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ACC PM 28/02/18
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(ACC Mentioned) NAFTA Crucial for US Chemicals Growth - ACC Report
Feb 28, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
Withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement could create a tariff burden of up to $9bn on US chemical exports to Canada and Mexico, while potentially lowering chemical exports to these countries by $22bn, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Wednesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Producers Warn NAFTA Withdrawal Could Jeopardize Major Projects
Feb 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Agriculture Whiteboard
“Chemistry touches 96 percent of all manufactured goods, and when the price of chemicals goes up, customers begin to look for cheaper substitutes,” American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said in a statement. -
NSF Closing Overseas Offices
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The National Science Foundation is closing its overseas offices, sparking sharp criticism that U.S. research could be threatened. -
Infrastructure, Drinking Water Rules Among EPA Water Office Priorities
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
EPA water office officials are outlining several policy priorities that highlight both emerging issues, like contamination from perfluorinated chemicals, and long-running challenges like bolstering water infrastructure, strengthening drinking water rules, clarifying the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and reducing nutrient pollution. -
California Proposes Specific Prop 65 Warning for Rental Housing
Feb 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has proposed tailored Proposition 65 warnings for residential rental properties. -
(ACC Mentioned) Royalty Battle Royale
Feb 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Kelsey Tamborrino
Royalty Battle Royale: Energy producers should keep an eye on Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee, which is meeting in Houston today to consider recommendations for lower royalties and streamlined regulations. -
Quakes Linked to Fracking Rise; Disposal Quakes Dip
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
The number of earthquakes linked to the specific practice of hydraulic fracturing is increasing in Oklahoma, state officials said yesterday, even as the shaking linked to oil field disposal declines. -
In ‘The Fracking Debate,’ Author Carefully Treads into ‘Caustic Terrain'
Feb 28, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Ask anyone familiar with the oil and natural industry, and he or she is likely to agree that the middle ground can sometimes be hard to find in the argument for or against high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking), let alone the thin line that often separates fact and fiction. -
FERC Scraps Gas Market Manipulation Claims
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff yesterday said it has found no evidence that two natural gas suppliers manipulated markets in New England, as alleged by a paper late last year. -
West Virginia Gas Companies Wined and Dined Lawmakers Before Scoring Favorable Fracking Legislation
Feb 28, 2018 | Desmog
By Alex Kotch
A country club luncheon. -
Judge Explains Order Halting Louisiana Pipeline Construction
Feb 28, 2018 | AP (In Washington Post)
By Michael Kunzelman
A federal judge who halted construction of a crude oil pipeline through a Louisiana swamp concluded that the project’s irreversible environmental damage outweighs the economic harm that a delay brings to the company building it. -
The Energy Reality Behind Cape Town's Water Crisis – and Why the U.S. Should Care
Feb 28, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Kate Zerrenner
In Cape Town, South Africa, the countdown is on for Day Zero when water taps in the city of 4 million people are expected to run dry. -
EPA Stepping Up Oversight of Local, State Regulators
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA will step up oversight of state and local air agencies after an internal watchdog warned that potentially faulty monitoring data could put the accuracy of ground-level ozone readings at risk. -
Firms Promise Climate Action, Not All Follow Through — Report
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Corporate America is stepping up its commitment to combat global warming but with varying degrees of follow through, advocates said in a new report.
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(ACC Mentioned) NAFTA Crucial for US Chemicals Growth - ACC Report
Feb 28, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
Withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement could create a tariff burden of up to $9bn on US chemical exports to Canada and Mexico, while potentially lowering chemical exports to these countries by $22bn, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the trade agreement, and the three countries are now in the midst of renegotiating the terms of the trade deal.
Instead of abandoning NAFTA, the three countries should update the trade deal to take into account changes that have taken place since its adoption in 1994, the ACC said.
The ACC's report pointed to the benefits that the US chemical industry has enjoyed since NAFTA went into effect.
US exports to Canada and Mexico will likely reach $44bn this year, up from $13bn in 1994. They could reach $59bn by 2025.
In the US, 46,000 chemical jobs now depend on this trade with Canada and Mexico, the ACC said.
Jobs and trade volume are not the only benefit that the US chemical industry enjoys from NAFTA, the report said, adding that the free trade agreement had saved US chemical companies $700m in tariffs on exports and $800m on tariffs on imports.
"The cost savings have helped drive economic growth throughout the manufacturing supply chain and lowered prices for manufacturers and consumers," the ACC said.
US chemical trade with Canada and Mexico will become more important as the new wave of plants start up along the Gulf Coast, which will take advantage of low-cost feedstock made possible by the advent of shale gas.
By 2025, Canada and Mexico will account for $13bn of the $30bn in US exports of chemicals and plastics derived from shale gas, the ACC said.
Withdrawing from NAFTA will hurt US manufacturing as a whole, and lead to a further loss in the chemicals used to make these final goods, the ACC said.
Since NAFTA's adoption in 1994, US, Canadian and Mexican manufacturers have become tightly integrated, and leaving the trade deal would cut these ties, causing manufacturers to lose economies of scale while paying more in tariffs.
Manufacturers would face the additional expense of developing new supply chains and acquiring new sources of materials as they react to the higher tariffs, the ACC said.
The ACC warned about the threats of leaving NAFTA earlier this year, when its president, Cal Dooley, explained how the trade deal has benefited the industry in an opinion piece.
Likewise, the president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), Chet Thompson, stressed the importance of Canada and Mexico to US refiners during a speech to the US Energy Association (USEA).
Both countries provide nearly half of the 8m bbl/day of oil that US refiners import, and Mexico is the largest export market for US refined products.
More recently, Thompson wrote an editorial piece to the Houston Chronicle newspaper emphasising the importance of NAFTA to petrochemical producers and refiners.
He called the deal "one of the most important pro-growth policies” of the last three decades.
The plastic trade groups of the US, Canada and Mexico have been coordinating their efforts to maintain and update NAFTA.
Any updates to NAFTA could address developments caused by the widespread use of the internet and the opening up of Mexico's energy market.
Back in 1994, the internet played a small role in commerce, and Mexico's oil and gas industry was closed to all companies except for Pemex, the state-owned energy producer.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/02/28/10197951/nafta-crucial-for-us-chemicals-growth-acc-report/
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Producers Warn NAFTA Withdrawal Could Jeopardize Major Projects
Feb 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Agriculture Whiteboard
...dollars in planned projects in the chemicals sector. “Chemistry touches 96 percent of all manufactured goods, and when the price of chemicals goes up, customers begin to look for cheaper substitutes,” American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said in a statement. “Withdrawing from NAFTA will not strengthen America’s competitive advantage — and it might even give trading partners the power...
§ Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here:
https://www.politicopro.com/agriculture/whiteboard/2018/02/chemical-producers-warn-nafta-withdrawal-could-jeopardize-major-projects-698802
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Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The National Science Foundation is closing its overseas offices, sparking sharp criticism that U.S. research could be threatened.
In a statement this month, NSF said it was shuttering branches in Beijing, Brussels and Tokyo to "modernize and broaden" international collaboration.
Two of the offices — Tokyo and the European division — have been active for more than three decades. The offices facilitated scientific agreements with foreign nations, produced reports and fostered research partnerships on issues such as carbon capture and sequestration.
