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AM ACC 4/18/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Call for Talks to Resolve Trade Tiff with China
Apr 18, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
Long-standing trade friction between the U.S. and China should be addressed through constructive negotiation rather than through tariffs, a top chemical industry official told a congressional panel on April 12. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trump's Top Domestic Energy Adviser Leaving White House
Apr 17, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By Josh Siegel
The White House’s top energy and environment adviser is stepping down, leaving President Trump without a key official in his drive to carry out his deregulatory and “energy dominance” agenda promoting fossil fuel use. -
(ACC Mentioned) Earth Day 2018: Focus on Plastics Pollution and Recycling
Apr 17, 2018 | Resource Recycling
By Editorial Staff
Sunday marks 48 years since the first Earth Day, an annual event full of recycling-related events and announcements. This year, plastics are at the center of the conversation. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Price of Luxury for Pruitt
Apr 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Garrett Ross and David Beavers
...Before joining the Trump administration, Catanzaro’s clients with CGCN included the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council, Noble Energy and Devon Energy, the Oklahoma-based oil and gas company with ties to Pruitt... -
Carper to Discuss Pruitt Probe with Gowdy This Week
Apr 17, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said today he plans to discuss next steps in the congressional probe of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt later this week with House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). -
White House Environment Aide Catanzaro to Step Down
Apr 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
Mike Catanzaro, a former energy industry lobbyist who has served as the White House's top environmental and energy aide, will soon step down, according to several news reports, removing a top official who has sought to moderate EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's stance... -
Pence Aide Picked for Energy Post
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Zack Colman
The White House has tapped an aide to Vice President Mike Pence to fill its newly vacated energy slot. -
Temasek Chips in $3.7 Billion to Help Bayer Fund Monsanto Deal
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Klaus Wille
Singapore's state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte is spending 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) to help Bayer AG finance its planned takeover of U.S. competitor Monsanto Co. -
EDF Joins Opening Brief in Legal Challenge to Epa’s Prioritization and Risk Evaluation Rules
Apr 17, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
Late yesterday, EDF joined fourteen other Petitioners in filing an Opening Brief in our case challenging EPA’s Prioritization Rule and Risk Evaluation Rule. The Brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. -
(ACC Mentioned) Will Pittsburgh Flourish as a Hub of Eds and Meds or Gas and Petrochemicals? Can We Have It Both Ways?
Apr 18, 2018 | PublicSource
By Teake Zuidema
Sparks are flying in the training center of the Steamfitters Local 449 in Harmony. In two rows of cubicles, closed off by thick, orange curtains, new apprentices of the union are learning to work with blowtorches. -
First Commercial LNG Cargo from U.S. East Coast Hits the Seas
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
The first export of natural gas from the U.S. East Coast has set sail. -
Zinke Won't Lower Royalty Rate
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will not accept an internal recommendation to slash deepwater royalty rates by a third. -
Even Some Republicans Worry That Trump Is Selling American Wilderness to Oil and Gas Firms
Apr 17, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Growing up in Midland, John Northington looked out over the flat, featureless landscape and saw oil country ready and waiting to be drilled. -
Southwestern Asks Pennsylvania Court to Reconsider Opinion of 'National Significance'
Apr 17, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Southwestern Energy Co. has asked the Pennsylvania Superior Court to reconsider an opinion issued earlier this month that could find unconventional oil and gas producers liable for subsurface trespass, arguing that a two-judge panel misunderstood crucial facts... -
Alberta Plan to Cut Oil Shipments Would Ripple Across West Coast
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Tuttle
Alberta's plan to cut crude and fuel shipments to British Columbia could ripple across the entire west coast of North America, causing pump prices to surge and shifting the flow of international crude. -
Trump's LNG Sales Pitch Gets Lukewarm Reception in Germany
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin and Anna Shiryaevskaya
President Donald Trump's overtures to Germany to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas instead of more Russian fuel got a cool response from the European nation. -
EPA Chemical Safety Rule Delay on Thin Legal Ground, Groups Say
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A list of delayed agency actions stretching back decades does little to settle questions of whether the EPA acted appropriately in delaying a chemical safety program, environmental groups said in a court filing April 16. -
EPA Critics Fault Agency's List of Prior Rules Justifying RMP Rule Delay
Apr 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Critics of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's two-year delay of Obama-era updates to the agency's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program are criticizing a list of prior rule delays that EPA says justify postponing the RMP rule, with opponents of the delay... -
FERC Promises Lawmakers Action on 'Constant' Attacks
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has stepped up its attention to "constant" attacks on the nation's energy infrastructure, Chairman Kevin McIntyre said yesterday at a wide-ranging hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy. -
Overregulating Freight Rail Risks Progress on Safety
Apr 17, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Russ Brown
Amid the flurry of deregulation in Washington that is cutting unnecessary red tape for industries and businesses, legislation has quietly resurfaced in Congress that would dictate how freight rail operators manage personnel on their trains... -
(ACC Mentioned) Louisiana Is Second-Worst in Environmental Friendliness: Report
Apr 17, 2018 | New Orleans Times Picayne
By Tristan Baurick
Louisiana ranks second-worst among U.S. states when examining a wide range of environmental indicators, including water and air quality, energy use and recycling, according to an analysis released Tuesday (April 17) by personal finance website WalletHub. -
Trump’s EPA Quietly Revamps Rules for Air Pollution
Apr 18, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration has quietly reshaped enforcement of air pollution standards in recent months through a series of regulatory memos. -
EPA Plans to Revise HFC Snap Rules to Respond to D.C. Circuit Vacatur
Apr 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
EPA is planning to launch a new rulemaking to respond to an appellate court ruling that largely vacated Obama-era rules limiting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases, arguing the regulations do not allow the agency to easily address the ruling. -
State Environmental Agencies’ New Leader Stresses Efficiency
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The new head of the Environmental Council of States is taking a cue from the EPA's playbook. -
Big Oil Bids to Burnish Credentials in War on Climate Change
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kelly Gilblom
The world's biggest oil companies, for long typecast as villains of climate change, are seeking to reinvent themselves as environmental pioneers.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Call for Talks to Resolve Trade Tiff with China
Apr 18, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
Long-standing trade friction between the U.S. and China should be addressed through constructive negotiation rather than through tariffs, a top chemical industry official told a congressional panel on April 12.
Chemical makers share the Trump administration’s concerns about China’s inadequate protections of intellectual property and forced technology transfer practices, American Chemistry Council (ACC) CEO Calvin M. Dooley said in testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Ways & Means.
But if the world’s two largest economies continue to slap tariffs on each other in an escalating trade war, U.S. chemical manufacturers, energy producers, and farmers would be among the biggest losers, Dooley added.
Those industries “are generating increasing trade surpluses, and we cannot allow them to become causalities of trade disputes,” Dooley told the committee. “We urge the U.S. and Chinese governments to put aside talk of a trade war and stop the volley of potential tariffs.”
On April 3, the White House proposed 25% tariffs on more than 1,300 imported Chinese products with a total value of roughly $50 billion. China retaliated with a list of proposed duties on $50 billion of American imports. President Donald J. Trump then upped the ante, directing U.S. trade officials to identify $100 billion in additional tariffs against China.
ACC, the chemical industry’s main lobbying group, estimates that $5 billion in U.S. chemicals and plastics trade to China would be affected under the tariffs that China has proposed.
As a first step to lower the tension, Dooley said the U.S. should immediately revoke the steel and aluminum tariffs it separately announced on March 7 on imports from China and other nations.
Dooley suggested that the Trump administration should then outline a clear, detailed plan for how it will address persistent problems in China, including making greater use of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement mechanism and negotiation pillars.
“We are hopeful that, with support from Congress, the administration and the Chinese government will recognize that it is in the best interest of both countries to commit to a process that will produce a mutually beneficial agreement before the proposed tariffs go into effect,” Dooley testified.
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), committee chair, said China’s “misbehavior” requires global solutions. “We should work as closely as possible with our allies, and we should never create disincentives for our allies to join us in taking strong action. The world, not just the U.S., must stand up to China’s unfair trade practices,” Brady said.
chttps://cen.acs.org/policy/trade/Chemical-makers-call-talks-resolve/96/web/2018/04
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump's Top Domestic Energy Adviser Leaving White House
Apr 17, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By Josh Siegel
The White House’s top energy and environment adviser is stepping down, leaving President Trump without a key official in his drive to carry out his deregulatory and “energy dominance” agenda promoting fossil fuel use.
Michael Catanzaro is leaving as special assistant to the president for domestic energy and environmental policy and returning to his former lobbying firm, CGCN Group.
The White House confirmed Catanzaro's departure to the Washington Examiner, saying his last day will be next week.
“In just a short time on the job, I realized Mike was an integral member of the [National Economic Council] team and played an important role in crafting domestic energy and environmental policy," said Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council director. "His expertise and dedication to the Trump administration’s energy independence priorities was greatly valued and he will be missed. We thank him for his leadership and we wish him well on his future endeavors."
Catanzaro will be replaced by Francis Brooke, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, who will start April 30.
Catanzaro is the second major White House energy and environmental official to depart recently.
George David Banks resigned as the White House international energy and climate adviser in February because he was unable to get a full security clearance.
Banks had advocated for remaining in the Paris climate change agreement and was seen as a moderating voice on energy and environmental issues.
Catanzaro, by contrast, was the lead White House official in briefing Congress about Trump’s decision to leave the international climate change deal.
Catanzaro was also instrumental in issuing a White House directive for agencies to identify policies limiting domestic energy production as well as beginning the process of repealing and replacing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and Waters of the U.S. rule.
Until late 2016, Catanzaro worked at CGCN representing major industry clients such as Devon Energy of Oklahoma, an oil and gas company, Talen Energy of Pennsylvania, a coal-burning electric utility, the American Chemistry Council, and Koch Industries.
Under an ethics pledge implemented by Trump, Catanzaro will be blocked for five years from lobbying the administration. The White House said Tuesday it expects Catanzaro to abide by that rule.
Catanzaro also previously worked for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, served as a campaign adviser on energy and environmental matters to former President George W. Bush, and was an associate director for policy in the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/trumps-top-domestic-energy-adviser-leaving-white-house
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(ACC Mentioned) Earth Day 2018: Focus on Plastics Pollution and Recycling
Apr 17, 2018 | Resource Recycling
By Editorial Staff
Sunday marks 48 years since the first Earth Day, an annual event full of recycling-related events and announcements. This year, plastics are at the center of the conversation.
Earth Day Network, a nonprofit group at the center of the action, is bringing attention to a multi-year campaign called “End Plastic Pollution.”
“Our goals include ending single-use plastics, promoting alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials, promoting 100 percent recycling of plastics, corporate and government accountability and changing human behavior concerning plastics,” according to the group. (Earth Day Network is closely associated with Earth Day, but the annual event is not organized by any single group or entity.)
The following is a selection of Earth Day recycling announcements:
Chemical industry perspective: Steve Russell, vice president of the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), wrote in response to the plastics focus of some groups on Earth Day this year. Arguing that bans on single-use plastic items will cause more environmental harm, Russell said the key to preventing plastics pollution is boosting collection and recycling infrastructure in developing countries, and he pointed to industry efforts on that front.
Outreach tools available: The Recycling Partnership is highlighting outreach tools it has availablefor programs wanting to reach residents on Earth Day. The nonprofit group’s website has recycling messages available for free, including a top 10 recycling myths flyer.
