Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 07/05/18
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(ACC Mentioned) NPE '18: US PVC Demand Shows Sharp Growth from Construction
May 7, 2018 | ICIS
By Bill Bowen
Times are looking up for US polyvinyl chloride (PVC), heading into this year's National Plastics Exposition (NPE). -
‘Smoke and Mirrors’: Emails Detail Pruitt’s Drive for Secrecy at the E.P.A.
May 7, 2018 | The New York Times
By Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman
The invitation-only breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington gathered 250 executives from the nation’s largest electric utilities, assembled in a ballroom to meet with Scott Pruitt, who a month before had started his new job as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. -
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's New Transparency Rule Is Not What It Seems
May 7, 2018 | Forbes
By Steven Salzberg
You would think that the editors of the top science journals in the world would know how to write clearly. -
Documents Show EPA Secrecy Push Under Pruitt
May 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
New internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents are shedding light on the agency’s attempts to keep Administrator Scott Pruitt's activities secret, especially before they take place. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Transparency Plan Would Shield Safety Info — Greens
May 7, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
Environmental groups today slammed EPA's scientific transparency proposal because they say it could allow the agency to keep pesticide safety information secret. -
Health Advocates Kick Off Week of Action Urging Lowe’s and EPA to Ban Toxic Paint Strippers
May 7, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
Environmental health advocates from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and other groups today kicked off a week of action in more than a dozen states demanding that Lowe’s home improvement stores remove paint strippers containing a deadly chemical, methylene chloride, from its store shelves nationwide. -
America's Utility Of The Future Forms Around Performance-Based Regulation
May 7, 2018 | Forbes
By Sonia Aggarwal
The utility business model is evolving in response to a fundamental shift in our power system economics. -
How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking 'Revolution' That's Losing Billions
May 7, 2018 | DeSmog Blog (In EcoWatch)
By Justin Mikulka
The U.S. shale oil industry hailed as a "revolution" has burned through a quarter trillion dollars more than it has brought in over the last decade. It has been a money-losing endeavor of epic proportions. -
In New Oil Climate, Fieldwood Energy and Others Ditch Debt
May 7, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
Fieldwood Energy didn't have a business problem. -
Will Pruitt's Repeal Come with Replacement Plan?
May 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
High-level EPA staff is quitting, ethics controversies are dogging the administrator and investigators are scrutinizing employees' behavior. -
NFG Turns to Transco Option to Move Natural Gas from Pennsylvania
May 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG) management believes the company has a viable alternative to help grow natural gas production from the shale fields of western Pennsylvania, even if the Northern Access pipeline is never built, announcing a deal Friday to anchor a Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC expansion project. -
FERC Continues Incremental Approvals of MVP Construction
May 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
FERC on Friday granted a request from Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) for some construction activity within the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County, WV, and Giles and Montgomery counties, VA, to continue building out the 302-mile, 2 million Dth/d interstate natural gas project. -
PATH on Track to Meet PTC Deadline
May 7, 2018 | Progressive Railroading
Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) this month will begin weekend tunnel and station closures to finish installing and testing positive train control (PTC) equipment and software. -
Environmentalists Claim Pruitt's 'Closed Mind' in CWA Rule Suit
May 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are using EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's public opposition to the 2015 Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule to bolster their suit seeking to bring that standard back into effect, arguing in a new motion that he acted with an unlawfully “closed mind” by delaying enforcement of the rule until 2020 to allow time for a full repeal of it. -
'Congenial Opportunist' in Line for Top Regional Post
May 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kelsey Brugger
The lawyer expected to get a top EPA job has said climate science is based on "conflicting evidence" and called California's efforts to work with China to combat global warming "ludicrous." -
Green Issues Rule State's 'Most Interesting' Race
May 7, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
While the governor's race has sucked up most of the political oxygen in California, the battle for lieutenant governor is turning into one of the most unpredictable statewide contests this year.
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(ACC Mentioned) NPE '18: US PVC Demand Shows Sharp Growth from Construction
May 7, 2018 | ICIS
By Bill Bowen
Times are looking up for US polyvinyl chloride (PVC), heading into this year's National Plastics Exposition (NPE).
Cruising on consumption growth from rising construction activity, the industry is now seeing some sharp demand pull from recent storms, floods and other weather events have have fuelled reconstruction and remodeling activity.
That contrasts the recent years when construction activity was slow to get back on its feet after the financial and credit crises of 2007.
The result during the first quarter has been sharply higher production of PVC resins for construction applications, according to data from the largest industry group.
Resin sales to make vinyl flooring during the first quarter more than doubled the volumes of Q1 2016, a period already enjoying rising demand from construction activity, according to data from the American Chemistry Council using data compiled by Vault Consulting.
PVC sales to flooring companies is also helped by luxury vinyl flooring, a type of flooring that accurately emulates natural wood or tile at much more affordable prices than the genuine versions and has been enjoying commercial success.
Sales of resins for extruded windows and doors is up by 27%, and sales of resins to make fencing and decking are up by 16%.
Those growing numbers have been sustained by growing US construction activity, up by 3.6% to $1.3tr in March on annualised and seasonally adjusted figures, according to the US Census Bureau.
Most importantly, residential construction, which consumes the most PVC, is up more than 5% from 2017, according to the Census.
Construction accounts for some 60% or more of US PVC demand, and the rising construction activity had drawn US PVC production up by 3.2% so far this year, including January when freezing weather disrupted several plant operations.
The rising domestic demand is driving US producers to run hard and limiting US export availability.
US exports for 2018 are flat with the first two months of 2017, according to figures from the US International Trade Commision (ITC).
“If we wanted to make more PVC or caustic soda, we couldn’t,” said a representative of a large US PVC producer.
That has also helped to firm domestic prices.
Contract prices are up by about 5 cent/lb ($110/tonne) so far this year, according to the ICIS assessment.
But demand is expected to continue to grow, especially as reconstruction efforts in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico got fully under way.
The bill to repair those damaged regions – and from wildfires in California that have consumed more than 10,000 structures – is estimated as high as $500bn and higher.
US construction activity flat-lined after the 2007-2008 financial crisis and has been slow to return.
US PVC producers have longed for the boom times prior to the bust when construction accounted for 8.7% of the US economy.
But the pace that built the bubble is unlikely to continue, though estimates are that construction levels will approach those of 2006 by about 2021.
“I don’t want to be too optimistic,” said an executive at another US PVC producer. “But I think the next two or three years are going be really good.”
Major US PVC producers include Occidental Chemical, Westlake Chemical, Shintech and Formosa Plastics.
Sponsored by the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), NPE2018: The Plastics Show takes place on 7-11 May in Orlando, Florida.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/05/07/10218258/npe-18-us-pvc-demand-shows-sharp-growth-from-construction/
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‘Smoke and Mirrors’: Emails Detail Pruitt’s Drive for Secrecy at the E.P.A.
May 7, 2018 | The New York Times
By Eric Lipton and Lisa Friedman
The invitation-only breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington gathered 250 executives from the nation’s largest electric utilities, assembled in a ballroom to meet with Scott Pruitt, who a month before had started his new job as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Pruitt had spent the previous six years as Oklahoma’s attorney general attacking E.P.A. regulations in court, often in coordination with energy giants. Now he ran the agency, and at the closed-door breakfast he laid out his vision for the gathered executives.
“Whoever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too, doesn’t know what to do with cake,” Mr. Pruitt told the room, according to a speech prepared for the March 2017 event.
His remarks, which have not previously been made public, indicated that utilities had gained an ally with his appointment. He intended to expand energy production while protecting the environment, he said. But, among other things, he described his effort to repeal the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was designed to slow climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
“The future ain’t what it used to be,” Mr. Pruitt said, quoting a Yogi Berra line that he would return to in speeches.
Details from the breakfast, and dozens of other official appearances from Mr. Pruitt’s scandal-plagued first year at the E.P.A., have until now been hidden from public view as a result of an extraordinary effort by Mr. Pruitt and his aides to block disclosure of the bulk of his daily schedule.
But a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, the environmental group, has resulted in the release of 10,703 pages of documents that detail Mr. Pruitt’s plans for travel and appearances nationwide. The documents offer visibility for the first time not only into many of his appearances but into the agency’s pursuit of secrecy as well.
The emails — concerning events like a closed-door speech to power plant owners in Missouri, a secret visit to Toyota’s auto plant in Texas and a town-hall style speech to farmers in Iowa where organizersclamped down on questions — show the E.P.A.’s chief concern was about controlling who would be in the room with Mr. Pruitt and what could be said.
The E.P.A. did not respond to requests for comment. In the past, E.P.A. officials have said that Mr. Pruitt has faced an unprecedented number of death threats, which account for the size of his security force and the agency’s refusal to release his daily schedule.
However, the documents provide new indications — supported by interviews with current and former aides to Mr. Pruitt at the E.P.A. — that the concern with secrecy is less about security than a desire by Mr. Pruitt to avoid criticism from detractors or even unexpected questions from allies.
“The security aspect is smoke and mirrors,” said Kevin Chmielewski, Mr. Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff for operations, who is one of several former E.P.A. officials who have said that they were fired or sidelined for disagreeing with Mr. Pruitt’s management practices.
“He didn’t want anybody to question anything,” Mr. Chmielewski said, adding that Mr. Pruitt “just doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a public figure.”
