Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 2/23/18
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(ACC Mentioned) PE, PP, PET and Recycled Prices Bounce around in January
Feb 23, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American prices for polyethylene, polypropylene and PET bottle resin hit the ground running in 2018. -
(ACC Mentioned) PVC Posts Solid Sales Growth in 2017, While Results for Other Resins Are Mixed
Feb 23, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
PVC again led the way among North American resin markets in 2017, with sales growth of more than 3 percent. -
Former US Chemical Safety Board Chairman Won't Be Prosecuted
Feb 23, 2018 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US Department of Justice decided almost a year ago not to prosecute the head of the nation’s Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for perjury, according to government documents obtained by E&E News. -
Ryan Zinke Credits Trump with US Oil Boom, Lower Fuel Prices
Feb 23, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By John Siciliano
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke credited President Trump on Friday with spurring on the oil and natural gas boom that began nearly a decade ago, and said the administration's deregulation and tax reform agenda helped it along. -
Drillers Move to Defend Rollback of Fracking Rule
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The oil and gas industry is heading to court to defend the Trump administration's recent rollback of hydraulic fracturing safeguards. -
Court Reverses 'Untethered' Suspension of BLM Methane Rule
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court dealt another major blow last night to the Trump administration's attempts to unwind Obama-era restrictions on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. -
Chemical Manufacturers Support Extending Plant Security Law
Feb 23, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decade-old program for protecting chemical facilities against potential terrorist attacks is working well and should be reauthorized for multiple years with some targeted improvements, industry officials say. -
Want Bipartisan Infrastructure? Increase Domestic Hydropower Production
Feb 23, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Bob Gallo
In his State of the Union address, President Trump pledged up to $1.5 trillion through public-private partnerships to meet the country’s infrastructure needs. -
Does Carbon Capture Have New Life after Win on Tax Break?
Feb 23, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
If you give them a tax break will they come? -
Groups Urge Congress to Drop Environmental Riders
Feb 23, 2018 | Inside EPA
A coalition of environmental and public interest groups, as well as a GOP state official cooperating with EPA on a plan for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, are urging lawmakers to scrap environmental policy riders on must-pass appropriations bills that they say are an obstacle to a fiscal year 2018 budget deal and would harm the environment. -
Judge Grills EPA on Delays in Ozone Designations
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Debra Kahn and Sean Reilly
A federal judge here yesterday questioned U.S. EPA's decision to delay a determination last year on whether the San Antonio metropolitan region meets 2015 ground-level ozone standards. -
Officials Push EPA to Reverse Decision on Conn. Petition
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
The owner of a Pennsylvania power plant can't be counted on to voluntarily curb ozone-forming pollution, two public speakers said this morning in urging U.S. EPA to reverse a preliminary decision and grant Connecticut's bid for lasting curbs on the facility's releases. -
Former Trump Aide Calls Paris Climate Accord 'a Good Republican Agreement'
Feb 22, 2018 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
The White House’s senior adviser on energy and climate change stepped down last week after being denied a full security clearance for smoking marijuana about five years ago. Now he is speaking his mind about the Paris climate agreement that President Trump has disavowed.
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(ACC Mentioned) PE, PP, PET and Recycled Prices Bounce around in January
Feb 23, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American prices for polyethylene, polypropylene and PET bottle resin hit the ground running in 2018.
Prices for PP and PET both moved up in January, while PE prices ticked down an average of 3 cents per pound. The PP hike totaled 9 cents, while the upward move for PET was 3 cents.
The PP surge mainly resulted from tightness in propylene monomer feedstock and, in some cases, for PP resin itself. North American PP prices now have increased for seven consecutive months, with those increases totaling 19.5 cents per pound. Higher domestic demand combined with feedstock and resin shortages from Hurricane Harvey have played a role in these price hikes.
The January price hike was tied to unusually cold weather in the Houston area, where large amounts of capacity for PP resin and feedstock are located. A PP line operated by Braskem Americas in La Porte, Texas, had an unplanned shutdown on Jan. 17 because of a frozen boiler transmitter.
Another PP line operated by LyondellBasell Industries in Bayport, Texas, also was down on that same date because of a power issue. Minor production issues were reported at ethylene or propylene units operated in the region by Flint Hills Resources, Huntsman Corp., Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. and Enterprise Products.
Temperatures dipped into the 20s, creating icy conditions and leading to some power outages. The cold snap marked the first time that Houston had seen temperatures in the 20s in January since 1996.
The 9-cent increase “almost entirely was cost push,” according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. “It was all driven by polymer-grade propylene. There was no [profit] margin expansion.” Improved operating conditions could lead to some of the 9 cents coming off in February, he added.
A major PP buyer on the U.S. East Coast said that supplies were tight and that his injection molding firm was “having a hard time” in sourcing rail cars of resin. The firm has been able to meet its needs, he said, but now faces a challenge in passing the increase on to its own customers.
North American PP sales essentially were flat in 2017, with domestic growth of almost 3 percent negated by a drop of more than 50 percent in export sales, according to the American Chemistry Council.PET bottle resin climbs, PE drops
PET bottle resin prices advanced an average of 3 cents per pound in January, as supplies remained a bit tight in the wake of M&G Polymers' bankruptcy-related shutdown of its 800 million-pound-capacity plant in Apple Grove, W.Va.
That plant now has been purchased by Asian PET-maker Far East New Century Corp. of Taiwan and is expected to restart, which would improve supplies for the regional market. PET prices now have increased for eight straight months, with most customers seeing 11 cents in increases since September.
The average PE price decrease for January was 3 cents per pound, due in part to lower demand. Prices for those materials had been flat in November and December. Prior to that two-month period, prices had climbed a total of 7 cents per pound between May and October.
January’s 3-cent decline was tied into lower demand and came after there was some confusion between actual market price declines and nonmarket adjustments received by some buyers, according to RTI market analyst Mike Burns.
