Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 26/03/18
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(ACC Mentioned) AFPM ’18: US Chemicals Booming, But Trade Wars Cloud the Horizon - AFPM CEO
Mar 26, 2018 | ICIS
Free trade has been key for the US chemical industry to boom, but the threat of trade wars with other countries has become the major worry among companies in the country, the CEO of the American Fuels & Petrochemicals Manufactures (AFPM) said on Monday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Good News for U.S. Science in Federal Funding Law
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener
The science community was both surprised and delighted by a new federal funding law that delivers average funding increases of over 10% for science across the U.S. government. -
Toxic Chemicals May Increase Chances of Regaining Weight After Dieting
Mar 26, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
Exposure to fluorinated industrial chemicals, known as PFAS or PFC chemicals, may increase the amount of weight that people, especially women, regain after dieting, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers, published in PLOS Medicine. -
Flint Children's Blood Lead Levels Hit All-Time Low — Study
Mar 26, 2018 | Detroit Free Press (In E&E Greenwire)
By Kristen Jordan Shamus
A study today finds that blood lead levels in the young children of Flint, Mich., reached an all-time low in 2016, a good sign for lead abatement efforts following the city's water contamination crisis. -
EU Withdrawal Guidelines Exclude UK Role in Echa
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
In guidelines adopted last week on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the European Council has repeated its stance that Britain will play no role in EU agencies, such as Echa, once it leaves the trade bloc in one year’s time. -
European Commission Consults on Two Draft Cosmetics Nano Opinions
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has opened consultations on two draft opinions on nanomaterials in cosmetics. -
Trump Picks a Loyal Hand for Energy and Climate Job
Mar 24, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
The White House is tapping an Energy Department official to lead its international energy efforts, including its climate portfolio, according to a White House official. -
Steel Tariffs to Squeeze Oil Service, Producer Margins in West Texas, Investors Say
Mar 26, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
The Trump Administration's steel tariffs will increase costs in the West Texas oil patch at a time when drillers and service firms already faced rising labor and materials costs, investors say. -
U.S. Tax Incentives Expected to Drive Growth of CO2 Capture, Sequestration Projects
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
A small provision in legislation that passed last month to increase U.S. government spending limits is predicted to trigger an explosion of new spending for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects. -
Deals Give Companies More Time to Pollute
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
An enforcement breakthrough a decade in the making was unveiled in December: Three manufacturers of a sooty oil-based product known as carbon black had agreed to slash air pollution by thousands of tons each year. -
Iranians Hacked FERC. What Did They Want?
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Justice Department has accused nine Iranian nationals of hacking thousands of victims worldwide, including employees at a crucial U.S. energy regulator. -
Judges Want More Info From EPA on Chemical Rule Delays
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Federal judges sought additional details Friday from U.S. EPA in a lawsuit challenging the agency's delay in Obama-era chemical safety rules. -
(ACC Mentioned) How Glass is Good for the Bottom Line & the Environment
Mar 26, 2018 | Brewbound.com
By Jim Nordmeyer
It wasn’t all that long ago that the notion of sustainability was paid only lip service in business circles. -
State Passes HFC Rules to Fill Federal Gap
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Cahn
California regulators are stepping into the breach left by a court decision last year by replicating Obama-era limits on chemicals used in refrigerants and foams. -
Pruitt's Attack on 'Secret Science' to Affect Climate Rule
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA's "secret science" plan could reduce the health benefits that come along with controlling carbon emissions, scrambling previous calculations that gave weight to saving lives and avoiding heart attacks. -
Greens Sue EPA Over ‘Once In, Always In’ Policy Reversal
Mar 26, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Seven environmental groups today sued EPA over its January change to how major emitters like power plants are classified under the Clean Air Act, a move they complain could let sources drastically increase pollution but that was never subject to public comment. -
Greens Sue Over Policy Repeal; Report Warns of Emissions Spike
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Environmental groups today filed suit to block the Trump administration's repeal of a Clinton-era industrial pollution policy, a move made in tandem with the release of a report predicting that the rollback could lead to a surge in toxic air emissions.
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(ACC Mentioned) AFPM ’18: US Chemicals Booming, But Trade Wars Cloud the Horizon - AFPM CEO
Mar 26, 2018 | ICIS
Free trade has been key for the US chemical industry to boom, but the threat of trade wars with other countries has become the major worry among companies in the country, the CEO of the American Fuels & Petrochemicals Manufactures (AFPM) said on Monday.
Chet Thompson said that the US petrochemicals industry’s relationship with the US Administration led by Donald Trump has “dramatically improved” compared to the previous administration, but then added that tariffs imposed in manufactured goods coming from abroad were likely to darken the optimistic mood in the industry.
President Donald Trump announced earlier in March tariffs in foreign steel and aluminium, which were complemented last week by more tariffs on goods manufactured in China specifically, which caused chemical stocks in the US to plummet.
Both the US chemical trade group the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its European peer Cefic have said that the spectre of trade wars would only harm the industry.
“Free and fair trade has been good for our country, for US consumers and for us [the chemical industry]. Global demand for our projects continues to rise [and] this is why we support NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada],” said Thompson.
“Trade in chemicals has more than tripled during the two decades of NAFTA, and our NAFTA partners account for a third of our exports. NAFTA needs to be maintained as a strong investment mechanism… [Tariffs would not be] good for the economy or consumers, and they could start a trade war.”
Thompson was speaking at the opening of the 2018 International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) hosted by AFPM in San Antonio, Texas, on 25-27 March.
On 25 March, the CEO for North America at Swiss producer Clariant also said on the sidelines of IPC that the fact Canada and Mexico had been excluded from the steel and aluminium tariffs was a positive thing.
Deepak Parikh said that gave him a glimpse of hope that NAFTA will be maintained intact, despite a campaign promise by Donald Trump to reverse that trade deal, which in his view has damaged the US manufacturing industries.
Apart from that, however, Thompson described a thriving environment for US chemicals, although he admitted that the industry needs to think about the life cycle of the products it produces – a hot topic at a time when other major producing regions such as Europe are talking about circular economy where all products are reused, a prospect which would damage chemicals that are hardly recyclable.
“These are exciting times, things are going quite well. Demand is vibrant and growing, and the IEA [International Energy Agency] projects demand will rise by 5m bbl/day by 2040. Global rising middle classes are driving this growth,” he said.
According to figures by AFPM, by 2028 there will be 5.2bn people considered middle class in the world, up from the current 3.2bn – a scenario where “the majority of people [globally] will live a middle class” life style, a fact which will only benefit US chemicals production, said Thompson. He added that in the coming years, exports of chemicals out of the country are expected to grow by 60%.
The AFPM CEO added that “despite the negative headlines, the tweets, and all the craziness which surrounds” President Trump’s administration, his tenure had been “undoubtedly good” for US chemicals and manufacturing in general.
He described the tax reform as “big and historical”, which for the first time in 30 years – the last major tax reform was passed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s – had freed up resources to invest in facilities and workers, which will allow the industry to thrive further.
“On regulatory reform, the EIA [Energy Information Administration] is currently in the process of reversing 60 regulations which added an unnecessary burden [to the industry] but had no environmental benefit. [There will also be] an infrastructure reform this year, which is critical for projects [the chemical industry needs],” said Thompson.
As part of challenges that should prompt the chemical industry to communicate better, said the CEO, he mentioned public opposition to infrastructure projects which are vital for future development, as well as opposition in some quarters to plastics bags or other packaging products.
