ACC AM 4/2/18

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Blog) There’s a Reason We Use Plastics to Package Food

   Apr 2, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters

   By Steve Russell
   
   
   This week, a grocery store in Amsterdam made headlines for being the first to offer an aisle without plastic packaging. If the thinking behind this offering is “less plastic is better in the grocery store”—then we need to ask: In what way is this really a good thing? And we need to be clear about the problem(s) this move is designed to solve.Are we trying to reduce food waste?
2. (ACC Mentioned) Statewide Ban On Plastic Bags and Polystyrene is a Slog

   Apr 2, 2018 | ecoRI news

   The forces working for and against a statewide ban on plastic retail bags and polystyrene containers clashed during a recent House committee hearing. Like past efforts, elected officials expressed their interest in a ban but lacked a consensus for passing a bill.
3. (ACC Mentioned) API Chief Jack Gerard Takes Post With Mormon Church

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

   By Hannah Northey
   
   
   Jack Gerard, the outgoing head of the country's largest and most prominent oil trade group, is taking a leadership position with the Mormon church after he steps down in August.

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

Chemical Management News

4. Toxic Chemical Laws Are Not Protecting Human Health

   Apr 2, 2018 | thestar.com

   By Arlene Blum
   
   
   Proposals to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act would pave the way for Canada to become a green chemistry leader by moving from the chemical-by-chemical approach to assessing and regulating similar toxics together.

Energy News

5. API Joins Fight Over Obama Fracking Rule's Future

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Ellen M. Gilmer
   
   
   The nation's most powerful oil and gas lobbying group is pushing to join a legal fight over the fate of Obama-era hydraulic fracturing standards that were scrapped by the Trump administration last year.
6. 'The Easy Water's Gone': Oil Drillers' Thirst Spawns a Hunt

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Lee
   
   
   They were beginning to explore hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil on the 165,000-acre ranch on the outskirts of Midland.
7. Okla.'s Seismic Hazard Remains High — USGS

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Soraghan
   
   
   The earthquake rate in Oklahoma is declining from the astronomical levels it hit in 2015, but U.S. Geological Survey scientists say the state's man-made earthquake hazard is still on par with California.
8. West Virginia’s Milestone Co-Tenancy Legislation Expected to Have Varying Impacts

   Apr 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

   By Jamison Cocklin
   
   
   The co-tenancy legislation that passed during this year's regular session in West Virginia is generally expected to aid natural gas development, but exactly how significant its impact will be remains unclear.

Chemical Security News

9. Grid Overseer Warns Of Threats After GridEx

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Enegywire

   By Blake Sobczak
   
   
   The top U.S. grid regulator is urging utilities to weigh how their fuel choices could affect national security.
10. Baytown Petrochemical Plant All Clear After Smoky Incident

    Apr 2, 2018 | Chron

    By Samantha Ketterer
    
    
    The Chevron Phillips Chemical complex in Baytown is operating normally after completing two procedures that created smoky conditions late Sunday.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

11. Baltimore Bans New Oil Storage Terminals

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

    By David Iaconangelo
    
    
    Baltimore's mayor last week quietly signed a ban on expanding or building new terminals that store crude oil, in a public safety rule aimed at limiting rail traffic of combustibles through the city.
12. Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Crude-By-Rail Fee

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

    By Amanda Reilly
    
    
    A federal court today dismissed an oil and gas industry challenge to a surcharge imposed by one of the nation's largest freight rail networks for transporting crude oil.

Environment News

13. 'Can We Say ... Climate?' Agency Grapples With Trump's Views

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    By Robin Bravender,
    
    
    U.S. EPA staffers aren't sure what to say about climate change in public.
14. The House Had A Climate Committee. Is It About To Come Back?

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    By Josh Kurtz
    
    
    Could Democrats bring back the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming if they retake the majority in November?
15. Most Voters See Climate Change As Current Problem

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    A majority of Pennsylvania voters say climate change is causing problems right now, according to a new poll suggesting broad support for policies boosting renewable energy.
16. The Trump Administration Courts a Battle Over Energy Regulations

    Apr 1, 2018 | The Washington Post

    By Editorial Board
    
    
    PRESIDENT TRUMP came into office promising to roll back rules designed to save energy and cut planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions, including landmark regulations demanding better fuel economy from cars and trucks sold in the United States.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Blog) There’s a Reason We Use Plastics to Package Food

   Apr 2, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters

   By Steve Russell

   This week, a grocery store in Amsterdam made headlines for being the first to offer an aisle without plastic packaging. If the thinking behind this offering is “less plastic is better in the grocery store”—then we need to ask: In what way is this really a good thing? And we need to be clear about the problem(s) this move is designed to solve.Are we trying to reduce food waste?

   Every year in the United States, about 30 to 40 percent of the food we grow goes uneaten, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The longer a food item stays fresh, the greater its chance of being eaten. Studies have shown that cucumbers wrapped in plastic last eleven days longer than unwrapped cucumbers 1; bananas wrapped in plastic last 21 days longer than their unwrapped counterparts 2; and beef wrapped in plastic vacuum packaging with an oxygen barrier film lasts 26 days longer 3.

   Countries that package a greater share of food items tend to generate far less food waste than we do 4.

   Do we also want to reduce the environmental impacts that come with food waste?

   Growing food requires investments of water, land, energy, and fuel. Now consider that we throw away 30 to 40 percent of everything we grow. That means we’re not just wasting food, we’re wasting 30 to 40 percent of all the resources we used to grow that food. Think of a little food packaging as a small investment that helps to protect all of the resources that went into producing that item.

   The director of the Industry Council for Research on Packaging and the Environment has said, “A telling fact is that ten times more resources—materials, energy and water—are used to make and distribute food than are used to make the packaging to protect it.” So when we waste a food item, we’re wasting 10 times the resources that were used to make its protective packaging.

   Plus food is the single most prevalent material in our landfills. When food decomposes, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than CO2. Landfills generate 20 percent of all methane emissions, so using plastic packaging to prevent food waste can really help cut our carbon emissions.Thinking beyond food waste, what about reducing our overall environmental footprint?

   It’s true that we can make packaging out of materials other than plastics, namely paper, glass, aluminum and steel. But studies have shown that plastics are often more efficient. Being both strong and lightweight means plastics can ship more product with less packaging material than alternatives. And using less material in the first place results in significant reductions in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste.

   A 2016 study by Trucost (Plastics and Sustainability 5) found that replacing plastic with alternatives in packaging and consumer products could raise environmental costs at least fourfold. Another study 6 showed that replacing plastics with alternatives in packaging would increase the amount of packaging generated in the United States by 55 million tons annually, and would increase energy use and our carbon footprint by 82 percent and 130 percent, respectively. Not much of an improvement, right?Don’t we need to keep plastics out of our oceans?

   YES. Full stop. Used plastics shouldn’t find their way into our rivers and oceans. Yet it’s highly unlikely that the packaging on items purchased in a grocery store, then transported home—where we have access to curbside waste collection (and usually also recycling)—will  become marine litter. It just doesn’t add up.

   The supermarket chain says it’s using biofilms as an alternative to plastics, and claims they’re compostable. But “compostable” products on the market today don’t readily breakdown in our oceans, and recyclers don’t want them for obvious reasons. In the United States and other Western countries, we’re fortunate to have strong systems for collecting and managing materials after use. We need to work on getting more plastics into our recycling systems and making sure our used plastics are directed toward their next productive use. For consumers, that means placing used bottles, containers, caps and lids in our curbside bins and bringing our used polyethylene bags and wraps to grocery stores. We can also shop for new products made with recycled plastics. And of course, we can choose to bring a reusable bag or bottle with us on the go. These, too, are often made from plastics.

