Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 2/26/18
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EPA Chief Living Large on Taxpayer’s Dime
Feb 26, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis and Bill Walker
In his first year as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has spent almost a quarter of a million dollars on first-class seats, military and charter jets, a private phone booth and other luxuries. -
EPA Publishes TSCA Fees Proposed Rule; Comments Due April 27, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On February 26, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its proposed fees rule entitled User Fees for the Administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as permissible under TSCA Section 26(b). 83 Fed. Reg. 8212. -
US EPA Round-Up
Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
The US EPA has extended the comment period on a proposal to allow a new use of a chemical that poses potential workplace hazards. -
What Poisons Are in Your Body?
Feb 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Nicholas Kristof
Our bodies are full of poisons from products we use every day. -
Irish Chemicals Sector Could Face Post-Brexit Slump – Report
Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Regulatory divergence between EU and UK chemical laws after Brexit could reduce Ireland’s export volumes in the sector, according to an Irish government report. -
Canadian Draft Assessment Proposes Clearing Three Fatty Amides
Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Canada has proposed concluding that three fatty amides are not a threat to human health or the environment, based on the results of a draft screening assessment. -
Shell Sees Potential LNG Export Shortfall as Global Demand Surges
Feb 26, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Natural gas export trade last year grew by 29 million metric tons (mmt) to 293 mmt, up 29 mmt from 2016, Royal Dutch Shell plc said Monday. -
Transport Safety Rules Sidelined Indefinitely Under Trump as Part of a Sweeping Retreat in Regulations
Feb 26, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
On a clear, dry June evening in 2015, cars and trucks rolled slowly in a herky-jerky backup ahead of an Interstate 75 construction zone in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Barreling toward them: an 18-ton tractor-trailer going about 80 mph. -
Trump Is Attacking the Paris Climate Pact Again. Here's Why
Feb 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
Speaking in front of the political equivalent of a home crowd, President Trump told a cheering room of conservatives Friday what he really felt about the Paris Agreement: It's not about climate; it's about winning.
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EPA Chief Living Large on Taxpayer’s Dime
Feb 26, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis and Bill Walker
In his first year as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has spent almost a quarter of a million dollars on first-class seats, military and charter jets, a private phone booth and other luxuries.
That’s our money. That’s your money. That’s money the EPA could spend on protecting lead-poisoned kids, keeping chicken poop out of drinking water, or controlling deadly toxic chemicals in consumer products.
The Environmental Integrity Project obtained government records showing that Pruitt and top staff racked up more than $197,000 in travel costs from March through August of 2017. In less than one month last year, the tab was $90,000. This included $1,641 for Pruitt’s first-class seat from Washington to New York – a flight of about 90 minutes – and more than $36,000 for a military jet to fly the 589 miles between Cincinnati and New York.
The EPA’s inspector general is investigating both Pruitt’s travel expenses and his purchase of the $25,000 private phone booth. Last week, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee demanded that the EPA turn over all records related to Pruitt’s use of private aircraft and first-class seats on commercial flights.
Pruitt has said he needs to fly first class because he has unpleasant encounters with other passengers who don’t like his systematic dismantling of environmental and public health regulations – or as Time magazine put it, “because people are mean to him in coach.”It would be cheaper to get him a companion animal to protect him from the unruly masses in the back of the plane.
In an op-ed for The Hill, Keith Gaby of the Environmental Defense Fund wrote that Pruitt has long had “a deep sense of entitlement” that holding high government office is about perks, not public service:
Pruitt is accustomed to conventions at fancy hotels paid for oil and gas companies who have funded his political rise. It seems likely that someone who had always used his position to add a little style to his life didn’t think it a big deal to get some extra leg room and a free glass of champagne on the taxpayers’ dime.
Here’s some of the other things Pruitt’s been doing with our money:He took a government jet from Tulsa, Okla., to Guymon, Okla., in July, at the cost of $14,434. That’s just one of his frequent taxpayer-funded trips back to the state where he was once attorney general, fueling speculation that he wants to run for the Senate or governor.He hired 30 body guards for his 24/7 security detail, which CNN estimates will cost taxpayers $2 million a year. Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy, had one security guard with her while she commuted to and from work, and three to accompany her when she traveled outside of Washington.He had “access control card readers” installed outside his office – to the tune of $15,780. Both McCarthy and another former EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, told CNN they kept their office doors unlocked.
