Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 19/03/18
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(ACC Mentioned) RES Polyflow Testifies Before House of Representatives Committee
Mar 19, 2018 | Recycling Today
By Hilary Crisan
A representative of RES Polyflow, a Chagrin Falls, Ohio-based plastics-to-fuel company and founding member of the Washington-based American Chemistry Council’s (ACC’s) Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means in support of broadening energy tax credits to include fuels derived from nonrecycled plastics via pyrolysis technology if those credits are extended. -
(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Industry Pushes for More Recycling Infrastructure
Mar 19, 2018 | Multibriefs Exclusive
By R.V. Scheide
With near unanimous agreement that something must be done to stem the flow of plastic waste into landfills, waterways and oceans, members of the plastics industry are working closely with recycling advocates and other stakeholders to ensure funding for recycling projects is included in the infrastructure spending bills currently being considered by Congress. -
The War on Straws Is Coming to a Bar Near You
Mar 19, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Cara Lombardo
Jennifer Call was aghast recently when the server at her go-to Asheville, N.C., pizza spot delivered her Diet Coke. -
Shut Down the Shutdowns: What the Frequency of Excess Emissions Means for Our Health
Mar 19, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Matthew Tresaugue
Oil refineries and petrochemical plants released millions of pounds of harmful chemicals into the air in the days after Hurricane Harvey began charging toward Texas. -
SBA Pledges Strict RFA Oversight
Mar 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Small Business Administration's Advocacy Office is pledging to continue closely monitoring EPA and other agencies' compliance with Regulatory Flexibility Act's (RFA) requirements to limit rules' impacts on small entities, saying such measures will further bolster the Trump administration's deregulatory efforts. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Scientist Fights for Embattled Risk-Assessment Program
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
The scientist hired in the Obama administration's twilight to revitalize U.S. EPA's troubled Integrated Risk Information System could soon find herself forced to shutter the chemical-testing effort she's been battling to save. -
Supreme Court Allows Flint Lawsuits to Proceed
Mar 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
The Supreme Court today declined to hear an appeal from the city of Flint and Michigan state that sought to block residents of the city from suing over its drinking water contamination. -
Justices Allow Flint Class-Action Claims, Reject Deference Case
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The Supreme Court will allow two class-action lawsuits filed by Flint, Mich., residents over the city's lead contamination crisis to proceed in the lower federal courts. -
U.S. Tariffs on China Could Hamper New LNG Export Projects Along Gulf Coast
Mar 19, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
New U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could make it harder for U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters to tap into China's booming market and get investors to sink money into Gulf Coast projects. -
Regulators Freeze New Gas Projects, Demand Renewables
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Arizona regulators gave the state's largest utility the cold shoulder last week, essentially rejecting Arizona Public Service Co.'s plans to double its natural gas fleet over the next 15 years. -
Perry, Pruitt, FERC Commissioners to Testify Before House Panel in April
Mar 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today announced a series of budget and oversight hearings throughout April. -
Week Ahead: Energy Budget in the Spotlight
Mar 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Energy and environment officials will be on the hot seat in the coming week as lawmakers examine President Trump's fiscal 2019 budget request. -
Trump Administration Accuses Russia of Targeting U.S. Energy Sector
Mar 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Trump administration has accused Russian government operatives of targeting the U.S. energy sector, government agencies and other critical infrastructure sectors with a series of cyberattacks for at least the last two years. -
Chemical Plume Could Threaten Lake Michigan Inlet
Mar 19, 2018 | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (In E&E Greenwire)
By Lee Bergquist
A plume of pollution from a firefighting training facility in northern Wisconsin has spread and may be leaching into the Michigan side of Green Bay, part of Lake Michigan. -
Science Reform Eyed as Path to Unravel Endangerment Finding
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
The plan now being developed at U.S. EPA to restrict the science the agency uses could affect the crafting of regulations for years and become one of the most enduring parts of Administrator Scott Pruitt's legacy.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) RES Polyflow Testifies Before House of Representatives Committee
Mar 19, 2018 | Recycling Today
By Hilary Crisan
A representative of RES Polyflow, a Chagrin Falls, Ohio-based plastics-to-fuel company and founding member of the Washington-based American Chemistry Council’s (ACC’s) Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means in support of broadening energy tax credits to include fuels derived from nonrecycled plastics via pyrolysis technology if those credits are extended.
Pyrolysis manufacturers use an oxygen-free process to convert postconsumer nonrecycled plastics into fuels such as diesel and gasoline, industrial products such as waxes and feedstocks for the manufacturing of new plastics and chemicals.
Qualifying for the Alternative Fuel Credit and Alternative Fuel Mixture Credit would provide buyers and sellers of pyrolysis-generated fuels a 50-cents-per-gallon credit against excise taxes. This would enhance the value of pyrolysis-generated fuels in the marketplace by making them more attractive to fuel blenders and retailers, ACC says.
“We are a fledgling industry that is creating alternative fuels while providing a solution for valuable postuse plastics that would otherwise be buried in a landfill,” Mike Dungan, director of sales and marketing for RES Polyflow, says. “Qualifying for these tax credits and achieving parity with other alternative fuels is critical so our industry does not continue to operate at a competitive disadvantage.”
A study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, last year found that using ultra-low sulfur diesel derived from postconsumer nonrecycled plastics reduced greenhouse gas emissions up to 14 percent, fresh water consumption up to 58 percent and fossil energy use up to 96 percent compared to traditional sourcing.
“Smart, targeted federal tax policy can help jump start this industry, so we can produce high-value fuels from low-value postuse materials and further conserve environmental resources,” Dungan says.
http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/res-polyflow-testifies-before-house-of-representatives-committee/
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(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Industry Pushes for More Recycling Infrastructure
Mar 19, 2018 | Multibriefs Exclusive
By R.V. Scheide
With near unanimous agreement that something must be done to stem the flow of plastic waste into landfills, waterways and oceans, members of the plastics industry are working closely with recycling advocates and other stakeholders to ensure funding for recycling projects is included in the infrastructure spending bills currently being considered by Congress.
"When it comes to marine debris and litter, we are often in agreement with plastics critics about the overall problem: that waste materials should not end up in places they do not belong," explained Scott DeFife, vice president for government affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based Plastics Industry Association, which represents every segment of the plastics supply chain.
"As an association that represents plastic manufacturers," he continued, "people who take pride and joy in making products that keep food safe and enable life-saving devices in hospitals, the last place we want to see our members' products end up is on a sidewalk or in the marine environment."