“[These are] real threats [and] we need to address them, just like with any challenge. This means we have to find ways to address the life cycle of our products, we need to lead, we need to do a better job in telling the story of our industry,” concluded Thompson.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/03/26/10206321/afpm-18-us-chemicals-booming-but-trade-wars-cloud-the-horizon-afpm-ceo/
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(ACC Mentioned) Good News for U.S. Science in Federal Funding Law
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener
The science community was both surprised and delighted by a new federal funding law that delivers average funding increases of over 10% for science across the U.S. government.
After a year of fighting for even the slightest acknowledgment for research, the fiscal 2018 lawwill bring R&D spending to $176.8 billion, its highest ever level when adjusted for inflation, and up 12.8% from 2017, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Budget & Policy Project, which tracks federal science spending.
“We are grateful for the increases in our key R&D science agencies as this puts them on a predictable and sustainable course that has been sorely lacking,” says ACS spokesperson Glenn Ruskin. “Federal R&D investment had sunk to 0.9% of U.S. gross domestic product, when it should more appropriately be closer to 4%.”
Among the big winners are the National Institutes of Health, which received an almost 9% increase to $37 billion. The Department of Energy (DOE) also fared well, with most programs receiving greater than 10% funding increases.
The science support was part of a single, massive budget bill, called an omnibus, that was pushed through Congress after both parties agreed to increases for both defense and nondefense spending. Despite a last-minute veto threat, President Donald J. Trump signed the bill on March 23. The fiscal year started on Oct. 1, and the legislation averted what would have been the third government shutdown this year .
The omnibus bill went against massive cuts that President Trump had called for at almost every agency in his fiscal 2018 and 2019 funding proposals. Congress tends to ignore every president’s proposals and set its own agenda, but the contrast between Trump’s proposals and what Congress passed was especially vast this year.
Trump has been especially harsh in his proposed cuts for environment and energy programs, and supporters of those programs likely felt the most relief at seeing funding maintained.
Congress rejected steep cuts Trump proposed for the Environmental Protection Agency, keeping EPA’s total funding at its 2017 level, $8.1 billion.
Under that $8.1 billion umbrella, science and technology funding at EPA will remain flat at $706 million.
EPA will also receive $10 million for the remaining months of fiscal 2018 to implement the amended Toxic Substances Control Act, but the agency must collect that amount in industry-paid fees to pay back the funds. In February, EPA proposed to collect about the same amount from chemical manufacturers, or $20 million annually, to help pay for EPA’s review of chemical risks. That amount represents a significant increase over current fees.
Michael Walls, vice president for regulatory and technical affairs at the chemical industry’s primary trade group, the American Chemistry Council, criticized EPA’s proposed user fee rule last month, saying the increase in fees is too high for new chemicals.
“The proposed rule raises new chemicals fees by 540%—and potentially as high as 628%,” Walls said. He warned that the increase in costs could stifle innovation, “endanger the U.S. industry’s significant global competitive advantage, and create disincentives to bringing new chemistries to market first in the U.S.”
The spending law also authorizes EPA to continue collecting fees from pesticide manufacturers at levels set under the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act of 2012. The agency had hoped to boost pesticide fees this year.
The legislation also includes $3.7 million for EPA to continue development of an electronic manifest system for hazardous waste. The chemical industry and hazardous waste haulers are eager for the electronic system to be fully deployed so that they can stop filing multiple copies of paper manifests.
And the law prohibits EPA from spending any money to require large livestock operations from having to get air pollution permits for emissions of methane, nitrous oxide, or carbon dioxide, including for systems for manure management.
Environment and energy programs outside of EPA received even more support from Congress. DOE science and technology programs garnered significant increases despite the president’s desire to cut them. DOE’s Office of Science is funded for $6.2 billion, up slightly more than 16% over 2017. And DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy is getting $2.3 billion, an increase of 11%.
DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which Trump also wants to eliminate, is getting $353 million, a boost of more than 15% over 2017.
“This was a complete repudiation of the president’s attempt to gut some of these programs and outright eliminate the nation’s early-stage clean energy innovation program,” says Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
NIH has always had bipartisan support in Congress, but the $3 billion funding increase over 2017 is larger than many people expected. Most institutes will see increases of around 5% in 2018, with more money going to both Alzheimer’s research and opioid funding. The 21st Century Cures Act, a law enacted in 2016 that aims to bring new drugs and other therapeutics to market faster, had proposed funding for three specific NIH programs—the BRAIN initiative, the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, and the Precision Medicine Initiative. They received a total of $496 million in the spending plan.
After facing flat or declining budgets, the National Science Foundation will get a 3.9% increase to $7.8 billion in 2018 under the new plan. Its Research & Related Activities fund, which supports most grants, will get a 5% boost to $300 million.
The National Institute of Standards & Technology had been slated for a large cut under Trump’s 2019 budget proposal, but instead it got a 26% increase. Although most of the money will go to research facilities construction, NIST’s core research labs programs get a 5% boost to $725 million. NIST’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which supports small business manufacturing, was also eliminated in Trump’s budget proposal but was saved in the omnibus law.
The Department of Agriculture’s primary competitive research grants program, the Agriculture & Food Research Initiative, will receive $400 million, a 6.7% increase compared with fiscal 2017.
Other chemistry-related funding
The omnibus funding package gives the Food & Drug Administration $60 million to implement its part of the 21st Century Cures Act. FDA will also receive $1.5 million to work with USDA on consumer outreach and education related to genetically modified foods.
Lawmakers gave the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board $11 million for the current fiscal year, keeping its funding flat, despite Trump’s request to eliminate the agency .
And Congress allocated $7 million to the Pentagon for a nationwide study on the health effects from perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water. Championed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the study, which the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry will conduct, will focus on water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).
The Department of Defense for decades used fire-fighting foams that contained these chemicals or substances that can degrade to PFOA or PFOS. These synthetic compounds, which persistent indefinitely in the environment and are associated with health problems, continue to be discovered in drinking water near military bases.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/web/2018/03/news-US-science-federal-funding.html
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Toxic Chemicals May Increase Chances of Regaining Weight After Dieting
Mar 26, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
Exposure to fluorinated industrial chemicals, known as PFAS or PFC chemicals, may increase the amount of weight that people, especially women, regain after dieting, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers, published in PLOS Medicine. It found that women with higher levels of PFAS chemicals in their blood at the start of the study regained an average of 3.7 to 4.8 pounds more than women with lower levels of the chemicals in their blood.
People can be exposed to PFAS chemicals from many sources, including water, food and consumer products. In the home, PFAS chemicals can be found in stain-proofing treatments for carpets, in food packaging materials, and even in cosmetics and personal care products. The Harvard study joins a significant body of research linking PFAS chemicals to cancer, thyroid disease, endocrine disruption and other health problems. One of the study co-authors, Philippe Grandjean, a professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has published studies showing that very low levels of PFAS chemicals can reduce the effectiveness of childhood vaccines.
The researchers measured PFAS levels in the blood of 621 study participants, who were put on weight loss diets for the study. In addition to greater weight gain after diet-induced weight loss, higher PFAS levels were associated with lowered metabolism, a possible explanation for the weight gain.
The senior author of the study was Qi Sun, a professor at the Harvard Chan School. In a press release, he said PFASs and other chemicals have been linked with weight gain and obesity in laboratory animals, but until now there has been little data on their effect on people.
“Now, for the first time, our findings have revealed a novel pathway through which PFASs might interfere with human body weight regulation and thus contribute to the obesity epidemic,” Qi said.