Three other current and former agency officials, who asked not to be identified because they still work for the government, expressed similar views.ImageMr. Pruitt with coal miners in Sycamore, Pa., in April. His office normally only makes his speaking appearances public after they are over.
All politicians are attuned to image-building, of course, and employ staffs whose job is to control the environments in which they appear. Mr. Pruitt, though, has carried the practice to an extreme.
Breaking with all of his predecessors at the E.P.A. for the last 25 years, as well as other members of President Trump’s cabinet, he does not release a list of public speaking events and he discloses most official trips only after they are over. Mr. Pruitt doesn’t hold news conferences, and in one episode, journalists who learned of an event were ejected from the premises after an E.P.A. official threatened to call the police.
The E.P.A. also declined to make public a copy of Mr. Pruitt’s detailed calendar until it was sued by The New York Times and other organizations.
More recently, the agency moved to require that any documents related to Mr. Pruitt that are gathered as a result of Freedom of Information requests be provided to his political aides 48 hours in advance for an “awareness review” before they are made public, “to insure that leadership is aware of public disclosures,” a June email said.
Mr. Pruitt currently faces 11 investigations into his spending and management at the E.P.A., many of which stem from the appetite for secrecy. He is under investigation for first-class travel at taxpayer expense, his elaborate security detail and the purchase of a $43,000 soundproof booth for making telephone calls.
Separately, a New York Times investigation found that, in 2003 when he served as a legislator in Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt bought a home in a transaction that involved two lobbyists with business before the state, and disguised the purchase by using a shell company.
The E.P.A. did not respond to questions about the documents. Mr. Pruitt testified before Congress last month that Mr. Chmielewski had resigned.
The emails document Mr. Pruitt’s top aides taking steps to block the public from his appearances.
For example, in Nevada, Iowa, organizers of an event celebrating Mr. Pruitt’s plans to repeal an Obama-era water regulation that many ranchers dislike informed the E.P.A. that they had already announced the event as open. “This has been sold as a town hall meeting” — meaning anyone could ask questions — wrote Bill Couser, an Iowa cattle farmer who was helping organize the December event, in an email to the E.P.A.
In Washington, E.P.A. officials objected.
“With a crowd of 300 people plus open press, we have to stick with the questions we currently have,” Millan Hupp, Mr. Pruitt’s scheduling director, replied. “My sincere apologies for causing any difficulty but we cannot do open q&a from the crowd.”
The agency prevailed. Mr. Pruitt answered questions presented to him by Mr. Couser that were written by E.P.A. officials, according to the emails and a video recording of the event.
Efforts like these to prevent reporters from attending events were not a part of the playbook for past E.P.A. administrators, according to spokeswomen for Christine Todd Whitman, who served in the George W. Bush administration, and Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy, who served under President Barack Obama. “They didn’t selectively inform the press or take any steps to keep things secret,” Heather Grizzle, a spokeswoman for Ms. Whitman, said.
Mr. Pruitt takes a different approach. A driving concern among E.P.A. officials, the emails show, is to separate potential guests into two camps: “friendly” and “unfriendly.” Events can be reorganized at the last minute if there are concerns that people who are considered unfriendly might show up.
“Sixteen friendly Industry leaders will be invited to attend they will arrive at 8:30 with the Administrator expected to arrive at 9:00 a.m.,” said one memo, shared among top E.P.A. officials last September, in advance of a visit by Mr. Pruitt to Colorado Springs, where Mr. Pruitt was scheduled to speak with the National Association of Homebuilders. The event was closed to the public and not announced publicly ahead of time.
Gerald M. Howard, the organization’s top executive, “will moderate Q&A on Industry issues set forth in advance and possibly from the audience — who are all industry friendly and supportive of Mr. Pruitt and his efforts,” the description said.ImageMr. Pruitt toured an almond grove in California in March. Emails show that E.P.A. officials try to to separate potential guests at public events into two camps: “friendly” and “unfriendly.”CreditEnvironmental Protection Agency
In another instance, after a Missouri news outlet discovered, and tweeted, that Mr. Pruitt was planning to speak to about 150 representatives of electric cooperatives and power-plant owners last April, E.P.A. staff went into damage-control mode.
The meeting had not been publicly disclosed. Tate Bennett, who as associate administrator at the E.P.A. is in charge of environmental education, asked Barry Hart of the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives if the news organization, Missouri Network Television, was “the friendly outlet.” Shaun Kober, founder of Missouri Network Television, said “we just try to lay out the facts.”
Mr. Hart replied, “It is, but since it’s a public tweet you have to assume the world now knows including all news media … even unfriendly.”
The group, in consultation with the E.P.A., had already discussed a strategy to counteract any negative comments that appeared on social media.
“Our plan will be to promote the feel-good activity and news from the event,” Gus Wagner, a public relations executive working with organizers, wrote in one email shared with the E.P.A. “Comments that are positive will be liked and possibly shared,” he wrote. “Comments that are derogatory and/or abusive will be hidden from public view. Commenter receives no notification this hiding has happened.”
Sometimes the E.P.A.’s approach to public relations — issuing announcements only after events were over — confused its hosts. Among them was Stephen Ciccone, a vice president for government affairs at Toyota Motor North America, which organized a visit by Mr. Pruitt to its Texas auto plant in August.
“I thought you all did not want any press coverage?” Mr. Ciccone wrote, unsure as to why the E.P.A. would issue a news release at all.
An email back from the E.P.A. explained the plan. The agency welcomed coverage as long as it was on the agency’s terms.
A release would be made “highlighting all the stops Administrator Pruitt makes during his visit to Texas,” the email said. As planned, government-issued photos of a smiling Mr. Pruitt and executives from Toyota were posted on the E.P.A.’s website soon after the event was over, describing it as an “action tour.”
The effort to control the event almost fell apart when one journalist caught wind of the trip.
“We just received an inquiry from a CBS News reporter in Dallas about the visit,” Mr. Ciccone wrote to the E.P.A. on the day of the event. “We won’t reply until the visit is over.”
In another instance not previously made public, Mr. Pruitt last June aided one of his longtime supporters, Richard Smotkin, who at that time was a Comcast lobbyist and who later helped organize Mr. Pruitt’s controversial trip to Morocco. (A month after that December trip, Mr. Smotkin became a $40,000-a-month foreign agent promoting Morocco’s interests abroad.)
Mr. Smotkin’s June request ran into ethics questions within the E.P.A.: He had invited Mr. Pruitt to a fund-raiser for a nonprofit group that Mr. Smotkin helps run, the American Council of Young Political Leaders, which offers foreign-exchange programs for emerging political leaders. At the event, Mr. Pruitt would be presented with an award in the form of a globe engraved with his name.
“The Ethics department is asking me these questions about the event,” wrote Sydney Hupp, Mr. Pruitt’s scheduler (and the sister of Millan Hupp, who is also a scheduler for Mr. Pruitt. Both are former Pruitt campaign aides.) The questions had to do with the appropriateness of receiving an award at a fund-raising event.
After a series of emails, Millan Hupp wrote back to the staff at the nonprofit group with a solution: Don’t refer Mr. Pruitt’s job during the presentation.
“Yes, the Administrator may attend the event, and yes, he may receive the globe. But please do ensure that they refer to him as the Honorable (as opposed to the EPA Administrator)” Ms. Hupp wrote. “So, yay! It’s been approved through ethics.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/climate/epa-pruitt-emails-secrecy.html
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EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's New Transparency Rule Is Not What It Seems
May 7, 2018 | Forbes
By Steven Salzberg
You would think that the editors of the top science journals in the world would know how to write clearly. But if you read their joint statement in the journal Science last week, you might be forgiven for wondering what the heck they are talking about. It's not that complicated, really. Let me explain.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, when he's not busy taking expensive trips, renting rooms at a deep discount from coal lobbyists, or building $48,000 soundproof booths for his office, is doing his best to make the U.S. a friendly place for fossil fuel industries. As part of his pollution-friendly mission, Pruitt denies the scientific consensus that climate change is real and is caused in part by human activities, especially by carbon dioxide emissions.
Pruitt has devised a clever new strategy to make science denialism part of official EPA policy, while pretending otherwise: he's issued a new proposed rule that requires the EPA to use only "transparent" science. (The official Federal Register entry is here.) In his press release, Pruitt stated
"The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end. The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process."
The press release, which is titled "EPA Administrator Pruitt Proposes Rule To Strengthen Science Used In EPA Regulations", seems to be all about science and openness. One thing I've got to give them credit for: the PR people at the EPA know how to obfuscate.
It turns out this is just a ruse. As Pruitt certainly knows, many of the EPA's rules are based on studies of human subjects, which are governed by strict privacy rules–which are necessary not only to get people to participate in the studies, but also because violating people's privacy can be highly unethical. This means that many studies showing the harms of pollution–for example, this massive study, which found that fine-scale particulate matter from coal plants increases the risk of lung and heart disease–are not "transparent" enough for the EPA, because the identities of the participants as well as all their health records are confidential.
In other words, the new EPA policy isn't about scientific transparency. It's a transparent (!) attempt to ignore the negative health effects of pollution, so that Pruitt can put in place new rules allowing polluters to dump more pollutants into our air and water. See how that works?