Plastic waste in the marine environment has become a global cause for concern. In California, the Legislature banned single-use plastic bags in grocery stores in 2016, and a similar bill proposes to ban unattached plastic bottle caps. Plastic drinking straws are also on the list.
Yet at the same time, the state's vaunted 30-year-old "Bottle Bill" program, which provides subsidies to recycling centers throughout California, appears to be breaking down.
California's 2,000 or so recycling centers, where customers exchange plastic, glass and aluminum containers for cash refunds, typically recycled more than 80 percent of the state's plastic beverage waste. After a 2016 funding shortfall that has yet to be rectified, more than 500 centers have closed, and recycling rates have fallen below 80 percent for the first time in years.
Nationally, 94 percent of Americans have access to recycling services, including 73 percent who have curbside recycling, according to a study commissioned by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. That represents a great stride forward in the recycling of all materials.
But according to the EPA, of the 35.2 million tons of plastic waste generated in the U.S. in 2014, just 9.5 percent was recycled, with another 15 percent burned in co-generation plants. The remaining 75.5 percent went into landfills. Some of that will eventually make it into waterways and into the ocean. The need for recycling infrastructure investment is self-evident.
"When discussing so called 'single-use' products, like straws or utensils, the focus shouldn't be whether we have them on not, but instead that they are disposed of properly," DeFife said. "We're serious about focusing on solutions, and that means investing in expanding recycling technology."
To that end, DeFife said the Plastics Industry Association is seeking infrastructure funding in the following areas:Investment in retrofitting materials recovery facilities (MRFs) with sorting equipment that can handle flexible film and other recyclable materials.Assistance in locating and siting of plastics recycling facilities and energy recovery facilities.Increase use of recycled material in infrastructure products, where appropriate.Broaden the use and volume of private activity bonds for recycling projects.Incentivize state and local governments to expand curbside recycling options and the range of materials collected through grants.Provide education and training to improve understanding of what is recyclable.Work with retail outlets to collect the material in the proper manner and offer more centralized commercial collection points.
Working with the Plastics Industries Association and spearheading a coalition of industries across the board in the push for infrastructure funding is The Recycling Partnership.
"We work closely with the Association of Plastic Recyclers, the American Chemistry Council and the Plastics Industry Association to help support plastics recovery and have consulted with all of them on this concept," explained Dylan de Thomas, vice president of industry collaboration at The Recycling Partnership.
"We have also talked to a broader set of stakeholders, including the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries and the Solid Waste Association of North America, because this is something that is needed across all material types, not just plastics."
The problem all of these stakeholders share? Recycling and waste management aren't necessarily high up on most politicians' lists when it comes to infrastructure projects. So far, there's been no specific funding set aside for any projects, de Thomas said.
"None that we have seen — though we have been working with other stakeholders in the industry to push for recycling infrastructure to be included in bills," he said. "According to our colleagues in D.C., there is preliminary bipartisan support for the concept, so we will be working to flesh out the concept."
The Recycling Partnership sponsors polices that promote curbside recycling programs that aren't material-specific. But outside the legislative arena, it has been deeply involved with the Recycling Demand Champions program, the Association of Plastic Recyclers' campaign to promote the use and development of new recyclable plastic products in communities nationwide.
In May, the Plastics Industry Association will launch "This Is Plastic," a web portal designed designed "to empower people who work in plastics to explain the power of plastics to family, friends and neighbors."
The searchable website will feature articles, images, interactive quizzes and videos that can shared on social media to help inspire more meaningful conversations about plastic waste when someone in all earnestness says "just ban it."
"Focusing on bans of specific products ignores the discussion of overall environmental impact of the alternatives," DeFife said. "Banning one material usually means it is replaced with another, which doesn't solve the actual end goal of reducing waste through proper disposal."
http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/plastics-industry-pushes-for-more-recycling-infrastructure/manufacturing
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The War on Straws Is Coming to a Bar Near You
Mar 19, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Cara Lombardo
Jennifer Call was aghast recently when the server at her go-to Asheville, N.C., pizza spot delivered her Diet Coke.
It was missing the straw!
The server explained she had stopped giving them out automatically. Having worked in food service, Ms. Call says, she has memories of lipstick lingering after dishwashing.
“Let me see your glass racks,” she says, “and then I’ll decide if I don’t want a straw.” Besides, she says, drinking through a straw is more fun.
She requested one and got it.
Ms. Call, 30 years old, was caught up in a war on straws declared by a growing cadre of bartenders, liquor companies, celebrities and environmentalists. They argue too many of the plastic drinking devices—from big soda straws to little cocktail numbers—end up in the ocean.
“We see straws as a ‘gateway plastic’ in understanding the pollution problem,” said actor Adrian Grenier in a news release championing the cause.
The Scotch Whisky Association and the makers of Absolut vodka and Tanqueray gin have announced plans to ban plastic straws and stirrers from their events.
Celebrities such as Mr. Grenier have pushed the cause on social media, encouraging people to #StopSucking. A California lawmaker has introduced a pending bill that would outlaw servers’ giving plastic straws to diners by default, and several U.S. cities are banning them or curtailing their use.
Bartender Claire Sprouse, 33, travels the country teaching fellow servers how to create less waste. “The first thing we try to talk about,” the Brooklyn, N.Y., mixologist says, “is that you don’t always have to stick a straw in something.”
Ms. Sprouse recommends paper straws to her customers. “The biggest complaint about paper straws is that they disintegrate. I just tell people to drink faster.”
Nick Jackson, who mixes drinks at Ward III in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, says he deploys plastic straws only under certain conditions, such as when a mint-leaf garnish would tickle a patron’s face.
It isn’t clear if the efforts are crimping the straw market. The Plastics Industry Association doesn’t have straw data. Straw maker Fuling Global Inc. says it supplies about 5 billion straws a year to some of the country’s largest fast-food chains and estimates U.S. consumers use 20 billion plastic straws annually. Fuling CEO Xinfu Hu says that the company has made prototypes of biodegradable plastic straws and thinks the government should promote use of such straws.
Mia Freis Quinn, a spokeswoman for the association, says the plastic straw’s detractors should focus on finding ways to recycle and recover them. Plastic straws, she says, play vital roles in everything from her children’s class projects to personal hygiene.
“My dentist says if you’re not drinking water, you better be using a straw.”
The American Dental Association suggests using straws to prevent tooth erosion, recommending using a straw “palatally,” placing the end behind the teeth.
Straws date back to at least 2,500 B.C., when wealthy Sumerians likely shared pots of beer using metal straws more than 4 feet long, says William Hafford, a University of Pennsylvania researcher. Other iterations were of reeds and paper. Plastic straws created a splash in the 1960s because they were cheap but didn’t fall apart.
