Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/9/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) US President Signs Proclamations on Steel, Aluminium Tariffs
Mar 9, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
US President Donald Trump signed on Thursday a proclamation calling for tariffs on steel and aluminium, a move that has been widely criticised by the petrochemical and energy industries. -
(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Groups Say Trump Steel Tariffs Could Cost Industry Jobs
Mar 8, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Plastics and chemical industry trade groups are coming out in opposition to President Trump's new tariffs on steel and aluminum, saying they could cost jobs in plastics companies and be "devastating" to the industry by raising costs for mold makers and machinery companies. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Companies Sue for Higher Duties on Chinese Imports
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
U.S. chemical manufacturers Clearon Corp., Biolab Inc., and Occidental Chemical Corp. are challenging duty rates on a Chinese water treatment chemical. -
Scott Pruitt Is Leading the EPA Toward Greatness
Mar 9, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Former Rep. Tim Huelskamp and H. Sterling Burnett
In the first season of Donald’s Trump “Presidential Apprentice,” there’s no question who the star hire of his administration has been: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. -
EDF Files Principal Brief in TSCA Framework Rule Inventory Notification Challenge
Mar 8, 2018 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On March 6, 2018, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed its Principal Brief in the litigation case that petitions for review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)... -
Sensors, Health Megastudy Offer Chance to Reset Air, Toxic Limits
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sara Merken and Steven Gibb
Combining high-tech sensors with major new federal health research on more than a million people could lead to breakthroughs in setting chemical safety and air pollution standards, scientists said. -
Washington State Takes Action to Eliminate Use of PFAS in Food Packaging
Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Around 1990, driven by a concern to keep heavy metals out of recycled products, many states adopted laws prohibiting the intentional addition of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury to packaging and limited their total concentration to 100 parts per million. -
Judge Doubts Industry Request to Intervene in Formaldehyde Rule Suit
Mar 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge is all but rejecting industry requests to intervene in environmentalists' suit challenging the Trump EPA's delay of the Obama administration's formaldehyde emissions standard for pressed wood products, just days before the litigants are slated to float plans March 9... -
Energy Regulator to Announce Natural Gas Forum ‘Very Soon’
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will soon announce a forum on natural gas permitting procedures, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said March 7. -
Zinke Getting Earful from Hill as Comment Period Closes
Mar 9, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kellie Lunney
The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, said yesterday he plans to ask Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about "the contradictions" between his proposed offshore drilling plan and his announcement that Florida was "off the table." -
LNG Group to Seek Exemption for Trump's Proposed Steel Tariff
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
A liquefied natural gas industry group will seek an exemption to the Trump administration plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel. -
Pennsylvania Halts Mariner East 1 NGL Pipe Flows, Mariner East 2 Work Continues
Mar 8, 2018 | Platts
By Andrea Salazar
Mariner East 2 pipeline construction was ongoing in Pennsylvania Thursday, a day after a state regulator ordered the shutdown of Energy Transfer Partners' Mariner East 1 pipeline following the discovery of three sinkholes near the NGL line. -
As Gasoline Demand Wanes, Oil Industry Looks to Petrochemicals
Mar 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
In 2010, the Middle East was beginning to run out of the cheap natural gas that had transformed the region into a major petrochemicals hub. Houston’s Chevron Phillips Chemical, which had spent a decade building four plants in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, needed a new place to expand. -
Ryan Says Congress to Break Up Trump's Infrastructure Proposals
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Edgerton and Mark Niquette
House Republicans will break President Donald Trump's infrastructure plan into multiple pieces of legislation as a way to make progress this year, House Speaker Paul Ryan said. -
Baltimore Wants to Become the First East Coast City to Pass a Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Ban
Mar 9, 2018 | Think Progress
By Natasha Geiling
From her home in lower South Baltimore, Keisha Allen can see the long queue of train cars that roll by every day a few hundred feet away. Some are loaded with obvious cargo — coal, for instance, rolls by uncovered on its way to nearby export terminals. -
Utilities Defend EPA's SO2 NAAQS Designations
Mar 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
Utilities are defending EPA's designation of areas in Ohio and Colorado as “unclassifiable” for the agency's 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), rejecting environmentalists' arguments that EPA should have designated them “nonattainment”... -
Doj Tightens Scrutiny of Attorneys' Fees in New Bid to Blunt Citizen Suits
Mar 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Justice Department (DOJ) is tightening its oversight of attorneys' fees paid to environmental groups that win lawsuits against EPA and other agencies, in the latest sign the Trump administration is seeking to blunt enforcement of environmental laws...
Industry and Association News
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Transportation and Infrastructure News
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(ACC Mentioned) US President Signs Proclamations on Steel, Aluminium Tariffs
Mar 9, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
US President Donald Trump signed on Thursday a proclamation calling for tariffs on steel and aluminium, a move that has been widely criticised by the petrochemical and energy industries.
The proclamation calls on tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium. They go into effect in 15 days, Trump said.
Two of the largest sources of imported steel to the US, Canada and Mexico, will be excluded from the tariffs if the three countries successfully renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Trump said.
The president also reserved the discretion to modify or remove the tariffs from specific countries that have security relationships with the US, the White House said.
"We're going to hold off on the tariff to those two countries to see whether or not we're able to make the deal on NAFTA," Trump said. "If we're making the deal on NAFTA, this will figure into the deal, and we won't have the tariffs on Canada or Mexico."
Higher steel and aluminium tariffs will directly harm the chemical industry in several ways.
Several companies are considering expanding petrochemical capacity, and steel and aluminium tariffs could make these projects more expensive.
“For a chemical manufacturing industry that has invested $185bn in new factories, expansions and restarts of facilities around the country, President Trump’s announcement comes at the worst possible time,” the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said in an earlier statement. “More than half of these investment projects are still in the planning stage, and market shifts caused by tariff increases may convince investors to do business elsewhere.”
Oil and gas companies rank among the largest steel users in the country. These sectors provide the feedstock and energy used by the petrochemical industry, and their higher costs could trickle down to chemical companies.
Midstream companies use metals to build the infrastructure and pipelines to collect, extract and distribute natural gas liquids (NGLs).
Some of the largest petrochemical end markets also use steel and aluminium. These include automobiles, construction and appliances.
The chart below shows the largest end uses for steel.
Longer term, the companies in these end markets may replace metals with plastics if the tariffs remain in place long enough. More immediately, higher metal costs could squeeze their margins and slow their growth, limiting further increases in petrochemical demand.
US petrochemical companies could face a bigger hit if countries target the industry with retaliatory tariffs.
The US already exports a lot of plastics and chemicals, and this will only increase once new plants start operations. These new plants were always premised on exporting much of their output to foreign markets that lack the cost advantage of US producers.
Cal Dooley, the president of the 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 this week.
Vertical Research Partners, an analyst firm, noted the industry's vulnerability to retaliatory tariffs in a recent research note.
During CERAWeek by IHS Markit, the tariffs were universally criticised by the presenters at the energy conference.
During his presidential campaign, Trump ran on a protectionist platform, and the steel and aluminium tariffs could augur similar measures, further increasing the risk of retaliatory measures.
(adds paragraph 4)
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/03/08/10200810/us-president-signs-proclamations-on-steel-aluminium-tariffs/
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(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Groups Say Trump Steel Tariffs Could Cost Industry Jobs
Mar 8, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Plastics and chemical industry trade groups are coming out in opposition to President Trump's new tariffs on steel and aluminum, saying they could cost jobs in plastics companies and be "devastating" to the industry by raising costs for mold makers and machinery companies.
While some aspects of the tariffs remain unclear, the Washington-based Plastics Industry Association said on its Twitter feed that its President and CEO, Bill Carteaux, opened the group's board meeting March 8 urging the plastics industry to oppose the tariffs.
