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ACC PM Clips Report 2/9/2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) IARC Monographs Questioned by Congress
Feb 9, 2018 | ILMA

The International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) Monographs Program was critically evaluated by the House Science, Space & Technology (HSST) Committee during a hearing this week, specifically examining IARC’s Glyphosate Monograph as a case study for the issues that plague the agency’s processes and procedures.
(ACC Mentioned) China Is Financing a Petrochemical Hub in Appalachia. Meet its Powerful Backers
Feb 9, 2018 | The Energy Collective
By Steve Horn

Over the past year, oil and gas industry plans to build a petrochemical refining and storage hub along the Ohio River have steadily gained traction.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Hearing on US EPA's IRIS Programme Becomes Policy Battleground
Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller

A two-day meeting called to review reforms of the US EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) programme became a battleground in an ongoing war over how the agency conducts chemical research and who will control it.
EPA Issues Long-Anticipated TSCA Fees Proposed Rule
Feb 9, 2018 | Lexology
By Bergeson & Campbell PC

On February 8, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the prepublication version of its long-anticipated fees rule under amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 26(b) entitled User Fees for the Administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Mandatory Reporting Deadlines Approach for Manufacturers, Importers and Users of Chemicals
Feb 9, 2018 | International Law Office
By Judah Prero and Byron Taylor

The Toxic Substances Control Act inventory reset process is now taking place. The reporting deadline for chemical manufacturers and importers was February 7 2018, and the deadline for all other companies that use chemicals is October 5 2018.
EPA Moves Closer to Implementing Chemical Safety Act
Feb 9, 2018 | ISHN

The EPA this week proposed a fees rule under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that it says will give the agency the resources it needs to review chemicals for safety.

Chemical Management News

5 Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Toxic BPA
Feb 9, 2018 | EWG
By Monica Amarelo and Samara Geller

No one disputes that bisphenol A, a toxic compound widely used to line food cans and other food packaging, is polluting people.

Energy News

The Energy 202: Budget Deal Picks Winners and Losers in Energy Industry
Feb 9, 2018 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni

Just after 5:30 a.m. Friday morning, Congress moved to end the blink-and-you-missed-it five-hour government shutdown. The deal sets spending levels for two years, including a massive increase in military spending and a significant boost to domestic programs.
Oil Spill Tax on Oil Companies Reinstated as Part of Budget Deal
Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Oil companies will once again have to pay a tax to fund oil spill cleanups thanks to Congress's new budget signed into law early Friday morning.
New Trump Directive Puts Fossil Fuel Industries in Charge of Public Lands
Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Randi Spivak

It’s not enough that 90 percent of public lands are open to oil and gas exploitation. The fossil fuel industry wants more from the Trump administration. They just got it.
Natural Gas Pipelines Needs Regulatory Certainty, Faster Permitting, Says INGAA Chief
Feb 9, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut

As Congress considers spending money to upgrade the nation's infrastructure, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) CEO Donald Santa told lawmakers that the existing network of natural gas pipelines would continue to evolve and needs several enhancements.
EPA Seeks Continued Hold on Suits as High Court Stay Turns 2
Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly

U.S. EPA today renewed its request that federal judges keep the massive litigation over the Clean Power Plan on hold.
Deadline Long Past, Trump's 'Buy American' Demand Fades
Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Energywire

President Trump's demand that new and expanded pipeline projects rely on steel made in the United States has fallen off the radar, according to groups that have tracked the proposal.

Chemical Security News

Insurance Will Cover Cost of Deadly Okla. Rig Blast, Owner Says
Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee

The owner of a drilling rig that exploded last month in rural Oklahoma, killing five workers, is still tallying the cost of the incident, as federal investigators delve into the cause.
What’s GenX Still Doing in the Water Downstream of a Chemours Plant?
Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue

Larry Cahoon found out two weeks before most of his neighbors that their tap water held a cocktail of never-before-seen industrial chemicals.
Oil and Gas Wastewater Leaves Radium in Pennsylvania Stream Sediments
Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deirdre Lockwood

Despite a 2011 Pennsylvania guideline curbing the discharge of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, industry to water treatment plants, high levels of radium are still settling in some of the state’s stream sediments, according to a new study.
Ohio Sues DuPont Over PFOA Contamination
Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) yesterday sued DuPont Co. for alleged release of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into the Ohio River for decades, despite known risks.

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

Environment News

Don't Believe in Climate Change? Energy Companies Do
Feb 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Chris Tomlinson

The leaders of the world's largest and most powerful energy companies are talking about the fight to mitigate human-caused climate change.
Ewire: Reading Between the Lines on Pruitt's Climate Comments
Feb 9, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's recent comments suggesting climate change is not “necessarily” a “bad thing” are generating some push-back from climate scientists and others who warn that without steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some parts of the world will become “essentially unlivable.”
Schwarzenegger Calls for Pruitt's Removal at EPA: He's the 'Wrong Person' for the Job
Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) didn't mince words Thursday in his criticism of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, calling him the "wrong person" for the job.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) IARC Monographs Questioned by Congress

Feb 9, 2018 | ILMA

The International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) Monographs Program was critically evaluated by the House Science, Space & Technology (HSST) Committee during a hearing this week, specifically examining IARC’s Glyphosate Monograph as a case study for the issues that plague the agency’s processes and procedures.
IARC concluded that the popular herbicide glyphosate, which is used in Monsanto Company’s Roundup® product, is “probably carcinogenic to humans” despite contrary conclusions from U.S. EPA and other regulatory bodies. Based upon IARC’s determination, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment began the process to add the substance to the Proposition 65 list.
HSST Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) highlighted issues with the conclusion: “There appear to be serious problems with the science underlying IARC’s assessment of glyphosate. The news media recently revealed evidence of data deletion and manipulation of draft assessments before final publication . . .The selective use of data and the lack of public disclosure raise questions about why IARC should receive any government funding in the future.”
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) stated in response, “It is important that we review the methods and tactics that industry has used to influence this [Trump] administration and attack independent scientific organizations like the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. We must make sure any chemical review is not undone by undue industry influence or misleading scientific studies.”
The Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research (CAPHR) Coalition, organized by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), fully supported the oversight hearing, “We have serious concerns with the Program’s lack of scientific integrity and transparency in developing Monographs. Our goal is to reform and update the IARC Monographs Program 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 analyzing studies,” said ACC President Cal Dooley.
IARC receives approximately $6 million of its overall $54 million annual budget from the U.S. National Institute of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
http://www.ilma.org/ILMA/ILMA/ILMA-News/February/IARC_Monographs_Questioned_by_Congress.aspx

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(ACC Mentioned) China Is Financing a Petrochemical Hub in Appalachia. Meet its Powerful Backers

