ACC AM 3/27/18

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) The E.P.A. Says It Wants Research Transparency. Scientists See an Attack on Science.

   Mar 26, 2018 | The New York Times

   By Lisa Friedman
   
   
   The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a major change to the way it assesses scientific work, a move that would severely restrict the research available to it when writing environmental regulations.
2. (ACC Mentioned) Pruitt's Bid To End 'Secret Science' Faces Legal, Implementation Hurdles

   Mar 26, 2018 | Inside EPA

   By aria Hegstad
   
   
   Administrator Scott Pruitt's pending plan to apply a sweeping new data transparency requirement at EPA is expected to face legal and implementation controversies likely as soon as it is released, agency watchers say, including potential violations of medical privacy protections, trade secret information and other data that form the basis for air quality standards, pesticide and chemical approvals and other rules.
3. Chemicals at Risk in Spat with China

   Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

   By Jean-François Tremblay
   
   
   No one knows yet what products will be hit as part of a Trump administration plan to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, but chemicals are unlikely to emerge unscathed from any U.S.-China trade conflict.
4. How a Groundswell of Citizen Activism Helped Save the EPA

   Mar 27, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund

   By Sam Parry
   
   
   Something amazing happened in Washington last week: Congress rejected Trump’s draconian cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and a host of other critical federal programs.

LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Chemical Management News

5. (ACC Mentioned) Safety Reviews of Chemicals Near Water a Heavy Lift for EPA

   Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By David Schultz
   
   
   The EPA will have a hard time meeting a congressional mandate to boost oversight of toxic chemicals stored near water supplies, several people who work in water policy told Bloomberg Environment.
6. (ACC Mentioned) In Search of Safe Replacements for Harmful Chemicals Used in Cookware, Carpets, Clothing, Cosmetics and More

   Mar 26, 2018 | Ensia

   By Liza Gross
   
   
   When Donald Taves discovered two kinds of fluoride in his blood in the late 1960s, he immediately knew something was wrong.
7. Danish Consumer Council says SVHC app is a success

   Mar 27, 2018 | Chemical Watch

   By Tammy Lovell
   
   
   The Danish Consumer Council said its Tjek Kemien app, which helps consumers identify substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in products, has been a success, despite a decrease in usage.

Energy News

8. Trump Said to Name Energy Department Official as Top Aide

   Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Ari Natter, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
   
   
   The White House plans to name Wells Griffith, an Energy Department official who worked on President Donald Trump's campaign, as one of the president's top energy and environmental advisers, three people familiar with the decision said March 24.
9. Trump Taps New International Environment Advisers

   Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   President Donald Trump is adding to his team responsible for international environmental policy, nominating a former Ford executive and Michigan regulator to run EPA's Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA) and moving an Energy Department (DOE) official to a key advisory position on international energy and environment issues.
10. Is This the World's Next Petrochemical Hub?

    Mar 26, 2018 | Oilprice.com

    By Irina Slav
    
    
    Appalachia is about to turn into the largest gas-producing region in America, accounting for 37 percent of the total by 2040, a study by IHS Markit commissioned by a lobby group has suggested.
11. Mexico Appears to Sign Gas Fracking Contract with US Company

    Mar 26, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)

    Mexico's state-owned oil company has signed what appears to be one of its first big gas fracking contracts with a subsidiary of Texas-based Lewis Energy.

Chemical Security News

12. Court Wants EPA to Justify Chemical Rule Delay

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Sam Pearson
    
    
    A federal appeals court wants examples of previous regulatory delays that would help the EPA justify its nearly two-year freeze of a chemical safety rule aimed at protecting first responders.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

13. EPA's Toxic Air Pollution Policy Walkback Draws Lawsuit

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Jennifer Lu
    
    
    Power plants and other large industries will be able to emit thousands more pounds of toxic air pollution under an EPA policy that lets some of them shut off modern emissions controls, environmental advocates challenging the policy said.
14. Faster Air Pollution Permits Prominent on EPA's Agenda

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Amena H. Saiyid
    
    
    The EPA is looking at how to shorten the time it takes to get an air pollution permit for power plant and factory construction or expansion, the operations adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt told Bloomberg Environment.
15. Green Groups Sue to Stop EPA Rule Change for Power Plant Emissions

    Mar 26, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Miranda Green
    
    
    A number of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday challenging a recent administrative decision to allow certain major power plants to turn off some pollution controls.
16. Shell Says Saving Planet Probably Means Sucking Carbon Dioxide

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Kelly Gilblom
    
    
    Cutting emissions won't be enough to keep the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius: to achieve that goal, according to Royal Dutch Shell Plc, will require sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) The E.P.A. Says It Wants Research Transparency. Scientists See an Attack on Science.

   Mar 26, 2018 | The New York Times

   By Lisa Friedman

   The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a major change to the way it assesses scientific work, a move that would severely restrict the research available to it when writing environmental regulations.

   Under the proposed policy, the agency would no longer consider scientific research unless the underlying raw data can be made public for other scientists and industry groups to examine. As a result, regulators crafting future rules would quite likely find themselves restricted from using some of the most consequential environmental research of recent decades, such as studies linking air pollution to premature deaths or work that measures human exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.

   The reason: These fields of research often require personal health information for thousands of individuals, who typically agree to participate only if the details of their lives are kept confidential.

   The proposed new policy — the details of which are still being worked out — is championed by the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, who has argued that releasing the raw data would let others test the scientific findings more thoroughly. “Mr. Pruitt believes that Americans deserve transparency,” said Liz Bowman, an E.P.A. spokeswoman.

   Critics, though, say that Mr. Pruitt’s goal is not academic rigor, but to undermine much of the science that underpins modern environmental regulations governing clean water and clean air. Restricting the application of established science when crafting new E.P.A. rules could make it easier to weaken or repeal existing health regulations, these people say.

   The proposal is “cloaked in all of these buzzwords, in all of the positive things that we want to be for: ‘science,’ ‘transparency,’” said Dr. Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, an independent blog that monitors scientific journals and exposes errors and misconduct. While Dr. Oransky said he agreed that it was critical to hold the scientific process accountable, he said he believed Mr. Pruitt’s intent was to inject doubt into areas of public health where none exists. “Data he doesn’t like will get disqualified,” Dr. Oransky said.

   The pending E.P.A. policy would have implications for much of what the agency touches, whether it is new rules addressing climate change or regulations for pesticides and protecting children from lead paint.

   “This affects every aspect of environmental protection in the United States,” said David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health under President Barack Obama. Mr. Michaels, now a professor at George Washington University, called the plan “weaponized transparency.”

   Opponents and supporters agree that the proposed new policy has its roots in the fossil fuel industry’s opposition to a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University study that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths. The “Six Cities” study, widely considered one of the most influential public health examinations ever conducted, tracked thousands of people for nearly two decades and ultimately formed the backbone of federal air pollution regulations.

   In that study, which began in the mid-1970s, scientists signed confidentiality agreements so they could track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 individuals in six cities around the country. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data in order to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.

   Academics aren’t typically required to turn over such private data when submitting studies for peer review by other specialists in the field, or for review and publication in scientific journals, which is the traditional way that this kind of research is evaluated. If academics were to turn over the raw data to be made available for public review, the agency would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a federal estimate, to redact private information.

   The bottom line, critics say, is that if the E.P.A. is limited to considering only studies in which the data is publicly available, the agency will have a narrower and incomplete body of research to draw on when considering regulations. “It sends a pretty chilling message to scientists that their work can’t be used or won’t be used,” said Sean Gallagher, a government relations officer with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a nonprofit science advocacy organization.