The association said it was mounting a campaign asking members to email or contact Congress to say tariffs could raise costs and jeopardize economic momentum from the administration's recent tax cut package.
"Across-the-board tariffs on these materials could dramatically increase costs for the segments of the plastics industry that depend on them-costs that would be passed down through the supply chain to other plastics companies, manufacturers, businesses and, ultimately, to consumers," the association said in a March 7 letter to President Trump.
"This would undoubtedly have a negative impact on the plastics industry and the economy as a whole," it said. On its website, it called the tariffs "devastating to our businesses and our industry."
A March 8 White House fact sheet said the move is needed to protect national security.
The White House sheet said global "overcapacity and unfair trade" in the steel and aluminum industries have led to excessive levels of imports and decimated U.S. producers, and said the move is needed to protect jobs in those industries.
Carteaux said in his letter, however, that he believes the tariffs would "cost American thousands of manufacturing jobs in fields like plastics, which depend on steel and aluminum to manufacture products."
Carteaux said last year's tax package pushed by the Trump administration could have a "historic impact" on manufacturing and he said the administration's economic policies have been "positive force" for the plastics industry.
But he argued that the tariffs would be a "significant step in the wrong direction."
"The U.S. plastics industry urges this administration not to throw those gains away for a set of tariffs that would only wind up hurting the people they're aimed at protecting," he said.
The Washington-based American Chemistry Council has also argued against the planned tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, saying in a March 1 statement that it could raise costs and put some of the $185 billion in planned investment in new chemical factories at risk.
ACC has also warned of risks from other countries retaliating with their own tariffs against U.S. chemical and plastic resin experts, since the U.S. has a sizable trade surplus globally in those materials.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180308/NEWS/180309900/plastics-groups-say-trump-steel-tariffs-could-cost-industry-jobs
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Companies Sue for Higher Duties on Chinese Imports
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
U.S. chemical manufacturers Clearon Corp., Biolab Inc., and Occidental Chemical Corp. are challenging duty rates on a Chinese water treatment chemical.
The companies are disputing the Commerce Department's calculations in an administrative review of anti-dumping duties on chlorinated isocyanruates from China. In that review, the agency calculated duty rates of 16.06 percent to 24.82 percent.
The companies have not yet filed a complaint with the U.S. Court of International Trade detailing what parts of Commerce's calculations they take issue with. Counsel for the companies did not respond immediately to Bloomberg Law's request for comment.
The U.S. manufacturers likely will push for higher duty rates on the imports.
Chlorinated isocyanurates are a type of disinfectant commonly used to kill germs and algae in pools and spas, according to the American Chemistry Council. It is also used as a sanitizing agent in automatic dishwasher detergents and other cleaning products, and it can be used to disinfect drinking water in emergencies or when clean water is otherwise unavailable.
The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. imported an estimated $168.6 million of this chemical from China in 2013, the most recent year for which data were available.
The case is Clearon Corp. v. United States, Ct. Int'l Trade, No. 18-00051, filed 3/7/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129322166&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129322166&jd=129322166
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Scott Pruitt Is Leading the EPA Toward Greatness
Mar 9, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Former Rep. Tim Huelskamp and H. Sterling Burnett
In the first season of Donald’s Trump “Presidential Apprentice,” there’s no question who the star hire of his administration has been: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
As a candidate for president, Trump argued the massive regulatory state headquartered in Washington was destroying jobs, restricting economic growth, and preventing America from becoming great again. Trump particularly directed his condemnation at EPA, which had grossly overstepped its legal authority by imposing regulations that did little to protect human health or the environment, but were costing the United States jobs, undermining our international economic competitiveness, and raising energy prices.
Few people understood the extent to which EPA had exceeded their legal authority and expanded it control over peoples’ lives better than Pruitt. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt fervently and effectively fought to protect Oklahomans against federal overreach and to defend sound energy and environmental policy. Pruitt successfully sued the EPA numerous times, including convincing the courts to place stays on the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule and the Clean Power Plan (CPP).
Now that Pruitt has served a full year as EPA administrator, it is a good time to assess his accomplishments. Pruitt has redirected EPA’s efforts away from “ideological crusades,” making huge strides in returning the agency’s focus to the core functions assigned to it by Congress: working cooperatively with states to ensure the nation’s air, waters, and lands are cleaner.
Trump and Pruitt share an understanding that climate change is not a significant threat to the prosperity and health of Americans. As such, when Trump directed EPA to review the 2016 Clean Power Plan — which forced states and companies to undertake a wholesale overhaul of their electric power supply, largely removing affordable, reliable coal-powered power plants from the mix—Pruitt reported back the plan violated the 1970 Clean Air Act and states’ rightful control of their electric power systems. Pruitt then rescinded the CPP.
To improve transparency and accountability, Pruitt ended the agency’s use of sue-and-settle agreements, which radical environmentalists and collaborators within the EPA secretly used for years to dictate energy and environmental policy outside of the transparency of the public regulatory process. Pruitt also cleared Obama holdovers from the EPA Science Advisory Committees and issued a directive ensuring members of its Federal Advisory Committees are not receiving EPA grants and have no other conflicts of interest.
Helping Trump keep his commitment to rescind two regulations for every new regulation, under Pruitt’s leadership the EPA finalized 22 deregulatory actions, saving American families and businesses more than $1 billion in regulatory costs.
After Trump issued an executive order directing the EPA to review and rescind the overreaching WOTUS rule, which had been issued in 2015, Pruitt’s EPA quickly responded by postponing the rule’s date of implementation to 2020. This offers property owners and states regulatory certainty while the agency revises WOTUS to safeguard property rights and to ensure the regulation is actually consistent with the law and Supreme Court rulings.
With little media attention, the EPA under Pruitt has stepped up its efforts to clean the nation’s most toxic Superfund sites, putting the properties back into productive use. In 2016, Obama’s EPA remediated and removed only two sites from Superfund’s national priorities list (NPL). By comparison, in Pruitt’s first year, EPA cleaned up and removed seven sites from the NPL. It’s amazing what the agency can do when it focuses its efforts on core functions.
Under Obama, the EPA rejected or refused to accept dozens of state implementation plans (SIPs) to clean up air, water, and land, imposing instead 50 federal implementation plans on states. Pruitt reversed EPA’s course, embracing cooperation with the states. Since March 1, 2017, EPA acted on 322 SIPs and substituted one SIP each month for a federal implementation plan.
In a sign of improving efficiency, Pruitt’s EPA has cut the number of days needed to review state water quality standards in half, from 120 days to 60 days, and cleared a backlog of more than 600 chemicals under review by the agency, ensuring all new chemicals proposed for public or commercial have received a safety analysis and determination within approximately 90 days.
If the stock market, job growth, decline in unemployment, enhanced business investment, and consumer confidence increases are any indication, Trump is well on his way to making America great again, and the changes made at EPA under Scott Pruitt’s direction have played no small part in that.
Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., is president of The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He served as a U.S. representative from Kansas from 2011-17. H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is a senior fellow on energy and the environment at The Heartland Institute.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/377452-scott-pruitt-is-leading-the-epa-toward-greatness
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EDF Files Principal Brief in TSCA Framework Rule Inventory Notification Challenge
Mar 8, 2018 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On March 6, 2018, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed its Principal Brief in the litigation case that petitions for review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements final rule ( EDF v. EPA, No. 1701 (D.C. Cir.)).
EDF’s brief includes, among other required statements, a statement of the issues, a statement of the case, a summary of their argument, and their argument. EDF’s arguments are as follows:
1. The Inventory Rule withholds information on chemical substances manufactured or processed in the U.S. from the public; this information is required to be disclosed under amended TSCA; EDF has been harmed by EPA’s failure to disclose this information and to disclose unique identifiers for confidential chemicals; and the court can redress this harm.