Fifteen thousand dollars here, $2 million there: It adds up.
Pruitt is treating the U.S. treasury like a spoiled kid abusing his parents’ credit card. Meanwhile, he’s gutting the EPA’s ability to protect the public from toxic pollution, dirty air and contaminated water. Of course, the air and water quality is much different in a first-class cabin at 30,000 feet, which is where Pruitt seems to spend much of his time.
Even compared to other members of President Trump’s cabinet who like to fly high on taxpayer dollars, Pruitt’s travel spending is indefensible. It’s time to send him home to Oklahoma for good. A one-way ticket from Washington to Tulsa is about $300 – in coach.
https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2018/02/epa-chief-living-large-taxpayer-s-dime#.WpQ-7Gpua6I
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EPA Publishes TSCA Fees Proposed Rule; Comments Due April 27, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On February 26, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its proposed fees rule entitled User Fees for the Administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as permissible under TSCA Section 26(b). 83 Fed. Reg. 8212. The rule as proposed will set user fees applicable to any person required to submit information to EPA under TSCA Section 4 or a notice, including an exemption or other information, to be reviewed by the Administrator under TSCA Section 5, or who manufactures (including imports) a chemical substance that is the subject of a risk evaluation under TSCA Section 6(b). The notice of proposed rulemaking provides a description of proposed TSCA fees and fee categories for fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021, and explains the methodology by which the proposed TSCA user fees were determined and would be determined for subsequent fiscal years. In proposing these new TSCA user fees, EPA also proposes amending long standing user fee regulations governing the review of premanufacture notices, exemption applications and notices, and significant new use notices. Comments on the proposed rule are due April 27, 2018.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-publishes-tsca-fees-proposed-rule-comments-due-april-27-2018
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Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Snur comment period extended after protestThe US EPA has extended the comment period on a proposal to allow a new use of a chemical that poses potential workplace hazards. The move is apparently a response to sharp criticism from NGO the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the EDF, complained that giving only 15 days to comment on an amendment to a significant new use order (Snur) is "completely illegal" under EPA regulations.
On 26 February, the agency published a notice announcing an extension from 23 February to 12 March.
The EPA approved the use of oxazolidine, 3,3′-methylenebis[5-methyl- as a metalworking fluid in September 2012. The new proposal, originally published on 8 February, concerns its use as an anti-corrosive agent in oilfield operations and hydraulic fluids, for which the agency plans to require protective measures.
The agency has also added documentation to the public docket.TSCA fees proposal published
The EPA has formally published its proposal for collecting industry fees to help cover the cost of chemical reviews under the revised TSCA. The plan, which had been disseminated in prepublication form, appears in the 26 February Federal Register.
Public comment on the proposal, which would collect the highest amount for risk assessment of existing chemicals, will be accepted until 27 April.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64336/us-epa-round-up
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What Poisons Are in Your Body?
Feb 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Nicholas Kristof
Our bodies are full of poisons from products we use every day. I know – I’ve had my urine tested for them. But before I get into all that, let’s do a quick check for poisons that might be in your body.
Here are 12 chemicals found in these everyday products
Surprised? So was I when I had my urine tested for these chemicals. (A urine or blood test is needed to confirm whether you have been exposed.)
Let me stress that mine should have been clean.
Almost a decade ago, I was shaken by my reporting on a class of toxic chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are linked to cancer and obesity and also seemed to feminize males, so that male alligators developed stunted genitalia and male smallmouth bass produced eggs.
In humans, endocrine disruptors were linked to two-headed sperm and declining sperm counts. They also were blamed for an increase in undescended testicles and in a birth defect called hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the side or base of the penis rather than the tip.
Believe me, the scariest horror stories are found in urology journals. If you’re a man, you don’t wring your hands as you read; you clutch your crotch.
So I’ve tried for years now to limit my exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Following the advice of the President’s Cancer Panel, I eat organic to reduce exposure to endocrine disruptors in pesticides. I try to store leftover meals in glass containers, not plastic. I avoid handling A.T.M. and gas station receipts. I try to avoid flame-retardant furniture.
Those are all common sources of toxic endocrine disruptors, so I figured that my urine would test pristine. Pure as a mountain creek.