U.S./Canadian PE sales were mixed in 2017. Sales of high and low density PE both were down for the year. HDPE in the region saw sales slump almost 4 percent, as domestic sales growth of almost 4 percent was overcome by a drop of almost 28 percent in exports.
For LDPE, sales dipped almost 1 percent, but for opposite reasons than HDPE. Domestic sales of LDPE slipped more than 2 percent, but the overall loss was softened by a gain of more than 4 percent in export sales.
The U.S./Canadian LLDPE market fared better in 2017, with sales growth of more than 1 percent. Domestic sales growth of almost 4 percent was weakened by a drop of more than 6 percent in exports.
North American PE-makers now are seeking price increases of 4 cents per pound effective Feb. 1.PVC, solid PS flat
Regional prices for PVC and solid polystyrene resins both were flat in January. PVC had dropped 1 cent in December after flat pricing in November. That decline was the first seen in regional prices since November 2016. PVC prices had moved up 3 cents in October after six straight months of flat pricing.
PVC demand has benefited from a strong U.S. construction market. U.S./Canadian PVC sales managed growth of just over 3 percent in 2017. Domestic sales growth of almost 5 percent was weakened by flat export sales.
Regional PS prices had jumped 5 cents in December after being flat in November. That hike was spurred by benzene feedstock prices, which jumped 46 cents to $3.30 per gallon, a one-month jump of 16 percent. Prior to November, PS prices had increased by 3 cents in both September and October, meaning prices surged 10 cents per pound in the final four months of 2017.
North American PS sales fell just over 2 percent in 2017. A domestic sales loss of more than 2 percent was softened by a gain of 5.5 percent in exports.
Plastics News also recently reported higher North American prices for several recycled resins. Prices have increased since October as a result of increased use of the materials to meet sustainability requirements, according to market sources.
Prices for clear recycled PET pellets and flake are up an average of 4 cents per pound in that period. Average prices for all grades of recycled polystyrene also are up 4 cents per pound.
Prices for all grades of recycled high, low and linear low density polyethylene have ticked up 5 cents per pound as well. The PetroChem Wire consulting firm said that some buyers of recycled HDPE recently agreed to meet higher offers to meet urgent spot needs.
At the macro feedstock level, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices surged almost 9 percent in January to finish near $65.75 per barrel. U.S. natural gas prices slipped about 2 percent for the month, closing near $2.90 per million British thermal units.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180223/NEWS/180229942/pe-pp-pet-and-recycled-prices-bounce-around-in-january
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(ACC Mentioned) PVC Posts Solid Sales Growth in 2017, While Results for Other Resins Are Mixed
Feb 23, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
PVC again led the way among North American resin markets in 2017, with sales growth of more than 3 percent.
Results for the year from other commodity resins were mixed, with sales of linear low density polyethylene increasing, but others showing flat results or small decreases, according to final numbers for the year from the American Chemistry Council.
U.S./Canadian PVC sales surpassed 15.8 billion pounds in 2017, due in large part to a stronger U.S. construction market. Domestic PVC sales jumped almost 5 percent, even as export sales were flat.
PVC sales into rigid pipe and tubing grew almost 6 percent for the year, with sales into film and sheet up almost 5 percent. Rigid pipe and tubing accounted for 46 percent of domestic PVC sales in 2017.
The regional PE market weathered a tough year in 2017, with sales of high and low density PE down overall and sales of LLDPE showing low single-digit growth.
U.S./Canadian HDPE sales slumped almost 4 percent in 2017 to less than 18.6 billion pounds, as domestic sales growth of almost 4 percent was wiped away by a 28 percent decline in export sales. Domestic sales growth for HDPE was led by the pipe and conduit sector, where sales surged almost 21 percent, including growth of almost 27 percent in water pipe. Pipe and conduit accounted for almost 16 percent of regional HDPE sales in 2017.
In LDPE, annual sales declined almost 1 percent to just over 7 billion pounds. A domestic sales loss of more than 2 percent was softened by growth of more than 4 percent in exports. Even with the domestic LDPE market down, sales of the material into non-packaging film grew 3 percent for the year. That category accounted for almost 6 percent of domestic LDPE sales for the year.
Sales of LLDPE in the region managed to grow 1.3 percent in 2017 to almost 14.9 billion pounds. Solid domestic sales growth of almost 4 percent was reduced by a drop of more than 6 percent in exports. Domestic sales growth for LLDPE in 2017 was fueled by food packaging film, where sales were up just over 8 percent. Food packaging film’s share of the 2017 domestic LLDPE market was more than 17 percent.
North American polypropylene sales — including Mexico — essentially were flat at just under 17.3 billion pounds for 2017. Decent domestic sales growth of almost 3 percent was wiped out by a 51 percent plunge in exports.
Regional PP markets saw solid growth in several domestic categories. Sales of the material into sheet were up almost 10 percent, with sales into injection molded housewares up almost 6 percent and into injection molded caps/closures and cups/containers each up almost 4 percent.
The North American solid polystyrene market saw a bit of a setback in 2017, with sales down more than 2 percent to just over 4.3 billion pounds. In the domestic market, sales of PS into electrical/electronic uses provided a bright spot with growth of more than 2 percent for the year.
Among smaller-volume markets tracked by ACC in 2017:
• U.S./Canadian expandable PS sales were up almost 4 percent to almost 1.1 billion pounds.
• North American polyether urethane polyols sales were down more than 5 percent to just under 3.2 billion pounds.
• U.S. MDI sales were up almost 6 percent to almost 3.2 billion pounds.
• U.S. epoxy sales were up more than 2 percent to just over 528 million pounds.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180223/NEWS/180229948/pvc-posts-solid-sales-growth-in-2017-while-results-for-other-resins
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Former US Chemical Safety Board Chairman Won't Be Prosecuted
Feb 23, 2018 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US Department of Justice decided almost a year ago not to prosecute the head of the nation’s Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for perjury, according to government documents obtained by E&E News.
