Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 27/03/18
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(ACC Mentioned) AFPM 2018: North American Polypropylene Sellers Could See 2-cent Margin Expansions: Source
Mar 27, 2018 | Platts
By Nida Qureshi and Bernardo Fallas
North American polypropylene producers stand a good chance of increasing margins on domestic contract pricing by as much as 2 cents/lb ($44/mt) for April on supply tightness, a producer source said Tuesday. -
Let’s Say it Again: Dangerous Paint Strippers Don’t Belong on Store Shelves
Mar 27, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
More than a year ago, citing “unreasonable risk of injury to health,” the EPA proposed a ban on the use of methylene chloride (also known as dichloromethane or DCM) and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in paint and coating removal. -
Court Gives EPA an Additional 90 Days to Update Lead Paint Rule
Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
Over environmentalists' objections, a federal appellate court has granted EPA an additional 90 days to propose an update to its lead dust hazard standard for residential structures and its regulatory definition of lead-based paint, a proposal the agency has just floated to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). -
Biocides Authorities Agree How EDC Criteria Will Work in Practice
Mar 27, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
EU authorities have decided how the criteria for identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals will be realised in the approval processes for biocidal substances and products. -
(ACC Mentioned) West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania Extend Shale Coalition
Mar 26, 2018 | North American Shale Magazine
By Patrick C. Miller
West Virginia has agreed to extend the Tri-State Shale Coalition Agreement with Ohio and Pennsylvania to encourage regional cooperation and job growth by developing shale gas in the Appalachian Basin. -
Greens, Dems Sound Alarm on FERC's Intervention Policy
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is making subtle but important changes to the way it allows people and organizations to formally take part in its natural gas pipeline reviews. -
Study Finds Flood of 'Extreme' Errors in EIA Projections
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The Energy Department's projections of everything from future oil prices to coal use became much more inaccurate in the past decade and created wide uncertainty for businesses, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University. -
AFPM: Executives Weigh in on Tariffs, Immigration and US Unemployment
Mar 27, 2018 | Platts
Global trade set the tone and official theme for this year’s American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers International Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio this week, as chemical interests from around the world met to conduct business and exchange information. -
Mexico, Asia Drove Demand for U.S. LNG in 2017
Mar 27, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
U.S. LNG exports quadrupled in 2017 on rising demand from Mexico and Asia, a new report from the Energy Information Administration shows. -
XTO Agrees to Fine for Alleged Bakken Violations
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
XTO Energy Inc. will pay a $320,000 fine and upgrade pollution controls at its oil and gas operations on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota's Bakken region under a proposed consent decree announced yesterday. -
Industry, Regulators Spar Over Supply Chain Rules
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Electric utilities are urging federal regulators to tap the brakes on new security requirements for the bulk power grid's supply chain. -
Environmentalists Sue EPA to Restore 'Once In, Always In' Air Policy
Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are suing EPA in a bid to force the agency to restore a policy the Trump administration scrapped that required industrial facilities once regulated for air toxics as “major sources” to retain and use their emissions controls even if the sources' emissions fall below levels at which they would be considered “major.” -
Move to Open CRS Reports Spotlights Agency's Climate Debate
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Reports produced by Congress' in-house think tank, long relied upon by lawmakers for research and policy advice, will soon be accessible to a much wider audience, expanding the agency's reach and influence, but also increasing its visibility and, likely, its critics.
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Mar 27, 2018 | Platts
By Nida Qureshi and Bernardo Fallas
North American polypropylene producers stand a good chance of increasing margins on domestic contract pricing by as much as 2 cents/lb ($44/mt) for April on supply tightness, a producer source said Tuesday.
North American producers including Braskem America, LyondellBasell and Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA have announced increases for April independent of feedstock propylene contract pricing behavior.
Braskem Americas is seeking a 3 cents/lb increase. LyondellBasell intends to raise prices by 5 cents/lb, while Total is aiming for 4 cents/lb, according to company letters sent to customers and obtained by S&P Global Platts.
Recent decreases in feedstock propylene pricing -- US polymer-grade propylene contracts shed a combined 12 cents/lb ($264.55/mt) in February and March -- have significantly lowered PP production costs and should incentivize demand, and thus improve producers' chances of expanding margins, at a time when inventories are low, the source said.North American polypropylene inventories sit at a four-month low in February at 1.47 billion lb -- 97.762 million lb lower than January levels, according to the latest data by the American Chemistry Council.
However, other market sources have cautioned that the likeliness of the margin expansion to be implemented is dependent on how quickly demand is able to pick up after being diminished due to high costs and expectations of upcoming lower pricing.
Sources have cautioned that if the producers implement expansions early, it could diminish demand and buyers could look towards imported material as opposed to domestically-produced material.
Domestic polypropylene pricing was assessed Wednesday at 61.5-62.5 cents/lb rail-car basis for homopolymer injection grades, with the fiber-grade price assessed at a 2-cent/lb premium at 63.5-64.5 cents/lb rail-car basis.
A significant portion of PP contracts in North America remain on monomer-plus formulas, with the premium over PGP talked at 14-16 cents/lb.
