Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 2/13/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemours President Named New Officer of ACC
Feb 13, 2018 | ChemEng Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) announced today that The Chemours Co. president and CEO Mark Vergnano became the Council’s newest officer, effective January 1, 2018. -
Trump Would Slash Enviro Division by 3.4%, Ax 8 Jobs
Feb 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
The White House is seeking a small decrease in funding and staffing levels for the Justice Department's environment division. -
Edf Requests Extension of Illegally and Unreasonably Short Comment Period on Proposed Rule with Incomplete Docket
Feb 13, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today submitted a request to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to extend the mere 15-day period EPA has provided for public comments on a proposed modification to a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) -
EDF Urges Greater Data Disclosure on Proposed Snur
Feb 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is faulting EPA's draft rulemaking on a new use of a chemical, reiterating calls for the agency to adequately vet industry claims of confidential business information (CBI) under the revised toxics law and urging the agency... -
Firms Oppose Plan to Scrap EPA's ‘Safer Choice’ Chemicals Program
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA's plan to ditch a “green” chemical labeling program would frustrate a growing customer base interested in safer cleaners and consumer products, according to companies and trade associations. -
Here Are the Places That Struggle to Meet the Rules on Safe Drinking Water
Feb 12, 2018 | New York Times
By Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich
To ensure that tap water in the United States is safe to drink, the federal government has been steadily tightening the health standards for the nation’s water supplies for decades. -
Trump Administration Plans to Undo Methane-Emission Rule
Feb 13, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The Trump administration said Monday that it is proposing to roll back an Obama-era climate regulation aimed at cutting emissions of methane from drilling operations on federal lands. -
Keystone Foes Challenge Trump's Approval in Saga's Latest Twist
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar
A year after President Donald Trump gave the O.K. for the line to be built, groups including Bold Alliance and Sierra Club argue in a motion that the federal decision short-circuited the review process, relying on an outdated environmental assessment. -
West Virginia Co-Tenancy Legislation Advances to House Floor
Feb 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
This year’s version of legislation that would make it easier for West Virginia’s natural gas producers to block up acreage for longer laterals by gathering leaseholders into large tracts has passed committee and is scheduled for its first reading before the full state House of Representatives -
Editorial: Americans Should Appreciate the Chemical Safety Board. Trump Wants to Kill It.
Feb 13, 2018 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Editorial Board
When a massive steam explosion last year at Loy Lange Box Co. near Soulard sent a steel tank rocketing through the air, killing four people, only one federal agency had the authority and expertise to enter the scene, conduct investigations... -
Trump Infrastructure Plan a ‘Start’ for Some, a ‘Scam’ for Others
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
An infrastructure push from the White House is at best guidance that serves as a starting point for bipartisan legislation and at worst a scam laden with corporate handouts, according to lawmaker and interest group comments on the 55-page infrastructure principles issued Feb. 12. -
Infrastructure Plan Calls for Changes to Environmental Laws
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
The Trump administration is proposing to expedite infrastructure projects through a mix of legislation and administrative changes, with a big emphasis on amendments to fundamental environmental laws. -
Climate Change Trump Puts Energy Saving, Climate Plans on Chopping Block Again
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Christopher Flavelle, Eric Roston and Abby Smith
Months after three major hurricanes devastated Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, the White House once again has proposed slashing spending on government programs to combat climate change and protect communities from the flooding it could unleash. -
Strategic Plan Stresses 'Rule of Law,' Silent on Climate
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA today released a long-term strategic plan that outlines a retrenchment around a "core mission" of ensuring clean air, land and water, but also effectively proclaims the need for the agency to yield more control to state regulators and accelerate permitting decisions. -
EPA Numbers Hint at Eased Enforcement Under Trump
Feb 13, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
An employee's rights group filed a complaint Monday over the Department of the Interior's continued practice of filling open positions with temporary acting directors. -
California Senate Bill Adopts Strict Obama EPA HFC Rules
Feb 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
A new California Senate bill would lock in stringent Obama EPA rules requiring companies to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in refrigerants and air conditioners, a measure that appears aimed at pushing the state air board to strengthen a pending proposal...
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemours President Named New Officer of ACC
Feb 13, 2018 | ChemEng Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) announced today that The Chemours Co. president and CEO Mark Vergnano became the Council’s newest officer, effective January 1, 2018.
As its newest officer, Vergnano will first assume the role of Vice Chairman of the Board and chair of the ACC’s Board Finance, Audit and Membership Committee. He will serve in this capacity for one year, followed by a one-year term each as Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chairman of the Board. Vergnano was first elected to ACC’s board of directors in 2015. Since that time, he has served as a member of the Council’s Board Chemical Management Committee; Executive Rail, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; and the Executive Committee.
In addition to Vegnano, ExxonMobil Chemical Company President John Verity was announced as the Council’s newest chairman of its Board Chemical Management Committee.
The board also approved Wanhua Chemical (America) Co. Ltd. as a Regular member. Wanhua Chemical is one of the world’s largest producers of isocyanate. Along with Wanhua Chemical (America) Co. Ltd., the board also approved Burns & McDonnell as an Associate member, and established a new self-funded PFOA and PFOS panel within its Chemical Products and Technology Division. The panel will engage in regulatory policy issues on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfanate (PFOS) in federal and state arenas, and promote sound science regarding the chemicals’ potential exposures and toxicity.
http://www.chemengonline.com/chemours-president-named-new-officer-of-acc/
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Trump Would Slash Enviro Division by 3.4%, Ax 8 Jobs
Feb 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
The White House is seeking a small decrease in funding and staffing levels for the Justice Department's environment division.
The budget released yesterday would provide $106 million for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, a cut of 3.4 percent, or $3.7 million, from current levels. Under the plan, the division would cut its staff by eight positions, including two attorneys.
In all, DOJ would receive $28 billion, or a 1.2 percent decrease from current levels.
The environment division is responsible for enforcing environmental laws, as well as defending federal environmental agencies in court challenges.
Despite the requested funding reduction for the division, yesterday's budget plan suggests U.S. EPA is walking back a plan to stop reimbursing the Justice Department for litigation costs related to hazardous site cleanups.
EPA typically sends DOJ about $20 million a year for handling Superfund litigation. But last fiscal year, the agency proposed to zero out that money "due to resource levels."
The proposal was lampooned by both environmental groups and former officials (Greenwire, Sept. 28, 2017). Senate appropriators also rejected the idea (Greenwire, Nov. 21, 2017).
Yesterday's EPA budget proposal stresses the importance of the Justice Department in civil environmental enforcement and provides for "up to $20 million" to be transferred to DOJ.