2. The final rule illegally allows manufacturers and processors to assert certain new claims for nondisclosure of specific chemical identities based on other persons having asserted earlier claims, which is contrary to TSCA’s plain text and the relevant precedent governing confidentiality claims; and EPA’s rationale for its interpretation is arbitrary and capricious.
3. The final rule violates both the substantive and procedural requirements of TSCA Section 14, Confidential Information, specifically that: EPA refused to accept that TSCA Section 8, Reporting and Retention of Information, repeatedly incorporates Section 14 requirements for confidentiality claims; the final rule fails to implement one of the substantive requirements for confidentiality claims under Section 14; and the final rule fails to implement one of the substantive requirements for confidentiality claims under Section 14.
4. The final rule fails to implement the unique identifier and other public information requirements in TSCA Section 8(b)(7)(B).
5. The final rule exempts chemicals manufactured and processed solely for export from the reporting requirements, even though such chemicals are specifically not exempted from TSCA Section 8.
6. Finally, EDF requests the court to set aside the rule in part, stating that vacatur, along with remand, is the appropriate remedy for EPA’s violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). EDF does not seek a complete vacatur, however, stating that “a complete vacatur would postpone the release of some of the very information that EDF seeks, since it would allow EPA to postpone publishing the Inventory based on the information it has already collected. In addition, it would impose costs on the regulated community beyond those necessary to remedy EDF’s harms [and] those manufacturers and processors who have already filed notices without claims of confidentiality should not need to refile the notices.” The portions of the final rule that EDF requests the court to vacate are as follows: the exclusion for export-only manufacturers (40 C.F.R. Section 710.27(a)(4)); Confidentiality Claims (40 C.F.R. Section 710.37); and certain portions of the preamble. EDF states specific instructions on how it would like the court to order EPA to promulgate the regulation on remand that include revisions to regulations on confidentiality claims, public information requirements, and notifications of activities during the lookback period.
EDF has done its usual thorough job and the brief is definitely a must read for TSCA stakeholders. More information on this proceeding and the other challenges to the TSCA framework final rules is available on our blog under key words framework rules.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/edf-files-principal-brief-tsca-framework-rule-inventory-notification-challenge
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Sensors, Health Megastudy Offer Chance to Reset Air, Toxic Limits
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sara Merken and Steven Gibb
Combining high-tech sensors with major new federal health research on more than a million people could lead to breakthroughs in setting chemical safety and air pollution standards, scientists said.
The data collected from the research will be like moving from “a magnifying glass to an electron microscope” in understanding environmentally related disease, according to health scientist Robert DeMott, with the Ramboll consultancy.
The “All of Us” Research Program—slated for spring release by the National Institutes of Health—will combine data on more than 1 million individuals’ geographically specific environmental exposures with known health factors to tease apart the genetic, lifestyle, and environmental components of disease.
Potential discoveries in environmental health—such as how air pollution contributes to cardiovascular and chronic disease—are part of the program's goals. All of Us will leverage environmental health data through personal sensors, federal agency data, and personal tests for pesticides and metals, the program's data head, Joshua Denny with Vanderbilt University, told Bloomberg Environment.
Everyday Exposures in Reach
The effort provides an “incredible engine for research” on challenges that bedevil environmental health scientists, according to Columbia University's Andrea Baccarelli. This includes hard-to-detect health effects of low-doses of exposure to hundreds of chemicals, he said.
DeMott, a toxicologist, said the research could chart new ground for regulators. Currently, many air and chemical standards are set by the Environmental Protection Agency using very high chemical exposures given to test animals to predict the health impacts on people of lower, everyday exposures.
“The general public really wants to know what could happen at much lower, commonly encountered environmental levels,” DeMott said.
“The new big data approaches could overcome this gap supplying both updated information about healthy environments and upgraded certainty—and thus security—in the characterizations [of pollutants] we make,” he added.
Air pollution researchers expanding into big data studies of millions of U.S., Canadian, and European citizens agree.
“Big Data—though having some limitations—will be increasingly important to understanding air pollution and health, especially testing whether there are associations and effects at the lowest levels of exposure, even below current standards,” according to Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, which studies air pollution.
Scare the Public?
But some scientists are raising concerns about how information on chemicals in people's bodies will be communicated.
Conveying biomonitoring data would be valuable if they are tied to safe versus unsafe levels so people can compare, according to Michael Dourson, a toxicologist with the Ohio-based Toxicological Excellence for Risk Assessment who had previously been picked to head the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “That would be hugely useful. Otherwise, this information by itself is likely going to scare many folks,” according to Dourson.
But the EPA says this line of research will continue to expand in the future.
“The integration of EPA air quality data and personal health data has been and will continue to be integral in informing relevant environmental health questions,” an EPA spokesperson told Bloomberg Environment.
Programs such as All of Us will generate genetics measures “with unprecedented numbers of individuals” to identify risk factors and biochemical effects of air pollution exposure, the spokesperson said.
Enhanced Sensors for Asthma
Wearable sensors, for example, can track how long an individual was exposed to major sources of air pollution from highways and industrial sites through GPS sensors, according to biostatistician Sandrah Eckel with the University of Southern California. She is working on an NIH-backed project to develop sensor-based monitoring systems to study asthma, a disease with multiple causes and triggers.
Sensors in popular smart watches and phones are easily accessible, scientists said at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine event on environmental health data integration Feb. 20-21.
NIH will use wireless sensors to passively collect personal information, which is a big shift away from annual self-reported health questionnaires, which can suffer from recall bias.
Sensors could be used to collect health data such as activity levels and sleep and heart rate, and additional sensors in homes and cars could passively monitor temperature and air quality, according to the program's initial research protocol. A one-year pilot program will distribute up to 10,000 Fitbit activity trackers.
Environment Data Collection
In a few years, the program could potentially distribute environmental sensors or test biosamples for pesticides, heavy metals, and other exposures, Vanderbilt's Denny said.
Over time, public environmental data will link to participants’ current and past homes and workplaces to determine long-term exposure and the causes of disease, Denny added.
“The beauty of a 1 million person study is the ability to look at gene and environment interactions,” said Gwen Collman, who directs scientific program administration at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
USC's Eckel added that “We've never before been able to produce such large quantities of data with extraordinarily high time and location resolution at the personal level.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129322140&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129322140&jd=129322140
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Washington State Takes Action to Eliminate Use of PFAS in Food Packaging
Mar 8, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Around 1990, driven by a concern to keep heavy metals out of recycled products, many states adopted laws prohibiting the intentional addition of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury to packaging and limited their total concentration to 100 parts per million. Manufacturers and suppliers of packaging and packaging components in these states were also both required to furnish a Certificate of Compliance to the packaging purchaser and provide a copy to the state and the public upon request. The Toxics in Packaging Clearinghouse currently reports that 19 states have adopted this type of legislation.
Out of concern about consumer’s health and contamination of compost, on February 28, 2018, Washington State extended its heavy metal packaging law in a groundbreaking way. The legislature passed HB-2658 banning the intentional use of “perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances” (PFAS) in food packaging made from plant fibers, pending a determination by the Washington Department of Ecology that safer alternatives are available. The law defines PFAS as “a class of fluorinated organic chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.”
The ban goes into effect in 2022 or two years after the Department makes the safer alternative determination, whichever is later.[1] If, after evaluating the chemical hazards, exposure, performance, cost, and availability of alternatives, the Department does not find safer alternatives by 2020, it must update its analysis annually. We anticipate that this approach will spur innovation among companies offering alternatives and provide a thoughtful and rigorous review of the options.
What are PFAS and why are they in the news?