Electronics recycling: The occasion has also drawn a number of announcements related to electronics recycling. Toronto-based Computation will donate $1 to Tree Canada’s Grow Clean Air program for every computer dropped off for recycling during Earth Week. Phobio, which recycles and resells trade-in mobile phones, released an infographic with information on the lifecycle of a mobile phone, including the benefits of recycling and reusing them. Staples is offering a $10 discount on future purchases for customers who bring in old electronics for recycling during Earth Week.
Sustainability discussion: The Plastics Industry Association will host an Earth Day Twitter chat @PLASTICS_US to discuss trending topics in sustainability. Participating in the April 18 online conversation will be representatives of Plastics Technology, Dow Chemical, the Plastics Industry Association, Envision Plastics and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition.
Message in the sky: Airline JetBlue has partnered with The Ad Council and national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful to raise awareness about the benefits of recycling. The company is donating space and running the “I Want to Be Recycled” public service announcements on all flights throughout April.
Organics composting: The Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works (DPW) announced that it has reopened food scraps drop-off points throughout the city in honor of Earth Month. On Earth Day weekend, DPW will give away kitchen caddies to the first 50 participants at each drop-off location to help residents compost food scraps. The first citywide food scraps drop-off program was kicked off during Earth Day last year.
Outreach campaign: The Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin and its Recycle More Wisconsin program are using Earth Day as an opportunity to promote recycling efforts statewide. The association is using social media to educate residents about recycling in general, and to spread the word about local recycling celebrations around the state. The campaign is stressing the environmental, social and economic benefits recycling brings to the state.
Batter up: When the New York Mets meet the Washington Nationals for their Tuesday, April 17 game, Recycle Track Systems (RTS) CEO Greg Lettieri will throw the first pitch in honor of the upcoming Earth Day. In a press release, RTS explained it is also co-sponsoring an effort to help collect recyclables within the stands during game breaks.
Golden State activities: California state government has compiled an exhaustive list of statewide Earth Day events, many of which touch on recycling. One event, the American River College Earth Day festival in Sacramento, made “Zero Waste by 2025” its theme this year.
Toy recycling: Hasbro has teamed up with TerraCycle to launch a toy and game recycling pilot program. In honor of Earth Day, consumers in the Lower 48 can visit hasbrotoyrecycling.com to sign up for the free mail-in recycling program.
Looking back: It’s been three decades since the Seattle metropolitan area began formalized curbside collection of recyclables, and in honor of Earth Day, a local expert has detailed some of the changes in recycling through the years. In a column for the Redmond Reporter newspaper, Michelle Metzler of Waste Management charts the evolution of local programs, beginning when Seattle and Waste Management launched curbside collection in 1988.
Recyclables Roadshow: An April 21 “You CAN Recycle That: Recyclables Roadshow” in Hershey, Pa. will feature speakers from Waste Management of Pennsylvania and local group Derry Environmental Action Committee. Attendees will be asked to bring one or two thoroughly washed items, and the speakers will explain whether they’re recyclable. All attendees will receive a reusable bag.
Glass recycling returns: After a nearly three-year hiatus, the city of Harrisburg, Pa. will bring back glass recycling. The drop-off program, which launches on Earth Day, will accept glass bottles and jars at 10 locations throughout the city, according to PennLive.com.
https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2018/04/17/earth-day-2018-focus-on-plastics-pollution-and-recycling/
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(ACC Mentioned) The Price of Luxury for Pruitt
Apr 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Garrett Ross and David Beavers
With help from Annie Snider
THE PRICE OF LUXURY: Just a day after two federal reports deepened EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethical wounds, details emerged about a luxury hotel stay by Pruitt, paid for by a group of Colorado homebuilders that has benefited from the administration's deregulation efforts, POLITICO’s Lorraine Woellert reports. During his visit to Colorado Springs to speak to the builders, Pruitt invited them to EPA headquarters in Washington, where he later instructed his staff to regard them as the agency’s “customers,” the head of the group told POLITICO. While the $409 hotel stay may have met federal legal requirements if EPA’s ethics team had cleared it ahead of time, it's another line item on the growing bill that Pruitt has racked up.
“It’s one thing when a head of an agency or senior official is engaged in legitimate outreach,” said Virginia Canter, an ethics lawyer for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group. “But to give a speech, accept a benefit of overnight lodging, then a few weeks later instruct your staff that these are your clients strikes me as inappropriate. At a minimum it raises an appearance issue.”
Pruitt agreed to speak to the Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs after it offered to cover his expenses, including his flights and $409.12 to put him up at The Broadmoor, a lakeside golf resort, on Oct. 4, according to the builder group’s chief executive officer, Renee Zentz. “We didn’t pay for his team but we paid for him. That was the agreement when we talked to him,” Zentz said, adding that her group was simply excited to bring in Pruitt, describing it as a “pretty big feather in our cap locally.”
Before the October lunch in Colorado Springs, Pruitt sat down to an invitation-only coffee with about 20 business owners and builders, who rank among his biggest supporters and had complained about EPA’s approach to stormwater controls and other regulations. At the end of the meeting, Pruitt instructed staff to arrange a meeting in Washington, Zentz said. That meeting took place at EPA headquarters on Oct. 24, when Pruitt and his staff met with about 10 industry representatives, including a Colorado builder from Zentz’s group. “He put his staff in the room and said, ‘This is our customer, this is who we’re going to listen to.’ He told his staff, ‘These are our customers,’” Zentz said. “He listened.” Read more from Lorainne here.
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said today he plans to discuss next steps in the congressional probe of Pruitt later this week with House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).
Welcome to Afternoon Energy! We’re your hosts Garrett Ross and David Beavers. Send suggestions, news and tips to gross@politico.com, dbeavers@politico.com, mdaily@politico.com and njuliano@politico.com, and keep up with us on Twitter at @garrett_ross, @davidabeavers, @dailym1, @nickjuliano, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
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GRASSLEY’S GOT WORDS FOR PRUITT: With the negative headlines surrounding Pruitt not showing signs of subsiding, Sen. Chuck Grassley voiced his displeasure with the EPA chief during a weekly call with reporters, Pro’s Helena Bottemiller Evich reports. While praising the Trump administration for calling for the year-round sale of gasoline blends containing 15 percent ethanol, the Iowa Republcian criticized Pruitt as being out of step with President Donald Trump on the issue. "I believe that Pruitt is a loose cannon, not carrying out the president's wishes," Grassley said. He went on, saying that he has been frustrated that Pruitt has exempted more than twice as many small oil refiners as the Obama administration ever did, decreasing demand for ethanol. "He gives with one hand and takes away with the other," he said. Read more here.
FERC GETS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT: Amid the growing threat of Russian interference in the energy grid, FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre told lawmakers today that cybersecurity has become possibly the most important one facing the energy regulator, Pro’s Eric Wolff reports. “We are increasingly working with DOE and other components of the federal government on a daily basis mostly at a staff level,” McIntyre told the energy subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) pressed all five FERC commissioners on how to improve cybersecurity and asked whether the agency needed more legislated authority to address the matter. The commissioners agreed it was a major issue, but none called for new authority, with McIntyre saying that the agency has made good use of new authority granted in 2005. Read more from Eric here.
LCV URGES ‘NO’ VOTE ON DISCHARGE BILL: The League of Conservation voters is urging senators to oppose the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, S. 1129 (115), which could get a floor vote this week, because of its inclusion of Vessel Discharge Act. That measure would end Clean Water Act regulation of ballast water discharges, which often carry invasive species, and preempt more stringent state regulations. “Invasive aquatic species are already wreaking havoc on our waterways, and we cannot afford to rollback standards and exempt the shipping industry from commonsense clean water protections,” LCV president Gene Karpinski wrote in a letter to senators today, warning that the group will “strongly consider” including the vote in its annual scorecard.
FEMA ASKS FOR HELP WITH NFIP: Following years of paying out billions after catastrophic hurricanes, FEMA is asking Congress to enact new affordability measures in the National Flood Insurance Program that would shield low-income policyholders from substantial rate increases, Pro’s Zachary Warmbrodt reports. FEMA’s request, based off findings in an affordability study released today, marks a shift from the agency’s existing practice of giving discounts based on factors including the age of construction and when a flood map went into effect. In the long term, FEMA officials acknowledged they will need additional funding from Congress other issues with the NFIP. Read more from Zachary here.
MOVER, SHAKER: After more than a year serving as special assistant to the president for domestic energy and environmental policy, Mike Catanzaro is returning to his old lobbying firm, CGCN, Pro’s Eric Wolff reports. Before joining the Trump administration, Catanzaro’s clients with CGCN included the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council, Noble Energy and Devon Energy, the Oklahoma-based oil and gas company with ties to Pruitt.
https://www.politicopro.com/newsletters/afternoon-energy/2018/04/the-price-of-luxury-for-pruitt-173712
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Carper to Discuss Pruitt Probe with Gowdy This Week
Apr 17, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said today he plans to discuss next steps in the congressional probe of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt later this week with House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).
“Trey Gowdy is an honorable person. I applaud his willingness to do what I think is the right thing to do," Carper told reporters. “Maybe his behavior and his leadership will rub off on us.”
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee confirmed the two men plan to speak this week.
Gowdy expanded his probe into Pruitt's lavish spending on travel vehicles, staff raises and luxe security features late last week, demanding interviews with five senior EPA aides. He's also requested a host of documents related to Pruitt's $50-a-day condo lease from a Washington lobbyist and his frequent first-class flights.
WHAT'S NEXT: Carper and Gowdy will discuss their next steps in the probe later this week.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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White House Environment Aide Catanzaro to Step Down
Apr 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
Mike Catanzaro, a former energy industry lobbyist who has served as the White House's top environmental and energy aide, will soon step down, according to several news reports, removing a top official who has sought to moderate EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's stance on how far to go in rolling back Obama-era vehicle rules.
His departure, which was expected, was first reported by E&E News, which said he will rejoin the lobbying firm CGCN Group where he worked prior to joining the Trump administration.
The Hill subsequently reported that he would be replaced by Francis Brooke, who is currently a policy adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.
Catanzaro has played key roles in major Trump EPA policies, including efforts to rescind and possibly replace the Clean Power Plan greenhouse gas standards for utilities, the Obama-era Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule, and, more recently, the agency's plan to roll back Obama-era GHG standards for light-duty vehicles.
As Inside EPA's Doug Obey has reported, Catanzaro has called for a more “moderate” proposal regarding the vehicle rules than Pruitt, according to one industry source who added that agency air chief Bill Wehrum was aligned with Catanzaro on this issue.
That source cited tough rhetoric from Pruitt charging that California cannot “dictate” strong standards for the rest of the country, while also dismissing a key policy priority for the Golden State, discussion of rules that would extend beyond model year 2025.
E&E also reported that Catanzaro “clashed” with Pruitt over the administrator's plans for a “red team, blue team” review to challenge mainstream climate change science.
His departure also comes just weeks after the top White House international energy adviser, George David Banks, left the administration after being unable to secure a permanent security clearance.
President Donald Trump recently shifted Wells Griffith, a deputy assistant secretary at the Energy Department's office of international affairs, to fill Banks' position, which is in the National Economic Council.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/white-house-environment-aide-catanzaro-step-down
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Pence Aide Picked for Energy Post
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Zack Colman
The White House has tapped an aide to Vice President Mike Pence to fill its newly vacated energy slot.
Francis Brooke will replace Mike Catanzaro, who stepped down from the National Economic Council today, a White House official confirmed. Currently Pence's associate director of policy, Brooke will start in the energy post April 30.
