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ACC PM 3/8/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Petrochemicals Face Tariffs If Trade War Begins
Mar 8, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
US fuels, plastics, petrochemicals and agriculture could be a primary target for retaliatory tariffs if the US follows through on president Donald Trump’s promise to target global tariffs of 25% for steel products and 10% for aluminium. -
Trump's Tariff Details Being Debated Hours Before Announcement
Mar 8, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
President Donald Trump is tentatively scheduled to unveil sweeping new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as soon as Thursday, while leaving the door open to exempting key U.S. allies, according to a senior administration official. -
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
resident 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. -
(ACC Mentioned) US EPA Publishes Draft Strategy to Promote Alternative Tests
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
The US EPA has published its draft strategy for promoting the development and implementation of alternative test methods under the amended TSCA. The agency plans to move towards making TSCA decisions with new approach methodologies (NAMs)... -
(ACC Mentioned) Officials Defend EPA's TSCA Fees Plan From Industry, NGO Criticism
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
US EPA officials have defended their proposal for collecting industry fees under the amended TSCA as a reasonable middle ground amid conflicting stakeholder demands. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC’s State Of Denial About The Lautenberg Act Widens – And Has Further Infected EPA, Now In Its Fee Rule
Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I was on vacation last week, so I missed two notable pronouncements from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) regarding the 2016 reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and implementation of them by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). -
NGO Enters Opening Brief in TSCA Inventory Notification Lawsuit
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has published its draft strategy for promoting the development and implementation of alternative test methods under the amended TSCA. The agency plans to move towards making TSCA decisions with new approach methodologies (NAMs)... -
EPA Releases Draft Strategy to Reduce Use of Animals in Chemical Testing
Mar 7, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On March 7, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft Strategic Plan to Promote the Development and Implementation of Alternative Test Methods to reduce the use of vertebrate animals in chemical testing, fulfilling another milestone under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act that amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
‘Vague’ REACH Review Actions Neglect SVHC Substitution, NGOs Say
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission's recently proposed actions to improve REACH are "too vague" and do not offer any meaningful commitments to ensure effective substitution of SVHCs, NGOs have said. -
Industry Praises EU's 'Sensible' Draft Restriction On CMRs In Textiles
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The European Commission's draft Regulation to restrict carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) substances in clothing and textiles is a "sensible, pragmatic set of restrictions," according to eight European trade associations. -
NGOs Call For EU Carpet Product Directive
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
NGOs are urging the European Commission to draw up an EU carpet product Directive to tackle toxic substances present in carpets and rugs, which have been linked to a range of adverse health effects. -
Cheniere Contests PHMSA Order On LNG Export Site
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Cheniere Energy Inc. is challenging a federal order that shut down part of its liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana after leaks from storage tanks. -
Senate Panel Advances Two Dozen Bills
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved two dozen bills this morning in rapid-fire fashion, with dissent from Democrats on only one related to liquefied natural gas exports. -
U.S. Natural Gas Exporters Predict New Boom, Thanks To Surge In Demand From China
Mar 8, 2018 | CNBC
By Patti Domm
A cold winter in China could be signaling a hotter market for a new wave of U.S. natural gas exports sooner than expected. -
Cover Story: Why Natural Gas Production Is Shifting From Northeast To Southwest Pa.
Mar 8, 2018 | Pittsburgh Business Times
By Paul J. Gough
There’s been a subtle but clear shift happening to the state’s natural gas drilling and production over the past three years — and it’s benefiting southwestern Pennsylvania more than other parts of the commonwealth. -
Interior Starts Paving the Way for ANWR Development
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Two high-level Interior Department officials are in Alaska this week holding a series of meetings with government and business groups to pave the way for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Coastal Plain. -
Shutdown Averted for Sabal Trail Pipeline
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A natural gas pipeline that was on the brink of forced shutdown now seems to be in the clear, as federal judges agreed yesterday to delay a court order that would have halted operations. -
Pipeline Builders, Gas Drillers Fret About Protesters
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Mike Lee and Edward Klump
Blue Jenkins should've been happy, sitting on a stage here at an energy conference. -
OSHA Fines FirstEnergy, Contractor Over Power Plant Deaths
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
Federal regulators have fined FirstEnergy Corp. and a contractor more than $200,000 after a fatal gas leak at Pennsylvania's largest coal-fired power plant. -
Small Businesses Drive Freight Railroads
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside Sources
By Connor D. Wolf
The critical role small businesses and entrepreneurs play in the freight railroad industry is being threatened by regulations, according to a report this week. -
Climate Skeptic Oversaw Sprawling Review of Agency Policy
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
A longtime federal employee who sees "good news" in rising greenhouse gases was tasked early in the Trump administration with retooling the Interior Department's public positions on climate change, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. -
A 'Pit Bull' for Climate Could Soon Sit Next to Trump
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Robin Bravender and Zack Colman
An ascendant aide in the Trump White House has warned of the threats posed by climate change, has argued for taxing carbon, has promoted wind power and was even endorsed by the Sierra Club. -
Judge Orders 'Tutorial' on Climate Science in Oil Case
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
A federal court in California will hold a hearing on climate science as two cities pursue lawsuits against oil companies for damages related to sea-level rise.
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(ACC Mentioned) Petrochemicals Face Tariffs If Trade War Begins
Mar 8, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
US fuels, plastics, petrochemicals and agriculture could be a primary target for retaliatory tariffs if the US follows through on president Donald Trump’s promise to target global tariffs of 25% for steel products and 10% for aluminium.
If other countries target US crops, such as corn, then this could have a ripple effect on agrochemicals and fertilizers. As foreign demand for US crops declines, farmers would respond by planting fewer crops, lowering demand for agrochemicals as well as fertilizers.
Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), raised the prospect of retaliatory tariffs during a question-and-answer session with US Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) during a forum his trade group was hosting in March. Speaking on 8 March China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, promised “a justified and necessary response” to a trade war.
Trump appears more likely to pursue these tariffs now following the resignation of Gary Cohn as White House chief economic advisor. Cohn reportedly resigned because he disagreed with the administration’s pursuit of the tariffs. His departure could remove a moderating voice from the Trump administration. On 8 March, however, there were reports that exemptions might be granted to Canada, Mexico and other allied countries, possibly in Europe.
PETCHEM CONSTRUCTION HIT
Steel tariffs would cause immediate harm to the US petrochemical industry because it is in the midst of a construction boom based on low-cost ethane. Rising oil production is now providing even more ethane, and companies are considering another wave of new plants to take advantage of this additional feedstock.
Higher steel costs may cause some firms to cancel their plans, since the metal makes up a significant cost of a petrochemical plant. Dow Chemical estimates that steel made up roughly 20% of its previous $6bn investment. Midstream companies rely on steel for much of the infrastructure used to extract ethane and ship it and other natural-gas liquids (NGLs) to petrochemical companies.
Their construction costs would also increase if steel prices rise. Those costs could filter down to NGL prices, eroding the cost advantage that made the US petrochemical boom possible. Margins could erode even further if the world responds with their own retaliatory tariffs on petrochemicals.
EXPORTS IN DANGER
The new petrochemical plants being built in the US were always premised that much of their output would be exported, given the nation’s cost advantage. Even if companies wanted to sell their output locally, the amount of new capacity coming online would overwhelm the US.
Many of these exports will go to Asia, home to many of the largest steel exporters to the US. US petrochemicals are an attractive tariff target because of the country’s cost advantage, plus it already exports a lot of resins and chemicals. It exported $174bn of goods in 2016, accounting for 14% of all US exports, the ACC said. It represented 23% of all US shipments. The industry had a trade surplus of $28bn in industrial chemicals that year.
The US is also a large exporter of gasoline and diesel, which may become a target for tariffs. The US also exports ethane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). If countries decide to target these products, it could cause exports to decline, leading to more material becoming available to US petrochemical companies. That could take some pressure off feedstock costs, although the industry would probably prefer other policies to achieve this end.
The tariff proposals point to a more worrisome trend. Such protectionist measurements can have the opposite effect intended by policy makers.
The Economist magazine reviewed the history of the US Jones Act, a law from 1920 that requires all trade between domestic ports to be carried by ships built by the US, manned by US crews and flagged in the country. In 1960, the US shipping fleet accounted for 17% of the global total. By the time The Economist published its article in October, the fleet accounted for just 0.4% of the total.
The law encouraged container lines to concentrate on the inflated profits at home, The Economist reported. As a result, they neglected their foreign operations and lost the scale needed to compete with overseas rivals.
The same could happen to the nation’s steel and aluminium industries. Coddled by protectionist measures, they could lose the incentive to become more efficient. Far from strengthening these industries, tariffs could very well make them even weaker, while hurting the companies that truly have a competitive advantage.
Trumps’ protectionist tendencies have always posed a risk to the US economy. Within days of taking office, he signed an order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). With negotiations still ongoing over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Trump has still more opportunities to threaten the chemical industry.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/03/08/10200756/petrochemicals-face-tariffs-if-trade-war-begins/
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Trump's Tariff Details Being Debated Hours Before Announcement
Mar 8, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
President Donald Trump is tentatively scheduled to unveil sweeping new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports as soon as Thursday, while leaving the door open to exempting key U.S. allies, according to a senior administration official.
But there was mass confusion in the White House about the exact timing of the announcement and aides cautioned that the precise details are still being ironed out. A person familiar with the issue said lawyers had not yet finalized the proclamation that would put the tariffs into effect as of Thursday morning, raising questions about how quickly the president would be able to finalize his proposal.
When Trump finally announces the tariffs, he is expected to impose what the administration official described as an “open-ended” exemption for Canada and Mexico that will be reevaluated based on the outcome of negotiations over NAFTA.
Administration officials have also discussed imposing quotas on Mexico and Canada if the countries are granted a long-term exemption from the tariffs, according to the official, though it’s unclear if Trump will get into that level of detail during the announcement.
Trump is hoping to announce tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports during a 3:30 p.m. meeting at the White House with about a dozen steel and aluminum industry workers, officials said. The top-line numbers are unlikely to change over the next few hours, but the timing of the announcement could slip.
As of Thursday morning, no other countries, including European nations, were expected to be granted an immediate exemption from the tariffs, according to the official. But administration officials were planning to include language in the proclamation giving countries some flexibility, potentially allowing individual nations and blocks of countries to make the case for an exemption.