"These offices have been integral to our successful collaborations in the past. However, the impact of having physical offices has changed as the world has changed," said Rebecca Keiser, head of NSF's Office of International Science & Engineering.
The offices will close by summer. NSF will transition to a new model where experts travel on short-term expeditions to explore opportunities, Keiser said. The change will "expand our outreach" and help "ensure we are aware of, and have access to, the best minds and facilities," she said.
Critics slammed the move as a threat to science that would decrease U.S. competitiveness and block American scientists from valuable partnerships. With the Trump administration rolling back climate initiatives and operating without a science adviser, U.S. science already is under strain, they say.
Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called it "perilous" for the United States to withdraw from its long record of scientific leadership, as many scientific challenges are international.
"Just as trade and business development rely on enduring relations, science needs long-term engagement to be effective. These are our partners, and they notice the loss of staff that they can work with on a regular basis," Rosenberg said about the NSF move.
Similarly, former U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Anthony Gardner told Science Business that cutting NSF staff in China was a bad move, in part because of the growth in Chinese research in areas like artificial intelligence. "Who else will have the eyes and ears to the ground for us in China? The human aspect is still really important for unblocking problems," Gardner said.
The Tokyo office, established in 1960, was located in the U.S. Embassy Tokyo. The European office started in 1984 and was moved from Paris to Brussels three years ago. The Beijing office launched in 2006.
The offices did not directly administer grants but were involved in developing agreements, representing U.S. science activities overseas and bringing researchers together.
The Tokyo division, for example, participated in a 2003 memorandum with Japan on ocean drilling. The Beijing office facilitated research projects between the two countries on topics such as algae blooms and the impact of climate change on forests.
Keiser said one NSF official from Beijing and one from Brussels would return to the United States. There's no current staff in Tokyo. The agency said it is working on the transition of locally employed staff.
"Existing collaborations with China, Japan and the European Union have always been managed from NSF headquarters and these efforts will continue," Keiser said.
Some advocates questioned whether the Trump administration drove the change, but NSF said that wasn't the case. The transition had been under study and in planning for years, it said.
Trump has come under fire from scientists for his climate policies and proposed rollbacks of research funding at U.S. EPA and other agencies. The president has gone longer than any modern president in waiting to nominate a director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, who typically plays a central role in meetings with foreign nations about science policy.
The administration initially called for slashing NSF's budget by about 30 percent in fiscal 2019. A late addendum to the plan because of the congressional budget deal called for funding to remain at roughly the current level.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/28/stories/1060075011
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Infrastructure, Drinking Water Rules Among EPA Water Office Priorities
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
EPA water office officials are outlining several policy priorities that highlight both emerging issues, like contamination from perfluorinated chemicals, and long-running challenges like bolstering water infrastructure, strengthening drinking water rules, clarifying the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and reducing nutrient pollution.
Andrew Sawyers, director of the Office of Wastewater Management, discussed his priorities and those of his boss, EPA Assistant Administrator for Water David Ross, at the Feb. 20-21 meeting of the agency's Environmental Financial Advisory Board (EFAB) meeting in Washington, D.C.
While Ross was unable to attend the meeting, Sawyers said Ross recently shared with him his priorities for the Office of Water. These include infrastructure, updating the Safe Drinking Water Act lead and copper rule, developing a new CWA jurisdiction rule, addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), addressing nutrient pollution and “engagement,” Sawyers said.
Ross was formally sworn in to his position in early January. Many of his priorities are areas that Administrator Scott Pruitt has cited as key issues for the agency.
For example, Pruitt is leading Trump administration efforts to repeal and replace the CWA jurisdiction rule, an issue that has grown increasingly complicated since the Supreme Court ruled challenges to the rule should be heard in district, not appellate, courts.
EPA also announced in December that it was launching a new, cross-agency workgroup on PFAS in an effort to help a growing number of states, localities and tribes that are struggling to deal with the chemicals in their jurisdictions.
And Pruitt is spearheading a Trump administration effort to develop a federal strategy for reducing children's exposures to lead that includes revisions to the lead and copper rule.
Sawyers also discussed seven areas on which the wastewater office is focusing. These include determining current clean water infrastructure needs, encouraging regionalization of small water utilities, assisting utilities in better managing their assets, addressing financial and operational data gaps, addressing declining populations and the resulting decline in utility revenues, affordability, and workforce and labor changes.
EPA's most recent Clean Watersheds Needs Survey was released in 2016, but the data are from 2012. Having up to date information “can help us better focus,” Sawyers said. The agency's Water Finance Clearinghouse, an online portal that includes two searchable databases with information on available funding sources and approaches that can help communities access capital to meet their water infrastructure needs, has some information, he said. But the agency lacks information on where all publicly owned treatment works and collection systems are located, and there needs to be additional refinement of drinking water, he said.
Utility Consolidation
Reducing the number of drinking water and wastewater systems -- an effort Sawyers referred to as partnerships, collaboration and alliances -- is another focus. “It's not that simple” to combine utilities, “but it's absolutely necessary” to look at streamlining, he said, adding that there is a need to examine both structural and operational changes.
Several groups are currently exploring utility consolidation, including the U.S. Water Alliance, which recently released a white paper outlining a number of policy recommendations to enhance utility management by encouraging consolidation and regional cooperation, including calling for EPA policies to promote regionalization and provide regulatory flexibility to encourage partnerships.
The white paper says there are there are more than 51,000 community water systems and nearly 15,000 wastewater treatment plants. More than 80 percent of water systems serve fewer than 3,330 people, and 55 percent serve fewer than 500. By contrast, there are approximately 3,000 electricity providers, the report says.
EPA has also asked EFAB “to identify and evaluate financing strategies that have been designed to assist or incentivize systems to implement governance strategies that may include system consolidation, regional projects, and/or shared service arrangements.”
EPA has long encouraged water and wastewater utilities conduct asset management -- the practice of making an inventory of critical assets; evaluating their condition and performance; and developing plans to maintain, repair, and replace assets and to fund these activities.
Sawyers said big utilities are doing a good job at this but small and medium utilities have little idea of their assets, which makes it difficult to set priorities.
Additionally, Sawyers noted that utilities are facing several challenges to their sustainability. Both rural and urban areas are facing the challenges of declining populations and utility revenues, making it more difficult for utilities to become sustainable. And studies conducted by the water sector have repeatedly highlighted workforce development as a concern, with approximately a third of all water and wastewater employees expected to retire soon.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/infrastructure-drinking-water-rules-among-epa-water-office-priorities
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California Proposes Specific Prop 65 Warning for Rental Housing
Feb 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has proposed tailored Proposition 65 warnings for residential rental properties.
Proposition 65 requires regulated parties to provide "clear and reasonable" warning to employees and consumers, using labelling or signs, about products that contain a substance the state lists as a carcinogen or reproductive toxin.
And in a rulemaking consultation about to begin, Oehha says that over the years, rental housing companies have been hit with numerous complaints under the law. The apartment industry, it adds, has "long expressed concern about what a clear and reasonable warning would entail for the types of exposures they expect to encounter within their business operations."
During a 2016 rulemaking, the California Apartment Association (CAA) asked the agency to develop a "tailored warning" more suitable to their situation.
The plan would require that, where appropriate, a warning for exposure to a listed chemical be issued to each "known adult occupant" of a rental unit when it is leased, and provided annually in hard copy or electronic format.