   The benefits of plastic packaging might not be making headlines these days, but they are making a positive difference in preserving our food and reducing our environmental footprint.

   https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/03/reason-why-we-use-plastics-to-package-food/
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

2. (ACC Mentioned) Statewide Ban On Plastic Bags and Polystyrene is a Slog

   Apr 2, 2018 | ecoRI news

   PROVIDENCE — The forces working for and against a statewide ban on plastic retail bags and polystyrene containers clashed during a recent House committee hearing. Like past efforts, elected officials expressed their interest in a ban but lacked a consensus for passing a bill.

   Rep. Robert Lancia, R-Cranston, got into a testy exchange with Rep. Katherine Kazarian, D-East Providence, about a provision of the bill (H7851) that allows municipalities to opt out of the dual bans.

   Kazarian said a uniform statewide ban helps businesses by creating a singe rule that applies to all communities. Lancia argued that not having a ban makes a community more enticing to businesses. Cranston, which has a large retail sector and no bag ban, is thriving, Lancia noted. Kazarian responded that the hearing was not a forum for arguing which communities are better than others. Lancia left the hearing room moments later.

   Barry Schiller of the North Providence Environmental Commission gave a compelling argument for the ban. He noted that low-income groups benefit from a fee on bags because it lowers the cost of goods."Don't assume that low-income people don't care about the environment," Schiller said. "A lot of low income people that I have met understand that they are in It with everybody else for protecting our oceans, our fishing, our economy." 

   Financial incentives are necessary for the bans to work in a capitalist society, Schiller said. But with a few exceptions, stores don't offer discounts for reusable bags or charge for bags they offer to customers. During the years he has followed plastic bag recycling efforts, nothing has made a difference. But, Schiller said, "I don't think it's acceptable to do nothing."

   It's unacceptable to let lawmakers give in to the plastic industry year after year, he said. "That's not what we want to see happen."

   The bill was opposed by local business groups such as the Rhode Island Retail Federation. DJ Orr of Shell gas stations with the Seasons Corner Markets said a bag ban would put added stress on retail clerks and chain stores like his. It limits customer choice and places a regressive cost on low-income consumers, he claimed.

   "It's people behind the register that have to deal with the repercussion of the discontent of having to deal with paper as opposed to plastic," Orr said.

   Business and industry groups such as the American Chemistry Council (ACC) also spoke against the bill. The ACC, whose clients include ExxonMobil, Shell, Dow and DuPont, opposes local, state, national and international efforts to ban plastic bags and supports state preemption laws that prevent municipalities from passing bag bans. Nine states have passed preemption laws.

   At the March 29 hearing, Joan Milas of the ACC said there is no benefit to banning polystyrene containers such as foam coffee cups and clamshell to-go containers. She failed to mention styrene, the primary ingredient polystyrene, is classified as a possible carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency. Chemicals in polystyrene are also known to leach into food and beverages.

   Paul Poe of Dart Container, the maker of Solo cups, opposed the ban on foam containers and noted that his company collects polystyrene at the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation in Johnston.

   Bans on Styrofoam are increasing across the country. New York City and Washington, D.C., have banned polystyrene containers, as have seven communities in Massachusetts.

   Save The Bay, the Audubon Society of Rhode island and the Conservation Law Foundation support the bill. Jonathan Berard of Clean Water Action Rhode Island said a bag ban isn't about paper vs. plastic, but an effort to get consumers to shop with reusable bags. He handed out jars with water from Narragansett Bay containing foam pieces and other plastic debris.

   "If we keep generating more and more waste, especially waste that never breaks down, never biodegrades, we are going to run out of space (at the landfill) really quickly," Berard said.

   States with bag bans include California and Hawaii. In Rhode Island, Barrington, Block Island, Bristol, Jamestown, Middletown, Newport and Portsmouth have banned plastic shopping bags. Providence is poised to enact a bag ban, but is debating a mandatory 10-cent fee on alternative bags.

   A Senate bill (S2354) sponsored by Sen. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston, has yet to hold a hearing.

   https://www.ecori.org/government/2018/3/30/statewide-bag-ban-is-a-slog
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

3. (ACC Mentioned) API Chief Jack Gerard Takes Post With Mormon Church

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

   By Hannah Northey

   Jack Gerard, the outgoing head of the country's largest and most prominent oil trade group, is taking a leadership position with the Mormon church after he steps down in August.

   The long-serving CEO and president of the American Petroleum Institute told staff in an email Saturday that he's taking a full-time leadership position with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he departs in August.

   The 60-year-old father of eight and former House and Senate staffer also said the assignment would necessitate his family's relocation to Salt Lake City, Utah.

   "I am humbled and honored to accept this full time senior leadership position, which helps lead the 16 million members of our worldwide church," Gerard said in the email obtained by E&E News.

   An Idaho native, Gerard first came to Washington in 1981 as an intern for Rep. George Hansen (R-Idaho) and later worked for another Idaho Republican, Sen. James McClure, who then chaired the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (Greenwire, Jan. 7).

   He later co-founded and led a lobby shop with McClure before moving on to run the National Mining Association and American Chemistry Council.

   Since joining API in 2008, the oil and gas lobbying group has almost doubled its membership. It is now facing a slew of policy wins under the Trump administration, including expanded offshore drilling in federal waters and an aggressive regulatory rollback, not to mention more favorable tax treatment.

   Gerard's tenure has also seen a more tumultuous side, including the massive boom in shale gas production, looming questions about the sector's management of climate change, the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and API's merging with the America's Natural Gas Alliance.

   When asked about the API's search for a new leader, a spokesman for the group said he had nothing to add at this time.

   https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060077903/search?keyword=%22American+Chemistry+Council%22
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

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

Chemical Management News

4. Toxic Chemical Laws Are Not Protecting Human Health

   Apr 2, 2018 | thestar.com

   By Arlene Blum

   Proposals to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act would pave the way for Canada to become a green chemistry leader by moving from the chemical-by-chemical approach to assessing and regulating similar toxics together.

   Most people assume a chemical in their clothes, cosmetics or couch has been thoroughly tested for safety. Unfortunately, such testing is often nowhere near as rigorous as needed.

   I learned that unfortunate truth in 1976, as a biochemistry researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. I published a lead article in Science showing the flame retardant Tris, then used in most children’s pyjamas in Canada and the U.S., changed DNA and was likely to cause cancer. We recommended a halt to Tris use.

   Fortunately, lawmakers were listening, and three months later, Tris was banned from children's sleepwear.

   We thought the problem was solved. However, we didn’t know that another form of Tris and other harmful replacement flame retardants continued to be added to household furniture, children's mattresses and other products.

   Now, more than four decades later, Canada's health and environment departments are considering regulatory decisions for these harmful replacements. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently took the first step toward a full ban on an entire class of toxic flame retardants in a variety of consumer products. Canada should do likewise.

   In Canada and the U.S., laws governing pollution and toxic substances have largely failed to protect human health and the environment from chemical hazards in everyday products. Something has to change. It's time for a green chemistry revolution.

   Green chemistry approaches chemical products and processes to minimize toxic substances. It takes the full life cycle of chemical products into account, including design, manufacture, use and disposal.

   Proposals to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act would pave the way for Canada to become a green chemistry leader by moving from the chemical-by-chemical approach to assessing and regulating similar toxics together.

   The act allows use of hazardous chemicals until excessive levels are detected in the environment or damage to human health is proven. Even then, dangerous chemicals are often swapped for substitutes that are just as damaging, as has happened with harmful flame retardants since the 1970s.

   The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has recommended amending CEPA to reverse the burden of proof for substances of high concern so carcinogens and chemicals that affect reproductive development are presumed toxic and banned unless industry demonstrates they’re safe.