The news last week that Trump was prepared to impose the tariffs set off a global panic, with key U.S. allies like the European Union threatening to retaliate. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have urged Trump to moderate his position, raising concerns the tariffs could hurt the economy and threaten the GOP’s chances in the upcoming midterm election.
Despite pressure from his own party, Trump has largely resisted efforts to abandon the tariffs altogether, according to people who have spoken to him in recent days.
Still, senior administration officials were scrambling on Thursday to get details about Trump’s pending announcement.
“Looking forward to 3:30 P.M. meeting today at the White House,” Trump tweeted on Thursday morning. “We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real friends and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.”
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/03/trumps-tariff-details-being-debated-hours-before-announcement-765614
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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
WASHINGTON — 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.
Before returning to the Justice Department last year, Wray represented clients that included big banks and other corporations as a partner at a white-glove law firm that paid him $9.2 million a year, according to his financial disclosure statement.
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 2009 to avoid conflicts of interests. 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 just five of the waivers under Obama went to former lobbyists, most whom had worked for nonprofit groups.
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.
“Scott Pruitt has called on yet another fossil-fuel industry lobbyist ... to help him tear down important protections for the American people,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee. “And the White House plays along, granting the lobbyist an ethics waiver.”
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 allows communications director Heather Nauert to work with employees of Fox News even though she used to work as a broadcast journalist for the network. Nauert is identified in the waiver, which was heavily redacted before release, by her legal name, Heather Norby.
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=.d123b9f83930
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(ACC Mentioned) US EPA Publishes Draft Strategy to Promote Alternative Tests
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
The US EPA has published its draft strategy for promoting the development and implementation of alternative test methods under the amended TSCA. The agency plans to move towards making TSCA decisions with new approach methodologies (NAMs), to reduce and eventually replace vertebrate animal testing, it says.
To increase the use of NAMs, the strategic plan has three main goals:
· to identify, develop and integrate NAMs for TSCA decisions;
· to build confidence that NAMs are scientifically reliable and relevant; and
· to implement NAMs for TSCA decisions.
Each goal has near-term (next three years), intermediate (three-five years), and long-term objectives.
For example, in the near-term, the EPA will continue to use NAMs for evaluating new chemicals and prioritising existing ones. After three years, this effort will be ramped up for prioritisation and "quantitative risk evaluation".
The draft strategy notes the "rapidly evolving" nature of NAM information, which lends itself to an "iterative process of NAMs implementation for regulatory decision-making".
The agency also proposes setting up an internal TSCA NAM team (TNT), which would oversee the strategic plan's implementation.
Public comments
The Lautenberg Act requires the EPA to develop a strategy to promote the development and implementation of alternative test methods and strategies to reduce or replace vertebrate animal testing by 22 June 2018.
The EPA first outlined its goals and objectives for this strategic plan at a public meeting in November 2017. It then received over 500 comments, most of which were anonymous and generally supportive of the draft strategy. However, it has responded to 15 "substantive" comments.
After the November meeting, the American Chemistry Council commented that the draft strategic plan is "missing an explicit, upfront commitment that the agency will use an integrated approach to answer a defined hazard characterisation question within a specific regulatory context".
It also commented that "NAMs adopted by EPA for use under TSCA need to be ones in which there is scientific confidence that they are equivalent or better than traditional test methods (fit-for-purpose) and are readily available for use, ie not currently under development."
Meanwhile, US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund pointed out that NAMs are not currently available for all potential modes of toxicity. It describes the EPA's November presentation as being "inconsistent, and at points over-reaching, as to the readiness of NAMs to serve various purposes under TSCA".
The EDF "strongly encourages" the EPA to identify, discuss, and outline a process to address critical gaps and the major challenges relating to the development and application of NAMs".
The draft strategy is available for public comments. It will be discussed at a public meeting in Washington DC on 10 April 2018, which will also be webcast.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64659/us-epa-publishes-draft-strategy-to-promote-alternative-tests
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(ACC Mentioned) Officials Defend EPA's TSCA Fees Plan From Industry, NGO Criticism
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie A Miller
US EPA officials have defended their proposal for collecting industry fees under the amended TSCA as a reasonable middle ground amid conflicting stakeholder demands.
Michael Walls, vice president for regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, issued a statement last week complaining that the new chemical fees are too high and criticising the agency’s proposal to charge for review of testing data.
But Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, told Chemical Watch that the EPA has underestimated costs, and the relatively low fees for reviewing test data will leave the agency with inadequate information.
Tackling the criticism head on, Mark Hartman, acting deputy director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), said the agency finds itself stuck in the middle of competing complaints on the issue. Depending on which side of the argument the protest comes from – industry or environmental NGOs – the EPA is either "high-balling or low-balling costs" .
Speaking at the ACC’s GlobalChem conference, Mr Hartman said criticism from both sides often means "you're near someplace where you belong, and I think that's where we are at this point".Fight over fees
In its fees proposal, formally published on 26 February, the EPA estimates its annual costs for chemical review activities at $80.2m, and sets out a schedule designed to collect $20.05m. Because the Lautenberg Act authorises the agency to collect fees equal to 20% of estimated costs, up to $25m, a higher estimate of overall programme expenses could have resulted in higher industry fees.
The proposal calls for charging $16,000 for new chemical reviews, which the EPA estimates would cover 29% of costs. This represents a significant increase from the current fees of $2,500 for larger companies and $100 for small businesses.
"Such an overwhelming increase," said Mr Walls, "could well stifle innovation and endanger the US industry’s significant global competitive advantage and create disincentives to bringing new chemistries to market first in the US".
With regard to test data, it has proposed to charge $10,000 for evaluating data submitted under a test order, $32,000 for a test rule and $25,000 for a consent agreement, accounting for 3.5% of estimated costs.
The ACC argued that the EPA should charge nothing for reviewing test data because businesses incur "significant costs" conducting testing and fees would discourage industry from requesting section 6 reviews voluntarily.
Assessing a fee for submissions of that data "would effectively charge manufacturers and processors a second time," Mr Walls said.
The EPA acknowledged this argument in its justification for relatively low data evaluation fees, which cover only a small percentage of the programme costs. But NGOs have raised concerns that the imbalance could make data review cost the agency more and result in fewer tests being ordered.
Meanwhile, industry officials have complained that the fees attached to requests for exemptions are too high. The proposal sets these at $4,700 for evaluating requests for exemptions such as low-volume or test marketing exemptions, covering 89% of the cost.
Mr Hartman said the EPA is "willing to discuss differentiating" between different types of evaluations, or charging less when more data is available upfront.
However, EPA officials noted that assigning fees is a zero-sum game.
"The size of the pie is fixed," said OPPT Director Jeff Morris. "Reducing fees in one area will necessarily mean we are going to raise them in another."'Efficiency and effectiveness'
Mr Walls said at the conference that while the ACC supports increased user fees under the new TSCA, industry expects the EPA to do a better job of meeting review deadlines.
"We recognise that if we're going to ask the agency to do more under TSCA they have to have the resources to do it and the fees rule is a primary means of getting that," Mr Walls said.
"But those fees come with some expectations from Congress and from industry for efficiency and effectiveness."
Indeed, several participants at the conference asked when EPA would begin refunding fees to applicants whose chemicals were not reviewed within statutory time limits, as TSCA requires.
Comments on the proposed fees rule will be accepted through 27 April.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64633/officials-defend-epas-tsca-fees-plan-from-industry-ngo-criticism
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Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I was on vacation last week, so I missed two notable pronouncements from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) regarding the 2016 reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and implementation of them by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
One was a statement issued by ACC upon publication of EPA’s proposed “TSCA fee rule” in the Federal Register on February 27. The other was remarks given by Cal Dooley, ACC’s CEO and President, to kick off the chemical industry annual GlobalChem meeting on March 1. Let me start with the fee rule.
Fees for new chemical reviews: ACC starts out its comments on the proposed fee rule by complaining that EPA’s proposed fee for new chemical reviews is 5-6 times higher than under old TSCA. There was widespread acknowledgment that those old fee levels – set four decades ago and never adjusted even for inflation – were far too low and needed to be substantially increased. At the level EPA now proposes, the fees would still cover only a fraction of EPA’s estimated costs for reviewing a premanufacture notice (PMN). And the Lautenberg Act imposed substantial new burdens on EPA in conducting those reviews that necessarily translate into higher costs. ACC once again seems to be in denial of those changes to the law.
Fees for imposing testing requirements: ACC complains that EPA is proposing to charge any fee at all to defray costs it incurs under TSCA section 4 to require testing through test orders, rules or consent agreements. Let’s put this complaint in context:
· EPA’s proposed fee is, if anything, far too low relative to that provided for in the law. It is set at a level to cover a measly 3.5% of EPA costs – far lower than the average of 25% of its costs EPA is directed to set fees to cover under the law.
· The only reason EPA provides in the proposed rule for such a low fee is that industry asked it not to charge much or anything (see8221); EPA doesn’t even mention our comments that urged EPA to set fees proportional to its actual costs.
· Despite EPA acceding to industry’s wishes and proposing an incredibly low fee, ACC accuses EPA of “overturning the existing 32-year-old policy not to assess fees for the submission of section four data.” Once again, ACC completely ignores that the new law expanded EPA’s fee authority and even more clearly applied it to section 4 testing requirements. Section 26(b)(1) was amended to call on EPA to require payment from those “required to submit information under section 4 … of a fee that is sufficient and not more than reasonably necessary to defray the costs related to such chemical substance of administering section 4.”
· ACC was all for this (during TSCA negotiations) before it was against it (now). Now ACC argues that charging a fee to cover a portion of EPA’s costs is unfair because industry already has to pay for the testing itself.
· While industry does pay for any required testing, this is no different than what has been done for decades for other chemicals such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Moreover, it is national policy under TSCA dating back to the original 1976 law. TSCA section 2(b)(2) states (emphasis added):
It is the policy of the United States that … adequate information should be developed with respect to the effect of chemical substances and mixtures on health and the environment and that the development of such information should be the responsibility of those who manufacture and those who process such chemical substances and mixtures.
The expanded fee authority the Lautenberg Act grants EPA helps to realize this longstanding policy. ACC would have the taxpayer cover all of the costs EPA incurs to require industry to provide information it should already have provided to demonstrate the safety of its chemicals.
