Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/08/18
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts 'Smart Sectors' Program As 'Ombudsman' For Industry Concerns
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
An EPA official says the agency's recently launched “Smart Sectors” program -- which is developing regulatory flexibility for more than a dozen industries -- aims to be an “ombudsman” for industries to raise concerns they have about federal oversight... -
(ACC Mentioned) Dow, Coke, Others Join Effort to Fight Plastic Marine Litter in Asia
Mar 7, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Closed Loop Ocean, an initiative to raise money to combat plastic marine pollution in Asia, has picked up some new corporate and regional partners, with Dow Chemical Co., KimberlyClark, Coca-Cola Co. and a regional intergovernmental agency joining the organization. -
(ACC Mentioned) Global Chemicals Productions Stable in January, ACC Says
Mar 7, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) shows that growth in global chemical production started 2018 on a neutral note. -
What Swamp? Lobbyists Get Ethics Waivers to Work for Trump
Mar 8, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker, Juliet Linderman and Richard Lardner
President Donald Trump and his appointees have stocked federal agencies with ex-lobbyists and corporate lawyers who now help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks, despite promising as a candidate to drain the swamp in Washington. -
These Senior EPA Officials Can Now Moonlight for Secret Private-Sector Clients
Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Keith Gaby
News is breaking this week in Washington about another ethical lapse on the part of Scott Pruitt’s embattled agency – one that goes beyond the administrator’s personal preference for taxpayer-funded luxury travel. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Aims to Reduce Animal Use in Toxic Safety Tests
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Fewer animals would be needed for chemical safety testing under a new EPA draft plan announced March 7. -
(ACC Mentioned) Official Downplays Osha Role in US Chemical Regulation
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
An official at the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) has confirmed the EPA is consulting with it on worker safety issues as it reviews chemicals under the amended TSCA. -
EPA Eyes More Funds to Bolster TSCA Alternative Testing Plan
Mar 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is acknowledging that it needs more funds to implement a long-term plan for developing non-animal testing methods, known as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), and researching the effectiveness of new and existing non-animal methods as required by the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to reduce animal testing. -
Chemical Information at EPA Too Secret, Activists Say in Briefs
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The EPA and chemical manufacturers are shrouding chemicals and their potential health risks in secrecy, the Environmental Defense Fund claims. -
EDF Claims CBI Provisions Justify Partial Vacatur Of TSCA Inventory Rule
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a new legal brief claims that confidential business information (CBI) provisions EPA added to its rule for determining the universe of existing chemicals subject to review under the revised toxics law are unlawful... -
(ACC Mentioned) Washington Takes Aim at PFASs in Food Packaging, Firefighting Foams
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Washington is poised to become the first US state to ban perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from food contact materials and firefighting foams. -
California Considers Microfibre Labelling for Polyester Clothing
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
California's legislature is considering a bill to require polyester clothing be labelled with a warning that such garments shed plastic microfibres. -
New Hampshire Closer to Setting New Limits on Teflon Chemicals (1)
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
A New Hampshire bill that would set new limits on chemical contamination in drinking water, groundwater, and air is headed to the state Senate after passing the House by voice vote. -
Ueapme Urges EU to Clarify Proposed Changes to Authorisation Fee Text
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A proposed amendment to the REACH fee Regulation must be clarified to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises in joint REACH authorisation applications are not discriminated against, SME trade body Ueapme has said. -
API Executive Committee to Meet with White House
Mar 7, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The American Petroleum Institute’s executive committee will visit the White House next week and may meet with President Donald Trump directly to discuss energy policy, sources familiar with the meeting told POLITICO. -
The U.S. Is About to Be the World’s Top Crude Oil Producer. Guess Who Didn’t See It Coming.
Mar 8, 2018 | Washington Post
By Charles Lane
The authoritative International Energy Agency announced on Monday that the United States will overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest crude oil producer in five years . -
Steel, Aluminum Tariffs May Not Be Done Deal, Perry Says (1)
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
President Donald Trump may not have made up his mind on steel tariffs that energy and chemical companies have said could significantly increase their costs, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told reporters March 7. -
States Ramp Up Review Of Legal Barriers To Innovative Methane Controls
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
State environment officials are planning to take fresh look at ways to minimize legal or regulatory barriers to approval of innovative technologies for curbing the potent greenhouse gas methane and other pollutants from oil and gas operations... -
The Next Standing Rock? A Pipeline Battle Looms in Oregon
Mar 8, 2018 | New York Times
By Don Gentry and Emma Marris
Each spring and fall in the old days, Chinook salmon swam up the Klamath River, crossing the Cascade Mountains, to Upper Klamath Lake, 4,000 feet above sea level. -
Workers Cap Ohio Methane Leak After Almost 3 Weeks
Mar 7, 2018 | E&E PM
By Mike Soraghan
Workers have capped an XTO Energy Inc. gas well after it leaked methane for nearly three weeks in rural eastern Ohio. -
Pennsylvania Regulators Want ME1 Service Suspended After Sinkholes Discovered
Mar 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
In yet another wrinkle in Energy Transfer Partners LP’s (ETP) saga to expand its Mariner East (ME) pipeline system, Pennsylvania regulators on Wednesday petitioned for an emergency order to “immediately suspend” ME1 operations after three sinkholes were discovered near it. -
Green Groups: Dem Infrastructure Plan Better for Our National Parks
Mar 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Environmental groups are hailing Senate Democrats’ newly released infrastructure plan for how it proposes to fix a multibillion-dollar backlog of projects on national park land. -
9th Circuit Lets Kids' Climate Lawsuit Continue
Mar 7, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today said a climate change lawsuit brought by children and young adults can continue in a lower court, a defeat for the Trump administration, which sought to end the case immediately. -
At Energy Summit, Climate Pits U.S. Against Europe
Mar 7, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso and Ernest Scheyder
The U.S. energy secretary blasted renewable fuels champions on Wednesday while the head of Royal Dutch Shell urged the energy sector to focus on world efforts to cut carbon emissions, revealing a yawning trans-Atlantic gap on climate issues. -
Bipartisan Caucus Adds Another Pair
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
The bipartisan House caucus dedicated to finding market-based solutions to fight climate change has added two nonvoting members of Congress. -
Local New York State Leaders Call for Carbon Tax
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
More than 150 local New York officials are urging Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and state lawmakers to tax carbon and methane to generate some $7 billion for investments in clean energy, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg Environment.
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts 'Smart Sectors' Program As 'Ombudsman' For Industry Concerns
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
An EPA official says the agency's recently launched “Smart Sectors” program -- which is developing regulatory flexibility for more than a dozen industries -- aims to be an “ombudsman” for industries to raise concerns they have about federal oversight such as conflicting guidance from various EPA offices and other policy issues.
“EPA brought back the sectors-based approach to better understand voices of key stakeholders in industry,” EPA's Elizabeth Corona of the Smart Sectors program said March 1 at the American Chemistry Council's Global Chemical Regulations Conference in Washington, D.C. “We want to improve customer service to all sectors of the economy.”
Corona described the agency's revival of a sector-based approach as consistent with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's priorities of streamlining regulation and improving collaboration with stakeholders, especially regulated businesses, who are affected by the rules of numerous agency offices, and state regulators.
She also said the office is seeking to bolster relationships within the agency. “In order to help resolve conflicts, we need to have strong internal relations so we're making an effort to reach out to program offices and our regulatory colleagues to make sure they understand we're not trying to do their jobs, we're trying to help them.”
Pruitt formally launched Smart Sectors on Oct. 4, but industry officials gave a tepid response at the time. While generally backing the program, sources noted that past EPA efforts to take a sector-based approach to regulation have bumped up against statutory requirements and been of limited utility.
Sources have also said that Smart Sectors is intended to play a role in EPA's “regulatory reform” efforts, including rolling back certain rules and streamlining oversight through the agency's Lean Government Initiative launched in 2014, which employs management principles in seeking to identify and eliminate waste in processes.
The office is focusing on 14 sectors including aerospace; agriculture; automotive; cement and concrete; chemical manufacturing; construction; electronics and technology; forestry and paper products; iron and steel; mining; oil and gas; ports and marine; and utilities and power generation.
EPA 'Ombudsman'
Corona sought to distinguish the Smart Sectors program from Bill Clinton and George W. Bush-era programs that also sought to improve collaboration with industry sectors.
Smart Sectors is a five-person office, she said, with a smaller budget than past iterations, designed to serve as what she called an “ombudsman” to improve understanding between EPA's program offices and industry.
Agency staff has held 195 meetings with industry trade associations, EPA regional staff and other federal officials. She added that they are reaching out to the Environmental Council of the States, which represents most state environmental commissioners, and is in talks with EPA on improving environmental oversight through cooperative federalism, through steps such as streamlining EPA review of state programs and speeding permitting processes.
Corona said that in April, Smart Sectors plans to issue the first of 14 industry snapshots that overlay economic and environmental data pulled from the agency's Toxics Release Inventory and other programs. Subsequent snapshots will be released every two months.
Additionally, Smart Sectors is planning to issue this summer a video of permitting best practices, showing success stories of quick permitting and how a streamlined process may be replicated across various sectors.
“While we are a small team, we are mighty. We all come to this program because we believe strongly in engaging with stakeholders,” Corona said. “We want to hear how the chemical manufacturing industry will be affected” by agency rules, as well as how other sectors will be affected.
Asked whether Smart Sectors is eying EPA's ongoing implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Corona said, “It's definitely on our radar.”
