5 previously, only to see them vacated by the courts in litigation brought by environmental groups. Environmentalists have previously argued that SILs are unlawful and could result in NAAQS violations by discounting projects’ emissions, which cumulatively could result in excess air pollution.
EPA has not yet published a description of the guidance in its Unified Agenda, so the precise content is still unclear. However, EPA has indicated in its fall regulatory agenda that it intends to issue guidance on SILs and also Model Emissions Rates for Precursors (MERPs), sought by industry to ease compliance with permit requirements.
MERPs help industry and states calculate the relationships between the air pollution precursors that sources emit, such as ozone-forming nitrogen oxides, and the resulting ozone pollution, in order to craft air permits. The Obama EPA issued draft MERP guidance in December 2016, again drawing objections from environmentalists that MERPs, like the SILs they are based on, are arbitrary and unlawful.
The Obama EPA in draft 2016 non-binding guidance also recommended that states use a SIL for the 2015 ozone NAAQS of 1 ppb, but the agency said at the time it would wait for states to gain more experience using this value before any move to codify it.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-sends-air-permit-screening-tools-omb-review
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Group Sues For Access To Scientific-Integrity Documents
Feb 8, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
An environmental group filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking documents related to U.S. EPA science in the wake of Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to bar staffers from presenting climate change studies at a conference last October.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request that sought research objectives and communications related to its scientific integrity policy.
EPA also failed to furnish documents illuminating the policies that guide staff participation in events, the lawsuit contends.
"PEER now turns to this court to enforce the FOIA's guarantee of public access to agency records," said the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
PEER said its December FOIA request stemmed from concerns that EPA was impeding the Office of Research and Development from "freely disseminat[ing] its scientific research."
The green group cited EPA's decision in October 2017 to cancel the presentations of two agency scientists and a consultant at a conference convened in Narragansett Bay, R.I., for the release of a major report on the status of New England's largest estuary. The report included an extensive section on climate change (Greenwire, Oct. 23, 2017).
Democrats responded by accusing Pruitt of "muzzling" EPA scientists.
For his part, Pruitt attempted to reassure Democrats that he wouldn't stop scientists from publicly discussing their work. He told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that "procedures have been put in place to prevent such an occurrence in the future" (E&E News PM, Dec. 6, 2017).
"I am committed to upholding EPA's Scientific Integrity Policy, which ensures that the Agency's scientific work is of the highest quality, is presented openly and with integrity, and is free from political interference," Pruitt wrote in a December letter to Whitehouse.
PEER used the letter as a basis for its FOIA request. The group is seeking a court order compelling EPA to release the requested documents.
"The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promised lawmakers that there would be no recurrence," PEER said in a statement. "EPA Headquarters, however, has been unable or unwilling to produce any written records describing these corrective actions."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/02/07/stories/1060073187
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EPA Administrator Questions 'Assumptions' That Global Warming Is Bad
Feb 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Luis Sanchez
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday questioned whether global warming is harmful to humans and suggested warm climate could be beneficial.
“We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what? Warming trends. So I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing,” Administrator Scott Pruitt told KSNV News 3 Las Vegas, disputing whether climate change is an "existential threat."
“Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100 in the year 2018?" he continued. "I mean, that’s somewhat fairly arrogant, for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100.”
Pruitt has been skeptical previously about whether human activity is the primary cause of global warming. Last summer, he raised the idea of funding a debate over whether humans are the main contributors to rising temperatures.
But he seemed to acknowledge that humans contribute to climate change on Tuesday.
“No one disputes the climate changes, is changing, and we see that is a constant. We obviously contribute to it,” Pruitt said. “We live in the climate, right. So our activity contributes to the climate changing, to a certain degree.”
Pruitt’s comments contradict the general scientific consensus that humans are the main contributors to the planet’s rising temperatures due to the greenhouse effect.
“There are very important questions around the climate issue that folks really don’t get to,” Pruitt said. “And that’s one of the reasons I’ve talked about having an honest, open, transparent debate about what do we know, what don’t we know, so the American people can be informed and they can make decisions on their own with respect to these issues.”
He added that as head of the EPA he has to balance the issue of what the science says with what "authority" the agency has to implement related regulations.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/372749-epa-administrator-global-warming-could-help-humans
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Dem Senators Demand EPA Chief Recuse Himself On Clean Power Plan Rulemaking
Feb 8, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Four Democratic senators are calling on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt to recuse himself from overseeing any rulemaking regarding the repeal of an Obama-era rule on carbon dioxide emissions, because of his "closed mind."
In a formal comment submitted Wednesday to the docket for the repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote that Pruitt was unfit to oversee the repeal of CPP because of his history of lawsuits against the plan and the Obama administration when Pruitt was attorney general of Oklahoma.
“The evidence for Pruitt’s inalterably closed mind on CPP rulemaking is overwhelming,” the senators wrote. “It falls into three categories: (1) his deep and wide financial ties to the fossil fuel industry which is ferociously opposed to the CPP; (2) his status as a previous petitioner suing the EPA to block the CPP; and (3) his numerous statements denouncing the CPP, questioning the ability to regulate carbon emissions under the [Clean Air Act] as the CPP proposes to do, and casting doubt on climate science.”
The four argued that the law makes clear that when an administrator is proven to have bias he should be recused.
"When clear and convincing evidence exists that a regulator possesses an inalterably closed mind about a subject covered by a rulemaking, s/he is not permitted to participate in the rulemaking," they wrote. "Pruitt’s extensive involvement in CPP litigation means that he cannot be impartial in CPP rulemaking and therefore must recuse himself."
The senators also mentioned Pruitt's history of receiving donations from some of the very groups the CPP could directly affect, noting that in his four campaigns for elected office between 2002 and 2014, Pruitt collected more than $350,000 from businesses and individuals in the energy and natural resources sector.
Since coming to the EPA, Pruitt has taken swift actions to roll back or do away with a number of Obama-era regulations he's deemed over-reaching.
CPP was a ruling, in particular, Pruitt has said does not carry the weight of law as afforded to EPA by Congress.
In October Pruitt sent an official notice of proposed rulemaking to repeal CPP.
“The Obama administration pushed the bounds of their authority so far with the CPP that the Supreme Court issued a historic stay of the rule, preventing its devastating effects to be imposed on the American people while the rule is being challenged in court,” Pruitt said in a statement at the time. “We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate. Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule."
Pruitt has pointed to a 2016 Supreme Court stay of the rule following the hefty legal battles it faced as proof that CPP is illegal. The rule was never implemented under Obama.
In an interview released last week with the New York Time's podcast, "The Daily," Pruitt argued that the EPA is not expressly responsible for regulating the effects of climate change — something the Obama administration had in mind when establishing CPP.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/372741-dem-sens-demand-epa-chief-recuse-himself-from-clean-power-plan
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