Silent Spring Institute near Boston, which studies chemical safety, offers a “Detox Me Action Kit” to help consumers determine what harmful substances are in their bodies. Following instructions, I froze two urine samples (warning my wife and kids that day to be careful what food they grabbed from the freezer) and Fed-Exed them off for analysis.
By the way, the testing is for women, too. Men may wince as they read about miniaturized alligator penises, but endocrine disruptors have also been linked to breast cancer and gynecological cancers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warns women that endocrine disruptors can also cause miscarriages, fetal defects and much more.
As I waited for the lab results, I continued to follow the latest research. One researcher sent a bizarre video of a mouse exposed to a common endocrine disruptor doing back flips nonstop, as a kind of nervous tic.
Finally, I heard back from Silent Spring Institute. I figured this was a report card I had aced. I avoid all that harmful stuff. In my columns, I had advised readers how to avoid it.
Sure enough, I had a low level of BPA, best known because plastic bottles now often boast “BPA Free.”
But even a diligent student like me failed the test. Badly. I had high levels of a BPA substitute called BPF. Ruthann Rudel, a toxicologist who is the head of research at Silent Spring, explained that companies were switching to BPF even though it may actually be yet more harmful (it takes longer for the body to break it down). BPF is similar to that substance that made those mice do back flips.
“These types of regrettable substitutions — when companies remove a chemical that has a widely known bad reputation and substitute a little-known bad actor in its place — are all too common,” Rudel told me. “Sometimes we environmental scientists think we are playing a big game of whack-a-mole with the chemical companies.”
Sigh. I thought I was being virtuous by avoiding plastics with BPA, but I may have been causing my body even more damage.
My urine had an average level of an endocrine disruptor called triclosan, possibly from soap or toothpaste. Like most people, I also had chlorinated phenols (perhaps from mothballs in my closet).
I had a high level of a flame retardant called triphenyl phosphate, possibly from a floor finish, which may be “neurotoxic.” Hmm. Whenever you see flaws in my columns, that’s just my neurotoxins at work.My lab results: high levels of FOUR chemicals were found
Will these endocrine disruptors give me cancer? Make me obese? Make my genitals fall off? Nobody really knows. At least I haven’t started doing random back flips yet.
The steps I took did help, and I recommend that others consult consumer guides at ewg.org to reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals. Likewise, if I had downloaded the Detox Me smartphone app, I would have known to get rid of those mothballs, along with air fresheners and scented candles. (Science lesson: A less fragrant house means cleaner pee.)
Yet my takeaway is also that chemical industry lobbyists have rigged the system so that we consumers just can’t protect ourselves adequately.
“You should not have to be a Ph.D toxicologist to be safe from so many of the chemicals in use,” Dr. Richard Jackson of U.C.L.A. told me. “So much of what we are exposed to is poorly tested and even less regulated.”
The Trump administration has magnified the problem by relaxing regulation of substances like chlorpyrifos, Dow Chemical’s nerve gas pesticide. The swamp has won.
So the saddest lesson is that even if you understand the peril and try to protect yourself and your family — as I strongly suggest you do — your body may still be tainted. The chemical companies spend tens of millions of dollars lobbying and have gotten the lightest regulation that money can buy.
They are running the show, and we consumers are their lab mice.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/23/opinion/columnists/poisons-in-our-bodies.html
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Irish Chemicals Sector Could Face Post-Brexit Slump – Report
Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Regulatory divergence between EU and UK chemical laws after Brexit could reduce Ireland’s export volumes in the sector, according to an Irish government report.
The report – Ireland and the impacts of Brexit – points out that the two countries share a supply chain and if Britain left the EU single market and reverted to WTO rules, Ireland's chemicals and pharmaceutical exports and production could be 5% lower by 2030.
Commissioned by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the report says pharma-chemicals are Ireland's "absolute largest" export sector, representing 57% of all goods it sells abroad. It will, it adds, be one of the sectors most affected by Brexit.
The country imports both final products from the UK and active substances or semi-finished products for further processing or packaging, which are then exported. Nearly a quarter of the sector's imports come from the UK, the report says.
In a post-Brexit European Economic Area (EEA) scenario – which assumes similar levels of trade costs between the EU and the UK as those currently observed between the EU and EEA members – output is expected to drop by 1%. However, because of the sector’s large contribution to the overall economy, this will mean a "significant reduction in output overall".