   Mr. Pruitt laid out his plans for the new transparency policy in an interview last week with The Daily Caller, a conservative news site. The proposal is based on legislation named the Honest and Open New E.P.A. Science Treatment Act, also known as the Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican. The bill has failed to gain support in Congress for years despite having the support of the energy, manufacturing and chemical industries.

   That legislation aimed to preclude the E.P.A. from using any studies that could not be independently reproduced. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign finance data, versions of the bill have received support from Exxon Mobil, Peabody Energy, Koch Industries and the American Chemistry Council, which provides policy and research for major chemical companies including Arkema, DuPont and Monsanto.

   Mr. Smith, the sponsor of the stalled Congressional legislation, applauded the E.P.A.’s proposed move. “Our citizens have a right to see the data that the E.P.A. says justifies their regulations,” he said in a statement. He has argued that E.P.A. regulations in the past were justified by data that was impossible to verify independently.

   Industry lobbyists who welcome the proposed changes agreed with that assessment. “Peer reviews, and reviews in general, can tell you what you want them to tell you, depending on who is in charge of the department,” said Colin Woodall, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

   Mr. Woodall, who supported Mr. Smith’s bill as well as the proposed new E.P.A. policy, said he believed studies used under the Obama administration to support clean air regulations, protect national waterways and, in particular, target agriculture’s role in climate change, were flawed. If the underlying data were online, he said, industry groups could “go to our own scientists and say, ‘Can you confirm those conclusions are accurate?’”

   Opponents of the proposed E.P.A. policy say the effort all comes back to the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long frustration over the Six Cities study and a related one sponsored by the American Cancer Society. Those studies, which have been independently evaluated and have had their findings confirmed, underpinned the first Clean Air Act regulations on fine particulate matter. Based on the research, the E.P.A. in 1997 estimated the rule would prevent 15,000 premature deaths annually and hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and bronchitis.

   “They didn’t like the regulation, so they tried to attack the science underlying the regulation,” said Mr. Gallagher of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said the demand for transparency was in fact an effort to undermine scientific independence. “It has become very clear to us that this is not about science. This is a means to an end.”

   Since taking the helm of the E.P.A., Mr. Pruitt has clashed with the scientific community several times.

   In October, the agency forbade three agency scientists from speaking about climate change at a conference on the health of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. Shortly after that, Mr. Pruitt ruled that scientists who receive E.PA. grants would no longer be allowed to serve on the agency’s advisory boards, a move that effectively blocked more than a dozen academic researchers from providing expertise about the latest science as the E.P.A. considered regulations. Last year, more than 200 scientists left the agency, reflecting what many have described as frustration over Mr. Pruitt and President Donald Trump’s policies.

   Late last year, Mr. Pruitt also proposed holding public debates on the merits of scientific findings that indicate human activity is responsible for climate change — research that is widely accepted within the scientific community. That plan was thwarted by John F. Kelly, the president’s chief of staff.

   Lisa Friedman reports on climate and environmental policy in Washington. A former editor at Climatewire, she has covered eight international climate talks.

   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/climate/epa-scientific-transparency-honest-act.html
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Pruitt's Bid To End 'Secret Science' Faces Legal, Implementation Hurdles

   Mar 26, 2018 | Inside EPA

   By aria Hegstad

   Administrator Scott Pruitt's pending plan to apply a sweeping new data transparency requirement at EPA is expected to face legal and implementation controversies likely as soon as it is released, agency watchers say, including potential violations of medical privacy protections, trade secret information and other data that form the basis for air quality standards, pesticide and chemical approvals and other rules.

   One former EPA official, now a member of the Environmental Protection Network (EPN), a group of former EPA staff opposing many of the Trump administration's environmental policies, tells Inside EPA that “it is hard to oppose transparency and the use of the best available science. There are, however, legitimate reasons for not making every last piece of information connected with a scientific study fully and freely available to the public.”

   These reasons can “include protecting the privacy of any individuals who may have participated in the research as human subjects, and protection of businesses’ legitimate intellectual property/trade secrets. In other cases, the underlying data may simply no longer be available due to the passage of time. None of these reasons necessarily makes a study scientifically invalid or even suspect.”

   And one legal expert says the agency will almost certainly face legal challenges if it seeks to apply the policy. “If a statute mandates reliance on 'the best available science,' and EPA declines to use the best available science just because the researchers are unwilling to breach the confidentiality of their subjects, that’s a pretty clear statutory violation,” Dave Owen, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Hastings law school, says.

   Some of the statutes EPA operates under, such as the revised Toxic Substances Control Act, have specific language requiring it to use best available science.

   But even without such a specific statutory mandate, similar issues could arise, Owen says. For example, he says that if agencies decline to use the best available science their decisions could be viewed as “arbitrary and capricious,” a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

   And given such statutory mandates, some have estimated that the policy could cost EPA millions as agency officials seek to replicate data they may not otherwise be able to use or scrub data to protect it. When legislation to codify this approach was considered in Congress, the Congressional Budget Office offered a wide range of cost estimates, largely depending on how many studies EPA would have to pay to repeat in order to use.

   Some top former EPA officials are also warning that Pruitt's decision could set a precedent that other health and safety agencies could follow. EPA's “administrator simply can’t make determinations on what science is appropriate in rule-making without calling into question decisions by other federal agencies based on similar kinds of studies,” former Obama EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and air chief Janet McCabe wrote in a March 26 op-ed the New York Times. “If one agency rejects studies based on that sort of data, it could open up policies by other agencies based on similar studies to challenge.”

   'Part Of The Record'

   At issue is a pending EPA policy that Pruitt has indicated will require the agency to justify its regulations based on scientific data that is publicly available on the internet.

   “We need to make sure their data and methodology are published as part of the record,” Pruitt told the conservative news outlet Daily Caller March 19. “Otherwise, it’s not transparent. It’s not objectively measured, and that’s important.”

   Pruitt said the policy will mirror legislation offered by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House science committee. It directs the agency to use the “best available science” in all its actions, but bars the agency from using any studies that cannot be released publicly online “in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results.”

   One knowledgeable source says an early version of the policy was drafted several weeks ago, though the first draft was “pretty sketchy. The first cut was fully [Smith's bill], but there were a lot of questions about what it would mean,” and how it would be implemented.

   Smith's bill, H.R. 1430, passed the House last year on a largely party-line vote, but was strongly opposed by environmentalists and numerous non-partisan scientific and engineering associations, as well as Democrats. They argued it would bar the agency from using many high-quality studies because it cannot release the data underlying studies that include personal medical records, does not have copyright or other permissions to disclose, or that contain trade secret information.

   Another former agency staffer tells Inside EPA that such a policy “would remove a good chunk of the human health data” EPA has long considered in many of its human health-based decisions.

   “You're taking huge chunks of data on ... chemicals [assessed by EPA's Integrated Risk Information System] and other important decisions, and saying it can't be used. It would greatly diminish the robustness of the data” EPA can consider in regulatory decisions.

   The knowledgeable source says supporters have long pushed the transparency approach as a way to target a pair of studies -- conducted by Harvard University and American Cancer Society researchers -- that EPA has used to justify its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM) and other criteria pollutants.

   Generally, the studies found that individuals living in areas with greater amounts of PM in the ambient air were more likely to die, the source explains, though the data on which they are based are unavailable due to medical privacy protections. The sources notes, however, that studies and their underlying data were reviewed by the non-partisan health pollution research center Health Effects Institute, which confirmed the studies findings in 2000.

   If the agency is unable to cite the studies, it could undercut upcoming NAAQS reviews, including EPA's imminent NAAQS for nitrogen oxides the knowledgeable source says. The final NO2 NAAQS standard is due by a court-ordered April 6 deadline.

   In the case of the NO2 NAAQS, EPA recommended retaining the existing standard, a decision largely based on older studies, the source adds.

