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ACC AM 4/6
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(ACC Mentioned) Chinese Tariffs on US Chemicals Raising Specter of a Trade War
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
China punched back at the U.S. on April 4 with proposed 25 percent tariffs, totaling $50 billion on a range of American products, including cars, whiskey, soybeans—and chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trade War With China Would Threaten U.S. Chemical Industry
Apr 5, 2018 | AP (In Chem.Info)
By Catherine Sbeglia
Threats of a trade war between the U.S. and China have been brewing for some time now, and many U.S. industries have acknowledged that they would face serious consequences if one were to erupt. -
(ACC Mentioned) How US-China Trade Spat Threatens Manufacturing
Apr 6, 2018 | Deccan Herald
By Natalie Kitroeff and Ben Casselman
In the escalating economic showdown between the United States and China, President Donald Trump is trying to put US shoppers first -
Staff Shift in EPA's Chemicals Office Prior to Reorganization (1)
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Senior officials in the EPA's chemicals office are moving to new positions this month, and the agency plans to hire replacements for the risk assessment and chemical control positions that will open up. -
Scott Pruitt's Job in Jeopardy amid Expanding Ethics Issues
Apr 5, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Josh Dawsey
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt fought for his job Thursday, facing a new barrage of allegations about issues ranging from his past housing arrangement and first-class travel to the reassignment of senior staff who criticized how he was spending taxpayer funds. -
Growing Crisis Threatens Scott Pruitt, E.P.A. Chief, as Top Aides Eye the Exits
Apr 5, 2018 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
A spreading crisis has threatened to engulf Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, who until recently ranked among the stars of the Trump administration. -
As Pruitt Faces Uncertain Future, Questions Mount On Any Replacement
Apr 5, 2018 | InsideEPA
By Dawn Reeves
As EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faces an uncertain future at the agency over his alleged ethical violations, many observers are raising questions over who might replace him should he leave and the minefield of factors President Donald Trump may consider as he weighs any replacement, including whether to appease his conservative base or select a candidate more likely to win Senate confirmation. -
Embattled EPA Chief Target of Fresh Questions in New Ethics Memo
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt says a government review last week cleared him of ethical issues tied to a $50-a-night condo rental from a lobbyist last year. -
Trump Says He Retains Confidence in Embattled EPA Chief Pruitt
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
President Donald Trump said he still has confidence in the embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has been the subject of a cascade of ethics questions in recent days that cast doubt on his future in the job. -
Army of Conservative Allies Rallying to Save Embattled EPA Chief
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter
Conservative activists and industry allies are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep Scott Pruitt at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency as he confronts a storm of ethical allegations that have critics calling for his ouster. -
GOP Lawmaker Calls on Pruitt to Resign
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is calling on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt to resign. -
It's Time for the President to Dump Scott Pruitt
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA.)
It seems every day there is another disappointing headline for the beleaguered EPA administrator. -
Pruitt's Ethics Scandals Threaten His Leverage To Deregulate At EPA
Apr 5, 2018 | InsideEPA
By Doug Obey
Even as Administrator Scott Pruitt renews his commitment to his deregulatory agenda, former officials say that controversies over his alleged ethics violations threaten to be a significant distraction from that agenda, imposing new oversight burdens on staff, undermining public messaging, exacerbating relationships with Capitol Hill, complicating confirmation of a deputy administrator and possibly emboldening career staff to further resist Pruitt's agenda. -
Science Experts Tell EPA to Regulate Toxic Perchlorate
Apr 5, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
One of the many travesties in the failure to properly protect drinking water in the United States is EPA’s decades-long inability to set an enforceable drinking standard for perchlorate, a chemical that harms the thyroid – critical for normal growth and development – and that contaminates drinking water systems serving over 17 million people in the U.S. EPA determined back in 2011 that perchlorate meets the criteria for regulation as a contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act. -
EU Considers Further Limiting Plasticizer Substances in Soft Plastics
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Manufacturers of soft plastic products such as vinyl flooring and shower curtains could be affected by a draft European Union regulation that would severely restrict the presence of phthalates. -
Wood, Leather Firms Facing Stricter EU Worker Limits on Formaldehyde
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
European Union wood panel, leather, and paper makers are facing stricter draft workplace exposure limits for formaldehyde proposed by the European Commission April 5. -
15 AGs Sue Trump EPA for Not Enforcing Pollution Controls
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Morgan Gstalter
Fifteen attorneys general and the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Administrator Scott Pruitton Thursday for not controlling methane emissions. -
Delaware River Ban Draws Fight on Both Sides
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
A ban on natural gas fracking that's being considered by a multistate water regulator could draw legal challenges from both the gas industry and environmentalists. -
International Agency 'Takes Us over the Cliff' — Report
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Climatewire
A new report accuses the International Energy Agency of skewing its projections to favor the oil and gas sector, obscuring the path to widespread renewable energy that it's supposed to be charting. -
Attack on Natural Gas Network Shows Rising Cyberthreat
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A cyberattack on a natural gas service provider late last month has spilled into the electricity sector, underscoring the growing threat hackers pose to critical energy systems. -
Pruitt Takes Over Local Water Permit Calls in Bid for Uniformity
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is now in charge of making decisions on water pollution permits, a job formerly left to the agency's regional chiefs. -
The World's Oceans Are Teeming with Plastic Waste
Apr 6, 2018 | Wisconsin Gazette
By Louis Weisberg
Global climate change isn’t the only human-made catastrophe threatening the Earth. -
Skeptics Feel Empowered to 'Keep Pushing' under Trump
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Climatewire
By Zack Colman
Climate skeptics are gaining ground.
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(ACC Mentioned) Chinese Tariffs on US Chemicals Raising Specter of a Trade War
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
China punched back at the U.S. on April 4 with proposed 25 percent tariffs, totaling $50 billion on a range of American products, including cars, whiskey, soybeans—and chemicals.
Beijing's multibillion-dollar trade surpluses with the U.S.—which grew by 2.3 percent from a year ago to $21.9 billion in January—has prompted demands for import controls by the Trump administration.
In the meantime, top U.S. chemical and plastics makers, such as Chevron Phillips, LyondellBasell and DowDupont Inc. saw their stocks tumble temporarily, amid fears that the tit-for-tat tariffs could soon escalate into an all-out trade war.
“U.S. chemical manufacturers believe the principles of free and fair trade should apply to all members of the WTO, and that includes China. However, engaging in a trade war with one of our country's most significant trading partners is not the answer,” said Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council .
In a statement provided to Bloomberg Environment, Dooley spoke about the ripple effect the proposed tariffs would have up and down the supply chain of plastic films and resins such as polyethylene film, PVC tubing, and polycarbonates, often used in medical devices and eyewear.
“China is one of the U.S. chemical industry's most important trading partners, importing 11 percent, or $3.2 billion, of all U.S. plastic resins in 2017,” said Dooley.
“We strongly urge both the U.S. and Chinese governments to work together to come to a satisfactory and mutually beneficial decision before this situation escalates further.”
A Drop in a Plastic Bucket?
The ACC cited over $185 billion in new chemical factories, expansions and restarts that were predicated on current tariff schedules for steel and aluminum, warning than any market disruptions caused by tariff increases could push investors to build petrochemical plants elsewhere.
But, that may be a relatively minor consideration, given that broader advantage U.S chemical makers still have, thanks to their access to cheap shale-gas feedstocks.
“Nobody wants to see a trade war, but the impact of these tariffs on the main chemical players will probably be minimal,” said Christopher Perrella, a chemical industry analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
Perrella said that development of hydraulic fracking technology has opened up a wide cost advantage for chemical producers, and makers of plastics in particular.
“If it's not going to China, it will end up somewhere else,” he said. “We send a lot more chemicals to places like Mexico, Canada, and Europe.”
Plenty of Uncertainty
It's still not clear when the new waves of tariffs might take effect—or if they'll be watered down in the meantime. China said the timing would be announced separately.
If and when they do take hold, Perrella cautioned that companies could be on the hook for increased costs to reposition and reroute their global supply chains away from China and toward other markets.
“It takes time to develop dependable conduits in a global supply chain,” said Perc Pineda, chief economist at the Plastics Industry Association.
Large companies could have more options for vendors or suppliers, but that may not be the case for smaller firms, Pineda told Bloomberg Environment.
“These tariffs just take us further away from the goal of establishing the fairer, more balanced global trading environment that both the U.S. and China would benefit from,” he said.
Environmental Pushback on Chemicals
The issues surrounding tariffs are taking place alongside other concerns for the petrochemical industry, such as a growing public alarm over plastic waste and chemical pollution in general.
Petrochemical products such as polyethylene film—often used in plastic bags and single-use bottles—are a leading source of pollution, particularly in the world's oceans.
Earlier this year, China rolled out a ban on certain kinds of recycling imports, a move that contributes to a massive bottleneck in the U.S. recycling industry.
In addition to recycled plastic, China also is taking a shot at recycled aluminum exports. This time, however, the justification isn't environmental protection, but retaliation.
China last week said it intends to enact a 25 percent duty on U.S. scrap aluminum, more than half of which lands in China, according to data from the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries.
The China Ministry of Commerce said the scrap aluminum penalty wouldn't be imposed until after the government evaluates this latest round of tariffs from the U.S.
“China urges the United States to resolve China's concerns as soon as possible, and resolve differences through dialogue and consultation, thus avoiding harming the overall situation of Sino-U.S. cooperation,” according to a ministry statement.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=131277036&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499882500&searchid=31386933&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) Trade War With China Would Threaten U.S. Chemical Industry
Apr 5, 2018 | AP (In Chem.Info)
By Catherine Sbeglia
Threats of a trade war between the U.S. and China have been brewing for some time now, and many U.S. industries have acknowledged that they would face serious consequences if one were to erupt. As The American Chemistry Council made clear this week, the U.S. chemical industry is not immune.
According to the council, 40 percent of the products China intends to target are chemicals and plastic. In plastic resins last year alone, China imported $3.2 billion worth, making up 11 percent of the U.S. market.
The council represents Dow, DuPont, and other major chemical companies, and says its members had planned to put $185 million in U.S. factories, both expansions and new projects. However, a trade war with China would significantly hinder those plans.
Council President and CEO Cal Dooley “strongly urge[s] both the U.S. and Chinese governments to work together to come to a satisfactory and mutually beneficial decision before this situation escalates further.”
This story and trade war threats are still developing. Those in the chemical industry, as well the food, farming, and auto industries are encouraged to remain in the loop.
https://www.chem.info/news/2018/04/trade-war-china-would-threaten-us-chemical-industry
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(ACC Mentioned) How US-China Trade Spat Threatens Manufacturing
Apr 6, 2018 | Deccan Herald
By Natalie Kitroeff and Ben Casselman
In the escalating economic showdown between the United States and China, President Donald Trump is trying to put US shoppers first. The administration did not place tariffs on necessities like shoes and clothes, and mostly spared smartphones from the 25 percent levy on Chinese goods announced this week.
But by shielding consumers, Trump has put US manufacturers - a group he has championed - in the cross hairs of a global trade war. If the measures stand, along with China's retaliatory tariffs, they could snuff out a manufacturing recovery just beginning to gain steam.
"If you want to spare the consumer so you don't get this massive backlash against your tariffs, then there goes manufacturing, because that's what's left," said Monica de Bolle, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "The irony is, you cannot spare manufacturing from anything because manufacturing is globally integrated. The sector sources its parts and components from all over the world."
That intricate supply chain often runs directly between the two countries, sometimes in both directions. Chinese factories make wing panels and doors for Boeing's Next Generation 737 planes, which are assembled by union workers in Renton, Washington. General Motors makes its Buick Envision, an SUV, in Shandong province and sells it to US consumers. Construction workers in Denver use building materials manufactured in China, made in part from ethane gas produced in Texas.