Consistent with labelling amendments that go into effect on 30 August, the proposed residential warnings must name at least one substance for which notice is being provided under the law. They must also include a pictogram – an exclamation mark within an equilateral triangle. And the warning must have the url for a state Proposition 65 webpage, tailored specifically for residential rental property exposure warnings.
One example, given in the Oehha documentation, is the warning: "Building materials containing urea-formaldehyde resins, such as insulation, pressed wood materials, finishes, or adhesives, on this property can expose you to formaldehyde."
Another is a warning statement that materials containing asbestos, "including some ceiling coatings on this property can, if damaged or disturbed, expose you to asbestos, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer."
The phrase "if damaged or disturbed" is a good example of "how supplemental information regarding the source of exposure might be incorporated within a safe harbour warning for a residential rental property," Oehha says.
The agency will accept comment on the proposal from 2 March until 16 April.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64426/california-proposes-specific-prop-65-warning-for-rental-housing
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(ACC Mentioned) Royalty Battle Royale
Feb 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Kelsey Tamborrino
Royalty Battle Royale: Energy producers should keep an eye on Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee, which is meeting in Houston today to consider recommendations for lower royalties and streamlined regulations. The goal is to spur additional fossil fuel and renewable energy projects on federal lands and offshore in order to boost the amount of revenue the government collects from those activities. Today's meeting is the full committee's second since Secretary Ryan Zinke reinstated it last March. It will consider recommendations drawn up by several subcommittees over the last year.
Limiting deep-water offshore drilling royalties to 12.5 percent is one of several recommendations the committee will consider from the subcommittee for planning, analysis and competitiveness. The subcommittee also recommended a variety of steps to streamline permitting and environmental requirements and speed energy development. In Alaska, it recommended Interior schedule lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "as soon as practicable and ahead of the statutorily required timeline." Kathleen Sgamma, president of the industry group Western Energy Alliance and a member of the subcommittee, told The Washington Post, “This is the time to get federal lands back competitive with nonfederal lands.”
Democrats say Interior is being too friendly to industry. "This proposal would amount to a giveaway to some of the most profitable companies in the world and rob taxpayers of potentially billions of dollars of revenues over the life of the leases," Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Raúl Grijalva wrote of the proposal to reduce offshore drilling revenues from their current rate of 18.75 percent. Critics also said the committee had too many representatives of the fossil fuel industry and not enough from public interest groups. “Zinke has stacked the deck with energy companies and asked them if they should pay less to extract oil, gas, and coal from our public lands and waters,” Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said in a statement. “It's like asking kindergartners if they want birthday cake for dinner. You know the answer you'll get.”
Read the meeting agenda here. Read the subcommittee recommendations here, here and here.WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY! I'm your host Kelsey Tamborrino. Entergy’s Rob Hall was first to identify Rep. Peter Tague as the first lawmaker to win election to Congress as a write-in candidate in 1918. For today: Who are the five most recent physicians to serve as senators? Hint: 3 of the 5 are currently serving. Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy, and @POLITICOPro.
** A message from Chevron: When an endangered butterfly was found near a Chevron refinery, we protected the habitat and still plant the only thing they eat—buckwheat. Watch the video: http://politi.co/2CBKvWk **
TRUMP CAN’T BEAT BIOFUELS STALEMATE: Try as he might, President Donald Trump failed to break the impasse over the nation's biofuel program at a White House meeting on Tuesday. And, while Trump nominee for USDA Bill Northey managed to break free from a hold by Sen. Ted Cruz — and was approved Tuesday by voice vote — farm state lawmakers still held firm against proposals aimed at easing costs borne by oil refineries, Pro’s Eric Wolff and Anthony Adragna report. One tangible result did emerge, however: Trump appeared to agree to meet with workers from both the ethanol and oil refining industries Thursday, according to both Joni Ernst and Cruz. Read the story here.
SO MUCH FOR INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK: Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn acknowledged the obvious on Tuesday: Chances are slim for a big infrastructure bill this year. "I think it's gonna be hard because we have so many other things to do and we don't have much time," the Texas Republican said. Asked about Cornyn’s remarks, Sen. Tom Carper told reporters he hoped he was wrong. "This administration, the president has talked so much about infrastructure, transportation, broadband deployment, water, sewer,” Carper said. “If we can't figure out a path forward on this, shame on the president, shame on the administration, shame on the Congress." More from POLITICO’s Brianna Gurciullo here.
IF YOU’RE GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO: EPA will hold another “listening session” today in San Francisco on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan. The preliminary list of speakers includes NextGen America’s Tom Steyer, a host of green advocates including Moms Clean Air Force, NRDC and the Citizen's Climate Lobby, as well as the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission. Administrator Scott Pruitt said last year that additional sessions were needed “due to the overwhelming response” from two days of hearings in West Virginia on the repeal. The next session will occur March 27 in Gillette, Wyo. The deadline for written comments is April 26. If you go: The session begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 7:30 p.m. PST at the San Francisco Main Public Library.
Rallying cry: Steyer will also attend a rally to protect the CPP alongside community leaders in front of San Francisco City Hall, where the billionaire environmentalist will speak about the necessity of the rule. Other groups, including the American Lung Association, Public Health Institute and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, will also rally in front of city hall. The Center for Biological Diversity will hold its own rally outside of the session, which will take the form of a polar bear funeral.
JUDGE RULES WITH TRUMP ON BORDER WALL: In a surprising move Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel — whom Trump slurred during the 2016 campaign — ruled on the side of the administration in a lawsuit pertaining to the environmental laws and the construction of Trump’s proposed border wall. Curiel rejected lawsuits from environmentalists and the state of California, which were filed last year, and claimed that the Department of Homeland Security acted illegally when it waived environmental rules in connection with border wall replacement work and efforts to develop border wall prototypes, POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein reports.
In a lengthy 101-page opinion, Curiel said the challengers did not meet the legal standard of showing that the federal officials involve violated a "clear and mandatory" statutory duty when granting the waivers. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the state would evaluate all options and is “prepared to do what is necessary to protect our people, our values, and our economy from federal overreach.” More here.
DEM AGs CONFIDENT ON COURT FIGHTS AGAINST TRUMP: Several Democrat attorneys general said on Tuesday they are optimistic that their early wins in court against many initial Trump administration efforts to roll back environmental regulations will translate to victories down the road as well. “I don’t think they’ve demonstrated they have the desire or capacity to handle this situation,” said Becerra at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General. He acknowledged the administration could learn from losses in ultimately repealing rules, but said that “at the end of the day … I still think we have the upper hand.” Massachusetts AG Maura Healey said she wished the Trump administration had “more respect for the rule of law.” She added: “It’s still an administration whose playbook seems to be bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry and oil and gas. I don’t think Administrator Pruitt has changed one bit from who he was as AG Pruitt.”
Hazy view from California: Becerra said he is “fully aware” of the fight between Exxon Mobil, Healey and New York AG Eric Schneiderman, but kept it vague about whether his office is formally investigating. “We know there’s been some data and material collected on this subject, and we’re going to do our due diligence as we always do on any matter to make sure that the people of the state of California are protected,” he said. Becerra also offered only a vague update on California’s talks with EPA about auto emissions rules. Asked whether he was concerned about “veiled threats” that EPA might revoke California’s waiver if it doesn’t play along, Becerra quipped: “Veiled threats are par for the course for California from this administration.”