   “Under this new policy, would they be able to keep that finding?” the source asks. “It's not as clear cut. In recent years EPA has made as many decisions to retain a standard as to tighten one.” The source points to the most recent decisions for NO2, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide as examples of EPA retaining an existing standard.

   The sources notes that “tightening [the standard] has been the debate with PM2.5 and ozone.” Some view these two criteria pollutants as threshold pollutants that have no safe exposure level.

   Supporters of Pruitt's policy have downplayed concerns about medical privacy. In a March 26 editorial distributed by EPA's press office, The Oklahoman noted that California “already makes similar data available in its 'Public Use Death Files,' and that has been accomplished without violating patient privacy.”

   The editorial also downplayed cost concerns, noting that while critics have raised the concern, “it doesn't mean the public should be kept in the dark about the data and methods used to justify literally billions in new regulatory burden.”

   'Grind To A Halt'

   While easing air quality standards would draw legal challenges from environmentalists and states, industry officials would raise concerns over any agency effort to make available confidential business information (CBI), which forms the basis for EPA pesticide registrations and other chemical approvals.

   EPA's pesticides office makes its registration decisions based on CBI provided by pesticide manufacturers, just as EPA's toxics office makes decisions on whether to restrict new chemicals from entering the market based on CBI.

   A leaked EPA staff analysis warned last year that Smith's bill would even "prevent implementation" of the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), while also failing to protect CBI and limiting its use in EPA chemical, pesticide and other decisions.

   If such CBI could not be used in TSCA chemical evaluations, "these chemical programs would grind to a halt, greatly hindering manufacturers' and industries' abilities to get their chemicals approved for use in commerce," the analysis said.

   It adds that "much of the information submitted by manufacturers is CBI, and as stated, EPA does not believe that [H.R. 1430] protects CBI. Because of this EPA, would not meet the new and existing chemical responsibilities under TSCA if EPA were limited to the data required under [H.R. 1430]."

   While the largest of the chemical industry trade groups supported Smith's bill, a spokesman told Inside EPA last year that the American Chemistry Council “expected” to see changes to its language in the Senate if it advanced there, which he said “must include protection for CBI and competitive intelligence.”

   https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitts-bid-end-secret-science-faces-legal-implementation-hurdles
   

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3. Chemicals at Risk in Spat with China

   Mar 26, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

   By Jean-François Tremblay

   No one knows yet what products will be hit as part of a Trump administration plan to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, but chemicals are unlikely to emerge unscathed from any U.S.-China trade conflict.

   President Donald J. Trump announced on March 22 that the U.S. will impose tariffs on about $60 billion worth of Chinese goods to punish the country for technology and trade-secret theft. The White House says it will reveal the list of goods within 15 days of Trump’s announcement.

   The plan followed a separate U.S. proposal to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel produced in China and other countries.

   In response to the March 22 announcement, China threatened a countermeasure that would target about $3 billion worth of American goods, including fresh fruit, nuts, and wine. Officials hinted that a fuller response could follow.

   In a statement, the Chinese embassy in the U.S. vowed that “if a trade war were initiated by the U.S., China would fight to the end to defend its own legitimate interests with all necessary measures.”

   Even before the U.S. announcement, chemicals were vulnerable to trade conflicts. In a preliminary ruling last month, China’s ministry of commerce found the U.S., Taiwan, and South Korea guilty of dumping low-priced styrene in China. The ministry demanded that manufacturers from those countries immediately pay a deposit in anticipation of new tariff duties if the final ruling confirms the dumping.

   Chemicals represented about 10% of total U.S. merchandise exports to China in 2017. The proportion rises to more than 14% if plastics are included. The $21.5 billion worth of chemicals and plastics that the U.S. shipped to China last year was more than the $19.5 billion in agricultural products that it shipped. From China’s perspective, chemicals were about 3% of all the goods shipped to the U.S.

   https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/web/2018/03/Chemicals-risk-spat-China.html
   

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4. How a Groundswell of Citizen Activism Helped Save the EPA

   Mar 27, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund

   By Sam Parry

   Something amazing happened in Washington last week: Congress rejected Trump’s draconian cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and a host of other critical federal programs. In the end, the president had no choice but to sign the 2018 federal budget into law.

   None of this could have happened without a groundswell of activism – tens of thousands of citizen petitions and phone calls over the past 13 months, pounding away on lawmakers. Many of them face tough mid-term elections, and the political risk of gutting the EPA ultimately proved too great.

   It wasn’t Congress that ultimately saved the EPA – it was you.A time to celebrate – and to stay vigilant

   My organization alone collected more than 125,000 signatures from people opposing Trump’s plan to slash 30 percent of the agency’s budget. Over the past year, public opinion polls have consistently shown that Americans support clean air and water safeguards, and that they oppose the idea of a decimated EPA.

   Congress listened and this will mean less pollution, healthier kids and – in the stark terms of Washington calculations – a greater recognition that attacking environmental safeguards is bad politics.

   It’s a genuine moment for celebration – but also a reminder to all of us that this fight must go on.

   EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is still aggressively pursuing an agendato undermine his agency’s work.He recently bragged to the Heritage Foundation that he wants to add hurdles to using sound science at the EPA.How Congress bucked Trump

   Last week’s budget showdown isn’t going to stop Trump and Pruitt from trying again. But for now, we can celebrate that Congress:

   • added $66 million to the Superfund toxic cleanup program. The Trump administration wanted to cut it by one-third.

   • kept a funding level of $228 million for state and local air quality management. The administration had requested a reduction of nearly 30 percent.

   • maintained last year’s funding of $14 million for lead programs in states. Trump’s budget proposed to zero out such grants for states.

   • added $12 million in funding to grants fighting water pollution from the Long Island Sound to Gulf of Mexico and Lake Champlain. Trump had called for eliminating these grants.

   • fully funded the Integrated Risk Information System that Pruitt was reportedly planning to dismantle. The program supports researchers studying public health dangers from pollution and chemicals.

   • increased U.S. Department of Energy funding for the agency’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division from $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion. The administration had targeted the program, critical to developing a sustainable energy future, for a 50-percent cut.

   It’s clear that members of Congress weren’t ready to explain to their constituents why they had voted for more pollution, and instead chose to do the right thing. I hope Mr. Pruitt, who likes to say his only job is to implement the will of Congress, is listening now.

   https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/03/26/how-groundswell-citizen-activism-helped-save-epa
   

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Chemical Management News

5. (ACC Mentioned) Safety Reviews of Chemicals Near Water a Heavy Lift for EPA

   Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By David Schultz

   The EPA will have a hard time meeting a congressional mandate to boost oversight of toxic chemicals stored near water supplies, several people who work in water policy told Bloomberg Environment.

   This could have both public health and worker safety implications for employees of water treatment plants who might be exposed to chemicals of unknown potency or health effects if they spill near a drinking water source.

   Congress tasked the Environmental Protection Agency with evaluating the safety of thousands of substances in the 2016 update to the country's toxic chemicals law. And within that statute, Congress said the agency had to prioritize chemicals stored near “significant sources of drinking water.”

   In early 2019, the EPA has to start screening 40 chemicals and identify 20 for closer scrutiny by the end of that year.

   Daniel Rosenberg, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on chemical issues, said there's no evidence the agency has developed a method for determining what a significant source of drinking water is or whether a chemical is stored near one.

   “The clock is ticking,” he told Bloomberg Environment. “They need to come forward with what their process is actually going to be and then start implementing it.”

   Intra-Agency Collaboration

   The EPA declined a request from Bloomberg Environment to interview staffers within its Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, the main branch responsible for implementing the 2016 law (P.L. 114-182).