A central aim of Trump's America First agenda is to bring back pieces of the supply chain lying outside the country. The tariffs announced this week are just a bargaining point in a broader negotiation between the US and China over trade. "They are trying to force end-product manufacturers here to use more American content by making it more expensive for them to use Chinese content," said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, has said the administration carefully conceived the tariffs using an algorithm that would "maximize the impact on China and minimize the impact on US consumers."
The result is a list of more than 1,300 targets, many of them obscure products that may not deliver a direct hit to consumers' wallets. The victims include industrial robots, chemicals, medical devices and heavy machinery used in everything from processing food to crushing rock.
Such industries have been a vibrant piece of the economy, adding 224,000 jobs in the past year, the strongest growth since the recession ended nearly nine years ago. But underpinning that rebound has been a strong global appetite for US goods - demand that could now be weakened. "This is a pretty tenuous recovery, and employment is still at much lower levels than it was before the crisis," said Mark Muro, an economist at the Brookings Institution. "This is not a superdynamic, healthy industry."
Recent job growth has been concentrated in industries that could be affected by US tariffs on China, Chinese tariffs on the United States, or both.
Some of the strongest gains in the past year have come from makers of metal products, industrial machinery and transportation equipment. All those industries rely heavily on steel and aluminum, goods that Trump hit with tariffs earlier this year in a move aimed indirectly at China's production.
In the latest salvos, the United States took aim at a multitude of technical components - items like circuit breakers, consoles and touch screens. Those tariffs could raise costs for electronics manufacturers, who have been hiring more aggressively lately and whose supply chains run through China.
Beijing, for its part, zeroed in on an array of US products, including plastics, a fast-growing export. Chinese companies imported $3.2 billion worth of plastic resins from the United States in 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. Chinese factories turn those resins into building materials, automobile instrument panels, eyeglasses and thousands of other products, many of which end up back in the United States.
The plastics tariffs alone could send ripples deep into Trump country. In recent years, companies have announced billions of dollars of investments seeking to capitalize on the boom in US natural-gas production. Some of those investments were to go into new plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states to turn gas into chemicals and plastics, much of it bound for China.
Companies aren't likely to abandon those plans overnight, said Calvin M. Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council. But if the trade barriers persist, projects could be in jeopardy. "That is going to impede our ability to capitalize on that competitive advantage," Dooley said.
Even with the flurry of measures and countermeasures between the United States and China, the moves so far have touched only a fraction of their $650 billion in annual trade. But they are beginning to signal how much damage could be caused and who would suffer most.
Light blow
In some cases, the tariffs seem intended to deliver a message rather than a fatal blow. The US said it would impose tariffs on aircraft parts - an important and high-profile US industry, but not one facing much competition from China. Beijing said it would impose tariffs on cars and SUVs, the third-largest US export to the country. But the move may not hit US automakers as hard as it might seem.
China already has a 25 percent tariff on imported cars, so General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Ford have all agreed to manufacture inside the country as joint ventures with domestic producers, to avoid the extra charge to consumers. Foreign carmakers operating in the United States - Daimler and BMW - do send vehicles to China from factories in the Southeast. A report by analysts at Evercore ISI suggests that those companies, rather than the Detroit automakers, would bear the brunt of the Chinese levies.
Tesla might have the most to lose. The electric-car company had been lobbying hard for permission to produce cars in Shanghai but hasn't reached a deal. It sends vehicles to the Chinese market from its plant in Fremont, California, and its chief executive, Elon Musk, has expressed frustration even at the existing duties.
Aircraft and their parts are the largest single category of US exports to China, making Boeing a big target. For now, though, Beijing seems to be moving slowly. It said it would impose tariffs on planes between 15,000 and 45,000 kilograms, which includes some older models that Chinese buyers have ordered from Boeing. But it seemed to stop conspicuously short of whacking the company's newer 737 MAX 8, which weighs 45,070 kilograms empty. That near miss is meant to convey to Boeing, and Trump, what China is capable of, said Richard L. Aboulafia, a longtime aviation and aerospace analyst at the Teal Group.
"Their attitude towards a trade war assumes that the other side will lie down and stay horizontal," Aboulafia said. "I'm not sure the easy and fun approach to trade wars holds up against return fire."
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/668734/how-us-china-trade-spat.html
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Staff Shift in EPA's Chemicals Office Prior to Reorganization (1)
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Senior officials in the EPA's chemicals office are moving to new positions this month, and the agency plans to hire replacements for the risk assessment and chemical control positions that will open up.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced six career senior staff job changes in an April 4 internal memo obtained by Bloomberg Environment. Of the six managers, all but one—Maria Doa, director of the Chemical Control Division—are remaining in the agency's chemicals bureau called the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT). Three of the remaining five staff changes are promotions, at least temporary ones.The changes mean that chemical manufacturers, environmental health groups, and other organizations will continue to meet and talk with the many people with whom they've long dealt. But, eventually OPPT will hire new individuals to manage the Chemical Control and Risk Assessment divisions, OPPT Director Jeffery Morris said in the memo.
The staff moves are taking place before the office's anticipated reorganization, Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of the Bergeson & Campbell, P.C., told Bloomberg Environment.
Reorganization on the Horizon
The agency has not released details of the reorganization nor a timeline, but it is expected later this year, she said. Typically, reorganizations have to be negotiated with EPA's unions and follow federal personnel rules—which can take some time.
“That these moves occurred in advance of the reorganization suggests opportunities arose that could not wait,” Bergeson said by email.
Doa is headed to the agency's Office of Research and Development. She joins ORD's Office of Science Policy, which integrates scientific knowledge into regulatory and non-regulatory actions taken throughout the agency.
“Dr. Doa's technical expertise and visionary outlook will be put to good use,” Bergeson said.
Other changes make good use of career staffs’ expertise, she said. The changes put individuals with many years of experience in roles where they can provide valuable insight if and when the reorganization takes place, she said.
“In short—all good, smart moves,” Bergeson said.
Types of changes the EPA has considered making include consolidating some of the seven OPPT divisions, and incorporating a “Lean Management System,” that helps monitor, evaluate, and assess the bureau's operations as it implements the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016.
Bloomberg Environment reached out to representatives from chemical companies, a trade group, and a lobbying organization but did not get immediate comment on the managerial changes. EPA also declined to comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=131277026&vname=dennotallissues&fn=131277026&jd=131277026
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Scott Pruitt's Job in Jeopardy amid Expanding Ethics Issues
Apr 5, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Josh Dawsey
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt fought for his job Thursday, facing a new barrage of allegations about issues ranging from his past housing arrangement and first-class travel to the reassignment of senior staff who criticized how he was spending taxpayer funds.
Even as President Trump repeatedly expressed his support for Pruitt in public, top White House aides began to escalate their disapproval, suggesting the administrator has mischaracterized his role in boosting the salaries of two employees. On Thursday evening, two EPA officials confirmed that Pruitt endorsed the idea last month of giving substantial raises to senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt and scheduling and advance director Millan Hupp — although he did not carry out the pay raise himself.
And Pruitt’s decision to ignore White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s warnings to be more cautious about giving public interviews only complicated his standing with many of Trump’s key aides.
Those officials’ sense of unease continued to escalate over the course of a single day, after the EPA’s lead ethics official issued a memo saying that he lacked important facts when he concluded that Pruitt’s rental lease with a lobbyist last year did not violate federal gift rules. It also emerged that Pruitt was late with some of his rent payments for a room in that Capitol Hill condo.
A White House spokesman offered Pruitt little reassurance. “We all serve at the pleasure of the president,” Hogan Gidley told reporters Thursday. “You guys know that. And when he’s not pleased, you’ll know it.”
Trump has resisted calls to oust Pruitt but has complained privately about the EPA chief for days, advisers said.
Publicly, however, the president went out of his way to praise Pruitt. Making a rare appearance in the press cabin of Air Force One on a return flight from West Virginia on Thursday, Trump remarked, “He’s been very courageous . . . I can tell you at EPA he’s done a fantastic job.”
Pruitt traveled to the state where he grew up to meet with Kentucky air-quality regulators, business leaders and elected officials, saying in a statement that the EPA “continues its work to enhance both environmental protections and economic growth.”
At EPA headquarters, top aides strategized about how to protect Pruitt’s job even as they put the final touches on an executive order that would change the way the federal government ensures that states are meeting national air pollution standards.
In a sign of Pruitt’s split-screen existence, according to administration officials briefed on the matter, Trump on Friday plans to sign the directive expediting air- quality permits. Yet the White House canceled an announcement event where the two were to appear together.
Several congressional Republicans, as well as some governors, conservative groups and pundits, rallied to Pruitt’s side. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas both publicly backed him Thursday, as did governors Matt Bevin (Ky.), Phil Bryant (Miss.) and Pete Ricketts (Neb.). Bevin tweeted that the administrator should “ignore the nattering nabobs of negativism,” invoking a phrase that Vice President Spiro T. Agnew used in 1969 while blasting the media.
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh delivered an on-air defense of Pruitt, and groups such as FreedomWorks and the Federalist Society expressed their support.
Still, the sharp focus on Pruitt’s housing arrangement, his premium-class travel both domestically and abroad and those aides’ raises has only further roiled an inner circle already under stress.
Samantha Dravis, a longtime adviser who serves as senior counsel and associate administrator in the EPA’s Office of Policy, submitted her resignation last week to work in the private sector. Her decision to leave is unrelated to Pruitt’s recent ethics woes, according to several agency officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter. But it comes at a time when Pruitt is relying on an increasingly narrow set of advisers to navigate decision-making.
The Washington Post confirmed that three EPA officials — Kevin Chmielewski, former deputy chief of staff for operations; John E. Reeder, former deputy chief of staff; and Special Agent Eric Weese — left or were reassigned after raising concerns about how Pruitt and his deputies operated. Chmielewski is on leave without pay, Reeder is on an “executive in residence” fellowship at American University, and Weese is no longer the head of Pruitt’s security detail.
Weese could not be reached for comment; Chmielewski and Reeder have declined to comment. Reeder is the husband of a Washington Post reporter, Carol Leonnig.
The staff moves were first reported by the New York Times, which also named two other individuals sidelined or forced to take leave after questioning how money was being spent at the EPA. In an emailed statement Thursday, agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox called them “a group of disgruntled employees who have either been dismissed or reassigned.”
Pruitt spoke at length during a Fox News interview about his role in Greenwalt and Hupp getting raises of 52 percent and 33 percent respectively under an unusual maneuver involving their reappointment through a provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
In the interview Wednesday, Pruitt implied he was not involved in those decisions.
“I found out this yesterday and I corrected the action, and we are in the process of finding out how it took place and correcting that going forward,” he told correspondent Ed Henry.
But two EPA officials and a White House official told The Post that the administrator instructed staff to award substantial pay boosts to both women, who had worked in different roles for him in Oklahoma.
Questions surrounding Pruitt’s public account of his management decisions have been sharpened by recent revelations about his unusual rental arrangement last year.
The lease provided for the use of a single room, stating that “all other space is controlled by the landlord.” But several EPA officials have confirmed that Pruitt’s adult daughter stayed in a second bedroom for a period when she was working at the White House.
Kevin Minoli, the EPA’s principal deputy general counsel, had written in a March 30 memo that Pruitt’s lease with condo co-owner Vicki Hart — for $50 a night, charged only when he stayed there — did not constitute a gift because that rate for 30 consecutive days would have equated to a monthly rent of $1,500. Minoli described that as “a reasonable market value.”
Yet in a new memo, which was obtained by the Campaign Legal Center and first reported by CNN, Minoli emphasized that he evaluated the terms of the lease only and not activities the document did not cover.
“Some have raised questions whether the actual use of the space was consistent with the terms of the lease,” Minoli wrote. “Evaluating those questions would have required factual information that was not before us and the Review does not address those questions.”