The straw that stirred the drink, by many accounts, was a fourth-grader in Vermont named Milo Cress, who in 2011 decided to quantify how many straws end up discarded. “I just started noticing the vast amount of straws that would come with every meal,” says Mr. Cress, now a high-school junior. “You wind up with piles of straws on the table.”
He and his mother called straw manufacturers and estimated U.S. diners throw away 500 million straws daily, or more than 1.5 a person. The figure became the go-to straw statistic, appearing in hundreds of media reports, corporate sustainability initiatives and on the National Park Service website.
A 2015 YouTube video, “Sea Turtle with Straw up its Nostril,” gave the movement a mascot. The video of marine biologists extracting the straw has been viewed more than 19 million times.
Bacardi Ltd. cited the 500 million estimate when it became one of the first spirits makers to take a stand against plastic straws and swizzle sticks, banning them two years ago from its events. A Bacardi spokeswoman says the initiative spares more than 1 million straws a year.Bartender Nick Jackson tries to avoid using plastic straws, except where a garnish like mint leaves might tickle a patron's face.
Pernod Ricard SA, which sells Absolut, also cited the estimate when it followed suit, saying the average straw is sipped from for 20 minutes and can take more than 200 years to break down. Pernod’s Director of Sustainability and Responsibility, John Tran, says: “We have asked our agencies to remove them from images.”
At a March event by Smirnoff, owned along with Tanqueray by Diageo PLC, which also dropped plastic straws, guests downed Moscow Mules quickly to prevent paper straws from disintegrating.
Mr. Cress’s mother, Odale Cress, says raising awareness has been great. She doesn’t like the idea of completely banning straws, preferring policies that don’t give straws automatically. “If people ban straws, I don’t really know what’s going to happen with milkshakes.”
New York City resident Chris McCoy, 58, says he is “adamant” about getting a plastic straw if a restaurant doesn’t offer one. He refuses to drink from glass rims other mouths have touched.
“There’s so many more communicable diseases,” says Mr. McCoy, who works for a tour-bus company. “Your imagination goes into play.”
A soggy straw was what Jason Rammelsberg, 43, ended up with in Seattle, where plastic straws will be outlawed come July. The software-company manager’s encounter with a paper straw wasn’t bad for 10 minutes—until it started absorbing his Coke Zero. “Kinda near the end, I just said forget it, took the lid off and drank it like a man.”
Some bars use metal straws but say patrons like to steal them.
Bars that have cut back on straws say some patrons didn’t seem to notice. Even when the straws are there, people don’t tend to use them, says Chad Arnholt, 36, a bartender who with Ms. Sprouse runs a sustainability-consulting firm. “Most people just take the straw and they do that move where they pinch it underneath their index finger.”
Fabienne Alexis gave up straws voluntarily. To down frozen margaritas, the 41-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., marketer learned to tilt the glass to prevent blended ice from spilling on her face.
“I love to drink a lot more than I like the straw,” she says.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-war-on-straws-is-coming-to-a-bar-near-you-1521469968?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Shut Down the Shutdowns: What the Frequency of Excess Emissions Means for Our Health
Mar 19, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Matthew Tresaugue
Oil refineries and petrochemical plants released millions of pounds of harmful chemicals into the air in the days after Hurricane Harvey began charging toward Texas.
The primary reason for the extra pollution? The shutdowns and startups of dozens of industrial facilities in the storm’s path.
While these unauthorized releases are particularly striking during times of natural disasters like Harvey, they occur regularly during the routine operation of many industrial facilities, Indiana University researchers concluded in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Here are three takeaways from the study:
Startups and shutdowns are big pollution events
The study examines industry’s reports of unauthorized pollution to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, from 2002 to 2016. These releases occur when pollution controls, such as scrubbers and flares, do not fully operate during startups, shutdowns and malfunctions. Even if unintended or unavoidable, the extra pollution is in violation of federal law.
In a dramatic case, the Total refinery in Port Arthur released nearly 3 million pounds of sulfur dioxide within 56 hours in 2003 because of a power outage caused by a lightning strike. That was almost twice the amount of sulfur dioxide that the refinery emitted from routine operations that year, the researchers found.
The health damages are significant
The types of extra pollutants depend on the industrial facility, but they include cancer-causing benzene and nitrogen oxides that contribute to the formation of lung-damaging ozone, or smog.
The researchers estimate that health damages attributable to unauthorized pollution in Texas averaged $150 million between 2004 and 2015. Yet they acknowledge that the estimates are conservative because they only consider premature deaths linked to airborne particulate matter. They do not account for damages from other pollutants or from nonfatal problems, such as asthma attacks.
We can do better
In 2017, our partners Environmental Integrity Project and Environment Texas found that TCEQ penalized industry for less than 3 percent of unauthorized pollution releases over the previous five years. The commission’s unwillingness to hold industry accountable for these episodes essentially gives plant operators a pass to pollute, putting human health at risk.
We want strict and consistent enforcement of pollution limits. We also want the state to stagger startups and shutdowns in response to storms in order to minimize the cumulative impacts of pollution on the public. If you agree, please sign our letter to Gov. Abbott that demands stronger protections.
This post originally appeared on the One Breath Partnership blog.
http://blogs.edf.org/texascleanairmatters/2018/03/19/shut-down-the-shutdowns-what-the-frequency-of-excess-emissions-means-for-our-health/
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SBA Pledges Strict RFA Oversight
Mar 19, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Small Business Administration's Advocacy Office is pledging to continue closely monitoring EPA and other agencies' compliance with Regulatory Flexibility Act's (RFA) requirements to limit rules' impacts on small entities, saying such measures will further bolster the Trump administration's deregulatory efforts.
“With Advocacy’s ongoing monitoring, this important tool will continue to remind agencies that are writing new rules or reviewing existing ones to guard against 'significant economic impacts on a substantial number of small entities',” the office said in its fiscal year 2017 report on RFA implementation.
The office's annual report, released March 16, estimated that Trump administration deregulatory actions, including legislative repeals, as well as administrative delays and other actions, resulted in total regulatory savings of $913.4 million for small entities.
That includes an initial savings of $485.9 million due to delay, reevaluation, or revocation of EPA rules, though it does not quantify actions taken as a result of agencies' compliance with the RFA, which generally requires agencies to conduct an impact analysis on any rule that has a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.”
The report welcomes the administration's efforts, touting “an era of deregulation” as a result of President Donald Trump's two-for-one executive order and establishment of a Regulatory Reform Task Force.