US March propylene contract prices were settled at a 6 cents/lb decrease to 47 cents/lb for polymer-grade product, sources said.https://www.platts.com/latest-news/petrochemicals/sanantonio/afpm-2018-north-american-polypropylene-sellers-26923950
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Let’s Say it Again: Dangerous Paint Strippers Don’t Belong on Store Shelves
Mar 27, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
More than a year ago, citing “unreasonable risk of injury to health,” the EPA proposed a ban on the use of methylene chloride (also known as dichloromethane or DCM) and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in paint and coating removal. These chemicals are not only linked to cancer as well as liver, kidney and reproductive toxicity but have also caused more than 50 reported deaths from acute exposure since 1980.
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families supported EPA’s proposal and also put large home improvement retailers Lowe’s and the Home Depot on notice that they shouldn’t wait for EPA to finalize its ban, but should protect consumers by taking these dangerous chemicals off their store shelves immediately.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has indefinitely delayed the proposed ban, and these products are still on store shelves, and people are dying – both from “DIY” use and professional use.
This week, the Center for Public Integrity published a story about the delayed EPA action, and, in the absence of federal protection, the push for retailers and state legislatures to take action. You should definitely read the full piece but here’s a sneak peek:
In December, however, while trumpeting its deregulatory efforts, the EPA changed the categorization of its would-be ban from “Proposed Rule” to “Long-term Action.” The agency said in an emailed statement last week that officials “felt that more time was needed to consider how best to analyze and address any risks from these chemicals.”
In fact, the EPA has done that already — as part of its original proposal. Asked for an estimate on how long additional work on the rule would take and whether the agency still intended to finalize the proposal, the EPA did not respond.
Maryland Delegate Clarence Lam, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health physician with a specialty in public and occupational health, saw the EPA’s handling of this chemical as a call to action. In February the Democrat sponsored a bill to ban methylene chloride paint strippers in his state. The legislation isn’t going anywhere this legislative session, but he’s hopeful about its chances next year.
“I didn’t think further risk assessments needed to be done,” Lam said. “This chemical probably should have been banned long ago.”
Industry representatives testifying against his bill argued that a ban would be premature because the EPA is on the job. They pointed not to the languishing proposed restrictions but to a separate toxics review the agency is undertaking. Methylene chloride is one of the targeted chemicals.
But relying on that effort to get action on paint strippers could delay restrictions for years because it’s an opportunity for the agency to retrace all the steps it already completed, said Liz Hitchcock, who heads Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a group that works to get toxic substances out of products.
“In the absence of EPA taking action, we are urging — and definitely increasing our efforts to persuade — the largest home-improvement retailers to take action on their own,” she said, and get “these dangerous products off their store shelves.”
You can take action now by telling The Home Depot to get these dangerous chemicals off its shelves.
http://saferchemicals.org/2018/03/27/lets-say-it-again-dangerous-paint-strippers-dont-belong-on-store-shelves/
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Court Gives EPA an Additional 90 Days to Update Lead Paint Rule
Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
Over environmentalists' objections, a federal appellate court has granted EPA an additional 90 days to propose an update to its lead dust hazard standard for residential structures and its regulatory definition of lead-based paint, a proposal the agency has just floated to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
In a March 26 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, without comment, granted EPA's motion to allow for an additional 90 days -- until June 26 -- for EPA to propose its rule.
The order appears to clarify some uncertainty on when the agency was required to propose the rule. In its landmark decision last December in A Community Voice, et al. v. EPA, the court found that the environmental petitioners were entitled to a writ of mandamus against EPA, requiring the agency to update its lead hazard standard for residential and child-care facilities and its definition of lead-based paint under the Toxic Substance Control Act.
The court ordered EPA to issue a proposed rule within 90 days “of the date this decision becomes final."
But when that schedule was triggered was not clear. In a March 20 motion, EPA said it was unclear when the court's “decision will 'become final'” or if it had, noting the court had not yet issued a judgment or mandate to conclude that the court decision is final.
The agency said that while it is actively drafting a proposed rule, the agency believed the court had never “made final” its ruling, and therefore the 90-day time line had never triggered.
In its March 23 brief opposing the extension, Earthjustice on behalf of environmental groups argued that the federal government should have known, given a previous ruling by the same court, how writs of mandamus are addressed by the 9th Circuit, and noted that EPA sought a mandate even though the court made clear it was not issuing one in this case.
The groups conceded they would not oppose a 10-day extension of time given EPA indicated it would be unable to have the proposed rule ready by March 27, but said “EPA has failed to demonstrate why an entire additional 90 days is necessary to compensate for its own failure to clarify its obligations."
The extension comes as EPA March 26 sent the proposed rule for both the lead dust standard and the lead-based paint definition to OMB for review, according to OMB's website. Such reviews are usually required to be completed within 90 days but can take more or less time, depending on a host of factors.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/court-gives-epa-additional-90-days-update-lead-paint-rule
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Biocides Authorities Agree How EDC Criteria Will Work in Practice
Mar 27, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
EU authorities have decided how the criteria for identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals will be realised in the approval processes for biocidal substances and products.
This month's meeting of the biocides competent authorities (CAs) adopted two papers after months of discussion. The endocrine disruptor criteria for biocides will begin to take effect in less than three months, on 7 June.
The criteria should have little effect on substances with an assessment report submitted before 1 September 2013. These still fall under the rules of the biocidal products Directive (BPD).