He also clarified that he did not examine whether Pruitt’s arrangement violated the impartiality rule, which would have prohibited the administrator from having any dealings with other employees at Vicki Hart’s lobbying firm.
Separately, Minoli’s colleague, Justina Fugh, a senior ethics attorney and agency veteran, said she learned of Pruitt’s unusual housing arrangement late last week when political aides called her while she was at the movies, told her the outlines of the lease and asked her for a quick ruling. She initially gave her approval based on the specifics they shared. Only later did she learn other details from news reports.
“What they gave me was not the full picture . . . I was just too credulous,” Fugh said Thursday. “Advice that’s given by an ethics official is only as good as the information that’s provided.”
The rental deal has come under intense scrutiny because Hart’s husband, J. Steven Hart, is chairman of the firm Williams & Jensen, which lobbies on energy issues along with other matters. He told The Post last week that he “had no lobbying contact with EPA in 2017 or 2018” and referred to Pruitt as a “casual friend” with whom he has had little contact. In recent interviews, however, Pruitt has described Hart as someone he has known for years.
A copy of the lease, attached to Minoli’s most recent memo, showed that Steven Hart’s name had been scribbled out as the legal representative and his wife’s name handwritten in. According to a senior administration official, Vicki Hart made the change.
Despite the favorable $50-a-night rate he was receiving on the Capitol Hill condo, Pruitt still fell behind on his rent, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Vicki Hart, who served as Pruitt’s landlord and is wife of energy and transportation lobbyist Steve Hart, was at times forced to remind him that rent payments were due, these people said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/05/top-epa-ethics-official-says-he-lacked-key-facts-about-pruitts-condo-rental/?utm_term=.c36da9fac10e
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Growing Crisis Threatens Scott Pruitt, E.P.A. Chief, as Top Aides Eye the Exits
Apr 5, 2018 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
A spreading crisis has threatened to engulf Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, who until recently ranked among the stars of the Trump administration.
Now, he is mired in a series of ethical questions about his housing arrangements, staffing decisions and costly travel at taxpayer expense. Senior White House officials say that Mr. Pruitt’s fate has become uncertain.
On Thursday, one of the central questions facing the E.P.A. chief — his decision in 2017 to rent a room in Washington from the wife of a top energy lobbyist — was exacerbated when an E.P.A. ethics official walked back his earlier assessment that Mr. Pruitt had done nothing wrong. In a new memo made public Thursday, the official said that he did not have all the facts when he made his initial finding.
On Wednesday one of Mr. Pruitt’s top advisers, Samantha Dravis, resigned and Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, has grown frustrated enough that he has also considered resigning, according to three people in whom Mr. Jackson has confided.
Most ominously for Mr. Pruitt, however, senior White House officials signaled Thursday that the E.P.A. chief’s standing was shaky. “I can’t speak to the future of Scott Pruitt,” said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman, on Fox News on Thursday morning.
It added up to a major crisis for a cabinet member who, despite months of criticism over costly first-class travel and other practices, had aggressively helped the otherwise tumultuous Trump administration achieve one of its central goals — the rapid rollback of regulations covering climate change, clean water and the use of chemical pesticides. In recent days, even as controversy swirled, Mr. Pruitt launched a rollback of the Obama administration’s stringent regulations on planet-warming vehicle tailpipe pollution.
In a powerful signal of the depth of concern among conservatives that they may be losing one of their standard-bearers, allies of Mr. Pruitt including the Heritage Foundation, Tea Party Patriots, and Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, launched a coordinated social media campaign to save his job.
“As head of the @EPA, @EPAScottPruitt has been a leader in rolling back former President Obama’s job killing regulations,” the Tea Party Patriots wrote on Twitter, urging the group’s 190,000 followers to retweet the message “If you support Scott Pruitt’s conservative leadership at E.P.A.!”
Ultimately, of course, Mr. Pruitt’s fate will rest in the hands of Mr. Trump. Asked on Thursday by reporters aboard Air Force One if he was bothered by the latest reports on Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Trump replied, “I have to look at them,” and added, “But he’s a good man, he’s done a terrific job.”
Last week Senator Thomas Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, wrote a letter to the E.P.A. inspector general requesting an investigation into allegations that Ms. Dravis did not attend work or perform her duties for most of November, December and January while continuing to draw a salary. The March 28 letter, obtained by The New York Times, said the information “raises questions” about whether the agency is adhering to internal rules regarding employee time and attendance.
A spokesman for the E.P.A. inspector general, Jeffrey Lagda, confirmed that his office has received the request and said he could not comment on whether the agency has taken up the investigation.
Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the E.P.A., disputed the allegation. “It is completely baseless and absurd to assert that someone with her responsibilities and office would have been away from her duties and responsibilities for months at a time as alleged,” Mr. Wilcox said in a statement.
Last week, when questions arose about Mr. Pruitt’s 2017 lease — in which he rented a room for $50 a night from the wife of J. Steven Hart, an energy industry lobbyist — the E.P.A. made public a finding by the agency’s ethics counsel stating that the price Mr. Pruitt paid for the use of the apartment was reasonable market value.
However, in the follow-up memo, obtained Thursday by the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group, the same in-house lawyer said he did not have all the facts when making his initial assessment of the lease. In a second memo he also released a copy of the lease, which shows Mr. Hart’s name crossed out and the name of his wife, Vicki, inserted.
Walter J. Shaub, a senior ethics official under President Barack Obama, said the original ethics opinion had been predicated on the understanding that Mr. Pruitt was leasing only one room in the apartment. But since then, there have been reports that Mr. Pruitt’s daughter stayed there while she was a White House intern.
“If it turns out Pruitt’s daughter was allowed to stay in the other room, he had both rooms in the residence. There’s a big difference in what you’d pay to stay in a flop house with strangers and what you’d pay to have a place to yourself,” Mr. Shaub said.
At the White House on Thursday, officials said they had deep concerns about Mr. Pruitt’s conduct and worried that more allegations of misconduct could surface, further angering Mr. Trump, who has been displeased with the torrent of negative headlines about this E.P.A. chief. The president was particularly put off by Mr. Pruitt’s performance in an interview on Fox News, aides said. Asked about it on Air Force One on Thursday, Mr. Trump would only say: “It’s an interesting interview.”
But officials also noted that Mr. Pruitt was among the president’s favorites and a darling of his conservative base, making it possible for him to survive.
In the interview Wednesday with Fox News, Mr. Pruitt pushed back on suggestions he had committed an ethical violation by renting the apartment. Asked if renting from the wife of a Washington lobbyist violated Mr. Trump’s mantra of “draining the swamp,” Mr. Pruitt responded, “I don’t think that’s even remotely fair to ask that question.”
In the same interview, he also denied responsibility for giving generous pay raises to two of his staff members that have also come under fire. The two aides, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp, had both worked for Mr. Pruitt in Oklahoma, where he served as attorney general before coming to the E.P.A. Ms. Greenwalt’s salary was raised to $164,200 from $107,435, while Ms. Hupp’s was raised to $114,590 from $86,460.
“My staff did and I found out about that yesterday, and I changed it,” Mr. Pruitt said. “The officials that were involved in that process should not have done what they did.”
At the E.P.A. headquarters in the William Jefferson Clinton building a few blocks from the White House, several senior staffers separately used the word “toxic” to describe the atmosphere at the agency, with its political appointees adopting a bunker mentality amid the questions about Mr. Pruitt’s behavior.
Some career civil servants at the agency, many of whom have worked there through several presidential administrations and are dismayed over Mr. Pruitt’s policies, appeared hopeful at the prospect of the administrator’s downfall. One longtime agency official said some employees are now openly taking bets on how long the administrator will hold on to his job.
The allegations of ethical missteps by Mr. Pruitt are now causing dismay among some of the Republicans he brought into the agency as well. One of those is Mr. Jackson, Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff, a seasoned Washington insider who previously worked for years for Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who is known as Congress’ most vocal denier of the established science of human-caused climate change.
Mr. Jackson’s frustration with his boss underscores how even the anti-regulation conservatives who once hailed the arrival of Mr. Pruitt have become disillusioned.
Last year, Mr. Pruitt gained attention after requesting special privileges and protections including a full-time security detail and the installation of a $25,000 secure telephone booth in his office. At least five agency officials were demoted, reassigned or requested new assignments after raising objections to Mr. Pruitt’s spending and security decisions, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Mr. Pruitt’s friends say they believe the ethics questions are the result of a campaign by environmentalists. Robert E. Murray, the chief executive of Murray Energy and a major supporter of Mr. Pruitt’s, called him “the star” of the Trump administration.
“Things are coming in such a wave, it’s obvious that it’s a coordinated campaign,” said David Rivkin, an attorney who represents industry opponents of E.P.A. rules and who has worked closely with Mr. Pruitt for years.
Mr. Rivkin said that he expected Mr. Pruitt to survive the storm. “It’s happening because he’s the most effective cabinet member,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/climate/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-pressure.html
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As Pruitt Faces Uncertain Future, Questions Mount On Any Replacement
Apr 5, 2018 | InsideEPA
By Dawn Reeves
As EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faces an uncertain future at the agency over his alleged ethical violations, many observers are raising questions over who might replace him should he leave and the minefield of factors President Donald Trump may consider as he weighs any replacement, including whether to appease his conservative base or select a candidate more likely to win Senate confirmation.
A Pruitt replacement that is confirmable “depends on how much [the White House cares] about having a confirmed administrator any time soon. If they don't, then they can appease the base for the time being” by nominating a wild card and “knowing [confirmation] won't happen, but who cares?” one source says.
However, this source also does not believe that Trump will fire Pruitt any time soon. “The only issue, from Trump's standpoint, is it's bad P.R. on personal grounds. Does Trump personally care? I doubt it. I think the White House legal counsel and political staff who are trying to run the government as though they drained the swamp care. This guy [Pruitt] looks like he loves the swamp.”
Trump April 5 reiterated his support for Pruitt, telling reporters as he boarded Air Force One that “I do” still have support for the administrator, according to pool reports.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley later acknowledged that the reports about Pruitt “do raise questions and we expect that Administrator Pruitt answer those questions,” according to the pool. He added that Trump “demands the highest levels of ethical standards from his entire staff, that includes Cabinet, and we expect him to adhere to that.”
While Pruitt's tenure at EPA appears secure, albeit tenuous, for now, many observers are nevertheless questioning whether Trump would choose someone already confirmed who could slide into place, seek to nominate another firebrand in the Pruitt mold, or select an outsider who is more moderate and familiar with the agency.
There is no clear cut path to confirming a new administrator who could execute the Trump agenda in the way Trump wants, these sources note. A moderate would likely not satisfy the president and a firebrand would face insurmountable opposition in the Senate, especially since Pruitt barely got through even before he developed a record of aggressively executing the Trump environmental agenda.
A second source notes that without Democratic support, combined with “the ongoing fight between the Republican ethanol senators and the Republican oil senators, I think it would be hard to get anyone confirmed.”
Conservatives are rallying around the embattled administrator and are worried that any replacement would not be as supportive as Pruitt has been at aggressively rolling back Obama-era rules.
Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who led the Trump transition at EPA, says he sees “few signs that [Pruitt] is going to leave or be forced to resign."
But he notes that if more damaging reports come out, “We'll have to see how toxic they are. The Democrats and environmental pressure groups are clearly out to take Pruitt down. That is not because of the magnitude of his lapses, which seem to me to be small potatoes, but because of his effectiveness in implementing the president's ambitious de-regulatory agenda.”
Deregulatory Agenda
Pruitt has also sought to blame opponents of his deregulatory agenda for seeking to undermine him.
However, the questionable actions are mounting and his latest alleged violations -- including his rental of a below-market rate condominium and pay raises for close aides after they were denied by the White House -- are already under review by the White House.
Pruitt also faces inquiries from EPA's Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office into other alleged violations.