Years of research have shown that dieters who lose weight often regain some or all of it in a year or two. The new study, along with a growing body of scientific evidence, suggests exposure to chemical pollutants may play a role in how we manage our weight and that we may be more likely to develop diseases like obesity and diabetes based on our chemical exposures. These chemicals are called obesogens.
A new book by Bruce Blumberg, Ph.D., a professor at the University of California at Irvine, explains how obesogens may be offsetting our efforts to control our weight.
“The Obesogen Effect: Why We Eat Less and Exercise More But Still Struggle to Lose Weight” describes the science of obesogens and how they fit into the bigger picture of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Endocrine disruptors are a class of chemicals that can alter hormone function, leading to reproductive harms like infertility and neurodevelopment problems like lowered IQ. Scientific evidence indicates that several endocrine-disrupting chemicals Americans are exposed to daily include obesogens like PFASs, phthalates, flame retardants, bisphenol A and artificial sweeteners.
As with endocrine-disrupting chemicals, children and developing fetuses can be more vulnerable than adults to the harms associated with obesogens. As EWG reported in November, researchers are finding that exposures in the womb to BPA and air pollution are associated with increased fat and body mass index when children reach school age and adolescence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost one-fifth of American children are obese.
“The existence of obesogens and the potential heritability of the effects they cause means that women of childbearing age, women who are pregnant, plan to become pregnant or who have young children would benefit greatly by reducing their exposure – and their children's exposure – to obesogens and [endocrine-disrupting chemicals] in general,” Blumberg told EWG.
Wondering how to do that? In the book, Blumberg discusses steps to follow if you want to reduce your exposure to obesogens and other endocrine disruptors. One way is to follow the tips in EWG's Healthy Living: Home Guide. But the best place to start is food.
Blumberg recommends “providing whole, fresh, unprocessed food that is free of dietary and chemical obesogens. To the extent possible, these foods should be organic.”
If some organic foods are unavailable or unaffordable, turn to EWG’s Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce™. It’ll tell you which fruits and vegetables are most important to buy organic. An updated version of the guide will be released next month.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/03/toxic-chemicals-may-increase-chances-regaining-weight-after-dieting#.WrkV3oNubIU
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Flint Children's Blood Lead Levels Hit All-Time Low — Study
Mar 26, 2018 | Detroit Free Press (In E&E Greenwire)
By Kristen Jordan Shamus
A study today finds that blood lead levels in the young children of Flint, Mich., reached an all-time low in 2016, a good sign for lead abatement efforts following the city's water contamination crisis.
"I think it's fantastic news, actually," said Hernan Gomez, the lead author of the study, which was published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
The study looked at nearly 16,000 blood samples from children up to age 5 from 2006 to 2016.
The percentage of children with blood lead levels that would call for intervention under federal guidelines fell from 11.8 percent at the beginning of the time frame to 3.2 percent. The mean amount of lead in the samples fell to 1.15 microgram per deciliter in 2016 from 2.33 in 2006.
During the 2014-15 period, blood lead levels increased.
After the water crisis that began in April 2014, the city's water source was switched and water filters and pipes were replaced to reduce lead in drinking water.
"That is a direct result of lead abatement efforts and citizens following warnings to use filters, bottled water and have their water tested and the like," Gomez said.
The researchers cautioned that while the news is good, there is no known safe blood lead level in children.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077399
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EU Withdrawal Guidelines Exclude UK Role in Echa
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
In guidelines adopted last week on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the European Council has repeated its stance that Britain will play no role in EU agencies, such as Echa, once it leaves the trade bloc in one year’s time.
The Council also "further reiterates" that the Union "will preserve its autonomy as regards its decision making, which excludes participation of the United Kingdom as a third-country in [its] institutions and in the decision making of [its] bodies, offices and agencies".
There can be no "cherry picking", it adds, through participation in the single market based on a sector-by-sector approach. This "would undermine the integrity and proper functioning of the single market".
And the role of the EU’s Court of Justice will also be "fully respected", it says.
The wording will unsettle British prime minister Theresa May who, earlier this month, said the UK government is to seek "associate membership" of Echa and other European agencies as part of the EU withdrawal negotiations.
Also this month, Cefic and the UK chemicals industry broadly welcomed a conditional agreement on the transition period after the country leaves the Union.
Negotiations between the EU and the UK continue, with a deal expected to be finalised at the European Council summit this October.
https://chemicalwatch.com/65369/eu-withdrawal-guidelines-exclude-uk-role-in-echa
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European Commission Consults on Two Draft Cosmetics Nano Opinions
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has opened consultations on two draft opinions on nanomaterials in cosmetics. They are for:styrene/acrylates copolymer (nano) and sodium styrene/acrylates copolymer (nano) when used in leave-on cosmetics products with a maximum concentration limit of 0.06%; andcolloidal silver (nano) when used in cosmetics, including toothpastes and skin care products, with a maximum concentration limit of 1%.
In both of SCCS’s preliminary opinions, the committee was not able to decide on the safety of the materials due to insufficient data.
The consultation periods will close on 11 and 15 May respectively.
https://chemicalwatch.com/65361/european-commission-consults-on-two-draft-cosmetics-nano-opinions
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Trump Picks a Loyal Hand for Energy and Climate Job
Mar 24, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
The White House is tapping an Energy Department official to lead its international energy efforts, including its climate portfolio, according to a White House official.
Wells Griffith will join the National Economic Council on a three-month detail, according to sources. He is currently the principal deputy assistant secretary at DOE’s office of international affairs, where he’s overseeing energy negotiations.
“Griffith has been an integral part of the administration's negotiation efforts throughout this past year, so he'll be able to jump right into the role,” said an administration official.
Griffith played an instrumental role in sealing a deal to export coal from Pennsylvania to Ukraine, capitalizing on President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda to send more fuel abroad.
The temporary post will fill the void left by George David Banks, who resigned recently.
Griffith has a history in Republican politics, having previously served as deputy chief of staff at the Republican National Committee. He was also the battleground states director for Trump’s presidential campaign.
The decision has not been formally announced, and one source said there’s a chance Trump could change his mind.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060077369
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Steel Tariffs to Squeeze Oil Service, Producer Margins in West Texas, Investors Say
Mar 26, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
The Trump Administration's steel tariffs will increase costs in the West Texas oil patch at a time when drillers and service firms already faced rising labor and materials costs, investors say.
Labor shortages in the Permian Basin and a lack of available working equipment have led to delays and higher prices to drill and frack wells this year.
Though the advent of sand mines in the region has helped to ease costs on transportation and sand, labor costs are expected to rise 10 to 15 percent and materials costs are expected to go up 5 to 10 percent this year, a reflection of the recovery in oil prices and increased demand for equipment and fracking work.
Oil field service companies and pipeline companies will get hit with tariff costs first, but ultimately those companies will have to pass on their costs to customers and ratepayers – oil producers, the companies that extract oil and gas from the earth.
"And that's off of what I would say are already pretty modest margins for the energy service sector relative to history," said Neil Wizel, managing director at private equity firm First Reserve in Houston. "There was already upward pressure on service and labor costs and those announcements on tariffs aren't likely to mitigate that."
"There really is a lack of supply of labor in a lot of areas in the Permian Basin," he added.
The cost of steel makes up about 10 percent of the capital expenditures needed to drill a well and bring it into production, said Toby Loftin, managing principal of BP Capital Fund Advisors.
"That would raise the marginal cost of production," Loftin said. "Raising the marginal cost implies you'll need a higher oil price."