"The Agency works closely with the U.S. Department of Justice, states, tribes, territories and local agencies to ensure consistent and fair enforcement of all major environmental statutes," EPA said in a budget document.
DOJ's proposed budget for fiscal 2019 would support a total of 509 employees. The money from EPA supports the work of an additional 115 staffers, the department says.
The White House plan anticipates a busy year for the government's environmental attorneys.
DOJ's environment division "will play a significant role" in putting in place President Trump's executive order on border security and immigration enforcement, budget documents say.
The White House expects ENRD to both guide the acquisition of land along the U.S.-Mexico border for construction of the proposed border wall, as well as defend a growing pile of challenges to the border wall plans.
Environmental groups have challenged the Trump administration's decision to waive myriad laws, including the Endangered Species Act, for border wall construction. The Justice Department is also currently defending against a lawsuit brought under the National Environmental Policy Act challenging the Department of Homeland Security's broader border security program.
The administration also envisions a key role for its environmental attorneys in defending against environmental challenges to military infrastructure projects and training activities "as the United States' military capacity is strengthened and expanded."
And the administration is expecting more lawsuits over federal agencies' efforts to boost fossil fuels.
"The government's commitment to further development of fossil fuel resources will likely result in challenges to federal decisions to lease sites for exploration for oil, gas, and coal — both on and off shore," DOJ said in a budget document.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/02/13/stories/1060073683
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Feb 13, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today submitted a request to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to extend the mere 15-day period EPA has provided for public comments on a proposed modification to a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR). The proposed SNUR modification was published in the Federal Register just last Thursday (February 8), and stated that comments must be received by February 23.
EPA must comply with its own requirements and provide electronic access to a public file containing all relevant documents prior to commencing at a minimum a 30-day comment period on this proposed rule.
EPA’s own regulations require EPA to provide the public with at least 30 daysto comment on SNURs, see 40 CFR 721.160(c)(4) and 721.170(d)(4), making EPA’s 15-day comment period illegally short.
EDF requested that EPA provide at least 30 days for public comment – with that period to commence only after a complete public docket of relevant materials is made available by EPA. As our request details, the docket EPA has provided for this proposed SNUR is woefully incomplete, missing even basic documents that preclude the public from being able to provide meaningful comments on the proposal.
EPA’s proposed modification of the SNUR is based on its review of a Significant New Use Notification (SNUN) it received in 2017 pursuant to the original SNUR it had promulgated in 2012. Among the many documents missing from the docket is that 2017 SNUN. It also appears that more than one SNUN may have been received by EPA: A consent order in the docket indicates the SNUN was received on January 13, 2017. In contrast, the proposed modified SNUR indicates the SNUN was received on April 12, 2017. All SNUNs or versions of the SNUN need to be added to the docket prior to commencement of the minimum 30-day comment period.
The modified SNUR apparently follows on the consent order EPA issued last October. That consent order refers to numerous documents that are also missing from the docket – including health and safety studies that are not eligible for protection from disclosure under section 14(b)(2) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Among these documents are:
· an acute inhalation toxicity study; and
· monitoring studies of formaldehyde release in specific industrial settings – which are studies clearly directly relevant to the basis for EPA’s proposal to modify the SNUR.
EDF’s request details numerous other documents missing from the docket. EPA needs to provide these documents prior to initiating the minimum 30-day public comment period – and must ensure that any redactions in those documents of information claimed to be confidential business information (CBI) fully comply with all applicable requirements of TSCA section 14. Among those requirements are that:
· companies must have substantiated most CBI claims they asserted in documents submitted to EPA; and
· EPA must have reviewed and reached determinations within 90 days on all such claims related to chemical identities, and at least 25% of all other types of claims.
As we have noted in earlier posts to this blog and in comments EDF recently submitted on changes EPA is making to its new chemicals review under TSCA, EPA’s regulations require that the agency make relevant documents available in a public file posted to an electronic docket posted at http://www.regulations.gov.
EDF’s request specifies that EPA must comply with these regulatory requirements and provide electronic access to a public file containing all relevant documents prior to commencing at a minimum a 30-day comment period for this proposed modification to a SNUR.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/02/12/edf-requests-extension-of-illegally-and-unreasonably-short-comment-period-on-proposed-rule-with-incomplete-docket/#more-7453
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EDF Urges Greater Data Disclosure on Proposed Snur
Feb 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is faulting EPA's draft rulemaking on a new use of a chemical, reiterating calls for the agency to adequately vet industry claims of confidential business information (CBI) under the revised toxics law and urging the agency to disclose further data to support the rule.
In a Feb. 12 letter to EPA toxics chief Jeff Morris, EDF attorney Robert Stockman faults as inadequate EPA's 15-day public comment period on a proposed amended significant new use rule (SNUR) allowing use of Oxazolidine, 3,3′-methylenebis[5- methyl- as anti-corrosive agent in oil-field operations and hydraulic fluids.
Stockman also argues that EPA has failed to publish adequate documentation supporting the amended SNUR, reiterating EDF assertions that EPA is failing to limit industry CBI claims as required under section 14 of the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
“In light of the complex issues raised by the amendment to the SNUR, and the significant, deleterious impacts EPA’s proposed actions could have on the public, we urge EPA to provide the public at least 30 days to provide comments based on a full record,” the letter says.
“We likewise urge the agency to make public all information that is not expressly protected from disclosure by TSCA § 14 as expeditiously as possible, and not to commence the period provided for public comment until all that information has been disclosed and made electronically accessible in the docket.”
EPA proposed the amended SNUR Feb. 8 and is seeking comment through Feb. 23.
EDF asks that EPA disclose all relevant information on the SNUR not appropriately exempted under section 14 and then allow at least 30 days for public comment on the complete record. Additionally, EDF asks that EPA respond to its request within three business days.
EDF says rejecting the call for a longer comment period would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, especially given that EPA has granted industry requests for comment extensions on other rules issued under the revised TSCA.
The letter is the latest in a series of EDF requests for greater data disclosure as EPA implements the new law.
For example, EDF Sept. 5 challenged the agency's inventory reset rule for determining the universe of existing chemicals subject to the new law, arguing that the rule fails to ensure CBI claims will be appropriately reviewed and will allow companies to assert and maintain claims that do not meet the law's requirements.
In a letter to EPA last fall, other environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice, urged the agency to accelerate reviews of CBI claims under its Chemical Data Reporting rule, arguing that increasing transparency in chemical manufacturing, use and regulation was a “top priority” in Congress' TSCA revisions.