Border inspections on EU-UK trade will add customs costs, but the risk of regulatory divergence for both goods and services is lowest in the EEA scenario.‘Not just about trade’
As part of its enforcement of REACH, the Irish Health and Safety Authority (HSA) found that 36% of 254 Irish companies it surveyed last year said they imported chemicals from UK suppliers.
"If there will be regulatory divergence and trade barriers in place, the impacts on Irish companies in this sector will be significant," Sharon McGuinness, HSA assistant chief executive, told Chemical Watch.
However, Ms McGuinness, who is also chair of Echa's Management Board, said the report's findings showed that "it’s not just about trade from Ireland to the UK."
As the Irish competent authority, the HSA is working with companies to advise them on the importance of considering impacts on their entire supply chain. It has also warned downstream users of the serious problems they could face when the UK leaves the Union.
The HSA is working with the government to ensure "the best advice and support" is provided to the Irish chemicals sector, Ms McGuinness said.
To that end, it will arrange stakeholder events later in the year, but, she added, it is "difficult for companies to prepare fully" until there is "clarity about how the UK will address chemicals in the future".
https://chemicalwatch.com/64339/irish-chemicals-sector-could-face-post-brexit-slump-report
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Canadian Draft Assessment Proposes Clearing Three Fatty Amides
Feb 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
Canada has proposed concluding that three fatty amides are not a threat to human health or the environment, based on the results of a draft screening assessment. The substances are:
erucamide or 13-docosenamide, (Z)-;
oleamide or 9-octadecenamide, (Z)-; and
isooctadecanoic acid, reaction products with tetraethylenepentamine (IODA reaction products with TEPA).
The draft assessment judged that they exhibit low toxicity and are not genotoxic. It says that no adverse effects for human health were found in laboratory studies and the substances pose a low risk of harm to organisms and the environment.
Erucamide and oleamide can be produced naturally by forest fires, and are imported into Canada for use in the manufacture of plastic products and rubbers.
IODA reaction products with TEPA are important for use in lubricants and greases, primarily as components in two-cycle marine outboard engine oils. Releases to the environment "are expected to be minimal from industrial and consumer" use.
The draft assessment was published on 26 February, opening a 60-day comment period. Canada expects to publish a final assessment in February 2019.
Five other substances, identified as part of the fatty amides group, had previously been cleared as part of two large-scale risk assessments. Three more will be addressed in the upcoming alkanolamines assessment; and one in that of quaternary ammonium compounds.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64338/canadian-draft-assessment-proposes-clearing-three-fatty-amides
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Shell Sees Potential LNG Export Shortfall as Global Demand Surges
Feb 26, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Natural gas export trade last year grew by 29 million metric tons (mmt) to 293 mmt, up 29 mmt from 2016, Royal Dutch Shell plc said Monday.
In its second annual outlook on the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, Shell said 1,100 spot cargoes were delivered in 2017, a 17% increase year/year, and equivalent to three cargoes delivered every day.
Supply was lifted by new export projects in the United States and Australia, with increased output from existing LNG supply facilities in Africa.
“We are still seeing significant demand from traditional importers in Asia and Europe, but we are also seeing LNG provide flexible, reliable and cleaner energy supply for other countries around the world,” said Shell’s Maarten Wetselaar, who directs Integrated Gas and New Energies.
“In Asia alone, demand rose by 17 mmt,” above expectations, he said. “That’s nearly as much as Indonesia, the world’s fifth-largest LNG exporter, produced in 2017.”
Since 2000, the number of countries importing LNG has quadrupled and the number of countries supplying it has almost doubled. LNG trade increased last year to 300 mmt from 100 mmt in 2000.
“In 2017, demand for LNG was strong with a clear ‘pull’ from countries instead of a ‘push’ of volumes seeking a home,” researchers said. “This was similar to 2016, but during 2017 the demand pull was from legacy gas and LNG importers in Asia and Southern Europe, whereas 2016 was characterized by a pull from new areas of demand.”
Japan continued to be the No. 1 destination for LNG supply last year, but China eclipsed South Korea to become second largest importer. Total LNG demand in China reached 38 mmt in 2017 from continued economic growth and policies to reduce air pollution through coal-to-gas switching.