   However, an EPA staffer told Bloomberg Environment in an email that the office is collaborating with the agency's Office of Water to figure out how to comply with this part of the law.

   That collaboration may not be as fruitful as the agency would hope.

   Rita Schoeny, an environmental consultant who, until 2015, had worked in the EPA's science and water offices for years, said the Office of Water might not have the data that the toxics branch is looking for.

   The laws that govern drinking water quality are relatively agnostic toward water sourcing, she said. Instead, they mainly focus on ensuring that whatever impurities exist within those sources gets filtered out before it reaches faucets, she told Bloomberg Environment.

   As a result, the EPA might not maintain data on which chemicals are stored near drinking water sources, or even of the location of drinking water sources themselves, she said.

   The American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents the manufacturers of many of these chemicals, did not respond to several inquiries from Bloomberg Environment for this story. Additionally, no responses came from the top U.S. chemical makers Bloomberg Environment contacted: DowDuPont, Honeywell, 3M and Monsanto's parent company, Bayer.

   Chemical Spills

   A nightmare scenario for many water utilities is something along the lines of a spill that occurred in Charleston, W. Va., four years ago. Thousands of gallons of a coal processing chemical called MCHM leaked out of a storage tank and into the Elk River, just upstream from the intake pipe for one of the largest drinking water utilities in the state.

   Water service was subsequently shut off for hundreds of thousands of residents in the Charleston area for nearly a week, partially because the health effects of exposure to MCHM were not known.

   A spill like this would pose risks not only to residents drinking contaminated water but also to water utility workers at treatment plants who might be exposed.

   Lee Anderson, the head of government affairs with the Utility Workers Union of America, said some larger water utilities have compiled detailed information about what chemicals are stored upstream from their plants and have also developed plans for what to do in the event of a spill.

   However, he said that may not be the case at the tens of thousands of smaller utilities across the country. Workers at these smaller facilities could use some help from the EPA to determine what chemicals are stored near them and what their risks are, he said.

   “It would be valuable to have third-party research,” Anderson told Bloomberg Environment. “It would just be out there for a little municipality.”

   ‘Six or Seven Words’

   The utilities themselves also want the EPA to get on board.

   Wendi Wilkes, a regulatory analyst with the trade group American Water Works Association, said the agency has its work cut out for it because the language in the 2016 chemicals law was vague; it just says the EPA must prioritize chemicals stored “near significant sources of drinking water.”

   “It might only be six or seven words but it can have a really big impact on protecting source water,” Wilkes told Bloomberg Environment.

   The agency will have to define what “near” means in this context, she said. It will also have to determine whether this applies only to surface water or whether groundwater, the drinking water source for nearly a third of Americans, is covered too, she said.

   If groundwater is included, Wilkes said, that opens the possibility that the agency's toxics office will have to do a full safety evaluation of perfluorinated chemicals, a class of persistent and potentially toxic substances used in firefighting foam, consumer products, and industrial applications that have contaminated groundwater across the country.

   However, Wilkes said she hopes the EPA looks beyond these chemicals—which have already been identified as a threat—and finds others stored near drinking water sources that aren't on anyone's radar.

   “We want to be a voice saying ‘Hey, don't forget about this,’” she said. “That's encouraging to hear they're thinking about the nexus” between chemicals and drinking water.

   http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554179&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554179&jd=130554179
   

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6. (ACC Mentioned) In Search of Safe Replacements for Harmful Chemicals Used in Cookware, Carpets, Clothing, Cosmetics and More

   Mar 26, 2018 | Ensia

   By Liza Gross

   When Donald Taves discovered two kinds of fluoride in his blood in the late 1960s, he immediately knew something was wrong.

   Everyone assumed that blood contained just one type of fluoride, a naturally occurring form that health officials added to drinking water to prevent cavities. But levels in people’s blood didn’t seem to relate to those found in their water supply. Taves, then a researcher at the University of Rochester, set out to find out why — and discovered that his blood contained a second form of fluoride. With colleagues from the University of Florida, he then analyzed additional blood samples, from over 100 people living in five different U.S. cities. The researchers found this second form — which he suspected was a synthetic, highly stable form made by adding fluorine atoms to a carbon chain — in their blood, too.

   Members of this family of chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), repel oil, water, stains and heat, thanks to the unique properties of their seemingly immortal fluorine-carbon bonds. They’ve been manufactured and added since the 1950s to a dizzying array of consumer and industrial products, including carpets, fabric, cosmetics, outdoor gear, nonstick cookware, microwave popcorn bags, airplane hydraulic fluid and firefighting foams.

   And, as Taves discovered, these “forever chemicals” can escape from these products. PFASs enter the environment — and ultimately humans, domestic animals and wildlife — through multiple avenues, including improper disposal, emissions from plants where they’re made and used, airports and military bases that deploy PFAS-containing firefighting foams and wastewater from landfills overrun with chemically laden cast-offs.

   Once these problematically persistent chemicals enter the environment, they are extremely difficult to remove: Scientists have now detected them in nearly every corner of the globe and in nearly every American tested. And once they enter our bodies, they cause trouble. Studies in animals and people suggest that two of the best studied PFASs — perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA) — may cause diverse adverse effects, including hormone disruption, testicular and kidney cancer, liver damage, high cholesterol, reduced vaccine response, and adverse reproductive and developmental effects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

   Taves was worried about the potential risks of PFASs even in 1975. He contacted chemical manufacturer 3M to see if the compounds he found in blood could have come from its Scotchgard line of stain-repellants. But Taves says he didn’t get a straight answer — a recollection confirmed by an internal 3M memo, in which a company rep tells his colleagues “we plead ignorance” to Taves’ inquiry. The company’s refusal to admit that its products could have been a source of fluorochemicals helped to stall regulation for decades, while evidence of their harm accumulated.

   Finally, 25 years later, 3M agreed to stop producing PFOS — a main ingredient in Scotchgard — in response to growing concerns about its ubiquitous presence, toxicity and tendency to build up in the food chain. And in 2006, 3M, DuPont and other leading chemical manufacturers joined in an EPA program to drastically reduce PFOA production by 2010.

   As replacements for PFOS and PFOA, so-called “long chain” chemicals (based on the number of carbons), chemical companies have switched to “short chain” PFASs. In some cases, they’ve substituted entirely different classes of chemicals. The EPA started reviewing the potential toxicity and environmental fate of short-chain replacements in 2000.

   Yet little information is publicly available on the toxicity, properties and uses of many of these substitutes. And scientific reviews have concluded that the substitutes are just as persistent as the old versions, leaving concerned scientists to call for a new strategy that leaves this entire class of chemicals behind.

   New Chemicals, Old Concerns

   For over 50 years, regulators allowed chemical companies to produce PFOA and PFOS under the assumption that they were safe. It took scientists decades to demonstrate the folly of that assumption, as factories that made or used the chemicals contaminated the neighborhoods and drinking water of nearby communities. Outraged communities stepped in where regulators had failed to hold chemical manufacturers accountable for decades of pollution.

   In February, 3M agreed to a US$850 million settlement with the state of Minnesota, which sued the firm for polluting the state’s groundwater by offloading “massive quantities” of PFOA, PFOS and related compounds into unlined pits and trenches. Last year, DuPont and its spinoff Chemours agreed to pay US$671 millionto settle some 3,550 suits filed by communities suffering high rates of cancer and other ailments near its plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which used PFOA to make Teflon. And an independent panel of epidemiologists, appointed as part of the DuPont agreement, determined that there was a “probable link” between PFOA exposure and community members’ diagnoses of high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

   Chemical industry representatives maintain that the new generation of chemicals is different. “The short-chain fluorinated products that are on the market today have been thoroughly reviewed by regulators and are supported by a large volume of scientific data supporting the safety of these products,” says Jessica Bowman, executive director of the FluoroCouncil, a global trade group run by the American Chemistry Council.

