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ACC AM 4/30/18

Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) CEO of Chemical Industry Group to Step Down
Apr 30, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Megan R. Wilson

Cal Dooley, the former California congressman who has led the American Chemistry Council (ACC) for the last decade, has announced he will be stepping down at the end of the year.
(ACC Mentioned) Second Suit Filed Against Courtovich
Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Influence
By Marianne Levine and Theodoric Meyer

...Former Rep. Cal Dooley (D-Calif.) will retire from his role as president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council at the end of the year.
(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Plan To Ask Senate To Reject EPA Waste Office Nominee
Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan

Environmentalists are circulating a draft letter for signature that urges senators to reject the Trump administration's nomination of Peter Wright, in-house counsel at DowDuPont, to lead EPA's waste office, arguing that he is a bad fit given his years-long work for the chemical industry giant that created numerous toxic waste sites and its opposition to a chemical security rule.
(ACC Mentioned) Pesticide Makers Back Public-Data Plan—But Not for Trade Secrets
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ayanna Alexander

Pesticide manufacturers say the EPA should make scientific data relied on for regulations public, while at the same time pressing the agency to ensure patents, trade secrets, and risk data remain private.
(ACC Mentioned) Letters: Free Trade Helps Louisiana
Apr 27, 2018 | The Advocate
By Edward R. Hamberger

Continued uncertainty surrounding international trade agreements is needlessly hindering a U.S. economy that is otherwise strong, particularly in areas such as Louisiana that are most deeply connected to global commerce.
(ACC Mentioned) How Will Tariffs Affect Toolmakers? It's Complicated
Apr 27, 2018 | Plastics News
By Bill Bregar

With NPE2018 looming May 7-11, mold makers are bracing for higher costs from President Donald Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and waiting for a decision on whether tariffs will extend to key high-end steel countries of Germany and France.
Pruitt's Scorched-Earth Strategy Adds to Staff's 'Despair'
Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Pro
By Emily Holden

Scott Pruitt may have survived his testimony on Capitol Hill, but he's coming back to a further enraged and demoralized Environmental Protection Agency staff.
Pruitt Signals Potential Softening Of Push For Major EPA Staff Reductions
Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is signaling a potential softening of his push for major staffing level cuts in Region 5 and at least one research laboratory slated for closure, telling House Appropriations Committee Democrats that the agency could moderate both plans -- although he stopped short of any pledge to increase staffing levels.

LCSA News

EPA Extends Comment Deadline for New TSCA Test Methods Plan
Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has extended the comment deadline on its draft plan promoting the use of alternative toxicity testing methods at the request of an environmental group that is seeking additional time to consider an analysis conducted by an animal welfare group that shows a ten-fold increase in animal testing requests since the passage of chemical management reform law.

Chemical Management News

Teflon Chemical Bills Could Mean Liability for New Hampshire Firms
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel

New Hampshire businesses that used toxic chemicals in the manufacturing of Teflon and firefighting foams could face enforcement action under a pair of bills headed to the governor's desk.
Unknown Chemicals Found in North Carolina Drinking Water
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew M. Ballard

A number of man-made chemicals with unknown health effects have been found in the drinking water used by some 200,000 North Carolinians.
Kourtney Kardashian’s Appeal For Cosmetics Safety Reaches 590 Million People
Apr 27, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Monica Amarelo

On Tuesday, Kourtney Kardashian joined EWG President Ken Cook on Capitol Hill to brief reporters and congressional staffers about EWG’s #BeautyMadeBetter campaign.
Cancer-Causing Textile Chemicals Subject to New EU Regulation
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner

A regulatory committee of European Union country representatives has approved a restriction on 33 carcinogenic substances in textiles, but some clothing makers say they already are restricting those substances.
EU Nanomaterial Suppliers Face New Safety Data Requirements
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner

3M Europe NV, BASF SE, and other companies that supply nanomaterials in the European Union would have to provide more safety data to the European Chemicals Agency under a new EU regulation.

Energy News

Frackers Preach Patience to Investors
Apr 28, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By David Wethe

The world’s biggest oilfield service companies have a message for investors: There’s a payoff for patience.
Offshore Drillers Get Some, Not All, They Sought in Trump Reform
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy

The Trump administration is moving to relax some offshore drilling requirements imposed in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster but is rebuffing the oil industry's plea for bigger changes.
Florida Lawmakers Rip Trump Plan to Ease Offshore Drilling Rule
Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Pro
By Ben Lefebvre

The Trump administration plan to roll back the Obama era offshore oil rig safety rules enacted in the wake of BP's massive 2010 oil spill drew sharp criticism on Friday from Florida lawmakers, who said the still-unreleased revisions would threaten the state's coast.
DTE Gets Michigan Approval for 1,100-Megawatt Natural Gas Plant
Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert

DTE Energy Co. got the green light April 27 from Michigan's utility regulator to build a new 1,100-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant to replace three coal-fired plants.

Chemical Security News

OSHA Fails to Protect Workers from Chemical Exposure
Apr 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Kathleen Rest and David Michaels

Nearly a half a century after Congress established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), one would think there would be a lot to celebrate this Saturday on Workers Memorial Day.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Is Your Commute Safe? NJ Transit Won't Share State of Bridges, some Older Than 100 Years
Apr 30, 2018 | NorthJersey.com
By Curtis Tate

Tens of thousands of NJ Transit commuters cross them on trains every day. But the statewide public transportation agency, which maintains hundreds of rail bridges, won't share any information with the public that would reveal whether they're safe or not.

Environment News

Trump Climate Plan Would Mean 'Lives Lost,' Democrats Say
Apr 27, 2018 | Washington Examiner
By John Siciliano

Senate Democrats slammed the Trump administration's proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan on Friday, saying it would harm public health while exacerbating the effects of global warming.
EPA Urged To Revive Air Toxics Policy To Avoid Uneven State Regulation
Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

Environmentalists, Democrats and some state officials are warning that EPA's decision to end a “once in, always in” (OIAI) policy subjecting facilities to strict air toxics limits even if they reduce emissions below regulated levels will lead to uneven state regulation of facilities' emissions that could lead to spikes in pollution in some states, especially those where EPA regulates air toxics.
High-Stakes EPA Decision on Ozone Attainment Due Monday
Apr 27, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly

The mayor of Waukesha, Wis., has written EPA. So has the top executive for the surrounding county, the head of the local chamber of commerce and even Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).
Environmental Concerns May Turn Voters Blue: Poll
Apr 30, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Concerns over environmental regulation and climate change could be an important voting issue and may sway some voters toward Democrats, according to a poll conducted by Change Research, a polling firm that serves left-leaning clients.

Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) CEO of Chemical Industry Group to Step Down

Apr 30, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Megan R. Wilson

Cal Dooley, the former California congressman who has led the American Chemistry Council (ACC) for the last decade, has announced he will be stepping down at the end of the year.
During his time at the industry group, its federal advocacy boomed and ACC became one of the highest-spending trade groups in Washington.
Most recently, Dooley helped oversee the mammoth lobbying effort around a massive toxic chemical regulations overhaul in 2016 that had been championed for years by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).
“I am extremely proud of what ACC has accomplished over the past ten years, especially the passage of bipartisan chemical regulatory reform legislation. It has been a privilege to work with ACC’s dedicated staff and members to support the industry’s role as a driver of economic growth, enabler of the products and technologies that support modern life and a provider of solutions that will make a sustainable future possible.”
The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical and plastics manufacturers, spent almost $7.5 million on lobbying last year, but the six years before that all exceeded $9 million in annual advocacy spending. With Dooley at the helm, the group’s membership grew by almost 50 percent.
“Cal’s record of bipartisanship during his time in Congress and his reputation as a pragmatic, straight shooter who is committed to intellectual consistency, sound science and good policy has helped ACC become one of the most effective and successful trade associations in Washington,” said Bob Patel, the chief executive of LyondellBasell and chairman of ACC’s board.
When Dooley joined the ACC in 2008, the industry was suffering from reverberations of high gas prices and the economic recession. The group says that he came in and “implemented an integrated strategy comprised of aggressive federal and state advocacy, communications, coalition building, political engagement and new Association programs to address the challenges facing the chemical sector.”
At the end of 2018, Dooley’s contract is expiring and he says he will be stepping down. It's unclear what his next steps will be.
“Cal has been the right leader at the right time for American chemistry,” Patel said.
Dooley, a Democrat, previously served for 14 years in the House of Representatives and represented California’s 17th and 20th congressional districts.
When he left in 2005, he became the chief executive of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
In 2008, when he made the move to the chemical industry group, he told McClatchy that ACC had “made me a very attractive offer.”
The salary at the time — held then by Jack Gerard, who retires as CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API) later this year — was $2.1 million.
Dooley earned nearly $5 million in 2016, according to tax filings.
Both ACC and API are two of the most coveted industry association jobs in Washington, and are among the several executive vacancies that need to be filled this year.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Distilled Spirits Council are also searching for new leaders.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/385269-dooley-to-step-down-as-chemical-indsutry-group-ceo

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(ACC Mentioned) Second Suit Filed Against Courtovich

Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Influence

By Marianne Levine and Theodoric Meyer

SECOND SUIT FILED AGAINST COURTOVICH: A mysterious limited liability company has filed suit against the Washington lobbyist Jim Courtovich, alleging he committed fraud, among other charges. The company, Woodland Drive LLC, loaned Courtovich $4 million in 2015 through an unnamed “related entity,” according to the suit. Half the loan was to go toward buying a rowhouse on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington; the other half was an investment in SGR LLC, Courtovich’s lobbying firm. The suit alleges that Courtovich committed fraud and breach of contract by failing to give the investor the promised interest in SGR and by taking out a loan against the value of the rowhouse, contradicting terms of the investment.
The suit doesn’t make clear who’s behind Woodland Drive LLC. (Woodland Drive happens to be the name of the street in Washington where Courtovich lives.) But Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer for Courtovich, said the $4 million investment was made by the al Gosaibi family, a wealthy Saudi family with whom Courtovich worked for years. (The family has been feuding for years with Ma’an al Sanea, who married into the family in 1980, over billions of dollars in unpaid debts to banks around the world.)
— “This is nothing more than a commercial negotiation that we expect will be resolved commercially, in short order, between SGR and their investors, AHAB and family members, and related companies including Woodland Drive LLC,” Gottlieb said in a statement. (AHAB is an acronym for the al Gosaibi family business, Ahmad Hamad al Gosaibi & Bros.) The al Gosaibi family owes Courtovich’s firms nearly $1 million, according to Gottlieb, partially offsetting the $4 million investment. The family also has a 49 percent stake in SGR. “SGR is prepared to execute documents consistent with the parties’ original deal and to share all appropriate information as originally agreed,” Gottlieb said in the statement.
— The suit is the second one filed against Courtovich this year. Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, a law firm that previously represented Courtovich, sued Courtovich's other firm, Sphere Consulting, last month over what the firm described as more than $500,000 in unpaid bills. It’s unclear whether the two suits are related. Eric Lewis, a Lewis Baach senior partner who previously represented Courtovich, has also worked for the al Gosaibi family, according to news reports. Lewis didn’t respond to a request for comment. Neither did Andrew Cook, a K&L Gates partner representing Woodland Drive LLC.
Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. What’s going on out there? Let us know: mlevine@politico.com and tmeyer@politico.com. You can also follow us on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer and @marianne_levine.
AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL PRESIDENT RETIRES: Former Rep. Cal Dooley (D-Calif.) will retire from his role as president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council at the end of the year. He joined the trade association in 2008. Prior to joining ACC, he was president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. In an interview with PI, Dooley described his role at ACC as a “very professionally challenging and rewarding position.” Among the accomplishments Dooley said he was most proud of was the ACC’s role in securing bipartisan support for modernizing the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016. In addition, Dooley touted the group’s role “in developing the innovations, technologies and products that empower consumers and manufacturers to achieve higher levels of sustainability.”
— When asked about pressing issues facing the chemicals industry, Dooley said he hoped the administration would “not engage in a trade war that would result in retaliatory tariffs that would target the sectors of the U.S. economy that are most globally competitive, which would include chemicals, manufacturing and agriculture.”
— When asked who might replace him, Dooley said the ACC will look for individuals with strong bipartisan relationships with members of Congress and who have “the ability to provide the strategic leadership that can advance the broader interest of the industry both in the private sector and in the governmental arenas.”
GOTHAM AIMS TO HELP MEXICAN COMPANIES RELOCATE TO U.S.: Gotham Government Relations and Communications, a New York firm that once represented President Donald Trump and opened a Washington office after Trump’s victory, is trying to help Mexican businesses relocate to the U.S. Gotham has struck up a partnership with U.S.-Mexico Consulting, a firm based in Austin, to try to solve a paradox of the Trump era: The U.S. corporate tax rate is now substantially lower than the Mexican one, giving Mexican companies reason to consider relocating for tax reasons. But Trump’s less-than-welcoming rhetoric toward Mexico may give them pause.
— That’s where Gotham comes in. “The president’s message just needs to be polished a little bit for this group,” Brad Gerstman, a Gotham partner, told PI. He plans to work with the administration, including the State Department and the Commerce Department, to help bring Mexican business to the U.S. Salvador Apud, founder of U.S.-Mexico Consulting, recently went to Mexico to pitch companies on the idea, and Gerstman plans to do so next month.
CGCN ON RYAN RETIREMENT: CGCN Group is out with a client memo today on the midterm elections and what House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement could mean for Republican leadership. “Ryan’s decision creates a very difficult dynamic for the rest of his leadership team as they try to pass bills in the face of uncertainty about who will control the House – and their party – next year,” the memo says. “Making matters worse, there seems to be an endless stream of negative stories on the underground campaigns to replace Ryan. It is not lost on Republican campaign operatives that a vote for a Speaker to replace Ryan would force Democrats to vote for their candidate, Nancy Pelosi, before the election. This would allow many Republicans to close their campaigns by running ads showing their opponent voting to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker.” Read the memo here. Do you agree? Let us know.
SIGNAL ON TECH COMPANIES’ RELATIONSHIP WITH WASHINGTON: Signal Group’s Eric Bovim and Nadeam Elshami have some advice for tech companies: pay more attention to Washington. “Engagement should not be a choice; it must be a priority,” Bovim and Elshami write in a blog post. “Scrambling to explain to Congress and the American people that whatever the latest breach or privacy invasion will never happen again, is not the forward-facing message that enhances tech’s brand. Building brand loyalty in Congress, media, and with consumers must begin from a position of strength...Helping to eliminate or limit undue risk is a wise business decision. Telling your story early, and often, to those in Washington is a smart investment that helps prepare you for the unpredictable and uncertain.” More here.
CLARIFICATION TO THURSDAY’S NOTABLE REGISTRATIONS: In Thursday’s edition of PI, we noted that Ice Miller registered to lobby Vice President Mike Pence’s office on “waters of the U.S. issues” for Peabody Energy. In an email to PI, Ice Miller’s John Hammond said the filing “was a complete clerical error” and that “one of our staff here confused the situation.” Hammond clarified that he lobbies for Peabody Energy in Indiana at the state level and not in Washington. “We have corrected it by immediately filing a termination which is the remedy under the LDA law,” he said.
POLITICO’s Ben White is bringing Morning Money to the Milken Institute Global Conference to provide coverage of the day’s events and evening happenings. The newsletter will run April 29, 2018 - May 2, 2018. Sign up to keep up with your daily conference coverage.
A READER RESPONSE: Last week, PI included an excerpt from Timothy Carney’s column in The Washington Examiner urging House Speaker Paul Ryan not to become a lobbyist after leaving office and asked readers who disagreed to weigh in. Sam Geduldig of CGCN Group responded. "Lobbyists register for their clients,” he wrote in an email. “At the very least, there is disclosure, transparency and accountability. In contrast, the author of this piece writes for a publication owned by a billionaire who has lobbied for, and received, millions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government. A Google search shows that the author has not written about the publisher’s successful lobbying efforts. I know this, because their lobbyist filled out comprehensive disclosures.” (Carney does disclose his personal finances.) “The author is also a fellow at a prominent think tank. There are no disclosures involved with his fellowship but it’s safe to assume that many corporate grants make his compensation possible.”
— Offered the opportunity to respond, Carney wrote in an email: “My conscience is clear, and I sleep well at night. Sam Geduldig’s conscience clearly nags him. I’m sorry about that.”
INTERNET GROUPS PUSH FOR LIABILITY PROTECTIONS UNDER NAFTA: “Internet advocacy groups are pressing for the inclusion of rules to absolve websites of liability for user-generated content in a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement, as late-stage talks among representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada get increasingly difficult,” POLITICO’s Steven Overly reports. “In a letter released today, civil liberties and tech trade groups say ‘intermediary liability’ protections as enshrined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act helped give rise to the modern internet economy, including online marketplaces with customer reviews. Expanding those protections would foster the next wave of startups, they argue. 'Consumers in all three countries suffer from less robust digital trade, competition and innovation than would be possible with consistent standards for intermediary liability,’ the letter states.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2018/04/27/second-suit-filed-against-courtovich-266562

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(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Plan To Ask Senate To Reject EPA Waste Office Nominee

Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Suzanne Yohannan

Environmentalists are circulating a draft letter for signature that urges senators to reject the Trump administration's nomination of Peter Wright, in-house counsel at DowDuPont, to lead EPA's waste office, arguing that he is a bad fit given his years-long work for the chemical industry giant that created numerous toxic waste sites and its opposition to a chemical security rule.
“Due to his nearly two decades of work protecting the interests of a corporation with a striking record of hazardous chemical releases and toxic waste sites, Mr. Wright should not be granted the responsibility and decision-making authority to lead [EPA's Office of Land & Emergency Management (OLEM)], which would require him to implement and enforce vital health, safety, and environmental laws against his current employer and others like it,” the draft letter says.
While environmentalists and citizen group representatives have criticized Wright, charging he has a conflict of interest, the letter will mark the first sign of formal opposition from the groups to President Donald Trump's March 6 nomination of the long-time in-house counsel for Dow Chemical Company, now known as DowDuPont -- to lead OLEM. The office oversees the agency’s cleanup programs as well as national emergency responses.
For example, the Sierra Club appears to be the only national environmental group so far that has publicly objected, with the group's Health Policy Director Liz Perera last month saying his conflicts of interests which relate to his representing the chemical industry “make him wholly unfit for this position.”
But one community activist familiar with the cleanup of a massive dioxin-contaminated site that Dow is responsible for in Michigan suggests that convincing lawmakers to oppose the nomination may be difficult. The source alleges that the company is “so good at greenwashing” that politicians “just roll over” because of the philanthropy that Dow does.
If the Senate nonetheless opts to approve Wright's nomination, senators should at least insist that he publicly disclose all matters he has been involved with relating to OLEM and to recuse himself from those matters and any others, including rulemakings, where there is an appearance of partiality in favor of industry, the letter says.
While environmentalists are urging lawmakers to oppose Wright's nomination, it has been welcomed by industry officials, who say he is practical-minded and has long-time environmental experience.
The Senate environment committee has not yet scheduled a hearing on Wright's nomination, though it is not clear if the committee will do so when lawmakers return May 7 from the Senate's current adjournment.
Conflicts Of Interest
In the draft letter, the groups say they “represent people across the United States who are deeply concerned about releases of toxic chemicals from facilities in their communities."
They note that Dow, DuPont and their subsidiaries are potentially responsible parties at more than 150 Superfund sites, and these companies have averaged eight chemical disaster incidents per year, with a total of 82 fires, explosions or other hazardous releases causing reportable harm under the existing Risk Management Plan (RMP) program. The companies Dow and DuPont recently merged to become one, called DowDuPont.
“Should Mr. Wright run OLEM, he will oversee that program, as well as the federal hazardous waste regulatory program that Dow and [the American Chemistry Council (ACC)] have sought to weaken for decades,” the letter says, referring to the Superfund program.
The White House's announcement of Wright's nomination pointed to his leadership on legal strategies related to Dow's Superfund sites and other remediation issues.
But the environmentalists' letter says this background raises issues of transparency and conflicts of interest, citing his direct involvement in talks at 14 Superfund sites, including the massive dioxin-contaminated site in Michigan where past waste disposal practices at the company's Midland, MI, facility resulted in elevated dioxin levels in the Tittabawassee River and contamination extending 50 miles downstream into the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, according to EPA's website.
“This nomination raises critical questions of transparency and what direct and indirect conflicts of interest Mr. Wright might have because of his current employment. Alarmingly, during his time at Dow, Mr. Wright has questioned well-established, peer-reviewed scientific data and the U.S. EPA’s expert evaluation finding that exposure to dioxins poses a serious threat to human health,” the letter says.
While at Dow, according to internal EPA emails released to an environmental group, Wright was involved in talks among the company and EPA headquarters at a time when EPA's Region 5 office was pushing to enforce cleanup requirements for dioxin at the company's Midland, MI, headquarters site.
In 2008, then-EPA Region 5 Administrator Mary Gade expressed fear in the emails that Dow was pursuing an end-run around the regional office to obtain a more favorable cleanup from EPA headquarters. Gade soon after resigned from her position.
At the time, the company allegedly lobbied hard for a weak Michigan dioxin standard, one citizens advocate says.
The draft letter also expresses fears over Wright overseeing EPA's RMP rule, which the Trump administration is seeking to roll back.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has suspended the Obama administration's update to the chemical safety rule, and a revision is under consideration that is expected to eliminate a series of requirements.
To allow Wright control over these programs would violate public trust, the letter says, at a minimum creating an appearance of bias towards the chemical industry “that would undermine the foundation of good government."
Instead, the letter says, OLEM's chief should be someone who will “vigorously protect the health and safety of millions of Americans,” including those in low-income communities or communities of color facing extreme environmental injustices due to waste and toxic chemical mismanagement.
In addition to the letter to senators, Care2 -- a web based service that gathers petitions for signature -- has been circulating a petition opposing Wright's nomination. So far, it has received 44,328 signatures. It asks Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) to oppose the nomination, given Daines' past interest in Superfund site cleanups. Daines' office did not respond to a request for comment on the petition.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-plan-ask-senate-reject-epa-waste-office-nominee

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(ACC Mentioned) Pesticide Makers Back Public-Data Plan—But Not for Trade Secrets