Chemical sector attorneys have urged EPA to issue a rule clarifying its policy for substantiating companies' CBI claims under the revised TSCA, arguing that the agency has provided limited guidance on potential exemptions and should seek industry's input.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/edf-urges-greater-data-disclosure-proposed-snur
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Firms Oppose Plan to Scrap EPA's ‘Safer Choice’ Chemicals Program
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA's plan to ditch a “green” chemical labeling program would frustrate a growing customer base interested in safer cleaners and consumer products, according to companies and trade associations.
President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2019 budget request, released Feb. 12, would for the second straight year propose to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's pollution prevention initiatives, which includes EPA's Safer Choice program.
The program provides a logo recognizing cleaning, car care, pet care, and other products provided every ingredient meets strict safety criteria. Ingredients must not increase the risk of cancer, harm reproduction and development, or be persistent in the environment.
The Household & Commercial Products Association, the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association, cleaning product makers, and retailers are building a coalition to restore the program's funding, according to Owen Caine, an executive vice president with HCPA, and William Balek, director of legislative and environmental services for the global group.
The technical expertise and assistance the EPA's Safer Choice program has offered small- and medium-sized companies in particular has been “invaluable,” said Balek.
“Our members have benefited greatly,” he said.
Targeted Last Year
Last year's budget blueprint also proposed to eliminate pollution prevention programs, which EPA's budget request said has received about $12.1 million in the continuing resolutions that have kept the program going in 2018.
The EPA said in response to a request from Bloomberg Environment that it could not provide more detailed budget information on the Safer Choice program.
Final budgets for EPA's pollution prevention initiatives won't be ready until Congress has a say over the agency's funding in the coming months.
Sales Calls
One firm—State Industrial Products—has a decades-long relationship with the EPA's Safer Choice program that helped the company build what's now a diverse line of green products, according to Joseph Svarovsky, regulatory affairs director for the company.
Sales of that product line, which includes institutional laundry detergents, floor waxes, and cooling tower treatment products, grew 20 percent between 2015 and 2016, he said.
“A member of our sales force thought winning an EPA Safer Choice Partner of the Year Award in 2017 was the greatest thing ever,” Svarovsky said. “He leads off with that in sales calls.”
Confuse Downstream Customers?
Vince Scuilla, chief operating officer for Osprey Biotechnics, Inc., said the company wants Safer Choice to be funded even though its elimination would only affect customers of his customers.
Osprey grows microbes that are used in cleaning, drain maintenance, septic, ground water treatment, and other products.
“They're like probiotics for the environment,” Scuilla said.
The companies that purchase Osprey's organisms tend to be committed to making environmentally sound goods, so they'd be unlikely to stop purchasing the microbes even if they didn't bear the Safer Choice logo, Scuilla said. But eliminating the Safer Choice program could confuse his customers’ customers.
EPA's program requires the chemicals and microbes in cleaning and other products to meet clear scientific criteria demonstrating their safety and efficacy, Scuilla said.
A number of companies’ environmentally-friendly advertising claims may not be rigorous, and customers sometimes don't purchase them because they're perceived as “greenwashing"—disinformation that an organization presents to offer an environmentally friendly image—without scientific backing, he said.
Swapping Ingredients
Balek said it can be challenging to swap out one ingredient for another that failed to meet the Safer Choice criteria. Sometimes new product formulation processes require different-sized pipes, different temperatures, or other changes for the substitute to work.
The sharing of best practices through Safer Choice and the EPA staff's expertise both help companies work through such challenges, he said. The partnerships and technical assistance distinguishes it from other private sector labeling programs, said Svarovsky and Lauren Danielson, Osprey's president and CEO.
The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association's 9,200 members include manufacturers, distributors, and cleaning service providers such as 3M, Clean Control Corp., the Clorox Co., Earth Friendly Products, and Rubbermaid Commercial Products LLC.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128185917&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128185917&jd=128185917
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Here Are the Places That Struggle to Meet the Rules on Safe Drinking Water
Feb 12, 2018 | New York Times
By Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich
To ensure that tap water in the United States is safe to drink, the federal government has been steadily tightening the health standards for the nation’s water supplies for decades. But over and over again, local water systems around the country have failed to meet these requirements.
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that, since 1982, between 3 and 10 percent of the country’s water systems have been in violation of federal Safe Drinking Water Act health standards each year. In 2015 alone, as many as 21 million Americans may have been exposed to unsafe drinking water.
The problem is particularly severe in low-income rural areas, the study found. And the researchers identified several places, including Oklahoma and West Texas, that have repeatedly fallen short in complying with water safety rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade.
“These are often smaller communities flying under the radar,” said Maura Allaire, an assistant professor of urban planning at the University of California, Irvine, and a lead author of the study. “They’re struggling to maintain their aging infrastructure, and they’re struggling to keep up with the latest water treatment techniques.”
Concerns about the safety of America’s tap water gained national prominence after the 2015 crisis in Flint, Mich., when residents discovered dangerously high levels of lead in their drinking water. Since then, a barrage of reports have revealed that a surprisingly large number of local water systems serving millions of Americans sometimes contain unsafe levels of contaminants like lead, nitrates, arsenic or pathogens that can cause gastrointestinal diseases.
In many cases, it can be unclear whether such contamination is isolated or evidence of a deeper systemic problem at a water utility.
To address that issue in this newest study, Dr. Allaire and her co-authors looked for patterns in health-based violations over time at 17,900 local water systems around the United States between 1982 and 2015. She said one question guiding the research was “What kind of factors make some water utilities more susceptible than others?”
One striking finding: Health violations for drinking water surged in rural areas in the 2000s after the E.P.A. enacted regulations focused on disinfectants. Utilities have long used chlorine or other chemicals to disinfect their drinking water supplies. But this process has a troubling side effect. Those chemicals can react with organic matter in the water to create new compounds that may pose their own health risks.
In recent years, the E.P.A. has required water utilities to limit these disinfectant byproducts, though doing so can be costly and technically challenging. That often poses difficulties for rural water utilities with smaller customer bases and fewer financial resources.
“Many of these smaller utilities have just a handful of people who are charged with managing the entire system,” said Manuel P. Teodoro, a political scientist at Texas A&M University who has studied the challenges facing small and rural water utilities.
He noted that this research suggests one possible strategy for improving water quality in rural areas: States might provide aid to help smaller water utilities merge and consolidate into larger systems that are better able to comply with complex safety rules. California has been exploring such an approach.
Dr. Allaire and her co-authors also found that water systems that serve minority and low-income communities were more likely to violate federal standards around coliform bacteria, which frequently accompany disease-causing pathogens. Their research also showed that privately owned utilities had fewer violations than publicly owned utilities, and that larger water systems tended to have fewer violations than smaller systems.