Fees for manufacturer-requested risk evaluations: ACC complains that EPA’s fee proposal “fails to recognize the disincentive that it creates for the manufacturer-requested review process.” A controversial aspect of the Lautenberg Act was its allowance for companies to request EPA to conduct risk evaluations on chemicals of their choosing. To ensure such requests did not overwhelm EPA’s conduct of risk evaluations for chemicals EPA identified as high-priority substances, the law placed numerous limits on manufacturer requests. One was that companies pay the full costs of risk evaluations they request (or 50% of those costs if the chemical was already listed as a priority on EPA’s Work Plan). Another was that such requested risk evaluations get no preferential treatment whatsoever, including with respect to their scope and pace of completion.
EPA already violated the second of these requirements in its final risk evaluation rule, by allowing a company or trade association to request, and EPA to conduct, risk evaluations on only a subset of uses of a chemical that the industry desires. This is a key concern EDF has voiced over EPA’s rule.
EPA appears intent on violating that requirement yet again in its fee rule. EPA has assumed its costs to conduct a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation will be only two-thirds of EPA’s costs to conduct a risk evaluation on a chemical EPA selects (see p. 8219); on that basis it then proposes to charge fees that are that much lower, effectively giving preferential treatment to the industry requests.
EPA makes two arguments for why it assumes a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation will cost it less to conduct, neither of which hold much water. First, it argues that companies will provide more information up front with their requests and hence EPA will have to spend less collecting information. But remember, EPA’s final rule (see 40 CFR § 702.37(b)(4), p. 33749) allows companies to limit what information they submit only to “information that is relevant to whether the chemical substance, under the circumstances identified by the manufacturer(s), presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” Assuming EPA does what the law actually requires and conducts a full risk evaluation, EPA will still have to collect information on all of the other circumstances not identified by the manufacturer; and it will still have to review and determine the adequacy and completeness of the manufacturer’s information. Even EPA’s own numbers (see Table 2 on p. 8219) indicate the costs of all “data gathering” accounts for only 10% of the total costs of conducting a risk evaluation – clearly not sufficient to justify an assumption that its costs will be 33% lower.
EPA’s second argument is even more suspect: It assumes companies will request risk evaluations only on easy chemicals: those that are “low hazard or low exposure, or are otherwise fairly straightforward to analyze.” This assumption doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In the proposed fee rule, EPA assumes it will be working on five manufacturer-requested risk evaluations each year, that two of them will be drawn from EPA’s Work Plan and that the other three will be non-Work Plan chemicals. Let’s look at each group:
· The Work Plan chemicals are clearly not low-hazard, low-exposure chemicals: they’re on the Work Plan in the first place because they are generally high-hazard and high-exposure.
· The non-Work Plan chemicals can’t be assumed to be easy ones either. The #1 reason the industry fought so hard for its ability to request risk evaluations was to compel federal review of chemicals that states or the market was acting on, in order to get some degree of direct or indirect pre-emption. Whatever one thinks of those state and market actions, they are certainly not focusing on chemicals of low concern; quite the opposite.
EPA’s proposal to charge disproportionately lower fees to companies that request risk evaluations amounts to preferential treatment disallowed under the law. It also amounts to taxpayers footing more than their fair share of the bill, and industry footing less.
It’s not clear from ACC’s statement what specific aspects of the fees for manufacturer-requested risk evaluations it is griping about. But ACC’s notion that EPA should set its fees to provide an incentive to companies to request risk evaluations – thereby shifting more of the costs to the taxpayer – violates the balance Congress struck on this contentious issue and illustrates yet one more attempt by ACC to press EPA to “deviate” from implementing the law as written.
Let me now turn briefly to Mr. Dooley’s remarks at Global Chem. As reported by Greenwire, Mr. Dooley singled out EDF for doing “a little bit of a reinterpretation of some of the provisions of TSCA.” He then asserted that, in contrast, ACC has been “taking an intellectually consistent, science-based approach to the implementation of TSCA. We are not deviating in any way in terms of what we committed to do when we committed to working with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.”
As Greenwire noted, I had recently blogged about ACC’s revisionist history regarding the extent of changes the Lautenberg Act made to the new chemicals review provisions of TSCA. ACC’s statement on the proposed fee rule I’ve discussed above provides yet more evidence that it is ACC, not us, reinterpreting this law.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/03/08/accs-state-of-denial-about-the-lautenberg-act-widens-and-has-further-infected-epa-now-in-its-fee-rule/
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NGO Enters Opening Brief in TSCA Inventory Notification Lawsuit
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has published its draft strategy for promoting the development and implementation of alternative test methods under the amended TSCA. The agency plans to move towards making TSCA decisions with new approach methodologies (NAMs), to reduce and eventually replace vertebrate animal testing, it says.
To increase the use of NAMs, the strategic plan has three main goals:
· to identify, develop and integrate NAMs for TSCA decisions;
· to build confidence that NAMs are scientifically reliable and relevant; and
· to implement NAMs for TSCA decisions.
Each goal has near-term (next three years), intermediate (three-five years), and long-term objectives.
For example, in the near-term, the EPA will continue to use NAMs for evaluating new chemicals and prioritising existing ones. After three years, this effort will be ramped up for prioritisation and "quantitative risk evaluation".
The draft strategy notes the "rapidly evolving" nature of NAM information, which lends itself to an "iterative process of NAMs implementation for regulatory decision-making".
The agency also proposes setting up an internal TSCA NAM team (TNT), which would oversee the strategic plan's implementation.
Public comments
The Lautenberg Act requires the EPA to develop a strategy to promote the development and implementation of alternative test methods and strategies to reduce or replace vertebrate animal testing by 22 June 2018.
The EPA first outlined its goals and objectives for this strategic plan at a public meeting in November 2017. It then received over 500 comments, most of which were anonymous and generally supportive of the draft strategy. However, it has responded to 15 "substantive" comments.
After the November meeting, the American Chemistry Council commented that the draft strategic plan is "missing an explicit, upfront commitment that the agency will use an integrated approach to answer a defined hazard characterisation question within a specific regulatory context".
It also commented that "NAMs adopted by EPA for use under TSCA need to be ones in which there is scientific confidence that they are equivalent or better than traditional test methods (fit-for-purpose) and are readily available for use, ie not currently under development."
Meanwhile, US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund pointed out that NAMs are not currently available for all potential modes of toxicity. It describes the EPA's November presentation as being "inconsistent, and at points over-reaching, as to the readiness of NAMs to serve various purposes under TSCA".
The EDF "strongly encourages" the EPA to identify, discuss, and outline a process to address critical gaps and the major challenges relating to the development and application of NAMs".
The draft strategy is available for public comments. It will be discussed at a public meeting in Washington DC on 10 April 2018, which will also be webcast.
Legal standing
In addition to the brief, the EDF has filed addenda supporting its legal standing to pursue the lawsuit. Legal experts have noted that in bringing TSCA lawsuits, NGOs must demonstrate, among others, that a court’s failure to take up judicial review will result in an 'injury'.
The brief argues that the EDF has standing because the final inventory rule fails to ensure the disclosure of information required by the Lautenberg Act, resulting in an "informational injury" that inhibits the group’s advocacy efforts.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64631/ngo-enters-opening-brief-in-tsca-inventory-notification-lawsuit
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EPA Releases Draft Strategy to Reduce Use of Animals in Chemical Testing
Mar 7, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On March 7, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft Strategic Plan to Promote the Development and Implementation of Alternative Test Methods to reduce the use of vertebrate animals in chemical testing, fulfilling another milestone under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act that amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Under amended TSCA, EPA is required to develop a strategy to promote the development and implementation of alternative test methods and strategies to reduce, refine or replace vertebrate animal testing by June 22, 2018. EPA states the draft document incorporates input from a November 2017 public meeting held on the development of the draft strategy, as well as written comments submitted after the meeting, and draws upon EPA research on test methods.
The draft strategy outlines EPA’s Strategic Plan for the reduction of testing in vertebrates for chemicals regulated under TSCA. The organizing framework for the EPA’s strategy to reduce vertebrate animal testing relies heavily on what have been termed new approach methodologies (NAM) -- a broadly descriptive reference to any nonanimal technology, methodology, approach, or combination thereof that can be used to provide information on chemical hazard and risk assessment. The strategy describes a multi-year process with incremental steps for adoption and integration of NAMs that are appropriate and fit-for-purpose for making TSCA decisions, and has three core components: Identifying, developing, and integrating NAMs for TSCA decisions; Building confidence that the NAMs are scientifically reliable and relevant for TSCA decisions; and Implementing the reliable and relevant NAMs for TSCA decisions. The EPA has identified seven current/near-term (less that three years) needs and activities.
EPA states that completing these activities will result in moving towards four intermediate-term (three to five years) objectives and these time frames, needs, and activities provide the basis for developing NAMs, establishing reliability and relevance criteria for the NAMs, and implementing NAMs to inform decisions made under TSCA.
Comments on the draft strategy will be due 45 days after the notice of availability is published in the Federal Register. EPA has scheduled a public meeting to obtain input on the draft strategy for April 10, 2018, from 9:00 a.m. (EDT) to 5:00 p.m. (EDT) in Washington, D.C. Registration is available online and is requested by April 3, 2018.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f5e6d2b3-1a73-49b0-975c-802698dfa0cc
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‘Vague’ REACH Review Actions Neglect SVHC Substitution, NGOs Say
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission's recently proposed actions to improve REACH are "too vague" and do not offer any meaningful commitments to ensure effective substitution of SVHCs, NGOs have said.
The delayed second REACH Review report was published on Monday and proposes 16 measures to improve the implementation of the Regulation, including greater promotion of substitution.
It falls short, however, of recommending legislative changes, and says rather that the legal requirements of REACH are "well tuned" to achieving its goals.
The Commission says work under the SVHC roadmap is progressing "beyond expectations". Most confirmed SVHCs have been assessed, it adds, and improving the registration data and assessing similar substances together could "further speed up the process".Questionable priorities
While NGOs broadly welcomed the Commission acknowledging a greater need to promote SVHC substitution, they criticised its lack of clarity and concrete measures.
CHEM Trust executive director Michael Warhurst told Chemical Watch that the review "seems to indicate that all SVHCs are more or less dealt with. This is far from the truth."
It "should have been clear", he added, that there are still many harmful and potentially harmful chemicals on the market.