Rafael Moure-Eraso led the CSB – the US agency charged with investigating chemical accidents – from June 2010 until March 2015, when he was under fire for alleged serious mismanagement. He purportedly lied during hearings convened by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in June 2014 and March 2015. At the time of the hearings in question, Moure-Eraso was facing growing congressional and White House pressure following allegations of mismanagement and misuse of private email, and other information the committee had received contradicted his testimony.
In July 2015, the Republican chairman of the oversight and government reform committee at the time and its top Democrat requested that then attorney general Loretta Lynch investigate whether Moure-Eraso committed perjury when testifying before Congress. That request went unanswered until shortly after Jeff Sessions became the new attorney general in February 2017. The case was recommended for closure the following month, and it was officially closed in April.
Moure-Eraso tells Chemistry World that he was ‘very surprised and saddened’ upon learning that his case was referred to the Department of Justice. ‘I was surprised as I testified completely and truthfully during my appearance before the oversight committee,’ says Moure-Eraso, who is now a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. He has been lecturing over the last year about process safety management at that university, and at others in Bangkok, Thailand and Colombia.
A source familiar with the CSB calls the charges against Moure-Eraso ‘really rather absurd’, and expresses surprise that it took this long for the case to be dropped. He was on the stand several hours, and the supposed lies told were ‘very minor discrepancies’, according to the source.
‘What is clear is that Moure-Eraso took a lot of controversial positions in favour of stricter regulations and adopting the European safety case model, and that engendered a lot of opposition from the chemical industry and some people in Congress,’ the source adds. He says that the CSB’s current administration, under chairwoman Vanessa Sutherland, has been less vocal on the need for new rules and focused on making recommendations following an accident. ‘It is a very pronounced change,’ the source notes.
Meanwhile, the CSB is still at the centre of a political battle. The Trump administration proposed defunding the $11 million (£8 million) agency in its last two budgets. At the same time, the CSB’s managing director, Daniel Horowitz, has been on paid administrative leave since June 2015 over accusations of mismanagement and leadership deficiencies.
Although President Trump has requested the elimination of the CSB once more, the board has again chosen to submit its own separate budget proposal. It is seeking $12.1 million for 2019 from Congress.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/former-us-chemical-safety-board-chairman-wont-be-prosecuted/3008693.article
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Ryan Zinke Credits Trump with US Oil Boom, Lower Fuel Prices
Feb 23, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By John Siciliano
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke credited President Trump on Friday with spurring on the oil and natural gas boom that began nearly a decade ago, and said the administration's deregulation and tax reform agenda helped it along.
"And the numbers will show you, we produce today about 10.3 million barrels [of oil] a day in this country. And for the first time in 60 years, we are a net exporter of liquid natural gas. And that’s President Donald Trump,” Zinke told the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Record oil production and the U.S. shift to becoming a net exporter of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, last year all occurred under Trump's watch. But the market shift that enabled it was well under way before Trump entered office.
The policy that enabled record oil production was worked out through Republican and Democratic spending bill deals during the previous administration that removed the 40-year ban on oil exports, which has helped boost oil production from fracking by opening up a global market for the fuel.
Oil prices have risen during Trump's time in office, which has made it more profitable for drillers to increase production. Oil and fuel prices have also gone up under the president's watch.
The LNG market has occurred primarily as a function of a market that spurred development of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that began nearly a decade ago. And even though Zinke is looking to get out of the way of industry on public lands, much of the shale revolution occurred on private lands.
Zinke also touted that people are paying less for gas at the pump under the new administration and the president's tax bill.
"Does everyone like the tax bill that Donald Trump produced?" Zinke asked to applause. "As good as the tax bill is, when America pulls up to a pump, and they fill their car up, under the previous administration it was 2 bucks, 4 bucks, 6 bucks, a $100 dollars to fill a car," he said.
"American energy has delivered," he continued. "Now it's $60. That’s $40 you have in your pocket — every American that would fill up at a pump station— that you wouldn’t have. So, America economy is run on made in America energy and it should be."
The Energy Information Administration in its latest fuel price report released earlier this week does not jibe with Zinke's assessment. The analysis arm of the Energy Department showed that although gasoline pump prices were down from a week ago, they were 26 cents higher than during the same time last year, a month after President Trump was sworn into the Oval Office.
"The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price dropped 5 cents from the previous week to $2.56 per gallon on February 19, 2018, up 26 cents from the same time last year," the EIA's Week in Petroleum report read.
Likewise, the nation's average diesel fuel price dropped nearly 4 cents to $3.03 per gallon on Feb. 19, which is still a whopping 46 cents higher than a year ago, the report stated.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ryan-zinke-credits-trump-with-us-oil-boom-lower-fuel-prices/article/2649859
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Drillers Move to Defend Rollback of Fracking Rule
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The oil and gas industry is heading to court to defend the Trump administration's recent rollback of hydraulic fracturing safeguards.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance yesterday moved to join the Bureau of Land Management in fending off new litigation from California and environmentalists seeking to revive the agency's Obama-era fracking rule.
California and a coalition of environmental groups sued BLM and the Interior Department last month for rescinding the years-in-the-making regulation. The embattled rule — finalized in 2015 and tied up in litigation for years — set new environmental and safety standards for fracked wells on public and tribal lands.
But the Trump administration and the oil and gas industry have argued that the scrapped rule was duplicative of existing federal and state requirements. IPAA and the Western Energy Alliance say their members — independent producers — will suffer the most if the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California heeds environmental calls to restore it.
"It is these exploration and development companies that Plaintiff's lawsuit will most significantly affect," the groups told the court yesterday. "Contemporary oil and natural gas development almost invariably involves hydraulic fracturing. ... The Associations' members are therefore keenly interested in their ability to design and implement hydraulic fracturing operations in a cost-effective, environmentally sensitive manner."
