Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/01/18
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC: Scrapping NAFTA hurts plastics investment boom, could help China
Mar 1, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
A U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement could damage the shale-gas investment boom in plastics, slow exports and benefit China and others, according to a new study from the American Chemistry Council. -
(ACC Mentioned) S.C. Johnson Shows Progress Recycling Post-Consumer Film
Feb 28, 2018 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
S.C. Johnson & Co. Inc. is not typically in the garbage bag business, but the company is making garbage bags to prove that so-called dirty film can be successfully transformed into new products. -
Dutch Supermarket Introduces Plastic-Free Aisle
Mar 1, 2018 | The New York Times
By Christopher f. Schuetze
A supermarket in the Netherlands wants to make it easier on the planet and easier for its customers to avoid adding to the mountains of plastic waste generated every day. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Urged to ‘Help EPA’ Speed Approval Process
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical makers should “help EPA do its job” by providing more information about how a new substance could be used if the agency wants to streamline getting products to market, a chemical industry attorney said Feb. 28. -
(ACC Mentioned) Nonanimal Chemical Testing Proposal Imminent, EPA Says
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA next week will release a proposal to incorporate more data from nonanimal tests to predict health and environmental effects of chemical exposure, a senior agency official said Feb. 28. -
OPPT Leader Eyes New Fees, Expected In 2020, To Meet Steep TSCA Goals
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's top toxics official is said to be concerned about the limited and uncertain resources the office has to meet pressing deadlines to implement the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
TSCA Regulatory Action Raises Retailers' Litigation Risk
Mar 1, 2018 | Law 360
By Alexandra Cunningham and Merideth Daly
By now, manufacturers and retailers of composite wood products — including certain floorings, furniture, cabinets, shelving, picture frames and other hardwood plywood, medium-density fiberboard and particleboard products — are well aware of the increased regulation at both the federal and state levels related to formaldehyde emissions from such products. -
(ACC Mentioned) Academics Urge Caution in Interpreting CLARITY-BPA Results
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
While industry celebrates a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) study suggesting that BPA causes "minimal" adverse effects, experts caution that the project's linked academic results will paint a very different picture. -
(ACC Mentioned) Is This Really Safer for Your Vagina?
Feb 28, 2018 | DrugWatch
A plastic used in mattresses, car parts and packing foam is a safer alternative to today’s mesh for women who suffer incontinence or organ prolapse after childbirth, scientists say. -
Decade of REACH Dossier Evaluation Reveals 70% Non-Compliance
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Compliance checks on REACH registration dossiers from 2008 to the end of 2017 have shown that approximately seven in ten have failed to be compliant, Echa said. -
CIA Cements Brexit Stance in New Guide
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK's Chemical Industries Association (CIA) and law firm Squire Patton Boggs have jointly produced a guide that sets out critical issues for the chemicals industry as Britain prepares to leave the EU. -
Oklahoma Updates Seismicity Protocol for SCOOP, STACK Plays
Feb 28, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Regulators in Oklahoma say data gathered since seismicity guidelines went into effect in late 2016 supports new requirements for oil and gas operators planning to drill in the state's stacked reservoirs, thereby reducing the chances of future earthquakes from completion activities. -
U.S. Crude Oil Production Hit Record High in November: EIA
Mar 1, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
U.S. crude oil production shattered a 47-year output record in November and retreated slightly in December, the U.S. Energy Department said on Wednesday, as oil production from shale continued to upend global supply patterns. -
Shuster Floats Infrastructure Bill, Gas Tax as Lame Duck Option
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
Congressional action on an infrastructure package that includes a gas tax increase may need to wait for a lame-duck session, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman said. -
House GOP Eyes Mandating State Considerations In Infrastructure Bills
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
House Republicans are weighing new mandates in future energy and infrastructure bills to require EPA and other federal agencies to consider input from state agencies, potentially boosting the Trump administration's recently-released infrastructure plan and EPA's goals of increasing collaboration with states through “cooperative federalism.” -
Quote-Unquote: Weighing in on the next Clean Power Plan
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Déjà-vu all over again? Debating what a new clean power plan should (and shouldn’t) contain. -
EPA Backs IG's Call to Improve Ozone Monitoring Oversight
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is taking steps to improve its oversight of states' ozone air monitoring in response to recommendations from its Inspector General (IG) on how to obtain better emissions data, but the agency says the IG is overstating the extent of data quality problems and that implementation of its 2015 federal ozone standard is unaffected. -
Trump's Plan to Ease Climate Change Rules Riles Californians
Feb 28, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
California officials, schoolchildren and at least one billionaire denounced the Trump administration’s plan to scrap Obama-era limits on emissions from power plants in blistering comments Wednesday to U.S. officials visiting a state that’s helping lead the fight against climate change.
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC: Scrapping NAFTA hurts plastics investment boom, could help China
Mar 1, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
A U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement could damage the shale-gas investment boom in plastics, slow exports and benefit China and others, according to a new study from the American Chemistry Council.
The Feb. 28 study, which was released as the latest round of NAFTA talks are ongoing in Mexico City, said scrapping the trade pact will raise U.S. manufacturing costs and open the door for chemicals and plastics products from other global competitors.
Under a status-quo scenario where NAFTA is retained or modified slightly, ACC said chemicals and plastics exports from the U.S. to Canada and Mexico are expected to grow from $44.2 billion today to $59.2 billion by 2025. A big reason for that is the shale-gas cost advantage of U.S. feedstocks, ACC said.
But if NAFTA is scrapped, those exports would only rise to $52.3 billion, even if Mexico and Canada only resort to the relatively low “most-favored nation” tariffs (MFN) that they could implement.
“In this case we think we’re opening the door to greater competition and market access by manufacturers in China and other regions,” said ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley.
He also suggested the heavy capital investment now underway in the U.S. chemical and plastics sectors could suffer because the United States would be less competitive globally.
Dooley said the chemical industry, including plastics, accounted for 48 percent of U.S. manufacturing investment in the United States in 2016 and 2017, and the chemical industry has a running total of $188 billion in announced investments planned. Most of that new production is ultimately planned for export, he said.
But with tight margins in the chemical industry, he said even the 6 percent MFN tariffs that Mexico could put in place would raise costs for U.S. exports.
“Demand will still be there, but U.S. chemicals on balance could be 6 percent more expensive compared to other suppliers around the world, be they chemical manufacturers based in Europe, Brazil or China,” Dooley said.
“Our concern is if you see in a worst-case scenario by this administration, to withdraw from NAFTA, that will immediately have some significant impacts on our ability to export products to Canada and maybe even more importantly to Mexico,” he said in a conference call with journalists.
The report suggests that over time, the tightly integrated North American supply chains within NAFTA would be disrupted, as manufacturers in Mexico and Canada seek cheaper suppliers from other parts of the world.
“A probable outcome is that Chinese producers, which are already competitive suppliers of inputs that are important to the Mexican economy (e.g. auto parts), would gain market share,” it said.
Such a shift would not happen in the short-term, but over the long-term as supply chains adjust, it said.
The report noted that components of manufactured goods can cross borders between the three countries seven or eight times before a product is finished, and each of those crossings could potentially be subjected to tariffs.Predicting NAFTA's future
Dooley declined to predict an outcome for the NAFTA negotiations, but suggested a complete withdrawal by the United States was unlikely.
“I don’t think that the odds are that we will have an absolute withdrawal from the NAFTA agreement, but I can’t totally rule that out,” Dooley said.
But if the Trump administration takes a hard line position in areas like investor-state dispute mechanisms and on a U.S. demand that NAFTA by renewed every five years by the three countries, a so-called sunset proposal, those could be “non-starters” with Canada and Mexico, he said.
In particular, he said the chemical industry wants to retain the investor-state dispute mechanism and it opposes a five-year sunset proposal from the Trump administration.
Dooley said a sunset provision would introduce too much uncertainty for investors in large chemical and plastics projects, noting that the $188 billion in pledged chemical industry investment often comes in large chunks of $5 billion or more.