But substances with an assessment report submitted after 1 September 2013 – when the biocidal products Regulation (BPR) entered into effect – will no longer be approved, if the new criteria identify them as endocrine disrupting.
The final paper on biocidal products introduces a controversial provision: the criteria will be applied to both biocidal active and non-active substances (co-formulants) in pending product authorisation applications. This rule was met with criticism from industry, legal experts and Echa, last year.Guidance
Both the substance and product approval processes will depend greatly on the data requirements for assessing endocrine disrupting properties. Echa and the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) are currently developing a guidance paper that will determine these. A draft of the paper was met with mixed reactions earlier this year.
Echa and Efsa's main biocides and pesticides working groups will be consulted, before publication of the final version. The biocides competent authorities and the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed will also discuss it.
But Echa told the biocides CAs at this month's meeting that it is "on track" to publish the final guidance in time for June.
More detail on this story, and copies of the two CA meeting papers, are available on CW+BiocidesHub.
https://chemicalwatch.com/65408/biocides-authorities-agree-how-edc-criteria-will-work-in-practice
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(ACC Mentioned) West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania Extend Shale Coalition
Mar 26, 2018 | North American Shale Magazine
By Patrick C. Miller
West Virginia has agreed to extend the Tri-State Shale Coalition Agreement with Ohio and Pennsylvania to encourage regional cooperation and job growth by developing shale gas in the Appalachian Basin.
Gov. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, last week announced the extension of the agreement with Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and Gov. Tom Wolf, D-Pennsylvania. During annual Tri-State Shale summits, government, educational and industry leaders from across the region meet to share information and discuss best practices.
The Appalachians are recognized as a source of natural gas and other valuable resources. The three states host several chemical feedstock and plastics manufacturing businesses. The Tri-State Coalition participants intend to increase the region’s share of downstream-related business investments and the high-paying careers associated with them.
“Instead of competing, our three states are working together to promote the region as a center for shale-related manufacturing,” Justice said. “Shale gas presents an opportunity to spur economic growth beyond the wellhead.”
Under the agreement, the states work together on issues related to infrastructure systems, workforce development and marketing activities to better enable the region to harness the potential of Appalachian gas and natural gas liquids. The agreement identifies key areas in which the states cooperate to grow the natural gas industry, including workforce development, infrastructure and research.
“We are working to attract investors and downstream partners,” Justice said. “We are encouraging chemicals and plastics manufacturers to come here, stay here and grow here with us in the Appalachian region.”
According to the American Chemistry Council, a strong upsurge of investment in the U.S. chemical industry can be attributed at least in part to the plentiful supply of natural gas. The organization said this domestic supply gives U.S. chemical manufacturers a competitive edge, resulting in increased investment, industry growth and jobs. As of December 2017, the council reports, 317 projects cumulatively valued at $185 billion in capital investment have been announced.
A memorandum of understanding creating the Tri-State Shale Coalition was first signed in 2015 and renewed automatically each year. The new signatures continue the regional cooperation agreement through Dec. 31, 2021.
Supporting and guiding the coalition’s efforts are representatives from public-private, economic development and philanthropic organizations such as Vision Shared of West Virginia, TeamNEO of Ohio, The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Regional Pittsburgh Alliance of Pennsylvania.
http://northamericanshalemagazine.com/articles/2307/west-virginia-ohio-pennsylvania-extend-shale-coalition
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Greens, Dems Sound Alarm on FERC's Intervention Policy
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is making subtle but important changes to the way it allows people and organizations to formally take part in its natural gas pipeline reviews.
FERC has warned anyone planning to intervene in a pipeline proceeding that the agency is going to be "less lenient" in allowing late entries and will no longer accept the lack of knowledge of an application as an excuse for not making a request to intervene before the given deadline.
That change, which earned the dissent of two Democratic FERC commissioners, has also drawn the attention of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which warned yesterday that the new policy could chill public participation in FERC's review of pipelines.
In two recent orders, one in late-February and one in mid-March, FERC said it is revising its policy to more strictly adhere to the agency's rules for allowing intervenors to join proceedings "out of time," which require parties to "show good cause" for why deadlines should be waived.
Outside parties typically have 21 days to file a request with FERC to intervene and be a party to a review.
A FERC spokeswoman said in an email that, as FERC wrote in its Feb. 27 order denying a request for a rehearing of a Tennessee Gas pipeline project, the changes are now in effect for any new natural gas proceedings "in which the deadline for filing timely interventions has not yet passed."
The issue came up more recently in an order approving a certificate for the Birdsboro Pipeline Project in Pennsylvania on March 15.
FERC brought up as a side issue in that order the presence of Delaware Riverkeeper Network as an intervenor. The environmental group filed a late motion to intervene, using an excuse that was "not persuasive," wrote a majority made up of Republican Commissioners Kevin McIntyre, Robert Powelson and Neil Chatterjee.
The invalid reason that Delaware Riverkeeper gave for filing five weeks after the initial deadline FERC had given for interventions was simply that it had not been aware of the application that was submitted until then.
The three FERC Republicans said the move represented an increasing trend of participants filing late motions to intervene, using reasoning that is outside the scope of FERC's regulations.
"Delaware Riverkeeper and all other participants are on notice that, going forward ... we will be less lenient in the grant of late interventions," the majority wrote.FERC Dems dissent; enviros fret
The new policy was criticized by FERC's two Democrats, who dissented from the Pennsylvania project's approval primarily over the commission's decision not to use the social cost of carbon to inform on the project's environmental impact.
Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick wrote that they have "serious concerns" about the change in intervention policy.
"While we agree that late interventions should be limited to parties that demonstrate good cause, we are concerned by the potential consequences of the commission's pronouncement, particularly as it would apply to landowners and community organizations that lack sufficient resources to keep up with every docket," they wrote.
They also said they are concerned about public confidence in FERC's pipeline siting process and that limiting interventions could exacerbate that problem.
Their argument was echoed this week by NRDC in a blog post by staff attorney Gillian Giannetti.
The importance of allowing people and groups to intervene, she noted, is that only those formal parties to a FERC review have the ability to request rehearing of a FERC order or appeal to federal courts.
She called the change in policy "unnecessary and shortsighted."
"No question: timely interventions are better than late ones," Giannetti wrote. "But federal regulations provide flexibility for a reason: allowing untimely interventions acknowledges the real limitations of the Notice of Application."
She wrote that the change could "reinforce concerns that FERC is a black-box, closed-door agency that no one knows about, but has an impact on everyone."
In an interview, Giannetti said having a "bright-line rule" is a bad idea. In this case, the bright-line rule would be that a lack of knowledge about a proceeding can never be considered good cause to intervene out of time.
"Bright-line rules are messy," she said, and FERC already has the tools within its regulations to do a case-by-case analysis.
Maya van Rossum, leader of Delaware Riverkeeper, said that in her experience, it has always been a "heavy lift" to get FERC to grant late interventions, even if the parties trying to intervene could be greatly affected by a project.
Both she and Giannetti said motions to intervene in a project are common.
On the Birdsboro project, van Rossum said, her group was very actively involved from the beginning but still did not know about the filed application until past the intervention deadline, hence its request for late intervention.
"So you can imagine how hard it is for other community members, property owners and concerned organizations," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/27/stories/1060077531
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Study Finds Flood of 'Extreme' Errors in EIA Projections
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The Energy Department's projections of everything from future oil prices to coal use became much more inaccurate in the past decade and created wide uncertainty for businesses, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University.
The study, published yesterday in Nature Energy, examined 17 metrics in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook going back to 1949. The projections are considered critical for companies and utilities weighing long-term investments on things such as the number of power plants to build and which types of fuel sources to use.
In the last decade, there was a jump in EIA's most extreme errors, where projections were off by more than nearly all others in history. This extreme unpredictability was greater from 2005 to 2014 than in the previous two decades. At the same time, volatility — or extreme annual fluctuations in EIA data — was greater over the same period than in the previous three decades.
"The key takeaway is that any projections or forecasts of the long-term development of the U.S. energy system should be used with extreme caution," said Evan Sherwin, an analyst in CMU's Department of Engineering and Public Policy and lead author of the study.
He recommended that EIA broaden its modeling to produce more estimates.
"To their great credit, EIA currently produces a number of such side cases, but many of them simply tweak one or two parameters," he said.
The team assessed "extreme" year-to-year volatility by documenting the largest-ever upward and downward percent changes for each of the 17 quantities. With unpredictability, extremes were defined as errors greater than 95 percent of others historically.
The EIA indicators studied by the university included prices, consumption and production of coal, natural gas and oil; electricity prices; electricity sales; and energy consumption in residential, transportation and commercial sectors. EIA currently makes projections several decades out.
The period from 2005 to 2014 saw nine extreme changes in volatility over decades, or more than a quarter of the 34 total. Those included recent, unexpected percent changes in oil production, total energy consumption and electricity sales. Only the 1950s and '60s, when the United States was on a growth spurt after World War II, witnessed similar annual shifts, according to the study.
Similarly, the largest-ever overestimates by EIA on 10 factors, including fossil fuel production and consumption, electricity sales and total energy use, all occurred in the last decade. There also was a jump in errors on nearly every metric in comparison to what occurred in the 1990s.
The paper doesn't offer a full explanation for all the wild zigzags and faulty prognoses but points to the unanticipated 2007 to 2009 financial crisis and the hydraulic fracturing boom, which caused prices across the energy sector to drop and created competition for coal more than expected.
"The widespread adoption of horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing in shale formations, particularly after 2007, is unquestionably a major factor in the 17 percent increase in oil production in 2014 and the 54 percent decline in natural gas prices in 2009," the paper says.
That doesn't explain all of the inaccurate numbers, though, as extreme errors started to increase before 2007. Sherwin said rising oil demand because of China and peaking U.S. vehicle travel could have contributed to the uptick.
What is certain is that faulty projections can be costly. The paper outlines how errors from 2005 to 2014 could have made the difference between a profit and a loss for a liquefied natural gas export terminal.
In an accompanying article in Nature Energy, University of California, Irvine, earth system science professor Steven Davis said volatility and uncertainty can also have a negative impact on the environment.
"To the extent that market uncertainty prolongs the operation of less-efficient and more polluting old plants, it also prolongs such plants' disproportionate impact on global climate and human health," Davis said.
Sherwin cautioned that the study doesn't automatically mean that future EIA projections will be as inaccurate. "If we have learned anything from this analysis, it is that such long-term predictions should be taken with much more than just a grain of salt," he said.