In response, the Editors-in-Chief of Science, Nature, the Public Library of Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences issued a joint statement. Alas, their statement is anything but clear. They spend about three-fourths of it explaining about how they support data sharing, and finally, in their last sentence, they write this:
"Excluding relevant studies simply because they do not meet rigid transparency standards will adversely affect decision-making processes."
That's it. Even the most sophisticated reader could be forgiven for not understanding what the issue is, not from this statement alone.
Here's what they should have said: the EPA wants to ignore the health consequences of pollution when creating policy. The EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has announced a new policy that pretends to be about scientific transparency, but is nothing of the sort. Instead, this policy is designed to undermine the EPA's mission, which is (and you can read this right on the EPA's website "to protect human health and the environment."
Since the EPA's creation in 1970, the U.S. has made tremendous strides in cleaning up our air and water. Let's not start backsliding just to enhance the profits of a few polluters.
[Note: I have written the EPA and asked for comment. I will update this article if they respond.]
Steven Salzberg is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/05/07/epa-administrator-scott-pruitts-new-transparency-rule-is-not-what-it-seems/#51daeaa2c4ea
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Documents Show EPA Secrecy Push Under Pruitt
May 7, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
New internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents are shedding light on the agency’s attempts to keep Administrator Scott Pruitt's activities secret, especially before they take place.
The documents, first reported on Monday by The New York Times and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Sierra Club, additionally show that EPA staff often frame potential reporters or attendees at events as either “friendly” or “unfriendly.”
In one example, in planning an Iowa event on Pruitt’s work to roll back an Obama administration water pollution rule, a cattle farmer helping to organize the event told the EPA that he was planning it as a “town hall meeting,” which would allow attendees to ask questions.
“With a crowd of 300 people plus open press, we have to stick with the questions we currently have,” Pruitt’s scheduling director, Millan Hupp, replied, the documents show.
“My sincere apologies for causing any difficulty but we cannot do open q&a from the crowd.”
In one internal memo, EPA staff said that 16 “friendly Industry leaders” would attend a National Association of Homebuilders event in Colorado, which was closed to the public and not announced in advance. The event’s audience was described as “all industry friendly.”
In another instance, when a Missouri television network tweeted in advance of an event Pruitt was planning, a top Pruitt staffer tried to determine if it meant that “unfriendly” media would try to cover the event.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/386510-documents-show-epa-secrecy-push-under-pruitt
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Transparency Plan Would Shield Safety Info — Greens
May 7, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
Environmental groups today slammed EPA's scientific transparency proposal because they say it could allow the agency to keep pesticide safety information secret.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and Beyond Pesticides claim the draft rule would continue to keep the public in the dark about key data on the effects and efficacy of poisons approved for sale and use in their communities and homes.
Specifically, the proposal says that when the agency develops regulations, "EPA should ensure that the data underlying those are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation."
That open-data provision could require EPA rulemakers to avoid considering major pollution studies that draw on personal health information, which many researchers are not willing or able to release (Climatewire, April 26).
But the proposal includes a significant loophole that environmentalists fear Administrator Scott Pruitt's EPA will use to continue allowing the use of confidential pesticide industry data on the impacts of chemical doses on human or environmental health.
The draft rule says the agency chief can "exempt significant regulatory decisions on a case-by-case basis if he or she determines that compliance is impracticable because it is not feasible to ensure that all dose response data and models underlying pivotal regulatory science are publicly available in a fashion that is consistent with law, protects privacy and confidentiality, and is sensitive to national and homeland security."
That would allow the already-opaque pesticide and registration process to continue largely as is, according to the environmental groups' joint analysis.
Currently, the public doesn't have immediate access to manufacturer data on the safety or effectiveness of pesticides approved for sale.
"Under a false flag of scientific transparency, Pruitt's scheme hobbles scientific work used to protect the public but shields industry data that may demonstrate the public health peril," PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein said in a statement.
EPA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the analysis.
Environmentalists have said EPA's move against "secret science" could hamper rulemaking. But defenders say there are ways to make research more available, even taking privacy into account.
Prior to the release of the scientific transparency proposal, an EPA appointee who previously worked for the chemical industry's leading trade group raised concerns about how it would treat industry data.
"This directive needs to be revised," Nancy Beck, the deputy assistant administrator of EPA's chemicals office, said in a Jan. 31 email obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Without change it will jeopardize our entire pesticide registration/re-registration review process and likely all [Toxic Substances Control Act] risk evaluations."
Beck, a former American Chemistry Council executive, explained that a publication requirement for industry data would be "incredibly burdensome" and "not practical" because few people are interested in health information for individual chemicals or product formulations.
Data for many existing chemicals aren't published right now because there is "no incentive for anyone, anywhere to publish them," she wrote to other political appointees (Climatewire, April 20).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/07/stories/1060081011
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Health Advocates Kick Off Week of Action Urging Lowe’s and EPA to Ban Toxic Paint Strippers
May 7, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
Environmental health advocates from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and other groups today kicked off a week of action in more than a dozen states demanding that Lowe’s home improvement stores remove paint strippers containing a deadly chemical, methylene chloride, from its store shelves nationwide. Activists and community members will demonstrate with signs featuring photos of methylene chloride victims, share information about the dangers of methylene chloride and another toxic chemical called N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) with Lowe’s customers, and speak with store employees and management about their concerns. Groups and activists are holding grassroots actions in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and other states.
Meanwhile, the families of three men who died from methylene chloride exposure are visiting Washington, D.C. this week to meet with members of Congress and demand that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalize a pending ban on the use of these toxic chemicals in paint stripper products:Drew Wynne, 31, died in October 2017 while using a paint stripper containing methylene chloride that he bought at Lowe’s to strip the floor at his coffee brewing business in South Carolina. Drew’s mother, father, and brother will meet with members of the South Carolina and North Carolina delegations.Kevin Hartley, 21, died in April 2017 after using a paint stripper containing methylene chloride to strip a bathtub for his family’s contracting business in Tennessee. Kevin’s mother and grandmother will meet with members of the Tennessee delegation.Joshua Atkins, 31, died in February 2018 while refinishing his BMX bike with a paint stripper containing methylene chloride at his home in Pennsylvania. Joshua’s mother will meet with members of the Pennsylvania delegation.
Lauren Atkins, Joshua’s mother, said, “Not one more mother should go through what I’ve been going through. The EPA should protect Americans from methylene chloride and ban it in paint strippers. Retailers should protect their customers and stop selling these products. My son shouldn’t have died this way and no one else should lose a loved one to these deadly products.”
Methylene chloride has been linked to more than 60 deaths nationwide since 1980. At least four men have died since the beginning of 2017 when the EPA first proposed its ban and advocates asked Lowe’s and The Home Depot to cease sale of these paint strippers. The chemical is also linked to lung and liver cancer, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) impacts fetal development and can cause miscarriage and stillbirth.
In 2017, the EPA proposed banning paint strippers containing these chemicals, citing the products’ unreasonable risks to consumers. Under pressure from the chemical industry, the agency has yet to finalize the ban. More than 60,000 U.S. workers and 2 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride and NMP annually.
The week of action follows the launch of a national campaign by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, NRDC, and other coalition partners urging Lowe’s to ban paint strippers containing these chemicals. More than 120,000 consumers nationwide have already signed petitions urging Lowe’s to act. Last year, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families sent Lowe’s a letter warning the company about the dangers of these chemicals and requested that the store stop selling paint strippers containing toxic chemicals, including the product that killed Drew Wynne.
“Since we first wrote to Lowe’s last year, four families have lost loved ones from working with toxic paint strippers,” said Mike Schade, Mind the Store Campaign Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “Lowe’s should pull these products from store shelves immediately. DIY shouldn’t spell danger.”
This week of action is led by the national environmental health group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families leads a coalition of more than 450 organizations and businesses working to safeguard American families from toxic chemicals. The group’s Mind the Store campaign challenges big retailers to eliminate toxic chemicals and substitute them with safer alternatives. In November 2017, the campaign released its Who’s Minding the Store? report card ranking 30 of the nation’s retailers on toxic chemicals. Lowe’s ranked 19th, earning a D- grade.
https://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/health-advocates-kick-off-week-of-action-urging-lowes-and-epa-to-ban-toxic-paint-strippers/
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America's Utility Of The Future Forms Around Performance-Based Regulation
May 7, 2018 | Forbes
By Sonia Aggarwal
The utility business model is evolving in response to a fundamental shift in our power system economics. Traditional utility models were built on the engine of inexorable electricity demand growth, which became less certain as America’s power system was built out and energy efficiency programs succeeded – electricity demand growth has been flat for 10 years, and it’s expected to stay that way.
Electrifying transportation and buildings promise to provide future growth for utilities, but just how much growth and when it will happen is uncertain. At the same time, customers are demanding more control over how they consume and produce their own energy, and energy economics have reached a critical cost crossover – renewable energy is now cheaper than many fossil power sources, even without counting health or climate benefits.
In response, utilities – and their regulators – are increasingly embracing a new revenue model that rewards performance against goals to meet evolving customer demands and avoid unwanted consequences: performance-based regulation (PBR).
PBR transforms the traditional utility revenue model where profit is driven by returns on capital investments (like power plants) or the volume of electricity sold into one where profit is driven by meeting goals to deliver an affordable, reliable, and clean power system.