“Those $5 billion investments are not made on a five-year horizon,” Dooley said. “They are being made on a 40-year horizon. They are also predicated on having some consistent rules of trade and market opportunities. Certainly, it’s not in the interest of U.S. manufacturers to see a sunsetting provision.”
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180228/NEWS/180229891/acc-scrapping-nafta-hurts-plastics-investment-boom-could-help-china
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(ACC Mentioned) S.C. Johnson Shows Progress Recycling Post-Consumer Film
Feb 28, 2018 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
S.C. Johnson & Co. Inc. is not typically in the garbage bag business, but the company is making garbage bags to prove that so-called dirty film can be successfully transformed into new products.
Plastics recycling, in general, faces vexing issues. And near the top of the list is how to recycle more plastic film.
S.C. Johnson, as maker of Ziploc brand of plastic bags, knows all too well the challenges.
With just 0.2 percent of all Ziploc brand bags being recycled, the Racine, Wis.-based company is working to create change for its products as well as other post-consumer film.
“We believe there is a lot more to be done,” said Pamela Oksiuta, senior director of global sustainability at S.C. Johnson. “We need to find solutions. We need to keep it out of the landfill. We need to work together to really find a solution.”
“We’d like to see a much higher rate of return for Ziploc bags as well as some of the other materials. So it’s not enough,” she said.
S.C. Johnson has spent the last year working on a project that Oksiuta said proves that post-consumer film processed by a materials recovery facility can be successfully transformed into new products. And in this case, it’s garbage bags.
The low rate of Ziploc bag recycling prompted the company to seek change and prove it can be done.
“We have done a lot of research, spent a lot of time with folks in the industry. We’ve learned a lot. We understand the issues that recyclers face,” Oksiuta said at the Plastics Recycling 2018 conference in Nashville.
“So here’s what we’ve learned: We do know that plastic film can be sent through the recycling facilities (MRFs). It can be recovered,” she said.
“We also know that used film, one of the biggest complaints is that the film you collect at the curb is dirty. We also know that there is a solution for that,” she said. “Dirty film can be used. That’s not a reason to not have curbside film. It happens in Europe today. They do process dirty film they collect at the curb and they can process it into other products.”
S.C. Johnson used equipment from Herbold to wash the recycled film and equipment from Erema pelletized the material.
“We took film from a MRF out of the U.S. We had it washed. We had it flaked. We had it pelletized and we had it extruded into plastic bags,” she said.
“We believe there is an opportunity here for us. This isn’t about selling plastic bags. This isn’t about selling garbage bags for us,” Oksiuta said.
“We wanted to show that there is an end market. We wanted to show that there is an opportunity for curbside film to go into something else and be a sustainable business,” she said.
Film can create big headaches for MRF operators because it can get tangled in sorting equipment, causing operators to shut down lines that are designed to run continuously.
“Sometimes it’s perceived as being inefficient and unprofitable for the MRF operator. But we also know that there’s a sizeable end market,” Oksiuta said. “We see that there is a potential opportunity for a feasible business model.”
S.C. Johnson went to Europe to find a manufacturer who would handle the post-consumer material.
The goal is to eventually find domestic markets that involve a variety of end products, including items such as pallets, garbage cans and decking that would consumer greater amounts of MRF film.
Materials Recovery for the Future, a research effort to find better ways to capture film from MRFs, also has been working for the past few years to create a pathway for more success.
“For us, it’s a proof of concept. I don’t think we intend to be garbage bag manufacturers forever. It was to try to address a question to us, which was there is no end market,” the sustainability official said.
S.C. Johnson’s work to recapture used film centers on post-consumer film that comes out of MRFs.
A separate collection effort already targets post-consumer film through thousands of drop off locations at stores around the country.
These drop-off efforts are promoted by the Flexible Film Recycling Group of the American Chemistry Council and its Wrap Recycling Action Program that works to keep the film clean and away from MRFs and landfills.
S.C. Johnson’s target is other film that ends up in MRFs that becomes more challenging to recycle due to contamination. The goal also is to capture more film that simply gets thrown away.
Because some MRFs are equipped to handle plastic film while others are not, some residents can add film to their curbside recycling carts while others are told not do that by their haulers.
Oksiuta said the store take-back program is “a great solution.”
“We love that program,” she said, but added she believed most consumers will not take advantage of the opportunity.
“The next step for us is to continue to show end-of-life solutions, to create a demand,” Oksiuta said. “We see this as a 10-year journey. We see this as 10 years, at least. Hopefully before that. But, in our minds, we’re going to do this for three years and be done.”
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180228/NEWS/180229892
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Dutch Supermarket Introduces Plastic-Free Aisle
Mar 1, 2018 | The New York Times
By Christopher f. Schuetze
A supermarket in the Netherlands wants to make it easier on the planet and easier for its customers to avoid adding to the mountains of plastic waste generated every day.
On Wednesday, the supermarket, Ekoplaza, an upmarket chain, introduced what it billed as the world’s first plastic-free aisle in a store in Amsterdam.
There, shoppers found groceries, snacks and other sundries — but not an ounce of plastic. The items are packaged in compostable materials or in glass, metal or cardboard.
Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, an advocacy group that has pushed the concept, said the initiative was “a landmark moment for the global fight against plastic pollution.”
The plastic-free aisle contains about 700 items, including meats, sauces, cereals, yogurt and chocolate.Continue reading the main story
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“It’s not just a marketing trick, it’s something we worked on for years,” Erik Does, the chief executive of Ekoplaza, said in an interview.
The opening of the supermarket aisle comes as the idea of banning plastic, or at least making more of it recyclable, gains supporters around the world.
In January, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain called for plastic-free aisles in supermarkets in a speech outlining a 25-year environmental plan. The same month, the European Union rolled out a plan to make all plastic on the European market recyclable by 2030.
“If we don’t do anything about this, 50 years down the road, we will have more plastic than fish in the oceans,” Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, told reporters in January.
Items in the European Union’s cross hairs: drinking straws, plastic bottles, coffee cups and lids — none of which were available to shoppers browsing the new aisle in western Amsterdam on Wednesday.
Plastic packaging has become so widespread as a result of its convenience and qualities of hygiene. But because of its light weight and ability to float, along with its increasing use in international garbage exports, plastic has become an ecological bane.
“One man’s plastic food wrapper is another man’s problem,” Ms. Sutherland said.
The proposals from the European Union and from Britain landed on the heels of a Chinese ban on all foreign plastic waste imports, which began in January.
Rwanda has also begun a campaign that threatened public shaming and even prison time to tackle the plastics problem, making it illegal to import, produce, use or sell plastic bags and plastic packaging except within specific industries like hospitals and pharmaceuticals.
The nation is one of more than 40 around the world that have banned, restricted or taxed the use of plastic bags, including France and Italy.
In a study published last year, scientists estimated that 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic has been produced worldwide since the 1950s, when plastic began being mass produced. Of that, roughly 6.3 billion metric tons has been thrown away, 79 percent of it in landfills or in other parts of the environment.
Only 9 percent of the discarded plastic has been recycled, according to the study, whose lead author is Roland Geyer of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In the Netherlands, free plastic bags were banned two years ago, after a European Union directive was passed in 2015 to phase them out. At the time, the country of about 17 million used around three billion bags each year, most of which ended up in the trash.
Ekoplaza has promised to expand the plastic-free idea to all of its 74 stores by the end of the year.
Ms. Sutherland said, “There is absolutely no logic in wrapping something as fleeting as food in something as indestructible as plastic.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/netherlands-plastic-supermarket.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Urged to ‘Help EPA’ Speed Approval Process
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical makers should “help EPA do its job” by providing more information about how a new substance could be used if the agency wants to streamline getting products to market, a chemical industry attorney said Feb. 28.
While the Environmental Protection Agency has “made significant progress” eliminating a backlog of approval requests for new chemicals following changes to the country's primary chemicals law, manufacturers could do a better job of informing the government, Karyn Schmidt, an attorney with the previous hitAmericannext hit previous hitChemistrynext hit previous hitCouncilnext hit, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 28.