Supporters of the Obama rule maintain that it provided commonsense safeguards to address the rapid spread of fracking and horizontal drilling over the past decade. BLM has estimated that fracking is used on 90 percent of wells on federal lands.
According to the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and several other environmental and tribal advocacy groups, the Trump administration's rollback of the regulation violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and other laws. They're asking the court to fully reinstate the fracking rule (Energywire, Jan. 2).
Judges in the Northern California district have been at the center of several other disputes over the Trump administration's attempts to streamline fossil fuel development on public lands, including litigation over Obama-era reforms to how royalties are calculated and restrictions on methane emissions.
Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma has criticized environmentalists for their choice of venue, arguing that the case should instead be heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, which handled the original industry and state challenges to the Obama rule (Energywire, Jan. 25).
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories/1060074551/feed
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Court Reverses 'Untethered' Suspension of BLM Methane Rule
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A federal court dealt another major blow last night to the Trump administration's attempts to unwind Obama-era restrictions on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Bureau of Land Management did not justify its decision to postpone core provisions of its 2016 Methane and Waste Prevention Rule.
"The BLM's reasoning behind the Suspension Rule is untethered to evidence contradicting the reasons for implementing the Waste Prevention Rule, and so plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits," Judge William Orrick wrote in a late-night opinion.
"They have shown irreparable injury caused by the waste of publicly owned natural gas, increased air pollution and associated health impacts, and exacerbated climate impacts," he wrote.
Orrick issued a preliminary injunction requiring BLM to fully enforce the regulation. The agency just released a broader proposal for a permanent rollback of most of the rule's provisions, but that plan won't be finalized until April, at the earliest.
The court's decision — the second time the court has blocked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's efforts to sideline the methane rule — is a tremendous victory for environmentalists and states that supported the Obama-era plan to reduce venting, flaring and leakage of the potent greenhouse gas on public and tribal lands.
California, New Mexico and a coalition of environmental groups filed suit in December when the Trump administration suspended key provisions that required oil and gas drillers to craft waste minimization plans, use methane leak detection technology and cut back on flaring, among other measures.
They have defended the Obama measure as a necessary effort to avoid the waste of natural resources and reel in planet-warming emissions (Energywire, Dec. 20, 2017).
The court's analysis
Supporters of the Obama rule made several arguments against BLM's suspension:
BLM did not provide a reasoned analysis for the rollback.
BLM relied on a faulty cost-benefit analysis.
Postponing the rule prevents BLM from meeting its statutory duties.
The agency's decisionmaking process was unfair.
Orrick, an Obama appointee, agreed with most of the claims. He wrote last night that BLM never explained much of its reasoning for the suspension, including its claim that the methane rule would burden domestic energy production and was not in line with President Trump's 2017 "energy independence" executive order.
He also noted that BLM offered conflicting statements that compliance costs would disproportionately affect small businesses but weren't significant enough to trigger additional review known as a "regulatory flexibility analysis."
"BLM does not explain how or why it could conclude that the calculated costs could be so insignificant as not to unnecessarily or disproportionately burden small entities within the meaning of the RFA, and simultaneously conclude that there would be a disproportionate effect for other purposes," he wrote. "Nor could it, as these two positions are entirely inconsistent."
Orrick said "perhaps the BLM's best justification" for the suspension is its uncertainty about whether the agency has authority to enforce the Obama rule. Critics of the 2016 measure have said it amounts to an air quality regulation better suited to U.S. EPA and state officials. A federal judge in Wyoming flagged similar concerns a year ago but did not decide the issue.
Still, Orrick found, the suspension wasn't actually tailored with that concern in mind, so it's not an appropriate justification. In sum, he ruled, BLM's reasoning for suspending the rule did not appear to meet the legal standard for changing a regulation.
"New facts or evidence coming to light, considerations that BLM left out in its previous analysis, or some other concrete basis supported in the record — these are the types of 'good reasons' that the law seeks," the opinion says. "Instead, it appears that BLM is simply 'casually ignoring' all of its previous findings and arbitrarily changing course."
The court went on to criticize BLM's regulatory impact analysis for using inconsistent assumptions to measure costs and benefits, and Orrick found that the agency had unfairly ignored public comments related to the costs of the rule. However, he did not agree with the plaintiffs' argument that BLM's suspension violates its legal duty to prevent the waste of resources.
Environmentalists celebrated the court's decision last night, declaring an all-caps victory on Twitter.
"VICTORY! U.S. District Court enjoins @SecretaryZinke's bogus 'suspension' of BLM's methane waste rule," Earthjustice attorney Ted Zukoski posted. "So the 2016 rule to prevent waste of taxpayer's money & polluting methane is back in effect."
States and the oil and gas industry are expected to weigh in today. The Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance may return to the court handling the original challenge to the Obama rule to try to block implementation of the rule.Staying in Calif.
Last night's decision marks the second time the California court has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to sideline the rule after the court in October rejected an earlier effort to freeze it (Energywire, Oct. 5, 2017). That ruling is now under review in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Notably, BLM and states that supported the suspension had asked to transfer the case to a potentially friendlier venue at the federal district court in Wyoming, which fielded earlier challenges to the original Obama rule.
Orrick denied the request yesterday, acknowledging that the cases involve related rulemaking issues but noting distinctions in the legal questions. The Wyoming case focuses on whether the original Obama rule exceeded BLM's authority, he wrote, while this case focuses on whether the agency justified its regulatory freeze.
"Because Defendants have not shown that the convenience or interest of justice factors weigh strongly in favor of transfer, I will not disturb Plaintiffs' choice of venue," he said in last night's opinion. "The most expedient result is for the case to remain in this district."