   A modern CEPA should also classify endocrine-disrupting chemicals as toxic and regulate them accordingly. The science on endocrine disruption — how chemical pollutants interfere with the body's hormonal system, even at low exposure levels — has evolved rapidly over the past two decades. Toxics laws haven’t kept pace.

   Ultimately, tackling toxics is about protecting healthy environments. The Standing Committee's recommendation to recognize the right to a healthy environment in CEPA would help re-orient the legislative framework for managing toxic substances and trigger the needed shift to adequately protect people and environment from them.

   Over the past decade, I have shared scientific research with government decision-makers and large purchasers to reduce toxics in everyday products. During the next decade, I hope I can point to Canada as a leader in tackling toxics.

   https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2018/04/02/toxic-chemical-laws-are-not-protecting-human-health.html
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

Energy News

5. API Joins Fight Over Obama Fracking Rule's Future

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Ellen M. Gilmer

   The nation's most powerful oil and gas lobbying group is pushing to join a legal fight over the fate of Obama-era hydraulic fracturing standards that were scrapped by the Trump administration last year.

   The American Petroleum Institute on Friday asked to intervene in a new case brought by supporters of the fracking rule, which set new requirements for operations on public and tribal lands.

   California and a coalition of environmental groups in January sued the Bureau of Land Management for rescinding the rule. They're asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to fully restore the 2015 regulation, which has never taken effect (Energywire, Jan. 25).

   API's request to join the litigation on BLM's side marks the first time the trade group has gotten involved in legal wrangling over the fracking rule.

   The Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance, alongside several Western states, have led previous rounds of litigation against the rule. They moved to join the latest new case last month.

   API told the court on Friday that it needs a seat at the table, too, because it represents broader sections of the oil and gas industry, including service companies, refiners, shippers and more. The group's members face serious harm if the fracking rule is restored because the oil and gas production technique is so widespread, lawyers for the group said.

   "The consequences of granting Plaintiffs' requested relief, i.e., vacating the Rescission Rule and imposing for the first time the requirements of the Hydraulic Fracturing Rule on federal and Indian oil and gas lessees, would be felt across the country," they told the district court.

   The Obama rule set new standards for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure, and would have required operators to get BLM approval for fracking operations.

   In pulling back the regulation, the Trump administration argued that the rule was too costly and that existing federal, state and tribal requirements ensure the process is done safely. The rescission is one of many rollbacks facing scrutiny from federal courts.

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077871
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

6. 'The Easy Water's Gone': Oil Drillers' Thirst Spawns a Hunt

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Lee

   MIDLAND, Texas — About six years ago, the managers of the sprawling Fasken Oil and Ranch Ltd. made a decision.

   They were beginning to explore hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil on the 165,000-acre ranch on the outskirts of Midland. The ranch had produced oil since the 1940s, but its managers wanted to tap into the layers of shale that lay farther beneath the dusty scrubland. It would take tens of thousands of barrels of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, to break up the oil-bearing rock in each well.

   Unlike a lot of the Permian Basin, the Fasken ranch has plenty of water. It sits over the Ogallala Aquifer, a buried lake of crystal-clear water that stretches from Texas to the Dakotas. But something happened when crews started tapping the aquifer to supply the ranch's fracking operation.

   "We could tell right away, the fluid levels were dropping in the Ogallala," said Tommy Taylor, the ranch's oil and gas manager.

   Taylor and other managers decided to switch the source of their fracking fluid from fresh water to a mix of brackish groundwater and recycled wastewater. By the end of 2014, the ranch had stopped using Ogallala water for fracking.

   It turned out to be a prescient move.

   In 2012, the entire Permian Basin was in the early stages of a five-year drought that would reshape the region's water use, and a boom in oil production driven by fracking. Oil production on the Texas side of the Permian Basin more than doubled from 2010 to 2016, to 1.5 million barrels, according to state regulators. Exxon Mobil Corp. announced Jan. 30 it wants to triple its oil production in the Permian Basin.

   Fast-forward to 2018, and a lot of consumers in the Permian Basin — oil companies, the region's two main cities and a budding group of private water suppliers — are on the hunt for new sources of water.

   State water planners have already warned that some parts of the 32-county region that makes up the Permian Basin may see localized shortages. And the scramble for resources is likely to produce a new crop of winners and losers in the perennial hunt for water.

   "In many places, the easy water's gone," said Robert Mace, a former deputy executive administrator at the Texas Water Development Board who now teaches at Texas State University. "The local resources aren't enough to meet the local needs, and so communities are having to reach out to get new water supplies, and that water is expensive."

   The drought

   The Permian Basin covers about 75,000 square miles of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. It's predominantly flat, scrubby and bone-dry. Travelers can drive 50 miles of highway and not cross a flowing stream or creek.

   The Midland-Odessa area, the unofficial capital of the Permian Basin, normally gets about 15 inches of rain a year. In 2011, it got 5.5 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The high temperature topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit that year for 65 days, more than four times the historical average, including 18 days above 105 F.

   The community of Barnhart, about 90 miles southeast of Midland, ran out of water in 2013 when the aquifer it relies on fell below the depth of its water supply well (Climatewire, Jan. 16, 2014).

   By the time the drought broke in 2015, the region's water infrastructure was stressed to the breaking point. Midland, Odessa and a handful of surrounding towns rely on a combination of groundwater and surface water from three reservoirs on the Colorado River and its tributaries. When the drought ended, those reservoirs were nearly dry, and the cities were working on deals to buy new groundwater rights.

   The Colorado River Municipal Water District, which supplies Midland, Odessa and other communities in the basin, began recycling municipal wastewater into potable water in the town of Big Spring, a process known as direct reuse.

   In a 2016 report to the state Water Development Board, a consultant warned that the shortages are likely to continue as the area's population grows along with demands from the energy industry and agricultural producers.

   The whole region, which includes some areas outside the Permian Basin, used 625,000 acre-feet of water in 2010. That use was projected to grow to 837,000 acre-feet by 2020, but the region's water supplies were only projected to grow to 657,000 acre-feet, leaving a potential gap of 180,000 acre-feet.

   The state water report is based on the drought of record, so that water deficit isn't likely to appear overnight. But it's still a lot of water. For comparison, all the cities in the region are expected to use about 141,000 acre-feet a year in 2020. An acre-foot (325,851 gallons) is about enough to supply a family for a year.The oil boom

   The oil industry is only one part of the water supply puzzle, and its use is dwarfed by the amount of water used for agricultural irrigation.

   The Region F report says the mining sector, which in West Texas mostly consists of the oil and gas industry, will use 6.5 percent of the region's water, while agriculture will use 71 percent and cities will use 17 percent.

   But the oil industry is the fastest-growing water user, projected to grow from 22,000 acre-feet in 2010 to 55,000 in 2020, in large part because of changes in the way companies drill and fracture wells.

   In 2012, Fasken and other producers were drilling more or less conventional vertical wells and fracturing them with about 60,000 barrels of water.

   In the last five years, companies have increasingly switched to horizontal wells, with bores running as much as 2 miles through an oil-bearing layer. Those wells can take as much as 250,000 barrels to fracture, and the demand is rising, Taylor said.

   The Permian is one of the most profitable places to drill in the country, and its output is rising as the major oil companies ramp up. As of November, the last month for which statistics were available, the Texas side of the Permian Basin was producing about 1 barrel out of every 6 in the U.S. — 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Output in the Permian was up almost 8 percent compared with 2016, and a whopping 78 percent increase in five years.

   The Permian is increasingly being developed by the biggest companies, which are bringing huge economies of scale to the field.

   Almost half the onshore drilling rigs in the country — 443 out of 977 — were working in the Permian Basin, according to Baker Hughes, a GE company.