   There is general agreement that short-chain alternatives don’t last as long in people’s bodies. But many scientists worry that companies are replacing one set of bad actors with another. Both short-chain and long-chain versions have carbon-fluoride bonds, which do not occur in nature. Both varieties are extremely resistant to breaking down in the environment, if they break down at all, and little is known about the health impacts of the substitutes. But so far, the few short-chain compounds environmental health scientists have studied look and act a lot like the long-chain versions: They’re persistent, can build up in plant tissue and may be just as toxic.

   In the Environment

   It’s clear that the short-chain molecules are ending up in the environment, too.

   Last year, EPA scientist Johnsie Lang published the results of her Ph.D. research, which she said tested chemical manufacturers’ claims that once PFASs reach landfills, they stay there. Lang identified 70 long- and short-chain PFASs in samples of landfill runoff, which operators send to wastewater treatment plants. Short-chains will likely end up in surface waters, she explained in February at a meeting in Berkeley, California, on persistent pollutants, because they easily slip through filtration systems. Lang went on to work with a team of researchers who found several short-chains plus other PFAS chemicals they couldn’t identify in a third of food-contact paper samples collected from fast-food outlets.

   In 2007, EPA scientists found the two best known and recently curtailed PFASs, PFOS and PFOA, in the Cape Fear River near DuPont’s Fayetteville, North Carolina, facility. Two years later, the EPA approved the short-chain compound GenX as a replacement for PFOA on the condition that DuPont (and later its spinoff Chemours) contain environmental emissions. Three years after that, scientists found GenX in the Cape Fear Riverwatershed. The Cape Fear water-treatment plant, which serves nearly 200,000 people, failed to remove GenX from wastewater.

   “This was a plant that was state of the art,” says North Carolina State University engineering professor Detlef Knappe, whose team helped identify the chemical. “And it wouldn’t touch GenX.”

   Little is known about the toxicity of GenX, so last year Knappe and his colleagues secured a grant to study exposure and health effects in people who depend on the Cape Fear for their drinking water. Animal studies have linked the substance to cancer of the liver, pancreas and testes but its effects on people are not known. And again, communities have stepped in to hold chemical companies accountable for contaminating their water and neighborhoods. In January, lawyers filed a consolidated class-action suit on behalf of thousands who live in the Cape Fear River Basin against DuPont and Chemours, which now makes GenX. The lawsuit charges the companies with illegally dumping GenX into the Cape Fear River and harming residents who drank the contaminated water.

   “We are currently reviewing the claims made in the suit, and will respond accordingly in court,” says Dan Turner, a DuPont spokesperson. Chemours did not respond to a request for comment.

   Assessing Risk

   Meanwhile, scientists without industry affiliations continue to challenge manufacturers’ claim that short-chain PFASs are suitable substitutes for long-chain relatives because they pose less risk.

   Researchers have no idea what a lot of these compounds are, Lang said at the Berkeley meeting, while others “have zero toxicology papers on them.” That’s because industrial chemicals are loosely regulated. Manufacturers of pesticides must provide “standards,” or pure versions, of their product, including any related compounds. That way, scientists have a reference to help them detect their presence and quantities in a given sample. Manufacturers of industrial chemicals like PFASs, however, face no such requirements. Critical information about short-chain alternatives is often guarded as proprietary, forcing independent scientists to spend considerable time, resources and effort to test such claims.

   Knappe says there’s no reason to assume that short-chain PFASs are safer than long-chains just because they’re excreted faster. A short half-life may not matter when you’re constantly exposed, he says. He points to another drinking water contaminant called 1,4-dioxane. The body clears 1,4-dioxane rapidly too, yet it’s still classified as a likely human carcinogen.

   A 2015 review of short-chain PFASs released by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency lends support to Knappe’s concerns. The review concluded that short-chains may damage the liver and kidneys after prolonged exposure in large doses, based on animal studies. These studies suggest that PFHxS — detected in fast-food packaging and the Cape Fear River watershed — is even more harmful to the liver than PFOS. What’s more, the review noted, PFHxS has a longer half-life in humans than both PFOA and PFOS, and its toxicity “seems to be close to PFOS,” while the available data for the other short-chains is “insufficient for a final evaluation.”

   In January, researchers from Stockholm University and the Swedish Chemicals Agency reported that some fluorinated alternatives, including GenX, may “have similar or higher toxicity” than their predecessors.

   Fluorine-free Future?

   Over 200 scientists from 40 countries expressed their concern about PFASs in 2015 in a document known as the Madrid Statement, written by 14 experts on the environmental fate, health impacts and policy issues concerning PFASs. They laid out the scientific knowledge on the potential risks posed by the entire class of PFASs, short-chains included. They also called on chemical manufacturers to disclose the identity and toxicology of PFASs and to develop safer alternatives.

   Industry representatives point to the wide diversity of PFASs on the market as a reason not to condemn the whole class. “Because of this very broad diversity, it is inappropriate and unscientific to take a class-based approach toward the whole universe of PFAS products,” says the FluoroCouncil’s Bowman.

   Yet the science clearly shows that the entire class of chemicals is highly persistent, says Arlene Blum, founder of the nonprofit Green Science Policy Institute and a lead author on the Madrid Statement. And when you have chemicals that “take the energy of lightning to break their bonds,” Blum says, “remediation is too expensive and too hard.”

   Blum and Tom Bruton, an environmental engineer who works with Blum at GSPI, say that protecting environmental and public health ultimately requires a shift to nonfluoridated alternatives.

   Several fast-food outlets and food-packaging manufacturers use fluorine-free materials, and fashion and outdoor apparel companies have made a commitment to phase out PFASs.

   Many companies are keeping their formulas secret to gain a competitive edge, Bruton says, so it’s hard to say for sure that they’re safe. For example, he says, little is known about the toxicity and environmental fate of silicone, among the alternatives used to make PFAS-free cookware. Even so, he adds, the general feeling among his colleagues is that moving away from fluoride-based chemistry is an improvement.

   More and more regulators think so, too. So far, 16 bills to regulate PFASs have been introduced in nine states, according to Safer States, a coalition of public interest groups, including Vermont Conservation Voters and Maryland PIRG. The Washington State Legislature recently passed a bill banning PFASs in food packaging, following Rhode Island’s lead, and another restricting their use in firefighting foams. In addition, several states have proposed enforceable PFAS standards for drinking water.

   The EPA just announced that it would hold a summit in May to help states coordinate monitoring and remediation of these persistent contaminants and address widespread concerns about them.

   A Reason to Explore Alternatives

   When Taves reported finding fluorochemicals in Americans’ blood over four decades ago, few beyond the scientific community took note. Today, the knowledge that exposure to these toxic industrial chemicals is pervasive has sparked widespread concern, says Bruton, and given companies a reason to explore alternatives. Meanwhile, skeptical scientists continue to go through the painstaking process of assessing the environmental and health impacts of one chemical after another while wondering if they, too, are placing a new generation at risk.

   For too long there’s been an assumption that once the chemical industry moved to less bioaccumulative short-chains, the problem was solved, says Bruton. “I think that’s changed now that drinking water contamination has received so much attention.”

   For Blum, the change can’t come fast enough. Every creature on the planet is full of these chemicals, she says. “It’s heartbreaking.”

   https://ensia.com/features/pfas/
   

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7. Danish Consumer Council says SVHC app is a success

   Mar 27, 2018 | Chemical Watch

   By Tammy Lovell

   The Danish Consumer Council said its Tjek Kemien app, which helps consumers identify substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in products, has been a success, despite a decrease in usage. 