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ayanna Alexander

Pesticide manufacturers say the EPA should make scientific data relied on for regulations public, while at the same time pressing the agency to ensure patents, trade secrets, and risk data remain private.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s April 24 proposed rulewould require that the “best available science” be transparently made available to the public if the agency relies on it in making policy.
But that push is running square into companies’ need to protect trade secrets. While praising the EPA’s plan, industry officials are quickly pointing out that the laws need to go on guaranteeing that some data remain confidential.
The concern has also alarmed high-level EPA pesticide officials, who warned that if the proposal is too broadly written, it could be impractical and impose costly new mandates on companies registering pesticides.
Such companies as DowDupont Inc. and Monsanto Co. frequently urge the EPA to keep toxicity research and chemical patents private. They designate it as “confidential business information” under provisions of chemical laws.
Those data are part of a suite of information they must provide to the EPA as they register or seek approval to manufacture chemicals and pesticides. Both companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
But these data could be construed as “pivotal regulatory science” under a provision of the April 24 proposal, making public access a possibility. Such data predict the toxicity, extent of exposure, or other features of a chemical, pesticide, air, or water pollutant and could be used by independent scientists or advocacy groups to push for controls.
Balance Transparency, Protection
Pesticide manufacturers are spelling out their concerns early.
“Federal law requires that disclosure of pesticide safety data to the public protect the data from improper use by competitors and provides for the protection of confidential business information,” Jay Vroom, pesticide trade association CropLife America’s president and CEO, told Bloomberg Environment. “This protection of intellectual property contributes to further innovation and helps to ensure that new technologies reach American farmers.”
The group pointed out that, while it supports the April 24 proposal, it expects continued enforcement of intellectual property and confidential business information provisions of current pesticide law as the EPA implements the proposal.
The American Chemistry Council mirrored CropLife’s statement, saying that the chemical industry will work with the agency to “ensure transparency, while still protecting personal privacy, confidential business information, proprietary interest and intellectual property rights.”
May Only Affect Big Ticket Rules
The proposed rule’s requirements would apply to “economically significant” regulatory actions under Executive Order 12866 that have an annual economic cost of $100 million or more, interfere with another agency’s action, or raise novel legal or policy issues.
Pruitt or a future administrator could also exempt certain policies from the requirement on a case-by-case basis, according to the proposal—a provision that might raise legal questions.
If the agency sticks with the $100 million threshold under the executive order, then the EPA decisions on whether new chemicals can enter commerce would largely be unaffected, as most wouldn’t meet that threshold, Richard Engler, a senior chemist at Bergeson & Campbell PC who was formerly a senior staff scientist in the EPA’s chemicals office.
Decisions about new pesticides would be unlikely to trigger the rule’s requirements, he said. But the EPA’s decisions about whether to reregister a pesticide used on commodity crops such as wheat, corn, or soybeans could easily trigger the rule, he added.
EPA Alarm Bells
The new plan set off alarms among high-level EPA chemicals and pesticide officials, according to emails collected by the Union of Concerned Scientists through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator of EPA’s chemicals office, in late January while the plan was being vetted, urged other EPA staffers to review the proposal to ensure the pesticide and chemical sectors were not adversely affected.
“My understanding is that these studies come in as CBI [confidential business information], but for the large majority of them, the CBI can be waived and the data can be made available (if requested),” she wrote. “Making data available is very different than requiring a publication requirement. Such a requirement would be incredibly burdensome, not practical, and you would need to create a whole new arm of the publishing industry to publish these types of studies that nobody is interested in.”
“This directive needs to be revised,” she wrote. “Without change, it will jeopardize our entire pesticide registration/re-registration review process and likely all Toxic Substances Control Act risk evaluations.”
Pay to Play with Data
Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the agency still must enforce these companies’ data protections and rights, despite the call to ban “secret science,” Jim Aidala, former official of EPA’s OCSPP, told Bloomberg Environment.
But Aidala, a senior consultant with Bergeson & Campbell PC, said this could be a “tricky issue.”
“There’s a provision for a period of time [under FIFRA] when other competing companies can’t use the data to support an application [for registration], but after that time expires, competitors can use the data, but only if they agree to the FIFRA data compensation rules” to share costs with other users, Aidala said.
“They can’t just take the data and use it,” he said. “These provisions say if you generate the data to get the first approval, you have the rights to be compensated and the EPA is trying to keep that straight. But there’s the concern about making sure it [the April 24 proposal] doesn’t mess” those arrangements up.
Researchers Confidential
If adopted, the plan might shake loose or exclude data from health studies that industry and the EPA have been seeking for some time on major pesticides, such as chlorpyrifos made by Dow Chemical. The insecticide is a crop protection tool for fruit, vegetable and row crop growers.
A 2017 epidemiological study conducted by Columbia University found that chlorpyrifos negatively affected brain development in New York City children exposed in utero.
To bolster its review of the pesticide, the agency asked Columbia for the data, but the university declined, stating it would breach confidentiality pledges they made to the mothers. As part of the study, researchers assured their subjects they wouldn’t reveal their health histories, which, if made public, could negatively affect their employability or insurability.
A former federal agency offical told Bloomberg Environment that it was “frustrating” to try to understand the Columbia group’s study without access to the raw data and even pledges to anonymize sensitive information “couldn’t sway the school to give it up.”
The source — who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly — said the proposal “would have been better digested” had the agency gone “through the National Academies with this issue.” The ex-official, however, sees some “merit” in using public data.
In 2017, EPA chief Scott Pruitt denied a decade-old petition from environmental groups to ban the use of chlorpyrifos on food, in part because of the Obama-era EPA’s reliance on the Columbia study’s findings without vetting the raw data.
Health Findings
If the public data rule is adopted, important health findings would be unavailable for pesticide or chemical regulation if scientists decline to break confidentiality agreements with the people they studied, according to critics such as the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides.
“This is data that EPA has used in the past from epidemiological studies, especially those involving sensitive worker information and children,” Beyond Pesticides’ Nichelle Harriott told Bloomberg Environment.
“The EPA would be limiting the information it would consider for regulatory decision-making—including those for pesticides. In a roundabout way [the agency’s decisions] could be skewed by certain data,” said Harriot, the organization’s science and regulatory director.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132918111&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=499825000&searchid=31464313&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0

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(ACC Mentioned) Letters: Free Trade Helps Louisiana

Apr 27, 2018 | The Advocate

By Edward R. Hamberger

Continued uncertainty surrounding international trade agreements is needlessly hindering a U.S. economy that is otherwise strong, particularly in areas such as Louisiana that are most deeply connected to global commerce. From potentially exiting the North American Free Trade Agreement to levying tariffs on a host of Chinese products, bedrock industries to the Pelican State such as chemicals, agriculture and the private freight railroads I represent continue to sound the alarm bell.
On the heels of economic-stimulating tax reform and amid record employment nationally, now is the time to end this unforced error in thinking that trade is a net negative. Louisianans should signal to their leaders in Washington, D.C., that a trade war is a direct threat to their well-being.
This starts with finalizing a new NAFTA deal, which has helped the Louisiana and U.S. chemical sectors increase exports to Canada and Mexico by nearly 240 percent.
More broadly, economists estimate that more than 41 million U.S. jobs today depend on trade. Nafta alone has boosted the U.S. economy by $127 billion annually. And since Nafta took effect, trade between the Canada, Mexico and the U.S. has nearly quadrupled, reaching $1.3 trillion in 2014.
Automobile manufacturers and the agriculture sector exist in today’s economy precisely because of this trade agreement. In 2016, 13 automakers manufactured one million more cars than the year before NAFTA took effect — while these companies have also launched 15 new plants — particularly in the Southeast U.S.
Meanwhile, farmers exported nearly $43 billion in goods in 2016 alone, accounting for more than a third of all U.S. agriculture exports. A significant portion of these goes through Louisiana’s ports, whose success hinges on the sustained movement of goods.
Yet according to the American Chemistry Council, without NAFTA in place, U.S. chemical exports alone would be subject to $9 billion in new tariffs. The American Action Forum estimates that a Nafta exit would expose businesses to $15.5 billion new tariffs, costing consumers at least $7 billion collectively per year.
We should be discussing how to open up more markets for our businesses, not closing existing ones. Rhetoric surrounding trade should be corrected when it is wrong, namely that trade deals such as Nafta have outright eliminated jobs or sectors. Technology, not trade, has changed the U.S. economy most over time.
Rather than succumb to convenient political points on the subject, let’s embrace trade. From finalizing NAFTA to developing a comprehensive plan on trade in Asia — particularly China — there is progress to be made. Moving in the right direction will help provide much-needed certainty.
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_81ee9e2c-48bf-11e8-a382-8bab3babea89.html

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(ACC Mentioned) How Will Tariffs Affect Toolmakers? It's Complicated

Apr 27, 2018 | Plastics News

By Bill Bregar

With NPE2018 looming May 7-11, mold makers are bracing for higher costs from President Donald Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and waiting for a decision on whether tariffs will extend to key high-end steel countries of Germany and France.
The tariffs — 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum — will result in higher prices for molds, industry officials said.
How much higher depends on the type of mold and the type of steel used. But the tariffs, announced by Trump March 8 to meet a campaign promise to help save jobs at U.S. steel mills, will result in higher prices for steel, economists say.
The Washington-based Plastics Industry Association quickly opposed the tariffs, saying they could be "devastating" to the industry by increasing costs for mold builders and machinery companies. The trade group, which sponsors NPE, says the tariffs could cost plastics industry jobs and blunt the economic boost it sees coming from the Trump administration's tax cut package.
The American Chemistry Council also opposes the tariffs, saying the higher costs for steel and aluminum could negatively impact some of the planned investments in new U.S. chemical plants.
Steel prices have not gone up yet, mold makers said in late April, but some of them have seen higher prices for aluminum. Toolmakers are keeping close contact with steel suppliers, and some are putting special language in job quotes.
After announcing the tariffs, the Trump administration exempted several countries, including Canada, Mexico and South Korea. Trump also gave an extension for European Union countries, holding off a decision on whether to impose tariffs on key U.S. allies, and important mold steel producers such as Germany and France, until May 1, the Tuesday before NPE2018.
How much do steel prices impact tooling? Sources quoted a wide range of estimates. Some said steel accounts for about 20-30 percent of a mold price. But some cited numbers as high as 50 percent, or as low as just a few percentage points of the total cost.
MSI Mold Builders Inc. uses steel and aluminum to make large molds for injection, structural foam, reaction injection molding, blow molding and other processes.
MSI President Roger Klouda said news coverage of the tariffs have prompted lots of questions from customers. Klouda tells them vendors are saying they are well-stocked with material. But he doesn't have a crystal ball.
"Just about every day, they call and ask: 'What's going to happen? What's going to happen with prices?'" he said. "We have a line item in our quotes that says pricing information is based on tariffs."
Markets for MSI's molds include parts for all-terrain vehicles, tractors, heavy trucks and pallets. Klouda said steel accounts for about 25 percent of the cost of making a mold at his company — 20 percent for the mold and another 5 percent for the leader pins.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based MSI competes directly with mold shops clustered around Windsor, Ontario, which already have a currency advantage, said Toby Bral, MSI's sales manager.
"It's very competitive," Bral said. "It's already a really tight market. And then if our material costs go up 25 percent ... it makes us far less competitive in an already competitive market."
Bral is president of the American Mold Builders Association, but he said his comments are made in his position at MSI, not on behalf of the trade association.
Canada, a supplier of some mold steels, is exempt from the tariffs, but the levy will result in all steel makers raising prices — including in the United States, Bral said.
"The costs will go up across the board," he said, adding that tariffs "will hit the U.S. mold maker harder than the others."
In an April 24 interview, Klouda said MSI Mold Builders just received a notice that aluminum prices are going up about 10 percent. Steel had not gone up yet, he said.
But MSI officials are watching the EU extension closely. That's because the mold maker sources its P20 steel, in large, thick-cut sizes for its big molds, from Europe, Bral said.
Evco Plastics Inc., a custom molder based in DeForest, Wis., builds its own molds. Interviewed at the Plastics News Executive Forum just as the tariffs were coming out, President Dale Evans said the levy would add some cost. But he said there are other important factors.
"The demand of the automotive industry of building molds and taking capacity out of the industry is having a bigger impact," he said.
Mike Zacharias, president of Extreme Tool & Engineering Inc. in Wakefield, Mich., said steel content accounts for less than 2 percent of the cost to make his small precision molds, which run on injection molding machines with less than 500 tons of clamping force.
Zacharias said a large customer asked about the tariffs, and he explained higher steel prices are not a problem for Extreme Tool, on a percentage basis. "It's another challenge in business, but no bigger or greater than any of the other ones we deal with every single day," he said.
Even so, Zacharias said higher steel and aluminum prices are a major issue for the tooling sector.
"Costs for the largest mold bases may go up in cost, and so I look at it that it's not that big of a deal. But I also have friends that in the industry where it's 50 percent of cost," he said.
Several mold making officials said it's unclear if the tariffs on steel and aluminum cover raw steel stock, or if they also include finished goods like completed molds. Either way, when it comes to China — a major source of molds that compete with U.S. mold makers, the Trump administration says it will slap 25 percent tariffs on China that cover a wide range of industrial goods, including molds and mold components.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180427/NEWS/180429906/how-will-tariffs-affect-toolmakers-its-complicated

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Pruitt's Scorched-Earth Strategy Adds to Staff's 'Despair'

Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Pro

By Emily Holden

Scott Pruitt may have survived his testimony on Capitol Hill, but he's coming back to a further enraged and demoralized Environmental Protection Agency staff.
Several current and former EPA officials and other people close to the agency said Pruitt did himself no favors with his congressional testimony Thursday, in which he blamed his aides for installing a $43,000 privacy booth in his office and approving more than $100,000 in first-class flights that he took last year. Pruitt also denied knowing key details about raises that his top staff received last year. And he declined to defend his former policy chief against Democrats' accusations that she had failed to show up for work for three months, even though she and Pruitt had been photographed attending the same meeting during the period in question.
In conversations with 11 people who know the atmosphere inside EPA, including Republican political appointees, a handful said his refusal to grovel may have pleased President Donald Trump. But others said his strategy was appalling to the current and former staffers who found themselves thrown under the bus.
"I think his credibility is damaged, and whether or not he gets fired by a tweet isn't going to diminish the fact that his credibility has been seriously damaged by all of this," one person close to the administration told POLITICO. "It shows a real lack of leadership that he did not defend, or blamed, his staff. These are the people that he's asking for loyalty from. These are the people that are defending him. He's not returning the favor. That's not leadership."
A current EPA official said Friday that employees are veering between "despair" and "embarrassment," and Pruitt's televised performance did not help.
"I will tell you, it did not go unnoticed from people who watched the hearing that he did not take responsibility on the policy pieces” of the testimony, the official said. "It was not lost on us on the stuff we know about that he used very careful language, he was parsing his words, that some might say he did not speak the whole truth."
One former EPA official said even political aides are “sick of Pruitt constantly putting himself first,” and “putting himself before the president’s agenda.”
“He’s rarely been interested in selling regulatory reform as improving Americans’ lives, and is far more interested in saving his political career,” the former official said.
But Trump has shown no signs of abandoning his EPA chief, who has won the strong backing of conservative groups with his efforts to erase Obama-era environmental regulations. So far, that has outweighed the anger of White House staff members and exasperation of key Republican lawmakers at Pruitt's series of controversies over luxe travel, extensive security, a below-market D.C. condo rental from a lobbyist and history of questionable real estate deals in his native Oklahoma.
A senior EPA official said Pruitt's strategy of fighting the allegations was designed to appeal to Trump, who disdains members of his team who appear weak on television.
“They like fighters no matter what," the official said. "No matter what, fight. That’s what we’ve been conditioned to."
The official predicted that the White House's takeaway from the hours of hearings would be that Republican lawmakers stood with Pruitt, while Democrats squandered their opportunity by spending too much time criticizing Pruitt's deregulatory agenda — which Trump supports — rather than hitting him for the ethics issues.
“Any audience would say the White House saw a Republican bench entirely supportive of him,” the EPA source said. “On the Democrat side, the White House also saw Democrats who used half their time to criticize policies he’s doing that the White House likes. If they wanted to land punches, why do you ask about these policies? That’s not going to do it for you.”
Pruitt ally Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) took that message from Thursday's hearings, despite saying earlier in the week that he was troubled by some recent allegations about the EPA leader's past dealings in Oklahoma. "After a full day of mudslinging and partisan questioning from the Democratic members of the committees, it is clear that the only fault they could find with Scott Pruitt is that he's successfully ending the EPA's history of overreach and overregulation," Inhofe said in a statement Friday.
Still, the senior EPA official said, Pruitt’s relatively good day in Congress could be “washed away” if his inconsistencies about what he knew about the raises generate a steady narrative that he lied to the White House, as at least one CNN pundit alleged.
And until Trump weighs in, the tension around Pruitt at EPA will remain high.
“There needs to be a halt to this because it’s exhausting,” the same official said.
Pruitt also still faces multiple investigations inside the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. On Friday, for example, the agency was due to deliver a "batch of documents" to the staff of House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who is leading one of the probes.
Departed EPA aides who have said Pruitt didn't tolerate internal criticism of his spending and secrecy say current staffers still fear they’ll be similarly swept up in the scandals — but won't be able to find jobs if they quit now and gain a reputation for disloyalty.
“They’re trying to do the best they can in a toxic environment,” one former staffer said. “You cannot express any idea that might be misconstrued as a political attack on Pruitt or any policy issues, so people just do what they’re told. They’re professional. ... They don’t want to get caught in an undertow.”
Another former EPA official has been getting phone calls from staffers who are frustrated by the controversies but keeping their heads down.
“Everyone in the building wants to come out and say something … but as soon as they say something, they’re out of a job,” that person said.
Not everyone in the agency was upset that Pruitt pinned many of his controversies on his staff Thursday, after giving an opening statement in the House in which he confessed that his first year on the job had been "a learning process."
“When he was putting it on staff, that’s the reality of it," one current EPA political appointee said. "Sure he’s the administrator, sure he’s the head of the agency. That doesn’t mean he was aware of the $40,000. He asked for a secure phone line and the next thing you know it turned into a secure phone booth. ... Overall I think his staff continue to stand beside him today and will continue to do that.”
In his testimony, Pruitt said he had never asked for a $43,000 secure phone booth — only “access to secure communication" — or biometric locks for his office, and he said his security staffers made the call for him to fly first-class to avoid possible threats from other passengers. He said he had authorized his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, to give raises to his top staff but had no idea that they were circumventing disapproval from the White House. And he chose not to defend his former policy chief against allegations from Democratic lawmakers that she was not in the office for months, even though an EPA spokesman had dismissed the accusations as "baseless and absurd."
A second political appointee said Pruitt didn’t break any new ground with his defenses, and that controversies dogging him had been “all blown out of context.”
The person called Pruitt a “disruptor” and said “folks don’t like that aggressive style.”
“Administrator Pruitt speaks for a certain aspect of the Trump administration conservative movement,” the appointee said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/04/pruitts-scorched-earth-strategy-adds-to-staffs-despair-507221

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Pruitt Signals Potential Softening Of Push For Major EPA Staff Reductions

Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

By David LaRoss

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is signaling a potential softening of his push for major staffing level cuts in Region 5 and at least one research laboratory slated for closure, telling House Appropriations Committee Democrats that the agency could moderate both plans -- although he stopped short of any pledge to increase staffing levels.
In response to questions from lawmakers at an April 27 hearing of the spending panel, Pruitt did not stand behind the previously announced staffing reductions. Instead, he told committee members that he is reconsidering an order to close a Las Vegas, NV, lab facility, and blamed bureaucratic inefficiencies rather than policy decisions for the failure to hire staff to fill over 90 vacancies in the regional office.
“With the omnibus, I'm sure we'll have more flexibility” for those jobs, Pruitt told Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), during the hearing of the panel's Subcommittee on Interior and Environment, which has authority over EPA's budget. The fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill held EPA funding steady from FY17levels, though many observers expect a tough fight over potential cuts in FY19.
The topic arose following an exchange between Kaptur and Pruitt on Region 5's resources for Superfund cleanups. Kaptur then questioned the agency chief on staffing levels more broadly. Region 5 covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and 35 tribes.
“As we sit here today, just so you know, Region 5 has lost at least 90 employees under your leadership, and there have been only two hires that you've made and they're both political. What I want to know is: do you have any intention, and can you fully commit, to fully staffing Region 5, not just for Superfund but for all of the programs to protect human health and the environment in our fragile region?” she asked.
Pruitt in response noted that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has given Region 5 an exemption from the administration-wide hiring freeze, but had no explanation for why the agency is not actively hiring for any of the region's vacant positions.
“I'm not sure why that's taking place. I just know that OMB has suspended the hiring freeze for Region 5,” he said.
Pruitt initially told Kaptur that the freeze had been suspended on April 12, and suggested that the agency had not yet had a chance to solicit applications for open positions in the region, but then corrected himself when he realized that the freeze was lifted in April of 2017, rather than “just a couple of weeks ago” as he initially said.
He then suggested that the late appointment of Region 5 Administrator Cathy Stepp, who was named for the post in December, might have delayed a decision to take advantage of OMB's waiver. “We didn't get a Region 5 regional administrator until recently, so it could have delayed an assessment of those deficiencies."
Regional Staffing
Despite Pruitt's statements, staffing up Region 5 might mean defying state governments' calls to bring its personnel levels down to a number that more closely matches other regions', which they hope could remedy complaints that it often reworks state actions rather than simply reviewing and approving or denying them.
Region 5 has long been the subject of rumors that the Trump EPA would try to close or consolidate regions. Those efforts have met bipartisan opposition in Congress, leading to a provision in the omnibus bill that bars such moves -- which prompted the requests to limit Region 5 staff as an alternative.
Meanwhile, EPA headquarters officials are in Kansas City, MO, this week to review Region 7's permitting, inspection and other programs as part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to implement a “Lean” management system to streamline activities.
The effort makes Region 7 the first region to undergo such a review which will serve as a template for other regions and program offices. The region covers Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas.
EPA Chief of Operations Henry Darwin told Inside EPA in an April 26 interview that it is too early to speculate about whether Lean changes could lead to reductions in staffing numbers, saying the first priority is to identify “broken processes” in how the agency does its work.
He said that EPA's implementation of a Lean management system would probably consider staffing in the future, but called such speculation premature as the agency is just beginning efforts to assess each regions' processes.
Lab Closure
Later in the hearing, Pruitt seemed to walk back EPA's February announcement that it will close a Las Vegas, laboratory complex operated by the Office of Research and Development.
Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) questioned Pruitt on the agency's plan to close the Office of Research and Development's National Exposure Research Laboratory in Las Vegas, which came with a warning to staff there that they would be forced to either relocate or lose their jobs.
Kilmer said that closure is not following the mandates Congress set out in the FY18 spending bill. “The omnibus contained very clear instruction which requires agencies funded by this act to submit reorganization proposals for committee review prior to implementation,” including “closures, consolidations or relocations, office facilities and laboratories presented in the budget justifications,” he said.
Pruitt answered that the closure order came from the Obama administration and is under review.
“[S]ome of the recommendations that have been made, if not all, actually occurred in the Obama administration. So I am reconsidering those lab closures at this point, and may not make any changes there at all. If there are changes, I will submit them to Congress, but at this point I am revisiting those decisions,” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pruitt-signals-potential-softening-push-major-epa-staff-reductions

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LCSA News

EPA Extends Comment Deadline for New TSCA Test Methods Plan

Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has extended the comment deadline on its draft plan promoting the use of alternative toxicity testing methods at the request of an environmental group that is seeking additional time to consider an analysis conducted by an animal welfare group that shows a ten-fold increase in animal testing requests since the passage of chemical management reform law.
EPA announced April 25 that it is extending by 15 days -- until May 11 -- its initial April 26 deadline for comments on its draft “Strategic Plan to Promote the Development and Implementation of Alternative Test Methods.”
The plan, one in a lengthy list of responsibilities that Congress tasked the agency with in its 2016 reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), must be completed by June 2018.
But a draft version of the plan has split animal welfare and environmental groups over how quickly the agency should implement the new methods, creating a challenge for the agency.
At a public meeting in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, Joseph Manuppello with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) urged EPA toxics officials to quickly implement the plan and adopt non-animal test approaches, as required by TSCA, citing a review he conducted through mid-February that shows a tenfold increase in EPA's use of test orders that require animal testing since passage of the new law in 2016.
But environmentalists urged caution in adopting new methods before they were fully developed, arguing that EPA should continue using animal tests to protect human health because some non-animal methods may underestimate risks.
In the wake of the meeting, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed an April 18 request seeking a 30-day extension of the comment deadline because PETA's analysis was not made available in the public docket until April 23, when both documents were placed in EPA's docket.
EDF's Jennifer McPartland writes in the group's request to the agency that at the meeting, Nancy Beck, the Trump EPA's top appointee in the toxics office, “prominently highlighted an analysis that EPA had received from a stakeholder that she described as robust and extensive, and her description of the analysis suggested that it has or could significantly influence EPA’s consideration of the issues raised by the draft Strategic Plan. When asked if EPA would make this analysis available to the public, an EPA official stated that it would be made available. But the analysis has not yet been published to the docket.”
New language Congress added to TSCA in section 4(h) requires EPA to “reduce and replace, to the extent practicable, scientifically justified, and consistent with the policies of this title, the use of vertebrate animals in the testing of chemical substances or mixtures . . .” Section 4(h)(2), requires that EPA by June 2018 “develop a strategic plan to promote the development and implementation of alternative test methods and strategies to reduce, refine or replace vertebrate animal testing and provide information of equivalent or better scientific quality and relevance for assessing risks of injury to health or the environment of chemical substances or mixtures . . .”
But Manuppello argues that EPA has increased, not decreased, animal testing after the TSCA reform law took effect. He told EPA officials at the public meeting that “implementing the amended TSCA, which includes the historic goal of reducing and replacing animal [testing] use, has resulted in a roughly tenfold increase in animal use. . . . The immediate goal of the strategic plan must be to lower these numbers below pre- [reformed TSCA] implementation levels.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-extends-comment-deadline-new-tsca-test-methods-plan