"In just a short time on the job, I realized Mike was an integral member of the NEC team and played an important role in crafting domestic energy and environmental policy," NEC Director Larry Kudlow said in a statement. "His expertise and dedication to the Trump Administration's energy independence priorities was greatly valued and he will be missed."
Brooke, a 28-year-old District of Columbia native, has experience as a Capitol Hill aide. He served on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) staff prior to joining the administration, had a stint with Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and interned for then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who now directs the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Bringing Brooke to the White House will reinforce some continuity after a wave of departures from President Trump's energy and environment team. The administration also has lost former NEC Director Gary Cohn, infrastructure guru D.J. Gribbin, and international energy and climate aide George David Banks.
Brooke moderated the Trump administration's event at the U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, last November. The White House advocated for using coal-fired power plant technology and expanding liquefied natural gas exports — along with advanced nuclear reactors — arguing countries would still depend on fossil fuels for decades. Attendees criticized the event and the Trump administration as being out of step with the conference's goals.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/04/17/stories/1060079333
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Temasek Chips in $3.7 Billion to Help Bayer Fund Monsanto Deal
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Klaus Wille
Singapore's state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte is spending 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) to help Bayer AG finance its planned takeover of U.S. competitor Monsanto Co.
Temasek will hold 4 percent of Bayer after it agreed to buy 31 million new shares in a capital increase announced late April 16. The firm previously held 0.4 percent.
Bayer's $66 billion purchase of Monsanto is nearing the finish line as the companies finalize an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said last week.
Winning U.S. antitrust approval would lift the last major hurdle to the transaction and allow the companies to pull off the biggest industry deal ever. The combined firm would be a one-stop shop for farmers, selling a comprehensive array of fertilizers and seeds to be used in conjunction with big data applications.
Bayer shares have dropped in the past 12 months, in part amid doubt it could garner all the regulatory approvals required. The company, based in Leverkusen, Germany, and Monsanto aim to close the deal in the second quarter. Almost two-thirds of the jurisdictions that need to sign off have done so. Among the holdouts is Russia, where the antitrust watchdog ordered Bayer to share technology with Russian companies.
Bayer's proposed takeover of St. Louis-based Monsanto is part of a wave of consolidation that has swept seed and crop-chemical firms in the past three years. Two previous deals, the combination of Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. and China National Chemical Corp.’s takeover of Syngenta AG, won antitrust clearance.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266953&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266953&jd=132266953
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EDF Joins Opening Brief in Legal Challenge to Epa’s Prioritization and Risk Evaluation Rules
Apr 17, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
Late yesterday, EDF joined fourteen other Petitioners in filing an Opening Brief in our case challenging EPA’s Prioritization Rule and Risk Evaluation Rule. The Brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Our Brief argues that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended by the Lautenberg Act, requires EPA to comprehensively evaluate a chemical’s hazards and exposures arising from all of its “conditions of use,” a term defined under TSCA as encompassing the chemical’s entire lifecycle from manufacturing and processing to use and disposal. EPA is then to make a holistic determination of whether the chemical presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment, including to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations. EPA’s Rules violate this requirement because EPA asserts unfettered discretion to exclude known or reasonably foreseen exposures and conditions of use from consideration, thereby ignoring potentially important contributors to a chemical’s overall risk. As a result, the Rules threaten to leave the public—especially vulnerable groups like children, pregnant women, and workers—as well as the environment inadequately protected from the potential risks posed by the thousands of chemicals to which we are exposed every day.
EPA’s response brief in the case is due to the Court on July 5, 2018. As this litigation proceeds, you can find more information – including all significant legal documents – on EDF’s website.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/04/17/edf-joins-opening-brief-in-legal-challenge-to-epas-prioritization-and-risk-evaluation-rules/
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Apr 18, 2018 | PublicSource
By Teake Zuidema
Sparks are flying in the training center of the Steamfitters Local 449 in Harmony. In two rows of cubicles, closed off by thick, orange curtains, new apprentices of the union are learning to work with blowtorches.
“Until six years ago, we recruited maybe 30 or 40 students per year,” said Dale Glavin, director of training at the Butler County center, which opened in 2016. “Now, it is more like 100 students per year.”
The game-changer for Local 449 has been Shell Appalachia’s construction of an ethane cracker in Potter Township, some 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Beaver County. This $6 billion facility on the Ohio River will turn ethane from local shale gas wells into polyethylene, which is used to make a range of plastic products from bottles to clothing.
The cracker plant is changing many conversations about the Pittsburgh region and its future. Most of all, will its environmental effects clash with the progress Pittsburgh has made toward cleaner air and water since its Smoky City steel days?
Pittsburgh now brands itself as a modern city built on research, robots, universities, advanced manufacturing, green energy — and the high-skilled jobs that come with it all.
But there’s another narrative developing: The plethora of shale gas and natural gas liquids in Southwestern Pennsylvania provide a solid foundation to build a new gas and petrochemical hub in Pittsburgh’s backyard. It could bring major investment and many jobs to the area.
Some people think the scenarios could coexist. Others are convinced the air pollution of a petrochemical hub will hurt, maybe even destroy, Pittsburgh’s image as a sustainable city.
But Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald called Shell’s announcement to build the cracker “thrilling” and pointed out that it will provide job opportunities for young people. And, at their technology center, Steamfitters Local 449 is preparing apprentices for those jobs.
“Right now, we have about 200 people at the site of the cracker,” Glavin said. “When the construction of the cracker is at its height, late 2019 and beginning 2020, Shell will need some 2,000 steamfitters.”
Shell predicts that it will take about 6,000 temporary jobs to build the cracker. Once up and running, the facility will need 400 to 500 full-time workers. Estimates on how many additional jobs this one cracker will create vary.
Local 449 has more reason for optimism. A November 2017 white paper from market research firm Petrochemical Update predicts the production of natural gas liquids from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays — located primarily in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia — can support five or six cracker plants and lead to a petrochemical hub in this area.
That’s not just wishful thinking. On March 12, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said two firms based in Thailand and South Korea will likely spend roughly $10 billion to build a cracker near Wheeling in Belmont County that is almost as big as the cracker Shell is building in Beaver County. As the crow flies, that’s less than 60 miles from Pittsburgh.
And on Nov. 9, 2017, China Energy Investment, considered to be the largest energy company in the world by asset value, announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding promising to invest $83.7 billion in shale gas, power and chemical projects in West Virginia.Chemical hub, bad air
Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Collaborative, an advocacy group focused on improving air quality, sees no reason for optimism about a gas and petrochemical hub near Pittsburgh. His main concern: Pittsburgh’s air quality.
“The latest assessment of the 2017 air emissions already shows an uptick in Allegheny County ozone levels, where many years the trend has been downward,” Mehalik said. He said he believes this uptick in ozone levels is caused by shale gas activities in Washington County, though that can’t be definitively proven.
Mehalik thinks Pittsburgh shouldn’t only focus on the emission of the one cracker. He said that about 1,000 gas wells will supply the cracker with ethane, which means pipelines, cryogenic plants for fractionation and compressor stations. “All of those are major impacts on the landscape, the environment and public health,” he said.
The Breathe Collaborative, which receives funding from The Heinz Endowments*, doesn’t have hard evidence that other more environmentally-conscious companies shy away from Pittsburgh because of the bad air quality.
“Companies who would do that aren’t going to hold a press conference to say that they’re not choosing Pittsburgh because of the air quality, ” Mehalik said.
He does believe air quality and related health issues are major considerations for technology companies when they decide whether they want to set up shop in Pittsburgh. The fact that there are plans to frack in Bell Acres and in the Fox Chapel school district will, according to Mehalik, stop people from coming here.
Mehalik points out that it’s taken Pittsburgh a long time to develop the narrative of a clean and sustainable city. He’s concerned that the progress will evaporate in the presence of a petrochemical industry that creates air pollution, contributes to climate change and produces non-degradable plastics that clog up the world’s oceans and landfills.Synergy
There’s scientific evidence that air quality affects health and health affects productivity, which translates to the bottom line of a business. So, it seems possible that many tech companies, including Amazon, would look at air quality when considering Pittsburgh.
Audrey Russo has been president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, a technology trade association, for about 10 years and said she has an in-depth understanding of what companies are looking for and what matters to them.
Russo said she’s not naïve about Pittsburgh’s air quality issues. And yes, she does know of one family with a young child who decided not to come here because of the air. But she’s not aware of any technology companies that stayed away for that reason.
“We rank similar to LA in terms of air quality,” Russo said, “and yet, that hasn’t stopped the rapid proliferation of innovation over there, particularly in the fields of video gaming and virtual reality.”
And speaking about Amazon, Russo pointed out that the company just recently decided to double its presence in its Pittsburgh engineering center.
Where Mehalik sees a conflict between the two narratives of Pittsburgh, Russo sees synergy.
She believes research and development [R&D] from the local universities will provide innovation that can ultimately make the petrochemical hub safer and less polluting.An eye on pollution
At Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, associate research professor Albert Presto has for several years studied regional pollutant emissions from energy extraction and consumption.
Presto said he thinks most of the pollutants, especially the air toxins, from Shell’s cracker in Potter Township will only affect the people who live and work in close proximity and downwind from the cracker. However, the cracker will likely elevate ozone levels in Pittsburgh.
“Basically, you need hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and sunlight to get ozone,” Presto said. Because the cracker will emit hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide, he concludes that ozone levels will rise. Chronic exposure to high ozone levels can lead people to develop asthma and other respiratory diseases.
According to Presto, the epidemiology teaches us that the response to ozone is linear with exposure. In other words: If ozone increases by 10 percent, the negative health effects will get worse by 10 percent and if ozone levels double, the negative health impacts would also double.
Presto pointed out that Allegheny County is currently out of compliance with the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s ozone standard, but just barely. “This means we’re at a place in this region where even a small change in ozone levels could really matter,” Presto said.
When a county exceeds the ozone standard, industries face extra costs and restrictions in order to make the area comply. This could prevent others from starting business in the area.
Though Presto doesn’t believe that only one cracker will have a big effect on the air quality in Pittsburgh, an entire petrochemical hub in the Ohio Valley is a different matter. “Then there’s a chance that you will have a lot more ozone and also more secondary PM (particulate matter).”
Pittsburgh already ranks in the top-10 worst regions in the United States for particulate matter — pollutants that can lead to heart and lung disease, asthma and cancer.
Personally, Presto said he would prefer not to live downwind from a petrochemical hub. However, he’s also aware that having a good economy requires jobs at various skill levels. “If we shut off all manufacturing or blue-collar labor, that’s maybe not a good thing.”Backyard brawl
If it’s about which sector will produce the most jobs in the region, a developing petrochemical sector may have more bragging rights than Pittsburgh’s high-tech scene.
In May 2017, the American Chemistry Council, a national industry trade group, presented a scenario in which the development of a Appalachian petrochemical hub could, by 2025, deliver 100,000 new and permanent jobs to the quad-state region of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
Pittsburgh’s technology sector, on the other hand, may have produced many start-ups and lots of highly skilled jobs, but, according to a September 2017 Brookings Institution report, it has failed to translate these assets into broad-based economic activity.
While Pittsburgh is far outdoing other American cities in university R&D spending per capita, it lags in the creation of jobs. In fact, the Brookings Institution report shows that Pittsburgh has 7 percent fewer jobs in high-wage, high-tech advanced industries than it did in 2000. The city simply has no big technology companies that employ a lot of people, the report concludes.
The authors of the Brookings Institution report said: “Without a robust platform at all skill levels, the city’s significant research and technical strengths will fuel only a small portion of the region’s economy and leave many workers and families behind.”
