Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/11/18
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Aims to Recycle or Recover 100% of Plastic Packaging by 2040
May 11, 2018 | Waste 360
The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Plastics Division has announced three ambitious goals that crystallize U.S. plastics resin producers' commitment to recycle or recover all plastic packaging used in the United States by 2040 and to further enhance plastic pellet stewardship by 2022. -
Trump Says He Still Has Confidence in Pruitt
May 11, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump told reporters Friday that he still has confidence in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administration Scott Pruitt amid continuing ethics and spending scandals. -
(ACC Mentioned) Testing Analysis for TSCA New Chemicals Embraced by EPA’s Beck Has Serious Omissions
May 11, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
As noted in a previous blog post, EDF recently filed a request for an extension of the public comment period on EPA’s draft Alternative Testing Methods Strategic Plan under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
Environmental Groups Seek Order from North Carolina to Stop Chemours Pollution
May 11, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Environmental advocates are formally asking North Carolina to order Chemours to stop releases of fluorinated compounds from a factory near Fayetteville. -
Judge Tosses Suit Over Toxic Environment
May 11, 2018 | Watertown Daily Times
By Kevin Murphy
A federal judge has dismissed a Watertown couple's lawsuit alleging the demolition of a vacant factory next to their South Third Street home caused the release of toxic substances that damaged their health and property. -
Environmental Group Sues for Answers on Methane Rollbacks
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Add another case to the pile of litigation over Obama-era standards for methane emissions on public lands. -
Greens Appeal Decision on EPA Power Plant Rule
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists are taking their battle against delays of an Obama-era rule curbing toxic wastewater discharges from power plants to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. -
ETP Looks at Permian Basin for Expansion
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Energy Transfer Partners LP, the company behind the Dakota Access oil pipeline, is planning an aggressive expansion in the booming Permian Basin oil field. -
Apache, Noble Sign on for Epic Permian Oil Pipeline
May 11, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Houston oil producers Apache Corp. and Noble Energy have signed on as the primary customers for the massive EPIC Crude Oil Pipeline that will traverse Texas from the booming Permian Basin near the New Mexico border to Corpus Christi. -
More Drilling Could 'Severely' Affect Military — Pentagon
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
The Pentagon is warning lawmakers that expanded offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico could "severely" affect military testing and training without proper restrictions. -
Exelon's Warning Reignites Great American Fuel Fight
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
U.S. utility industry leaders have split sharply over whether threats to the nation's electric grid demand new and more urgent federal action. -
Feds Propose Rule Changes in Post-Deepwater Horizon Era
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The Interior Department is changing the rules governing offshore oil and gas well control and blowout preventer systems that were put into place in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. -
Pruitt Got Climate Tips from Groups Backed by GOP Megadonors
May 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
A network of conservative groups funded by influential GOP donors has been providing EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt with briefings and heaps of documents that reject mainstream climate science. -
EPA Extends Deadline for Responding to New York's Ozone Petition
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is granting itself another six months to respond to a petition by New York for the agency to directly regulate interstate air pollution from sources in nine states, as East Coast states pile pressure on the Trump EPA to address Midwestern and Southern emissions that compromise attainment of federal ozone standards. -
EPA to Take 6 More Months to Weigh N.Y.'s Upwind Petition
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is giving itself another six months to decide on New York's request for help in reining in upwind pollution from sources outside its borders.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Aims to Recycle or Recover 100% of Plastic Packaging by 2040
May 11, 2018 | Waste 360
The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Plastics Division has announced three ambitious goals that crystallize U.S. plastics resin producers' commitment to recycle or recover all plastic packaging used in the United States by 2040 and to further enhance plastic pellet stewardship by 2022.
Specifically, members of ACC's Plastics Division have set the following goals for capturing, recycling and recovering plastics: 100 percent of plastics packaging is reused, recycled or recovered by 2040.100 percent of plastics packaging is recyclable or recoverable by 2030.100 percent of the U.S. manufacturing sites operated by ACC's Plastics Division members will participate in Operation Clean Sweep-Blue by 2020, with all of their manufacturing sites across North America involved by 2022.
"We are embracing the drive toward a circular economy for plastics because it helps demonstrate our overarching commitment to sustainable materials management," said Steve Russell, vice president of plastics at ACC, in a statement. "In setting these goals, our industry is publicly affirming our vision of the future we want for safe, sanitary plastic packaging and our intention to get there quickly. Together with our value chain partners, we intend to transition to increasingly circular systems for designing, manufacturing, recycling and recovering our plastic packaging resources.”
To achieve these goals, plastic resin producers plan to focus on six key areas: designing new products for greater efficiency, recycling and reuse; developing new technologies and systems for collecting, sorting, recycling and recovering materials; making it easier for more consumers to participate in recycling and recovery programs; expanding the types of plastics collected and repurposed; aligning products with key end markets; and expanding awareness that used plastics are valuable resources awaiting their next use.
"Our industry has a long history of leading on stewardship initiatives, such as Responsible Care, and supporting recycling through research, technology, infrastructure and education," said Rick Wagner, global sustainability manager at Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, in a statement. "Today's announcement marks the next step in this critical journey. Plastics resin producers are accelerating their commitments by building new coalitions and forging new business models that will help optimize a range of environmental, economic and societal outcomes. Some of these involve turning used plastics back into their basic building blocks so we can create new plastics."
http://www.waste360.com/plastics/acc-aims-recycle-or-recover-100-plastic-packaging-2040
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Trump Says He Still Has Confidence in Pruitt
May 11, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump told reporters Friday that he still has confidence in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administration Scott Pruitt amid continuing ethics and spending scandals.
Asked by CNN’s Ryan Nobles at a White House meeting with Pruitt, automaker executives and others whether he has confidence in the EPA head, Trump responded, simply, “yes, I do.”
Pruitt was sitting two spots away from Trump at the time.
Pruitt has been at the center of a slew of ethical and spending controversies in recent months, including over a $50-per-night condo rental last year from a lobbyist, a security detail that has cost taxpayers more than $3 million, a $43,000 soundproof booth for his office, frequent first-class travel on the government’s dime and more.
Democrats, environmentalists and even some White House officials like Chief of Staff John Kelly have pushed Trump to fire Pruitt.
But Trump has thus far repeatedly stood by the embattled EPA chief. Pruitt’s aggressive deregulatory agenda — including ongoing work to roll back global warming rules for cars — has continued to please conservatives and Trump.