EIA did not respond to request for comment.
The agency has come under fire in the past from critics claiming it lowballed estimates of renewable power (Greenwire, April 5).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/27/stories/1060077535
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AFPM: Executives Weigh in on Tariffs, Immigration and US Unemployment
Mar 27, 2018 | Platts
Global trade set the tone and official theme for this year’s American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers International Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio this week, as chemical interests from around the world met to conduct business and exchange information.
The official conference theme of global trade is underpinned by the resurgence of the US market’s growth in exports in crude, refined products as well as petrochemicals and plastics. Topics of interest were around investment in new plant buildouts both in the US and around the world, and what competitive factors could make or break those projects, including the future curve for crude oil.
Timeliness of project execution, with the value of time as money principle, was also cited as a key element for success. Other topics addressed by some of the senior leaders speaking at AFPM, included tariffs and trade.
At a roundtable discussion featuring executives from Chevron Phillips, Albemarle and Ineos, all agreed with respect to trade that stability and predictability are critical.
Luke Kissam of Albemarle said that companies investing billions of dollars in a plant like to do that in an environment of certainty, but that’s hard to get when you don’t know if tariffs will be invoked or you may face retaliation from a customer country.
Managing tariffs should not be treated like a real estate deal, was the blunt assessment of one executive around the table.
“It’s not the way we should do business,” added another.
The potential for petrochemicals to get pulled further into the US-China tariff debate is a possibility, the industry leaders said, but they expect agriculture is more likely to be exposed.
Another challenge addressed at this year’s event is the very tight US labor market, which could be a constraint on petchems projects. The labor market, which featured 4.1% unemployment in January and is expected to dip lower this year, coupled by a politically tightening of US immigration policies, have made it increasingly difficult for the US petrochemical industry to bring in skilled labor into the US.
Immigration red tape in Washington makes it inefficient to bring in labor legally to support project buildouts, the executives noted. This comes at a time when other countries are offering more flexible guest worker programs to make it easier to bring in labor for companies looking to build plants elsewhere.
Another component of the labor puzzle is training and developing talent, which all the executives noted is something their companies are focused on through sponsoring programs at local colleges and preparing workers for how their jobs might evolve over the coming decade. A golden age could extend for the next 25 years, an Albemarle executive said, adding that if quality talent isn’t there, the US industry will “mess it up.”
And it was noted that talent development extends beyond the industry’s traditional focus on STEM education, to seeing employees growing in their ability to be educated so that they better understand government and policies, which in turn will hopefully prepare them to better make decisions.
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/03/27/afpm-executives-weigh-tariffs-immigration-us-unemployment-impacts-petchems-business/
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Mexico, Asia Drove Demand for U.S. LNG in 2017
Mar 27, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
U.S. LNG exports quadrupled in 2017 on rising demand from Mexico and Asia, a new report from the Energy Information Administration shows.
Shipments reached 1.94 billion cubic feet per day last year as Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass export facility expanded its output capacity and the Cove Point facility in Maryland came online, according to the data from the EIA. The exports helped turn the U.S. into a net gas exporter earlier this year.
Asia was the top market for LNG, but Mexico was the single largest destination country.
“Growing natural gas demand in Mexico, particularly from the power generation sector, and delays in the construction of domestic pipelines connecting to U.S. export pipelines led Mexico to rely on LNG imports to supplement imports of natural gas by pipeline,” the EIA report said.
LNG exports to Asia also picked up as U.S. gas prices dropped below supplies from Australia and Europe, the EIA said.
WHAT’S NEXT: The U.S. is expected to become one of the world’s largest gas exporters as other companies‘ export terminals start operations in the next two years.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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XTO Agrees to Fine for Alleged Bakken Violations
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
XTO Energy Inc. will pay a $320,000 fine and upgrade pollution controls at its oil and gas operations on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota's Bakken region under a proposed consent decree announced yesterday.
The tentative settlement, which still needs a judge's approval, is expected to cut yearly releases of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by some 2,200 tons, according to a joint press release from U.S. EPA and the Justice Department. Such compounds help form smog; on their own, they can also act as lung irritants and worsen ailments like asthma.
The deal "will benefit tribal communities and regional air quality," EPA Region 8 Administrator Doug Benevento said in a statement. Under the agreement, XTO, the shale drilling subsidiary of Houston-based Exxon Mobil Corp., is admitting no liability. "Our priority is to ensure the safety of the community, our employees and contractors and the environment," spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry said in an email.
The almost-1-million-acre Fort Berthold reservation, located in western North Dakota, is home to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, a federally recognized Indian tribe. Attempts to get comment from tribal officials were unsuccessful.
The proposed settlement stems from EPA inspections in 2014 and 2015 that found the company was in some cases allowing storage tank vapors to escape through "thief hatches" instead of channeling them through pollution control equipment as required by the federal implementation plan for the Fort Berthold reservation. Those control systems were "not adequate," according to a copy of the accompanying lawsuit. Following standard practice, the lawsuit was filed with the proposed settlement in the U.S. District Court for North Dakota.
Under the proposed agreement, XTO will evaluate and overhaul those controls to make sure they're up to the job of handling all storage tank emissions; the company will also undertake monthly infrared camera inspections to keep tabs on tank releases and fix problems as they are identified. In addition, XTO will undertake what EPA describes as an environmental mitigation project to install storage tank auto gauges to reduce how often thief hatches are opened, according to the release. That work is expected to cost at least $425,000, according to the company.