Nonetheless, sources across the political spectrum say while Pruitt's tenure appears in jeopardy, he is just as likely to stay as not, given the fact that Trump personally likes him and that he is considered to be the most effective member of his Cabinet.
Should Trump need to replace Pruitt, he may turn to already confirmed officials, including possibly Andrew Wheeler, who is awaiting confirmation as EPA's deputy administrator.
Much will depend on the outcome of the Wheeler's pending confirmation, which could come up for a procedural vote as soon as the week of April 9, but Democrats are expected to seek to use the Pruitt scandals as an opportunity to delay it.
“Operationally, it would help to have Andy in the building,” one former agency official says. “Theoretically, if Andy could get in there and be in therefore say for half a year, he might be able to act, but if he is not in the building, he certainly can't act.”
Without a confirmed deputy who could serve as acting administrator for up to two years, under the terms of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, then the field is considered wide open.
Several sources say that if the administration decides to promote an already-confirmed EPA official, current enforcement chief Susan Bodine may be a prime candidate.
She is “being groomed” for the job and has been since reports surfaced that Pruitt was interested in replacingAttorney General Jeff Sessions or running for office in Oklahoma.
“That's what people at EPA are hearing -- that she was being groomed if he would leave as Sessions' replacement, or if he left to go run in Oklahoma” even before the ethics scandals started to drop, a source with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a watchdog group, says.
Bodine would be considered a confirmable, but possibly ineffective pick, though she would also likely have the support of EPA staff, the PEER source says.
The former EPA official notes: “The only people who actually have enough background to actually step into that role who are in the building right now would be Bodine, [EPA air chief] Bill Wehrum and Andy [Wheeler].”
Others also point to Wehrum but note he would face a far more difficult pathway through the Senate given opposition from Democrats.
'Keep Pruitt'
A second former EPA official says Energy Secretary Rick Perry could move over to run EPA, and while that could be considered a bit of a step down, he “would be responding to the call of the president and stepping up for a position that's important to the president, so he might not want to do it but he might be persuadable. He would greatly reduce the confirmation problems.”
Former George W. Bush-era air chief Jeff Holmstead is another name that frequently comes up as a possible nominee but he was also a contender at the beginning of the Trump administration and was thought to be far too moderate by conservatives, who “vetoed” him.
Holmstead also publicly states he is not interested in the job, though others say he is.
Chet Thompson, who leads the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and who used to be an EPA deputy general counsel, is being floated as a possible confirmable replacement, but would face tough opposition from corn state senators due to concern over how the renewable fuel standard may be implemented.
Roger Martella, who was the Bush general counsel and now works as in-house counsel for General Electric, is another name being floated. Though an independent and a moderate, sources note that he played a key role in grooming Pruitt for his confirmation hearing and may be rewarded for that.
Another source says other possible options are the administrator for Region 4, Trey Glenn, and for Region 5, Cathy Stepp, though both would be controversial with Democrats.
Looking at the slate of candidates is one more reason “why they may decide to keep Pruitt,” the second former agency official notes.
Another Pruitt defender says any confirmable replacement for the administrator will be so moderate he or she “will spend every second of every day trying to obstruct the president's agenda. But my guess is the guys in the White House who want Pruitt gone don't care, because they themselves spend a significant chunk of their time trying to obstruct the president's agenda.”
EPA did not respond to a request for comment on Pruitt's future at the agency.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitt-faces-uncertain-future-questions-mount-any-replacement
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Embattled EPA Chief Target of Fresh Questions in New Ethics Memo
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt says a government review last week cleared him of ethical issues tied to a $50-a-night condo rental from a lobbyist last year.
It didn't.
Kevin Minoli, the designated EPA ethics official who conducted the review, says it only scrutinized whether the condo lease ran afoul of federal ethics regulations prohibiting certain gifts. He concluded it didn't.
But Minoli, in a new memo obtained by Bloomberg, says he wasn't asked and didn't examine whether the arrangement violated other ethics rules, nor “whether the actual use of the space was consistent” with the lease agreement.
“A federal employee must comply with the standards of ethical conduct, including those related to impartiality, at all times,” Minoli wrote in the 24-page memo dated April 4.
Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics who resigned last year after clashing with the Trump administration, said that under the impartiality rule, Pruitt should have steered clear of all clients of the lobbyists with ownership interests in the condo.
“The impartiality regulation addresses when you must recuse from matters involving a person with whom you have a ‘covered relationship,’” Shaub said on Twitter. “This lease gave him a covered relationship not only with the landlord but also with anyone in the landlord's firm because the definition of ‘person’ includes both an individual and the individual's employer.“
The disclosure of the condo rental, and revelations that the EPA used an obscure provision of a law to boost the pay of two Pruitt aides over the White House's objections, have spurred calls for an investigation by Congress and the EPA's watchdog. Although Trump assured Pruitt his job was safe on April 2, the White House said April 4 it is conducting its own review of the rental arrangement.
Scott Pruitt
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Minoli's latest memo underscores the limitations of the ethics review that Pruitt and his defenders have cast as clearing the administrator of all possible ethical concerns tied to the rental.
The unconventional lease terms permitted Pruitt to pay $50 only on days he actually occupied his bedroom in the condo, located just steps from the U.S. Capitol. He paid a total of $6,100 over a roughly six-month period last year, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
Pruitt told the Washington Times in an interview this week that career ethics officials at the EPA “reviewed the lease and have determined there are no ethical concerns—that it's market value.“
Pruitt told the Washington Times he was living out of a suitcase and his access was confined to one room in the condo. Under the lease terms, Pruitt had to leave his bedroom door unlocked and did not have use of common areas, which continued to be a venue for dinner parties and meetings during his stay.
The EPA's first ethics review was conducted hastily last week, after news reports that Pruitt had rented the bedroom from the spouse of an energy lobbyist whose firm has clients with matters before the EPA.
Health care lobbyist Vicki Hart, who co-owns the condo through a limited liability corporation, rented the bedroom to Pruitt. Her husband, J. Steven Hart, is the president of Williams & Jensen, a firm with a stable of energy industry clients including Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co.
Ethics and Law
Under federal ethics laws, government employees are required to act impartially and are prohibited from giving preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. They also are barred from accepting gifts or other items of value from people or entities seeking official action or conducting business with the employee's agency.
In an April 4 interview with Fox News, Pruitt was indignant when asked if a low-priced condo rental arrangement with a lobbyist friend was in sync with President Donald Trump's “drain the swamp” campaign vow. “I don't think that that's even remotely fair to ask that question,” Pruitt told Fox.
The new EPA memo asserts that there are seven comparable private bedrooms within a six-block radius of Pruitt's temporary quarters that can be rented for $55 or less per night, a basis for the ethics officer's conclusion that last year's rental was fair “market value” and did not constitute a prohibited gift.
While Pruitt was allowed to leave “limited” personal belongings, such as some clothing, at the site even on nights he was not paying $50 to occupy the room, under the lease, that did not appear to factor into the ethics analysis.
The April 4 memorandum reaffirms the original decision while clarifying what was beyond the initial review's scope, Minoli said in an emailed statement.
On April 4, a top Pruitt ally at the EPA, Samantha Dravis, the associate administrator of the agency's Office of Policy, resigned, according to an EPA official who asked for anonymity because the departure hadn't yet been made public. Dravis came to the EPA after serving with Pruitt when she was general counsel of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission
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Trump Says He Retains Confidence in Embattled EPA Chief Pruitt
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
President Donald Trump said he still has confidence in the embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has been the subject of a cascade of ethics questions in recent days that cast doubt on his future in the job.
“I do,” Trump said April 5 when asked if he had confidence in the Environmental Protection Agency chief as he boarded Air Force One for a trip to West Virginia.
Pruitt has been under fire for disclosure that he rented a condo from the wife of a prominent lobbyist under unusual terms and that the EPA used an obscure law to boost the pay of two Pruitt aides over the White House's objections. The news has spurred calls for an investigation by Congress and the EPA's watchdog. The White House said April 4 it is conducting its own review of the rental arrangement.
Meanwhile, the author of an analysis the EPA used to justify Pruitt's lease arrangement has authored a new memo stressing the review doesn't clear Pruitt of all ethical questions involving the arrangement. Kevin Minoli, the designated EPA ethics official who conducted the review, says it only scrutinized whether the condo lease ran afoul of federal ethics regulations prohibiting certain gifts. He concluded it didn't.
But Minoli, in a new memo obtained by Bloomberg News, says he wasn't asked to and didn't examine whether the arrangement violated other ethics rules, nor “whether the actual use of the space was consistent” with the lease agreement.
“A federal employee must comply with the standards of ethical conduct, including those related to impartiality, at all times,” Minoli wrote in the 24-page memo dated April 4.
President Seeks Opinions
Trump on April 4 privately asked some lawmakers to share their opinions of Pruitt, said two people familiar with the requests. The president didn't signal any intention to fire Pruitt, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations with the president.
Trump asked the lawmakers how they thought Pruitt was doing politically, the people said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., on April 5 called on the EPA administrator to step down during a town hall meeting, according to a report from local ABC-TV affiliate WTEN in Albany. Two Florida Republicans, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo, had earlier called for Pruitt's ouster.
Also on April 5, a top Pruitt ally at the EPA, Samantha Dravis, the associate administrator of the agency's office of policy, resigned, according to an EPA official who asked for anonymity because the departure hadn't yet been made public. Dravis came to the EPA after serving with Pruitt when she was general counsel of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Meanwhile, conservative activists and industry allies are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep Pruitt in his job.
CEOs are calling Trump to argue against firing the man they see as a champion of deregulation. Senators are warning that getting an equally business-friendly replacement confirmed won't be easy. And aides have been booking him for a series of conservative-media appearances.
‘Making it Known’
“We are very much in support of him and making it known,” said Tom Pyle, who heads the American Energy Alliance, an influential free-market advocacy group. “Obviously, he is an ideal administrator.“
A conservative PR firm, CRC Public Relations, sent talking points and links to articles and tweets to reporters defending Pruitt.
The unusual campaign is designed to spare Pruitt from the same fate that has met other administration officials who found themselves fired with little warning. Other recent departures—including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin—haven't benefited from a similarly coordinated outpouring of external support.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are warning the White House that it would be tough—if not impossible—to confirm a replacement. Given bruising confirmation fights expected for Trump's picks to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs and the State Department, there isn't much appetite for a fourth, said a senior Republican Senate aide who asked for anonymity to discuss strategy.
Pruitt “is likely the bravest and most conservative member of Trump's cabinet,” Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky tweeted. “We need him to help @realDonaldTrump drain the regulatory swamp.“
At the same time, environmental groups are stepping up a “boot Pruitt” campaign on Twitter and opposition research. The Sierra Club broadcast an ad on “Fox and Friends,” which counts the president among its most loyal viewers.
Ex-Ethics Director Rebukes Pruitt
Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics who resigned last year after clashing with the Trump administration, said that under the impartiality rule cited by the EPA's ethics chief, Pruitt should have steered clear of all clients of the lobbyists with ownership interests in the condo.
“The impartiality regulation addresses when you must recuse from matters involving a person with whom you have a ‘covered relationship,’” Shaub said on Twitter. “This lease gave him a covered relationship not only with the landlord but also with anyone in the landlord's firm because the definition of ‘person’ includes both an individual and the individual's employer.“
Minoli's latest memo underscores the limitations of the ethics review that Pruitt and his defenders have cast as clearing the administrator of all possible ethical concerns tied to the rental.
The unconventional lease terms permitted Pruitt to pay $50 only on days he actually occupied his bedroom in the condo, located just steps from the U.S. Capitol. He paid a total of $6,100 over a roughly six-month period last year, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Pruitt told the Washington Times in an interview this week that career ethics officials at the EPA “reviewed the lease and have determined there are no ethical concerns—that it's market value.“
Pruitt told the Washington Times he was living out of a suitcase and his access was confined to one room in the condo. Under the lease terms, Pruitt had to leave his bedroom door unlocked and did not have use of common areas, which continued to be a venue for dinner parties and meetings during his stay.