“Historically, about half of all spot cargoes are supplied to North East Asia, where one cargo a day is traded,” said researchers. “With LNG demand outpacing contracted supply, there was an increase of spot cargoes into China.”
The number of spot cargoes into the Asian region has been around 400 a year in recent years, and the use of the Japan Korea Marker (JKM) LNG benchmark price assessment has risen. The exponential growth of JKM futures contracts last year reflected “demand from the industry for price risk management,” said researchers.
Trading activity also increased, “with a focus on intermediary services to the industry from price risk management to spot liquidity, credit services and infrastructure development.”
LNG buyers last year were still looking for “shorter and smaller” contracts, Shell noted, with the average contract for about seven years.
“The mismatch in requirements between buyers and suppliers is growing. Most suppliers still seek long-term LNG sales to secure financing. But LNG buyers increasingly want shorter, smaller and more flexible contracts so they can better compete in their own downstream power and gas markets.”
The mismatch has to be resolved to ensure project developers may make final investment decisions (FID) in a timely fashion, Shell researchers said.
Shell expects global gas demand to grow at an average rate of 2%/year over the next two decades, twice the rate of total global energy demand. However, LNG demand is set to increase at an average rate of 4%/year.
Based on current demand projections, an export shortage could develop in the mid-2020s, “unless new LNG production project commitments are made soon.” Following a wave of activity, FIDs for worldwide LNG projects “have nearly stopped,” Shell noted.
“As LNG projects generally take more than four years to start production, new supply will not be ready until well into the next decade. Meanwhile, the underlying market drivers and even the buyers are changing.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113502-shell-sees-potential-lng-export-shortfall-as-global-demand-surges
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Feb 26, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
On a clear, dry June evening in 2015, cars and trucks rolled slowly in a herky-jerky backup ahead of an Interstate 75 construction zone in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Barreling toward them: an 18-ton tractor-trailer going about 80 mph.
Despite multiple signs warning of slow traffic, the driver, with little or no braking, bashed into eight vehicles before coming to a stop about 1½ football fields away. Six people died in the mangled wreck and four more were hurt. The driver was convicted of vehicular homicide and other charges last month.
In response to this and similar crashes, the government in 2016 proposed requiring that new heavy trucks have potentially life-saving software that would electronically limit speeds. But now, like many other safety rules in the works before President Donald Trump took office, it has been delayed indefinitely by the Transportation Department as part of a sweeping retreat from regulations that the president says slow the economy.
An Associated Press review of the department's rulemaking activities in Trump's first year in office shows at least a dozen safety rules that were under development or already adopted have been repealed, withdrawn, delayed or put on the back burner. In most cases, those rules are opposed by powerful industries. And the political appointees running the agencies that write the rules often come from the industries they regulate.
Meanwhile, there have been no significant new safety rules adopted over the same period.
The sidelined rules would have, among other things, required states to conduct annual inspections of commercial bus operators, railroads to operate trains with at least two crew members and automakers to equip future cars and light trucks with vehicle-to-vehicle communications to prevent collisions. Many of the rules were prompted by tragic events.
"These rules have been written in blood," said John Risch, national legislative director for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers. "But we're in a new era now of little-to-no new regulations no matter how beneficial they might be. The focus is what can we repeal and rescind."
Trump has made reducing regulations a priority, seeing many rules as an unnecessary burden on industry. Last month he tweeted that his administration "has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulations, in just 12 months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office..."
"The good news is," he wrote, "THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!"
The Transportation Department declined repeated AP requests since November for an on-the-record interview with Secretary Elaine Chao, Deputy Secretary Jeffrey Rosen or another official to discuss safety regulations. Instead, the department provided a brief statement from James Owens, DOT's deputy general counsel, saying that new administrations typically take a "fresh look" at regulations, including those that are the most costly.
The department's position has been that it can reduce regulation without undermining safety. And DOT officials have questioned whether some safety regulations actually improve safety.
"We will not finalize a rule simply because it has advanced through preliminary steps," the statement said. "Even if a rule is 'one step away,' if that rule is not justifiable because it harms safety and imposes unnecessarily high economic costs, for example, that rule will not advance."