The whole point of tracing these patterns, Dr. Allaire said, was to help policymakers understand which parts of the United States might require additional scrutiny or assistance in meeting national water quality standards. “Otherwise,” she said, “we have no systematic way to identify problems and set priorities.”
This new study may understate the full extent of problems with the nation’s drinking water systems, said Kristi Pullen Fedinick, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that conducted its own nationwide survey of Safe Drinking Water Act violations last year.
State governments are largely responsible for implementing federal water-quality standards, and the quality of monitoring and enforcement can vary significantly. Some states have cut back on budgets for their drinking water programs, and many communities focus on tracking just a handful of key contaminants like coliform or disinfectant byproducts. That means potential violations involving other contaminants, like lead, may go underreported.
“On a national scale, we know that there’s a huge amount of underreporting,” Dr. Fedinick said.
In recent years, the E.P.A. and Justice Department have often been reluctant to penalize states or municipalities that fall behind on enforcement or reporting. The federal government can, however, provide technical assistance and funding to water utilities that are struggling with health violations.
Scott Pruitt, the head of the E.P.A., has expressed interest in modernizing the nation’s water infrastructure, telling Congress this month that he wants to declare a “war on lead.” He has not yet detailed a plan for doing so, although he has supported increases in funding for an E.P.A. program that can provide low-interest loans for state water projects.
But environmental groups like Natural Resources Defense Council have viewed Mr. Pruitt’s promises with suspicion, asserting that the Trump administration’s push for sharp budget cuts to other important federal drinking water programs at both the E.P.A. and the Department of Agriculture could end up undercutting water safety.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/climate/drinking-water-safety.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience
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Trump Administration Plans to Undo Methane-Emission Rule
Feb 13, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The Trump administration said Monday that it is proposing to roll back an Obama-era climate regulation aimed at cutting emissions of methane from drilling operations on federal lands.
The Bureau of Land Management, an arm of the Interior Department, announced it wants to replace a regulation issued by former President Barack Obama that would limit the amount of gas released into the air at the drilling sites, often through venting or burning it off.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and efforts to cut its frequent emissions from oil and gas drilling are seen as a way to help combat global warming. Republicans in Congress last year attempted to reverse the rule, but their efforts were rejected in the Senate.
The Trump administration’s proposal would virtually eliminate the rule, replacing it with requirements similar to those in force before the Obama administration’s guidelines were issued just days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. The new proposal would be subject to 60 days of public comment before it is finalized.
The department has tried to delay the rules’ requirements until 2019—a decision that is being challenged in court—and this updated plan would replace them. The Obama administration had underestimated the rule’s economic impact, the bureau said in its announcement. It also said the Obama rule duplicates provisions from several pre-existing state and federal protections.
“In order to achieve energy dominance through responsible energy production, we need smart regulations not punitive regulations,” said Joe Balash, assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management on Monday. “We believe this proposed rule strikes that balance and will allow job growth in rural America.”
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobby group that has previously said the rule wasn’t needed, cheered the bureau’s announcement.
Several Republican members of Congress who also supported the bureau’s move, said that the Obama rule, if left in place, would have discouraged new development from the energy industry, hurting the economy in several Western states.
Environmentalists rejected that claim and decried the decision, pointing out that several companies had already moved on their own to start cutting methane emissions. Many oil-and-gas companies—including some of the world’s biggest—have been anticipating further rules to slow climate change and have decided to invest in better methane-capturing technology. They can recoup some of the investment and potentially add to profits by capturing more stray gas and selling it with the rest of their output.
“The proposal [the bureau] put forward today would only serve to reward the least responsible actors in industry at a time when other companies are moving forward to tackle methane waste,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund said in a statement. “Gutting the rule would allow unchecked waste of natural gas, unnecessary pollution, and the loss of revenue to communities and tribes” that own royalties from drilling at these sites.
Pulling the rule has been a central part of the Republicans’ effort to undo Obama-era environmental regulations that started as soon as Mr. Trump took office. His agencies are rewriting rules designed to fight climate change, coal-ash pollution and coastal flooding, among many others. It is part of a broad attempt to lower costs for oil companies, power plants and manufacturers.
The rule that covered methane emissions, formally known as the Waste Prevention Rule, was part of a larger effort by Republicans to revoke some late regulations issued by Mr. Obama using the Congressional Review Act. Republicans passed 13 resolutions to undo such Obama-era regulations, but three Republican senators and all 48 members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus blocked a procedural vote on the bill to quash this one.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine had objected to the rule on environmental grounds, saying methane should be captured rather than allowed to escape, which most commonly happens at wells during early testing or sometimes during safety precautions to release pressure. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona had wanted the Interior Department to revise and improve the rule.
The Obama administration said methane has a warming impact on the planet 25 times that of carbon dioxide, though it lasts not nearly as long in the atmosphere. With the onset of the energy boom, flaring or venting gas became an increasing problem, emitting methane straight into the atmosphere, usually when pipelines or other infrastructure weren’t immediately available to transport and process it. The Obama-era rule had required energy companies to capture the methane and ship it as fuel.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-plans-to-undo-methane-emission-rule-1518486715?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Keystone Foes Challenge Trump's Approval in Saga's Latest Twist
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meenal Vamburkar
A year after President Donald Trump gave the O.K. for the line to be built, groups including Bold Alliance and Sierra Club argue in a motion that the federal decision short-circuited the review process, relying on an outdated environmental assessment. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The U.S. State Department failed to adequately explain the reversal of its 2015 denial of the permit under the Obama administration, according to a complaint filed Feb. 9 in a federal court in Montana.
The challenge comes less than three months after Nebraska approved the project and TransCanada has signaled it's prepared to go ahead with construction, though the Calgary-based pipeline giant hasn't made a decision yet.
“Whenever federal or state government short-circuits the review process, citizens will stand up for due process and the law,” Jane Kleeb, president of Bold Alliance, said in a Feb. 12 statement. “The Trump Administration used the same reports that led to the pipeline being rejected, to now give the foreign, export pipeline a rubber-stamp approval.”
Keystone XL would carry 830,000 barrels of oil-sands crude a day from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska, connecting to existing lines that stretch all the way to the refining hub on the Gulf Coast. Last month, the company said it had enough support from customers and that the line was still doable despite the requirement for an alternate route in Nebraska.