She added that while Smart Sectors is not involved in implementing TSCA, the office is “monitoring and participating in conversations on that and keeping track of comments that people are submitting.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-touts-smart-sectors-program-ombudsman-industry-concerns
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(ACC Mentioned) Dow, Coke, Others Join Effort to Fight Plastic Marine Litter in Asia
Mar 7, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Closed Loop Ocean, an initiative to raise money to combat plastic marine pollution in Asia, has picked up some new corporate and regional partners, with Dow Chemical Co., KimberlyClark, Coca-Cola Co. and a regional intergovernmental agency joining the organization.
New York-based Closed Loop Partners, which leads the effort, said in a March 7 announcement that the group is working to develop new funding and collection systems to prevent trash from getting into the oceans.
It noted estimates that half of the roughly 8 million tons of plastics that leak into oceans each year come from five rapidly developing countries in Asia: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and China.
The Closed Loop Ocean effort was unveiled at the Our Ocean conference in Malta in October, and the partners said at the time they hoped to create a $150 million investment fund to target marine litter in Southeast Asia, similar to the $100 million effort Closed Loop project previously formed to boost recycling in North America.
This latest announcement said the intergovernmental group Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia, made up of government officials working in environmental and marine topics from several Asian nations, will be joining the effort.
It is the first time an intergovernmental organization is formally signing on.
The head of Closed Loop Partners suggested that was key as the group plans in coming months to put details to its plans, narrowing its geographic focus, building a network of partners and identifying potential investments.
"Partnership with our coalition of companies who have operations in these markets and with PEMSEA, a regional intergovernmental body with local knowledge and experience in SE Asia will help us bring in additional investors, understand the local market and supply chain dynamics and develop an investment strategy that unlocks the key bottlenecks holding back the recycling system in SE Asia and India," said Managing Director Rob Kaplan.
Other members of the initiative include the American Chemistry Council, the World Plastics Council, the NGO Ocean Conservancy, the Trash Free Seas Alliance, 3M, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble.
Closed Loop Ocean said it will focus on funding waste infrastructure solutions in the region, with an emphasis on improving collection, sorting and recycling markets for plastics.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180307/NEWS/180309918/dow-coke-others-join-effort-to-fight-plastic-marine-litter-in-asia
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(ACC Mentioned) Global Chemicals Productions Stable in January, ACC Says
Mar 7, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) shows that growth in global chemical production started 2018 on a neutral note. ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that global chemicals production was stable in January, following a 0.3 percent gain in December and a 0.6 percent gain in November. Note that all data are on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis.
During January, production gains were mixed with growth in Europe, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Africa-Middle East region offsetting declines elsewhere. The Global CPRI was up 3.4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 116.4 percent of its average 2012 levels in November.
During January, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry slipped 0.2 percentage points to 86.2 percent. This is up from 85.2 percent last January but is below the long-term (1987-2017) average of 86.5 percent.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the chemical industry for 32 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100. This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from over 65 nations accounting for about 98 percent of the total global chemical industry. This data are the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the U.S. CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.
http://www.chemengonline.com/global-chemicals-productions-stable-in-january-acc-says/
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What Swamp? Lobbyists Get Ethics Waivers to Work for Trump
Mar 8, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker, Juliet Linderman and Richard Lardner
President Donald Trump and his appointees have stocked federal agencies with ex-lobbyists and corporate lawyers who now help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks, despite promising as a candidate to drain the swamp in Washington.
A week after his January 2017 inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that bars former lobbyists, lawyers and others from participating in any matter they lobbied or otherwise worked on for private clients within two years before going to work for the government.
But records reviewed by The Associated Press show Trump’s top lawyer, White House counsel Don McGahn, has issued at least 24 ethics waivers to key administration officials at the White House and executive branch agencies.
Though the waivers were typically signed by McGahn months ago, the Office of Government Ethics disclosed several more on Wednesday.
One allows FBI Director Chris Wray “to participate in matters involving a confidential former client.” The three-sentence waiver gives no indication about what Wray’s conflict of interest might be or how it may violate Trump’s ethics order.
Asked about the waivers, Lindsay Walters, a White House spokeswoman, said, “In the interests of full transparency and good governance, the posted waivers set forth the policy reasons for granting an exception to the pledge.”
Trump’s executive order on ethics supplanted a more stringent set of rules put in place by President Barack Obama in 2008. Nearly 70 waivers were issued to executive branch officials during Obama’s eight years, though those were generally more narrowly focused and offered a fuller legal explanation for why the waiver was granted.
Craig Holman, who lobbies in Washington for stricter government ethics and lobbying rules on behalf of the advocacy group Public Citizen, said he was initially optimistic when Trump issued his executive order.
“I was very surprised and at the same time very hopeful that he was going to take his pledge to ‘drain the swamp’ seriously,” Holman said Wednesday. “It is now quite evident that the pledge was little more than campaign rhetoric. Not only are key provisions simply ignored and not enforced, when in cases where obvious conflicts of interest are brought into the limelight, the administration readily issues waivers from the ethics rules.”
An analysis by the AP shows that nearly half of the political appointees hired at the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump have strong industry ties. Of 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about a third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers and other corporate clients that raise the very type of revolving-door conflicts of interests that Trump promised voters he would eliminate.
Most of those officials have signed ethics agreements saying they would not participate in actions involving their former clients while working at the EPA. At least three have gotten waivers allowing them to do just that.
Erik Baptist, a top EPA lawyer, worked until 2016, as senior lawyer and registered federal lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the national trade group for the oil and gas industry. According to disclosure reports, he lobbied Congress to pass legislation repealing the Renewable Fuel Standard, a program created more than a decade ago to set minimum production quotas for biofuels to be blended into gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel.
Baptist signed an ethics agreement pledging to recuse himself from any issues involving his former employer, including several lawsuits filed against the agency where he now works. But in August, McGahn granted him approval to advise EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on issues surrounding the renewable fuel law.
McGahn wrote that he was exempting Baptist from the ethics pledge because “his deep understanding of the RFS program and the regulated industry, make him the ideal person to assist the administrator and his senior leadership team to make EPA and its renewable fuel programs more efficient and effective.”
Pruitt, a Republican who was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry as an elected official in his home state of Oklahoma, proposed modest cuts last summer to production quotas for biofuels that include ethanol, despite promises from Trump to leave the Renewable Fuel Standard alone.
That triggered bipartisan outrage among members of Congress from major corn-growing states, who threatened last fall to block Senate votes on the administration’s environmental nominees unless Pruitt backed down.
Jeffrey M. Sands previously worked as a top lobbyist for Syngenta, a major pesticide manufacturer. Following a request from the EPA, McGahn determined it was “in the public interest” to allow Sands to work as Pruitt’s senior adviser for agriculture.
Dennis “Lee” Forsgren, the deputy assistant administrator helping oversee the EPA’s enforcement clean water regulations, was allowed to work on the EPA’s hurricane response efforts involving the Miccosukee, a Native American tribe in Florida for whom he was a registered lobbyist up until 2016.
“All EPA employees get ethics briefings when they start and continually work with our ethics office regarding any potential conflicts they may encounter while employed here,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said when asked whether the ethics waivers violate the spirt of Trump’s executive order.
The Treasury Department asked McGahn for three waivers. Anthony Sayegh, appointed as the assistant secretary for public affairs, previously worked as a Fox News contributor. His waiver allows him to “participate in matters involving his former client.”
Brian Callahan, the department’s top lawyer at Treasury, was granted a waiver concerning issues involving his former position as general counsel at Cooper and Kirk PLLC. The law firm represents Fairholme Funds, which recently filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and the Fair Housing Finance Agency.
McGahn’s waiver allows Callahan to participate in discussions about policy decisions pertaining to housing finance reform, even though “some of these discussions could at some point touch upon issues that might impact the litigation.”
The State Department got five waivers. The former law firm of Edward T. McMullen, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, represented Boeing. The Swiss government recently announced its intent to purchase military equipment and accept bids from American companies.
Another waiver, which was heavily redacted before release, allows communications director Heather Norby to work with employees of Fox News even though she used to work as a broadcast journalist for the network.
At the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall G. Schriver got a waiver allowing him to “participate in any particular matter involving specific parties,” including his former client: the Japanese government.
Health and Human Services asked for waivers for senior counselor to the secretary Keagan Lenihan, a registered lobbyist who recently worked for a pharmaceutical and health services company and for chief of staff Lance Leggitt, who recently lobbied on behalf of his law firm’s health law practice group.
Agriculture Department policy adviser Kailee Tzacz is allowed to “participate personally and substantially in matters regarding the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” a guide that offers nutritional information and recommendations.
McGahn’s waiver didn’t offer much detail into the potential conflict Tzacz’s appointment would pose. But other records show she most recently served as food policy director for the Corn Refiners Association, a trade organization representing producers of corn starch, corn oil and high fructose corn syrup.
Before that, she lobbied on behalf of SNAC International, a trade association for snack food manufacturers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-swamp-lobbyists-get-ethics-waivers-to-work-for-trump/2018/03/08/09204d12-2293-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html?utm_term=.3491cfff084d
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These Senior EPA Officials Can Now Moonlight for Secret Private-Sector Clients
Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Keith Gaby
News is breaking this week in Washington about another ethical lapse on the part of Scott Pruitt’s embattled agency – one that goes beyond the administrator’s personal preference for taxpayer-funded luxury travel.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an ethics waiver to one of Pruitt’s political appointees, John Konkus, to let him work for unknown outside private clients. These clients, and their political or commercial interests, won’t be divulged, raising troubling questions about possible conflicts of interest.