“The president is pleased with the job that he is doing as EPA administrator," White House press deputy Raj Shah told reporters on Thursday. "However the issues that have been raised— I think you guys are all familiar with— they have raised some concerns and we are hopeful and expecting that administrator Pruitt will be able to answer those.”
Reporters were allowed into the room for a brief portion of Trump’s meeting with automaker heads on Friday, enough time for Trump to speak and other attendees to introduce themselves.
Trump told reporters the meeting would be both about corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards and his desire to have more cars built in the United States. The EPA and Department of Transportation are working to ease fuel economy rules going forward, and a leaked proposal would freeze standards in 2020 for six years.
“We’re working on CAFE standards, environmental controls,” Trump said. “We’re working on how to build more cars in the United States. We have a great capacity for building. We’re importing a lot of cars and we want a lot of those cars to be made in the United States.”
Trump said he is happy that many manufacturers are investing in the United States and creating jobs, which he attributed to the Republican tax overhaul passed last year.
He specifically called out Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne for that company’s plans to build a plant in Michigan.
“Thank you, you’re moving to Michigan, from Mexico. That we like,” Trump said. “Now he’s my favorite man in the world.”
Trump added that “we have other incentives coming” to promote domestically produced cars.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/387272-trump-says-he-still-has-confidence-in-pruitt
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(ACC Mentioned) Testing Analysis for TSCA New Chemicals Embraced by EPA’s Beck Has Serious Omissions
May 11, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
As noted in a previous blog post, EDF recently filed a request for an extension of the public comment period on EPA’s draft Alternative Testing Methods Strategic Plan under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This was due to the lack of public access to documents that Dr. Nancy Beck had prominently alluded to, without identifying, at EPA’s April 10, 2018, public meeting on the draft plan. EDF requested a 30-day extension starting once the documents were placed in the docket for the draft plan.
On April 27, EPA provided a 15-day extension after placing the documents in question into the docket. It turns out the documents (a letter and an attached spreadsheet) are from two animal welfare organizations, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). They are not, were not submitted as, and apparently were not intended to be, comments on the draft plan, however; rather, they raise the groups’ concerns over the increase in testing of new chemicals under the new TSCA, based on an analysis they said indicates EPA more frequently included testing provisions when issuing consent orders for new chemicals after passage of the new law than it did before.
Given that the documents PETA and PCRM submitted were not comments on the draft plan and were not submitted in that context, it is all the more curious why Dr. Beck so prominently noted and expressed such enthusiasm for them at the EPA public meeting held about the draft plan – especially because it appears she did so before EPA had conducted any serious review of the documents, which as you’ll see below, is a big problem.
I suspect Dr. Beck’s interest in the PETA/PCRM letter and analysis has little to do with sparing laboratory animals and much more to do with her seeing the documents as providing a useful pretext for her concerted efforts to avoid imposing testing requirements on new chemicals – a clear priority for her previous employer, the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Industry has incentives to avoid testing due to its costs and the risks that testing may reveal a chemical presents significant risks to health or the environment.
Now that we’ve had a chance to review the PETA/PCRM documents, I want to use this post to highlight two things:
First, the PETA/PCRM analysis erroneously understated the extent of testing EPA required prior to the passage of the Lautenberg Act, because it failed to count any of the testing requirements for two-thirds of the new chemicals it examined for which EPA issued consent orders in 2015 and 2016.
Additional context is required when assessing the extent of testing of new chemicals EPA was mandating under the new TSCA, which was not provided in the PETA/PCRM analysis.
Serious omissions in the PETA/PCRM analysis
The letter and analysis provided by PETA and PCRM point to a “dramatic increase in animal testing required for new chemicals in 2017, the first full year of implementation” of the new TSCA. While, as discussed later, there certainly was an increase, the PETA/PCRM documents significantly overstate the extent of increase by mistakenly excluding much of the testing called for in prior years.
The spreadsheet provided by PETA/PCRM has three tabs showing the data they compiled about consent orders issued in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Each tab has two columns indicating what if any testing requirements were imposed in the consent order. (The two columns are M and N on the 2015 tab, and L and M on the 2016 and 2017 tabs.) Here is what we found when we sought to verify the PETA/PCRM analysis:
For 2015, both of these columns are blank (indicating no testing is called for in the consent order) for 44 of the 59 new chemicals listed. Yet when we examined their consent orders, testing requirements had in fact been imposed on all 44 of these chemicals.
For 2016, both of these columns are blank for 4 of the 17 new chemicals listed. Yet when we examined their consent orders, testing requirements had in fact been imposed on all 4 of these chemicals.
For 2017, both of these columns are blank or state “no testing required/recommended” for 10 of the 290 new chemicals listed. Yet when we examined their consent orders, testing requirements had in fact been imposed on 6 of these chemicals.
PETA and PCRM’s main contention in their letter is that there has been a “dramatic increase in animal testing required for new chemicals in 2017, the first full year of implementation” of the new TSCA. We have not independently determined whether or not the groups have included all new chemicals subject to consent orders issued during each of those years. But for those they have included, they have significantly under-counted testing imposed by orders issued in 2015, and also have missed some additional testing in orders from 2016 and 2017.
Together, the PETA/PCRM analysis failed to count any of the testing requirements imposed for two-thirds of the new chemicals it examined for which EPA issued consent orders in 2015 and 2016.
The net result of these omissions is that PETA and PCRM have significantly overstated the extent of increase from 2015 to 2017 in testing imposed by EPA through consent orders for new chemicals.
How did such a large discrepancy develop? We suspect it’s entirely inadvertent, and that PETA and PCRM relied on the consent order summaries EPA provides in its ChemView data portal, rather than examining the underlying consent orders themselves. It appears that EPA’s summaries do not always include a description of testing requirements, especially for earlier orders; more recently, EPA’s summaries have been doing so, which may explain why PETA and PCRM missed fewer testing requirements in the later years.
Before making any use of the PETA/PCRM analysis or relying on its conclusions, EPA needs to conduct its own, thorough review and analysis.
Now let me turn to some much-needed qualifications and context when assessing the PETA/PCRM analysis and its implications.