The Northern California district is handling several other challenges to recent deregulatory efforts affecting public lands, including litigation over the rollback of Obama-era reforms to how royalties are calculated and BLM's rescission of its fracking rule.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060074579
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Chemical Manufacturers Support Extending Plant Security Law
Feb 23, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decade-old program for protecting chemical facilities against potential terrorist attacks is working well and should be reauthorized for multiple years with some targeted improvements, industry officials say.
The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program “has helped make our industry and communities more secure,” Kirsten Meskill, director of corporate security for BASF, told the House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Protection on Feb. 15.
The panel held the hearing to gather industry input on CFATS as lawmakers prepare to extend and possibly revise the counterterrorism initiative that began in 2007. The program, which Congress overhauled in 2014, is set to expire at the end of the year.
CFATS applies to facilities that make, use, or store threshold quantities of any one of more than 300 hazardous chemicals. Facilities that qualify must assess their risks, develop site-security plans for DHS approval, and then put the security measures in place. About 3,500 facilities are currently regulated under the program.
“The 2014 CFATS reauthorization made critical improvements to the program that DHS has done an excellent job in implementing,” said Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry trade group. Improvements included the establishment of an expedited system for approving site-security plans at lower-risk facilities and streamlining the vetting process for personnel, he said.
As Congress considers potential changes to the CFATS program, BASF’s Meskill said DHS should be more transparent with facility operators about how risk determinations are made.
DHS divides facilities into four tiers of decreasing risk based on the potential consequences that could result from a terrorist attack. Facilities placed in the higher-risk tiers must implement more stringent security measures than those in the lower tiers.
“More often than not, facility operators are left in the dark as to why they are tiered at a specified level, when in fact it is the operator who has the overall responsibility and authority for making security-risk-management decisions for that facility,” Meskill said.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i9/Chemical-manufacturers-support-extending-plant.html
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Want Bipartisan Infrastructure? Increase Domestic Hydropower Production
Feb 23, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Bob Gallo
In his State of the Union address, President Trump pledged up to $1.5 trillion through public-private partnerships to meet the country’s infrastructure needs. Identifying current problems, the President said, “America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?”
My colleagues and I hoped that President Trump would cite hydropower as an example of the byzantine process infrastructure projects must go through to become a reality. That’s because the same length of time required to build a road in the U.S. – 10 years – is standard to simply license a hydropower facility. Even a nuclear power plant can be licensed more quickly.
Our optimism was buoyed by the fact that the president is a big fan of hydropower, the original renewable energy. Shortly after taking office, he said “You know, hydropower is a great, great form of power. But we don’t even talk about it anymore because the permits are virtually impossible. [Hydropower] is one of the best things you can do, but we don’t even talk about it anymore.”
Earlier this year, the president made headlines when he praised Norway’s reliance on hydropower while questioning why the United States doesn’t follow suit. “I wish we’d do some of that… But hydropower is fantastic, and it’s a great asset that you have,” President Trump remarked to Norway’s Prime Minister during a joint press conference at the White House.
President Trump is putting his affection for hydropower into action. The administration’s recently released infrastructure plan incentivizes the development of effective and efficient water infrastructure, streamlines the federal procurement process, and ensures life-cycle management at hydropower facilities. These proposals are a good start to what I hope becomes a renewed investment in and support for domestic hydropower resources.
The president should have bipartisan support for hydropower reforms at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Both the House and Senate are working on legislation that would improve the licensing process for hydropower facilities – and doing so with the votes of both Democrats and Republicans. Late last year, the House passed legislation that would streamline the hydropower licensing process, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee continues to work on similar legislation as a part of a comprehensive energy bill.
The president’s praise for hydropower is perhaps surprisingly similar to the ranking Democrat helping to lead those efforts in the Senate, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. Cantwell has said, “Emissions-free hydropower provides close to three-quarters of Washington state’s electricity and keeps our rates among the lowest in the country… more hydropower capability means an increased supply of affordable clean energy, which helps make Washington state a leading place to live and do business.”
In a town where partisanship often reigns supreme, hydropower is one of the few issues that can unite legislators with otherwise disparate views on so many issues. The president and Congress have a real opportunity to work together to pass needed legislation to fix aging infrastructure, including our hydropower fleet.
This opportunity comes at a critical time.
Over the next five years, approximately 24 percent of the over 1,000 non-federal hydropower projects will be up for re-licensing through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These projects represent a significant portion of the country’s existing energy portfolio – energy we risk losing if the licensing process is not reformed and owner/operators decide to simply walk away from the projects.
These delays have an impact on future projects, too. The Department of Energy estimated that we could increase domestic production of hydropower by 50 percent through a combination of new projects at non-powered dams, upgrades at existing facilities, and construction of pumped storage hydropower facilities. That’s over 50 gigawatts of energy, capable of powering tens of millions of homes and businesses, that we aren’t utilizing. But this potential won’t be reached without congressional action.
What happens when we increase hydropower production? We create jobs from coast to coast, both in the extensive hydropower supply chain and at the facilities that will last for decades once built, while producing the clean energy needed to power the future.
The president and Congress are on the same page when it comes to hydropower. They should work together to ensure it remains front and center in any infrastructure bill that becomes law.
Bob Gallo is President Emeritus, External Affairs and Government Relations for York, Pennsylvania-based Voith Hydro, Inc. Voith is a leading worldwide manufacturer of hydropower generating equipment.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/375239-want-bipartisan-infrastructure-increase-domestic
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Does Carbon Capture Have New Life after Win on Tax Break?
Feb 23, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
If you give them a tax break will they come?
Two weeks after Congress passed a budget deal that more than double the tax credits earned carbon capture projects, the question hanging over the burgeoning industry is whether this will translate into actual construction.
At a meeting hosted by the Carbon Capture Coalition in downtown Washington Friday morning, advocates of the technology were optimistic.
