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ACC AM Feb 10

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Carus Celebrates a Century
Feb 9, 2015 | The Times

arus Group is celebrating its first 100 years in 2015 with the same spirit of innovation and commitment to community shown by its founder, Dr. Edward Hegeler Carus, according to a corporate release. Throughout this year, Carus is planning several community and educational events in La Salle, as well as sponsoring a variety ...

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Linde’s Illinois Plant Receives Responsible Care® Certification
Feb 9, 2015 | Gas World
By Stuart Radnedge

Linde LLC has received certification of its Hartford, Illinois, air separation plant under the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care® program. Kevin Conner, Production Manager for the Hartford plant, said, “The Responsible Care Certification is a measure of our Hartford colleagues’ commitment to safety...
(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Film and Bag Recycling Ad Campaign Planned
Feb 9, 2015 | Leader Telegram

To create awareness about plastic film and bag recycling, the Dunn County Solid Waste Division is launching a new advertising campaign to educate people about what types of plastic film and bags are recyclable. Advertising spots will be featured in newspapers, on a billboard, banners, through radio spots and at the local movie theater.
California Schedules meeting on DINP in Outdoor Furniture
Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has called a public hearing for 30 March, following a request for a safe use determination for diisononyl phthalate (DINP).
States Have Option of Electronic Filing Of Implementation Plans in EPA Final Rule
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers

States will have the option of submitting their implementation plans to the Environmental Protection Agency electronically beginning March 16, avoiding the need to submit paper copies of the plans. The EPA said it will prefer that states submit state implementation plans (SIPs) electronically in a final rule...
Canada Lists Substances Not Needing Further Risk Assessment
Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

The Canadian government has published a list of 248 substances on the Domestic Substances List (DSL) that it says require no further risk assessment. All fall within the scope of previously addressed classes, or groups of substances, categorised as priorities...

Chemical Security News

From Bad To Worse at Scandal-Ridden Safety Agency
Feb 9, 2015 | National Journal
By Jason Plautz

The independent agency that investigates chemical accidents is under fire from seemingly every corner of the government—from the White House on down. The White House is reviewing a damning inspector ...
Demanding Respect for Worker Safety
Feb 9, 2015 | The Huffington Post
By Leo W. Gerard

In Anacortes, Wash., last week, approximately 200 Tesoro workers began picketing the oil refinery where an explosion incinerated seven of their co-workers five years earlier. Butch Cleve walks that picket line, serving now as strike captain for the USW local union at Tesoro. On the day of the catastrophe in 2010...

Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) A Step in the Right Direction
Feb 9, 2015 | Renewable Energy Magazine
By Kristin Smith

The state of Michigan is one step closer to amending its Clean Renewable and Energy Efficient Act, House Bill 2505, under which several forms of waste and waste conversion processes would be considered renewable energy sources. The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill in early December 2014 which would allow processes ...
Bill Would Expedite Permitting of Pipelines, Reduce Gas Flaring, Environmental Analyses
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski

A bill to reduce the flaring of natural gas by expediting the permitting of pipelines was introduced Feb. 9 by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) with support from two other Republicans and a Democrat. he Natural Gas Gathering Enhancement Act (no number yet) would set deadlines for the permitting of natural gas gathering lines on federal land...
Barrasso-Heitkamp Bill Would Expedite Gathering Lines to Reduce Flaring
Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Phil Taylor

A new bill by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) would streamline permitting of natural gas gathering lines on federal and Indian lands that could help reduce flaring of natural gas and boost federal royalties. The bill, which is backed strongly by oil and gas drillers in the West, would set 90-day deadlines...
House Panel Unveils Framework For 'Era Of Abundance' Bills
Feb 9, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Nick Juliano

House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today unveiled a four-pronged framework for the wide-ranging energy bill they hope to have on the House floor later this year. The two-page framework focuses broadly on infrastructure, job training, diplomacy and efficiency -- areas that will be further detailed in separate ...
GOP Plans For 'Era Of Abundance' In Energy
Feb 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2Wire
By Timothy Cama

House Republicans are pushing a comprehensive policy package for energy that aims to ease pipeline permits, train more workers for the industry and wield increased production as a diplomatic tool. Leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee outlined their goals in a four-part “framework” document they released Monday.
Drillers Take Second Crack at Fracking Old Wells to Cut Cost
Feb 10, 2015 | Bloomberg
By David Wethe

Beset by falling prices, the oil industry is looking at about 50,000 existing wells in the U.S. that may be candidates for a second wave of fracking, using techniques that didn’t exist when they were first drilled. New wells can cost as much as $8 million, while re-fracking costs about $2 million...
California Strategy Addresses EPA Concerns About Injection Wells, Protection of Aquifers
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel

California has proposed a strategy to respond to Environmental Protection Agency concerns about the state's Class II underground injection well program and to bring the program into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Correcting deficiencies in the program is a priority, Steven Bohlen, supervisor of the California Department...
California Pledges Changes In Protecting Underground Water
Feb 9, 2015 | AP (in PoliticoPro)

California is proposing broad changes in the way it protects underground water sources from oil and gas operations, after finding 2,500 instances in which the state authorized oil and gas operations in protected water aquifers. State oil and gas regulators on Monday released a plan they sent the EPA last week for bringing the state...
Alberta Pitching Oil Sands Pipeline Through Alaska to Pacific, Premier Says
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy van Loon

Alberta is in discussions with Alaska about shipping oil-sands crude from Canada through the northernmost U.S. state to the Pacific as approval for the southbound Keystone XL pipeline languishes in Washington. The Alaska plan would involve constructing a pipeline along the Mackenzie River valley and then west to existing...
EPA Watchdog Faults Own Hiring and Payroll Practices
Feb 10, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks

Talk about a taste of your own medicine. A federal watchdog office recently turned its spotlight inward and discovered problems with its own hiring and payroll practices. The inspector general’s office for the Environmental Protection Agency said in a series of reports last week...
House Republicans Release Energy Framework, Vow to Move Bill to Floor Later This Year
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

House Republicans released the outline of a broad energy bill Feb. 9 and vowed to bring the measure to the floor later this year, according to a document released by the Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill will address the need to “modernize” electricity transmission and natural gas pipelines and “allow the export...
Democrats Relaunch Safe Climate Caucus; Van Hollen Readies Cap and Dividend Bill
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott

House Democrats Feb. 9 relaunched a climate change caucus created by former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to give the minority party a tool for keeping the issue in the spotlight given Republican opposition to bills that would cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
House Caucus Vows to Push Back 'in the Face of Denial'
Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jean Chemnick

Their numbers may be smaller and the odds larger, but House Democrats nonetheless renewed their pledge yesterday to do what they can to keep climate change on the new Congress' agenda. The Safe Climate Caucus kicked off its third year with a call hosted by the League of Conservation Voters.
Florida Utility to Close Two Coal Units Due to EPA Mercury, Air Toxics Rule
Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chris Marr

A Florida electric utility will shut down two more coal-fired generating units rather than make the capital investment required to comply with Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rules, the company announced. Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co. that operates in the Florida panhandle, will shut down both...
Coal Industry, GOP Fire Shots Against Potential Senate Candidacy
Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Manuel Quiñones

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) says he'll decide by the end of the month whether to run for Senate against Republican incumbent Rob Portman in 2016. But even before he makes the leap, the coal industry and its GOP allies are smelling blood.
Environmentalists, Industry Seek Changes To EPA's Cement Air Toxics Rule
Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker

Environmentalists and the cement industry are urging EPA to make a series of revisions to its recent proposed revisions to its air toxics rule for the sector, with advocates urging the agency to drop plans they say would weaken air reporting requirements and the industry seeking clarifications to resolve various unclear definitions.