   At Chemical Watch's Global Business Summit, held in Amsterdam earlier this month, Jakob Zeuthen, head of environment policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce, said the number of scans made through the app had fallen.  

   But Claus Jørgensen, senior project manager at the council, told Chemical Watch: "It’s been a success in the way that business knows the app and consumers are more aware of their right to know, but it’s not a success if you want increasing numbers of scans every year." 

   The app allows consumers to scan a product barcode and automatically send an Article 33 request to the manufacturer or retailer, asking if the product contains SVHCs. Under Article 33 of REACH, suppliers are legally obliged to provide the information, free of charge, within 45 days.

   Statistics from the two major Danish supermarkets - Coop and Dansk Supermarched - show the number of requests they received from Tjek Kemien dropped from 88 in 2016 to 16 in 2017.

   But Mr Jørgensen said these figures do not reflect the total number of scans made in the supermarkets. This is because some would have been answered immediately through the app’s database of product information or been sent directly to the manufacturer.

   The app was used to make 14,000 scans last year and more than 120,000 times since its launch in 2014. It was used 832 times in January this year.'High hopes'

   Mr Jørgensen said the council had stopped promoting Tjek Kemien in order to focus on the AskREACH project, which will launch an EU-wide app next year. It is one of 20 partnership organisations involved in the initiative, led by the German Environment Agency (UBA).

   Tjek Kemien will be discontinued when the EU-wide app launches and existing users will be redirected towards the new app through a system update. 

   He said there were "high hopes" that it would be popular with consumers and encourage companies to be prepared for Article 33 requests. 

   "On a larger scale we’ll have greater success than we do here in Denmark, because [it] is such a little market. Our goal in the campaign is to get many millions of scans to put pressure on the companies," he said. 

   Another reason for the decline in use of the Tjek Kemien app is the 45-day period to receive information from manufacturers, which Mr Jørgensen said was off-putting for consumers. 

   He said: "If you see a big TV in the sale and you find out you have to wait 45 days to get an answer about SVHCs, you might not wait. The 45 days is a barrier."

   AskREACH is encouraging companies to add product information to its database, so requests can be processed immediately without waiting for a response from the manufacturer. 

   The council is in the process of getting permission from companies in its Tjek Kemien database to be added to that of AskREACH.

   Mr Jørgensen said this could be used as a "marketing tool" for companies which do not use SVHCs in their products.

   A website for the AskREACH project is due to launch later this year. 

   https://chemicalwatch.com/65331/danish-consumer-council-says-svhc-app-is-a-success
   

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Energy News

8. Trump Said to Name Energy Department Official as Top Aide

   Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Ari Natter, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs

   The White House plans to name Wells Griffith, an Energy Department official who worked on President Donald Trump's campaign, as one of the president's top energy and environmental advisers, three people familiar with the decision said March 24.

   Griffith, who has been principal deputy assistant secretary in the Energy Department's Office of International Affairs, will join the National Economic Council, where he will coordinate White House efforts on international energy and climate issues.

   The position is said to be for a three-month trial basis that could lead to a permanent position, according to one of the sources, who didn't want to be named discussing a decision that has yet to be made public.

   The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

   Griffith will take over the role previously occupied by George David Banks, who left in February after being denied a security clearance because of marijuana use. Griffith is said to already have security clearance needed for the job.

   Griffith's new role will keep him focused on international energy issues, including policy questions about liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and coal power plants around the world.

   Griffith may also play a role in continued discussions about the U.S. role in international efforts to combat climate change. Although Trump announced the U.S. would pull out of the landmark Paris agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions on June 1, 2017, the country can't formally leave until November 2020.

   The Trump administration has been pushing for United Nations and multilateral development bank funds to support the construction of high-efficiency plants that produce less planet warming carbon dioxide and coal plants that employ carbon-capture technology.

   Griffith was a political operative helping the Trump campaign secure votes in battleground states in 2016. He also served as a deputy chief of staff to Reince Priebus, when Priebus was chairman of the Republican National Committee.

   While at the Energy Department, Griffith played a key role in a deal heralded by the Trump administration to export 700,000 tons of coal from Pennsylvania's Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC to Ukraine, according to E&E News, which previously reported Griffith's selection for the National Economic Council spot.

   http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554190&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554190&jd=130554190
   

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9. Trump Taps New International Environment Advisers

   Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   President Donald Trump is adding to his team responsible for international environmental policy, nominating a former Ford executive and Michigan regulator to run EPA's Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA) and moving an Energy Department (DOE) official to a key advisory position on international energy and environment issues.

   The White House announced on March 23 that Trump will nominate W. Charles “Chad” McIntosh to head OITA, succeeding Jane Nishida, who has headed the office since 2013 as a career official.

   According to EPA's announcement, McIntosh has managed Ford's global environmental compliance “for almost 20 years,” and served as deputy director of the Michigan Department of Environmental quality prior to that position, under former Gov. John Engler (R).

   “Chad will bring a wealth of experience and expertise to EPA . . . His unique background as an engineer and an attorney in global environmental compliance makes him a valuable asset and well-suited to lead the Office of International and Tribal Affairs,” EPA's press release on the nomination quotes agency Administrator Scott Pruitt as saying.

   At OITA, McIntosh could have a role to play in deciding how the Trump administration approaches international climate-change efforts, including its relationship to the Paris Agreement, after many pro-Paris advisers have recently departed the White House.

   Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Trump is shifting Wells Griffith, deputy assistant secretary at the DOE office of international affairs, to replace one of those departed advisers, taking the spot on the National Economic Council (NEC) vacated by George David Banks after the latter was unable to secure a permanent security clearance.

   Bloomberg says Griffith's appointment may not be permanent, however -- rather, the article says it is “for a three-month trial basis that could lead to a permanent position,” citing a source “familiar with the decision."

   Following his departure from NEC, Banks said in an exclusive interview with Inside EPA that he continues to hope the Trump administration will remain a party to the Paris deal, as a way to give it a voice in the agreement's goals and set “guardrails” on future presidents' ability to justify greenhouse gas limits based on those terms.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/trump-taps-new-international-environment-advisers
   

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10. Is This the World's Next Petrochemical Hub?

    Mar 26, 2018 | Oilprice.com

    By Irina Slav

    Appalachia is about to turn into the largest gas-producing region in America, accounting for 37 percent of the total by 2040, a study by IHS Markit commissioned by a lobby group has suggested. The group, dubbed Shale Crescent USA, is on a mission to promote the attractive business conditions for petrochemical producers in a bid to find a replacement for coal as a revenue stream in the region.

    Some of the highlights from the study are that ethane costs some 32 percent less in Appalachia compared with the Gulf Coast and that polyethylene deliveries from the Appalachia are 23 percent cheaper than deliveries from the Gulf Coast. Further undermining the Gulf Coast, IHS Markit said it had estimated that a new petrochemical plant project in Appalachia could generate US$11.5 billion in pre-tax cash flow over a 20-year period starting 2020, at an initial investment of US$1 billion. The same project on the Gulf Coast would generate US$7.9 billion, the market researcher said.

    Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are seeing an influx of investments in petrochemical production driven by the cheap and abundant natural gas. There are already 900 chemicals plants in the region, which holds an estimated 141 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. But these are small potatoes, even though they are creating jobs.

    Late last year, China Energy Investment Corp. inked a memorandum of understanding with U.S. officials to invest US$83.7 billion in a large-scale project dubbed the Appalachian Storage Hub. The hub would include storage facilities for liquefied gas, a market trading index center, pipelines, and refining facilities.

    Right now, in light of what is increasingly looking like a real trade war between the United States and China, there may be doubts if China Energy Investment Corp. will cough up the sum needed to make the project a reality, but others are already building.

