Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/13/2018
-
(ACC Mentioned) This Sunshine Week, How “Draining the Swamp” and Open Government are Faring in the Trump Era
Mar 12, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
We are more than one year into President Trump’s administration, and if you’ve been following the news, you know all too well that the whole “draining the swamp” initiative was only ever lip service at best. -
(ACC Mentioned) UNCW Grad Fires up Oil from Ocean Plastics
Mar 12, 2018 | Environment News Service
By Sunny Lewis
Hidden, floating just beneath the surface of the oceans, are trillions of plastic fragments that once were useful objects made from petroleum – straws, spoons, bottles, bags, tubs, fishing gear, toys. Ingested by birds, fish and other marine animals... -
Chinese Companies Win Challenge to Glycine Duties
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
A pair of Chinese chemical exporters won their legal challenge against anti-dumping duties on glycine, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled March 12. -
DowDupont Chair Liveris Makes Way for Fitterling as New Dow CEO
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey and Andrew Noël
Andrew Liveris is leaving DowDuPont Inc. after a career spanning four decades, clearing the way for Jim Fitterling to take the reins of Dow when it's spun off as an independent company next year. -
US EPA Proposes New Toxic Substances Control Act Fee Rule
Mar 12, 2018 | National Law Review
By Stephen A. Owens
On February 26, 2018, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) formally issued its proposed rule to charge new “user fees” under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
GAO Report Undermines Chemical Cuts in Trump Budget
Mar 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
A yearslong federal review of sustainable chemistry requested by Senate appropriators may complicate the Trump administration's bid to slash some U.S. EPA chemical safety programs. -
EPA Pushes to Reduce Lead, Arsenic in Community Water Systems
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA wants to do more to help the roughly 8 percent of small drinking water systems that fail federal criteria for contaminants such as lead and arsenic, the agency's top drinking water official said March 12. -
UK Releases Brexit Economic Impact Statement After Press Leaks
Mar 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK government has published its analysis of the impact of Brexit on sectors including chemicals, which it says will be one of the hardest hit. -
Echa Seeks Views on SVHC Identification Proposals
Mar 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has opened a public consultation on proposals by member states and the agency to identify eight substances as SVHCs. -
(ACC Mentioned) South Korean Company Joins Effort to Build $5b Ethane Cracker in Eastern Ohio
Mar 13, 2018 | Columbus Business First
By Tristan Navera
A South Korean company has joined an effort to bring a $5 billion Ethane Cracker plant to Belmont County, potentially making the project even bigger. -
April Us Shale Oil Output Expected to Grow 131,000 B/D to 6.9 Mil B/D: EIA
Mar 13, 2018 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
US oil production from unconventional sources is likely to rise 131,000 b/d to 6.954 million b/d in April amid continued brisk drilling activity and crude prices that have apparently stabilized above $60/b, the US Energy Information Administration said Monday. -
Why Is Russian Gas in Boston Harbor?
Mar 13, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Drew Johnson
A tanker arrived in Boston Harbor carrying natural gas that would keep residents’ homes warm for the rest of the winter. The late-January delivery came from Siberia. Why are some parts of America reliant on Russian natural gas, especially when domestic gas production has surged? -
New West Virginia Law Seen to Help Operators Boost Production
Mar 13, 2018 | Platts
By Jim Magill and Eric Brooks
Natural gas producers in West Virginia hope that a new law passed by the state Legislature and signed by the governor will help spur production in the state, which in recent years has seen a dramatic ramp-up in gas output from the Marcellus Shale play. -
Chevron Phillips Chemical Launches Baytown Ethane Cracker
Mar 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Chevron Phillips Chemical on Monday announced the startup of its first new U.S. ethane cracker in decades, a major investment that will boost production at its Cedar Bayou complex in Baytown as the petrochemicals industry expands rapidly along the Gulf Coast. -
New York Loses Bid to Block Millennium Gas Line Project (1)
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik and Bob Van Voris
A ruling against New York's bid to block a Millennium Pipeline Co. natural gas pipeline sets a potential precedent for other battles over gas conduits. -
Infrastructure Bill Possible Before Elections: Administration
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
The White House thinks Congress could still pass an infrastructure bill before the November elections, an administration official said March 12. -
6 Energy and Enviro Bills in Line for Infrastructure Package
Mar 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink and Nick Sobczyk
Many of the energy and environmental changes being pushed for a high-priority infrastructure deal sought by the White House and Republicans are already working their way through Congress. -
NJ Senate Revives Weinberg's Oil Train Transparency Bill Chris Christie Vetoed
Mar 13, 2018 | NorthJersey.com
By Curtis Tate
The New Jersey Senate Transportation Committee approved an oil train transparency bill on Monday, reviving an effort that had been stymied by former Gov. Chris Christie. -
Court: EPA Broke Law with Smog Rule Delay
Mar 13, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration broke the law when it missed a deadline last year in implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ozone pollution rule, a federal court ruled Monday. -
Judge Faults EPA for Delaying Ozone Designations
Mar 12, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA will have to complete tardy attainment designations for its 2015 ozone standard by mid-July, or several weeks ahead of its preferred schedule, a federal judge ruled today in lawsuits brought by Democratic-led states and public health and environmental advocacy groups. -
The Government Is Nearly Done with a Major Report on Climate Change. Trump Isn’t Going to like It
Mar 12, 2018 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
The country’s top independent scientific advisory body has largely approved a major climate report being prepared by scientists within the Trump administration — suggesting that another key government document could soon emerge that contradicts President Trump’s skepticism... -
8th Circuit Stays Implementation of Arkansas SO2 Haze Plan
Mar 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has granted an electric utility's motion to stay implementation of an Obama-era state haze emissions reduction plan for Arkansas, while the state crafts a weaker plan with the Trump administration's backing. -
Activists Plan Suit Over EPA Sulfur Dioxide Inaction in 11 States
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Three national environmental groups are planning to sue the EPA for failure to approve air pollution cleanup plans for 11 states.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
-
Mar 12, 2018 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
We are more than one year into President Trump’s administration, and if you’ve been following the news, you know all too well that the whole “draining the swamp” initiative was only ever lip service at best. Despite issuing an executive order on ethics in his first week of office, President Trump has managed to appoint a slew of former lobbyists or industry staff to positions dealing directly with issues that affect their former employers’ bottom lines.
Failing to abide by his own ethics order while not making financial disclosures public is effectively undermining the very system that is built to eliminate corruption in our government and protect our democracy. While industry awaits its chance to profit from regulatory rollbacks, the rest of us are missing out on unrealized health and safety benefits. Corporate capture of the government cripples its ability to carry out protective laws and puts lives at risk, especially those living in communities of color and low-income communities that are more exposed to threats.
Here’s a quick roundup of some of the more egregious administration nominations and appointments—people with serious conflicts of interest that should disqualify them from service or at least change the nature of their service.
The Environmental Protection Agency
There have been a whole bunch of cringeworthy ethics violations happening at the EPA lately, including Administrator Scott Pruitt’s first-class flight penchant and the fact that John Konkus has continued to do public relations work for unnamed private clients while serving as the deputy associate administrator of the Office of Public Affairs and signing off on all grant applications and awards.
For now, let’s simply focus on the revolving door at the agency. Earlier this month, the EPA announced that a former Dow Chemical Company attorney, Peter Wright, was the nominee for administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM). Not only would Wright be leading the cleanup of Dow Superfund sites, but OLEM also oversees implementation of the Risk Management Plan. Dow Chemical Company is listed as the parent company for 23 registered RMP facilities, 17 deregistered facilities, and more than 100 Superfund sites. One of the main functions of OLEM is to hold companies accountable for polluting peoples’ water, land, and air. Yet, once again the Trump administration has selected an individual who has long represented the interests of industry to lead an office tasked with protecting the public from further harm.
As we’ve already seen with former American Chemistry Council lobbyist Nancy Beck and former legal counsel of American Petroleum Institute William Wehrum, these conflicted appointees are actively working to reverse science-based policy decisions in favor of industry-approved deregulatory measures. And seeing as the EPA general counsel has not adequately prevented EPA appointees from participating in policy discussions pertaining to their previous employers’ work, it is likely that the same will be true for Wright. Peter Wright will be yet another example of the fox guarding the henhouse, meaning that the people who have been fighting for decades for information on chemical facilities in their neighborhoods or the cleanup of dioxin in a local river will not get the justice they deserve.U.S. Department of Agriculture
Kailee Tkacz, a lobbyist for the Corn Refiners Association, which represents makers of corn byproducts like corn syrup and other sweeteners, came on board to advise the agency on the Dietary Guidelines process in advance of the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. She had been working at the trade association up until July 2017 and received an ethics waiver to work on the Dietary Guidelines in August 2017, meaning she has gone right into the government from the industry to work on an issue that she previously lobbied on. This is a direct and significant conflict of interest—and one that could have major impacts on health recommendations for the American diet.Department of Interior
There’s a whole mess of oil and gas industry allegiance going on at the Department of the Interior, surely aided by the fact that David Bernhardt, Secretary Zinke’s deputy, had a long list of former clients in that sector, including Noble Energy Inc. and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Another appointee to keep an eye on is Todd Wynn, who is serving as the Director of Intergovernmental and External Affairs at DOI and was the former director of the Koch-funded American Legislative Council (ALEC’s) Energy Environmental and Agriculture Task Force. During his time there, the task force introduced a collection of model bills opposing EPA and DOI environmental protections like the coal ash rule, the fracking disclosure rule, and the stream protection rule. Now he can push for these same destructive policy changes from the inside.Department of Health and Human Services
Current HHS secretary Alex Azar was a lobbyist and president of Eli Lilly up until 2017. He is now leading a government department that regulates pharmaceutical companies like his former employer. As my colleague Derrick Jackson wrote earlier this year, “There is no evidence to remotely suggest that Azar, the first pharmaceutical executive ever to head HHS…will miraculously transform from drug company CEO into the people’s champion on drug prices.”