The EPA's first ethics review was conducted hastily last week, after news reports that Pruitt had rented the bedroom from the spouse of an energy lobbyist whose firm has clients with matters before the EPA. Health care lobbyist Vicki Hart, who co-owns the condo through a limited liability corporation, rented the bedroom to Pruitt. Her husband, J. Steven Hart, is the president of Williams & Jensen, a firm with a stable of energy industry clients including Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co.
Under federal ethics laws, government employees are required to act impartially and prohibited from giving preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. They also are barred from accepting gifts or other items of value from people or entities seeking official action or conducting business with the employee's agency.
Pruitt Strikes Back
In an April 4 interview with Fox News, Pruitt was indignant when asked if a low-priced condo rental arrangement with a lobbyist friend was in sync with President Donald Trump's “drain the swamp” campaign vow. “I don't think that that's even remotely fair to ask that question,” Pruitt told Fox.
The new EPA memo asserts that there are seven comparable private bedrooms within a six-block radius of Pruitt's temporary quarters that can be rented for $55 or less per night, a basis for the ethics officer's conclusion that last year's rental was fair “market value” and did not constitute a prohibited gift.
While Pruitt was allowed to leave “limited” personal belongings, such as some clothing, at the site even on nights he was not paying $50 to occupy the room, under the lease, that did not appear to factor into the ethics analysis.
The April 4 memorandum reaffirms the original decision while clarifying what was beyond the initial review's scope, Minoli said in an emailed statement.
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Army of Conservative Allies Rallying to Save Embattled EPA Chief
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter
Conservative activists and industry allies are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep Scott Pruitt at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency as he confronts a storm of ethical allegations that have critics calling for his ouster.
CEOs are calling President Donald Trump to argue against firing the man they see as a champion of deregulation. Senators are warning that getting an equally business-friendly replacement confirmed won't be easy. And aides have been booking him for a series of conservative-media appearances.
“We are very much in support of him and making it known,” said Tom Pyle, who heads the American Energy Alliance, an influential free-market advocacy group. “Obviously, he is an ideal administrator.“
The unusual campaign aims to overcome Trump's inclination to dispatch top officials with little warning. Other recent departures—including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin—haven't benefited from a similarly coordinated outpouring of external support.
Pruitt's supporters are up against formidable opponents. Environmental groups are stepping up a “boot Pruitt” campaign on Twitter and opposition research. The Sierra Club broadcast an ad on “Fox and Friends,” which counts the president among its most loyal viewers. (The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.)
Booth, Flights, Landlord
The deluge of bad news for Pruitt has been relentless. He was already under fire for installing a secure soundproof booth in his office and for flying first-class on official business. Then came last week's revelations that he rented a Capitol Hill condo on unusually agreeable terms from the wife of a prominent energy lobbyist. This week brought reports that the agency had used an obscure law to award substantial raises to aides over White House's objections.
EPA officials responded by trying to buttress their boss, arranging events that highlight Pruitt's friendliness to business. Other supporters leaked word that Trump—and his chief of staff, John Kelly—had telephoned Pruitt to offer support.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are warning the White House that it would be tough—if not impossible—to confirm a replacement. Given bruising confirmation fights expected for Trump's picks to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the State Department, there isn't much appetite for a fourth, said a senior Republican Senate aide who asked for anonymity to discuss strategy.
“I think he will be forced to nominate someone who is more moderate on the environment or he will get tattooed in the Senate,” said Dan Eberhart, chief executive officer of the Colorado-based drilling services company Canary LLC.
Limited-Government Star
Pruitt has emerged as the limited-government star of the Cabinet, methodically working to dismantle environmental restrictions. No Senate-confirmable replacement would work as hard and be as effective an advocate for the president's policy agenda, said Mike McKenna, a Republican energy strategist.
“Because you can't get anyone else through the Senate, you will wind up with the modern-day equivalent of Christine Todd Whitman, who will spend every second of every day trying to obstruct the president's agenda,” McKenna said, referring to a former New Jersey governor and moderate Republican who led the EPA under President George W. Bush.
Prominent conservatives are drafting a letter to Trump offering similar dire warnings. And Pruitt defenders are taking the message to business leaders who have Trump's ear—such as billionaire Oklahoma oil man Harold Hamm and confidant Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax.
Supportive executives are being armed with talking points that include the threat that billions of dollars of potential investment could be put in jeopardy by a disruption at the EPA.
David Rivkin, an attorney in Washington, D.C., is among the EPA chief's most ardent defenders.
“I've known him for a number of years and worked with him closely,” said Rivkin, a partner at the law firm Baker Hostetler LLP who represented the Oklahoma attorney general's office when Pruitt held that post.
Rivkin described Pruitt as a man with an exceptional work ethic and strong faith, and said the criticism directed at him is “driven by hostility toward his agenda.“
“He is carrying out the president's policy agenda within the bounds of the law,” Rivkin said in an interview, adding that the job Pruitt has done gives him “tremendous strength and staying power.” No one else could do it as successfully, Rivkin said.
Pruitt has been making the round of conservative news outlets in hopes of finding a friendly audience—with mixed results. On April 4, the Washington Times interviewed him, with all but five minutes of the 35-minute interview devoted to policy matters, from an obscure biofuel mandate to auto emissions, before there was a question about the current headlines: “Do you believe they are using these issues to try to get rid of you?“
Pruitt labeled the reports as “noise” mounted by detractors angry that the EPA is no longer “a bastion of liberalism” under his watch. “We are getting things done and that's what's driving these folks crazy, and I will tell you the truth, and the facts are on our side.”
The media strategy appeared to backfire during a Fox News interview, when Pruitt appeared caught off guard by questions about the effort to increase the salaries of two aides by tens of thousands of dollars. He pleaded ignorance of the matter before an incredulous correspondent and promised “accountability” for whomever was responsible.
It's not clear the broad pro-Pruitt campaign will succeed. The White House is reviewing Pruitt's rental arrangement, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said April 4. Trump thinks Pruitt “has done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front,” but “we take this seriously and are looking into it,” she said.
Trump himself seemed less than convinced of Pruitt's staying power when asked about him before meeting with Baltic leaders April 4. “I hope he's going to be great,” Trump said.
Pruitt supporters fret that he might not survive if there are any more damaging disclosures.
And environmentalists are working around-the-clock to unearth them. Activists are scouring Pruitt's real estate transactions, records from his time as Oklahoma's attorney general and documentation of his travel for any tantalizing detail.
“The environmental movement in total is all in for the removal of Scott Pruitt,” said Lukas Ross, a campaigner with the group Friends of the Earth. “I think you are going to see escalating pressure in the coming days, especially on the Senate side, to get members to commit publicly that Pruitt should be fired.“
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GOP Lawmaker Calls on Pruitt to Resign
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is calling on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt to resign.
Stefanik is the third Republican lawmaker to ask Pruitt to leave amid a recent spate of scandals over an apartment he rented from a lobbyist and big raises he gave to two aides despite White House disapproval.
“Congresswoman Stefanik believes it’s in the best interest of the EPA for Mr. Pruitt to resign,” spokesman Tom Flanagin told The Hill on Thursday.
Stefanik first spoke about her desire for Pruitt to quite earlier Thursday at a constituent event, according to WTEN.
On Tuesday, Florida GOP Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinencalled on Pruitt to resign or be fired.
Pruitt’s “corruption scandals are an embarrassment to the Administration, and his conduct is grossly disrespectful to American taxpayers. It's time for him to resign or for [Trump] to dismiss him,” Curbelo tweeted.
“I agree with my colleague, Carlos, that the EPA administrator should resign,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. “When scandals and distractions overtake a public servant’s ability to function effectively, another person should fill that role.”
Like the other two lawmakers, Stefanik represents a very centrist district and has taken numerous positions at odds with the Trump administration on areas such as climate change and taxes.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/381840-gop-lawmaker-calls-on-pruitt-to-resign
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It's Time for the President to Dump Scott Pruitt
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA.)
It seems every day there is another disappointing headline for the beleaguered EPA administrator. There are the chartered airplanes and the unprecedented 24-hour security detail that none of his predecessors required. We’ve read about a secret privacy booth more appropriate for the CIA than the EPA. And then there is the sweetheart condo deal and his abuse of the Safe Drinking Water Act to dole out staggering pay raises to his political allies.
It is time for a reset. I can think of no better gift for the American people than for the president to dump Mr. Pruitt.
While Mr. Pruitt’s venality has dominated the headlines, what’s most disturbing to me and so many others is the cavalcade of bad public policy decisions rolled out on a seemingly weekly basis. In his wake, the administrator has done more to damage the economy, our environment, public safety and American global competitiveness than any Trump Cabinet member.
Since taking office, Mr. Pruitt has questioned man-made climate change, scrubbed the EPA website of references to climate change, disputed settled scientific findings, and removed scientific experts from advisory boards, replacing them with industry representatives. He has withdrawn and reversed important environmental protections, including the Clean Power Plan and coal ash disposal requirements. Lest we forget, it was Mr. Pruitt who was the loudest cheerleader for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The administrator has even advocated slashing his agency’s budget by a third. All of these decisions jeopardize the American public.
Under the Obama administration, we were making investments in the 21st century clean energy economy and leading the global community in taking historic action on climate change. Mr. Pruitt, however, seems hell-bent on reversing that progress, and would rather pretend climate change doesn’t exist. Knowing he speaks to an audience of one, he has calculated that pushing these backward policies may be enough to protect his job.
America deserves better. The EPA is charged with an important mission: protecting public health and the environment. We need someone at the helm who is committed to that, not someone who is openly at war with it. Naming Pruitt was a mistake in the first place. Mr. President, with new scandals and revelations now daily, do America a favor. Dump Pruitt.
Connolly represents Virginia's 11th District and is the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Government Operations.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/381818-its-time-for-the-president-to-dump-scott-pruitt
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Pruitt's Ethics Scandals Threaten His Leverage To Deregulate At EPA
Apr 5, 2018 | InsideEPA
By Doug Obey
Even as Administrator Scott Pruitt renews his commitment to his deregulatory agenda, former officials say that controversies over his alleged ethics violations threaten to be a significant distraction from that agenda, imposing new oversight burdens on staff, undermining public messaging, exacerbating relationships with Capitol Hill, complicating confirmation of a deputy administrator and possibly emboldening career staff to further resist Pruitt's agenda.
And they suggest that Pruitt could face continuing scrutiny and political obstacles, even if the Trump administration continues to back him as EPA chief.
“It is certainly going to be a distraction from the regulatory program,” says a former agency official, pointing to the impact of Pruitt's growing troubles.
Such impacts stem from mounting speculation on Pruitt's fate in the wake of pending inspector general investigations into Pruitt's travel and security costs, mounting attention to his below-market rental lease from a lobbyist, salary raises for Pruitt staffers that were opposed by the White House and which Pruitt has now walked back, and a host of other alleged ethical violations.
The former official cites the fact that agency political staff, even in the short term, now have to be in “reactive mode” on everything from responding to burgeoning information requests to press strategy.
The source says a “perfect example” of this is when Pruitt was forced to cancel a planned April 3 public event to tout his decision to weaken light duty vehicle fuel economy standards after the event was overshadowed by a barrage of news coverage about a controversial lease of a lobbyist-linked Capitol Hill condo.
Some reports have also suggested officials have canceled a planned event slated for April 6 on EPA's expected announcement on its nitrogen dioxide air quality standard, which the agency has proposed retaining though industry groups have urged the agency to ease its implementation.
Pruitt's scandals come at what is arguably a particularly awkward time for the agency, with the Senate in the process of teeing up a vote on Andrew Wheeler to be deputy administrator.