Feb 9, 2018 | The Energy Collective

By Steve Horn

Over the past year, oil and gas industry plans to build a petrochemical refining and storage hub along the Ohio River have steadily gained traction. Proponents hope this potential hub, which would straddle Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, could someday rival the industrial corridor found along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana.
Those plans center around creating what is known as the Appalachian Storage Hub, which received a major boost on November 9 during a trade mission to China attended by President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. At that trade mission, also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the China Energy Investment Corp. announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to invest $83.7 billion into the planned storage hub over 20 years. For comparison, West Virginia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 was $72.9 billion.
Though called the Appalachian Storage Hub as a broad-sweeping term, in practice the hub could encompass natural gas liquids storage, a market trading index center, a key pipeline feeding epicenter, and a petrochemical refinery row. Its prospective development has been spurred by the current construction of a $6 billion petrochemical refining facility in Pennsylvania owned by Shell Oil.
The proposed hub has come under fire from grassroots groups. But this proposal also has a powerful set of backers, including West Virginia’s five-member congressional delegation, the state’s Governor and Secretary of Commerce, West Virginia University, the chemical industry’s trade association, Shell Oil, and the Trump administration, among others.
Detractors of the planned petrochemical hub believe that its construction would buoy the oil and gas industry in its efforts to further develop drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) projects in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale and Ohio’s Utica Shale basins.
A “major concern we have about the whole complex is that it will encourage a second or third wave of gas fracking in our region, from the Marcellus, the Utica, and the Rogersville field, which is a much deeper layer of shale gas and oil and has been recently tested and a few commercial wells have been built into it,” Robin Blakeman, project coordinator with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, recently told the radio show Between the Lines. “It’s not commercially viable yet, but we think this complex will make it commercially viable.”
However, those backing the plan say the hub could lead to much-needed job creation, positioning the multi-state region as the oil and gas industry’s version of Silicon Valley and as a potential “field of dreams.”
“This project will not only transform the region, it will impact the entire country by enhancing America’s energy dominance,” said U.S. Rep. David McKinley (R-WV). “The storage hub has the potential to create thousands of jobs, attract billions in investment, invigorate Appalachia’s economy, and establish our area as a force in the petrochemical industry.”
Appalachia Development Group
While the hub itself, when fully developed, would likely involve a whole host of companies, its concept and initial marketing phase has been led by a corporation named the Appalachia Development Group (ADG), which is owned by the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC) and the West Virginia University Innovation Corporation. The joint venture registered its website on November 10, one day after West Virginia signed the MOU with the China Energy Investment Corp.
On January 3, ADG received an invitation from the U.S. Department of Energy to apply for a $1.9 billion loan guarantee created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. (That law is perhaps best recognized for creating what is known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” which exempts the oil and gas industry from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act during horizontal drilling and fracking operations.)
In a press release announcing the DOE invite, ADG also said the hub could lead to the creation of 100,000 jobs, and received praise from U.S. Rep. McKinley, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).
“I am very excited that the Department of Energy is moving forward with the Appalachia Development Group in its efforts to secure a loan to develop the Appalachian Storage Hub. I have long said that the Appalachian Storage Hub is a vital project that will help us capitalize on our state and region’s abundant natural resources, growing infrastructure, and innovative spirit,” Sen. Manchin said in the statement. “I look forward to working with the Department of Energy and the Appalachian Development Group to make the Appalachian Storage Hub a reality.”
According to corporate registration forms reviewed by DeSmog, ADG incorporated several businesses in West Virginia covering many facets of the gas supply chain just two weeks after the Energy Department’s loan guarantee announcement. The incorporations serve as something of a roadmap for what the visionaries behind the hub have planned in the area.
Names of the companies include Appalachia Development Group Chemical LLC, Appalachia Development Group Pipeline LLC, Appalachia Development Group Trading LLC, and Appalachia Development Group Storage LLC. All of those LLCs are incorporated in Delaware, a state which serves as a corporate tax haven in the U.S.
The trading business appears to be an attempt to create an industry hub rivaling Mont Belvieu in Texas and akin to the oil industry’s hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, which serve as a pricing index for natural gas liquids and oil market traders, respectively. The Appalachian trading post would be focused on the natural gas liquids trade, according to congressional testimony given at a hearing by West Virginia University Professor Brian Anderson in August 2016 and a presentation he gave in October 2017.
The Appalachia Development Group told the outlet Natural Gas Intelligence that it hopes to raise $3.3 billion in capital for the project, or an additional $1.4 billion if it successfully lands the loan guarantee from the Energy Department.
West Virginia University Incubator
At the center of pushing the ball forward on the hub has been West Virginia University (WVU), which has served as a key incubator for the Appalachia Development Group and its plans to create a major petrochemical hub in the region. Professor Anderson, listed as one of the principals on the ADG website, has led that charge at WVU.
While the WVU Innovation Corporation is part of the Appalachia Development Group joint venture, Anderson’s university research has also helped boost the project’s profile in the media. Anderson, who serves as the General Electric Plastics Materials Engineering Professor in chemical engineering at WVU, also directs the WVU Energy Institute.
After the announcement that the Appalachia Development Group had entered into an $83.7 billion MOU with the China Energy Investment Corp., WVU put out a press release quoting Anderson and boasting about its role in making such an investment possible.
“This is a game-changer for the state of West Virginia,” Anderson stated in the release. “By collaborating with global companies like China Energy to invest in our state through joint research, business development, and demonstration opportunities, we begin to move West Virginia forward by expanding and diversifying our state into newfound prosperity and success.”
Anderson has also spoken at a slew of industry events, making the case for the natural gas liquids storage hub. He spoke in front of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission at its annual meeting in October, at a June 2017 Appalachian Storage Hub Conference event held in Pennsylvania, and at the January 2018 winter meeting of the West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association (WVIOGA). At this latest event, Anderson spoke about the hub alongside Rep. McKinley and ADG CEO Steve Hedrick.
In turn, the petrochemical industry has shown its appreciation for Anderson’s involvement.
In a May 2017 report titled “The Potential Economic Benefits of an Appalachian Petrochemical Industry,” the American Chemistry Council thanked Anderson for his support in preparing the paper. Its May 18 release came just nine days after the May 9 introduction of the Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act of 2017, a bill supported by every member of West Virginia’s congressional delegation.
American Chemistry Council members include Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and other major corporations.
WVU also houses the Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium, which in July 2017 released a report on the geologic potential for creating a storage hub in West Virginia. According to its acknowledgments section, that report was funded by companies such as Chevron, Dominion Energy, EQT Resources, Noble Energy, ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy, and the West Virginia Oil & Natural Gas Association (WVONGA).
Though Anderson did not travel to China to sign the MOU, he did speak at a press event convened by West Virginia’s Republican Governor Jim Justice just days later to discuss the deal and its implications for the state. Anderson did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Thrasher’s Dual Role
Another key actor in implementing the West Virginia and China Energy MOU was the state’s Secretary of Commerce Woody Thrasher, who served as the state’s official representative at the signing in China.
But before Governor Justice named Thrasher as commerce secretary, he was president of his family business, The Thrasher Group. Co-founded by Woody and his father Henry, the firm provides architectural, engineering, and construction services for oil and gas field and pipeline projects, with offices in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky — all hub states.
“The Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. offers a wealth of resources important to America’s energy independence: natural gas, coal, and wind energy,” The Thrasher Group details on its website. “The development of these resources, including the emerging Marcellus Shale play, is particularly important. With five offices located in the heart of this area, we’re ready to mobilize our various energy development services to meet your needs throughout this major production area.”
The Thrasher Group has repeatedly shown interest in the business side of the Appalachian Storage Hub. For example, Andy Kincell, Thrasher’s head of business development and construction services, also attended the June 2017 Appalachian Storage Hub conference where WVU‘s Brian Anderson gave a presentation, according to both his Twitter account and Thrasher’s. Kincell also attended another event about the hub, hosted by WVU in August 2017, again according to both of their Twitter accounts.
In addition, The Thrasher Group will play host to the Emerging Opportunities Ohio River Valley Conference held in Wheeling, West Virginia.
“The Emerging Opportunities Ohio River Valley Conference will provide a comprehensive view of the once-in-a-generation industrial and commercial development,” details the conference’s website. “In addition to development of cracker and petrochemical plants, experts predict the overall development will change the economic landscape.”
Appalachia Development Group CEO Steve Hedrick will present at the conference, as will WVU‘s Anderson and representatives from both the American Chemistry Council and the American Petroleum Institute. Thrasher Group CEOChad Riley will offer both introductory and closing remarks for the day.
Riley and Kincell did not respond to a request for comment. Hedrick and Appalachia Development Group’s CFO and COO, Joe Bozada, also did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
To date, the exact details of the MOU signed between the China Energy Investment Corp. and West Virginia have yet to be made public and DeSmog could not track down a copy of the MOU online. Thrasher told the West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates’ Joint Committees on Natural Gas Development and Energy on January 9 that he expects construction of some assets within the petrochemical storage hub to begin as soon as this year.
Though Woody Thrasher has signed a blind trust legal agreement handing over day-to-day financial management of Thrasher Group and its subsidiaries, West Virginia’s commerce secretary has not foregone his ownership stake in the company. According to West Virginia MetroNews, Thrasher still retains a 70 percent stake in The Thrasher Group and the blind trust agreement does not apply to any of his family or his legal dependents.
“Handing over day-to-day operations of a company that is directly affected by the official’s role or decision making isn’t effective,” Brendan Fischer, a lawyer for the Campaign Legal Center, recently told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “If a public official maintains a financial stake in a company, the potential for a conflict remains.”
In addition, one of the blind trustees for the agreement, Marcia Broughton, is an attorney for Jackson Kelly, a firm which often represents oil and gas industry clients. Broughton is listed as one of the firm’s oil and gas industry attorneys on the Jackson Kelly website and the firm is listed as a financial supporter on the website of MATRIC, one of ADG‘s owners.
Appalachian Development Group attorney and principal Kathy Beckett is also a former Jackson Kelly attorney, where she worked from 1997-2013, before moving to the law firm Steptoe & Johnson. Beckett, who also sits on the Board of Directorsfor the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Thrasher also decided to remain chairman of the board of directors for the WVU Alumni Association for the first half of 2017, while simultaneously serving as Secretary of Commerce, even as WVU has served as a key vehicle behind the hub’s creation. He now serves as “Immediate Past Chairman,” a one-year ex-officio and non-voting role which allows him to sit on both the executive and governance committees of the alumni associaton, according to the association’s constitution and bylaws.
In discussing the trust agreement with the press, Governor Justice actually referred to Thrasher’s agreement not as a blind trust, but as one put “under the control of trusted colleagues.” Spokespersons for both Thrasher and Justice did not respond to requests for comment from DeSmog.
Congressional Bills, Lobbying Revolving Door
The West Virginia congressional delegation, particularly Sens. Manchin and Capito and Rep. McKinley, has led the push for the Appalachian Storage Hub on Capitol Hill. Beyond the Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act of 2017, members of the delegation introduced other bills to usher in the hub in 2017, including the Appalachian Energy and Manufacturing Infrastructure Revitalization Act and the Capitalizing on American Storage Potential Act.
The Infrastructure Revitalization Act calls for “an expedited permitting process for critical energy infrastructure projects relating to the establishment of a regional energy hub in Appalachia, and for other purposes.” Meanwhile, the Capitalizing on American Storage Potential Act would make sure the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program would also apply to projects such as the Appalachian Storage Hub.
Various industry players, such as the American Chemistry Council, the National Propane Gas Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and Shell Oil have all lobbied for some or all of these bills. All of the entities lobbying for the hub’s creation have benefitted in some way from government-industry revolving door relationships, according to a review by Desmog.
As a case in point, the American Chemistry Council deployed a team of lobbyists to advocate for all three of the bills, according to its federal lobbying disclosure forms. Those lobbyists included Bryan Zumwalt, who formerly served as chief legal counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under the chairmanship of U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and Calvin Dooley, formerly a Democratic U.S. Representative from California who now serves as president and CEO of the chemistry council.
Shell Oil, which lobbied for the Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act, also has notable revolving-door connections on its lobbying team. Patricia Villarreal Tamez, prior to landing the lobbying job with Shell, worked as executive director of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to her LinkedIn profile. Further, Marnie Funk — a lobbyist on Shell’s team pushing for the Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act — formerly served as communications director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee when it was run by U.S. Rep. Pete Domenici (R-NM).
The revolving door and campaign finance contributions may have buttressed prospects for the hub on the congressional side of things as well.
For example, the American Chemistry Council has donated $10,000 to Sen. Manchin for his 2018 re-election campaign, one of its largest 2018 election cycle contributions to-date. The council cut Manchin a $5,000 campaign contribution check on May 10, the day after he co-sponsored the Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub Study Act, according to U.S. Federal Elections Commission filings reviewed by DeSmog.
According to the research database Legistorm, Manchin’s senior adviser Sarah Venuto Perez formerly served as director of federal affairs for America’s Natural Gas Alliance, which has since merged with the American Petroleum Institute.
In September of last year, according to comments made by Manchin on the sidelines of a forum hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the senator had dinner with President Trump and his chief-of-staff John Kelly. At that dinner, Manchin pitched the idea of the Appalachian petrochemical hub to Trump and Kelly, according to EnergyWire.
“He was delighted to hear about it,” Manchin told EnergyWire. “I gave it to [chief of staff] Gen. [John] Kelly. He’s going to look at it and see if he can get this thing moving,”
Manchin’s office did not respond to a request for comment about whether the $10,000 donation from the American Chemistry Council and Venuto Perez’s past industry affiliation have influenced the senator’s policy stance on the hub.
Capito serves as another case study, with her former senior legislative assistant on oil, gas, and coal policy issues, Virginia Hamisevicz, now working as vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers.
During her successful first attempt at running for the U.S. Senate, Capito received $162,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry in 2014. In addition, according to forms reviewed by DeSmog, Capito’s husband has $15,000-$50,000 worth of stock investments in Shell Oil, which already has a major petrochemical investment in the area.
Beyond campaign contributions, the petrochemical industry has also heaped praise on Manchin and Capito for their policy efforts.
“We applaud Senators Capito and Manchin for their commitment to realizing the exciting opportunities afforded by an energy storage hub,” said the American Chemistry Council in a June 2017 press release. “The Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP) Act will help expedite the development of new infrastructure in hydrocarbon-rich areas of the country and, in turn, spur new manufacturing investment and jobs.”
‘Nightmare Waiting to Happen’
In a January 4 blog post, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition spelled out how the Appalachian Storage Hub will likely incentivize more fracking in the region.
“More fracking for methane leads to more gas liquids used by the petrochemical companies, the more gas liquids petrochemical companies use, the more fracking will happen,” wrote the group. “What that means is our region would face the combined threats of more fracking and the petrochemical industries.”
In addition to the public health and pollution battles being fought in the Gulf’s existing petrochemical corridor (also known as “Cancer Alley”), the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition also pointed to Appalachia’s past experiences with the coal industry and decried a potential repeat of history.
“Haven’t we learned any lesson from what the coal industry has done, where the majority of what is produced here is exported elsewhere, and the profits made by companies from outside the region?” the group asked. “This hub of horrors is a nightmare waiting to happen … The people deserve better than false economic hope and toxic neighbors.”
https://www.theenergycollective.com/desmog/2422017/china-financing-petrochemical-hub-appalachia-meet-powerful-backers