We already know that Konkus – a Republican operative from Florida who worked for a political consulting firm with Koch Brothers’ entities and GOP candidates on its client roster – was screening EPA grants for political suitability.
Konkus calls climate change “the double C-word” and vets grants accordingly.
He is now one of two employees in senior EPA leadership positions allowed to earn $135,000+ government salaries while also drawing paychecks from outside clients that may have a direct stake in EPA’s work.
EPA appointee can “solicit prospective clients”
The second ethics waiver Pruitt cleared this week was for Patrick Davis, a political appointee in EPA’s Denver office who owns a Republican political consulting firm. Davis will be allowed to “solicit prospective clients” as he continues to receive his taxpayer salary.
It’s worth noting that his prior private-sector work was already controversial. Davis was accused of inappropriately steering hundreds of thousands of dollars from a conservative PAC to organizations linked to himself and his friends.
All this continues to call into question Pruitt’s focus: Is it on EPA’s mission of protecting the environment and public health – or on the personal and political interests of his inner circle?
A pattern of ethical lapses and conflicts
Since taking the helm at the agency, Pruitt has come under fire for a series of questionable appointments to leading EPA roles – either because he put industry representatives in charge of regulating the companies they came from, or simply because his own personal and financial ties came into play.
Administrator Pruitt also, of course, is the subject of three separate investigations by the EPA Inspector General for his travel and use of government money after flying first class and using expensive military aircraft. All the while, he operates under a cloak of secrecy.
This week we’ve seen once again how Pruitt, one of President Trump’s most trusted allies in Washington, is helping to fill the swamp.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/03/07/these-senior-epa-officials-can-now-moonlight-secret-private-sector-clients
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Aims to Reduce Animal Use in Toxic Safety Tests
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Fewer animals would be needed for chemical safety testing under a new EPA draft plan announced March 7.
The chemical industry, animal rights groups, environmental organizations, and others who hope to influence the final strategy have 45 days from the day it is published in the Federal Register to comment on the plan, which seeks to replace tests on rodents, rabbits and other vertebrates with computational methods and other alternatives.
“EPA is committed to working with animal welfare groups and other groups to produce a sound, effective plan in line with the law,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.
The strategy would be driven by what the agency calls new approach methodologies, or NAMs. These are methods that evaluate health and environmental hazards, exposure to those hazards, and the environmental fate of chemicals as they move through air, water, and soil. It would also spell out different approaches to integrate the NAMs into regulatory decisions.
The amended Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA by June 22 to develop a strategy to reduce or replace vertebrate animal tests and use more data from non-animal tests to predict the effects of chemical exposure.
The effort is significant, as some EPA regulators have expressed more comfort with chemical tests in living systems that may catch symptoms that were not anticipated. On the other hand, proponents of computational methods argue they can gather data that is more relevant and informative for regulatory decisions than animal tests can provide.
At a recent American Chemistry Council conference, chemical industry and animal advocates called on the agency to include both precise technical language and flexibility.
A public meeting on the draft strategy is scheduled for April 10 in Washington.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129283390&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129283390&jd=129283390
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(ACC Mentioned) Official Downplays Osha Role in US Chemical Regulation
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A. Miller
An official at the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) has confirmed the EPA is consulting with it on worker safety issues as it reviews chemicals under the amended TSCA.
But William Perry, director of Osha's Directorate of Standards and Guidance, appeared to downplay the significance of the consultation. Instead, he hinted that industry officials hoping the EPA would defer to Osha on worker issues are likely to be disappointed.
Mr Perry told the American Chemistry Council's Global Chemical Regulations Conference (GlobalChem) that consultation has taken place regarding some chemical reviews. But, he said, he is "not sure how active it will be over the long run".
The EPA wouldn’t be expected to consult at all regarding straightforward issues, he said. "When you get to more serious effects" from chemicals – such as some for which, for example, the use of respirators could be argued – "that is when EPA would come to us and we'll give them whatever technical support we can," he said, but how often that will happen is "too hard to predict right now".
Argument to defer
The TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC), a group of companies represented by the law firm Bergeson & Campbell, argued in December the EPA should avoid issuing orders to mitigate workplace risks associated with new chemicals and instead defer to Osha. The argument was made in a position statement published as commentary on the EPA's new chemical evaluation policy. It is based on a provision in the amended TSCA requiring the EPA to "consult" with Osha on workplace conditions.
Tim Serie of the law firm Beveridge & Diamond acknowledged at GlobalChem that the EPA does have the authority to regulate workplace chemical exposure, but "we think it is prudent for EPA to use that authority in a deliberate way and to coordinate with Osha."
However, he said, industry should not expect Osha to "serve as a roadblock" to EPA regulation, noting that Osha raised no objections when the EPA proposed employee-focused regulations of methylene chloride and trichloroethylene (TCE). Those regulations have essentially been abandoned under the Trump administration.
And, Mr Serie said, while the EPA has "looked to revise" the structure of significant new use rules (Snurs) "to align more closely with Osha standards," the prevalence of Snurs addressing worker exposure has not decreased.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64602/official-downplays-osha-role-in-us-chemical-regulation
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EPA Eyes More Funds to Bolster TSCA Alternative Testing Plan
Mar 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is acknowledging that it needs more funds to implement a long-term plan for developing non-animal testing methods, known as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), and researching the effectiveness of new and existing non-animal methods as required by the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to reduce animal testing.
But the agency said it hopes that a special new team of staff charged with ensuring the plan's success will help provide “appropriate” resources.
“EPA agrees and is aware of the necessity to increase resources to meet the demands of the amended TSCA (both in terms of this effort as well as in general),” agency staff write in a response to comments document released March 7 alongside the agency's draft “Strategic Plan to Promote the Development and Implementation of Alternative Test Methods.”
“In terms of research, funding and resources, the constant uncertainty of government funding and resource allocation does make it difficult to plan (strategically and otherwise), but EPA is hopeful that the formation of the TSCA NAM Team will focus on the working towards obtaining and keeping the appropriate resources to implement TSCA Section 4(h),” the agency adds.
The revised TSCA law, enacted in 2016, set a June 22 deadline for EPA to publish a final strategic plan for how the agency will advance chemical test methods that reduce or avoid the use of animals through a wide variety of approaches.
EPA's statement responds to concerns in January comments from the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PRCM) that EPA will need to provide sufficient funding for the research efforts to be successful.
PCRM told the agency in its Jan. 10 comments that “EPA will need to dedicate significant financial and personnel resources to the research, development, and promotion of [NAMs] and to ongoing training and guidance to its scientists to consistently accept and use data from NAMs to make regulatory decisions.”
President Donald Trump's proposed budget for EPA in fiscal year 2019, however, proposes to reduce funding for all of the agency offices that collaborated on the strategic plan: the research office, the toxics office, the pesticides office and it suggests that the Office of Science Coordination and Policy would be eliminated.
“EPA recognizes that this Strategic Plan is a multi-year process with incremental steps for adoption and integration of NAMs for TSCA decisions (e.g., identifying candidates for prioritization, prioritization, and risk evaluation),” the strategic plan says.
In it, EPA lays out short-term (less than three years), intermediate-term (three to five years) and long-term goals for the program.
“The EPA’s long-term goal is to move towards making TSCA decisions (conducting prioritization activities and risk evaluations for new and existing chemicals) with NAMs in order to reduce and eventually eliminate vertebrate animal testing for TSCA.”
Key to its successful implementation is the development of a TSCA NAM team, the plan states. The document's release publication in the Federal Register will trigger a 45-day public comment period.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-eyes-more-funds-bolster-tsca-alternative-testing-plan
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Chemical Information at EPA Too Secret, Activists Say in Briefs
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The EPA and chemical manufacturers are shrouding chemicals and their potential health risks in secrecy, the Environmental Defense Fund claims.
The group in a 2017 lawsuit asked a court to review the Environmental Protection Agency's requirements for submitting chemical substances that are active in U.S. commerce. In its March 6 brief on that petition, EDF said identifying those compounds is important to determine potential exposures, identify toxic hazards, and conduct environmental monitoring.
The agency is keeping too much information about the chemicals confidential, the group said.
“Even if the specific chemical identity remains confidential, at a minimum, it is critical for EDF to know a chemical's unique identifier in order to fully engage in its TSCA related activities,” the brief said.
The Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA to keep a current list of chemicals that are manufactured, imported, or processed in the U.S. The EPA rule requires companies to report the chemicals they have manufactured or imported, which helps the agency prioritize them for evaluating risk.
The agency did not immediately respond to Bloomberg Environment's emailed request for comment, but typically does not comment on pending litigation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has not yet scheduled oral arguments in this case.
The case is Envt'l Def. Fund v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1201, brief filed 3/6/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129283402&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129283402&jd=129283402
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EDF Claims CBI Provisions Justify Partial Vacatur Of TSCA Inventory Rule
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a new legal brief claims that confidential business information (CBI) provisions EPA added to its rule for determining the universe of existing chemicals subject to review under the revised toxics law are unlawful, urging a federal appeals court to partially vacate and remand the rule.
In its March 6 opening brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the environmental group details its claims that EPA's rule for re-setting the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory of chemicals in commerce violates both TSCA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because of the CBI provisions.
EDF seeks partial vacatur and remand for the agency to bolster the rule's disclosure requirements that group says received short shrift in favor of overly-broad protections for industry claims of CBI.
“In promulgating the final rule, EPA repeatedly violated the statutory text and erred in favor of concealment instead of disclosure,” the brief says. “The resulting rule will not disclose some information that EDF would otherwise use to learn more about chemicals and their uses, exposures, and health and environmental effects.”