It’s also worth noting that the extraordinary developments in two areas Pittsburgh is famous for — robotics and artificial intelligence — are widely predicted to do away with many jobs.
The Brookings Institution report spurred the creation of InnovatePGH. This new public-private partnership, led by executive director Sean Luther, sees it as one of its tasks to make sure the tech sector gets better at creating jobs for residents of Pittsburgh.
Luther said he can envision synergy between the city’s innovation and the petrochemical hub. He hopes Shell will bring some of its R&D to Pittsburgh.
“We’re seeing in other cities that companies with large manufacturing portfolios in a regional system want to locate their engineering centers, their R&D, in direct proximity to top-ranked universities.”
InnovatePGH will, in Luther’s perspective, play a role in connecting the new industries in the region, like Shell, with the innovation platform based in the city of Pittsburgh. He pointed out that Shell might be here to build a cracker, but that the company also has considerable investments in a sustainable energy portfolio.
Luther acknowledged that Pittsburgh’s air quality is a concern and a challenge for the city, but he doesn’t believe it stops people or companies from coming to Pittsburgh. “But that shouldn’t preclude us from raising it as an issue and make sure that it doesn’t become an impediment to growth,” he said.Robots or plastic
So what will dominate Pittsburgh’s narrative in the future? Robots or Plastic? Geeks or Crackers? Green energy or fossil fuels?
Or will the Pittsburgh of the future have a mixture of all this?
Mehalik of the Breathe Collaborative thinks many are missing the point, and he provided an example to illustrate what he means:
Pennsylvania tax breaks to Shell can eventually add up to $1.65 billion. The state of New York — where fracking is not allowed — will invest at least the same amount of money to subsidize green technology.
Shell’s cracker is estimated to produce 400 to 500 new permanent jobs. New York’s investment in the solar industry and wind turbine manufacturing will, according to Mehalik, deliver 40,000 jobs.
Mehalik said: “I’m afraid people in Pittsburgh will wake up one day and think, ‘Boy, I wish we had thought about this some more and made some other choices.’”
*The Heinz Endowments provides funding to PublicSource.
Teake Zuidema is a Dutch photographer and journalist living in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at t.zuidema22@gmail.com.
This story was fact-checked by Abigail Lind.
https://www.publicsource.org/will-pittsburgh-flourish-as-a-hub-of-eds-and-meds-or-gas-and-petrochemicals-can-we-have-it-both-ways/
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First Commercial LNG Cargo from U.S. East Coast Hits the Seas
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
The first export of natural gas from the U.S. East Coast has set sail.
Dominion Energy Inc.’s Cove Point terminal in Maryland shipped its first commercial cargo of liquefied natural gas April 16, officially bringing the total number of U.S. exporters of the super-chilled fuel to two. The company last week said the facility was finally poised to send gas under long-term contracts after more than three years of construction, joining Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal.
Cove Point's startup is accelerating America's emergence as an LNG powerhouse that's expected to challenge Australia and Qatar for worldwide dominance in the next five years. Three more export terminals may open on the Gulf Coast by 2019.
While Cove Point's East Coast location could give it an edge in competition for exports to Europe, the first ship may be headed to Asia. The tanker Adam LNG left Cove Point early April 16, bound for the Suez Canal, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
Dominion has agreements to sell gas to GAIL India Ltd. and a joint venture of Sumitomo Corp. and Tokyo Gas Co., but LNG cargoes are sometimes resold in transit.
—With assistance from Catarina Saraiva.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266956&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266956&jd=132266956
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Zinke Won't Lower Royalty Rate
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Pamela King
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will not accept an internal recommendation to slash deepwater royalty rates by a third.
The Royalty Policy Committee in February advised the secretary to cut rates from 18.75 percent to 12.5 percent on acreage more than 200 meters (about 650 feet) below the ocean's surface. The proposal faced bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill (Energywire, March 14).
Zinke today announced that he would not follow through with a rate reduction.
"The pilot light of American energy has been re-lit by President Trump, and the President's energy dominance strategy is paying off," Zinke said in a statement today. "Right now, we can maintain higher royalties from our offshore waters without compromising the record production and record exports our nation is experiencing. The Administration is grateful for the Committee's hard work on these significant energy issues."
Interior will move forward with other recommendations from the royalty committee, such as conducting a study comparing the U.S. offshore industry to operations in Guyana and Mexico.
"Today's decision reflects the oil and gas industry's improving market conditions for safe and responsible development of our abundant energy resources," said Vincent DeVito, energy adviser to Zinke and chairman of the royalty panel. "The Committee will continue to study ways to improve our programs, including recommendations to improve market conditions for other forms of energy like coal and offshore wind."
Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management still will charge a 12.5 percent rate on shallow-water leases, a reduction implemented last summer (Energywire, July 7, 2017).
Federal officials are authorized to set royalty rates on a sale-by-sale basis but must charge at least 12.5 percent.
The George W. Bush administration raised offshore royalty rates from the minimum level to 16.67 percent in 2007 and 18.75 percent in 2008.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/04/17/stories/1060079319
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Even Some Republicans Worry That Trump Is Selling American Wilderness to Oil and Gas Firms
Apr 17, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Growing up in Midland, John Northington looked out over the flat, featureless landscape and saw oil country ready and waiting to be drilled.
A fourth generation oil worker who advises energy companies like Exxon Mobil and EOG Resources as a consultant in Washington, Northington equated oil with American industriousness and prosperity. Still does. But as President Donald Trump opens vast swaths of the West to energy production, Northington worries the administration is going too far, recalling a trip to northeast Utah in the 1990s and the stunning beauty of the desert and the mesas rising around him.
“The guy I was traveling with threw two spares in the back of a truck because if you blow a tire out there, there’s nobody to call. It was incredible to me. I’d never been in a place so open. No telephone lines, no houses around. You feel like you’re on another planet,” he said. “There are some places too special, you don’t need to try and produce from.”
Since taking office last year, Trump has undertaken an unprecedented sale of the nation’s public lands to energy companies, auctioning an amount of acreage that environmentalists say is unlike anything in the modern era while pulling back regulations designed to protect America’s western wilderness. Oil and gas companies from Texas and beyond are buying access to lands in the Rocky Mountains and the high plains of Wyoming and Montana that many viewed as off limits during more than a century of American conservation efforts.
Last year, the Department of Interior put almost 12 million acres of federal land on the block, more than double what was auctioned at the peak of the George W. Bush administration, according to leasing data compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council. And now the administration is opening up drilling in some of the country’s most beloved and remote wilderness.
Already in 2018, Trump administration has sold off parcels just outside Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado-Utah border, a canyon that President Woodrow Wilson protected in 1915 after the discovery of thousands of fossils there. Likewise, parcels in between Canyonlands National Park and Hovenweep National Monument in southeast Utah, framed by striking sandstone formations and historic Native American dwellings, were auctioned to oil and gas companies despite objections from the National Park Service.
Just outside Grand Canyon National Park, a ban on uranium mining enacted to keep radioactive pollution from flowing into the Colorado River is under review by Interior for possible reversal. And despite a bipartisan deal years in the making to protect the greater sage grouse, a threatened species of bird that resides in the western high plans, the Trump administration has dramatically increased the amount of acerage available for drilling in its territory, according to analysis by The Wilderness Society.
These moves follow Trump’s decision to dramatically shrink the boundaries of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, making more land available for drilling and mining. With the admnistration considering similar actions at two more monuments in California and Nevada, even Republicans question whether Trump is turning the Interior Department into a vehicle for producing oil.
“Managing federal lands is supposed to be a balancing act,” said Lynn Scarlett, the former deputy interior secretary during the George W. Bush administration, now global chief policy officer at The Nature Conservancy. “With Bears Ears and Grand Staircase shrinking, which have some energy and mineral resources, it means certain areas that would have not have been open for leasing and development are now fair game.”
Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, denied the administration was prioritizing energy over conservation and other land uses. She cited Secretary Ryan Zinke’s decisions to preserve the corridors of lands through which migrating wildlife travel and set aside “thousands of acres in New Mexico,” as wilderness area.
“Everything is carefully determined on a case by case basis,” Swift said. “The idea that the only thing the department is doing is energy is patently false.”
The Breaks
The push to put more oil and gas wells on federal lands - part of Trump’s “energy dominance” strategy - follows decades of regulation designed to reduce the impact of oil companies, ranchers, lumber jacks and motorized ATVs on America’s wilderness. Those regulations have put a significant number of potential oil and gas fields out of bounds, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of industry group Western Energy Alliance.
At the height of the fracking boom - from 2006 to 2015 - natural gas production from federal land declined, even as production on private land almost doubled, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“Every year [the federal government] comes up with more designations that restrict access,” Sgamma said.
The Upper Missouri Breaks, a rocky stretch of the Missouri River, is a popular destination for Montana hikers and hunters on the trail of elk and deer. Declared a national monument by former president Bill Clinton, the area was first mythologized by Lewis and Clark on their expedition to map the western United States in the early 1800s.
“The bluffs of the river rise to a height of from 2-to-300 feet and in most places nearly perpendicular,” Capt. Meriwether Lewis wrote in his journal. “So perfect indeed are those walls that I should have thought that nature had attempted here to rival the human art of masonry.”
n March, the Interior Department auctioned a 200-acre parcel on the boundary of the monument to Lonewolf Energy, a small oil and gas company in Billings, Mont. Natural gas deposits underlie the area, but recent administrations have been reluctant to allow drilling there, said Trent Sizemore, founder and CEO of the company.
“The leases they were offering [in March] were nominated 11 to 12 years ago,” he said. “Just because I might get to lease something, that doesn’t mean I can drill anywhere I want. Leases come with a lot of stipulations.”
But the listing of land in the Upper Missouri was too much for Whit Fosburgh, who penned a letter of support for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke during his confirmation. Fosburgh, head of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which lobbies to protect habitat on behalf of hunters and fishermen and counts a former vice president of the oil services giant Schlumberger as its chairman, said he worried the administration was abandoning its mission to protect federal lands.
“I drive a car and heat my house,” he said.” I don’t have anything against oil and gas development, but where we get frustrated is hearing expand oil and gas over everything else.”
Bargain basement prices
So far, the only thing that has slowed development of some of the country’s most wild and pristine land has been depressed natural gas prices. With gas prices at historic lows - a consequence of abundant gas flowing from shale fields in Texas and Pennsylvania - drilling on federal lands, which carry increased costs relative to private leases, hasn’t been so attractive.
Of almost 12 million acres put up for auction last year, fewer than 800,000 acres received bids. That has meant considerable bargains.
Lonewolf Energy, for example, paid just $2 an acre - the federal minimum - for its 200 acre lease in Montana, which is good for 10 years. The company doesn’t expect to develop the land anytime soon, but should oil and gas prices pick up, new wells could be drilled, Sizemore said.
“We bought it because no one else was bidding,” he said. “I paid peanuts for all the leases I bought that day.”
With bidding interest so low, budget hawks say, auctioning so many leases is neither good business nor good policy, ultimately benefiting private interests while delivering tiny returns to U.S. taxpayers who own the land. The nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense said in an October report that speculators were swooping in to buy leases with no intention of drilling, looking to flip leases at a profit if the market improves.
So far, large companies, household names like Exxon Mobil and BP, have largely stayed away from leasing in wilderness areas that could arouse controversy, said Northington, the oil consultant and a member of the National Petroleum Council, which advises the federal government on oil and gas policy. The fear among oil majors and big independents, he said, is the rapid expansion of drilling on public lands will provoke a public backlash and tougher regulations when the next president takes office.