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Hearing on US EPA's IRIS Programme Becomes Policy Battleground

Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Julie A Miller

A two-day meeting called to review reforms of the US EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) programme became a battleground in an ongoing war over how the agency conducts chemical research and who will control it.
The meeting which began on 1 February, was convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) as a follow up to its 2014 review of IRIS's response to a report critical of the programme.
IRIS assessments often underpin regulatory action by the EPA and other agencies. Industry has been arguingfor many years about their scientific validity and the transparency with which they are conducted. Congressional Republicans have also called for the reform or elimination of the programme, most recently at a September hearing.
IRIS Program Director Kristina Thayer and Tina Bahadori, director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, which oversees IRIS, said the programme has been hit hard by the attrition that is widespread at the EPA. Its staff is down to around 30, and the efficiency directives of President Trump’s appointee Administrator Scott Pruitt have limited the use of consultants.
In November, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a proposal that would eliminate IRIS and move some its functions to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), the office that oversees TSCA implementation. Such a move would potentially give control of chemical research directly to political appointees who run the agency's regulatory agenda.
Even if that does not happen, the evaluation process being developed for TSCA could end up competing with, or replacing, IRIS review, Jennifer Sass, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told the NAS panel.
"We are very concerned that this is a parallel process," she said, one that "has not been open for stakeholder input, has not been vetted by peer review".
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) fired back after the hearing, issuing a statement raising "serious concerns about the direction and substance of many of the comments" made by the EPA and many public commenters throughout the workshop. IRIS’s problems, it added, are not new or related to inadequate resources.
"We trust the professionals on the NAS committee will adhere to the scope of this review and produce a full and fair scientific assessment of whether the EPA has made any substantive or procedural changes to the IRIS programme," the ACC said. "The value of the IRIS and its future within EPA should be left to Congress and EPA leadership to determine."
In her presentation at the hearing, Suzanne Hartigan, senior director of regulatory and public affairs at the ACC, said IRIS has not done enough to adopt standardised, transparent practices.
Reforms outlined
Most of the hearing was devoted to IRIS staff making the opposite argument, outlining changes designed to improve its administration and strengthen its scientific approach. They said the most important change has been implementing "systematic review" principles for the integration of multiple data sources, a key NAS recommendation.
In lengthy discussions of how IRIS decides which studies to weight most highly, EPA staff said this has to be dictated by their relative strength and the purpose of the assessment. "We want to avoid perceptions of picking winners and losers," said David Bussard, director of the NCEA’s Washington division. "We give weight dictated by the information in front of us."
IRIS proposed protocols in November for assessments of chloroform, ethylbenzene and the 'nitrates and nitrites' group of substances, the first new studies to incorporate systematic review processes. The EPA published further details on the chloroform protocol on 31 January.
The IRIS officials also discussed plans for evaluations of mercury, manganese, and PFAS compounds.
However, the most eagerly awaited IRIS product is probably its revised assessment of formaldehyde. The NAS slammed the original in 2011 and has been the focus of relentless industry criticism.
The formaldehyde report "will be a really good example of how we have really addressed and taken to heart the committee's" recommendations, Dr Bahadori said.
Dr Bahadori also presented the underpinnings of IRIS’ recent refusal to revise its assessment of the pesticide chloroprene. EPA’s denial of a manufacturer’s petition is based on a systematic review that looked at research published since the assessment was completed in 2010.
https://chemicalwatch.com/63802/hearing-on-us-epas-iris-programme-becomes-policy-battleground

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EPA Issues Long-Anticipated TSCA Fees Proposed Rule