EDF specifically targets Trump administration changes to the final rule, arguing that the Obama-era proposed version included upward of two dozen questions for evaluating claims to keep a chemical identity or other data confidential. The final version narrowed the criteria to roughly a half dozen more general questions, the brief says.
“Among other arguments, it explains that EPA erred by allowing companies to assert [CBI] claims that do not meet the law’s requirements,” EDF says in March 7 statement on its filing. “As a result, EPA will be concealing information about chemicals, particularly information about specific chemical identities, in violation of the public’s right to know.”
EDF asks that the D.C. Circuit partially vacate and remand the rule with instructions for EPA to issue a regulation that broadens disclosure by precluding companies from seeking to maintain CBI claims based on claims made by other companies prior to the TSCA overhaul, among other revisions. Other changes would incorporate additional disclosure requirements included in the revised law and scrap an exemption for chemicals produced solely for export.
EDF opposes full vacatur as counter to the group's disclosure interests, arguing that the move would allow EPA to postpone publishing the TSCA inventory of data it has already received, and also impose unnecessary costs on industry.
TSCA Rules
The lawsuit filed Sept. 5 is one of three environmentalists and public interest groups have filed challenging Trump EPA rules issued last summer that establish a framework for reviewing existing chemicals. Existing chemicals are those that have been on the market for decades and were largely grandfathered under the old version of TSCA.
EDF and other advocates have argued that Trump appointees revised the Obama EPA's proposed rules along industry talking points before issuing final versions last summer. Challenges to two other framework rules for prioritizing and evaluating existing chemicals have been consolidated in the 9th Circuit and are pending.
How EPA will evaluate industry CBI claims under the revised law, which includes requirements for reviewing existing CBI claims, has complicated the agency's TSCA implementation.
Chemical industry attorneys have urged EPA to issue a rule clarifying its policy for substantiating companies' CBI claims under the revised TSCA, arguing the agency has provided limited guidance on potential exemptions and should seek industry's input.
In the opening brief, EDF argues that EPA's Aug. 11 inventory rule fails to incorporate all provisions for evaluating CBI claims under the new TSCA, and that the agency violated the APA by failing to provide adequate notice of potential changes between the proposed and final rules, and failing to adequately respond to environmentalists' comments.
Petitioners fault EPA's inventory rule as inappropriately allowing chemical manufacturers and processors to seek to maintain existing CBI protections even if the claim is based on a request by a different company under the old law. EDF also says EPA failed to incorporate all requirements of TSCA, inappropriately extending CBI protection to certain data.
“Under EPA’s implementation, a person can now rely on another person’s prior confidentiality claim for the specific chemical identity of a chemical, despite the fact that the claim and justification for each claim are personspecific,” the brief says. “This effectively allowed persons to assert new confidentiality claims for a chemical identity using a process designed only to ensure the validity of claims previously asserted.”
EDF defends its standing to sue, saying the rule's expanded CBI protections harm its research and advocacy. “The flaws in the Inventory Rule thwart EDF’s efforts because EPA will conceal available information on chemicals, in particular, the specific chemical identities of chemicals,” the group says. “EDF’s research and advocacy activities rely on accessing a number of databases that contain use, hazard, and exposure information on chemicals, but they are only searchable by the specific chemical identities.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/edf-claims-cbi-provisions-justify-partial-vacatur-tsca-inventory-rule
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(ACC Mentioned) Washington Takes Aim at PFASs in Food Packaging, Firefighting Foams
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Washington is poised to become the first US state to ban perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from food contact materials and firefighting foams.
Last week, the state legislature approved bill ESHB 2658. If signed into law by the governor, it would ban the highly persistent chemical class from food packaging by 1 January 2022. The ban would be contingent upon the state's ecology department identifying a safer alternative.
The legislation defines PFASs as "a class of fluorinated organic chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom".
The bill calls for the department to conduct an alternatives analysis of the substances' use in paper, paperboard, or fibre-based materials intended for direct food contact. This must include consideration of hazard and exposure factors, as well as the availability, performance and cost of the alternative.
If by 1 January 2020 the department has found no safer alternative, it must reevaluate the finding annually until one is identified. The prohibition would then take effect two years later.
Laurie Valeriano, executive director of state NGO Toxic-Free Future, said the passage of the bill has now made Washington "a model for other states to follow".
And Clifford Traisman, lead lobbyist for Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters, added: "Getting these harmful chemicals out of our environment is one of the environmental community's top priorities. We […] look forward to Governor Inslee signing the bill,"
But Jessica Bowman, executive director of industry group the FluoroCouncil expressed disappointment at the bill's passage.
"The use of PFAS in these applications is already strictly regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, which has concluded that the specific PFAS coatings that are currently used in food packaging are safe for their intended use," she said.
And the bill, Ms Bowman said, would "short-circuit" ongoing efforts in Washington state to develop a "chemical action plan" (CAP) for PFAS chemistries.
"The legislation presumption of a ban on all PFAS-containing food packaging inappropriately biases the CAP and AA processes, is inconsistent with sound science and undermines the regulatory process", she added.Firefighting foams
A separate measure, which has been passed by both chambers in the state, seeks to ban the sale of firefighting foam containing PFASs.
If signed by the governor, ESSB 6413 will ban such products from from 1 July 2020. However it does provide a few exemptions, including uses required be federal law, and for firefighting at chemical facilities or oil refineries.
The bill would prohibit PFAS-containing foams for training purposes from 1 July this year. Also at that time, manufacturers of firefighting personal protective equipment (PPE) would need to provide written notice if such gear contains PFAS chemicals, including a statement as to their function.
The FluoroCouncil's Ms Bowman expressed support for the ban on foams used for training, and praised legislators for recognising "the unique and irreplaceable role PFAS-based foams play" in the exempted applications.
Flurry of PFAS activity
As reported by Chemical Watch earlier this year, policy experts have predicted a high volume of US activity on fluorinated chemicals.
In December, the US EPA announced a "cross-agency effort" to address the substances, through research, communications efforts and increased coordination with states.
Meanwhile, the American Chemistry Council has announced plans to establish a panel to engage in regulatory advocacy on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).
And the FluoroCouncil – an ACC subsidiary – launched a website defending the safety of the substances, and highlighting where alternatives "do not meet all the performance needs that many products require".
Last year, California considered a measure (AB 958) to address food contact materials containing PFASs under the state's Safer Consumer Products programme. It passed the Assembly but failed to secure passage in the Senate.
Nevertheless, the SCP programme is currently evaluating the use of PFASs in carpets and rugs.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64630/washington-takes-aim-at-pfass-in-food-packaging-firefighting-foams
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California Considers Microfibre Labelling for Polyester Clothing
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
California's legislature is considering a bill to require polyester clothing be labelled with a warning that such garments shed plastic microfibres.
The measure aims to recognise and provide information to the public on the "emerging threat that microfibres pose to the environment and water quality". And it would seek to stem the volume entering the environment and being consumed by wildlife.
As introduced in the assembly, the bill would require that fabric made from more than 50% polyester bears a "conspicuous label" stating: "This garment sheds plastic microfibres when washed. Hand washing recommended." The requirement would begin from 1 January 2020.
Democratic assembly member Richard Bloom introduced the bill (AB 2379) last month. It may be heard in committee next week.
Mr Bloom was also behind California's 2015 bill banning plastic microbeads from personal care products – a law that helped pave the way for a similar national ban.
Microplastics pollution is becoming an issue of increasing importance in the EU. Earlier this year, the European Commission asked Echa to prepare a REACH Annex XV restriction dossier on the use of intentionally added microplastic particles in products.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64627/california-considers-microfibre-labelling-for-polyester-clothing
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New Hampshire Closer to Setting New Limits on Teflon Chemicals (1)
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
A New Hampshire bill that would set new limits on chemical contamination in drinking water, groundwater, and air is headed to the state Senate after passing the House by voice vote.
Lawmakers passed the bill (HB 1101) March 6 as the state grapples with widespread contamination of groundwater and drinking water with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), and related compounds.
PFOA was phased out in 2015 but was used widely in paint, waxes, firefighting chemicals, and Teflon manufacturing. The Environmental Protection Agency links the chemicals to low birth weight, birth defects, liver damage, some cancers, and immune and thyroid concerns.
The private drinking water wells of more than 500 homes in southern New Hampshire and 200 homes in nearby Vermont are contaminated with PFOA. The states learned of the contamination in 2016 and traced it to a nearby former ChemFab Corp. plant in Bennington, Vt., now owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.
Saint-Gobain declined to say whether it supports the bill.
“We continue to advocate for legislation based on sound science so that any municipality in this country working to solve water issues has access to replicable solutions that provide potable water to its residents,” Dina Pokedoff, spokeswoman for Saint-Gobain, told Bloomberg Environment in a March 7 email.
Saint-Gobain has paid for the connection of more than 400 homes in Southern N.H., to municipal water lines, Pokedoff said.
Gubernatorial Support
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has thrown his weight behind the bill. That could help its passage in the Senate, which—like the House—is led by Republicans.
“As an environmental engineer who spent the early part of my career cleaning up groundwater contamination, I know firsthand the challenges of cleaning up contaminants and the risks posed to human health if we fail,” Sununu said in a March 6 statement.
House Majority Leader Dick Hinch (R) called contamination by PFOA in the state “unprecedented.” The legislation gives state government “the tools it needs to regulate these compounds before they cause contamination,” Hinch said.