For a slew of upcoming pipeline projects needed to carry oil, and particularly natural gas, from the Permian Basin, "it doesn't stop the project but it has an effect of a 5 to 10 percent increase in the cost of the project," Loftin said. Steel makes up about 20 percent of a pipeline project, he said.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Steel-tariffs-to-squeeze-oil-service-producer-12781550.php
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U.S. Tax Incentives Expected to Drive Growth of CO2 Capture, Sequestration Projects
Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
A small provision in legislation that passed last month to increase U.S. government spending limits is predicted to trigger an explosion of new spending for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects.
The provision creates a tax credit based on tonnage of carbon dioxide captured and sequestered underground or used in some way and kept out of the atmosphere. For those who claim the credit, this benefit will increase over time, topping out at $50 per metric ton in 2026.
Congress agreed to the provision with support from an unlikely combination of fossil-fuel advocates and lawmakers concerned about climate change. The policy is intended to drive down costs for capturing and sequestering the greenhouse gas emitted from power plants, refineries, and other industrial sources as well as for stripping CO2 from ambient air.
At the national meeting of the Global CCS Institute on March 13, speakers predicted these tax incentives would mirror those that were offered for solar and wind energy and that helped lead to the profound economic expansion experienced by renewable energy developers.
The International Energy Agency predicts that most of the captured CO2 will be used to enhance oil recovery. Companies already use this technology to inject pressurized CO2 into nearly depleted oil fields and force remaining petroleum to production wells. For sequestration purposes, enhanced oil recovery must take place in fields where there is no chance of pressurized CO2 returning to the surface.
However, using the waste of fossil-fuel combustion (CO2) to increase production of a fossil fuel (oil) is a contradiction not lost on many in the environmental movement. Several environmental groups actively opposed the CCS tax provisions.
Others are at best lukewarm. The Natural Resources Defense Council “has long supported carbon capture and storage as an important way to cut dangerous carbon pollution that’s driving global climate change,” says Ana Unruh Cohen, the organization’s director of government affairs. “However, we don’t support fossil-fuel subsidies, including subsidies for enhanced oil recovery, which would conflict with the need to reduce our dependence on those fuels.”
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i13/US-tax-incentives-expected-drive.html
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Deals Give Companies More Time to Pollute
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
An enforcement breakthrough a decade in the making was unveiled in December: Three manufacturers of a sooty oil-based product known as carbon black had agreed to slash air pollution by thousands of tons each year.
But there was a twist.
As they cracked down on those three firms, U.S. EPA and the Justice Department were quietly angling to ease up on two others.
Cabot Corp. and Continental Carbon Co. had previously reached their own settlements with the government. In what former EPA officials describe as an unusual move, federal regulators have agreed to give them years longer to install new pollution controls, according to court filings.
And there was another wrinkle: Helping engineer the package deal was former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who became a lobbyist after leaving Congress last year, according to records and interviews.
For Boston-based Cabot, which came to terms with EPA in 2013 and is now facing higher-than-anticipated cleanup costs, the amended agreement will even the field with its later-settling rivals, said Martin O'Neill, senior vice president for safety, health, and environment and government affairs at the speciality chemicals manufacturer.
"We couldn't be more pleased with where the industry is right now," O'Neill said in an interview.
But for people living near the two companies' plants, the upshot could be dirtier air for years to come. "It is outrageous that we have not been given any indications that there could be a delay in the implementation," said Casey Camp-Horinek, a council member of the Ponca Tribe of Indians in north-central Oklahoma, in an email after learning of the proposed extension from a reporter.
"The EPA has totally failed in its trust responsibility to the Ponca Tribe," she said.
Continental Carbon has a plant nearby. Almost a decade ago, the Houston-based firm paid $10.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by the tribe and landowners over what court filings described as "black dust" that blanketed the area.
Even now, Camp-Horinek said, the dust continues to cause health problems. Under its original 2015 consent decree with EPA, Continental Carbon is supposed to have new soot scrubbers up and running by March 2019. Under the proposed amendment, which still needs a judge's approval, that deadline could be delayed by as much as 2 ½ years until October 2021. The tribe is now seeking formal consultations with EPA over the planned changes, Jason Aamodt, its general counsel, said yesterday.
Following the original settlement with EPA three years ago, Continental Carbon President Dennis Hetu said in a news release that the firm "has always understood and accepted the responsibilities of environmental stewardship." Hetu did not respond to recent email and phone messages seeking comment.
And at virtually the same time that EPA enforcement officials signed off in December on the planned changes to the Cabot agreement, the agency's air office formally designated a central Louisiana area that's home to a Cabot plant in nonattainment with its 2010 primary sulfur dioxide standard (E&E News PM, Dec. 22, 2017).
In the interview, O'Neill stressed that the company is currently operating within its permit limits and settled first because it wanted to set an industry standard. But both of its Louisiana plants have had compliance problems, Wilma Subra, a chemist and technical consultant for environmental groups in the state, said in an interview.
"I think it's great that they settled first as long they implement what they agreed to," Subra said.
Attempts to get comment from EPA were unsuccessful. Phillip Brooks, the agency's air enforcement chief, didn't reply to emailed interview requests accompanied by written questions. At an American Law Institute conference last month, Brooks, a respected career employee, touted the three settlements announced in December as evidence of EPA's commitment to "the level playing field." He made no mention of EPA's simultaneous agreement to stretch out the current compliance timetables for Cabot and Continental Carbon.
EPA press aides also didn't respond to a detailed request for comment. But a half-dozen former EPA enforcement officials interviewed by E&E News could not name an exact precedent for what the government now wants to do.
"I don't know of any [consent decrees] that have been adjusted based on the later settlers getting a better deal," said Julie Domike, a former air enforcement branch chief who is now a partner at the law firm Haynes and Boone LLP. When petroleum refineries tried a similar gambit more than a decade ago, Domike said, EPA turned them down.
To give one company a break to put it on par with its rivals is "atypical in my experience at least," said Joel Mintz, a Nova Southeastern University law professor who has written a history of EPA's enforcement program.
"That's a new one," said Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA civil enforcement chief who now runs the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group critical of the Trump administration's enforcement record (Energywire, Feb. 15).
"They are looking for ways on the regulatory side to let industry slide," Schaeffer said. "I suspect we're going to see some stuff that wouldn't have passed muster in earlier administrations."
At a minimum, the episode testifies to the opaque aftermath that can sometimes follow major enforcement decisions. In a 2015 report, EPA's inspector general found that the agency failed to ensure that power plants and other major polluters were living up to key terms of their respective consent decrees. While EPA officials disputed the extent of the problem, they agreed that settlement monitoring could be strengthened.
Decadelong saga
EPA first began scrutinizing carbon black manufacturers in 2007, under the umbrella of what's known as a national enforcement initiative. Such initiatives typically focus on industries that have had widespread compliance problems.
Over time, the agency has also singled out coal-fired power plants, refineries and cement kilns for similar attention.
At the same time, the government proposes amendments to the consent decrees with Cabot andContinental Carbon to push back the deadlines for installation of key pollution controls.
Its signature product, concocted in part by combusting low-grade oil, is a powdery substance used to bolster tire strength. It also serves as a pigment in inkjet toner, cosmetics and other products.
Because that oil has a high sulfur content, the manufacturing process spawns hefty amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. The three — linked to an array of lung and heart ailments — are among the half-dozen "criteria" pollutants named in the Clean Air Act for which EPA has to regularly review air quality standards.
In the United States, Cabot, Continental Carbon and the three other manufacturers dominate carbon black production, with a total of 15 plants between them, clustered mainly in the rural South. The first settlement, with Cabot, arrived in 2013.