    Shell, for one, is working on a US$6-billion ethane cracker in Pennsylvania—the first ethane cracker outside the Gulf Coast built in the last two decades. Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical is also preparing to give the final go-ahead to an ethane cracker in Ohio later this year, spending US$100 million a front-end engineering design for the facility so far. The value of the project has been estimated at US$10 billion.

    There are many industrial clients in close proximity to the Shale Crescent, mainly from the steel, chemical, and fertilizers industries, among others, which should additionally stoke the appetite of investors.

    All this sounds great for the local gas industry, but the horizon is not totally clear. There is environmentalist opposition, although not as large-scale as the protests against the Dakota access pipeline, for example. The latest in the protest activity was a “tree sit” against the construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline along its route. The pipeline will cross the Appalachian Trail, which has angered environmentalists.Related: The Truth Behind Oil’s Recent Price Spike

    It remains to be seen whether the protesters would be able to stop the pipeline project, but the protests do highlight a problem: shortage of pipeline capacity similar in scale to that experienced by Alberta’s heavy oil producers.

    Appalachian gas is trading at a discount to other grades because of the shortage, and this is affecting producers’ performance. At the same time, opponents to new pipeline projects—regardless whether it’s oil or gas—are becoming more vocal in their opposition.

    Building a gas refining industry close by the deposits would in all likelihood help producers place a larger part of their output. Yet a lot will remain to be shipped in a raw state to feed gas-fired power plants, the national grid, as well as Gulf Coast refineries. Meanwhile, pipeline protests are becoming a trend that could compromise a lot of the growth potential of the industry.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Is-This-The-Worlds-Next-Petrochemical-Hub.html
    

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11. Mexico Appears to Sign Gas Fracking Contract with US Company

    Mar 26, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)

    Mexico's state-owned oil company has signed what appears to be one of its first big gas fracking contracts with a subsidiary of Texas-based Lewis Energy.

    The Petroleos Mexicanos company said Monday it would drill and exploit non-conventional gas deposits with Lewis Energy Mexico in the portion of the Eagle Ford shale formation in Mexico.

    While Pemex did not mention fracking, it is the method commonly used to drill for gas in the Eagle Ford area.

    Pemex said the contract involves about $617 million in investments and yields potential gas production of 117 million cubic feet per day by 2021.

    Detractors say fracking wells have already been drilled in Mexico, but the government has not released much information about them.

    https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/03/26/world/americas/ap-lt-mexico-fracking.html
    

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Chemical Security News

12. Court Wants EPA to Justify Chemical Rule Delay

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Sam Pearson

    A federal appeals court wants examples of previous regulatory delays that would help the EPA justify its nearly two-year freeze of a chemical safety rule aimed at protecting first responders.

    The Environmental Protection Agency by April 3 must give examples of federal agencies delaying regulations for reconsideration, the three-judge panel, which heard arguments in the case earlier this month at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said March 23. The panel is evaluating whether the EPA violated the Clean Air Act in June 2017 when it delayed an Obama-era chemical facility safety regulation until February 2019.

    Community and environmental organizations sued over the delay, claiming the EPA must make its own factual findings to delay the regulation so long, not just say that it's reevaluating it. The groups have until April 11 to supply their own examples.

    The action shows judges want to confirm the government's claims that the delay action is common, Scott Nelson, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment March 26.

    “I don't think it means the outcome will necessarily turn on this point,” Nelson said, “but it does seem to reflect interest by the panel in getting the facts rather than relying on assertions of arguing counsel.”

    When contacted by Bloomberg Environment March 26, an EPA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

    Industry Warnings About Costs, Security

    Industry organizations have warned that the Obama-era rule could increase costs and present security risks for the chemical facilities, which would be required to meet new emergency planning and coordination requirements with local emergency response committees.

    During the Obama administration, officials argued the new requirements would better protect first responders by making it easier for them to find out about high-risk chemical facilities. The rules were intended to prod companies to provide updates about possible risks more frequently.

    Industry organizations have claimed the regulations require them to tell too much and that the disclosures could harm security if it is too easy to obtain sensitive information about a facility.

    The Trump administration's EPA placed the freeze on the chemical safety rule in response to those concerns.

    The EPA is now crafting a replacement rule (RIN:2050-AG95).

    ‘A Comprehensive List’

    In the order, the judges asked the EPA to provide “a comprehensive list” of examples prior to 2017 in which a federal agency has issued notice-and-comment regulations to change the effective or compliance dates for an earlier regulation.

    Specifically, the court told the EPA to include regulations in which the delay is justified on the basis that the agency is reconsidering the earlier regulation. That's the type of conduct at issue in the Air Alliance case, which the court heard oral arguments for on March 16.

    During the oral arguments, Emma Cheuse, a staff attorney at Earthjustice who represented the groups before the court, was asked whether this type of delay was a “past practice” at the EPA.

    “There are a few limited occasions where EPA has attempted to do this,” Cheuse responded. “It's not clear to us that it's ever done it in precisely the same way.”

    Cheuse declined to comment to Bloomberg Environment March 26. The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment March 26. The agency does not typically comment on pending litigation.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554183&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554183&jd=130554183
    

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Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

13. EPA's Toxic Air Pollution Policy Walkback Draws Lawsuit

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Jennifer Lu

    Power plants and other large industries will be able to emit thousands more pounds of toxic air pollution under an EPA policy that lets some of them shut off modern emissions controls, environmental advocates challenging the policy said.
    

    The exemption could allow hazardous emissions at 12 large industrial facilities in the Midwest to more than quadruple to a combined 540,000 pounds a year if those pollution controls are withdrawn, the Environmental Integrity Project, one of the groups suing the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a report.

    Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit March 26 challenging the EPA's withdrawal of a policy known as “once in, always in” that governs how the largest emitters of toxic air pollution control their pollution.

    Under the policy withdrawn in January, these largest emitters had to install and maintain modern pollution control technology, even after they reduced their emissions below the threshold that triggered the controls. Under the new policy, sources can stop running emissions controls once emissions fall below that level.

    “The change that EPA announced creates a gaping loophole in the statutory protection from hazardous air pollutants,” Patrice Simms, vice president for litigation at Earthjustice, told Bloomberg Environment.

    An EPA spokesperson told Bloomberg Environment by email that the agency “doesn't comment on pending litigation.”

    ‘An Uphill Battle’

    For the D.C. Circuit to take up the case, environmental groups will have to persuade judges that the policy withdrawal is a “final agency action,” Jeff Holmstead, former EPA assistant administrator at the air and radiation office, told Bloomberg Environment.

    Because courts will only review final agency actions, this means that environmental groups will likely have to wait until the policy is applied in a specific case, which results in obligations and legal consequences, said Holmstead, who is now an environmental lawyer at Bracewell LLP in Washington.

    “I think they will have an uphill battle getting the court to review the change in policy,” Holmstead said.

    ‘A New Rule’

    Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Environmental Integrity Project, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club Environmental Law Program, and other environmental and public health groups.

    The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.

    “They've called this a guidance document,” Simms said. “But what it really does is adopt a new rule.”

    When an agency makes such a drastic change to a long-standing agency interpretation of how air toxics, a fundamental EPA program, are regulated, it should be done through rulemaking, Simms said.

    More troubling, Simms said, the agency made “such a profound change to such an important program,” but put “zero effort” into looking at the public health implications.

    “The fact is, ‘once in, always in’ has become an integral part of [the air toxics program] and it deserves the type of critical analysis of a rulemaking process,” Simms said.