“There is a tacit acknowledgment that a lot of what the administration is doing is backfiring on the industry and (oil and gas companies are) going to pay the price,” Northington said. “As of yet, there isn’t the momentum to publicly say so.”
Limits
Conservation groups have long found ways to delay and block efforts to extract resources from federal lands, whether natural gas in Utah or timber in Oregon. Activists will try to turn public opinion against drilling by protesting lease sales - as they did on the National Mall earlier this month under a cutout of a 10-foot tall oil pump jack - and file lawsuits that can tie up projects for years.
But these days, they are straining to stay on top of which parcels of land are on the block.
“There’s this fire sale mentality. And it’s happening so fast, it’s a little dizzying to keep up,” said Bobby McEnaney, a senior deputy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We’re hearing about leases all over the West. They’re entertaining the ideas of leasing in places that had never been leased before.”
Conservationists, however, have had some notable wins. In March, Zinke deferred a lease sale near New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon - the site of Native American ruins dating back a millennia - after protest by local tribes.
And Zinke stopped another oil and gas auction for lands outside Zion National Park in Utah following a public outcry. State officials there have long argued that federal control of so much land represents an unfair economic burden on their state, but those controls have also preserved a natural landscape that supports a major tourism industry, with visitors from around the globe flocking to Utah’s famed national parks and monuments.
“The preservation of this unique experience is important to the surrounding communities,” Utah Gov. Ed Roberson, a Republican, wrote to the Interior Department in May to oppose the leases near Zion. “Their economy is dependent upon recreation and tourism.”
Zinke, a former Montana congressman and Navy SEAL, speaks often of his commitment to conservation, describing himself as following in the tradition of President Theodore Roosevelt - who put 230 million acres across the West under federal protection. Zinke keeps a bust of Roosevelt in his office overlooking the National Mall.
But that didn’t stop the Interior Department from last year announcing an oil and gas lease sale for 120 acres on the boundary of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, drawing protests from conservationists. The sale was ultimately deferred in December without explanation.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Is-Trump-selling-America-s-wilderness-to-energy-12840533.php?t=b79c1b991f
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Southwestern Asks Pennsylvania Court to Reconsider Opinion of 'National Significance'
Apr 17, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Southwestern Energy Co. has asked the Pennsylvania Superior Court to reconsider an opinion issued earlier this month that could find unconventional oil and gas producers liable for subsurface trespass, arguing that a two-judge panel misunderstood crucial facts and claiming the case is of “national significance.”
The company filed an application this week for reargument en banc before all of the 20 judges. The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, American Petroleum Institute and the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry filed amicus briefs in support.
The partial panel had called into question the rule of capture and how it applies to unconventional development. The rule is considered a fundamental principle in energy law that has been applied to conventional development from shallow reservoirs for more than 100 years, which prevents liability for draining migratory oil and gas from underneath private land.
If the court’s opinion were to stand, Pennsylvania’s unconventional gas producers could find themselves liable for trespass if rock fissures formed through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) techniques deep underground stretched beneath unleased property near drilling units.
“The panel’s decision does not only affect Pennsylvania,” Southwestern wrote in its motion. “Because hydrofracturing is the most economic and commonly used method of producing oil and gas across the country, and because Pennsylvania is the second largest natural gas producing state, this court’s decision unsettles the legal landscape for the entire industry.”
Until this month’s opinion, Pennsylvania courts had not yet considered how the rule of capture should be applied to unconventional drilling and stimulation techniques, nor whether they constituted trespass.
The two judges had leaned heavily on two cases in Texas and West Virginia -- one of which was vacated -- to conclude that “hydraulic fracturing is distinguishable from conventional methods of oil,” essentially finding that unconventional gas, particularly in shale rock, would remain trapped forever if not for human intervention.
The judges reversed and remanded the case to a lower court to determine if Southwestern committed trespass with its shale wells. But it made no distinction between fracking and high-volume fracking, the technique typically used today in unconventional development. The court did not recognize that shale is a source rock that migrates and has long fed shallower reservoirs.
“The panel conducted its own, outside-the-record investigation about hydrofracturing and incorrectly concluded that this is a new method of oil and gas extraction, requiring the application of new legal principles,” Southwestern said. “Contrary to what the panel concluded, hydrofracturing was first introduced nearly 70 years ago, and it is the principal method of oil and gas production in Pennsylvania.”
Southwestern also argued that the panel erred in relying on out-of-state dissenting and vacated opinions to break with established Pennsylvania law. The MSC said in its brief that the opinion “upends settled rules, contradicts policy and injects considerable uncertainty in the industry.”
While attorneys disagreed on the potential impact of the case after the opinion was issued, Southwestern cautioned that the court’s decision could hamper oil and gas production if it isn’t revisited.
“The decision would make hydraulic fracturing subject to so much litigation that it will likely have the ultimate effect of significantly curtailing this activity, which has been so valuable to Pennsylvanians in so many ways,” the Pennsylvania chamber added in its amicus brief.
Filed in 2015 in the Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas by Adam Briggs, his wife and other family members, the plaintiffs allege that Southwestern for years has been unlawfully extracting gas under an 11-acre unleased parcel of land they own from an adjoining leased property. The Briggs are seeking punitive damages.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114066-southwestern-asks-pennsylvania-court-to-reconsider-opinion-of-national-significance
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Alberta Plan to Cut Oil Shipments Would Ripple Across West Coast
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Tuttle
Alberta's plan to cut crude and fuel shipments to British Columbia could ripple across the entire west coast of North America, causing pump prices to surge and shifting the flow of international crude.
Legislation introduced April 16 would allow oil-rich Alberta to curb the flow of crude and fuel if neighboring British Columbia doesn't drop its opposition to Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The existing pipeline supplies the Vancouver area with as much as 60 percent of its refined products.
If Alberta makes good on its threat, Vancouver drivers can expect to pay more at the pump. So too might people in Washington state and Oregon if the region's refineries were to face a curtailment of Canadian oil shipments down the Puget Sound pipeline. Even Alberta's own producers and refiners would take a hit, cutting off a key export link at a time when a pipeline bottlenecks have caused a glut and reduced the value of heavy oil-sands crude.
Vancouver Shortages
British Columbia would be the first to feel the the hurt if flows from the Trans Mountain pipeline are cut. The province imports more than half of its refined fuels, including gasoline, from Alberta, which also supplies Vancouver's only refinery, Parkland Fuel Corp.’s Burnaby plant. The refinery accounts for a quarter of British Columbia's transportation fuel.
“We cannot operate the refinery at full capacity without the Trans Mountain pipeline,” Annie Cuerrier, spokeswoman for Parkland Fuel, said in an email.
Without supply from Alberta or the Parkland refinery, more than two thirds of the province's fuel supply could be interrupted and would have to be made up with imports, said Dan McTeague, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.
But Vancouver area import terminals “were not designed to replace, compensate for the dramatic loss of that substantial amount of fuel,” he said.
That could send the price of gasoline in Vancouver north of C$2 a liter ($6.02 a gallon), up from about C$1.50 now.
Parkland's refinery also supplies 40 percent of the jet fuel at Vancouver International airport via a 40-kilometer pipeline that runs directly to the airfield, according to the Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corp., which represents the carriers using the airport. The airport imports the rest of its needs from BP Plc's Cherry Point refinery in Washington state by barge and tanker trucks.
U.S. Effects
A jump in Vancouver prices may be felt all the way down in Los Angeles, if traders ship suddenly cheaper gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from California refineries up north.
In Washington state, refiners that receive the bulk of oil moving down the Trans Mountain pipeline via the connecting Puget Sound line would also take a hit if shipments through the line that were cut or curtailed. The state's five plants have the capacity to process more than 600,000 barrels a day and relied on Canada for about 35 percent of their crude supply in the first ten months of 2016, according to a report by Morningstar Commodities Research.
“You would have a spike in fuel costs but how long-term that is depends on how quick the Washington refineries could respond,” Mark Oberstoetter, lead analyst for upstream research at Wood Mackenzie in Calgary, said by phone. “It would take several months.”
A representative for Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. declined to comment.
While Washington refiners have access to seaborne shipments as well as Bakken crude sent by rail, spare crude supplies are scarce on the international market and “it will require quite a lot of logistical hoop jumping” to replace Canadian barrels, Sandy Fielden, director of research and commodities for Morningstar Inc. in Austin, Texas.
“They could probably get the crude but it will have a big disruptive impact,” Fielden said.
Alaskan crude supplies are limited and many large foreign suppliers have caps the the volume of crude they have available to make up for disruptions, he said.
Tanking Price
But cutting off oil shipments would hurt Alberta, too. The province's oil pipelines have filled to capacity amid a surge of new oil-sands production earlier this year. A halt to flows would only aggravate a pipeline bottleneck that's caused the Canadian crude price to sink this year.
The price of Canadian heavy crude fell to a greater than $30 discount to WTI futures in February, the biggest discount since 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Alberta's light crude oil, the grade Trans Mountain mostly transports, has also been hurt by the bottleneck with the price of Edmonton mixed sweet trading at a $7 discount to WTI versus an average discount of $2.65 last year.
“A trade war doesn't normally benefit either side,” Oberstoetter said.
—With assistance from Natalie Obiko Pearson.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266960&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266960&jd=132266960
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Trump's LNG Sales Pitch Gets Lukewarm Reception in Germany
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin and Anna Shiryaevskaya
President Donald Trump's overtures to Germany to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas instead of more Russian fuel got a cool response from the European nation.
In talks in Washington this month, German Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier discussed Europe's biggest gas market being added to a list of export destinations for U.S. LNG. As well as differences between the two over trade, Germany currently doesn't have the facilities to ship in the super-chilled fuel.
“LNG can play a role but it must be competitive, compete with traditional energy sources and renewable energies,” Altmaier said in a Bloomberg Television interview at the government's annual Energy Transition Dialog conference in Berlin.
Trump this month stepped up moves to come between Germany and its plan to boost imports of Russian gas through an upgraded undersea pipeline. Russia's military role in Syria, its suspected involvement in a poison attack in the U.K. and cyber attacks in the U.S. have added a political charge to the pipeline project, challenging Germany's support for its construction.
he U.S. president is touting LNG as an alternative, making the search for export markets a part of foreign policy and his “America First” drive. The nation is increasing LNG output as a new liquefaction plant in Maryland just shipped its first commercial cargo. The country is set to challenge Qatar and Australia as the biggest exporter of LNG as more terminals open.
While Germany maintains the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is purely commercial and a matter for investors, Chancellor Angela Merkel may struggle to parry U.S. criticism of the project.
In an April 4 tweet, Trump upbraided Merkel's government over its plan to hook up to “a pipeline into Russia, where Germany is going to be paying billions of dollars for energy into Russia. And I'm saying, ‘What's going on with that?”’
Germany doesn't want its energy policy to become embroiled in U.S. differences with Russia, Altmaier said. Germany is continuing talks with the U.S. on LNG, he said.
The new coalition government in Berlin plans to support expansion of LNG infrastructure as part of the European Union's push to diversify energy imports. Yet it's shying from supplying finance. The country's first terminal remains a blueprint.
The EU already has extensive LNG capacity to import the fuel and is working on improving links, said Maros Sefcovic, vice president and commissioner for the Energy Union at the European Commission.
Rough Trade
The U.S. needs to remove trade barriers and be ready to compete with Russian and Norwegian pipeline gas, he said in an interview at the conference.