PFAS are a group of chemicals used in a wide variety of consumer products from food packaging to clothing, shoes, furniture, carpets and cosmetics. They are also used in firefighting foams. These chemicals are used to make water- and stain-resistant textiles, and to grease-proof paperboard for food packaging. The length of the carbon chain and the number of fluorine molecules give the chemicals their sought-after properties but also make them persistent in the environment and the human body.
PFOA and PFOS are the most extensively studied PFAS. They have a chain length of eight carbons, are fully fluorinated (i.e., all the hydrogens in the molecule have been replaced with fluorine), and are present in the bodies of all Americans who have been tested. Research has found PFOA and PFOS associated with an array of health effects in humans and animals ranging from fetal and reproductive toxicityreproductive impairment and cancer.Concerns with the class of chemicals has exploded in the past two years after EPA released testing results showing PFAS contamination in drinking water in community water systems across the country, usually as a result of source water contamination by industrial operations making or using them. Parkersburg, West Virginia; Hoosick Falls, New York; Bennington, Vermont; Rockford and Belmont, Michigan; and the Cape Fear River area in North Carolina have all struggled with contamination. Chemours, a DuPont spin-off that makes a PFAS by a process known as Gen X at its North Carolina plant, is under pressure to close the facility due to water and air contamination.
Has FDA approved PFAS to be added to food packaging?
PFAS are part of our diet. By EDF’s count, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of PFAS affected by the legislation 38 times between 2002 and 2016 when it reviewed food contact substance notifications (FCNs) submitted by manufacturers. Most uses were for grease-proofing paper and paper board and some included microwavable materials (e.g., popcorn bags). Note that 38 FCNs does not mean that that each was for a unique chemical; some of the approvals were for different uses of the same mix of PFAS, changes in the manufacturing process, or a different mix of the chemicals for the same use. In 2012, at FDA’s request, three companies “voluntarily suspended” interstate commerce of seven approved uses of long-chain PFAS chemicals (i.e., chain of 8 carbon or longer). Six years later, FDA has yet to take the necessary steps to revoke those approvals. FDA has, however, revoked uses of long-chain PFASs the agency had approved before 2000s in response to requests from public interest organizations and from 3M, a former PFOS manufacturer.
In October 2017, EDF submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)request to FDA seeking the companies’ applications and FDA’s review memos for the 31 active approvals. FDA has provided them in batches; so far we have most of the information for 19 PFAS used in contact with food.
In our preliminary evaluation of the materials, we found that the notifications are lacking important information. For instance:
· FDA’s environmental assessment review was superficial and concluded that the PFAS’ use wouldn’t have an environmental impact. Most companies claimed their products were excluded from the requirement to conduct an environmental impact assessment;
· Companies provided very limited toxicology data, most frequently just in vitro studies of carcinogenicity and, in a few cases, a short-term rodent study;
· Both FDA and the manufacturers were more concerned about whether impurities were mutagens or carcinogens than the toxicity of the PFAS;
· FDA’s review of estimated exposure was more thorough but continued the agency’s flawed approach of assuming the chemicals only contacted food in final packaging and ignoring the possible multiple exposures of raw materials to PFAS across the supply chain; and
· FDA did not appear to consider the evidence that started emerging around 2002 that long-chain PFAS bioaccumulate in humans at rates much greater than in rodents and most (if not all) of them do not degrade in the environment.
Here are the companies that submitted 31 PFAS chemicals food contact notifications to FDA for approval. Follow the links to get more details on the approval.
· Archroma: FCN 1493;
· Asahi Glass: FCNs 599, 604, 1186, and 1676;
· Daikin America: FCNs 820, 827, 888, 933, and 1044;
· DuPont / Chemours: FCNs 510, 511, 539, 598, 885, 940, 947, 948, and 1027;
· Solenis / Hercules: FCNs 314, 487, 518, 542, 746, and 783.; and
· Solvay Specialty Polymers: FCNs 187, 195, 398, 416, 538, and 962.
We plan to share FDA’s FOIA responses upon request from those interested and to provide summaries of each of the approvals in future blogs.
What may be next?
We applaud Washington State for its focus on the health of its residents. Congratulations also to the advocates, particularly Toxic-Free Future and Safer States, who were instrumental to advancing the issue in the state. When it comes to food additives and food contact substances, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act does not preempt states taking action. When the federal government is unwilling or unable to act, we anticipate that other states will take an increasing role in protecting public health.
[1] Washington State passed another law that banned PFASs in firefighting foam.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/03/08/washington-state-action-eliminate-pfas-food-packaging/
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Judge Doubts Industry Request to Intervene in Formaldehyde Rule Suit
Mar 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge is all but rejecting industry requests to intervene in environmentalists' suit challenging the Trump EPA's delay of the Obama administration's formaldehyde emissions standard for pressed wood products, just days before the litigants are slated to float plans March 9 for how to implement the judge's ruling scrapping the delay and apply the rule.
In a March 6 order in Sierra Club, et al. v. Scott Pruitt, Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California told the wood products and furniture industry groups that he is unlikely to accept their request to intervene in the suit, calling the timing of their request “suspect,” and stating that the standards have been delayed for too long.
While he agreed to the industry groups' request to expedite consideration, he recommended that the groups, which have previously filed briefs as amicus parties in the suit, file an amicus brief describing their concerns. The groups also filed March 5 an alternate request to be allowed to file an amicus brief, in the event that White denied their request to intervene.
But as amicus parties the industry groups would not, in the event of an adverse judgment, have the right “to be parties in order to appeal and, if necessary, petition for emergency relief to avoid the enormous disruption that will result from inadequate time to comply,” they wrote in their motion to intervene.
White writes that he “finds the timing of the motion to intervene suspect, especially considering the industry associations’ alternative motion to appear as amici, which appearances have already been granted.”
White notes that the groups' request to intervene “is filed just three court days prior” to his March 9 deadline for EPA and plaintiffs to discuss timely implementation of compliance with the Obama-era rule and brief the court on their conclusions.
Throughout the proceedings, White added, “the Court repeatedly expressed its concern with timely compliance with the Formaldehyde Standards Act. This balance in timing has already been considered at length by Congress and the EPA, in an effort to consider the severe health concerns caused by formaldehyde in wood composite products and to adjust for the time it will take industry and the EPA to adapt to and structure enforcement of the revised emission standards. The Court is not inclined to delay the implementation of Congress’ emission standards further . . .”
The industry groups had argued in their motions that their “members relied in good faith on the EPA compliance extension, and any final ruling that eliminates the extended deadlines will gravely harm their operations, which are part of a complex global supply chain,” the groups' motion to intervene states.
They said they “can provide information about the practical impact of compliance deadlines under the Rule that will be highly relevant to the Court’s equitable analysis.”
The trade associations' brief explains that the groups want to intervene “to participate as parties in the Court’s remaining proceedings regarding when to lift the stay and implement its Order, including a settlement agreement and/or further briefing due on March 9."
Hurricane Katrina
EPA's rule stems from the 2010 Formaldehyde Standards in Composite Wood Products Act, which amended the Toxic Substances Control Act. Congress enacted the legislation in response to health effects suffered by residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina and housed in government-issued trailers containing wood products with formaldehyde-containing adhesives.
Under the Obama EPA's 2016 final rule, wood products had to comply with the new emissions limits by December 2017. But the Trump administration, in a September rule, extended the compliance deadline to December 2018. According to White's ruling, EPA cited a provision in the law to accommodate the sale of the existing stocks in extending the compliance deadline for the broader rule.
The New Orleans-based group A Community Voice and the Sierra Club, represented by Earthjustice, challenged the delay, one of a host of lawsuits the Trump administration is facing over its efforts to delay Obama-era rules.In his Feb. 16 ruling, White found that “EPA’s interpretation creates inconsistency within the full text of the Act, renders the 180-day compliance deadline superfluous, leads to the absurd result of permitting the perpetual delay of the effectiveness of the Formaldehyde Rule, and fails to satisfy the stated purpose of the Act."
