Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 12/02/18
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5 Things to Watch as Trump Unveils Budget Plan
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
President Trump releases his budget request today, with proposed cuts expected for research, renewable energy and climate programs. -
Trump Again Calls for Eliminating Chemical Safety Board
Feb 12, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The White House is again calling for eliminating the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, according to its latest budget proposal. -
(ACC Mentioned) Science Alert to EPA Chief Pruitt: Pollution Kills People
Feb 12, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Kathleen Rest
President Trump’s chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has been hard at work undermining some of our nation’s most important public health safeguards in the guise of “reform.” -
Chemical That Soiled N Carolina Water Found in West Virginia
Feb 12, 2018 | AP (In Washington Post)
The little-studied compound that was found in a North Carolina river last year has also been found in a well under a West Virginia Chemours facility. -
Leak Leads Feds to Order Cheniere to Take LNG Tanks Offline
Feb 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Federal regulators have ordered Houston's Cheniere Energy to take offline two of its liquefied natural gas storage tanks at its Sabine Pass facility after one of them leaked last month. -
Cheniere Ordered to Shut Two Sabine Pass LNG Storage Tanks Pending Investigation
Feb 12, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Cheniere Energy Inc. has shut two of the five storage tanks at the Sabine Pass natural gas export terminal in Cameron Parish, LA, after several issues were discovered in January by employees and federal officials. -
Record U.S. Energy Exports Barely Move Overall Deficit
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Booming exports of fossil energy from the United States have yet to put a dent in the nation's massive trade deficit, and trade statistics from 2017 cast doubt on whether they ever will. -
Trump Seeks to Cut Energy Department Loan, Research Programs
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration Monday proposed significantly slashing a handful of controversial loan and research programs at the Department of Energy (DOE). -
Shale Surge? No Problem, says OPEC
Feb 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Mahmoud Habboush
Surging output of U.S. shale oil won't be a "huge distorter" of efforts by global crude producers to clear a glut, according to OPEC's president. -
Donald Trump's Plan Can't Fix America's Infrastructure Without Focusing on Our Railways
Feb 12, 2018 | NBC News
By Michael Friedberg
Several recent railway accidents may have struck fear into the hearts of passengers — but the next one could cripple our economy as well. -
Trump Proposes Sweeping Changes to NEPA
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
President Trump today proposed big changes to the National Environmental Policy Act as part of his framework to overhaul the nation's infrastructure. -
The Latest: Trump's 2019 Budget Slashes EPA Funding
Feb 12, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)
The Latest on President Donald Trump's proposed 2019 budget (all times local) -
White House Proposes 25 Percent Cut to EPA Funding
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
President Trump's budget proposal for fiscal 2018 contains a 25 percent cut to funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). -
Trump Aims to Speed Environmental Reviews in Infrastructure Plan
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration is asking Congress to cut “duplicative” environmental review procedures as part of the president’s massive infrastructure plan. -
Trump Set to Diminish EPA's Role in Federal Construction
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
President Trump will request broad changes to the nation's environmental review process today in order to speed up permitting for infrastructure projects. -
Budget Deal Points to Realities of Warming — Sort Of
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Josh Kurtz, Niina Heikkinen and Benjamin Hulac
The bipartisan two-year budget deal that Congress passed at dawn Friday not only boosts federal spending by more than $500 billion, but appears to include robust government funding for climate-related programs. -
Forecast: 'Tsunami of Regulatory Litigation'
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmental lawyers are gearing up for another busy year.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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5 Things to Watch as Trump Unveils Budget Plan
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
President Trump releases his budget request today, with proposed cuts expected for research, renewable energy and climate programs.
The White House's proposal matters because it offers a glimpse into the administration's priorities — marching orders for congressional Republicans who will likely ignore most of them anyway.
Although Congress will likely disregard the specific spending levels — as it largely did with Trump's first budget request last year — nominees for some of the hundreds of vacant executive branch appointments will have to answer for these choices when they face the Senate. And officials already in place will have refreshed directions from the top.
Last year's blueprint called for colossal cuts, especially in climate and renewable energy programs. But Congress last week authorized major spending hikes, and Trump is pitching a massive infrastructure plan that's also set to debut today.
Whether Trump's budget resets the agenda, or whether it lands with a thud, could depend on these things:Will rebuffed cuts return?
The administration called last year for slashing 31 percent from U.S. EPA's spending and 29 percent from the State Department. That met immediate and blunt resistance in Congress.
Lawmakers from both parties found it hard to take the budget proposal seriously because it called for deeply cutting or eliminating spending on programs like hazard mitigation grants, the Superfund program, the Chemical Safety Board and National Flood Insurance Program mapping.
The House did vote to approve smaller cuts to agencies the White House targeted, including $800 million in cuts to EPA, Interior and related programs — far less than the $2.6 billion cut proposed for EPA alone.
The Senate hasn't passed its own appropriations bills yet — and lawmakers now have an extra $141 billion to spend on fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019, thanks to last week's budget deal.
The White House scrambled to write the last-minute extra money into its request, according to Bloomberg. One thing to watch will be whether the same cuts emerge despite the overall spending boost.
Early signs point to some repeated cuts, in spirit if not in the exact figures.
Last year, Republican appropriators brushed back against the White House's proposal to slash the Department of Energy's efficiency programs. Now, leaked drafts suggest the White House will propose even steeper cuts to DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy — a 72 percent reduction.
Some industry groups have already pushed back. And Republicans aren't planning to go along with it (E&E Daily, Feb. 7).
That's good news for environmentalists looking to leverage gaps between the administration and its usual allies.
"We're expecting a pretty irrelevant document," said Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.How does science and research funding fare?
Research into the state of climate change and measures to mitigate it depends on research funded by a constellation of federal agencies, from NASA to DOE.
Along with DOE's efficiency research programs, the fate of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy will be closely watched. So will programs at NOAA, the Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation aimed at data collection and research grants.
Under Trump's budget last year, NASA would have seen its $115 million Office of Education cut, with that portfolio shifted to the research-oriented Science Mission Directorate, but without any additional funds. Five Earth science missions would have been scrapped, including one to monitor carbon dioxide.
EPA's Office of Research and Development faced steep cuts last year, and it could be a target again now.Could specific cuts (or hikes) trickle down into midterm races?
One reason Trump's budget came under fire last year was because it targeted programs with clear constituencies, like the Appalachian Regional Commission, Chesapeake Bay cleanup and Native American programs.
"The material in last year's budget was so politically tone-deaf," said Slesinger. He added that a Republican president shouldn't propose lowering indigenous tribal money for Alaska when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) oversees the Natural Resources Committee and its Appropriations subcommittee.
With nine months until lawmakers face midterm voters, those kinds of cuts could emerge as campaign issues — especially for the vulnerable members in the House Climate Solutions Caucus.
The budget promises to offer details about the Interior Department's reorganization. It could also reprise the administration's proposed cuts to programs many voters and donors recognize, like Energy Star.
"It's a small program, but it has a huge amount of support," said Katherine Hamilton, chairwoman of 38 North Solutions, a lobbying firm that represents several renewable energy and environmental groups.Will infrastructure-related agencies get a boost?
Energy companies are hoping to get a piece of the administration's infrastructure push — with the grid and pipelines offering some options that would require minimal federal investment.
But cuts to corresponding agencies could undercut those prospects.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has been one of the administration's most high-profile officials on the infrastructure push. Last year, Trump's budget called for a $2.6 billion (13 percent) reduction in her agency.
Cutting Interior, EPA and DOE staff could also slow interstate projects at a time when the administration has emphasized approving projects more quickly.How does it treat the Paris accord and other Obama climate policies?
Elgie Holstein, senior director of strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the administration might explicitly say it won't be paying for work on an Obama-era climate deal that Trump has pledged to exit.
"We would expect that there would be limited or even no money available for the participation in the Paris climate accord," Holstein said.
The budget document could also offer hints on how EPA plans to replace the Clean Power Plan. Last year's budget proposed cutting off funding for the implementation of President Obama's signature climate rule.
Trump's last proposal also sought to discontinue spending on international climate change programs, climate change research and partnership programs.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters last year that Trump officials were deliberate in their cuts to climate programs, particularly at EPA.