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Chemical Management News

Teflon Chemical Bills Could Mean Liability for New Hampshire Firms

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Adrianne Appel

New Hampshire businesses that used toxic chemicals in the manufacturing of Teflon and firefighting foams could face enforcement action under a pair of bills headed to the governor's desk.
Gov. Chris Sununu (R)—a former environmental engineer—vowed to sign the bills, which would set new standards on how much of the chemicals can contaminate air and water.
The bills come after widespread contamination in Southern New Hampshire with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), and related compounds, which were linked to past releases by a plant now owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.
Under the legislation, if tests of wells or groundwater find PFOA at limits above those allowed, the companies believed responsible for emitting them historically will be responsible, which could implicate the previous owner of the Saint-Gobain plant.
“It is a priority of my administration to continue New Hampshire's long tradition of environmental conservationism,” Sununu said in an April 26 statement. “This bill goes a long way to ensure that our drinking water is safe, for us and the next generation.”
The chemicals, which persist in the environment, were used in the manufacturing of stain-resistant carpets, fast food wrappers, firefighting chemicals, and Teflon. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has linked them to birth defects, liver damage, thyroid malfunction, some cancers, and immune problems.
The manufacture and import of PFOA has been phased out in the United States, but existing stocks of the chemical may still be used, according to the EPA.
Drinking Water Contaminated
The private drinking water wells of more than 500 families in New Hampshire and 200 wells in nearby Vermont are contaminated with PFOA. The states traced the contamination to a former ChemFab Corp. plant in Bennington, Vt., now owned by Saint-Gobain..
Saint-Gobain declined to comment on the bills April 27, but spokeswoman Dina Pokedoff said the company advocates for “legislation based on sound science so that any municipality in this country working to solve water issues has access to replicable solutions that provide potable water to its residents.”
The company has been working with the state since 2016, when PFOA was discovered in drinking water wells. Saint-Gobain agreed to fund the extension of municipal water service to 748 homes in the towns of Merrimack, Litchfield, and Bedford by November 2019, Pokedoff said.
Air, Water Pollution Targeted
One bill (HB 1101), approved by the Senate April 26, calls for the Department of Environmental Services to set new standards for the amount of PFOA allowed in drinking water, groundwater, and surface water, by Jan. 1, 2019.
New Hampshire currently does not have its own standard for PFOA in drinking water. Like many other states, it uses guidance issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of 70 parts per trillion. That level, which is a recommendation, is unenforceable and has been criticized by health experts as not being adequately protective.
Neighboring Vermont recently set a standard of 20 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water.
The other bill (SB 309), approved by the House April 26, would direct the Department of Environmental Services to regulate chemicals, including PFOA, that are released into the air and have the potential to contaminate drinking water, groundwater, and surface water.
Companies that emit pollutants would need to obtain permits from the state. Fees from the permits would support the new regulations called for in the bills.

The Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire, the state's chamber of commerce, has expressed concerns in the past about the impact of the new limits on companies in the state. The group could not be reached for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132918104&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132918104&jd=132918104

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Unknown Chemicals Found in North Carolina Drinking Water

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew M. Ballard

A number of man-made chemicals with unknown health effects have been found in the drinking water used by some 200,000 North Carolinians.
Testing results provided to state lawmakers said several untested chemicals have been found in “both raw and finished drinking waters” coming from the Cape Fear River in eastern North Carolina.
“The exact structure of these compounds is still being determined and requires obtaining standards of the pure materials, when available, to aid in identification,” scientists from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington said in a report.
Discharges of GenX and other per- and polyfluorinated (PFAS) compounds of concern into the Cape Fear River have led to a state and federal investigation and several lawsuits against Chemours Co. and its past parent company DuPont. Those substances are considered toxic and are used to make stain resistant coatings for carpets, rain gear, fast food wrappers, and frying pans.
Such contamination also has been found near the Chemours plant in Parkersburg, W.Va.
Adding Filters
Jim Flechtner, executive director of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provides the area drinking water, told Bloomberg Environment April 27 that the water utility is looking at ways to reduce exposure to the newly discovered contaminants.
“It is unacceptable that these contaminants, many of which don't have health information and can't be measured, are discharged to source waters such as the Cape Fear River,” Flechtner said.
The water utility is grateful that university scientists are researching the issue and is considering adding filters to its “advanced treatment process” to reduce exposure to the unknown contaminants, he said.
Emerging contaminants in sources of drinking water are a national issue and “the only answer to this problem is proper regulation and enforcement of discharges at the source,” Flechtner said.
Advisory Panel
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington's findings were presented to an April 26 meeting of the North Carolina House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality, which is tasked with recommending actions to the full Legislature when it reconvenes May 16.
Gov. Roy Cooper (D) also has convened a science advisory board which is studying the PFAS problem and making recommendations for action as well.
“Identifying a new chemical compound is only a first step toward understanding the complex properties and potential impacts the compound may have,” Bridget Munger, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, told Bloomberg Environment April 27.
“This is precisely the type of issue” the science advisory board was formed to consider, she said.
The advisory panel's next meeting is scheduled for April 30.

Chemours’ representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132918112&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132918112&jd=132918112

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Kourtney Kardashian’s Appeal For Cosmetics Safety Reaches 590 Million People

Apr 27, 2018 | Environmental Working Group

By Monica Amarelo

On Tuesday, Kourtney Kardashian joined EWG President Ken Cook on Capitol Hill to brief reporters and congressional staffers about EWG’s #BeautyMadeBetter campaign. The campaign seeks support for reforming the nation’s outdated cosmetics law, which has remained largely unchanged since 1938.
In just a few days, coverage of the event has reached more than 590 million people. Kardashian’s support of the Personal Care Products Safety Act was featured on Good Morning America, NBC’s TODAY show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, E! News, Glamour, Health, TMZ and in many other outlets.
Americans expect the personal care products they use each day are safe. Women use an average of 12 products a day. But it’s not just a women’s issue: Men use an average of six products a day. And the use of lotions, wipes and other products on children is increasing.
It’s long past time for Congress to pass a law that protects us and our children’s health. You can tell your senator to support the Personal Care Products Safety Act here.
Kardashian revealed that she first became aware of the potentially hazardous ingredients in personal care products when she had her first child, Mason.
“I would get so many baby gifts and a lot of skincare products for my kids,” Kardashian said during the briefing. “I would use the things that people sent me, assuming the baby products would be safe. And I remember learning from my mom friends that these were not healthy at all.”
The beauty ambassador found EWG and said she’s used our Healthy Living app to research product labels for years.
“Everybody should have the right to healthy products,” Kardashian continued. “So that’s why I wanted to come here and make it a bigger deal. It’s time for Congress to do its job.”
Under current law, cosmetics companies can put just about any ingredient in personal care products. There are few restrictions on the ingredients that can be added to these products or the amounts of potentially hazardous chemicals that can be used.
The Personal Care Products Safety Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to review the most controversial chemicals in personal care products – which are linked to serious public health threats – and determine if those ingredients are safe, safe at certain levels or unsafe. The bill also gives the FDA the ability to recall and stop production of products that pose health risks to consumers. Most importantly, it provides revenue from the $60 billion personal care products industry to pay for the FDA’s safety reviews and oversight.
Cosmetics companies large and small – including Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Revlon, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal and Unilever – support the legislation, as do many public health groups.
We hope this attention leads to a better understanding of the need to finally update our cosmetics law. American families have waited far too long for cosmetics safety reform that will ensure the products they slather on every day are safe.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/04/kourtney-kardashian-s-appeal-cosmetics-safety-reaches-590-million#.WubPJ_lubX4

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Cancer-Causing Textile Chemicals Subject to New EU Regulation

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Stephen Gardner

A regulatory committee of European Union country representatives has approved a restriction on 33 carcinogenic substances in textiles, but some clothing makers say they already are restricting those substances.
The regulation would affect companies in many sectors by setting limits on the presence of substances including cadmium, chromium IV compounds, formaldehyde, and a number of phthalates in products including clothing, footwear, furnishings, bed linen, carpets, and bags, whether manufactured in the EU or imported.
The committee approved the regulation April 26 as part of the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) framework.
Swedish clothing brand H&M is already in line with the provisional regulation, with chemical restrictions that “apply to all product types sold by any brand in H&M group,” company spokesman Inigo Saenz Maestre told Bloomberg Environment April 27.
Benetton Group has had since 2010 a list of substances it restricts in its products, and 30 of the 33 substances in the regulation are already included in the list “with limits stricter than those provided in the REACH proposal,” Benetton spokeswoman Valentina Zoppas told Bloomberg Environment.
The remaining three substances will be included in the next update of Benetton's list, she added.
Adidas, which like H&M and Benetton has a chemicals management program, was unable to provide a comment, Adidas spokeswoman Katja Schreiber told Bloomberg Environment.
The regulation restricting carcinogens in textiles is subject to a three-month period in which the European Parliament or the Council of the EU could raise objections. Once finalized, the regulation would apply after two years.

Long-term and sufficient exposures to phthalates used to soften plastics have been linked to a range of disorders, ranging from cancer to infertility.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=132918126&vname=dennotallissues&fn=132918126&jd=132918126

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EU Nanomaterial Suppliers Face New Safety Data Requirements

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Stephen Gardner

3M Europe NV, BASF SE, and other companies that supply nanomaterials in the European Union would have to provide more safety data to the European Chemicals Agency under a new EU regulation.
The provisional approval of the regulation “brings more clarity to companies” and “helps to create a more predictable regulatory environment for industry to innovate and use nanomaterials,” the European Chemical Industry Council said in an emailed statement April 27.
The regulation would tighten the requirements in the annexes of the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) framework so that companies would be obliged to provide more nano-specific information in their registration dossiers. Filing a REACH substance registration dossier with the European Chemicals Agency for substances above certain annual tonnages is a condition of access to the EU market.
Examples of substances that can appear in nanoforms are graphite—used in applications including batteries, solar cells, and as an additive—and titanium dioxide, which at nanoscale has uses in sunscreens and wood preservatives.
Although they had not yet been able to study the regulation's final text, 3M Europe, BASF, Cabot Corp. and other members of the Nanotechnology Industries Association were broadly happy with the move because the regulatory certainty that the provisions provide will support the use of nanomaterials in all sectors, David Carlander, the association's regulatory affairs director, told Bloomberg Environment April 27.
Representatives of 3M Europe and BASF did not respond to Bloomberg Environment's request for comment April 27.
Gap in Knowledge
A gap exists in current knowledge about what nanomaterials are on the EU market and what their toxicity might be, and the change to the REACH regulation would aim to close that gap, Anthony Bochon, a partner at Everest Attorneys in Brussels, told Bloomberg BNA April 27.
A regulatory committee of EU country representatives approved the regulation April 26. Following their approval, the European Parliament and EU governments represented in the Council of the EU have a three- month period in which they could veto the regulation, but this is not expected, an EU official who asked not to be named, citing organizational policy, told Bloomberg Environment April 27.
The requirement to provide more information on nanomaterials under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006) would apply from Jan. 1, 2020.
Risks From Substances
Under REACH, the nanoforms of substances are treated the same as the same substances at normal scale. The EU defines a nanomaterial as a natural or manufactured substance containing particles for which “one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1 nanometer to 100 nanometers.” A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
But REACH registration dossiers should contain sufficient information to manage the risks of substances, including risks specific to the nanoforms of substances. Concern that this information was lacking for nanomaterials led the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to propose a tightening of the data requirements for nanomaterials.
The gathering of more nano-specific data could ultimately lead to situations in which the nanoform of a chemical is identified as a substance of very high concern under REACH—a designation that could trigger an eventual prohibition—while the standard form of the same substance is not, Bochon said.