A similar bill (SB 309) is expected to be taken up by the Senate March 8. It differs from HB 1101 in that it asks the state Department of Environmental Services to create a maximum allowable limit for PFOAs in surface water, such as ponds and lakes “if it is scientifically feasible to do so,” Sen. Daniel Innis (R), author of the bill, told Bloomberg Environment in a March 7 interview.
Innis predicted that his bill would pass the Senate and the two bills would be reconciled in a House-Senate conference later in the spring.
“What's happening here is you're seeing a real seriousness about this issue in both the Senate and the House,” Innis said.
New Limits
New Hampshire currently uses a maximum limit of 70 parts per trillion of PFOA in drinking water, a nonenforceable guideline that the EPA set. But the state is one of many that has raised concerns that the EPA limit is not protective enough of health. Some states have adopted stricter standards, including Vermont, which now uses a maximum limit of 20 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water.
The HB 1101 bill would direct the Department of Environmental Services to set maximum allowable limits of PFOA, PFOS, plus perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) for public drinking water by 2019.
The department also would review the current maximum allowable limits in groundwater for PFOA and PFOS by 2019 and create maximum allowable limits in groundwater for PFNA and PFHxS, by 2019.
Finally, the department would create rules concerning air emissions of pollutants that could settle in water and soil and cause harm.
HB 1101 would be paid for by requiring companies that emit air pollutants to obtain permits, the amount of which would be determined by the Department of Environmental Services.
The Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire has concerns about HB 1101 and is monitoring the bill, Kevin Flynn, spokesman for the group, told Bloomberg Environment in a March 7 email.
Private Wells
New Hampshire suspects that many areas of the state could harbor high concentrations of PFOA and has just begun a broad program of testing soil, groundwater, and private wells for the chemicals. The contamination is considered a potentially serious public health threat because many people in New Hampshire rely on private wells for their drinking water.
The Department of Environmental Services began testing public and private drinking water wells in Merrimack, N.H., in 2016, after Saint-Gobain reported that it detected PFOA in its own drinking water, according to Brandon Kernen, chief of hydrology at the department, who spoke with reporters in June 2017.
Saint-Gobain agreed last October to pay an estimated $20 million to pipe clean municipal water to Vermont residents affected by contamination of their private drinking water wells in a settlement approved by a state superior court.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129283401&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129283401&jd=129283401
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Ueapme Urges EU to Clarify Proposed Changes to Authorisation Fee Text
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A proposed amendment to the REACH fee Regulation must be clarified to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises in joint REACH authorisation applications are not discriminated against, SME trade body Ueapme has said.
It points out that the draft amendment, which Ueapme says the Commission will publish soon, introduces the following wording: "Where the applicants that are party to a joint application for an authorisation are of different sizes, the highest fee applicable to any of those applicants shall be levied for that application."
In a letter addressed to the European Commission’s DG Grow, Ueapme says the wording "does not explain how the fee should be shared between the applicants".
The text is unclear, it says, and "has a high potential to discriminate [against] SMEs and make cost-sharing negotiations more burdensome".
It means, Ueapme says, that the new wording would oblige applicants to agree on their shares, "whereas experience in REACH data sharing processes has clearly shown that such negotiations often end in discrimination against the smaller participants, which should be avoided".
Example
Ueapme gave the following example: a micro-enterprise (M) and large enterprise (L) have a joint application. According to the proposed new wording the applicable fee charged to L would be €48,690, whereas the fee for M in an individual application would be €4,869.
If, for example, the fee was shared equally, M and L each pay €24,345. That would, Ueapme says, mean that:
· M is paying five times the fee it would pay if it applied individually; and
· L is paying only half of the fee compared to that of an individual submission.
In order to address this, the trade body has proposed that a rule for fee cost sharing "in line with the existing SME fee reduction" should be included in the fee Regulation.
This would become possible, it adds, by the following calculation method:
· all potential additional fees (for "a use" and based on the size of the involved enterprises) are summed up and used as a calculation basis. In the example given this is €53,559;
· the actual fee is divided by the calculation basis, which leads to a distribution factor: €48,690/€53,559 = 0.90909091; and
· every potential additional fee is multiplied by the distribution factor: a large enterprise: €48,690 x 0,90909091 = €44,263.64; and a micro-enterprise: €4,869 x 0.90909091 = €4,426.36.
This calculation provides the fee cost share for each enterprise. "All the shares summed up should give the additional fee of the largest enterprise in the joint submission, just as the new text requires. And both M and L have a fee reduction of 9% when compared with their fees in an individual submission.
Ueapme says its calculation is "fair and non-discriminatory" because all involved enterprises benefit equally from a joint fee "and the clear sharing-rule prevents discrimination of SMEs". It adds that it hope DG Grow will consider the method when finalising its amendment.
Chemical Watch has contacted the European Commission for a response but it did not reply in time for publication.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64639/ueapme-urges-eu-to-clarify-proposed-changes-to-authorisation-fee-text
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API Executive Committee to Meet with White House
Mar 7, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The American Petroleum Institute’s executive committee will visit the White House next week and may meet with President Donald Trump directly to discuss energy policy, sources familiar with the meeting told POLITICO.
The meeting comes as the White House rolls out a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and Trump’s top economic advisor, Gary Cohn, resigned, leaving energy executives worried about whether the sector’s economic interests are being considered in administration policies.
David Banks, Trump’s special assistant for international energy and environment, also departed in February after being told he wouldn't receive a full security clearance.
“It’s interesting that [the API] is coming together to talk to the administration, help it understand what the industry wants,” one source said.
An API executive committee meeting with the White House is relatively rare, one of the sources said. Neither the API nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment. One source familiar with the meeting said it had been planned “before the tariff issue broke.”
Oil and gas industry heads have been meeting in Houston this week at the annual CERAWeek conference. Trump’s steel tariffs proposal has been a constant topic of discussion, as has his repeated threats to exit NAFTA, a free-trade agreement that has heavily benefited energy companies.
WHAT'S NEXT: Trump may make the tariffs formal by the end of this week.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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The U.S. Is About to Be the World’s Top Crude Oil Producer. Guess Who Didn’t See It Coming.
Mar 8, 2018 | Washington Post
By Charles Lane
The authoritative International Energy Agency announced on Monday that the United States will overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest crude oil producer in five years .
To celebrate this once-unimaginable news, how about taking a trip down memory lane? The date is May 5, 2011. Diarmuid O’Connell, then the vice president of business development for Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric-car outfit, is testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“As a nation, we have arrived at a place where we no longer control our own destiny,” O’Connell warned. “We find ourselves overwhelmingly dependent on a dwindling natural resource controlled by inimical foreign actors, under conditions of increasing competition. Oil . . . is now the source of our greatest vulnerability in terms of both national and economic security.”
“The facts are clear,” he continued. America’s growing importation of oil from unstable parts of the globe required Congress to be “proactive” and subsidize alternative technologies such as his company’s electric vehicles: “While one might argue (as some do) that policies such as the increase of domestic production (‘Drill, Baby, Drill’) can improve the basic equation of supply and demand in the short run, such measures are pitifully marginal in the global scheme,” O’Connell added. Etc., etc., etc.
O’Connell’s speech has not aged well, though it summarized what many right-thinking people believed at the time.
Actually, his jeremiad was already foreseeably wrong when he presented it: In North Dakota and Texas, far from Silicon Valley or Capitol Hill, the shale oil boom was underway. U.S. domestic production was edging higher: It averaged 5.6 million barrels per day in 2011, hit 9.8 million per day by the end of 2017, and will rise to 12.1 million by 2023, the IEA projects.
Rather than being at the mercy of foreign potentates, the United States may now be the world’s “swing” producer of crude. American independent producers, nimbler than the state-owned behemoths of the Middle East and Europe, can increase or decrease output rapidly in response to changing market signals.
We’re not at zero net imports — probably a meaningless goal in any case, given that crude oil is a fungible commodity — but booming domestic production gives Washington “strategic weapons once unthinkable,” according to a recent New York Times analysis. “The United States and its allies now have a supply cushion at a time when political turmoil in Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria is threatening to interrupt flows to markets.”
During his 2006 “addicted to oil” State of the Union address , President George W. Bush bemoaned imports from unstable parts of the world and called for replacing 75 percent of Middle East oil imports by 2025. Well, in 2017, the U.S. imported approximately half as much oil from the Persian Gulf as it did in 2000; not too shabby. Overall, net imports accounted for 38 percent of U.S. consumption in November, down from 66 percent in 2007. The annual U.S. trade balance in fossil fuels improved by $233 billion as a result, according to the Wall Street Journal.
There are lessons here, beyond the obvious need for healthy skepticism about expert pronouncements, especially when the expert in question is talking his or her own book, as Tesla’s subsidy-seeking executive was in 2011.
Energy pessimists were right that less dependence on foreign oil, and the vagaries of the OPEC-manipulated global market, could be achieved through technological innovation; what they failed to grasp was that the very oil-price volatility that concerned them so much created a huge incentive for innovation in the oil patch.
Domestic crude production was not inherently “limited,” as O’Connell told Congress in 2011, it just needed a better mouse trap. Fracking was it.
Entrepreneurs broke the oil-import addiction, even though the main thing they intended to do was get rich.
The government policies — mandatory ethanol use in motor fuels; higher gas-mileage standards for cars — established in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which a Democratic Congress passed, the Republican Bush signed, and most Americans soon forgot, played a far smaller role.
This in no way changes the fact that fossil-fuel consumption poses serious risks to the environment, but that is a separate issue, which advocates have often combined with energy security for political reasons. Henceforth, environmentalists should make the case for reducing fossil-fuel use on its own green merits, rather than in tough-guy national-security terms.