Despite the Commission admitting the Regulation’s shortcomings, it has "prioritised" the simplification and streamlining of the authorisation application process. This is "rather than looking to ensure REACH achieves its main goal of protecting public health and the environment, by phasing out and replacing the most dangerous chemicals", the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) says.
It is also disappointing, ClientEarth lawyer Alice Bernard says, that the report does not mention any actions to reassure innovative companies investing in the development of safer alternative solutions. Such companies "need clarity on what information they need to provide in this process. Not acknowledging that sends the wrong signal".
She adds that "contrary to what is repeatedly claimed" by industry lobbies, the report "clearly concludes that REACH did not create unnecessary burden". This, she says, sends a "strong message" to the market: "It is time to invest in substituting dangerous chemicals with safer solutions, rather than spending more resources on complaining to institutions about the cost of regulation."Missing commitments
The review also lacks specific commitments in other areas, EEB says, such as:implementing the ‘no data, no market’ principle;improving identification of new SVHCs;effectively shifting the burden of proof to companies;improving information on hazards and risks in consumer products; andbringing low-volume production substances and polymers into the REACH Regulation.
Mr Warhurst points out that the report concludes incentives are lacking for companies to update their registration dossiers – "so why are no legal tools proposed to rectify the situation?" he says.
He adds that he is disappointed there is no emphasis on combined exposures to similarly acting substances – in particular endocrine disruptors and chemicals impacting the developing brain.
The proposed actions, according to Ms Bernard, are "too vague to reassure us that this lack of compliance will not be, again, a core issue in the next review in 2022".
Elsewhere, SMEs trade body Ueapme has said they "will not be enough" for small operators to fully implement the Regulation. Meanwhile, Cefic welcomed the report, saying it is "generally consistent" with its assessment and none of the actions for improvement come as a surprise to industry.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64680/vague-reach-review-actions-neglect-svhc-substitution-ngos-say
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Industry Praises EU's 'Sensible' Draft Restriction On CMRs In Textiles
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The European Commission's draft Regulation to restrict carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) substances in clothing and textiles is a "sensible, pragmatic set of restrictions," according to eight European trade associations.
However, they add, they still have some concerns that they hope the Commission will address when finalising the Regulation.
The organisations are in a joint position paper submitted to a consultation on the restriction of hazardous substances (CMR, categories 1A and 1B) for consumer use under article 68 (2) of REACH.
Signatories to the paper welcomed the Commission's adoption of industry's recommendations to improve the initial restriction proposal, following an initial consultation which took place in in 2015. These include derogations for personal protective equipment, medical devices, secondhand articles and formaldehyde limits in certain textile products in order to meet essential performance and safety requirements.Signatories to the position paper:
EuroCommerce;
AmCham EU;
Amfori;Euratex;
The European Footwear Confederation;
The European Nursery Products Confederation;
The European Safety Confederation;
and The Federation of European Sporting GoodsConcerns remain
However the position paper says the proposal still covers complex products containing parts that are "effectively never in contact with the skin or cannot be considered as strictly textile materials".
These products, it says, "are very different from simple apparel or textiles because they include various composite materials and substances".
Also, it says that some substances listed in the consultation are already covered by REACH and it is therefore not necessary to impose further restrictions.
It recommends that rather than developing new overlapping restrictions for CMRs in textiles, existing substance restrictions are amended.
The position paper recommends publishing an exhaustive list of articles covered by the restriction from the start to provide as much clarity as possible on the scope of covered articles.
It also urges for any restriction to be accompanied by harmonised, validated and internationally recognised test methods in order to "provide a high degree of legal certainty in the obtained results and support for enforceability and compliance."'First step'
The European Consumer Organisation (Beuc) told Chemical Watch the draft Regulation is only a "first step" for protecting consumers.
Pelle Moos, Beuc's team leader for safety and health, said it is "great news that the EU Commission wants to restrict some dangerous substances that may cause cancer, change DNA or harm reproductive health".
But he added that the proposal only covers "a fraction of the array of harmful chemicals used in textiles" and overlooks substances such as allergens and endocrine disruptors.
"If the Commission is serious about protecting consumers’ health, they need to target the full range of problematic chemicals found in clothing and textiles," he said.
The consultation ended on 8 March.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64655/industry-praises-eus-sensible-draft-restriction-on-cmrs-in-textiles
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NGOs Call For EU Carpet Product Directive
Mar 8, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
NGOs are urging the European Commission to draw up an EU carpet product Directive to tackle toxic substances present in carpets and rugs, which have been linked to a range of adverse health effects.
A recent report – Detoxing carpets: Pathways towards safe and recyclable carpets in a truly circular economy – by the European Public Health Alliance (Epha) and the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) says that carpets sold in the EU can contain over 59 hazardous substances, which impact human health and the environment at all life stages.
These substances include endocrine disruptors, mutagens, chemicals toxic for reproduction and carcinogens.
This report, which summarises the findings of research by Anthesis Consulting, says that over the lifetime of a carpet people can be exposed to phthalates, flame retardants and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) via inhalation, ingestion and dermal contact.
Pregnant women, babies and small children are particularly vulnerable to these chemicals, it adds, as well as workers in the carpet industry who are exposed because of inadequate safety measures.
Hazardous chemicals in carpets also pose obstacles to the recycling process and impact the quality of the end product.Carpet product Directive
An EU carpet product Directive, the NGOs say, should meet minimum chemical and resource efficiency requirements and ensure carpets are designed with the circular economy in mind. Additionally, it should provide the same level of protection as the EU toy safety Directive.
There is "currently minimal legislation directed specifically towards carpets, and none which addresses the full scope of requirements that are necessary to support less toxic recyclable carpets at scale," the report says.
It concludes that REACH is not sufficient to manage chemicals found in carpets and therefore "directives that help mitigate these issues should be created and/or strengthened".
A Commission spokesperson said that as part of its work on the circular economy and the plastics strategy, it has been discussing possible measures European stakeholders can take to make their business more circular.
The spokesperson added that the adoption of the plastics strategy "coincides with the publication of voluntary commitments from stakeholders from the European plastics value chain". It gave the example of the European Carpet and Rug Association (Ecra), which adopted a voluntary commitment explaining what the sector has done to improve sustainability, circularity, waste collection and recycling.Manufacturers’ efforts
However, the report says that manufacturers’ voluntary efforts to phase out toxic chemicals "do not go far enough" and often represent only a small share of the market.
The NGOs want manufacturers to design carpets with health and circular economy in mind, phase out the hazardous substances identified in the report and test incoming recycled content to avoid toxic legacy chemicals.
They also recommend increased transparency measures to provide information on ingredients to consumers and waste/ recycling facilities.
Ecra’s Edmund Vankann told Chemical Watch that the Anthesis Consulting research refers to a Healthy Building Network report, which was designed for the US market. It therefore "has not taken into account the more stringent and far reaching test requirements for carpets in Europe which protect the health and wellbeing of consumers and workers on different levels," he said.
He added that European carpet producers, which are members of Ecra, are committed to producing safe products. They are aware that this is an ongoing task, he said. High levels of protection for health and the environment have already been achieved, he added, and now Ecra members are "prepared to master the next steps – recycling of carpets".
https://chemicalwatch.com/64648/ngos-call-for-eu-carpet-product-directive
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Cheniere Contests PHMSA Order On LNG Export Site
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Cheniere Energy Inc. is challenging a federal order that shut down part of its liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana after leaks from storage tanks.
The order "contains numerous factual errors, unsubstantiated statements, and misleading statements," wrote Bracewell LLP attorney Kevin Ewing, representing Cheniere, in the company's response to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
It also says that deadlines in the order are "moot, impracticable, over-burdensome, and unnecessary."
The response asks for a hearing April 17. But Cheniere officials say they hope to withdraw their request for a hearing and work things out with PHMSA "informally."
PHMSA had investigated a Jan. 22 leak incident at Cheniere's Sabine Pass facility, which in 2016 was the first of several U.S. LNG export projects under development to start shipping gas.
Inspectors discovered that LNG had been leaking into a containment ditch around a storage tank. Further inspection revealed that natural gas vapors were leaking from 14 points around the base of a second LNG storage tank. There were also indications that Sabine Pass personnel had been grappling with a series of storage tank issues dating back to 2008.
More than a week later, PHMSA Associate Administrator Alan Mayberry ordered Cheniere to shut down the two tanks. It allowed the company to continue importing and exporting gas and use three other LNG storage tanks at the site. The order was the first public notice of the incident and was issued more than two weeks after it took place (Energywire, Feb. 12).
In the order, Mayberry said Cheniere couldn't identify what caused the leak and couldn't give the exact amount of LNG leaked. The order called on Cheniere to complete a thorough assessment of the problems before it seeks permission to resume use of the two storage tanks.
Cheniere challenged PHMSA's assertion that continued operation of the two tanks without fixing the problems would "be hazardous to life, property and the environment." The response, filed last month, said that the order isn't supported by the evidence or the state of the tanks.
It also deemed "overbroad" PHMSA's request for documents, including descriptions of previous leaks and what the company did about them. And it challenged the conditions the agency required before the tanks could return to operations.
The company also criticized PHMSA for treating the two tanks the same way.
Natural gas is highly flammable and under certain conditions explosive. PHMSA describes LNG spills as "low-frequency, high-consequence events." The Jan. 22 incident did not result in any reported injuries, fires or explosions.
LNG is natural gas that is cooled to a liquid at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. Its volume is then reduced six-hundredfold. When supercooled LNG encounters ambient air temperatures, it quickly expands and turns back into a gas. Each of the tanks can store up to 3.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075775
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Senate Panel Advances Two Dozen Bills
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved two dozen bills this morning in rapid-fire fashion, with dissent from Democrats on only one related to liquefied natural gas exports.
That proposal, S. 1981, from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), would expedite the approval of small-scale gas exports.
The bill would automatically label applications to export up to 51 billion cubic feet of LNG per year as being in the public interest.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member, noted there are several laws already in place that help expedite small-scale exports, including rules adopted under former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
The Trump administration has already approved the export of more than 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, Cantwell said.
"Clearly, the department has already more than enough discretion to expedite LNG and does not need more. I believe S. 1981 goes too far," she said.
The bill passed the committee by a 13-10 vote, with only West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin crossing party lines.
The other 23 bills passed by voice vote.