The new TSCA calls on EPA to obtain more, not less, information on chemicals
Among the key reforms made to TSCA by 2016’s Lautenberg Act were expansions in EPA’s testing authority under the law and in EPA’s duties to ensure it had sufficient information on which to base its risk decisions involving both new and existing chemicals. These reforms were broadly supported as essential fixes to the old law needed to restore the ability of EPA to protect human health and the environment from chemical risks. Among these provisions are:
addition of authority for EPA to require testing through issuing orders, rather than the far more cumbersome rulemaking process that was the only option under the old law;
elimination of the requirement that EPA first demonstrate potential risk or very high exposure or release of a chemical before it could require testing, a classic Catch-22;
a requirement that EPA base any decision to designate an existing chemical as a low priority for risk evaluation on information “sufficient” to demonstrate the chemical is not a high priority;
a mandate that if EPA has insufficient information to evaluate the potential risks of a new chemical, it must issue an order requiring that information and/or imposing conditions sufficient to mitigate any potential risk; and
a requirement that EPA consider all “reasonably available information” in making decisions on new and existing chemicals.
The new law also includes provisions requiring EPA to take steps to “reduce, refine or replace vertebrate animal testing” where it can do so while providing “information of equivalent or better scientific quality and relevance for assessing risks of injury to health or the environment of chemical substances or mixtures.”
The primary focus of the new law is clearly to better ensure the safety of both new and existing chemicals, including by identifying and mitigating risks to vulnerable subpopulations such as infants, workers and disproportionately exposed communities. In doing so, nothing in the law calls on EPA to reduce or avoid testing of chemicals, but rather to reduce testing involving vertebrate animals where viable and scientifically reliable alternatives exist.
So it should be a surprise to no one that, properly implemented, the new law should result in more, not less, testing of chemicals – including testing involving vertebrate animals where scientifically sound alternatives do not yet exist.
What else you should know about the PETA/PCRM analysis
For the reasons just stated, the increase in testing requirements for new chemicals identified by PETA and PCRM should not be surprising and is fully consistent with the letter and spirit of the law.
But, beyond the serious omissions discussed earlier, there are several aspects of the nature and extent of testing identified by PETA and PCRM that need to be understood.
EPA required no up-front testing of new chemicals in 2017
First, none of the testing PETA and PCRM identified for 2017 had to be undertaken before the subject new chemicals could enter the market. Such a requirement would be termed “up-front” testing. Given that the vast majority of new chemicals are submitted for EPA review without their manufacturers providing any health or environmental safety data, what is actually quite shocking is that in no case PETA and PCRM identified was EPA requiring up-front testing.
Instead, EPA’s 2017 testing requirements take two other forms:
For nearly two-thirds of the tests PETA and PCRM identified, the manufacturer of the new chemical can indefinitely continue to produce and sell it without ever conducting the testing. The manufacturer would only have to do the tests if it sought to ease the restrictions EPA imposed on the new chemicals’ production or use. This would occur through modification of the company’s consent order with EPA, assuming the test data submitted by the company warranted relaxing the applicable conditions. This kind of testing is what EPA calls “pended testing.”
For the other third of the tests, the tests are only required if and when a company wants to increase the volume of the chemical produced above a specified level, or after a specified period of time has passed. This kind of testing is what EPA calls “triggered testing,” with the volume or time triggers specified in the consent order. The likelihood of this testing actually being triggered is difficult to discern, because EPA generally redacts the volume or time limits in the public versions of its consent orders.
Not only do most of the 2017 tests PETA and PCRM identified fall into the pended category; most (54% using PETA and PCRM’s numbers) of the laboratory animals involved in the testing do too: they would be used only if a company opted to conduct pended testing in order to get modifications to its consent order.
The increase in testing is due to more consent orders issued, not more testing per new chemical
PETA and PCRM’s letter does not mention the fact that many more consent orders were issued in 2017 than in prior years: PETA and PCRM examined 290 consent orders issued in 2017, compared to 17 in 2016 and 59 in 2015. Based on the testing requirements in these orders, it does not appear that EPA was requiring more tests to be conducted on a given new chemical in 2017 vs. prior years; rather, testing requirements were imposed on more new chemicals because more new chemicals were subject to consent orders, and both older and more recent consent orders have routinely included testing.
Heightened scrutiny of new chemicals leading to more consent orders is precisely what Congress intended in amending TSCA in 2016. If anything, this could and well should have resulted in an increased amount of testing per chemical, which it has not.
All of this may be moot, as it predates EPA’s reversing course on new chemical reviews
Ironically, in some ways, much of what PETA and PCRM have raised and what we have discussed above may be moot. That is because EPA has made clear its intent to move away from issuing consent orders for new chemicals – despite the clear requirements in the law that it do so when it has insufficient information on a new chemical or finds that the chemical may present an unreasonable risk or lead to high release or exposure. As discussed at length on this blog, EPA now intends to rely instead on a company’s unenforceable premanufacture notice (PMN), potentially coupled with issuance of a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR), which would only require a company to notify EPA if it intends to make or use a chemical in a manner that deviates from specified conditions. Neither a PMN nor a SNUR can impose testing requirements on a new chemical, however. Indeed, industry mounted considerable resistance to the testing EPA was imposing through consent orders and took advantage of its heavy influence over agency policymaking under this administration. As a result, EPA reversed course and opted for approaches that will not allow EPA to require more testing of new chemicals.
In the face of statutory mandates calling for more testing, it is small wonder that Dr. Beck got so excited when she saw PETA and PCRM’s letter and analysis. Both the flaws in the analysis and the requirements of the law should have EPA looking closer before it leaps.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/05/11/testing-analysis-for-tsca-new-chemicals-embraced-by-epas-beck-has-serious-omissions/
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Environmental Groups Seek Order from North Carolina to Stop Chemours Pollution
May 11, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Environmental advocates are formally asking North Carolina to order Chemours to stop releases of fluorinated compounds from a factory near Fayetteville. Those substances taint wells around the facility and the nearby Cape Fear River. Since this pollutioncame to public attention a year ago, Chemours has collected its process wastewater for off-site disposal and is installing air pollution controls. But fluorochemicals continue to move from the site into the environment and ultimately into sources of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents. Now, the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of a local environmental group, Cape Fear River Watch, formally asked the state Department of Environmental Quality to act on its own, rather than waiting to see if a state court will order Chemours to halt the releases. The contamination, which includes hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid and other fluoroethers related to Chemours’s industrial surfactant GenX, “is causing imminent danger to people’s health and public safety,” the law center alleges. If the releases don’t stop by early July, the law center plans to ask a federal court to find that the company violated the Clean Water Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act.
https://cen.acs.org/policy/litigation/Environmental-groups-seek-order-North/96/i20
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Judge Tosses Suit Over Toxic Environment
May 11, 2018 | Watertown Daily Times
By Kevin Murphy
A federal judge has dismissed a Watertown couple's lawsuit alleging the demolition of a vacant factory next to their South Third Street home caused the release of toxic substances that damaged their health and property.