Signed, sealed, delivered: Maryland AG Brian Frosh told reporters that he attended an Interior listening session recently to lobby for removing Maryland from the offshore drilling plan. Although Zinke wasn’t there, Frosh said he spoke with one of his top aides. “I gave him our statement on it — we’re obviously opposed. I said, ‘What do we have to do to get a waiver? We’ve got everything Florida’s got, except for Mar-a-Lago.’ And he said, ‘Well, you’ll have to talk to the secretary.’ And I said, ‘I’m not sure he’s going to give me an appointment. Could you give him a message for me?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ So I hand-wrote a waiver on the back of our statement and asked him to deliver it.”
Racking up actions: A new report from the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center found state AGs have taken at least 80 actions on clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies since January 2017. Read it here.
MOVING FORWARD ON EPA-INTERIOR: Sen. Tom Udall, top Democrat on the EPA-Interior spending subcommittee, said he and his counterpart, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, plan to meet later this week and into early next week in hopes of hammering out differences on their spending package for the rest of fiscal 2018. But, he warned, nearly 50 riders currently in play are likely to be a major obstacle: “Riders are specific policy items that don’t belong on appropriations bills,” he told reporters. “We’ve usually been keeping the numbers down pretty good but it’s never good to have riders.”
EXTENDERS TO COME UNDER MICROSCOPE: Tax extenders will get reviewed during a House Ways and Means hearing on March 14, Pro’s Aaron Lorenzo reports. The panel will weigh the pros and cons of continuing to renew the temporary tax provisions in the wake of the new tax law H.R. 1 (115) signed at the end of last year. Some provisions could stay in place and others could fall by the wayside, depending on their usefulness, Rep. Vern Buchanan told POLITICO. “The hearing we are announcing today is an opportunity to continue to improve our newly reformed tax code by thoroughly examining the policy underlying temporary provisions often called ‘tax extenders,’” Buchanan said in a statement.
— Speaking of extenders: Maine Gov. Paul LePage sent this letter to the White House on the Biomass Thermal Utilization Act that was left out of the recent tax extenders package.
DON’T FORGET THE NOMS: Sen. Steve Daines spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday urging the confirmation of Ryan Nelson and Susan Combs to serve in the Interior. Nelson is nominated to serve as solicitor and Combs is nominated to be assistant secretary for policy, management and budget. Watch the speech here.
MAPPED OUT: A coalition of groups — including the Alliance to Save Energy and League of Women Voters — will launch a mapping tool to show clean energy investment across the nation. The “U.S. Clean Energy Progress Map” is meant to capture investments, jobs and projects across the nation’s wind, solar and energy efficiency industries. See it here.
MAIL CALL! ABOUT THAT SAUDI ARABIA TRIP: Sen. Ed Markey sent a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Energy Secretary Rick Perry requesting further information on reports that the administration is eyeing a nuclear reactor deal with Saudi Arabia. “If Secretary Perry is traveling overseas to negotiate a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia, then the Trump administration is failing in its obligation to inform Congress of any effort related to a new an agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation,” Markey writes. Read it here.
— A group of nine sportsmen and conservation groups will send a letter to Zinke today, outlining their concerns with changes made to the announced sage-grouse land management plans. Read it here.
MOVER, SHAKER: Bill Wilborn was selected as deputy program manager for operations as at DOE’s Environmental Management Nevada Program.
QUICK HITS
— Public agency paid private investigators for "opposition research" on local solar company, The Desert Sun.
— Senators say DOE may have reimbursed contractor for fighting whistleblower claims, The Hill.
— Parts of Puerto Rico won't have power before late May, 8 months after Maria, ABC News.
— OPEC to meet with U.S. shale firms in Houston on Monday, Reuters.
— Cove Point set to make 1st LNG shipment, with tanker waiting in Chesapeake, S&P Global.
— Up to 3,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled in "critical habitat" north of Kodiak, Anchorage Daily News.
HAPPENING TODAY
8:00 a.m. — American Chemistry Council holds its Global Chemical Regulations conference and exhibition, 2500 Calvert Street NW
8:00 a.m. — CRES Forum and the Palmetto Conservative Solar Coalition discussion on clean energy and solar tariffs, Columbia, S.C.
8:30 a.m. — EPA listening session on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, San Francisco
9:00 a.m. — The 2018 Climate Leadership Conference, Denver, Colo.
10:00 a.m. — Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on various bills, 366 Dirksen
10:00 a.m. —Senate Commerce Committee markup of S. 1520 (115), the "Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2017" and various nominations, 106 Dirksen
2:00 p.m. — House Natural Resources Committee hearing on various bills, 1324 Longworth
2:00 p.m. — Congressional briefing hosted by Rep. Niki Tsongas on Outdoors Alliance for Kids poll results on raising entry fees to national parks, 1416 Longworth
https://www.politicopro.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2018/02/royalty-battle-royale-118017
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Quakes Linked to Fracking Rise; Disposal Quakes Dip
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
The number of earthquakes linked to the specific practice of hydraulic fracturing is increasing in Oklahoma, state officials said yesterday, even as the shaking linked to oil field disposal declines.
So the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) is tightening its rules designed to limit such fracturing-linked quakes. Among other requirements announced by the agency yesterday, producers will be required to temporarily stop operations for quakes of magnitude 2.5 or higher. Previously, the threshold was magnitude 3.0.
"These events are relatively rare and smaller on average than those linked to injection activity," said Tim Baker, director of OCC's Oil and Gas Conservation Division. "Learning how to mitigate the risk of causing such events is an ongoing process."
Scientists believe the surge in earthquakes in the state was caused by a massive surge in oil field disposal that accompanied the drilling boom prior to 2015, not hydraulic fracturing.
But in 2016, officials started linking some relatively small earthquakes west of Oklahoma City to the fracturing, or "fracking," portion of well construction.
So, in December 2016, OCC officials developed a new system of protocols calling for companies to take certain steps if quakes are detected near their "frack jobs." The new rules announced yesterday make those protocols somewhat more strict.
The rules cover wells in a swath of the state that runs from the northwestern part of the state diagonally southeast toward the Texas state line. The zone skims the western side of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
It is home to the state's two hot new plays, called the SCOOP and the STACK. SCOOP stands for South Central Oklahoma Oil Province, and STACK stands for Sooner Trend Anadarko Basin Canadian and Kingfisher Counties. State officials say the area accounts for the vast majority of new drilling in the state.
Many people have attributed man-made quakes in the United States to fracking, although nearly all of the ones strong enough to be felt have been linked instead to the disposal of wastewater associated with drilling. While many people use the term "fracking" to describe nearly all of the oil and gas production process, it actually refers to a specific part of well development when large volumes of chemical-laced water and sand are injected underground at high pressure to break open deep rock formations and release oil or gas.
In an analysis presented last year, OCC officials said they'd found 282 earthquakes from 2011 to 2016 that were located within 2 kilometers of a fracking operation and occurred within a week afterward.
They said the numbers showed how rarely fracturing operations are linked to earthquakes. The analysis looked at quakes of any magnitude. The Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) list of earthquakes includes more than 23,000 earthquakes from 2011 to 2016, including magnitudes as low as 0.1.
When it comes to the risk of large, damaging quakes, Oklahoma officials are far more concerned about the quakes linked to disposal.
The rule changes are a step in the process, not a solution, said OGS Director Jerry Boak.