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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Carus Celebrates a Century

Feb 9, 2015 | The Times

Carus Group is celebrating its first 100 years in 2015 with the same spirit of innovation and commitment to community shown by its founder, Dr. Edward Hegeler Carus, according to a corporate release.
Throughout this year, Carus is planning several community and educational events in La Salle, as well as sponsoring a variety of employee-organized volunteer activities. The company also is recognizing young innovators by offering college students a chance to compete for a Carus Group Centennial Scholarship.
“We are thrilled that we can share in marking our first century of success with our community and our employees,” said Inga Carus, CEO of Carus Corporation and granddaughter of its founder. “2015 will be an exciting year for us.”
Carus is one of the most prominent family-run businesses in Illinois, with its headquarters and main production facility in La Salle-Peru. The company has subsidiaries and facilities in the United States and abroad, in such places as Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Spain. The company's roughly 400 employees are primarily focused on making products for water treatment, air purification and soil remediation.
The historic Hegeler Carus Mansion in La Salle will host a Centennial Picnic in August, as well as other gatherings during 2015. The site is especially fitting, as the barn that used to sit behind the home was where Carus’ founder started producing potassium permanganate, which the company still produces.
Other activities during 2015 will include company volunteers keeping a local park clean, hosting a weeklong science camp for sixth-graders in June, planting trees in their local communities and bringing chemistry demonstrations and hands-on educational activities to more than 1,000 students.
The company also will host a community-wide open house during the winter holidays at the Carus headquarters building in La Salle, which will feature a performance by a local youth choir and displays featuring key moments in Carus history.
The new Carus Group Centennial Scholarship to be launched in 2015 offers $2,000 and an internship to a current undergraduate or graduate student who proposes a new way to use chemistry to solve an environmental problem.
The applicants must submit a written proposal that details a new, innovative, environmental solution that uses potassium permanganate, sodium permanganate, hopcalite catalyst or manganese dioxide. The environmental problems that could be solved include air pollutants, inorganic water pollutants, organic ground water and municipal water pollutants and emerging contaminants.
Carus Group, founded in 1915 in La Salle, is a member of the American Chemistry Council and participates in the industry’s award-winning Responsible Care initiative, sharing a common commitment to improving environmental, health, safety and security performance. Learn more at caruscorporation.com or by following Carus on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Linde’s Illinois Plant Receives Responsible Care® Certification

Feb 9, 2015 | Gas World

By Stuart Radnedge

Linde LLC has received certification of its Hartford, Illinois, air separation plant under the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care® program.
Kevin Conner, Production Manager for the Hartford plant, said, “The Responsible Care Certification is a measure of our Hartford colleagues’ commitment to safety, as well as being a good neighbour to our community, environmentally responsible and second-to-none as a supplier of products and services to our customers. They did a great job handling all the details associated with ACC certification.”
Linde LLC is a member of The Linde Group, a world-leading gases and engineering company. The ACC is an association of producers, manufacturers and suppliers of chemical products. Linde has been a member of the ACC since 1951.
Responsible Care is a globally recognised management system aimed at helping companies improve performance in areas such as safety, health, environment and security. Certification is mandatory for all ACC member companies, which must undergo headquarter and facility audits by an independent, accredited auditor to verify that they have a structure and system in place that manages and measures performance. Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) is Linde’s independent auditor. Since 2008, 24 Linde plants in North America have been certified under the program.
The Hartford plant has been operating since 1995 producing oxygen, nitrogen and argon. Gaseous oxygen and nitrogen are shipped to refineries, metals and steel customers via a 20-mile network of pipelines. The liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon are delivered by truck to a variety of end-users including hospitals, food processors and metals fabricators in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Linde employs 35 people at the plant.
Holly Jerdi, head of Health, Safety and Environment for Linde North America, said, “I congratulate all my colleagues at the Hartford plant for this accomplishment. Their efforts were invaluable in the process that places Linde among the leaders in the U.S. when it comes to sustaining the practices specified in the Responsible Care management system.”
The Responsible Care management system offers an integrated, structured approach for driving continuous improvement in seven key areas: community awareness and emergency response; security; distribution; employee health and safety; pollution prevention; process safety; and product stewardship.
Implementing the Responsible Care system is a multi-step process. Companies must first plan – identify, assess and evaluate potential hazards and risks associated with their products, processes and operations – and establish goals and objectives to address any significant hazards or risks. Next, they must do what they have planned, checking their progress along the way to measure performance and take necessary corrective actions. Communicating with employees and other stakeholders, including neighbours and customers, along the way also is essential.

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(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Film and Bag Recycling Ad Campaign Planned

Feb 9, 2015 | Leader Telegram

To create awareness about plastic film and bag recycling, the Dunn County Solid Waste Division is launching a new advertising campaign to educate people about what types of plastic film and bags are recyclable. Advertising spots will be featured in newspapers, on a billboard, banners, through radio spots and at the local movie theater.
The ad campaign playfully compares recycling to reincarnation, giving new life to old materials. Featured in the ads are a digging dog who was formerly an archaeologist and a plastic lumber fence that used to be a bread bag, according to a news release from the Dunn County Solid Waste division. The ads were created by Flapjack Creative of Wausau. Funding to create the ads came from a grant through the Dunn County Community Foundation and placement of the ads is funded by the American Chemistry Council.
The Dunn County Solid Waste Division has been working to educate the public about plastic film and bag recycling since last summer.
In 2014 Dunn County was chosen as part of a pilot program for a nationwide public outreach initiative aimed at increasing the recycling of plastic film packaging. The pilot program, Wrap Recycling Action Program, is made possible through coordination of both local and national organizations including the American Chemistry Council, Flexible Film Recycling Group, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Indianhead Enterprises, Inc. and Trex Company, Inc. Area Collection Stations and the Transfer Station began accepting plastic film such as dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags, plastic wrap around napkins, toilet paper, bottled water, etc. in additional to traditional grocery bags, the release stated.
Dunn County’s collected plastic film and bags are recycled into composite decking by Trex Company, Inc. as part of a partnership with Indianhead Enterprises. Dunn County hopes this new campaign will not only teach residents to recycle plastic film and bags, also wants to encourage businesses to recycle items such as stretch wrap, pallet wrap, furniture wrap, retail bags and more, the release stated. For more information call the Dunn County Solid Waste Division at 715- 232-4017.

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California Schedules meeting on DINP in Outdoor Furniture

Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has called a public hearing for 30 March, following a request for a safe use determination for diisononyl phthalate (DINP).
The request is specifically limited to exposures to the plasticiser in Phifertex® fabric, when used in outdoor furniture products.
The meeting will be held in Sacramento, although the public may also submit written comments for consideration.
Similar requests dealing with vinyl carpets are pending before the OEHHA (CW 27 January 2015).

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States Have Option of Electronic Filing Of Implementation Plans in EPA Final Rule

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew Childers

States will have the option of submitting their implementation plans to the Environmental Protection Agency electronically beginning March 16, avoiding the need to submit paper copies of the plans.
The EPA said it will prefer that states submit state implementation plans (SIPs) electronically in a final rule (RIN 2060-AS20) to be published in the Federal Register Feb. 10. However, the EPA still will allow a state to submit a paper copy of its plan along with an electronic copy or file three paper copies in lieu of an electronic copy.
“I think states are very hopeful that these new options and streamlined submittal process will help with the SIP backlog,” Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, told Bloomberg BNA in a Feb. 9 e-mail.
States and advocacy groups have complained about the EPA's delays in approving the implementation plans in the past.
The final rule, which amends 40 C.F.R. pts. 51 and 52, is intended to ease the burdens on state regulators that develop the implementation plans for the EPA's national ambient air quality standards. The documents often can run hundreds of pages, and states had to submit as many as five copies of the document previously.
The EPA announced its plans to pursue electronic SIP submittal in a 2011 guidance memo to regional administrators. Since then, the EPA said it has tested electronic submissions as part of a pilot project.

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Canada Lists Substances Not Needing Further Risk Assessment

Feb 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch

The Canadian government has published a list of 248 substances on the Domestic Substances List (DSL) that it says require no further risk assessment.
All fall within the scope of previously addressed classes, or groups of substances, categorised as priorities under the Chemicals Management Plan for which “risk assessment activities can be considered as having already taken place” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa).

The move will allow Environment Canada and Health Canada to focus risk assessment activities on categorised substances that have not yet been addressed, according to the government document, Final Approach for a Subset of Substances Prioritized during Categorization That Have Already Been Addressed.