The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned earlier this year because she had so many financial conflicts of interest that she was actually unable to do her job. In fact, Fitzgerald had purchased thousands of dollars worth of shares in drug companies Merck & Co. and Bayer as well as a tobacco company, Japan Tobacco, shortly after joining the CDC. According to her meeting schedule, she still participated in meetings on the opioid crisis, hurricane response efforts, cancer and obesity, stroke prevention, polio, Zika, and Ebola between August 1 and October 27 despite owning stock in companies that make HIV medications, an Ebola vaccine, and Zika research. While it is unclear if she was an active participant in those meetings or had remained silent, her mere presence at such meetings would have represented a conflict.How is the Office of Government Ethics allowing appointees to get away with rampant conflicts of interest?
A ProPublica database of financial disclosure formsreveals that 187 political appointees are former lobbyists, many of whom are working on issues that they previously lobbied on representing industry or other organizations. This is exactly what Trump’s executive order is supposed to protect against. So what’s going on that’s allowing this to happen?
The Ethics in Government Act was passed in 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal, as part of an effort to deter conflicts of interest and increase public trust in government, and created the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). It requires that all political appointees and high-level government officials disclose their financial holdings and make them public. Confidential disclosures are also required from other federal employees and special government employees.
Trump’s executive order requiring ethics commitments by executive branch appointees actually removed some of the ethics rules put in place by President Obama. Obama’s 2009 order prevented individuals from entering the administration who were registered lobbyists in the preceding year, while Trump’s order allows lobbyists to enter the administration as long as they don’t work on an issue they lobbied on in the past two years. President Trump’s order also shortened the two-year exit ban to one year for all appointees except cabinet-level, which would effectively allow officials to lobby former agencies just one year after leaving the administration, considered a short cooling-off period. Trump’s order allows ethics waivers for certain unavoidable conflicts, but removes the requirement to disclose those waivers by publishing them in the federal register. Overall, his ethics requirements leave room for shadow lobbying, which is the ability for former appointees to take jobs with industries they were in charge of regulating and then informally lobby the administration.
It is expected that if there is an appearance of conflict of interest, an appointee would recuse themselves from all matters having to do with his or her previous employer. However, as previously noted, that has not consistently been happening at agencies. Further, according to the OGE, ethics waivers are only supposed to be used when there is no other option for the position whose resume is less conflicted. Agencies are abusing the use of these waivers. An Associated Press investigationfound that the White House has granted at least 24 ethics waivers to appointees at the White House and the executive agencies.
One of those waivers was filed for Jeffrey Sands in October 2017, formerly a registered lobbyist at Syngenta and now the senior agricultural advisor at the EPA. His waiver allows him “to work personally and substantially on all agriculture issues, including those which previously lobbied.” The implications of Sands having the ear of Pruitt on discussions ranging from pesticide registrations, to worker protection standards, to conservation programs are troubling and don’t bode well for public health and safety.
The OGE is not an enforcement agency, so it does not have power to challenge or investigate ethics complaints—it helps agencies to follow the rules and vet appointees. The clear conflicts of interest of the President and his appointees, combined with the lack of transparency that has thus far been characteristic of the administration, have created large vulnerabilities for science-based policy in this administration.Shining light on the administration’s ethical quandaries
As the administration has been trying its best to keep information from the public, there are many organizations and journalists who have been standing up for our right to know and holding the government accountable for its blunders. ProPublica released, Trump Town, a fantastic searchable database of financial disclosure forms and ethics waivers for thousands of political appointees. Sunlight Foundation is tracking President Trump’s business and personal dealings that may represent conflicts of interest. Public Citizen has conducted research into President Trump’s conflicts as well as those of government appointees. The Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service have been tracking the nomination and appointment process across the government. And Project on Government Oversight released a report last week tracking the erosion of openness occurring under the Trump Administration. We all must work together to demand transparency and honesty from this administration and to call out violations to the straightforward rules governing government ethics. Our democracy relies on it.
If you’re in DC and want to hear more from me about the state of environmental transparency, register to attend this Sunshine Week event Tuesday, March 13 hosted by UCS, Sunlight Foundation, and the Project on Government Oversight.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/this-sunshine-week-how-draining-the-swamp-and-open-government-are-faring-in-the-trump-era
-
(ACC Mentioned) UNCW Grad Fires up Oil from Ocean Plastics
Mar 12, 2018 | Environment News Service
By Sunny Lewis
Hidden, floating just beneath the surface of the oceans, are trillions of plastic fragments that once were useful objects made from petroleum – straws, spoons, bottles, bags, tubs, fishing gear, toys. Ingested by birds, fish and other marine animals, and the plastic pieces carpet beaches worldwide, where the creatures that eat them also wash up – dead.
With over eight million tons of plastic entering the world’s oceans each year, by 2050 plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans, according to a 2016 report.
Discovery of this enormity of plastic waste changed Bonnie Monteleone’s life, while she was studying for her master’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW).
The change began when Monteleone was assigned to read the article “Our Oceans Are Turning to Plastic… Are You?” by Susan Casey, an environmental exposé on the impact plastic in the oceans is having on planetary and human health.
“I sincerely lost sleep over it. I read it three times!” Monteleone told an interviewer for a UNCW profile. “In the article, she described a snapping turtle that got a plastic milk jug ring stuck around its body mid-shell and it grew around it, making its shell the shape of a figure eight.”
In the course of her studies, Monteleone traveled nearly 10,000 nautical miles in three different oceans and realized that she wanted to devote her life to keeping the oceans plastic free.
The research led her to work with Captain Charles Moore, who first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997. Monteleone sailed 3,400 nautical miles across the North Pacific assisting with his 10-year anniversary resampling in that region.
She spearheaded annual sampling of the North Atlantic with Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and sailed from Brazil to South Africa with 5 Gyres Institute collecting 110 surface samples.
All the samples Monteleone collected from the four oceans contained plastics and that “fueled my fervor for action and outreach,” she said.
“The moment when I realized that I couldn’t just write my thesis and defend it and just say ‘that’s horrible’ came when I was standing on a beach in Hawaii,” Monteleone told another interviewer. “We would never associate a plastic problem with Hawaii. But I saw the entire beach was covered 10-12 inches deep with plastic fragments, little broken pieces, that line the entire coast. Pockets of plastic in this lava rock.”
“I really knew right at that moment I just can’t let this go. I’m witnessing something that most people never see, and if we don’t start having a conversation this is what all beaches will turn into. That was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to, and I’ve traveled to a lot of beaches. That’s when I decided that when I finished my thesis, I would start a nonprofit to bring awareness to this situation.”
Monteleone earned her master’s degree from UNCW in 2011; she now works as an administrator in the UNCW Chemistry Department and mentors students involved in marine debris research.
In 2012 she founded the national nonprofit Plastic Ocean Project, which raises money to study marine debris issues, raises public awareness of the issue, and conducts research alone and in cooperation with other organizations.
Three years later, Plastic Ocean Project got into a relationship that could lead to a real solution to the marine debris fiasco.
Plastic Ocean Project partnered with Renewlogy, formerly PK Clean Technology, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff based in Salt Lake City, Utah that has developed a system for converting plastic waste to fuel.
To get started, UNCW sent PK Clean beach plastics collected from Wrightsville Beach and ocean plastics found 30 miles off the North Carolina coast. About 80 percent of the plastic was converted into oil and sent back to UNCW for chemical analysis.
Next, the UNCW Chemistry Department purchased a tabletop depolymizer for $5,000 through PK Clean. The plastics go through a chipper and are fed into this machine. Within 30 minutes the plastic begins to turn into oil.
“We usually put in about two pounds of plastic, and the oil we’re producing is wonderful in quality,” said Monteleone. “Some of the oil is close to two-stroke fuel used in a leaf blower. So I’m beating the drum about how we have to stop this problem of plastic waste in our oceans, and this might be a solution.”
Last June, Monteleone took this process out of the UNCW lab and onto the ocean.
The Plastic Ocean Project organized six teams on fishing boats to fish for plastic waste offshore of Hatteras Island, at a “Hope Spot” established by the nonprofit Mission Blue founded by Dr. Sylvia Earle, the famed oceanographer who is one of Monteleone’s inspirations.
These fish-rich waters also contain large amounts of plastic debris, including lost fishing gear, which poses a major threat to marine life.
Using a mobile Renewlogy system powered by solar panels, they converted plastic waste collected from the Atlantic Ocean into fuel to power the boats.
The process sounds promising, but there could be problems such as contaminants in the plastic debris that prevents its clean conversion to oil.
“Several studies already show ocean plastics absorb manmade organic compounds. What happens when they get converted to oil is completely unknown – and that’s what we’re looking at,” said Ralph Mead, a UNCW chemistry professor working on the project. “Many, many questions remain to be answered.”