"Ultimately, the goal is to have enough information to develop plans that will virtually eliminate the risk of a felt earthquake from a well completion operation in the SCOOP and STACK," Boak said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/02/28/stories/1060074973
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In ‘The Fracking Debate,’ Author Carefully Treads into ‘Caustic Terrain'
Feb 28, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Ask anyone familiar with the oil and natural industry, and he or she is likely to agree that the middle ground can sometimes be hard to find in the argument for or against high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking), let alone the thin line that often separates fact and fiction.
Daniel Raimi, a senior researcher at Resources for the Future and a professor of energy policy at the University of Michigan, acknowledges as much in the opening pages of his new book, “The Fracking Debate,” released in December by Columbia University Press. Before taking on the project, Raimi admits he was “hesitant to wade into the caustic terrain that characterizes much of the debate over fracking.”
Given the protests, courtroom battles, truth-stretching on both sides and the real world implications of unconventional development, “caustic terrain” might even be an understatement. Despite that, Raimi visited nearly every major oil and gas producing region in the United States between 2013 and 2015 to learn more about the issues that have defined the debate and what could come next as it unfolds.
The result is a meticulously researched, yet simplified and thoughtful book that lends a balanced tone to an expansive, complex and polarizing topic. It’s unlike some of the other well-received books that have cropped up in recent years to give an in-depth account of unconventional production’s meteoric rise and the personalities that have factored into that.
The book is broken into 12 straightforward chapters that set out to answer -- or at least provide more clarity -- on some of the unconventional revolution’s most pervasive and bedeviling questions, such as whether fracking contaminates water and how it might affect climate change. Raimi doesn’t wade so much into the debate as he tries to parcel out the issues to shine more light on them. While there’s not much new information for those with a deep knowledge of the industry, the book is a well-rounded refresher and a fine primer for anybody new to the debate, or for those simply seeking more information.
From the outset, Raimi is clear that he doesn’t have a crystal ball and states clearly that his goal is to present “a full view of shale development,” reminding us as the book’s subtitle does, that fracking has its “risks, benefits and uncertainties.”
Raimi points out through much of the book that when it comes to something as complex as oil and natural gas extraction, and what that means for the nation’s economy, energy portfolio, environment and politics, that the truth, or some version of it anyhow, does not appear in black and white, but rather in a more nuanced shade of gray.
For many involved in the energy industry, some of the subject matter treads over well-worn ground. He notes, for example, that the source rock often targeted by unconventional drilling is thousands of feet below the earth’s surface, while freshwater supplies are but a few hundred feet below it. On the in-between are various layers of impermeable rock, making it virtually impossible for fracking to contaminate water. On the flip side, although it’s rare, if a well is cased and cemented improperly, it is possible for methane to migrate into the water supply.
When it does happen, fracking is often falsely maligned by its opponents for contaminating water. While the word is tossed about as the catchall culprit, no distinction is made between how stimulation works and a poorly constructed well that’s expected to be engineered to the highest standards.
Raimi also writes that the economic effects of the shale boom “have been enormous,” saying the boom has brought “big money” to many regions across the United States. He acknowledges that natural gas has also had a hand in displacing coal, which produces roughly twice as much carbon dioxide when it’s burned for power.
But the benefits might not always be so cut and dry. The economic impacts, which have included lower consumer energy prices, encourage more consumption and the possibility of higher emissions, especially in areas where less carbon-intensive power sources, such as renewables or nuclear, are being displaced.
However, Raimi cautions that the issue of scale in the debate is a crucial one to consider when it comes not just to emissions, but to water contamination, earthquakes, regulations, economics and other issues.
“With the hundreds of thousands of existing oil and gas wells in the United States and the additional tens of thousands that are drilled and fracked each year, it is virtually inevitable that some scale of environmental damage will occur,” Raimi writes. “But how large are those risks, how widespread are the damages when they occur?
“Based on existing evidence, it looks as though fracking is unlikely to cause water contamination at a scale that would affect entire cities,” he continues. “After over 100 years of companies drilling and blowing stuff up underground, the evidence of contamination affecting thousands or millions of people simply isn’t there.”
No matter how profound the benefits, or exactly how much risk comes with steady shale development, Raimi stresses that fracking is likely to continue well into the future, barring some widespread and unforeseen change in public policy.
Moreover, as fracking is still very much “being defined in the public imagination,” Raimi consistently implores his reader to remember that both the debate and the policymaking process should be well informed. His book goes a long way toward aiding that goal.
The book, published as part of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy Series, is available in hardcover and electronic format on the publisher’s website and elsewhere online.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113529-in-the-fracking-debate-author-carefully-treads-into-caustic-terrain
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FERC Scraps Gas Market Manipulation Claims
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff yesterday said it has found no evidence that two natural gas suppliers manipulated markets in New England, as alleged by a paper late last year.
The research paper, issued by the Environmental Defense Fund, said there were signs that gas companies under Eversource Energy and Avangrid Inc. were purposely holding back some gas molecules, thereby hiking energy prices in the region by billions of dollars. Both companies denied the claims.
FERC staff members said they found nothing to that effect and consider the matter closed.
"Commission staff took these allegations very seriously and conducted an extensive review of both publicly available and non-public data," FERC said in a press release. "On the basis of that review, staff determined that EDF's study was flawed and led to incorrect conclusions about the alleged withholding. Commission staff found no evidence of capacity withholding."
For Eversource and Avangrid, the action seems to remove a regulatory specter that had been looming over them in recent months: the possibility of a FERC investigation for market manipulation.
Both companies are major natural gas suppliers in New England, which means they're major customers of the few natural gas pipelines into the region. But as New England deepens its reliance on gas-fired power — it's risen to almost half of the region's generation — the importance of those pipelines has become magnified.
Eversource and Avangrid said FERC's announcement vindicates what they've said all along: that their whole systems are geared to reliable gas supply, and while the companies' techniques may be hard to understand, they're not manipulative.
"There are real-world market and operational consequences that were ignored by the EDF white paper associated with constraints on pipeline delivery capability into New England, and their report relied upon flawed assumptions and analyses," the companies said.
But for those in New England who oppose natural gas pipelines, FERC's finding marks a setback. EDF and other groups have argued that the region already has enough pipelines but that they're underutilized.
FERC said the results of the review are not public. EDF was unable to comment by press time.
The EDF study, which was authored by a group of EDF and academic economists, ruffled feathers in the energy world when it was publicized last October. It said that Eversource and Avangrid had sophisticated techniques that could take advantage of the constrained natural gas supply in New England (Energywire, Oct. 12, 2017).
For example, both companies had subsidiaries serving retail customers. EDF's paper said that the companies could reserve space on the pipelines for these customers, but at the last minute decide not to use it.
That could jack up gas prices and power prices in the whole region, possibly benefiting Eversource's and Avangrid's other subsidiaries, EDF's paper said. It estimated overcharges of $3.6 billion over three years.
Both companies defended their practices as legal and necessary to meet the reliability standards that state regulators have set. Still, the report got the attention of attorneys general in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
And the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority launched a proceeding to study the companies' supply practices.
Over the last few months, both Eversource and Avangrid have been answering PURA's detailed questions about how they get their gas and how they keep it flowing in all situations — even extreme ones like the polar vortex of 2014 and recent "bomb cyclone."