Representatives for TransCanada didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Vincent Campos, a spokesman for the State Department, didn't immediately respond to request for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128185940&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128185940&jd=128185940
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West Virginia Co-Tenancy Legislation Advances to House Floor
Feb 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
This year’s version of legislation that would make it easier for West Virginia’s natural gas producers to block up acreage for longer laterals by gathering leaseholders into large tracts has passed committee and is scheduled for its first reading before the full state House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Introduced last month, HB 4268 would require a producer to obtain a simple-majority agreement from mineral rights owners to gather them into a tract of land for development. Currently, West Virginia is the only major oil and gas producing state that still allows a minority interest owner to prevent all others from allowing drilling, according to the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, which supports the bill.
The legislation passed the House Energy Committee last month and cleared the House Judiciary Committee last week on a party line vote of 16-9, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
HB 4268 is the latest attempt to get some kind of legislation on the books to gather landowners into the kinds of large tracts that are more conducive to unconventional horizontal drilling. Forced pooling has repeatedly failed over the years because of legislators’ concerns about property rights. The industry dropped those efforts last year and instead introduced co-tenancy and joint development proposals.
Joint development, which would have allowed unconventional drilling to occur on land with older leases without modifying them, was dropped from this year’s bill because proponents felt it was too controversial. Co-tenancy, however, is still on the table. The current bill would require 75% of landowners in a proposed tract to give their consent before drilling could proceed.
After the judiciary approved the bill on Friday, both industry and landowner representatives signaled their support for it, according to local news media reports. But as in year’s past, they’re concerned that if the bill is amended significantly then it could fail. Last year’s legislation, SB 576, passed the Senate, but got stuck in the House Energy Committee, where lawmakers were too busy working through a packed schedule.
HB 4268 needs three readings in the House before a vote. The 60-day regular session ends on March 10. Co-tenancy is the industry’s top legislative priority this year.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113357-west-virginia-co-tenancy-legislation-advances-to-house-floor
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Editorial: Americans Should Appreciate the Chemical Safety Board. Trump Wants to Kill It.
Feb 13, 2018 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Editorial Board
When a massive steam explosion last year at Loy Lange Box Co. near Soulard sent a steel tank rocketing through the air, killing four people, only one federal agency had the authority and expertise to enter the scene, conduct investigations and provide an expert assessment on how to prevent such future accidents. The agency was the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
In his reckless bid to gut any agency that regulates U.S. business, President Donald Trump is trying to kill the CSB, the chemical industry’s canary in the coal mine. Trump’s 2018 budget request proposed to cut CSB funding to the point that it could no longer operate. Senior administration officials say the 2019 budget will do the same unless Congress intervenes to restore funding.
Trump’s effort couldn’t possibly be for reasons of fiscal efficiency. The CSB’s annual budget is a mere $11 million. That wouldn’t even cover a day’s worth of work on Trump’s proposed $21.6 billion border wall.
The administration has worked systematically to dismantle federal review functions that help guarantee worker safety and ensure that industries engaging in environmentally risky ventures don’t wind up causing public health disasters.
Last month, Trump proposed actions that would reduce federal safety requirements on offshore drilling imposed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. He also wants to relax petroleum companies’ readiness for responding to major oil spills.
In late January, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Michael Dourson, withdrew from consideration after his past connections to the chemical industry became public. Among Dourson’s former clients were Dow Chemical Co., Koch Industries and Chevron Corp.
Against that backdrop, it comes as little surprise that Trump is trying to dismantle the independent Chemical Safety Board. The CSB investigates major industrial accidents in much the same way that the National Transportation Safety Board investigates airline, train and shipping disasters.
No other federal agency has the CSB’s level of expertise in enforcing industry safety standards. Last summer the agency’s experts deployed to a refinery explosion in Crosby, Texas, right after Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston area. They did likewise immediately after a massive 2013 explosion leveled the town of West, Texas. The agency has no regulatory mission; it’s primary function is to review industrial disasters and present recommendations on standards and practices to avoid future accidents.
The administration apparently sees a nefarious purpose in that, as if evil lurks in safety recommendations and industry best practices.
The president is, once again, ill-informed. It’s up to Congress to continue funding CSB at least at current levels, as it did last year, until someone can educate Trump on why industrial accidents, just like plane crashes, are good things to avoid.In his reckless bid to gut any agency that regulates U.S. business, President Donald Trump is trying to kill the CSB, the chemical industry’s canary in the coal mine. Trump’s 2018 budget request proposed to cut CSB funding to the point that it could no longer operate. Senior administration officials say the 2019 budget will do the same unless Congress intervenes to restore funding.
Trump’s effort couldn’t possibly be for reasons of fiscal efficiency. The CSB’s annual budget is a mere $11 million. That wouldn’t even cover a day’s worth of work on Trump’s proposed $21.6 billion border wall.
The administration has worked systematically to dismantle federal review functions that help guarantee worker safety and ensure that industries engaging in environmentally risky ventures don’t wind up causing public health disasters.
Last month, Trump proposed actions that would reduce federal safety requirements on offshore drilling imposed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. He also wants to relax petroleum companies’ readiness for responding to major oil spills.
In late January, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Michael Dourson, withdrew from consideration after his past connections to the chemical industry became public. Among Dourson’s former clients were Dow Chemical Co., Koch Industries and Chevron Corp.
Against that backdrop, it comes as little surprise that Trump is trying to dismantle the independent Chemical Safety Board. The CSB investigates major industrial accidents in much the same way that the National Transportation Safety Board investigates airline, train and shipping disasters.
No other federal agency has the CSB’s level of expertise in enforcing industry safety standards. Last summer the agency’s experts deployed to a refinery explosion in Crosby, Texas, right after Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston area. They did likewise immediately after a massive 2013 explosion leveled the town of West, Texas. The agency has no regulatory mission; it’s primary function is to review industrial disasters and present recommendations on standards and practices to avoid future accidents.
The administration apparently sees a nefarious purpose in that, as if evil lurks in safety recommendations and industry best practices.
The president is, once again, ill-informed. It’s up to Congress to continue funding CSB at least at current levels, as it did last year, until someone can educate Trump on why industrial accidents, just like plane crashes, are good things to avoid.
http://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-americans-should-appreciate-the-chemical-safety-board-trump-wants/article_30e963d6-f400-5715-9ada-e94817555226.html
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Trump Infrastructure Plan a ‘Start’ for Some, a ‘Scam’ for Others
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
An infrastructure push from the White House is at best guidance that serves as a starting point for bipartisan legislation and at worst a scam laden with corporate handouts, according to lawmaker and interest group comments on the 55-page infrastructure principles issued Feb. 12.