The regulation would help companies and regulators “know more about the characteristics of nanomaterials, how they are used, how they are handled safely, what risks they potentially pose to health and the environment and how these risks are controlled,” the European Chemicals Agency said in an April 26 statement.
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Energy News

Frackers Preach Patience to Investors

Apr 28, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By David Wethe

The world’s biggest oilfield service companies have a message for investors: There’s a payoff for patience.
While first-quarter earnings were less than exciting, Schlumberger Ltd., the largest service provider, said it plans to profitably add about 1 million horsepower worth of rock-crushing pumps this year into North American shale. Halliburton Co., the fracking king, said it sees a return to the 20 percent profit margins last seen before the downturn.
Their optimism comes as oil prices drive toward $70 a barrel in New York, a strong psychological signal of recovery, while Saudi Arabia has said it sees $80 oil in the foreseeable future. Prices at that level could loosen the leash on what explorers will pay service providers to open their wells moving forward.
"I’m excited about the outlook for North America and our March exit margins clearly demonstrate our path to normalized margins," said Jeff Miller, the Halliburton chief executive officer, on a conference call Monday after earnings were released.
Despite U.S. drilling and fracking activity hovering at three-year highs, the industry’s top oil-patch contractors have battled a lack of investor enthusiasm. While the price of West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, has gained 7.5 percent, the Philadelphia Oil Services Index, which tracks the stock market performance of the industry, is up only 3.5 percent.
Concerns about more prudent spending plans by services industry’s oil company customers is helping to keep investors on the sidelines.
Beating estimates
On Monday, Halliburton, which generates most of its sales in the U.S. and Canada, reported a first-quarter profit excluding certain items of 41 cents a share, beating analyst estimates by a penny. The shiny win, though, wasn’t enough to catch the attention of outside investors. The shares gained only 0.17 percent for the day.
"North America is the place to be," said J. David Anderson, an analyst at Barclays, in a phone interview. But "was this enough to get the incremental owner of the stock in here? Probably not."
Schlumberger, which generates most of its business outside the U.S. and Canada, reported a first quarter profit of 38 cents a share, excluding one-time items. It also was a penny better than estimates, but its U.S. shares fell by 1.5 percent for the day.
Baker Hughes, the No. 3 oil services provider by market capitalization, reported a first-quarter profit, excluding certain items, of 9 cents a share, 3 cents better than analyst expectations. The company is expected to boost profits another 60 percent in the second quarter as it continues to integrate with the oil & gas business of General Electric Co.
Year of the fracker
Oilfield services companies are benefiting from the increased role of one of their key services, hydraulic fracturing, in oil and gas production. Fracking, powered by fleets of semi-trucks, is projected to exceed levels reached in 2014 - the height of the so-called shale revolution - as operations use more sand, water and pumping horsepower than ever. The U.S. record for pressure pumping intensity, set in 2014 was about 18 million horsepower. Analysts project it could hit a record 19 million horsepower by the end of the year.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Frackers-preach-patience-to-investors-12868850.php

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Offshore Drillers Get Some, Not All, They Sought in Trump Reform

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Jennifer A. Dlouhy

The Trump administration is moving to relax some offshore drilling requirements imposed in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster but is rebuffing the oil industry's plea for bigger changes.
Proposed rule changes unveiled April 27 include easing mandates for real-time monitoring of offshore operations and some other measures safety advocates and environmentalists said were necessary to prevent a repeat of the disastrous 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill.
However, the administration rejected an array of bigger changes sought by oil companies, including their appeal to undo a strict specification for how much pressure must be maintained inside wells to keep them in check.
“People were concerned we'd take a sledgehammer to it,” said Scott Angelle, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is proposing the changes. “Absolutely not. This is very delicate scalpel to the process.“
President Donald Trump ordered the changes in an executive order last year, telling regulators to rescind or revise rules “that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.“
The underlying requirements were developed over six years and finalized by the Obama administration in April 2016 in response to recommendations from investigators who probed BP Plc's Macondo well failure. The disaster, caused when flammable gas surged out of the well and ignited on board Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and sent oil spewing into the water for months.
“The changes we made in the rule do not contradict a single one of those recommendations,” Angelle said in an interview, citing a bureau analysis of 424 specific post-spill instructions from more than a dozen task forces and panels that investigated the disaster. The new proposal also would not affect other post-spill reforms, including requirements for oil companies to more holistically assess risks and drilling standards imposed months after the 2010 disaster.
Some Obama Provisions Remain
Major provisions of the Obama-era well control rule are being left untouched, including requirements designed to boost the reliability of blowout preventers, the hulking devices made famous in the BP spill because the one sitting on top of the Macondo well failed to stop the lethal surge of oil and explosive gas. The heart of blowout preventers are their sealing and shearing blades, which can be activated in emergencies to sever drill pipe in a well and close it off, keeping rushing oil and gas locked within.
Under the new proposal, companies would still be required to conduct more frequent testing of subsea blowout preventers, swiftly report when parts fail, and use a second set of shearing rams to increase the likelihood of slashing through drill pipe and helping seal an open well hole. However the bureau is proposing to lift a requirement that third-party vendors who test blowout preventers and other equipment be certified by the agency.
The safety bureau also is proposing to spike a provision that forces offshore facilities to halt production whenever they are approached by lift boats that transport equipment to the sites.
And the agency is rewriting a mandate meant to ensure both regulators and oil companies can keep a close watch on distant, deep-water drilling operations by laying out specific requirements for streaming real-time data to facilities onshore. The text of the proposed rule was not made available for review, but a fact sheet summarizing it says the agency is aiming to revise some “prescriptive requirements” so companies have more flexibility in how they handle data without jeopardizing “the benefits of real-time monitoring.“
Oil industry trade groups, their congressional allies and companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., had lobbied for changes in the well control rule imposed under former President Barack Obama, generally asserting it was overly prescriptive, increased costs and in some cases could actually imperil safety.
The Interior Department said its proposal would save industry about $95 million annually.
The safety bureau is so far rebuffing one major industry appeal by refusing to rewrite a standard for an acceptable “drilling margin” specifying the precise balance between the drilling fluids that are pumped under the sea floor and the amount of pressure the underground formation can take before it cracks. Industry representatives had argued the standard was too rigid and that the government's waiver process didn't provide enough certainty for investment.

The bureau isn't completely ruling out changes to that drilling margin requirement. Instead, it is inviting oil companies and other stakeholders to answer questions about how the standard is working during a 60-day public comment period.
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Florida Lawmakers Rip Trump Plan to Ease Offshore Drilling Rule

Apr 27, 2018 | Politico Pro

By Ben Lefebvre

The Trump administration plan to roll back the Obama era offshore oil rig safety rules enacted in the wake of BP's massive 2010 oil spill drew sharp criticism on Friday from Florida lawmakers, who said the still-unreleased revisions would threaten the state's coast.
Interior’s announcement that it would ease the rules comes eight years after the Deepwater Horizon rig catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred after faulty undersea equipment failed to stop a blowout. That well spewed oil into the sea for months, resulting in one of the worst energy disasters in U.S. history.
Interior’s move drew near-instant criticism from Florida lawmakers, who are already on edge about the department’s shifting statements on whether it will propose offshore drilling in federal waters off the state’s coast.
“Lifting what the Interior Department calls burdensome regulations for oil companies is hardly worth the risk of destroying Florida’s economy and environment,” Republican Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan said in a press release.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who is facing a reelection challenge from the state’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott, also slammed the proposed rule revision.
“These rules were put in place to prevent another massive oil spill off our coasts,” Nelson said in a statement. “We can't allow this new administration to take us backwards in time and, once again, expose Florida’s beautiful beaches and tourism-based economy to such an unnecessary risk.”
Scott also joined the chorus, saying in a statement that "[as] the Florida Department of Environmental Protection clearly stated in January, we are firmly against these proposed changes.”
The Florida governor has gotten caught up in national offshore drilling politics. He met Ryan Zinke at the Tallahassee airport in January when the Interior secretary declared Florida “off the table” for oil drilling, though Interior subsequently said the state remains under consideration in its drilling plan review.
Interior Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Kate MacGregor told reporters the administration had gone over the rule’s 340 provisions “with a scalpel” to change or remove only the regulations that were deemed too burdensome for industry.
In all, Interior will change or remove about a fifth of the provisions in the 2016 rule, Interior officials told reporters.
Interior’s proposal would scrap the requirement that only government-approved third parties be allowed to verify the functionality of blowout preventers that can seal a well in the event of a pressure surge. Another revision would allow rig operators to test equipment less often, to prevent “wear and tear” on the equipment, MacGregor said.
Interior did not release the revision language publicly before its announcement, saying it would be published in the Federal Register next week to begin a 60-day public comment period. The changes would produce $940 million over 10 years, officials said.
The proposal would also eliminate “redundant and unnecessary” reporting and remove some real-time well monitoring requirements, among other changes, according to a copy of the proposed revisions acquired by The New York Times. An Interior spokesman said the document appeared to be authentic but warned the it may have been a draft version.
The document points to the administration revising the safety regulations in a bid to increase oil and gas production.
“This proposed rule would fortify the Administration’s position towards facilitating energy dominance leading to increased domestic oil and gas production, and reduce unnecessary burdens on stakeholders while maintaining or advancing the level of safety and environmental protection,” Interior says in the proposed revision.
Industry applauded the changes, with the National Ocean Industries Association saying it and other industry groups had sought the changes.
“Safety and drilling experts from NOIA and other industry groups recommended changes to the existing rule that are supported by the latest technology, improve clarity, add certainty, increase efficiency and enhance offshore safety,” NOIA President Randall Luthi said in a press release. “BSEE’s proposed revisions to the [rule] do not, in any way, constitute a rollback in offshore safety."
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/04/florida-lawmakers-rip-trump-plan-to-ease-offshore-drilling-rule-507488

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DTE Gets Michigan Approval for 1,100-Megawatt Natural Gas Plant

Apr 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Alex Ebert

DTE Energy Co. got the green light April 27 from Michigan's utility regulator to build a new 1,100-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant to replace three coal-fired plants.
The Michigan Public Service Commission ruled DTE could recoup up to $951.8 million from its 2.2 million customers. The plant will be built by 2022 in the Belle River Power Plant in East China Township, northeast of Detroit.
The ruling came after environmentalists spent a year challenging DTE's application, arguing that Michigan's largest utility should invest more in renewable solar and wind energy.
The company anticipates it will have a capacity shortfall of about 1,250 megawatts when it closes coal-burning plants in River Rouge, St. Clair, and Trenton, Mich., and says it needs to have the reliability of natural gas to keep prices affordable for customers.
“This plant has the best combination of operational, reliability, and economic attributes to fill this need for power and will help position Michigan for a successful transition to a cleaner energy future,” Michigan Public Service Commission Chairman Sally Talberg said in an April 27 statement.
DTE's two largest goals with the plant were reliability and affordability, Trevor Lauer, president and chief operating officer of DTE Electric, told Bloomberg Environment April 27. He said that while DTE fully supports renewable energy and has committed to reducing its carbon emission by 80 percent, the gas-fired plant was the best option.
“In Michigan we are blessed with a great industrial and manufacturing economy that requires 24/7 energy,” he said. “The wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't shine all the time, and we need to get our residential and business customers the energy they need when they need it.”
But Sam Gomberg, senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Midwest office, called the decision disappointing.
“Given the availability of lower-cost clean energy alternatives, this decision exposes Michigan ratepayers to unnecessarily high rates, a litany of risks associated with fossil fuel dependence and significant levels of pollution and carbon emissions,” Gomberg said in a statement.
Calls for More Renewables
DTE plans to retire the three coal plants by 2023, but wanted to replace the capacity mostly through the natural gas plant, supplemented by wind and solar installations, according to state filings.
Although company filings show the plant will greatly reduce air emissions compared to the coal plant it's replacing, activists say Michigan taxpayers should be paying for renewable energy replacements that don't emit planet-warming carbon dioxide and other pollutants instead.
“DTE didn't make its case that this capacity was needed or that this was the cheapest way to go,” Liesl Clark, president of Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, a group representing renewable energy companies, told Bloomberg Environment April 27. “These needs could have been met more cheaply by a more diverse set of resources, instead of plopping down one large investment.
Under DTE's initial plan, the company said its portfolio would decline from 67 percent coal-based to 48 percent coal-based by 2025. But the majority of that shift would be to natural gas-fired—up from 3 percent to 17 percent of its energy forecast—and energy from renewable sources would only grow by 3 percent up to 11 percent by 2025.
Swapping the three coal plants for the new gas plant will reduce carbon emissions by 66 percent, and sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides pollution, which are both harmful to human health, by more than 99 percent, the company said.
After DTE released its initial plan for its energy mix, the company announced it would double its renewable portfolio to 2,000 megawatts by 2022 in order to meet a state law that requires at least 15 percent renewables.
Potential for Second Gas Plant
Testimony filed by the Michigan Environmental Council, the Sierra Club, and the National Resources Defense Council said DTE used incorrect modeling data to support its natural gas application, including improperly overestimating the cost of renewable energies and amount of capacity DTE will need.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, the ultimate owner of Bloomberg Environment.
The importance of modeling won't be going away. DTE has plans to close other coal-burning facilities around 2030, raising the possibility that DTE will return to the commission in the coming years seeking to construct a second gas-fired plant.
The plant is required to improve its efficiency by 1 percent each year by state law, but modeling showed it can improve by as much as 2 percent annually. That could lead environmentalists to push for even more improvements in the future, James Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council, told Bloomberg Environment April 27.