Forward-looking utilities and policymakers are embracing this shift, and several leader states are showing when it comes to building a prosperous utility of the future, it pays to get out in front of the PBR trend.
Advanced Energy Economy, PowerSuite, last accessed May 5, 2018
State activity tracked using Advanced Energy Economy's PowerSuite tool.
Utilities Embrace Performance-Based Regulation
Integrating low-cost renewable generation and distributed energy resources (DERs) is an imperative for utilities and their regulators – and successfully reforming business models to make the most of this trend depends on getting the details right.
Thirteen states are now actively discussing or moving forward on PBR and are working on ways the utility business model can evolve to deliver and thrive on performance, according to state utility regulatory dockets accessed via Advanced Energy Economy's PowerSuite.
For the most part, U.S. utilities are embracing this change. In Utility Dive’s 2018 State of the Electric Utility survey, more than three-quarters of respondents said they wanted PBR to form at least part of their model, and 32% preferred a predominantly PBR-based business model to govern their investment decisions.
Utility Dive reports 49% of utilities currently operate in a COS environment, while 32% operate in a hybrid COS-PBR environment, and just 4% operate in a predominantly PBR environment. However, 81% of utilities said they either already have or want a regulatory proceeding in their state to reform utility business and revenue models, and 73% expect to operate either in a hybrid COS-PBR or predominantly PBR-based environment within 10 years.
The tide's changing for utility business models, and three states – Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Minnesota – lead the surge.
Hawaii – PBR to Help Achieve 100% Renewable Energy Goal
In April, Hawaii became the first state to legally require utilities separate revenue from capital expenditures, i.e. moving from a COS business model to a PBR environment. SB 2939, directing regulators to create a new utility business model, unanimously passed both houses of the Hawaiian state legislature and was signed into law by Governor David Ige. Hawaii’s primary utility, Hawaiian Electric, supports the new law and regulators have already opened a process to design and implement PBR.
By 2020, Hawaii will create PBR incentives that “directly tie an electric utility revenues to that utility’s achievement on performance metrics” through incentives and penalties to increase customer affordability, support grid reliability, and rapidly transition to renewable energy. Regulators will tackle the task in two phases: evaluating Hawaii’s existing regulations and identifying areas for improvement, then determining which PBR approaches work best for utilities and customers.
New Green Energy PV Photovoltaic Solar Panel System on a Green Energy Saving Aluminum Shake Roof in Oahu, Hawaii
Hawaii’s PBR process is important for two reasons. First, the state has established a goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045, so determining how to quickly and reliably integrate variable renewables while keeping utilities profitable and customer costs low could provide lessons for other states. Second, Hawaii‘s energy prices are among the highest in America and renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels, so lessons learned here can be applied to the challenge of retiring uneconomic generation across the U.S.
Rhode Island – Small State, Serious Action
Rhode Island is another epicenter of action on PBR. In March 2017, Governor Gina Raimondo directed state regulators and agencies to determine how utility regulations could help affordably and reliably reduce emissions 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.
The inter-agency team held technical meetings and solicited stakeholder engagement, producing their Power Sector Transformation Phase One report last Fall. The report outlined National Grid’s existing incentives and performance, summarizing that COS regulation discouraged the utility from seeking efficient solutions that don’t depend on large capital investment. It also recommended specific changes to the existing utility business model, including linking utility profits to performance through metrics and incentives to boost demand-side energy management and integrate DERs like renewables and energy storage.
Wind turbines, of the Block Island Wind Farm, tower over the water on October 14, 2016 off the shores of Block Island, Rhode Island. The first offshore wind project in America has created more than 300 construction jobs and will deliver the electricity demands for the entire island. / AFP / DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)
Rhode Island’s experience shows value in getting ahead of the PBR trend. Shortly after the state report’s publication, National Grid filed a rate case proposing significantly different performance incentives than those recommended by the state’s report. Because the state’s process had already solicited a wide range of comments and generated buy-in its recommendations, Rhode Island regulators have existing stakeholder recommendations they can use to assess the utility’s proposal.
Minnesota – Land of 10,000 Stakeholders
Midwesterners are known for their friendly nature, so it shouldn’t be a surprise Minnesota has had the most success getting stakeholders spanning every element of the utility-customer spectrum to agree. The state’s e21 initiativelaunched in 2014 by convening utilities, environmentalists, consumers, cities, businesses, state officials, and regulators to determine how regulations could achieve state goals.
Through the structured “transformative scenario planning” process, e21 revealed that all power-sector stakeholders thought the existing business model and regulatory framework needed to change, even if they wanted change for different reasons. This set the table for change, and after a series of regular meetings, the group published consensus recommendations for future regulations prioritizing PBR. The recommendations guided several subsequent regulatory decisions, most notably approval of Xcel Energy’s 2016-2020 rate plan, which closely aligned with e21 recommendations.
e21
Phases in Minnesota's e21 initiative
Minnesota then proceeded through e21’s Phase Two, focused on determining how to best implement PBR, and began working with Xcel and stakeholders to develop PBR along two tracks: create performance metrics, and identifying where performance incentives could overcome consumer shortfalls in the existing utility regulatory model.
While Minnesota’s utility business model revisions may be taking more time than other states, they’re notable because of the degree that stakeholder agreement has improved outcomes and prevented disagreements.
What’s Next for Performance-Based Regulation?
The U.S. power sector has evolved, and PBR has emerged as a preferred option to maintain existing infrastructure and ensure a resilient grid based on clean and affordable energythat benefits customers, businesses, and utilities. Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Minnesota are making serious progress on PBR, and they’re not alone.
Illinois has had PBR on the books for years, and recently began the NextGrid utility of the future study to guide future regulation, help achieve its goal of more than 4 gigawatts’ new renewables, and capitalize on the billions it has already spent on grid modernization with several stakeholder groups.
Meanwhile, Ohio recently completed the third phase of its PowerForward review of utility regulation to incentivize grid modernization, and state regulators are considering several ideas raised in the PowerForward process.
Illinois and Ohio may be the next states to move on PBR, but they won’t be the last. Utilities and their regulators around the U.S. are increasingly looking forward to ensure customers get what they want from the electricity system.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2018/05/07/americas-utility-of-the-future-forms-around-performance-based-regulation/2/#47bb1c217941
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How Wall Street Enabled the Fracking 'Revolution' That's Losing Billions
May 7, 2018 | DeSmog Blog (In EcoWatch)
By Justin Mikulka
The U.S. shale oil industry hailed as a "revolution" has burned through a quarter trillion dollars more than it has brought in over the last decade. It has been a money-losing endeavor of epic proportions.
In September 2016, the financial ratings service Moody's released a report on U.S. oil companies, many of which were hurting from the massive drop in oil prices. Moody's found that "the financial toll from the oil bust can only be described as catastrophic," particularly for small companies that took on huge debt to finance fracking shale formations when oil prices were high.
And even though shale companies still aren't turning a profit, Wall Street continues to lend the industry more money while touting these companies as good investments. Why would investors do that?
David Einhorn, star hedge fund investor and the founder of Greenlight Capital, has referred to the shale industry as "a joke."
"A business that burns cash and doesn't grow isn't worth anything," said Einhorn, who often goes against the grain in the financial world.
Aren't investors supposed to be focused on putting money toward profitable companies? While, in theory, yes, the reality is quite different for industries like shale oil and housing.
If the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 has revealed anything, it is that Wall Street isn't concerned with making a "shitty deal" when it means profits and bonuses for its traders and executives, despite their roles in the crash.
Wall Street makes money by facilitating deals much like a Vegas bookie makes money by taking bets. As the saying about Las Vegas goes: "The house always wins." What's true about casinos and gambling also holds true for Wall Street.
Wall Street caused the 2008 financial crisis, with some of its architects personally benefiting. However, while a few executives profited, the result was a drop in employment of 8.8 million people, and according to Bloomberg News in 2010, "at one point last year [2009] the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy."
JP Morgan (along with much of Wall Street) required large sums of money in the form of bailouts to survive the fallout from all of the bad loans made, which brought about the housing crisis. Is JP Morgan steering clear of making loans to the shale industry? No. Quite the opposite.
As shown in this chart of which banks are loaning money to shale company EOGResources, while all of the big players in Wall Street are in on the action, JP Morgan has the biggest bet.
To understand why JP Morgan and the rest of these banks would loan money to shale companies that continue to lose it, it's important to understand the gambling concept of "the vigorish" or the vig. Merriam-Webster defines vigorish as "a charge taken (as by a bookie or a gambling house) on bets."
Wall Street makes money by taking a cut of other people's money. To a gambling house, it doesn't matter if everyone else is making money or losing it, as long as the house gets its cut (the vig)—or as it's known in the financial world—fees.
Understanding this concept gives insight into why investors have lent a quarter trillion dollars to the shale industry, which has burned through it. If you take the vig on a quarter trillion dollars, you have a big pile of cash. And while those oil companies may all go bankrupt, Wall Street never gives back the vig.
Trent Stedman of the investment firm Columbia Pacific Advisors LLC explained to The Wall Street Journal at the end of 2017 why shale producers would keep drilling more oil even when the companies are bleeding money on every barrel produced:"Some would say, 'We know it's bad economics, but it's what The Street wants.'"