Cabot, following standard practice, didn't admit to alleged violations of EPA's New Source Review permitting program but agreed to install up-to-date pollution controls, including wet gas sulfur dioxide scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction to cut nitrogen oxides emissions.
As described in an EPA news releaseat the time, the deal was eventually supposed to slash yearly releases of nitrogen oxides (NOx) at the three plants by a cumulative total of almost 2,000 tons. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions would plunge by some 12,400 tons. The estimated price tag: $84 million.
"With today's commitment to invest in pollution controls, Cabot has raised the industry standard for environmental protection," Cynthia Giles, who then headed EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in the release. "We expect others in the industry to take notice and realize their obligation to protect the communities in which they operate."
Not one of the 15 U.S. plants had controls for either SO2 or NOx, according to the release.
In a national enforcement initiative, the first settlement typically sets a model. Cabot went first "because we are the leader in this industry," O'Neill said. "We felt the right thing to do was to work with EPA proactively and sort out what the best control options were."
But in what O'Neill describes as a surprise, its rivals were slow in arriving at the table. It wasn't until early 2015 that Continental Carbon and EPA reached a consent decree to reduce pollution at plants in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas (E&E News PM, March 23, 2015).
Almost another three years passed before the other three major makers of carbon black in the United States — Sid Richardson Carbon and Energy Co., Orion Engineered Carbons LLC, and Columbian Chemicals Co. — signed off on proposed settlements this past December.
It wasn't because their operations were trouble-free, documents indicate.
In 2012, for example, EPA had slapped Columbian Chemicals' plants in Kansas and Louisiana with formal violation notices. When inspectors visited one of Sid Richardson's Texas facilities last summer, they found "elevated levels" of potentially lethal carbon monoxide, along with piping and other equipment that was "severely corroded and compromised by holes and cracks," according to the lawsuit that EPA — again following standard practice — filed last December in tandem with the proposed settlement. At the same plant, NOx emissions violated permit limits on at least 37 days within a four-month period, the suit said.
Across the industry, the agency's broader allegations were similar: that companies had made "major modifications" to the plants to ramp up production but without addressing the increased pollution that followed.
Why the final three settlements unveiled in December were so slow in coming is unclear.
Giles, an Obama administration appointee who headed the enforcement office from 2009 to early 2017, declined to comment for the record. John Cruden, who served as acting head of DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Obama administration's final years, said in an email he didn't recall when the cases that settled last December arrived at the department. But he added that settlements "are by their very nature voluntary and highly fact specific."
"One should not assume that they were somehow languishing," he said, adding that "it's not unusual for cases with significant injunctive relief to take longer to negotiate." A spokesperson at Georgia-based Columbian Chemicals would only point to the company's December statement that it signed off on the proposed consent decree "as part of our continued commitment to the environment and to ensure" reliable supplies to customers.
Wesley Wampler, vice president of research and environmental affairs at Sid Richardson, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, said he had been advised against commenting until the consent decree had been made final.
As of this morning, however, DOJ had not yet sought court approval for any of the three consent decrees announced in December or the proposed amendments affecting Cabot and Continental Carbon, according to online filings.
Asked when the department plans to take that step, spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in an email only that DOJ is reviewing public comments on the proposed settlements "and as always will make a determination as to whether any changes are necessary at the conclusion of this review."
Diana Downey, vice president of investor relations at Orion, said the company would have liked to settle sooner but needed approval from its former owner, a German firm that had agreed to foot the bulk of the bill.
"We were ready to get moving on it," she said. "I think our CEO is quite relieved that it's done." Orion, headquartered in Luxembourg, also has its U.S. base of operations in Texas.
Company hires Vitter
Meanwhile, Cabot's estimated cleanup tab was climbing. The company's latest annual report pegs the total capital cost in a range between $100 million and $150 million. Some $60 million has already been spent, O'Neill said.
Enter Vitter, who had once been the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. After serving two terms in the Senate and making a failed run for the Louisiana governorship, he left Congress in January 2017. Two months later, Cabot became one of his first clients after he joined Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm. Because of a two-year "cooling off" period required by federal law, Vitter is barred for now from directly lobbying his former colleagues. Instead, his work so far has focused on EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies, disclosure reports show.
Cabot had already won EPA approval for a previous change to the consent decree related to development of a waste energy recovery center at one of its Louisiana plants. It didn't need Mercury's assistance to push through another amendment, O'Neill said.
"What we got is help from them to make sure that EPA and the Department of Justice continued to press the entire industry," he said. Told in a follow-up email that he seemed to be suggesting that two federal agencies needed outside prodding to complete a national enforcement initiative, O'Neill reiterated through a spokeswoman that Mercury assisted "with advice and guidance on how to advocate for application of consistent standards for the entire carbon black industry."
Vitter, whose wife, Wendy, was recently nominated to a federal judgeship by President Trump, didn't return phone calls left at his office in recent weeks seeking more detail on his efforts. Working with him on the Cabot account is Stephen Aaron, an ex-staffer for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under former Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Aaron also did not return calls. By the end of December, Cabot had paid Mercury a total of around $100,000 for its work, according to the most recently filed disclosure reports.
Similarly resorting to a hired gun is Continental Carbon. Michael Borden, a partner in the government strategies branch of Sidley Austin LLP, is registered to lobby for the company on the EPA enforcement initiative, although the firm's disclosure reports offer no specifics.
In a brief phone interview, Borden, another ex-congressional staffer, said he was not authorized to speak to the media and referred questions to a colleague, Sam Boxerman, who did not reply to phone and email messages. Continental Carbon, co-owned by two Taiwanese firms, reported paying Sidley Austin $20,000 by the end of last year.
Asked whether Vitter, Aaron or Borden had had any contact with officials in DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division, Hornbuckle said that, as a matter of policy, "the department doesn't comment on confidential discussions in enforcement actions."
'Severe financial hardship'?
While DOJ's authority to modify consent decrees is well-established, EPA "typically asks for something to not only make it environmentally neutral but makes it better than environmentally neutral," said Matthew Morrison, another former air enforcement official now with the firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
Court records offer no indication that either Cabot or Continental Carbon made any concessions.
For Cabot, the proposed change, when coupled with the amendment approved last year, could add as much as several years to the installation timetable for various pollution controls.
At one of the Louisiana plants, for example, SO2 scrubbers were supposed to be up and running this month; that deadline now stands to be pushed back until April 2021. For the other, located in the area now out of compliance with the SO2 standard, the original compliance date of September 2020 would be extended until December 2022. A third plant in Texas is already operating at lower emissions limits, O'Neill said.
As grounds for the delays, both firms cited "severe financial hardship." But while Continental Carbon doesn't disclose its financial results, Cabot's latest annual report showed that operating revenue last year totaled $2.7 billion; net income on those earnings leapt more than 60 percent to $241 million in comparison with the 2016 level.
In a news release, the company heralded the results as the strongest since 2014. Asked how that squared with the hardship claim, O'Neill said that Cabot has to fight for business in a globally competitive market.
The money spent so far on compliance is "$60 million that we don't have that the other guys do have," he said. "We have been financially harmed by the timing of this, but I'd have to say that in the end we're satisfied with where the other guys have landed."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077431
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Iranians Hacked FERC. What Did They Want?
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Justice Department has accused nine Iranian nationals of hacking thousands of victims worldwide, including employees at a crucial U.S. energy regulator.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may not be a household name, but its policies touch on some aspect of nearly every American's life. The agency oversees hundreds of thousands of miles of interstate natural gas pipelines and the bulk electric power grid.