The information could help the EPA reduce delays the agency continues to face as it and chemical manufacturers respond to changes the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 made to the new chemicals program, Schmidt said at the council's annual Global Chemical Regulations Conference in Washington.
The EPA's initial decisions were significantly delayed, resulting in a backlog of hundreds of industry requests for permission to make new chemicals.
New chemicals are getting to market now, Schmidt said, noting that EPA determinations have been made on more than 1,200 new chemicals. Yet, it can still take months for the agency and chemical manufacturers to address agency concerns, she said.
Chemical manufacturers need to think broadly about information they might have to help the agency understand how their new chemicals could be used, Schmidt said. “That's something you can think about. Help EPA do its job.”
‘Not Just About Providing More Data’
The previous hitchemistrynext hit previous hitcouncilnext hit and a new chemicals group it has convened are trying to think through what type of information would be the most useful, Schmidt said.
“It's not just about providing more data, but what data,” Schmidt said.
Jeffery Morris, director of the EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, described particular questions with which the agency's new chemicals program is wrestling.
These include defining a new chemical's “reasonably foreseen” uses, and related exposures, and how to define “unreasonable risk.”
The amended chemicals law requires the EPA to consider a chemical's known, intended, and reasonably foreseen uses as the agency decides whether the molecule poses an unreasonable risk.
If a new chemical—or its reasonably foreseen uses—could pose an unreasonable risk, the EPA is required to manage that health or environmental concern, said Judah Prero, an attorney with Sidley Austin LLP.
Morris encouraged companies making new chemicals to meet with the agency before submitting a request, a process called a “premanufacture notice” that can help speed approval.
New Chemicals Group
The previous hitAmericannext hit previous hitChemistrynext hit Council's Center for Chemical Safety Act Implementation has formed a 13-member consortium to help the EPA determine whether chemicals can cause respiratory problems, David Fischer, who manages the center, told Bloomberg Environment during the conference.
The agency has been unable to make final decisions about dozens of new chemicals that it thinks may cause respiratory problems, so the consortium is trying to provide respiratory information about similar chemicals to help the agency, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128921396&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=498682000&searchid=31246266&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) Nonanimal Chemical Testing Proposal Imminent, EPA Says
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA next week will release a proposal to incorporate more data from nonanimal tests to predict health and environmental effects of chemical exposure, a senior agency official said Feb. 28.
The amended Toxic Substances Control Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a final strategy for nonanimal tests by June 22.
“It'll be out next week,” said EPA's Louis “Gino” Scarano, who is managing the development of the strategy, said during the American Chemistry Council's annual Global Chemical Regulations Conference in Washington.
The strategy will show how the agency and chemical makers would incorporate information from automated toxicity tests, computer models, and other methods to reduce, refine, or replace its traditional reliance on data from rats, mice, rabbits, fish, and other animals.
The draft strategy will be open for public comment for 60 days, Scarano said.
The agency also will discuss the proposal March 14 during a Society of Toxicology meeting in San Antonio, Texas, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128921395&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128921395&jd=128921395
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OPPT Leader Eyes New Fees, Expected In 2020, To Meet Steep TSCA Goals
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's top toxics official is said to be concerned about the limited and uncertain resources the office has to meet pressing deadlines to implement the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
But Jeff Morris, director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), told staff during a Feb. 27 meeting that he hopes these constraints will be ameliorated when the program starts to receive industry fees in 2020, sources who attended the meeting say, though industry groups are already seeking to scale back EPA's fee plan and some agency staff are also concerned industry may scramble to file applications before any fee rule takes effect.
The sources say Morris told staff that the office faces a growing workload while the user fee rule is only in draft form and Congress has yet to finalize EPA's fiscal year 2018 budget.
He said that OPPT is in a “very constrained and uncertain environment right now,” the sources add.
But he said there are many questions about the still undetermined status of EPA's FY18 budget -- the agency has been operating on short-term continuing resolutions since the beginning of the fiscal year last Oct. 1 -- with the current short-term spending plan slated to end March 23.
EPA did not respond to a request for comment by press times.
The sources say Morris' remarks came in response to staff questions about his Feb. 21 memo announcing that some staff from OPPT's Pollution Prevention (P2) program will be detailed to the TSCA program, in an attempt to address the shortage of skilled staff needed to meet the many TSCA deadlines.
Nancy Beck, the Trump administration's top appointee to the toxics office, also appears concerned about the office's limited resources to implement the new law's many deadlines. On a recent webinar, she criticized the new TSCA law's lack of authority for EPA to hire employees beyond an administration's hiring cap with user fees. By contrast, Congress allows EPA's pesticides program to do so through the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act.
The revised TSCA law provides EPA with first-time authority to levy user fees on the makers of industrial chemicals, allowing the agency to collect the lesser of 25 percent of the costs of implementing several key parts of the program or up to $25 million.
Morris said that amount of new money could result in a “potentially significant” number of new staff, the sources say, though he added that he does not expect to begin receiving fees until 2020.
But one long-time employee reportedly asked Morris whether leadership is expecting a glut of new industry chemical submissions right before any fees increase, as happened when OPPT last raised the fee for submitting an application to develop a new chemical.
Morris acknowledged that the proposed fees are “significantly higher” than existing fees, and said OPPT will need to watch for that possibility.
EPA did not propose the fees rule until Feb. 7, and a public comment period is open through April 27. Beck said on the recent webinar that she aims to have the rule finalized by Oct. 1, or the beginning of FY19.
540 -- 628 Percent Increase
But the agency is already facing opposition from industry groups and environmentalists to its proposed rule, suggesting they could face litigation or other challenges that may limit or delay the agency's ability to collect fees.
Environmentalists are questioning whether the proposed fees will be sufficient to cover EPA's costs and industry groups are charging the fees are too high and will stifle innovation.
In a Feb. 27 statement, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) says that Congress “expected that increased fees would be offset by more efficient and effective decision-making under TSCA. It is critical that EPA continue to work on process improvements to ensure that the TSCA fee revenue is applied to support the objectives of” reformed TSCA. ACC says the proposed fees rule “raises new chemicals fees by 540 percent -- and potentially as high as 628 percent.”
Morris told staff that EPA's ability to charge the fees will be based on work that it does, so it will take some time before the user fees will begin to accumulate. Sources say Morris suggested that in reality it won't be until “calendar year 2020” that fees will “really make a difference.”
Acknowledging that his latest memo about the shifting P2 resources is not OPPT's first request for staff details to temporarily address the growing workload in the TSCA program since the statute's reform, Morris said that OPPT leaders will be monitoring staff workload during the transition until the fees program is operating, the sources say.
But the Trump administration has expressed its intent in both FY18 and FY19 proposed budgets to shift significant amounts of OPPT funding and OPPT staff from appropriations funds to user fees -- and to reduce appropriated funding. The FY19 request for toxics risk review and prevention proposes cutting funding from the FY17 level of $64.3 million to $58.6 million in FY19, an almost 9 percent cut. Staffing levels -- described as total workyears -- would drop from FY17's level of 255.5 down to 238.7 in FY19, an almost 7 percent cut.
Echoing an unimplemented request from the FY18 budget proposal, the FY19 plan calls for shifting $8.2 million and some 51.6 FTE from appropriations funding to the new TSCA user fee account.
Sources say Morris stressed at the meeting that addressing new changes by statutory deadlines are taxing OPPT resources -- in both the new and existing chemical parts of the program.
Morris reminded meeting attendees that statutory changes are driving changes to both the new and existing chemicals programs. Staff are trying to keep reviews of new chemical applications to statutory deadlines while meeting new requirements that each chemical be determined to meet TSCA's risk standard.
With existing chemicals, Morris noted that the first 10 risk assessments are underway, but said “it's proving to be a heavy lift” to finish those assessments along with all the other deadlines new TSCA places on the office.
Morris also reminded staff that by the end of the year, the statute requires EPA to add 40 more existing chemicals -- those that were in commerce when the original version of the law was enacted in 1976 -- to its plate. Revised TSCA gives one year to prioritize chemicals as high or low priority for risk assessment. These chemicals will expand the pipeline of ongoing assessments for the existing chemicals part of the program.