"Do we target it? Sure," Mulvaney told reporters in May. "Do a lot of the EPA reductions [aim] at reducing the focus on climate science? Yes. Does it mean that we are anti-science? Absolutely not."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073503
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Trump Again Calls for Eliminating Chemical Safety Board
Feb 12, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The White House is again calling for eliminating the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, according to its latest budget proposal.
The budget puts the board, an independent agency charged with investigating accidents involving hazardous materials at refineries, on the “major discretionary eliminations” list.
The administration had called for the board’s elimination in its budget plan last year, though Congress ignored the request and allowed it an $11 million budget. Refinery owners and workers criticized the administration’s move to phase out the CSB.
Past investigations include the 2015 explosion at the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance, California, and the 2010 fire at a Tesoro refinery in Washington state that led to seven fatalities.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/1
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(ACC Mentioned) Science Alert to EPA Chief Pruitt: Pollution Kills People
Feb 12, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Kathleen Rest
President Trump’s chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has been hard at work undermining some of our nation’s most important public health safeguards in the guise of “reform.” His talking points omit the fact that these policies, guidelines, and programs have a strong record of protecting us from toxic chemicals and harmful air pollutants. And he’s leveraging the fact that many have obscure sounding names, hoping the public won’t notice that he’s stripping away safeguards at a time when the science on air pollution and health signals the need to strengthen protections for our families and communities.
Let’s dig into the details.Less MACT means more HAPS
Breaking with more than 20 years of precedence in implementing the Clean Air Act, late last month the EPA reversed long-standing guidance that limits hazardous air pollutants (HAPS) such as the neurotoxins mercury and lead from major sources like power plants and large industrial facilities.
The agency’s new guidance means that major sources of HAPS may no longer be required to employ Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT), which reforms guidance that has been singularly successful in reducing toxic air pollution. Giving polluting facilities that have been employing available MACT technologies for years a way out of that requirement may line pockets of the polluting parties, but it is certainly not in the public interest. This is especially true for environmental justice and low-income communities and for people of color; they are already bearing a disproportionate burden of toxic pollution. Read more about all this here and here.
All eyes on IRIS
The EPA’s chemical risk assessment program—the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)—is the gold standard for chemical toxicity reviews at the federal, state, and local level, and even internationally. Because IRIS provides a scientific basis for regulating chemicals, it has been a target of criticism by the chemical industry, trade groups, and their friends in Congress and the White House. IRIS is at serious risk. Read more here.
And then there’s TSCA
After years of effort and with the bipartisan support that now seems a distant memory, Congress passed legislation in 2016 to update and reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Enacted 42 years ago, TSCA is a fundamental safeguard meant to protect our nation’s children, families, and communities from the health effects of dangerous chemicals—health effects like cancer, birth defects, and reproductive disorders.
Two years ago, many public health and environmental leaders cheered this much-needed reform (read more here). But then the Trump administration gave the task of writing new rules to Dr. Nancy Beck, formerly director of regulatory science policy at the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s leading lobbying group. Not surprisingly, under her leadership, the agency has rolled out rules that reflect industry-favored positions, despite objections from the EPA’s own scientists and staff, who warned that the new changes could seriously underestimate health risks and make it harder to track and thus regulate dangerous chemicals. Read how and why the agency shifted here.
Pollution control is good for the economy and public health
Contrary to what Mr. Pruitt and the Trump administration say, pollution control is healthy economically. Air quality improvements in high-income countries have not only reduced deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, but have also yielded substantial economic gains. In the US, an estimated $30 in benefits (with a range of $4 – $88) has been returned to the economy for every dollar invested in air pollution control since 1970.What the science says—a global look
Given these and other threats to clean air and to the science-based protections that have been established to safeguard public health, it seemed like a good time to take a look at what the latest science says about pollution and health—both globally and here at home.
The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health provides the most recent, overarching, and in-depth analysis of the health and economic impacts of pollution. Its report covers air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution, as well as occupational pollutants and the emerging threats of developmental neurotoxicants, endocrine disrupters, and pesticides. Its focus is global, but the report includes some country-specific data and information. The report shows that no country is unaffected. And it also notes while that many effects of chemical pollutants are yet to be determined, much is already known.
Quoting directly from the report, here are some of the findings and key takeaways:Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today—responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015 alone. That’s three times more deaths than from AIDS, TB, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence.Pollution disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable. In countries at every income level, disease caused by pollution is most prevalent among minorities and the marginalized.Children are at high risk of pollution-related disease and even at extremely low-dose exposure to pollutants during windows of vulnerability in utero and in early infancy, which can result in disease, disability, and death in childhood and across their lifespan.Pollution endangers planetary health, destroys ecosystems, and is intimately linked to global climate change. Fuel combustion—fossil fuel combustion in high-income and middle-income countries and burning biomass in low-income countries—accounts for 85 percent of airborne particulate pollution and for almost all pollution by oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. These pollutants cause some serious health effects, like asthma, shortness of breath, wheezing, and other respiratory problems.More than 140,000 new chemicals and pesticides have been synthesized since 1950.The 5,000 produced in greatest volume have become widely dispersed in the environment and are responsible for nearly universal human exposure.[There is] increasing movement of chemical production to low-income and middle-income counties where public health and environment protections are often scant.
What the science says—a US look
A recent nationwide study of seniors in the US sounds similar alarm bells. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health studied 60 million Americans—nearly 97 percent of people 65 years of age and older—and found that long-term exposure to fine airborne particulates (PM2.5) and ozone increases the risk of premature death. Even at levels below current EPA national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). And that the “effect was most pronounced among self-identified racial minorities and people with low income.”
Francesca Dominici, principal investigator of the study, commented on the study’s unprecedented statistical power given the massive size of the study population, noting that the “findings suggested that lowering the NAAQS for fine particulate matter will produce important public health benefits, especially among self-identified racial minorities and people of low income.” These findings build on past work that has long showed the effect of long term exposure to particulates on mortality.
A second Harvard study examined short-term exposure to the same pollutants (PM2.5 and ozone) and also found a link to higher premature death among US elders—again with low income, female, and black elders at higher risk. The study found that “Day-to-day changes in fine particulate matter and ozone exposures were significantly associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality at levels below current air quality standards, suggesting that those standards may need to be reevaluated.”
Lead author Qian Di noted that “No matter where you live—in cities, in the suburbs, or in rural areas—as long as you breathe air pollution, you are at risk.” [Can’t resist a shout out to Qian Di, a doctoral student in environmental health—and to other early career scientists who are out there bringing their science to bear on critical matters of public policy, public health, environmental protection, and environmental justice.]
There is robust scientific evidence on the adverse impacts of air pollution on children’s health—from health impacts of fossil fuel combustion (nice summary of research here) to new research on children’s exposure to neurotoxins. Researchers at the University of Utah studied air pollution exposure in nearly 90,000 public schools across the US using EPA and census data. They found that ambient neurotoxins like lead, mercury, and cyanide compounds pose serious risks to children at our public schools.
Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, Jersey City, and Camden were among the 10 worst polluted areas. They also found racial disparities, with students attending high risk schools nationwide significantly more likely to be Hispanic, black, or Asian/Pacific Islander. In a lengthy Guardian piece on the research, study co-author Dr. Sara Grineski noted that “We’re only now realizing how toxins don’t just affect the lungs but influence things like emotional development, autism, ADHD, and mental health…“ Socially marginalized populations are getting the worst exposure….“This could well be impacting an entire generation of our society.” Other recent studies and reports of air pollution impacts on children’s health can be found here , here, here, here .EPA, please follow the science
This new research pretty much puts the kibosh on arguments that our nation’s air is clean enough and that it’s time to “reform” (read weaken) current policies, guidelines, and programs.
The science is clear—this is not the time to roll back efforts to control pollution, to squelch reviews and assessments of environmental chemicals, and to otherwise defund and de-staff critical public health protection programs at the agency. The EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment; this means putting the public interest first. In his goal to remake the EPA, we can’t let Mr. Pruitt sideline science and put our public health at risk.
Here at UCS we are doing our best to monitor and fight back against attacks on science and on the science-based policies that protect our public health and safety. Many partner organizations—from large national organizations to small grassroots groups and organizers fighting for environmental justice—are doing the same.