    Spokespeople for the industrial facilities cited in Environmental Integrity Project's analysis, including American Iron Oxide in Portage, Ind., Harrison Steel Castings Co. in Attica, Ind., and Liberty Casting Co. in Delaware, Ohio, did not respond to Bloomberg Environment's requests for comment.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554181&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554181&jd=130554181
    

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14. Faster Air Pollution Permits Prominent on EPA's Agenda

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Amena H. Saiyid

    The EPA is looking at how to shorten the time it takes to get an air pollution permit for power plant and factory construction or expansion, the operations adviser to Administrator Scott Pruitt told Bloomberg Environment.

    The Environmental Protection Agency wants to identify what is holding up permits under the New Source Review program, EPA Chief Operating Officer Henry Darwin told Bloomberg Environment on the sidelines of last week's Environmental Council of the States conference in St. Paul, Minn.

    “I want to get an idea of how many permits are out there that are sitting for longer than six months. That will help us prioritize our lean process,” Darwin said, referring to the lean management system approach that he is helping to deploy.

    Delays in the the process, for example, caused a proposed Sithe Global Inc. plant to be abandoned and built in Indonesia instead.

    The EPA has held week-long sessions with state and regional agency officials to review new water pollution permits it issued under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, new drinking water permits for underground injection wells used for oil and gas extraction, and new chemicals selected for regulation under the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Now it is turning attention to the New Source Review program, Darwin said.

    The goal of the meeting is to identify the reasons for the delays and look for ways to improve, he said.

    Five-Year Plan

    Pruitt's goal, which is folded into the agency's five-year strategic plan, is to cut in half the number of permitting decisions that take longer than six months by September 2019.

    “EPA doesn't track how long it takes to issue permits,” Darwin said.

    An applicant can expect to wait anywhere between two and three years to get a final New Source Review permit from the EPA, including appeals, Rich Alonso, an attorney with the Washington office of Sidley Austin LLP told Bloomberg Environment. Alonso served as the second-ranking Clean Air Act enforcement official at EPA between 2001 and 2007.

    The costs of the delays for these permits affect the electric power and petroleum industries, Alonso said. Those industries would welcome any agency effort to expedite the process, which should ordinarily take no longer than a year, Alonso said.

    A proposed 1,500-megawatt Desert Rock Energy Co. facility, to be located on Navajo reservation land in northwest New Mexico, was a casualty of the prolonged new source review permitting and appeals process, according to Alonso.

    The project's backers—a joint venture between Sithe Global Inc., a merchant developer, and Dine Power Authority (DPA), an enterprise of the Navajo Nation Council—gave up on building the power plant and built in Indonesia instead.

    Limited Scope

    The EPA issues the permits in Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and Indian country.

    Seven states are delegated the authority to issue permits on behalf of the EPA using federal rules, while 43 states issue permits directly through EPA-approved state implementation plans.

    Federal air regulations require the EPA to take one year to submit a new source review permit, but in practice it takes longer, according to attorneys.

    That is because the EPA only starts the clock once it has deemed the application complete in a written notice, which the agency can take its time to issue, Alonso said.

    Complex Process

    When the agency begins processing the application, the EPA review of air emissions modeling submitted in support of the project can be time intensive and complex, Megan Berge, an attorney with Baker Botts LLP, told Bloomberg Environment in an email.

    In addition, an applicant cannot begin construction on a project until any appeals process is completed in its favor, Berge and Alonso said.

    As Darwin goes through the process of reviewing EPA operations, he said he's learned that the EPA doesn't know a great deal about the time it takes to approve drafts of state-issued permits, measure compliance, and respond to states’ requests.

    For instance, the EPA doesn't track the time between when a violation notice is issued and corrective action is taken, he said.

    Darwin previously served as Arizona's chief operating officer, where he implemented the type of lean management system that Pruitt now wants to adopt. Darwin adopted this from Toyota, which applied the approach to its manufacturing.

    The overarching task is to identify the small problems before they become larger. Some larger problems at the EPA, for instance, began as smaller ones, Darwin said.

    Becky Keogh, ECOS vice president and director of Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said she sees no reason why the reforms EPA is bringing to its permitting operations can't be adopted as best practices by states.

    Bloomberg Environment was a sponsor of the Environmental Council of the States meeting.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554180&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554180&jd=130554180
    

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15. Green Groups Sue to Stop EPA Rule Change for Power Plant Emissions

    Mar 26, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

    By Miranda Green

    A number of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday challenging a recent administrative decision to allow certain major power plants to turn off some pollution controls.

    The petition for review filed by the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, asks the court to reconsider the rule change by EPA that environmentalists consider a loophole for polluters under the Clean Air Act.

    “Once again, the Trump administration is putting the health of polluter balance sheets over the health of our families and children,” said Mary Anne Hitt, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, in a statement. “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. Real people will pay the price with this cruel decision and we will do everything we can to stop it.”

    In January, the agency loosened regulatory compliance standards for certain sources of air pollution previously considered "major."

    William Wehrum, head of the EPA’s air office, put out regulatory guidance repealing the “once in, always in” policy. That policy saw that facilities, such as power plants or factories, considered “major” sources of hazardous air pollutants were always regulated as such, even if the facilities’ owners took measures to reduce pollution.

    Wehrum said the new guidance would "reduce regulatory burden for industries and the states, while continuing to ensure stringent and effective controls on hazardous air pollutants.”

    The previous standard had been enforced since 1995. “Major” air pollution sources are subject to much stricter rules for what they must do to reduce emissions such as mercury compounds and benzene.

    The EPA argued that the “once in, always in” standard disincentivized companies from reducing pollution and targeted it as part of the Trump administration’s overarching goal of cutting regulatory burdens.

    The four page memorandum was published to the Federal Register without notice or a public comment period.

    Environmental groups say the new changes would allow thousands of major polluters across the country to stop meeting requirements under the Clean Air Act.

    “EPA is inviting companies to save a few bucks by reducing their use of pollution control systems they’ve been running for years, even if that dumps more toxic air pollution on their neighbors,” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) in a statement. “Let’s hope the court sees through this give-away and blocks the Trump team’s latest effort to unravel the Clean Air Act.”

    A report by EIP released Monday examined how the EPA changes would effect emissions at 12 industrial facilities in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota. The group found that the policy change could allow "major" plants to quadruple their emissions of toxic air pollution.

    The EPA did not return a request for comment.

    http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/380312-green-group-sue-to-stop-new-epa-loophole-for-power-plant-emissions
    

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16. Shell Says Saving Planet Probably Means Sucking Carbon Dioxide

    Mar 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Kelly Gilblom

    Cutting emissions won't be enough to keep the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius: to achieve that goal, according to Royal Dutch Shell Plc, will require sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

    A scenario report from the Anglo-Dutch oil major describes a world woefully unprepared to meet the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.

    Shell says that by 2060, carbon capture and storage must exceed global emissions as the company sets a course for pre-industrial pollution levels. For decades after, such facilities would need to work at breakneck pace to inhale the carbon dioxide spewed by previous generations.

    That jars with the current reality where carbon capture and storage technology is a commercial failure, with fewer than 50 active projects compared with the 10,000 needed under one of Shell's scenarios for attaining climate safety.

    While Shell says the report isn't a call to arms, but merely analysis of what's required to meet climate goals, it's still a robust statement for a company that depends on fossil fuels. The oil major may hope that such aggressive scenario modeling demonstrates the urgent need for a carbon price.

    Along with its peers, Shell has proposed charging for carbon emissions as a way to foster the type of progress modeled in its report. Financial penalties for pollution would also improve the economics of carbon capture and storage projects.

    With many carbon capture projects reliant on injecting the fluid into the ground, it's a natural line of business for a company with expertise in drilling and geology, and Shell already has such facilities in at least three countries.

    http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=130554187&vname=dennotallissues&fn=130554187&jd=130554187
    

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