But the rule requiring new trucks to have speed-limiting software would actually have economic benefits, according to a DOT estimate prepared two years ago. It would save as many as 498 lives per year and produce a net cost savings to society of $475 million to nearly $5 billion annually depending on the top speed the government picked. That's nearly half the 1,100 deaths annually in crashes involving heavy trucks on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or higher. The government didn't propose a top speed but said it had studied 60, 65 and 68 mph.
The proposal was also expected to solve another problem: Most heavy truck tires aren't designed to travel over 75 mph, but some states have 80 mph speed limits.
Rick Watts of Morristown, Tennessee, who lost his wife, two young step-daughters and mother-in-law in the I-75 crash, said he can't understand why the proposal has been sidetracked.
"If you're going 80 and you're knocked down to 60, that's going to lower the impact," he said. "It just stuns me that you can give these people proof and they say, 'We'll look into that.' It just baffles me that they're killing so many people every year."
The American Trucking Associations, an industry trade group, has claimed credit for stalling the rule. After initially supporting it, the group now says it would create dangerous speed differentials between cars and trucks. A news release from the associations said its success in stalling the rule is a significant triumph for the industry.
The trucking industry has developed a strong relationship with Trump. Trucking officials met with Chao within hours after she took office, according to Chris Spear, the trade group's president. Trump welcomed trucking executives to the White House by climbing behind the wheel of a Mack truck parked on the South Lawn in March.
"Your story is now being told to the highest levels of government," Spear told his organization's members in October.
DOT's position on the speed-limiting software is that it isn't dead but that the department has limited resources and higher priorities. No action is expected before the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30 at the earliest.
Some rules that were in the works have been abandoned entirely. After four people died when a New York commuter train derailed while speeding around a curve in 2013, investigators determined that the engineer had fallen asleep. He had undiagnosed sleep apnea, a disorder that causes pauses in breathing and prevents restful sleep, and had made no effort to stop the train.
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash in part on federal regulators for not requiring medical screening of engineers for sleep disorders. Yet last summer, DOT withdrew a rule the government was in the early stages of writing to require screening for engineers and truck and bus drivers.
The government said current safety programs either address the problem or it will be addressed in a rulemaking to reduce fatigue risks in the railroad industry. But the fatigue rule is years overdue with no timetable for completion.
The NTSB has cited sleep apnea as a cause of 13 rail and highway accidents it has investigated, including two more commuter train crashes in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 2016, and Brooklyn, New York, in 2017.
"Looking at the multiple piles of broken sheet metal and broken engines and broken people, (DOT's strategy) doesn't seem to have been effective," Dr. Nicholas Webster, an NTSB medical officer, told a recent public meeting on the crashes.
But Dan Bosch, regulatory policy director at the conservative American Action Forum, said the Trump administration is "actually taking a very reasoned and measured approach to how they're de-regulating."
Most regulations Trump has taken credit for blocking throughout the government were Obama administration proposals that were on track to be adopted but had yet to be finalized, or that weren't being actively pursued — "low-hanging fruit," Bosch said.
There is a longstanding requirement that major federal regulations undergo detailed cost-benefit analyses before they can become final. Even rules expected to save lives are weighed against their economic cost. DOT assigns a value of $9.6 million per life saved in its analyses.
Trump has ordered that two regulations be identified for elimination for every significant new regulation issued. The White House has acknowledged its calculations of savings from rolled-back regulations cited in public statements include only the cost to industry and others without taking into account benefits the rules produce, including lives saved.
Rosen, the deputy secretary, heads DOT's task force that evaluates regulations for repeal or modification. In extensive written and public comments before joining the administration, he criticized regulations as an indirect tax on industry, but made little mention of their benefits. He has called for curbing federal agencies' regulatory power by imposing greater analytical requirements and requiring congressional approval before more costly regulations become law. Rosen has also advocated making it easier for industry to challenge regulations in court.
Rosen is an attorney who formerly represented General Motors and an airline industry trade group. Other DOT political appointees with strong ties to the industries they regulate include:
—Daniel Elwell, the acting administrator at the Federal Aviation Administration, who is a former airline lobbyist.
—Cathy Gautreaux, deputy administrator at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates the trucking industry, spent 29 years as executive director of the Louisiana Motor Transport Association, a trucking advocacy group.
—Ron Batory, the head the Federal Railroad Administration, was president of Conrail, a service provider for the CSX and Norfolk Southern freight railroads.