Even before the most recent wave of negative press for Pruitt, environmentalists were already urging Democrats to step up their scrutiny of Wheeler because he could become the next administrator.
“Before any full Senate vote on Wheeler, his actions, scandals and conflicts of interest need to be immediately investigated, and senators should staunchly oppose his nomination in order to protect our communities and families,” the Sierra Club said in a March 23 statement.
“All this makes it more difficult for Andy unfortunately,” the former agency official says, though the source stops short of saying Wheeler won't be confirmed.
Pruitt is also scheduled to testify at an April 25 Capitol Hill hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a proposed fiscal year 2019 budget that reiterates Trump administration calls for massive cuts to the agency even though Congress spurned similar proposed cuts in previous appropriations bills.
“Oh, geez, you know what that is going to be like,” the source says, referring to that upcoming hearing, suggesting that it could become a circus.
Sense of Congress
Underscoring the continued Capitol Hill scrutiny, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), the ranking Democrat on the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees EPA's budget who had previously opposed Pruitt's confirmation, in an April 5 statement called on Pruitt to resign and pledged to introduce a “Sense of Congress calling on him to resign for the good of the American people."
An industry source notes that additional reports on Pruitt's spending are expected from EPA's inspector general and the Government Accountability Office, and adds that such problems will only mount if Democrats were to take control of the House after the November midterms, enabling them to ramp up scrutiny of Pruitt.
“If the House were to go Democrat in November, can you imagine?”
The former agency official, however, says talk of Pruitt's departure is premature, and says Pruitt could well survive if he is able to remain focused on implementing the administration's agenda.
In line with that, conservative groups are rallying to Pruitt's defense, including a video from the Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal.
“You know why they are going after EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt? No. 1: He has led the Trump administration's effort to dismantle President Barack Obama's expensive and ineffective climate legacy piece by piece,” the video says in part.
But environmentalists are already pushing back on claims that Pruitt is an effective deregulator.
“Some . . . speculate that [Pruitt] is protected because he is doing exactly what the President wants him to do. Is that true? Probably not,” Environmental Defense Fund's Jeremy Symons, wrote in an April 4 op-ed in The Hill.
The op-ed calls Pruitt “the weakest member of Trump's cabinet where it matters most to Trump; public opinion,” based on polling showing low public support for environmental rollbacks.
And it also argues that Congress's rejection of the FY18 budget cuts shows Pruitt is actually weak on Capitol Hill and called Pruitt a “consistent loser in the courts.”
In a similar vein, David Hayes, executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which is assisting states in their litigation against EPA, touted a lawsuit state officials filed seeking to force EPA methane controls to argue that “Pruitt has not succeeded in carrying out the Administration’s regulatory agenda -- he’s merely violated the law and hit a brick wall of state attorneys general.”
“Governing by press release -- instead of following processes required by law -- does not make an Administrator a success,” Hayes said.
But assuming he stays at EPA, the former official says current scandals raise questions about his continued effectiveness. “I think that the risk is, does it decrease his effectiveness more than anything else. Unless there's some kind of bombshell.”
Another former agency official is less certain Pruitt can survive his ethics problems, but adds that his current troubles embolden efforts by career staff -- who are already uncomfortable with Pruitt's deregulatory efforts -- to try to delay that.
“People may try to slow down some of the deregulatory actions he has underway [thinking] maybe he is not going to be able to pull it out.”
More broadly, the second official cautions that one should not assume Pruitt's deregulatory agenda will bolster his support among business groups, at least some of whom see his agenda as a threat to their investments in cleaner technologies.
And he cites Pruitt's troubles as an awkward counterpoint to the President's message about cleaning up Washington D.C. that will continue to fester. "The president has talked so much about trying to drain the swamp. It is just too easy for people to say what are you talking about, look at how swampy this guy is."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitts-ethics-scandals-threaten-his-leverage-deregulate-epa
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Science Experts Tell EPA to Regulate Toxic Perchlorate
Apr 5, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
One of the many travesties in the failure to properly protect drinking water in the United States is EPA’s decades-long inability to set an enforceable drinking standard for perchlorate, a chemical that harms the thyroid – critical for normal growth and development – and that contaminates drinking water systems serving over 17 million people in the U.S. EPA determined back in 2011 that perchlorate meets the criteria for regulation as a contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA concluded that, “perchlorate may have an adverse effect on the health of persons and is known to occur in public drinking water systems with a frequency and at levels that present a public health concern.” (EPA 2011).
This isn’t just a Trump/Pruitt problem. NRDC has been pressing EPA for years, through Republican and Democratic administrations to act. Unfortunately, EPA has long been under strong pressure from industry and the Pentagon and its contractors to avoid setting a strong drinking water standard for perchlorate (DOD is a major source of perchlorate pollution due to its use in rocket fuel and munitions at its facilities across the country). We sued the Agency in 2016 to set a health-protective drinking water limit for this toxic chemical (NRDC Feb 2016).
Now, the final peer review report from an expert panel has concluded that EPA should proceed to set a health-protective drinking water standard for perchlorate, even while expressing some concerns that EPA’s approach may still be underestimating the health risks posed by drinking perchlorate (see Final Peer Review report March 2018). NRDC shares the concerns of some expert peer reviewers that EPA’s approach may underestimate risk, particularly where exposures take place during early life development of critical systems, that could lead to neurobehavioral impairments. In setting a drinking water standard, EPA should use uncertainty factors (UFs) to address these limitations, and to ensure that vulnerable populations will be protected.
Perchlorate is a hazardous chemical component of explosives that is used in rocket fuel, munitions, fireworks, air bags and in food packaging. It also occurs naturally in Chilean soil nitrate, which has historically been used as fertilizer here in the US (EPA 2014). According to a 2010 GAO report, “Perchlorate has been found in water and other media at varying levels in 45 states, as well as in the food supply, and comes from a variety of sources.” EPA reported that approximately 160 public water supplies tested – serving over 17 million people- had perchlorate at 4 ppb (the lowest level that was looked for) or higher (73 Federal Register 60262, 60270 October 10, 2008).
FDA measured perchlorate in over half of food samples it analyzed, including baby foods and infant formula. Perchlorate is also in human breast milk (see Kirk et al 2007 and Pearce et al 2007). Learn more from blogs by Tom Neltner of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) here.
For an acute contaminant like perchlorate where even short-term exposures can have health consequences for vulnerable populations, consumers need reliable information about the health concerns associated with perchlorate, what routes of exposure are of greatest concern, and how to respond to violations in the drinking water standard when they may occur.
Effective action by EPA to regulate perchlorate would not only protect our health but would reverse bad public policy that has put us at risk for years. After decades of accumulated science on perchlorate’s health harms, and with years of opportunity for public and industry input and comment, it is past time for EPA to protect people’s health by preventing harmful exposure to perchlorate in drinking water.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jennifer-sass/science-experts-tell-epa-regulate-toxic-perchlorate
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EU Considers Further Limiting Plasticizer Substances in Soft Plastics
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Manufacturers of soft plastic products such as vinyl flooring and shower curtains could be affected by a draft European Union regulation that would severely restrict the presence of phthalates.
The regulation would limit the presence of four phthalates in most products to a concentration of 0.1 percent by weight. The regulation would affect most categories of products circulating on the EU market, including imported products. Some exemptions would be allowed for special equipment.
The substances covered by the draft regulation are bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), and diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP). They're considered substances of very high concern in the EU because they're toxic to reproduction and have hormone-disrupting properties. They are used primarily as plasticizers to soften polyvinyl chloride.
Under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), use of the substances in industrial processes without a specific authorization has been prohibited since 2015. The new draft regulation would tighten up on the prohibition by preventing products containing the substances from being imported into the EU.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, submitted the draft regulation to the World Trade Organization's Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade March 28 and said comments could be submitted through May 27. The commission published the draft regulation on its website April 3.
Plasticizer Playing Field
For EU companies that produce plasticizers, the draft regulation was welcome because it would lead to “a level playing field for the European industry versus importers of articles manufactured outside the EU,” Michela Mastrantonio, manager of European Plasticisers in Brussels, told Bloomberg Environment April 5. European Plasticisers represents companies including Evonik Industries AG, BASF SE, and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Within the EU, however, the draft regulation if adopted could affect “manufacturing of articles from recycled flexible PVC,” Mastrantonio said. BBP and DIBP are no longer used in Europe, while REACH authorizations for limited use of DBP and DEHP have either been granted or are pending, she added.
Yannick Brusselmans, spokesman for Belgium's Vynova Group, which produces PVC resin, told Bloomberg Environment April 5 that he was unable to comment on the proposed restriction. The U.K.'s Inovyn ChlorVinyls Ltd., which makes vinyl plastics, did not respond to a Bloomberg Environment request for comment April 5.
According to its notification to the WTO, the European Commission would finalize the regulation in the second half of 2018 after the period allowed for comments.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=131277019&vname=dennotallissues&fn=131277019&jd=131277019
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Wood, Leather Firms Facing Stricter EU Worker Limits on Formaldehyde
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
European Union wood panel, leather, and paper makers are facing stricter draft workplace exposure limits for formaldehyde proposed by the European Commission April 5.
Formaldehyde is classified in the EU as a carcinogen and as causing skin allergies. It is used in a wide range of applications, such as in resins to bind particle board and other wood products, as a preservative, in insulation materials, and in plastics.
For factories making products such as particle board and fiberboard, the proposed EU limit on formaldehyde was feasible, with many companies already in line with the limit, Kris Wijnendaele, technical director of the European Panel Federation, told Bloomberg Environment April 5.
A common EU limit would make it “very clear what every factory has to achieve” and would push older factories to upgrade, for example, their equipment or ventilation systems, Wijnendaele said.
The proposal would set the formaldehyde exposure limit at an average 0.3 parts per million over an eight-hour period, or at 0.6 ppm for short-term workplace exposure. The proposal is a draft EU directive that would amend the 2004 EU Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (2004/37/EC).
Tino Mulle, a spokesman for Belgian panel maker UNILIN, told Bloomberg Environment he was unable to comment April 5.
Widely Used Carcinogens
The EU wide limit on formaldehyde would be “a good thing because it will create a level playing field for the formaldehyde producers,” FormaCare, the formaldehyde sector group within the European Chemical Industry Council, told Bloomberg Environment in a statement April 5.
Alongside formaldehyde, the commission also proposed workplace exposure limits on four other carcinogens used in a wide range of industrial sectors, including production of metals, batteries, glass, chemicals, and plastics. The four other substances were cadmium, beryllium, arsenic acid, and its salts, and 4,4’-methylene-bis(2-chloroaniline), which is used in making polyurethane.
In total, about 1.07 million EU workers are exposed to the substances, with the vast majority—1 million—exposed to formaldehyde, the commission said. The EU-wide exposure limits would provide “a clear and common objective for employers, workers, and enforcement authorities,” the commission said.
So far under the EU Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive, workplace exposure limits have been adopted for 16 substances. A further five are currently under discussion between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which represents the governments of EU countries. The EU limits do not prevent the bloc's countries from imposing tighter limits or limits on substances not covered by the directive.
Comments can be submitted on the draft directive on the five substances during a feedback period through May 31.
After the comment period, the draft directive with the five new substances will be finalized and forwarded to the European Parliament and the council, which must both agree to it.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=131277027&vname=dennotallissues&fn=131277027&jd=131277027
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15 AGs Sue Trump EPA for Not Enforcing Pollution Controls
Apr 5, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Morgan Gstalter
Fifteen attorneys general and the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Administrator Scott Pruitton Thursday for not controlling methane emissions.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement that the group is fighting back against the Trump administration for “ignoring its legal duty to control emissions of methane — and extremely potent greenhouse gas — from existing oil and gas operations.”
They also charge Pruitt with violating the Clean Air Act by “unreasonably delaying” its mandatory obligation through the act to control methane emissions
The EPA’s refusal to control methane pollution is illegal, Schneiderman said in a statement.