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Chemical Security News

From Bad To Worse at Scandal-Ridden Safety Agency

Feb 9, 2015 | National Journal

By Jason Plautz

The independent agency that investigates chemical accidents is under fire from seemingly every corner of the government—from the White House on down.
The White House is reviewing a damning inspector general report against the head of the Chemical Safety Board, Rafael Moure-Eraso. Members of Congress also are unhappy, with several committees on the case. And there's a federal investigation into the leaked identity of an agency whistleblower.
It's yet another bit of unwanted attention for the board, which has been beset for years by accelerating internal troubles, shoddy morale, and a backlog of incomplete reports.
A controversial motion passed late in the night at a recent meeting in California has only added fuel to the fire, since it appears to close observers and insiders that it wipes out a number of reforms while consolidating power in the chairman's office.
"It's a stunning turn of events … that has very much upended the staff," said one CSB employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect their job. "Things are just not getting better."
Moure-Eraso's tenure ends in June, but he may not make it that long. An as-yet released report by the EPA inspector general accuses the chairman and two top agency officials of violating the Federal Records Act by using outside email systems to conduct official government business and not capturing those emails in the agency system.
EPA IG Arthur Elkins Jr. outlined the findings to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week. A new subpanel covering environmental and energy issues, along with the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, are looking at the CSB.
The findings were referred to the White House, which is reviewing the report.
"It is essential that agency heads lead by example and promote a culture of compliance with the Federal Records Act," an administration official said in a statement. "The Chemical Safety Board Chairman must take steps to ensure that all federal records belonging to the agency are preserved on official accounts."
Moure-Eraso declined to comment for this story and has not made public statements about the report.
The IG report—which could be released by the Oversight Committee as early as this week—is the result of a winding investigation in which CSB was accused of stonewalling investigators and refusing to turn over documents. Elkins said last week that CSB has since "substantially" complied with document requests, but could not say if all requested information had been turned over.
The matter was rooted in the leaked identities of CSB whistleblowers by the Office of Special Counsel, a matter which is still separately under review by the Office of Personnel Management's general counsel.
In a statement, CSB spokesman Hillary Cohen said the latest report related to emails sent before 2013 that were transferred to a federal records system 18 months ago. Cohen said CSB would be "providing guidance to all employees on the use of personal email that might relate to CSB business, since it appears this has been a common practice among various current and former CSB board members and staff."
The use of personal email is not necessarily a violation if the emails are forwarded and stored on an official system, which makes them searchable by inspectors and subject to the Freedom of Information Act (every agency crafts their own compliance plans for the Federal Records Act). But the use of personal emails for official business can raise red flags and feeds into a deeper concern about CSB management's penchant for consolidating power at the expense of other staff and board members.
The latest and most egregious move by senior officials, critics say, was a 22-page motion passed by board member Manuel Ehrlich just weeks into his new position.
Late last month, the board presented its long-awaited final findings and safety recommendations from a 2012 Chevron refinery fire in Richmond, Calif., and took public comments at an evening meeting there for four hours. Near the end of the meeting, Ehrlich introduced a motion that would, in essence, consolidate power with Moure-Eraso and wipe out a number of reforms made under a Justice Department order.
Mark Griffon—the third member on the short-handed board—tried to table the unexpected motion in order to at least give him more time to read it (it had not been announced in any public documents). With no one to second the motion, Griffon was outvoted and quickly saw his share of power in the agency drop.
The "California coup," as one observer called it, scrubs a number of reforms meant to balance power between the chairman and other board members, such as requirements that the chairman consult on hiring decisions, designations to the Senior Executive Service, and expenditures over $50,000.
"It looks like a takeover of the agency," said Bill Wright, a former board member whose term expired in 2011. "Early on, the agency had some really rough roads because we were fighting over authority, but we tried to balance that. … You're basically now handing it over to one person."
In introducing his motion, Ehrlich, who has more than five decades of industry experience, said he was concerned about "clarification and in some cases solidification" of agency management. "I have never worked in an organization where there is not a clear delineation of responsibility for implementation of administrative tasks."
In a later statement to National Journal, Ehrlich pushed back on the notion that the motion was meant to benefit Moure-Eraso, saying that since his term ends in June, it will have "minimal impact on his work."
"Furthermore, it takes from the shoulders of the board members the responsibility of dealing with such administrative issues as approving payments for copy machines, mandatory payments to the other agencies and ministerial functions and allows them to concentrate on the mission of the agency," he said.
But some staff members don't see the motion as simple housecleaning, saying it consolidates power with Moure-Eraso and two top officials, general counsel Richard Loeb and managing director Daniel Horowitz. Last summer, member Beth Rosenberg quit after just a year because she felt ignored, and staff members have told National Journal that the agency is a toxic environment.
The timing is another issue. A fourth member—Richard Engler—was confirmed by the Senate at the same time as Ehrlich and Engler, but has yet to join the board, meaning a delay could have meant a 2-2 tie. A fifth nominee, Kristen Kulinowski, was nominated by the White House last month, but has yet to see a Senate hearing.
The Ehrlich order also ended investigations into a pair of accidents at the Silver Eagle refinery in Utah, releases of hydrofluoric acid from the CITGO Corpus Christi refinery that began in 2009, and a 2010 zinc fire at a Horsehead facility in Pennsylvania.
The board had issued technical reports and recommendations in the Silver Eagle and CITGO cases, while the Horsehead facility in question has closed. Ehrlich said in California that there was "no realistic opportunity" for a more comprehensive agency report. The agency currently has 12 investigations listed as open and its investigative backlog has long been a sore point.
All that, said a former staff member familiar with the board motion, adds up to an agency where "productivity is poor, attrition is high and work just doesn't get done." The three closed cases, the staffer said, were just more proof of CSB coming up short in its mission.
"Sure, they issued little crumbs long ago," the former employee said. "CSB was created to do comprehensive investigations with meaningful recommendations to change national policy and improve prevention. … To close these cases like that is to celebrate a failure as a success."

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Demanding Respect for Worker Safety

Feb 9, 2015 | The Huffington Post

By Leo W. Gerard

In Anacortes, Wash., last week, approximately 200 Tesoro workers began picketing the oil refinery where an explosion incinerated seven of their co-workers five years earlier.
Butch Cleve walks that picket line, serving now as strike captain for the USW local union at Tesoro. On the day of the catastrophe in 2010, Cleve walked the coroner to the shrouded bodies of three of his friends.
Steve Garey, who helped make the decision to strike as a member of the USW’s oil bargaining policy committee, wept repeatedly that April day five years ago as he told the relatives of his dead friends that their loved ones would never come home.
Kim Nibarger, a USW health and safety specialist, suffered flashbacks of an earlier blast as he investigated the one at Tesoro. He was an operator in 1998 at the refinery adjacent to Tesoro in Anacortes when a massive detonation instantly cremated six of his co-workers.
The Tesoro strikers are among more than 5,000 USW members nationwide on unfair labor practice strikes demanding corporations respect their bargaining rights and the rights of workers and communities to safety.
Over the past two negotiation cycles, the USW’s 30,000 refinery and chemical workers struggled to persuade their highly profitable employers to include strong safety language in the collective bargaining agreements. The deaths at Tesoro, as well as fatalities, injuries, explosions, fires and toxic releases at other plants nationwide since then, demonstrate that the measures didn’t go far enough. Now refinery and chemical workers are trying to increase the odds that they aren’t killed at work and that their communities aren’t engulfed in flames or fumes.
Last year, when the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), an independent federal agency that investigates industrial disasters, issued its report on the Tesoro explosion, it found “a substandard safety culture at Tesoro which led to a complacent attitude toward flammable leaks and occasional fires over the years.”
The CSB said a nearly 40-year-old heat exchanger, one that Tesoro knew leaked, violently ruptured, triggering the fatal blast and fire. That caused the largest loss of life at a refinery since 2005 when 15 workers died and 180 were injured in an explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City. CSB chair Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso said last fall, “The CSB is seriously concerned by the number of deadly refinery accidents in recent years.”
Moure-Eraso said regulators and refiners must work continuously to lower risks because the loss of seven lives at Tesoro “should not have happened.”
The blast occurred a little after midnight on April 2. Steve Garey was at home, asleep. His sister in Seattle, up late, heard a news bulletin and called him. Garey got to the refinery at about 5:30 a.m.
Emergency responders, deputy sheriffs and the refinery’s fire brigade were all still there. “Everyone appeared to be shell shocked,” Garey recounted, “They looked haggard. They looked drawn. Some people were in grief, crying. Others had blank stares on their faces, not wanting to talk. Others were very, very angry, wanting to talk a lot.”
Garey, a machinist at the refinery who served on the local union’s negotiating team then, said some Tesoro officials asked him to help them break the terrible news to families after the company’s first visit went poorly. “I spent the bulk of that first day travelling to people’s homes with stone-faced supervisors,” Garey recalled. His face, by contrast, was crumpled in grief.
“All you can do is go in and cry with them, hug them, tell them how you feel and let them know they are not alone,” said Garey, who now serves as the local union’s president.
Butch Cleve got to the plant at about the same time Garey did that morning in April, 2010. Unlike Garey, Cleve didn’t know what had happened until a supervisor told him. Cleve recounted the guy saying, “We had an explosion and fire. Four were taken to the hospital and three are missing. Well, they are not really missing, but we are not sure who is who.”
The four taken to the hospital were horribly burned. Two died that day, one later that week, and the fourth within a month.
After escorting the coroner to the places where the bodies lay, Cleve stayed at the plant another 15 hours, trying to console his co-workers. “The people from the area of the blast in particular were my concern at that point,” he said. “It was kind of taking care, talking to people, gauging them and trying to offer whatever moral support I could.” Other union leaders did the same.
“Some people were in shock. Some were inconsolable. Some were just in a haze,” recounted Cleve, who was a process equipment operator then but now works full-time on safety.
Cleve said he was angry that the company knew this equipment had a history leaks and fires and hadn’t made the repairs necessary to prevent the catastrophic failure.
“A big part of this strike is that none of us wants to be the next person to lose his life for no good reason,” he said.
At about 12:30 a.m. on April 2, 2010, Kim Nibarger, who lives in Pittsburgh now, had just arrived at his parents’ home in Washington State for a visit. He heard a sound in the distance he describes as “whoop, whoop.”
He knew it was an explosion at one of the two refineries in Anacortes. He drove to an overlook and saw flames at the Tesoro refinery and helicopter landing lights flash on at the community hospital.
As he walked onto the site the next day with federal investigators, he was angry. “I was madder than anything else because this had happened again.”
He was the local union president at the neighboring refinery in 1998 when an explosion instantly killed six workers.
That time, he was driving with his parents to a restaurant across the highway from the plant for lunch when he saw smoke and flames. His pager went off, summoning emergency responders.
He was among those who volunteered to go into the unit and retrieve the bodies. He described the condition as charcoaled. Like Garey, Nibarger spent a lot of time crying with victims’ families.
Since 2004, Nibarger has worked full-time on the staff of the USW International trying to prevent these catastrophes. But he’s frustrated. Off the top of his head, he can cite fatal case after fatal case.
In 2012, highly toxic hydrofluoric acid was released from the CITGO East Refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. This followed an explosion in 2009 when the deadly acid escaped the perimeter of the same refinery and a fire that critically injured a worker burned for several days.
Also in 2012, a fire at a Chevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., sent 15,000 members of the community to hospitals with breathing problems. Richmond has sued the company accusing it of placing profits over public safety.
In 2013, a heat exchanger explosion at the Williams Olefins Plant in Geismar, La.,killed two workers and injured 114, in what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said was a serious violation of safety practices.
Also in 2013, a heat exchanger fire at ExxonMobil’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery killed two workers and injured 10, some critically. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited ExxonMobil and two other companies involved for safety violations.
In 2014, two workers at the Chevron Phillips Chemical plant in Port Arthur, Texas, were severely burned in a flash fire.
Just three weeks ago, a worker fell to his death at the CITGO refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas.
“We keep asking, ‘how many guys have to die?’” Nibarger said. “We think there have been plenty already.”