   Apache Corp. announced in 2016 that it had discovered a new extension of the Permian Basin, which it dubbed Alpine High. It owns the drilling rights to about 300,000 acres in the area between Pecos and Fort Davis and plans to develop it over decades.

   Exxon Mobil paid $6.6 billion in cash and stock to buy 250,000 acres in the Permian Basin last year, and it has acquired an additional 22,000 acres since then, the company said. Exxon has been experimenting with extremely long horizontal wells in North Dakota, as long as 3 miles. It recently drilled a second 3-mile horizontal well in the Permian Basin.

   As the wells get deeper and longer, companies are demanding more water to fracture them.

   The consulting firm IHS Markit Ltd. estimates that the oil industry doubled its water used in 2017, to 60.1 billion gallons from 29.6 billion in 2016. It predicted water use could grow to 97 billion gallons by 2020.Water for oil

   The rising demand has helped spur a booming new business of private water providers, aiming to sell their service to the oil producers the same as drilling contractors, fracking crews and pipeline operators.

   One of the leading edges of the growing, privately funded water system is a few miles outside Pecos, where Josh Thomas wheeled his pickup to a stop one morning in December on an old cotton farm.

   Thomas' employer, Layne Christensen Co., bought the site two years ago specifically for its water rights. Behind a chain-link fence, an earthen berm surrounds a pair of artificial ponds with a combined capacity of 750,000 barrels, enough water to supply 100 single-family homes for a year.

   The two impoundments, which are deep enough that the operators have to wear inflatable life vests in case they fall in, are connected to a 26-mile pipeline serving oil companies northwest of Pecos.

   Layne's current operation can supply 130,000 barrels a day from wells on the old cotton farm. The company signed an agreement with the Texas General Land Office in November to drill for more water on 88,000 acres that the state agency oversees in West Texas.

   Ultimately, Thomas said, the company wants to provide a seamless package for oil producers, supplying them with water for their drilling and fracking, hauling away wastewater, and recycling the wastewater.

   "We want to be in the recycling business. It makes sense for the industry, it makes sense for the environment," Thomas said.

   Another company, Agua Grande LLC, has gotten permission from a local groundwater district near Van Horn, Texas, to pipe water as much as 90 miles to oil fields outside Midland-Odessa.

   And a third company, Gravity Oilfield Services, formerly known as West Texas H20 LLC, has drilled water wells on farmland near Big Spring, on the northern edge of the Permian Basin, for sale to oil field customers.

   Producers are also building their own systems. Apache, which is developing the Alpine High field from scratch, has already installed recycling facilities that can hold millions of barrels of wastewater, a company spokeswoman said in an email.

   Most of Exxon's new acreage from its 2017 deal is in New Mexico. The drilling sites are contiguous, which gives the company a chance to set up a recycling system "from the get-go," Sara Ortwein, president of Exxon's XTO Energy Inc. subsidiary, said at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston last month.

   Pioneer Natural Resources Co., which is one of the biggest producers in the Permian Basin, has a deal to buy treated wastewater from the city of Odessa and is in talks to buy more wastewater from the city of Midland.

   The company is pulling 120,000 barrels a day from Odessa's wastewater plant in 2016 and plans to take an additional 240,000 barrels a day from Midland's plant by late 2019 or early 2020. At that point, the company will be getting 75 percent of its water from brackish wells, recycling and city wastewater, CEO Tim Dove said at the CERAWeek conference.The potential conflict

   Some of the water deals could wind up being mutually beneficial. Midland and Odessa, for example, plan to use the funds they get from Pioneer to secure other sources of water.

   Others have been controversial, particularly the ones involving groundwater. Aquifers in West Texas are distributed unevenly, and the rush to pump could create local shortages, according to the state water report.

   "For a rural that doesn't have a lot of water demand, if they have a lot of oil and gas activity, it can be a relatively large share," said Matt Nelson, assistant deputy executive director at the Texas Water Development Board.

   Reeves County, for instance, where Layne is developing its operation, has plenty of groundwater. The company has a study showing it can safely pump 9,400 acre-feet a year for 15 years. But Howard County, where Gravity Oilfield Services got its permit to pump water for the oil field, is projected to run a 10,000-acre-foot annual deficit by 2020, and oil development will account for about 20 percent of the shortfall, according to the state report.

   Landowners in Howard County protested Gravity's application but were unable to stop it because the local government agency that regulates the aquifer, the Permian Basin Underground Water Conservation District, didn't have rules on pumping in place at the time Gravity applied.

   The district has since written tighter regulations on underground water use within it borders, and preliminary results show that the local aquifers aren't being diminished, Donna Springer, the district's general manager, said in an interview.

   The episode, though, shows some of the tension around groundwater use in West Texas. Historically, groundwater in Texas is governed by the rule of capture, meaning that landowners have the right to pump from beneath their property, and there's typically been no penalty if they drain an aquifer beneath adjacent property.

   The Texas Legislature empowered local groundwater conservation districts, which are typically established at the county level, to provide some oversight. Since 1997, the districts have had the authority to impose pumping restrictions on aquifers in their jurisdiction, but there are caveats. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that landowners have a "vested property right" in the groundwater beneath their property, and districts have to consider those rights when setting their pumping limits.

   And some of the districts, particularly in rural areas, are relatively new and either haven't written rules to govern water use in their jurisdictions or don't have monitoring in place to ensure that water users comply.

   With the state's historical respect for private property rights hanging over its water-use authority, "it becomes increasingly difficult for the groundwater districts, particularly the smaller ones, to defend that legally without finding themselves taken to court on a takings case," said Sarah Rountree Schlessinger, executive director of the Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts.

   Further complicating the issue, the oil industry enjoys a partial exemption from groundwater district regulation under the state water code. A local district can't block an oil company from drilling a water well to supply an oil rig, and state regulators have interpreted the exemption to include water used for fracking. Oil companies still have to comply with pumping restrictions, if any.

   Also, large parts of the Permian Basin don't have groundwater districts, including some of the most heavily drilled areas.

   And as the cities in the Permian Basin look for new sources of water, they may turn to brackish aquifers like the ones in use at the Fasken ranch. It could be cheaper to treat water from those aquifers than to pump in fresh water from farther away, said Tom Kerr, public works director in Odessa.

   Ultimately, the competition for water may wind up being settled in court or by the Legislature. This being Texas, that means the odds are likely to favor the oil companies, said Ken Kramer, a former director of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club who has followed water issues for 40 years.

   "The oil and gas industry has a considerable amount of power, and they have the financial resources," he said. "Probably to some extent the oil and gas industry have the competitive edge, but in the final analysis, politicians may find it difficult to deny people drinking water."

   For now, the oil companies seem to be investing with an eye to avoiding conflicts. Pioneer is spending more than $200 million on its water recycling plans with Midland and Odessa, according to the company's website.

   "The Midland-Odessa area is in general an arid climate, there's no groundwater to speak of, so we must head toward non-freshwater alternatives just because it's the right thing to do environmentally," Dove said.

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077863
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

7. Okla.'s Seismic Hazard Remains High — USGS

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

   By Mike Soraghan

   The earthquake rate in Oklahoma is declining from the astronomical levels it hit in 2015, but U.S. Geological Survey scientists say the state's man-made earthquake hazard is still on par with California.

   "In general, numbers of earthquakes have decreased near areas where wastewater disposal has decreased," the researchers said in a study released last week. But their report stressed that "the seismic hazard in Oklahoma remains high."

   The study, published in the journal Seismological Research Letters, also noted significant hazards in other drilling areas — the Permian Basin in Texas and along the Colorado-New Mexico border near Trinidad, Colo.