Feb 9, 2018 | Lexology

By Bergeson & Campbell PC

On February 8, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the prepublication version of its long-anticipated fees rule under amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 26(b) entitled User Fees for the Administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act. EPA states that the proposed rule will set user fees applicable to any person required to submit information to EPA under TSCA Section 4 or a notice, including an exemption or other information, to be reviewed by the Administrator under TSCA Section 5, or who manufactures (including imports) a chemical substance that is the subject of a risk evaluation under TSCA Section 6(b).
EPA’s notice of proposed rulemaking provides a description of proposed TSCA fees and fee categories for fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021, and explains the methodology by which the proposed TSCA user fees were determined and would be determined for subsequent fiscal years. In proposing these new TSCA user fees, the Agency also proposes amending long standing user fee regulations governing the review of premanufacture notices, exemption applications and notices, and significant new use notices.
EPA states the proposed fees on certain chemical manufacturers, including importers, would go towards developing risk evaluations for existing chemicals; collecting and reviewing toxicity and exposure data and information; reviewing Confidential Business Information (CBI); and making determinations regarding the safety of new chemicals before they enter the marketplace.
Comments on the proposed rule will be due 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
An in-depth analysis prepared by Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C®) will soon be available on our Regulatory Developments webpage.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=04dd7727-4c47-4cdd-8e10-cbd236b69db5

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Mandatory Reporting Deadlines Approach for Manufacturers, Importers and Users of Chemicals

Feb 9, 2018 | International Law Office

By Judah Prero and Byron Taylor

The Toxic Substances Control Act inventory reset process is now taking place. The reporting deadline for chemical manufacturers and importers was February 7 2018, and the deadline for all other companies that use chemicals is October 5 2018. Meeting these deadlines is important because a chemical will not be legal for use in the United States if it is not identified, reported (or subject to an exemption) and included in the active Toxic Substances Control Act inventory.
Background
The Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act became law on June 20 2016. The Lautenberg Act is an amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act and drastically changes the way that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approves and regulates chemicals and microbials. The most significant change is a new four-step process that the EPA must follow to evaluate all chemicals, whether new or existing. The EPA must first determine which chemicals are in commerce in the United States. It must then prioritise those chemicals, determining which ones require a risk evaluation. The EPA must then perform a risk evaluation on high-priority chemicals and, if required, regulate the chemical to ensure safe use.
Right now, the industry must comply with the first step in the process, known as the 'inventory reset'. The EPA maintains a list, known as the Toxic Substances Control Act Inventory, of all the chemicals that were either in existence when the Toxic Substances Control Act was enacted or approved since that time. If a chemical is not on that list, it cannot legally be used in the United States. The EPA is in the midst of determining which chemicals on the inventory are still in active commerce, referred to as the 'inventory reset'.
Chemical manufacturers or importers must report to the EPA any chemical manufactured or imported during the 10-year period before June 21 2016. This reporting had to be completed by February 7 2018. The EPA will then compile a preliminary list and give 'chemical processors' – defined as any other entity that uses chemicals – an opportunity to report chemicals not previously identified. That reporting period closes on October 5 2018.
This seemingly small reporting obligation has a significant effect: if a chemical is not identified and reported or subject to a reporting exemption, it will not be placed on the 'active' inventory, and that chemical will not be legal for use in the United States. This includes all chemicals used in manufacturing consumer electronics, juvenile products, pharmaceuticals, clothing, paints, coatings, adhesives, lubricants and cleaners. Even if the end product is regulated under a different statute, the constituent chemicals are still regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act and must be included in the inventory.
Common questions
All companies that manufacture, use, process, import, export or sell products containing chemicals must ask themselves the following questions.
What chemicals are made or used by the company or in its products?
If a chemical is not identified, it will not be legal for use. If a company does not know what it uses, it cannot guarantee the legal status of the chemicals in its products.
What can companies learn about the chemicals that they make or use or are in their products?
If the supplier, formulator or distributor is unknown, it may be difficult to ensure that the responsible party is indeed reporting. This is a particular concern for entities that import chemicals solely for further distribution. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, an importer has the same legal obligation as a manufacturer, and therefore importers must report. Companies may need to obtain new compliance certifications from suppliers to cover this new obligation.
Does anyone else make or use the same chemical?
Although the law requires each manufacturer or importer to report, if users know that there are multiple manufacturers, it increases the likelihood that the chemical is being reported.
Is any information held by the company confidential business information?
The EPA recognises that many manufacturers will not divulge the exact identity of chemicals supplied to customers due to concerns about confidential business information. The EPA allows for joint submissions, but these submissions must be coordinated.
Comment
As mentioned, the initial reporting period closes soon and the reporting period for chemical processors ends on October 8 2018. Accordingly, businesses should now consider whether they must take additional steps to meet these obligations.
http://www.internationallawoffice.com/Newsletters/Environment-Climate-Change/USA/Sidley-Austin-LLP/Mandatory-reporting-deadlines-approach-for-manufacturers-importers-and-users-of-chemicals

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EPA Moves Closer to Implementing Chemical Safety Act

Feb 9, 2018 | ISHN

The EPA this week proposed a fees rule under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that it says will give the agency the resources it needs to review chemicals for safety.
Under the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the proposed fees on certain chemical manufacturers, including importers and processors, would provide what the agency calls “a sustainable source of funding” for implementing the amended law.
The EPA says the fees would go toward developing risk evaluations for existing chemicals; collecting and reviewing toxicity and exposure data and other information; reviewing Confidential Business Information (CBI); and, making determinations in a timely and transparent manner with respect to the safety of new chemicals before they enter the marketplace.
The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act is the first major update to an environmental statute in 20 years. The EPA says it is taking steps to “get the most modern and safe chemicals to market quickly in order to provide regulatory certainty for manufacturers and confidence for American consumers.”
The fees rule is the final of four framework rules under the Act, incorporating input received at an August 11, 2016 public meeting. Under the proposed rule, affected businesses would begin incurring fees on October 1, 2018 and small businesses would receive a substantial 80 percent discount on their fees for new chemical submissions.
The 60-day comment period will open upon the forthcoming publication of the proposed fees rule in the Federal Register. A prepublication version of the proposed rule is available at: https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/frank-r-lautenberg-chemical-safety-21st-century-act-5
https://www.ishn.com/articles/108052-epa-moves-closer-to-implementing-chemical-safety-act

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Chemical Management News

5 Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Toxic BPA

Feb 9, 2018 | EWG

By Monica Amarelo and Samara Geller

No one disputes that bisphenol A, a toxic compound widely used to line food cans and other food packaging, is polluting people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in the urine of more than 90 percent of Americans sampled. In 2009, tests commissioned by EWG were the first to find BPA in the umbilical cords of nine of 10 infants sampled.
Because food packaging is the primary source of exposure, it stands to reason that BPA levels in our bodies are affected by what we eat and how that food is packaged. Although a new British study suggests that lowering your BPA level yourself through diet is not easy, there are some steps you can take to reduce your exposure.
BPA acts like estrogen in the body. It disrupts hormones, affects brain development and metabolism, and harms the reproductive system. Evidence suggests the developing fetus and young child are most at risk, but adolescents also appear uniquely vulnerable. BPA has also been linked to cancer, heart disease and other serious disorders.
The new study, by researchers at the University of Exeter and published in the journal BMJ Open, was the largest real-world study to date of the effect of dietary moderation on BPA in the body. It tracked 94 teenagers who for one week changed their eating habits and behaviors to try to avoid BPA in food packaging. While the researchers found no measurable effect on BPA levels in the overall group, they did see a reduction in BPA levels for the teens who started the trial with the highest levels.
Researchers speculated that the drop in BPA levels would have been more significant in a controlled setting. But the teenagers were going about their normal lives, and they reported it was hard to know what they could eat because BPA is so widely used and packaging containing BPA is so poorly labeled.
In 2012 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. A year later, the agency prohibited it in infant formula packaging. But, like the British teens, for the rest of us avoiding BPA is still a challenge.
In 2016, EWG created a database of about 16,000 processed foods and drinks that might be packaged in materials that contain BPA. In California, products packaged in materials with BPA must carry a warning label on the package or store shelves.
As the food industry scrambles to find alternatives to BPA, concern has grown that without appropriate oversight, food companies will substitute similar chemicals or new chemicals that could be just as harmful or even more harmful. A National Toxicology Program study of 24 replacement chemicals found that many already in use are structurally and functionally similar to BPA, and, just like BPA, may harm the endocrine system.
Here’s what you can do to limit or avoid exposure to BPA:
Substitute fresh, frozen or dried food for canned.
Limit how many packaged foods you eat.
For those who cannot avoid foods in BPA-lined cans, rinsing the food in water may help lower the level of BPA in the food. Bonus: Rinsing cuts back on other additives too, such as sodium on beans or sweet syrup on fruit.
Never heat food in the can. Transfer it to a stainless steel pot or pan for stovetop cooking, or microwave in glass – not plastic.
Search for your family’s favorite foods and beverages in EWG’s BPA product list. If they are packaged in containers made with BPA, look for alternative products in EWG’s Food Scores. Tip: Use the BPA-free filter function when searching.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/02/5-ways-reduce-your-exposure-toxic-bpa#.Wn3oS_nwa-s