"It's a pretty good start here, but it's my intention to hold at least one more markup in the very near future to move additional bills through the committee in hopes of giving them a chance to pass on the Senate floor," said committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
She called on Senate leadership to take notice, pointing out that more than 50 bills were previously approved by the panel that are still waiting for votes on the floor.
"Even the items that should move have a hard time getting across the finish line," she said.
The 23 bills passed by voice vote:
· S. 79, from Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), which would establish a pilot program to identify security vulnerabilities for certain power sector entities.
· S. 186, from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), which would change the Federal Power Act to treat any inaction by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that allows a rate change to go into effect as a commission order for the purposes of rehearing and court review.
· S. 1059, from Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), which would extend the authorization of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 relating to the disposal site in Mesa County, Colo.
· S. 1160, from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), which would include Livingston County and the cities of Jonesboro and Freeport in the Lincoln National Heritage Area.
· S. 1181, from Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), which would direct the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to expedite access to certain federal land for good Samaritan search-and-recovery missions.
· S. 1260, from Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), which would authorize the exchange of federal land in the Gulf Islands National Seashore for non-federal land in Jackson County, Miss.
· S. 1335, from Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), which would establish the Ste. Genevieve National Historic Site in the state of Missouri.
· S. 1336, from Gardner, which would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to reauthorize hydroelectric production incentives and efficiency improvement incentives.
· S. 1337, from Manchin, which would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to make certain strategic energy infrastructure projects eligible for loan guarantees.
· S. 1446, from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), which would reauthorize the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historic Preservation Program.
· S. 1457, from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to direct the secretary of Energy to carry out demonstration projects relating to advanced nuclear reactor technologies to support domestic energy needs.
· S. 1563, from Manchin, which would authorize DOE's Office of Fossil Energy to develop advanced separation technologies for the extraction and recovery of rare earth elements and minerals from coal and coal byproducts.
· S. 1602, from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), which would authorize the secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to assess the suitability and feasibility of designating certain land as the Finger Lakes National Heritage Area.
· S. 1692, from Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), which would authorize the National Emergency Medical Services Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in the District of Columbia.
· S. 1799, from Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), which would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to facilitate the commercialization of energy and related technologies developed at Department of Energy facilities with promising commercial potential.
· S. 1860, from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), which would adjust the FERC process for approving public utility mergers and acquisitions.
· S. 2213, from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), which would authorize Pacific Historic Parks to establish a commemorative display to honor members of the U.S. Armed Forces who served in the Pacific during World War II.
· S. 2325, from Murkowski, which would incentivize the hiring of U.S. workers in the Northern Mariana Islands.
· H.R. 589, from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), which would establish DOE policy for science and energy research and development programs and reform national laboratory management and technology transfer programs.
· H.R. 648, from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), which would authorize the Interior secretary to amend the definite plan report for the Seedskadee Project to enable the use of the active capacity of the Fontenelle Reservoir.
· H.R. 1397, from Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), which would authorize, direct, facilitate and expedite the transfer of administrative jurisdiction of certain federal land.
· H.R. 1404, from Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), which would provide for the conveyance of certain land inholdings owned by the U.S. to the Tucson Unified School District and Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
· H.R. 1500, from Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), which would redesignate the small triangular property located in Washington, D.C., and designated by the National Park Service as reservation 302 as Robert Emmet Park.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075831
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U.S. Natural Gas Exporters Predict New Boom, Thanks To Surge In Demand From China
Mar 8, 2018 | CNBC
By Patti Domm
· U.S. gas exporters see another potential boom due to demand from China and Asia.
· They predict the natural gas boom will be sooner than expected.
· The U.S. is expected to export 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas a day in 2018, and that should grow to 10 to 12 bcfs by the early 2020s, according to an analyst at Tortoise Capital Advisors.
A cold winter in China could be signaling a hotter market for a new wave of U.S. natural gas exports sooner than expected.
Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco said Chinese demand for liquefied natural gas was up 40 percent year-over-year and should continue to be strong. He said the growth in demand is about the size of Cheniere.
"As we saw this winter, demand in Asia and China kind of surprised the market. What we saw was supposed to be a market that might not be hitting supply-demand balance until the mid-2020s," said Kevin Brown, research analyst at Tortoise Capital Advisors. "It's at a place now where we see the balance coming maybe earlier, in the 2020s, pushing people to have to make that second wave of LNG investment."
Since Cheniere's first LNG shipment went to Brazil two years ago, there's an even split between destinations in Latin America and Asia, and then the rest of the world. But every spare drop went to China recently, Fusco told the CERAWeek annual energy conference hosted by IHS Markit in Houston this week.
Fusco said there's secular change in China behind the demand growth. "They want — they need — cleaner air, and we see that shift longer term," he said. China's goal is to use natural gas for 10 percent of its needs by 2020, and it needs LNG to meet that demand.
"Demand in Asia and China kind of surprised the market. What we saw was supposed to be a market that might not be hitting supply-demand balance until the mid-2020s."-Kevin Brown, research analyst at Tortoise Capital Advisors
The United States is a key market to provide new sources of fuel for China. Cheniere Energy last month signed the first-ever long-term dealwith a Chinese state-owned energy company, a major step forward for the industry.
"In the U.S., we have a low-cost, abundant, diverse resource base with large growth that we see coming down the pipeline," Brown said. Tortoise is one of the largest shareholders in Cheniere.
Brown said the United States also has the largest infrastructure in place.
"We've have the workforce, and we've been building out these gas-processing facilities, these pipelines and all the infrastructures that's required to really support the big LNG boom that we expect to see in the second wave of LNG in the U.S.," Brown said.
The United States currently produces 76 billion cubic feet of gas, and it should grow to 90 bcf by 2020. The United States is expected to export 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas a day in 2018, and that should grow to 10 to 12 bcfs by the early 2020s, Brown said.
"We are on the precipice of the first time I've seen in my career when we have demand-pull and supply-push happening at the same time to support almost $200 billion in infrastructure investment that's needed in the U.S.," said Meg Gentle, president and CEO of LNG company Tellurian.
She expects to see LNG demand grow by 11 percent or 12 percent.
"This means as an industry we need to bring more than 100 million tons of new liquefaction capacity to the market to meet demand by 2025," Gentle said.
She expects another 20 bcf of production coming from the U.S., due largely to oil drilling.
"Supply in the U.S. is telling us we have to develop another 100 million tons of capacity in the U.S. for the export market," said Gentle.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/new-us-natural-gas-boom-coming-as-chinese-demand-surges.html
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Cover Story: Why Natural Gas Production Is Shifting From Northeast To Southwest Pa.
Mar 8, 2018 | Pittsburgh Business Times
By Paul J. Gough
There’s been a subtle but clear shift happening to the state’s natural gas drilling and production over the past three years — and it’s benefiting southwestern Pennsylvania more than other parts of the commonwealth.
The reason? Pipelines.
Over the past decade, shale gas production has grown by leaps and bounds in both the northeastern and southwestern corners of Pennsylvania. But state well and permit data analyzed by the Business Times shows double-digit in some cases even triple digit increases in production in southwestern Pennsylvania counties between 2014 and 2017. That’s not the case on the other end of the state: The northeast and central part of the state have fallen from accounting for 71 percent of the state’s production in 2014 to 59 percent in 2017. Conversely, southwestern Pennsylvania’s share rose from 28 percent in 2014 to 39 percent last year.
Range Resources Corp., one of the largest drillers in Pennsylvania, has extensive operations and holdings in both southwestern and northeastern Pennsylvania. But its four horizontal drilling rigs are all in operation in the southwestern corner, as that’s where it’s easiest to get the gas to other markets.
“We have better transportation operations out of southwestern Pennsylvania,” said Dennis Degner, senior vice president of operations at Range Resources. “We have the optionality, whether it’s processing or pipelines ... that adds a lot of takeaway.”
That’s just not the case for northeastern Pennsylvania, where Degner said it’s challenging to drill for more gas without the takeaway capacity. Southwestern Pennsylvania, more than any other part of the state, has seen a marked increase in the number of pipelines taking natural gas and liquids from the shale fields to outside markets. And the amount of pipelines that will go online in the next few years, including the Hammerhead that will connect to EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline, and Energy Transfer Partners’ Rover, is continuing to grow.
“Our infrastructure (in southwestern Pennsylvania) is maturing at a rapid pace,” said David Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition. “There’s takeaway capacity being added as we speak.”
Spigelmyer said the northeastern part of Pennsylvania is challenging because New York state keeps blocking plans to build new infrastructure and pipelines to meet demand in the Northeast.
Another factor is Shell Chemical’s ethane cracker plant being built in Beaver County and the burgeoning market for ethane, propane and other NGLs. That’s boosting the market for ethane in particular, demand that will only grow with Shell’s demand as well as the potential for other ethane crackers that could be built in Appalachia and the possible ethane storage facility that could store liquids for the petrochemical industry, all made from Marcellus and Utica shale gas.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” Spigelmyer said.
https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2018/03/08/cover-storywhy-natural-gas-production-is-shifting.html
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Interior Starts Paving the Way for ANWR Development
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Two high-level Interior Department officials are in Alaska this week holding a series of meetings with government and business groups to pave the way for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Coastal Plain.
Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt and Assistant Secretary Joe Balash met Tuesday with the North Slope Borough Assembly in Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) and yesterday with a group of Interior Department employees in Fairbanks.
Today the regulators are scheduled to speak at a breakfast meeting of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance in Anchorage.
At Tuesday's meeting, Bernhardt told North Slope officials that Interior will begin its scoping process for oil and gas leasing in the next few weeks.
"We're here today to begin a conversation with you because we want to have you collaboratively and collectively involved with us as we go forward with our new job," Bernhardt told the Utqiagvik group, according to Alaska Public Media.
At yesterday's Interior meeting with Bernhardt and Balash in Fairbanks, a group of protesters from Defend the Sacred AK, a state Native group, held signs and chanted slogans against the Trump administration's drilling plans for the Arctic refuge.
The controversy over ANWR has been heating up since December, when Alaska's Republican congressional delegation added provisions to the federal tax package that will allow hydrocarbon development in the Coastal Plain, also known as the 1002 area.
But before leasing can begin, Interior must rewrite a comprehensive conservation plan for the Arctic refuge that was completed by the Obama administration in 2015.
That plan treated 98 percent of ANWR as wilderness, including the 1.5-million-acre, oil-rich 1002 area. Although Congress never formally designated those lands as wilderness, the conservation plan effectively banned oil and gas development, new road construction and other activities in the 19-million-acre refuge (Energywire, April 6, 2015).