   Oklahoma officials stressed that the number of earthquakes has decreased but said they would continue research and regulatory efforts focused on further reductions.

   In a joint statement, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the state's geological survey said, "There is room for debate as to the actual future risk." But they said researchers agree on at least two things — that oil field disposal increased the earthquake risk and that Oklahoma is still having earthquakes.

   "Both are unacceptable," the statement said.

   Oklahoma had 302 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater in 2017. That's about half as many as the year before and one-third as many as 2015, when the shaking peaked (Energywire, Jan. 3).

   The state had averaged about two quakes a year until 2009, then the number started increasing. It shot upward as drillers moved into northwestern Oklahoma to produce from the Mississippi Lime formation, which creates far more wastewater than conventional production. The decline in shaking has been attributed to actions by state regulators and a slowdown in the industry.

   The state still had more such quakes than any other state in the Lower 48. But Oklahoma is not the most seismically active state. Alaska had hundreds more earthquakes than Oklahoma.

   Scientists have known for decades that deep injection of industrial fluid, such as oil field wastewater, can cause earthquakes in rare cases. The fluid seeps into faults, essentially lubricating them, and they slip.

   In Oklahoma, oil production methods that create unusually large volumes of wastewater have combined with favorably aligned faults to cause swarms of quakes.

   Officials have also noted an uptick in the number of earthquakes linked to the specific practice of hydraulic fracturing. But they are far fewer and far smaller than the disposal-linked quakes (Energywire, Feb. 28).

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077875
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

8. West Virginia’s Milestone Co-Tenancy Legislation Expected to Have Varying Impacts

   Apr 2, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

   By Jamison Cocklin

   The co-tenancy legislation that passed during this year's regular session in West Virginia is generally expected to aid natural gas development, but exactly how significant its impact will be remains unclear.

   A long-awaited compromise aimed at helping shale gas producers develop more of their assets and, in particular, block-up more acreage for longer laterals, the co-tenancy bill was a top priority for West Virginia’s leading oil and gas trade groups. In West Virginia, mineral rights are severed from the surface. After more than 100 years of oil and gas development in the state, it’s not uncommon for producers to encounter mineral interests on a single property divided among dozens of family members, some of whom can be hard to track down or unwilling to allow development to occur.

   In cases where there are more than seven mineral rights owners on a single tract of land, the new law would require a producer to obtain consent from 75% instead of the 100% as was previously required. Before the bill was signed by the governor in early March, West Virginia was the only oil and gas producing state that allowed a single minority interest owner to prevent others from allowing drilling. The bill takes effect in June.

   Groups including the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association had long maintained that the outdated mineral laws were putting the state at a competitive disadvantage. With co-tenancy on the books, industry representatives think it may attract additional investment, spur more job growth and provide more opportunities for mineral and surface owners.

   “Our companies, the big companies that are drilling here, they said to us, ‘get us co-tenancy, get us the ability to amass individual tracts of land with a super majority, not 100%, and we moved forward from there,” said executive director Charlie Burd of the West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association. “Co-tenancy absolutely moves the needle. It moves the needle in favor of producers’ need to accumulate more individual tracts to be able to get larger drilling units, not just larger units, but longer drilling units.

   “The average lateral in West Virginia may be 7,000 or 8,000 feet; in other places it’s topping out at 15,000-20,000 feet,” and co-tenancy should help change that in the state, he added.

   The industry failed for years to pass a more comprehensive pooling law for shallower formations in the state such as the Marcellus Shale over lawmakers’ concerns for property rights. It also dropped a controversial joint development proposal last year that would have allowed unconventional drilling to occur on land with older leases without modifying them.

   Similar measures exist in nearby Ohio and Pennsylvania. Without them, it remains unclear exactly how much of an impact co-tenancy alone might have in the state. There are no reliable estimates for how much land the law would open up.

   EQT Corp., for example, has said joint development or something similar is also needed in the state to modernize mineral laws. EQT plans to drill 168 wells in Pennsylvania and Ohio this year, but only 28 wells in West Virginia.

   “The industry-related legislation that was recently passed in West Virginia does not support ongoing development of natural gas and is unlikely to help move the state forward in becoming an energy leader once again,” spokeswoman Natalie Cox told NGI’s Shale Daily of the co-tenancy bill. “In fact, West Virginia’s new natural gas legislation encourages EQT to plan its future investments elsewhere.”

   West Virginia Royalty Owners Association President Tom Huber, whose group supported co-tenancy, is also skeptical about how significant the bill’s impact will be, but he agreed it would likely result in longer laterals and more production. 

   “I think we’ll see a pick up in drilling activity this year, but do we attribute that to passing co-tenancy or do we attribute that to rising prices? It’s hard to say, but I think it will be helpful,” he said. “I do think it will probably facilitate longer laterals, which is probably just as, if not more important than more wells. The longer the lateral, the less surface impact you have and the better rate of return you have on wells.”

   If anything, the bill is at least likely to make development less cumbersome for producers and landowners alike. The legislation enjoyed widespread support in part because all co-tenants would be compensated for their proportionate share of the mineral interest they own, including minority unleased owners, holdouts and majority leased owners. Burd said it was “extremely common” for producers to encounter split estates where there can “literally be hundreds of mineral owners” for a single tract of land.

   “I think the lion’s share of the work will be to negotiate or renegotiate existing leases now that you have a provision that allows for a super majority of 75% of landowners within a tract to speak for it,” he said. “This will open up additional tracts and allow producers to go back and pursue land or to pursue it anew.”

   CNX Resources Corp. has a different view than EQT, and said the legislation helped keep the state on its “game board” in the next couple of years. CNX plans to drill 293 wells in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania between 2018 and 2020. Thirty wells are planned for the Marcellus in West Virginia, with five scheduled in 2018, 10 in 2019 and 15 in 2020.

   “The legislation makes capital formation more efficient from a land development standpoint, so it’s a positive in terms of our long range development plans in West Virginia,” CNX spokesman Brian Aiello said of co-tenancy.

   Huber said producers also now have more options for resolving disputes among landowners. That could also mean that development occurs more quickly. Prior to the legislation, the legal recourse available in the state most often resulted in a lengthy partition action and public sale that favored producers, which have the means to buy property, Huber said.

   “One company said they had over 200 partition acts filed last year, that kind of gives you an idea of the scale of the problem,” he added. “We’re hoping to see less of those and more use of co-tenancy to develop these units.”

   http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/113885-west-virginias-milestone-co-tenancy-legislation-expected-to-have-varying-impacts
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Security News

9. Grid Overseer Warns Of Threats After GridEx

   Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Enegywire

   By Blake Sobczak

   The top U.S. grid regulator is urging utilities to weigh how their fuel choices could affect national security.

   The North American Electric Reliability Corp.'s call for examining the "security of generator fuel sources" marks one of several takeaways from last year's GridEx IV security exercise, which pitted mock hackers and physical assailants against 6,500 government and industry grid defenders.

   "Consider whether the diversity of fuel sources (today and into the future) presents a vulnerability to common mode failures or disruptions," NERC recommended Friday in a summary of "Lessons Learned" from the exercise.

   The warning comes at a pivotal moment for the U.S. energy sector, which has seen cheap, natural gas-fired power generation steadily replace retiring coal and nuclear plants. The status quo has left some regions of the power grid heavily reliant on single gas pipelines or storage facilities, grid overseers say (Energywire, Nov. 15, 2017).

   Brian Harrell, president and chief security officer at the Cutlass Security Group risk consultancy and a former GridEx organizer, pointed out that a failure in either the gas or electricity sectors could wind up spilling over into the other. He said he expected power companies to take some of the findings from GridEx IV to heart. "This comes down to utilities that are now going to say, 'OK, we cannot be dependent on one particular fuel source, so we need to try to diversify a little bit, just for the resilience of our own systems,'" he said.