That case can, indeed, be made, but the strongest version involves higher fuel taxes and other direct incentives to conserve, not wasteful subsidies to government-selected producers such as Tesla, or Iowa’s corn ethanol agro-industrial complex.
As for energy independence: It turns out we can drill our way there. The facts are clear.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-is-about-to-be-the-worlds-top-crude-oil-producer-guess-who-didnt-see-it-coming/2018/03/07/6a812b62-222a-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html?utm_term=.5d0461cc9d3d
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Steel, Aluminum Tariffs May Not Be Done Deal, Perry Says (1)
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
President Donald Trump may not have made up his mind on steel tariffs that energy and chemical companies have said could significantly increase their costs, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told reporters March 7.
Internal conversations are still ongoing regarding a steel and aluminum tariff, Perry said during a news conference at CERAWEEK by IHS Markit in Houston. Trump announced March 1 his intentions to impose 25 percent tariffs on all steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports. These tariffs could affect the cost of pipeline projects, some of which rely on steel pipelines not manufactured in the U.S.
“I'm not sure he made up his mind with clarity on this,” Perry said.
Rules such as these often have other consequences, sometimes unintended, which is why talks continue within the administration, Perry said.
Trade Policy Impact on Energy Industry
Some of the administration's talk on trade is inconsistent with a broader vision on energy, Jack Gerard, the American Petroleum Institute's president and chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Environment.
The president has spoken about U.S. energy dominance, but that effort could be hindered because the ripple effects of trade policy has not been fully considered, he said.
“What we need to do is reconcile those two policies to make sure they are supporting each other,” Gerard said.
The oil industry group is concerned about increases in costs as some domestic steel manufacturers long ago decided to discontinue making certain specialty steels, Gerard said.
“That creates a real problem for us,” Gerard said. “I don't think the president's intent is to add unnecessary costs to infrastructure, so we're hopeful to work with him as he sorts out the final policy.”
Perry's prepared remarks at the CERA meeting focused on the growth of U.S. energy sector exports, particularly fossil fuels. As the energy sector has grown, the environment improved, Perry said.
“We don't have to choose between growing our economy and caring for our environment,” Perry said.
Phasing out fossil fuel by 2030 is a fool's errand, Perry said. The reality is that even by 2040, fossil fuels will make up the majority of the world's energy mix, he told reporters.
Cybersecurity Efforts
Perry discussed the Energy Department's new Office of Cybersecurity but didn't provide additional details about how the office will be organized.
The oil and gas sector sees cybersecurity as a top priority, though it wants to ensure that whatever steps the department or other government agencies take don't hinder individual companies’ ability to protect their own interests, the API's Gerard said.
“What we don't want is a governmental policy that is one-size-fits-all, that limits our ability to really protect our industry and individual company interests,” Gerard said.
Appalachia a New Petrochemical Hub?
The Houston Ship Channel—which has one of the largest U.S. concentrations of refinery and chemical plants—is vulnerable to hurricanes. If a Category 5 storm were to hit the channel, the effects to industry and the overall economy could be devastating, Perry told Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, during a question-and-answer session.
A potential solution is to duplicate an industrial complex similar to what is in the ship channel in the Appalachian region, Perry said. The location is close to gas reserves, such as the Marcellus Shale play, but would be distant from the threat of hurricanes.
Duplicating the petrochemical capacity there not only would help national security, but would give that region a boost, Perry said.
Such a transformation in Appalachia won't happen overnight, Gerard said, but Perry's goal could send the broader signal to industry to focus on the region.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129283389&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129283389&jd=129283389
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States Ramp Up Review Of Legal Barriers To Innovative Methane Controls
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
State environment officials are planning to take fresh look at ways to minimize legal or regulatory barriers to approval of innovative technologies for curbing the potent greenhouse gas methane and other pollutants from oil and gas operations, but which may not be recognized as compliance options in existing rules, according to state sources.
The effort, teed up during a broader Feb. 27-28 roundtable on oil and gas development convened by EPA, Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, includes plans to form a new subgroup with an existing ECOS shale and gas subcommittee to examine the issue.
And it supplements existing efforts by the four year-old ECOS shale gas panel to promote coordination and best practices on management of methane emissions, produced water and “alternative compliance pathways.”
Those efforts that could be particularly relevant at a time when EPA is proposing to scrap federal methane rules and embrace cooperative federalism approaches more reliant on state implementation of environmental programs.
The new subgroup “hasn't been formed yet,” Martha Rudolph, director of environmental programs at the Colorado environment department and co-chair of the ECOS shale gas group, told Inside EPA March 6.
But Rudolph says the planned new subgroup is part of ongoing state efforts to examine ways to encourage innovative technologies for curbing pollution. She adds that it is expected to examine legal issues including impediments to a state adopting control technology that is already approved in another state.
The group will also take a closer look at legal impediments at EPA that pose barriers to such technology.
She touted the group as a component of a broader effort within ECOS to spur recognition of alternative technologies for complying with environmental requirements and also to enable greater “transferability” of those options across multiple state programs, which is not always easily done between states or under federal rules.
Rudolph cites as one current example of such alternative strategies a 2014 Colorado rule curbing methane leaks from storage tanks and other equipment which specifies using special cameras to find such leaks, but allows for demonstration that another technology provides equivalent results.
“Part of [what is being discussed] is allowing new technology to be used but also making it easier if one state determines that a new technology can demonstrate compliance for another state to very quickly and efficiently adopt that technology,” she says.
Another state source similarly says the new group will help examine alternative compliance pathways, specifically “ways that that state regulators can write rules to promote innovative technologies, not just one technology, that can meet a requirement.”
The state source adds that the focus is “primarily” air emissions from oil and gas operations, including methane.
Rudolph during the interview characterized the plans for the new group as an outgrowth of existing plans by ECOS' shale group to examine innovative pollution control strategies, a priority the shale gas group identified for its activities over the next year during the fall 2017 ECOS meeting.
'Listening Mode'
Rudolph said the formation of the new legal subgroup -- scheduled to be further discussed during a March 7 meeting of the ECOS shale group according to state sources -- was just one of several issues that came up during the two-day roundtable with EPA.
The agency said in a March 1 press release that the meeting had been organized to “enhance coordination and communication, and ensure safe and responsible domestic energy production, especially in the oil and gas industry.”
“EPA was mostly in listening mode,” during a roundtable discussion, which included discussion of barriers to complying with environmental requirements, Rudolph said.
Rudolph cited three main areas of discussion at the roundtable; industry hopes for more efficient state and federal permitting processes under EPA's Underground Injection Control (UIC) program; ongoing efforts to enable beneficial uses for produced water from oil and gas wells; and how to encourage use of innovative technologies for environmental compliance.
UIC topics included discussion of making it “easier and quicker” for states to receive delegation of the UIC program from EPA, Rudolph said.
Sources also indicate that there was some very preliminary discussion among the states present on the possibilities for a new pilot project to road test technologies for cleaning produced water from oil and gas development, efforts that could be particularly relevant in areas where water supplies are scarce.
ECOS President Todd Parfitt said the roundtable provided ”an opportunity to hear from different perspectives” on oil and gas issues, including from states, industry and environmental groups. Among the topics was cooperative federalism and efforts by federal and state agencies to avoid duplication by knowing “what your lane is and to stay within that lane.”
Parfitt added that EPA is preparing a summary of the roundtable discussions, adding he hopes it will be ready in time to use as a “springboard” at ECOS' upcoming Spring meeting in St. Paul, MN.
Parfitt on a separate but related note said ECOS is working to update a website touting state environmental programs efforts, known as ECOS Results, to include information on 35 states in time for the groups Spring meeting.
The site aims to “communicate to the public and other audiences state stories of public health and environmental progress.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-ramp-review-legal-barriers-innovative-methane-controls
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The Next Standing Rock? A Pipeline Battle Looms in Oregon
Mar 8, 2018 | New York Times
By Don Gentry and Emma Marris
Each spring and fall in the old days, Chinook salmon swam up the Klamath River, crossing the Cascade Mountains, to Upper Klamath Lake, 4,000 feet above sea level. For millenniums, the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Band of Snake Indians fished salmon from the lake and the river. The Klamath had agreements with the downriver tribes — the Karuk, Hoopa and Yurok among them — to let fish pass so that some could swim all the way back to their spawning grounds.
After dams were built on the river starting in 1912, the salmon were blocked. Today the only “c’iyaals hoches” (salmon runs) are enacted by the Klamath Tribes, whose members carry carved cedar salmon on a 300-mile symbolic journey from the ocean to the traditional spawning grounds to bring home the spirit of the fish.
The Klamath River’s dams are scheduled to be demolished by 2020, in what will be one of the largest river restorations in American history. But there’s a threat to the dream of a revitalized river — a project that would put a newly unobstructed Klamath at risk of contamination while simultaneously contributing to climate change, desecrating grave sites and trampling the traditional territory of the Klamath people. If you’ve read anything at all about the protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, you might be able to guess what that threat is.
It’s a pipeline.
The Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline would run 229 miles from Malin to Coos Bay, Ore., crossing underneath the Klamath River near the city of Klamath Falls. It would extend, via interconnections, the Ruby Pipeline, carrying natural gas from Wyoming to a huge planned storage and export terminal for sales to countries in the Pacific Rim.