“The subsequent regulatory and legislative improvements have solidified Advocacy’s participation in rulemakings affecting small business. What these regulatory reform initiatives all have in common is agreement that the regulatory burden on small business must be minimized,” the report says.
“Over its 37-year history, the RFA has provided federal agencies with the framework to accomplish this goal. With Advocacy’s ongoing monitoring, this important tool will continue to remind agencies that are writing new rules or reviewing existing ones to guard against 'significant economic impacts on a substantial number of small entities.'”
The report lists a series of deregulatory actions the Trump administration has taken that benefit small entities. For example, it lists a series of Obama-era rules the Trump administration has delayed, including effluent limitation guideline for power plants, the Clean Power Plan governing greenhouse gas emissions, pesticide applicator rules, updated risk management plan requirements and formaldehyde emissions standards.
The report comes as Republican lawmakers are looking to bolster the RFA through legislative remedies.
For example, S. 584, sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), would clarify which rules are subject to RFA review requirements, require agencies to assess the indirect and cumulative economic effects that a rule will have on small entities, bolster small businesses' participation in OSHA and EPA panels reviewing rules' impacts, and require the two agencies to justify their decisions to certify a rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.
The bill was placed on the Senate legislative calendar Feb. 14, signaling it could be brought up for consideration at any time.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/sba-pledges-strict-rfa-oversight
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Scientist Fights for Embattled Risk-Assessment Program
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
The scientist hired in the Obama administration's twilight to revitalize U.S. EPA's troubled Integrated Risk Information System could soon find herself forced to shutter the chemical-testing effort she's been battling to save.
Kristina Thayer's program — known by its acronym, IRIS — is unpopular with the chemical industry, its allies on Capitol Hill and the Trump administration. The omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal 2018 set for release tonight is expected to slash or entirely end funding for IRIS.
Thayer recalled her late-November 2016 arrival at EPA in a recent interview.
"I knew after the election that this might be a challenging time to come to EPA," she said.
The former National Institutes of Health scientist spoke to E&E News on the sidelines last month of a high-profile review of IRIS by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Thayer and public health advocates hope that review might serve as a lifeline for the endangered program.
Thayer and other IRIS backers might have initially drawn some encouragement from EPA's claims that enhanced chemical safety fits with Administrator Scott Pruitt's "back to basics" agenda.
But EPA's actions since then suggest otherwise.
The agency has moved to close its National Center for Environmental Research and held up draft regulations on chemicals like trichloroethylene, a dry-cleaning solvent that IRIS has foundis carcinogenic to humans and can lead to developmental and immune system problems (E&E News PM, Dec. 14, 2017).
Meanwhile, the funding bill that Congress must pass by midnight Friday to avert a government shutdown poses an existential threat to IRIS. A bill released by Senate appropriators last November would zero-out IRIS's annual budget of just less than $22 million.
That Senate spending package for environmental agencies — now under consideration as part of the must-pass omnibus — would also shift responsibility for chemical assessments from EPA's Office of Research and Development to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The top political official in the chemical safety office is Nancy Beck, a former executive at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry group (Greenwire, Nov. 21, 2017).
The chemical assessment program and its 30 full-time staffers have long been housed in the agency's R&D arm, EPA's website explains, because "it ensures that IRIS can develop impartial toxicity information independent of its use by EPA's program and regional offices."
The chemical safety branch and regulatory offices where science is translated into action are more prone to political influence than the R&D office. Public health experts say politicization will worsen if IRIS is eliminated and Beck is given oversight of all chemical assessments.
"During the past year, from both within and without, EPA's traditional, even legendary, commitment to top-grade peer-reviewed science — done by scientists applying professional protocols without fear or favor — has been fiercely attacked by the regulated community, by Congress members and by some of the agency's own political appointees," Karl Brooks, a top Obama EPA official, told the National Academies. "I have never witnessed or studied such an obvious, straightforward and unapologetic campaign to replace and to dilute professional science with political expedience."Reform push
IRIS began its work — evaluating chemicals that people incidentally consume or inhale — in 1985.
The tiny program's peer-reviewed assessments of published research are often used by state, federal and international regulators to set emissions limits for the chemicals in question, which is why it has long been the focus of industry opposition and congressional scrutiny. For instance, in the past decade, IRIS has been the sole subject of five hearings in the House science committee alone.
Prior to Thayer's arrival, IRIS's output had ground to a halt.
IRIS said in 2003 that 50 new or updated toxicity assessments were needed each year to meet the needs of regulators. But the program completed three assessments in 2013, one in 2014 and none in 2015.
In part due to the program's lack of productivity, EPA's process for assessing and controlling toxic chemicals has been a fixture on the Government Accountability Office's "high risk" list since 2009 (Greenwire, Feb. 12, 2015).
When GAO's most recent annual risk report was released a few months after Thayer had taken the helm, the watchdog agency credited EPA with improving the chemical assessment process.
Yet IRIS and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) programs remained on the risk list because EPA still "had not developed sufficient chemical assessment information under these programs to limit exposure to many chemicals that may pose substantial health risks," GAO said in February 2017.
Since then, Thayer has helped IRIS make significant strides in its procedures and politics.
Tina Bahadori. U.S. EPA
She was helped in that effort by Tina Bahadori, who oversees IRIS as director of EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) and was hired around the same time as Thayer. Bahadori had spent nearly a dozen years at ACC before joining EPA in 2012 to lead its Chemical Safety for Sustainability research program.
Thayer and Bahadori both came to EPA via a special authority the agency can use to attract or retain top scientists. That authority allows for pay above the federal pay scale, which maxed out at $189,600 this year. But they also have fewer job protections than typical career employees.
"Tina comes with a lot of knowledge of the private sector and how it works," Thayer said of her boss, who also spent two years at the Electric Power Research Institute, a utility trade group. The IRIS director, on the other hand, began her career in public health by working at environmental groups.
"Our combined expertise have really complimented each other," Thayer said.
Under their leadership, IRIS has begun assessing chemicals using systemic review methods, which are formalized processes to identify, select and evaluate scientific evidence of varying relevance and quality. Thayer and Bahadori also modernized IRIS's research processes, broke up its assessments into more manageable pieces and created additional opportunities for public engagement, they told the National Academies panel.
Bahadori, meanwhile, has integrated IRIS's work into NCEA more closely so the program can draw on the specialized expertise of the center's scientists and refocused IRIS to help the toxics office meet the chemical review goals established by the 2016 TSCA reform law, which requires the office to complete reviews of 10 highly hazardous chemicals by 2019 and then ramp up to at least 20 reviews at a time (E&E News PM, Nov. 29, 2016).