The administration's plan would redirect $200 billion in federal funding from existing programs in hopes of encouraging new infrastructure investments by state, local and the private sector to bring the total amount of funding to $1.5 trillion.
It also calls for a streamlined permitting process that reduces the length of time it takes for multi-agency review and permit issuance.
The reaction was predictably mixed, given the year-long drip of information of what an infrastructure proposal might include.
“We hope the release of the Trump infrastructure plan can be a starting point for a robust conversation on how best to make the critical investments in surface transportation,” Bud Wright, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), said in a statement.
AASHTO was one of several groups to call for a fix to the Highway Trust Fund, which faces a shortfall in 2022 and which the White House plan does not address. The trust fund is supported through the federal fuel tax, which has not been increased since 1993.
Others were less optimistic.
“This is not a real infrastructure plan—it is simply another scam, an attempt to sell our nation's infrastructure and create windfall profit for Wall Street while rolling back environmental protections,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said in a statement, adding that the plan is “embarrassingly small.”
What's in the Plan?
The administration would pay for the $200 billion over 10 years through cuts to existing transportation programs like transit grant programs and Obama-era transportation grants; these cuts are reflected in the president's proposed budget, also released Feb. 12.
Half of the proposed federal appropriations, or $100 billion, would go to incentives for state, local and private investment in so-called core infrastructure projects. Projects will score higher based on the share of non-federal revenue expected. States can decide how to raise those funds—through user fees, taxes, or other means.
The proposal would include $20 billion for an expansion of low-interest transportation project loan programs and private activity bonds. It also calls for $50 billion to be set aside for rural states, to be allocated based on the preference of governors. Another $20 billion would go to unspecified “transformative programs” and the final $10 billion would go toward a capital financing fund.
In addition to cutting and reallocating funds from existing programs, the administration calls for reducing federal restrictions that keep states from making money off of existing infrastructure. It calls for flexibility to toll on Interstates and reinvest toll revenues in infrastructure and to commercialize rest areas. The administration would also let federal agencies divest of their assets—like Ronald Reagan Washington National and Dulles International airports—and allow agencies to decide how to spend the proceeds.
A Beginning
Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, co-chair of the bipartisan Building America's Future, called the White House proposal a start that doesn't go far enough.
“Our national government needs to make a commitment to our states with a substantial amount of direct, federal funding. We need to prioritize infrastructure with real dollars, not just empty promises, or we will continue to fall behind as a nation,” said LaHood.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, welcomed the White House's “direction” and said he planned to pursue a bipartisan bill.
His counterpart on another committee of jurisdiction, Senate Environment and Public Works, Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) was more bullish, calling Trump a “champion” for infrastructure and heaping praise on the plan for prioritizing streamlining.
Gas Tax
In the House, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said a bipartisan infrastructure bill needs to address the long-term sustainability of the Highway Trust Fund.
Shuster recently endorsed a gas tax hike, also supported by the Chamber of Commerce, and called for presidential leadership to help usher through an infrastructure bill this year.
But congressional leaders are already facing pressure to focus on regulatory reform and improved efficiency in federal spending, rather than raising the gas tax.
Americans for Prosperity, affiliated with billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch, Heritage Action, Americans for Tax Reform, and others for a total of 30 anti-tax groups wrote members Feb. 12 in opposition to a federal fuel increase.
“Rather than seeking to increase prices at the pump in the form of a tax hike, lawmakers should first reform the way existing transportation dollars are spent,” the group wrote.
Scam?
Democrats and progressive groups accused the president of funny math and seizing on the poor state of the nation's roads and bridges to benefit his wealthy, political benefactors.
“The president's infrastructure proposal would do very little to make our ailing infrastructure better, but would put unsustainable burdens on our local government and lead to Trump tolls all over the country, all while undermining important protections like Buy America. It is a plan to appease his political allies, not to rebuild the country,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
Cutting transit programs to pay for infrastructure is “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a member of Environment and Public Works, and of Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said in a statement.
One thing everyone agrees on is that infrastructure should be a bipartisan issue.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128185921&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128185921&jd=128185921
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Infrastructure Plan Calls for Changes to Environmental Laws
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
The Trump administration is proposing to expedite infrastructure projects through a mix of legislation and administrative changes, with a big emphasis on amendments to fundamental environmental laws.
The most significant proposed changes in the planreleased Feb. 12 call for Congress to allow streamlined permitting and transfer of more authority to states and reduce opportunities for litigation. That could require amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.
The proposed changes would be a boon to electric power utilities, water utilities, oil and gas companies, and local governments whose planning and financing benefit from more predictable and quicker permitting.
Senate Democrats have agreed with Republicans in recent years on some changes to speed authorization of highway and water infrastructure projects, but generally they have resisted changes that would significantly reduce environmental reviews and substantially limit public access to courts to fight project approvals.
A warning signal of opposition to come was issued by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. “This is a sheet of tired, Republican talking points that blame everything on basic environmental protections and in the end, do nothing,” Grijalva said.
‘One Agency, One Decision’
The infrastructure plan calls for a “one agency, one decision” review structure for infrastructure projects to limit the slowdowns caused by overlapping agency jurisdictions and review schedules.
Firm deadlines would be required to complete environmental reviews and permits, and a lead agency would be expected to manage the agency collaboration and issue a record of decision in 21 months or a finding of no significant impact. Federal agencies then would have an additional three months—two years overall—to decide on permits.
The system used for a lead agency to coordinate federal permitting work will follow the pattern set by Title 41 of the Fix America's Surface Transportation Act, a 2015 law. The Trump administration wants to expand the strategy while using the Office of Management and Budget to keep track of compliance, according to Ted Boling, an associate director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
“OMB will be checking agency performance,” Boling said Feb. 9 at a discussion sponsored by the American Law Institute. “There will be consequences for lack of performance.”
Litigation relief also is part of the plan but would require congressional approval. The administration proposes reducing the statute of limitations for legal challenges under NEPA to 150 days from the current six years. Injunctive relief would be limited to exceptional circumstances.
Changes on Air, Water, Pipelines
The administration calls for more delegation of authority to states. States already can assume federal responsibilities for NEPA reviews of surface transportation projects under some circumstances, and six states have done so.
The administration wants to be able to delegate to states the authority to authorize right-of-way acquisitions and Clean Air Act conformity determinations for surface transportation projects.
The Army Corps of Engineers, not the Environmental Protection Agency, would have final say on whether a federal dredge-and-fill permit is needed in any given instance—a change that would require amendment of the Clean Water Act Section 404 (c) “veto authority” over permits.
Federal agencies would not need Corps reviews, however, for projects involving no more than half an acre of wetlands and streams covered by the nationwide permit program.
The infrastructure plan asks Congress to modify the Federal Power Act to allow federal agencies that cooperate with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on NEPA environmental reviews for gas pipelines to also comment in the FERC docket for the proceeding.
The plan also asks that the Interior Department be given authority to approve rights-of-way across national parks for natural gas pipelines. Existing authority gives Interior much authority to approve infrastructure in parks, but leaves gas pipeline approvals in parks to Congress.
—With assistance from Amena Saiyid and Rebecca Kern.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128185920&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128185920&jd=128185920
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Climate Change Trump Puts Energy Saving, Climate Plans on Chopping Block Again
Feb 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Christopher Flavelle, Eric Roston and Abby Smith
Months after three major hurricanes devastated Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, the White House once again has proposed slashing spending on government programs to combat climate change and protect communities from the flooding it could unleash.
The White House also suggests cutting the Environmental Protection Agency budget by at least a quarter, reducing the EPA to funding levels not seen since 1991, according to a budget blueprint proposed Feb. 12. The budget request dovetails with an infrastructure plan also unveiled Feb. 12 that would pare back federal environmental reviews and make it easier to put pipelines on federal land.
“It's just completely divorced from the reality of the last 12 months,” said Collin O'Mara, head of the National Wildlife Federation, adding that both proposals would force the U.S. to pay for environmental damage after it occurs instead of mitigating impacts in advance. “We're seeing storms in very liberal and very conservative areas. They're not discriminating at all, and yet people are picking up the pieces of their lives because we're not making smart policy and smart investments right now.“
The budget plan—which faces a highly uncertain future in Congress—would end several programs studying global warming, cut aid to countries on the front lines of climate change, and halve spending on government flood mapping. It mirrors President Donald Trump's previous budget-cutting proposals, many of which were rebuffed by Congress.
“The president's proposal represents a commitment to getting the government back to its basic functions,” said Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a free-market advocacy group.
The administration would strike funding for climate and environmental programs across the federal government, wherever it believes the initiatives exceed authority, duplicate spending, or are out-of-line with Trump's goals, according to the budget documents released Feb. 12.
Global Climate Aid
The Trump administration would sharply limit the money it gives to international climate organizations, including contributions to assist developing countries in their efforts to combat climate change.
For example, the Global Climate Change Initiative—a joint State Department-U.S. AID program that helps other countries address more intense heat waves, rising seas, and ferocious storms—would be ended. The Obama administration gave the program $1.5 billion in 2016, and Congress delivered $160 million to it in fiscal 2017.
The White House request also would scrap U.S. support for the Green Climate Fund, which aims to help developing countries reduce greenhouse emissions. The Obama administration had pledged billions to that effort.
“Instead of using such funds to help other countries address climate change, even while many of them plan to increase their emissions, the U.S. should invest in our own economic growth,” the White House budget documents said.
In addition, the White House request would again reduce funds available to help developing countries transition away from potent greenhouse gas refrigerants—zeroing out such funds in the EPA budget and limiting the amount of State Department funds available for this purpose.
EPA Again Takes A Hit
The EPA budget in total would take a nearly 25 percent hit, down to $6.15 billion from $8.2 billion in fiscal 2017. The agency's overall spending has hovered at about $8 billion for years. The last time it was close to $6 billion was in fiscal year 1991, under former President George H.W. Bush. These figures have not been indexed for inflation.
The cuts include eliminating as much as $598.5 million worth of programs and activities, with an eye toward efforts the EPA said “create unnecessary redundancies or those that have served their purpose and accomplished their mission.”
Among those programs targeted are 14 climate-related voluntary partnership programs, including the Center for Corporate Climate Leadership, the Global Methane Initiative, the Green Power Partnership, Natural Gas STAR, SmartWay, and the State and Local Climate and Energy Program.
The White House also again plans to eliminate funding for the Energy Star program, which labels and certifies the efficiency of appliances and other consumer products. But the budget request offers a proposal to fund Energy Star by fees from manufacturers that want to participate, as opposed to taxpayer funds. Under that plan, the EPA would continue to administer the program.
In total, the EPA budget request calls for roughly $13.5 million for the “Atmospheric Protection Program,” formerly known as the “Climate Protection Program,” predominantly to implement the agency's greenhouse gas reporting program and prepare the mandatory annual greenhouse gas inventory.
That equates to a more than $75 million cut from enacted fiscal year 2017 levels for the program—but is roughly consistent with the president's fiscal year 2018 budget request.
Climate Science, Research
The Trump administration also maintains proposed funding cuts to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's earth sciences program, which includes climate science research. The White House budget would provide about $1.8 billion for NASA's earth sciences program—roughly a 6.5 percent cut from fiscal year 2017 enacted levels.
The cuts include planned termination of five earth science missions, first called for in the fiscal year 2018 budget request. That includes NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite, called DSCOVR, which was conceived and championed for two decades by former Vice President Al Gore.
Another eliminated mission would be the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder mission, which would “monitor the pulse of the Earth to better understand climate change,” according to NASA's website. “Other missions funded by NASA are maintaining measurements needed for climate data records,” according to White House budget documents.
In addition, about $273 million in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programs to study the effects of climate change and sea-level rise around the country would face elimination, in order “to better target remaining resources to core missions and services.“
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's flood-hazard mapping program would be cut by nearly half. While just 65 percent of the country's more than 1 million miles of streams have up-to-date flood maps, state and local governments should pick up more of the cost of developing them, the administration argues. A year ago, Trump called for eliminating the program entirely.
--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis (Bloomberg) and Ari Natter (Bloomberg).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128185924&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128185924&jd=128185924
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Strategic Plan Stresses 'Rule of Law,' Silent on Climate
Feb 12, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA today released a long-term strategic plan that outlines a retrenchment around a "core mission" of ensuring clean air, land and water, but also effectively proclaims the need for the agency to yield more control to state regulators and accelerate permitting decisions.
The plan, scheduled to run through fiscal 2022, is intended as a tool for senior EPA managers "to guide the agency's path forward." It represents a stark departure from its Obama-era predecessor (Greenwire, June 26, 2017). In place of broad goals such as confronting climate change and supporting the development of green infrastructure, the new plan focuses the agency on a set of narrowly tailored numeric objectives.
By the end of September 2019, for example, EPA — "in close collaboration with states" — will strive to reduce the number of areas around the country in nonattainment for various air pollution standards from a baseline of 166 to 138. By the same 2019 deadline, the agency will seek to reduce by half the number of permitting decisions that take more than six months. Another 102 Superfund sites will be made "ready for anticipated use."
Overlying those objectives are three mission goals:
· Delivering "real results" to provide the American people "with clean air, land, and water, and ensure chemical safety."
· Fostering "cooperative federalism" by rebalancing power between Washington, D.C., and the states "to create tangible environmental results."
· Maintaining "the rule of law and process" to "refocus the agency on its statutory obligations."
At least on paper, the Trump administration's fiscal 2019 budget request seeks to incorporate those three principles into how EPA would spend its money.
In place of program categories such as "clean air and global climate change," for example, the proposed budget sets aside hundreds of millions of dollars for items including the "rule of law and process" and "core mission."
How this system would work in practice, however, is unclear. It's equally uncertain whether the administration intends the fiscal 2019 blueprint as anything more than a symbolic statement of priorities. In an email, an EPA spokeswoman would only say that the proposed budget "will help support" those three principles with the intention of protecting human health and the environment.
The administration was required to issue the updated strategic plan by this month under a 2011 law known as the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act (E&E News PM, Oct. 4, 2017). Although EPA received more than 39,000 comments on the draft version released in October, there is little indication that agency officials took them into account.
While many commenters had urged the agency to use the plan to address climate change, the phrase remains absent from the final document, which is largely identical to the draft.
The new strategic plan also states that one of EPA's top priorities "must be to create consistency and certainty for the regulated community." While that goal entails modernization of agency permitting practices "to increase the timelines of reviews and decisions," the plan makes no reference to the White House's bid to slash overall EPA funding by 23 percent next year in comparison with a fiscal 2017 benchmark.
And while the plan calls on EPA to reduce the average period from identification of an environmental violation to the point that it is corrected, the agency gives itself until September 2022 to accomplish that "strategic measure." And for now, it's not clear what the baseline for measuring progress will be. That threshold will only be determined sometime in fiscal 2018, the plan indicates.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/02/12/stories/1060073637
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EPA Numbers Hint at Eased Enforcement Under Trump
Feb 13, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
An employee's rights group filed a complaint Monday over the Department of the Interior's continued practice of filling open positions with temporary acting directors.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sent a complaint to the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General on Monday arguing that the department is misusing and abusing the roles of at least three temporary acting directors.
In their complaint, PEER says Interior's continued employment of National Park Service acting Director Daniel Smith, Bureau of Land Management acting Director Brian Steed and Fish and Wildlife Service acting Director Greg Sheehan appears to be a "blatant violation" of the Vacancies Reform Act.
"These three positions are to be filled through presidential appointment subject to the advice and consent of the Senate as required by the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution (Article II, Section 2)," the letter from PEER read. "As such, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Act, which prevents the President from circumventing the constitutional advice and consent role of the U.S. Senate by simply appointing people to serve as 'acting' directors for long periods and completely bypassing Senate confirmation."
All three employees currently are meant to temporarily fill vacancies at the Department of the Interior. However, President Trump has yet to nominate anyone to permanently fill the posts.
That has seemingly indefinitely left the employees in the position of acting directors and PEER says that's unlawful.
Furthermore, PEER argues that actions taken by the bureaus under the unlawful acting directors may also be unlawful, and could leave those agencies open to lawsuits.
A portion of the Vacancy Act reads that actions taken by acting directors who violate the act "shall have no force or effect.”
"These legal infirmities give rise to an additional basis for challenging actions taken by these agencies during the past few months in court. For example, Greg Sheehan at [the Fish and Wildlife Service] has changed Endangered Species Act procedures, among other actions — all of which are void and vulnerable to lawsuits," PEER's director Jeff Ruch said Monday in a statement.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373492-green-group-files-complaint-over-interior-departments-excessive-use
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California Senate Bill Adopts Strict Obama EPA HFC Rules
Feb 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
A new California Senate bill would lock in stringent Obama EPA rules requiring companies to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in refrigerants and air conditioners, a measure that appears aimed at pushing the state air board to strengthen a pending proposal that seeks to achieve similar goals after a federal court blocked the EPA rules.
Known as the "California Cooling Act," SB 1013, introduced Feb. 7 by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D), would authorize the air board to adopt regulations more stringent than the Obama-era standards and set up new economic incentive programs to accelerate emission reductions of the potent greenhouse gases.
The legislation comes as the California Air Resources Board (ARB) is in the process of advancing proposed regulations to accomplish very similar objectives, though the measure is more stringent than the board's proposal and includes additional incentive programs.
"Super-pollutants from refrigerants are one of the biggest threats to our planet's health, contributing to climate disasters like wildfires and extreme heat events," Lara said in a Feb. 7 press release. "But we are not alone in this fight. American businesses are ready to roll up their sleeves to meet our clean air goals, and we can't be held hostage to global polluters and lack of action by the Trump administration."
The bill responds in part to a recent federal appellate decision in Mexichem Fluor v. EPA, et al., where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a panel ruling that vacated key parts of EPA's 2015 rule to phase out HFCs, known as the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) rules 20 and 21.
Officials with Honeywell, a chemical company that supported EPA's rules, said this week that it plans to ask the Supreme Court to review the appellate ruling. And environmentalists have also said they are considering asking the high court to weigh in.
But Lara does not appear to be waiting for the outcome of the litigation. "SB 1013 would adopt SNAP rules 20 and 21 into California law as of Jan. 1, 2019, and would send a strong market signal about California's commitment to reducing HFCs," says a source in his office. "Refrigeration units are big purchases that last more than a decade, so the sooner we can get started the better."
The bill will be amended later to provide details about the proposed economic incentive programs to spur companies to accelerate HFC emission reductions, the source says. "Sen. Lara hopes the incentives in SB 1013 would urge the business community to move faster than they would with just the ARB rules. The language on the incentives is still being fleshed out."
ARB last fall unveiled its own proposed regulations to reduce HFC emissions from refrigerants and air conditioning units primarily through the adoption of most of the provisions of EPA's SNAP rules, a plan that drew significant industry concerns.
The ARB proposal consists of two rulemakings -- adoption of EPA's existing SNAP program Rules 20 and 21, and a longer-term, California-specific SLCP regulation that would take effect in 2021.
But the Lara source points out that the ARB rulemaking "is not final, does not include all provisions of the EPA rules, and they will phase in over time."
SB 1013 also authorizes ARB to adopt regulations that go beyond the SNAP rules, by making them "more rigorous or accelerated in time."
And the measure exempts the ARB regulations from the Administrative Procedure Act "and other specified provisions relating to the control of toxic air contaminants."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/california-senate-bill-adopts-strict-obama-epa-hfc-rules
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