According to the U.S. Geological Survey's 1998 report, the Coastal Plain, adjacent Native-owned lands and nearby state waters, is likely to contain a mean volume of 10.4 billion barrels of oil. That study was based on 2-D data developed in the 1980s. USGS officials are currently reprocessing those studies and expect to release a revised report late this year.
In the meantime, Alaska state officials have been pressing Interior to let them conduct more advanced 3-D seismic studies to more accurately determine how much oil and gas is available in the Coastal Plain.
Beginning in 2013, the state has repeatedly asked federal regulators for permission to conduct three-year seismic exploration in the region. But those requests were rejected by the Obama administration.
Early this year, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) asked the state Legislature for $10 million to conduct new seismic studies in the Coastal Plain. Alaska officials hope new seismic data would attract new energy development at a time when the state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075771
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Shutdown Averted for Sabal Trail Pipeline
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A natural gas pipeline that was on the brink of forced shutdown now seems to be in the clear, as federal judges agreed yesterday to delay a court order that would have halted operations.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted federal regulators' request to delay issuing a mandate that would require Sabal Trail and the broader Southeast Market Pipelines Project to halt construction and operations.
The court agreed to hold off on the mandate through March 26. That gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission time to finish its work on a climate review the D.C. Circuit ordered last year.
Yesterday's decision is a major blow to environmentalists whose legal challenge to Sabal Trail was set to make history by shutting down a major gas pipeline for climate concerns.
"The courts have ruled that the environmental analysis of the Sabal Trail Pipeline was incomplete, and every day that it is allowed to operate is another day it does unknown harm to our climate and communities," Kelly Martin, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in an email.
The pipeline network is designed to move natural gas through Alabama and Georgia to Florida power plants.
The Sierra Club sued over FERC's approval of Sabal Trail last year, arguing that the agency failed to closely consider its impact on climate change. The appeals court agreed and in August ordered FERC to do a supplemental analysis to calculate greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning natural gas delivered by the pipeline.
The August decision would have vacated the pipeline's FERC certificates and forced it to shut down, but FERC and developers Spectra Energy Partners LP, NextEra Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp. have been pushing the court to rethink that aspect of its decision.
The court mandate that would have triggered the shutdown has been on hold throughout that debate. In February, the judges were poised to finally issue it, but FERC and the developers made a successful last-minute bid to buy time (Greenwire, Feb. 7).
A shutdown of Sabal Trail would have been historic. Courts rarely block pipelines, even if regulators are found to have fallen short of the National Environmental Policy Act, and they have never halted a pipeline for inadequate climate review.
FERC's decision
The pressure is now on FERC to complete its review within the extra time allotted by the court. The judges denied a separate request from the pipeline developers to delay the mandate for even longer.
The agency already finished the most labor-intensive part: the supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) ordered by the D.C. Circuit last year. But it hasn't yet issued an order reauthorizing the pipeline project based on the updated analysis.
FERC released the SEIS in early February and typically needs at least 30 days to issue a final decision based on an environmental review.
An agency spokeswoman declined to comment on the D.C. Circuit's decision yesterday but noted that FERC lawyers have assured the court that the agency will complete its decisionmaking process by March 23.
As long as FERC stays on schedule, Sabal Trail is poised to avoid any interruptions. Parts of the pipeline network are already in service and delivering gas to Florida power plants; other sections are still under construction.
"We appreciate the court giving FERC the time it has requested to issue an order on remand and we look forward to FERC issuing that order soon," project spokeswoman Andrea Grover said in an email.
ClearView Energy Partners analyst Christi Tezak said the court's approach is a way of "keeping the Commission's feet to the proverbial fire" to fix its climate analysis.
"FERC may have successfully bought additional time to fix the permit through its unsuccessful rehearing request in October and the shorter request for a stay of the mandate in early February, but the court declined to issue a blank check on timing," she wrote in a memo last night, noting that the commission's final order could come any day.
The decision to delay the mandate was made by Judge Judith Rogers, a Clinton appointee, and Judge Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee.
Tezak said other pipelines aren't likely to face the same problems because FERC has made analysis of downstream greenhouse gas emissions part of its standard practice.
"We believe the Commission plans to remain diligent on these reviews to lower the risk of permits being reversed on judicial review," she said.
Debating the SEIS
Debate on Sabal Trail's climate impacts isn't over.
The Sierra Club and other environmentalists have already criticized FERC's SEIS. They say it's just a shallow look at anticipated greenhouse gas emissions and does not give necessary context to the numbers.
The review estimates that burning gas from the pipeline network could increase Florida's emissions 3.6 to 9.9 percent over 2015 data.
But the document declines to say whether that increase is "significant." FERC says there's no widely accepted definition of what's considered significant for greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be "inappropriate" for the agency to make that call (Energywire, Feb. 6).
Environmental lawyers say that's a cop-out. In a brief to the D.C. Circuit last month, the Sierra Club argued that the analysis falls short of what the court ordered last year.
Martin, the Beyond Dirty Fuels director, vowed that the group will keep pushing against Sabal Trail.
"We will keep using every tool we have to shut down this dirty, dangerous fracked gas pipeline," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075779
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Pipeline Builders, Gas Drillers Fret About Protesters
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Mike Lee and Edward Klump
Blue Jenkins should've been happy, sitting on a stage here at an energy conference.
Jenkins, the chief commercial officer for EQT Corp., saw his company become the biggest natural gas producer in the country last year when it bought a competitor, Rice Energy Inc. The new company has a commanding presence in the shale fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, a region that would qualify as the world's third-largest gas producer if it were its own country.
Prices, which dipped below $2 per thousand cubic feet in 2016, have been rising for months, and there's room to grow as companies begin exporting gas in liquefied form.
Instead, EQT's share price is down about 12 percent since the beginning of the year. EQT, like a lot of other producers in the Appalachian region, has to sell its gas at a discount because there isn't enough pipeline capacity to move the fuel where it's needed.
Along with the normal delays in permitting pipelines, the gas industry is facing pushback from environmentalists, landowners and a handful of state governments. The opposition has blocked some projects and slowed down others dramatically, and it's getting more traction in the federal courts.
"People are more sophisticated; they're much more vocal," Jenkins said.
Coping with the pushback to new infrastructure has been a key theme at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference, a gathering of oil, gas and utility executives held in Houston each year. It comes at a time when the industry is recovering from price shocks that led to bankruptcies and layoffs across the energy.
In addition to the high-profile fights over the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, opposition has popped up across the continent. The government of British Columbia is fighting Kinder Morgan Inc.'s plan to expand a pipeline carrying oil sands crude from western Alberta to the port of Vancouver, even though the federal government has declared the project to be in the national interest.
In Mexico, where the Federal Electricity Commission is trying to build more gas infrastructure, Yaqui Tribe members have pulled up a section of pipeline through their indigenous territory, said Guillermo Turrent Schnaas, the commission's chief executive officer.
In West Virginia, environmentalists are trying to block a project proposed by EQT's midstream subsidiary, the Mountain Valley pipeline. A coalition including the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the Sierra Club and Chesapeake Climate Action has sued in federal court to hold up an Army Corps of Engineers environmental permit for Mountain Valley, claiming that the state of West Virginia erred when it waived a key approval (Energywire, Feb. 26).
The pipeline would link EQT's gas fields in West Virginia with the national network. From there, EQT could ship its gas to markets like Louisiana, where Cheniere Energy Inc. has begun exporting gas, and earn an extra 50 to 70 cents per thousand cubic feet.
'Small group'
Pipeline executives, who have been fighting protests for years, said environmentalists have targeted their industry because they can't find another way to slow down oil and gas development.
"We don't think this is the majority of folks — it's a small group of folks, in our view, that want to keep the resource in the ground," Russ Girling, CEO of TransCanada Corp., said during a panel discussion. "If you can't keep it in the ground that way, then go to the pipelines and try to choke them off."
Still, the protests have been effective — TransCanada's Keystone XL has been blocked for nearly a decade — Girling and other pipeline builders said. And they're frustrated.
"Talk about someone who needs to be removed from the gene pool," Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners LP, said of one activist who drilled a hole in one of his company's oil lines.
Environmentalists say the pipeline companies have hurt themselves with heavy-handed treatment of landowners and with high-profile construction accidents. Warren's company has seen its projects shut down in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, most recently when sinkholes appeared near the site of a natural gas liquids line that's under construction (Energywire, March 7).
At the same time, the debate over pipelines is standing in for a debate over how to cope with the broader changes going on in the energy industry, said Mark Brownstein, vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
"Because that can't find a productive forum in Congress, it winds up getting channeled into the siting process," he said.
The increased focus on the siting process has put a spotlight on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Environmentalists say it moves too quickly to approve pipelines without taking into account their impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre told a CERAWeek crowd he's bothered when some pipeline opponents describe FERC as a "rubber stamp." He praised the commission staff, which he said tries to work with industry and valid stakeholders with different views.
"There is nothing that we do in the pipeline approval process that need be done in any way that is even to a minute degree inconsistent with responsible stewardship of the environment," McIntyre said.
The chairman said it shouldn't be a surprise that the rate of pipeline approvals is high, given the amount of thought that occurs before companies submit their applications. But he signaled a willingness to take a fresh look at some processes from time to time.
Ultimately, the protests are forcing pipeline builders to pay more attention to their regulatory applications and are driving up costs, said Al Monaco, CEO of Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Inc.
"I don't think it's going to get better anytime soon," he said.
Reporter Nathanial Gronewold contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075773
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OSHA Fines FirstEnergy, Contractor Over Power Plant Deaths
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
Federal regulators have fined FirstEnergy Corp. and a contractor more than $200,000 after a fatal gas leak at Pennsylvania's largest coal-fired power plant.
The gas leak at the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant northwest of Pittsburgh killed two workers and injured four. Authorities said the deaths were caused by a burst of hydrogen sulfide from a pipe (Greenwire, Aug. 31, 2017).
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined FirstEnergy $77,605 and fined Cincinnati-based contractor Enerfab Inc. $129,340.
OSHA said FirstEnergy failed to properly tell Enerfab about the dangers facing the workers who handled hazardous chemicals. The agency also cited Enerfab for several safety lapses.
The families of the two workers who died — Kevin Patrick Bachner, 34, and John Michael Gorchock, 42 — sued FirstEnergy in November.