The bottom line for IRIS is "we have to get a draft assessment done in two years and a peer review done in an additional year," Bahadori told the National Academies' panel. "So we are aiming for that three-year cycle, and in some cases faster than that."
She added, "You don't have to take my word for it. Let's see if we can actually deliver on this. That's our goal."Political moves
Getting the National Academies to evaluate IRIS may be Thayer and Bahadori's most consequential achievement so far.
EPA requested the review even after a confidential draft budget last March called for eliminating the program (Greenwire, Dec. 1, 2017).
With the National Academies' report looming, the White House's final 2019 budget proposal called for IRIS to receive nearly $12 million, which would shrink but not eliminate the chemical assessment program.
The National Academies are due to weigh in on the collective efforts of Thayer and Bahadori sometime this spring. Unless the panel comes back with a critical review, public health advocates hope that appropriators and the Trump administration will keep IRIS alive (Greenwire, Feb. 2).
In the meantime, the unlikely duo of former environmental and industry scientists are making themselves known at EPA.
They moved NCEA from its Potomac Yard offices in Alexandria, Va., to the fifth and seventh floors of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, across a courtyard from decisionmakers on Pruitt's team at EPA headquarters. And Thayer, whose 12-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter still live near the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, last year spent nearly 70 percent of her time working in the Washington region.
"People within my division are both physically here and in North Carolina," she said. "But I wanted to make a lot of in-person contacts."
EPA's press office didn't respond to a request for comment on the work of Thayer and Bahadori. But a spokeswoman said EPA "is currently reviewing the program to ensure it meets the highest standards to support EPA's programs."
ACC, Bahadori's former employer, declined to comment on the work she and Thayer are doing to save IRIS.
After the National Academies' workshop, however, an ACC spokesman cast doubt on their efforts and the usefulness of the review itself.
If previous recommendations by the National Academies had been fully adopted, the spokesman said, "the program would be operating in a more functional manner and would be able to produce chemical assessments in a way that is transparent to the public, timely and reflective of the best current scientific methodologies."
"The value of the IRIS and its future within EPA," he said, "should be left to Congress and EPA leadership to determine."'There is no free time'
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences headquarters in Durham, N.C. NIEHS
Thayer believes her background has well prepared her to face the challenges industry opposition or Pruitt's deregulatory focus may bring to IRIS.
That's in part due to the more than a decade she spent at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). During her time there, she studied the health effects of widely used compounds like fluoride and bisphenol A, or BPA.
"I'm not new to the game of coming up with conclusions on controversial chemicals where not everybody is happy with the results," said Thayer.
At NIEHS, Thayer also became an expert in systemic reviews. The process had long been used in clinical medicine and drug trials, but it was relatively new to the field of environmental health when Thayer began working on it.
Previous National Academies' panels have called for IRIS to apply systemic review methods to chemical assessments. So Obama-era officials saw Thayer as a logical pick to overhaul what was then, by most accounts, a deeply troubled program.
Even the few years Thayer spent working for the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Working Group have proven valuable in her current position, she said.
"My experience in the nonprofit world is how to do more with less," the IRIS director said.
"That's actually, frankly, one of the reasons why I wasn't put off by this position," she added. "I fundamentally like the challenge of how do you take small teams and really make them deliver products that outsize the manpower, if you will."
Friends and public health colleagues — more than a half dozen of whom spoke to E&E News for this story — say the effort to save IRIS has placed an emotional strain on Thayer and her family.
Thayer herself said the experience has been "absolutely insane."
This year, the IRIS director plans to give up her apartment in suburban Washington and "be more anchored" at EPA's Research Triangle Park office, where she'll be closer to her children and many of the program's scientists.
"There is no free time," she said when asked about her hobbies, including playing pool. "It's kids, and it's work."
If Thayer was concerned about the future of that work, she did her best to hide it in the interview last month. Since then, however, she hasn't responded to follow-up questions or interview requests.
"We focus on the day to day," she said before heading back into the National Academies review. "There's a lot of answers we don't have yet, but we have to just keep doing our jobs."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/19/stories/1060076739
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Supreme Court Allows Flint Lawsuits to Proceed
Mar 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
The Supreme Court today declined to hear an appeal from the city of Flint and Michigan state that sought to block residents of the city from suing over its drinking water contamination.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling in July 2017, deciding that residents could bring constitutional claims against their local and state governments and political officials, despite the fact that the Safe Drinking Water Act offers other mechanisms for dealing with tainted drinking water. The residents are claiming that their rights to due process and equal protection under the law were violated by the crisis that exposed nearly 100,000 residents to unsafe levels of lead.
Government entities and political officials, including Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and his appointed emergency managers, asked the high court to review that decision, arguing that the processes for handling drinking water violations under the Safe Drinking Water Act preclude constitutional challenges.
With the appellate court's decision standing, the trio of lawsuits from residents and local businesses can now proceed on their merits.
WHAT'S NEXT: The three lawsuits brought by Flint residents claiming constitutional violations from the lead drinking water crisis can now proceed in federal district court.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Justices Allow Flint Class-Action Claims, Reject Deference Case
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The Supreme Court will allow two class-action lawsuits filed by Flint, Mich., residents over the city's lead contamination crisis to proceed in the lower federal courts.
Justices today denied petitions by Michigan officials seeking to appeal a decision last year by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived the claims.
Under the oversight of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint stopped buying Lake Huron water from Detroit in 2014 and began pumping from the Flint River in an effort to save money. The new source of water corroded lead pipes, causing widespread contamination.
Flint residents brought constitutional claims under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code, a vehicle for enforcing constitutional rights created by civil rights laws.
They argued that the city and state violated the Constitution's equal protection clause and their due process and property rights through the water contamination.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan initially tossed out the suits, finding that the Safe Drinking Water Act, which has its own enforcement mechanisms for addressing water pollution, pre-empted the claims.
But the 6th Circuit reversed the decision in August 2017, ruling that the Safe Drinking Water Act wasn't equipped to address the residents' constitutional claims. The court sent the lawsuits back to district court (Greenwire, Aug. 1, 2017).
The city of Flint, former state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley, former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant and other officials appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the district court was correct in concluding that the SDWA foreclosed the residents' claims.
"It's still a long road to justice for the people of Flint, but they're one step closer to obtaining accountability for the water crisis," Samuel Bagenstos, a lawyer who represented the residents in briefing in front of the Supreme Court, tweeted this morning.Agency deference
The Supreme Court today also declined to take up a dispute between a construction company and the Department of Defense that could have constrained an agency deference doctrine.
At issue in the case was a legal doctrine known as Auer deference. Unlike the more common Chevron legal doctrine, in which judges defer to agencies' interpretations of law if Congress is silent or ambiguous on an issue, Auer applies to how government agencies describe and enact their own regulations.