   NERC noted in its after-action report that it was "encouraged" by greater participation from the natural gas industry in last year's dress rehearsal for a grid disaster. Four gas utilities joined the two-day exercise, in addition to five water utilities and two telecom companies, NERC reported.

   "There's been a lot of attention paid at the CEO level to get those sectors together," noted Bill Lawrence, director of NERC's Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center and a key architect of last year's exercise.

   He said it will be "interesting" to see whether the electricity, telecommunciations and financial sectors coalesce to form a Strategic Infrastructure Coordinating Council, an idea first floated by a presidential advisory group last summer (Energywire, Aug. 23, 2017).

   While he stopped short of endorsing the council outright, Lawrence said he and his staff at the E-ISAC "have been working to explore the possibilities of what that might look like" and are prepared to offer help.Worst-case scenario

   Friday's report offered a high-level play-by-play account of the biennial exercise, which draws participation from hundreds of utilities across the country.

   "The severe cyber and physical security attacks that we throw against our participants ... they're very difficult for them to handle," Lawrence said.

   "Move 1" kicked off on a mid-November morning, when simulated hackers brought down some of the energy management systems that keep the bulk transmission grid in working order. Unidentified "adversaries" simultaneously launched physical attacks at multiple preplanned sites, using vehicles laden with explosive charges, NERC said (Energywire, Nov. 14, 2017).

   The news got worse from there, and by "Move 2" in the simulation, "it became clear to participants that the attacks were large-scale and coordinated," with multiple regions across North America hit hard, according to NERC.

   Following the "distributed play" portion of the exercise, utility executives and government officials met for a six-hour tabletop session to practice how they would handle an even grimmer grid crisis. That group included members of the White House National Security Council as well as senior grid security officials from the Edison Electric Institute and other industry organizations.Can you hear me now?

   Participants said the exercise showed the need for utilities to keep open lines of communication to make sure line workers can safely repair the grid and to get up-to-date information on evolving threats.

   NERC called for bulk power operators to set contingency plans that use multiple technologies in case some modes are overwhelmed or brought down.

   "Everyone participating in the exercise understands that traditional communications pathways — whether it's over landlines or voice-over IP, as well as cellphones — may not be totally available in a large-scale cyber and physical attack," said Lawrence.

   The "Lessons Learned" report also recommended that NERC's threat information hub get its own backup radio system to keep in touch with its members in worst-case events.

   Sharla Artz, vice president of government affairs, policy and cybersecurity at the Utilities Technology Council, lauded NERC's focus on an underappreciated linchpin of the modern grid.

   "You think of lines that carry electricity — the electrons — from place to place," she said. "But what you don't realize is that underpinning that operation is a communications network that's transmitting data about the system."

   She said GridEx IV "appropriately highlighted" the importance of reliable communications and that she expected the industry to pay close attention to the issue this year.Disinformation

   GridEx IV also tested utilities' external communications, forcing companies to consider how they would tell the public about a fast-moving threat.

   NERC simulated news broadcasts and social media responses to the disastrous scenario as it unfolded, and exercise planners raised the prospect of attackers stirring the pot to sow confusion.

   Adversaries "can take advantage" of new media channels "to scare our population into making bad decisions or just being concerned for their safety," Lawrence said. "Those are aspects we can explore safely in an exercise and just be a little more prepared for."

   NERC reported that many utilities "found that their external messaging was 'ad hoc' and that they did not have an external communications playbook" for countering misinformation. The grid overseer recommended organizations refine their crisis communications plans and called for rehearsing the issue in greater detail at the next GridEx.

   Harrell said he appreciated the risks of sharing information amid the fog of a widespread attack but urged utilities to practice getting the word out on sites like Twitter and Facebook anyway.

   "I think more utilities need to embrace social media, and not shy away from this medium to communicate with the concerned public," he said. "Those who don't embrace social media will have the story told for them, and it may not be a good one."

   https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077879
   

   Return to headline | Return to top

10. Baytown Petrochemical Plant All Clear After Smoky Incident

    Apr 2, 2018 | Chron

    By Samantha Ketterer

    The Chevron Phillips Chemical complex in Baytown is operating normally after completing two procedures that created smoky conditions late Sunday.

    The two separate procedures occurred almost at the same time at the facility, which is in the 9500 block of Interstate 10.

    Chevron Phillips spokesman Bryce Hallowell said that around 11:05 p.m., one of the company's polyethylene units, used to manufacturer a common type of plastic, began a pressure release to maintain safe operations. There were no injuries.

    Minutes later, a ground flare occurred at the company's new ethane cracker as part of its normal operations. The unit began operating last month to make ethylene, a building block for most plastics.

    Some residents told KTRK-TV that they felt ground shake as far north as Liberty.

    Other residents who live near the area said they saw flames and smoke coming from the plant, and also heard noise and sirens.

    https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Reports-Baytown-petrochemical-plant-all-clear-12798498.php
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

Transportation and Infrastructure News

11. Baltimore Bans New Oil Storage Terminals

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Energywire

    By David Iaconangelo

    Baltimore's mayor last week quietly signed a ban on expanding or building new terminals that store crude oil, in a public safety rule aimed at limiting rail traffic of combustibles through the city.

    The law will apply to two terminals located on the city's ports, owned by NuStar Energy LP and Apex Oil Co. Inc. Neither site handles much crude at the moment, according to local officials, making it an easier sell for a City Council that passed it nearly unanimously (Energywire, March 13).

    It makes Baltimore the first city on the East Coast to enact restrictions on new terminals, adopting a type of zoning code legislation first used by Portland, Ore., in 2016.

    Business and oil and gas groups managed to get Portland's restrictions struck down in land use court before the Oregon Court of Appeals restored the ban's main tenets this past January. A ban in Vancouver, Wash., also in 2016, was not met with legal challenge.

    Taylor Smith-Hams, an organizer with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, called the signing "a huge step forward" for public health and the environment.

    "By signing this bill, Mayor [Catherine] Pugh has upheld her commitment to take concrete action on climate change and has positioned Baltimore as a national leader in the transition to a more just, sustainable future," she said in a statement.

    Environmentalists and community groups have been searching for ways to limit the passage of crude by rail through the city since 2014, when Bakken crude was stopping at the ports before heading to refineries in nearby states. New pipelines have since supplanted rail shipments, which groups see as perilous for nearby residents in the event of derailments.

    Little fanfare accompanied the mayor's signing, mirroring what was a mostly resigned opposition of local industry and unions.

    In an email shared with E&E News, the mayor's director of government relations, Karen Stokes, wrote to advocates that the mayor had "no objections" to the bill following the municipal law department's approval of "legal sufficiency."

    The mayor's office, Stokes added, had received "untold amounts of correspondence" in support of the bill from city residents and environmental and health experts.

    https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077867
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

12. Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Crude-By-Rail Fee

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

    By Amanda Reilly

    A federal court today dismissed an oil and gas industry challenge to a surcharge imposed by one of the nation's largest freight rail networks for transporting crude oil.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that a law passed by Congress in 2015 had made American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers' lawsuit moot.

    BNSF Railway Co. had imposed a $1,000 tariff on the use of older oil tank cars known as DOT-111s that lack certain safety features. BNSF set its flat surcharge on the older cars shortly before the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration published a final 2015 rule that would phase out their use for transporting crude oil.

    AFPM filed suit when the Surface Transportation Board threw out its challenge to the fee. The board found the group should have gone through a complex and lengthy rate process, rather than challenging the tariff as a "practice."