You can help by speaking out to elected officials in Congress, to your regional EPA office, and directly to Mr. Pruitt. He needs to understand that our public health is his priority, not easing industry’s path to higher profits. Join us as a science champion; we provide information and other resources to help you engage in this effort.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/kathleen-rest/science-alert-to-epa-chief-pruitt-pollution-kills-people
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Chemical That Soiled N Carolina Water Found in West Virginia
Feb 12, 2018 | AP (In Washington Post)
The little-studied compound that was found in a North Carolina river last year has also been found in a well under a West Virginia Chemours facility.
The News Journal of Wilmington reports Chemours, a Delaware-based company that sells fluoroproducts, is testing drinking water this month near its Washington Works facility in Parkersburg, West Virginia, per a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency request.
The EPA’s acting water protection director, Kate McManus, had said in a January letter to Chemours that GenX was found in four wells near the facility, and the agency is concerned about area drinking water contamination like in North Carolina.
The chemical is used to make nonstick cookware and other products, and has been linked to several forms of cancer in animal studies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/chemical-that-soiled-n-carolina-water-found-in-west-virginia/2018/02/12/e59eb144-0fd7-11e8-a68c-e9374188170e_story.html?utm_term=.ad365b979a95
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Leak Leads Feds to Order Cheniere to Take LNG Tanks Offline
Feb 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Federal regulators have ordered Houston's Cheniere Energy to take offline two of its liquefied natural gas storage tanks at its Sabine Pass facility after one of them leaked last month.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration issued the order Thursday after workers late last month discovered that one of the company's five onsite storage tanks had leaked LNG into containment area surrounding it. The natural gas had leaked between the inner and outer tank walls, eventually causing the outer wall to crack in four places, according to the order.
A second tank also cracked and released natural gas into the space between its inner and outer walls. Although the outer wall did not crack, that tank had been leaking natural gas vapors along the base.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration said in its order that similar conditions could be present in the company's other tanks, each of which hold 3.4 billion cubic feet of LNG. The agency is investigating the cause of the incidents.
In the order, the agency said that Cheniere subsidiary Sabine Pass Liquefaction acted quickly to isolate and drain the tank with outer-wall cracks.
In a statement, Cheniere spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said the company is investigating the incident and working with experts on a repair plan.
"We want to stress that there was and is no immediate danger to our community, workforce or our facility from this incident, nor in there any impact on LNG production," he said.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration said the company must tank the affected tanks offline within a week, determine the cause of the problems, review its tank system and make necessary repairs.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Leak-lead-feds-order-Cheniere-to-take-LNG-tanks-12607013.php
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Cheniere Ordered to Shut Two Sabine Pass LNG Storage Tanks Pending Investigation
Feb 12, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Cheniere Energy Inc. has shut two of the five storage tanks at the Sabine Pass natural gas export terminal in Cameron Parish, LA, after several issues were discovered in January by employees and federal officials.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) launched an investigation last month and ordered the two tanks shut at the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, currently the only one in the Lower 48 shipping gas overseas.
Each of the five tanks has 3.4 Bcfe capacity, a total of 17 Bcfe.
Cheniere subsidiary Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC was ordered “to take the necessary corrective actions” to protect the public, property and the environment from potential hazards associated with the releases. A thorough assessment is required before the company may seek permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to return the tanks to service.
According to PHMSA, Cheniere employees on Jan. 22 discovered that natural gas was leaking into a containment ditch around Tank S-103.
Cheniere spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder told NGI on Monday that at around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 22, “an area operator observed vapor and a small amount of LNG in a tank containment area and notified the control room at approximately the same time as an area gas detection alarm initiated,” he said. “Cheniere’s safety protective systems functioned as designed and applicable safety procedures were immediately initiated as required.”
The company’s procedure for responding to a tank issue like the one discovered “was immediately started by our trained operators and in-house emergency response team,” said Burnham-Snyder. “The plant alarm was sounded for all personnel to report to the safety muster points for accountability of the approximately 107 people on site and an exclusion zone was established around Tank 103."
The tank was “taken offline within minutes and the LNG release quickly subsided, as there was no breach of or leak from the inner tank containing LNG. Deinventory of the tank was started within an hour. Tank 103 is currently not in operation.”
After beginning an investigation of the release, PHMSA’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) “learned that Tank S-101 also had experienced releases of LNG from the inner tank into the annular space” and was “actively” leaking gas vapors at 14 sites along the base of the tank.
“This raises the possibility that the conditions which resulted in the incident may be present in multiple tanks,” PHMSA said in its corrective order [No. 4-2018-3001H].
No injuries resulted, and there were no reported fires or explosions.
PHMSA said Cheniere could not “validate the exact source or amount" of leaked LNG, nor could it identify the circumstances that allowed the LNG to escape containment in the first place.
“Exposure of LNG to the carbon steel outer tank resulted in cooling of the outer tank wall to a temperature far below its design temperature of -25° F,” PHMSA order said. “These cracks propagated to a length of approximately one to six feet in length in a short amount of time, because when steel fails at low temperatures, it fails in a brittle manner. Brittle failures do not leak before failing so there is no warning before failure.”
Cheniere has been ordered by PHMSA to conduct a root cause analysis, assess whether the issues discovered at the two tanks apply to the other tanks and develop plans to repair or modify them. Cheniere also has been ordered to provide records of any other leaks or events in which the tank systems were operated "outside design specifications."
According to PHMSA, all five of the LNG storage tanks were designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Three tanks placed into service in 2008 were built by Matrix Service Inc., and two tanks that went into service in 2009 were built by Zachry Industrial Inc. The two leaking tanks were built by Matrix; the third Matrix-built tank did not have any leaks and remains in service.
“Safety is Cheniere’s No. 1 priority, and we want to stress that there was and is no immediate danger to our community, workforce, or our facility from this incident, nor is there any impact on LNG production,” said Burnham-Snyder. “Cheniere has initiated an event investigation and is currently working with experts on a repair plan. We will continue to work with PHMSA to safely and quickly address this incident.”
There currently are “10 independent expert companies working on site in support of the root cause analysis investigation and development of repair plans,” Burnham-Snyder said. Cheniere is working with PHMSA “to safely and quickly address this incident.”
The Sabine Pass facility most recently was processing “about 3 Bcf/d of gas in the past couple weeks,” he said. “We continue to operate normally.”
In response, Sierra Club staff attorney Nathan Matthews said, “This incident is a reminder that the expansion of LNG projects poses a grave threat to our communities and our climate. It’s a relief that no one was hurt, but allowing the facility to continue to operate until it’s clear how widespread these issues are would be extremely reckless.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113353-cheniere-ordered-to-shut-two-sabine-pass-lng-storage-tanks-pending-investigation
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Record U.S. Energy Exports Barely Move Overall Deficit
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Booming exports of fossil energy from the United States have yet to put a dent in the nation's massive trade deficit, and trade statistics from 2017 cast doubt on whether they ever will.
Last year was one for the record books for the United States in exports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Energy exporters' fortunes have waned in the wake of the mid-2014 crude oil price collapse, but rising oil prices have brought greater export volumes. The customer base for U.S. crude oil has also widened, with new purchasers last year including Denmark, Germany and India.
All told, U.S. companies brought in revenues of more than $21.4 billion in mineral crude oil sales abroad in 2017, according to data published by the Census Bureau. Another $76.8 billion was earned through sales of non-crude oil liquids. About $3.5 billion in LNG sales abroad was achieved last year.
But between the United States and its major trading partners, only the trade deficit with South Korea was reduced as that nation ramped up its imports of U.S. energy products. Sales of fossil energy to China boomed, as well, but the trade deficit with China greatly increased.
Thomas Holmberg, a partner in the energy practice at Baker Botts LLP, argued that one year's worth of data may not be enough to draw conclusions about the impact of energy exports on the overall trade deficit in subsequent years. He noted that oil exports continue to rise, while the United States' crude imports are falling. Volumes of LNG exports are set to rise significantly, and long-term contracts for LNG shipments lock in better income from trade for years, he noted.