And "The Street" generally gets what it wants, even when it is clear that loaning money to shale companies that have been losing money for a decade and are already deep in debt is "bad economics." But Wall Street bonuses are based on how many "fees" an employee can bring to the bank. More fees mean a bigger bonus. And loans—even ones that are clearly bad economics—mean a lot more fees.
Shale Oil Companies Are "Creatures of the Capital Markets"
In 2017 "legendary" hedge fund manager Jim Chanos referred to shale oil companies as "creatures of the capital markets," meaning that without Wall Street money, they would not exist. Chanos is also on record as shorting the stock of heavily leveraged shale oil giant Continental Resources because the company can't even make enough money to pay the interest on its loans.
And he has a point. In 2017 Continental spent $294.5 million on interest expenses, which is approximately 155 percent of its 2017 adjusted net income generation. When you can't even pay the interest on your credit cards, you are broke.
And yet in 2017, investor capital was still flowing, with Continental Resources among those bellying up to the Wall Street trough for another billion in debt."In 2017, U.S. [exploration and production] firms raised more from bond sales than in any year since the price collapse started in 2014, with offerings coming in at around $60 billion — up nearly 30 percent from 2016, according to Dealogic. Large-cap players like Whiting Petroleum, Continental Resources, Southwestern, Noble, Concho and Endeavor Energy Resources each raised $1 billion or more in the second half of 2017."
How big of a problem is this business of loaning money to an industry burning through billions and burying itself in debt? So big that the CEO of shale company Anadarko Petroleum is blaming Wall Street and asking its companies to please stop loaning money to the shale oil industry. Yes, that's right.
In 2017, Anadarko CEO Al Walker told an investor conference that Wall Street investors were the problem:"The biggest problem our industry faces today is you guys. You guys can help us help ourselves. It's kind of like going to AA. You know, we need a partner. We really need the investment community to show discipline."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Walker maintains: "Wall Street has become an enabler that pushes companies to grow production at any cost, while punishing those that try to live within their means."
Imagine begging banks to stop loaning you money. And being ignored.
Growing production at any cost is the story of the shale "revolution." The financial cost paid so far has been the more than $280 billion the industry has burned through—money that its companies have received from Wall Street and, despite the plea from Al Walker, continue to receive.
The Economist summarized the situation in 2017:"It [the shale industry] has burned up cash whether the oil price was at $100, as in 2014, or at about $50, as it was during the past three months. The biggest 60 firms in aggregate have used up $9 billion per quarter on average for the past five years."
Higher oil prices are now being touted as the industry's savior but, as The Economist noted, the shale industry was losing money even when oil was $100 a barrel.
Still Wall Street keeps giving the shale industry money and the shale industry keeps losing it as it ramps up production. To be clear, this arrangement makes shale company CEOs and financial lenders very rich, which is why the trend is likely to continue. And why Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm will continue to repeatthe myth that his industry is making money, as he did at the end of 2017:"For anybody to even put forth the suggestion we haven't had great expansion and wealth creation in this industry with horizontal drilling and all the technology that's come about the last 10 years, I mean, it's totally ridiculous."
No one will argue that Hamm and his partners on Wall Street are not extremely wealthy. That has happened despite Hamm's company and the rest of the fracking industry losing epic sums of money. The same year Hamm made that statement, his company couldn't even cover its interest expenses. To put that in perspective, Continental Resources couldn't even make the equivalent of the minimum payment on its credit card.
Watch What the Industry Does, Not What It Says
Higher oil prices are yielding more stories about how 2018 will be the year that the shale industry finally makes a profit. Harold Hamm refers to it as Continental Resources' "breakout year." Interesting how potentially not losing money for a year is considered a "breakout year" in the shale industry.
As reported on DeSmog, the industry certainly got a huge boost from the recent tax law, which will help its companies' short-term finances. Continental Resources alone took home $700 million in tax relief.
Recent reports in the financial press detail how the new approach in the shale industry will be to focus only on profitable oil production, not just producing more barrels at a loss. As The Wall Street Journal put it in a headline: Wall Street Tells Frackers to Stop Counting Barrels, Start Making Profits.
In that very article, Continental CEO Hamm assures that he is on board with this new approach, saying, "You are really preaching to the choir."
But has Continental actually embraced this new approach of fiscal responsibility and restraint?
Not so much.
The fracking firm appears to have done the opposite, increasing production to record levels along with the rest of the shale industry. Continental recently reported plans to drill 350 new wells at an estimated cost of $11.7 million per well, which adds up to over $4 billion in total costs on those wells. The company currently holds more than $6 billion in debt and less than $100 million cash.
How will Continental fund those new wells? Hamm has promised that going forward, there would be "absolutely no new debt." Perhaps Continental will fund it by selling assets because without more debt, Continental does not have the money to fund those new wells. However, if past is prelude, then Wall Street will happily lend Continental as much money as it wants.
Why would Hamm say one thing and do another? Well, he personally has accrued billions of dollars while his company has burned through billions.
Despite leading Continental to another money-losing year in 2017, Hamm took home a fat raise.
https://www.ecowatch.com/wall-street-fracking-revolution-2566742237.html
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In New Oil Climate, Fieldwood Energy and Others Ditch Debt
May 7, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Collin Eaton
Fieldwood Energy didn't have a business problem. Its offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico paid for themselves. But it did have a debt problem.
When a barrel of oil fetched $100 a few years ago, the Houston oil producer borrowed $3.3 billion to pay for $4.4 billion in acquisitions. Crude prices crashed into the $30 a barrel range, and the debt got a lot more expensive. Half of the cash the company made from its offshore oil business went to interest payments.
"That's a hard thing to sustain," Fieldwood CEO Matt McCarroll said in a recent interview. "Did we think $100 oil would last longer than it did? Yeah, probably so. Would we do that again? No way."
Fieldwood, which paid $260 million in interest last year alone, is one of the scores of U.S. oil companies ditching business plans that depend on high levels of debt, opting instead to raise equity and fund purchases with cash. In the oil market meltdown, American drillers that ran up billions in debt and built their businesses to run on expensive oil paid a high price. More than 140 North American oil producers filed for bankruptcy with a combined $90 billion in debt, according to law firm Haynes & Boone.Recommended Video:Oil Approaches $70 00:0000:35Now Playing: Oil Approaches $70
Oil continued its rally on Thursday, approaching $70 for the first time in more than three years. West Texas Intermediate rose about 1% to $69.56 at session highs around 7 a.m. On Wednesday, the US Energy Information Administration released a report showing oil inventories in the US fell by 1.1 million barrels last week to about 428 million barrels. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia has been hinting the OPEC could extend production caps into next year. The country — OPEC's biggest producer — is targeting a crude price of $80 or even $100, Reuters reported.Media: Daily Press
Related: Private companies investing in Gulf of Mexico as Wall Street turns its back
Fieldwood, a private equity-backed oil producer that drills almost exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico, emerged last month from the U.S. oil industry's largest bankruptcy case since mid-2016. But McCarroll, Fieldwood's lawyers and advisers have something to say about that: Don't think of it as a traditional bankruptcy.
For one thing, its existing lenders and equity holders contributed $525 million in new capital in part to fund the acquisition of deep-water Gulf assets owned by Houston's Noble Energy – a deal it closed as it came out of bankruptcy.
It also went into bankruptcy court with a prepackaged restructuring plan that all of its equity holders and 80 percent of its lenders had approved. Its private equity backer Riverstone Holdings owned virtually all of the company's equity and half of its second lien debt, and today it still owns half of the company and has three seats on its board of directors. It didn't use bankruptcy laws to get out of financial obligations to its vendors. In 45 days, it had only two hearings that lasted less than four hours combined.
And how did it pay for the Noble deal?
"One-hundred percent equity," McCarroll said.
Fieldwood had discussed the acquisition with Noble before its restructuring, but it didn't have the capital to buy the assets at the time. When it reached the point in negotiations with lenders that it knew it could raise enough capital, executives went back to Noble.
"At first, they thought it was kind of a crazy idea, too," McCarroll said. "They were patient and wise enough to hear us out."
Related: Oil job market hasn't caught fire yet as drillers remain wary of price recovery
In the downturn, even when oil prices fell to $26 a barrel in February, Fieldwood's business paid for itself. The cost to operate Fieldwood's assets only came to $15 a barrel. The Noble assets generate $300 million in cash a year.
Now, Fieldwood is looking ahead to a more profitable year as U.S. crude prices edge above $70 a barrel. The company plans to spend $350 million this year and more than $400 million next year to dispatch more drilling rigs to the Gulf of Mexico, its first drilling program in two and a half years. It has two rigs out there now but it'll send two more soon, with plans to drill some deep-water wells over the next few months.
"Without a heavy debt burden and without big capital commitments, we can be opportunistic about where we spend our capital," McCarroll said. "At these oil prices, we ought to be able to make pretty nice returns."
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/In-new-oil-climate-Fieldwood-Energy-and-others-12893688.php
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Will Pruitt's Repeal Come with Replacement Plan?
May 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
High-level EPA staff is quitting, ethics controversies are dogging the administrator and investigators are scrutinizing employees' behavior.
But deregulatory work is chugging along at EPA, including efforts to finally get rid of President Obama's signature climate change policy.