Last week, a squad of representatives from both companies told PURA that all their practices are geared to keep gas supplies completely reliable — even when it seems that some pipelines are being underused. "The gas portfolio we control is not surplus," James Daly, vice president of energy supply at Eversource, said at a hearing.
Daly said Eversource has to be ready for fluctuations in weather, gas demand and "force majeure" events.
"[W]e must ensure that we always have sufficient capacity to meet our customers' needs," he said. "Sufficient capacity also means sufficient flexibility to respond to uncertain requirements on short notice due to extreme weather variations and operating conditions."
Katherine Dykes, PURA's chairwoman, emphasized that the point of the proceeding is to illuminate the companies' gas supply prices and whether they follow current PURA rules.
"At this stage in the proceeding, this is not intended as an investigation into whether those rules should be changed or how different rules should be put in place," she said. "That was not in the scope of the investigation that we started."
She said to expect a follow-up hearing in the next few months.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/02/28/stories/1060074977
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West Virginia Gas Companies Wined and Dined Lawmakers Before Scoring Favorable Fracking Legislation
Feb 28, 2018 | Desmog
By Alex Kotch
A country club luncheon. A $130 steak dinner. A whiskey tasting. Dinner at an historic neo-Georgian mansion.
These are just a few examples of the many occasions last year when oil and gas lobbyists wined and dined West Virginia state lawmakers on key committees that craft fossil fuel legislation. Lobbyists representing industry players including natural gas giant EQT, Antero Resources, TransCanada, and multiple oil and gas trade associations wooed state lawmakers with thousands of dollars’ worth of food and drink throughout 2017, according to lobbying records obtained by DeSmog.
In early 2018, just months after some of these fancy gatherings took place, most oil and gas companies got something they wanted: A “co-tenancy” bill, HB 4268, that allows these companies to drill for natural gas on private land with the consent of only 75 percent of the landowners. The powerful fossil fuel industry in the state often secures favorable treatment from politicians of both parties whom they lobby — and to whom their corporate political action committees donate.
In a February 9 public hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee on the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) bill, West Virginia resident and first-time state Senate candidate Lissa Lucas began to list campaign donations that committee members had received from fossil fuel interests. Her recitation didn’t last long, as Chairman John Shott had her removed, alleging these publicly available statistics were “personal.” A video of these events went viral online.
I previously reported for VICE.com that seven members of that committee hold financial stakes in the oil and gas industry, work for an oil- and gas-connected company, or both. In addition, oil and gas interests donated roughly $240,000 total to the 16 Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee, all of whom voted to advance the bill.
On February 15, the full House voted mostly along party lines to approve the measure, sending it to the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, where it is in debate. But another, competing proposal is in the works, and has the support of the Democratic governor, Jim Justice, who said he might veto the co-tenancy bill if it passed the Senate.
Gov. Justice surprised many West Virginians on February 26 by promoting a “grand bargain” bill that he hoped lawmakers would bring up in a special legislative session. The proposal pairs a “joint development” policy — which would allow companies to combine old gas drilling leases even if these leases were signed before horizontal drilling technology was developed — with a gas severance tax to help increase teacher pay and fund healthcare.
Natural gas giant EQT Corporation supports joint development and has been accused of insider dealings; a volunteer adviser to Justice is Bray Cary, a member of EQT’s board of directors and major shareholder.
Oil and gas companies aren’t happy with the proposed increased severance tax. In a statement, Anne Blankenship, director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA), said her group “is very concerned” at the governor’s proposal.
“Great progress has been made by stakeholders on this cotenancy bill to ensure that investment in West Virginia by the oil and gas industry continues to boost the state’s economy,” she said.
Just a day after his proposal, Gov. Justice announced he would raise teacher pay without, at least for now, tying the funding to a gas severance tax, clearing the way once again for HB 4268.
Both co-tenancy and joint development would aid the oil and gas industry and impact a proposed petrochemical storage and refining facility that is likely coming to West Virginia and is heavily financed by a Chinese state-owned energy investment company. The facility will house fracked oil and gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in the region.A Lobbying Blitz From EQT Corporation
New lobbying revelations by DeSmog represent an important layer in the multi-pronged strategy that major oil and gas companies in West Virginia employ to achieve their goals in Charleston.
On January 24, 2017, Danielle Waltz and three other lobbyists for EQT, the biggest natural gas producer in the country, kicked off the year by taking state legislators on several key committees, including Sen. Charlie Trump, Sen. Patricia Rucker,Del. Riley Moore, and Del. Jill Upson, out for lunch at a neo-Georgian mansion in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Then on March 6, Waltz and two other EQT lobbyists treated Sen. Trump, Senate President Mitch Carmichael, and Sen. Craig Blair to $53 steak dinners at a restaurant in downtown Charleston.
In the first half of 2017, Waltz and other EQT lobbyists held multiple lunches for the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate president’s office. On July 20, Waltz and other EQT lobbyists dined at the Edgewood Country Club with Moore and Moore Capito, buying each of them $94 worth of food and beverages.
Lobby disclosures reveal that EQT lobbyist Danielle Waltz bought state legislators $94 lunches at a country club in July 2017.On November 16, 2017, Gregory Hoyer, EQT government affairs manager and West Virginia Chamber of Commerce board member, took out Del. Geoff Foster, future cosponsor of HB 4268, for a $54 lunch in Charleston. Later that month, Hoyer treated two HB 4268 co-sponsors (Foster and John Kelly) and the primary sponsor of the drilling bill, Bill Anderson, to meals.
Early in 2017 Hoyer had taken Del. Jason Harshbarger (who works at Dominion, earns oil and gas royalties, and is Lissa Lucas’s opponent) and Joshua Higginbotham (HB 4268 cosponsor) out to dinner. EQT’s PAC has donated $12,500 to House Judiciary Republicans who voted to advance HB 4268.More Industry Players
WVONGA, which has been pressuring lawmakers to pass “co-tenancy” legislation, originally proposed allowing companies to drill in areas with the approval of only 50 percent of landowners, rather than the 75 percent required in HB 4268.
On December 4, 2017, Harshbarger’s campaign held a fundraising event hosted by a number of oil and gas lobbyists and held at WVONGA’s offices. The lobbyists, as Lucas notes on her website, represented oil and gas firms and utilities Antero Resources, Consol Energy, Dominion Energy, EQT Corporation, First Energy, and Southwestern Energy.
WVONGA’s Blankenship personally treated key lawmakers to upscale dining experiences in advance of HB 4268’s introduction. On December 12, just six weeks before the bill’s introduction, Blankenship took several delegates out for dinner at Laury’s Restaurant, “the premier fine dining establishment in Charleston,” to discuss oil and natural gas issues. Carmichael, House Speaker Tim Armstead, Capito, and Cory Palumbo (a Democrat and partner at a law firm specializing in oil and gas issues) each enjoyed $100 meals.
Lobbying disclosure showing that the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association bought $100 dinners for five state lawmakers in December 2017, just weeks before a key vote on fracking legislation.Other prominent oil and gas lobbyists in the state did their part as well. Robert Orndorff, state policy director for Dominion, West Virginia Chamber board member, and former WVONGA president, took several key lawmakers including Harshbarger, Del. Ray Hollen (HB 4268 cosponsor), Del. Ben Queen, and Guy Ward (cosponsor) to dinner in March 2017. Then in May, Orndorff took Harshbarger and HB 4268 cosponsor Del. Charlotte Lane out for $50 lunches.