"Right now, the industry's standard contract is a 20-year contract, and those contracts create a lot of annual revenue, in the billions of dollars for each project," Holmberg said. "That's a decent chunk of revenue."
Cheniere Energy is set to nearly double its LNG export volumes by 2020. Expansion continues at its Sabine Pass project, while its first LNG exports from Corpus Christi are expected to commence sometime in 2019. All told, the U.S. Energy Information Administration thinks U.S. LNG export capacity could expand to nearly 10 billion cubic feet per day by the end of this decade, from less than 4 billion cubic feet per day at present.
Construction is complete at an LNG export facility at Cove Point, Md., says Dominion Energy, and exports should commence shortly. EIA thinks Kinder Morgan's Elba Island facility in Georgia will join it sometime later this year. Freeport LNG south of Houston could begin shipments by the end of this year or sometime in 2019, alongside the nearby Cameron LNG project.
Trade data show U.S. export income from sales of refined products has ebbed in some categories as exporters face competition from overseas refineries. Income from exports of unleaded gasoline collapsed with the oil price crash and has yet to recover. Census Bureau data recorded nearly $300 million in sales of unleaded gasoline in 2014. Last year's figure was less than $7 million. Exports of leaded gasoline are returning to pre-price-bust levels. Income from jet fuel exports has continued to fall.
But crude oil export earnings grew strongly in 2017 and are poised to continue doing so in the coming years, as some speculate that the United States could achieve nearly 4 million barrels a day of crude exports as domestic oil production expands. EIA says crude export volumes averaged 1.5 million barrels a day in November 2017.Energy security
Combined, strengthening sales of U.S. LNG and oil exports did nothing to improve the nation's balance of trade with the world last year. The Census Bureau says the trade deficit expanded by 12 percent in 2017 as an improving economy fueled a surge in imports.
But U.S. exports are keeping energy prices relatively lower for consumers. After steadily inching up the price of crude oil, commodities traders were compelled to pull back a little last week and let oil prices slide lower in the face of booming U.S. oil production and the increasing flow of U.S. crude into a wider array of global markets.
In a new paper published in the journal Energy Policy, Baker Institute for Public Policy scholars Jim Krane and Kenneth Medlock argue that the U.S. government and society face much less energy security risk than in the past thanks to the shale oil revolution. New dynamics that may challenge the rise of oil demand overseas will further ease pressure on the government to secure stable supplies of oil for the U.S. economy, they write, as governments dependent on oil exports for most of their revenue must now fret about security of crude demand.
"On balance, we believe these trends favor American oil security," their paper states. "The United States currently enjoys less exposure to geopolitical risks affecting its oil supply than at any time since the relatively stable period preceding the widespread oil sector nationalizations of the 1970s."
Left unanswered is what will happen to the price of LNG as U.S. LNG exports surge greatly over the next two years.
Some argue that the traditional indexing of LNG prices to international crude oil prices will be broken as global LNG trade becomes a buyers' market. There is little evidence that this is occurring to date, though governments in East Asia have had success at encouraging more liquid spot trading in LNG, thanks to the new supplies from the United States and more flexible contracts provided by U.S. LNG exporters.
Holmberg at Baker Botts isn't convinced that U.S. LNG sales will affect how LNG is priced in the long run.
"I wouldn't say that the oil index is breaking," he said. "A lot of buyers are pushing discussions, but at the end of the day, the buyer and seller have to agree on something that is going to support the financing of these very expensive, capital-intensive projects."
Those dreaming of the emergence of a global LNG price will have to wait a little longer, Holmberg argued. "It hasn't come close to happening."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073549
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Trump Seeks to Cut Energy Department Loan, Research Programs
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration Monday proposed significantly slashing a handful of controversial loan and research programs at the Department of Energy (DOE).
The cuts to programs meant to help develop innovative energy technologies, which President Trump outlined in his budget request for fiscal 2019, come after he proposed eliminating them all last year.
The Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program and the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) are widely popular among Democrats and some Republicans, and lawmakers worked to restore at least some of the funding last year after Trump sought to zero them out.
“The federal role in supporting advanced technologies is strongest in the early stages of research and development,” the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote in a justification for the cuts.
“The government should not be in the business of picking which technologies ‘win’ the commercialization race and displacing private sector investment opportunities. Instead, the government should recognize the private sector's primary role in taking risks to finance projects in the energy and automobile manufacturing sectors.”
ARPA-E and the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program would be eliminated completely under Trump’s proposal, and the other programs would see big cuts.
Overall, Trump is proposing a slight increase in the DOE’s budget to $30.6 billion, from the $30.1 billion the agency gets annually under current funding.
Other major cuts include a $2.08 billion reduction to applied energy programs and $56 million in savings from closing the Mixed Oxide Fuel facility in South Carolina.
The budget is merely a proposal; Congress has the final say on funding levels.
“The president’s budget request supports the Department’s efforts to enhance today’s energy security while also making strategic investments for tomorrow,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a statement.
“This proposal will empower DOE to achieve our missions efficiently and effectively while being respectful to the American taxpayer. In order to fulfill the president’s long-term goal of energy dominance we are prioritizing the acceleration of transformative early-stage research and development, relying on our world-class national labs. This will advance everything from new clean energy technologies to supercomputing,” he added.
The proposal includes $15.1 billion to modernize nuclear weapons, $5.4 billion for early-stage research and development and $2.5 billion to help produce more reliable and affordable energy.
Trump is asking for $816 million for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office, a cut of $1.18 billion from current levels. Meanwhile, the Fossil Energy office would get $702 million, $281 million above its present budget.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373429-trump-seeks-to-cut-energy-dept-loan-research-programs
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Shale Surge? No Problem, says OPEC
Feb 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Mahmoud Habboush
Surging output of U.S. shale oil won't be a "huge distorter" of efforts by global crude producers to clear a glut, according to OPEC's president.
The market should re-balance this year, given robust demand and producers' compliance with their pledges to curtail supply, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei, currently the president of OPEC, said Monday in an interview in Dubai. His Kuwaiti counterpart, Bakheet Al-Rashidi, said he sees world oil consumption growing by 1.6 million barrels a day in 2018 and absorbing additional output from U.S. shale deposits.
"Shale is coming and the expectation is that it will come stronger than in 2017, and this is something that we have to watch," Al Mazrouei said. "But considering all factors, I don't think it will be a huge distorter of the market."
Oil is rebounding from its biggest weekly decline in two years, though gains are limited due to concerns over a resurgence in U.S. shale. The U.S. oil rig count rose last week by 26, the most in a year, to 791, Baker Hughes data showed on Friday. American weekly crude output topped 10 million barrels a day for the first time on record, and the U.S. government forecasts it will balloon to 11 million later this year.
Inventories In Focus
Such an increase would complicate efforts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers to prop up crude prices by curtailing supply. OPEC, Russia and other oil producers agreed in November to extend self-imposed limits on output until the end of this year, seeking to counter a glut fed partly by U.S. shale drillers."What concerns us today is the level of inventories that we need to achieve the five-year average, and I see the market going in that direction and achieving balance," Al Mazrouei said. "How long it will take depends on how long the increase in shale production will take."
OPEC and other participants in the oil-cuts deal aim for global crude inventories to fall to the average level of the past five years. The U.A.E. is the fourth-largest producer among OPEC's 14 members, while Kuwait ranks fifth, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
"Demand for this year is expected to be good, if not better than 2017," Al Mazrouei said. This, together with "good" economic indicators and compliance with output cuts, indicate that the crude market will balance within the year, he said.
Oil prices are currently at about half their 2014 peak, with benchmark Brent crude futures up 2.2 percent at $64.17 a barrel in London at 9:34 a.m. local time. Brent tumbled 8.4 percent last week, in the second consecutive weekly loss.
"It's a correction only. It will come back," Kuwait's Al-Rashidi told reporters in Kuwait City. Kuwait expects cooperation on oil policy to continue beyond 2018, he said. "We will look for criteria to make sure the market is stable at all times."
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Shale-surge-No-problem-says-OPEC-12606728.php
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Donald Trump's Plan Can't Fix America's Infrastructure Without Focusing on Our Railways
Feb 12, 2018 | NBC News
By Michael Friedberg
Several recent railway accidents may have struck fear into the hearts of passengers — but the next one could cripple our economy as well. And the deteriorating and outdated infrastructure along the Northeast Corridor rail system means that, sadly, that next disaster is just around the corner.