FERC "has details of some of this country's most sensitive infrastructure," Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a press conference Friday unveiling charges against the Iranian residents.
The men named in the indictment allegedly cracked into FERC accounts by "password spraying" — pairing emails with commonly used passwords until a combination succeeded. Justice Department officials claimed the hackers were working on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military and intelligence force that reports to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
FERC spokesman Craig Cano acknowledged that "a small number of email accounts were inappropriately accessed" last fall, noting that the agency would continue to work with federal authorities on the case. "The commission has taken and will continue to develop corrective action to ensure that appropriate controls are operating effectively," he added.
What, if anything, might have been siphoned from FERC's headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Mabna Institute, an alleged front for the state-sponsored hackers in Tehran?
"My fear is that FERC has done these pretty detailed studies on vulnerabilities in the grid," said Earl Shockley, founder and president of the InPOWERd LLC consultancy and a former senior executive at the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corp., which oversees operations and security of the nation's interstate power grid. "Who knows if [hackers] have any of that material?"
NERC and FERC work closely together to monitor security at bulk electricity generation and transmission sites, from major power plants to key substations.
While the most sensitive documents — such as those pertaining to specific security practices at large utilities — are kept onsite at the relevant facilities or offline on encrypted hard drives, Shockley pointed out that "a lot of confidential emails go back and forth between NERC and FERC" involving critical infrastructure protection.
For instance, FERC and NERC have recently worked together to find sensitive spots where natural-gas-fired power generators are reliant on a lone pipeline or gas storage facility, making them susceptible to attack.
Four years ago, a confidential FERC study found that disabling nine vital substations on a given day could result in a nationwide blackout, a controversial report that triggered widespread political reaction and concern (Energywire, March 14, 2014).
There is nothing to indicate hackers made off with that particular document. But there is some evidence to suggest that Iran's intelligence haul wasn't trivial.
Late last year, the Department of Energy's inspector general reported discovering a cybersecurity "incident" affecting FERC's unclassified computer systems (E&E News PM, Nov. 1, 2017).
"While we commend the commission for its response to the security incident, we are concerned that certain controls may not have been in place that could have potentially prevented the incident," Assistant Inspector General Sarah Nelson concluded at the time.
FERC's Cano confirmed that the "incident" described last fall is connected to the Justice Department's announcement Friday.
FERC denied E&E News' Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the case, citing an ongoing law enforcement investigation.
In a rejection letter dated Dec. 17, 2017, the agency also painted potential disclosure of the files in dire terms.
"FERC has information related to the nation's energy infrastructure, as well as its cybersecurity grid (in addition to privacy information of individuals involved in Agency action)," the letter noted. "Public release of the requested documents would provide information that could help breach FERC's network, and allow possible access to non-public, sensitive, and/or confidential information that could be used to plan an attack on energy infrastructure, endangering lives and safety of citizens."Cases for context
Chris Blask, director of industrial control systems security at the global information technology firm Unisys Corp., put the FERC hack in the context of previous state-backed cyber intrusion campaigns, such as the suspected Russian activity disclosed earlier this month by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
In that case, Russian hackers are said to have penetrated the networks of several U.S. power utilities, taking screenshots of sensitive control system equipment and laying the groundwork for physical disruption.
"We and other nations are not doing damage to each other's infrastructure, because these are acts of war," Blask said. "We see nation states like Russia and Iran taking steps that would predate [war] — they're not turning things off, but they're demonstrating that they can."
Two years ago, the Justice Department accused Iranian citizen Hamid Firoozi of hacking into the control system of a small dam near Rye, N.Y., gaining the ability to remotely operate a sluice gate (Energywire, March 28, 2016).
The dam's computer system was down for maintenance at the time Firoozi allegedly accessed it in September 2013, leaving operations unaffected.
But the case brought heightened scrutiny to the security of the control systems underlying everything from bulk power systems to manufacturing plants in the U.S. and around the world.
Last November, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Behzad Mesri, an Iranian hacker said to have targeted unspecified "nuclear software systems and Israeli infrastructure." A grand jury in New York indicted him on charges that he hacked and attempted to extort Home Box Office Inc. between May and July 2017.
While the bulk of the U.S. power grid is owned and operated by private utilities, the recent cyber intrusions at FERC show "the federal government is just as vulnerable as the energy industry," Shockley said.
"They're as concerned about cybersecurity as a PJM [Interconnection] or a Southern Co. — because they have computers and internet conditions, and they have a lot of important information," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077389
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Judges Want More Info From EPA on Chemical Rule Delays
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Federal judges sought additional details Friday from U.S. EPA in a lawsuit challenging the agency's delay in Obama-era chemical safety rules.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit asked EPA to provide instances where any federal agencies have changed the effective or compliance dates for a regulation based on administrative reconsideration of that rule.
EPA is to provide a "comprehensive list of examples" by April 3.
"If a comprehensive list would be excessively burdensome to produce, EPA shall explain why that is so and shall produce as many examples as practicable," the judges ordered around 5 p.m. Friday.
Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins, both Democratic appointees, are hearing the case with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican appointee.
The uncommon request comes as judges are grappling with EPA's decision to delay the chemical safety rules by nearly two years after they had been set to go into effect. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said that agency was reconsidering the rule based on concerns raised by some states and industry that it would allow data about chemical facilities to be disclosed to the public.
Environmentalists and state foes say that the agency has turned the delay into an "effective rescission" of the new standards.
The Obama-era rules, published in January 2017, were aimed at protecting emergency responders from chemical exposure, preventing accidents at plants and helping facility operators learn from accidents that do occur.
Rogers, Wilkins and Kavanaugh heard extended oral arguments earlier this month (E&E News PM, March 16). The information that EPA provides in response to their request will likely weigh in their decision in the case.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077437
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(ACC Mentioned) How Glass is Good for the Bottom Line & the Environment
Mar 26, 2018 | Brewbound.com
By Jim Nordmeyer
It wasn’t all that long ago that the notion of sustainability was paid only lip service in business circles. Only if you were specifically targeting environmentally conscious consumers would it make, sense to embrace environmental impact as a core marketing principle. But when appealing to a mass market, the now outdated conventional wisdom was that sustainability was something consumers claimed mattered, while their behavior told another story. Oh how the times have changed.
Today, caring about your bottom line means caring about the environment because your customers do. A 2014 study conducted by Kelton Global found that two-thirds of Americans recycle on a “regular basis,” and the number of individuals who prioritize recycling is trending upward as more millennials move into the workforce and gain greater sway over the economy. These market forces and consumer preferences for sustainable products position glass as the ideal packaging option for businesses that wish to appeal to today’s eco-conscious consumer.
Small footprint, big impact.
Sustainability is a broad term used to describe the myriad ways in which a product or process can impact the environment. Carbon footprint (a measure of greenhouse gases emitted) is one way. On average, a glass container has a smaller footprint over its lifecycle than aluminum or PET containers. This measure takes into account not only the raw materials themselves, but the process by which those materials are used to create a package.
Cradle to Cradle.
The composition of a package is another way to measure its sustainability, and glass is made from three abundant and natural ingredients: sand, limestone and soda ash. When glass breaks down, it remains safe and stable, and releases no harmful chemicals into the soil. So even when glass isn’t recycled, it does minimal harm to the environment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification as a top-tier product sustainability standard in its new federal green purchasing guidelines. Companies like O-I have achieved a gold rating material health on the Cradle to Cradle Product Scorecard – a premier sustainability certification for products around the world and across industries.