Acting on a motion by the owner of the former furnace and transformer plant and two companies involved in its demolition, District Judge William Conley concluded that William and Nancy Liebhart's suit did not prove their claims.
"The Liebharts simply have not adduced evidence that defendants have violated the relevant standards under the (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act or the Toxic Substances Control Act)," Conley wrote in a March 30 opinion.
The following day, Conley dismissed the suit the Liebhart's attorney had filed in 2016.
The suit also brought claims under state law which Conley dismissed but can be pursue in state court.
Carey Rosmarin, the Liebhart's Northbrook, Illinois-based attorney, has since appealed the dismissal, which is pending in federal court in Chicago.
Rosemarin was not immediately available this morning for comment on the dismissal or appeal.
According to Conley's 17-page opinion:
The Liebharts' owned properties at four South Third Street addresses including their former home at 1115 S. Third St.
The properties are adjacent to the former Hevi Duty factory site is about 5.3 acres and consists of a 174,000-square foot plant and office building. Heat-treating furnaces, transformers and hot plates were made at the plant beginning in the 1920s and continued until 1971. All operations ceased in 2005.
SPX Corp. purchased the property and in 2009, retained TRC Environmental Corp. to conduct an environmental site assessment which found polychlorinated biphenyls, PBCs, a toxic substance, in the concrete floor of the plant. In November 2014, TRC submitted plan to the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf SPX to demolish the Hart Street factory. Months later, the EPA approved the plan.
The demolition was completed in March 2015. SPX later completed an analysis of soil taken from the demolition site and the Liebhart's property, which contained varying levels of PCBs. In September 2016, SPX submitted a plan to the Department of Natural Resources to remove contaminated soil from their property and has been waiting for permission to further sample soil on Liebhart's property.
The RCRA allows individuals to sue anyone who contributes to the handling or disposal of solid hazardous waste which may present "imminent and substantial harm to health or environment." The TSCA allows claims to be brought for similar violations but neither statute allows awarding damages to individuals in suits like the Liebhart's.
Conley agreed with SPX and co-defendants TRC and Apollo Dismantling Services, the Liebharts have not presented proof that there is an imminent and substantial danger to their health or the environment as required under the RCRA and they have not offered evidence there is an ongoing violation as required under the TSCA.
The defendants also claimed that because the cleanup plan was approved by the DNR, it is premature for the Liebharts to seek any relief.
The defendants claimed the PCBs initially found on the Liebhart's property came from the decades the factory operated and not from its demolition. That are no soil samples taken prior to the demolition to show increased PCB concentrations.
Also, surface soil samples taken on the demolition site had lesser concentrations of PCBs than the soil on the Liebharts' property. PCBs were found on the soil beneath Liebhart's asphalt driveway which would have been a PCB barrier during demolition.
"The greatest concentrations of PCBs were found at greater depths, making it improbable that the PCBs were of recent origin … (T)he highest concentrations of PCBs in the surface soil were in areas that the Liebharts admitted they had filled in with subsurface soil for various yard projects in the years before the demolition began," Conley wrote.
Conley found that the evidence the expert the Liebharts used to support their suit was not reliable.
Their expert contended that the prevailing wind during demolition blew toward the Liebhart property. However, Conley wrote "this is wrong; the prevailing wind at that time of year is from the west and north … and only infrequently blew from the east and south toward the Liebhart property."
The snow Liebhart collected from his property during the demolition and that allegedly had dust containing PCBs was rejected by Conley because the defendants could independently test it and the expert did not know how the snow sample was maintained, Conley wrote.
The EPA accepted level of PCBs in the environment is 50 parts per million, however, the Liebharts "have not shown the demolition is responsible for that level of PCBs in their soil," Conley wrote.
In their suit, the Liebharts contended that after the demolition began, they saw saw dust plumes coming from the factory site that discolored snow on their property. William Liebhart was diagnosed with impetigo, acute sinusitis, and lymphadenopathy. Nancy Liebhart was diagnosed with conjunctivitis and bronchitis, and vertigo. Their physician attributed the aliments to exposure to the demolition dust.
The Watertown Health Department was contacted and confirmed "the existence of uncontrolled PCB-contaminated concrete" on the site. It notified the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR had the firm supervising the demolition collect soil samples from the Liebharts' properties in April 2015. Test results showed that soil taken from the Liebharts' garden was about 25 times higher than the residential standard.
The defendants' bill for approximately $53,800 in legal services is pending before Conley to decide if Rosemarin or the Liebharts are responsible.
http://www.wdtimes.com/news/local/article_a8aa6b34-5537-11e8-8220-5f62fe394208.html
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Environmental Group Sues for Answers on Methane Rollbacks
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Add another case to the pile of litigation over Obama-era standards for methane emissions on public lands.
The Environmental Defense Fund went to court yesterday to get records on the Trump administration's efforts to roll back the Bureau of Land Management's methane venting and flaring rule.
EDF wants to track down communications between the Interior Department and the oil and gas industry about proposed rollbacks of the Obama rule, which restricts emissions of the greenhouse gas on public and tribal lands.
The group requested records under the Freedom of Information Act last March and November. According to yesterday's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the agency has provided only a partial response to the request.
"Americans have a right to know about their government's actions about the Waste Prevention Standards, and the Department of the Interior's failure to release public documents deprives them of that right," EDF attorney Peter Zalzal said in a statement.
The methane rule has been in the administration's crosshairs since President Trump took office. BLM officials are working on their third attempt at stalling or scaling back the Obama regulation. Two previous efforts to stall the rule were struck down by federal judges. The regulation and rollback attempts are still caught in a tangle of litigation (Energywire, May 3).
Harvard Law School's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is representing EDF in the case.
Interior does not comment on pending litigation.
Environmental groups and others have filed a steady stream of FOIA lawsuits to pull back the curtain on the Trump administration's various deregulatory efforts and policy changes. The Wilderness Society earlier this week filed a lawsuit seeking information on Interior's "energy dominance" agenda (Energywire, May 9).
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081457
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Greens Appeal Decision on EPA Power Plant Rule
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists are taking their battle against delays of an Obama-era rule curbing toxic wastewater discharges from power plants to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A coalition of green groups today said it was appealing a lower-court judge's recent decision to toss out their litigation over the delays.
At issue are the Obama administration's 2015 standards requiring power plants to install and operate wastewater treatment technology by 2023 to remove heavy metals from wastewater discharges.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in April 2017 announced that the agency would rethink the rule and delayed it indefinitely.