—Howard Elliott, head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, is a former CSX executive. Among other things, his agency sets safety rules for rail transport of hazardous goods, including crude oil, ethanol and toxic chemicals.
Industry's influence on regulations generally "is probably more powerful than it has ever been," said Neil Eisner, who was the DOT assistant general counsel in charge of overseeing the issuing of regulations for more than three decades.
DOT says having industry insiders in leadership positions provides deep practical experience in how the transportation industry works.
In October, DOT published a notice inviting the public to recommend which regulations should be repealed, replaced, suspended, or modified. Accompanying the notice was a list of 20 potential candidates, including 13 of the most significant transportation safety rules of the past decade.
Airlines, automakers, railroads, pipeline operators, trucking companies, chemical manufacturers and others responded to the notice with their wish lists. After the comment period closed, DOT said it would repeal a 2015 rule opposed by freight railroads requiring trains that haul highly flammable crude oil be fitted with advanced braking systems that stop all rail cars simultaneously instead of conventional brakes that stop cars one after the other.
The advanced brakes can reduce the distance and time needed for a train to stop and keep more tank cars on the track in the event of a derailment, DOT said two years ago when it issued the rule.
Freight railroads, which say the rule's safety benefits are marginal and don't justify the cost, persuaded Congress to require DOT to revisit the rule. The department now says its revised analysis shows costs would outstrip benefits.
The advanced brakes perform significantly better than conventional brakes alone, but only slightly better in emergency braking situations when trains have locomotives in both the front and the back, said Risch, the union official. But trains are not required to have two locomotives and often don't, he said.
The advanced brakes also have significant safety benefits DOT didn't consider, Risch said, including the ability to prevent runaway trains like the improperly secured oil train that derailed in Lac Megantic, Canada, in 2013, igniting a fire that killed 47 people. The advanced brakes are already required for trains that haul radioactive waste.
The rule's repeal, said Risch, a former engineer who has operated trains with advanced brakes, means the government is abandoning "the greatest safety advancement I've witnessed in my 41 years in the industry."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/ap-review-trumps-red-tape-cuts-slice-into-safety-rules/2018/02/26/e80c3d8c-1aba-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.dbdb48a5bbfb
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Trump Is Attacking the Paris Climate Pact Again. Here's Why
Feb 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
Speaking in front of the political equivalent of a home crowd, President Trump told a cheering room of conservatives Friday what he really felt about the Paris Agreement: It's not about climate; it's about winning.
How Trump addressed perceived unfairness in the accord underscored how difficult it will be to keep the United States engaged in the global climate pact. That the United States gets a raw deal in trade deals and diplomacy is a central belief of the president, going back years before he ever entered public office.
The real Trump on Paris is the one who told the Conservative Political Action Conference that the Paris Agreement "would have been a disaster for our country." He was showered in chants of "USA" in response. It cuts to the theme of fairness — or unfairness, depending on perspective — between the United States and its economic allies, and competitors, that runs through Trump's trade positions.
"I think that it does in fact make it hard for him to walk back from his commitment to withdraw from Paris," said Andrew Light, a State Department climate adviser under former President Obama who's now at the World Resources Institute. "He wants his base to understand that Paris is a bad deal. 'It's not about dealing with a global problem, it's a threat to Americans as well.'"
Trump's view of the Paris Agreement has little to do with climate, a topic to which the president has devoted minimal attention.
"Other countries, big countries — India and others — we had to pay, because they considered them a growing country," Trump said. "They were a growing country. I said, 'What are we?' Are we allowed to grow, too? OK? Now, are we allowed to grow? They called India a developing nation. They called China a developing nation. But the United States, we're developed — we can pay."
Those statements ignore that per-capita carbon emissions and wealth in India and China pale in comparison with the United States and that the Paris Agreement actually jettisoned the contentious developed-versus-developing construct that had plagued previous deals.
But that's not what Trump considers. Despite flirting with the possibility of staying in the pact, the types of comments Trump made at CPAC dismay those who want to see the president reverse his withdrawal plans.
"It would take him fundamentally changing his opinion on what Paris is and means for the U.S.," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "And from watching him, the prospects of that seem pretty remote."