Also referred to as Seminole Rock deference, the doctrine often plays a key role in environmental litigation against the government.
Garco Construction Inc. had argued that the Army Corps of Engineers had illegally denied access to employees of its subcontractor to a construction site at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
The corps said its policy required background checks and excluded many individuals with criminal histories, even if they didn't have any warrants.
Garco appealed to the Supreme Court when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit deferred to the Army Corps' interpretation. The company argued that the Army Corps' view of its policy was overly broad and showed the need to re-examine Auer deference.
While the Supreme Court denied the petition, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissent, writing that the lawsuit would have been the "ideal case" to take up the agency deference doctrine, "as it illustrates the problems that the doctrine creates."
Thomas wrote that while the military receives substantial deference on matters of tactics and security, the courts shouldn't automatically defer to it on the issue of interpreting its base access policy.
There has recently been a great deal of debate in legal circles on the future of agency deference doctrines. The court, though, has punted on taking up Auer several times over the last couple of years.
The dissent by Thomas, who called the doctrine "constitutionally suspect," will likely add fuel to calls for its demise.
"By all accounts, Seminole Rock deference is 'on its last gasp,'" Thomas wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/19/stories/1060076733
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U.S. Tariffs on China Could Hamper New LNG Export Projects Along Gulf Coast
Mar 19, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
New U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could make it harder for U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters to tap into China's booming market and get investors to sink money into Gulf Coast projects.
If the Trump Administration follows through on reported plans to impose tariffs targeting roughly $60 billion in Chinese goods per year, the new trade policy could exacerbate U.S. investors' anxiety over signing long-term LNG contracts with trading partners they already consider unreliable.
"Contracts with Chinese buyers may be off the table for the next wave of projects," said Katie Bays, an energy investment analyst at Height Capital Markets in Washington D.C.
U.S. LNG exporters have planned about a dozen new multibillion-dollar projects to send shale gas overseas from the Texas and Louisiana coastlines, but most of these haven't been officially sanctioned yet. Companies are still securing long-term contracts with foreign gas buyers and shoring up investments from outside financiers.
So far, only Houston LNG exporter Cheniere Energy, with its cash already coming in from overseas sales, has been able to lock into long-term gas export deals with a buyer in China.
And even though China's demand for natural gas is expected to more than double over the next few years, investors in Cheniere's U.S. LNG rivals are still grappling with credit-quality concerns and fears over whether Chinese counterparties will honor long-term contracts that typically have to hold up for two decades.
"With China as the largest growing buyer in the LNG market, they're clearly a very important driver for any project that would like to enter service in the near future," Bays said. But the obstacles in locking down a contract in China will only increase, she said, if "China seeks retaliatory measures" for U.S. tariffs.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/U-S-tariffs-on-China-could-hamper-new-LNG-export-12764144.php
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Regulators Freeze New Gas Projects, Demand Renewables
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Arizona regulators gave the state's largest utility the cold shoulder last week, essentially rejecting Arizona Public Service Co.'s plans to double its natural gas fleet over the next 15 years.
Instead, they imposed a temporary freeze on most new natural gas projects and asked the power company to draw up plans for acquiring more renewable energy.
The decision sent tremors across the Southwest. Observers said they could not recall a time when Arizona's utility commission, where Republicans control all five seats, had rebuffed a long-term plan from one of the state's utilities. Greens heralded the move, saying it would speed the transition to renewables in one of America's fastest-growing states.
"I don't want to overstate national implications, but I do think it's recognition that continued investment in natural gas is risky," said Stacy Tellinghuisen, a senior climate policy analyst at Western Resource Advocates. "Commissioners are seeing clean energy is cheaper. They're seeing that's what the public wants. So I think this decision reflects all those factors."
Arizona's power sector is in a state of upheaval. Coal interests are fighting to stave off the retirement of an iconic plant that has long powered the state economy. Utilities and solar companies have battled over residential and commercial installations. And a former utility commissioner was indicted on federal bribery charges last year, prompting fresh questioning about the relationship between Arizona regulators and the companies they oversee.
That was the backdrop for last week's deliberations at the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities in the state.
Arizona Public Service's 15-year plan called for adding 5.3 gigawatts of natural gas by 2032, bringing the company's total gas capacity to 8.7 GW. By contrast, the company called for adding 183 megawatts of renewables. Roughly 702 MW of coal is projected to be retired in that time.
The utility's plans forecast 3.3 GW of distributed solar, but those projections drew scoffs from environmentalists, who noted that APS has fought efforts to install panels on residential and commercial rooftops.
Commissioners ultimately expressed worry that the company had overestimated demand growth and did not sufficiently consider the impact of potential increases in natural gas prices on consumers.
They imposed a temporary moratorium on buying or building new natural gas capacity over 150 MW and ordered APS to return with plans to acquire more renewables.
"It's time for this commission and those who can be held accountable to set the policy and set the plan, rather than the other way around," Commissioner Andy Tobin said in an interview.
APS said it disagrees with the commission's decision, saying it remains committed to a diverse energy mix. Natural gas can provide flexibility to support the growth in renewables, the company said.
"Our plan keeps Arizona on course for a cleaner energy future," the company said in a statement.
Arizona utilities have long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the state's regulators. Few, if any, long-term plans have ever been rejected by the commission, said Amanda Ormond, a former director of the energy office at the Arizona commerce department who now operates a consulting firm.
But the relationship between regulators and the companies they oversee has come under greater scrutiny in the last year, after a former ACC member was indicted on federal bribery charges.
Former Commissioner Gary Pierce is alleged to have accepted $31,000 in bribes in exchange for approving a water utility's rate increase. The charges came on the heels of questions about APS contributing to the campaigns of its preferred ACC candidates.
The APS case represented something of a test for whether the commission would stand up to the power company, Ormond said. APS predicted steep demand growth despite the fact that electricity demand has been stagnant in recent years. It also heavily weighted its portfolio toward natural gas.
"I think if the plan had even somewhat more balanced, we wouldn't have seen this outcome. But because it was all natural gas and no utility solar, the commission had no choice," she said. "Utilities have a new bar they need to meet. They have to prove that putting more gas on the system is necessary and will provide value. That certainly wasn't proven here."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/19/stories/1060076697
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Perry, Pruitt, FERC Commissioners to Testify Before House Panel in April
Mar 19, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today announced a series of budget and oversight hearings throughout April.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry will testify before the Energy subcommittee on April 12.