Round and round.
Of course, when it comes to recycling, glass is among the most recyclable materials on the planet – 100 percent recyclable, in fact. Which is probably why 80 percent of all recovered glass bottles are made into new glass bottles. Why does this matter? Because every 10 percent increase in recycled glass results in a 5 percent decrease in emissions and a 3 percent decrease in energy consumption.
The bottom line.
The evidence is clear that using glass packaging is good for the environment. But is it good for business? These days the answer is an unequivocal yes. Ninety percent of consumers say that recycling materials is important, and two-thirds of them are willing to pay a little more for eco-friendly and socially responsible products. An increasing amount of consumers are putting their money where their beliefs are, and a company that shows it’s being environmentally responsible is a company that stands a greater chance to earn and keep the brand loyalty of today’s eco-conscious consumers.
Beyond the environment.
Where you find customers who are concerned about what they put into the earth, you’ll also find customers who are concerned about what they put into their bodies. Seven in 10 consumers report that health plays a significant role in their product purchasing decisions, and more than 60 percent have altered their buying habits to reduce their exposure to harmful chemicals.
Because glass is the only packaging material to earn the GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) designation from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration*, consumers can trust that glass adds nothing harmful to their favorite beers, wines and liquors.
Times have changed. Today’s customers are more aware of what goes into the earth, their products, and their bodies than ever before. This age of information brings with it great opportunities for those who lean into the sustainability of their product packaging. Glass, with all of its eco-friendly attributes, is more than just a package. It’s a motivating force when it comes to creating and sustaining brand loyalty.
Sources:
Killinger, Jennifer. “New Survey: Half of Americans Say They Recycle 75 Percent or More of Recyclable Items.” New Survey: Half of Americans Say They Recycle 75 Percent or More of Recyclable Items, American Chemistry Council, 14 Nov. 2014, www.americanchemistry.com/Media/PressReleasesTranscripts/ACC-news-releases/New-Survey-Half-of-Americans-Say-They-Recycle-75-Percent-or-More-of-Recyclable-Items.html.
https://www.brewbound.com/sponsored/glass-good-bottom-line-environment/
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State Passes HFC Rules to Fill Federal Gap
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Cahn
California regulators are stepping into the breach left by a court decision last year by replicating Obama-era limits on chemicals used in refrigerants and foams.
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) voted Friday to approve regulations enforcing in-state bans on certain hydrofluorocarbons that the Obama administration had banned in 2015 but that a federal court vacated last year. Originally conceived as a replacement for ozone-depleting substances, HFCs are thousands of times more potent as greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.
The rules cover refrigeration systems used in supermarkets and convenience stores, refrigerated food dispensers like frozen yogurt machines, refrigerated vending machines, and foams used in buildings.
ARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols said in a statement that the state's rule "preserves the federal limits on the use of these powerful chemicals and refrigerants, and provides more certainty to industry. We applaud the actions of many industries, which already have made significant investments in developing and using more climate-friendly alternatives to the high-global warming HFCs."
Under the Obama administration, U.S. EPA issued rules under the Significant New Alternatives Policy program to ban uses of HFCs in various industrial sectors, including aerosols, air conditioning for new cars, retail food refrigeration and foam blowing.
But last year, a split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that EPA had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act (Greenwire, March 14).
Companies that had already invested in substitutes are appealing, but in the meantime the court decision deprives the state of 4.1 million metric tons of reductions through 2030, which is nearly a quarter of the overall reductions from HFCs that it envisions.
Honeywell International Inc., one of the companies appealing the federal decision, urged ARB to extend its regulations to cover even more areas of the federal rule, including tire inflators, silly string, disinfectant spray and mine-warning devices. California's rule covers only the sectors that had recent or upcoming compliance deadlines. The state projects its rule will cost manufacturers $210,000 annually across all companies.
"We expect that other states will view California's approach as a simple and relatively easy way to drive significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the face of regulatory uncertainty at the federal level," Honeywell's director of environmental policy, Jessica Olson, wrote in comments on the proposed rule.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077395
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Pruitt's Attack on 'Secret Science' to Affect Climate Rule
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
U.S. EPA's "secret science" plan could reduce the health benefits that come along with controlling carbon emissions, scrambling previous calculations that gave weight to saving lives and avoiding heart attacks.
The most immediate consequence of the potential policy — which would prevent the agency from using some scientific studies in its rulemaking — could fall on EPA's efforts to rewrite the Clean Power Plan, according to proponents and critics of EPA's proposal.
If enacted, the plan could sharply curtail the incorporation of public health studies that show the risks from breathing air pollutants as federal regulators draft rules for power plants. That would significantly reduce the calculated benefits of the Clean Power Plan, which estimates suggested would slash smog- and haze-forming pollutants as it also reduced global warming gases. EPA projected in 2016 that the rule would avoid 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks, a non-climate benefit valued at between $14 billion and $34 billion.
Those benefits could drop dramatically under the plan being considered by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. And that could mean the rule suddenly becomes more expensive to implement, upending analyses that consider the costs and benefits of federal regulations.
"If you can't count those benefits because you can't rely on reams of academic studies showing that those pollutants are harmful to people who have to breathe them, then you essentially undercount the benefits of reducing the pollution and overcount the costs," said Joanne Spalding, senior managing attorney at the Sierra Club.
The secret science proposal is expected to bar EPA from using studies in rulemaking where the underlying data are not publicly available. That could sideline valuable scientific research, critics contend.
Pruitt's plan resembles legislation proposed by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Smith has tried to address what he considers a widespread conspiracy among climate scientists to manipulate climate data. To Smith, requiring the use of public data would counter efforts to advance the agency's agenda using "secret science" (Climatewire, March 16).
Pruitt confirmed his plans, first reported by E&E News, in an interview with the Daily Caller this week.
Joseph Goffman, a former EPA official and current executive director of Harvard Law School's Environmental Law Program, said Pruitt's plan is "very much targeted" at specific studies that had been important in setting particulate matter standards.
"Essentially, you have a constituency that don't like certain results, and so they are sort of back-engineering to find a way to defeat the results," Goffman said.
Few observers expect EPA to craft new regulations. However, the agency has said it's considering replacing the Clean Power Plan, proposed under President Obama, with a weaker version that would regulate carbon emissions from power plants at the facility level.
"This is like a double whammy because EPA is already going back on, or retracting its reliance on, the social cost of carbon," said Spalding of the Sierra Club.
She's referring to a wonky metric that's used to estimate the dollar value of emitting 1 ton of carbon. The Trump administration revised how the value was calculated by considering only domestic carbon emissions rather than total global emissions. This decision effectively slashed the economic benefits of cutting carbon.'Pruitt isn't even listening'
This is not the only way EPA could limit possible health benefits of the climate rule.
A report by the Congressional Research Service on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan noted that the agency under President Trump introduced two different thresholds for determining health risks from particulate matter. The 2015 rule included no such threshold, but had acknowledged that there was less certainty about the mortality risk with lower concentrations of the pollutant.
The report concluded that the higher threshold was "mostly favorable to a proposed repeal," while the other was "less favorable to repeal." EPA is currently seeking comment on those accounting methods.
The agency signaled its intentions to limit the value of non-climate pollutants in its overhaul of the rule.
"The Obama administration relied heavily on reductions in other pollutants emitted by power plants, essentially hiding the true net cost of the CPP by claiming benefits from reducing pollutants that had nothing to do with the rule's stated purpose," said an agency press release last October.