The company behind the pipeline, Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline LP, and the export terminal, Jordan Cove Energy Project LP, are both owned by the Pembina Pipeline Corporation, based in Calgary, Alberta. The companies claim that the pipeline and the terminal will create jobs and produce around $20 million a year in tax revenue in some of the poorest counties in Oregon. And they promise that the 36-inch underground pipe will be barely noticeable — and safe.Continue reading the main story
For the pipeline to proceed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must decide that it’s in the public interest. The commission has already decided that it isn’t, twice. In March 2016 it denied the project’s application, and in December of that year, it turned down a request for a rehearing. The commission said that the companies had failed to demonstrate that the benefits outweighed the project’s negative impacts. Now the companies are trying again, though the commission said they had failed to show there was market demand for the project.
Last spring, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, seemed to throw the Trump administration’s support behind the project, saying, “The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to permit an LNG export facility in the Northwest.” With four of the energy commission’s five members appointed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohn’s vow is particularly worrisome. So is the Trump administration’s plan to speed up the permitting of natural gas pipelines, as laid out in its recently released infrastructure proposal.
If the pipeline gets built, the initial construction jobs will disappear as soon as it is done. As far as the Klamath people are concerned, this pipeline is a bad idea even if the price of gas were predicted to skyrocket. The Klamath people oppose this project because it puts at risk their watersheds, forests, bays, culture, spiritual places, homes, climate and future.
The 95-foot-wide gash through the tribes’ ancestral territory that pipeline construction would require would be likely to unearth long-buried ancestors and pulverize sites of cultural importance. Construction would strip shade from streams and pollute them with sediment, harming fish central to the Klamath’s traditions and way of life. If the pipeline catches fire or leaks, the Klamath River and its fish will be put at risk. The track record of fossil fuel pipelines suggests such a calamity is only a matter of time.
The Klamath negotiated a treaty with the United States in 1864 that established the United States as the tribe’s trustee. From the perspective of the Klamath Tribes, the federal government should deny approval of this destructive pipeline to protect the tribe’s traditional homeland.
Though natural gas generates lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal, it is still a fossil fuel. Leaks during extraction, transport and burning of gas all contribute to climate change. The State of Oregon recently announced its intention to meet the Paris climate agreement’s emissions targets. If the pipeline were to be put in place, according to an analysis by Oil Change International, a clean-energy research and advocacy group, it would emit 2.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas annually within Oregon, becoming the state’s biggest single source of those emissions after 2020. Notably, several state agencies do have the power to deny permits and stop the pipeline from being built.
The Klamath Tribes, along with the Yurok and Karuk, hundreds of landowners, conservation groups, and concerned citizens, have registered as intervenors to have legal standing to dispute this pipeline. Just as the tribes along the river shared the salmon in the old days, those tribes will work together to protect their shared river today.
As long as this proposal hangs over the river, the Klamath will stand in fierce, firm and unwavering opposition. Only when the pipeline is firmly and finally rejected can we look forward to the revitalization of the river, and the celebration of the c’iyaals return ceremony to mark the first real salmon run in more than 100 years.
Don Gentry is the chairman of the Klamath Tribes. Emma Marris is the author of “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/standing-rock-pipeline-oregon.html
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Workers Cap Ohio Methane Leak After Almost 3 Weeks
Mar 7, 2018 | E&E PM
By Mike Soraghan
Workers have capped an XTO Energy Inc. gas well after it leaked methane for nearly three weeks in rural eastern Ohio.
Crews stopped the flow of gas and gained control of the well shortly before 10 a.m. today, officials said. The company asked four families evacuated since the leak began to delay their return until electrical power has been restored.
The explosion and fire occurred Feb. 15 at XTO's Schnegg B well pad near the community of Powhatan Point in Belmont County, Ohio.
Crews were removing plugs from the wellbore, part of the completion process. The well had been fracked, or hydraulically fractured, months before the blowout (Energywire, March 7).
Last night, crews had been able to divert the flow of gas to a containment area where it was flared.
Air monitoring will continue for at least 24 hours from the time the well was shut. XTO Energy spokeswoman Karen Matusic said readings continue to show no public health or safety risks.
People from XTO will accompany residents as they return and will test air quality in each room of their homes, Matusic said. The company hopes to repair and eventually produce gas from the well, she said.
Capping the leak was complicated by a crane that fell at the time of the explosion and landed on a nearby gas well. That crane had to be taken apart to remove it. During that time, the area has seen several inches of rain and several inches of snow.
Earthworks, an environmental group that took video footage of the plume, compared the leak to the 2015 Aliso Canyon methane leak in the Los Angeles area.
The group's policy director, Lauren Pagel, said regulators should continue to monitor for pollution and inform local residents. She said XTO should publicly explain what caused the blowout.
"Huge pollution events reinforce the importance of strong local and national safeguards to protect our health and climate from oil and gas industry pollution," Pagel said.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/03/07/stories/1060075705
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Pennsylvania Regulators Want ME1 Service Suspended After Sinkholes Discovered
Mar 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
In yet another wrinkle in Energy Transfer Partners LP’s (ETP) saga to expand its Mariner East (ME) pipeline system, Pennsylvania regulators on Wednesday petitioned for an emergency order to “immediately suspend” ME1 operations after three sinkholes were discovered near it.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s (PUC) Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement (I&E) said the sinkholes in Chester County’s West Whiteland Township, which are likely linked to horizontal directional drilling operations for ME 2X, pose grave safety concerns for the public. ME 2X is a third pipeline that is under construction to parallel ME2, which is also being built.
ME 1 operations must be suspended I&E wrote in its petition to the full PUC “due to safety concerns regarding the integrity of said pipeline as being potentially hazardous to life, property and/or the environment.”
ME1 was commissioned in 2014 and went into full service about two years later. The 70,000 b/d pipeline moves ethane and propane from Western Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex near Philadelphia.
The sinkholes, I&E said, occurred at three locations within 550 feet along the path of the ME1 pipeline in an area where ETP subsidiary Sunoco Pipeline LP is constructing ME2 and ME 2X.
The first, eight feet wide and three feet deep, formed in December near Amtrak’s Keystone Line. A second sinkhole, eight feet wide and 15 feet deep, was discovered last week by Sunoco workers during ME 2X construction. A third sinkhole, the largest at 15 feet wide and 20 feet deep, was discovered last Saturday 10 feet from a house’s foundation. It had “partially exposed the buried ME1 pipeline,” according to I&E’s petition.
The first two sinkholes were located above ME 2X and near ME1. I&E claims in its petition that Sunoco did not notify the PUC, or the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The bureau did say that all three sinkholes were filled with specialty concrete on Saturday. But during an on-site inspection, I&E said that regulators discovered additional sinkholes forming in the area, where homes and apartments are located.
The I&E has asked the commission to suspend ME1 operations until repairs are satisfactorily completed. At that time, I&E said Sunoco could file a petition to reinstate transportation service.
The ME2 project in particular has so far had a rough path forward. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which issued the permits and is overseeing construction, fined Sunoco $12.6 million last month to resolve dozens of violations and allowed the project to restart construction.
Earlier this year, DEP suspended Sunoco’s permits and stopped nearly all construction activities in response to more than 30 separate violation notices and more than 100 inadvertent returns of drilling mud, fluids and other substances. It was not the first time that regulators ordered work to stop.
The 350-mile ME2 would transport ethane, butane and propane from processing facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to Marcus Hook. ME 2X would run parallel to it and deliver natural gas liquids as well.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113611-pennsylvania-regulators-want-me1-service-suspended-after-sinkholes-discovered
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Green Groups: Dem Infrastructure Plan Better for Our National Parks
Mar 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Environmental groups are hailing Senate Democrats’ newly released infrastructure plan for how it proposes to fix a multibillion-dollar backlog of projects on national park land.
The plan proposed by Democrats on Wednesday would undo some of the tax cuts in the law President Trump signed in December in order to pay for a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, which would invest $5 billion in repairs at national park sites.
The National Park Service is currently sitting on an $11.6 billion repair backlog.
“Today’s Senate blueprint demonstrates we can fix our parks without compromising what makes them great. It’s proof that taking care of America’s parks doesn’t have to mean rolling back environmental protections or encouraging damaging drilling on public lands,” said Theresa Pierno, president of National Parks Conservation Association, in a statement Wednesday.
The Democrats’ plan varies from one proposed in February’s White House 2019 budget and praised by Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke, which would instead completely fund the backlogged projects by drilling leases on public lands. The infrastructure needs range from building new park roads to repairing ranger stations.
The Democratic proposal came as another group of senators announced bipartisan legislation that would essentially codify Zinke’s proposal into law. The National Park Restoration Act would take half of the money that the federal government gets from energy production that is above 2018 forecasts and not dedicated for another use.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the bill's lead sponsor, said tackling a maintenance backlog would bring visitors and create jobs for people in his state. “We must continue to work together to find solutions to the many challenges facing our public lands, and this legislation takes an important step toward doing that.”
While environmental and wilderness groups agree that the repairs must be addressed as soon as possible, they are championing the Democrats' approach over Zinke’s.
“The Park Service’s $11.6 billion repair backlog is a critical problem that demands attention, but the administration’s proposals come at too great a cost by undermining vital environmental laws and potentially harming other public lands,” Pierno said.
Environmentalists have spoken out against Zinke’s plans in the past, fearing that opening up drilling on public lands will negatively impact the ecosystems.
The Wilderness Society called the Democrats' plan a "vast improvement over the one proposed by the Trump administration," in a statement.
Lydia Weiss, director of government relations at The Wilderness Society said the White House’s proposal “steamrolls environmental protection in the name of infrastructure, which is a road to nowhere.”