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Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) A Step in the Right Direction

Feb 9, 2015 | Renewable Energy Magazine

By Kristin Smith

The state of Michigan is one step closer to amending its Clean Renewable and Energy Efficient Act, House Bill 2505, under which several forms of waste and waste conversion processes would be considered renewable energy sources.
The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill in early December 2014 which would allow processes such as gasification and pyrolysis to qualify for renewable energy credits. It also defines what types of waste feedstocks are considered biomass and the types of waste that can be used in waste conversion processes.
State Rep. Aric Nesbitt, R-Mich., sponsor of the bill and chair of the House Energy and Technology Committee, remarked after the 63-46 vote, “The potential to completely convert nonrecyclable material into energy to power Michigan homes and businesses is one that cannot be ignored, especially as we look to compete in a national and international economy.”
Recent studies conducted by the Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) show the huge economic and energy generation benefits of converting nonrecycled plastics into oil, a majority of which now is landfilled.
The EEC study concluded all the landfilled waste in the U.S. could provide 12 percent of the country’s power needs, while the ACC study surmised the United States could support as many as 600 pyrolysis facilities converting plastics into about 6 billion gallons of gasoline.
If states are going to be able to capitalize on the tremendous opportunities available to them in waste conversion, then passing legislation like Michigan’s H.B. 5205 is a necessary first step toward paving their way.
Maryland passed a similar bill in 2011 which qualified waste to energy and refuse-derived fuel as part of the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio. After signing Senate Bill 690 into law, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley made a poignant statement that really captures the message the waste conversion industry should be sending:
“… the question is not whether waste-to-energy facilities are better for the environment than coal-fired generation or better for the environment than the landfilling of trash, but rather whether waste-to-energy facilities are better than the combination of coal and landfilling based on the best available science. The answer to that question is a qualified ‘yes.’”
The Michigan bill still has to pass the senate, but the Great Lakes State is on the right track and one that I hope we start to see more of from the state level. A copy of H.B. 5205 is available at www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/bill engrossed/House/pdf/2013-HEBH-5205.pdf.

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Bill Would Expedite Permitting of Pipelines, Reduce Gas Flaring, Environmental Analyses

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Alan Kovski

A bill to reduce the flaring of natural gas by expediting the permitting of pipelines was introduced Feb. 9 by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) with support from two other Republicans and a Democrat.
The Natural Gas Gathering Enhancement Act (no number yet) would set deadlines for the permitting of natural gas gathering lines on federal land and Indian land.
The bill also would eliminate environmental reviews for gathering lines that are adjacent to or within existing disturbed areas or existing right-of-way corridors, on the assumption that such reviews would be duplicative of environmental analyses already completed for those areas and corridors.
The capture and sale of more gas through pipelines would reduce gas imports, increase exports, create more jobs, benefit the economy and increase tax revenues, the sponsoring senators said.
The bill was cosponsored by Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D). It is a reprise of part of a bill sponsored in 2014 by Barrasso and others (134 DEN A-15, 7/14/14).
90-Day Deadline Would Be Set
The bill would require Interior to issue a right of way for a gathering line and associated field compressor station not later than 90 days after the date on which the applicable agency head receives the request for issuance unless Interior finds that the right of way would violate the Endangered Species Act or the National Historic Preservation Act.
The bill would not apply to national parks, national wildlife refuges or national wilderness areas. It remains to be seen whether Senate Democrats will accept the bill's categorical exclusions from environmental analyses for many gathering lines.
Gathering lines are the relatively small-diameter pipelines that move gas or oil from the wells in fields to main pipelines or processing plants.
When permits for gas gathering lines are delayed, it can mean that the gas associated with oil wells must be flared—burned and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and water vapor. That is especially common in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota, where pipeline infrastructure has not kept pace with oil field development.
Some gas is vented while workers are trying to complete the hookups of a well to a pipeline. Once steady production begins, the gas that cannot be fed into a pipeline is flared rather than vented because carbon dioxide is less of a concern environmentally than are methane, ethane and propane, the typical constituents of natural gas.
Billions of Cubic Feet Flared
More than 260 billion cubic feet of natural gas was flared and vented nationwide in 2013, according to the latest numbers of the Energy Information Administration. The volume has been growing rapidly.
“In North Dakota, we can do more to reduce flaring and fugitive methane emissions, and harness more of our natural gas,” Heitkamp said in a statement released with the announcement of the bill. “But too many permit requests to gather unprocessed natural gas have been met with federal delays—and that's exactly what our bill works to change.”
“Rather than issuing more regulations which will further drive oil and gas production off federal and Indian land, the Department of the Interior should meet its current responsibilities,” said Barrasso. “That includes issuing rights-of-way for natural gas gathering lines on federal and Indian land in a timely manner.”

Barrasso noted the bipartisan nature of the bill, a point he has been stressing in much of the energy legislation he is trying to advance during the early months of the new Congress.