EPA is planning to finalize a repeal of the Clean Power Plan — Obama's rule to cut power plants' greenhouse gas emissions — and is considering proposing a replacement rule. Observers say the timing and the specifics of EPA's next steps will determine how strong the agency is heading into the court battles guaranteed to come.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has a choice between finalizing a Clean Power Plan repeal and coming up with a replacement at a later date, or rolling out a finalized repeal and a proposed replacement at the same time. He could also decide not to replace the rule, an outcome favored by a number of far-right conservatives but widely seen as the most legally vulnerable option.
EPA isn't commenting about which course of action it's planning, though the agency is further along on finalizing a repeal, while it has yet to issue a proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan.
Of the possible approaches, the agency seems least likely to pursue repealing the Clean Power Plan without replacing it at all, said Jessica Wentz, a staff attorney at Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
"This would be the least intelligent approach; that would leave them very open to a judicial challenge," she said.
Jeff Holmstead, a lawyer and lobbyist at Bracewell LLP, noted that EPA staff members had said they were planning to have a replacement rule by the end of this year. He called the plan "pretty ambitious but not impossible."
The agency's unified agenda states EPA will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in June if a review of public comments on the initial advance notice finds replacing the rule is appropriate. That would leave just five or six months to come up with a proposed rule, review public comments and develop a final rule.
Meanwhile, EPA's agenda puts a final Clean Power Plan repeal date in October.
"Given this timing, I assume that they will do the repeal and the replacement rule at the same time. For both practical and strategic reasons, this makes the most sense," Holmstead said.
Environmental groups have said they will challenge the agency for any replacement plan that does not produce equivalent CO2 cuts to the rule under the Obama administration.
While the power sector has on its own made emissions cuts that have made the Clean Power Plan's targets easy to achieve, even more emissions reductions are needed to "avoid catastrophic climate change," said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Pruitt should be strengthening the Clean Power Plan, not repealing it. A repeal or a do-nothing replacement will violate the Clean Air Act," Doniger said in an email.
The key question is whether EPA's new plan for regulating greenhouse gases from power plants represents the "best system of emissions reductions," said Wentz.
Pruitt had previously called for the federal government to provide voluntary emissions guidelines for states, or to focus the regulation only on emissions reductions that could happen at the facility level. Wentz argues that neither of these approaches would satisfy the "best system of emissions reductions" requirement under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. It's unclear whether the Trump administration's replacement plan will pass muster in the courts, particularly considering that the agency had dramatically shifted course in how it chose to regulate power plants as part of a "clear political agenda," she said.
"The outcome depends on the reviewing judges and how much they will defer to EPA," she said.
If EPA's replacement doesn't come out at the same time as the final repeal, that could compound the agency's problems, said Richard Revesz, director of New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity.
"EPA has a duty to regulate [greenhouse gas] emissions. To have a repeal without a replacement, among other problems, they are violating those duties," he said.
Even if EPA does face legal challenges for not having a regulation on the books to control greenhouse gases, the agency could ask the court to put any legal case on hold as it finishes up with a replacement, Revesz added.
EPA has already successfully used a similar approach to stall litigation in federal appeals court over the legality of the Clean Power Plan. Just last week, EPA sent another notice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requesting the case remain stalled as the agency reviews comments on both the proposed repeal and a notice announcing EPA's plans to craft a replacement.
The comment period for the replacement closed on April 26, the same day Pruitt appeared before two congressional oversight hearings. The proposal received over 19,500 comments. The comment period on the notice to replace the rule closed Feb. 26 and received a scant 386 comments.
"I think it's wrong that EPA continues to say the Clean Power Plan is illegal but is standing in the way of having a court that heard legal arguments for a whole day. I think it's just wrong," Revesz said.
It's unclear whether judges would go along with such a request following new legal challenges.
EPA, for its part, doesn't seem to be in a rush to finalize a new rule, Wentz added.
"I suspect from the administration's perspective they have no problem extending this process. I think they are comfortable running out the clock," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/07/stories/1060080923
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NFG Turns to Transco Option to Move Natural Gas from Pennsylvania
May 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG) management believes the company has a viable alternative to help grow natural gas production from the shale fields of western Pennsylvania, even if the Northern Access pipeline is never built, announcing a deal Friday to anchor a Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC expansion project.
While details of the new 300 MMcf/d project are still being worked out, the Transco expansion would provide a path for NFG upstream subsidiary Seneca Resources Corp. to send volumes from its Western Development Area (WDA) in northwest Pennsylvania to Transco Zone 6 markets in the New York City region. NFG CEO Ronald Tanski said Transco is currently in discussions with other potential shippers to see if the project can be upsized. Both parties are currently targeting a late 2021 in-service date.
The timeline wouldn’t be too different from what NFG currently sees as a 2020 in-service date for its beleaguered Northern Access project, which would move 490 MMcf/d from the WDA to New York, Canada and the Midwest. New York regulators, as they have for several other natural gas transmission projects, denied a water quality certificate for Northern Access more than a year ago. NFG is awaiting the outcome of an appeal in federal court and for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decide on a rehearing request.
“When our Northern Access interstate pipeline project ran into a roadblock last year, we began talking about the possibility of an additional project we might build to transport Seneca’s natural gas production from our Western Development Area to a more liquid market area with stronger natural gas prices,” Tanski said. The Transco expansion would “do just that.”
Seneca produced 46.1 Bcfe in fiscal 2Q2018, up 1% from the year-ago period and up 15% from fiscal 1Q2018. The sequential increase was primarily related to production curtailments made late last year. While there were no curtailments in the latest quarter, low prices and a lack of takeaway have prompted the company to repeatedly curtail volumes in recent years.
NFG, an integrated energy company with various business segments including a natural gas utility, is looking to its upstream and midstream subsidiaries to drive growth, making the Northern Access delays an issue and the Transco expansion that much more important. Transco does not have facilities in the WDA, or more specifically within the Clermont/Rich Valley (CRV) area that encompasses Elk, McKean and Cameron counties, PA, from where Seneca wants to ship.
NFG would build out the first leg of the expansion to get gas from the CRV to an interconnection with Transco in Leidy, PA, by enhancing a modernization project already planned for the National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. system. The modernization project is now expected to cost $250-300 million. Transco would then enter a long-term agreement with NFG to lease that leg of the expansion.
“We expect the transportation rate on this project will be extremely competitive to the Northern Access rate,” Tanski said. He added that if Northern Access ultimately moves forward, then Seneca has enough acreage and a large enough well inventory to fill both pipeline projects. That would likely require more capital and financing in what Tanski said would be a “good problem to have.”
Beyond the midstream, Seneca continued to press ahead with its transition to full Utica Shale development in northwest Pennsylvania during the second quarter. It now has nine wells online, including a test well in Elk County in an area NFG calls Boone Mountain that’s about 30 miles south of its other Utica wells in the CRV. After more than 30 days online, that test well is producing at a rate consistent with the others farther north that have proven themselves.
“We have additional appraisal drilling to conduct between Rich Valley and Boone Mountain, but if results remain consistent, this will open up a new Utica development corridor,” Seneca President John McGinnis told financial analysts during NFG’s earnings call on Friday.
As it’s grappled with the Northern Access delay, management said it has pressed for marketing gains, which have paid off for the company. “From a marketing perspective, we’re having continued success in locking in firm sales for Seneca’s production for meaningful periods of time at economic prices,” McGinnis said. “We’re not substantially relying on the spot sales market.”
To fill those firm sales commitments, Seneca plans to soon add a third rig for redevelopment opportunities on existing pads in the WDA. The upstream segment is increasing its capital expenditures guidance for fiscal year 2018 and now guiding for $350-370 million from a previous estimate of $300-330 million.
Similarly, the company has been working in its Eastern Development Area in north-central Pennsylvania to ramp up volumes ahead of the Atlantic Sunrise expansion start up. Seneca has 190 MMcf/d committed to that pipeline. It has lowered annual production guidance and now anticipates an Aug. 1 in-service date. McGinnis said Seneca would adjust its production schedule accordingly. NFG’s fiscal year ends in September.
The company also lowered its production guidance after closing the sale of its Sespe field assets in Ventura County, CA, for $43 million. The oily assets were too remote from the company’s primary oil production operations in the San Joaquin Basin in Kern and Fresno counties, CA. The Sespe field was also becoming expensive, McGinnis said, with declining production and new permits increasingly hard to come by as the properties are in the Los Padres National Forest, where a Condor sanctuary is located.
Seneca is now guiding for fiscal 2018 production of 175-190 Bcfe, down from the previous range of 180-190 Bcfe.
Average natural gas prices, including hedges, declined by 44 cents year/year (y/y) to $2.52/Mcf in 2Q2018. Average oil prices, including hedges, increased by $5.39 over the same time to $58.31/bbl.
Most of the company’s other business segments, including pipeline and storage, gathering and its utility business, all saw earnings increase. The utility segment’s earnings were up 30% y/y on colder weather in Pennsylvania and New York.
NFG reported consolidated second quarter net income of $91.8 million ($1.06/share), compared with earnings of $89.3 million ($1.04) in 2Q2017. Revenue increased to $540.9 million from $522 million in 2Q2017.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114286-nfg-turns-to-transco-option-to-move-natural-gas-from-pennsylvania
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FERC Continues Incremental Approvals of MVP Construction
May 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114285-ferc-continues-incremental-approvals-of-mvp-construction
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PATH on Track to Meet PTC Deadline
May 7, 2018 | Progressive Railroading
Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) this month will begin weekend tunnel and station closures to finish installing and testing positive train control (PTC) equipment and software.