While the ruling vacates the Trump administration's delay rule, White stayed his order to allow EPA and plaintiffs to discuss timely implementation of the compliance with the Obama-era rule.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/judge-doubts-industry-request-intervene-formaldehyde-rule-suit
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Energy Regulator to Announce Natural Gas Forum ‘Very Soon’
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will soon announce a forum on natural gas permitting procedures, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said March 7.
The agency, which is tasked with issuing permits for natural gas pipeline projects, plans to get input from interested parties as it reviews its procedures for the first time in almost 20 years.
FERC is looking at contracts that pipeline companies sign with their affiliates as part of a broad gas pipeline approval process review. Changes to its procedures would have industry-wide impacts.
The agency hasn't set details on what form the forum will take, but “very soon you will see from us an announcement for an opportunity,” for giving the agency input on the issue, McIntyre said during remarks in Houston at CERAWeek by IHS Markit.
As part of the FERC review process, the agency looks at whether there is a need for a proposed pipeline. This includes looking at purchase agreement contracts. One of the issues FERC will consider is whether or not contracts that pipeline companies sign with their affiliates should be given diminished weight.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129322159&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129322159&jd=129322159
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Zinke Getting Earful from Hill as Comment Period Closes
Mar 9, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kellie Lunney
The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, said yesterday he plans to ask Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about "the contradictions" between his proposed offshore drilling plan and his announcement that Florida was "off the table."
Grijalva said it's a disconnect that illustrates Zinke is "making some political accommodations along the way."
Zinke is expected to testify before several committees next week on behalf of the administration's 2019 budget request.
Zinke has said local voices matter in the debate over what the final offshore drilling plan looks like and that he's open to talking, especially to governors and local leaders, about their concerns.
Rep. Don McEachin (D-Va.), the ranking member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, attended the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management public meeting last month in Richmond, Va., and plans to submit a formal comment to BOEM opposing the plan before the deadline ends today.
"It is imperative that we fight offshore drilling every step of the way because of the irreparable harms drilling would cause, now and for future generations," said McEachin.
"We know that offshore drilling jeopardizes the health of our oceans, our coastal communities, local businesses and even our national security," he added.
Yesterday, local officials from coast to coast spoke out against the plan, which would open 90 percent of America's federal waters to drilling, before congressional staffers at an event organized by Oceana, a conservation group.
"As indigenous people, we rely on what the land provides, and the ocean is a big part of that," said Adrienne Titus, an Inupiaq leader in Alaska. She spoke with tears in her eyes at the Oceana event.
"It [the water] is not something that only feeds our bodies, it feeds our souls," Titus said. "The threat of oil development, from seismic testing to the possibility of having an oil spill, would take away our communities, our cultures, who we are as a people in Alaska."
Zinke's proposed five-year plan to open up federal waters to oil and gas drilling has attracted vociferous and widespread opposition since he unveiled it in January. The draft puts the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans in play for potential drilling.
As Diane Hoskins, Oceana's campaign director put it, "the administration and Zinke have managed to unite a large contingent of Republicans and Democrats along the coasts in opposition to proposed offshore drilling in their waters."
Zinke threw gasoline on that fire after meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Jan. 9 and afterward tweeting that he was "taking #Florida off the table for offshore oil and gas." He later called Florida unique, much to the anger of other states' leaders.
"I support the governor's position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver," Zinke tweeted.
Today marks the end of the 60-day public comment period on the department's draft proposal, which generated more than 500,000 comments, according to Regulations.gov.
Opponents of Zinke's plan — which is part of the administration's broader "energy dominance" initiative — wanted to extend the deadline another 60 days.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, along with 22 other Democrats, sent Zinke a letter Monday asking for an extension.
But BOEM spokeswoman Tracey Moriarty said yesterday the comment period would end today as expected.
She outlined a tentative time frame for the overall process, including a proposed offshore drilling program expected to be unveiled later this year, with a 90-day comment period that will include public meetings. The proposed final plan is expected in late 2019, Moriarty said.
"This process provides the opportunity for the secretary to winnow the number of lease sales and areas under consideration based on the analyses and public input that accompanies each proposal," she wrote in an email.
The 2017-2022 national outer continental shelf plan, developed during the Obama administration and which continues to ban drilling in areas that Zinke wants to open up, "will continue to be implemented until the new National OCS program is approved," Moriarty said.
"The West Coast is probably the most intensive training and exercise area from a national security perspective," said Len Hering, a retired Navy rear admiral with a background in climate science and sustainable energy, who attended the Oceana event.
"I believe that if you read the documents that have been presented from the Department of Defense, they clearly indicate the impacts that this would have on our ability to train," he said.
Ben Cahoon, the Republican mayor of Nags Head, N.C., and an architect, said the town and Dare County have already spent almost $40 million on a beach nourishment project and are about to start another multimillion-dollar renourishment project.
"Those projects were funded by our local tourism industry ... with no state or federal support," he said. Cahoon added that Nags Head, a town on the Outer Banks, has slightly fewer than 3,000 year-round residents but swells to a population of 40,000 in the summer.
Oceana on Wednesday released an economic analysis that estimated the administration's offshore drilling plan threatens 2.6 million jobs and nearly $180 billion in gross domestic product.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry, is having a press conference today on its new economic report that analyzes the potential benefits of energy exploration and development within the OCS.
Energy dominance
Panelists yesterday said government and industry should pursue more investment in alternative energy sources, like solar and wind. "The world is going to move away from fossil fuels at some point," Hering said.
"We don't have to, as a generation, think that our prosperity is tied to oil and gas," Hering added. "It's not. It's tied to a renewable energy source that affords us the progression and prosperity that we live in today, but not tied to what was made a million years ago because it is a finite resource."
Zinke has emphasized he's interested in an "all-of-the-above" energy development strategy as part of the Trump administration's overall goal of "energy dominance." That strategy ostensibly includes a reliance on more traditional energy sources, such as oil and gas, as well as some investment in renewable energy.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/03/09/stories/1060075885
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LNG Group to Seek Exemption for Trump's Proposed Steel Tariff
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
A liquefied natural gas industry group will seek an exemption to the Trump administration plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel.
Building LNG terminals requires five kinds of steel, and some types aren't available from U.S. sources, Daphne Magnuson, spokeswoman for the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, said in an e-mail. That includes the steel used for the cryogenic tanks where fuel is stored after it's been chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 Celsius).
The trade group hasn't yet formally applied for an exemption. The potential jump in construction costs comes at a sensitive time for the industry.
Cheniere Energy Inc. launched shipments from its Louisiana terminal in 2016. Last week, Dominion Energy Inc.’s became the second supplier from the lower 48 states when a tanker departed its Maryland terminal.
Billions of dollars of new projects in the U.S. have been stalled over the last two years because of fears of a glut that caused prices to plunge. Costs are seen as an even more critical negotiating point to drive a second wave of U.S. development.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129322157&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129322157&jd=129322157
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Pennsylvania Halts Mariner East 1 NGL Pipe Flows, Mariner East 2 Work Continues
Mar 8, 2018 | Platts
By Andrea Salazar
Mariner East 2 pipeline construction was ongoing in Pennsylvania Thursday, a day after a state regulator ordered the shutdown of Energy Transfer Partners' Mariner East 1 pipeline following the discovery of three sinkholes near the NGL line.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission issued an emergency order Wednesday, requiring additional testing and analysis of the integrity of the pipeline.
Mariner East 1 is an eight-inch-diameter, 70,000 b/d NGL pipeline moving ethane, propane and butane to ETP's Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, export terminal. The company is building a second parallel line, increasing the system's NGL capacity by 275,000 b/d.