The energy used to turn plastic back into petroleum could also be an environmental problem if it’s not renewable, by emitting more greenhouse gases.
For now, the UNCW researchers are fundraising for a solar panel to power their table top reactor.
For the future, Monteleone envisions a closed-loop system. She would, “Put the reactor at the landfill and use methane from the landfill to start the whole process.”
Plastic to fuel conversion is an emerging industry. The Argonne National Laboratory, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, has published a study showing that converting plastic waste to fuel leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and the American Chemistry Council has predicted that the United States could see $6.6 billion of investment in building plastic-to-fuel conversion facilities.
http://ens-newswire.com/2018/03/12/uncw-grad-fires-up-oil-from-ocean-plastics/
-
Chinese Companies Win Challenge to Glycine Duties
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
A pair of Chinese chemical exporters won their legal challenge against anti-dumping duties on glycine, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled March 12.
Evonik Rexim (Nanning) Pharmaceutical Co. and Baoding Mantong Fine Chemistry Co. challenged the results of the Commerce Department's administrative review of Chinese glycine that entered the U.S. in 2013-2014.
After the trade court found fault with Commerce's calculations, the agency revised the rate from 143.87 percent down to 0 percent. This new rate was upheld by the trade court.
The ruling was a loss for U.S. chemicals producer GEO Specialty Chemicals Inc.
Glycine is used as an additive in food and pharmaceuticals. It is also used in the production of other goods including cosmetics and fertilizers.
The case is Evonik Rexim (Nanning) Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. v. United States, Ct. Int'l Trade, No. 15-00296, 3/12/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664807&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664807&jd=129664807
-
DowDupont Chair Liveris Makes Way for Fitterling as New Dow CEO
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey and Andrew Noël
Andrew Liveris is leaving DowDuPont Inc. after a career spanning four decades, clearing the way for Jim Fitterling to take the reins of Dow when it's spun off as an independent company next year.
Liveris, 63, will relinquish the chairman's title on April 1 and leave the the board as previously planned on July 1, DowDuPont said in a statement March 12. Fitterling was appointed to be chief executive officer of the materials company, which will reclaim the Dow name when DowDupont splits up into three publicly traded businesses.
Fitterling has been chief operating officer of the unit since 2015 and led the merger with DuPont, which closed last September.
Like Liveris, Fitterling has spent his career at Dow since being hired in 1984. In the past decade, Fitterling has led the packaging and specialty plastics business, overseen the carve out of Dow's styrene and chlorine businesses and steered a $6 billion construction project on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Fitterling earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri.
The 56-year-old is the first openly gay executive to be named CEO of a major chemical company. Dow under Liveris has been one of the most vocal proponents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in corporate America, particularly in opposing state laws seen as hostile to LGBT employees. In the absence of federal action on gay rights, Dow has teamed up with companies such as Salesforce.com, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc. to lobby against the laws and also support legal positions that protect LGBT rights.
Fitterling has been a leader of that effort at Dow. After nearly three decades at the company, he came out broadly in 2014.
In an interview last week, the executive acknowledged that he'd probably be the first openly gay CEO in the chemical industry if he got the job. Building an inclusive and equal environment is good for business, he said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.
Role Model
“We think it is great for innovation, it creates the right teamwork and the right dynamic that we want to have for hiring,” Fitterling said. “And we also think it is the right thing to do. Business today I think is setting a good role model example for how you do that. So being open about that and being public about that I think is important.”
Liveris had considered leaving last year amid activist pressure as DowDuPont looked to reshape management to prepare for a breakup.
“Now is the right time for me to effect my previously announced plan to transition and then to retire,” Liveris said in the statement. Jeff Fettig, who is co-lead independent director of DowDuPont, will take over as executive chairman.
Retirement Delayed
Delays getting regulatory approvals for the deal prompted board discussions on Liveris delaying his retirement last year. The board then bumped his exit to July 1 of this year.
Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management and Dan Loeb's Third Point both targeted Dow and DuPont, forcing the company to change its plan for splitting up into more focused groups. Liveris faced pressure from Third Point, which didn't want him involved in the merged company.
Building out the senior management team at the new Dow, DowDuPont Chief Financial Officer Howard Ungerleider will serve as president and CFO once its separation is complete.
Fitterling “is a good choice for New Dow,” Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in a note. “It settles the uncertainty around the Dow succession.”
—With assistance from Jeff Green.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664796&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664796&jd=129664796
-
US EPA Proposes New Toxic Substances Control Act Fee Rule
Mar 12, 2018 | National Law Review
By Stephen A. Owens
On February 26, 2018, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) formally issued its proposed rule to charge new “user fees” under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The amended TSCA authorizes US EPA to charge fees for a variety of activities under TSCA sections 4, 5 and 6, totaling up to 25% of the overall costs for the agency to conduct these activities. Comments on the proposed fee rule must be submitted to US EPA on or before April 27, 2018.
US EPA expects to collect approximately $20.05 million annually during fiscal years 2019-2021 for the activities for which the new fees will be charged. US EPA has estimated that the overall cost to conduct these activities will be roughly $80.2 million each year.
US EPA will collect fees from chemical manufacturers and processors: (1) who are required to submit information to US EPA pursuant to TSCA section 4 by a test rule, test order or enforceable consent agreement; (2) who, under TSCA section 5, submit a “notification of or information related to intent to manufacture” a new chemical substance (a Premanufacture Notice (PMN) or a Microbial Commercial Activity Notice (MCAN)) or a significant new use of a chemical (a Significant New Use Notice (SNUN)), including submissions related to exemptions; and (3) who manufacture or process a chemical substance that is subject to a risk evaluation under TSCA section 6(b), including a risk evaluation conducted at the request of a manufacturer.
US EPA is proposing user fees as follows:For TSCA section 4 activities: (1) a $9,800 fee associated with a test order; (2) a $29,500 fee associated with a test rule; and (3) a $22,800 fee associated with an enforceable consent agreement.For TSCA section 5 submissions: (1) a $16,000 fee for each PMN, SNUN, and MCAN; and (2) a $4,700 fee for each TSCA exemption (i.e., Low Releases and Low Exposures (LoREX) Exemption, Low Volume Exemption (LVE), Test Marketing Exemption (TME), film article exemption, biotechnology Tier II exemption, and biotechnology Experimental Release Application (TERA)).For TSCA section 6 risk evaluations: (1) a $1.35 million fee for an EPA-initiated risk evaluation; (2) a $1.3 million fee for a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation for a chemical included in US EPA’s TSCA Work Plan; and (3) a $2.6 million fee for a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation for a chemical not included in the TSCA Work Plan.
Lower fees for some activities are proposed for entities that qualify as a small business as follows:For TSCA section 4 activities: (1) a $1,950 fee associated with a test order; (2) a $5,900 fee associated with a test rule; and (3) a $4,600 fee associated with an enforceable consent agreement.For TSCA section 5 submissions: (1) a $2,800 fee for each PMN, SNUN, and MCAN; and (2) a $940 fee for each TSCA exemption (i.e., LoREX, LVE, TME, film article exemption, biotechnology Tier II exemption, and TERA).For TSCA section 6 risk evaluations: (1) a $270,000 fee for an EPA-initiated risk evaluation; (2) a $1.3 million fee for a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation for a chemical included in US EPA’s TSCA Work Plan; and (3) a $2.6 million fee for a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation for a chemical not included in the TSCA Work Plan.
A full, lump sum payment of the fee for a TSCA section 5 activity would be have to be made when the notice (including for an exemption) is submitted to US EPA. The payment relating to information required to be submitted pursuant to a section 4 test order or test rule would be due within 60 days of the effective date of the order or rule. The fee for section 4 information required to be submitted pursuant an enforceable consent agreement would be due within 60 days of when the agreement is signed. For US EPA-initiated chemical risk evaluations, full payment would be due within 60 days of US EPA publishing the final scope of the risk evaluation. For manufacturer-risked risk evaluations, the fee would be due within 30 days after EPA notifies the manufacturer that US EPA has granted the request to conduct the evaluation.
US EPA is proposing that the fees would begin to be “incurred” starting on October 1, 2018, even though the fee rule may not be final by that date. US EPA will not actually start collecting any of the new fees, however, until the final rule is effective. Instead, US EPA intends to “record” actions that “would be expected to trigger payment of fees” and send out invoices for the incurred fees once the rule is final. US EPA would start collecting the fees the day after the final rule is published in the Federal Register.
US EPA would refund any fees paid for a TSCA Section 5 notice whenever the agency determines that the notice or fee was not required (for example, if it is determined that a substance is not subject to TSCA or is already on the TSCA Inventory). US EPA also is proposing to return 75% of the fee to a submitter if a Section 5 notice is withdrawn within 10 business days after its submission.
Failure to pay a fee would be a violation of TSCA and subject to an enforcement action by US EPA, with penalties possible up to the maximum statutory amount for each day until the required fee is paid. Each person subject to a fee would be responsible for such penalties regardless of whether they intended to pay the fee independently, as a joint submitter or through a consortia. Under the proposed rule, each joint submitter and each member of a consortium would be individually responsible for full payment of the fee, and subject to the penalties for non-payment, until the fee is paid in full.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-epa-proposes-new-toxic-substances-control-act-fee-rule
-
GAO Report Undermines Chemical Cuts in Trump Budget
Mar 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
A yearslong federal review of sustainable chemistry requested by Senate appropriators may complicate the Trump administration's bid to slash some U.S. EPA chemical safety programs.