"Now, with 45Q [the tax credit], the economics are looking very attractive," said Roger Ballentine, a consultant and board member of 8 Rivers Capital, which is financing a carbon capture project near Houston. "People are asking should I do this. Before those conversations weren't even happening."
Carbon capture, by which carbon dioxide emissions are separated out from air emissions to be stored or used for something else, has struggled to date. The costs have proven high so, and beyond speeding up production in oil fields the greenhouse gas doesn't have much application.
But there are some success stories with NRG Energy building the Petra Nova carbon capture system at one of its coal plants outside Houston. Last year it saved 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere, the equivalent of taking more than 200,000 cars off the road, according to an executive from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which developed the project with NRG.
And then the technology firm NET Power is building a small natural gas-fired power plant in La Porte that would emit no greenhouse gas. It's only a demonstration project - scheduled to come online later this year - but with the enhanced tax credit the ability to scale-up to a commercial project is looking more likely, said Ballentine - 8 Rivers is one of the owners of NET Power.
At its event Friday, the coalition announced a dozen more groups and companies had joined, including Shell and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America.
"The legislation passed two weeks ago, and by that afternoon I was getting calls from companies talking about projects they were thinking about taking off the shelf," said Brad Crabtree, a vice president at the think tank Great Plains Institute.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Does-carbon-capture-have-new-life-after-win-on-12703523.php
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Groups Urge Congress to Drop Environmental Riders
Feb 23, 2018 | Inside EPA
A coalition of environmental and public interest groups, as well as a GOP state official cooperating with EPA on a plan for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, are urging lawmakers to scrap environmental policy riders on must-pass appropriations bills that they say are an obstacle to a fiscal year 2018 budget deal and would harm the environment.
The Clean Budget Coalition is planning to meet with House and Senate lawmakers in advance of any omnibus FY spending bill that lawmakers must approve before a March 23 deadline, where they plan to oppose hundreds of amendments, including numerous environmental policy riders.
“We are absolutely planning to keep talking to elected officials” to “let them know this is a problem,” a coalition source says, adding that there are hundreds of riders attached to funding bills. “You shouldn't be using spending bills” to advance policies that would not pass otherwise, and particularly not to roll public health and environmental protections.
In a Feb. 21 statement, the coalition says it opposes numerous “anti-environment riders,” including measures that would ease the Trump administration's roll back of EPA's Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, block the Justice Department from requiring payments to third parties in settlements deals, and block a requirement for the oil and gas operations to limit methane emissions on federal lands, part of an Obama-era Bureau of Land Management rule.
“These measures threaten working people, consumers, women, children, civil rights, our environment and our economy, and they must be removed from any final funding package,” the statement says. The coalition is composed of nearly 200 groups, including Public Citizen, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Earthjustice.
Meanwhile, Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) is urging Senate leaders to reject a House-passed budget rider that would block enforcement of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), a cleanup plan developed under the Clean Water Act, and that includes various accountability mechanisms.
In a Feb. 13 letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Hogan opposes an amendment that Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) successfully attached to the House version of EPA's spending bill that would limit use of EPA funds for certain regulatory actions in six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
“If it becomes law, this amendment will prohibit the use of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funds for enforcement policies and procedures that are necessary for achieving pollution reductions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” Hogan says. “While I strongly support the multi-jurisdictional approach to achieving clean water -- which is working -- it would be unwise to effectively remove the ability of the Clean Water Act to function as designed.”
In asking that congressional leaders oppose the amendment, Hogan notes that he chairs two state coalitions aimed at cleaning up the Bay.
The Chesapeake Executive Council, which includes six governors, and the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which represents the Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia state legislatures.
When he served as Oklahoma Attorney General, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt joined a state coalition that unsuccessfully sued to overturn the TMDL, charging it was unlawful.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/groups-urge-congress-drop-environmental-riders
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Judge Grills EPA on Delays in Ozone Designations
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Debra Kahn and Sean Reilly
A federal judge here yesterday questioned U.S. EPA's decision to delay a determination last year on whether the San Antonio metropolitan region meets 2015 ground-level ozone standards.
During oral arguments, the agency said it needs more time to finish analyzing that region, as well as the rest of the nearly 500 counties still awaiting ground-level ozone designations under the 2015 standards.
Ozone, the prime ingredient in smog, is tied to asthma attacks in children and wider-ranging problems in people with chronic lung diseases.
Under the Obama administration, EPA set the 70 parts per billion standard in October 2015 on the grounds that a stricter threshold was needed to adequately protect public health in light of fresh research on ozone's dangers.
In November, EPA deemed the bulk of the country in attainment for that standard but delayed decisions for areas in Texas, California and other states that are unlikely to meet the threshold.
The attainment designations are a significant first step in enforcement because they start the clock for states to come up with cleanup plans for areas out of compliance.
Yesterday's hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California combined two separate lawsuits challenging the delay: one by a coalition of public health and environmental groups and the other by California and more than a dozen other Democratic-led states.
Besides asking Judge Haywood Gilliam to order EPA to make all remaining designations by April 30, environmental and public health groups want those decisions to take effect immediately for compliance purposes. Typically, EPA allows for a month or two of lag time.
The eight-county San Antonio area requires even more time, until Aug. 10, federal lawyers said, because the agency is waiting until Feb. 28 for Texas officials to submit additional information.
San Antonio's status has been particularly thorny. State regulators last fall backed away from their original recommendation to deem the most heavily populated of those counties in nonattainment, right before EPA's Oct. 1 deadline (Greenwire, Jan. 22).
Gilliam quizzed the federal government on why EPA would have taken Texas officials' move so seriously. "Why is that entitled to the EPA's respect or the court's respect?" he asked. "The deadline was Oct. 1. Did they really need to show up Sept. 27 and delay the process?"
Justice Department attorney Simi Bhat said the question of Texas' role was irrelevant because EPA was not ready to issue the designation at the time.