The agency later proposed and took comments on a separate plan to push back compliance deadlines. On Sept. 12, 2017, the agency finalized a rule imposing a two-year delay in key dates from November 2018 to November 2020.
Eight environmental groups led by Earthjustice filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the initial delay. They then tried to add the new delay to the ongoing litigation.
But Judge Dabney Friedrich dismissed the case last month, finding that the two-year delay rule had made the lawsuit moot. Friedrich, a Trump appointee, also denied greens' attempts to challenge the delay rule issued in September.
Doing so would "unduly delay and alter the scope of this litigation" and be "futile," she wrote (E&E News PM, April 18).
The environmentalists have yet to lay out their legal arguments in the appeal to the D.C. Circuit.
Thomas Cmar, an attorney at Earthjustice representing the groups, recently vowed that they would stand firm in opposing "EPA's illegal actions."
"We will continue to seek our day in court to protect our waterways and downstream communities from toxic power plant pollution," he wrote in an email last month.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is also hearing litigation over the power plant rule but has paused proceedings.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081493
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ETP Looks at Permian Basin for Expansion
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Energy Transfer Partners LP, the company behind the Dakota Access oil pipeline, is planning an aggressive expansion in the booming Permian Basin oil field.
The Permian Basin, which covers parts of West Texas and eastern New Mexico, is producing so much oil and gas that it has overwhelmed the existing pipeline network and pushed down prices (Energywire, April 30).
Dallas-based Energy Transfer is planning an oil pipeline that'll connect the Permian in West Texas to refining centers near the Texas-Louisiana border, according to its latest earnings report. It also announced a partnership last week to revive a gas pipeline that will serve the basin.
The proposed oil pipeline, which is still in the planning phases, would connect Midland to the Houston Ship Channel, and to Nederland, Texas. Energy Transfer owns an oil storage terminal at Nederland and is building a pipeline known as Bayou Bridge to move oil farther east into Louisiana.
"If you look at the project, golly, you get to any place in the Houston Ship Channel, south of Houston, all the refineries, markets," Vice President Marshall "Mackie" McCrea said on the company's quarterly earnings call with analysts. "It's unprecedented market access."
Details on the proposed line's capacity and cost weren't available yesterday, but it's unlikely to start until next year.
On the gas side, Energy Transfer announced a joint venture with Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP to resume service on the 24-inch-diameter Old Ocean pipeline. The pipeline stretches from Maypearl, about 50 miles south of Dallas, to the outskirts of Houston. The two companies are also expanding another pipeline that will connect West Texas gas production to the Old Ocean line.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081453
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Apache, Noble Sign on for Epic Permian Oil Pipeline
May 11, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Houston oil producers Apache Corp. and Noble Energy have signed on as the primary customers for the massive EPIC Crude Oil Pipeline that will traverse Texas from the booming Permian Basin near the New Mexico border to Corpus Christi.
The 730-mile pipeline is slated to be built by San Antonio-based EPIC Midstream Holdings as one of the biggest of a bevy of major pipeline projects underway to carry oil, gas and natural gas liquids from the Permian to port and refining hubs near Corpus Christi and Houston.
EPIC Midstream is financially backed by the Ares Management private equity group. EPIC also is building a similar, natural gas liquids pipeline adjacent to the crude oil project. BP is signed on as the anchor customer for the NGL pipeline.
Apache and Noble have committed to use 30 percent of the EPIC oil pipeline's planned capacity of 590,000 barrels a day. The pipeline is slated to come online by the end of 2019 to help relieve the bottleneck that's building in the Permian with rising crude production and not enough pipeline capacity to move it out of West Texas.
The deals give Noble the option to purchase a 30 percent stake in the oil pipeline, while Apache can choose to buy up to a 15 percent interest. Noble also could acquire 15 percent of the NGL pipeline.
The EPIC news comes after some of the other competing projects were sidelines or authorized.
Houston-based Buckeye Partners said it is canceling its proposed South Texas Gateway oil pipeline from West Texas to Corpus and the Houston Ship Channel.
On the other hand, Houston's Phillips 66 said it is moving forward with its planned Gray Oak Pipeline to carry crude from West Texas to Corpus Christi, Sweeny and Freeport.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Apache-Noble-sign-on-for-EPIC-Permian-oil-12907134.php
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More Drilling Could 'Severely' Affect Military — Pentagon
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
The Pentagon is warning lawmakers that expanded offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico could "severely" affect military testing and training without proper restrictions.
In a report sent to a pair of congressional committees this week, the Pentagon said military training could take a blow if the Interior Department follows through on plans to expand oil and gas extraction off the coast of Florida without a restriction agreement with the Department of Defense.
With no coordination between the agencies, "the result would be a less capable and less prepared military force," said the report, obtained by the offshore industry group National Ocean Industries Association.
Industry groups, which are encouraging the administration to open more areas to development, were positive about the report and didn't see it as a threat.
While the document marks a warning for President Trump as he seeks to expand offshore oil and gas production, it also provides an outline for drillers and Interior of where — and how — the military operates in the Gulf and what kinds of conflicts it wants to avoid.
At issue is the Military Mission Line, a border about 200 miles west of the Florida coast. DOD is seeking to avoid jumps in ship traffic and interference by oil and gas drillers east of that line in its training ranges and airspace.
The potential problems are nothing new. The military has been central to opposition to Trump's proposal to expand drilling from environmental groups and state leaders.
Oceana put out a set of maps last year showing how more oil and gas operations in the Atlantic could affect military operations off Virginia and Georgia (Greenwire, Nov. 1, 2017).
And while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has suggested that Florida's coasts are "off the table," the state's entire congressional delegation penned a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis in January outlining their concerns about military training in the Gulf.
Still, oil and gas groups were optimistic about the Pentagon report.
Collaboration with Interior and DOD was always part of the plan for expanded development, said American Petroleum Institute Director of Upstream and Industry Operations Erik Milito.
"Offshore oil and natural gas exploration and development already successfully co-exists with U.S. military operations in the Gulf of Mexico," Milito said in a statement.
"Military training operations and domestic energy production are critical components of our national security," he said. "This new report on the Eastern Gulf of Mexico confirms that continued collaboration between the Department of Defense and Interior will enable the successful coexistence of continued military training and expanded American oil production."
National Ocean Industries Association President Randall Luthi, meanwhile, called the Pentagon document a template for coordination, rather than a warning.