He reportedly said that the “most acute” areas of need in the TSCA program are within the new chemicals program, where staff are struggling to finalize a new framework to guide the analyses of all new chemical applications within the statutory time line, which is intended to be no more than 180 days.
With the reformed TSCA providing no grace period for its changes to requirements for new chemicals, EPA developed an immediate backlog in the summer of 2016 and has worked at a much slower pace, resulting in more restrictions -- of great concern to industry. Environmentalists have also challenged the process, with an ongoing suit over the new framework making its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
But Morris indicated there are also urgent demands for more staff in the existing chemicals side of the TSCA program, noting again the statutory requirement that EPA begin assessing the priory of 40 new chemicals by the end of the calendar year. The statute requires that by 2019, EPA add 20 high priority chemicals for assessment to its agenda and have designated 20 chemicals as low priority; it gives the agency a year to prioritize chemicals as high or low priority.
Morris said that technical specialists in the Safer Choice program could be particularly helpful in selecting the 20 chemicals expected to be low priority. Morris explained his concern that if any of the chemicals thought to be low priority are determined not to be a low priority during the year's prioritization evaluation, it becomes a high priority chemical and must move with the other high priority chemicals directly to risk assessment. Such a scenario would further “stress and already stressed program,” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/oppt-leader-eyes-new-fees-expected-2020-meet-steep-tsca-goals
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TSCA Regulatory Action Raises Retailers' Litigation Risk
Mar 1, 2018 | Law 360
By Alexandra Cunningham and Merideth Daly
By now, manufacturers and retailers of composite wood products — including certain floorings, furniture, cabinets, shelving, picture frames and other hardwood plywood, medium-density fiberboard and particleboard products — are well aware of the increased regulation at both the federal and state levels related to formaldehyde emissions from such products. On Feb. 7, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a series of amendments to its final rule under Title VI to the Toxic Substances Control Act.
The final rule on formaldehyde is particularly significant because it represents the first time that the federal government has regulated formaldehyde emissions from consumer products, such as those listed above. It also includes various testing, certification, labeling and other requirements for manufacturers of covered composite wood products, and recordkeeping requirements for others in the supply chain — including, specifically, retailers. The deadline for compliance for the bulk of the provisions in the formaldehyde final rule is Dec. 12, 2018.
Without question, new regulations such as the formaldehyde final rule present risk to retailers associated with noncompliance. Retailers of covered products should be taking the necessary steps now to ensure that they will be in compliance with the rule by the December 2018 deadline. However, in the realm of tort litigation, we frequently observe increased litigation risk for retailers associated with increased regulatory action, even in the absence of regulatory noncompliance.
Formaldehyde emissions present a case in point. Specifically, the same formaldehyde emission limits contained in the formaldehyde final rule were instituted in California several years ago by the California Air Resource Board. Since the implementation of the CARB emission standards, there has been a sharp increase in claims nationally brought by plaintiffs alleging personal injury and/or property damage as a result of formaldehyde emissions in their homes.
The most widely publicized litigation has involved Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc., a specialty retailer of hardwood flooring. Claims against the company were consolidated in multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In October 2017, Lumber Liquidators announced a memorandum of understanding that, if approved, would resolve a broad group of these claims for an aggregate settlement of $36 million. Other retailers have faced similar claims in jurisdictions across the country.
Regulatory activity regarding a particular chemical or substance has a twofold impact on litigation. First, increased regulatory activity regarding a substance leads to an increased focus on that substance by opportunistic and entrepreneurial plaintiffs law firms. Plaintiffs firms begin to recruit potential litigants. Second, plaintiffs counsel then attempt to assert the regulatory exposure limits as a proxy for causation in human health effects litigation — asserting, for example, that if a product emits formaldehyde at, near or in excess of the regulatory standard, the causation element of their personal injury claim should be assumed.
This theory ignores that the regulatory risk assessment process is often inherently uncertain — for example, due to variability between test species (e.g., animals) and humans, gaps in understanding of the dose-response relationship in humans with respect to specific chemical exposures, etc. — and, as a result, is intended to err on the side of caution and overestimate risk. In other words, the regulatory exposure limits are often not necessarily tied to any scientific evidence of adverse human health effects at or above those limits.
The CARB emissions standards, for example, are intended to limit formaldehyde emissions to the extent feasible, but are not specifically health-based. Defending against this theory proves particularly slippery in the context of a chemical substance, such as formaldehyde, that is associated with ubiquitous and nonspecific health effects. With the EPA’s focus on formaldehyde through the formaldehyde final rule, this type of litigation is likely to become more widespread, and has the potential to impact each member of the supply chain of the covered products at issue.
We observed a similar uptick in litigation associated with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 2016 rulemaking that reduced permissible exposure limits for silica. Although tort litigation associated with silica exposure peaked in the early to mid 2000s, increased regulatory activity in this area over the last several years resulted in a renewed focus on the substance and a noticeable increase in related litigation.
Although the increased regulation of formaldehyde emissions is a clear litigation risk for retailers of composite wood products in the year ahead, the EPA’s increased regulatory activity under the 2016 amendments to the TSCA presents increased litigation risk to retailers more broadly. Specifically, the EPA is currently undertaking risk evaluations for 10 “high priority” chemical substances to determine associated human health and environmental risks, and any regulatory steps necessary to mitigate those risks. The list of 10 includes the following:
1,4-Dioxane1-Bromopropane
Asbestos
Carbon tetrachloride
Cyclic aliphatic bromide cCluster
Methylene chloride
N-methylpyrrolidone
Pigment Violet 29
Tetrachloroethylene (also known as perchloroethylene)
Trichloroethylene
These chemicals can be found in a wide variety of consumer products, such as cleaning and degreasing solvents; laundry and dishwashing products; furniture cleaners; plastic-based products and textiles; building materials; paints and coatings; automotive care products; art, craft and hobby materials (including watercolor and acrylic paints); and toys. The EPA is required to begin risk evaluations on at least 20 more chemicals by December 2019.
Again, we expect that the EPA’s increased regulatory focus on each of these chemicals has the potential to increase litigation risk for manufacturers of products containing those chemicals and others in the supply chain — including retailers. In 2018, retailers should remain cognizant of the substances in the EPA’s focus and be proactive in minimizing associated litigation risk.
This includes not only taking measures to ensure compliance with any rules resulting from the EPA’s ongoing review efforts but, more broadly, taking measures such as (1) identifying retail products that contain these chemicals, (2) conducting any necessary information-gathering (for example, from manufacturers or others in the supply chain) to make informed assessments about the risks those products present from a human health and litigation standpoint, (3) determining what steps manufacturers and others in the supply chain are taking to ensure TSCA compliance and (4) implementing risk minimization protocols and steps as appropriate.
https://www.law360.com/retail/articles/1016718/tsca-regulatory-action-raises-retailers-litigation-risk
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(ACC Mentioned) Academics Urge Caution in Interpreting CLARITY-BPA Results
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
While industry celebrates a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) study suggesting that BPA causes "minimal" adverse effects, experts caution that the project's linked academic results will paint a very different picture.
The "core" rodent study is just one part of a research programme for the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity (CLARITY-BPA). It was conducted at the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), according to Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). Endpoints include growth, weight, and tumour development.
Meanwhile, academic researchers at various institutions have also received grants to study animals born to the same exposed pregnant rats, using different tests and a wide range of health endpoints.
For the core study, researchers exposed pregnant rats to BPA from gestation to birth. Most of the pups were then exposed for up to two years. Doses ranged from those comparable to typical human exposures to some that "vastly exceed" them, according to the FDA.
Overall, "BPA produced minimal effects that were distinguishable from background in this study, particularly below 25,000 micrograms BPA/kg body weight/day," states the draft report, which is yet to be peer-reviewed. Many of the statistically significant BPA effects were not dose-responsive or occurred in only one dose group, it adds.