The Northeast Corridor’s 457 miles of railway — connecting major cities from Boston to Washington, D.C. — is the nation’s most economically critical stretch of infrastructure. These railways enable hundreds of thousands of workers to get to work each day, as one-third of all jobs in the region (that's 7 million jobs, all told) are located within five miles of a rail station. Those workers alone contribute over $50 billion annually to the American economy;altogether, the region would be the fifth-largest economyin the world.
But most the infrastructure system empowering this economy was built in the era between the Civil War and the New Deal, and its time-ravaged condition repeatedly results in repeated track, tunnel and bridge issues that cause constant headaches for commuters, a loss of economic productivity and sometimes worse.
President Trump and Congress must start fixing this now, with long overdue investments that would finally bring our railway system into the 21st century.
It is crucial to recognize that safety concerns and economic considerations are not two separate policy conversations: Both issues must be addressed together through new federal investment. President Trump needs to take the lead on this front, not cede it to state agencies and as yet-unnamed private investors, by prioritizing funding for the system as part of his infrastructure proposal today.
Additionally, new investment must be accompanied by greater coordination between the federal government and local officials who best understand the specific problems facing rail infrastructure in their states. Through that combination of increased funding and communication, we can proactively solve the problems facing our railways — and build much-needed new projects — instead of simply reacting to incidents (or tragedies) as they arise.
And while numerous major projects have been proposed throughout the Northeast Corridor to solve some of the system’s most urgent infrastructure challenges, these initiatives will remain grounded unless Congress and the Trump administration devote resources to them.
The most significant of these stalled proposals is the Gateway Project, a major overhaul of the system that would create a new train tunnel for commuter and passenger trains to enter New York City from New Jersey.
The Trump Administration, as part of its new infrastructure bill released today, has committed to taking a different approach than that of past administrations with regard to funding mechanisms for projects of regional or national importance, including the Gateway Project. Under the Obama Administration there had been talks of a 50 percent contribution by the federal government; the new legislation would cap federal contributions at 20 percent but could open the door to reaching a funding agreement in the months to come.
The project is of some immediate urgency: Amtrak has already warned that it will be forced to close part of the existing tunnel without immediate action because of lingering damage from Superstorm Sandy.
Such a closure would have devastating consequences for commuters throughout the Corridor and send shockwaves throughout the national economy. The impact of even a partial tunnel shutdown would be felt all the way to D.C., as delays would back up the entire line from Washington to Boston. Such back-ups would have major economic implications; already, service disruptions cost the economy $500 million per year in lost productivity.
The effects of Amtrak disruptions would be compounded by making transit into and through New York City even more difficult. In 2016, America’s largest city generated nine percent of the country’s gross domestic product. It would be a mistake to take that growth for granted: a survey of 50 international CEOs conducted by the Partnership for New York City found that all 50 identified the reliability of regional transportation as their number one concern about expansion in the New York metro area.
Safe and efficient rail service is more critical than ever, both for New York City’s economy, but for the entire nation.
The problem with practically ancient rail infrastructure is not limited to New York City: In Baltimore, for example, officials are struggling to identify how to pay for a complete replacement of the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, which was built in 1873. In Connecticut, the condition of the Connecticut River Bridge — which was built in 1907 and links New Haven and Boston — limits train speed to 45 miles-per-hour and slows down service across the region.
Without significant federal support, these badly needed projects along the nation’s most important transportation corridor will continue to be stuck in the planning stages and die on the vine.
With the state of the nation’s most important infrastructure system crumbling, delays threaten the economic future of the region and put passenger safety at risk. It is time for President Trump and Congress to partner with local governments and commit the resources necessary to make our transportation infrastructure safer and stronger than ever.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/donald-trump-s-plan-can-t-fix-america-s-infrastructure-ncna846496
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Trump Proposes Sweeping Changes to NEPA
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
President Trump today proposed big changes to the National Environmental Policy Act as part of his framework to overhaul the nation's infrastructure.
The plan, formally released this morning, includes $200 billion of new spending to be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Much of the proposal focuses on reforming the permitting process with a "one agency, one decision" framework for environmental reviews.
It would direct the White House Council on Environmental Quality to rewrite its NEPA guidance for the first time since 1978, with the goal of streamlining approvals. The plan would also designate a lead agency that would produce a single combined review document for each project, with a two-year deadline.
The proposal has already been panned by critics, but it marks the most detailed look yet at what the White House has in mind when it comes to reforming the environmental permitting process.
For comparison, the infrastructure outline the administration provided with last year's budget request spanned just six pages, while the one released this morning comes in at 53.
Trump has long promised to cut down the permitting to two years or less, and the proposal delivers. That time frame is an "ambitious goal," said Ted Boling, associate director for NEPA at CEQ.
Currently, NEPA permitting averages between three and five years, though it can take up to 25, Boling said last week at the American Law Institute's annual environmental law conference in Washington, D.C.
Environmentalists and other critics worry about rewriting the CEQ guidance, saying they don't trust the current administration to do it in good faith. They fear the Trump team would get rid of the regulations that give the law teeth.
Boling, however, said there is room for improvement in guidelines that haven't been updated since the dawn of the internet.
"Those regulations have a solid body of case law behind them. They are familiar, but they also date to 1978. They predate things like the internet," Boling said. "So there are some efficiencies out there, which could only have been dreamed of back in the Carter administration."
Trump's proposal also addresses the tricky issue of judicial review. Some in the legal community have warned it would be fruitless to put a time limit on NEPA permitting without reforms to litigation because shorter reviews could leave permits more vulnerable to lawsuits.
The White House plan would put a 150-day statute of limitation on permitting decisions. Currently, it is six years for most NEPA permits, meaning a fully funded project could theoretically be blocked more than five years after getting approved, said Albert Ferlo, a partner at Perkins Coie, former Justice Department environmental attorney and a NEPA expert.
"The general statute of limitations for NEPA claims against the government is six years. So you could have a project, fully funded, approved, and after five years and 11 months wind up in litigation and you could be enjoined," Ferlo said at the law conference last week.
Environmentalists say all of that undercuts, rather than reforms, one of the nation's bedrock environmental laws.
"This isn't an infrastructure plan, it's a cheap excuse to gut health and environmental safeguards that protect communities from dangerous, ill-conceived and poorly constructed projects," Raul Garcia, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice, said in a statement.Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act
The plan also includes a number of other permitting provisions that have already drawn fire from Trump's critics.
It would, as expected, cut out U.S. EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to review other agencies' environmental impact statements.
The move will likely worry groups that see EPA as a backstop against decisions that could harm the environment and public health.
When it comes to the Clean Water Act, the proposal would seek to clarify deadlines for states to review pipelines and water infrastructure projects under Section 401.
Current law says the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is the lead agency on all interstate natural gas projects. But Section 401 gives states time and authority to decide if the proposed pipeline will meet state water laws.
States' authority under Section 401 has become a target, thanks to states like New York, which has used it to deny three gas pipelines in the last two years (Energywire, Feb. 2).
The Trump plan says "states increasingly do not issue permits within the applicable time frames" and proposes amending the Clean Water Act to reduce delays, though it's unclear exactly how that revision would be worded.
The provision is likely to roil members on both sides of the aisle, especially Democrats, worried that it would limit states' ability to determine which projects are right for them.
As expected, the plan also includes a controversial provision that would make it easier to run natural gas pipelines through national parks (Greenwire, Jan. 31).
Current law requires Congress to approve any rights of way for the construction of natural gas pipelines across parkland, but the Trump administration says the process is too time consuming and results in too many delays. Trump wants to change the law to give the Interior secretary the power to make such decisions without congressional approval.
In addition, the plan calls for changing the Federal Power Act to address the way that other federal agencies interact with FERC.
Currently, if agencies cooperate with FERC's preparation of NEPA reviews, they cannot then intervene in the rest of the licensing process for that project.Funding, new programs
The topline numbers laid out in the plan are familiar: a $200 billion federal investment over 10 years that would leverage about $1.5 trillion total with contributions from state and local governments and the private sector.