Benjamin Beakes, a TransCanada lobbyist and former West Virginia GOP staffer, spent $1,000 on a dinner in October during which he and 10 key lawmakers discussed “pipeline construction updates.”
Late last year, several Judiciary Committee members attended a number of events hosted by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which supports co-tenancy legislation and counts oil and gas companies as members. The chamber footed the food and lodging bills for Shott, Harshbarger and his spouse, Del. Steve Westfall (HB 4268 cosponsor) and his spouse, and Kelly. In addition, the chamber also gave $121 “trophy awards,” classified as gifts on lobbying reports, to these delegates and Del. Mark Zatezalo (cosponsor).
Lobbying disclosures show that the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce paid for food and resort lodging for state government officials and some spouses for a retreat in December 2017.Other oil and gas companies and trade groups that bought meals for key state lawmakers in 2017 include Enbridge, the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, and the West Virginia Land and Mineral Owners Association.
And the party has continued into 2018. Just two days before the public hearing when Lucas was removed, legislators were treated to a whiskey tasting hosted by the Shale Energy Alliance, which supports joint development.
More recently, on February 13, the West Virginia Chamber hosted a legislative breakfast on natural gas development, sponsored by EQT, when members had “the opportunity to hear from leading legislators on the hottest topics underway at the Capitol.”Power Dynamics
However, not everyone is excited about the oil and gas industry’s influence in Charleston.
That includes the West Virginia Environmental Council, “a collaborative effort involving dozens of environmental organizations across West Virginia,” Chuck Wyrostok, chair of the council’s Government Affairs Committee, told DeSmog. “Its budget is a tiny fraction of industry’s treasure chest, and yet each year it manages to hire a team of savvy lobbyists to fight to defend our air and water from degradation.”
Justin Raines, chair of the Sierra Club’s West Virginia chapter, which lobbies primarily via the council, would agree.
“We have less power than the oil and gas industry, obviously, but we’ve still been able to make a big difference,” he told DeSmog. “People are beginning to wake up to how sold out our system is, and how much corruption there is at the top.”
“What infuriates me,” Lucas told DeSmog, “is the time our legislators spend listening to these talking points, without near the same time listening to the regular people who will lose their property rights … I mean, what do you think the chances are that they'd come to my house and chat with me for hours over venison burgers?”
Lobbyists Waltz, Hoyer, Blankenship, Orndorff, and Beakes did not return DeSmog’s requests for comment.Campaign Contributions
“Oil and gas is far and away the largest contributor as far as campaign finances go,” said Raines, “especially if you include energy companies that are burning gas and usually have the same interests.”
Overall, EQT has donated nearly $103,000 to the campaigns of West Virginia state candidates since 2000. Oil and gas interests have donated more than $600,000 to the campaigns of state senators and delegates since 1998. Most lawmakers on the committees that wrote HB 4268 have received large sums from the industry, including Frank Deem ($14,550), who owns an oil and gas company; Hanshaw ($5,100); and Capito ($4,625).
“The WV Legislature is, with few exceptions, made up of pay-to-play politicians, resulting in an outsized advantage for the fat cats,” Wyrostok told DeSmog over email. “Only campaign finance reform can begin to address that.”
“Because I can't offer big donations, I got less than two minutes at a public hearing,” said Lucas. “And when [House Judiciary Committee members] didn't like what I had to say, they hauled me off. Yet they should be aching to hear what they could do to make things better for regular people.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/28/west-virginia-gas-companies-lobbying-lawmakers-hb4268-fracking
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Judge Explains Order Halting Louisiana Pipeline Construction
Feb 28, 2018 | AP (In Washington Post)
By Michael Kunzelman
A federal judge who halted construction of a crude oil pipeline through a Louisiana swamp concluded that the project’s irreversible environmental damage outweighs the economic harm that a delay brings to the company building it.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued a 61-page ruling Tuesday to explain her decision last week to stop construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline in environmentally fragile Atchafalaya Basin.
The judge said the project potentially threatens the hydrology of the basin and “poses the threat of destruction of already diminishing wetlands.” She also agreed with environmental groups that centuries-old “legacy” trees can’t be replaced once they’re cut down.
Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC on Monday asked Dick to suspend her order while it appeals, but the judge refused. The company is asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Dick’s decision.
Dick clarified that the preliminary injunction she issued last Friday only applies to the basin. The order doesn’t prevent the company from working elsewhere along the pipeline’s 162-mile-long (261-kilometer) path from Lake Charles to St. James Parish.
Sierra Club and other environmental groups sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month, saying it violated the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws when it approved a permit for the project. If Dick’s order stands, all construction work in the basin must stop until the lawsuit is resolved.
The company said the construction halt could cost it close to $1 million per day or $25 million per month, forcing contractors to lay off or furlough workers and hurting the local economy. But the judge said the company’s estimated losses aren’t supported by the “underlying data.”
“The Court finds the temporary delay in reaping economic benefits does not outweigh the permanent harm to the environment that has been established as a result of the pipeline construction,” she wrote.
Construction in the basin began last month. The basin is the nation’s largest river swamp and includes roughly 880,000 acres (356,000 hectares) of forested wetlands, according to the groups’ lawsuit.
Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC is a joint venture of Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66. Energy Transfer Partners built the Dakota Access pipeline, a project that sparked a string of violent clashes between protesters and police in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
The Bayou Bridge pipeline is the last link in a pipeline network connecting the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota with Louisiana refineries and export terminals. The 24-inch-wide (60-centimeter-wide) pipeline in south Louisiana is designed to have a maximum capacity of 480,000 barrels, or roughly 20 million gallons (75 million liters), of crude a day.
The Corps completed two environmental assessments for the project before issuing the permit. Company attorneys noted that the Corps’ permit requires Bayou Bridge Pipeline to restore the basin’s “pre-existing wetland contours and conditions” once the project is done.
However, the judge said the Corps didn’t show it took a “hard look” at past, present and future “cumulative” environmental impacts.
“The Corps’ and (company’s) myopic view that they are only required to consider the impacts of this singular project is not consistent with the regulations or applicable jurisprudence,” she wrote.
The environmental groups claim the Corps didn’t adequately or properly consider the project’s oil spill risks, but the judge said they didn’t offer any evidence of that. Dick said the Corps gave “extensive and appropriate consideration” to the risk of oil spills along the entire route of the pipeline, including in the basin.
Earthjustice attorneys filed the suit on behalf of Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Gulf Restoration Network, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/judge-explains-order-halting-louisiana-pipeline-construction/2018/02/28/1854f51e-1c97-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.3d2cb19e7e0e
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The Energy Reality Behind Cape Town's Water Crisis – and Why the U.S. Should Care
Feb 28, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Kate Zerrenner
In Cape Town, South Africa, the countdown is on for Day Zero when water taps in the city of 4 million people are expected to run dry.
Yet, while this water crisis has been making headlines worldwide, nobody’s talking about the connection between water and energy. In a rapidly changing climate, we should.
Cape Town may be the first major city staring down a water scarcity crisis, but it’s not alone. One-quarter of the world’s large cities, including at least two in the United States, are “water-stressed,” a 2014 study found.