"Initial review" supports the FDA's opinion that "currently authorised uses of BPA continue to be safe for consumers", according to a statement by Stephen Ostroff, the administration's deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine. However, he added that some areas "merit further research", including an increase in occurrence of mammary gland tumours with BPA exposure.
ndustry applause
Industry groups have welcomed the draft report. "The results of the CLARITY-BPA core study once again demonstrate that BPA is safe at the very low levels to which people are typically exposed," said Jasmin Bird, a spokesperson for PlasticsEurope's polycarbonate/BPA group.
While Steven Hentges from the American Chemistry Council said "we now look forward to updated safety conclusions from regulatory authorities worldwide who have been awaiting the study results" The results of the "extensive" CLARITY-BPA study confirm earlier safety scientific assessments, he said in a statement.
The core study's end points, such as organ weight and body weight are "neither sensitive nor specific for endocrine disruption", said Ana Soto from Tufts University School of Medicine, principal investigator for CLARITY-BPA's breast cancer study. "This is why academic scientists were invited to participate in the study," she told Chemical Watch.
"Several of the academic, molecular and sophisticated behavioural studies utilising the FDA-treated and tightly regulated rats and specimens have shown marked effects of BPA at the lower doses," said Gail Prins, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a principal investigator for a CLARITY-BPA grantee prostate cancer study.
This includes – but is not limited to – "changes in brain region sizes and gene expression; spatial navigation and memory deficits; ovarian follicle numbers; sex steroid levels; collagen accumulation in the heart in a sex-specific manner; and increased prostate stem cell numbers. These results are published and others are on the way to publication over the course of the next year," she said.
"Importantly, none of these very valid endpoints and striking findings that identify adverse BPA effects would be identified in standard toxicology assays. That is exactly the point of CLARITY – to compare results with standard toxicology assays to other more sensitive EDC [endocrine-disrupting chemical] approaches to delineate what is the best approach for addressing EDCs going forward."Limitations
However, others are more critical of the report. It does a "poor job of discussing the limitations of this guideline study," said Laura Vandenberg from the University of Massachusetts, who is not a CLARITY-BPA grantee. She is particularly "frustrated" by FDA comments suggesting that there were no effects in the range of human exposure.
"The question is really whether the Noael [no observed adverse effect level] should be changed," she told Chemical Watch. She referenced core data showing effects on body weight at 250 micrograms/kg/day and on mammary gland adenocarcinoma at 2.5 micrograms/kg/day. "To me this shifts the Noael strikingly to the left, which means the reference dose also shifts to the left, right in the range – and maybe below the range – of human exposure." The data do not support the conclusion that "BPA is safe", she concluded.
The FDA’s position, reaffirmed in 2014, is that BPA is safe for "current approved uses in food containers and packaging". However, debate on the substance continues at the US state level. Legislative proposals are pending in five states to restrict the use of BPA in food contact materials, children’s products or receipt paper.
In 2015, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard listed BPA as a reproductive toxicant under Proposition 65. Its advisory panel found that "BPA was clearly shown through scientifically valid testing – according to generally accepted principles – to cause reproductive toxicity based on the female reproductive endpoint".
Public comments on the CLARITY-BPA draft report can be submitted until 12 April. On 26 April, the NTP is holding a meeting at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, to peer review the core report. The meeting will also be webcast.
A report incorporating the core study and data from linked academic studies will be published at a later date.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64449/academics-urge-caution-in-interpreting-clarity-bpa-results
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(ACC Mentioned) Is This Really Safer for Your Vagina?
Feb 28, 2018 | DrugWatch
A plastic used in mattresses, car parts and packing foam is a safer alternative to today’s mesh for women who suffer incontinence or organ prolapse after childbirth, scientists say.
The current “gold standard” of care is a net-like vaginal mesh made from polypropylene plastic, a material linked to complications. The new mesh would be made from polyurethane plastic.
But is swapping out one plastic for another really going to make women safer?
Scientists at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. think so.
Today’s mesh is blamed for vaginal scarring, vaginal erosion, painful sex, infections and vaginal bleeding, among other complications. Manufacturers use it in household goods, carpets and food containers.
Scientists say a new mesh made with polyurethane and coated in a female hormone called oestrogen will be safer. And they point to seven years of data and testing to back their study’s findings.
“We have shown through our research that [polyurethane] does not provoke inflammation and retains its strength and elasticity. The addition of oestrogen is a major breakthrough as we have proved its beneficial effects in regenerating pelvic tissue,” Sheila MacNeil, Professor of Tissue Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield, said in a press release.
But, a closer look at the study shows scientists are several years away from a product that can be reasonably marketed.
To begin with, scientists did these tests on cultured cells and tissues in a lab, not in real women. And while oestrogen could promote healing, it has risks. These risks include breast and uterine cancer, stroke, heart attack and blood clots.
Right now, polyurethane is already in use for a number of medical applications, including catheters, hospital tubing, surgical drapes and bedding, according to the American Chemistry Council.
But, polyurethane hasn’t proven to be quite so safe in all medical applications.
For example, some studies found polyurethane in catheters breaks down over time. A 2015 review found polyurethane coating on breast implants is potentially toxic and disintegrates over time.
Mesh-injured women are skeptical and enraged about the idea of a new plastic implant. As women on Twitter told Drugwatch: “Plastic is plastic.”
Women suffering from prolapse and incontinence are in real need of safe, effective treatment options. Scientists should come up with a good solution.
But, so far, it doesn’t look like placing a potentially toxic, cancer-causing plastic through the vagina is the way to go.
https://www.drugwatch.com/2018/02/28/really-safer-vagina/
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Decade of REACH Dossier Evaluation Reveals 70% Non-Compliance
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Compliance checks on REACH registration dossiers from 2008 to the end of 2017 have shown that approximately seven in ten have failed to be compliant, Echa said.
In its REACH evaluation progress report, published yesterday, the agency said that 69% of the 1,350 dossiers in the >1,000 tonnage band and 77% in the 100-1,000 tonnage band it checked contained data gaps.
By the end of last year, Echa had made 2,586 information requests. Of these:
955 (37%) targeted human health hazards;
662 (26%) ecotoxicity and fate;
420 (16%) substance identification;
367 (14%) chemical safety reporting quality; and
178 (7%) physico-chemical properties.
Echa executive director Bjorn Hansen said that the frequent non-compliances found when evaluating higher tonnage (>100 tonnes a year) dossiers "mean that we need to continue to address the inadequate adaptations and waiving statements in those dossiers and to request the missing data.
"I firmly believe," he said, "that together with member states we can indeed further speed up and increase the impact of our joint evaluation work".
A large part of dossiers have not been updated since they were first submitted, Mr Hansen said. This "raises questions on the incentives (or lack of them) for complying with obligations regarding updates".
The agency is screening all dossiers and, together with member states, prioritises those where they have reasons to suspect exposure and hazards are not being properly addressed.
The REACH 2018 deadline will bring new challenges for evaluation, the agency said. In addition to examining the testing proposals in the last phase-in dossiers, "Echa will have to select at least 5% of the dossiers for compliance checks also from the newly submitted low-tonnage registrations, which may mean over 3,000 dossiers," Mr Bjorn Hansen said.2017 exercise
During 2017, the agency performed 222 compliance checks on dossiers, 185 of which were done on substances of potential concern.
Overall, 151 dossiers were deemed non-compliant and draft decisions were issued to companies.
Echa adopted 139 compliance check decisions. Altogether, 679 standard information requests were made in the agency’s decisions, with an average of five information requests per decision, it said.
The most common non-compliances addressed in the compliance check decisions were:
pre-natal developmental toxicity, and mutagenicity/genotoxicity;
simulation testing (water, soil and sediment); and
long-term aquatic toxicity, reproduction toxicity, and repeated dose toxicity.
Fifty-eight testing proposal decisions were adopted; this comprises 127 requests for testing.
The agency also concluded 327 dossier follow-up evaluations. Of the endpoints originally identified as being non-compliant with the information requirements or where a testing proposal was submitted, 639 (85%) are now compliant as a consequence of dossier evaluation, Echa said.
For the remaining 117 (15%) endpoints, it sent a statement of non-compliance (Sonc) for 109 endpoints and launched a new decision-making process according to Article 42(1) for eight endpoints.