Trump sees China and India adding coal-fired power plants to their electric grids while the United States shuts them down. One of Trump's major gripes Friday was that the agreement constrained America's "massive energy reserves" and that "we have coal. We have so much. And basically, they were saying, 'Don't use it, you can't use it.'" That might make some sense if viewing the Paris Agreement through the climate lens under which it was executed. But U.S. coal plants are closing largely because of competition from low-priced natural gas, not climate-related reasons.
The president's grievances about other countries' pledges on greenhouse gases are "not scripted," said former White House aide George David Banks, a Paris Agreement proponent who until recently handled international energy and climate issues for Trump.
So when Trump on Friday rattled off that China's "agreement didn't kick in until 2030" — which is incorrect, though he likely meant China's emissions target is pegged to that year — or Russia's emissions pledge is relative to a 1990 baseline, those are points that resonate with the president because they're disparities, real or perceived.
"There were different perspectives and views, but I think one of the things that was discussed was how other countries — what other countries were doing within the context of Paris," Banks said of the conversations ahead of the June 2017 announcement to exit the deal. "He cares about that, so obviously he remembered it pretty well."
To Trump, this is about economics, competitiveness and, most of all, fairness. Those are "core values that he holds" in how the United States has been treated in trade and multilateral arrangements, said Kevin Book, managing director with ClearView Energy Partners LLC. Issues of "sanctions, trade and sovereignty" are still very much front of mind for Trump and his base.
"The stories that circulated in ... June of 2017 suggested that [U.S. EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt was the architect of Trump's decision on Paris," Book said. "Our contention was that the president had Scott Pruitt in the Rose Garden because Administrator Pruitt said what the president believed."
That's not to say Trump's criticisms are baseless. China has caught flak for how much coal infrastructure it's financing abroad, especially in Africa. The country also exports significant emissions through carbon-intensive manufacturing. And while the Paris Agreement ditched the distinctions between developing and developed countries, India and China are major U.S. economic competitors whose climate pledges enable them to add coal-fired power plants for several years.
That doesn't mean meeting climate goals is any easier for China and India, as they're starting from a different position than the United States. But that's not what Trump sees. Nor does he see a potential advantage for U.S. clean-tech companies as other nations move to ratchet down emissions, which environmental groups and big businesses have argued. Trump, after all, came to power touting U.S. coal, oil and natural gas while calling solar and wind power too expensive.
A businessman by trade who takes a zero-sum approach to his interactions, Trump said in a Friday news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, "I like bilateral deals much more than multi-." He has also been more willing to take a hard line on trade by issuing tariffs on solar equipment and washing machines. Penalties on imported steel are expected to come next.
The benefits for remaining in the Paris Agreement are much less apparent to Trump from an economic perspective than in a one-on-one trade deal, said Sarah Ladislaw, director of the Energy and Natural Security Program with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Just saying it's like trade does not mean there's a full-blown strategy. The approach to trade is tactical and transactive: Get the best deal," she said in an email. "I assume the administration is waiting to see what people will offer them to reconsider their position on climate, but again, because it's not a priority they don't necessarily have a set of things that they want or that would satisfy this desire."
Banks was on the losing side of the debate on Paris. He tried to argue that any country can unilaterally alter its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, known as nationally determined contributions. In fact, the Obama administration lobbied other nations for that arrangement because Republicans wouldn't have ratified an agreement that required the United States to hit a specific emissions number.
Many, including Banks, still hope Trump will eventually see the political advantages of remaining in the accord. Ladislaw said she thought Trump was "swayable" depending on the balance of viewpoints in the room. Light said Trump left himself plenty of leeway at CPAC to simply "change the talking points" to say he persuaded other world leaders to give the United States a better deal.
"If this administration ever really gets it together to want to achieve something internationally," Light said, "then I think this is still something the rest of the world will be able to offer them."
Some in the Trump administration, however, argued that the United States could only change emissions targets to be more ambitious, not weaker. Doing the opposite, they said, would invite litigation on domestic policies such as unwinding power plant emissions regulations. Trump sees that as critical to reviving the coal industry.
In that sense, the perception of fairness drove his decision on Paris.
"Those sorts of things have not changed," Book said. "They didn't change whether [National Economic Council Director] Gary Cohn was in the news or whether [former adviser] Steve Bannon was in the news."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/02/26/stories/1060074671
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