ETP plans to run an inline inspection tool in the area of concern, suspend operations of the pipeline to allow for a 10-14-day study period and share its findings with the PUC, spokesman Jeff Shields said in an email.
"This period should allow us to share what our professional geologist has established to date -- that the Mariner East 1 pipeline is stable, is located in suitably safe geology, and will continue to operate safely as it has done for decades," Shields said in the statement. "The safe operation of our pipelines is of critical importance to us, and we believe the study period will reaffirm the safety of the pipeline."
PUC noted in its order that the sinkholes are near Mariner East 2 construction, but it did not suspend that construction.
"Wednesday's order regarding Mariner East 1 does not affect construction of Mariner East 2, which continues throughout the state," Shields said.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/petrochemicals/houston/pennsylvania-halts-mariner-east-1-ngl-pipe-flows-26906582
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As Gasoline Demand Wanes, Oil Industry Looks to Petrochemicals
Mar 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
In 2010, the Middle East was beginning to run out of the cheap natural gas that had transformed the region into a major petrochemicals hub. Houston’s Chevron Phillips Chemical, which had spent a decade building four plants in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, needed a new place to expand.
In the U.S., Texas energy producers hadn’t yet unleashed the flood of shale oil and natural gas that would transform the industry and spur an explosion of petrochemical construction and expansion along the Gulf Coast. But Ron Corn and his team at Chevron Phillips, intrigued by budding oil and gas production in the Eagle Ford basin south of San Antonio, anticipated a seismic shift in domestic energy output and convinced company executives to build a multi-billion-dollar processing plant in Baytown to produce ethlylene, a natural gas-derived feedstock for plastics.
“It was quite a radical concept,” said Corn, who now serves as the company’s senior vice president for petrochemicals. “There hadn’t been a whole lot of construction.”
Eight years later, that early bet promises to pay off in spades for Chevron Phillips, a joint venture of the oil company Chevron and Houston refiner Phillips 66. The processing plant, known as a cracker, is near completion as petrochemicals emerge as a savior for an oil and gas industry facing a future of electric cars, renewable power and intensifying efforts to wean the global economy from fossil fuels.
The growth in petrochemicals is a key reason that oil industry executives and analysts are discounting predictions that peak oil demand — the point at which oil consumption begins a steady, long-term slide — is imminent. The International Energy Agency anticipates that petrochemicals will account for a quarter of the growth in global oil consumption during the next five years, replacing gasoline as the driver of crude demand.
"The petrochemical sector is one of the blind spots of the oil markets debate," Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference in Houston last week.
Executives from major energy companies agreed that global population growth and expanding middle-class markets in India, China and other emerging nations will support petrochemicals even as gasoline consumption in the U.S. and elsewhere erodes. In its most recent outlook, the IEA projected that global gasoline demand will grow only 0.2 percent a year through 2023 as 10 of the world’s largest vehicle markets, including the U.S., implement stricter fuel efficiency standards and develop more electric models.
Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, said during an address at the CERAWeek conference that her company plans to roll out 20 new electric models over the next five years. The company is also working to make a range of other vehicles, including the gas-guzzling pickup that dominates Texas highways, lighter and more fuel-efficient.
GM is doing that with high-performance plastics manufactured by specialty chemicals makers such as Huntsman Corp. of The Woodlands.
That dynamic of less gasoline and more plastics has already prompted a range of energy producers to expand petrochemical operations amid a tepid outlook for traditional refining. Exxon Mobil Chemical Co., for example, has nearly completed an ethane cracker in Baytown with the capacity to produce 1.5 million tons of ethylene a year.
The abundance of cheap natural gas from West Texas shale fields such as the Permian basin has fueled the petrochemicals boom, providing a steady stream of ethane and other natural gas liquids to be converted into feedstocks for plastics, building materials and packaging. Already, a spate of large-scale expansions have transformed the U.S. into a major petrochemicals exporter, and a second wave of multi-billion developments along the Gulf Coast promise to carry the industry well into the next decade.
Andrew Brown, upstream director for Royal Dutch Shell, said in an interview that petrochemicals are a growth priority for his company, which has a large manufacturing facility in Deer Park and several others along the Gulf Coast. It is now expanding in Louisiana and Pennsylvania near the Utica and Marcellus shale basins, major sources of natural gas.
“Unlike refining, and ultimately unlike oil, which will see a moment when the growth will stop, we actually don’t anticipate that with petrochemicals,” Brown said.
The IEA forecasts that new ethylene crackers will increase consumption of oil and natural gas liquids by at least 1.4 million barrels a day through 2023. In the U.S. alone, ethylene production is expected to increase by 13 million tons a year during that period.
DowDupont, the nation's biggest chemical company headquartered in Michigan and Delaware, has led much of the growth to date. The company’s Freeport complex, one of the first major ethylene plants in the region, began operating last year with a 1.5 million-ton annual production capacity.
“We feel very strongly the demand growth is going to continue,” Dow Chemical CEO and president James Fitterling said during a CERAWeek panel.
Industry leaders are planning even larger complexes along the Gulf Coast. Exxon Mobil Chemical, for example, has partnered with SABIC, a manufacturing company controlled by the Saudi Arabian government, to construct the world’s largest ethylene cracker as part of a massive $10 billion petrochemical complex near Corpus Christi.
Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian national oil company, recently signed an agreement with Chevron and the Woodlands engineering firm CB&I to develop new crude-to-chemicals technologies.
Michael Sicker, vice president of business development for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Houston-based oil and gas division, said in an interview that petrochemicals plants have for years driven demand for the company’s industrial machinery. He anticipates the second wave of projects will attract more foreign companies eager to take advantage of low-cost production in the U.S.
“Everyone is looking at the biggest plants that have ever been built,” he said.
Chevron Phillips’ Corn said that even during the oil bust, his team never doubted the potential of the massive Baytown cracker, the company’s only one in the United States so far. The facility, now undergoing the final steps before startup, will expand the company’s U.S. ethylene and polyethylene production capacity by 40 percent.
“We believed we were building a very competitive asset,” Corn said. “It was a big step for us.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/As-gasoline-demand-wanes-oil-industry-looks-to-12739810.php
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Ryan Says Congress to Break Up Trump's Infrastructure Proposals
Mar 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Edgerton and Mark Niquette
House Republicans will break President Donald Trump's infrastructure plan into multiple pieces of legislation as a way to make progress this year, House Speaker Paul Ryan said.
Ryan said the House will first address airports and runways as part of a must-pass reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, then work on more traditional highway and bridge issues. Congress will start on infrastructure legislation in the coming weeks, he said.
“We just think it's easier to do this in pieces,” Ryan said Thursday in a talk to employees of Home Depot Inc. at the company's headquarters in Atlanta.
President Donald Trump released his legislative outline to upgrade U.S. roads, bridges and other public works last month that calls for allocating at least $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years, mostly as incentives to spur states, localities and the private sector to spend at least $1.5 trillion, and to reduce the time for granting permits for projects to two years or less.
Ryan said Republicans agree with Trump on using federal dollars to draw private investment in infrastructure projects and on streamlining the environmental review and permitting process.
There are concerns in Congress about whether there will be enough time to get through one major piece of legislation before lawmakers begin their campaigns for re-election. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, has said he doesn't know whether that chamber will have time to get to an infrastructure bill, and Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who leads the Senate Commerce Committee, has said it “could be challenging.”
Lawmakers who attended a closed-door meeting Feb. 14 with Trump said he offered to support a 25-cent increase in the federal gas tax to help pay for his plan, but Ryan on Wednesday ruled out a gas tax increase in a telephone town hall hosted by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129322144&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129322144&jd=129322144
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Baltimore Wants to Become the First East Coast City to Pass a Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Ban
Mar 9, 2018 | Think Progress
By Natasha Geiling
From her home in lower South Baltimore, Keisha Allen can see the long queue of train cars that roll by every day a few hundred feet away. Some are loaded with obvious cargo — coal, for instance, rolls by uncovered on its way to nearby export terminals.
But until a few years ago, Allen had no idea that some of the cars that pass just beyond her home are loaded with crude oil, a volatile and toxic substance that has been implicated in a handful of derailments and explosions, including the deadly catastrophe in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic that killed 47 people in 2013.
“The thing that bothers us the most is the fact that it is volatile,” Allen told ThinkProgress. “You trust your government enough to protect you, and that’s not what was happening.”
Railroad transportation is under the purview of the federal government, which has been slow to implement safety regulations to keep up with an increase in crude oil trains spurred by the fracking boom of the late-2000s. So Baltimore residents like Allen — in partnership with local environment and climate groups — are hoping to curb oil train traffic using local action. Their tactic: a bill currently before the Baltimore City Council that would prohibit any new crude oil terminals within the city.
It’s a novel approach that supporters say would help reduce the amount of crude oil train traffic the city sees in the future. And, if it’s successful, it’ll be the first time a progressive climate strategy born on the West Coast has been replicated on the East Coast.
“Anyone who you talk to about this issue, especially if they live right next to the rails, says that they can’t believe it is happening and not being adequately regulated by the federal government,” Jennifer Kunze, a Maryland state organizer with Clean Water Action, told ThinkProgress. “I think that Baltimore is ready to pass this kind of legislation.”‘Wake-up call’
The path towards banning crude oil terminals in Baltimore began in 2014, when the Houston-based energy company Targa Resources proposed expanding an existing crude oil terminal in the industrial neighborhood of Farfield.
The proposed expansion — which would have allowed the company to handle an additional 12.6 million gallons of crude oil — prompted concern from local residents, who worried that an increase in crude oil trains could endanger the health and safety of communities living along the rail line, as well as climate groups, who felt that the expansion would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.
Together, environmental, public health, and community groups formed a coalition to push back against the proposal. While there was no way for the groups to stop the oil trains from coming into the terminal, they rallied around a particular air pollution permit that the Maryland Department of Environmental Quality would need to issue to Targa, voicing their opposition at public hearings and town hall meetings.
Despite issuing Targa a preliminary approval, the Department of Environmental Quality eventually told the company that it would not issue the permit unless Targa provided more information about the expansion plans. In 2016, Targa announced it would be abandoning plans for the expansion.
For the local residents and environmental groups that had organized in opposition to the issue, the announcement that Targa would no longer be pursuing the plan was a victory, but one tempered by reality. The city still had two operating crude oil terminals, and saw nearly 100 million gallons of crude oil shipped through the city between 2013 and 2014, according to records obtained by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
“It was a really exciting win, but it was also a wake-up call,” Clean Water Action’s Kunze said of Targa’s 2016 announcement. “With Baltimore being such an important port, and with potential more domestic drilling, if the market took an upswing, we could get more terminals and those we might not be able to stop.”
At the same time that activists and residents in Baltimore were organizing against Targa, something very similar was happening across the country in Portland, Oregon.‘The first stone’
In 2014, Pembina — a Canadian energy company — proposed building a propane terminal in Portland. Like in Baltimore, a coalition of community, environmental, and public health groups organized in opposition to the project, eventually pushing then-Mayor Charlie Hales to recant on his initial support for the project. And, like in Baltimore, when the project was eventually abandoned, the coalition celebrated a tentative win — and got to work thinking about ways to prevent new terminals from being proposed in the future.
In Portland, that thinking manifested in a proposal to amend the city’s zoning code to prohibit bulk fossil fuel infrastructure from being built — or expanded — within city limits.
In 2016, after nearly a year of work between environmental groups and city officials, the city council unanimously voted to adopt a new set of zoning codes that carved out a new prohibited land use category for “bulk fossil fuel terminals” — defined as anything with a storage capacity in excess of 2 million gallons of any kind of fossil fuel, from propane to crude oil.
Industry groups immediately challenged the ban, arguing that it ran afoul of the United States Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause, which holds that only Congress can regulate business between states.
Initially, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals — an administrative body that decides land use issues within the state — sided with industry, ruling the ban unconstitutional. But this January, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the Land Use Board’s ruling, effectively paving the way for the ban to go into effect (though the decision will likely be challenged to higher courts).
Despite legal challenges, Portland’s fossil fuel infrastructure ban has already inspired a wave of similar action along the West Coast, from a crude oil ban in Vancouver, Washington to a temporary moratorium — that could become a permanent ban — on unrefined fossil fuel shipments in Whatcom County in northern Washington.
When Portland’s ban initially passed, Mayor Hales — then in his final month in office — told local media that he hoped the policy would serve as a blueprint for other cities beset by proposals for fossil fuel projects. The ban, he said, would be “the first stone in a green wall of resistance against fossil fuel facilities on the West Coast.”
But with a crude oil terminal ban looking like a distinct possibility for Baltimore, Hale’s vision of a green wall could spread well beyond the West Coast.
“I don’t know that we would have pushed through this zoning code strategy if not for what was happening on the West Coast,” Kuze said. “It has been really inspiring to see the progress that Portland and Vancouver and Whatcom [county] have made on taking local leadership on this issue.”
Unlike Portland’s ban, which prohibits nearly all kinds of fossil fuel infrastructure, Baltimore’s ban would narrowly focus on crude oil export terminals, adding them to a list of banned facilities that currently includes things like nuclear power plants and trash incinerators. The proposal has already survived two rounds of voting in city council — one in a smaller committee and one before the entire council — and is heading to a final full council vote on March 12. If it is passed, it then heads to the mayor’s desk for a signature.
But far from representing the final action on the matter, proponents of the policy hope that the mayor’s signature would kick off a wave of local action similar to what is currently happening in the Northwest. The hope is that it will inspire nearby communities to enact their own crude oil bans — a movement that proponents argue could help make a dent in the amount of oil train traffic that passes through the region.
“It’s not only Baltimore City,” Allen said. “I hope that the surrounding Maryland counties as well as any other state and jurisdiction that runs these kinds of crude oil trains will band together and talk to their legislators about how dangerous this is.”
https://thinkprogress.org/baltimore-crude-oil-ban/
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Utilities Defend EPA's SO2 NAAQS Designations
Mar 8, 2018 | Inside EPA
Utilities are defending EPA's designation of areas in Ohio and Colorado as “unclassifiable” for the agency's 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), rejecting environmentalists' arguments that EPA should have designated them “nonattainment” areas subject to tougher pollution control mandates.
In a March 5 filing in Samuel Masias, et al. v. EPA, et al., power industry groups including the Utility Air Regulatory Group, intervening to defend EPA, dispute the case made by environmental groups for tougher designations. Much of the discussion in the lawsuit is focused on EPA's computer modeling methods for the SO2 NAAQS, set at 75 parts per billion (ppb) averaged over one hour, which various parties criticize as either overestimating or underestimating pollution.
“The unclassifiable designations for Gallia County, Ohio and Colorado Springs, Colorado were reasonable courses of action for EPA to take. Those decisions should be affirmed,” the industry groups say.
For Gallia County, EPA rejected alternative modeling from Sierra Club that found the area in nonattainment. “EPA determined that Sierra Club’s modeling contained critical errors that called into question the accuracy of its predictions. Indeed, Sierra Club’s choices could only further bias a model that has a general tendency to over-predict violations. EPA had no choice but to reject it,” the industry groups say.
In Colorado, various groups also presented EPA with modeling to support their preferred designations. “EPA determined that the modeling conducted by the public commenters, in addition to relying on unrepresentative meteorological data, contained many other errors that rendered it unsuitable for use in the designation process. For all of these reasons, EPA properly designated the Colorado Springs area as unclassifiable,” the industry groups say.