The companies have until March 20 to appeal. Enerfab's CEO said it will contest all the violations, and FirstEnergy said in a statement that it is reviewing the citations.
"Immediately following the accident, we implemented a number of steps to enhance safety for workers performing similar work," FirstEnergy spokeswoman Stephanie Walton said in the statement. "The company continues to conduct a detailed internal review of the incident" (Daniel Moore, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 7). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075801
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Small Businesses Drive Freight Railroads
Mar 7, 2018 | Inside Sources
By Connor D. Wolf
The critical role small businesses and entrepreneurs play in the freight railroad industry is being threatened by regulations, according to a report this week.
The freight railroad industry is a uniquely important sector of the economy because many other industries rely on it to transport goods and raw materials. A problem in the freight railroad system could have a ripple effect throughout the economy. It also directly employs many workers while creating billions in economic activity.
The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) released the report to explore the role small businesses and entrepreneurs play in the freight railroad industry. The report also highlighted how deregulation nearly four decades ago helped save the industry from a downward spiral – and how efforts to add more regulations could undermine that.
“It also must be understood that the story of America’s freight railroads is a small business story,” SBE Council chief economist Raymond Keating said in a statement. “The U.S. economy very much is an entrepreneurial, small business economy, with smaller firms being the majority in most industries, and that is no different in the sectors directly and indirectly impacted by freight railroads.”
The SBE Council report looked at 13 key industries that are directly or indirectly affected by freight railroads. It found that in all but one that the majority of employer firms were small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. The warehousing and storage industry, for example, is 51.2 percent small businesses while agricultural is at 93.2 percent.
The report also found that the percentage of firms with fewer than 500 workers ranged from 83.3 percent in warehousing and storage to 99.8 percent in construction. This means there aren’t many firms in those industries with more than 500 employees and many with less than 20 employees.
The report also argues that the industry was saved because of a massive deregulatory effort in the 1980s. Supporters have argued that railroad companies could more easily make decisions based on market conditions – which helped lead to improved industry efficiency and productivity, capital investment, maintenance and safety, and profitability.
“As the American economy grows, the demand for freight transportation, including via rail, will increase,” the report stated. “In turn, it is important that the best policy environment be established to incentivize the entrepreneurship, investment and innovation that drive growth across the economy, including when it comes to transportation and railroads.”
Keating argues that efforts to reregulate the industry would be disastrous for many small businesses, the industry as a whole, and the economy. He pointed to the “forced access” proposal which would require private railroads to open their tracks to competitors.
“If imposed, such measures would be surefire ways of undermining profitability, investment and service,” Keating said. “Specifically, such government controls would diminish the ability and incentive to invest in rail capacity, maintenance and innovation; generate additional costs; and strike blows against reliability, speed, efficiency and safety.”
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has also been vocally opposed to what it sees as overregulation in the railway industry. AAR research has found that the freight railroad industry has spent over $630 billion since the industry was partially deregulated in the 1980s. The trade group has also found that freight railroads created nearly $274 billion in economic activity, generated nearly $33 billion in state and federal tax revenues, and supported nearly 1.5 million jobs nationally in 2014 alone.
SBE Council distributed the report to congressional members Wednesday.
http://www.insidesources.com/report-small-businesses-drive-freight-railroads/
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Climate Skeptic Oversaw Sprawling Review of Agency Policy
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
A longtime federal employee who sees "good news" in rising greenhouse gases was tasked early in the Trump administration with retooling the Interior Department's public positions on climate change, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Indur Goklany, a senior adviser in the Office of Policy Analysis with connections to the Heartland Institute, a libertarian group that promotes the rejection of mainstream science, began volunteering to revise agency webpages and policies right after President Trump's inauguration. His ideas included deleting almost all references to climate change.
By May, he was formally assigned to do those tasks.
Days after Trump was sworn in, Goklany emailed Doug Domenech, then-head of the Interior Department transition team, with a list of revisions to the main Interior webpage on climate change. He wanted to make it "technically and scientifically more accurate than what's currently on it, and also provide context, which the current one doesn't."
The emails were released by Interior in a 1,284-page disclosureprompted by a FOIA request. They reveal that high-level officials undertook detailed efforts to strip climate policy from the agency lexicon, relying heavily on a career employee who has cast doubt on mainstream climate science.
Goklany, or "Goks" as he is often called, has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, according to his biography on Interior's website. He has served in various roles in the Office of Policy Analysis since 1986 and worked at U.S. EPA and, earlier, for the Michigan state government.
Goklany is well-known in conservative policy circles, said Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
"If I wanted somebody in the federal government, in the civil service, to review and distinguish the real science from the junk science in the climate area, I doubt there is anyone better ... than Indur to do it," Ebell said.
Goklany got the green light in May 2017 to take a detail in the Office of the Deputy Secretary. The move was approved by Associate Deputy Secretary James Cason, who is widely credited with orchestrating many of the policy changes at the agency.
Under Cason's direction, Goklany was tasked with looking at the agency's climate change policies, including "reviewing and providing feedback on various documents and reports, including DOI and non-DOI reports, departmental manual chapters, and the information contained on websites," according to a Sept. 18, 2017, document included in the FOIA disclosure.
Scrapping climate orders
Before the move was made official, documents show, Goklany, Cason and Domenech regularly corresponded on climate-related issues, and the longtime staffer was often called on to find specific documents or share his opinions on science.
On April 11, Goklany reviewed a two-page national parks document on climate change at the request of Domenech.
"I've looked at it and see several omissions and other shortcomings," Goklany wrote. "[In my opinion], pg. 2 is propaganda for a favored option. I can talk to you about it any time you want."
Three days later, Goklany provided both officials with a copy of a 2010 secretarial order on renewable energy development that established an energy and climate change task force. He also attached a chapter of Interior's manual that spells out the agency's climate change policy. The chapter was scrapped in December (Climatewire, Jan. 8).
Cason and Goklany also corresponded directly about a scientific paper on climate change that was set to be released by the U.S. Geological Survey. In a May 19, 2017, email exchange, Goklany told Cason the paper was still in the works, and it shows that Goklany was directly involved in drafting the USGS study.
"Just an advance notice that we might not be able to get the paper to you by the end of the day," he wrote to Cason. "I was supposed to get a new version from them yesterday, but haven't received it yet. Unless they incorporate all my comments, there may be some additional discussion that may entail a delay."
Goklany also told his boss there were an estimated 100,000 pages on the Interior servers related to climate change.
On June 9, he emailed Cason and Domenech with an updated draft mission statement and an action list to implement it. In his email, Goklany notes that since the new priorities exclude climate change, he swapped it out with "infrastructure maintenance." Goklany's draft proposed removing all existing webpages that referred to climate change, unless they were related to ongoing science. All secretarial orders and chapters in the departmental manual related to climate change should be suspended or withdrawn, he wrote.
Warming 'or whatever'
Goklany's published work wades into territory explored by climate change skeptics.
In a March 10, 2017, "pleasure to meet you" email sent to Downey Magallanes, the deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Goklany attached two papers he wrote as an "independent scientist."
The first, published by the Cato Institute in 2012, makes the case that technologies dependent on cheap fossil fuels allowed humankind to flourish.
The second argues that climate change is beneficial.
"Carbon Dioxide: The Good News" was published in 2015 by a U.K.-based think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which was founded by climate denier Nigel Lawson. In the piece, Goklany argues that the rise in CO2 is a boon to the planet because it boosts plant growth and crop yields, improving human well-being.
Goklany was often roped into conversations with top Interior brass about studies related to climate change.
On May 10, 2017, Domenech flagged a press release issued by the U.S. Geological Survey on a new study showing climate change has reduced the size of nearly 40 glaciers in Montana since 1966.
"[W]hat evidence does USGS have that 'The warming climate has dramatically reduced the size of 39 glaciers in Montana since 1966,'" Domenech wrote. "This is the perfect example of them going beyond their wheelhouse."
Scott Cameron, special assistant for water and science, chimed in, noting, "They probably are relying on the percentages [but] the more basic point is we need to watch for inflammatory adverbs and adjectives in their press releases."
An hour later, Goklany replied, noting that "some context would be useful." He said it's unclear how much of the glacial retreat is due to human-induced warming versus natural variations in precipitation.
"I could also make the argument that it's not clear that tourism would necessarily suffer since touring season may expand, and hiking may replace glacier-viewing, but that might be a secondary effect," he added.
In another science-related exchange in August, Goklany emailed Domenech a New York Timesarticle on rising sea levels in Guam. He included multiple charts showing, in his interpretation, that tide gauge data do not show an acceleration of sea-level rise due to "man-made global warming or whatever."
At the end of the email, Goklany referred Domenech — who was then the nominee for assistant secretary of the Interior for insular areas — to a "very good article" on Watts Up With That?, a popular blog for skeptics that's written by Australian radio meteorologist Anthony Watts.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075787
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A 'Pit Bull' for Climate Could Soon Sit Next to Trump
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Robin Bravender and Zack Colman
An ascendant aide in the Trump White House has warned of the threats posed by climate change, has argued for taxing carbon, has promoted wind power and was even endorsed by the Sierra Club.
The political stock of Peter Navarro, President Trump's nationalist trade adviser, has been on the rise since he won an internal White House dispute over imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, is leaving the White House after losing the tariff battle, and Navarro is widely expected to jockey for Cohn's job. If he gets it, he could soon be charged with overseeing national energy and climate policy. And whether or not he gets a promotion, Navarro has emerged from the tariff war as a more powerful figure in the Trump White House who could play a greater role in shaping administration policies across the board.
So who is this guy?
Navarro, 68, is a longtime economics and public policy professor known for his staunchly nationalist ideals, his withering criticisms of China and his intolerance of opposing views. He was an aspiring politician for a decade, losing in his attempts to become San Diego's mayor and a California congressman. He's a Democrat-turned-Trump-supporter who fought development in San Diego, worked with local environmentalists and proudly trumpeted the Sierra Club's endorsement of his candidacy.
He also has energy credentials — he was a policy analyst at the Massachusetts Energy Office and the Energy Department in the late 1970s and a research associate at Harvard University's Energy and Environmental Policy Center in the early 1980s.
His prolific writings and public statements on the environment put him at odds with Trump, who has famously called global warming a hoax.