The closures will begin May 19 and resume July 7 through October's end. PATH conducted a similar weekend closure program during 2016's second half for the first phase of PTC implementation, which involved equipment and signal installation.
The railroad remains on track to meet the Dec. 31 deadline to install the technology, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) officials said in a press release.
Although PATH's PTC system is expected to be in place on time, as many as two-thirds of the 29 commuter railroads required to implement the technology might miss the deadline, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report from earlier this year.
PTC is a key part of PATH's comprehensive automatic train control system, which is designed to improve safety and boost communication between trains through communications-based train control technology (CBTC).
CBTC continuously calculates and communicates a train's exact position, speed, travel direction and safe braking distance, which enables railroads to run trains more frequently and closer together.
To learn more about CBTC technology, read this feature from Progressive Railroading's February 2017 issue.https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/PATH-on-track-to-meet-PTC-deadline--54596
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Environmentalists Claim Pruitt's 'Closed Mind' in CWA Rule Suit
May 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are using EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's public opposition to the 2015 Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule to bolster their suit seeking to bring that standard back into effect, arguing in a new motion that he acted with an unlawfully “closed mind” by delaying enforcement of the rule until 2020 to allow time for a full repeal of it.
In a May 3 summary judgment motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and National Wildlife Federation (NWF) say Pruitt's avowed goal of repealing the Obama-era CWA rule -- also known as the Clean Water Rule -- taints any rulemaking on the subject under his supervision, including the two-year delay on its implementation that took effect in January.
“For the past three years, Administrator Pruitt has exhibited a single-minded determination to upend the Clean Water Rule,” the groups say, pointing to his leading role in litigation against the rule as Oklahoma attorney general as well as numerous public statements, writings and Congressional testimony before and since his confirmation to lead EPA.
“He repeatedly misrepresented the Rule’s scope, maligned the Rule as 'bad,' 'terrible,' 'deficient,' and a 'power grab,' criticized the Rule’s 'significant nexus' approach as 'the poorest form of rulemaking,' [and] said the Rule needs to be 'rolled back in a very aggressive way,'” the brief says.
While Pruitt's dislike of the Obama-era water policy is no secret, if his opponents can prove that he is approaching the ongoing repeal process with an “unalterably closed mind” it would run afoul of Supreme Court decisions that require regulators to meaningfully consider public comments on their proposals, such as 1979's Association of National Advertisers v. Federal Trade Commission.
“The Due Process Clause of the Constitution also requires that rulemakings be undertaken with an open mind. Agency actions violate both due process and the [Administrative Procedure Act] when there is a clear and convincing showing that the decisionmaker acted with an 'unalterably closed mind' on matters critical to the proceeding, and was unwilling to rationally consider counterarguments,” the brief says.
Democratic-led states have also filed arguments with the same court arguing that the delay rule is procedurally improper, but a finding that Pruitt's mind is “unalterably closed” on the subject could have wide-ranging consequences -- if upheld on appeal, it would also extend to the separate, still-pending rulemaking to fully repeal the 2015 policy. That precedent would in turn create new hurdles for that process since much of the work on it has already been done, with the administrator's involvement.
The environmentalists say in their new brief that while the standard for a closed mind is high, Pruitt has met it. “Pruitt’s demonstrated antipathy for the Clean Water Rule goes far beyond a statement about what approach he considers 'best,' or a 'mere discussion of policy or advocacy on a legal question,'” the groups say, referencing courts' tests for implementing the justices' standard of open-mindedness.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-claim-pruitts-closed-mind-cwa-rule-suit
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'Congenial Opportunist' in Line for Top Regional Post
May 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kelsey Brugger
The lawyer expected to get a top EPA job has said climate science is based on "conflicting evidence" and called California's efforts to work with China to combat global warming "ludicrous."
Republican Michael Stoker — a longtime California agriculture attorney and former Santa Barbara County supervisor — is in line to become the next EPA Region 9 administrator, multiple sources told E&E News. He's not well known on the national stage, but he's a longtime supporter of President Trump who is credited with coining the chant "Lock her up," referring to Hillary Clinton. He has a long record of advocating for industries hoping to scale back environmental rules.
And on climate, his public comments are in line with those of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and other top Trump administration officials, who have downplayed humans' impact and criticized state and federal policies.
Stoker has lambasted California localities' efforts to target oil companies for their greenhouse gas emissions.
"I would totally expect the oil companies to prevail," Stoker told The San Diego Union-Tribunelast July. "I really think that there's no merit to these cases based on existing laws," he said, adding, "But nothing would surprise me about court decisions that come out of California anymore."
Stoker said that the lawsuits fail to address "the conflicting evidence about global warming, and as we all know, there is conflicting evidence."
It's unclear if or when a formal announcement about Stoker's hire will be made. The Region 9 post has been without a political appointee for more than a year. Stoker recently declined to "confirm or deny" his appointment (Climatewire, April 30).
EPA has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
If he gets the job, Stoker would be at the head of an EPA office that would likely go head-to-head with California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who announced last week that he is suing the Trump administration over fuel efficiency standards. EPA's Region 9 office oversees California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and employs about 700 staffers.
Stoker has had some harsh words for the California governor.
In June 2017, after Trump pledged to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, Stoker called Brown "ludicrous" for working to cooperate with China on clean technology, emissions and climate change policy solutions, the Santa Barbara News-Press reported. Stoker added, "Doing it alone clearly cannot solve the problem."
Stoker argued that California would suffer economically and the efforts would not produce any noticeable reduction in global temperature increase. Brown's opposition to Trump, he warned, would be a "hard lesson" for California. Stoker added, the article states, that a better option would be for the United States to renegotiate the Paris climate accord so that China and India take on a greater role in reducing emissions.Fight over air agency
Stoker has ruffled feathers in California environmental circles.
He's known for having entered Santa Barbara politics in the 1980s by opposing an anti-oil ballot measure, according to Linda Krop, chief counsel with the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara.
When he was a Santa Barbara County supervisor from 1986 to 1994, Stoker was part of an effort to reorganize the county's Air Pollution Control District. At the time, the agency was ramping up fines and rules for polluters.
As a county supervisor, Stoker brought a bold, outspoken personality to the dais. He was known to be a lifelong Republican, but many liberals consider him affable. Still, Santa Barbara Democrats haven't minced words about the thought of him leading Region 9.
"It's a weird fit for him," said Terry Dressler, former Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) head. "I was in air quality for 33 years, and I wouldn't know anything about running an agency of 700 people."
Dressler, whose APCD tenure overlapped with Stoker's terms on the county Board of Supervisors, recalled that Stoker was part of an effort to reorganize the agency at a time when it was ramping up environmental rules. (In the 1980s, the county supervisors were the five elected officials overseeing the agency. Today, the surrounding cities have a voice on APCD's board.)
As a result, two environmental "Machiavellian masterminds" — Jim Ryerson and Bill Master — lost their jobs, Dressler said. The pair had effectively lobbied Washington to implement changes to the Clean Air Act that gave local air pollution control districts the authority to regulate air pollution from oil platforms in federal waters.
"It broke my heart what was done to them," he said. "They were high-level regulators."
The reorganization effort was heavily backed by the oil industry that operates onshore wells in oil canyons in the northern part of the county. It was pushing back against air regulators' attempts to levy fees on polluters.
Like many California counties, Santa Barbara was not meeting air quality standards. So Dressler said the agency first targeted big sources such as the auto and petroleum industries and then went after lesser polluters such as gas stations.
Stoker's supporters, however, said the agency was guilty of overreach. Attorney Randy Fox, a friend of Stoker's, called APCD "horrible in the '80s." It went after low-level polluters such as hospitals and gas stations, he said. He called the reorganization "efficient" and added that Santa Barbara County came into air pollution compliance two years later.Regulatory 'overreach'
Like Pruitt and others in the Trump administration, Stoker has complained of environmental regulators going too far.
In the mid-2000s, Stoker worked as a spokesman for Greka Oil & Gas Inc. while that company battled local and federal regulators over numerous oil spills that released an abundance of crude oil as well as toxic chemicals.
Seven years ago, Greka — which has changed its name to HVI Cat Canyon Inc. — was sued by the federal government for violating the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act and state environmental laws. EPA, among other federal agencies, argued that the Greka spills had tarnished "navigable waters." At the time, Stoker stated that the lawsuit was about "federal agencies that are attempting to overreach their jurisdiction."
Stoker also has a long history advising farmers. He has advocated for legislation to allow relief from the Endangered Species Act during California's yearslong drought. "The ESA has essentially prioritized endangered species over human beings and our food," he wrote in a November 2016 op-ed in the Santa Barbara News-Press.
Stoker wrote that up to 30 percent of water in the Sacramento Delta and Northern California reservoirs was rerouted to the Pacific Ocean to protect endangered species. "This was water that prior to passage of the ESA was delivered to our farmers to grow our food, and to our communities to provide people safe drinking water," he wrote.'Who knows what he is going to do?'
Stoker's supporters and detractors describe the 62-year-old as having a big personality. He ran unsuccessfully three times for state and federal office. He's well-liked among Republicans, but Democrats who know him aren't quick to deride him.