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Barrasso-Heitkamp Bill Would Expedite Gathering Lines to Reduce Flaring

Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News

By Phil Taylor

A new bill by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) would streamline permitting of natural gas gathering lines on federal and Indian lands that could help reduce flaring of natural gas and boost federal royalties.
The bill, which is backed strongly by oil and gas drillers in the West, would set 90-day deadlines for the Interior Department to approve rights of way and permits for gathering lines and gas compressors on public lands, and would stipulate that some may be categorically excluded from National Environmental Policy Act reviews.
It comes as the Bureau of Land Management prepares a rule to reduce the amount of venting and flaring that occurs on federal leases, a move that could boost domestic production and royalties and reduce some greenhouse gas emissions.
Industry has complained that BLM is too slow to permit the gathering lines it needs to economically capture gas associated with oil wells and get it to interstate pipelines. In the absence of infrastructure, companies are seeking major increases in permits to vent or burn the gas without paying royalties (Greenwire, Nov. 4, 2014).
"In North Dakota, we can do more to reduce flaring and fugitive methane emissions, and harness more of our natural gas," Heitkamp said in a statement. "But too many permit requests to gather unprocessed natural gas have been met with federal delays -- and that's exactly what our bill works to change."
The bill, which is also co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.), would apply to gathering lines that carry unprocessed gas from the wellhead to natural gas processing plants, where it is separated into products like methane, ethane and propane and sent to market.
It calls for categorical exclusions to approve gathering lines located within existing corridors or disturbed areas and within an area where such development has already been analyzed. The projects are to be approved within 90 days unless they are found to violate the Endangered Species Act or National Historic Preservation Act.
The Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which represents companies that explore and produce oil and gas on BLM lands, "wholeheartedly supports this bill," said Kathleen Sgamma, the group's vice president for government and public affairs.

"Companies can't capture the associated gas from oil wells if the government won't let them install the gas gathering lines to do so," she said. "It's that simple."

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House Panel Unveils Framework For 'Era Of Abundance' Bills

Feb 9, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Nick Juliano

House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today unveiled a four-pronged framework for the wide-ranging energy bill they hope to have on the House floor later this year.
The two-page framework focuses broadly on infrastructure, job training, diplomacy and efficiency -- areas that will be further detailed in separate draft bills to be released over the coming months.
"Today's energy policies are lagging far behind and are better suited for the gas lines in the 1970s than this new era of abundance," E&C Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who leads the Energy and Power Subcommittee, said in a statement today. "We need policies that meet today's needs and are focused on the future, and that starts with building the Architecture of Abundance."
Few specific policy proposals are outlined in the framework, the initial details of which began circulating last week (E&E Daily, Feb. 9). But it provides more specifics on what committee leaders hope to address within its four main areas of focus.
For example, the infrastructure draft will address "permitting challenges" associated with building oil and gas pipelines or electric transmission lines between the United States and Canada or Mexico, as well as issues related to grid security and market transparency, according to the document.
The energy diplomacy draft also will focus on partnerships with neighboring countries, and it would seek to better align "how energy permitting decisions impact international energy security."
It remains to be seen how closely the new discussion drafts will track with previous proposals along similar lines.
For example, Upton and Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) last year introduced H.R. 3301 to ease cross-border permitting; Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) offered H.R. 4526 to steer more women and minorities to careers in the energy industry; and Reps. Dave McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) offered H.R. 1616, a popular energy-efficiency bill.
"The drafts will include some legislative ideas that the committee advanced last Congress but reflect some updates and new ideas as well," committee spokeswoman Charlotte Baker said in an email. "We plan to begin moving the drafts though committee this spring."
Committee leaders hope to have legislation on the House floor later this year, according to the framework, and the committee aims to work in a "bipartisan manner and coordinate closely with its Senate counterparts and the administration."

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) last week said she would begin an aggressive hearing schedule as soon as next month to begin putting together energy legislation focused on infrastructure, supply, efficiency and accountability (E&E Daily, Feb. 6).

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GOP Plans For 'Era Of Abundance' In Energy

Feb 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2Wire

By Timothy Cama

House Republicans are pushing a comprehensive policy package for energy that aims to ease pipeline permits, train more workers for the industry and wield increased production as a diplomatic tool.
Leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee outlined their goals in a four-part “framework” document they released Monday. They want to move the legislation through the House by the end of the year.
The package will continue the “Architecture of Abundance” theme that Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the panel’s chairman, began touting last year along with Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power.
“Today’s energy policies are lagging far behind and are better suited for the gas lines in the 1970s than this new era of abundance,” the chairmen said in a statement accompanying the framework.
“We need policies that meet today’s needs and are focused on the future, and that starts with building the Architecture of Abundance,” they said.
The effort comes as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), gears up to release its own comprehensive energy package. Congress hasn't passed major energy legislation since 2007.
The energy push could help Republicans as they seek to draw contrasts with President Obama and rack up achievements for their new majorities in the House and Senate.
While fighting Obama’s environmental and energy agenda is part of the framework, it takes a backseat to other priorities.
The plan has four pillars: modernizing energy infrastructure like pipelines and transmission lines; developing a better energy workforce; using energy internationally for diplomatic purposes; and increasing both energy efficiency and government accountability in energy.
“By modernizing our infrastructure, empowering a 21st century energy workforce, strengthening our energy diplomacy, and promoting more efficiency and accountability, we can lay the foundation for a forward-looking national energy strategy that truly embraces our energy abundance and its boundless benefits,” Upton and Whitfield said.
“Most importantly, saying yes to energy will create jobs, keep costs down for all Americans, and boost our energy security.”
The framework touches on the role of American energy internationally, but it does not mention whether Republicans would try to lift the decades-old ban on crude oil exports, an issue that divides the GOP.
Some of the proposals are sure to face opposition from Democrats.
For example, efforts to make domestic and cross-border oil and gas pipeline permitting easier are likely to draw connections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The House last year passed a bill to remove Obama’s authority to review cross-border pipeline permits, which Democrats said was an effort to allow Keystone XL’s developers to go around the president.

But some ideas, like increasing access to education for workers, are likely to attract bipartisan support

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Drillers Take Second Crack at Fracking Old Wells to Cut Cost

Feb 10, 2015 | Bloomberg

By David Wethe

Beset by falling prices, the oil industry is looking at about 50,000 existing wells in the U.S. that may be candidates for a second wave of fracking, using techniques that didn’t exist when they were first drilled.
New wells can cost as much as $8 million, while re-fracking costs about $2 million, significant savings when the price of crude is hovering close to $50 a barrel, according to Halliburton Co., the world’s biggest provider of hydraulic fracturing services.
While re-fracking offered mixed results in the past, earning it the nickname “pump and pray,” the oil crash is forcing companies to pursue new technologies to produce oil more cheaply. Analyzing reams of data from older wells has become a key piece of the puzzle, identifying the best candidates for re-fracking instead of picking them simply at random, said Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of integrated technology at Baker Hughes Inc.
“You want to talk about the next step to increasing production without increasing costs?” said Carl Larry, Houston-based director of oil and natural gas at Frost & Sullivan, a consulting firm. “Re-fracking looks great.”
Fracking involves blasting water, sand and chemicals down wells to crack rock, letting oil and gas flow to the surface. This second wave of fracking is disappointing environmentalists who expected a slowdown in new drilling tied to the price slump. Critics say fracking leads to contamination, uses too much water and creates air pollution from the sand mining.Environmental Issues
While fewer new wells would seem to mean less total fracking, the re-fracking phenomenon means there won’t be as big a reduction as some had expected.
Communities will continue to feel the impact from more natural resources being used, said Sharon Wilson, the Texas organizer for Earthworks, an environmental watchdog group. “It’s horribly disappointing,” she said by telephone.
Fracking techniques have come a long way since the North American shale revolution began more than a decade ago. Since those early, primitive wells were drilled, fracking specialists like Halliburton have gotten far better at figuring out where to put the cracks, and how wide and deep they need to be to get the most production.
Fracking projects have also become more complex and expensive as wells reached further underground and engineers figured out that the more cracks blasted into the reservoir, the more oil comes out.64% Rise
While the number of wells fracked in the U.S. last year climbed 64 percent to 18,200 compared to 2011, the total number of fracking stages -- the holes punched in the rock -- more than doubled, according to Houston-based industry adviser PacWest Consulting Partners, a unit of IHS Inc.
That means there are a lot of older wells with primitive frack work that are prime candidates for a fresh workover.
“The timing is absolutely perfect for this opportunity,” Freitag said. “Right now, the North American unconventional oil and gas industry is in a bit of a crisis.”
Before the crash, Halliburton had a harder time convincing customers that re-fracking horizontal wells was worthwhile, largely because of inconsistent results.
“Customers look at it almost like going to a casino,” said David Adams, vice president of operations technology in North America for Halliburton.
The hardest part about re-fracking is pumping new fracturing fluid down the length of a well running horizontally for 5,000 feet (1,500 meters), and isolating the spots that need to be blasted, said Rod Skaufel, president of BHP Billiton Ltd.’s shale business.Perfecting Technique
That’s more difficult than fracking a new well, and that’s why operators in the past have dubbed the technique “pump and pray,” he said. Now, though, oilfield service companies are working to perfect the technique.
BHP Billiton, one of the biggest producers in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale, is among the companies considering re-fracking more of its old wells, though it isn’t yet completely sold on the new technology, Skaufel said. The Australian oil and mining company is working with Schlumberger Ltd. to test the technology in the gas fields of Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale.
“Clearly if you could make this work, it allows you to have a more cost-effective program under these prices,” Skaufel said. “That’s why we’re excited about the concept.”Best Targets
Halliburton has developed techniques to send fracking fluid into old wells and direct it to the best targets, according to Adams.
“If you look at the top operators across North America that we work with, there’s not a single one of them that’s not talking about re-fracks today,” he said.
The drilling slowdown is giving oil companies more time to tinker with the new technology, said Dan Themig, chief executive officer at Packers Plus Energy Services Inc.
“When oil prices and activity are high, there’s no one available to look after experimentation,” said Themig, whose closely held Calgary company is working on its own re-fracking technique. “You will see experimentation take place in the next couple of years. There is still money in our industry to do that.”