Sustainable chemistry is an effort to use chemicals in a safer, more efficient and environmentally friendly fashion. And some lawmakers have been pushing the administration to do more in the field.
The Government Accountability Office's technical assessment, which began in October 2015 and wrapped up last month, didn't offer any specific recommendations to Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
But many of the "potential solutions" floated by experts GAO interviewed for the 159-page report, released yesterday, fly in the face of budget cuts proposed by President Trump.
The solutions — which range from finding new chemical processes to sharing information about safe chemicals — sought to address technological and business challenges that experts from industry, academia and nonprofits said are slowing down progress.
Chief among the problems was "the lack of a standard definition for sustainable chemistry as well as the lack of agreement on standard ways of measuring or assessing it," GAO wrote.
"Without a standard definition that captures the full range of activities within sustainable chemistry, it is difficult to define the universe of relevant players," the report said.
"Without agreement on how to measure the sustainability of chemical processes and products, companies may be hesitant to invest in innovation they cannot effectively quantify, and end users are unable to make meaningful comparisons that allow them to select appropriate chemical products and processes."
Catalysts, products that prompt chemical reactions, have their own challenges, as well. While many existing catalysts produce harmful byproducts, creating alternative ones is also challenging because they may "require specialized equipment, greater energy input, or elevated pressure, and can be difficult to scale up for industrial use," said the report.
Deploying cleaner chemistries can be both good for business from a marketing standpoint, but also a risky proposition because of regulatory challenges and other issues, GAO found.Solutions under threat
Finding solutions to those problems "requires that industry, government, and other stakeholders work together," experts told GAO.
Specifically, "there is a need for new processes that make more efficient use of the resources that are available, reuse products or their components during manufacturing, and account for impacts across the entire life cycle of chemical processes and products," the report said.
Experts in the field also highlighted "the importance of disseminating environmental and health-related information to help guide the choices of consumers, chemists, workers, downstream users, and investors to facilitate further progress," GAO wrote.
The administration is targeting two EPA programs that seek to implement those goals.
The National Center for Environmental Research, which EPA is planning to shut down, supports leading-edge research on human exposure to pollution and ways to minimize it (Greenwire, Feb. 27).
And Safer Choice, a labeling effort aimed at recognizing consumer products that use safer chemistry, is slated for elimination in the president's fiscal 2019 budget.
"Partners can continue the best practices that have been shared through this program and continue efforts aimed at reducing pollution," EPA said in a document justifying the zeroing out of its $12.2 million Pollution Prevention program, which includes the Safer Choice effort.
Even before the GAO report release, public health advocates at the Environmental Defense Fund warned that cuts to EPA's chemical safety efforts "collectively pose dire threats to our health and that of our environment."Lawmakers vow 'support'
Senators appear unlikely to go along with most of the administration's calls to shrink or eliminate sustainable chemistry programs at EPA.
Coons, ranking member on the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, said in a statement yesterday that "the information laid out in this report will be useful to the chemical industry, to universities and other research institutions, and to policy makers."
The Delaware Democrat argued that it "underscores the importance of better federal coordination and support for sustainable chemistry."
Collins, who is also an Appropriations Committee member, and Markey also emphasized the importance of improving the field of sustainable chemistry.
"This report identifies a number of opportunities for the federal government to support sustainable chemical technologies and encourage the development of innovative, environmentally friendly and economically competitive chemicals, products and processes," Collins said.
"This report identifies a number of opportunities for the federal government to support sustainable chemical technologies and encourage the development of innovative, environmentally friendly, and economically competitive chemicals, products, and processes," Collins said.
EPA didn't immediately comment on its move to shutdown the Safer Choices program in light of the GAO report.
But a spokeswoman downplayed the impact of shutting down the environmental research center, describing it as simply a "reorganization."
"Management of research grants will continue," she said in an email.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/03/13/stories/1060076135
-
EPA Pushes to Reduce Lead, Arsenic in Community Water Systems
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA wants to do more to help the roughly 8 percent of small drinking water systems that fail federal criteria for contaminants such as lead and arsenic, the agency's top drinking water official said March 12.
The push to aid community drinking water systems, which serve fewer than 1,000 people, is part of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt's plan to identify “breakthrough measures” for the agency to improve its core mission of providing clean and safe drinking water to the public, Peter Grevatt, director of Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Drinking Water and Groundwater, told the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators.
About 50,000 community drinking water systems are in the U.S. and between 8 and 9 percent of those are not in compliance with all health based standards, Grevatt said. The EPA wants to bring one-quarter of those systems back into compliance within four years.
“One of the questions the administrator is asking of us is should you be satisfied with the idea that roughly 8 percent of systems nationally are not meeting health based standards, and what does that mean for children living in those communities?” Grevatt said.
Jerri Henry, drinking program manager for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, asked Grevatt whether enforcement would play a major role in bringing compliance.
In response, Grevatt said enforcement would play a role, but it wouldn't be the only approach the EPA would use.
“I don't know what new tools will be brought to bear on the problem of achieving compliance,” Henry told Bloomberg Environment after Grevatt's talk. “I fear it will be the heavier hand of enforcement, which could mean stiffer penalties.”
Henry said the biggest challenge rural community drinking water systems in Idaho face is primarily financial. They don't have the money to upgrade their plants to meet the standards or conduct the required sampling or testing, she added.
Although the EPA's goal is a worthy one, “it isn't like the systems that are out of compliance are doing it on purpose,” Henry said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664787&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664787&jd=129664787
-
UK Releases Brexit Economic Impact Statement After Press Leaks
Mar 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The UK government has published its analysis of the impact of Brexit on sectors including chemicals, which it says will be one of the hardest hit.
Rumour of so-called sectoral Brexit impact assessments surfaced late last year and David Davis, the government's secretary of state for exiting the EU, was criticised by MPs for being unclear on the question of their existence.
However, a document was leaked to the press in early February and, following further leaks last week, the government published a draft document EU Exit Analysis – Cross Whitehall Briefing, dated January 2018.
In it, the government says "emerging findings" suggest the largest effects of Brexit would be on chemicals, food and drink, clothes, manufacturing, cars and retail.
This reflects different trade barriers introduced on those sectors when the UK leaves the EU, their relative share of trade with the bloc and the "trade intensity of their inputs", it says.
The chemicals sector, it says, is diverse covering both specialty chemicals and bulk chemicals. It is also, the briefing adds, "an important foundation industry" for other sectors. The government gave the example of chemicals contributing 84% of the input to make medicines.
The briefing includes a dedicated page of "sector narrative" on chemicals which illustrates the types of non-tariff barriers that might be introduced. These, the government says, are:
· EEA type scenario: customs declarations on leaving the customs union are expected to lead to significant non-tariff barriers across all manufactured goods sectors. The chemicals sector is highly reliant on EU supply chains for intermediate inputs crossing the border multiple times during the production process;
· Free trade agreement type scenario: chemical manufacturers and/or importers would have to transfer registrations for over 9,000 chemical products to appointed representatives in the EU before they can continue selling to the single market. New chemicals would likely have to be registered twice - once in the UK and once in the EU. Standard registration fees vary between €1,700 and €34,000 and there could be additional costs of data gathering of up to €100,000; and
· WTO scenario: EU tariffs on chemicals are an average of 4%. This would increase first order export costs by around £500 million, which would be additional to the non-tariff barriers set out above.
Ireland has also recently published a report pointing out that as the country shares a supply chain with the UK its domestic chemicals sector could be negatively impacted.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64744/uk-releases-brexit-economic-impact-statement-after-press-leaks
-
Echa Seeks Views on SVHC Identification Proposals
Mar 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has opened a public consultation on proposals by member states and the agency to identify eight substances as SVHCs.
Four are proposed because they are suspected of having persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) and/or very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) properties. They are:
· octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) – Germany;
· dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane (D6) – Echa; and
· benzo[ghi]perylene – Denmark.
Meanwhile, Finland has proposed terphenyl, hydrogenated as an SVHC due exclusively to its potential vPvB properties.
Sweden has proposed two chemicals it believes to be toxic for reproduction – lead and disodium octaborate.
And Echa is assessing ethylenediamine, which it suspects of having respiratory sensitising properties.
The deadline for comments is 23 April.
https://chemicalwatch.com/64770/echa-seeks-views-on-svhc-identification-proposals
-
(ACC Mentioned) South Korean Company Joins Effort to Build $5b Ethane Cracker in Eastern Ohio
Mar 13, 2018 | Columbus Business First
By Tristan Navera
A South Korean company has joined an effort to bring a $5 billion Ethane Cracker plant to Belmont County, potentially making the project even bigger.
Officials from Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical Public Company Ltd., whose subsidiary might build a multibillion-dollar ethane cracker complex in Belmont County, announced they have added South Korea-based Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd. as a partner on proposed project.
The two entities will conduct a feasibility study for the petrochemical ethane cracker complex. Though a final decision hasn't been made, PTT has spent $150 million in engineering and design work. The group exercised an option to buy an additional 300 acres of land in the village of Dilles Bottom, along the Ohio River.
When the sale closes in April, the company will have amassed 500 acres in all.
The complex would use natural gas collected from shale deposits in Ohio and elsewhere to convert and “crack” it for use in a variety of chemical and plastic products. Ohio's Utica shale has a number of byproducts that can be used to create other products.