The proposed settlement, which would resolve alleged violations at all 20 of XTO's well pads on the reservation, will have a 30-day public comment after a notice is published in the Federal Register. It is part of an EPA national enforcement initiative to curb pollution from the energy extraction business.
This is not the firm's first run-in with EPA enforcement officials. Under a 2014 consent decree, XTO agreed to spend some $5.3 million total in fines and on restoration work to make up for damage to streams and wetlands caused by natural gas operations in West Virginia (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2014). The year before, the company agreed to spend an estimated $20 million to improve drilling operations in Pennsylvania (Energywire, July 19, 2013).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/27/stories/1060077543
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Industry, Regulators Spar Over Supply Chain Rules
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Electric utilities are urging federal regulators to tap the brakes on new security requirements for the bulk power grid's supply chain.
In January, commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted to speed up adoption of cybersecurity rules for software and hardware that make their way into the bulk electric system (Energywire, Jan. 19).
In comments filed with FERC yesterday, a range of transmission operators and utility industry groups called for regulators to revert to the slower, 18-month deadline floated last year by the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which sets and enforces cybersecurity standards under FERC's oversight.
The organizations, including the Edison Electric Institute, American Public Power Association and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, also challenged FERC's push to broaden the scope of the standards to include control and monitoring systems at key facilities on the North American power grid, a category that would include common "firewalls" from big technology companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Utilities lack the kind of purchasing power to push such big companies into tweaking their products to meet the new security standards, the argument goes.
It "will be difficult for [utilities] to negotiate specific supply chain controls with very large and commercial product and service providers," noted EEI, which represents major investor-owned utilities.
In separate comments, the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. (AECC) spelled out its problem in concrete terms, noting that the co-op has 80 unique software vendors in just one important bulk electric system.
"Of the approximate 80 unique software vendors AECC uses, AECC has a negotiating position to change security practices with only one or two vendors," the Little Rock-based company said.
FERC and NERC have grappled with that problem for years: How could new regulations, legally bound to apply only to grid operators, improve security practices at companies that merely do business with utilities, far from any control rooms?
In rules drafted last year, NERC proposed requiring utilities to examine their own supply chain risks and start playing security hardball with their suppliers. For instance, the proposed rules would require power companies to be able to sever remote vendor connections to critical equipment on the grid, sealing off hackers in case the vendor is compromised.
They would also have to verify that software coming from a grid vendor really comes from that vendor and hasn't been tampered with by some hacker.
The threat isn't theoretical: In 2014, suspected Russian hackers gained a foothold in U.S. and European energy firms by hijacking the websites of industrial control system providers and sending out malicious "updates" to customers (Energywire, July 1, 2014).Not enough?
More recently, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warned of a sophisticated Russian hacking campaign that starts at third-party grid suppliers and contractors before pivoting to eventual targets in the energy sector (Energywire, March 18).
Several commenters sought a more explicit guarantee from regulators that they would not hold utilities accountable for glaring security failures at outside companies.
A group of midcontinent transmission owners, including Ameren Services Co., Entergy Arkansas Inc. and Duke Energy Indiana LLC, recommended FERC spell out that "responsible entities cannot compel vendor compliance and ... that responsible entities will not be held responsible for vendor noncompliance."
The companies joined EEI and other industry organizations in warning that tightening the timeline for the supply chain standards to take effect would be too much for most companies to bear given the regulations' complexities.
Other commenters argued that FERC's revisions don't go far enough and urged the agency to direct NERC to extend supply chain standards to "low impact" systems that aren't yet fully covered.
"Threat vectors will exploit the weakest link," state regulators at the Maine Public Utilities Commission pointed out in comments filed Thursday. "This could include the injection of malware into software or hardware in the distribution systems, over which states have jurisdiction, and would likely ultimately affect [bulk electric] systems."
The agency went on to recommend FERC work to boost states' abilities to address supply chain concerns at the distribution level.
The Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that manages water and power resources in the western U.S., suggested the new supply chain standards get rewritten to include all assets on the bulk electric power grid, including those with "low" impact to reliability, to "avoid gaps which could compromise the security" of the grid. The federal agency, part of the Interior Department, added that utilities should get an extra six months to meet that more comprehensive standard.
The bureau also took issue with a core component of the new requirements: that utilities develop a comprehensive plan for securing their supply chains, while NERC undertakes its own in-depth study of the issue.
"Implementing a plan to create more plans does not lead to improved reliability of the [bulk electric system]," the bureau said, adding that "plans to merely assess cyber security risks do not require anything to be done (such as mitigation of those risks) once the assessment is completed."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/03/27/stories/1060077483
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Environmentalists Sue EPA to Restore 'Once In, Always In' Air Policy
Mar 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are suing EPA in a bid to force the agency to restore a policy the Trump administration scrapped that required industrial facilities once regulated for air toxics as “major sources” to retain and use their emissions controls even if the sources' emissions fall below levels at which they would be considered “major.”
California Communities Against Toxics, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ohio Citizen Action and Sierra Club filed their suit March 26 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It contests the agency's Jan. 25 decision to end the long-standing emissions control policy known as “once in, always in.”