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California Strategy Addresses EPA Concerns About Injection Wells, Protection of Aquifers

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Carolyn Whetzel

California has proposed a strategy to respond to Environmental Protection Agency concerns about the state's Class II underground injection well program and to bring the program into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Correcting deficiencies in the program is a priority, Steven Bohlen, supervisor of the California Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, said during a Feb. 9 conference call with reporters.
Bohlen said the plan forwarded to the EPA Feb. 6 is the culmination of an ongoing review of the Class II underground injection well program by state and federal officials to address concerns raised by a 2011 federal audit and report.
California won approval from the EPA in 1983 to supervise the regulation of Class II injection wells associated with oil and gas operations. Class II wells are injected with the fluids to stimulate production and to dispose of fluid by-products from drilling. Some Class II wells also can be used to store hydrocarbons.
A key focus of the plan is the state's proposed strategy to address permits the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) has issued for injection wells in hydrocarbon-bearing zones with aquifers without first obtaining the necessary exemptions required under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The letter to the EPA follows a recent analysis of the DOGGR's records by the Associated Press indicating the state has recently issued permits allowing oil companies to inject production fluids or wastes into 2,553 federally protected aquifers.
140 Wells for Immediate Review
Of the 2,553 recently permitted wells, the state has identified 140 active wells for immediate review by the State Water Resources Control Board to determine if they pose a potential risk to groundwater supplies, Bohlen said.
Those 140 wells have been identified as lacking hydrocarbons and contain water with less than 3,000 micrograms per liter of total dissolved solids, he said.
Last summer, the state closed down 11 injection wells it found posed a threat to drinking water supplies, Bohlen said.
“Our primary goal has always been to ensure the protection of public health and safety and the environment, and we believe that overall, we have been successful,” Bohlen said. Still, he said there are problems with the program.
The injection wells are an integral part of California's oil and gas operations, Bohlen said. Currently, there are more than 50,000 oilfield injection wells operating in the state and 75 percent of those are used for enhanced oil recovery activities such as steam flood, cyclic steam, water flood and natural gas injection, Bohlen said.
Proposed Actions
In the letter and plan submitted to the EPA, the state proposed two workshops, one later in February and another in March, to inform the oil and gas industry, environmental groups and others of what data are needed to justify an aquifer exemption. A related guidance document is due out April 1, the state said in the letter.
Also, California has proposed a series of administrative and rulemakings to eliminate the injection wells in the “undisputedly non-exempt aquifers.”
Jointly drafted by the DOGGR and State Water Resources Control Board, the letter also outlines recent steps taken to address deficiencies in California's program included in the EPA audit, such as the hiring of additional staff, establishing a new monitoring and compliance unit and allocation of increased financial resources.

Finally, the state committed to conduct, over the next three years, a thorough review of the underground injection control program and related regulations and to develop any needed new regulations.

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California Pledges Changes In Protecting Underground Water

Feb 9, 2015 | AP (in PoliticoPro)

California is proposing broad changes in the way it protects underground water sources from oil and gas operations, after finding 2,500 instances in which the state authorized oil and gas operations in protected water aquifers.
State oil and gas regulators on Monday released a plan they sent the EPA last week for bringing the state back into compliance with federal safe-drinking water requirements.
An ongoing state and federal review has determined the state has repeatedly authorized oil-industry injection into aquifers that were supposed to be protected as current or potential sources of water for drinking and watering crops and livestock.
An Associated Press analysis found hundreds of the now-challenged state permits for oil field injection into protected aquifers have been granted since 2011, despite growing EPA warnings about oil field threats to the state's underground water reserves.
"It's a problem that needs our very close attention and an urgent path forward," Steve Bohlen, head of the state Department of Conservation's oil and gas division, told reporters Monday.
Bohlen said 140 of those 2,553 injection wells were of primary concern to the state now, because they were actively injecting oil field fluids into aquifers with especially designated good water quality.
State water officials currently are reviewing those 140 oil field wells to see which are near water wells and to assess any contamination of water aquifers from the oil and gas operations, Bohlen said.
EPA had given the state until Friday to detail how it would deal with current injection into protected water aquifers and stop future permitting of risky injection.
The plan submitted by the state outlines plans and timelines for dealing with current risks. The proposal also recommends regulatory changes for oversight of oil and gas operations and water aquifers.
An AP analysis of state records showed 46 percent of those 2,553 oil-field injection wells were approved or began injection after 2011, despite the state's drought and what were then increasing federal warnings that California was not doing enough to protect potential underground water sources from contamination by oil fields.
California regulators said they believe that the actual percentage is lower than state records show, but they added they do not know how much lower.

California is the country's third-largest oil-producing state.

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Alberta Pitching Oil Sands Pipeline Through Alaska to Pacific, Premier Says

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Jeremy van Loon

Alberta is in discussions with Alaska about shipping oil-sands crude from Canada through the northernmost U.S. state to the Pacific as approval for the southbound Keystone XL pipeline languishes in Washington.
The Alaska plan would involve constructing a pipeline along the Mackenzie River valley and then west to existing ports on the U.S. coast, Alberta Premier Jim Prentice said in an interview at Bloomberg's headquarters in New York. Alaskan ports have been staging points for maritime crude shipments for decades.
“It's technically feasible,” Prentice said. “Whether it's economically feasible has yet to be determined, so we're working on that.”
Canadian politicians have struggled to convince opponents in North America of the merits of building new pipelines to ship crude out of land-locked Alberta. TransCanada Corp. has been awaiting U.S. approval for its cross-border Keystone project since it applied in 2008, while Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway proposal has stalled, even with regulatory approval, in the face of opposition from British Columbians who fear the risk of a spill for their salmon streams and coastal inlets.
Alberta's other pipeline options include TransCanada's Energy East project to the Atlantic port of Saint John, New Brunswick, as well as Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP's Trans Mountain expansion to the port of Vancouver.
Potential Route
Alaska, like Alberta, is dependent on oil royalties to fund spending. The state has been hit by plunging oil prices and Gov. Bill Walker proposed on Feb. 5 cuts to the budget.
Alaska is in discussions about routing a Canadian pipeline through the state, said Katie Marquette, a spokeswoman for the governor.
Walker “welcomes all constructive dialogue on growing Alaska's economy, and looks forward to sharing experiences with another world-class energy-producing region,” Marquette said in an e-mail.
The route for a potential Alaska pipeline would cross through Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories, where both governments are supportive, Prentice said. Further discussions are being scheduled with Alaskan officials, he added.
“Our province needs pipelines in every direction,” Prentice said. “We are pushing on tidewater access in every conceivable venue.”
Prentice, who was helping Enbridge push ahead with Northern Gateway before he became premier, said “there's work to be done” on removing opposition to that project.
The pipeline would terminate at the British Columbian port of Kitimat at the end of the Douglas Channel, the traditional territory of the Haisla and Gitga'at First Nations which, along with neighboring indigenous groups, oppose the project because of the threat it would mean for their marine food supplies.

The port of Kitimat is about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) southeast of the Alaskan port of Valdez, the main oil shipment terminal in that state.