"We can utilize the location, where we are very close to a cheap source of ethane," Sean Sung Woo Kim, CEO of Daelim Energy, said during a news conference held at the Ohio Statehouse and broadcast on Facebook. "Ohio lends a very strategic advantage, that is very close to the market.
"PTT and Daelim plans to take advantage of that strategic advantage ... and we plan to build a very sustainable plant here."
They are considering a plant that could produce 1.5 million metric tons a year – 50 percent more than was originally anticipated. That would mean a bigger capital investment and more jobs.
Cost has held up the project for two years, and having two partner companies on board will allow it to resume, said Gov. John Kasich.
It would mean a lot of construction jobs, he said.
"This is a home run and it's right within our grasp," Kasich said. "I'm extremely hopeful within a relative short period of time we can come back to this room and make an announcement and get moving on this. At that time we'll start recruiting businesses around the world."TRENDINGFOOD & LIFESTYLEBravo Brio being acquired for $100 millionOhio puts 6 on annual Forbes list of world's billionairesCOMING EVENTNews & Brews @ Mikey's Late Night Slice
April 19
PTT has said an “aggressive incentive package” from JobsOhio aided its decision to look at eastern Ohio – and while a cost hasn't yet been officially stated, $5.7 billion has been the first figure attached to the project.
In June, it bought some land, which used to house a FirstEnergy Corp. power plant, for $13.8 million. JobsOhio had previously given the company $14 million in incentives to clean up the former R.E. Burger coal-fired power plant.
"People in that region of the state have undergone a lot of economic turmoil," Kasich said. "They try to play by the rules, but the global economy, technology have disrupted their lives.
"You can see what this project has the potential to do. With the partnership now ... what they would build here would be probably the leading plant for cracking gas in the world."
A recent study by the American Chemical Council projected a fully developed Appalachian petrochemical industry could have 100,000 jobs and $36 billion in investment and economic development, coming to a largely rural area with higher unemployment and poverty rates.
"A couple of the largest companies in Asia in the petrochemical sector, bringing these two companies together is a major thing," said John Minor, chief investment officer at JobsOhio. "this is a large project, it's a complex project, it takes time for these to come to fruition and it also takes a big team when you look at regional, state and federal support."
A second ethane cracker by Shell Chemical is in the works across the river in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/03/12/south-korean-company-joins-effort-to-build-5b.html
-
April Us Shale Oil Output Expected to Grow 131,000 B/D to 6.9 Mil B/D: EIA
Mar 13, 2018 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
US oil production from unconventional sources is likely to rise 131,000 b/d to 6.954 million b/d in April amid continued brisk drilling activity and crude prices that have apparently stabilized above $60/b, the US Energy Information Administration said Monday.
The 131,000 b/d projection is up 19% from the 110,000 b/d shale oil production growth estimated last month for March, the agency said in its monthly Drilling Productivity Report.
"Rig productivity went up in every basin, and rig counts went up," EIA Senior Analyst Jozef Lieskovsky said in explaining the agency's April forecast. "Everyone is making good money at this oil price."
According to the Baker Hughes rig count, which draws its raw figures from S&P Global Platts RigData, 34 oil rigs were added to the US fleet in February.
As usual, the Permian Basin is poised to jump by the highest amount of all the seven unconventional oil basins tracked in the DPR. In April, production from the West Texas/New Mexico basin could jump by 80,000 b/d to 3.156 million b/d, the DPR said. That is roughly in line with the 75,000 b/d targeted last month by EIA for March.
Other large domestic oil-weighted basins also are forecasted to grow next month, by a bit more volume than was estimated for March.
For example, the DPR predicts oil output from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas will grow by 23,000 b/d to 1.330 million b/d, compared to 18,000 b/d in the prior forecast.
Also, oil production in both the Bakken Shale, sited in North Dakota/Montana, and the Niobrara Shale in Colorado, could each swell by 12,000 b/d in April, to 1.223 million b/d and 595,000 b/d, respectively, the report estimated.
That contrasts with EIA's prior growth predictions of 7,000 b/d for the Bakken and 6,000 b/d for the Niobrara in March, the agency said.
Meanwhile, the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma, which spans multiple smaller plays, chief among them the SCOOP and STACK, is forecasted to grow by just 1,000 b/d in April to 493,000 b/d -- the same amount of growth predicted last month for March.
According to the March S&P Global Platts Well Economics Analyzer, the Permian Midland currently has the lowest oil breakeven prices, of $32.06/b. That compared to $46.89/b in March 2016.
Second-lowest this month is the Permian Delaware, at $34.10/b, down from $36.73/b in March 2016.
In addition, the Bakken's March 2018 breakeven price is $34.14/b, while the Eagle Ford's is $34.87/b. That compares to $37.12/b and $36.80/b, respectively, in March 2016.
In addition, the domestic drilled but uncompleted well inventory, popularly known as DUCs, continued to grow in February, the DPR said. Last month, 110 DUCs were added to the US inventory for a total of 7,601. By contrast, 107 DUCs were added in January.
DUCs fell in the Bakken and the Niobrara last month, but increased in the Permian and the other large oil-weighted plays, DPR data showed.
DUCs are wells that upstream operators drill but leave unfinished, either deliberately -- to wait for a higher oil price, for example -- or because they typically complete wells in batches and have not yet been able to finish the job for various reasons, such as a lack of completion crews.
Crew shortages have been an issue in recent months, although oilfield service companies say they are hiring and training as many as possible.
"The companies tell us every crew available is working," Lieskovsky said.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/oil/houston/april-us-shale-oil-output-expected-to-grow-131000-21543034
-
Why Is Russian Gas in Boston Harbor?
Mar 13, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Drew Johnson
A tanker arrived in Boston Harbor carrying natural gas that would keep residents’ homes warm for the rest of the winter. The late-January delivery came from Siberia. Why are some parts of America reliant on Russian natural gas, especially when domestic gas production has surged?
The problem is entirely political. In 2016 officials in Massachusetts and New Hampshire blocked financing for the $3 billion Access Northeast Pipeline, which would have reliably provided fuel to three New England states. That same year a report from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office claimed the state could “maintain electric reliability” without new infrastructure. The Russian gas heating Boston homes this winter suggests otherwise.
Politicians are opposing pipeline projects to curry favor with increasingly radical environmentalists. The activist group 350.org is organizing online campaigns to oppose every new coal, oil, and natural-gas project. Greenpeace claims it is time to leave fossil fuels “where they belong: in the ground.” The Sierra Club is pushing the U.S. to abandon all fossil fuels, claiming the country is ready for 100% renewable energy.
These ideas might sound nice, but they would hurt America’s most vulnerable citizens. Blocking natural-gas pipelines needlessly inflates consumers’ energy bills and destabilizes the electrical grid.
Natural gas and coal are responsible for about 64% of America’s electrical power. Only 15% comes from renewables. Because of its relatively low price, natural gas is the primary energy source for half of American homes. Since 2006, when the fracking revolution began, natural-gas prices have dropped 27% for residential consumers.
Forcing utilities to rely on far more expensive renewables would mean skyrocketing bills. Families with low incomes would be forced to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table.
A 100% renewable future would likely be technologically impossible. A 2017 analysis in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews concluded: “In all individual cases and across the aggregated evidence, the case for feasibility is inadequate.”
The ultimate irony is that natural-gas pipelines help the environment. With more pipelines, power plants could switch from coal to natural gas, which emits up to 60% less CO2.
Many have already switched, which explains why carbon emissions from power plants have dropped by 25% since 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 30 times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, have fallen 16% since 1990. Natural-gas production has doubled in that period.
The anti-fossil-fuels campaign is neither realistic nor environmentally sound. Blocking pipelines and other energy infrastructure projects raises costs on American families while forcing them to rely on Vladimir Putin to heat their homes.
Mr. Johnson is a senior scholar at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-russian-gas-in-boston-harbor-1520897637?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
-
New West Virginia Law Seen to Help Operators Boost Production
Mar 13, 2018 | Platts
By Jim Magill and Eric Brooks
Natural gas producers in West Virginia hope that a new law passed by the state Legislature and signed by the governor will help spur production in the state, which in recent years has seen a dramatic ramp-up in gas output from the Marcellus Shale play.
Governor Jim Justice signed Friday the co-tenancy bill, which would allow drilling to take place on a tract of land if 75% of royalty owners agreed. The legislation amends current state law, which had allowed owners of a small minority stake in a given tract block development of that land.
The legislation gathered the support of producer groups in West Virginia. Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, said the bill would make it easier for operators to acquire more individual tracts of land and to be able to accumulate those contiguous tracts in a way that would allow them to drill longer laterals, which are rapidly becoming the industry norm in the Appalachian Basin.
"IOGA West Virginia is very excited to see that bill finally pass," Burd said in an interview. Burd said the legislature forged a compromise bill that would protect the rights of operators and the majority of royalty owners on a given tract of land, while protecting the rights of minority royalty owners and other stakeholders.
"There was a lot of confusion in the past about what this bill would do. Those who oppose it still wanted to cause confusion up to the end, but it's a very simple bill," he said.
Gas production in West Virginia has grown quickly in recent years as producer-backed pipeline capacity expansions and a buildout in gas processing infrastructure have enabled large Appalachian drillers such as EQT Energy and Antero Resources to bolster their output.