The suit is unusual because it challenges a guidance memo, rather than a final agency rule, meaning that petitioners will have to convince the court that the guidance is a “final agency action” subject to judicial review. The D.C. Circuit has generally found in prior cases that guidance documents are not final actions that can be litigated.
Under the once in, always in policy, which was first established in 1995, plants subject to maximum achievable control technology (MACT) regulation as major sources had to remain under MACT regulation even if they reduce their emissions to “area source” levels. Major sources are those emitting 10 tons per year (tpy) of one hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or 25 tpy of a combination of HAPs.
Industry groups have for years complained that the policy is unfair, prompting Trump EPA air policy chief William Wehrum to issue the memo as part of President Donald Trump's deregulatory drive.
But environmentalists charge that revoking the policy will result in significant increases of toxic air pollution, contrary to the intent of Congress in the Clean Air Act.
“This reckless decision allows factories to switch off their pollution control systems to save a few dollars, even if that means dumping more toxic air pollution on their neighbors and putting their health at risk,” said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of EIP and former Director of Civil Enforcement at EPA.
“Even worse, the rollback would allow these companies to stop monitoring based on their promise not to increase their emissions beyond the new thresholds for exemption,” he added.
EIP in a new report released March 26, titled “Toxic Shell Game,” estimates that based on an examination of 12 Midwestern industrial plants alone, “total emissions from these major sources could more than quadruple to a total of 528,000 pounds a year.” By committing to reduce their “potential to emit” to just below the major source threshold, facilities can not only avoid installing or running pollution controls required by MACT, they can also avoid monitoring to show what their emissions truly are, the report finds.
“The EPA’s action is shameful, dangerous and illegal,” said Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation for the Health Communities Program of Earthjustice, the law firm representing environmentalists in the suit.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-sue-epa-restore-once-always-air-policy
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Move to Open CRS Reports Spotlights Agency's Climate Debate
Mar 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Reports produced by Congress' in-house think tank, long relied upon by lawmakers for research and policy advice, will soon be accessible to a much wider audience, expanding the agency's reach and influence, but also increasing its visibility and, likely, its critics.
Last week, Congress included a provision in its omnibus spending package requiring the Congressional Research Service to make its reports open to the general public, not just Capitol Hill.
CRS is already taking heat from an inside-the-Beltway circle of current and former employees who argue that in an effort to dodge partisan politics and scorn, the agency fails to provide objective, expert and reliable analysis to lawmakers, often in the realm of climate science.
The move to expand access to CRS reports could invite increased scrutiny of an agency that generally tries to avoid the spotlight and force the research service to grapple with how it handles controversial topics such as climate change.
Alexandra Wyatt, a legislative attorney with CRS's American Law Division, said while researchers within the agency who produce reports on climate change do a "good job" dismissing arguments that global warming is not primarily anthropogenic, she said they are often too timid in their assessments.
"I just think some of the ways they end up going about talking about climate change don't necessarily objectively reflect the scale of the issue and the real impacts that are in play," she said.
CRS's core mission is to provide members of Congress high-level "analysis, appraisal and evaluation" of proposed legislation without partisan bias. But as controversial issues in the Trump administration continue to widen the partisan divide, observers say the agency is failing to offer expert conclusions in an attempt to sidestep party politics and bias, a move that could have the opposite impact by increasing misinformation and lending validation to falsehoods, they say.The CRS conundrum
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federal of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said the CRS is in a tricky position. For CRS analysts to delve into the merits of a controversial position and render a judgment is ideal, but it also opens them up to extreme derision from detractors, he said. On the other hand, the decision to avoid using their analytical skills and expertise can be endlessly frustrating.
"That's the conundrum," Aftergood said. "The fact that CRS authors are typically experts in their field means they are exceptionally well-qualified to render a judgement, and it is a source of professional frustration to pretend there is a range of valid opinions on some issues."
At a CRS sponsored seminar last spring, Wyatt deviated from her preapproved script and described the scientific consensus behind the risks posed by climate change and the existence of a countervailing science-denying opposition.
She later received a counseling memo from the CRS front office strongly condemning her actions.
"I find it exceedingly distressing that CRS management would not have the backs of their in-house experts," said Kevin Kosar, vice president of policy at R Street Institute and a former CRS employee.
"A CRS analyst could write the sky is blue and someone is going to complain about it," Kosar said. "You can't flinch every time somebody gets mad. It kills morale, and it kills the ability of analysts to do their jobs if they have to not make expert judgments."
Wyatt and a handful of former CRS analysts, including Kosar, sent a letter to the agency's leadership earlier this year stating their concerns and urging CRS to take advantage of its unique position to draw expert conclusions by recalibrating its "objectivity practices."
In response, Wyatt said she was handed a copy of CRS's existing objectivity policy and has not heard anything from leadership since.
In the letter, Wyatt and others write that while "whirlwinds of information and disinformation threaten democracy," CRS has the ability to sort out the truth.
"As you know, the current climate of 'alternative facts,' 'fake news,' conspiracy theories, and declining trust in a common reality poses problems for the United States' political system. While technological and social trends increase the need for information literacy, people across the political spectrum do not know where to turn for reliable information," they wrote.
"Many end up in polarized 'bubbles.' These trends threaten democracy, in part by eliminating shared factual grounds on which people and their legislators can debate, compromise, and seek consensus," says the letter. "In this climate, CRS's mission has never been more vital."