As it turns out, many of them also happen to rely on the world’s thirstiest energy source: coal.23,000 gallons of water a month to power a single home
In the symbiotic relationship known as the energy-water nexus, we use power to treat and distribute water, while water is used to process and deliver power. This is why our energy choices directly affect our water resources – and lack thereof.
Traditional power resources such as coal, natural gas and nuclear fission require on average 25 gallons of water to produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity. Coal plants top the list; they withdraw between 20 and 60 gallons of water per kilowatt-hour, depending on the plant’s cooling technology.
A typical American home uses about 900 kWh per month, which translates into nearly 23,000 gallons of water per household per month – just for electricity.
Which brings us back to Cape Town: 92 percent of South Africa’s power comes from coal. So while residents may be taking shorter showers and doing their best to conserve water, the country’s power plants are gulping it down.
Is Miami next?
Cape Town is in unchartered water territory and with climate change rapidly altering temperatures and weather patterns, U.S. cities probably aren’t far behind.
Climate predictions show an increasingly hot and dry America and the evidence is all too visible.
Only six months after Hurricane Harvey, Texas is back in drought. California could be living through more than a decade of drought, which has already upended the state’s agricultural industry.
And the water stress is spreading eastward. New England and the Southeast recently suffered unprecedented droughts – and Miami is now expected to be the first U.S. city to run dry.
This trend tells us that now’s the time to have a closer look at the energy-water nexus, and how to make the best use of what water we’ve got left.
These power sources use almost no water
The upside of all this is that we have a powerful water conservation tool with multiple co-benefits at our disposal: clean energy. Solar photovoltaics and wind power use virtually no water. Energy efficiency uses none.
To this day, 85 percent of U.S. electricity comes from our thirstiest energy resources, fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Expanding the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency, while weaning ourselves off the thirstiest power sources, will lead to huge water savings at the right time.
This is our opportunity here and around the world as we plan for the reliability and resilience of our energy and water systems. It’s no longer possible to ignore the impact our energy sources has on critical water supplies, and vice versa.
We have already begun to turn toward a cleaner energy economy. The question now is whether we can ramp things up before the next big city goes dry.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/02/28/energy-reality-behind-cape-towns-water-crisis-and-why-us-should-care
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EPA Stepping Up Oversight of Local, State Regulators
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA will step up oversight of state and local air agencies after an internal watchdog warned that potentially faulty monitoring data could put the accuracy of ground-level ozone readings at risk.
Under recently developed guidance, EPA regional auditors will be charged with reviewing the criteria used to validate the accuracy of air quality monitoring data, agency air chief Bill Wehrum said in a written response to a report released today by the agency's inspector general.
The auditors will also examine the processes that state and local regulators use to document any adjustments to the raw monitoring numbers before feeding them into a federal database, said Wehrum.
The report, which looked at six agencies around the country, found that three did not consistently follow EPA guidelines to ensure the reliability of ozone monitoring data.
Inspector General Arthur Elkins' office had initially flagged the lapses early last year. It was alarmed enough to issue a special management alert warning that attainment designations for EPA's 2015 ozone standard could be affected (Greenwire, Feb. 6, 2017).
In his response to the full report released today, Wehrum generally agreed with the findings, but downplayed the potential impact on the attainment designations, which the agency plans to complete this year.
Less than 2 percent of the monitoring data "show differences which may represent a legitimate concern in terms of quality assurance practices," Wehrum wrote. In addition, EPA's own analysis shows that discrepancies will have "a minimal impact" on the ozone numbers — technically known as "design values" — that EPA expects to tap in making the remaining designations for the 2015 standard, Wehrum said.
Under the Clean Air Act, those designations mark a significant step in enforcement of the 70-parts-per-billion threshold because they start the clock for states to draft cleanup plans for areas that are out of compliance. Without explanation, however, EPA missed last October's statutory deadline for completing all of the designations.
While the agency in November effectively declared about 85 percent of U.S. counties in attainment with the 70-ppb standard, it has yet to make designations for Houston, Los Angeles and other major metro areas that are collectively home to tens of millions of people. Public health groups and Democratic-led states have sued to force the agency to finish the job.
At a hearing late last week in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, an agency lawyer alluded to plans to make most of the remaining decisions by the end of April, but came under sharp questions from Judge Haywood Gilliam on the rationale for seeking to postpone a decision on the San Antonio area until early August (Greenwire, Feb. 23). As of this morning, Gilliam had not ruled, according to online court filings.
For its review, launched in January 2016, the IG's office scrutinized monitoring practices used by state and local agencies in Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan and Arizona. The review found that state agencies in Georgia, South Carolina and Michigan employed standards that were less stringent than what EPA recommends for checking the accuracy of ozone data.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/28/stories/1060075047
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Firms Promise Climate Action, Not All Follow Through — Report
Feb 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Corporate America is stepping up its commitment to combat global warming but with varying degrees of follow through, advocates said in a new report.
Increasingly, many of the largest and most influential companies are making promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as better manage water resources, said the report from sustainability nonprofit Ceres.
Citigroup Inc., Coca-Cola Co., CVS Health Corp., Gap Inc., General Mills Inc., Intel Corp., Kellogg Co., Nike Inc., and PepsiCo Inc. are among the companies Ceres found to be scaling up their efforts.
"We have reached a turning point," Amy Augustine, senior director of the Ceres Company Network and co-author of the report, said in a statement. "It is no longer just about raising the ceiling. It is about lifting the floor.
"The time has come for bold and scalable solutions, not just from a few leading companies, but from companies in all sectors and of all sizes who need to transition from making commitments to taking concrete actions," she said.
The report — which used data from the corporate research firm Vigeo Eiris — highlights companies working to improve resilience in their operations and global supply chains. It also calls on other corporate leaders who are not actively implementing similar efforts to do so.
While a number of companies have made sustainability commitments, fewer are actually taking concrete steps to realize those goals, the report found.
For example, 69 percent of firms surveyed have called on suppliers to address environmental impacts, but 34 percent provide the tools and resources to facilitate action.
Of the 64 percent of companies that have made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 36 percent have set time-bound, quantitative targets. And only a quarter of those have pledged to reduce emissions by at least 25 percent by 2020.
Kristen Lang, Ceres Company Network director, said the corporate world is reacting to the absence of federal action on climate change under the Trump administration.
"More businesses are stepping into the fray," she said. "These aren't political issues [for them], they're financial issues."
Lang said the main audience for the report are companies who are looking for resources and tools to make a change but also investors who use the information to inform their decisions. They often look to the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability as a framework to guide policy, Lang said.
Bank of America Corp. uses the road map, according to Lang. And some of the largest investors employ it to "engage with the companies they own," she said.
"And more companies are starting to recognize the importance of having senior-level accountability," said Lang.
The report found more companies are assigning oversight for sustainability implementation to top management. Around 65 percent hold senior-level executives accountable for executing these measures. That number is up from 42 percent in 2014.
About 98 percent of companies that have made greenhouse gas reduction commitments hold senior leadership accountable, the report found.
And more companies are responding to their investors' call to prioritize environmental protection, with 32 percent of companies conducting materiality assessments. That number hovered around 7 percent in 2014.
Lang said while there is still progress to be made, she is encouraged that companies are recognizing that combatting global warming and effectively managing water resources is a "business imperative," she said.
A separate report from the 50/50 Climate Project also said companies and communities were boosting their climate efforts but that major energy companies were lagging.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/28/stories/1060075025
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