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Energy News

The Energy 202: Budget Deal Picks Winners and Losers in Energy Industry

Feb 9, 2018 | Washington Post

By Dino Grandoni

Just after 5:30 a.m. Friday morning, Congress moved to end the blink-and-you-missed-it five-hour government shutdown. The deal sets spending levels for two years, including a massive increase in military spending and a significant boost to domestic programs.
It also includes coveted tax breaks for the energy sector.
As part of the package, several energy sectors secured long-sought tax breaks designed to give a leg up to up-and-coming forms of energy production. Other types of energy sources, meanwhile, were left in the cold.
In total, critics say, the last-minute negotiations, which often apply tax breaks both going forward and retroactively, make for a haphazard way of setting government goals.
“This is not an ideal way of making federal policy,” Scott Greenberg, a senior analyst at the Tax Foundation, toldThe Post's Heather Long and Jeff Stein. “It’s probably not a good idea to make retroactive tax extenders in the first place.”
One of the biggest winners is a nuclear power station in Georgia. The Vogtle project was once meant to be one of many in a torrent of new nuclear power plants in the United States that never came to be.
Many of those new reactor plans have been scrapped as cheap natural gas, wind and solar power have undercut existing nuclear plants. Today, Vogtle’s prospects are strained by construction delays and cost overruns that have nearly doubled its price tag to about $23 billion.
The Trump administration, intent on bolstering the ailing fleet of nuclear plants, has promised $3.7 billion in new loan guarantees for the pair of nuclear reactors. Now, in the budget deal, Congress included a tax break for advanced nuclear energy that Georgia Power, an electric utility owned and operated by Southern Company, can harness in its Vogtle project.
Makers of geothermal pumps, too, will get a surge after the budget deal revived an expired tax break.
At the end of 2015, Republicans and Democrats struck a deal to allow U.S. oil companies to sell petroleum abroad in exchange for an extension on a series of tax breaks meant to encourage renewable energy.
But in the rush to get home for the holidays that year, lawmakers hashing out the details said they made, in the words of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a “drafting error” excluding the tax breaks for small wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps that could be installed at homes and businesses.
More than two years later, Congress finally corrected the mistake in the long-lasting budget deal.
“With the extension of federal tax credits being revived, the entire geothermal supply chain … will finally get the relief we have needed since being left on the sidelines in 2015,” said Ryan Dougherty of the lobbying group Geothermal Exchange Organization.
The package also patched another hole: It reinstated a tax on oil companies for federal oil-spill response efforts that congressional Republicans let expire at the end of 2017.
With the tax bill, President Trump also has the chance to make his “clean coal” rhetoric a reality.
The package included a new tax credit for carbon capture projects with support from across the ideological spectrum in the Senate. Both Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is one of the chamber’s biggest advocates for action on climate change, and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who once said “the role human activity plays [in climate change] is not known,” were original co-sponsors on the carbon-capture provision, as were Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.).
This “diverse group,” Heitkamp said, helped get the carbon-capture tax proposal across the finish line.
“That’s number one,” she said. “Look at how many of us came from different perspectives.”
Heitkamp, who has at least three carbon-capture projects in her state, said the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), representing coal-country Kentucky, had been a co-sponsor on the legislation “absolutely helped.”
Several other tax-related proposals meant to boost alternative forms of energy, however, didn’t make the cut.
The package the Senate brought to the House included tax provisions meant to encourage large-scale geothermal generation, offshore wind energy, energy storage and waste heat to power, in addition to a new financing mechanism for carbon capture called a private activity bond, according to Senate staffers.
It would also have given renewable energy projects access to a legal entity long used by oil and gas companies called a master limited partnership, which lets builders of pipelines, refineries and other energy infrastructure lighten their tax load.
But in leadership negotiations, the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) pushed back against those tax perks, the staffers say. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) opposed the use of the budget deal as a vehicle for new tax breaks, and the speaker supported his position, a Republican congressional staffer said.
Ryan did give biodiesel producers half of what they asked for: a tax break that applies to fuel produced last year.
But one of the biggest biofuel boosters among Senate Republicans, Charles E. Grassley (R) of Iowa, wasn't pleased. The corn-state senator thought he had secured a promise from House leadership for a two-year extension for biodiesel.
“That's not very, very good,” Grassley told reporters Thursday, “and it's contrary to the promise I got from both the leadership of the Senate and the House, including a Nov. 9 telephone conversation that I had with Ryan.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/02/09/the-energy-202-budget-deal-picks-winners-and-losers-in-energy-industry/5a7c914b30fb041c3c7d76f7/?utm_term=.f0d746d94d59

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Oil Spill Tax on Oil Companies Reinstated as Part of Budget Deal

Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Oil companies will once again have to pay a tax to fund oil spill cleanups thanks to Congress's new budget signed into law early Friday morning.
Senators voted to reinstate the 9 cents per barrel tax on both domestic crude oil and imported crude and petroleum products as part of an "extenders" tax bill package. The package was included in the Senate's budget deal passed Thursday and would put the oil tax back into effect starting March 1, according to Politico.
The tax on companies selling oil within the U.S. generated an average annual revenue of $500 million, according to the Congressional Research Service. But Republican leaders decided against renewing the tax in December, causing it to lapse at the end of the year.
The lapse was met with heavy criticism from the public and environmentalists.
"The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund ensures that when there is a spill, American taxpayers are not left holding the bag to clean up Big Oil's mess," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement at the time. "We should have a robust trust fund — not just trust that oil companies will do nothing wrong — in case a disaster like the BP spill happens again."
The oil tax is the primary contributor to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is used to pay for oil spill cleanups similar to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The fund contained $5.8 billion at the time of the lapse, a senior financial analyst with the Coast Guard's National Pollution Fund Center, which oversees the trust fund, told The Times-Picayune at the time.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373153-new-budget-reinstates-oil-spill-tax-on-oil-companies

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New Trump Directive Puts Fossil Fuel Industries in Charge of Public Lands

Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Randi Spivak

It’s not enough that 90 percent of public lands are open to oil and gas exploitation. The fossil fuel industry wants more from the Trump administration. They just got it.
In the latest insult to America’s public lands, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinkeissued a directive last week that guts environmental review and public scrutiny to speed oil and gas development. This effort, part of President Trump’s effort to ramp up fracking and drilling across America, is intended to remove any “burdens” to the fossil fuel industry.
In the process, Trump and Zinke are taking the public out of public lands, ceding control of millions of acres to industry while keeping the title in the hands of Americans, who have less and less say over how these lands are managed.
Here’s what the latest directive will do:Eliminate public input, environmental review and disclosure of harms from oil and gas projects before lands are leasedSlash the time the public has to raise objections and concerns to just 10 days, reduced from 30 daysEnd designation of “master leasing plans,” which aim to steer fracking and drilling away from communities, cultural artifacts, endangered species, recreational and other sensitive landsDiscourage public land managers from taking any land off the auction block, even if those lands contain sensitive resources and wildlife habitat.
Trump and Zinke are essentially privatizing America’s public lands ― ensuring energy extraction is the top priority and letting the fossil fuel industry call the shots.
Private oil and gas companies already control more than 27 million acres of public land. They also tell the Bureau of Land Management (usually anonymously) which public lands they want put up for auction. This new directive makes clear that, under Trump, the BLM’s job is to give these wealthy private interests what they want.
An analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity shows there’s been no meaningful environmental review, disclosure of harms or public engagement regarding nearly 200,000 acres of public lands in six Western states scheduled to be auctioned off during the first half of 2018.
From Utah’s petroglyph-dotted canyons dotted to Colorado mountain meadows to Wyoming’s sagebrush country, there appears to be no limit to the fossil fuel industry’s appetite for extraction and the Trump administration’s willingness to bend over backward for these polluting companies.
To Trump and Zinke, this is eliminating “burdens” for industry. To the owners of America’s public lands ― all Americans and generations to come ― it’s about harming wildlife, clean air and water, natural wonders and the places they love. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, westerners say protecting public lands and preserving access to the outdoors should be the Trump administration’s priority.
But under this latest directive, the public will be largely shut out. People will learn about a fracking pad at their favorite campsite when they see the trucks roll in.
Zinke dismisses the need to determine the environmental, economic and social impacts of fracking and drilling, saying that’s already considered in broader agency land and resource management plans.
But that’s not true.
Management plans can cover millions of acres and are completed before companies decide where they want to lease. BLM defends these plans by promising that analyses of specific areas to be leased will come later and will publicly disclose environmental harms from development. Now, that “later” will never come.
That means no review showing how drilling and fracking will worsen air quality, including increases in smog that leads to asthma attacks in children.
It means no information about how much fresh water will be polluted or depleted from drinking water supplies, including rivers, lakes, reservoirs and underground aquifers.
And it means no disclosure about what will happen to the polluted water created by fracking. Fracking operations often re-inject this chemical-laden water back underground, which can contaminate aquifers.
There won’t even be an analysis of possible alternatives to reduce harms from drilling or fracking.
The public will be left in the dark and silenced while their public lands continue to be plundered.
Trump and Zinke may want to brush aside these “burdens,” but the law says otherwise. This is another hasty, illegal Trump administration decision to benefit corporations, at the expense of the public, that should be overturned in court.
Randi Spivak is the public lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a national, nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/373019-new-trump-directive-puts-fossil-fuel-industries-in-charge-of