"The report shows there is a lot of ocean out there and while there will be devils in the details, the overall message from the Pentagon should be interpreted as cooperation and coordination," he said in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081517
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Exelon's Warning Reignites Great American Fuel Fight
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
U.S. utility industry leaders have split sharply over whether threats to the nation's electric grid demand new and more urgent federal action.
On one side are PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest wholesale power grid operator, and Exelon Corp., the Chicago-based energy company with 10 million customers and one of the nation's largest generating fleets.
In comments made in response to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission inquiry into electric grid resilience, Exelon and PJM said the risks of extreme natural disasters and cyberattacks need closer attention from U.S. officials.
"The attacks observed so far do not represent the full scope of the threat," said written comments from Exelon Executive Vice President Kathleen Barrón and Exelon attorneys. "Adversaries likely have more effective and destructive tools that they have not yet implemented, instead waiting for a time when they will be most devastating."
Regional transmission organizations (RTOs), including PJM, don't have the information they need to assess those threats, Exelon said. "They are largely on their own in attempting to identify resilience threats," Exelon officials said. "This information gap makes it nearly impossible for RTOs to effectively plan for resilience in the face of man-made threats."
FERC's request for comments (in docket AD18-7), which closed Wednesday, was the commission's response to Energy Secretary Rick Perry's April 2017 directive to his staff for a report analyzing whether electricity markets adequately compensate large nuclear and coal plants that stockpile fuel. Perry's order, widely considered a response to President Trump's desire to aid his strong political allies in the coal industry, led to a proposed rulemaking Perry sent to FERC.
FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre, speaking yesterday at a Washington Post Live forum, said Perry's question wasn't off-base, but under its policies, FERC couldn't accept his proposal that coal and nuclear plants get an income boost as a resilience credit for on-site fuel supplies.
"We did acknowledge and in fact embraced the concept of resilience as something that really does cry out for attention," McIntyre said.
The question is how much on-site fuel bolsters generators' ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters, he noted, and if so, what consumers should be charged for the benefit.
"We're trying to figure that out now," McIntyre said. "It wouldn't be beyond the pale to think if we could identify with sufficient specificity what are the resilience attributes that merit compensation, then we can move to that compensation calculation stage."
The FERC inquiry was an opportunity for another round of the great American fuel fight between fossil fuel, nuclear and renewable power interests. This time, the battle is couched in fresh arguments about how well one energy source or another is equipped to recover from a winter freeze, massive hurricane, cyberattack or solar storm.
Exelon went further that PJM in its comments to FERC. The utility giant urged the commission to access classified government intelligence to define confidential "design basis threats" that grid companies must plan for, rebuff and recover from.
The company's statement quoted Paul Stockton, former assistant Defense secretary for homeland defense: "The gap is widening between what [grid operators] know about the threat and the knowledge they need to assess and ensure resilience.
"The Commission has an absolutely vital role to play in developing a design basis threat for fuel resilience," said Stockton, managing director of the Sonecon LLC consulting firm.Code words
On the other side of the arguments being made to FERC are energy companies urging FERC not to act on suggestions that the grid faces imminent threats.
"NERC activities already address several aspects of resilience," the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the FERC-appointed grid security overseer, wrote in its comments. NERC writes detailed cybersecurity regulations, generation adequacy assessments and recovery procedures. It will "continue to assess whether further activities are appropriate," NERC said.
Entergy Corp., the New Orleans-based utility, said its regional organization, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (MISO), concludes that "it has no immediate resilience deficiencies, that it already has stakeholder proceedings in place for improvements in certain areas such as stronger communications, and that it is aware of potential threats to resilient and reliable operations including the significant shift in the resource mix on the near horizon."
"MISO has said nothing to justify FERC orders for additional resilience requirements," Entergy noted.
MISO officials and counterparts at the California Independent System Operator Corp., ISO New England Inc., New York Independent System Operator Inc. and Southwest Power Pool Inc. said the comment record to FERC "does not support any universal resilience standard. To the contrary, the record demonstrates that RTOs/ISOs have different resilience issues and priorities."
Exelon, the largest U.S. nuclear power operator, cited statistics on how well reactors stayed online during last winter's blizzard, compared with both natural gas and coal-fired generation.
Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies LLC, testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, said, "There is no infrastructure more important than transmission, which is essential to the reliable and affordable electricity service we depend on for almost every modern commercial and individual activity."
"If resilience is a code word for propping up uneconomic plants, that effort needs to 'sink on its own poor merits,'" he said, quoting former FERC Chairman Pat Wood III. "We need to update transmission policy to create the grid we know we'll need in the future."
The crucial, still-unanswered question is what kinds of future threats grid operators and FERC should plan for and how those expectations affect resilience investments and consumers' utility bills.
Along the Gulf Coast, Entergy backed its opposition to any new FERC initiatives on resilience by noting the defenses it put in place in the aftermath of huge hurricanes. In 2016 and 2017, Entergy built and opened up to two new transmission control centers in Mississippi and Arkansas, equipping one to take over if the other were damaged. They were deliberately moved farther away from the Gulf Coast because of storm threats.
It has gone beyond existing engineering standards to harden transmission lines and poles to withstand 140-mph winds in the counties south of Interstate 10, a vital transportation corridor.'Design basis threat'
Exelon countered that such conventional resilience planning doesn't consider man-made threats — even if unlikely — or the possibility of once-in-a-century earthquakes that would break gas pipelines or power lines, severing very large U.S. regions.
For example, a "design basis threat" should include the number of gas transmission pipelines that adversaries could interrupt, it said. Gas pipeline cyber readiness is overseen by the Transportation Security Administration, not NERC and FERC.
"In fact, a PJM study found that a single gas pipeline in the PJM region serves more than 11,000 [megawatts] of generation," Exelon noted. "The loss of that pipeline alone — whether from an earthquake, a cyberattack, a physical attack, or some other event — could wreak havoc in the region and nationally."
Another study, by the ICF consulting firm, centered on PJM and New York found that more than 18,000 MW of generation would be at risk from an extended pipeline outage, it added.
Relying on dual-fuel generators that can burn oil as well as natural gas — the backup that helped New England through the severe winter weather in January — could fail if a storm shut down roads for most of a week, Exelon said, citing Stockton.
"Most oil capacity in PJM relies on trucks to deliver oil," Exelon said. "That delivery often takes five to 10 days under normal conditions. In times of extreme weather, delivery is often delayed up to three additional days. In an extreme weather or man-made event that lasts more than four days, oil-burning units run the very real risk of running out of oil that they cannot replenish."
Exelon reiterated that the most concerning threats are man-made, not weather-related, and traditional reliability analyses aren't well-suited to deal with an attack designed to cause maximum damage.