“We're disappointed, but it appears the commission adopted some of our recommendations and realized that they're going to get a second bite at the apple when DTE files a second integrated resource plan in 2019,” Clift said. “I think that might be foreshadowing for what the commission will expect from DTE.”
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Chemical Security News

OSHA Fails to Protect Workers from Chemical Exposure

Apr 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Kathleen Rest and David Michaels

Nearly a half a century after Congress established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), one would think there would be a lot to celebrate this Saturday on Workers Memorial Day. It is a established to commemorate workers who have died of work-related injuries and diseases. But when it comes to worker protections, the United States has a long way to go, and we fear we are going backward. On average, 14 workers die every day from a fatal injury at work and this statistic does not reflect deaths from occupational diseases caused by chemical exposures.
OSHA is failing when it comes to protecting workers exposed to dangerous chemicals. Of the thousands of chemicals in the workplace, OSHA has set only about 30 exposure limits, in addition to the 470 it adopted from industry that date to the 1960s or earlier. Many of these limits are dangerously unprotective.
There are several reasons for OSHA’s lack of up-to-date, protective standards. It requires dozens of staff and millions of dollars to do the studies required to justify a new standard.

It gets worse. OSHA cannot set an exposure limit for a new chemical until it has proven it poses a significant risk. In effect, chemicals are presumed “safe” until proven otherwise. Many health experts refer to this as OSHA’s “body in the morgue” requirement.
The result: in the last 20 or so years, OSHA has issued new regulations for only three chemicals.
OSHA has reasonably protective standards for a few toxic substances, such as asbestos, benzene, and formaldehyde, but enforcement is challenging. Federal OSHA only has enough inspectors to inspect every workplace once — every 159 years!
During the previous presidential administration, OSHA made it clear that employers should not rely on the agency’s exposure limits because they are not safe. Major chemical companies know this and don’t follow OSHA standards in their own workplaces; they control exposures at lower levels. But small businesses and self-employed people who aren’t covered by OSHA likely don’t know any better. It isn’t surprising then that many workers get ill and even die from chemical exposures.
There was a moment of hope in 2016 when Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act and made it clear that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not only responsible for protecting the general public from dangerous chemical exposures, but also workers on the job.
EPA and OSHA protections are complimentary. EPA can issue standards based on animal evidence — it doesn’t need the dead bodies to prove its case. And unlike OSHA, EPA has a strict timeline to complete its assessments.
Some toxic chemicals manufacturers now are lobbying EPA to “defer” to OSHA, because they know the difficulty of getting regulations out of OSHA.
The Trump administration’s regulatory agenda is better characterized as a de-regulatory agenda. What it sees as cutting red tape is actually cutting important and hard-fought protections.
For example, the Labor Department delayed implementing strengthened standards for silica and beryllium, both years in the making. Both substances cause irreversible lung disease and are carcinogens.
The administration also stopped developing a rule to protect workers from exposure to 1-bromopropane, a dangerous neurotoxin that has been classified as reasonably likely to cause cancer in humans.
In addition, the Mine Safety and Health Administration is delaying rules to protect miners from diesel exhaust, despite studies showing exposure increases miners' lung cancer risks. The agency is also re-evaluating its standards protecting miners from black lung disease — at a time when the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported.
Nor is the administration eager to hear what research has to say. It has proposed cutting the NIOSH budget by whopping 40 percent. Never mind that Congress had the wisdom to establish an entity to focus specifically on workplace health and safety research.
As former OSHA and NIOSH officials, we care deeply about the nation’s workforce and are concerned that the current administration is taking us in the wrong direction. When more needs to be done to protect this precious resource, essential safeguards are being rolled back. Our loved ones, friends, and colleagues deserve better.
Kathleen Rest is the executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists and former acting director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
David Michaels is a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and the former assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/385222-osha-fails-to-protect-workers-from-chemical-exposure

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Is Your Commute Safe? NJ Transit Won't Share State of Bridges, some Older Than 100 Years

Apr 30, 2018 | NorthJersey.com

By Curtis Tate

Tens of thousands of NJ Transit commuters cross them on trains every day. But the statewide public transportation agency, which maintains hundreds of rail bridges, won't share any information with the public that would reveal whether they're safe or not.
That's in contrast with roadway bridges, which have publicly available information about their condition. Railroad bridges are typically among the nation's oldest infrastructure, many built more than a century ago.
In October, The Record and NorthJersey.com submitted an Open Public Records Act request to NJ Transit for the agency's most current rail bridge inspection reports. A month later, the agency refused to provide even redacted copies of the documents, citing security concerns.
"NJ Transit is in possession of documents containing information which, if disclosed, would jeopardize the safety and security of NJ Transit bridges," the denial letter said.
That denial of records took place under the administration of former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican. When The Record attempted again in February to obtain copies of NJ Transit bridge inspection reports, this time under Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, the answer was the same.
After The Record submitted a Denial of Records Complaint to the Government Records Council in March, the state Attorney General's Office produced a 50-page document defending the agency's decision and urging the council to uphold it. The name of Murphy's attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, a former Bergen County prosecutor, appears at the bottom of the April 11 document.
The records, the Attorney General's Office asserts, "contain sensitive technical and narrative information regarding the structural integrity of nearly six hundred bridges" maintained by the agency.
The document also claims NJ Transit had been advised by the federal Department of Homeland Security that "release of bridge inspection reports would result in the release of information that could be used to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in NJ Transit's bridges."
The example NJ Transit cites? The 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people and injured 145.
But the bridge's failure was unrelated to terrorism. The National Transportation Safety Board attributed the collapse to a construction flaw.
Barry LePatner, a New York attorney who wrote a book about deteriorating highway bridges called "Too Big to Fall," said that if the condition of public road infrastructure is available to the public, the condition of public rail bridges should be, too.
"It’s no different just because there’s a train running over it," LePatner said. "Nobody should put a different label on something the public uses."
LePatner said he has received little pushback for his efforts to create a public inventory of 8,000 of the country's worst highway bridges. He's published the locations and details about them on a website. He called the security argument "ludicrous."
"You want to argue that this would give opportunities to do damage on a structurally weak bridge? That information is all over the public domain," he said. "Everybody can use it."Phil Murphy campaign pledge
In 2016, then-candidate Murphy pledged a more open government, specifically citing the obfuscation of NJ Transit's finances under the Christie administration.
"It is unacceptable that NJ Transit would use questionable tactics to decrease transparency and increase bureaucratic opaqueness," Murphy said in a November 2016 press release.
Last December, after he won, Murphy called NJ Transit a "national disgrace" and vowed to rebuild the agency, which had struggled to recruit and retain qualified personnel, experienced serious safety lapses and become a patronage haven for allies of Christie.
In January, Murphy did fulfill his campaign promise to conduct a full, independent audit of the agency's finances, personnel practices and safety compliance. The results of the audit are expected to be made public in the next several weeks.
However, the Murphy administration's stance on NJ Transit bridge inspection reports echoes the position of his predecessor.
NJ Transit referred questions about The Record's denied OPRA request to the Attorney General's Office. The office declined to comment.
NJ Transit bus commuters can know the condition of the highway bridges they cross every day. The Federal Highway Administration maintains an extensive database of the condition of bridges across the country.
The Federal Railroad Administration, though, collects no such data. The agency leaves it up to individual railroads, including NJ Transit, to perform bridge inspections and record their condition.Security cited
For the most part, railroads are unwilling to share detailed information about the condition of their bridges with the public, even when those bridges cross public highways, public spaces and vital waterways.
They cite security as a rationale for not sharing information about their bridges.
It's similar to the argument freight railroads have invoked to conceal data about large shipments of flammable liquids by rail.
Several high-profile oil train derailments in the past decade intensified calls for railroads to be more transparent with state and local officials about just how much hazardous material was moving through communities along the track.
Much like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the oil-train derailments were caused by safety lapses, not terrorism. But that didn't stop railroads from asserting that release of information about them would aid those seeking to do harm to rail infrastructure.
Some states, like New Jersey and Delaware, sided with the railroads. Others, like New York, did not and released the information when news organizations requested it.
Pennsylvania produced oil-train records after news organizations challenged the state's initial denial of their requests. Maryland did so after a judge dismissed two railroads' effort to block a state agency from releasing the data to news organizations.
Additionally, public agencies such as Amtrak and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority proved willing to provide the information Pennsylvania and Delaware were reluctant to release, and in some cases, even more detailed reports.Under review
The Record has asked the Government Records Council to conduct a detailed review of NJ Transit's bridge inspection reports, similar to what took place in Pennsylvania and Maryland with the oil train documents.
An attorney who advises The Record on OPRA matters said it could take as long as two years for the council to issue a decision.
The lack of transparency about the condition of NJ Transit's bridges has been a concern to Garfield resident Mike Denistran for months. The 72-year-old retired service mechanic for Siemens called NJ Transit in July to report the deteriorating condition of a railroad bridge adjacent to the NJ Transit station near his residence.
"They said they’re going to put a paint job on it, but that’s not going to do it," he said.
The 119-year-old bridge is on NJ Transit's Bergen County Line and crosses Passaic Street. The bridge's overhead clearance is only 11 feet, and it has been struck numerous times by over-height trucks. The street below floods frequently, and some of the bridge's support beams appear to have rusted through.
"There's a drainage problem there," Denistran said.
The abutments supporting either side of the bridge have stones that are loose or cracked.
The documents NJ Transit has refused to provide, including 73 pages of information about bridges on the Bergen County Line, would reveal more about the condition of the structure in Garfield.
Denistran said the agency has done little to address his concerns about the bridge.
"It’s been neglected for years," he said. "You’re putting a lot of people at risk."
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/watchdog/2018/04/30/nj-transit-wont-share-condition-its-nearly-600-bridges-some-more-than-100-years-old/551423002/

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Environment News

Trump Climate Plan Would Mean 'Lives Lost,' Democrats Say

Apr 27, 2018 | Washington Examiner

By John Siciliano

Senate Democrats slammed the Trump administration's proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan on Friday, saying it would harm public health while exacerbating the effects of global warming.
A group of Democrats led by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt opposing both the EPA's proposed repeal of the President Barack Obama-era climate plan and its ideas for replacing it. The letter was sent ahead of the midnight deadline to submit comments on the EPA's repeal of the climate plan.
"The power sector is well on its way to meeting the Clean Power Plan’s emission limits," the letter read. "Yet, instead of spending time and resources building on this success, EPA, under your leadership, is choosing to wage a war on climate science and proposing to repeal the Clean Power Plan."
The comments point out that carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector fell in 2017 by more than 27 percent from 2005 levels, according to federal data. Household electricity bills also decreased in the same period.
Repealing the Obama climate rules would create greater "uncertainty for the power industry," while placing U.S. "communities at further risk from the impacts of climate change," the Democrats continued. "Repealing the Clean Power Plan also means the EPA is walking away from its clear obligation to address climate change."
Sens. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Edward Markey, D-Mass., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.,, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., joined Carper on the letter.
Carper and the Democrats also consider Pruitt's idea to replace the rule with a narrowly defined regulation would be a farce, not improving emissions reduction and making the air worse for public health.
"Adding insult to injury, your agency is considering replacing the Clean Power Plan with regulations that will not reduce power-sector carbon emissions," the comments read. "Worse, they will likely increase electricity costs and the emissions of traditional air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide."
They cite recent studies by scientists at Harvard’s School of Public Health and other universities that show a narrowly focused Clean Power Plan that deals only with power plants, not state emissions and renewable energy, would drive up sulfur dioxide emissions by 3 percent "and result in premature lives lost."
"It would be a tragedy for the agency to shirk its legal obligation to act on climate change and exacerbate other environmental and health threats," the Democrats said. "That is why we request that you abandon plans to proceed."
Pruitt told House appropriators on Thursday that he "can only take the steps that Congress authorizes me to take.” He said the fault of the Obama administration was it tried to get around Congress and decide the climate strategy for the U.S. through regulation.
“I have actually introduced an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in the marketplace to solicit comment on our authority to regulate [greenhouse gas emissions],” he said, speaking of the Clean Power Plan replacement.
Pruitt will seek to craft a rule through a narrow interpretation of section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which governs existing power plant emissions. The Obama EPA used the section to regulate emissions on a state-by-state basis, instead of a plant-by-plant basis. Oklahoma and other states argued in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the interpretation of the law was an illegal overreach. It has not been settled by the courts.
Both the repeal of the Clean Power Plan and its replacement are not expected to be finalized until at least the end of the year.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/trump-climate-plan-would-mean-lives-lost-democrats-say

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EPA Urged To Revive Air Toxics Policy To Avoid Uneven State Regulation

Apr 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

Environmentalists, Democrats and some state officials are warning that EPA's decision to end a “once in, always in” (OIAI) policy subjecting facilities to strict air toxics limits even if they reduce emissions below regulated levels will lead to uneven state regulation of facilities' emissions that could lead to spikes in pollution in some states, especially those where EPA regulates air toxics.
In an April 25 letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, 87 House Democrats led by Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Don Beyer (D-VA), warn the agency's decision to end the policy will lead to dramatic increases in toxics air pollution and urge Pruitt to reinstate it.
“This is a matter of critical human health and safety. We ask you to reverse your decision to rescind the ‘once in, always in’ policy, in order to safeguard future generations from harmful air pollutants,” the lawmakers write.
Similarly, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is also touting the potential uneven adverse health impacts from the decision. An April 24 UCS analysis finds that the 21 states that rely on EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act for air toxics will be the most impacted, because they include, by reference, EPA air toxics rules in their state regulations. As a result, even if they wanted to create a state-level OIAI policy they could be precluded from doing so.
In addition to lobbying EPA to reinstate the OIAI policy, some Democratic states and environmental groups are also pursuing federal appeals court litigation over the decision to repeal it.
The long-running policy kept industrial facilities subject to air toxics regulation once they had initially been subject to maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards, even if they reduced and kept emissions below MACT levels. Industry organizations and Republicans argued that this was an unfair policy.
EPA air chief William Wehrum issued a memo in January to the agency's regional air directors that scrapped the policy, saying it would remove regulatory barriers on industry and states. The decision allows plants to escape MACT controls by reducing their toxic emissions to below thresholds for a “major source” that would trigger regulation. These are 10 tons per year (tpy) of one hazardous air pollutant (HAP), or 25 tpy of a combination of HAPs.
Democrats and environmentalists say that ending the OIAI policy risks a major increase in toxic air pollution, as lower-emitting facilities are likely to abandon their air toxics controls.
'Re-Litigate The Past'
The House Democrats in their letter note that during Wehrum's previous tenure as acting EPA air chief during President George W. Bush's administration, EPA in 2007 proposed a rule to end the policy, only to drop the plan in the face of opposition from Congress and EPA's own regional offices. “Thanks to the concerns raised during the open and transparent rulemaking process, EPA did not make the mistake of finalizing a proposal that would have jeopardized the health and welfare of the American public,” the lawmakers write.
“Now, the current EPA has decided to re-litigate the past, purporting to authorize through mere guidance the approach of the failed 2007 proposed rule, and granting immediate permission to industries to increase HAPs substantially,” they add.
But as the lawmakers themselves say, we so far have only a “snapshot” of what emissions increases might result, and where they would occur. Great uncertainty stems from the different handling of air toxics regulation in different states, and the attitude states may adopt to EPA's memo, which is for the time-being non-binding guidance.
State air regulators tell Inside EPA that it is still very unclear what approach states will take. Some, such as California, have already indicated their intention not to follow the guidance and instead decide to require facilities to always meet MACT emissions limits. California has filed suit in federal court over EPA's guidance memo, in a case similar to the environmentalists' litigation.
Other states may opt to follow the agency's decision in order to avoid conflicts with EPA, others may adopt it willingly, and others have never followed the OIAI policy because EPA established it in 1995 through guidance, not a federal rule.
“It is all over the place,” says one state source, saying it is unclear to what extent Wehrum's memo is “letting people off the compliance hook."
States “are all over the map” on this issue, the source says. One unifying factor, however, appears to be EPA's lack of notice for the move, and lack of supporting analysis on air quality effects. If states determine that air toxics emissions will rise significantly for them, this may weigh against support for industrial facilities seeking to lower compliance costs, the source says.
A spokeswoman for the California Air Resources Board, the state's air regulator, says, “The California Air Resources Board and the air districts have substantial toxic regulatory authority, and we will explore ways to use that authority to protect Californians (including our options to continue this long-standing policy). We also will closely follow U.S. EPA's process, and raise concerns as appropriate.”
UCS Analysis
UCS in its new analysis tries to estimate potential impacts across the country, concluding that the 21 states that rely on EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act air toxics program will be the most impacted.
“The enormity of this policy change is still unclear because the EPA has yet to explain the timeline or process for facilities to apply for reclassification and because air quality standards for hazardous air pollutants vary from state to state. The new policy would have the most impact in the 21 states that rely solely on federal enforcement,” UCS concludes in a statement announcing the report's release.
“There’s ambiguity about how this will work in practice,” UCS says, but predicts that low-income and minority communities living close to industrial polluters will be disproportionately impacted.
Toxic air pollution could increase by up to 25 percent at the extreme, UCS finds. “There are thousands of facilities currently using maximum achievable control technologies that could apply for reclassification under this change. If the EPA reclassified every eligible facility, the new policy could result in an additional 35,000 tons of toxic pollution per year -- a 25 percent increase over today’s levels.”
UCS analysis shows that the 21 states that are most impacted -- those that implement MACT rules “by reference” for non-major “area” sources -- are Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
Among the remaining states, some may have tougher state regulations than the federal standards, although some states also prohibit tougher state standards. UCS says the status of four states -- Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming -- is unclear, according to its research.
Earlier analyses by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) showed large potential increases in air toxic emissions from sources in the Midwest and also the Houston-Galveston area, cited by the House Democrats in their letter to Pruitt.
EIP's report, which looked at just 12 major air toxics source in the Midwest, found that toxics emissions from these sources could quadruple in the absence of MACT controls. EDF focused on 26 sources in Texas that could potentially be eligible to drop their MACT controls. “EPA's new loophole would allow a total increase of an astonishing 1.3 million pounds of HAPs from just these 26 industrial facilities,” the lawmakers write.
Environmentalists are wasting no time in litigating EPA's decision to drop once in, always in, with an initial statement of issues due from a broad environmental coalition April 27 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case, California Communities Against Toxics, et al. v. EPA, et al.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and CARB also filed suit in the same court April 9, in State of California, v. EPA, et al. “Instead of prioritizing the health of hardworking Americans, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wants to let major polluters off the hook," Becerra said in an April 10 press release. "That is unconscionable, and it is illegal.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-urged-revive-air-toxics-policy-avoid-uneven-state-regulation

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High-Stakes EPA Decision on Ozone Attainment Due Monday

Apr 27, 2018 | E&E News PM

By Sean Reilly

The mayor of Waukesha, Wis., has written EPA. So has the top executive for the surrounding county, the head of the local chamber of commerce and even Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).
Their common plea: Don't deem Waukesha County out of compliance for EPA's 2015 ground-level ozone standard.
The unspoken reason: A nonattainment designation could complicate plans by Foxconn Technology Group to build a huge manufacturing complex in neighboring Racine County, tucked in the state's southeastern corner on the shores of Lake Michigan.
While Wisconsin regulators want the federal government to list both counties as in attainment with the 70-parts-per-billion ozone threshold, EPA — citing air quality monitoring data — has recommended nonattainment.
Under a court-ordered deadline, EPA must make a final decision by Monday for those counties and several hundred others around the country. For those lumped into the nonattainment column, the listing will launch long-term cleanup requirements to meet the standard.
In all, EPA is recommending that all or part of about 220 counties be declared in nonattainment. In most cases, federal and state regulators agree on the possible listings, but the Wisconsin designations represent a conspicuous point of friction.
"EPA's intended designations threaten the well-being of the state's economy for little or no environmental benefit," Walker wrote in February comments urging that all of Wisconsin be declared in compliance. For Foxconn, a Taiwan-based company, a nonattainment decision could force it to install state-of-the-art pollution controls, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported earlier this year. Walker's comments, like those of the Waukesha-area officials, are contained in an online docket posted on the Regulations.gov website.
President Trump, who owes his surprise 2016 election victory in part to Wisconsin, has hailed the planned Foxconn complex, which is ultimately supposed to employ thousands of people in return for a $4 billion incentive package. The issue has forced the recusal of EPA Region 5 Administrator Cathy Stepp, who previously served as head of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and helped craft the state's recommendations (E&E News PM, March 29).
Ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is produced by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunlight. It's been linked to asthma attacks in children and aggravated breathing problems in people with emphysema and other chronic respiratory ailments.
The previous standard, set in 2008, had been 75 ppb. When EPA tightened it to 70 ppb three years ago, citing the need to protect the public in light of new research on ozone's health effects, it was only the fourth time since 1971 that federal regulators had revised the threshold.
For the bulk of the areas on EPA's recommended nonattainment list for the 2015 standard, there's little suspense surrounding Monday's outcome, given that they are still listed as out of compliance with the 2008 threshold.
But the politics surrounding implementation of the 2015 standard have so far been contentious on two levels.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA was supposed to have made the final designations by last October. But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who had sued to overturn the 70 ppb limit in his previous post as Oklahoma attorney general, last June sought to impose a blanket one-year delay on the grounds that more information was needed.
Pruitt backed down in August following lawsuits by Democratic-led states and public health and environmental groups, but still missed the October deadline.
While EPA officials last November declared about 85 percent of U.S. counties in attainment, they punted on decisions for every area unlikely to meet the standard.
Last month, in response to more legal challenges, a federal judge in California last month ordered EPA to make almost all of those remaining designations by this Monday. The exception is an eight-county area in and around San Antonio; the judge set a July 17 deadline for that designation (E&E News PM, March 12).
An added complication is that EPA only issued formal implementation guidance for the 2008 standard in 2015, leading businesses groups and some lawmakers to argue for a long-term delay in the compliance timetable for the 2015 benchmark.
Under H.R. 806, sponsored by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), EPA wouldn't have to make attainment designations for the 70 ppb benchmark until 2025. An extension of that scale, however, is unacceptable to most congressional Democrats. After clearing the House last July, Olson's bill has yet to advance in the Senate.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/04/27/stories/1060080357

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Environmental Concerns May Turn Voters Blue: Poll

Apr 30, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Concerns over environmental regulation and climate change could be an important voting issue and may sway some voters toward Democrats, according to a poll conducted by Change Research, a polling firm that serves left-leaning clients.
The poll released Friday found that 51 percent of voters disapprove of the Trump administration's environmental policies, with 48 percent saying the policies will affect their vote in the midterm elections this fall.
Released by environmental media group Our Daily Planet, the study also found that concerns surrounding pollution are on the rise. Fifty-nine percent of voters said they believe that water, air and open space protections are at more risk now than two years ago. Similarly, 54 percent believe that the U.S. is on the "wrong track" when it comes to planet protection for future generations.
Looking specifically at those who voted for Trump, 42 percent said they oppose Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to fire scientists who believe in climate change.
Voters look predominantly to the Democratic Party to lead on environmental issues, the poll also found. Those polled said they trusted Democrats more than Republicans to handle conservation issues by a 43-24 percent margin and pollution issues by a 44-22 percent margin.
“Our ‘Environmental Anxiety Index’ poll is a siren of green alert for President Trump and his Republican allies,” said Our Daily Planet publishers Monica Medina and Miro Korenha. “Voters are rejecting Trump’s rollback of environmental protections, denial of climate science, and reduced protection for public lands and wildlife.”
Over the years, other surveys have suggested that environmental issues do not bring voters to the polls.
The Pew Research Center found in 2016 that the environment ranked low on the list of top issues for voters. About 52 percent of voters listed the environment as "very important" to their vote, while 84 percent of voters listed the Economy the same way.
With the surge of scandals surrounding EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and a number of regulatory changes made at the agency, some groups and policymakers are hoping that the environment will become a top voting issue in 2018 and beyond.
The study polled more than 1,000 respondents online between April 16 and 18.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/385196-environmental-concerns-may-turn-voters-blue-poll

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