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EPA Watchdog Faults Own Hiring and Payroll Practices

Feb 10, 2015 | The Washington Post

By Josh Hicks

Talk about a taste of your own medicine. A federal watchdog office recently turned its spotlight inward and discovered problems with its own hiring and payroll practices.
The inspector general’s office for the Environmental Protection Agency said in a series of reports last week that it doesn’t require managers to verify the employment history or references of job candidates and hasn’t always followed internal overtime policies or guidelines for reporting time and attendance.
Congress requested the reviews after federal prosecutors charged John C. Beale, a former senior policy adviser with the EPA, with stealing $900,000 from the government by pretending to work for the Central Intelligence Agency while he was absent from the EPA. Beale pleaded guilty in September.
The EPA inspector general’s office acknowledged in a recent report that it was doing little to verify background
In one of the reports last week, the inspector general’s office found that its own human resources division “does not do anything to identify false statements in an applicant’s information, including job history or accomplishments.”
“Without verification of prior employment or references for eligible job candidates, the potential exists that the OIG will not hire the best possible candidate, or hire a job applicant based on misleading information,” the report said.
The deputy inspector general agreed with all of the recommendations from the review, which called for the watchdog office to require verification of work history and references before making final hiring decisions.
In regard to overtime policies, an internal audit found that management did not ensure compliance with overtime policies and that the guidelines were not clear in the first place. Auditors recommended that the inspector general’s office clarify its overtime-authorization requirements and use appropriate forms for approval.
With time-and-attendance reporting, the watchdog agency said its employees did not always use the organization’s official system for recording hours, including for leave and premium pay. The report concluded that a lack of planned time sheets can result in inaccurate time-and-attendance numbers, as well as payments going to staffers without proper authorization.
The inspector general’s office called on managers and employees to review their records and correct them where appropriate, in addition to implementing controls to ensure that workers comply with reporting policies. The deputy inspector general agreed with the recommendations.

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House Republicans Release Energy Framework, Vow to Move Bill to Floor Later This Year

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

House Republicans released the outline of a broad energy bill Feb. 9 and vowed to bring the measure to the floor later this year, according to a document released by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The bill will address the need to “modernize” electricity transmission and natural gas pipelines and “allow the export of energy commodities,” according to a framework document released Feb. 9 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and other Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
“Our energy landscape has changed, but our national energy policy has not kept pace,” the document said. “Outdated and inadequate energy policies are preventing us from taking full advantage of America's energy abundance.”
In addition, the document said the committee would continue efforts to monitor the Environmental Protection Agency's management of the renewable fuel standard, EPA efforts to regulate methane gas emissions and forthcoming regulations governing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants.
Upton, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) plan to release a series of draft bills “in the coming months” and to work closely with their counterparts in the Senate, where Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is leading efforts of her own to write a comprehensive energy bill (06 DEN A-1, 1/9/15).
Permitting Delays, Energy Efficiency
In all the House framework document outlined four themes: “modernizing infrastructure, 21st century energy workforce, energy diplomacy for a changing world and efficiency and accountability.”
“America faces different energy challenges today than it did a decade ago,” the document said. “Chief among them is a shortage of modern energy infrastructure to carry abundant new supplies of oil and gas to consumers. These challenges threaten energy reliability and affordability.”
The outline also said the committee plans to address permitting delays for energy projects, including “cross-border pipelines,” and voluntary energy efficiency measures.
The framework builds on an Energy and Commerce policy plan, “an Architecture of Abundance,” outlined in a speech by Upton in July (136 DEN A-11, 7/16/14).
Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) agreed that the country's energy picture is rapidly changing and that infrastructure needs to be updated and modernized.

“We need energy legislation that not only increases energy supplies, but also diversifies them and promotes diversity in the workforce that produces them; one that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels by promoting efficiency and reduced demand; one that protects our environment and climate, while promoting our economic wellbeing; and one that results in benefits, not just for large producers, but also for all Americans,” Pallone and Rush said in a statement.

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Democrats Relaunch Safe Climate Caucus; Van Hollen Readies Cap and Dividend Bill

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Dean Scott

House Democrats Feb. 9 relaunched a climate change caucus created by former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to give the minority party a tool for keeping the issue in the spotlight given Republican opposition to bills that would cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The Safe Climate Caucus lost its chairman last year with Waxman's retirement; going forward it will be chaired by a fellow Californian, Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D). First elected in 2012, Lowenthal is a member of the House Natural Resources Committee and the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition, another House caucus, launched in 2009.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who with Lowenthal and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) announced the relaunch of the safe group in a media call, said he soon will reintroduce his “cap and dividend” bill to put mandatory caps on U.S. emissions. Van Hollen, a member of the House Democratic leadership, last introduced his Healthy Climate Security Act in July 2014, which called for cutting U.S. emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels (147 DEN A-11, 7/31/14).
Van Hollen's past bills would require oil, gas and coal industries to buy carbon permits through an annual auction and would distribute all of the revenue collected to U.S. households.
Only companies that extract or import oil, gas and coal would have to purchase the permits, in contrast with Democrats' failed cap-and-trade legislation, which cleared the House in 2009 but died in the Senate the following year. That bill would have covered a far larger number of emitters, from power plants to manufacturers to oil and gas companies.
Other Democratic-Led Efforts
The Safe Climate Caucus has 38 members in the House and largely relies on speeches and social media to draw attention to the climate issue, including YouTube videos and op-eds (26 DEN A-13, 2/7/14; 33 DEN A-8, 2/19/13).

The safe caucus is one of several groups launched to focus on climate in the wake of Republican victories in the 2010 election that gave the party control of the House. Others include a House-Senate task force co-chaired by Van Hollen and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and a climate “clearinghouse” headed by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee following the Republican takeover of the Senate last fall.

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House Caucus Vows to Push Back 'in the Face of Denial'

Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News

By Jean Chemnick

Their numbers may be smaller and the odds larger, but House Democrats nonetheless renewed their pledge yesterday to do what they can to keep climate change on the new Congress' agenda.
The Safe Climate Caucus kicked off its third year with a call hosted by the League of Conservation Voters. Caucus leaders vowed to fend off Republican attacks on Obama administration climate policy, to find areas where progress on curbing emissions can be made with bipartisan support and to keep working on carbon legislation in hopes that political winds shift.
"This caucus aims to speak the truth, even in the face of denial," said Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), who took the caucus' reins when its founder, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), retired last year.
The caucus of 38 Democrats will continue to make weekly floor speeches, write op-ed columns and use social media to draw attention to global warming, Lowenthal said.
Caucus members also have several bills in the hopper, ranging from a carbon dioxide cap-and-dividend bill from Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to legislation on short-lived climate pollutants, green infrastructure and climate resilience -- measures that caucus members hope will attract enough Republican support to pass.
Van Hollen, who took Waxman's spot atop the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, co-chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), said he would reintroduce his cap-and-dividend bill "sooner rather than later."
His measure would place a levy on fossil fuels and return revenue to households. But while some Republican economists and former officials have advocated for this kind of revenue-neutral policy, it's unlikely to get off the ground in the Republican-controlled House.
But Van Hollen said it's still worth trying.
"I don't think the measure of action in the Congress or legislation should be what climate deniers will do legislatively," he said. "We need to continue to keep the pressure on politically and build more public support for these measures."
Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who has introduced numerous bills aimed at slashing emissions and boosting adaptation efforts, said Democrats and Republicans may come together on legislation that would help the U.S. military reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
There may also be bipartisan support for legislation that will help communities prepare for extreme weather, Peters said. Resilience planning pays dividends later on in avoided cleanup and repair costs, he said.
Lowenthal said the upcoming highway and transportation infrastructure bill could also go a long way toward making the nation's roads and bridges more resistant to warming. And resilience isn't a political lightning rod.
"While the term climate change or global warming elicits a fear reaction sometimes on the part of Republicans, I think resilience doesn't," he said, adding that there is plenty of Republican support for making infrastructure investments last longer.
The group will also promote the renewal of renewable energy tax credits and work to protect U.S. EPA's CO2 and methane limits, among other goals.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a member of the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, released a statement yesterday evening saying that votes during Senate consideration of the Keystone XL oil pipeline last month offered a "glimmer of hope" that climate legislation might one day be bipartisan.
Five Republicans voted for Schatz's amendment that stated that climate change was real and human emissions were a "significant" driver.
While the senator said that this Congress will see frequent assaults on EPA carbon restrictions, he said it could also see progress on some bipartisan legislation. And EPA's sweeping rule for existing power plant CO2 could eventually convince Republicans in both chambers to negotiate a climate change bill, he said.

"So once the Clean Power Plan is established, once it's litigated, and once it's full-on reality, I believe that there may be room for compromise," he said.