Also familiar is how that federal investment would be split up. Half would go to an Infrastructure Incentives Program to spur local and private contributions, while $50 billion would go toward rural infrastructure. A new "transformative projects" program and existing financing programs would get $20 billion each.
The remaining $10 billion would go into a "federal capital revolving fund" with the goal of reducing inefficient leasing of federal property and provide more revenue from energy and mineral development on public lands.
All of that would be paid for with a variety of cuts. For instance, the president's fiscal 2019 budget proposal released today would halve funding for Amtrak grants to encourage greater state investment.
As another example, the budget would eliminate the popular Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, an idea that was rejected by Senate appropriators last year.Public lands
The White House plan advances a few ideas about public lands and cleanup that have been in the works in the administration for months.
As expected, it would establish an Interior maintenance fund to help address the maintenance backlog on public lands, which in the case of the National Park Service totals more than $11.3 billion.
Lawmakers have raised concerns over the proposal's reliance on oil and gas revenues, many of which are already dedicated to other federal programs, including some that trickle down to state and local governments (E&E Daily, Feb. 12).
To address Interior's infrastructure portfolio — which the proposal notes includes roughly 100,000 miles of roads, as well as dams, bridges, irrigation and power systems — the administration wants to allow revenues raised from mineral and energy development on public lands to be used for capital improvements and maintenance of public infrastructure, which is not allowed under current law.
"This limitation perpetuates the deferred maintenance backlog for public lands infrastructure," states the administration's plan.
It would allow half of additional revenues generated by "expanded federal energy development" to be deposited into the fund to be used to address the maintenance backlog, until the total amount reaches $18 billion.
According to the proposal, the monies in the fund would be available to address maintenance and capital needs in national parks and wildlife refuges "without fiscal year limitation."
However, appropriators have historically taken a dim view of proposals that would limit their "power of the purse" by giving the administration free rein.Superfund
The infrastructure plan includes several proposed reforms to the law that guides cleanups of the nation's most polluted tracts.
The changes to the Superfund program "would expand funding eligibility for revitalization projects and establish tools to manage and address legal and financial risks" associated with them, the White House said.
Specifically, the administration calls for amending the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act — the law that established the polluted land cleanup program — to allow Superfund sites to get grants from the brownfield program, which currently targets sites suspected of contamination.
CERCLA would also be reformed to limit liability for state and local governments or companies that partner in the cleanup or reuse of Superfund sites.
Furthermore, the law should "enable EPA to better incorporate infrastructure needs (e.g., pipelines, power lines) into cleanup design and implementation," the White House said.Political future
Trump met with a group of mayors and other local leaders — as well as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt — at the White House this morning to kick off his sales campaign.
"Washington no longer will be a roadblock to progress," Trump told the group.
A senior White House official said the president and the Cabinet will be travelling around the country to pitch the plan, but it still faces long political odds of passing this year.
The plan has made expected enemies of greens, but it has others hoping for more as well. Democrats have focused their rhetoric on clean water, renewable energy and climate resilience, and they're likely to want those issues addressed when Congress writes a bill.
As it is now, the renewable energy industry isn't happy about being left out.
"The president's proposed infrastructure plan is intended to leverage public capital to attract private investment, but it fails to build on the momentum generated by the largest source of private-sector infrastructure investment for the past seven years: renewable energy," said Greg Wetstone, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy.
"Any serious effort to address America's infrastructure needs to focus on the modernization of our antiquated electrical grid," he said.
Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, meanwhile, praised the plan and touted their own efforts to reform permitting and advance energy infrastructure projects.
"Please permit us to say that President Trump hit the nail on the head when constructing this plan to rebuild America's infrastructure," Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a statement this morning. "Improving our country's infrastructure can be a bipartisan effort."
Democrats have been skeptical of Trump's ideas, particularly leveraging $1.5 trillion in total investment with such a small federal payment.
And Democrats — as well as some Republicans — likely won't be willing to fund the federal piece with cuts to other priorities, especially since the budget proposes cutting some popular items.
But in a joint statement today, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) — the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee — said they were prepared to make it a bipartisan push.
"We need to make real investments — not cuts — in Florida and communities around the country," Nelson said. "That's why I plan to work with Chairman Thune and my colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee to try to come up with a bill that can garner broad support and include ideas from both parties."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073597
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The Latest: Trump's 2019 Budget Slashes EPA Funding
Feb 12, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)
The Latest on President Donald Trump's proposed 2019 budget (all times local):
1:10 p.m.
Climate change research is on the Environmental Protection Agency's chopping block.
Trump's proposed 2019 budget calls for slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by more than one third, including ending the Climate Change Research and Partnership Programs.
The president's budget would also make deep cuts to funding for cleaning up the nation's most polluted sites, even as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says that's one of his top priorities. Trump's budget would allocate just $762 million for the Hazardous Substance Superfund Account, a reduction of more than 30 percent.
Current spending for Superfund is down to about half of what it was in the 1990s. Despite the cut, the White House says the administration plans to "accelerate" site cleanups by bringing "more private funding to the table for redevelopment."
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1:05 p.m.
School choice advocates will find something to cheer about in President Donald Trump's budget for 2019.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump is proposing to put "more decision-making power in the hands of parents and families" in choosing schools for their children with a $1.5 billion investment for the coming year. The budget would expand both private and public school choice.Continue reading the main story
A new Opportunity Grants program would provide money for states to give scholarships to low-income students to attend private schools, as well as expand charter schools across the nation. Charters are financed by taxpayer dollars but usually run independently of school district requirements.
The budget also calls for increased spending to expand the number of magnet schools that offer specialized instruction usually focused on specific curricula.
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12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump's budget for 2019 shows the administration's concern about the threat from North Korea and its missile program.
The Pentagon is proposing to spend hundreds of millions more in 2019 on missile defense.
The budget calls for increasing the number of strategic missile interceptors from 44 to 64. The additional 20 interceptors would be based at Fort Greely, Alaska. Critics question the reliability of the interceptors, arguing that years of testing have yet to prove them effective against sophisticated threats.
The Pentagon also would invest more heavily in the ship-based Aegis system and the Army's Patriot air and missile defense system. Both are designed to defend against missiles with ranges shorter than the intercontinental ballistic missile that is of greatest U.S. concern in the context of North Korea.
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11:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump is sending Congress a $4.4 trillion spending plan that provides a huge increase in defense spending while cutting taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. The result is soaring budget deficits.
Trump's first budget last year projected that the government would achieve a small surplus by 2027. But the new budget never gets to balance. It proposes $7.1 trillion in red ink over the next decade, basically doubling last year's forecast.
The new plan, for the 2019 budget year, seeks increases in such areas as building the border wall and fighting the opioid epidemic. Complicating matters, Trump last week signed a $300 billion measure to boost defense and domestic spending, negating many of the cuts in his new budget plan.
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1:23 a.m.
President Donald Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit.
Unlike the plan Trump released last year, the 2019 budget never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years.
And that's before last week's agreement for $300 billion is added this year and next, a deal that showers both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big budget increases.
The spending spree, along with last year's tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.
The original plan was for Trump's new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year's proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/02/12/us/politics/ap-us-trump-budget-the-latest.html
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White House Proposes 25 Percent Cut to EPA Funding
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
President Trump's budget proposal for fiscal 2018 contains a 25 percent cut to funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The plan released Monday, calls for the agency's overall funding to drop to $6.1 billion, down from the $8 billion Congress enacted in 2017.
The proposed reductions are in line with the steep cuts — just over 30 percent — that the White House's Office of Management and Budget proposed last year for the agency. In fact, according to the the text of the budget proposal, OMB had originally suggested even deeper cuts for the agency this year — a 34 decrease — but the numbers were raised following Congress's decision last week to raise spending caps.
Lawmakers declined to enact most of Trump's budget proposals last year, and it appears unlikely that the EPA cuts will ever come to pass, given Democratic opposition.
There are some notable changes to the new budget proposal for EPA. The agency proposes to reduce categorical grants by $469 million from 2017's $1 billion in order to "better focus and prioritize environmental activities on core functions required by Federal environmental laws." Instead, it proposes putting $27 million into what it calls multipurpose grants that would allows states use the funding to set their own environmental priorities.