Although the likelihood of such an attack that's tantamount to a declaration of war may be considered low, building potent defenses is a strong deterrent from ever facing that threat, Stockton has said, a point emphasized in the December 2017 White House National Security Strategy.
"Put simply, unless PJM is modeling the right scenarios, its analysis of fuel security vulnerabilities, and the solutions it will propose based on that analysis, will not necessarily ensure resilience," Exelon's Barrón and company attorneys said in their filing to FERC.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081463
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Feds Propose Rule Changes in Post-Deepwater Horizon Era
May 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The Interior Department is changing the rules governing offshore oil and gas well control and blowout preventer systems that were put into place in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.
The new proposal, posted in today's Federal Register, has been expected since President Trump signed his "America First" offshore executive order last year (Energywire, April 30).
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's regulations would modify federal mandates on well design, well control, casing, cementing, real-time monitoring and subsea containment. The announcement opens a 60-day comment period.
BSEE said the changes would take into consideration the technological improvements that have been made in blowout preventer equipment and well control systems since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
In late April, federal regulators announced that they would publish the proposed well control rule changes during the first week of May to coincide with the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston (E&E News PM, April 27). Although BSEE missed that deadline, the regulation was a talking point for federal regulators who attended the annual gathering. During the conference, BSEE Director Scott Angelle said the changes would not affect safety. "We just went in with a scalpel looking for a regulatory overburden," he said.
A final production safety system rule is also in the works, Angelle said. The Trump administration has proposed changes to that rule — which was also introduced in the years following the Gulf spill — but has yet to hand down a final revised rule (Energywire, Jan. 30).
In addition, the Interior Department plans to revise federal regulations governing exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea planning areas on Alaska's outer continental shelf. Those plans were included in the Trump administration unified agenda and regulatory plan released Wednesday.
The current Obama-era rules on Arctic oil development, issued in 2016, require companies to prove they can promptly deploy oil spill containment equipment, as well as have access to a separate rig able to drill a relief well in case of loss of well control.
The revised Arctic drilling rules are expected to be proposed in October.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081451
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Pruitt Got Climate Tips from Groups Backed by GOP Megadonors
May 11, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
A network of conservative groups funded by influential GOP donors has been providing EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt with briefings and heaps of documents that reject mainstream climate science.
The Mercer Family Foundation, established by hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, has donated millions of dollars to a coalition of groups with members who reject the notion that humans are the primary driver of climate change and are warming the world through the burning of fossil fuels. They include the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the Manhattan Institute and the CO2 Coalition (Climatewire, Jan. 26).
Those groups have been briefing Pruitt and other top agency officials with a series of findings that the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide does not present a threat to humanity and that climate policy models are fatally flawed, according to a trove of emails obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Mercers have been major donors to Trump, to scientific organizations that fall outside of mainstream research and to alt-right media, including the Breitbart News Network. The family foundation has contributed more than $10 million in recent years to groups that attack mainstream climate science, public tax records show.
The EPA emails show officials actively seeking guidance from members of those groups as Pruitt pushed for a debate aimed at challenging mainstream climate science.
Mercer-backed organizations have offered up the names of dozens of researchers to EPA, including some now installed as science advisory board members. In May 2017, Pruitt traveled to the Manhattan Institute's offices in New York to speak to an audience that included a number of board members. Emails show that Rebekah Mercer was scheduled to be present, although it is unclear if she attended.
Pruitt's EPA has also ignored requests to meet with some leading scientists. In July, the American Association for the Advancement of Science requested a meeting with Pruitt to discuss a climate science debate, the emails show. The group never heard back, a spokeswoman for the group said yesterday.
Another series of emails from last summer shows that Pruitt did take meetings with a group whose mission is to tout the benefits of carbon dioxide.
In July, a consultant who works with the CO2 Coalition, Mark Carr, thanked Pruitt and his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, for face-to-face conversations between Pruitt and members of the coalition about the "accurate science of Carbon Dioxide."
Carr wrote, "Your boss asked us good questions at those times and to come in and brief him. We value his scarce time and want him to be exceptionally successful. To this end, what is the time horizon for such a briefing?"
He went on, "Many of the initiatives on which you are working now will be easier to manage and communications thereon targets of less viable criticism if senior political and policy leaders at your Agency and across the Executive had a more robust understanding of the true role (or lack of one) CO2 plays in the physical world," Carr wrote.
Mandy Gunasekara, a senior aide to Pruitt on air and climate policy and a former staffer for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), was enthusiastic that EPA officials were working with the CO2 Coalition. In February 2015, Gunasekara handed Inhofe a snowball on the Senate floor as a prop to claim that climate change concerns were unfounded.
"I've worked with the CO2 Coalition for a while — they are great," she wrote in an email last year.
The president of the CO2 Coalition, William Happer, is an emeritus Princeton University physics professor who was once considered a top pick to become Trump's next science adviser. The CO2 Coalition received $150,000 in funding from the Mercers in 2016, the most recent public tax filings show.
Happer was working last year with senior EPA staff to develop a debate over climate science, an idea he has long advocated and Pruitt has championed since becoming administrator.
Jackson reached out to Happer on a Saturday morning in November to see if he could suggest possible members for a military-style "red team" climate debate. Happer appears to have sent some names of scientists who could contribute, but they were not disclosed in the emails. Jackson also mentioned that he was working with Steven Koonin, a former Obama Energy Department official, on the red-team, blue-team idea, and he said to Happer that "part of the idea is really spearheaded from your work."
Happer was recently at EPA headquarters for the rollout of Pruitt's plan to restrict agency science used in regulations to only research where the data is made public. Critics contend the plan was crafted by industry to downplay key air pollution health studies, where patient health data cannot be made public.
Earlier this year, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Oren Cass gave a personal briefing to Pruitt that followed an earlier briefing to senior EPA staff. Cass accepts mainstream climate science but contends that the economics behind a number of climate regulations are faulty. Cass said he presented his research to Pruitt in January, emphasizing his belief that the economics of climate regulations are inflated because they rely upon on extreme-case future scenarios. He also emphasized that he thinks the social costs of climate risks are inflated because they don't account for adaptability, such as using air conditioners to save lives during heat waves.
"I don't think the emphasis on scrutinizing climate science is the most constructive place to focus attention; I think what really needs scrutinizing is economic analyses," Cass said he told EPA officials.'Evidence we are flying over the right target'
As the agency's red-team, blue-team plan became public, groups that fight against mainstream climate science became emboldened, emails show.