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Florida Utility to Close Two Coal Units Due to EPA Mercury, Air Toxics Rule

Feb 10, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Chris Marr

A Florida electric utility will shut down two more coal-fired generating units rather than make the capital investment required to comply with Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rules, the company announced.
Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co. that operates in the Florida panhandle, will shut down both of the 50-year-old coal units at Plant Smith near Panama City, Fla., by March 31, 2016, according to a Feb. 6 announcement. The units have combined generating capacity of 375 megawatts.
Plant Smith will continue to operate a combined-cycle natural gas unit with a capacity of 545 megawatts.
The company previously announced plans to retire its coal-fired Plant Scholz by April 2015, also citing environmental regulations as a key factor in the decision. Scholz has a capacity of 100 megawatts and is more than 60 years old.
MATS Was a Factor in Decision
The mercury and air toxics standards that the EPA finalized Dec. 16, 2011, played a key role in Gulf Power's decision to retire the Smith and Scholz coal units, Jeff Rogers, a Gulf Power spokesman, told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 9.
“When that changed, we had to look hard at all of our coal units,” he said. “It just didn't make economic sense for plants of that age to spend the money on controls.”
Under the mercury and air toxics standards, called MATS, power plants had three years to comply with emissions limits on mercury, heavy metals, dioxin and acid gases, with the potential for state regulators to grant a one-year extension for installation of control equipment, according to an EPA fact sheet.
After the shutdown of the Smith units, the final coal-fired power plant in Gulf Power's fleet will be Plant Crist, which has four coal-fired units with a combined generating capacity of 1,014 megawatts, Rogers said. That plant is already in compliance with the MATS rule thanks to an emissions control system known as a scrubber, he said. Gulf Power installed the system in 2009 at a cost of $650 million, according to the company's announcement.
The Sierra Club issued a statement applauding the coal unit shutdowns and said 185 coal-fired power plants nationwide have been scheduled for retirement.
Employees affected by the Gulf Power shutdown will be allowed to move into other jobs within the company, the company said.

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Coal Industry, GOP Fire Shots Against Potential Senate Candidacy

Feb 10, 2015 | E&E Daily News

By Manuel Quiñones

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) says he'll decide by the end of the month whether to run for Senate against Republican incumbent Rob Portman in 2016. But even before he makes the leap, the coal industry and its GOP allies are smelling blood.
Strickland, as counselor to the left-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP), introduced a plan yesterday that would boost royalties on companies mining federal coal out West to help struggling communities in the East (Greenwire, Feb. 9).
"This proposal will level the playing field for Appalachian coal, create a fairer system for coal royalties that better reflects the current coal market and raise millions of dollars in revenue for taxpayers that can be reinvested in Appalachian communities," Strickland said.
Even before the announcement, the Ohio Coal Association had released a statement accusing Strickland of betraying Ohio's coal field communities, mainly because of his involvement with CAP, which has supported the Obama administration's proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The National Republican Senatorial Committee was only too happy to distribute the industry group's attack.
"While his organization's liberal donors might like these regulations, Ohio families certainly do not," said Christian Palich, the association's interim president. "This group has consistently lobbied to support President Obama's liberal polices, including the Obama Administration's war on coal."
Palich is a former staffer to Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who has been deeply critical of the president's policies regarding mining and burning coal. Johnson represents the same coal-heavy southeastern Ohio district that Strickland did for six terms before being elected governor in 2006.
"Strickland has clear ties to the southeast, and he actually performed fairly well in this region in his failed bid for re-election as governor in 2010," said University of Virginia Center for Politics analyst Kyle Kondik. In a Republican wave year, Strickland lost by 2 percentage points to now-Gov. John Kasich (R), a former House colleague.
But, Kondik added, "If Strickland does in fact run for the Senate, Republicans are going to work to make sure he does not repeat that performance. These attacks on him over coal are a preview of what he will face."
Beyond his ties to CAP, Strickland has also been a loyalist to President Obama and defended the president during GOP attacks in 2012 accusing the White House of waging a war on coal.
"In fact, the president has said just the opposite, and he followed through with resources," Strickland said at the time, touting the administration's funding for research to make coal cleaner and viable amid concerns about climate change.
Strickland also called former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney a flip-flopper on coal. "When it helped him politically at the time," Strickland said in a 2012 conference call, "he even bragged about enforcing strict regulations on the coal industry 'without compromise.'"
The coal industry and its allies only had limited success during the 2012 elections. Their main target, Obama, is still in the White House.
But last year was different. Republicans, using a pro-coal and anti-Obama message, helped defeat 19-term Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.). They also flipped the Mountain State's Legislature from Democratic to GOP.
Kondik said Strickland may be "something of a throwback candidate" because he hails from an area that has been increasingly favoring Republicans. Other parts of the state, like the Cincinnati and Columbus areas, have become more important to Democratic hopes.
That said, Kondik warned against overstating the importance of southeastern Ohio's coal communities to Democratic chances statewide. After all, Obama won the state both in 2008 and 2012 while faring poorly in that region.
"I understand the importance, to Republicans, of undercutting Strickland's appeal in his old congressional district," he said. "But the 'war on coal' attack is a message with a limited, regional appeal."
So far, Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who is 30 years old, is the only Democrat who has thrown his hat in the Senate race. Other potential Democratic candidates include former Reps. John Boccieri and Betty Sutton. But Strickland, who is 73 and an ordained minister, is the first choice of many national Democratic leaders to take on Portman, who appears to be formidable as the election cycle begins. Portman had $5.8 million in his campaign account at the end of 2014.
Asked yesterday about his involvement with Center for American Progress, Strickland said during a conference call with reporters that he had pushed for research into helping coal communities early on.
And when running for re-election in 2010, before joining CAP, Strickland -- with a 77 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters from his time in Congress -- called on the Obama administration to take economic concerns into account when dealing with climate change and supported delaying planned U.S. EPA rules.
Kasich defeated Strickland, at least in part, by running against the Democrats' renewable energy standards. Strickland said they would create jobs; Kasich said otherwise. Opposition researchers have also dug up a Strickland vote for an energy tax early during the Clinton administration.
Yesterday, at least some industry advocates saw Strickland's actions as an effort to help defuse potential political attacks down the road. Coal companies used to have strong allies in both parties but have been increasingly siding more with the GOP.
"Democrat leaders like Strickland are scrambling for answers in former strongholds of support in Appalachia, and white papers like this one [released yesterday] will do little to regain that support or repair President Obama's image," said Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.

Strickland yesterday said his interest in helping coal-field communities started "long before there was any talk of me entering a political race of any kind." He added, "I care about Ohio, I care about a lot of things, I care about coal communities."

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Environmentalists, Industry Seek Changes To EPA's Cement Air Toxics Rule

Feb 10, 2015 | InsideEPA

By Stuart Parker

Environmentalists and the cement industry are urging EPA to make a series of revisions to its recent proposed revisions to its air toxics rule for the sector, with advocates urging the agency to drop plans they say would weaken air reporting requirements and the industry seeking clarifications to resolve various unclear definitions.
The agency in a Nov. 19 Federal Register notice proposed changes to its rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards to control air toxics emissions from kilns used in Portland cement production. Among the changes is EPA's plan to scrap an "affirmative defense" shielding the industry from liability for some Clean Air Act violations, following an appellate court ruling that found the defense to be unlawful.
In their comments on the proposal, however, environmentalists and industry only address the rule's technical corrections that EPA claims "do not affect the standards" or the costs of compliance with the MACT.
In Jan. 20 comments, law firm Earthjustice says that "EPA's proposed amendments to the reporting requirements would weaken them for no reason."
EPA is proposing to require only that failures to do the inspections be reported to the public, rather than reporting the results of inspections that are conducted, without justifying the move, Earthjustice says.
Also, "EPA should reinstate the opacity standard" that is stripped from an earlier iteration of the cement MACT in 2010, Earthjustice says. Opacity, a measure of visibility, serves as a measure of particulate matter emissions. EPA eliminated the requirement in 2010 because it was then requiring continuous emissions monitoring (CEM) at cement plants. However, the agency in 2013 then replaced the CEM requirement with less-onerous stack testing and "parametric" monitoring. EPA should therefore reinstate opacity monitoring because "it would provide an important backstop against harmful bursts of emissions from cement kilns," Earthjustice says.
Earthjustice further says that a proposed change to the definition of "rolling average" of emissions is technically inconsistent with other provisions in the rule.
The Portland Cement Association (PCA), representing cement makers, in its Jan. 20 comments, makes a similar observation, saying, "The proposed definition of rolling average is unclear, in part because it can apply to operating limits that take various forms as well as limits that take different forms. There is also a problem with the use of the word 'average' in specific places where averaging may or may not apply. Lastly, the definition includes a twelve-month rolling average, but the rule contains no twelve month limits."

PCA also asks EPA to make an extensive list of other technical corrections.

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