A concentration of acreage among the state's top producers has also led to a trend of longer well laterals, driving efficiency gains and boosting initial production rates and ultimately recovered volumes from wells drilled, Platts Analytics has found. For example, in second-quarter 2015, producer Antero Resources reported its average lateral length drilled in the West Virginia Marcellus shale was approximately 8,300 feet; in 2018, the company expects an average lateral length of 9,700 feet, and by 2020 it forecasts an average lateral length of 11,600 feet, according to its fourth quarter 2017 company earnings presentation.
Recent authorizations the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission handed down will likely drive further development in West Virginia as a series of high-capacity pipelines and expansions look to further unlock the state's shale gas.
The 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline whose capacity is backed in large part by producer EQT Energy, and the 2.7 Bcf/d Mountaineer XPress project, which is backed in part by Antero Resources, have begun construction and are both targeting service by late 2018.
The two projects alone would enable a near-doubling of the state's gas production, assuming they filled with entirely new production. Production in West Virginia has so far averaged 4.5 Bcf/d in 2018, roughly flat to the 2017 daily average and about 500 MMcf/d higher than the 2016 daily level, Platts Analytics data shows.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/houston/new-west-virginia-law-seen-to-help-operators-21543049
-
Chevron Phillips Chemical Launches Baytown Ethane Cracker
Mar 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
Chevron Phillips Chemical on Monday announced the startup of its first new U.S. ethane cracker in decades, a major investment that will boost production at its Cedar Bayou complex in Baytown as the petrochemicals industry expands rapidly along the Gulf Coast.
Chevron Phillips, a joint venture of the oil company Chevron and Houston refiner Phillips 66, built the cracker to turn ethane, a natural gas liquid, into ethylene, a building block of many types of plastics. At full capacity, it will produce 1.5 million tons of ethylene a year to turn into pipes, films, containers and other plastic products.
The new supply of ethylene will support the production of polyethylene — the world's most common plastic — at the company's Old Ocean facility near Sweeny. There, it built two new polyethylene units that began operating in September with the combined capacity to produce 4.4 billion pounds of plastic resins a year.
The company expects that the cracker, eight years in the making, will increase its U.S. ethylene and polyethylene production capacity by 40 percent. President and CEO Mark Lashier said much of the new capacity will support the domestic market, through the company will continue to look for export opportunities.
"We'll be able to complete anywhere in the world with these products," he said.
The expansion comes amid a surge in Gulf Coast petrochemicals production as manufacturers capitalize on a cheap and plentiful supply of natural gas flowing from West Texas. Other major companies, including LyondellBasell and Dow Chemical Co., are investing billions of dollars to expand their local facilities.
A surge in global demand for plastics and other petrochemicals has bolstered the oil and gas industry even as governments worldwide look to reduce emissions and implement stricter fuel efficiency standards. The International Energy Agency, which tracks global energy markets, 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 oil demand.
Several other ethane crackers are expected to come online to meet that demand. The IEA forecasts new ethane crackers will increase consumption of oil and natural gas liquids by at least 1.4 million barrels a day through 2023.
Note: This story has been amended to clarify that the company has not built a new U.S. cracker in decades.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Chevron-Phillips-Chemical-launches-Baytown-ethane-12746845.php
-
New York Loses Bid to Block Millennium Gas Line Project (1)
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik and Bob Van Voris
A ruling against New York's bid to block a Millennium Pipeline Co. natural gas pipeline sets a potential precedent for other battles over gas conduits.
A U.S. appeals court sided with federal energy regulators’ ruling that New York waived its right to act on the pipeline by failing make a decision on a key water permit within a year. It's a decision that removes the last obstacle to Millennium's Valley Lateral project, which has been in the works for about three years.
The ruling comes as developers clash with state governments and environmental groups over a profusion of pipeline conduits across the nation, many designed to carry gas from prolific shale wells to major markets.
New York had previously denied a water certificate to Williams Cos.’ Constitution gas line, and New Jersey is urging federal regulators to rescind approval of the $1 billion PennEast project. The court's decision may make it more difficult for states to block lines by withholding permits, according to ClearView Energy Partners LLC.
“This is about the state permit that New York has been trying to wield as a ‘veto,”’ said Christine Tezak, a managing director at ClearView in Washington. The court ruling “does provide certainty about what the timeline is,” she said.
“We don't expect pipelines to go in super early, but we don't expect to see states trying to manipulate the timeline,” Tezak said.
Millennium sees the court's “precedent-setting decision” as affirming the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's interpretation of the Clean Water Act, which “will allow us to continue with construction,” company spokeswoman Michelle Hook said in an email. “We note that FERC imposed numerous environmental conditions.”
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation disagrees with the court decision and is reviewing its options “to determine any appropriate next steps regarding this pipeline project,” Erica Ringewald, a spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.
The 7.8-mile (13-kilometer) Valley Lateral line will bring gas to Competitive Power Ventures Inc.’s CPV Valley Energy Center in Wawayanda, New York, about 70 miles northwest of Manhattan. Competitive Power Ventures is backed by private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners, while Millennium's owners include TransCanada Corp., DTE Energy Co., and National Grid Plc.
The case is: N.Y. Dep't. of Envtl. Conservation v. FERC, 2d Cir., No. 17-3770, 3/12/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664780&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664780&jd=129664780
-
Infrastructure Bill Possible Before Elections: Administration
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaun Courtney
The White House thinks Congress could still pass an infrastructure bill before the November elections, an administration official said March 12.
DJ Gribbin, addressing a National League of Cities gathering, urged the local leaders to ask Congress to take action.
“I would encourage you to deliver the message that we need to fix this problem and we need to fix it now,” he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in a speech last week at an Atlanta Home Depot Inc. store, suggested Congress may pass a series of small infrastructure bills in lieu of a large measure.
He cited the forthcoming Federal Aviation Administration authorization and Water Resources Development Act authorization as examples of progress, though those are must-pass bills that aren't part of the White House's infrastructure plan.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster(R-Pa.) would like to see a broader bill that addresses the items included in the White House plan. Shuster recently said such a plan may have to wait until a lame-duck session if Congress can't move a bill before the August recess.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664784&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664784&jd=129664784
-
6 Energy and Enviro Bills in Line for Infrastructure Package
Mar 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink and Nick Sobczyk
Many of the energy and environmental changes being pushed for a high-priority infrastructure deal sought by the White House and Republicans are already working their way through Congress.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) has pointed to two dozen bills backed by his committee as potential candidates for inclusion of the infrastructure measure.
Those run the gamut from contentious nuclear waste legislation and regulatory rollbacks to more bipartisan bills that offer grants for rebuilding water systems and cleaning up former industrial sites.
Lawmakers have yet to settle on a strategy or timeline for moving the infrastructure bills, with many increasingly doubtful about the prospects in an election year.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said last week to expect the House to move five or six bills, including on water infrastructure and regulatory reforms, rather than the single, massive package touted by the White House.
And the Senate has offered even fewer clues beyond some suggestions that energy reform legislation could be part of a broad deal.
"The clock's ticking, we all know that," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a senior E&C member, who said "hope so" when asked last week if infrastructure legislation could move ahead of this fall's election.
Here's a look at six bills with potentially major impacts for the energy industry and environmental community that are being at least talked about as part of an infrastructure overhaul.
Bill: H.R. 3017, the "Brownfields Enhancement, Economic Redevelopment and Reauthorization Act"
Sponsors: Walden and Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.)
Status: Passed the full House, 408-9, in July. Awaiting action in the Senate.
Legislation to extend and revamp U.S. EPA's brownfields program is, perhaps, the most consequential bipartisan environmental bill to pass the House this Congress.
Republican lawmakers have argued it should be counted as an infrastructure bill because it would lead to billions of dollars in new infrastructure spending at some of the 450,000 sites across the country.
It also fits in well with the GOP call for regulatory streamlining by creating a new brownfields grant program to encourage cooperation between federal and state governments on cleanup work.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, too, could get behind the measure, which would fit with his priority of cleaning up toxic waste sites nationwide.
A Senate brownfields bill, S. 822, won bipartisan backing by the Environment and Public Works Committee last summer. There are some differences over funding levels, but both proposals have the same goal of expanding and accelerating site cleanups.
Bill: H.R. 3053, the "Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act"
Sponsor: Shimkus
Status: Passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June. Awaiting action in the Senate.
Backers of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., believe legislation authorizing the project amounts to a multibillion-dollar investment in infrastructure.
The bill, approved 49-3 in committee, would spend $260 million over a decade for interim nuclear waste storage and to begin constructing the permanent site in the Nevada desert. The final cost of building Yucca could come in at nearly $100 billion.
The full House has yet to take up the measure as lawmakers have been unable to settle on funding. A Nuclear Waste Fund, supported by ratepayers to pay for the site, has not collected money since 2014.
The politics are even trickier in the Senate, where Republican Dean Heller of Nevada has vowed to block any progress on Yucca — a project unpopular in the Silver State.
Heller faces a highly competitive re-election this year, and GOP leaders would be reluctant to jeopardize it by pushing Yucca.
Bill: H.R. 3387, the "Drinking Water System Improvement Act"
Sponsor: Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.)
Status: Passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. Awaiting action in the Senate.
A House bill to provide billions of dollars for rebuilding and repairing crumbling drinking water in the wake of the lead poisoning in Flint, Mich., could find bipartisan support for being included in an infrastructure package.
The bill, approved in committee by voice vote, would reauthorize the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund for five years and allow it pay out grants up to $8 billion for communities across the nation.