Joseph Bast, the former president and co-founder of the Heartland Institute, touted the number of climate skeptics his organization sent to EPA, some of whom are now on advisory boards. He also sent EPA officials a link to a story in the journal Nature that quoted researchers worried about the implications of a public climate science debate amid the upcoming publication of the fourth National Climate Assessment, a sweeping 600-page report.
"Evidence we are flying over the right target," he wrote in an email. The recipient is unclear in the documents released under FOIA.
The EPA team also included the perspective of Heartland-affiliated researchers in briefings for the red team. Scott Armstrong, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, reached out with suggestions for how to fairly structure the red team, including how to look for bias in regulations. Armstrong, who has a doctorate in management, received an award from the Heartland Institute for "Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science" in 2017.
"The Red team-Blue team approach recognizes that it is hard for people — including scientists and public officials — to be objective about public policy issues," he wrote. "The solution that it provides is akin to the adversarial system that we use in our courts."
EPA staffers wrote in an email that his suggestions for reforming science at the agency should be placed into a daily briefing for Pruitt.
"Putting this in his binder for the week. I'll make sure he sees it," wrote Lincoln Ferguson, senior adviser for public affairs at EPA.
Pruitt has met with a group of former EPA transition officials and prominent climate change skeptics to discuss policy multiple times at the Heritage Foundation headquarters in Washington, D.C. As the agency was crafting the red team, Pruitt traveled to the Heritage Foundation late last year to announce publicly that it was coming in early 2018. However, the red team has not been rolled out, amid pressure from the White House. It's not clear whether it will happen.
The emails show EPA officials spoke with Rupert Darwall, author of "Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex," at the U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, last November. After they had returned, Darwall sent to Gunasekara a copy of a paper to be published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that he wrote about the red-team idea. He noted that it was "the best go-to justification for Administrator Pruitt's red/blue team appraisal."
"Instead of debating, highlighting, and where possible, resolving disagreement, many mainstream climate scientists work in a symbiotic relationship with environmental activists and the news media to stoke fear about allegedly catastrophic climate change, providing a scientific imprimatur for an aggressive policy response while declining to air private doubts and the systematic uncertainties," he wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081469
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EPA Extends Deadline for Responding to New York's Ozone Petition
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is granting itself another six months to respond to a petition by New York for the agency to directly regulate interstate air pollution from sources in nine states, as East Coast states pile pressure on the Trump EPA to address Midwestern and Southern emissions that compromise attainment of federal ozone standards.
In a direct final rule published in the Federal Register May 11, EPA extends the deadline for its response to New York's petition from May 13 until November 9. New York filed its petition March 12 under Clean Air Act section 126, seeking direct regulation of air pollution sources in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
New York claims emissions from those states compromise its attainment of the 2008 and 2015 federal ozone standards, set at 75 parts per billion (ppb) and 70 ppb respectively.
States may petition EPA under section 126 to directly impose pollution controls on sources causing interstate pollution problems, but the agency has been reticent to grant them. EPA has yet to respond to similar petitions from Delaware and Maryland, while the agency recently denied a petition filed by Connecticut.
The statutory deadline for EPA to respond to such petitions is 60 days, but the agency often claims this is insufficient time and grants itself an extension. Even then, the agency often misses the extended deadline, drawing lawsuits from states seeking to force a response.
EPA claims legal authority under Clean Air Act section 307 to extend the deadline by six months without first proposing a response to the ozone petition, but others including the state of Delaware dispute this interpretation. Delaware is testing the issue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in the case Delaware Department Of Natural Resources v. EPA, where Delaware says EPA's six-month extension of its deadline to respond to a different section 126 petition is unlawful. The court heard arguments in that case March 6.
Air law section 307 states, “Each statutory deadline for promulgation of rules to which this subsection applies which requires promulgation less than six months after date of proposal may be extended to not more than six months after date of proposal by the Administrator upon a determination that such extension is necessary.”
EPA claims that, “To the extent the terms of this provision are ambiguous, the EPA believes its interpretation of these terms is reasonable,” and there is no “predicate” to its extension of the deadline.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-extends-deadline-responding-new-yorks-ozone-petition
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EPA to Take 6 More Months to Weigh N.Y.'s Upwind Petition
May 11, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is giving itself another six months to decide on New York's request for help in reining in upwind pollution from sources outside its borders.
In the March petition, New York regulators asked EPA to take action to curb emissions from hundreds of power plants, refineries and other facilities in nine states that are allegedly contributing to compliance problems with national ozone standards.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is supposed to send back a decision within 60 days. In a Federal Register notice today, however, the agency said it is taking an authorized extension that will push the deadline back to Nov. 9. The initial 60-day time frame is "insufficient" to carry out a required technical review, develop a proposal and take public feedback, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in the notice.
The New York petition, one of a half-dozen brought by Northeastern states in the last two years under the act's "good neighbor" provision, is noteworthy for its scope. It charges that out-of-state emissions of nitrogen oxides from as far west as Illinois are contributing to unacceptably high ozone levels for some 20 million residents of the New York City metro area. That area, which spills into New Jersey and Connecticut, last month was designated in nonattainment with EPA's 2015 ozone standard of 70 parts per billion; it also remains out of compliance with the previous benchmark of 75 ppb set in 2008.
Ozone, also known as smog, is spawned by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunlight. It can help trigger asthma attacks in children and, for people with emphysema, it can worsen breathing problems. The other eight states named in New York's petition are Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
Despite the statutory timetable, EPA is chronically late in responding to good neighbor petitions, prompting states in some cases to sue to force action. Last month, under a court-ordered deadline, EPA rebuffed Connecticut's 2016 bid for a crackdown on emissions from a south-central Pennsylvania power plant (Greenwire, April 10). The state now has until June 12 to challenge that decision, Chris Collibee, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said in an email yesterday.
"We are working with the Connecticut attorney general's office on our next steps," Collibee said.
Still pending is a lawsuit brought last fall by the state of Maryland after EPA failed to act on its November 2016 petition targeting coal-fired power plants in five states (E&E News PM, Sept. 27, 2017). The two sides are now sparring in court over how much time the federal agency should be given to make a final decision.
EPA, citing the diversion of employees needed to meet the deadline for a decision on Connecticut's petition, wants until the end of the year. Maryland officials, allied with a coalition of environmental groups, said in a February filing that 60 days would be the "appropriate remedy." As of this morning, Chief U.S. District Judge James Bredar of Maryland had not ruled, online court records indicate.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/11/stories/1060081519
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