Of the concluded follow-up evaluations, 67 cases were flagged as candidates for further regulatory processes.
Key recommendations for
registrants continuously update dossiers to ensure safe use of substances;
exposure assessment and risk characterisation must cover all hazards;
registrants should read up on REACH requirements for skin corrosion or irritation, irritation and damage to eyes, acute dermal toxicity and skin sensitisation; and
preparation is vital to meet the 2018 deadline.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64452/decade-of-reach-dossier-evaluation-reveals-70-non-compliance
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CIA Cements Brexit Stance in New Guide
Mar 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK's Chemical Industries Association (CIA) and law firm Squire Patton Boggs have jointly produced a guide that sets out critical issues for the chemicals industry as Britain prepares to leave the EU.
CIA has repeated its stance that the UK chemicals industry wants to continue to secure access to the EU market by remaining "fully within REACH," or as close as possible to it.
Any post-Brexit future must protect the UK industry's existing compliance commitments, avoid duplications of cost and "assist our ability to negotiate free trade deals with the EU and beyond," the guide says.
A transition period is essential, it says, but that should not mean a continuation of the period of uncertainty.
It is "encouraging", the guide says, that the EU Withdrawal Bill recognises the technical challenges of transposing EU regulations, and notes that REACH alone makes over 500 references to EU bodies and member states.
But the key challenge ahead remains how the UK government will "create, administer and maintain" the new legislation and the bodies needed to support its implementation.
In a major speech on Monday on future relations with the EU, UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said it makes "no sense" for the UK to abandon European agencies such as Echa and Efsa, and urged a new comprehensive UK-EU customs union.
UK prime minister Theresa May is scheduled to outline plans for the UK’s future relationship with the EU in a speech on 2 March.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64450/cia-cements-brexit-stance-in-new-guide
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Oklahoma Updates Seismicity Protocol for SCOOP, STACK Plays
Feb 28, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Regulators in Oklahoma say data gathered since seismicity guidelines went into effect in late 2016 supports new requirements for oil and gas operators planning to drill in the state's stacked reservoirs, thereby reducing the chances of future earthquakes from completion activities.
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) and its Oil and Gas Conservation Division (OGCD) issued a directive outlining a new seismicity protocol for oil and gas operations in the SCOOP (the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province) and STACK (the Sooner Trend of the Anadarko Basin in Canadian and Kingfisher counties), which account for the majority of new oil and gas activity in the state.
OGCD Director Tim Baker said the oil and gas industry fully cooperated with the previous protocol issued in December 2016, but that data gathered since then support taking additional measures.
"The overall induced earthquake rate has decreased over the past year, but the number of felt earthquakes that may be linked to well completion activity, including hydraulic fracturing, in the SCOOP and STACK has increased," Baker said Tuesday. "These events are relatively rare and smaller on average than those linked to injection activity.
"Most importantly, the risk of such events appears to be manageable. Learning how to mitigate the risk of causing such events is an ongoing process. The changes we are announcing today are part of that process."
Under the new protocol, all oil and gas operators working within a 15,000-square mile area of interest (AOI) in the stacked plays will be required to certify to the OGCD that it has adopted a seismicity response plan related to any potential seismic activity within a five-kilometer (3.1-mile) radius of completion operations. Operators conducting hydraulic fracturing (fracking) will also be required to have access to a seismic array that provides real-time seismicity readings.
The minimum level at which an operator must take action was lowered from 2.5 to 2.0 magnitude. Regulators said that, in general, the minimum level at which an earthquake can be felt is a 2.5 magnitude.
The new protocol also stipulates that drillers will be required to pause their operations for six hours following a temblor measuring at least 2.5 magnitude, during which time they would participate in a technical conference call with regulators. Under the previous protocol, the minimum level requiring a pause was 3.0 magnitude.
For temblors measuring at least 3.0 magnitude but less than 3.5, operators would face the additional step of agreeing with OGCD staff on appropriate mitigation measures before activities are allowed to resume, albeit under revised procedures. Operations must be immediately suspended following temblors measuring 3.5 magnitude or greater. An in-person technical conference with operators and OGCD staff would be held to examine whether operations can resume with changes.
Baker said data gathered over the past year indicates earlier action may be best. "While more study needs to be done, the indications are that those operators who have their own seismic arrays and took actions when there were seismic events too small to be felt decreased the risk of having multiple, stronger earthquakes," he said.
Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) Director Jeremy Boak concurred, but added that the new protocol should be considered as a next step in the process of mitigating induced seismic activity.
"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.
The OCC and OGCD have been attempting to mitigate induced seismic activity across the state since at least 2015. They have focused on wastewater injection wells targeting the Arbuckle -- especially the Mississippian Lime and the Hunton Dewatering play -- within the 15,000-square mile AOI. Scientists with the OGS attribute much of the seismic activity to the disposal of extremely salty water, a byproduct of oil and gas production, via underground injection wells.
State seismologist Jake Walter said Oklahoma could further reduce the risk of strong earthquakes from wastewater injection by upgrading OGS's existing seismic network to provide data 24 hours a day. Currently, the OGS network detects temblors measuring 2.0-2.5 magnitude across the state, and an analyst provides verification during normal business hours, except for larger events.
"The cost associated with expanding the seismic network would be a relatively small investment that would help to ensure the safe development of Oklahoma's billions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas," Walter said. "When coupled with other data on oil and gas activities that we hope will be forthcoming, we could develop a framework that would enable operators to know before they commence operations just what the estimated seismicity risk could be, what steps to take beforehand, and what to do during operations to minimize seismic hazards.
"As we speak, such mitigation efforts are being implemented by operators in the SCOOP/STACK. The sharing of the resulting data with OGS will help us to learn exactly what works."
Baker, Boak and Walter agreed that the threat of induced earthquakes from well completion activity is much smaller than the threat linked to injection of oil and gas wastewater in the north-central part of the state, where the larger and more frequent earthquakes have occurred.
"Production within the [AOI] resulted in an unprecedented amount of salt water which was already in the formation coming up with the oil and natural gas," Baker said. "That produced water was put back underground using disposal wells. There is broad agreement among researchers that disposal of these large amounts of water into the Arbuckle, the state's deepest formation, can be linked to the high earthquake rate we saw in recent years within parts of the AOI.
"By comparison, the SCOOP and STACK plays have very small amounts of produced water and whatever earthquake activity there is tends to be much smaller. We currently estimate less than 4% of detectable, induced earthquake activity in Oklahoma can be linked to fracking, and of that, an even smaller percentage can be felt."
Baker added that while the earthquake rate in the AOI has been dropping since limits on disposal were put in place, disposal into the Arbuckle within the AOI is still a concern.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113533-oklahoma-updates-seismicity-protocol-for-scoop-stack-plays
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U.S. Crude Oil Production Hit Record High in November: EIA
Mar 1, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
U.S. crude oil production shattered a 47-year output record in November and retreated slightly in December, the U.S. Energy Department said on Wednesday, as oil production from shale continued to upend global supply patterns.
Oil output rose to 10.057 million barrels per day (bpd) in November, a revision from earlier estimates, the EIA said. December production fell 108,000 bpd to 9.949 million bpd, it said.
November's figure exceeded the 10.044 million barrels produced daily in November 1970. Output has surged in the last several years due to the shale boom, pushing the United States past Saudi Arabia among top producers. Only Russia now has greater daily oil output.
The new record probably will not last. The U.S. government forecasts production will hit 11 million barrels per day later this year.
"We’ve got a lot more oil to produce and we'll be through that 11 million barrel-per-day threshold much sooner than expected," said Phillip Streible, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago.
The gains are primarily due to rising production in shale regions in Texas and North Dakota. Output there ramped up sharply at the beginning of the decade as new techniques involving hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, allowed drillers to extract vast quantities of crude from oil fields.
The increase in crude output has cut U.S. oil imports by a fifth over a decade, and boosted energy exports.
Soaring U.S. production kept a lid on oil prices this year, even though the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia have reduced output.
In December, production pulled back after three consecutive increases, according to the EIA. The decline was driven by offshore Gulf of Mexico output, which dropped by 131,000 bpd in the month. Four Gulf of Mexico platforms were shuttered throughout the month after a fire.