It also “threatens our public health and environment, and squanders savings of over $100 million annually.”
The suit was filed Thursday in a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It was brought forth by the attorneys general of New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, as well as the City of Chicago.
Schneiderman has sued the Trump administration dozens of times over the past year. He pledged in February to lead a “multistage” lawsuit against Pruitt for delaying a major water pollution rule.
The EPA is facing a a record-breaking number of anti-secrecy lawsuits and many other for rolling back certain Obama-era pollution regulations.
Last month, seven Democratic states threatened to sue the Trump administration for its delay in enforcing a 2016 rule on landfill methane pollutions.
In March, the administration asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit against Pruitt for his new policy that prevents EPA grant recipients from serving on external committees.
http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/381824-15-state-ags-sue-trump-epa-for-not-enforcing-pollution-controls
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Delaware River Ban Draws Fight on Both Sides
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
A ban on natural gas fracking that's being considered by a multistate water regulator could draw legal challenges from both the gas industry and environmentalists.
The Delaware River Basin Commission has had a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the river's watershed since 2010 and proposed to make the ban permanent last year (Energywire, Sept. 13, 2017).
Industry and environmental groups are lining up to fight on both sides of the proposal, which would cover the four states that border the river: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. In addition to making the ban permanent, the DRBC has proposed allowing water withdrawals for fracking outside the watershed and allowing disposal of fracking wastewater inside the watershed.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents the gas industry, says the permanent ban is unconstitutional and exceeds the commission's authority. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is pushing for a wider ban, and its president said it's ready to go to court.
Government officials from as far away as New York City, nonprofit groups and individuals filed 8,687 written comments.
"It's pretty standard playbook in comments to a regulator to set the table for a potential future lawsuit," said Mike Krancer, a political consultant in Philadelphia who was Pennsylvania's top environmental official under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. "The other purpose to do that is to perhaps wake up the agency to realize that what they're doing is illegal and maybe putting the metaphorical fear of God into them, or fear of the courtroom."
The DRBC hasn't set a date for a vote on the fracking proposal.
Marcellus Shale Coalition President Dave Spigelmyer said in the group's comments that the DRBC doesn't ban other industrial activity. Prohibiting fracking, he wrote, "improperly infringes on the property rights of thousands of property owners within the basin and relegates them to second-class citizens while depriving their families and communities of the economic opportunities that rightfully belong to them."
Environmentalists, meanwhile, say it makes no sense to ban fracking but allow companies to use the Delaware basin as a water source and a disposal ground.
"We believe absolutely — and if need be, we will prove it in court — that DRBC cannot legally allow the fracking or the water withdrawals or the wastewater treatment storage and disposal in our watershed," said Maya van Rossum, head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
Fracking is part of a technological leap that has allowed drilling companies to move into areas that would've been inaccessible a generation ago. The process involves blasting a pressurized mix of water, sand and chemicals into a formation to break up — or fracture — the rock and extract gas and oil.
Fracking in the Marcellus Shale field turned Pennsylvania into the second-biggest natural-gas-producing state in the country but has led to consistent complaints about water pollution, air pollution and other side effects such as truck traffic. New York, which also lies over part of the Marcellus field, banned high-volume fracking statewide in 2014 (Greenwire, Dec. 17, 2014).
The commissioners of Wayne County, Pa., where the DRBC has effectively blocked gas development for years, said making the ban permanent would deprive their community of the economic benefits enjoyed in other parts of the state. Drilling on the Susquehanna River, in central Pennsylvania, hasn't caused any harm, they wrote in their comments.
Asking for equal treatment, the commissioners quoted the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
New York City, which gets a significant amount of its water from the Delaware River, said it was concerned about the potential for pollution in the watershed and urged the DRBC in its comments to conduct a cumulative impact analysis before finalizing the proposal.
"Once a water source or its watershed is contaminated, it is difficult, if not impossible, to restore it to its pre-contamination condition," wrote Paul Rush, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Environmental Protection.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/06/stories/1060078307
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International Agency 'Takes Us over the Cliff' — Report
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Climatewire
A new report accuses the International Energy Agency of skewing its projections to favor the oil and gas sector, obscuring the path to widespread renewable energy that it's supposed to be charting.
The IEA offers a series of possible scenarios in its annual World Energy Outlook, each of which depends on government decisions. All of those paths would break through the Paris climate agreement's targets of holding warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius and ideally limiting it to 1.5 C, according to a report this week from Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organization.
The most prominent IEA pathway: The "new policy scenario" would exhaust the world's carbon budget for 1.5 C of warming by 2022 and 2 C by 2034, the report says. Even its most ambitious outlook would burst the 2 C budget by 2040, despite relying on yet-unproven technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
"The IEA provides an energy road map that is supposed to lead us to safety, but in fact it takes us over the cliff," said Greg Muttitt, research director at Oil Change International. "Any government or financial institution that uses these scenarios as a basis for investments in oil and gas is getting seriously bad information. It's shocking how far off the Paris Agreement they are."
In a statement, IEA said its most ambitious scenario aligns with the Paris Agreement because it envisions emissions peaking before 2020, followed by a sharp decline (Jonathan Watts, London Guardian, April 5).
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/04/06/stories/1060078317
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Attack on Natural Gas Network Shows Rising Cyberthreat
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A cyberattack on a natural gas service provider late last month has spilled into the electricity sector, underscoring the growing threat hackers pose to critical energy systems.
The March 29 incident forced at least five major energy companies to cut off digital connections to Energy Services Group (ESG), based in Massachusetts, which offers billing, scheduling and document-sharing services to gas pipeline operators, oil companies and electric utilities.
The cyber intrusion has not disrupted the flow of natural gas or electricity. Still, energy and cybersecurity experts say the case offers a cautionary tale in today's increasingly interconnected world.
Duke Energy Ohio, which sells electricity and natural gas in Ohio and Kentucky, severed some network connections to avoid encountering corrupted files, according to a source familiar with the situation. The cyberattack affected several third-party companies in Ohio, where customers could see late utility bills.
The types of systems reportedly hit the hardest in the attack — so-called electronic data interchanges (EDI) provided by ESG subsidiary Latitude Technologies — would offer fertile ground for hackers hoping to jump from corporate networks to core industrial control systems that could ultimately shut down an energy provider, noted Joe Slowik, adversary hunter at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc.
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"If you're strictly looking from a disruption standpoint, [EDI] seems to be a good place to be," he said. But he emphasized that "nothing at this time indicates that this is especially scary, that big, bad actors are trying to cripple natural gas distribution."
Instead, he suggested the attack could be an example of "ransomware," a type of malicious software that locks up victims' computers and holds the key hostage.
Sources familiar with the response effort also pointed to ransomware as a likely culprit. The FBI, which routinely investigates ransomware incidents affecting critical infrastructure, declined to comment.
ESG spokeswoman Carla Roddy confirmed in an email Wednesday that the company had fallen prey to a cyberattack, though she didn't specify the nature of the threat. Roddy said that the company has since contracted a "leading cyber forensics firm" to restore operations.
Last month, investigators at the Department of Homeland Security and FBI warned energy companies of a yearslong Russian hacking campaign that also targeted firms in the nuclear, aviation and critical manufacturing sectors, among others.
It was not clear whether the ESG incident is related to that alert. DHS spokesman Scott McConnell said his agency is aware of the case and is "gathering further information, as is standard practice whenever we become aware of a potential cyber intrusion affecting the critical infrastructure community."Gas outages
DHS is the agency responsible for monitoring gas industry cybersecurity practices through the Transportation Security Administration.
An E&E News investigation last year uncovered potential vulnerabilities in the gas sector, with federal oversight through TSA stretched thin (Energywire, May 23, 2017).
This week, several ESG customers said they had to conduct scheduling and billing through backup methods throughout last weekend's outages at ESG.
Energy Transfer Partners LP, the Dallas-based parent company of the firm developing the Dakota Access pipeline, said Monday that it was handling all scheduling "in house" until the attack had been resolved.
In a statement Tuesday, Tulsa, Okla.-based pipeline giant ONEOK Inc. said it had taken a "purely precautionary step" to quit using an unnamed third-party service provider.
"Affected customers have been advised to use one of the alternative methods of communications available to them for gas scheduling purposes," ONEOK said.
Jeff Tietbohl, vice president of Chesapeake Utilities Corp. subsidiary Eastern Shore Natural Gas Co., said in a statement that the pipeline operator used "alternate communications channels" for some of its business starting March 29.
"The ESNG physical pipeline system remained fully operational during this time with no operational issues," he said, noting that Latitude's data interchange services had bounced back by Monday.
Molly Whitaker, a spokeswoman for Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP, said three of the Houston-based company's interstate gas pipelines had not been affected by the data interchange outage, noting that customers have been conducting business via a website until the third-party service is fully restored.
"An attack on a network certainly is inconvenient and can be costly, and something any company — whether a retailer, a bank, a media company or pipeline — wants to avoid, but there is no threat as such to public safety or to natural gas deliveries," said Cathy Landry, vice president of communications at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, which represents major pipeline operators. "It's important to recognize that this does not appear to be an attack on an operational system (also known as a SCADA or control system)."
The main hubs for sharing threat information for the oil and gas sectors declined to comment specifically on the ESG attack or its potential consequences but still offered tips for responding to cyber events.
"In recent years, we've seen criminals and other adversaries increasingly turn to cyberattacks as a means to make money or inflict damage," noted David Zacher, executive director of the Oil and Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center. "We believe it's important for oil and natural gas companies to come together to defend themselves through threat intelligence exchange, and we will continue to work to strengthen and grow the ONG-ISAC for the benefit of the industry."
The Downstream Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which specializes in getting the word out on threats to pipelines, "is always concerned when illegal and dangerous actions, cyber or physical, adversely affect any part of our national critical infrastructure, especially natural gas," spokesman Jake Rubin noted.
The DNG-ISAC is backed by the American Gas Association, an industry group that represents hundreds of gas utilities nationwide.
Yesterday, the group reminded its members that proper network security practices would stop hackers from realizing worst-case attacks.
The AGA pointed to one provision of the TSA's pipeline security guidelines in particular — a recommendation to "segregate and protect" critical pipeline assets from the business networks involved in scheduling and billing.
"Our experience has shown that when these guidelines are adhered to, and business systems or vendor systems are compromised, then the gas still flows because the operational systems are separate," the AGA noted.
Dewan Chowdhury, founder and CEO of the cybersecurity company MalCrawler and a consultant to major gas and electric utilities, credited AGA for trying to get the word out about threats, noting that it has "been working with operators to help improve the overall cybersecurity postures."
But he said he has often encountered critical control networks misconfigured to allow communication with corporate computers outside.
"Incidents like these rattle the industry to come up with cybersecurity plans to secure their environment from the worst-case scenario," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/04/06/stories/1060078327
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Pruitt Takes Over Local Water Permit Calls in Bid for Uniformity
Apr 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is now in charge of making decisions on water pollution permits, a job formerly left to the agency's regional chiefs.
All decisions on whether waterways are protected by the Clean Water Act, or whether to approve the dredging or filling of a waterway, must now go through Pruitt's office, according to internal documents posted April 4 by a federal employee advocacy group. These types of decisions often come into play for construction projects that create lots of waste material, such as in construction, infrastructure, and some large mining operations.
Pruitt outlined this change in a March 30 memo to the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water and to its regional offices, which was then posted online by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The move is likely an attempt to standardize the agency's processes while it undergoes a major overhaul of Clean Water Act regulations, Don Parrish, head of regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said.
Under Pruitt, the EPA is rewriting an Obama-era rule that redefined which waterways are covered by the landmark water pollution law.
Many farmers had worried that the Obama rule would force them to start acquiring permits for small streams on their land.
“We have farmers in the countryside saying that there's EPA staff trying to apply the Obama rule even though it's under review and not in effect,” Parrish told Bloomberg Environment.