All FERC commissioners will testify before the same subpanel on April 17.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sits down with the Environment subcommittee on April 26, one day later than Chairman Greg Walden previously indicated.
"We’re looking forward to hearing from the heads of these three agencies for a much-needed update on their work thus far and to ensure they’re prepared to effectively carry out their missions in an evolving world," Walden, as well as subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton and John Shimkus, said in a joint statement.
WHAT’S NEXT: The officials head to the committee for testimony throughout April.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Week Ahead: Energy Budget in the Spotlight
Mar 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Energy and environment officials will be on the hot seat in the coming week as lawmakers examine President Trump's fiscal 2019 budget request.
It'll be the second week of hearings following three with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
The pair were grilled not only on Trump's proposed cuts to their departments but on a host of controversial policies. Zinke found himself on the defensive over Interior's elephant trophy hunting policies.
Perry is returning to Capitol Hill for a Tuesday hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his budget request. The Trump administration is seeking to slightly increase the department's budget to $30.6 billion, but that figure includes big cuts to some civilian programs, like the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy.
The remaining budget hearings for the week feature non-Cabinet officials.
House Appropriations Committee subpanels will be examining the budget requests for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the applied energy programs at the Energy Department.
Meanwhile, subcommittees of the House Natural Resources Committee will turn their focus to the Interior Department's American Indian and insular affairs programs and the Bureau of Reclamation and the federally-owned power administrations in two separate hearings.
The House Energy and Commerce's subcommittees on the environment and on the energy planning a Tuesday hearing on the budget of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In case all of the budget action isn't enough, Friday is also the deadline for Congress to pass spending legislation and avoid another government shutdown.
Lawmakers are closer this time than they have been in the run-ups to previous deadlines, but there are no guarantees.
The final bills are likely to reject many of the big cuts Trump proposed to government programs last year.
Because the spending bill is also the last major piece of legislation likely to pass before the midterms, lawmakers are scrambling to throw in other measures.
The bill could include some important policy provisions, like a measure making it easier for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Water Rule, or one changing the EPA's 2015 ozone regulation.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will meet Thursday to discuss three bills related to water infrastructure and droughts.
The House Natural Resources Committee will vote Wednesday on four bills related to land management, national parks and fishing.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/378846-week-ahead-energy-budget-in-the-spotlight
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Trump Administration Accuses Russia of Targeting U.S. Energy Sector
Mar 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Trump administration has accused Russian government operatives of targeting the U.S. energy sector, government agencies and other critical infrastructure sectors with a series of cyberattacks for at least the last two years.
Meanwhile, a new poll shows a majority of Americans believe the nation's electric grid is vulnerable to a cyber or physical attack, with only 8% of respondents saying they believe the U.S. government is doing all it should to prevent such incidents.
In a joint technical alert (JTA) issued last Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said its agents, as well as those with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), discovered Russians, aka threat actors, had since at least March 2016 "targeted government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation and critical manufacturing sectors...
"The threat actors appear to have deliberately chosen the organizations they targeted, rather than pursuing them as targets of opportunity," DHS said. It added that staging targets, aka peripheral organizations, such as trusted third-party suppliers with less secure networks, "held preexisting relationships with many of the intended targets.
"DHS analysis identified the threat actors accessing publicly available information hosted by organization-monitored networks during the reconnaissance phase. Based on forensic analysis, DHS assesses the threat actors sought information on network and organizational design and control system capabilities within organizations."
Within the energy sector, DHS said on multiple occasions, Russians tried to tamper with U.S. power plants by gaining access to critical data stored on workstations and servers connected to a corporate network. The Russians accessed files pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.
The JTA included an image that appears to be a screenshot of a computer screen at a power plant. According to DHS, its agents created the image by reconstructing several fragments that Russians appear to have accessed.
DHS said the Russians used several tactics, including spear-phishing emails and watering-hole domains, to collect information on their targets.
"In some cases, information posted to company websites, especially information that may appear to be innocuous, may contain operationally sensitive information," DHS said.
DHS cited an example where Russians had "downloaded a small photo from a publicly accessible human resources page. The image, when expanded, was a high-resolution photo that displayed control systems equipment models and status information in the background."
DHS and the FBI recommended that network administrators review a list of internet protocol, or IP addresses, along with domain names, file hashes and YARA and Snort signatures included in the JTA. The agencies recommended adding the IPs to their watch list "to determine whether malicious activity is occurring within their organization."
Grid Vulnerable, Says Poll
According to a poll commissioned by Protect Our Power (POP), a Florida-based nonprofit focused on protecting the U.S. electric grid, 62% of respondents believe the grid is vulnerable to an attack by foreign enemies.
The poll also found that 66% of respondents were unprepared for an extended power outage, while 69% were aware of threats to the grid. Another 75% of respondents said they believe federal legislation for improving critical infrastructure should include funding for the electric grid.
"As we have seen in today's joint warning from DHS and the FBI, foreign entities are becoming increasingly successful in infiltrating our electric grid and it may only be a matter of time until serious damage is done," said POP Executive Director Jim Cunningham. "Our poll shows that the American people are increasingly aware of and concerned about the vulnerabilities of our electrical systems, and that's why they're asking the government to act more aggressively in addressing this urgent threat."
POP’s Suedeen Kelly, regulatory counsel and a former commissioner at FERC, concurred.
"The complexity of how the nation's electric grid is operated and regulated presents very real challenges when trying to take significant steps forward in cyber security," Kelly said. "The public understands the need for coordination across agencies and entities, and our poll shows that the public expects the government to be a leader in getting the affected parties on the same page and urgently taking concrete steps to secure the grid now.
"We should not keep kicking this can down the road. The time for federal regulators and Congress to act is now, before it is too late."
The poll, conducted by SurveyMonkey for POP, took responses from 1,239 Americans during the first week of March. It has a sampling error of plus/minus 3%.
Russian meddling in the U.S. energy grid was also a topic of discussion during a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting last Thursday.
"Our internal focus already is very high on cyber in our Office of Electric Reliability," FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said. "We are focusing increasing amounts of time on cyber protection in coordination with other governmental entities on these important areas.
"It's fast moving. Frankly, some of it is a little bit scary, but we keep our eye on the ball and stay focused on it. We try our best as an agency to stay up to speed on it."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113740-trump-administration-accuses-russia-of-targeting-us-energy-sector
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Chemical Plume Could Threaten Lake Michigan Inlet
Mar 19, 2018 | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (In E&E Greenwire)
By Lee Bergquist
A plume of pollution from a firefighting training facility in northern Wisconsin has spread and may be leaching into the Michigan side of Green Bay, part of Lake Michigan.