Applications to export U.S. LNG to a country that has an agreement for free gas trade with the U.S. must be authorized “without modification or delay,” under U.S. law. There are about 20 countries under such pacts, including Korea, Mexico and Australia. But there's no such requirement for speeding exports to non-FTA countries, which means that such projects can take years to receive government approval.
The Trump administration has sought to speed up the process for approving LNG exports, proposing a rule that would provide faster authorization for small-scale shipments from U.S. terminals.
“We definitely want to use LNG in the future but my appeal to our American friends is they have to remove all the remaining restrictions for exporting LNG and they have to be ready to compete with the pipeline gas,” Sefcovic said. “We want to have the best prices, we want to have high quality services and we want to have gas trade without any political constraints.”
—With assistance from Christine Buurma.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266948&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266948&jd=132266948
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EPA Chemical Safety Rule Delay on Thin Legal Ground, Groups Say
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
A list of delayed agency actions stretching back decades does little to settle questions of whether the EPA acted appropriately in delaying a chemical safety program, environmental groups said in a court filing April 16.
Federal lawyers have overstated the record when it comes to past delays of regulations, attorneys for environmental groups Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, community organizations and 11 states, contended in an April 16 filing. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The court case centers on a delay of a rule outlining new response and planning requirements for high-risk chemical facilities, which are meant to better protect communities and first responders.
The attorneys were responding to a March 23 request by judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The judges had asked for a list of past actions by the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies in which a previously issued final rule was delayed on the basis that the agency has started, but not completed, reconsidering the rule.
How the judges address the issue has implications for whether the chemical rule delay—and other aggressive moves rollback regulations—can take effect, or whether agencies will have to first conduct a more rigorous factual analysis.
While the examples that the Trump administration provided are important, Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at the New York University Institute for Policy Integrity, it does not mean the practice is lawful.
“The fact that the agency's done it before doesn't really prove anything,” Noll, who supports the petitioners, told Bloomberg Environment April 13.
Justice: Numerous Examples Exist
The judges heard oral arguments in March about whether the EPA violated the Clean Air Act in granting petitions to reconsider the chemical safety regulation (RIN:2050-AG82), and then delaying its effective date until 2019. The rule was issued in January 2017, during the final days of the Obama administration.
Petitioners allege the Clean Air Act bars delaying a final agency action more than three months. A longer delay could occur if the EPA could show that the previous regulation is flawed, instead of simply stating that it might be flawed, the groups have said.
In its response to the court April 6, Justice Department attorneys said numerous examples exist of the practice. The attorneys, representing the EPA, filed a list of 30 examples of past regulatory delays by federal agencies, 21 of which were delays of EPA regulations.
“Such actions are common during presidential transitions,” the attorneys wrote.
The petitioners’ response, however, notes that “none of the delay actions EPA provided was upheld by any court, and most were not challenged.”
The petitioners also said EPA's examples failed to accurately reflect the circumstances of the delay at issue. Eighteen of the 21 EPA regulations listed were not regulations issued under the Clean Air Act, which contains specific statutory language the petitioners say limits EPA's ability to issue a delay.
In addition, they say the government left out the stay of a Clean Air Act rule in 1992 and the indefinite suspension of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulation in 1984, both of which were later vacated by the appeals court.
The EPA said in a statement to Bloomberg Environment April 17 it does not comment on pending litigation.
Emma Cheuse and Gordon Sommers, attorneys for Earthjustice representing the petitioners, declined to comment.
EPA's U-Turn
Under the Obama administration, the EPA claimed the regulation would better protect first responders by making it easier for them to learn about high-risk chemical facilities.
It was also intended to prod companies to update communities about possible risks more frequently, and probe close calls to catch operational problems before they escalate into something worse.
The Trump administration has taken a different approach. Acting in response to industry concerns the regulations require companies to divulge sensitive site information, the EPA froze the regulation, issuing a final rule delaying the Obama program to February 2019.
The case is Air Alliance Houston v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1155, brief filed 4/16/18.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266932&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266932&jd=132266932
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EPA Critics Fault Agency's List of Prior Rules Justifying RMP Rule Delay
Apr 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Critics of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's two-year delay of Obama-era updates to the agency's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program are criticizing a list of prior rule delays that EPA says justify postponing the RMP rule, with opponents of the delay saying the other rules had legal justifications and were not tested in court.
In contrast to the merits of the past regulatory delays, environmentalists and Democratic states opposed to the RMP delay argue in a new court filing that the Trump administration failed to justify the postponement.
Opponents of the delay are pushing back on EPA's April 6 list of delay rules from a host of agencies spanning more than 30 years to justify what the administration says is a long-standing pattern of lawful agency delays of regulations to reconsider or revise them. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that is hearing litigation over the Clean Air Act RMP rule delay earlier ordered EPA to provide the list of such rules.
In an April 16 filing, the environmental groups and states suing over the delay counter that EPA's list includes non-Clean Air Act rules or regulations that were either justified or never tested in court.
“Eighteen of those actions were not Clean Air Act rules subject to the particular statutory constraints at issue here” the groups say. “To Petitioners’ knowledge, none of the delay actions EPA provided was upheld by any court, and most were not challenged -- a fact especially relevant to the Clean Air Act rules on the list subject to its particular provisions,” the groups add. “[P]revious statutory violations,’ of course, ‘cannot excuse new ones.’”
The petitioners in the case, Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and E. Scott Pruitt, are challenging the Trump administration's 20-month delay of EPA's January 2017 final rule updating the agency's RMP program with new requirements to strengthen the program.
The petitioners argue that many rules on the list were not issued under the Clean Air Act, which imposes specific statutory constraints on delays for purposes of reconsideration. A submission alongside the April 16 filing addresses each of the rules on EPA's April 6 list, differentiating them from the RMP rule delay.
Petitioners contend that the prior delays followed a federal finding of a flaw in a rule that would complicate compliance, and that EPA failed to make such prerequisite finding before delaying the RMP rule.
Additionally, the groups contend that other rules on DOJ's list fail to comply with the D.C. Circuit panel's March 23 order seeking examples of past delays arguing that certain delay rules were not issued after seeking notice and comment or were not delayed to allow for a future reconsideration process.
For example, the filing contrasts EPA's RMP rule delay with EPA's June 2008 delay of a rule setting limits for leaks in the synthetic organic chemicals manufacturing industry. The petitioners argue that EPA determined that the June 2008 delay was necessary to facilitate compliance, justifying its issuance. “Without delay, compliance would have been impracticable because EPA had 'explicitly stated in the proposal that we did not intend to address [certain issues] in this rulemaking),' but then did so,” petitioners argue.
“As a result: 'certain facilities may [have been] out of compliance with requirements for which they had no notice or time to come into compliance,” the filing says.
RMP Update
EPA's January 2017 RMP update imposes new requirements for facilities to conduct independent audits and analyze safer alternatives, and also bolsters requirements for coordinating and sharing data with first responders and the public. EPA crafted the revised rule in response to former President Barack Obama's August 2013 executive order on improving facility safety, issued after a fertilizer facility in West, TX, exploded in April of that year -- killing 15 people, including first responders.
But the Trump EPA postponed the date when those new mandates would take effect, from 2017 until 2019, after accepting an industry reconsideration petition, and taking notice and comment on a proposed delay.
During oral March 16 oral argument DOJ argued that EPA has broad authority to postpone effective dates after notice and comment, and that federal agencies have exercised that authority in the past. State and environmentalist petitioners argued that the Clean Air Act limits delays for purposes of reconsideration to three months.
The D.C. Circuit panel's request that federal officials provide a list of past agency rules delayed for purposes of reconsideration, potentially signaled that the judges might believe that an agency's potential revisions to an existing regulation might be insufficient to justify delays.
While federal attorneys defend the delay, EPA March 12 sent for White House review a draft proposal that is widely expected to significantly scale back the RMP update rule. Environmental and industry groups have been meeting with White House Office of Management and Budget Officials reviewing the draft, a process that generally takes about 90 days.
A chemical sector attorney has argued that the wide breadth of delays cited in EPA's listed should show the court that Pruitt's delay is consistent with actions taken by numerous agencies and past administrations.
But an environmentalist attorney has argued that the vast majority of cited delays are not cases where a new administration is staying a rule without a substantive finding based on the record and the statute.
The petitioners raise similar arguments in the recent response. “An additional seventeen rules require correction because, unlike EPA here, the agency provided a substantive determination as a separate ground for delaying those rules, rather than relying solely on the fact that the agency was reconsidering and might possibly change the rule.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-critics-fault-agencys-list-prior-rules-justifying-rmp-rule-delay
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FERC Promises Lawmakers Action on 'Constant' Attacks
Apr 18, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has stepped up its attention to "constant" attacks on the nation's energy infrastructure, Chairman Kevin McIntyre said yesterday at a wide-ranging hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy.
"The issue that you raised here — we would be hard-pressed to identify one of greater concern to us as an energy industry, as regulators of that industry," McIntyre said in response to questioning from panel Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
McIntyre was joined by his four colleagues in the rare appearance on Capitol Hill by the full commission to speak about its budget and operations.
"Attacks are constant on not just governmental entities but the companies that we regulate," he said. "Success, that is what varies."
Upton disclosed that commissioners have been offered classified briefings on cyber-related threats. McIntyre said those briefings are being scheduled but that FERC staff is working "on a daily basis" with other agencies, including the departments of Energy and Homeland Security, and the Transportation Security Administration.
"Our level of engagement on this will only continue to increase," he said.
Asked by Upton whether FERC needs any additional authority to deal with cyberthreats, McIntyre said, "That's a good question. I don't have a specific area right now that we would need broader statutory authority."
Commissioner Neil Chatterjee represents FERC on the Electric Subsector Coordinating Council, the principal liaison between federal government leaders and the electric power sector.
Cyber risk is "the new reality that we must contend with," he told the subcommittee.
"As we benefit and gain from the technological innovation that's taking place in this space, we have to be cognizant that it comes with a downside risk of increased cyber vulnerability," he said.
Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, who disclosed she has a classified briefing today, is in her eighth year on the commission and once served as chairwoman.
"Hacks on the grid are constant. Every year, electric grid attacks are either a slight majority or slightly below 50 percent" of all cyber assaults in the U.S., she said.
"They're very infrequently successful with the electric grid," she said, crediting standards developed and approved by FERC in recent years..'Real weaknesses'
LaFleur suggested that more needs to be done "across different infrastructure sectors," such as electric, water, natural gas and finance, where common interests and problems exist. "That's where there's real weaknesses," she said, "in sharing information and learning from each other."
Commissioner Robert Powelson made cybersecurity a centerpiece of his prepared testimony. He touted the commission's outreach to state regulators to help them "build their internal capacities to address cyber."
Powelson brandished a copy of a "checklist" developed by FERC for state regulators to use in helping their utilities prepare for cyberthreats.
But the process of educating state officials is time-consuming, Powelson said, and FERC "could certainly use more boots on the ground" to do so, saying the agency has 20-25 staff members "fully engaged in this issue."
Asked by Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) whether cyber standards need to be revised, Powelson said that some in industry already think some "current reporting requirements are a little onerous."
But he also said: "I would refrain from saying that because we can't really cut corners on cybersecurity. We've got to give you all peace of mind that we are protecting and applying the needed resources to protect the bulk power system. These threat vectors are changing radically, daily."
Latta asked whether FERC was considering how to strengthen how it protects information collected from utilities and shared with third parties.