In contrast, Weiss said, the Democratic Senators' proposal “provides a solid roadmap for investing in our shared public lands and the nation's vital infrastructure. It offers funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, park maintenance, tribal needs and other priorities.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/377217-green-groups-call-dem-infrastructure-plan-vast-improvement-over
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9th Circuit Lets Kids' Climate Lawsuit Continue
Mar 7, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today said a climate change lawsuit brought by children and young adults can continue in a lower court, a defeat for the Trump administration, which sought to end the case immediately.
The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, argued that the case threatens the separation of powers and that courts are unable to rule on the massive policy questions around climate change. It also said proceeding to trial would mean “burdensome” discovery that could include decades’ worth of documents.
But a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit ruled that those objections failed the “high bar” required for an appellate court to intervene now.
“The defendants argue that holding a trial on the plaintiffs’ claims and allowing the district court potentially to grant relief would threaten the separation of powers,” wrote Judges Sidney Thomas, Marsha Berzon and Michelle Friedland, all appointees of former Presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. “We are not persuaded that simply allowing the usual legal processes to go forward will have that effect in a way not correctable on appellate review.”
The Trump administration may well succeed in narrowing the lawsuit and even eventually winning it once the lawsuit continues in the lower court, they said.
As for discovery, the judges said the administration can appeal any production order down the line. But since the lower court had not yet issued any, the 9th Circuit saw no reason to act now.
WHAT’S NEXT: The Trump administration could appeal the decision either to the full 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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At Energy Summit, Climate Pits U.S. Against Europe
Mar 7, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso and Ernest Scheyder
The U.S. energy secretary blasted renewable fuels champions on Wednesday while the head of Royal Dutch Shell urged the energy sector to focus on world efforts to cut carbon emissions, revealing a yawning trans-Atlantic gap on climate issues.
Speaking at the CERAWeek conference by IHS Markit in Houston, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden outlined an ambitious plan to reduce the Anglo-Dutch company's carbon footprint and expand in renewables, and called on others to follow.
"The energy landscape is changing fast. So we must change, where change is what the world needs," van Beurden said.
He spoke after U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry struck a starkly different tone, blasting the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming. Perry said it was "immoral" to say people should live without fossil fuels.
"We are passionate about renewable energy. But the world, especially developing economies, will continue to need fossil fuels, as over a billion people on the planet live without access to electricity," Perry said.Continue reading the main story
The United States, under former President Barack Obama, helped negotiate the Paris agreement which calls for a gradual shift to renewable energy by the end of the century. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw last year.
Van Beurden gave an unusually strong-worded speech calling climate the biggest challenge facing the energy sector.
"There may not be total unity behind the Paris Agreement any longer, but there is no other issue with the potential to disrupt our industry on such a deep and fundamental level."
Perry extolled growing U.S. energy independence, as a boom in onshore shale drilling led to a rapid growth in oil as well as natural gas, the least polluting fossil fuel.
The rise of gas at the expense of dirtier coal helped the world's biggest economy sharply reduce its carbon emissions over the last decade, as gas displaced much domestic coal demand.
"The lesson is clear (that) we don't have to choose between growing our economy and caring for our environment, by embracing innovation over regulation we can benefit from both," Perry said.
Shell and European peers including BP, France's Total and Norway's Statoil are becoming increasingly active in low-carbon energy and are vocal supporters of the Paris agreement. Until recently, climate has been less prominent in strategy presentations from U.S. rivals Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
Executives at the Houston conference repeatedly noted growing demand for fossil fuels, and downplayed the overall viability of renewable energy or electric vehicles, noting emissions would continue to rise even if there was 100 percent adoption of EVs.
On Wednesday, Mary Barra, chief executive officer of General Motors, said the company's "commitment to an all-electric, zero-emissions future is unwavering, regardless of any modifications to future fuel economy standards."
Other executives spoke of moving to carbon capture technologies and carbon taxes. Robert Dudley, president of BP, said Tuesday that "at some point in the future a price on carbon has to be part of this answer."
The projected growth of oil demand is "definitely not in line with the Paris climate goals," said International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol, saying the industry must start using carbon capture sequestration (CCS) technologies.
In New York on Wednesday, Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods echoed Perry's words at the company's investor day, noting developing nations need solutions to generate more electricity.
Like others, Woods said Exxon advocates a carbon tax to limit emissions.
"By and large, we don't see enough incentives to grow CCS in the marketplace," Peter Trelenberg, Exxon's manager of environmental policy & planning, said.
Few in Houston were as emphatic as van Beurden, who outlined how Shell is moving to meet its targets to halve carbon emissions by 2050. Steps include limiting emissions from operations and boosting natural gas production to reach 75 percent of company oil and gas output.
"Over time, this net carbon footprint ambition will transform our company's product mix," van Beurden said.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/03/07/business/07reuters-ceraweek-energy.html
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Bipartisan Caucus Adds Another Pair
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell
The bipartisan House caucus dedicated to finding market-based solutions to fight climate change has added two nonvoting members of Congress.
Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., and Republican Del. Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon of Puerto Rico have joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, bumping up the Noah's Ark group, which adds Republicans and Democrats in pairs, to 72 members.
"In #PuertoRico we've experienced firsthand the consequences of rising sea levels and increasing temperatures. Addressing climate change in a bipartisan way should be a priority. Proud to join the #ClimateSolutionsCaucus!" Gonzalez-Colon wrote on Twitter yesterday.
The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico continues to struggle to recover from the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria last September. Large swaths of the island continue to operate without power or running water.
Meanwhile, sea-level rise from warming is threatening to wash away the territory's beaches and the property developed on them (Greenwire, Jan. 24).
"Combating #climate change has long been one of my top priorities. Even w/ Trump pulling the U.S. out of Paris Climate Accord, we're still working on bipartisan solutions in Congress, and businesses and states are implementing strategies to save the planet. #ClimateSolutionsCaucus," Norton wrote on Twitter.
The caucus has been steadily growing in numbers since its inception in 2016, when Florida Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R) and Ted Deutch (D) co-founded the group. And while some environmentalists debate the efficacy of the caucus, advocates are quick to come to its defense (Climatewire, March 1).
Curbelo has said he is unwilling to push his GOP caucus members to introduce legislation to take market-based action on global warming before they are ready, but the congressman is quick to tweet explicitly about the negative impacts of climate change.
"#OceanAcidification & #ClimateChange effects on #StoneCrab industry would be a devastating hit to #SoFla fisheries economy. #FL26 commercial & recreational fishermen & #smallbiz would suffer. We must take action," he tweeted last Tuesday.
The day before that he tweeted: "Sweltering heat waves, rising seas and the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses are health risks from climate change that doctors are seeing first-hand in patients across #SoFla. This isn't just an environmental or economic issue — it's a public health issue."
While detractors maintain the caucus acts as political cover for Republicans who don't want to be blamed for denying climate change, Curbelo and others maintain progress is incremental and inevitable.
Members of the group last month introduced legislation to spur innovation through a prize competition related to climate and energy, calling the bill "feasible" and in line with Trump administration priorities (E&E Daily, Feb. 27).
And last summer, members of the caucus formed a voting bloc to defeat an amendment that would have prevented the military from reporting on climate change impacts.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/03/08/stories/1060075741
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Local New York State Leaders Call for Carbon Tax
Mar 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
More than 150 local New York officials are urging Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and state lawmakers to tax carbon and methane to generate some $7 billion for investments in clean energy, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg Environment.
The tax would be imposed on oil, gas, and coal companies and levied “as close to the source of pollution as possible, such as at the point of extraction for in-state fossil fuel production, on wholesale power purchase agreements, or point of importation of oil, natural gas, or other emissions sources into the state,” the letter said.
The signers include the mayors of Syracuse, Utica, and Nyack, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and 13 New York City council members.
While the prospect of a carbon tax passing the Legislature is uncertain, supporters are hoping that the backing of local officials will add momentum to their effort.
Legislation (A. 107, S. 2846) similar to the proposal is currently being reviewed in committees of each house. Cuomo has expressed support for climate change measures but has not taken a public position on a carbon tax.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation provided Bloomberg Environment with a statement it issued in October, but declined to comment further. Cuomo said the state would assess the proposal, according to the statement.
Political Challenge
Carbon taxes are politically difficult to enact, as seen recently in Washington state, said Kenny Stein, director of policy at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a group that promotes free-market solutions to global energy and environmental challenges.
“Despite Democratic control, the legislature just indicated that it will be unable to pass even a slimmed down version of Gov. [Jay] Inslee's proposed carbon tax,” Stein told Bloomberg Environment, referring to a bill that recently died in committee in Washington's Legislature. Inslee is a Democrat.
“This follows on the heels of a carbon tax being defeated by statewide referendum in 2016” in Washington, he said.
The institute—and its affiliated American Energy Alliance—receives part of its funding from Koch Industries Inc. and opposes carbon taxes and cap-and-trade programs.
Karen B. Moreau, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute's New York office, told Bloomberg Environment that reductions in carbon emissions are best achieved through greater use of natural gas and market forces.
Climate Leadership Council
Some fossil fuel companies, however, have expressed support for a carbon tax in some venues. BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are all founding members of the Climate Leadership Council.
The council supports a carbon tax, with proceeds returned to all Americans in the form of a dividend. It also supports the eventual phasing out of carbon emissions regulations.
Michael Bloomberg, founder of the global business, financial information and news leader Bloomberg L.P., is a founding member of the council. Bloomberg Environment is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.
The push for a New York carbon tax is being spearheaded by a coalition of environmental, labor, and community groups called New York Renews.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129283406&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129283406&jd=129283406
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