The EIA said total crude oil and products demand in December
was 20.08 million bpd, up about 0.5 percent from 19.98 million bpd a year earlier and down about 1 percent from the previous month.
Americans consumed 0.01 percent less gasoline in 2017 than they did in the prior year, EIA data showed, marking the first year-to-year decrease since 2012.
U.S. gasoline demand was 9.32 million barrels in 2017, the data showed. Demand for gasoline hit record levels in 2016, averaging 9.326 million barrels per day.
U.S. natural gas production in the lower 48 states rose to a monthly all-time high of 87.1 billion cubic feet per day in December, from the prior record of 86.4 bcfd in November, the EIA said.
The increase was driven by a 3.1 percent gain in Pennsylvania to a record 16.2 bcfd, and a 3.7 percent gain in Louisiana to 7.0 bcfd. Output in Texas, the largest U.S. gas producer, eased 0.2 percent to 22.7 bcfd.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/02/28/world/americas/28reuters-usa-oil-production.html
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Shuster Floats Infrastructure Bill, Gas Tax as Lame Duck Option
Mar 1, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
Congressional action on an infrastructure package that includes a gas tax increase may need to wait for a lame-duck session, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman said.
“Maybe we can pass it before August recess, hopefully we can,” Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) told a gathering of state transportation officials. “But I also think there is an opportunity...it could be a lame duck strategy; that we do it after the election.”
Shuster and several other leading transportation lawmakers addressed the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) annual Washington briefing.
An infrastructure bill faces challenges from Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. Democrats want to see new dedicated revenue streams, while many Republicans are reluctant to generate any new funding from taxes or add to the deficit to pay for a public works bill.
“[Shuster] wants to sit down and start talking about [infrastructure], but I'm in the position of saying ‘show me the money,’” Shuster's Democratic counterpart Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) told the AASHTO gathering. “There's no sense in talking policy if there isn't more money.”
Over Before if Began?
An infrastructure package may not make it through the Senate this year, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters Feb. 27, according to Bloomberg News.
“I think it will be challenging,” said Cornyn (R-Texas). “I certainly would be happy if we could, but we've got a lot of things to do, that being one of them, and I don't know if we will have time to get to that.”
Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune(R-S.D.), the No. 4 Senate Republican, also raised the prospect of the Senate schedule crowding out an infrastructure push.
“It could be challenging to get an infrastructure bill done in light of everything else we have to do,” Thune told reporters. Paying for the proposal is “a big problem,” he said.
Shuster, however, questioned just how busy the Senate could really be in the coming months, beyond addressing appropriations bills and a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization.
“Other than that I don't know what they are going to be doing over there in the Senate,” he told the AASHTO gathering.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=128921389&vname=dennotallissues&fn=128921389&jd=128921389
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House GOP Eyes Mandating State Considerations In Infrastructure Bills
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
House Republicans are weighing new mandates in future energy and infrastructure bills to require EPA and other federal agencies to consider input from state agencies, potentially boosting the Trump administration's recently-released infrastructure plan and EPA's goals of increasing collaboration with states through “cooperative federalism.”
“We have long talked about consultation as important, but how do we define consultation to allow states to ensure they are consulted and their comments are taken seriously?” Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) asked several western state governors who testified before a Feb. 27 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.
“Wouldn't it be better if we wrote laws so [consultation] was not allowed but mandated?” he added.
Bishop and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) argued that states should have a greater role in federal oversight of infrastructure projects, including reviews conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or the Endangered Species Act (ESA), suggesting requirements for consideration of state input rather than mere consultation.
And Bishop, who is the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over NEPA, said lawmakers are planning to include such provisions in the forthcoming energy bill to ensure state collaboration.
He said the energy bill would allow states to do all the paperwork, while maintaining a federal standard, to ensure greater state collaboration.
Meadows said that the committee has found numerous federal regulatory actions where agencies failed to adequately consult with states and suggested that federal agencies should consider and act on state input, rather than simply listen.
Speaking to the three western-state Republican governors who were witnesses at the hearing, Meadows said, “You're saying that it's not enough to just listen, but to actually take that input and put it into action.” He added that the governors' testimony suggested that greater collaboration would improve efficiency and save the taxpayers money.
The Trump administration recently released an infrastructure plan calling for streamlining of environmental reviews, but the plan also would require several amendments to bedrock environmental laws including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, complicating implementation.
The lawmakers' backing of new requirements for EPA and other federal agencies to not only consult but to consider state input in decisionmaking, comes as Administrator Scott Pruitt and other officials are working to bolster the role of states in agency decisions.
Top agency officials and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), a coalition of state environment commissioners, are in talks to improve state and federal cooperation through steps including streamlining federal oversight of state permitting and other environmental programs.
In its Fiscal Year 2018-2022 Draft Strategic Plan, EPA strongly backed ECOS' call to give state regulators greater autonomy in implementing federal environmental laws.
But the promise of increased state flexibility comes as the Trump administration and House lawmakers have proposed major cuts to EPA, including to grant programs that provide an average of between one-quarter and one-third of funding for states environmental programs.
'Not Just A Voice, But A Vote'
During the hearing, “Federalism Implications Of Treating States As Stakeholders” three western-state, Republican governors testified that state regulators are often not consulted on federal regulatory decisions, and that when they are, their input is often ignored. They also argued that federal oversight is often costly and inefficient.
As an example, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) argued that while NEPA requires federal agencies to consult with states in developing alternatives to environmental impact reviews, the law also allows agencies to ultimately ignore state input, making the reviews seem mostly a paperwork exercise.
The law “should give states not just a voice but a vote,” Herbert said.
He also argued that state ecologists' input is not adequately considered in ESA reviews, and that states should take the lead in species recovery.
When asked about provisions of a George W. Bush-era executive order on expedited energy-related projects that require federal agency coordination with states, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) argued that state input is often disregarded. “Simply requiring consultation doesn't always work,” he said. “Sometimes there has to be a result and whose side are we going to make a decision, on the states side or the federal government side?”
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) argued that New Mexico state regulators can review a new oil and gas permit in 10 days, while the U.S. Bureau of Land Management takes 250 days creating a backlog of drilling permits that cost state and federal agencies millions in lost and delayed revenue.
Several panel Democrats backed cooperative federalism in principle but argued that it may pose challenges in practice.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said that state regulators often impose burdens on local governments, and argued that while claiming to support cooperative federalism the Trump administration's fiscal year 2019 budget requests and infrastructure plan would shift responsibility to state and local governments without ensuring adequate funding for the work.
And Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued that proponents of greater state authority may falter depending on the issue, citing states' easing of marijuana laws as an example. “The question is whether you are going to defend federalism when it cuts against your policy preferences?” he argued.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-gop-eyes-mandating-state-considerations-infrastructure-bills
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Quote-Unquote: Weighing in on the next Clean Power Plan
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Déjà-vu all over again? Debating what a new clean power plan should (and shouldn’t) contain. Weighing in on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to replace the Clean Power Plan in addressing greenhouse-gas emissions:
Utilities -- honoring the fenceline. “. . . EPA must take care not rely upon measures . . . that cannot be ‘applied’ to the affected source itself when setting out the ‘emission limitation[s]’ that serve as the ‘emission guidelines’ for state plan development. EPA factored in a wide variety of measures that owners and operators of a source theoretically could take to contribute to collective state-wide and grid-wide emission reduction requirements. Those measures were then used to set nationally applicable emission rates for existing EGUs [electric generating units] that no single EGU could actually 'achieve' on its own. . . . Any new rule promulgated to replace the CPP must be based on a BSER [best system of emission reduction] that reflects measures that individual sources can apply to or at the source itself, and must be achievable by individual sources.”