The new budget sees the re-emergence of the Energy Star program as a wholly fee-funded program. While the proposal also zeros out the energy saving program, which awards efficient buildings with the sought after title, it instead sets it up as a fee-based system, where product manufacturers seeking the label can pay a "modest fee" for program eligibility.
The EPA's Hazardous Substance Superfund Account account saw perhaps the biggest shift in this year's proposal, in that no cuts were proposed from 2017's $1 billion funding level. Last year, the White House proposed cutting the account by $762 million.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has touted his focus on cleaning up nuclear waste and Superfund sites, announcing just in the past fews months two major plans to remediate sites in Missouri and Texas.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373433-white-house-proposes-nearly-25-percent-in-cuts-to-epa
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Trump Aims to Speed Environmental Reviews in Infrastructure Plan
Feb 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration is asking Congress to cut “duplicative” environmental review procedures as part of the president’s massive infrastructure plan.
The 55-page plan released Monday morning seeks to speed reviews and cut “inefficiencies,” including through what officials are calling a “one agency, one decision” paradigm, for the review process.
It answers complaints from President Trump and Republicans that environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) create unnecessary delays and hurdles that are holding back infrastructure projects.
The administration’s plan says the proposed changes would “protect the environment while at the same time delivering projects in a less costly and more time effective manner.”
It includes changes like setting a 21-month deadline for most reviews, designating a lead federal agency to be in charge of each review and requiring other agencies to sign off on the decisions, reducing their ability to object later.
“Requiring the lead Federal agency under NEPA to develop a single Federal environmental review document to be utilized by all agencies, and a single [record of decision] to be signed by the lead Federal agency and all cooperating agencies, would reduce duplication and create a more efficient, timely review process,” the administration wrote.
The plan would also let states take over environmental review responsibilities for more projects, limit federal agencies’ ability to recommend alternatives to the projects that are applied for and limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) unique power to object to projects on air pollution grounds.
“We are not touching any of the fundamental requirements of any of the core infrastructure acts,” a senior administration official told reporters this weekend, referring to laws like NEPA and ESA.
“We’re not saying you can have a bigger impact on endangered species, or the water can be dirty, or the air can be dirty, or anything like that. So the core acts stay the same. We’re talking about the process that’s used to do the analysis around the environmental impacts.”
Nonetheless, environmentalists were quick to denounce Trump’s plan.
“America is long, long overdue for smart, forward-thinking infrastructure investments, but the administration’s proposal badly misses the mark and reads more like a strategy to gut clean air, water, and wildlife protections, while silencing local voices, than a serious effort to rebuild America’s infrastructure,” said Collin O’Mara, president of the National Wildlife Federation.
“This is a climate-wrecking fossil fuel infrastructure plan that fast-tracks pipelines at the expense of frontline communities and working people. This flies in the face of everything we know about climate science,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373414-trump-aims-to-speed-environmental-reviews-in-infrastructure-plan
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Trump Set to Diminish EPA's Role in Federal Construction
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
President Trump will request broad changes to the nation's environmental review process today in order to speed up permitting for infrastructure projects.
Senior White House officials said Trump's infrastructure proposal is designed to spur new construction by reducing regulatory burdens and providing financial incentives. The officials said that environmental quality won't be sacrificed with faster permitting.
"The core acts stay the same," a senior White House official said Saturday in a call with reporters, referring to key environmental laws. "We're talking about the process that's used to do the analysis around the environmental impact."
The administration aims to provide $200 billion over 10 years in direct spending, funded through reductions in other federal programs, to generate $1.5 trillion of investment. It wants to better coordinate environmental reviews to permit projects within two years. It would accomplish that by in part allowing analyses to occur concurrently rather than sequentially.
The proposal also would eliminate a section of the Clean Air Act requiring U.S. EPA to evaluate most environmental impact statements, a senior White House official said in an email. The move promises to worry groups that see EPA as a crucial backstop against decisions that could harm the environment and public health.
The bill would codify elements of the executive orders that Trump issued during his first year in office, making them less vulnerable to change between administrations by "proposing statutory changes ... which are necessary to augment what we are doing administratively," a White House official said. It aims to address a GOP criticism that opponents of infrastructure projects, including pipelines and highways, can too easily delay or prevent construction through lawsuits on environmental grounds.
The bill would require a single federal agency to steer the process with input from other departments. Those agencies would need to be part of the original analysis and conduct analyses simultaneously with the lead agency. Industry has long sought such changes.
"The primary way we get there is to have one agency lead, and then remove a whole series of duplicative requirements that are in law, where we will have one federal agency make a decision, and that decision will then be second-guessed by a second federal agency," the official said. "Which, of course, creates inevitable conflicts and inevitable delays as you have multiple agencies trying to make the same decision."
The administration's critics worry that the proposal would undercut legitimate environmental concerns. A leaked discussion draft of the bill obtained by The Washington Post included potential changes to major environmental laws.
Relying on one agency to lead the process would also sideline the expertise of other departments and limit chances for citizens to weigh in with concerns, John O'Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents EPA employees, wrote in The Hill.
"Trump is calling for federal regulators to rubber stamp authorizations for corporations so that they can build leaky, dangerous pipelines and contaminate toxic waste dumps," O'Grady said. "In the name of so-called 'reform' and 'efficiency,' his plan removes air and water protections and eliminates the publics' [sic] participation in important infrastructure decisions."
No provisions on climate adaptation or resilience are included, the senior White House official said, though the legislation will give the Army Corps of Engineers flexibility to "be more proactive" with local governments. Advocates in the climate and risk space had hoped the bill would reinstate an Obama-era flood policy that required projects to be built several feet higher. Trump revoked that standard last year.
"There's going be limited Corps funding; there's been limited Corps funding for generations," the senior White House official said. "It's likely that's going to continue. Let's give the Corps flexibility to allow others to participate in the improvement of that infrastructure."
States would have more authority over environmental reviews under Trump's proposal, while still having to respect federal law, the official said. The legislation would also create room for environmental compliance "pilot programs," though the official did not elaborate.
The package being unveiled today faces a long legislative slog. Senior White House officials said six House and five Senate committees would have jurisdiction over the bill.
It's also murky where the $200 billion would come from. The White House said Trump's fiscal 2019 budget proposal, also being released today, will include those details. Congress passed a two-year spending deal covering fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019 last week.
It remains to be seen whether lawmakers have the appetite to find more spending, following a major tax overhaul that's projected to vastly increase the federal deficit and the elimination of spending caps agreed to in the budget bill.
Many have also questioned whether the White House's return on investment would come anywhere near the $1.5 trillion it envisions. The senior official said state and local governments reacted better than originally hoped for to the plan, which is why the White House upped its investment estimate from $1 trillion.
"What that number represents is what do we think that state and local governments — how will they likely respond to this program?" the official said.
In all, the White House would spend $100 billion on direct incentives for state and local projects that have a steady revenue stream, such as sales or property taxes. The greater the share of nonfederal dollars involved — currently, the split is closer to 80 percent federal — the better the chance those projects receive funding.
Some have slammed the proposal as shifting financial burden to the states. But the White House said the effort would ensure only the most committed sponsors apply for funding.
"One of the problems with federal funding is it's very intermittent," a senior White House official said, adding that the proposed cost share is about "moving toward a more stable platform for funding."
An additional $20 billion of spending would come through expanding loan programs and private activity bonds. For rural projects, the White House is asking for $50 billion. Transformative infrastructure projects would get $20 billion, and $10 billion would go into a capital financing fund that Congress would need to create.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073501
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Budget Deal Points to Realities of Warming — Sort Of
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Josh Kurtz, Niina Heikkinen and Benjamin Hulac
The bipartisan two-year budget deal that Congress passed at dawn Friday not only boosts federal spending by more than $500 billion, but appears to include robust government funding for climate-related programs.
But no one is calling it that.
Because it isn't exactly that.
What's clear is that the spending plan includes about $90 billion for disaster relief from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and the wildfires that raged through California in the fall. Just about every federal agency receives some level of funding for disaster-related programs.
The budget bill, which runs several hundred pages long, often doesn't spell out how the money is to be spent. But to the extent that severe weather is exacerbated by climate change, the spending plan provides evidence, in black and white, that the government is making vast sums of money available for environmental remediation.