Stephen Dagadakis, head of the Congressional Programs and Communications Office at CRS, declined to address any of the specific criticisms levied against CRS on the record. In an emailed statement, however, he cited the distinction between making expert judgments about the likely consequences and implications of policy decisions and advocating for certain policies, the latter of which CRS does not do.
"CRS stands by its commitment to providing Congress with research and analysis that is authoritative, objective, and nonpartisan on the full range of public policy issues," he wrote.Climate change caught in the middle
In the letter, Wyatt said that CRS appears to avoid reaching conclusions in topic areas with potential for political controversy, instead operating as a neutral compiler of facts and opinions.
"Yet these risk-avoidant strategies, while certainly understandable, could in fact increase other risks such as under-utilizing CRS's valuable personnel; contributing to polarization; and, ironically, inviting a perception of partisan bias," the letter states.
Aftergood said climate change is a prime example of the type of political challenges CRS faces due to the heated nature of the debate. While the scientific consensus states that global warming is primarily caused by humans and is leading to the destabilization of the climate, the Trump administration questions the severity of the issue. President Trump has called climate change a Chinese hoax.
"Climate change is a good test case of [CRS's] ability to go beyond the politics of the issue and to endorse the scientific consensus," Aftergood said.
Wyatt said CRS has the power to either shape or reinforce narratives within Congress, and so by appearing to treat "climate alarm" as controversial and nonobjective, it bolsters the assertions of those who would prefer to not act on climate change over those who recognize the scale of the problem, she said.
"There are important connections to be made about the reality and scale about climate change risks that are totally objective, but that I personally perceive CRS to have been too hesitant to say due to fears of criticism from the — I'll just call them — anti-climate folks," she said.
In the letter, Wyatt cites the treatment of climate change as an example of how in some cases "shallow, disjointed, or euphemistic treatment of an issue" acts as a disservice.
While CRS did highlight the issue as a "Hot Topic" and published "superb" products on it, the agency did not connect the dots for Congress on the real-world effects of global warming, which could bias the debate toward inaction, she said.
"CRS also dodges overt recognition of the influence of climate misinformation, despite concerns among scientists and work by social scientists suggesting that recognition of the misinformation is needed to inoculate audiences against false ideas," the letter states.
"More fundamentally, the vast scale of climate change risks and the influence of climate misinformation are objectively verifiable facts," she said. "CRS must not mute them for political reasons."
Wyatt acknowledged scientific process can be flawed but urged CRS to defend the best-available processes that bring people closer to objectivity and truth.
"For example, climate change is established not by any red team-blue team debate, nor electorally, but by the scientific method. Budget scores are established by transparent and tested models that do not change based on party," she wrote.
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he will host a "red team, blue team" debate to establish the merits of climate science.A 'soul-crushing' history of avoiding risk
Kosar said CRS has a history of avoiding risk, which has led many analysts to jump ship. A job at CRS is a "wonderful position," he said, where you can make tenure after one year of employment and, as an analyst, enjoy a potential $150,000 salary without having to manage anyone.
"Nonetheless, the place is hemorrhaging employees," he said. "People are leaving; people at the top of the agency who are dissatisfied with present leadership. Analysts have left, reference librarians have left, other support staff have left."
Kosar, who worked at the agency from 2003 to 2014, said he left in part because he found he had fewer and fewer opportunities to utilize his expertise.
"Part of it is that Congress increasingly uses CRS has a kind of help desk," he said. "It's also the case that CRS is affording its employees fewer opportunities to do deep research ... because these are salient things that might attract political controversy."
Kosar, who detailed in a 2015 article how congressional dysfunction led him to quit his CRS job, said the agency's timidity coincides with the internet.
When internet use became more common about 20 years ago, CRS reports went from being hard copies that were read by a small handful of Hill staffers to widely spread stories in outlets like The New York Times, he wrote in a blog post last month.
"The arrival of the World Wide Web, smartphones, and the bitterly contentious environment on the Hill, as I described elsewhere, slammed CRS," he wrote. "The once insular agency found its staff being trashed by legislators, media, and bloggers. All for doing their jobs."
In response, Kosar said CRS tried to make its work less visible and therefore less vulnerable to public derision. While neutrality and invisibility help the agency avoid controversy, it is "soul-crushing" to staff, he said.
Wyatt agreed the pressure to avoid controversy adds some stress to her daily work.
"I'm not the only person who feels this general way about CRS's approach to some controversial topics, but there hasn't been a lot of coordinated or vocal discussion," she said.
In its latest annual report, CRS touts abundant new and updated products but does not go into detail about how it is adapting to the heightened partisan nature of Congress or the challenges it faces as senior analysts retire.
Kosar said he does not see the situation improving any time soon.
"There's little evidence that Congress itself is becoming less polarized, there's little evidence that the media cloud around Congress is becoming less polarized and there's no sign whatsoever that the agency's leadership is willing to stand up and have the backs of CRS analysts when they write about controversial issues," he said.
Kosar said Congress' move to open CRS reports to the public will ameliorate years of "obstruction."
"Now the public — not just lobbyists will be able to learn about government programs and policies through these invaluable nonpartisan reports," he said in an email.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/03/27/stories/1060077529
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