The chemicals — perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS — have contaminated groundwater near a site in Marinette, Wis., operated by Tyco Fire Products LP.
The company, owned by Johnson Controls International PLC, started supplying bottled water to nearby residents in December and is developing a cleanup plan with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
PFOA and PFOS have been used for decades in firefighting foam and a variety of industrial and commercial products. They are not formally regulated by the federal government, but U.S. EPA sees them as an emerging health threat and in 2016 issued an advisory with a recommended limit for drinking water.
"We remain committed to this community. We live here and we work here," said Fraser Engerman, director of global media relations for Johnson Controls International.
The company this month submitted plans to determine the scope of the problem, which the state DNR is now reviewing.
Steve Ales of the Wisconsin agency said it's likely the pollution has hit Green Bay, though there's no data yet to confirm it.
"It's huge," said Jeff Lamont, a property owner and professional hydrogeologist whose well has been tainted with the chemicals. "I just don't think we know the full impact of this yet."
He added, "It's definitely pooping out into the bay."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/19/stories/1060076721
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Science Reform Eyed as Path to Unravel Endangerment Finding
Mar 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
The plan now being developed at U.S. EPA to restrict the science the agency uses could affect the crafting of regulations for years and become one of the most enduring parts of Administrator Scott Pruitt's legacy.
The plan under consideration is expected to limit the science used in EPA regulation to studies where the data could be published and reproduced. And while the agency is still considering the exact scope of its restrictions, both critics and supporters of the plan agree that it will fundamentally transform the way EPA uses research.
Supporters say it will prevent opaque "secret science" from being used to form regulations that could affect billions of dollars in economic activity. Opponents say it will eliminate from consideration much of the groundbreaking research the agency has used to protect Americans against pollution.
EPA's expected reform efforts are inspired by legislative measures boosted by Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and one of Congress' chief antagonists toward mainstream climate scientists. Smith has pushed legislation in recent years that would require new EPA regulations to be based on science that is reproducible and whose data is public. The most recent iteration of Smith's legislation, which is called the "Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment (HONEST) Act," passed out of the House a year ago but has failed to advance in the Senate.
But a group of influential conservative voices, including Trump EPA transition team members and researchers from conservative think tanks, want Pruitt to go further. They want Pruitt — who recently told a group of conservatives gathered at the Heritage Foundation that the agency was working on the issue — to impose the requirement on all science used at the agency. Some even see it as a way to potentially go after the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, which is the legal underpinning of EPA's climate regulations.
Science transparency can be used to go after the supporting documents for the endangerment finding, to evaluate its quality, said Pat Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the libertarian Cato Institute, which had a representative at the Heritage Foundation meeting. Michaels has long criticized climate models used in future predictions, and he believes that making data around the models transparent would prove his theory and make it easier to pick apart the models.
"We're all for rigorous examination of the models that are being used, especially the models for the endangerment finding," he said. "It's pretty apparent they're not working well, and if, for some reason, it's left to me and my few friends to point this out, I think it would be a good idea [and] that the agency should do it."
Regardless of whether it becomes a club against the endangerment finding, the directive could have significant impacts for studies now in place, said Bernard Goldstein, dean emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the former EPA assistant administrator for research and development in the Reagan administration. For example, air pollution rules must be re-evaluated by the agency every five years under the Clean Air Act, and the science data directive could sharply limit "just about everything" in those reviews, he said. That includes research from around the world, and there is little chance that scientists in Britain, France or Australia would turn over raw data to the Trump administration, he said.
"You're basically throwing out the data you have, that you've built up over many, many years," he said.
In pushing back against the estimates by EPA's career staff that the "HONEST Act" would cost more than $250 million annually, Pruitt's EPA staff suggested that it would not apply to many studies that it would rely upon, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. That may suggest that the agency is now looking at crafting the plan to fit future regulations, rather than a retroactive look at those in place. That would mean Pruitt could roll out the plan in a dramatic public presentation as he did with his reform of the science advisory boards, but it would have a far smaller impact.
EPA didn't respond to a request for comment about the expected announcement.Bad for industry?
Critics of the proposal say it would have lasting damage and might even earn industry's ire because it could easily be reversed by the next administration.
The requirement would privilege industry data, because many key studies upon which regulations were built are historical and don't have raw data available, said David Michaels, a George Washington University epidemiologist and former assistant secretary at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the Obama administration. That means EPA's regulatory, or deregulatory, agenda wouldn't be based on the best available science but only that which has been produced by industry and has raw data. One example, he said, of studies that would be excluded by data restrictions is some of the key research on lead, which goes back years, and which Pruitt has said is a priority for the agency this year.
"Industry would provide the studies they've done that show the effects are minimal or less, and they would provide the raw data," he said. "But some of the historical studies which have found a higher risk associated with this exposure might not be available, and so this sort of process could support that rolling back of regulations even though good science would tell you not to do that."
Even if the science reforms are issued through a directive, and it is wiped out by the first post-Trump EPA administrator, it has the potential to create lasting damage for years, he said. That sort of back-and-forth creates an uncertainty that even industry will oppose, he said.
"If this is being used to alter regulation, then those take many years to change, and that's a concern," he said. "It's bad for public health; it's bad for industry, which needs some certainty."
Pruitt mentioned that a plan was forthcoming to a group of conservatives gathered at the Heritage Foundation last week. Some of those who were there, or whose group was in attendance, want Pruitt to go further than the "HONEST Act."
"I hope that it's tighter than that," said Steve Milloy, a former coal executive and member of Trump's EPA transition team who has pushed the agency to impose such restrictions for years. "I hope that EPA does not regulate at all unless the underlying scientific data can be made available, and I don't think there is any legislation yet that is that strong."
Milloy said the final plan would likely not go as far as he would like, because some industry groups, including the pharmaceutical industry, are lobbying against it. He said his goal is that EPA does not rely on any data that cannot be challenged.
"If they don't want to defend their data, I'm hoping that is the last we see of it," he said.
Critics of the plan say the greatest danger of the plan, and perhaps its most problematic legacy is its ability to quickly spread to other federal agencies. It's likely that if proponents see the plan put in place at EPA, they'll seek it in the Federal Drug Administration or Department of Agriculture, anywhere that government has imposed regulations, said Goldstein, the former EPA official in the Reagan administration. It would also interfere with ongoing regulatory efforts that have been underway for years, he said, wiping out the potential use of an unprecedented amount of essential research.
"This scares the hell out of me and has for quite some time," he said. "You can just about pick any agency that's using science on regulatory things and say, 'Hey, if we get away with it at EPA, we can do it for any of these.'"
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/19/stories/1060076695
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