"Global climate change resulting from the widespread burning of fossil fuels has the potential to be one of the most important environmental problems of our time," Navarro said in a 2000 paper he co-wrote with a doctoral student in economics. Navarro was then an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. The paper promoted wind power as a "weapon in the arsenal to combat global warming."
In a 2007 paper, Navarro said "that global warming is a very significant problem and that carbon dioxide emissions are the principal cause of global warming."
He's also promoted a carbon tax, writing in 2007, "Economists correctly and perennially argue that the most efficient and direct path to American energy independence and clean skies would simply be to tax oil imports and gasoline as well as carbon."
Navarro has even called for banning incandescent light bulbs, a move favored by environmentalists but loathed by many conservatives. "Our outrage is rooted in a classic mistrust of government interference," Navarro wrote in 2007. "But there are very sound economic reasons to 'ban the bulb.'"
Decades ago, Navarro was even something of a hero among local environmentalists in San Diego.
Navarro founded the slow-growth group Prevent Los Angelization Now, an organization that fought developers and promoted open spaces.
He was "an environmental pit bull in San Diego," said Peter Andersen, a retired professor of communications at San Diego State University who worked for Navarro's four failed political campaigns. In the early 1990s, then-City Council member Bob Filner voted to allow a road through an urban wilderness park, which Andersen and Navarro staunchly opposed.
Filner — a Democrat who was later elected to Congress and as San Diego's mayor — "lied to us" about his vote, recalled Andersen, who's now on the board of the Sierra Club's San Diego chapter. "Peter literally got up out of the audience" and "excoriated him with profanities and threats," Andersen said. Navarro told him, "You're dead in politics; you don't even belong in this town."
Andersen called Navarro a complex character. "There's a lot I like about the guy; he's a doer," Andersen said. Also, he said, "he's kind of a jerk."
Political 'chameleon'
His green credentials aren't an indication that he'll try to sway the president on that front, according to sources who have worked with him. Above all, they see Navarro as a political opportunist who's willing to change his policy positions and even his political party to advance his career.
"He's an environmental opportunist," said Scott Flexo, who worked as a pollster for Navarro during his 1992 campaign for San Diego mayor. "I think he would focus on the environment if it would sell books or if it would get him jobs or get him elected. There really wasn't a commitment to environmental issues, and you could see that in his behavior and after the election."
One of the big discussions during Navarro's 1992 campaign, Flexo recalled, was which political party Navarro would choose. He ultimately ran as an independent, losing to the Republican candidate, Susan Golding.
He called himself a "grass-roots" candidate in that race, the Los Angeles Times reported. "On the environment, I'm endorsed by the Sierra Club; she's financed by the building industry," he said of Golding.
But he no longer has the Sierra Club's backing. "Any good will Peter Navarro had in 1992 has been squandered by his myopic worldview and work on behalf of a hateful, xenophobic administration," Sierra Club spokesman Adam Beitman said yesterday in a statement.
Golding only narrowly beat Navarro in that race, an outcome Flexo attributed to Navarro's treatment of Golding during a televised debate.
Golding's husband had been arrested by the FBI in 1989 on charges that he had agreed to launder more than $1 million he thought came from South American cocaine dealers, United Press International reported at the time. Navarro's aides had considered whether to bring it up during the campaign.
"Peter just decided to bring it up on television in a debate. He brought it up, and she started to cry, and he didn't know what to do when she was crying," Flexo said. "She was able to pick up quite a bit of votes from women who felt like he was beating up on her, because he's very intense and his criticisms of her were very pointed and direct."
That wasn't the only bad press Navarro suffered during the campaign. Earlier that year, Navarro acknowledged that he had called Golding's press secretary, Nikki Symington, a "pig" when "the two engaged in a brief shoving match," according to the Los Angeles Times. "Navarro was captured on television forcing his way past the diminutive Symington as he attempted to join Golding, who was being interviewed."
The anecdotes match his reputation as a hard-charging political climber.
"He's articulate and smart but verbally very aggressive," said Bob Meadow, a partner at Lake Research Partners who worked as a pollster for Golding during the 1992 mayoral race and later worked for Navarro when he ran as a Democrat attempting to unseat California Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray in 1996.
Navarro's former campaign aides don't expect Navarro to push Trump to the left on the environment.
"It's extremely difficult for me to say that there is any ideological grounding to Peter Navarro," Meadow said. "I believe deeply that he is pandering to Trump and that any of the strong environmental positions he held would bend."
Flexo called Navarro a "chameleon" whose "policy positions will be the policy positions that will get him the job and keep him the job." Flexo, who's now a marketing professor at California State University, Long Beach, kept in touch with Navarro after the failed 1992 campaign and would occasionally teach classes for him.
Asked if they are personal friends, Flexo said, "Oh no. ... Peter is a very driven person; he's not a personable person, so you can't really get close to Peter." He added, "He can grate on you if you're not ready and prepared for that kind of a person."
Others find him more approachable. Former Rep. Bob Walker (R-Pa.), who was chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, penned an article with Navarro in 2016 about space policy when they were both Trump campaign advisers. Walker called him a "very bright, engaging guy." He added, "I found him to be very interesting."
Now he's made it'
He's an odd fit in the Trump White House, with no natural allies.
There's widespread belief that major staff defections would follow Navarro's potential promotion to the top of the National Economic Council. His protectionist views run counter to those of the free-trade, establishment Republican advisers filling the council's ranks.
Navarro said yesterday that he's not in the running to replace Cohn. "I'd be honored, but I'm not on that list, let me be clear," he said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "I've got a very full plate here at the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy."
Still, his recent policy victory and Cohn's departure have shined a brighter spotlight on what Navarro might do with more leverage in the administration.
Despite his past warnings about climate change, he was a supporter of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. He wrote in a July 2017 USA Today op-ed that withdrawal "will save the U.S. economy an estimated 6.5 million industrial-sector jobs, and his regulatory rollbacks have already saved more than $60 billion in unnecessary costs for American companies."
He added that Trump "has unleashed America's energy potential — a great boon for American manufacturers and consumers. And employment in the coal industry is up, contrary to the cynics' forecast."
But he has also contradicted major Trump administration energy policy goals. He's pushed back on plans to help build fossil fuel generators overseas, instead arguing to export renewable energy or help other nations develop their own ability to produce clean energy.
Exporting fuel, another tenet of Trump's energy and economic policy, is also anathema to Navarro's worldview, said a source close to the administration. Navarro operates within the long-standing paradigm of energy independence that prizes domestic energy as a strategic and security advantage enabling disengagement with other nations.
"I've never gotten the impression that he's a strong proponent for fossil energy exports. He's more of an isolationist," said the source. "He would be 100 percent in favor of energy independence. He would be skeptical of any international agreement — he would oppose any international agreement that would harm the U.S."
In addition to backing tariffs on steel and aluminum, Navarro was a strong proponent of slapping tariffs on imported solar panels, which he saw as hitting his top adversary: China. His position as a key player promoting tariffs has made him a convenient punching bag for White House officials who disagree with the president's trade moves, a former administration official said.
It remains unclear how high Navarro will climb, but some of his former associates say he may already have achieved his main career objective.
"Peter's career goal was to get to Washington," Flexo said. "He was going to become mayor of San Diego and then leverage that into some other position, senator or congressman. ... His goal was always to get to Washington, and now he's made it."
Meadow said Navarro has always sought "power and having a place to articulate his perspective." Lately, he added, Navarro has been interested in trade and the rise of China, and Trump's adviser has "a willing audience of one."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075783
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Judge Orders 'Tutorial' on Climate Science in Oil Case
Mar 8, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
A federal court in California will hold a hearing on climate science as two cities pursue lawsuits against oil companies for damages related to sea-level rise.
Judge William Alsup in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California scheduled a "tutorial" session on March 21 in San Francisco.
The cities of Oakland and San Francisco, and the oil companies they're suing — BP PLC, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — must present scientific information on global warming.
Alsup on Monday asked both sides to answer eight questions. Those inquires included: "What caused the various ice ages (including the 'little ice age' and prolonged cool periods) and what caused the ice to melt? When they melted, by how much did sea level rise?"
He also asked, "What are the main sources of CO2 that account for the incremental buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere? What are the main sources of heat that account for the incremental rise in temperature on Earth?"
It's a unique hearing, several experts said.
"This is the first wide-ranging proceeding of any kind focusing on climate science," said Rick Frank, director of the California Environmental Law & Policy Center at the University of California, Davis.
Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, called the hearing "quite unusual."
"Judge Alsup has done this before, once, in a lawsuit involving Google and Uber," he said in an email. "I have asked a number of lawyers, and none has heard of anyone else doing anything like this."
He added that "questions of the validity of certain aspects of climate science have been part of climate litigation since at least Massachusetts vs. EPA. But the 'tutorial,' involving fossil fuel companies alleged to be involved in a long-running effort to obscure the science going on the record about their current views, could be an important, revealing moment."
Frank noted, however, that both sides will likely present briefings from a perspective favorable to their side.
"My only question is whether [Alsup] is going to be satisfied with what he gets with the climate science filtered through the oil companies with their attorneys on one side, and the cities and their attorneys on the other," Frank said.
Alsup ruled last month that the cases must stay in federal court, a move the oil companies wanted. The cities — which filed separate lawsuits originally in state court — had petitioned to transfer the cases back to the state venue. Alsup said the issues were federal in nature.
He let stand for now, however, the cities' claim that the oil companies through their production of fossil fuels created a "public nuisance." The suits seek funding for climate adaptation efforts like building sea walls and raising low-lying buildings.
Daniel Farber, law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said he believes Alsup "primarily wants to understand the issues, but this also forces the parties to show where they actually agree, which saves time later."
Michael Wara, senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, was surprised to hear about questions planned for the tutorial, including about the ice ages.
"The origin of the ice ages has nothing to do with what is the issue in this case," Wara said. "It's just not relevant. And the idea that experts presented by either side are going to be appropriate neutral arbiters to some of these questions is pretty dubious."
Wara said the hearing was "a great example of why it's better to have expert regulators making climate policy than judges."
"Judges are generalists," Wara said. "They're not trained to know about climate science, or climate policy, or the industries that are implicated by climate change. What this case theoretically will do is put them in a position of crafting a remedy."
Frank disagreed.
"We've been seeing this steady trickle turning into a flood of climate litigation," Frank said. "Judges or juries in some cases are going to need some grounding in foundational climate science."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/08/stories/1060075791
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