Powelson replied that FERC is working with the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to refine some standards including "vendor remote access to data, software authenticity, information system planning and vendor risk management. This all coincides with what I call best practices around cyber hygiene."
Latta also asked about the recently disclosed hack of FERC's internal systems.
"We're still looking at that issue, making assessments on what kind of data might have been exposed," Powelson said.
"We seem to be in a good spot in developing the proper protocols around fishing expeditions and making sure that we are hygiene proficient as well," he said.
Twitter spat
Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) asked Powelson to explain his swift reaction on Twitter to recent comments by Murray Energy Corp. CEO Robert Murray that "FERC did not do its job when it rejected" Energy Secretary Rick Perry's request to order financial support for coal and nuclear plants unable to compete in power markets. In his remarks, Murray had called FERC a "feckless" agency.
Powelson quoted Murray in an April 10 tweet not long after the CEO's comments were reported, saying, "I challenge Mr. Murray to a debate on CNBC or Fox News."
But the debate tweet did not last long and was deleted. "I refrained from going down that path. I thought it was inappropriate, and I dialed it back rather quickly," Powelson told Johnson.
"I take offense to the word feckless being used" to describe the agency, the commissioners "and the 1,320 employees that show up to work every day to do their job," Powelson said.
"That term was what again?" Johnson asked.
"Feckless."
This story also appears in Energywire.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/04/18/stories/1060079359
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Overregulating Freight Rail Risks Progress on Safety
Apr 17, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Russ Brown
Amid the flurry of deregulation in Washington that is cutting unnecessary red tape for industries and businesses, legislation has quietly resurfaced in Congress that would dictate how freight rail operators manage personnel on their trains outside the confines of a proven collective bargaining process. While intended to promote safety, this is a misguided approach unsupported by facts and could actually hinder the continued innovation that has made freight rail safer than ever.
The proposals in Congress, which would mandate two people in the cab of all trains at all times for the foreseeable future, is based on a flawed presumption that more people in a train cab inherently leads to greater safety. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it is true today and worse still, such policy is patently anti-innovation that could leave this critical industry in the dustbin as the trucking sector barrels toward fully autonomous operations.
Even federal regulators who support this type of proposal have been unable to provide data to back it up. In 2016, when the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) proposed a minimum crew-size rule, it was unable to offer evidence that showed two-person crews are safer than one-person crews. A recent Australian study also found that there is no additional safety benefit with an increase in crew size, demonstrating how modern technology has rendered old ways of operating railroads obsolete.
The two-person crew proposals ignore the enormous safety gains freight railroads have made. FRA data show the industry achieved record lows last year in accidents caused by track or human failures. Freight rail accident rates have fallen by more than 80 percent since the 1980s.
“Railroads have said repeatedly their goal is zero accidents, and they are working every day to achieve that goal,” says former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Managing Director Peter Goelz. “The record reflects the positive progress made.”
As one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to move goods around the U.S., freight rail has thrived without excessive regulation. Moving goods by rail eases highway congestion, saves energy, and reduces carbon emissions. This has largely been possible because private freight rail companies overwhelmingly own, maintain, and invest in the rail lines where their trains run.
An important part of this investment is Positive Train Control (PTC) braking technology, an innovative safety technology freight railroads are in the process of implementing on trains and tracks across the country. PTC combines technologies that monitor train speed, movement and authorization signals on the tracks. Although freight rail is already one of the safest industries in the U.S., PTC will make it even safer by preventing certain accidents caused by human error — possibly creating efficiencies that could ultimately render a second person in a train cab at least moot, if not a distraction that would hinder safety.
Put simply, Congress championed PTC in mandating its installation. Railroads ought to be able to reap the rewards of this massive private investment as a result.
Moreover, ensuring PTC and other safety enhancing technologies continue to have room to develop is vital for American innovation and competitiveness. Telling railroads they could never follow the path of freight moving competitors is a quick way to discourage the spending needed to reach zero accidents one day.
With these massive, privately funded investments already underway and freight rail operators on track to meet their installation and implementation deadlines, regulating a minimum crew size for railroads is an extraneous solution to an imaginary problem. Instead, Congress should focus on ensuring freight rail can continue making the investments necessary to keep freight rail as safe as possible for workers and communities.
Russ Brown is the CEO of RWP Labor, a positive labor relations consulting firm, and is on the Board of Directors for the North American Transportation Employee Relations Association (NATERA).
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/383576-overregulating-fright-rail-risks-progress-on-safety
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(ACC Mentioned) Louisiana Is Second-Worst in Environmental Friendliness: Report
Apr 17, 2018 | New Orleans Times Picayne
By Tristan Baurick
Louisiana ranks second-worst among U.S. states when examining a wide range of environmental indicators, including water and air quality, energy use and recycling, according to an analysis released Tuesday (April 17) by personal finance website WalletHub.
Louisiana ranked only better than West Virginia in the study. The bottom five also included Kentucky, North Dakota and Alabama. The "greenest" state in the union was Vermont, followed by Oregon, Massachusetts, New York and South Dakota.
WalletHub used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Chemistry Council, United Health Foundation, Green Building Council and a dozen other sources.
WalletHub says environmental sustainability and financial health are closely linked.
"Our environmental and financial needs are the same in many areas: providing ourselves with sustainable, clean drinking water and food, for example," the report says. "We also spend money through our own consumption and taxes in support of environmental security."
WalletHub highlighted the growing financial toll natural disasters take on the economy. Last year, 17 storms caused about $200 billion in property damage. Human-caused climate change is aggravating the problem, experts say.
"Experts attribute the high number of hurricanes to an unusually warm Atlantic, so it's possible that living more sustainably and using greener energy sources could prevent us from having quite as bad hurricane seasons in the future," the study says.
For each state, WalletHub analyzed 23 areas, including soil quality, municipal waste production and average commute times, and assigned a grade on a 100-point scale. The point average across all areas was used to calculate each state's total score.
Louisiana ranked worst in recycling. Only 1 percent of the municipal waste produced in Louisiana was recycled, according to the study. In sharp contrast, number one-ranked Maine recycles 48 percent of its waste.
Louisiana also ranged near the bottom in renewable energy consumption (49th), the number of alternative fuel stations per 100,000 residents (48th), per capita carbon dioxide emissions (47th) and per capita methane emissions (47th).
The state achieved its best ranking in green buildings, coming in at number 12 in the percentage of structures that minimize energy and other resource use. The Green Building Information Gateway lists 106 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings in Louisiana. More than half were in New Orleans.
http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2018/04/louisiana_is_second-worst_in_e.html
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Trump’s EPA Quietly Revamps Rules for Air Pollution
Apr 18, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration has quietly reshaped enforcement of air pollution standards in recent months through a series of regulatory memos.
The memos are fulfilling the top wishes of industry, which has long called for changes to how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees the nation’s factories, plants and other facilities. The EPA is now allowing certain facilities to be subject to less-stringent regulations and is letting companies use friendlier math in calculating their expected emissions.
Environmentalists and public health advocates say the memos could greatly increase levels of air pollutants like mercury, benzene and nitrogen oxides. They accuse the EPA of avoiding the transparency and public input requirements that regulatory changes usually go through.
“All of these, individually and taken together, will result in more air pollution and less enforcement of the Clean Air Act,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association.
“These were radical departures of current law when they were proposed a decade ago and they’re just as radical today,” he said, referring to the Bush-era efforts, some of which were unsuccessful, to make changes to EPA air programs.But for the EPA and its supporters, the memos simply bring the agency back to what the relevant laws and regulations are meant to be.
“They address specific concerns that people have had for years, and just make it much simpler for people to comply — especially for existing [facilities] — to make sure they can maintain their plants and replace worn-out components and those types of things, without the threat of enforcement litigation,” said Jeff Holmstead, a former head of the EPA’s air pollution office under the George W. Bush administration who now represents regulated companies at the law and lobbying firm Bracewell.
Bill Wehrum, head of the air office under EPA chief Scott Pruitt, wrote two of the three EPA memos. He recused himself from the third memo, which Pruitt wrote.
The first memo, issued in December, states that the EPA will no longer “second guess” companies’ calculations of their expected pollution output after certain big projects under what is known as New Source Review. Under that program, the EPA reviews the changes made to a facility to decide whether they need to go through the same process as if the facility were newly built.
The December memo effectively means the EPA will usually not take action against a company for its calculations if they turn out to be wrong.
The second memo, issued in January, repeals a Clinton-era policy known as “once in, always in.” Under the previous policy, facilities could never be considered “minor” sources of hazardous pollution if they were already considered “major” sources, and subject to much stricter rules.
Now, facilities can be regulated as “minor” if their emissions drop enough.
The third memo allows companies to use a procedure known as “project netting” when applying for permits for major projects under the New Source Review program. That means companies can use a more industry-friendly emissions calculation when they argue that a particular project would reduce emissions.
President Trump added to the memos last week, signing one himself that formally asks the EPA to use more industry-friendly practices in enforcing the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program, a key Clean Air Act program for air quality nationwide.
John Walke, director for clean air at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA is working to implement the policies the Bush administration failed to finish.
“I think Mr. Wehrum has decided this is likely a one-term administration and he’s going to devote his full resources to rolling back clean air, climate and public health protections in the time available to him,” Walke said.
“The most expedient and hasty way to accomplish those rollbacks is through the regular guidance documents that we have seen so far from EPA,” he said. “Rulemakings take time, they require public notice and input and hearings, and Mr. Wehrum and Mr. Pruitt plainly have no patience for those tedious fodders.”
Walke said that, taken together, the memos could allow polluting facilities to greatly increase their emissions.
The EPA didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The focus among the memos for environmental and health advocates is the one repealing the “once in, always in” policy, and letting “major” pollution sources reduce their emissions and be regulated as “minor” ones.
A coalition of environmental groups sued the EPA to stop the policy change, arguing that it should have gone through the full regulatory process, including analysis of its environmental impact and an opportunity for public comment. Democratic states joined in with their own lawsuit.
“Instead of prioritizing the health of hard-working Americans, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wants to let major polluters off the hook. That is unconscionable, and it is illegal,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D).
“If the ‘Once In, Always In’ policy is rescinded, children in California and around the country — particularly those who must live near the polluting plant or factory — may grow up in an environment with tons of additional hazardous pollutants in the air they breathe. California will not allow that to happen,” Becerra said.
Two environmental groups opposed to the EPA’s move have put out recent analyses of the change, focused on specific areas of the country.
The Environmental Integrity Project looked at 12 industrial plants in the Midwest and concluded they could increase their pollution to 540,000 pounds annually, a fourfold growth.
The Environmental Defense Fund looked at the Houston area, and said that 18 facilities there could increase their emissions to 900,000 pounds a year, two and a half times current levels.
Holmstead said opponents of the Trump administration’s policy are unlikely to prevail. The Supreme Court ruled in the 2015 Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association case that federal agencies can repeal policy memos with other policy memos and don’t have to go through the full regulatory process to do so.
“I think the environmental groups are going to have a real uphill battle trying to get through court that this is somehow improper,” he said. “That really does fly in the face of the Perez decision.”
As for the increase in emissions, Holmstead said environmentalists are wrong. In many cases, the new policies will allow facilities to carry out projects that reduce emissions, or simply operate under a lower paperwork burden.
“They have yet to come up with any real-world examples of how that might happen,” Holmstead said of the scenarios in which pollution might increase. “These reforms are not going to lead to pollution increases.
“I don’t think that there will be a meaningful impact one way or another.”