    But in 2015, Congress sped up the phaseout schedule for the cars as part of its highway bill. As of Jan. 1, the law mandated that DOT-111s no longer be used for transporting crude

    Since the tariff AFPM challenged "is no longer occurring," there is no longer a live controversy for the court to decide, according to today's order.

    "The relevant use of the tank cars was phased out by statute," the court's two-page judgment says.

    At oral arguments last month, judges had appeared to lean toward declaring the case moot. AFPM, though, had urged the court to still issue a declaratory judgment that could be used by individual refiners to seek damages for tank-car fees (Greenwire, March 9).

    But the court ruled AFPM's call to issue a declaratory judgment was "without merit" because the specific circumstance of the case — Congress mooting the case through the passage of new legislation — was "unlikely to recur."

    The three-judge panel of the court, though, vacated the Surface Transportation Board's decision on whether AFPM could challenge the tariff because it had also been mooted by the same law.

    Click here to read the court's judgment.

    https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077899
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

Environment News

13. 'Can We Say ... Climate?' Agency Grapples With Trump's Views

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    By Robin Bravender,

    U.S. EPA staffers aren't sure what to say about climate change in public.

    Trump administration officials have taken a drastically different approach to the issue than their Obama-era predecessors. The new political team has trashed Obama climate change regulations, scrapped global warming references from agency websites and played up the uncertainties in mainstream climate science. President Trump has called global warming a hoax.

    That's all left career employees at EPA and other federal agencies unsure about how to approach the thorny political topic, according to interviews with several EPA staffers.

    "Some people are asking, 'Can we say the word climate? Are we talking about climate change? Are we acknowledging that this is real?'" said one EPA career employee who agreed to speak on background.

    "Because [EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt] hadn't talked to us abut it, we really have nothing to guide what we know is in bounds with this administration," that person said.

    Despite the Trump administration's efforts to roll back high-profile regulations and scale back the agency's climate work, many agency staffers are still charged with working on the issue. A few examples: The agency still has a climate change division in its air office, a greenhouse gas reporting program that collects emissions data from industries, and a climate adaptation office in its policy shop.

    Their work might seem at odds with Pruitt's public statements questioning mainstream climate science and suggesting that rising global temperatures might help humans.

    Given the sensitivity of the topic, some EPA employees have sought guidance about how to approach climate change without jeopardizing their jobs and their programs. Staffers are particularly uncertain what to say during public speaking events, said the EPA career employee.

    In an effort to help, some career employees in the public affairs office drafted a series of climate change talking points last week. The language was pulled from Pruitt's written responses to questions asked by members of Congress, known as questions from the record — or QFRs — according to an internal EPA email obtained by E&E News.

    The March 27 email sent to EPA public affairs directors offered talking points that served as "good examples to share with you for your [regional administrators] to use in speeches."

    EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said of the language, "The Office of Public Affairs pulled statements from QFRs and sent them around to staff."The talking points

    Here's the language that was shared in the email:EPA recognizes the challenges that communities face in adapting to a changing climate.

    EPA works with state, local, and tribal governments to improve infrastructure to protect against the consequences of climate change and natural disasters.

    EPA also promotes science that helps inform states, municipalities, and tribes on how to plan for and respond to extreme events and environmental emergencies.

    Moving forward, EPA will continue to advance its climate adaptation efforts, and has reconvened the cross-EPA Adaptation Working Group in support of those efforts.

    Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner. The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.

    While there has been extensive research and a host of published reports regarding climate change, clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it.

    As a key regulatory voice, it is important for the Agency to strive for a better understanding of these gaps given their potentially significant influence on our country's domestic economic viability.

    Administrator Pruitt encourages an open, transparent debate on climate science.'Trying to keep his program alive'

    Those talking points got a lot of attention last week after HuffPost published an email from a senior EPA career staffer who distributed the language to some of his colleagues.

    Joel Scheraga, senior adviser for climate adaptation in EPA's policy office, wrote that some of his co-workers had "suggested it would be helpful to develop consistent messages about EPA's climate adaptation efforts that could be used across all Program and Regional Offices," according to the email quoted by HuffPost.

    Much of the coverage focused on how EPA's language emphasized the uncertainties in climate science. The email says that human activity affects climate change in "some manner" and that "clear gaps" remain in the understanding of humans' role in climate change.

    Scheraga's email highlighted statements about EPA's plans to continue climate adaptation efforts.

    Scheraga was on the team that produced President Obama's Climate Action Plan, according to his LinkedIn profile. He chaired Obama's Agency Adaptation Work Group for the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience and was an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

    "He's trying to keep his program together; he's trying to keep his program alive. That's what all of us are trying to do to a certain extent," said the EPA employee.

    It isn't unprecedented for EPA staff to offer talking points to try to unify messaging across the sprawling bureaucracy.

    The EPA staffer recalled top agency officials being particularly sensitive to how the rank and file discussed hydraulic fracturing, due to sensitivity about the issue among members of Congress.

    "We often would share suggested talking points and messaging coming from the administration," said Liz Purchia Gannon, who led EPA's public affairs office under Obama-era Administrator Gina McCarthy.

    She said it was surprising that career staffers were sending out the language this time around.

    Usually, the political aides in the Office of Public Affairs are "the ones communicating administration messaging, not career staff. That to me seemed different than how we operated," Gannon said.

    Under Obama, EPA's press team put together fact sheets, news releases and talking points about high-profile policy initiatives like the Clean Power Plan — a climate change rule the Trump administration is now seeking to repeal — Gannon said.

    "You try to work hand in hand and try to stay coordinated on messages," she said.

    "But we also believed and followed science and weren't just trying to spread misinformation on the facts around climate change," she said. "So the messaging is significantly different."

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077853
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

14. The House Had A Climate Committee. Is It About To Come Back?

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    By Josh Kurtz

    Could Democrats bring back the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming if they retake the majority in November?

    Nobody is ready to say so — many House Democrats consider it taboo to even talk about what might happen if voters put them back in charge. But it's almost universally accepted that one way or another, there would be an imperative to address climate change if Democrats controlled one or both chambers of Congress in 2019.

    "If the Democrats take over, there's probably going to be a big opening and plenty of momentum for climate legislation ... with more Republican support," said Steve Valk, a spokesman for Citizens' Climate Lobby, a group that has helped assemble the bipartisan and growing House Climate Solutions Caucus.

    Yet in contrast to an ad hoc caucus, an official panel would have greater powers and, quite possibly, a clear-cut mission.

    The select committee had ambitious goals and an expansive agenda during its four-year life between 2007 and 2011, and it was in the thick of the congressional climate change debate. The panel held 80 hearings and briefing sessions on Capitol Hill and around the country, sent its members and staffers on fact-finding missions, and helped produce investigations and legislation during the two sessions of Congress when it was in business.

    "I think there's great merit in considering" bringing it back, said Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the second-ranking Democrat on the select committee at the time, behind then-Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who was chairman.

    The global warming panel, which had eight Democrats and six Republicans, was created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after Democrats flipped control of the House in 2006. But it was quickly disbanded after Republicans seized the majority in 2010.

    Blumenauer said the committee afforded lawmakers a rare opportunity to delve deeply into the issues surrounding energy production and climate change, and it was a boon for members of the committee — the Democrats, at least — who were searching for well-researched solutions.

    "I think people were focused like a laser on trying to limit the damage" from global warming, Blumenauer said.

    In a 63-page report to Pelosi issued at the end of the 111th Congress, as Republicans were about to take over, the panel summarized its work product. The highlights included:Investigating the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill — the select committee was the first congressional panel to visit the Gulf region after the disaster, just three weeks after the explosion — and helping to craft legislation with stronger oversight of offshore drilling.Overseeing clean energy spending in the 2009 economic stimulus package.Negotiating with the Obama administration in 2009 on the "cash for clunkers" program, which gave Americans vouchers to trade in their old, gas-guzzling vehicles for new, efficient models.Developing the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" — better known as the cap-and-trade bill — which narrowly passed the House in 2009 but then stalled in the Senate.Helping to develop and pass the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act, an energy efficiency program for household and industrial appliances.Working to improve cybersecurity protections for the U.S. electric grid.Sending members to the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.