Regions Will Be Involved: EPA
In his memo, Pruitt said that until his agency finishes the rewrite of the rule, often known as Waters of the United States, he will get the final say on whether a project requires a water pollution permit.
The memo is meant to ensure that decisions on whether a body of water is covered by the Clean Water Act are “handled in a consistent and uniform manner, particularly during the [rewrite],” Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the agency, said.
“Regions will absolutely be involved in the process,” Bowman added in an email to Bloomberg Environment.
Skepticism About Process
But what process will that be?
The memo doesn't lay out how Pruitt will decide whether a particular project does or doesn't need a water pollution permit, or how his process will differ from the one currently in effect, Kelly Hunter Foster, an attorney with the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, said.
“What's the [process] they're consistently implementing?” she told Bloomberg Environment “We don't know. There's no way that would result in any kind of regulatory certainty.”
Decisions on these types of permits are so local that it may not be feasible for the head of the agency to take this on, Judith Enck, a regional chief during the Obama administration, said.
“I don't know how an administrator could handle this and do all the rest of his or her work,” Enck, who led the EPA's Region 2 office, told Bloomberg Environment. “This is like whoever is in charge of [the Health and Human Services Department] handling restaurant inspections.”
Giving Pruitt a Push?
Parrish said he's not as concerned about Pruitt consolidating power in his office as he is about who within the EPA leaked the memo and why.
“I see this as the staff bristling under the need for consistency,” he said.
Parrish added that EPA staffers who oppose Pruitt's agenda may be leaking this memo to “pile on” to the mounting bad press Pruitt has been attracting in recent days, as scandals around his personal housing and his staffing decisions continue to unfurl.
Foster also said it's possible the intent of the leak was to give Pruitt a push out the door. But she questioned why it was even necessary to leak the memo in the first place.
“It seems like this would be something you should tell the public,” she said. “If you're going to change the way the permitting process works, why wouldn't you make this public?”
Enck said, ultimately, the move reveals a certain level of paranoia on the part of the administrator, given that he's the one who appointed all of the regional administrators who he's now stripping power from.
“It's telling that Pruitt doesn't even trust his own regional staff,” Enck said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=131277018&vname=dennotallissues&fn=131277018&jd=131277018
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The World's Oceans Are Teeming with Plastic Waste
Apr 6, 2018 | Wisconsin Gazette
By Louis Weisberg
Global climate change isn’t the only human-made catastrophe threatening the Earth.
Plastic production has increased to 418 million metric tons in 2015 from 2 million metric tons in 1950, according to research by Roland Geyer, a professor of industrial ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Only 14 percent of plastic packaging is currently collected for recycling.
Much of the rest of it ends up in the sea, posing a critical and growing danger to the future of the oceans and the wildlife that they sustain.
In 2010 alone, between 4 million and 12 million metric tons of plastic entered the marine environment. Four-fifths of it was carried by wind or rivers into the ocean, while the rest was dumped from ships. The U.N. Environment Program estimates that each square mile of ocean today carries 46,000 pieces of plastic litter.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation highlighted the issue last year in a report that said the weight of plastic in the oceans would equal that of fish by 2050 if current trends continue.
Much of the plastic litter collects in five key areas known as “garbage patches,” where winds and currents collide to create gyres of trash. The largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which bobs along a stretch of ocean between Hawaii and California.
Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit, recently reported that if all the garbage in that patch were heaped together — including all the plastic bottles, bags, packaging and containers — its total area would amount to twice the size of Texas.
Already, the patch contains at least six times more plastic matter than plankton biomass, the bottom of the food chain.
Eventually, plastic degrades into microplastics, tiny particles smaller than the width of a human hair. Microplastics already account for 8 percent of the debris and could increase to 50 trillion particles, according to Ocean Cleanup’s study. The plastic material kills and maims wildlife as it makes its way into the food chain.
High levels of microplastics already are found in fish for sale at supermarkets. The effects on humans who consume microplastics are unknown.
Tackling the problem will require action on multiple fronts, and leadership from companies that use plastic, experts say.
“It’s not about one innovation, one regulation, one action. We need all of them at the same time,” said Rob Opsomer, who leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy project. “We need to have more and bolder ambitions.”Shunning plastic as ‘virtue signal’
Market research group Mintel says we may eventually see “social stigmatization” of plastic cups and cling film, with firms developing soluble packaging and more retailers shunning products encased in plastic.
“There is money to be made, but more importantly there’s money to be lost,” said Ben Punchard, global packaging analyst at Mintel. “It is being used as a virtue signal. It’s showing you are doing the right thing.”
Governments and other institutions have also begun to focus on the issue.
The EU has set a provisional target to recycle 65 percent of urban waste by 2035. Britain last year outlawed the use of plastic microbeads, and the government says it will consider taxes on single-use plastic as part of an effort to eliminate all “avoidable plastic waste” within 25 years. The Church of England suggested its members reduce their plastic use for Lent.
Geyer says initiatives are nice, but recycling and reuse campaigns have done little to stem the tide of plastic pollution over the past 30 years. He believes society needs to contain its rising demand for plastic as companies and governments pursue ever-increasing growth. Oceans are simply “collateral damage” in the consumer economy, he said.
“That’s how we build our lives, that’s how we consume, that’s how the economy is set up now,” he said. “On the one hand, everyone says this is terrible, we have to stop it. On the other hand, everyone gets terribly upset if the economy doesn’t grow by 3 percent. Honestly, I think we can’t have our cake and eat it, and that’s what we’re trying to do here, I think.”
http://www.wisconsingazette.com/news/the-world-s-oceans-are-teeming-with-plastic-waste/article_65e209d8-38f4-11e8-b378-fb122d433ac9.html
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Skeptics Feel Empowered to 'Keep Pushing' under Trump
Apr 6, 2018 | E&E - Climatewire
By Zack Colman
Climate skeptics are gaining ground.
There's always been a vocal subset of conservatives who cast doubt on climate science, but what were once fringe views among broader Republicans — like warming's a hoax — are enjoying a growing acceptance in the GOP, worrying academics, scientists and sociologists.
"They have taken over the [U.S.] EPA," Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University who has studied climate denier groups extensively, said in an email. "A very sad state of affairs."
The groups sowing climate doubt are more emboldened than ever before, sociologists and historians said. Their effectiveness in the era of President Trump is a reflection of a deepening polarization in U.S. politics and a normalization of climate skepticism on the right, they said.
Democrats and Republicans have never been further apart on climate change, according to public opinion polling released last week by Gallup.
The results illuminate the anti-science sentiment within the GOP. The poll found that 82 percent of Democrats believe global warming has already begun compared with 34 percent of Republicans (Climatewire, March 28).
That rift has contributed to major differences between the Republican administrations of Trump and former President George W. Bush, said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University. Bush's government internalized climate skeptics, but the groups scoring victories were largely silent when policies went their way. Now, however, those same organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute boldly proclaim success — and then push even further.
"It's like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing," Dunlap said. "This extreme radicalization of the Republican Party means they don't have to hide it. They don't have to dress it up like Bush 43 did. They can be in-your-face deniers."
That's materialized in recent weeks. EPA said it would no longer use science without publicly available data to craft regulations, honoring a long-sought industry goal (Climatewire, March 19). The agency also instructed employees to use skeptic talking points when describing its climate change research, according to a leaked memo obtained by HuffPost.
Organizations like the Heartland Institute had fought for the "secret science" initiative when it was introduced by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). It never got through Congress. Opponents argued it would prohibit use of hallmark public health studies that rely on confidential patient data (Climatewire, March 26).
But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has invited those ideas into the building. He set Smith's bill in motion within the agency. And climate skeptics were there to celebrate some of those victories, like when Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA's independent advisory panel if they received agency funding. The move hollowed out years of expertise, critics say, and Pruitt installed a number of industry researchers in their place (Greenwire, Nov. 3, 2017).
That emboldened the far right.
"We'd love to have that debate with Obama and the left on the science because we're going to win," Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp said in a recent interview.Less climate, more Russia
In some sense, using Democrats as a foil contributed to the rise of climate skeptics. They fought against President Obama's climate policies for eight years. But it began even before then. "Traditionally, we get social movements because they're not in power," Dunlap said.
He explained that skeptics ramped up activity under President Clinton while the Kyoto Protocol was in play. That trajectory continued under Bush when former Vice President Al Gore's Academy Award-winning climate documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" elevated climate change in the cultural zeitgeist. Obama doubled down on that with actual policy initiatives — a failed push for cap-and-trade legislation, regulations to curb power plant emissions and playing a key role in the Paris climate accord.
That such groups have sympathizers in the Trump administration has diffused climate skepticism to the party base through elite signaling, the process by which party officials pass down cultural and ideological preferences to their constituents, Dunlap said. Such "elite cues" deepen polarization and offer the veneer of legitimacy for certain viewpoints, he said.
It goes beyond climate. Republicans also formed more favorable opinions of Russia, and they decreasingly value a college education, a reflection of President Trump's views of Moscow and the anti-elite sentiment running through GOP-branded populism.
There are some exceptions. The Climate Solutions Caucus in the House boasts several dozen Republicans who have tried to stand apart from a base that largely rejects climate science. But even then, those members don't reflect the wider party. Dunlap said those members represent "purple districts" and are not the best gauge of the GOP's rightward shift.
"[Skeptics] have done such a good job, and the Republican base is heavily skeptical," he said. "And in general, it looks like if you're a Republican, you're more comfortable going along with the Republican line on climate change denial than you are on being reasonable."
There are other signs of growing confidence among conservative groups that reject mainstream science, said Robert Brulle, a sociology and environmental science professor at Drexel University who has long tracked climate misinformation. One is the battle that's occurring over the endangerment finding, a scientific document that justified EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases across America's economy.
Overturning the finding is the "holy grail" for those organizations. Attacking sound science emulates the campaign that tobacco companies used to keep health regulations at bay, Brulle said.
Yet Pruitt has balked at going after the finding (Climatewire, Dec. 8, 2017). Pruitt may suspect that challenging the endangerment finding is a losing battle. EPA would have to counter volumes of studies that confirm humans are driving temperatures higher, largely through burning fossil fuels.Eviscerating EPA?
That reluctance on the part of Pruitt has pushed climate skeptics to get louder and grow bolder. In years past, they might have tried to quietly influence the debate.
"The proof is in the pudding. You've got to do it," said Steve Milloy, a prominent climate skeptic and former Trump EPA transition team member. "The oil and gas guys that think that none of this is going to hurt them; I think they're wrong. Have they heard of the whole 'keep it in the ground' movement?"
Milloy and others also have backed Pruitt's wishes to hold a "red team, blue team" debate on climate science as a prelude to attacking the endangerment finding. The White House has rebuffed those efforts, to Pruitt's chagrin (Climatewire, March 14).
But outside groups remain committed. Sources said a model resolution supporting such a debate is expected to emerge at the American Legislative Exchange Council's August meeting in New Orleans. ALEC has received considerable cash from the conservative billionaire Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil Corp., and many of its legislative members have pursued far-reaching efforts to discredit climate science.
That such groups are in sync with the Trump administration is demoralizing for federal science officials, said Brulle, who regularly confers with EPA career staffers. He said that could have long-lasting effects for environmental protection.
"It's the slow dismemberment of EPA's ability to retain motivated people who want to do something about the reality of climate change," Brulle said. "That is a new strategy — the objective is to just eviscerate the capacity to address climate change inside EPA."
Policy reversals happen whenever someone new occupies the White House. But these cuts are deeper, he said. It's the deconstruction of the administrative state that former strategic adviser Steve Bannon sought when Trump entered the White House. That could leave the next president with fewer specialists.
"In that way, I think that might be the newer strategy," Brulle said. "That might be, I think, the more long-lasting and pernicious effect of the Trump administration — is that they push out good people."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/04/06/stories/1060078321
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