Rep. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat who represents Santa Barbara, has known Stoker for 25 years through their work in county government. He said they have a "good working relationship" but added that Stoker's record of service is not in line with the mission of EPA, which he said involves working to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
A few Democratic Santa Barbara politicians — including Carbajal — had voiced support for Stoker's previous nomination to be director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service but balked at the notion that he should run the EPA office. (He was never confirmed for the labor agency post.)
For some time, Stoker has appeared to be angling for a job in the Trump administration. He was a Trump delegate at the 2016 Republican National Convention, where he was credited with starting the "Lock her up" chant about Clinton. He was rumored to have been considered for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board, but that never materialized.
The EPA job doesn't require Senate confirmation.
"He's a talented congenial opportunist. He was a Reagan Republican; he was a Newt Gingrich Republican; now he's a Trump Republican," said Santa Barbara Independent editor Nick Welsh, who has covered Stoker for three decades.
Stoker's longtime friend Dan Gira, a Democrat, recalled one occasion when Stoker as county supervisor cut a deal to protect the environment. He voted to preserve open space along the bluffs.
As for the EPA post, Gira said, "Who knows what he is going to do?"
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/07/stories/1060080965
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Green Issues Rule State's 'Most Interesting' Race
May 7, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
While the governor's race has sucked up most of the political oxygen in California, the battle for lieutenant governor is turning into one of the most unpredictable statewide contests this year.
And it is being waged on environmental issues, with leading contenders touting key endorsements and pledging to fight President Trump's plan to open up the coast to new offshore drilling and withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
The state's primary is four weeks away, when the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election regardless of party.
The field of nearly a dozen candidates has narrowed to three Democrats, said veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, publisher of the "California Target Book," a tome of state politics.
Each has roughly the same amount of money in his or her war chest, but their fight has received hardly any attention, he said, making predictions — or even speculation — impossible.
"Voters in California have no idea what the lieutenant governor does; it's an office whose purpose and powers are little understood," he said.
"What's interesting this year is you have three Democrats running who are all viable and who are unquestionably qualified. Perhaps overqualified."
None of the three contenders has run in a statewide race before, and two are Democratic newcomers who both served as ambassadors in the Obama administration.
State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D), 60, an optometrist from the Los Angeles area, has emerged to some degree as the establishment pick, with endorsements of major labor groups and officials, including Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).
Another leading candidate is Eleni Kounalakis, 52, President Obama's ambassador to Hungary and the scion of a prominent Sacramento-area developer who once took a water dispute with EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to the Supreme Court.
Rounding out the field is Oakland attorney Jeff Bleich, 57, a personal friend of Obama's who served as special counsel to the president and ambassador to Australia.
Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, said she considers the lieutenant governor's race to be "the most interesting" this year, noting that none of the candidates earned the endorsement of the state's Democratic Party.
"If you go through all of them, this is the one where it's wide open," she said. "There is nobody that has held statewide office; all of these folks are going to be new to all the people voting."'Only one'
Lietenant governor candidate Jeff Bleich worked in Oakland, Calif.’s Montclair Park on Earth Day. @JeffBleichCA/Twitter
Current Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who is now a leading contender for governor, once described the lieutenant governorship as a "largely ceremonial post" that has "no real authority." But the office comes with some responsibilities, many of which are related to the environment.
The lieutenant governor sits on the three-member State Lands Commission, which controls state-owned plots and offshore oil resources and issues permits for navigable waterways. The office also holds a seat on the California Coastal Commission.
Newsom used those parts of the job in high-profile ways. He worked to stymie Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla's effort to block public access to the pristine Martins Beach next to his property — a dispute that Khosla has now taken to the Supreme Court (Greenwire, March 15). Newsom also helped negotiate the closure of the state's last coastal sand mine (Greenwire, Aug. 23, 2017).
Now, each of the leading contenders for the office is claiming to be the rightful successor to Newsom for the environment.
The Sierra Club has backed Bleich, pointing to roughly three decades of work on environmental issues dating back to when he volunteered for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group as a graduate student at Harvard University.
"It's pretty clear he has a sophisticated understanding of environmental issues," Phillips said. "It's on these boards, commissions and bodies that you have to be a pretty wonky environmentalist to pay attention to, but they can make some very important decisions."
Bleich touted that resume in an interview. "I'm the only one with an environmental background," he said.
Bleich also has significant experience in another issue in the lieutenant governor's portfolio: education. The lieutenant governor sits on the University of California Board of Regents, and Bleich has previously served on the board of trustees of California State University, including a year as chairman.'Proven record'
Eleni Kounalakis poses on a beach with “California is the best state ever” written in the sand. @EleniForCA/Twitter
Kounalakis has also sought to capitalize on environmental issues, emphasizing them in a recent television ad on protecting the coast from new offshore drilling.
And she recently picked up the endorsement of the California League of Conservation Voters and the chairs of the state Senate's two environmental committees.
"Eleni has a proven record of understanding the key environmental challenges facing the state and the planet," California LCV Interim Executive Director Rebecca Saltzman said in a statement.
Kounalakis also boasts endorsements from fellow California Democrats Sen. Kamala Harris and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as well as the influential EMILY's List. She would be the state's first female lieutenant governor if elected.
The Sacramento Bee endorsed Bleich and Kounalakis last weekend.
Kounalakis said she was motivated to run by President Trump's election, she said, adding that the next lieutenant governor will play a key role in standing up to the White House, particularly on offshore drilling.
"The vast majority of our people do not want this," she said in an interview. "We do have a mechanism to stop it, and that is the State Lands Commission ensuring that there would be no pipelines onto our shore for crude oil to refine it. ... That's an important tool we can use to stop the Trump administration plans."
Hernandez touts his support for some of California's landmark environmental bills, including legislation to significantly increase the state's use of renewable energy.
"Senator Hernandez is proud to have supported some of the furthest reaching environmental legislation in the nation — including voting for a move to 100 percent renewable energy in California," said spokesman Mac Zilber.'Big difference'
Eleni Kounalakis (facing) speaks with construction workers. Kounalakis’ campaign
Both Hernandez and Bleich have hit Kounalakis for her family's development company, AKT Development Corp., and for being the landlord for the one of the state's largest oil trade associations.
"There are some real concerns about how her commercial development company operated," Bleich said, "and in terms of the fact that they received rent from [the] Western States Petroleum Association.
"That's a big difference in terms of commitment to the environment," he added.
Hernandez's campaign was quick to echo the charge.
"The real oil issue in this race," Zilber said, "is that Eleni Kounalakis is literally profiting off the oil industry — reaping untold hundreds of thousands of dollars providing a Sacramento headquarters to one of the biggest arms of the oil lobby, who is a tenant of hers just blocks from the capitol."
Hernandez's campaign estimates that Kounalakis has received at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from the group, though specifics are difficult to come by because the Western States Petroleum Association does not specifically disclose its rent on tax filings.
Kounalakis's father, Angelo Tsakopoulos, who launched that company, has spent nearly $5 million on an independent expenditure to support his daughter's lieutenant governor bid.
In 1993, Tsakopoulos purchased the Borden Ranch, 8,400 acres of farmland in California's Central Valley that he intended to subdivide into vineyards.
In the process, he deep ripped the soil, even though EPA and the Army Corps said such activity required a Clean Water Act permit due to wetlands on the property.
Lower courts ruled against him, saying the tillage violated the law. And the Supreme Court in 2002 ultimately upheld those decisions in a 4-4 split decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy did not participate because he had a personal relationship with Tsakopoulos.
Kounalakis strongly defended her company's track record and disputed Bleich's characterization of the rent payments from the Western States Petroleum Association.
"We did have a dispute at the time with the regulation of farmland," she said. "The fact of the matter is we have been an excellent partner over many years with federal agencies."
She added: "We have preserved thousands of acres of land in the Sacramento area."
Further, she said that the rent she receives is now funneled directly to a fund at a foundation earmarked for fighting climate change.'Not an environmentalist'
State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D) speaks with students last month. @SenatorDrEd22/Twitter
Both Kounalakis and Bleich are quick to attack Hernandez on these issues, as well.
In particular, both campaigns have pointed to more than $42,000 he has taken from the oil and gas industry since 2006, according to campaign finance disclosures compiled by FollowTheMoney.org.
Hernandez has also voted against 2014 legislation that would have imposed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, and did not vote on a bill that would have mandated an in-depth investigation into what caused the 2015 massive methane link at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in Los Angeles County.
"He's not an environmentalist," Bleich said.
Hernandez's campaign countered that he has not taken oil and gas money in the lieutenant governor's race and has pledged not to in the future.
Consequently, some prominent environmental activists have been reluctant to get involved in the race at all.
RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote and chair of the state Democratic Party's environmental caucus, hasn't backed any of them.
"The Democratic Party has not endorsed and I am personally unenthusiastic about each of the candidates," she said before criticizing Hernandez's vote on the Aliso Canyon bill, Kounalakis' "very thin track record" and Bleich's lack of a "compelling case for his candidacy."
Sragow, the Democratic strategist, said that all the candidates are limited by their modest campaign funds. Through April 21, the most recent filing deadline, Kounalakis had $1.68 million in her campaign account, while Bleich had $1.46 million and Hernandez had $906,000 in his war chest.
"Somehow," he said, "they have to break through, and somehow, voters have to get interested in them based on very little information."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/07/stories/1060080867
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