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Natural Gas Pipelines Needs Regulatory Certainty, Faster Permitting, Says INGAA Chief

Feb 9, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Charlie Passut

As Congress considers spending money to upgrade the nation's infrastructure, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) CEO Donald Santa told lawmakers that the existing network of natural gas pipelines would continue to evolve and needs several enhancements.
In testimony Thursday before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Santa urged Congress to recognize that while the United States has "a robust, well-developed natural gas pipeline network," that network must also be flexible and responsive in order to meet the public interest.
"This evolving situation is illustrated by the recent emergence of the Permian Basin as a significant source of associated gas that is close to markets on the Gulf Coast and in Mexico," Santa said. "Additional pipeline capacity will be needed to bring this gas to market."
The Natural Gas Act (NGA) "has been remarkably durable and should not be upset," Santa said but an effort by Congress to strengthen FERC's role as the lead permitting agency for interstate natural gas pipelines "has not been entirely successful."
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has overall responsibility for reviewing applications to construct interstate natural gas pipelines, but “other federal agencies, and in some cases the states, review and permit discrete activities associated with pipeline construction," Santa said. "Experience demonstrates that the pace of action, or inaction, on these other permits can delay and frustrate the timely and predictable approval of pipeline projects."
Restore 'Cooperative Federalism'
Under the doctrine of "cooperative federalism," championed by the Trump administration, federal law assigns some permitting responsibilities to the states. Santa said that while that doctrine "worked smoothly" for many years, some states are attempting to use their authority "to dictate national energy policy." He specifically cited New York, which has blocked progress of several projects, including the Valley Lateral Project and the Constitution Pipeline.
INGAA "respects the rights of states to protect the resources within their borders, and supports the cooperative federalism framework upon which many of these environmental statutes are based," Santa said. However, “this is more than just respective roles of federal and state authority, because one state's abuse of its role in this relationship can affect the ability of other states and their citizens to enjoy the benefits of interstate commerce.
"We do not believe that this result was intended by Congress.” INGAA members are encouraging Congress to remedy the issues by providing guidance on appropriate role of a state under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) “and by providing meaningful recourse should a state abuse its authority."
Santa said INGAA members were encouraged by several bills before Congress, especially HR 2910, which calls for strengthening the lead agency role of the FERC and further defines the process for federal and state regulatory agencies involved in the permitting process for interstate natural gas pipelines.
Other bills favored by INGAA include S 1844, which would strengthen the lead agency role of FERC under the National Environmental Policy Act for natural gas projects within its jurisdiction, and parts of S 1460, which would streamline pipeline permitting, better facilitate liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and provide more resources for workforce training in the energy sectors.
INGAA also backed an executive order signed by President Trump last August directing the federal government to expedite its review and permitting of major infrastructure projects. "These goals also are being advanced through executive branch reform initiatives," Santa said.
In questions from the committee, Santa told Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that investors in pipelines and other energy infrastructure need two things: certainty and predictability.
"The NGA framework has been favorable to encouraging private investment to develop the infrastructure to support this industry," Santa said. Now, however, a situation exists where “there are multiple other permits that are required. That permitting process can be coordinated more, without violating the purposes of many of those statutes that are intended to protect the environment and various resources.
"I would encourage, as a compliment to whatever may be done on publicly funded infrastructure in a bill, to also look with an eye toward what can be done to improve permitting for infrastructure."
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) lamented the delivery last month of Russian LNG to the Boston area, as well as additional LNG shipments from the Canaport LNG terminal in New Brunswick to New England. Santa also cited a winter storm -- bombogenesis, aka a bomb cyclone -- tha thit the East Coast last month. Regarding the bomb cyclone,Santa said gas for delivery to the Boston area on Jan. 6 was priced at about $78.80/MMBtu. By comparison, gas in Leidy, PA, in the heart of the Marcellus Shale and near several storage facilities, was priced at $4.20/MMBtu.
"It is a remarkable situation," Santa said. "If there are no pipeline constraints, that differential should be little more than the price of pipeline transportation."
The New England market "is clearly capacity constrained,” he said. “While FERC can authorize new pipelines, and while pipeline companies are interested in market opportunities, it requires demand on the other side -- in particular, customers willing to sign up for pipeline capacity on a long-term basis to finance those projects.
"In New England, the wholesale electricity markets are structured in a way that does not provide incentives for generators to contract for that pipeline capacity. Nor on the electric side is there the equivalent of the natural gas local distribution company that can aggregate demand and then sign up for capacity based on that. So that's why we have the highly anomalous result that while Marcellus gas is only a couple hundred miles away from New England, imported LNG is an economically attractive alternative because of that scarcity."
When Capito asked if there was a way to cite the national interest in trying to compel FERC to approve more energy infrastructure, Santa replied that in the early days of the Federal Power Commission -- the precursor agency to FERC -- natural gas pipelines were often approved over the objections of states that wanted to keep the gas for themselves, or were resistant to expanding the marketplace.
"The problem we've got now is this cooperative federalism issue, where the State of New York has utilized its authority under the CWA to effectively veto FERC's approval of a pipeline," Santa said. "What we need is clarification from Congress on the scope of states' authorities under the CWA, and then also some effective recourse should a state overstep its bounds or act in a way that's contrary to the national interest."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113328-natural-gas-pipelines-needs-regulatory-certainty-faster-permitting-says-ingaa-chief

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EPA Seeks Continued Hold on Suits as High Court Stay Turns 2

Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Amanda Reilly

U.S. EPA today renewed its request that federal judges keep the massive litigation over the Clean Power Plan on hold.
Lawyers for EPA filed a status report arguing that the litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit should remain in abeyance.
This latest request by EPA coincides with the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's surprising decision to stay the Clean Power Plan, which aimed to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The court's 5-4 decision on Feb. 9, 2016 — the last vote that the late Justice Antonin Scalia cast before his death — ground implementation of the rule to a halt.
The Obama-era rule, which critics say went beyond the scope of EPA's authority in the Clean Air Act, has been stayed since.
Though the litigation over the Clean Power Plan in the D.C. Circuit is fully briefed and argued, it too has been suspended since last April, when the court granted a Trump administration motion to hold the case in abeyance.
In today's status report, EPA reiterated its plans to repeal and potentially replace the Clean Power Plan. The agency is planning to hold three public listening sessions on a proposal to repeal the rule in February and March.
Separately, the agency issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking asking for input on the scope of any potential replacement for the Clean Power Plan. The comment period on that notice closes Feb. 26.
"These cases should remain in abeyance pending the conclusion of rulemaking," EPA's report said.
Environmentalists and state supporters of the Clean Power Plan have urged the D.C. Circuit to issue a ruling. They say that the Supreme Court's ongoing stay has allowed EPA to skirt its legal obligation to address greenhouse gases.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/09/stories/1060073437

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Deadline Long Past, Trump's 'Buy American' Demand Fades

Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Energywire

President Trump's demand that new and expanded pipeline projects rely on steel made in the United States has fallen off the radar, according to groups that have tracked the proposal.
The concept was part of a January 2017 executive action that gave a presidential green light to the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. Trump had asked his Commerce secretary to draw up a plan including that requirement by the end of July.
Steelmakers lauded it. Energy company and fossil fuel executives said it would drive up costs and delay projects. Since then, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has apparently taken little action.
"The pipeline stuff just quietly went away," said Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association. "And there weren't a lot of people, with the exception of the steel producers, really disturbed about it".
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/02/09/stories/1060073331

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Chemical Security News

Insurance Will Cover Cost of Deadly Okla. Rig Blast, Owner Says

Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Mike Lee

The owner of a drilling rig that exploded last month in rural Oklahoma, killing five workers, is still tallying the cost of the incident, as federal investigators delve into the cause.
Patterson-UTI's insurance will likely cover the damage, CEO Andy Hendricks said on a conference call to discuss the company's earnings.
The rig crew was in the process of removing pipe from a gas well, known as tripping, when the explosion happened on Jan. 22 at a site outside Quinton, Okla., about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa. The resulting fire burned for nearly eight hours and destroyed the rig. Five workers' bodies — three of whom worked for Patterson — were found in the rig's control room.
In response to written questions from E&E News, Patterson-UTI offered few new details, but said, "The incident is still under investigation, and we continue to cooperate with the agencies involved as we work to determine the cause."
The explosion was the deadliest oil field accident since at least 2010, when 11 men were killed in the BP PLC explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has collected drilling logs and other records from Patterson-UTI and the owner of the well, Red Mountain Energy LLC of Oklahoma City. The board's investigators were scheduled to begin interviewing witnesses this week.
It is the first time the CSB has investigated an incident at a natural gas well site, spokeswoman Hillary Cohen said in an email. The board has previously issued reports about chemical plants and other manufacturing facilities and about the 2010 Gulf of Mexico explosion, which happened at an oil well site.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also investigating the explosion, along with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/02/09/stories/1060073345

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What’s GenX Still Doing in the Water Downstream of a Chemours Plant?

Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Cheryl Hogue

Larry Cahoon found out two weeks before most of his neighbors that their tap water held a cocktail of never-before-seen industrial chemicals.
Last May, Cahoon invited a handful of scientists to talk with a local group working to restore striped bass and other migratory fish in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River. At that event, one of the panelists discussed a recently published study that found perfluorinated ethers in a municipal drinking water system that draws from the river (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2016, DOI:10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00398).
Cahoon, a University of North Carolina, Wilmington, biology professor who studies aquatic ecology, had read the paper and surmised that the chemicals came from a Chemours plant on the outskirts of Fayetteville, N.C. But the study did not name the town with the contaminated tap water.
The panelist, however, did name the locale: The affected city was Wilmington, N.C., said Detlef Knappe, a North Carolina State University engineering professor and coauthor of the paper.
“I had this ‘oh crap’ moment,” Cahoon says. More than a quarter-million people—including Cahoon and his family—get their drinking water from the stretch of the Cape Fear River that runs southeast from Fayetteville to Wilmington. Most of Cahoon’s neighbors in Wilmington learned about the fluorinated substances in their tap water a few weeks later, when the local newspaper, the Wilmington StarNews, launched an ongoing series of articles delving into the pollution.
“That’s when the shit hit the fan,” Cahoon says.
The Wilmington water utility and North Carolina officials scrambled to stop the contamination. Standard drinking water treatment cannot remove the polyfluorinated ethers, so the state asked Chemours to halt a vinyl ether production process that generated the compounds. Later, after a spill at the plant, the state revoked the company’s wastewater discharge permit for its fluorochemical production unit. Chemours now hauls all fluorochemical production wastewater from the Fayetteville facility via tanker truck and rail to Deer Park, Texas, for disposal in a deep injection well, the company toldthe North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in November.
Those measures have resulted in “a precipitous decline in the concentrations” of fluorochemical substances downstream, DEQ says.
But scientists are still finding fluoroethers in the river. Where the chemicals are coming from is a mystery. And no one knows whether exposure to these chemicals might harm people’s health or the environment.
Despite repeated requests, Chemours did not respond to C&EN’s inquiries for this story.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i7/whats-genx-still-doing-in-the-water-downstream-of-a-chemours-plant.html

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Oil and Gas Wastewater Leaves Radium in Pennsylvania Stream Sediments

Feb 9, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Deirdre Lockwood

Despite a 2011 Pennsylvania guideline curbing the discharge of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, industry to water treatment plants, high levels of radium are still settling in some of the state’s stream sediments, according to a new study. The results suggest that some treatment plants that process wastewater derived from conventional oil and gas production are releasing this carcinogenic radionuclide. In some sediment samples, the radium activity reached 25,000 becquerels/kg, about 14 times as great as the threshold at which some states require solid radioactive waste to be disposed of in a licensed facility (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2018, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b04952).
During both fracking and conventional oil and gas production, saline water enriched in naturally occurring radionuclides is extracted from rock formations and flows to the surface as wastewater. In Texas, Oklahoma, and many other oil and gas producing regions, operators dispose of this wastewater by injecting it into deep wells. But in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus Shale formation has supported a fracking boom, the underlying geology precludes deep well injection, says Duke University geochemist Avner Vengosh.
As a result, some of this wastewater in Pennsylvania has been shuttled to treatment plants to remove contaminants and then released into local streams. Because of public concerns about high levels of bromide in fracking wastewater, which can be transformed into harmful disinfection by-products such as trihalomethanes during wastewater treatment, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection asked fracking operators to stop sending wastewater to these facilities in 2011, and they have reportedly complied. But this request does not cover conventional oil and gas producers, who still send wastewater for treatment and release into some streams in the state.
Vengosh and his colleagues suspected that this source would also contaminate stream sediments with radium. So, from 2014 to 2017, they tested for it at three sites where streams receive this treated wastewater.
Near outflow pipes from the treatment plants, the researchers measured up to 650 times as much radium in the stream sediments as in sediments upstream. The overall levels of radioactivity in these sediments was similar to those the group previously found in sediments where fracking wastewater was being released, Vengosh says.
To determine the source of the radium, the researchers took advantage of the chemical difference between wastewater produced by fracking and that produced by conventional oil and gas production. The predominant radionuclide in wastewater from fracked, uranium-rich shale is 226Ra, whereas in sandstone and similar formations that are drilled conventionally, there are relatively equal amounts of 226Ra and 228Ra. The ratio of 228Ra/226Ra in the sediment samples indicates that the majority of the radium originates from wastewater from conventional oil and gas production, according to Vengosh.
The different half-lives of these isotopes and their daughter isotopes in the two types of wastewaters also help the researchers determine approximately how long the radionuclides have been in stream sediments. For example, 228Ra in conventionally drilled oil and gas formations eventually decays to 228Th. The 228Th/228Ra ratios in sediments suggest that the majority of the radium accumulated in the past three years, since fracking waste disposal in these streams is said to have ended.
Vengosh calls the levels of radium in the sediments “mind-blowing,” and found this especially surprising because wastewater treatment reduces radium levels by about 98%. The study suggests that even low concentrations of radioactivity in large volumes of treated water can generate a huge amount of radioactivity in sediments, he says.
Since the treatment and release of conventional oil and gas wastewater likely leads to this contamination, this practice should also be stopped, Vengosh says. Fracking wastewater is currently reused in fracking, or transported outside the state for deep well injection.
This contamination could spread beyond the stream sediments. Creatures living in streambeds can ingest the radium, and it can bioaccumulate, eventually showing up in fish. Wastewater from conventional oil and gas production, with its high salt content, is also sold as a road deicer in both Pennsylvania and New York.
Nicole Fahrenfeld, an environmental engineer at Rutgers University, calls the results interesting. She says the research raises questions about the fate of harmful constituents in these wastewaters—such as how far downstream elevated levels of radium persist, and whether sticking to sediments slows the spread.
These high levels of radium in sediments could come from infrequent pulses of wastewater with higher concentrations of radium, the authors note in the paper. Determining whether radium is slowly leaching into streams versus traveling in spurts will be important, Fahrenfeld notes. Engineers could use those insights to design more effective wastewater treatment technologies, she says.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/web/2018/02/Oil-gas-wastewater-leaves-radium.html

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Ohio Sues DuPont Over PFOA Contamination