And even though President Trump has suggested climate change is a "hoax" and the Republican Congress is dominated by climate skeptics, the budget deal provides some agencies, including NOAA and the Army Corps of Engineers, with money to study weather patterns and to plan and prepare for the consequences of disasters caused or accelerated by climate change.
Not that environmentalists are ready to break out the Champagne and declare a new day for the climate debate on Capitol Hill. But some will acknowledge that the spending outline represents a measure of progress.
"It's a move in the right direction," said Liz Perera, director of climate policy at the Sierra Club. "It doesn't necessarily say one needs to take climate change into account. You would hope that would be obvious."
Perera said there appears to be a realization among lawmakers that storms and other natural disasters are becoming more violent and damaging, even if they don't want to discuss the causes.
"I think that the reality is that both parties don't want to waste money to rebuild something that's going to get destroyed by the next hurricane," she said. "I think there's a commonsense story of why would we rebuild without using the best science? Of course, no one's saying that."Tax incentives
The budget deal offers a road map of the diverse impacts that extreme weather has across the federal government and the nation. It also points to the damage that last year's trio of major hurricanes left behind.
Under the deal, the Department of Energy received $8.7 million to repair damage to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve due to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Gulf Coast lawmakers had been pushing for money to shore up the reserve — stored in salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana, it's the largest backup supply of oil worldwide. DOE also received $13 million to bolster power grids from the "consequences" of the storms.
As storms get stronger and more common, and as more people live on coastlines, hurricanes will "substantially" affect the lives of 10 million Americans by 2075, a fivefold increase, according to figures the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released in November.
After many major storms, workers and students can get help from Washington, D.C., in the form of retraining and school assistance. The law signed Friday allocated $2.7 billion for the Department of Education to spend on disaster relief following the hurricanes and wildfires. That money can be used to restart classes, defray costs of enrolling displaced students, buy new supplies and pay teachers.
The Department of Labor serves a similar role for the workforce. It got $100 million in "dislocated workers assistance" funding for people harmed by the disasters of 2017.
Officials at the Energy, Education and Labor departments did not respond to questions Friday on how they plan to use the money and how many people are eligible for help under their programs.
At U.S. EPA, Congress put money toward addressing toxic spills, designating $6.2 million for the agency's "Hazardous Substances Superfund" and $7 million for the "Leaking Underground Storage Tank Fund."
The budget deal notes that EPA has already appropriated funds for Hurricanes Irma and Maria that could be used for projects that "reduce flood damage risk and vulnerability or to enhance resiliency to rapid hydrological change or a natural disaster at treatment works."
Also on the climate front, the spending deal preserves tax incentives for renewable energy sources, electric vehicles and energy efficiency programs.
In at least one instance, Congress took direct aim at CO2 emissions by expanding tax credits for carbon capture utilization and storage projects. These projects are designed to reduce carbon emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants by capturing carbon and then either reusing it or storing it so that it cannot re-enter the atmosphere.
Projects sequestering captured carbon would see their tax credits more than double under the new law. It also clarifies what types of projects would qualify for credits (Greenwire, Feb. 9).
The expansion of credits has attracted bipartisan support in Congress, including from such disparate members as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). In a statement late Friday, the Clean Air Task Force said, "This will stimulate the development of projects and ultimately help make technology costs affordable around the world, as similar incentives have done for wind and solar."
Late last year, EPA's newly appointed air chief, Bill Wehrum, said the agency would be considering the viability of carbon capture technology, along with other facility-level efficiency improvements (Climatewire, Dec. 13, 2017).
The incentives package brought a swift rebuke for Republicans from the American Energy Alliance, a nonprofit research organization with a free-market philosophy.
"The spending deal revives, and even expands, a whole host of special tax provisions that subsidize things like biodiesel, wind, nuclear, carbon capture technologies and so on," said Kenny Stein, the group's policy director. "This spending bill is not what the members of the majority campaigned on. This spending bill is not draining the swamp, it fills it further. Sticking future generations with the bill for today's subsidies is wrong. A few short years ago, the majority party seemed to understand that. This is just disappointing."Shifting political priorities
In fact, that apparent reversal by congressional Republicans — from fretting about deficits and government spending during the Obama administration to adding almost $2 trillion to the deficit, between the new spending plan and recently adopted federal tax cuts — overshadowed the entire debate last week and suggests a reordering of the nation's politics.
It's why Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held up the deal at the last minute late Thursday night, calling the GOP's newfound willingness to embrace deficits "the very definition of intellectual dishonesty."
The frenetic last-minute votes on the spending plan in the House and Senate did not fall along simple partisan lines.
In the Senate, where it passed 71-28, opponents included the chamber's most conservative senators and progressive Democrats, including half a dozen who might run for president in 2020. Other "no" votes included Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California who need to protect their left flank against primary challengers.
The pattern repeated itself in the House, where 67 Republicans and 119 Democrats opposed the measure. It passed 240-186.
Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the deal represent a "bipartisan abdication of responsibility."
"This agreement dramatically worsens the deficit," he said. "Just a few weeks after enacting a $1.5 trillion tax cut without any provisions to pay for it, Congress has decided to put at least $400 billion more on the 'credit card.' At present, neither party nor the president can make any claim of fiscal responsibility."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073497
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Forecast: 'Tsunami of Regulatory Litigation'
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmental lawyers are gearing up for another busy year.
At an annual Washington, D.C., conference last week, private practice attorneys and former government officials predicted a tumultuous year in the courtroom.
"I expect a real tsunami of regulatory litigation this year," said John Cruden, who formerly led the Justice Department's environmental division, at last week's American Law Institute conference on environmental law. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."
State attorneys general and environmental groups have already aggressively used the courts to challenge the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda. Many suits over the previous year have challenged federal environmental agencies' various attempts to delay compliance deadlines of Obama-era rules.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has boasted it has already filed more than 40 lawsuits against the Trump administration regarding environmental rollbacks.
Cruden, who is now a principal at Beveridge & Diamond PC, predicted that the Trump administration's pivot from largely defensive moves — such as delaying rules and sidelining ongoing court challenges — to offensive moves, such as issuing rules rescinding high-profile policies such as the Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule, will drive the court action in 2018.
"This year, there will be final decisions. If you rescind a rule, that is a final decision. You have to have an administrative record that supports the decision," he said, adding, "You're going to see way more litigation this year as those final decisions are being made."
Litigation over water policies, climate change rules, toxics regulations, the Endangered Species Act and environmental reviews are all expected to heat up this year, experts at the annual gathering of environmental lawyers in D.C. said.
Scott Fulton, president of the Environmental Law Institute and a former U.S. EPA general counsel, said "budget compression" — the White House revealed a budget plan today calling for cuts for environmental and energy agencies — will further open up agencies to lawsuits this year.
Environmental statutes are "chock-full of mandatory duties," he said.
"Don't be surprised to see EPA fall further behind in meeting its deadlines and mandatory duties," Fulton said. "This of course carries with it the potential for deadline suits and court orders."
Thomas Lorenzen, a former Justice Department attorney, warned that the Trump administration's policy against "sue and settle" could also this year start to have real impacts.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last year issued a directive aimed at curbing settlements in lawsuits challenging the agency's failure to meet statutory deadlines.
Lorenzen said a court decision last week showed the "first sign of problems inherent in the sue-and-settle policy."
In the decision in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, a federal judge ordered EPA to act within 60 days on Connecticut's 2016 petition seeking a crackdown on emissions from a Pennsylvania power plant. EPA had failed to respond to the petition for more than two years; under the law, the agency was supposed to have rendered a decision within two months (E&E News PM, Feb. 7).
Instead of negotiating for a settlement with Connecticut, "DOJ was forced to defend something that couldn't be defended, and throw themselves on the mercy of the court," said Lorenzen, a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP who often represents industry clients in litigation against EPA.
EPA Region 1 Administrator Alexandra Dunn said last week that the agency has put special emphasis both on meeting deadlines and on the rulemaking process as part of Pruitt's stated goal of returning the agency to the "rule of law."
The administration has put a "very intentional focus on the steps that need to be taken to make different decisions," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/12/stories/1060073577
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