It would be a boost of about $1.2 billion over current federal spending on the popular grant program with carve-outs to make it easier for dollars to go to disadvantaged communities like Flint.
The White House and congressional Republicans have both repeatedly said overhauling drinking water systems would be a major element of their infrastructure legislation.
A Senate version of the bill, however, has yet to surface.
Bill: H.R. 2910, the "Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act"
Sponsor: Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas)
Status: Passed the full House, 248-179, in July. Awaiting action in the Senate.
Legislation from Flores and a team of GOP co-sponsors could serve as a model for the broad permitting goals the Trump administration has laid out in its infrastructure plan.
It would underscore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's role as the lead permitting agency for pipeline projects and allow FERC to impose deadlines on federal and state regulators.
A variety of natural gas industry groups pushed for the measure as it wound through the House, and Republicans sold it as a way to better coordinate the environmental review process for pipelines.
The legislation is also one example of what the Trump administration's "one agency, one decision" permitting framework could look like as legislative language.
The bill avoids some proposals in Trump's plan that have been unpopular in the past. For example, it would not include a specific two-year limit for reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act or require any extensive rewrites of environmental law.
Still, many Democrats and environmentalists are generally united against it. They say it would be duplicative and unnecessary.
Bill: H.R. 3043, the "Hydropower Policy Modernization Act"
Sponsor: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.)
Status: Passed the full House, 257-166, in November. Awaiting action in the Senate.
Legislation streamlining the federal process for hydropower permitting fits with the GOP view that less regulation will spur infrastructure projects.
H.R. 3043, much like H.R. 2910, would give FERC more control over the permitting process. The bill would designate FERC as the federal lead for processing applications for hydropower.
The arguments for and against the measure are similar, too. Republicans say that it would bring "certainty" to permitting. Environmentalists and tribal groups say it could undercut state authority under the Clean Water Act and hand the reins to FERC in an area where it has no real expertise.
H.R. 3043 made it out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote, but the panel's top Democrats came out against it just before it hit the full House (E&E Daily, Nov. 7, 2017).
And some moderate Democrats think the party only hurts itself by refusing to compromise on permitting reform for hydropower and other carbon-free energy projects.
"What we're concerned about is achieving high standards, and if there's a way to achieve high standards with less drag on the economy, we ought to welcome that, not fight it," Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) said in a recent interview. "The frustration that people feel can lead to what Trump wants to do, which is to get rid of all regulations."
Peters has his own hydropower permit streamlining bill, H.R. 2274. The measure passed the House under fast-track procedure in June.
Bill: H.R. 2883, the "Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act"
Sponsor: Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
Status: Passed the full House, 254-175, in July. Awaiting Senate action.
FERC and the Department of Energy would get more muscle on pipeline and energy transmission under a plan to nix the president's ability to unilaterally block certain projects.
The bill would transfer permitting authority for cross-border energy infrastructure from the State Department to FERC for pipelines and to the Department of Energy for transmission projects.
It would do away with the presidential permitting requirement former President Obama used to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and that Trump later used to reverse that decision.
The bill mirrors language inserted in the House version of the proposed energy reform package that stalled in late 2016, and it's one of two pipeline infrastructure bills that the Energy and Commerce Committee has taken up in this session.
But much like the other piece of pipeline legislation, H.R. 2910, it has little chance of passing the Senate this year.
If House Republicans and moderate Democrats — like its co-sponsor, Rep. Gene Green of Texas — want to get it into law, they'll likely look to attach it to an infrastructure package.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/03/13/stories/1060076133
-
NJ Senate Revives Weinberg's Oil Train Transparency Bill Chris Christie Vetoed
Mar 13, 2018 | NorthJersey.com
By Curtis Tate
The New Jersey Senate Transportation Committee approved an oil train transparency bill on Monday, reviving an effort that had been stymied by former Gov. Chris Christie.
The legislation, S-1883, would require railroads to develop oil spill response plans in case of a derailment.
The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, would also require more transparency from railroads about their shipment of flammable liquids through the state.
It isn't clear whether Gov. Phil Murphy will sign the legislation, but Weinberg has indicated that she would not make another attempt to pass the bill unless a governor would be willing to sign it.
The Legislature passed a similar bill last year, but Christie vetoed it in July. An attempt to override Christie before he left office did not succeed.
The state's freight railroads had lobbied aggressively against the legislation, and on Monday, an official from Norfolk Southern reiterated the industry's opposition, based on security concerns.
"These provisions are nothing short of a gift to ISIS, al-Qaida and homegrown terrorists," testified Michael Fesen, the railroad's manager of government relations in New Jersey. "This bill delivers everything the terrorists could possibly want to know."
The railroads found a sympathetic ear to that concern in Christie. But the states surrounding New Jersey have made the routes and estimated volumes of oil train traffic publicly accessible when compelled by public information requests from news organizations. Effectively, the public already has the information railroads want to shield.
"There has been precedent for releasing this information," said Debra Coyle McFadden, assistant director of the New Jersey Work Environment Council.
Fesen testified that the state's railroads are already doing what the bill would require, particularly when it comes to providing information to emergency response personnel and offering them training opportunities.
"We want the right information to go to the right people, not the general public," he said. "We want the first responders to be as informed as possible."
He said large discharges of hazardous materials from derailments are rare and that spill response plans are in place.
Further, he argued that state efforts to regulate hazardous rail shipments are unnecessary because the federal government already does that.
Sen. Bob Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, the panel's chairman, said he had little doubt that the railroads were doing what they could to prevent a major spill.
But he expressed skepticism that the Trump administration was as concerned about the health and safety of New Jersey residents as state officials. President Donald Trump has rolled back a number of regulations since taking office.
"While I have great respect for the federal system, I don’t have a lot of faith in the current regulators in Washington," Gordon said. "I think they have other priorities."
Doug O'Malley, the director of Environment New Jersey, said communities along oil train routes need more information about the shipments as a matter of self-defense.
Oil train derailments in recent years have spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude, threatening waterways, communities and wildlife. In Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013, 47 people were killed in one fiery derailment alone.
"When those accidents do happen, they’re disasters for the environment," he testified.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, put the issue in more stark terms.
"We’re playing Russian roulette with these trains," he said.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/transportation/2018/03/12/nj-senate-revives-weinbergs-oil-train-transparency-bill-chris-christie-vetoed/415587002/
-
Court: EPA Broke Law with Smog Rule Delay
Mar 13, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration broke the law when it missed a deadline last year in implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ozone pollution rule, a federal court ruled Monday.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was supposed to announce by Oct. 1 which areas of the country were in compliance with the 2015 Obama administration rule.
Pruitt later announced findings for areas that comply, but not for areas that do not.
Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr. of the federal District Court for the District of Northern California said Monday that Pruitt broke the law, and ordered him to publish the findings for almost all of the rest of the country by April 30.
“There is no dispute as to liability: Defendants admit that the administrator violated his nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act to promulgate by October 1, 2017, initial area air quality designations,” Gilliam wrote, citing a January court filing by the Justice Department acknowledging that the EPA missed the deadline.
An EPA spokeswoman said the agency is moving forward on the designations.
"We look forward to working with co-regulators to continue the designations process for the 2015 standards for ground-level ozone; we are evaluating the information provided by governors in February 2018 as part of that process," Liz Bowman said in a statement.
The decision is one in a string of court losses the Trump administration has faced in its ongoing mission to change, delay or undo the Obama administration’s aggressive environmental agenda. Other recent decisions have faulted the Energy Department for blocking energy efficiency rules and both the EPA and Interior Department for delaying methane regulations.
The ozone case concerns a 2015 rule that set the limit for ground-level ozone at 70 parts per billion, a change from the previous 75 parts per billion.
Ozone is a byproduct of pollutants from burning fossil fuels and a component of smog. It is linked to respiratory ailments such as asthma attacks.
In areas that don’t meet the standard, states must write up plans to reduce pollution and come into compliance.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the litigation, applauded the Monday ruling.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admitted in this case that it failed to do its job and meet its deadline under the Clean Air Act,” he said in a statement. “The stakes are high. The smog-reducing requirements at issue will save hundreds of lives and prevent 230,000 asthma attacks among children. That’s worth fighting for.”
Environmental groups also welcomed the decision.
“Today’s court decision is a big win for the health of America’s children. It will help us protect families and communities by ensuring that EPA is moving forward to implement health-based protections to reduce smog,” said Rachel Fullmer, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Green groups who sued the Trump administration over the ozone delay wanted a quicker deadline, while the EPA pushed for April 30, saying it could meet that timeline.
The EPA is under a different timeline for the area surrounding San Antonio because the Texas state government is submitting new information. That area’s deadline is October.
Gilliam was nominated to the bench by former President Obama.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/377977-court-epa-broke-law-with-smog-rule-delay
-
Judge Faults EPA for Delaying Ozone Designations
Mar 12, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA will have to complete tardy attainment designations for its 2015 ozone standard by mid-July, or several weeks ahead of its preferred schedule, a federal judge ruled today in lawsuits brought by Democratic-led states and public health and environmental advocacy groups.
In the order, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam of the Northern District of California granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and required EPA to issue most of the remaining designations for Houston, New York City and other large metropolitan areas by April 30 as agency officials had tentatively said they already planned to do.
Gilliam was unconvinced, however, by EPA's insistence that it needed until Aug. 10 to make a final decision on an eight-county area in and around San Antonio.