    "The Select Committee has been a central forum for discussion and debate of all these issues," the report read.

    But a Republican who served on the panel was not as enthusiastic about the experience.

    "It was not fun," former Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona recalled in a recent telephone interview from his Phoenix law office.

    Shadegg, who also served on the Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce committees, said he was willing to serve on the global warming committee when asked by GOP leaders because he was interested in exploring "an all-of-the-above energy posture." But he came away with the impression that Democrats on the special panel, especially Markey, had a preordained agenda that they were determined to see through, which, he said, compelled Republicans to take a more partisan posture.

    "To the best of my knowledge, I didn't learn much because there wasn't much legitimate back-and-forth among the committee members or even among the witnesses," Shadegg said. "It forced minority members to become as aggressive and confrontational as the Democrats were being."

    Even so, he conceded, bringing back the committee or something equivalent is worth considering, given the importance of addressing the challenges posed by climate change.

    "I'm always in favor of Congress acting on solid information," he said. "If someone says we ought to bring it back because we ought to be looking at this issue and looking down the road and focusing on sound science, I'm all for it."A more organic approach?

    In some ways, the committee's report from January 2011 appears frozen in time — but in other ways, it doesn't. It lays out myriad dangers associated with a warming planet and potential policy prescriptions in a way that seemed new and galvanizing at the time. It was issued at the height of the tea party movement and, arguably, at the nadir of congressional Republicans' willingness to address the climate crisis.

    But at the same time, while the warnings and arguments sound familiar now, the debate has not changed much. Climate activists are recommending many of the same policy solutions today that they were a decade ago — and while President Trump and several other GOP leaders are firmly in the skeptic category, a newer generation of Republican lawmakers seems at least willing to acknowledge the problem and, in some cases, even embrace bold solutions.

    That's one of the reasons why Valk, of the Citizens' Climate Lobby, expressed skepticism about re-establishing a select committee to address global warming. He suggested that the more informal, organic approach being taken by the 72-member Climate Solutions Caucus could ultimately produce greater legislative results.

    "I honestly don't know if there's a need for the select committee if they renew the Climate Solutions Caucus," Valk said. "If they have a Climate Solutions Caucus, that probably represents the best vehicle for discussing climate change. Now we've got Republicans and Democrats talking to each other and trying to do things."

    But other climate activists are more keen on the idea. Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former U.S. EPA official during the Obama administration who is now the senior vice president of climate, environmental justice and community revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus, argued that a special committee should be created regardless of which party controls Congress.

    "It shouldn't take until the Democrats are in," he said. "Those issues are nonpartisan, or should be."

    Some newer members of Congress who are active on climate issues seem receptive to the idea of bringing back a select committee.

    Freshman Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), who made climate a major part of her campaign to win a coastal district in southern Los Angeles County, said a special committee with Democrats setting the agenda would be the best way to confront the issue, because the Climate Solutions Caucus "feels a little like lip service."

    "I'm a firm believer that the Democratic Party is the only party that's talking about it," she said.

    In the conclusion of its report at the end of the 111th Congress, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming wrote: "Someday, our children and grandchildren will look back on the record of the Select Committee. That record will reflect a respectful and rigorous debate and an unprecedented understanding of the challenges before us. Whether or not they will see that this generation has taken bold action required by these challenges remains to be seen."

    More than seven years later, it still does.

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077877
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

15. Most Voters See Climate Change As Current Problem

    Apr 2, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

    A majority of Pennsylvania voters say climate change is causing problems right now, according to a new poll suggesting broad support for policies boosting renewable energy.

    The Franklin & Marshall College/StateImpact Pennsylvania poll found that 62 percent of voters say climate change is causing problems today, while 17 percent said the problems haven't started yet.

    Another 17 percent of poll respondents said global warming isn't happening or wouldn't cause problems. But even two-thirds of Republicans said climate change is a problem.

    "Democrats and independents are much more likely to believe climate change is happening," said Berwood Yost, director of F&M's Center for Opinion Research. "But the truth is, a majority of Republicans do believe climate change is real."

    The poll also found 69 percent said Pennsylvania should pursue policies that support renewable energy over fossil fuels, and it found that opposition to shale gas extraction has climbed to 55 percent from 35 percent in 2011.

    The margin of error was 6.8 percentage points.

    Pennsylvania is the third-largest carbon dioxide-emitting state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (Marie Cusick, StateImpact Pennsylvania, March 29). — AAA

    https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/04/02/stories/1060077855
    

    Return to headline | Return to top

16. The Trump Administration Courts a Battle Over Energy Regulations

    Apr 1, 2018 | The Washington Post

    By Editorial Board

    PRESIDENT TRUMP came into office promising to roll back rules designed to save energy and cut planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions, including landmark regulations demanding better fuel economy from cars and trucks sold in the United States. Now, a year after federal officials began reviewing Obama-era car and truck rules, The Post’s Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis report that the Trump administration’s anti-regulation zeal may result in a far more aggressive rollback than even the auto industry wants.

    The Obama rules demanded sharp increases in the overall fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States, to 38.3 miles per gallon by 2018 and to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 for cars and light trucks, roughly double where average fuel economy stood in President Barack Obama’s first term. Critics objected that low oil prices and the enduring popularity of gasoline-hungry light trucks made those targets hard to reach. So the Obama administration softened the rules a tad, lowering the 2025 standard to 51.4 miles per gallon but keeping the rules essentially intact.

    The Energy Information Agency projected last year that the regulations would cut light-duty vehicle gasoline consumption from 8.7 million barrels per day to 7.5 million in 2025, even as car and truck use increased by 5 percent. The Obama administration estimated that consumers would save far more in fuel than it would cost automakers to comply. The standards would substantially reduce the country’s carbon footprint, which is important in persuading other nations to continue cutting their greenhouse emissions, too.

    But the industry nevertheless has continued to complain about the standards, which are complex and press automakers to meet the top-line fuel economy targets in specific ways, for example by building more electric cars. Michigan lawmakers have demanded more flexibility in meeting the rules, even as watchdogs have warned that diluting the standards would decrease fuel savings. In other words, there was a reasonable debate to be had about simplifying the regulations.

    Instead, the Trump administration is apparently going much further, with some senior officials reportedly considering 2025 fuel-efficiency standards below even the 2018 ones. Cutting the top-line 2025 goal would be a big mistake, and not only for the environment. “We support increasing clean car standards through 2025 and are not asking for a rollback,” Ford Motor Company’s top leaders wrotein a blog post last Tuesday. “We want one set of standards nationally.” Automakers worry that the Trump administration will radically deregulate while a slew of states representing about 35 percent of the nation’s auto market will keep stricter rules. A quirk in the Clean Air Act allows California to set its own car emissions standards, which other states can then adopt, regardless of federal policy, and California is not backing off the Obama-era rules.

    Scott Pruitt, the fox-in-henhouse administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, might try to rip up the waiver under which California exercises its discretion over vehicle emissions. But that would elicit strong legal challenges. Instead, federal authorities should sit down with automakers and California officials to work out a new deal on vehicle emissions — one that does not substantially undercut the goals already in place.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-administration-courts-a-battle-over-energy-regulations/2018/04/01/01a15d36-3442-11e8-94fa-32d48460b955_story.html?utm_term=.33cefe91d22c
    

    Return to headline | Return to top