"Had EPA begun its technical analysis before and was ready to issue a proposed designation, I think that would be a valid question," she said. "The timeline now as we stand here is being driven by EPA's need to conduct the technical analysis."
EPA air chief Bill Wehrum filed a declaration with the court defending the Aug. 10 time frame. He cited the need to analyze Texas' data and hold another public comment period.
Environmental plaintiffs' lawyers jumped on Bhat's assertion. "This is the first time the agency has said it was sitting on its hands for the last year and a half with regard to San Antonio," said Seth Johnson, an attorney with Earthjustice. "That's sort of incredible they were doing absolutely nothing for the last year and a half."'Process has to be completed'
Gilliam cast a wide net on the rest of the designations, probing into whether he had the authority to order EPA to publish the full set of designations immediately despite the agency's insistence on the need to incorporate a round of public comments, which ended Feb. 5.
The states are asking that the agency be required to make all remaining designations immediately except in instances where EPA intends to make changes to the recommendations turned in by individual states.
"I can order you, couldn't I, to proceed whether or not you've processed the comments because the comment process was gratuitous and is delaying the implementation of the already overdue designations?" Gilliam asked.
Bhat said that none of the potential designations was totally undisputed and that it would be "arguably indefensible" to forgo responding to comments. "There are no areas where EPA can finalize designation without responding to public comment," she said.
Even in cases where EPA and the state or tribe in question agree on the scope of the designation, she said, "there is no subset of areas where there just wasn't any public comment that EPA needs to respond to."
Gilliam also questioned whether it would make a substantive difference if he agreed with the plaintiffs that EPA must publish the designations immediately, rather than giving the agency until April 30.
"Even if I issue the order in two weeks, it seems to me we're talking about a difference of seven weeks, which is not generally the sort of time frame I see when I read these cases," he said. "We're looking at a relatively limited difference in the time given the commitment the EPA has made to this April 30 deadline."
Plaintiffs warned that EPA might ask for additional time past April to process the comments. Bhat said the agency would reserve the right to ask for an extension "if there's something unexpected that happens."
"I suppose you can reserve whatever right you want, but I would be very disappointed, even if I go with the April deadline, to say, 'Let's stretch it out,'" Gilliam said. "At some point, the process has to be completed."
Most of the same plaintiffs are also involved in a related tangle of litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Those lawsuits date back to last summer, when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sought to impose a blanket one-year delay that would have pushed back all attainment designations until October 2018.
Pruitt later dropped that idea. As a result, EPA attorneys are asking the appeals court to dismiss those legal challenges as moot.
The American Lung Association and other plaintiffs say the litigation should be kept alive until the agency completes all designations. The appeals court recently ordered EPA to provide a status report by May 15 (Greenwire, Feb. 7).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/23/stories/1060074635
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Officials Push EPA to Reverse Decision on Conn. Petition
Feb 23, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
The owner of a Pennsylvania power plant can't be counted on to voluntarily curb ozone-forming pollution, two public speakers said this morning in urging U.S. EPA to reverse a preliminary decision and grant Connecticut's bid for lasting curbs on the facility's releases.
"Emissions reductions must be real, permanent and enforceable," Ric Pirolli, director of air planning for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said during the first part of a public hearing on the proposed decision.
Instead, Pirolli said, EPA officials denied Connecticut's petition on the assumption that a steep drop in emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the Brunner Island Steam Electric Station last summer will continue in the future. That cut came after the plant switched from coal to natural gas as a fuel source for the four-month summer ozone season.
While EPA predicts that the owner, Talen Energy Corp., will continue that practice in coming years, that might not be the case if fuel prices change and coal again becomes preferable to natural gas, Pirolli said.
Making a similar argument was Janice Nolen, assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association. While the advocacy group is "pleased" that NOx emissions at the southeastern Pennsylvania plant tumbled by some 77 percent last year, "that change would not have occurred" without Connecticut's petition, Nolen said. Absent EPA action, she added, "that change is not enforceable."
In sunshine, nitrogen oxides react with volatile organic compounds to form ground-level ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog.
Connecticut had brought the Clean Air Act "good neighbor" petition in June 2016, arguing that pollution from the Brunner Island plant was helping to tip the state into nonattainment for the EPA's 2008 ozone standard of 75 parts per billion.
The state has the Northeast's highest ozone levels, Pirolli said today, with one monitoring station showing concentrations — technically known as the "design value" — of 84 ppb, well above both the 2008 threshold and the more stringent 70-ppb standard set in 2015.
After Connecticut's petition languished for almost a year with no action from EPA, the state sued last May to force a decision. EPA issued its proposed thumbs-down last week after senior U.S. District Judge Warren Eginton of Connecticut ordered the agency to give a final answer within 60 days (Greenwire, Feb. 19).
Under Eginton's order, that deadline is April 8, said Reid Harvey, one of three agency officials who heard today's testimony. Written public comments on the proposed decision are due by March 26.
The hearing's morning portion lasted barely 20 minutes; Nolen and Pirolli were the only registered speakers. The hearing was scheduled to resume early this afternoon, with Hannah Ashenafi of the Maryland Department of the Environment scheduled to speak.
Ashenafi, a regulatory and compliance engineer with the department's air office, also urged an EPA reversal, according to a copy of her statement provided in advance.
Under a recent deal with the Sierra Club, Talen has agreed to burn only natural gas at the 1,400-megawatt plant during the summer ozone season starting in 2023 and then completely phase out coal by the end of 2028 (Greenwire, Feb. 14).
In its proposed denial, Ashenafi said, EPA forecasts that all Connecticut ozone monitors will show compliance with the 2008 ozone standard by 2023. Even if those projections pan out, she said, there are still five ozone seasons from this year through 2022 "in which Connecticut will continue to be affected by interstate ozone pollution."