EPA failed "to set forth budgetary, manpower or technical constraints that would make it impracticable for the agency to promulgate a San Antonio area designation" before Aug. 10, he wrote in today's order. Instead, Gilliam agreed to the 127-day timetable urged by the American Lung Association and the other advocacy groups.
That schedule, which effectively sets a July 17 deadline for the San Antonio area designation, incorporates a required four-month notice period when EPA's decision diverges from a state's recommendation, plus a week grace period from the date of today's order.
Gilliam denied a request from California and more than a dozen other states to make all of the remaining attainment designations effective immediately for compliance purposes, instead of following EPA's recent practice of allowing a month or two of lag time.
"The Court assumes that EPA will meet its stated thirty to sixty day timeline, and would consider whether a further order is necessary if it fails to do so," Gilliam wrote.
His decision "got it right," Seth Johnson, an Earthjustice attorney representing the public health and environmental groups, said in a phone interview.
"The agency's arguments for more delay were meritless, and it's important to move ahead and get these health protections in place as quickly as possible."
Also welcoming the decision was California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), the lead state plaintiff in the litigation.
"The smog-reducing requirements at issue will save hundreds of lives and prevent 230,000 asthma attacks among children," Becerra said in a news release. "That's worth fighting for."
EPA is reviewing the decision, a spokeswoman said in an email.
Ground-level ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is tied to asthma attacks in children and wider-ranging problems in people with chronic respiratory diseases.
In October 2015, EPA tightened its air quality standard for the gas from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb, citing the need to protect public health in light of fresh research on ozone's dangers.
By law, the attainment designations — which start the clock for states to develop cleanup plans for areas that are out of compliance — were due at the beginning of last October. Without explanation, EPA missed that deadline.
Although the agency in November effectively declared some 85 percent of U.S. counties in attainment for the 70-ppb threshold, it delayed decisions on every area likely to have trouble meeting the standard.
At a hearing late last month, an EPA attorney also broached the possibility that the agency could miss the April 30 deadline depending on the comments received on its proposed designations (Greenwire, Feb. 23).
In a footnote to today's ruling, Gilliam wrote that "any such further delay is unacceptable at this stage, and EPA will be held to its promised April 30 deadline."
A separate lawsuit involving many of the same plaintiffs is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The court in that case has ordered EPA to submit a status report by May 15 (Greenwire, Feb. 7).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/03/12/stories/1060076113
-
The Government Is Nearly Done with a Major Report on Climate Change. Trump Isn’t Going to like It
Mar 12, 2018 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
The country’s top independent scientific advisory body has largely approved a major climate report being prepared by scientists within the Trump administration — suggesting that another key government document could soon emerge that contradicts President Trump’s skepticism about climate change and humans’ role in driving it.
The U.S. National Academies on Monday released a public peer review of a draft document called the U.S. National Climate Assessment, a legally required report that is being produced by the federal Global Change Research Program. The document, which is in its fourth installment, closely surveys how a changing climate is affecting individual U.S. states, regions, and economic and industrial sectors. The final version is expected later this year; the last version came out in 2014 during the Obama administration.
The process highlights how despite the changing political context — and even hints that the Trump administration may try to subject federal climate science to additional, adversarial reviews — technical government studies of climate science continue.
The report, 1,506 pages long in draft form, says U.S. temperatures will rise markedly in coming decades, accompanied by many other attendant effects. It predicts that Northeastern fisheries will be stressed by warmer ocean waters, that the Southeast will suffer from worsening water shortages, that worse extreme-weather events will tax water and other types of infrastructure, and far more.
For the most part, all of this has received a check mark from a panel of scientific referees at the National Academies.
“We had 16 experts review it, go through it in detail, see if it meets the congressionally mandated requirements, and we agree that it did,” said Robin Bell of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, chair of the committee that reviewed the report.
The draft document lays out the current and future effects on the United States at a higher level of resolution than before, Bell said, focusing closely on the Caribbean, looking separately at the northern and southern Great Plains, examining air pollution, and more.
“Coastal ecosystems are being transformed, degraded, or lost due to climate change impacts, particularly sea level rise and higher numbers of extreme weather events,” the document states.
“As the pace of coastal flooding and erosion accelerates, climate impacts along our coasts are exacerbating preexisting social inequities as communities face difficult questions on determining who will pay for current impacts and future adaptation strategies and if, how, or when to relocate vulnerable communities,” it continues.
Regarding agricultural communities, the draft states that “reduced crop yields, intensifying wildfire on rangelands, depletion of surface water supplies, and acceleration of aquifer depletion are anticipated with increased frequency and duration of drought.”
When it comes to the fundamental science of climate change, the National Climate Assessment is based, in significant part, on another report, dubbed the Climate Science Special Report, that was finalized and released by the Global Change Research Program late last year.
That document found that there was “no convincing alternative explanation” for climate change other than human activities such as fossil fuel burning. It also said a sea-level rise as high as eight feet is “physically possible” as an extreme by the year 2100, though there was no way to say how probable that is.
[ Trump administration releases report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change ]
Many scientists initially feared that the Trump administration would in some way suppress or otherwise interfere with the release of the Climate Science Special Report, given that it so thoroughly appeared to undermine the president’s personally expressed skepticism of climate change and his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change agreement. But the report was released as expected, and there were no significant cries of censorship or political meddling.
Now, the question is whether the same will occur with the longer National Climate Assessment, which goes beyond the Climate Science Special Report to locate the climate problem within specific U.S. communities and industries, describing both how they will suffer and how they are coping. The National Climate Assessment arguably has more potential for political ramifications, in that it exhaustively describes effects in specific places in the country.
“There are many stories about the change, and that’s the beauty of this, you can go to the document and find stories in your community no matter where you live in the U.S.,” Bell said.
Granted, the current review is not a 100 percent endorsement — for instance, it states that when it comes to discussing different types of scientific uncertainty, “improved differentiation and more standardized treatment is needed across the draft report.” The document also contains more than 40 pages of line edits to the longer report.
But this is not a fundamental undermining of the document — it just means more work has to be done for it to be improved before publication.
“They are meant to provide clarification and ease of use by the readers but not direction-changing sorts of recommendations,” said Daniel Cayan, a professor at the University of California at San Diego and one of the peer reviewers.
The report will be revised in light of these critiques by its federal authors — and move toward anticipated final-form publication later this year.
“There’s a tremendous interest and demand for updated information and also examples of how various communities are approaching climate issues,” Cayan said. “So, I believe that there’s a community of consumers that really are depending on the National Climate Assessment, and I would be very surprised if it does not continue and it is not sustained.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/12/the-government-is-close-to-finishing-a-climate-change-report-trump-wont-like-it/?utm_term=.d98e07a051f4
-
8th Circuit Stays Implementation of Arkansas SO2 Haze Plan
Mar 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has granted an electric utility's motion to stay implementation of an Obama-era state haze emissions reduction plan for Arkansas, while the state crafts a weaker plan with the Trump administration's backing.
In a March 7 order in State of Arkansas v. EPA, et al., the court grants utility Entergy's motion to stay application of the Obama-era federal implementation plan (FIP), pending its replacement by the revised version. The previous administration directly wrote haze reduction requirements for the state after rejecting Arkansas' own plan as inadequate.
Arkansas and Entergy sued EPA in the 8th Circuit over the FIP, which they view as too stringent, but the Trump EPA is working with the state on a revised state implementation plan (SIP) that would not require use of “scrubbers” to remove sulfur dioxide (SO2). The plan would instead rely on low-sulfur coal, which environmentalists say will not achieve the same emissions reductions.
EPA has already promulgated a plan to replace the FIP with respect to nitrogen oxides (NOx) limits, replacing it with a state plan instead, but Arkansas is still crafting an alternative SO2 plan that would ultimately also replace the Obama FIP with respect to that pollutant.
The consolidated case over the FIP has been on hold pending development of the revised SIP -- and now the court has also stopped implementation of the federal plan.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has championed the renegotiated Arkansas haze rules as an example of his vision of Clean Air Act “co-operative federalism,” under which EPA generally defers to states' judgment on how to achieve air law goals.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/8th-circuit-stays-implementation-arkansas-so2-haze-plan
-
Activists Plan Suit Over EPA Sulfur Dioxide Inaction in 11 States
Mar 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Three national environmental groups are planning to sue the EPA for failure to approve air pollution cleanup plans for 11 states.
The Sierra Club, the Center for Environmental Health and the Center for Biological Diversity sent Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt notice March 12 that they intend to sue the agency in 60 days unless it approves or denies state plans to reduce sulfur dioxide pollution in 17 parts of Midwest and Florida, including cities like Detroit and Indianapolis. The notice is a legal requirement before the groups can sue under the Clean Air Act.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The groups claim the EPA failed to act on plans submitted by Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin to limit sulfur dioxide emissions, which have been linked to asthma and other illnesses. Sulfur dioxide is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.
Under the law, the agency has six months to approve or disprove of the plans, but has not acted. The groups also claim the EPA hasn't determined whether plans in Arizona and New Jersey are complete, as mandated by the law.
“The head of the EPA is failing to protect millions of Americans from a deadly pollutant that can steal the breath out of their lungs,” Robert Ukeiley, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a March 12 statement.
The EPA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in 2017 established a policy that the agency will no longer settle court cases brought by advocacy groups seeking to force the agency to take overdue actions.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=129664792&vname=dennotallissues&fn=129664792&jd=129664792
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested