Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 5/7/2018
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Markup of Energy and Water Spending Bill
May 7, 2018 | House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
Location: 2362-B Rayburn / 5:30 PM -
Hearing on DOE Budget
May 7, 2018 | House Space, Science and Technology and Committee
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 9:00 AM -
Markup of Energy Legislation
May 9, 2018 | House Foreign Affairs Committee
Location: 2172 Rayburn / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Electric Transmission Infrastructure
May 10, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 10 AM -
Markup of Commerce, Justice and Science Spending Bill
May 9, 2018 | House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science
Location: 2362-B Rayburn / 5:00 PM -
Hearing on Commerce, Justice and Science Spending
May 10, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science
Location: 192 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Homeland Security Spending
May 8, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security
Location: 192 Dirksen / 2:30 PM -
Full Committee Hearing to Examine Puerto Rico's Electric Grid
May 7, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Lauds Draft Transparency Rule's Focus on Dose-Response
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is lauding EPA's recently proposed rule on science transparency, arguing it “gets it right” with its bid to move away from the agency's long-time strict, default linear dose-response approach, even as the group suggests the proposal... -
(ACC Mentioned) Top 50 U.S. Chemical Producers of 2017
May 7, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from C&EN’s latest ranking of the top 50 U.S. chemical producers is that times are good for the chemical industry. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Energy 202: Three Senior Scott Pruitt Aides Resigned from the EPA This Week
May 4, 2018 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Another day, another Scott Pruitt aide gone. -
(ACC Mentioned) Small Businesses Eliminate Single-Use Plastics & Gain Customer Respect
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Upheaval at Pruitt's EPA as Departures Mount
May 6, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to be in a state of massive upheaval following the departure of several aides and new allegations against the agency’s embattled administrator, Scott Pruitt. -
The Man Who Could Replace Scott Pruitt
May 4, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Eric Wolff
The man poised to take the reins at the Environmental Protection Agency if Scott Pruitt falls to scandal is a longtime Washington insider and coal lobbyist who would pursue the same anti-regulation agenda — only without all of Pruitt’s baggage. -
Ocean Plastic Pollution Is Hazardous Waste the Us Should Ban
May 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
Plastic garbage collecting in our oceans is hazardous to marine life and public health. In other words, it’s hazardous waste. So it’s time for the federal government to stop ignoring this growing threat, treat single-use plastic products as hazardous waste... -
(ACC Mentioned) Tech’s Pickup of New Data-Privacy Rules Reflects EU’s Growing Influence
May 7, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Daniel Michaels
Sonos Inc., the Santa Barbara, Calif., wireless speaker company, recently sent a notice to users world-wide that wasn’t about another software update. It covered the European Union’s new internet-privacy rule. -
Hawaii Could Ban Popular Sunscreens in Bid to Help Coral Reefs
May 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David McAfee
Bayer, the maker of Coppertone, joined medical and consumer organizations to protest Hawaii’s proposed ban on most sunscreen products, which is meant to help protect its coral reefs. -
Growing Citizen Coalition Pushing for National Cleanup Standard for PFAS
May 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A growing coalition of local citizen groups living in areas with perfluorinated chemical-contaminated water supplies is pushing for both state drinking water standards to address contamination as well as federal enforceable standards that would set protection levels for all chemicals... -
EPA Appears Unlikely to Quickly Set PFAS Standard, Despite DOD Calls
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
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TransCanada Plans Clearing Montana Land for Keystone in Fall
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
TransCanada Corp. will take the initial steps of clearing brush in Montana this fall for construction of the highly-contentious Keystone XL pipeline. -
EPA's Self-Reporting Plan Could Be Rolled out by Summer
May 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
An EPA plan that'll waive or reduce penalties for companies that self-report air emissions violations could be in place by June. -
Cuomo Proposes N.Y. Offshore Drilling Ban
May 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) floated a bill last week to stop oil drilling off the New York coast, and he dared the Trump administration to challenge it in court. -
More Time, Fewer Fines for Oil Companies That Fix Emissions Leaks (1)
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Oil and gas companies that acquire multiple new drilling sites would have more time to identify and fix leaking storage tanks under the EPA’s first attempt to update its self-auditing policy in a decade. -
Bakken Oil Keeps Flowing by Rail, Despite Pipeline Options
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Railroads still carry North Dakota crude oil to refineries on both coasts, though at reduced rates since the opening of the Dakota Access Pipeline almost a year ago. -
GOP Resolution Targets Carbon Tax — Again
May 7, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), a top ally of the oil and gas industry, has introduced a resolution to put Congress on record in opposition to a carbon tax. -
IG Will Probe Alleged Censoring of Draft NPS Climate Study
May 4, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Michael Doyle and Adam Aton
The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General will scrutinize alleged alterations to a pending National Park Service report related to climate change and rising sea levels. -
EPA Gives Environmentalists Rare Partial Win in Air Permit Challenge
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA has given environmentalists a rare partial win in their challenge to a Clean Air Act permit for a Gulf Coast oil refinery by finding some terms of the permit were too ambiguous or weak, despite agency Administrator Scott Pruitt setting a higher bar... -
Wehrum Aids Industry by Raising Bar for 'Aggregation' in NSR Air Permits
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA air chief William Wehrum is aiding industry groups in their bid to avoid strict Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permits by raising the bar for when emissions sources must be “aggregated,” or combined, and counted as a single source -
Industry Heated as EPA Stays Silent on Global Coolant Deal
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Appliance manufacturers and chemical makers have had enough of the Trump administration’s silence on a global deal to reduce climate-warming coolants, and they’ve got a message for the EPA: Speak up.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Markup of Energy and Water Spending Bill
May 7, 2018 | House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies
Mark Up Appropriations Bill, FY 2019
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May 7, 2018 | House Space, Science and Technology and Committee
Witness:The Honorable Rick Perry, Secretary, Department of Energy
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May 9, 2018 | House Foreign Affairs Committee
H.R. 5535, Energy Diplomacy Act of 2018H.R. 5535, To amend the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 regarding energy diplomacy and security within the Department of State, and for other purposes.
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Hearing on Electric Transmission Infrastructure
May 10, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
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Markup of Commerce, Justice and Science Spending Bill
May 9, 2018 | House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science
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Hearing on Commerce, Justice and Science Spending
May 10, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science
Member Statements
Senator Jerry Moran (Republican - Kansas)
Witnesses
The Honorable Wilbur Ross
Secretary
U.S. Department of Commerce
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Hearing on Homeland Security Spending
May 8, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security
Member Statements
Senator Shelley Moore Capito(Republican - West Virginia)
Witnesses
The Honorable Kirstjen Nielsen
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
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Full Committee Hearing to Examine Puerto Rico's Electric Grid
May 7, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
The purpose of this oversight hearing is to examine the current status of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and proposals for the future operation of the grid.
Opening Remarks
· Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Chairman
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
· Sen. Maria Cantwell
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Witness Panel 1
· The Honorable Bruce Walker
Assistant Secretary, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
U.S. Department of Energy
· Mr. Charles R. Alexander Jr.
Director, Contingency Operations and Homeland Security
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
· Mr. Christian Sobrino-Vega
President of the Government Development Bank and Chairman of the Board
of the Fiscal Agency & Financial Advisory Authority, Government of Puerto Rico
· Mr. Walter Higgins
Chief Executive Officer
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
· Mr. José H. Román Morales PE
Comisionado Asociado-Presidente Interino
Comisión de Energía de Puerto Rico
· Mr. Rodrigo Masses
President
Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Lauds Draft Transparency Rule's Focus on Dose-Response
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is lauding EPA's recently proposed rule on science transparency, arguing it “gets it right” with its bid to move away from the agency's long-time strict, default linear dose-response approach, even as the group suggests the proposal may not adequately protect trade secrets that its members submit for chemical approvals.
“We look forward to submitting comments to help the agency ensure the final rule increases transparency and public confidence in the agency’s regulations while protecting personal privacy, confidential business information, proprietary interest and intellectual property rights. That said, one thing we already know they got right is the rule’s focus on dose response data and models,” the trade association’s May 3 blog post says.
EPA's proposed rule, published in the April 30 Federal Register, generally requires EPA to rely only on research that is based on publicly available data, though it does provide the administrator with discretion to waive the requirement on a case-by-case basis. The proposal seeks to establish a "clear policy for the transparency of the scientific information used for significant regulations: specifically, the dose response data and models that underlie what we are calling 'pivotal regulatory science'."
The proposal targets EPA's long-time use of default linear dose-response models -- such as in its guidelines for assessing cancer risks -- which industry argues result in stricter rules than are needed. These approaches, not surprisingly, have long been protested by industry and regulated entities. ACC reiterates that critique in its blog.
“For far too long and far too often EPA has relied on default linear dose-response models that have frequently resulted in inflated risk estimates. These inflated risks create misperceptions and confusion about true risks and can lead to unwarranted and costly risk management decisions,” ACC argues.
“The good news is that EPA’s proposed rule calls on agency scientific staff and decision makers to give appropriate consideration to non-linear models or threshold models (i.e. dose models that show a level of exposure to a substance below which no harm is expected to occur). In other words, to use the best available science by presenting non-linear modeling approaches consistent with the available data and scientific understanding of endogenous exposures and mode of action, in lieu of, or at a minimum in addition to, the linear default.”
ACC takes issue with recent criticism from environmentalists of the proposal's focus, which Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund described as “a laser-guided missile because it goes right to the heart of the war industry has been waging against the risk assessment science used by EPA and called for by the nation's most prestigious scientific body, the National Academy of Sciences.”
But ACC argues that such claims are “Wrong. It’s simply a recognition by EPA that old default assumptions may not always represent the most up to date science. Notably, it is an approach a strong bi-partisan majority of Congress supported in the 2016 amendments to Section 26 of the Toxic Substances Control Act: When it comes to the science, EPA should 'show its work.'”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/acc-lauds-draft-transparency-rules-focus-dose-response-0
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(ACC Mentioned) Top 50 U.S. Chemical Producers of 2017
May 7, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from C&EN’s latest ranking of the top 50 U.S. chemical producers is that times are good for the chemical industry. Sales grew, and so did profits. Combined, the 50 firms generated $285.4 billion in chemical revenues in 2017, the year that forms the survey’s basis. The figure represents a 9.4% increase over the same firm’s performance in 2016 and marks a turnaround after three years of falling chemical sales.
Increased shipment volumes contributed little to the 2017 rise. According to the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that keeps track of U.S. chemical demand, shipments increased a mere 0.8% in 2017.
Energy and raw materials are a better explanation for the rise—and for the drop in the prior three years. Because of high production from shale deposits, oil prices fell from about $95 per barrel to less than $40 over the course of 2014 and 2015. With inputs cheaper, chemical prices likewise fell, dampening sales for 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Oil prices bottomed out in 2016 and have climbed since then, lifting chemical prices, and thus sales, for 2017.
Profits from chemical sales increased in 2017, but only by a bit. The 45 firms out of the 50 on the list that report them posted a combined $34.3 billion in profits on chemical sales, a 3.0% increase from their 2016 profits.
Still, the future looks bright for the U.S. industry. Combined market capitalization for the 35 public firms in the ranking ended 2017 at $475.2 billion, an increase of 25.7% from their mark of the year before. This is a sign that investors expect chemical companies to make more money down the road.
A couple of indicators suggest that sales will grow this year. The American Chemistry Council predicts chemical volumes will increase by a healthy 3.7% in 2018. And the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that oil prices will average $59 in 2018, an increase from $51 in 2017.
Meet the new boss
Dow Chemical’s merger with DuPont closed at 11:59 PM on Aug. 31, 2017. The result was DowDuPont.
The new firm tops C&EN’s ranking with $62.5 billion in sales. The figure captures Dow’s results for the full year, plus the old DuPont’s from Sept. 1 onward. DuPont remains in this year’s listing, at a lofty number 3, for the $17.3 billion in sales it racked up during the first eight months of 2017.
Had the merger occurred at the beginning of 2017, DowDuPont would have had $79.5 billion in sales.
DowDuPont will be around for all of 2018. A full year of results from both the former Dow and DuPont businesses will no doubt expand its lead in the ranking.
Then the company will break up into three firms in 2019, all of which should make the ranking two years from now. Two will have familiar names. A materials science company with $44 billion in sales will have Dow in its title. The DuPont moniker will go to a firm consisting mostly of specialty materials businesses with $21 billion in sales. The name Corteva Agriscience will go to a $14 billion-per-year company formed from the agricultural businesses of Dow and DuPont.
Muted deal-making
C&EN’s top 50 rankings always bear the marks of merger and acquisition activity. But the Dow-DuPont merger aside, the effects this year weren’t as dramatic as they sometimes are.
Three companies left the ranking because of mergers, compared with five last year. Canadian petrochemical maker Nova Chemicals bought Louisiana-based ethylene producer Williams Partners, number 30 last year. Germany’s Lanxess bought U.S. polymer additive specialist Chemtura, which was number 33 in the 2017 ranking. And polyester maker Reichhold, ranked 42 last year, combined with Polynt to form a new firm based in Italy.
A few companies on the list reported big changes in results due to transactions. The most obvious example is DowDuPont, which is about 30% bigger than Dow alone was last year.
Huntsman Corp., number 8 in the survey this year, saw its sales decline by 15% because of the spin-off of its Venator titanium dioxide business, which is based in the U.K.
Westlake Chemical’s sales increased 58.4% because of its purchase of polyvinyl chloride producer Axiall. Innospec, number 38, saw a 47.9% sales increase, driven in part by its purchase of Huntsman’s European surfactants business.
Three companies joined the ranking this year. PQ, formerly privately held, had an initial public offering of stock and now discloses its financials. It debuts at number 36. Cambrex and Cabot Microelectronics, both fast-growing firms, make the list at numbers 49 and 50, respectively.
A few other firms are poised to disappear from the ranking soon. Bayer is close to completing its purchase of Monsanto. Linde and Praxair may consummate their merger later this year. And Japan’s Kuraray completed its purchase of Calgon Carbon earlier this year.
According to the management consulting firm PwC, 2017 was a mixed year for M&A. The company counted 909 chemical transactions globally during the year, a 6% increase from the year before. But because of a lack of megadeals worth several billion dollars or more, the overall value of deals dropped 66%, to $64 billion.
Craig Kocak, U.S. chemical deals leader for PwC, expects that to change. “A renewed interest in large international acquisitions is imminent,” he says.
Recharging chemistry
Thanks to emerging interest in electric vehicles and ongoing demand for battery-containing consumer products, lithium chemicals were a big moneymaker in 2017 for the companies lucky enough to be in the business.
Albemarle, the world’s largest producer of the battery raw material, earned profits of $518 million on $1.3 billion in sales in its lithium business. The nearly 40% margin is exceptional for the chemical industry.
FMC, the fourth-largest producer, wasn’t far behind. It posted a profit margin of 36.5% on $347.4 million in lithium chemical sales.
“During the last couple of years, a surge in demand in an under-supply environment has led prices to more than double,” says Vincent Ledoux-Pedailles, associate director for lithium and battery materials research at the consulting group IHS Markit.
Ledoux-Pedailles expects prices to remain high for another couple of years and growth in the industry to remain strong. He predicts that global lithium chemical demand, now about 220,000 metric tons per year, will triple by 2025.
“We continue to see favorable pricing trends,” Luke C. Kissam, Albemarle’s CEO, recently told stock analysts. Kissam said he expects lithium profits to increase by another 20% this year.
Seeking to capitalize on the trend, Albemarle is investing heavily. It is spending $1 billion to bring on 165,000 metric tons of lithium capacity by 2021. It will add another 100,000 metric tons thereafter.
FMC plans to spin off its lithium chemicals business so it can focus on agrochemicals. It purchased a chunk of DuPont’s agrochemicals business last year in a deal that helped Dow’s merger with DuPont clear regulatory hurdles.
DowDuPont is the stock market leader, too
A stock market value of $165.8 billion at the end of 2017 makes DowDuPont far and away the leader on the market capitalization board. The all-equity deal combined the shares of both firms to form DowDuPont.
Two other companies on the list saw their market valuations more than double, thanks to fortuitous business conditions. Chemours and Kronos Worldwide are both producers of the white pigment titanium dioxide, which is enjoying strong profitability.
Electronic chemicals suppliers Versum Materials and Cabot Microelectronics saw heady spikes in stock valuation of 35.1% and 52.5%, respectively. AdvanSix, formerly Honeywell’s nylon business, saw a 90.0% increase in its market capitalization in its first full year of trading on its own.
Only Ashland saw a large decline, of 34.9%. But the company isn’t performing badly. It simply spun off its Valvoline motor oil business, and its smaller overall size is reflected in the stock market value.
BASF: The biggest foreign firm
BASF is once again the largest foreign-headquartered chemical company in the U.S., with $18.0 billion in 2017 regional sales after solid 8.5% growth. The company should see additional growth this year now that it has started up an ammonia joint venture in Freeport, Texas, with the Norwegian fertilizer maker Yara.
A few companies joined C&EN’s tabulation of foreign company operations in the U.S. this year. Ineos, a regular on C&EN’s Global Top 50 chemical company ranking, debuts at number 5 after publishing an annual report with full financial figures, including regional results. SABIC, number 9, now reports regional sales figures and has been added to the list. Braskem, off last year because it posted its results late, rejoins at number 15.
https://cen.acs.org/business/finance/Top-50-US-chemical-producers/96/i19
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(ACC Mentioned) The Energy 202: Three Senior Scott Pruitt Aides Resigned from the EPA This Week
May 4, 2018 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Another day, another Scott Pruitt aide gone.
The Environmental Protection Agency's top communications official, Liz Bowman, is resigning from the agency, The Post reportedThursday.
“I leave extremely thankful for the opportunity to serve the Trump Administration and Administrator Pruitt,” Bowman wrote in a statement.
Her departure, to become communications director for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), follows the exit of two other top Pruitt aides this week as federal investigators continue to scrutinize the EPA chief's spending and management decisions.
Albert “Kell” Kelly, who was Pruitt’s banker in Oklahoma and was hired to revitalize the agency’s Superfund program cleaning up toxic sites nationwide, resigned Tuesday. So did Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, the head of Pruitt’s personal security team who has come under congressional scrutiny recently for unusual spending on Pruitt’s protective detail.
In her statement, Bowman also praised EPA career staff. “Being a member of the EPA team has allowed me to further my skills, learn from my mistakes, and make lifelong friendships. It has also provided me the opportunity to develop a new, and deep, respect for the public servants who serve the American people, day in and day out, to ensure that we all have access to clean air, land, and water.”
In her April 30 resignation letter obtained by The Washington Post, Bowman "first, and foremost," thanked EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson for his "commitment to furthering the Trump administrator's environmental agenda."
Under Bowman, the EPA’s media shop aggressively defended the EPA's work, at times in news releases calling out specific media outlets and reporters.
Yet Bowman sought to remove herself from the push to challenge coverage of allegations of ethical misconduct by Pruitt, said two EPA officials who requested anonymity to speak candidly. That task was left to spokesman Jahan Wilcox, who has vigorously defended Pruitt's actions.
The EPA’s media shop has seen a noted degree of turnover apart from Bowman, with Amy Graham and J.P. Freire leaving their roles as representatives for Pruitt’s EPA after less than a year on the job each.
“What Liz brought to the table at EPA was good judgment, good management, good organization,” Jackson said in a statement. “She has a great opportunity ahead of her at the Senate. She will work for a great member that has a great future in front of her.”
Before working at the EPA, Bowman directed communications at the American Chemistry Council, the lobbying arm of the chemicals industry. Her last day at the EPA will be May 11.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/05/04/the-energy-202-three-senior-scott-pruitt-aides-resigned-from-the-epa-this-week/5aeb7a3a30fb042db57972ea/?utm_term=.32092098ede2
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(ACC Mentioned) Small Businesses Eliminate Single-Use Plastics & Gain Customer Respect
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Not Everyone Will Support It If You Eliminate Single-Use PlasticsReducing waste in general and implementing a business-wide plan to eliminate single-use plastics seems as if would meet with universal acclaim and support, right? However, plastics-industry-supported groups like the American Progressive Bag Alliance and American Chemistry Council have spent millions of dollars rebranding plastic with programs focused on convincing consumers that reducing our dependence on plastic is unnecessary.
In 2016, California became the first state in the nation to ban single-use plastic bags when voters passed Proposition 67. In 2017, Michigan became the seventh state in the nation to ban single-use plastic bag bans. According to the Sierra Club, Michigan joined a clique of states with Republican-controlled legislatures that have moved swiftly to stop the spread of grassroots plastic bag fees/bans by communities concerned about the consequences of plastic pollution.
By making the commitment to eliminate single-use plastics, small businesses will be looking to ensure that all plastic packaging is fully reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025 and to begin the transition to a circular economy business approach. As zero-waste and environmentally conscious consumers grow in number each year, the demand for minimally packaged products will only grow with them.
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Upheaval at Pruitt's EPA as Departures Mount
May 6, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to be in a state of massive upheaval following the departure of several aides and new allegations against the agency’s embattled administrator, Scott Pruitt.
Four officials at the agency have stepped down in the past week, an exodus that has deprived Pruitt of some of his closest aides.
Meanwhile, several new controversies have exploded around Pruitt regarding his travel and his ties to lobbyists.
People with knowledge of the departures at EPA likened them to getting out of Dodge, either due to impending investigations or simply a desire to escape a tumultuous work environment. One source described the offices at EPA as “eerily quiet” this week.
The first resignation came Tuesday, when Albert Kelly, a close friend of Pruitt’s who was hired to lead the EPA’s Superfund program, announced his departure.
The week before Kelly's resignation, two Democratic House members had asked EPA’s inspector general to investigate Kelly’s qualifications and “unexplained red flags." Once someone leaves government employment, the inspector general's office cannot compel someone to comply with an investigation.
Lawmakers became interested in Kelly after it emerged in December that he had been banned for life from working in the banking sector. Reports also asserted that Kelly had helped get Pruitt financing for a mortgage and to buy a minor league baseball team.
Tuesday also brought the departure of Pruitt's head of security, Pasquale Perrotta, a career official who previously worked at the Secret Service. He said he was leaving the EPA because press coverage was taking a toll on his family.
Perrotta’s resignation came the day before he was to testify in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is looking into various incidents at the EPA.
Perrotta had been under the microscope for decisions he'd made as Pruitt's security chief as well as reports that he used his power to influence a number of EPA security contracts, including an April 2017 security sweep in the administrator's office completed by his business partner at an outside security group.
EPA’s Office of Inspector General announced in late April that they were investigating Pruitt’s “use of staff and expenditures for security measures.”
Kevin Chmielewski, a former EPA political aide turned whistleblower, alleged to lawmakers in early April that Perrotta retaliated against him at EPA when he had pushed back on Pruitt’s travel expenses.
Chmielewski told lawmakers that in February he returned from a work trip to Japan to find his office locked and credentials revoked. Perrotta later called him, he said, and demanded he also return his parking pass, saying he would personally go to Chmielewski’s home to forcibly retrieve it.
By the end of the week, members of Pruitt's communications team were also jumping ship.
On Thursday, Pruitt’s top public affairs official, Liz Bowman, announced she was leaving the agency to join Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) communications department on Capitol Hill.
She would not say how long the move had been planned, but said “it was time.”
The next day, the press office’s second in command, John Konkus, announced he was also leaving, this time to take a position at the Small Business Administration.
Konkus had previously been named in a report as the EPA staffer tasked with sifting through EPA grant awards to make sure they didn’t conflict with the Trump administration’s deregulatory goals.
Pruitt’s tenure has been marked by controversy, a storm of accusations that he denounced in congressional testimony as “fiction” concocted by his opponents.
Among other things, Pruitt has faced scrutiny for frequently traveling first class on business trips, for utilizing a round-the-clock security team even on personal trips and for renting a room from the wife of a then-lobbyist in Washington.
When lawmakers pressed him about those accusations and others in his late April testimony, Pruitt often shifted blame to top aides and denied knowledge of things that were done on his behalf — including significant raises given to two EPA aides who came to D.C. with Pruitt from Oklahoma, where he had been attorney general.
Since the testimony, the EPA has faced a new onslaught of negative headlines. Reports have broadly asserted that Pruitt and EPA political aides had planned multiple foreign trips for the administrator with help from lobbyists and consultants who had business interests abroad.
Amid the negative headlines and staff turnover, The Atlantic reported that Michael Abboud, a member of the EPA’s press team, had been shopping a negative story about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in an attempt to take the heat off Pruitt. A source with knowledge of the reported incident confirmed to The Hill that Abboud was pitching the negative story.
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox has called the report "categorically false."
Abboud previously worked at America Rising, a conservative opposition research group. He’s also related to Andy Abboud, senior vice president of government relations and community development for billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Adelson is a prominent Republican donor.
Adelson figured predominantly in helping Pruitt plan a scheduled February trip to Israel, the Washington Post reported late Thursday. The trip was canceled after controversy erupted over Pruitt’s use of first-class air travel.
Andy Abboud confirmed to the Post his own involvement in planning Pruitt’s Israel agenda.
A House Democratic aide said that it would be hard to tell just how lawmakers will respond to the latest events once they come back from recess Monday, but suggested the latest developments have cast a cloud over Pruitt’s testimony in late April. Specifically, the aide pointed out that Pruitt had testified that the agency did not retaliate against internal whistleblowers, despite Chmielewski alleging the contrary, and had said his real estate dealings with lobbyists weren't serious, despite new reports that he had once co-owned a home with one.
“If we were in the majority now, we'd be accusing him of perjury,” the aide said.
Timothy Cama contributed to this report.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/386281-upheaval-at-pruitts-epa-as-departures-mount
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The Man Who Could Replace Scott Pruitt
May 4, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Eric Wolff
The man poised to take the reins at the Environmental Protection Agency if Scott Pruitt falls to scandal is a longtime Washington insider and coal lobbyist who would pursue the same anti-regulation agenda — only without all of Pruitt’s baggage.
Andrew Wheeler, sworn in as EPA’s deputy administrator in late April after a six-month confirmation battle, has spent decades in what President Donald Trump calls "the swamp,” first as a top aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) at the Environment and Public Works Committee, then as an energy lobbyist for clients such as the politically active coal company Murray Energy.
In contrast to Pruitt, an Oklahoma conservative who has alienated even some fellow Trump-supporting Republicans , Wheeler is a smooth insider with a penchant for policy details and a reputation for working well with both friends and adversaries. But those who have dealt with him say he's on board with the broad deregulatory agenda that Pruitt and Trump are pursuing.
That presents a paradox for environmental groups, who would welcome Pruitt’s departure but fear his replacement would be a much more formidable opponent.
“Wheeler is much smarter, and will try to keep his efforts under the radar in implementing Trump’s destructive agenda,” said Jeremy Symons, vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund. “That should scare anyone who breathes.”
Symons noted that many of Pruitt's aggressive deregulatory efforts have run into trouble in federal courts.
"The problem with the Pruitt approach is it’s like a sugar high," said Jeff Navin, a Democratic lobbyist and former Energy Department staffer who has shared lobbying clients with Wheeler. "It feels really, really good for a moment, but if you’re not following rules and procedure, not laying down substance for decision you’re making, you're not going to last very long."
Another person who has worked with Wheeler said: "He’s like Mike Pence is to Trump. ... He’s behind the scenes. He’ll get a lot done and doesn’t need to be in the news."
Pruitt is hanging on so far, with Trump’s public backing, despite a welter of investigations into his first-class travels, expensive security arrangements and relations with industry lobbyists. But if Pruitt goes down, Wheeler would have the task of managing a 14,000-employee agency where much of the career staff, and even many Republican political appointees, have been demoralized by the cascade of scandals.
As the agency’s No. 2, Wheeler could immediately fill Pruitt's shoes as acting administrator, though Trump could insert someone above him in a temporary capacity. Although Trump would also have the option of nominating someone else as a permanent successor, Senate Republicans have questioned whether any nominee could win confirmation this year.
Besides his personal troubles, Pruitt arrived at EPA as one of its most determined adversaries, having filed a series of lawsuits in concert with industry groups to overturn the agency's Obama-era climate and environmental regulations. Pruitt's security team also blocked most agency employees from entering rooms and corridors near his third-floor offices.
Wheeler, in contrast, came to the agency steeped in its work. He spent four years working at EPA at the start of his career, before going on to work for Inhofe and the Senate environment committee. He helped create the federal ethanol mandate that remains a major source of friction for EPA, dividing Republicans in the Senate. He also represented coal magnate Bob Murray as a lobbyist through the battles over the Obama administration's climate regulations for power plants, and then later in trying to persuade the Energy Department to bail out financially ailing coal power plants.
Former Hill colleagues emphasize his ability to find common ground with political opponents, including former Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), and former liberal Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, both of whom have chaired the environment committee. Matt Dempsey, who worked for Wheeler under Inhofe, said Wheeler’s ability to find common cause was one factor in the Jeffords-Inhofe and Jeffords-Boxer relationships that led to passage of highway bills and other major legislation.
"A lot of that is due to Andrew," said Dempsey, now a managing director at FTI Consulting. "He has an ability to work across the aisle and get things done.”
That ability to work the Hill could be critical at EPA, where Pruitt's work on making changes to the ethanol program has divided oil-state and corn-state Senate Republicans. Those efforts have especially infuriated corn supporters led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who accused Pruitt this week of "screwing the family farmer."
Wheeler's former colleagues think he might be able to smooth those waters.
"He is someone who, generally on policy, though we might not always agree, is someone who will listen to the other side of the aisle on how we formulate policy,” a Democratic aide who has worked with Wheeler told POLITICO, noting that thattrait could be especially important if the House or Senate flips after the midterms. “Being a product of the Senate and of the Congress, it will be much easier for those who are here to interact with him."
Among other things, the Democratic aide said, Wheeler respects Congress’ role in the authorization and appropriations process and would be much more willing to appear at congressional hearings — unlike Pruitt, who has been scarce on the Hill.
The aide also said they think Wheeler's reputation as a “rule-driven” staffer would ensure stricter adherence to ethics standards at the agency.
Wheeler may also be better able to repair the fractured relationship between the political appointees at the top of the agency and career staff, who have felt left out or ignored by Pruitt on key issues. Wheeler has spent some of his first days back at the agency visiting the offices of career staff and making introductions, a marked change from his boss, according to an EPA official.
"The impression he creates is very personable, respectful, good listener," said another EPA employee. "He's very interested in being involved in the substantive issues. He’s ready to get involved in our issues."
Still, most of the people interviewed agreed that Wheeler would advance Trump's and Pruitt's agenda of undoing major Obama-era regulations, including the power plant climate rule and a sweeping measure on streams and wetlands.
“I think that Andrew is well aware of the president’s agenda, and the parts of the agenda that are the responsibility of the EPA,“ said Andy Ehrlich, now a partner at the lobbying and political consulting firm Total Spectrum, who recruited Wheeler from the Hill in 2009 to the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels and worked with him for years. “I would expect based on my experience with Andrew to do what he can to see that the president's s agenda at the EPA is fulfilled in a methodical and thoughtful way.“
Pruitt and Wheeler may have some small differences: The Democratic aide said Wheeler might offer more support to the agency's research, in contrast to Pruitt. But people who know Wheeler see him as a “true believer” in rolling back regulations who is comfortable in the weeds of policy.
That's the worry of environmental groups, which note the years Wheeler spent working with Inhofe, who calls human-caused global warming a "hoax," and Murray, a fierce opponent of EPA's climate regulations.
Wheeler's “entire professional career, most of it has been devoted to resisting attempts to improve the quality of our air and our water and the safety of our communities,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. “He fought against safeguards to limit mercury poisoning. He fought against protections to limit the amount of ozone in our skies. He fought against air pollution from neighboring states. He’s a climate denier. So sadly he fits in well with EPA leadership.”
Environmental groups also believe Wheeler has his own ethics baggage, citing reports that he held fundraisers for political patrons in the months ahead of his official nomination to EPA. Brune held out one bit of hope — that Wheeler would face the same obstacles as Pruitt in turning back EPA’s environmental protections.
“Any executive with EPA, administrator or deputy, will have a hard time trying to flout the findings of the scientific community and operate against the public will,” Brune said. "I don’t think Wheeler would be more effective at that than Pruitt has been.”
Emily Holden and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/05/the-man-who-could-replace-scott-pruitt-517176
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Ocean Plastic Pollution Is Hazardous Waste the Us Should Ban
May 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
Plastic garbage collecting in our oceans is hazardous to marine life and public health. In other words, it’s hazardous waste. So it’s time for the federal government to stop ignoring this growing threat, treat single-use plastic products as hazardous waste, and act boldly to block the flow of plastic into our oceans.
France banned most single-use plastic products with a law going into effect in 2020. The throwaway consumer culture in the United States is a far bigger contributor to ocean plastic pollution, which has become so pervasive that plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.
Our own government needs to take responsibility for the problem, enact a ban on single-use plastic products and begin encouraging our trading partners to take similar steps.
We need to start treating ocean plastic pollution as the dire threat that it is — one that will only get worse until we act.
Mounting scientific evidence shows just how pervasive and dangerous plastic pollution has become. It starts with the obvious, visible damage, like the Great Pacific Garbage Dump and other ocean gyres where currents collect plastic waste into vast, dense, disgusting floating landfills.
But the problem extends far beyond what we can see. Microplastics and small plastic bits — many of them attached to toxic pollution moleculesand other hazardous substances — are everywhere. Plastic waste now flows from our faucets, lines our beaches and pervades the seafood on our dinner plates.
Small pieces of plastic get mistaken for food and eaten by fish, sea turtles, birds and other wildlife. One study found that plastic waste affected at least 267 marine species, including 43 percent of marine mammal species and 86 percent of sea turtle species. Sea turtles, birds and marine mammals are choking on plastic trash or getting entangled in it.
Researchers just discovered that sea turtle nesting areas in Florida and the rest of the Gulf Coast are so inundated with small bits of plastic that it could be heating up those beaches and threatening sea turtles.
Another recent study found record levels of plastics frozen in Arctic sea ice, much of it the polyethylene commonly found in single-use packaging.
Small plastic bits infuse the seawater in every ocean, where they’re eaten by fish and travel throughout the food web. Large whales examined after they die are often filled with plastic. People who eat seafood can consumethousands of tiny bits of plastic annually.
Last year, testing found microplastics in 83 percent of tap water samples taken around the world. A more recent study found tiny pieces of plastic in 90 percent of bottled water, with some bottles containing as many as 10,000 pieces of plastic per liter.
The federal government finally cracked down on a particularly egregious source of ocean plastic pollution, phasing out the plastic microbeads in beauty products designed to wash down our drains and into the ocean.
But the flow of plastic waste created in the United States is poised to dramatically increase in coming years.
Texas is in the process of approving the world’s biggest plastic plant, a joint venture between Exxon and the Saudi Arabian government that’s slated to receive more than $1 billion in tax breaks. It’s one of over a dozen plastic plants proposed in Texas and Louisiana to turn fracked natural gas into ethylene, the basic building block of cheap plastic products.
Fossil fuel companies are planning to increase global plastic production by more than 40 percent in the coming decade.
So there’s an urgent need for Congress to ensure that plastic doesn’t keep flowing into our plastic-choked oceans. The Toxic Substances Control Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and other federal laws spell out the U.S. obligation to control and properly dispose of toxic chemicals and hazardous waste.
My organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, submitted a legal petition to the Environmental Protection Agency to classify certain plastics as hazardous waste to reduce the threat to the environment and human health. It is still pending before the agency.
Scientists have already recognized that plastic waste is hazardous — it’s time for the federal government to stop ignoring this problem and take action.
Earlier generations fought to phase out the pesticide DDT, asbestos insulation, PCBs, chlorofluorocarbons and other materials found to be harming the environment and human health. Today, plastic is one of the gravest pollutants threatening us. We must demand that our government ban single-use plastics and better protect our oceans.
Miyoko Sakashita is an attorney and director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/386463-ocean-plastic-pollution-is-hazardous-waste-the-us-should-ban
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(ACC Mentioned) Tech’s Pickup of New Data-Privacy Rules Reflects EU’s Growing Influence
May 7, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Daniel Michaels
Sonos Inc., the Santa Barbara, Calif., wireless speaker company, recently sent a notice to users world-wide that wasn’t about another software update. It covered the European Union’s new internet-privacy rule.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, takes effect later this month, and “because we believe all Sonos owners should have the right to these protections, we are implementing these updates globally,” the company said.
Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. also say they have updated their global privacy rules in anticipation of the new law.
GDPR is the latest sign of the EU’s growing power in global regulation. With increasing frequency, EU rules targeting industries within the bloc—from consumer products to financial services—have set international benchmarks. Some are taken piecemeal, as with GDPR, from which non-EU companies are cherry-picking elements. Other rules have become de facto world-wide references.
The EU’s Undertakings for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities, or UCITS V, which in 2016 updated a financial directive first adopted in 1985, “is clearly regarded as a global standard,” said Guy Monson, chief investment officer at asset manager Sarasin & Partners in London.
California’s electronic-waste recycling act of 2003, updated last year, specifically cites a broader EU law passed in 2002. Several other U.S. states, including New York, followed California’s example and cite EU law.
The EU’s 2006 Registration Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals law, or REACH, has spawned copycat chemical-safety legislation in China, South Korea, Turkey and other countries, though few are as sweeping as the EU law, industry officials say.
More than 120 countries have adopted privacy laws based on Europe’s over recent decades, according to Graham Greenleaf, a professor of law and information systems at Australia’s University of New South Wales.
Europe’s international influence stems from a confluence of factors, starting with its market size. Companies wanting access to the EU’s 500 million potential consumers—one of the world’s richest markets for products and services—must play by EU rules.
While some companies complain about EU regulations, in today’s globalized markets many also seek to standardize internationally, for scale economies or other reasons.
Sonos never considered implementing GDPR only for EU customers, said spokeswoman Laura Morarity. “Preparing for GDPR was, of course, a substantial time investment but a worthwhile one,” she said.
EU influence on regulation and business conduct far from its borders is so widespread that Columbia Law School Professor Anu Bradford in 2012 dubbed it the “Brussels Effect.” The term nods to the previously noted “California Effect,” in which the state’s strict laws in areas such as the environment and consumer protection lifted regulatory standards nationwide.
Prof. Bradford, who is now writing a book on the Brussels effect, said GDPR exemplifies “even stronger manifestations” of the phenomenon over recent years. She said Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google follow EU standards on expunging hate speech globally despite lack of obligation to do so.
Until the 1980s, the U.S. led the world on business regulation but has since been eclipsed by the EU, Prof. Bradford said. Over that time, the EU has standardized many rules across its 28 members, often making them stricter in the process.
European countries have long imposed extensive and often costly regulations on firms operating domestically, and critics see the same in EU rules. Many business leaders say Europe’s labor codes, consumer protection and environmental law put it at a competitive disadvantage against foreign rivals.
REACH, for example, shifts the burden of proof in Europe regarding chemicals’ safety from regulators to the industry and increases the volume of data that companies must provide watchdogs. REACH’s restrictions risk closing markets and impeding innovation, say officials at trade groups including the American Chemistry Council and the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union.
Not all EU rules resonate globally. The bloc’s emissions-trading system, set up in 2005, was envisioned as inspiring similar environmental programs in other countries, but few have copied it.
Enforcement of EU rules outside the bloc varies. American companies touting adherence to GDPR only face its potentially huge fines for business inside the EU.
For some businesses, tight EU regulation can prove appealing. Mark Bathgate, fund manager at BlueBay Asset Management in London, said the firm sees “overwhelming customer preference for well-regulated UCITS hedge funds” in Asia and Latin America, compared with other available fund types.
As GDPR shows, online businesses are particularly susceptible to the Brussels effect.
“There are a whole series of actors in the U.S. and Asia who will now be subject to the law,” said Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of France’s privacy regulator. “GDPR is an important signal that Europe has influence in this digital society.”
—Sam Schechner in Paris contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-pickup-of-new-data-privacy-rules-reflects-eus-growing-influence-1525685400?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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Hawaii Could Ban Popular Sunscreens in Bid to Help Coral Reefs
May 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David McAfee
Bayer, the maker of Coppertone, joined medical and consumer organizations to protest Hawaii’s proposed ban on most sunscreen products, which is meant to help protect its coral reefs.
While the state says chemicals from sunscreen that wash into the ocean can kill coral reefs, health advocates say the ban could harm skin cancer prevention efforts.
Hawaii would become the first state to ban over-the-counter sale of sunscreens that use the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, which lawmakers say have “significant harmful impacts on Hawaii’s marine environment and residing ecosystems.”
The ban would prohibit more than 3,500 sunscreen products that contain the chemicals, including some from Coppertone, Australian Gold, and Hawaiian Tropic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ban would not apply to prescription sunscreens.
Oxybenzone causes coral bleaching, which happens when coral lose or expel algae that normally lives inside them as a valuable source of nutrition, according to a 2015 University of Central Florida study.
And octinoxate “may cause long lasting harmful effects to aquatic life, " according to the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals.
Alternates, CostsIf the law changes and manufacturers want to avoid using these chemicals, they could possibly use older mineral sunscreens, such as those that use zinc oxide or titanium oxide as the main active ingredient. The producers of Banana Boat already make some sunscreen products that are free of oxybenzone and octinoxate.
“The costs associated with the sunscreen ban recently adopted by the Hawaii legislature will be significant, and they will be borne by residents, the healthcare system, tourism, and the state’s tax revenue,” Mike Tringale, a representative of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, told Bloomberg Environment.
The CHPA, which opposes the bill, says the state will lose retail and tax revenue with fewer sunscreen products available, and consumers will pay more.
“But most prominently, Hawaii will likely see increased costs to the healthcare system for treating and managing more adults and children with skin damage including skin cancer and melanoma,” Tringale said.
‘At Odds’ With Cancer PreventionBayer, which owns Coppertone, said it will be in compliance if the bill is signed into law. But the company added that the bill could also be “at odds with skin cancer prevention efforts.”
“What has been scientifically proven is that exposure to [ultraviolet] radiation from the sun causes skin cancer,” Carolyn Nagle, a spokeswoman for Bayer, told Bloomberg Environment in a May 3 email.
Both chemicals are used in sunscreens to help block or filter harmful rays.
While Gov. David Ige (D) hasn’t indicated whether he will sign Senate Bill 2571, a representative from his office confirmed it is undergoing “policy and legal review.” A source familiar with the matter said the bill fits within Ige’s policy platform, which means he is likely to sign if it passes the review.
If signed, the bill would go into effect Jan. 1, 2021.
A Ban Reduces Selection, ProtectionThe Hawaii Medical Association has also opposed the legislation, further highlighting concerns related to increased skin cancer risks.
“The concern of the Hawaii Medical Association is that a consumer accepted alternative to current sunscreens is developed before a ban goes into effect so as not to negate decades of public education and policy on the dangers of unprotected sun exposure and its link to skin cancers,” Christopher D. Flanders, executive director of the association, told Bloomberg Environment in a May 3 email.
Banning oxybenzone and octinoxate will drastically reduce the selection of safety and effective sunscreen products available to Hawaii residents and visitors, the consumer products association said in a May 1 statement.
Oxybenzone causes coral bleaching, which happens when coral lose or expel algae that normally lives inside them as a valuable source of nutrition, according to a 2015 University of Central Florida study.
The Personal Care Products Council, a trade association representing the global cosmetic and personal care products industry, also opposes the bill.
Coral reef degradation is “an important environmental issue,” but other factors should be considered, too, according to the group.
“While we agree that coral health is of great importance, of similar great concern is the prevalence of skin cancer diagnoses and deaths,” Alexandra Kowcz, chief scientist for the council, wrote in a May 2 statement.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/hawaii-could-ban-popular-sunscreens-in-bid-to-help-coral-reefs
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Growing Citizen Coalition Pushing for National Cleanup Standard for PFAS
May 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A growing coalition of local citizen groups living in areas with perfluorinated chemical-contaminated water supplies is pushing for both state drinking water standards to address contamination as well as federal enforceable standards that would set protection levels for all chemicals in the class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Formed in 2017, the National PFAS Contamination Coalition now includes 35 community leaders across 13 states.
The group has already notched some legislative successes, including advocating for legislation enacted as part of the defense authorization bill requiring a federal health study on the “human health implications of PFAS in drinking water, ground water, and any other sources of water and relevant exposure vectors,” according to the group's website.
But the coalition is also looking ahead, with a key goal of pressing policymakers to adopt an all-encompassing standard that looks beyond those chemicals in the class that are currently being targeted -- such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) -- to the next generation of PFAS chemicals.
While the coalition is still formulating specifics about how such a standard could be set, a facilitator for the coalition says regulators cannot look to regulating the substances chemical-by-chemical, but rather should address the entire class of PFAS chemicals.
The source explains that companies are adopting next generation PFAS chemicals, beyond the two for which EPA has adopted voluntary health advisories, and many of these newer chemicals have not been tested, although the source adds some testing so far has found greater toxicity among them.
In a recent article, Joe Kiger, with Keep Your Promises DuPont, a group based in the Ohio Valley, called for the creation of “a national campaign to demand answers about PFOA replacement chemicals to ensure that history is not allowed to repeat itself.” The article, by the New England-based Toxics Action Center, is posted on the center's website. The center is facilitating the coalition's work.
In the same article, Dr. Laurel Schaider, with the Silent Spring Institute, noted the lack of scientific study around many of the chemical class. “We also know that there are over 3,000 PFAS chemicals on the global market, and most have never been tested for their impact on human health,” she said.
The coalition facilitator says it has not yet determined if the group will pursue legislation to force such a standard or place more pressure on EPA to develop the standard.
The group grew out of a June 2017 national forum held at Northeastern University on the “social scientific, political, economic and environmental health issues raised by PFAS,” according to the Toxics Action Center's website.
The coalition holds monthly webinars among members and hosts monthly seminars with experts in the field, according to the facilitator.
The network of groups aims to improve support for local organizing for clean water and health protection by sharing information and connecting to experts, and to build a larger movement to nationally change these issues and take on “big polluters,” the coalition's website says.
EPA Standards
Concerns about PFAS have been growing for years. A panel composed of scientists chosen by both citizens and PFAS-manufacturer DuPont conducted exposure and health studies in the mid-Ohio valley, finding a “probable link” between exposure to C8 -- another term for PFOA -- and various adverse health effects, including testicular and kidney cancers, ulcerative colitis and thyroid disease.
More recenlty, findings released in April by the Environmental Working Group showed the number of known sites contaminated with PFAS grew, jumping from 52 sites identified several months ago to 94 industrial and military sites now.
But regulators have done little to address the substances. While EPA in 2016 set health advisory levels for PFOA and PFOS at 70 parts per trillion, the agency stopped short of setting an enforceable drinking water standard and provided limited guidance to states and public water systems on how to use the advisory levels. Lawmakers and others have been pressing EPA to do more, specifically to set drinking water standards for the chemicals, which can also be used as cleanup levels.
Despite growing interest in a federal, enforceable standard among citizen groups, lawmakers, environmentalists and states, EPA does not appear likely to quickly develop such a standard, saying only in recent slides that the agency has until January 2021 to decide whether to regulate any of six PFAS chemicals previously surveyed in water systems.
While Peter Grevatt, an EPA water official, signaled recently that the agency is weighing the possibility of issuing an enforceable drinking water standard, known as a maximum contaminant level (MCL), he cautioned it is a lengthy process.
But the coalition is working to change that. One of its five planks calls for national “enforceable drinking water standards that are science-based for infants, children, and vulnerable populations, and for combined total of all PFAS,” according to its website.
The group also has worked to get states to set standards, with an eye toward influencing the setting of a national standard, the source says. For instance, Vermont in 2016 set an enforceable groundwater standard of 20 parts per trillion (ppt) for the two most commonly found PFAS: PFOA and PFOS.
Among the coalition's four other planks are to pursue medical monitoring in early detection and identification of PFAS-related health problems by offering specific guidance to health care providers and funding to give residents access to health information, and to advocate for a comprehensive health study done on a national level to look at health impacts from PFAS among various cohorts.
A source with a citizens group at the former Pease Air Force Base, NH, says multiple community groups have pushed hard for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) to develop more specific guidelines for physicians regarding medical monitoring. This source says both states and doctors take varied responses.
Third, the coalition calls for backing state-level changes to lower drinking water standards as well as air and soil regulations to prevent contamination, and supports the “polluters pay” concept, saying polluting parties “must be held accountable financially for contamination."
EPA Summit
While EPA plans to develop a “PFAS Management Plan” based on community engagement and a national summit, the agency recently shut the door on allowing community groups from the coalition to attend the upcoming “National Leadership Summit” on PFAS. Several community groups within the coalition sought to participate in the forum, scheduled for May 22-23 in Washington, DC, but were told no by EPA, the coalition source says.
According to slides Grevatt presented on an Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council conference call April 24, the summit included invitations to governors, other federal agencies, tribes and national organizations, although the coalition source knows of no national environmental groups invited.
The groups in the coalition seeking invitations were told by EPA that they were being denied access due to space limitations, and that they would have an opportunity to provide written input, the source says, adding that the groups do not think that is sufficient.
Communities are facing the largest burdens and “should be on the front lines informing the policy,” the source says. At the same time, the source believes the summit “is too little, too late,” noting that EPA and others have long known about these chemicals but information was withheld from the public. An EPA spokeswoman did not reply by press time to questions about EPA's refusal to grant the coalition groups access into the summit.
The slides also say EPA will offer an opportunity for the public to participate in a portion of the meeting through web-streaming. The agency plans to follow the summit with visits to states where communities have been impacted by PFAS contamination to “further engage on ways” the agency can support ongoing state, local or tribal efforts, the slides say.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/growing-citizen-coalition-pushing-national-cleanup-standard-pfas
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EPA Appears Unlikely to Quickly Set PFAS Standard, Despite DOD Calls
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
DOD Contamination
DOD's cleanup liability stems from its use of firefighting foam containing PFAS, which has led the services to investigate contamination across its bases. According to the briefing report, DOD has found 24 drinking water systems on its bases where the department is the water supplier and the water tested above EPA's lifetime health advisory.
As a consequence, DOD is following EPA recommendations for these locations, taking wells off-line and offering alternative drinking water, it says. It also found that on its installations, there are 12 drinking water systems where DOD is not the purveyor but the wells tested above the health advisory level.
In addition, it found as of August of last year that 564 public or private drinking water systems off-base tested above EPA's health advisory level, the report says.
The report also indicates DOD may have felt partially shut out as EPA neared completing the health advisories for PFOA and PFOS in 2016 -- under the Obama administration.
In the briefing report, DOD says despite providing comments during the public review process for the advisories in 2014, EPA did not respond to the department's comments. Further, DOD “was not provided the Science Advisory Board peer review before EPA published” the health advisories, it says. DOD uses the health advisories to determine risk when cleaning up water under CERCLA at bases, it says.
The DOD report includes the location of each of the military and public and private drinking water systems as well as test results, and planned and completed actions. DOD says it is following the CERCLA process to address suspected releases.
Grevatt's slides say EPA is actively engaged in PFAS investigations and remediation at 32 federal facility National Priorities List (NPL) sites -- which would include DOD sites. It believes that this number will increase since there is known or suspected contamination at many of DOD's 140 NPL sites, the slides say. At non-federal facility NPL sites, EPA says it knows of 17 known impacted sites and hundreds of potential NPL sites. In addition, EPA May 4 announced nearly $2 million in grants for external research into PFAS' fate and transport, exposure, and toxicity. The agency will accept applications for the grant funding through June 18.
EPA has also been pressed in recent months about what it is doing to respond to a newer PFAS, which is causing contamination in the Cape Fear River, NC. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) at a December House hearing and again in a March letter pressed Pruitt to address concerns over contamination of the river and the lack of information about potential health effects.
In an April 24 response, EPA water chief David Ross says the agency is working on obtaining human health toxicity information for the chemical, known as GenX, “that will provide a scientific basis for states and communities to set or refine public health goals.” It also recently posted to its website the result of a comprehensive scientific literature review of the chemical, it says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-appears-unlikely-quickly-set-pfas-standard-despite-dod-calls
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TransCanada Plans Clearing Montana Land for Keystone in Fall
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins
TransCanada Corp. will take the initial steps of clearing brush in Montana this fall for construction of the highly-contentious Keystone XL pipeline.
Construction on the conduit may begin next year, according to a U.S. State Department letter addressed to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes obtained by Bloomberg News. The purpose of the letter, dated April 10, was to continue government-to-government communication in order to “avoid, minimize or mitigate” any negative effects of the project.
The 1,200-mile (1,900-kilometer) crude oil pipeline that will connect Alberta’s oil sands to Steele City, Neb., has been controversial. While it’s considered necessary for Canadian oil producers, who have seen prices drop because a lack of conduits to take their fuel to hotter markets, it’s been fought by environmentalists. Construction beginning in Montana inches TransCanada one step closer to shutting the door on this decade-long debate.
TransCanada expects “construction to begin in 2019 and we are conducting the necessary work to prepare for those activities,” Matthew John, a spokesman for TransCanada, said in an email May 3.
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EPA's Self-Reporting Plan Could Be Rolled out by Summer
May 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/07/stories/1060080957
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Cuomo Proposes N.Y. Offshore Drilling Ban
May 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) floated a bill last week to stop oil drilling off the New York coast, and he dared the Trump administration to challenge it in court.
With Trump attempting to open up more Atlantic waters for exploration and possible development, Cuomo urged state lawmakers to pass a bill that would ban offshore drilling in state waters. It would also outlaw any infrastructure connecting offshore oil production to the New York mainland.
Cuomo acknowledged that the legislation is legally "controversial." Since any oil production would occur in federal waters, he said, the U.S. government could argue that the state is pre-empted on policies like these. But he said he'd still sign it.
"I have no problem passing that law and going to court and suing the Trump administration if they believe it violates pre-emption," he said on Friday. "Our belief is the only energy activity offshore should be wind turbines that are helping our way towards our renewable goal."
Cuomo was responding to the Trump administration's release, in January, of a new five-year plan meant to expand oil exploration and development in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans (Greenwire, Jan. 4). Only Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), who's term-limited, has supported it.
Cuomo has joined the legions of governors, including those of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island, opposing drilling off their coasts. The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill to ban offshore drilling last month (Energywire, April 23).
Meanwhile, it's an election year for Cuomo, who is fending off a primary challenge from the left in actress Cynthia Nixon. Nixon has called for a ban on any new fossil infrastructure in New York. Now in his second term, Cuomo has placed a moratorium on shale gas production in New York and blocked several interstate natural gas pipelines.
Last month, he called offshore drilling "a really, really dumb idea." New York has already requested an exemption from the federal plan akin to the one Florida got in January. He said New York's coastal tourism industry is about as big as Florida's.
"If you exempt Florida because it would be economically deleterious to the state of Florida, well then, you have to exempt New York," he said at the press conference last week.
The New York bill has three parts. It would outlaw leases for oil and gas exploration and production in state waters. It would prohibit any infrastructure connecting to the mainland if it were involved with offshore oil production in the North Atlantic. Lastly, it would forbid any oil produced offshore in the area from being transported through state waters.
Cuomo, who is rumored to be planning a run for the Democratic nomination for president, urged New Yorkers to sign a petition in support of the ban and direct their comments to the New York congressional delegation and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
If none of that works, he said, New Yorkers should resort to civil disobedience.
"If they go to put a platform up or an exploration task force up, I am going to commission the citizen fleet from throughout the state to go out and interfere with their federal effort just as Winston Churchill did in Dunkirk," he said. "If you think I'm kidding, I'm not. And I'm going to lead that citizen fleet."
Karen Moreau, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute in New York, called it political grandstanding.
"Instead of political grandstanding, I'd suggest Governor Cuomo consider a rescue operation in upstate NY, where thousands are fleeing to escape not oil and gas exploration, but poverty imposed by his failed policies," she said by email.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/07/stories/1060080951
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More Time, Fewer Fines for Oil Companies That Fix Emissions Leaks (1)
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Oil and gas companies that acquire multiple new drilling sites would have more time to identify and fix leaking storage tanks under the EPA’s first attempt to update its self-auditing policy in a decade.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s policy changes target the widespread problem of storage tanks located at drilling sites that are leaking volatile organic compounds because of poor vapor controls, Patrick Traylor, deputy assistant EPA administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, told Bloomberg Environment. The agency is expected to release draft policy updates May 4.
The self-auditing policy isn’t designed to replace formal enforcement actions, Traylor said. Instead it is meant to foster compliance among companies that willingly come forth and agree to fix problems that cause environmental violations, he said.
Largest VOC Source
The oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of volatile organic compounds air pollution, and a significant source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA. Volatile organic compounds contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, or smog, which is linked to respiratory problems in children, people with asthma, and older adults.
Emissions leaks of these organic compounds to a large extent and methane to a lesser extent occur when petroleum products are transferred from the wells to storage tanks that lack properly designed vapor control systems.
New companies that agreed to fix the storage tank leaks that are found at hundreds of wellpads will not only address the problem of volatile organic compounds, but also have a side benefit of reducing methane emissions, Traylor said.
The auditing policy, last updated in 2008, worked when companies bought only a few new facilities, but “it wasn’t efficient enough or nimble enough to deal with self disclosure of hundreds of facilities,” Traylor said.
A Deloitte 2017 year-end report of oil and gas mergers estimates an uptick in oil and gas exploration, which means more drilling sites and well pads with potential leaky storage tanks.
A Bloomberg Intelligence analysis of global production predicted that the Permian basin underlying western Texas and southeastern New Mexico would see an increase in oil and gas mergers and acquisitions, which is another reason why Traylor believes the initiative will work.
Toward the end of April, Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy reported as selling off half its working interest in 116 undrilled locations in the Barnett Shale to chemicals giant DowDupont for $75 million spread over the next five years.
Devon Energy and Anadarko Petroleum didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Environment’s request for comment.
Previous HurdlesThe problem with the 2008 policy—as the EPA learned as more and more oil companies came to take advantage of self audits—is that the agency and the companies were spending more time negotiating agreements to cover all the wellpads where storage tanks leaked.
“We realized we can do better,” Traylor said.
EPA enforcement staff came up with the idea to develop a standardized agreement that new companies can use to meet pollution control requirements under the Clean Air Act.
Turning to States
The agency looked at self auditing programs in several states including Wyoming, which requires oil companies to measure and report the emissions reductions that will result from the corrective actions they take.
Traylor said the new owner audit program like Wyoming has the same requirement that companies account for the emissions reduction.
Wyoming for its part is still at the fledgling stage of self-auditing program, with some companies just starting out and others nearing the end of their audits, Nancy Vehr, the state’s air quality program administrator told Bloomberg Environment. She said Wyoming, which runs its own air quality program, looks to EPA for guidance on policies.
The policy update would give new owners up to six months after they have acquired the assets to approach the EPA for a self-audit agreement, Traylor said. New owners would be able to negotiate the time it takes to fix the tanks, as opposed to the fixed 60-day period in the 2008 policy.
“Obviously, the time will be negotiable because less time will be required for an owner of 10 assets as opposed to hundreds of assets,” Traylor said.
Traylor acknowledged that the new owner audit agreement only applies to Clean Air Act violations. For violations involving other statutes, he said, companies would have to use the 2008 policy and negotiate with the EPA to get them off the hook.
The EPA will seek comment from states, environmental advocates including the Environmental Defense Fund, and the oil and gas sector before finalizing the auditing policy. The Environmental Defense Fund told Bloomberg Environment it needed more time to understand the implications of the new initiative.
Traylor said he will present the draft initiative on May 6 to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, an Oklahoma City-based multistate agency representing at least 31 oil- and gas-producing states including Oklahoma, Wyoming, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The commission didn’t return calls seeking comment.
(Updates with additional reporting and details.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/more-time-fewer-fines-for-oil-companies-that-fix-emissions-leaks-1
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Bakken Oil Keeps Flowing by Rail, Despite Pipeline Options
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Railroads still carry North Dakota crude oil to refineries on both coasts, though at reduced rates since the opening of the Dakota Access Pipeline almost a year ago.
Dakota Access—and the interconnecting Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline—takes oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale region southward as far as Nederland, Texas, amid the refineries and export facilities of the Gulf Coast.
Dakota Access has been transporting between 500,000 and 520,000 barrels a day, higher than initial planned volumes, according to operator Energy Transfer Partners LP. The company is soliciting shipper commitments to expand the volume, possibly to as much as 570,000 barrels a day.
Shipping oil by pipeline is cheaper and safer than shipping by rail. There’s less that can go wrong with a pipeline, and less risk to human life when accidents occur. Yet when Dakota Access began regular shipments of crude, it only took some of the business away from railroads.
Toward the end of 2017 and in early 2018, rail movements of crude from North Dakota saw a partial bounce back, boosted by a widening difference between prices of domestic and imported crude, said David Arno, an oil analyst at Genscape Inc., a data company for energy markets, on April 30.
Bakken crude from North Dakota must compete on the East Coast with imports of oil priced relative to Brent, the North Sea benchmark crude. That allows North Dakota sales to East Coast refineries to rise when the gap between domestic crude prices and costlier Brent crude widens.
East Coast OpportunitiesRail shipments of crude out of North Dakota slumped from 265,000 barrels a day in January 2017 to 114,000 barrels a day in August after the startup of Dakota Access, Arno said. The rebound starting in late 2017 took those shipments back up to 183,000 barrels a day in February, he said.
That still was far below the peak of about 800,000 barrels a day reached in 2014 when production was booming and pipeline capacity was woefully inadequate.
On the East Coast, railed crude can reach three refineries—the Phillips 66 Co. refinery in Linden, N.J., the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in Philadelphia, and the PBF Energy Inc. refinery in Delaware City, Del. In addition, PBF can take crude from its Delaware City rail terminal, put it on barges and move it to its other refinery in the region, 30 miles up the Delaware River in Paulsboro, N.J.
Companies don’t like to talk about their market activities for competitive reasons and didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story. Federal and state government analysts are not allowed to give away this kind of company information, either. This leaves uncertainty about exactly where oil is going.
The price advantage for buyers of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) relative to Brent was mostly below $2.50 a barrel in the first half of 2017, but then widened and fluctuated in the $5 to $7 range for the last four months of the year. That may have encouraged East Coast refiners to consider running more domestic crudes if rail transportation costs would not eat up the discounts.
A few months of price fluctuation won’t necessarily motivate refiners to shift their buying behavior, however, and railroads prefer long-term contracts, two factors that inhibit short-term changes in crude-by-rail patterns, cautioned Mason Hamilton, a federal analyst at the Energy Information Administration.
Steady Flow to West CoastFour of the five refineries in Washington state take Bakken crude. Analysts say refiners in Washington can use the light Bakken crude to counterbalance heavy crudes imported from Canada by both pipeline and rail, so that a refinery can achieve a medium-weight blended crude slate.
A fairly steady diet of about 137,000 barrels a day of crude was railed from North Dakota to Washington during the first quarter of 2018, according to data from the state Department of Ecology. That was very similar to the year-earlier quarter.
The BNSF and Union Pacific railroads provide the routes. The quarterly reports from the Department of Ecology indicates the trains follow the Columbia River downstream past Portland, Ore., and then head north along the Interstate 5 corridor. No pipeline runs to Washington state from any part of the United States.
The Bakken crude in Washington goes to the BP Plc and Phillips 66 Co. refineries in the Ferndale area not far from the Canadian border, the Andeavor refinery in Anacortes a little farther south, and the U.S. Oil & Refining Co. refinery in Tacoma. The only refinery in Washington that has not taken Bakken crude is the Royal Dutch Shell Plc refinery in Anacortes.
As of February, about 68 percent of crude leaving North Dakota was going to the West Coast and 26 percent to the East Coast, according to Jason Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, a state data agency. A slight amount, 6 percent, still goes south by rail to the Gulf Coast region.
Pipeline takeaway capacity in North Dakota does not physically connect to all oil fields in the state, so the railroads get some of the volume by default, noted Hamilton at the EIA.
Anticipating Need for MoreThe opening of the Dakota Access Pipeline almost a year ago has been good to North Dakota producers in terms of better prices thanks to cheaper transportation. Bakken crude is discounted relative to WTI because of its location and constraints on its access to markets, but the discount has narrowed with the better access to Gulf Coast refiners.
Dakota Access and other pipelines with North Dakota connections overall give the state a little less than 1.4 million barrels per day of crude takeaway capacity. Oil production in the Williston Basin—the oil province including the Bakken Shale—was 1.23 million barrels a day in January.
It would not take much of an upsurge in production to exceed the existing capacities of the pipelines and lead to more reliance on rails again. Forecasts for the Bakken Shale anticipate growth.
“By next year, production could exceed pipeline capacity again,” Kringstad said. “There is an expectation that there would be a shortage of capacity.”
It is up to the oil industry to decide what to do about that, such as adding more pipeline capacity, he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bakken-oil-keeps-flowing-by-rail-despite-pipeline-options
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GOP Resolution Targets Carbon Tax — Again
May 7, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), a top ally of the oil and gas industry, has introduced a resolution to put Congress on record in opposition to a carbon tax.
The resolution, H. Con. Res. 119, introduced just before Congress went on its weeklong recess late last month, calls a carbon tax "detrimental to the United States economy" and suggests it will increase the cost of all goods and services.
"Working with President Trump, this Congress is leading America toward energy dominance and strong economic growth, yet some liberal Washington special interests continue to pursue a radical agenda that includes imposing a job-killing carbon tax, which would raise costs on everything we buy from electricity and gasoline to food and everyday household products," Scalise said in a statement.
He added, "At a time when America has finally turned the corner and our economy is growing, the last thing we need is a tax that will take money out of the pockets of middle-class families."
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) is the co-sponsor.
Democrats in the Senate and House introduced "cap-and-dividend" legislation earlier this year, a rare piece of legislation on Capitol Hill aimed at combating climate change (Climatewire, Jan. 29).
The "Healthy Climate and Family Security Act," S. 2325, sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), would set CO2 emissions caps and auction carbon credits to crude oil refineries, petroleum importers, coal mines, coal importers and natural gas suppliers. The dividends would be returned to American taxpayers quarterly.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) last year introduced legislation, H.R. 4209, that would establish a carbon tax and use the proceeds to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and assist displaced coal industry workers. Carbon tax bills have also been introduced by Senate Democrats.
But as long as Republicans control Congress, these measures aren't going anywhere.
More than 20 conservative and industry groups have sent a letter to House members in support of Scalise's resolution.
"Taxpayers rightly fear and oppose a carbon tax," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "The carbon tax combines the worst of tax-and-spend politics and nanny-state hectoring."
The House passed a similar resolution in opposition to the carbon tax, which Scalise also sponsored, by a 237-163 vote in 2016 (E&E News PM, June 10, 2016).
The Citizens' Climate Lobby, which is advocating for a carbon tax and other climate solutions in Congress, panned the resolution.
"A revenue-neutral carbon tax that returns all the proceeds to American households will add jobs and increase GDP," said CCL Executive Director Mark Reynolds. "This resolution tars all carbon pricing with the same brush and assumes that any carbon tax will hurt the economy."
CCL on Friday posted a point-by-point rebuttal to Scalise's resolution on its website.
This story also appears in Climatewire.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/05/07/stories/1060080899
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IG Will Probe Alleged Censoring of Draft NPS Climate Study
May 4, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Michael Doyle and Adam Aton
This article was updated at 5:03 p.m. EDT.
The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General will scrutinize alleged alterations to a pending National Park Service report related to climate change and rising sea levels.
The potentially sensitive inquiry marks the latest front in the broader climate change conflict that's pervaded the Trump administration, and it comes in response to a request from five Democratic senators.
In an April 6 letter, the senators had raised concerns about the handling of the still-unreleased report titled "Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Projections for the National Park Service." The concerns center on whether officials watered down or removed climate change references.
"The OIG office will conduct a preliminary review once staff becomes available," Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote the senators in a letter dated April 26.
Beyond the wait for investigative manpower, the IG's upcoming review is complicated by the fact that the Park Service's 87-page sea-level report completed in 2016 has not yet been formally published. Allegations or speculation about censoring science may defy easy proof.
Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and the other lawmakers who requested the IG inquiry are all members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
"The Inspector General's preliminary review is a positive first step. I expect it to be completed in a timely manner, and it must be followed up with a full investigation into these troubling reports of censorship within the National Park Service," Hirono said in a statement today.
The senators' request for an inquiry followed an April 2 report on the draft Park Service study from the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal. The publication used a Colorado public records request to obtain hundreds of documents on the study led by a University of Colorado, Boulder, researcher (Climatewire, April 3).
A career Park Service official cut three sentences that attributed climate change to "human activities" and removed five uses of the word "anthropogenic," which means caused by humans, according to the Reveal story.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke subsequently voiced unhappiness over release of the draft study (Climatewire, April 12).
"It's a draft document, as far as I understand," Zinke told a House subcommittee last month. "It was FOIAed from a university while it was still in a deliberative process. So I want an investigation into how that document got around to the press before even we had a chance to look at it."
The draft report, a copy of which was also obtained by E&E News, combines different sea-level rise and storm-surge projections to analyze how climate change could affect 118 National Park Service units on the coasts, like the Statue of Liberty.
The authors found the Wright Brothers National Memorial in North Carolina could expect the greatest effects from sea-level rise, while the national capital would be the region most affected by rising seas. The southeast region would see the greatest uptick in storm surge.
Pointing to a 2015 report, the researchers note that 1 meter of sea-level rise could cost the National Park Service billions of dollars.
"Further warming of the atmosphere will cause sea levels to continue to rise, which will affect how we protect and manage our national parks," a draft of the report says.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/05/04/stories/1060080893
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EPA Gives Environmentalists Rare Partial Win in Air Permit Challenge
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA has given environmentalists a rare partial win in their challenge to a Clean Air Act permit for a Gulf Coast oil refinery by finding some terms of the permit were too ambiguous or weak, despite agency Administrator Scott Pruitt setting a higher bar for permit objections and deferring more to states on the adequacy of permits.
Pruitt signed a May 1 order partially granting, but otherwise denying, environmentalists' petition for agency objection to the Title V permit of the Pasadena Refining System refinery in Harris County, TX.
Pruitt issued his order under a schedule mandated by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but suggested by EPA, in litigation brought by environmentalists to force EPA to issue delayed decisions on several Title V permit petitions. EPA has under successive administrations taken many months to respond to such petitions, often prompting petitioners to sue to force a response.
The decision finds that Texas air regulators who issued the permit under delegated air law authority were too ambiguous in their incorporation of “permits by rule” (PBRs) in the plant's Title V operating permit, and also that monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements in the permit are too weak.
Title V permits are “umbrella” permits designed to include all “applicable requirements” for an industrial source, including underlying new source review (NSR) or other substantive air permits. Title V permits must ensure that measures are federally enforceable and correctly listed, but do not add substantive control requirements themselves.
Last fall, the agency changed its standard of review for granting petitions for objection, stating in two landmark decisions on Title V permits that it will not second-guess either states' decisions to require NSR or related permits in the first place, or where such permits have been issued, judge their pollution control requirements. Those orders concerned steelmaker Big River Steel's Osceola, AR, plant and electric utility Pacificorp's Hunter power plant in Utah.
But the May 1 order on the Pasadena plant does not turn on the precedent set by either of those orders. Among other issues, petitioners Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, and Air Alliance Houston say that the Title V permit's incorporation by reference of PBRs and “standard exemptions” (SEs) by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is unclear.
A PBR “contains a standard set of requirements that can apply to multiple stationary sources with similar emissions characteristics,” according to EPA's website. Standard exemptions exempt facilities from air permitting if they meet certain common requirements and therefore are considered to contribute minimally to air pollution.
Petitioners claimed the Title V permit does not identify how much pollution Pasadena is authorized to emit from each unit under claimed PBRs and SEs, does not identify which pollutants Pasadena may emit from each unit, and does not identify which emission units at Pasadena are subject to limits in the claimed PBRs and SEs.
Pruitt agrees in his decision to partially grant the objection, writing, “With regard to the Petitioners’ claim that the title V permit is unclear as to what emission limits apply to the units authorized by PBRs, the Petitioners have demonstrated that neither the title V permit nor the permit record explain what emission limits apply.”
Further, “the permit and permit record still do not explain how one can identify which pollutants a unit is authorized to emit,” and “Petitioners have demonstrated that the permit record did not establish what emission units the following PBRs and SEs apply to.” EPA requires TCEQ to clarify the permit and notes it is already taking steps to do so.
Pruitt also agrees with some of environmentalists' complaints that monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements for several emissions units are not adequate in the permit. “TCEQ did not identify any particular requirements that assured compliance with these permit terms. As a result, the EPA cannot determine from the permit or permit record what monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements apply to the units in question,” Pruitt writes.
EPA directs TCEQ to clarify the permit, and add new requirements to it if necessary, to remedy these faults.
Sierra Club, meanwhile, is suing the Pasadena plant for excess air emissions in violation of its permit limits, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-gives-environmentalists-rare-partial-win-air-permit-challenge
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Wehrum Aids Industry by Raising Bar for 'Aggregation' in NSR Air Permits
May 4, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA air chief William Wehrum is aiding industry groups in their bid to avoid strict Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permits by raising the bar for when emissions sources must be “aggregated,” or combined, and counted as a single source -- one of several policy steps the Trump administration is taking to ease the NSR program.
Wehrum announced the policy change in an April 30 memo to Patrick McDonnell, Pennsylvania's environment secretary, finding that a landfill in the state and the landfill gas processing facility it supplies with gas should not be considered under “common control,” and therefore not aggregated for the purposes of NSR.
Wehrum writes, “EPA believes it should realign its approach to common control determinations in order to better reflect a 'common sense notion of a plant,' and to minimize the potential for entities to be held responsible for decisions of other entities over which they have no power or authority."
EPA “believes clarity and consistency can be restored to source determinations if the assessment of 'control' for title V and NSR permitting purposes focuses on the power or authority of one entity to dictate decisions of the other that could affect the applicability of, or compliance with, relevant air pollution regulatory requirements.” Title V permits are “umbrella” permits that must contain all applicable requirements for a facility, including underlying NSR permits.
Companies try to avoid triggering NSR permits because they can require strict, expensive air pollution controls. If a company owns several facilities near each other and EPA or a state with delegated permitting power aggregates emissions from those sources, it can push the total emissions level over the “major source” threshold for triggering NSR of 100 or 250 tons per year, depending on the pollutant. Treating sources as separate makes them less likely to pass the major source threshold and therefore be classified as “area sources” subject to generally less-stringent NSR permits.
NSR applies to sources in areas violating national ambient air quality standards, and the related prevention of significant deterioration permitting program applies in areas attaining the standards. Groups representing various industrial sectors have long claimed that the risk of triggering NSR -- such as through aggregating sources -- discourages companies from expanding or investing in more efficient plant upgrades.
Wehrum in his memo says that for aggregation, “EPA considers 'control' to be best understood to encompass the power or authority to dictate the outcome of decisions of another entity. This concept includes only the power to dictate a particular outcome and does not include the mere ability to influence.”
Further, he says the “control” at issue should apply to “operations relevant to air pollution, and specifically control over such operations that could affect the applicability of, or compliance with, permitting requirements.”
This approach represents a “narrowed” interpretation of common control compared to the Obama EPA, which took a broader view of the factors that determine source aggregation.
However, states with delegated Clean Air Act authority to issue permits, such as Pennsylvania, retain “ultimate discretion” to decide whether facilities are under “common control."
NSR Reform
After President Donald Trump took office, critics of the NSR program urged EPA to prioritize reform of the program -- though sweeping rulemakings to ease NSR in President George W. Bush's administration either were not finalized or failed when contested in court challenges by environmentalists.
Wehrum, who oversaw some of the Bush EPA NSR reform efforts as acting agency air chief, has prioritized changes to the program since being sworn in as Trump's EPA air chief.
But he has said he is pursuing a more piecemeal approach to updating the program, including policy memos and guidance documents, with the potential of rulemakings in the future.
EPA air official Anna Marie Wood recently previewed changes to the agency's aggregation policy as part of a broader package of NSR reform efforts, including “project aggregation,” which considers whether multiple, related physical or operational changes should be deemed a single “project."
Wehrum's memo follows through on revising the common control aspect of the source aggregation policy, while noting that source aggregation determinations are still fact-specific, and depend on other factors as well. Federal rules require EPA to look at whether facilities “belong to the same industrial grouping; are located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties; and are under the control of the same person (or persons under common control).”
It is unclear if the Trump administration still intends to change agency policy on the factors relating to “contiguous or adjacent properties” and “industrial grouping,” which can affect aggregation decisions.
Meanwhile, Wehrum in the memo updating the common control policy says the agency will still defer to Pennsylvania as the applicable permitting authority to take a final decision on the relationship between the Keystone Sanitary Landfill (KSL) and the Meadowbrook Energy gas processing plant it supplies with gas.
In the context of the Pennsylvania permitting issue, the specific circumstances of the landfill and the gas processor it serves are also informative. KSL supplies all the gas currently processed by Meadowbrook, but Wehrum claims that KSL's ability to dispose of all that gas through flaring, in the event of a processing interuption at Meadowbrook, means there is no “controlling” relationship with respect to environmental considerations. Meadowbrook further intends to source gas in the future from elsewhere, reducing its dependency on KSL.
The precedent set in the memo will apply to other, similar situations where a landfill supplies gas exclusively or near-exclusively to a gas processor for sale into pipelines as fuel
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/wehrum-aids-industry-raising-bar-aggregation-nsr-air-permits
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Industry Heated as EPA Stays Silent on Global Coolant Deal
May 4, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Appliance manufacturers and chemical makers have had enough of the Trump administration’s silence on a global deal to reduce climate-warming coolants, and they’ve got a message for the EPA: Speak up.
For months, the U.S. refrigeration and chemical industries have quietly lobbied the Trump administration to support a 2016 global agreement to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, refrigerant chemicals that are highly potent greenhouse gases. And though a State Department official offered tentative backing for the deal late last year, it’s unclear if the industry is any closer to convincing the president to send the pact to the Senate for ratification, where it would face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled chamber.
The industry is now shifting the onus to the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s not enough for EPA head Scott Pruitt to tell companies the agency isn’t standing in the way of ratification, industry representatives said. Companies want the administrator or agency air chief Bill Wehrum to publicly urge the president to move forward with the HFC deal.
“He can say that without a legal opinion. That isn’t going to hurt him,” Kevin Fay, executive director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy in Washington, D.C., told EPA officials at a May 4 stakeholder meeting.
Fay said the agency owes that much to the industry, which has invested billions of dollars to transition away from HFCs and to manufacture climate-friendly alternatives.
“You have all these people now wondering where they stand in the process,” Fay added. “You have got to say something more than, ‘We don’t know.’”
Interagency ProcessEPA officials, though, largely dodged industry questions about where the agency stands on the HFC deal, known as the Kigali Amendment. They said the EPA is engaged in an ongoing interagency process to determine a path forward.
“The administration hasn’t been saying much, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening,” Wehrum, who sat in on the latter half of the meeting, told stakeholders. He said several parts of the administration, including the departments of Commerce and Defense, were participating in discussions.
But Wehrum and other EPA officials declined to take a substantive position on the Kigali agreement.
The agency can’t speak unilaterally for a multi-agency deliberation process, said Justin Schwab, EPA’s deputy general counsel. But he also told a frustrated Fay, “I just want you to know how seriously we are taking this.”
Economic Impact
The EPA held the May 4 meeting to discuss April 13 guidance stating it won’t implement Obama-era limits on the use of HFCs while it rewrites them. Last summer, a federal appeals court partially struck down those limits, which would have been the foundation for U.S. compliance with the Kigali deal.
Agency officials said they aim to provide certainty to industry in the forthcoming rewrite process—but almost all companies represented at the meeting said ratifying the Kigali deal would offer the greatest amount of clarity. Even representatives from the two chemical companies that brought the winning lawsuit against Obama-era HFC limits, Mexichem Fluor Inc. and Arkema Inc., reiterated their strong support for the Kigali agreement.
Congress has weighed in, too. A bipartisan group of senators—led by Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.)—introduced legislation in February that would direct the EPA to establish a market-based system to implement the HFC deal’s requirements.
Industry is trying to speak about the Kigali deal in the Trump administration’s language. A May 3 report from the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy and the Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute said ratification of the agreement would add 33,000 manufacturing jobs to the industry by 2027. The report also estimated an additional $12.5 billion of manufacturing output in the sector per year would result from Kigali ratification.
Without Kigali, U.S. companies could see their investments go elsewhere and their products priced out of foreign markets, said Charlie Hon, sustainability and government affairs manager for the Missouri-based True Manufacturing Co., Inc., which specializes in commercial refrigeration products.
“That’s a direct reversal of what this administration promises. Working ourselves out of jobs is not what we’re looking for,” Hon told EPA officials. “If we don’t have this regulatory stability, we’re going to lose. It’s just plain as day to us as a corporation.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/industry-heated-as-epa-stays-silent-on-global-coolant-deal
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