Maryland is similarly suing to compel an EPA decision on its own good neighbor petition alleging that NOx emissions from 19 power plants in five states are undercutting its ability to meet the 2008 ozone standard (E&E News PM, Sept. 27, 2017). The Brunner Island plant is not among those targeted in the petition.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/23/stories/1060074631
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Former Trump Aide Calls Paris Climate Accord 'a Good Republican Agreement'
Feb 22, 2018 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
The White House’s senior adviser on energy and climate change stepped down last week after being denied a full security clearance for smoking marijuana about five years ago. Now he is speaking his mind about the Paris climate agreement that President Trump has disavowed.
“I’m going to say something controversial,” the former adviser, George David Banks, said in an interview. “The Paris agreement is a good Republican agreement. It’s everything the Bush administration wanted.”
Mr. Banks stood by Mr. Trump’s decision last summer to withdraw the United States from the global accord, despite having urged him behind the scenes to remain in. Since then, a large part of his work as the White House adviser on international energy issues has been to quietly seek ways that the United States might rejoin the deal.
That came to an abrupt end last week when Mr. Banks resigned after being told he would not be granted a full security clearance. In a wide-ranging interview days after leaving his position, Mr. Banks spoke about the surprise of being told that the three or four times he had smoked marijuana between 2009 and 2013, which he had self-reported to the F.B.I. in April 2017, were the reason for the security rejection.
He also spoke about his efforts to persuade Mr. Trump to remain open-minded about the Paris agreement, and the likelihood of the United States formally rejoining the accord during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
“A lot can happen between now and 2020,” Mr. Banks said, referring to the date when countries can formally leave the Paris agreement. He pointed to the president’s recent comment, which he made during a news conference with Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, that “we could conceivably go back in” to the deal.
“He’s still thinking about it,” Mr. Banks said. “I think he wants to keep the option alive.”
When Mr. Banks joined the White House in February 2017 to serve on both the National Security Council and National Economic Council, the fight was just heating up over whether to remain in the accord or “cancel” it, as Mr. Trump had promised to do on the campaign trail.
As on other issues, including trade and immigration, the Trump White House was divided between moderates and hard-liners. Gary D. Cohn, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, favored upholding the agreement. The charge to withdraw was led by the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, and by Steve Bannon, who was Mr. Trump’s chief strategist at the time.
Mr. Banks said he seized on other comments Mr. Trump had made during the campaign — that he would “renegotiate” a Paris deal — hoping there might be an opening to persuade the president to stay in. He made the case then, and continues to now, that the United States could simply weaken the target that former President Barack Obama had pledged — to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 — while still remaining a member.
Mr. Trump ultimately rejected that argument, and declared in a ceremony in the Rose Garden last year that the Paris agreement “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” The United States, he said, would immediately stop working toward its emissions target and would stopfunding efforts to help developing countries tackle climate change. Mr. Trump has said several times since that he might reconsider his position if new, unspecified terms are made available.
Previously the executive vice president of the American Council for Capital Formation, a business-oriented think tank, Mr. Banks began his career as an economic analyst at the C.I.A. He served in the State Department and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, both under former President George W. Bush.
In the aftermath of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first United Nations-led climate agreement (which the United States signed but did not ratify), he had a hand in helping the Bush administration outline what a climate deal would need to look like to win American support. It was an effort, he said, that would help shape his outlook on the Paris deal.
The Senate in 1997 unanimously rejected the Kyoto Protocol because it demanded legally binding emissions cuts from industrialized countries while allowing developing nations to act voluntarily. For any future deal to be acceptable, Congress instructed, it would need to hold all countries equally legally accountable for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions goals offered by nations would need to be voluntary and “bottom up” — that is, not dictated by the United Nations but rather devised domestically so they could be enforceable at home.
Those are essentially the parameters of the Paris agreement that the Obama administration negotiated with nearly 200 nations and finalized in 2015. “It’s a climate policy based on U.S. national interest that the Bush team started and the Obama team kept,” Mr. Banks said.
He called Mr. Obama’s emissions pledge “awful,” describing it as unrealistically high. He also criticized the Obama administration for failing to consult with Congress or industry in devising it. But, he said, “I think probably the United States got the best deal it could as a framework.”
Democrats and others who shaped the Paris agreement under the Obama administration argued the target was the same one the House of Representatives approved as part of climate legislation in 2009. As for the terms of the accord, they agreed with Mr. Banks, up to a point. The Obama administration was able to convince other countries to embrace the Bush-era terms, they said, precisely because it put forward an ambitious target that showed the world that America, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in history, was serious about tackling climate change.
“Paris fixes the problems Republicans had with the Kyoto Protocol — all countries are in, and each country picks its own target,” said Susan Biniaz, a former State Department legal adviser who worked on climate negotiations under both parties beginning in 1989. “On top of that, the targets aren’t legally binding. It’s what we who worked for the Bush administration tried to get, but it probably took a Democratic administration with more climate credibility to achieve it.”
Those who oppose the Paris agreement and reject mainstream climate science challenged Mr. Banks’s assessment.
“The Paris agreement was flawed from the beginning — a shortsighted approach that set unattainable targets for the United States while not holding international partners to the same standards,” said Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who has called climate change a hoax. “President Trump was right to withdraw from it.”
The White House did not respond to a request to comment on Mr. Banks’s views.
Mr. Banks acknowledged that his was the minority position in an administration that ultimately was eager to keep Mr. Trump’s campaign promise and to undo Mr. Obama’s broader climate change agenda. Still, he insisted that Mr. Trump remains open to returning to the Paris agreement.
Mr. Banks argues that it would be in the interest of the United States, and even of fossil fuel industries, for America to rejoin the international discussion about curbing greenhouse gases. “The climate agenda is not going to go away any time soon, and if you’re not engaged aggressively, actively, there are going to be policies that are detrimental to the United States,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/climate/george-david-banks.html
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