Feb 9, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) yesterday sued DuPont Co. for alleged release of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into the Ohio River for decades, despite known risks.
The lawsuit contends that DuPont, now part of DowDuPont Inc. after its merger with Dow Chemical Co., ignored internal research and medical conclusions about the harms of PFOA and asks for the chemical company to pay for an investigation and potential cleanup.
Exposure to PFOA, or C8, has been linked to certain cancers, high cholesterol and other health complications.
"We think Ohioans have the right to enjoy the state's natural resources without interacting with these chemicals," said Dan Tierney, a spokesman with the attorney general's office.
DuPont did not comment.
PFOA does not degrade in the environment, but the acid builds up in soil and water. It is found in firefighting foams and many industrial coatings. For years, DuPont used the substance to make nonstick cooking products.
A 2017 study by the University of Cincinnati detected elevated PFOA levels in residents throughout the region.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/09/stories/1060073411

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Environment News

Don't Believe in Climate Change? Energy Companies Do

Feb 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Chris Tomlinson

The leaders of the world's largest and most powerful energy companies are talking about the fight to mitigate human-caused climate change.
Some are even putting their money where their mouths are.
While some conservative political leaders still deny that the Earth is heating up due to humans burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases, the people who produce those fuels and chemicals have recognized the imperative to limit global warming to a rise of 2 degrees Celsius.
Many of these companies are recommending a carbon tax, and others are calling on governments to keep predictable environmental regulations. The pleas for reason coming from corporate boardrooms contrast sharply with the sloganeering coming from Republican politicians.
Sara Ortwein, the president of Exxon Mobil subsidiary XTO Energy, last week called for "sound policies and regulations" for methane emissions.
She recommended requiring oil companies to capture methane when completing a well, banning pneumatic devices that bleed methane, encouraging leak detection programs and mandating that drillers report emissions data.
That sounds very similar to the Obama-era regulations that the Trump administration has promised to repeal.
"We've made a lot of progress so far in minimizing methane emissions from industry operations," she wrote in a blog post. "I am confident we can achieve even more."
Exxon Mobil, which has already embraced a carbon tax, is spending billions on developing non-fossil fuels. In a shareholder-mandated report released Feb. 2, the company predicted global demand for oil could drop 25 percent by 2040 due to efforts to limit climate change, creating enormous demand for low-carbon alternatives.
Exxon Mobil's competitors are taking even bigger steps to prepare for what the industry calls "the energy transition."
Royal Dutch Shell believes peak oil demand could come as soon as the 2020s and is focusing more on natural gas. France's Total wants 20 percent of the energy it produces to be low-carbon by 2035, and Norway's Statoil plans to invest 20 percent of its capital in low-carbon energy sources by 2030, such as offshore wind power.
BP CEO Bob Dudley told the Oil and Money conference in Octoberthat his company learned a lot from its failed "Beyond Petroleum" campaign, but that doesn't mean it's giving up.
"We anticipated governments would adopt policies that would make low-carbon energy more competitive. Unfortunately, policy changes didn't happen at the pace we expected," he explained. "This time the global commitment to action feels different, and the national pledges are a good start. But frankly we need even stronger and clearer signals to create the confidence to invest in and grow low-carbon businesses at scale."
The world's biggest oil companies are practically begging for a carbon tax. The electric power industry is sounding a similar theme.
American Electric Power, one of the largest generators in the nation, pledged last week to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from generating facilities by 60 percent from 2000 levels by 2030, and then cut 80 percent from 2000 levels by 2050.
"Our position on climate change has always been that it should be addressed at the federal level in the United States and that it must be economywide. We also have always expressed the need for an international approach," the company said in its annual report. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's action to repeal the Clean Power Plan creates uncertainty for near-term regulatory action on climate change."
Xcel Energy, which provides power across eight states, plans to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources by the mid-2020s.
NRG Energy, which has a headquarters in Houston, was once a leader in developing cleaner energy. But after some poor strategic decisions, and under the influence of activist investors, the electricity generator is selling off it's renewable energy portfolio and focusing on fossil fuels.
That decision may have saved NRG from bankruptcy, but it's at best a short-term gain. Coal-fired and natural gas plants will only become more expensive to operate, and CEO Mauricio Gutierrez will need to pivot back into lower-cost renewables or get out of the power generation business altogether and focus on retail alone.
Environmentalists complain that many of these steps and pledges do not go far enough. But let's give credit where it is due. These businesses have trillions of dollars in assets, millions of employees and are attempting a dramatic pivot in business plans.
Successful corporations embrace smart policies and regulations that enable them to provide excellent products at reasonable prices. The energy industry recognizes the need to fight climate change. Now it needs a fair and predictable environment to do its part.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Big-Oil-promises-to-fight-climate-change-plans-12561758.php

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Ewire: Reading Between the Lines on Pruitt's Climate Comments

Feb 9, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's recent comments suggesting climate change is not “necessarily” a “bad thing” are generating some push-back from climate scientists and others who warn that without steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some parts of the world will become “essentially unlivable.”
The New York Times in a Feb. 8 article summarized several comments about climate change made by Pruitt since he joined EPA. He has long suggested it is difficult to measure humans' impact on climate change, and since being sworn in as administrator has moved to undo Obama-era climate rules including the greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants.
Pruitt “has championed the elimination of policies intended to mitigate climate change. He also has long expressed doubt about the role of humans in rising global temperatures, despite the scientific consensus that human activity is the dominant cause of climate change,” the Times says. But his recent remarks about climate change “go a step beyond some of his previously stated views, some scientists say,” according to the paper.
In a recent interview with Las Vegas television station KSNV, Pruitt said, “I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing,” adding, “Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018? That’s fairly arrogant for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100."
The Times cited those comments and others in analyzing Pruitt's position on climate change, and reached out to EPA for clarity on the administrator's views on the issue.
“Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the E.P.A., referred to an interview Mr. Pruitt conducted with The New York Timespodcast The Daily, where he discussed his position. “Here’s my view on it,” he said in that interview. “There are things we know and there are things we don’t know,” the article says.
Referring to Pruitt's comments, Joseph Majkut -- director of climate policy at the libertarian Niskanen Center -- told the Times “I do think how Mr. Pruitt talks about climate tells us something important about how folks on the right view climate.”
Climate scientists say there is an urgent need to reduce GHG emissions. Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the research group Climate Institute, told the Times that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data show that with current trends in warming, by 2100 “[s]ome places will be essentially unlivable.”
Additionally, the Union of Concerned Scientists weighed in on Pruitt's shifting comments on the topic, with senior climate scientist Rachel Licker writing a Feb. 8 blog post titled “Pruitt Squirming away from the Weight of Climate Evidence.”
Licker also notes Pruitt's shifting stances on climate change over the past year, including at his confirmation hearing when he acknowledged a changing climate but the “ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that [human] impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.”
Then in mid-summer, Pruitt in an interview with Reuters shifted toward questioning the harm from climate change. “It is not a question about whether the climate is warming. It is not a question about whether human activity contributes to it. It is a question about how much we contribute to it? How do we measure that with precision? And by the way, are we on an unsustainable path? And what harm… is it causing an existential threat?,” he said.
He is continuing that shift to suggesting it might not be harmful, she notes, despite projections it will cause major damage to American infrastructure, health and well-being, such as increasing the intensity of Hurricane Harvey.
“All of this begs the question -- why is Administrator Pruitt (and others in this Administration) so adamant about refuting climate science findings?” Licker says he seems intent on creating to confusion about the science with the possible goal of opening the door to revoke the endangerment finding.
https://insideepa.com/the-daily-feed

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Schwarzenegger Calls for Pruitt's Removal at EPA: He's the 'Wrong Person' for the Job

Feb 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) didn't mince words Thursday in his criticism of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, calling him the "wrong person" for the job.
Speaking to a crowd at the California state Capitol in Sacramento, Schwarzenegger said of Pruitt, “He is, without any doubt, the wrong person at that place."
Schwarzenegger added: “He does not represent the people. He only represents the special interests. He should be removed immediately.”
The former governor, who served from 2003 to 2011, was at the Capitol to receive an award from the state Air Resources Board.
In a speech after accepting the award — named for Dr. Arie J. Haagen-Smit, the first chair of the board — Schwarzenegger bemoaned the EPA's policy shift under the Trump administration.
“Haagen-Smit was the man. Now, 50 years later, you have Trump appointing Pruitt to the EPA. What happened?” Schwarzenegger said. “This is so sad.”
Schwarzenegger has also been vocally critical of President Trump, challenging him throughout his campaign and presidency. In August Schwarzenegger posted a video of himself critiquing Trump's handling of the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one counterprotester dead.
The feud between the two former "Celebrity Apprentice" hosts continued as recently as Dec. 9, when Trump told attendees at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., "And I must tell you, I can’t believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger bombed so badly on 'The Apprentice,' my poor beautiful show. Oh, it was so successful. Get a big movie star and he can’t pull it off.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373121-schwarzenegger-pruitt-is-the-worst-person-at-epa

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