EPA in an earlier brief filed Feb. 12 broadly defended its scientific judgment about the status of Gallia County and Colorado Springs. The agency further said that petitioner Kansas City Board of Public Utilities lacks standing it its effort to overturn the designation of Wyandotte County, KS, as unclassifiable and change it to unclassifiable/attainment.
The two designations are “functionally equivalent,” and in the absence of an EPA redesignation of the area to “nonattainment,” there is no injury to the board and hence no standing to sue, EPA said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/utilities-defend-epas-so2-naaqs-designations
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Doj Tightens Scrutiny of Attorneys' Fees in New Bid to Blunt Citizen Suits
Mar 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Justice Department (DOJ) is tightening its oversight of attorneys' fees paid to environmental groups that win lawsuits against EPA and other agencies, in the latest sign the Trump administration is seeking to blunt enforcement of environmental laws by citizen groups even as it cuts its own enforcement budgets.
Environmentalists say the scrutiny of their requests for attorneys fees -- coupled with EPA's refusal to settle deadline cases where it is clear the agency has violated the law and DOJ's ban on payments to third parties as part of settlements -- together add up to clear efforts to disincentivize environmental groups from using their “citizen attorney general” authority to enforce environmental laws.
One environmentalist attorney says linking all of these separate actions shows that the Trump administration is seeking to “close the courthouse doors to outside groups that want to enforce against polluters who are breaking the law” while at the same time “failing to do its job” of ensuring those laws are enforced.
Jeffrey Wood, DOJ's acting chief of the Environment & Natural Resources Division (ENDR), touted the fee scrutiny in a Feb. 28 speech to an environmental law course at Andrews Air Force Base, according to his remarks.
Wood said that ENRD is “taking proactive measures to prevent or minimize, wherever appropriate, the payment of attorneys' fees that we believe are unjustified, unsupported or otherwise excessive."
He said he has instructed subordinates to “closely scrutinize demands for attorneys' fees to make certain they are” appropriate.
DOJ's fee scrutiny is just one of several steps the Trump administration is taking to limit environmentalists' ability to use courts to drive a regulatory agenda.
For example, Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions has barred payments to non-governmental third parties in legal settlements, in some cases even if those payments fund projects that seek to rectify the environmental harm at issue in the litigation.
And EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has issued a directive imposing limits on settling lawsuits brought by environmentalists and other third parties, even if the agency is in clear violation of a statutory deadline.
Wood prefaced his remarks noting that funds to settle cases are drawn not from agency appropriations overseen by Congress, but from the Judgment Fund, a taxpayer-financed mechanism that “is a permanent, practically unlimited appropriation that allows the U.S. Treasury to pay money judgments against the United States. . . .”
“Our obligations to protect the public fisc are particularly strong where funds used to settle a case come out of the Judgment Fund, as opposed to the agencies’ appropriated budgets,” he said, adding that DOJ is “committed to ensuring that we are very careful with the use of Judgment Fund dollars. Only lawful and appropriate payments can be certified for payment from the Judgment Fund.”
Two Cases
Wood cited two recent cases where DOJ “has seen some recent success” in scaling back fee requests.
In one case, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) v. EPA, the department successfully challenged the environmental group's request for $275,000 in attorneys' fees and costs in a case where the group had successfully challenged EPA's conditional registration of a pesticide containing a nanomaterial.
“After scrutinizing the claims, ENRD challenged NRDC's request on the basis that this particular environmental group does not actually qualify for payments under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) because it is simply too large of an organization.”
NRDC acknowledged this in a Nov. 16 motion in the case. “Since the filing of Petitioners' motion, Petitioner Natural Resources Defense Council has discovered new information that revealed that it had more than 500 employees on the day it filed its petition for review.” As a result, the group said, it is not a “qualifying party” eligible to seek attorneys' fees under the law.
Other groups, including the Center for Food Safety and the International Center for Technology Assessment, that had filed similar challenges in the consolidated litigation later filed an amended petition that dropped NRDC from the fee request and sought $79,000 for their combined fees.
The issue has still not been resolved as EPA Jan. 31 filed an unopposed motion to stay the litigation over attorneys' fees for settlement talks.
Wood also touted another case where the Sierra Club sought about $85,000 in attorneys fees after it challenged EPA's failure to meet a deadline.
“Perhaps ironically,” Wood said, “ENRD challenged that request because the environmental group did not meet the statutory deadline for seeking fees. Facing the prospect of litigating its own failure to meet a deadline, Sierra Club wisely withdrew its fee demand,” he said.
But one industry environmental law expert explains that attorneys' fees can only be collected after winning a case, so Wood neglected to mention that DOJ lost on the substance of both of those claims.
And the source notes that the bedrock environmental statutes that include citizen suit provisions -- such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, Superfund law, the Toxic Substances Control Act and others -- do not impose limits on recovering attorneys' fees.
When groups win lawsuits filed under statues that lack citizen suit provisions, such as the National Environmental Policy Act or pesticide law, the source explains, then they must rely on the EAJA, which does impose time and size limits on who can recover fees.
That law was enacted in the 1970s “to help little people against big government” and as such, it limits the number of employees an organization can have to qualify for reimbursement of fees.
But this source says that ENRD's scrutiny of attorneys' fees is routine of a Republican administration taking over from a Democratic one.
However, environmentalists disagree that the actions are routine and say the problem is even more dire. They note that at the same time EPA and DOJ are taking steps to close the courtroom door to citizens, Pruitt is similarly seeking to cut the budget for his own agency's efforts to enforce environmental laws and to handle lawsuits filed against EPA.
For example, EPA in its congressional justification for its fiscal year 2019 budget request seeks to reduce its Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance funding from $543 million and 2,886 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in the current continuing resolution for FY18 to $411 million and 2,041 FTEs.
Similarly, the agency wants to reduce its Office of General Counsel budget from the currently enacted $69 million down to $62 million and reduce FTEs from its current level of 388 to 311.
'Little Loathe To Pay Out Fees'
The environmentalist attorney says that the Obama administration never agreed to settle lawsuits that it did not benefit from, such as being able to negotiate a longer deadline than what the statute allowed to take an action, and that the Obama administration was also “a little loathe to pay out fees."
But the source says the total ban on settlements that Pruitt appears to be imposing, even when they result in court losses with tight deadlines that can drain agency resources to meet, do not make sense, unless the intent is to hamstring EPA.
And while the source also agrees with the industry attorney that it is routine for any administration to scrutinize payment of attorneys' fees to outside groups, the source but does not believe that is what is happening here.
Similar to concerns about what is really behind Pruitt's sue-and-settle directive, the source says, “I think the idea is more political than solving any problem,” and articulates suspicion that the real purpose is to keep EPA lawyers busy litigating cases they know they will lose in court, while preventing them from doing proactive work to protect the environment.
The attorney also points to the environmental laws enacted in the 1970s that embraced the idea of citizen AGs. “Up until that point, you or I couldn't sue to enforce the law. That's what an AG is supposed to do, but AGs weren't doing that. . . . You need for citizens to . . . to ensure these laws get enforced.”
“But if you make it difficult for folks to be fairly compensated for their time in doing so, it could mean that citizens are not going to be able to enforce the law. It's a different kind of attempt to close the courthouse doors.”
A second environmentalist attorney agrees, and says taken together the actions against settling, paying fees and third-party payments show that the Trump administration “is not interested in making sure that the environmental laws of our country are enforced . . . Not by anybody, not by them, not by us. There is no value to them in citizen suits.”
A third environmentalist says it is important to keep in mind that the fee award exists under environmental statutes because Congress was worried that industry could have undue influence on the implementation of these laws, and that it should not be able to influence enforcement. “That concern was never more relevant than now,” the source notes.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/doj-tightens-scrutiny-attorneys-fees-new-bid-blunt-citizen-suits
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