Goffman noted that while EPA's analysis of the Clean Power Plan would likely be affected by the "secret science" initiative, there would be a bigger effect on National Ambient Air Quality Standards or the Risk and Technology Review for toxic air pollution because these are health-based standards.
"I say that as much because the history behind what Pruitt is doing up until this point has been focused on health and risk-based standards rather than technology standards [like the Clean Power Plan]," he said.
The current controversy over fine particulate standards originated with two studies from the 1990s — the Harvard Six Cities study and the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II, according to John Bachmann, a former EPA official who worked in the agency's air office in North Carolina.
Both studies were conducted in such a way that making the raw data available to everyone online was not possible. EPA had paid for an independent reanalysis of the underlying data of both studies and obtained results that supported the original conclusions. Following the completion of the two long-term studies on the risk of mortality from fine particulate matter, their results have been supported by subsequent research.
"It's widely accepted, the studies have been replicated, they have been done in a lot of countries, and all of them show that particulate matter kills people on some level," Bachmann said.
Particulate matter is of particular interest to Steve Milloy, a former EPA transition team member who is one of the individuals working behind the scenes to get Pruitt to adopt this policy. Milloy rejects mainstream climate science.
Milloy stated that fine particulate matter, also referred to as PM2.5, had been "weaponized" under the Obama administration. In his book, "Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA," he referred to EPA's past research on the health impacts of the fine particulate matter as "unsupportable, if not outright false."
He told E&E News that the policy shift toward eliminating "secret science" would have a limited impact on climate-related action.
"Where secret science does kind of intersect with climate is in the Clean Power Plan when EPA came up with all those benefits because those are all [PM]2.5 related," Milloy said.
Other possible influences of "secret science" could be on ozone standards and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
"I know those guys just wanted to pretend that any level of PM2.5 kills people, and I think that argument is not going to be able to stand because it will follow the secret science rubric," Milloy said.
Milloy described the plan as another "win" for the Trump administration.
"I'm just pleased as punch this is coming out; this is going to be my third or fourth big win at EPA, so this is very exciting. You've got to make hay while the sun shines, so that's what I'm doing," Milloy said.
He added that concerns about patient privacy when publishing public health research data were overblown. Milloy suggested that identifying patient information like names and addresses could easily be redacted.
But Bachmann said simply redacting personal information like names and addresses from epidemiological study data would not be enough to protect participants' privacy.
"You really need to be able to do epidemiological studies and figure out some way to do it. And I don't think they've figured out any way to do it yet that provides the confidentiality people need for doctor's medical records," he said.
Bachmann noted that he had worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including for "good Republicans," and didn't want to be political.
"Even [former EPA Administrator] Anne Gorsuch listened to me brief her on particulate matter science for two hours before she tried to make a decision to loosen the standards, but she listened to it. I guess Pruitt isn't even listening to people right now," Bachmann said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077365
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Greens Sue EPA Over ‘Once In, Always In’ Policy Reversal
Mar 26, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
Seven environmental groups today sued EPA over its January change to how major emitters like power plants are classified under the Clean Air Act, a move they complain could let sources drastically increase pollution but that was never subject to public comment.
In his January memo, EPA air chief Bill Wehrum reversed the so-called once in, always in policy that meant any source that initially qualified as a "major" source of pollution would always be subject to those tougher standards, even if their emissions dropped low enough to qualify for a category with less stringent requirements.
EPA argued that the change would allow emitters to move forward with new projects that could actually reduce emissions.
In a statement, the green groups argued that thousands of power plants, refineries, smelters, paper mills and other sources of pollution will now be able to attenuate or turn off their pollution controls, increasing emissions.
“For decades, polluters have been able to meet this Clean Air Act requirement, and the administration’s decision to grant them this toxic loophole is as heartless as it is reckless,” said Mary Anne Hitt of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
A report released today by the Environmental Integrity Project, one of the groups suing EPA, looked at 12 Midwest plants and concluded that the change could let sources to quadruple their emissions of pollutants ranging from lead to benzene to acid gas.
WHAT’S NEXT: EPA will defend the change before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Greens Sue Over Policy Repeal; Report Warns of Emissions Spike
Mar 26, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Environmental groups today filed suit to block the Trump administration's repeal of a Clinton-era industrial pollution policy, a move made in tandem with the release of a report predicting that the rollback could lead to a surge in toxic air emissions.
The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, does not spell out the grounds for challenging the withdrawal of U.S. EPA's "once in always in" policy made in January. But detractors have argued that the agency violated both the Clean Air Act and — by announcing the decision in a memo with no advance public notice — the Administrative Procedure Act.
"We need to stop this reckless decision, which will put the health of families living downwind at risk from toxic air pollutants like lead and benzene," Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement.
The group is one of seven plaintiffs in the suit; others include the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, California Communities Against Toxics, Ohio Citizen Action and the Sierra Club.
The policy, spelled out in a 1995 memo by a senior EPA air official at the time, applied to factories and other "major" industrial polluters subjected to maximum achievable control technology (MACT) emissions standards because they annually released at least 10 tons of a single air toxic or 25 tons of any combination of hazardous pollutants. Under the "once in always in" framework, the MACT standards stayed in place even if a plant's emissions dropped below those thresholds on the grounds that polluters could otherwise backslide.
In opting for the policy's repeal, however, current EPA air chief Bill Wehrum wrote that it ran counter to the "plain language" of the Clean Air Act, which distinguishes between "major" pollution sources and smaller "area" sources (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
Congress "established different requirements for such sources," Wehrum wrote in the memo, adding that the policy artificially limited when a major source could become an area source. His decision to scrap the policy followed a letter from Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who argued that it discouraged emissions reduction by requiring polluters to continue to comply with more stringent MACT standards even if their releases fell below the "major source" benchmarks (E&E Daily, Jan. 10).
But in the report released today, the Environmental Integrity Project predicted that repeal could lead to a spike in industrial pollution because it would allow plants "to save money by cutting back on their pollution controls." For the report, titled "Toxic Shell Game," the group studied enforcement records and emissions data for a dozen chemical plants, waste management operations and facilities in the Midwest.
Based on recent numbers, their annual hazardous air emissions cumulatively averaged about 121,000 pounds, the report said. With repeal of the "once in always in" policy, that figure could more than quadruple to 540,000 pounds per year, Schaeffer, the author, wrote. "Emissions can drift upwards — far above their current levels — so long as they stay below 10 tons for any single pollutant or 25 tons combined," it said. Moreover, pollution thresholds are much more lenient for area sources than for major sources, the report added, citing particulate matter emissions rates for iron and steel foundries that are eight times as high.
While plant operators could decide against taking advantage of the new exemption, Schaeffer acknowledged, "the Trump administration has made clear they are no longer obligated to do so."
An EPA spokesman had no comment this morning, saying in an email that the agency has not reviewed the report.
In the report, Schaeffer also took aim at an underlying complication that long pre-dates the current administration: EPA's methods for estimating plant pollution releases. "Emission factors" used to predict releases of specific pollutants are at best based on an average of test results from plants within a particular industrial sector, he wrote. No emission factors exist for some hazardous pollutants, the report said, and EPA has warned that data for others is "extremely unreliable."
"Nevertheless, many plant managers use industry-wide averages to quantify emissions from their own facilities and demonstrate compliance with Clean Air Act permit limits," the report said. As a result, there is at least a 50 percent chance that a plant relying on EPA emission factors to claim that its hazardous air pollution is low enough to qualify for the new exemption "will be wrong," according to the report.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/26/stories/1060077447
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