-- Utility Air Regulatory Group, in comments from its counsel, Hunton & Williams.Environmental Groups -- ‘long past time’ to implement a plan “Almost eleven years after the Supreme Court first recognized EPA’s authority and responsibility under the CAA to address the urgent threat of climate change, it is long past time for EPA to implement and strengthen the CPP. Instead, Administrator Scott Pruitt has sought to repeal the CPP outright, without even making a firm commitment to put in place a meaningful replacement. And the Administrator has launched a protracted and unnecessary process . . . that is clearly designed to ensure that any ‘replacement’ for the CPP, if it is completed at all, will deliver limited or no benefits for our climate or public health.”
-- Environmental Defense Fund, in Feb. 26 comments on EPA’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking.States -- repeal and don’t replace. “Indiana fully supports a repeal . . . with no replacement. Indiana believes that U.S. EPA overstepped its authority in the promulgation of the Clean Power Plan and that, when legislating the Clean Air Act, Congress never intended for U.S. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. However, if U.S. EPA decides to move forward with a replacement rule . . . , then Indiana is generally supportive of the options presented within the ANPRM, including keeping compliance measures within the fence line of affected sources.”
-- Comments from four Indiana state agencies, including the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.Environmental justice -- the ‘reaffirmation’. “The move of OEJ [EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice] into the Office of Policy is a reaffirmation of Administrator Pruitt’s commitment to the mission and goals of the agency’s EJ program -- to engage with and meet the needs of our nation’s most vulnerable communities as they relate to disproportionate environmental impacts, health disparities and economic distress. Elevating OEJ into OP will strengthen and complement our EJ work with the activities of many other offices.”
-- Feb. 23 memo from Samantha Dravis, Office of Policy Associate Administrator, describing EJ “revitalization priorities.”Questioning EPA’s fee-based plan for TSCA reviews. “I would like to see them include examples of when companies would get reimbursed if the review period expires without an EPA decision. . . . By EPA's own admission, fees will reduce the number of submissions that the agency will see, and they need to get the timing back on track, and they don't discuss that at all in the proposal.”
-- Martha Marrapese, an attorney with Wiley Rein who represents several major industry groups, reacting to EPA’s proposed rule for charging industry fees to support chemical reviews under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act.Waiving environmental reviews to build a wall. “The parties’ varying plausible interpretations concerning the scope of section 102(c) [Secure Fence Act of 2006] demonstrate that the statutory language is not clear and unambiguous and the parties’ argument is essentially a dispute regarding statutory interpretation. As such, plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the [administration] violated a clear and mandatory statutory provision. Upon review of the statute and legislative history, both interpretations are plausible. As such, there is no violation of 'clear and mandatory' language with respect to the application of the waiver.”
-- Federal court upholding the Department of Homeland Security’s broad waivers of environmental laws in support of construction of the plan wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/quote-unquote-weighing-next-clean-power-plan
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EPA Backs IG's Call to Improve Ozone Monitoring Oversight
Feb 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is taking steps to improve its oversight of states' ozone air monitoring in response to recommendations from its Inspector General (IG) on how to obtain better emissions data, but the agency says the IG is overstating the extent of data quality problems and that implementation of its 2015 federal ozone standard is unaffected.
The IG in a report released Feb. 28 says, “Variation in data processing practices can lead to data quality uncertainty, decrease data reliability, and reduce the comparability of data across monitoring agencies. Since the EPA uses ozone monitoring data to determine whether air quality is healthy (i.e., in compliance with [national ambient air quality standards, or NAAQS]), the data must be of known quality and be reliable and defensible.”
EPA air chief Bill Wehrum in a Dec. 14 response to an earlier draft of the report -- included with the final report -- broadly accepts the IG's findings that EPA needs to increase its oversight of state air quality monitoring.
The IG found in its sampling of six air monitoring agency's practices in four states that three agencies are not precisely following EPA's guidance to ensure data quality, and that this could compromise the quality of data used to determine areas' attainment of NAAQS.
EPA has already taken steps to improve checks on states' practices, such as updating its quality assurance technical handbook and requiring EPA regions to check specific data, and in its response to the IG promises more.
But Wehrum also downplays the extent of the problems uncovered by the IG. “We generally agree with the findings and recommendations identified in the report. However, to place these findings in context, we note that our analysis shows that the majority of the ozone data are not impacted by these issues and less than two percent of the data show differences which may represent a legitimate concern in terms of quality assurance” practices, Wehrum says.
“Furthermore, our analysis shows that these differences have a minimal impact on the 2014-2016 design values (DVs) which the EPA expects to use in designations for the 2015 ozone” NAAQS. DVs are ozone levels averaged over three years -- DVs in excess of the NAAQS of 70 parts per billion (ppb) would place an area in “nonattainment,” requiring tougher pollution controls on industry.
EPA is behind schedule in issuing designations for which areas are meeting the 2015 ozone NAAQS, and EPA is reviewing the Obama administration's decision to tighten the limit from the 2008 NAAQS of 75 ppb. The agency now expects to finish all designations by Aug. 10, after missing an Oct. 1, 2017, deadline to issue them.
But Wehrum says the technical deficiencies identified by the IG “will have little, if any, impact on initial area designations for that standard.” The IG report refers to older data gathered from 2012-2014.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-backs-igs-call-improve-ozone-monitoring-oversight
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Trump's Plan to Ease Climate Change Rules Riles Californians
Feb 28, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
California officials, schoolchildren and at least one billionaire denounced the Trump administration’s plan to scrap Obama-era limits on emissions from power plants in blistering comments Wednesday to U.S. officials visiting a state that’s helping lead the fight against climate change.
Hundreds spoke in defense of the Clean Power Plan at a hearing in San Francisco, the latest in a series of nationwide “listening sessions” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on its effort to repeal the restrictions. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has described them as part of former President Barack Obama’s “war on coal.”
Resistance to the rollback was a given in California, where switching to more renewable sources of electricity is mandated under Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. But officials from California, Washington state and Oregon turned out to make clear the extent of their opposition.
“I know this is a listening session, and I’m asking you, who are you listening to? The voices of outdated technology of the past?” Mary Nichols, chairwoman of California’s Air Resources Board, asked EPA officials.
“California is in complete opposition to the EPA’s proposal,” said Nichols, one of a half-dozen officials speaking from Brown’s administration.
It has pushed state programs that roll back reliance on coal-powered electrical plants, gas and diesel automobiles, and other carbon-burners. The governor also travels globally to urge on efforts and build alliances to cut climate-changing fossil fuels.
“Now more than ever is the time for the United States to be a leader and a partner on this,” Nichols said. “Not to walk away from this.”
Under Brown, California has committed to getting at least half its electricity from renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, by 2030. It is one of the first North American governments to experiment with cap-and-trade, a scheme meant to limit carbon emissions by selling credits to pollute.
By midday, all the speakers at one of several halls at San Francisco’s main library opposed the plan by President Donald Trump’s administration and supported West Coast efforts to curb climate change.
“Mr. Pruitt may not understand about asthma,” said Mary Zhu, a retired doctor and one of several medical workers testifying about health risks from car exhaust and other carbon pollution. “Go to an ICU, go to an ER, and then decide if you want to kill people.”
Pruitt called the Clean Power Plan, unveiled in 2015, regulatory overreach by the Obama administration.
“We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate. Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule,” he said in announcing the repeal last year.
Parents, expectant mothers and at least two descendants of coal miners also spoke out Wednesday.
“As an American, I’m embarrassed that the United States is the only country moving away from the Paris accord,” Jim McMahon, a climate scientist from the San Francisco Bay Area, referencing the global pact to cut emissions.
Outside the listening session, more than 100 schoolchildren marched, banged drums and chanted, “No coal, no way, not ever not today.”
Most of the children were from Oakland, a more diverse, less affluent Bay Area city where opponents have battled a proposal to ship coal through its ports.
“I have friends who have asthma, and they’re going to die” because of coal, said Melisa Rodriguez, an 11-year-old marcher.
Steyer, a hedge-fund magnate and Trump opponent active in the fight for renewable energy, spoke briefly, and scathingly, to the environmental regulators inside.
“This can’t just be a sham listening session. Not when the health and prosperity of the American people is at stake,” Steyer said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/trumps-plan-to-ease-climate-change-rules-riles-californians/2018/02/28/c3bf54f2-1ce8-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.03b522bb186d
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