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/383661-trumps-epa-quietly-revamps-rules-for-air-pollution
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EPA Plans to Revise HFC Snap Rules to Respond to D.C. Circuit Vacatur
Apr 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
EPA is planning to launch a new rulemaking to respond to an appellate court ruling that largely vacated Obama-era rules limiting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants that act as potent greenhouse gases, arguing the regulations do not allow the agency to easily address the ruling.
In the interim, EPA says in an April 13 notice slated to be published in the Federal Register, it will not implement any of the 2015 rule's provisions that list HFCs as unacceptable for a range of uses under the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program.
The program was originally used to phase out ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and replace them with HFCs, but the Obama administration sought to expand its reach to phase out HFCs, which do not harm the ozone layer but contribute to climate change.
In effect, the Trump administration's move treats the Obama administration's HFC listings as vacated, pending the conclusion of the upcoming rulemaking to revise the regulations, even though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected challenges that the listings were “arbitrary and capricious” and sought to limit its ruling.
Specifically, a split D.C. Circuit panel in an August ruling in Mexichem Fluor v. EPA said the agency lacked authority to require manufacturers that have already “replaced” an ODS with another non-ODS to switch to a new substitute.
In practical terms, companies that switched to HFCs as an ozone-friendly alternative to other chemicals should not be required under SNAP to switch to another chemical with a far lower global warming potential, the court said.
However, EPA's recent notice says the 2015 rule at issue, as well as underlying framework regulations issued in 1994, do not allow the agency to readily distinguish between companies that use HFCs and those that use ODS.
Rather, the rule simply said HFCs are no longer an “acceptable” chemical for a range of end uses, requiring them to be phased out by a certain date. The prohibition applied regardless of whether current equipment uses HFCs or an ODS.
“Thus, the SNAP regulations as currently written do not provide the distinctions that would be necessary to accommodate the letter of the court’s vacatur,” the agency notice says.
The implementation guidance comes as a pair of chemical firms that support the rule and environmentalists are poised to seek Supreme Court review of the D.C. Circuit's ruling. An appeal is due June 25.
In a filing last month with the high court, the chemical firms underscored the “extremely high” stakes for the climate if the court does not review the appellate ruling, arguing that HFCs “contribute significantly to global warming. Left undisturbed, a ruling that EPA categorically and unambiguously lacks the authority to regulate HFCs in a variety of settings could significantly impact the ability of the United States to respond effectively to the threat of climate change.”
Critics of the ruling say the court used a far too restrictive interpretation of the statutory term “replace,” arguing that EPA should be allowed to continuously revise its determination of whether a chemical is an “acceptable” substitute given new information about environmental risks.
Additionally, the Trump administration is also weighing whether to submit a global HFC pact, known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, to the Senate for ratification.
The deal sets an international phase-down schedule for HFCs, and it is widely embraced by industry, including the firms that successfully challenged EPA's SNAP rules.
Some industry experts have argued that the Mexichem ruling might not necessarily hinder implementation of Kigali, arguing that upon ratification EPA would have Clean Air Act authority to write separate regulations that limit production of the chemicals.
'Initial Thinking'
As those two debates play out, EPA says it will launch a new rulemaking to revise its SNAP regulations to accommodate the D.C. Circuit's Mexichem ruling. The agency also outlines “areas of initial thinking” on several thorny issues that could be addressed in such a rule.
For instance, EPA says it will weigh whether to revisit its 1994 framework rules “to establish distinctions between users still using ODS and those who have already replaced ODS.”
Also, the agency says it might revisit a practice of designating a substitute as acceptable subject to certain conditions. “If use conditions would only apply to users switching from an ODS, EPA may consider whether to continue to list substitutes as acceptable subject to use conditions, given that some users would not be required to abide by the use conditions,” the notice says.
EPA also suggests distinguishing between product manufacturers and other users of the product. Historically, the SNAP rules have applied to all users, though the Mexichem ruling at one point cites “manufacturers,” while it also suggests in a footnote that the vacatur should apply to all regulated users.
Further, the agency is weighing “when the replacement of an ODS occurs,” including whether it is on a facility-by-facility basis or a product-by-product basis. EPA might also impose reporting requirements to “document when a user has transitioned to using a non-ODS.”
Lastly, EPA seeks comment on a litany of potential other authorities the D.C. Circuit ruling cited to address HFCs, including the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and several air act programs: the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program, the Hazardous Air Pollutants program, Prevention of Significant Deterioration permits, and emissions standards for motor vehicles.
“EPA would be interested in any thoughts stakeholders may have on the viability and desirability of these approaches,” the notice says.
The agency plans to host a May 4 “stakeholder meeting” in Washington, D.C., to allow interested parties to offer input on these issues.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-plans-revise-hfc-snap-rules-respond-dc-circuit-vacatur
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State Environmental Agencies’ New Leader Stresses Efficiency
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The new head of the Environmental Council of States is taking a cue from the EPA's playbook.
ECOS Executive Director Sambhav “Sam” Sankar wants states to learn from General Electric's “lean” management style to be more effective and efficient while protecting water, air, and soil, just as EPA Operating Chief Henry Darwin proselytizes Toyota's “lean” manufacturing approach at the federal level. The council that Sankar heads is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of state and territorial environmental agency leaders.
Sankar served as GE's general counsel and director of environmental operations from 2012 to 2016, where he audited the company's environmental compliance and management systems. He's also worked at the Justice Department, where he served as deputy chief counsel on the presidential commission investigating the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both GE and Toyota have used the lean-management approach to identify and address defects and delays in existing processes. For ECOS member states, that would mean speedier approvals of air, water, and solid waste permits, faster environmental reviews, and quicker cleanups of polluted sites and waterways.
States can learn from companies such as General Electric that have been in the forefront of lean management practices to effectively apply environmental health and safety regulations, Sankar said.
GE, for instance, had reams of data about preventing fires, but little practical information that a person could use in case a fire did break out. Sankar said one of his tasks was to create a form for reporting fires that focused on what happened and who to call.
Similarly, government agencies end up spending “tons of energy on process and not enough on outcomes,” Sankar told Bloomberg Environment.
EPA-State Relations
Sankar's appointment to ECOS in March comes at a time when the Environmental Protection Agency—under orders from Administrator Scott Pruitt and direction from Darwin—wants to reevaluate its relationship with states, which mostly issue and enforce permits, set standards for fuel economy, water quality and air quality, and clean up contaminated sites and waterways.
Darwin wants the EPA, and states as co-regulators of environmental laws, to worry less about process and more about achieving the best environmental outcome.
While he welcomes Darwin's focus on efficiency in decision-making at the EPA, Sankar said the agency could learn a thing or two from states such as Arizona that are in many ways at the forefront of streamlining operations.
Unlike government agencies, which face no competition, companies don't have the luxury of demanding a budget increase when they face increased demand.
“They automate, they innovate and they look for ways to meet that demand,” Sankar said.
Strategic Partnerships
Sankar perceives his role at his new job as sharing common concerns among states, such as the threat posed by perfluorinated compounds to drinking water sources. For instance, ECOS can play a role in communicating risk to the public and sharing scientific research among states, especially with EPA lagging behind on emerging threats.
At a recent gathering of state environmental officials in St. Paul, Minn., for instance, ECOS members heard directly from Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, about managing debris following Hurricane Harvey.
It's critical that ECOS maintain its strategic partnerships with the public health and business communities outside of the regulatory arena to reduce toxic chemical uses, said Alexandra Dunn, whom Sankar replaced at ECOS after she was appointed EPA regional administrator for Region 1 in Boston.
Dunn, who spoke in a personal capacity, told Bloomberg Environment it is equally important for ECOS to articulate when its members need flexibility in how they tailor their environmental programs.
The EPA wants to retain its role overseeing how states implement federal rules and to provide technical and financial support where states lack funding and staff. However, the EPA also is engaged in reconsidering key Obama-era regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and automobiles, coal ash disposal, and the scope of Clean Water Act protections, among others.
States Want in Early
“What states want is to be involved in early as possible in policy making discussions, and they want the EPA to listen to their experience in implementing various federal programs,” Sankar said. “That experience forms the way EPA headquarters and regions oversee the states.”
It is the job of ECOS and the executive director to provide that forum where all the states’ voices can be heard, Sankar said. He pointed to recent meetings on the scope of the Clean Water Act where ECOS brought representatives from states with diverging opinions to the table with the EPA.
“Even if states don't have a single voice, their voices need to be heard,” he said.
Many states complained that the Obama administration didn't treat them as co-regulators, cutting them out entirely when it wrote the Clean Power Plan or the Clean Water Rule, or WOTUS as it is commonly known.
Some states, notably California and New York, are upset that the EPA didn't involve them in “any meaningful way” when the Trump administration decided to reconsider the greenhouse gas emissions standards for model year 2022-2025 passenger cars and light trucks.
Making Voices Heard
ECOS leadership has made it clear that the organization is not in the business of brokering disputes among states, but to stimulate conversations among them.
The idea is to help that dialogue so the EPA can hear those perspectives early enough in the rulemaking process, said ECOS President Todd Parfitt, who also heads Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality.
When Sankar worked at the Justice Department, he earned a reputation among his colleagues for his ability to distill various agencies’ opinions into a composite viewpoint.
Sankar's selection to serve on the presidential task force to examine the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf didn't surprise his mentor, John Cruden, who served as the deputy assistant attorney general when Sankar was an appellate lawyer in the department's environmental section.
“Sam is very good at letting everyone's voices be heard and then comes up with something everyone can agree on,” Cruden said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266934&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266934&jd=132266934
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Big Oil Bids to Burnish Credentials in War on Climate Change
Apr 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kelly Gilblom
The world's biggest oil companies, for long typecast as villains of climate change, are seeking to reinvent themselves as environmental pioneers.
“We're not going to be sitting back and say let's see what society does and we'll follow that,” said Ben van Beurden, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. “We're more than prepared to be assertive and lean forward and say: ‘This is what it takes.”’
Irked by a shareholder resolution that would force Europe's largest oil company to create specific emissions targets, the CEO took the unusual step of engaging with five reporters April 16 about Shell's vision for a decarbonized world. Not only is Shell implementing its own, much stronger, measures to manage the energy transition, according to Van Beurden, but it can also drag the rest of the world along with it.
Proving to activists and shareholders that they care about the climate is becoming an essential preoccupation for oil majors. Hours after Van Beurden reached out, BP Plc hosted dozens of analysts, journalists, politicians and technocrats at its office to explain what it was doing about emissions.
BP wheeled out its entire executive team, with five giving speeches about what specifically they were doing about climate change. In the audience sat former CEO John Browne, who pioneered the company's ill-fated “Beyond Petroleum” rebranding campaign.
Goals Commended
In search of wider affirmation, BP brought a climate scientist, Princeton University's Stephen Pacala. He commended BP's emissions goals and said fossil fuel companies would be an important part of the future. Environmentalist and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, Mark Tercek, added his praise via Skype.
Not everyone was convinced. Hours before the BP event, a former adviser to the company and head of an environmental think-tank told The Guardian that its targets were “lightweight PR” and “greenwashing.”
Still, the presentations show an oil industry that is far from a cabal of climate-change deniers.
A key test of the effectiveness of Big Oil's new resolve will focus on its fight for a carbon price. When asked last year by a senior policymaker why Shell didn't advocate for stronger carbon pricing, Van Beurden was surprised. His company had been doing so for decades.
“The real, honest, naked assessment is we have not been very successful” in getting the message out about carbon, he told reporters April 16. “Apparently the message hasn't reached them.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132266954&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132266954&jd=132266954
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